Cozy, Warm, Happy Things

Changing Course

2011-05-02T13:52:00.000-04:00

I arrived home late last night from New York City, wrestle-cuddled with Boyfriend until about 2am, and fell deeply asleep. I woke up this morning and swept my curtain aside, immediately met with an iridescent array of bright bright green things growing in from all directions. Some deep part of me sighed with relief, finally convinced that the hellish icy wasteland that has encompassed the last season of my life is gone for good. Or at least for another seven months.

The New York trip was a success. Now that I've recalled the somewhat purposeless existence of this blog and its two or three readers who already know the details of my life, I will succinctly summarize the changing course of events. Last year I applied to about seventeen internships, poured hours into the agonizing dreck of cover letters and resume customization, to no avail. I did not get a single internship. This year I applied to one grad school and one internship. I got both, and within 24 hours of each other no less. For the next few days I wandered around in an extremely confused state, unsure of this life path where things actually work out. In fact, when I received my acceptance letter, I had just been in the process of writing some cathartic nonsense about how I felt as though I was doing a rather poor job of guiding myself through adulthood. Sometimes it's nice to be wrong.

So I'm going to NYU. I'm going to get my Master's in writing, editing, publishing, and literary theory. And this summer I'm going to intern at an independent publishing house. And in a month I'm going to move into a rather splendid apartment overlooking the park for a three month sublet. And in August, Boyfriend and I are going to London for a week or two because Boyfriend's thesis was accepted at a number of conferences internationally. And I no longer recognize this to be my life.

So not so succinct, but I imagine that I'll plunge into the details and emotions at a later date. Or perhaps I'll remember my blogging obligations in another five months.

Morning After

2010-11-26T11:03:00.001-05:00

I spent Thanksgiving at Boyfriend's mother's house near Boston with about a dozen Russians, most of whom spoke little to no English. It was perfect. Wonderful really. I made pumpkin and double-chocolate pies, cornbread chestnut stuffing, earl gray spiced cranberry sauce, double-stuffed potatoes and helped out with the ginger yams, bacon-squash brussels sprouts, and greenbean casserole. It was a very Russian take on Thanksgiving, but quite tasty. Boyfriend was mostly preoccupied with his assignment as Turducken overlord (yes, his mom bought a Turducken, a dish unequivocally entitled to capitalization).

To be honest, I drew the most satisfaction from the fact that I could understand so little of the conversation. I would simply smile and lift my glass of Georgian wine as the guests delivered warm toasts to Boyfriend's late grandmother, who was evidently single-handedly responsible for bringing every person at that table to America, and trusted that they were saying nothing but the nicest things to each other (Boyfriend's quick translations verified that this was the case). There was no drama, no storm-outs, no passive aggression or noticeable absences. It was perfectly wonderful to get to cook and eat without all of the emotions that inevitably bubble up when I'm around many of my relations. The only tradition that I felt the need to preserve was the immediate consumption of a piece of double chocolate pie (which historically was my yearly contribution to holiday events with my extended family) the morning after Thanksgiving. And today it is eleven hours after I sank into a deep food coma from which I could only make myself emerge with the restorative powers of chocolate pie, to which my sticky fingers (and subsequently sticky keyboard) can now attest.

Boyfriend's mom is really wonderful. She put me up during the great flea invasion of 2010 and yesterday she referred to her son as "a walking bazaar of diseases" because he has a slight cold and mold allergies, a phrase which I immediately appropriated. She periodically left her Russian guests to entertain each other and joked around with Boyfriend and I in the kitchen while we waited for the Turducken to reach an edible temperature. And today we will probably go see the new Harry Potter movie together, which I'm sure will make us feel like REAL Americans (despite the fact that I've never watched any of the other eleven movies from this series and generally have a fierce aversion to seeing film adaptations of books that I loved as a child). Since we're skipping out on Black Friday, I believe this is now our patriotic obligation.

