couldn't make this shit up

Iraqi Journalist hurls Shoes - note the plural.

Shoe-Hurling Iraqi Becomes Folk Hero - can one become a folk hero after a day?

on or off the wagon

In keeping with my view that everything is and should be contradictory, I'm not going to explain that. Let's just say that at a certain birthday party recently, we went to the Clover Club at 210 Smith St in Brooklyn, a speakeasy-style joint that serves concoctions and cocktails conceived before my grandmother was. I have the Leone: tequila, solerno, peychauds, and something else, martini-style with the peel of an orange bigger than the glass itself and a little side-car on ice to refill my glass. It was delicious and decadent, and only $11. Highly recommended.

These places are hot right now. My friend works at a place in Williamsburg, Hotel Delmano, which is almost identical (but better, of course! and they have Russian Standard Vodka - my favorite!). So today I decide to check out the New York Times, and there's an article on - you guessed it - mixologists and such. I love my job, and I know the servers where I work use their tequila and wine knowledge more than the bartenders get to, but I miss bartending. Maybe it's good that I'm not doing it anymore though. Time to focus on my other career. (One more application to go!)

On the menu tonight

In honor of PhD applications (of which two have been submitted!!), I decided to cook myself up a little feast this evening. I had minestrone to start out with - organic, from a can, added parmesan cheese and a few slices of seasoned focaccia. Then I made enough pasta to serve a large family (leftovers for me!), which contained:

Orechiette Rigate (it means "little ears")
Four cheese tomato sauce
1 Eggplant
1 Zucchini
a small onion
a clove of garlic
basil
and a yellow Beefsteak Tomato (grown locally)

Delicious. And as an accompaniment, I made a little chopped salad of baby spinach, basil, yellow beefsteak tomato, cucumber, and fresh mozzarella with a ton of balsamic vinegar. So good. The salad was bigger than the plate of pasta.

But the most important thing, of course, is that I have submitted two of my six applications. One is six days before the deadline, the other 16! My supplementary materials are all on their way (except one, which is waiting for letters of recommendation to get back to me - why those can't also be online, I have no idea). I've been crazy stressed out the last month, and right now I'm wound tighter than a spring, as they say, but it's not actually that bad. It all comes together when you set your mind to it. This kind of pressure really makes me think. There have been some elements of my life that have been adding stress, perhaps unnecessarily so, if only in the sense that I certainly didn't need them, and there have been these great unexpected inspirational moments that I will never forget.

A few months ago, I went to dinner at Tao, and it was expensive and delicious - decadent! (not the service) - and with dessert (a giant fortune cookie filled with white and dark chocolate mousse and rimmed with sprinkles - highly recommended) they gave us giant fortunes. Mine reads "If you do not know where you are going, any road will do." I still have it hanging on my wall, sprawled across Russia on a small map of the world. At the time I thought it was kind of comforting, and of course it's supposed to be. But what's funny is that I've long had this theory that if you hold on to a fortune for too long, it's reverse becomes apparent. And I'd forgotten my childhood theory until just now, but the fortune had long since - the last few weeks at least - inspired the opposite feeling in me:

If you know where you're going, not any road will do.

That doesn't mean that only one road will do, I would never think that. But it does mean that, especially given as much as I travel, if you know where you're going, you probably know how to get there, or at least can find your way. Maybe that's more to the point: I am absolutely capable of finding my way. I've been on the journey the whole time. Maybe I just forget periodically where I'm going. No, I don't forget. I just get wrapped up in the journey sometimes. I can still enjoy it and stay focused. It's all about balance. Getting this accomplished tonight (this and other things), I haven't felt this balanced in a long time. Just one thing missing.

Update: five of six applications have been submitted. Awesome.

the end is near

That sounds so ominous, jeez. I should retitle this post "the end is in sight" or "almost there" or "so close to the finish line I can taste it." Something like that. Tomorrow after work I'm going to send off five of my six supplementary packets to various departments or admissions offices. Thursday I'm going to rework my personal statement(s) so that I am happy with them. And Saturday I will hit submit six times. That's right: Saturday, November 29. Six days before my first deadline and two and a half weeks before the most important one.

The reworking of my personal statement is absolutely necessary. Right now, it sounds rushed. It sounds like I was trying to say a million things and I had to take out half of them. Which is an accurate portrayal of its writing so far. I barely mention grad school. I don't mention my trip to St Petersburg. And now, as of last Wednesday, I want to include something about my impending trip to Buenos Aires.

Little reward for all this application anxiety: two weeks in the BsAs neighborhood of Recoleta. Which means that after I hit that submit button six times, I have a lot of research to do. It's going to be a writing/researching trip primarily (for most of those involved), but it will definitely be a vacation as well, of course. And since I hadn't been planning on going there before a few weeks ago, I know nothing about the place. But I will.

Back to the s.o.p. I need to incorporate my travels as related to my research interests, and that means I have to be more specific about my research interests. I want to study Cold War-era literature in the context of migration, particularly writers who emigrated to or from Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and the West. How do these different migrations inform the worldview set forth by the authors' narratives? That seems particularly broad, but that's sort of my idea. I want to know what happens when we stop thinking in terms of the Cold War on one hand and postcolonialism on the other hand. That and I find "postcolonial" to be a problematic term for a variety of reasons. I also find the idea that the international situation was dominated by a staring match between two countries out of 190 or so reductive. I'm not denying the influence of these two schemas on the twentieth century (and twenty-first). On the contrary, I wish to explore what is generally accepted as "the way things are/were" because oversimplifying is dangerous business. Question everything. That's what I'm saying.

tmik, tliu

If the abbrev fits...  

I really feel like the application process is designed to make one feel completely inadequate.  On the other hand, that may be because I am not qualified.  I think I'm qualified for one program in particular, however.  (No names.  I don't want to jinx it, even though if you know me, you know which program I'm talking about.  It's something to do with writing, maybe.  If I write it, it will be real, and there's only so much hope - I mean confidence - I can muster.)  I finished a personal statement, but at 1200 words, with two major topics to throw in, I realize I'm supposed to have 500 words.  Talk about concise.  I just wrote a 60-page argument, and now I'm supposed to sell myself to a committee in two pages?  Well, plus the 20-page writing sample that is said 60-pager, but still.  

Anyway, I was journaling just now and actually thought - as if I am used to thinking in proverbs - that the more I know the less I understand, and really my thinking of it is more of the song lyric (Don Henley, which I'm listening to right now, actually), but I couldn't think of Don Henley, so I googled it, and there were all these blurbs of people asking what it meant, so I wrote my version.  

The more I know, the less I understand means that increased knowledge comes (by definition) with the knowledge that there is more beyond it, so it does not mean that the less, quantitatively, I understand, but on the contrary that the more understanding I gain, the more I understand that there is so much more to understand and that I will never understand.  

But we try.  

writer's block

I haven't used this excuse in a while, but if the shoe fits. I am having the hardest time writing my personal statement for my PhD applications. And the more I think about it, the worse it gets. So I should not think about it at all, right? Wait, what? No, I really need to have it done. I need to have it done two weeks ago.

Lie.

That was my friend's advice last night. I need an arc, he said. I have no arc, I said. He said, Lie. There's a major flaw with this plan: I don't lie. Certainly not well, at any rate.

So beyond that, what do I say? I sit down to write this and I babble all of the things I don't want to write, things that one should never write in a personal statement, because I know what those things are. I like to read, I like to write, I want to go to school forever, please give me money. I have no teaching experience, I've never been published, and I've spent the last ten years working in the restaurant business. Which, as a creative writer, was useful for personal statements when I applied to MFA programs. Or maybe wasn't useful, because I didn't get in. And I'm so glad I didn't, don't get me wrong, but I'm reading the essay I sent to NYU and I'm thinking, how in the world did I expect to get in with this shit.

And I sent one of my recommenders an essay I wrote for her as an undergrad, so I read that and then immediately read the intro to my thesis, and I'm thinking, wow, this is actually kind of brainy. It was a good feeling. My writing has improved so vastly in the last two years.

So why can't I write this personal statement?

What's my arc? Travel?

Everything I think, I immediately think is lame. But it's not and I know it's not, I'm not trying to sound self-deprecating, but when I write about my travels, when I try to put it into words, the words fail to convey any of the experience, they can't measure up in the least, and it makes me feel like I'm cheapening the experience, and so I find it even more difficult to write about it, and it's this vicious cycle...

