Christmas Eve dinner > Christmas dinner

Appetizers:
Baked brie with sundried tomatoes and herbs
Pepper and herb rolled goat cheese
Crackers
Crudite.

Dinner:
Balsamic roasted asparagus
Tomato-bread gratin
Sirloin with pan sauce and persillade
Oven-baked onion rings
Pancetta-wrapped scallops
Grapefruit-glazed pan-seared scallops
Arugula in olive oil

Dessert:
Roasted chestnuts with salted honey
Cookies!


Booyah!

Also, fresh roasted chestnuts look and feel what I assume is similar to rat brains. Whole rat brains.  So it was like honey-dipped rat brains. Delicious rat brains, though.
I have officially eaten to capacity. I will probably have to spend three weeks, at least, making up for it. Worth it? We shall see, we shall see. That last slice of pound cake wasn't entirely worth it. But hey, once a year, right?

Cleaning and Packing

Chuck left today. I got home from Bandidos just in time to say goodbye and stand in the doorway, leaning against the frame with one knee bent, foot on opposite knee, arms folded, watching my little Chuck go off into the real world, to start work as a Lieutenant in Oklahoma, not knowing the next time I would see him, only vaguely aware that this isn't goodbye, really, just a very very very prolonged See ya, chick!
That's what Chuck called me. Chick.
Or Edna.
You never have enough time when friends visit. But we had fun. I got Chuck and Kyle free quesadillas and tacos from Bandidos. Me and Chuck sat around the house reading fantasy novels and playing Call of Duty: Black OPS (respectively) every night he was here, like he'd never left to go to Virgina for four months, like no time had passed between now and last August. He even brought balmy almost-August weather with him. He's the only other person I know that is completely okay with my preference to stay in, he doesn't question it. In fact, he stays in too, I give him an excuse to leave the bar early or never go at all, and then it would be me and Chuck, sitting in silence reading and playing and listening to rap music.
We went to St. Mikes and drank and played darts. We hung out at Lauren and Ryan's house where we watched the eclipse before I made Kyle and Chuck leave early with me because I had to work the next morning, and did not want to go on a block walk in 20 degree weather, eclipse or no eclipse. He went with me when I applied at Waterworks for the cocktail waitress position advertised on Craigslist because I have huge anxiety about going in and applying at places. He ordered a beer as I filled the application out, and talked to the only other person in the bar besides us and the bartender. Chuck is the most congenial and welcoming person I've ever met. He can strike up a conversation and befriend anyone, it's magical, I've seen it happen. It doesn't even occur to him, it doesn't register on his radar, to be awkward or self conscious or to think twice or doubt or over-analyze.
Then we stopped at the Cupcakery where he caved to the "Buy One, Get One" cupcake special of the day (two chocolates, please) and bought a necklace for his mother for Christmas.
Now he's driving to Illinois to see his family for Christmas, then to Oklahoma and his base, to get settled and start working his 80+ hour work week. At some point in the future he will be shipped to Iraq. I am dreading that day.
I am taking a break from cleaning the house and my preparations for my 6-hour drive tomorrow. Minna and I are carpooling to save money and gas, and for the support, obviously, and the ample time we have to divulge our deepest and darkest secrets and insecurities to each other, like we always do. Then it's sunny South Florida for Christmas and gluttony, which I approach with caution and disdain. Though the food my mom and I are going to cook sounds absolutely decadent and delicious, I have only been approaching it from a theoretical point of view. I haven't actually considered the fact that I have to eat everything we are cooking, that it is expected of me. I will have to factor in exercise to compensate for all that I am going to eat over the next few days. I've been feeling especially fleshy and doughy lately. I know I have gained weight, and I am not happy about it.
I made an appointment with my therapist this morning, then called and canceled because I was too nervous to go. Adulthood is nerve-wracking.
I finished The Magicians today. What an amazing book! I've been meaning to read it for months now. I regret not reading it earlier. I regret reading it too quickly. I am impatient for the sequel to be published, in April 2011. I bought a copy for Chuck, and will buy one for Minna for Christmas. I will post a review about it soon enough, probably after Christmas.
I am starting on Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs tonight. This literary gluttony I've been indulging in since school ended is amazing. I haven't read this much in ages. I feel like a kid again!