Lovely things

2010-11-15T23:40:00.000-05:00

Sigh.

Also, I've recently learned that early Russian animation is as surreal as it is precious:

Young Adulthood

2010-11-07T21:11:00.002-05:00

An exchange between myself and my roomie that occurred yesterday:

Me: "You need to teach me how to be a real young adult."
Her: "I think you're really good at being a young adult!"
Me: "Then why do I end up watching so many Viagra commercials?!"

It's a legitimate question, one that seemed to rush out of me with an unexpected force, particularly when I fall unrelentingly short of the picture of young adulthood that seems to prevail in sitcom culture. The facts are that I often watch old episodes of 60 Minutes (hence the Viagra) over my morning mochi, sit in on knitting and pottery classes, and write by myself for hours in cafes or else curl up under a blanket to crochet a new necklace, considering that a day well spent. Yesterday a woman came into work while I was playing my favorite Motown Pandora station and said to me (condescendingly, I thought), "You probably don't know what any of this music is. You're too young." And I replied, rather indignantly, "This is my music! I chose this! This is what I always listen to!" Somehow these clarifications all seemed equally important.

I began this blog initially with the concept of a sort of How To manual for the person who was never given a road map for the transition to adulthood (someone such as myself) and is thus required to navigate those choppy waters on her own. I think the biggest challenge thus far is reconciling my expectations with the reality of post-college life (or post-anything life). Some things about my current state of things exceeded my expectations (my continual state of smittenness with Boyfriend, the aforementioned roomie with whom I share witty banter and many cozy conversations, my newfound clarity in dealing with family dynamics that have challenged me for as long as I can remember, et al) whereas more often then not my expectations are like Lucy's football, continually being snatched away just as I rush up to kick them. I suppose gaining some degree of comfort with this feeling would be a far more elevated approach. I want to be all loosey-goosey about it and meet each failed expectation with a good-natured shrug rather than wrapping myself in a big comforter, shivering, and burrowing myself deeper inside of it, as has been my way of coping for the last couple of months. More than one wise, older person has informed me that now is the time to be in The Void (or other terms of that sort with the same vague meaning). It's a scary sort of existence, all this not-knowing where I will be, who I will be, when I will be, but perhaps it needn't daunt me so very much. I will consider this to be my Void year and do it deliberately.

Speaking of Morning Mochi, is that not the most satisfying spread you've ever seen? I'm told that this particular interpretation of mochi is exceedingly white (in the cultural sense), but without any other point of reference, I'll say that it is also exceedingly legit (in the delicious sense).

I have discovered Marlene Dietrich

2010-10-28T12:50:00.002-04:00

This is who I should have been.

My Writing Place

2010-10-26T11:21:00.003-04:00

I've been sitting in a favorite cafe of mine for the better part of two hours, watching old episodes of West Wing while crocheting a new necklace, waiting for My Table to open up. And it just did. I am so happy. I am, in fact, more than a little self-conscious attempting to describe the sense of satisfaction, nay, ecstasy, of sitting at this table which, for better or for worse, seems to be the only place I can write. Any description could barely do it justice: it is settled away from the main room, nestled in a little nook underneath the stairs (there is something about the diagonal ceiling that smothers this space with coziness). It has a high window that lets in natural light, obscured by a few dusty plants. A supportive beam acts as a kind of visual barrier between me and people passing by, somehow evoking that feeling of being a separate observer that is most conducive to writing.

A slightly gaudy lamp with a fabric-covered shade sits on the table (next to my obligatory teapot and tea cup), which flickers slightly whenever anyone upstairs uses the juicer. It also casts a lovely warm light across my keyboard.

And there is even an unused cabinet behind me where I can set my bag, coat, scarf, and gloves. I could tell that the table's previous occupant was utterly unappreciative of its manifold attributes; he was sitting at entirely the wrong angle, had turned off the lamp and moved it off of the tabletop. Unthinkable. It took me a full minute to set everything back to the way it was.

