Meet Matilda, our new baby.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Speech Patterns in Northern WV
In early December, I got a letter from a Meghan Chiampa, of the Island of Somerbridge/Camberville, MA, asking: "Do people talk differently there?"
Well, yes Meghan, there is a dialect.
I am not going to do this justice, but it's something I've been wanting to write about for several months (my first attempt to blog about it was on 9/25/07, a little more than a month after moving, however, I felt that I didn't have enough to work with and banked it for another time). I had a big plan to collect data and evidence, but it's hard to stop someone mid-conversation so that I can jot down their unusual way of speaking so that I can point it out later on in a public forum.
But, there is a specific dialect and vernacular here in WV that deserves a bit of attention. Wikipedia calls it Pittsburghese. However, I think what people speak here is just a little set apart from Pittsburgh English, simply because here most people speak with a pretty distinct southern accent. However, the specifics are nearly identical.
I would say that the most common bit of creative phrase-work around here is need/want/like + past-tense, dropping the "to be." I hear this combination every single day and everyone originally from here uses it. Here are some examples I've heard: "My coffee needs warmed," "my oil needs changed," "Mike said he wants picked up at three," the best one: "I said, if he has anything that needs biopsy-ed, he should just buck up and get it done."
I hear stuff like this every day, and have jokingly let it into our home, most commonly with: "Aaron, the dang dog needs walked!" However, we tread a bit lightly here, because we both know that things like this can become a bit habit forming.
Another, less common, dialectical trait is the use of "anymore." I've only heard this a handful of times. It goes something like this: "He always takes his lunch early anymore." Meaning, lately he's been taking his lunch early. (Can you tell I do most of my linguistic analysis at work?)
I am going to try to be more diligent about taking notes when I hear something interesting and I'll report back.
ps - people also seem to use the word "choosy" here a lot, but I can't tell if that is a regional thing. They say things like: "I'm choosy when it comes to ..." or "she's real choosy about how she wants that."
Well, yes Meghan, there is a dialect.
I am not going to do this justice, but it's something I've been wanting to write about for several months (my first attempt to blog about it was on 9/25/07, a little more than a month after moving, however, I felt that I didn't have enough to work with and banked it for another time). I had a big plan to collect data and evidence, but it's hard to stop someone mid-conversation so that I can jot down their unusual way of speaking so that I can point it out later on in a public forum.
But, there is a specific dialect and vernacular here in WV that deserves a bit of attention. Wikipedia calls it Pittsburghese. However, I think what people speak here is just a little set apart from Pittsburgh English, simply because here most people speak with a pretty distinct southern accent. However, the specifics are nearly identical.
I would say that the most common bit of creative phrase-work around here is need/want/like + past-tense, dropping the "to be." I hear this combination every single day and everyone originally from here uses it. Here are some examples I've heard: "My coffee needs warmed," "my oil needs changed," "Mike said he wants picked up at three," the best one: "I said, if he has anything that needs biopsy-ed, he should just buck up and get it done."
I hear stuff like this every day, and have jokingly let it into our home, most commonly with: "Aaron, the dang dog needs walked!" However, we tread a bit lightly here, because we both know that things like this can become a bit habit forming.
Another, less common, dialectical trait is the use of "anymore." I've only heard this a handful of times. It goes something like this: "He always takes his lunch early anymore." Meaning, lately he's been taking his lunch early. (Can you tell I do most of my linguistic analysis at work?)
I am going to try to be more diligent about taking notes when I hear something interesting and I'll report back.
ps - people also seem to use the word "choosy" here a lot, but I can't tell if that is a regional thing. They say things like: "I'm choosy when it comes to ..." or "she's real choosy about how she wants that."
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
What I Want to be: Part 2
I am roasting a turkey and root vegetables right now and just made maybe my favorite thing in the whole world: Green Goddess Dressing. I am trying the version from this cookbook. Needless to say, I am feeling very domestic. And thus thinking again about the question I posed last week: what is it that I want to do with my life?
This is really a difficult topic, because I don't have a clue as to what the answer might be. I talked about teaching in the last post, but is that really what I want, or is it just a job? I think it's just a job I don't think I'd totally hate. It's just what most English majors do, because there aren't that many options. But to be a professor, you have to produce. It's not just about teaching. You have to publish papers and be an asset to your department in order to be kept. I don't know about that. Sounds pretty daunting. For just a job.
The problem with me is that I don't ever find myself considering a career "my life," if you know what I mean. Everyone asks, "so, what do you want to do with your life?" Well, this day is pretty nice. My house smells really good right now. With my life, I want to cook good food, make my home comfortable, listen to my dog snore in the next room, and be engrossed in whatever book I'm reading. Travel. Sleep. Experience. What job do I want in order to have these things in my life? Beats me. If I must take something at all, make it something painless. I like learning. I do want to go back to school. I don't mind editing. I think I would be a fair teacher. I secretly want to open a business making and selling my own artisan goat cheese. I think I'd like that. But no one here wants goat cheese. This is a Kraft Singles kind of place. Plus, no goats. It poses a bit of a problem. I need like way more than one goat and probably need to work on learning how to make cheese. This isn't going to happen any time soon, if ever.
I remember my friend Dana once said, half jokingly, as we were talking about our looming graduation into Reality: "when I grow up, I want to be a professor's wife."
Sounds good to me.
