tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61855352012-01-05T19:53:26.005-06:00Causing anarchy and rebelliousness while still being an exceptionally nice personahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.comBlogger7641100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-58770652418990676042011-12-16T10:11:00.002-06:002011-12-16T10:28:33.713-06:00

Books are clearly awesome. There are many days where I spend more time with books than I do with people, and on most of those days I'm happy about that. I tend to go through genre phases: sometimes I'm all over non-fiction, or science writing, or short stories. Lately though, it's been a large and amorphous category titled "Books that will Mess You Up". It's been a long year and in all

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-35709635664157603152011-10-13T23:12:00.008-05:002011-10-14T16:52:45.731-05:00

I got a new computer recently, or rather, an old computer that had been wiped clean and essentially restored to the capabilities of a computer from 2004, which means it was unable to do more than stare at the internet blankly and spin that damn rainbow wheel around endlessly. It’s a mac, and I’m very up front about the fact that I bought it purely for its customer service potential. I don’t

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-36386492908067632652011-09-10T22:14:00.001-05:002011-09-11T21:53:40.618-05:00

I remember hearing from adults when I was a kid that they would never forget what they were doing when they heard that JFK had been shot. That was ancient history by the time I was born, so it was hard for young me to understand what that moment felt like for those who lived through it--there simply hadn't been any national tragedies of that statue and media coverage and collective standstill

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-13163222110469814392011-08-23T23:09:00.004-05:002011-08-23T23:21:37.644-05:00

Well, this week has been truly too challenging to allow me to write like a motherfucker. Alas. Instead, I've been writing emails and long, long journal entries, and listening to early music. Alex Ross, the music critic for the New York Times, got me started with this absolutely gorgeous piece by Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez. It has done me good to listen to such beauty, this piece of

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-75348294123829444942011-08-16T23:48:00.005-05:002011-08-17T22:30:17.885-05:00

Well, hello. It's been a few months, yes? I could say I've been busy. It wouldn't be a lie. I've been dealing with heartbreak, talking to people, reading, making too much food, traveling, moving furniture around endlessly, adjusting to living alone again. I could use those things as an excuse but it would ring false--I did those things before. I've always done those things. So why? I'm not

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-60372199589648502562011-05-15T22:35:00.001-05:002011-05-15T22:36:19.784-05:00

Spring in Chicago is always an uncertain affair, but this year warmth seems especially reluctant to show up, much less stick around. When I moved here almost seven long years ago—and how did it get to be that many years? Most of my adult life?—I was sort of fascinated by how apparent the seasons were. There is such a distinct difference between not only fall and winter but early fall, late

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-66042043894301781332011-04-09T10:25:00.002-05:002011-04-09T10:41:31.916-05:00

I have a friend who is truly, deeply devoted to young adult fiction. It’s a genre I don’t spend much time with anymore, but I do have a section on one of my favorite bookshelves that contains some of the literature that I read as a child, books that I now turn to for comfort when life shakes me up and tosses me down. Very little is more soothing to me than revisiting these old friends, these

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-16108903986409883252011-01-24T15:07:00.004-06:002011-01-24T15:31:12.952-06:00

After a lengthy hiatus, my friend Rose-Anne and I have tentatively resurrected our tandem posting project this week. We’re starting off easy, with recipes that remind us of people.For me, there are a few dishes that sum up how I feel about cooking, about food, about what qualities—nutrition, comfort, deliciousness—I want the things that go into my body to have. Actually, they aren’t even dishes,

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-83724246299308823232011-01-09T10:07:00.003-06:002011-01-09T10:51:56.324-06:00

I don't live in Arizona, and I haven't since 2004. My parents and my sister have left the state in the last few months, after roughly twenty years of residency, and I have one truly close friend left there. She's down in Tucson, and her facebook feed was how I heard about the shootings there yesterday.I've been trying to figure out why I feel so upset. It's an upsetting situation, of course:

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-79915069157233491502011-01-01T22:46:00.001-06:002011-01-01T22:48:13.730-06:00

New Year’s Eve in Chicago was unseasonably, freakishly warm. When we left the apartment at 9 PM to go to a friend’s house, the outside temperature was fifty-seven degrees, like a day in late April had somehow been transplanted to the end of December. When we left the party at about 1:30, the temperature had dropped and the wind was up and I shivered all the way home, cursing myself for wearing

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-68007684980903080532010-12-14T23:39:00.002-06:002010-12-15T08:53:07.800-06:00

and kisses are a better fate than wisdomsince feeling is firstwho pays any attentionto the syntax of thingswill never wholly kiss you;wholly to be a foolwhile Spring is in the worldmy blood approves,and kisses are a better fatethan wisdomlady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry- the best gesture of my brain is less thanyour eyelids' flutter which sayswe are for each other; thenlaugh, leaning back

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-2875847906949310842010-12-01T11:58:00.002-06:002010-12-01T12:06:10.039-06:00

Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be twenty-nine years old. I never know why that’s supposed to be scary. Yeah, I’m older, but it’s one of those things that is so completely inevitable that for the most part it’s never weighed too heavily on my mind. Next year, of course, I’ll be turning thirty, so maybe that will be more difficult somehow. But hey, probably not. Mostly it’s no big thing,

