101 in 1001- March update

6) Design a new tattoo or get some color in my existing one.
I studied Greek for a couple of years of my undergrad. During that time, I went through some pretty huge emotional upheavals (and spent a good chunk of time in the office of a wonderful counselor who helped me get my life back together). During that time, I would sometimes just repeat the Greek word/suffix "εἰμι" to myself. I wrote it in notebooks, I drew it on myself. The word is the first person singular "to be." It was a reminder to not get too lost in the things that were threatening to overwhelm me, but just to be, be myself and be a friend, daughter, sister, student and all my other roles that serve as my function in society.
I decided I wanted the word as a tattoo, but I couldn't decide where. Too small for my back. I didn't want a very visible tattoo, so wrists, ankles, shoulders were all out. I thought about the nape of my neck, but decided it was still too visible. Finally, I settled on behind my ear. Then I decided, rather than get just "εἰμι," I would get the full phrase, "ἐγώ εἰμι"--"I am." Or, "I exist." The phrase has theological significance, but that;s not why I wanted it. To me, the phrase is a reminder that I always have myself, my being. I exist, am a part of the world as my body, my dreams, goals, memories, legacy, while also being true to myself as an individual. I realize this sounds a little hokey, but it's a meaningful tattoo to me. So, here it is:

16) Donate $100 a year to charity.
The Hunger Project- $15
March 8 was International Women's day. The UN's theme this year was "Empower Rural Women--End Hunger and Poverty." In that spirit, I decided to donate to The Hunger Project. Regarding International Women's Day, they stated:
Throughout the developing world, women are the primary caregivers for their families. Rural women grow the majority of the food produced for household consumption. They are intensively involved in food processing. They collect cooking fuel and water. They prepare and serve meals, ensuring that their families' daily food requirements are met. Despite this critical role that women play in food security, rural women are systematically denied the resources, information and freedom of action to fulfill this responsibility.
(...)
Yet, we know that when women are empowered, their families are healthier, more children go to school, agricultural productivity improves and incomes increase. Our programs support women and build their capacity as leaders and key changes agents. After participating in Hunger Project programs, women throughout Africa, South Asia and Latin America are improving education, health and livelihoods in their communities. They are visible role models, inspiring countless women in thousands of villages.

18) Read 10 books from the Bloom Canon.
6) Carson McCullers The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
7) Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was an incredible read. I can absolutely see why Bloom would consider it canonical. A Farewell to Arms reminded me of why I'm so disdainful of Hemingway. Sorry, friends. I've tried, but I cannot stand the way that man writes characters. I will give it to him that I stayed interested in the story--he knows how to move a plot. But that's about it. I've never understood why Hemingway is considered a Great American Writer.

19) Read 1 unassigned book per month.
March '12- George Saunders Pastoralia
I read this on the train up to Chicago. I received this book in a White Elephant gift-swap (or whatever you call it in your neck of the woods). It came highly recommended. It's a really...interesting read. The book is a novella and a group of short stories. I want to use the word "dystopian," but that doesn't feel quite right because the genius of the stories is that they aren't posited as being in any kind of alternate societal model. There are just...weird things that happen in some of the stories. They offer a creepy side-eye to some of the more banal elements of society, in a way that makes the stories stick in your mind long after you think you should even been remembering them.

24) Learn 1 new word a week.
Prevarication- a false or deliberate misstatement
Agglutination- the state of being thus united; adhesion of parts
Chilblains- the painful inflammation of small blood vessels in your skin that occur in response to sudden warming from cold temperatures
Expiate- make amends for

40) Have a Sazerac at The Roosevelt Hotel.
Ann and I were finally able to synchronize our schedules and we met up at the Sazerac bar. I had a sazzie and a Ramos Gin Fizz while noshing on some excellent bar foods (wasabi peas!)

