Time for Lissa's 3 Things About NCIS, inspired by Sam.
Protected by a break for those who prefer not being spoiled (though this was last week's episode, so really, what are you waiting for?!), though that protection won't be imported properly into external feeds.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Farmhouse Potato Bread
11 a.m.
My bread baking for this week is a pair of Farmhouse Potato Bread loaves, recipe from Gardenway Publishing's Bread Book: A Baker's Almanac. (This remains my favorite bread recipe collection, published in 1979 and given to me by Nana when she was culling her shelves in preparation for moving.) As the introduction to this traditionally autumnal (October) recipe reads, "this is the definitive white bread, redolent of things which were found in abundance in an old-time farm kitchen (a prosperous one, I might add): milk, eggs, butter and honey." I'm craving a little abundance on this last day of January, and am pretty sure a slice of this bread, hot from the oven at dinner time, will be fantastic with butter and jam.
12 noon
Apparently my kitchen is only just redolent enough; I used my last cup-and-two-tablespoons of milk, my last two eggs, and all but a thin scraping of the dark amber honey I brought to Brooklyn with me from Ballston Lake. The milk/potato/honey/butter mixture cooled down to a temperature that wouldn't kill the yeast, the yeast mixture frothed beautifully, and the addition of ginger with the eggs and salt and the combination of all with silky smooth bread flour has made my kitchen (and my hands) smell terrific. Kneading was a particularly good arm workout (thank you cold weather) and a good Zen-for-the-mind moment. (Yes, I love the No Knead Method as well as the next pressed-for-time person, but sometimes it's wonderful to bake the old-fashioned way.) Now to let the rise do its thing.
3 p.m.
I really need to buy a pastry brush at some point; my current method of finger-dotting melted butter onto rising bread takes too long and is more than a little messy. Upside: my super-dry skin always feels better afterwards. That said, loaves are shaped and placed in their buttered pans and the oven is preheated to full temp, hopefully speeding up the final rise.
4:02 p.m.
The scent of butter-soaked bread baking to perfection just wafted into the bedroom, where I'm sitting at my desk filing my taxes. Exquisite anticipation!
4:22 p.m.
Know what happens when you spill egg-and-milk glaze on the floor of the oven while setting the loaf tops? Yeah, burned egg smell throughout the apartment.
4:36 p.m.
Super soft crumb. Dark, chewy, non-crunchy crust. A tiny hint of lingering sweetness (that would be the honey). Heaven -- and worth every minute of effort, even including the mountain of dishes that need washing. Yum!
My bread baking for this week is a pair of Farmhouse Potato Bread loaves, recipe from Gardenway Publishing's Bread Book: A Baker's Almanac. (This remains my favorite bread recipe collection, published in 1979 and given to me by Nana when she was culling her shelves in preparation for moving.) As the introduction to this traditionally autumnal (October) recipe reads, "this is the definitive white bread, redolent of things which were found in abundance in an old-time farm kitchen (a prosperous one, I might add): milk, eggs, butter and honey." I'm craving a little abundance on this last day of January, and am pretty sure a slice of this bread, hot from the oven at dinner time, will be fantastic with butter and jam.
12 noon
Apparently my kitchen is only just redolent enough; I used my last cup-and-two-tablespoons of milk, my last two eggs, and all but a thin scraping of the dark amber honey I brought to Brooklyn with me from Ballston Lake. The milk/potato/honey/butter mixture cooled down to a temperature that wouldn't kill the yeast, the yeast mixture frothed beautifully, and the addition of ginger with the eggs and salt and the combination of all with silky smooth bread flour has made my kitchen (and my hands) smell terrific. Kneading was a particularly good arm workout (thank you cold weather) and a good Zen-for-the-mind moment. (Yes, I love the No Knead Method as well as the next pressed-for-time person, but sometimes it's wonderful to bake the old-fashioned way.) Now to let the rise do its thing.
3 p.m.
I really need to buy a pastry brush at some point; my current method of finger-dotting melted butter onto rising bread takes too long and is more than a little messy. Upside: my super-dry skin always feels better afterwards. That said, loaves are shaped and placed in their buttered pans and the oven is preheated to full temp, hopefully speeding up the final rise.
4:02 p.m.
The scent of butter-soaked bread baking to perfection just wafted into the bedroom, where I'm sitting at my desk filing my taxes. Exquisite anticipation!
4:22 p.m.
Know what happens when you spill egg-and-milk glaze on the floor of the oven while setting the loaf tops? Yeah, burned egg smell throughout the apartment.
4:36 p.m.
Super soft crumb. Dark, chewy, non-crunchy crust. A tiny hint of lingering sweetness (that would be the honey). Heaven -- and worth every minute of effort, even including the mountain of dishes that need washing. Yum!
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Body Image, part II
"And somehow, someway, repeatedly, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, brilliantly smart women continue to fall into this trap."
I am not a shopping person. I HATE shopping, and everything it connotes as to the concept of conspicuous consumption. But in the interest of full disclosure and the honesty that I'm trying to hold myself to this year (the bad as well as the good), I have a confession to make.
I have spent far more time this month than should ever be permitted in trying on clothes, for the sheer pleasure derived from pulling size 8s off of the rack. (There are so many more options in single-digit sizes!) I've used the fact that my wardrobe is so much smaller than is truly useful as justification for heading to some of my favorite shops in search of things that fit, but really that's just an excuse.
This is unacceptable. Fun or not at the moment, I refuse to continue this; I will not fall into the trap of equating "smaller" with "better." And apart from a new pair of dance shoes*, I will not buy any clothing during the month of February. And since I'm not buying any of it, I refuse to "shop" or "browse" or otherwise waste time with clothing items in shops.
* The irony of the dance shoe dilemma versus the jeans extravaganza is not lost on me. I danced holes into the toes of my split soles a week ago, and yet have the firmly embedded dancer's mentality that showing up to a class or a dance in new shoes marks you as a beginner who doesn't know any better. My current plan is to look for a dancer's boot or pair of soft wingtips at Flurry; something a little sturdier than a jazz shoe will be better for social dancing, anyway...
I am not a shopping person. I HATE shopping, and everything it connotes as to the concept of conspicuous consumption. But in the interest of full disclosure and the honesty that I'm trying to hold myself to this year (the bad as well as the good), I have a confession to make.
I have spent far more time this month than should ever be permitted in trying on clothes, for the sheer pleasure derived from pulling size 8s off of the rack. (There are so many more options in single-digit sizes!) I've used the fact that my wardrobe is so much smaller than is truly useful as justification for heading to some of my favorite shops in search of things that fit, but really that's just an excuse.
This is unacceptable. Fun or not at the moment, I refuse to continue this; I will not fall into the trap of equating "smaller" with "better." And apart from a new pair of dance shoes*, I will not buy any clothing during the month of February. And since I'm not buying any of it, I refuse to "shop" or "browse" or otherwise waste time with clothing items in shops.
* The irony of the dance shoe dilemma versus the jeans extravaganza is not lost on me. I danced holes into the toes of my split soles a week ago, and yet have the firmly embedded dancer's mentality that showing up to a class or a dance in new shoes marks you as a beginner who doesn't know any better. My current plan is to look for a dancer's boot or pair of soft wingtips at Flurry; something a little sturdier than a jazz shoe will be better for social dancing, anyway...
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Michael Buble
After listening to Baby, It's Cold Outside a dozen times since posting it yesterday, I've searched and cross-searched my collection for Michael Buble -- and am completely stunned that I have none of his albums. I am floored by this.
Sleek, cool cat, Big Band style? Bottomless vocal tone? Tracks where the trumpets have a little buzz, where the hi-hat flutters, where the sax breathes, where the gloriousness of a combined thirteen-piece band haven't been produced out? Yeah, I need to have that available at all times. I'm really quite surprised that I don't, since I have the few original songs he's released completely memorized -- and that shouldn't be possible without repeat listening. (That I'm quite familiar with 90% of the "standards" he's recorded is a surprise to no one, I'm sure.)
Problem solved, as I just purchased Crazy Love (I can't resist 'Just Haven't Met You Yet') and It's Time ('How Sweet It Is' as a blues vamp? Irresistible). Guess what I'm dancing to this afternoon?
Sleek, cool cat, Big Band style? Bottomless vocal tone? Tracks where the trumpets have a little buzz, where the hi-hat flutters, where the sax breathes, where the gloriousness of a combined thirteen-piece band haven't been produced out? Yeah, I need to have that available at all times. I'm really quite surprised that I don't, since I have the few original songs he's released completely memorized -- and that shouldn't be possible without repeat listening. (That I'm quite familiar with 90% of the "standards" he's recorded is a surprise to no one, I'm sure.)
Problem solved, as I just purchased Crazy Love (I can't resist 'Just Haven't Met You Yet') and It's Time ('How Sweet It Is' as a blues vamp? Irresistible). Guess what I'm dancing to this afternoon?
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Saturday, January 30, 2010
Shiver
Long underwear + knee socks + jeans + two shirts + sweater + two scarves + hat + gloves + knee-length double-breasted boiled wool belted jacket = 4 full minutes outside before I was shivering. When did I become such a wimp? It's a full ten degrees colder at Mom and Dad's today than it is here...
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Lesson Learning
Last Saturday, I learned how to waltz at the Contra, as a follow. I also spent some time leading experienced dancers through figures, and helping some newbies-newer-than-I. Tuesday night was my first Blues lesson, as a lead.
- Leading is *hard*. Moving with surety and confidence when I'm rather terrified of stepping on or dragging my partner around; keeping frame and indicator pressure and connection consistent; remembering what foot I'm on and figuring out what foot she's on and when her weight shifts -- what she's *actually* doing, not what I think she's *supposed* to be doing -- so I don't knock her over while executing a turn; communicating direction with a large enough personality that other leads can tell where I am and where I'm going so as to avoid a crash -- it's a little like playing a defensive game of acrobatic chess, with the goal of not sacrificing any pieces.
- Learning to lead is a little easier when I switch back to following for a few steps, going through a figure with an experienced lead and paying attention to where and how I'm being guided. And I actually learn more from a lead who embellishes with little flourishes every now and again, because that breaks pattern and forces me to think, which is actually helpful with applying the "new and different" thing to the basics. It keeps me from falling into expectation.
- A lifetime of moving in accordance with a decade-and-a-half of ballet training has given me habits that it might well take a lifetime to break. Mary Ann would be so proud that I finally mastered the delicate, improvisational arm movement she always wanted me to spend more time working on (ballet lessons really *were* a good idea, Dad; I found a little grace somewhere!), but I use them so thoughtlessly now that the habit is ruining any shot I have of maintaining an appropriate Blues/Swing frame as a follow. The moment I lower my arms beneath the height of a second or fourth position while executing a relaxed movement, my shoulder girdle opens, my elbows and wrists "unhinge," and my arms gently flutter around my sides in time with the pace/pulse/beat of my legs and core. In other words it might look really pretty on a stage, but in social dancing I have the dreaded wet noodle arms. It is making me CRAZY.
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Friday, January 29, 2010
Comfort
It is disgustingly cold in New York right now. "Mild winters" -- I don't bloody well think so. After struggling in to the office and then bracing myself to head back outside after a grueling meeting that lasted all afternoon, I wanted nothing more than a fuzzy sweatshirt, my slippers, and something ridiculously carb-laden for dinner.
Thus, no Blues Dance tonight (though since the party lasts until 3am, I suppose there's plenty of time to change my mind). Instead, I made the most fantastical beef stew (and spent a couple of hours poring over crochet patterns).
On Monday, I slow-cooked a pot roast. (I still can't figure out what possessed me to buy a 5-pound roast in the first place; perhaps I never will.) While I've been gnoshing on the leftovers, tonight I was just ready for something new. So, I chopped up the rest of the super-tender, hot-mustard-washed beef, dredged the pieces in salt-and-peppered flour, and brought them to temperature in my dutch oven. Then I tossed in chopped carrots (a 1-pound bag's worth) and the largest onion I've ever cooked with, diced, drenched the lot with broth, covered the pot, and left it to simmer for 90 minutes.
