Until this week, I have never felt so fulfilled by eating cheese.
For awhile, when people asked me what I wanted from the US, I said 'peanut butter' because, while not impossible to find here, it can be difficult and it is invariably more expensive than at home, and often all you can find are jars of Skippy (filled with hydrogenated oils) or cans--cans--of the stuff. Peanut butter in a can must be undead. Or similarly horrible.
Peanut butter is one of the classic American foods here.
But recently I discovered that there is a food I love (I didn't even know this until I was absent from it) that one simply cannot find in Paris, save peut-être at British or American specialty stores. This godly nectar is known in English-speaking countries as "cheddar", and lately, I cannot get enough of it. I recently brought back from London an extra extra strong (No. 7) variant that was quite good...
I've watched Virginia crave and get a lot of satisfaction out of buying and devouring slabs of the strange soft or goopy, slightly malodorous cheeses that one finds here, and intellectually, I've understood that she grew up eating it, she likes it a lot, and sometimes she just wants it. (I've heard other people describe cheese as a 'bonheur'.) But now I think I have a real, experiential appreciation for the French love of cheese.
Good God, does it hit the spot!
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Thursday, October 30, 2008
A conversation I had this morn...er...sometime
Matt: I'll try and post tomorrow
me: okay
Matt: but I need to sleep now
me: go for it
Heh
I just woke up
It is tomorrow already for me
Matt: hah
me: I'm communicating with you from the future!
Matt: OMG
me: Let me tell you, it's a pretty amazing place
So much neat stuff
Matt: well
me: but I can't tell you about it or I might wreck the timeline
Matt: I'll see you there when I wake up
me: excellent. I'll be waiting for you.
Matt: O WAIT
too latefrq
every
me: ?
Matt: thing
is
me: shit
Matt: falling
me: shitshitshitshitshit
da,,it!
Matt: AAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPAAAAAAARRRRTTTTTT
me: OMG! My keyboard!
What happened to my keyboard? It's not qwerty anymore...it's...azerty! I--Matt? Matt? Hello? Fuck
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
All the World's a Stage
Something that we've been working on for a long time, but that I have neglected to post about (FAIL) is the play that just finished its performance run last night. V and the rest of the cast have been working on it since last September or October; I've been involved since I came over mid-November. So really I should have written something about it. Sorry.
Anyway, the play we've been working on is Kindly Leave the Stage by John Chapman. Cast/characters:
We're almost all pretty much rank amateurs; only Virginia has acted and directed quite a bit, and otherwise Yann has done one play (with Virginia), Barbara has done a little bit of improv, I've taken one general acting and one improv course, and everyone else just started this year. And everyone has done remarkably! Okay, I can't speak for myself really, but at the very least I've had fun and people seem entertained by my part; and everyone else has made huge acting strides, which is amazing and wonderful, and it seems like, by and large, our audiences have all been pleased with our performances. We still have a lot to learn--at the moment, we still perform best if we do a run-through before each show--a trait that, ideally, wouldn't exist--and we need to work on loosening up a bit, finding our characters more quickly, punching up the energy of our acting, following on the ends of each others' lines, stuff like that. But these are all things that will go away with practice. And the bottom line is that we pulled it off, and pulled it off well!
In fact, in order to secure our performance dates, we had to form an official association, "Hark Who's Talking", so we're a theatre troupe, or perhaps a club, now. And we're looking forward to our next year--now that we have had some small success with a few places, it'll be easier to secure those venues again for other performances. And we seem to have impressed enough of our friends and families that they'll spread word a bit and we might get a bigger audience. We don't do this for profit (we might pass the chapeau in the future to help recuperate the production costs), but we'd still like to get as much of an audience as we can.
I posted pictures of backstage at our last show online. Check 'em out.
