Places I Want to Go (In a vague, but not particularly accurate order)

I've been itching to go somewhere new lately. I think it has something to do with the fact that last year at this time I was living in a new country, exploring new places every day, and altogether loving it. This, of course, was before I realized at a) the rain in Florence wasn't destined to stop until the week before I went home and b) Florentines are not known for their Grace, Warmth, and Hospitable Nature when it comes to dealing with American students. But anyway, I've caught the travel bug again. And as I've been keeping a mental list of places I need to go someday in my head for years, I figured I'd get in down on paper. Or blog. Or typepad? Whatever.

1) Colombia
Apparently all of the drug cartels have left Colombia and it's super safe now. And because they had so much drug money pouring in during the 80s and 90s, the place is absolutely beautiful. Cartagena is colorful and beachy, and Medellin spends 40% of its annual budget on education, and a great portion of the rest on the arts. So basically: natural beauty + actual culture? Take me there please!

2) Istanbul
I've been fascinated by Istanbul for a while now. It seems like it has this incredible mix of ancient history and a new, bustling atmosphere. I adore Byzantine architecture; mosiacs, domes, minarets = Alex's physical layout of heaven. And to that you can add ancient, imperial history (the kind I geek out over), a great modern art scene, and delicious food. And did I mention the Byzantine architecture? Because I love that shit.

3) Portland and Seattle
I figured that I should probably make an effort to see some of the parts of my own country where I have never been. The Pacific northwest has seemed pretty awesome ever since I read this book called The Mozart Season about this girl from Portland who competes in a violin competition where all the contestants had to play (you guessed it!) a Mozart Concerto.* Who cares if it rains 340 days out of the year? (I completely pulled that statistic out of my ass, but you get the picture.) They have music! And great restaurants! And farmers markets! And roses! What's not to like?

*As a side note, I've played the Mozart Concerto in A Minor that Allegra (the main character) had to play in the novel. And while it is indeed lovely, Mozart is far too neat and clean for me. Give me some dissonance, Wolfgang. Come on. And as a second side note, this was seriously one of my favorite books growing up. If you know middle-school aged girls, get them this book. Seriously, you really want them reading Gossip Girl? Or worse: Twilight?

4) Brittany
Have you ever heard a Breton pipe band? No? Then go here: . I swear, once you get over the shrill tones of what sounds like dying geese, it's some of the coolest music out there.

5) Dublin
I'd like to go back to Dublin and see and do some of those things you should actually ought to see and do in Dublin. You know, like go to the theater, go to a pub. Not just shop, which is what I did first time around. God damn my unenlightened 15 year old self.

6) Vietnam
I just finished reading The Quiet American. It was incredible, and combined with the fact that the country is supposed to be incredibly beautiful, the people friendly, and has a cuisine that makes me happier than almost any other, seems like a perfect country for me.

Anyway, that's it for now. There are tons of other places I want to go, like India, Thailand, Tahiti, the South of Italy, and the rest of Spain (Barcelona is wonderful, but that country is big!). But my fingers hurt from typing (no carpel tunnel, no!), and I have to wash dishes.

On Finding My Place in the Universe

After years of contemplating who I am, my purpose in life, and my role in the Greater Scheme of Things, I have come to a conclusion that may (or may not, who knows) be extraordinarily astute and accurate:

I ought to be a peasant.

Well really, since I'm Italian, I ought to be a contadina. Or, since I also have almost as much Irish blood in me, a tuathánach (say that ten times fast and I will buy you a drink. Shit, say that one time fast and I will buy you a drink).

How, you ask, have I come to this conclusion? Answer: Science! Social science, at least. After all, that's what I do. Allow me to guide you through the various arcane data that has brought me to my thesis.

Posit One: I Prefer Red Wine to White.
And not just any red wines. I like Chianti, and Cote du Rhone, and other big, full wines that taste like they were made in Nonno's basement. None of that White Zinfandel for me, thank you very much. I want a wine that stains my lips such a vivid purple that people will be unable to decide if I'm a wino or if I'm hypothermic.

Posit Two: I Make a Mean Bolognese Sauce (and fresh pasta)
Granted, I used turkey and bison instead of beef and pork (I try to stay away from anything factory farmed), and I drained off the fat, something that I'm fairly certain would cause a read Italian Nonna to drop dead of shock. But hey, I chopped the million vegetables, used real pancetta and none of the turkey bacon bullshit, and simmered the sauce for the requisite 384572485748524 hours. And it was good! Especially on the pappardelle I had made and dried the night before.

