dead roots and leaves all tangled up on the ground

The element of my flat that sold me on renting it when I first saw it was the back yard: a building sized lot that had clearly been neglected, but held a lot of promise.  Like many such spaces in Brooklyn, it's "a secret garden" -- there's absolutely no indication that the space exists unless you happen to be inside one of the buildings that overlooks it.

My new neighbor, Allistar, is as crazy for green-and-growing-things as I am -- on the day he moved in, he started chattering about the cool things we should do to fix up the space, and wanted to arrange time to get together and make plans.  We've been chatting on and off for the last few weeks, and really got to work today.

The photo above is the view from just outside the back door.  (The ladder in the foreground belongs to the fire escape, and needs several people who are stronger and more agile than i to lift and jimmy it back into place.) The lowest level, where you see the trash bags sitting, is going to be the space for a barbecue pit (charcoal) and a container garden.  The compost bin will also be on this level, to the far left against the neighboring fence.

The raised bed to the right in the photo directly above will be a flower bed; I spent four hours this afternoon ripping out weeds and vines, sifting through bricks and stones and dead branches and accumulated trash (and also sweeping and raking and heliping A with the composter).  The area above the stone step, that looks a bit like a concrete bed and is full of branches and leaves (and a snake whom we met today) is going to be the "hang-out space".  There's room for an exceptionally long picnic table that Allistar owns and 6 fantastic chairs that we've scavenged from the storage room of the building -- and I'm going to research how much work it will take to design and stitch a sailcloth canopy for over the top of it.

The terribly overgrown plants and weeds will all be ripped out, and replaced with something akin to ground cover.  We're debating what it would take to play bocce ball or lawn games in the space (and I'm secretly hoping for a very smooth surface, since the space is long enough for twelve couples to form a contra line).

This piece of granite is a remnant from the countertop in my kitchen; there are several pieces of this general size, in various states of broken-ness.  Together with other tiles and some flat rocks, I think we can interlay an intriguing little walking path through whatever groundcover is planted on the upper level.

These two little images show close-ups of the soon-to-be flowerbed.  The left is a detail of a small stone trough that's embedded within the larger space.  I can't tell if it's cemented in place or just wedged in to a degree that I can't move it, but the point is moot either way; it's not moving.  This week I get to look at landscape books to find partial sun or shade-tolerant flowering plants of varying colors and heights that I can plant, including some fast-growing climbers to cover that eyesore of a fence.

 Here is a view of the left half of the lower courtyard.  That pile of flotsam in the foreground is what I pulled out of the flowerbed, minus the dead leaves that went into the compost bin. After our landlord comes to remove all of the detritus, the compost will move into the far corner of this space (we'll be able to use the little ledge in that isolated wall as a tabletop of sorts to add scraps), and once the upper level is landscaped we'll move it the very back-left corner of the yard, far away from the house (and my open kitchen window). Then I'll purchase a charcoal grill and we'll build a barbecue area in the vacated space.

 A view through the little "window in the wall".

And continuing to pan around the lower courtyard, here's the composter.  That little pile of bricks and slate and tile and stones are pieces that I pulled out of the flowerbed space; I've reserved them for landscaping. Later this summer, we'll be building a set of four 2' by 3' containers for planting vegetables and herbs; they'll live in a row along this section of ugly fence to a) screen it from view and b) take advantage of the only "full sun" section of the space.

It needs quite a bit of TLC -- lots of flotsam and jetsam to be removed, which we're badgering Sam about daily; some professional masonry repair and sealing coat of whitewash on all of the stonework, which we've also been promised; and lots of additional cleaning, planting, grooming and cultivation, and attention to details.  But, it has the potential to be a really fantastic space.  Not to mention, the roof -- accessible by the ladder of that fire escape -- has a terrific view of the East River Fireworks display at fourth of July.

The afternoon spent working in this space, coupled with agreement from my Dad that he'll spend some time here in August helping me make some renovations to the bedroom space, has cured my itchy feet.  I'm ready to stay settled for awhile.

Choosing Me: Nutrition Update

So I knew that this goal of adding leafy greens to my diet every day was going to be hard to meet, and I'm really glad that I didn't expect to make a big change drastically, right away. Nothing like feeling like a failure right off the bat -- been there, done that!  I expected the change to take awhile, but I didn't expect that shooting for such a specific, daily change would positively impact my diet in other ways.