While that was getting happy, I boiled a vat of water, washed and quartered a 5-pound bag's worth of golden potatoes -- skins on -- and then boiled them to make smashed potatoes. (My mother hates Smashed rather than Mashed -- says it's the lazy cook's way out. Ordinarily I agree with her, but I have a recipe for potato bread I've been meaning to try and I'd like to test what happens to the texture if I puree the potato and the skin together for the dough. Nutrition content and fiber will certainly be a bit higher. Stay tuned...)
For the stew -- at the last minute I made a slurry of cornstarch and water (thank you Cookwise), stirred it into the pot, and left the lid off for ten minutes while the broth became a lovely thick gravy. Then ladled meat and carrots and onion in gravy over smashed potatoes. A cold winter night's heaven with a spoon if I ever met one.
As you can imagine I still have an ENORMOUS amount of leftovers. Shall use half of the taters for bread, freeze half of the stew for lunches, and eat very well for the rest of the weekend. Dancing tomorrow is a must, though, or my jeans won't fit by Monday.
Thus, no Blues Dance tonight (though since the party lasts until 3am, I suppose there's plenty of time to change my mind). Instead, I made the most fantastical beef stew (and spent a couple of hours poring over crochet patterns).
On Monday, I slow-cooked a pot roast. (I still can't figure out what possessed me to buy a 5-pound roast in the first place; perhaps I never will.) While I've been gnoshing on the leftovers, tonight I was just ready for something new. So, I chopped up the rest of the super-tender, hot-mustard-washed beef, dredged the pieces in salt-and-peppered flour, and brought them to temperature in my dutch oven. Then I tossed in chopped carrots (a 1-pound bag's worth) and the largest onion I've ever cooked with, diced, drenched the lot with broth, covered the pot, and left it to simmer for 90 minutes.
While that was getting happy, I boiled a vat of water, washed and quartered a 5-pound bag's worth of golden potatoes -- skins on -- and then boiled them to make smashed potatoes. (My mother hates Smashed rather than Mashed -- says it's the lazy cook's way out. Ordinarily I agree with her, but I have a recipe for potato bread I've been meaning to try and I'd like to test what happens to the texture if I puree the potato and the skin together for the dough. Nutrition content and fiber will certainly be a bit higher. Stay tuned...)
For the stew -- at the last minute I made a slurry of cornstarch and water (thank you Cookwise), stirred it into the pot, and left the lid off for ten minutes while the broth became a lovely thick gravy. Then ladled meat and carrots and onion in gravy over smashed potatoes. A cold winter night's heaven with a spoon if I ever met one.
As you can imagine I still have an ENORMOUS amount of leftovers. Shall use half of the taters for bread, freeze half of the stew for lunches, and eat very well for the rest of the weekend. Dancing tomorrow is a must, though, or my jeans won't fit by Monday.
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Mail Order
It's been awhile since I've actively looked out for the mail (UPS aside). The excitement and anticipation of receiving treasures is just amazing.
I'm currently waiting for my tax paperwork -- not with excitement so much as "let's get this DONE" anticipation; I just want to file and get it over with. Hopefully it arrives tomorrow so I can spend Friday morning with H&R Block.
I'm also waiting for my first "big purchase" of yarn from Webs, America's Yarn Store. I just got the email telling me that my carton of blue and gray and green wools for crocheting sweaters and socks and mittens has shipped Priority Mail. Super awesome, as that means it should arrive before Wednesday when I'm scheduled to chain into the Pebbled Sand pattern for the Fort Green and Clinton Hill socka-along. I'll post pictures of the gorgeousness when it arrives -- since I need to add them to my Ravelry stash, anyway!
AND, I also received word from Etsy seller Christy that a custom order I placed for a shoulder bag has been fulfilled and shipped from Kuala Lumpur on Monday. I am, perhaps, most excited about this package. I've been wishing for "the perfect bag" since May, but never found the right one. Enter Etsy, the place to find people who make - and sell - just about anything. Christy specializes in lightweight but sturdy Messenger Bags with adjustable straps, and has nearly a thousand positive reviews from happy customers. I worked with her to identify a bag structure that I liked, made a few tweaks so it's just right for me, then paired it with a gorgeous, sturdy, rose red fabric and a printed lining and let her get to work. It's exactly the right size for everything I need to carry -- keys, blackberry, gloves, wallet, cosmetic bag, iPod, water bottle, novel, purell, and dance shoes -- is the perfect color, has what looks like a super-comfortable strap for wearing over the shoulder or crosswise, and doesn't weigh a ton before I even put anything into it. It's also a structured shape so will stay upright or lay flat as I place it, which is all kinds of awesome. (Similar to but not exactly like this -- I WILL post photos.) I'm trying not to be too bouncy since it takes a week to leave Malaysia let alone then reach the US and be trackable, but once it's here I don't expect to ever be without it.
O-ho the Wells Fargo is a comin' now
I don't know how I can ever wait to see.
It could be something for someone who is no relation,
But it could be something special just for me!
I'm currently waiting for my tax paperwork -- not with excitement so much as "let's get this DONE" anticipation; I just want to file and get it over with. Hopefully it arrives tomorrow so I can spend Friday morning with H&R Block.
I'm also waiting for my first "big purchase" of yarn from Webs, America's Yarn Store. I just got the email telling me that my carton of blue and gray and green wools for crocheting sweaters and socks and mittens has shipped Priority Mail. Super awesome, as that means it should arrive before Wednesday when I'm scheduled to chain into the Pebbled Sand pattern for the Fort Green and Clinton Hill socka-along. I'll post pictures of the gorgeousness when it arrives -- since I need to add them to my Ravelry stash, anyway!
AND, I also received word from Etsy seller Christy that a custom order I placed for a shoulder bag has been fulfilled and shipped from Kuala Lumpur on Monday. I am, perhaps, most excited about this package. I've been wishing for "the perfect bag" since May, but never found the right one. Enter Etsy, the place to find people who make - and sell - just about anything. Christy specializes in lightweight but sturdy Messenger Bags with adjustable straps, and has nearly a thousand positive reviews from happy customers. I worked with her to identify a bag structure that I liked, made a few tweaks so it's just right for me, then paired it with a gorgeous, sturdy, rose red fabric and a printed lining and let her get to work. It's exactly the right size for everything I need to carry -- keys, blackberry, gloves, wallet, cosmetic bag, iPod, water bottle, novel, purell, and dance shoes -- is the perfect color, has what looks like a super-comfortable strap for wearing over the shoulder or crosswise, and doesn't weigh a ton before I even put anything into it. It's also a structured shape so will stay upright or lay flat as I place it, which is all kinds of awesome. (Similar to but not exactly like this -- I WILL post photos.) I'm trying not to be too bouncy since it takes a week to leave Malaysia let alone then reach the US and be trackable, but once it's here I don't expect to ever be without it.
O-ho the Wells Fargo is a comin' now
I don't know how I can ever wait to see.
It could be something for someone who is no relation,
But it could be something special just for me!
If you're reading this post via Facebook Notes or a Livejournal Mirror or via RSS, please click through to the actual blog if you'd like to leave a comment;
it helps me to keep all of the conversation in one place. Thanks!
it helps me to keep all of the conversation in one place. Thanks!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
An Assembly Such as This
I have this bizarre urge to embark on a year-long study of Jane Austen.
I was an American Lit major in college, which means that I barely scratched the surface when it comes to writers of Western Europe. My Brit Lit work consisted of three survey courses plus a crapload of reading I did for the GREs. I'm thankful for a solid foundation in classics -- since the Educational Testing Service doesn't recognize subsets of literature as independent subjects, I'm still a little surprised by my subject matter scores, since I was introduced to half of the material on the test during the test.
I chose American Lit partly because the subject matter itself is fascinating, and the explosive growth of such a vast body of work in such a short period of time is amazing to study in the socio-political/historical context of overlapping call and response, but mostly because the American Lit, American Studies, and American History profs at my college were three of the best guys in regalia. But also because they covered a decent quantity of material by women, and the British dudes liked to pretend we didn't exist. (And insisted that New Criticism was the only way to examine a text. Boring and easy = no thank you.)
The Brit stuff -- three courses taught linearly, from Beowulf to Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, with no discussion of any writers of the female persuasion. No Austen. No Eliot. Neither Anne nor Charlotte nor Emily Bronte. Not even a mention of Mary Wollstonecraft or Elizabeth Gaskell. No Woolf. Don't get me wrong, I adore Keats and Shakespeare and can recite both from memory in two languages*, but representation of women as creators and commentators and pillars of brilliance in their own right would have been far more interesting than seeing them only as objects of desire or worship or disdain. Mommas, don't let your babies take Lit classes from dirty old misogynist bastards.
I've read and adored Austen's novels (okay, I'm not a fan of Emma, but that's because too many of the women are vapid and the men are patronizing), and I read a biography of her a few years ago, but haven't really considered either in the context of what little primary source material exists (most of her letters were destroyed after her death, at Jane's request).There's a proliferation of published-for-profit fanfiction (Pamela Aidan's Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy is worth the read solely for her representation of Darcy's valet), and with The Jane Austen Book Club having been released a few years ago, there are a variety of "easily accessible" nonfiction texts about her that do a decent job of referencing earlier biographies and histories of the era. Seems like it would be really interesting to spend a year reading all of the published novels plus her extant work in the context of her life chronology.
Yes, I am a total nerd. I suppose there's no hope that I'll change now.
Book club, anyone?
*only because they both wrote a few lines in French
If you're reading this post via Facebook Notes or a Livejournal Mirror or via RSS, please click through to the actual blog if you'd like to leave a comment; it helps me to keep all of the conversation in one place. Thanks!
I was an American Lit major in college, which means that I barely scratched the surface when it comes to writers of Western Europe. My Brit Lit work consisted of three survey courses plus a crapload of reading I did for the GREs. I'm thankful for a solid foundation in classics -- since the Educational Testing Service doesn't recognize subsets of literature as independent subjects, I'm still a little surprised by my subject matter scores, since I was introduced to half of the material on the test during the test.
I chose American Lit partly because the subject matter itself is fascinating, and the explosive growth of such a vast body of work in such a short period of time is amazing to study in the socio-political/historical context of overlapping call and response, but mostly because the American Lit, American Studies, and American History profs at my college were three of the best guys in regalia. But also because they covered a decent quantity of material by women, and the British dudes liked to pretend we didn't exist. (And insisted that New Criticism was the only way to examine a text. Boring and easy = no thank you.)
The Brit stuff -- three courses taught linearly, from Beowulf to Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, with no discussion of any writers of the female persuasion. No Austen. No Eliot. Neither Anne nor Charlotte nor Emily Bronte. Not even a mention of Mary Wollstonecraft or Elizabeth Gaskell. No Woolf. Don't get me wrong, I adore Keats and Shakespeare and can recite both from memory in two languages*, but representation of women as creators and commentators and pillars of brilliance in their own right would have been far more interesting than seeing them only as objects of desire or worship or disdain. Mommas, don't let your babies take Lit classes from dirty old misogynist bastards.
I've read and adored Austen's novels (okay, I'm not a fan of Emma, but that's because too many of the women are vapid and the men are patronizing), and I read a biography of her a few years ago, but haven't really considered either in the context of what little primary source material exists (most of her letters were destroyed after her death, at Jane's request).There's a proliferation of published-for-profit fanfiction (Pamela Aidan's Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy is worth the read solely for her representation of Darcy's valet), and with The Jane Austen Book Club having been released a few years ago, there are a variety of "easily accessible" nonfiction texts about her that do a decent job of referencing earlier biographies and histories of the era. Seems like it would be really interesting to spend a year reading all of the published novels plus her extant work in the context of her life chronology.
Yes, I am a total nerd. I suppose there's no hope that I'll change now.
Book club, anyone?