Posit Three: I Have Hips.
I think it's safe to say that I should be able to give birth with relative ease. Which is perfect, because peasant women need to be able to produce an entire litter of stout, scythe-wielding sons to work the fields and solid, merry daughters to milk cows and carry water from the well.

Posit Four: I Can Walk Long Distances Without Getting Tired
Good for when our only donkey has to be sold to pay the landlord.

So, if you take this data and synthesize it into a working thesis, what do you have? Peasant!

(Disclaimer: This entire conclusion is only valid assuming that one ignores such things as my love of expensive food, clothes, and nights at the opera. Also that one overlook my poor eyesight and severe outdoor allergies, both of which would make working in the fields rather difficult. And that the countryside scares me.)

Things I Don't Understand

1) Decorative Cabbages



Now, why on earth would anyone want one of those in their front yard? I have so much trouble believing that anyone can look at a flower patch and think: You know what this needs? A decorative cabbage.

And it you do, well then you just have shit landscaping taste.

2) Girls Who Say "That's Funny" with Dead Eyes Instead of Just Laughing

Seriously, these girls scare me. What's so wrong with laughing if someone makes a joke? And why do they feel the need to alert the joke-maker that yes, they recognize the statement as a joke, and that it was indeed funny? Once again, wouldn't laughing serve that purpose?

3) Fishing

Yeah, I understand that this may be attributable to gender differences. But going and sitting on a boat or wet ground for hours in the mist and rain (because that's the best time to catch fish, according to my dad) in order to skewer fish in the mouths with pointy hooks just to throw them back into the pond just doesn't sound like a good time.

Go Wild

Yesterday, my roommate found out that someone had gotten ahold of her credit card, and racked up charges of $800 and $300 at Target and Payless Shoes, respectively.

Aim high, criminals. Aim high.

Quick Life Update

So I'm sitting here, trying not to gag or be asphyxiated by the fumes from the anti-roach spray I just liberally sprayed in every corner and inside most of the kitchen cabinets, unsure whether to be totally grossed out or to just be a Grown Up and come to terms with the fact that everyone in New York has cockroaches, and to count my blessings that at least they're the small kind*, and that we really don't have a total infestation.

But seriously, cockroaches are pretty horrendous. They're small, fast, and after you see a couple you start to think you see them everywhere. And feel like they're on you at all times, until you start hitting yourself like a tourette's sufferer and then feel stupid because what you actually felt on your neck was your hair. But what really gets to me is that no matter how neurotic I am about keeping the kitchen clean, there's always that crumb that fell out of the toaster in the closet, or a smear of grease on the stovetop that I didn't notice and they always, always seem to find it.

So I've been forced to become quite creative when it comes to killing them. Since I've always been bad at smushing bugs (I always made my dad come and deal with spiders, and I always cringe when my mom makes me kill ants), I've had to figure out alternatives. Not only do I have traps and baits and kill-on-contact spray, but I have so far:

- Dropped books on them (first covering it with a napkin so it won't run away/smear on my Celtic Music textbook)
- Lit them on fire (there was one on the stove that I tried to smush while on the phone, but didn't press hard enough because, as I said, I find smushing things revolting. I didn't see where it went, so I just turned on all the burners, and turned them off about 30 seconds later. I lifted up my cast-iron pan and sure enough, it was all curled up and dead. So I picked it up with a spoon and flushed it down the toilet. I then boiled the spoon.)
- Covered them with soap (apparently they breath through their skin, so the soap means they can't get oxygen)
- Drowned them (I chased one all around this morning until I finally got it into the sink, and shoved it down the drain.)

Now, I'm the first one to call someone out about hurting animals. After all, inflicting pain on small creatures is a sure-fire indicator of sociopathic tendencies, aka serial killer-ness. But I don't think I'm a sociopath. After all, I don't want to hurt or torture the roaches. I just want them to die. Quickly. And to kill all the rest of their ilk.

And really, can serial killers make distinctions like that?


*Once, when my mother was still in graduate school and I was about eight years old, I came along to her biology class because my father had to work/mom couldn't find a babysitter/whatever. The teacher had this entire set of large tropical bugs in an aquarium thing. One was one of those millipedes the size of a large snake, and the other was a massive, rainforest cockroaches roughly the size of a small rat. Since I was a child, and since those bugs were actually harmless, the teacher thought she'd be cute and have me hold them. Now, I HATE bugs. I have always hated bugs. In fact, if all bugs except possibly fireflys and ladybugs disappeared, I would drop to my knees and thank God for finally revealing itself to me. But for some god-awful reason, that teacher (who I think might have been a nun) made me hold that cockroach and touch the millipede's legs, and to this day I have nightmares about oversized bugs. Just thought that anecdote might be entertaining.

