This is one of the best things ever.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
cause i am like east berlin
I went to the Chicago Public Library downtown tonight; while I admire the library system here for their dedication to community accessibility and growth, I still freakin' hate that downtown branch. I've written before about how nearly every book I've ever tried to find there is listed as being available but is in reality mired in the several-week dead zone that comes between being checked in and actually being on the shelf. Tonight it was Jasmine and Stars: Reading more than Lolita in Tehran, by Fatemeh Keshavarz, which is supposedly an indictment of Reading Lolita in Tehran, a book I unabashedly love for it's beauty and struggle and because it makes me believe in books again. I don't know much about the Islamic Revolution (only what I've read in Reading Lolita and Persepolis really) and I'm actually quite excited to learn a little more through this book, although I'm also afraid that it will ruin the other book for me. But if so, I suppose that's the way it goes.
Except it wasn't there tonight. I ended up with a book of Rumi's poetry and Pam Houston's autobiographical collection of essays, A Little More About Me. I just finished Cowboys Are My Weakness for the umpteenth-billion time and I re-read Waltzing the Cat more recently than I'd care to admit, and even though many of the essays in this book are more than a little reminiscent of her fiction I decided I needed a little more. It's been making me a little homesick, frankly, but for things I've never really seen or done. Trails I've never hiked, mountains I've never seen, rivers I've never stepped foot in... It's making me want to pick up and return to somewhere, only I don't know where or how or even if I really would if I knew the answers to the previous questions.
Except it wasn't there tonight. I ended up with a book of Rumi's poetry and Pam Houston's autobiographical collection of essays, A Little More About Me. I just finished Cowboys Are My Weakness for the umpteenth-billion time and I re-read Waltzing the Cat more recently than I'd care to admit, and even though many of the essays in this book are more than a little reminiscent of her fiction I decided I needed a little more. It's been making me a little homesick, frankly, but for things I've never really seen or done. Trails I've never hiked, mountains I've never seen, rivers I've never stepped foot in... It's making me want to pick up and return to somewhere, only I don't know where or how or even if I really would if I knew the answers to the previous questions.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
pooped
Wow, I only worked five and a half hours today, but I'm beat. And I still fucking hate daylight savings time. Why?!?!
Monday, March 03, 2008
diagnosed
I feel like I've already talked to everybody who reads this blog about this, but I've felt a need to write about it so that I can stop forgetting who I've told, at least. I saw an ad in the weekly a few months ago about a study through a local university about something called "generalized anxiety disorder" and Tabitha and I both thought the description sounded remarkably like me. Basically, you worry all the time about a lot of different things, big and little, and it impacts your ability to be happy and get stuff done and relate to people. After doing a bunch of interviews and filling out countless "how do you feel when..." worksheets, I've been admitted into the study, which earns me four free months of therapy. Which is awesome. I had a primary diagnosis of the lowest admissible level of GAD, with a secondary diagnosis of the lowest level of social anxiety.
All of this has led to a lot of thought on my part, naturally. It's kind of a weird feeling for me to actually be diagnosed with these things; on one hand, it's not exactly a surprise, but on the other it's odd to have a professional opinion that something is amiss. I think there's a certain amount of cultural cachet involved in saying the equivalent of "I'm all stressed out all the time!" but it's an entirely different thing to have somebody agree with you. The interviews were totally bizarre too, because I felt like I was competing to be the most anxious person possible. Normally in a competition-type setting, you'd be trying to do your best, show off your talents or whatnot, but this essentially felt like a contest to be the most fucked up (or at least admissibly fucked up). So I feel like I won something, but it's kind of a bittersweet victory.
I had my first session last week. We mapped my stress cycle, or at least one of the ways it works for me. But isn't it true that once you know something you know it forever, and it influences what you do and don't notice? I feel like maybe the more things we talk about, maybe the more I'll see the same things happening everywhere regardless of whether they are happening or (more alarmingly) what else might be happening too. Brains are so funny. But there you have it, and hopefully it will help me. I have a deal with my therapist: if I don't like who I am after this is over, I can just go back to the way I am now. But can I really?
All of this has led to a lot of thought on my part, naturally. It's kind of a weird feeling for me to actually be diagnosed with these things; on one hand, it's not exactly a surprise, but on the other it's odd to have a professional opinion that something is amiss. I think there's a certain amount of cultural cachet involved in saying the equivalent of "I'm all stressed out all the time!" but it's an entirely different thing to have somebody agree with you. The interviews were totally bizarre too, because I felt like I was competing to be the most anxious person possible. Normally in a competition-type setting, you'd be trying to do your best, show off your talents or whatnot, but this essentially felt like a contest to be the most fucked up (or at least admissibly fucked up). So I feel like I won something, but it's kind of a bittersweet victory.
I had my first session last week. We mapped my stress cycle, or at least one of the ways it works for me. But isn't it true that once you know something you know it forever, and it influences what you do and don't notice? I feel like maybe the more things we talk about, maybe the more I'll see the same things happening everywhere regardless of whether they are happening or (more alarmingly) what else might be happening too. Brains are so funny. But there you have it, and hopefully it will help me. I have a deal with my therapist: if I don't like who I am after this is over, I can just go back to the way I am now. But can I really?
Thursday, February 28, 2008
hahahahahahaha!