67) Learn to make 6 different cocktails from memory.
3) Pinewood Drifter- 2 shots bourbon, 1 shot aperol, 1 shot punt e mes, 1 shot cynar, 1 shot sours, drizzle of orange bitters and drizzle of walnut bitters.
This is a drink I had at The Whistler in Chicago. It wasn't on their menu, but when I asked the bartender to make me something with Aperol, he told me this was a past menu item. It may be my new favorite "fancy" cocktail. (For reference, my standard cocktail is a whiskey sour and I am on a constant mission to find the best one in New Orleans).

70) Discover 5 new-to-me poets.
4) Juliet Cook
I bought Juliet Cook's collection, 13 Designer Vaginas, a collection of poems about vaginal rejuvenation surgery, at AWP. Here's an excerpt from one poem (all of them are titled, "Designer Vagina"):
Home girl swirled with lard ass.
Pink foam egg carton wastebasket
I don't want to burst at my seams.
I want to stay intact and gleam.

5) Naoko Fujimoto
Fujimoto has a poem called "Peel" in New Madrid's Winter 2012 issue. I have re-read the poem about 20 times. It is beautiful and bracing and every time I read it, it makes me want to write something.


96) Attend 10 cultural events.
6) Reinventing Radio: An Evening With Ira Glass
7) The Lion King
Y'all. Go see the Broadway production of The Lion King if you get a chance. It is gorgeous. I cry at anything, so this is probably not a testament to the play, but when all the animals started coming out onto the stage and walking up the aisles of the theater, the whole experience of it--costumes, set, music--was so overwhelming that I started crying. I don't remember having ever been literally breathtaken, but I was leaning forward, slack-jawed with tears rolling down my face. It's good that there are no photos. Yokels at the theater, y'all!
The tickets were a gift to Richie for Christmas. That may seem like an odd gift to give a twenty-something man, but the movie is sort of special to the two of us. I don't know if I've ever told this story here, but I'm going to tell it again. Over the summer, before we started dating, Richie and I were hanging out at his apartment. We stepped outside on his patio so he could smoke a cigarette. A kid walked up, about 16 or 17, and asked if he could borrow a phone to call his mom. I didn't have mine on me and Richie's was dead. We told the kid this, he said okay and disappeared...only to reappear with a gun, demanding our money. We told him we didn't have anything and begged him to please not hurt us. The kid started laughing and ran away. Richie practically picked me up and threw me inside the apartment. Later, after the police had come (they never found the kid), Richie put The Lion King on to calm us down. We became a lot closer after that night and that movie has held a special significance since.

better late than never

Shortly after I posted my last post, my laptop charger broke. Between that, lots of stuff going on at work, and a pile of reading I wanted to catch up on, I've neglected the blog.

At this point, I think writing an exhaustive breakdown of the Chicago trip probably isn't worth it. So, the short version is this:
The Amtrak ride up to Chicago was great and really comfortable. I did a lot of reading and writing. AWP was amazing and inspirational (more on that in a second) and seeing Margaret Atwood was totally worth the trip by itself. I bought lots of records and books and my checked luggage was 49 pounds. Erin, Mike, and I ate a lot of amazing food (pastries, popcorn, hot dogs, tacos, Ethiopian, waffles, cheese, sausage, quince jelly) and I drank a magnum of pink moscato champagne over the course of three evenings, because I'm classy. I thanked God every day for Chicago's freakishly warm winter that ensured I did not have to deal with anything except the smallest of snow flurries during my visit. I do not deal well with extreme cold. It was a pretty perfect trip, getting to see two of my best friends (twice in one year!) and visiting one of my favorite cities.

Posing with a festive cow in my cat dress

Margaret Atwood!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Giant stack of lit mags I hauled home

Hot dogs! Chili cheese (T) and Chicago-style (B)

Friends :)

Onto the inspirational part of AWP. Two of the goals on my 101 in 1001 list are to submit seven poems for publication and write two non-fiction pieces. I wrote those goals and then avoided them. Mostly because I just didn't feel like a writer anymore. Writing without a goal felt pointless and the goal of publication felt...silly. Calling myself a writer just because I have a BA in creative writing felt overblown to me. Egotistical. Obviously, this is partly an issue of semantics, but there it is.

