Don't Cry for Me Argentine Parrillada

My sister came into town on Thursday. I thought it was Friday on Wednesday, and couldn’t really tell what the date was after June 3rd, the last of the GP Junior exhibitions. When you’ve been working seven days a week, it’s hard to notice the days hat start with “s.” Starting off June with a commitment to sanity and my own well-being, I took an unprecedented two whole days off from work. [gasp]. They were glorious. Some people apply a strange term to these days of rest, and call it a “weekend.” This “weekend” thing and I are of late sadly estranged.

I would like to officially declare I’ve made out of my springtime slump. The causes are multitudinous, but can be distilled to a few greatest hits:

1. The winding down of my West Wing retrospective marathon (just 2 episodes to go!)
2. Another year of GP Junior wrapped up with a much lower disaster quotient than last
3. People reaching out from my past, resulting in A. one completely unexpected romantic encounter proving that no, I am indeed not a leper and/or invisible and B. the subject of this post.

Sometimes I like people. It’s rare, I know, but it happens once in a while.

The Williamson girls went out for a real-estate reconnaissance run on a beautiful late spring eve, and A asked me what my plans were for the weekend. My goals, I replied, were simple: eat a real dinner every day (underlying overambitious subtext to actually eat three meals each day), do laundry, and get some exercise. Our crepuscular Thursday run followed by a delightful Brooklyn Public dinner was a good portent and gave me the push I needed to stick to the plan.

At some point during the week I received a quick email from the Miami girls to schedule a very long overdue get-together. I literally have no memory of when this happened, but I’m sure the email record will prove otherwise. I put it into the back of my head, tucked away from the insanity of party planning and life at Global Partners. Eventually, I realized that I’d invited people over to my place for dinner, and that I would have to feed them something. Immediately I thought of the summertime asados on the beaches of Patagonia, the slopes of the Andes, and the twinkling streets of Buenos Aires. Forgive me folks…If I can’t actually travel, I’ll have to use florid travel-language and relive past adventures. Such is life.

Friday arrived at last, and I managed to notify my guests that we’d be eating various forms of delicious grilled meat in honor of the gaucho life. Now, were does one go in New York City to find such quantities of animal flesh? The Meatpacking District, duh!

Seriously—I know you thought it was just full of sterilized condos and anorexic supermodels, but tucked in behind Chelsea Market there’s a tiny remnant of the former industrial area. Appropriately named, Western Beef is the BBQ host’s paradise where you can walk through plastic flaps into refrigerated aisles containing 20 and 30 lb. cuts of meat, and not just beef!
The Vespa “luggage” compartment was soon stocked with short ribs, chorizo, hanger steak and vidalias for the obligatory chimichurri sauce. But carnivores we are not, and I needed some non-meat supplies if I was going to faithfully recreated the most delicious multilayered diner sandwich from south of the equator: the lomito. Onwards then! Giddyup to the market! Am I confounding my cowboy cultures? Whatever.

Leafy greens, early tomatoes and eggs fresh from Ronnybrook Dairy loaded down my backpack, topped with brioche rolls and an Amy’s epi baguette looking more like a medieval torture device than the crusty wonder of deliciousness that it is.

The girls rolled in around eight with the steak marinating happily, the chorizo warming on the griddle. We popped a bottle of Malbec, plopped down on the floor around the coffee table and caught up on the past few months of each other’s lives.

I find that it’s hard to really keep in touch with people in the city. Nobody really comes over to just chill at your apartment, and most of my friends are scattered across two boroughs. I don’t know why it takes so much effort and coordination to get people in the same place, but for me it does. Fortunately, it’s completely worth it.

The dreary winter and busy schedules had kept us apart for months, so we said our hellos over a toast while the short ribs sizzled under the broiler. The courses trotted out over the next few hours: I sliced the chorizo and baguette as we heard about A’s first year of law-school; we spooned spicy chimichurri reminiscing about school in Miami and learning about M’s new school in NYC; much girly giggling was had by all as I recounted the bizarre events of last week. We finished a bottle and I re-suited up in my cooking gear for the obramaestra.

In a veritable grand finale of an evening, I sliced tomatoes, toasted brioche, layered la quercia prosciutto lettuce and provolone, fried eggs, seared steak and finally served up three perfect lomitos as we moved on to the present and future of our lives. When it’s been a while, you need at least four courses to catch up before you can get a discussion going and really talk about anything interesting. Luckily I think we had five, including a decidedly un-gaucho peach pie. Aah, Argentina, the truth is we’ve never left you. You’re far too tasty to forget. It’s good to know that I can remember Buenos Aires and my little Odyssey in the company of friends and have it truly a fond memory. I think that means todo anda bien.

Spending a whole day with food, zipping around town on a sunny day running errands, running in the park under the elms, and then making a meal into an evening of friends and debate is pretty much the best part of life. On a night like this, feeding the people you love is as far removed from the elemental necessity of ingesting nutrients as the end of the earth. It’s tragic that some people treat the process of shopping, preparing and sharing food as a chore. That kind of attitude brings hint of tears to my eyes, and there will be no crying here, that’s for sure. Life is good here as the sun warms the east coast and summer begins to stir.

The Beauty of Labels

As we all know, I've inherited some of my mother's Librarian gene, the Williamson penchant for list-making, labeling, and cataloging.

In my new-found empty time with 2 of the 3 W's no longer in New York City, I have gone back to my little blog for much-needed maintenance. A tune-up, really, and adding in a bunch of South America writing that I think we all know is never going to be published in any other real format, so I might as well make it look nice here. Keep deluding yourself, dear. Isn't that nice?

In any case, the "label" function that I didn't think served much of a purpose can now be added as part of the menubar. What's that?
"What illuminating effect could this have on my web identity?" you ask?

Good question! I can now sum up the last 5 years of my life, 244 posts to date, in useful tags relating to location, state of mind, or theme, as I choose. It even sorts by frequency. Brilliant.

I'm on a mission to see if "effervescence" beats out "amarga." Wouldn't it be pretty to think so?

La Llegada

I now live in Buenos Aires, on a happily bustling street in Palermo Soho called J. L. Borges. Yes folks, that’s right; I have fulfilled my lifelong dream of living with Borges. Yet I feel slightly out of place here in this, the trendiest of neighborhoods in B.A.: after spending several years on the precipice of the ghetto, it seems odd to be smack in the midst of hip fashion, ‘expensive’ restaurants, and young people. There are no screaming couples or children out back, no whining police sirens, nor street signs in the unintelligible but familiar Haitian creole. The style of Palermo is also a stark contrast to the American suburbs of my youth: the lawns, SUV’s, and military families with 3.8 children. I’m living in the East Village, but confoundingly doing it within our budget. It blows my mind, especially when my friend just tried to move to said Manhattan neighborhood and couldn’t do so with her investment banker’s salary.

