Brain Transplant Journal

I Blame the Raccoons

2011-07-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

So much for post-a-day. Oh well. But here's the latest (oh, yes, this is exciting). My lawn chair is missing. For a barbeque I had a while a go, I bought a cheap resin patio table and four matching chairs. Note that there are only three chairs in the photo. I just noticed that yesterday. At most, it's been missing a week. Why would anyone steal a cheap lawn chair? Seriously?

Chief Inspector Daye's theories on what happened:

Someone stole it, either because they wanted it, or for a joke.
They're pretty flimsy, so possibly someone, such as the gardeners, was rough with it, it broke, and they threw it out to hide what happened. (Unlikely.)
It blew away. (Unlikely.)
Food was spilled on it at some point, which attracted raccoons who wanted the food, so they tried to dip it in the pond to wash it--raccoons like to wash their food--but it just fell in. (I'll poke around in the pond later to see if this happened.)

That's the big excitement over here. Yes, I know you wish your lives had this much intrigue.

Pilsner-Post A Day #7

2011-06-28T22:21:00.000-07:00

Also last weekend, I took care of my friend Alex's puppy Pilsner. The first couple of days were a little rough, as he's not well trained as far as potty-time goes, and he had a nasty cough. I was a little stressed out. But once I figured out his routine, and got his cough under control, he was a sweet little guy.

He loved laying on my lap watching movies, napping in the sun, playing with rotten potatoes, and falling asleep in my bed. On Sunday, Derek and I took him to The Lucky Lab Brewpub, where he had a great time getting everyone's attention and stealing bites of Derek's Garlic Gorgonzola pizza slice. I love this photo. I seriously had perfect timing.

Frederick--Post #6

2011-06-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

When I woke up Sunday morning, my 6-year-old goldfish, Frederick was dead. He had been perfectly fine the previous day, so I have to assume it was just old age. I'm sad about it, but he had a long, full life.

He has lived in four different places in three different quadrants of town, outlived two other fish, encountered five cats, and liked listening to Falco. My boyfriend would do impressions of Frederick speaking with a German accent, because obviously, Frederick was German (or possibly Austrian like Falco). I don't have any particularly good photos of him because it's kind of difficult to take pictures of a goldfish, but he was always so cute swimming around.

I buried him the backyard here at the McConachie's house in SW Portland, next to some flowers and vegetables I planted. His little funeral was attended by Derek and me.

Goodbye Frederick.

Weekend (Post-Every-Other-Day-Apparently #5)

2011-06-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

I actually have quite a bit to write about, as well as illustrative photos, but I need to go to bed, so it's going to have to wait until tomorrow.

Sorry.

Post-A-Day #4

2011-06-24T21:12:00.001-07:00

This should be post #5, but I wasn't able to write anything yesterday. This has been a draining week. Pilsner (and his cough) arrived yesterday, and he peed on the rug at the office. My super-great job has not been super-great this week, when one person decides to be extremely rude to everyone else, screw up jobs, and micromanage to the nth degree. I now understand what one of my co-workers warned me about long ago. All of this has been compounded by lack of sleep, which causes me to get melt-downy about dog cough and job and not be able to rise above the nonsense as well as I could with a full eight hours.

But things are turning around (knock on wood). Tonight, I talked to poor sick Derek (he probably has kennel cough too) about my week and felt a little better, and then watched a British crime drama, which always makes me relaxed, all the while non-coughing Pilsner was asleep on my lap. And tomorrow, Pilsner's going to the vet, so hopefully they will cure his cough once and for all. I really, really, really hope that next week will be better and less stressful.

I already have a couple of things to look forward to: Preservation Jazz Band (from New Orleans) is playing at the Blues Festival Friday, and Saturday is the Timbers game.

Goodnight.

Uh, I Think I'm Tired (Post-A-Day #3)

2011-06-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

Just now, as I was coming home, I got my mail out of the mailbox, closed the mailbox, and then without thinking, aimed my car remote at it and pressed "Lock." I think this indicates that I REALLY need to get more sleep.

Warm Weather (Post-A-Day #2)

2011-06-21T19:30:00.000-07:00

Today was the second 80 degree day this year (I'm pretty sure). Yay! But I had too much work to do, so was stuck inside all day at work except for a 10 minute walk. I was planning to go to the gym after work, but decided against it, because I didn't want to be indoors anymore. So what did I do instead? I went home and sat inside. Doh! Silly Laura.

Where Should I Go on Vacation?

2011-05-02T20:09:00.000-07:00

If Derek and I are going on vacation, we have to go this month, due to scheduling conflicts with Derek's coworkers during the rest of the summer.
So here are our possibilities, in order of my preference:
1. Guadalajara/Guanajuato, Mexico

2. Florida

3. Philly

Any thoughts?

E-Readers and Their Ilk: Call Me Old-Fashioned (Or Vain)

2011-02-19T07:35:00.000-08:00

Everything is electronic these days: music, streaming video, and increasingly, books. I jumped on the bandwagon with enthusiasm for streaming and electronic video, as well as for music, albeit music has brought about some mixed feelings. One form of e-media I have not yet partaken of: e-readers.

I love the idea of streamlining, eliminating clutter, and living lightweight and seemingly care-free. Electronic media most definitely aids this. But my reality is quite the opposite: I have stuff, and lots of it. Some I need, some I don't, but there it is. I cram it in closets and squeeze it onto shelves. Books are a large part of this equation.

So why haven't I converted my Billy bookcases and cardboard boxes of books into one lithe little Kindle? I love the look, feel, and variety of books. Blame my publishing background, but I think it goes back much further than that. The outward design of each book foretells the mood of what's inside. Sure, the e-readers have images of all that stuff, but it's just not the the same. You can't display it in your home. I think of my books as a gallery of sorts: a text and pictorial display of all that interests me. It's out there in full view to everyone who enters my home. Such would not be the case if my library were neatly contained in a Kindle. That's also why I have some mixed feelings about e-music. People can take a look at my CD rack and see, "Oh, she likes indie, classical, jazz, hip hop, but NO COUNTRY." It tells people something about me. But maybe a CD selection isn't quite as revealing as a book collection, and that's why I was less resistant to e-music. A CD is a CD, whereas a book is determined not just by its content, but also its edition--hardback, softcover, antique, or contemporary. Maybe I don't want to just read George Eliot, I want to read George Eliot from an edition actually printed and bound in the 19th century. Choice of edition, as well as choice of content says something about the reader.

So, in spite of environmentally-friendly and clutter-eliminating reasons, I cling to old fashioned, crack-open-the-pages books. Why?

Because I'm vain.

Losing Weight is Hard

2011-01-24T22:34:00.000-08:00

Stating the obvious, I know.
Now I'm going to state the brutally honest, in hope that it will embarrass me so much that something will have to change: I need to lose 30 pounds. I weigh more than my 5'10" male friend (I'm 5'3"). True, he's naturally very skinny, but still.
When I lived in NW Portland, I walked everywhere, and my weight was stable and reasonable. Now, I live too far to walk places, and must resort to going to the gym to get exercise. I've been going consistently once a week, but clearly, that doesn't cut it. I have a trainer (ending soon due to budgetary constraints), and I'm definitely stronger because of it, but as far as slimming down and cardiovascular health, I need to exercise more often. Now it's imperative that I make myself exercise regularly, because I won't have the weekly appointments with her anymore. I need to make an appointment with myself.

I have the pulse of a hamster. That's got to change.
My stomach looks like a kitten is living in it. That's got to change.

Bottom line: I'm wasting my remaining, fleeting youth.
I know how to eat well to feel well: lots of whole grains, fiber, fruits and vegetables, but I'm inconsistent about it. I hate wasting things, so I'm reluctant to throw out the junky stuff in my kitchen, even though they're bad for me.
So I'm aiming to go to the gym three times a week like I used to; that should improve things.
I realize that this is a boring post, but I wrote it for my benefit, not anyone else's.
OK, my moment of completely embarrassing disclosure: I weigh 157 pounds.
There, I said it.
I should weigh around 125.
Hopefully, I will be able to report back in a few weeks with a slight reduction. Progress. My hamster-like pulse calming down.
I'll let you know. For me, not for you.

Been a Long Time...

2011-01-09T09:53:00.001-08:00

Haven't posted anything since this summer, because I got burnt out trying to make my vacation posts too detailed. But I've returned! Since my last post, I've been on two super great vacations. First, to Amsterdam, Bosnia, Croatia, and Montenegro, and recently, to New Orleans. Quite the contrast.
Anyway, I've picked out a few of the best photos from each excursion.

First, Mostar: the Old Town is beautiful and the bridge has been rebuilt since the war in the 90s. Venture into the modern portion of town, and you'll find shelled out buildings on nearly every block. In spite of that, it's a pretty, green city.

Below this, a photo of Dubrovnik. I loved Dubrovnik. Touristy? Yes, but wonderful and relaxing all the same. Full of history and the good life. You'd never even guess that a war raged here 15 years ago.

Now I'm on to New Orleans, where Derek and I spent a week this December. I believe it is now my second-favorite U.S. city (after Boston). It doesn't have to be the ra-ra frat boy party town. Your experience there is whatever you choose to make it. People there are friendly, relaxed, and funny, and the city is an interesting mix of gritty and grand. I want to go back.

I just realized that the last two vacations we've taken involved places recovering from disaster: Croatia and Bosnia suffered through war in the 90s, and New Orleans was partially destroyed from Hurricane Katrina. Each locale differs in attitude in the wake of these disasters, but at their individual cores, they all want the same thing: to rebuild and thrive.

Oh Yeah!

2010-08-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

In two and a half weeks, Derek and I will embark on our next adventure: Amsterdam and the Balkans!

We start off in Amsterdam:After a transfer in Budapest, Hungary, we arrive in Sarajevo, BiH:
See the old bridge in Mostar, BiH:
Relax in Dubrovnik, Croatia:
Experience the beauty of the Dalmatian coastline in Korcula:

Wind things up in the big city of Split, Croatia:

Three Weeks With Henry

2010-07-13T22:00:00.001-07:00

Derek and I both fell in love with the same individual. A triangle of sorts, but a happy one: a golden retriever named Henry.
I took care of my landlords' dog Henry for three weeks while they were on a Rick Steves' tour in Italy. He is the best dog in the whole world. I'm not exaggerating.
What fun we had! Dog parks, a hike and a splash in the mud at Sauvie Island, watching windsurfing and drinking beer at a dog-centric pub in Hood River, mojitos on the deck upstairs, a hike and swimming at Lost Lake, and dog parks galore. Henry even found a girlfriend at the Gabriel Park dog park: a cute, shiny black poochie named Luna.

One of his most endearing points was that he stomped his feet and raced through the house when he was excited. He memorized the distinctive sound of Derek's car, and would run to the front door to meet him before he even parked his car.
Goodnight Henry, we love you. Looking forward to our next adventure together!

I Totally Forgot About This Idea

2010-05-21T18:49:00.000-07:00

Surprise, Surprise, having trouble finding a job. I know I am not alone in this problem. Seriously, even a volunteer position never called me back. But suddenly, while cooking asparagus a la Julia Child and simultaneously drinking martinis, I remembered that [back when I had a job] I had wanted to hit Ken Forkish up to ask for an internship at either his bakery or pizzeria. He used to be on Facebook, but now I can't find him on there, no email address, so I guess I'm going to have to do it the old-fashioned way: snail mail letter. But reflecting upon this, it seems somehow appropriate: old-world traditions for making bread, pastry, and pizza meet old-school method of communication. I mean, back in the day, Jacques Pepin's daughter used to head up the evening dinner service at the bakery. So tomorrow, when I am martini-free, I will draft the most convincing letter ever about how much I love the craft, and want to learn about it, and hopefully, this will be my entrée into the culinary world. We'll see.

Winding Down

2010-04-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

It's the last regular week of class before the reading period, and then finals begin. Am I relieved? Yes. Am I super confident and prepared for finals? No. But that's what the reading period is for.
What am I going to do this summer?

Take care of Henry for three weeks! I'm looking forward to having a doggie friend.
Find a job? Hopefully.
Go on vacation? Definitely. Maybe Japan, as Iceland is looking obviously unreasonable. Maybe a national park. Maybe Ecuador.
Take a class to get ahead? I think it's probably too late to register, and frankly, I don't want to. I need a break.

Any other ideas?

Santa Cruz/San Francisco

2010-03-30T20:40:00.001-07:00

The coast near Santa Cruz is pretty, and I had a fun trip, although it got off to a rough start due to a bit of projectile vomiting. But after that passed, it was fun. The first night, we saw a San Jose Sharks game. In NHL games, they really do spontaneously get in fights (not in college games). The next morning, I was feeling normal, and we initially toured around the Santa Cruz beach a bit.

Heading out of town, we drove along Big Sur, which is possibly the most impressive coastline I've ever seen.
The cows there are even rich, living on expensive ocean-view pastures. I think they're the ones in the "Happy Cows Make Good Cheese" commercials.

Wending our way back north, we take the "scenic" route, which was essentially a pitted dirt road that winds up, up, up a hill, across to another hill, through private property, and right before it joins up again with the highway, we see a spectacular view of Bixby Canyon Bridge (Death Cab for Cutie song, remember?)
Back on the road, we clamber through a free state park....

And finish off at an ancient mission in Carmel. Time to meet Derek's parents for Mexican seafood and margaritas. It was an excellent day.
The next morning, we take a quick tour of Capitola, a cute, little town near Santa Cruz.

These flowers were everywhere:
We end our Santa Cruz segment at the Boardwalk. Yes, I rode the roller coaster, but my eyes were closed most of the time.
On to San Francisco! Derek's parents drive us up there, and we have a really excellent Japanese lunch together, do a little shopping at a Japanese dollar store, and then tour the Asian Art Museum.

That night, Derek's parents head back down the coast, and we have dinner at a Spanish restaurant on Belden Place. This is a miniature version of the Flower Street in Istanbul, except the hostesses trying to entice you to their restaurants here are significantly less pushy than those in Istanbul.

After dinner, we meet up with some old high school friends of mine, Thierry and Choi. I haven't seen them in over 10 years!
We all eventually ended up at a weird bar called Lefty O'Doul's. Divey? Yes. Entertaining? Definitely. The couple pictured below came in, sat down, and placed their own flower arrangement in the center of their table. It was kind of weird. Our waitress never really waited on us, but rather just told us that food was self-serve, and then sat down at her own table and resumed eating.
For our last full day in San Francisco, we go to the Mission district to meet up with Derek's cousin, have lunch at a really good Salvadorean restaurant, and then streetcar-it to the Academy of Science, which has a very impressive rainforest setup, complete with birds and butterflies flitting about. Pictured below is a tree frog.
I told you there were butterflies!
The Academy of Science also houses a pretty cool aquarium with unique vantage points...

...as well as a rare albino alligator.

Traipsing though Golden Gate Park:

After a rest back at our hotel (Hotel Abri--very nice and well located), we take the cable car up to Nob Hill, peek into the Tonga Room ($5 cover charge just to go inside and order a drink? No thank you!), and hike up and down to Russian Hill, were we enjoy the imminent sunset with a couple of saké cocktails at a corner cafe.

We finished off the evening with a dinner in Chinatown, and dessert in North Beach, which I had never seen at night before, and was very lively.

