The Toe Blog

Fudge cake and Japanese aesthetics

2010-11-27T10:50:00.000-08:00

I baked a tunnel-of-fudge cake with a chocolate glaze for Thanksgiving. I am proud of this cake because it looks not unlike the tunnel-of-fudge cake in the photo in the cooking magazine. Often things I make do not resemble the prototype. The fact that this one does makes the lights go on inside of me. It makes me feel free and happy, like I do when I am holding a French bulldog puppy.

I struggle with making things look like the example. Days after a new haircut I can't get my hair to look anything like it did in the salon. I fuss with it in front of the mirror endlessly and it still just looks like ... my hair. After I buy new clothes and try them on at home it seems they look nothing on me like they did on the model, even if I am roughly the same weight and height. If I try to paint my nails at home instead of paying a professional to do it for me -- the results are embarrassing. My baked confections are often slightly misshapen and awkwardly slathered with frosting, icing, or glaze. But they taste good. Even when I write something it isn't anything like the ideal in my head that I started with. I feel like there's the world, filled with other people's gorgeous hairstyles, beautifully iced black-and-white cookies, and exactly shellacked nails. And then there's the world inside me. The things I am able to manifest tend to look ... not like the model. But maybe that's OK.

I was very happy with the way the tunnel-of-fudge cake looked, but I didn't like the way it tasted. It could have been a timing issue. Because I made it for Thanksgiving dinner, I prepared it hours before it was eaten. Technically we should have eaten it just after the glaze hardened, which we didn't because we were, at that time, overstuffed with turkey, cranberry-horseradish relish, and wine. After tasting it I wasn't convinced the tunnel-of-fudge inside of the cake formed exactly as it should. And the cake itself seemed dry. I felt disappointed.

I also made a pumpkin pie. It was one of my visual catastrophes. The crust was slightly burnt, it receded around the edges, and generally looked like a horror story. But it tasted fantastic. The surface of the pie was marred with blemishes which I tried to remedy by smoothing the top with whipped cream sweetened with confectioners sugar, but the cream looked messy and peculiar piled atop the pie. It reminded me of when I would cover up my acne-ridden face with CoverGirl concealer in Junior High school, accidentally creating a greater visual defect than what I began with. But, to me, my pie tastes exactly like a pumpkin pie should. The texture combination of filling and whipped cream, the flavor of pumpkin, the flaky quotient of the crust. The way it tastes and feels in my mouth is exactly what I had hoped for. The day after Thanksgiving, my misshapen pumpkin pie was all I wanted to eat.

I think I am better at creating things on the inside. I am good with words. I understand people's feelings and people tend to ask me to help them sort theirs out. I am good with making food taste, words sound, and people feel a certain way. I am not good with glazes, the way things shine on the surface, or ensuring that a belt cinches around the waist just the way that it should.

But maybe that's OK too. There's something about my strange, misshapen pies that attracts me. Like a French bulldog. French bulldogs are peculiar looking, but they are wonderful in their peculiarity.

This reminds me of wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic that is rooted in the idea of transience and imperfect beauty. Wabi-sabi sees beauty in that which is flawed and authentic. One Japanese phrase for describing wabi-sabi is natsukashii furusato, or "an old memory of my hometown."

Daisetz T. Suzuki, a scholar of Zen Buddhism, described wabi-sabi as "an active aesthetical appreciation of poverty.... Wabi is to be satisfied with a little hut, a room of two or three tatami mats, like the log cabin of Thoreau," he wrote, "and with a dish of vegetables picked in the neighboring fields, and perhaps to be listening to the pattering of a gentle spring rainfall." Wabi stems from the root wa which refers to harmony, peace, and balance and has come to describe someone who is simple, non-materialistic, and in tune with nature. Do I know anyone like that? "Someone who is perfectly herself and never craves to be anything else would be described as wabi." (http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm).

Sabi means "the bloom of time" and speaks to the way "things carry the burden of their years with dignity and grace: the chilly mottled surface of an oxidized silver bowl, the yielding gray of weathered wood..... An old car left in a field to rust, as it transforms from an eyesore into a part of the landscape, could be considered America's contribution to the evolution of sabi. An abandoned barn, as it collapses in on itself, holds this mystique." (http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm).

So, together, wabi-sabi speaks to transient, imperfect beauty, that which embraces asymmetry, asperity, modesty, intimacy. "If an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi).

From an engineering or design perspective, wabi may be interpreted as the imperfect quality of any object, due to inevitable limitations in design and construction. Sabi could be interpreted as the aspect of limited mortality of any object. In a Japanese tea ceremony, tea bowls may be rustic and simple-looking, with not-quite-symmetrical shapes, and colors or textures that emphasize an unrefined style. In reality, these items may hide signs of excellent design and they deliberately contain nicks or chipped places from overuse.

There is a part of me that likes my misshapen baked goods for their honesty and authenticity. There is something about my lopsided pies that seems truthful. Like the pie is telling the truth about who made it. But I will always try to create a pie that resembles the beautiful model in the photo. And when I do, I feel like I've touched something, like I've reached something almost sacred. I don't know if I'll ever stop reaching for that and I don't know that I want to. But more than flawless pies, I want to be "someone who is perfectly herself and never craves to be anything else." When I bake something imperfect and allow its imperfections sometimes I feel like I'm getting closer to being that person. When I cinch a belt around my waist and allow the things I manifest to be as they are, and in my acceptance of their imperfections I allow myself to see them as beautiful, I feel like I'm getting a little closer to being the person that I want to be and perhaps already am. Wabi-sabi and my tunnel-of-fudge cake remind me of that.

images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/span112/2355403013/sizes/o/in/photostream/; http://www.flickr.com/photos/moriza/2114612508/in/photostream/; http://zdw.posterous.com/?page=3; http://frenchbulldog.hrastro.com/#photogallery_me

Gratitude

2010-10-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

This past June, I received my MFA in creative writing, something I have dreamed of accomplishing for most of my life. But by the time I graduated, as it turned out, my plan for what I might do next disintegrated and I was left with a flimsy Plan B. I knew that I didn't want to go on for more education and that I wanted to return to work. I flew out to the Bay Area for a job interview and stayed with friends. I didn't get the job, and then I didn't get the next job, nor the next. I had no idea how much the Great Recession would impact me. I had hoped that I might have an easier time than others. I didn't. My father was a diplomat and I was raised in an affluent suburb in Northern Virginia. I spent my early 20s zipping around the globe on the government's dime. For much of my life I have felt protected. Suddenly, I wasn't. My father is now deceased, my mother is 72, and I was older, unemployed, with no place to live. Inside I was a rope of fear. My good friends provided me with a place to stay for four months. I lived on dwindling student loan funds. My friends gave me a room, space in their home and in more ways than I could keep track of rearranged their lives to support my every need as I made my way through this tricky passage. I felt like I had few options. It was pretty much either stay with my friends or move into my mother's apartment in her Washington D.C.-area retirement community. Jobs in California were scarce and I wasn't having great luck in other areas where I sent out resume after resume. Through a miracle of cosmic energy I finally landed an amazing job and every day I feel so grateful. I just got an apartment and I am living in the city that I love. But I wouldn't have had any of these opportunities without my good friends who opened their home to me for several months. I don't know how I can repay them, and they insist that I don't need to do anything. But this job, this life, none of this would have been possible without their friendship, support, and unyielding kindness. Everything I have right now, it feels, I have because of what they did for me. I talked to my mom about it and she told me about an older friend of hers who lived in London after World War II. She doesn't remember what her exact situation was, but a woman gave the friend room and board for months during the friend's time in London. The woman cared for her in countless ways. When the friend got on her feet and was able to leave London she said to the woman, "How can I ever repay you?" The woman smiled and said, "You can't repay me. Just pass it on." I like that idea. Because there are things that you can never pay back. But you are left with an overwhelming feeling and maybe the best thing to do is pay it forward. Like the Menlo Park, California, story about this woman who paid the $207 grocery bill of the woman in line ahead of her at Trader Joes when that woman frantically discovered she had lost her wallet. The woman who lost the wallet later mailed the other woman a check for $300 to thank her for helping her out. That woman asked her Facebook friends what she should do with the extra $93 she had been given and it was suggested that she donate it to a food charity. Facebook friends started matching the $93 with their own funds and the $93,000 club on Facebook emerged, with the goal of raising $93,000. One year later they have almost reached their goal and they will donate it to a local food bank. I love that story and the idea of taking an act of kindness and blowing up into something much larger. Maybe I need to do the same thing. I can be a friend to my friends who helped me. But maybe I can blow it up into something larger within myself and reach out to other people who could use my help. I think it can be an opportunity to become a more generous person.

Reasons

2010-09-10T17:38:00.000-07:00

Here are some reasons why I like the San Francisco Bay Area.

Images: http://zdw.posterous.com/

Kindness

2010-08-15T23:16:00.000-07:00

image: http://theangrytherapist.tumblr.com/

Japanese confections

2010-08-09T23:44:00.000-07:00

I have decided to transform myself into an expert on Japanese sweets. Yesterday I ate this:

This is called a Kuri Manju, which is a baked or steamed cake filled with sweet white bean paste and chopped chestnuts. Then, today, I ate a variation on this confectionary theme:

This is called a Yokan, a thick jellied item made of agar agar, bean paste, sugar, and, in certain cases, additional ingredients like fruit paste, figs, or sweet potato. The one I had today was light green and shaped like a flower.

I find these confectionary traditions WILDLY FASCINATING.

Apparently these items are traditional sweets that emerged out of ancient Japan called Wagashi, and are often served with tea. They typically involve bean paste, fruits, and other plant-based items. They typically don't involve milk, cream, or extreme amounts of eggs -- hallmark ingredients of Western desserts. According to Wikipedia, way back in 1349, Zen priest Rin Join pioneered steamed dumplings filled with honeysuckle syrup-sweetened azuki bean paste. So, wagashi is super ancient.

I think what most interests me about these items, aside from just eating them because they are fantastic, is the fact that they significantly involve plants. The Kuri Manju I ate yesterday wasn't all about chestnuts, but it did contain chestnuts and as I tasted it I felt that the chestnuts were important -- an intrinsic aspect of the thing I was eating. I could feel the chestnut-ness in the Kuri Manju and then inside of myself. Most of these desserts rely on bean paste, which, to a Western palate, is peculiar. Obviously plenty of Western desserts I am familiar with can involve fruit or nuts, but generally, when it comes to the American desserts I grew up around (desserts were forbidden in my home because my parents were health food Nazis, but I found ways to access sweets through friends) they essentially constituted their own food group. I don't think of a brownie, or a white chocolate and marscarpone cream cake, as originating in nature. A brownie is its own entity. It belongs to itself and no other. It does not exist in the natural world. It did not originate in some other form. It is extraordinary in its extremity and power. It assaults me with pleasure. It is alien and sublime. The same goes for coconut meringue pie. And even though, say, a blackberry crumb bar with cream cheese drizzle involves blackberries, it transcends them. It doesn't belong to the fruit and has become itself -- a dessert.

In this case, a dessert wrapped in tissue and a pink bow. But even without these accouterments, it doesn't resemble anything that could grow on a tree. And, to me, that's what is so great about it. A blackberry crumb bar can transport you into a strange, imaginary sugar world of inexpressible flavor. It can come at you, to steal from Stephen King (who was describing short stories and not sweets), "full-bore, like a big hot meteor screaming down from the Kansas sky." A blackberry crumb bar can do that to you. The same could be said for churros with cinnamon chocolate orange sauce.

There's no way these churros aren't going to change your life, or at least knock you unconscious.

But the Japanese sweets I am discovering are something else entirely. And frankly, Japanese confections make these more overwhelming desserts seem kind of obnoxious and heavy-handed. Like an annoying St. Bernard whose paws are wet and gross. The Kuri Manju and Yokan are more subtle, but no less imaginative, I would say. The Yokan I ate today was this oddly shaped, green jellied thing but as I ate it I tasted thick agar agar, bean paste, and light citrus and these flavors mingled together in ways that I couldn't possibly have anticipated. It wasn't especially sweet, but at the same time it was thrilling. The fact that these Japanese sweets are made from recognizable foods yet are also shaped in unusual patterns and involve surprising textures renders them both other-wordly and also rooted in nature. They make me feel heavy and light. I like the way it feels to eat them. I like the place inside myself it takes me into.

Milan Kundera has a quote about heaviness and lightness that has absolutely nothing to do with a Japanese jellied confection involving bean paste, but it actually reminds me of why it feels so good to eat one:

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?

images:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bonobonochan/3936507537/
http://pixie-baker.blogspot.com/2010/07/blackberry-crumb-bars.html
http://2besatisfied.blogspot.com/2010/07/churros-with-cinnamon-orange-dipping.html
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/22/33614370_66a08aab8e.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/yama/33614370

The future

2010-08-07T00:10:00.000-07:00

"People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past."

-- Milan Kundera

Image: http://www.zoecrosher.com/

2010-07-24T22:49:00.000-07:00

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.

-- Franz Kafka

Muffins and melancholy

2010-07-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

My best friend sent me this fantastic reverie about indigestion and melancholic fancies titled "On Eating and Drinking," written by Jerome K. Jerome, a 19th-century English writer and humorist, who I had never heard of. According to Wikipedia, Jerome K. Jerome grew up in poverty, worked at the London and Northwestern Railway collecting coal that fell along the railway, then joined a penniless acting troupe, tried his hand at journalism and failed, worked as a school teacher, a packer, and solicitor's clerk, before publishing a comic memoir of his experiences with the acting troupe and then publishing another collection of humorous essays called Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. He then published the novel Three Men in a Boat which was a smash hit selling a million copies worldwide. The novel's financial success allowed Jerome to devote all his time to writing, although he never recaptured the success of Three Men in a Boat. He was also chosen to edit The Idler, over Rudyard Kipling, and later founded the publication To-Day. His biography, for various reasons, fills me with hope. Anyway here is what Jerome K. Jerome has to say about muffins and melancholy:

I always feel sentimental myself after dinner. It is the only time I can properly appreciate love stories. Then, when the hero clasps her to his heart in one last wild embrace, and stifles a sob, I feel sad as though I had dealt at whist and turned up only a deuce; and, when the heroine dies in the end, I weep. If I read the same tale early in the morning, I should sneer at it. Digestion, or rather indigestion, has a marvelous effect on the heart. If I want to write anything very pathetic -- I mean if I want to try and write anything very pathetic -- I eat a large plateful of hot buttered muffins about an hour beforehand, and then, by the time I sit down to my work, a feeling of unutterable melancholy has come over me. I picture heartbroken lovers parting forever at lonely wayside stiles, while the sad twilight deepens around them, and only the tinkling of a distant sheep bell breaks the sorrow-laden silence. Old men sit and gaze at withered flowers till their sight is dimmed by the mist of tears. Little dainty maidens wait and watch at open casements; but, "he cometh not," and the heavy days roll by, and the sunny gold tresses wear white and thin. The babies that they dandled have become grown men and women with podgy torments of their own, and the playmates that they laughed with are lying very silent under the waving grass. But still they wait and watch, till the dark shadows of the unknown night steal up and gather all round them, and the world with its childish troubles fades from their aching eyes.

I see pale corpses tossed on white-foamed waves and deathbeds stained with bitter tears, and graves in trackless deserts. I hear the wild wailing of women, the low moaning of the little children, the dry sobbing of strong men. It's all the muffins. I could not conjure up one melancholy fancy upon a mutton chop and a glass of champagne.

image: http://ilikewhatyousee.tumblr.com/

Mindfulness

2010-06-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

My foot slips on a narrow ledge; in that split second, as needles of fear pierce heart and temples, eternity intersects with present time. Thought and action are not different, and stone, air, ice, sun, fear, and self are one. What is exhilirating is to extend this acute awareness into ordinary moments, in the moment-by-moment experiencing of the lammergeier and the wolf, which finding themselves at the center of things, have no need for any secret of true being. In this very breath that we take now lies the secret that all great teachers try to tell us, what one lama refers to as the "precision and openness and intelligence of the present." The purpose of meditation practice is not enlightenment; it is to pay attention even at unextraordinary times, to be of the present, nothing-but-the-present, to bear this mindfulness of now into each event of ordinary life. To be anywhere else is "to paint eyeballs on chaos." When I watch blue sheep, I must watch blue sheep, not be thinking about sex, danger, or the present, for this present -- even while I think of it -- is gone."

-- from Peter Matthiessen's "The Snow Leopard."

Image: via http://scout-holiday.com/blog/

Andre Dubus, Lies, Laziness

2010-05-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

My friend Gina is constantly talking to me about short story writer Andre Dubus, who was horribly injured in a car accident in 1986. Wikipedia narrates the tragedy in this way:

He was driving and stopped to assist two disabled motorists. As Dubus assisted one motorist to the side of the highway, an oncoming car swerved and hit them. One of the disabled motorists was killed instantly; the other survived because Dubus had pushed her out of the way. As a result of the accident, both Dubus's legs were crushed. His left leg had to be amputated above the knee, and Dubus would eventually lose the use of his right leg. Dubus would spend three painful years undergoing a series of operations, and extensive physical therapy. Despite his efforts to walk with a prosthesis, chronic infections confined him to a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. Dubus continued to battle the physical pains imposed by his condition, and clinical depression. The circumstances were terrible. It may be that the ability to feel anger is what kept them each alive, but his marriage foundered. Over the course of these struggles Dubus's third wife, a newly unemployed editor and young mother who had herself become seriously depressed, was also failing to write. She left him, taking with her their two young daughters, his "babies". Unable to run, to write, to sleep, without his "three girls" he was heartbroken.

So, that's ... not uplifting. Anyway, so then Gina sent me this quotation, written about Dubus:

He consistently describes himself as "crippled," and despises the journalistic cliches that are invariably hauled out to discuss the disabled: "To view human suffering as an abstraction, as a statement about how plucky we all are," he writes in "Song of Pity," "is to blow air through brass while the boys and girls march in parade off to war. Seeing the flesh as only a challenge to the spirit is as false as seeing the spirit as only a challenge to the flesh."

I am not disabled so I don't feel I can speak to how the disabled are discussed by journalists; I think it matters most how disabled persons feel about their representation. But I agree that viewing suffering as an abstraction, "as a statement about how plucky we all are," is false in that abstracting suffering fails to acknowledge the extent of it. I think that if human suffering can be alleviated by discussion and thought that it will come through accepting it for what it is, not giving it a rosy sheen. I know that acknowledging suffering makes some people uncomfortable, but I think that discomfort reflects a desire to deny what is true. I think that suffering gets better when it is embraced, accepted, confronted. To me, acting like something isn't as bad as it is, "to blow air through brass while the boys and girls march in parade off to war," is refusing to square with reality. It's like telling a lie.

I ran across this quote on the blog of this therapist:

The average person tells 4 lies a day or 1460 a year, a total of 87,600 by the time they get to 60. And the most common lie is: I'm fine. (quote taken from here: http://theangrytherapist.tumblr.com/)

I find that unsurprising and also sad. I think what most people want, certainly what I want, is to find someone(s) to whom they can express their true feelings, be who they are in an authentic way. But most of the time, with most people, we don't do this. I think generally people end up telling lies about feelings and all kinds of other things perhaps out of fear. But doing scary things always makes me feel alive, so why wouldn't I do it all the time? Maybe it's because it feels unsafe. I think really what most people crave is love and security and so maybe being totally honest feels like it can jeopardize one's access to those things. Or maybe it's just because people are lazy.

Here's another quote I ran across on another blog:

There are different species of laziness: Eastern and Western. The Eastern style is like the one practiced in India. It consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking cups of tea, listening to Hindi film music blaring on the radio, and gossiping with friends. Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so there is no time at all to confront the real issues. This form of laziness lies in our failure to choose worthwhile applications of our energy. -- Sogyal Rinpoche (taken from here: http://theessentialman.tumblr.com)

This kind of reminds me of a passage from the novel Moon Tiger, by Penelope Lively, in which the caustic narrator complains about her brother Gordon -- who is brilliant and successful -- and his choice to marry Sylvia, someone who she considers insipid and not his intellectual or emotional equal.