At times here I feel incredibly wealthy: we can afford to live in one of the coolest barrios, albeit after three solid days of apartment hunting all over the city, in every real estate agency that we laid eyes on. We have also managed to jet off to foreign lands for 5 months without a hope of potential employment, the longest I have gone without working since freshman year of college. It’s a little scary, but we should be able to make it with the dollar riding high at 3.15 Argentine pesos. Yes, my old teacher’s pay would make me part of the upper class here, but I’ve let that go for a while. In a fit of self-justification I tell myself that the lack of income makes me a little closer to the average BA citizen, but I know that it’s not really true.
I feel like one of the Idle Rich, a sensation that is more foriegn than the language, the food, or even the sights here in Argentina. All that I’m missing is a tiny canine to stuff in my Louis Vuitton purse, and some big-ass sunglasses with the letters C, G, or D glimmering in bling on the sides.

But that’s not me. I get a lot of looks on the street, and I’m not sure if they are because my blonde hair and blue eyes scream “I’m not from here,” or if my clothes aren’t the latest and hottest fashions. Falling comfortably back into Spanish-speaking life, I forget that people who meet me immediately assume that I’m an invading foreigner, ignorant of customs and culture.

Fortunately I have two things working rather strongly in my favor. One of these I discovered by using luck and a bit of intuition. The other is a universal truth: everyone loves teachers. It is considered a sin upon humanity to dislike a teacher on sight, even if the U.S. still won’t pay them, but that’s another story for another day. Getting back to my superpowers...The first genuine smile that I saw from a porteño, as they call themselves in Buenos Aires, was when I spoke the magic word: Miami.

Miami, as the legend goes, is the capital of South America. I didn’t realize it that much when I was there, partly because my job was all-consuming, and partly because the people that I interacted with on a daily basis weren’t from South America. Here, now say with pride “Oh yeah, I’m from Miami.” Immediately, I am a creature of wonder, an exotic resident of the land of turquoise waters, and free from any America prejudices. It’s beautiful, liberating, and quite useful. Everybody wants to know what life is like in Miami, if there really is a golden land full of latinos. Perhaps in less cosmopolitan areas this fact won’t be worth as much, but for now I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth.

Yet Buenos Aires is nothing like the fabled Miami. The more time that I spend here, the more it reminds me of New York. Clearly there are some key differences, but so many places have analagous forms in the Big Apple that they seem like sister cities. During our search for apartments we wanted a central location, ending up in an old hotel in the equivalent of Time Square. The tourists and the neon signs, cheap restaurants and fast food places made me a little stressed out. Luckily we didn’t have to spend much time there, or I don’t think that I would have liked the city much at all.

Like New York, Buenos Aires is also the nexus of immigration. Part of the same wave of European immigrants that poured into Ellis Island in the early 1900’s spilled over onto the shores of Argentina, and found plenty of room in the capital city. As our friendliest taxista told us: “Italy didn’t have anything, Germany didn’t have anything, Spain didn’t have anything, nobody had anything! So they all came here.” This working-class immigrant past still lies beneath the surface of the city, and shows itself in sometimes unexpected ways. There are fewer characteristically Spanish last names here; about a third are Italian, with some German and Eastern European mixed in for flavor. There’s tango, and there’s also the food.

On our first full day in the city, we found ourselves wandering around a bustling shopping district in an attempt to become better oriented. This worked, after a fashion, but it also made us extremely hungry. We wandered in to a swank Italian restaurant right next to the Apple Store B.A. . A Polish waiter ushered us to our table, asked me if I was from the Ukraine, and then showed us the menu replete with fresh-made pastas. My papardelle arrived steaming and happy in a bed of mushrooms, and had the yellow tinge of true egg noodles. Sigh. When I rolled a strand around my fork it was slightly elastic, not mushy at all. Swoon. Then, after the first bite I realized that it was cooked to perfection: I met a tiny bit of resistance at the center, truly ‘al dente.’ I’m in love. Since then, I’ve had brick oven pizza, sopressata, fugazzeta, gnocchi (ñoquis), and real parmesan. People talk about the steak here, and the quality of the beef, but I’m all about the pasta. Sure, the asado is delicious, and it’s hard to beat a medium rare skirt steak with chimichurri sauce, but these pale in comparison to the divinity of homemade pasta. Viva Italia!

Affirming our decision to reside in Palermo Borges gave us another gift, in addition to Ficciones and El aleph. There lies, not six blocks from our tiny apartment, a pasta factory. Now there’s no need to ever venture out of our neighborhood. When we can cook perfect pasta in our own home, made the same day or the day before, why on earth would we go to a restaurant? Already we have been entranced by five kinds of ravioli, stamped out in a 6 foot tall machine that looks like it should be rolling out newpapers instead of plump packets of pasta. In the words of Virginia Woolf, “It is enough. It is enough.”

Thus, we begin to feel that we have trully arrived, and are no longer in transit: searching for a place to belong. Dave chats with the lady at the pasta store, we find a panadería to patronize daily, and the old guy who sells the chickens has somewhat less of an indifferent glare when we pick up some farm-fresh eggs.

The immersion project for DDH proceeds, with gradual success. Each spanish conversation is a little easier, and though it sometimes takes us 15 city blocks to understand one sentence, we manage to understand each other. I have revived the tradition of my 10th grade Spanish teacher, and Dave now conjugates one verb a day in all 13 tenses. “Estoy, estás, está, estamos, están comiendo?” This odious task which I dreaded every week now delights him, and I suppose the repetition is helpful. We are also slowly branching into literature, updates to follow.

While the “Rey of Castellano” continues to conjugate, I think it’s time for lunch. It’s good to be here.

Teacher Planning

Thanks to the end of the first quarter and the Jews, there are a lot of teacher planning days in October. We even had one last random one thrown in last Thursday, for Yom Kippur. I still don't know if it's pronounced "yaahm kipper" or "yoohm keep-uhr." Rachael may kill me, but right now I don't care. I also haven't seen her in six months, so that's less of an issue.

I received a much-needed blast from the past on our second to last teacher planning day. Immediately after turning in 14 pages of bubble sheets, I hustled down to the MIA to pick up one Amanda Eve. We swung by Central to check up on the girls' soccer car wash, which was mildly successful. It was interesting walking around my new high school with one of my closest friends *from* high school, not to mention a bit surreal.