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-25756590720901366452010-11-24T08:53:00.000-06:002010-11-24T08:54:35.305-06:00

It’s officially been almost a month since I wrote anything. It’s odd, because I remember last year and how in love I was with the feeling of writing something that felt good to write, but lately even when I do get something out—usually in my journal, as you can tell by the gap here—it feels mostly perfunctory. The joy of creation is almost completely absent. I think that lack, among other things,

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-36480374935698339412010-10-26T10:29:00.003-05:002010-10-26T11:53:16.793-05:00

I recently (like, yesterday) read a book by the poet/mortician Thomas Lynch, Bodies In Motion and At Rest. He speaks with eloquence, humor, and a caustic sort of understatement about death and words, how they relate and don't, what he's learned from each of them. It's quite good. I haven't read much of his poetry, but this poem was included in the book and I liked it so here it is, for you so you

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-36833454256695139022010-10-23T20:34:00.004-05:002010-10-23T21:21:23.880-05:00

Today I had a genuine day off, the first in far too long. I didn't do much: read a bit, drank coffee alone at my desk--I've fashioned myself a bit of a me-corner, with photos and my computer and a notepad and a green plant that smells like limes when you rub the leaves--embroiled myself in some various forms of correspondence, and called it a day. For the first time in weeks and weeks I felt

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-51529820810237077542010-10-15T09:12:00.001-05:002010-10-15T09:13:42.118-05:00

“[S]ecrecy hides far more than what is private. A private garden need not be a secret garden; a private life is rarely a secret life.” –Sissela Bok …but what about where the private life is a secret garden and it has always been off-limits to you? And what if you respect those limits because you think you know what’s inside them? It’s you who would be keeping secrets then…” –Sue HalpernWhen I

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-89466963553733371562010-10-02T14:35:00.002-05:002010-10-02T14:38:19.758-05:00

Over the weekend I moved, of all things. We’d been looking at places, weighing the merits of a three-bedroom, a two-bedroom, or two one-bedrooms--being in a triad complicates housing, among other things--before deciding on the last option, but the move was still an almost complete surprise. We filled out an application for a one-bedroom in a designated low-income complex, which turns out to be an

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-79072887077082961152010-09-22T23:25:00.001-05:002010-09-23T22:43:33.358-05:00

My guidebook had this to say about my last museum: "Berlin's Jüdisches Museum, the largest Jewish Museum in Europe, celebrates the achievements of German Jews and their contribution to culture, art, science and other fields... [T]he exhibit also includes one section about the Holocaust, although this is by no means the museum's entire focus. In fact, what makes Berlin's Jewish museum different is

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-20950390285557279502010-09-21T00:21:00.003-05:002010-09-22T23:29:21.005-05:00

In Berlin, I mainly did two things: I walked to museums, and then I walked around inside of museums. Travelling alone made me realize how many of my prior travels had been based around themes like "let's find a good place to eat lunch" or "let's sit around and talk to each other about what we see and then maybe have a beer". Without those fallback positions, I discovered pretty quickly that I had

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-81286331090597751682010-09-19T23:08:00.003-05:002010-09-22T23:32:44.073-05:00

Just a brief update, although I hope to really write something tonight. It's 11 PM and I'm not even remotely tired, so... We'll see. At any rate, I wrote something for my friend Louise recently. It's about my terrible horrible no good etc. etc. trip to Germany, and the book that put it all in perspective by being incredibly awesome. Read my thing, and then read the book. It's called The Spirit

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-34680967086396889112010-09-09T21:10:00.005-05:002010-09-11T10:01:28.762-05:00

Dear friends,(Or, you know, strangers who googled "naked girls and me" or whatever.)It's been more than a month since I wrote anything on here. That really sucks. But can you believe me when I say that lately I don't seem to have more than the bare minimum of words available to me, that anything beyond that seems like an absolutely overwhelming? It's been a long and exhausting month since Berlin.

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-66857735671562524002010-08-05T12:02:00.003-05:002010-08-05T12:20:29.467-05:00

Today was my last day in Berlin. There will be more details later, but the important thing for this moment is that today I splurged and rented a bike, which was one of the best ideas I've had in a while. As I rode around on my clunky cruiser--too short, crooked handlebars, no helmet, but wonderful nonetheless--I felt the sense of freedom that always comes with the wind in my hair and the ground

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-46186935137046609542010-08-02T03:09:00.001-05:002010-08-02T03:10:40.915-05:00

Hallo!I'm in a hostel in Berlin. (I have three minutes left, so goodbye, eloquence! Also proofreading.) This trip has been indescribable so far, in good and bad ways. I've lost my wallet, missed planes, almost cried at more consecutive rehearsals than is strictly healthy, but I also (as part of my badass quintet) won an international performance prize. And now I'm in Berlin, so that's

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-24295229117384005052010-07-13T09:01:00.001-05:002010-07-13T09:02:33.927-05:00

Well, okay, maybe this is the last thing before I go. My friend Louise started a book blog, and I revised something I'd written about Dorothy Allison for it, and it's posted here. Thanks, and see you in Germany!

