Hey Lou,
How've you been? I haven't seen you around lately. Oh yeah, you're right. It's me that hasn't been returning your calls. Well, you know how life is. Please don't be offended – I've been meaning to write for ages… and it's not just you. I have hardly spoken to anyone other than DH in the past ten weeks. Good thing he's around. Without him, I don't know how I would a) be nourished properly, b) survive this crazy little thing called "we'll give you a scholarship, you just be brilliant and work your ass off in an essentially mental-masturbation environment where your ass-working-off labor has slim chances of eventually getting you a grownup job, much less make any difference in the world. And if you didn't question yourself every step of the way, we'd actually think you're not entirely normal. We're open-minded that way. Run along now, be brilliant!"
So Lou, forgive me if I forgo a comprehensive update of what's been up with me since the end of the summer. I had several such plans at various points in the last two or three months, for example where I realized Septembers are going to SUCK from now on till further announcement – lethal combination of end-of-summer weather, Hebrew holiday season, and my birthday, which is a mere 8 days after my sister's and we always celebrated ours together. So this fall the buildup towards our mostly stressful and sad visit in Israel was sprinkled with probably-anxiety-related middle-of-the-night nausea attacks that nonetheless got my doctor to suggest I should get an MRI. Well (though nauseous panic attacks have almost disappeared), this finally happened today under orders of my new American gastro-doc.
I was not aware of how unpleasant a procedure an MRI is. You are straddled to a narrow hospital bed for an HOUR (that feels like forEVER) and tunneled into the radioactive machine which produces alternate deafening noises of a fire drill, morse code, an old ink printer, and hardcore 80's techno "music" without the "melodic" component. Add to that my life-threatening pseudo-heroic conduct: once released from the contraption I took off out of there in less than two minutes only to nearly faint, stand in line for a cup of tea for which I paid and then pale-facedly left to wander out to the ice-cold air for fear of vomiting at the hospital lobby. The guy came out after me to hand me my tea, actually. If fall term should start and finish in nausea, however, I pick the sub-freezing degrees version.
There were other moments: like when I made a perfect poached egg for my aforementioned not-so-perfect birthday, took pictures of it but never posted them, though I promised my mother-in-law (who is awesome. she calls me on my birthday!) to send her evidence of my egg-technique progress. Then I did not speak to her throughout the ten weeks of term until a few days ago. SERIOUSLY, I was not joking, Lou. DH obviously had some phone calls with her, and I spoke to my mother no less than usual, so I guess in some moral world I'm still ok? In every world containing in-laws, though, I am surely condemned to eternal torment.
Then, after a first week of term, in which I literally wanted to DIE, coursework was making me that miserable, and images of my ambitious, intellectual, working on her death-bed sister met me wherever I turned, I was thrilled at the prospect of writing how I still kinda want to live, um not entirely sure academia is my thing, but yeah, living is still an option, and managed to fit a baked-good or two into my schedule. But then, I didn't write. And then, I had had enough but term wasn't over yet.
AND NOW.
Except for one seminar paper that needs to be produced from scratch (i.e. I still know nothing about my supposed topic "Prostitution in Ancient Athens". eye-roll….) I have lived to see the other side of my first ten-week term of GRAD SCHOOL (crazy little thing et cetera). Conclusions thus far:
1. I am not being "hard on myself" like people tend to think I am (and though it is probably at least somewhat true) when I say that judging by the courses I just finished, I was underqualified for grad work in Latin – though I did not miserably fail so maybe that counts for something. I have probably read more Latin this term than ever in my life before, and I have surely learned a lot (vocab! please stick to my brain this time!) but I feel mentally overwhelmed, like after a language summer course where you could hardly keep up through it and just wait for when it's over so maybe something might sink in and it will eventually seem like you made some progress and are not simply exhausted.
2. Who knew the English language would be such a hurdle? Expressing myself comprehensibly in front of other people among whom a faculty member (let's be honest, we just want all of them to say "No, I don't think you're stupid at all. Actually I think you're quite brilliant, that's why I keep being so thrilled that you're my student. Absolutely THRILLED!". Yes, ideally every single academic-superior that you come across should simply let you know that. But you grad students, you each have at least one prof in particular whose affirmation you pine for, am I right?), so producing coherent sentences in front of a class cum prof - and my writing is constant testimony of my incapability to keep a train of thought, let alone a sentence that has a beginning, some kind of predicate, and end (HA, see what I did here, I'm so self-reflexive… eye-roll. Challenging my reader! eye-roll...) – has proven a task I am not naturally talented for. I was never that good at it in Hebrew, and though my colloquial English is usually absolutely fine, bring up the formality a notch and I am stammering. Give me a sentence in Latin to translate out loud that contains a metaphor, two participles and some nautical technical terms for good measure, and I'm done for.
3. Life is wavering.
This is nothing new. I was never entirely convinced that a life of intellectual curiosity and painstaking writing of something that pretends to contain an actual argument was necessarily the type I would find worth living for, and I'm still not sure about that (HA! now there's at least one qualification I actually have to be a graduate student!!! SELF-DOUBT. Why didn't they tell me it's such an asset? I've got STORES of that and would have smeared it all over my application instead of trying to construct a coherent narrative of my academic career leading to this! particular! amazing! department! Instead, I would have just written: I don't know what I want to do with my life but I've successfully fooled some people into thinking I'm intelligent and perceptive. Now give me a stipend!) But ever since N died, moments of doubt are all encompassing, as in, why live at all? And that too is not new to you if you've been following my bloggingly neurotic accounts of not-so-late. But bottom line is, being a graduate student with health insurance and a scholarship, while living in the same house, city, country as the man I love, is a privilege.
Try to remember that, Lou. And not feel so goddamned guilty for all the people in the world who have no health insurance, income, or a loved-one to make soup for them when they have a very first-world ten-day-long cold. As DH, himself a man that at one point in life seriously contemplated the option of abandoning civilization in favor of chilling out and going native in Northern India, says: you can't give your place up and change it with a third-world woman. You will either die of an exotic disease, or be flown over to the West to get treatment for it. Either way, you lose.
Dec 6, 2010
Aug 1, 2010
Vain attempt not to WHINE about it
So, I could be telling you of the weekend my brother was visiting us in Chicago, or the 3-week long double summer course I took afterwards, in which I was basically reading Latin and Greek prose from 6 am to 11 pm (actually, I think that pretty much sums it up), or the crazy LA weekend DH and I had in the midst of these three weeks - highlights include me arriving at a decision about what dress to wear to the wedding we were invited to (the reason for us going there in the first place), Crabtree and Evelyn mini shampoos carried off from Hilton, and spotting dolphins (!!) or some small whales just off the shore at Malibu - but I won't. I will instead use this platform, as has become customary, to expound on my moral worthlessness. Enjoy.
OK, so I was telling you about this mapping project I got involved in, right? Basically, it's a small group of students trying to offer a perspective about the neighborhood surrounding the University of Chicago, different from the official one propounded by the university, in which everything outside strict and limited boundaries is considered dangerous, and, what a coincidence, is almost universally populated by Blacks. The boundaries between the university community and its facilities and the impoverished surrounding communities are, of course, real, to a large and discouraging extent. By the way, I have just finished reading the amazing memoir of a now-Sociology professor at Columbia University, then a graduate student conducting fieldwork in a community housing project where the chaotic life of the ghettoed tenants is, in effect, run by crack gangs and other semi-official extortive administrators. Well, that was a depressing eye opener. The community it describes is actually geographically farther away from here than the immediate surrounding neighborhoods, and, I think, also more distant as far as their day-to-day reality goes. I was glad to learn more about it, but it did not leave me feeling like there is anything that could be possibly done to end such bitter, devastating poverty and exploitation. In any case, it gave me at least one possible answer to the question that has been interesting me, namely "where do the homeless people actually, well, live?" Now, I'm sure there are many different answers to that question, especially with regards to those who panhandle or sell Streetwise around Hyde Park. But I haven't really gotten around to actually finding out about them, not through my fleeting notion to volunteer at soup kitchens, nor through my involvement with the (very low-key, as far as activism goes) mapping project. There are flickering moments where this group gives me a sense of accomplishment and creativity in the broadest sense of the term, but several lame attempts to actually gain access to the lives of Streetwise vendors – which is what I'm trying to "map" – has left me sad and ashamed.
It started like this: there is one vendor on the street corner near where I do yoga. Before summer-schedule craziness, I used to go to yoga every week, and after a while made it a habit of buying an issue from this vendor. Then, I once complimented him on his new haircut (and felt like such a liberal!), from which point it was clear that we not only recognize and acknowledge one another, but are generally on friendly terms. At the same time, I found out Streetwise organization themselves offer a map of their (official) vendors' locations, including some close up accounts of those who chose the exposure. One of which, it turned out, was "my" Streetwise guy! Then I thought, well, maybe I could start talking him up a bit, learn where he lives, what distance he travels to come and sell these weekly magazines at this particular spot (information that is NOT given on his online profile). I was very nervous at the thought of actually striking up conversation, and one that could easily come across as a nosy interrogation at that. In my fantasy I got him some coffee at the adjacent Starbucks and we genuinely chatted for a while, with me hitting a soft Christian spot telling him I'm from Jerusalem, and him introducing me to all other Streetwise vendors around the neighborhood, officially licensed and otherwise.
OF COURSE that's not how it went. I started mumbling the minute I approached him with my sheepish, "do you have some time off…? [as in, when do you take a 5 minute break, NOT what day of the week are you not here, a distinction which he didn't catch or deliberate misread]… Could I ask you something…?" To make matters worse, my self consciousness about being a snotty white girl was vocalized detrimentally, with the almost first thing blurting itself out of my mouth was a "we're a group from the University of Chicago…" brrrraaaaggggh. Shit. Alienation anybody? Post-racist condescending anyone? Yeah, well. I sensed he felt particularly uncomfortable answering the question "where do you live", and though I tried to present our project as an attempt to incorporate different points of view about Chicago's South Side, I could not shake off the bitterness of the sheer awkwardness of my approach. To make matters worse, I hardly saw him since because my crazy schedule has steered my away from morning yoga lately.
End of Episode A.
Side Kick: Right at the entrance to the bakery across from our apartment stands a panhandling man. According to my Streetwise guy there's a SW vendor there too, whom I don't remember seeing and is not on the official SW map. And of course after I got the information that someone is selling SW there, I kept seeing this panhandling man every time I went to get bread. Now, this bourgeois neighborhood is one in which some homeless people seem to be taken care of quite well. Everybody has a guilt complex, naturally, especially the African Americans who "made it". The SW vendors themselves get more than an occasional dollar from passersby who aren't even interested in an issue (which are sold for $2). The guy in front of the bakery seems to get free food from them, and people habitually help him out before or after their pastry shopping. Now one day, he asked me for some change as I was walking in. My small change wallet was literally empty – because I collect quarters obsessively for laundry and try, no less obsessively, to exchange all the other type of change into quarters – but I remember there were corners of a letter and envelope sticking out of my very ladylike ridiculously huge clutch-purse-wallet. I don't remember the monetary details anymore but leaving the bakery I had two quarters in hand, which I gave the guy with a (arrgggghh, why?) "this is all the change I got, man". I distinctly remember being concerned whether he thought it implausible for a girl with a wallet bulging with papers to not have a swelling pocket of small change and crumpled one-dollar bills, as he was muttering "all the change you got, huh."
Episode B:
I finally came across the SW vendor that was notoriously on the official map but never seen near the Dunkin Donuts when I passed by – which is not as frequent as it used to be because I figured there's a different path to take, in order to evade the homeless guys congregating there on the sidewalk, like, it's uncomfortable, right, I naturally rather not know they exist, or at least not rub it my face, right? – and the one who got my yoga SW guy into the business in the first place. So I spot him half a block away – on a Saturday morning in which I was disappointed not to find my own SW guy at the usual Starbucks corner – and I glance at him and register there's the license badge around his neck, and here's my chance to get in touch with another SW vendor and perhaps be a human being, and another part of my brain just reverts into the usual fear and introversion, and like, what, now I'll have to buy an issue from two guys at the same week?! and I just storm past. And then he gestures with his magazines and calls out, and I stop and turn and get a copy after all. And the Black women who was standing there chatting with him says to me "I thought you were angry". And I try to joke and tell them how random people may tell me "why aren't you smiling?!" (true story. mostly relevant to Israeli cab drivers), and then I walk away and the woman walks with me and says "Don't ever do that again. He was watching you. If you have a dollar, just give him a dollar", and then she went on to tell me about herself a bit but that first sentence was basically the only full one I could in fact comprehend… and I walk into the store I was heading into, in front of which yet another SW lady stands, whom I know is not on the registered map and seems to me the craziest of the bunch, but I'm afraid to stare long enough to see whether she's actually wearing a badge or not, not to mention talking to her and asking about it and whether she's related to the man that used to stand there for months before, and I move around the produce shop dazed and confused and cannot remember a single thing I intended to buy, wondering if I should come back and apologize to him and try to collect my shattered bits of so-called wanting to make a difference self from the sidewalk.
OK, so I was telling you about this mapping project I got involved in, right? Basically, it's a small group of students trying to offer a perspective about the neighborhood surrounding the University of Chicago, different from the official one propounded by the university, in which everything outside strict and limited boundaries is considered dangerous, and, what a coincidence, is almost universally populated by Blacks. The boundaries between the university community and its facilities and the impoverished surrounding communities are, of course, real, to a large and discouraging extent. By the way, I have just finished reading the amazing memoir of a now-Sociology professor at Columbia University, then a graduate student conducting fieldwork in a community housing project where the chaotic life of the ghettoed tenants is, in effect, run by crack gangs and other semi-official extortive administrators. Well, that was a depressing eye opener. The community it describes is actually geographically farther away from here than the immediate surrounding neighborhoods, and, I think, also more distant as far as their day-to-day reality goes. I was glad to learn more about it, but it did not leave me feeling like there is anything that could be possibly done to end such bitter, devastating poverty and exploitation. In any case, it gave me at least one possible answer to the question that has been interesting me, namely "where do the homeless people actually, well, live?" Now, I'm sure there are many different answers to that question, especially with regards to those who panhandle or sell Streetwise around Hyde Park. But I haven't really gotten around to actually finding out about them, not through my fleeting notion to volunteer at soup kitchens, nor through my involvement with the (very low-key, as far as activism goes) mapping project. There are flickering moments where this group gives me a sense of accomplishment and creativity in the broadest sense of the term, but several lame attempts to actually gain access to the lives of Streetwise vendors – which is what I'm trying to "map" – has left me sad and ashamed.
It started like this: there is one vendor on the street corner near where I do yoga. Before summer-schedule craziness, I used to go to yoga every week, and after a while made it a habit of buying an issue from this vendor. Then, I once complimented him on his new haircut (and felt like such a liberal!), from which point it was clear that we not only recognize and acknowledge one another, but are generally on friendly terms. At the same time, I found out Streetwise organization themselves offer a map of their (official) vendors' locations, including some close up accounts of those who chose the exposure. One of which, it turned out, was "my" Streetwise guy! Then I thought, well, maybe I could start talking him up a bit, learn where he lives, what distance he travels to come and sell these weekly magazines at this particular spot (information that is NOT given on his online profile). I was very nervous at the thought of actually striking up conversation, and one that could easily come across as a nosy interrogation at that. In my fantasy I got him some coffee at the adjacent Starbucks and we genuinely chatted for a while, with me hitting a soft Christian spot telling him I'm from Jerusalem, and him introducing me to all other Streetwise vendors around the neighborhood, officially licensed and otherwise.
OF COURSE that's not how it went. I started mumbling the minute I approached him with my sheepish, "do you have some time off…? [as in, when do you take a 5 minute break, NOT what day of the week are you not here, a distinction which he didn't catch or deliberate misread]… Could I ask you something…?" To make matters worse, my self consciousness about being a snotty white girl was vocalized detrimentally, with the almost first thing blurting itself out of my mouth was a "we're a group from the University of Chicago…" brrrraaaaggggh. Shit. Alienation anybody? Post-racist condescending anyone? Yeah, well. I sensed he felt particularly uncomfortable answering the question "where do you live", and though I tried to present our project as an attempt to incorporate different points of view about Chicago's South Side, I could not shake off the bitterness of the sheer awkwardness of my approach. To make matters worse, I hardly saw him since because my crazy schedule has steered my away from morning yoga lately.
End of Episode A.
Side Kick: Right at the entrance to the bakery across from our apartment stands a panhandling man. According to my Streetwise guy there's a SW vendor there too, whom I don't remember seeing and is not on the official SW map. And of course after I got the information that someone is selling SW there, I kept seeing this panhandling man every time I went to get bread. Now, this bourgeois neighborhood is one in which some homeless people seem to be taken care of quite well. Everybody has a guilt complex, naturally, especially the African Americans who "made it". The SW vendors themselves get more than an occasional dollar from passersby who aren't even interested in an issue (which are sold for $2). The guy in front of the bakery seems to get free food from them, and people habitually help him out before or after their pastry shopping. Now one day, he asked me for some change as I was walking in. My small change wallet was literally empty – because I collect quarters obsessively for laundry and try, no less obsessively, to exchange all the other type of change into quarters – but I remember there were corners of a letter and envelope sticking out of my very ladylike ridiculously huge clutch-purse-wallet. I don't remember the monetary details anymore but leaving the bakery I had two quarters in hand, which I gave the guy with a (arrgggghh, why?) "this is all the change I got, man". I distinctly remember being concerned whether he thought it implausible for a girl with a wallet bulging with papers to not have a swelling pocket of small change and crumpled one-dollar bills, as he was muttering "all the change you got, huh."
