the 18th century guide to modern living

It's All Okay

2012-01-21T22:04:00.009-05:00

I got a lovely email recently from a young woman who I had once interviewed for admission to Gettysburg, who is now a current student there and wanted to talk to me about making the transition from student to professional in the admissions world.

Of course this email opened a floodgate of reflections for me. I remembered the interview with this charming girl, and how excited she was at the prospect of college. We talked and laughed well beyond our allotted interview slot, and I was thrilled when she ended up coming to Gettysburg. To be able to keep up a connection with someone with whom you'd been through the process of admission, to get to see what they've done with their time in college, to see how they've grown…well, to say it is rewarding is trite at best. It's simply unbeatable. And then to be able to be a guide once again on the next step of their journey is equally an honor.

These are the kinds of memories that remind me of why I loved being an admissions counselor. They also remind me of what I want to be in any job that I'm in. I want to help people. The moments that permanently imprint into my mind are those where I feel genuinely moved that I was able to improve the lives of those with whom I worked. You work because you want to serve a purpose, to make something better than it was before. Otherwise, why labor?

I especially feel blessed with these moments where I can turn to someone who's about to undertake the experience I've already had, and to be able to tell them it's all going to be okay. Isn't that all we ever want to hear? Especially now. And realizing as you're comforting them, that the words are still true for you as well. It's all going to be okay. And it will. It is.

Hoo Made Owls So Fashionable?

2012-01-08T22:16:00.010-05:00

So many exciting events have happened over the last week, but all I'll say for the moment is that I feel pretty good so far about 2012. Yay 2012! Now don't worry; if something goes wrong now, I won't blame you as a year. But let's keep this happy streak going for a bit longer, shall we?

As the above photo suggests, owls are on my mind lately. That's because I've been writing up lots more product description for owl jewelry pieces for Falkora Jewelry, like this piece: Owl Be Attending the Oscars Ring.

Considering the number of jewelry pieces I've written about so far, of which the owl is a dominate theme, and considering in how many places have I seen owls featured as necklace pendants, rings, t-shirt motifs, and plateware (think ModCloth and Forever21), I am thinking now that it would be very interesting to do a research project on the significance in the fashion world of animals, and of why certain animals become popular when they do, and why they remain prominent in a fashion culture.

I don't think I'm fabricating this; owls just do seem to be everywhere in fashion, and they have been for several years now–especially among costume jewelry and among fashion marketed towards teenage girls and young women. But why this is, I have no answer for so far. I invite your ideas and owl-themed wordplays.

*image copyright of www.falkorajewelry.com

Massage Envy, My New Love

2011-12-30T08:42:00.010-05:00

Last night I cashed in on a gift certificate my mother gave me for Christmas, to Massage Envy, which must be one of the greatest places on earth. I got an hour and a half massage, including aromatherapy massage lotions in their "anxiety release" scent, which was a soothing melange of lavender, orange, and some other calming stuff. I almost went for the straight lavender scent, but decided I would do the other one and just burn some lavender incense at home instead, thus completing my 360 degrees of harmonious environmental energy.

Oh, it was amazing. For an hour and a half, I lay practically comatose, and possibly slightly salivating, while this saintly woman slowly returned me to the state of Human Being. I went in with tension in my neck and shoulders from sitting at a computer all day, and general stressiness from running around and living life all day and not having enough time for yoga, and walked out of there literally bouncing down the sidewalk, I felt so light.

I try to make empathetic noises when people tell me they do not like massage, but honestly I am at a loss as to why. Perhaps I was a cat in a previous life, who now responds instinctively to back rubs, but the experience of having aromatic lotion rubbed into your tired skin while you slowly unwind every muscle in your body, is just unbeatable. Massages should be covered by health care plans, and not just because you made up something to the insurance company about "your old football injury acting up again."

Haha, like anyone would ever believe I played football.

*photo courtesy of www.massageenvy.com

Take Ye the Tureen of Goose Fat

2011-12-11T11:57:00.006-05:00

While the content of my blog posts certainly strays from the original title of this blog, I've always felt that the 18th-century ethos still influences how I interpret modern social norms, politics, fashion and food.

Whether it is my unshakable obsession with the admittedly unhealthy bread pudding family, or my annual tribute to my patron authoress, Jane Austen, in the form of her favorite drink, the whipped syllabub, 18th-century food somehow always strikes me as the best comfort food, full of hearty, salty, sweet, creamy, savory ingredients meant to be slowly enjoyed in the days before all of those things were put on Santa's Naughty List.

So I was delighted when this morning I discovered that Colonial Williamsburg's website has launched a digitized version of an 18th century cookbook: "History is Served: 18th-century recipes for a 21st-century kitchen."

For the ambitious, or for the 18th century grad student, you can read the original 18th-century description and interpret as best you can (half the fun!). For the more modern reader, a 21st-century description is provided below, with more straight-forward instructions.

Let the colonial cookery begin!

*photo courtesy of http://recipes.history.org/2011/09/to-make-an-onion-pie/

Eclipses Bring Cookies and Change

2011-12-11T00:06:00.008-05:00

Oh my, I can't believe it's December. And not just December, but like, halfway through December.

So sorry it has been a bit of awhile since I last blogged. My boss has gotten some funky new jewelry in at Falkora Jewelry, so I've been writing web copy for pieces like these fun atomic age earrings.

Falkora also had a show at the recent First Fridays in Pittsburgh, on Penn Ave in the Friendship/Garfield area, and was very successful!

I am not sure yet that I totally have the whole Christmas thing in hand this year, but at least I did get some decorations up and baked some sugar cookies today.

Today was also a lunar eclipse, and funnily enough I did hear of two major (or one major, and one semi-major for my family) events that took place today: my dad, stepmom and stepsister got two new kittens (monumental since the deaths of our other two cats), and my cousin got ENGAGED!!

That is the big one. I have been smiling all evening after hearing about it. I haven't met her fiancé yet, but thanks to Facebook I pretty much feel like I know him. I am so happy for both of them.

As winter approaches, we come up with so many reasons to celebrate and try to bring light back to the world. Peace and love and light to you all, dear friends, in the coming days.

*photo courtesy of www.falkorajewelry.com

Time to Break Out the Eating Pants

2011-11-20T23:54:00.012-05:00

Thanksgiving is coming. Time to break out the Eating Pants.

I have two recipes which I am excited to use again this year when I make my pilgrimage to Flemington, NJ for the family get-together. The first was one I learned of from my cousin, Hilary, and it has been a delicious alternative for vegetarians, as well as just another yummy addition to the meal: Butternut Squash and Cheddar Bread Pudding. Its cheesiness elicits many cheese fantasies.

The second is this ridiculously unhealthy pie, called Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake, where there are two sticks of cream cheese in it and only half a cup of pumpkin. So, you know. It's basically like eating a buttload of cream cheese from a hypoglycemic cow.

Last year my sister and I had a small contest to see who could make the best pie. I think the critical factor was that I insisted you had to use a whisk or mixer to get the batter smooth enough, and Emily insisted you could whisk it with a fork or something and be fine. I'm not trying to make judgements here, but I just have to say I think my pie was better. Em would say they both tasted the same.

To be fair, at 1:30am the night of Thanksgiving, after a significant quantity of wine, she was absolutely right. And really, that is the ultimate moment of truth.

*photo courtesy of http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/double-layer-pumpkin-cheesecake-2/detail.aspx

Life in the Tower

2011-11-08T18:13:00.022-05:00

My dreams, lately, have been scattered and surreal. You may suppose that all dreams are that way, but really, mine often have a very particular storyline, so the fact that they have lately felt disconnected and staccato-ed, is, I think, some testament to some kind of discomposure.

I also have been reading Tarot cards lately, and I keep pulling up The Tower. It's a jarring card, but not necessarily bad. It's more like a wild card that just yells "SURPRISE!" It speaks of some structure or situation that comes tumbling down. Something being thrown out of joint, or wiped out. It can speak of loss, but not always the bad kind. When we are stuck in a tower, sometimes we need something or someone to tear us out of it.

It can reference anything from being jarred out of a bad work situation, to falling in love–to be "struck by lighting" because of meeting someone. The bolt of lighting is often seen as the hand of God, as are the golden raindrops around it: representations of the Hebrew letter yod, symbolic of the same. The card is scary, but usually only when we are afraid to change, even if the change is good.

Some people, in fact, get this card when they're going to have a baby (hee hee, which makes the look on the faces of those people tumbling much funnier). But rest assured–that is definitely not my situation at the moment!

I do feel, though, for whatever reason, like I am falling, and where I will land, no one can say. Maybe I will get somewhere I would not have otherwise gone, however.

The Tower is part of the Major Araca, the big, fat suit of 22 cards that discuss the archetypal roles we are required to play in order to achieve spiritual growth. Usually that means you can't avoid these cards; they are part of your karmic destiny. Sorry! Transformation is a real bitch.

By the way, if you ever want to pick up a pack and start reading, anyone can. They operate on the principle of the collective unconscious–the same sort of thing that makes you dream of the future, etc. You may find it interesting, in fact, to google Carl Jung and the Tarot and see why he was so fascinated with it, but he's one of my history heroes so, you know, I'm a bit biased.

Judy Jetson: a Role Model

2011-11-03T12:47:00.005-04:00

I am finding it hard to believe that it's november already. When did that happen? And what have I been doing with myself?

Well, I've been amusing myself with following up on the incredible success of my premier eHow article, "how to make a top out of men's briefs" with such illustrious titles as "how to hang oil paintings in stairways" and "how to coil the strings on Sperrys." I like to think that I am changing lives.

Also, check out more fun web copy I've written for the fabulously funky Falkora Jewelry, this time in the bracelets department. Any time in which I get to reference iconic American television classics like Judy Jetson and Morticia Addams is a good time, I must say.

P.S., do you actually remember Judy Jetson, and how boy-crazy she was, even though her boyfriends had names like Sky Rocker and Nicky Nebula? I had forgotten how inspiring she is.

salamanders aplenty

2011-11-01T22:36:00.002-04:00

i haven't recorded an interesting dream in a little while for you, so here's one i had thursday night, thought i had properly interpreted, and then decided i didn't. so, for your pleasure:

i was traveling for work to baltimore, and was going to try to meet up with friends, but i couldn't. instead, i found myself in an historic market district that seemed so familiar, and i decided i'd just wander around there instead with the time set aside where we'd originally planned to meet up. i wanted to get lunch and i thought i remembered there was a good seafood place that did takeout, so i found it. it was at one end of this market street, tucked in a corner with outdoor seating and black iron-wrought furnishings. the rest of the market, by the way, was full of white, or lightly colored building fronts, almost white in the sunlight. it was early morning, so the sunlight was extremely bright.

then the waiter told me that they didn't do takeout anymore, or their food was not what i expected to be in some way, and i was frustrated. i knew i had limited time, so i had needed to take advantage of that, and now that time was wasted.

then the dream shifted and it was night, and i was checking into a hotel, presumably in that same neighborhood. the hotel was awful, extremely cheap, with crumbling ceilings and dodgy light fixtures, and even more bizarre, piles of random bric-a-brac that seemed to have been collected from garage sales, and thrown in piles into all of the rooms, by way of decoration and furnishing. the furniture, therefore, was all mismatched and scratched and gross-looking, and all i could console myself with was the thought that i wouldn't be there for long.

the dream shifted again and i'm in that hotel room but it's daylight now, and the sun is streaming in and blinding everything in the room, and i can't decide if it's good or bad. then i notice something i hadn't noticed before because of the glare in the room: a little salamander. it's on the floor, which is white tile, and it's so white itself that it's almost translucent. i peer closer and see that it is translucent, save for its two deep black eyes. it's both beautiful and gross, somehow--beautiful in its pure form, so white and so smooth, but gross in that it looks sticky, and is on my floor.

in real life, i love salamanders, but my only thought is that i enjoy them out in nature, and not in my bedroom. and the salamander is indeed sticky when i try to pick it up, and then i begin to notice that there are more of them.

some of them are tiny, and others are huge, and they're all over the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling, and i'm trapped because if i move i know i'll step on one, which 1) grosses me out, and 2) i don't want to hurt them. i call for help, and someone suddenly appears close to me, but i don't know who it is. i tell her that there are these salamanders everywhere, and she acknowledges it, but we don't know what to do. this part of the dream ends with us still trying to figure it out.

there is a second part of the dream that happened after that, but it's too vague now for me to recall more than faint images.

fabric fixation

2011-10-27T16:55:00.009-04:00

ah, pittsburgh. how i love your weather forecasts calling for snow before Halloween has even happened.

on the bright side, that means i get to take out early some of my fun winter wardrobe pieces, like my beloved pairs of chocolate brown and purple leather gloves with the ruching at the wrists. i love when it's finally cold enough to take these pairs of gloves out from the closet. i even get to match the purple pair with my three-quarter-length-sleeve empire waist fall jacket with the peter pan collar from Old Navy. the sleeves are just short enough to show off the ruching. <3 <3 <3

i love ruching. there's something so casually elegant about it. i love it almost as much as i love draping fabric, and for those of you familiar with my years working in the costume shop at Gettysburg College, you may understand just how deeply i love draping fabric.

can people have a compulsion to drape fabric? i would believe it. i used to sit around the costume shop in college and take gorgeous pieces of cloth and pin them in dramatic ways all over our dress dummies, and wish it was some cocktail dress i'd been invited to wear at a party. oh for those days.

p.s., now i want to find a winter coat that's reasonably priced, warm, and makes me feel like a Swedish snow princess. i'm thinking something with a hood, princess seams, and fake fur trim. any suggestions?

a glitzy-glam new beginning

2011-10-17T20:08:00.009-04:00

so if i have seemed to be MIA, it's because i've taken up a lot of my free time in making ground with my new part-time job, writing web copy for a local jewelry vendor!

