magic almond butter middle cookies.

Due to a headache and a mild existential / career path crisis, I can't come up with a catchier title for these cookies. I also can't come up with an actual recipe, which is fine because these don't really mandate one.  I ripped off the concept from a recipe posted at Tasty Kitchen , a variation suggested by a classmate, and the reality of a bunch of sugar cookie dough sitting in my fridge. So maybe "Crowd-sourced Almond Surprise Cookies" would be better.  Anyways, I like these because they aren't too sweet, which is a total relief after eating all those frosted cookies.


Here's what you do:
Mix up a batch of my Perfect Sugar Cookies. Refrigerate dough for a good long time.


In a little dish, mix up equal parts almond butter and powdered sugar. I used about 3 tablespoons of each for mine and came out with enough for 7 cookies.


Roll out the sugar cookie dough.  Roll the almond mixture into little balls and wrap the sugar cookie dough around the ball.  Make sure you say balls a lot.  Bake at 350 degrees until the cookies are a nice golden color- I liked that they got a little crunchy because it made for a nice contrast with the soft inside.  Serve with black coffee while listening to Cat Power before going for a walk to sort yourself out.  

confronting the hard parts.

I like what I do. It's a privilege to tell the stories of others. I've enjoyed meeting the people I study. I love going to conferences, I love going to class, I love the feeling the feeling of opening up a box and not knowing what I'm going to find. The challenges of interpreting the past engage me deeply. I have made a lot of sacrifices because being a historian is so satisfying and rewarding that I want to do it for my whole life, and I want desperately to learn how to do it well.

I love to study New Right conservatives. I admire their passion and temerity. Their rhetoric and writing captivates me. Making sense of a time in which my parents came of age and the moment I was born into has great appeal for me. I have come along way since I started studying these people, and I really, genuinely appreciate what they have to say and how they challenge my worldview.

I say all this because today I had to confront the aspect of my topic I hate the most. It's impossible to write about the New Right without talking about abortion.  For many social conservatives, it's the reason they mobilized, the one thing in the world that they would give anything to change.

I hate reading about it. I hate talking about it. I would do anything to avoid it all together.

The descriptions in pro-life literature, while well-intentioned, are often grizzly and grotesque. They depict excessive and unusual procedures, and overemphasize poorly handled situations.  I concede that it is purposeful and deliberate language. But I think that by and large pro-life accounts are as decadent as the behaviors they are intended to critique.

It has little to do with the fact that I'm pro-choice. I believe that women should have  access to safe medical procedures should they elect to do so. I stand with Linda Gordon in acknowledging that women have made this choice throughout history regardless of its legality, and with Barack Obama who feels that unwanted pregnancies should be prevented through affordable birth control and comprehensive sex education. Like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I believe that it is not a question of either / or. But my politics seldom enter the picture. I am guided by professional ethics and exercise a level of restraint that others have called judicious and even admirable. What I write is not about me. I am not trying to change anybody's mind, nor am I open to my mind being changed.

I just don't like reading about blood and tissue. Needles, suction, disposal, no thank you. I think it's a terrible way to spend the day. It makes me miserable. I don't find it enjoyable to try to understand what's going on in the text; I find it so abhorrent that I struggle to get motivated when I have to address the issue. It's impossible to focus on, requiring breaks, endless coffee, snacks, checking of blogs, email, twitter, and anything that might offer relief from the task.  If someone called and said, "Hey, would you like to come clean my toilet?" I would probably opt for that.  My work ends with descent into exhaustion and then unsatisfying naps. I wind up feeling drained and find it near impossible to shake off the dirty feeling I get from reading this rubbish. To use a turn of phrase from my Mormon days, it offends my spirit.

I love what I do. I love what I study. I wouldn't change my path even if I could. 