I've been a "weekly chef" since I first started cooking for myself in 2004. One afternoon of chopping, measuring, sauteeing, and baking = a week of yummy meals, and ensures that I can fit more into the other six days than "wake up, go to work, come home and make dinner, sleep". But there have been times (more than I like to admit to) when that meant a week of noshing on the same dish day after day after day. Not only does that get boring for the palate, but repetitive meals don't rack up any nutritional bonus points. No super food has all of the good nutrients, after all!

But, since making my "Choose You" commitment, I've been thinking more deeply about meals, and the spoils of my last few shopping trips have reflected a broader focus on fruits and veggies in general  I usually buy a couple of servings of each and plan to eat them with particular meals in particular ways.  The last three times I've been in Whole Foods, though, I've left with more produce than anything else (okay, part of that might be because it's spring verging on summer and everything looks so luscious!) and without specific plans on how to prepare or eat each one.  And I'm excited by the results.

Having spent the afternoon working on my back yard that will soon become a hang-out garden, I'm now doing my food prep for the week, and am thrilled that, without consciously deciding that "more variety is better", I'm making double the usual number of dishes than usual, leaving more raw foods in the fridge for snack-packs, and planning fewer portions of each one. This week's menus include:

• Handmade pita pockets from the farmer's market stuffed with baby spinach and chicken salad (baked breasts encrusted with a four-pepper blend plus paprika and sea salt, cubed and combined with halved red globe grapes, tiny celery dice, crushed pecans, and a horseradish dressing)
• Whole wheat cranberry flaxseed scones with clotted cream and fresh strawberries
• Potato Leek soup with carrots and parsnips (the leeks, newly in season here, are gorgeous and as large as my forearms!) served alongside braised curly kale topped with parmesan cheese
• A Spanish Risotto made with sofrito, spinach, chorizo, the most stunning fresh tomatoes imaginable, and a cayenne-based spice blend I usually use for jambalaya
• A brand-new recipe for Shrimp and Grits, which I'm planning to halve and make for dinner on Friday with a sheep's-milk cheese, and serve with rainbow chard and roasted green beans (since I loathe the more traditional pairing of collard greens with toasted nuts).
• Granola (made from my very favorite recipe for hand-made cereal) with coconut and strawberry creamline yogurts from Ronnybrook Farm

Plus grapes, strawberries, baby tomatoes, sliced cucumber, and guacamole for snacking on. And a box of chocolate chip shortbread that proved irresistible (and will be my reward for completing four projects at work this week), and the sourdough bread that's rising on the counter.

Gastronomically, I am *so* looking forward to this week.

Working for the Weekend

I am *so* in need of a weekend.

I forgot how exhausting it is to be constantly developing creative output and constantly doing research -- and this week I've done both pretty much nonstop: analyzed tens of thousands of lines of data going back three years, in order to build out three new projects and a training plan.  Only one is final while the other three are still in the works, but all have serious promise. This is fantastic -- it truly is.

But at the same time, having built a life that includes time to breathe and step back from constant-work-mode, I now recognize stress and anxiety before they get to the overwhelm-and-cause-a-near-nervous-breakdown-only-solved-by-sleeping-for-three-days point. Stress and anxiety and insane amounts of busy-ness? Aren't terribly fun. I'm afraid that I've been a bit of a frenetic grumpy-puss this week; I've certainly been less cheerful than usual, and don't much like that trend.

At the same time, this is Choose You week -- I made a pledge to take good care of myself in some pretty specific ways, and that means paying attention when things run out of balance like they are right now. I'm feeling very compelled to work all weekend, to clear the backlog of questions and ideas and new reading material off of my desk and out of my inbox, but I'm not going to. Nothing that's in the "pending" pile is urgent, nothing that I don't get to tomorrow will be injured or damaged or neglected by waiting until Monday. But it's still going to be hard to leave it, to not think about it all.

One of my colleagues, the charming and snarky-sweet Gabrielle, thinks that I should learn to meditate. I think she might be right, but there are only so many new things I can handle all at once -- curling my ankles up onto my thighs and chanting, "om," for ten minutes every morning will have to wait.

Choose you. I did.

Today is Choose You Day -- the Workplace Kickoff of the American Cancer Society's new movement to help women everywhere fight cancer by learning to put themselves first. Like the airplane safety instruction to "place the oxygen mask on your own face before turning to help someone else," ACS knows that women -- who make 80% of the medical decisions for their families -- can only be truly effective leaders and role models and caregivers and Chief Decision Officers for others if they are first working to take care of themselves.  Choose You is about building a community and a support network and an accountability system and a progress report to make it easy and acceptable for women to make the right choices, to take care of themselves, without feeling selfish or wrong for doing so.