Episode B:
I finally came across the SW vendor that was notoriously on the official map but never seen near the Dunkin Donuts when I passed by – which is not as frequent as it used to be because I figured there's a different path to take, in order to evade the homeless guys congregating there on the sidewalk, like, it's uncomfortable, right, I naturally rather not know they exist, or at least not rub it my face, right? – and the one who got my yoga SW guy into the business in the first place. So I spot him half a block away – on a Saturday morning in which I was disappointed not to find my own SW guy at the usual Starbucks corner – and I glance at him and register there's the license badge around his neck, and here's my chance to get in touch with another SW vendor and perhaps be a human being, and another part of my brain just reverts into the usual fear and introversion, and like, what, now I'll have to buy an issue from two guys at the same week?! and I just storm past. And then he gestures with his magazines and calls out, and I stop and turn and get a copy after all. And the Black women who was standing there chatting with him says to me "I thought you were angry". And I try to joke and tell them how random people may tell me "why aren't you smiling?!" (true story. mostly relevant to Israeli cab drivers), and then I walk away and the woman walks with me and says "Don't ever do that again. He was watching you. If you have a dollar, just give him a dollar", and then she went on to tell me about herself a bit but that first sentence was basically the only full one I could in fact comprehend… and I walk into the store I was heading into, in front of which yet another SW lady stands, whom I know is not on the registered map and seems to me the craziest of the bunch, but I'm afraid to stare long enough to see whether she's actually wearing a badge or not, not to mention talking to her and asking about it and whether she's related to the man that used to stand there for months before, and I move around the produce shop dazed and confused and cannot remember a single thing I intended to buy, wondering if I should come back and apologize to him and try to collect my shattered bits of so-called wanting to make a difference self from the sidewalk.
Jun 28, 2010
First year down.
Friday was our first anniversary. DH and I have been married for one year, together for more than five (oh my! when I met him I was still legitimately 22 years old!!!), and living in the same house for most of the last four.
But oh, - you know what, let's just, for the sake of gravity, put a period there - oh. What a year this last one has been.
Like almost every year when you look back on it, it seems like "whoa, time flew!". But there is something contradictory about this feeling, because it has been a year so loaded with experiences of the sort that in order to be absorbed need time – if at all anything can help you comprehend the incomprehensible, digest the cold lumps of earth that life sometimes puts on your plate. But from wedding to funeral in seven and a half months, to mention just the very tip of the top-of-the-list mega-events of one's life – forget about moving to a different country where it rains in the summer and my family is in a different time zone so my 86 year old grandmother (!) calls on the eve of our anniversary (!!!) to say mazal tov and that she's been thinking of us and I want to stop everything and cry but mainly just stop everything for a little, just have time move more slowly so I can take a look at life and be perplexed (which is probably what this blog is for). Yeah, forget that – this year has been moving in an almost out of hand haste. Not that farewells from your 32 year old sister can ever be other than untimely, and I mean something you simply never have enough time for. N parted the world calmly, after quite literally making it to all her deadlines, while we were all out of breath. Stay. Just a little bit longer.
One of the directors at DirectorsLab, during her closing remarks, told us how just hours after her father died, she realized life was really in the relations between people, and while this sounds somehow lame now that I'm reproducing this here, it was very moving how she said it, and I think she was touching precisely on this, on how you use your time on earth to connect to another human being. That that is what makes your time alive worthwhile. And as she talked I was getting teary because I thought I'm not sure there was so much life between N and me in that sense and how it's all over now and a piece of life, a piece of my life I could have had, is gone.
Wait, but this was supposed to be an anniversary-celebrating post.
OK. So the person I live with in all senses of the term and possibly spend too much time with, is DH. And you know what else happened this week? Facebook asked me to please confirm my relationship with him and then I get reminders of our anniversary with little red hearts next to them. So, honoring his finally joining me at and sharing our marital status in the Kingdom of Procrastination, here are some other incredible facts I have learned during this year of our "relationship":
That we can communicate using solely our eyebrows and occasional monosyllables.
That he knows what I'm thinking the minute I open the refrigerator without even seeing my face.
That he still loves me despite my obsessiveness about food and the fact that I don't and will never even taste the amazing (so I'm told) roast-beef AND chocolate truffles he makes.
That he will cook for me when I am sick or tired or too busy to obsess about food (this last one does not happen often. But still, good to know).
That really and truly, the one thing he wants most in the world is for me to laugh one of my crazy laughs. Or at least smile.
That I can have a genuine crush on somebody else and know it might mean something but nothing inherently about US, and that I can tell him about it and he will be the coolest, most graciously adorable man on earth.
[While on the subject of crushes/flirts: Over our sushi-anniversary dinner, he asks me if I would date the DJ who played at our wedding and also owns one of the nicer hummus places in Jerusalem. Answer: Hell yeah! But would you bring him home to meet your parents? Answer: hmmmmm……]
That we can have such conversations.
And… I think this last one will also count as a relationship-related thing:
I learned to use a pastry blender to create flaky doughs such as this (not to mention an amazing cherry-pitting technique I learned from the cherry-vendor)
I have almost learned to trust DH enough to do the dishes just fine. But that leaves us something to aspire to for next year.
But oh, - you know what, let's just, for the sake of gravity, put a period there - oh. What a year this last one has been.
Like almost every year when you look back on it, it seems like "whoa, time flew!". But there is something contradictory about this feeling, because it has been a year so loaded with experiences of the sort that in order to be absorbed need time – if at all anything can help you comprehend the incomprehensible, digest the cold lumps of earth that life sometimes puts on your plate. But from wedding to funeral in seven and a half months, to mention just the very tip of the top-of-the-list mega-events of one's life – forget about moving to a different country where it rains in the summer and my family is in a different time zone so my 86 year old grandmother (!) calls on the eve of our anniversary (!!!) to say mazal tov and that she's been thinking of us and I want to stop everything and cry but mainly just stop everything for a little, just have time move more slowly so I can take a look at life and be perplexed (which is probably what this blog is for). Yeah, forget that – this year has been moving in an almost out of hand haste. Not that farewells from your 32 year old sister can ever be other than untimely, and I mean something you simply never have enough time for. N parted the world calmly, after quite literally making it to all her deadlines, while we were all out of breath. Stay. Just a little bit longer.
One of the directors at DirectorsLab, during her closing remarks, told us how just hours after her father died, she realized life was really in the relations between people, and while this sounds somehow lame now that I'm reproducing this here, it was very moving how she said it, and I think she was touching precisely on this, on how you use your time on earth to connect to another human being. That that is what makes your time alive worthwhile. And as she talked I was getting teary because I thought I'm not sure there was so much life between N and me in that sense and how it's all over now and a piece of life, a piece of my life I could have had, is gone.
Wait, but this was supposed to be an anniversary-celebrating post.
OK. So the person I live with in all senses of the term and possibly spend too much time with, is DH. And you know what else happened this week? Facebook asked me to please confirm my relationship with him and then I get reminders of our anniversary with little red hearts next to them. So, honoring his finally joining me at and sharing our marital status in the Kingdom of Procrastination, here are some other incredible facts I have learned during this year of our "relationship":
That we can communicate using solely our eyebrows and occasional monosyllables.
That he knows what I'm thinking the minute I open the refrigerator without even seeing my face.
That he still loves me despite my obsessiveness about food and the fact that I don't and will never even taste the amazing (so I'm told) roast-beef AND chocolate truffles he makes.
That he will cook for me when I am sick or tired or too busy to obsess about food (this last one does not happen often. But still, good to know).
That really and truly, the one thing he wants most in the world is for me to laugh one of my crazy laughs. Or at least smile.
That I can have a genuine crush on somebody else and know it might mean something but nothing inherently about US, and that I can tell him about it and he will be the coolest, most graciously adorable man on earth.
[While on the subject of crushes/flirts: Over our sushi-anniversary dinner, he asks me if I would date the DJ who played at our wedding and also owns one of the nicer hummus places in Jerusalem. Answer: Hell yeah! But would you bring him home to meet your parents? Answer: hmmmmm……]
That we can have such conversations.
And… I think this last one will also count as a relationship-related thing:
I learned to use a pastry blender to create flaky doughs such as this (not to mention an amazing cherry-pitting technique I learned from the cherry-vendor)
I have almost learned to trust DH enough to do the dishes just fine. But that leaves us something to aspire to for next year.
Jun 23, 2010
Directors Camp-Workshop-Think Tank-Laboratory Internship
Post-Diluvium indeed. I didn't even remember that's how I ended my last post, but it is so uncannily appropriate to the apocalyptic weather we're having here. Not only were there hail and turnado-ish (or is hurricanean?) winds, but some kind of firefighters alarm is still constantly sounded, and the skies are a dark shade of yellow.
The Guggenheim and Central Park and people-watching in East Village and a lovely, peaceful Brooklyn weekend with our favorite 1-year old daughter of the best friends we don't see enough - all have practically been washed away from the short-term memory in which they should technically still reside.
The week-long flood of a workshop that came straight after them has been a conflictual experience for me. Partly, inherently, because I am not too good with groups. They make me feel extremely self-conscious, whenever I am required to say something I feel on the spot and am at a loss for words, my command of the English language falters and my sense of foreignness is heightened, and whenever I want to say something most of the same happens and I end up expressing poorly articulated half-thoughts (if not forgoing the bold act of speaking out altogether, which happened more often that not). Groups do not bring out my full potential, let me say that. In this case in particular, perhaps, because I felt like an outsider not only as an Israeli in disguise (bless my American accent… it makes me seem more fluent than I am… wait, is that a good thing?), but mostly as a more-of-an-academia-person and less of a theatre-artist, see, I'm only the intern. Now that kinda sucks, when a) you're in a room full of theatre directors that are there to share their thoughts about their art and craft, b) you (i.e. I) got it in your head that what you want to be when you grow up is a theatre director but for now I'll just keep busting my ass off at the Classics department and keep kicking myself and thinking I'm a total wuss and sell-out for not leaving everything and just doing all I can 24/7 to make a theatre artist out of myself, but hey I kinda also want to be a classics scholar and I also think I might be pretty good at it… and after a week of talking and talking about theatre I end up thinking maybe that's not what I want to do with my life because there are so many of us (them?) and everybody's trying to find their voice and struggling for an audience and funding and fulfillment and what is there still to be said, really? Does the world need - not "art" in general, yes the theatre is about humanity etc etc, the question is not even worth asking anymore - but SO MUCH ART? And I leave a friend's house, slightly drunk at 1 am Friday night, couldn't believe I'm still up after a week of 12-14 hour-long days of workshops and rehearsal-observing and talking talking and packing lunch and snacks and more snacks for the road - and virtually on the landing outside his door I say "I'm not sure anymore if that's what I want to do" and he asks "what, theatre or academia?" and I just go "AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" because I don't even know the answer to that.
And I guess the shutting myself up or blocking myself out of some of the experiences I could have had in this LAB if! only! I was more! convicted!!, was exactly a reaction to the need to answer the question, right here right now, though I'm still on the landing, in the in-between, and feeling it's an either-or situation, and what I kept telling others (and myself) is "I'm worried I won't have a chance to do any extra-curricular stuff (i.e. theatre) once school starts" and that's probably true, but still this frame of mind is detrimental to creativity and puts grad school in the box of "boring commitment that will suck the life out of me" instead of an exciting and stimulating path to look forward to giddily.
So the lab is over, and the need to wrestle groupiness and group-talks and group-dinners and group-hugs and the most aggressive air conditioner I have ever encountered and I'm so tired it hurts to sit AND I've got my fucking period, I would really rather be in a place where I can shower four times a day - all this is thankfully behind me. And now, at least, some of this lab can finally sink into place. And besides meeting some truly incredible people, a bunch of which are from Chicago - and if the "only" thing I "get out" of this lab is a group of people with which to see theatre together every once in a while, that in itself is huge because it's at least putting me in some kind of a community instead of a self-deprecating vacuum - besides that I can once again see where creativity has a place in my life, my actual life right now, not the one I will maybe have after I get more experienced. And while this creativity is not necessarily in the "theatre", as long as it has a place to grow, and a framework in which to communicate with others, I have the right to feel I am fulfilling myself.
P.S.
Also helpful in getting a smiling outlook on life: going out to drinks in Pilsen with my favorite two Daniels in the world (one old, one new! so fun to have new friends at the ripe age of almost 28!) and my very own best-looking DH with his newly purchased hat from a shop in the Village that was so cool everybody there looked hipstery-gay. Except me.
The Guggenheim and Central Park and people-watching in East Village and a lovely, peaceful Brooklyn weekend with our favorite 1-year old daughter of the best friends we don't see enough - all have practically been washed away from the short-term memory in which they should technically still reside.
The week-long flood of a workshop that came straight after them has been a conflictual experience for me. Partly, inherently, because I am not too good with groups. They make me feel extremely self-conscious, whenever I am required to say something I feel on the spot and am at a loss for words, my command of the English language falters and my sense of foreignness is heightened, and whenever I want to say something most of the same happens and I end up expressing poorly articulated half-thoughts (if not forgoing the bold act of speaking out altogether, which happened more often that not). Groups do not bring out my full potential, let me say that. In this case in particular, perhaps, because I felt like an outsider not only as an Israeli in disguise (bless my American accent… it makes me seem more fluent than I am… wait, is that a good thing?), but mostly as a more-of-an-academia-person and less of a theatre-artist, see, I'm only the intern. Now that kinda sucks, when a) you're in a room full of theatre directors that are there to share their thoughts about their art and craft, b) you (i.e. I) got it in your head that what you want to be when you grow up is a theatre director but for now I'll just keep busting my ass off at the Classics department and keep kicking myself and thinking I'm a total wuss and sell-out for not leaving everything and just doing all I can 24/7 to make a theatre artist out of myself, but hey I kinda also want to be a classics scholar and I also think I might be pretty good at it… and after a week of talking and talking about theatre I end up thinking maybe that's not what I want to do with my life because there are so many of us (them?) and everybody's trying to find their voice and struggling for an audience and funding and fulfillment and what is there still to be said, really? Does the world need - not "art" in general, yes the theatre is about humanity etc etc, the question is not even worth asking anymore - but SO MUCH ART? And I leave a friend's house, slightly drunk at 1 am Friday night, couldn't believe I'm still up after a week of 12-14 hour-long days of workshops and rehearsal-observing and talking talking and packing lunch and snacks and more snacks for the road - and virtually on the landing outside his door I say "I'm not sure anymore if that's what I want to do" and he asks "what, theatre or academia?" and I just go "AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" because I don't even know the answer to that.
And I guess the shutting myself up or blocking myself out of some of the experiences I could have had in this LAB if! only! I was more! convicted!!, was exactly a reaction to the need to answer the question, right here right now, though I'm still on the landing, in the in-between, and feeling it's an either-or situation, and what I kept telling others (and myself) is "I'm worried I won't have a chance to do any extra-curricular stuff (i.e. theatre) once school starts" and that's probably true, but still this frame of mind is detrimental to creativity and puts grad school in the box of "boring commitment that will suck the life out of me" instead of an exciting and stimulating path to look forward to giddily.
So the lab is over, and the need to wrestle groupiness and group-talks and group-dinners and group-hugs and the most aggressive air conditioner I have ever encountered and I'm so tired it hurts to sit AND I've got my fucking period, I would really rather be in a place where I can shower four times a day - all this is thankfully behind me. And now, at least, some of this lab can finally sink into place. And besides meeting some truly incredible people, a bunch of which are from Chicago - and if the "only" thing I "get out" of this lab is a group of people with which to see theatre together every once in a while, that in itself is huge because it's at least putting me in some kind of a community instead of a self-deprecating vacuum - besides that I can once again see where creativity has a place in my life, my actual life right now, not the one I will maybe have after I get more experienced. And while this creativity is not necessarily in the "theatre", as long as it has a place to grow, and a framework in which to communicate with others, I have the right to feel I am fulfilling myself.
P.S.
Also helpful in getting a smiling outlook on life: going out to drinks in Pilsen with my favorite two Daniels in the world (one old, one new! so fun to have new friends at the ripe age of almost 28!) and my very own best-looking DH with his newly purchased hat from a shop in the Village that was so cool everybody there looked hipstery-gay. Except me.
Jun 9, 2010
Deluge
My father has recently dubbed this a "Post-Zionist Blog". Really now, why not just go full-fledged Post-Zionist Daughter? Hey, dad, couldn't you have just called it a post-Zionist post? There was just one of them so far… And this is my cue to lay politics aside (I mean, come on, it's not like I have a readership to address and educate. Good thing no-one reads this other than a) people who agree with me, b) my dad… Hey, there's one of those emoticon smileys here, ok?) and go back to concentrating on me me me (and some bake bake bake).