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-2841254896276956342010-07-09T18:10:00.003-05:002010-07-09T18:35:14.736-05:00

So here's another reason I haven't been writing: I'm going to Germany. For a month, almost, and I leave six days from now. I'm pretty sure I forgot to mention this, but my amazing new music group--which I am a part of because I took Music and Gender at NU with the founder and she later looked me up on myspace, of all places--got accepted to a fancy-schmancy music festival just outside of

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-13070791830111642302010-06-17T10:18:00.003-05:002010-06-17T11:07:54.427-05:00

When the going gets tough, sometimes it helps me to take a step back. Actually, it doesn't just help; it's completely necessary. You can step back and look at the situation from another angle, or you can step back and try to remember what you were doing before things started going off the tracks, and either way the footing might be a little more secure than it is now. Two nights ago I had a

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-65058588311912637502010-06-05T14:33:00.002-05:002010-06-05T14:35:10.837-05:00

So. I haven’t been around here much lately. That’s because lately it seems like virtually everyone and everything in my life needs so much, so much time and attention and conversation and consideration, that I feel positively beset by responsibilities, and I’m being forced into cutting corners where I can. Actually, this entry could be considered a stand-in for any number of emails, phone

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-65341820711323208502010-05-25T10:22:00.005-05:002010-05-26T18:52:43.694-05:00

Rose-Anne, my co-conspirator in tandem blogging, visited me here in Chicago last week. Our relationship has always been defined by food—my god, the cookies we’ve baked—and by conversation, and this visit after eight months of long-distance friendship was no different. We ate braised fennel and almond-crust pizza and oatmeal cookies sandwiching rum raisin ice cream; we petted my cats, and

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-21938720247820858202010-05-19T12:02:00.003-05:002010-05-19T12:11:13.698-05:00

I woke from an ill-conceived daytime nap recently to discover a cat sleeping on my elbow, my handmade childhood quilt folded down over me, and a pearly grey light, the kind you get when it's midafternoon and overcast, suffusing the room. I was still wearing my black dress clothes from my morning concert, and my hair was in my face. It's gotten long while I haven't been paying attention; a few

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-91154201134951264802010-05-04T17:50:00.009-05:002010-05-04T21:32:11.042-05:00

(It's tandem post time! This week Rose-Anne and I are writing about dirt. You can see her post here.)Last week my coworker ate potting soil. He was planting seeds at home on his back deck, and there was a bowl of oatmeal next to him, and it was windy. He told me he noticed the sprinkling of sediment on top of his breakfast, but he just stirred it in and went on eating. This is my face as a child

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-18779624341253307822010-04-29T07:08:00.003-05:002010-04-29T07:42:51.512-05:00

It hasn't been the worst week for sleep ever, but it hasn't been the absolute best either. Right now, for instance, it's 7 AM and I'm drinking coffee to try and get myself psyched up to go read college student compositions for three hours and pondering the (sometimes painful) things we do for money. Anyway, a friend recently told me (via facebook, since half of life's interactions seem to take

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-74203301284054493422010-04-26T10:54:00.006-05:002010-04-26T14:41:30.910-05:00

The sun is out today. It's sunny and I have the day off, and right now I'm still in a bathrobe but soon I'll finish my coffee and put "real" clothes on and pull my bike from its place in the closet and ride somewhere. I'm looking forward to it. I woke up happy today, and I want to make the most of what I have, the sunshine and the warmth and the ability to control my own transportation destiny.I

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-55239267774519852922010-04-24T14:31:00.005-05:002010-04-24T15:30:58.393-05:00

For whatever reason I've been feeling sensitive this past week or two, more susceptible to barbs and setbacks and sensations and emotions than I normally am, and as it turns out this was a particularly bad week to be feeling that way; I wrote and am not going to post a whole spiel about the fact that I'm suddenly and unexpectedly in a place where I'm worrying about feeling anxious, a vicious

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-83264210471861316322010-04-20T12:34:00.013-05:002010-04-21T09:06:08.976-05:00

(The tandem posting project continues! Every other week, my friend Rose-Anne and I will be writing about the same topic. You can read her take on this week's subject, a sense of place, here.)What is a sense of place? What does it entail, and how do you get one? What place are we talking about? A sense of place is different than “knowing your place”, which is less about expanding to fill where you

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-39320734834294482082010-04-16T20:47:00.004-05:002010-04-17T12:33:30.777-05:00

The cats have been trying to escape. Every exposed surface--doors, walls, bare sections of bookshelf, even the floor--has been under attack, and my apartment is filled with the scritch-scritch-scritch of claws against hard flat surfaces. When I wake up every morning I'm unable to fall back asleep because the first thing I have to do is elevate my heart rate by chasing Rita around the apartment

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-46436160640827592812010-04-15T08:43:00.003-05:002010-04-15T08:59:32.073-05:00

And now for something silly. But good. But silly. I spent too much time yesterday reading posts from Hyperbole and a Half, a random blog written by somebody living in rural Montana. Mostly it's about her trying to be famous. Also bears. She draws a lot of pictures, many of which are surprisingly funny, and takes pictures of herself imitating geese and velociraptors. She stole my heart a

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-65009764870842460752010-04-13T00:17:00.003-05:002010-04-13T10:13:24.030-05:00

Lately, I've been unable to escape the produce section of the grocery store unscathed. I walk in, intending to pick up an onion, maybe some spinach, and I leave half an hour later laden down with more fruits and vegetables than I can fit on my back, wondering what on earth I'm going to do with two pounds of fresh strawberries on top of the five-pound bag of mandarins and those two bunches of

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-34814881547267670082010-04-08T12:57:00.002-05:002010-04-08T13:01:07.576-05:00

Speaking of science, here's a nifty auto-tune thing with Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking.