Fun trip!

Boston: My Favorite U.S. City

2010-02-18T08:35:00.000-08:00

Derek and I went to Boston for Valentine's/Presidents' Day Weekend, and neither one of us had been there before, but we both loved it. We stayed at the Bulfinch, which was comfortable, clean, modern, and well-located. Boston is as historic, picturesque, and cozy as I imagined it would be, and then some. And it has a distinct personality and soul.
Night 1
Activities for the first night included a Boston University versus University of Maine hockey game (Go Terriers!), and I saw what it would have been like to go to a large, private university that consisted of students that were actually college-aged (as opposed to middle-aged commuters) that all had a lot of spirit and enthusiasm for their school. In one word: fun. Oh well.
After the game, we went to The Parish Cafe, whose claim to fame is sandwiches created by various eminent chefs around the city. They were huge and delicious; I polished off the other half of mine for breakfast the next morning. It was a casual place, but the majority of patrons were dressed in classy business attire--this is Boston, after all, not Portland. Sweatsuits and slippers just don't fly, thankfully.

Day 2
First thing in the morning, we rented a car and drove out to ridiculously (and beautifully) historic Concord. I swear, it was perfect, like a postcard. If all small towns were like Concord, I would love to live in one.
Our first stop was the bridge where the Revolutionary War started. Could a winter scene be any more perfect than these?

Next up was the Old Manse, which sits right beside the aforementioned historic bridge. The Old Manse was owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson's family, and populated by Nathaniel Hawthorne and family for a few years. It's also of Mosses From an Old Manse fame. We thought the house was closed for the season, circumnavigated it peeping in the windows for a look, and just as we were about to leave, a woman drives up and says that it's about to open in five minutes or so. What luck! She's the tour guide/historian, and gives us a private tour of the home, complete with anecdotes. It was amazing, and felt like a very personal glimpse into the daily, ordinary lives of great authors. All the furnishings were left behind by either an Emerson or Hawthorne. In two different rooms, Sofia Hawthorne (Nathaniel's wife) had scratched poems and messages into the window panes with the diamond from her wedding ring. In some cases, Nathaniel likewise wrote back. The guide told stories of the inhabitants' quirks, such as Hawthorne running to the back of the house when he saw people coming up to the front, or having to face the wall while writing (as opposed to looking out the window at the beautiful lake) in order to have inspiration. In one instance, Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Emerson all went out skating in the lake behind the house (pictured in photos above). It was a great, great tour.

Photos of Concord:

Ah, on to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery: it was packed full of famous Romantic and Transcendental writers and their families. Alcott, Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau. I thought there was also a Melville monument, but Derek realized I had misread it (it was small print, and I'm starting to get old, OK?), and that it was actually a Melvin monument not Melville, a family of architects or something. Oops. Comic relief.

Our final stop in Concord was Walden Pond. Below, Derek and I pretend to be Henry David Thoreau in a recreation of the little one-room shack he lived in while writing Walden.

Walden Pond was frozen over, and families were suiting up to play hockey on it. Again, can anything possibly get more perfect?

From there, we drove up to Salem, wandered around a bit, and toured the House of the Seven Gables, as made famous in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel. It was interesting, but the guide was just a guide (rather than someone with a big historical/literary passion for the place), and was honestly rather cheesy.

The home Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in was moved to the Seven Gables site, pictured below.

Photos of Salem:

We got back to Boston in time for dinner, and this sight greeted us on our walk up to the North End (aka Little Italy). What the??? It was a mess! Like a produce market exploded or something. The next day we figured out that it was, in fact, the remnants of a middle-eastern street market shutting down for the night.

The North End is awesome: it's Little Italy, it's completely packed, but it's not exactly touristy, as it appears that the majority of its patrons are local, and it hasn't been gentrified--yet. After a nice dinner, we stood in line at Modern Pastry for cannoli for dessert. Yes, stood in line. There were two incredibly popular bakeries in that neighborhood, Modern Pastry and Mike's Pastry, that ALWAYS had a line out the door and down the block. But it was good and worth it! I previously thought that I didn't like cannoli, but I discovered it's just because all the previous cannoli I had had was crap. At Modern Pastry, we tried three different kinds: one filled with custard, one with the traditional ricotta, and one with whipped cream. All three were dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with almonds. No weird cinnamon flavor like I've always had in Portland.

We wandered through town a bit, near Quincy Market, the Financial District, and finally made it to an awesome Irish bar called Mr. Dooley's.

Mr. Dooley's was great. It was totally packed, like everywhere else, had a live Irish band, and everyone was very friendly. For the first time in my life, some guy bought me a drink. Guess he didn't realize that I was there with my boyfriend. But he ended up paying for Derek's drink too, so that was nice.

Day 3
What a day! We were exhausted by the end of it. But I'll start at the beginning instead.
We aimed for Beacon Hill, but along the way saw the Liberty Hotel, which had been on my list of things to see, but had forgotten about by the time I got to Boston. It's an old prison that's been converted into a super-swanky hotel (Rolls-Royce in the parking lot). It still retains its jail-cell bones:

OK, now we made it to Beacon Hill. It was the beaming epitome of New England picturesque-ness. Beautiful brick apartments, cute coffee shops, old churches, people walking dogs...man oh man, if I was rich I would live there.

The next two photos depict an apartment building in Beacon Hill that Louisa May Alcott lived in.

All right, now we're at Boston Common. It too was perfect. The Frog Pond was frozen over and people were skating on it. Derek wanted to, but, per usual for Boston, the line was a mile long to get in, and we had things to see.

At this point, we start on the Freedom Trail. It's a 3-mile walk through the city along a stripe that alternates between red paint and red brick that leads tourists through a bunch of big-time historic sites.
Below is the state capital. I lost a bet with Derek that Boston was the capital of Massachusetts. I really thought it wasn't. I was wrong.
Ancient cemetery called The Grainery where Samuel Adams and Paul Revere were buried. Many of the graves date back to the 1600s.

The Omni Parker House Hotel: where Boston Cream Pie and Parker House Rolls were invented. I thought it would look a bit more impressive.

We took a little break from the Freedom Trail for an hour or so, going to Neptune Oyster in the North End, since it was Valentine's Day. We got a dozen, all east coast varieties, mostly Massachusetts, with a couple from Rhode Island and Prince Edward Island thrown in. What could be better than Prosecco and oysters? We also had a lobster roll each. Mine was hot with butter, Derek's was cold with herb mayonnaise. (He took more photos there than I did, so if you want food pics, talk to him.)

Back to the Freedom Trail, where we tour through Paul Revere's house. Pretty cool.
Another ancient cemetery. The building on the right side that looks like a school (and used to be a school) is now apartments. Weird. But I guess there aren't enough children living in the North End anymore, so they converted schools to apartments.
Crossing the river heading towards Bunker Hill....
There it is, off in the distance.
This neighborhood across the river from the North End is called Charlestown. Very picturesque, of course.
Views from the top of Bunker Hill:

An old bank building in Charlestown.
We finally got back to our hotel, and decided to rest for an hour or so, maybe catch some Olympic action on TV. But as soon as we turned on the Olympics, we both feel asleep. The Freedom Trail really takes a lot out of you.

After our nap, we head back out, intending to catch a Frank Sinatra impersonation at a South Boston bar called Lucky's Lounge in the Fort Point neighborhood. But it was ridiculously crowded, I started feeling punchy, so we ran across the street to Boston's answer to Clyde Common: Drink. (I think whoever designed the menus had been to Clyde: same color and shape of paper, same font, similar style of food.) Drink is a hip bar in south Boston with an interesting concept: the waitress asks what base spirit you would like, and what sort of flavor you're feeling like, citrusy, spicy, etc. and the bartender makes a custom drink for you. Pretty cool. The food there was good too; we had steak tartar and dates stuffed with nuts, wrapped with proscuitto, and sitting in a creamy gorgonzola sauce.

See? The menu is the same style as at Clyde.
Day 4
It's our last day in Boston, half day, really. We try to go to the Maparium, but it was closed for the Presidents' Day holiday. We decided to wander down Newbury Street instead. Swanky stores and cute cafes inhabit former row houses.

We finished the afternoon in Chinatown, lunching at a really good (and popular) Taiwanese restaurant. Then it was time to head to the airport and say goodbye to Boston. I really didn't want to.

One Good Thing

2010-01-28T09:29:00.000-08:00

Been a bit stressed out lately, but I have something to look forward to: Boston for Presidents' Day weekend! I've never been there, always wanted to go, and now finally am. (Thank you for the brilliant idea, Derek.) We get to stay in a nice hotel too: The Bulfinch (at least the photos make it look luxurious).
If only I could become a professional traveler: that's a job I would enjoy and excel at!

Where I'm Going Next Week

2009-12-21T20:58:00.000-08:00

First Stop: Mexico City

Then a short flight to Merida

Ooh, Tulum

Across the peninsula to Campeche

Last Stop: Back to Mexico City. Coyoacan, to be exact.

A Word From Our Writer

2009-12-07T19:22:00.000-08:00

In the midst of finals.
Regularly unscheduled writing and reading will return in a week or so.
Thank you for your patience.

Interesting Blog I Found

2009-11-28T11:48:00.000-08:00

It's called Living Well, and the premise is a young family of three talking very openly about their financial situation with with goal of paying off all of their debt, including student loans, and eventually buying property while NOT using credit cards, and basically living off of only $2,000 a month. Can it be done? We'll see. This is of particular interest to me, because I'm presently trying to opt out of the whole working thing, and just go to school and live off of student loans, which would obviously necessitate some economizing, since I'll have approximately 1/6 of what I was making when I worked full time. Yeah, either that, or I win the lottery. Sigh.

Random List of Musings

2009-11-25T19:48:00.000-08:00

1. Who do I know in Oakland, CA? I have no idea.
2. Actually happy even though it's the holiday season.
3. Today was my last day of work. Not sure how I feel about that, although relief is definitely an ingredient.
4. It is not fair that eating Escape From New York Pizza every day, for every meal, will make you fat and sick.
5. Pumpkin pie.
6. Mad Men+cocktails=happiness and creativity.
7. I love my friends.
8. I'm hearing strange noises upstairs, and I'm really hoping it's a movie, because they're sort of like my parents.
9. I love my friends.
10. No boyfriend until Sunday. Verizon wireless SUCKS. Anyone who travels even a little bit should have AT&T or T-Mobile. Duh.
11. I ought to be making pie crust right now, but I'm not. In terms of cooking, pie crust is up there with zesting on my list of least favorite things.
12. I'll probably make Jeffrey Morgenthaler's eggnog recipe now, and drink it later, and then feel sick a little bit later after that. He's my Facebook friend, although I haven't seen him the last few times I've been at Clyde, because he was out of town.
13. Sometimes, things are just a waste of time.

The Latest Baby Technology: Asphixiation Strollers!

2009-11-17T12:00:00.001-08:00

I've been seeing these lately, and it really confuses me. Isn't this the equivalent to putting a plastic bag on your head?
Didn't the designers' moms ever tell them not to put plastic bags on their heads when they were kids because they could suffocate to death?
Or maybe this is actually an ingenious, diabolical plan for population control....

Mwah hah hah hahhhh!

Scenes from 30

2009-11-09T21:39:00.001-08:00

So this is my 200th post on this blog, and it depicts another monumental event: my 30th birthday party. That's right, the decline will begin now in earnest.
All you Facebook people probably already saw these photos, but here they are again, for the non-Facebook. I threw a "Mad Men" themed party, complete with 1960s era cocktails and snacks. I was very proud of my costume, I thought I looked rather authentic.
The guys all did a wonderful job of dressing up too--I was very impressed--every single one of them had on a tie. I'm beginning to think that 2009 guys actually like wearing suits and ties, since it's something out of the ordinary, and instantly makes them look good.
It was a fun party. Chelsea was extra pretty in spite of just getting over the flu; Alex was unusually on time; Derek did excellent German Frederick the fish impressions; Bruno was very Bruno; Victor brought fancy champagne, cheese, and a plant; Michelle was not radioactive, Gretchen1 did not fall in the mud; and Gretchen2 is now a delightful adult.

How Do I Do It?

2009-11-04T09:08:00.000-08:00

I believe I have a talent for making messes. I spent literally ALL DAY Saturday, as well as part of Sunday cleaning my apartment. It was sparkling! Seriously.
I looked at it this morning, and what did I find? I'm back to square one. In 2 days! Coats, mail, and dirty dishes scattered throughout. Frederick needs a bath, because I would have cleaned him this weekend too, but I thought I was getting a new, larger tank for him for my birthday, but that didn't happen. I really need to do something about that; I feel sorry for him. Maybe tonight (after homework) I'll take care of all that. Yeah.

Not Stuck Anymore!

2009-10-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

I have so many possibilities now!

I won't have to wake up each morning in dread.
I won't have to wonder what disaster awaits me each day, because the disaster-making characteristic is gone!
Now, I can actually attend meetings of clubs I'm interested in at school.
I have plenty of time to study.
I won't get hassled for taking time off for finals or vacation.
I can wake up at a reasonable, more Mediterranean-like time instead of too early.
I can explore my interests, like maybe trying to get a temporary internship at a bakery.
I can do a study abroad next summer, if money allows. Study law in Barcelona, Dublin, Florence, Paris, Oxford, or London? Yes, please!
I can get a part time job with a law firm or governmental office.
I won't be bored all day.
I won't have to continuously hear tired phrases and people talking in cliché.

Hurray!

30 Rock Quote of the Day

2009-10-05T22:21:00.000-07:00

"You want to get drunk?" Donaughy
"No, there's too many phones in here." Liz Lemon

Yup.
One more instance in which Liz Lemon is me.

2009-10-04T09:28:00.000-07:00

It's seriously been perfect fall weather here this weekend. Sunny and cool. Maybe pumpkins will be procured next weekend.

It was better then

2009-09-21T23:10:00.001-07:00

Sometimes (like right now) I miss being a kid. When I was little, fall was birthday season. All my friends had fall birthdays, myself included. In second grade, I went to my friend Annie's birthday party, and it was so much fun! We went ice skating, and she had two different kinds of pie instead of cake. I tasted lemon meringue pie for the first time. It was a slumber party afterward, and we all stayed up late giggling and talking about silly things.
I didn't have to worry about jobs, money, school, passing the bar exam, my [bad] health, elderly parents, or "making something of myself."
Now, all my friends are preoccupied with buying houses, investments, boyfriends, girlfriends, marriage, babies, and jobs. It's lame.
Life was better when I watched "She-Ra" after school, played Barbies, and stirred up strange mixtures of ice cream, soda, and cereal with my friends--and then ate it. My biggest worry in second grade was math, because I wasn't good at it. I'm still not good at it, but now it's one of the few things I don't worry about. I want to be seven years old again.

Mad Men

2009-09-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Holy crap, I love this show. It's set in the early 1960's in the Madison Avenue advertising scene, it depicts an era I know little about. My parents were teenagers at that point, and I wonder, were peoples' attitudes and demeanor really like that? Was it actually acceptable for men at the office to act like a bunch of jackass 15-year olds and drink all day? Were women really that repressed and talked down to? How would I have fared if I was 29 years old in 1960? I can relate to little bits of each of the female characters, but not one as a whole:

Betty: being generally thought of as quiet and sweet, but suddenly, occasionally, exploding.
Peggy: Quiet and often made fun of, but with a lot more going on beneath the surface.
Joan: Cynical and tactless, but actually well-meaning.
Rachel: Ambitious and very independent, but lonely.

