laughtear

Relocated.

2011-05-30T14:51:00.001-06:00

I have relocated. And I've started writing on my blog again. You can find my blog and all of my future posts here:

http://laughtear.wordpress.com/

planning.

2009-11-24T22:53:00.000-07:00

this year for the first time i'm entirely in charge of producing thanksgiving dinner. i've been actively involved in making other thanksgiving dinners, but i've never planned and made the whole thing. and it's kind of fun to sit down and plan a menu and figure out a schedule. so here's what my thanksgiving will look like:

the menu:

roast turkey breast with lemon and thyme
mashed potatoes and gravy
oven-baked bread stuffing
sweet white corn
homemade (of course!) dinner rolls
pumpkin pie (need i really designate it as homemade? really? anything but is simply inadequate)

the schedule:

tuesday:

buy challah, slice in half-inch slices and leave out over night to dry

wednesday:

make gravy. since a turkey breast won't produce enough drippings to make gravy, i'm doing this step in advance using cooks illustrated's "all purpose gravy" recipe (which looks delicious)
make pie crust and filling and bake. i may even dig out my mini fall leaf cookie cutters and decorate the pies
cut the dried slices of challah into half-inch cubes and leave out over night to dry out some more

thursday:

brine the turkey (again using cooks illustrated's directions; i do love my cooks illustrated subscription)
mix up rolls and let dough double in size
peel potatoes and cover with water
punch down roll dough and put rolls on pan to rise again
prep turkey and get it into the oven
prep dressing and get it into the oven
boil and mash potatoes
re-heat gravy
bake rolls
boil corn
carve turkey
EAT!!!

can i just say that thanksgiving is one of the very best holidays? yumminess!

{p.s. let me know if you want any of the recipes i'm using.}

read.

2009-11-24T00:20:00.000-07:00

just a little light reading on questions of sex, gender, and culture:

on why "chick flicks" are not all that woman-friendly: "7 popular chick flicks that secretly hate women." (be forewarned of some profanity)
on the federal court challenge to prop. 8 and the broader related issues: "gay on trial." winning quote: "They [defenders of prop. 8 who oppose gay marriage] also argue that sexual orientation falls on a continuum and that sexuality is 'fluid,' a decidedly nontraditional view that has taken root in college queer-studies departments but not the sort of thing you'd ever hear from Focus on the Family's James Dobson." i'd just love to see most conservatives who oppose gay marriage swallow that pill.
jessawhy's personal articles of faith, a beautiful piece: "my articles of faith."
on the romantic paternalism prevalent in the church and the desire to be taken seriously: "romantic paternalism."
on the dangers of the twilight saga (and a great example of why we should think just a little more carefully about the entertainment we consume): "ew moon: why twilight continues to hurt america." winning quotes: "Young girls around the country are debating whether she should choose Edward or Jacob. Which abuse is better? He’s insanely jealous and stalks me or he can barely control his anger and may physically abuse me at any moment?" and " The messages behind Twilight? Be weak, let your man protect you. Be careful, don’t get him angry. If he hurts you, it’s your fault. Abuse is part of life. Accept it. If he really loves you, he’ll try not to hurt you but don’t be surprised if he does. You probably deserve it. You are nobody without your man, so don’t bother trying." is it any wonder that the author of the series is mormon?
and, to be balanced, an interesting feminist defense of the twilight saga, which asks some very important questions: "another feminist defense of 'twilight'."
and my hero for the week: the ten-year-old boy in arkansas refusing to stand and pledge allegiance because gay marriage is not legal, therefore the nation does not provide "liberty and justice for all." (no reading required, just a fast enough connection to stream video)

go forth, read, and comment. i'd love to hear what you think.

accompaniment.

2009-11-22T22:57:00.000-07:00

chocolate chaud.

3 cups whole milk
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
6 oz. dark chocolate (i use one that's 80% cocoa)

break chocolate into small pieces (i put mine in a baggie and beat it with my rolling pin--very therapeutic) bring milk, water, and sugar just to a boil and remove from heat. whisk in chocolate until it is melted. using an immersion blender, blend the chocolate for about a minute until it is frothy. if you don't have an immersion blender, you can put the chocolate in a regular blender and blend it for a minute. it's very yummy served with a toasted egg bread (challah or brioche, for example). but it's best served as an accompaniment to decorating for christmas. yummy!

projects.

2009-11-21T01:11:00.000-07:00

i may be just a little crazy. why? because i'm taking on projects when i should be doing nothing but reading. but i stitch during church. and i do need an occasional t.v. break. so here are a few projects i'm planning on in the next month or two:

for my baby C:

head bands for my nieces:

for my sister J, in gold:

winter.

2009-11-20T00:28:00.000-07:00

i live in the wrong place. you see, i love winter. i love cozy sweaters and wearing socks. i love long walks through falling snow. i love waking up to a world freshly blanketed in snow--there's nothing like the silence of that moment. i love hot drinks and crackling fires. i love scarves and jackets and gloves. there's really nothing about winter that i do not like. yet i live in southern california. and my sisters, who both hate the snow, live in utah and upstate new york.

this year i'll get my dose of winter when i travel east for christmas. and i hope it comes with lots of snow, complete with a snowman and maybe even a snowball fight. just four short weeks and i'll be there, in the land of winter. yay!!

disco.

2009-11-19T00:10:00.000-07:00

today it's only wednesday. and it's been a long, yucky wednesday. so i'm going to go to bed and sleep. but first i thought i'd show you what has me plugging along this week:

come sunday, i'll be hanging ornaments (including several disco balls) and stringing lights and playing the first christmas music of the season. and that, my friends, makes it okay that i had a long, yucky wednesday.

excuses.

2009-11-18T00:29:00.000-07:00

i've been sitting here thinking about what to write about. but the problem is that i got irritated by a man who i *know* to be an ass (which means i really shouldn't let him irritate me), so instead of coming up with something to write about for today i've just been stewing.

so i'm not writing tonight. back to it tomorrow.

lose.

2009-11-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

in the last year, i've gained nearly thirty pounds. i think that surprises people when i tell them. because i'm tall and have a fairly well-proportioned figure, i carry the weight pretty well. but it's still there. and i can't wear most of my clothes. i have exactly two pair of pants and three skirts that fit. true, i can squeeze into a few other items, but not many. and that is why i need to lose at least fifteen pounds (though i'd really like to lose all thirty). because i simply cannot afford to buy a new wardrobe.

the only question is how. i've never had to really think about losing weight before. the only time i lost any significant amount, it just sort of happened when my lifestyle changed a bit. this time, it's going to take some concerted effort. so here's what i'm going to do:

slimfast for breakfast. because a friend used it a few years ago and it worked for her. so i'm willing to ignore the questionable taste and try it.
exercising at least three times a week. i should really try to workout daily, but i know myself well enough to know that is highly unlikely. i figure having a more realistic goal will not only make it more achievable, but also less likely to result in guilt, which usually triggers a defeatist attitude and the subsequent indulgence in sweets. yeah. i want to avoid that scenario.
in addition to working out, i'm going to try to walk more often. i think the fact that i walked thirty minutes a day helped me lose the weight the last time.
cutting down on portion sizes. i don't much buy into fad diets that stress cutting carbs or just sugar or purges or what have you. but i do think that cutting portion sizes can go a long way.
cutting down on sugar intake. i won't cut it altogether. i like sweets. and i'll occasionally eat them. but no more snacking on candy bars from the college vending machine or making a side trip to get a cupcake.
cutting down on fast food. it's just too easy to run through a drive through to grab a quick bite to eat. this will be easier since i'm relatively poor and fast food adds up quickly. it's much cheaper to just buy the groceries and cook.

so there you have it. my plan. hopefully it will produce results and i'll be able to wear my jeans again. and all my cute skirts. and hopefully the slimfast will become more palatable. this morning i drank the "french vanilla" (in quotes because it tasted neither french nor vanilla) with a diet coke chaser.

post-gender.

2009-11-16T00:26:00.000-07:00

in the introduction to the most recent edition of the feminine mystique, betty friedan argues that women's progress will essentially halt until our society makes changes in men's gender roles. i couldn't agree more. but i'd like to focus my discussion of male gender roles on the possibility of women's happiness, just for a moment.

recently, mfranti over at feminist Mormon housewives called attention to a little article in the mormon times which begins by asserting that feminism tacitly implies "that in order for women to have worth they had to be just like men" and ends with the pithy statement that "it's interesting, important stuff, feminism, i'm just not sure why anybody ever believed it was the ticket to happiness." let's start with these two lovely points and work from there. first, i--a staunch (some would say flaming), long-time feminist--i have no desire to be "just like men." i'm a woman, thank you very much. and i'm perfectly happy being a woman, even if i engage in a little gender bending on occasion. feminism has never claimed that women will only have worth if they're just like men, even if it has claimed for women the same rights men have. perhaps this subtle distinction is lost on palmer. and then there's the question of feminism and happiness. i'm not sure anyone has ever claimed that feminism was a "ticket to happiness," either, though i'm sure most feminists would argue that feminism has very clearly allowed for more equal access to things that generate happiness. but more on that in a moment.

aside from earning my scorn for its rather superficial and inaccurate treatment of feminism, palmer's article got me thinking about the question of having it all. contemplating the question of why it is, after 40 years of feminism, women are reportedly unhappy, palmer proposes that said unhappiness "is a product of the crashing reality that, no matter what we may have heard, and despite all our options, we still can't have it all. No matter what we choose, it will inescapably come at the cost of something else." now, i'm not going to argue with the fact that making choices involves cost. if i choose to work full time, i clearly will not be with my (hypothetical) children full time and vice versa. but i maintain that there is a way for women to have it all--including happiness. and that's where men's gender roles come in.

i'll pause a moment for the head-scratching.

...

and to continue. so what does women's happiness have to do with male gender roles? everything. in a recent article examining gender roles in the workplace in the american prospect, courtney martin argues that "we have to stop using 'work/life balance' as coded language for 'working-mom stress.' despite ample evidence that men are served by investing more time and energy outside the workplace and 'coming out' as fathers while in it, there are very few men who are taking on this issue in a substantive, political way." according to martin (and i agree with her), questions of balancing the demands of work and the demands of life have too often been framed in terms of women's needs, which ignores that men, too, are human beings with lives outside of the workplace. so long as we equate masculinity with earning capacity and the ability to provide (coughcough--i'm looking at you, mormons), we'll perpetuate a situation in which women (even working women) carry the burden of making the home function while men just fund it. (aside: i know this is changing because i've witnessed it; part of the change is simply generational; but part of the change also needs to be conscious and proactive on the part of both men and women.)

but this brings me to a point martin made in another recent piece in the american prospect: it's not enough for us to identify what men should not (and, if my experience is in any way indicative, do not) want to be. we (and by "we" i mostly mean men) need to develop a positive image of what a progressive, enlightened, post-gender man is. it's not enough to want to get rid of machismo and entitlement and patriarchy; we need to have some sense of what will take their place.

it's tempting to simply say that men should be free to be themselves. but is that enough? simple freedom? is that what the feminist movement earned for women? in some ways yes. we're now free to educate ourselves and earn for ourselves and become what we want to be. we're free to make the attempt at having it all, while accepting the costs that come with it. perhaps the answer is that we need to open to men what has been traditionally available to women: nurturing, educating, caring for children; maintaining and designing and operating a peaceful, productive living environment; being the primary caregiver rather than the primary breadwinner. these things need to be options for men--real options that don't come with social condemnation attached.

perhaps most importantly we need a society in which individuals make choices for themselves about what works best for themselves in their own individual circumstances. if we can reach a place where both women AND men AS INDIVIDUALS are free of gender constraints, i have no doubt that we can have it all and happiness, too. because, as martin points out, "neither heterosexuality nor fatherhood is a prerequisite for wanting a more flexible, healthy workplace. anyone who hopes to be a balanced person with relationships and passions outside of work has a stake"--specifically a stake in policy issues that allow for balancing all of the demands of life, not just those of work.

in my mind this will take two radical (radical, as in 'of roots' implying a return to roots) changes (especially radical for mormons): 1. the breakdown of traditional male gender roles; and 2. seeing people as individuals first rather than members of a couple. perhaps i'll leave you there, with the intention of following up on number two another time. thoughts?

sir.

2009-11-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

yesterday i buzzed my head again. i was trying to wait until january so my sister could see my curls again when i go visit next month. but i just couldn't handle the maintenance anymore. and i didn't have the money for a real haircut. so it was a set of clippers with a #2 comb, my friend C, her baby A on my lap, and her three-year-old E throwing a temper tantrum with periodic breaks for conversation. she was a saint to take the time to do it for me. and now i have my edgy, gender-bending cut back. i wonder how long it will take for someone to call me sir...

fantasy.

2009-11-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

let's talk weddings. specifically let's talk wedding dresses.

i grew up fantasizing about wedding gowns. my sister and i used to buy bridal magazines with some regularity. we'd pour over them, dog-earing the dresses we liked, drooling over diamonds, dreaming of the day when we could deck ourselves out like the models in the magazines. we weren't totally without a critical eye. we frequently made fun of mermaid dresses and models who looked like they were sick to their stomachs. but we generally bought into the bridal image: poufy, white, bead-bedecked froth accented with pearls and a diamond ring.

i went bridal gown shopping with my sister when she was engaged a little over ten years ago. it was fun watching her try dresses on. and i loved the dress she chose--simple a-line with a square neck and minimal pearl beading. but even then i had started telling my mother that i didn't want a traditional wedding. i had long since started making fun of the dresses i had fantasized about as a 13-year-old. and when i saw first hand all of the planning that went into my sister's wedding--well, as much as i liked the finished product (and it was a lovely wedding), i started threatening to elope.

tonight as i was flipping channels, i ran across say yes to the dress on TLC. and i got sucked in. except what was once fantasy is now more like horror. the fashionista in me still kind of enjoys seeing dresses. i do watch the academy awards mostly for the pre-show red carpet, after all. but so many wedding dresses are just style nightmares. and the practical, feminist, non-traditionalist me with my taste for simplicity--well, i can't help but be horrified. there's the prices--$5000 for a dress? really?! that's just nuts. and that's the low end of the budget, if this particular show is to be believed. and then there's the princess mentality. heaven forbid the bride not have her perfect day.

i understand that weddings are a big deal in our culture. i'm all for celebrating such an important occasion. and i think people should celebrate in whatever way they feel is appropriate. but i don't like traditional weddings. i don't like the emphasis being on the party rather than on the commitment being made. i don't like the tradition of the father giving the bride to her husband; it smacks of the past when women did not have a legal identity of their own. i don't like the expense. or the stress. and i don't like tradition for the sake of tradition.

but you know what i like the least? i really hate the way the fantasy dominated my youth. to such an extent that the failure to accomplish the dream has created serious emotional and psychological blocks for me as an adult. the assumption that i would grow up and marry was so deeply ingrained that i never doubted it as a child and young woman. but i have not lived the fantasy. and as it became more apparent that i would not have the fantasy, my self worth and confidence became proportionately less. i hate that. why should my sense of value be contingent on my being married? to my having the fantasy? that's ridiculous.

so here's what i fantasize of now: i fantasize of a world in which everyone, female and male, is valued for her- and himself. alone. because they are unique and individual and have wonderful things to offer the world. and if they are fortunate enough to find another individual whom they love, then we will celebrate that union. because it is a beautiful thing for two people to love each other and commit for a lifetime. but it is also a beautiful thing for one person to live a full, rewarding life. and that should be celebrated, too.

pick-up.

2009-11-12T22:42:00.000-07:00

today i got down. and that made it hard to work. and i can't afford to have another day like that tomorrow. so i'm going to make a list of good things and when i start to get down tomorrow, i'll come read it. so in no particular order, here are a few things that make my life lovely:

little birds hopping happily in the bushes outside the window
good news about a friend's progress in a particularly tough class
talking to my sweet little niece on the phone today
hearing another sweet little niece coo (this one's only 2 1/2 months old)
cool enough weather to justify wearing a cozy sweater when i went out tonight
my mama telling me she loves me
talking with the dean about the progress i'm making in my program
making plans for a visit to the beautiful huntington gardens
dark, delicious sipping chocolate at my favorite cafe
the smell of rain and fresh cut grass when i stepped out the door tonight

and these little things are enough to pick me up. g'night.

bad.

2009-11-11T22:06:00.000-07:00

i've been thinking. i need to find a better way to manage my bad habits. because, you see, they tend to assert themselves in waves. for instance, a while ago i committed to not drinking quite so much diet coke. so i was good for a while. then i had this party for which i, of course, bought diet coke, which left me with most of a flat of diet coke, which of course had to be consumed...you see where this is going? and last week it culminated in consuming a 12-pack in just under 48 hours. that's just a wee bit too much diet coke to be healthy.

i do the same thing with television. i go days without watching, weeks with only an hour or two of viewtime, and then--BAM! it hits. i spend hours in front of the television (which is how i've managed to watch most of season three and four of bones in the last week).

this is clearly not a good thing. so i'm resolved: i will now indulge in my bad habits in small bits on a more regular basis. because surely it's better to watch a little tv every few days than a lot of tv in just a few days or to drink a little diet coke in the space of a week or two than twelve cans in 48 hours. this seems a positive resolution: just a bit of bad habit indulgence here and there. you know--to save myself from myself.

some bad habits i'll occasionally indulge:

watching tv. most likely bones. or occasionally NCIS. and, if i can keep myself awake long enough, the daily show and once in a while the colbert report.
drinking diet coke. though this is one that my recent headaches have indicated i should try to weed out altogether.
eating chocolate. clearly this is not going to stop altogether; that would just be dumb. so i'll try to only eat really good chocolate. and as i'm poor, this will likely only happen on the rare occasions i feel rich or someone else decides to give me really good chocolate.
laying in my bed awake for hours in the morning while doing nothing but listening to NPR. i mean, NPR is certainly worth listening to, but surely it's better to do it while cleaning or cooking or getting ready for the day--something that's more productive than simply laying there.

i think that's a good list to get started on. so here's to being bad more often in smaller doses.

{p.s. i know i missed yesterday for NaBloPoMo, but you'll have to forgive me as i actually did not have access to a computer; odd, i know, but true. i think being disconnected on occasion is an acceptable reason not to post daily.}

library.