Can I tie where I've been to my research interests? Yes, but I've never been to the 1960s. Is that the problem? That's a silly problem to have. If I make writing this thing sound trivial, will it be easier to do? It's not trivial though. It makes a big difference when one is applying to such competitive programs.

But you know what. I'm going to do it, and it will be great, and I'm totally going to get in, and five years from now I will be even smarter, and I will scoff (because that's what academics do) at my younger self. It will be brilliant.

Labors of Love

Last night I attended the launch party for the second issue of the St Petersburg Review on Macdougal. It was a big night. I think I'm still processing it and will have to write more later, but in the meantime, get your own: highly recommended.

Long story short: it was really great to spend time with friends and meet other like-minded people, to be able to talk about writing and literature and academia in a constructive way. It was a little like being in Russia only not - surly bartender and all. Vodka. Smoked salmon tartlets. Techno music. It was lovely.

We do these things without the promise of financial gain, barely allowing ourselves the distant hope of compensation, but we do it because we love it, because we have to, because our souls will accept no other sustenance. And thank heavens for that. Labors of love, indeed.

Speaking of: A quick reminder: the war in Iraq is costing American taxpayers $720 million each and every day, or a total of $1.4 trillion to date, according to the American Friends Service Committee. That's like saying (figuratively) that I spent $2.50 on the war today, or that each of us has paid $4600 (not including interest and future expenditures and repercussions and other war efforts - in Afghanistan, for example - and not taking into account proportions or actual mathematics, of course) over the last five years. That's a lot of money. The daily cost of the war is enough to pay for my rent for the next ... 80,000 years. I love my neighborhood and all, but that's a big commitment.

For actual researched, informed, and properly calculated statistics, you might try National Priorities.org or zFacts.com or any news organization, but you should definitely try. Peace is cheaper. (Two weeks to election day.)

on Equus

I was reading the playbill today, and something came to mind that I hadn't thought as much about before: the levels of mediation in Equus. The story is told by Dr. Dysart, the whole story. All of the events in the story except for this act of telling the audience have already happened in the past. We then jump back to when the magistrate came to tell him about Alan - we hear him telling us that she told him of the crime.

The most heavily layered section, I think, is toward the end when we see Alan and Jill in the barn, and Jill's dialogue is all in scene, but Alan's is relaying what happened (or lying about it) while Dysart pushes him, even taking on the voice of Equus, all the while relaying the events to the audience.

I would have liked to see that end sequence a little better, which is probably why I want to see it again, from the front.

So what does all of this layering mean? How are we to read it? I'm thinking back to my thesis, of course, and to a class I took a year and a half ago, where we discussed Wuthering Heights in terms such as these - especially the scene where the maid tells Nelly something she overheard, and Nelly's telling Mr. Lockwood, and Lockwood is telling us... I'm not going to use the word reliability, I simply refuse to, because it implies there is a knowable, objective truth, and we all know that's ridiculous.

But what I'm thinking is: it matters whether the unreliability is intended (i.e., the speaker wishes to hide something from the listener) or unintended, who is being misled and who is misleading... In the case of Equus, for example, when Mrs. Strang comes to Dr. Dysart's office, she tells the doctor something behind her husband's back - the story of the picture on Alan's wall. What is she hiding from by not telling her husband that she's telling the psychiatrist something her husband knows? The real question, of course, is: what is the author revealing to us about the relationship between the couple, about Alan's character, his upbringing, about psychiatry, about attitudes toward psychiatry, et cetera? And then: what does this scene and the play as a whole tell us about what growing up means, about religion and sex and gender?

The female characters in this play are less well-developed than the men, but I think that's largely because the two main characters are male. They are the two characters we are told the most about. We don't know why, for instance, Mr. Strang goes to the pornographic theater, just that Alan caught him and suspects he has been going regularly.

I was wondering if identifying the layers of mediation, of where time has been represented out of order, is one of the ways we can expose what the work is saying about its realworld context, but I'm also wondering if we shouldn't consider, not just the ways we disorganize things by attempting to represent them, but also the ways we attempt to reconstruct something from this thing that has been disorganized - what "really" happened. We try to figure things out, to locate the hidden truth, and then we happily announce it, whatever it is, and the possibility of multiple meanings means that we can each have our very own interpretation, just like we each have our own iPods, our own personal computers, our own blogs. Our own audiences.

That's Dysart's demand: he speaks directly to the audience, and he's the only one to do so - unlike a play I saw a year and a half ago - has it been so long? - called A Very Common Procedure where all three characters tell their story to the audience simultaneously. I'm digressing, but to take that example, they each have their own story to tell, even though it's the same story, and the way the play is structured, they tell the story together. They tell it to each other at the same time they are telling it to the audience, in some scenes. I'm just wondering where all of this über-compartmentalizing will lead, because (unlike our representation of it) time is very much a progression, even if we are unable to fathom points A or B...

Um. Wow, downer. In other news, I'm going to another play next Wednesday. Exciting!

Can't believe I forgot

The most wonderful thing happened to me the other night at work. I've been stressing about work being slow and about PhD applications lately. If it's slow I have time to think, and usually what I'm thinking is: what am I doing here? And with apps, I read descriptions of some of these programs, some of which I am completely not qualified for, and I get anxious, and it's scary, and with the two of these occurring at the same time, I start to think: maybe I should just run off somewhere cheap and write for a while. That would be nice, yes, and I think very highly of travel, but it's unrealistic right now (see above re: work being slow), and so then that gets me down more, and it's this huge ridiculous cycle.

So the other night, Saturday night, I got called in, and I had a totally rookie station (three four tops and a six), and it wasn't that busy, but it was okay, and my second table is a vip - not anyone famous or anything (Madge was in two weeks ago), but this guy has been there 46 times, so the company is very concerned with making sure he is happy. That's a lot of pressure, by the way, but I handled it beautifully, everything went fine.

So they've paid, and I'm clearing their dessert plates and the vip says, "What's your name? How have you not waited on me before? You're not new?" "Oh, no," I say, "I was here for five months last year, then I left to write my thesis, and now I've been back for about five, six months now." "Did you finish your thesis?" another gentleman asked. (There were four of them, three guys in their late thirties/early forties, I would guess, and one's teenage son.) "Yes," I say, "I now have a master's degree." "In what?" "Humanities and Social Thought." Various congratulations, and one of them asks what I'm going to do with that, and I say, "I'm applying to PhD programs," and we all chuckle and murmur because what else could I possibly do with a master's degree in Humanities and Social Thought for fuck's sake, and the vip says, "Don't worry, it's totally worth it, we've all been there," and I say, "Is it? I really need to hear that right now," and I do and I meant it, and I say something about the application process being sort of grueling, and he says, "no, I remember."

And then he quotes the Aeneid to me. In Latin. And then in English, but I don't remember the words only the sense because I am completely blown away and knocked off my feet, jaw on the floor, but it's something Aeneas says about the journey and what it comes down to is that it's all worth it.

And all I can say is, "That's awesome," quietly and almost to myself.

"So you're working here to pay bills?" he asks. With this smile that had less to do with the tequila and more to do with just knowing, just totally getting it.

"Yes I am," I say. And I tell them to have a great night and I walk to the back to put the tower of plates in my hands at the dish station in this daze. Because that was exactly what I needed exactly when I needed it and it came out of nowhere and holy cow.

So I have this renewed sense of purpose and am in love with life as usual, which is why I decided this afternoon to go to a Broadway show tonight, and it's so great to be on a path and have the journey so in my field of vision. I don't know what's coming, but I will wait for it, and I will be prepared, and it will be beautiful.

Equus

was superb. I went to see it at the Broadhurst Theatre on W 44th St tonight, sort of spur of the moment. (I bought the ticket online this afternoon because of a student discount email type thing.) My seat was onstage, actually above and behind the stage, which was an unusual vantage point for me, I'm not sure I've ever been behind and looking down on the action before, not that I've been to that many plays. I'm not sure if I would do it again, but it was definitely interesting. Even though the behind-the-scenes stuff was still very much behind the scenes, sitting as I was, looking out at the audience with the actors, made me think of how little I know about theater, about what goes into it, about what it feels like to be a part of, whether one is acting, is on-stage, or one is an usher or in charge of lighting or whatever. At one point Daniel Radcliffe cracked the first two fingers of his right hand, just below me, while his back is to two other characters who are talking, and I half wondered if it was him or the character. Silly, I know, but I become more and more aware of my lack of knowledge about what it is to act.