Amazing clothes and sets. Really evokes [what I imagine to be] the atmosphere of the era.

I've been watching this from Netflix, and, if stupid Comcast had given me the adapter box (which they were supposed to, but refused--grrr!), I would still be getting AMC and would be able to watch the third season as it aired. Something needs to be done about that!

Minor Victory, Major Affirmation

2009-09-17T19:44:00.000-07:00

Tonight in Criminal Law, I commented on a case we were reading, and the professor said that I had made a very important point--in fact, she said that if I had been the prosecutor for this case, the defendant would have been convicted. (In reality, the prosecutor had missed the point I made, and the defendant escaped a homicide charge.)
Hells Yeah! I really am supposed to be in law school! And I can succeed at being a lawyer!

What a relief!

By the way, I almost didn't go to that class tonight because once I was at school, I realized I had forgotten my book at home. Good thing I didn't skip!

For now though, I need to work on getting that clerkship...it's due the 19th.

High End Coyote

2009-09-11T08:59:00.001-07:00

I was driving home late last night, when I saw what I at first thought was a stray dog crossing the road near Strohecker's, the swanky Portland Heights grocery store near my house. Wait a second! That's not a dog! It was a coyote! In Portland Heights!
Weird! Maybe he came up from Forest Park on one of the trails. Portland Heights is only a mile or so from downtown, after all. Very exciting.

Yay! Weekend

2009-09-04T10:42:00.001-07:00

I haven't had a relaxing weekend in ages: always out of town or just on the go. But not so, this weekend. I'm really looking forward to both inane activities, and special ones.

I'll start with the special:

The Time Based Art Festival is just beginning! I love it!
Chinese dinner tomorrow, hopefully at Wong's King (never been there before)-mmmm
Helping Alex paint his brand-new house

Here's the inane (but equally good, because sometimes I'm boring):

Grocery shopping
Laundry
Apartment Cleaning
Getting ahead on my homework

Best of all, it's a 3-day weekend, which means I can sleep and sleep and sleep.

Not Ready

2009-08-17T21:20:00.000-07:00

School starts exactly one week from today, and my classes end earlier in the evening, and I actually got to choose them, so I'm hoping not to feel so fried this year.

Hood to Coast is a week from Friday; I'm volunteering somewhere on Friday afternoon. Then, to the beach for the weekend. Friday night I get the beachhouse to myself (and a special friend), but Saturday evening is the big barbecue after the race. Do I know how many people I'll be cooking for? No. Do I have any idea what to cook? No. But I'm sure it will all come together. Hopefully, I'll figure it out by this weekend, so I'll have time to shop and cook ahead of time, because, as I mentioned before, next week I'll be busy: first week of school.

Slated for this week:
Tuesday: Trainer, meet up with Derek for dinner, and then help him find a new, exciting place to live.
Wednesday: Race out to the Nike Campus in Beaverton for Hood to Coast Volunteer Training, race back to town for appointment with trainer.
Thursday: Meet up with friend in town from Germany
Saturday: Wedding

Doesn't necessarily sound like that much, but I'm at work each day before all those activities, and having everything planned out like that makes it feel like work, rather than fun.

Vancouver, B.C.

2009-08-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Derek and I went to Vancouver, B.C. I hadn't been there in probably nine years, and was really looking forward to it. It was a lot of fun, I'm pleased to say.
Here's my little Vancouver chronicle.

The first night, we spent in Seattle, staying with some friends of Derek's. They live in a small, but awesome 100-year-old house on Queen Anne Hill. If I lived in Seattle, I would probably want to live in that neighborhood. Lots of little shops and restaurants to walk to, but their particular corner was thoroughly residential--just homes and schools. They had a great view of the water below. Best of all, they had the sweetest, cuddliest dog named Sophie. She looks sort of ferocious, being a boxer-german shepherd mix, but had the personality of a very loving kitten.

Nearly in Vancouver, we saw this disconcerting ambulance pass by. If you look closely, it says "On Strike." ??? Turns out the Richmond paramedics were on strike. Not sure what that means for emergency victims.

All right, now we're in Vancouver. First stop: Chinatown. We see this written on the top of a building. I like it!
The majority of the shops and restaurants appear to be closed for the evening (not at all like the last time I was here), but a night street market is just getting set up. We eat barbecued lamb on sticks from the street vendors.

The Chinese garden is open, so we check that out. It was nice, but I think the one in Portland might be more impressive.
That evening, we head back out to Richmond for the huge Night Market. After 20 minutes of mis-turns, we find it, and it was all that we hoped for: lots and lots of various Asian food stalls, knock-offs, and a huge stage for karaoke. Some Japanese guy continually sang Elvis's hits.

After the night market, we went back to the city, and went to a super-cool Belgian bar; great cocktails, but sorry, not really any photos.

The next day, we drove up to Whistler. I had never been there before, and was excited, but there was some sort of off-road biking event going on there, so it was packed, and not really what I expected. After that, we left Whistler, and went hiking to Lake Cheakamus. It was pretty:

Back in town that evening, we took a cab to Stanley park, and had a little look around. Pretty photos ensued.

Then, dinner on the West end at an Izakaya. It was awesome. Everything we ate was really, really good. Unfortunately, I don't remember what it was called. (Derek is pretty cute in that photo, huh?)
The next morning, we went to a cute little cafe for breakfast called Finch's Tea and Coffee. There was a problem initially: the baguettes had not yet arrived, and nearly their entire menu was dependent upon them. But fortunately, a few minutes later they showed up, and all the drama ebbed.

We stop at the Bloedel Botanical Garden. The guide books describe it as the type of place with various climates and accompanying plants and animals, including over 100 types of birds. Turns out, there was only one climate--tropical. It was pretty, but disappointing compared to the Palmengarten I saw in Frankfurt. That one was huge, and had probably five or six different climates. But here are some pretty flowers and birds from the one in Vancouver:

By now, we're way behind schedule (we're supposed to be driving home that day), it's after 2, and we haven't had lunch. Might as well stop at Aberdeen Mall (huge, all-Asian, yes I know a theme seems to have developed) in Richmond, as it's on our way, and have some authentic Chinese food. But first, a photo in the toilet store:

Lunch over, it's time to hit the road. But wait! There's a huge Buddhist temple (not pictured) and an old fishing village on the way. That was our trip. Aside from the baguette debacle and some confusion on the way home regarding a "Detour" sign that nearly caused us to have to go back and forth through the Canadian border again, it was an all-around successful, enjoyable trip.

Canada, eh?

2009-08-07T09:27:00.000-07:00

Off to beautiful Vancouver, B.C. this weekend, with a brief stopover in Seattle. Thanks to the AmEx travel points I saved up, we get to stay in a swanky hotel. I love that.
Hiking, ethnic neighborhoods/food, a Swedish indie rock concert, fjords (a theme seems to be developing), mountain, and ocean. Sounds like fun! Expect photos upon my return.

Great Time, Gallons of Wine

2009-07-27T20:54:00.000-07:00

Derek's parents were in town for a Pinot Festival, and he invited me along for the salmon bake portion of it.
Let me restate this: a HUGE, International Pinot Festival. Salmon Bake? Sure. But also a million different kinds of salads, pastas, desserts, etc. It wasn't from any ordinary caterer. Nope. The menu was designed by the likes of the guys at Simpatica Dining Hall, among other places.
And there was wine. Lots and lots of wine.
I'm not going to be drinking wine for a long, long time. Not as long a hiatus as when I came back from Italy, but it will still definitely be a while.
And, even though it was dark, I didn't get a single mosquito bite.
It was an all-around good evening.

Coffee = Fleas

2009-07-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

My parents' old, dearly departed cat always had a severe flea problem. This would cause her to jump completely vertically, as though she had springs in her toes. It was pretty funny.

I don't usually get a buzz from coffee, but MAN!, the coffee at work this afternoon was so strong it made me wince.

To connect coffee and Krissy (the cat): I'm only halfway through a cup, but I seriously feel like jumping like I have fleas. No joke.

December in July

2009-07-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

I went to the Decemberists show last night at Edgefield. It was great! Really, everything about it was great, except the literally mile-long line to get in. But the weather was nice, the venue was perfect for a summer night, the crowd was polite and thoughtful ("Can you see around me? Good."), and even though there were some families and kids there, which can sometimes be irritating, this time was actually really nice: everyone was having a lots of fun, and the parents were dancing with their kids. The opening acts were good, especially the first one, called Blind Pilot. The second one was pretty good, but had a whistling proclivity, which at first seemed clever, but got old and annoying pretty fast.
Oh yeah, and the Decemberists? FRICKING AWESOME! They came on all dressed in black and white, with a morbid wedding-type theme, and played pretty much their entire new album. Then there was a brief pause, in which some of the audience thought the show was over and left. BUT THEY WERE WRONG AND MISSED OUT. The band came back on and played their older stuff, which I love.
Here are some crummy photos I took with my cell phone:

Cats Do Control Humans, Study Finds

2009-07-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

If you've ever wondered who's in control, you or your cat, a new study points to the obvious. It's your cat.

Household cats exercise this control with a certain type of urgent-sounding, high-pitched meow, according to the findings.

This meow is actually a purr mixed with a high-pitched cry. While people usually think of cat purring as a sign of happiness, some cats make this purr-cry sound when they want to be fed. The study showed that humans find these mixed calls annoying and difficult to ignore.

"The embedding of a cry within a call that we normally associate with contentment is quite a subtle means of eliciting a response," said Karen McComb of the University of Sussex. "Solicitation purring is probably more acceptable to humans than overt meowing, which is likely to get cats ejected from the bedroom."

They know us

Previous research has shown similarities between cat cries and human infant cries.

McComb suggests that the purr-cry may subtly take advantage of humans' sensitivity to cries they associate with nurturing offspring. Also, including the cry within the purr could make the sound "less harmonic and thus more difficult to habituate to," she said.

McComb got the idea for the study from her experience with her own cat, who would consistently wake her up in the mornings with a very insistent purr. After speaking with other cat owners, she learned that some of their cats also made the same type of call. As a scientist who studies vocal communication in mammals, she decided to investigate the manipulative meow.

Tough to test

Setting up the experiments wasn't easy. While the felines used purr-cries around their familiar owners, they were not eager to make the same cries in front of strangers. So McComb and her team trained cat owners to record their pets' cries - capturing the sounds made by cats when they were seeking food and when they were not. In all, the team collected recordings from 10 different cats.

The researchers then played the cries back for 50 human participants, not all of whom owned cats. They found that humans, even if they had never had a cat themselves, judged the purrs recorded while cats were actively seeking food - the purrs with an embedded, high-pitched cry - as more urgent and less pleasant than those made in other contexts.

When the team re-synthesised the recorded purrs to remove the embedded cry, leaving all else unchanged, the human subjects' urgency ratings for those calls decreased significantly.

McComb said she thinks this cry occurs at a low level in cats' normal purring, "but we think that cats learn to dramatically exaggerate it when it proves effective in generating a response from humans." In fact, not all cats use this form of purring at all, she said, noting that it seems to most often develop in cats that have a one-on-one relationship with their owners rather than those living in large households, where their purrs might be overlooked.

The results were published in the July 14 issue of the journal Current Biology.

Justification for a (My) Dirty Mouth

2009-07-13T09:20:00.001-07:00

That muttered curse word that reflexively comes out when you stub your toe could actually make it easier to bear the throbbing pain, a new study suggests.

Swearing is a common response to pain, but no previous research has connected the uttering of an expletive to the actual physical experience of pain.

"Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon," said Richard Stephens of Keele University in England and one of the authors of the new study. "It taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain."

Stephens and his fellow Keele researchers John Atkins and Andrew Kingston sought to test how swearing would affect an individual's tolerance to pain. Because swearing often has an exaggerating effect that can overstate the severity of pain, the team thought that swearing would lessen a person's tolerance.

As it turned out, the opposite seems to be true.

The researchers enlisted 64 undergraduate volunteers and had them submerge their hand in a tub of ice water for as long as possible while repeating a swear word of their choice. The experiment was then repeated with the volunteer repeating a more common word that they would use to describe a table.

Contrary to what the researcher expected, the volunteers kept their hands submerged longer while repeating the swear word.

The researchers think that the increase in pain tolerance occurs because swearing triggers the body's natural "fight-or-flight" response. Stephens and his colleagues suggest that swearing may increase aggression (seen in accelerated heart rates), which downplays weakness to appear stronger or more macho.

"Our research shows one potential reason why swearing developed and why it persists," Stephens said.

The results of the study are detailed in the Aug. 5 issue of the journal NeuroReport.

2009-07-08T15:02:00.000-07:00

The sky is a serene white with ever so slightly stormy hints of gray streaked in. Warm(ish), not cold, not hot, no sun, no rain. Haven't accomplished much today, aside from the RFP meeting I called to order. My brain and body are sluggish and mellow like the sky.

After 6 months, I have now discovered how to check my email and browse the internet on my phone, free of charge. It has an MP3 player too; who needs an iPhone? I can now render my brain as numb as it is today on a regular basis via information overload on the go.

That's my little coffee and book break pictured above; my book is Turkish, set in Istanbul, and the narrator visits all the little tongue-twistingly named neighborhoods laced with Gs, Ys, and Şs, among others. Istiklal, Taksim...I saw it all in warmth and sunshine, but the book depicts it frosted with snow and gray in light.

I Was Born in 79, Does That Mean I'm Also a Mystery to Teenagers?

2009-07-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

Walkman, at 30, a mystery to teen

Alejandro Martinez-Cabrera

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

What better way to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Sony's iconic Walkman than to ask a teenager for some feedback on the device?

Myanmar fossil may shed light on evolution 07.02.09

The BBC couldn't think of one, and neither can I.

I like to imagine that the experience was similar to an archaeologist rediscovering how a recently excavated artifact was employed thousands of years ago. But I'm well aware that it must have been different for 13-year-old Scott Campbell, who co-edits his own news Web site. For one, teenage impatience must have stood in the place where I fantasize scientific curiosity should have been.

"My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day," Campbell wrote. "He had told me it was big, but I hadn't realized he meant that big. It was the size of a small book."

Sure enough, people on the street noticed the antique clinging from his belt with amusement and friends on his school bus were quick to come up with some witty remark.

Campbell went on to criticize the portable cassette player's size, appearance, functionality and the "hissy backtrack and odd warbly noises."

Even when he discovered the cassette had more music on the other side (it took him three days), Campbell was still disappointed it could only hold a small fraction of what an iPod can.

"Did my dad ... really ever think this was a credible piece of technology?"

Ouch.