2009-11-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

tonight i was very disturbed. you see, i was innocently minding my own business, driving home from a doctor's appointment, when this story came on the radio. all about a library that GOT RID OF ITS BOOKS. excuse me!? how can a library be a library without any books? it makes no sense!

okay. granted the library subscribed to a database with millions of digital books. and it acquired some kindles students can check out. but i'm very sorry to say digital books and digital book readers do not a library make.

now, don't get me wrong. i recognize the value of digital resources. i use them all the time in my own research. i love searchable text databases. i love having online access to full text articles. but i also print up the articles or chapters that i find pertinent to my research. why? because there's an enormous difference between reading material on a screen and reading it in print format.

it's true that most digital readers allow for annotation in some way or another, but from what i've heard it's cumbersome at best. i've also been told that accessing footnotes on digital readers is difficult. both of those tools--annotating a text and accessing that text's notes--are invaluable to academic reading and research. and then there's the small detail of memory. i frequently find things in a text because i remember that it was at the top of the left side of a page (or somesuch). maybe i'm weird, but there's just something more memorable about a physical text than a nondescript screen of text.

and all of that doesn't even touch the physical beauty of a book and of stacks of books. there's something magical about a library that cannot be duplicated. books have lives, beyond the life they contain in their text. they represent the interests and tastes and loves of the people who owned them, the priorities and emphases of the institutions that acquired them. when someone dies and leaves behind a library, some part of her continues to live. when someone gives a book, he also give some little bit of himself. how could we possibly imagine that a world without books, even one in which all of the same information was immediately searchable and accessible through digital means, would be a world in which we would want to live?

i love digital tools. i use them all the time. but i hope i never get to the point that i choose digital texts over my lovely, beautiful, wonderful books.

bedlam.

2009-11-08T23:41:00.000-07:00

tomorrow, november 9, is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. i remember learning about it as a freshman in high school, recognizing its importance. but i think the most powerful experience i had regarding the wall and what it represented was when i visited the imperial war museum in london. outside, on the museum's peaceful grounds, i found a chunk of the wall with wide open eyes and an even wider open mouth shouting the words "change your life."

i spent hours alone at the imperial war museum, wandering exhibits that captured and explained the horrors of the great war and its successor, world war II. i've always had a fascination with these two wars--with how the entire world could get caught up in such violence. my visit to this particular museum was as much an act of homage to those who died and fought in the wars as it was an educational excursion for my own benefit. because i had lived through the end of the cold war and the fall of the wall, this particular piece was especially powerful for me.

but what was the most powerful was the location of the museum. you see, the imperial war museum is housed in what remains of the priory of st. mary of bethlehem, later known as bethlem royal hospital, more commonly known as bedlam. first the priory and then bethlem royal hospital specialized in caring for the insane. the juxtapositions of this site, its current focus on two of the most disastrous wars in history, its name's popular connotation of insanity itself, and the birthplace of jesus strike me as not only interesting, but apt. i do not believe that christianity necessarily causes either insanity or war, but i do believe that the bastardization and misunderstanding of christianity is at the root of a great deal of both insanity and bloodshed. and this museum, with its long and rich heritage, captures that unfortunate history of christianity's bastard children.

problem.

2009-11-07T23:57:00.000-07:00

so i have a problem. just a slight dilemma. you see, i'm in the middle of prepping for my phd exams. and i'm getting more and more excited as i work. but i have to pay my bills. which means i have to teach. which means i really should be grading the 225 paper and 75 journals (not to mention numerous homework assignments) i have recently collected. but i just don't want to. i want to read. and research. and write. i don't want to grade.

but then there's the little problem of rent. and food. so i suppose i'll grade the damn papers. wish me speedy grading.

books.

2009-11-07T00:14:00.000-07:00

i grew up reading. i remember being six years old and bored, pestering my mother about what i could do. she took me into the living room, pulled a bobbsey twins novel off the bookshelf, and suggested i read. so i did. and i never looked back.

the living room in our house was a treasure trove of books. novels, poetry, short stories, encyclopedias, dictionaries, art books, books on how things worked, volumes of fiction for children. you think of a kind of book, and you could probably find it in there. i thought it was normal to have a full wall of books in a room, to have books in every room of the house. i didn't realize that some people relegate the few books they have to the closet or only buy books as decorating pieces. for me, books were a way of living lives i couldn't otherwise access.

and now--now i'm a bit of a book whore, to borrow a phrase from an old professor. i love just about any kind of book. fiction, non-fiction, poetry, prose, biographies, essays, history. i love the feel of a book--the heft of its weight in my hand. i love the smell of books that you only find in a space filled to the brim with texts. and i love the look of books on a shelf; there was one particular aisle in the BYU library that i especially loved because most of the spines were red.

but most of all, i love losing myself in a book. which makes my current task more pleasure than task, since it requires reading and reading and then reading some more (in preparation for my exams). last week, it was a text about relationships between women, don quixote, and community. this week, it is the origins of the novel and a novel in verse. and next week will bring more. this is a life i could get used to.

{photo by john }

alive.

2009-11-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

last spring, i yet again faced the decision of whether to remain in school. i was on the tail end of a serious bout of depression, just starting to come out of it. i was out of funding. and i didn't know if i had it in me to continue the program. so i took another quarter off to really focus on getting myself healthy again and to think carefully about how to move forward. by june, i had decided to return to school. but i was still hesitant about making contact with my committee members and really taking the steps necessary to move forward. i started some reading, but that was about it.

well, this week i decided it was time to make this decision a reality. so sunday night, i had the doctor and the dean give me a pep talk and then i went home and sent emails to all four of my committee members. tonight i met with my advisor, and spent half an hour talking about the logic of my project and receiving advice about books to add or remove from my lists. tomorrow i'll meet with another committee member about my lists. and next week with committee member three. i'm still waiting to hear back from my 4th committee member.

it feels good to be moving. for the first time in a very long time, i'm truly excited about my reading. i'm talking back to my books. i'm making connections between them. i feel invigorated and alive. and that feels very good.

equally.

2009-11-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

i remember the day i proclaimed to my history class at BYU that i was a feminist. i was 23 years old. i had just done a group presentation about the women's rights movement. i covered the question of abortion rights, since it would be incredibly ill-informed to explore the women's rights movement without talking about abortion rights and no one else was willing to do it. i was alone in my proclamation.

the entire experience of that presentation was a little surreal. it was a cold war history course. one of the biggest assignments was to participate in a group presentation on the various civil rights movements of the 60s (and the moral majority movement of the 80s). i naturally chose to cover the women's movement. our presentation was to last 40 minutes. we were supposed to make it multimedia, to dress our part, to decorate our classroom, etc. so we did the following:

a video-taped sketch of a woman experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace
another video sketch of a protest for women's rights
each of us painted protest signs covering our aspect of the movement
in-depth research and oral presentation of our findings

we gathered on campus one saturday afternoon to film our sketches and make our decorations for our classroom. doing my part, i painted a sign that read "it's my body! abortion on demand." and then we proceeded to the cafeteria to stage our mock protest. i innocently leaned my sign face out so i wouldn't get wet paint on the wall, not thinking at all about how people would react to seeing it. we decided to move on to a quieter part of the student center so we wouldn't disturb the few people present. we did so and began filming for our protest video, only to be interrupted by an irate woman who screamed at us about how she couldn't believe that we would do such a thing on BYU's campus, that she was going to send her children there and would not tolerate such sentiments which obviously went contrary to church teachings, that what we were doing was immoral and illegal and that she had called the police. one of the members of my group quietly explained that we were simply doing a homework assignment, which sadly did little to placate this woman. apparently she didn't fancy the idea of us even learning about protests for abortion rights any more than she fancied the idea of us actually protesting for them. the police did come and we explained ourselves and then the police left. the next week we were written up in the daily universe's infamous police beat.

after that experience, i realized i better really know my stuff about abortion before presenting the issue in class. so i did my research--hours spent in the library and media center reading and watching documentaries. i learned a lot doing my research; here's a sample of the more interesting points:

prior to legalization, botched abortions accounted for thousands of deaths per annum, comprising close to 50% of the maternal mortality rate;
abortion has a long history: the earliest recorded evidence of an abortion dated to something like 1500 b.c.e.
it was only in the 1880s that the catholic church came down hard against all abortion (prior to that it was generally acceptable for a catholic woman to abort a fetus in the first trimester and later term abortions were not deemed as serious as murder)
one of my roommate's mothers recalled one of her roommates being advised to attempt to induce a miscarriage by a doctor in the BYU health center

armed with this knowledge and other similar facts, i was fired up to make my case. in class, i stood on the table, dressed like a hippy, with props at my feet--a bottle of bleach, a wire hanger, etc.--,which represented the methods of back-alley and self-induced abortions. from that tabletop, i delivered a rally speech regarding the right to abortion, every bit as impassioned as the original protesters for the right. you see, i had become so persuaded by the evidence i had gained that i had moved from being intellectually pro-choice to being adamantly pro-choice (a stance i maintain).

at the end of the hour, my group and i resumed our seats in the classroom and our professor took over. he asked the class who among us would call ourselves feminists. i was the only one to raise my hand. i did so immediately, with no hesitation. i remember being slightly shocked that i was the only one out of fifty students willing to claim "feminist" as a self-descriptor.

a few days later, another group presented on the moral majority. their presentation naturally included a pro-life segment, since anti-abortion sentiment was a primary fueling force in the moral majority. they ended their presentation by holding a press-conference where the rest of the class acted as the press. armed with all of my stats about abortion and the horrible consequences of its illegality, i hammered the woman who had covered the pro-life movement. relentlessly. i called her out on her hypocrisy when it came to valuing the lives of unborn fetuses over the lives of very alive women, women who may have other children or family members dependent on them. i threw statistics at her about the numbers of women who died annually, the lengthy history of abortion, and its dubious status as "murder." i thoroughly enjoyed giving her hell. and watching her squirm as she had no answers for my questions. (i really shouldn't relish making other people squirm, but sometimes i do.)

it was an interesting class for many reasons, but i'll remember it for what i learned about the women's movement, abortion, and the culture of my church. i was honestly surprised that not one other person in that room would identify as feminist. i knew that feminism had something of a bad rap in the church, but i also felt very strongly that christ's gospel supported the objectives of feminism, as did many of the church's teachings. it was hard for me to realize that i was so alone in my stance on women's issues in the church.

that realization remains a hard thing. today i learned that BYU is closing its women's research institute at the end of the year. and that makes me sad. because it again underscores that my church and my culture do not value women's issues as fully as they claim to; that all of the rhetoric about women's equality and value is just that--rhetoric. the realities don't really support the rhetoric. mormon women remain second-class citizens and will for a long time, i'm afraid.

when the day comes that the majority of a history class at BYU identifies easily as feminist, or, even better, that the question doesn't even have to be asked because the affirmative answer is taken for granted--then i may believe that the church values women equally to men. when we can talk openly of and pray to both of our heavenly parents--then i may believe that the church values women equally to men. when my worthiness is not questioned because i believe in the radical equality of all of god's children--then i may believe that the church values women equally to men. but right now i'm afraid i do not believe that the church values women equally to men.

if you'd like to voice your opinion about the closure of the women's research institute, there are some great suggestions at the exponent blog.

forward.

2009-11-03T21:01:00.000-07:00

a year ago we voted. it was a day of celebration—celebration of the fading of america’s legacy of racism; celebration of a new, more hopeful chapter in american presidential history. i watched obama and his family take the stage in chicago and teared up along with hundreds of thousands of other americans. i teared up because there in front of me and millions of other americans was the evidence that what we have proclaimed for centuries was a little more true—all mankind was just a little more equal when america elected a young black man, the son of a mixed-race marriage which was not even legal in many states of the union when he was born.

i celebrated that night, but it was a bittersweet celebration. while my presidential candidate had won, carrying his nation forward towards equality, my state voted against equality by passing prop. 8. all night as i watched the presidential election results roll in, i kept tabs on the prop. 8 battle. and all night, it kept a damper on my spirits. i have no doubt that in fifty years, this nation will look back to the elections and laws regarding gay marriage and will see them as the shameful equal of laws and elections that denied african americans the right to vote and to receive an equal education and to marry where they loved.

tonight there’s a chance that this nation will start to move out of the shadow of anti-gay bigotry. in maine, the electorate will decide whether to uphold the law passed by their duly elected representatives legalizing gay marriage. and right now—right now they have upheld gay marriage 53% to 47%. i can only hope that this slim majority will be as tenacious as the equally slim majority by which prop. 8 passed in california a year ago. perhaps this small state will live up to its motto (dirigo) tonight and lead the nation another step towards equality.

depressionware.

2009-11-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

tonight a poem by one of my favorite poets, ted kooser.

Depression Glass

It seemed those rose-pink dishes
she kept for special company
were always cold, brought
down from the shelf in jingling stacks,
the plates like the panes of ice
she broke from the water bucket
winter mornings, the flaring cups
like tulips that opened too early
and got bitten by frost. They chilled
the coffee no matter how quickly
you drank, while a heavy
everyday mug would have kept
a splash hot for the better
part of a conversation. It was hard
to hold up your end of the gossip
with your coffee cold, but it was
a special occasion, just the same,
to sit at her kitchen table
and sip the bitter percolation
of the past week's rumors from cups
it had taken a year to collect
at the grocery, with one piece free
for each five pounds of flour.

i love this poem because it reminds me of my mama. i grew up looking at her depression ware, which she inherited from her grandma. it was so beautiful with its faceted surfaces and its warm rosy color. and i love what it represents--the effort at refinement in spite of difficulty and poverty; the collection of beautiful pieces as part of providing for a family's needs. i remember the surprise i felt when my mom explained that the pieces came sewn into the bags of flour purchased at the local grocer. i couldn't imagine acquiring finery through such means. maybe this is part of why i've always despised fine china. because in my family, the finest china was collected free with bags of flour.

someday i hope i have a piece or two of my great-grandma's depression ware to catch the light and gleam, beautifully reminding me of the simplicity and honesty of my roots.

NaBloPoMo

2009-11-01T22:07:00.000-07:00

okay. so that title is just about the ugliest sounding word imaginable, but it is what it is: the acronym for National Blog Posting Month, which i decided to participate in this year. mostly because yesterday i actually looked at my post count for the last year and it's been rather dismal. this is what happens when i get sucked into depression--i stop writing. but i'm actually happy right now, so i don't have the depression excuse. and there's a lot i've been wanting to write about. so here i am. committed to writing daily for at least a month.

so follow along if you'd like. or participate on your own blog. feel free to steal my logo on the right (my very first .pdf; i'm so proud) if you want a badge for your blog.

and that is all you get for today, because now i need to go and write some emails to my advisors.

romance.

2009-10-31T23:05:00.000-06:00

what i learned about romance from refrigerator poetry:

nothing happens to or is done by me, as there are no first person pronouns
in other words, everything romantic happens to someone else
everything happens in the past tense; no present or future loving, apparently
more happens to him or by his than to her or by hers (very little by hers, actually, since there is no 's' to make her into hers)
for some reason saber-toothed tigers are romantic
as are big dogs
and pirate ships
there are some truly disturbing images for female genitalia
and hilarious ones for male genitalia
most nouns are adjectively enhanced
most adjectives come coupled
he is much more active and aggressive than she
i'm too embarrassed of the naughty bits to display them on the fridge where my innocent taiwanese roommate would see them; they live in a little plastic box on top of the fridge

and now i know everything i need to know about romance. too bad it won't happen to me (see items one and two, above).

questions.

2009-10-10T22:04:00.000-06:00

"i beg you . . . to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. and the point is, to live everything. live the questions now. perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." --rainer maria rilke, letters to a young poet

i encountered this passage from rilke again yesterday, this time on a quotable magnet in barnes & noble. and there, in the middle of busy, superficial fashion island, it spoke to me again.

i want to live this way, loving the unresolved questions of life, embracing them as bearers of knowledge and wisdom that living will bring. there is so very much that is uncertain in this world. far more than there is that is known and understood. i want to coexist with the questions, rather than beat them out of existence with pompous certainty. i want to wrestle with them, as jacob wrestles the angel--struggling all through the night and, even in the face of injury, demanding a blessing. and the blessing? a new name: israel, or 'one who has prevailed with god.' i believe god lies not in the answers, but in the questions. in living them fully and struggling with them honestly, rather than giving pat answers which gloss over the messiness of life and truth and god. and i believe if we live honestly these questions, this messiness, we will live our way into answers, prevailing even with god.

failure.

2009-10-07T11:53:00.000-06:00

ever tried. ever failed. no matter. try again. fail again. fail better. --samuel beckett

i've been thinking about failure lately. it's an interesting thing, failure, because its definition is slippery. what does it mean to fail? does it mean not to accomplish what you set out to accomplish? does it mean to disappoint others by not accomplishing what they expected you to accomplish? does it mean not hitting certain benchmarks of success on a prescribed timeline?

at different moments in my life, failure has meant each of those things. i've nearly dropped out of grad school more times than i can count. each time i felt disappointment in my own failure to achieve what i had planned to achieve. but each time i also felt a wonderful sense of release and opportunity for a fresh start. and i have been accutely aware of the ways in which i have failed to conform to the expectations of others, both in my family and in my church community. but these failures don't feel like personal failures; they feel like explorations and discoveries, my true self emerging from beneath layers of prescription.

the most difficult version of failure i've had to deal with is the failure to achieve life goals on the timeline i've always been taught to accept. i'm 34 and unmarried. i have no children. purchasing a house seems like a distant fantasy. i'm still a student after 14 years of school, and will be for another three. finding a job in my field seems an even more distant fantasy than owning a house. and then there's the complication of being unsure i even want to accomplish those goals. it's a constant struggle to remind myself that it's okay not to have achieved these benchmarks by age XX, that it's okay to be different from the prescribed norm i grew up with. when i fail to remind myself of that, i begin to fail in other ways, too. because dwelling on the fact that where i am in life constitutes failure according to some grand schema developed by someone else interferes with my ability to succeed in my pursuits, making failure all the more likely. it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. not only do i end up a failure according to the prescribed metanarrative, but also according to my own ideas of what it means to be happy and successful.

so i try. i try to remember that i don't want to be married; rather i want to be married to the right person with whom i can have the kind of relationship i want. i try to remember that there is still time to accomplish my goals and many avenues to them, not just one. i try to remember that owning a home is not, in and of itself, a good thing; that sometimes there are alternative and more sustainable ways of living. and mostly i try to remember that the only measuring stick that matters is my own conscience, not others' prescriptions.

afternoon.

2009-10-02T17:31:00.000-06:00

it's friday afternoon. i've had a delicious mid-afternoon nap. and now i've steeped myself a pot of my favorite rubyfruit tea. my new apartment is clean and already feels like my home. there's a picasso on one wall, a matisse on another, and a hopper on a third. and now i'll settle down with my tea and my book and make progress on my work. and life--life is very good.

and you? how have you spent your friday afternoon?

capable.