There is Gordon, who has mutated from a golden lad to a successful man, shrewd, respected and handsome with it. Women fall for him from Singapore to Standford. And there is Sylvia, whose girlish prettiness has given way to a plump and nondescript maturity, and whose conversation is of climate, the price of things, and children's schooling. I have watched others watch Sylvia trail in Gordon's wake like some stumpy dinghy towed by a yacht, have observed hostesses tuck her safely away at the end of the table, seen the yawn in the eyes of Gordon's high-flying friends. But I may well be the only one to know that Gordon has a deep seminal laziness. Oh, he works. He will work himself into the ground, when it is a matter of the intellect. His laziness is more subtle than that, it is a laziness of the soul, and Sylvia is its manifestation. Gordon needs Sylvia like some people need to spend an hour or two every day simply staring out of the window, or twiddling their fingers. Gordon's intellectual energy is prodigious; his emotional energy is minimal. Those sharp clever women with whom, from time to time, he is seen, would never do as permanencies. Sylvia has always been more secure than perhaps she realizes.

I strive to not have a laziness of the soul. Often, though, I do not succeed in this. I think maybe I/we/people/one don't always go for the emotionally honest response, don't square with the reality of human suffering, etc., opt to blow through brass as the boys and girls march in parade off to war -- due to an interior laziness. I think of myself as an insightful, introspective person but I know that most of the time I am internally lazy and go for the habitual response, the boilerplate emotional reaction. I go with what feels safe and familiar instead of pushing myself to grow or stretch in a new way. I'd like to be less like this.

That therapist's blog says that emotional honesty (what he calls "complete transparency"), which is part of what I think a non-internally-lazy person embraces, matters because most people internalize their feelings which can turn into resentment, anxiety, depression, and self-destructive behaviors. And that when you let out your feelings relationships improve and you also build self-worth. (Link is here: http://theangrytherapist.tumblr.com/post/529326724/complete-transparency.) I agree. But, I think living that way is pretty hard to do.

I like to think that I'm all about facing reality, opening my heart, being honest with myself and others. But often times I feel I'm faced with a choice between buttermilk pancakes -- that which is safe, known, pleasurable -- or pushing myself to think and feel in a new way. And even though I think I'm better than this, often my response is, "I think I'll just have the buttermilk pancakes." Still, in her essay "Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying," Adrienne Rich says, "The politics worth having, the relationships worth having, demand that we delve still deeper."

Cinnamon rolls

2010-05-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

I invited friends over for brunch this morning mostly because I required an excuse to make cinnamon rolls from scratch. Lately I've been fixated on cinnamon rolls and my desire to prepare them. The good thing about baking cinnamon rolls is that almost 24 hours later my entire apartment still smells like the deep throbbing heart of a hot cinnamon roll that is, in essence, a golden nugget of radiant butter and cinnamon infused dough. I wanted to make cinnamon rolls -- which I had never attempted before -- because I wanted the experience of bringing into being a confection that is sticky, hot, and chewy and can be unwound by fingers and placed in one's mouth to dizzying effect. My cinnamon rolls were OK. I would say making them was a good experience and nothing went horribly wrong, but the dough was too heavy. I guess I overworked it. It wasn't as light as I would have preferred; it had too much density and they didn't taste as buttery as I had fantasized. Still, they were tasty. And the experience of preparing them was something of a sensual delight and one I look forward to repeating. Kneading the round of dough, blending cream cheese with corn syrup, placing hot rolls on a wire rack. And making them allowed me to enjoy brunch with friends and distracted me from thinking about the fact that in two weeks I graduate from my MFA program and, to borrow imagery from Victorian writer Thomas Carlyle, will then be swallowed up by the boundless jaws of the devouring monster that is the uncertain future. Instead of thinking about that, I spent the morning thinking about this.

Psychologically speaking, eating a cinnamon roll is soothing to me, I think, because of its spiral structure that mimics a labyrinth, which besides being an ancient symbol and a structure that was built to hold the Minotaur per ancient Greek mythology, is also used as a walking meditation tool in Unitarian and other Judeo-Christian circles. I find walking a labyrinth (like this person is doing here) to be extremely soothing and some people argue that this type of walking meditation induces a deep contemplative state and writer Roger Zelazny's fantasy series features a labyrinth, called "the pattern," which grants those who walk it the power to walk between parallel worlds. That's what it feels like to me to walk a labyrinth and so eating a cinnamon roll triggers a similar kind of stilling experience in a way, that also involves extraordinary amounts of butter, sugar, and cream cheese. It can be quite comforting in uncertain times.

As I unravel the roll in search of the gooey center I imagine I am getting to the heart of something important. Of course really I'm not. I'm just eating a pastry. But it reminds me that it can be done. The Minotaur can be slain and even though sometimes it feels like I am spinning around in a viciously unproductive circle eventually I know I will reach the center and then find my way back out again. Questions that I have will eventually be answered. Mysteries will be resolved.

Sometimes I feel like I am in a dark wood with no clear path through. Tennessee Williams said, "There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go." Graduating from my Master's program and moving into the uncertain future feels a little like that. But even at these times I know that I am part of a larger trajectory, on a particular path, that I believe does take the shape of a spiral or circle or labyrinth. Eventually I will be able to see that. I will find my way into the center of myself, of my life, of the questions I am puzzling over and find my way back out again. I will find a job and move on to the next stage whatever it may be. And I also know that feeling lost is not a bad thing. Said writer Lauren Slater, "... sometimes that frightening floaty place is really the truest of all. Kierkegaard says, 'The greatest lie of all is the feeling of firmness beneath our feet.' We are at our most honest when we are lost ... where the view is murky, where the connecting bridges and orienting maps have been surgically stripped away." Of course it isn't easy to be in that frightening floaty place. But I know that even though most of the time it's hard to see, there is nothing to fear. Biting into a cinnamon roll that I made with my own hands and that is soft and treacly and will deliver me into a buttery, gooey center reminds me, a little bit, of that fact.

Worthwhile things

2010-05-22T17:21:00.000-07:00

image: http://www.thenotebookdoodles.com/

Gratitude

2010-05-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

Image: http://theessentialman.tumblr.com/tagged/On%20Living

Breakfast

2010-05-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

I am enchanted by this amazing slide show of breakfast photographs. (slide show is here.)

Growing Up

2010-05-02T21:32:00.000-07:00

I ran across this quote, on the blog Slaughterhouse 90210, that I like, particularly in combination with the image that it's paired with on the blog (link is here):

“Even under the best of circumstances, there’s just something so damn tragic about growing up.”
— Jonathan Tropper, This Is Where I Leave You

In part, it seems, the tragedy comes with the loss and letting go that accompanies growing up. You let go of who you thought you'd be and what you hoped your life would be like and come to accept who and what you are. You lose things, sometimes you lose people, and there's pain along the way. Of course there's also joy and happiness and elation, but I think any kind of metamorphosis always involves a difficult process of transformation and reckoning.

I was thinking about this after re-reading Joan Didion's essay "Goodbye to All That," in which she describes how she fell in love with New York City at age 20 and fell out of love with it at age 28. In the essay, NYC is a stand-in for, I think, youth and coming of age. She fell out of love with NYC when she grew up and moved from one phase of her life to the next. By 28, I think, NYC reminded her of the tragedy inherent in growing up.

She writes:

"I first saw New York when I was twenty, and it was summertime, and I got off a DC-7 at the old Idlewild temporary terminal in a new dress which had seemed very smart in Sacramento but seemed less smart already, even in the old Idlewild temporary terminal, and the warm air smelled of mildew and some instinct, programmed by all the movies I had ever seen and all the stories I had ever read and all the songs I had ever heard sung about New York, informed me that it would never be quite the same again. In fact it never was."

I wonder why that is. Is it because, as Milan Kundera says, "In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine." Or: "The Greek word for 'return' is nostos. Algos means 'suffering.' So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return." That nostalgia causes us to return to a certain originating moment and it seems that the "before" moment was the true moment and the one that changed everything that followed and you can never get it back. And growing up -- as the loss of contact with that "before" moment can then seem kind of tragic because it involves loss.

She later writes, after explaining how she could see what she thought was the Brooklyn Bridge from her hotel window when she first moved to NYC, only she later learned that the bridge was Triborough: "In retrospect it seems to me that those days before I knew the names of all the bridges were happier than the ones that came later." I wonder why the before, the anticipation, can feel better than the after. I think maybe it's because the space of potential and imagination often feels ... preferable to the reality. Reality doesn't turn out to be the way you thought it would be and so the "before," before you knew the truth of how things are, can retain a sense of innocence that you can't recover.

Didion writes:

I was in love with New York. I mean I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again. I remember walking across Sixty-Second Street one twilight that first spring, or the second spring, they were all alike for awhile. I was late to meet someone but I stopped at Lexington Avenue and bought a peach and stood on the corner eating it and knew that I had come out of the West and reached the mirage. I could taste the peach and feel the soft air blowing from a subway grating on my legs and I could smell lilac and garbage and expensive perfume and I knew that it would cost something sooner or later because I did not belong there, did not come from there but when you are twenty-two or twenty-three, you figure that later you will have a high emotional balance, and be able to pay whatever it costs. I still believed in possibilities then, still had the sense, so peculiar to New York, that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month. I was making only $65 or $70 a week then.... I never told my father I needed money because then he would have sent it, and I would never know if I could do it myself. At that time making a living seemed a game to me, with arbitrary but quite inflexible rules.... I never felt poor, I had the feeling that if I needed money I could always get it. I could write a syndicated column for teenagers under the name Debbi Lynn or I could smuggle gold into India or I could become a $100 call girl, and none of it would matter.

Nothing was irrevocable; everything was within reach.... I could make promises to myself and to other people and there would be all the time in the world to keep them. I could stay up all night and make mistakes, and none of them would count.

I suppose that a lot of us who have been very young in New York have the same scenes in our home screens. I remember sitting in a lot of apartments with a slight headache at about five o'clock in the morning. I had a friend who could not sleep, and he knew a few other people who had the same trouble, and we would watch the sky lighten and have a last drink with no ice and then go home in the early morning, when the streets were clean and wet (had it rained in the night? we never knew) and the few cruising taxis still had their headlights on and the only color was the red and green of traffic signals. The White Rose bars opened very early in the morning; I recall waiting in one of them to watch an astronaut go into space, waiting so long that at the moment it actually happened I had my eyes not on the television but on a cockroach on the tile floor. I liked the bleak branches above Washington Square at dawn, and the monochromatic flatness of Second Avenue, the fire escapes and the grilled storefronts peculiar and empty in their perspective.

By the time she turned 28, Didion began to fall out of love with the city. She writes:

That was the year, my twenty-eight, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every word, all of it.... All I mean is that I was very young in New York, and that at some point the golden rhythm was broken, and I am not that young anymore.

I have taught this essay in English composition courses twice and both times students seemed to universally find the essay's theme relatable. I guess when you are younger the future contains all possibilities and there is an experience of endlessness, lightness. A sense that time and space are so vast that there are no serious consequences. A sense that almost everything represents potential. There can be a sense that of course you will read every book, travel to every country, have every experience, fall in love with person after person after person. At least that's how it was for me. And then as you grow older, life narrows. You discover that things are much different than you had thought, that there is more weight than you had realized. "That not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every word, all of it." That learning -- about how life works, how choices and consequences work, how goals are realized -- is good and allows for growth and wisdom, but that learning also hurts.

Fainting, hypothermia

2010-03-30T19:12:00.000-07:00

The other night, I almost passed out in an undergraduate bar. It was very embarrassing. I had consumed about half of an alcoholic beverage when I began to feel swirly and swarmy and friends insisted I sit down. I chugged water, someone ordered me fries and I gripped Annie's hand hard. For what seemed like minutes I felt as though I were in a liminal space. I have fainted once (that was also in a bar, and that time I had also hardly had anything to drink) and I recognized every sensation, like something ghostly and whirling was luring me. I could tell I was very close. I don't even like to think about it too much because I'm afraid I'll re-experience that weakened sensation of falling, weaving and almost letting go, a feeling like I am slipping out of my body and not in a good way. As I sat there eating my fries, trying to hang on I knew: I'm about to pass out. I couldn't hear what people were saying to me, my senses were dulled, and at least one conversation happened during this time period that I have no memory of. I felt like I was inside of a vortex and all I could hear, it seemed, was the sound of sucking air. But the complex of unpleasant sensations eventually subsided and I was "back to normal." I've since been to the doctor and I think low blood sugar was likely the culprit, too much pumpkin mousse and not enough real food and then half a Strongbow. After the near-fainting episode I felt as though I had been hit by a freight train, and slept ten hours. The next day I couldn't stop thinking about the experience, the physical sensations that felt so overwhelming, specific and unique to me and what it meant, to me, that I experienced that. When really, it was just my brain freaking because I hadn't eaten properly. It didn't have anything to do with me. It just had to do with me experiencing life inside a human body. My body is perhaps more sensitive than some people's, but it's a human body and the same rules apply to everyone.

Then, I was reading this description of hypothermia from the book "Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places." It reminded me again that so much of what I take for an experience of "me" is just biology. It also reminds me how dependent we are on physiology and how much we are screwed in the face of wind chills of minus forty degrees. I like to think that if I were getting hypothermic, surely I could overcome it. I have a strong will to live, I would pull through. But I wouldn't. If my core temperature dropped below ninety degrees, I would be hosed. It's weird to think about that. Here's the passage I read on hypothermia:

Never mistake frostbite for hypothermia. Frostbite freezes extremities, while hypothermia cools the body's interior. Humans function best at a core temperature of just under ninety-nine degrees. At wind chills of minus forty degrees, with serviceable clothing, it is reasonable to expect the core temperature to drop at something like one degree every thirty minutes. When the core drops to ninety-five, significant symptoms appear. People shiver uncontrollably. They become argumentative. They feel detached from their surroundings. As their minds slow, they become what winter travelers sometimes refer to as "cold stupid." They become sleepy.

A thirteen-year-old boy who survived a ... blizzard later recounted his experience. "I felt sleepy," he said. "I thought if I could only lie down for a few minutes I would be all right. But I had heard the farmers tell stories about lying down and never getting up again in snow storms. So I kept on, but I finally got to the point where I could hardly lift my feet anymore.

At a core temperature of about ninety-three degrees, amnesia complicates things. Do we turn right or left? Did I put that glove in my pocket? Have I been here before?

At ninety-one degrees apathy settles in. Muscles by now are stiff and nonresponsive. If one continues moving at all, one begins to stagger.

When the core temperature reaches ninety degrees, the body's ability to fight the cold diminishes, and the core temperature tumbles downward. The heart itself becomes sluggish. Blood thickens. Lactic and pyruvic acids build up in tissues, further slowing the heartbeat.

It is possible to survive core temperatures as low as eighty-seven degrees, but only with rescue and rewarming. At this temperature self-rescue is almost impossible. Hallucinations are common. The mind imagines warm food and dry sleeping bags. The ears might hear music. A survivor might report looking down from above on his own struggling body, or he might remember strolling away from this own prone carcass in the snow. Victims at this point have crossed the line between cold stupid and what is sometimes called "cold crazy."

Just shy of death, victims may experience a burning sensation in the skin. This may be a delusion, or it may be caused by a sudden surge of blood from the core reaching the colder extremities. The last act of many victims is the removal of their clothes -- the ripping away of collars, the disposal of hats. Doctors sometimes call this "paradoxical undressing."

A Nebraska newspaper explained why some victims of ... a blizzard were missing clothes. "At this stage of freezing, strange symptoms often appear: as the blood retires from the surface it congests in the heart and brain; then delirium comes on and with it a delusive sensation of smothering heat. The victim's last exertions are to throw off his clothes and remove all wrappings from his throat; often the corpse is found with neck completely bare and in an attitude indicating that his last struggles were for fresh air."

image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robbn1/4293432234/

Rumination, odd humors, and the creative process

2010-03-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

I have spent the past three years pursuing an MFA in creative writing and it has been thrilling to devote a solid chunk of time to writing. Over the past three years, I have also learned that, paradoxically, writing makes me really happy and really blaaaaaah. A good friend and I have discussed how we always crave "writing time," and then when you get it and spend one or more days doing little besides writing, it can be pretty fucking depressing and mental-sanity hijacking. I read a New York Times article on depression and the ruminating mind that might explain why this is the case. (Article link is here.)

None of this is news, but the article correlates depression to the thought process known as rumination. This verb, says the article, "is derived from the Latin word for 'chewed over,' which describes the act of digestion in cattle, in which they swallow, regurgitate and then rechew their food." This description of rumination pretty much completely describes the way I think. I don't just mull things over casually. I chew, swallow, regurgitate, and then rechew topics in my mind. I masticate. I pick over old relationships and personal conundrums like they are scabs. I marinade in thoughts and feelings. It's definitely disconcerting to have my thought process linked to a major mental health disorder, but, that's an aside.

So this article claims that people with "ruminative tendencies" are prone to depression and also tend to be unnerved by stressful events: "For instance, psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema found that residents of San Francisco who self-identified as ruminators showed significantly more depressive symptoms after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake." Also, because people with ruminative tendencies tend to, you know, ruminate, when they get depressed "we become exquisitely attentive to our pain," and sometimes struggle to think about anything else.

Psychologists have found that ruminators/malaised individuals' (I prefer the term malaised to depressed) capacity for intense focus, relies in part on a brain area called the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), located a few inches behind the forehead. This area is important for conceptual knowledge, verb conjugation, and also maintaining attention, while deficits in the VLPFC are associated with attention-deficit disorder. Basically, neurons in VLPFC fire continuously to allow a person to maintain focus on one thing without being distracted by other information. Studies have found increased brain activity in the VLPFC of depressed patients and and a paper written by Chinese neuroscientists found a spike in "functional connectivity" between the lateral prefrontal cortex and other parts of the brain in depressed patients, with more severe depressions leading to more prefrontal activity. They think hyperactive VLPFC underlies rumination, allowing people to stay focused on their problem. I'm guessing I have a fairly hyperactive VLPFC.

When I was younger, I don't think I assumed that all people were ruminators, but it never occurred to me to operate in any other way. It seemed obvious that the thing to do in life was reflect on things, with a wistful look in one's eye. Analyze experiences (to the extent that a child analyzes), pore over details, introspect, ponder, muse, beat topics to death in my mind as though wielding a machete. It was probably only once I went to college and encountered marijuana-identified individuals who subscribed to catch phrases like "it's all good" and generally embraced a "chill out" mentality that I really understood that some people don't feel the need to think so much about everything -- and, namely, themselves -- in an endless loop of agonizing repetition. People began to tell me, with considerable frequency, "you think too much." I began to realize that there are many different ways that people can operate and approach things.

While rumination is linked to depression, there's an upside to it, according to the NYT article. Ruminative, VLPFC-ish individuals tend to embrace a deliberate, analytical style of thinking that is productive. That's basically what rumination is. One scientist believes that the downcast mood of the VLPFC-afflicted is part of a coordinated system that allows the person to effectively analyze the complex life problem that produced the depression. Basically, if depression didn't exist -- if we didn’t react to stress and trauma with endless ruminations -- we might not resolve our problems. Or, "Wisdom isn’t cheap, and we pay for it with pain."

What interests me about this theory is the way that malaise/rumination can link to a productive way of thinking and the creative process -- which might explain why writing exhilarates me and why too much of it can be a major downer.

One social psychologist has repeatedly demonstrated in experiments that negative moods lead to better decisions in complex situations because, he says, sadness promotes “information-processing strategies best suited to dealing with more-demanding situations.” In his experiments, melancholic subjects were also better at judging the accuracy of rumors and recalling past events; they were also much less likely to stereotype strangers. In another study by the same guy, malaised persons were able to recall information better than more upbeat people because, he believes, their sadness rendered them more aware and attentive.