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-8744667818636352822010-04-06T14:55:00.003-05:002010-04-08T11:03:00.045-05:00

Today my friend Rose-Anne and I, as part of our ongoing tandem posting project, are going to talk about science. (You'll be able to read her post here as soon as it goes up.) Rose-Anne is an actual scientist; I am merely what might be called a science fan, if anything. (Although not in quite that way; math was never my strong point.) I don’t do scientific work, but I reap the benefits, both

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-79530464287509880032010-03-30T17:28:00.004-05:002010-03-30T23:47:51.002-05:00

(My good friend Rose-Anne and I have been writing tandem weekly posts about the same topics. You'll be able to read hers here. Enjoy!)When Rose-Anne reminded me that this week's tandem post was going to be about gender, I knew I was in trouble. (Gender trouble! Get it? No? Here you go.) That might seem counterintuitive, given that the only reason we’re writing about it at all is because it’s

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-9607232590324993302010-03-28T08:24:00.003-05:002010-03-28T08:45:29.275-05:00

(I went ahead and linked a number of words in what follows, words that I either had to look up recently because I didn't know them or words that I was checking the definitions of. Hopefully a) that's not highly irritating, and b) you'll go ahead and follow a link if you don't know a word.)Some time ago my co-worker and I instigated a practice that we refer to, rather unimaginatively, as "The Word

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-26481058643559528762010-03-25T12:17:00.004-05:002010-03-25T17:13:42.059-05:00

(This is something I posted on Genderqueer Chicago's blog last week. Maybe I talk about this too much... Or not enough. Anyway.)“Hey baby.”I sigh and roll my eyes, because this has happened to me every damn day this week. Nothing much about me has changed, but spring is in the air and I guess that makes me fair game for every random stranger on the street who feels that catcalling is definitely

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-87396815990840425402010-03-23T08:31:00.003-05:002010-03-23T19:12:49.027-05:00

(This is the second in a series of thematically-linked posts my friend Rose-Anne and I are doing. You can go straight to her post here, and in fact I highly recommend it.)I was on the phone a few weeks ago with one of my nearest and dearest friends when she told me how much it bothered her to know things had changed since she moved away, the feeling that she wasn't keeping up with the lives of

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-91982797301137071902010-03-18T21:20:00.007-05:002010-03-19T09:57:45.740-05:00

I refuse to say it's really spring before the equinox--a word I adore, incidentally, especially when paired with autumnal or vernal. Those phrases have always sounded like poetry to me, but the vernal equinox has always been particularly evocative. The dictionary meanings of vernal (springlike, pertaining to spring, fresh and young, and so on) are one thing, but apart from that the word itself

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-8423469511685297542010-03-16T12:59:00.007-05:002010-03-16T22:43:14.764-05:00

(This is the first of a hopeful series of linked posts that I'm doing with my friend Rose-Anne. You can see her take on things here.)When I was a kid I was convinced that I was not a very creative person. I'm not sure why, because as I looked through the photo albums at my parent's house when I was in Arizona last month I found plenty of pictures of myself doing things like this:And this:So

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-13269810005581134392010-03-14T08:46:00.003-05:002010-03-14T10:08:18.293-05:00

It's time for the country to spring forward, an hour into the future. As an Arizonan--and thus one of the few people who don't partake of the clock change--I've always resented Daylight Saving Time and this year is no different, but this time around I'm tempering my resentment with grudging acceptance. I recently read Seize the Daylight, a book entirely about Daylight Saving Time (DST, and

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-62696338650776126032010-03-12T00:05:00.007-06:002010-03-12T08:31:30.466-06:00

It's one of those weeks where there just isn't enough time to get much done, and when there is time I'm too strung out from all the busybusybusy to do anything with it. Which is not to say that I've lost my shit just yet--I'm actually feeling pretty much okay about the fact that I don't have a full night to myself until, at minimum, next Thursday--but does mean that productivity has been sort of

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-64557685002767666192010-03-08T11:25:00.010-06:002010-03-09T09:07:40.316-06:00

There are times when I become unexpectedly obsessed with a certain flavor, a single ingredient or, somewhat more rarely, a single food, and it becomes the prevalent note of nearly anything I make until the fever passes and I move onto more varied fields. Notable examples have included lime juice, black pepper, and fettuccine alfredo from a box (I'm looking at you, sophomore year of undergrad),

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-24589468129848931232010-03-04T10:16:00.003-06:002010-03-04T10:58:57.180-06:00

I have the day off today. I have most days off; I'm not working enough right now. Which is worrisome, very much so, but for now there's very little I can do about it so I'm just trying to take advantage of the time that I have. But the downside of time off is that my lack of coherent schedule is also making it a little hard for me to be consistent, to focus, to the point where I'm making