Late Night Recollections and Reflections of the College Sort.

Late night. Not drunk, just tired. My good friend Chuck is in town for a few days from his Army Officer's training in Virginia. He graduated! Next step: Lieutenant school. How awesome is that? I am always in awe of the friends that I have, and feel truly blessed, and definitely perplexed as to why, they are my friends.
Kyle won the Beer Olympics tonight at St. Mikes Pub. Chuck came in a close second. Those two. Peas and carrots.
Kyle made his winning shot in beer pong after staring his opponents in the eyes, licking the ball, and saying: You're gonna drink my spit!
Then he made it into that damned red cup, and the place exploded. Only Kyle.
Chuck chugged a liter of beer and beat guys twice his size. I guess the army does that to you.
I scratched on the eight-ball in pool and lost to Joey after playing my best game in a long time.
I also learned how to play darts correctly. Once I master foosball and air hockey, I'll have all the bar games mastered, and a harder time dispelling the rumor that I'm a lesbian. I guess straight girls don't play pool, or darts, or foosball, or air hockey? Which I find bizarre. I was, and still am, under the impression that boys like girls that can keep up with them. Yet, when they encounter these girls, they are intimidated, emasculated, suspicious of lesbian tendencies. Weirdos.
Also, mastering bar games while a 5th year senior in a state school known for partying: commendable or shameful? Who can tell. I flipflop between the deep dark depths of despair at my social and academic stagnancy, at this state of arrested development I find myself, and the relief at knowing I'm simply taking the longer road, making it hard on myself and hoping for a better outcome. Mostly, I switch between the absolute-worst-case scenario, and the not-so-bad-could-be-worse-case scenario.
I tried smoking a cigarette tonight and was made nauseous because of it. Rejoice! I think I am finally on the road to quitting. Not quitting, per se, but drastically cutting back. I'll admit to liking it too much to actually quit. But I also like -- nay, love -- running, and the more I run the less I want to smoke. Novel concept, I know. Ha.
I am in a sarcastic kind of mood tonight. Sarcastic and apathetic, and fairly objective. Nonchalant. Very 'shit happens then you die'.
Also, hi mom! I love you and think of you every day!
This is me, signing out for the night to curl up with The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Think Harry Potter meets Narnia meets, I don't know, The Catcher in the Rye. It's good.

running with swan thieves

im reading haruki murakami's what i talk about when i talk about running. i started running again. im not finished with it, so this isn't a review, its just a me saying that ive started running again, which will hopefully lead to me permanently quitting smoking. i read a quote from linda ronstadt in a health book saying something along the lines of running being the best cure for depression. im not saying im depressed, its silly to self-diagnose something as insubstantial and subjective as depression. im just saying, i can understand why she'd say that. i can understand why murakami would write an entire memoir about it. he was a 70 cigarette a day bar owner when he started running, and now he runs marathons. its the perfect example of "if he can do that then so can i."

i did, however, finish reading the swan thieves by elizabeth kostova, like i mentioned in the previous post. id read the historian when i was a freshman in college. its a tome, so i felt a wee bit awesome carrying it around with me while i read it. plus the cover is awesome.
i loved the historian. i loved that there was an anthropologist in it, since anthropology was my major at the time, and i hadnt encountered many anthropologists in pop culture beyond indiana jones, and hes definitely a joke in the anthro world.
i didnt remember much about kostova's writing style when i started swan thieves. i just knew id loved her previous work, so i naturally thought id love her newest one. the premise surrounds a tortured artist arrested and committed for trying to attack a work of impressionism at the met in new york. leda, by gilbert thomas. the man's psychiatrist, marlow, becomes obsessed with the man and his illness, and begins to show similarities to his patient as the book progresses and he becomes more involved with him.
i dont do it justice, really, whenit comes to summarizing the plot. the story line isnt bad at all, but it certainly isnt deep enough to fill 500+ pages. i found myself waiting for the action to begin, and still waiting, come page 300, 400... the jet-setting, conspiracy-theoried, treasure-hunting, genre-filled action of the historian wasnt present in the swan thieves at all. the pace was slow, and stayed that way throughout. it became a story of one man's women, essentially. they were smart women, though, and he was a charming and handsome and tortured artist. whats not to love aout that? except everything. ive had my fill of those kinds of men, and reading about one, especially coming from a woman, kind of angered me. im no feminist, feminists give feminism a bad name, but i really am tired of seeing this happen in literature. tortured artist not too tortured to get laid on the reg, break hearts and souls, leaving striken and single women in his wake. yet his torture stems not from his actions and playboy ways, but is completely self-contained and nurtured.
im not sure what im trying to say anymore about the novel. it was boring, but i finished it. it had its good parts, kostova's prose is beautiful and lyrical and picturesque and all that happy horse shit. she certainly knows how to write, to describe and set scenes and make me wish i were a repressed 19th century female impressionist painter in love with my husbands elderly uncle. oh yeah, thats part of the story, too.