*only because they both wrote a few lines in French
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Monday, January 25, 2010
Body Image
I am so tired of being slammed from all sides by what feels like an insane pressure to be beautiful at all costs. Not angry, not bitchy, just truly bone-weary.
There is an all-pervasive attitude throughout America that you can never be too thin. I'm certainly susceptible to this myself; I hit 5'9" in height and 100 pounds in weight in the same year and only then did puberty strike, so I've felt fat for my entire adolescent and most of my adult life. Just this weekend I caught sight of the first photos snapped of me wearing clothes that fit since i moved last spring -- since I dropped 35 pounds due to walking and dancing everywhere, in other words. I'm *amazed* at how slender I look, and can't reconcile the girl in those photos wearing my face with what I seem to see in the mirror each day.
But even while *feeling* uncomfortably large, I've always been pretty rational about living well with regard to weight -- partially because I'm a hedonist and have a don't-you-dare-take-away-my-made-from-scratch-with-umpteen-million-calories-double-chocolate-frosted-brownies and partially because I can see what makes for a balanced diet and normal exercise with a little indulgence and know how to evaluate my life to be sure I get it all -- or course-correct when something gets out of whack. How many women aren't? It seems like a million; whenever I'm at the market or in line at a deli or a cafe, I seem to be surrounded by stunningly beautiful women who are looking at the food they're buying with no pleasure at all -- worried about too many calories or too much fat or "I don't have enough points for that thing I really want so I'll settle for this thing I don't really like instead". And when I say stunningly beautiful I damn well mean it, often with a "wow, I wonder if she's single and into girls," thought running through the back of my head.
But that's just the size and shape issue -- it doesn't even begin to cover the clothing (or lack thereof) and products and procedures that are all over the place. We're supposed to starve and punish ourselves to hyper-thinness, then use push up bras and padded jeans and lip plumper and volumizing mascara and silicone implants to give the illusion of voluptuousness?
And somehow, someway, repeatedly, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, brilliantly smart women continue to fall into this trap. Why? Why on earth do we do this to ourselves? And how the hell can we stop?
If you're reading this post via Facebook Notes or a Livejournal Mirror or via RSS, please click through to the actual blog if you'd like to leave a comment;
it helps me to keep all of the conversation in one place. Thanks!
Advertisements are *everywhere* and unavoidable. I'm sure you've all seen the Dove Evolution video -- but have you seen the Beauty Pressure one? Check it out.
There is an all-pervasive attitude throughout America that you can never be too thin. I'm certainly susceptible to this myself; I hit 5'9" in height and 100 pounds in weight in the same year and only then did puberty strike, so I've felt fat for my entire adolescent and most of my adult life. Just this weekend I caught sight of the first photos snapped of me wearing clothes that fit since i moved last spring -- since I dropped 35 pounds due to walking and dancing everywhere, in other words. I'm *amazed* at how slender I look, and can't reconcile the girl in those photos wearing my face with what I seem to see in the mirror each day.
But even while *feeling* uncomfortably large, I've always been pretty rational about living well with regard to weight -- partially because I'm a hedonist and have a don't-you-dare-take-away-my-made-from-scratch-with-umpteen-million-calories-double-chocolate-frosted-brownies and partially because I can see what makes for a balanced diet and normal exercise with a little indulgence and know how to evaluate my life to be sure I get it all -- or course-correct when something gets out of whack. How many women aren't? It seems like a million; whenever I'm at the market or in line at a deli or a cafe, I seem to be surrounded by stunningly beautiful women who are looking at the food they're buying with no pleasure at all -- worried about too many calories or too much fat or "I don't have enough points for that thing I really want so I'll settle for this thing I don't really like instead". And when I say stunningly beautiful I damn well mean it, often with a "wow, I wonder if she's single and into girls," thought running through the back of my head.
But that's just the size and shape issue -- it doesn't even begin to cover the clothing (or lack thereof) and products and procedures that are all over the place. We're supposed to starve and punish ourselves to hyper-thinness, then use push up bras and padded jeans and lip plumper and volumizing mascara and silicone implants to give the illusion of voluptuousness?
And somehow, someway, repeatedly, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, brilliantly smart women continue to fall into this trap. Why? Why on earth do we do this to ourselves? And how the hell can we stop?
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Sunday, January 24, 2010
Addendum
I forgot this when I was writing earlier.
I ended up getting lost on the way to the holiday party yesterday, wandering Easter 35th rather than West 35th looking for Duet 35. On the way, I passed by the building at address 222 E. 35th Street. The forest green awning above the entrance was imprinted with the name of the building: Gregory House.
Ah, pop culture and Murray Hill.
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Karaoke
The Fort Greene/Clinton Hill Knit and Crochet group from Ravelry gathered yesterday for a holiday party. (Yes, a month late; December is an insane time, particularly for people who make gifts.) There was a Secret Santa gift exchange (I look forward to participating next year, when I'll be a faster gift maker, have a larger repetoire of stitches, and know the other members better so I can make something truly personal for my recipient), and a stash-busting skein trade Yankee Swap style (for those with excessive amounts of yarn that they aren't using). Tomo made gorgeous little project bags (for our Sock K/CAL next month) and filled them with goodies from other members, and Rebecca made a scrumptiously gorgeous Red Velvet cake with creamy frosting to celebrate Angela's birthday.
Best of all was the venue, though -- 35 Duet in Koreatown. It's a karaoke spot, but unlike a bar where you're standing up in front of a mass of strangers, each group gets a (relatively) soundproofed room with banquettes and tables and a sing-a-long system. They serve drinks at a bar in the common area, but patrons bring in their own food. Room rental is super-cheap, something like $4 per person per hour, so we had a grand little party of unselfconscious delight for less than $15 each. (Am thinking I should mention this to David as a possible Thirst-day venue... it's a three-minute walk from Hope Lodge.)
I've learned the trick to Karaoke -- pick a song with a steady tempo (ballads go all"artistic" and are hard to follow), that you genuinely like (laughter makes everything better), and go completely over the top having fun with it.
Also? I should stop being surprised by the many, many talents that are regularly exhibited by people I like. Brilliance for the win.
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Friday, January 22, 2010
The Silk Road
As per my usual, when life gets hectic writing takes second fiddle. Dancing is proving to be far more fun than anything else I've attempted in the last year, so writing (and much else) loses.
As I had the day off today, I spent a lovely afternoon wandering The Silk Road exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. As always at the MNH the visuals were gorgeous -- the special collection hall was divided with fabric draped to look like caravan tents, the romance of which swept me away completely. The colors were lush and exotic-feeling, in comparison to the gray January day I'd stepped out of on the Upper West Side, and the dusty, historical smell of the area combined with the murmurings of the crowd created a magical ambiance. (Also, the space was arranged geographically, which made me happy -- I'm such a linear person when learning about something completely new, that having it arranged in a way that I can file new facts and ideas and questions into my existing knowledge base makes me feel twenty times smarter.)
I learned some tremendously cool things, like the fact that Xi'an, the once capital in China was the largest city in the world at the time of the Silk Road's prominence, with nearly 1 million residents, and some details about the ways in which silk is made and harvested and spun and woven (silk worms can't survive without human intervention -- but even knowing that I'm still not sure how I feel about the fact that we exploit the dependence of an entire species, insect or not). There was also the tremendously disappointing realization that journeying on the silk road from the farthest reaches in remote markets of Eastern Asia through to the final western destinations in Persia wasn't something that many -- if any -- people did , but that the concept of the road was far more about the travel of goods. I suppose that's why it's called The Silk Road, rather than The Traveler's Road.
As my friend Mark pointed out, and as I agree, though, there's something disturbing about how Disney-sanitized the exhibit was. No mention was made of the dangers of the travel. There was mention of environmental danger, what with the extreme temperatures along the desert, and inferences made to the vast quantities of days that camels can travel without food or water, and with pro and con details regarding monsoon seasons on the seagoing routes, but there was no mention of the human dangers. Was this dangerous, year-long journey never the target of thieves? Were women among the merchants ferrying silk from Xi'ian, selling figs and grapes in Turfan, haggling for oils in Samarkand, or packaging scrolls and books in Baghdad? Was it safe to even think about traveling alone?
I'd like to do some reading on this time and place in the world, but I'll definitely be looking for grittier, harsher truths as well as the romance and luxury of such exotic things. And I'm more than a little disappointed that such a well-respected museum erred on the side of comfort in curating the exhibit. (In spite of which, I think everyone with even a remote interest in the subject should make it a point to attend.)
If you're reading this post via Facebook Notes or a Livejournal Mirror or via RSS, please click through to the actual blog if you'd like to leave a comment; it helps me to keep all of the conversation in one place. Thanks!
As I had the day off today, I spent a lovely afternoon wandering The Silk Road exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. As always at the MNH the visuals were gorgeous -- the special collection hall was divided with fabric draped to look like caravan tents, the romance of which swept me away completely. The colors were lush and exotic-feeling, in comparison to the gray January day I'd stepped out of on the Upper West Side, and the dusty, historical smell of the area combined with the murmurings of the crowd created a magical ambiance. (Also, the space was arranged geographically, which made me happy -- I'm such a linear person when learning about something completely new, that having it arranged in a way that I can file new facts and ideas and questions into my existing knowledge base makes me feel twenty times smarter.)
I learned some tremendously cool things, like the fact that Xi'an, the once capital in China was the largest city in the world at the time of the Silk Road's prominence, with nearly 1 million residents, and some details about the ways in which silk is made and harvested and spun and woven (silk worms can't survive without human intervention -- but even knowing that I'm still not sure how I feel about the fact that we exploit the dependence of an entire species, insect or not). There was also the tremendously disappointing realization that journeying on the silk road from the farthest reaches in remote markets of Eastern Asia through to the final western destinations in Persia wasn't something that many -- if any -- people did , but that the concept of the road was far more about the travel of goods. I suppose that's why it's called The Silk Road, rather than The Traveler's Road.
As my friend Mark pointed out, and as I agree, though, there's something disturbing about how Disney-sanitized the exhibit was. No mention was made of the dangers of the travel. There was mention of environmental danger, what with the extreme temperatures along the desert, and inferences made to the vast quantities of days that camels can travel without food or water, and with pro and con details regarding monsoon seasons on the seagoing routes, but there was no mention of the human dangers. Was this dangerous, year-long journey never the target of thieves? Were women among the merchants ferrying silk from Xi'ian, selling figs and grapes in Turfan, haggling for oils in Samarkand, or packaging scrolls and books in Baghdad? Was it safe to even think about traveling alone?
I'd like to do some reading on this time and place in the world, but I'll definitely be looking for grittier, harsher truths as well as the romance and luxury of such exotic things. And I'm more than a little disappointed that such a well-respected museum erred on the side of comfort in curating the exhibit. (In spite of which, I think everyone with even a remote interest in the subject should make it a point to attend.)
If you're reading this post via Facebook Notes or a Livejournal Mirror or via RSS, please click through to the actual blog if you'd like to leave a comment; it helps me to keep all of the conversation in one place. Thanks!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Blues
On December 8th, I was introduced to Contra Dancing. Having attended three lessons/dances thus far I'm having a fantastic time and am getting better, adding some style into the more basic moves. Last Thursday was my first lesson in Swing Dancing; it will take some time to really be confident in the basic steps let alone anything more fancy, but I learned some solid elements of following a lead through fast footwork, and also had a grand time. Last night (this morning?) I took my first lesson in Blues.
Oh, Blues.
To say that I am completely wrapped up and head over heels in love with blues dance is something of an understatement. I was so overwhelmed by the whole experience while I was in it that I couldn't really think about anything but the pulse, not tripping over my own feet or my partner's, figuring out how to relax into the posture and follow a lead properly (and transition from open to closed to close posture without crashing), keeping my frame intact when I did finally relax, listening by feel and developing a connection with my partners (so I could intuit where they wanted me to move and when without trying to anticipate (and thus leading the lead)), and being amazed while watching all of the really fantastic dancers. But something happened after I crawled into bed while the sun rose this morning, as my subconscious mind was allowed to reign and dream. I must have relived the night in my sleep, because when I woke up at noon I knew, deep in the core of my spine, that Blues is my kind of dancing. And that I can lead it, and lead it well, and become very, very good at it.