Anyway, the play we've been working on is Kindly Leave the Stage by John Chapman. Cast/characters:
RUPERT played by Micky Filhol
MADGE played by Marie Dubois
CHARLES played by Yann Fuchs
SARAH [CULLEN] played by Maëva Vincensini
DOROTHY CULLEN played by Amandine who has a last name somewhere
EDWARD CULLEN/FROBISHER played by me
NURSE played by Barbara LeLan
ANGELA played by Virginia Fumagalli
We're almost all pretty much rank amateurs; only Virginia has acted and directed quite a bit, and otherwise Yann has done one play (with Virginia), Barbara has done a little bit of improv, I've taken one general acting and one improv course, and everyone else just started this year. And everyone has done remarkably! Okay, I can't speak for myself really, but at the very least I've had fun and people seem entertained by my part; and everyone else has made huge acting strides, which is amazing and wonderful, and it seems like, by and large, our audiences have all been pleased with our performances. We still have a lot to learn--at the moment, we still perform best if we do a run-through before each show--a trait that, ideally, wouldn't exist--and we need to work on loosening up a bit, finding our characters more quickly, punching up the energy of our acting, following on the ends of each others' lines, stuff like that. But these are all things that will go away with practice. And the bottom line is that we pulled it off, and pulled it off well!
In fact, in order to secure our performance dates, we had to form an official association, "Hark Who's Talking", so we're a theatre troupe, or perhaps a club, now. And we're looking forward to our next year--now that we have had some small success with a few places, it'll be easier to secure those venues again for other performances. And we seem to have impressed enough of our friends and families that they'll spread word a bit and we might get a bigger audience. We don't do this for profit (we might pass the chapeau in the future to help recuperate the production costs), but we'd still like to get as much of an audience as we can.
I posted pictures of backstage at our last show online. Check 'em out.
New Apartment
As recent posts sort of imply (and the one before that blatantly states), V and I have been searching for apartments with a friend. We've found a really nice one and will be moving into it on the 1st of July. It's located near the Buttes Chaumont, which is a lovely park that completely bucks the French tradition of neatly trimmed, flat, geometrically arranged gardens with small bushes, tiny flowers, square trees, too many statues, and grass that you can't walk on. (This is much to my relief--French gardens are pretty, but I prefer some wildness in my caged nature.) It was built over an old quarry and includes some bluffs (topped by pavilion), a small lake/large pond and a waterfall, hills, winding paths, grass that you can (gasp!) sit on, and many many trees.
The apartment is furnished (pictures here), and is well-situated for all of us. For Marie and V, it's near metro lines that go quickly to their workplaces. For me, there is ki aikido (Ki Federation, not Ki Society, but same thing, really) not far away. For all of us there is the park down the street and right next door to us a pool. For V and I, a rock gym. Plus a nearby organic cafe, a fruit/veggie open-air market, and plenty of other neat things. All told, yay! We're excited to move in!
The apartment is furnished (pictures here), and is well-situated for all of us. For Marie and V, it's near metro lines that go quickly to their workplaces. For me, there is ki aikido (Ki Federation, not Ki Society, but same thing, really) not far away. For all of us there is the park down the street and right next door to us a pool. For V and I, a rock gym. Plus a nearby organic cafe, a fruit/veggie open-air market, and plenty of other neat things. All told, yay! We're excited to move in!
Sunday, May 4, 2008
A Lot Like Love (Very Late Post)
Last night (*ahem* February 1--ed.) Mehdi & Nusha came over for dinner (read: Nusha used our kitchen to cook for everyone) as they often do, and afterwards we watched a movie we had rented, a romantic comedy starring Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet called A Lot Like Love. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rotten rating (41%), and some French paper quoted on the back of the movie case gave it three stars, which Mehdi says means the same thing as the obligatory "Two thumbs up!" that some no-name critic has to stamp on practically every film that comes out in America just to sell it.
However, we rather enjoyed it. It began as a quirky and cute piece about chance meetings between two people trying to find themselves. The dialogue was well written, witty, and fairly subtle, with quite a few things left nicely unspoken. There were nice symmetries throughout the film (the exchange of photography and guitar stuff, the breakups, etc.). And the characters were relatively normal people with normalish lives (yeah, middle class, but still normal) containing successes and failures. Also, surprisingly, Mr. Kutcher and Ms. Peet did decent acting work, showing characters that matured well over time and had believable subtle oddities. And their friendship deepened nicely.
The parts I thought didn't work so well were not large enough to make the film rotten, I felt. The soundtrack was for the most part poorly chosen, and felt like a sampling of Greatest Hits of the 1990s radio. Almost none of the music seemed to match the mood, tone, or present events of the film. The sound on the DVD itself was poorly done, so that we had to turn the volume way up to hear the dialogue and way down to avoid deafening the neighbors with soundtrack music. And though the film started and progressed for awhile as a quirky and somewhat unconventional romantic comedy, by the end, it seemed to get impatient with its characters, and so forced them into a standard romantic ending, complete with stupid chance misunderstandings and silly reveals.
