I regularly have the problem of going to the library and only being able to think of one or two interesting books, then wandering aimlessly around for an hour before I pick out 4 terrible novels that initially look amusing and one good book. This happened yesterday. I found a book I'd seen at Borders that looked interesting, and I picked up two Italian tourist guides to browse through, but anything else I could think of was either in a library across campus I'd never heard of, was not owned by the library, or was being borrowed by someone else.
Since the main library isn't near my usual walking route, and grad students can take out books for months at a time (the ones I got yesterday I can keep until the end of December), I usually prefer to go and get 5 or 10 books I know won't dissapoint me. If my backpack isn't bursting at the seams as I leave the library I don't feel like I've accomplished anything. But I've read a lot of things at this point--everything obvious at least. I'm running out of ideas.
This is where you come in. Recommend a book to me. I'll read just about anything but war stuff and extremely dirty things--in both cases, work that squashes humanity down most when the author thinks that they're explaining how great we are. I like to think, but also keep this in mind--a large percentage of my reading is done during the half hour before I go to sleep, so real creepy Stephen King stuff is usually lower on my list, too.
Also preferred: things that are likely to be in a university library. Because I rarely pay for the books I read, unless I like them and want to read them again.
Of course, beggars can't be choosers. So forget everything I just said, and send me the titles of some books and/or authors you enjoy. I'll let you know what I think of them when I get around to reading them, which I'm sure will be soonish.
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I woke up yesterday morning from a dream about snuggling with Jeremy to find him snuggling with me, trying to wake me up nicely instead of tickling my feet or giving me Wet Willies like he usually does. For just an instant, I was annoyed with him for having disturbed my pleasant dream. Then I realized that this WAS the pleasant dream.
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Time for some pictures.
A lost Monet. No Photoshopping here, just a dim room, a digital camera and a flash set to "off". This is my sister Becca. There's a similar picture of Katie, but the disk is unhappy, so you'll just have to wait until tomorrow.
My mom's dog Phoebe. She's an interesting combination of shy and playful, which results in her running up to you with what used to be a stuffed animal in her mouth, then running away when you reach down to pet her.
I took a lot of pictures during our recent walk around the arboretum. Most of them will be front page pictures in the near future.
The lake across the street from my apartment is the source of a hearty funk at the moment. Lake-smell I can deal with. I grew up living across the street from a different lake, so I'm used to (and even like) an occasional organic whiff to the air.
Yesterday and this morning was far beyond a little whiff, though. I'm not sure what brought it on, but something with a large biomass in the lake is either dying or pooping. Bleah!
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Jeremy is attempting to put down my knowledge of Physical Chemistry by claiming that figuring out either a Heisenberg Uncertainty Weapon of Mass Destruction's momentum OR velocity would be sufficient. I disagree. We've been told all along that we know they have them (and, by extension, have measured a property of them such as their momentum), but don't know where they are. So I think what I said was completely right.
Oy, talk about overdoing a joke. Sorry bout that.
Well, that was wonderful. Several times during the week, I signed on to Angelfire, started to edit this page, and... paused. There really wasn't anything to say except "I like life. I am happy".
So I logged off.
Sometimes, when life is staying simple and comfortable and family-filled, you're content to just sit there, and listen to everyone else, or share a comfortable silence if they're also feeling quiet.
And that's just what I did.
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I spent a few nights at my dad's house during my vacation. Some observations:
*I really enjoy the presence of young people--my sisters are just these smart, amazing kids that I can't get enough of--but children make people crazy, and the more time I spend with young people when parents are involved, the less I want to have young people of my own.
*My dad and I watched The Hot Chick, which I would have bet you large amounts of money if you thought I'd like it. For those of you that have blocked the previews out of your memory: Rob Schneider, who's a thief, and some unknown pretty starlet, who's an obnoxious, beautiful, rich teenager, accidentally trade bodies through some Voodoo woo-woo. And hijinks, as they say, ensue. By virtue of containing Rob Schneider alone, I hated the idea of this movie. Because the movie was sure to contain all kinds of homophobia, I hated the idea of this movie.
I liked the dang movie.