I ran out of wishes last night. there were simply too many falling stars to keep up with. i prefer to say they are falling rather than shooting because shooting is too violent and meteor shower is ravaging, too scientific. i like the romance of falling stars. tripping over each other in their rush to circle the sky. like the caucus-race in Alice in Wonderland.
i lied though, about running out of wishes. i've never believed in wishing on falling stars. i've never believed in wishes, really, because i don't think any of the wishes i've wished have come true. not to the specificity with which i submit them. but i wish anyway. 
i found out about the meteor shower from facebook, naturally. the status update of a former romantic interest whose status updates stick out from the rest only because he's seen me naked. it was a cattle-call, i guess, a summons: who wanted to stay up all night and freeze to death to watch the meteor shower? he called it that. he's an environmental science major. i don't know where he went to see the stars fall, or who he went with, or how late he stayed up to watch them. i dont know why i care.
i drove to the florida/georgia border, with my cruise control at 45 and the lights on my dash turned down to almost nothing. then i turned around and drove to sunset landing and shuckers oyster bar on lake jackson. i went there once with garrett when we were still in love. its a nice little dump. i sat in my car and counted falling stars and imagined being murdered on the shores of a lake in northern florida by weird northern florida hillbillies or gangsters or a seemingly harmless old woman who is actually a sociopath. i sat there for a while counting, then stopped counting when i started seeing my breath in my car and went home.
the cigarette butt bucket on my stoop was frozen solid, butts and dirt, grime and empty packs of Camels all suspended in last week's milder weather.
ive been reading The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. its boring compared to The Historian. ive waited 350 pages for it to catch up. it is still only luke warm. i suppose thats what i get for expecting a book about the French Impressionists to be exciting. Dracula, now THATS excitement. at least blood is involved. other than a character getting her period, there hasnt been a single drop. i could write a better review about this book, but i dont feel like it. its slow-going. but i will finish. then i will read Lev Grossman's The Magicians. or Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs. or Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch. or Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, probably this one because im itching to read Freedom. 

there is a meteor shower tonight in gemini. im going to brave the cold to see it.

semester over

when i am at home at night and i am in my bed reading or simply lying in it i fantasize about the things my friends are doing that i am not doing, the things they are not thinking of inviting me to, or forgetting to invite me to, the things i wont experience, active things that burn calories and create smiles and memories, and i get so upset, so frustrated and sad and paranoid that i am not included, do not have the wherewithal to be doing the undoubtedly cool things they are doing, or the wit and ingenuity to think of my own super cool things to do without them, so upset that i tire myself out and go to sleep.

right now i am reading and listening to my roommate play final fantasy 7 and thinking of what my current love interest is doing without me, why my phone is silent next to me, not blinking or vibrating. just sitting there blacker than darth vader, and more intimidating.

i think i will go on a run despite the cold and bluster outside.

Tyler-Subzero

Another graphic memoir. As a kid one never really considers the feeling of the substitute teacher. I mean, the word substitute practically means mediocrity, at least to an elementary school kid, though they may not yet know what mediocrity, or substitute for the matter, even means. Regardless, in college, when subs are non-existent, you dont think back to your grade school days to reconsider your treatment of the subs. I, for one, will totally admit to being an asshole to the substitutes in middle and high school. So bad that when we had a repeat teacher, they'd remember me as the smart-ass goth kid.  No good. Reading this made me rethink it. Maybe this should be something everyone reads. We've all had subs, or most of us have, anyway, and its my opinion that no matter who you are, there is going to be a part of you that thinks the sub is, well, sub-par to the teacher, and therefore perfect territory for walking all over and mocking. I really loved this, though the font was a little small for reading, and the illustrations, though very very good, weren't aesthetically appealing, at least to me.