2009-09-17T22:54:00.000-06:00

so this year, i'm on my own. where school is concerned, that is. i'm out of funding until i pass my exams (which i should have passed ages ago). so i'm paying my own way this year. which means i'm dependent on financial aid. can't pay tuition without a loan. and yesterday--yesterday i got this horrible message form the financial aid office telling me i wasn't eligible for financial aid due to insufficient academic progress. mind you, this is one day after i put nearly $4,000 in tuition on my credit card, depending on my loan to come through to pay it off.

so i panicked. for about 45 minutes. just sat on my bed with thoughts of failure and not being able to finish my program whirling through my head. it was miserable.

and then i snapped myself out of it and got to work. prepped a brief lesson for my classes. got to school to teach. let my students out a bit early each hour so i could make phone calls while campus offices were open. i made an appointment with the ombudsman to begin the appeals process. i emailed a faculty mentor to get her advice. i emailed the chair of graduate studies to alert him to the situation and ask if we could meet to discuss it. i called the office that helped me procure a leave of absence last year to see if they could help advocate for me. i did everything i could think of to set an appeal in motion and get my ducks in a row.

everything except talk to the financial aid office, that is. because they never answered their phone, there was no voicemail option (even though their phone said there was) and no email option (even though their website said there was). it was very frustrating.

so first thing this morning i went to campus to visit the financial aid office. where i discovered there had been a clerical error. their computer had not registered that i was on academic leave last year and so had disqualified me. three minutes and it was fixed. i should get my financial aid award tomorrow.

and i am proud of myself. a year ago i would have had a massive panic attack had this happened. and then just given up. six months ago, i would have melted into a puddle of tears. but yesterday i did what needed to be done. calmly and rationally assessing the situation and finding alternatives. it felt lovely. it's so good, after years of depression, to feel like myself. to be capable and productive.

so here i go. back into the breach, prepping for exams which i will take in may or june. and next year i will write two chapters of my dissertation, with a third during the summer, so that fall of 2011 i can go on the job market. and june of 2012 will see me robed to receive my third degree. just watch and see.

happiness.

2009-09-05T22:15:00.000-06:00

so yesterday was my birthday. and i cannot say how glad i am to put a close to the last year--to heartbreak and major depression and everything that comes with it. i've been thinking back over the year and have to admit that i don't have many more answers now to the questions i was asking then, but i am much happier. and it is good to be happy. so here are a few things that make me happy:

thai nakorn. i just can't get enough. and, happily, they have reopened their original location.
a day at disneyland with a friend. for free!
a birthday shopping spree at anthropologie. that store is pure evil...
a beautiful new niece who i can't wait to meet at christmastime.
four rambunctious, mischievous nephews and an evening at chuck e. cheese's.
making progress on my school work.
seeing a copy of homer's iliad in the front seat of a slightly beat up full size pick-up.
wonderful food and conversation with friends--not only at our birthday dinner, but often.
a beautiful, cozy new scarf to take with me on my winter trip to new york.
my good friend george's happiness in her new relationship.
spending time with my beautiful little nieces, my little sister, and her wonderful husband.
evenings out with my siblings and their spouses and our parents.

in short, life has made me happy. and that in spite of the fact that not everything is peachy keen. and i like being happy.

perfection.

2009-07-19T21:00:00.000-06:00

here's a recipe for a perfectly lovely summer evening:

picnicking in the lovely palm garden of the huntington library and gardens
antipasto followed by stuffed grape leaves
an amazing salad of arugula, delicious heirloom tomatoes, full cream mozzarella cheese all drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper
munching on brownie, tart tatin, and fruit tart
music filtering through the trees
children dancing to the music
sampling original recipe, made-with-cane-sugar dr. pepper---slightly fruitier and less carbonated than the typical stuff
wonderful conversation with doctor dean and doctor doctor
visiting the american art collection to see paintings by my favorite portraitist

that, my friends, is just about the most perfect evening possible.

comfort.

2009-07-11T23:09:00.000-06:00

tonight i needed comfort food. it's been a busy week dogsitting. then last night there was some unpleasantness, which i helped cause but which i did not seek. and that unpleasantness disrupted my sleep, so i'm operating on three hours or so. and my life is a bit of a mess. and i don't know what i want to be when i grow up but i'm already grown up, so that's a bit of a problem. and i have a massive headache that won't go away.

so i needed comfort food. which is why i ended up at thai nakorn. because thai nakorn is like a second home, where everyone says hello and i'm greeted with a hug and the air is full of rich delicious aromas and the food is always divine. and it's the site of many wonderful conversations amongst friends. so tonight when i needed a spot of peace and a bit of a haven, it was the first place that popped into mind. and now, though my head still aches a bit, i feel better.

pilgrimage.

2009-07-04T13:58:00.000-06:00

yesterday, george and i made a pilgrimage to pasadena, which has become my southern california art mecca. we went to visit ganesha at the pacific asia museum. we started, appropriately, by enjoying delicious indian food for lunch. the pacific asia museum is small and lovely, full of interesting asian artifacts. the ganesha exhibit was primarily photographs of modern ganesha festivals and a video explaining the traditions surrounding ganesha. the video was the highlight of the exhibit, as it captured the sheer energy and vibrancy of the festival.

after finishing up at the pacific asia museum, we moved on to the norton simon , which i think has one of the best permanent collections in southern california. when we walked in, we each named the pieces we wanted to visit. george wanted to pay homage to the norton simon's ganesha, since it was what first captured her interest in him, so we made a stop downstairs where the norton simon has a fantastic collection of asian art.

before heading downstairs, we stopped at my choices. first up was an absolutely gorgeous 16th century adam and eve . then a stop at my favorite matisse and my favorite picasso. i've been wanting this picasso for my wall for ages, so i finally caved and bought the print, which hopefully i can have framed as a birthday present.

it was a lovely day spent with incredible works of art. unfortunately we didn't leave early enough to make a stop at the huntington for a visit to their amazing art collection. maybe next time.

waste.

2009-05-15T17:38:00.000-06:00

let's talk about a monumental waste of money : hiring an aerial advertising agency to tow a huge image of an aborted fetus with the words "ten week abortion" in circles over notre dame's campus because obama is delivering a speech at their graduation ceremony. i understand the complaint. obama has made decisions that are pro-choice. notre dame is a catholic university. the catholic church is opposed to abortion. result: conflict. i'm not saying there shouldn't be some discussion as a result of this situation. i personally think it's a bit silly to reduce obama to his pro-choice stance when he's clearly a much more complex character. i also think people should recognize that he takes a principled stance in favor of life--through education, medical care, support for single mothers, etc.

but flying an aerial anti-abortion ad over notre dame's campus every day for two weeks before graduation? that's nothing more than a self-centered attention grabber. and using an image of an aborted fetus is as manipulative and exploitative as it comes. if you're really opposed to abortion, dear aerial-ad-flyers, might i suggest you find a productive way of spending that money? you could help support single mothers who choose to keep their babies. or you could provide contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies. or you could support education programs meant to teach teens how to avoid pregnancy. but i forget--that would contradict the basic hypocrisy of so much of the pro-life movement, the hypocrisy of declaring pro-life! pro-life! while simultaneously denying contraception and education. the brilliance of humanity does astound.

dilemma.

2009-05-09T17:42:00.000-06:00

i just finished reading the omnivore’s dilemma, michael pollan’s “natural history of four meals.” and i can recommend it wholeheartedly. it’s a fascinating analysis of the human food chain—of where our food comes from, from its primary source of energy (sun generated calories, plant generated calories) to the methods used to raise and process it. in his first section, he examines industrial agriculture including both corn monoculture and raising beef (two tightly intertwined operations, thanks to our human intervention with beef cattle’s natural diet [we feed them corn, as if it’s some kind of virtue to be “corn-fed” when in reality eating corn sickens and could kill cattle]). the extent to which corn dominates industrial agriculture is astounding. in true pollan fashion, he sets about telling the story of corn not only from the human perspective, but also from the corn’s perspective—as a plant which has successfully enticed humanity into advancing its interests (he makes a similar move in the botany of desire, in which he argues that plants use humans to their evolutionary advantage as much as humans do the same with plants).

the second section is dedicated to two incarnations of “organic” agriculture, organic in quotes because, having read this section, i realize how tormented that term is. having toured several organic agriculture operations, including a lettuce farm and a chicken farm, pollan concludes that “organic” agriculture is little different from industrial agriculture in technique, even if it does not rely on chemical in-puts. his visit to the chicken farm in particular debunks the myths of “supermarket pastoral”—the almost-lyric images and narratives of content chickens and milk cows organic producers use to sell their goods. who knew that free-range chickens often never step foot out of the hen house, where they live their eight-week lives in the company of thousands like them—just as they do in non-organic industrial chicken enterprises. while pollan acknowledges the undeniable good of not relying on antibiotics, pesticides, and herbicides, he also reveals the unsustainable nature of “industrial organic” agriculture.

the other “organic” enterprise he visits is polyface farm, in swoope, Virginia. “organic” in quotes because the farm is much better described as sustainable, with organic being a by-product of its practices. maybe even better than “sustainable,” is the word symbiotic. polyface farm is, in pollan’s description, an intricately choreographed interaction between chickens, cattle, pigs, and—most importantly—grass. joel salatin, the farm’s proprietor, describes himself as a grass farmer because it is the grass that gives life to all of the animals on his farm. j(wh) used to tell me about polyface farm and it was interesting. but there’s no description that can capture the magic of this place without reading about its nature in detail. i never thought i’d put a farm on my list of must-see destinations, but polyface farm is on that list. too bad the tours run $1000 (except for a once-a-month free tour, which is what i’ll try to hit sometime when i’m in Virginia).

the final section of the book is dedicated to food pollan hunts and gathers himself. his experience learning to hunt and to mushroom is both entertaining and informative. and the people he encounters as he educates himself are fascinating. but the magic of this section is in the “perfect meal” he serves at the end, with every dish built around something either he or one of his tutors gathered, hunted, and made. each section ends with pollan’s account of a meal that epitomizes the agriculture he explores—a mcdonald’s meal eaten in a car going sixty miles per hour; an industrial organic meal of chicken and vegetables, including “jet-setting” asparagus from south America (just one example of the hidden costs of “organic” farming); another organic chicken dinner, this time with a chicken and eggs (for a scrumptious-sounding chocolate soufflé) from joel salatin’s polyface farm; and finally the perfect meal of wild pig, wild morels, homemade wine, fresh bread, and cherry galette. aside from the mcdonald’s meal (which sounded terrible in more ways than one), all the meals sounded delicious.

the thing that really sucked me into this book is pollan’s ability to reflect on the agricultural realities he discovers in ways that apply to our world at large. for instance, in a critique of industrial monoculture which relies heavily on chemical inputs, pollan writes: “when we mistake what we can know for all there is to know, a healthy appreciation of one’s ignorance in the face of a mystery like soil fertility gives way to the hubris that we can treat nature as a machine” (148). this insight, firmly rooted in pollan’s critique of monoculture and fertilizers, resounded with me on many more levels. so often human beings mistake “what we can know” for “all there is to know” and, in so doing, set themselves up for incredible failures and pain. pollan taps into the necessity of wonder—wonder at the magic of nature, at the beautifully symbiotic relationships between grass and animals on polyface farm, at the mysterious nature of mushrooms; but also wonder as a necessary ingredient in any human enterprise.

aside from the magic of polyface farm, i think my favorite section of the book was pollan’s treatment of animal rights, vegetarianism, and carnivorism. throughout the book, pollan insists on the importance of people understanding where their food comes from. this theme gets special attention as pollan sets out to hunt his own meat. in his critique of animal rights philosophers, pollan insists that they transfer human ideas of individualism onto what should rightly be thought of in terms of a community or species. he points out that, while killing an individual pig might go against that pig’s interests (it does, after all, end the pig’s life), it does not go against the pig’s species’s interests, so long as the killing is done in a sustainable fashion. in fact, according to pollan, to hunt and gather and consume actually serves the interests of species as they exist in a relationship of “mutualism or symbiosis between species" (320).

according to pollan, “ancient man regarded animals much more as a modern ecologist would than an animal philosopher—as a species, that is, rather than a collection of individuals. in the ancient view ‘they were mortal and immortal. . . . an animal’s blood flowed like human blood, but its species was undying and each lion was Lion, each ox was Ox’” (323). pollan continues to insist that species have as strong interests as individual animals, asking “is the individual animal the proper focus of our moral concern when we are trying to save an endangered species or restore a habitat?” (323). i would add to pollan’s concern, insisting that we must ask the same question when discussing human interests. not that an individual human’s rights and interests do not exist and should not be considered; but rather that we must balance individual rights and interests with community rights and interests—something we too often fail to do. and, similar to ancient man’s view of animals, i think we should see each individual human as Human. because if we would, we would hesitate to do violence against others.

all of which going-on is my way of saying ‘read pollan’s book.’ because it’s fascinating and informative. and because it will make you think. though i should warn you--it may also make you never want to buy eggs from the supermarket again.

resolve (reprise)

2009-05-05T22:26:00.000-06:00

i have a problem. a consumption problem. i'm a consumer. and i'm not proud of it. not that there's anything inherently wrong with buying things or using things. i consume books, which i think is a good thing (for instance). but i certainly buy more than i need. i do shop sales. and i do resist outrageously expensive items. but if i'm going to buy three moderately priced shirts instead of one expensive one, what's the point?

the fact is that i've paid off my credit cards (yay me!) and i want to keep it that way. and then there's the little detail about being under-employed at the moment (even more under-employed than i have been the last six years), which means i really don't have much discretionary income. so, in the spirit of last year's resolution, i'm resolved. again. as follows:

resolution the first: do not buy clothing i do not need. i'm allowed to buy an item of clothing if: 1. i inexplicably ruin something that i use all the time (the chances of this are slim, as i can't remember the last time i ruined something); or 2. i lose weight and nothing fits (again, the chances of this are slim; plus i have all my old skinny clothes i could start wearing again); or 3. (more likely) i gain weight and nothing fits. which leads me to a side resolution: i'll start exercising, if only to maintain my current size to minimize my potential need for new clothes. but that resolution is for another post.

resolution the second: do not buy books i do not need. this is trickier. because, really--books are like food and water. here's my guidelines: 1. i can buy a book i need to read for my lists; or 2. i can buy audio books to listen to in the car. if there's no imminent possibility of reading a book, i do not buy it. no matter how fascinating it looks. instead, i add it to the nifty list of books to read on my phone and wait for some point in the future (which increases the odds it will be in paperback instead of hardback).

resolution the third: do not buy shoes. period. no. more. shoes. the fact is that i really did an admirable job of not buying shoes per last year's resolution (shoes i bought in that year: one pair of sandals i actually needed; one pair of dance shoes i actually needed; and one frivolous pair of royal blue tennis shoes i did not need, but i was on vacation so i excused myself). but once the resolution ended--well, let's just say that i reverted and bought shoes. so no shoes. the only permissible exception is tennis shoes (assuming i actually do start exercising and my current pair wears out).

resolution the fourth: remove credit cards from wallet. cause if they're not in my wallet, i can't use them. i have them for emergencies and that's the only time i'll use them. with one exception: if i need to buy something online (see aforementioned exceptions), i can use a credit card.

resolution the fifth: find new forms of recreation. because currently i shop as a pastime. mostly browsing bookstores, because let's face it--browsing bookstores is fun. but i sometimes do other kinds of shopping for fun, too. like target. target is simply wonderful for browsing. but it's time to find other forms of entertainment. free forms of entertainment (if you have suggestions, i'm all ears).

so there you have it--my new resolutions. here's to making this set as successful as the last set.

books i'd like to read.

2009-04-27T23:57:00.000-06:00

today someone saw the cover of the omnivore's dilemma, and asked me what the dilemma was. and then he asked me what interest i had in reading about food and farming and etc. to which i replied that i read all kinds of things. so here are a few of the things i'd like to read:

the omnivore's dilemma: a natural history of four meals

i don't: a contrarian history of marriage

descartes' bones: a skeletal history of the conflict between faith and reason

traffic: why we drive the way we do

snark: it's mean, it's personal, and it's ruining our conversation

collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed

the spiral staircase: my climb out of darkness

owls and other fantasies

just to name a few. and you? what would you like to read?

perfect.

2009-04-10T21:57:00.000-06:00

just because i just read this and thought it was perfect. by e e cummings:

the hours rise up putting off stars and it is
dawn
into the street of the sky light walks scattering poems

on earth a candle is
extinguished the city
wakes
with a song upon her mouth
having death in her eyes

and it is dawn
the world
goes forth to murder dreams….

i see in the street where strong
men are digging bread
and i see the brutal faces of
people contented hideous hopeless cruel happy

and it is day,

in the mirror
i see a frail man
dreaming
dreams
dreams in the mirror

and it
is dusk on earth

a candle is lighted
and it is dark.
the people are in their houses
the frail man is in his bed
the city

sleeps with death upon her mouth having a song in her eyes
the hours descend,
putting on stars….

in the street of the sky night walks scattering poems

refuge.

2009-03-07T23:14:00.000-07:00

i’m reading terry tempest williams’ refuge again, looking for a bit of insight into finding peace within myself when external sources of peace seem lost to me. i read it the first time as an undergrad at BYU for an assignment in an english course. my group members and i drove up to the bear river migratory bird refuge to bird watch and take pictures for our presentation. it was beautiful—a brisk, early spring day with a breeze and bright sunshine. as we drove into the refuge a flock of redwing blackbirds rose into the sky. there were hundreds of beautiful tundra swans swimming. and it was clear why this magical place had been a source of refuge, not only for wild birds, but also for its human visitors.

as i re-read, i’m interested in what i found significant enough to mark on my first time through. a handful of quotes have drawn enough notice that i’ve marked them again. some leave me a bit mystified as to what i saw in them. so far i’ve only found one piece of marginalia that goes beyond underlining. williams recounts a family gathering soon after her mother tells them she has cancer. the men in the family gather around to give her a blessing. williams writes:

'kneeling next to my grandmother, mimi, i felt her strength and the generational history of belief Mormon ritual holds. we can heal ourselves, i thought, and we can heal each other.'

i underlined that last line and in the margin wrote: 'not quite—god heals us when we have faith. i wonder if she’s still active.'

when i read my little bit of marginalia, a deep wave of shame washed over me. not shame at my belief that god heals us through faith. i still believe in the healing power of faith in god. but because i read williams’ words as heretic enough that i judged her as 'not quite' right in her views and questioned her standing in the church.

looking back on my note after a decade, i see in my younger self some of the very tendencies that most upset me about mormon culture and attitudes. we are so confident in our own understanding of the world, that we forget that our knowledge is incomplete. that simply because we know—or think we know—one thing, doesn’t preclude the possibility of truth in other ideas or understandings. as my own understandings of mormon teachings have deepened and become nuanced, i have often been frustrated at the closed forum of mormon meetings. too often our sunday meetings are about reiterating prescribed understandings, rather than exploring the gospel’s possibilities. and my soul hungers for the opportunity for that exploration.

when i re-read 'we can heal ourselves, i thought, and we can heal each other,' i no longer saw misunderstanding. instead i saw revelation and i underlined the words again.