AWP inspired me to write again. Being around other writers, talking to them, reading them, talking to people who run lit mags...all of it reminded me of how happy writing creatively makes me. I miss crafting poems, connecting moments for non-fiction pieces, writing in a non-academic way. I went around talking to a number of lit mag representatives and found that a lot of them are looking to publish more non-fiction. I got copies of journals and I've been reading them. Last night, I finally had a break in my mental block and I wrote for almost two straight hours. At the end, I had two non-fiction pieces and two poems. All in need of editing, but that's more creative writing than I've done in the past four years.

I made some decisions while I was at AWP. Or, if you prefer, confirmations. I'm going to keep reading and writing non-fiction pieces. I am going to send them to various outlets and try to get published. I want to eventually get good enough and have enough of a reputation to put together a small collection, to be published by a small publishing house. I would also like to publish another (non-creative writing) book, but that's a topic I'm a little too nervous to talk about just yet. :) I want to start writing more, creatively and for hire. To that end, I've emailed my editor at GoodNola and ended my self-imposed hiatus. I've put out feelers (and gotten some responses) about doing paid freelancing.

And, I am revamping this blog. I've already purchased a domain name and I'm in the process of moving the blog to Wordpress. Not all of the entries here will be moved there--some are much too personal for the more public face I want for the new blog. I want to start updating at least twice a week and, ideally, daily. I need to be writing more in general if I want to write more creatively. Right now, my words still feel hampered. I have difficulty expressing my more abstract thoughts sometimes and I fall back on words like "kind of" and "just" that really don't express anything. Writing more helps refine that sort of thing. I also want my name out there in a more public way so I have a public face to point to if I pursue publishing.

All of this is a little scary. I've mentioned here before that I hadn't really considered a life outside of academia. That's always been my goal. That goal has to be reconsidered now, not just because of Ph.D programs, not just because of the terrible economy for academics, but because it has slowly dawned on me that teaching English may not be what I want to do with the rest of my life. It isn't what I want to do anymore. There's no set path ahead anymore. So, for now, I'm going to pursue those things that make me happy and see where that takes me.

"let me stay, please"

I'll post a write up about Chicago later, but for now, this pretty much sums it up:

Some of the people I love the most + cat print dress.

101 in 1001- February update

19) Read 1 unassigned book per month.
December '11- Carson McCullers The Member of the Wedding
January '12- Jonathan Franzen Freedom
February '12- Pam Houston Waltzing the Cat

24) Learn 1 new word a week.
Cicatrix- A scar resulting from the formation and concentration of fibrous tissue in a wound.
Plenipotentiary- That which confers full powers OR a person invested with "full powers."
Macrocephalic- Abnormal largeness of the head.
Hircine- of, or pertaining to, a goat.


28) See all of the Mindfuck movies.
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)- technically not a Mindfuck movie according to the original list, but one that the author said later he wished he had included.



32) Go to a major sporting event.
One of my doctors gave me his tickets to a Hornets game. As it turns out, these tickets were only 10 rows up from the court. We had a really great time (and acted silly, cheering along with the Jumbotron, etc.) and we hit up the fancy-schmancy lounge area that is only available to people with expensive tickets. Of course, we also took photos because, as I told Richie, we'll probably never see that again.

39) Make a cheesecake.
I don't normally do Valentine's Day. Not out of any annoyance at the holiday--I generally don't care if people want to celebrate it--but because I've either been single and not cared or been dating someone that also didn't care enough to make it a big deal. But Richie and I decided to cook a nice meal for ourselves. He made me an incredible meal of seared scallops over garlic butter pasta and duck breast with a beer reduction cream sauce on a bed of sauteed kale and pureed turnips. And I made him a red velvet cheesecake. For those who don't want to click on that link, this was basically a cheesecake sandwiched between two layers of red velvet. Unfortunately, I actually had to throw out half the cake before I left for Chicago because it was SO rich that eating one piece of it was more than enough and we weren't able to ever finish it. But it was really really tasty. 