My entire life I have heard music in my head. Symphonies playing in the background against everything I do. That music guides my movement -- I walk to it, type to it, mix batter and knead bread dough to it. And when I'm actually playing music or singing, my body is unable to NOT move to it. I remember a conversation I had at an audition in high school, about how I wasn't afraid to sight-sing because my heartbeat was always in time with the music and as long as I let that conduct me I'd be close to perfect. Nicole thought I was insane. But I hold that the "heartbeat" thing is still true; my pulse is always in sync with the music that surrounds me (which is probably part of the reason that I'm not a big fan of rap and most techno music -- too irregular a beat). But that habit of following a pulse -- that's the heart and soul of Blues.
I suddenly feel vindicated -- for every time a music teacher ever told me to sit still and stop wriggling, to play my part without tapping my feet. I still hear my college voice teacher's instructions every time he handed me sheet for another Billie Holiday standard: "yes, it's a great tune, but you're going to sing it standing still. For all that your posture is perfect, your breath support goes to shit as soon as you start to dance." And now I've figured it out -- it's not the song or the vocal or the damned breath support that's the point, it's the rhythm, the beat, the pulse, the dance.
After I woke up, I spent the entire afternoon and most of the evening rearranging the furniture in my apartment to create a dance space in my living room -- where the wood floor is lovely and smooth and even, and the walls are spaced generously enough to allow for turning. I now have a convertible dance studio -- if I pull the trunk/coffee table and musical instruments into the bedroom, and turn on the lamps to create a shadow mirror on the wall, I have my own private practice space.
I have some serious work that I can do on my own; leg strengthening exercises for fast footwork, and for knee and hip flexibility. Isolation exercises for core moves. Practice with elastic bands for frame awareness. Constantly surrounding myself with music that pulls in the Blues pulse. But beyond that, I need to take lessons -- in leading, in connection, in space utilization, in 60,000 things that I don't have the language to define yet. And I am so bloody thrilled at the opportunity.
I am going to be *good* at this. I know that as surely as I knew three years ago that I would kick serious ass in my current work role. Moreover, I know that it isn't going to be at all easy, and that's perfect -- because it is going to be 70 million kinds of fun and exhilarating and wonderful.
BLUES!
(Also, I am ridiculously happy that my current most-played track, Cherry Poppin' Daddies' Here Comes the Snake (for the line "Did your God show you the door? Well I'm here to eat your apple to the core") works so well for solo practice.)
Oh, Blues.
To say that I am completely wrapped up and head over heels in love with blues dance is something of an understatement. I was so overwhelmed by the whole experience while I was in it that I couldn't really think about anything but the pulse, not tripping over my own feet or my partner's, figuring out how to relax into the posture and follow a lead properly (and transition from open to closed to close posture without crashing), keeping my frame intact when I did finally relax, listening by feel and developing a connection with my partners (so I could intuit where they wanted me to move and when without trying to anticipate (and thus leading the lead)), and being amazed while watching all of the really fantastic dancers. But something happened after I crawled into bed while the sun rose this morning, as my subconscious mind was allowed to reign and dream. I must have relived the night in my sleep, because when I woke up at noon I knew, deep in the core of my spine, that Blues is my kind of dancing. And that I can lead it, and lead it well, and become very, very good at it.
My entire life I have heard music in my head. Symphonies playing in the background against everything I do. That music guides my movement -- I walk to it, type to it, mix batter and knead bread dough to it. And when I'm actually playing music or singing, my body is unable to NOT move to it. I remember a conversation I had at an audition in high school, about how I wasn't afraid to sight-sing because my heartbeat was always in time with the music and as long as I let that conduct me I'd be close to perfect. Nicole thought I was insane. But I hold that the "heartbeat" thing is still true; my pulse is always in sync with the music that surrounds me (which is probably part of the reason that I'm not a big fan of rap and most techno music -- too irregular a beat). But that habit of following a pulse -- that's the heart and soul of Blues.
I suddenly feel vindicated -- for every time a music teacher ever told me to sit still and stop wriggling, to play my part without tapping my feet. I still hear my college voice teacher's instructions every time he handed me sheet for another Billie Holiday standard: "yes, it's a great tune, but you're going to sing it standing still. For all that your posture is perfect, your breath support goes to shit as soon as you start to dance." And now I've figured it out -- it's not the song or the vocal or the damned breath support that's the point, it's the rhythm, the beat, the pulse, the dance.
After I woke up, I spent the entire afternoon and most of the evening rearranging the furniture in my apartment to create a dance space in my living room -- where the wood floor is lovely and smooth and even, and the walls are spaced generously enough to allow for turning. I now have a convertible dance studio -- if I pull the trunk/coffee table and musical instruments into the bedroom, and turn on the lamps to create a shadow mirror on the wall, I have my own private practice space.
I have some serious work that I can do on my own; leg strengthening exercises for fast footwork, and for knee and hip flexibility. Isolation exercises for core moves. Practice with elastic bands for frame awareness. Constantly surrounding myself with music that pulls in the Blues pulse. But beyond that, I need to take lessons -- in leading, in connection, in space utilization, in 60,000 things that I don't have the language to define yet. And I am so bloody thrilled at the opportunity.
I am going to be *good* at this. I know that as surely as I knew three years ago that I would kick serious ass in my current work role. Moreover, I know that it isn't going to be at all easy, and that's perfect -- because it is going to be 70 million kinds of fun and exhilarating and wonderful.
BLUES!
(Also, I am ridiculously happy that my current most-played track, Cherry Poppin' Daddies' Here Comes the Snake (for the line "Did your God show you the door? Well I'm here to eat your apple to the core") works so well for solo practice.)
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Saturday, January 16, 2010
Haiti
I'm standing on the subway platform waiting for a connection at the Broadway-Nassau station. A woman in her mid-twenties just walked by, holding the hand of a little girl, maybe 7 years old, who was sobbing uncontrollably.
The woman dropped her bag and pulled the little girl into her arms, rocking her and making all the soothing, comforting sounds that mothers make when their children are frightened or hurt or broken-hearted.
Tragedies are so complex, and have such far-reaching consequences. Many adults don't grasp the enormity of the situation in Haiti; how can we explain it to children in a way that allows them to see the size and scope of the world, to develop compassion and bravery, to learn that there are people in the world who are different from them, who experience the world in ways that may be so very different, and who yet live and love and laugh and cry as they do -- and yet keep in perspective their own relative safety? And how is that exacerbated for young children of aid workers, relief workers, emergency first responders, soldiers, firemen, and medics, people who run to danger when required? I don't envy parents the responsibility of teaching that lesson.
On the other hand, I'm incredibly grateful to my parents for teaching it very well.
I was five when Nana responded with the Red Cross to an apartment building fire that left more than a dozen families homeless a few days before Christmas. When my Mom explained where she was going and what she was doing, she drew parallels for me, to the effect of "when bad things happen, everyone needs to do what they can to help. Nannie is going to those families to bring them things that they need, just like Mommy takes care of people when they're sick in the hospital, and Daddy puts out fires when they happen." And then she asked me -- and helped -- to go through my toybox and bookshelf, filling a box with things for the children to play with in case Santa Claus couldn't help them.
My sister and I had a great conversation today about what we can each do to support the relief efforts. She gave to the American Red Cross and the United Methodist Committee on Relief fund, and laments being unable to donate blood. I gave to ARC and am trying to choose between the Clinton Fund and Doctors Without Borders for my second donation (and, yes, lamented once again that I can never give blood). It's early yet, but immigration trends being what they are, I know that New York City is likely to become a gathering place for some of the displaced Haitian people; I'm keeping my ear to the ground for opportunities to help those who arrive -- I imagine that the most needed options will be donations to local orgs and people who will help, volunteering (perhaps as an ESL teacher), and helping out at work with any efforts to connect those who are displaced with medical care (as we did after Hurricane Katrina).
All of those seem like such small actions in the face of the devastation wrought about by an earthquake, an act of nature that struck with no warning, that destroyed 1/3 of a nation, 1/3 of a people. Such small things to do in the face of such dire need, such abject poverty. And yet, every person in Haiti - every person in the world - is just one person, capable of feeling and surviving and giving much, with only some comprehension of the whole. What we, each of us, can do is reach out to the individual people of Haiti through the individual relief workers who will hug and hold, dress wounds, offer food and drink, clean babies, put out fires, stand up against violence, rebuild roads, dig wells, plant seeds, and continue hugging and holding and helping until there is nothing left to be done. We can keep giving, even when the new shows stop comparing this tragedy to the last, when the papers go back to inane headlines, when the bloggers turn to the next big story, when the enormity of our little lives once again drowns out the voices crying from so far away.
We can keep giving.
"It's alright, sweetheart, Daddy's coming back."
"But I don't want him to go! Why does he have to leave us?"
"He's helping people in the earthquake. They need him more than we do right now."
"But I don't want him to get swallowed up by the ground! What if he never comes back?"
The woman dropped her bag and pulled the little girl into her arms, rocking her and making all the soothing, comforting sounds that mothers make when their children are frightened or hurt or broken-hearted.
Tragedies are so complex, and have such far-reaching consequences. Many adults don't grasp the enormity of the situation in Haiti; how can we explain it to children in a way that allows them to see the size and scope of the world, to develop compassion and bravery, to learn that there are people in the world who are different from them, who experience the world in ways that may be so very different, and who yet live and love and laugh and cry as they do -- and yet keep in perspective their own relative safety? And how is that exacerbated for young children of aid workers, relief workers, emergency first responders, soldiers, firemen, and medics, people who run to danger when required? I don't envy parents the responsibility of teaching that lesson.
On the other hand, I'm incredibly grateful to my parents for teaching it very well.
I was five when Nana responded with the Red Cross to an apartment building fire that left more than a dozen families homeless a few days before Christmas. When my Mom explained where she was going and what she was doing, she drew parallels for me, to the effect of "when bad things happen, everyone needs to do what they can to help. Nannie is going to those families to bring them things that they need, just like Mommy takes care of people when they're sick in the hospital, and Daddy puts out fires when they happen." And then she asked me -- and helped -- to go through my toybox and bookshelf, filling a box with things for the children to play with in case Santa Claus couldn't help them.
My sister and I had a great conversation today about what we can each do to support the relief efforts. She gave to the American Red Cross and the United Methodist Committee on Relief fund, and laments being unable to donate blood. I gave to ARC and am trying to choose between the Clinton Fund and Doctors Without Borders for my second donation (and, yes, lamented once again that I can never give blood). It's early yet, but immigration trends being what they are, I know that New York City is likely to become a gathering place for some of the displaced Haitian people; I'm keeping my ear to the ground for opportunities to help those who arrive -- I imagine that the most needed options will be donations to local orgs and people who will help, volunteering (perhaps as an ESL teacher), and helping out at work with any efforts to connect those who are displaced with medical care (as we did after Hurricane Katrina).
All of those seem like such small actions in the face of the devastation wrought about by an earthquake, an act of nature that struck with no warning, that destroyed 1/3 of a nation, 1/3 of a people. Such small things to do in the face of such dire need, such abject poverty. And yet, every person in Haiti - every person in the world - is just one person, capable of feeling and surviving and giving much, with only some comprehension of the whole. What we, each of us, can do is reach out to the individual people of Haiti through the individual relief workers who will hug and hold, dress wounds, offer food and drink, clean babies, put out fires, stand up against violence, rebuild roads, dig wells, plant seeds, and continue hugging and holding and helping until there is nothing left to be done. We can keep giving, even when the new shows stop comparing this tragedy to the last, when the papers go back to inane headlines, when the bloggers turn to the next big story, when the enormity of our little lives once again drowns out the voices crying from so far away.