But what do we do with the parts of our jobs- our vocations- that we hate? 

years later.

via NYT

More than any other season, the coming of fall moves me to remembrance. The crisp air and turning leaves herald anxious first days of school, cross country races, divorce, the beginning and end of my own relationships, death, and the assumption and throwing off of religious beliefs. If anything is going to happen in my life, it happens in the fall. When nature goes into transition, so do I.

As time has passed, I've traded the dread of autumn- oh no, my life is going to fall apart, again- for preparation. Anticipating upheaval, why, It's mid-September and I've already lost and gained back the stress weight, feverishly baked pies, brownies, and cookies to impose order on my world, vacillated between sunny and sad music (mostly sad), lived for every solace bringing family phone call, and heck, I've even thrown myself into my work with all the intensity of a first year PhD student so that I don't have to think about things. I still feel the losses, the abject loneliness that comes with things you can't change, but with time I have the benefit of experience and hindsight to buoy me through it.

Because nobody can tell you at the time:

that eight years after your parent's divorce, your family will be healed and emerging as something bigger, better.

that seven years after she died that you will have found reserves of love to give that you didn't know you had.

that five years after he died, you'll be finding tranquility every day on a bike his memory spurred you to buy.

that five years after he broke your heart and you started to think about your potential, you'll be well travelled, doing fulfilling work on another coast, and someone you never could have been otherwise.

that two years after you left the church, you'll be living a life of untrammeled authenticity, boundless hope, and uncomprehendable peace.

Like Eve, I will take what the fall gives me.

attack of the listicle.

I am posting because that random Ahmadinejad bit is kind of lame to leave at the top of my blog for days at a time. I haven't been posting because I've been:

1. Conquering Word in the Great Thesis Reformat of 2009. It was just complicated enough for me to put it off for a month, and easy enough to finish in about an hour. But it's been submitted and I can now focus on the other stuff I need to write before the semester's up (focus here means "passively pick at." give me a week and it will mean "intensely author").

2. Riding my bike in 75 degree weather.

3. Eating popsicles to recover from said rides.

4. Trying to figure out how to live without a microwave. I'm already tired of sandwiches, chicken nuggets and cooking on the stove. Current solutions to this problem (which comes with the added hitch of moving in 2 weeks and not wanting to buy anything) include going to the store to buy some crackers and Hostess cupcakes or consuming only things I've got that don't require cooking. I am pretty sure I have enough calories in my liquor box to sustain me for two weeks.

5. Packing. Yep, I've starting packing. So what if it's non-essentials like coats and church clothes (what church?) and sweaters (god help me if it snows again) (first parenthetical comment negates possibility of the second?).

6. Watching good movies. Serpico last night, Doubt tonight. Tomorrow I'm watching Step Brothers because everything I've been watching is way too dark, emotional, and high quality. Total Netflix binge.

7. Feeling jealous of Big Brother's new Madsen. Don't tell ODT (though really, I don't have a kid, let alone many kids, to necessitate an entire bucket bike). Don't forget to make a donation while you're at his page. I've upped my donation-- up yours.

I've done other stuff too, but I just realized that it's finally not Earth Day anymore so I can drive my car to the store. You didn't really expect me to live on tonic water, Maker's Mark and tins of tuna, did you?

they made soup out of my research turtles.

This song has been stuck in my head all week:

Wed Anderson analogies have been a dominant theme for the week, beginning with the Pagoda with his shiv analogy for kidney pain and culminating in the realization at some point that I am somehow living the helicopter crash scene in Zissou. I could give a damn about unrequited love, but that song really captures how emotionally closed off I feel. I suppose we all want to say the things we can't bring ourselves to say, because really, who wants to unleash that torrent?

Weeks like this are tricky. The high points are very high-- a first martini, the taste of a TNT roll, getting through the minor edits of my thesis, seeing the fruits of my labors on a big project-- and the low points! The low points have been so low! I actually said today, "Getting rejected by [prestigious university] was not nearly as bad as finding a roach in the bathroom yesterday morning." Low!!!