Falkora Jewelry is the name of the game, and it has been so much fun so far to work with the lady behind it all. her business got off the ground this summer, i believe, (or maybe earlier?) but already she's had good success both selling cute costume jewelry at vendor fairs, and in creating her own unique line of dangly tunnel earrings for women with gauged ears. i didn't know much about gauged ears before this, but i am learning that it's an increasingly popular fashion trend. i think it's great that she's identified this niche in the market and has just gone for it.

she's a super creative person herself, and pretty much allows me free reign to write whatever i like, occasionally tweaking and editing my work when she feels something doesn't sit right. which is how i decided to pay tribute to The Oregon Trail, one of the best moments of the early 90's. i also greatly enjoyed telling the story of the Mod Assassin Necklace, and Don't Make Me Take Out My Hoop Earrings.

as part-time work, it's perfect in that it allows me to hone my copywriting skills while just giving me a creative outlet on the side of my day job, to let my imagination wander. which just about seems to suit the style of Falkora.

so far i've written copy for all of the necklaces, and many of the earrings, and am just starting on rings this week. mind, the website is still in development, so stay tuned and tell your friends!

up, up and away

2011-10-02T11:10:00.005-04:00

for all who are feeling the struggle against adversity right now, here's a little reminder that many things are possible beyond what we can conceive:

UP is one of my favorite films. i pretty much cry in the first five minutes of the movie, every time i watch it. and again at the end. and i love the premise that an old man turns to adventure by converting his house into a giant hot-air balloon.

i like films that remind us that only when things are truly bleak, is there room to see outrageous possibilities.

enjoy the rest of the weekend, dear friends.

a bit of fashion, a bit of rain

2011-10-01T18:30:00.008-04:00

after what began as a long, stressful week is now finally unwinding to a semi-relaxing weekend. if only it weren't forty degrees and raining. hmm. the wine might have to come out of the fridge.

today i went briefly to the vendor fair and student fashion show, as part of the tail end of Pittsburgh Fashion Week. i do wish i had gone to some of the other events during the week, but alas, they cost a bit of money and that's just what i should not be spending in excess right now.

the vendor fair had a nice collection of jewelry samplings, but it was a bit smaller than i expected. also, my $10 ticket for "general admission," which allowed me to pick one fashion show to attend, seemed a bit pricey considering each show was about 5 minutes long. i was able watch two before they moved us out of the conference room and brought in a new crowd, but even so, in total, my $10 got me about…12-15 minutes of actual fashion catwalk time.

perhaps this is how fashion shows work, however. God knows the New York fashion week is probably zillions of dollars to get into, to view one waif-like model clad in shiny six-inch heels and a couture burlap sack.

on the other hand, the excitement and pride of the student designers, in getting to display their work, was inspiring to see, and reconciled the price and time length issue for me. and their designs were fun–well cut, unique, inspired. and maybe that penn state freshman who's been designing clothes with his mom and grandma since he was 11, will be famous one day, and this was the opportunity that helped foster his confidence to keep designing.

meanwhile, i am starting other new and exciting projects (more to follow on this!). but my fat orange cat has just climbed onto my lap, so for the immediate future, i guess my project is rubbing tummies.

novel: take-off!

2011-09-25T18:28:00.008-04:00

finally, having had the first weekend in many where i have some me-time, i am pushing myself to begin to write my novel. i used to write short stories all the time, but as i grew older i somehow felt less creative, like it had all been done before.

now i feel like i have something to say–but to be fair, last year i didn't feel like i quite had anything to say yet. so. it takes time.

as i have never written a novel before, the idea is daunting, even while exciting. i'm starting by using the snowflake method, which is forcing me to think critically about the structure and message of my writing–something that's never easy for most writers, even though non-writers often seem to think that full novels and essays just leak out of our fingertips, onto the keyboard, without any editing required.

below is an excerpt from the couple of pages i have so far.

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"Happily I go to Amazon.com and start clicking through to the Books section, and then into Astrology. I start scanning through cover images, occasionally clicking on interesting titles like The Only Astrology Book You’ll Ever Need, and The Secret Language of Relationships. I’ve actually read this one—or by read, I mean I’ve frequently gone into Barnes & Noble to thumb through it about various astrological relationship combinations. I can’t bring myself to actually buy it, because it only contains about a paragraph on each combination, so you only need it for about five minutes if you’re only reading about your one romantic relationship. Buying it would be an acknowledgement that I’d be requiring it frequently in the future."

great hair never goes out of style

2011-09-23T13:18:00.013-04:00

so Prada has an interesting new spring line, says ELLE: retro-leotards…for everyday wear?

they are pretty damn adorable--don’t they make you think of Rita Hayworth?

inasmuch as i’d love to go around looking like a 50’s Hollywood pinup, i’m curious as to in which public setting will these become de rigeur? they’re not quite bathing suits, but something tells me mom wouldn’t like to see me in church like that.

also, from new york’s spring 2012 fashion week, i can’t help loving this model's elegant, but abstract hairstyle.

something about tinged hair thrown back into twists elicits fond images of the eighteenth century, and of this image in particular:

nothing like getting together with your girlfriends and your favorite beau to do some primping and have a gossip.

* Rita Hayworth image courtesy of http://womenprofile.blogspot.com/2010/11/rita-hayworth.html

* Beauty at the Best Shot image courtesy of http://www.adafca.org/events/120/

fall + fashion: a marriage of equals

2011-09-21T19:39:00.016-04:00

fall is here! or at least, it will be officially on friday. and that means…new wardrobe!!

okay, not exactly. if you're like me, aka recently graduated from a master's and not exactly single-handedly supporting the economy through consumerism, you've probably had to cut back on how much you spend on shoes. you and the CEO of D.S.W. are equally chagrined by this.

but does this mean you've given up on dressing fashionably? of course not! well, i guess "fashionably" is up for interpretation; i say wearing big bows in your hair is fun, and some people say it's "loud."

at any rate, nothing can take away the semi-frisson of excitement in unpacking a seasonal wardrobe like the transition to fall. and fall is, in my opinion, the best fashion season because:

everyone looks good in chocolate brown, a fall color-staple
it's not too hot to start to wear layers = more options for mixing and matching tops, leggings, belts, scarves, etc.
it's not too cold to have only layers on, without stuffing everything underneath a 40 lb. L.L. Bean down comforter coat designed for the arctic tundra, because some of us don't produce body heat in the winter and didn't realize Pittsburgh was so cold, haha!

opening your closet to once again take out those cute suede chocolate Steve Madden riding boots with the ruched toe therefore is emotionally akin, for the recent graduate, to pulling the most expensive pair of Pradas off the shelf at Bloomingdale's.

and sweaters! oh, sweaters. i love sweaters. sweaters are as much the best invention of clothing for Woman, as jeans are so often her Enemy (see my jeans rant for more of what i mean on this). i have so many sweaters, one of whose button holes i need to repair. luckily i was able to find matching thread at the most amazing fabric shop in the Strip District, LOOM, whose photo i featured above.

arg! i love this place! i want to roll around like a cat in catnip in their gorgeous prints.

also: Pittsburgh Fashion Week is here! i didn't get to go to the premier last year, so i'm excited to check out the entrepreneurial vibe of the steel city. i hope we see, in addition to high fashion, at least one Heinz ketchup bottle-spinoff.

karmic high school never ends

2011-09-19T21:21:00.007-04:00

today i read an insightful editorial on cnn's belief blog, offering a priest's philosophical take on the value we can pull away from economic recession.

i do not consider myself particularly religious, but mostly because i am touched by the religious stories and customs of many faiths, and it's been my understanding that you're not allowed to claim to love religion unless you follow only one (ironic, no?). yet all faiths contain the same critical stories, the ones that teach us how to grow. in this case, the priest focused on the lessons of religion in not only how to build, but how to rebuild when everything is broken. how to build better after breaking down–a kind of growth that only comes from experiencing total failure, helplessness, and despair.

in Christianity, this is realized through humility and repentance. in Hinduism, this might be the work of Kali, the goddess who destroys all that is useless and outdated, making room for new growth. in astrology, it's recognized as the planetary alignment we are in now–when Saturn, the great teacher, is turned direct, forcing us to slow down, recognize our flaws, and go back to square one and work twice as hard to get to where we thought we were.

obviously, no one enjoys this kind of spiritual life lesson. in fact, the universe seems to be pretty damn good at picking the one thing you'd like least to have to deal with, and (surprise!) pushes you head-first into it, until you surrender yourself and are forced to become more flexible, more enterprising, and more tolerant. finally you admit that the way you are doing things just doesn't work anymore, and new ways and thoughts will have to take their place.

likewise this Catholic priest, while naturally channeling his thoughts through his Catholic background, insisted that suffering and loss are as much a nourishment of the soul, as are just rewards. this is because suffering teaches us empathy, and how to be receptive to others.

if you've ever met someone who you've tried to share something troubling or traumatic with, and they brush it off or tell you it's no big deal, they've probably just never had a major traumatic experience themselves, and have no concept of what that means. or if they've had one, they haven't taken in the lesson. they are probably not the best listener, either. whenever a catastrophic moment such as you've experienced finally does happen to them, though, they will experience total loss for the first time. it will then be in their power to take one of two paths: blame the world for this "unsuccessful" moment, further alienating themselves. or they can break down and admit vulnerability, reach out to others and learn to have compassion for difficult moments in life.

when we suffer, we have the opportunity to find each other. we also have the opportunity to realize where we were overconfident in our predictions, where we misjudged a situation, and where we have to go back to build better. even if the mistakes made weren't directly ours, we may still have to learn where and how to place trust. this is true in our individual lives as much as it in the economy. it's so hard to see this retracing-our-steps as a positive thing; you just want to get it right the first time and be done. nothing is more frustrating than feeling like you're going back to learn the same lesson again.

hmm. but what about those expensive tickets you bought, or that thoughtless comment you made? here's where you probably begin to recognize that you haven't really learned the lesson–or not entirely. this may even be the moment where you begin to recognize that you might be experiencing this lesson repeatedly throughout your life, karmically, built up in different stages and manifesting in different contexts, but always reminding you that you pretty much never stop growing. we'll always be spiritual students, our whole lives. karmically speaking, high school never does end.

it's hard for us to see this as necessary, but the mind and the soul, like the body, need constant rejuvenation. you know when you go to the gym and lift some weights, and then your muscles kill? you've essentially torn the muscle tissue to train it to build back tougher and thicker. but if you only lift weights for a week, don't expect that to set you up for life, especially if you like to hit up the bar on a regular basis. those guns need attention.

* photo of Kali is courtesy of Sanjay Patel's Little Book of Hindu Deities.

how to make a top out of men's briefs

2011-09-01T19:45:00.002-04:00

part of my journey into journalism has lately included taking up writing for Demand Studios, a pretty cool site that pays you per article to cover such topics as "how to make cat furniture."

behold, my first article written for them, which ended up being posted on www.ehow.com: How To Make a Top Out of Men's Briefs.

not kidding. it's surprisingly easy!

the pittsburgh-german secret society for…engineers?

2011-08-07T10:22:00.024-04:00

you want a bizarre recounting of how incongruous subjects always end up together in my dreams? okay, sure, here you go:

last night i dreamed i went to Germany with CMU, as part of some class celebration or ceremony. we had our caps and gowns, and when we arrived there, we were taken to an ancient-looking pub, or beergarten, or whatever they're called in Germany, down to the basement, down, down, down a dark staircase with rich, dark wood paneling–walnut perhaps–to a smallish, windowless room where there were wooden tables and chairs, and a little bar in the left corner. and a stage, or a dais of some kind.

we stayed in a nearby lodge, and there the structure was more of a deep reddish brown panelling, like cherry. we seemed to be returning as part of a yearly meeting, and while we were there, we went to a festival or something, something with colorful tents and stalls.

this subterranean room seemed to be solely for our use, and i don't just mean me and my classmates; there was some historic connection between Carnegie Mellon and this German pub, where many years this occasion had taken place, as if we were part of an ancient secret society. there were crests and placards on the walls that seemed to confirm this, although i can't describe to you what the designs were.

i wish i could give more detail about the dream, but i waited a bit too long to write this post, and now the memory is fading.

anyone got a Carnegie Mellon-Germany connection they feel would shed light on this scenario?

*pic courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/26736936@N03/favorites/page8/?view=lg

chubby babies are the antidote

2011-07-30T21:44:00.014-04:00

lately i've had to observe a lot of endings, and they will bring that sense of sadness with them. the end of my $16 a month netflix subscription. the end of my graduate school loan money. the end of many friendships forged at carnegie mellon, as people drift away. the end of harry potter. God, that one was hard.

normally i really embrace change. i normally feel like when things have gotten soggy and boring, change can't be anything but an improvement. but for some reason i feel an especial desire, as of late, to struggle against being pushed into the unknown.

i know this feeling will pass, because i can't bear moping or wasting time, and i prefer if possible to, like Lucy Honeychurch, "play on the side of Victory." that means looking for jobs that will let me write, continuing to write on my own, going to the gym, playing my ukulele, petting my cats, strengthening current friendships and embracing new friends, and generally having hope.

i think this is really important; in fact, if you read that last line, and secretly laughed to yourself, a little cynically, i think it's sad that you've already given up, because you have the opportunity at every moment of your life, to see something beautiful, or something beautiful that you could do. if you didn't laugh, well, then, good for you. you could be friends with Kenneth Parcell.

no one is so perfect as to be able to feel happy all the time, and indeed it probably isn't healthy, but still. i'm sure we can all try to be positive, and that makes a difference. David Foster Wallace reminded me that you can find joy even in a crowded consumer hell, and actually i do try to do that. usually i look for chubby babies in shopping carts to cheer me up while i wait in the checkout line.

so while many of my friends have left, and things are ending, i might as well keep looking for chubby babies and writing jobs. let me know if you find either of those–and share the joy, will you?

one small step

2011-07-24T23:00:00.001-04:00

tonight i realized i was the first person on twitter to tweet about 30 rock's werewolf bar mitzvah song. or at least, the first to script it as #werewolfbarmitzvah.

should i feel sad at such a lonely moment…or proud to be the first?

to be continued

2011-07-18T23:15:00.007-04:00

it's funny but now that i am "getting into writing," aka as a formal career, i realize how much fun it is–and also how hard.

mostly because apparently formal writing is like this guild that you have to be born into, or know special secrets to infiltrate, like the freemasons. and even they have a website.

but i feel good about where i'm going. something tells me that this is right. i'm still temping at a job that's not paying me very much, but the people are nice and it's not too bad. meanwhile i've applied for a reporter position a pittsburgh company in the southside, so hopefully a) i do well on the interview and b) it is actually a legit cool job with decent pay and, please God, health care.

i also started writing for a new pittsburgh magazine called PGH, but that's upcoming, so, to be continued…

solar return

2011-06-11T15:52:00.008-04:00

as always, as i draw closer to my birthday, i start to think back on the year i've just been through, and think forward on what is coming. i'm reading a book now called how to get more love, money and success by traveling on your birthday. it's interesting in that it theorizes on how you can influence your life by physically moving yourself into a new environment during the time of your solar return.

whether or not you think astrology is a load of bollocks, it is a fact that, on the day of your birth, at the time you were born, the sun moves essentially into the same position of the sky as at the time of your actual birth. and yes, the sun does move, did you know that? well, maybe you did. i assumed it was still, which in retrospect, i guess wouldn't make sense. but who really thinks about these things?

anyway, isn't that interesting, even from a purely astronomical standpoint? it reminds me of how connected we are to the universe. we think we are these isolated little islands, moving independently about the earth, but we're more like fish in the sea, our movements always being impacted by the current and by the vibrations of external forces, and our own movements likewise pressing back against others. we forget how connected we are sometimes, i think.

the other planets, by the way, are in different positions, and supposedly you can take advantage of the time in which your sun comes back to you, to move in accordance to their respective influences. i am skeptical about how this is to happen, but as i'm only on the first page, i suspend my judgment until i've read further. i might be in another city on the 19th, after all.