Speaking of Daniel Radcliffe, his performance was absolutely amazing. Richard Griffiths was also great, the whole cast was, and maybe I don't have enough distance, haven't processed it enough to even write about it intelligently, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This going to the theater thing may become a habit with me.

PhD applications...

Monday I emailed my potential recommenders about PhD applications, and by Tuesday I was starting to feel anxious about the whole thing, but Wednesday I started putting together some information and really researching programs and their various application processes, and yesterday I felt wound tighter than a spring, as they say. I feel as though everything has been thrown up in the air like so many feathers, but that's kind of silly because nothing has changed. If anything, I have a firmer grasp on things, in a way.

On the other hand, I'm daring to hope I'm qualified for Ivy League doctoral study, and holy cow. And what if I don't stay in New York...

I was also thinking, after talking with a friend Tuesday night who is in the MFA program at NYU and just got a job offer (or really, an offer of promotion, since she already works there) for when she graduates in May: What if I've wasted the last ten years of my life? Should I have been doing everything differently? ...Is this line of thinking a result of age and experience? I'm 29, I've just completed a major step, a definitive portion of time, and I'm preparing for another step, another deadline, another period of hard work and sacrifice with a huge reward at the end. Only, I'm wondering if these huge rewards ever feel more substantial. I don't want to wake up in six years and still be waiting tables. Which is why I'm thinking, do I want to wake up tomorrow and still be waiting tables?

And then I remember why I'm doing it, why I've been doing it so long, and that is this: it's flexible, it's good money, it's not work that can really take over my life (after a certain point), and it's fun for the most part. And for research purposes. And for networking purposes - seriously, I work with so many creative people, not just actors, but musicians, writers, performers, and other literary types; people who are interested in politics and philosophy and the economy and travel and what's going on in the world. It's a great environment to be in. And even though I feel like a little bit more of my soul is slowly and painfully sucked away each and every time I serve f-ing Patron Silver,* each time I smile when I don't want to, each time I wonder if I mean it, each time some corporate drone talks to me like I'm an uneducated worthless insignificant waste of space and I want to scream... I kind of love it.

*Patron is a brand name. Paul Mitchell designed a bottle, took it to Jalisco, and built himself a distillery. It's not bad. But it's not nearly the best. It's just well-marketed. But I digress.

The problem, of course, is that it's kind of slow at work this time of year, and with the economy, blah blah blah, but when I'm not busy, I have time to think about these things, and I start to question what it is exactly that I'm doing with my life, and I need to remind myself that I'm working towards some big goals and working at the restaurant is a part of that.

Now I just have to make that clear in my personal statement...

Henry James

I recently started reading Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, and there's this quote I absolutely love in his Preface:

"Strangely fertilizing, in the long run, does a wasted effort of attention often prove."

When I read that it just felt so affirming. And perhaps in an it's okay that I'm not getting as much done as I'd like kind of way, and I know I could easily use it as an excuse, but I'm not going to. I'm not saying that writing doesn't require an immense amount of energy because it certainly does. I'm not one of those people who can whip out story after story in no time at all, and I'm not sure anyone really is, but Chekhov came pretty close (the guy wrote two hundred stories and only lived to age 44). But the phrase made me feel a little less guilt for experiencing the life that I'm living instead of sequestering myself somewhere quiet. However, some of this relief, no doubt, is because I have definitely been writing more lately. (I'm writing right now...) I'm working on two new short stories, one of which I started while in St Petersburg, and one I started two weeks ago.

But it's like some of us discussed while in Russia: some people were getting a lot of writing done while we were there. I think I wrote a total of two days, one of which was really creatively productive. Okay, not counting the little bits of poetry and journalling I did here and there. But still. Some people can't write in Russia, I think that's how one guy put it. And I totally get that. There's too much going on, there's too much to take in, to process, especially if one is hoping to work on a project that has nothing to do with the journey one is on at the time. And that's what James was talking about, specifically Venice. Next sentence:

"It all depends on how the attention has been cheated, has been squandered."

So I don't mind that I don't come home every night after work and force myself to write so many words or so many sentences or pages, a certain amount of time on a certain story. I'm glad for the great conversation, the whiskey and the wine (not to mention that bison grass infused vodka I had at Richardson's a few weeks ago: yummy!). There is a lot to take in, to process. And it's slowly coming out in words on a page. And sometimes it comes quickly. And someday I will be able to spend more of my time with this, and less waiting tables. But for now, for the long run, my effort of attention may be strangely fertilized and I may be slightly wasted.

The Cold War

is apparently alive and kicking and being reported by the New York Times...

Battered By Storms, Cuba uses Ideological Zeal to Lift Spirits and Direct Anger

Oh, those silly Cubans, thinking not being able to buy materials to fix their damaged homes is a problem. What? All of your crops were destroyed and you want to buy more food? Sorry! trade embargo. (Need I even type that I've just rolled my eyes?) While "genocide" (see article) is a strong word, morally irresponsible and dehumanizing and, dare I say it, reeking of imperialism seem to be entirely appropriate.

what's in your water?

The first chapter of Elizabeth Royte's Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It, the June 15 review by Lisa Margonelli, and the Michiko Kakutani review from the other day.

Goes along with something I was reading yesterday or the day before in the Economist about water pollution in India: Up to their necks in it.

Then of course there's Hurricane Dolly.

FoxNews has funny wording in their take on the bottle wars, lest we be surprised. - "There was a time when brands like Evian and Perrier conjured up images of purity and luxury. That was before bottlers everwhere got their feet wet, and drinking bottled water became a very easy and healthy way to stay hydrated and refreshed." Um. What?

This deserves a moment's pause - but only a moment. Do we see how the "images of purity and luxury" are very highly valued in the first sentence? But then! something came along to interfere with our pure and luxurious (elitist) water... What was it? Oh! this great, "very easy and healthy way to stay hydrated and refreshed"! Um. It also calls "phasing out water bottles" - "thanks to the growing green movement" - "the latest fad." Interesting. Moving on.

This woman killed her kid with water, ew.

And in a perhaps cheerier light, have you seen the Waterfalls in NYC? (You should.) The pictures of other waterfalls in New York State at the bottom of the page make me want to travel, but that will have to wait.

for further analysis

Too busy at the moment, of course (go figure), but there's an article in today's NYTimes that is interesting in light of an article I read the other day in the Atlantic. The latter is "Infectious Exuberance" by Robert J. Shiller, an economist at Yale, about the residential real estate "boom and bust" and contagious tendencies, and the former is "Fannie and Freddie Shares Fall by as Much as 50 Percent" by Michael M. Grynbaum, which is pretty self-explanatory. The end of the article reads:

"The officials involved in the discussions stressed that no action by the administration was imminent and that Fannie and Freddie are not considered to be in a crisis situation. But in recent days, enough concern has built among senior government officials over the health of the giant mortgage finance companies for them to hold a series of meetings and conference calls to discuss contingency plans."

Funny word: "health." Hm...

back in the swing

Ah, St Petersburg. Was it all a dream? It felt dreamlike even at the time, so it should be no wonder that I'm having trouble focusing on it now.

I'm having trouble focusing on anything for more than a few seconds, actually. I blame the jetlag.

Back in the city. Getting back in the swing. Getting organized. Figuring it all out. Writing again. Reading as much as ever. So much more focused than I felt before this overwhelmingly grand adventure. The future is wide open, and that's wonderful and frightening and liberating and unfathomable. Another blank page for the taking. Lists to be made, schedules to keep, deadlines to impose on myself. Let's do it.

today's the day

I have often felt over the years that I am watching my life unfold. Is this a side-effect of growing up with television? Maybe. My sort of stock-advice for unanswerable situations has always been, just wait and see what happens. That doesn't mean that sitting back and letting things happen as they do shouldn't be balanced with a healthy dose of active decision-making, don't get me wrong. You have to work really fucking hard to accumulate the luxury of being able to take a step back. ...This is skewing into a train of thought I hadn't intended, perhaps.

What I was really thinking when I decided to explore the idea of observing one's own life was that I can't believe I'm getting ready to get on a plane for Russia, first of all, and that I'm not sure how I'm ever going to write my Memoirs (I just read Sam Selvon's Moses Ascending and am saying "Memoirs" a bit sardonically), truth being stranger than fiction and all (so not true), life being as full of turns as it is. This is high drama. Exciting stuff. Full of intrigue. International travel. People come in and go out of your world. And back in, and back out. Secrets are revealed. Decisions must be made. Careers are built and destroyed. Hearts are broken. Vital information is miscommunicated. Family issues lay unresolved. And always there is the music.