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-31800197900551840722010-03-03T09:22:00.004-06:002010-03-03T15:32:10.439-06:00

The cycle of seasons in Chicago this year has been a little bit strange, overall. Spring, summer, and fall were all unusually chilly, but then winter stayed (all things considered) practically balmy, with temperatures infrequently dropping below the twenties and not much snow to speak of. I saw more of winter when I went to Arizona in January than I feel like I've seen in the Midwest, which made

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-83349307795205842612010-02-24T23:12:00.011-06:002010-02-25T13:08:42.155-06:00

On Monday night, as I walked through slush and tried not to slip on any remaining ice, this thought passed vaguely through my head: "I'm carrying Kate Bornstein's pizza." And yes, it's true, I was. My girlfriend, badass that she is, had organized a workshop and talk with Kate and we all--girlfriend, boyfriend, and myself--were walking her back to her hotel via one of the local pizza places after

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-88273237571519308962010-02-18T10:04:00.006-06:002010-02-18T10:37:08.186-06:00

I have two cats, Rita and Skip. Skip is slightly older, an ex-barn cat from southern Illinois, low-key and moderately affectionate when he gets a chance, which he doesn't often because Rita is absolutely the biggest whore of a cat I've ever met. A feral cat in her past life, she will walk up to a complete stranger sitting on my couch, roll over and flash her belly and then put her head on their

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-52788029819081929212010-02-14T09:20:00.003-06:002010-02-16T09:33:31.060-06:00

It's Valentine's Day again, which, because I'm a florist, means that I've been running my ass off at work all week on a minimum of sleep and a maximum of braindead. I'm breathing a sigh of relief because we've reached the weekend and now the hard part--the flower preparation, which involves stripping the leaves and thorns off of hundreds of flowers, clipping the tip of every single stem, and

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-38013715700096185692010-02-09T14:38:00.011-06:002010-02-09T17:59:18.361-06:00

I am often a victim of inertia, by which I mean it often takes me a long time to get things done. I'm actually supposed to be doing a great many things right now, and at the very least I should try to leave the house at least once today, but, well... There's these books.They aren't mine, not really. They belong to my boyfriend, but because his brother and sister-in-law are moving we decided that

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-88692577472941206512010-02-05T10:08:00.001-06:002010-02-05T10:08:35.723-06:00

Well, sort of. Oh my.

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-10941519535930366902010-02-01T01:05:00.007-06:002010-02-02T19:59:08.059-06:00

I'm in Tucson, in a Hyatt Place hotel that is astonishingly nice considering how little we paid for it. I knew we were in trouble when I went to check in and they had a self-check, which I had never seen before; the uniformed man in the lobby had to direct me to the machine. "Ooh, fancy," I said, only a little snarkily, and swiped my card through. "Have you ever stayed in a Hyatt before?" he

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-74679553735356083652010-01-28T10:42:00.002-06:002010-01-28T16:54:18.752-06:00

When I visited my hometown this past summer, I felt profoundly disconnected and alienated and a whole slew of other nasty things that, in all honesty, sort of freaked me out. Even though I haven't lived in Flagstaff since August of 2000 and I moved away from this part of the country entirely in 2004, Arizona--or rather, the southwest, both as a concept and in the contexts in which I've

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-74877171290067224182010-01-25T00:16:00.001-06:002010-01-25T00:17:42.228-06:00

Nothing to say so much tonight... Just this.

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-17985707740953919172010-01-18T16:03:00.002-06:002010-01-18T16:07:45.247-06:00

I realize that I am absolutely ridiculously lucky to have the life that I'm living, but I try to keep my potentially hubristic tendencies to a minimum by remembering that there's always room for improvement, new places to go both physically and emotionally, not necessarily better or worse so much as just different. What fun would life be if there weren't new possibilities around every single

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-42517943084649560992010-01-13T23:06:00.003-06:002010-01-14T00:30:34.877-06:00

Back in the day, when I had a certifiable anxiety disorder and I was getting free therapy for it, there was this exercise I was supposed to do where I tensed up my muscles, first in groups (legs! stomach! and so on) and then my whole entire body, for ten seconds at a time before letting go of everything at once. I discovered quickly that this makes you look really silly, but also that done

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-91496176965420082552010-01-09T11:27:00.003-06:002010-01-09T11:39:08.301-06:00

I spent yesterday home sick, recovering from a bout of food poisoning that turned out to be thankfully mild. Granted, I spent much of Friday night trying to keep down emergen-c and mostly failing, but my girlfriend stayed here with me and said comforting things and was generally lovely and I woke up in the morning feeling pretty much human, so I'm not complaining too much. I spent the day napping

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-393108388759047812010-01-07T08:54:00.004-06:002010-01-07T09:27:54.797-06:00

I feel unfocused lately, thrown off balance by the events shaping my personal life to the extent that it's a little difficult for me to put words even to what I'm feeling, much less to anything outside of my immediate and somewhat overwhelming experiences. Don't get me wrong: I feel absolutely insanely lucky. I am, at least for this moment in time, living the dream. Some dream. But which dream?