Pyongyang

This wasn't the first time I'd read this comic. I don't recall the first time, honestly, but I remember loving it then. Rereading it now, older, it still has the same effect on me, only I feel it more. As I've said in other responses to graphic memoirs, I wish I could illustrate my stories instead of write them. I know some people dont like graphic novels and memoirs, they feel their imaginations are being force-fed; they'd rather imagine the scene themselves, not be told what itl ooked like. But in cases like Pyongyang, and The Dead of Winter, its more an illustrated guide to the mind of the author. Instead of having to use so many words to portray the unearthliness of North Korea and its culture, Delisle shows you the eerie subway, the empty restaurant, the stoic guides, the wide empty boulevards of the city. Since, as Americans, we couldn't possibly imagine Communist stuff. Seriously.

The Evil Eye

This piece wouldn't be as striking were it longer. Of course, I was thankful to see that it was so short, as compared to some of the longer (read: 20 pages) essays we've read. But with the topic of race, Coleman could have easily gone on for pages about the injustices of facing prejudice against her and her husband because they were a biracial couple. Instead of stating an argument and defending it, however, Coleman simply tells a series of little anecdotes illustrating those injustices, subsequently stating and defending her case simultaneously. She masters the whole "show, don't tell" mantra of writing perfectly. Not only do you feel anger for her toward her persecutors, you also get insight into the daily struggles she and her jewish husband must endure.

Cris Mazza-A Girl Among Trombonists

I wasn't a band kid. Not that I didn't find humor in her story. I grew up a tomboy, and still am, so I do a lot of things that are boy-things, and am used to being 'one of the boys' even though I am still technically romantic territory, and so are they. I was bored through the first half of the piece, and skimmed much of it. I get that marching bands march, and I get that sports always get the advantage over the arts when it coems to budget cuts. What I wanted to hear more about, and was happy when I finally did hear about it, was her own personal experiences with the marching band and being the only girl trombonist. However, I think her prose itself a little dry, a little too scientific for the topic she's tackling. I am happy, however, that it wasn't overly feminist. I really don't like ready anything really feminist. I think feminists gives feminism a bad name.

Luis Alberto Urrea-Across the Wire

This piece sent shivers through me, as it's supposed to. It made me feel guilty for sometimes hating the life I'm living or the person I've become. Urrea's memoir/journalistic piece about the dump-cities of Mexico was written so personally, he knew these people on a level more intimate than most. To the outside world they are filthy and poor, stupid, not worth the time to rescue. Urrea and his colleagues help with that they can, from gynecological exams for women like Pacha whose children died in childbirth, to Mrs. Serrano, who was severaly dehydrated and had dysentery while pregnant. His prose is expressive and tender, yet matter-of-fact and concise. Though he obviously feels for these people, he knows there are certain things that cannot be undone, certain rituals they do that will never be understood by outsiders, like the scene with the Serranos and the rat. I loved this piece. 

Debbie Drechsler-The Dead of Winter

I love the austerity of this piece. Drechsler's story would not be the same without the illustrations accompanying it. Its a quiet piece about a subject that no one wants to talk about and is more common than people realize or choose to acknowledge. I like how wrapped up in her own thoughts she is, especially in the scene returning from the abortion clinic with her sister. They sit in silence, but you know from the panel illustrating the weather and the empty roads that its a tense quiet. Ive attempted to illustrate my writing before, and was so incredibly bad at it that I was embarrassed to go back and reread it, even though I was alone, and no one else ever saw it. I blush just thinking about it. The amount of respect I have for Drechsler for not only completing illustrated pieces, but succeeding beyond my wildest dreams, is immense. I wish I could do what she does, and has been doing, since she was a little girl. Not that I mind appreciating it from afar.