2009-03-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

i've been making big decisions lately. which i'm not going to go into much here. not yet, anyway. suffice it to say they've been stressful. i find myself needing stress relief almost constantly--something that will keep myself a bit busy but without being too taxing. so i've been stitching. a lot. crocheting, specifically.

last summer i decided i wanted to make my own version of an afghan of my mother's that i've always loved. it was made by my great-grandmother. and my mama told me it's called grandma's garden--a very fitting name:

so i did a bit of searching online for patterns, which helped me figure out a few basics like how to get started and how to make corners. and, since my mom taught me to crochet nearly twenty years ago, i needed to brush up on my basics. and then i sat down with my great-grandma's afghan and figured out the pattern.

it's been very therapeutic to have something beautiful to stitch at the last six months. life hasn't felt very beautiful, so it's good to watch yarn unspool off a skein and turn into beautifully colored flowers in my hands. and i love that these flowers will connect me to my grandmothers who created so much beauty themselves.

mosaic

2008-12-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

a few months ago, my friend jana posted a photo mosaic meme that i loved. and then a few days ago another friend posted hers. and i remembered that i hadn't posted mine yet. so i spent a few minutes this afternoon and made my own photo mosaic. i think it's lovely.

1. Amelias Flower, 2. Goat Cheese Making 101, 3. Descanso dos arreios, 4. Walking on Glass - Pismo Beach, California, 5. Self Portrait, reflected. San Miguel de Allende, 6. a new school year, 7. April Showers, 8. October kitchen windowsill, 9. White flock, 10. Yellow ribbon, 11. Olé !, 12. Untitled

if you want to play, here's how:

type your answer to each of the questions below into a flickr search. using only the first page, choose your favorite image, then copy and paste each of the URL’s into the mosaic maker (3 columns, 4 rows). leave a comment if you play, so i can have a peek.

The questions:

1. what is your first name? (amelia)
2. what is your favorite food? (cheese)
3. what high school did you attend? (estancia)
4. what is your favorite color? (red)
5. who is your celebrity crush? (johnny depp)
6. favorite drink? (dr. pepper)
7. dream vacation? (european tour)
8. favorite dessert? (pumpkin pie)
9. what do you want to be when you grow up? (happy)
10. what do you love most in life? (peace)
11. one word to describe you. (passionate)
12. your flickr name. (laughtear)

sleep.

2008-11-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

two months ago, i couldn't sleep more than three hours at a time. most nights i'd get between three and five hours of (disrupted) sleep. six hours!! that felt like heaven, even if it was disrupted. six weeks ago, i was getting between four and six hours a night, but it remained disrupted because i'd wake up every single night at 4:30. a month ago, i was dependent on sleep medication to get any sleep. which also meant that if i didn't go to bed early enough, my day the next day was a bit of a disaster.

and now? now i sleep eight hours easily with no sleep meds. it feels beautiful. but it's a problem. because i sleep my eight hours and then turn off my alarm and sleep another two. or three. i've never slept so much in my life. i blame the sun. or the absence thereof. i get no sunlight in my new room, so it's easy to slide back into sleep in the mornings.

damn sleep! it's stressing me out. but i think i found the solution: an $8 alarm clock from ikea with a progressively more annoying alarm located underneath my loft bed so i have to actually get out of bed to turn it off. so far it's worked wonders.

love.

2008-11-20T20:40:00.000-07:00

one afternoon a couple years ago, i stopped short on my walk back to my car after teaching. as i had walked up the stairs, this had caught my eye:

i was so struck by these simple words that i stopped, dug out my camera, and snapped a picture. i ran across the picture tonight and again the phrase's simple power struck me.

this is what i want of life--love. i want to be loved. i want to love. romantically, yes, but in so many other ways, too. it's such a simple desire, really. but it's so elusive. and looking at this image i think i understand part of what makes it elusive. because this phrase functions doubly--it's both an imperative and a request. a statement of what others must do and an asking for what one needs.

i think it's the double nature of love that makes it so difficult. being able to put down fear (even well-founded fear) and ask means making ourselves vulnerable to another person and simultaneously making that person vulnerable to us. because to ask for love of another is to request, but it's also to require. i believe it's worth it. because i believe that love which not only requests but also requires is adequate to any challenge.

buzzed.

2008-11-13T17:19:00.000-07:00

yesterday i was called 'sir' for the first time in a long time. which is not at all surprising, since, at the moment, i look like this:

a friend gave me a fresh buzz on tuesday. buzzing my hair started as a form of silent protest, but continues beyond the election because i like it. i like the $60/haircut it saves me (that's nearly $200 in savings in the last five months). but mostly i like the way it feels and looks.

there's an honesty in buzzing my hair off. on some level, i'm saying, 'what you see is what you get. and you know what? i like what you see; i'm not going to try to hide it.' that's incredibly liberating for me. after starting college, having perfect hair became, for me, a means of compensating for my face. when i have hair of any length, i get a bit obsessive with making sure it looks just right. and that it doesn't get mussed over the course of the day. buzzing it off means i couldn't worry about my hair's perfection if i want to.

of course, i do wonder if buzzing my hair isn't just another way of making sure people don't notice my face. i am noticed when i buzz my hair. some of that notice makes me laugh. like when i get called sir. or when a sweet old lady in the temple asked me if i was glad my hair was growing back in; and then, when she noticed my confusion, added, "or is it just a cool, easy style for summer?' i laugh about such notice. i kind of enjoy messing with people's perceptions about gender.

but the notice i get isn't all comic. both this week and the last time i buzzed it (about two months ago), i have noticed more men looking at me than usual (this could be a factor of my noticing their attention more; but j(wh) trained me to recognize flirtatious interest so i don't think it's that). some of the looks are questioning. buzzed-head-as-oddity. but some of them are flirtatious--as if a woman with the confidence to buzz her hair is sexually intriguing.

i don't really know what to ultimately make of the increased notice--whether it's just curiosity or whether it's attraction; whether it's only focused on my (lack of) hair or focused on my face; whether it's really about depriving myself of a hiding place or making that hiding place even better. what i do know is that i like the way i feel when i buzz my hair. i think i'll keep doing it. at least for now.

proud.

2008-11-11T01:35:00.000-07:00

last night i went to target. target is wonderful. a haven. i can take any problem to target and find some distraction. so when i found myself sitting around, feeling a bit glum (isn't that a lovely word?), i decided to get out of the house and go pick up a few required items for my new apartment (i moved--yay!). and you know what? i'm proud of myself for going to target. that's right. proud of myself. for going to target.

i know, i know. target isn't much better (if at all) than those other big-box stores. consumerism is bad. retail therapy is bad. yada yada. but i'm still proud of myself. because i could continue sitting on my rear end, wishing somehow my computer would connect me to a real live person (which i'd already been doing for well over an hour); or i could get off my rear end and engage. with something. anything. even if it was just going to target to buy a trashcan with a lid on it so my new kitchen doesn't stink.

you know what else i'm proud of? when i was at target, i resisted spending $65 on the only wireless router that looked reliable just because i want wireless at my new place RIGHT NOW, not in a few days. instead, i put it back on the shelf and, when i got home, did a bit of research about wireless routers and where to get the best prices (any suggestions? i'm still figuring this one out). and i'm proud of myself for buying a compact fluorescent lightbulb because it's good for the environment. even if i dislike CFL's because the light they generate feels cold to me. and i'm proud of myself that the biggest indulgence of this trip to target was a compact surge protector with a built in USB charger so i can charge my phone while having my computer, lamp, and printer plugged in all at once.

this is what i hold on to right now. small things. i've done a lot of small things in the last couple of months of which i'm proud. sometimes it's as simple as calling someone--just connecting to another person. sometimes it's working--having actual ideas about actual literature. sometimes it's eating. i'm proud of myself for eating. how's that for a window into how bad things have been?

things have been bad enough that i have, in many ways, not been myself. i don't know what i would have done had i not had such incredible people loving me, helping see me through. but i haven't made it only because of the people who have helped me. as a friend pointed out , i am also one of my sources of support. i'm proud of myself for more than just little things. i'm proud of myself for big things, too. because in the last two months i've done more to change my life than i have in the last two years. i'm not happy about how things are right now. i'm not happy that my relationship with j(wh) is over. or with the outcome of the prop. 8 ballot measure. i'm not happy in my relationship with my church. there are a lot of things that could be much, much better. but i can say this much--i'm happy with myself. i'm happy that, with my family and friends' love, i have made significant changes in my life that have brought me greater peace now and which, i have no doubt, will bring happiness in the future.

scheduled.

2008-11-11T00:18:00.000-07:00

if you've followed my blog for any long amount of time (and i doubt many have), you may have noticed that i disappear sometimes. every single one of those disappearances has had to do with depressive episodes. or, as i now think of them, mixed episodes. mixed because my depression manifests itself through some manic tendencies--not needing sleep; not needing food; aggressiveness; irritability; etc. my recent disappearance has been no different. it has several causes, this episode. the most clearly defined is j(wh) breaking up with me. which has been horrendous. i won't put that specific word in his mouth, but i know it's been very hard on him, too. it's not a pretty thing, ending a relationship. of course, that's not the only cause of this particular episode. there's been the recent election, with accompanying emotional extremes--elation over obama's victory and discouragement over prop. 8's success. and all of the ways my relationship with the church and friends and family are caught up in that.

i've refused to write because i knew i would be tempted to write about all of that. breaking up. the church and prop. 8. being sad. my family and prop. 8. being angry. ad nauseum ad infinitum. and i didn't really want to do that to anyone who reads what i write. plus i wasn't sure what, if any, of that i want out in the ether. so i've avoided blogging.

so why am i here tonight? apparently talking about the very things i said i didn't want to talk about? i'm here because i decided to add blogging back into the schedule of activities that has helped keep me a little sane the last couple of months. and it has been a schedule.

there are the scheduled interactions with other people:

lunch with the thai tuesday crew almost every tuesday
lunch with grad student friends every wednesday
dinner with george almost every wednesday
talking to JP every week
attending quaker meeting once a month

and the scheduled minutiae

waking up early to plan a lesson before class every MWF
organizing my medicine every monday into a little pill case so i can take it every day
planning my week every sunday
weekly appointments to take better care of my health
walking to and from campus MWF (and occasionally in between)
crying (which has happened with unfortunate frequency; so much so that it sometimes feels scheduled)

and there's the things that should join the schedule:

tea with J. because we've done it twice in the last couple of weeks and it's such a pleasure.
dancing. which i haven't been able to do because of the side effects of new medications. but i'm getting a handle on those, so i should be able to dance again.
bike riding. because i know it would be good for me, body and soul.
going to the grad student knitting group. because i have projects to work on. and talk is good. and new friends are always a good thing.
baking my own bread. mmmyummy. i'll even have my own sour dough start soon.
blogging. because i miss writing about my world.

so look for more posts soon. tomorrow a post about the things i've done in the last couple of months of which i'm proud. because there's enough of which i'm not proud that i want to remind myself that i haven't been a complete loss.

and finally, if you've been involved in any of the above, god bless you--you have no idea how much it's meant to me.

comfort.

2008-10-06T20:25:00.000-06:00

this morning, i almost cried in front of my students. it's been a bit of a rough weekend. george helped see me through it with kindness and love and food and shopping and even some laughter. and i was feeling okay this morning until i had to talk to someone about it again right before getting to class. so i showed up in class a little emotional. and had to apologize to my students for distributing some information late. and before i knew it i was tearing up again. i hate such things. it's only happened once before--last spring when i was so sick that i got lightheaded and felt like i was close to passing out while i was teaching. i don't mind showing a weakness i can laugh about--like throwing up on the first day of class. but the other ones--the ones that scare me a bit--those are harder.

after class was over, one of my students asked if she could talk to me apart from the other after-class hangers-on, so i asked her to wait a moment while i answered the others' questions. once they'd all left, she surprised me. instead of asking about our current paper or the homework, she said, "you seem like such a beautiful person. and i can tell you're not feeling up to your best. i'm sorry things are hard right now." and she gave me a hug. if i were feeling particularly cynical, i suppose i could attribute this to brown-nosing. but her eyes glossed over with tears while she was speaking and i have no doubt it was sincere. this evening i checked my email only to find a message from another student expressing sympthy. and i find myself feeling comforted by these simple gestures of kindness and support.

peace.

2008-10-02T00:39:00.000-06:00

caveat (always fun to start with one): the first couple lines of this post might make it sound like a downer. it won't be.

the last five weeks have been hard. downright horrible, to be honest. but i'm not going to explain that any further here (those of you who deserve to know either already do know or have contact info you can use to ask me). i'm not through the horrible stuff. i'm not sure when i will be. but i've discovered that when life gets yucky, it helps to consciously identify the good things. so here are a few things that have brought me peace in the last few weeks:

warm baguette with butter in the company of friends.
an hours-long film adaptation of a victorian novel which stars beautiful men. also in the company of a friend.
the love of a woman who hardly knows me but noticed my pain and hugged me while i cried.
home-cooked meals, decadent ice cream, all my favorite treats, and a refuge offered by still other friends.
making the acquaintance of a hummingbird who hovered a foot and a half in front of me for an endless moment when life felt dark. and then a similar encounter with a bumbling-buzzing black bee.
my mama hugging me and crying with me.
planning another roadtrip to the bay area--wonderful company sharing wonderful food, music, and bookstores.
an afternoon spent wandering a beautiful garden and perusing old books followed by singaporean food for dinner and a girls' night out to the movies.
weekly lunches with fellow grad students.
finding myself a new apartment and planning my move.
trying to live with more integrity. no matter how painful it might make some situations.
laughing at tina fey's brilliant riffs on sarah palin.
thai therapy on thai tuesdays. trust me, it's amazingly effective.
letting myself dance even if i have felt rather miserable.
letting myself vent all the emotion through tears and rage.
sharing meals and conversation with george.
a new batch of students who seem eager to participate and succeed.
knowing that i'm taking care of myself.
crazy bunnies playing chicken with my car at night. they made me laugh and i figure laughter adds to peace.

life kind of sucks at the moment. but the world is beautiful. and people are wonderful. and i am loved. and that certainly brings peace.

simplicity.

2008-09-09T11:45:00.000-06:00

a few weeks ago i wrote that i wanted life to be simple. and last night i found simplicity. i texted j(wh) late yesterday afternoon and, instead of the stereotypical dinner-and-a-movie, i proposed dinner and a bookstore. so we ate delicious food. and then we wandered through the aisles of borders, browsing through books about everything from politics to birds to hippos-with-glued-on-shoes and relationships. and, when the music on the loudspeakers got a bit bluesy, we danced in the aisle.

and there was my simplicity. two hours in the company of my love. and, when he had to go back to work and i drove home, i took joy and peace with me.

bedtime.

2008-08-22T11:01:00.000-06:00

i've been keeping late hours the last couple of weeks, thanks to the olympics and being on vacation with my family. last night my sister J and i spent our evening playing with her girls and watching the olympics (or at least i was ogling the beautiful men on the U.S. track team). which meant bedtime wasn't until well after midnight.

i climbed into bed about one in the morning but found myself tossing and turning a bit. so i pulled out my computer to read a few of the blog posts i'd not had a chance to read (due to excursions to the park to have a picnic and ride the horsies [i.e., carousel], playing princess dress up, swinging small girls by their ankles, etc.). maybe it was a mistake to try to pass a bit of time that way, because it got my mind whirring. again.

all day yesterday, my frustrations and tension and pain over the church's position on california's proposition 8 (which would amend the state constitution to prohibit any marriage but that between a man and a woman) bubbled under the surface. let me be perfectly clear: i find this proposition repugnant in every way. i believe it originates in bigotry. i believe it attempts to deny citizens of the state liberties that the government should protect and preserve, rather than remove. there is no question in my mind that every citizen should have the opportunity to enter into a civil marriage contract with another consenting adult and to therefore receive the protections and privileges governments grant to married couples.

the day i heard the news that the california state supreme court had overturned prop. 22 (passed nearly ten years ago) and therefore declared marriage legal for all california adults regardless of sexual orientation, i celebrated. and the day i learned the church planned to join in the effort to pass prop. 8, i mourned. on the day (coincidentally--coughcough--gay pride day) the letter from church headquarters regarding prop. 8 was read in church, i went to church wearing a rainbow ribbon and with a freshly buzzed head--two visible attempts to declare my disagreement with the church's actions without being too confrontational.

since then, i've continued to display my rainbow ribbon when i go to church. and i'll keep my hair buzzed through the november election. but it's not enough. last fast sunday, in the midst of incredible spiritual turmoil at least in part caused by this issue, i bore my testimony about what i believe is the true miracle of christ's atonement--that it teaches us to look past people's problems to recognize their beauty; to step outside of ourselves and extend love and compassion and understanding to all people, regardless of their gender or their race or their religion. for me the gospel of christ is a gospel of love and acceptance—one that requires that we stretch ourselves to understand how and why people think differently than we do. for me, the gospel of Christ is not one of imposing our own beliefs on others or of believing our job is to make everyone else like ourselves. but while i think i made that point fairly clearly, i did not specifically mention prop. 8 and gay marriage, in spite of a powerful desire to do so.

then last week a member of my ward called to confirm i'd received an email about the "prop. 8 walk." i hadn't, but rather than mentioning that, i immediately spoke up to explain my position. the conversation went something like this:

me: i think i should clarify that i will not only vote no on prop. 8, but i will also do everything i can to make sure it does not pass. and i will certainly not do anything that could be seen as support.

him: so you're going against the brethren on this. {definitely a statement, not a question.}

me: no, i’m going with my conscience on this.

him: but you’re going against the brethren.

me: no, i’m going with my conscience, which is what i believe god expects of us.

him: hey, i don’t want to argue with you—i’m just kidding around. {trust me, there was no hint of humor in any of this exchange.}

and that’s where the conversation ended. when this man’s committee chairperson—an old friend of mine—called a few days later to ensure that the first caller hadn’t said anything inappropriate, i explained what he had said. my friend apologized. i asked him for clarification on what the “prop. 8 walk” was and clarified my own belief on the issue. because i’ve decided that i can certainly speak up in one-on-one conversations with other church members, even if i haven’t quite figured out how to speak up in institutional church settings.

i still feel that what i've done is not enough. and last night that was causing me a great deal of angst. so much that in spite of being very tired, i could not sleep. so when i was still tossing and turning after three in the morning, i called j(wh) and we talked through some of what i was feeling. not only about prop. 8, but about the church more generally. i won't go into that here. i'm not sure it's something i want to put out into the ether. we'll see. but it was good to talk to him, to name my fears to someone else and receive in return unqualified love and concern.

and best of all, when we were about done talking he read me a bedtime story and encouraged me to hope for something that seems nearly impossible--because maybe, just maybe, the horse will sing. another reason i love my j(wh).

life.