We proceeded directly home by way of Pollo Tropical, the paragon of Miami fast food, and then fell immediately asleep on a rainy Friday afternoon. The weekend consisted mainly of sleeping, eating, shopping, and movies, with a bit of a late-late-late night on South Beach with 'Los and other TFA-ers thrown in there somewhere. Then, in a blaze of Columbus Day glory, the sun came out of its rainy garb for an entire day. All of Sunday was divine: brunch at the now traditional Icebox Cafe, a stroll through the Lincoln Road antique sales resulting in hot-hot-spicy-hot new barstools (in grape, goldenrod, magenta, and pumpkin), a lovely dip in the atlantic ocean, and a stellar finish with Mary back in town: grilled snapper, french green beans and white russians for dessert.

Although it was sad taking Mandi back to the runways, I really felt like we had meaningful time to spend together, something that even Dave and I have been short on recently. Being around old friends feels like home, and it makes this temporary home feel more comfortable. Sharing your present life with people from your past reconnects with them, but also reaffirms the contrasts in your respective existences. It was, on the whole, a lovely visit. And I have new barstools. Did I mention that?

The next week was a bit of a washout: Tuesday and Wednesday class, planning day on Thursday which turned into a "bitch-at-the-Zone-liason" session for three hours. If I remember correctly, I was also mildly hungover from a long Wednesday of soccer followed by Alias and Pinot Noir. I have addicted my housemates (with great ease, I might add) to my favorite vice: the fictional world of Sydney Bristow. We've burned our way throught the first three seasons (they watched ALL of season one in one weekend when I wasn't there), and are about to get a much anticipated season four as soon as it's released on DVD in two weeks. I'm not sure what it is about the show that draws people in so intensely; perhaps it's at once the antithesis and explanation to my current living situation. How is this possible, you ask?

Well, in the first place, I am not a secret agent for the CIA. No seriously, I'm not. I mean, even if I am (which I'm not), that guy in the program told me not to *mention* that. Secondarily, I am not dating Michael Vartan; while that might be fun, I'm pretty pleased with the long-distance relationship that I've got going on, and have no wish to extend that distance to L.A. Lastly, my family, however weird, is nowhere nearly as f-ed up as Sydneys.

The tenuous but mildly interesting parallels which I can draw between Ms. Bristow's life and Ms. Williamson's are as follows: 1. in my daily life, I wear a lot more suits and oxford dress shirts than I have ever worn in my life (since I left McDonogh), and my other fashion choices are about as dissimilar to work clothing as Syd's disguises are from her office apparel. 2. Teaching involves about ten times more duplicity than I would have imagined. I have had intense training in compartmentalizing emotions, putting on facades, and acting meaner, angrier, and let's face it, less angry than I really am. There are very few students who actually know my personality at all. I guess that's one of the drawbacks of being a teacher in this environment; there are few times when you really get to be "yourself."

It used to be that soccer was the place where I could relax, unwind, and let my guard down. Last week, it was rough. The prima donnas who never come to practice decided to show up and give me attitude, an abnormally high percentage of flaky kids refused to follow directions, and our usually competent core of returning players either didn't show up or didn't speak up to get the other girls to retrieve their heads from their asses. By Friday afternoon, I was ready to quit. I even told Gemma I was going to.

Then, after a wonderful weekend which included one indie rock concert, 6 episodes of Alias, two slices of bacon, one movie, and one trip to Aventura, I returned to practice today rejuvenated. Took the kids on a run, impressed them with my now-competent Coerver skills, and slammed a couple of half-volleys into the net. It's pretty ironic that a lot of my technical skills, which were so lacking in college when I was so uptight and nervous about playing, have actually improved in the past two years. It's kind of refreshing. I guess I'm not all washed up after all.

Well, it's getting later than I had anticipated, and chatting with Mr. Henry this evening pushed my bedtime back even further. I suppose profound comments regarding backyard musical productions and bright barstools will have to wait for a later time.

BTW, I also figured out where I've blown all my "free" time lately, instead of wasting it here on the blog: Netflix. Sweet, sweet Netflix. Oh well; there could be much worse addictions.

Back in the Saddle

It's raining in Miami tonight, as it has done for the past 25 days of June. No, that's a lie. There was actually one day (while I was on vacation) when it did NOT, I repeat, did NOT rain in the MIA. Does this mean that I'm gloomy, under the weather, walking about with dampened spirits? No, it does not! Although the last 4 inches of my jeans may be moist every day, and I may sometimes have to wade barefoot through puddles 4 inches deep to get to my car after work, I am reaching equilibrium.

No longer does Mariah Carey blast continuously from my speakers (just occasionally). Willie Nelson and Patty Griffin, in the spirit of summer living, have taken her place. Oh Willie, why did you have to play a part in "Dukes of Hazzard?" That's just wrong. My country hero and Jessica Simpson on the same screen? No. No. Anyway, back to the real stuff...

Tonight, I dropped Dave off at FLL for a quick trip "home." It's easier making the drive knowing that I'll see him on Thursday [grin]. It's a Sunday, and usually this would mean a cloud, metaphorical instead of meteorological, settles over 266 as the teachers make preparations for another long, gruelling week at school. But oh, not so, not so! I only teach 3 days this week, then get paid to go to 1. a water park, and 2. a film production and processing studio with 35 good-natured high school students. I [heart] my job. I mean, I really [heart] my job.

Earlier this evening, thinking about my decision to work over the summer, I realized that I can now finally say that yes, it was a good idea. Working with the Gear-Up kids is so refreshing; someone ELSE is ultimately responsible for their behavior, they are interested in the material (except maybe for my ESOL class), they are cute, funny, and some of them are surprisingly intelligent. I go to work, watch movies, talk about movies, then drive home. Some nights, I watch a movie to prepare for class, and jot down some lesson plans. Are you KIDDING?!!? Yes, this is my job. See, teaching doesn't have to be cutthroat, backstabbing, brutal, tedious, antagonistic, and futile!

Professionally, I'm doing well.

Personally, I'm doing fantastic. Even though I miss my few friends who are gallavanting around the world in other hemispheres, I enjoy the MIA crowd who is sticking around for the summertime. My cat, still slightly insane, is here, as is another resident in Apt. 2: David Dickinson Henry. This is a phenomenon of much delight and amazement. We just returned from 9 fun-and-sun-filled days in St. John, USVI where there was much cooking, much snorkeling, and many many many mosquito bites (post to follow, hopefully)

The weather on vacation was perfectly idyllic, and I returned ridiculously tanned and blonde...to a very, very rainy Miami. FIU threatened to dampen my sunshiny attitude during summer finals/midterms, but together the TFA contingent perservered, and that's done with for a while. Work started up in whirl, and although I still haven't unpacked, I at least have clean laundry. Went to see the Cristo and Jeanne-Claude exhibit at the Bass Museum and renewed my love for Art-Deco architecture, so now I feel firmly back at home and grounded.

OOOOH! And, I finally got around to seeing Batman Begins, yayayayyayayayayyayayyayayay. Thanks for that. I was literally jumping up and down upon exiting the theater following the film. So good, so good. So tightly put together, there was hardly room for mistakes. Now the only question is what does Christopher Nolan do *next*.

