book two: jeffery toobin’s “the nine”.
fin: 24 january 2011
[note: i realize that the finish dates of book 1 and 2 are rather close. although i am a fast reader, i’m not super-human; to be fair, i began this book over a year ago and finished about 1/4 of it, and then finished it this year. i have a life, y’all.]
The book fascinatingly increased both my immense respect for and skepticism of the judicial system.
[image from here.]
book one: jay-z’s “decoded” [a one sentence review.]
[wherein i review the books i’ve read in 2011 using only one sentence, because i (a) am a little lazy (b) am busy reading (obvs) (c) like distilling things down ala 6-word memoirs and 140 characters yet (d) find it difficult to summarize, well, anything, in more words.]
fin: 21 january 2011
Reading this book reaffirmed in my mind how
really, really good the television show “The Wire” is.
[image courtesy of billboard.com]
sonic youth.
from the vault.
i occasionally like to look through the vault of my old blog, perusing what my meandering thoughts were on this day 6 years ago, 5 years ago, and was i really that obsessed with the tv show the O.C.? goodness.
this stroll down memory lane [you know, the street that so often ends in a cul-de-sac of cliche] certainly comes with its rewards, little gems worth remembering.
today, here’s one which reminds me of my friend jessica’s story about accidentally mispronouncing the names of students on the first day of school. she apparently had a friend with two students whose names were Orangejello and Yellowjello (but pronounced “oh-ronge-ello” and his twin brother “yell-onge-ello” as they snottily informed their teacher).
yeah. so, here’s one from the vault.
———————————-
March 3, 2008
holly [a friend & co-worker from a previous job] and i were discussing some of the more interesting names we’ve heard recently, particularly from some of our friends who are from other countries/ethnicities, countries that won’t end up having a whole generation of 86 year olds named “tiffany” or “madison”.
this is the story she told me:
i was shopping at the mall over the weekend. we see this group of african-american kids, with some parent-looking folks with them (ostensibly theirs). we’re browsing around and we see this teenage girl pointing to the display counter saying:
“that’s my name. that’s my name. and that’s my name…”
as she trails off, we hear shouting from a parent:
“clinique! get your ass over here!”
five charming things.
[wherein we take inspiration from the ineffable erica and many others and discuss the things that are charming me today, naming them one by one, in a succinct package.]
1. holding my newborn nephew benjamin for one whole hour.
2. checking out library books.
3. being able to pay library fines online in the comfort of my home without enduring any (totally imagined) scorn from a library worker as they view how very long it took me to return that one book.
4. brand new green and purple sharpie pens.
5. my red toms that take me on daily crisp walks.
[image from here]
banana bread cocaine.
my good friend sarah gifted me the seminal cookbook, the Joy of Cooking, as a wedding present in june. over the summer i cracked open the dense volume (along with another great cookbook given to me by my friend erin) and ran my fingers over the pages, anxious to cook. i think somehow in my antiquated ways i associated becoming a wife with cooking actual meals that consisted of more than 3 ingredients (which, for me, had been chicken, a vegetable and pasta cooked in long-suffering repetition). i’m not making any kind of political or social statement about marriage or wifely duty or sharing of domestic chores (and it should be said that over the last 4-5 months the boy did more than his fair share of the cooking, among other things); all i’m saying is that upon opening my wedding presents, the ones i got more excited about pertained to an old love (books) paired with a new one (the idea of cooking).
related, but off-topic: i also got my beloved kitchenaid mixer for the wedding, and it has exceeded my non-cooking-experience expectations. it seriously rules. also? it’s the color of pistachios.
i mean, just look at it…
i digress.
where was i?? yes, falling in love with books; cookbooks, books that will magically make me a cook.
but then, i didn’t cook anything out of them.
