ChrisCam

Thanks for the love, all.

As you know, I'm not terribly good at coping with change. I don't like the things I love to change...friendships, haircuts, the same exact meal at Munday's...You know. But the damn world keeps changing whether I like it or not, and it usually brings me far more happiness than I ever anticipated when I was busy being miserable about the fact that it was changing. So my butt's outa bed and able to deal a little better right now.

Shoutouts: Mark for dealing with the brunt of me being sad, Bright, Annie, and Missa for playing with me, Vy, Andrea, Lis, and the thesis group for keeping me (slightly) on track, Drew for blitzes, Jameson for blitz and flower pics, Mich for blitz, Liss for blitz, and Vac for call. And Care for call/blitz. I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but if so it's hopefully not someone who reads this. ;-) Heehee. And if I haven't hit you back, I've been nuts but I will.

Looks like I'll probably be in CT near NY next year right now.

Mark just called to tell me that his mom's coming...in an hour. So I need to go get cute and hope to make a good impression. Mwah!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

I really am the worst procrastinator ever.

I feel no need to prove that here, because I have better things to do. Like read all of the "Tell Me About It" archives from 1998. I am so cool it hurts sometimes.

Send love to Care who ended up in the hospital this week. The mono's back, poor baby. So send good vibes her way.

In other news...I got a job offer! Celebrate, damn you! It is now significantly less likely that I am going to starve!!! Of course, if I get another I will be agonizing over which one to take, and I'll keep you updated. This one is a little more money than the one I thought I'd get, and is not in the middle of nowhere. Well actually, it is, but it's only 45 mins away from NYC. It's a lot less responsibility though, and I wouldn't have my own classroom, but I'd be an apprentice of sorts. I like that aspect less. And it's little kids while the others are high school, so the type of teaching is VERY different. I had such good "i belong here" vibes from the other two places that I'm still hoping to get offers at...but there are better things about this one. AAAAAH. Thoughts? Please? Help?

Here's what advisor had to say about thesis: "I have finished reading your Intro with a stimulating mixture of interest and horror."

Laugh? Cry? Shrug? This is me, not quite sure what the appropriate response to that is. (Yes, I'm aware that I already shared this quote with exactly half of those reading this, but the other half had to see it too.)

At least I'm stimulating. Hubba hubba.

I love that without fail, the most people read this on Sunday night when procrastinating becomes most important.

I just fell asleep in one of our food courts while trying to type. When I woke up, one of the guys who works here grinned and said, "Morning." As I blushed he told me that he thought about waking me up but figured that I wasn't hurting anyone unless I fell off the chair. Pretty sure I drooled too. Hott.

I feel so demoralized about my thesis right now. My advisor is only interested in hating on Rand and talking about why she sucks, when he responds to me at all. He doesn't seem to understand that I am taking a close look at its female themes, not trying to critique her so much as say why feminists (pro or con Rand) shouldn't ignore her. And he's not giving me any feedback on my actual writing--so far, really NONE. He is helping me find critical theorists I can use to talk about her, but I really want to look closely at the book itself, and I need feedback to do that! Even if he tells me that I suck, I need something to go from. Wah.

So clearly I write here instead of working. Demoralization is fun.

And poor Mark's harddrive crashed so he's off the grid. I am frantically backing everything up. And trying to stay awake. Yawn.

What are you doing reading this?? I KNOW you have work to do.

Yeah, that's why I'm writing it too. I promised a post on this topic, so this'll have to do.

My Easter Dinner. Because I love food.
On Easter, I went out with my uncle and his family to dinner, since I was in Boston for job interviews and the family couldn't let me starve. (Yeah starving student gig. Sometimes it's worth it.) We went to The Federalist--a beautiful, classy place. I should have paid more attention to what other people ate, but I just couldn't. The varied appetizers were difficult to choose from, but I settled on "spiced lobster soup and salad." I'd never had lobster salad before. And I was expecting a bowl of soup...but what arrived was a tiny cup of the most fragrant bisque I'd ever been in contact with. Too small to stick a regular spoon in the itty bitty cup (it came with a teeny spoon), the soup was nevertheless rich and heavenly. Chunks of succulent lobster amid the smooth creaminess. Mmm. The lobster salad was a little bit crunchy, maybe from the celery? Is there celery in lobster salad? I don't know what lobster salad was supposed to taste like. But I liked it! Together, this beensy little portion that I was feeling rather gypped about entirely filled me up with richness.