Full Disclosure: I work for the American Cancer Society, and am incredibly proud and honored to do so, but I am not a spokesperson for this campaign. (I'm not a spokesperson for anything -- I'm far too opinionated and polarizing and generally unwilling to compromise when I know I'm right!) But I very much believe in this campaign, and was both intimidated and excited by the chance to "Choose Me" for our kickoff launch in the office today.

Because I did make a commitment to choose myself today. I set three goals that will improve my health:

• Set aside sacred time to recharge with friends, by reserving Saturday nights for dancing -- not work
• Exercise regularly by getting over my fear of cycling in traffic to begin commuting by bike
• Improve my diet by adding another serving of vegetables to my diet every day.

I love dancing, so have made it a point to reserve every Saturday evening for a long, energetic, community dance. Laughing while twirling up and down a hall is an abdominal workout I can easily commit to, and the reserved time ensures that I never fail to spend time with my friends. I've been dancing nearly every Saturday since early January, so this is something that I can continue to do with ease, but I've just made it much harder to say "oh, I can skip to handle this thing that's nagging at my time".

I re-learned how to ride a bicycle when I moved to Brooklyn last spring, but generally only get out for a ride on the weekends. This month, I pledge to get over my fear of cycling in traffic and begin commuting to and from the office each day. (If I can bike 6 miles to work every morning, I can definitely convince my Dad to walk a mile to the market when he runs out of milk!)

I always seem to have trouble fitting enough leafy greens into my diet. Being six feet tall I appear slimmer than I actually am, which can make cheating easy to get away with -- "I *look* thin, so nobody will notice if my diet isn't up to par...". But cheating now means that in ten years I won’t have all the positive boosts of heart and circulatory health that come from eating kale and spinach and chard. So I also pledge to visit the farmer’s market every week and learn how to cook – and eat! – these nutritional powerhouse veggies.

I'm happy with and proud of these decisions, and my choice to Choose Me today.  Of course, I say that while sitting at my computer eating popcorn for dinner a few minutes after midnight; the afternoon and evening got away from me a bit. But tomorrow is a new day, and it will involve a walk to the Union Square Greenmarket after work, and a veggie-packed dinner, and a bike ride for some around-Brooklyn-errands afterwards. And most importantly, the knowledge that I'm not alone.

Train of Thought

Buses and Subway cars are filled with advertisements, some interesting or entertaining, others not so much. One of my favorite series is the Subtalk: Train of Thought line, put out by the MTA, the Humanities Initiative at NYU, the NYPL, and Jeopardy. But then, I like anything put forth with the intention of encouraging people to exercise their minds (as do those sponsors, which explains why I also like them!).

The current quote on the C train is one of Emerson's:

"Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its own focus."

I haven't been in much of a mood for cautionary tales in the last year, so haven't sought out Ralph Waldo's essays. (I love them, but his occasionally moralistic tone rubs me the wrong way when I'm not prepared for it.) Perhaps I'll dip into the pastoral stereotype and reread Experience during one of my Sunday-in-the-Park jaunts. Or ignore truth in favor of fiction, purposefully misunderstand the quotation, and take Alcott's Moods along for a read instead.

Some Hard Reading

For anyone who is raising a daughter, for everyone who loves or cares for a woman, or a little girl who will very quickly grow up to be a woman, read this blog post: Fugitivus' Another Post About Rape.

For anybody who has ever watched the gendered social interactions of women — watched a woman get browbeaten into accepting attention she doesn’t want, watched a woman get interrupted while speaking, watched a woman deny she is upset at being insulted in public, watched a woman get grabbed because of what she was wearing, watched a woman stop arguing — and said and done nothing, you never have the right to ever ask, “Why didn’t she fight back?”

She didn’t fight back because you told her not to. Ever. Ever. You told her that was okay, and necessary, and right.

You didn’t give her a caveat. You didn’t say, “Unless…” You said, “Good for you, shutting up and backing down 99% of the time. Too bad that 1% of the time makes you a fucking whore who deserved it.”

Read the anger, and the outrage, and the pain, and think long and hard about every instance in which your own behavior has contributed to the social mores that make rape an accepted part of everyday life in every country, city, and town in this world.