One of the thing our society lacks is an ability to play with our gender. Kate Bornstein talks about this a lot in her books. It's a lot of fun to mess with the straights by making our gender a flexible thing, and that's exactly what happens in the movie. Rob Schneider does all kinds of silly things, being a girl, then being a girl that's being a guy, then being nothing in particular, over the course of minutes. I choose to believe that it was intentional and not just bad writing. As such, it's simply fun. I enjoyed most of it. There's a few things that are kinda homophobic, but a few high school boys that say "ew!" to the man trying to kiss them, well, it's a lot milder than some reactions people get. Doesn't mean I was thrilled with that stuff, but watching him clearly enjoy breaking every unspoken gender rule was lots of fun.
Go rent it if you don't feel too philosophical.
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I figured out where all these missing weapons of mass destruction are. They're Heisenberg Uncertainty Weapons! That sneaky dictator, he made the weapons really SMALL, so that people looking for them changed their properties by measuring them! And since at this point they could be just about anywhere, it's probably high time we just bombed everyone back to the Stone Age.
Arg. I know I rarely talk about politics, but I thought of this today and decided that the world needs a laugh right now.
Ahh... home-ness. The dog is suspicious of the person sleeping in HER BED so I've been torturing her until she loves me. Doing a slidey dance in socks on the hardwood floor sets her off in an orgy of barking and jumping.
There's a pile of junk mail for me on the coffee table, and non-junk mail, including news (via the alumni newsletter) that a friendly acquaintance from undergrad is in law school now, and a copy of a chemistry paper I wrote junior year complete with corrections from the professor.
I watched a particularly nasty Iron Chef last night (cod roe for DESSERT?!?) while laying on a comfy couch knitting my husband's sweater (the back is complete, and there's about 4 inches of the front done).
We're going shopping today with some of my family, eating dinner with my grandparents tomorrow, and I'll be seeing my sisters and dad and folks later this week. Then next weekend I get to hang out with my mom AND my boy AND his family all at once! And I don't have to take any more finals!
It's all exactly right. It's home, after all.
Note: I think the subconscious point of this whole entry is to make myself feel smart after the absolutely HORRENDOUS final I took at 7:45am today. So ooh and ahh at my critical thinking skills, and be nice to me.
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Jeremy emailed me earlier today with this article, asking me what I thought of it, and if I thought that we should stop using Teflon to make our mac and cheese.
My response was probably a bit longer than he anticipated. I'm going to share a somewhat edited version of it here, because I think that scientific thinking about this sort of thing is just so important, and I know that not a lot of people get taught to think this way. High-level scientists and lawyers come to mind. This isn't so much a science lecture as a thinking lecture that refers to science. So even if science is scary this should make some sense to you.
So, go read the article. Ok. Are you scared? Your response might be the same as Jeremy's: "Well, I don't know if I'm scared, are YOU scared?"
Well, I'm still going to cook with Teflon pans, but that doesn't mean I'm rejecting this stuff out of hand. Here are some questions/problems I came up with.
#1: Using omission to your advantage:
"The Environmental Working Group said in a study released on Thursday that cookware coated with Teflon-like coatings could reach 700 degrees Fahrenheit in 3-5 minutes"
What the hell conditions was this under? Was this just something on a regular stove? Or were they sticking these pans into some specialized high-temperature apparatus? Did they have the whole thing under vacuum to collect all the chemicals? I bet they did, and vacuum helps chemicals go into the vapor phase.
When it comes down to it though, it simply doesn't say. With the right equipment, I can get just about anything up to 700 degrees in 3-5 minutes. Teflon pans already say not to put them under the broiler, if I remember correctly.
Here's something to keep in mind: Extra virgin olive oil starts to smoke at 406 F.
I can't ever remember heating something up so that olive oil starts smoking.
Also, is all this the case for the entire life of the pan? Did whoever did this use old pans, new pans, or both? Did they heat the thing at 700 degrees for 5 days and watch to see if there was a decay? For that matter, did they heat the things at 700 degrees for 5 days and THEN get traces of these chemicals? Every small child learns that you can use omission to your advantage--"I went to school, and I came home (and I got in a fight and spit at my teacher and didn't do my homework)."