Anyways, in looking for that dark dreary sad saddie mcsaddie sad song, I found this video. It made me laugh, because I think sometime after a poorly recieved draft and an unpleasant diagnosis, one of my friends was like, "This isn't your year, is it?" Well, reframing that-- maybe it is, I just haven't gotten to that part of it yet. This video is extra cute.

the moral of the story.

So today the thing most on my mind is how our lives get tied up with those of others. It's hard to articulate how you might not even remember meeting someone and how, over time and experience, fun and games and joy and pain and all of it, it's like you walk in step, you breathe at the same time, you think the same way or at least know what to expect from how they think, and suddenly or not so suddenly, what they do is inextricably a part of you and who you are and who you will be. I don't exactly get how we become so interwoven with people, how they become so braided into our lives that we don't know where they stop and we begin. It happens with people that we remember meeting, and people who aren't as tightly apart of our fabric, and people we tried to get rid of at certain points, but for whatever reason they stick and you find yourself with ties all over the place, with people who meet the needs of a particular moment, who tell you the right thing and the right time, who having been gone along time suddenly reappear. It is amazing to me to think of the people in my life who I couldn't imagine living without yet never imagined knowing. People we don't like and people we can't stop liking become indispensable.

We are the sum of our parts. Completely randomly I found myself in the Bible today-- via my cousin-- how the tables have turned-- and I loved this--

"Only let us live up to that which we have already attained."*

It's not about what we have, or who we have or who we don't have-- it's about what we've got and treasuring it, being the best at what we are and being treasured.


Thank you for reading my blog and being who you are.

*Philippians 4:16

bear with the donut analogy.

I've been reading a collection of stories called Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. I climbed in bed to read two and a half hours ago, feeling exhausted, and her poised and constant gazing into the depths of peoples souls rejuvenated my mind (my body is still tired, from what? shopping?) and I just had to write down the title of an inevitable paper that must someday be created (my mind wanders). It's problematic, not knowing my future but knowing that this research would pull me back to Utah, were research a possibility (dark, as of late, I shun all possibilities, allowing only the purgatory of vacation to enter into my mind). Already I feel the tug of Utah and I have yet to leave.

I never expected Utah to become woven in to who I am. I left Washington with the rocket-powered urge to escape, thinking of what awaited me in the intimate terms of ward and potential husband and in the ironically penal description of "doing my time in Utah." (there is no better way to sum up those few months I did in the Seventh Ward). Such language was quickly replaced with the distant vocabulary of the historian comprised of far away events and vaguely titled theories. I too became distant. The shattering of self followed by consuming bouts of tears that somehow glued me back together are as remote to me as the intense spiritual warfare I waged everyday but never fared all that well at. At arms length, I offer you my interpretations as I neglect the private pages of my journal.

Utah has been so elusive. Occasional trips into the mountains or the desert have yielded confused awe; I have no frame of reference to compare Utah's anomalous scenery against. The same with its history. As much as I decry regional exceptionalism, American exceptionalism, or really anyone saying that some place is truly different (HA! there is no truth!), Utah really is the center in a Western donut, it doesn't fit. Preferring Boston Creams, it would seem that Utah is made entirely of pudding.

So Utah is unique, and baffling, and I have been content to write around the strangeness, to dismiss Utah as a character in the story I am trying to tell. Only when I got back from Washington did I even try to engage it, to accept that this embattled jilted territory made of stone and salt and Mormons and not is what I am and to know-- suddenly and strikingly-- the feeling of ownership. The milieu is odd but familiar, even familial.

Leaving is inevitable, but lacking the propulsive feeling, the thought elicits a sense of desertion rather than relief. I daresay that putting my things in my car and driving out of the comforting embrace of the mountains will tear my heart right out of my chest.

new year's resolutions.