A daily dose of postings from The Chronicle's technology blog (sfgate.com/blogs/tech)

This article appeared on page C - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle

I Can't Not Blog About This: Michael Jackson

2009-06-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

I can't believe Michael Jackson is dead. Possibly because he seemed so surreal, larger-than-life, and possibly immortal. If he wasn't a regular human, then how could he die?
Anyway, he was THE BIGGEST star during my childhood, so in memorial, I'm recounting all my Michael Jackson memories:

I know everyone considers "Off the Wall" and, to a slightly lesser extent, "Thriller" to be his best albums, but I have a special fondness for "Bad."
Remember "Nick Rocks"? (It was a music video program on Nickelodeon in the 1980s.) When I was a kid, we had cable, and I watched it almost every evening. I saw the music videos for "Bad" and "Smooth Criminal" on it. Sometimes, I would dance along.
I particularly liked the video for "Smooth Criminal" because it had a 1930s mobster-theme, and I was totally obsessed with mobsters then.
In 4th grade, for St. Patrick's day, my teacher let us have a party in the afternoon, and my classmate brought in his copy of "Moonwalker." So we spent the afternoon eating treats and watching "Moonwalker." I remember really enjoying it, but I think we had to fast-forward (yeah! VHS!) through some parts of it, because, hey, we were little kids.
We watched "The Wiz" in music class in elementary school.
At my middle school, the gym was divided in two with a curtain, so two classes could go on simultaneously (it was a crappy school). In 6th grade, while I had P.E., the other side of the gym was occupied by a dance class, and they would frequently play "Billie Jean" and "Thriller."
Laughed and laughed at the Buffalax(??) parody of "Thriller" on YouTube a couple of years ago. Watch the one with subtitles.
Last summer, in Paris, the apartment my friend and I had rented had a large collection of 1980s music. Bruno and I selected Michael Jackson to get downnnnnn to. Yeah! Dancing in a Paris apartment!

There's probably more, but those are the highlights. It's shocking and sad that Michael Jackson is gone.

Pygmy Jerboa=Strangest Little Creature

2009-06-22T08:45:00.000-07:00

I saw this on my friend John's Facebook page a month or so ago, and this strange little animal continues to fascinate/weird me out.

Little Bits

2009-06-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

Above are a couple of pretty photos I snapped with my phone last week near work. See? The Pearl isn't all concrete. I thought the butterfly one was particularly amazing. I mean, how often do you see butterflies? And, when you do see them, how often are they perfectly posed on a bright flower just in time for you to take a picture? That's what I thought. Not very often.

In other garden news, my orchid is poised to bloom again, which is always exciting, and tonight I planted a tomato plant and basil in my yard. Well, not MY yard, but my landlords' yard, which is just as good for my purposes. In fact, they have those cool slow-drip systems set up, so I won't have to go out and water each plant individually.

I've seen trainers twice now, and the first time was especially exhausting--but in a good way. I ought to be in MUCH better shape by the end of the summer. Maybe I'll even stand up straight once in a while.

My latest social endeavor is going pretty well, knock on wood. Round 4 is forthcoming.

Goodnight. I'm going to post a discussion of travel food on my other blog right now. Really, I swear.

Seriously Now

2009-06-12T09:34:00.000-07:00

I'm rejoining the gym.

I turned into a tub of lard over the school year, due to sitting all day at work, and then sitting all evening at school. Bad news. Feel gross. I had so many nice clothes before, but now one of my favorite pairs of jeans doesn't fit, and I don't look any good in the clothes that do still fit. I saw photos of myself from my recent vacation, and it wasn't good (that's why most of the photos I posted don't have me in them). What a waste!

So I want to lose 23 pounds. I want to fit in my old clothes again. I want to take care of this before it turns into a huge (literally) problem. I eat well, much better than most people, so the issue is exercise. Fat aside, I know I'm WAY out of shape. I've got an appointment this afternoon to re-register. Since I quit the same gym less than a year ago, hopefully they'll still have my info on hand, and I won't have to pay a registration fee. That would be nice. I'll even get a trainer or something. Something needs to be done. The membership guy seemed to think I could get rid of the weight in 2 months or so. That would be awesome!

Wish me luck.

No Lost Shoes

2009-06-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. As in: took one off, and it felt good and comfortable. But as has been seemingly inevitable the last 5 years, once the other one comes off it gets lost somewhere, never to be found again, and then all that's left is just one lonely shoe, jammed under the bed until its mate can be found, but the truth is, it won't be, because the dog ate it.

But then again, who knows? Maybe we've got a good, reliable pair of Danksos here. Easy on, easy off, always comfortable, always dependable, and goes great with nearly everything. That would be awesome. Yeah, I think I've got some Danskos. Just got to break them in a bit.

I am Pretending to Jump Up and Down (But I'm at Work, So I Can't Actually)

2009-06-08T09:08:00.001-07:00

All of my grades are in! I did fine! I really am a law student. I can put the sticker back on my car, which I had taken down out of superstition. I can buy a sweatshirt and wear it proudly, because I am for real now. I have successfully completed a year of law school.
You have no idea how relieved I am.

Return to Status Quo

2009-06-08T08:40:00.000-07:00

The first week I was back I kept on falling asleep early, and then waking up REALLY early, sometimes 5:00 a.m. The plus side was that I was on time to work every day. Sometimes, I was even the first person there.
But I'm back to my normal self. I went to bed late all weekend, and this morning I didn't wake up until my alarm went off, and then pressed snooze twice. I was ten minutes late to work (normally, I'm 20 minutes late). So I'm getting back on track! Maybe tomorrow I'll be 20 minutes late.

I really am a bit inept in certain social situations, hence "just call me Liz Lemon." But then, maybe everyone is, they just hide it better, or fidget less as a result of it.

I really thought I had more to write about, but this post turned out boring. Life is actually kind of exciting these days, but I can't discuss it right now. Oh well. Sorry.

Istanbul: European with Middle Eastern Overtones

2009-06-07T08:56:00.000-07:00

The photo above is a street near our hotel. Super lively area: great, high(ish) end shopping, lots of restaurants, cafes, and bars.
Below: the Blue Mosque
Inside the Blue Mosque.

This made me laugh. It's such a monumental building, but has such ordinary cleaning methods.
The underground cistern. Amazing, beautiful, and built by the Byzantine Emperor I.Justinianus. At one end, there's a little cafe with a stage for concerts. I would have loved to have gone to one there.
Medusa was there, supposedly in three spots (I only saw two). She is there to bring luck, but only when positioned upside down or sideways. If you look at her rightside up, you'll turn to stone.

I just thought this was funny.

Our neighborhood at night, on the "Flower Street": one narrow little street that originally housed florists, but now is a restaurant row.
Istiklal Street.
A photo from our cruise on the Bosphorus.
Obviously, he was waiting for an important call.
I pet this cat. She was friendly, but felt kind of dusty.
Jellyfish.
The New Mosque.
In the Spice Bazaar. They call dates Turkish Viagra.
"Fatih" means conqueror in Turkish, and this sign was posted on all the garbage cans, so I thought maybe it means "conquer garbage." Unfortunately, "Fatih" was just the name of the district, so it wasn't nearly as funny.
The "Flower Street" during the day.
I liked all the creepy faces at the archeological museum.

Inside Hagia Sofia. It was originally, a church, but then was turned into a mosque. Now, it's preserved as a museum, and no services are performed there.
My dad at the wishing spot inside the Hagia Sofia. I made a wish there too. It seems to actually work. ;)

Lots and lots of kitties. This was further down Istiklal street, on our way to Galata Tower, where it was turning into a mix of tourists and locals, instead of just tourists. Definitely a cool, interesting neighborhood.
Galata Tower.
Street near the Tower.
Fat, lazy dogs everywhere. They appeared to be strays, but their ears were tagged, as though the city was keeping track of them or something.

View from the top of Galata Tower.

Back down to the neighborhood surrounding it.

Hagia Sofia again.

Topkapi Palace.

Istiklal Street, early evening.

Latakia and Surrounding Area Highlights

2009-06-02T16:42:00.001-07:00

Most of Syria that I saw is quite green. Common perception is that it's all desert, but that's simply not true.
Below is my cousin and his pet monkey named Mano. She was very cute, and weirdly human-like.
In both Syria and Turkey, sheep head were a common market sight. Gross.
This was seriously the noisiest market I have ever been to. It was intense.
The payphone. Everyone has cell phones though, so I never saw anyone using them.
All the restaurants had boxes of Kleenex on the table, to be used as napkins. Sometimes, they even had advertising on them for various prescription drugs, as though they came directly from the drug rep. Every time I saw it, I laughed.
Just outside of town, sheep were always crossing the road.
Pictures of the current and past Syrian presidents were plaster everywhere: on buildings, cars, houses, you name it.
A fiery tanoor (same as tandoor), for baking bread and savory pies. They were really good. That's one type of food I am not tired of.

Me at a seaside cafe. It was windy.

My dad had dreams about the Kinafe (dessert composed of cheese sandwiched between shredded dough and doused with syrup) at this shop. I think his version was better.
Latakia at night. Everyone stays up and out really late there, pretty much every day.

My cousin's citrus farm.

Kasab, a resort town in the mountains.
A miniature coliseum in Jublé.
The Mediterranean Sea.
Cool modern mosque by night.
Little Mano, up close and personal. She really has a very large, nice cage. Don't worry. :)
Ugarit, where the first alphabet was discovered.
My uncle's citrus farm.

These trees are over a hundred years old.
OK, story time: Note the bread sitting in front of my uncle. Pepsi was brought to the table, but my uncle didn't want cold Pepsi (I have no idea). The waiter took the Pepsi away, and brought back some hot, but dried up bread, and said "here, this is warm." Okaaaaay. But my uncle ate the bread.
Also, I was massacred by mosquitos at the restaurant (it's open air). One and half weeks later, the bazillion mosquito bites on my legs are still visible, although now they have faded into bruises.

Entire families were often seen riding altogether on ONE motorcycle. I don't know how they all fit.

Random Bits

2009-06-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

I will post more photos after I'm home from work, in case anyone actually cares to view them. I think I'm a pretty good photographer. :) Having a digital camera definitely enables me to practice more.
I had nightmares about someone the entire time I was on vacation. When I got back, I asked him if the nightmares were accurate. He said no. Now I find out that they were, in fact, correct. Trust your dreams. Your subconscious often has a better idea of what's going on than your awake self.
I've continued to have nightly nightmares since I've gotten back, but about different subjects. Last night it was about driving, my former jackass roommates, and my goldfish. When I woke up, I really needed to go to the bathroom, so that's probably how my goldfish figured in. I really need to pick him up from my parents' house. I miss him.
The missing Air France flight is very dramatic and scary, and creepily similar to "Lost."
I'm back at work today, for the first time in almost three weeks. I was on time, the door was even still locked, because I woke up at 5:45 due to jetlag. Jetlag makes me very efficient. I'm starting to fade already, but when I'm home, I don't know what to do with myself and get bored, because I'm used to always having homework to do. Maybe I'll teach myself French or Spanish or something to pass the time. Other than that, I read, cook, clean, watch movies, fiddle with my plants, and go for walks (I want to lose 23 pounds). Maybe I'll take a yoga class too, or paint or something.
I set up my account to automatically transfer money to my new eTrade savings account once a month. I'll buy a condo before Alex or anyone else, I swear! Hah!

Cold Goal--Revised

2009-05-31T19:09:00.001-07:00

OK. Sorry. This post was a load of crap, so I revised it now. I couldn't be cold even if I wanted to. I was in a bad mood when I wrote it a couple weeks ago. Blah blah blah. You know how that goes.

In reality, I'm a veritable ball of enthusiasm most of the time (not being sarcastic). I mean, I can find shampoo exciting. How many people can do that?

But.
But, there's nothing wrong with trying to be graceful or dignified. Seriously.
Just skip all that cold aloof crap.

Day 1: Istanbul in the Locals Quarter

2009-05-30T07:38:00.000-07:00

We spent the first night in Istanbul, just passing through on our way to Syria. We had half a day to look around before our flight, and discovered that our hotel was in a neighborhood dominated by locals, not tourists, which was very interesting.
The kitty below is the first of many. In Turkey and Syria, cats were everywhere, and although most of them appeared to be homeless, everyone fed them, and they were friendly and happy.
Not sure which mosque this was, as we had no idea what neighborhood we were in, but it was a big one.
Cool ancient aqueduct.

We found a market and restaurant area that was definitely for the locals. We didn't know what this vegetable was called, but people were walking around eating it.

Dried eggplant.

Cute little goats resting in the shade. But it gets more ominous.
This is what they were resting under. Let's hope those weren't their relatives hanging skinned above.

I forgot what this was, but I think it's dried carob.
Ancient graveyard near the mosque.

Last Day ın Istanbul

2009-05-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

Tonıght was my last nıght ın Istanbul. Now that ıt's over, we fınally fıgured out how to get around vıa publıc transportatıon, and how to get along. Today, we vısıted Galata Tower, whıch was wıthın walkıng dıstance of the hotel and awesome, and Topkapı Palace, whıch had an amazıng amount of jewels and artıfacts. Istanbul ıs a super cool cıty.

Laugh of the Day:
As we were leavıng the hotel thıs mornıng to begın our day, my dad turned to the front desk attendant and fırst asked ıf there ıs a bus nearby that goes to the aırport (reasonable questıon), but then, after that was affırmed, asked ıf there was a taxı that could take us across the street to the bus stop. ???? I exclaimed, and then the front desk attendants tried to hide laughs. My dad has arthritis in his hands, and the street is very busy with barricades across the middle, so pedestrians have to use an underpass to get across which adds to the distance he would have to pull his suitcase. But still. That was the silly event of the day, but harmless and funny.

A Word on Turkish Boys:
A large percentage of them (much larger percentage than American ones) are hot. Not as high a percentage as Spanish boys, but a close second. And, they even make eye contact with fat, messy, little me. I like that. As I said before, most of the them are frickin hot. Who knows what could have happened if I had been on my own (or traveling with female friends), and actually bothered to brush my hair, dress nicely, and put on makeup. I might have had a little Turkish travel romance!
(Sidenote: found THE cute Turkish boy on Facebook, but judging from his photo, he might be married and have a baby daughter. He looked so young though! And he's still in school! I suppose they could be siblings or relatives or friends or something, but I strongly suspect they are the wife and daughter. Oh well.)

A Word on Food:
I am SICK of kebab. I am also sick of Turkey's version of bagels. And don't get me started on Nescafe. Bleh. But I found an Italian coffee shop near the hotel, probably a chain but whatever, and we had breakfast there the last two mornings in a row, and probably will tomorrow too. The same barista was there today as was yesterday, and he remembered me, and remembered what I ordered last time, which was nice. The coffee is very good.
Tomorrow night, I'll be eating a German dinner. I suspect that there is a lot of good food here, but I haven't experienced it. I saw many beautiful, non-touristy restaurants, but unfortunately, never set foot in them. We mostly ate in what are called "cafeterias," which are good, and fresh, but not especially exciting. Thinking back, I now realize that the best food I've experienced while traveling was in Germany and Switzerland, believe it or not. It might just be that we tended to eat in fancier restaurants during that trip, but it was all really good and thoughtfully prepared. Not all of it was wonderful: in Kochel am See, Alex and I experienced pasta that was salty to the point of hilariously inedible. But overall, I ate the best in Germany.