In a survey of writers in the Iowa Writers' Workshop, generally considered the most prestigious writing program in the country, eighty percent of the writers met the formal diagnostic criteria for some form of depression. In another study of British writers and artists by a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, it was found that successful individuals were eight times as likely as people in the general population to suffer from major depressive illness.

Why? Nancy Andreasen, the neuroscientist who did the Iowa Writers' Workshop study, believes that depression is intertwined with a "cognitive style" that emphasizes persistent focus and attention and makes people more likely to produce successful works of art. In the creative process, she says,
“one of the most important qualities is persistence.” Based on the Iowa sample, Andreasen found that “successful writers are like prizefighters who keep on getting hit but won’t go down. They’ll stick with it until it’s right.”

Another researcher says that self-loathing, a symptom of depression, tends to result in a critical disposition toward oneself that can improve expressive abilities. He found that sadness correlates with clearer and more compelling sentences and that negative moods “promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style.” In another study that required subjects to focus intensely on a problem it was found that subjects afterwards expressed a "depressed effect" which leads him to believe that "the anatomy of focus is inseparable from the anatomy of melancholy. This suggests that depressive disorder is an extreme form of an ordinary thought process, part of the dismal machinery that draws us toward our problems, like a magnet to metal."

I don't think, as the NYT article claims, that depression has an "upside" because it may facilitate clear thinking, attention to detail, and swift recall. Being sad sucks, and no one should have to feel that way for a prolonged period, but of course everyone does. I definitely wouldn't place myself in the yay depression! camp. But I do think that, for me, writing involves intense, obsessive, ruminative focus that feels natural and easy, and at the same time renders me seriously BLAAAAH. Anne Patchett articulates this ruminative nature of writing in another way:

The process of writing books is somewhat akin to a very long police interrogation in which the detective leans over the table littered with the butt ends of cigarettes and cold coffee in Styrofoam cups and says for the 87th time, "Now let's go over this again." It is a study in repetition, the ability to read the same page, paragraph, sentence until it could be recited backward and in French in hopes of figuring out which detail is missing, which idea is false. What my days lack in being touched by the muse they make up for in the steady picking of the miner's ax, chipping out a tunnel that may well lead to nowhere.

Yep.

I also notice that activities that bring me joy -- being in nature, spending time with animals, adrenaline stuff like skiing and white water rafting, travel, yoga, sex, relaxation, connecting with people, food -- silence my ruminative mind. I am probably most joyful when I am not ruminating, and yet ruminating is my M.O. Telling me to stop ruminating is like telling a miniature schnauzer to stop barking at squirrels. Ruminating can lead me down some seriously toxic rabbit holes, or as Anne Lamott puts it: "My mind is a bad neighborhood I try not to go into alone." At the same time, rumination is how I think and speaks to how I approach ideas and it allows me to express myself creatively. So I think it is because of this double-edged-sword-like aspect of rumination that writing is both exhilarating for me and also sometimes kind of a wrist-slitter.

Image: http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/

Why I want to go to Iceland

2010-03-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

This photo of Iceland explains why I want to go to Iceland. (Click to enlarge.)

Also, once I visited Vietnam and this is what Hanoi looks like:

It's so lovely! However, there are many places that one can visit in Vietnam, and I did not get to visit all of them. For example, I did not get to visit Dalat, and this photo really makes me wish I had!

Here are other pictures of beautiful places that I would love to visit: http://blog.krisatomic.com/?p=692

Cool

2010-03-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

I read this essay by Rick Moody called "Against Cool" about the evolution of the word and concept of "cool," that I thought provided some interesting food for thought about a concept that I simply cannot imagine existing without. Moody starts off explaining his own relationship to coolness:

Whatever cool is or was ... I, your narrator, do not consider myself cool and never have been cool. As a teenager, when questions about cool are at their most rigorous, when a lack of cool implies the possibility of lifelong psychotherapy, I wore Levi's corduroys in the rainbow shades -- yellow cords, red cords, powder-blue cords; I wore flannel slacks.... My hair poofed in ways that best recall Michael Landon during the Little House on the Prairie years. I liked to mix plaids. I preferred, where music was concerned, Cat Stevens, Yes, Jethro Tull, and other bands even more embarrassing to enumerate, when all around me was Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones. I came from the suburbs. I read science fiction.... I cried easily; loved New England autumns. In an area of inquiry where credibility is everything, where credentials are essential, where any deviation from this orthodoxy of the unstated and recondite is actionable, I was and am an interloper. I am, in fact, uncool.

He notes that there is no Platonic category of coolness, that "what is cool is often in dispute, quickly outmoded, neglected soon thereafter." Whatever is established as cool, "becomes precipitously irrelevant in the inexorable march of time." He also notes that, despite cool's slipperiness, we know it when we see it. And that:

In an absence of clearly delineated American ethics, in a period of cultural relativism, in a political environment in which both American parties have amplified their rhetoric to such a degree that the other side is beneath contempt, in which religion seems no longer able to rationally or effectively deploy its messages except through moral intimidation or force, in which families are no longer the ethical bulwarks they felt themselves to be in the past, in such a millennial instant cool has become the system of ethics for the young in America. Cool, it seems, is the one thing that kids believe in. Cool is what they talk about, cool is what motivates them, cool is what they occasionally live and die for.

According to Moody, Miles Davis is partly responsible for contemporary usage of the word "cool." In the late 1940s, Davis formed an ensemble called The Miles Davis Nonet that was conceived as a reaction to bebop. In contrast to bebop, which, according to Davis, was "this hip, real fast thing," the nonet emphasized sweetness and melody over bebop's fiery tone. The nonet's sound was considered slow, strange, evocative, and supple. In other words, cool. An A&R man at Davis' record company dubbed the results of the Miles Davis Nonet's efforts Birth of the Cool. This new cool jazz was designed to soften jazz, an African-American genre, for a white audience, rendering it looser and more melodious.

Moody traces how cool evolved in the 1940s, through loose experimentation and improvisation, to mean "good and modern" and how the beat writers further evolved the concept to refer to an ineffable "It" factor that some possess and others covet. Moody says about the Beats' development of this concept:

Cool crests, perhaps not yet in the explicitly modern usage of the word, but rather as a way of carrying oneself, a way of marking an attitude that extends beyond language and the capacity of language to denote, that pre-emepts the civilizing and hypocritical layers of straight culture, that focuses instead on a deportment, an ephemeral and unstated aspect, a perfume of the infinite, a wisp of the spiritual, in which improvisation and spontaneity enable numinous predisposition, access to the ether. IT's not a product or an extract or a medication. IT is cool and cool is an approach characterized by feeling, by passions, and you find it in the riotous voice of Kerouac's narratives, as well as in the riffing of Ginsberg's poems in the later fifties....

What Moody argues has happened since the '60s is that, first, due to rock&roll, cool became hackneyed. There was The Coasters',"Three Cool Cats," The Beatles' "Hey Jude" ("Don't you know that it's the fool who plays it cool/By making his world a little colder"), "Cool Jerk," the Stooges "Real Cool Time," composed in 1970, the Hollies; "long cool woman in a red dress," Kool and the Gang, Rickie Lee Jones' "Coolsville," John Gale's "Indistinct Notion of Cool," Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A. ("I'm a cool rocking daddy in the U.S.A.), etc., etc. The '60s and '70s also spawned a number of cool idioms: Keep it cool, cool it, cool out, cool hand, cool cat, cool as a virgin, cool beans, coolcock, in the cooler, cool off, cool one. Moody says that due to the cultural forces of rock&roll and also advertising (Kool cigarettes, Kool-Aid) that sought to sell merchandise to the cool demographic and make it a commodity in itself, cool ceased to mean much of anything in particular.

Another development, says Moody, was the integration of cool into drug culture: Is he cool (does he smoke)? Was it cool (was the location free of cops)? "The energy around cool," says Moody, "had shifted away from jazz, away from Black Americans, away from writers. Cool, instead, had become something that was possessed by drug users and free-love espousers and rock-and-roll musicians."

By the end of the essay, Moody says cool started out as a way to describe Miles Davis' emotionally dexterous and evocative jazz music but over time came to mean, in the '80s, "dead inside. Chilled-out cool, to use nineties locution. Flat, lifeless, dim, empty, dead cool."

Moody asked a cool guy he went to high school with in the '70s about his thoughts on the topic and this former cool guy had this to say:

Whatever we thought was cool was miles from anything Kerouac had in mind..... By the time we got to cool it had lost all of its earnestness and it had an almost complete lack of self-awareness.

And the unfortunate thing about cool in our era was that it wasn't very nice. Being cool was about distance. Sparring, in that verbal kind of way, conferred cool. If possible, frighten all fuckers away from ever thinking about judging you.

I didn't perceive until I had been away from school for years that trying to be cool was about selling out in the worst way. We were trying desperately to be distant, to have a critical detachment that would allow us to sit in judgment. And as anti-establishment as we styled ourselves, that wish to be the one doing the judging was strictly generic arrogance.

As you may see from the foregoing, my career as a Cool Guy is somewhat painful for me to contemplate.

This is the aspect of his essay that resonates with me. Growing up in the '80s, I certainly was raised on a concept of cool that seemed to be about denying emotions and vulnerability, being detached and dead inside. As an excessively emotional person, I've always hated that, this emphasis on detachment that contemporary notions of hipsterness (as seen in blogs like Unhappy Hipsters) seem to rely on. I love this David Foster Wallace quote, from Infinite Jest:

“What passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human … is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic.”

So, yeah, I agree that this emphasis on transcending sentiment and denying vulnerability and humanity isn't very cool at all, and in fact is quite lame. If Moody is right that there was a point in time where being cool was about adding something, giving more, it seems that it has come to mean coming off as though you have taken away, that you have absence, distance, empty space (like the annoying Zooey Deschanel character in 500 Days of Summer). Nor caring, not emoting. That you lack the complexity, excitement, and raw terror of human life. And I think that's stupid.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eseartista/2850337429/in/set-72157602725965253/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frippy/4554663/

Andre Dubus, The Breakfast Club, Bruce Springsteen

2010-03-10T21:39:00.000-08:00

It is not hard to live through a day, if you can live through a moment. What creates despair is the imagination, which pretends there is a future, and insists on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live the moment at hand.

-- Andre Dubus

I think this is totally true. I think this is universal, but I know for me it seems like I'm either trying to hang onto to an experience I like and want to last forever and fear will go away, or afraid something I dislike will last forever and want to escape it. The despair, in some cases the hell, is imagining the future will or won't be like the present, and it never is like the present. Even though I know that's true, I just can't quite ever grasp that, or accept that fact. I'd rather live under the delusion that things can stay the same, despite the fact that I learn every single day that everything changes all the time. Or I'd rather live under the delusion that I can somehow control the future by thinking about it.

When someone dies, one of the big problems for me is that they will always be dead. The painful thought is, they are gone forever. I have found that I can't wrap my brain around the permanence of death. My father died over two years ago, and every morning I wake up and think, wait, he's still dead? Surely he'll come back. When someone breaks up with me, the heartbreak is, or in one case it was, that he didn't love me, he didn't want me anymore. I waited and I was patient, while he traveled to South Asia, gallivanting to this country and that, and I hoped if I hung on he would eventually want only me, he would love me the way I wanted him to, the way that I loved him. Or, in another case, he never really loved me. In another one, I never really loved him. But what makes it worse is knowing that tomorrow and the next day we will still be broken up. That it's going to be broken up every day in the future. I envision all these scenarios in the future and that's what makes it harder than if I just felt the pain of broken up now. I made Chewy Brownies the other day and they were basically completely fucking awesome. The first bite of brownie is transcendent. Especially in this case because these brownies have chunks of melted chocolate inside them. And sugar is addictive, but also I take more bites in effort to preserve the experience of that first bite, to extend that moment, which was essentially blinding pleasure. But that first moment is gone and subsequent bites aren't as good but I keep eating brownie trying to recapture it, and fail. And then afterwards I am fucked up from the sugar and need a nap. At this point I have forgotten about that sublime first bite because my blood sugar is fucked up because I ate too many bites and I vow I won't eat brownies like that again.

I think the solution is in training the mind to experience the present moment as the new moment it is, without spiraling out into the future and past. Buddhist meditation practice basically, but it's a hard practice, yet incredibly worthwhile. And of course it's ironic that when I try to really be in the present moment without fretting over the future -- fretting that is an attempt to hang onto what I think is an experience of aliveness -- I feel most alive.

Somehow I think the Andre Dubus quote is related to when Ally Sheedy says in The Breakfast Club, "When you grow up, your heart dies."

I don't think the heart dies, but it begins to shut down and put up walls. I think this happens due to pain and loss and suffering and subsequently living in this world in your head where you think because something happened once, it's going to happen again, spiraling out into the past and future, drawing all these connections to things that you imagine exist that revolve around craving love and fearing pain. Instead of fully living and experiencing the immediacy and freshness of the present moment, like you do when you're a kid. The tendency is to lock down, push the world way.

I think this is also related to what Bruce Springsteen said in concert in 1985 before singing "This Land Is Your Land":

I'd like to do a song for you that I guess is about the greatest song ever written about America and it's by Woody Guthrie and what's so great about it is that it gets right to the heart of the promise of what our country was supposed to be about. And I guess I don't know if you talk to some of the steel workers from East L.A. or Pittsburgh or Gary, there's a lot of people out there whose jobs are disappearing. I don't know if they'd feel that this song is true anymore. And uh I'm not sure that it is, but I know, I know, that it oughta be. So I'd like to do this for you, reminds me that with countries, just like with people, it's easy to let the best of yourself slip away.

I think the alive, heart-not-dying, fearless kid part is the best of myself. It's easy to let that slip away.

Also, I think part of the solution to the problem Dubus points to lies in what Leonard Cohen said in the documentary I'm Your Man: "I found that things became a lot easier when I no longer expected to win. You abandon your masterpiece and sink into the real masterpiece."

Cat

2010-03-08T19:36:00.000-08:00

I like this cat on this rolling tree stump stool.

image: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/

Greed, colored pencils

2010-02-28T17:54:00.000-08:00

Over the holidays, my mother gave me an article by Ann Patchett titled "How to Read A Christmas Story" from The Washington Post Magazine. I found it very moving. I choose to believe that my mother will live forever, but on the off chance that I am wrong, I worry how, under those highly unlikely circumstances of her mortality, I will ever learn of articles in the Post and the WP Mag without her, because she is constantly showing and mailing me clippings, but that's an aside. Anyway, the article was about how when Patchett was a little girl her parents divorced and the kids spent the holidays with their mother and not their father. She said her father always called them on the phone and sent gifts, but they hated to be apart from him. Also, his gifts were always a disappointment, but one year he called her on Christmas Eve and read her a story from the Los Angeles Times and that story was the best Christmas gift she ever received. The rest of the article was about the story her father read to her and why it was so meaningful to Patchett. What struck me was my own reaction to the story.

The story was about this poor little orphan girl who led a sad life in an orphanage. Every Christmas the nuns at the orphanage distributed gifts to the girls through a lottery system "and every year each of the girls received a single, disappointing gift that had come to them by way of charity.... For years the heroine had received a pair of gloves or a package of underwear, some gift of necessity that might have been appreciated had it not been masquerading as a Christmas present." Anyway, one year her luck improved and she received a tin box of drawing pencils that she had desperately wanted, as she dreamed of being an artist and, the story implied, had enough talent to one day become one. So the gift was useful and also something she really wanted. Anyway, so then it was discovered that an entourage of gypsies had come to sleep in a nearby field and they were totally destitute and the nuns encouraged the girls to give their presents away to the poor little gypsy children who had nothing. "The narrator was beautifully brave as she gave her colored pencil set to one of the little gypsy girls. She was glad to do it, because at that moment she she realized all that she had: a warm place to sleep, food, an education, and nuns to look after her. She knew how lucky she was to be the girl who had something as extraordinary as colored pencils to give away." The rest of the article is about how Patchett thought what the orphan did was so wonderful and that she of course would have done the same thing and how she loved the story and why.

But what struck me was the fact that, at that moment, I couldn't possibly understand how that orphan girl could have parted with her colored pencils. I thought, she needed them! Like I literally just didn't understand why she gave them away. If I were her, I would have hung onto those pencils for dear life. I should also mention that over the holidays I was battling torrential nihilistic despair which has since lifted considerably. But, truly, I thought that if I, with my very non-orphan status, received a box of colored pencils today, I wouldn't want to give them away to anyone. I would just want them for myself. I realized I just couldn't connect with the idea of randomly giving things to people who are disadvantaged. And that made me realize that something about my reaction was very wrong.

In effort to not turn into a completely embittered curmudgeon, I started reading and thinking about generosity. I realized that I had developed this poverty mentality about my life situation. I am a grad student and live on a stipend, and had fallen into thinking about my life situation in terms of privation and what is lacking. I don't have any money, I don't have any time. I need new shoes, I need to get into a PhD program, I need a vacation. I can't be expected to do volunteer work, I'm busy, I have papers due. Carrie Fisher said, “I remember what was missing instead of what was there. I am a chronicler of absence.” I have these same tendencies and I realized they had gotten the better of me. And I realized, as I have realized in the past, and will no doubt realize many times in the future, that when I start to think of my life in terms of absence, wrong, and lack it leads to more thoughts and feelings of impoverishment, and that leads to neediness and greed and to forgetting that there are actually people in the world with real problems, and that I could actually do something to help them. And that when I start to pay attention to what I have, and appreciate those things, I feel more generous, I feel happier, and it suddenly seems like I have more, for myself and for others and that I could actually quite easily give away a tin of colored pencils to a homeless orphan living in the woods.

Around this time I was reading this thing about the different things a person can appreciate in life, and the article suggested that one could be grateful for soil, the sun, and the earth, and I remember thinking, well that's a stupid thing to be grateful for, that's not a real thing, that's just obvious. And then I gradually realized that you actually can be grateful for the planet. I could not exist, there could not be a planet to exist on. It's not silly to appreciate the fact that I am a part of a miraculous ecosystem full of beautiful plants and animals, etc. And so then I started realizing that there are all kinds of things I take for granted that could not be here, that I can really value and appreciate, instead of only seeing what is missing.

I also found this: A master walked with a disciple. They came upon a dead dog, bloated, decayed, and filled with maggots. The disciple said, "Oh master, how terrible." "Beautiful white teeth," the master replied.

I love that idea that there is always something to appreciate even amid suffering. That in any terrible or difficult situation, there is always beauty there that you can see and appreciate, while also acknowledging the suffering. And that life has more beauty and satisfaction, when you notice and appreciate all the things you have. That the more you give, the more you seem to have.

Anyway, I chronically forget these things, and then I remember them and can't believe how long I had forgotten.

Image: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3420/3267138841_80584d4a28.jpg

Adolescent boys, men, Jonathan Franzen

2010-02-16T11:48:00.000-08:00

In the past, I've had some difficulty comprehending adolescent male subjectivity, which is often not unlike adult male subjectivity and, in certain cases although not all, it appears to be exactly the same thing. It is undeniable that I find the adolescent/adult male subject position appealing, in certain isolated cases irresistible, and I find it equally infuriating. Jonathan Franzen's essay "Caught" is helping me get it a bit more. In "Caught" he describes a series of high school pranks he and his homeboys played on their high school principal, Mr. Knight, and Franzen also generally explores adolescent male consciousness. In this section he reflects on the significance of this particular time in his life:

Adolescence is best enjoyed without self-consciousness, but self-consciousness, unfortunately is its leading symptom. Even when something important happens to you, even when your heart's getting crushed or exalted, even when you're absorbed in building the foundations of a personality, there come these moments when you're aware that what's happening is not the real story. Unless you actually die, the real story is still ahead of you. This alone, this cruel mixture of consciousness and irrelevance, this built-in hollowness, is enough to account for how pissed off you are. You're miserable and ashamed if you don't believe your adolescent troubles matter; but you're stupid if you do. This was the double bind from which our playing with Mr. Knight, our taking something so very useless so seriously, had given us a fifteen-month reprieve.

