A Girl With a Sword

or just make pies all day

I'm making pies today, instead of studying for the GRE, which I feel very ambivalent toward right now. It's so frustrating, not wanting to study. And I usually do want to. In fact, I want to study now, just not for some stupid standardized test. I'm grateful to standardized testing for giving us our beautiful "meritocracy," but I don't want to have to take it. I want to be accepted into that -ocracy on my own unstandardized merit. And I don't remember as much math as I thought I did. Trying to think of how to calculate the area of a triangle--I'm supposed to be finished with this.

So I'm making pies. And I'm telling myself that I need to get on the ball about the grad school thing, but the thought of it makes me so tired. I've pretty much decided to go ahead and go to Simmons next year, for the library degree. It's a good program at a good school, and I've been accepted already. It doesn't matter so much that I don't want to be a librarian forever. So I'm going to get that masters and then get the PhD in Lit that I really want. I just don't want to wait! But . . . I have only a month to get everything together for applications to other schools. I feel a little lost. "I need an academic advisor to show me the way." I wish I could go back to college . . .

in boston . . .

. . . and it's snowing.

visions more vivid than sunsets

Again, I went to see a concert at the Museum of Fine Arts. Tonight's was The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers opening for The Mountain Goats. Prayers and Tears were pretty damn awesome. They were a kind of quiet band, but they really controlled the atmosphere. After some songs about death, alien abduction, and imaginary friends the lead singer explained that they usually play in rock clubs, where they can't play any really quiet songs, so they were going to play one now since they were in a museum. Then they broke into "Come Ye Sinners." That was . . . surprising. I don't think that's ever happened in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts before. It was beautiful, though, and it made me feel a little bit ashamed about the way I've been being a Christian lately. Since I've moved up here to New England I've kind of become more possessive about my faith. I've often resented sharing a faith with so many people I disagree with, and now it feels like I don't have to. It's all mine. And I have avoided letting people know about it because of the negative connotations. But listening to these boys play this hymn in the Museum of Fine Arts, while the lesbian couple next to me cuddled, I felt like a coward for not being more loving and generous with my Christianity. I realized that if I want to stop being ashamed of Christians the first step is for me to be open about my Christianity. If the only open Christians are the obnoxious ones then no wonder people think Christians are obnoxious.

I wasn't sure what to think of The Mountain Goats. John Darnielle is quite a personality, and I think our personalities clashed a little. I began to like him more as the show went on and I heard more of his witty monologue. At one point a member of the crowd called out a song title. "I'm not going to play that." Darnielle called back, "I feel it would be dishonest. . . to continue leading you on about that." At the end of the set Darnielle asked The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers (or as it was printed in the program--"The Players and Tears . . .") to come back to the stage. "I spent a long time trying to convince them to change their name." he said, "Someday I'm going to get rich enough to pay them to change it to The Tricks." They played a couple songs together, ending with Against Pollution and it was triumphant and glorious.

The funniest part of the show was during the encore when John Darnielle said, "Oh, and Perry [of Prayers and Tears] forgot to mention this when he was on stage so he begged me to use my time to ask if anyone has a floor he and his bandmates can sleep on." This got a very enthusiastic response from the crowd.

sunday blogging

If I tilt my screen a certain way I really like this color pink that I have put on my blogbody background, at other screen angles, though, it's horrible. I'm not sure what to do about it. Pink and brown is one of my favorite color combinations. I'm just not sure if there's a way to bring that love to my blog, which is why I have left the sidetitles purple for now. Not a big purple fan . . . Not a big purple-and-pink-combined fan, it reminds me of the end of Where the Heart Is with the Wal-Mart wedding and it's just embarassing for all involved, including me now that I've admitted that I saw that movie. This is going downhill fast.

Yesterday night was the Watertown 375th anniversary gala. We all went down to the new Arsenal Center for the Arts (used to be an arsenal where they made cannons and guns, but now it's an arts center--a good "swords into plowshares" story) and saw Tami perform in the Watertown musical "Over the River and Through the Woods." Think Waiting for Guffman. It was a great event, though. It made me realize that we do live in New England. I just want to say that if Stars Hollow of Gilmore Girls were a real place it would have a lot more old people.

Hey, am I the only one who blogs more on weekends? I don't understand this phenomenon. In college weekends were the only time I had to blog and now that I'm not in school I just feel more at peace with the world and more like blogging on the weekends. I can understand, though, since I guess most people can get online at work. I just drink coffee and read manga.

autumn sweater

Yesterday I went out into Boston and bought myself a new coat and got a haircut. The haircut was the first I've gotten since I shaved my head in February. I found a nice little salon in the Back Bay called Blu. I know, it sounds pretentious, but it was fun. It was on the second floor in a beautiful row of brownstone buildings. When I went in they gave me coffee and let me wait by the big front window. It's been a long time since I got my hair cut by a real stylist. I usually just go find Courtney or Barfhead and say, "hey, do something with my hair." Then there was the haircut I got for the man's part I had in Twelfth Night . . . I actually really liked that haircut. I liked the haircut I got yesterday, too.