I'm on the internet, and I'm at my house! Ah sweet technology, how I've missed you...
Sunday, February 24, 2008
it's me again :)
Since nobody seems to feel like giving me any concrete grant info yet, I get to write here two days in a row! I posted a slightly different version of this review of MFK Fisher's The Gastronomical Me on goodreads (which I'm already obsessed with), but I had been meaning to write about it here too so here it is.
This is, in theory, a book about food. But a lot of it's not actually about food. There's a lot of talk about A) alcohol, B) random events in the author's life, and C) traveling on boats. But for all that, I liked most of it fairly well. MFK Fisher wrote about food in the 30's and 40's (at least in this particular book) shamelessly. Apparently, initial readers thought her essays must have been written by a man because the style was so forthcoming. Her writing is, for me, very reminiscent of comfort food, actually. (I actually looked this book up because I once read an essay by Fisher about the joys of mashed potatoes and ketchup that was one of the most vivid, sensuous things I've ever read.) She writes about good wine, good liquor, good cheese, particularly good meals, waiters, and the atmospheres in which she experienced all of these things in a very personal but not intimidating way. I haven't tasted the vast majority of what she writes about (and probably won't for financial or meat-content-related reasons), but she made me feel okay with that and like I could still just sit back and imagine the tastes and textures. That said, in between all the food is a lot of weird stuff: homicidal cooks, weird facts about her physical reactions to sea travel, anecdotes about her landladies and husbands and World War II and naked exchange students and all manner of other things. Some of it's interesting and pairs well with the food stuff, but some of it is just jarring. Ah well.
This is, in theory, a book about food. But a lot of it's not actually about food. There's a lot of talk about A) alcohol, B) random events in the author's life, and C) traveling on boats. But for all that, I liked most of it fairly well. MFK Fisher wrote about food in the 30's and 40's (at least in this particular book) shamelessly. Apparently, initial readers thought her essays must have been written by a man because the style was so forthcoming. Her writing is, for me, very reminiscent of comfort food, actually. (I actually looked this book up because I once read an essay by Fisher about the joys of mashed potatoes and ketchup that was one of the most vivid, sensuous things I've ever read.) She writes about good wine, good liquor, good cheese, particularly good meals, waiters, and the atmospheres in which she experienced all of these things in a very personal but not intimidating way. I haven't tasted the vast majority of what she writes about (and probably won't for financial or meat-content-related reasons), but she made me feel okay with that and like I could still just sit back and imagine the tastes and textures. That said, in between all the food is a lot of weird stuff: homicidal cooks, weird facts about her physical reactions to sea travel, anecdotes about her landladies and husbands and World War II and naked exchange students and all manner of other things. Some of it's interesting and pairs well with the food stuff, but some of it is just jarring. Ah well.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
i will write the goddamn grant in sand
Agh, I'm trying to write my first-ever grant proposals, without the benefit of good solid information about what I'm asking for money for or decent and timely internet access. Bah. But it's all for the sake of contemporary classical music, so I'll try and make it happen, I suppose.
In other news, I will have internet at my house within the week, finally. Erica told me she was sad because I never write in here, and I realized I miss this a lot. So hopefully, my posting will become far more frequent and I'll also have time to read about some of my friends as well.
I also just joined www.goodreads.com, which just excites me so much more than it maybe should. In honor of that (and because this line has been ringing in my brain for a week), here's possibly my absolute least favorite line from a book ever:
"...Pedro went to her... and throwing himself upon her, caused her to lose her virginity and learn of true love."
-Laura Esquival, Like Water for Chocolate
That line has always sullied the book for me. As I've grown older and keep re-reading this novel, I like the main characters and much of their motivations less and less, but I still enjoy the sensual cooking language and the nostalgia mixed with disgust I feel when I think about how this influenced my feelings about romance. But seriously, that line? Ugh. I've always wondered if part of the wrongness is from poor translation ("causing her to lose her virginity"?), but it's also that it makes me feel icky because of the conflation of sex and love and passion and all that jazz. Pedro and Tita, the two main characters, have been madly but chastely in love for years at this point, but she can only learn of true love when he fucks her in the back room? Please.
In other news, I will have internet at my house within the week, finally. Erica told me she was sad because I never write in here, and I realized I miss this a lot. So hopefully, my posting will become far more frequent and I'll also have time to read about some of my friends as well.
I also just joined www.goodreads.com, which just excites me so much more than it maybe should. In honor of that (and because this line has been ringing in my brain for a week), here's possibly my absolute least favorite line from a book ever:
"...Pedro went to her... and throwing himself upon her, caused her to lose her virginity and learn of true love."
-Laura Esquival, Like Water for Chocolate
That line has always sullied the book for me. As I've grown older and keep re-reading this novel, I like the main characters and much of their motivations less and less, but I still enjoy the sensual cooking language and the nostalgia mixed with disgust I feel when I think about how this influenced my feelings about romance. But seriously, that line? Ugh. I've always wondered if part of the wrongness is from poor translation ("causing her to lose her virginity"?), but it's also that it makes me feel icky because of the conflation of sex and love and passion and all that jazz. Pedro and Tita, the two main characters, have been madly but chastely in love for years at this point, but she can only learn of true love when he fucks her in the back room? Please.
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