But when does the real story start? At forty-three, I feel grateful almost daily to be the adult I wished I could be when I was seventeen. I work on my arm strength at the gym; I've become pretty good with tools. At the same time, almost daily, I lose battles with the seventeen-year-old who's still inside me. I eat half a box of Oreos for lunch. I binge on TV, I make sweeping moral judgments, I run around town in torn jeans, I drink Martinis on a Tuesday night, I stare at beer commercial cleavage, I define as uncool any group to which I can't belong, I sneak cigarettes on the roof, I feel the urge to key Range Rovers and slash their tires; I pretend I'm never going to die.

The double bind, the problem of consciousness mixed with nothingness, never goes away, You never stop waiting for the real story to start, because the only real story, in the end, is that you die. Along the way, however, Mr. Knight keeps reappearing.... Mr Knight's attention, eventually invites you to pursue it for its own sake, with a seriousness that redeems and is redeemed by its fundamental uselessness.

image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbarton/1727697436/

I love this coffee mug!

2010-02-14T09:37:00.001-08:00

Miniature Pink Tea Party

2010-01-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

I love this picture I found on Flickr and I love the fact that the caption reads:

Miniature Food Pink Tea Party!

I personally feel like there are waaaay too many decadent pink desserts in this particular tea party, and also there should be more doilies and of course tea, but this delightful pic really makes me want to have a tea party. My tea party would feature scones, Devonshire cream, tea, miniature cakes, tiny sandwiches, and maybe some veggies arranged in some kind of attractive constellation on a pink plate.

Generosity

2009-12-27T21:58:00.000-08:00

On Christmas night I was running on the treadmill at the fitness center at my mother's retirement home in effort to work off the Christmas dinner binge-fest, and I was listening to my iPod, ignoring CNN on the TV monitor, and daydreaming about the usual: winning the Pulitzer for an award-winning essay collection I had written, or an Oscar for best original screenplay, basking in the adoration of others while wearing a fabulous dress and dancing with various attractive, male luminaries and generally feeling wonderful, fulfilled, glamorous, successful, loved, and on top of the world. Anyway, so then I looked up at CNN and got hooked on their 2009 CNN Heroes of the year award ceremony in which various celebrities announce the top ten CNN heroes of 2009 -- people who have performed magnanimous humanitarian deeds in various parts of the world. There was this one sixteen year old kid who had lost both legs in a boating accident and got prosthetics and in the hospital discovered that other, less advantaged kids couldn't afford prosthetic limbs and so as a sixteen-year-old amputee started a foundation and has raised $400,000 and provided prosthetic limbs to all these kids and he lobbies Congress and all of this. One hears these stories frequently but at that moment, it grabbed me. I couldn't believe that he had lost both legs at 16 and then was doing all this work to help others. In an interview he said that he keeps in mind how fortunate he is relative to other people and that no matter how bad you think have it, you really don't have it that bad and you really can achieve anything you set your mind to.

I am in my mid 30s. But if I lost both legs, I wouldn't be raising funds to help people who had it worse. I would probably want to die. I would feel so sorry for myself.

There was this other CNN Hero, a bus driver from Queens, NY, originally from Columbia. He and his family prepare meals for homeless people in Queens seven days a week. He's a bus driver and his mother cooks food -- baked pork with beans, burgers in barbecue sauce with hash browns, pasta with beef -- during the day. At night they package the food and he delivers it to people. I just can't believe this man does this seven nights a week. Plus, on Saturday mornings he serves donated waffles and pancakes to 200 workers in seven locations in Queens. He makes like $700/week driving a bus and it costs them $400 or so a week to do this and they just make it work. They also collect donations from restaurants and that sort of thing but much of it is out of pocket. He said that people are hungry every night so that's why they feed them every night. His mother said that she remembers what it's like to be an immigrant and to go to bed hungry and that no one should have to go to bed hungry, so that's why they're out there every night. She's totally right, no one should go to bed hungry, ever. But, I guess like most people, I accept that people are hungry and figure, whatever, I'll do what I can, here and there. But I can't fix the whole problem. Mostly, I have to take care of myself. This family has fed over 70,000 people to date.

I did a lot of volunteer work as a teenager, college student, and twenty-something. I volunteered for soup kitchens, wrote letters for Amnesty International, monitored water quality in local streams, attended animal rights demonstrations, worked on a sexual violence task force, volunteered for Hospice, tutored inmates in jail, taught stress management in a jail -- you name it. I don't do much for others anymore, but I've always felt pretty damn good about myself because of all the great things I did for so many years. I've always thought, I've done way more than most people. I'm such a good person. Few people are as good as I am.

When I lived in San Francisco a friend of mine started the Homeless Dinner Club. Once a month we coordinated volunteers and prepared dinner in one of our homes for about 35-50 homeless people. We wanted to prepare a nice meal with fresh produce. Usually we made lasagna or spaghetti and we used some packaged goods but we also incorporated fresh produce and I usually baked gourmet cookies and we gave them milk or juice and rice and a roll and we also gave them a choice between a vegetarian or meat main entree. We packaged the dinners up and wrote on the packages what was inside. We wanted the meals to be warm, tasty, fresh -- not just bland, processed food. We wanted to treat them to a nice meal like they deserved. Anyway, and then we delivered the meals on foot. We only did this for a few months, but I felt like such a wonderful person for feeding the homeless once a month. Look at me, taking time out from my busy schedule to feed others once a month. I'm so good. Still, it was a pain being one of the organizers and I felt put upon. I often felt like it was too much work keeping it going. Purchasing groceries, planning, coordinating, organizing volunteers. I stopped doing it when I began to apply for grad school because I decided I couldn't do both things. I wasn't, I decided, Superwoman.

This guy feeds people every night and he doesn't think he's doing any great thing. He thinks, I believe, that he's doing what can be done. My attitude has always been like as long as I'm doing something to make the world better, that's good enough. Even if it's a small thing. As long I'm doing my small part, I'm covered. But this guy's attitude is that as long as people are hungry, he has to feed them every single night. Because they're hungry. And if he doesn't feed them, who will?

I feel like I've lost touch with the whole thing about giving to others and how when you give to others you are giving to yourself. I need to regain that. And I feel like I also need to think about this idea that as long as there is suffering in the world, I should work really hard to make things better, not just volunteer here and there so I can cross that task off my to-do list and feel self-satisfied. It's weird to think about the fact that if this guy hadn't done what he's done, 70,000 people would have gone to bed hungry. But they didn't because he sacrificed time, money, and energy to help them. I have many more advantages than he does, I've been given more opportunities, and yet I do less for others. Hmm.

Space food

2009-11-30T14:14:00.000-08:00

Like most people, I am extremely interested in space travel. If I had the opportunity to travel to outer space, I would totally go for it, without hesitation, provided I was guaranteed to be alive upon return. But it occurs to me that space cuisine would be a significant hardship for me.

Also probably like most people, food is my go-to source for comfort, solace, and security. Space food definitely strikes me as a comfort dead zone.

For one thing, space travelers have to plan their menus nine months in advance, which is really weird to me. How do I know what I want to eat nine months from now? Honestly, I don't have a clue. It's anyone's guess.

According to this article, nine months before takeoff, space travelers meet with scientists at the Space Food Systems Laboratory, where they taste 20-30 items and rank each on a scale of 1-9. "We tell them, 'if you score six or higher we have the option to put it on your menu," said Dr. Michele Perchonok, NASA's manager of the lab. "Meanwhile, we talk to them about [alternatives like] 'Well, you are trying the vanilla breakfast drink. We also have strawberry and chocolate,'" Perchonok said. I definitely am not at all interested in a "strawberry breakfast drink." Space travelers can also choose from a list of available menu items. Then they have several months to plan their individual menus, which must be approved by a dietitian who ensures they are nutritionally complete and provide enough calories. The space food lab people meet with them two more times to review any changes to their menus.

Then there's the problem of refrigeration, namely that in space there is none, not to mention weight. It costs $10,000 per pound to launch something into space, so astronauts are only allowed 3.8 pounds of food per day.

In the early days of space travel, astronauts ate a lot of freeze-dried meals that they rehydrated by adding water to food pouches, but "astronauts get tired of it pretty quick after a few days," said NASA veteran Charles Bourland. "They started with tubed foods squeezed out like toothpaste and cubes that were like sandwiches coated in gelatin," Perchonok said. "But the flavor ... well, you're at that psychology where it didn't feel like food anymore." I'm going to go ahead and say definitively that I'm not interested in "tubed foods."

These days, astronauts eat a lot of "thermostabilized food," vittles that are heat-processed to destroy dangerous microbes, like canned food on Earth, and they also eat meals that are sterilized with ionizing radiation, dried fruits and beef, candy and nuts. They do get a limited supply of fruits and veggies but they have to be eaten within a few days before they spoil. Yikes!

Also, "Vapors don't really rise from food in space -- you wouldn't be able to smell it as well," said Bourland. "And in microgravity, bodily fluids tend to accumulate in the upper body, resulting in congestion, which can also affect how food tastes." All of this sounds unpleasant to me.

Coffee, tea, and Tang (they drink a lot of Tang in space for some reason -- it was mentioned in every article I read) are in dried form to be mixed with water. And the process by which you mix in the water and drink beverages sounds annoying and tedious: "The container itself is a vacuum packed ... single serving inside a Mylar expandable pouch closed at its top by a plastic valve. Astronauts inject water with a needle through the valve, mix the contents by shaking or kneading, and then insert a plastic straw by which to sip. The straw has its own clasp that is used to halt the flow when desired."

Food can be heated in an electric oven. "It's about the size of a briefcase, and there are little slots where you can put the food," Perchonok explained, adding that the food doesn't get too hot.

Obsessive arctic explorers, Buddhism

2009-11-21T13:18:00.000-08:00

I was watching a YouTube clip of Pema Chodron, this awesome Buddhist nun who is wonderful, and she was talking about how when a person's world collapses they often find themselves in an "unfixable spot." She says that when this happens people start looking for answers and as they do, they find that the usual exit strategies (eating, drugs, drinking, working, shopping, sex, etc.) don't touch the extent of the pain that they feel, and don't, she implied, lead to the resolution of that pain. She said people then sometimes start looking for spiritual answers, but even so they are still trying to just feel good again, more than grow or learn something. She said you can't help wanting to feel comfort, and that impulse is a sane one. However, she said, while people in pain seek comfort sometimes they also realize the "hollowness or insubstantialness of the props that hold our lives together." She said you realize that we "impute comfort on everything. Good cup of coffee. Good nights sleep. Someone loves me. We distract ourselves from some kind of fundamental groundlessness. And this fundamental groundlessness, according to the Buddhist teaching, when you can rest there fully, is called enlightenment because nothing is a threat."

She said that "some people ask, why would we do this (pursue enlightenment) if it means opening to pain? Certainly it's counter intuitive and totally unhabitual and it is not ever the knee jerk reaction and in fact you would just never do it if there wasn't some pain in your life. So to the degree that the old ways aren't working you start looking for answers of a different kind. I don't think anyone whose life is completely together and cozy and who has never had the ground fall apart except for in the most minor of ways would be slightly interested in this path. Really you're looking for something to keep the bubble of comfort and false security of together. That is natural. We equate the bubble of false security with comfort and certainty and some sense of your stomach and jaw relaxing. We would like a life where we are always falling in love, with somebody and everything, a life of open heartedness where you are feeling your best."

I think it is very true that this craving for comfort, pleasure and security is always the knee-jerk reaction and is a very human response to the impermanence, pain, chaos, and insecurity that is inherent to human life. But I'm wondering how that squares with the choices and attitudes of obsessive Arctic explorers.

Anne Fadiman wrote an essay called "The Arctic Hedonist" about Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a crazy man who explored the Arctic during the early 1900s. What is interesting about Stefansson is that he insisted that the Arctic wasn't meant to be endured, but enjoyed, like a good slice of pie. He wasn't a survivor of the harsh Arctic climate, but a voluptuary. He was adamant that if you know what you're doing you can have a "bully time" in the far north, where it is often -50 degrees, and in fact he published a book in 1921 titled The Friendly Arctic at a time in which other explorers' Arctic expeditions had resulted in the catastrophic deaths of hundreds due to scurvy, starvation, lead poisoning, exposure, and drowning.

Still, Stefansson scoffed at those who suggested that the Arctic was inhospitable. He claimed that the region flowed "if not with milk and honey, then with caribou, polar bear, walrus, and seals, all there for the taking." In his book the Arctic Manual, he details the finer points of seal hunting, ice floe selection, skin boats, and decayed caribou brains not in a spirit of grit-teeth stoicism but of casual bonhomie, as if it is an incontestable fact that Arctic living is the same thing as a sea side picnic.

Writes Fadiman in the imagined point of view of Stefansson:

Why would anyone wish to wear wool when "nothing feels so good against the skin -- not even silk -- as underwear of the skin of a young caribou"? Why live in a house when an igloo, lit with a single candle, resembles "a hemisphere of diamonds"? Why employ Inuit or Indians to do one's hunting when one could have the thrill of doing it oneself? "I would as soon think of engaging a valet to play my golf," he observed, "or of going to the theater by proxy."

Stefansson admitted that there were times when hunting yielded little fruit and he had to resort to living off snowshoe lashing, sealskins, and "the remains of a bowheaded whale that had been breached for years." But when the getting was good, claimed Stefansoon, Arctic cuisine made him swoon. "Frozen raw polar bear meat had the consistency of oysters; half frozen, it was more like ice cream. The soft, sweet ends of ... fish bones were scrumptious" as was seal-blood soup, which involves seal meat cooked in a pot that hangs over a fire combined with slowly poured seal blood. He described caribou flesh in ascending order of "gustatory delight": the brisket, ribs, and vertebrae; the tongue, the head, especially the fat behind the eyes; the little lump of fat near the patella of the hind leg; and the marrow of the bones near the hoof, which was generally rolled into little balls and eaten raw."

Fadiman identifies Stefansson as one of these people who embraces an attitude of "studied insouciance," one of those who seeks out risk, hardship, and physical suffering with a carefree attitude of blithe nonchalance. He reminds me of cavalier big wave surfers, crazy Mt. Everest-scaling extremists, or that cock-sure rock climber who thought nothing of slicing off his own arm when it was stuck between a boulder and a canyon and then wrote a book about it.

Of course, times weren't always so "bully." In 1913, during Stefansson's third expedition, his ship got stuck in ice, and Stefansson left his men ostensibly in search of fresh caribou. Two days later the ship was crushed in ice. Many men escaped but suffered starvation, snow blindness, frostbite, gangrene, and, in one case, "amputation of a toe with the tin shears used to make cooking pots from empty gasoline containers." Eleven died and one survivor wrote: "Not all the horrors of the Western Front, not the rubble of Arras, nor the hell of Ypres, nor all the mud of Flanders leading to Passchendaele, could blot out the memories of that year in the Arctic."

I always wonder what motivates these hard line cavalier outdoorsy types who seem to crave not comfort but it's opposite, who seemingly thrive on hardship, loneliness, and extremely cold temperatures rather than warm mugs of tea and peppermint shortbread. Not only do the Stefansson types seek out strange, unpleasant risks and physical extremity but they play it off with this contrived, cheery, unconcern. I get that they thrive on the adrenaline and require a greater rush than most, that they enjoy adventure and testing the outer limits of human endurance, but I don't quite understand where they are in terms of the basic human craving for love, warmth, comfort, and security. The wiring with Stefansson and related others seems pretty different. I enjoy the adrenaline surge that accompanies white water rafting, zip wires, mountain climbing, and I have happily camped in the Nevada desert in 100 degree heat -- twice, and I'd do it again. But, at the end of the day, I want a hot bubble bath, the company of loved ones, and a bowl of warm butterscotch bread pudding with rum sauce -- and not raw, frozen polar bear meat. I want these things in hopes that they might allow me to touch what Chodron describes: "the feeling of falling in love, with somebody and everything, a life of open heartedness where you are feeling your best." These Stefansson types don't seem to crave the same things.

Haircut

2009-10-22T14:23:00.000-07:00

Today I spent too much money on a haircut and highlights at the Aveda salon, in effort to alleviate despair associated with my hair, perception of my general visual presence, and various related and unrelated concerns. I was discussing haircut possibilities with the woman who cuts my hair there, and she said, "The trends for fall just came out, and one of the trends is similar to your current hairstyle!" What fortune! She showed this hairstyle to me in a glossy booklet that showcased "the trends." It was a contemporary iteration of the pixie cut, and she explained how it's similar yet more updated than my current cut and mentioned these various things we could do with it. I agreed that her plan for my hair was an excellent one.

I like to believe that my sense of style has something to do with an authentic sensibility within me, and not just strictly an adherence to trends that are imposed upon the masses from on high. But I know that probably cannot be the case.

So I later asked her where these trends come from. She said that they trickle down from the various fashion weeks, and that there is a cabal (she didn't use the word "cabal") of Aveda "global stylists" who meet with a creative director. They have a round table discussion and decide upon the trends for fall. She said there are stylists from Madrid and various international locations and these global stylists change every year. She said these hair stylists are "creative geniuses" who know the right people, and that's how they become Aveda global stylists. Anyway, so they decide on the trends and the creative director makes all the arty decisions pertaining to the models, pamphlets, marketing materials that promote these trends for fall, deciding what the models wear, how they look, lighting, etc., and all of this. Then, the cabal meets with Aveda "Peer-fessionals" and presents the trends to them, and then the Peer-fessionals meet with "coaches" from Aveda salons and they train them on the new trends and then the coaches return to their salons and train staff there on how to cut hair in accordance with these trends. That's the deal with the trends.

I thought that was pretty interesting.

I asked if these trends were related to general fashion trends, and she said it's all totally related and that Aveda people are "behind the scene" at fashion weeks, styling hair and so forth.

Image: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3115/2295463945_89fb783ab9.jpg

Betty Draper's fainting couch

2009-10-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

I am in love with Mad Men's Betty Draper's antique fainting chaise. I realize it doesn't fit with the rest of her living room decor, but it is awesome and I wish I had one in my living room.

I don't find it to be ugly, as, it seems, others do. I think it's lovely. As has been noted by various others, Betty's attraction to the couch can be interpreted as an attraction to what it represents -- escape from physical and social restraints for women. The couch was popular during the Victorian Age among women who were so physically overwhelmed by their corsets that they had to lie down on these couches to recuperate.

I totally relate to that even though I, myself, do not wear corsets or any clothes that I find prohobitively uncomfortable. Also, compared to the Victorian Age, things are much better for women in 2009 -- although not great, or even tolerable, by any means, but better. Also, the Victorian Age was cool. There was this artistic idea of "melancholy" that was happening in poetry and novels, people were obsessed with Hamlet, and also Thomas Hardy wrote Tess of the D'Urbervilles which is a completely awesome novel, that features such great sentences as "The clock struck the solemn hour of one, that hour when thought stalks outside reason, and malignant possibilities stand rock-firm as facts." Also, during the Victorian Age, instead of saying that someone is irritable, you could say that they were afflicted with "splenetic humors," and Charles Dickens described one of his many characters in the novel Our Mutual Friend (which I actually really deeply despise) in this way: "A haggardly, melancholy man, speaking in a voice of querulous complaint." So these are all good reasons to have a Victorian fainting couch.

Also, as a dramatic, sensitive person who has an emotional porosity problem (I tend to absorb whatever emotional ambiance surrounds me to a somewhat troublesome degree), a fainting chaise would be a comfort. If I had this couch, I would come home from grad school every day and pour myself a glass of my microbrial-rich kefir (yogurt, basically, only extra nutritious) and collapse on the fainting chaise while drinking kefir, taking the herbs my acupuncturist gives me, and reflecting on the day's various goings-on. Also I might enjoy a coconut popsicle at the same time. And possibly a cucumber martini.