A couple of years ago, while enjoying the fruits of full time labor in my own place and a particularly violent case of pink eye, my best friend and I made the most basic of New Year's resolutions: we assured each other that we would do something amazing that year.  It was not particularly difficult as I had, in a most resigned and desperate fashion, already mailed off an application to one graduate school.  So to be amazing was not too difficult considering I felt my acceptance was assured and quitting your job and filling your car with crap to move to another state is not so hard once you somebody gives you the go-ahead to do so.

This year, well I don't know about this year.  Maybe it's because the thoughts can't get through the background din of a cooing baby and Potato Head playing children-- that's what I'd like to blame it on-- but doing applications this time around things feel much less assured and I feel like resolutions presuppose-- and even require-- a certainly amount of stability to ensure follow through.  So I am mystified as to what to resolve to do.  Of course I will graduate; but making goals to do the inevitable seems kind of redundant.  Having no clue as to where I will wind up by July puts a kink in the great garden hose of my life plans, complicated by the vagaries of what one does with a master's degree in the humanities.  

And maybe it's not the noise or my own circumstantial instability.  Perhaps it is the unsure nature of our times (of course, historian, blame it on context!), but I don't feel resolute on this dreary gray New Year's Eve.  2009 looks as cloudy as this Washington morning, and my inclination is to do nothing more than immerse myself in the fleeting pleasures of Potato Heads and to wait and see what happens with everything else/

in which i realized that my ability to panic had disappeared.

This morning I found a nice way to cope with a mild hangover*: a nice protracted meandering through the Life photo archive in my bed. This was of course great until, being in bed and everything, my laptop overheated and shut down. I didn't realize that was why it happened and felt pretty convinced that it would never turn back on.

As it failed to come back on after several attempts, and I saw my thesis draft flash before my eyes, it occurred to me that in the past, such an incident would have freaked me out a lot more. But the panic that I would've felt-- perhaps accompanied by some tears and frantic phone calls-- just wasn't there. There was even a moment where I was kinda glad, since it would mean taking the day off to order another computer and maybe actually getting my act together on my projects.

But alas, the computer came back on with a big SHAME ON YOU FOR LETTING ME GET TOO HOT message. As soon as it did, I backed everything up, and of course heaved a huge sigh of relief while I continued to entertain thoughts about getting a new computer in time to write it off. It was a very mellow little crisis.

I daresay, in the process of growing up and getting hormonally regulated, I have become completely uninteresting and entirely unfamiliar.

*don't have Imperial Stout and Outlaw Red in the same evening, ok?

here's to art, which gives us perspective and reminds us how to live.

It occured to me tonight as I was coming home that my bike rides are different than they used to be. Whereas before they were tranquil, slow, with my thoughts kind of flittering about my mind, completely unconcious of body, they have become effecient, fast, quads pushing down hard, shoulders tight, pulling myself up the hill, sentences moving through my head with equal, pounding force forming precis, sanding off the grit of concepts to reach the door of my building with a smooth sentence worth putting down on a notecard for later use.

I noticed this only after a pronounced juxtoposition just minutes earlier. I had gone down to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts for a lecture-- a lecture about the history of libraries-- a lecture that though interesting and engaging but at the same time, embodied the hues of graduate school-- black, gray, cream, white-- words a page (literally, talking about the history of books as well), words in the air, expressions of concepts and insights and interpretations. It was nice then, after the talk, after the reception, to wander off alone into the gallery.

While I liked the works of Shauna Cook Clinger, I was struck by an exhibit of 1960s paintings-- bright, vibrant colors, punchy, in your face, a black circle on a yellow square, a bevy of acrylic colors arranged in perfectly straight lines, So that what you see in the painting is what it is, the painting has no life outside itself, the descriptive card said, or something to that effect. It was like being in a tunnel and suddenly reaching a window. A moment of clarity. A moment of feeling something. A moment of being outside of my self-- outside the realm of my satisfying yet lonely, absorbing life-- and having no life but that sensory one of experiencing the painting. It was revitalizing, exhilerating, and sad all at once-- the joy of existance and being fused with the unaknowledged exhaustion from the consuming scholarly habits of a life of the mind.