We can keep giving.
If you're reading this post via Facebook Notes or a Livejournal Mirror or via RSS, please click through to the actual blog if you'd like to leave a comment;
it helps me to keep all of the conversation in one place. Thanks!
it helps me to keep all of the conversation in one place. Thanks!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Swing
Last night/this morning marked my first foray into swing dancing: intimidating, surprising, exhilarating, and a bloody fun time.
First thing I learned; ballet has given me all the wrong habits for social dancing. A focus on lift, line, and extension will get me into serious trouble on the dance floor, of the "taking up too much space and getting kicked" variety, and of the "working against a partner's lead" variety (the latter of which also inevitably leads to the former).
But what I learned after a few hours of practice is that I pick things up unbelievably fast, and given focused effort and concentration I could become pretty good. As with Contra, people I danced with for the first time at the end of the night refused to believe that I was in my first lesson. And if I remember to lock my arms with a bent elbow (no extension, no spaghetti arms), I'll have an easier time with spins and turns. I'm already in good shape on that front from knowing how to spot. What will be really tough is the footwork; I can't keep up with fancy stuff without getting confused, and the staggered foot position throws me off of all my existing markers for where my feet belong and when, and how I should balance and spring. I need to learn how to follow a lead's instructions more carefully, and recognize step patterns by feel.
Heather teaches at 8 every Thursday, so I'll continue next week and see what happens.
Next up on the dance front: Beginning Blues lesson and dance on Saturday night with Jook Joint. We'll see how well I cope with having someone else "all up in my space," as Blues seems to call for. I'm expecting to be super-uncomfortable, but we'll see.
Bonus update: I've measured my living room in steps. If I move all of the furniture out, it's decent sized dance studio, complete with wood floor appropriate for dance shoes. I don't know that I can move the furniture out entirely, but I can certainly manage enough of it to get a decently sized practice space!
First thing I learned; ballet has given me all the wrong habits for social dancing. A focus on lift, line, and extension will get me into serious trouble on the dance floor, of the "taking up too much space and getting kicked" variety, and of the "working against a partner's lead" variety (the latter of which also inevitably leads to the former).
But what I learned after a few hours of practice is that I pick things up unbelievably fast, and given focused effort and concentration I could become pretty good. As with Contra, people I danced with for the first time at the end of the night refused to believe that I was in my first lesson. And if I remember to lock my arms with a bent elbow (no extension, no spaghetti arms), I'll have an easier time with spins and turns. I'm already in good shape on that front from knowing how to spot. What will be really tough is the footwork; I can't keep up with fancy stuff without getting confused, and the staggered foot position throws me off of all my existing markers for where my feet belong and when, and how I should balance and spring. I need to learn how to follow a lead's instructions more carefully, and recognize step patterns by feel.
Heather teaches at 8 every Thursday, so I'll continue next week and see what happens.
Next up on the dance front: Beginning Blues lesson and dance on Saturday night with Jook Joint. We'll see how well I cope with having someone else "all up in my space," as Blues seems to call for. I'm expecting to be super-uncomfortable, but we'll see.
Bonus update: I've measured my living room in steps. If I move all of the furniture out, it's decent sized dance studio, complete with wood floor appropriate for dance shoes. I don't know that I can move the furniture out entirely, but I can certainly manage enough of it to get a decently sized practice space!
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Tuesday
I spent something like 15 hours today writing stuff for work. Which I don't mind in the least because most of it was great fun, but between trying to sound like an organization using simple sentences instead of myself with convoluted ones and working out elaborate date-math equations, I'm afraid the sum total of my commentary on today can be wrapped up in three points:
- I know the day will come when working with Social Media will fail to be fun and interesting. I hope I find something else tremendously awesome to pour my energy into before that happens.
- There is something outrageously satisfying about doing brilliant work while slouched over a messy desk sporting too many mugs of tea, wearing jeans and a tank top in bare feet with my hair mussed. Rather like a super-secret wink and nudge to all of the days when playing dress-up and pretending to be an adult who worries about "saying the right thing" just get in the way of being able to think.
- When Ziva David is relegated to 6 on-screen minutes during which she giggles like a schoolgirl and fails to have a single meaningful thing to say (translating Arabic does NOT count as a contribution to meaningful dialogue), NCIS is a withering disappointment. Tony and Gibbs on a cowboy dinner date adds a bit of interest and flair, but not nearly enough to compensate for a complete lack of Cote de Pablo.
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Monday, January 11, 2010
Monday
So my beautiful loaf of bread turned out to be a mess. The sponge was perfect, the dough rose and shaped out with wonderful elasticity. But the moment I applied the butter and salt glaze, the loaf collapsed -- which I'm guessing means that the melt was too hot or I used too heavy a hand or both. But no amount of re-shaping and re-stretching could repair it -- and the baked mass was a mess. Flavor was good, but the loaf was flat, crust was much crispier and crunchier than I like, and the crumb was far too dense. So disappointing. I'll have to try again with something else next weekend, and make muffins or something tonight. Although I haven't cooked all weekend, so I don't know what I'll eat them with.
Somehow this seems like a microcosm description of the last week. When I haven't been at work or dancing, I've been distracted and unable to concentrate on pretty much anything. My sleep patterns are completely screwed up for no good reason, and I've accomplished a sum total of nothing productive. Unless you count cleaning the kitchen cabinets and completing the final imports and redesign of my blog as "productive". Considering my usual rhthyms, it's completely bizarre and inexplicable.
Here's hoping that today brings a sunnier outlook as well as a new week; with tickets to a play tonight, cooking class tomorrow, co-op orientation on Wednesday, swing dancing on Thursday, Seth's book release party on Friday, and Contra on Saturday, it certainly seems like I've got a shot.
Somehow this seems like a microcosm description of the last week. When I haven't been at work or dancing, I've been distracted and unable to concentrate on pretty much anything. My sleep patterns are completely screwed up for no good reason, and I've accomplished a sum total of nothing productive. Unless you count cleaning the kitchen cabinets and completing the final imports and redesign of my blog as "productive". Considering my usual rhthyms, it's completely bizarre and inexplicable.
Here's hoping that today brings a sunnier outlook as well as a new week; with tickets to a play tonight, cooking class tomorrow, co-op orientation on Wednesday, swing dancing on Thursday, Seth's book release party on Friday, and Contra on Saturday, it certainly seems like I've got a shot.
please click through to the actual blog if you'd like to leave a comment;
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Sunday, January 10, 2010
Bread
One of the coolest gifts I received this Christmas is from Clay and Caran: an incredible cookbook by Shirley Corriher, called CookWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking. After an hour of thumbing through it and exclaiming over some awesome bits of information, I put it down and said to Clay, "it's like a science textbook and the recipes are labs!"
It really is amazingly cool -- rather than have recipes organized by type of meal, they're arranged in sections based on what kind of chemistry you need to be aware of. There's a section devoted to baking, with a solid 12 pages on determining the best flour for a given task -- and how to determine what kind of flour you have based on where in the world it was grown. (There's a reason the Northern US is known for turning out fantastic breads and cakes while the South excels at pastry and biscuits -- directly related to the heft and protein content of the wheat grown and ground for flour in each region. If you try to make Strudel with flour from the south, expect a mess.) There's a section on working with fats, which covers pie crust, cookies, cakes, fried foods, and a deep section on how to develop low-fat recipes -- and when low-fat isn't an option. 60 pages are devoted just to eggs, and another 55 on sauces -- reductions, starch-bounds, and emulsions. A section each for produce and meats, with significant space devoted to health concerns like medicinal use, allergies, and foodborne diseases. And a final section devoted to sugars, including chocolates, that covers crystals and how they form ices, ice creams, and sherbets, among other things. I figure if I spend two months of cooking time on each section of the book, by April of 2011 I might be a pretty decent home chef.
(And yes, in college, I took Chemistry for poets -- a science class designed for students who work best alone and are less curious with how or why something happens and more concerned with what it all means -- for people with little patience for scientific experiment, in other words. The irony of taking a scientific approach to cooking now isn't lost on me!)
Thus far I've focused on the bread section. Not like that's a surprise, what with my weekly (and sometimes daily) "give us this day our daily bread" mantra. I've spent the last couple of years experimenting with flours in baking: bread, all-purpose, whole wheat, rye, graham, corn, spelt, and buckwheat are all staples in my baking cupboard. (My spelt-and-buckwheat pancakes are amazing and I make the BEST cornbread ever, though I still need a really stellar crockpot turkey chili recipe to go along with it.) But I haven't really given a whole lot of thought to trading out flours in yeast breads. I usually flip through some variation of bread, all-purpose and whole wheat flour, generally haphazardly and as the whim strikes me. Thus I paid close attention to today's lesson, revolving round a sponge-based crusty French bread.
Now a sponge is different than a more traditional sourdough starter. Sponges take a while -- I typically combine the flour, sugar, and yeast for a sponge and let it sit for a good 30 minutes before adding the first round of flours, and then letting that rest for the maximum time allowed. (My favorite recipes involve overnight rests for a sponge, and now that I have a bowl large enough to allow for that without making a mess of the counter, I'll make them more often.) A good sponge adds flavor complexity and a fantastic lightness to the interior of a loaf (the crumb), whereas I find purely yeast-leavened bread to be denser in the crumb than I like.
So, today's sponge, from Shirley's book:
Now Shirley's instructions say to use the paddle blade of a stand mixer to beat on low speed for 4 minutes. Having neither a stand mixer nor a paddle blade for my hand mixer, I opted to beat the dough by hand with a rubber spatula. (I prefer to beat bread dough by hand. A) I have greater control over what's happening in the bowl, so am quicker to observe changes, and B) it's a really fantastic upper arm and shoulder workout. I'm working on my ambidexterity so I can balance out the benefits; the last thing I need is to become lop-sided.) I gave it an extra thirty seconds, since the electricity-fueled instrument is a little more consistent than my all-too-human arm, and then placed the bowl on top of the stove for the long side of the 30-minute to 2-1/2 hour standing phase. This is the sponge.
The rest of the recipe is pretty standard; with dough hook extensions on a mixer, combine salt, vinegar, crushed ice, a crushed vitamin C tablet, and 2 additional cups of bread flour into the sponge, kneading for a minimum of 5 minutes. (I always use the electric mixer at this stage -- after the by hand attempt where I actually broke a wooden spoon.) Turn the dough into an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap (I pinch the wrap into place with a rubber band around the lip of the bowl -- the trick is remembering to vent the plastic every 45 minutes or so so the built up gases don't cause an explosion.)
The punching down and shaping piece taught me another tip: in dry weather (i.e. dry, winter cold or traditionally arid climates), don't flour your hands and the work surface; oil them instead. In terms of chemistry that makes such wonderful sense -- dough is likely to be drier, to soak up more moisture in dry weather, so adding more flour into the pile to keep it from sticking will ultimately yield a drier, denser loaf. But oiling your hands and the work surface sparingly, gingerly, keeps the dough pliable without adding luiquid content to it -- and is really good for the dry skin of the baker, too.
After the final rise, this recipe calls for a brush with melted butter and sea salt. I've not actually used a butter glaze on a yeast bread before, so I'm hoping that this one turns out right. But frankly, after an hour of work and 8 hours of waiting (30 minute yeast and water set + 150 minute sponge set + 120 minute first rise + 30 minute shaping rest + 120 minute second rise + 30 minute glaze set = 8 hours of waiting), my nose will be pressed to the oven door waiting for whatever comes out of the oven. After all, the worst hand-made loaf is better than the best processed, shelf-stocked loaf.
(Melissa, I hope the sponge info is helpful for you and Nate!)
If you're reading this post via a Facebook import, Livejournal mirror, or via RSS,
please click through if you'd like to leave a comment;
it helps me respond properly if all of the conversation in one place. Thanks!