Whew, on that note, I think I'd better shower and figure out how to make my kids think that "Batman Returns" isn't outdated =).

Futbol!

Back on the pitch, and rippin' shit up.

Tonight, on a whim, after spending a very depressing 4 hours in various Verizon stores, I hoofed it back out 195 to some park to meet some TFA chick who I didn't know and 4 guys I'd never heard of before. Played for 50 minutes, 5v5 and I scored 2 (3?) goals. Grin. Big grin.

God, it felt so good to have a ball on my foot again, to make those crossing runs, to see the field explode in zipping diagonals, and be at just that right spot at just that right time to feel in slow motion as the ball meets you, makes contact, and ricochets into the net.

It's a powerful feeling to have those "sweet" moments on the field, especially when your teammates, regardless of how well they know you, acknowledge them to your face. I've been on some teams where it felt good to lose because we knew we'd played our heart out, and I've been on some teams whose wins were empty because I didn't truly play a part in the game. I've been on very few teams where it felt really fucking great to win. Tonight, in its rec-league-half-assed-thrown-together way, it felt really good to win. The crazy thing is that we played a hard game; it felt like one of those days at Mario's Beach FC practices when we'd play 5 v 5 or 4 v 6 until I wanted to eat my own cleats; we played some really pretty soccer at times, for slightly out of shape adults.

Tonight, I needed a win.

In so many aspects of my life right now, I feel powerless. Fighting corporate America to a stalemate in the form of Verizon; ending up the big loser (so far) in the whole Student Cell Phone debacle; struggling in my own self-suffering way to make it clear that of all FIU students, TFA students are the most overworked, underappreciated, and clearly most meritous of slacking off: all of these things exhaust my poor pathetic little brain. Being a loser, even metaphorically speaking, is not fun. Also, many of these fights just came up on me unannounced; I didn't seek them out, and so I suppose I feel a little threatened and attacked by them.

I can't always control my kids, I can't control electronic equipment. I sure as hell can't control my academic life at the moment although this week I swear I'm going to get a handle on TESOL so I can pass my midterm. What I can control is making that far post run, taking that hard tackle, drawing the foul.

Or, for that matter, deciding to take a rest on defense, and leave that perfect run for someone else. Someone stronger, someone refreshed. Either way, we both get to be part of the win.

MIAMI?

Okay, so it took me three days, but I'm here, getting gauged for internet access ($9.95 for 24 hours?!!?) at the Radisson, downtown Miami. I felt a little embarassed giving the keys to my flaming van to the valet parkers, but hey, the guy who took my car asked me all sorts of technical questions about the paint job and told me it was "a great work of art" so that made it okay.

Spent my first night in Savannah, GA at a Travelodge on I-95, bummed around the city for a while, stopped in St. Augustine, FL and took highway A1A all the way south to Cocoa, while Mandi serenaded me with the lyrics to the new Patty song about Florida. Yay for coastal highways, Waffle Houses in the mornings, animal crackers, and overzealous cops. Yes, officer, i WAS wearing my seatbelt. Thanks.

Cocoa was lovely, bought presents at Ron Jons, of course, and then I powered through to Miami (said with prerequisite spanish accent, claro), leaving A1A after Vero Beach, 'cause I was running behind schedule.

Tonight, I met the other 60 TFA Miami members (only 5 guys, hahahahah, sucks for them) and have settled in with my roommates, all of whom were in Seville during the spring either '02 or '03. How great is that? Fantastic. Anyway, I've got to get off the internet, and get some shit done. Like find out how to get fingerprinted.

So what if I'm avoiding the mail?

TFA letters were postmarked yesterday, and by my expert calculations it shouldn't take more than 2 days for it to get from New York to Philly. Scary shit, and I'm really trying hard to imagine my rejection letter, and not dream of palm trees and salsa, and grown-up clothing.

Watched another stellar movie this morning in film class, "Fury" by Fritz Lang. Quality shit.
She: "I'm hard to get rid of"
He: "I know, you're like my right arm...only I need you more."

Then we talked about phallic symbolism in "The Little Mermaid" for 20 minutes, and went home. How much fucking better does that get? Freud, cinema, and early departures? That's what I thought.

As mentioned before, I knew that if I came back to campus I'd go straight to the mailbox and be 1. disappointed that there was something in my mailbox, or 2. dissappointed that there wasn't something in my mailbox. Instead, SHOPPING! Fresh fruit at the supermarket, plus sushi for lunch, then I indulged my desire to scope out the spring fashions at Suburban Square (oh, and Suburban in every sense of the word) which was super duper fun. The only thing I hate about that place is that everyone gets dressed up to go shopping. And here I stroll in from class, not having showered and wearing jeans and a t-shirt, [gasp, horrors] no makeup! Scandal. I think that I actually might have gotten sneered at in Ann Taylor. Whatever, dude.

Feeling quite proud of myself for resisting the oh-so-cute skirts and summery dresses (people, it's still *cold* here), and only indulging in 2 half-priced tank tops from Gap, I returned to my ghetto-van with an air of triumph and a cup of white chocolate mousse from TCBY. That shit is soooooo good. THEN, topping off my culinary lunch, I break out the sushi when I get home.

Now this is Farmers' Market pretentious sushi, and I've been less than impressed with Mainline sushi products as of late, so I was a little irked to shell out 6 bucks for 8 tiny rolls. Oh, woe be unto me me to ever doubt "Genji Express" again. This is how sushi takeout should be done: a soy sauce cup provided, decent non-splinter chopsticks, not-toot-tangy ginger, and fresh, tasty tender fish. It was so good that I wanted to clean my palate with the ginger in between fish flavors (salmon, whiting, and tuna) so that I could savor each one in their separate glory: salmon straight up or with a hint of soy; whiting with shaved green onions (plain!); and tuna with a touch of wasabi, or plain soy. Sigh. And the seaweed wrap was still pliant, that's how recently they'd made that shit. I [heart].

Plus, and this is a real winner, Kaitlyn Luther, roommate extraordinaire, scoured the kitchen and master plumber David Henry temporarily fixed our eternally dripping bathroom sink. Wow. Now, if my room were only clean that would make one hell of a functional apartment.

Had a very productive and revelatory evening in the INSC last night working on the tesis until the library closed at 1:00 am, let's hope today's efforts go well too.

But I've still got to check my mail...

I am a young woman of many contradictions

Most garishly illustrated by my current attire: red sweatpants and a pastel mint EHOS t-shirt, the sorts of contradictions that I generally try to avoid. An old teacher of mine once told me that, and I took it as a compliment. I still do, although it often confounds people who don't know me very well.