DoubleX discusses this couch and quotes Mad Men set designer Amy Wells:

And that Victorian fainting couch, all baroque dark wood and pale rose damask? “Oh that damn thing is ugly!” Wells laughed. “I kept saying to Matt, ‘Are you sure?’ and he kept saying, ‘It’s perfect! It’s hideous!’” Which I interpret to mean that it’s the perfect objective correlative for a woman defined by her beauty who, for perhaps the first time in her life, is making an unschooled attempt at expressing herself. Cruelly, even this maneuver is an exercise in conformity. “We discussed this for months and we decided antiques were ‘expected.’ Look around. You have ruined the whole room,” her enraged decorator complains. Poor Betty can’t get out of her own way—as the choice of a chaise longue designed for lightheaded, over-corseted women might indicate.

NYmag.com said that Betty bought the couch because "Betty’s looking into the darkness, realizing her marriage is a mess and that she has unsated desires — but she’s been soaking in lies for so long that the truth makes her dizzy. And so she buys that symbol — a Victorian fainting couch — that just happens to be in the window. " Well, I relate to that too, because often I feel dizzy, although hopefully not because I am soaked in lies -- I don't think that's the case. I think I just get overwhelmed by things.

Televisionaryblog.com wonders whether Betty's buying "a symbol of male domination," placing it in front of her hearth, which her designer described as the "soul of the home,"is "a subversive gesture or an independent one, reinforcing her desire to step outside the bonds of marriage." I don't know, maybe both, but I think it's totally cool to have a Victorian fainting couch because it can be like re-appropriating/re-contextualizing things from the past in a way that gives them new meaning. I don't think it has to be a creepy, retrograde thing.

Anyway, I would like to have one.

Pandas

2009-09-20T02:08:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been testing the limits of my relationship with my best friend via my constant discussion of pandas, specifically the mother and baby panda featured on the San Diego Zoo's baby panda cam.

The photo above (unrelated to the panda cam) is unrealistic because as I understand it pandas in the wild are mostly solitary.

Anyway, I've become extremely captivated by the baby panda cam, which is a web cam that shows the mother panda nurturing her 43-day-old panda cub. I check in on it anywhere from 3-15 times a day.

I find it singularly engrossing. I feel like I could watch the pandas for hours. They both seem so absorbed in each other, and I feel very calm and still as I watch them. Sometimes the camera captures the baby by himself, wriggling in the panda den, and other times you just see the mama panda crouching over the baby, and other times they are cuddling together or the mom is biting him and throwing him around. But they both seem so captivated by each other.

Carey said the first few days of motherhood after a new baby (she has two children) is born are so intense. She said there are so many crazy chemicals and hormones pouring through you. Breast feeding is an unbelievable emotional high, but the pitch of the experience, she feels, is chemical and she wonders if that experience comes from a fairly primitive mammalian place in the brain. She wonders if other mammals, like pandas, might be experiencing the same thing after their babies are born.

Sometimes, while watching the panda cam, I wish I could be in the den cuddling with the mama panda, and sometimes I wish I could be the baby, or somehow both of them, somehow part of the panda bonding experience. But then I don't want to be a panda, because that's a little weird and creepy to think about, but watching the pandas does fill me with longing, like I want something they have. Like a part of me wants to be with a part of them, or be them.

Also, watching the pandas makes me think of sex, the way sex with someone new can be so engrossing, everything is so still and so slow motion and vibrant and drugged. I realize this is a very bizarre connection. I definitely DO NOT want to have sex with pandas in any way, but sometimes watching the pandas makes me want that engrossing, warm, bondingness they seem to have which then reminds me of sex, and then I think of sex with someone new (a human), and I want that.

But then I was thinking that what the pandas really remind me of and make me long for are those moments where I am fully where I am, in the moment I am in, and totally absorbed in it and happy to be there. Like when I have joy and am fully experiencing what I am experiencing in a joyful way and that rare feeling of not wanting anything other than what I have in a given moment. Being totally content, totally at one with things as they are. Where there's no boundary between me and what I am experiencing.

I observe what I perceive as their panda symbiosis and I want to be them and I want to not be them and to be me but to be experiencing my version of their panda symbiosis or something. Or maybe I just want to feel symbiosis, oneness, in all possible forms at the same time, or something.

Dance cards

2009-09-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

According to Wikipedia, the way dance cards worked in the 18th and 19th centuries is that you would get a booklet with a decorative cover that would list dance titles, composers, and the people with whom you were going to dance at the ball. Also, the cover would indicate the sponsoring organization of the ball and would involve a decorative cord that you could attach to your wrist or ball gown. Some dance cards could be fancy, "even incorporating precious metal and jewels."

That sounds so awesome!! In this age of Twitter, Facebook, etc., somehow the idea of wearing a fancy card with precious metal and jewels attached to your wrist with a cord that lists your various appointments and engagements is pleasing and reassuring. It seems so simple. Of course, you would be stuck with those people on your dance card. You would have to dance with them. You couldn't weasel out of it by saying, "Oh I didn't get your email," because they could plainly see their name on your dance card. Also I think men should have them too.

I also like the idea of massive, lavish balls -- in theory. In practice, it's probably likely that I would hate them. But I like the idea of regularly attending lavish, massive balls where you would dance with all kinds of people and have various different kinds of encounters and also wear an exciting gown.

It would definitely solve the problem of wanting to meet new people, that I frequently have, because I could know that I would meet a bunch of new people at the next massive, lavish ball.

Above is the inside of a dance card from 1884. This ball seems boring. They would definitely have to be updated for modern times.
This whole dance card notion also appeals to me because the idea of your social life - which can seem so abstract, vague, and tenuous sometimes -- being reduced to something material and concrete is interesting. It's like the false appeal that everything can be simpler and cleaner than it ever is. Oscar Wilde said, "The truth is rarely pure and never simple." The dance card suggests that the truth could be as pure and simple as a booklet attached to your wrist by a decorative cord.

I also like the idea that I don't have to worry about what to eat for lunch or whether I should go to the gym in the morning or the evening or what I should do next -- I just need to consult my dance card and it will tell me what comes next. Of course, realistically, that would annoy me, to literally be tied to a set schedule. But it strikes me as quaint and I also like the idea of introducing greater ritual into interactions and relationships, like it would make them more special.

Nostalgia

2009-09-09T00:16:00.000-07:00

I was reading some stuff about nostalgia in a lit theory book about "home" symbolism in African American literature that resonated with me. The author was talking about the book Invisible Man and how the protagonist, also known as the invisible man, encounters a maternal figure in the character Mary and a home environment -- Mary's home -- that speaks to the ideal he has for his own home, the home from his past he is nostalgic for. In residing in this idealized home environment (Mary's home) it's like he's trying to return to this idealized past -- his own childhood home -- in the present.

But, says the author, the protagonist can't return home because the past is not available due to laws of physics. Further, "There is no one essential past about which to get nostalgic. This is true in the sense that there has never been a historical movement untouched by the world beyond." Part of what that quote means to me is that like I am often nostalgic for this past I remember, as if there is a past untouched by a previous past or yearnings for the future. It's like a fake made up past fantasy bubble in my head that never really existed. It's an idea I have created using memory. I remember things in a certain way, but that's not necessarily how it was at the time.

Then the author says:

Time is the inevitable corrupting presence that complicates the ability to construct home as an ideal in the present. The knowledge required to construct home as a perfected shelter is predicated upon experience that comes through living over time. The invisible man cannot go home to Mary's because of the impossibility of returning through time and space with the knowledge he has required through the act of moving away. He is, indeed, moving in the wrong direction if he is trying to go home, because Mary's house becomes home for him only after he leaves. The challenge facing the invisible man is to use the tools available to him to create a home in the present.

I think this is a true thing about nostalgia. I am a very nostalgic person. Often I think I want to return to a past moment, but really what I want is to return to my idea of that moment with the wisdom/insight/experience I have gained since that moment -- which of course is not possible. I think ultimately what needs to happen is to create that moment that I crave, in some way, in the present. But the nostalgia feels like a desperate yearning for the past. If only I could go back. It's hard to convince myself that that's not really what is happening -- really I want to move forward and integrate the past into the present. Which is a harder thing. The easier more comforting thing is to dwell in the fantasy of the fictitious past I guess....

Anne vs. Mary

2009-09-03T19:01:00.001-07:00

Today I find myself contemplating whose life I would have rather had: Anne or Mary Boleyn's, based on the below biographical facts and also based on what I have imagined their lives were like, which is drawn from nothing but my imagination:

Anne Boleyn

Queen of England for three years

Mother of Queen Elizabeth I

Key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English reformation

Noble birth

Beheaded at age 36

Married to King Henry VIII, who may or may not have been attractive and may or may not have looked like Eric Bana

King Henry VIII was infatuated with her and they got along well but in the end

he was insane and had her executed

Venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation

Has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works

Has been called “the most influential and important queen consort England has ever had” since she provided the occasion for Henry VII to divorce Catherine of Aragon and declare his independence from Rome.

Was less attractive than her sister Mary, but more ambitious and intelligent

Educated in Netherlands and France

A poet once said of her: "Here was [a] fresh young damsel, that could trip and go."

Exerted a powerful charm on those who met her

Venetian described her as "not one of the handsomest women in the world; she is of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised ... eyes, which are black and beautiful"

She quickly established herself as one of the most stylish and accomplished women at Henry VIII’s court, and soon a number of young men were competing for her.

American historian described her as: "the perfect woman courtier... her carriage was graceful and her French clothes were pleasing and stylish; she danced with ease, had a pleasant singing voice, played the

lute and several other musical instruments and spoke French fluently. A remarkable, quick-witted intelligent noblewoman... that first drew people into conversation with her and then amused and entertained them. In short, her energy and vitality made her the center of attention in any social gathering."

Often acted independently of her husband, able to grant petitions, receive diplomats, preside over patronage appointments and foreign policy

Solidified relationship with France

Was created Marquess of Pembroke,and became the most prestigious non-royal woman in the realm

Had over 250 servants to tend to her personal needs, everyone from priests to stable-boys.

There were over 60 maids-of-honour who served her and accompanied her to social events. She also employed several priests who acted as her confessors and religious advisors.

She spent lavish amounts of money on gowns, jewels, head-dresses, ostrich-feather fans, riding equipment, furniture and upholstery, maintaining the ostentatious display required by her status. Numerous palaces were renovated to suit her and Henry's extravagant tastes

Was blamed for the tyranny of her husband's government and for her failure to produce a son. However, with her arrest, trial and execution, public opinion in London and the continent shifted to sympathy, and disapproval of Henry's behaviour.

Mary Boleyn

Not a historical figure, no real accomplishments in her life unlike her sister Anne

More beautiful than her sister Anne

Educated in France

Had many affairs, more than her sister Anne, and had many affairs with royal, important men

Had an affair with King Henry VIII and he fathered two of her children but they were considered bastards

Married a commoner, for love, and when Anne, who was queen, and her family found out she was disowned for marrying beneath her station and banned from court.

Was poor and begged her sister Anne for financial help and Anne did help her a little but wouldn’t allow her to return to court

Mary and her husband remained outcasts, living in retirement in Essex, basically off the grid.

After the deaths of her parents, Mary inherited some property in Essex. She seems to have lived out the rest of her days in anonymity and relative comfort with her husband.

She died in her early forties.

Of course the answer seems obvious -- Anne. And I guess maybe that would be my answer. She had an enormous historical impact and she accomplished so much, but she also must have suffered so much and it seems like her life was probably a huge pain. Circumscribed and rules to follow and a whole lot of courtly bullshit at every turn. Whereas, in Mary's case, there's this idea that she married for love. Maybe she was happily married, although poor, and didn't have to deal with all that aristocratic crap. Maybe she was happy. Still, I guess it would have been more fulfilling to be Anne, but her husband was completely insane and had her beheaded at age 36. Maybe it comes down to do you want to have happiness or do you want to have meaning and fulfillment in your life.

Sentimentality

2009-09-03T13:38:00.000-07:00

People often accuse me of being "dark," depressing, or not being cheerful enough. My rule of thumb is that I act cheerful when I actually feel cheerful, and I act depressed when I feel depressed. At least that's what I try to do. If I have fun at a party, I tend to say, "That party was fun." It wasn't amazing, a blast, or the best party ever. I like acknowledging things for what they are and not making more or less out of them. People seem to think that this makes me "negative" or dark. I've had interactions with people where they ask me how I am and I say "OK," and they say, "Awww, just OK?" like it's not good enough that I'm just OK, that I should be doing better than that, that I should be doing "amazing." But I think it is good enough that I am OK because it is how I am doing and I don't like to pretend that I am other than how I am. I don't always succeed at doing this, but it's what I strive toward.

I was reading an essay by James Baldwin that I feel speaks to this. He is complaining about the sentimentality he sees in the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin and he is writing in 1963:

Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumanity, the mask of cruelty.

I completely agree! Not sure about the cruelty part, but this is how I feel generally. Then, Baldwin says this:

In overlooking, denying, evading [this] ... complexity -- which is nothing more than the disquieting complexity of ourselves -- we are are diminished and we perish; only within this web of ambiguity, paradox, this hunger, danger, darkness, can we find at once ourselves and the power that will free us from ourselves.

This is exactly how I feel. When I or someone else denies a feeling, or pretends like something is other than what it is, it's like you're denying the reality of what is happening in that moment, the reality of who you are, or how you feel, and that strikes me as incredibly depressing and nihilistic. I'm interested in being real with what is actually going on, what is actually the case, because I agree that within that -- no matter how dark, boring, or depressing it is -- "can we find at once ourselves and the power that will free us from ourselves."

Comfort vs. meaning

2009-08-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

I like this blog post about comfort and meaning:

So much in our culture pushes us to comfort as the ideal, meaning that “making things easy” can become our primary way of thinking about the world, our work and our relationships. But that kind of thinking only leads to death because the pursuit of comfort is ultimately a losing battle.

I don’t by any means claim to be an expert in all of this, but in my humble opinion it seems that rather than pursuing comfort, we should be pursuing meaning. Meaning in what we make, meaning in what we experience, meaning in our relationships. To find meaning in what we do and what we experience brings joy that is often lacking in the more hedonistic pursuit of pleasure for its own sake. But if we can learn to find pleasure in the pursuit of meaning, then we are on to something. If we can train ourselves to think for a few seconds between stimulus and response and be self-aware enough to recognize when we are simply succumbing to what’s easy instead of what is right, then we will be poised for creative accidents.

This has been a long and difficult battle in my own life, as I have often found my primal urge toward comfort to be stronger than my urge to make something meaningful. But when I intentionally push myself to examine new stimulus, to get into uncomfortable relationships and to be disciplined about my time I nearly ALWAYS find that I am far better off in the end.

I completely agree and am always getting screwed up with this! I want comfort, and really don't tend to have it, but when I get a little bit of it I'm always so disappointed because it doesn't provide what I'm really wanting -- which is an experience that is meaningful and creatively fulfilling. And when I have meaning -- like being in this MFA program where I am constantly doing things I care about -- yet lack comfort, I'm disappointed, as if I expected meaning and comfort to always go hand in hand. I think I expect fulfillment to satisfy all of my desires, which it doesn't. But I do know that I am much happier doing something meaningful than something that is just comfortable. I just don't know why I keep expecting to have them both. I wonder if it's possible to have them both. Woody Allen's Vicky Christina Barcelona movie would say no....

Cake

2009-07-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of a beautiful organic cake. The woman who made it describes herself as "an organic baker and cake designer."

Since my surgery and melanoma stuff I have thrown myself into a serious detox, healing diet and am generally in healing, detoxy mode. For the foreseeable future I plan on adhering to a diet so healthy it will likely be very annoying to my friends, but I will try and not be annoying about it. For now, no meat or dairy (with the exception of this yogurt I make myself that has all these super healthy enzymes and bacteria that's good for various things in your body). No refined sugar. Mostly just veggies, grains, fruits, miso, etc. I've been making fermented veggies, which are also really good for lots of things. I did make healthy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies today, because I was going nuts with no fun food to eat.

But that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy desserts visually. I think desserts can be so beautiful and inspiring -- even if I'm not eating them. Not to say I won't eat them every once in a while, because really what's the point otherwise. But still, whether I'm eating them or not, I think this cake is lovely and it makes me happy.

Necklaces

2009-07-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

I like this little girl's necklaces.

The Ethics of Creative Nonfiction

2009-07-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

From Amy Benson's memoir The Sparkling-Eyed Boy:

Don't be my friend. Don't tell me what you might fear, what you really think about your sister, how you got those bruises. Don't tell me anything. Don't even come by my house and laugh with your mouth open. I will count your fillings and know what you find funny. People who have very little to say for themselves are careless with the lives of others. I am a spiller of secrets -- they plash easily out the sides of my mouth. Writers have no ethics, if by ethics you mean respect for the lives and truths of others, and if by respect you mean leaving them alone, and if by leaving them alone you mean not ever seeing them as material. Words are a currency and the lives of others an entire economy. How much to tell? How shall it be told? What you know of someone else's life has one value when kept to yourself and a different value when told. One power when you shut the door behind you, lean in close to my ear, when we go to the movies together, laugh behind cinder-block buildings, send notes to each other from our own pens in our own hands. When I watch your face change like clouds moving over water. We feel so close, these intersections of our lives like a secret conduit. We actually believe we might feel the same way about something. And then there is the power of turning your sigh into a metaphor, our car trip into a narrative with a significant ending. The power of turning you out of the inner folds of my life and into dialogue. That time when we were kids and your father yelled at you in front of me and you didn't guard your face which crumpled, as we would never want our faces to crumple, into the folds of an old man who knows for sure it won't get any better. I saw that. It was mine. And you knew I saw it, so it was ours. And now it is not. We all want to be loved, but some of us are willing to gut our lives of secrets, their moist insides stiffening and cracking in the sun, then look, like a dog, for approval. Some of us are willing never to live a moment again until we've inked it on the page. Some of us don't know how else to live. I don't know how else to live. So don't be my friend.

There's a lot about this that doesn't resonate with me. I don't like the meanness and the coldnesss of it. But some of what she says does really resonate. Like this:

That time when we were kids and your father yelled at you in front of me and you didn't guard your face which crumpled, as we would never want our faces to crumple, into the folds of an old man who knows for sure it won't get any better. I saw that. It was mine.

I basically feel that way about everything I experience. That, to a certain extent, it belongs to me.
And I can't imagine not thinking about everything that someone says to me, everything that I encounter, as a metaphor, thinking about ways it could be story or a piece of dialogue. I have always thought about things that way and assumed that others do too. I don't see it as a bad thing though, or a betrayal. It's like, what more could this conversation mean, or what would be like if it was in a story, or what could be created around this. I guess I just think of it is a seeing everything in a creative light. I think of it as a compliment, to think like how could this moment be blown up into something else, what it would be like if this was part of a song or a movie. I don't know. To a certain extent it seems like what's the point if you don't try to make stuff out of other stuff, or at least imagine making stuff, so things last longer. It's like if something that happens is meaningful, than of course I would like to write about it, and that to me is a good thing.

Scars

2009-07-24T14:44:00.000-07:00

A week ago I went back to the surgeon's to have my stitches removed and they said that I should massage the scars for 10-15 minutes three times a day, at least. I have five scars. So that's like three hours of massaging scars a day. Anyway, they also said that for the scars I should definitely stay out of the sun for the rest of the summer. Anytime I'm in sunlight I need to wear long sleeves, the scars need to be covered, etc. The first three months are critical and the first year is when the scars are forming so in general I need to be careful about sunlight -- to help the scars heal.

Anyway, so three hours of massaging scars per day is a little ... beyond the scope of the time I have to massage scars. But I'm doing my best. I'm gradually getting used to them. They are definitely freaky looking and if they were on someone else's body, I would be grossed out. I would be like "ew." But they are on my body, and so I don't feel grossed out. You know, because they're there. They're a part of me now. It basically looks like I was attacked by a bunch of random, scaly, supernatural creatures with long mouths. I don't really want to touch them. I rub them with cocoa butter and I don't like the way they feel under my fingers. Dry and crusty and scabrous and sewn together. They don't feel like me or my body. The one on my neck is particularly disconcerting but I'm forcing myself to adjust to it, because there it is, every day, on my neck. It's not going anywhere. It just is ... there. So I have to accept it. It looks like a thin, ropey, ruddy, something-or-other on the front of my neck. If I had a scar on the side of my neck at least then it could look like a vampire bite or a hickey. Well, I guess you don't get to choose where you get melanoma. It just happens where it happens.