2008-08-03T10:00:00.000-06:00

sometimes all i want is for life to be simple. very simple. if you know how to find simplicity, do share.

open.

2008-08-01T15:31:00.001-06:00

nearly ten years ago i graduated from BYU and moved to virginia to get a masters degree at UVA. i remember sitting in the welcome meeting for new graduate students and feeling a bit of culture shock. the most memorable catalyst for that culture shock was the DGS (director of graduate studies), a very hip man who taught african american studies and late 20th century pop culture--a man with long hair (a definite no-no at the Y) and colorful language (another no-no). i think he had a goatee, too. i wonder if he had a beard card signed by his medical provider...

that first semester at UVA was full of all kinds of new experiences. my first party, by which is meant a lot of people getting together to drink and talk with loud music playing in the background. my first wine & cheese gathering. my first outing to a bar for drinks. my first attempts at explaining mormon peculiarities to drunk people. my first whiff of pot. my first taste of thai food, vegetarian food, and cooked spinach. my first cocktail party (at which i was dubbed the 'mormon alice cooper' for reasons that remain entirely unclear to me).

i embraced every new experience that presented itself so long as it didn't require that i do something that contradicted my own standards. i made a very conscious choice that i would welcome any advance of friendship. for the first time in my life i lived far away from family (only two hours from my oldest brother, but without a car that was a fairly insurmountable distance). i was starting a new educational venture. and i knew that if i didn't build a supportive network for myself in charlottesville i would be miserable.

i didn't end up miserable. i ended up so happy that i wanted to never leave. i made wonderful friends at church. and i made wonderful friends at school. some of my friends from virginia remain among my dearest friends. i wouldn't trade the experiences we shared for anything.

once in a while, when i've described my experiences in charlottesville to other mormons, they've been surprised that i would go out to a bar on a friday night as a regular social activity. or that i would go to what was essentially a slightly grown up version of a kegger. that i wouldn't immediately leave a party when i smelled marijuana. that i laughed about the cross-dressing that i witnessed at a "shock your mom" party (one of the funniest nights ever) rather than being horrified. that when my boyfriend in virginia said 'f*** you' to me, i usually laughed at him because it was never said in anger but rather as part of a teasing that helped make our relationship happy.

i don't want to simply condemn people who would have refused to participate in such activities. i know that different people have different tolerance levels for different things. i respect that. but i think that a lot of people also create their own offense by focusing on something they consider unacceptable rather than looking past it. in my mind, it's far better to hear someone swear without it ruining my day or foreclosing the possibility of knowing that person, and the happiness that friendship with them might bring, than to try to shut myself off from all sources of behavior i deem inappropriate for myself.

what it boils down to for me is this: i want to know and love my world. all of it, not just that part that fits my preconceived notion of good. and focusing on the things i do not like so much that i fail to see wonderful new things or old things in new ways--well, that strikes me as the best way to refuse to know and love my world. and it seems to me that when we're so tuned in to potential sources of offense, we actually grant them much more control of our minds and spirits than they would have if instead we let them roll off our backs and instead we looked for the beautiful.

give.

2008-07-15T14:25:00.000-06:00

for anyone who's looking for a gift idea for me, i'd love this:

and it's a double gift--something i'd love to listen to and support for NPR. and we all know i'm an NPR junkie.

tragedy.

2008-06-29T17:02:00.001-06:00

i think i'm becoming lactose intolerant. and that, my friends, is a nightmare. i do love my cheese and my ice cream and my yogurt and my milkshakes. and did i mention my cheese?

if i have a woebegone look on my face when you see me next, you'll know why...

home.

2008-06-23T18:12:00.001-06:00

i've been busy. and that always manifests itself in my blog. i've been meaning to respond to a meme my sister-in-law C hit me with for nearly a month now. so with no further delay, the view from my house:

from my bedroom window. a rare rainy, rainbow-y day in southern california.

from the back patio window. one of my favorite views in the world.

if you want to join in, please do.

hotdog!

2008-06-18T11:36:00.000-06:00

when i went to d.c. a couple years ago to take care of my nieces and nephews, my brother took me out one day to ben's chili bowl for a wonderful lunch. a chili half-smoke--a half-pork, half-beef smoked sausage topped with mustard, onions, and chili; an order of chili-cheese fries to share; and a chocolate shake. it was divine. i loved it so much that anytime i hear someone talk about visiting d.c., i tell them all about ben's and what to order. so far, i haven't heard a single negative review.

so when i went to visit again a few weeks ago, i requested ben's. and S happily took me there for lunch the same day we made our visit to the library of congress. talk about a perfect day: a morning full of rare manuscripts and early editions and then a lunch that consisted of this:

and my portion of this:

and then of course there was sharing it with the best possible company. my visits to d.c. to see S started when i was 15 and my brother J and i took advantage of cheap airfare (thanks to gulf war I; and technically it was my parents who took advantage of it, since they bought the tickets) to spend a week there. i didn't visit again until '98, but i've been there almost every year since (including two years living down the highway in charlottesville) and i always look forward to my visits. S and i look like siblings. and more importantly, visiting him always reminds me of how close i am with my siblings, even if they do live far away.

if you ever find yourself heading to d.c., let me know. and i'll point you to the best chilidog you'll ever eat. and i might be able to give you a few other tips, too.

healing.

2008-06-16T23:30:00.001-06:00

some good cheer for jana:

because her pictures of flowers always give me
a surge of simple pleasure, no matter how i feel.

i hope mine will give a little of the same back to her.

namaste.

2008-06-12T11:27:00.000-06:00

this is my nephew S:
if you think he looks a bit mischievous--well, he is. he comes by it rightfully. his dad (my brother) had a hand in all kinds of mischief (along with our other brother) when he was a kid. but S is also a sweetheart. and he has just about the cutest smile known to man.

today, a memory from christmas flashed into my head, and i thought i'd tell the tale. because it's hilariously wonderful. in addition to being a cutie-pie and a mischief-maker, S was a key player in my favorite child-fight ever. it went down like this:

S sat on L (his older brother) and refused to get off.

L hit S in the head with a laser gun.

S started crying. loudly.

L started running down the stairs.

S ran to my bookshelf, picked the biggest book on the shelf, ran to the top of the stairs and threw the book at L's head. he has very good aim.

it was all i could do not to bust up on the spot (i was on my way upstairs to referee by the time the book-throwing happened) and instead make them apologize to each other.

hilarious. S definitely gets points for creativity in coming up with ways to get back at someone who hurt him. and i look forward to being able to tell the story when he's an adult and can perhaps understand the irony of throwing an ayn rand book (atlas shrugged) at someone's head...

handmade

2008-06-11T10:21:00.001-06:00

j(wh)'s birthday was monday. he and i have talked a few times about gift-giving in the abstract--meaningful gifts, rather than gifts given for form; not letting gift-giving turn into a circus of materialism and competition; how wonderful the various handmade gifts we've received are (he got a particularly wonderful gift for christmas from J&J&kiddoes). at christmas we didn't exchange gifts. instead we spent christmas eve morning together and j(wh) made me funny eggs.

so when i thought about what to do for his birthday, i decided i'd steal an idea from my friends brooke and john. so j(wh)'s gift is a day full of whatever he'd like to do. within limits (see below). and a little handmade book that explains that, which will also be used to remember the day when I fill it with photos and notes after the day of j(wh).

{on a side note, it was a sheer joy to sit and make something. it's been far too long. i think i'll keep at it. and i think i'll stick to small books for a while. i've always loved them and making them seems ever so much better than buying them. addendum: tonight i bought myself a bookmaking book at borders (love those coupons) and discovered this book is called a 'star accordion' book.}

booklust.

2008-06-08T22:22:00.000-06:00

sometime in november, my brother S called home and reported that he and his colleagues had been taken on a tour of the library of congress. as part of that tour, they had seen various rare books, including a first edition of some blake poetry and books exchanged between whitman and thoreau, among other things. ever since that conversation, i’ve been filled with booklust. there’s something magical about seeing books that old—books that would have been read by an author’s contemporaries; books that show me what the texts i love were like when they were originally published; books with the original supplementary marketing material inside their covers; books with interesting provenances.

when i went to d.c. for a friend’s wedding and S suggested he could set up an appointment at the library of congress for me to see some books, i immediately jumped at the opportunity. so the first day i was there, i made my list—whitman, thoreau, hawthorne, and dickinson from my American interests; eliot, collins, and charlotte bronte from my british interests—and S sent it off in an email asking if it was possible for us to visit the library the following monday. and within half an hour or so we had our answer: monday morning at 11:00 for a visit to the rare books and special collections room and to the manuscripts division.

so that monday morning, S and i made our way from his office through the network of tunnels that runs under capitol hill to the library of congress for our visit. we started in the rare books and special collections room, where we were shown into the rosenwald room to see the books they had pulled for me. the room was beautiful—the furniture, shelves, and décor an exact replica of the benefactor’s private library in his home, most of it in art deco style. we sat at a table and the librarian started a grown-up version of show-and-tell:

an original 1830 edition of the book of mormon. i have a replica of this book that my dad gave me, but i’d never stopped and looked at the note from joseph smith to the reader trying to explain the circumstances of the 116 pages lost and the various rumors spreading about him. looking at the original edition made me think about the contemporary readership of that book, which put the note in a context that made me take note. they also presented us with the title page and clerk’s record from an 1829 attempt to copyright the book. apparently there had been intentions to publish it in that year in a slightly larger format, but it never happened.

books exchanged between thoreau and whitman. thoreau paid a visit to whitman in 1856. during that visit, whitman presented thoreau with a copy of leaves of grass and thoreau gave whitman a copy of a week on the concord and merrimack rivers. whitman made a rather extensive note in the front flyleaf of the thoreau recording the visit and the exchange of books. the two books came to the library in two separate gifts and it was only discovered afterwards that they had been exchanged at that 1856 visit. i was a little surprised by the format of leaves of grass. i had been told in a seminar that it was a larger than normal book—something akin to a coffee table book—, but this book was the same size as all the others we saw. maybe my professor was referring to one of the many revised editions whitman published.

dickens’ walking stick with an ivory handle that had a dog’s head carved into it. apparently dickens carried this stick with him regularly. it was very short—probably for someone closer to 5’6 than my own 6’.

the first American edition of wilkie collins’ armadale, which included marketing material inside its front cover. they also had a copy of collins’ play the frozen deep. the cover page attributes it solely to Collins, but has dickens’ name inscribed in pencil below Collins. dickens was heavily involved in editing, writing, and producing the play.

a manuscript copy in kipling’s hand of the first chapter of the jungle book.

lewis carroll’s scrapbook from his college years, in which he collected clippings from newspapers and popular magazines.

a first edition of charlotte bronte’s Shirley. apparently the library doesn’t have much by bronte, which i suppose is not very surprising since she’s british rather than american. the librarian explained that most of the non-american items in rare books and special collections are at the library because they were originally collected and then left to the library by a prominent american.

a first edition of george eliot’s silas marner, which was a lovely example of a Victorian triple-decker.

hawthorne’s house of the seven gables, which i’ll likely be reading in the next few weeks.

poe’s “murder in the rue morgue” in pamphlet form, which left me wondering how most of his stories were originally published.

the first book of dickinson’s poetry published following her death (few of her poems were formally published during her life). i loved flipping through the book to see how mabel loomis todd (dickinson’s brother’s mistress) and thomas wentworth higginson (dickinson’s mentor) edited dickinson’s punctuation, capitalization, and rhyme schemes.

a 19th century American penny press literary newspaper which they just happened to be processing that morning in the rare books room.

after an hour spent perusing rare books, S and i and our host left the Jefferson building for the Madison building, which houses the library’s manuscripts division. we were met by the library’s literary manuscript historian, who took us into the manuscript “ranges” to see what the library had of dickinson, hawthorne, thoreau, and whitman’s manuscripts.

their holdings of dickinson, hawthorne, and thoreau are relatively minor, as most of those author’s original manuscripts are held in ivy league libraries in new england. however, they did have a handful of items for each—some random diplomatic records hawthorne kept while employed by the government; a short essay on education by thoreau, in which he calls for the government to provide universal education; a commonplace notebook in which thoreau recorded passages from books.

my favorite of the small collections was dickinson’s—unsurprising given my fascination with her. they weren’t original manuscripts; they were holograph images of four poems (one with an accompanying transcript) and a letter. but it was wonderful to see her poems in her own hand and to show S how she used dashes rather than standard punctuation and erratic capitalization in her handwritten manuscripts. and the letter had been written significantly earlier than the poems, so we could see the evolution of her handwriting (which is how they’ve dated her poems).

after seeing these small collections, ms. birney took us further into the manuscript ranges to look at the library’s much larger whitman manuscript collection. apparently they have received three or four gifts, leaving them with one of the largest (if not the largest) collections of whitman manuscripts.

she started by showing us manuscripts of several whitman poems, including his most famous poem “o captain! my captain!” which he wrote on the occasion of lincoln’s assassination. it was interesting to see multiple examples of whitman’s poetry, as “o captain! my captain!” differs rather drastically from the poetry he typically wrote in that it uses a fairly standard verse form and rhyme scheme. ms. birney also explained that whitman came to dislike that poem as he was always begged to recite it throughout the remainder of his life whenever he made public appearances.

as she showed us the poetry manuscripts, ms. birney called attention to whitman’s tendency to use any scrap of paper he could. for instance, one poem was originally written on the back of an envelope. she pointed out in one of his commonplace notebooks how he went back to the beginning of the book and wrote information in blank spaces—information dated much later than other information on the same page.

after showing us the samples of poetry and the commonplace notebook, ms. birney told us a tale of bibliographic intrigue. early in the 20th century—something in the twenties or thirties—the library received a gift that included 24 whitman notebooks. and a cardboard butterfly (more on that in a moment). during world war II, the notebooks (and the butterfly) were moved from the main library buildings to a military base for safety purposes. when they were brought back, ten of those 24 notebooks—and the cardboard butterfly—were missing. for more than 50 years those ten missing notebooks and the cardboard butterfly were the American manuscripts directors' mystery. the fbi even had a hand in the investigation.

until one day in the mid-90s when sotheby’s called the ms. birney and explained that they had some whitman notebooks to auction and they had reason to believe they were similar to notebooks once held by the library of congress—were they missing any? to which ms. birney responded: ‘yes, we’re missing ten notebooks and a cardboard butterfly.’ it was the cardboard butterfly that made the sotheby’s representative sure their four notebooks belonged to the library of congress. so ms. birney and the fbi agent made a trip to new york to bring the notebooks—and the butterfly—home.

she showed us one of the notebooks. it used to be called the ‘albot’ notebook, until they realized there was a ‘t’ in front of that. the ‘talbot’ notebook (if you're interested, you can flip through the entire notebook on the LoC webiste). the first few pages had been cut out. the edges of the pages that remained were lined with numbers, so scholars speculate that it had initially been used for bookkeeping. whitman, being a paper conservator (as most people at the time probably were), re-used the book. the early pages were fairly similar to those in the other commonplace notebook. notes jotted quickly. appointments. then he skipped a page or two (remember, he used paper so carefully that he wrote on the backs of envelopes). and after those blank pages came prose writing that was more philosophical and introspective. then two more blank pages. and after that—poetry. lines from ‘song of myself’ immediately recognizable to anyone who’s every spent much time with that poem. seeing those lines of poetry and recognizing them was a magical moment--understanding that this notebook contained the evolution of a brilliant man’s thought and style.

and then there was the cardboard butterfly. it was brilliantly colored on one side. and on the reverse there was an easter poem (not whitman’s). if you look closely at the butterfly, you’ll find a thin wire that runs through its body. that’s because whitman, being the rather eccentric man he was and being a bit obsessed with self-portraits, used the wire to attach the butterfly to his finger and pose for a picture.

my day in the library was wonderful. i couldn’t have asked for a better excursion. even if you can’t make private appointments to meet with librarians, take the time to go there next time you’re in d.c. the building and the public exhibits are well worth the visit.

brilliant.

2008-05-21T20:10:00.000-06:00

i've been working. in the library. all day. 8 hours in the same seat with a short break after 5 of them for some food. and the thing that's kept me sane is public radio. which is completely unsurprising given my addiction to it. mostly i've been listening to this american life. if you've never listened before, you should. you can listen to any episode for free online (which is what i've been doing). or you can download. or you can podcast for free.

do yourself a favor and listen to act v. the first time i heard it was one friday night when i left home on a 15 minute errand to the grocery store for the requisite i'm-home-alone-on-a-friday-and-i'd-rather-not-be ice cream. i was so engrossed within the five minutes it took to get to the grocery store that i sat in my car and listened for nearly an hour so i wouldn't miss the few minutes it would take to run in and get my ice cream. it's that good.

{if you want other suggestions for wonderful episodes, leave a comment.}

wordless.

2008-05-21T00:37:00.000-06:00

wednesday.

creepy-crawly.

2008-05-17T12:20:00.000-06:00

yesterday, while sitting in my office on campus allegedly working, i felt something move on my foot. and when i pushed back from the desk and looked, i discovered a huge black beetle crawling on my foot.

i naturally followed the appropriate procedure for responding to such a situation: i screamed, while kicking my foot violently to expel the alien.

but, you say, how do i know this is the appropriate procedure? because it has manifest itself through three generations (my mother, my sisters, and my niece) without explicit instruction. complete with violent foot kick, screaming, wacky arm-flailing dancing (as i was seated, i didn't take that step), and subsequent laughter. because i of course laughed at myself as soon as the bug was gone.

but my ability to recognize how ridiculous my reaction was (i mean, how hard would it be for a giant like me to destroy that beetle, regardless of his hideousness?) did not allay my fears. every little movement against my skin could be another beetle. and the fact that i couldn't see where my expulsion had landed the invader left me a little worried. so i quickly vacated my office (which really was a good thing, as i was too distracted by the internet there). and before i got into my car, i shook out my skirt. just in case the kick had inexplicably left the bug clinging to it, lurking until he could make another foray against my peace of mind...

prayer.