Luckily, the service was slow and we had plenty of time to digest before our next course. There was champagne served before the food, and a nice white wine served with appetizers (sauvignon blanc?). Uncle is good at wine-picking.

Yes, the main course. Before I go into mine, I should mention Uncle's. Uncle had the beef tenderloin with foie gras, braised onions, and a thyme madeira sauce. He ordered it with the Kobe beef, which knocked it up to $68. I was expecting quite a hunk of steak for that amount, but it was just this tiny little thing. I didn't try it or I'd fully report. The Japanese cows which go into this beef are massaged routinely/daily to prevent muscle stiffness and are "brushed" with sake. I'm having a hard time picturing this, but apparently it's true. Apparently some of the massages also use sake as oil to really relax the beasts. When closer to slaughter, they are fed beer and sake mash.

I never thought I'd say this, but...I WANT TO BE A COW.

I know, I know, my food. But any food that expensive is so much more exciting. The rack of lamb came with fava bean succotash. Was the cook of a literary bent with a sense of humor?

I had the Roasted Alaskan Wild King Salmon, with pumpkin risotto, belgian endive, and chestnut white truffle sauce. The fish sliced apart with the flightest touch of a fork. It was soft but firm, somehow, and when taken with a bite of risotto and smudged with white truffle sauce...WOW. It was rather traumatizing to be next to the beef and wanting to taste it, but I would have stabbed anyone who approached my food so I understand why no one shared. The pumpkin risotto wasn't overpowering at all, with just a slight hint of pumpkin; really, it's purpose was just to be a foil to the very flavorful fish. Uncle ordered a cabernet sauvignon for the main course, and THIS WINE WAS FANTASTIC. I would have licked the glass if I could have. The rest of the family was LEAVING SOME in their glasses. It was just too gauche to chug all of their glasses before we left, but I thought about it. Ok, honestly, if I wasn't driving I *totally* would have. But YOU knew that, didn't you?

I always write about food when I'm hungry!

You WILL NOT believe what we watched tonight. His name is The Regurgitator. This dude swallowed shit like no porn star I've ever seen. Pool ball...and back up. Rubik's cube in...turns it in his stomach, and back out. Swallows butane gas...and for the next half an hour, will randomly light a lighter and create a fire bomb. Swallows a magnet and then a bunch of tacks. Swallows ten coins, and brings them up however people ask...one at a time, all at once, 3 at a time, whatever. Walks around the room taking girls' rings and swallowing them. 11, before he was done. Then he brought them up in the order he wanted. (Yes, I took my rings off and stuck them in my pocket. This makes me a poor sport, but I just couldn't deal.) R. asks for another ring, swallows it. Then he swallows an open lock and a key. Then he brings the ring back up, locked onto the lock. Hands it to the girl, then brings up the key so she can get her ring back. He chugged a bunch of water, then swallowed two fish at once and brought them up one at a time, spitting them back into their fish tanks. For his grand finale, he swallowed a film container, and then the cap, and then a small fish. Then he swallowed a pool ball, brought that up, and behind it, the fish, closed inside the container with the cap firmly attached. Pretty nuts.

How do you figure out you can do that for the first time???

Enough self-pity.

I finished a chapter!! A whole whopping 13 pages of goodness. Actually, of crap, but that's why we say we're going to revise. Now I have to send it to said thesis advisor, who will hopefully have some helpful things to say and not just tell me it's crap and I need to start over. Woohoo! If you've read Atlas and you're interested in being my editor, let me know. ;-) I need it!

I think I'm going to hold a "nervous breakdown party" to celebrate my utter lack of functioning. Don't have a job? Screwed for your thesis? Come play with me! Featuring lots of chocolate, perhaps a Johnny Depp movie or two, too much alcohol, and perhaps a list of facilities in our area which offer nice accomodations and lovely straitjackets. What would you have at YOUR nervous breakdown party?

Ok, the only reason I'm out of bed is meeting with my advisor in an hour. Maybe I should go prepare.

So Mich wins for following instructions for the question! (See comments.) Ski bum following the seasons. I like that. Used bookstore also. Pro dog walker is slightly more iffy, although I hear you can make a decent living in NYC. Drew, you need to specify what you'd be doing in the Green Country. Unsurprisingly, I would be a food writer in Italy. Travel to the best restaurants and sample the food and wine for free, and then get paid to tell other people what I thought about it. I can't really picture anything better than that!!!