Don't let them scare you away from asking questions like this.
#2: SCARRRYYYY: toxic! Chemicals! carcinogens! Ahhh!
"releasing 15 toxic gases and chemicals, including two carcinogens. "
The thing about toxicity is that it's dose dependent. Salt can be toxic if you start drinking sea water on a desert island. A hefty dose of elemental copper will kill you, but you need some copper in your body to get it to run properly.
Because they say "toxic chemical!" without saying "toxic DOSE of a chemical!" I'm not convinced that enough of it gets released to hurt you. Of course, some things stick around in your body such that any dose is a bad dose (dioxin-containing compounds comes to mind), but they don't give us enough information to find stuff on our own.
Also, NOTHING is said about the food being cooked in these pans being harmful. Breathing particles isn't a good thing. But if particles of Teflon are going into your food, then I'd eat it. It's just a fluoropolymer, it won't do a farkin' thing in your system.
#3: Who's your source?
The people doing this study are the Environmental Working Group.
Read around their site, and you'll find that they don't actually do their own research, they take other people's results and combine them. This can be a good method if you know your sources are reliable. But since their job is to find dangerous stuff, they might not be taking the most careful data, but the highest numbers.
Compare the quote from the EWG to this essay from the FDA. They do the same thing, but they list their sources (if not their references). And they describe the conditions very specifically.
#4: "Teflon-like"?
Are they heating Teflon or aren't they? If Teflon's the problem, test Teflon. If some high-T polymer that Kmart uses that acts like Teflon for 2 weeks is the problem, don't say that Teflon is the problem. And if you're taking some data from Teflon and some data from something else, then STOP IT. YOUR ASSUMPTIONS ARE WRONG IF YOU DO THAT.
Apples and oranges, anyone?
#5: Where's the link?
"Government officials said toxicity concerns have been raised, but there is currently no proof the chemical causes developmental or reproductive harm in humans as the Environmental Working Group and others have argued."
Note--nowhere in it did the group present evidence of people using Teflon getting sick. Nowhere did they expose chemicals of those hot pans to the birds to see if they died (Dow talks about "particles", which is different--not good, but different). They said one thing: 'we heated pans to 700 degrees for an unspecified amount of time. They released chemicals. 15 of these chemicals, in some dose, are harmful to humans. But we won't tell you what the chemicals are, or the dose, or how we released them. So there."
Of course, this doesn't mean there isn't a link, but since the EWG itself says that people working in the Teflon plant haven't had any health problems, I'm not too convinced.
Conclusion: Which is worse?
Which is worse: Teflon or aluminum?
Which is worse: Teflon or chromium (which is a big component of stainless steel)?
Which is worse: Possible toxicity, or scrubbing at pans until your arm falls off?
Which is worse: The carcinogens released from a plastic coated pan or the carcinogens released from burning food (like that on a non-non stick pan)?
I'm not trying to be flippant, the real answer is that I have no idea. The point is, life is risky. Know the risks, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I know that *I* like not having to scrub quite so hard.
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This makes me oddly, deeply happy.
I dunno, maybe it's the sleep deprivation.
I'm really tired of taking exams.
Come on, people, it's been...(quick calculation).. 18 years now. I've taken every test there is to take, from reading the Berenstein Bears and coloring in the lines up through the most advanced currently accepted knowledge in my field that people have done up through the early 1990's--and on my own I've figured out the remainder. I've LEARNED it. I GET it.
Mrs. Linstruth?
Mr. B?
Dr. Darrow?
Max?
You can stop standing in front of me drawing things on a blackboard now.
I promise.
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Whew. Only one exam to go now--of course, it'll be one of the more painful ones in my scholastic career, but at least I'm prepared to get my butt whooped.
In other news: as many of you know, I love to pimp. I think I've found the job for me: Rent-A-Gay. For those of us who come up a little short on the Local Gay Man end of the Friend Scale.
I think, with the proper financial backing, I could get this up and running pretty quickly. I already have a stable of bitches up and down the eastern seaboard that will work for peanuts--literally! These are young artists and grad students, people--just give them a sign that says "free food" and they'll come running! How could this possibly go wrong?