57) Make 3 food items I'd normally buy ready-made. 
I made harissa! (recipe here) I wasn't able to find the peppers that the recipe called for (I subbed serranos, california chilis and jalapenos), nor was I able to find dried chilies (I dried them myself in my oven over the course of about 4 hours at a 200 degree temp. Also, wtf Whole Foods?) AND I forgot to get coriander seeds, so I was forced to use powdered, but for all that, this still turned out to be delicious and authentic tasting.
















88) Go to all the major Mardi Gras parades.
Carrollton 
Muses
Proteus
Orpheus
Zulu
Rex
Plus!:
Krewe du Vieux
Pontchartrain
Caesar
King Arthur and Merlin
Babylon
Chaos
Hermes
D'Etat
Morpheus
Endymion
Okeanos
Mid-City
Thoth
Box of Wine
Bacchus
Tucks

96) Attend 10 cultural events.
5) Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra- Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 
Alyson scored free tickets to the Philharmonic and invited me to be her date. Since I haven't been to the symphony since middle school and hadn't spent time with Alyson for almost a month, I accepted. It was lovely.

Full list here.

gras fotos

I was going to upload Mardi Gras photos with the 101 in 1001 February roundup but I decided they deserve their own post.

First, I need you to play this in the background. I heard this song at least 10 times while walking 100s of blocks all over the city, and I never failed to start dancing.

The night of Endymion was miserable and rainy. Richie lives very close to Canal and Carrollton, so even though we were without rain gear, we thought we'd just run down the street and get some ponchos. We ended up taking refuge on the porch of an insurance company while waiting for the rain to calm down. Endymion ended up being great though--we got drunk at Richie's job, met some nice people and the rain stopped about 3 floats in.

Some friends we made while parading. Two of them were in Box of Wine and hooked us up with copious amounts of vin when they passed, since we shared so much of our booze with them at parades. This photo was taken at Hermes, right after I insisted everyone take a celebratory shot from the bottle of Jack Daniels in my bag. Like a LADY.

 

L to R; Paul S., self, Suz, Jesse. On Sunday, My friend Susan, her boyfriend Jesse, and Jesse's roommate, Paul, came into town for their first Mardi Gras ever. We had a long day--65 blocks of walking (yes, I counted them), LOTS of alcohol and  4 parades (Okeanos, Mid-City, Thoth, Bacchus). They enjoyed it. This was the day I got hit in the face twice with beads. Once was at Okeanos, when someone threw some giant beads that hit me so hard in the mouth that I cut the inside of my upper and lower lips. I worried it had chipped my falsie tooth, but luckily, things seem to be okay there. Later, someone threw a handful of beads at a throwback float and they hit me square in the side of the head and left little goose eggs on my forehead. This was also the day that Ashley got engaged.

My parents came in on Lundi Gras. This is us at Orpheus. I drank pretty much the entire contents of a bottle of Crown that evening (some of which is still in that cup I'm holding). My outfit here is a variation on what I wore to most parades: leggings or tights, 10-year old Chucks (seriously, those things have been through so much: various Mardi Gras seasons, every music festival I've ever attended, plus being my go-to tennis shoes), tutu, top, thrift store military jacket. This night ended badly--I got sick due to a potent combo of alcohol, little food, and 5 hour energy drinks. I had a bad anxiety attack later, made worse by my darling little brother, who didn't show up at my house until 7am (without responding to my multiple texts about where he was and if he needed me to come get him). But the day was good until that point.

Downtown, right after Zulu. I was in an AWFUL mindset at this point: very little sleep, all friends except Matt totally bailed on going to the parade, still not feeling well, parents disappeared. But a super nice lady at Zulu gave me one of the many coconuts she caught and her gesture was a small bit of loveliness in what ended up being a fairly shitty day otherwise.