I am shuddering in horror at the number of times I have been silent. The number of times I have struggled with fear to avoid violence, have played along, or sidled away, or bargained, or shifted into a defensive posture, or modulated my voice, or ducked my head, without having the guts to just say, loudly, and vehemently, and full of righteous indignation,

"No, I'm NOT interested."
"No, leave me alone NOW."
"No, you do NOT have the right."
"No."

Thank you, Aja, for the link.

...her long, loose hair flung round her head...

I've always been a bit of a pain about my hair. Even when I wore it shaved off, I don't think I ever really stopped thinking about it -- how it feels, how it looks, how it doesn't look, how manageable it is or isn't, ugh. And of course, now that it's spring and I'm spending time outside in the wind, and riding my bike (without a hideous helmet, as I am neither a speed racer or an extreme rider, nor do I ride in areas well populated with automotive, cycling, or pedestrian traffic, thank you very much), and attempting to garden, my long-but-not-long-enough locks are constantly in my face. It's time for a change.

You see, I love long hair. I like brushing it, plaiting it, wearing it. But I'm a terrible hand at dressing (or "styling") it. I can pull it into a tail, twist it into a clip, curl and pin it back, or let it alone, but that's about it. And, unfortunately, the days of employing ladies maids to tend to such inconsequential whims as taming one's appearance are over. And if I'd been born into a time and place when they weren't, I'd be in the class doing the waiting, rather than being waited upon. Or governessing, or teaching, neither of which allowed for elaborate tresses.

But I digress.

That I love long, curled, flowing locks does not make growing into or wearing my hair in that style a logical, rational way of life. And so, it's time for a change.

I've been looking at hairstyles all over the city for the past few weeks, and have not found what I'm actually looking for on anyone. Which makes sense, since I prefer vintage styles and those are never really the rage. What I'm thinking of is a late 20s-early-30s-era English bob, something that was mod at the time, but seems both romantically classic and a little out-of-the-ordinary now. That, while being essentially wash-daub-with-gel-and-go, can also be dressed up with pins, ribbon bands, and finger curls -- and would look completely adorable under the cloche hat that I want to make and wear all summer long.

So now I need a selection of photographs. And a stylist who charges something less than $85 for a cut that will require trimming every six to eight weeks. Because, while I love my hair, I'd like to save the funds on that budget line for a trip to London, where my new bob will feel even more appropriate than it will here, with that cloche hat, and a summer sundress, and my pretty cream-colored bicycle.

Because, as Peterman says, "people want things that make their lives they way they wish they were."

The Stranger and the Statesman

I read both more quickly (novel in a weekend) and more slowly (a few pages each morning of my commute) in New York. I've been working through a book about the founding benefactor of the Smithsonian Institute for the better part of a month.

It's taking awhile for a myriad of reasons: I keep jotting down notes of things to look up about French Society during the Napoleonic Wars; I keep obsessing about The Royal Society as a model for recipients of medical science patronage (i.e. nonprofit research grant recipients) to meet and network with one another while sharing exciting new findings with audiences of their peers, and making sketches for what a modern fraternity of that sort might look like; and I keep running to my myriad volumes of Austenian prose to compare fact-versus-fiction details about particular locales and professions.

But when I stop stopping and just enjoy the reading, I'm struck by how much more enjoyable the average student might find history class if textbooks were written in a witty, accessible style that took as a given that readers are intelligent people hungry for meaningful detail. Example:

"A modern man or woman transplanted into the Pump Room [in Bath] to watch the grand Northumberlands taking the waters -- once he or she got over the alarming public health situation -- would be startled at the many differences between us and them. First of all, eighteenth-century Europeans were much shorter than we are, probably by 6 or more inches. They were also, thanks to their creamy, meaty diet and different exercise habits, rounder and paler. They had fewer teeth, and even a full set probably didn't gleam pearly white. They died at a younger age, and of ailments that are curable today in a single dose, but, in some ways, they were hardier. They could consume mind-boggling amounts of fat-laden food and booze. If they were lucky and healthy, they survived deadly childhood diseases without inoculation, infection without antibiotics, and dentistry and surgery without anesthetics" (p 22).

That passage read aloud in a 10th grade Global Studies classroom is going to spark a very different conversation about history - one that touches on sociology, anthropology, political history, the development of medical and agricultural science, gastronomy, and economics -- by sparking a reader's natural curiosity. So much more effective than a dry list of dates and place names and chief consumer exports.