Boy, how did I not come up with this sooner? Heh.
Apparently, I write a lot in April. I was just playing around with my files, making everything pretty, when I noticed that the archives for April of this and last year are the two longest archives. Spring fills me with piss and vinegar, I guess. And last year there were regular wedding updates to be performed as well, which made everything that much more complicated.
Last night I bought yarn for my next project (a fisherman-y style sweater for J), and also got plastic knitting needles. I've never even seen plastic needles before, but I've heard that a lot of knitters that travel frequently prefer them because they're less likely to get hassled. According to the FAA website, ANY knitting needles are okay to take on, but next week when I go home I'll be bringing my new supercheap plastic #7's just to be safe.
Which reminds me--I'm going home the week after next, and have finals next week, so chances are that posting will lighten up a bit over the next week or so.
It's not your fault.
I still love you.
Happy 11th birthday to my sister!
Hooray for her. She's awesome.
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My sweater is done. It's warm and soft and snuggly. I'm wearing it today, since there won't be many more days that it's remotely possible to wear a sweater.
I'm just so glad that it turned out all right. I keep running my hands over it--I hope people don't think I'm a perv or something.
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J and I went for a walk the night before last--just a short loop around the park across the street from our house. There's often some form of semi-wildlife there, doing something funny--ducks chasing after each other, squirrels falling in the water, bunnies playing jumping games with each other.
Last night, the bats were out.
There were dozens of them, swooping around near the water, looking for freshly hatched bugs. We cheered them on, encouraging them to eat three times their weight in bugs instead of the usual amount. The fewer mosquitoes to bother us the better. Imagining the overeating bats led us to impersonations of overweight bats staggering around with pudgy little wings, squeaking feebly. This upset a lone duck bobbing around on the water a little ways away from the bats--he looked right at us and gave a righteous quack.
I quacked back.
He quieted down and swam away.
People: GO OUTSIDE. It's much more entertaining than the garbage on TV that you always say is garbage. Laugh at the squirrels, feed the ducks, scare away the racoons, pick a violet, or smell a lilac. A month ago you complained that it was too cold, last week it was too rainy, and in two weeks you'll complain that it's too hot. Today, there is NO EXCUSE.
Shoo!
Ooh! I almost forgot to give you all an excellent recipe I made up last night. Today's really becoming Martha Day, huh? Anyhoo. So this was just about the tastiest thing ever, and was very simple. I think part of the tastiness had to do with two main ingredients being fresh from the Farmer's Market, but you couldn't go too far wrong using grocery store stuff. Seriously, though, make this this weekend, and you'll be happy. I present to you: Fetasparagus Delight!
Ingredients:
1 lb. asparagus, as fresh as you can get it-- it's in season right now, shouldn't be too hard.
1 glob of non-aged feta--I'd say we used about 1.5 American cheese slices' worth, and again, the fresher the better.
Enough pasta to make you full. (spagetti or linguini would be good)
blob of olive oil--a tsp. or so
Blob of lemon juice--5 or 6 drops from those lemon-shaped plastic things per serving.
Making Food:
Wash and chop the asparagus into 3-4 inch pieces, and steam the asparagus for about 10 minutes, or until it's a bit underdone.
When the asparagus is about half done, start the water for the pasta, and turn on the broiler (I just used the toaster oven). Right before the asparagus is done put in the pasta (got to get the timing right so everything's ready at once).
When the asparagus is done, put it on a baking rack, and put that on a baking sheet, and put that under the broiler. Check on them, but it should take about 5 or 6 minutes for the tops and leaves to get a little crunchy looking--not burned, but starting to get brown and dry and smell kind of grill-y.
While all of those things are cooking, crumble up the glob of feta and put it in a bowl.
Put the asparagus into another bowl.
Put the pasta in yet another bowl, and add the olive oil to that one.
Then, put some asparagus and feta on your pasta, and put about 5 drops of lemon juice on top.
Proceed to snarf.