Walking back afterwards to where I had parked my bike, before I realized that even my bike rides have changed, I allowed myself to do what I have not done lately. I left the present, the demands of writing and applying and doing, and allowed myself to enjoy what it might feel like when the work is done, when I can play with the kids and meander through foreign lands and overload my mind with superficial movies like The Terminator, to know what my path will be but to momentarily have all the work I can do done. I actually daydreamed rather than press my mind towards what I must do to meet the rapidly coming deadlines. It was marvelous.

I am resolving to reclaim my time on the ODT as something peaceful and restive, to be my little window in my daily tunnel.

in defense of carol lynn pearson.

So I woke up in Cranky Town this morning. Today is of course the big deadline, which of course as I told my editor, I would probably not be able to meet and of course that is actually what is happening. So I'm feeling a touch down because I know that some time this afternoon my peer review drafts will start rolling into my inbox and I will still be fucking around on page six. I'm not in entirely bad shape-- I have another interview scheduled for this afternoon and interviews breed more interviews. And Starbuck's sent me a free drink card, which I think will really make everything all better after my afternoon in South Jordan.

But anyways, I was extra cranky and hit up the blogs as I tried to wake up and feel some cheer. I was reading this local blog (which I will not even bother linking to) and some assclown had the tenacity to knock Carol Lynn Pearson. Obviously I'm still not over it. As you may know, the Church has come out against the gay marriage gig in Cali (as they have done before) and naturally a good many people are using the "moral issue" as an excuse to be bigots. I am angry that the Church has their hands in it but am also not surprised-- I mean come on, I do ERA history. I expect no less.

Anyways, somebody knocked Carol Lynn Pearson because apparently she's not sufficiently Mormon for them. Pearson married a man who had been "rehabilitated" by the Church for homosexuality who later came out, ending their marriage. Pearson then cared for him as he died of AIDS in the mid-80's. She is a poet and has counseled many people who have struggled to except their own homosexuality or that of a family member. I really, really respect her work.

Anyways, I read her book No More Goodbyes: Circling the Wagons Around Our Gay Loved Ones last year. I have a friend who's been through the fires with the issue of homosexuality and Mormonism and put Pearson's book in my hands because it had been meaningful to her and her family. The afternoon I spent reading it was part of a larger awakening in myself-- that I could no longer willingly shut people out, not from the Church, not from God's love and certainly not from my own life. What kills me is that I felt like such a rebel for feeling that way, for even having Pearson's book on my coffee table. I felt pretty sure at the time that she had a better understanding of what Mormonism was supposed to be about than most General Authorities.

I didn't really think of that whole experience factoring into my paradigm shift until this morning when I realized how angry I was that anybody dared speak ill of a woman who did so much to change my thinking. It's crazy how that stuff comes from left field sometimes.

house parties and being filled with love and whatevs.

Ok, so I am filled with love right now as I have just seen some of my friend's wedding pictures-- said wedding which of course I missed because I am a prisoner of the Wasatch Front*** and my thesis and goals and shit. Glad I saved the wine for Sunday because Sunday is always the day that I wish I had some, because I am prone to loneliness and reading outside and watching movies and being alone and stuff. Wine helps in making it suck less, which gives me some insight into Jesus, who also drank wine. I mean, after being chased around and shit by the Romans and the Pharisees et. al I think you would need something for the nerves. Which I can relate to, of course, because I am filled WITH NERVES because my successful interview lady HAS NOT EMAILED ME WITH HER CONTACTS. Which is a PROBLEM because I HAVE DEADLINES, PEOPLE.