* photo courtesy of http://www.nightscapes.net/photos/synthetic/gemini.html.

sure is tempting to be a temp

2011-06-04T15:31:00.032-04:00

ah, the job search. so on thursday i went to the temp agency, in an effort to find employment of some variety while i figure how to become a writer. you know, one that gets paid.

i had a vague sense of what to expect, from having gone to one temp agency once in college with my sister. but it was awhile ago, obviously, and i was a college student then, so i felt i had to prepare myself totally differently this time.

on thursday morning i got up, showered and blow-dried my hair nicely, and put on my khaki pencil skirt, green flower-print blouse, and grey Steve Madden ballet flats with the ruffle accents. luckily the temperature had providentially cooled that morning from its previous 90+ records earlier in the week, so i was able to stay moderately groomed.

i walked outside and got on the 61C bus to go downtown to where the agency was. i had read good reviews of it, so i was expectant of finding at least moderately good employment. all the way down, i practiced in my head the things i would say about myself: "i am hard-working, very professional, a quick learner, and i'm great with customers." which are all true, i can say without boasting, but doesn't it always feel funny to promote yourself to strangers? anyway.

when i got to the building with the agency, i had to take a scary old elevator to the sixth floor. once i got there and checked in, the nice girl at the front desk set me down with a set of forms and told me to fill them out. feeling ridiculously nervous, i set about putting my life's information down on paper, remembering how bad my print handwriting is, because i usually write cursive.

then i handed back in my forms along with my resume, after which the receptionist set me up in the next room at a computer where i was to take a test on Microsoft Word & Excel, and a typing test. i was tempted to ask her if she got her job as a receptionist for a temp agency, from the temp agency itself, or from another temp agency, but i resisted.

instead i sat down to take the world's most impractical test. indeed, i felt like i was taking the GRE again. mind you, this is no slight meant on the agency itself; as i said, it had glowing reviews from previous clients. but the tests are designed to gauge your proficiency in typical daily computer-related functions, and in my mind, they were hardly reflective of what you would actually have to do at an actual job (much like the GRE).

the tests asked you questions in paragraph form, about how you would complete certain tasks. the questions were fairly drawn out, and identified features of Word and Excel with confusing names, that the average worker knows perfectly well how to use, but cannot name. i can't even recall the bizarre names given to certain features, but they were things like "navigation review home" and the "customize tablet." and they would ask you how to do simple things, but give you ridiculously complicated multiple-choice answers to choose from, when really you know you could do the same thing by right-clicking on the word, rather than by going through six panels of menu options.

for tests that are designed to show in the most practical way how effective a potential worker could be, this seems to be highly impractical. Microsoft Office applications are purposefully designed to be as visual and user-friendly as possible, but only a couple of the questions actually used a graphic as an aid for what the question was about. if they opened the actual Word program, however, and asked the test taker to click on the appropriate area to do a certain function, i feel a much larger percentage would have been able to answer correctly. and isn't that more productive in identifying good workers?

oh, and the typing test. that was great. my mom thought it was hysterical that they still give typing tests, but that's an aside. i don't care. i'm sure typing is still something necessary to test. at any rate, the subject of the paragraphs you were supposed to type was all about how the economy has been failing, and job security is no longer a given. isn't that a terrible subject to make people seeking employment, have to type about? everyone knows happy workers are more productive–wouldn't it be a better test of a worker's optimum abilities, by having them type about a vacation they're about to go on? just a thought.

really, i had thought i knew Word and Excel well enough, but after those tests, i was somewhat humbled. i went back up to the front desk to tell the receptionist that i'd finished. sheepishly i began to comment that i guess i didn't know Word and Excel as well as i thought, and she interrupted me to say "oh no, you did just fine. look–you scored 3.4 out of 3.5. you're in the 90th percentile." she paused and smiled at me, the corners of her mouth twitching. "you're pretty well qualified."

what? i'm not sure how to feel about this. oh well. at least that hopefully means i'll get a call soon for a job offer. i feel bad for other people having to take that test, however. i'm sure they're being poorly represented.

oh, and they didn't interview me at all. they said the companies themselves interview directly, which makes sense. but i guess i need not have prepared the mental speeches. oh well, those will come in handy soon.

anyway, so here i am, sitting and writing because i have nothing else to do and no idea how to get my name out there as this amazing writer (note to self: become an amazing writer). i'm eating from an industrial-strength bag of swedish fish™ as a consolation prize for not having work yet. wish me luck!

what are your epic employment/unemployment stories?

The Boondock Saints

2011-05-28T23:16:00.044-04:00

Yesterday evening I watched The Boondock Saints with some girlfriends. It was the first time I'd seen the movie. The violence was not usually what I'm eager to watch, but it had some beautiful moments and a properly suspenseful plot. The kind of film that I can understand why it becomes iconic.

I couldn't help being bored, however, by the lame roles of the few female characters in the film. Now, you can come right back and say there are plenty of "women's" films that have cardboard male characters, and you're absolutely right. You can make your blog post about those. Right now I'm blogging about these.

There were a small handful of women throughout the entire film, in scenes lasting around 1 minute 30 seconds. They pretty much had no lines, and when they did talk, the dialogue was always vaguely unnecessary, something extraneous to the plot of the film. Some of them, I presume, were forensic scientists, since they wore white lab coats and had their hair pulled back in important, no-nonsense ponytails. But they never seemed to contribute any actual scientific findings to the crime scenes which they were investigating.

At one point in the film, towards the end, the main detective, who is a riot, is going nuts at the scene of one of the final crimes, a suburban home where massive shootings have taken place both in and outside the home. He can't figure out who these guys are, even though the Boondock Saints are amateurs and doing stuff that he says you "can't do in movies" (cue comic drum and cymbals!).

Meanwhile, the female forensic scientist is taking blood samples from a splattering on one of the new jersey-blue-blood-suburban-home pillars, and making over-exaggerated gestures of exasperation, making me think that she was not classically trained in Method acting. She expresses her distress at not being able to get a good blood sample, and hyped-up detective man comes over to help her out of what should be her job.

He leans over and sniffs the blood, has a conniption about it, draws out the drama of telling everyone what he's discovered, and waves a smear of the blood in the scientist's face, causing her to flail her head away and make a face. Eww! He put something icky near her!

It's ammonia, he announces. The Saints have sprayed it on their blood so that you can't get a decent blood sample. Those Irish scamps! Everyone gasps at the detective's brilliance, and the female scientist makes a figure of wonder and chagrin (she doesn't talk anymore; her dialogue moment is over). Ah, ammonia. Well, now we know.

But why didn't she know? Ammonia is a pretty common smell; it's in your urine, in bad fish, etc. And she's a scientist. I know one of the comic subplots of this film was to present the detective as brilliant and everyone else he works with as a hopeless rube, but even so. Would it have killed the director to let the scientist be the one to say "oh, it's ammonia," and then let detective have his monologue rant? I mean, this is a bloody scientist, but she can't figure out why that blood sample won't take! What a waste of a lab coat.

I bring this up mostly because when I watch films like these, the women in them are so one-dimensional and dumb, and I feel forced to identify with them. Maybe that's just how I watch movies.

Still, let me reiterate that The Boondock Saints is an artistic and powerful film, with a complex look at social justice. I get why it is iconic. But I get annoyed that portrayals like these are generally disregarded because something is iconic. It's like how slavery is kind of okay in Gone with the Wind because awww, look at those pretty dresses! There was a moment in Saints where the Don wants Rocco to tell a joke with the word "n*****", but I feel pretty sure (or I hope?) that the audience is supposed to feel suitably appalled by it.

Well, I've probably offended a great many people with this. If it helps, just pretend I was wearing a white lab coat when I wrote it and disregard the whole thing.

* photo courtesy of http://splashpage.mtv.com/2009/08/12/the-boondock-saints-coming-to-comics/

introducing consumption and debt: a divine comedy

2011-05-24T09:51:00.007-04:00

so here begins some postings from one of the academic questions i posed this year in my Cultural Studies program. we had an assignment in our "Class on Class" to go through the steps of researching a topic, but not to actually write the final paper. the idea was to gain mastery of the research process itself, which is indeed extensive and nothing to thumb your nose at.

so now i'm going to write that final paper! or at least, blog it for now. i have a start based on a mini-synopsis we had to write up for our final presentations, and i'm going to use that to launch into a larger quest to explore the potential answers to my question: why is consumption still gendered as feminine, and why do women tend to be blamed for consumption in popular narratives?

for my base narrative, i'm focusing on the film adaptation of Sophie Kinsella's Confessions of a Shopaholic, but my project may delve into other texts and films as my research continues. i think she is a brilliant writer and it is interesting to see how she defines problems of consumption, and how they are rewritten by Hollywood in the 2009 film.

so, here goes!

* photo courtesy of http://www.cablecarcouture.com/retail-therapy-at-blend-fashions/

the 18th century: does it even matter?

2011-05-23T15:41:00.016-04:00

so some of my friends have been wondering why this blog ended up being called "the 18th century guide to modern living" when i don't often write about the eighteenth century. well, the answer is that sometimes i do write about it, but that the eighteenth century isn't literally the focus. it's more of the inspiration. it's not all about substituting "s"s with "f"s, or about wearing tight knee breeches.*

in college i truly indulged my lifelong love of jane austen, and around her i built my knowledge of the eighteenth century in literature and history courses. from them i developed concepts of social justice, community activism, education between the sexes and between social and economic classes, and the modern application of those values. i also credit my dear alma mater, gettysburg college, for giving me a profound sense of my ability and responsibility to critically engage with the world.

but the eighteenth century’s sense of interconnectedness has incredible relevance to the modern world. it emphasizes that we are all part of a larger whole; that our self worth is reflected in the worth of the community to which we belong. modern crises in economy, education, environment, and human rights, require actions that are guided by moral character; we have the power and the responsibility to positively apply the insight gained through understanding our connectivity.

exploring these concepts in a historic and modern context is imperative in order to prepare ourselves to think critically about how we will conduct ourselves in our professional and personal interactions. austen was one of those people who cared about such things, and taught me to care.

these are lofty words, but i think you'd better start off high, or your standards will be too low to get anywhere worthwhile. so now i like to write about a dozen different topics–gender, marketing and consumerism, education, really anything that looks interesting. i never forget, however, that in the back of my mind i'm always shaping how i interpret social justice from my mental 18th century guide to modern living.

*although i am a firm endorser of tight knee breeches.

2011-05-19T00:28:00.002-04:00

after a night out with friends, i come home, sleepy and tipsy, and all i can think of is one of my favorite lines from king lear–

"kind and dear princess!"

ah, kent.

2011-05-15T21:26:00.000-04:00

hmm i graduated. it feels weird. now, how do i find a job?

we must sell more shoes!

2011-05-01T22:41:00.012-04:00

hmm. here's what i've basically been concluding from my research for my consumer debt v. consumer fantasy project, of which confessions of a shopaholic forms a base text: capitalism doesn't make sense. or, republicans who say we are in debt only (and please note the qualifiers 'who say' and 'only') from overspending, don't make sense. because here's basically how the picture is looking:

1. consumption = bad

2. consumption = gendered (aka feminine, because everyone knows women love shopping!)

3. consumption and especially women's consumption = downfall of economy

4. women, stop buying shoes!

5. CEO of D.S.W. Shoe Warehouse = "we must sell more shoes!"

6. capitalism = whose bright idea was this anyway?

ok i actually don't have such a major problem with capitalism–only with people who pretend it's perfect but blame, in popular media, the undeserving poor wanting houses and frivolous women having credit card debt for every national evil. paul krugman has an interesting blog discussing the problems with this limited assessment of national debt, which my professor just turned me on to, which i'm hoping to incorporate in my presentation somehow...except i only have 15 minutes to talk, so we'll see.

p.s., i realize that if you are outside of my culture studies class, or of the texts i've been reading, this may be a bit nonsensical to you. but i have to vent, so thanks for reading.

look, culture just always applies

2011-04-27T22:56:00.002-04:00

oh how tumultuous everything is! not necessarily in a bad way...just in a tumultuous way. which is why i used that adjective. but i've got one presentation down, one to go tomorrow, and one next week. and three papers, but those are all linked to the presentations. and i feel like i have a cold coming.

but i must admit that part of me feels great joy at the thought of being done with this semester…especially being done with certain classes in which the professor says that "culture doesn't apply in this case."

???

how can culture NOT apply? ever?

o, canada

2011-04-20T18:09:00.004-04:00

another classic from hark! a vagrant:

my ticket is blank

2011-04-15T18:52:00.014-04:00

i'm pretty sure that i dreamed of sister act last night. why? i really can't say.

but other than that weirdness, life is…well, it's mix of everything right now. moments of panic about what i'll do after i graduate, then moments of sunny bliss in the time i've been spending lately with a wonderful person. in between all of that i get some work done, but it's a bit like being on a fast train to an uncertain destination, and not being quite sure of how to get there. i've got to finish projects, and find a career. or at least something that will pay me decently. my train ticket would say "destination unknown," if you want to be real poetic about it.

maybe a train is the wrong metaphor, since obviously you would just follow the tracks to get to wherever you're going. but it is the right metaphor in the sense that it's something moving, and moving quickly, and i can't stop it. graduation is coming. what would jane do?

mr. knightly tells emma that "there is one thing, emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by maneuvering and finessing, but by vigour and resolution." well i can be vigorous! i can be resolute. although i may have to use some of that maneuvering and finessing, just in case.

i wonder what austen would do in a graduate program. i wonder what program she would choose? oh jane!

fashion...it's within all of us

2011-04-08T18:44:00.003-04:00

ok, so i think i finally figured out what to focus my fashion/consumerism/gender identity project on. thank heavens. here it is:

the question: how does mainstream fashion and consumerism dictate, influence, or offer an alternative to a middle-class, white, heterosexual identity? the discussion i want to center in on is specifically, how white, middle-class, heterosexual identity is promoted through clothing retail and shopping-centered literature, and how the public responds to this. the popularity of narratives like Confessions of a Shopaholic suggests that the white, middle-class, heterosexual image being portrayed in the narrative, is positively received by a large population, despite the probable evidence that this narrative hardly reflects the reality of its readers. why? if fashion consumption and fashion-narratives that promote a certain dominant image, are widely received even if they are unrealistic, then either the public sees itself as part of that identity whether or not they are, or else the public sees something else within the discourse of mainstream fashion and consumerism that it identifies with.

i like when people say they're not influenced by fashion. guess what: unless you make your own homespun broadcloth out of plant fibers you've picked yourself from a nearby field, with a machine you've handcrafted out of parts of trees that you found in the woods, then you are influenced by fashion.

at bedtime, go to sleep

2011-04-01T16:10:00.004-04:00

yesterday we had a lecture for the LCS students on the joys and difficulties of academic conference panels, after which we all headed over to our advisor, Kathy Newman's, for some dinner, drinks and prospective MA/PhD-welcoming. they are a great group and hopefully we'll have a good many of them decide to come here in the fall.

the above image depicts the household rules, as written by David Shumway's little boy, for all to see and abide by. my favorite is "feelings under controll."

and naturally, i obeyed all the rules, including the one about sleeping. at about 10:30, i decided it was bedtime and hightailed it out of there with Brittany, took the 61C back home, and fell blissfully asleep.

too bad i had a bad dream that night, though, that i was married to Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. i guess playing by the rules doesn't always pay off.

wait...it's the end of March already??