Scrooge

***

I have a confession to make: I don't particularly like Halloween.

It's certainly not my least favorite holiday, a designation that would better fall on Columbus Day, or Labor Day, or President's Day, or any of the other meaningless national holidays that often pass without notice (I still regularly mix up Memorial Day and Labor Day). But for some reason, Halloween seems to have lost most of its appeal. And it's a particularly strange phenomenon, given that Halloween really does have everything going for it. It's in autumn, by far my favorite season, and is usually accompanied by crisp, refreshing weather. The color palate of orange, black, with changing-leaf shades thrown in is perfect for decorating, and my apartment is currently strewn with pumpkins and pipe-cleaner spiders that I made back in elementary school, much to the amusement of my roommate, who has never decorated for a holiday before. And Halloween involves candy! Who doesn't love a holiday where one of the main recreations is to get a sugar high?

But despite all of these things, I can't get nearly as into Halloween as Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or even Easter (which are my favorite holidays, respectively). And I can't totally put my finger on exactly why I no longer really like Halloween. But I think the change came when the focus became less on collecting and devouring fun sized candy bars (though I always was, and still am, partial to nerds) to dressing like a fetish hooker and bar-hopping.

Not that there's anything wrong with bar-hopping (or dressing like a fetish hooker, sometimes. Everything in moderation, kids!). I think what gets to me is the forced merriment. Maybe it's the Irish in me, but holidays bring out the worst of my skeptical and contradictory side. But it's the same message as I got on my 21st birthday: Go out and Have Fun! Lots of Fun! And Drink! Because that's how you Have Fun! Well, if anything is guaranteed to make me not have a good time, it's pressure to Have Fun. Being forced to Have Fun generally makes me want to curl up under a blanket and watch like, Gangs of New York while every one else goes out and gets obliterated. I truly enjoy going out spontaneously (more so, in fact, than I have in years. It probably has something to do with not having to constantly worry someone is going to call Bullshit on my id, and having finally conquered the majority of my body insecurities), but a night where I have to go out makes me far too stressed out.

But I will make the best of this Halloween, getting dressed up and going to a party. I have a psychedelic yellow outfit that my grandmother used to wear during the 60s, and it's big enough to show lots of midriff while not big enough to fall off or trip me (if I fold up the skirt significantly). I'm going to learn how to make a daisy crown for my hair. All in all, it's a better costume than I've had in years, despite the fact that my haircut is not at all hippie-ish. I just need to come up with a personality, and I'll be set.

***By the way, this is not at all the way I feel about Halloween. I'm a liberal! I'm all about handouts for tricksters and liars. I just thought it was funny.

What to Do on a Rainy Sunday

What should you do when you wake up to cold, rain, and lots of homework?

Why, make baked apples, of course!






Yesterday my mother came to visit, bringing with her a bag of apples roughly the weight of a small child. So acting on her advice to eat them as quickly as possible, I made these baked apples, filled with oats, honey, lemon peel, butter, and ginger. Next time I think I'll leave out the butter and add more honey, because I like my desserts sweet. Very sweet.

Next up, some sort of apple chutney! Or a crumble! Advice?

Inspirational Words, from Unlikely Sources

Yesterday as I left my apartment carrying my massive book bag and my violin, when a homeless man looked at me, and promptly yelled

"You're looking down! Keep your head up and be proud!!!"

At first, I was really alarmed that this small homeless man was yelling at me, but then what he actually said registered and I smiled at him and kept on walking.

I would love to say that his words of wisdom inspired me to walk Straight and Strong all day, but to be completely honest, I have to keep my head down when I walk. I'm one of the least graceful people on the planet, and if I'm not staring at the ground in front of me I end up tripping on a crack in the sidewalk, falling off the curb, or stepping in dog shit. None of which are pleasant when carrying a massive book bag and a violin.

Autumn: Of Brussels Sprouts and Head Colds.

Wow, can you believe it's almost October? September went by so fast! Actually, for me, September went by fairly slow. Mostly due to the fact that four our of seven days a week I have nothing to do. With no classes Thursdays or Fridays, I pretty much spend the majority of my week being bored. Which, consequently leads to time moving a lot slower. I applied for a bunch of jobs at NYU, but I either didn't get them and they didn't bother to ever let me know, or they're waiting until sometime in November to actually interview. This is endlessly frustrating for me, mostly because I actually do need the money, but also because I'm SO BORED. But maybe now that the semester is actually gathering steam and I actually have work to do having so much time off will be a blessing. We'll see.