But seriously, it's all too much. I don't know what I want to be, yet. I feel weird because most people I know know what they want to do and are doing it. I am sitting here making a turkey and feeling a little angry with myself for not getting more excited about the rat race. Is it wrong to want this? (This being the turkey and dog and house and in the spring the garden and chickens and crossmyfingers, the goat (a goat, not many).) A year ago, I would have said yes, except I would have thought no. Now...I don't know. I am living far away from everyone right now: people who looked so disappointed when I said that I was moving to West Virginia and was giving it a year before I thought about grad school. It's easier to justify this now. It's easy to live the life you want when you're not around people who think less of you for it. But is it realistic?
This is really a difficult topic, because I don't have a clue as to what the answer might be. I talked about teaching in the last post, but is that really what I want, or is it just a job? I think it's just a job I don't think I'd totally hate. It's just what most English majors do, because there aren't that many options. But to be a professor, you have to produce. It's not just about teaching. You have to publish papers and be an asset to your department in order to be kept. I don't know about that. Sounds pretty daunting. For just a job.
The problem with me is that I don't ever find myself considering a career "my life," if you know what I mean. Everyone asks, "so, what do you want to do with your life?" Well, this day is pretty nice. My house smells really good right now. With my life, I want to cook good food, make my home comfortable, listen to my dog snore in the next room, and be engrossed in whatever book I'm reading. Travel. Sleep. Experience. What job do I want in order to have these things in my life? Beats me. If I must take something at all, make it something painless. I like learning. I do want to go back to school. I don't mind editing. I think I would be a fair teacher. I secretly want to open a business making and selling my own artisan goat cheese. I think I'd like that. But no one here wants goat cheese. This is a Kraft Singles kind of place. Plus, no goats. It poses a bit of a problem. I need like way more than one goat and probably need to work on learning how to make cheese. This isn't going to happen any time soon, if ever.
I remember my friend Dana once said, half jokingly, as we were talking about our looming graduation into Reality: "when I grow up, I want to be a professor's wife."
Sounds good to me.
But seriously, it's all too much. I don't know what I want to be, yet. I feel weird because most people I know know what they want to do and are doing it. I am sitting here making a turkey and feeling a little angry with myself for not getting more excited about the rat race. Is it wrong to want this? (This being the turkey and dog and house and in the spring the garden and chickens and crossmyfingers, the goat (a goat, not many).) A year ago, I would have said yes, except I would have thought no. Now...I don't know. I am living far away from everyone right now: people who looked so disappointed when I said that I was moving to West Virginia and was giving it a year before I thought about grad school. It's easier to justify this now. It's easy to live the life you want when you're not around people who think less of you for it. But is it realistic?
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
In Which I Contemplate What I Want to be
With everything happening in my life lately, I haven't had time think about the thing that most of my friends are either setting out to accomplish or giving serious thought about: what I want to be, ultimately. Yes, I got a degree, but it means very little in terms of pinning down an actual career because it was in English. In order to do that I would need to 1) almost certainly get more education, 2) actually decide what I want to do/study. The second one is the hard part. Because it changes like every two minutes. Some people just know that they just love editing, or writing, or studying modern British fiction. I can't seem to set any of my interests in stone; I'm a dabbler. I kind of like editing. I like writing well enough, sure. I like research (is there a job where you can just research for someone else? Like your job is finding their sources for the paper they are writing? Because I might be okay with that). I don't have one enduring interest that I am certain could sustain me through years of higher education. Also, the fact that getting a PhD in any literary topic does not guarantee for even a 50% chance of getting a real professorship is a deterrent.
So, for purely selfish reasons, I'll parse out (some of) my options, at least in the literary studies field. The ones that don't exactly seem horrible. The ones that I catch myself thinking: I'd like to go into that.
Children's Literature. What could be better than reading kids books, right? I mean, there is a lot there and it seems like I could apply any of my other interests to this pretty broad topic. I could study food, or place, or industry/farming in 20th century American children's lit. This is the only topic for which I've actually looked into grad schools, found one of interest, and recoiled at the 6 year (at minimum, without allowing for dissertation) program. 6 years? Reading kids books? More than half a decade spent studying something that gives me less than 50% chance at getting a job I like? (Probably way less than 50%, because how many schools are looking for Children's lit. specialists? not many.)
Environmental Literature. This is like Walden and stuff like that. Generally non-fiction (blerg) memiorish type stuff about going out into the wilds. There is poetry and fiction, too, but it mostly all feels non-fictiony. I do like eco-criticism and theory: looking at the role of place/environment/ecology and ideas about place, etc as it applies to literature. Though I did apply these theories to a novel that isn't in the "env. lit" realm for my senior thesis, something tells me this isn't normal (and maybe slightly frowned upon in the Environmental Literature world). I do love this topic, but I don't love much of the material (I can take or leave Edward Abbey). Besides, am I really that crunchy?
American Studies. This isn't even English! it's not even a valid major. However, I actually think that it is perhaps the most all-inclusive, because you can do a degree based on literature, rather than say history or politics or something like that. I minored in American Studies and nearly all of my classes were literature-based. I think it might be what I've been looking for all along, because I have a constant urge to reconcile Literature with the world and specific culture around us. Like a cause and effect kind of thing. I like exploring relationships between things like technology and culture as it is addressed through literature. I also like taking something known and almost culturally iconic and finding out how our culture came to embrace it through history, using lots of different fields sources. Also, I love applying cold hard facts to literature. It feels more significant, like I'm actually taking a more solid and less whimsical approach.