Roger Ebert has a somewhat harsher view of the film.
However, we rather enjoyed it. It began as a quirky and cute piece about chance meetings between two people trying to find themselves. The dialogue was well written, witty, and fairly subtle, with quite a few things left nicely unspoken. There were nice symmetries throughout the film (the exchange of photography and guitar stuff, the breakups, etc.). And the characters were relatively normal people with normalish lives (yeah, middle class, but still normal) containing successes and failures. Also, surprisingly, Mr. Kutcher and Ms. Peet did decent acting work, showing characters that matured well over time and had believable subtle oddities. And their friendship deepened nicely.
The parts I thought didn't work so well were not large enough to make the film rotten, I felt. The soundtrack was for the most part poorly chosen, and felt like a sampling of Greatest Hits of the 1990s radio. Almost none of the music seemed to match the mood, tone, or present events of the film. The sound on the DVD itself was poorly done, so that we had to turn the volume way up to hear the dialogue and way down to avoid deafening the neighbors with soundtrack music. And though the film started and progressed for awhile as a quirky and somewhat unconventional romantic comedy, by the end, it seemed to get impatient with its characters, and so forced them into a standard romantic ending, complete with stupid chance misunderstandings and silly reveals.
Roger Ebert has a somewhat harsher view of the film.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Thanksgiving in Paris
The first big thing V and I have done since I moved over to Paris eleven days ago was to plan a Thanksgiving dinner for our (read: chiefly her but also becoming my) friends. In theory, it seemed kind of complicated to me: I had in my mind visions of Sinister House galas, twenty-five people spread out across living room and kitchen happily devouring a plethora of pot-luck meals, and I didn't really know how we could equal that glory, especially in our smaller dining space (which is not small by Parisian standards, but is easily dwarfed by the SH kitchen, which dwarfs many things, including elephants). Thankfully, V insisted a week before I moved over that if we were to do it at all, we needed to plan it now.
So Thanksgiving it was going to be. I felt that we couldn't fit many people in the house (the dining table only holds 6 to 8) and imagined an intimate dinner with 5 or 6 close friends chatting face to face across the table. But the guest list expanded as we created it and we discovered that there were no less than 14 people we couldn't not invite. So be it--we could figure out space later.
Initially, too, we tried to arrange for a pot-luck affair in order to divvy up the cost and labor of foodmaking, but since many of our friends don't get out of work until at least 7pm and for some reason the French government hasn't set aside holiday time for Thanksgiving, this didn't work out. In the end, our friend Nusha, a pastry chef in training, made the desserts (wow, did she ever!) and V and I planned and cooked the main meal with a bit of later help from Nusha and Marie.
To sum up so far: the initial idea, a small potluck dinner for 6 doubles in size and becomes a feast for 13 (1 couldn't make it) cooked by 2 with dessert by a 3rd.
Now, I know my stepmother frequently manages large gourmet meals for family and guests completely on her own, but she's a very practiced and dedicated amateur chef. I love cooking, but I do not have her experience or skill. So what surprised me tremendously, after researching recipes (thanks, AllRecipes.com!), was how amazingly doable a Thanksgiving feast is (given, of course, time).
Granted, desserts would have required a good deal of additional planning, and perhaps another day of preparation, but in the end, the process wasn't bad. I made the cranberry sauce (actually, sauce aux airelles because we couldn't find cranberries) the night before because it was easy and needed chilling. I also cut up some baguettes for stuffing and laid them out to air-dry a bit. Thursday, while Virginia was at work, I made the rest of the stuffing (celery, onion, herbs & spices, chicken stock) and began to prep the mashed potatoes. When V got home, she set about making corn bread and I seasoned the turkey and set it in the oven. Then she finished the potatoes while I cleaned. Nusha came over and made a salad and then I made gravy.
By this time, most of the guests had arrived and were getting hungry so we let the turkey out of the oven to play with some carving knives before serving everything. Along with the several bottles of wine that showed up with the invitees, we had a pretty savory meal. Thirteen people crowded around two tables stretched between dining and cooking areas, the room filled with banter and conversation.