Ok, but for your sake, I am going to keep it positive, because I am now, yet again, filled with white wine, and MORE unusually, filled with love. So first, my gramma is awesome because she called me back, and I haven't talked to her in a while, and she reminded me of the eight thousand reasons why I loved living with her-- the woman is amazing, she takes care of everybody and is SO UPBEAT ABOUT IT. And we just talked, like we used to when I would come home from school or reffing and she would tell me everything she ate that day and the dish on all the family. If you find me plodding about really, really fast in a pair of Sketchers with my sweatshirt sleeves rolled up, trust that I am trying to emulate this awesome woman who is clearly assuming the role of matriarch since the actual matriarch has taking to Houdini-ism******* (Gram-E's words, not mine). :D

Anywho, I watched Better Off Dead. For its genre ('80s teen movie) I thought it was pretty good-- in some ways it completely kills (SKI CHOREOGRAPHY?!?! ON ONE FOOT?!?!) and in other ways it sucks ass (weird talking hamburgers). I suppose one could just obtain some Warren Miller to compensate for the skiing but you have to see this film because, and only because, JOHN CUSACK IS SUCH A CUTIE. So cute, in fact, that all of his subsequent films INSTANTANEOUSLY BECOME ANNOYING!*

Now that I am having some Hogue it reminds me of a recent wedding that I DID attend in which I consumed about as much Hogue as I've had now. And I am filled WITH EVEN MORE LOVE. Which reminds me of a post I was intending to do about HOW MUCH I LOVE HOUSE PARTIES*****. Seriously, I told my friend that House Parties**** are better than church. Sure, I mean there isn't the God factor (which I dig, but find ways to encounter in everyday life) but in terms of social contacting, it's like all the mingling without feeling forced too BECAUSE IT'S MY CALLING, AND OMG, LITERALLY, GOD WANTS ME TO KNOW AND LOVE EVERYONE! So it's way more comfortable, and at this particular HOUSE PARTY OF AWESOME-NESS, not only did I find awesome Mexican beer but many awesome APPROACHABLE PEOPLE which made me feel better about humanity in general. I mean, so many people just living and keeping it real in the SLC and that's what it's all about, right?! Right, Jim Hortis, regular reader and impending birthday extraordinaire??!?!? I mean hell, there was even a bit o' dancing and talk of LINDA KERBER.

It is my opinion that Librarian House Parties are WAY cooler than Skiier House Parties... though Skiier House Parties are of course cool in their own way, like that one time they threw Joe in the hottub with his clothes on. Obviously the Skiiers are a younger crowd, which is again a way in which the Librarians rock, because they are more my age and shit, or at least more my type because they drink like fish but are not so young and overt about DRINKiNG ALL THAT NATTY LITE****** (Librarians are smart and do the Hard A). Cheers to Librarian House Parties, and also cheers to Jim, because I never had any Jack Daniels before (and cheers to Big Brother for the recommendation) and now a bottle of my own is totes on my list** and also to Jim, because he was in a drunken state of elasticity that made me really, really look forward to my own birthday. In AUGUST. DON'T FORGET. THERE WILL BE A HUGE PARTY.

Anywho, the moral of the story is that the day of loneliness is much tempered by a call back from GRAM-E and an 80's teen flick and a bottle o' Hogue.

Frick.

Now I have to go back and link all of my meaningful references.



*sorry ABOUT THE CAPS LOCK but every time I do it IT MAKES MY EYES BUG OUT and I feel SO FULL OF EMPHASIS. Like I'm not yelling at you, BUT MY EYES ARE BUGGY, kind of JUST LIKE MY WHOLE FAMILY DOES. Ok. Inside joke, I APOLOGIZE. :P

**Because white wines is kind of expensive to go through a bottle each time, you know? Hard A is more of an investment or at least economical IN THESE TIMES of ECONOMIC HARDSHIP. Because I keep spending ALL MY MONEY on GAS to drive to the RIVAL SCHOOL AND HAVE AMAZING MILKSHAKES. But I digress, because my tongue is numb.

***I only feel that way on Sundays, when I am too not-busy to feel otherwise.

****Capitalized because House Parties are my third favorite thing, behind Nieces/Immediate-family-tasticness (including Sister in Law!!! she is so rad!!! and such a contributor to feisty nieces!!!! yeah!!!!!!!) and Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting.