It's not that I'm so into America or whatever. I hate America. But it's what I know and how can I remove my own embedded "American" ideals, values, norms, whatever enough to actually think something valid about anywhere else. I have no idea about anywhere or anything else that isn't affected by my American-ness. And that's the question posed, I guess: "what is American-ness?" and how does it relate to....everything.
The two things I learned the most from in college were my English Senior Thesis and my American Studies final project. One was on how ideals specifically applied to the American landscape affect farmers in a technologically advancing world in The Grapes of Wrath. And the other was about the creation and acceptance of what Americans think of as Chinese food. (the idea of applying what I've learned about foodways to food represented in literature is very exciting, I have to say.)
At the end of the eight or so months I spent writing my English Senior Thesis, as I handed in my final draft to my advisor, she took a good long look at me and said, "You know this is really an American Studies paper, don't you?"
Anyway, somehow it seems like these interests of mine are worlds apart, and other times it feels like there is an invisible cord connecting them. I just can't seem to fully grasp how they relate to each other and how I could make use of that connection to create a totally fulfilling experience for myself. And then comes the question, "yes, but what would I want to do with all of this?" And I think I need to save that for a later post.
So, for purely selfish reasons, I'll parse out (some of) my options, at least in the literary studies field. The ones that don't exactly seem horrible. The ones that I catch myself thinking: I'd like to go into that.
Children's Literature. What could be better than reading kids books, right? I mean, there is a lot there and it seems like I could apply any of my other interests to this pretty broad topic. I could study food, or place, or industry/farming in 20th century American children's lit. This is the only topic for which I've actually looked into grad schools, found one of interest, and recoiled at the 6 year (at minimum, without allowing for dissertation) program. 6 years? Reading kids books? More than half a decade spent studying something that gives me less than 50% chance at getting a job I like? (Probably way less than 50%, because how many schools are looking for Children's lit. specialists? not many.)
Environmental Literature. This is like Walden and stuff like that. Generally non-fiction (blerg) memiorish type stuff about going out into the wilds. There is poetry and fiction, too, but it mostly all feels non-fictiony. I do like eco-criticism and theory: looking at the role of place/environment/ecology and ideas about place, etc as it applies to literature. Though I did apply these theories to a novel that isn't in the "env. lit" realm for my senior thesis, something tells me this isn't normal (and maybe slightly frowned upon in the Environmental Literature world). I do love this topic, but I don't love much of the material (I can take or leave Edward Abbey). Besides, am I really that crunchy?
American Studies. This isn't even English! it's not even a valid major. However, I actually think that it is perhaps the most all-inclusive, because you can do a degree based on literature, rather than say history or politics or something like that. I minored in American Studies and nearly all of my classes were literature-based. I think it might be what I've been looking for all along, because I have a constant urge to reconcile Literature with the world and specific culture around us. Like a cause and effect kind of thing. I like exploring relationships between things like technology and culture as it is addressed through literature. I also like taking something known and almost culturally iconic and finding out how our culture came to embrace it through history, using lots of different fields sources. Also, I love applying cold hard facts to literature. It feels more significant, like I'm actually taking a more solid and less whimsical approach.
It's not that I'm so into America or whatever. I hate America. But it's what I know and how can I remove my own embedded "American" ideals, values, norms, whatever enough to actually think something valid about anywhere else. I have no idea about anywhere or anything else that isn't affected by my American-ness. And that's the question posed, I guess: "what is American-ness?" and how does it relate to....everything.
The two things I learned the most from in college were my English Senior Thesis and my American Studies final project. One was on how ideals specifically applied to the American landscape affect farmers in a technologically advancing world in The Grapes of Wrath. And the other was about the creation and acceptance of what Americans think of as Chinese food. (the idea of applying what I've learned about foodways to food represented in literature is very exciting, I have to say.)
At the end of the eight or so months I spent writing my English Senior Thesis, as I handed in my final draft to my advisor, she took a good long look at me and said, "You know this is really an American Studies paper, don't you?"
Anyway, somehow it seems like these interests of mine are worlds apart, and other times it feels like there is an invisible cord connecting them. I just can't seem to fully grasp how they relate to each other and how I could make use of that connection to create a totally fulfilling experience for myself. And then comes the question, "yes, but what would I want to do with all of this?" And I think I need to save that for a later post.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Wedding Planning Blues; or: Is it too Late to Elope?
Can I just tell you that planning a wedding is really hard? What were we thinking?! It's taken on a life of it's own, it's actually taking over our lives. The new year has brought a new reality: we are getting married in T-minus 114 days and, Dude, we're not ready.
As with anything, complications have come up, both personal and not. Shifting roles, lost friends, etc. Our florist cancelled last week. Wow. That's huge. I booked her back in June so that it would be taken care of before we lived 600 miles away. We had a lot of trouble finding a hotel for everyone to stay at (did I have to have my wedding 1/2 across the country from my entire family?! Yes, because I couldn't bear the thought of having the reception at the Bessemer VFW. At first I thought of it as a good opportunity for everyone to take a vacation, but now I'm realizing that a lot of people actually hate going on vacation). Just a note to those of you who are invited/in the wedding outside of the Boston Area: book now. Book now, book now, book now.
And there are like 500 other things that need to be taken care of.
I know, "boo hoo, I'm getting married and it's so hard," cry me a river. But we've been having a rough couple of weeks. It seems like I get one thing squared away, and then 5 more pop up. This whole "wedding" thing is just crazy, anyway, when you think about it. Why did we fall into this mire of societal norms and expectations? We just wanted it to be nice for us and for everyone else.