Daıly Report

2009-05-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

My dad dıd very well today, and dıdn't complaın about anythıng or cause any trouble. We saw the archeologıcal museum and Haıgıa Sophıa, both of whıch were quıte ınterestıng. At the archeologıcal museum, I kept on starıng at the male torsos of the statues. They were so beautıful, guys' chests just don't look lıke that these days. I would lıke to hang out wıth a guy very much, any guy would do, but I have to waıt untıl Frıday, and whoever ıt ıs probably won't have a chest lıke an ancıent Turkısh statue.

Istanbul, or the Trıp that was Almost a Thrıll

2009-05-25T12:22:00.000-07:00

I'm ın Istanbul rıght now, and ıt ıs an awesome cıty. Very lıvely, excellent nıghtlıfe...but I'm travelıng wıth my dad, so I'm not able to experıence all of ıt--specıfıcally the nıghtlıfe. It's kınd of lıke travelıng wıth chıldren: he complaıns, he fusses, causes trouble, and you can't take hım to bars or go out at nıght, whıch ıs a total bummer. I haven't had anyone to talk to sınce May 13th--that ıs--untıl tonıght, brıefly. Whıle the douchebag on the computer next to me looked at gırls wıth bıg boobs on the ınternet, I sort of found a frıend: a gırl from Toronto, approxımately my age, travelıng alone. It was so relıevıng to have a normal conversatıon agaın! It was great!

Another hıghlıght ıncludes the very cute Turkısh boy who helped us make our way vıa bus from the aırport to our hotel. He was so cute, so sweet, and so helpful; probably smart too--he's studyıng mechanıcal engıneerıng at the unıversıty here. But then my dad trıed to ınvıte hım to lunch. Ugh. That was very embarrassıng. I mean, serıously, who would go wıth a couple of strangers to lunch? I wouldn't. He polıtely declıned, and we had exchanged emaıl addresses earlıer, so hopefully I wıll wrıte to hım or fınd hım on Facebook or somethıng.

We saw the Blue Mosque, the New Mosque, the park surroundıng Topkapı Palace, the Spıce Market, and the Grand Bazaar. At the Grand Bazaar, after I had managed to talk a guy down ın prıce on a pendant I wanted, my dad proceeded to ınsult the shopkeeper about some turquoıse that he dıdn't even want. What was the poınt of that? Serıously? I quıckly paıd and wandered off before my dad's nonsense could cause the shopkeeper to raıse the prıce. Ugh.

Today we went on a Bosphorus cruıse. It was nıce, but uneventful.

Last week I spent ın Syrıa. Syrıa had a lot of potentıal ın terms of a formerly beautıful landscape, but every outdoor surface was lıttered wıth garbage. I have never seen so much garbage ın the street before ın my lıfe. Also, ın Latakıa specıfıcally, all of the beautıful old buıldıngs are left vacant to rot, or are torn down to make way for ugly, generıc cement condomınıums EVERYWHERE. It's on the Medıterranean Sea, but many of the seasıde promenades were fılled ın wıth cement and turned ınto warehouses for shıppıng. I really don't know what people were thınkıng there. It's just messy and a waste of a beautıful locatıon.

Slunfeh was nıce, though. It's a mountaın resort town, very green and leafy, wıth a bıg, fancy hotel at ıts core. There are stıll a few remaınıng hıstorıc homes there, whıch are very pretty, but the ugly concrete condomınıums are encroachıng there too. They need to be stopped.

I guess that's all for now. Thıs has been a mentally exhaustıng trıp. I would lıke to come back to Istanbul wıth my frıend and be able to experıence ıt fully.

Sunshine Soon

2009-05-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

I finished my last final Friday, and my first school free weekend was great. Wednesday, I leave for my big trip. First stop: Latakia, Syria, pictured above. Then, four days in Istanbul, Turkey (photo below). I can't wait! I really prefer being on vacation.

I Thought This Was Interesting

2009-05-07T08:43:00.001-07:00

Studies say 'hobbit' previously unknown species

by Marlowe Hood Marlowe Hood – 2 hrs 23 mins ago

PARIS (AFP) – The tiny ancient humans dubbed hobbits, whose remains were discovered on an Indonesian island in 2003, were a previously unknown species altogether, according to two new studies.

Debate has raged in the scientific community since the fossils were found on the island of Flores, with some experts insisting they were descended from Homo erectus and others saying evolution could not account for their small brains.

About a metre (three feet) tall and weighing 30 kilos (65 pounds), the tiny, tool-making hunters may have roamed the remote island as recently as 8,000 years ago. Their fossils are about 18,000 years old.

Many scientists have said Homo floresiensis, as the creature is now formally known, was a prehistoric human stunted by natural selection over millennia through a process called insular dwarfing.

Others countered that even this evolutionary shrinking, well documented in island-bound animals, could not account for the chimpanzee-sized brain -- just a third the size of that in a modern human being.

The only plausible explanation, they insisted, was that the handful of specimens found had a genetic disorder resulting in an abnormally small skull or that they suffered from "dwarf cretinism" caused by deficient thyroids.

Two new studies in the British journal Nature go a long way toward settling the debate.

A team led by William Jungers of Stony Brook University in New York tackled the problem by analysing the hobbit's foot.

In some ways it is very human. The big toe is aligned with the others and the joints make it possible to extend the toes as the body's full weight falls on the foot -- attributes not found in great apes.

But in other respects it is startlingly primitive: far longer than its modern human equivalent and equipped with a very small big toe, long and curved lateral toes, and a weight-bearing structure closer to a chimpanzee's.

Recent archaeological evidence from Kenya shows that the modern foot evolved more than 1.5 million years ago, most likely in Homo erectus.

So unless the Flores hobbits became more primitive over time -- considered extremely unlikely -- they must have branched off the human line at an even earlier date.

For Jungers and colleagues, this suggests their ancestor was not Homo erectus "but instead some other more primitive hominin whose dispersal into southeast Asia is still undocumented."

Companion studies published by the Journal of Human Evolution bolster this theory and conjecture that these more ancient forebears may be the still poorly understood Homo habilis.

In any case, Homo floresiensis would be confirmed as a separate species.

But what still has not been explained the hobbit's inordinately small brain.

That's where hippos come into the picture.

Eleanor Weston and Adrian Lister of the Natural History Museum in London compared fossils of several species of ancient hippos found on the island of Madagascar with the mainland ancestors from which they had evolved.

They were surprised to find that insular dwarfing -- driven by the need to adapt to an island environment -- shrank their brains far more than had previously been thought possible.

"Whatever the explanation for the tiny brain of H. floresiensis relative to its body size, our evidence suggests that insular dwarfing could have played a role in its evolution," they conclude.

While the new studies answer some questions, they also raise new ones sure to spark fresh debate, Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman said in Nature.

Only more fossil evidence will indicate whether the hobbits of Flores evolved from Homo erectus, whose traces have been found throughout Eurasia, or from an even more ancient lineage not yet found outside Africa, he said.

Foggy Morning

2009-05-03T09:07:00.001-07:00

Pretty, huh? Less than a week until the fog of finals has evaporated and the sunshine of relaxation beams in!

Summer

2009-05-02T19:53:00.001-07:00

After I return from vacation, my plan for the summer is:

Relax
Work on my tan
Read all the books I bought during the school year but didn't have a chance to read
Watch the latest season of "Lost"
Get regular exercise
Cook
Have as much fun as possible
Keep my apartment clean
Plant and grow interesting vegetables

Thankyouverymuch.

Two-Pronged Test for Finals Success

2009-05-01T21:33:00.000-07:00

Studying is going well--a million times better than last semester, but I don't think I'm going to take my unscheduled final tomorrow. In terms of timing, it just doesn't make sense. If I spend all day tomorrow working on Civ Pro, which I would have to do in order to be ready to take the test at 6, then I'll probably be too tired to do well on it, and I'll end up not having enough time to study for Contracts and Constitutional law, which actually do have scheduled exam dates. So I'm going to put down Civil Procedure for now, and take up Contracts, and work on that tomorrow and Sunday, so I'll be ready for that test Monday. And on Monday, I'll start on Constitutional Law, so that I'll be ready for that on Wednesday. Then I could take the Civil Procedure test Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. Yes, that's a week later than I hoped, but I think it will all work out better this way. I spent all day today studying. The only time I went outside today was to pay rent and get my mail. I'm frickin tired.

Countdown

2009-04-28T06:59:00.000-07:00

Finals begin this Friday. I'm aiming to take my unscheduled one that day, but it's dependent on me finishing my outline by then. So far, the outline is going well--MUCH better than last semester, so I hope that bodes well for my Civil Procedure grade, but I'm nowhere near done, and I'm not sure I will be by Friday. Maybe Saturday then. But I really would like to get it over with on Friday, because next week--Monday and Wednesday, to be exact--I have my two scheduled finals. It would be so wonderful to be done with it all a week from tomorrow!
Anticipating it is making me REALLY irritable and tense. I mean, my life kind of depends on this, law school is my last hope. So I have to do well.
I'll try to be calmer today. I'll drink "Relaxing" tea at work and maybe have my iPod on all day to drown anything else out. Yes, that sounds like a plan. Then, I'll come home, and study study study.

Interview with the Creator of Stealus

2009-04-27T23:15:00.000-07:00

It is my pleasure (or displeasure, if you will) to have the opportunity to interview Vladimir Markop, the founder of Markop Processes, Inc., and the creator of Stealus, quite possibly the most user-unfriendly financial software in the world (second only to the unfortunately named Creative Revolutions, CREVICE for short (what does that mean anyway?) product).

LD: Mr. Markop, what inspired you to create this software?

Markop: There was a need in the financial community for software that looked like it was generating meaningful results, lots of colors, lots of dots, to make the people using it feel important.

LD: But don't those colors and dots have meaning?

Markop: Some of it does. The bar charts do, but the wavy multi-colored lines and sprinkles don't.

LD: To be honest, those wavy multi-colored lines never imparted much meaning to me, but aren't the sprinkles supposed to represent peer universes?

Markop: MMWAAAHHAAAHAAA! That's what I wanted everyone to think, but they're actually randomly generated dots. Same for the wavy lines. They're meaningless! But don't tell those business types.

LD: So what you're saying is that this program is essentially useless.

Markop: No, that's not true. If every little miniscule variable is entered 100% correctly, it will generate accurate returns.

LD: But it's quite difficult to do so: the headers don't impart any helpful information to the user, the "Help" function doesn't actually do anything, and if you call a technician, it takes a week for them to get back to you. And that's just the beginning....

Markop: That's the beauty of it. If a person is actually able to generate anything with it that looks somewhat correct, it gives them a feeling of accomplishment. Like they've done something very important.

LD: Yes...that's true. But that's not necessarily helpful for someone who is trying to get their work done in a timely manner.

Markop: It's status, my dear, status. Heh, heh, heh.

Parks & Recreation = The Office

2009-04-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

I'm watching "Parks and Recreation" for the first time tonight, and, I have to say, it appears to be a ripoff of "The Office," but instead paper, they deal with parks, and instead of Michael Scott, there's a woman. But it has similar timing, and the characters speak directly to the camera, just like they do on "The Office."
Verdict: Not impressed.
It is way too obviously a copy. One of the actresses from "The Office" is even in this show. They really should have tried harder, or been more creative.

As a sidenote, I am admitting to having quite possibly one of the unhealthiest dinners on record: a crueller, a maple bar, and a scofflaw cocktail. Yes, it's shameful. I'll do better tomorrow. I'm too tired to eat properly, and for some reason, real food just didn't seem appetizing.

Reverse

2009-04-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

I had another court visit this afternoon, this time watching a shoe buying agent request a motion to dismiss on grounds of personal jurisdiction a case by Adidas against them alleging that they sold or distributed shoes in Oregon that infringed on Adidas' designs. It was awesome! It had tons of procedural stuff that we had covered in class. The attorneys were very good, well prepared and snappy.
So, my enthusiasm is renewed. It's actually been renewed for quite a while, but this clinched it. Finals are in a week and a half. Please please please let me not just pass my finals, but actually do well on them. I want to be a lawyer. I want to do something important and exciting. But I need to pass my finals in order to become a lawyer. Please beam me good thoughts in this area. It worked last time when I really wanted a certain apartment, hopefully it will work again.

I Need a Gardener for 12 Square Feet

2009-04-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

I didn't take this photo, but it's the exact complex of condos I wish to discuss. Walking back from the park on my lunch break, I noticed that a hired gardening company was tending to one of these tiny yards. No, they were not hired by the HOA, most people who live in this complex are seen tending to their little yards themselves. But apparently, someone just couldn't handle it. Hence the hiring of gardeners for 12 square feet. Come on, folks! It's really not that hard to trim two bushes.

Laura D=Liz Lemon

2009-04-19T23:45:00.000-07:00

I recently started watching "30 Rock" online, and I love that show. It's hilarious! But the more I watch it, the more similarities I notice between myself and the show's main character, Liz Lemon. Seriously, watch it. It's one of the funniest tv shows I've seen in a long time.
Here we go on the similarities:

When I wear my glasses, they happen to be very similar to Ms. Lemon's.
We both speak German.
We both have a tendency towards social ineptness, especially when it comes to talking to guys who *might* have interest in us.
We both have a strong aversion to unfairness (See Pilot episode's hotdog line-cutting incident. Compare with me getting offended with tourist cutting me in line at the Vatican. That's right, someone cut in line at the VATICAN.)
We both act rashly in fits of anger.
Donuts are a favorite.
Pockets always have used kleenex in them.
Nerdiness is unavoidable.
November birthdays.

The Crow

2009-04-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

You think cock-fighting is bad? A crow in my neighborhood makes those roosters look like gentle little pets in comparison.
A couple of weekends ago, I noticed a crow wing laying on the stairs leading to the front door. Eww. Later on that day, I discovered through word on the street--literally, a woman was taking a walk with her kids, telling them this story--that two crows were in a fight, and one tore the other's wing off. Whoa.
Well, it's gotten even gorier. Yesterday, on the same set of stairs, there it was: a crow HEAD. That's right, I said HEAD. No body, just a head and bloody stump of a neck. In the same location as the wing of a few weeks ago.
That's really creepy. Not just creepy, it's ominous, I think.

Big Bertha and Whiny Walter--How Glad I am Never to See Them Again!