*****U know it's on my Netflix queue!

******which too my credit I only drink after skiing when it's been chillin in the snow all day and usually I go to bed after the Hard A and good beer is gone and as a personal policy, do not ever, ever drink canned aluminium tasting beers, except after skiing.

and p.s. if i am ever applying for a job, this blog will become way, way more anonymous in about eight thousand different ways. just so you aren't worried about me being screwed and even more poor after all this hard work (in relation to my career, not work posting-- believe you me i save all the emotional work for my journal, suckaz-- and perceived as a three times a week lush or something, which seems like a lot more than it is, really.

p.p.s it was not the whole bottle, there is still a glass left, suuuccckkkazzz.

*******Her career as an escape artist, since her removal to the Fijian old person's home of compassion, though she does not remember it, inspires me, if anything because she is in some way sticking it to THE MAN in a way that I know she'll be proud of when she gets to a place after this life in which she's in a place to appreciate it because she has ROCKED being old . I like to think she would've wanted it that way, back in the day when she was just bragging about subscribing to Mother Jones and being naturopathic and taking laughing classes and being 90 and living alone. Great-g truly set the example for aging in our family in a way that I look for me and my bro and all of my cuz-power to rock. Watch out, suburbs of Tacoma.

fierce.

This is how I feel right now. Can I please be done?

Picture from here.

all aboard on the good times party cruise.

I could start this post by saying, man, I haven't posted in so long because I've been soooo busy, but that's a lie. I am having kind of a relaxing week (calm before the storm) with you know, the periodic jolts back to consciousness. But things here have been mostly nice (barring the freakish bipolar weather and my awareness of the impending suffering of the coming weeks). I seem to be caught in one of those magical and very, very temporary states of bliss that makes me wistfully proclaim my love for Utah, both school and state, as I bask in the fleeting pleasures of lifeasInowknowit. Some contributors to the goodness of times:

Trio. Officially my favorite restaurant in Salt Lake City. The food is so up to my inflated Caper's standards of quality and taste that I continue to revel in the memory of that meal a week later. Affordable prices (for what you get) and the Riesling was, omg, so light and perfect. Tacomans: think Europa but way, way better in a much classier setting. Bonus: Seeing former SLC mayor Rocky Anderson and knowing that the magic of America is that lowly grad students can sup with (ok, near) people of power and influence. If we had seen Ralph Becker I might have fainted.

Alta. Ok, so my camera didn't make it up there with me, but I have to say that skiing was some of the most fun I've ever had. There was tons of falling initially, but once I got the hang of it, it was unreal. Loved the glory of the pristine glare-y Alpine setting. And I saw an ermine (so cute!!!)! And tons of children! I never get to see kids at grad school. Bonus: Learned (post skiing) that in a taste test between snow-chilled Natural Ice and Natural Light, Natty Light clearly wins. Not that I usually drink that shit, but useful nonetheless. Oooo! And I got these awesome comfy thermals just in time for summer.

The Red Iguana. Everybody says it's the best Mexican restaurant in town, and I believe it. Cool style and tasty mole'. Yum yum yum. Bonus: Leftovers.

An exceptionally rousing discussion of "what is feminism" in my women and gender class. Completely unlinkable, but oh so enriching. Seriously gave me the warm fuzzies inside-- so affirming in ways that are hard to describe (fighting for our rights! equality in relationships! girl powah!). Bonus: We were discussing this book, which I loved.

Yay for life in Utah! Weeeeee! Soon it will be summer and everybody will go away, leaving me with thermals I can't wear and plenty of restaurants to go to alone!*


*I'm being sarcastic, duh. Summer will rock because I will make new friends, travel and do research...ooo, and enjoy the hothothot sunshine! Fun for different reasons, but fun nonetheless.

distracted to distraction.