Chef's Review
As I noted above, most of the recipes came from AllRecipes.com, and practically all of them were both good and fairly uncomplicated.
Cranberry sauce is pretty much just cranberry sauce--the recipe I found didn't differ significantly from the one printed on the backs of Ocean Spray cranberry packs, and we only added orange zest at the end because we could and to account for the slightly sweeter taste of the airelles. (I added a little extra sugar at first because V found a source on the Web that suggested airelles were a bit sourer than cranberries. In retrospect, I think this wasn't necessary. Also in retrospect, more flavor might be pulled from the orange zest if it's added before cooking the cranberries.)
The mashed potatoes were excellent: light, fluffy, and full of flavor. Virginia got amazing compliments on them and many questions about what went into them.
The homemade stuffing turned out well, but possibly could have used some more salt or broth to flavor it. Maybe if we had found space inside the turkeys....
The turkey was probably the best Thanksgiving turkey I've ever had. Due to issues of availability and oven size, we used two 3kg birds, frozen and prestuffed with some sort of giblet-and-chestnut mixture. They thawed easily and cooked simultaneously in 1h40m. I think their small size helped them cook well without losing too much moisture; the herb and oil rub specified by the recipe became a sauce that we used to baste the birds, and probably also contributed a lot to their moistness. And the flavors...wow.
The gravy was also good, but it started off very liquidy and reducing it took a long time. We shortened the process by adding in a "dry roux" (thanks, Nusha!), basically a tablespoon or so of butter and the same of flour mixed together, moistened with a few spoonfuls of the gravy, and then mixed in. I used chicken stock instead of turkey, but added pan drippings from the turkey for extra flavor.
Only the cornbread disappointed me and V, though no one else offered complaint. It was a decent recipe but not spectacular, just slightly too salty and powdery, not sweet enough for me and too sweet for Virginia. We chose the recipe because we couldn't find vegetable shortening in the stores here.
Even with 13 people, we still have leftovers, though by now they're down to some remaining stuffing and a little bit of turkey. Last night we took care of most of the meat by making a delicious turkey pot pie. (That's your cue to get jealous.)
So Thanksgiving it was going to be. I felt that we couldn't fit many people in the house (the dining table only holds 6 to 8) and imagined an intimate dinner with 5 or 6 close friends chatting face to face across the table. But the guest list expanded as we created it and we discovered that there were no less than 14 people we couldn't not invite. So be it--we could figure out space later.
Initially, too, we tried to arrange for a pot-luck affair in order to divvy up the cost and labor of foodmaking, but since many of our friends don't get out of work until at least 7pm and for some reason the French government hasn't set aside holiday time for Thanksgiving, this didn't work out. In the end, our friend Nusha, a pastry chef in training, made the desserts (wow, did she ever!) and V and I planned and cooked the main meal with a bit of later help from Nusha and Marie.
To sum up so far: the initial idea, a small potluck dinner for 6 doubles in size and becomes a feast for 13 (1 couldn't make it) cooked by 2 with dessert by a 3rd.
Now, I know my stepmother frequently manages large gourmet meals for family and guests completely on her own, but she's a very practiced and dedicated amateur chef. I love cooking, but I do not have her experience or skill. So what surprised me tremendously, after researching recipes (thanks, AllRecipes.com!), was how amazingly doable a Thanksgiving feast is (given, of course, time).
Granted, desserts would have required a good deal of additional planning, and perhaps another day of preparation, but in the end, the process wasn't bad. I made the cranberry sauce (actually, sauce aux airelles because we couldn't find cranberries) the night before because it was easy and needed chilling. I also cut up some baguettes for stuffing and laid them out to air-dry a bit. Thursday, while Virginia was at work, I made the rest of the stuffing (celery, onion, herbs & spices, chicken stock) and began to prep the mashed potatoes. When V got home, she set about making corn bread and I seasoned the turkey and set it in the oven. Then she finished the potatoes while I cleaned. Nusha came over and made a salad and then I made gravy.
By this time, most of the guests had arrived and were getting hungry so we let the turkey out of the oven to play with some carving knives before serving everything. Along with the several bottles of wine that showed up with the invitees, we had a pretty savory meal. Thirteen people crowded around two tables stretched between dining and cooking areas, the room filled with banter and conversation.