Anyway, it feels strange to rub them with cocoa butter. I still can't shake the weirdness of the fact that I was cut open in five different places, and then sewn back up. It's just upsetting. I just keep wondering. Why? Why? Why? Why did it happen? I realize I'm being extremely dramatic. It's hardly the end of the world. I just feel weird about being cut open. The one on my neck just seems like it's in an odd area. The skin around that area looks thin. My neck is thin and looks delicate. It's just freaky that I was sliced open there. But it's a good thing I was because there were BAD cells there that they had to get out and I'm grateful that they did.

I guess I feel like I'm not supposed to be cut open. I guess I feel like my skin is supposed to be the way it always was. Which is silly because I well know that that's not the way life works. But I guess I thought that in my case, it would. That my skin would stay clean and firm and nice forever and nothing would go wrong and I would never have to be cut open. And then I was. And I guess it's still a confusing thing for me to accept. I keep on staring at the scars thinking, but it's not supposed to be like this. But I guess there's no such thing about how things are supposed to be, and I know that it's not all up to me anyway. I guess I need to let go of the way I thought it would be and go with the flow of the way that it is.

Hustle and pluck

2009-07-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

In Tobias Wolff's memoir This Boy's Life, Wolff is reading Boy's Life, the official Scout magazine, at one point during his troubled and high-jinks-heavy adolescence. He says, "I read it in a trance, accepting without question its narcotic invitation to believe that I was really no different from the boys whose hustle and pluck it celebrated."

This makes me think about "hustle and pluck." I have a little bit of it, but in many ways, not a ton. I wish I had more. It's not one of my defining characteristics. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is obviously all hustle and pluck, as is Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood. I tend to admire these qualities in others. My dad had hustle and pluck, but you wouldn't necessarily have known it if you had met him when he was older. But if you got to talking to him about his life, you'd see that, particularly in his 20s, he was hustle and pluck central. Hustle and pluck are among the qualities that define my mother. This is obvious to anyone who knows her or who has spoken with her in an elevator. My brother Kevin has a lot of hustle and pluck -- particularly when it comes to career -- but it shows up in an understated way, like it did in my dad.

Thinking back on the 15 men I have dated in my lifetime, I conclude that 11 of the 15 had hustle and pluck. Suffice it to say that I am attracted to hustle and pluck in men. The men I have dated who lacked those qualities didn't excite me as much as some of the others. It's also true that the two Bad Men I have dated, men who were, for me, psychologically dangerous, and also morally bankrupt, were all hustle and pluck, and that was a big part of what drew me to them so powerfully.

In friendships, though, I don't always connect with hustle-and-pluck heavy individuals. One of my closest friends, Gina, is big on hustle and pluck, and there are others as well, but many other close friends past and present don't emphasize those qualities.

Light

2009-07-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

This photo reminds me that sunlight is not completely evil and bad for you.

The other day I went back to see my surgeon and they said that the pathology report came back and that they got all the bad stuff when they did the surgery and that it was totally successful, so that's really good. They told me to come back in a week and that they would take some of the stitches out. The others stay in and just dissolve on their own. They also removed these steri strips, which were these white little adhesive strips that covered some of the stitches, including the big scar on my neck, where the melanoma was. So, that was pretty weird once they took them off. The neck scar was hard for me to look at and think about, but every day I get more used to it. They also said to cover up the stitches when I'm outside. I've been wearing a scarf every day anyway to cover up the one on my neck. But they were basically like, it's all fine.

I saw my acupuncturist also and she said they did really nice work with the incisions. She said that several times but was concerned over my stress level. I think she thinks I need a stronger immune system to fight these kinds of things and that stress is weakening it. She gave me various herbs.

I was reading about melanoma the other day. I couldn't really read about it before the surgery because it freaked me out to much, but now I can. It's just so weird that I had that, and that I had it on my neck! It's weird that I had something that if not caught early ... could be bad. I still wonder how, and why, it happened. Everyone is like, oh, it's fine, it's just due to sun exposure and genetics, relax. But, I try hard to live my life in a healthy way and to eat well. I get a ton of exercise. I want to understand why I had that on my body and prevent it from happening in the future. And sunlight makes me a little nervous.

Surgery

2009-07-12T20:39:00.000-07:00

Four days ago I went under the knife at the OSU Medical Center. It all started several weeks ago when an OBGYN nurse noticed a weird mole on the front of my neck and said I needed to have it looked at right away. I then saw a dermatologist who reminded me of Worm-Man from the "What's My Line" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 2. He thought it should be surgically removed immediately and that it might be pre-cancerous or cancerous; he referred me to a surgical dermatologist who biopsied it and four other moles on my body. A week later I got a call from the surgical dermatologist. She said the one on my neck was melanoma and the others were not, but they involved irregular cell activity which meant they could potentially turn cancerous later on. So then I met with these surgeons and they said I needed to have all the moles removed. They said the bad one on my neck was so small that there was no chance it could spread, but that I needed to have it removed. And I guess the other ones needed to be removed to be safe. They would make what they call a wide incision for the one on my neck and then it would be gone and they didn't think the scar would be bad. They also said I need to avoid the sun, wear sunscreen at all times, and get regular checkups to look out for other moles.

The time between the day I was first told about the melanoma and the day of my surgery was marked by intense anxiety, crying spells, appointments with doctors, conversations with family members, friends, and various helpful people. Eventually I calmed down once I realized that it was going to turn out OK. But I was very anxious about the surgery, as surgery makes me anxious.

Some people, like the surgeons, acted like this whole situation wasn't that big a deal and said that I would get these moles removed, avoid sunlight, and that's it, I wouldn't have to worry so much about this. After the surgery, the problem would go away for the most part. But other people, like my acupuncturist, and other alternative health people I know, were more like, no cancer is a serious poison. Even though skin cancer is less serious than other types, it's still cancer. You need to take this seriously and detox, help your body heal in various ways and take steps to make sure it doesn't return. That's my perspective as well. I am so relieved that it isn't a serious situation, but I think of this as a wake-up call. Lots of people are telling me that this has happened because I'm fair-skinned, and because I'm genetically pre-disposed (my father had similar skin issues), and that it's nothing more than that. But it seems weird that I have to have FIVE moles removed from my body at my age. And it's scary to find out that something dangerous is growing on my body. How can that be true? I don't want bad things to be on my skin or anywhere else. I don't want to be the site of any kind of poison. I want to be full of good things. I feel like I need to do healing, detox stuff on mind, body, and soul and so that's what I'm going to do. I can't just shrug this off.

Anyway, so my mom flew out here to be with me for the surgery. We reported to the medical center at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday as instructed. I was very anxious and could hardly sleep the night before. I was anxious to get the moles removed, but surgery is so hard for me. The idea that I can be cut open is very upsetting. I have this idea that the body should be this whole entity and it shouldn't be cut. The idea that I can be sliced open is hard for me to accept. And I also am phobic about anesthesia. The loss of control, having to take chemicals intravenously that aren't good for you and I don't know what they are doing to me and I have to do it. That frightens me.

My mom doesn't get it. She pointed out that the surgery was a good thing and that it was going to help me heal. And that even though I would be cut open, the body's ability to heal is miraculous. She said, "Focus on that." She told me she doesn't worry about surgery because she trusts the people who are doing it and trusts the process. That's a good attitude and one I am trying to cultivate, but I do have these intense fears and anxieties that are hard for me to overcome.

Anyway, so we checked in and there was basically no waiting around. First this woman did our intake. She asked for my name, etc., and asked if I was a smoker or a diabetic. I would be asked both of these questions about ten more times by various people throughout the day. I am neither diabetic nor a smoker. Then she escorted us upstairs.

It was gross upstairs and smelled like urine. Both my mom and I thought so. Obviously it wasn't urine that we smelled, but probably some cleanser they use that smells weird but I didn't like it. I also didn't like the bathroom that I used. It was clinical and not that clean. The floors, the sink and its fixtures looked scuffed up. The whole hospital environment made me feel anxious, but I think actually it was probably pretty nice and probably any environment would have made me feel that way.

Then, they took us into a private hospital room and asked me to change into the most horrible hospital clothes imaginable. There was this green gown that tied in the back, a robe that tied in the front, and these ugly, somewhat disheveled looking green hospital booties. I hated these clothes. I wished I could have kept my sweat pants on. I felt totally dehumanized in the hospital outfit and they asked me to lie down on this hospital bed. I didn't get out of that bed until I was wheeled out of recovery.

The moment I slipped on those clothes I felt an overwhelming sense of loss of control. Like I was slipping into something scary that I didn't want. The clothes themselves made me feel sick and weak. I told my mom it was like being in a concentration camp where they take away your clothes, shave your head, and force you to wear a dehumanizing uniform. My mom pointed out that in a concentration camp, the people in charge are trying to kill you, whereas in a hospital the doctors and nurses are there to save your life. This is true.

I had to give them a urine sample to prove that I wasn't pregnant, as pregnancy would pose surgical complications. And then two nurses came into the room to ask me if I was a smoker or diabetic and checked my blood pressure and oxygen levels. My blood pressure was constantly being monitored. It was very annoying, but I guess they needed to keep track of that. But it seemed a little excessive. One of of the nurses was so nice and good to me. I asked her many questions and she was very kind and reassuring. My mother later told me I wasn't friendly and was largely non-responsive to the nurses. "Borderline hostile" was the phrase she used. I knew I was behaving that way, but I couldn't help it. I was so nervous, I felt like I lacked the ability to be friendly. It was like the "friendly" valve in my brain just wouldn't budge. My mom said I was speaking in this flat, monotone manner. I knew I was doing it, but I felt so vulnerable and anxious, I needed to focus on getting through the experience. All my energy went toward that. I didn't really feel bad about my behavior. They told me if I needed to use the bathroom again I should go ahead and do it. So I did.

Then this man came in to wheel me down to the fourth floor to go to pre-op. My mom had convinced them to let her go there with me so she could do Reiki on me and also because it would help me stay calm. So she met us in pre-op. The weirdest thing was being wheeled down to the fourth floor, and through pre-op. I felt like an invalid, lying in that bed in those clothes, plus they made me wear a shower-cap thing over my head. All these doctors wearing scrubs and masks were staring at me. Or maybe they were staring at something else but it seemed like they were looking at me. I felt like I was being wheeled to my doom, and like we would soon reach a gate guarded by large dogs. The nurse deposited me into this area of pre-op sectioned off by a curtain. My mother met us there and gave me breathing exercises to practice to stay calm and did Reiki to help me relax. Then there was a flurry of more medical people. One nurse asked me if I was diabetic, a smoker, took my blood pressure, oxygen, and I asked her questions. She put in an IV which I did not like, but it could have been worse. She put it in my left hand. At first it was just saline solution going in my veins. Everyone was very concerned about how anxious I was. I don't know how they could tell, but they could. Anyway, then there were two anesthesiologists who came in to talk with me, and then the surgeon. I had questions for all of them.

They gave me an anti-anxiety med, through the IV, and my mom said as soon as they started that I said to her, "I feel different." I remember how I felt. It was a dreamy, woozy feeling. They said it would be like two martinis, but it wasn't quite like that, although I don't usually drink martinis, so maybe I wouldn't know. I didn't know this till afterward but my mom said they later gave me a second anti-anxiety med because I was still too anxious after being given the first one.

The whole time I was in pre-op was very unsettling. For one thing it was chaotic and claustrophobic, and there were various medical people bustling about, putting things into me. And I was so terrified. I remember at one point I grabbed my mother's hand. I was feeling scared. Because I knew it was about to start and there was simply nothing I could do about it.

I remember talking, to the various medical people, and my mother. My mom later said that after they gave me the anti-anxiety med my voice got very, very quiet. I remember that. I don't know why I had to talk that way, but I remember at the time that it was the easiest way for me to speak. I remember at one point hearing that they had started the anesthesia and thinking, "But I'm not tired yet." But I would have to have been in the operating room at that point, and I don't remember the operating room. I remember, I think, being asked to lift up here, and move there, but I don't remember where I was or who was there or anything else. But that must have been when they were moving me to the other gurney to move to OR. I don't remember my mother leaving, although she told me later that eventually she kissed my hand and said, "I'll see you soon." I don't remember the operating room. I don't remember Barry, the circulating nurse, although my mother later told me he was attending to me. And then I remember waking up in recovery.

Recovery was very unpleasant, noisy, and bright, and I didn't like it. Medical people were bustling all around, checking my blood pressure and so forth, but no one really talked to me or explained what was going on. I was irritated. They had told me my throat would be sore after surgery because of the breathing tube that would rub against my vocal chords, and they did not exaggerate. It was painful, and the first thing I remember thinking about was how I wanted a milkshake for my throat and what kind I wanted and whether it should be made with regular ice cream, or healthier soy ice cream. After what felt like an interminable period, I was wheeled upstairs. They gave me apple sauce, apple juice, and pudding at my request. They said I needed liquids and something to eat. I remember reading the ingredient list on the pudding container and becoming very angry at how unhealthy the pudding was that they serve to hospital patients. For some reason, this filled me with an uncontrollable rage. I didn't say anything about it obviously. I just waited till I calmed down. I don't know why that made me so mad. Eventually my mother came in to see me, and that was good. We left the hospital shortly after that armed with prescriptions of various kinds and various sets of instructions.

image: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/22/95433565_ee94b2eb7e.jpg?v=1139084658

Away from fears

2009-06-22T09:34:00.001-07:00

More journals and people writing in them

2009-06-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

Life Flashing

2009-06-22T09:18:00.001-07:00

Here is the text that accompanied this image that I found on Flickr:

I would rather paint the deep and mysterious creative world than be involved in the everyday world but it would be far too dangerous to do this.

I relate to this. I don't paint, but I would rather just kind of explore the deep and mysterious creative/spiritual world, and I am not good with the everyday one, but I know I have to do both.
Also, I am interested in eating, and baking, which maybe is both everyday and the deep and mysterious creative world.

image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/virtue_fern/3041741955/

Plans

2009-06-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

I feel this way so much of the time. I found this photo on Flickr accompanied with this title: Making Plans for the Semester. Below is the explanation also included by the artist:

Thinking about the things I want to do most in the next few months or so...
I just couldn't bring myself to just write down a list, so after a while of fooling around with pencil, markers and some washes, this is the "decorated version" of the list. Now if I only sort it out and do something from it... This is a page from my often mistreated journal (loose threads on the left!)

image credit: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3150/3070661276_a70ac0bd0d.jpg?v=0

Journals and people writing in them

2009-06-16T09:24:00.001-07:00

Overheard

2009-06-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

Salted Butter Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

2009-06-07T12:48:00.001-07:00

I am spending the day writing, applying for student loans, and reading Elie Wiesel's memoir about living in a Nazi concentration camp so I decided to bake Salted Butter Chocolate Sandwich Cookies to cheer myself up. I am generally quite pleased with the result! They were easy to make, although they took some time, and the recipe is totally Economic Holocaust-friendly as there are not many ingredients and for the most part they are commonplace items like eggs, flour, vanilla. The one weird ingredient is whiskey, but you only need a tiny amount and so I just bought one little bottle for less than $2.

Here's how you make them:

cookies:
2 large egg yokes
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon whiskey
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) salted butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

filling:
1 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup water
2 cups confectioners sugar

1) Adjust an oven rack to middle position and heat the oven to 350. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk the yolks, vanilla, and whiskey together in a measuring cup. Here's a photo of that mixture.

2) OK, so then, with an electric mixer at medium-high speed, beat the butter and granulated sugar together until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Reduce the speed to medium, add the yolk mixture, and beat until combined. Then add the flour and beat until incorporated. Here's what that looks like one it's all mixed together.
3) Then you just shape the dough into 3/4-inch balls and space the balls 1-inch apart on the baking sheet.
4) And then you bake until lightly browned around the edges, 10 to 12 minutes.
5) Then, you cool the cookies on a baking sheet for 2 minutes and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely, about 3o minutes. Then you make the filling. For that, you just combine the chocolate and water in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until smooth, about 5 minutes. Off the heat whisk in the confectioners sugar until smooth, and you have this yummy chocolate filling.
6) And then for the last step, you turn half the cookies over (flat side up) and spread with about 1 teaspoon of filling. Top with another cookie. Let the filling set about 20 minutes. The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days. See, it's totally easy! Here are my cookies!

I like this photo

2009-06-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

I found it on Flickr. It's called "A Delicate Balance."

Bears

2009-05-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

Beautiful scenery makes its point quickly; then you have to pay attention, or it starts to slide by like a loop of background on a Saturday-morning cartoon... When you see a bear, the spot where you see it becomes instantly different from every place else you've seen. Bears make you pay attention. They keep the mountains from turning into a blur, and they stop your self from bullying you like nothing else in nature. A woods with a bear in it is real to a man walking through it in a way that a woods with no bear is not. Roscoe Black, a man who survived a serious attack by a grizzly in Glacier Park several years ago, described the moment when the bear had him on the ground: "He laid on me for a few seconds, not doing anything...I could feel his heart beating against my heart." The idea of that heart beating someplace just the other side of ours is what makes people read about bears and tell stories about bears and theorize about bears and argue about bears and dream about bears. Bears are one of the places in the world where big mysteries run close to the surface.

from Ian Frazier's essay "Bear News"

image: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3101/2873698884_2e5f38f204.jpg?v=0

Boston terrier

2009-05-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

From an essay by Elizabeth Bishop about living with her grandparents, as a child, during WWI.

There was a dog, a Boston bull terrier nominally belonging to Aunt Jenny, and oddly named Beppo. At first I was afraid of him, but he immediately adopted me, perhaps as being on the same terms in the house as himself; and we became very attached. He was a clever dog; he wore a wide collar with brass studs, which was taken off every night before he went to bed. Every morning at eight o'clock he would come to my door with the collar in his mouth, and bang it against the door, meaning for us to get up and dressed and start the day together. Like most Boston terriers he had a delicate stomach; he vomited frequently. He jumped nervously at imaginary dangers, and barked another high hysterical bark. His hyperthyroid eyes glistened, and begged for sympathy and understanding. When he was "bad," he was punished by being put in a large closet off the sewing room and left there, out of things, for half an hour. Once when I was playing with him, he disappeared and would not answer my calls. Finally he was found, seated gloomily by himself in the closet, facing the wall. He was punishing himself. We later found a smallish puddle of vomit in the conservatory. No one had ever before punished him for his attacks of gastritis, naturally; it was all his own idea, his peculiar Bostonian sense of guilt.

image: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/38/89774827_6c083fe912.jpg?v=0

Writing

2009-05-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

I like what Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) says about writing on her website.

Sometimes people ask me for help or suggestions about how to write, or how to get published. Keeping in mind that this is all very ephemeral and personal, I will try to explain here everything that I believe about writing. I hope it is useful. It's all I know.

I believe that – if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression – that you should take on this work like a holy calling. I became a writer the way other people become monks or nuns. I made a vow to writing, very young. I became Bride-of-Writing. I was writing’s most devotional handmaiden. I built my entire life around writing. I didn’t know how else to do this. I didn’t know anyone who had ever become a writer. I had no, as they say, connections. I had no clues. I just began.

I took a few writing classes when I was at NYU, but, aside from an excellent workshop taught by Helen Schulman, I found that I didn’t really want to be practicing this work in a classroom. I wasn’t convinced that a workshop full of 13 other young writers trying to find their voices was the best place for me to find my voice. So I wrote on my own, as well. I showed my work to friends and family whose opinions I trusted. I was always writing, always showing. After I graduated from NYU, I decided not to pursue an MFA in creative writing. Instead, I created my own post-graduate writing program, which entailed several years spent traveling around the country and world, taking jobs at bars and restaurants and ranches, listening to how people spoke, collecting experiences and writing constantly. My life probably looked disordered to observers (not that anyone was observing it that closely) but my travels were a very deliberate effort to learn as much as I could about life, expressly so that I could write about it.