In four hours I will be on a plane, and tomorrow I will be in Petersburg in time for lunch. Incredible.

penciling in a closer look

Tomorrow's the big day, and I had decided not to blog this afternoon because I have so many other things to do that I don't even know what I have to accomplish in the next few hours before dinner and east village barhopping with friends later, but then I stole a quick glance at today's headlines, as I do, and this deserves a brief analysis.

Fictional Stars Get a 21st Century Facelift

Interesting. There are a lot of things I wish I had time to delve into further, like the intersection of culture and the economy, the whole advertising aspect, which I've been thinking a lot about lately, what with working at the restaurant again and being exposed to more pop culture via my coworkers, but the first things that struck me were the accompanying illustrations depicting the 1980s versions and the updated versions of Strawberry Shortcake and Angelina Ballerina (the latter of which I don't remember having seen before). I was born in 1979, I was a kid in the 80s, I had a Strawberry Shortcake doll (actually, "dolls," plural), I loved her. I loved her striped tights and her bloomers, her big floppy hat and her red hair, the little brown shoes that looked like she was spending all of her time in the garden, hanging out under shady trees and such. She had a pinafore, for fuck's sake. She was Raggedy Anne done ten times better because she was named after my favorite dessert.

I'm pretty sure I've seen the previous "updated" renditions of the Strawberry Shortcake gang (before I just looked them up on Wikipedia), and they're completely different. They're older, they're more realistic, whatever that means, the lines are smoother. Be that as it may, comparing the three creates a whole new spin on what I was going to say. My first thought was that the updated version is clearly sexier, more "feminine" in the sense that she looks like a young version of what a woman "should" look like, the long flowing hair, the form-fitting clothing (what form they're fitting being left up to debate), the matching shoes. The 80s SS holds her cat, looks shyly up with down-turned chin, self-conscious about her youthful imagination, perhaps, but not her wardrobe. The 2008 SS sits with legs together and to the side, leaning on one hand, with the other laid demurely against her body, hand on her ankle. The new new SS returns to her big floppy hat, loses the pink highlights for the whole do, and apparently "spend[s] her time chatting on a cellphone." But looking at the 2002 SS, even with her highlights and her short skirt, she doesn't seem coquettish so much as playful. (Dude, check out Holly Hobbie! Big difference from this. Why does Holly Hobbie have boobs, is what I want to know. What is going on in the world of children's toys?) She still looks like a kid, albeit a more stylish one, more like what actual kids are supposed to want to look like. The 80s SS wasn't cross-marketing. They were trying to sell SS toys, absolutely, but not skateboards and hats and clothing and sneakers. I said I loved her pinafore, not that I wanted one.

The main point I'm trying to make and not spending enough time to accomplish it is that I'm concerned with the gender and sexuality norms being portrayed, not only by the characters but by the article. I'm not saying the article is biased, but it does draw attention to the stereotypically-gay-image Ken and what a glaring failure it was as far as revamping a character's look. What's funny, or incredibly sad and indicative of small-minded mainstream corporate America, is that Earring Magic Ken was the best selling Ken doll ever, a fact that the New York Times article does not mention. In fact, the article seems entirely devoid of updated characters that have been successful, though it says they can be "incredibly lucrative" when "done correctly," whatever that means. But Mickey Mouse, the character mentioned directly after and so seemingly the example for a correctly-done revamp, has changed very little since his introduction in 1928. His head is a little rounder, he grew gloves in 1929, he apparently had green shoes in the 1930s for a hot sec, but he still has the shorts with the big buttons, the big perma-grin, the slightly squeaky voice. His limbs aren't quite so scrawny (he came out during the Depression, lets not forget), but his torso is just as rounded.

I want to return to how nostalgia is being defined here, to our "modern" sensibilities and our disposable culture, the disposability being advertised to us, by us, and for what? But right now I have to pack. :)

quickly

Getting back into this whole writing world thing: Great article on Kinsley Amis and drinking in today's NYTimes. Another set added to the Must Read list. I love what he writes about the tequila-based Bloody Mary (otherwise known as the Bloody Maria): "a splendid pick-me-up, and throw-me-down, and jump-on-me. Strongly disrecommended for mornings after." Fabulous.

Sometime I will muse about the metaphysical aspects of being hungover - it seems I am always marking down projects for later - but right now I'm going to clean out my closet, which essentially means I'm going to try on clothes.

(In eight days, I will be on a plane!)

Rilke and Russia (no relation)

I read Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations of Rainer Maria Rilke by John J.L. Mood a few summers ago, and there's a particular passage that has remained continuously in my mind. It is a sentiment that is eternally relevant, I think.

"I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other. For, if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity for solitude. And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation" ("Letters on Love" 27).

Now, I don't particularly care for the translations Mood uses, I think they are halting and lack poetry (I would say the same about Mood's translations of the poems as well), and I do not have the time to continue the search I just initiated for the original German, but from what I can gather from this passage, I think there are some very provocative suggestions being made.

Perhaps sometime soon I will muse further, but I've finally received my passport and Russian visa (the post office angers me to no end, but there was a saving grace among the others today, let me tell you), which means I am officially going to Russia in nine days - in nine days I will be getting ready to board a plane! - which means there are a million things I have to do to get everything (myself) prepared.

Evidently, one of those things is to breathe, because I just took the deepest breath (twice!), smiled, and felt an enormous sense of well-being (name that song). (Hint: And then I'm happy for the rest of the day, safe in the knowledge that there will always be a bit of my heart devoted to it.) It helps that it is an absolutely beautiful day in New York City, and I am relaxing, sitting comfortably in my living room with the window open, the traffic driving by, horns honking, motorcycle revving its engine... This is the life. I just had a lovely weekend out of town, visiting the family, and having the day off today has been marvelous. I may take a little afternoon nap to round things out. Finally, finally, I feel like I can breathe.

books

Michiko Kakutani's review of Joseph O'Neill's Netherland makes me want to stroll the streets of this city that I love so much (not now, it's cold and rainy), though not necessarily in search of the kind of companion O'Neill's protagonist finds. I'd rather read about losing oneself in depression and finding oneself with unsavory characters and shady business ventures than actually experience it for myself, and perhaps reading about it is one way of staving off the temptation to slip into a world like that, because it is tempting, one thinks to oneself, reading the opening passages of the novel, identifying with the feeling of one's relationship with another person being misunderstood, with how tiresome it is to have to explain oneself, to put it into words. Even all the descriptions of cricket - a sport I know almost nothing about - seem, from the first few pages I was able to read, essential to understanding how the narrator feels about New York, about the Old World and the New, about community, about living in the city, about living in different cities. I'll add it to that indescribably long list of books I want to read.

A book which was recommended to me by a very dear friend recently, and which I read immediately, was The Boy in Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne. There were things I liked about the book and things I didn't particularly care for, some of which may be simply matters of personal taste, I suppose. Long story as short as I can make it (*spoilers abounding*), a nine-year-old German boy named Bruno moves with his family from Berlin to Oświęcim (Auschwitz) when his commandant father is transferred there by Hitler ("the Fury"), and in his naive boredom, Bruno goes exploring along a very long fence and meets another nine-year-old boy - the boy in striped pyjamas - named Shmuel on the other side of that fence. They meet almost every day for a year, and then Shmuel brings Bruno a set of striped pyjamas so he can disguise himself and help Shmuel look for his father in the camp. They get caught up in a march, the march goes into a room, "chaos" follows, and Bruno is never seen again.

I liked the plot, and I liked that the reader knows more than the protagonist. And obviously the book isn't aimed at me, it's aimed at a teenaged audience, but I thought the main character not knowing more than he did was a little over the top. But that may have been the point, I totally get that, that we're meant to feel really uncomfortable with the fact that he just never catches on despite repeated clues, but it made me wonder whether he wasn't immature for nine or not very bright. I get that he's sheltered and on the offensive's side (a victim would better know what was going on, perhaps?), but several of the things that are conspicuously omitted - like the word used by several adults to refer to the Jews, or the correct pronunciation of Auschwitz (although I did think "Out With" was clever at the beginning), or what he witnesses when the family's waiter spills something on a young lieutenant at dinner - made me feel less sympathetic toward him. I guess it made me judge him, probably more than I should have, though certainly not enough that the ending was acceptable, that he somehow deserved to die or anything. But it made me feel like he wasn't trying to understand what was going on around him, as one description of the book suggested.