2011-03-29T17:23:00.009-04:00

our prospective MA/PhD open house is this week, and i sit contemplating how a whole year has passed. for one thing, i can't have been a whole year, because it would have to be warm and spring-y for that to be, and it's cold. for another thing…i don't feel ready for it to end. well, part of me does. but i like school. and the whole finding-a-job bit is slightly more elusive. family members have already been inquiring for months now what i'm going to do after i graduate, which has caused me to threaten them considerably.

ok i can't stress about it. i need to get back into a good rhythm of yoga, checklist-making, and bubble baths. tonight i took a break and read a Shopaholic book in the tub with my lavender milk bath bubble soap, so that's a good start. tomorrow morning at least looks like this:

8:00 a.m.: wake up, my breakfast, cats' breakfast, Good Morning America
9:00 a.m.: yoga DVD or running/weightlifting at the JCC
10:30 a.m.: shower
11:15 a.m.: organize/plan all academic projects and begin working on them.

of course, tomorrow might end up looking like this:

10:45 a.m.: wake up, cats pounce on bed
11:00 a.m.: cats force me to get out of bed and feed them
11:04 a.m.: back in bed

we'll see which of these plans comes to fruition.

what is consent?

2011-03-26T10:55:00.005-04:00

we are having an interesting discussion in my global women's writing course about the nature of consent, specifically in relation to the now eradicated practice of Chinese footbinding. this has also made me think about consent in other contexts, however–how do we distinguish between what we do out of pure enjoyment versus out of obligation or coercion. what do you think consent is?

here's the blog post i wrote for class:

i like the distinction between the consent of daughters versus that of mothers. in light of Judith Butler's discussion of the agency of children, it has made me think more closely about the significance of China's move to end footbinding as a symbol of Chinese modernity. in a way, both the action of footbinding and the subsequent banning of footbinding are both movements that are made without consent, either way, from girls. part of me feels sure that the new photographic evidence of the bound foot and its medical dangers played a major part in changing public opinion, both in China and in the rest of the world, about the beauty and ethics of footbinding. and yet...was it primarily a humanitarian move of protection of children's rights–or primarily a political, nationalist power play to give China better PR with the western world?

it seems like Dorothy Ko (author of Cinderella's Sisters) is struggling to untangle these motivations as well, and perhaps it's impossible to separate them. in our own culture–in any culture, really–we can hardly ever claim that the thoughts, decisions and actions we make are ever discrete from the set of ideologies through which we tell the narrative of our lives. i once had a discussion with a friend about the nature of fate versus free will, and he recalled the metaphor of an eastern philosopher who said fate is like an apple rolling on a plate: you can move the apple in any direction, but never beyond the rim of the plate.

maybe consent is also like the apple on a plate. Chinese mothers and daughters are moving within the narrative of Chinese identity, feminine identity, homosocial relations, etc., but they can never make decisions outside of it, just as we can never, say, make decisions outside of a framework of capitalism, since it defines our lives in so many infinite ways. in this sense, consent is always constructed, yet always natural, in that it is the only natural movement we can ever make as human beings living within culture. we want desperately to find a concrete definition of consent that never changes, that fits a legal mold, and yet I suspect that search will always prove elusive. but just as Butler points out that human sexuality refuses to behave in the ways that we want it to, neither does the human mind itself consent to conform to a standard sense of reality, right and wrong. whatever those mean.

my own national (regional) treasure!

2011-03-23T21:19:00.013-04:00

a recent editorial on jezebel.com tells the story of how a 200-year old french love letter was found recently in the arm of an antique chair, in the process of restoration.

the writer ends his letter to his lady with this adieu:

"my dear, i cover you with kisses and caresses until… i need you in this moment of desire. i love you."

have you ever heard of anything sweeter? well, i suppose you have, naturally. but this is pretty good.

i had a similar story this past year when i had my old piano retuned, back when i was living in gettysburg. i had bought this piano in 2008 from the director of athletics at gettysburg college, dave, who i knew fairly well. dave's father was a piano teacher, and could never get him to play as a child, but in an attempt to pass on the musical tradition, the family had bought the piano for their daughters to learn upon. none of them ended up wanting to play either (sad!) so dave was happy to sell this slightly beat up, but decent, little upright console wurlizter from the 70's to me for $100.

so this lovely old man came to do the tuning, and since neither of us knew when it was tuned last, he decided to make a thorough job of it and pulled the baseboards out from underneath. as he pulled off the boards, an aged square of paper fell out onto the carpet. we both paused and looked at it, the curiosity and excitement growing in me like a narrative scene from a nancy drew novel come to life.

he picked up the paper and handed it to me and asked if it was mine. no, i said, looking at it carefully. it was an envelope, yellowed and dusty, but fairly well preserved from having been inside the piano all this time. the seal was already broken, so whoever was the recipient must have already perused the message inside. or had they?

with trembling fingers i pulled out the letter and flipped it open. it was written on a greeting card with a scenic picture from somewhere in upstate new york, and inside the tiny script filled each available side of the paper. the date on the letter read 1974! feeling somewhat guilty, but then too curious to feel all that guilty, i started to read the letter.

it was a message to no one in dave's family that i knew of, but the contents were fairly simple–greetings after a journey home from college, news on the family, etc. fairly uneventful. and yet, if i returned this letter to dave, what would be his reaction? was such a simple transaction to dredge up memories of a long forgotten–or perhaps repressed–family connection, a friendship that had once been so close, but which inopportune circumstances had rendered asunder?

i carefully put the letter and envelope in a ziplock bag and the next day, i emailed dave and told him about what i'd found. his reply gave little away: he was surprised, but interested, and agreed to take a look at it.

then came the big moment to give it to him. i wasn't able to find an opportunity so i gave it to my colleague ryan who said he would be seeing the family later that day. ryan was under strict instructions to give me every last detail of dave's reaction. he promised.

i waited for the news to come. the next day, i eagerly ran down to ryan's office and demanded a recounting of yesterday's events. i could just envision dave's eyes alighting on the letter…then widening with recognition…then filling with bitter, but tender tears. i looked expectantly at ryan.

ryan shrugged. "yeah, he had no idea what that was about. some cousin or something."

dammit. why isn't real life ever like in movies?

three and a half hours of mandolin foolin'

2011-03-21T11:06:00.007-04:00

oh boy. so. how does one write about a mandolin orchestra festival?

well here's how. so saturday night i headed over to frank and debbie's, my dad's first cousins, and there we caught a quick drink and i got some pup-petting time with the two most famous border collies, lucky and traveler. then we piled in the car and headed down to the CAPA center in downtown pittsburgh, where frank succeeded in parking the car. no, that came out wrong. he parked the car in a garage next door, not at the center.

i had no idea what to expect, whether a "mandolin festival" comprised of a series of concerts, or a series of mandolin-playing workshops, perhaps with a special demonstration on how to make mandolins. frank didn't know if he was supposed to bring his mandolin or not, and i half-joked that i would bring my uke, disguised as a mandolin. in a beard, hat, and glasses, naturally.

it was a concert it turns out. a three and a half hour concert. don't get me wrong, i really enjoyed it, and our friend gregg was playing in the pittsburgh mandolin orchestra so it was a real treat to see him on the stage. but even operas aren't three and a half hours. and they have costumes.

so each group was great to hear, but perhaps they could have each played about half the number of pieces they chose, to keep things moving. one can only listen to one instrument for so long before needing a break. it's like listening to the bagpipes for three and a half hours straight.

there were three groups: the pittsburgh mandolin orchestra, the dayton, ohio mandolin orchestra, and an international mandolin orchestra, including two young italian guys who took the liberty of goofing off on stage since they could play brilliantly enough to not really pay close attention to what they were doing.

i also enjoyed seeing the range of instruments in the mandolin family; i had no idea that such things existed as mandocellos, and mandobasses, essentially the mandolin equivalents of the various violin family sizes we are used to seeing in a classical orchestra. the mandobass looks like a giant tick, and is totally worth giving you a visual for:

erin go bragh!

2011-03-17T20:31:00.007-04:00

i'm off to the south side in a bit for some guinness-ing fun, but happy saint patrick's day, everyone! today was sunny, warm, and i painted my nails green. tonight, i'll drink guinness with chocolate shots, dance, and be merry.

in honor of this favorite holiday of mine, if you have not seen the films the quiet man and the secret of kells, you are missing two treats! the quiet man stars john wayne as an ex-prize fighter from pittsburgh who comes home to ireland where he meets the fiesty maureen o'hara ("that red hair is no lie!"). the secret of kells is a beautifully animated film that tells the story of how the famous and breathtaking illuminated manuscript, the book of kells, was created. erin go bragh!

be happy

2011-03-16T21:40:00.006-04:00

i have been in a stressful state all week, for various reasons, but one of the biggest, of course, being a general anxiety and misery for the japanese. and yet, they have shown astonishing and admirable patience and humanity in the way they've worked together to help each other.

my dreams have consequently been likewise bizarre and uncomfortable, always too vague to leave me remembering much but a sense of uneasiness; and i keep waking up in the middle of the night, tense with the realization that the world isn't safe.

this afternoon, however, after a day of about 1% of sunlight, i was sitting on the floor of my bedroom with my back to the radiator. my cats were doing likewise, which, by the way, makes it quite crowded around the radiator. but sitting there i looked out my window and happened to see patches of blue sky, straining to break through the racing clouds. it was so small, but i confess my chest actually tightened a bit at the sight. blue sky!

generally i am a cheerful person, singing to myself while walking down the sidewalk, etc. but from habits developed from past experiences, i tend to believe that if i can control enough factors around me by analyzing (or stressing over) them to the tiniest minutiae, then nothing can ever go wrong. of course this isn't true. i remember talking to one of my dear friends about a year ago about a situation that was troubling me, and which i could not stop stressing over. she asked me why i felt the need to be so preoccupied with it, and i said (and i still admit i kind of believe this) that if i at least prepared myself for all possible outcomes of this situation, then it would save me some of the pain of rather having a shock if a negative outcome should occur.

she looked at me kindly and grinned and said "no it won't."

and she's right. it wouldn't save me. you can prepare and prepare for pain, but it's still pain. is that sad-sounding? i've realized that a kind of freedom comes from that thought, though, which is what my friend was getting at: if you can only prepare so much, then what will you do with the rest of your time?

and that answer is always easy: be happy.

so to help you be happy, here's a lovely picture of surely some of the happiest spring flowers, daffodils:

austen, anyone?

2011-03-15T21:10:00.006-04:00

trololololo

2011-03-12T17:20:00.002-05:00

oh yes. oh yes. ok seriously one of the best things i've seen in awhile:

today is a good day

2011-03-08T10:27:00.006-05:00

this research on arranged marriage is really intriguing...did you know that over 60% of marriages world-wide are arranged? they seem to have high success rates as well–but of course, we don't know that that necessarily means they are "happy." divorce is much more stigmatized, i believe, in countries where arranged marriage is widely practiced. and there is obviously a whole cultural attitude that goes hand in hand with arranged marriage, namely an expectation of how much effort you are going to put in to make the union work (but maybe this is something we can learn from?).

i am waiting on a book from interlibrary loan (come on library system, i have a first draft due soon!) called first comes marriage, by reva seth, in which she interviews hundreds of women in arranged marriages and assesses the values that they encompass. the book should be really interesting, as it's supposed to not only discuss why many arranged marriages are happy, but how westerners can rethink how they approach marriage and partner compatibility in their own "love matches."

i am also waiting for WARM WEATHER to arrive, but today it should be a high of 52 (yayyyy) and tonight i am going to dinner with my cousins to celebrate cousin doug's girlfriend's birthday. i went to marshalls and old navy yesterday and bought new yoga pants and sweatshirts so after doing some more google searching on arranged marriage, i'm heading outside to take advantage of the first visible signs of spring. so today is going to be a good day.

how to be married

2011-02-22T17:35:00.012-05:00

well, i have no idea how to do so, really. but last semester i wrote a research paper about american marriage and divorce, and this semester i am writing a research paper about arranged marriage in india, and american perspectives on it. so i guess i'm thinking a lot about marriage these days.

no, wait a minute. let's see…the subject of my senior thesis in college was laughter, sexuality and marriage in jane austen. so okay. clearly there has been a theme for awhile here. but i promise, i'm not trying to get married this year or something. i just worry about marriage as this possible looming thing in my future, sometimes. so either i am a typical young woman thinking about what marriage means, or else i've just seen so many bad marriages that i'm always thinking about what makes good ones.

and i have seen good ones (thank God). but how do they do it? what are they made up of? and is academia really the best way to figure them out? thoreau would give me some bull about life experience being the ultimate teacher, but that man really pushes my buttons so i'm not about to take advice from him.

no, i believe in being in doing the research beforehand. being an informed citizen. asking friends, family, and i guess making research projects based around the question of how people are happy together all over the world.

also, did you know that women do not want men that smell bad, or who are not well-groomed? yup. it's all here, on an indian matchmaking website my professor gave me for my research project, www.shadi.com. read all about what men and women want.

quality voice-acting

2011-02-20T21:35:00.004-05:00

i've noticed that i have about three main stock-accents that i go to, whenever i imitate people. i have:

the high-pitched, throaty banshee voice that i use to imitate my mother and aunts
the low-vowels-in-the-back-of-the-throat drawl for imitating people who i think are acting stupid
the purposefully fake, british accent for people who i think are affected

sometimes it has been pointed out to me that the person whom i am, in fact, imitating, doesn't really sound anything like my voice, but the point is, it is their essence.

i am available for hire for cartoons and radio informercials.

2011-02-08T07:55:00.003-05:00

february and it is coooooold in pittsburgh. but the snow is falling, and my heart feels cheerful, if stressed and sleepy (how possible?). i have a job interview to prepare for, tons of homework to do, have had a stressful and dramatic past week or so, but i've also had good days recently, and i keep my eyes fixed on the days ahead, when surely spring will come.

i also started doing yoga again, and have tried to manufacture spring in my apartment by buying some nice house plants. it's not quite phipp's conservatory, but it's a start.