2008-05-08T21:04:00.000-06:00

this morning i was sitting in the senate cafeteria, working. and i happened to glance across the room and saw a strange scene. there were four senate staffers sitting at a table together, food in front of them. one was talking, hands gesticulating. one was looking at her. and the two sitting across the table from them were clearly praying—hands clasped in front of them, heads bowed, perfect respectful stillness. it was such a strange situation—government employees praying so publicly and right across the table from two people in animated conversation—that i watched for a minute to see how the dynamic shifted.

and then i realized they weren’t praying. they were absorbed in their blackberries. which, i suppose, may be its own form of worship…

flying.

2008-05-07T22:36:00.000-06:00

i’m sitting in the salt lake airport, on a layover on my way to virginia for a friend’s wedding. the last 18 hours went perfectly smoothly. grading at j(wh)’s house all afternoon yesterday, munching on yummy cheese and baguette. a quick errand on the way home. more grading—at the amazing rate of 10 minutes per paper. another quick errand to procure cold medicine (yes—i am unfortunately flying with a cold). which errand turned into a jaunt to atomic for a handful of dances with j(wh) and a kiss goodbye before i actually ran my errand. i walked into the pharmacy precisely one minute before it closed at 11. packing my bags. to bed by 12:15. awake (and alert!) by 6. an hour and a half spent recording grades, nipping a potential plagiarism problem in the bud, and planning a lesson. a quick shower. last minute packing. rush off to campus to take care of a couple of clerical tasks. teach a successful class, complete with a break while my students did peer review so i could call my mom and ask her to bring me the meds i forgot to pack. and my mom dropping me off at the airport with plenty of time to spare. and—bless her—my sweet mama made me a lunch to take with me.

having every single thing go smoothly last night and this morning was a wonderful release from yesterday morning’s anxiety and fear and emotion. reflecting on the number of tiny things that clicked to make life just a little less stressful fills me with gratitude. if things hadn’t gone as smoothly, i would have handled it just fine. i’ve had my share of stressful traveling and things have usually worked out in the end. but i’m glad that the stars aligned and life was easy for a little while. and tonight i’ll be in beautiful virginia. and friday—friday i’ll be in charlottesville, which is one of this world’s perfections.

and now i’m looking out at utah’s beautiful mountains, a faint silhouette against a stormy gray sky. it’s raining outside, but i’m warm in my soft sweater. the overwhelming gray makes the brilliant yellows and oranges and reds and greens of the airport stand out in stark contrast. and the world is vibrant.

moving.

2008-04-27T08:24:00.000-06:00

if you know me in real life or if you've read this blog for a while, you'll know that grad school has been something of a rollercoaster for me. i've decided to drop out of the program at least four times in the last five years. i've taken time off twice. i surprised the program administrator by actually returning after taking time off. i usually doubt my ability to do what needs to be done so i can finish the degree. and i've experienced far more depression in the last five years than ever before in my life.

the experience has not been wonderful. so why do i keep coming back? that's a legitimate question and one i've not always been able to answer myself. i've often joked that i must be masochistic on some level. but when i'm not in the throes of depression, when i'm thinking relatively clearly, i know that i keep coming back because i love it. i love getting excited about teaching. i love the literature, which is magical. and most of all i love teaching. i can't imagine anything else i'd rather do than teach university. so i'm back. and i intend to finish.

the problem is that having been on that rollercoaster--especially the twists and turns that took me out of the program--i've lost much of my focus. and i've developed bad habits. i'm trying to get myself focused and working more diligently. one tool i've decided to use in that effort is a new blog where i'll track my work, record notes on my reading, and identify goals to be met and tasks to be accomplished. you can read more about how i envision that blog working there. and i'd love any contributions you'd like to make to my effort to keep moving towards my goal.

overflowing.

2008-04-25T17:01:00.000-06:00

being with j(wh) makes me feel like this:

can you blame me for wanting to be with him every minute i can?

resolve.

2008-04-25T14:57:00.000-06:00

so today i left campus intending to go to barnes & noble, curl up in one of their cushy chairs with my ipod and a cup of tea and my book, and read for a few hours. but as i walked across the bridge from the parking lot to the bookstore, i noticed that the new DSW shoe store had opened right next door to B&N. now if you know me, you know i have a thing for shoes. and that's putting it mildly. so naturally i had to wander into DSW and check out the offerings. and when i saw a pair of rocket dog flats with an orangy red and turquoise blue print (brooke you will love these shoes), i naturally had to try them on. and when i spent twenty minutes walking around the store in them and they proved to be comfortable and i loved their funky print even more--well, i naturally had to buy them. {on a side note: i did resist the gorgeous peep-toe winter white pumps in a distressed patent leather with a wide strap across the top of my arch with a funky big buckle and three-inch stacked heels; damn they were hard to leave behind!}

so buy them i did. and then i felt guilty. because i'm supposed to be paying off my credit cards and trying to do a better job of living within my means. i'm not supposed to be indulging my love of shoes.

i didn't return them. i brought them home with me. and when i got home and looked at all the delicious shoes in my closet (and there are a lot of lovely shoes in my closet), i decided that i needed to be better. so i'm resolved:

resolution the first: i'll not buy any new shoes for a year. the only exception is if a legitimate need arises (like i magically start exercising and my tennis shoes are worn out and hurt my feet; this is unlikely to happen because 1. i don't exercise, except dancing; and 2. i got a new pair of tennis shoes last fall; i can conceive of wearing out my dancing shoes and i'm allowed to replace those if necessary).

resolution the second: in order to actually realize resolution the first, i'm not going to go into a shoe store or a shoe department unless i'm with someone else who needs to look at shoes (then i can help them spend their money on scrumptious shoes, which is almost as much fun as spending my own money on shoes).

resolution the third: although all of my shoes are wonderful, the reality is that there are some i simply don't wear any longer. mostly because my tastes have changed. it's time to purge shoes and let someone who can actually use them have them. if you wear a size ten, let me know if you want to take a look before i send them off to good will.

i'll report periodically so you know if i've slipped up. but i swear i'm not going to. no shoes for me for a whole year.

ideas.

2008-04-16T15:38:00.001-06:00

another reason j(wh) is so wonderful: he makes me put my hands in my hair.

a bit of explanation: when i was an undergrad, i would get myself into long, provocative conversations with friends. and as i got more and more excited by the ideas we were talking about, i'd run my hands through my hair, giving myself a lovely puffy halo of hair. during the last several years, one of the effects of depression has been losing my interest in ideas. i've very rarely found myself impassioned by a discussion with friends. and i've mourned that loss of intellectual excitement. i can't remember the last time i got excited enough to muss my own hair (i'm a little obsessive about it not being fluffed up--i hate fluffy hair).

well, a couple of weeks ago as j(wh) and i were reading the botany of desire together, stopping occasionally to follow tangential trains of thought generated by the book, i found myself with my fingers buried in my hair, excited about ideas. and while that was the first time i noticed my old habit of messing with my hair when discussing fascinating ideas, j(wh) has always lured me into long, interesting conversations. it was sitting in a parking garage for three hours talking about various and sundry things at the end of our first date that made me know i wanted to go out with him again.

and that is one of many reasons he's so wonderful.

purge.

2008-04-09T18:52:00.001-06:00

last week, i looked in my closet and i thought to myself, 'i'm sick of looking at a closet full of clothes i can't wear.' over the course of the last two years, i've slowly gained 20 pounds. my being nearly six feet tall makes it hard for others to notice my weight gain. but when i pull a dress over my head and shoulders and then it sticks at my hips or i can't get a skirt up over my hips--well, it's noticeable to me.

my body doesn't bother me. i don't think i'm fat. most of my aspirations regarding my body have to do with being in better shape. more endurance (for all those long nights of dancing). more strength. not finding myself short of breath. being ready for a long bike ride or a backpacking trip. but looking at a closet full of clothes that i can't wear has a way of re-focusing my body-image on weight rather than on health. so i decided it was time for a purge.

i was (mostly) ruthless. always in the past when i've purged my closet, i've kept items that i haven't worn (for whatever reason) recently but that i still love. this time if it didn't fit, it was out. into storage. when the season for whatever item it is rolls around again, i'll try it on again. and if it doesn't fit, it goes to charity. even if it's something i simply love.

i took over 50 items out of my wardrobe. yes, i know. that's a lot, especially given how much is still in my closet. i'm a bit of a pack-rat. and, because i'm a bit fastidious about caring for my clothes, i keep them (and my shoes) forever (the oldest item i got rid of was 13 years old). it's only when i realize that an item has simply slipped out of favor that i get rid of it. but this time it was about fit, not favor. and it felt wonderful to purge.and yes. i am slightly OCD. why do you ask?

bliss.

2008-04-07T15:39:00.000-06:00

the makings of a perfect evening:

a walk in the park, holding j(wh)'s hand, contemplating waterfowl, and luxuriating in the beauty of a spring evening.

random errand running which results in buying cheap gas (relatively speaking, of course) and superyummy soft peanutbutter cookies from costco, of which i promptly ate two. because i get cranky when i'm hungry.

wandering through the fullerton market, perusing vendor stalls, inspecting produce and fresh flowers, conversing with strangers, and laughing at little dogs in sweaters.

chatting with a produce vendor about dancing.

eating delicious roasted sweet white corn slathered in butter and sprinkled with garlic pepper salt.

sampling garlic basil hummus and whole wheat pita bread.

discovering vegetable ivory jewelry, made from the tagua nut grown on palms in the south american rainforest. so beautiful. i indulged and bought myself a funky yellow pendant.

dancing to the music of the blues band playing live.

going back past the dancing vendor's produce stand to buy a bag of strawberries and another of snow peas, which he sold us for $1 each since he was packing up for the night.

feasting on hummus, pita, snow peas, and strawberries while reading michael pollan's the botany of desire (a must read; so fascinating) out loud.

sharing it all with j(wh).

outrage.

2008-04-04T17:01:00.000-06:00

if you know me, you may know that i have a little problem--a small addiction, you might even say. to outrage. and this week i seem to have found more than a handful of sources. so i thought i'd share them, just to get it off my chest.

the very thought of a mother taking her eight-year-old daughter for not only an eyebrow wax but also a bikini wax had the outrage mounting instantly. a bikini wax?!! what exactly was to be removed from the pubic area of an eight-year-old?! i wanted nothing more than to sit these women down and smack them, demanding that they wake up and let their poor daughters grow up seeing the beauty of their bodies as they are. and i realized again how very lucky i was in my parents' attitudes about beauty.

speaking of artificially achieving the ideal, i was horrified to discover that there's such a thing as a 'G-shot' to enhance the G-spot (if you're sensitive about treating genitalia casually, don't read that one). really!? i mean, i'm all for women enjoying sex. but the idea of trying to augment something like the G-spot strikes me as more about imposing ideals from outside than truly enjoying one's body.

and then there's this little gem from the london leader of the british national party (admittedly a far right, all white party which looks to me like it's racist, sexist, and extreme nationalist. but still):

Rape is simply sex (I am talking about 'husband-rape' here, for those who deliberately seek to misunderstand me). Women enjoy sex, so this type of 'rape' cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal. To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that force feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched.

another candidate for a sound smacking.

these were moments of outrage that, although genuine, were not very personal. i mean, i care deeply about each of those issues--the immense potential for psychological harm our society's beauty myths hold; women's sexuality not being an object to be manipulated, but rather being a source of natural pleasure; and rape being taken seriously, whether it's the kind of violent encounter we most often imagine or the much more common acquaintance rape this politician makes light of. but while i care deeply, this was the kind of almost-pleasurable outrage that comes with conviction of one's moral superiority. it's a distant kind of outrage.

my most recent moment of outrage was much more personal. this afternoon i logged into google reader (something you should all use if you read blogs as obsessively as i do), and found fmhLisa's post about being young and mormon and pregnant. and what i felt was less outrage and more sorrow. and i know that such stories should be taken with a grain of salt. but still it made my heart hurt that a girl could ever be so outcast at a moment when she needs to be loved. and that there could be policies in place (even the more benign one quoted from the church handbook in comment 22) that mandate this kind of treatment. i know the realities of the church are much more complex than could be captured in one anecdote or in quoting a policy. but i recognize the truth in the anecdote and the potential for serious harm in the policy and i want to weep.

but to end on a lighter note: i was taken in so completely by the IRS policy of sending some rebates in the form of goods instead of money to ensure people didn't 'waste' their rebate by paying bills instead of shopping, that my outrage didn't let me remember the date. until the host of marketplace reminded me. at which point i had to laugh at myself. a healthy reminder that my outrage is often fed by my own gullibility coupled with my obsession with pet issues (i hate that our government encourages spending rather than fiscal responsibility as a means to deal with our current economic problems).

party!

2008-04-02T17:23:00.000-06:00

a couple weeks ago at atomic, i overheard a friend commenting about her upcoming 80s birthday party and didn't think much of it until j(wh) mentioned we'd been invited. so it sat on a backburner in my mind as i graded papers and put up with back pain (yuck!) until the night before the party when, again chatting with friends at atomic, it came out that they were all dressing up for the 80s party. K mentioned molly ringwald, which got the wheels turning in my head. i've been told more than once that i look like her, so i thought it would be fun to play that up. here's what my molly-focused brain cooked up:

a green straw hat which i bought about 12 years ago and which i still have kicking around my wardrobe.

to which i added some bright pink and white silk flowers and a pale green ribbon i picked up for $5 at joann's.

bright pink and purple double-disk earrings found amidst the retro accessories target's selling these days.

my little brother's white, long-sleeved dress shirt, which is (of course) way too big for me.

a bright pink, wide elastic belt, also kicking around my wardrobe for the last however many years.

a green cotton double skirt with big bucket pockets and eyelet on the underskirt.

incredibly bright pink fishnet stockings i found on clearance in portland, oregon about three years ago.

clear plastic shoes i found on a sales rack at t.j. maxx and picked up just for a purpose like this.

and let me tell you--add up those elements, and you'll channel molly ringwald circa pretty in pink perfectly. take a look for yourself:

so i threw together my hat, donned my duds, applied my face (a truly special occasion--i actually wore make-up), and headed off to a local japanese market where i was meeting j(wh) for a bite to eat before heading to his place and from there the party. i naturally got a few looks on the way in. all the effort was worth it when i caught sight of j(wh) and our friend T. j(wh) was expecting me dressed up, but he was still surprised. and T--T didn't even recognize me.

after a dash up the freeway and j(wh) cleaning up, we headed off to the party where our friends greeted me with laughter and praise for the outfit. and i thought that was it. the party was tons of fun. great food. L (birthday girl) and a few friends dancing ballroom to some classic 80s tunes. lots of dancing (not the best idea in the clear vinyl + fishnets combo), including a soul train line. but i thought the fun of seeing each other in costume was the sole purpose for dressing up.

much to my surprise there was a contest. and to my even bigger surprise, the prize was two tickets to the police (and elvis costello) concert in may. so i was excited to be one of the three finalists called to the stage, but a bit apprehensive when it was audience choice who would win. but i was having fun that night and decided, what the hell--may as well ham it up. so when the emcee asked for applause for 'molly,' i pulled the pose in that picture and blew the audience a kiss. and when it was narrowed down to our friend F (who came dressed as flavor flav, complete with an enormous clock hanging around his neck) and me, i kissed him on the cheek. and blew more kisses to the audience before L and her two friends picked me as the winner.

so much fun! it's been ages since i had such a good time at a party. well, maybe not ages, but at least since new year's. i shouldn't be surprised. life's been much more fun with j(wh) at my side. can you see why?

memorable.

2008-03-31T11:52:00.000-06:00

so today was the first day of a new quarter. i stayed up a little too late last night, given that my class started at 9:00 this morning. but by the time i was walking from my car to my classroom, enjoying the bright sun and brisk air of a california spring day, i was feeling good. excited to start a new quarter. resolving to work harder, to be more responsible to myself and others for the work i need to do.

and class started out swell. i introduced myself. i had the students introduce themselves and bantered with them a bit. they were visibly loosening up within the first ten minutes of class. things were peachy.

and then, fifteen minutes into class, i started feeling warm. at first i thought it was because i'm wearing both a button-up shirt and a sweater and the room was warm. but then the skin on my face started getting clammy. and i felt a bit light-headed. and i knew it wasn't good. so i aborted. no more syllabus review. 25 minutes into class, i skipped to our last activity--a ten-minute diagnostic freewrite.

so my kids start writing. i sit down and hold my head between my hands, breathing deeply. and i seem to be doing better. i cool off a bit. i'm not so woozy. but after about eight or nine minutes, i just know i'm going to throw up. and there's no bathroom anywhere near. here's how it went down:

me: {scanning room to find trashcan, which is all the way across the room right next to the door} ok, go ahead and wrap up what you're writing.

students: {dead stare at teacher, who is obviously in physical discomfort.}

me: just go ahead and put your papers on... {duck head and hold it between my hands as i fight off sickness}...on the empty desk on your way out.

students: {start packing up and leaving papers at front.}

me: {stand quickly and begin walking towards trashcan} and if i throw up {pass gas while walking} as you leave... {reach trashcan, lean over and vomit} i apologize. {lean over trashcan and vomit more.}

students: {shuffling out of the door, mere inches from me leaning over the trashcan, vomiting repeatedly; trying not to stare too much.}

one considerate student paused on her way out to ask if she could do anything for me and to offer me her water. the rest fled as quickly as they could. for which i do not blame them. because, after all, "what to do when the teacher vomits in class on the first day" is not really standard classroom etiquette.

i've been laughing about it since the moment i leaned over that trashcan and ralphed. absolutely hilarious. it does make for some lovely irony that my assert-authority-and-scare-students-just-
enough-while-still-reassuring-them-that-the-class-will-be-fun shtick got derailed by unavoidable bodily functions. at least i can't be accused of boring my students on the first day.

give.