I don't know where I first heard the phrase "distracted to distraction" but it seems like it's an apt description for how I start to feel towards the end of the semester (one.more.month.). There have been instances of it all week, but today, man! From the time I got up today I couldn't focus on anything. So much to juggle and balance-- when to start what assignment or book, when to stop working on it and go to work, when to take a break, when to have that meeting-- that every decision becomes themostimportantdecisionever and I find myself instead mindlessly clicking through the interwebs until enough time has passed that I either get to work or give up and go to bed. There are so many things that need to be done that doing anything I want to do becomes joyless and guilt-ridden-- there's that email to send, that book review to start/finish/rewrite, those hours to clock in. I have a hard time relaxing. It feels like a waste of time.

But at least I'm here, now. My life could be so different.

happy spring break to all, and to all, a good flight.

what follows is filled with foul language and is not for the faint of heart or easily offended. -M

'Twas the week before Spring Break
And all through my room
spread a giant fucking mess
and a real sense of doom

The explosion of books
and papers entrap
I can't hardly work
I'm so buried in crap!

The recycling is piling
and I can't find a pen
Just wait until Sunday
I'll be freaking out then

One paper in progress,
another unwritten
German to translate,
But no, I'm not quittin'!

For from out of the clutter
comes a thought that doth flatter!
Grad school's but a moment!
This shit doesn't matter!

So what do I care
if my room's getting smelly
Or that the stress eating
turns my body to jelly?

For on the horizon
Spring Break calls me home!
With nieces aplenty,
and the North End to roam!

With the promise of real beer--
no more three point two!
Merry night bike rides
and family dinners--ooo!

With visions of skies gray
my heart starts to swell
And then bursts out my yearning--
"TACOMA!" I yell!

As I make this last thrust
of effort for school
I call out in the night
for those places so cool--

"On Harmon, on Capers,
on sweet Southern Kitchen,
On Parkway, on Red Hot,
I'll soon stop my bitchin'!"

And despite my damn thesis
and my job that demands
I know I'll soon be in Tacoma
With a Fat Tire in hand

amen.

everybody's gonna be happy.

Ok, so I'm feeling a little grumptastic on this blessed holiday Monday. As luck would have it, The Paper comes at me with another attempt to change my attitude with a barrage of subliminal pictorial messages:

Fluffy puppies!

Musical magical garden gnomes!

Chocolate game pieces! After playing you could lick the melty off your fingers!

Another puppy! In sunglasses!

Why don't we?

oy.

So this week is off to a really intense start. The euphoria of gloriouslastweek has given way to the tiredness of difficultthisweek. But I'm keeping my head up, because I fly home in a month, and hell, summer is coming! Anyways, here's a little bit of joy and here's a little bit of inspiration to keep you me going.

satisfied.

I was sitting in class this afternoon... bored. I was writing things in my composition book like "This makes me want to poke my eye out" and "This is so painful" in pretty decorative little scripts along the margin. And then it hits me-- I'm listening to an informed intellectual discussion on the various circumstances surrounding the dropping of the atomic bombs and this is the worst part of my day? Needless to say I checked back in so my peers could entertain me with their knowledge and many endearing traits.

It made me think a little more, as I rode up the hill, and by the time I got to the reception for the conference and was watching this great Polynesian singing and dancing, I felt so satisfied! It was like nothing in my world was out of line, it was completely natural to be. here. now. It's been an exhausting week-- I've been able to throw myself into my new job, I've been immersed in books and articles and writing, and everything, but my gosh, I wouldn't change a thing. I have the perfect winter hat and a fab new bike basket. The snow makes everything look kind of magical and I am finally used to the cold, I am surrounded by bright and brilliant people-- good, caring, wonderful people, no less, and I am doing what I love. And in less than six weeks I get to meet my new little niece and play with my older little niece and see my family and friends back home! I wonder if life couldn't get any better... but I know it will. I know it can because I used to be a receptionist.