Frank Conroy-A Yo-Yo Going Down, a Mad Squirrel Coming Up

Hilarious! Memoir pieces are my favorite because I like thinking about others' lives instead of my own, and imagining myself as Conroy was more fun, I think, than anything else I've read for this class, thus far. I love yo-yo-ing to begin with, so I wasn't upset at the length of this piece like I was with a few of the other ones we've read. I zipped through it, laughing out loud from the spanish accents and ridiculous competition curation of Ramos and Ricardo to talking about Boobs with his cousin at the beach to how relateable Conroy is as a kid, even to me, in my twenties. I love that he grew up in South Florida, that sneaking a peak at a naked girl is only equal to yo-yoing, not better than it, that he too is confused by the "sloppiness" of things, of life, how you cant explain it.

untitled

About one year ago, at the end of December 2009, I quit my state job to work at a burrito joint. I took a massive pay cut and lost my fairly high (for my age and experience) standing on the social ladder. This is just another story about how I chose happiness over money, how I don't regret it, and how, somehow, a burrito place kinda changed my life.

I worked at the State Archives of Florida for three years, cumulatively. I took about a year off to deal with school and depression and keep my head above water. When I decided to go back, I felt more than blessed that they took me back. It was a quiet job. I spent countless hours making countless copies for lawyers, law-makers, geneaologists, students. The State Archives of Florida are a repository for the Senate and House, a goldmine for geneaologists and Civil War enthusiasts, anthropologists, archaeologists, lawyers, History Fair students, homeless people wanting access to free computers. My boss Miriam was a member of the SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronism, which means she and her husband dressed in medieval/renaissance garb and learned to fence for the sake of recreating a simpler life. My other boss Boyd was a trekkie with a doctorate in Civil War history, focusing on Florida and its governors. Their boss was a silver-haired lesbian named Jody whose wife was named Judy. No one questioned me or my eccentricities. I didn't question theirs.

After years of making copies, watching that bright green light move back and forth until I caused irreparable damage to my retinas, dealing with Miriam's silent grudges if you countered or disagreed with her, with Boyd's underhanded and patronizing comments, after breaking up with my first love and losing my identity, I was worn. I didn't want the quiet of the Archives any more, I didn't want to deal with the geriatrics coming in, the Daughters of the Revolution telling me of their ancestors from the Czech Republic, the 8th generation Floridians that used to have great plantations in the panhandle where their great great grandfathers treated their slaves better than those weird folks that lived the next plantation over. I didn't want to wear office clothes anymore, deal with the bureaucracy of the State system, of benefits that I didn't qualify for because I was part time, of putting my septum piercing into my nose, of having a serious job, one that I could turn into a career, one I could stay at for 15 years like Miriam, and develop heel spurs and a ridiculous knowledge of the patient records of a closed down asylum from the 1950s whose records ended up in the Archives' possession rather than be burned or thrown out. I wasn't ready to be an adult. I didn't have a lot of friends because I didn't have a way to meet people outside of my classes, and I hated those kids anyway because Anthropology kids seem to think they're better than everyone else because Anthropology is the study of man not aspects of them. I was unhappy. So I quit. I gave the Archives negative one day's notice that I couldn't work their anymore, sorry, I have a scheduling conflict with my classes, school's more important, I hope this doesn't burn bridges, and of course I'll visit. I didn't have a scheduling conflict with my classes at all. And I haven't been back since.

So I started working at a burrito place. I started working with kids my age, that partied, and I met new friends. I'm more social now, and do things I never ever ever pictured myself doing. Along with that, though comes self-reflection and doubt. Who am I, really? Did I always like going to football games but never did because none of my friends liked to go and I didn't want to go alone, or am I suddenly going with the flow, going along with the crowd for the first time in my life? Is my personality fading into something generic, am I becoming one of the many faceless college students I see every day, that I serve tacos and burritos and spicy nachos to? What right do I have to call them faceless? Who have I become? Have I really let a burrito job completely upheave my life? I take pictures of myself, all emo-style, making faces that I think look good. I take advantage of boys' willingness to buy me drinks, then leave them at the bar like the bitch I think I'm becoming. Every night, after the parties are over and the bars are closed and I've chugged a glass of water to fight off the hangover I know is coming and I'm just barely sober enough to think straight, I replay what I can remember of the night, and regret it. I ask myself, Why why why WHY did I do that? Why did I say that? Why didn't I talk to him, why did I hug her, I hate that girl, why did I buy them drinks, I can't afford it, why did I wear that, why oh why did I drive home, and why did my friends let me?