Chef's Review
As I noted above, most of the recipes came from AllRecipes.com, and practically all of them were both good and fairly uncomplicated.
Cranberry sauce is pretty much just cranberry sauce--the recipe I found didn't differ significantly from the one printed on the backs of Ocean Spray cranberry packs, and we only added orange zest at the end because we could and to account for the slightly sweeter taste of the airelles. (I added a little extra sugar at first because V found a source on the Web that suggested airelles were a bit sourer than cranberries. In retrospect, I think this wasn't necessary. Also in retrospect, more flavor might be pulled from the orange zest if it's added before cooking the cranberries.)
The mashed potatoes were excellent: light, fluffy, and full of flavor. Virginia got amazing compliments on them and many questions about what went into them.
The homemade stuffing turned out well, but possibly could have used some more salt or broth to flavor it. Maybe if we had found space inside the turkeys....
The turkey was probably the best Thanksgiving turkey I've ever had. Due to issues of availability and oven size, we used two 3kg birds, frozen and prestuffed with some sort of giblet-and-chestnut mixture. They thawed easily and cooked simultaneously in 1h40m. I think their small size helped them cook well without losing too much moisture; the herb and oil rub specified by the recipe became a sauce that we used to baste the birds, and probably also contributed a lot to their moistness. And the flavors...wow.
The gravy was also good, but it started off very liquidy and reducing it took a long time. We shortened the process by adding in a "dry roux" (thanks, Nusha!), basically a tablespoon or so of butter and the same of flour mixed together, moistened with a few spoonfuls of the gravy, and then mixed in. I used chicken stock instead of turkey, but added pan drippings from the turkey for extra flavor.
Only the cornbread disappointed me and V, though no one else offered complaint. It was a decent recipe but not spectacular, just slightly too salty and powdery, not sweet enough for me and too sweet for Virginia. We chose the recipe because we couldn't find vegetable shortening in the stores here.
Even with 13 people, we still have leftovers, though by now they're down to some remaining stuffing and a little bit of turkey. Last night we took care of most of the meat by making a delicious turkey pot pie. (That's your cue to get jealous.)
Friday, July 13, 2007
Journey
I'm flying to London today to spend a long-awaited two weeks with Virginia. I'll also be visiting some family friends and Julia and her counterpart, Angus.
I'm flying Air India, and finalizing my packing now, before leaving for work. (Crap. Where did my car keys go?)
I'll talk to you all in August when I return!
I'm flying Air India, and finalizing my packing now, before leaving for work. (Crap. Where did my car keys go?)
I'll talk to you all in August when I return!
Sunday, July 1, 2007
After-dinner Conversation
Gmail Chat with Gary Ploski
7/01/07 at 9:43 PM
me: So you know, I just made some awesome guacamole.
Sent at 9:43 PM on Sunday
me: And what's more, I used a recipe from the Nile delta region. I made guac like an Egyptian!
Sent at 9:44 PM on Sunday
me: Sigh. Nobody around to appreciate my puns.
Seriously, though, I did make some pretty good guac.
*For those who are interested, I diced a medium/large pearl onion (perhaps half the size of a golf ball), two or three decent-sized cloves or garlic, two and a half Hass avocados (one half was rotten), and a green jalapeno and mashed them all together till I had a nice lumpy, gooey consistency. Then I squozed [sic]** in the juice from one lime and added salt and pepper to taste, and mixed thoroughly. I suppose if you like tomatoes in your guac, you could add two diced medium Roma tomatoes here. I don't, so I didn't.
**It's a verb. Just ask my mother. She's an editor.
***Fine, I admit it. I got the whole idea from a Trader Joe's "guacamole kit" that I bought for $2.50 today. But it's a simple thing to put together and it had ideas that went beyond my own for making yummy avocado paste, and all the necessary ingredients came in one little container.
7/01/07 at 9:43 PM
me: So you know, I just made some awesome guacamole.
Sent at 9:43 PM on Sunday
me: And what's more, I used a recipe from the Nile delta region. I made guac like an Egyptian!
Sent at 9:44 PM on Sunday
me: Sigh. Nobody around to appreciate my puns.