Similarly, I wondered how Shmuel didn't know more than he did. How did he not know where the people were going when they went, that they were being killed? People were being shot out in the open, it's not like they were only going to the incinerator, and a nine-year-old in Auschwitz would have been a lot hipper to what was going on than a nine-year-old on the outside, certainly, I mean, just from what I remember of Survival in Auschwitz, it seems that a kid would have been a part of the whole bartering system that sprang up as a means of survival in the camps, would have had to get in on the game, to fend for themselves, even a child such as Shmuel who was with his father and grandfather. Also, style-wise, though I am ordinarily a fan of repetition, I didn't care for how Boyne uses repetition here. The whole "mouth in the shape of an O" thing was especially grating, and some of the Britishisms (though I don't have a problem with Britishisms in general, of course) seemed entirely out of place since the main characters are German.

I don't know, I can only imagine how difficult it is to write a holocaust book for kids, but I read Night by Elie Wiesel when I was twelve, in school, as did the entire class, and while Night is completely horrific (there are certain images I will never get out of my head), I think that it is impossible to not portray that time as horrific, and The Boy in Striped Pyjamas seemed to gloss over too many things for my taste. Honestly, I felt that it was unrealistic to the point of inaccuracy. The characters seemed kind of flat, even considering we're looking at them through Bruno's eyes - his sister goes from playing with dolls to fawning over the lieutenant (who paid a little too much attention to her, if you ask me, for such an age difference and the fact that he is a child playing a man's role, trying to be seen as older by the adults around him) to poring over the newspaper and keeping track of troop movements on a map, and I just didn't believe it.

So overall I didn't particularly care for it, but it did have its redeeming qualities, the doctor/waiter, the maid, the distance between what we know and what Bruno doesn't - but I think I would have liked a little more clarity at the end, even with Bruno and Shmuel being swept up into a march that leads them to the gas chamber, I wanted a clearer message, something other than the wry "nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age," that seemed like a cop-out to me. What exactly couldn't happen again? Or could? Or is? Children getting caught up in war? Children connecting despite being on opposite sides of a fence, metaphorical or otherwise? Senselessness and human stupidity? Okay, sure, but I just feel like the author is winking at me, and I don't feel like it's an appropriate topic to wink about. We're expected to have far more information than the book provides, and I think it invites us to backshadow (see Michael Andre Bernstein's Foregone Conclusions), to read the events as if they had to have happened or as if those involved should have known better, to judge the characters, and if it went a few steps further and tried to make the reader aware of the fact that they were judging when they shouldn't be, that would be entirely different, but I just don't think it gets to that point.

Currently I'm read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, which is pretty fantastic, and next up is The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno. I should probably be reading more Russian lit in preparation for my trip to Petersburg, by I got sort of stuck on a particularly uninteresting Mandelstam selection in the anthology I was muddling my way through. Some of it is breathtaking, don't get me wrong, but some of it I just don't care for. Some of the poetry especially, I'm sure it is absolutely beautiful in Russian, but it loses something. And, of course, considering that I think I want to study translation, being continually reminded that something inherent to the art is lost when it is filtered into another tongue is disheartening, to say the very least. It also makes me want to keep studying languages, though, so there's that.

And this is completely random, but I'm listening to it at the moment, so I'll say that Claude Debussy's "Clair de lune" is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.

preparing

I'm starting to really get excited about going to Petersburg. I got an email from the program yesterday and have since read the schedule of events, and I've been reading about the various places I'm going to go, the people that we'll be talking about. And I've come across this lovely article about the journal Kabinet and the Freud museum called: "Sigmund Freud's Cabinet of Dreams" in St. Petersburg - Heike Wegner (Vienna) and Victor Mazin (St. Petersburg) on the first Russian Freud Museum. Loveliness.

Okay, I've just learned something very cool: tonight the Empire State Building will be lit purple and white in honor of NYU's 2008 graduating class. And guess who that includes. Me. That's completely awesome. Several of my friends, too, of course, I don't mean to be selfish, but tonight the Empire State Building will be lit for us. This is why we come to New York.

preparing

I'm starting to really get excited about going to Petersburg. I got an email from the program today and have read the schedule of events, and am reading about the various places I'm going to go, the people that we'll be talking about. And I've come across this lovely article about the journal Kabinet and the Freud museum called: "Sigmund Freud's Cabinet of Dreams" in St. Petersburg - Heike Wegner (Vienna) and Victor Mazin (St. Petersburg) on the first Russian Freud Museum.
Loveliness.

Iron Man

The other night at work, some of my coworkers were talking about Iron Man - either how good it was or how badly they wanted to see it - and when they asked me if I had seen it yet, I said, "I don't even know what that is." They were horrified, naturally, but I never read comic books, so there is a whole (Marvel) universe out there that I know almost nothing about. I'm okay with that. I don't feel as if I've been missing out.

That being said, the next night I was invited to the movies, and as soon as I said yes, I was informed that I would not have a say in what we saw. That was also fine with me. It was even more fine after the movie because I really enjoyed it. It wasn't all that violent considering the genre, and it was critical of the killing of innocent people, but death is the fastest way to get rid of the bad guy(s), so what can ya do? I also liked the complication of who the good guys and the bad guys were, the ambiguous attitude the audience is supposed to have about the military.

When we were leaving the theater, we were wondering why so many people were staying for the credits (like 60% of the full theater), and of course we found out afterward. (I found the scene online very quickly just now, of course.) I like the idea that they are connecting several movies together, while clearly making a sequel or two. Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr were amazing, and I look forward to their next one.

Scotland pictures, etc.

Whew. It's amazing how exhausted I've been the last few weeks. I feel completely outside of myself, or maybe too far inside myself, like I'm watching myself go about my daily life, wondering how to do things, how to talk to people, trying to keep everything straight. I feel like I've forgotten everything, how to do things, how to speak. I need to be learning a little Russian before my trip (32 days!) but I seem to have lost all of the very little Spanish, French, and German I have spent so much time studying - English is causing me problems. I'm assuming this feeling will go away, this being unable to form sentences. It kind of has to. I'll keep practicing.

So Scotland. Scotland was completely gorgeous. Words can't express (not that I know how to use them right now), and pictures cannot by any stretch of the imagination capture just how jaw-droppingly amazing, awe-inspiring, unbelievable... When I was in England a few years ago, we went to Stonehenge, and driving up to it, it was constructed in such a way that makes it appear even bigger than it already is, and it's so impressive, no matter how many pictures you've seen of it, no matter how many tourists visit it each year, no matter that it's fenced off - it's simply massive and impressive, and you can't help but feel the age of it, how long it's been there before you, how much longer it will last, this sense of history and unknowability. Take that feeling, but remove the human element. Stonehenge was built, nobody knows who by, but it was built. Driving through the highlands of Scotland, these mountains that used to be volcanoes, and lochs, and moorland, I was continuously struck by how old it all felt, you look at these snow-capped mountains and you can see where the melting snow has been cutting deep rifts for more time than I can possibly conceive of, and it's so beautiful, and it was like having the chance to glimpse a process that has nothing to do with me, this earth shaping itself over so many millions of years.

But of course you can't remove the human element, we're all over the place, and we were driving let's not forget, my pictures were taken from lay-bys, I was able to take pictures of this place, there were villages and farms all over, and I am not qualified to say anything about the impact of human activity on those very mountains that I felt existed independent of my regard, so please don't litter, do reduce waste, stop buying things you don't need, buy local seasonal produce, etc.

That being said, spring was everywhere, lambs frolicking in every field, and the weather was fantastic, big fluffy clouds. I'll post a few pictures, but - and I am completely serious about this - go yourself, people. These pictures mean more to me than they ever will to anyone else because I was there. And I'm totally going back.

This first one is a loch on the way to Isle of Skye from St Andrews.

2. near Kiltrock, Isle of Skye (Kiltrock is actually the cliffs in the background)
3. Loch Ness?

4, 5, 6. mountains near Fort William
7. St Andrews
I have a bunch more of St Andrews, mostly at night, so I have a lot of duplicate scenes taken using the various settings of my new camera - some of which are kind of frightening, the light being so completely unnatural. It's really a beautiful town, and yes the golf course is nice, but it's also home to the number four university in the UK, which is why I was there visiting my friend who is studying there.