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-76988746477743838672009-12-28T09:19:00.005-06:002009-12-28T12:11:33.750-06:00

""I'm not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor... [I]f I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.""I shall never do that," I answered; "you have brought detection as near an exact science as it will ever be brought in this world."My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-25488070074242900472009-12-27T14:05:00.002-06:002009-12-27T14:11:06.038-06:00

I'm still not a dancer, and I'm not sure how much of one I will ever be. But this paragraph, from Lorrie Moore's Birds of America (a book of short stories that I adore but haven't read in a few years), makes me wish a bit more ardently that I could be."I am thinking not of my body here, that unbeguilable, broken basket, that stiff meringue. I am not thinking only of myself, my lost troupe, my

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-6248507362609191622009-12-24T08:13:00.005-06:002009-12-24T09:39:51.888-06:00

The year is ending, and I'm exhausted. And moody. And sort of down. It irritates me to no end because I know that I have an incredible amount to be rejoicing over right now, at this end of one of the most positively transforming years of my life, and instead of feeling celebratory I'm feeling irritable and worn out and really I'd rather just go back to bed and sleep through something important

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-1225425831539168482009-12-21T13:31:00.001-06:002009-12-21T13:34:58.242-06:00

The year is winding down. Holidays always take me by surprise—my life is so full of people and places and things that deadlines often come as a shock—and Christmas is no exception. Last year I mailed out presents to my family in March, which is so clearly unacceptable. This year I’m shooting for January. Early January.Some deadlines, however, are easier to meet. I'm aware that it is not the New

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-32569106309235773752009-12-19T12:37:00.003-06:002009-12-19T12:41:35.431-06:00

I'm hoping that soon there will be words for this past week, but for now the events and shifts and adventures have been too large for me to figure out how to articulate them in the way that I want to. Titanic change requires time to settle, and there has been no time. Instead, watch this, because it's lovely.

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-2976824676799410772009-12-12T07:12:00.003-06:002009-12-12T08:13:46.438-06:00

The cold has hit, finally; even though I knew winter was coming I wasn't quite prepared for the drop into temperatures that felt like -7, but in some ways it's a relief to have it here and not somewhere in the distant and dreaded future. Now we're in for the long haul, and all of Chicago can talk about nothing but the weather. I had to get my mittens out, and my scarves and my wool hat that says

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-3990033796338737022009-12-07T09:02:00.003-06:002009-12-07T09:05:39.228-06:00

I will not deny that there are aspects of my life that I partially appreciate simply in terms of their story potential. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like my life sometimes lends itself particularly well to this predilection; it's been a busy year. These stories aren't all serious or deep (despite what you might think from reading this blog sometimes), and it helps that I have almost no shame about

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-64215461433024250062009-12-03T14:46:00.004-06:002009-12-03T14:56:28.611-06:00

It seems almost obligatory to post blogs about holidays, and I somehow managed to celebrate Thanksgiving by posting about my own breasts instead. (Whoops.) But really I have a hell of a lot to be thankful for, and not just on one specific day in November. It was my birthday yesterday and consequently I've been thinking a lot about the past year and how much has changed, how my life keeps taking

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-28536044629059843812009-11-26T09:17:00.001-06:002009-11-26T09:19:33.471-06:00

I was at a wedding last weekend--yes, another one! But a Quaker one this time, which was actually quite nice, as you mostly sit in silence and either contemplate divine light and how happy you are for the couple or, if you are vaguely sacrilegious and also flighty of brain (as I am), how happy you are for them and whatever else happens to comes to mind, which in my case on this particular day was

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-59698994443878402802009-11-21T09:17:00.004-06:002009-11-21T10:09:48.470-06:00

Every November people around the world participate in the Transgender Day of Remembrance, or TDOR; if you are like me, disconnected as I was from my community until recently, this has likely entered your consciousness peripherally if at all. This day, this remembrance, is a very visceral reminder that silence, yes, it equals death, and not always just metaphorically. Trans people face levels of

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-41897226080535662682009-11-18T08:15:00.003-06:002009-11-18T08:26:47.191-06:00

So here's a question: if you did a google image search for "naked girls and me" what do you think you would find?The answer is this. My blog about my blog about Naked Girls Reading. It's moved from the first to the third result for that particular search, and I've been getting upwards of forty or fifty hits a day from all over the world for it ever since the post went up. Which was cute for a

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-53098249045938238282009-11-16T14:39:00.004-06:002009-11-16T17:28:40.040-06:00

Kansas was one of the places we drove across when A and I moved here from Arizona at the end of the summer of 2005, and although all I remember is flatness and a larger-than-life tableau set up to honor the Wizard of Oz, I didn’t have anything in particular against it as a state. Flatness isn’t a huge sin in the Midwest and there were plenty of places to dislike more, like the Texas panhandle,

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-52475343423140041702009-11-11T23:32:00.001-06:002009-11-11T23:34:52.106-06:00

I was an only child for the first six years of my life, and one of the many in-my-head games I played with myself when we were on the road--which was often, as I lived in at least twenty different places before I was five--was to pick one little spot, on the pavement or a passing tree or whatever, and tell myself that I was the only person in the whole world that was looking at that particular

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-67351883671002753382009-11-04T15:08:00.011-06:002009-11-06T09:19:12.275-06:00