On a brighter note: we're working on finalizing the invitations, and they're beautiful. I strongly recommend hiring a small business when you can, because the quality and price can't be beat. We're working with DWRI Letterpress out of Providence, RI and for about 2/3 of the price we would have paid to any stationary store, we are getting hand designed/pressed invitations on beautifully lush papers and were also able to hire an artist to draw a picture that will be incorporated into the design. It's really pretty.
I knew of DWRI from the good old days when good old Amber worked in the literary journal circle. My hay-day, I like to call it (early last year). Well, those days are long-gone now. But Tuesday Journal hired Dan Wood and DWRI to print the journal, so I had gone to his place of business for meetings (which is his garage, converted into a letterpress factory/office) and had seen him at work. And I love knowing that my money is going to him, rather than a huge chain.
The invitations are important to me simply because of spending so much time working with papers/printing/fonts, etc for different jobs. Paper is a huge part of my life, I think. Everything I see in print, I think of in terms of font and paper choice. So even though they are such a minor part of the whole wedding, loving my invitations is a huge deal to me. I'd rather remember my beautiful invitations than a veritable garden of very specific imported flowers from the florist (though I do still need some flowers!).
As with anything, complications have come up, both personal and not. Shifting roles, lost friends, etc. Our florist cancelled last week. Wow. That's huge. I booked her back in June so that it would be taken care of before we lived 600 miles away. We had a lot of trouble finding a hotel for everyone to stay at (did I have to have my wedding 1/2 across the country from my entire family?! Yes, because I couldn't bear the thought of having the reception at the Bessemer VFW. At first I thought of it as a good opportunity for everyone to take a vacation, but now I'm realizing that a lot of people actually hate going on vacation). Just a note to those of you who are invited/in the wedding outside of the Boston Area: book now. Book now, book now, book now.
And there are like 500 other things that need to be taken care of.
I know, "boo hoo, I'm getting married and it's so hard," cry me a river. But we've been having a rough couple of weeks. It seems like I get one thing squared away, and then 5 more pop up. This whole "wedding" thing is just crazy, anyway, when you think about it. Why did we fall into this mire of societal norms and expectations? We just wanted it to be nice for us and for everyone else.
On a brighter note: we're working on finalizing the invitations, and they're beautiful. I strongly recommend hiring a small business when you can, because the quality and price can't be beat. We're working with DWRI Letterpress out of Providence, RI and for about 2/3 of the price we would have paid to any stationary store, we are getting hand designed/pressed invitations on beautifully lush papers and were also able to hire an artist to draw a picture that will be incorporated into the design. It's really pretty.
I knew of DWRI from the good old days when good old Amber worked in the literary journal circle. My hay-day, I like to call it (early last year). Well, those days are long-gone now. But Tuesday Journal hired Dan Wood and DWRI to print the journal, so I had gone to his place of business for meetings (which is his garage, converted into a letterpress factory/office) and had seen him at work. And I love knowing that my money is going to him, rather than a huge chain.
The invitations are important to me simply because of spending so much time working with papers/printing/fonts, etc for different jobs. Paper is a huge part of my life, I think. Everything I see in print, I think of in terms of font and paper choice. So even though they are such a minor part of the whole wedding, loving my invitations is a huge deal to me. I'd rather remember my beautiful invitations than a veritable garden of very specific imported flowers from the florist (though I do still need some flowers!).
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
a year ago
A year and two days ago, Aaron asked me to marry him. I can't believe a whole year has already gone by. I feel like I just got up the nerve to call people and tell them my news (I remember practicing on Meghan first and it seeming so awkward to say the words: "We got engaged").
This whole being "engaged" thing is really weird, by the way. Your title changes to something really snooty sounding ("oh, yes, my fiance and I absolutely adore sailing") and at first, you're like "no way am I using that word," but then you find yourself using it because all of a sudden "boyfriend" just doesn't seem to cut it.
So we've been fiance-ing for a year. And we're about to have a wedding. Wow. This whole thing is just crazy.
But anyway, a year and two days ago, Aaron threw me in the car and drove to Vermont. We stayed in a barn, converted into a bed and breakfast, and there was snow on the ground. He took me for a walk in a field, brought hot apple cider, stood me in front of one of those stone walls that always makes me think of Robert Frost, got down on both knees and started babbling about our whole relationship, start to finish...or rather start to new start. And then he took out a little box and that's that. There was champagne when we got back to the room.
He took me there because Boston didn't have any snow and Michigan barely had snow over Christmas and I needed snow. And there it was. He's a man who makes things happen.
I'm not really one of those girls that's really into weddings and romantic movies and stuff, but it was a really special day. I know that everyone gets married and each person's wedding/marriage/relationship is special, but I feel like Aaron and I are extra-special. Like we're the thing that doesn't happen very often. We're a relationship to envy. I know that sounds stuck up, but it's true, I think. We're friends more than anything else, and that's really what makes it bearable to be with someone else all the time. I like being around him. We're a team. We go through everything in our lives as a team, and yet we're able to remain our own persons. I think that I've kind of stumbled onto the secret to a good relationship here. I've only known one other couple like this (hi, Dana and Neal) and they're doing our wedding ceremony for us, so I feel like that's something.
I don't want to make it seem like what Aaron and I have is always great, always puppies and rainbows and whatever -- relationships, good ones, are really hard work -- sometimes life is downright bleak. But because we're both willing to put in the effort, we get a lot out of our relationship. We're committed to making our relationship good, even when times are really hard. I think that's a good reason to get married to someone. And so, a year and two days after he asked me to marry him, I can say that I'm still up for it.