Anyways, I'm actually thrilled that tomorrow is the first day of October. I think that October is my favorite month of the year, give or take a week or two in November. The time when the leaves start to change and the wind begins to have a chilly edge and best of all, fall produce begins to show up at the farmers markets. After a summer of fresh tasting, light vegetables I really start to crave heartier, stronger tasting produce. Cue the brussels sprouts, the butternut squash, the apples! The figs, oozing their honey-like filling! (Yesterday's lunch: saute one onion, sliced, with one apple, cubed, and a bag of brussels sprouts, halved, until they begin to brown. Add thyme, salt, pepper, and a half cup of water, and cover. Cook until the brussels sprouts are soft and water evaporates. Deglaze pan with apple juice or cider, and stir in some dijon mustard. If you can still say you don't like brussels sprouts after all that, we are no longer friends). And come the cooler weather, turning the oven on isn't so intimidating. Which means I can indulge in my favorite way of cooking anything at all - Roasting. Roasting EVERYTHING, from vegetables to chickpeas to fruit and even to meat (though I think I've eaten meat twice since I've gotten here...I become a vegetarian by default whenever I leave my parents' house. I think it's because nary a day goes by during the summer when my father doesn't demand some variation on steak/potatoes and by the end of summer I'm so sick of meat tofu and black beans sound like the Nectar of the Gods). There's something infinitely comforting about the act of preheating the oven, preparing whatever is to be roasted, then sitting around doing other things while the apartment fills with wonderful, appetite stimulating scents that make me have to consciously restrain myself from opening up the oven and sticking my head inside. Not in a Sylvia Plath way, however. More a Giada de Laurentis kind of way.

Though October does have its downside. More specifically, October is when I am most likely to get sick. And it has happened again this year. I felt something coming for about a week now, but for the majority of the time I fooled myself into believing that it was just fall allergies. Unfortunately, that was but a dream, and my "allergies" have turned into a full-fledged head cold. I'm really terrible at being sick. In general I have the immune system of an ox (I'm not entirely sure that analogy actually work. The phrase is "strong like an ox" so I assume oxen don't get sick - they're strong! - but that may be just faulty logic on my part). In fact, I think I can count the amount of times I had to miss more than one day of school on one hand. The consequence of this is, unfortunately, that whenever I actually do get sick I can't help but feel like my body is betraying me. As in, who are YOU, body, to dictate whether or not I should go to the gym? Yes, I know that trying to use the elliptical machine when I can't breathe through my nose and I'm coughing every thirty seconds or so (the cough isn't painful, so at least I don't have H1N1 yet. I've heard a painful cough is the first symptom) is a bit of an exercise in futility. But why should my body tell me what to do? F You, body, my mind thinks. But then it remembers that pushing until collapse probably will just make me feel worse, and the best thing to do is the smart, logical thing. Don't work out, rest, avoid dairy, and drink gallons upon gallons of tea. Then I can get better quickly, and return, once again, to bossing my strong, sickness-free body around.

On Living, and Eating, Alone.

Well, it's been about two weeks since I moved into the new apartment. It's now fully furnished, aside from some paintings that I still can't decide where to hang, and is really beginning to feel like home. And I must say, getting back to New York always feels like a large weight is lifted off my shoulders. Which I realize is rather strange, as many people feel the exact opposite. Leaving New York is what makes that weight go away, the calm of the suburbs a relaxing respite from the hustle and bustle of the city. But the hustle and bustle is what I love about this place, as long as I can choose when to retreat to my own personal space. This apartment, in a quiet part of town facing all of the back yards of the brownstones on 31st and 32nd street far, far more than adequately serves that purpose.

It was a bit of a challenge, however, to get into the swing of things this year. Last semester in Italy I lived with seven of the best people I have ever met, and I took advantage of it, spending every moment in someone else's company. Then this summer I spent the majority of my time working, and when I wasn't working I was with my parents, particularly my mother. I really don't think I spent more than a few hours by myself the entire eight or so months. So when I moved in and was forced to spend several days alone before my roommate moved in, it was a very difficult change with which to cope.

But slowly, I've been coming to realize, or perhaps re-realize that I actually do enjoy being alone. My roommate is a sweetheart, but she's been going home on weekends (sickness, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur), and during the week she's often busy with sorority events until late at night. So for the majority of the time, I have the apartment to myself.