*

In other observations, I am terribly curious as to why Demeter has chosen to punish us New Yorkers this spring.  Last Sunday I enjoyed a gorgeous, warm day at the pier in Riverside Park, only to spend an entire week recovering from the worst sunburn of my adult life as a result of it. Tonight, I am wrapped in a quilt and holding a steaming mug of tea, getting ready to tuck myself into a bed piled high with extra blankets, wearing wool knee socks, fleece pajama pants, and a hooded sweatshirt. Persephone sure as hell knows how to count to springtime...

Elena Kagan

President Obama has named Elena Kagan as his nominee for Supreme Court Justice.

I don't actively follow politics or the actions of the American Justice system with any regularity now, though eight years ago I couldn't consider my day a success unless I'd read 4 examinations of every major news issue that echoed from NPR news radio or beckoned from the pages of the New York Times. I couldn't have told you anything about Elena Kagan, even the fact that she existed, yesterday.

But after reading the articles in this morning's Times (Obama Nominates Kagan as Justice and A Climb Marked by Confidence and Canniness), I am energized and excited by this news. I want to go read the work she's published, see what notes I can find about her lectures as a law professor, read old versions of the Princetonian to see what captured her interests as a young philosopher.

While there are many, many factors that go into determining suitability for a post of such responsibility, the fact that Kagan is *this interesting* makes her a better candidate in my book than any other nominated in the last fifteen years.

Go Bananas!

Want to know a secret? As far as I'm concerned, the best bananas in the city are available at the little street carts set up near busy intersections.

1. Bananas are top of the list of pesticide-safe fruits -- thick, inedible, protective skin -- so buying organic versus inorganic is of negligible value.


2. Their propensity to blemish makes it easy to see if the fruit has been handled well. (I've never been satisfied with the selection at Whole Foods or Fresh Fanatic or General Greene; the little bagged bunches always seem to have bruised edges or deep dents from being tossed around. The cart vendors know that the appearance of their produce is the main selling point -- the bananas are usually golden and glowing, and piled individually so you can choose the clearest, loveliest ones.)


3. Ripeness is also a consideration; market selections are almost always too green or too speckled, but carts are restocked every day or two with new offerings.


4.  As far as convenience goes, toss 35 cents in your pocket on the way out the door and pick up breakfast en route to the subway -- no muss, fuss, lines, or delays.

I'm still searching for the best apple strudel, fresh mozzarella, and bulk-offered cane sugar; if I find them in unexpected places, I'll share the tip.

H8 and Love: Photo Update

On April 21, I attended the Anti-Hate-Crimes rally at the LGBT Center in New York City -- I wrote about it here: H8 and Love. Below are the three photos I took that seem to have some valuable qualities.  All are of the youth Pride Chorus.

In the moment between their introduction and the start of their accompaniment 

The opening lines of True Colors

 

The woman in the scarlet sweater, with her eyes closed, is the sign language interpreter.  Yes, she signed the songs, as well as the speeches, and seemed to be loving every moment.

As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat.*

Proof that Miranda prefers Corrin's company to mine.

No way she'd ever sit still in that kind of position for me, let alone be purring loudly enough to be mistaken for a John Deere tractor.

* Quote attributed to Ellen Perry Berkeley.

Another tool in the arsenal for Social Justice

I have had three conversations with different sets of people in the last week about Paulo Freire and the concept of pedagogy as a tool to be used to fight parity and improve conditions of social justice. I need to reread the books myself, but the essential point:

Freire was a middle-class Brazilian educational theorist born in the early 1920s who developed an educational theory in staunch opposition to tabula rasa, based in part on Platonic and Marxist ideals and vociferously arguing against the concept of Colonialized education. He argued that true egalitarian education could only be brought about by abolishing the appearance of a student-teacher dichotomy, that it's absolutely necessary for teachers to approach their work as those who can learn from everyone, and to approach their students as people and individuals with experiences that have shaped them and allowed them to grow, giving the students something to teach as well.  That the natural propensity to share that which is known should be cultivated from every person who walks into a classroom, regardless of the defined role that one is expected to fulfill (teacher or student).

If you intend to teach, Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed is on your required reading list. If your professors haven't added it for you, add it yourself -- and then ask why they aren't pushing you to expand your pedagogical experiences as learners while you're learning to teach.