2011-01-27T22:59:00.002-05:00

if i sit long enough and meditate on it, can i call the spring back sooner with my thoughts?

caroline washburn wells

2011-01-19T17:00:00.013-05:00

this is the story of my great-grandmother, caroline washburn wells.

my great-aunt virginia told me this story two summers ago, so i don't have all of the details, but i hope it's true enough, because i love this story. the story is this: all my life, growing up on mt. riga, and at home in brewster, there were dozens of paintings hung on the walls of every cabin, and they were done by my great-grandmother. all my life i have been surrounded by them. beautiful paintings, some portraits of the family, but many more of the mountain itself, sweeping landscapes of the fields, glimpses of the still lake through a netting of curved tree branches, vivid flowers, and one of my favorites which hangs on my wall: her own cabin, with the famous "h. h. wells" sign displayed proudly in front. she liked to sign these with her name in block letters, or else, which i liked much better, with her initials layered on top of each other in boxy lettering: two big "C"s on top of an even bigger "W." it was an impressive statement.

these have been so much a part of the fabric of my childhood and of the mountain, that i always just assumed that they had been done over a half-century, part of a longtime legacy of mrs. caroline washburn wells. well, they were not.

my great-aunt virginia says this: great-grandmother never painted until the last part of her life. she never knew, in fact, that she could paint. when caroline was growing up, she had a sister who was the artist of the family, whom i believe went to an art school in fact (this sister is the one who married into the lippencott branch of the family, if i'm not mistaken–can anyone verify?). caroline did not go to art school, and did not think she could paint.

well, she was married to my great-grandfather, henry hubbard wells I and they had six children and they lived in brewster in the big casino house at the top of wells street. then at some point in her life, she went through a mental collapse, and went to whatever they called mental health clinics in those days. and it was there that she decided to take an art class. from that, the paintings just poured out of her. landscapes, still lifes, portraits, everything. she also did beautiful pottery, i believe, but i don't know when that began. but the point is, at that moment in her life when she probably felt like she had nothing left going for her, she discovered this amazing capacity for creation. so much so that the art she created was so prolific that someone of my generation felt it had been there all along.

i find it incredible that even through all of her anxiety and suffering, these images were inside her all the time, perhaps struggling to find a way out. we think we know ourselves fully, but her story reminds us that we only begin to understand the scope of our own potential.

so that is the story of my great-grandmother. if anyone knows any more about her, or about this story, please share with me so i can correct/add on to it.

life with marx

2011-01-17T11:50:00.005-05:00

you know, we read a lot of marx in my cultural studies program, but the thing is, i still don't really like him. maybe this is unfair, but it seems to me that he was a bit hypocritical, in being so critical of the bourgeoisie while essentially living off the earnings of his business-owning friend, friedrich engels, since he was continually fired from all of his jobs (which, to be fair, was probably because he was so radical).

but i basically think of marx as this guy who's always over at your house because he can't find work or claims he is "hard at work" on the communist manifesto, and you come home from a long day of toil and care, and he's sitting on your couch, unshaven, in a ratty pair of sweatpants, watching TV and loudly complaining about how TV is the opiate of the masses. then he looks up and sees you, and asks you how your day was "conforming to the Man." then he pauses, and asks what's for dinner.

while i know this is a great generalization about marx's life, many people in my program agree that it's probably also a fair assessment about what life with him might have been like.

water = peace

2011-01-10T23:52:00.002-05:00

more dreams, during the night, of the lake. they always bring me peace.

obligatory new year's post

2011-01-01T15:08:00.000-05:00

here’s my obligatory reflecting-upon-new year’s blog post. i have some friends who have made various comments on facebook about asking 2011 to be better than 2010, and i laugh…but then i think, why should it be better or worse? every year, like every day—really, every moment—is laden with both good and bad, sometimes in equal measures, sometimes not. i really had some hellish moments this year, but maybe they have served to make me who i am today. if i asked to have them undone, or to not experience them this next year, what would that mean? would they haunt me into the next next year, cropping up in some other form? or if they didn’t, would my mind and my heart become fixed and sluggish, unable to problem-solve with the same confidence? bad times in your life are crap, to be sure, but they teach you how strong you are… even when you feel weakest.

so it makes me nervous to ask for anything in my life to be “better” than what it is…as if asking to never be challenged again. i would ask rather for the courage to face whatever may happen to me, and the grace to appreciate what i have in my life, and to give myself the space i need to be happy in.

but if i have to have one realistic, tangible new years’ wish, it is: please, please let me find a good job for this fall so i don’t have to move in with either of my parents, or i can unhesitatingly say that i will go crazy.

my ukulele: the new love affair

2010-12-28T23:20:00.004-05:00

so basically my brain proper has been shut off this entire break, and my entire focus has been on playing my new ukulele! that link isn't to my exact starter kit, although it's close; i think the electronic tuner is the only difference–mine is a simple pitch pipe, but it does the job. i've had my uke 3 days now and all i want to do is sit around and strum it.

i would like, of course, to learn how to approach a fractional level of the proficiency of people like jake shimabukuro, who i've only just learned about but was blown away by his incredibly beautiful performance. those who know him of course will laugh because it's much like my only just discovering luciano pavorotti now…but whatever. i'm learning. and appreciating.

so far i've been practicing chords, strumming techniques, reading about the history of the ukulele, and playing with moderate success "dream a little dream of me," "somewhere over the rainbow," "suspicious minds" and most fun so far, "the ballad of gilligan's island" (yes, this is the real title of the theme song). i've also ordered a book of beatles' uke tunes from amazon, so that should arrive by the time i get back to pittsburgh.

done!

2010-12-09T20:59:00.003-05:00

the first half of my graduate program is done and all i have to think about now are visiting friends and family in pittsburgh, and doing the things around pittsburgh i never got to do, like going to phipp's conservatory, the carnegie museums, walking around downtown, and doing whatever else may come into my head. also, at some point, i must drive the cats back to brewster. that will not be fun.

it is SO nice to be free for the next couple of weeks, but it also makes me a bit sad…i can't believe i'm already halfway through my program, and then in a few short months, i'll be done completely. oh well. there's no sense in wishing for things to last longer than their proper time–i suspect that if i were in school longer, i would find some reason to complain about it. happiness is enjoying where and what you are, in the present. but that is a hard lesson, for many parts of life. not just career.

this year i am thankful for having so much good luck in my life. i have a good place to be, and i will just have to believe that the next place i'll be, will procure its own means of happiness.

dreams beyond reach

2010-11-18T19:30:00.000-05:00

sometimes my dreams are so intriguing that i am amazed and perplexed at the source of the creative powers of the mind that are impossible to tap into during waking hours.

how frustrating that during the day, i can only recall at best the shadow memories of what was.

the mountain, and my little boat

2010-11-09T08:09:00.003-05:00

the other night i dreamed that i was in a boat. i almost feel that i've had this dream before, but i'm not sure. there is something about the environment of feeling and setting that is so familiar.

the setting is mt. riga, but it's both familiar and new from the mountain that i know. there are new paths in the woods, new streams, trickling between grassy banks, which feed into the lake. i know this is a dream-conglomeration of the mt. riga of my mind, but these visions are so real that i sometimes think that i'll come across them one day on the mountain–there all along, but previously hidden from sight. these are good places, magical places, full of sunlight and content.

my boat isn't much to look at; in fact, it's little more than the size of a one-person raft. but it's a sweet, sturdy little row boat with one short paddle, and when i see it waiting for me in the shallows of the lake, i feel proud to call it mine.

part of me, i must admit, is a bit dubious about paddling around in this thing without sinking, but i'm also so pleased to be able to hop in and paddle myself about the lake. and it's so convenient, really, to have it so small–it's light enough to fit down those narrow streams, and i can easily pick it up and take it with me, so that i can virtually go anywhere.

at some point in the dream, i even take it out onto the great ocean, but there i am slightly less sure about being out there on something so tiny, so i'm not out there for long–or perhaps that was the part of the dream where i woke up.

maybe i was remembering the little toy boat from the film ponyo, that gave the two children such freedom to roam. or maybe i am remembering the dream that i had of being on a ship, in control of my own destiny.

or maybe i am remembering the journey that reepicheep took to the End of the World, the Utter East:

"they helped him lower his little coracle. then he took off his sword ("i shall need it no more," he said) and flung it far away across the lilied sea. where it fell it stood upright with the hilt above the surface. then he bad them good-bye, trying to be sad for their sakes; but he was quivering with happiness… then hastily he got into his coracle and took his paddle, and the current caught it and away he went, very black against the lilies. but no lilies grew on the wave; it was a smooth green slope. the coracle went more and more quickly, and beautifully it rushed up the wave's side. for one split second they saw its shape and reepicheep's at the very top. then it vanished…"

yet these places on the mountain are curious too–what are they? what part of my mind are they, that i continuously come back to them?

happy halloween!

2010-11-01T00:33:00.014-04:00

i am feeling surprisingly full of health and energy despite the fact that i went to bed at 5:00am this morning after partying for six hours, and then walking 1.6 miles home. i know this sounds lame, but i think the secret so far has been lots of cups of tea, and lots of sleep. so yes, i went to bed at 5:00am, but i slept today until 1:30pm.

which, ok, partially explains why i'm up writing this blog post at 12:39am when i should be a-bed, but i'll get to that in a minute. i went to a party at caitlin's house for all of the english masters students, and danced the night away to "thriller," "in the navy," "monster mash," and other favorites, with great zest, but by about 2:00am i was ready to sleep. so how did i end up leaving at about 4:00am instead?

one thing was that i became trapped up in caitlin's bedroom talking with a man who was–no, not trying to rape me–demanding to know why i had never read anything by vonnegut. and he wasn't even one of the masters students.

the other thing was that i was waiting for my friends to be ready to leave because we were all walking home together. rachael was quite ready to go when i was–we were both exhausted. but brittany is our MA event coordinator, so she had to stick around and clean up.

and michael…michael was just drunk, and having a great time, and there was no pulling him away from the fun. we tried several times, in fact, to get him to the front door, but somehow he would sneak away and you'd find him back in the kitchen looking for another beer, or at the food table stuffing pretzels in his mouth, which was actually quite comical.

so that left brittany and i to try and get michael out the door, and not appear drunk so that if anyone should approach us, it looked like we had a competent, sober man of considerable strength at our disposal. yeah, right.

it was then that brittany announced that our walk home was about 1.6 miles. beautiful. we started out into the biting night (or morning?) air, with michael lurching behind us making rude commentary. by the time we gained south negley ave., he was murmuring something about the children he was going to bear, or something, while brittany and i mostly ignored him.

then we had to stagger up the quarter-mile, forty-five degree angle incline of south negley ave. at least at this point the walk had started to make me slightly warmer. michael helped by stealing a joe sestak sign and dragging it behind him on the sidewalk.

by the time we got close to my apartment building, the story now was that michael wanted to bear his own children so that they would only have his own genes (?). i was so glad to pass him off to brittany's responsibility.

when i got home i made myself a cup of hot tea, put a hot water bottle under the blankets, and fell grately into bed…at approximately 4:48am.

twin souls

2010-10-23T18:50:00.006-04:00

i really like the phrase "my heart went out to _____." i know it's trite, but when you think about it, the image is really simple but really powerful.

imagine the heart as a living essence of its own, with the ability to take itself out of the body in order that it might go into another's to be with that person's heart. it is a powerful way to describe to someone what empathy would look like if it could be visualized.

or maybe i'm just being weird again, but if you ever read john donne, you might get what i mean.

here, at least, are two hearts no doubt joined as one:

twin souls
3.29.10

and we'll go together,
hands clasped as twin halves
of the same soul.
you, me, myself,
my own protector
keeping me through the night,
held tightly against
the onslaught of the world.

you, my soul,
my one half that is also the whole,
i hear you echo back as i say the words:
i will never leave you.

it is more a love song to myself, a gemini with two halves sometimes at odds but always compassionate with each other, but of course it is also for other twin souls.

2010-10-20T18:55:00.001-04:00

did you wear purple today?

busy

2010-10-12T21:39:00.002-04:00

today was so far the busiest day of the semester: class in the morning, lunch w/ friends on walnut st, watched give us this day in the basement of the library for film adaptations class, went to the lecture "tabloid hollywood and "roaring twenties,"" sat in on 3 of the 4 hour rehearsal for a midsummer night's dream for my ethnography for 18th c. drama class, now home finally, cats give looks of betrayal and loneliness, must change into pjs, write a blog post based on earlier film i watched, then call my sister (?) and BED.

moving beyond the "firsts"

2010-10-09T15:58:00.008-04:00

i have to do a report on a figure in cultural studies for one of my classes, so i chose angela mcrobbie, who, it turns out, is awesome. here she is, looking witty, stylish, and fully tuned-in to the ideologies that define gender in our culture:

feminism today, is, i think, a largely unpopular word for people of my generation. unfortunately, if you say you are a feminist, aka you believe in the equal representation of women's voices, people assume that you hate men and love nascar and burning effigies of paris hilton (actually...would that be fun? let me come back to that one).

but angela mcrobbie is this voice of such good sense and clarity, like princess leia…she does not want feminism to die for this generation of young men and women because it might mean losing a language that allows women's experiences to be acknowledged. but at the same time she recognizes that if the language of feminism doesn't serve women as it originally intended to, then we need to ask ourselves, what will serve?

because the main point is that we tend to think we have "won" wars against race, gender, sexuality, etc. but just because we have made progress (and GREAT progress that we should celebrate) doesn't mean the work is done. as my good friend darryl, a great public speaker, cook, and black member of his community who was invited to speak at this year's martin luther king jr. celebration, said: "why do we celebrate hearing about the 'first black man' to do this, or the 'first woman to do that'? i want to live in a world where we're beyond hearing about 'firsts.'"

if we could also move beyond a world where "diversity" means the token black friend or the token gay friend in an otherwise all-white heterosexual cast to a feature film, that would also be nice.

the danger of living in a culture that stresses equality is that it tends to see it where it doesn't exist, and the willful blindness can become an even more invidiously oppressive system than the formal barriers that earlier movements of the 20th century sought to eradicate.

flea-eradication project (FEP): part II

2010-09-28T17:09:00.006-04:00

today i enacted part II of the flea-eradication project, or FEP. here are some terrifying stats about fleas, according to vetmedicine.about.com:

"the total flea life cycle can range from a couple weeks to several months, depending on environmental conditions"
"the adult female flea can lay up to 50 eggs per day, 500-600 eggs over several months"
"flea saliva, like other biting skin parasites, contains an ingredient that softens, or "digests" the host's skin for easier penetration and feeding"

great. so today i vacuumed the whole apartment, wet-vacuumed the furniture, and tossed all of my bedding and blankets in the wash. huck, now used to his flea collar, has been complacent this whole time, watching me with mild bemusement as i run around the apartment like a madwoman. but i can't help it...i'm becoming paranoid about flea saliva.

here is my hope: neither cat has been scratching themselves at all, and in fact if i hadn't seen the little blighter crawling across huck's fur, you'd never think there was a problem. so hopefully i have caught this at the beginning and can terminate it before it escalates into an infestation. but vetmedicine.about.com doesn't make it sound very promising. sigh. pray for me.

fleas!!!!