So next on the agenda is Russia, but first I think I may escape the city once again to go visit the fam. Escape the city? What am I saying? I love this city! And it's a beautiful day to enjoy it. Happy mothers day!

uninvited guests

I think instead of getting caught up, I'm putting myself farther and farther behind, but c'est la vie. I say that because I'm thinking that I still want to put up some pictures from Scotland, and I'd like to say something about going back to my job (which is weird!) and being done with my thesis (which is weirder!), but at the moment I feel the need to explore a rather unusual incident (for me) that occurred today. Keep in mind that I was still in my pajamas and that my pajama pants are patterned in purple martinis.

My roommate and I were chatting over headlines (mocking them) and emails and things, and the doorbell rang, but very quietly, so I asked if it had rung and then, after a moment or two, decided I should probably see if anyone was actually at the door because it might be a package or something. It was not. I open the door and a woman peaks around the corner and says, "Oh, I thought you weren't home," as if we're old friends, and she says something about the "problems" with gas and food lately, rice in particular, adding that we hear a lot of back and forth, and what are we to make of this, and finally she asks "what do you think the solution is?"

Here we pause for a moment.

"I have no idea," I say.

Another pause. Somehow my response has caught her off guard.

She then pulls a book from her side, unzips it, and tells me she is turning to Jeremiah, which she seems to do, and reads a verse or two, I'm not sure really, I had already stopped listening, I would rather read than be read to, and she concludes that the answer to the "problems" has been here all along, that the "problems" originated in people's independence from "God." People can't end war, she said, because people caused war and are trying to end it without God's help, she said. I smiled. "I'd like to give you a pamphlet," she says, opening her bag. "No, thank you," I say, adding a sincere "have a nice day," because I genuinely hope she does, and that she does so away from my front door. How did she get inside the building, I wonder.

I have several responses to this. I'll try to be brief. I have other things to do, after all. In no particular order: 1. wars are often grounded in religion; 2. I live in Brooklyn and don't drive; 3. I am well enough off that rising food prices affect me very, very little; 4. the ambiguity of language is such that her description of the political climate was even more nonsensical than the debate surrounding the issues itself; and 5. what was the goal of this visit?

Where do I begin? Considering time constraints, I'm just for the moment going to say that, as I sit here in my mass-produced, name brand loungewear, drinking my coffee with organic evaporated cane juice, typing on my brand new laptop which is connected to cheap and secure wireless internet, preparing to get ready for my job at a high-end restaurant in midtown Manhattan, which I will get to via safe and reliable public transportation, and after which I will have more cash in my pocket than a substantial percentage of the earth's population are paid in a month, and having recently completed a master's degree in humanities at a private university, I find it completely absurd that this woman comes to my door on a Monday afternoon to tell me that the answer to these problems with gas and rice - which have very little bearing on my day-to-day life because I live in an affluent area of the world - is and has been readily apparent if only I would read it on what I can only imagine to be completely disposable, nonrecycled, single sheet of trifolded paper with hokey illustrations and quotes suited for the interpretation the compiler wishes to invoke. No, thanks.

How about, instead, perhaps, we face up to the contradiction of a religion that simultaneously advocates tolerance of others and war against those dissimilar from ourselves, one that claims to be welcoming and is at the same time exclusionary (I have yet to find a religion that does not do these things). How about we realize that none of these concepts are inextricably linked, that belief in any one religious system does not end war or hunger, and that not subscribing to an organized religion does not necessarily create war or hunger, nor does it prevent the eradication of war or hunger. The solution to "the gas problem," Madam, cannot be found in your book for the simple reason that gasoline has only been manufactured for a little longer than a century and the passage you are reading was written over two millennia ago. The book of Jeremiah most certainly does not anticipate the modern dependence on a limited supply of combustible material that fuels SUVs, the trucks and other means of shipping mass produced luxury goods from one part of the world to another, and wars far enough away from us that we don't have to think about them every second of every day because they are not on our doorstep - you are. So, no, thank you, I do not want your pamphlet, and I will not agree with you, whatever it was that you were saying, because I will be reading and thinking for myself today, as usual, thank you very much.

taking a break

One of these days I will have enough energy to get this thing back up and running, but at the moment I'm completely exhausted. I don't know if it's the jetlag, or a thesis hangover - it's certainly not a real hangover, I was in bed by 12:30 last night - but I feel like I could sleep for a year. But there are so many things to do! I have mental energy and no physical energy. What's up with that?

Maybe it's the weather. What happened to spring?

One of these days I will get caught up. Right?

that

totally just hit me right now. I'm going to Scotland -- today! I will be there in like 16 hours!! I'm excited. Last night I wasn't really, for no particular reason, but today I totally am. Maybe because, before, everyone else was excited, so I didn't have to be, or something like that, but now? Now I'm definitely excited. And must go get ready. I still haven't packed! Okay, really, I haven't finished packing. I don't have that much else to do.

Packing for a week is so easy. Especially when you're going somewhere that is so similar to where you live. Every time I travel, I feel like I learn (the hard way) what exactly I didn't need to take with me. (I'm typing this to remind myself.) Here are some really great backpacking resources:

backpackeurope.com - this site just keeps getting better and better. I've been visiting it every now and then for years.

lonelyplanet.com - indispensable and fun to read.

Of course, this trip barely counts as backpacking. I think the only thing that does it is that I'm taking my backpack. Updates to follow. Promise!!

wow

I have been slacking on the blog this week. I've been cutting loose. Here's the rundown:

Monday night I went to Cafeteria in Chelsea with a friend and then we met a bunch of people we know at Whiskey Town in the east village because we just found out our friend spins there Monday nights (which means I will probably be there this coming Monday as well).

Tuesday I went and picked up the new Vonnegut, Armageddon in Retrospect, which is simply amazing, of course, and then I read in Central Park until it started to get chilly. And then I bought a bunch more books, including Meet Me in the Moon Room by Ray Vukcevich, which was one of those books that I randomly picked up because the cover is cool, flipped to the middle of, read the first few words of a story (in this case, "My Mustache"), and immediately had to take home with me. It's incredible. If you like surrealism and/or surprising and surprisingly good fiction, go read it immediately. I will be reading it again as soon as I pass it to the three friends I told simply must read it now. Then my friend and I went to dinner at Curly's on 14th st by Second Ave, which was vegetarian yumminess (I had plantain chimichangas), and we got to sample a slice of spinach alfredo pizza from the new place next door, Artichoke, and it was the best pizza I've had in a while - not in a New York City slice kind of way, but in a yummy things baked onto dough kind of way. Very good.

Wednesday I turned in the final copy of my thesis (woohoo!), which my adviser had already signed off on, and then I met my roommate for a free screening of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. When I saw the trailer for it, I thought it looked funny but that I would probably not like the actual movie, but wow, it was really funny. I want to see it again in a room where I can rewind it a little if I'm laughing too hard to hear the next line, which happened a lot in the very crowded theater. Totally predictable plot, but that's not why we go. Then my roommate and I went to Via Della Pace on E 7th St, where I had the lobster ravioli in pink vodka sauce and a glass of sangiovese, and we split the bruschetta sampler and for dessert the white chocolate profiteroles, which were as amazing as they sound.

Thursday I spent the afternoon in Central Park (again!) with friends, some of whom also finished their theses this week, where we played Scrabble, and then we went to my favorite sushi restaurant in the city, Sushi Park (aka May's Place) on Second Ave just north of 7th St, and then to Yaffa for some more Scrabble. Their rioja and tiramisu were both delicious.

Friday I hopped on a train to Harrisburg, where I am spending the weekend. My grandmother turned 90 yesterday, and we had a big party for her, like 50 people, it was really pretty fantastic. I wish my sis and nephew (and her husband, of course) could have been there, but I'm sure I'll get down to see them soon. I certainly got to see lots of pictures, and I got to meet my cousin's new baby, who was born the day before my nephew - the first two great-grandchildren born the same week! How wild is that? And tomorrow I go home for a little less than 48 hours, and then I board a plane to Scotland. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. But I wouldn't change anything for the world. Am having a blast!

I guess

I should not neglect my blog two days in a row, it could lead to falling out of the habit, and I don't want to do that. Even if

I FINISHED MY THESIS!!!

Now I just have to wait until they tell me whether or not it's approved. I can't imagine that it won't be, but maybe it really does just plain suck. Except that I know it doesn't. It's not the best that I'm capable of now, but it's the best thing I've ever done, if that makes sense. It's not horrible, but I know it could be so much better. But, evidently, it's as good as I could make it right now, and that's totally fine with me. (Which means it's not.)