This whole being "engaged" thing is really weird, by the way. Your title changes to something really snooty sounding ("oh, yes, my fiance and I absolutely adore sailing") and at first, you're like "no way am I using that word," but then you find yourself using it because all of a sudden "boyfriend" just doesn't seem to cut it.
So we've been fiance-ing for a year. And we're about to have a wedding. Wow. This whole thing is just crazy.
But anyway, a year and two days ago, Aaron threw me in the car and drove to Vermont. We stayed in a barn, converted into a bed and breakfast, and there was snow on the ground. He took me for a walk in a field, brought hot apple cider, stood me in front of one of those stone walls that always makes me think of Robert Frost, got down on both knees and started babbling about our whole relationship, start to finish...or rather start to new start. And then he took out a little box and that's that. There was champagne when we got back to the room.
He took me there because Boston didn't have any snow and Michigan barely had snow over Christmas and I needed snow. And there it was. He's a man who makes things happen.
I'm not really one of those girls that's really into weddings and romantic movies and stuff, but it was a really special day. I know that everyone gets married and each person's wedding/marriage/relationship is special, but I feel like Aaron and I are extra-special. Like we're the thing that doesn't happen very often. We're a relationship to envy. I know that sounds stuck up, but it's true, I think. We're friends more than anything else, and that's really what makes it bearable to be with someone else all the time. I like being around him. We're a team. We go through everything in our lives as a team, and yet we're able to remain our own persons. I think that I've kind of stumbled onto the secret to a good relationship here. I've only known one other couple like this (hi, Dana and Neal) and they're doing our wedding ceremony for us, so I feel like that's something.
I don't want to make it seem like what Aaron and I have is always great, always puppies and rainbows and whatever -- relationships, good ones, are really hard work -- sometimes life is downright bleak. But because we're both willing to put in the effort, we get a lot out of our relationship. We're committed to making our relationship good, even when times are really hard. I think that's a good reason to get married to someone. And so, a year and two days after he asked me to marry him, I can say that I'm still up for it.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Two Lessons from 2007
Here are the two biggest things I took away from 2007.
1. "The only person you can trust is yourself" (or in my case, Aaron and myself). I really learned that relying on anyone else is only going to get you hurt because people are generally only out for themselves and have a tendency to break your heart if you let them. Yeah, big deal, this is old news, I know. However, I would say that I'm a touch delicate and a mite trusting, so this became my mantra over the last year. If I don't expect anything from others, I won't get hurt/frustrated/rail roaded. At the same time, I am trying not to become embittered. I'd like to maintain my trustworthy, reliable, considerate M.O.
This is a work in progress.
2. Floss daily. Finally, I did it. Recurring resolution #1 finally checked off my list. After spending $2,000 on a root canal over the summer, I have become very fastidious about my dental hygiene.
1. "The only person you can trust is yourself" (or in my case, Aaron and myself). I really learned that relying on anyone else is only going to get you hurt because people are generally only out for themselves and have a tendency to break your heart if you let them. Yeah, big deal, this is old news, I know. However, I would say that I'm a touch delicate and a mite trusting, so this became my mantra over the last year. If I don't expect anything from others, I won't get hurt/frustrated/rail roaded. At the same time, I am trying not to become embittered. I'd like to maintain my trustworthy, reliable, considerate M.O.
This is a work in progress.
2. Floss daily. Finally, I did it. Recurring resolution #1 finally checked off my list. After spending $2,000 on a root canal over the summer, I have become very fastidious about my dental hygiene.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
53 Books
Like most people, I sucker myself every year into making resolutions on New Years. And like most people, I usually fail miserably. You know, the eat less carbs, go to yoga at least once a week, take better care of my teeth (more on this one later), learn to cross-stitch, clean the bathroom once a week with bleach. The regular junk. However, this year, for the first time ever, I was true to myself and accomplished a goal I set for myself at the beginning of the year.
My goal: to read 50 books. I was actually able to read 53 books over the course of 2007. To some people, this might seem like 52 more books than they would ever read in one year, to others I know, this is probably only half of the books they consumed this year. But for me, the number seemed manageable yet challenging, so I settled on an even 50, with a distant hope that I'd reach 52 so I could go into 2008 knowing that I'd averaged a book a week. I was a little worried when I started that I would force myself to read shorter books and I would stifle my "as my whimsy takes me" approach to reading. But I came up with a fool-proof solution: failure. If I wanted to read a 1,000 page book, I would, even if it did push everything back. I would say that I spent the first half of the year tentatively, feeling out whether or not this was possible. I spent the second half of the year like a marathon runner...I was in it for the long haul and I couldn't be stopped.