"but you'll fight and you'll make it through/ you'll fake it if you have to"

I didn't mean to take nearly a month's hiatus from the blog, but life has been so busy lately. Plus, I'm sure no one minded :)

Things have been a little tumultuous lately. As it stands today, I've received three letters of rejection from programs: OSU, Vanderbilt, and Rutgers. OSU was a blow for me; I was really hoping to get into that program. Still waiting to hear from LSU, Stanford and Indiana. Before I sent in apps last semester, one of my professors told me that a longer wait is not a bad thing--it usually means they're still considering your application instead of outright rejecting it. I'm holding out hope that this is the case for Stanford. It probably isn't--they probably just have a billion applications to sort through--but a girl can dream, can't she?

I also, after much consideration and a long talk with my adviser, decided to nix the thesis. In the end, I think I could have done it, but I would have been insane trying to squeeze in a thesis between work, carnival season, Chicago/AWP. The sheer volume of work I'd have to do in a month, even barring those extras, would have been incredible. And I decided, and supported in this decision by Tom, that I didn't want to write something hurriedly and end up publishing something that I wasn't 100% proud of writing. I'm still a little bummed about the way things played out, but also admittedly relieved that I've been able to have a free semester. I've been reading a LOT (I'm caught up on #19 on the list!), I went to TWENTY Mardi Gras parades, I saw lots of friends, I've had time to clean my house and watch movies and be a little lazy, which has been a rare luxary over the past two years. I feel good about what I did--I finished my MLA in a year and a half. I'm graduating with a 3.95 GPA. I learned a lot and made an amazing friend. And now I just want a little time to enjoy New Orleans some more, especially if it might be my last time for a long time to live here. 

In addition to the above, and maybe because of in some sense, I've also been fighting some depressive episodes this month. When I first started this entry a few days ago, I was listening to this Rilo Kiley song on repeat in an effort to remind myself that I've gotten to a place in life where I know how to fight those situations. This has just been a tough one. I've had multiple anxiety attacks this month. I've been trying to center myself with balanced friend and alone time, cooking, cuddling with the cat, and whiskey. The last in moderation. Mostly.

But, all in all, it's been a fairly good month. Mardi Gras was a blast (excepting the actual day, which was awful for me for reasons I don't want to go into here), I ran around in a leather corset and a tutu, I saw friends, I got a Zulu coconut, my friend got engaged, Richie made me an AMAZING Valentine's Day dinner (seared scallops on garlic butter angel hair, followed by duck breast topped with a cream and Abita Amber reduction, on a bed of pureed turnips and garlic sauteed kale) and I made him one of the best cakes I've ever made--a double layered red velvet cake with a layer of cheesecake in the middle. I'm ready to round out the month with a train ride to Chicago, panels on writing, playing in one of my favorite cities and spending a week with some of my very favorite people.

and sometimes when you're on 

you're really fucking on
and your friends they sing along and they love you
but the lows are so extreme

that the good seems fucking cheap
and it teases you for weeks in its absence
but you'll fight and you'll make it through
you'll fake it if you have to
and you'll show up for work with a smile
and you'll be be better and you'll be smarter
and more grown up and a better daughter
or son and a real good friend
and you'll be awake, you'll be alert
you'll be positive though it hurts
and you'll laugh and embrace all your friends
and you'll be a real good listener
you'll be honest, you'll be brave
you'll be handsome and you'll be beautiful
you'll be happy

Upward Mobility

This is mostly just a silly post I'm using to test the Blogger mobile app.
Tonight, I went grocery shopping then cooked food for the week. Fish, kale, potato and tomato chowder, stuff for veg curry, and a potato and.feta tart. Wheat toast with nutella and half a banana for dessert. I also washed the veritable shitton of dirty dishes and now the skin on my hands feels stiff and weird.
Here's a pic of Richie and me I took the other day: