Thursday, January 29, 2009

meme me, mimi

(I don't know if five people read this blog/would admit to reading this blog, especially since I deleted the link from my profile. But I'm intrigued by this. And in the mood for this sort of thing lately. I be all about creatin'. [Also I incurred this moral obligation upon responding to Connie.])

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1) I make no guarantees that you will like what I make;
2) It'll be done this year;
3) You have no clue what it's going to be. It could be anything. Jewelry, knitted stuff, something sewn, a poem, a contract, a mix CD, a photograph, baked goods... anything, really; and
4) I reserve the right to make something extremely odd.

However, by responding to this post to be one of those five people, you are incurring a moral obligation to repost this and pass it on. So. Caveat emptor.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

One should write daily.

I don't know if this is a uniquely American thing, or if it applies to other Western/developed/white peopled nations, but... we are a weird breed, socially speaking.

As y'all (side note: how did this Southernism work its way into my mind-vocabulary?) know, I work at the library, both monetarily speaking and homeworkily speaking. Because the entirety of my university is composed of poor, drained souls, and because the Reg is at the center of campus, I see plenty of people there, intermittently reading and walking in some direction and weeping into their coffee. This school is relatively small (5,000 undergrads) and there are many ways to meet people. In a class. At a party. Maybe you lived in the same house first year. Maybe you have a mutual friend. Whatever; the point is, as a college student, you have a lot of acquaintances.

Now here's where it gets weird. When and why does it suddenly become not only acceptable but the norm to stop acknowledging someone you've met? Are our memories so short? Because maybe I'm special and in possession of magical powers, but unless I was really drunk, I remember you. And you and you and you. I remember all of you. I remember specific things you said and did. I might remember your major and a broad outline of your likes and dislikes. I remember that time we went to dinner with the same group of people.

(This is going to be one of those times in which I say, "When I was in India...")--I really don't think this would have happened in India. Maybe it's because I had the perspective of a foreigner, and therefore I was distinct, but I think that there, if you meet someone once, you make sure to acknowledge each other from then on. If you meet someone once, the next time you see them, they're your friend, and not your acquaintance.

Maybe it's because I was gone for six months. But recently, I'm passing by lots of people without so much as a smile or a nod. I don't expect long embraces and hour-long catch-ups, but even the postman deserves a nod. It's as if people fade back into the faceless masses if you haven't spoken to them in a year. Logically, it seems like there's a social pecking order involved with this--like some people consider themselves important enough to forget a certain level of acquantanceship. But in terms of who acknowledges and who doesn't, there isn't really a detectable coolness factor.

The people toward whom I am warmest are usually those that have no discernable reason to be exceptionally kind or inclusive, but decide to be anyway--rejecting the establishment of their own personal significance.

happy ox year

Celebrated Chinese New Year by bringing Tsingtao to a dinner party and eating lots of tofu.

My regimented tomorrow:

9AM-10:20AM: Middle East/North Africa class
10:30AM-11:50AM: Russian lit class
1:30PM-2:50PM: States and War class
3PM-5PM: Work
5:30PM: Pick up my lost phone from Mr. X at Starbucks
6PM-6:30/7PM: CW Meeting
8PM-10PM: Battle of Algiers screening for M.E./N.A. class
10PM-??: Discussion of BoA

...I'll just do my homework at 3AM and become an automaton.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

beautiful words.

President Obama.
President Obama.
President Obama.
President Obama.
President Obama.
President Obama.
President Obama.
President Obama.
President Obama.
President Obama.
President Obama.
President Obama.

Let's reflect on some of the headlines of the day.

"Obama to Close Foreign Prisons and Guantanamo"
"California Expects Fast Obama Move on Car Pollution"
"Obama Orders Military to Start Planning Troop Reduction in Iraq"
"Obama Blocks Some of Bush's Last Minute Environmental Decisions"
"Obama: Government Should Be Transparent"

It's like... a dream.

OK, I know that personality cults can be dangerous, I know he's not a god. But for just one second, can we just..

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiggghhh.

Monday, January 19, 2009

long weekends.

A truly lovely weekend. Long, long and lovely; never having classes on Fridays this quarter (best choice ever? maybe) means consistently having three-day weekends, and tomorrow being MLK Day means a four-day weekend even before third week.

I hatched the idea of a dinner party in A's brain early last week, which she enthusiastically embraced and which we sort of haphazardly prepared for but still ended up with fourteen people altogether and a number of excellent dishes -- including roasted red pepper lasagna, fancy little tomatoes, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, feta-apple-walnut salad, and garlic mashed potatoes. Six bottles of wine were guzzled, including an extra-large Yellow Tail. Best of all, though, people seemed very happy with it, my musical selection was appreciated, and as I was told, the last people left at 2am. I could see hosting these more often, maybe once every couple of weeks.

After the dinner party, T., H., another friend and I went to a party where I overhead interesting gossip (such interesting gossip I've heard lately!--such is the structure of my social life right now) and got to hear H. recount the story of our meeting to an acquaintance, which could only make me smile. Come to think of it, there are always stories between two people that so often other people never know. Everyone lives in a number of secret worlds.

I went back to A.'s Saturday morning to eat leftovers for lunch and help with the cleaning; it was a cozy morning full of soft white light and hot tea and others milling around. I have fairly fallen in love with her place, as it's so conducive to dinner partying and hot tea drinking and there are usually people around. She lives with three of her friends, and all four of them have boyfriends. The atmosphere is much different from my own very quiet and frequently empty apartment.

The rest of the day was a bit lazy, though I did some work in the form of reading my current Russian novel -- Fathers and Sons, by Turgenev. Although reading Russian novels has come to feel less like work and more like being at a U of C party... discussions of nihilism, depraved romantic situations. I rather like it.

Eventually there was Thai food and I crashed in her living room, stayed for a most delicious couscous lunch this afternoon, and finally left around 2pm today. Connie came over for dinner and I went to her place for an annual watching of Pride and Prejudice ("the new one"), a movie that always gives way to wanting a Mr. Darcy who never comes. Not so intense this time, though. My theme now is all assertiveness, and I follow through. The first two weeks have been surprising enough, but certainly nothing to regret. I think a modern Lizzy would sympathize. Would laugh. The dances of her time are the parties of mine--the dancing is a little crazier, the wine is likely worse, but beyond the trends I think she'd agree that the character and the communication still exist and matter more than the style.


Wednesday, January 14, 2009

productivity and finding it in corners.

Today, after going back and forth for two weeks with cover letters and scheduling phone times, I have finally secured an internship position doing research with an non-profit environmental organization downtown. Next Wednesday I'm going in to scope the place out and hopefully get my first "project." And meet the people. And pick up my handy dandy "research kit."

I found my way into this organization through the university's handy dandy career networking and resources website, where you can arrange to have your resume sent to different organizations advertising positions... I cringed when T. told me about it, but did it anyway. Anyway, it was extraordinarily easy and now I have an internship and that is productive.

On the other hand, I have finished none of my readings for tomorrow (although I have been enjoying a few of them, like the one about the Peloponnesian War or Gogol) and I watched a Grey's Anatomy episode with A. tonight. One I'd already seen, even. Not so productive.

Due to my seniority, I got "promoted" at work to the less horrible position of checking things in and doing lots of tasks less repetitive than shelving. Productive.

I took the day off of work today to read and mostly danced around and then put a braid in my hair. Not productive.

I am restless, but happy. Productive. Also, important.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

on again, on again

Two glasses of wine at dinner led to a mysterious bottle of whiskey led to the finishing of the whiskey led to party one led to cranberry-vodka and sitting on the kitchen floor with Connie and T. led to party two led to "dirty girl scout" led to A.'s apartment led to pictures in tights led to a walk home I don't remember and a very long day today--such alcohol consumption can only happen a few nights a year, last night was one of those.

I believe the evening is best encapsulated in A.'s and my text communication:

A: Come to our party!! (12:36am)
A: This party is we are drunk (12:55am)
Me: i am coming? will you still be tjhere in 29 mins (12:57am)
A: um i dunno i don't know (12:58am)
Me: well DECIDE or else i wont come (12:59am)
A: Come over it's fun please please. Don't even think about it (1:00am)
Me: ok STAY THERE (1:01am)

Hmm, yes. This quarter is on.

Because I'm insane, I'm getting up at 5:30am tomorrow morning to participate in Kuviasungnerk/Kangeiko, a UChicago winter festival celebrated with freezing early morning yoga. I get a free shirt at the end.

So night.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

those crazy Russian winters..

Remember the good old days, last year, when MAC overheated my apartment to the point of my donning boxers and tank tops and using a fan in mid-winter? Remember how quickly I'd shed my coat and boats for fear of sweating, and how cozy and nest-like our little apartment with its boho-sympathetic tendencies was?

We got our gas bill last week--it was ~$244.

Now... I don't consider myself to be an irrational person. But that is an absurd price. That is the price of a fancy new iPod. It's the price of a fancy new dress. It's the price of a plane ticket, all of my books for two quarters, one-quarter a month's rent.

I acknowledge that our apartment is extremely energy-inefficient. The "sun" room is lined with windows and sucks the heat out like a vacuum. My bedroom also has windows all along one side, and, in here, I almost never actually feel the heater's output. The building itself is an old Hyde Park apartment building with six apartments, two on each floor. It was probably built in 1940 or earlier, and the heating system is unlikely to have been updated recently. There are worn wooden floors in every room except the kitchen, which, while aesthetically pleasing, is not all that insulating. It may be like pouring heat into a strainer. So yes, People's Gas, I admit there is a problem with our apartment.

But I'm more than a little suspicious and angered for a number of reasons. For one thing, this bill was for the month of December, during which our apartment was only occupied for about two and a half weeks. It was completely empty by the middle of the month and I came back on the 26th. Additionally, the heat is turned off at night, and when no one is home, which is more than half of the 24-hour day. This means that the heat was actually in use for about one week of the month. Had we been here the whole month and continued turning off the heat during the night and when no one was home, we still would have gotten billed, it seems, around $500.

I understand that things cost money, even that things cost quite a bit of money (imported chocolate, for example). The difference is, I don't need imported chocolate and so I don't often buy it. U. and I do need heat. Paying my share of the bill, about $122, is almost my entire paycheck for a whole week working maximum hours (15). I work 14 hours, which is pretty decent on top of four courses and their homework. And I really don't want to see all of those hours going toward basic heat. Especially when I still need to feed myself and take care of other extraneous costs that jump out from behind the Trees of Adulthood. So far my bank account is taking heavy advantage of the up-to-$500 loan function, where you can dip into fake money as long as you pay it back in reasonable time. My parents are sending me emergency money, I owe U. for several things, and I don't get my first paycheck of the quarter until next Friday.

Despite all of this, I'm feeling zen enough. I have foregone buying books, and am using the library instead, hoping it comes through for me all quarter. I am now finally making money again and things will go back to equilibrium in a couple of weeks. But $122 is more than I am able or willing to pay each month for gas, and so we're now using it almost never, save for an hour or so in the morning and maybe for a short stint in the evening. Even so, we don't put it higher than 68.

U. and I got space heaters and we're becoming reliant on those instead. I double and triple-sock my feet, take hot baths, chain-drink hot tea. My one warm spot is in my bed, cocooned in blankets, with the space heater blowing on me. With this, and the incessant snow outside the window, and the Russian novels I'm reading for class, I get the sensation of either a Depression Era or Soviet Era hovel. I imagine myself as Kira Argounova in "We the Living", coming back to my cold little apartment out of the freezing and gusty Russian winter, taking comfort in a jacked-up social life as an escape from the bleak outside world. Well, okay, maybe not the last part.

We'll get by. We are the living, after all.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

listen, plz

An album you need to listen to in order to make your life better: Leona Naess, Thirteens.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

make yourself couscous

Today I ate couscous for dinner for the second night in a row. Most delicious.

I think six months in India managed to peel away a certain self-consciousness that clung to me for years before I left. This I realized especially tonight.

Things weigh on your mind and make you terrified and intermittently start despairing but if you keep reading the New Yorker and cutting the tomatoes and talking to people and eating the couscous, you continue to learn new things and unearth bits of wisdom. As long as you're learning, you're not going horribly wrong.

And that's tonight's three-second bite.

Otherwise engaged.

A lot of people seem to be getting engaged lately.

Maybe this is largely a symptom of Facebook. Or maybe I'm actually at an age where I start to see people my age committing "for life" and then reproducing, like waiting for any reason is just too much work, and moot besides. Biology tells us this is partially the right answer--we're just about ripe for propagating the species...we have been for a while now. But biology also tends to hesitate when it sees us doing the commitment thing at twenty. Evolutionarily speaking, there should be lots of sex with lots of people, lots of wonderful gene-spreading. Culturally speaking, picking out the person whose adult diaper you're willing to change at 88 before you're legal to drink... well, if the evil statistics are any indication, it's a bad idea.

I shouldn't side with the statistics, but I'm realistic, so I do.

I just recently became okay with the idea of wearing mascara, finding a way to reconcile it with certain feminist ethics to which I'm attached. This was a big step. I don't see engagement in my near future.

But really now, just for a minute here: honestly?

Friday, January 02, 2009

freecycling

On the way from my new apartment to campus, I always pass what looks to be a free newspaper stand--you know, the kind where you lift the plastic lid out toward you and there's a stack of something. Except the stand isn't for complimentary newspapers, it's for complimentary books. It's there for anybody to leave and take books. I've been checking it every day. Usually there's either nothing or nothing very exciting. Yesterday there was a informational brochure on being black and getting a job.

But this morning the thing was full of economics books. I grabbed one on South Korea for T., shoved it in my bag, and moved on.

About a block later, I started wondering--what if that book was for somebody else? What if it's not as random as it looks, and instead it serves a function of deliberate delivery from one person to another? Was I thieving?

It's strange that the thought even crossed my mind, and stranger that it stuck with me and I started to feel like I was carting around stolen goods. Who would paint "Free Books" on a container meant for specified people? Why did I feel so implicated?

My theory is that my institutionalized mind was subconsciously anxious over the lack of capitalism involved with my completely legal book-snatching. The idea that I could take something from a willing stranger in the name of community is that alien.

U. confirmed tonight over peanut butter and tea that it is perfectly acceptable to take things from the box. You can take and not feel guilty, give and not feel deserving. It's all non-expectant, unknown relationships between people.

Tomorrow I'm going to leave a book I got free from the Reg when it was dumping its collection a year or two ago--"Men and Aggression." I think I'll start freecycling a lot more from now on.

hold your head up high, like you think I do.

I've thought about this much less in-depth than I usually do... I seem to think still keeping a New Years resolution I made in 2007 has forever excused me from the process of making more promises. But no; stagnant we are not.

Some things I could do this year:

1. Write every day. EVERY DAY.

2. One word: assertive.

3. Ten new Hindi words a day.

I enter this year far more terrified somehow than ever before. More terrified, more serious, more indecisive. One day at a time. More to come.