Seriously, though, I did make some pretty good guac.
*For those who are interested, I diced a medium/large pearl onion (perhaps half the size of a golf ball), two or three decent-sized cloves or garlic, two and a half Hass avocados (one half was rotten), and a green jalapeno and mashed them all together till I had a nice lumpy, gooey consistency. Then I squozed [sic]** in the juice from one lime and added salt and pepper to taste, and mixed thoroughly. I suppose if you like tomatoes in your guac, you could add two diced medium Roma tomatoes here. I don't, so I didn't.
**It's a verb. Just ask my mother. She's an editor.
***Fine, I admit it. I got the whole idea from a Trader Joe's "guacamole kit" that I bought for $2.50 today. But it's a simple thing to put together and it had ideas that went beyond my own for making yummy avocado paste, and all the necessary ingredients came in one little container.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Reading Other Poets
I was talking with my housemates (Theresa & Jaime) the other day. We were hanging out in the kitchen eating late breakfast and sipping tea. One of them, I think it was J, brought up her dislike of the idea "enforced" (not her words) by so many of the writing teachers at Sarah Lawrence that in order to write good poetry (or good anything), one must copy and emulate the masters (and hence one must read read read). T assented to the opinion. Both of them felt that such an attitude was merely encouragement to imitate without being original yourself. I gently disagreed, saying that I felt the point was not to copy but to learn what each writer had to teach about technique, craft, and style.
Not long after that conversation, I was browsing through the Internet jungle and remembered a blog I used to enjoy reading--that of Shinichi Tohei Sensei, youngest son of Koichi Tohei Sensei, the founder of Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido. The latest entry has a short parable about an apprentice swordsmith, which Shinichi Sensei relates to the power, importance, and way to use the subconscious mind. (Shinichi Sensei writes:
Not long after that conversation, I was browsing through the Internet jungle and remembered a blog I used to enjoy reading--that of Shinichi Tohei Sensei, youngest son of Koichi Tohei Sensei, the founder of Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido. The latest entry has a short parable about an apprentice swordsmith, which Shinichi Sensei relates to the power, importance, and way to use the subconscious mind. (Shinichi Sensei writes:
When we try to achieve something, we will evolve in the shape of our own imagining. If the shape is predictable, we will develop into that shape. If the shape is brilliant, then we will develop into that shape.By imagining the very highest level for the beginning, we are able to create what is to become. The important thing is to feel and know the very best until it gets into your subconscious.)The parable struck me as extremely relevant to the conversation on Sunday. You can write and learn to write well all on your own, but having others to teach you is incredibly helpful. The point of reading the masters is not to mimic them--not to produce poetry just like theirs--but to learn good technique, so well that it fills your subconscious with understanding of quality craft--of good writing-- and you learn from it so that when you need to use such techniques, you can.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Beginning Again
As of late November, my previous Web site and its associated blog (Lexivore.net) ceased to exist because, well, I stopped paying for them. Since then I've been trying to decide what my first post should be on the new (free!) blog, which means, basically, that I've done nothing in the way of writing anything for it. Seeing as this was my usual modus operandi with Lexivore.net, perhaps I should turn over a new leaf and worry less about creating the ideal inaugural blog post.
So here's what's been going on in my life: I spent the summer working, first as catering wait staff in the city (NYC) and then as a counselor/teaching assistant for the Summer Institute for the Gifted (Bryn Mawr sessions), which was a debacle of a summer camp. The hours were ridiculous, the company offered classes that it refused to support (hard to teach graphic design without access to graphic design software, for instance), and the counselors were expected to uphold rules for behavior of the kids that sometimes made no sense. Also, when some of the rules mattered most (i.e., rules enforcing non-violent behavior among the students), they were not swiftly followed by the administration. Oy.
At the end of the summer, I got back to Yonkers, drove with my mom to Brattleboro, VT, and then to Newton, MA to meet with my dad. He and I then packed up the belongings still at the house he and my stepmother own and we drove back to NY in a rental van and dropped off the stuff. (My dad was generous enough to drive the van back to Boston and return it for me.)