Laurence Gonzales-Marion Prison

There's something about Gonzales' portrayal of this prison and all the goings-on concerning it that made me smirk the entire time. He comes across as absolutely non-partisan regarding the treatment of the inmates, and the politics surrounding whether or not the prison should continue in its policies. As positive as being neutral can be, it also leaves the piece pretty barren when it comes to raw emotion. Because Gonzales tries to stay neutral, the people he interviews for the piece fall short of their true feelings concerning the prison, from the guards to the prisoners themselves. They end up seeming like caricatures of themselves, or simply prison stereotypes.

ACCs

4 mind-altering substances, 4 quarters, 4 double whiskey-diets, 4 days later, I'm a little tired.

red herring

I'm looking up the weather in Charlotte right now because I'm going to the ACC championships to watch FSU vs VT.
Pretty cool, right?
The thing for me about sports is that everyone always assumed I didn't like them because I'm quiet and not outwardly sporty. I played softball for 9 years, assholes, and was raised on a steady diet of baseball, hockey, and football. I go to Florida fucking State. Of course I like sports.
But I hung out with the goths and artfags in high school, and they didn't like sports. We didn't talk about the Habs during the Stanley Cup playoffs, or discuss the Williams sisters when Serena beat Venus at the French Open, or even Michael Phelps during the Olympics. Sports didn't exist for them, but they did for me. And they still do now. I don't hide it anymore like I used to. I still have the goth friends, except now they're called hipsters, and we still discuss things deemed more important by the "intellectual" crowd: art, literature, music, blah blah blah Radiohead blah blah blah War in Iraq blah blah blah Slow Food Movement blah. But that gets boring and tired and worn out. Come college, and I made friends that love football, and know more about it than me, and they teach me and it's awesome. Now I find myself getting ready to go to the ACCs even though I really can't afford to, but when you're best friend calls you at 7:30 AM to tell you she's already bought the tickets and bitch be ready because this shit's gonna be craycray and feathers and glitter are a must and like no eating for the rest of the week because we've gotta look our best for gameday and Tyrod Taylor's goin down, you can't say no. Even though you're Goodwill copy of The Swan Thieves is begging to be read, so is the prequel to The Mists of Avalon, and Infinite Jest is still sitting with a page-corner creased at about page 24359825094385 because you just couldn't do it, it was too amazingly depressing and put you in a frame of mind you imagine not too far from that of Mr. Wallace himself the day he decided to hang from a rope in his bathroom.
I'm addicted to the camaraderie of sports, to the unifying magic it casts on masses of vastly different people, from the far reaches of the social, economical, pyschological landscapes. I like the feeling of having something in common with that many people because sometimes I feel I don't have anything in common with anyone ever on the planet, and thats the worst, most lonely feeling in the world, worse than hugging yourself to sleep at night because it's cold and you've got no one else. I like being taught about 3rd down conversions and what off-sides means and the highest RBI in history and miracle stories like the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team beating the Soviet Union. It sends shivers coursing through me and my follicles to stand on end. I like bumping chests with the stranger next to me, despite my boobs and their pit stains, because that was a touchdown pass Ponder just threw with like a minute left in the game and fuck UF so hard I hate blue and orange together.
I recently spent a summer in Little Rock, AR at The Oxford American. I was an editorial intern, and yeah that part was really awesome, I completely loved every grueling second of it, but what I loved more was all the literature I was exposed to and had the opportunity to read. Including sports lit, which is so damn inspirational sometimes it gave me goosebumps rivaling those I get when the gloves are off and the punches get super serious during a hockey game. It made me want to get into sports writing, or be a sidelines reporter for ESPN. I don't know enough about sports, but I can learn. And I'm going to. Because, goddammit, there's nothing wrong with liking sports, just like there's nothing wrong with liking going to Burning Man or Woodstock or Crunkfest or the poetry reading at that cafe or the physics lecture at 8 PM tonight or the amateur circus or fashion show or the American Kennel Club/Eukanuba National Championships (because I love dog shows too, so fucking sue me.)
So much of this essay sounds really contrived and pretentious, I know. Like, not only am I trying to prove I like sports, but also that I'm deep and smart and like, I read books omg! All I'm saying is I like sports and going to games even though I don't know much about them just as much as I like staying in with Marion Zimmer Bradley or Mario and Luigi.