So to celebrate, last night I went to dinner with two of my friends, who also just finished their theses, yea for them, at Fada, this little French bistro in Williamsburg, and then we went a few doors down to the Abbey, which was rather fun.

Omgomgomg!!! I just got an email from my adviser, and she said my "essay is wonderful"!!!!! I have to correct some typos and formatting things and take her a final copy on Wednesday morning, but this means I'm totally done!

And now I'm going to dinner and then out on the town.

I --

have just realized that this has been one of the most bizarre weeks of my adult life. I have not had a drink since Monday, and then only two. I have not been to Manhattan, even on the subway - even out of my neighborhood! - since last Friday. I haven't seen my honey since Friday. I've barely spoken to my friends and family (for weeks). I haven't seen anyone I know except my roommate in seven whole days! I feel like I'm on house arrest. I feel like I'm on house arrest and my sentence has just been extended. It's just one more day. And if I stay up all night and get this thing done by morning, I will be able to get plenty of sleep in time to celebrate tomorrow night. And if i don't, if I'm sleeping instead of carousing, that will be fine too. Either way, this thing is happening.

Update: (I've been really lazy about starting new posts this week, haven't I? 15 posts in 11 days is plenty.) 3:19am - At 1, I decided that to set the wheels in motion I would input all of my "disjointed drafts" into a full draft with that which I had already polished so that I could essentially concentrate on polishing one document instead of rearranging, cutting and pasting, etc. Well, as a result I have a total of 85 pages including title page and bibliography. Um. I only need 50. Which means I have a lot of trimming to do, and the Cat's Cradle section is in dire need of attention (which means I'm putting it off), but I certainly don't have to worry about length. I already decided to reduce my discussion of the connection between med and ice-nine to a footnote, and I'm going to have to omit my analysis of what Jonah says constitutes his karass, but it's for the best. I need to keep in mind that my main focus is memory and writing - not things we can look at in an analysis of memory and writing. Which would be everything. Anyhoo, I'm up to page 20 and not looking back. Time for a snack. And maybe some coffee. It's not like it's past my bedtime... Monday I'm going back to being only moderately nocturnal, I swear. If I wasn't writing, I would go to bed right now, but I am so I'm making coffee. Almost there.

I do know

that this is it. I also know that I will not have it perfect on time. I also know that if I didn't have a deadline in 8 hours and 18 minutes, I wouldn't have it where it's going to be by then, either. I really want to sleep, but it will just have to wait. I have some oj. Some coffee. A cat who is being rambunctious because he's attention starved...

Here's the plan: I'm going to work for three more hours - one hour on each section. I will then get ready and head into the city because that is where the free printing is and a shower will refresh me. The train ride, however, will most likely counteract that one, but I'll do my best. I may need lunch by then... How weird is it that I just used the word lunch to describe a meal around noon? I've been having breakfast at 4pm lately, what can I say?

Part of me wants to email my adviser and ask her if I can give her this thing Monday at 8am, but a much larger part of me knows I can pull this off and I don't want to have to look at this thing anymore, so I'm going to get it done. I finished my conclusion this morning, and I have things sort of organized (I have enough to write a book on this shit, I swear to god), and just need to prune and polish more than anything. That's the part that takes forever. Luckily, I don't have forever. You know how fish grow to fit the size of their tank? That's how I am with deadlines: I'll work until the last minute every time. This is the last time for a while though. Wow, my next real writing deadline will be my PhD apps in the fall. Other than the stories I write for the lit seminar in St Petersburg, Russia (Russia!), but that won't be nearly as stressful. It's been so long since I've written a story. After I wake up from sleeping the next few days...

8 hours left. 24 pages. Halfway there.

Update: I decided to ask my adviser if I could have another day because my brain was starting to ache from lack of sleep, so we're not done yet, but it means it'll be better than anything I would have turned in today. I feel bad. I know she's not happy and that I really didn't give her a choice, I mean what was she going to say? No, give me your not-quite-good-enough version?

So now I've gotten some sleep, and even though I have absolutely no desire to look at this thing anymore and was mentally prepared to have done with it by now, I'm going to keep plugging away and make it perfect like I said I would. (34 pages)

how awesome

are my friends? That's a rhetorical question. There is only one possible answer: very. As B put it, "Home stretch, baby!" This is it. I also took a well-deserved (though rather short at 4 1/2 hrs or so) nap and got a spot-on pep talk from overseas, so here we go.

Things to remember today:
1. I am not writing my PhD dissertation.
2. I have a 38-page draft that needed mostly quotes inserted, quotes expanded, or transitional statements.
3. I am not starting from scratch.
4. I have less than 24 hours.
5. This is plenty of time.

6:39pm - Two and a half hours later, and I have completely rearranged the PF section so that it is in the order I want it, but I haven't been as successful at paring down as I need to be. I think I discarded two or three paragraphs and a footnote. Time for a quick break and then on to the other two sections.

11:19pm - Let's not even talk about it. I've decided that tracking my progress has become counterproductive and is only making me more aware of my impending doom - I mean, deadline.

One day, we will laugh about this. Hopefully tomorrow, but probably not.

this is

going to be tedious, perhaps, but I want to keep track of my progress because I'm running out of time. Will this make me more or less stressed out? I don't know, we'll see. As of this moment, I have just under 45 hours until I turn this thing in, which has to include train time, printing time, and other necessities. I thought about switching back and forth between sections, an hour each in a rotation, but I don't want to mess up whatever flow I might get into, so we'll see.

5pm-7:30pm - I have the first four pages of the Pale Fire section how I want them. This might seem redundant because I had the first four pages of PF how I wanted them the other day, but I've rearranged a lot since then, so it needed some polishing. Cumulative page count: 14/50

10pm - Another cup of coffee, two pages of Cat's Cradle. Not horrific, but not fabulous. 43 hrs. 16/50 pages.

4am - wow, that's been six hours? There may have been a bit of a break in there, but I needed it. And I've been really focused (read: nit-picky) for at least the last hour and a half, getting the opening of the Castle section how I want it, and I think it's good to go, so there's another three pages. Which puts us at: 37 hrs. 19/50

Okay, I needed a snack, so I decided to peruse the NYTimes, and found this little fluff piece that totally made me chuckle. (Better than freaking out, right?) One tasty quote: "human beings are unconsciously drawn to people and things that remind us of ourselves." And then, what did I think of? I totally dated a guy who had the same initials as my mother for a minute. Trippy.

8:45am - At the suggestion of my wise friend across the pond, I'm going for a little walk. I also needed her to remind me that I am not writing a dissertation, which she did without asking. She read those 19 pages. She knows. I know what I need to do, I just need to do it. I'm making this way harder than it is. I should be cutting, not adding. I have over 100 pages of material. I can make this thing so tight in the next 24 hours. I can. I just need to do it.

What was I thinking?

I'm very quickly running out of time, so I was thinking about not blogging today, but I'm eating dinner, so it's better to blog than to watch another episode of Weeds (seriously. addicted), and I purposely didn't do the little things I do to start my day - like read the comics (Get Fuzzy is essential) and at the very least the headlines on the New York Times - so that I would have little things to distract myself with when I needed a moment away from my thesis. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to run into the city (even for groceries) or anywhere else that will keep me from my laptop for more than a few minutes, but fortunately, in 67 hours, I will be on my way to a bar with my friend (who is turning his in at the same time) and I will finally be able to breathe.

Man, I need a cigarette.

I don't usually think that, if I think anything I think, a cigarette would be nice right now, and not that I'm advocating smoking, it's horribly unhealthy and kind of gross, but I'm not quitting while I'm stressed out, that would just be silly. (Remember that op-ed I linked to about stretching one's willpower too thin?) (I'm putting a lot of thought into that article for someone who didn't really think it was that good. If anything the message we should take away from it is that willpower can be improved with practice, not what I'm projecting about not trying too hard. That's me cutting myself a little slack and making it look like I'm cutting myself a lot of slack...)

Anyway, back to it. Right now I have... well, I have everything spread out all over the place, so I have more and less than I think I do, but I have my introduction pretty nailed down (for better or worse), and a good first four pages for the Pale Fire section and a good first paragraph for Cat's Cradle. First paragraphs are very important, and very difficult. And I'm not good at deciding on the order of points I want to make, but it's getting there. More coffee and I'll be good to go.