And I like it. There's something nice about coming home from a long day of class and having the complete freedom to do whatever I want. Usually, since I get back from class after six most nights of the week, that means tying on my apron (it's adorable, with fun print and bows on the pockets) and cooking dinner. My roommate doesn't cook, either, so the kitchen definitely feels like my domain, I can choose to cook what I call Real Food, ie, something sophisticated that usually involves a recipe clipped from the New York Times or from one of my various cookbooks. For instance, two nights ago I made sauteed leeks with chickpeas (saute pancetta [or turkey bacon. Don't judge, it's what was in my refrigerator] in oil until it turns brown, add cleaned leeks and three tablespoons of water, cover and cook for a half hour. Add drained can of chickpeas, cook for another ten minutes. Serve, and enjoy the most surprisingly delicious [and healthy!] meal ever.) Or I can completely disregard the idea of meals for a day, like I did yesterday, and eat sardines on bread with loads of spicy brown mustard somewhere in the evening and call it dinner. There's no one to judge me, to ask me the nutritional value of something, or remind me that meringues and low carb/low sugar chocolate do not a filling meal make.

I think that I love cooking and eating alone as much as I like cooking for other people. Don't get me wrong, I love feeding people. I love sweating in the kitchen for hours preparing complicated dishes well beyond my experience level for huge groups. But cooking and eating alone is a very special experience. It gives me something to think about. In the morning, I pick a recipe (if I decide to try something new), or survey the contents of my pantry and cobble something together in my mind. I then run to the grocery store if I have to, but usually I only make meals I already have the ingredients for. There's no need to create extra work for myself. Then I come home, prep, chop, and ta-da! And hour later I have a beautiful meal, on a beautiful anthropologie plate. I sit down at my table with a book, listen to the jazz filtering in from my landlord's restaurant's garden seating, and enjoy. It makes me happy, content with my own company. And that's important.

It's Time (I Guess) To Move On?

I've had a countdown on my dashboard called "New Yorkkkkk" since, oh, the week after I came home from Florence. And right now it says '6 Days.' And for as excited as I've been for so long to get back to the city that I have truly come to think of as my home, I've begun to develop cold feet.

It started with the apartment. My lovely roommate and I found one last week that we completely fell in love with. It's in Murray Hill, an area that I honestly never thought I'd live in. Now I can't seem to figure out why. It's really quite wonderful. There's a great mix of families, young professionals, and students. Our landlords are the most adorable older Italian couple who own the restaurant a few doors down. They remind me of my grandparents, and it made me smile when I overheard the wife assure my mother that she would watch over us. Our bedroom overlooks the restaurant's garden and a ton of ritzy brownstone patios, and the rent is such that I can (at least) afford to finish out the lease after I graduate.

But knowing that I have a real, actual, honest-to-god apartment terrifies me, in a way. I took the books off of my desk shelves in my bedroom yesterday, stowing them in the closet, because I need the desk in my apartment. All of a sudden, the picture of an empty corner in my bedroom appeared in my mind, surrounded in neon lights with an amplifier screaming "YOU'RE MOVING OUT! THIS IS YOUR LAST SUMMER HOME! GET READY FOR THE FUTURE!"

And although I'm ready, and I've known I'm ready for several years now, the future still scares me. Because, as obvious as it sounds, I don't have any idea what it brings. I was talking to an old friend from high school who relocated to the west coast a while back, and I was shocked and impressed at how neatly he had planned out the rest of his life, down to what he will do to keep busy when he retires. And I realized that I can't even plan out next year yet. Grad school? I'd love to, but not unless I get a full ride, because I sure as hell can't afford to saddle myself with more student loans. A job? Once again, I'd love to, but I'd also love if the job market was slightly more welcoming at the moment. And I need to get a good job. It would be wonderful to take a year off and join the Peacecorps or backback around Europe or work for a not-for-profit, but somehow I doubt Sallie Mae would be all "Oh, well now that we know you're doing something enriching with your life, we'll defer and/or forgive your copious amounts of student loans!" I need a plan, and a plan that Pays Well.

But the one thing I do know is that this plan will hopefully involve New York. I love that city more than any of the others that I've seen, although London and Paris come in at close seconds. I'm going to stay in New York for as long as I can manage it, unless I get a job offer that I truly can't refuse somewhere else. And I guess, as far as my plan goes, that's all I can ask to start out with.

Why I Could Never Live Alone

So the summer is drawing to a close. I can't say I'm too upset, really. I don't really consider the last three months summer at all. It wasn't warm up until this week, and I barely saw any of my friends. It was more like an extended weekend during the school year when I just happened to come home to visit my parents.