Well then, in my escapist bubble of a life there is rather a degree of hustle and bustle that has not been experienced for several months. First of all, DirectorsLab starts in less than a week! Exciting!!! I hope and pray that there will be interesting and engaging activities for us mere interns to be engaged in. For use in their first-day introductory exercises, they asked us to send "an unusual fact" about ourselves. Now, candidate pieces of information popped into my head in this order: I have never learned to ride a bicycle (more and more people are learning this not un-embarrassing fact bout me in the last few weeks…); my sister died four months ago; and, after relatively a lot more thought, I do not like chocolate also came to mind. I went with no. 1, though both 2 and 3 have a very shocking affect - of dissimilar kind - to them. No. 2 could have been a bit of a bummer in a casual get-to-know-each other game, don't you think?
I have been reading mostly theater related stuff all week. On the one hand, the Lab people sent us a bunch of references to theatre practitioners from Peter Brook to other more obscure (to my ignorant self) directors such as Dario Fo and Vsevolod Meyerhold. On the side project side, quite a bunch of very contemporary plays that are considered for production in the next season have come my way. It seems like I'm slowly but surely being seriously deemed part of the brain-storming and decision-making team of this young and lively theater (as I write this I got an email from the artistic director opening with "GREAT script meeting yesterday! I'm excited!!!"). He, like everybody else on board, is volunteering to make this theater happen, simultaneously coping with a dreary day-job…
Immersed in all these theater thoughts, the conflict between what I officially do (as of next September at the latest) in the academia and the amount of time and energy it will demand, and what I really want to do - uh, yeah, that would be theatre - is becoming more and more pronounced. The frustration is appeased only slightly by a vague intuition and hope that there will come a time in the future when I might be able to actually do both theatre and classical scholarship, and that what I have achieved in the last few months in terms of connections and observations will not go to waste until and/or unless I officially study theater and have real opportunities to direct (when will I get one of those? pleeeease?…. is it just a matter of me being ballsy enough to seize them?!? Because that interpretation may put me straight on the good old downhill of self-berating dispiritedness.) Anyway, I'm getting ready for an intensive week of theatre, on the other side of which await Greek-reading summer courses… Or maybe some mysterious unexpected personal growth/directorial development?!? Tum tum Taaahahahaaa.
But right before the Lab, adding to the buzz and excitement of this coming week and a half, and to the feeling of blind anticipation of what to expect afterward - DH and I are going to NYC for the weekend! In a word: yay!!!
See you post-diluvium.
Well then, in my escapist bubble of a life there is rather a degree of hustle and bustle that has not been experienced for several months. First of all, DirectorsLab starts in less than a week! Exciting!!! I hope and pray that there will be interesting and engaging activities for us mere interns to be engaged in. For use in their first-day introductory exercises, they asked us to send "an unusual fact" about ourselves. Now, candidate pieces of information popped into my head in this order: I have never learned to ride a bicycle (more and more people are learning this not un-embarrassing fact bout me in the last few weeks…); my sister died four months ago; and, after relatively a lot more thought, I do not like chocolate also came to mind. I went with no. 1, though both 2 and 3 have a very shocking affect - of dissimilar kind - to them. No. 2 could have been a bit of a bummer in a casual get-to-know-each other game, don't you think?
I have been reading mostly theater related stuff all week. On the one hand, the Lab people sent us a bunch of references to theatre practitioners from Peter Brook to other more obscure (to my ignorant self) directors such as Dario Fo and Vsevolod Meyerhold. On the side project side, quite a bunch of very contemporary plays that are considered for production in the next season have come my way. It seems like I'm slowly but surely being seriously deemed part of the brain-storming and decision-making team of this young and lively theater (as I write this I got an email from the artistic director opening with "GREAT script meeting yesterday! I'm excited!!!"). He, like everybody else on board, is volunteering to make this theater happen, simultaneously coping with a dreary day-job…
Immersed in all these theater thoughts, the conflict between what I officially do (as of next September at the latest) in the academia and the amount of time and energy it will demand, and what I really want to do - uh, yeah, that would be theatre - is becoming more and more pronounced. The frustration is appeased only slightly by a vague intuition and hope that there will come a time in the future when I might be able to actually do both theatre and classical scholarship, and that what I have achieved in the last few months in terms of connections and observations will not go to waste until and/or unless I officially study theater and have real opportunities to direct (when will I get one of those? pleeeease?…. is it just a matter of me being ballsy enough to seize them?!? Because that interpretation may put me straight on the good old downhill of self-berating dispiritedness.) Anyway, I'm getting ready for an intensive week of theatre, on the other side of which await Greek-reading summer courses… Or maybe some mysterious unexpected personal growth/directorial development?!? Tum tum Taaahahahaaa.
But right before the Lab, adding to the buzz and excitement of this coming week and a half, and to the feeling of blind anticipation of what to expect afterward - DH and I are going to NYC for the weekend! In a word: yay!!!
See you post-diluvium.
May 31, 2010
Here Escapism Day is Every Day!
Where I come from – a country, it is now clearer than ever, where rules not only a pseudo-heroic cult of death (or is the death-cult, actually, a genuine aspect of the heroic?), but also a bullying government of cruel idiots, with an inexplicable bloodlust for casualties on as many sides as possible – Memorial Day is a chauvinistic festival of violent self-justification. While this national day of grief is perhaps the last resort of pseudo-concensus, second only to the "Holocaust Day" that is observed a mere week before (and no less tinged with chauvinism and self-righteousness), our Memorial Day is hard to avoid, no matter how much of a Tel Avivian escapist or post-Zionist activist you are. Whichever stance you choose against the deafening Other-phobia that infiltrates every square foot of this tiny land (and its exterritorial waters), reality is in your face. You know the casualties. You are the casualties.
In the traditional Hebrew "they are out to get us! but we will outsmart them all… MUhahahaHAA!!!" outlook, DH and I are a symptom of what is institutionally called in Israel, allow me to slightly embellish here, "Fugitive Minds". The Jewish womb is failing the Jewish state! It has produced brilliant minds that go live in peace in Hyde Park where they can rightfully disregard the homeless three blocks down and the US killing in Afghanistan because it's not OURS, and perhaps make a living off being an intellectual and have their kids grow up and actually NOT GET KILLED at the age of 19 warding off enraged civilians. You see, Memorial Day here in the US is distant. It it impersonal. From the sheer enormity of this land, war and those who do it are at the outskirts of, if not completely eliminated from, your field of view. Yes, there are (I guess?) some official ceremonies, which are probably meaningful for the young veterans and their families. I can even attest to some bohemian interest in the subject, if a working-draft of a play that I recently got to review – about a young man returning from WAR (is that what we call the terrorist-civilian-soldier confrontations these days?), completely incapable of emotional rehabilitation – is any indication. For the rest of us (us? what first person pronoun do I belong to now?!?), this is a day for SALES and BARBECUES. I have made my cultural assimilation almost complete by contributing to both of these and some other holiday-spirit activities during the 3-day weekend we enjoyed.
Saturday morning, I helped out at a yearly festivity of neighborhood activists of South-Side Chicago, bringing together students (White) and community (Black) for live amateur music, arts and crafts, and free food prepared in a church kitchen where I had the pleasure of peeling sweet potatoes (with a knife!…. arggg) the day before. This is for real: a girl of no more than ten drawing her map of the neighborhood and writing "Stop the Killing" on the top; women referring to me as "Baby GIRL!!". I should have brought a camera but then would have probably felt like a colonialist documenting the beautiful and exotic natives. Later on Saturday: The God Soul of Szechwan at a local theatre some one hundred blocks north from here. Not a black person in sight. Brechtian reflections on social injustice, with cultural translation of the tobacco factory to a heroin dealer's headquarters. Good entertainment that was. But then – what to do about the homeless man lying on the floor literally 5 meters from the theatre entrance, when the smallest change in my wallet is a 5 dollar bill? A CONUNDRUM, I tell you.
Sunday we hosted a slightly-blown-out-of-proportion brunch. Goods were BAKED. Eleven people were seated in our big living room (yay for the best apartment ever. Big living room AND big oven) drinking ice tea and ice coffee and homemade Bloody Marys from scratch that were more like Vodka-infused-Gaspacho and eating home-baked CARBS for a few hours. Special unexpected treat on the verge of performance art: I got a home-made haircut from one of the guests!!! Whoever was left at that late hour saw our floor and my shoulders fill with chopped hair and my head being cropped Jean Seberg-like.
The menu also included a quick tour of Israeli Eurovision highlights on Youtube (how the hell did we get to that subject?!), with me giving a very shallow explanation, using the word "fundamentalist", of the incongruity of the transsexual Dana International being sent as an Israeli representative to the gayest competition in the world. Not to mention the incongruity of the inclusion of Israel in "EUROPE". For the record, DH has his misgivings about my one-dimensional rants about Israel in the presence of people who really know almost nothing about it, and so can not understand the complexity of the situation. I agree that it is as uninformative as an American yuppie ranting that the US is fundamentalist. But I'm not sure whether I am supposed to be informative, or to assume that my hearers cannot take me with the same grain of salt they would their fellow left-wing ranter, and to make explicit that Israel is less oppressive than some Muslim states where little girls are forced into marriage or "circumcised" etc etc.
Also, let it be publicly noted that I misuse and abuse the word FASCIST as a general expletive of vaguely right-wing connotations.
Now that I've set the record straight, I shall not deny you the gory details of how we finally celebrated this national holiday with the most American of all methods: SPEND MONEY, preferably at a designated Memorial Day SALE. Oh yes. And where did we spend nearly two-hundred dollars?
The Seminary Coop Bookstore, of course.
Intellectual Escapism, I tell you. The ultimate BEST kind.
In the traditional Hebrew "they are out to get us! but we will outsmart them all… MUhahahaHAA!!!" outlook, DH and I are a symptom of what is institutionally called in Israel, allow me to slightly embellish here, "Fugitive Minds". The Jewish womb is failing the Jewish state! It has produced brilliant minds that go live in peace in Hyde Park where they can rightfully disregard the homeless three blocks down and the US killing in Afghanistan because it's not OURS, and perhaps make a living off being an intellectual and have their kids grow up and actually NOT GET KILLED at the age of 19 warding off enraged civilians. You see, Memorial Day here in the US is distant. It it impersonal. From the sheer enormity of this land, war and those who do it are at the outskirts of, if not completely eliminated from, your field of view. Yes, there are (I guess?) some official ceremonies, which are probably meaningful for the young veterans and their families. I can even attest to some bohemian interest in the subject, if a working-draft of a play that I recently got to review – about a young man returning from WAR (is that what we call the terrorist-civilian-soldier confrontations these days?), completely incapable of emotional rehabilitation – is any indication. For the rest of us (us? what first person pronoun do I belong to now?!?), this is a day for SALES and BARBECUES. I have made my cultural assimilation almost complete by contributing to both of these and some other holiday-spirit activities during the 3-day weekend we enjoyed.
Saturday morning, I helped out at a yearly festivity of neighborhood activists of South-Side Chicago, bringing together students (White) and community (Black) for live amateur music, arts and crafts, and free food prepared in a church kitchen where I had the pleasure of peeling sweet potatoes (with a knife!…. arggg) the day before. This is for real: a girl of no more than ten drawing her map of the neighborhood and writing "Stop the Killing" on the top; women referring to me as "Baby GIRL!!". I should have brought a camera but then would have probably felt like a colonialist documenting the beautiful and exotic natives. Later on Saturday: The God Soul of Szechwan at a local theatre some one hundred blocks north from here. Not a black person in sight. Brechtian reflections on social injustice, with cultural translation of the tobacco factory to a heroin dealer's headquarters. Good entertainment that was. But then – what to do about the homeless man lying on the floor literally 5 meters from the theatre entrance, when the smallest change in my wallet is a 5 dollar bill? A CONUNDRUM, I tell you.
Sunday we hosted a slightly-blown-out-of-proportion brunch. Goods were BAKED. Eleven people were seated in our big living room (yay for the best apartment ever. Big living room AND big oven) drinking ice tea and ice coffee and homemade Bloody Marys from scratch that were more like Vodka-infused-Gaspacho and eating home-baked CARBS for a few hours. Special unexpected treat on the verge of performance art: I got a home-made haircut from one of the guests!!! Whoever was left at that late hour saw our floor and my shoulders fill with chopped hair and my head being cropped Jean Seberg-like.
The menu also included a quick tour of Israeli Eurovision highlights on Youtube (how the hell did we get to that subject?!), with me giving a very shallow explanation, using the word "fundamentalist", of the incongruity of the transsexual Dana International being sent as an Israeli representative to the gayest competition in the world. Not to mention the incongruity of the inclusion of Israel in "EUROPE". For the record, DH has his misgivings about my one-dimensional rants about Israel in the presence of people who really know almost nothing about it, and so can not understand the complexity of the situation. I agree that it is as uninformative as an American yuppie ranting that the US is fundamentalist. But I'm not sure whether I am supposed to be informative, or to assume that my hearers cannot take me with the same grain of salt they would their fellow left-wing ranter, and to make explicit that Israel is less oppressive than some Muslim states where little girls are forced into marriage or "circumcised" etc etc.
Also, let it be publicly noted that I misuse and abuse the word FASCIST as a general expletive of vaguely right-wing connotations.
Now that I've set the record straight, I shall not deny you the gory details of how we finally celebrated this national holiday with the most American of all methods: SPEND MONEY, preferably at a designated Memorial Day SALE. Oh yes. And where did we spend nearly two-hundred dollars?
The Seminary Coop Bookstore, of course.
Intellectual Escapism, I tell you. The ultimate BEST kind.
May 22, 2010
Not the worst day in the world
Until yesterday, there were roughly three kinds of people in the world for me. That is, of the people who know in any level of detail what has happened in my life in the last 3 months or so, there are those who just carry on business as usual, never asking me anything explicit or acknowledging my loss in any way, which is understandable given that we are not close friends and I assume it's not exactly the easiest subject for them to broach; those who make a conscious effort to let me know they know and care, who assume a worried look and ask in a solemn voice - which is not to say that they do so in a contrived or insincere way - "so how've you been?", to which I usually muster an "OK. Crazy. I'm not sure." if I'm in a talkative mood and then we move on; those who know every up and down of my roller-coaster existence, who hear the second before I fall asleep that I actually think there is not a moment during the day when I do not think of N, that she is there in my head, like a dull pain that flares up occasionally but is always present, with every single thought I have or thing I do; who hear practically every morning that I dreamt of N and that we were fighting the whole night long. Broadly speaking, that last category is DH.
Until yesterday. Yesterday morning, in the most unanticipated scenery - me musing alone in the coffee break of a conference where I didn't really know anyone well enough to be engaged in conversation, where I was out of my "Classics" water but also particularly gloomy (if we're looking for psychological reasons here) since I was a wannabe artist in a room mostly full of art-theorists (which I am not, either) addressing the question of praxes-theory dichotomy - here another category of people emerged. He came up to me, kissed me on both cheeks in a semi-formal semi-friendly way, asked me how I was, and I started to cry.
THE END. (Well, no, the end was actually that I promptly excused myself and went to wash my face while 4th category jokingly said I was condemning myself to self-exile. Indeed).
And to other neurotic news. I helped a friend pack, who is leaving Chicago for the whole goddamn summer (it is going to be 88°F = 31°C tomorrow. I rest my goddamn CASE) and subletting their apartment (her husband is already away so that's why I was there. Partly I guess). So just for some background information on the situation: this packing occasion taught me you can buy a queen-size (or king, or whatever your humungous American-size mattress) plastic bag. Let me pause here. A plastic bag in which a mattress can fit. I am IN HEAVEN. The heaven made explicitly for Neurotics with Severe Obsessive-Compulsive Hoarding Plastic Bags Disorder. DH can just leave me here and come back in a week. I will be much easier to handle then. (Indeed, part of what ensued is no doubt due to the fact that I did not stay to bathe in the light of Plastic Bag Creation long enough.) In any case, you might have been wondering why we needed to pack the mattress if she's subletting the apartment. You're right to wonder! So the thing is (background info etc): this friend does not want to, how shall I put it, SHARE every single thing she and her husband own with the subletters. That's what the old IKEA mattress is for. And so a huge walk-in closet was to be transformed into a no-zone storage room, contents of which subletters where kindly asked not to inquire about. And so I was there to help wrap a good-quality (i.e. pretty heavy) mattress with a yellow plastic bag, drag it across the floor and into the closet, and then help with decision-making on what to pack for four months (isn't that the most nerve-wrecking decision making in the world), as well as in the end remove sticky notes from a library-book due back before closing hours, only to make a little list of the page numbers where these sticky notes were stuck (that was my very own initiative), so, like every respectable PhD-student, my friend can re-check the book out in the fall and skim over again what she has already diligently read in careful intellectual selection. Granted, the realization that there are people with working-habits as bad as mine should have been pay enough for my time and support - not that I was in it for compensation. But I guess I did offer some valuable help countering mattresses and loneliness-decision making AND self-doubts lest her subletting policies may be unacceptable, and so deserved the freshly-frozen Wholefoods salmon steak and other random perishable foodstuff that the fridge still contained at 8 pm on the eve of subletting day and was thus handed over to us (by that time DH was already there to say goodbye too).