2010-09-27T23:22:00.003-04:00

ooooh huck has a flea. a flea. no way.

tonight, when i should have been focused on reading the way of the world, i instead looked down at my cat, who was snoozing on top of me, to see a tiny black thing moving across his furry white chest. i leaned forward and put my fingers against his fur, and yes, the little black thing jumped out of sight. definitely a flea. huck, of course, began purring happily because his mama was petting him. totally oblivious.

in that moment i realized just how much stuff huck was touching. the blanket we were wrapped up in together, the couch, the pillows on the couch, my bed which he had just been sitting on moments before. ughhhhhhh.

with a shudder i jumped up from the couch, threw on my trench coat and some flip flops, and ran down the street to, thank God almighty, the 24-hour rite aid. two flea collars later, i came back home and opened the apartment door. there, jack and huckleberry sat on laz-e-boy recliner and couch, respectively, looking trustingly up at me. oh, what they didn't realize.

luckily i was able to get the collars on them with minimal bloodshed. huck has never worn a collar, so he didn't even know what was coming, and as jack ran over to sniff it and commiserate, i quickly advanced from behind and slipped his around him. he definitely gave me a look of betrayal, but they will thank me one day.

they will thank me one day.

red trucks and old photographs

2010-09-22T22:11:00.004-04:00

i ought to be doing my homework, but instead i must record this dream.

i was back in my childhood last night. or, not exactly my childhood, but in a state of youngness, if that makes sense. i felt younger. i was in a place that was not mt. riga, but it was like that, but only because there was a house on a lake, and it was familiar. dad and kornelya and jalom were there, so that also doesn't make sense if it was "the past."

but at any rate, dad gave me old photographs he had found, and when i looked at them, i was surprised to see they were photos of me and my childhood best friend, annalise. looking at them made me suddenly recall memories i had not thought about for a long time, and yet, when i recall the images on the dream photographs, i can't say that they were tied to any real life memories.

it was rainy in that dream, and we had a canoe that we'd dragged up out of the lake and were storing under the house. inside the house was dark, but decorated everywhere with fairy lights and various plug-in decorative kitschy items.

in another part of my dream, i'm in a black pinstripe suit and i'm back at my old job, just about to leave, but i realize that the monitor to my computer is missing from my desk, and i don't want to leave before i figure out where it went, or else the new guy coming in to replace me won't have a monitor. i hunt around to try and find it and encounter some woman who i guess is the HR person, but she isn't helpful.

i give up, and am going to go down the hall to join a meeting but i realize they don't really need me for it since i'm leaving, so i keep walking down the hall, and incidentally this building looks like the basement floor to an office park, and when i turn a corner to the left, i see that there is a huge crowd of people swelling through the hallway, trying to get down a staircase.

there is also, really and truly, a big red truck that is amongst the throng and trying to make its way down the stairs. i run over to the crowd, feeling curious, piteous, and obliged to help. i get in the truck and, "driving" try to manœver it down the stairs…but of course, it won't fit. i feel a bit frustrated, but then, what would they have me do? they thank me for trying anyway.

i feel that there were other elements to this dream, but i can't remember them. analysis?

the virtues of mental running and of stillness

2010-09-20T15:34:00.012-04:00

i stood outside just now at the bus stop, waiting for any of the 61 buses to take me back home from campus, and as usual, i pulled out my phone to read a book on my wattpad application, since it's lighter than carrying another book in my bag. and then i realized, once again, how bad i am at just standing still, waiting, without feeling the need for my mind to run at full force, and to be constantly entertained with a book.

as a side note, if you see my apartment, or any living space i inhabit, i tend to leave a book in almost every room, including the bathroom, so that any activity that i'm doing can be supplemented with reading. in the kitchen this has become slightly hazardous, as i have a gas stove now, so the potential disaster of open flames measuring over 451 degrees farenheit near paper is…well, you do the math.

and don't blame social media and kids these days and their smart phones for this lack of concentration. as far back as i can remember, anywhere i had to wait, i would spend the time daydreaming and being in my own mind rather than observing where i was. the larger point i was coming to is that my mind is not good at being still and observing. i only seem able to do that at mt. riga, where, arguably, there are better things to observe. but why is that? the immediate answer is that standing at the bus stop is boring, but, then, why is it boring? surely the scene of the bus stop must be one of those moments which a writer ought to cherish–where one can observe the nuances of human nature in the variety of people waiting alongside you.

but i haven't the patience, nor the interest. after all, it is boring to wait at the bus stop, unless something interesting happens, like the guy next to you suddenly pulls down his pants, or sets fire to the bus shelter (which, on second thought, probably wouldn't burn well as it's metal).

but is this–this constant failure to notice, or care to notice, one's immediate physical surroundings–the factor that could impede my progress as a writer? or is the convention of the waiting at a bus stop so trite at this point anyway that there's nothing new to say about it?

one could, for instance, in the course of fabricating what is, after all, fiction anyway, impose figures and sentiments, that one picked up in any old place, on a bus stop scene. and it would probably make entertaining reading.

anyway, the only times when i think it worth sitting still in my mind are these:

being at mt. riga
reading to my little cousins
doing yoga

if you can think of any others, i invite you to add them to the list.

tribute to past loves in technology

2010-09-18T12:44:00.009-04:00

em called me yesterday to ask if it was ok for our little sister to inherit our old imac, which i primarily used throughout high school and college. thinking about it after i got off the phone with her made me suddenly reminiscent of all the old technology i grew up with and loved. is that odd? sounds like it could be a weird ethnography into the life of a childhood in the late eighties/early nineties.

but truly, you could say that technology does become a part of your identity. this imac served me faithfully for 8 years:
i wrote novella after novella on it, played the various myst games that were so amazing, and created art projects of questionable skill in adobe photoshop.

and what about other past loves in the world of technology? here are some that i still think of fondly:

the original nintendo, of course. this must come first as one of the greatest inventions of the 1980's. nintendo was not the first video game system, but it was truly the best.i still value it above all other systems, even though to get mine working now, you have to shove another game in on top of the first to keep the one you're actually intending to play, in the machine:

and then there was lite-brite, which offered endless creative possibility:

and of course, the one item i always coveted as a child but never received: power wheels.
toys 'r us had a little mermaid-themed power wheels that was amazing, but which i can't find a google image of, which just shows how rare and precious these babies were.

rainy day, rainy day

2010-09-16T13:13:00.004-04:00

our first rainy day in pittsburgh for some time now; oh, i love the rain! it makes me feel like christopher robin:

i just got back from class where my professor brought us dunkin' donuts "because it's raining" and we listened to arias from henry purcell's the fairy queene, including my favorite:

If Love's a Sweet Passion, why does it torment?
If a Bitter, oh tell me whence comes my content?
Since I suffer with pleasure, why should I complain,
Or grieve at my Fate, when I know 'tis in vain?
Yet so pleasing the Pain is, so soft is the Dart,
That at once it both wounds me and tickles my Heart.

I press her Hand gently, look Languishing down,
And by Passionate Silence I make my Love known.
But oh! how I'm Blest when so kind she does prove,
By some willing mistake to discover her Love.
When in striving to hide, she reveals all her Flame,
And our Eyes tell each other, what neither dares Name.

youtube an arrangement of this if you're interested; it really is the most beautiful music.

well, my goal for the rest of today is to read, read, read, and to bring back the use of the word "discover" in its original context, i.e., to reveal. i mean, i got my friend monica to start using the word "mayhap" by just saying it often enough around her, so i figure it's only a matter of time before it's the next big trend around carnegie mellon.

the namesake

2010-09-12T22:56:00.014-04:00

i took a break from writing my prospectus (which, by the way, is now about the film the women) to eat dinner, fold laundry, and watch my latest netflix rental, agatha christie: a life in pictures.

being named after her, and being a great fan of her mysteries, i was pleased that the bbc once again has made a great film. the plot basically follows the story of her life, but tells it in an unconventional way, playing with a consciousness about cinema and performance, and playing with the convention of the mystery genre.

the film opens with agatha sitting with a pyschotherapist, who is trying to help her piece her life back together after she has gone missing for over ten days and loses her memory. the therapist is trying to help her to piece together why she went into a breakdown, and what happened to her while she was missing. the thrilling part about this is that this is a true story: agatha christie was actually presumed dead until she was finally discovered in the harrogate hotel, residing under the alias mrs. neel.

it's only natural, i suppose, that a famous mystery author should have such a mystery of her own. but it's also sad that she had such a terrible first marriage. so if you are feeling sorry for her, i will assure you that the film ends on a triumphant note, with her second marriage being to a much kinder man whom she loved until the end of her life: an archeologist, in fact, who just suited her taste for mysteries and drama, and who was able to fuel some of the inspirations behind some of her novels, like death on the nile.

the movie's use of time-stop-motion and filtered lighting is also effective both in creating the sense that, as we watch her personal narrative unfold in fragmented flashbacks, we feel we're becoming part of her psyche as she struggles to remember; and it is artistic, drawing us in by the curiosity to understand what these eyes are that we keep seeing close ups of, or what draws her mind (i.e., our cinematic image of) back to the image of the swing she played on as a girl.

the film's consciousness of its own theatrics, as i say, is also well done–not tacky, but at times heightens the unease of the memories we are witnessing. at other times it's playful, as when the film uses time-stop-motion to let agatha's second husband perform directly to the camera and pretend to be a magician by 'conjuring' up her novels as we are told by her in voiceover about her increasing success as a novelist.

so that is my evening. i must get back to writing my prospectus now, but thanks to netflix for recommending this excellent flick.

o, my america

2010-09-11T23:12:00.001-04:00

i can't offer anything valuable to say about you, 9-11. you know what you are. if you lost someone, i'm sorry. if you didn't lose someone, i'm still sorry.

2010-09-10T23:27:00.001-04:00

the fact is that everyone loves times new roman best out of all the fonts. why is it not the default font on microsoft word? i do not like cambria.

inspiration

2010-09-09T15:08:00.002-04:00

BRAINSTORM:

what if i write my research paper, for my film adaptations class, on adaptations of physicality in austen novels in plays and film through present day?

stay tuned.

30 Rock - Graduate Students

2010-09-08T20:35:00.000-04:00

pittsburgh-mt. riga alumni club

2010-09-05T14:48:00.016-04:00

i had a great evening last night with what i've decided to call the pittsburgh-mt. riga alumni club, which is kind of like the pittsburgh-gettysburg college alumni club, except we don't get awarded degrees…yet.

at any rate, our branch of the mt. riga alumni club consists of frank and debbie, their friends greg and nancy, the many dogs, and, in spirit, doug and his girlfriend carrie, who were not in physical attendance but who were in our thoughts.

we met at frank and debbie's house, which is a pretty, rambling sort of place that sits at the top of a hill, on the outer bend of a curve in a the road, and looks as if parts of its architecture range from the middle of the 19th century through the 1930's. the walls, furnishings and decor are all in warm, earthy colors, and it was very cozy. parts of the house were in some need of repair, but nothing really major; their house, like them, is sort of casually elegant, pretty enough to not care about perfection. they also have a garden in similar condition, lovely and slightly wild, that falls steeply from the back of the house where they grow some veggies and the dogs like to tumble.

the evening consisted mainly of what any evening involving members of the wells family includes: copious amounts of wine. we also had some great conversation, of course, and talked extensively over family matters, the content of my courses, how nancy was liking her first taste of life outside of new york city (a "novelty" was how she put it), etc.

at some point, someone (ok, frank; these things are always brought up by frank) called us all to remember the ritz crackers-styled 'mock apple pie' that used to be advertised for years on the packaging of any box of ritz crackers. the curious thing about this pie was that it did not contain apples in its list of ingredients, and frank could not get over this, nor let the matter pass until we had dissected the origins and reasons behind such a recipe, with the final mandate that we will eat mock apple pie the next time we get together, which i deeply fear.

impending doom?

2010-09-02T10:08:00.002-04:00

i just looked in my closet and saw my rollerblades, and decided that i'm going to go rollerblading today for the first time in several years. as you can probably imagine, it's going to be hysterical.

chillin in pittsburgh

2010-08-31T22:22:00.002-04:00

i am so tired...but tired as one who's just done a bunch of yoga and eaten granola and run a couple of miles and then enjoyed a healthy apple. in short: i mean that though i am exhausted, i am exhausted with time well spent in my studies, and my brain is eating up the good, healthy challenges of prose that force it to stretch itself to build new synapses and...

well that's all a bit lofty, isn't it? i must check that or else i'll be labeled a typical graduate student. still, i can safely say i am quite happy to be just where i am, and only sigh that this program is just a year. watch–i'm sure i'll change my tune once the first huge paper is due.

on the other hand…i'm getting quite excited about choosing my research paper topic for film adaptations. here are the choices i'm debating between:

jane austen (duh, and i'm afraid everyone will just say this is typical)
star wars (it'll be like going back to a first love)
dr. who (tom baker years, anyone?)
the thursday next series by jasper fforde (all about adaptation)
the women (nobody can ever again be norma shearer)

so that's my internal struggle right now. not a bad life, is it? i know, i'm very lucky right now, and i know it. thank you thank you thank you Life!

2010-08-24T20:07:00.005-04:00

if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed…nothing shall be impossible unto you.

back to school

2010-08-22T20:42:00.008-04:00

SO excited for my first day of classes tomorrow! i feel almost like i'm going into kindergarten, though, instead of a graduate program, such is my level of excitement. i even have my lunch box all ready, although i won't really be needing it until tuesday, when i have a morning class. but still, it is primed for lunch-packing.

i'm most excited about my green dinosaur-themed sandwich and soup containers (wonderfully named a "feed bowl" on the packaging, as if the contents inside are actually to be consumed in a more animalistic style than one usually meets with in civilized society). i expect i'll get quite the bit of attention from carting those around carnegie mellon!

oh, yes. i am so ready.

please won't you be my neighbor?