But I noticed a slightly disturbing trend this summer. And it all has to do with me. I spend so much time alone when I'm not working, that when an opportunity to actually leave my house and do something arises, my first inclination is to say no. And it makes no sense, none at all. Because I loathe sitting around my house doing nothing. I don't watch television anymore, I don't cook, I don't do much of anything. I work, I eat dinner, I read for a bit, then I sleep. But not even because I'm tired. I'm just so, so bored. And yet for some reason I turn down invitations to do things that I really want to do, telling myself I shouldn't go, I'll be too tired to be any fun, I'll be too tired tomorrow. And then I get angry at myself when I realize that I actually did want to go out and socialize and be fun. It's like there's a little part of me that's trying it's hardest to sabotage all my efforts to be happy.

But I think this is why I love living with people my own age. If I lived alone, I honestly don't know if I would ever leave. And I would be miserable. But when I live with people, they force me to get up and get out, and I (almost) always have a good time. And even if we don't go out, then I have people to be around. Human contact is what keeps me sane.

So moral of this story is, when I say no to an invitation, it has nothing to do with you. In fact, I'm always scared that I'll say no one too many times and then people will just stop inviting me places. I'd love it if people would start making it a habit to ask two or three times if I'm sure I don't want to come. Usually that makes me rethink things. And I hope that when I'm actually around other sentient beings (my computer does not count) that I'm fun, because I usually am enjoying myself.

Home, or Now the Shit Hits the Fan

I've always hated the phrase 'when the shit hits the fan.' It's so graphic. Have you ever actually thought about what would happen if shit actually did hit the fan? Really, really contemplated it? Gross, man.

Anyways, my week in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area was really fun. I got to see Minnesota family, who I very rarely get to see otherwise. We went to the Walker Museum, where I once again realized how few people like postmodern art as much as I do (Mom: "I don't get it," Me: "You're not supposed to!" Mom: "Then why see it?"). But I loved it, the crazy building, sculpture garden, and particularly the George Brecht Event Scores, which were little pieces of paper that "involve simple actions, ideas, and objects from everyday life recontexualized as performance" (some website). So fun.

We went to the Arboretum, something the adults enjoyed that I did too, because I am an old woman at heart. It was really quite interesting to learn how they've been working on genetically engineering plants that have evolved in warmer climates to survive the (very) harsh Minnesota winters.





We also saw a play about Ella Fitzgerald at the Guthrie Theater, which, despite having great music (Ella Fitzgerald, you know), had a pretty boring plotline, mostly because Ella had a fairly boring life.

On the way home, we got delayed in the Atlanta airport for about three hours, getting home much later than we thought we would. Lesson learned: never, ever fly Airtran. It's cheap for a reason.

But now I'm home, and I have to actually start Getting Shit Done. First order of business: Get a place to live. I have a date with the girl I know from Florence with whom I will be rooming with on Tuesday to go look at apartments, mostly in the Gramercy area. The whole apartment situation has been probably the hardest thing for me to deal with emotionally, I've felt so guilty and upset for the past three months. I think this is why I've been having stress dreams, all of which somehow involve Final Battles along the lines of Return of the King. I wander through these battle preparations not really knowing where I should be, or with which party I should be fighting. I wake up feeling ridiculously stressed, and frustrated too. Because I like Lord of the Rings, and I really, really want to know how the battle ends.

Long Time, No Blog?

So um, greetings.
Haven't written in a while.
Hasn't been a whole lot to say, actually.
In short, I work. I come home. I sleep. A lot. I've read quite a few books. Work doesn't suck quite as much this year as it usually does. Mostly because I don't really do anything except read and sit and read. I see a good amount of Jessica Smith.
Being at home is kind of like an extended waiting period for school to start up again. Except it alternates with serious anxiety about where I'm living next year (still not a clue, but at least I have a roommate lined up. Mini steps) and what I'm doing after college (NYU Wagner doesn't require the GREs! Now if only I could afford it...).
I'm in Minnesota this week. Mom and I came out to visit family. I like Minneapolis/St. Paul, and I'm pretty sure Mom is hoping I'll decide to move out here as soon as college is over or something. Unfortunately, I plan on staying in New York until I run out of money, get deathly ill, die, etc. Maybe that's slightly extreme, and I'm sure eventually I (might) be forced to eat my words. Well. We'll see.
But I really have been having a good time. My cousins are great, and they've been taking me around. Gina took me out last night, which might be contributing to my current down mood (the fact that I'm tired, that is. Not the fact that she took me out. That was a lot of fun).
I fit in my jeans (comfortably!) again! We'll see if I still do at the end of this week.
Question: How many days left in the summer?
Answer: Blessed few.

The Floods Cometh

I like rain. I always have. I like when it really RAINS, when it comes down steadily for a few hours. None of the off-and-on scattered showers shit, when you're never sure how to dress or whether you need an umbrella or if you should bother flat-ironing your hair in the morning or just hide it under a bandana. I want rain to be straightforward. I do not, however want said rain to last for longer than three hours. Just long enough for me to curl up with a hot cup of tea or coffee and a book or a movie, and emerge from the house to sun peaking through the clouds and the delicious smell of freshly-rained-upon Suburbia.