And now here's what happened: I glanced over at the Organic Raw Sugar, shimmering in non-even size crystals the color of extremely clean sand, and said "You're leaving them this expensive sugar?!" Please believe me that in the context of the giveaways and store-aways of the few hours that preceded, I was wholeheartedly naive. I mean, yes, it's sugar, nothing perishable. And I had time enough to respond to the "You can have it" she addressed me with "No way, you have to leave them sugar, here, put some in this jar", time enough, that is, to figure out that I was acting like someone who really WANTS to HAVE this ORGANIC RAW SUGAR. But my brain is weird and its workings are set in indescribable paths. So we get home after a frenzy of schlepping stuff of various shapes and weights, including beer bottles and a yoga-mat I received on loan, and the ORGANIC RAW SUGAR package is retrieved from one of the bags. And I act surprised: "She gave us the sugar?!" DH: "Yeah, you totally wanted it".
Here's where I have an emotional heart attack combined with an epileptic seizure. NO WAY, HOW could I have BEEN SO GREEDY as to HINT THAT I WANT HER EXPENSIVE SUGAR!!! "Well, you helped her pick out the jar and everything. It's fine though, I really don't think it was so odd or anything. And I don't think you're GREEDY." Poor DH. Trying to talk reason into me. I HAVE TO GO BRING IT BACK. "No, you don't". WWWWWWWOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEE. I AM A GRRReeDY HORRRRRIBLE PERSON, make that A SHADOW OF A HUMAN BEING. "Um, Lou? You're overreacting." YOU OBVIOUSLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND ME AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!! Probably because I AM A COVETOUS GREEDY INSATIABLE IDIOT, THE EPITOME OF THE OPPOSITE OF A FRIEND not to mention the PARAGON OF MEDIOCRITY! (I am very eloquent when I'm overreacting) WHO would EVER WANT TO KNOW ME! HOW can you STTTTTAND BEING AROUND ME?!?
Conclusion of several hours and a nights-sleep afterwards: I think I still have at least two friends in the world. One willing to talk sense into me and fall asleep by my side every single night. Isn't he brave, people? The other on the way to the Mediterranean for the summer. Bonne Voyage!
Until yesterday. Yesterday morning, in the most unanticipated scenery - me musing alone in the coffee break of a conference where I didn't really know anyone well enough to be engaged in conversation, where I was out of my "Classics" water but also particularly gloomy (if we're looking for psychological reasons here) since I was a wannabe artist in a room mostly full of art-theorists (which I am not, either) addressing the question of praxes-theory dichotomy - here another category of people emerged. He came up to me, kissed me on both cheeks in a semi-formal semi-friendly way, asked me how I was, and I started to cry.
THE END. (Well, no, the end was actually that I promptly excused myself and went to wash my face while 4th category jokingly said I was condemning myself to self-exile. Indeed).
And to other neurotic news. I helped a friend pack, who is leaving Chicago for the whole goddamn summer (it is going to be 88°F = 31°C tomorrow. I rest my goddamn CASE) and subletting their apartment (her husband is already away so that's why I was there. Partly I guess). So just for some background information on the situation: this packing occasion taught me you can buy a queen-size (or king, or whatever your humungous American-size mattress) plastic bag. Let me pause here. A plastic bag in which a mattress can fit. I am IN HEAVEN. The heaven made explicitly for Neurotics with Severe Obsessive-Compulsive Hoarding Plastic Bags Disorder. DH can just leave me here and come back in a week. I will be much easier to handle then. (Indeed, part of what ensued is no doubt due to the fact that I did not stay to bathe in the light of Plastic Bag Creation long enough.) In any case, you might have been wondering why we needed to pack the mattress if she's subletting the apartment. You're right to wonder! So the thing is (background info etc): this friend does not want to, how shall I put it, SHARE every single thing she and her husband own with the subletters. That's what the old IKEA mattress is for. And so a huge walk-in closet was to be transformed into a no-zone storage room, contents of which subletters where kindly asked not to inquire about. And so I was there to help wrap a good-quality (i.e. pretty heavy) mattress with a yellow plastic bag, drag it across the floor and into the closet, and then help with decision-making on what to pack for four months (isn't that the most nerve-wrecking decision making in the world), as well as in the end remove sticky notes from a library-book due back before closing hours, only to make a little list of the page numbers where these sticky notes were stuck (that was my very own initiative), so, like every respectable PhD-student, my friend can re-check the book out in the fall and skim over again what she has already diligently read in careful intellectual selection. Granted, the realization that there are people with working-habits as bad as mine should have been pay enough for my time and support - not that I was in it for compensation. But I guess I did offer some valuable help countering mattresses and loneliness-decision making AND self-doubts lest her subletting policies may be unacceptable, and so deserved the freshly-frozen Wholefoods salmon steak and other random perishable foodstuff that the fridge still contained at 8 pm on the eve of subletting day and was thus handed over to us (by that time DH was already there to say goodbye too).
And now here's what happened: I glanced over at the Organic Raw Sugar, shimmering in non-even size crystals the color of extremely clean sand, and said "You're leaving them this expensive sugar?!" Please believe me that in the context of the giveaways and store-aways of the few hours that preceded, I was wholeheartedly naive. I mean, yes, it's sugar, nothing perishable. And I had time enough to respond to the "You can have it" she addressed me with "No way, you have to leave them sugar, here, put some in this jar", time enough, that is, to figure out that I was acting like someone who really WANTS to HAVE this ORGANIC RAW SUGAR. But my brain is weird and its workings are set in indescribable paths. So we get home after a frenzy of schlepping stuff of various shapes and weights, including beer bottles and a yoga-mat I received on loan, and the ORGANIC RAW SUGAR package is retrieved from one of the bags. And I act surprised: "She gave us the sugar?!" DH: "Yeah, you totally wanted it".
Here's where I have an emotional heart attack combined with an epileptic seizure. NO WAY, HOW could I have BEEN SO GREEDY as to HINT THAT I WANT HER EXPENSIVE SUGAR!!! "Well, you helped her pick out the jar and everything. It's fine though, I really don't think it was so odd or anything. And I don't think you're GREEDY." Poor DH. Trying to talk reason into me. I HAVE TO GO BRING IT BACK. "No, you don't". WWWWWWWOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEE. I AM A GRRReeDY HORRRRRIBLE PERSON, make that A SHADOW OF A HUMAN BEING. "Um, Lou? You're overreacting." YOU OBVIOUSLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND ME AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!! Probably because I AM A COVETOUS GREEDY INSATIABLE IDIOT, THE EPITOME OF THE OPPOSITE OF A FRIEND not to mention the PARAGON OF MEDIOCRITY! (I am very eloquent when I'm overreacting) WHO would EVER WANT TO KNOW ME! HOW can you STTTTTAND BEING AROUND ME?!?
Conclusion of several hours and a nights-sleep afterwards: I think I still have at least two friends in the world. One willing to talk sense into me and fall asleep by my side every single night. Isn't he brave, people? The other on the way to the Mediterranean for the summer. Bonne Voyage!
May 17, 2010
Jesus loves me
I do actually do stuff other than bake and take photos, you know. But because I've recently mastered the brilliant technique of placing the camera on some sturdy piece of furniture, like say, a dining table, so my hand doesn't shake when I push the button (my pictures turn out blurry because I breathe. for real), and since I apparently am a sort-of-wannabe blogger-with-nice-food-pictures, I bring you these close-up of grapes.
These most-sweet-tasting vine-fruit we have procured since arrival in North America, and possibly ever, sat in the fridge, on the upper shelf near the light bulb. So that every opening of the fridge door produced an explosion of pink radiance that prompted me to share, and burn it unto my hard-drive, this photo-botanical wonder. Art capturing the fleeting beauty of nature as a commentary on the transience of human experience. In other words: get a loada those grapes.
Speaking of loads, I went to see a therapist for one session, and decided it's not worth the time and money (oh my god, so much money) to start re-narrating to a stranger the whole story of my life to eventually possibly figure out things that might just need their own time to heal. I still am experiencing good days and bad days, naturally, with the bad days being really horrible and frightening and devastating and insane, but these usually also gleam with some hope thanks to the kindness and amazing trust of DH. Sometimes it is almost heart-shattering (in a good way. There must be a good way to understand your heart being shattered. Like exploding into a million pieces from, well, compassion. Egads the spirituality) to realize how well one man knows you.
Speaking of spiritual: so I called up one of the local soup kitchens to get information about their volunteering program. And it seemed it was never a good time because I always got their answering machine, telling me in a deep, very slow voice of a Morgan Freeman combined with, oh I don't know, (I'm so cliche it's sad, I cannot think of any other African-American figure of preachy wisdom) that Pastor Something is attending his flock at the moment and what the hours of service are and after the third time I finally waited the length of the recorded message to leave my number (they never called me back, which seemed suspicious to me. What? You've got TOO MANY volunteers at your soup kitchen? I knew it, huge pots of seething brew are SO SEXY, people are just standing in lines...). Point being: their message ends with "May God bless you. REEEAL GOOOOD."
Meanwhile, I joined a group of students engaged in a project of mapping the University of Chicago and its surrounding neighborhoods, most of which are fairly-to-extremely poor and crime-ridden. The crime part may be more a bit of mythological terrorism than a statistical fact, fueled by the University, who is itself a major landowner in the city, and has been leading a deliberate process of gentrification and segregation for decades. In other words, I have become a mild activist.
And lo, the immediate need for therapy and/or volunteering for the needy has subsided. I detect several reasons for this:
1) The obvious one, I am busier (including some independent Aeneid reading that I'm getting done. Excuse me while I rejoice. Yeah!), which of course makes me feel like a bit of a sell-out, as if the whole urge to make a difference in others' lives simply originated in my own boredom.
2) My own interest is in "mapping" (I still have to figure out exactly what form that will take) the homeless people of the neighborhood, specifically the borderline-homeless selling Streetwise. In the face of utter nihilism and despair (thoughts such as: poverty and crime are such global, deep-structure problems that there is nothing even the most enthusiastic students can do to change them), perhaps being part of a group of people who want to raise awareness to our mutual situation is, at least to some degree, effective? Stress on the group. Not me alone in my room. Not me in front of a computer screen on the online hotline of RAINN (did I tell you about that? well, another one of my attempts to get myself out there… and help victims of sexual assault. An option that from the outset seemed overwhelming, or: not the right thing for me to do at this point in time, and was thus soon, but not without heartache, dropped.)
3) The therapy experience was not like "sinking into a good couch", as my mother put it when I was deliberating with her if I should go on with this. Herself a psychologist, she said there should be no question marks about it: it should feel good. And realizing that verbalizing my sisterhood plight is not what I need right now, I guess I am in search for my comfortable couch.
I do assume that if anything is prompted in me following this load of indescribable grief, it would be to consciously (re-)shape the way I tell my story to myself, to my loved-ones, to whoever happens to be my sss (probably different people at different times), to "my" world and to the "others" I choose to see and embrace as inhabiting it.
Wow. I totally did not intend to write this conclusion. Which means it might actually be sincere. Go stare at grapes, people.
These most-sweet-tasting vine-fruit we have procured since arrival in North America, and possibly ever, sat in the fridge, on the upper shelf near the light bulb. So that every opening of the fridge door produced an explosion of pink radiance that prompted me to share, and burn it unto my hard-drive, this photo-botanical wonder. Art capturing the fleeting beauty of nature as a commentary on the transience of human experience. In other words: get a loada those grapes.
Speaking of loads, I went to see a therapist for one session, and decided it's not worth the time and money (oh my god, so much money) to start re-narrating to a stranger the whole story of my life to eventually possibly figure out things that might just need their own time to heal. I still am experiencing good days and bad days, naturally, with the bad days being really horrible and frightening and devastating and insane, but these usually also gleam with some hope thanks to the kindness and amazing trust of DH. Sometimes it is almost heart-shattering (in a good way. There must be a good way to understand your heart being shattered. Like exploding into a million pieces from, well, compassion. Egads the spirituality) to realize how well one man knows you.
Speaking of spiritual: so I called up one of the local soup kitchens to get information about their volunteering program. And it seemed it was never a good time because I always got their answering machine, telling me in a deep, very slow voice of a Morgan Freeman combined with, oh I don't know, (I'm so cliche it's sad, I cannot think of any other African-American figure of preachy wisdom) that Pastor Something is attending his flock at the moment and what the hours of service are and after the third time I finally waited the length of the recorded message to leave my number (they never called me back, which seemed suspicious to me. What? You've got TOO MANY volunteers at your soup kitchen? I knew it, huge pots of seething brew are SO SEXY, people are just standing in lines...). Point being: their message ends with "May God bless you. REEEAL GOOOOD."
Meanwhile, I joined a group of students engaged in a project of mapping the University of Chicago and its surrounding neighborhoods, most of which are fairly-to-extremely poor and crime-ridden. The crime part may be more a bit of mythological terrorism than a statistical fact, fueled by the University, who is itself a major landowner in the city, and has been leading a deliberate process of gentrification and segregation for decades. In other words, I have become a mild activist.
And lo, the immediate need for therapy and/or volunteering for the needy has subsided. I detect several reasons for this:
1) The obvious one, I am busier (including some independent Aeneid reading that I'm getting done. Excuse me while I rejoice. Yeah!), which of course makes me feel like a bit of a sell-out, as if the whole urge to make a difference in others' lives simply originated in my own boredom.
2) My own interest is in "mapping" (I still have to figure out exactly what form that will take) the homeless people of the neighborhood, specifically the borderline-homeless selling Streetwise. In the face of utter nihilism and despair (thoughts such as: poverty and crime are such global, deep-structure problems that there is nothing even the most enthusiastic students can do to change them), perhaps being part of a group of people who want to raise awareness to our mutual situation is, at least to some degree, effective? Stress on the group. Not me alone in my room. Not me in front of a computer screen on the online hotline of RAINN (did I tell you about that? well, another one of my attempts to get myself out there… and help victims of sexual assault. An option that from the outset seemed overwhelming, or: not the right thing for me to do at this point in time, and was thus soon, but not without heartache, dropped.)
3) The therapy experience was not like "sinking into a good couch", as my mother put it when I was deliberating with her if I should go on with this. Herself a psychologist, she said there should be no question marks about it: it should feel good. And realizing that verbalizing my sisterhood plight is not what I need right now, I guess I am in search for my comfortable couch.
In one of my first-year courses of my BA, on early Christianity, the TA - who was training to be a clinical psychologist - introduced us to Lacan's "sujet supposé savoir". In that particular context (the mystic-mental trainings of the frankly obsessive Evagrius in his struggle against all demons), the sss - it was implied - might be understood as Christ. I'm not sure what I'm getting at here (or if that Lacan link has any relevance at all to this stream of associations), but these things have all been swirling around in my head lately.
I most certainly do not think I have seen the light, or that I will deal with the grief over my sister's death by some spiritual overflow of Mother-Teresa-ish giving to the world.
I most certainly do not think I have seen the light, or that I will deal with the grief over my sister's death by some spiritual overflow of Mother-Teresa-ish giving to the world.
I do assume that if anything is prompted in me following this load of indescribable grief, it would be to consciously (re-)shape the way I tell my story to myself, to my loved-ones, to whoever happens to be my sss (probably different people at different times), to "my" world and to the "others" I choose to see and embrace as inhabiting it.
Wow. I totally did not intend to write this conclusion. Which means it might actually be sincere. Go stare at grapes, people.
May 10, 2010
Disappointment Galore
The much anticipated bread post. Full of disappointments. Yes, even this best challah recipe caused me a bit of discouragement. Not because it was not indeed the best challah recipe I've yet tried, yielding perfection from the first knead to the last leftover toasted bite. However, considering it was only the second recipe I've ever tried - with the first originating in my beloved, the faultless, the essential, the most comprehensive food encyclopedia, aka the invincible Joy of Cooking - some disillusionment entailed. JoC is vincible, my friends. I inwardly grieve the Joy's defeat. I outwardly cannot wait to make this challah again and again and again!
I still consider the JoC to be the ultimate authority on all things foody. And yet, the discrepancies between different versions of recipes for seemingly straightforward and indisputable dishes, such as pancakes, or Potato Gratin (Doram Gont's version, people. Israeli lovers of potatoes-and-cream, just get yourself his cookbook. The man knows what he is doing.), never ceases to amaze me. The real consternation, though, arises from the realization that JoC's recipes aren't always the most foolproof. I've tried their challah, it was not bad in any way, but SK's version calls for fewer eggs (2 per loaf, I think that's what makes it tastier) and is in no way benefited from the use of the stand mixer. Speaking of which, I think it's giving me some weighty buyer's remorse. I mean, I hardly use it anymore. Alas, DH is not a fan of cheesecakes, the preparation of which normally require some heavy beating facilitated by the mixer's presence, and I have yet to prepare meringue for any sort of occasion. However (I am tangent-ing out of control here, please bear with me) this cheesecake (and my adaptation) was quite successfully received by DH (YES, THERE ARE LEFTOVERS, JUST COME ON OVER) and offers a nice cinnamony twist on the creamy variant. Plus, the crust was based on a homemade graham cracker dough I might have mentioned here once already. Molasses-buttery goodness, indeed, but it was so hard to handle that it ultimately yielded these cute cookie-leaves - cutting the leftover dough in a clean line was impossible, but it really has a verisimilitude affect of rugged-edged leaves, don't you think? I, in any case, was pleased.