It really is amazingly cool -- rather than have recipes organized by type of meal, they're arranged in sections based on what kind of chemistry you need to be aware of. There's a section devoted to baking, with a solid 12 pages on determining the best flour for a given task -- and how to determine what kind of flour you have based on where in the world it was grown. (There's a reason the Northern US is known for turning out fantastic breads and cakes while the South excels at pastry and biscuits -- directly related to the heft and protein content of the wheat grown and ground for flour in each region. If you try to make Strudel with flour from the south, expect a mess.) There's a section on working with fats, which covers pie crust, cookies, cakes, fried foods, and a deep section on how to develop low-fat recipes -- and when low-fat isn't an option. 60 pages are devoted just to eggs, and another 55 on sauces -- reductions, starch-bounds, and emulsions. A section each for produce and meats, with significant space devoted to health concerns like medicinal use, allergies, and foodborne diseases. And a final section devoted to sugars, including chocolates, that covers crystals and how they form ices, ice creams, and sherbets, among other things. I figure if I spend two months of cooking time on each section of the book, by April of 2011 I might be a pretty decent home chef.
(And yes, in college, I took Chemistry for poets -- a science class designed for students who work best alone and are less curious with how or why something happens and more concerned with what it all means -- for people with little patience for scientific experiment, in other words. The irony of taking a scientific approach to cooking now isn't lost on me!)
Thus far I've focused on the bread section. Not like that's a surprise, what with my weekly (and sometimes daily) "give us this day our daily bread" mantra. I've spent the last couple of years experimenting with flours in baking: bread, all-purpose, whole wheat, rye, graham, corn, spelt, and buckwheat are all staples in my baking cupboard. (My spelt-and-buckwheat pancakes are amazing and I make the BEST cornbread ever, though I still need a really stellar crockpot turkey chili recipe to go along with it.) But I haven't really given a whole lot of thought to trading out flours in yeast breads. I usually flip through some variation of bread, all-purpose and whole wheat flour, generally haphazardly and as the whim strikes me. Thus I paid close attention to today's lesson, revolving round a sponge-based crusty French bread.
Now a sponge is different than a more traditional sourdough starter. Sponges take a while -- I typically combine the flour, sugar, and yeast for a sponge and let it sit for a good 30 minutes before adding the first round of flours, and then letting that rest for the maximum time allowed. (My favorite recipes involve overnight rests for a sponge, and now that I have a bowl large enough to allow for that without making a mess of the counter, I'll make them more often.) A good sponge adds flavor complexity and a fantastic lightness to the interior of a loaf (the crumb), whereas I find purely yeast-leavened bread to be denser in the crumb than I like.
So, today's sponge, from Shirley's book:
- 2-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1-1/2 cups warm water
- 1-3/4 cups bread flour
- 1/4 cup semolina flour
Now Shirley's instructions say to use the paddle blade of a stand mixer to beat on low speed for 4 minutes. Having neither a stand mixer nor a paddle blade for my hand mixer, I opted to beat the dough by hand with a rubber spatula. (I prefer to beat bread dough by hand. A) I have greater control over what's happening in the bowl, so am quicker to observe changes, and B) it's a really fantastic upper arm and shoulder workout. I'm working on my ambidexterity so I can balance out the benefits; the last thing I need is to become lop-sided.) I gave it an extra thirty seconds, since the electricity-fueled instrument is a little more consistent than my all-too-human arm, and then placed the bowl on top of the stove for the long side of the 30-minute to 2-1/2 hour standing phase. This is the sponge.
The rest of the recipe is pretty standard; with dough hook extensions on a mixer, combine salt, vinegar, crushed ice, a crushed vitamin C tablet, and 2 additional cups of bread flour into the sponge, kneading for a minimum of 5 minutes. (I always use the electric mixer at this stage -- after the by hand attempt where I actually broke a wooden spoon.) Turn the dough into an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap (I pinch the wrap into place with a rubber band around the lip of the bowl -- the trick is remembering to vent the plastic every 45 minutes or so so the built up gases don't cause an explosion.)
The punching down and shaping piece taught me another tip: in dry weather (i.e. dry, winter cold or traditionally arid climates), don't flour your hands and the work surface; oil them instead. In terms of chemistry that makes such wonderful sense -- dough is likely to be drier, to soak up more moisture in dry weather, so adding more flour into the pile to keep it from sticking will ultimately yield a drier, denser loaf. But oiling your hands and the work surface sparingly, gingerly, keeps the dough pliable without adding luiquid content to it -- and is really good for the dry skin of the baker, too.
After the final rise, this recipe calls for a brush with melted butter and sea salt. I've not actually used a butter glaze on a yeast bread before, so I'm hoping that this one turns out right. But frankly, after an hour of work and 8 hours of waiting (30 minute yeast and water set + 150 minute sponge set + 120 minute first rise + 30 minute shaping rest + 120 minute second rise + 30 minute glaze set = 8 hours of waiting), my nose will be pressed to the oven door waiting for whatever comes out of the oven. After all, the worst hand-made loaf is better than the best processed, shelf-stocked loaf.
(Melissa, I hope the sponge info is helpful for you and Nate!)
If you're reading this post via a Facebook import, Livejournal mirror, or via RSS,
please click through if you'd like to leave a comment;
it helps me respond properly if all of the conversation in one place. Thanks!
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Dancing
My sedentary job -- even with the several long walks I take each day -- is getting to me. After two nights of dancing I'm exhausted. Doesn't help that I haven't been stretching at all, so my legs are cramped, and the typical "back to dancing" blisters have formed as I wear holes through my ten-year-old split-soles.
That said, I am loving every single minute of it! The years of ballet class have been super helpful as I find that I'm very quick at picking up steps. A half-dozen contras paired with experienced partners who are taller and stronger than I am has taught me a TON about following a good lead (and compensating for a weak one), and I'm starting to figure out how to insert twirls and jumps and high kicks into the "extra beats" in the songs. (Granted, I have to be careful of the latter in a crowded hall; with legs longer than a Rockette I could take out an eye.)
Apart from Contra, this week marks my first foray into swing since a Term III course during my freshman year of college. I *love* big band, but almost all of my experience with it is on the rhythm and harmony line in the sax section. But a group of Swing/Blues/Lindy dancers gave an awesome snowball demo at the Contra on Friday, then graciously invited me out to dinner with them afterwards and convinced me to come out and learn at the next dance. Blues freaks me out since it doesn't have actual steps and is all about improvisation, but with the right partner I'm sure I'll conquer that particular fear. Eventually. My current plan is to start with the more formulaic stuff and work my way up; we'll see how long it works for.
If swing goes well, there are a few dances that could become weekly events (the halls are just a few blocks from my office), plus I have baroque class once a month, and contra at least once a week. Then in February, I'll be at the Flurry in Saratoga -- a long weekend of dancing with twenty people I've now met, two or three that I know well, and several hundred strangers. It'll be my last big burst of free time before the heaviest part of the fundraising season starts, and I am very much looking forward to it. (Dancing is the one activity that I don't even try to bring my blackberry to -- since skirts and tank tops don't have pockets -- so it really will be a mini-vacation.)
As I count up the options and possibilities, this could easily become a three-nights-a-week opportunity, or even four-to-five once I build up some stamina. Which means that, without question, the agreement Nicole and I came to earlier today is absolutely holding firm. Since I have enough time and energy in my life to go running *or* go dancing but not both, there's a choice to be made. And when the alternative is getting twirled around a dance floor by a number of very talented, well-heeled, beautiful women, there's not a moment of hesitation in deciding that running -- a painful, irritating form of exercise that isn't even remotely fun but that I feel guilty for not engaging in -- loses.
Besides, social dancing = cute clothes, and I'm still trying to flesh out my 98% replaced wardrobe!
That said, I am loving every single minute of it! The years of ballet class have been super helpful as I find that I'm very quick at picking up steps. A half-dozen contras paired with experienced partners who are taller and stronger than I am has taught me a TON about following a good lead (and compensating for a weak one), and I'm starting to figure out how to insert twirls and jumps and high kicks into the "extra beats" in the songs. (Granted, I have to be careful of the latter in a crowded hall; with legs longer than a Rockette I could take out an eye.)
Apart from Contra, this week marks my first foray into swing since a Term III course during my freshman year of college. I *love* big band, but almost all of my experience with it is on the rhythm and harmony line in the sax section. But a group of Swing/Blues/Lindy dancers gave an awesome snowball demo at the Contra on Friday, then graciously invited me out to dinner with them afterwards and convinced me to come out and learn at the next dance. Blues freaks me out since it doesn't have actual steps and is all about improvisation, but with the right partner I'm sure I'll conquer that particular fear. Eventually. My current plan is to start with the more formulaic stuff and work my way up; we'll see how long it works for.
If swing goes well, there are a few dances that could become weekly events (the halls are just a few blocks from my office), plus I have baroque class once a month, and contra at least once a week. Then in February, I'll be at the Flurry in Saratoga -- a long weekend of dancing with twenty people I've now met, two or three that I know well, and several hundred strangers. It'll be my last big burst of free time before the heaviest part of the fundraising season starts, and I am very much looking forward to it. (Dancing is the one activity that I don't even try to bring my blackberry to -- since skirts and tank tops don't have pockets -- so it really will be a mini-vacation.)
As I count up the options and possibilities, this could easily become a three-nights-a-week opportunity, or even four-to-five once I build up some stamina. Which means that, without question, the agreement Nicole and I came to earlier today is absolutely holding firm. Since I have enough time and energy in my life to go running *or* go dancing but not both, there's a choice to be made. And when the alternative is getting twirled around a dance floor by a number of very talented, well-heeled, beautiful women, there's not a moment of hesitation in deciding that running -- a painful, irritating form of exercise that isn't even remotely fun but that I feel guilty for not engaging in -- loses.
Besides, social dancing = cute clothes, and I'm still trying to flesh out my 98% replaced wardrobe!
Friday, January 8, 2010
Vacancy
One of the apartments in my building -- an old, single family row house renovated into flats decades ago and modernized in the last 5 years -- is available for lease on February 1; I'm trying to help my landlord fill it with a friendly tenant or two.
Flat: 2nd floor of a row house. 2 bedroom, 1 bath. Fully updated kitchen with plenty of cooking space (it's a near-duplicate of mine, which I absolutely love), and room for a small eating nook.
Building: 4 apartments, each on a different floor. Garden Flat (basement, with separate outsde entrance as well as shared main door keys) houses a single guy, a Criminal Justice student. First floor = me. Third floor is home to a young couple, both teachers. It's a friendly place to live. There's a tiny terrace out front, between the building and the wall/gate demarcating the sidewalk. There's an enormous backyard that all have access to; it's currently overgrown and in some disrepair, but Sam is planning a cleanup and remodel in time for spring.
Neighborhood: Fort Greene, Brooklyn. An excellent place to be young if you've got a bit of pocket money, restaurants and entertainment (both professional and amateur) opportunities abound. If environmentality is your thing, the park is in the heart of the neighborhood, with a year-round Green Market, and there are more than a dozen "green" groups in the area with which to volunteer. Also, Fort Greene is quite possibly the best place from which to arrange regular, easy travel to anywhere in NYC. (I say that as someone who doesn't drive or take cabs, unless I'm arranging car service to the airport, and regularly hangs out in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens or is racing to catch MetroNorth at Grand Central.) A maximum fifteen minute walk from the building gets you to a connection to every bus line in Brooklyn plus access to the 2,3,4,5, A, B, C, D, F, G, J, M, N, Q, R, W, and Z trains -- the commute is 15 minutes to Wall Street, 20 to Midtown, and the Cloisters at Inwood are just under an hour away.
So, the skinny: $1,800 per month. First, Last and finder's fee of $500 due at signing (all of which might be negotiable; I'm just relaying the facts as I know them). Use the "Contact" button in my blog header to shoot me an email with your details and I'll put you in touch with the landlord so you can come check us out.
Clearly, I love it here. I hope my new neighbors will, too.