Back around the age of 19, I had started sending my short stories out for publication. My goal was to publish something (anything, anywhere) before I died. I collected only massive piles of rejection notes for years. I cannot explain exactly why I had the confidence to be sending off my short stories at the age of 19 to, say, The New Yorker, or why it did not destroy me when I was inevitably rejected. I sort of figured I’d be rejected. But I also thought: “Hey – somebody has to write all those stories: why not me?” I didn’t love being rejected, but my expectations were low and my patience was high. (Again – the goal was to get published before death. And I was young and healthy.) It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of criticism. Wasn’t that the point of the creation – to communicate something to the world? So PUT IT OUT THERE. Send your work off to editors and agents as much as possible, show it to your neighbors, plaster it on the walls of the bus stops – just don’t sit on your work and suffocate it. At least try. And when the powers-that-be send you back your manuscript (and they will), take a deep breath and try again. I often hear people say, “I’m not good enough yet to be published.” That’s quite possible. Probable, even. All I’m saying is: Let someone else decide that. Magazines, editors, agents – they all employ young people making $22,000 a year whose job it is to read through piles of manuscripts and send you back letters telling you that you aren’t good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT. Don’t pre-reject yourself. That’s their job, not yours. Your job is only to write your heart out, and let destiny take care of the rest.

As for discipline – it’s important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. You will make vows: “I’m going to write for an hour every day,” and then you won’t do it. You will think: “I suck, I’m such a failure. I’m washed-up.” Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging and motherly love). The other thing to realize is that all writers think they suck. When I was writing “Eat, Pray, Love”, I had just as a strong a mantra of THIS SUCKS ringing through my head as anyone does when they write anything. But I had a clarion moment of truth during the process of that book. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: “That’s actually not my problem.” The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows.

I have a friend who’s an Italian filmmaker of great artistic sensibility. After years of struggling to get his films made, he sent an anguished letter to his hero, the brilliant (and perhaps half-insane) German filmmaker Werner Herzog. My friend complained about how difficult it is these days to be an independent filmmaker, how hard it is to find government arts grants, how the audiences have all been ruined by Hollywood and how the world has lost its taste…etc, etc. Herzog wrote back a personal letter to my friend that essentially ran along these lines: “Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it. Steal a camera if you have to, but stop whining and get back to work.” I repeat those words back to myself whenever I start to feel resentful, entitled, competitive or unappreciated with regard to my writing: “It’s not the world’s fault that you want to be an artist…now get back to work.” Always, at the end of the day, the important thing is only and always that: Get back to work. This is a path for the courageous and the faithful. You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place.

Here’s another thing to consider. If you always wanted to write, and now you are A Certain Age, and you never got around to it, and you think it’s too late…do please think again. I watched Julia Glass win the National Book Award for her first novel, “The Three Junes”, which she began writing in her late 30’s. I listened to her give her moving acceptance speech, in which she told how she used to lie awake at night, tormented as she worked on her book, asking herself, “Who do you think you are, trying to write a first novel at your age?” But she wrote it. And as she held up her National Book Award, she said, “This is for all the late-bloomers in the world.” Writing is not like dancing or modeling; it’s not something where – if you missed it by age 19 – you’re finished. It’s never too late. Your writing will only get better as you get older and wiser. If you write something beautiful and important, and the right person somehow discovers it, they will clear room for you on the bookshelves of the world – at any age. At least try.

There are heaps of books out there on How To Get Published. Often people find the information in these books contradictory. My feeling is -- of COURSE the information is contradictory. Because, frankly, nobody knows anything. Nobody can tell you how to succeed at writing (even if they write a book called “How To Succeed At Writing”) because there is no WAY; there are, instead, many ways. Everyone I know who managed to become a writer did it differently – sometimes radically differently. Try all the ways, I guess. Becoming a published writer is sort of like trying to find a cheap apartment in New York City: it’s impossible. And yet…every single day, somebody manages to find a cheap apartment in New York City. I can’t tell you how to do it. I’m still not even entirely sure how I did it. I can only tell you – through my own example – that it can be done. I once found a cheap apartment in Manhattan. And I also became a writer.

In the end, I love this work. I have always loved this work. My suggestion is that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line. Please try, also, not to go totally freaking insane in the process. Insanity is a very tempting path for artists, but we don’t need any more of that in the world at the moment, so please resist your call to insanity. We need more creation, not more destruction. We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable and brave – they are our soldiers, our hope. If you decide to write, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried under a fallen roof.” Become a knight, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way. As the great poet Jack Gilbert said once to young writer, when she asked him for advice about her own poems: “Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES.”

Good luck.

Rolled-Up Maps

2009-04-26T07:36:00.000-07:00

Only the third and fourth grades studied geography. On their side of the room, over the blackboard, were two rolled-up maps, one of Canada and one of the whole world. When they had a geography lesson, Miss Morash pulled down one or both of these maps, like window shades. They were on cloth, very limp, with a shiny surface, and in pale colors -- tan, pink, yellow, and green -- surrounded by the blue that was the ocean. The light coming in from their windows, falling on the glazed, crackly surface, made it hard for me to see them properly from where I sat. On the world map, all of Canada was pink; on the Canadian, the provinces were different colors. I was so taken with the pulled-down maps that I wanted to snap them up, and pull them down again, and touch all the countries and provinces with my own hands. -- Elizabeth Bishop "Primer Class" from The Collected Prose

I remember those rolled-up maps.

image: Sheely Farms Elementary School Shadow
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2345/2112140545_1a72921d94.jpg?v=0

Dirt Cake

2009-04-25T15:02:00.000-07:00

I ran across photos and recipes for Dirt Cake the other day and it really brought back memories because there was one year in elementary school, I don't recall which one, when Ashley Horner's mom was Room Mother and she brought in little Dirt Cakes for all of the students in class and it made quite an impression on me. I wasn't friends with Ashley Horner in any way, but I remember that she was popular and the kind of tidy, perky, conventionally attractive little girl that I didn't feel I was and that I longed to be in elementary school. Anyway, and so her mother brought in Dirt Cakes. They were made to look like they were plants but then it turned out they were these chocolate ice cream cakes. It was the most amazing thing I could imagine. I thought the whole idea was fantastic. I loved them and I loved all that chocolate and I wished I had a mother like Ashley Horner's instead of a mother like mine who only fed us seaweed and miso paste and tofu and carrots and would never be a Room Mother because she probably regarded it as silly and gender normative and dragged me around to museums and political demonstrations and insisted on teaching me respect for the Earth and that material things aren't important. I hated having a weird mom like that who wore "ethnic" clothes and took me to Unitarian Church. Although I grew up to be pretty much just like her and now I am so glad I didn't have Ashley Horner's mom. But at the time, I wanted a pretty, conventional mom like that who would make me dirt cakes. I had to lie to my mom about the cake because I wasn't supposed to eat any sugar, white flour, or anything remotely bad while I was at school. Anyway, I think it would be fun to have a Dirt Cake party for adults. I generally think it's fun to have kids parties for adults.

Café Au Lait

2009-04-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

The 11 years prior to moving to Ohio for graduate school I abstained from coffee due to a problem with my adrenal glands related to massively obscene caffeine intake in college. But then once I arrived in Ohio I realized I would have to take it up again if I were to make it through grad school. I found that the way I prefer to drink coffee is in the form of the café au lait. But it's very strange because while some coffee shops do have this beverage on the menu, most don't, and the ones that do tend to involve baristas who regard me with suspicion whenever I order it. The weird thing is, everyone here is familiar with espressos, lattes, and cappuccinos. But to order a café au lait is perceived as wildly unorthodox. I mean, espressos and espresso-based drinks and café au laits are very similar conceptually. This situation drives me insane and reminds me that I don't belong in the Midwest and that my life doesn't make any sense and is depressing.

I was discussing this with another student in my MFA program and basically he completely enlightened me. He knows about food and has also lived in other places. He suggested that the problem is that the café au lait is French, and espresso and related beverages are Italian. People here, somehow, aren't familiar with the café au lait because it's French. Arghh! The Midwest!! It's so maddening! Always clinging to the dark ages! He was suggesting that French culture is more of a referent on the coasts. It certainly has been a big cultural referent in the places where I've lived. People know about French things, people take stodgy relatives to French restaurants. French culture is an influence and, if anything, old hat. Certainly not anything exotic. In San Francisco the French bistros were old standbys, but not considered hip, like noveau Vietnamese or upscale Mexican or Burmese restaurants or whatever. But I'm wondering if he's right, that people here are weirded out by French things and I am just sick and tired of people treating me like a social leper just because I drink café au laits.

Here is why I like them:

As this bottled Japanese version of the café au lait explains: a coexistence of deep roasted beans and roasted milk for relaxing time. Exactly.

This moment is why I like café au laits. Doesn't it look wonderful? This moment is pretty much what I'm always after. You know, kind of European, kind of leisurely. Just sitting back, watching the people go by, drinking milky coffee and nibbling on grotesquely decadent beignets. This is also why I drink café au laits. Doesn't it look awesome? How could anyone possibly not want this? I like the way this tall, lovely drink is casually on this table strewn with glasses and various things, outside. Everything's very casual, lackadaisacal and yet kind of elegant and pleasing.
But really this is why I drink them. The froth. OMG.

Finally, a large, frothy café au lait goes very well with an Obama-friendly news magazine. Also I just like this particular café au lait and I'm tired of living in the backwoods where people treat me like I'm a superfreak just because I want one.

I would also like to point out that in Columbus you simply cannot get a café au lait of the caliber represented in these images. At least I haven't found one. There's a French bakery I could try. Sigh.

Easter Wheat Pie

2009-04-04T23:44:00.000-07:00

Apparently there is something that exists that is called an Easter Wheat Pie. It involves wheat berries, mascarpone cheese, ricotta, orange flower water, and various other exciting ingredients.

image: http://ciaochowlinda.blogspot.com/2009/03/neapolitan-pastiera-easter-wheat-pie.html

Food, grief

2009-04-04T22:57:00.000-07:00

In Joan Didion's memoir about the death of her husband and daughter she writes about Emily Post's guidelines on what to feed a bereaved person:

The “Funerals” chapter in Emily Post’s 1922 book of etiquette ... advised that those close to the grief-stricken should “prepare a little hot tea or broth and it should be brought to them . . . without their being asked if they would care for it. Those who are in great distress want no food, but if it is handed to them, they will mechanically take it . . . ”

Moments after my father died in Room 2 of the hospice wing of my parents' retirement home, my then sister-in-law appeared with a huge platter of spinach pie and a pan of hot croissant bread pudding she had recently prepared for us to eat. I was so happy to see that hot food in Room 2. For the six days my mother and I held vigil in Room 2 as my father was dying we barely ate and when we did it was weird random food friends brought us from Trader Joe's. Also, bread pudding is basically my all time favorite dessert, but I had actually never had croissant bread pudding and I've always loved spinach pies and grew up eating them at my best friend Laila's house. I was thrilled about that food and it signified comfort to me. A part of me felt like, "Yay! Yummy food! Fun times!" And I also knew that that part of me -- the part that loves food and associates good food with fun times comes from my father, which reminded me of the fact that I think a lot of my capacity for joy comes from my father. These thoughts of food and my father and joy and the way he and I love food led me to a place that I would come to know, in the months that followed his death, as hell. Didion describes this place as the "vortex." Physiologically she describes it as “sensations of somatic distress occurring in waves lasting from twenty minutes to an hour at a time, a feeling of tightness in the throat, choking with shortness of breath, need for sighing, and an empty feeling in the abdomen, lack of muscular power, and an intense subjective distress described as tension or mental pain.” Psychologically she describes it as "the unending absence ..., the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaningless itself.” This is how it is, she says, when you are in grief, when you wake up in the morning: “I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.”

Anyway, so we had this awesome food right after he died, and so even though I was happy about that, it was also like I was staring at the food through a long, narrow tunnel. Like I saw it, and my desire for it, as an object that was drained of feeling or sensuality. Like I knew how I should feel about it, how I would normally feel about croissant bread pudding and spinach pie, but I just didn't feel that way about it in that moment. One part of my brain came alive with joy at the sight of that food, the way it always does when I am in the presence of food that I love. But I couldn't really access that part of my brain, or like it was covered over with film. And mostly I didn't care. But I wanted to care. I just didn't. And I ate it, and eating it made me feel sick. It made me feel gross. Because food, to me, is life. And right then at that moment I didn't really want to be alive, if my father had to be dead. During the six months that followed his death a big part of me wanted to be dead too. And then, finally, I wanted to be alive again. The first song I listened to after I wanted to be alive again was Sufjan Stevens' "Holy, Holy, Holy." I listened to it while I was jogging along the Olentangy bike path in Columbus, Ohio where I was living and I was so relieved that I finally wanted to be alive again.

The hours after my father died -- the hours between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m. when the funeral people finally carted his body away and my mom and I returned to my parents' apartment and went to sleep for the first time really in six days -- were unbelievably strange. The quality of those hours is very difficult to describe, although I'd like to figure out how to describe them. And food -- and the desire for it -- was very far away during those hours. I could see it, but I couldn't feel it. I wonder if that's how some men experience their emotions. I've always been fascinated by the remote way some men I've known it seems experience their emotions, because for me it always feels like I am bathed in them. They envelop me and it's like I am in surround sound all of the time. My father was the same way. I remember once he was reading some Jungian psychology book in the green chair in our living room and he was reading about this Jungian personality type that he and I both felt we were and he said this type feels like it is "bathed in feelings." I remember he used that phrase and I was like, "Yep, that's how it is." And he felt that same way. That's how we both said we experienced emotion.

But right after he died, of course, I felt numb, like I was covered in clouds, like clouds were inside me, or cotton balls. And I saw the food sitting there but it was like it was a painting, or food on TV, or the idea of food, a picture of it drawn on paper and not the real thing.

The days after he died I made bread pudding for me and my mom to eat almost every day. I made it mechanically and when we finished one pan of bread pudding we drove to the grocery store and bought more whole milk and bakery style white bread and I went home and made more. And it consumed me, watching it bake, and when it was ready I took it out of the oven and I put two servings in two bowls and my mom and I sat in our respective corners of the living room and ate it. I remember slowly spooning hot pudding into my mouth, paying close attention to every bite, every flavor. But it didn't comfort me like it normally would. And after I finished it I felt awful, because the bread pudding was over, and it hadn't done anything for me, and I was back to where I started. I was in the vortex. I knew then that the easy part was over. Sitting with him as he was dying, watching him die, staying awake in Room 2 for six days was the good part. Once he died I began to realize that from here on out it was going to get much, much worse. And so I usually went to my bedroom to watch episodes from season 1 and 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which also didn't do much good. But that's what I did for the six months after he died. I watched Buffy. Seasons 1-7. I didn't eat bread pudding after those first few days, even though I wanted to, more than anything, but I didn't because I didn't want to get fat. But I watched some episodes of Buffy ten times in a row, because Buffy wouldn't make me fat, and because Buffy had a soothing, addictive, narcotic quality, at first. And once that palliative quality wore off I watched it over and over, soaking up the very last bits of what initially I found so soothing. I watched Buffy until I felt like I was going to vomit. And when I stopped I got that not-wanting-to-be-alive feeling. That why-would-I-want-to-live-in-a-world-that-doesn't-have-my-father-in-it feeling. That a-single-person-is-missing-and-the-whole-world-is-empty feeling. Until finally I stopped watching Buffy, for good. And then I felt much worse and then slowly a little better. And then finally I stopped feeling so dead. And then I began to be a little less of a dysfunctional crazy bereaved person. But I kind of think a part of me will always be that person.

Anyway, that passage from Didon's memoir reminded me of how I felt about food right after he died.

Tampon applicator

2009-03-29T13:23:00.000-07:00

The other day a male friend confessed to me that he did not know what a tampon applicator was. Here is a discarded one along the shoreline of Lake Erie.

image: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/172/462841371_7737ed6c44.jpg?v=0

Dogs

2009-03-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring -- it was peace.” -- Milan Kundera

Shoes

2009-03-15T09:24:00.001-07:00

Here is a photo of a stylist, in Paris, and her shoes. It's from this blog The Selby, which has photos of the interior of people's homes. I love looking at this blog. The photos are mostly of fancy people's homes and their homes are beautiful and artistic and the people profiled are people who would have beautiful things in their homes like visual artists, filmmakers, stylists, photographers, pastry chefs, these kinds of people. But there are also some authors thrown in there. Not to imply that authors can't be fancy, because clearly they can, but you wouldn't necessarily think that they'd have beautiful, artfully designed interior spaces. But I guess some of them do. Especially if they live with a photographer or art curator or whatever. Anyway, I love looking at these photos and this idea that people can express themselves and their lives through the way their homes are. I don't really do this, but I'd like to.

I've never been really good with things like that. I think I can express atfulness through something that I write or something that I say, but I feel like it's always hard for me to express that kind of stuff in a material way. But sometimes it's inspiring for me to be around people who do. And it's just interesting to me the way different people express these things. And I do think the quality of your environment matters. I think it's important to be in a clean space that is full of color and beautiful things. I just have trouble pulling it off.

I guess it's a question of what is easiest for you. Not that I'm great at it, but I feel like I can manipulate words to express what I want to express, such that I feel, yes, that's how I wanted it to sound or read, that's the effect I wanted it to have. That's what I envisioned in my mind. The way those words are is how I feel. But it's harder for me with material things. Like, I love jewelry and shoes and clothes, but I'm a graduate student and so of course can't afford those things, but still, I try. And I try and put an outfit together but often it doesn't look the way I wanted it to look. And I feel frustrated. Because I can't get it to match the image in my head. It's easier if I just try to write something, and that's what I enjoy more, as well. But I also like experiencing things in a visceral way.

I like the shoe photos because they are fun and they capture, for me, a little bit of why I love shoes and jewelry and why these things make me happy.

Chance

2009-03-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

From Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being:

"Tomas often thought of Tereza's remark about his friend Z. and came to the conclusion that the love story of his life exemplified not 'Es muss sein!' (It must be so), but rather 'Es konnte auch anders sein' (It could just as well be otherwise).
"Seven years earlier, a complex neurological case happened to have been discovered at the hospital in Tereza's town. They called in the chief surgeon of Tomas's hospital in Prague for consultation, but the chief surgeon of Tomas's hospital happened to be suffering from sciatica, and because he could not move he sent Tomas to the provincial hospital in his place. The town had several hotels, but Tomas happened to be given a room in the one where Tereza was employed. He happened to have had enough free time before his train left to stop at the hotel restaurant. Tereza happened to be on duty, and happened to be serving Tomas's table. It had taken six chance happenings to push Tomas towards Tereza, as if he had little inclination to go to her on his own."

"After Tomas had returned to Prague from Zurich, he began to feel uneasy at the thought that his acquaintance with Tereza was the result of six improbable fortuities.

"But is not an event in fact more significant and noteworthy the greater the number of fortuities necessary to bring it about?

"Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out is mute. Only chance can speak to us. We read its message much as gypsies read the images made by coffee grounds at the bottom of a cup...

"Necessity knows no magic formulae -- they are all left to chance. If a love is to be unforgettable, fortuities must immediately start fluttering down to it like birds to Francis of Assisi's shoulders."

Pomegranate molasses: Who knew?