I started making a fall music mix yesterday and from this have come up with several conclusions about what kinds of songs fit into a fall music mix. There seem to be three main themes--fire, death, and the end of love. Ryan Adams' Love Is Hell is good fall music, and The Shins. I also put on some Arcade Fire and Fiery Furnaces, Set Your Soul on Fire by Stars. "Yesterday" is a quintessential fall song. I also put "Tomorrow" on there because I like the combination. It's kind of a cold, rainy fall mix, even though the morning I made it was sunny. It has Train Under Water by Bright Eyes and On the Bus Mall by The Decemberists, oh, and Passing Afternoon by Iron and Wine, a great fall song. There are too many songs on this mix, I need to thin it down. I think the soundtrack to Garden State is basically a fall mix.

in the mood

Okay, the coffee at work is bad. I keep drinking it because I can't believe coffee can taste like this. The library, though, has a great DVD collection. I borrowed the Criterion Collection edition of Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood For Love yesterday. I started watching it after eleven last night, which would usually mean that I'd be watching it alone since my housemates like to go to bed at a decent hour, but most of them were drawn in by the visual appeal of the movie (Hope said, "I never knew the sixties were so cool"). Most of them left the room before it was over, though, so this morning I was asked to summarize the last fifteen minutes of the movie. They aren't very easy to articulate. So much sexual tension.

Hey, speaking of sexual tension, does anyone remember that Dr. Foreman quote about sexual tension at Covenant College that Steele had on his blog . . . I guess it was about two years ago so this might be too late to ask, but it was good and I just can't remember it.

making up for lost time

This past week I decided to take advantage of the superb discount I got at the bookstore and buy more books than I've ever bought at one time (not counting textbooks). This is what I got, all told (my discount, however, doesn't stop until Thursday, when I get my last paycheck):

1. The Serpent Slayer: and Other Stories of Strong Women
2. The Hero and the Crown
3. Fire and Hemlock
Girls with swords.

4. St. George and the Dragon
The only retelling of The Faerie Queene for children. Sadly lacking Duessa--evil snake woman.

5. Literary Theory: an Introduction
6. Getting What You Came For : The Smart Student's Guide to Earning an M.A. or a Ph.D.
Goin' to grad school . . . Someday, when I get all the paperwork done.

7. Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There
8. The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization
Keeping up with Laura . . .

9. Searching for God Knows What
Keeping up with Tami . . . Seriously, though, I love this guy. I probably shouldn't. He is a little silly, but it's so fun to read a Christian writer who seems so much like me. And the PCA magazine did give him a pretty nice article this summer.

10. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition
I need to hide this in my heart, along with my dear silver friend. This is the title Dr. Wildeman always wrote at the bottoms of the papers I turned in to him. I'm so happy I finally bought it. I feel complete.

11. And my new darling:

I am a domestic goddess. (although, I admit, my goddessness would be more empowered if I bought this. But I'm trying to restrain myself.)

I love this cookbook so much. I read what Nigella writes and it just reminds me of myself, and I like that. I like it when she writes, in the introduction, "The trouble with much modern cooking is not that the food it produces isn't good, but that the mood it induces in the cook is one of skin-of-the-teeth efficiency, all briskness and little pleasure. Sometimes that's the best we can manage, but at other times we don't want to feel like a postmodern, postfeminist, overstretched woman but, rather, a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in our languorous wake. So what I'm talking about is not being a domestic goddess exactly, but feeling like one." And when she says little things like, "I know in my heart of hearts they would be better with blanched almonds which you then grind yourself when you want them" (from her recipe for "Spanish Macaroons"). And she makes allusions to freaking Proust, as all good baking books should, I love it!

(The cookbook, I am just thinking, also reminds me of Domestic Goddess Bekah Tuggy, who I love almost as much as myself, and who needs to come up here and make my apartment look beautiful just like she made my room look beautiful when I lived with her.)

why my apartment smells funny

The dog pooped in the hallway tonight, before dinner. I didn't find it until just a few minutes ago. And Tami is still at play practice so she isn't here to clean it. Hope's wiping up the shit now. I'm sitting in the other room. I'm never having children, never, never.

you should always run with a loaded gun in your mouth

Tonight I went to see The Fiery Furnaces with special guests Man Man. It was one of those concerts in a room with seats, like a theater-type room, so that felt a little awkward. The guy on one side of me was extremely white and seemed completely zoned out until The Fiery Furnaces came out. The guy on the other side of me smelled strongly of alchohol and kept leaving for long periods of time. Well, Man Man was amazing. They reminded me why I like this type of music (don't ask me what type that is, I'm just calling it "this type"). They all played some kind of percussion instrument, plus guitars and a keyboard, but the guitars were definately secondary to the drums and xylophones. It was such a lot of glorious noise. Interesting lyrics too. I didn't buy a Decemberists shirt for twenty-five dollars the other night, but I did buy a Man Man shirt tonight for ten bucks. It's brown and big and it says "Man Man" in pink curly letters on the front, and right in the middle it has a picture of a pig with its guts coming out. It's an ideal shirt.