Seriously, this is so good, I'm buying more asparagus this saturday, and might bring some home the week after to make this for my mom. I'm not always a big asparagus fan--if it's overcooked it's just a stringy mess. The combination of steaming and broiling made it tender but dried it out enough that I could bite into it without disintegration, and also gave it a nice grill flavor. If you have a grill, just grilling them would probably work too, but we're in a 3rd floor apartment, so grilling isn't going to happen anytime soon.
And the whole thing is about as simple and fast as driving over to McDonald's and getting a McPoop Sandwich and a McPiggy Toe Pie.
I felt like I was Jamie Oliver when I'd finished. Now THAT'S high praise.
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I'll probably regret this, because none of the patterns are even fully up yet, but if you're curious, here's the mock-up of the craft page.. I'm fully aware of all the broken picture links, incomplete directions, etc. It's just that I have no patience and like to put things up as soon as I even start working on them.
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Sewing the upper arms of the sweater a little more closely did wonders. It now looks like nice sweater--at least on one side. Before, it really looked like a craft project that someone that doesn't like you would give you for Secret Santa. I haven't done the arm seam on one side yet, so it looked kind of silly when I tried it on to make sure everything looked the way it was supposed to. Pictures will be up by the beginning of next week, though, just as soon as it's totally done.
The next project is making Jeremy a nice fisherman-y type of sweater. We'll go look for some good patterns and yarn and stuff this weekend. I also dreamed about a big squishy white sweater with a big cable up the middle last night, that I'd like to try and make at some point. It was knit on really big needles, too, so I know it would go quickly.
I have wierd dreams. I either wake up all stressed out or all Martha Stewarty. For example, the pretty sweater came either before or after a dream involving accidentally squishing many tiny frogs that I was supposed to safely trap as part of the final exam in one of my classes.
Yeesh.
In other crafty news, I'm going to put up some of my crafty projects pretty soon. I need to scan the pictures in first, but for the most part I find half of something I'm interested in published and then I just make up the other half, so none of them have copyright restrictions or anything. Some upcoming pages:
*The Quilt/Pillows I made for J's family for Christmas
*My doofy but very warm earflap hat
*The sweater (although I'll adjust the sleeves a bit from what was published).
*The on-again, off-again quilt that I haven't worked on much because I've been more into knitting lately.
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Anyone else having really slow internet uploading today? I keep having problems getting this uploaded.
For Christmas, J's parents got me some really nice yarn to make a sweater with. When I think about it it sounds kind of silly (here, you said you wanted a bookcase, so here's some plywood!), but I like knitting, so recieving a gift with some assembly required was just fine. Especially because the yarn's a lot nicer than anything you'd get at the Gap.
I'm almost done with the sweater--everything's actually been coming out according to the measurements, which is a feat in itself for me, who hates making swatches with the passion of a thousand suns. The only thing left is to finish putting all the pieces together. I started this weekend and now one sleeve is attached, making for a somewhat lopsided look, but good enough for me to try it on and make sure everything looked all right.
Unfortunately, the pattern I've been working from thinks that my arms are shaped very strangely. The effect is somewhat like one of those poofy Elizabethan shirts--the lower part fits closely, but the top part is all poofy. I think I can fix it without ripping the whole top half of the sleeves out--it should just be a matter of crocheting them together a little more closely--but it was dissapointing to see just how wrong the first-pass attempt was.
The answer to my problems is very simple. It's time to stop believing the measurements and just start making my own dang sweater patterns.
I mentioned J's Tae Kwon Do injury, and my new digital camera. Here's a demonstration of both:
Dangerous.
(a side note--I know that the image quality is not so good, that's my fault not the camera's--I've been subjected to Attack of The Ginormous File Attachment before, so I over-compensated by saving it at the lowest resolution. Oh well, now I know.)
Note the return of the facial hair, which I enjoy visually but less so tactilly. Scritchy-scratchy.
Another random entertaining link from Dave Barry (not that he needs any more hits than he already gets every day).
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I bought a digital camera a few weeks ago. I enjoy it muchly, but so far I've only taken pictures and video, I haven't transferred them onto a useful computer (my laptop has no web access). This will change! Some current and upcoming projects include:
*A picture of J's terrible eyebrow gash (see previous entry). Put this under the category "Visual effects that will add to descriptions of day-to-day goings on".
