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.