And so, here are the books I read in 2007:
1. More Than Enough - John Fulton
2. A Contract with God - Will Eisner
3. The Road Home - Jim Harrison
4. Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternack
5. Serve It Forth: Art of Eating - MFK Fisher
6. My Antonia - Willa Cather
7. The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
8. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
9. Rock Springs - Richard Ford
10. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
11. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
12. The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
13. Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier
14. For Rouenna - Sigrid Nunez
15. Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
16. Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingalls Wilder
17. Nectar in a Sieve - Kamala Markandaya
18. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See
19. Dicey's Song - Cynthia Voigt
20. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
21. Little Children - Tom Perrotta
22. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy Leblanc - Loraine Despres
23. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
24. The Beggar Maid - Alice Munro
25. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh - Michael Chabon
26. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
27. The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
28. There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom - Louis Sachar
29. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
30. A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett
31. The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman
32. Marie Antoinette: The Journey - Antonia Fraser
33. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
34. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
35. Watership Down - Richard Adams
36. The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
37. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman
38. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
39. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
40. The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
41. Through the Safety Net - Charles Baxter
42. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
43. O Pioneers - Willa Cather
44. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
45. Metamorphsis - Franz Kafka
46. Silas Marner - George Eliot
47. The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
48. A Year in the Maine Woods - Bernd Heinrich
49. Love Among the Chickens - P.G. Wodehouse
50. Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
51. Waiting for the Barbarians - J.M. Coetzee
52. The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe
53. Until I Find You - John Irving
Here are some stats:
Number of Rereads: 9
Non-Fiction: 4
Number Read on Project Gutenberg: 2
Top 5 Books in 2007:
5. Doctor Zhivago - This was surprisingly enjoyable and love-filled. I would say that some wikipedia on Russian History/the Russian Revolution is necessary to fully grasp the historical information that's kind of thrown at you. But it's a really fun book to read in the winter and the PBS version of it is good. I'm still looking forward to watching the older one on a snowy day.
4. David Copperfield
3. His Dark Materials Trilogy - Okay, so I cheated by adding three books, but The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass were just really fun to read. I loved that the first book was set in a cold climate. I know that there is the Milton connection, but much of it also had a bit of Jonathan Swift, especially the weird animals in the last book.
2. Madame Bovary - Really funny and ironic and sad. It's a classic for a good reason, I think. I should read more French Literature, maybe. Every time I do, I love the humor.
1. Cold Mountain - I know! I can't believe it either! It was one of those really guilty reads, like "I'm going to read something really trashy because I just graduated and I can. Here's something...why do I even own this?" Maybe it was just because I was being naughty by reading it, but I was fully engrossed and I enjoyed every minute of it. Often, 100 pages from the end I just want the book to be over, but I didn't want this to end. I really liked it. I can't help it. I could see reading this again, and I guess that's how it ended up here.
Bottom 5 Books in 2007:
5. Everything is Illuminated - It's not that I hated this book and I might be the only person I know who wasn't impressed by it, but I just thought it was a bunch of craft work and style with not much heart. I just kept thinking that the whole thing was a big fat gimmick. I wanted to like it, but I just didn't.
2. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy Leblanc - I knew it would be bad going in, but I felt like I had to read it because this was the book that Aaron read to see what Chick Lit was all about. Sadly, we both learned that it's about not much.
1. Watership Down - I'd been wanting to read this book for 12 years and I'd never gotten around to it. I can finally say that the award for Biggest Let-Down in 2007 goes to Watership Down because it sucked. It was Jonathan Livingston Seagull all over again. The rabbits weren't even cute, they were creepy. It took all the fun out of anthropomorphizing little animals. What a waste of time.
So there you have it. I have set new goals for my reading life in 2008, but like last year, I don't want to say them until I know I can do them.
My goal: to read 50 books. I was actually able to read 53 books over the course of 2007. To some people, this might seem like 52 more books than they would ever read in one year, to others I know, this is probably only half of the books they consumed this year. But for me, the number seemed manageable yet challenging, so I settled on an even 50, with a distant hope that I'd reach 52 so I could go into 2008 knowing that I'd averaged a book a week. I was a little worried when I started that I would force myself to read shorter books and I would stifle my "as my whimsy takes me" approach to reading. But I came up with a fool-proof solution: failure. If I wanted to read a 1,000 page book, I would, even if it did push everything back. I would say that I spent the first half of the year tentatively, feeling out whether or not this was possible. I spent the second half of the year like a marathon runner...I was in it for the long haul and I couldn't be stopped.
And so, here are the books I read in 2007:
1. More Than Enough - John Fulton
2. A Contract with God - Will Eisner
3. The Road Home - Jim Harrison
4. Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternack
5. Serve It Forth: Art of Eating - MFK Fisher
6. My Antonia - Willa Cather
7. The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
8. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
9. Rock Springs - Richard Ford
10. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
11. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
12. The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
13. Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier
14. For Rouenna - Sigrid Nunez
15. Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
16. Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingalls Wilder
17. Nectar in a Sieve - Kamala Markandaya
18. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See
19. Dicey's Song - Cynthia Voigt
20. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
21. Little Children - Tom Perrotta
22. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy Leblanc - Loraine Despres
23. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
24. The Beggar Maid - Alice Munro
25. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh - Michael Chabon
26. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
27. The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
28. There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom - Louis Sachar
29. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
30. A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett
31. The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman
32. Marie Antoinette: The Journey - Antonia Fraser
33. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
34. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
35. Watership Down - Richard Adams
36. The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
37. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman
38. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
39. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
40. The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
41. Through the Safety Net - Charles Baxter
42. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
43. O Pioneers - Willa Cather
44. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
45. Metamorphsis - Franz Kafka
46. Silas Marner - George Eliot
47. The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
48. A Year in the Maine Woods - Bernd Heinrich
49. Love Among the Chickens - P.G. Wodehouse
50. Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
51. Waiting for the Barbarians - J.M. Coetzee
52. The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe
53. Until I Find You - John Irving
Here are some stats:
Number of Rereads: 9
Non-Fiction: 4
Number Read on Project Gutenberg: 2
Top 5 Books in 2007:
5. Doctor Zhivago - This was surprisingly enjoyable and love-filled. I would say that some wikipedia on Russian History/the Russian Revolution is necessary to fully grasp the historical information that's kind of thrown at you. But it's a really fun book to read in the winter and the PBS version of it is good. I'm still looking forward to watching the older one on a snowy day.