Dispatches: A Storm

One of the few blogs that survived my RSS Subscription Purge from a few weeks back is a blogspot account named Dispatches, written by a woman named Lindsay Morgan, a writer and policy analyst working on poverty in Tanzania.

In her first post on the blog, written last September as she was preparing to leave for Africa, she addressed the quandary that global initiative workers face: how to tell the stories that they witness with honesty and candor, while not allowing their own positions of privilege and their comfort of speaking to a familiar audience (albeit about an unfamiliar place and context) to improperly color their judgement. To avoid the imperial gaze, to allow the literature and cultural writing of a people to stand for itself, to present the facts without commenting on them in a way that usurps the original story.  (A slightly modernized conundrum of that which Chinua Achebe described and explored in part 2 of Home and Exile: The Empire Fights Back.) There are useful lessons in her experience for me -- for everyone working in public policy for equity among people, for social justice from a position of strength and relative power -- but I'll examine and write about them at a later date.

For right now, I want to call your attention to her most recent post, written on April 30th. A Storm is a recollection of the recent weather experienced within Dar es Salaam; the first from Lindsay's perspective (or that of someone like her, a comparatively wealthy, privileged woman living in a city and expecting certain luxuries from it as a matter of course), and the second from the perspective of "the other woman" in that same city, one of the 70% of people she rubs elbows with each day who have nothing in their lives that the privileged can recognize as "infrastructure". It's a stark and yet beautifully written account of how an ordinary action -- an anticipated rainstorm -- devastates and disrupts life.

Thank you for sharing, Lindsay.

Rub-a-Dub-Dub

About three weeks ago, I picked up my laundry from the drop off service place that I use only to find that I was missing several items -- tea towels, dish cloths, bath towels, and washcloths. After I got over the grumpiness, anxiety, and general upset, I started considering how to replace the items in question.

Thankfully, I still have a few skeins of worsted weight cotton thread in my yarn stash -- I spent a couple of hours this weekend whipping up a pair of replacement washcloths.

With pure cotton yarn of this weight, it's important that the item made be able to dry completely between uses. Nobody wants a mildewed washcloth! The round cloth is tightly woven but thin, and the loop at the top allows it to hang from a hook to drip dry before being tossed in the laundry. The square cloth is much more loosely stitched, with the double crochet pattern and the open weave corners. I particularly like the texture of that piece -- it's nubbly but soft, and stretchy. And the colors, while seemingly out of place in my super-neutral powder room, most definitely make me smile.

Your Hobbit Birthday Present

Hobbits give presents to other people on their own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule, and not so lavishly as on this occasion; but it was not a bad system. Actually in Hobbiton and Bywater every day in the year it was somebody's birthday, so that every hobbit in those parts had a fair chance of at least one present at least once a week. But they never got tired of them.

J.R.R. Tolkein, The Fellowship of the Ring

As I did last year, and for at least a few years before that, albeit at a different blog, I've put together a bit of gift playlist of music for all of the people who read along with my adventures in writing -- in celebration of my birthday.  Because celebrations are so much better when they're shared, and that means that presents are a two-way street, too!

This birthday is not a particular milestone in any way, so there's nothing particularly "special" about the list.  It's a baker's dozen of songs that have held specific places in my life for the last year, by a dozen artists who may be familiar or new.  I hope that everyone who stumbles across the list finds something to love and appreciate.  If so, do me a favor and leave a comment letting me know which song touched you and how?  I love music, so the more conversations about it that take place in my life, the happier I am.

So, Happy Birthday! (Each song title links to a YouSendIt page where you can download the item. If you have difficulties, let me know.)

1. The Fear, Lily Allen
   My anti-consumption anthem (with rather explicit lyrics, for those bothered by such things)


2. Almost Irish, Ceann
   A song for anyone who's ever tried to be only what's expected, and failed.


3. Like Bonsai, Susan Werner
   Clay considers Werner to be one of the best singer-songwriters.  This lyric is damn close to perfect.


4. Hey It's Can(n)on, Tom Smith
   A Harry Potter/Talk Like a Pirate Day riff from one of the best filk artists performing today.
1. Filk: A musical culture and community tied to the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre of film and literature that has been active since the early 1950s.
2. Canon: Material within a genre or subset that is universally acknowledged as genuine, details that are believed to be "true"


5. Four Green Fields, Christianne Cargill
   An Irish folk song in the common repertoire, a metaphor for the difficult, bloody history Ireland has suffered under British imperialism -- a tie to Irish-American culture that is often ignored in contemporary Celtic music. Cargill's ethereal voice takes a heartbreaking-tale-as-metaphor to a whole new level and leaves me shivering.