We have not been having that kind of rain lately. We have been having moody, cloudy, cold, vindictive rain. The kind of rain that comes down without the slightest bit of wind to make you think that it might blow away. The kind that keeps you trapped in the house, doing absolutely nothing and staring blankly out the window alternating with wanting to bathe in hopes that the sticky, humidity-caused film on your entire body will wash away. Unfortunately, it won't. You get out of the shower and just never completely dry.

I do not like this weather. I do not like the fact that I have no idea where I'm living next year. I do not like that I still haven't heard from Financial Aid, so I don't know if I will even be living in New York next year or commuting. I especially do not like that I have worked for a month now and have not gotten paid. I do not like having to hit my parents up for gas money.

I do like the fact that I have lost two pounds. I like the two live Iron and Wine cds I downloaded. I liked the Moroccan meal I made last night. I loved the book Beautiful Children. I liked the season premiere of Trueblood and that Eric the Vampire had foil in his hair when he ripped some dude's arm off. I like that Dead Like Me is on netflix instant-request, but am sad that it only ran for two seasons. I really like the new Phoenix album.

Did you know that you can find detailed directions of how to build an ark on the interwebs? No? Well, you can. And I shall post the link. Here you go:

Hop to it, kiddies.

Of Lubricious, Alacrity, and Perspicacious

I've decided that this summer is going to be one of Self Improvement. If I'm going to be stuck in a random office/both/hut for the entire summer, I might as well make good use of my time. So a few days ago, I went out and bought a GRE review book ($40. Yeah. My account balance then read: $4.46), and went through, circled the words I didn't recognize, and made flashcards. And disturbingly, there were quite a few. Enough, in fact, to fill an entire pack of index cards. My hand hurt like a bitch after writing all that shit out.

Why is this so disturbing? Vocab is just memorization, right? Well, yes. Yes it is. But it's rather humbling for me to realize that there are, indeed, words I do not know. I read all the time, and I don't think I'm flattering myself when I say that I have a damn good vocabulary. But good lord, some of these words are just nuts.

The book started out with lists of words that seemed a lot like SAT words. Things like obfuscate, salubrious, etc. Words I know. As the lists went on, however, I realized I was circling a higher and higher percentage. Suddenly, I would come across words like Extirpate (verb: to destroy, exterminate, cut out, exscind), Asseverate (verb: to aver, allege, assert), and my personal favorite, Jejune (adjective: vapid, uninteresting, nugatory). And that's not even counting the seemingly simple words that have obscure, mostly unknown second meanings. Like, did you know that the word 'Guy' doesn't just mean that dude down the hall? It also means A rope, cord, or cable attached to something as a brace or guide. Now, if you're scaling a mountain and your rope breaks, you can scream "Fucking Guy!" as you plummet to your death hundreds of feet below.

I'm on a mission to use at least ten of these words in one sentence. 'It is salubrious to not commit lubricious acts or wear meretricious outfits for fear of appearing minatory and descending to the nadir of your life obstreperously and plangently." That's seven. I'm working up to ten, slowly but surely.

An Apology and a Summation

So um. I'm kind of embarrassed about my blog post from yesterday morning. It was yet another one written in the midst of a panic attack. And I realize that losing weight takes time. I have to force myself to not to wish I could lose weight as fast as I did in freshman year, because that was anorexia and not a diet. The last thing I want is to have it control my life again. I don't want to be afraid of leaving the house because I'm afraid I'll be pressured into eating, I don't want my hair to start falling out in clumps again, and I don't want to stop getting my period for months.

So enough of that. Work actually hasn't been terrible yet. I've been mostly sitting around in various locations around the Park, whether it's the office, the beach booth, or the camping booth. I haven't had to wash too many bathrooms, and they finally stopped making me pick up garbage. I can't lift that shit.

I even really enjoy working the camping booth. It's a horrible shift, for sure, 12:45-9:15 on a saturday. But I like being alone in the camping booth with a book, some crossword puzzles, and my music. I like getting to sign in and talk to campers and see where they are all from. One hipster from Brooklyn offered to buy my old Fahnestock shirts, and I instantly regretted throwing them all out at the end of last summer. But at least now I know to sell them to Buffalo Exchange at the end of this season.

Last night, mom and I took a walk on the Dutchess Rail Trail. It reminded me a lot of the bike trail on the Cape. So this morning I came back for a run, and I was surprised at how I managed to run the majority of the distance. I only had to walk for a little less than a quarter of the time. Go me!