4. David Copperfield
3. His Dark Materials Trilogy - Okay, so I cheated by adding three books, but The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass were just really fun to read. I loved that the first book was set in a cold climate. I know that there is the Milton connection, but much of it also had a bit of Jonathan Swift, especially the weird animals in the last book.
2. Madame Bovary - Really funny and ironic and sad. It's a classic for a good reason, I think. I should read more French Literature, maybe. Every time I do, I love the humor.
1. Cold Mountain - I know! I can't believe it either! It was one of those really guilty reads, like "I'm going to read something really trashy because I just graduated and I can. Here's something...why do I even own this?" Maybe it was just because I was being naughty by reading it, but I was fully engrossed and I enjoyed every minute of it. Often, 100 pages from the end I just want the book to be over, but I didn't want this to end. I really liked it. I can't help it. I could see reading this again, and I guess that's how it ended up here.
Bottom 5 Books in 2007:
5. Everything is Illuminated - It's not that I hated this book and I might be the only person I know who wasn't impressed by it, but I just thought it was a bunch of craft work and style with not much heart. I just kept thinking that the whole thing was a big fat gimmick. I wanted to like it, but I just didn't.
4. Little Children - I feel bad because I really like Tom Perrotta and I like his other stuff, but I just felt like this was a kind of poorly-written, made for Hollywood, rant about living in an upscale Boston suburb. We know, it can suck. Just move away and start writing about things people might care about.
3. Nectar in a Sieve - Not worth it. Read The Good Earth instead, which is barely worth it.2. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy Leblanc - I knew it would be bad going in, but I felt like I had to read it because this was the book that Aaron read to see what Chick Lit was all about. Sadly, we both learned that it's about not much.
1. Watership Down - I'd been wanting to read this book for 12 years and I'd never gotten around to it. I can finally say that the award for Biggest Let-Down in 2007 goes to Watership Down because it sucked. It was Jonathan Livingston Seagull all over again. The rabbits weren't even cute, they were creepy. It took all the fun out of anthropomorphizing little animals. What a waste of time.
So there you have it. I have set new goals for my reading life in 2008, but like last year, I don't want to say them until I know I can do them.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Christmas Recap
Well, the plane landed, the gifts were put to use, the ornaments put away: the Christmas season is winding down. It happens every year.
Which was fun.
Aaron and I had a nice Christmas in Michigan. We spent time visiting everyone, including him:
We ate so much food. In the Midwest, everything is made with cream cheese. You know: dips, spreads, fillings, etc. I bet between the two of us we ate more than 3 bricks. We made a promise not to eat cheese until the spring. Yikes. But there were also cookies. I should have taken a picture of my favorite this year: marzipan Christmas trees. They were so good and really easy. It was nice to see my mom. I haven't seen her since June. We usually stay in my great grandma's old house when we go there, and my mom decorated it all up for us with a real tree and everything. It was so nice. We watched a bunch of movies and cooked almost the whole time. It snowed and snowed the day after we got there, so there wasn't much else to do. On Christmas Eve, we did do this:
Which was fun.
And I fell in love with the cutest thing since Elf:
But I couldn't keep him.
I knew that this Christmas would be a tough one financially, so throughout the year I had sewn these little bird ornaments to give to people. I prefer getting something homemade, myself. There is something special about some homemade mittens or slippers or anything else. My dad's mom makes rag rugs and gives me one every year. They're beautiful. I've made a few.
The birds turned out nice enough, but I still felt really bad that I didn't buy anything. I kept telling myself that it's the thought that counts and it's not about how much money you spend on someone, but it still sucked that I couldn't get people the usual junk. All year I was so excited to be making something special and then when the time came, I was so embarrassed to give them out. Whatever. I keep telling myself that next year so much more will free up, we'll be in a lot better shape.
The birds turned out nice enough, but I still felt really bad that I didn't buy anything. I kept telling myself that it's the thought that counts and it's not about how much money you spend on someone, but it still sucked that I couldn't get people the usual junk. All year I was so excited to be making something special and then when the time came, I was so embarrassed to give them out. Whatever. I keep telling myself that next year so much more will free up, we'll be in a lot better shape.
But Christmas was good. Santa came. Aaron and I got each other the same gift, which means that we were meant to be.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Christmas Wedding
In my dream life, I am planning the perfect Christmas wedding. It seems like it would be a wonderful opportunity to combine two special days. However, all things considered, when planning the actual wedding, I didn't think it was very fair to Aaron or his family to go ahead with my vision. We may not be having the traditional Jewish wedding, but I didn't want to be like "here's a bunch of cultural references that you don't even know, based on a completely separate religion, and by the way, we're having ham stuffed lobster and it's on Saturday." It was a hard dream to give up, but I just thought it was pushing it.
So, though I'm not having my Christmas wedding, I'll tell you how it would be. Of course, there would be snow. We'd hold it at the beautiful Inn in Vermont where Aaron proposed, wintery and decked out for the holidays. A few days before the wedding there would have been a big blizzard, but it would have died down to a constant dusting for the weekend of the wedding. The colors, of course, would be red and white with touches of green. I would wear a deep burgundy velvet Victorian-style dress and instead of flowers, I would carry an ermine muff. Aaron would look like a character from Dickens with a deep green velvet suit.