2009-03-12T19:59:00.000-07:00

While the liquid in the tablespoon above looks suspiciously like NyQuil, it is actually pomegranate molasses. Apparently you can make pomegranate molasses from scratch, but more to the point, something called pomegranate molasses exists. I did not know this. Although, for the past year and a half I have been living in the culinary backwater of Columbus, Ohio, so maybe that explains it. Anyway, the process of preparing it looks easy, enjoyable and like it would serve as a pleasing diversion from my other responsibilities, but I'm still not clear on what you actually do with pomegranate molasses. Apparently you can "whisk it into dips, dressings, and glazes. Drizzle it over meats or use it in desserts." I don't know if it's something I would actually use, still it strikes me as something potentially exciting.

image: http://www.thehungrymouse.com/home/2009/03/10/pomegranate-molasses/

Waffle porn

2009-03-11T18:50:00.001-07:00

image: http://waffler.tumblr.com/post/84687229/waffle-5-budget-negotiations-politicians-seem

I would like to eat this

2009-03-09T11:23:00.000-07:00

Pots de creme.

image: http://www.2stews.com/2009/03/call-it-pudding-but-its-really-pots-de.html

Life under the Taliban

2009-03-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

In the book I Wouldn’t Start From Here, a collection of essays written by the rock critic/foreign correspondent/travel writer Andrew Mueller, he relays a conversation with a local about life under the Taliban during a visit to Kabul. Says the local: "They outlawed all the senses. There was nothing to look at, nothing to listen to, nobody you could touch. Even the food didn’t taste of anything.”

God. That sounds terrible!

Light

2009-03-08T21:20:00.000-07:00

I like this quote from the memoir The Adventures of Cancer Bitch by S. L. Wisenberg:

One story about Eden, said the rabbi, is that Adam and Eve were pure light. And then when they were exiled from the garden they were given skins. To contain them, to separate them from every other thing in the world that they had not been separate from. Another story is that everything in the world was made of light. Then the light became fragmented and we are trying in this life to collect and connect all the light, to restore and repair the world. The way to heal, I think, and I mean heal the soul, is to train yourself to see the light everywhere. Until you know without looking. Until you feel it without pointing it out to yourself, mouthing the words. It’s just there. Like it’s been all along.

Feeling happy

2009-03-08T12:10:00.000-07:00

Erica put this quote from Kiss of the Spider Woman up on her blog: "The nicest thing about feeling happy is that you think you'll never be unhappy again."

It's so true. The times I've felt truly happy, or at least significantly happy, it's not just a feeling of happiness, it's like a feeling that I've arrived somewhere, and have discovered something. Like something is opening up, and happening to me, and I feel convinced that I will always feel this way.

It's the same thing with sadness, or depression. It's why depression can be so frightening, so deafening. It feels like I will always feel sad. Like I have been thrust into Sad Dimension and the truth is that I am encapsuled in sadness. Forever.

It's like, when you feel something, it's not just like "Oh I feel happy," "I feel sad." It feels profound. I remember this guru I once saw speak, Gangaji, talked about how people always act like their feelings are a message from on high, when really they are just weather patterns that come and go. But that's not the way it seems when you experience them.

When I feel happy it's like I've walked into a room. It feels so textured and multidimensional. It's spatial. I'm convinced I've reached something. And it feels easy. I feel like I've discovered the key to happiness and I will always have it.

In the episode "Weight of the World" from season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there's this hell god named Glory who is temporarily trapped in a female body on earth and most of the time Glory doesn't experience human emotion, but then she starts to and hates it. She says:

How do they do it? People. How do they function here like this in the world with all this bile running through them? They have no control. They're not even animals. They're just meat baggy slaves to hormones and pheromones and their feelings. Hate em! I mean really. Is this what the poets go on about? This? Call me crazy but as hard core drugs go, human emotion is just useless. People are puppets. Everyone being jerked around by what they're feeling. Am I wrong? Really I want to know. I look around this world and all I see is six billion lunatics looking for the fastest ride out. Who's not crazy? Look around. Everyone's drinking, smoking, shooting up, shooting each other or just plain screwing their brains out because they don't want 'em anymore.

I guess that's one way to look at it.

Anyway.

My addictions

2009-03-01T16:33:00.000-08:00

I don't get addicted to the usual things like drugs and alcohol but here's a list of things I do get addicted to:
shopping for necklaces
and clothes
exercising
desserts
deprivation and self-restraint when it comes to diet
coffee
dairy
relationships
sex
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other television series on DVD such as Six Feet Under

Cat

2009-03-01T09:41:00.000-08:00

This cat pleases me.

image: http://frecklewonder.typepad.com/frecklewonder/

Dress

2009-03-01T07:38:00.000-08:00

This dress makes me happy. It feels very party-dress-fun-times. Just the idea of it pleases me. The idea of it and the feelings, experiences that it suggests.

image: http://frecklewonder.typepad.com/frecklewonder/

Going for stuff you want

2009-02-27T22:15:00.000-08:00

I like this quote:

When you get old, the only things you remember are the things you dared to do and the things you didn't dare to do. All the daily stuff, the things you had to do, the things someone paid you to do, blur into the nothingness of 'unimportant to your soul', and when you look back on your life you only see the dreams you made happen and the dreams you were afraid to pursue.
--P.J. Gaenir's grandfather

I think this is true, but I tend to forget this, and this quote was a good reminder. I think, in a lot of ways, life kind of boils down to this -- the dreams you made happen and the dreams you were afraid to pursue.

Deprivation, selfhood, writing

2009-02-24T18:26:00.000-08:00

My friend David writes these weird ... essays, I guess, and he said some stuff in this one that I thought was cool.

He was talking about the concept of poena damni, the pain of deprivation. He was talking about it in terms of this idea that hell is the absence of God, of paradise (within theological discussions). And I'm totally in agreement that the pain of deprivation really, really sucks. I'm wondering if that's the only pain there is, for me. Isn't all suffering the absence of something you want? I guess you can suffer when you have something you don't want, but it seems like the absence kind is much worse. And even when you are suffering because of a presence, you also are suffering because of an absence. Like if you're in a bad relationship, lots of times you're pining for a good one, or one from the past. I think I'm pretty much big into poena damni. There's a lot of poena damni in my life.

Like before I dated and had sex, I yearned for relationships, but nothing the way I yearned for them after I had been in relationships, after they had ended. Missing a person is much more painful, acutely, I think, than longing just generally for more connections, that you don't have. Wanting something that you've had before and can remember how it felt and tasted -- is much worse than wanting something you've never experienced. I mean, it would be great if we had peace on earth. But we've never really had it. I bet if we had, the wanting would hurt much more.

That's why, like, grief is this huge psychological process for people -- coming to terms with an absence that is permanent. It's hard to reconcile.

David was also talking about blah, blah, blah, writing, the self, and how as people, as selves, we are at the dead center of our little worlds such that we can conceptualize everything around us but we can't really understand ourselves. The self tends to be the thing that is elusive. He said we are "a sort of Rosetta Stone in the eye of the labyrinth, with no artifact to read itself." I love that. I think that's so true! He said, "It's a peverse idea -- that we would be exiles in our own kingdoms."

He also talked about this idea that writing is a "scrim," something that conceals the world, something that veils things, that hides the world rather than unveiling it. That it buries us further within ourselves, taking us further away from the outside world. He said: "Seamus Heaney has written, 'I rhyme/To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.' But what if that becomes the only sight in the dark: myself?" Hmmm.

Anger

2009-02-20T07:58:00.001-08:00

I realize it may not be particularly useful to compare myself to Nelson Mandela but I thought this story was pretty amazing. I was watching this video of this Buddhist talk and Pema Chodron told this story. So, like, Nelson Mandela was a political prisoner for 27 years, and then he was released and became president and at his inauguration, you know, some of his former enemies would be in attendance. Someone asked him if he was still angry at them, after having been wrongfully imprisoned for 27 years, angry at those people who kept him incarcerated and oppressed for so long, and he said, “I was angry. But I realized that as long as I am still angry, I am still in prison. So I just let it go.” He was kept in prison by these people for 27 years and he was angry about it, but he just let it go. The next time I'm holding a grudge against someone, which is, like, now, I am going to think about that.

Pancakes

2009-02-20T07:54:00.000-08:00

These pancakes are simply to die for.

pancakes: http://blog.ungtblod.com/

Fear

2009-02-07T13:06:00.000-08:00

I like this quote:

What you fear
will not go away; it will
take you into yourself and
bless you and keep you.
That's the world and we all live there.

-- William Stafford

Lostness

2009-02-01T20:31:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across this quote the other day: "And this is the truth -- that to live is to feel oneself lost." Kierkegaard said that. I wasn't reading Kierkegaard, I was reading someone who was quoting Kierkegaard. Anyway, I guess most people would find that quote depressing, and I guess it is depressing but it also really, really resonates with me.

I can't remember a time in which I didn't feel as though I had lost a connection to something. I can remember feeling that way when I was four years old. I have always felt a sense of a severed connection that I am trying to repair, and then of course as you grow older it builds, and you feel loss about this, that, and the other thing as well. But, at root, there's a sense of this first loss. Maybe it just has to do with having been born.

I can remember having this thought, sometime pre-kindergarten I think, that I could remember being born (I don't know if I could or not but I remember feeling at that time that I could) but that I had no memories of being a baby and therefore I felt like this whole part of my life was just gone, and I felt really sad about that. I can remember feeling this overwhelming feeling of loss. It seems silly now, of course, but I can still remember the way I felt then, today. Like I lost a part of myself. Something fundamental and now I feel cut off.

I've always really connected with this spiritual idea that all life originates from a common source. That all beings come from one being -- that we are all really part of one larger entity that you could call God, True Nature, Being, Buddha Nature, whatever. I've always felt this way and that being individuated in a separate body is this amazing experience and allows you to experience the world in this remarkable way, but it's also kind of sad because you feel lonely, separate, and cut off. That being one person, in your own mind, facing yourself and your life on your own, day in and day out, is hard and frightening, while it is also very special and exhilirating. This is why I have always been so preoccupied with relationships with others. I long to connect with people in part because it allows me to feel less alone. And through others I feel connected to myself and this larger experience of holism or oneness.

Maybe this sounds depressing but to me it isn't depressing, because it's just how I feel. Like, it just is.

I read an interview with Jodie Foster last year and she said this:

When I look back at my life, I think it has been about the search for meaning and connection.... I want my children to find connection and meaning, like I've found connection through them. I've found my own nuggets of meaning too. That's what I'm most proud of - that I've known those transcendent moments. I've had those quick realizations of connection that are impossible to explain. They fly away so fast! But isn't it the hope of finding them again that keeps us moving?

I get that, about the search for connection and meaning. I feel that way.

Inauguration pics I like from Flickr

2009-01-23T18:41:00.000-08:00

W flying away....

Highlights Magazine

2009-01-07T12:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was reading an interview with Perez Hilton about his new book, which doesn't interest me in the slightest, but the interviewer referenced "Goofus and Gallant" from Highlights Magazine for children, and oh my God it all came back in a rush.

My grandmother ensured that my subscription to Highlights was active from the time I was 8, up until my 16th year, when she died. Growing up, I felt conflicted about Highlights. I didn't totally connect with it and I think that even though I was pre-irony back then I basically didn't like the fact that it was cheesy and seemed to embrace a weird and somewhat annoying conception about what kids are actually like that I found insulting. But I also really enjoyed it, and liked the fact that it was a magazine for me. It was for kids. It felt really good to have something like that. Something that was directly addressing my concerns, or at least attempting to.

For some reason I found "Goofus and Gallant" endlessly compelling. Those cartoons really captivated me, and at the same time I remember thinking they were weird and "cheesy," although I hadn't encountered that concept when I was little of course. But I loved them! But, it was like they fascinated me. I think because they depicted kids interacting and the rules for those interactions -- and anything to do with people and relationships and behavior is always the thing that interests me the most. I also liked that they suggested that there was a clean, dichotomous, black-and-white set of rules for how to be a good person. Which of course isn't the case. But that fiction is always for soothing to me. That's why I like things like Star Wars and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's always very calming for me to tell myself, "There are bad people, and they are vampires, and the good people kill them." Even though I know, at least to the best of my knowledge, that this is not the case.

It was also very gratifying to observe in cartoon after cartoon, "That is the wrong way to behave, and that is the right way. I behave in the right way. I am good."

Of course then you grow up to learn that the world is much more complicated than it seemed like it was at first. Not that it ever seemed simple....

Change, teeth

2009-01-06T21:00:00.000-08:00

I went to the orthodontist the other day and they changed the wires on my braces. They also said that the braces would come off sometime this summer. The summer I can handle. I know the summer will come eventually, and really it isn't so far off. I totally believe the summer will eventually arrive even though it does feel pretty far away at this moment. It is only January and 34 degrees outside and there is frost on the ground. But I know it will come and I will have to find a summer job and at the end of the summer it will be my birthday and then the last year of my MFA program will begin.

My teeth are sore under the new wires and I know they are shifting. I can feel them rearranging, aligning, becoming straight. Even though it hurts, it's a good pain, almost a strangely soothing pain, because I know my teeth are changing and it feels good to feel something about me change because I feel in many ways that I change so very slowly. I wish I could change faster. I wish I changed at a faster rate. I have always wished this and I have always felt that the rate at which I change is slow. This kind of reminds me of something I read that James Hillman wrote:

The world seems to like the status quo; it resists change despite what the mystics say about change being the only truth. . . . Sameness is one of the great categories of existence. Look at your own life for evidence. On the one hand, you can recognize all the changes and differences from ten years ago; on the other, you can feel your personality, your nature, your ways are just as they always were. New job, new ideas, new city — everything different; but meet your father or former spouse and you are right where you always were — everything the same.

What power it takes to move one habit — as AA recovery groups have shown; just as it takes power to move one shovelful of dirt from here to there. Little wonder that power can be most simply defined in terms of work done. Work is so hard, the power required so great because of the resistance factor. And that is why changes are so difficult to achieve and so miraculous when they do occur.

image: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3280/2849533654_cc63832549.jpg?v=0

Another crippling necklace obsession

2009-01-01T21:02:00.000-08:00

Oh God. I just stumbled upon this necklace online via Kristen's blog and boy do I wish I hadn't. It's completely out of my price range. I mean, not that there's really any price I an afford to pay at the moment for a necklace, but this price is definitely not it. But it's so gorgeous! I can't stand it! And there are other necklaces on this site that are also so gorgeous and equally unaffordable! But this necklace! It's cut from sheet metal and then cast in bronze. Here's what it looks like on a person.

Frankie, Christmas sweater

2009-01-01T20:48:00.001-08:00

My preoccupation with other people's dogs doesn't appear to be on the decline. Here is a photo of Frankie, my friend David's dog, sporting her new Christmas sweater. This year, David told me, "Santa Claus" brought her a sweater and also a Santa Claus hat and beard.

Writing, hard

2009-01-01T20:32:00.001-08:00

Sometimes it's helpful for me to keep in mind that writing is hard for everyone. This is from a NYTimes article about novelist Harry Crews that Erica blogged about a while ago:

The novelist Harry Crews talking: ''I get up in the morning, that's one of the hard parts, drag myself over to the old typewriter and sit down -that's even harder - and then I tell the Lord, 'I ain't greedy, Lord, just give me the next 500 words.' ''

And:

''The novel I'm now writing has an absurdity at its center - you have to have the courage of madness to be a writer,'' Mr. Crews said. ''I don't try to figure out what's selling. Writing is too damn hard and basically unpleasant.

And this is from an article my mom sent me a while ago about Hitler historian Ian Kershaw:

One of the most frustrating feelings I experience when I sit in front of a computer screen before I start writing is knowing that I have to put words onto the empty space and that I am the only person who can do this. No matter how easily I am distracted at that moment I am never really free from the recognition that however long I put it off, I must finally return to the task.

Once I surmount the initial hurdle, I write fairly quickly and can keep going for lengthy spells each day as long as they are punctuated by frequent short stops to make myself yet another cup of coffee or tea. I have never smoked, but probably had I done so, I would have been a chain smoker. The coffee or tea serves the same purpose, I imagine, as cigarettes do for other people. I need the promise, with the completion every paragraph I write, that I can get up and reward myself. Usually the coffee goes cold on my desk, but then I have the excuse for making yet another cup at the end of the next paragraph. And so it goes.

When I have something substantial to write, like a chapter or lengthy essay, I tend to worry away at it until it is finished. I work to a fairly rigid routine, beginning about 9 in the morning, breaking at one o'clock for a brief lunch followed by a fast walk of two miles or so, which then sets me up for the afternoon, through which I work until about 7:30, when I stop for the evening meal. In this way, I can write an average of 2,000 words a day -- a rate I managed to keep up for months on end while writing my Hitler biography.

image: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/159/361468916_245ed54d98.jpg?v=0

Insanely healthy cookies

2009-01-01T17:33:00.000-08:00

I made these insanely healthy cookies, which granted do not look enormously appetizing, over the holidays. My mom found the recipe in the Washington Post and all you do is mash three ripe bananas and then mix them with vanilla extract, and coconut oil in a large bowl. And then you mix oats, almond meal, shredded coconut, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder in another bowl. And then you mix it all together and add chocolate chips. So there is no refined sugar aside from what's in the chocolate chips and there's no dairy or flour. And you know they weren't half bad! I liked them, and they totally sated my sweet tooth and I didn't feel like I had been beaten to death with a blunt object afterwards.

I used to go through periods of refined-sugar abstinence but then the last few years I've gotten more into baking and eating desserts. And increasingly I can't imagine life without creme brulee, trifle, bread pudding, rice pudding, galub jamun, toffee pudding cakes, coconut oatmeal cookies, apple galette, triple ginger pear crisp, and tiramisu. I mean, why would I want to live without all those incredibly fulfilling and pleasurable culinary experiences? What would be the point? But it's also true that after eating rich desserts I feel horribly drained and as though I were buried under something heavy and unpleasant. This is why I used to avoid sugar, because I feel so much better when I'm not eating it. I was reminded of this when I ate the insanely healthy cookies because it felt so good to eat a dessert and not to feel bad afterwards.

So I'm thinking of exploring healthy desserts more. I mean, if I could only eat real desserts just every once in a while and mostly just eat these healthy desserts, that would be better. But I know the way sugar works is that once you start eating it, you find yourself eating it all the time, because it's a drug and you get addicted to it. Anyway, I'm going to make another batch of the healthy cookies tomorrow because the bananas are almost ripe enough. And I found some other healthy recipes I'm going to try.

Bob Evans

2008-12-30T07:34:00.000-08:00

Last night I drove from Washington D.C. to Columbus, Ohio and mid-way along my journey I stopped at Bob Evans because I needed a break. I ordered mashed potatoes and broccoli florets and drank an obscene amount of coffee with the inevitable result of unbelievably manic insanity in the brain. While I was thumbing through an old copy of Entertainment Weekly, things I wanted to discuss with Carey kept popping into my head with a crazy, kind of delusional intensity. All of these topics seemed incredibly important at the time I was drinking about six cups of coffee so I made a list of all of the things I wanted to discuss with her in case I forgot any of them. Here's the list that I scrawled on a piece of notebook paper at Bob Evans, with a few enhancements for clarity. Some of the items are now somewhat inscrutable to me and I can no longer remember what I had to say about them at the time.

1) SNL skit J_ in My Pants. DID YOU SEE IT?
2) SNL's Andy Samberg -- funny. But do you think he's attractive?
3) Affirming thing high school physics teacher wrote in my yearbook senior year -- reverie.
6) Stephen King?
4) Musings about recent cell phone conversations with various others
5) Wild dogs of Africa -- endangered, vaccines
7) Boy George accused of falsely imprisoning male escort. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
8) Les Miserables -- recent production. Amazing stage, lighting, horrible seats. Barricade.
9) Me/Jean Valjean -- correlation?
10) What I think about while running on the treadmill at the gym when I've run out of things to think about
11) Inspirational quotation ex-boyfriend posted on public Facebook note -- THOUGHTS
12) James Marsters erotic fixation/ex-boyfriends epiphany
13) Bob Evans -- general musings
14) movie reviews: The Wrestler, Gran Torino
15) My brother's company is doing really well!
16) I like my new suitcase.
17) DMX arrest -- WEIRD
18) Mom prefers email to cell phone conversations
19) Coffee culture/diners -- WHEN?

image: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2163/2312443244_eb139ca81b.jpg?v=0