2008-03-07T23:36:00.000-07:00

one last call: if you haven't had a chance to donate to the 24-hour cancer dance-a-thon and you'd like to, make a quick trip to my profile and give whatever you can afford--$5, $10--any little bit will help. as of tonight, the dance-a-thon is less than $20K from meeting it's stated $150K fundraising goal. help us meet that goal!

titled.

2008-03-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

sometimes i read in barnes & noble. if luck is with me, i find a big cushy armchair and settle in for a few hours of reading. my view from those chairs looks like this:i like looking up and perusing book titles on occasion. it's interesting to see what people write about. how they represent that work to readers. how the title and the cover art work together.

lately i seem to find my cushy chairs in the current affairs section. and i've been struck by some of the titles. a few examples:

by ann coulter how to talk to a liberal (if you must): the world according to ann coulter and if democrats had any brains, they'd be republicans. on the covers of which coulter does her best to look sexy.
another conservative commentary: conservative comebacks to liberal lies. touted as a 'national best seller.'
a liberal approach of the same stripe: the GOP-hater's handbook: 378 reasons never to vote for the party of reagan, nixon & bush again. with a picture of an elephant's backside with a target on it.

these are all relatively amusing when seen for what they are--trash. they're less amusing when you realize that people might actually believe what's written in them.

the one that caught my eye the most--and the reason i'm writing this--is i don't believe in atheists, by chris hedges. take a look at the cover:

this book, like the others, aims to shut down conversation rather than open up opportunities to learn and understand. the title reminds me of a scene in kushner's angels in america. harper--the agoraphobic, valium-popping wife of kushner's gay mormon--encounters prior--the AIDS patient who sees visions of angels--in a hallucination or a dream or some alternate reality. she tells him that in her church, they don't believe in homosexuals. now, i've been raised mormon and i don't think i'd ever come up with that statement on my own--mormons don't believe in homosexuals. but i understand how someone could make that statement. and it bothers me. because to dismiss someone else by saying you don't believe in one of the groups they belong to--you don't believe in their professed identity (whether sexual or spiritual or whatever version of identity)--well, it's a neat way to avoid any real engagement. and it's an assertion that you understand the other person's reality and experience better than they do.

i was also struck by hedges' title because of its graphic design. the white words 'i' and 'in' easily disappear against the gold background, especially when the book sits on a shelf under bright lights. and when they disappear, an imperative remains: 'don't believe atheists.' with the picture of god's enormous hand pressing down against puny man. opinion becomes dictate--and one with divine sanction.

the imperative and the image made me think of how easily religious believers attempt to dismiss atheists as immoral, anchorless, lost human beings who may deserve our pity, but who certainly don't deserve our respect. of course, this response isn't reserved for atheists. i know believers who respond similarly to those of other faith traditions--especially traditions that do not resemble their own. i've also encountered a few atheists who react this way towards believers.

i don't like the reaction no matter where i encounter it. it's too self-assured. too convinced that i am right and they are wrong, end of story. i don't like it because when argumentative amelia emerges, she's willful and adamant and articulate and passionate but she's usually not listening. i don't like that when i'm convinced i'm right and 'they' (whoever they are) are wrong, i stop making the effort to understand. to think in new ways. to recognize the realities of someone else's life.

i'm not always good at keeping argumentative amelia on a leash. but i've been trying. if she's reared her ugly head in your direction, do accept my apologies. and know that i'm more interested in understanding than in being right. so give me another chance. because i don't want people to walk away from me feeling like the title across my forehead reads 'i don't believe in X' or 'don't believe x.'

read.

2008-02-29T17:22:00.000-07:00

just because book memes are fun (look for another one in a day or two). and because i don't really feel like grading at the moment.

to join in the fun, copy the list and then:

Bold the ones you’ve read,
italicize the ones you want to read,
~~cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole,~~
put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf,
and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. ~~The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)~~
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. +To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind(Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien)
8. +Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. +Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling)
12. ~~Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)~~
13. +Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. +Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (J.K. Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. ~~The Stand (Stephen King)~~
19. +Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling)
20. +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
22. +The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. +Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. +The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. +Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. +Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. +East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. ~~The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)~~
33. +Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (George Orwell)
35. *The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. *I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. *The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. *The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. +The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. ~~Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)~~
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. +Bible
46. +Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. +The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. +The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. +A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
53. +Ender's Game(Orson Scott Card)
54. +Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
55. +The Great Gatsby (Scott Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J.K. Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. +The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. +Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. +The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy) {i read half of it, anyway; and that's got to count for something with a 1500 page book.}
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. +One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. +Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)
70. +The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. +Bridget Jones' Diary (Helen Fielding)
72. +Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. +A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck)
83. +Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. +Emma (Jane Austen)
86. +Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. +Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. *The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In the Skin of a Lion (Michael Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. +The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. ~~The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)~~
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. ~~The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)~~
100. +Ulysses (James Joyce)

dance-a-thon.

2008-02-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

so i've been swing dancing for three months now. and i'm still loving it. so much that i'm at atomic three or four times a week either taking classes or social dancing. i've learned so much that it often becomes a jumble in my head. and now i'm learning to lead, too. why not throw another challenge in the mix?

but i'm not writing just to update you on my swing dancing progress. i'm writing to invite you to support a fundraising event atomic ballroom is sponsoring--the 24 Hour Cancer Dance-a-thon. in its first year, this event raised about $50,000 for City of Hope, one of america's best hospitals for cancer. last year (the dance-a-thon's second year), it raised $100,000. this year they hope to raise $150,000. all profit goes directly to the hospital. and the venue and all of the entertainers, instructors, and organizers are offering their services free, so the vast majority of the money raised will be profit.

i'll be dancing in the dance-a-thon. i'm asking you to make a donation if you're interested. any little bit will help--$5, $10--whatever you can spare. to make a donation, visit my page at the dance-a-thon and scroll to the bottom of the page until you see the yellow "donate" button. designate an amount for your donation (you don't have to donate $100), write a dedication if you'd like to, and click the "donate" button. you'll be prompted to provide your credit card info, etc.

if you'd like additional info, leave a comment with your email address and i'll send you more info. and if you're in the area (southern california) and would like to come dance, do!

thanks for your help in supporting a great cause!

boyfriend.

2008-02-21T20:26:00.001-07:00

apparently barack obama is the perfect boyfriend. just look here and you'll see what i mean.

he wanted me to have some cupcakes. and he gave me chocolates. and carried my bookbag. and picked me up at the airport. and lent me his coat. all of which j(wh) has done for me. (at least i assume j(wh) wants me to have cupcakes since he knows i love them.) and j(wh) is the most perfect boyfriend i've ever had (please forgive the sap).

but you know--j(wh) hasn't folded me an origami crane yet and barack has. nor has he built me a robot (although he owns one). and barack has. apparently barack edges out j(wh) in terms of perfect boyfriend-ness. which is precisely why we should all vote for him. don't you want the president of the most powerful nation in the world to be perfect boyfriend material?

update.

2008-02-19T13:02:00.000-07:00

just read this, also on slate's the XX factor. it's a nice accompaniment to my post from last night. i'm all for recognizing the realities of sexism and naming them openly so we can try to change our society. but identifying sexism with such imaginative license? i couldn't agree more with melinda henneberger that it does far more harm than good--both by detracting from very real problems and by reinforcing stereotypes that lead moderates and conservatives to dismiss feminists as ridiculous.

identity.

2008-02-18T22:51:00.000-07:00

i didn't follow last week's brouhaha over david shuster using the phrase "pimped out" to describe chelsea clinton calling superdelegates on behalf of her mother's campaign. i heard enough to know there was a brouhaha. and to know that hillary clinton threatened to not participate in the next debate NBC (shuster's network) sponsored and that the campaign called on NBC to fire shuster. but honestly, i think stories like this get overplayed.

i have encountered a bit of talk about it in the blogosphere. some people defending shuster. some praising clinton for her strong response. but what got me thinking about this long enough to actually care was a couple of posts at slate's blog, the XX factor. in his guest post at the blog, daniel gross briefly documents the clintons' long history of forgiving, including hillary clinton's forgiveness of her husband's philandering (for which i've heard other women criticize her). and then he asks why the clinton campaign would reject shuster's apology and suspension as sufficient recompense for his ill-advised choice of words on-air.

i found the post interesting, but i found gross's explanation (clinton is currently sliding; she's losing to obama; she's hurting financially) insufficient. the question itself was provocative. it seems to me that clinton has played the 'woman-as-victim' card on occasion and this seemed another such moment. stir the outrage. rile up the female vote. point to all the good ol' boys and how they couldn't possibly treat a woman fairly.

now i recognize that sexism remains a problem. and i see how sexism has colored responses to clinton's campaign. but i just don't believe that playing the victim is the best response. or even a productive response. i think strength and competence and intelligence and graciousness are much better responses. the moral high ground.

i think a couple of the XX factor's regular bloggers offer more interesting, if slightly tangential, answers to gross's question about the clinton campaign failing to "forgive" david shuster. clinton has siezed the opportunity for a little emotional blackmail--either of the female vote or of the sensitive aught guys (who are of course stereotypically liberal). and i really think there is an effort to "slap around" the female vote to make women feel like they must vote for clinton simply because she's female.

of course clinton's campaign has not wholly been a manipulative emotional appeal to women (and sensitive aught guys). no one could win with such a campaign. and i appreciate the good things about clinton. but i get frustrated by the attitudes i've seen about the "historic" competition between the first woman candidate and the first black candidate for president. yes. it's historic. i think it's fantastic. but beyond that it means very little when it comes time to walk into a polling booth. because identity politics should have little--if anything--to do with voting. to say that i should vote for clinton because the two of us both have vaginas is as sexist and backwards as saying men should vote for obama because they all have testicles.

food.

2008-02-14T20:12:00.001-07:00

i have a real problem. i don't feed myself. not properly. a typical morning goes like this:

wake up
putter around for a while essentially accomplishing little to nothing
shower, hair, teeth, etc.
listen to NPR (while doing all of the above)
panic when i realize i have less time left than i thought to plan a lesson (or do whatever other pressing thing needs to be done)
leave home in a flurry of bags and books (i almost always have two and often three or four bags slung over my shoulder when i walk out the door; my neighbors laugh at me for this)

notice anything missing? i eat breakfast before leaving home maybe once or twice a week. and i almost never pack a lunch in one of my copious bags. sometimes i have the time to actually buy something that resembles breakfast. of course, it usually involves unhealthy food--cheese, lots of eggs, bacon, lots of white bread, or all of the above. sometimes it's just a candy bar from a vending machine. and lunch? occasionally i walk across the street from campus and get a salad at the veggie grille. but usually it's fast food. pizza. burrito. burger. fried chicken. soda. fat. greasy. nasty. i don't like the way it makes me feel to eat like that. unclean. hyped on caffeine and sugar. loaded down.

worst of all? when i don't feed myself, i get cranky. and unproductive. and discouraged. it's not only physically unhealthy that i don't feed myself better--it's also psychologically and emotionally unhealthy.

on days when i don't eat, i find myself four hours after a normal breakfast time needing to eat but not able to decide on food. and when i think about the easy, fast alternatives, their grease content depresses me and makes me not want to eat them. so i procrastinate eating even longer. but i know that when i finally do eat, i feel better. almost immediately. so eventually i cave and eat the nasty food.

here's my challenge: i need to eat. but i need ideas of what to eat that's relatively easy and relatively fast (because time and effort are the most common reasons i don't eat in the first place) and relatively healthy. so if you've got ideas, i'd love to hear them. recipes. ingredients that are good to keep on hand. lunch food that packs easily in a paper bag or a lunch cooler. things i can eat easily in the car or on the go. because really--at 32 i should be able to feed myself, don't you think?

six.

2008-02-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

and seven. because for valentine's day, you get two kooser treasures.

Screech Owl

All night each reedy whinny
from a bird no bigger than a heart
flies out of a tall black pine
and, in a breath, is taken away
by the stars. Yet, with small hope
from the center of darkness
it calls out again and again.

This Paper Boat

Carefully placed upon the future,
it tips from the breeze and skims away,
frail thing of words, this valentine,
so far to sail. And if you find it
caught in the reeds, its message blurred,
the thought that you are holding it
a moment is enough for me.

i love these two. because i've spent so much of my life hoping for love. and no matter how much that hope seemed to simply disappear in darkness, i never lost it. and because loving feels like sending something fragile out into the world, knowing it could so easily be tattered and torn. but also knowing that if it's received, it's enough. even if it's no longer what you thought it should be when you sent it out. it's more beautiful when i let it be without trying to fit it to 'shoulds' and 'oughts.'

five.

2008-02-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

The Bluet

Of all the flowers, the bluet has
the sweetest name, two syllables
that form on the lips, then fall
with a tiny, raindrop splash
into a suddenly bluer morning.

I offer you mornings like that,
fragrant with tiny blue blossoms--
each with four petals, each with a star
at its heart. I would give you whole fields
of wild perfume if only

you could be mine, if you were not--
like the foolish bluet (also called
Innocence)--always holding your face
to the fickle, careless, fly-by kiss
of the Clouded Sulphur Butterfly.

what a dilemma--the whimsy of a butterfly or the lure of fragrant flowers. i admit--i could be distracted momentarily by the butterfly. but mornings full of scents i love bring peace. i think i'd choose the bluet morning...

muppets.

2008-02-13T00:02:00.000-07:00

j(wh) is not alone in his concern for the wellbeing of muppets everywhere. apparently they've not only been skinned to make slippers, but also to make inexplicable clothing. j(wh) recently sent me a link to this:
in the blogpost that accompanies the image, jessica comments:

"It seems like as soon as I asked the internet about the whereabouts of Mischa Barton, she appeared all over the place and on the cover of everything.

Sadly, it seems as though she's been using her downtime to do something unspeakable to Oscar the Grouch, not even giving him the honor of being an entire coat, but simply making him into sleeves. As a huge fan of the seminal tune 'I Love Trash,' -- truly, it's neck and neck with 'Rubber Ducky' as the best Sesame Street song ever, in my opinion, with honorable mention going to 'C Is For Cookie,' I wonder if PETA has a Muppet Division?"

if oscar the grouch is not safe, what is the world coming to? he can't even be accused of being annoyingly cute and lovable...

four.

2008-02-12T13:31:00.001-07:00

In the Alley

In the alley behind the florist's shop,
a huge white garbage truck was parked and idling.
In a cloud of exhaust, two men in coveralls
and stocking caps, their noses dripping,
were picking through the florist's dumpster
and each had selected a fistful of roses.

As I walked past, they gave me a furtive,
conspiratorial nod, perhaps sensing
that I, too (though in my business suit and tie)
am a devotee of garbage--an aficianado
of the wilted, the shopworn, and the free--
and that I had for days been searching
beneath the heaps of worn-out, faded words
to find this brief bouquet for you.

i wish i could make such beautiful bouqets out of words.

three.

2008-02-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

In a Light Late-Winter Wind

In a light late-winter wind
the oak trees are scattering valentines
over the snow--dark red
like the deep-running, veinous blood
of the married, returning
again and again to the steady heart.

This leaf is yours, friend,
picked from the heart-shaped hoofprint
of a deer. She stood here
under the apple tree during the night,
kicking up sweetness, her great eyes
watching the sleeping house.

i love watching leaves fall--drifting aimlessly towards the ground and then, sometimes, catching an updraft and dancing back toward their homes before succumbing to gravity again. and i love that kooser has turned them into little tokens of love.

two.

2008-02-10T01:03:00.000-07:00

another treasure from ted kooser's book of valentine poems:

Chocolate Checkers

In a tiny green park, chopped out
of a corner of Commerce, I saw
two men in rags with their backpacks
lying beside them. Red nose to red nose
and old boots toe to toe, they were
playing a game of chocolate checkers,
using candy for pieces, and eating
the pieces they'd won from each other
and laughing like crazy.
It was Commerce
who'd given this park to the city,
and Commerce looked on--the bank
and the telephone company
standing behind mirrored windows,
disapproving--not of chocolate checkers,
per se, but of that kind of people,
laughing and playing with candy
on an imported Italian marble table
with neatly set black-and-white tiles.

poem.

2008-02-09T01:12:00.000-07:00

a couple years ago, my friend pam told me about then poet laureate ted kooser's valentine poems. a simple poem written and mailed each year for valentine's day. i helped her find a handful of his poems online and was struck by their earthy simplicity. so when i saw a collection of his poems titled simply valentines during one of my many visits to a bookstore, i picked it up. i immediately fell in love with the first poem. today i bought myself the book, after having picked it up longingly at least half a dozen times. here's the first poem:

Pocket Poem

If this comes creased and creased again and soiled
as if I'd opened it a thousand times
to see if what I'd written here was right,
it's all because I looked too long for you
to put it in your pocket. Midnight says
the little gifts of loneliness come wrapped
by nervous fingers. What I wanted this
to say was that I want to be so close
that when you find it, it is warm from me.

i loved it so much that i wanted to share.

reasons.

2008-02-08T18:07:00.001-07:00

these are my slippers:

last night j(wh) came in when he brought me home and i made us a pot of ruby fruit tea (mmmyummy--my favorite tea). and, as i am wont to do, i took off my shoes when i got inside. but it was a bit chilly in the house, so i put my slippers on. they're new. i got them on clearance for $4. and $4 instead of $20 for a pair of fuzzy, cozy slippers covers a multitude of sins--including garish orange. i mockingly asked j(wh) if he liked my ridiculously orange slippers, to which he replied (with a snort):

"those are genuine muppet skin!"

and that is one of many reasons he's so wonderful.

weird.

2008-02-08T14:10:00.000-07:00

sitting in jack-in-the-box. on the internet. feels very strange for a fast food restaurant to have free wireless access. i foresee future visits, though i think they'll involved more diet coke or dr. pepper than food. the food is lousy. but the internet--it's great. no matter how weird.

lent.