FmL

So after seriously, seriously strict dieting since the day I got home (cutting down to 18 points a day, which is something around 1600 calories) I finally got the nerve to weigh myself. And I have gained two pounds. I don't understand. Why am I bothering to diet if I'm just going to gain weight? Now I'm up to ten pounds heavier than when I left for Italy. I thought that by coming home and just not eating gelato and pasta every day would help me lose weight. Nope, apparently cutting calories and working out every day actually makes you gain weight! Surprise!

Fuck this shit. I'm getting my thyroid checked. Maybe there's something wrong with me. It does run in the family, after all. And for now I'm eating 12 points a day.

Fahnestock Chronicles Entry no. 3: In Which She Finds Out That She Does, After All, Like Being Busy

There were just three of us Seasonals (as we call ourselves) on today. The campground is still deserted except for some through-hikers on the Appalachian Trail, which means that it stays (fairly) clean. Usually, this time of year means that we sit in the office doing absolutely nothing until late June, and although that means I get a lot of reading done, it also means that I start to feel like my soul is sinking into this abyss of Nothingness. But today we had several tasks to complete. Three actually. It was like a fairy tale, where the heroes have to complete three tasks of increasing difficulty before earning the reward. Except in our case, the tasks weren't things like "spin all of the straw into gold," but "rake all of the mulch that is piled up outside the playground onto the playground" and the reward wasn't the hand of the princess but the ability to go home.

So our first task was the daily one: clean bathrooms. It was by far the easiest, because as I said earlier, no one camps this time of year. Our next was the aforementioned raking. This was slightly more difficult. The playground is small. Tiny, in fact. It's hard to really consider it a playground. But they ordered 200 feet of mulch, which, piled up outside of the playground probably reached higher than the slide. Even I, who can't back up a car, who tries to put circular containers inside square ones, and who constantly has bruises on my hips because I can't tell where my body ends and door frames begin realized that this was a little off. There was just far too much mulch for that little space. But we did our best, shoveling and raking until our hands hurt (and sides. I did enjoy knowing that I was getting a core workout, because I haven't been to the gym since last thursday) and the mulch was overlapping the slide and ladders. Yes, it still spilled over the sides. But no one will EVER get hurt on that playground now. Our third task was to paint the women's bathrooms at the beach. Although I haven't painted much, I discovered that I'm quite good at it. Painting works well with my perfectionism.

I realized that although I still haven't finished my book, I enjoy being busy far more than not. It makes the day go faster and I really feel like I do something at my job, instead of wasting my life. And I'm off tomorrow and friday! I'm going into the city overnight to see Sonia and Maddy and get dinner with my Firenze Friends. I'm so excited. Knowing that I'm going to the place that I really do consider my other home makes me so happy.

Also, I've totally been MIA over the past week. It takes a lot for me to want to leave the house after work. Usually I'm tired and numb and all I want to do is sleep. But force me to, please. I won't do it on my own.

And in other, totally unrelated news, everyone should run and listen to something written by Osvaldo Golijov. He's this Russian-Jewish-Mexican composer who writes glorious Latin music that even non-classical people would like. Listen to St. Marks Passion. It's life changing.

Fahnessotck Chronicles no. 2: Oh the Things That You'll Find

This time of year is slow at the Park. Neither the beach nor the boat rentals are open on weekdays yet, there aren't many people in the campground, and there honestly just isn't much for us to do most days. However, today our Esteemed Assistant Manager decided that it was an excellent day to send the three summer-job kids (including me) to this trailhead on Route 9-D which apparently had a lot of garbage to be cleaned up. However, he didn't mention that this garbage must have been there for years. It was to the point where the bags were buried under the ground. In fact, there were several bags that I couldn't even get to because the roots of a tree had grown right over them. The weather wasn't bad, though, and the garbage was so old that anything able to decompose had already, so nothing smelled. In fact, it became kind of interesting to keep track of what we were finding, like the buried treasure of Things People Throw Away. Among these, we found:

- A computer keyboard from the Windows 95 era or earlier
- A sneaker
- A bag of bones (animal, and clean, so they'd been there a while)
- A bedframe
- A sandal
- Tires
- A bottle that looked like a soda bottle but with thicker walls and a child-proof top. It was filled with liquid, which made me wonder if perhaps it was toxic, hence the Top of Death
- A very large vertebra

I'm not sure what makes people decide to dump their trash by the side of the road instead of giving it to the garbage collector or driving it to the dump. It's not difficult, nor is it terribly expensive or far away.