Update: Um. Weirdness. This article in the Washington Post is a year old, yes, but still pertinent, perhaps. I mean, the guy is running for president and has a good chance of winning. (Here's hoping anyway.) Interestingly, the speech linked to has moved to here, but I'm marking this one to read for later, and there's one from the year in between here. Okay, back to work. 65 hours.

Update #2: It is now 7:25am. I would just post a new blog, but I'm too lazy to come up with a clever title. Tired. I'm too tired to come up with a clever title. I'm too lazy to rewrite what I've just written. I think having worked for most of the last 16 hours makes up for it. Am I going to be done by 5pm Friday? Absolutely.

I went to bed yesterday about this time and couldn't get to sleep because the rest of Brooklyn was waking up - including the person who lives above me and my loft bed, which is mere feet from my floor/their ceiling and their footsteps. So perhaps I will eke out another 30 minutes or so. A moment ago I was feeling wide awake, and now that it's getting even lighter, I just would rather be getting up now than going to sleep, but it's impossible for me to turn my brain off. That and I had a cup of coffee at like 4am, so there's that.

Just a nap, I like to tell myself. Maybe I'll get up at 9. No. Probably not. Maybe I'll just stay up until I can't keep my eyes open any more. But who can think without adequate sleep? No one. Que duermas con los angelitos.

I've written

quite a bit in the last 12 hours, and I thought it was time for a well-deserved snack, so I whipped up a little Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, which is delicious, but I bought these multigrain tortilla chips at the deli this evening, and they're a little overpowering. I think it's the corn. I recommend good old fashioned pita squares if you try this one at home. I'm not a measurer, but I know I used about half the lemon juice called for (because I thought the hummus I made on St Pat's was really lemony, remember?) and probably more than 1/2 cup of roasted red pepper, lots of sea salt, and some white pepper. Pretty darn good.

Also, I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into, but I now have over 11k words for Cat's Cradle. I also have a lot of it organized (and will probably have it in some semblance of an order in the next few hours), so tomorrow will be whittling it away, doing the same for Castle, and keeping at it. 3 and 1/2 days. 84 hours and I have to be on that train, if not off of it, and on my way to the office. And then I'm going to have the biggest celebratory dinner and drinks. I need to start recruiting people...

so many

other things I want to be doing as well, but time is running very short, so here's some more items I'll just have to read later:

Olympic Torch Run in Paris Halted as Protests Spread

How to Spark an Energy Quest

Chauffeur and Paparazzi Blamed in Diana's Death

In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined - about the rise in Philosophy majors, which I am all for. If I knew then what I know now, I would have taken a third minor at the very least.

French Theory in America - I like this trend today! The two of the top ten emailed articles at the moment are about Thought, for goodness sake.

That's enough for now. I'm really starting to freak about this thesis, but I can totally do this. I have not waited to the last minute, even though I could not turn it in right now of course. I have been working extremely hard on this thing, ridiculously long hours many days, I have the material, I just have to organize it and make it all bright and shiny. I can do that. First on today's agenda: continue organizing the material I have for Cat's Cradle, which at the moment totals 7700 words, which is more than enough - too much! in fact. Then I will do the same for Castle, which I have over 12,000 words for, and then Pale Fire, with 10k words, the first 1300 of which are quite lovely. Today is about organizing and trimming - getting rid of that which we don't need. Deep breaths. Lots of caffeine.

And the White Album. (This montage is making me hungry...)

Update: Kurt Vonnegut joke:
"One of his favorite jokes was about a guy who was smuggling wheelbarrows. Every day for years and years, a customs agent would carefully search through this guy's wheelbarrow.
Finally, when he was about to retire, the customs agent asked the guy, "We've become friends. I've searched your wheelbarrow every day for many years. What is it you're smuggling?"
"My friend, I am smuggling wheelbarrows."
--from Mark Vonnegut's Introduction to the newly released collection of heretofore unpublished short stories by his late father, entitled Armageddon in Retrospect, which I will be purchasing as soon as I turn in my thesis.

great sentences that I

am running across today:

"My soul seemed as foul as smoke from burning cat fur." - Cat's Cradle, 27. (Seemed to whom?) It's a horribly evocative image, but it's also very complicated in terms of assonance and alliteration, which makes it kind of spectacular.

(I have to interject here that I'm listening to the Cure today, and it's got me in such a fantastic mood!)

And check this out: Up Front, about Liz Phair. (I'm trying to verify a citation, I swear.)

"All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental." - Vonnegut. Fucking genius. I was doing a search to check if there was a misprint in Cat's Cradle, and came across this list from shortly after his death, which was almost a year ago, as my roommate reminded me tonight. Incidentally, there is not a misprint where I was sort of expecting, and now I don't know what to do with this. In the chapter on the nihilist who destroys his apartment and murders his cat, he writes, "I have not seen Krebbs since. Nonetheless, I sense that he was my karass" (59). Um. A karass is a team. Krebbs was the team? ...

great sentences that I

am running across today:

"My soul seemed as foul as smoke from burning cat fur." - Cat's Cradle, 27. (Seemed to whom?) It's a horribly evocative image, but it's also very complicated in terms of assonance and alliteration, which makes it kind of spectacular.

(I'm listening to the Cure today, and it's got me in such a fantastic mood!)

thought about

not blogging today, but it's habit-forming. Or a habit. Or... hm.

Postsecret was fantastic as always. I've recently become addicted to the Showtime series Weeds (I've only watched the first three episodes). And what's up with potentially removing checks and balances? It's a crazy world.

I'm officially panicking about this thesis, which is sort of good and sort of bad. It means I'm sitting in front of my laptop for hours on end (yesterday I got up at 9:30am, took an hour nap at 1:30, other breaks, and went to bed at 5am, which is approximately 15 hours of staring at this screen - I'm officially planning on taking all kinds of crazy vacations, mental and international, when this is over), and I'm not allowing myself to go out because I would just be thinking about the fact that I should be working and not having fun (the ambiguity in that clause has been retained for ambiguity's sake), but I'm also experiencing periods of near-paralysis, which is not good. I think I checked my myspace page 10 times yesterday. Not because I give a rat's ass, but because I need some sort of brainless distraction and I'm beginning to think there is no such thing. And I don't really want to not think anyway, so seeking out something brainless is counterproductive, essentially. I'm rambling because I need to get to work. The world can wait. Five days, 23 minutes til turn-in time...

saving them

yesterday was a good idea for a number of reasons, but one was that it made me recall yesterday's headlines today as I glance at the New York Times, and the same stories are on top but the headlines are altered (and the articles themselves are different, obviously). Check it out:

Clintons Made $109 Million in Last 8 Years - as opposed to yesterday's front page: Clintons Income Topped $109 Million... which is not what the title on the actual article yesterday read either, which was Clintons Say They Earned $109 Million Since 2000.

And then there's: Democrats Call for New Aid Package as 80,000 Jobs Are Cut, a remarkably more intelligent title than yesterday's Unemployment Rate Rises After 80,000 Jobs Cut.

One has to wonder at the implications of today's headlines being more accurate and less ambiguous than yesterday's. Is it a Friday/Saturday thing?

Also, what's up with clubbing seals? Stop it! Send an email to Canada's Minister of International Trade David Emerson here. And thank you to the Humane Society for all that you do.

Oh, and remember that yummy Irish Beer Bread I made for St. Patrick's Day? Picture that, fresh from the oven, smeared with cream cheese. Wait, let me take a bite... Okay, saying anything further would just be bragging. I had to make two batches, though (horror of horrors!) because I bought the big bottle of Guiness and it's a bit early in the morning to drink the remaining 11 ounces. Now, if it was summer and/or I wasn't trying to finish a thesis, absolutely. But then again, if it was summer I probably wouldn't be baking.

On to thesis matters: I did in fact cut and paste for exactly 60 minutes. And then my doorbell rang (doorbuzzer buzzed, actually) and I spent the rest of the evening entertaining. It was the perfect break. Great surprise. Exactly what I wanted. But if I'm going to have this monster ready to email overseas this evening (especially if I want to get it some-semblance-of-done in time to go to my friend's gig - I don't even know what time it starts or where it is), I need to get cracking.

Update: Omg, there's an article by Liz Phair! I've been listening to her since I was 16, and just love her - despite her decidedly poppier recent stuff (also, I have not listened to Somebody's Miracle, I have to admit, just haven't gotten around to it). Frontman is a book review of Dean Wareham's Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance. I really want to read it (the article, I don't know about the book yet), but I am going to have to wait until later because I have finished my breakfast, and that was the time I allotted for perusing the paper.