2010-08-18T17:42:00.012-04:00

well, i'm sold on pittsburgh. despite arriving here and immediately falling deathly ill to a still unnamed stomach virus, i absolutely love living here. and especially living in squirrel hill.

squirrel hill is in eastern pittsburgh, just up the hill from carnegie mellon, and is full of leafy streets and beautiful nineteenth-century brick houses and garden apartments, like the one i live in. down the street from me is an intersection with the carnegie library (where i presently sit typing on my laptop), a rite aid, an old movie theatre, grocery store, lots of shops and restaurants, and the grandest pnc bank i have quite seen (i feel like i should have a hat and gloves to go in there).

the other neighborhoods i am slowly getting to know as i get lost in the city traveling to them: east liberty, where my cousin has some friends, oakland, shady side, homestead...or homewood. something like that.

but squirrel hill is still my favorite. i'm still enjoying people-watching whenever i need to pop down the street, as the variety of people you see is somewhat greater than we had in gettysburg: tons of young people with eclectic fashion sense and heavy backpacks, who are clearly students; as part of the large jewish community here, dozens of families in (what i suppose is to be) more traditional modest clothing doing their shopping; bicyclists and people on mopeds of all sizes; and generally a wider sea of faces than i've seen in awhile. how funny to think that, for all that i've traveled, and for all of the places i've lived, this is probably the most diverse, eclectic place i've lived since living in stamford. brewster, ny and greenwich, ct certainly never came close, for opposite reasons.

i guess it's not that surprising–unless you live in a city, we are, for the most part, creatures of habit who are rarely exposed to anything outside of the narrow frame of reference which we know. and pittsburgh is not, perhaps, as diverse as many other places in the world. but i am loving it here.

did you know that mr. rogers lived in squirrel hill? i think that just about says everything you need to know.

guest books, language, and evidence of faeries

2010-08-02T23:28:00.018-04:00

i'm back from my month of blissful stillness on the mountain. it was so good for my soul to be still. not still physically, mind you; i mean, still in my heart and in my head. i ran, swam, hiked, and played with small children and many dogs, so i exerted no small amount of energy; but for one month i was able, for the most part, to push out thoughts of the past, thoughts of the future, and to live in the day to day of mt. riga.

it's so easy to do that on the mountain, when your days consist of easy conversation and books, and when your body naturally slips into sleepiness at sunset and wants to wake with the morning light.

how do i describe what it is to be up there with my family? i love to read the guest books at various families' camps with a real tender sympathy, because everyone tries to write what they feel without sounding clichéed ("lovely time up here...a little slice of heaven...our stay far too short...") but of course it's like trying to describe the light from a star: the real thing is far more brilliant.

language is funny; we pride ourselves on possessing words that run the gamut of describing everything we know of in the universe, and yet... as soon as we begin to put into words what we experience, it's already lost something of the original luster. does that make sense? sometimes, on very rare occasion, you'll say something to someone and it just clicks, but this happens rarely, i think. when it does, i'm always struck that what was said wasn't necessarily said using the fanciest, most erudite language; rather, it was just right.

like, when you glance into someone else's eyes and you have that momentary flash of seeing right into them–most people only let you see a moment of that before they close up again and the connection's gone. but it reminds me of being a little girl and standing in the twilight in my yard, and thinking again and again that, out of the corner of my eye, i've seen faeries.

days of beautiful nothingness

2010-07-23T11:00:00.015-04:00

i can't believe it's already getting near the end of july. i suppose that's a solid testament to the relaxing and care-free month i've been having on the mountain. i don't seem to do a whole lot, but the days slip away and i'm having a great time just reading, swimming, catching up with family, and doing not much. right now i'm down at the salisbury library with my aunt olivia and uncle dick, while we run our daily errands, and the routine of life on the mountain has been just what it ought to be: slow and rather uneventful.

examples of this are the fact that the most inane stories get repeated to everyone who already knows them, and are avidly recounted to any new person who comes up the mountain. this must be what it's like to live in iowa, except not as flat.

here is one of the stories that have no real pressing interest to anyone, but which have been widely circulated: aunt olivia has been having uncle dick turn on the generator every day so that she can blow dry her hair. somehow everyone knows about this. we went down the mountain to visit chauny and crosby, and the first thing chauny said was "so i heard you've been blow drying your hair."

i have much else to reflect on, but just as i'm not doing much this month except relaxing, i have no desire to tax my brain right now into deeper reflexion about my mt. riga time. that'll be for august, i expect.

small cat = great destruction

2010-06-28T22:48:00.013-04:00

so everything is packed up and shipped out. i won't see my things for a month, but that's ok, so long as i didn't pack something away that i need... but for a month, i'll make do. now, to finish off work with panache, or at least without leaving some major forgotten project undone.

slightly dramatic story with my cats: they were packed up into my dad's car yesterday and went back to brewster with him and kornelya and jalom. when they got home yesterday evening, they let huckleberry out and he immediately ran to the wall and pulled open a panel they kept for getting to the water pipes, and disappeared into the wall.

anyway, i found this out today at lunch time, and, slightly apprehensive, as you can imagine, called kornelya, who said they could get the carpenter to come and pull open the panel further to get him out. slightly assured, i said ok.

by the time i got home from errands tonight, i had a voicemail from dad saying that the cat was still in the wall and to call him immediately. freaked out, i called and dad said they'd pulled apart half the kitchen wall and couldn't find him. he said there was nothing he could do and he didn't think the cat would last very long in the wall. of course i started sobbing and dad kept saying he was sorry and i couldn't help berating the fact that they have this easily accessible hole in the wall when they've had up to three cats living in their household for this potential disaster. then dad said he would try getting a panel open on the other side of the kitchen. i felt bad asking him to take more of the kitchen apart, but on the other hand, i would bulldoze my house if that's what it took to save my cat.

i got off the phone and told the story to courtney, at whose house i'm staying until the end of work. she tried to comfort me by counteracting dad's melodramatic prognostics by saying cats are clever and can survive days without food and can fit in all sorts of small spaces just fine. but of course i was panicked now and afraid i'd arrive back in brewster with my baby dead. so she distracted me with youtube videos of people dancing for oprah, and it kind of worked, and then at that point, dad called back to announce that they were able to get huckleberry out of the wall, and he was cooped up in the bathroom with the window closed.

he informed me that it was stifling in there but he wouldn't open the window in case huck tried to go out the screen. i said, why not open the window an inch or two? he was convinced huck would get through this. i was convinced that after the trauma of being forced into a cat carrier and riding in an un-air conditioned car for six hours with total strangers to an unknown destination and fate, to get stuck in a wall for over twenty-four hours, huck would end by dying of heat stroke in that bathroom with no ventilation.

finally a compromise was reached, in which the window was (slightly) opened, and the bathroom and bedroom doors were left open, with an outer hallway door to act as the actual barrier between that portion and the rest of the house. jack was stuck with huckleberry for companionship, and hopefully that is the end of it.

funny, i had thought the packing up part would be the part to give me a near-heart attack.

the personification of my subtle anatomy

2010-06-08T21:30:00.006-04:00

dreams of recent note–

in my most recent dream, i am riding on a train, out of philadelphia maybe, and i'm taxed by the thought of the journey ahead. the train seems to hit delays, or there's something about the ride that makes me uncomfortable. there's other people on the train, but i don't see anyone i know, no friendly faces to make me feel more comfortable about being here.

then i'm lying on one of the seats of the train, and suddenly, there's a train conductor standing beside me and looking down at me, smiling. i look at her and feel a little better, and then all of a sudden there are many women surrounding me, looking down at me, smiling and benevolent, protective. they're beautiful, and robed in greek-looking garments. or maybe they're naked? i'm not sure, but it's like they're angels or something. i just watch them, smiling at me, surrounding me in a tight circle, ethereal and luminous.

waking up and thinking about it, i wondered if they were my chakras, the personification of my Subtle Anatomy, as kundalini yoga teaches. i have been practicing meditation on the chakras lately, and so far it is my favorite yoga position, or asana (i'm trying to learn the language of yoga), next to the position where you just lie on your back with your arms outstretched and drift into a trance-like snooze.

the wide stretches of fiction and reality

2010-06-01T21:58:00.008-04:00

"even once we consciously know something is fictional, there is a part of us that believes it's real."

isn't that a great photo up above? i found this article today speculating on why it is that the imagination is such a pleasure to us. it's the kind of question an adult would ask, after all; children, with a more instinctive wisdom, already know. paul bloom, this article's author, cites his colleague's theory of "aliefs"–or rather, instinctive beliefs that are intrinsically linked to emotional responses over objective, sensory responses to fiction versus reality. or maybe "sensory" is the wrong word, if in this context an alief is triggered by more primitive sensations. seeing a man stumble over a cliff in a scary movie makes us jump, even though we know we're just watching a stunt double hopping against a blue screen.

i wonder what mr. bloom would have to say about dreams, then. are they an extension of the imagination, both real and unreal, full of both beliefs and aliefs? i sometimes wonder. there's no saying how wide are the stretches of the capacity of the human brain, nor how much we think we sense is reality. and if dreams are, on some plane of place and time, real, then why not novels and fiction? we long for stories, but what are we creating in the telling?

wisdom teeth extraction update:

2010-05-14T10:58:00.000-04:00

agatha = 1. wisdom teeth = 0. ha!

which way the wheel turns

2010-05-10T22:26:00.010-04:00

in thinking about planning for my future, i can't help having flashbacks to being a much younger girl, and thinking a bit wistfully how much easier life was in many ways. one of my favorite activities, when i was younger, was to go to our massive town library and go and scavenge for ten or twelve books i wanted to read, and then to either go and find a comfortable chair in the corner in which to horde and devour, or to take them home and, with a large piece of chocolate in hand, go one by one. the library even had shelves down in the basement where the cafe was, where you could buy used books for 25 cents. if i had $5 in my pocket, i could buy a sandwich and a snapple and sit and happily read for hours. there's a certain charm to that simplicity; and yet i'm not foolish enough to forget the many hours of boredom and frustration that go with being young and feeling powerless. no real money, no freedom to go where i choose, no sense of feeling that my opinion had any importance. when you're an adult, you can choose how you want to live your life, and how you want people to treat you.

so i don't un-wish the responsibilities that i have now–they go hand in hand with the freedoms of getting older. i guess it's just that being free is both terrifying and exhilarating–if you are submitting to someone else's will, you don't have to think for yourself. i think a lot of people feel it's easier not to, actually, even when they grow up. sometimes, in a moment of mental and spiritual exhaustion, i can almost understand why–but the terror of giving up that right is so great that the feeling is quickly vanquished by the tremendous courage and confidence you get from steering your own life.

do please forgive me if i quote the same passage again and again…i trust that the (possibly) three people who actually read this blog are of such a kind friendship with me that they'll either forgive me or just skip past it. i mean, do you ever have such a revelation, that you feel is so much a cornerstone of your own faith that you can't help returning to it like a prayer wheel?

at any rate, the point is that i said, reflecting on a particularly animated dream i had, that, despite fear of the unknown, despite the crushing weight of responsibility to be something beyond myself, despite all this, i still retain a fervent gratitude "to be the one who decided which way the wheel turned."

because i am truly thankful. i've had a lot to bear in my life, but could have borne a lot more, and am only too conscious of the great blessing i have in being able to strike out my own destiny. what is fate? the apple rolling on the plate? still, i am rolling the apple.

for a reason?

2010-05-05T23:13:00.005-04:00

do you believe that everything happens for a reason? i actually do–or rather, even rejecting the supposition of a higher power pre-determining this reason, when actions happen, there is reason behind them, and reason to be gained in their happening (reason in the purpose sense, not the logic sense).

i can't quantify how often this thought comes back to me, but it makes my life feel fuller somehow. negative experiences still hurt, but they lose some of their bitter tinge in the thought of what i gain by them: greater perspective, understanding of human nature, understanding of what i want in my life. i know i'm being vague, but it's because i'm thinking of several experiences over the past year, not just one. and i see more and more how, as i said, every experience is an opportunity to be happy. and for me to realize what i need in my life.

isn't that the hallmark tenant of buddhism? my friend paul tells me that his favorite aspect of buddhism is the symbol of the lotus flower. have you ever seen one? they really are very beautiful:

he says it is a buddhist symbol because the lotus can blossom in most any location–a crack in the sidewalk, a pile of refuse; from bad beginnings comes something beautiful and pure.

it reminds me that there is so much room for goodness.

face to face

2010-04-23T19:11:00.005-04:00

spring is finally, finally here. i have so longed for it, and been, i think, pretty patient in awaiting its coming. now my thoughts turn to memories of summers past, of my beautiful mountain, of quiet wood sounds and open windows.

the other day, on my walk through the battlefield, i experienced an almost zen-perfect moment of evening, as only spring can afford, when the sun was just setting and the birds were larking prettily, and the trees had that fresh greenness that is almost fluorescent in its brilliancy–you know that vivid yellow-green of new leaves, bright against the sky? yes, that. that was this one evening. i even saw (and heard) some woodpeckers. they looked so free up in the trees! i bet it is a grand view, to sit on so high a perch, and look out over the earth.

turning back over the fields, i watched the dandelions sway in the evening breeze and thought, why do these moments pass so quickly, when as a child this same second was one eternity of consciousness? when you're little, you experience everything intensely, always as if for the first time, and the impression becomes archived in your mind as nearly sacred.

i have been trying to learn the concept of meditation, but it's almost impossible to read and just experience, without intense practice. but it seems to me that a great part of meditating is to simply think as a child. and yet, children are not natural meditators–or at least, they do not naturally sit still, as much meditation requires. but there is a freshness in the mind of a child that is lost in the course to adulthood: out of necessity, naturally. but still. it is worth slightly unlearning, in order to see again–we see dimly, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. i will know, even as i am fully known.

hidden messages in water

2010-01-27T14:20:00.004-05:00

i have a new theory. or maybe it's not my original theory, i'm sure others have thought of it, but i was thinking about it myself last night. it has been shown that speaking hateful words at water causes the water crystals to form chaotic, ugly patterns; while speaking loving, happy words causes them to form beautiful, harmonious patterns. you can actually view these under a microscope: http://www.our-drinking-water.com/water-crystals.html

your body is made up of water, so speak hateful things and you are hurting yourself. speak with love and your body will be a temple of perfect order.

music, grace

2010-01-17T17:23:00.004-05:00

today in church we sang one of my favorite hymns: "i want to walk as a child of the light." if you don't know it, look it up on youtube, because it's truly lovely.

now, i don't call myself religious, but spiritual, yes--that i can't get enough of. i could pray to Jesus, Ganesh, Allah, or mediate on my Centered Self--it doesn't matter. but i don't know how to write about my love for God; it's easier to write about my love for the people i love, for music. it's much the same thing, i guess.

if you have any sensitivity to music, you can understand that it is one of the few things that always, always makes me feel close to God. the synthesis of the physical body's pulsing rhythm, of air moving through lungs, of fingers guiding keys, with the mind, buzzing, buzzing with activity, processing the sound and then sailing independently of the physical body, connecting the senses with the ultimate SENSE--this synthesis is my true love.