Random Aside: Nutella was on sale 2 for 1 at Genuardi's today...imagine, if you will, the strength of will necessary for me not to buy more to add to the collection. Oh, you will.

Anyway, the same teacher who found my charming personality an oxymoron has been instrumental (I believe) in facilitating the phonecall I just received today from the HR guy at Cape Henry, telling be obliquely that they want me to teach there next year. In light of the veritable SCANDAL of resignations that have happened in the past week, I'm highly dubious that I'd want to be teaching there next year, but the possibility of saving an assload of money by living at home is quite encouraging. I might even be able to fund my own jaunt to Barcelona next summer instead of asking for it for graduation. That's hot.

I'm feeling very conflicted towards the Cape as of late, and not sure what to do about that, if anything.

But enough of that. Today has been a day which showcased my rather ecclectic (to use the dreaded buzzword) personality:

1. after work I picked up a gi-normous package from 95 Howe Street, thouroughly perplexed at what my crazy sister sent me. I love my crazy sister. The contents of said container were a thesis survival kit assembled of different random objects, all of which pertained in some way to me. The box included, and this is by no means an all inclusive list

-a clove of garlic
-the newest issue of Cosmo
-the nasty eyeshadow that we both got in our stocking at Christmas
-a magic 8 ball ("whose use increases dramatically with the addition of alcohol")
-peppermint patties
-a grocery shopping list
-pictures of exotic...greens i.e. kale, napa cabbage

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, my sister has put me in a box.

2. As I left the grocery store (without the Nutella, sadly enough), I felt a little surge of pride for my little Fiametta, as I have dubbed the van, passing by one of her flakier, rustier siblings. It happens every time I see one of the 1989-1995 Dodge Caravans with defective primer. I *can* be an artsy person sometimes, although it's often half-assed.

3. When I got home, I finished writing a paper about communist montage cinema, read the first three chapters of the ridiculously formulaic Norah Roberts romance novel that I got Alex for Christmas, which she thoughfully re-gifted to me today (as I hoped she would eventually, hee hee), ate some sushi for dinner after a quick workout, and then plan on writing a paper on Freud and Frankenstein.

Sometimes I really love my life =). Now if only that translated into a *job* for next year...

"Ah, springtime, when young men's fancy turns to..."

A collection of (uncharacteristically) happybubblyspringtime thoughts.

1. I wore fishnets today to class (beige colored, to be sure, but I still got some stares) in protest of the mundaneness of Mondays everywhere, which made me immensely happy.

2. over the course of our TFA discussions I have recently apprehended that Rob Schiff attended "Lick-Wilmerding" high school in San Francisco [cf. post from September 11, 2003], which made me laugh. A lot. Puts a whole new spin on things.

3. Suburban Pennsylvania drivers are maniacs, manifested in strange roadsigns which say
Beware of Agressive Drivers
Slow Down, Save a Life

4. While running on the nature trail yesterday (which was quite squishy in parts), I passed some marshy areas, and could not remember the word "swamp." Interestingly enough, the only thing I could think of was "fango" (which is Spanish), for a general abstract mushy ground, and "salt marsh" for the concrete image I had in my head of the only familiar swampy ground that I know. Interesting.

5. Had a great Saturday night, including substantive conversation with roomie, which made me exceedingly happy. We hadn't just sat around and talked about books and writing for ages; reminded me of the ol' days in 35, sigh [nostalgia?]

6. I [heart] purple buttons.

I'm going to spruce up my new/old jacket with the results of my button-quest this weekend, work on my bryn mawr film paper, and contemplate the uncanny just a little bit more. Is it wrong that I kind of like Freud sometimes?

Did I also mention...

That the shoes I bought on Friday are PINK ADIDAS? And that half of the soundtrack of O-11 is Benny Goodman tunes? Yeah. Thought so.

I went through the usual racking my brains for tutorial ideas today and Sunday, quickly rehearsing my answer to the usual question that I ask the girls: "Qué hicistéis este fin de semana?" and I really had trouble remembering what I did this weekend. I suppose it was because all Friday I thought it was Saturday, and everything just kind of blurred together in impromptu fun events. There was no planning, and yet everything seemed to come together; I love it when that happens =).

Saturday, after the gi-normous letdown of "Havana Nights" (let me rephrase: DIRTY DANCING-CAN-WE-PLEASE-HAVE-ONE-MORE-CHEAP-PATRICK-SWAYZE-ALLUSION-Havana Nights) during which the only pleasurable thing was watching Diego dance, and after the ecclectic roundup of the [now] usual suspects at La Casa for Jaime's birthday party, I tried to do work. Not much work was done, althogh I did go shopping with the roomie and softball buddy, and ran into CHC Ana in J.Crew. Could I please have a few more random "people who I sort of know" references? Yes, thanks. Ten points, no a whopping fifteen, to those who can identify all of the people mentioned in the last paragraph. Kaitlyn, you don't count.

After shopping, it was agreed upon that we should stop by 'Bella' the Italian "Restaurant" on the Main Line run by hispanohablantes with Greek disposeable tableware, mostly patronized by borderline alcoholic twentysomethings and out of work skater boys. Hello, out of place much? Not at all. Klu had it right: "I like beer, baseball and sandwiches. Boys should love me. Hell, I could be a boy." Picked up two six packs with our culinary sustenance, to be used later on, post thesis-ifying at our 80's dance pre-party.

It only takes 4 people to make a party, if you've got the right people. [grin]. Ouch, random non-sequiter: floss more regularly. Anyway, Saturday night was rockin,' and I do mean *rockin'*. I bedecked myself in 80's glory so much so that my roommate was embarassed to be seen with me. See, the cool thing about having an older sister is that I knew all about the cool stuff in the late 80's even though I was only in elementary school. She had stirrup pants, so they must have been cool. She went to Belinda Carslile concerts, so she had to be cool. She had feathered bangs, so they had to be cool. Oh wait, no, I think we've all agreed that's NOT okay.

I took my inspiration from Sarah Jessica Parker, a la "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and wore a black mini, tights, scrunched socks, and the new old-school adidas (anyone else see a problem with this?), all topped off with Alex's old Ron Jon's shirt in neon yellow, pink and blue. Matching blue eyeshadow, bangles, and huge white earrings, and I was a sight to behold. Can't wait for the pictures. Founders was actually fun, and much time was spent chasing after random seniors whom we hadn't seen in ages.

Oscars on Sunday, eh. Billy Crystal is so funny, Blake Edwards is so the embodiment of a genius, and LOTR III (I'm sorry to say) *so* was not the best picture of the year, but what can you do?

Bringing me chronologically to Monday (today, duh). THREE days till Spring Break. Yesssssssssss. The iPod also came in the mail today, 15 GB's 'cause that's all I can afford, but it's sooo pretty. Soo cute. Came in three days from Shanghai, and I tracked it twice a day on the FedEx website. Not a dork. Not a dork. Just keep telling yourself that. iPod and Girl Scout cookies from Mom in one day, intellectual validation from the English Prof, I'm doing pretty damn well. Woo hoo. Let's hope it's not just all in my head, and I actually *am* doing well =)

"As I suspected! You're a rank sentamentalist.

Sadness! Someone has a blog called "absolute a," as I titled my journal in high school. Rather, mine was "absolut thea" but you get the picture. I guess I'm not as original as I thought.

In any case, I just felt the need to say that today was beautiful. And I mean multi-sensory, multi-layered metaphorically beautiful. Fridays usually kind of suck, being busy and stressful, and I'm usually too tired to enjoy life. Today, however, started off quite well indeed.

I showed up just barely on time to the English House at Bryn Mawr for my film class screening; this week: Casablanca. Now I know what you're all thinking, that "everybody loves Casablanca" and all that crap. So did I; in fact, I hadn't seen it all the way through until today.

There's a reason for all the hype.

It's so great, so beautifully filmed, so wonderfully acted, and the dialogue is nearly impeccable (although I STILL think that "here's looking at you kid" is stupid, cheesy, and non-sensical). It's the kind of movie that only an America in the midst of WWII could pull off, so weighty and *important* while being true to the heart of the Western soul. Fantastic.

Still high on life, I scooted off to the arboretum to have my aloe re-potted after class, and then it was on to the Farmers' Market, where I picked up a beautiful rockfish fillet and some fresh sourdough bread. Today was sunny, brisk, but cheerful, and the weather outside was screaming at me to leave the house, so I went for a deliciously mind-clearing run around Ardmore before my meeting with G. She was so busy that she didn't have time to really read through what I'd wrote, so I was saved from (most of her) criticism until Monday. Score.

Scurrying home, I fired up the oven to make myself an epicurean experience: pan-seared the striped bass once I put some spices on, broke out the last of the pinot grigio, and tossed the kale that I'd made last night in with a marsala pan sauce ready to be soaked up by chewy, cruncy sliced bread. Now, as I like to have some company when I'm dining alone in the apartment, I stuck in Ocean's 11, which I haven't seen in years, the memory of that night in the theater here in Philly with Mandi and my ex-friends from the customs group warming my sentimental little heart =).

Spinning, this time with delight...better than my other vertigo this week, the movie begins. Now, this is a guy's movie: bank heists, revenge, manly bonding, blowing things up and such, but damn, those guys look good. I swear, there are more good looking well dressed men in this flick than in 10 lame empty calorie movies with star billing. Sigh, Brad. Sigh, George. Sigh, Casey and Scott. Sigh, Matt. THEN, as I'm enjoying life on so many different levels, finishing off my coup in the kitchen with some nutella (again), I hear on the screen....

..."In all the gin joints in all the world..."

HA!!!! Proving, in one fell swoop, the intertexuality of movies, the validity of the filmic genre as art, and that Steven Soderbergh is indeed, a god. Shut UP, he was NOT just throwing in a random Casablanca quote. Can't you see it's so much *deeper* than that? Made my fucking day, man. Made my fucking day. I hope Klu gets back soon so that we can go enjoy another, though most likely less high quality cinematic event this evening. Yay for Fridays.

"Do we walk in legends, or on the green earth in daylight?"

Left Haverford's campus at 9:15 last night with a hardy crew of three other LOTR fanatics. Okay, 2 other fanatics, and the boy. Marni at the wheel, driving Boston-style down Montgomery Avenue, hot caffeinated beverages in hand, we arrived at King of Prussia in time to stake our claim to the first section of the seating line for the final installment of the Fellowship: Return of the King. People applauded when Orlando and Viggo had their first closeup. [Sigh.] I sat there with my iBook, typing away dilligently as news cameras panned the huge line that wound around the lobby. Even saw some hard-core costumed fans; one dubiously sober adolescent male was dressed as Sauron's eye, carrying a 4-foot long cardboard cut out colored orange. Well done.

3 hours and 25 minutes of pure Peter Jackson magic, even if there were some *serious* departures from the book (don't worry, I won't give anything away), and a perfectly acceptable ending. I'm not ashamed to say I was a little weepy towards the final scenes. I, too, felt as though something was over, a fellowship was ending; three years is a long time to be attached to a concept, and now it's over.

There's always the extended versions! Woo hoo, Two Towers dvd. I'm so bad.

And so, running on little sleep (we didn't pull in to the South Lot until 4:30 am this morning), but with visions of Minas Tirith dancing in my head as opposed to sugarplums, I trudge ahead on the last two assignments of the semester. Two days to go. So many things to bake, so many things to write. An aside: I enjoyed how they portrayed Frodo as the 'ultimate tortured writer' at the end. Everything's so intertextual these days, I love it.

I *still* think that Eowyn deserved more screen time, dammit.

Today Does NOT Blow

For the following reasons, all of which are valid...

1. Classes have ended, and things are winding down around Haverford. Less than a week left. I've brought my plants to the greenhouse, and have begun to asess the perishable contents of our refrigerator to use them up before we head out.

2.I bought a hot pink shirt today. I [heart] H&M. Ordinarily speaking, I don't wear a whole lot of pink; I tend to leave that up to the roomie, but I was feeling in a bright, hot, "hey-look-at-me-i'm-wearing-borderline-neon" kind of mood today and couldn't resist.

3. I will never have to go to another Chemistry of Art Class again.

4. Chemistry of Art is over. Took my last test today, and barring meteor showers or other sorts of catastrophic cataclysms, I will be exempt from taking the exam.

5.. Did I mention that I won't ever have to listen to another Valerie Walters lecture?

6. Helped out with production work today @ Hot Soup making punties for tumblers and such. Yay. I love glass. Plus, the artist that I was making the punties for is the guy who's KICK-ASS pieces are up in the gallery this month.

6a. It's good to be a cute girl in the hotshop. It's also good to be a cute girl who catches on quickly and makes a better than serviceable punty.

7. Walked down Chestnut St. today to get to work, instead of the usual Market, and got a *completely* different view of the city. It's strange how one block south really chages so much. Hello, only-white-girl-in-a-peacoat.

8. Have grand plans in store for rest of tonight/weekend, including but not limited to: watching a movie up in the North Dorms, dessert, finishing film paper, going to the darkroom, semiformal dance, final SFS presentation, and a good night's sleep.

So I'm going to get on that =).

"...and CUT!"

Over the past several days, I've found myself caught in several moments of cinematic irony or perfection, so much so that I keep waiting for someone to step out from behind the door or around the hall and tell me my scene's over. I have to stop looking upwards to see the fuzzy grey mic's suspended just out of the camera's range.

Act 1, Scene 1
Alex came to pick me up, like the good sister she is, on Tuesday. Spent the night and hung out with my crazy friends for a bit after we traversed Chinatown in the cold looking for stocking stuffers. We bought mom an anchor-shaped cookie ornament, in keeping with the eternal nautical theme of the past 4 years; long live the Mariners' Museum. Good times.

We hauled ourselves out of bed bright and early, and made the prerequisite stop at Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast. As we walk in the door, cameras are rolling...

...Three cops in uniform with large midsections tease the 'new guy,' clad in tight fitting pants and long-underwear shirt which accentuates formidable arm muscles and pecs. All of the law enforcement officers order donuts while relating the ocurrences of the past night's watch and intra-bureau gossip. Seasoned veterans indulge new pretty boy, brush powdered sugar off of their jackets, then pile into separate cars and head their own way down Lancaster Ave...

...cut to Scene 2
A pair of freckled blonde sisters on a road trip, racing through cold Thanksgiving air down country highways to meet the family. They catch up on the few months that they've been apart, interspersed with peals of laughter resulting from witty anecdotes of familial idiosyncracies. The younger one drifts off to sleep as Bonnie Raitt sings, the warm sun from the window too soporific for her to maintain consciousness.

Fade to black.

Scene 3
Family together at last, montage of 4 separate discussions of turkey cooking times, temperatures, and recipes. Reminiscence of Thanksgivings past....
Mom: Wasn't that when he was on the 10,000 calorie diet for swimming?
Sibling: I read that women need a minimum of 1800 calories to stay alive.
Mom: Well, Weight Watchers had us on 1000 a day, and you lost weight.
Sibling: Yeah, and how well did that work?
Mom: it worked fine, but...you get kind of hungry with only 1000 calories a day.

Family Friend: [aside, with a knowing smile] She has the gift, doesn't she?

Oh, for the gift of the obvious...cut to last dinner with group:

Scene 4
Dripping wet and disheveled, the sisters burst in the screen door with shopping bags and Spanish rioja. Dinner preparations begin, butter melted for garlic bread and pasta sauce bubbing happily on the stove while the assembled crowd breaks into small family groups enjoying a glass of wine before dinner. Three hours later, dinner finished, the "kids" (21-27) curled up on couches chatting, parents long gone to bed. Fade to black; End Act 1, 'Thanksgiving.'

Act 2, Scene 1
A early winter night in Phildadelphia, bare hands hold chilled gloved ones tight strolling through Rittenhouse square on the way to the movies. Colored light spheres dangle from leafless trees, brightly lit traffic whizzes by on all 4 sides of the square and every once in a while a gust of wind comes by to stir up leaves on the sidewalks or dislodge her scarf.

cut to Scene 2
Animatedly discussing the movie, the pair enters the warm, crowded bakery only to find no open tables. Her glasses fog and she laughs as she takes them off. He suggests takeout, and she agrees [pan the dessert case: chocolate ganache, 3 different buttercreams top glossy cakes], they leave hand in hand: one with a box stamped with "Pink Rose Pastry," the other with a hot cup of coffee. Steam curls up from the coffee cup as they cross 5th and Walnut, she looks around to check for camera crews, for the artifice that has to be hiding in the chilly shadows. Looks up at him, sips coffee, chuckles and says "it doesn't quite seem real." Fade to black

[male voice-over: "This is decidedly pleasant."]

Sparkly Nights

These first few weeks of November are always strange. The weather is always doing odd things. The leaves have pretty much all fallen from the trees, leaving a color fanatic like myself rather unimpressed with the dreary brown-ness of the Mid-Atlantic region. It's too far from the winter holidays to inspire a countdown, but it's already late enough in the year to make you wonder "what the fuck happened to October?" as deadlines encroach and work begins to snowball.

November is never a *good* month, yet it marks a point in time when it's acceptable to bake with pumpkin; I get to break out the cinnamon, allspice, and ginger to fill the kitchen with the spicy, warmth-inducing scents of autumn. Mom sent me some cheesy nonstick tart tins in the mail today (along with junk mail and useless credit card applications) increasing my haphazard collection of 4" diameter tartlet pans to 12. Three different kinds, some fluted, some not; some have the nice removeable bottoms, and some of them are just plain molded ones that you find in the supermarket. None of them match, but they work well enough for small batches. If I ever had to cater anything, there'd be a problem. Not having ventured far into baking endeavors of late, the new tart pans merited a christening. Of course, they had to be pumpkin. Creamy, fluffy, cinnamon-specked sienna colored disks of warm goodness were totally worth using up the very last of the flour in the house, and gave me a sense of purpose on this awkward Monday afternoon. I also shamelessly consumed much more tart filling than can be healthy for one person =).

I hadn't eaten pumpkin-flavored goodies in ages; in fact, I don't know that I remember the last time that I enjoyed this temporal delicacy, I just know it's been a while.

It's also been a long time since I've felt the dry, chill air of a not-quite-winter night tingle my nose when I leave a building on my way home. Every year, there's that one night, the first time that it's cold enough to crystallize water on the tips of the grass, on already crunchy dried leaves, and it gets to me every year. The past week, as I trudge home from the library or venture out of the apartment after dark, I look forward to reaching the Campus Center green. Where the streetlights don't quite reach the whole field, and reflections from brightly lit windows or even the moon scatter bits of light across my path. The facets glint differently with every step, and as I walk on there's no time to think about whatever crazy bullshit is running around in my head. I'm too busy marvelling at the glittery path in front of me, that crackles as I go.

I'm a simple girl, easily amused by sparkly things. In November, I need that smack of cold air to revive my senses: to pull me out of my introversion and back into the real world of twinkling stars and frost, of warm pumpkin tarts.

Sunday Morning Scones

An astute observer present in the apartment this morning remarked "who the hell just gets up in the morning and says 'I'm going to bake something'?" Well, to that I'd say, um, me.

It was just one of those mornings when I needed to breakfast on something warm and crispy, but soft and steamy inside. The smell of toasting oats early-ish (10:30...not bad) is something that inherently deactivates whatever sort of negativity might surface on Sunday, the consummate "work" day of the college student. Last week at the Italian market, I'd treated myself to last month's issue of Cooks' Illustrated magazine. Their recipe for Toasted Oat Scones looked delectable, so I thought I'd better try it.

Waking up and not having the entire day mapped out in hour or half-hour blocks is liberating, a small pleasure that I realized on Saturday afternoon, when I returned home from my weekly trip to the farmers' market with the best fresh mozzarella that I've had in ages, and a whole monkfish fillet. Warm afternoon sunlight streamed lazily in through the kitchen window on my happily photosynthesizing basil plant, also illuminating the sink full of last week's dirty dishes. As many people know, I've never been one to keep an orderly household; my room tends towards entropy, and endlessly vacillates between various degrees of disorder. Doing the dishes has NEVER been my strong point, although it's one of the things that I've been working to change (over the past several years, hee hee). So I thought to myself, I'm going to clean the kitchen.