Flat: 2nd floor of a row house. 2 bedroom, 1 bath. Fully updated kitchen with plenty of cooking space (it's a near-duplicate of mine, which I absolutely love), and room for a small eating nook.
Building: 4 apartments, each on a different floor. Garden Flat (basement, with separate outsde entrance as well as shared main door keys) houses a single guy, a Criminal Justice student. First floor = me. Third floor is home to a young couple, both teachers. It's a friendly place to live. There's a tiny terrace out front, between the building and the wall/gate demarcating the sidewalk. There's an enormous backyard that all have access to; it's currently overgrown and in some disrepair, but Sam is planning a cleanup and remodel in time for spring.
Neighborhood: Fort Greene, Brooklyn. An excellent place to be young if you've got a bit of pocket money, restaurants and entertainment (both professional and amateur) opportunities abound. If environmentality is your thing, the park is in the heart of the neighborhood, with a year-round Green Market, and there are more than a dozen "green" groups in the area with which to volunteer. Also, Fort Greene is quite possibly the best place from which to arrange regular, easy travel to anywhere in NYC. (I say that as someone who doesn't drive or take cabs, unless I'm arranging car service to the airport, and regularly hangs out in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens or is racing to catch MetroNorth at Grand Central.) A maximum fifteen minute walk from the building gets you to a connection to every bus line in Brooklyn plus access to the 2,3,4,5, A, B, C, D, F, G, J, M, N, Q, R, W, and Z trains -- the commute is 15 minutes to Wall Street, 20 to Midtown, and the Cloisters at Inwood are just under an hour away.
So, the skinny: $1,800 per month. First, Last and finder's fee of $500 due at signing (all of which might be negotiable; I'm just relaying the facts as I know them). Use the "Contact" button in my blog header to shoot me an email with your details and I'll put you in touch with the landlord so you can come check us out.
Clearly, I love it here. I hope my new neighbors will, too.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
UPS and the Fail Whale
I have zero patience when it comes to shopping. (And by "shopping" I mean picking out, paying for, and receiving a good or service -- NOT the act of wandering around looking at things that are for sale, which some people consider entertainment.) For me, shopping is not fun, it's not pleasant, and the entire experience is a colossal time-waster that can put me in a bad mood for what feels like weeks. To combat that, I discern what I want well in advance of showing up, I determine how much it costs (and thus if I'm actually willing to buy it or not; "not" always saves me a trip), and I review the process of actually finding, paying for, and receiving the item or service in question -- so that I'm not surprised or annoyed or flat-out angered by idiocy (mine or anyone else's) throughout.
The best laid plans of mice and men ... Of course it doesn't work.
And of course, after having spent so much time convincing myself that it will work, that all will be goodness and light and I'll be able to go about my business of wandering town with my head full of ponderings on Jhumpa Lahiri's newest book, or working out the details of should I make dinner plans before or after dancing on Friday, or puzzling over a work conundrum while waiting on the subway platform, or debating the use of buckwheat versus spelt flour for pancakes -- in other words, any number of things that are far more important to my overall happiness than shopping -- being foiled elicits an overwhelming sense of apoplectic rage.
And once I eventually calm down -- a state which takes mere hours, now, though it used to take days -- the rage gives way to despair for the fate of the human race for being so all-willingly stupid. Because we really are completely intent on being incompetent jackasses most of the time.
My beef today is with UPS. I arrived home last night to a note taped to my front door indicating that UPS had attempted to leave a package for me, and that as I wasn't home and the package required a signature, they would return for a second attempt on Thursday (today) between the hours of 2 and 5pm. Okay, cool. I have things to do on Thursday, but I can rearrange my schedule to be at home. After all, I'm super excited about this package -- it contains a pair of incredibly cool retro-futuristic-military-inspired trousers, the last pair in my size available in the U.S. -- and I'm really glad that the driver chose to try again rather than leave the package unattended. So, I spent some time last night rearranging my schedule for today and arranging to work from home in the afternoon. I adjusted workload for my team so that tasks needing my hands-on review were done in the morning and moved a series of calls to the afternoon, since I could manage them with relative ease from anywhere. It took about twenty minutes and caused a relatively minor rescheduling inconvenience for 6 people, including myself.
The morning went beautifully; I arrived at work an hour early, got a number of time-sensitive tasks done, spent extra time with my team answering questions and reviewing projects, gathered up notes for work I'd be doing in the afternoon, and left in precisely the window of time necessary to arrive home twenty minutes in advance of the window offered, just in case. The subway was perfectly on time, the weather was crisp but comfortable, and I enjoyed a lovely mid-day walk to my apartment.
When I arrived at home, there was another note from UPS on my door, indicating that they had already been and gone. I was mildly annoyed, but figured it would be no big deal; I planned to call UPS and figure out what happened, arrange a reset for the afternoon since they were clearly at fault, and it wouldn't be a big deal to adjust my evening plans by an hour if they needed to use the "after 5" slot.
Except that's not at all what happened.
I don't think I swore with my outside-head-voice, but I can't be certain. I most definitely wanted to kick her in the shins.
A service company, where the employees don't consider it a part of their job to set expectations for their clients, to deliver on those expectations, or to behave with responsibility and respect toward the work that they do. A customer service assistant who had no interest in assisting a customer, but only in making sure that I hung up the phone and stopped bothering her as quickly as possible.
Rage dissipated to despair on this one pretty quickly.
Firstly, the company is completely failing to use it's strengths. UPS has state of the art timing and tracking technology that's cross-connected with an enormous communication network. Used in tandem, those two systems indicate that they should be able to contact every intended recipient thirty minutes in advance of delivery and a) confirm that they're home and b) make note of any special notes about locations or routes (e.g. "The turn onto my street is icy so watch your speed."). They're wasting the millions of dollars that have been sunk into infrastructure.
Secondly, they're not treating recipients as clients. People sending packages are the ones that UPS cares about, clearly, since the sender pays the bill -- no COD, and all that. But, there's a point of fallacy with the assumption that recipients aren't clients.
How many Americans accept unexpected packages now? When I order something, I know precisely what's in the package, who and where it's from, and when it was shipped -- because I am receiving an item from someone I know, or because I purchased something and arranged to have it delivered to me, generally at a cost to me. In the former case, you can bet that I'll let my friends and family know what kind of experience I had with their choice of delivery service -- it's he kind of thing people talk about. And in the latter, "cost to me" should by synonymous with "paying customer," and that says all that UPS should need to know. On top of those, odds are good that one day I'll have to ship something to someone in a far-off location, and if I've been a recipient of mailed packages, the first thing I'll do when considering which delivery company to use is ask myself "do I know of a service company with whom I've had a good experience?" Recipients are prospective customers, too, of the cozy warm variety.
So I'm sitting here asking myself, how can it be that a company that's in the business of turning a profit, that has a global reach, with a wide variety of opportunities to connect with people and make them feel great, to bring about a fantastic experience for everyone they interact with (who doesn't like getting presents in the mail?!) -- how can it be that this company just can't be bothered to treat their sender and recipient clients as the most valuable resources they have at every turn? How can they justify ignoring the failure -- and the opportunity that is staring them in the face?
In the grand scheme of things, waiting until tomorrow for my package isn't a big deal. I was able to accomplish work this afternoon. I have the day off tomorrow and can easily entertain myself while waiting for the brown-suited delivery person to knock on my window -- I'm sure I'll have a grand time cooking, and I'm anxiously looking forward to reading the end of D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers. But what this experience with UPS does is underscore for me the isolation that I feel as a service-focused professional in a world that increasingly doesn't seem to give a damn about the value of human interaction. When the one chance an individual or company or organization has to make an impression or lay the foundation for a relationship is squandered without any sense of recognition, what hope is there that the few who do seem to care can out-run the tide of impersonality that seems to be turning the world? The prospect is just too exhausting for me to sustain outrage or disgust and also get anything meaningful accomplished.
The best laid plans of mice and men ... Of course it doesn't work.
And of course, after having spent so much time convincing myself that it will work, that all will be goodness and light and I'll be able to go about my business of wandering town with my head full of ponderings on Jhumpa Lahiri's newest book, or working out the details of should I make dinner plans before or after dancing on Friday, or puzzling over a work conundrum while waiting on the subway platform, or debating the use of buckwheat versus spelt flour for pancakes -- in other words, any number of things that are far more important to my overall happiness than shopping -- being foiled elicits an overwhelming sense of apoplectic rage.
And once I eventually calm down -- a state which takes mere hours, now, though it used to take days -- the rage gives way to despair for the fate of the human race for being so all-willingly stupid. Because we really are completely intent on being incompetent jackasses most of the time.
My beef today is with UPS. I arrived home last night to a note taped to my front door indicating that UPS had attempted to leave a package for me, and that as I wasn't home and the package required a signature, they would return for a second attempt on Thursday (today) between the hours of 2 and 5pm. Okay, cool. I have things to do on Thursday, but I can rearrange my schedule to be at home. After all, I'm super excited about this package -- it contains a pair of incredibly cool retro-futuristic-military-inspired trousers, the last pair in my size available in the U.S. -- and I'm really glad that the driver chose to try again rather than leave the package unattended. So, I spent some time last night rearranging my schedule for today and arranging to work from home in the afternoon. I adjusted workload for my team so that tasks needing my hands-on review were done in the morning and moved a series of calls to the afternoon, since I could manage them with relative ease from anywhere. It took about twenty minutes and caused a relatively minor rescheduling inconvenience for 6 people, including myself.
The morning went beautifully; I arrived at work an hour early, got a number of time-sensitive tasks done, spent extra time with my team answering questions and reviewing projects, gathered up notes for work I'd be doing in the afternoon, and left in precisely the window of time necessary to arrive home twenty minutes in advance of the window offered, just in case. The subway was perfectly on time, the weather was crisp but comfortable, and I enjoyed a lovely mid-day walk to my apartment.
When I arrived at home, there was another note from UPS on my door, indicating that they had already been and gone. I was mildly annoyed, but figured it would be no big deal; I planned to call UPS and figure out what happened, arrange a reset for the afternoon since they were clearly at fault, and it wouldn't be a big deal to adjust my evening plans by an hour if they needed to use the "after 5" slot.
Except that's not at all what happened.
"Our drivers make one attempt per day; you'll have to wait until tomorrow."
"But your driver didn't follow the instructions that were noted on the slip left on my door; the note explicitly stated that I should expect delivery between 2 and 5pm, so I made arrangements to be here 20 minutes ahead of that window and remain for the duration. But you're telling me that because she was already here, at noon -- TWO HOURS early -- she won't come back, even though UPS clearly made a mistake?"
"Our drivers make one attempt per day, you'll have to wait until tomorrow." [Note: exact repetition is not an exaggeration.]
"But why didn't she call me? My cell phone number is on the slip, so she clearly had the means to communicate and obviously knew she was going to be early if she arrived 2 hours ahead of schedule."
"Our drivers have no responsibility to confirm time slots. We do not guarantee timed delivery, we merely make an effort to estimate for you."
"Then why bother indicating a time slot at all? If your driver had merely indicated 'sometime on Thursday,' which you are saying is the extent of what UPS considers their responsibility, my expectations would have been lower and I would have arranged my day accordingly. Why raise my expectations when you have no intention of delivering on them?"
"That's not our job, ma'am."
I don't think I swore with my outside-head-voice, but I can't be certain. I most definitely wanted to kick her in the shins.
A service company, where the employees don't consider it a part of their job to set expectations for their clients, to deliver on those expectations, or to behave with responsibility and respect toward the work that they do. A customer service assistant who had no interest in assisting a customer, but only in making sure that I hung up the phone and stopped bothering her as quickly as possible.
Rage dissipated to despair on this one pretty quickly.
Firstly, the company is completely failing to use it's strengths. UPS has state of the art timing and tracking technology that's cross-connected with an enormous communication network. Used in tandem, those two systems indicate that they should be able to contact every intended recipient thirty minutes in advance of delivery and a) confirm that they're home and b) make note of any special notes about locations or routes (e.g. "The turn onto my street is icy so watch your speed."). They're wasting the millions of dollars that have been sunk into infrastructure.