6. Take the A Train, Duke Ellington
   Because even after a year and then some, I still sing the saxophone line every time I see the blue "A" noting the subway line.


7. Company of Fools, Great Big Sea
   A song I've often sung to myself on Saturday evenings, walking home from a contra dance.


8. Haven't Met You Yet, Michael Bublé
   I first found this song days after I swore that I was through with dating, that I was taking a break to focus on "just me," without distractions. And then I met Corrin. And then all of my friends started singing "I told you so."


9. Fate, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, from Beethoven's Last Night
   A one-minute-and 17 second kick in the ass for the moments when I hesitate.


10. Goodnight and Go, Imogen Heap
    When Nicole came to visit in October, she spent hours introducing me to new music.  I bought twenty-odd tracks from Imogen, among others, but this is the one that comes up most often in my shuffle list -- 2:02 is my favorite moment, but I've always adored a well-executed bridge.


11. Praan, Garry Schyman
    If you're familiar with the music, it's most likely because you've seen this video -- which always gives me goosebumps.


12. Harbor, Vienna Teng
    I believe that Harbor was used in a Torchwood fan-video that I fell in love with on Youtube.  Not because the vid was particularly well-executed or shared something new about the characters, but because the song just fits so well.


13. My Life Would Suck Without You, The GLEE Cast
    Oh, GLEE, how do I love thee. Not because you're a particularly original story, though in many ways you're new for television, but because the set-up and interplay of the music performed is so exquisitely turned.  This song, the way the cast performs it, sums up all of the best stuff about friendship.

damsel-in-distress recipe card

Very little about Final Exam time is actually pleasant; I remember that quite well. The artificially imposed time-structure of a college semester; massive projects that require cooperation and alignment from many sources and that always seem to have one crucial component that falls apart at the last minute; the bitch of a professor who demands a perfectly annotated list of unquoted sources as an addendum to a final assignment after you've returned the tertiary materials to the library because someone else in class is harassing you for the chapters on pedagogical theory; an all-nighter rehanging and focusing lights in the theater because the design schematic that looks brilliant on paper doesn't hold up to actually having dancers on the stage and the quality of the production is your grade, not just a matter of public opinion; the terror of realizing that, after arguing the value of poetry-readings-as-valid-classically-influenced-performance-art to students, faculty, visiting professors, and college administrators for the better part of two semesters, reading your own work to a hall full of those same people is far more difficult than performing Shakespeare or Moliere, and that all of your passion for truth and beauty and justice in art might cost you a passing grade. Hell, I hate final exams. (Someone point me back to this post if I start speaking in earnest about that PhD in Public Health Policy!)

Anyway. Remembering how much I hate exam time made it very easy for me to spend yesterday rescuing my wonderful, brilliant, stressed-to-the-limit girlfriend from the bowels of Columbia University where she's been covered in chalk-dust from working theoretical math problems all week. While I couldn't prevent her from continuing to work in her head, I did attempt to provide a restful, seemingly math-free zone for nearly 24 hours of relaxation -- beginning with a completely scrumptious dinner and ending with a walk through the park. The dinner is the important bit, and considering how tasty it turned out to be, I've decided to share it.

A supper repast for rescued damsels still exhibiting varying signs of distress

• Poisson en Paquet -- a mild cut of dover sole, topped with sliced french beans and a lemon ginger sauce, wrapped and steamed, then served over
• Swiss chard braised in sesame oil with toasted pine nuts, alongside
• Sauteed cherry tomatoes with sea salt and a balsamic reduction, and  
• Crusty, hot-from-the-oven artisan bread (white with a hint of wheat and spelt flours) -- though if I'd been a shade quicker with the kitchen creativity, I would have made cornmeal drop-biscuits topped with sweet preserves

Corrin's not much for dessert, so we nibbled on chocolate truffles rather than making the Strawberry Shortcake substitute that's calling my name. But this whole meal -- with the carb substitution idea -- is going into my "tasted, savored, and adored" file. Bon appetit!

P.S. The best thing about this dinner is that, if your baking is done in advance and you've adequately stocked the fridge, it's possible to move from clean-and-empty-kitchen to spreading-napkins-over-your-knees-and-digging-in in about 20 minutes, if you have a sous chef.