After my return, Clare and I broke up, driven by her desire to soul-search and answer some pressing personal questions. This left me single for the start of the school year, and surprisingly sure of myself. (I realized, for one, that I didn't need to feel lonely or pine for a relationship, that I could get one if I wanted, and that I knew enough about my desires that I didn't need to leap at every opportunity I saw--I could simply enjoy the start of my third semester and date when I felt like doing so.) I did end up missing Clare at the beginning, but only because I liked her company and was used to having her around. It was a sensation distinct from lacking and desperately wanting a relationship.
So I entered the school year confident and excited. I began to work on my Masters thesis--a poetry manuscript that I hope will lead into my first book--with Kate Knapp Johnson, who is very very good at making students feel comfortable--working with her, I feel like we're collaborating to figure out how to solve a draft's problems, and not that I am listening to her dispense with advice. I leave conferences with her newly excited about my poetry.
I took a workshop with Stephen Dobyns, who is very sharp and very matter-of-fact in class and in conference. He has a subtle, dry wit, too, that can sometimes slip under your radar. He challenged me in many ways, and I feel my poetry grew a lot under his guidance and Kate's.
I participated in a teaching internship at SUNY Purchase, which meant I drove half an hour north-northeast on Thursdays for a class called Teaching Good Prose, and then again on Friday mornings to assist in a freshman-level College Writing course.
I also began to meet people again, though (deliberately) fewer than I did last year. One of the people I met was a gorgeous woman who walked into my first Aikido class of the year asking about wearing a gi. By the end of the class, we were chatting and hitting it off nicely, flirting a bit (okay, more than a bit) and finishing each other's sentences. Over the following weekend, I thought about her a lot. Those who are fairly familiar with my Aikido training and practice will understand what I mean when I talk about ki going or not going in a direction. With Virginia--whom I couldn't stop thinking about, and who clearly liked me--ki didn't go at first. It hit a brick wall. Turned out she had a (recently added) boyfriend in Paris. (She's Swiss-French and lives in Paris ordinarily.) For a few months, this proved to be a problem, as we were ridiculously attracted to each other. But in the end, she and he decided at the same time that long-distance wasn't working out for them, and, long story short, I'm in love and she loves me too!
The two of us have been working part-time in Sarah Lawrence's Academic Computing Department (ACD), through which we know Gary and Ali. Gary works in ACD and is enrolled in the MFA Theatre program at SLC. Ali works for an animal rights non-profit and is enrolled in the MFA Fiction program. I've roped them and a few other people into my Aikido P.E. class at the college, and now I have a small but growing group of regular students! I love the class, but wish I could teach some of the more complicated or unusual ki and throwing techniques. The quarter-based structure of the SLC P.E. system, stymies truly continuous teaching, however, because even with more and more regular students, I have to reset halfway through the semester and teach several classes of "the basics" to new students. Sadly, I only teach six classes in a quarter. (SLC students are, apparently, even less willing to take P.E. classes than Reedies. I don't know how that's possible.) I love teaching intro classes, but I feel a little stuck in that I can't teach my older students a lot of the really fun and neat stuff without first presenting the very basics (the four basic principles of mind/body coordination, the five basic principles of Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido, how to roll, etc.), and I can't do that (yet?) in fewer than two or three lessons. I think I need to improve the way I teach. And I imagine Erik must have similar frustrations at Reed.
Right now I'm on winter break preparing to enter my final semester at Sarah Lawrence (for now, I suppose). I just got back from visiting my father and stepmother in Newton, MA and my mother and a couple of old friends (hi Bret!) in Sandy Spring, MD. Virginia is getting in from a jaunt to Argentina today, and taking off for two weeks in Paris tomorrow, so I'm going to go shower, eat, and run off to pick her up. We've been talking on the phone daily since she left, and I can't wait to see her in person. I suspect once we get home this afternoon (after visiting with her friend Kristen) we won't be leaving the house much till tomorrow evening.
So here's what's been going on in my life: I spent the summer working, first as catering wait staff in the city (NYC) and then as a counselor/teaching assistant for the Summer Institute for the Gifted (Bryn Mawr sessions), which was a debacle of a summer camp. The hours were ridiculous, the company offered classes that it refused to support (hard to teach graphic design without access to graphic design software, for instance), and the counselors were expected to uphold rules for behavior of the kids that sometimes made no sense. Also, when some of the rules mattered most (i.e., rules enforcing non-violent behavior among the students), they were not swiftly followed by the administration. Oy.