It was in need of a serious cleansing. My knives need to be sharpened, which, incidentally is a most diverting activity; how many girls do you know that can properly use a sharpening steel? I put my receipts away, washed all of the dishes, and wiped down the sink before I even started on dinner. It felt so good to have a clean counter to work on, these little activities that I take for granted usually. Hell, I even did the dishes from dinner before we started the movie! I was a maniac.

Lately I haven't even had the time to cook dinner, let alone clean up after it, so the luxury of having free time (even if I did use it to do the dishes) made me happy. That, and opening up the refrigerator to see shelves stacked with green asparagus, papery-thin prosciutto cut by surly deli workers, new cheeses in their butcher paper wrapping, and a chilly bottle of Pellegrino instead of 2 eggs, a stick of margerine, and 3 tortillas (the contents of the fridge on Thursday) had an ameliorating effect on my psyche. Our freezer is still mysteriously dripping water at inopportune times, flooding the bottom of the fridge and ruining its contents, but at least there's stuff in there to get soaked, right? The floor is kind of gross, and there's the mystery stuff from past occupants stuck behind the stove, but I'd say we're doing okay at the moment.

I was tired this weekend, tired of running around purposelessly. If occupying myself with bread crumb-covered plates and lemon dishwashing liquid for an hour is enough to make me feel as though I've actually accomplished something tangible amidst the all too academic existence that I lead during the week, then that counts as a good thing for me. That said, I still hate the dishpan hands.

Lemon-ey Fresh

It's the weekend, at last. I needed that.

The briskness of fall has arrived in Pennsylvania as of today; I needed a cardigan to wear to class this morning, and the light breeze was just enough to jolt me awake upon exiting quite possibly the most excruciatingly boring class I've ever sat through. An hour can seem incredibly long when a middle aged, nondescript, soft voiced woman who dresses similarly to my mother is explaining how to convert degrees Fahrenheit to degrees Celsius. Are you kidding me? Did we not cover that in like, oh, Middle School?.

Luckily the Ardmore farmers' market was open today, so I was able to get a head start on tomorrow night's dinner. I absolutely love the weekday afternoon bustle of that place, the fact that it's filled with members of the community (yes, too wealthy Philadelphia suburbanites talking on headsets, soccer moms, and trophy wives. But hey--that's our community), fully functional and reasonably priced to boot! I can, after a miraculously short 20 minute walk, find smoked mozzarella, ricotta salata, amish organic cornish game hens, and fresh flowers. The plum and lavender carnations, while beautiful (and I don't even like carnations), were a bit too much of an extravagance for my budget, after I splurged on good coffee. That's a shame, because we could use a little color in our lives around 2C. Our sad looking refrigerator was almost empty by the end of this week, as we've both been far too busy to run off to the store for silly things like milk or fresh fruit, luxuries for the weekday overinvolved college senior. It's funny that on a day like today I can get excited about both imported cheese and condensed water vapor dripping down a glass of cold, plain, skim milk.

I had a nice sushi dinner with a friend from up campus (in other words, who I never see on a normal shedule), bitched about the spectre of evil in literary criticism aka Harold Bloom, talked about feminist Romantic poetry, and then went grocery shopping again at the supermarket to pick up the stuff that I couldn't find at the farmers' market earlier. By 9:30 pm, I was in my pajamas (red sweats, of course: athletic issued 00-107) and up to my wrists in soap suds, doing the last three days' accumulated dishes. A short while later, a gleaming kitchen in front of me, the lemon juice scrubbed copper bowl that I'd just untarnished rocking lazily on the drying rack, Kaitlyn said "it smells kind of good in here."

It did. The new basil plant on the windowsill lent a savory hint to the normally stale kitchen air, and the lemon juice (along with the citrus zest for tonight's biscotti that spattered my shirt) sent a zing throught the apartment that reminded me of sunny days. Either that or dish detergent, I can't decide which. Clean smells all around makes for a good environment to cook in, hell, to exist in. Throw in some loudly sung pop music from Klu's CD player, and I'd say that makes for a Friday night to rival some of the best. Now, if only that damn biscotti would finish baking, and I could get to bed. And it's only Friday =).

Leavening

There's nothing quite like the pleasure of freshly baked bread in the morning. I've had a starter going for a few days now, and it was growing quite happily according to plan. Yeast is most content in a warm, moist environment, and it's usually a little difficult to achieve those conditions for an extended amount of time--that is, long enough to complete all 3 rises. Oh wait, when it's been raining for THREE DAYS STRAIGHT that means our entire poorly-ventilated apartment is an uber-productive yeast factory. My roommate came into the bedroom yesterday evening with a puzzled look on her face and told me cautiously: "uh, I think you might want to check the starter."

Out of control. In an unprecedented fit of activity, it had bubbled completely out of its tupperware and was dripping onto the countertop like some gooey creature of the fens. I think it actually burbled at me mockingly. Extra flour wouldn't stop it; not even salt could chemically retard the overzealous bacteria, so at 11:00 pm I decided that I'd do what real bakers do, and prepare a batch of fresh wheat bread, scheduled to finish around breakfast time.

There's something very satisfying about going to sleep with that slight ache in your triceps from kneading; a rhythm in the quarter turn, fold, push, quarter turn that works out the kinks of a stressful day. Due to my roomie's psycho workout schedule, I didn't have to wake up at 7:00 to form the twice-risen dough into loaves, so that was even better. When the alarm finally rang at 8:00, I rolled out of my comfy bed, stepped on some (likely) important papers scattered on the floor, and shuffled sleepily out into the kitchen to turn the oven up to 475 degrees. After my shower, I still wasn't exactly "awake," as they say, and spilled a jar of coffee grounds on the floor while simultaneously attempting to 1. make coffee, 2. brush my teeth, 3. hold up my fluffy red towel. Nobody ever said I was good at multitasking in the mornings. Yet as I cleaned up my caffeinated spill, I could already smell the bread in the oven working its leavening magic, and when I washed off my hands in the kitchen sink, I noticed that for the first time in 4 days, I could see the sun outside.

The swampy temperature of the night before dropped down to about 65: perfect for a September morning of baking. Before I knew it, I was spreading peach jam onto freshly sliced bread to have with my morning coffee. Felt just like a cold January a.m. in Spain, only better. Cleansed, prettied up in new jeans and sevillana earrings, I met the intermediate Spanish class I'll be TA-ing for this semester, and then in true Andalucían fashion, found that I had nothing better to than sit in the sun until class. Right now, it's good to be me, and I'd like to keep it that way.