Fiery Furnaces was (were?) not in their best form. Eleanor had a bad cold from being in Canada and she just seemed to be in such pain. The show got off to a rocky start, but they played some of their new stuff and that was great and then when they went back to the old stuff that went better, too. Their encores really seemed to be the best part of the show. They were actually cracking jokes by then. The last song was Don't Dance Her Down and some determined audience members decided to stay standing after the last ovation and have some fun with the song. It was a good ending.

Today was also my first day at my new job at the nearby public library. I think I'll like it there. The coffee flows like water and I get every Sunday off. It's like heaven.

my baldness

Here's a picture Natalie just sent me, taken before spring banquet. I like it.

here on these cliffs of dover

Tonight Sarah and I went to see The Decemberists. The venue was actually right across the street from Fenway Park. It was one of those big clubs and, as we were surrounded by high schoolers, I was very skeptical about how the show would go. But before the show we made friendly comments to the people around us, and I began to feel better. The opening band, Cass McCombs, was loudly cheered and encouraged, even though I could tell not many people in the audience had heard them before. They were quiet and happy and hard to pay attention to. The pause between them and the Decemberists was long, but filled with Peter and the Wolf. That kind of made me feel better about the venue.

The show started with The Tain. It was amazing live. They came out, pranced around the stage a bit, then went straight into the song. It really seemed almost more of a play than a song as they switched around instuments and parts, and one point the drummer lay on the floor and waved his feet around in the air. After The Tain and thunderous applause they launched into We Both Go Down Together and then Leslie Anne Levine. At which point Colin stopped and pointed out that the audience seemed to like songs about doomed love, then encouraged us not to go drowning ourselves or jumping off cliffs. Then doomed love continued with The Bachelor and the Bride, Bagman's Gambit, and Eli, the Barrow Boy. During Bagman's Gambit the violinist did a little tribute to Peter and the Wolf that was greatly appreciated by the audience.

They played through most of Picaresque, with July, July! and Shiny thrown in. I was glad they got to On the Bus Mall. The show was so upbeat I wasn't sure if it would fit, but they played it right after Engine Driver, and the sober mood of the song didn't feel awkward. Infanta is so different live. When I first heard it on the album I wasn't sure if it was the same song I had heard at their concert. There's just so much pomp going on, and I always feel like I can see the elephants and the princess. And I really liked The Sporting Life tonight, I haven't really liked it so much when I've heard it before. It's the kind of song you need to dance to to really enjoy. This audience were dancers. It's nice to have the assurance that that's not just a Covenant thing. Although it was strange not to be getting Evan's elbow in my face all the time. They ended with A Cautionary Song, and the drummer and guitarist headed out into the audience with a drum and some cymbals. Then they did Mariner's Revenge song for the much demanded encore, complete with screaming on cue. Everyone seemed to have a good time. At one point Colin paused before a song for the violinist to come back to her microphone. "Are you finished high-fiving the crowd?" he asked, then he turned to the audience, "She does this thing every night where she has to high-five everyone in the front row." He turned back to her, "Go on then, get it over with." You could tell the violinist wasn't at all sure where he was getting this, but all night he was just going with some kind of flow in his head and he just carried everyone along with him.

I decided going to see The Decemberists can totally count as my studying for the GRE for today. I hope the GRE uses the word palanquin.

our darling

I love our rice cooker.

I'm trying to decide whether to go to this. It would be pretty cool. I love how the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has rock concerts. And a children's book about it.

I've been studying for the GRE lately, and I'm realizing that I've forgotten all my math since about seventh grade. It's not like riding a bicycle. So I'm having to teach myself all of the little things that have slipped out of my brain. These mathmatical facts are so much more fundamental to the world than the vocabulary words I'm supposed to know for the verbal part of the test, but the math is so much harder to remember! Thank goodness grad school English departments are on my side.

fcuk

Damn it. During my days in England this summer I was so tempted to buy some "fcuk" clothing, just for the label. And now look. Why didn't I just fork over the cash when I had the chance?

third cup of tea

I know that many of my entries are named after hot beverages. That's because I love them.

Today was Octoberfest in Harvard Square. It sounds kind of boring, so I hadn't prepared myself for much, but when I came out of the T after church I hardly recognized my familiar square. There were booths sqeezed into every available square foot of the surrounding streets, snooty businesses shared space with young artists and ethnic food vendors. It made me so happy to see everyone outside in the sunshine. And I got free ice cream. In Harvard Square! It was amazing! And to top it all off, as I fought my way through the crowds trying to get across the square I recognized the music that was going on, or the words at least-- they were singing about house elves. I guess it's a sign of my geekiness that I know who Harry and the Potters are. But there they were, playing on the big stage in Harvard Square. They're not good, but they're hilarious. Voldemort can't stop the rock!

where I am now

You are a Social Liberal (73% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (28% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

And apparently what this means is, I don't have a problem with someone naming their child "Sunshine" or "Charm."