Craft Swap

I come from a crafty, resourceful, D-I-Y sort of family. My parents renovated their first house and built their second. (My sister and brother-in-law are working on their first, now.) My sister and I wore beautiful hand-made clothes when we were small, and played with toys lovingly stitched by our Nana. Dad made some of our furniture. We made elaborate trays of baked treats for holiday and birthday celebrations. Mom and I embroidered Christmas stockings for everyone in the family, and every bed has a quilt or afghan at the foot of it (or did; in the summer they get wrapped away). My sister is a great casual photographer, and is a whiz with scrapbooking -- which means that everyone in the family has a few great snapshots of my nephews. Mom makes stunningly gorgeous jewelry, and Dad's woodwork has taken on a whole new dimension in the last few years. So I meant it; we're a crafty bunch.

One thing this has done for me is set a terribly high expectation that everything must be beautifully put together with just-so touches of homespun affection. The expectation is my own, not one imposed by anyone else; a house just doesn't feel like a home to me without the little handmade touches that make it special rather than cookie-cutter. I don't feel swallowed or overwhelmed by this desire, just vaguely disappointed in myself for not living up to expectations. I have boxes and bins of craft supplies for embroidery, crochet, knitting, dress-making, quilting, beading, scrapbooking, and painting, and most of it goes untouched. Not because I don't like the activity - quite the contrary! - but because there are only so many hours in the day and my favorites always win out; if I have time to be creative, I want to work with yarn or sing or write, rather than anything else.

I've made peace with this in every regard but one. I'm very happy to shop Etsy for clothing and linens with a handcrafted touch; I have enough quilts to not need another one for 20 years; I'm more than content to paint walls and leave decorative stuff to others; and my yarn and embroidery thread stashes, while plentiful, are regularly put to use.

But the scrapbooking thing is killing me. 

I have a wheeled suitcase full of materials, three empty albums, and a bin full of photographs. I would desperately love to have the photos in little albums so that I can pull them out and tell myself old stories, mull over lovely, enjoyable times, and know that memories are preserved in a way that makes them easy to share. But I don't actually want to do the work of getting the photos into albums. So the case sits in my living room, staring at me reproachfully every time I dare to sit down with another project.

I have thought of two potential solutions.

1. Suck it up and do the work anyway. Find a group of people who like paper crafts, spend several hours with them every month for a year or however long it takes to get the physical photos into albums, and then pass on the leftover supplies to others who will truly enjoy them. Pro: I get the finished objects I want, and can move the leftover materials out to someone who will use and appreciate them. Con: There are so many other things I want to do, I'm afraid I'd resent the time.


2. Find someone who really likes to scrapbook, but *doesn't* like/know how to crochet or knit, and swap skills. I provide my supplies and some direction while s/he creates albums for me, while the other person provides yarn and direction for patterns so I can make clothes or afghans or accessories in exchange. Pro: Two people get to do work/crafts/hobbies that they really enjoy, and end up with finished projects that they truly want. Con: Well, working with someone else on a creative endeavor is always a bit of a challenge...

I prefer option two, but have never heard of something like that actually working. Anyone know of such a thing ever being done -- a craft-skills swap -- and how I might get involved?

Separately, I have a bunch of fabric that's free to a good home, if anyone is looking....

The Zone

There's a scene toward the beginning of the musical version of The Secret Garden in which we see Archibald Craven overwhelmed by the ghost of his dead wife, Lily, and then watch him fall into the moment of being speelbound by memory, waltzing with her around a closed up, dusty ballroom where the furniture has been covered with drop linens and packed away for disuse (as was typical in gigantic, drafty stone mansions of the era). Mandy Patinkin played Archibald in the original, and his portrayal of shock and heartbreak when the spell is broken by Mary stumbling upon him and his coat tails is masterful; it catches me up short every time.

I've been listening to musicals that I know well for the last few days while working on an incredibly detail-focused project. I was listening to that exact scene through my iPod earbuds this morning. A heartbeat before Archie hears "Are you my Uncle Archibald?" and stumbles out of the spectre of Lily's arms, gasping and whirling around to see Lily's eyes in Mary's face, my boss walked up behind me and knocked on the wooden trim of my desk with a question. I jumped in my chair, whirled the seat around on it's little swivel leg, and nearly fell out of it in my effort to extricate my attention from the project (and the music) and remember that I'm sitting in an office in the middle of New York City, not poring over ledgers in a library hidden away in the English Moor.

Ironic timing, or what?