Secondly, they're not treating recipients as clients. People sending packages are the ones that UPS cares about, clearly, since the sender pays the bill -- no COD, and all that. But, there's a point of fallacy with the assumption that recipients aren't clients.
How many Americans accept unexpected packages now? When I order something, I know precisely what's in the package, who and where it's from, and when it was shipped -- because I am receiving an item from someone I know, or because I purchased something and arranged to have it delivered to me, generally at a cost to me. In the former case, you can bet that I'll let my friends and family know what kind of experience I had with their choice of delivery service -- it's he kind of thing people talk about. And in the latter, "cost to me" should by synonymous with "paying customer," and that says all that UPS should need to know. On top of those, odds are good that one day I'll have to ship something to someone in a far-off location, and if I've been a recipient of mailed packages, the first thing I'll do when considering which delivery company to use is ask myself "do I know of a service company with whom I've had a good experience?" Recipients are prospective customers, too, of the cozy warm variety.
So I'm sitting here asking myself, how can it be that a company that's in the business of turning a profit, that has a global reach, with a wide variety of opportunities to connect with people and make them feel great, to bring about a fantastic experience for everyone they interact with (who doesn't like getting presents in the mail?!) -- how can it be that this company just can't be bothered to treat their sender and recipient clients as the most valuable resources they have at every turn? How can they justify ignoring the failure -- and the opportunity that is staring them in the face?
In the grand scheme of things, waiting until tomorrow for my package isn't a big deal. I was able to accomplish work this afternoon. I have the day off tomorrow and can easily entertain myself while waiting for the brown-suited delivery person to knock on my window -- I'm sure I'll have a grand time cooking, and I'm anxiously looking forward to reading the end of D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers. But what this experience with UPS does is underscore for me the isolation that I feel as a service-focused professional in a world that increasingly doesn't seem to give a damn about the value of human interaction. When the one chance an individual or company or organization has to make an impression or lay the foundation for a relationship is squandered without any sense of recognition, what hope is there that the few who do seem to care can out-run the tide of impersonality that seems to be turning the world? The prospect is just too exhausting for me to sustain outrage or disgust and also get anything meaningful accomplished.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
you can be awkward and you can be slow
I feel like I've lived a whole year inside my own head today. I was flooded with new information in a series of meetings this morning, suddenly worrying about concepts that had never crossed my radar. Couple that with some annual planning headaches, overlapping timelines, and new ideas flapping around looking for an outlet, and the day was more than full.
The good news is that I've come up with a half-dozen new ideas. The iffy part is that they could go either way; I could be ready to make the game-winning catch or lost in daydreams picking dandelions. Since it'll be awhile before I know, have one of my favorite Peter, Paul and Mary songs to entertain you.
The good news is that I've come up with a half-dozen new ideas. The iffy part is that they could go either way; I could be ready to make the game-winning catch or lost in daydreams picking dandelions. Since it'll be awhile before I know, have one of my favorite Peter, Paul and Mary songs to entertain you.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Resolved
On my second day back to work, I've done a slightly better job of sticking to my overarching resolution for The Year of Discernment than on the first.
That said, I'm still amazed that with just one cup of tea in the morning it takes me two hours to get out of the house, that a "five minute" conversation can take the better part of an hour, that my gut instinct is to jump at a chance even when I know I have to pause and consider for more than thirty seconds. I left at 5:20 tonight, "5 minutes late," as my staff remind me, and was glad of a long walk in icy air to clear my head. (Literally as well as figuratively; I think our cleaning staff have started using something perfumed.) It was helpful to remind myself that self-imposed deadlines can be changed, that good delegation is a learning process, and that when I give myself room to think I'm more effective -- mainly because I remember to delegate stuff that falls outside my primary skillset. (First step in that process; acknowledge when I'm not the best person for a project.)
I'm hoping that day 3 will show further improvement: my intention is to take a 20-minute lunch break and a 10-minute walk, in hopes that a head-clearing time-out might make the afternoon as productive as the morning.
That said, I'm still amazed that with just one cup of tea in the morning it takes me two hours to get out of the house, that a "five minute" conversation can take the better part of an hour, that my gut instinct is to jump at a chance even when I know I have to pause and consider for more than thirty seconds. I left at 5:20 tonight, "5 minutes late," as my staff remind me, and was glad of a long walk in icy air to clear my head. (Literally as well as figuratively; I think our cleaning staff have started using something perfumed.) It was helpful to remind myself that self-imposed deadlines can be changed, that good delegation is a learning process, and that when I give myself room to think I'm more effective -- mainly because I remember to delegate stuff that falls outside my primary skillset. (First step in that process; acknowledge when I'm not the best person for a project.)
I'm hoping that day 3 will show further improvement: my intention is to take a 20-minute lunch break and a 10-minute walk, in hopes that a head-clearing time-out might make the afternoon as productive as the morning.
Monday, January 4, 2010
January
The cold air was breathtaking, and invigorating, and beautiful today.
There's something crisp and clean and comforting about gray, now that the holidays are over. The city is gray, spangled with silver and gold when the sun glints off of sparkles in the concrete, or off of plate glass windows on skyscrapers. The statue of Liberty looks small but steadfast on the water, a gray that's swirled with deep colors of blue and green and brown, and the salty black that pools between the wave caps.
It's wonderful to find the space and time after the glitz and spangle of the holidays restful and lovely.
There's something crisp and clean and comforting about gray, now that the holidays are over. The city is gray, spangled with silver and gold when the sun glints off of sparkles in the concrete, or off of plate glass windows on skyscrapers. The statue of Liberty looks small but steadfast on the water, a gray that's swirled with deep colors of blue and green and brown, and the salty black that pools between the wave caps.
It's wonderful to find the space and time after the glitz and spangle of the holidays restful and lovely.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Perfect Scrambled Eggs
If you haven't eaten brunch yet today, have I got a recipe for you. Especially if, like me, you keep eggs, butter, tomato, mushrooms, and some form of artisan bread as pantry staples. I share with you Gordon Ramsey's Scrambled Eggs, otherwise known (by me) as delectable brunch in 7 minutes (5 if you work the prep (cleaning mushrooms, slicing bread, opening packaging) in advance).
For my version this morning, I used sour cream instead of creme fraiche (because the former is a staple for my fridge and creme fraiche is something I only buy if a recipe calls for it) and omitted the chives (none on hand), and served the eggs over English Muffin Bread (since I need to create a new sourdough starter this afternoon). Adding the cream turned my favorite well-cooked hard scramble into a delicate, English-style soft egg. Next time I'll set the heat over the mushrooms at 2 rather than 1; the tomatos weren't quite as hot and squishy as I prefer. But the whole thing took less than eight minutes, from splashing oil into the frying pan over low heat to setting the egg pot to soak and taking my plate to the table. No need to go outdoors for brunch today!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Quotes and Context
Now that I can see it all as from a lonely hilltop, I know it was the story of a mighty vision given to a man too weak to use it; of a holy tree that should have flourished in a people's heart with flowers and singing birds, and now is withered; and of a people's dream that died in bloody snow.
- Nicholas Black Elk (1863-1950)
on the Battle at Wounded knee
I read that quote on the bus this morning, as an MTA "train of thought" note. It was intriguing to me; I wanted to know more of whom Black Elk spoke -- a man too weak to use his vision, which I (simplistically) assumed to be related to averting the massacre at Wounded Knee. Since I was on my way to the library to return some books, I ran up to the history section to borrow Black Elk Speaks.
It's a very circuitous, prayerful story of the spiritual journey of a people, which is not at all to my liking -- but I'm thinking that Becca and Becky would both like it immensely. That said, sifting through several sections while waiting in the returns/exchanges line at Ikea yielded a couple of interesting points.
- The MTA staffer responsible for Trains of Thought placed Nicholas Black Elk's quote in the wrong context. It wasn't a comment "on the Battle at Wounded Knee" at all.
- The man of whom Black Elk speaks, the one too weak to use the story of a mighty vision, the story of the holy tree now withered and dead (presumably due to that man's weakness), is himself.
I'm going to search out some Lakota and Souix histories -- too much of what I think I know is clouded by film and fiction -- and possibly come back to Black Elk Speaks when I have a solid framework of fact to ground the poetic flights of a spiritual leader. And I've thus far restrained myself from pointing out the error to the MTA; irritating as it is, no one likes a McGarry.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Adding a year to the archive list
I hope the earliest hours of 2010 found everyone healthy and happy. I rang in the new year with dear friends in Norwalk, Connecticut -- lovely meals complete with a supremely exquisite chocolate-covered bacon, multiple games of Ticket to Ride (coolest game I've played yet!), a gather-round-the-piano sing-along of Suburban Folk Songs, a marathon viewing of Sports Night, plus much drinking and noshing and chatter and laughter. If it's true that the way you begin the year is the way you spend the majority of it, I'm happy with this auspice.
I also spent a little time thinking about what went well in 2009, and what I want to improve on in 2010. One of my goals --
I tucked a journal into my knapsack yesterday, for my train-ride to Connecticut. (My Mom gave me two gorgeous little leather-bound books for Christmas; I almost can't wait to fill up my current volume so I can begin using one of those.) So, today's post is a bit of a dreamscape over what I looked at for part of the ride.
I also spent a little time thinking about what went well in 2009, and what I want to improve on in 2010. One of my goals --
rediscover how to write passionately and with fervor rather than merely rant for laughs (e.g. write more blog posts, like this one, and fewer Facebook/Twitter updates about ultimately meaningless daily frustrations)-- is something that I can begin work on right away. To that end, I've set myself the challenge of writing every day of the year. Not a great deal, generally, and not with the intention of being overly (if at all) polished, but something intentional and meaningful. Sometimes it might be a bit of overheard conversation. Sometimes a captioned photo (if I ever remember to take my camera out of the house with me). Perhaps an occasional haiku. But enough of something, every day, that forces me to take time for myself and breathe and quiet my thoughts.
~*~
I tucked a journal into my knapsack yesterday, for my train-ride to Connecticut. (My Mom gave me two gorgeous little leather-bound books for Christmas; I almost can't wait to fill up my current volume so I can begin using one of those.) So, today's post is a bit of a dreamscape over what I looked at for part of the ride.
December 31, 2009 3:04 pm
On the train to South Norwalk, to spend New Year's Eve and Day with the Zambo's. The woman across the aisle from me is napping, curled up against a carpet bag while her little boy -- maybe 6 -- presses his nose against the window to see the exact moment the train leaves the tunnel to ride above ground in the East 90s.
Carpet bag. I suppose I can't call it that -- it's a patchwork of machine-embroidered tapestry fabrics bounds with leather piping and a reinforced bottom, and brass buckles, but built in a vintage carpet bag shape.
I assume that, like most of the passengers in this car seem to be, the lady and her little boy are on their way out of the city for a holiday, or on their way home from a brief stay elsewhere. I could be wrong, of course, but her shoes are gorgeously inappropriate for walking anydistance in winter weather, and he has a pair of mittens hanging on a string from the sleeves of his parka. That type of fashion consciousness for the adult and practicality for the child screams "live in New England, work in New York" to me.
Carpet bag. Comforting, how we use the trappings of a different age in our own every day lives. During Reconstruction, if one didn't have a floor, why keep a rug for it? Cut it up and turn it into something useful, carry your worldly possessions to a place where you can start again. A change of clothes (smalls and stockings and a clean collar, perhaps?), a hairbrush, a beloved book, a precious bowl or dish? A child's toy, a billfold. And we use them now -- beautiful reconstructions of what were once the children of Necessity -- for beautiful convenience, carrying an afternoon snack, a novel, a pair of gloves, a tube of lipstick, a coloring book and crayons, pajamas and a toiletry kit. A scant few of our worldly possessions.
We carry the past with us, even when we don't know how or why. Even when we don't notice.
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