A few years ago I was in Flagstaff, sitting in my favorite coffee shop with my oldest friend, when I picked up one of the new age-y hippie vortex-heavy newspapers that leak all over Northern Arizona from their mystical epicenter in Sedona and began spontaneously flipping through it. As I idly scanned the ads for crystal healing and seminars on channeling your spiritual contact, my eye was caught

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-69186985570742494612009-11-01T13:01:00.005-06:002009-11-10T00:33:09.493-06:00

Yesterday was Halloween, a day I have not traditionally enjoyed all that much since I moved to Chicago. There have been breakups, aborted parties, snow, and all sorts of other inconveniences, and until last year I don't think I ever even had a "real" costume, only half-assed ones that I had to throw together for children's concerts with my old orchestra. This year I was a librarian, which mostly

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-34593793490240830982009-10-29T00:04:00.015-05:002009-10-30T00:29:17.498-05:00

As a reader and a consumer of other media I have long known that, for me, plot is far and away one of the least important aspects of a work. My favorite part of a book or movie, especially a plot-driven book or movie, is almost invariably the beginning, before things start happening; I'll be far more engrossed by the interactions between people and their environment than I am by an alien invasion

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-81195464333614823562009-10-28T23:31:00.008-05:002009-10-29T18:14:09.871-05:00

Some nights I feel like, if I could just find a linguistic toehold, I could write something that felt really good. My mind is searching for that one sentence, the word that will trigger an idea that will grow into a chain that has--hopefully--some semblance of coherence, and that you will consequently read as you drink your coffee tomorrow morning. There are other things I should be doing rather

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-34415185409062948192009-10-26T18:45:00.007-05:002009-10-26T22:04:01.499-05:00

I swear I'll write something of my own soon. I've been kind of...distracted lately. Also busy. But this is from Queers United.Oct 26th marks the 5th annual celebrate intersexual awareness day! Today is the (inter)national day of grass-roots action to end shame, secrecy and unwanted genital cosmetic surgeries on intersex children.What is intersex? Intersex refers to a series of medical conditions

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-91999235988530006922009-10-19T12:34:00.003-05:002009-10-19T12:43:03.893-05:00

Well. I'm not sure I have the words to adequately describe this, so probably you should just watch it. Personally, I'd like to know who authorized this and who they thought their target audience was. Because really: Alice crawling through freudian tunnels of pink fabric to BDSM Hello Kitty world? Amazing.

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-18775640551396736242009-10-16T23:28:00.007-05:002009-10-17T01:07:04.252-05:00

Tonight I gathered up all of the books lying loose around my apartment and put them on shelves, in an order that made at least a small amount of sense. It's part of an ongoing effort on my part to make my apartment into a better and more "adult" living space, to have a desk relatively free of papers (we're not talking scattered pages here; we're talking stacks of sheet music) and a minimum of cat

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-13944048152261573902009-10-14T09:31:00.003-05:002009-10-14T14:27:14.185-05:00

Fall is not messing around this year. Have I talked about the weather lately? Because it's been a little odd. The spring was cold; the summer was late and never got all that hot. And then, within days of the autumnal equinox, we'd been catapulted into a rainy, cold, grey fall. Trees have been changing their colors for well over a month, presaging the actual season by weeks as the weather got

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-9548794424989680842009-10-10T21:09:00.002-05:002009-10-10T22:09:45.760-05:00

This is actually something I wrote a while ago for Genderqueer Chicago. I wrote it, and I posted it there, and then I posted it here, and then I lay awake for two hours getting more and more anxious and then I deleted it from this site. And I felt like a chickenshit but not quite enough so to re-post it, so I've been debating ever since what that was about. I realized eventually that I was

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-51411353101166740142009-10-07T21:14:00.000-05:002009-10-07T21:15:55.232-05:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about communication, or the lack thereof, and what that means for how people relate to each other or don't. For me, lack of communication is one of my absolute biggest pet peeves; I'm losing count of how many hurts, small and large, could have been avoided if people (myself included) would just speak the hell up and say something at least remotely close to what

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-60247460168276130092009-10-04T19:09:00.011-05:002009-10-05T21:52:08.981-05:00

I have long had a somewhat contentious relationship with the word "nice." I remember when it started: I was in middle school and I was obsessed with Zilpha Keatley Snyder, a young adult author, and particularly with a book called Libby on Wednesday that was about (surprise!) a shy artistic young girl who has a difficult time making friends until she gets placed in a special advanced school

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-14989995876612341372009-09-30T08:18:00.001-05:002009-09-30T08:18:57.356-05:00

I smoked my last cigarette Sunday, sitting on the back steps of my apartment building during the one sunny morning we've had in this (so far) grey autumn. A friend asked me the night before if I were nervous about running out, and I won't deny there was a slight pang as I neared the end of the pack but really I felt good about it. I was smiling when the last butt went over the railing, and it's

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-68402992770471458702009-09-24T08:56:00.002-05:002009-09-24T09:04:37.948-05:00

I'll admit I initially liked this poem for the title, but actually I kind of like the whole thing.Forty-One, Alone, No GerbilSharon OldsIn the strange quiet, I realizethere's no on else in the house. No bucktoothmouth pulls at stainless-steel teat, nohairy mammal runs on a treadmill--Charlie is dead, the last of our children's half-children.When our daughter found him lying in the shavings,