i think that's why music with another, or with a group, has so much power. making music with another binds your heart, body and mind together in a way that little else can.

beethoven, transformer

2009-12-30T00:17:00.004-05:00

so last night i had a dream that beethoven and i were lovers, even though–or maybe because of–his incredible ability to turn into a Transformer. it was like, musical genius and superhero abilities all wrapped into one. yes, i said Transformer, like the toy-turned-cartoon-turned movie-turned possibly there was a comic strip somewhere in there. but in my dream i was totally enamored by it. interpretation?

ah! the labyrinth

2009-12-18T23:16:00.002-05:00

my steps tread back and forth, new paths and old converging. i feel like my life is hegel's dialectic: old ideas crashing against new ones, and a synthesis is formed from the two.

running, running

2009-12-14T09:30:00.005-05:00

i had the most disturbing dream last night. well, maybe not the most disturbing ever in my life, but it certainly ranked itself up there. it was a long dream, but of course the portions that are clearest are those that happened the latest.

there's a house that i've been in before in another dream–or maybe it's a museum or mansion? it's huge, with wide windows letting in bright, clear sunlight, and those wide, square staircases that sweep against three walls–white marble steps with dark railings.

then i'm in another kind of house, and it is chaos. the rooms are all in disorder, and there is an air of evil. there's something wrong going on here, but i don't know what it is. a sweatshop, a brothel? this house seems to be used for a dark purpose. and then i realize i'm being pursued. whatever is going on here, they are either trying to catch me to make me part of it, or kill me so i can't tell others.

i run through the cluttered rooms–bedrooms?–and stop dead in one of the rooms as i see a woman lying facedown on the bed, naked. she's in labor, or has had the baby, and it rests between her legs. her body is so pale, but also bruised, like she's been abused, maybe. i don't know who she is in real life, but in the dream i recognize her and run to her, horrified. she raises her head to me and her brow is covered in sweat, so i run and find a paper towel that i run under the sink in the room, and wipe her forehead. she smiles a little, but she's so weak, and then she begs me to help her hide the baby. i don't know what to do, the baby's umbilical cord hasn't even been cut and i don't want to hurt either of them.

but i can hear voices coming from the other rooms, and i know i have to save both of them somehow. somehow i call out "help", and it's said in such a manner that my friends outside will hear me, but not the evil people in the house. and now these evil people are coming. they can't know i'm here, or they'll take me away and i won't be able to help this woman and her baby.

i hide underneath a desk in a pile of blankets and clothes, and for once feel thankful that the room is so messy that i have things to cover myself in. the evil people prowl into the room, look around, say something, and then leave. and then i jump up again and call out again to my friends, and there they are!

somehow we have gotten the woman and her baby outside, and clothed her in a long white robe. but she and the baby are separated now. it seems she thinks the baby will be safer this way. so one group takes the baby and runs, and she and i and a couple others run another way, down a major paved road by the water. it's very sunny, and there are hardly any cars on the road, and the sunlight is glinting off of the sea.

we are just determining how we should cross the road and which way to go, when we see them start to approach us from all sides. they look like a swat team, or something official and authoritarian, but i know that they are the evil people. alarmed, we all start running again.

<><><> part two <><><>
in my second dream, i'm walking through a sunny park with my friend kristen, and–i kid you not–woody allen. now, in real life, i'm not sure how i feel about woody allen. i don't find him that funny, and while i have no judgments to make on his personal life, i doubt i would covet his company myself. so, you must ask yourself, why is woody allen in agatha's dream, and what does that signify? what indeed.

in my dream, there's a little photo booth, such as you see at arcades and carnivals, where you can duck inside and take rolls of silly pictures. either kristen and i have just done one, or woody allen and i have just done one, or maybe all three of us. i have no idea, because no part of the dream takes place in the photobooth, but it's there as an afterthought, something important for some reason.

so woody allen and i go and sit down on a park bench just on the edge of the park, and look at the sunlight. hmm.

academic integrity

2009-12-10T22:45:00.005-05:00

i am morally caught by a small but significant situation happening on our campus; a young woman who has been accused of cheating, has been expelled by our honor commission, and her friends have organized a campus-wide protest on the matter. this young woman has supposedly cheated in the past–to which she confessed–but this time she says she is innocent, and has been given an unfair trial because of past prejudices.

this is a serious matter indeed. academic integrity is of the highest importance at gettysburg–it was our student body themselves who initially created the honor code, and have upheld it to this day. i'm very proud that our students, and certainly i did when i was a student, consider honesty and integrity intrinsic to education. so part of me is concerned that there may have been some personal bias or skimming of the law in this situation, though i trust that the honor commission is acting in the way it thinks is most fair.

and that brings me to the second point: i'm more proud that the student body feels that, in the spirit of what the honor code stands for, they should actively protest its misuse if it fails to protect individual academic work, as it should. if there has been a mistrial, then it should be contested. and if it's still proven that she is guilty, then, like john miller's philosophy, the challenge and reaffirmation of the verdict can only strengthen the system that we hold so dearly.

do you think i'm over thinking the matter? how can that be, when the lessons you learn in college are what you take with you into the "real" world. i'd rather have the next generation of the workforce be very deeply concerned with ethical business and action, than not.

angry dream

2009-12-09T22:23:00.005-05:00

i had a weird, frightening dream last night, and i can only remember the very last bits of it, although i know it was much longer. at the very end of the dream, i am in a school, or some sort of house-turned-school, and there is blue in the room somewhere, blue carpet maybe? and metal sinks. that's why i thought it was a classroom. and there was a man there who was the teacher, and i was really angry with him because he brought guns to school for a class assignment, and wanted to let the kids play with them, and one of them went off and shot me in my right hand.

i stared in horror at my hand, which had the flesh torn away over my second and third knuckles, and which was bleeding profusely. the bullet, which was small and round (like a b-b gun? i don't know guns), was lodged between my knuckles in the angry red flesh, and i held my hand gingerly, anxious that i needed to get to the hospital, but also pausing to berate this man for bringing in weapons and creating a dangerous situation.

i don't remember if i was able to save my hand, or what happened before or after this. when i try to think back, it's like i can almost see images and remember feelings and thoughts, but they're just obscure enough, just enough out of the corner of my vision, that when i think too closely about them, they disappear rather than come into focus.

do you know what i mean? it's like when you look at stars at night; your pupils will filter the most light from your direct vision, and thus the stars in your peripheral vision often look brighter by comparison, but when you try to swivel your eyes around to view those, they shrink from scrutiny.

addendum: interesting interpretations from www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary . oooh interesting.

barbara kirkpatrick stroup

2009-12-07T10:40:00.003-05:00

so, you may think this is weird, but i get google alerts emails with anything that references "gettysburg college," and the other day an obituary came up that interested me because it referenced that she'd taught at gettysburg. i doubted i knew her, but i thought that it would be a shame not to learn a little bit about the life of community member here in gettysburg.

so i clicked on the link, and started reading. as i read, i tried to imagine the progress of the little girl to the teenager, to the young adult, and so on, living through a world that i normally only read about as "history." i am always fascinated by my elders-they have so many stories to tell, and indeed, so did barbara. a graduate in english (yay!) from dickinson college in 1940, and a recipient of a master's from ship u., she also took graduate courses at columbia, uconn, nc state and penn state. plus, she had many interesting adventures moving around the country and teaching in one-room schoolhouses, with "a pot-bellied stove," says the article.

i thought of my own grandmother, who was a wellesley graduate, and who received her own masters in education, and it made me proud of the intellectual ambition of these women, when i remember my favorite 18th century lit. professor telling me once that, when she was in graduate school, one of her older professors told her she'd never make it in the professional world because she was a woman. funny that people still say such things. but foolish people obviously can't stop those who have a will, and spirit, and heart in what they do.

so anyway, if you want to learn more about this incredible woman, i think taking the minute and a half that it takes to read her obituary is a tribute we can all afford to make: http://www.gettysburgtimes.com/articles/2009/12/05/obituaries/doc4b1a54d38dcd9828554081.txt

fist-pumping senior citizens

2009-12-06T19:51:00.002-05:00

this weekend was truly unique. yesterday i went down to bethesda, md with my colleague courtney to do some off-campus interviews, but since we had a little extra time, we decided to live it up at the warner theatre in downtown d.c. ....listening to the musical stylings of "young at heart," a group of senior citizens ranging from 75 to 90 years old, who sing and dance to thoughtfully choreographed and arranged hits from the seventies through modern pop.

here, they have a website, which obviously means you have to look at it: http://www.youngatheartchorus.com/

their slogan is "finding the zen in senior citizen." yes!

then we went to a christmas carol singalong w/ courtney's parents and it was amazing. interviews today, shopping, and now back in gburg contemplating the mess that is my house.

mistake

2009-11-22T21:11:00.022-05:00

i had an unsettling dream last night. or maybe not unsettling–what should i call it? wistful? longing? i dreamed that i married the wrong man.

in my dream i am in a house that's brightly painted–pink, or purple, maybe, with white trim. there's a pretty yard in the back, and my family is gathered there. my aunt and my cousin david are standing on the back deck and joking about a wooden shed tacked onto the deck that one of my other cousins has been hiding in or something. the air is festive, and i realize that it's my wedding party, and that that is what we're all waiting for.

i go into the back of the house with the expectation that it's time for me to get ready. i feel a sort of excitement, because this is my wedding day, and surely it should be the happiest day of my life! as i walk through the house, i feel that something is unsettling me, but i don't know what it is, and anyway, the unsettled feeling is more than compensated by the thought that i'm about to get married.

so i walk through the dining room, and right before the front living room there are two sets of spiral staircases built into the wall to my right–they are encased in turrets that run through the center of the house straight up to the roof. i climb the winding stairs and arrive in a room that is bare, with wooden floors, pink or purple painted walls, and is an octagonal shape with windows on each wall. the sun coming in the windows is so bright that i can't see what's out them–rather, the bright, white light is coming in and surrounding me in a semi-circle, blinding me–not badly or uncomfortably, just enough so that all the light is on me, illuminating my skin, my wedding dress.

i see it suddenly, lying across a chair by one of the windows and i eagerly pick it up. it's a strapless gown with silver scalloping across the top of the bodice. not quite what i'd choose for myself, but i'm pleased with it, as if perhaps someone else chose it for me but i'll wear it because it's nice. i put it on and look at myself in the mirror and for a moment, i'm very happy.

but it's only then, when i put on the dress and look at myself that i stop and realize that i don't know who the groom is. or–i can't remember who he is. i think wildly, what on earth am i doing? but i know that i must have agreed to this, and this is what i'm supposed to be doing, and this will make my family happy.

so i'm happy to do it, for a moment, because everyone else will be so pleased. and maybe he's really wonderful!, i think. i stand in that room in my bright wedding gown and muse on what he could possibly be like, but after a moment's elation my hopes feel shallow. it doesn't matter what he's like, because i just don't love him. i know who i love and right now all i want is to see his face.

i'm so overcome by this emotion that i run out of the room and dash back down those winding stairs, and run through the front room into the back, and there he is, standing in the dining room, in his tux, looking radiant. there's a white flower in his button hole–a rose, or a carnation. i guess he's either dressed as a guest, or maybe he's part of the wedding. but it doesn't matter. he's not the man i'm set to marry. and he looks at me with anguish, and i look back at him, but neither of us speaks. what can we say? this day is already planned by others, and we don't know how to change it.

i'm so disappointed that i don't know how to keep standing. people are walking back and forth between us, since we're standing in the middle of the dining room, so there's no moment to be alone and explain ourselves. and anyway, i don't know what to explain because i feel that i've pushed this on myself. how could i ever have thought i could bear to marry someone whom i didn't love? i try to recall all of the great reasons that i might have done this, but whatever they were, they won't come to me.

so i stand helplessly in my wedding dress and we look at each other sadly, and i think my heart will break.

i wake myself up before i can bear to watch anymore.

what are these dreams? what's going on with me?

the savvy grouse

2009-11-17T09:36:00.000-05:00

just found this blog which reviews events/culture in pennsylvania...pretty fun: http://www.savvygrouse.com/2009/11/16/falldatenightingettysburg/

i always love to hear a visitor's viewpoint about gburg! i had to laugh in reading about the ghost tours...yes, we do have quite a lot of those. but they shouldn't all take 1 hour 45 minutes...maybe they got an 'extended' tour because it was so close to halloween?

winter, and a train ride through germany

2009-11-16T19:32:00.005-05:00

another strange dream. a bit shorter than the last i recorded, since it only took place over two "scenes" that i can recall, but it was still very vivid. it was another traveling dream.

this time, i am traveling to germany for a semester abroad, or a vacation, perhaps. at any rate, i don't know where my starting point was, but wherever it is, i am taking a train to get to germany. it's winter, or at least, the train is speeding through lofty, snow-covered mountains–we speed past tall, tall bare trees, and i notice that it isn't a heavy snow, but enough to cover the ground in speckly white. the train doesn't feel like a modern amtrak or something–it is perhaps an old steam engine. or maybe i assume that everything in europe is old?

the winter scene is so calm and lovely, and it's relaxing to look out the window and watch the trees whipping past. but then i realize that we're driving quite recklessly, and suddenly my view changes–i'm on top of the train, or at the front, maybe. at any rate, i can suddenly see the track ahead of me–a new, but wooden track–and we don't seem to stay gripped to the rails the whole time. up and down, up and down we race over the snow, scaling great heights and then quickly whooshing down into the valleys, so quickly that i become slightly nervous that we'll fly off the track. but i'm not really nervous–it's so hard to be, when the scenery is so beautiful. finally, we seem to make it safely to the station, and then i find myself in a train station clothing shop, sort of like the ones at the airport (since they don't really have such things at most train stations), and i'm trying to use my cell phone when i realize that it won't work outside of america, and i am totally put out.

what is love?

2009-11-11T22:13:00.003-05:00

ok it's not like i'm a total geek. well, ok. to be fair–yes, i am. but i was surfing the web, looking up nintendo references, like people do, and found this great quote describing a video game called "Dragon Warrior," from a website that clearly a lot of care and dedication went into making:

"what is love? perhaps love is like being lost in a dark cave. you wander around in the empty black with a limited supply of torches, hoping to find something pure. but you don't. instead, you only find ghosts and monsters. and then finally you find a brilliant light, one that fills the cave with a radiance that outshines your torch by at least twentyfold. you walk towards it, entranced by its beauty. unfortunately for you, it's a dragon. but once you kill it, you meet this totally hot chick who is immediately impressed with you. also, her dad is like a king or something and he's super rich. that's what love is like. well, that's what Dragon Warrior is like, and they're basically the same thing."

i don't know the game–but i think i know a little more about love now.