*I'm not sure how many of these I'll put up, but I'm attempting to do a time-lapse photo type thing of the beautiful view out my living room window. Every afternoon when I come home I've been taking a picture from more or less the same angle. By doing so, it also forces me to look outside and notice the changes in nature occuring around me as we speak. It's especially lovely this time of year, when ANY DAY NOW all the trees won't be see through any more.
*Since it's unlikely that many of my family/friends will be traveling halfway across the country anytime soon (except Dan, who will soon be going to grad school a mere 4.5 hours away), I'm going to take some pictures of the apartment so you can see how nice it is. We're not moving anytime soon.
I'm not sure why I'm making so many lists lately. Just have a lot of short pieces of things to say.
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For no particular reason today, I was just thinking about how great being in a stable romantic long-term relationship thingie is. I spent the vast majority of the time in junior high, high school, and freshman year of college without even having the merest wisp of the prospect of a boyfriend, much less an actual nice flesh-and-blood male holding my hand. And even without any prospects, I spent an incredible amound of energy having crushes and worrying--does that guy like me? How do I know for sure? etc, etc, etc.
That stuff just doesn't even register anymore. If someone besides J is ever madly in love with me, I'd never have a frikin' clue. A few months ago, I was talking to someone in my group, mentioning an undergrad guy that's been doing some work with me. She wasn't sure which of the many people that wander through the lab I was talking about, so I gave a 3 or 4 word description that included the word "cute".
You would've thought I'd just said that I prefer Kitten Fricassee to the version made of puppies, because the kittens were more tender.
"What?" she sputtered. "But you're, like, MARRIED!"
Since actual attraction (totally separate from any concept of aesthetic beauty) is so far off my radar, it took me a minute to even realize what she was talking about. But then I laughed.
I think my laughing at even the IDEA of impropriety bodes well for J and I.
Most of the time I don't gush about love things, since I've been on the receiving end and rolled my eyes along with everyone else. Too much of it is just asking for trouble.
But: "gushy wushy smoochie woo woo".
So, I think I've mentioned that Jeremy's been taking Tae Kwon Do lessons for the last month or two. To be honest, I'm glad he's getting in shape and all, but the real advantages to him taking lessons are twofold for me:
1: It means he's out of the house until 7:45 on lesson nights, which means I can watch 3/4 of American Idol without comments regarding my intelligence when I jump off the couch and say "OH, HELL, NO GIRL, NO YOU DI'N'T!!". By the way, I agree with Simon about 97% of the time. He's such a Dan, I love it.
2: Funny, funny Tae Kwon Do stories.
Here's a selection of funny stories so far (I don't know if I've shared any of these yet):
*Last night he came home and walked around the house facing away from me for 5 minutes. He did this in such a way as to make it perfectly obvious that his PURPOSE was to walk around the house facing away from me. He walked around sideways so as to keep his back to me at all times. When I finally asked him if he was mad at me, he turned around--and showed me the 1-inch gash next to his eyebrow. He says he's embarrassed because he should have had his head farther away from the guy whose foot (and more specifically, toenail) he intersected with, but you can tell by the way he walks around right now that he thinks he's Quite The Badass. The "I'm A Badass" walk is quite funny coming from a nice middle class boy.
*Athletic supporter purchase and consequent use. You can imagine the jokes and then some, I'm sure.
*The fact that everyone at his school thinks he's 16 and fall down laughing when they find out he's 23, married, and working full-time.
*I've gone to his lessons twice (I'm going again tonight). The first time, he was attempting to run across the room and kick a boxing-glove sized pad held at about shoulder height. He ran, his foot went up, but somehow the whole thing fell apart after that and he ended flat on his back with his foot in the air. I tried REALLY hard not to laugh.
*Occasion #2 that I went: He was doing little practice-fight things with some other guy, who got him when he was off balance. J landed pretty hard on his tush. "Oh, puppy," I said worriedly, a little too loud. J insisted that in the future I not call him "puppy" in class but "fierce tiger".
I say, fierce tigers don't fall on their butts.