We'd get married in front of a roaring fire and a huge Christmas tree, 20 feet or more, with clear lights and red ribbons. The room would be decorated with big vases filled with tall, spindly branches of red winter berries and we'd hire the Vienna Boys Choir to sing me down the aisle.
After the ceremony, we would all get on our capes (of course, all of the guests would also be dressed in Victorian style) and our earmuffs and we would go outside, where, rather than a first dance, Aaron and I would skate around the frozen pond, arm in arm (of course I would still have my muff), and then everyone would join us. We would have people roasting chestnuts and handing out hot spiced wine and apple cider. The snow would those big flakes that get caught in your eyelashes.
Afterwards, we'd all go in for a traditional English Christmas dinner: each table would have a roast goose as a centerpiece, and each guest would have their own, personalized Christmas gift. Again, there would be a huge tree. Gingerbread for dessert.
And at the end, Aaron and I would be swept away by a horse-drawn sleigh, jingling down the snowy lane.
So, though I'm not having my Christmas wedding, I'll tell you how it would be. Of course, there would be snow. We'd hold it at the beautiful Inn in Vermont where Aaron proposed, wintery and decked out for the holidays. A few days before the wedding there would have been a big blizzard, but it would have died down to a constant dusting for the weekend of the wedding. The colors, of course, would be red and white with touches of green. I would wear a deep burgundy velvet Victorian-style dress and instead of flowers, I would carry an ermine muff. Aaron would look like a character from Dickens with a deep green velvet suit.
We'd get married in front of a roaring fire and a huge Christmas tree, 20 feet or more, with clear lights and red ribbons. The room would be decorated with big vases filled with tall, spindly branches of red winter berries and we'd hire the Vienna Boys Choir to sing me down the aisle.
After the ceremony, we would all get on our capes (of course, all of the guests would also be dressed in Victorian style) and our earmuffs and we would go outside, where, rather than a first dance, Aaron and I would skate around the frozen pond, arm in arm (of course I would still have my muff), and then everyone would join us. We would have people roasting chestnuts and handing out hot spiced wine and apple cider. The snow would those big flakes that get caught in your eyelashes.
Afterwards, we'd all go in for a traditional English Christmas dinner: each table would have a roast goose as a centerpiece, and each guest would have their own, personalized Christmas gift. Again, there would be a huge tree. Gingerbread for dessert.
And at the end, Aaron and I would be swept away by a horse-drawn sleigh, jingling down the snowy lane.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Christmas music
I had so much fun with the Christmas movie list that I thought I'd write one about Christmas music, which is a significant part of my oddity. I mentioned in an earlier post that as a kid I listened to Christmas music all year long.
I still do. However, my listening has become a kind of dependency. Rather than listen for fun, outside of December, listening to Christmas music has developed into a coping mechanism during stressful periods. For example, during the course of my honors thesis or final exam periods, I would listen to xmas music on my mp3 player on the subway on the way to school in the morning, even in May. I kind of used it like comfort food or martinis: it soothed the rough patches (why am I writing in past tense? I still do this, I listened to it the week I moved here). I am sure that I should probably bring this up in therapy someday.
I know, I'm nuts. The cat's out of the bag.
(Random memory from my childhood that might explain my relentless attachment to cheesy carols: until around the age of 8 or so I thought that "Silent Night" was a lullaby because it's one of two songs my mom used to sing to me as a baby. The other one was made up and went like this: "mommy loves Amber, Grandma Pat loves Amber, Fluffy loves Amber," etc, you get the idea.)
So here is my list of the cream of the crop, the mac-and-cheese, the triple olive extra dirty Bombay Sapphire of Christmas music.
Best Christmas Music:
Charlie Brown Christmas Album - Vince Guaraldi Trio. "Linus and Lucy" is my favorite track. I love this song. I love it at all times of the year, it might be one of my favorite songs ever. It's just perfect. The whole album is wonderful, one of the ultimate must-have Christmas CDs. I would say a close second-best track is "Skating;" it just sounds like snow falling. It's basically my go-to album, the one Aaron never gets sick of during the holidays.
The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole. If only for the title track alone. I would say that if I had to pick one voice as the Voice of All Voices, it would be Nat King Cole's. And just hearing him sing that first bit ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." you know you can hear it in your head) is where that coping mechanism comes in. It's just so nice.
Elvis' Christmas Album - The King. Except for the last 4 songs or so. I can leave those for another mood. I love his "White Christmas" (the only person who does this better is Barry White, seriously) and his "Blue Christmas."
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" - Judy Garland. Not an album, but a special enough song to make the list anyway. It's kind of sad.
And so I say to you: the next time you're in the shower, belt out "Holly Jolly Christmas," Burl Ives style. It'll make you feel like you just had a martini (almost).
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Newer Traditions: Clementines
A relatively recent Christmas-time tradition for us has been enjoying Clementine season to it's fullest. Last year, we probably went through 6 boxes over winter. During the cold dark months, it's like eating little orbs of sunshine. Clementines are close to the orange I always got in my stocking every year (except even more delicious) and they're Aaron's favorite fruit. I just love heaping them into pretty bowls and scattering them all around the house.
We also usually do pomegranates (this year we're too broke, but it's okay). It's a tradition we usurped from Aaron's family, his mother always has pomegranates during the winter. I imagine the seeds to be little edible rubies.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