2009-04-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

Living alone, I can now keep on using the same dish/utensils/glass for several days until it actually looks dirty. Nazi Big Bertha* never let anyone leave a plate or anything out for further use because it was "messy." Hmmm. And I thought that finding cat vomit on random windowsills was messy. But apparently, that was just wrong. (Sarcasm, in case you didn't get it.)
I can now put books and magazines on my coffee table, where they belong. Commentary regarding Big Bertha applies here also.
No more listening to Whiny Walter* complain about how his white, privileged, trust-fund laden life (yes, I said TRUST FUND, it's true, but he won't admit it anymore), is so hard and that he wants to be an artist, specifically a writer. Nevermind that he cannot spell "chocolate" (true story) among other words, cannot construct a narrative with any sort of color or interest, and his favorite adjective is "a lot," sometimes spelled "alot."
As further proof of Whiny Walter's imbecility, he believes that going on Caribbean and Mexican cruises constitutes visiting third world countries, because there are "lots of poor people there." Wow. If that's his definition of "third world" (ignorant term in the first place), then little did he know that he was living with formerly "third world" individuals.
Whiny Walter fancied himself a vegetarian. His definition of vegetable apparently means nothing green or coming from nature, but rather pasta, cookies, chips, soda, instant noodle cups, and, if we all went out for pizza, it also includes pepperoni pizza. Nevermind that we ordered half the pizza with ACTUAL VEGETABLES and NO MEAT to attempt to accommodate him. He ate our pepperoni instead. We, the omnivores, ate the vegetables.
Dovetailing from the no-vegetable vegetarian theme, Whiny Walter often clogged the toilet.
Whiny Walter also fancied himself a cyclist. For a while, every morning, he would load his bike in the back of my car, saying that he intended to ride home after work. But he never did. He would either go to his friend's house who lived nearby and get a ride home from him, or take the bus home. I guess that being a "cyclist" meant carrying his bike around, but never actually riding it.
Big Bertha was only nice to people when she wanted something from them. The rest of the time, she would snap, condescend, and ignore.
In addition to being whiny, Whiny Walter was also a complete sissy. He would use my blow dryer more often than I did. He would take baths like an old lady with candles. (He set fire to the house on one occasion, which is what precipitated all that eventually led to me moving out.)
Big Bertha would bring random guys home in the middle of the night. It was often the first time she had ever gone out with them. Really classy. Oh, and did I mentioned that she had to be treated for gonorrhea last year? She was exposed to it by a co-worker.
Big Bertha used people. She was dating a very nice guy but she always said she wasn't into him. Did she break up with him? Not until after he repaired her bike. The timing was definitely not a coincidence.
Whiny Walter is a cook at a restaurant. Oddly enough, the majority of his cooking attempts at home failed miserably (the one exception was a tomato bisque).
Whiny Walter never took responsibility for his actions. When he started the fire, he never apologized. Instead, he just said that it was "no big deal." If he decided to watch a movie at 1 a.m. and it woke me up, instead of saying "sorry, I'll turn it down," he would say "but it's really low."

So, needless to say, after living with these two individuals, I lost all respect for them. Living alone is infinitely better.
*Not their actual names, but I'm sure you can guess who they refer to.

I Feng-Shui-ed My Bedroom...

2009-04-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

...and I'm feeling better already.

Weekend Baking

2009-04-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

That's my cute little antique stove in the photo above. It works great--the oven is WAY better than the full-size modern one I had in the last place I lived. I baked oatmeal butterscotch squares over the weekend, which was my first baking project in the new apartment. It was a success. Unfortunately, my skin shows that I've been eating sweets. Results below.
Maybe I should have posted this on my cooking blog. Oh well. Whatever.

Things are Looking Up

2009-03-28T16:08:00.000-07:00

I got the internet going at home, whoo hoo! Internet seems to be a necessary utility these days like telephone, at least if you're in school.
I'm almost done organizing and putting away all my stuff in my new apartment.
The saga of the missing appellate briefs has come to an end.
I think I'm going to get some reading done, and then bake something delicious. Perfect for a cold, rainy day like today.

Mmmm...cookies? Or madelines? These are decisions I actually like making.

No Spring, No Break

2009-03-27T12:39:00.001-07:00

This was supposed to be spring break, but it was cold and raining, and I experienced no break to speak of. I had such hopes of getting ahead on my reading for class, going out for happy hour with friends, maybe reading a book for fun, seeing a movie, just generally relaxing. But due to two jackass (to put it nicely) ex-roommates, that didn't happen. Instead I spent all my time moving furniture, moving boxes, unpacking, organizing, working, freaking out because I thought my final project for Legal Writing was lost (turns out my professor just misplaced it--grrr), and just feeling incredibly tired all the time. I DID NOT get ahead on my reading for school, go out for happy hour, read a book for fun, see a movie, or have a chance to relax, unless you count sleeping relaxing. I just call that a necessity.
I'm beginning to think that law school just isn't worth all the misery. I miss having plenty of money and free time. I have a really sweet job now as it is. Sure, it's not the most exciting, but I'm also beginning to think that excitement is also overrated. But it pays extremely well, the people I work with are nice, it's secure, and provides lots of wonderful benefits and free time.
So basically what I'm saying is, that if I do wonderful and amazing at the end of this term, then obviously, I'll continue with law school. But if I only get so-so results, I'm going to seriously consider whether or not to continue. It's an incredible amount of pressure, and if I already have a good job, why go through all that?

My New Wonderful Apartment

2009-03-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

Whoever beamed me good thoughts, thank you, because I got the apartment! I move in tomorrow. It's huge, beautiful, has entire wall of windows looking out over the hills and valleys below, and it's a very good deal. I don't have to set up any utilities--I just pay $50 to the owners and everything--electricity, internet, cable, etc.--is included. Also, I can use part of the yard. The photos above from craigslist don't really do it justice.

How Soon Until I Wake Up From This Nightmare?

2009-03-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

I'm having a hard time lately, to put it mildly. I can't talk about everything here, because it's public, but I hope I'll find a new place to live soon. Things have to improve. And, even though it sometimes takes a while, people tend to get what they deserve. I believe in karma.

Class was actually a lot of fun last night, in spite of my overarching feeling of doom. The professor asked my report partner and me to improvise in front of the class a pre-trial negotiation with another pair. We were the prosecution. We were supposed to stand our ground and NOT compromise, even though that's generally not a good negotiation strategy, obviously. Even though when I'm thinking about it, oral advocacy (that's speaking in front of the court) scares the heck out of me, when I actually do it in class, it ends up being a lot of fun, and I think I might be pretty good at it, much better than doing research. This really surprises me. Anyway, I put on a good show in class last night in spite of being exhausted, emotionally drained, and having only ate a cup of yogurt and a green shamrock cookie all day. (Seriously.) In fact, I heard one of my classmates in the audience comment, "that's cold!" after something I said to opposing counsel. Awesome!

So, dear readers, please send good thoughts for me, and hope that I find and get accepted for the apartment of my dreams within the next day or so. I really need a break. You have no idea how stressed out and upset I am. Sweet Alex is letting me stay with him until I find a place, which I infinitely appreciate. But I don't want to stay too long and annoy him. Last night I ended up sitting in my car for 1 1/2 hours waiting for him to come home because I didn't want to call and bother him. Fortunately, there was wifi in the area, so I checked my email, etc. until he returned. I need a home. I need to regroup and sort things out.

Postal Service Boxes=The Height of Fashion

2009-03-14T00:02:00.000-07:00

I was walking from the parking garage to the office this morning, and saw what at first glance appeared to be an ordinary bag lady standing on the lower level. Then I realized what was catching my attention: she was wearing a United States Postal Service box on her head like a hat. Obviously, I stared at her. She smiled at me--a surprisingly lucid, normal smile. Weird.

Tonight I discovered that this is not an isolated event: one of my friends works at Kitchen Kaboodle (a housewares store for those of you not aware of Portland-based businesses), and noticed that this woman was standing outside of the store blocking the door. When my friend asked her to move along, box-hat woman pulled the box down over her head and pretended she couldn't hear her.
My roommate also has encountered her. She asked him to buy her ice cream (not just a cone, mind you, but a couple of pints), and when he wouldn't, she said she put a curse on him.

I think box-hat woman might just have made my day.

Add Another Continent to My List

2009-03-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Syria and Istanbul! Really. Last night I talked my dad into it finally. After all, he's accompanied my cousins there (sometimes I think he likes them more than me, since they're successful doctors, have nice families, etc. and I'm a verging-on-old maid with cats), but never his own daughter.
I bought tickets to Istanbul last night (really cheap! Lufthansa's having a sale). Now all we need to do is figure out how to get from there to Latakia.
I'm so excited! I finally get to see where I'm from! Maybe people there will actually look like me.

***

I got to work at 7 today to finish a report, but didn't end up going to bed until nearly midnight last night. The report is done, but I still have a shitload of reading and some hypotheticals to do for Constitutional Law tonight. Yesterday, I thought I had already been called on recently, but the guy sitting next to me thought we might be called on tonight. Upon further reflection, I think he might be right, so I have to be fully prepared for class tonight. But I'm tired, and I can feel my mood beginning to crash. Yup...my eye just twitched. And, I told one of my friends I'd meet him at the new Noble Rot after class. It will be fun, but I hope I won't be too tired. Tomorrow I have a break though....

List of Abominations

2009-03-04T12:07:00.000-08:00

The following are phrases, tired, old, over-used phrases, by people who lack imagination, that I hear on a daily basis. I think they believe that by talking in cliché, they sound professional or something. Well, they don't, they just sound boring. Without further ado, here is a list of phrases and words I never want to hear again:

He/she has a lot on his/her plate
Grab lunch
Utilize
Touch base
On the same page
Any other baseball analogy

That's all I can think of at the moment, and those are definitely the most grating. When I remember more, I'll add to this list.

This Weekend

2009-02-27T10:21:00.000-08:00

Here's what I'm up to this weekend:

Sleeping as much as possible
Finishing, and hopefully, getting ahead studying for next week
Dinner at Sel Gris Saturday night
Checking out the new J.Crew outlet
Hopefully, having time to watch a movie

That's it. That's enough, really. Yes, this sounds so thrilling, I know.

2009-02-26T21:36:00.000-08:00

My friend, Megan Kaminski's chapbook manuscript, Across soft ruins, has been accepted for publication by Scantily Clad Press. Her poems are beautiful and emotive. Please check them out.
Congratulations, Megan!

F.T.S.

2009-02-26T13:41:00.000-08:00

I'm tired.
I'm grumpy.
I'm tired of not getting enough sleep.
I'm tired of being frustrated by things.
I'm tired of being frustrated by people.
I want to be physically tired when I get home at night, instead of mentally drained.
I need a goddamn vacation.

A Brief Tricky Kitty Tale

2009-02-22T09:50:00.000-08:00

Last night, I was laying on the couch watching TV (British Comedies, to be exact. I love them.) as Bifur paced the main floor. He seated himself before the back door, turned, and looked at me pointedly. I ignored him.
He slinked back to the living room, hopped up on Joe's big green chair, crossed over to the adjacent end table, looked at me pointedly again, then started pawing and pushing a glass of water on the table. Worried that he would knock it over and break the glass, I stood up and rushed towards him. He immediately jumped down and ran for the back door. I had been tricked!
The sneaky kitty knew that if he threatened to cause trouble, it would get me up, get me to pay attention to him, and thereby, he would get let outside.
Bifur:1
Laura: 0

Reprint from NYTimes Book Review

2009-02-18T20:14:00.000-08:00

Volume 56, Number 3 · February 26, 2009

Speaking in Tongues

By Zadie Smith

The following is based on a lecture given at the New York Public Library in December 2008.

1.

Hello. This voice I speak with these days, this English voice with its rounded vowels and consonants in more or less the right place—this is not the voice of my childhood. I picked it up in college, along with the unabridged Clarissa and a taste for port. Maybe this fact is only what it seems to be—a case of bald social climbing—but at the time I genuinely thought this was the voice of lettered people, and that if I didn't have the voice of lettered people I would never truly be lettered. A braver person, perhaps, would have stood firm, teaching her peers a useful lesson by example: not all lettered people need be of the same class, nor speak identically. I went the other way. Partly out of cowardice and a constitutional eagerness to please, but also because I didn't quite see it as a straight swap, of this voice for that.

My own childhood had been the story of this and that combined, of the synthesis of disparate things. It never occurred to me that I was leaving the London district of Willesden for Cambridge. I thought I was adding Cambridge to Willesden, this new way of talking to that old way. Adding a new kind of knowledge to a different kind I already had. And for a while, that's how it was: at home, during the holidays, I spoke with my old voice, and in the old voice seemed to feel and speak things that I couldn't express in college, and vice versa. I felt a sort of wonder at the flexibility of the thing. Like being alive twice.

But flexibility is something that requires work if it is to be maintained. Recently my double voice has deserted me for a single one, reflecting the smaller world into which my work has led me. Willesden was a big, colorful, working-class sea; Cambridge was a smaller, posher pond, and almost univocal; the literary world is a puddle. This voice I picked up along the way is no longer an exotic garment I put on like a college gown whenever I choose—now it is my only voice, whether I want it or not. I regret it; I should have kept both voices alive in my mouth. They were both a part of me. But how the culture warns against it! As George Bernard Shaw delicately put it in his preface to the play Pygmalion, "many thousands of [British] men and women...have sloughed off their native dialects and acquired a new tongue."

Few, though, will admit to it. Voice adaptation is still the original British sin. Monitoring and exposing such citizens is a national pastime, as popular as sex scandals and libel cases. If you lean toward the Atlantic with your high-rising terminals you're a sell-out; if you pronounce borrowed European words in their original style—even if you try something as innocent as parmigiano for "parmesan"—you're a fraud. If you go (metaphorically speaking) down the British class scale, you've gone from Cockney to "mockney," and can expect a public tar and feathering; to go the other way is to perform an unforgivable act of class betrayal. Voices are meant to be unchanging and singular. There's no quicker way to insult an ex-pat Scotsman in London than to tell him he's lost his accent. We feel that our voices are who we are, and that to have more than one, or to use different versions of a voice for different occasions, represents, at best, a Janus-faced duplicity, and at worst, the loss of our very souls.

Whoever changes their voice takes on, in Britain, a queerly tragic dimension. They have betrayed that puzzling dictum "To thine own self be true," so often quoted approvingly as if it represented the wisdom of Shakespeare rather than the hot air of Polonius. " What's to become of me? What's to become of me?" wails Eliza Doolittle, realizing her middling dilemma. With a voice too posh for the flower girls and yet too redolent of the gutter for the ladies in Mrs. Higgins's drawing room.

But Eliza—patron saint of the tragically double-voiced—is worthy of closer inspection. The first thing to note is that both Eliza and Pygmalion are entirely didactic, as Shaw meant them to be. "I delight," he wrote,

in throwing [Pygmalion] at the heads of the wiseacres who repeat the parrot cry that art should never be didactic. It goes to prove my contention that art should never be anything else.

He was determined to tell the unambiguous tale of a girl who changes her voice and loses her self. And so she arrives like this:

Don't you be so saucy. You ain't heard what I come for yet. Did you tell him I come in a taxi?... Oh, we are proud! He ain't above giving lessons, not him: I heard him say so. Well, I ain't come here to ask for any compliment; and if my moneys not good enough I can go elsewhere.... Now you know, don't you? I'm come to have lessons, I am. And to pay for em too: make no mistake.... I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they wont take me unless I can talk more genteel.

And she leaves like this:

I can't. I could have done it once; but now I can't go back to it. Last night, when I was wandering about, a girl spoke to me; and I tried to get back into the old way with her; but it was no use. You told me, you know, that when a child is brought to a foreign country, it picks up the language in a few weeks, and forgets its own. Well, I am a child in your country. I have forgotten my own language, and can speak nothing but yours.

By the end of his experiment, Professor Higgins has made his Eliza an awkward, in-between thing, neither flower girl nor lady, with one voice lost and another gained, at the steep price of everything she was, and everything she knows. Almost as afterthought, he sends Eliza's father, Alfred Doolittle, to his doom, too, securing a three-thousand-a-year living for the man on the condition that Doolittle lecture for the Wannafeller Moral Reform World League up to six times a year. This burden brings the philosophical dustman into the close, unwanted embrace of what he disdainfully calls "middle class morality." By the time the curtain goes down, both Doolittles find themselves stuck in the middle, which is, to Shaw, a comi-tragic place to be, with the emphasis on the tragic. What are they fit for? What will become of them?