At the end of the summer, I got back to Yonkers, drove with my mom to Brattleboro, VT, and then to Newton, MA to meet with my dad. He and I then packed up the belongings still at the house he and my stepmother own and we drove back to NY in a rental van and dropped off the stuff. (My dad was generous enough to drive the van back to Boston and return it for me.)
After my return, Clare and I broke up, driven by her desire to soul-search and answer some pressing personal questions. This left me single for the start of the school year, and surprisingly sure of myself. (I realized, for one, that I didn't need to feel lonely or pine for a relationship, that I could get one if I wanted, and that I knew enough about my desires that I didn't need to leap at every opportunity I saw--I could simply enjoy the start of my third semester and date when I felt like doing so.) I did end up missing Clare at the beginning, but only because I liked her company and was used to having her around. It was a sensation distinct from lacking and desperately wanting a relationship.
So I entered the school year confident and excited. I began to work on my Masters thesis--a poetry manuscript that I hope will lead into my first book--with Kate Knapp Johnson, who is very very good at making students feel comfortable--working with her, I feel like we're collaborating to figure out how to solve a draft's problems, and not that I am listening to her dispense with advice. I leave conferences with her newly excited about my poetry.
I took a workshop with Stephen Dobyns, who is very sharp and very matter-of-fact in class and in conference. He has a subtle, dry wit, too, that can sometimes slip under your radar. He challenged me in many ways, and I feel my poetry grew a lot under his guidance and Kate's.
I participated in a teaching internship at SUNY Purchase, which meant I drove half an hour north-northeast on Thursdays for a class called Teaching Good Prose, and then again on Friday mornings to assist in a freshman-level College Writing course.
I also began to meet people again, though (deliberately) fewer than I did last year. One of the people I met was a gorgeous woman who walked into my first Aikido class of the year asking about wearing a gi. By the end of the class, we were chatting and hitting it off nicely, flirting a bit (okay, more than a bit) and finishing each other's sentences. Over the following weekend, I thought about her a lot. Those who are fairly familiar with my Aikido training and practice will understand what I mean when I talk about ki going or not going in a direction. With Virginia--whom I couldn't stop thinking about, and who clearly liked me--ki didn't go at first. It hit a brick wall. Turned out she had a (recently added) boyfriend in Paris. (She's Swiss-French and lives in Paris ordinarily.) For a few months, this proved to be a problem, as we were ridiculously attracted to each other. But in the end, she and he decided at the same time that long-distance wasn't working out for them, and, long story short, I'm in love and she loves me too!
The two of us have been working part-time in Sarah Lawrence's Academic Computing Department (ACD), through which we know Gary and Ali. Gary works in ACD and is enrolled in the MFA Theatre program at SLC. Ali works for an animal rights non-profit and is enrolled in the MFA Fiction program. I've roped them and a few other people into my Aikido P.E. class at the college, and now I have a small but growing group of regular students! I love the class, but wish I could teach some of the more complicated or unusual ki and throwing techniques. The quarter-based structure of the SLC P.E. system, stymies truly continuous teaching, however, because even with more and more regular students, I have to reset halfway through the semester and teach several classes of "the basics" to new students. Sadly, I only teach six classes in a quarter. (SLC students are, apparently, even less willing to take P.E. classes than Reedies. I don't know how that's possible.) I love teaching intro classes, but I feel a little stuck in that I can't teach my older students a lot of the really fun and neat stuff without first presenting the very basics (the four basic principles of mind/body coordination, the five basic principles of Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido, how to roll, etc.), and I can't do that (yet?) in fewer than two or three lessons. I think I need to improve the way I teach. And I imagine Erik must have similar frustrations at Reed.
Right now I'm on winter break preparing to enter my final semester at Sarah Lawrence (for now, I suppose). I just got back from visiting my father and stepmother in Newton, MA and my mother and a couple of old friends (hi Bret!) in Sandy Spring, MD. Virginia is getting in from a jaunt to Argentina today, and taking off for two weeks in Paris tomorrow, so I'm going to go shower, eat, and run off to pick her up. We've been talking on the phone daily since she left, and I can't wait to see her in person. I suspect once we get home this afternoon (after visiting with her friend Kristen) we won't be leaving the house much till tomorrow evening.
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