2008-02-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

i've toyed with the idea of giving something up for lent for several years--ever since i lived in boston. i remember walking to the T on ash wednesday and being mystified by the smudges on my fellow commuters' foreheads. although i'd grown up in southern california with lots of catholic classmates, i'd never seen (or at least never noticed) ashes on people's foreheads for ash wednesday. it took me a while, that cold february morning in boston, to make the connection between the smudges on foreheads and the beginning of lent.

i'm not much for making apparently empty sacrifices--giving up chocolate or soda or whatever simple indulgence and then returning to previous habits once you've fulfilled the barebones of the sacrifice. but i like the idea of using this kind of structured sacrifice as an opportunity for reflection and change. and if the change needed is giving up soda or sweets--that's fine by me. in fact, i could probably do with consuming less of both.

but the change i need? i need to get out of my damn bed in the morning. i'm not talking about getting up early or about not sleeping in. nor am i talking about not taking a few minutes after waking up to cat-stretch and then curl back up in my bed and enjoy its cozy warmth while i think about my day.

here's what i am talking about: when i get overwhelmed by all of the things going on in my life--things which i'm not really managing well--little things become obstacles to my acting. stupid little things. like what i'll wear. or what i'll eat for breakfast. or the fact that there's laundry piled on my floor. and too often i react by laying in my bed stewing. sometimes i stew over the stupid stuff. other times i stew over the big stuff. either way it's incredibly unproductive. and it usually means i don't eat; it sometimes means i don't shower; and occasionally it means i don't make it to appointments.

obviously this is not okay. the thing is that i know if i'll just get up and take care of those little things, i'll have a good start to my day. and it will take me less time to shower, eat, and start a batch of laundry than i spend stewing. and i won't have the hunger-headache to deal with or the guilt over not getting something--anything!--done.

so for lent i'm giving up my bed--or rather the self-flagellation staying in (or getting back in) bed represents. time to simply do the things that need to get done.

vote.

2008-02-05T17:17:00.000-07:00

4:00 on super tuesday and i've just come home from voting. our polling place is at the fire station only three or four blocks from my house. i always love going there to vote. they roll up one of the big doors on the front of the station house and voters line up out onto the drive way, chatting casually as they wait their turn to step up to one of the nifty electronic voting machines, scroll their way through the ballot, and, having confirmed their vote on the paper trail, push the bright red "cast vote" button. this time there was no line. i simply signed in and walked straight into a booth to vote. and since i'd done my ballot research beforehand, it was a simple matter of choosing barack obama (non-partisan voters can vote in the democratic primary in california), checking off yes or no for each proposition, and confirming my vote.

i love the feeling i get when i vote. there's a sense of connectedness at the polling place, of strangers participating in something larger than themselves. and this election has been particularly exciting (even if i've also been particularly irritated at how early the campaigning started--i'm all for severely limiting both time and funds a candidate can spend on campaigning). part of me wants to stay tapped into the news all evening so i can follow the results, hoping that obama pulls enough delegates to keep the race competitive. another part of me is too nervous about it to follow and so doesn't want to check until the results are all in and there's a clear-cut result. i honestly can't remember ever feeling this way about a primary election and only once feeling this way about a general election (2004--curses on george w. bush!).

oddly, although i've been following the campaign rather avidly and have supported obama from the get-go, i've resisted becoming involved. my friend george is a bit disgusted with my refusal to volunteer. and i've been a little at a loss as to how to explain my resistance. i spent an evening talking it through with her, but mostly i was making excuses, never quite able to explain more clearly than that it would make me feel yucky to try to campaign on someone's behalf, no matter how much i supported him/her. that's not to say i won't talk about the candidates and the issues--i've done plenty of that. but i didn't feel okay about volunteering.

after receiving three emails from friends imploring me to vote in the last 24 hours, i understand my own reluctance better. one of those emails was a simple plea to vote. no partisan element to it. no endorsement of one candidate over another. just a request that i vote. that didn't bother me at all. i think everyone should vote. but the other two offered unsolicited advice about their candidate, mitt romney--about his strength of character; about how he has what it takes to save us from the desperate straits in which we find our nation; about doing everything in our power to get him elected. one of these authors managed to write without presuming that all of her email's recipients would agree that romney is the best candidate. the other one simply assumed that everyone receiving the message would agree that romney (i refuse to refer to him as "mitt") is the man for the job, and this in spite of the fact that this particular friend knows that i'm liberal and disagree with the kind of conservative politics romney stands for. in spite of this difference in tone, i was pretty disgusted by both emails.

i admit that part of that disgust has to do with my opinion of romney. i think the best single word to describe his character is "smarmy," rather than "good" or "trustworthy." and (much more importantly) i not only disagree with most of his approach to policy and governing, i find some of his opinions frightening in the extent to which they disregard what i consider vitally important and basic principles and rights. but my distaste for romney, his persona, and his positions, isn't the only source of my distaste for these emails. i simply don't like receiving this kind of unsought petition for my vote--one which is, moreover, premised on fairly empty platitudes about character and inflammatory rhetoric about us needing salvation and romney providing it. it's precisely this manipulative over-reliance on the rhetoric of ethos or the rhetoric of pathos (which far too often excludes the rhetoric of logos, which should be the most important) that bothers me about campaigning in general. i certainly don't want to receive it on a personal level. and i don't ever want to be a purveyor of such campaigning, no matter how much i believe in the candidate or how successful the tactics may seem.

instead, i'll join in my other friend's plea: if you haven't yet and you still have the opportunity, go vote. if you've missed your chance today, don't miss it when the general election rolls around in november. i don't care who you vote for or what you think of the various candidates running; i just care that you exercise the right so many in this world don't have.

wordless.

2008-01-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

wednesday.

bird.

2008-01-29T12:36:00.001-07:00

sunday night, j(wh) and i had one of those long late night conversations in which you end up talking about all kinds of things. and one of the things that came up was the end of my friendship with my childhood best friend. k and i were best friends from the time we were very small. we went to church together. we spent friday nights with each other at least once a month if not more. almost every saturday i went to her house to play and, starting when we were about eight, we'd walk to the mall together to go to the bookstore to get a new book for the week. but we didn't go to elementary school together.

i spent a lot of energy wishing we could go to school together. elementary school was okay the first few years. i think i was too much in my own world to pay much attention to who the popular kids were, what clothes kids were wearing, who was going to whose birthday party, etc. that changed once i hit 3rd or 4th grade and the kids more openly made fun of me. 5th and 6th grades were just nasty. i'd come home from school crying sometimes. and my poor mother had no idea what to do to make it better other than to hug me and tell me she loved me.

k was my lifeline then. because even if the kids at school were vicious and mean, i had this best friend who loved me outside of school. i was so excited that she was going to come to junior high with me. so when she told me at the end of my 7th grade year that we couldn't be friends anymore--well, that was devastating. i knew it was because i wasn't cool enough. not pretty enough. i didn't have the clothes or the stuff or the interest in music or the interest in boys. i was clearly a liability when it came to the market of popularity. and i knew it. but it still hurt.

it's a common story. nothing really special about it. but thinking about it again actually made me tear up, which surprised me a bit--how much the memory of childhood pain could hurt still. but it also made me realize that i sometimes psychically flip off all those kids i went to school with. sometimes i catch a glimpse of how interesting my life is; or i see myself with new eyes that show me my own beauty and style; or i understand how much i've accomplished. and every once in a while when i do, i remember the kids at school and how they thought of me and i mentally laugh in their faces.

one.

2008-01-24T18:19:00.000-07:00

think about a single day, what it might cost for you to live the way you do. and think about the hundreds of thousands of people who live on less than you do in your own country. and then think about the hundreds of millions of people who live on a few dollars a day, maybe even less. and then watch this:

and ask yourself what you would have done with those $720 million dollars spent every single day for nearly five years. even if you would have spent that money in iraq, think about the effectiveness of war as a means of transforming a society as opposed to humanitarian aid in its various forms.

is it worth it? that $720 million every single day? the $500,000 every single minute?

{thank you to j(wh) for sharing this video. and to the american friends service committee for making it available.}

honor.

2008-01-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

i live a very secure life. i have my moments of personal insecurity--as many as most, a few less than some, a few more than others. i've experienced enough cognitive dissonance to spin me into depression that has kept me from fully functioning. but i live a very secure life. i know there are evil people in my world--not the world, my world. i'm sure there are people in my community who have committed unspeakable acts. i may have even encountered them. but i do not fear that evil. that's not to say that i don't take reasonable precautions or that i live in a self-generated bubble in which i think i could never be the victim of an unspeakable act. it's simply to say that such unspeakable acts are not a daily reality i must confront.

on tuesday, as i listened to my usual dose of NPR while getting ready for the day, i heard a story about healing women and children who have been raped as an act of war, followed by a story about an american doctor affiliated with harvard who has tried to help her congolese colleagues. when the story started, my tendency to socially conscious outrage was immediately piqued. as was my academic interest in feminism and women's issues. but i couldn't maintain the distance necessary to have those reactions. these stories recounted such unadulterated evil that there was no way i could simply listen in outrage and interest. instead i stopped what i was doing, sat down and cried as i listened to stories about women and girls--little girls of 10 or 11--who had been brutally violated as an act of war. and about people who give everything to help them.

those 15 minutes of radio time forced me to realize how very secure my life is. and how very helpless i feel about making any difference. i don't know yet what i can do--which organizations i can support, what work i could do remotely, how i can speak up about the cause to my own government. i plan to find out and, when i do, i'll share what i learn. but in the mean time, i'm asking you to take 15 minutes and listen. it will be hard. these are devastating stories. but please--honor these women and girls, and the people trying to help them, enough to know their stories.

taxed.

2008-01-04T17:20:00.000-07:00

about a month ago, i heard a report on NPR regarding the possibility of economic recession in the u.s. that report included a recording of our dear president in which he argued that if americans will just keep spending, we'll spend ourselves right out of any possible recession.

this argument really bothers me. i have no problem with people spending money. i understand the desire for nice things and have no problem with indulging that desire within reason. but i do have a problem with the degree of consumerism i see in american society. i do have a problem with the extent to which americans willingly go into debt not for housing or education or necessities, but for luxuries. and yes--cable television and high speed internet are actually luxuries, not necessities.

hearing bush make the comment about spending our way out of possible recession reminded me of his similar response to 9/11. one of his responses was that americans should spend spend spend--rather than save their money and conserve their resources--to demonstrate our strength and to avoid economic collapse in reaction to the devastation of 9/11. i don't understand this response--that we'll somehow be stronger (both as individuals and as a nation) if we run through our money and consume our resources than if we save our money and conserve our resources.

the advice to spend to stave off economic downfall seems particularly ill-advised in light of the recent problems in the housing market which have contributed to our current economic situation--the problem of sub-prime mortgages which are caused precisely by americans spending more than they should, rather than carefully building and preserving a financial cushion even as they invest in real estate. buying more house than one can afford clearly has much more to do with consumerism and keeping up with the joneses than with investment. even someone as inexperienced in investment as myself knows you don't invest in such a way that you leave yourself no security if the investment fails.

given americans ever-growing tendency to over-spend, i'm interested in ways to incentivize savings and preservation of resources as opposed to spending and consuming resources. so as i've heard all of the post-iowa coverage today, i've been struck by mike huckabee's proposed fair tax in place of the entire existing tax code. in a nutshell, the idea is that the federal government only taxes people based on their consumption. no income tax of any variety. no capital gains tax. no taxes on inheritance. no payroll tax. just a tax on what people spend. you get the idea. here's huckabee's brief explanation:

The FairTax will replace the Internal Revenue Code with a consumption tax, like the taxes on retail sales forty-five states and the District of Columbia have now. All of us will get a monthly rebate that will reimburse us for taxes on purchases up to the poverty line, so that we're not taxed on necessities. That means people below the poverty line won't be taxed at all. We'll be taxed on what we decide to buy, not what we happen to earn. We won't be taxed on what we choose to save or the interest those savings earn. The tax will apply only to new goods, so we can reduce our taxes further by buying a used car or computer.

i like the idea of a tax system that rewards people for saving their money rather than spending it frivolously. i like the idea of a tax system that encourages investment and retirement planning. so i'm intrigued by the idea of huckabee's fair tax. but i'm also very leery of any proposed reform that includes the sentence "when the FairTax becomes law, it will be like waving a magic wand releasing us from pain and unfairness." really? really? a magic wand?

huckabee argues not only that his proposed fair tax would encourage savings; he further argues that the fair tax would immediately render american goods and businesses "12 to 25% more competitive because the cost of those goods will no longer be inflated by corporate taxes, costs of tax compliance, and Social Security matching payments." such an argument epitomizes the kind of political sleight of hand that leaves me disgusted. does huckabee actually think that the elimination of corporate taxes and the cost of tax compliance, etc., will result in american corporations dropping prices by 12 to 25%? perhaps what he means is that american corporations will have more flexibility in setting prices so they can be more competitive if necessary. that makes sense. but it would be foolish to expect that the elimination of taxes would automatically result in prices dropping across the board.

huckabee further argues that such a tax would remove the incentive to export jobs overseas. again, this seems nothing more than a pipe dream. even reducing the cost of doing business by 12 to 25% is not going to change the fact that labor is much cheaper overseas. or the fact that compliance with safety and other standards is more expensive in the states than it is in places where such standards are either non-existent or sub par. the fact of the matter is that as long as the bottom line drives business, jobs will keep leeching out of the u.s. as long as we continue to support double standards, insisting on one level of safety and health standards in the u.s. but turning a blind eye to exploitation overseas, no amount of tax reform will be a magic fix.

and then there's my concern over maintaining and bolstering social welfare programs. in many ways fiscal conservativism appeals to me. i think those in office and those who work for the government have a responsibility to do everything in their power to run government programs as efficiently as possible. but it doesn't make sense to me to cut just for the sake of cutting. i believe very much in the necessity of government sponsored programs meant to provide a security net for american citizens. and i can't help but wonder how much a program like huckabee's fair tax would tax such social welfare programs.

chocolat.

2008-01-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

last spring i spent the night at RAF and JP's duplex in l.a. for the first time. and on saturday morning, RAF made chocolat chaud--french hot chocolate. just imagine smooth, dark hot chocolate that's intensely rich and perfectly delicious. with toasted challah to dip in it. i fell in love with the first sip.

sometime in the summer after RAF had made me more chocolat chaud one morning, i asked him if a hand mixer would whip up the chocolat chaud well enough. he thought not, but suggested using a traditional blender since i didn't have an immersion blender (which the recipe requires). and then for my birthday in september, RAF and JP surprised me with my very own immersion blender. bless them!

last night i introduced j(wh) to the beauty that is chocolat chaud. i had some 80% cocoa christian constant chocolate bars RAF brought me from paris and we picked up whole milk and some brioche at trader joe's. j(wh) gamely went along with my plan for dipping toasted brioche into hot chocolate, though he later told me he'd been a skeptic when i suggested it. he was quickly converted. you may initially be a skeptic, too, but i think everyone should know the beauty of chocolat chaud with toasted bread (an egg bread works best, thus the challah or brioche). so here's the recipe:

chocolat chaud (hot chocolate)
adapted from the recipe used at ladurée.

ingredients:
3 cups (750 grams) whole milk
1/3 cup (80 grams) water
1/3 cup (65 grams) sugar
6 ounces (175 grams) bittersweet chocolate (at least 80% cocoa), finely chopped

to make chocolate:
bring the milk, water, and sugar just to the boil in a medium saucepan. remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the chocolate. the hot chocolate needs to be blended at this point. at ladurée, this is done with a hand-held blender (also called an immersion blender). if you have an immersion blender, leave the hot chocolate in the pan and whip it for 1 minute. if you don't have an immersion blender, transfer the hot chocolate to a traditional blender and whip on high speed for 1 minute. serve the chocolate immediately while it is still hot and frothy.

to reheat chilled hot chocolate:
the chocolate can be made up to two days ahead and kept tightly covered in the refrigerator. to reheat, warm the chocolate in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring gently, just until the first bubble pops on the surface. pull the pan from the heat, whip the chocolate for 1 minute with an immersion blender (or in a traditional blender), and serve immediately.

to make cold hot chocolate:
chill the hot chocolate until it is very cold, then stir in 3/4 cup (200 grams) cold milk. whip the cold chocolate for 1 minute with an immersion blender (or in a traditional blender). serve the cold hot chocolate over an ice cube or two. the cold hot chocolate allegedly makes for a yummy ice cream float, too.

make yourself a pot of chocolat chaud, toast yourself some strips of brioche, and indulge in a perfectly decadent breakfast or late night snack.

celebrate!

2008-01-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

my new year's eve usually goes like this:

help make lots of finger food.
play games with family.
help eat lots of finger food.
make some half-hearted noise at midnight.
go to bed shortly thereafter.

sometimes they're not even that exuberant--i've been known to go to bed well before midnight. new year's just seems like a holiday to be celebrated with others. for years, i haven't had friends around with whom to go dancing or to a party--not since my high school best friend got married when i was 21. and my family aren't so much party people. or dancing people. and, to be totally honest, i never have anyone to kiss at midnight, which bothers me way more than it should.

this year the pajamas came out early, but not for early bedtime. they were the attire of choice for atomic ballroom's new year's eve pajama jammie jam. so, after ramen (yummy) and wandering around isamu noguchi's california experience, j(wh) and i headed to atomic to change into jammies and dance the night away. when i told my mama that the party was a pajama party, she was duly horrified. she seemed to think it would be okay if it were just girls, but... Apparently men and women aren't supposed to see each other in pajamas. so i figured i needed photographic evidence of The Great Pajama Scandal of 2007 (i needed some scandal of the year; good thing atomic stepped up and provided a last-minute opportunity).

the good people at atomic do know how to throw a party. big screen video gaming for those needing a break from dancing (not something i was interested in, but i suppose some people appreciated it). brightly colored helium balloons. streamers, party hats, and noisemakers. a breakfast buffet spread out not only on the table, but also hanging overhead (little boxes of cereal hung from the ceiling). an 11:00 midnight-in-arizona toast toast (in other words a toast made with toast). and of course great music and lots of dancing.

i spent most of the night dancing. everyone at atomic is so nice--especially for putting up with me and my beginner efforts at dancing. it helps so much to dance with leads who know what they're doing. if only i could follow better... someday.

of course we took a break from dancing at midnight to ring in the new year with streamers and noisemakers and a sparkling cider toast. so much fun to be part of a group welcoming a new year. and of course so much fun to be there with j(wh). and i was right--new year's is much better with someone to kiss.

it's hard to pick a highlight of the night. but if i had to choose, i think i'd say it was the food i shared with j(wh). we bypassed the cookie cereal and just put oreo cookies in a bowl and poured milk over them, let them get good and soggy, and ate them with a spoon. yummy! yet more evidence that j(wh) is a man after my own heart. and i'm pretty sure the milk-soaked oreos are responsible for his beautiful arms. either that or the quaker oats.

worship.

2007-12-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

tonight i drove home* between the full moon rising in the east and the sunset gleaming orangeredgold behind catalina in the west, the ocean emanating all the light it has soaked up and stored all day. and as i drove, i found myself declaring my love to the ocean. the light. the sun. the moon. the earth. and it made perfect sense to me why people worship the heavens and the earth.

*i'm house-, dog-, bird-, and turtle-sitting in laguna beach this week.