Sorry, back to the disappointments:
I don't remember if I used the mixer for JoC's challah, though I probably did because I thought it was cool back then. Other bread recipes have disappointed in the past, perhaps owing to mixer involvement (hmmm… it was Doram Gont's bagels that I ultimately graded "not so great and totally not worth the trouble".) Anyway, the "best" challah is quickly and easily assembled in a bowl, using a wooden spoon, and makes a smooth, fragrant, warm dough that is easily kneaded. The first time I made this, I forgot to add the additional sugar, and ended up kneading in half of the required amount into a done dough, one that was already supposed to be resting. I was worried a bit, but no harm was done to the dough, and the result was just the right degree of sweetness. Conclusion: better than store bought (and I mean the kind you can find in Israel…) but at the same time, as "professional", slightly-industrial in a good way, boutique-bakery kind of, taste! Winning Challah recipe added to the Wall of StickIt Fame above our stovetop, and shall heretofore be baked by yours truly every Rosh HaShana and other mundane occasions. Though for the Rosh HaShana ones, I really should figure out the six-strand braiding technique. I should have practiced beforehand on some string or something, like my dad would probably have done.
Other seeming-disappointments that - because this post is chronologically going backwards - will end with world-shattering full-fledged devastation: this No Knead Bread seemed perfect, and I set out to baking it right after my mother and I found an enameled-coated cast iron grill pan in pristine condition at a thrift store. Sure, it's not meant to be used as a pizza stone, but what could possibly happen to it, right? Well, it is still fine, though the enamel seems a bit chipped and nothing but RUST could possibly be seeping out. Which is exactly what the whole enamel coating thingy was supposed to prevent. And the reason we bought it. Because my mother, who has been there done that regarding every possible cooking skill there is, admonished us not to get a cast iron skillet, IT WILL RUST ON YOU NO MATTER WHAT, kinderlach. Well, my mother's wrath-prophecies tend to come true even more cynically then she could ever imagine. I think now I might give a regular cast iron skillet a try.
But that's not the point here. Second time around (remember, this post is going backwards), I used the enameled-pan upside down as a stone, and put a water-filled aluminum pan at the bottom of the oven. The bread rises nicely and has a crunchy crust, granted. But I found it severely unpleasantly salty. This was after halving the recipe for the second time - this time adding the right amount of yeast and salt. Maybe it's the Curse of the Halves, I don't know. From obvious lack of salt to thirstening saltiness, and all around a too-mooshy dough - could all this have been avoided using the whole recipe (or, for that matter, actually waiting till it cools to slice it? I'm not good with timing my bread baking to my hunger…)? I don't know and never will, because I won't try this again. Why the presence of my aluminum pan did not occur to me for more than 2 seconds in a row when I was first pondering baking this bread, wondering which pan I will use to pour hot water on after it spends 20 minutes in a HOT heated oven, oh no, my non stick cookie sheets won't do, they're much too fragile. I eventually used this, a marvelous pie pan found in the same pristine condition in the aforementioned thrift-hunt conducted with my mom. I swear, every time DH mentioned my round aluminum pan - the one I had already scratched cutting out slices of cake from, because it is obviously not intended for anything but cakes that are to be plopped upside down right out of the pan and slathered with frosting or some other all-American atrocity (reason for my buying it: undetermined; most probably: lack of premeditation and sufficient research). It still works though - every time DH mentioned it, because he, unfortunately for him, partakes in my baking incertitudes and consequent brainstorming, I blinked and said: "what aluminum pan? oh, that one, yeah". So no. I did not use pre-mutilated and apparently durable aluminum pan. But rather beautiful, marvelous, vintage-looking green-brown pie pan. Insert tragic exclamation of your choice. (Do you see where this is heading?)
So, the first time around, I followed instructions. Pretty-hot water was poured on steaming-hot ceramic pan. Bread was extracted from the oven, and enjoyed though slightly undersatled, and despite suspicion that it was too sticky to be true (only later did I figure out my measurements were all wrong. By then I was kicking a corpse. The corpse was my career as a bread baker. Or just plain me). Crust was drooled over. "Best bread you've baked" was professed. (Wrong! Woe!) I reasonably waited for the oven to cool, before retrieving the pan. Now, there was no more water in it anymore. It was parched. Ha, look, the water left these interesting traces where it was evaporated. Wait. What the...? These aren't traces. (Gulp). (Gasp). Traces are cracks.
NO!!!!! I am a pile of tears and frustration on the floor. HOW COULD I BE SO STUPID?!?! In other words: WOE. IT BROKE.
My mother is shaking her head right now. How could her offspring be so devoid of brains. Typically Lou, she is saying to herself: be neurotically indecisive about something, get a household or two involved, and then make the WRONG choice. Add to that a sort of uber-sentimentalism I had already developed over this mother-picked pan, as over all items purchased or events enjoyed in her visit, and you might understand how there were two thousand deprecating voices ringing in my ears, shaking their heads at me in disdain and disbelief.
So yeah. It took me at least a month to post about this, partly because I just did not want my mom to find out. (How lame is that?) Also, this particular incident was part of my pretty bad streak of life, when I was not posting. So now I consider myself finally purged.
P.S.
This is not a food-blog. Notably because I don't have to apologize for "my need to over-share" as JB nicely put it. So, remember that procrastination video I posted? (By the way, if you did not find it at least remotely hilarious, please refrain from reading this blog, ok? You and I will never have a real understanding between us. It's nothing personal against you. It's just well, me. How I live). And how I "get my stuff done", which was awarded expression of the week and has been used ever since. So will someone please explain to me how it is that I have spent 6 hours in the library today, and have accomplished the following: wrote some emails (it takes me a languishingly long time to write emails. Especially to professors, officials, or people that may be ever so slightly cooler than me, so, obviously, they spend their whole day dissecting my choice of virtual words. Which means: it takes me forever to write emails), had a sandwich and an apple, got up for some tea, tried to figure out my future health insurance student-coverage, with the appropriate email-writing ensuing, had a short skype-conversation with mom, and wrote this monstrous post. And I haven't even uploaded the photos that I will eventually link to. In other words, some days this blog is my "stuff" and I just have to get it done. Which makes me think that when grad school starts I shall be a-bloggin' no more. I should probably start worrying about that now, though, just in case.
P.P.S.
"Under My Thumb", one of the funnest songs ever, you must agree. But I've just realized what the words are. Somewhat unpleasant…. do you still enjoy great songs whose lyrics are really harsh and/or demeaning? Am I overinterpreting this?
I still consider the JoC to be the ultimate authority on all things foody. And yet, the discrepancies between different versions of recipes for seemingly straightforward and indisputable dishes, such as pancakes, or Potato Gratin (Doram Gont's version, people. Israeli lovers of potatoes-and-cream, just get yourself his cookbook. The man knows what he is doing.), never ceases to amaze me. The real consternation, though, arises from the realization that JoC's recipes aren't always the most foolproof. I've tried their challah, it was not bad in any way, but SK's version calls for fewer eggs (2 per loaf, I think that's what makes it tastier) and is in no way benefited from the use of the stand mixer. Speaking of which, I think it's giving me some weighty buyer's remorse. I mean, I hardly use it anymore. Alas, DH is not a fan of cheesecakes, the preparation of which normally require some heavy beating facilitated by the mixer's presence, and I have yet to prepare meringue for any sort of occasion. However (I am tangent-ing out of control here, please bear with me) this cheesecake (and my adaptation) was quite successfully received by DH (YES, THERE ARE LEFTOVERS, JUST COME ON OVER) and offers a nice cinnamony twist on the creamy variant. Plus, the crust was based on a homemade graham cracker dough I might have mentioned here once already. Molasses-buttery goodness, indeed, but it was so hard to handle that it ultimately yielded these cute cookie-leaves - cutting the leftover dough in a clean line was impossible, but it really has a verisimilitude affect of rugged-edged leaves, don't you think? I, in any case, was pleased.
Sorry, back to the disappointments:
I don't remember if I used the mixer for JoC's challah, though I probably did because I thought it was cool back then. Other bread recipes have disappointed in the past, perhaps owing to mixer involvement (hmmm… it was Doram Gont's bagels that I ultimately graded "not so great and totally not worth the trouble".) Anyway, the "best" challah is quickly and easily assembled in a bowl, using a wooden spoon, and makes a smooth, fragrant, warm dough that is easily kneaded. The first time I made this, I forgot to add the additional sugar, and ended up kneading in half of the required amount into a done dough, one that was already supposed to be resting. I was worried a bit, but no harm was done to the dough, and the result was just the right degree of sweetness. Conclusion: better than store bought (and I mean the kind you can find in Israel…) but at the same time, as "professional", slightly-industrial in a good way, boutique-bakery kind of, taste! Winning Challah recipe added to the Wall of StickIt Fame above our stovetop, and shall heretofore be baked by yours truly every Rosh HaShana and other mundane occasions. Though for the Rosh HaShana ones, I really should figure out the six-strand braiding technique. I should have practiced beforehand on some string or something, like my dad would probably have done.
Other seeming-disappointments that - because this post is chronologically going backwards - will end with world-shattering full-fledged devastation: this No Knead Bread seemed perfect, and I set out to baking it right after my mother and I found an enameled-coated cast iron grill pan in pristine condition at a thrift store. Sure, it's not meant to be used as a pizza stone, but what could possibly happen to it, right? Well, it is still fine, though the enamel seems a bit chipped and nothing but RUST could possibly be seeping out. Which is exactly what the whole enamel coating thingy was supposed to prevent. And the reason we bought it. Because my mother, who has been there done that regarding every possible cooking skill there is, admonished us not to get a cast iron skillet, IT WILL RUST ON YOU NO MATTER WHAT, kinderlach. Well, my mother's wrath-prophecies tend to come true even more cynically then she could ever imagine. I think now I might give a regular cast iron skillet a try.
But that's not the point here. Second time around (remember, this post is going backwards), I used the enameled-pan upside down as a stone, and put a water-filled aluminum pan at the bottom of the oven. The bread rises nicely and has a crunchy crust, granted. But I found it severely unpleasantly salty. This was after halving the recipe for the second time - this time adding the right amount of yeast and salt. Maybe it's the Curse of the Halves, I don't know. From obvious lack of salt to thirstening saltiness, and all around a too-mooshy dough - could all this have been avoided using the whole recipe (or, for that matter, actually waiting till it cools to slice it? I'm not good with timing my bread baking to my hunger…)? I don't know and never will, because I won't try this again. Why the presence of my aluminum pan did not occur to me for more than 2 seconds in a row when I was first pondering baking this bread, wondering which pan I will use to pour hot water on after it spends 20 minutes in a HOT heated oven, oh no, my non stick cookie sheets won't do, they're much too fragile. I eventually used this, a marvelous pie pan found in the same pristine condition in the aforementioned thrift-hunt conducted with my mom. I swear, every time DH mentioned my round aluminum pan - the one I had already scratched cutting out slices of cake from, because it is obviously not intended for anything but cakes that are to be plopped upside down right out of the pan and slathered with frosting or some other all-American atrocity (reason for my buying it: undetermined; most probably: lack of premeditation and sufficient research). It still works though - every time DH mentioned it, because he, unfortunately for him, partakes in my baking incertitudes and consequent brainstorming, I blinked and said: "what aluminum pan? oh, that one, yeah". So no. I did not use pre-mutilated and apparently durable aluminum pan. But rather beautiful, marvelous, vintage-looking green-brown pie pan. Insert tragic exclamation of your choice. (Do you see where this is heading?)
So, the first time around, I followed instructions. Pretty-hot water was poured on steaming-hot ceramic pan. Bread was extracted from the oven, and enjoyed though slightly undersatled, and despite suspicion that it was too sticky to be true (only later did I figure out my measurements were all wrong. By then I was kicking a corpse. The corpse was my career as a bread baker. Or just plain me). Crust was drooled over. "Best bread you've baked" was professed. (Wrong! Woe!) I reasonably waited for the oven to cool, before retrieving the pan. Now, there was no more water in it anymore. It was parched. Ha, look, the water left these interesting traces where it was evaporated. Wait. What the...? These aren't traces. (Gulp). (Gasp). Traces are cracks.
NO!!!!! I am a pile of tears and frustration on the floor. HOW COULD I BE SO STUPID?!?! In other words: WOE. IT BROKE.
My mother is shaking her head right now. How could her offspring be so devoid of brains. Typically Lou, she is saying to herself: be neurotically indecisive about something, get a household or two involved, and then make the WRONG choice. Add to that a sort of uber-sentimentalism I had already developed over this mother-picked pan, as over all items purchased or events enjoyed in her visit, and you might understand how there were two thousand deprecating voices ringing in my ears, shaking their heads at me in disdain and disbelief.
So yeah. It took me at least a month to post about this, partly because I just did not want my mom to find out. (How lame is that?) Also, this particular incident was part of my pretty bad streak of life, when I was not posting. So now I consider myself finally purged.
P.S.
This is not a food-blog. Notably because I don't have to apologize for "my need to over-share" as JB nicely put it. So, remember that procrastination video I posted? (By the way, if you did not find it at least remotely hilarious, please refrain from reading this blog, ok? You and I will never have a real understanding between us. It's nothing personal against you. It's just well, me. How I live). And how I "get my stuff done", which was awarded expression of the week and has been used ever since. So will someone please explain to me how it is that I have spent 6 hours in the library today, and have accomplished the following: wrote some emails (it takes me a languishingly long time to write emails. Especially to professors, officials, or people that may be ever so slightly cooler than me, so, obviously, they spend their whole day dissecting my choice of virtual words. Which means: it takes me forever to write emails), had a sandwich and an apple, got up for some tea, tried to figure out my future health insurance student-coverage, with the appropriate email-writing ensuing, had a short skype-conversation with mom, and wrote this monstrous post. And I haven't even uploaded the photos that I will eventually link to. In other words, some days this blog is my "stuff" and I just have to get it done. Which makes me think that when grad school starts I shall be a-bloggin' no more. I should probably start worrying about that now, though, just in case.
P.P.S.
"Under My Thumb", one of the funnest songs ever, you must agree. But I've just realized what the words are. Somewhat unpleasant…. do you still enjoy great songs whose lyrics are really harsh and/or demeaning? Am I overinterpreting this?
May 3, 2010
The wholer point
Well. Responses to the last posts included sincerely worried concerns on the one hand, and enjoyment in my authentic heap of borderline quirkiness on the other hand. I aim to please, people. Indeed, it turns out blog-readers revel in the everyday online eccentricities of their fellow meshuggenas. I mean, sure, I knew that. I'm a blog-reader myself, and I guess I was kind of counting on my readership's capacity for amused identification. In any case, I was pleased to learn that crying in the presence of cake-and-5-o'clock-tea invitee will not make her ban me for life, but rather refer me to another blog that is just possibly more verbose than my own, and certainly more avowedly mentally disturbed: check out how spot on she is about the hardship of decision making in the land of online shopping. Sisterhood of Indecisiveness. (That will totally be the title of my next blog.) Said invitee professed her undying friendship and moral support by sending me this cartoon depiction of, oh, my life. Indeed, I am not alone, but part of the League of Procrastinators.
I also have a Challah dough (just so! on a Tuesday!) rising to keep me company. Which means that a bread post is coming up. Which means that I will finally tell you the story of why, see this no-knead bread and I? it didn't work out between us. I have been evading this post for a while, mainly because the break up was messy and teary and made me feel like a total idiot. I know this is a tendency of mine, but you better believe that when the recipe and I are not meant to be, and you add to that 450 degrees F, things can get distressing.
I am scarred but a wholer person now. Ha! "wholer" is not a word? What are you dictionary-compilers, some kind of idealistic Platonists? As far as I'm concerned, the whole point of blogging about your obsessions is to become a WHOLER person.
I also have a Challah dough (just so! on a Tuesday!) rising to keep me company. Which means that a bread post is coming up. Which means that I will finally tell you the story of why, see this no-knead bread and I? it didn't work out between us. I have been evading this post for a while, mainly because the break up was messy and teary and made me feel like a total idiot. I know this is a tendency of mine, but you better believe that when the recipe and I are not meant to be, and you add to that 450 degrees F, things can get distressing.
I am scarred but a wholer person now. Ha! "wholer" is not a word? What are you dictionary-compilers, some kind of idealistic Platonists? As far as I'm concerned, the whole point of blogging about your obsessions is to become a WHOLER person.
Apr 30, 2010
I don't blog when the only thing I can think of for my Facebook status is: "somebody help me". or "shit". or "help".
I cannot get over feeling like a total jerk. Nothing but complaining that I have too much buttery cake all on my own. So if you are reading this at all, and might have been concerned with my last post that I am really overdoing it with the egotistical self-absorption, I just wanted to say that I am trying to get my act together. Which means: a) I started really looking into the possibility of volunteering at a rape crisis center or something of the sort. But (how convenient!) they ask volunteers to commit to a full year, and I'm not sure I can do that. Not to mention I was scared shitless to actually do it, and thought maybe now was not totally the greatest time for me to be in a position where people that have been through something so awful and destructing actually NEED ME.
b) I looked into getting professional help, i.e. student counseling. This might seem totally contrary to a), just me being self-absorbed again. However, I really think I have some pretty good excuses for my need to TALK TO SOMEONE who is not an immediate relative. And who might help me clear up my thoughts and emotional tangles and maybe get my act together so I can finally DO whatever it is that I feel like I'm capable of doing for others. Last week I was so stressed for inviting a darling friend over for 5 o'clock tea and cake (someone to talk to and to consume my baked goods all in one!), and then crying during half the time she was here, for fear she will never want to come eat the basket-case-baker's cakes again, let alone be my friend anymore.
In any case, I found out the slightly long and winding way (i.e., after going through a preliminary intake session) that, alas, student counseling is available to spouses only if they have bought the whole health insurance plan offered by the University (which I did not). Or if they come to couple therapy with the actual student. If only my grief would have made our married life a totally dysfunctional hell, then I (i.e., we) could have qualified for student counseling! Unfortunately, that is not the case.
c) Right after writing the former post, I searched online for soup kitchens in the neighborhood. I think I can bring myself to pick up the phone and volunteer at one of those. I think. But what if the food is gross and the smell of beef makes me nauseous and the whole experience is condescending and estranged?
You might notice c) is a strange mixture of trying to get my act together and being neurotically self-absorbed. Not to mention slightly racist, I'm afraid.
What I would really like is to wake up in the morning, bake a quiche and a cake, and bring them over to people in need. I have a hunch soup kitchens don't work that way, but by god, I will check.
All right, somebody tell me I'm OK now. And then slowly, without making any sudden movements, move me away. from. the. internet. THIS IS NOT HELPING.
b) I looked into getting professional help, i.e. student counseling. This might seem totally contrary to a), just me being self-absorbed again. However, I really think I have some pretty good excuses for my need to TALK TO SOMEONE who is not an immediate relative. And who might help me clear up my thoughts and emotional tangles and maybe get my act together so I can finally DO whatever it is that I feel like I'm capable of doing for others. Last week I was so stressed for inviting a darling friend over for 5 o'clock tea and cake (someone to talk to and to consume my baked goods all in one!), and then crying during half the time she was here, for fear she will never want to come eat the basket-case-baker's cakes again, let alone be my friend anymore.
In any case, I found out the slightly long and winding way (i.e., after going through a preliminary intake session) that, alas, student counseling is available to spouses only if they have bought the whole health insurance plan offered by the University (which I did not). Or if they come to couple therapy with the actual student. If only my grief would have made our married life a totally dysfunctional hell, then I (i.e., we) could have qualified for student counseling! Unfortunately, that is not the case.
c) Right after writing the former post, I searched online for soup kitchens in the neighborhood. I think I can bring myself to pick up the phone and volunteer at one of those. I think. But what if the food is gross and the smell of beef makes me nauseous and the whole experience is condescending and estranged?
You might notice c) is a strange mixture of trying to get my act together and being neurotically self-absorbed. Not to mention slightly racist, I'm afraid.
What I would really like is to wake up in the morning, bake a quiche and a cake, and bring them over to people in need. I have a hunch soup kitchens don't work that way, but by god, I will check.
All right, somebody tell me I'm OK now. And then slowly, without making any sudden movements, move me away. from. the. internet. THIS IS NOT HELPING.
Leftovers.
Things I'm procrastinating at the moment: reading five new scripts delivered to my inbox this morning. Reading Virgil's Eclogues. Reading Plato's Phaedo. Things I'm incidentally not procrastinating right at this particular moment: Writing my Blog. But this is just a coincidence. I was spending the morning browsing the foodblogosphere, waiting for it to be a morally appropriate time to have lunch already. And I had some future post or two or three running around in my head, and I thought, woe is meeee, when will I be able to actually write this post, why must I produce abnormally long posts that give only the absolute big, whole and detailed picture, and why oh why did I get myself into blog-debt in which I owe an explanation for why I did not post, so much so that now I procrastinate writing about why I was procrastinating….? Woe, Dear Readers. Woe are you too. How do you put up with me.
Anyway, I'm what you might called bored. Which is understandable seeing that I have no life, in the usual, casually-unaware-to-the-nearness-of-death kind of way the term is usually used. That is, I have no job and I am currently not really a student. I have no real academic commitment except the general wish to advance my skills in the scholarship of Greek and Roman antiquity before grad school hits. hard. And I have been reading some Plato and some Virgil, which is generally not utterly unenjoyable, and I am even taking vocabulary notes (gasp!). Yet, there are a random two to three days a week where I can just wake up in the morning and start reading some ancient text for my own "good", still less days in which I can bring myself to drag my ass to the library, where there is a slight chance of being more productive. Especially if I do not bring the Evil Machine That Miraculously Conjures Images of Facebook and Cooking Blogs with me (which I don't. Why go to the library if I'm not going to work? I would rather stay at home where the bathroom is certainly cleaner and the fridge is closer, and tea doesn't come in a paper cup or a burn-your-lips metal tumbler. Jeezuz). The rest of the week, days in which my ass is not dragged to any such place, is more hazardous. Now, as you may guess from the aforementioned bathroom comment, I'm a I'd-rather-stay-at-home (and neurotic! We must never forget NEUROTIC.) kind of girl. But still, there is nothing more depressing than having no reason to get out of the house. ALL DAY. Not to mention speak to a human soul other than DH, dear as he most certainly is. That's right, I don't really have that much friends either. Which is understandable seeing that etc.
And in my woes, I bake (sometimes, occasionally, I cook too. Must give myself a pat on the back for the exceptionally successful last few dinners: Chicken drumsticks baked in Roasted Red Pepper sauce, Turkey-Cilantro meatballs, and Swordfish coconut milk Curry. I am getting GOOD at this, people. DH is not even complaining).
Sorry, I'll get back to my usual grumpy and dissatisfied self now. Nothing like the subject of BAKED GOODS to make me not give myself any slack. First Reason: Butter (if you've been reading this blog for a while you have probably gathered already that Butter is used metonymically for ANYTHING CHOLESTEROLICALLY VEIN-CLOGGING). I bake, and then I feel guilty about eating what I baked. Now DH is not much of a consolation here, seeing as a) he spends less time at home and in the proximity of baked goods than I. b) he does not have much of a sweet tooth. Nothing comparable to me, that is. I eat meals for the sake of dessert. I crave a sweet bite the minute I finish eating whatever it is that I'm eating. Every single meal. Even if it's a random 3 pm snack. I could grab a pretzel, then feel like some cake to finish it off (then another pretzel, of course, to take out the sweetness). Now you must understand. I would be characterized as anything but thin by no-one. DH is even naturally thinner than I am (the man has no fat on his body). And yet when I get all neurotic about not consuming so much, DH plays along - I think he thinks he's offering me moral support here, like, if he reminds me that I don't feel great about eating so much CAKE, I'll appreciate it and feel better about myself. Or, if he agrees that we should lay off the butter a bit it would make it easier for me. First of all, nothing will make it easier for me. I AM INSANE and life is shit. Second, really, man, just ignore me. I'm psycho. No need to take this rationally. Third: I know you say you'll love me even more when I'm fat, wrinkled, and with gray hair (check on all three, darling. Future husbands out there: Don't marry a girl with freckles. You might find it cute now but it's the same kind of skin that goes wrinkly before she's 30.) SO NOW PROVE IT: just let me INDULGE and get fat. I know, I know, none of this is making sense (Accept your body. You're beautiful from the inside. And the outside. No More Tyranny of the Size-0 Beauty Industry! Feel good about yourself, don't seek confirmation from significant or non-significant others! I KNOW ALL THAT).
But seriously, there is currently in the fridge a bit of leftover more-than-a-week-old Orange Coffee Cake that I shall slowly but surely finish up myself (still delicious), a 5-day-old bowl of something like maple creme brulee (leftover from this pie), 3/4 of a still fresh buttery-lemon toffee-like tart (just 1.5 days old!), and the only reason there is no more Tarte Tatin in there (for heaven's sake. I made this for his birthday and after polishing off almost half on the first night with the aid of our favorite Venezuelan friend, we both got cold feet because of all the butter in it and ate it sparingly, even though heating it up in the oven brought it back to near-perfection), is because I scraped off the buttery apples with a spoon one day and threw out the crust remainder - it was not so tempting after more than two weeks in the fridge. PEOPLE, a home baked Tarte Tatin lasted two weeks in our household. THAT IS JUST WRONG, no matter how conscious one is to economic inequality.
The Second Reason has to do with the fact that I hardly have friends to invite over for cake. Or an office to bring cake to.
Combined with Reason #1, this means I am doomed to eat cake by myself most of the time, and obsess about it. Yup, that pretty much sums up the raison d'etre of this blog.
(I shall stop here. Mid-thought! If you count as thought "every baking related association I have had in the last two weeks which leads to the conclusion that being lonely AND experiencing baking fiascoes is worse than just one or the other, so that's why I was not blogging for a while there, and now I owe you, like, at least, 5 posts of a semi-friendly length!" In that case, YEAH.)
Anyway, I'm what you might called bored. Which is understandable seeing that I have no life, in the usual, casually-unaware-to-the-nearness-of-death kind of way the term is usually used. That is, I have no job and I am currently not really a student. I have no real academic commitment except the general wish to advance my skills in the scholarship of Greek and Roman antiquity before grad school hits. hard. And I have been reading some Plato and some Virgil, which is generally not utterly unenjoyable, and I am even taking vocabulary notes (gasp!). Yet, there are a random two to three days a week where I can just wake up in the morning and start reading some ancient text for my own "good", still less days in which I can bring myself to drag my ass to the library, where there is a slight chance of being more productive. Especially if I do not bring the Evil Machine That Miraculously Conjures Images of Facebook and Cooking Blogs with me (which I don't. Why go to the library if I'm not going to work? I would rather stay at home where the bathroom is certainly cleaner and the fridge is closer, and tea doesn't come in a paper cup or a burn-your-lips metal tumbler. Jeezuz). The rest of the week, days in which my ass is not dragged to any such place, is more hazardous. Now, as you may guess from the aforementioned bathroom comment, I'm a I'd-rather-stay-at-home (and neurotic! We must never forget NEUROTIC.) kind of girl. But still, there is nothing more depressing than having no reason to get out of the house. ALL DAY. Not to mention speak to a human soul other than DH, dear as he most certainly is. That's right, I don't really have that much friends either. Which is understandable seeing that etc.
And in my woes, I bake (sometimes, occasionally, I cook too. Must give myself a pat on the back for the exceptionally successful last few dinners: Chicken drumsticks baked in Roasted Red Pepper sauce, Turkey-Cilantro meatballs, and Swordfish coconut milk Curry. I am getting GOOD at this, people. DH is not even complaining).
Sorry, I'll get back to my usual grumpy and dissatisfied self now. Nothing like the subject of BAKED GOODS to make me not give myself any slack. First Reason: Butter (if you've been reading this blog for a while you have probably gathered already that Butter is used metonymically for ANYTHING CHOLESTEROLICALLY VEIN-CLOGGING). I bake, and then I feel guilty about eating what I baked. Now DH is not much of a consolation here, seeing as a) he spends less time at home and in the proximity of baked goods than I. b) he does not have much of a sweet tooth. Nothing comparable to me, that is. I eat meals for the sake of dessert. I crave a sweet bite the minute I finish eating whatever it is that I'm eating. Every single meal. Even if it's a random 3 pm snack. I could grab a pretzel, then feel like some cake to finish it off (then another pretzel, of course, to take out the sweetness). Now you must understand. I would be characterized as anything but thin by no-one. DH is even naturally thinner than I am (the man has no fat on his body). And yet when I get all neurotic about not consuming so much, DH plays along - I think he thinks he's offering me moral support here, like, if he reminds me that I don't feel great about eating so much CAKE, I'll appreciate it and feel better about myself. Or, if he agrees that we should lay off the butter a bit it would make it easier for me. First of all, nothing will make it easier for me. I AM INSANE and life is shit. Second, really, man, just ignore me. I'm psycho. No need to take this rationally. Third: I know you say you'll love me even more when I'm fat, wrinkled, and with gray hair (check on all three, darling. Future husbands out there: Don't marry a girl with freckles. You might find it cute now but it's the same kind of skin that goes wrinkly before she's 30.) SO NOW PROVE IT: just let me INDULGE and get fat. I know, I know, none of this is making sense (Accept your body. You're beautiful from the inside. And the outside. No More Tyranny of the Size-0 Beauty Industry! Feel good about yourself, don't seek confirmation from significant or non-significant others! I KNOW ALL THAT).
But seriously, there is currently in the fridge a bit of leftover more-than-a-week-old Orange Coffee Cake that I shall slowly but surely finish up myself (still delicious), a 5-day-old bowl of something like maple creme brulee (leftover from this pie), 3/4 of a still fresh buttery-lemon toffee-like tart (just 1.5 days old!), and the only reason there is no more Tarte Tatin in there (for heaven's sake. I made this for his birthday and after polishing off almost half on the first night with the aid of our favorite Venezuelan friend, we both got cold feet because of all the butter in it and ate it sparingly, even though heating it up in the oven brought it back to near-perfection), is because I scraped off the buttery apples with a spoon one day and threw out the crust remainder - it was not so tempting after more than two weeks in the fridge. PEOPLE, a home baked Tarte Tatin lasted two weeks in our household. THAT IS JUST WRONG, no matter how conscious one is to economic inequality.
The Second Reason has to do with the fact that I hardly have friends to invite over for cake. Or an office to bring cake to.
Combined with Reason #1, this means I am doomed to eat cake by myself most of the time, and obsess about it. Yup, that pretty much sums up the raison d'etre of this blog.
(I shall stop here. Mid-thought! If you count as thought "every baking related association I have had in the last two weeks which leads to the conclusion that being lonely AND experiencing baking fiascoes is worse than just one or the other, so that's why I was not blogging for a while there, and now I owe you, like, at least, 5 posts of a semi-friendly length!" In that case, YEAH.)
Apr 26, 2010
At last. Something to write home about.
Hi. It's me again. And not with one of the two posts I just promised you earlier today.
Oh, no! I've got much more exciting news!
I have recently applied, and just a few hours ago was informed that I was accepted, to the Internship at the DirectorsLabChicago! Yeyyyyyyy!!!
It's a week-long, intensive, workshop-like, well, LAB. For theatre directors. Which I am not, but - despite that last thingy I was applying to, what was that again, grad school? huh? PhD program? - I do actually aspire to be one day. So here's my chance to slave for others (remember, I'm just an interrrrn), while getting to know some theatre-people and opening a few doors, with the vague prospect of them all shutting back, if not with a slam, then with a steady screech ending with a thud. I envision said screech will start grating on my ears somewhere around September 2010, when I shall enclose myself in the so called Classics Reading Room, aka Where Classics Grad Students Come to Bury Themselves in Yellowing Pages of DICTIONARY. I? applied for grad school? When did that happen? Was I there?
So yeah. This internship application was actually quite demanding. So much so that DH was sure I was applying to participate as a director. Cute, isn't he? Especially since I have never directed anything in my life.
This was my favorite question:
Stepping Away from the Stage is a unique series in which professionals from outside the world of theatre are invited to speak about their craft in relation to the chosen theme. Examples of themes and speakers from past Labs include: myth and ritual/wedding planner, the kinetics of directing/traffic research safety scientist, re-imagining the classics/plastic surgeon.
With this in mind, please suggest two Stepping Away speakers related to this year's theme, 'In Rehearsal.'
I picked a Doula and a Haute Cuisine Chef. I won't expound on why exactly I thought these were a brilliant choice (isn't it brilliant?!), but in my defense, in defense of this whole copy-paste bonanza, I promised on my application that I would promote the Lab on my blog (they specifically asked in what technocratic ways I will be able to spread the word. So hear I am, telling you all about it. Ha! Little do they know that hardly anybody in Chicago reads this).
Actually, the aforementioned business of getting informed of my acceptance was a tad embarrassing. You see, they explicitly said applicants will be informed by today. So when today arrived, I was checking my email constantly - I want to say more frequently than usual, but that would be a lie. There is No More Frequently. - and when 7 PM arrived, the following email exchange ensued (this is for real, people. The Names Have Been Changed, though). (More Copy-Paste Bonanza. BONANZA! Fun word.)
6:54 PM
Dear Person In Charge of Interns,
I would just like to make sure that if I have not heard back from you by now, it means that my internship application was not successful.
thank you.
Lou
7:28 PM
Lou,
I was just sitting down to write to you that in fact we would love to invite you to be part of the DirectorsLabChicago this year. We loved your application. My apologies on the delay, I was not at my computer earlier today.
See the following email for details.
Thank you.
PICoI
[DOH!!!!!]
7:43 PM
Thanks PICoI!
This is so exciting!
I'm sorry I was so impatient [translation: obsessive-compulsive] about it (there are some summer-flight schedules I need to settle) [not a lie. but still, kind of a stretch], and assumed you would see my email only tomorrow morning... [i.e., after the day you said you would contact us. I mean really. It's Chicago here, not NYC. People leave work and go home to their kids at 5 PM]
Thanks again. I'm really looking forward to being part of the Lab! [I hope you're not regretting the fact that you accepted me, now that my true neurotic self has been so distastefully revealed....]
[I remain humbly yours,]
Lou.
Oh, no! I've got much more exciting news!
I have recently applied, and just a few hours ago was informed that I was accepted, to the Internship at the DirectorsLabChicago! Yeyyyyyyy!!!
It's a week-long, intensive, workshop-like, well, LAB. For theatre directors. Which I am not, but - despite that last thingy I was applying to, what was that again, grad school? huh? PhD program? - I do actually aspire to be one day. So here's my chance to slave for others (remember, I'm just an interrrrn), while getting to know some theatre-people and opening a few doors, with the vague prospect of them all shutting back, if not with a slam, then with a steady screech ending with a thud. I envision said screech will start grating on my ears somewhere around September 2010, when I shall enclose myself in the so called Classics Reading Room, aka Where Classics Grad Students Come to Bury Themselves in Yellowing Pages of DICTIONARY. I? applied for grad school? When did that happen? Was I there?
So yeah. This internship application was actually quite demanding. So much so that DH was sure I was applying to participate as a director. Cute, isn't he? Especially since I have never directed anything in my life.
This was my favorite question:
Stepping Away from the Stage is a unique series in which professionals from outside the world of theatre are invited to speak about their craft in relation to the chosen theme. Examples of themes and speakers from past Labs include: myth and ritual/wedding planner, the kinetics of directing/traffic research safety scientist, re-imagining the classics/plastic surgeon.
With this in mind, please suggest two Stepping Away speakers related to this year's theme, 'In Rehearsal.'
I picked a Doula and a Haute Cuisine Chef. I won't expound on why exactly I thought these were a brilliant choice (isn't it brilliant?!), but in my defense, in defense of this whole copy-paste bonanza, I promised on my application that I would promote the Lab on my blog (they specifically asked in what technocratic ways I will be able to spread the word. So hear I am, telling you all about it. Ha! Little do they know that hardly anybody in Chicago reads this).
Actually, the aforementioned business of getting informed of my acceptance was a tad embarrassing. You see, they explicitly said applicants will be informed by today. So when today arrived, I was checking my email constantly - I want to say more frequently than usual, but that would be a lie. There is No More Frequently. - and when 7 PM arrived, the following email exchange ensued (this is for real, people. The Names Have Been Changed, though). (More Copy-Paste Bonanza. BONANZA! Fun word.)
6:54 PM
Dear Person In Charge of Interns,
I would just like to make sure that if I have not heard back from you by now, it means that my internship application was not successful.
thank you.
Lou
7:28 PM
Lou,
I was just sitting down to write to you that in fact we would love to invite you to be part of the DirectorsLabChicago this year. We loved your application. My apologies on the delay, I was not at my computer earlier today.
See the following email for details.
Thank you.
PICoI
[DOH!!!!!]
7:43 PM
Thanks PICoI!
This is so exciting!
I'm sorry I was so impatient [translation: obsessive-compulsive] about it (there are some summer-flight schedules I need to settle) [not a lie. but still, kind of a stretch], and assumed you would see my email only tomorrow morning... [i.e., after the day you said you would contact us. I mean really. It's Chicago here, not NYC. People leave work and go home to their kids at 5 PM]
Thanks again. I'm really looking forward to being part of the Lab! [I hope you're not regretting the fact that you accepted me, now that my true neurotic self has been so distastefully revealed....]
[I remain humbly yours,]
Lou.
Vignettes
So. It's been more than two weeks since I last posted, despite a flood of bakeriesque attempts, some of which very successful (notably the much anticipated Tarte Tatin and this charmingly bright and heart-warming Very Orange coffee-cake.)
I apologize for this prolonged silence and promise to expound about how I was feeling too shitty to blog - despite said attempts and because of the not-so-successful ones among them - soon. But so as to not welcome you back to my virtual life with a full fledged Elegy of Shitty Life, aka the Life is So Shitty when Your Sister Dies Dirge, with guest performance of Reading Cicero Won't Make you Feel Better When You're Blue, Baby - yes, dear readers, I promise to leave all that to an upcoming super-duper extra-chipper post! - but in the meantime, here's some little things to make you…
go AWWWWHHH…..
Last Saturday morning, DH and myself were having a little self-indulgent, uncharacteristically guilt-free sleeping-in time. We were both already awake, and somehow had the exact same thought even before we started talking about it. I'm pretty sure it's DH that brought it up, the idea of a little child squiggling into our bed. Technically, he might have been reminiscing of when he was a child crawling into his parents' bed, but there was a non-explicit agreement that such a squiggling presence of a young humanoid could work just fine for us at the moment.
My cynical self, however, made it explicitly clear that "the moment", if such toddlery cold-footed presence were to join us, would likely be 5 am, and not the comfortable 9 am we were now luxuriating in.
- shake your head at me.
But you promised not to talk about your sister! you say. Well, fine, but I just wanted to share this uplifting song with you. Somehow, in the mess that is my itunes folders, the only songs or artists I can easily find and readily play are those that N introduced me to, among them the lovely Feist. Yes, there are objective technophobic reasons to this - Computers have Ruined My Life! Somebody Give me Back my ACTUAL CDs so I can find my MUSIC! - but, eh well, still, what a coincidence. I guess this is my way of missing and mourning you, dear N. Sing along, everybody. Or at least hum. It's catchy.
- nod knowingly.
While we are on the subject of my life in vignettes - and add to that a completely arbitrary sonic association to Anna Karenina, which I have resumed reading yesterday, truly a sign of mental stability - I am mildly obsessed with the breathtaking Anna Karina, particularly after watching Godard's Vivre Sa Vie. Don't take it from me, though: Susan Sontag described it as "a perfect film" and "one of the most extraordinary, beautiful, and original works of art that I know of." Just go watch it already.
*Incidentally, I was very pleased with myself for recognizing the young Antonin Artaud, who plays in the silent film our heroine watches. It seems I am evolving out of my cinematic boorishness, and quite enjoying it! Much to DH's relief, it is probable I shall some day grow out of my habit of proclaiming things like "I don't really like Fellini", nor, for that matter, "Argghh! I hate Socrates!". But really, Socrates deserves more than a *. So that's another post I owe you.
I apologize for this prolonged silence and promise to expound about how I was feeling too shitty to blog - despite said attempts and because of the not-so-successful ones among them - soon. But so as to not welcome you back to my virtual life with a full fledged Elegy of Shitty Life, aka the Life is So Shitty when Your Sister Dies Dirge, with guest performance of Reading Cicero Won't Make you Feel Better When You're Blue, Baby - yes, dear readers, I promise to leave all that to an upcoming super-duper extra-chipper post! - but in the meantime, here's some little things to make you…
go AWWWWHHH…..
Last Saturday morning, DH and myself were having a little self-indulgent, uncharacteristically guilt-free sleeping-in time. We were both already awake, and somehow had the exact same thought even before we started talking about it. I'm pretty sure it's DH that brought it up, the idea of a little child squiggling into our bed. Technically, he might have been reminiscing of when he was a child crawling into his parents' bed, but there was a non-explicit agreement that such a squiggling presence of a young humanoid could work just fine for us at the moment.
My cynical self, however, made it explicitly clear that "the moment", if such toddlery cold-footed presence were to join us, would likely be 5 am, and not the comfortable 9 am we were now luxuriating in.
- shake your head at me.
But you promised not to talk about your sister! you say. Well, fine, but I just wanted to share this uplifting song with you. Somehow, in the mess that is my itunes folders, the only songs or artists I can easily find and readily play are those that N introduced me to, among them the lovely Feist. Yes, there are objective technophobic reasons to this - Computers have Ruined My Life! Somebody Give me Back my ACTUAL CDs so I can find my MUSIC! - but, eh well, still, what a coincidence. I guess this is my way of missing and mourning you, dear N. Sing along, everybody. Or at least hum. It's catchy.
- nod knowingly.
While we are on the subject of my life in vignettes - and add to that a completely arbitrary sonic association to Anna Karenina, which I have resumed reading yesterday, truly a sign of mental stability - I am mildly obsessed with the breathtaking Anna Karina, particularly after watching Godard's Vivre Sa Vie. Don't take it from me, though: Susan Sontag described it as "a perfect film" and "one of the most extraordinary, beautiful, and original works of art that I know of." Just go watch it already.
*Incidentally, I was very pleased with myself for recognizing the young Antonin Artaud, who plays in the silent film our heroine watches. It seems I am evolving out of my cinematic boorishness, and quite enjoying it! Much to DH's relief, it is probable I shall some day grow out of my habit of proclaiming things like "I don't really like Fellini", nor, for that matter, "Argghh! I hate Socrates!". But really, Socrates deserves more than a *. So that's another post I owe you.
Apr 8, 2010
Post-colonialist Angst
Rant rant rant rant ranttttttt.
Here goes.
Well first of all, the internet has ruined my life. I mean, really, take zappos. I can spend hours on that site, perusing every goddamn sandal until I think I found the perfect one that will bring bliss to my problematic, picky, post-injury left foot. Or all these fashion blogs which, as a dear friend has put it, are a time-pump (and by the way, I apologize for introducing you to these time consuming monstrosities!). How self absorbed can I be? Even if they are occasionally about empowering women and positive body image blah blah blah, one of them is even a sort of fundraiser, still I can't sleep at night because I run over in my head how exactly to put in words on my BLOG, my own fucking blog, that the other self absorbed bloggers have made me a mouse potato, or whatever you call someone who just sits in front of the computer all evening long and will never finish reading Anna Karenina.
Also, lately I keep saying to myself stuff like: think of the hungry children in Africa. I mean, it's not something I would ever say to a child who doesn't feel like eating the last bite of peas off their plate, because there are few things crueler than forcing food down a child's throat. But these days, I'm having bouts of something like post-colonialist capitalist remorse, thinking more and more of how I consume much more than I need - I've already told you of my love of fatty spreadable food - eating more than will keep me full, because I have a sweet tooth and I'm just used to it that way, or convincing myself I absolutely need another pair of jeans (because in the "world" I "live" in, where different clothes are appropriate for different occasions, I actually do). So DH says, pick a fundraiser, give them 10 dollars a month, and some kids IN AFRICA will have more to eat. No, I say, that doesn't work, it doesn't change anything about the system, that's just a fig leaf for Republicans! (I was pretty pleased with myself with that one…) And he answers: well, it's better than standing in your kitchen with a bowl of rice krispies, talking about it and doing nothing. And that's what I do, of course: NOTHING. Except now I've published it in my blog, and I'm wondering if the fact that I have this place to channel my thoughts into just makes me mull them over even more instead of just going to sleep, it's gonna be 2 am by the time I finish this ghastly post [2:20 and I would love a peanut butter sandwich right now. going to bed...]. Speaking of nothing, I'm very sure that I will bring no change whatsoever to this world, that I will produce nothing of significance to humanity. I have a no less firmer conviction that the world is going to be a shittier place in the future, and if my grandchildren don't actually fight their neighbors for some resource like, oh let's say, WATER, it's because white people will leave it to the grandchildren in Africa to kill each other.
(Girly girl talk coming up. Seriously guys, if you don't feel like reading about menstrual pads and hand laundry, just skip to the next paragraph). I've recently started using non-disposable menstrual pads. In short, they're great. But I guess ideally I should have spent even more money to buy enough of them to last my whole period without having to do the laundry every other day for a week. So I end up hand washing with Tide - which is probably manufactured by one of the most animal-testing, toxic-waste-dumping, baby-killing conglomerates in the world - those cool eco-friendly save the planet and embrace your femininity pads. Point: made myself feel totally lame again. I mean, I can technically sew some more of these pads myself, they even encourage you to. (Girl talk is over...)
However, a) I don't have a sewing machine, and what is more important b) I can do nothing with my bare hands besides bake, and for that to turn out nice I need assistance from some butter (back to the original problem: SATURATED FATS!), and occasionally write unimportant papers on antiquity. Perhaps if I were an artist. dot dot dot.
Now, I kinda owe you an explanation of what it is I want to be when I grow up, which is not necessarily a Classics professor, but a theater director, and how I am trying to move in theatrical circles, but that will have to wait. What I do want to say is that I recently saw a dance piece by Andrea Miller, well what do you know, just go ahead and click on that link and you will see she defines it as a "duet for two men about loss and the vain attempt to save someone who is dying" (the Internet, I tell you. You learn something every day). Chapeau, Ms. Miller, because even without knowing what it's "about", it totally made me cry, and I mean choke down sobs into a kleenex, and I was willing to at least partly attribute that to the music by Arvo Part (which, I found out at the end of the show, is a piece called Fratres, which means Brothers in Latin). But mostly, well, I see a piece like this, something so strong and crystal-clear and WITHOUT WORDS, and I know that if I really could, it is not theatre I would strive to do, but dance.
But I can't. The easy excuse would be to refer you back to my left-foot injury.
Some concluding thoughts: 1. Thanks, mom, for taking us out to shows like this, and mending my clothes and knitting us cool stuff. You are a woman who does things with her hands, including deliciously amazing food, and I admire you.
2. If there is a volunteering path I might actually take, it is to help women who have been sexually attacked. Now, my ex-therapist would probably advise me not to do it, and I seriously do not know if my stomach and heart can take the devastation of these situations, but if ever there was a cause I believed in, an aspect of this shitty world I would want to actively contribute to changing.
3. This might be one of my passing nihilistic fits, though they seem to be recurring more frequently lately. When DH looses faith in his intellectual vocation - which he recently described as a sublimation of the artistic occupation that he can't pursue anymore because of his own physical injury - or in his capacity to make a difference, I say to him: we will bring children to the world and raise them to be good people. That's all very well (minus the anxiety of my children being molested, chronically ill, socially inapt, or just unhappy) but let's just stick to the Art and Vocation parts. So really, even if I were an artist, I'd probably be presenting to a bunch of left-wing white intellectuals and I'm back to square one: I am not going to have any impact on anything. NOTHING is going to change. All this talk about NOTHING, could it be somehow related to the fact that - with the original intent solely to hear DH presenting in class, my very own DH who is, in a way, returning to his intellectual "home" - I spent the day reading Heidegger's What is Metaphysics, and then sitting in a class on the NothingNESS that is revealed to us in ANXIETY?
Hmmmm. Probably not.
Here goes.
Well first of all, the internet has ruined my life. I mean, really, take zappos. I can spend hours on that site, perusing every goddamn sandal until I think I found the perfect one that will bring bliss to my problematic, picky, post-injury left foot. Or all these fashion blogs which, as a dear friend has put it, are a time-pump (and by the way, I apologize for introducing you to these time consuming monstrosities!). How self absorbed can I be? Even if they are occasionally about empowering women and positive body image blah blah blah, one of them is even a sort of fundraiser, still I can't sleep at night because I run over in my head how exactly to put in words on my BLOG, my own fucking blog, that the other self absorbed bloggers have made me a mouse potato, or whatever you call someone who just sits in front of the computer all evening long and will never finish reading Anna Karenina.
Also, lately I keep saying to myself stuff like: think of the hungry children in Africa. I mean, it's not something I would ever say to a child who doesn't feel like eating the last bite of peas off their plate, because there are few things crueler than forcing food down a child's throat. But these days, I'm having bouts of something like post-colonialist capitalist remorse, thinking more and more of how I consume much more than I need - I've already told you of my love of fatty spreadable food - eating more than will keep me full, because I have a sweet tooth and I'm just used to it that way, or convincing myself I absolutely need another pair of jeans (because in the "world" I "live" in, where different clothes are appropriate for different occasions, I actually do). So DH says, pick a fundraiser, give them 10 dollars a month, and some kids IN AFRICA will have more to eat. No, I say, that doesn't work, it doesn't change anything about the system, that's just a fig leaf for Republicans! (I was pretty pleased with myself with that one…) And he answers: well, it's better than standing in your kitchen with a bowl of rice krispies, talking about it and doing nothing. And that's what I do, of course: NOTHING. Except now I've published it in my blog, and I'm wondering if the fact that I have this place to channel my thoughts into just makes me mull them over even more instead of just going to sleep, it's gonna be 2 am by the time I finish this ghastly post [2:20 and I would love a peanut butter sandwich right now. going to bed...]. Speaking of nothing, I'm very sure that I will bring no change whatsoever to this world, that I will produce nothing of significance to humanity. I have a no less firmer conviction that the world is going to be a shittier place in the future, and if my grandchildren don't actually fight their neighbors for some resource like, oh let's say, WATER, it's because white people will leave it to the grandchildren in Africa to kill each other.
(Girly girl talk coming up. Seriously guys, if you don't feel like reading about menstrual pads and hand laundry, just skip to the next paragraph). I've recently started using non-disposable menstrual pads. In short, they're great. But I guess ideally I should have spent even more money to buy enough of them to last my whole period without having to do the laundry every other day for a week. So I end up hand washing with Tide - which is probably manufactured by one of the most animal-testing, toxic-waste-dumping, baby-killing conglomerates in the world - those cool eco-friendly save the planet and embrace your femininity pads. Point: made myself feel totally lame again. I mean, I can technically sew some more of these pads myself, they even encourage you to. (Girl talk is over...)
However, a) I don't have a sewing machine, and what is more important b) I can do nothing with my bare hands besides bake, and for that to turn out nice I need assistance from some butter (back to the original problem: SATURATED FATS!), and occasionally write unimportant papers on antiquity. Perhaps if I were an artist. dot dot dot.
Now, I kinda owe you an explanation of what it is I want to be when I grow up, which is not necessarily a Classics professor, but a theater director, and how I am trying to move in theatrical circles, but that will have to wait. What I do want to say is that I recently saw a dance piece by Andrea Miller, well what do you know, just go ahead and click on that link and you will see she defines it as a "duet for two men about loss and the vain attempt to save someone who is dying" (the Internet, I tell you. You learn something every day). Chapeau, Ms. Miller, because even without knowing what it's "about", it totally made me cry, and I mean choke down sobs into a kleenex, and I was willing to at least partly attribute that to the music by Arvo Part (which, I found out at the end of the show, is a piece called Fratres, which means Brothers in Latin). But mostly, well, I see a piece like this, something so strong and crystal-clear and WITHOUT WORDS, and I know that if I really could, it is not theatre I would strive to do, but dance.
But I can't. The easy excuse would be to refer you back to my left-foot injury.
Some concluding thoughts: 1. Thanks, mom, for taking us out to shows like this, and mending my clothes and knitting us cool stuff. You are a woman who does things with her hands, including deliciously amazing food, and I admire you.
2. If there is a volunteering path I might actually take, it is to help women who have been sexually attacked. Now, my ex-therapist would probably advise me not to do it, and I seriously do not know if my stomach and heart can take the devastation of these situations, but if ever there was a cause I believed in, an aspect of this shitty world I would want to actively contribute to changing.
3. This might be one of my passing nihilistic fits, though they seem to be recurring more frequently lately. When DH looses faith in his intellectual vocation - which he recently described as a sublimation of the artistic occupation that he can't pursue anymore because of his own physical injury - or in his capacity to make a difference, I say to him: we will bring children to the world and raise them to be good people. That's all very well (minus the anxiety of my children being molested, chronically ill, socially inapt, or just unhappy) but let's just stick to the Art and Vocation parts. So really, even if I were an artist, I'd probably be presenting to a bunch of left-wing white intellectuals and I'm back to square one: I am not going to have any impact on anything. NOTHING is going to change. All this talk about NOTHING, could it be somehow related to the fact that - with the original intent solely to hear DH presenting in class, my very own DH who is, in a way, returning to his intellectual "home" - I spent the day reading Heidegger's What is Metaphysics, and then sitting in a class on the NothingNESS that is revealed to us in ANXIETY?
Hmmmm. Probably not.
Apr 2, 2010
Sister Week
(TESNOBEN Alert! Not for the faint of heart)
Some of you may have noticed my Facebook status of late:
IT'S SISTER WEEK!!!!! If you have any SISTER who makes your life interesting and fun, is a blessing in your life and generally makes life worth living by being around, copy and paste this to your status.
Probably not a status statement that anyone would really be accused of needing an excuse for - especially considering the quite legitimate, all-embracing interpretation of sister (i.e., "sista"), that would include any significant female in my life (except maybe my mother?) - not to mention my sister-in-law, who is AWESOME and deserves a blogo-tribute of her own (despite her refusal, or at least reluctance, to read the way-too-long English entries of this blog). And yet, I do not tend to participate in anything reminiscent of chain letters, and was just about to share with the Facebook world how some nasty neighbor is using (i.e., stealing) our laundry detergent, the huge bottle of which we conveniently left in a box in the basement so as not to haul it up and down the stairs in addition to the triple load we (i.e., I) customarily struggle with. But then I saw this status and knew I had to copy-paste it (though I probably should have laid off on those excessive exclamation marks. That's what I call Chain-Letter Reminiscence).
Now even without the aforementioned interpretative permissiveness, it's not stretching the truth too far to say that I have a sister, and that she is around. Yes, N left me a lot of her nice clothes (she insisted I choose whatever I want while she was still alive, so we could all feel like she's giving them to me), which I do wear - because what's the point not to. And whenever I see something N would find interesting or funny or inspiring, I have to swallow to keep breathing at the same pace. This what-I-wore-blog - one of my favorites, perhaps because I think N would love the outfits here - I found this blog in the middle of the night when N was already in a coma, about 30 hours before she past away, and my first thought was "I have to show this to N!" And now, my mother is spending the week here with me, and every once in a while tears well in her eyes when she thinks how my sister is irrevocably gone. Interestingly, this recently happened in another clothing-related occasion, when we were both perusing the hangers at a huge and thoroughly-cool thrift shop.
I'm not sure having N constantly around with us - because hey mom, she is constantly with us and we are not in danger of forgetting her any time soon - makes life worth living. And I'm not trying to say that life is worth living because there's blogging and shopping and nice outfits to wear. NOPE. But it definitely tells us that there is no choice but to live. And this is probably what my mother feels heart-broken about, what actually makes life so hard. Here's how this onerous life-task translates in my head, sometimes all options simultaneously: a) But I DON'T WANNA go on living!!! Tough luck, sista. YOU HAVE TO. b) I've got a husband and grad school and things to do and to wear and to bake and that's pretty not-to-bad. OH NO I might be ok though TESNOBEN. Holy CRAP. c) (which is the worst) N was always pretty hard on me, and besides we haven't been living in the same country for the last 10 years, and never really were the let's-go-thrift-shopping-together-sista! kind of sisters, but I won't ever forget her because my parents will never get over this anyway HOLY CRAP I HAVE NO HEART.
I tend to prefer b) and aim to spend most of my emotionally-distraught time around that option because as an existentialist conclusion HOLY CRAP or a variation on that theme (say, SHIT HAPPENS) pretty much suits life as I see it, and without a doubt corresponds to how N lived her whole life and especially her last year: not afraid to die, spending her time exactly the way she wanted to, and imploring us to wear nice clothes and be merry. AMEN.
Some of you may have noticed my Facebook status of late:
IT'S SISTER WEEK!!!!! If you have any SISTER who makes your life interesting and fun, is a blessing in your life and generally makes life worth living by being around, copy and paste this to your status.
Probably not a status statement that anyone would really be accused of needing an excuse for - especially considering the quite legitimate, all-embracing interpretation of sister (i.e., "sista"), that would include any significant female in my life (except maybe my mother?) - not to mention my sister-in-law, who is AWESOME and deserves a blogo-tribute of her own (despite her refusal, or at least reluctance, to read the way-too-long English entries of this blog). And yet, I do not tend to participate in anything reminiscent of chain letters, and was just about to share with the Facebook world how some nasty neighbor is using (i.e., stealing) our laundry detergent, the huge bottle of which we conveniently left in a box in the basement so as not to haul it up and down the stairs in addition to the triple load we (i.e., I) customarily struggle with. But then I saw this status and knew I had to copy-paste it (though I probably should have laid off on those excessive exclamation marks. That's what I call Chain-Letter Reminiscence).
Now even without the aforementioned interpretative permissiveness, it's not stretching the truth too far to say that I have a sister, and that she is around. Yes, N left me a lot of her nice clothes (she insisted I choose whatever I want while she was still alive, so we could all feel like she's giving them to me), which I do wear - because what's the point not to. And whenever I see something N would find interesting or funny or inspiring, I have to swallow to keep breathing at the same pace. This what-I-wore-blog - one of my favorites, perhaps because I think N would love the outfits here - I found this blog in the middle of the night when N was already in a coma, about 30 hours before she past away, and my first thought was "I have to show this to N!" And now, my mother is spending the week here with me, and every once in a while tears well in her eyes when she thinks how my sister is irrevocably gone. Interestingly, this recently happened in another clothing-related occasion, when we were both perusing the hangers at a huge and thoroughly-cool thrift shop.
I'm not sure having N constantly around with us - because hey mom, she is constantly with us and we are not in danger of forgetting her any time soon - makes life worth living. And I'm not trying to say that life is worth living because there's blogging and shopping and nice outfits to wear. NOPE. But it definitely tells us that there is no choice but to live. And this is probably what my mother feels heart-broken about, what actually makes life so hard. Here's how this onerous life-task translates in my head, sometimes all options simultaneously: a) But I DON'T WANNA go on living!!! Tough luck, sista. YOU HAVE TO. b) I've got a husband and grad school and things to do and to wear and to bake and that's pretty not-to-bad. OH NO I might be ok though TESNOBEN. Holy CRAP. c) (which is the worst) N was always pretty hard on me, and besides we haven't been living in the same country for the last 10 years, and never really were the let's-go-thrift-shopping-together-sista! kind of sisters, but I won't ever forget her because my parents will never get over this anyway HOLY CRAP I HAVE NO HEART.
I tend to prefer b) and aim to spend most of my emotionally-distraught time around that option because as an existentialist conclusion HOLY CRAP or a variation on that theme (say, SHIT HAPPENS) pretty much suits life as I see it, and without a doubt corresponds to how N lived her whole life and especially her last year: not afraid to die, spending her time exactly the way she wanted to, and imploring us to wear nice clothes and be merry. AMEN.
Mar 23, 2010
Let's wrap this up
Enough with the blogging already!
I'll just wrap this week up with what has already become a post-backlog since the fount of blogging-inspiration has poured forth upon me in restless nights. (Getting rid of the backlog is another one of the accomplishments before my mom arrives for her extended visit tomorrow. And then hopefully for everyone involved, especially you, dear readers, I will knock it off with all this yappitiyap yap yap blogging. For a while.)
About Bagel Baking:
Just wanted to let you know that I've been there done that. At home. Wasn't to die for but I have not found really good NY-style bagels in a walking distance from my apartment (sob), and hey, it was fun and kept me busy for a whole morning. And it turned out better than last time when the yeast did not dissolve. I still think something went slightly wrong, and suspect it might have something to do with the fact I used the hook attachment of the mixer not just for the kneading part but for the initial flour-and-fluid mixing part as well, where I should rather have used the paddle attachment for that first mixing phase. Suggestions, anyone (that is, mom)? Next time, with a heavy heart I'll ditch my beloved Doram Gont's recipe and try this one.
This is a pretty good cake (whenever I say something is "pretty good", I inadvertently start singing to myself Tori Amos' Pretty Good Year. I once thought I should try updating as many "what's on my mind"s in facebook as possible using quotes from Tori songs. I would probably start with the inevitable "Never was a cornflake girl". But then move on to slightly more obscure lines such as "Got my rape-hat on, honey, but I always could accessorize". How long before someone reports me as an abusive user? File these whole parentheses under: ramble).
And I mean a pre-tty GOOD cake. Yum. I am draining out my supply of frozen butter. Oh dear. Where has all the butter gone? Could it possibly be in my arteries?! Anyway, I used this as my plan B desert in case the cinnamon "pound cake" (I decidedly do not know what pound cake means. The whole basic grounds of American food vocabulary, I'm just not really familiar with it.), made amid Tchulnt-anxiety-attack as well as fretful attempts to halve the recipe and exchange the butter in it for oil, turned out as not the best cake ever. Sorry about that long sentence. Point is - cinnamon pound cake indeed turned out kinda blaah, and I still had half of this very pretty-good-cake left so I served it as dessert for the Tchulnt instead.
You can use whatever fruit you feel like. I used frozen cherries, but should have just dumped the whole 10 oz bag in, instead of measuring 2 oz less for the half-pound required in the recipe (I am truly an expatriate. I almost know my way around the weather forecast in Fahrenheit. And now I can tell you that there are 16 ounces in one pound. Beloved Metric System, you are becoming a nostalgic hazy blur in the back of my mind! No, don't go yet! I miss you soooo! Groan. Sigh).
Next time I am making a muffing version out of this!
(File under: Oh my god, no! This is a food blog! Where I link to other people's what-I-baked blogs! NOOOO!!!)
I'll just wrap this week up with what has already become a post-backlog since the fount of blogging-inspiration has poured forth upon me in restless nights. (Getting rid of the backlog is another one of the accomplishments before my mom arrives for her extended visit tomorrow. And then hopefully for everyone involved, especially you, dear readers, I will knock it off with all this yappitiyap yap yap blogging. For a while.)
About Bagel Baking:
Just wanted to let you know that I've been there done that. At home. Wasn't to die for but I have not found really good NY-style bagels in a walking distance from my apartment (sob), and hey, it was fun and kept me busy for a whole morning. And it turned out better than last time when the yeast did not dissolve. I still think something went slightly wrong, and suspect it might have something to do with the fact I used the hook attachment of the mixer not just for the kneading part but for the initial flour-and-fluid mixing part as well, where I should rather have used the paddle attachment for that first mixing phase. Suggestions, anyone (that is, mom)? Next time, with a heavy heart I'll ditch my beloved Doram Gont's recipe and try this one.
This is a pretty good cake (whenever I say something is "pretty good", I inadvertently start singing to myself Tori Amos' Pretty Good Year. I once thought I should try updating as many "what's on my mind"s in facebook as possible using quotes from Tori songs. I would probably start with the inevitable "Never was a cornflake girl". But then move on to slightly more obscure lines such as "Got my rape-hat on, honey, but I always could accessorize". How long before someone reports me as an abusive user? File these whole parentheses under: ramble).
And I mean a pre-tty GOOD cake. Yum. I am draining out my supply of frozen butter. Oh dear. Where has all the butter gone? Could it possibly be in my arteries?! Anyway, I used this as my plan B desert in case the cinnamon "pound cake" (I decidedly do not know what pound cake means. The whole basic grounds of American food vocabulary, I'm just not really familiar with it.), made amid Tchulnt-anxiety-attack as well as fretful attempts to halve the recipe and exchange the butter in it for oil, turned out as not the best cake ever. Sorry about that long sentence. Point is - cinnamon pound cake indeed turned out kinda blaah, and I still had half of this very pretty-good-cake left so I served it as dessert for the Tchulnt instead.
You can use whatever fruit you feel like. I used frozen cherries, but should have just dumped the whole 10 oz bag in, instead of measuring 2 oz less for the half-pound required in the recipe (I am truly an expatriate. I almost know my way around the weather forecast in Fahrenheit. And now I can tell you that there are 16 ounces in one pound. Beloved Metric System, you are becoming a nostalgic hazy blur in the back of my mind! No, don't go yet! I miss you soooo! Groan. Sigh).
Next time I am making a muffing version out of this!
(File under: Oh my god, no! This is a food blog! Where I link to other people's what-I-baked blogs! NOOOO!!!)
Nesher Beer
Friend, poet and fellow-blogger Drifter Again, has kindly linked to my blog. Woohoo!
Check out this, which does a much better job than meta-me in explaining why this whole internet rambling rant is insignificant. In other words, the only real stuff worth writing is poetry.
And to expand this point - not that academic papers are anywhere nearly that significant, but still - DH thought it appropriate to suggest that my writing in English is good (thank you), so why the hell do I have to bitch and moan whenever I have a paper to hand in? And I retort: Ma HaKesher Bir HaNesher?* Why would my fluency in blog-writing reflect a facility to write anything that should have, how shall a put it, some kind of argument?, coherence in it? (Note my use of punctuation marks. Extremely non-conventional in academic standards. You GET the point.)
*When I first heard that expression, somewhere around age 10 at the most, I was not familiar with the beer-brand Nesher. So I thought this random sequence of syllables is a "smichut" that I don't understand. Sorry, non-existent anonymous American reader, you kinda need to know Hebrew to understand this asterisky part.
And another thing: a prerequisite to handing in a paper, on time OR after the deadline, is protractedly whining about it beforehand. At least, I've never done it without the whining part. Which proves my point.
Conclusion: if something comes easy to me, it must be worthless. Yeah, I was brought up that way.
Check out this, which does a much better job than meta-me in explaining why this whole internet rambling rant is insignificant. In other words, the only real stuff worth writing is poetry.
And to expand this point - not that academic papers are anywhere nearly that significant, but still - DH thought it appropriate to suggest that my writing in English is good (thank you), so why the hell do I have to bitch and moan whenever I have a paper to hand in? And I retort: Ma HaKesher Bir HaNesher?* Why would my fluency in blog-writing reflect a facility to write anything that should have, how shall a put it, some kind of argument?, coherence in it? (Note my use of punctuation marks. Extremely non-conventional in academic standards. You GET the point.)
*When I first heard that expression, somewhere around age 10 at the most, I was not familiar with the beer-brand Nesher. So I thought this random sequence of syllables is a "smichut" that I don't understand. Sorry, non-existent anonymous American reader, you kinda need to know Hebrew to understand this asterisky part.
And another thing: a prerequisite to handing in a paper, on time OR after the deadline, is protractedly whining about it beforehand. At least, I've never done it without the whining part. Which proves my point.
Conclusion: if something comes easy to me, it must be worthless. Yeah, I was brought up that way.
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