How persistent this horror of the middling spot is, this dread of the interim place! It extends through the specter of the tragic mulatto, to the plight of the transsexual, to our present anxiety —disguised as genteel concern—for the contemporary immigrant, tragically split, we are sure, between worlds, ideas, cultures, voices—whatever will become of them? Something's got to give—one voice must be sacrificed for the other. What is double must be made singular.

But this, the apparent didactic moral of Eliza's story, is undercut by the fact of the play itself, which is an orchestra of many voices, simultaneously and perfectly rendered, with no shade of color or tone sacrificed. Higgins's Harley Street high-handedness is the equal of Mrs. Pierce's lower-middle-class gentility, Pickering's kindhearted aristocratic imprecision every bit as convincing as Arthur Doolittle's Nietzschean Cockney-by-way-of-Wales. Shaw had a wonderful ear, able to reproduce almost as many quirks of the English language as Shakespeare's. Shaw was in possession of a gift he wouldn't, or couldn't, give Eliza: he spoke in tongues.

It gives me a strange sensation to turn from Shaw's melancholy Pygmalion story to another, infinitely more hopeful version, written by the new president of the United States of America. Of course, his ear isn't half bad either. In Dreams from My Father, the new president displays an enviable facility for dialogue, and puts it to good use, animating a cast every bit as various as the one James Baldwin—an obvious influence—conjured for his own many-voiced novel Another Country. Obama can do young Jewish male, black old lady from the South Side, white woman from Kansas, Kenyan elders, white Harvard nerds, black Columbia nerds, activist women, churchmen, security guards, bank tellers, and even a British man called Mr. Wilkerson, who on a starry night on safari says credibly British things like: "I believe that's the Milky Way." This new president doesn't just speak for his people. He can speak them. It is a disorienting talent in a president; we're so unused to it. I have to pinch myself to remember who wrote the following well-observed scene, seemingly plucked from a comic novel:

"Man, I'm not going to any more of these bullshit Punahou parties."

"Yeah, that's what you said the last time...."

"I mean it this time.... These girls are A-1, USDA-certified racists. All of 'em. White girls. Asian girls—shoot, these Asians worse than the whites. Think we got a disease or something."

"Maybe they're looking at that big butt of yours. Man, I thought you were in training."

"Get your hands out of my fries. You ain't my bitch, nigger...buy your own damn fries. Now what was I talking about?"

"Just 'cause a girl don't go out with you doesn't make her a racist."

This is the voice of Obama at seventeen, as remembered by Obama. He's still recognizably Obama; he already seeks to unpack and complicate apparently obvious things ("Just 'cause a girl don't go out with you doesn't make her a racist"); he's already gently cynical about the impassioned dogma of other people ("Yeah, that's what you said the last time"). And he has a sense of humor ("Maybe they're looking at that big butt of yours"). Only the voice is different: he has made almost as large a leap as Eliza Doolittle. The conclusions Obama draws from his own Pygmalion experience, however, are subtler than Shaw's. The tale he tells is not the old tragedy of gaining a new, false voice at the expense of a true one. The tale he tells is all about addition. His is the story of a genuinely many-voiced man. If it has a moral it is that each man must be true to his selves, plural.

For Obama, having more than one voice in your ear is not a burden, or not solely a burden—it is also a gift. And the gift is of an interesting kind, not well served by that dull publishing-house title Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance with its suggestion of a simple linear inheritance, of paternal dreams and aspirations passed down to a son, and fulfilled. Dreams from My Father would have been a fine title for John McCain's book Faith of My Fathers, which concerns exactly this kind of linear masculine inheritance, in his case from soldier to soldier. For Obama's book, though, it's wrong, lopsided. He corrects its misperception early on, in the first chapter, while discussing the failure of his parents' relationship, characterized by their only son as the end of a dream. "Even as that spell was broken," he writes, "and the worlds that they thought they'd left behind reclaimed each of them, I occupied the place where their dreams had been."

To occupy a dream, to exist in a dreamed space (conjured by both father and mother), is surely a quite different thing from simply inheriting a dream. It's more interesting. What did Pauline Kael call Cary Grant? " The Man from Dream City." When Bristolian Archibald Leach became suave Cary Grant, the transformation happened in his voice, which he subjected to a strange, indefinable manipulation, resulting in that heavenly sui generis accent, neither west country nor posh, American nor English. It came from nowhere, he came from nowhere. Grant seemed the product of a collective dream, dreamed up by moviegoers in hard times, as it sometimes feels voters have dreamed up Obama in hard times. Both men have a strange reflective quality, typical of the self-created man—we see in them whatever we want to see. " Everyone wants to be Cary Grant," said Cary Grant. " Even I want to be Cary Grant." It's not hard to imagine Obama having that same thought, backstage at Grant Park, hearing his own name chanted by the hopeful multitude. Everyone wants to be Barack Obama. Even I want to be Barack Obama.

2.

But I haven't described Dream City. I'll try to. It is a place of many voices, where the unified singular self is an illusion. Naturally, Obama was born there. So was I. When your personal multiplicity is printed on your face, in an almost too obviously thematic manner, in your DNA, in your hair and in the neither this nor that beige of your skin—well, anyone can see you come from Dream City. In Dream City everything is doubled, everything is various. You have no choice but to cross borders and speak in tongues. That's how you get from your mother to your father, from talking to one set of folks who think you're not black enough to another who figure you insufficiently white. It's the kind of town where the wise man says "I" cautiously, because "I" feels like too straight and singular a phoneme to represent the true multiplicity of his experience. Instead, citizens of Dream City prefer to use the collective pronoun "we."

Throughout his campaign Obama was careful always to say we. He was noticeably wary of "I." By speaking so, he wasn't simply avoiding a singularity he didn't feel, he was also drawing us in with him. He had the audacity to suggest that, even if you can't see it stamped on their faces, most people come from Dream City, too. Most of us have complicated back stories, messy histories, multiple narratives.

It was a high-wire strategy, for Obama, this invocation of our collective human messiness. His enemies latched on to its imprecision, emphasizing the exotic, un-American nature of Dream City, this ill-defined place where you could be from Hawaii and Kenya, Kansas and Indonesia all at the same time, where you could jive talk like a street hustler and orate like a senator. What kind of a crazy place is that? But they underestimated how many people come from Dream City, how many Americans, in their daily lives, conjure contrasting voices and seek a synthesis between disparate things. Turns out, Dream City wasn't so strange to them.

Or did they never actually see it? We now know that Obama spoke of Main Street in Iowa and of sweet potato pie in Northwest Philly, and it could be argued that he succeeded because he so rarely misspoke, carefully tailoring his intonations to suit the sensibility of his listeners. Sometimes he did this within one speech, within one line: "We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states." Awesome God comes to you straight from the pews of a Georgia church; poking around feels more at home at a kitchen table in South Bend, Indiana. The balance was perfect, cunningly counterpoised and never accidental. It's only now that it's over that we see him let his guard down a little, on 60 Minutes, say, dropping in that culturally, casually black construction "Hey, I'm not stupid, man, that's why I'm president," something it's hard to imagine him doing even three weeks earlier. To a certain kind of mind, it must have looked like the mask had slipped for a moment.

Which brings us to the single-voiced Obamanation crowd. They rage on in the blogs and on the radio, waiting obsessively for the mask to slip. They have a great fear of what they see as Obama's doubling ways. "He says one thing but he means another"—this is the essence of the fear campaign. He says he's a capitalist, but he'll spread your wealth. He says he's a Christian, but really he's going to empower the Muslims. And so on and so forth. These are fears that have their roots in an anxiety about voice. Who is he? people kept asking. I mean, who is this guy, really? He says sweet potato pie in Philly and Main Street in Iowa! When he talks to us, he sure sounds like us—but behind our backs he says we're clinging to our religion, to our guns. And when Jesse Jackson heard that Obama had lectured a black church congregation about the epidemic of absent black fathers, he experienced this, too, as a tonal betrayal; Obama was "talking down to black people." In both cases, there was the sense of a double-dealer, of someone who tailors his speech to fit the audience, who is not of the people (because he is able to look at them objectively) but always above them.

The Jackson gaffe, with its Oedipal violence ("I want to cut his nuts out"), is especially poignant because it goes to the heart of a generational conflict in the black community, concerning what we will say in public and what we say in private. For it has been a point of honor, among the civil rights generation, that any criticism or negative analysis of our community, expressed, as they often are by white politicians, without context, without real empathy or understanding, should not be repeated by a black politician when the white community is listening, even if ( especially if) the criticism happens to be true (more than half of all black American children live in single-parent households). Our business is our business. Keep it in the family; don't wash your dirty linen in public; stay unified. (Of course, with his overheard gaffe, Jackson unwittingly broke his own rule.)

Until Obama, black politicians had always adhered to these unwritten rules. In this way, they defended themselves against those two bogeymen of black political life: the Uncle Tom and the House Nigger. The black politician who played up to, or even simply echoed, white fears, desires, and hopes for the black community was in danger of earning these epithets—even Martin Luther King was not free from such suspicions. Then came Obama, and the new world he had supposedly ushered in, the postracial world, in which what mattered most was not blind racial allegiance but factual truth. It was felt that Jesse Jackson was sadly out of step with this new postracial world: even his own son felt moved to publicly repudiate his "ugly rhetoric." But Jackson's anger was not incomprehensible nor his distrust unreasonable. Jackson lived through a bitter struggle, and bitter struggles deform their participants in subtle, complicated ways. The idea that one should speak one's cultural allegiance first and the truth second (and that this is a sign of authenticity) is precisely such a deformation.

Right up to the wire, Obama made many black men and women of Jackson's generation suspicious. How can the man who passes between culturally black and white voices with such flexibility, with such ease, be an honest man? How will the man from Dream City keep it real? Why won't he speak with a clear and unified voice? These were genuine questions for people born in real cities at a time when those cities were implacably divided, when the black movement had to yell with a clear and unified voice, or risk not being heard at all. And then he won. Watching Jesse Jackson in tears in Grant Park, pressed up against the varicolored American public, it seemed like he, at least, had received the answer he needed: only a many-voiced man could have spoken to that many people.

A clear and unified voice. In that context, this business of being biracial, of being half black and half white, is awkward. In his memoir, Obama takes care to ridicule a certain black girl called Joyce—a composite figure from his college days who happens also to be part Italian and part French and part Native American and is inordinately fond of mentioning these facts, and who likes to say:

I'm not black...I'm multiracial.... Why should I have to choose between them?... It's not white people who are making me choose.... No—it's black people who always have to make everything racial. They're the ones making me choose. They're the ones who are telling me I can't be who I am....

He has her voice down pat and so condemns her out of her own mouth. For she's the third bogeyman of black life, the tragic mulatto, who secretly wishes she "passed," always keen to let you know about her white heritage. It's the fear of being mistaken for Joyce that has always ensured that I ignore the box marked "biracial" and tick the box marked "black" on any questionnaire I fill out, and call myself unequivocally a black writer and roll my eyes at anyone who insists that Obama is not the first black president but the first biracial one. But I also know in my heart that it's an equivocation; I know that Obama has a double consciousness, is black and, at the same time, white, as I am, unless we are suggesting that one side of a person's genetics and cultural heritage cancels out or trumps the other.

But to mention the double is to suggest shame at the singular. Joyce insists on her varied heritage because she fears and is ashamed of the singular black. I suppose it's possible that subconsciously I am also a tragic mulatto, torn between pride and shame. In my conscious life, though, I cannot honestly say I feel proud to be white and ashamed to be black or proud to be black and ashamed to be white. I find it impossible to experience either pride or shame over accidents of genetics in which I had no active part. I understand how those words got into the racial discourse, but I can't sign up to them. I'm not proud to be female either. I am not even proud to be human—I only love to be so. As I love to be female and I love to be black, and I love that I had a white father.

It's telling that Joyce is one of the few voices in Dreams from My Father that is truly left out in the cold, outside of the expansive sympathy of Obama's narrative. She is an entirely didactic being, a demon Obama has to raise up, if only for a page, so everyone can watch him slay her. I know the feeling. When I was in college I felt I'd rather run away with the Black Panthers than be associated with the Joyces I occasionally met. It's the Joyces of this world who "talk down to black folks." And so to avoid being Joyce, or being seen to be Joyce, you unify, you speak with one voice.

And the concept of a unified black voice is a potent one. It has filtered down, these past forty years, into the black community at all levels, settling itself in that impossible injunction "keep it real," the original intention of which was unification. We were going to unify the concept of Blackness in order to strengthen it. Instead we confined and restricted it. To me, the instruction "keep it real" is a sort of prison cell, two feet by five. The fact is, it's too narrow. I just can't live comfortably in there. " Keep it real" replaced the blessed and solid genetic fact of Blackness with a flimsy imperative. It made Blackness a quality each individual black person was constantly in danger of losing. And almost anything could trigger the loss of one's Blackness: attending certain universities, an impressive variety of jobs, a fondness for opera, a white girlfriend, an interest in golf. And of course, any change in the voice. There was a popular school of thought that maintained the voice was at the very heart of the thing; fail to keep it real there and you'd never see your Blackness again.

How absurd that all seems now. And not because we live in a postracial world—we don't—but because the reality of race has diversified. Black reality has diversified. It's black people who talk like me, and black people who talk like L'il Wayne. It's black conservatives and black liberals, black sportsmen and black lawyers, black computer technicians and black ballet dancers and black truck drivers and black presidents. We're all black, and we all love to be black, and we all sing from our own hymn sheet. We're all surely black people, but we may be finally approaching a point of human history where you can't talk up or down to us anymore, but only to us. He's talking down to white people —how curious it sounds the other way round! In order to say such a thing one would have to think collectively of white people, as a people of one mind who speak with one voice—a thought experiment in which we have no practice. But it's worth trying. It's only when you play the record backward that you hear the secret message.

3.

For reasons that are obscure to me, those qualities we cherish in our artists we condemn in our politicians. In our artists we look for the many-colored voice, the multiple sensibility. The apogee of this is, of course, Shakespeare: even more than for his wordplay we cherish him for his lack of allegiance. Our Shakespeare sees always both sides of a thing, he is black and white, male and female—he is everyman. The giant lacunae in his biography are merely a convenience; if any new facts of religious or political affiliation were ever to arise we would dismiss them in our hearts anyway. Was he, for example, a man of Rome or not? He has appeared, to generations of readers, not of one religion but of both, in truth, beyond both. Born into the middle of Britain's fierce Catholic–Protestant culture war, how could the bloody absurdity of those years not impress upon him a strong sense of cultural contingency?

It was a war of ideas that began for Will—as it began for Barack—in the dreams of his father. For we know that John Shakespeare, a civic officer in Protestant times, oversaw the repainting of medieval frescoes and the destruction of the rood loft and altar in Stratford's own fine Guild Chapel, but we also know that in the rafters of the Shakespeare home John hid a secret Catholic "Spiritual Testament," a signed profession of allegiance to the old faith. A strange experience, to watch one's own father thus divided, professing one thing in public while practicing another in private. John Shakespeare was a kind of equivocator: it's what you do when you're in a corner, when you can't be a Catholic and a loyal Englishman at the same time. When you can't be both black and white. Sometimes in a country ripped apart by dogma, those who wish to keep their heads—in both senses—must learn to split themselves in two.