Cooking school in Italy is still on the list, after I get rich teaching. ;-) Maybe I need to adjust my goals?

If you could do anything after graduation, what would you do? You must be making some money, but because we're fantasizing here, people, that doesn't have to be the focus. Would you write? Be a tour guide in Hawaii? Organic farm your way across Europe?

I'll answer my own question after I get back from an interview on Tuesday night. But feel free to respond here if you wish.

Is there anything better than lazy weekend baseball games in the sun?

Well, yes.

But it gets harder to beat when we win all four! Out in the sun, sitting there with Missa, cheering like we have every spring, it was pretty fabulous. The Green was packed with people today. They mostly lay around, working, talking, napping, and generally soaking up the sunlight. Yesterday there was a group out there with a three-foot-tall drum and a giant pipe looking thing to bang it. For a warm-up, the fifteen or so people out there were doing handstands, which generally means something pretty cool is about to happen. One started pounding on the drum, and they formed a circle, into which two at a time jumped and began doing an improvisational dance, throwing their legs over each others' heads, springing around and looking like they really knew how to enjoy a sunny day. Today I saw a guy from my Tae Kwon Do class out practicing, which made me hang my head in shame. I should make time to go, but with interview traveling, t-word writing, and it being senior spring...well. You know.

I've decided to become a flexitarian. That means limiting my meat and eating lots of veggies.

I should pause here to say that I recently had one of the best cheeseburgers of my LIFE. I was in a hotel the night before an interview, and the place had a little restaurant attached. I was prepared to be unimpressed, and I was all alone which can easily make a meal out a bummer. I ordered the perfect burger. ::Drumroll:: Cheddar cheese, gorgonzola cheese on the side for extra kick, lettuce, tomato, sauteed onions, served medium-rare with ketchup and mayo. AND sweet potato fries. I ordered a glass of Black Opal Shiraz to go with it, and I sat there and read my James Patterson book at the table while chowing down and loving my wine at the same time. One of the best meals of my existence.

However, for a person with exceedingly high cholesterol, too much meat isn't a great idea. I love it way too much to go entirely without, but I've been alternating two meatless days with one carnivorous. I just read "Food Revolution," and now that I know what I know I feel like I can't just ignore it. Ignorance isn't a great excuse...high blood pressure, heart disease, even cancer seem to all be affected by a healthier diet. And chicken has about as much cholesterol as meat! Sigh. I'm too much of a hedonist to ever switch over 100%, but I'm discovering that I actually LOVE hummus. And peppers. And veggie wraps. Who am I really??

I'll try to get to posting about spring break eventually, but the farther away it gets the less likely it is that I'll ever catch up.

So right now...I just went on a job interview to teach at a school for kids with learning disabilities. I WANT the job, it was awesome, but unfortunately while I was sitting in the office the boss had to take a call from someone with connections to people on the board, and this someone wanted the job I wanted too. I was so bummed! He sort of told me after that (since it was obvious) that he might not have a position for me, but another one might open up. It doesn't feel fair, but that's life I guess. Not as much of a meritocracy as we'd like.

And speaking of, working on the thesis, which will heretofore be called "the t-word." Death to anyone who says its name and induces a panic attack, which I seem to get every time I think about how much I have to do in a month. My advisor gave me a heart attack when he emailed and asked when I could get a draft to him. I sat at the computer hyperventilating because, well, I haven't actually started...writing...yet? Oops. I frantically blitzed back saying that I needed smaller deadlines than the whole thing, like in chapters, and I'd get to work right away, etc. He never emailed me back, but when he ran into my boyfriend a few days later he laughed, "Boy, she really seemed to freak out, but I was just talking about a draft of her intro. Guess I should email her back, huh?"

Right now I'm trying to work on a chapter about Atlas Shrugged and femininity. Touching on how Rand defines feminine and masculine, how she sets up the distinctions, why it was necessary for her to make Dagny ultra-feminine in some scenes (clothes, body, hair) to put the debate about women's capabilities back in her own court, how powerful women are regarded today as unfeminine (Hillary, Janet Reno, Condi) if their clothes and looks aren't up to scratch, about the swapping of "chains" between Lillian and Dagny, how the heroes and the others view femininity. If you've read the book and have any thoughts, let me know, I'd love to have new perspectives in the mix.