Also, a black and white portrait of a very somber older gentleman hangs in a slightly crooked gilded frame opposite me and whenever I glance at him I feel like I should be honoring a stricter work ethic. On that note, I'll return to my pages, but just one final thought:

Happy happy happy happy.

I Am Arrived

2010-09-29T09:59:00.003-04:00

Aaand I'm back. It's taken me a while to switch gears from my Boston life but now I am re-returned to the Pioneer Valley. So funny/odd to be here again without the constant pressures of college weighing in. It's taken me a while to find my way back to this blog because I'm still trying to find the balance between sharing what I think will be interesting or appealing to a reader while authentically portraying my own state of life. You'd think that after moving more times than I can count on four hands that one more move, particularly to a place well-known to me, would be fairly easy and straightforward, but I think relocating and starting your life over inevitably brings some wallowing feelings to the surface, which has certainly proved to be true this time around. This transition has been challenging in many ways but also wonderful in others (a drastic improvement on Boston life to be sure). I don't know if I've ever truly settled anywhere, so I tend to find myself in this state of suspension while I wait for a sense of permanence to magically find its way to me (gotta work on that), but circumstantially I have very few complaints and I think I'll just leave it there for now.

So here are the facts and figures: I'm living with three roommates, all of whom I like exceptionally well and none of whom I knew before answering that fateful craigslist ad many months ago. One is a saute chef at a fancy restaurant in town, so we have an incredibly well-stocked and constantly used kitchen. His girlfriend and I have become good friends and frequently curl up at night on the couch to crochet while watching episodes of 30 Rock or Project Runway. I just started working at yet another quaint/hip retail store just a stone's throw from my house - I do seem to cater to a very specific sort of employer and clientele. My next steps will hopefully include health care coverage followed by grad school applications. I suppose I'll first need to acquire the initiative to get started on these projects. Gotta get my gumption on.

Anthropology-Induced Procrastination

2010-08-04T13:56:00.002-04:00

We've been having some issues with our apartment. It's a perfectly cute place, for being in a somewhat sketchy neighborhood, but upon moving in we apparently inherited a bit of a pest problem, namely a colony of fleas that reside in the building. I'm one of those weird people who isn't allergic to things like poison oak or fleas, however my poor roommate is so allergic that she looks as though she has literally been consumed alive. In fact, her legs look like she came down with a bout of smallpox. Watching her wake up and scratch herself every morning has been breaking my heart. While I haven't been in as much physical discomfort as she has, last night I sank into bed only to have a flea jump from the foot of my mattress onto my face. After frantically swiping at it and pulling the covers up over me with a really pathetic moan of resignation, it took me several hours to fall asleep because each time that I felt an itch, I was convinced that it was a flea and scratched at it compulsively (the mind really has an infinite capacity for creating itches).

Suffice it to say that I didn't sleep well. After a bit of yelling and blackmailing, my roommate finally got the management company to send some guys over who will hopefully resolve the situation (endless amounts of laundry, vacuuming, and even spraying toxic pesticides around our rooms hasn't helped), so I took the T to Boyfriend's house to wait it out. I was so tired by the time I got here that I kind of slumped into his couch and mindlessly surfed the Anthropologie website in a stupor, imagining myself in a house adorned in endless varieties of tea towels and tableware accessories. I didn't actually move until he finally threw me over his shoulder and managed to tuck me in bed despite my feeble protestations of, "But - but - I was looking at salt shakers..."

Now, as per Madeline Kahn, I am wefweshed. And ready to furnish my imaginary kitchen with drool-worthy details:

I love love the mugs on the right of the mantle piece, from the scalloped rim to the ornate design to the name: Comedy of Manners Mug. I also happen to think that mantels are made for displaying painfully quaint things and I for one would be eternally happy surrounded by walls of fireplaces. These would also be lovely suspended from hooks beneath a cupboard, one of each color. Or, you know, in the cupboard.

Something that I have always appreciated about Anthropologie is that their products are far more pretty than functional. These measuring cups, for instance, may not be safe in the hands of a really passionate baker as they probably could not withstand the knocks of frequent usage. However, this shortcoming enables people to come up with more creative ways to use them. For instance, wouldn't these be great as dipping bowls or dishes for collecting cherry pits and such? Not to mention they would be beautiful on display. Gosh, one day I hope to have a bunch of narrow shelves for exhibiting pieces like this.

Things I Miss About West County

2010-07-31T08:42:00.006-04:00

Andy's Produce Market

It has the most spectacular selection of seasonal and organic produce, as well as a phenomenal bulk section. The best part was that it was wildly convenient by bike. I used to ride out most Monday mornings on the Joe Rodota trail with my backpack and a notebook, eat brunch at the Willow Wood Cafe in Graton (with the world's best polenta):

then ride back past Andy's, fill up my backpack with really reasonably priced food for the week (waaay better than Whole Foods), and sail back down the Joe Rodota. The ride back is almost all downhill, so it feels a bit like flying. I miss the Russian River, where I would go swim with my sister, her boyfriend, and their wonderful doggies down the road from their house.

And none of these things compare with how much I miss my sister by herself, the rest of my sibs and my nephews.

I really wish that I had my own pictures of these places rather than a randomly compiled assortment from the internet, but as soon as I acquire a new camera, I will make gratuitous use of it.

ALL THAT BEING SAID. There are a multitude of things that I adore about Massachusetts (Western Massachusetts in particular), so a long list will be forthcoming. I think my favorite thing about it so far is falling asleep to Alton Brown or Anthony Bourdain's voice while cuddling with Boyfriend or forcibly using him as a mattress.

Etsy-Inspired Procrastination I

2010-07-06T09:32:00.002-04:00

Rather than writing up the pages of notes scattered around my life and composing them into some sort of coherent form that will eventually take the shape of a novel many years in the making, I have instead decided to clean the crevices of my computer with Windex, toilet paper, and Q-tips. I've literally been scrubbing each key and all of the spaces in between with these tiny cotton swabs, drawing a completely inappropriate and sick satisfaction from the gradual progression of my keyboard from dark to light as I sink deeper into the depths of unhealthy obsession. Even as I write this I keep taking breaks to wipe down dirty spots. Thank goodness my computer screen is about 25% brighter than it was -- I simply couldn't have written on such a grimy instrument and now -- and NOW -- and now I have an awful lot of laundry to do.

I might as well use this opportunity to touch on the various facts of my life as they are at this moment. I live in an old brick building, the stairwell of which smells strongly of cigarette smoke and air freshener from the eccentric older fellow who sits and smokes on the front stoop all day. I live with my old college roommate (who coincidentally introduced me to Boyfriend) and another girl who spends most of her time watching Jerry Springer and the Disney channel in the living room. Sadly we seem to have very little in common with her. I am taking a class at Harvard that enables me to study P.G. Wodehouse and Oscar Wilde, which makes me feel as though I'm getting away with something. Despite the start of this post, I actually have been writing far more since my arrival in Boston than I have probably since I graduated from college. I feel as though the gears of my life have been gradually shifting into place.

My trip from California went smoothly aside from the theft and subsequent recovery of one of my bags, which sadly came back missing all of my jewelry and camera but still containing my various pairs of scuffed and mismatched shoes -- I can't imagine why someone wouldn't have wanted those. I have been dealing with this loss by scouring etsy compulsively and, slowly but surely, trying to find some pendants and pieces that I can turn into necklaces and earrings and such. It's a bittersweet but admittedly enjoyable process.

I've become particularly enamored of re-purposed jewelry, namely things made out of flatware and typewriter keys, odd as it may sound. They have a kind of old world/vintage elegance about them.

And here are some earrings from Molly M Designs, which I think are just exquisite, along with the rest of her work. She was previously an architect who, upon experimenting with a laser cut machine, began to create stunning jewelry like this out of sustainable bamboo and suede. The earrings below are actually my only surviving pair as I was wearing them on the plane on the day I left California. They are so lightweight and make a ridiculous flapping sound on windy days.

The Kitchen Incident: Sous Vide Steak

2010-07-04T22:44:00.000-04:00

I'm determined to be a more steadfast blogger.

So in college I met this guy in the dining commons who looked vaguely like a serial killer. He was quite tall with wild hair, an all black wardrobe, and a slightly abrasive way of expressing himself. Suffice it to say that I would not have envisioned myself sitting on his couch several years later, listening to his workout mantra: "Big man! Big muscles! Big basement!"

In college we had spent so much time creating these cozy little identities for ourselves -- I wanted to date a sweater-wearing, scruffy-faced poetry professor and he wanted to date a pierced, tattooed chick with a blue mohawk and leather pants. At any given moment in time he had to be wearing two or more black articles of clothing, whereas I like to describe my look as Oxford-Hippie/Sexy-Librarian, although I tend to fall short of that and settle for Whimsically-Frumpish on most days. We attempted to part ways after I moved back to California a year ago, but he wooed me back by sending me home-made butternut squash ravioli (my favorite thing in the world) in the mail for Christmas and making other romantic gestures of that sort.

So a year later I am back with Boyfriend, the result of which is that I am also back on the east coast, witnessing the results of his investigations into questionable cooking experiments that he somehow always manages to justify using fancy cooking terms like "emulsify," "recalcitrant" and "sous vide" that I inevitably have to google.

For example: Boyfriend spent most of yesterday morning and the previous day bemoaning his lack of a $450 sous vide machine. He then found a way of replicating its effects by purchasing a $16 beer cooler, which (to my horror) he proceeded to fill with hot water and in which he placed several plastic bags full of steak to cook for a few hours in their own juices. After dinner I made a lemon curd tart with whipped cream, strawberries, and blueberries arranged on top. He watched me (in horror) while I licked the electric mixer spindles clean, flicking drops of whipped cream on the floor in the heat of my passion. Thank goodness that after a good kitchen cleaning I have a man who will whisper sweet nothings into my ear, in this case: "I'd ruin a horse for you."

Odds and Ends

2010-06-04T10:03:00.001-04:00

Packing and packing and packing. At this point it's just odds and ends all over the place, none of which has a clear answer to the question, "Do I really NEED this??" I'm trying to gather them all up in one big pile to sort through. Battlestar Galactica is continuously streaming in the background for some familiar sound. I've stopped buying groceries and am living exlcusively on food from the taqueria, eaten on my floor and hosed down with watermelon juice or horchata. There is no health. There is no time. There are only boxes and op-eds on the oil spill and anxiety fueled (bam chow) and informed by both.

Addendum: So after selling a couple of bookshelves this morning, my sister and I decided to make a tea and cake run to this little bakery in town, only open on Friday and Saturday for high tea, called Patisserie Angelica. It's the most amazing place. Jess always wants to get tiramisu, and I always resist because I feel that it is so often made badly that it's not really worth the risk. But at a place like Patisserie Angelica, you can generally assume that the tiramisu will be amazing. So we got it. It was this perfect fluffy little cake of creamy layers. The top looked like pillow cushions to be slept on in a bed of chocolate powder. We drank tea out of cups and saucers covered in gold-trimmed roses and had barely taken a breath before there was only one bite left. We both looked at each other and, like stoned college students, asked "But where did it all go?" I would have been content to sink back into the cushions, finish my tea, and enjoy my tiramisu-induced euphoria. But Jess was not satisfied. She turned to me and asked: "Would you eat a Chocolate Overdose cookie?" I looked at her and incredulously replied, "Is that even a question?" She got up and came back with something that looked similar to a cookie, but was soft and gooey on the inside like a brownie, but with a lovely crispy crunch. That was what defeated us. Jess is now in my bed, having decided to "Pull the J Train into the Napination Station."

And I go once more into the fray.

Creative Procrastination: Living Room Picnic

2010-05-30T16:11:00.001-04:00

I just returned from the laundromat, where I read and sipped horchata from the taqueria next door while my clothes dried (and discovered a new favorite word: empurpled). I folded my clothes while the strange lady working at the dry-cleaning counter yelled unnecessarily at her coworker over the phone and then started muttering to herself and to me, although my monosyllabic replies and forced chuckles didn't seem to discourage her from elaborating freely on the subject. People who fail to pick up on social cues always give me pause because I can't shake the feeling that the fault is with me for not wanting to be engaged by someone who just happens to be more chatty than the average person you find in a laundromat. I will admit that her cap covered in American flags and the headband she wore over it with two American flags sticking out diagonally like antennae did redeem herself to me.

I honest to goodness did not know that it was a holiday weekend. You don't see many expressions of festivity or patriotism when you live in Northern California. Well, I shouldn't say that exactly - every Friday the main intersection in town hosts two opposing protests; on one corner stands the Women in Black who hold signs honoring the people who have died in the war Iraq, and on the other are a group of people with signs saying things like "Honk if you support our troops" and holler "Thank you!" at a disturbing volume whenever anyone does honk, although you can never be sure who the honk was directed at. I really don't see why the two camps are mutually exclusive. But there are some things about this town that I'm going to miss dearly.

So I walked my bulging bag of laundry back to my house on my bike (which is no small fete considering the very large hill between my house and the laundromat) and now I am once again surrounded by the sea of boxes and half-full duffel bags that is my life at present. In nine days I'm moving to Boston. I recently left my job working at a quaint little kitchen, home and garden store which, despite my lovely coworkers and boss and fantastic merchandise, had made me hungry for more intellectual food in my day to day life. So here is the life that I've set up for myself: I'll be taking a summer class at Harvard, living with my old college roommate, and, best of all, I'll be back with Boyfriend. More on that later. The nice thing about living in chaos is that it justifies eating every meal as though it were a picnic on my living room floor. Today I have bread, salami, cheese, avocado, strawberries, mangoes, and tapioca pudding. I'm attempting to eat the entire contents of my fridge as quickly as possible.

Leave Them Laughing

2010-05-16T22:03:00.005-04:00

To describe myself as painfully shy at the age of sixteen would be a fantastic understatement. I was a student at a local community college, having found high school to be severely lacking in people with whom I could relate. I'm sure my debilitating introversion and tendency to walk around with my nose in a copy of Leaves of Grass didn't help. However my being several years junior to most people in my college classes did not make the prospect of interacting with them any less terrifying. And so I decided that I was just going to have to do the scariest thing I could possibly imagine to shake off my inhibitions: I enrolled in a theatrical improvisation class. I figured that if I could stand up in front of a large group of people and, without any preparation whatsoever, deliver some kind of spontaneous performance, social interactions might become a little less daunting.

The teacher of the class was a red-headed Canadian woman named Carla Zilbersmith who forever pronounced the word 'about' as "a-boot," as in, "Soorry a-boot that," but was in all other respects normal. Well, no, she wasn't. In fact, no one who has ever met Carla would call her normal because she's one of those people who habitually exceeds the realms of possibility and shows the people around her what it means to live a life deeply, meaningfully, and with purpose. She was like a mystical creature who appeared in my life right when I needed her the most. She pulled me in a direction that opened up infinite possibilities and mothered me in a way that I had never experienced.

As I write this, Carla is in a drug-induced sleep as of yesterday afternoon and will probably be passing any minute now. Two-and-a-half years ago, Carla was diagnosed with Lou Gherigs disease, which, if you don't know about it (and you probably don't because who wants to learn about a disease with no cure) is just about the worst fate you can imagine befalling somebody you love. Over the last few years, she lost her ability to walk, eat, or perform any bodily function by herself. Only after falling and injuring herself countless times did she learn that she could no longer carry out the most basic activities, that her muscles were gradually turning dormant and lifeless. She lost her beautiful singing voice and acting abilities, which has always been her calling. She had to lose everything that she thought was herself, like the poem "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye, to allow herself to be cared for by nurses when for her whole life she had been this monument of strength and independence and performer of one-woman shows. I suppose the irony is that she was never spiritually stronger than when she could no longer control her own muscles and was wheel-chair-bound, then bed-bound, then body-bound. Soon she'll be bound by nothing, which is how it should be. This is the blog Carla has been writing in the last few years as she waited for this disease to take her. It is characteristically wise, crude, shocking, hilarious, and terribly beautiful, just like her.

http://www.carlamuses.blogspot.com

And this is a trailer for the film that was made about her process of living and dying over the last two years:

It should be noted that after I took the beginning improv class not once but twice with Carla, I then made it onto the college improv troupe called AWoL (Actors Without Lines), which she of course directed. The first time I ever saw AWoL perform, I thought, "I could never, ever in a hundred million years do that." Really it only took a year a fete which I absolutely attribute to Carla. I was the youngest person on the troupe at the time and by the time I was seventeen I had become the president of the college drama club. I also took every other theater class imaginable with Carla (a total of eleven), not because I'm particularly good at acting or improv (in fact, nothing could be farther from the truth), but because she taught me how to become comfortable in my own skin and how to take care of myself at a time of life when that was a very real necessity. I don't want to think about how my life might have changed had I not met her. She was like the mother and mentor that I'd always wanted and desperately needed. She saw me through some of the most challenging times in my life and allowed me to follow her around on her own professional improv troupe like a slightly stalkerish groupie. I believe my official title was "Lighting Manager." It ought to have been "Professional Carla Worshipper." I was very good at my job and I always will be.

If you want to watch something that may very well be one of the funnier things you've ever seen, here is a link promoting Carla's ALS Calendar, "Always Looking Sexy":
http://vimeo.com/10685641

Authors as track stars

2010-04-08T00:10:00.004-04:00

\I recently finished a book called The Memory Keepers Daughter, to my great relief. It was sort of self-consciously bad, as though the author was trying so hard to create something beautiful that she ended up forcing everything into these repetitive metaphors and symbols that lacked profundity from the get-go. The characters were boring and all alike in their unlikeability and the plot dragged on forever, failing to fulfil its potential for an even moderately interesting resolution. What might have been an interesting short story was a truly tedious novel. Ugh. I had been reading it with a wrinkled nose for the better part of three weeks of lunch breaks, and upon finishing it I immediately felt the need to refresh myself with something that was effortlessly good. This may sound strange, but the first book I thought of was one that I haven't read since possibly before the age of twelve. It was A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L'Engle.

I bought a used copy and read the first sixty pages today only to realize that every sentence sank into me like a long-absent friend. I almost felt like I was communing with myself as a child, reading and re-reading that book with its grammatically immaculate dialogue and compelling characters. The image I've always recalled most from this book is that of a supernatural being explaining to a teenage girl how time, like a long string, can be extended to its fullest length or how two points can be brought closely together with a long section drooping between the two, allowing you to move from one point to the other without traveling the full distance of the string. That's what reading this book feels like, like being transported to an utterly different version of myself. L'Engle writes as though words flow out of her in an elegant order, without self-doubt or over-editing, like she just absentmindedly set her pen to paper and watched with detached bemusement at the sentences that spilled out. I tried to explain this to a friend by comparing authors like L'Engle to track stars who zoom around arenas full of people with authority and poise while the rookie runners (like, ahem, the authors of certain recently published novels) falter clumsily in their wake only to end up eating dust, despite the best of efforts.

Nurturing and Swashbuckling

2010-02-01T14:31:00.001-05:00

This blog is also a means of establishing determination in my life. I want to live thoughtfully, adventurously, and thoroughly. Without getting too personal, I'll disclose that it has been my habit to recede into the safety of a room and reside exclusively within the confines of four walls as well as my own inhibitions. I want this blog to be about the experience of raising and providing for oneself, of taking all of the responsibility to make my life as full of newness, humor, and intrigue as possible. I'd like to make it a kind of cookbook for those people who never received a How-To guide growing up. While butternut squash challah bread pudding, old school writing implements, and imaginary yurt farms may not cut it for everyone, they are all important destinations on my path toward becoming both a nurturer of my self and home, as well as a spontaneous devil-may-care sort of swashbuckler of the world.

Beginning a blog

2010-01-13T10:21:00.000-05:00

So two days ago I went into Cafe Gratitude with my sister to get some coconut cream pie and mocha cheesecake for our sister-in-law, who just gave birth to a doughy and delicious little boy. Normally we would have chosen a place reputed for more decadence and fewer hippy-dippy self-affirmations, but Lelah has had gestational diabetes for the last few months and is still on a restricted diet, so we wanted to get her some manner of permitted indulgence. Now, there is something about Cafe Gratitude that makes me want to shoot my fingers off. Perhaps, as a young twenty-something, I am entrenched in a particularly bitter and jaded time of life wherein I begin to realize the glories of adulthood are somewhat minuscule compared to what I imagined they might be, but in any case I do not want to say that I am goddamn resplendent just to order a salad. When I feel resplendent, I will say something to the effect of, "Mmm, yeah, that's some resplendence," but being coerced into claiming my "divinity" or my inner "effervescence" makes me wish I could counter those statements with an "I am nauseated" or "I am huffy" or, better yet, "I'm going to pluck out your nose hairs one by one if you continue to impose your New Agey tyranny on me."

But I admit that it is a lovely notion, to let your heart be so wide that you can openly love even yourself. Whereas the snarkier among us might view that as something crude, better left to the privacy of one's head or home, perhaps it is preferable to compile a list of things, people, experiences, that evoke a sense of well-being and pleasure. That, in essence, is what I want this blog to be about - my way of appreciating the small pleasures and comfort-enhancing elements of this life I'm living. (I also just wanted to motivate myself to commit my thoughts to writing more often, a habit I seem to have lost after college.)

I will start this off with a list, as I am very fond of lists. In fact, I often find lists stuck to my clothing on crumpled post-its or faded into the palm of my hand. Of course, if you're more Buddhist about your attachments, none of this is remotely necessary because you know that stuff and whimsical what-have-yous will not ultimately or immediately fill your voids. And I respect that, but for where I'm at right now, young and desperately unenlightened, these are all facets of my religion:

1: Homemaking and domesticity; the kinds of comforts that you make and give to yourself

2: Typewriters and old school writing implements

3: Books upon books upon books

4: Kittens of the evil maniacal variety (with a fetish for hiding my earrings beneath large pieces of furniture or attacking creatures many times larger than himself out of a wonderfully inflated sense of grandeur)

5: Yarn and yarn-related activities, including but not exclusive to knitting, crocheting, and jerking around the carpet to taunt said kitten

6: Watching the sun rise most mornings through heavy blankets of fog

7: All things autumnal and alliterated

8: Singing while washing the dishes

9: Bike rides through the West County, among farm fields and apple refineries

10: Sudden and spontaneous urges to put something on paper

11: Baking and producing a regular plenty of baked goods.... speaking of which....

12: Oh, and self-aggrandizing fantasies in which I am very impressive and important and John Stewart wants to interview me