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-50136809583082297302009-09-21T19:33:00.007-05:002009-09-22T17:27:25.844-05:00

I haven't been posting very much lately. I don't know how to explain, exactly; I'm busy, it's true, and there's been an awful lot going on, but I also seem to be suffering from some sort of amateur's form of writer's block, and I have been for roughly the last month. This has happened before, but this feels like it's already lasted far longer than is normal for me and, in all honesty, it's kind

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-496012074703493882009-09-17T08:28:00.003-05:002009-09-17T08:42:57.499-05:00

So I don't have time to write much myself, but it's time to spread the word a bit. Saturday is my friend Peter's birthday, and he has requested that people take part in a bit of bathroom-related revolution to celebrate. Trans people and public toilets have long been an uneasy combination; people tend to police their restroom spaces heavily, singling out gender offenders for not fitting into

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-80961936058265769722009-09-13T23:18:00.009-05:002009-09-14T13:00:19.322-05:00

I always appreciate it when good things come almost out of left field; the unexpected realization that you're having an awesome life moment right now is a great way to get your adrenaline going. My heart starts beating a little faster and I can't stop smiling, because I know that in this moment I'm really happy to be where I am, experiencing whatever it is that's happening. It's been kind of a

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-17826758178429199152009-09-09T22:35:00.009-05:002009-09-11T08:23:16.097-05:00

So it's been more than a week since I last posted, but lately I've been going through one of those blank spots where I'm not seeing the stories and I can't for the life of me think of anything important enough to write about. The aftermath of the Naked Girls article surprised me (not to brag, but more than 7,000 hits on the Chicago Now site, roughly a thousand on this blog, and repostings or

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-5512697752465149082009-09-01T12:59:00.008-05:002010-02-17T23:07:12.613-06:00

Another review of Naked Girls Reading is up over at Anna's Sex and the Windy City blog! Check my review out here, and while you're at it look at some of her other posts. She's a funny lady. I'll be checking out the next installment of the series this Friday, which is going to be a game show-esque evening with audience members reading naked and the rest of us voting on their... performance.

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-46024878039716206782009-08-31T11:38:00.003-05:002009-08-31T12:40:55.561-05:00

I made a recipe this week that has been in my bookmarked favorites ever since it first came to my attention: pickled grapes. Yes, grapes. Having no experience with pickling anything whatsoever, I was both intimidated (unnecessarily, as it turns out) and intrigued by the concept of pickling fruit, but this recipe falls solidly into a category of recipes that always sucks me in: Things That Are Not

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-24278677029693235802009-08-29T09:05:00.004-05:002009-08-29T10:48:12.687-05:00

"If at some future time you sell your life story to a filmmaker who makes it into a feature film, it may have a lot to do with adventures that kick into high gear in the coming weeks."That's from my free will astrology this week. I'm not the biggest believer in astrology, although I don't look down on those who are--it's fun to think about and I read my horoscope when I remember, but for me it's

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-65424717994494175372009-08-24T21:17:00.005-05:002009-08-25T08:25:38.464-05:00

So. I've been back in Chicago for just over a week, and damn if it hasn't been the craziest time. The day after I got back, last Tuesday, I went out to an event at a bar across town for my friend N. I stayed there until maybe 1:30, and on the way home something happened. I wish I could be more specific, but in all honesty I can't remember what it was, and no, I was not drunk. (It bothers me to

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-52018585092228673102009-08-22T08:41:00.008-05:002009-08-23T10:05:19.289-05:00

People keep asking me what I did in Alaska, and I don't know exactly what to tell them. "I, like, walked around and did stuff... I wrote. I ate a lot of berries." These answers do not always seem to suffice. I was in Alaska, for god's sake! I should have had giant, bear-sized adventures, at least carnage and stiff winds and maybe have come back with scars or something, apparently. At least that's

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-79994440822265327222009-08-21T12:07:00.004-05:002009-08-21T12:25:31.892-05:00

Ooh, that last post was number 666. Nice.Anyway, I'll write more extensively later today (jetlag, an active social life, and a bicycle accident have put me significantly behind on recording my adventures), but first you should all follow this link and check out the extremely hyperbolic post about the man who drove E and I into the park for our main hike. Seriously, it's worth reading. (My

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-23021310950554845512009-08-18T19:49:00.004-05:002009-08-18T20:08:40.734-05:00

I will write more about Alaska later, when I have a little more space in my head to think things through clearly. There are pictures to share, funny stories to tell (note: cleavage is involved), mountains, people, and aloneness. I had a beautiful trip.It takes a long time to get from E's house outside of Denali to my house on Chicago's north side. Last year it took me twenty-two hours and

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185535.post-16221165082562433252009-08-11T17:40:00.004-05:002009-08-13T19:02:26.762-05:00

The first time I got lost in Alaska was during the summer of 2005. It involved an aborted night at the Salmon Bake--a restaurant/bar/concert venue in Glitter Gulch, the touristy strip of overpriced shops selling shot glasses and tiny stuffed moose dolls near the park entrance--a map that we realized years later had one crucial piece of wrong information on it, and several hours of driving around

ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16220553595935499440noreply@blogger.com3