And this we still know, here, at a four-hundred-year distance. No one can hope to be president of these United States without professing a committed and straightforward belief in two things: the existence of God and the principle of American exceptionalism. But how many of them equivocated, and who, in their shoes, would not equivocate, too?

Fortunately, Shakespeare was an artist and so had an outlet his father didn't have—the many-voiced theater. Shakespeare's art, the very medium of it, allowed him to do what civic officers and politicians can't seem to: speak simultaneous truths. (Is it not, for example, experientially true that one can both believe and not believe in God?) In his plays he is woman, man, black, white, believer, heretic, Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim. He grew up in an atmosphere of equivocation, but he lived in freedom. And he offers us freedom: to pin him down to a single identity would be an obvious diminishment, both for Shakespeare and for us. Generations of critics have insisted on this irreducible multiplicity, though they have each expressed it different ways, through the glass of their times. Here is Keats's famous attempt, in 1817, to give this quality a name:

At once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

And here is Stephen Greenblatt doing the same, in 2004:

There are many forms of heroism in Shakespeare, but ideological heroism—the fierce, self-immolating embrace of an idea or institution—is not one of them.

For Keats, Shakespeare's many voices are quasi-mystical as suited the Romantic thrust of Keats's age. For Greenblatt, Shakespeare's negative capability is sociopolitical at root. Will had seen too many wild-eyed martyrs, too many executed terrorists, too many wars on the Catholic terror. He had watched men rage absurdly at rood screens and write treatises in praise of tables. He had seen men disemboweled while still alive, their entrails burned before their eyes, and all for the preference of a Latin Mass over a common prayer or vice versa. He understood what fierce, singular certainty creates and what it destroys. In response, he made himself a diffuse, uncertain thing, a mass of contradictory, irresolvable voices that speak truth plurally. Through the glass of 2009, "negative capability" looks like the perfect antidote to "ideological heroism."

From our politicians, though, we still look for ideological heroism, despite everything. We consider pragmatists to be weak. We call men of balance naive fools. In England, we once had an insulting name for such people: trimmers. In the mid-1600s, a trimmer was any politician who attempted to straddle the reviled middle ground between Cavalier and Roundhead, Parliament and the Crown; to call a man a trimmer was to accuse him of being insufficiently committed to an ideology. But in telling us of these times, the nineteenth-century English historian Thomas Macaulay draws our attention to Halifax, great statesman of the Privy Council, set up to mediate between Parliament and Crown as London burned. Halifax proudly called himself a trimmer, assuming it, Macaulay explains, as

a title of honour, and vindicat[ing], with great vivacity, the dignity of the appellation. Everything good, he said, trims between extremes. The temperate zone trims between the climate in which men are roasted and the climate in which they are frozen. The English Church trims between the Anabaptist madness and the Papist lethargy. The English constitution trims between the Turkish despotism and Polish anarchy. Virtue is nothing but a just temper between propensities any one of which, if indulged to excess, becomes vice.

Which all sounds eminently reasonable and Aristotelian. And Macaulay's description of Halifax's character is equally attractive:

His intellect was fertile, subtle, and capacious. His polished, luminous, and animated eloquence...was the delight of the House of Lords.... His political tracts well deserve to be studied for their literary merit.

In fact, Halifax is familiar—he sounds like the man from Dream City. This makes Macaulay's caveat the more striking:

Yet he was less successful in politics than many who enjoyed smaller advantages. Indeed, those intellectual peculiarities which make his writings valuable frequently impeded him in the contests of active life. For he always saw passing events, not in the point of view in which they commonly appear to one who bears a part in them, but in the point of view in which, after the lapse of many years, they appear to the philosophic historian.

To me, this is a doleful conclusion. It is exactly men with such intellectual peculiarities that I have always hoped to see in politics. But maybe Macaulay is correct: maybe the Halifaxes of this world make, in the end, better writers than politicians. A lot rests on how this president turns out—but that's a debate for the future. Here I want instead to hazard a little theory, concerning the evolution of a certain type of voice, typified by Halifax, by Shakespeare, and very possibly the President. For the voice of what Macaulay called "the philosophic historian" is, to my mind, a valuable and particular one, and I think someone should make a proper study of it. It's a voice that develops in a man over time; my little theory sketches four developmental stages.

The first stage in the evolution is contingent and cannot be contrived. In this first stage, the voice, by no fault of its own, finds itself trapped between two poles, two competing belief systems. And so this first stage necessitates the second: the voice learns to be flexible between these two fixed points, even to the point of equivocation. Then the third stage: this native flexibility leads to a sense of being able to "see a thing from both sides." And then the final stage, which I think of as the mark of a certain kind of genius: the voice relinquishes ownership of itself, develops a creative sense of disassociation in which the claims that are particular to it seem no stronger than anyone else's. There it is, my little theory—I'd rather call it a story. It is a story about a wonderful voice, occasionally used by citizens, rarely by men of power. Amidst the din of the 2008 culture wars it proved especially hard to hear.

In this lecture I have been seeking to tentatively suggest that the voice that speaks with such freedom, thus unburdened by dogma and personal bias, thus flooded with empathy, might make a good president. It's only now that I realize that in all this utilitarianism I've left joyfulness out of the account, and thus neglected a key constituency of my own people, the poets! Being many-voiced may be a complicated gift for a president, but in poets it is a pure delight in need of neither defense nor explanation. Plato banished them from his uptight and annoying republic so long ago that they have lost all their anxiety. They are fancy-free.

"I am a Hittite in love with a horse," writes Frank O'Hara.

I don't know what blood's
in me I feel like an African prince I am a girl walking downstairs
in a red pleated dress with heels I am a champion taking a fall
I am a jockey with a sprained ass-hole I am the light mist
in which a face appears
and it is another face of blonde I am a baboon eating a banana
I am a dictator looking at his wife I am a doctor eating a child
and the child's mother smiling I am a Chinaman climbing a mountain
I am a child smelling his father's underwear I am an Indian
sleeping on a scalp
and my pony is stamping in
the birches,
and I've just caught sight of the
Niña, the Pinta and the Santa
Maria.
What land is this, so free?

Frank O'Hara's republic is of the imagination, of course. It is the only land of perfect freedom. Presidents, as a breed, tend to dismiss this land, thinking it has nothing to teach them. If this new president turns out to be different, then writers will count their blessings, but with or without a president on board, writers should always count their blessings. A line of O'Hara's reminds us of this. It's carved on his gravestone. It reads: "Grace to be born and live as variously as possible."

But to live variously cannot simply be a gift, endowed by an accident of birth; it has to be a continual effort, continually renewed. I felt this with force the night of the election. I was at a lovely New York party, full of lovely people, almost all of whom were white, liberal, highly educated, and celebrating with one happy voice as the states turned blue. Just as they called Iowa my phone rang and a strident German voice said: "Zadie! Come to Harlem! It's vild here. I'm in za middle of a crazy Reggae bar—it's so vonderful! Vy not come now!"

I mention he was German only so we don't run away with the idea that flexibility comes only to the beige, or gay, or otherwise marginalized. Flexibility is a choice, always open to all of us. (He was a writer, however. Make of that what you will.)

But wait: all the way uptown? A crazy reggae bar? For a minute I hesitated, because I was at a lovely party having a lovely time. Or was that it? There was something else. In truth I thought: but I'll be ludicrous, in my silly dress, with this silly posh English voice, in a crowded bar of black New Yorkers celebrating. It's amazing how many of our cross-cultural and cross-class encounters are limited not by hate or pride or shame, but by another equally insidious, less-discussed, emotion: embarrassment. A few minutes later, I was in a taxi and heading uptown with my Northern Irish husband and our half-Indian, half-English friend, but that initial hesitation was ominous; the first step on a typical British journey. A hesitation in the face of difference, which leads to caution before difference and ends in fear of it. Before long, the only voice you recognize, the only life you can empathize with, is your own. You will think that a novelist's screwy leap of logic. Well, it's my novelist credo and I believe it. I believe that flexibility of voice leads to a flexibility in all things. My audacious hope in Obama is based, I'm afraid, on precisely such flimsy premises.

It's my audacious hope that a man born and raised between opposing dogmas, between cultures, between voices, could not help but be aware of the extreme contingency of culture. I further audaciously hope that such a man will not mistake the happy accident of his own cultural sensibilities for a set of natural laws, suitable for general application. I even hope that he will find himself in agreement with George Bernard Shaw when he declared, "Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it." But that may be an audacious hope too far. We'll see if Obama's lifelong vocal flexibility will enable him to say proudly with one voice "I love my country" while saying with another voice "It is a country, like other countries." I hope so. He seems just the man to demonstrate that between those two voices there exists no contradiction and no equivocation but rather a proper and decent human harmony.

Snowshoeing

2009-02-17T12:12:00.001-08:00

For the first time in probably 7 years, I had a nice Valentine's Day, and I didn't plan any of it. Awesome! We went snowshoeing up near Mt. St. Helens. Although it started out raining/snowing here in Portland, by the time we reached our final destination, it was beautiful sunshine (see photo above).
En route, we noticed signs directing travelers to "Ape Cave," and wondered why it was named that. Our intent was to snowshoe to Lake Mary (?), but it began to snow hard, the little road leading to the trail was getting slick and treacherous, I didn't have chains, and finally we saw a policeman on the road who told us not to go there. "Go to Ape Cave instead," he said. And so we did. Turned out to be a good decision.
Ape cave is an old lava tube spidering out from Mt. St. Helens. It was named thus after a boyscout troupe that helped discovered it, sorry, that not a very interesting or romantic story. I was personally hoping that there were some sort of ape-shaped rock formation inside of it. But no.

Flashlights were required down there; without them, it's pitch black. Fortunately, some hikers let us borrow theirs. Inside, there were interesting icicles everywhere--sort of rounded and smooth, instead of sharp and jabby. I tried to take photos of them, but this was the best one--which wasn't all that great. All the rest were too blurry.

The scenery and trees were incredibly pretty.
During this little excursion, I discovered that snowshoeing is easy (yay!) and that people in small towns in the NW somehow manage to have funny accents like those who have lived in the deep south all their lives. Who would have thought?
Once we got back to Portland, we went for a drink (prosecco--very nice) at Noble Rot, only to discover that it was the last night in its current location. On the 20th, it will reopen in the former Rocket space on Burnside. I sure hope they remodel the space before Noble Rot moves in. Rocket had an awesome view, but the interior was all gray and ultra-modern, whereas Noble Rot is sort of Euro-bohemian and very cozy. I prefer cozy.
After that, we had a delicious prix-fix dinner at Navarre. It was an excellent Valentine's Day.

Advanced Walking

2009-02-10T12:48:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I haven't updated this in a while. I'm too damn busy with school all the time, but I did manage to go to a movie on Saturday, and saw Portland's very own "Coraline." In 3d no less.
It was awesome. I've never seen a 3d movie before, and while that was immensely fun, it's just a really good movie, whether you see it in 3d or not. Good story, very engaging, beautiful to look at. I loved it. Yes, it's a cartoon, but probably not for small children: it would likely scare them.
What else is new? I'm switching to 3/4 time at work, starting next week, which is a huge relief. I'll have the afternoons off to do my homework, instead of trying to stay awake at night to get it done, and then falling asleep and not getting it done. I'm so glad it worked out!
I'm going snow-shoeing Saturday, which I've never done before, but am excited about, because, basically, it's just an advanced version of walking, and I know how to walk. It's a snow sport I will actually be able to do. I tried skiing once. That was frustrating. I don't think I'm coordinated enough to ski, but I bet I can do this. And it will make me exhausted in a good way, which is so rare these days due to 1) the weather, 2) sitting at work all day, and 3) sitting at school all night. I'm often exhausted, but it's mental exhaustion, not physical, and mental exhaustion really doesn't make a person feel good or accomplished. It's just draining. But this is going to be awesome!
That's all for now. I'm on my lunchbreak, and I need to go study--but all that will change next week.

Happy to Make My Brain Explode

2009-02-02T22:19:00.001-08:00

I had a pretty good day, in spite of the year of the ox supposedly being the year of doom for Rams like me. So here's the rundown:

Ongoing: Listening to the Decemberists. Yes, they've been popular for years, especially here in their hometown, but I only started getting into them a month or so ago. I love their music: each song is a story, and listening to them, especially on foggy mornings (and there have been quite a few lately) makes the drive to work a jump into daydream land of ships, the high seas, English whores, and vaguely menacing fairytales. I love The Decemberists.
One Off: It was sunny and almost warm today--50 degrees. I could almost feel spring.
Opportune Happening: On the way home from work, Joe and I noticed a fussball table left out on the street. It didn't fit in the car, but we were close enough that we could just carry it home. And so we did. Now we're constructing a rumpus room in the basement. It's going to be awesome. Liz and Joe already had a Fussball tournament, and from upstairs, it was quite noisy: THWACK! OHHHH! THWACK! Giggle....
Coming Soon: the work-school conflict is dying down, and even though I haven't switched to my new schedule yet, just knowing that it's coming is calming me down. What a relief.

To the dire year of the Ox predictions for Rams: FTS. I'm determined to have a good year!

Making a Mountain Out of a Molehill

2009-01-22T09:03:00.000-08:00

So the nation's first openly gay mayor, Portland's Sam Adams, is being called to resign because he dated someone 25 years younger and lied about it. Yeah, I understand that if he did the guy when he was still only 17, then it was illegal, but supposedly they waited until the guy turned 18--a matter of months. Either way, who cares, seriously?
No, Adams shouldn't have lied about it, obviously that is the real issue here, and definitely made everything so much worse and harder for himself than if he had just been open about it. But if it was just a personal indiscretion, and Adams didn't misuse his city council position for Breedlove's benefit, then what's the big deal? Yes, his lying about the relationship and nature thereof causes a lack of trust in him, but is Adams' dating history the public's business in the first place? I don't think so. He initially characterized the relationship as a mentor and protege' type situation, then backtracked and admitted that they were dating and slept together. I don't necessarily find the two to be mutually exclusive. Remember all those Platonic dialogues? They were frickin' dirty: Socrates debating with all his young proteges, teaching them, and then doing them in the meantime. Yet Platonic dialogues are in the literary and historical canon. This teaching method (minus the sex) is used in all law schools, and is called the "Socratic Method."

So Adams lied. He was probably embarrassed that he dated someone so ridiculously young. But almost everyone has dated someone that they wished they hadn't. People not in the public eye can just call it a mistake and/or a learning experience. But woe to those in the public eye, they're apparently not allowed to make the same mistakes everyone else has.

Get over it, people. Most likely, it's so NOT a big deal.

New Day

2009-01-20T13:18:00.000-08:00

So we finally, thank god, have a new president, one I'm actually excited about for the first time in my life. I wasn't able to watch the inauguration as I was at work and in the middle of RFP purgatory (still am, as a matter of fact). But it doesn't matter. Anything I say will probably be redundant anyway. So I have to wait until--no, not when I get home from work--I get home from school at 9 p.m. to watch everything. Everything that everyone else has already seen. It's still exciting though.