i’m not sure why, but i have a theory: recipes are…intimidating to me. i’ve followed recipes before, sure, usually in some pre-planned ordeal that takes me several hours, special trips to the store and way too many dishes; however, recipe books are particularly intimidating. especially bound up like that, in huge volumes that taunt me, they dare me to just try to make something that looks like anything in the book.
apparently i give voice, thought and an attitude to inanimate objects. inanimate objects that mock me.
so today i determined to crack open the first big volume to see if it, as it advertises, might contain my joy of cooking.
also, the boy really, really likes banana bread.
i looked for the banana bread recipe and found it (how thoughtful, this organized little book!) in the breads section. i scanned the titles, looking for simple, plain banana bread.
i came up empty.
i looked again, and the closest i could come to something entitled “banana bread” or “plain old banana bread” or “hey, you, weird-intimidated-by-cooking-lady, here’s your freaking recipe”, but the only thing i found was a recipe for “banana bread cockaigne”.
or, as i read it in my mind, “banana bread cocaine”.
according to wikipedia an expert, cockaigne is not some extra ingredient that makes this a new dish, but rather:
“the author’s favorite recipes include “Cockaigne” in the name, (e.g., “Fruit Cake Cockaigne”), explained in the foreword to the 1975 edition as after the name of the Becker country home in Anderson Township, near Cincinnati, Ohio.”
so, instead of something special, this is just a REALLY good banana bread recipe, one that inspires people to eat the entire loaf.
or, as it will now be known in our home, banana bread cocaine.
steve jobs and me.
this week, steve jobs, CEO of Apple, announced that he was taking a leave of absence from his job to focus on his health. he left his announcement specifically vague, not detailing the exact reasons for his leave, nor when and if he would return. he simply said that he loved the company so much and hoped he would return soon.
and, as it turns out, i am finding myself in a similar situation.
i don’t own a huge computer company and make millions.
i don’t have nor am recovering from pancreatic cancer.
i am nowhere near as famous or powerful as steve jobs.
but, nevertheless, this week, i have left a job that i respect and love very much to focus on my health.
a public forum such as this one is certainly no place to go into details of such matters, for obvious reasons; however, this does not mean the subject is taboo. i am most certainly willing and able to discuss the complexity of the situation in a manner that involves actual human contact. i am not a pariah; i am not suffering away on some deathbed; i did not leave my job in a blaze of burning bridges. suffice it to say, i developed some health issues over the last few months that became more problematic and alarming (not terminal, or life-threatening, so as to not freak anyone out) enough that it became clear that there was something wrong that was getting worse despite many attempts at a remedy. in order to figure out what that is, i had to step away from teaching, hopefully temporarily.
i do not know when i will return.
i do not know if i will return.
i do not know what’s next.
i do know that this was an incredibly difficult decision made as easy as it could be by my sainted husband, my family, the staff at my school and my wonderful colleagues who i miss already.
i do know that i am taking a mandatory vacation for the next several weeks.
i do know that i’ve joined an online book club, and eaten much chocolate in the last few days.
i do know the one who is in charge of my life, and trust him implicitly.
i am hopeful.
for me.
and steve jobs.
jetkens? dickson?
i was having a very long week a few weeks ago with nothing much to look forward to on the weekend except for a small reprieve and stacks and stacks more work.
the only recourse i had was to go shopping for christmas decorations.
naturally.
alas, i didn’t find any; however, while poking around online, i stumbled on the PERFECT decorations for this year from CB2: jetsons-inspired ornaments. en route to me are 8 of the white ones, to be hung in front of our grey curtains with crimson ribbon, and then the orange and green to adorn the tree.
paradoxically, our other christmas addition came from the opposite spectrum of modernity: charles dickens and chalk.
the boy and i have been pondering how to change our chalkboard wall into something befitting the holidays. we’ve batted around various song lyrics, picture ideas, and classic quotes, but nothing called out to us that matched the perfection we found in our first iteration of the wall (crafted in June at the time of our wedding):
until sunday.
i woke up in a grumpy mood on sunday. no, grumpy doesn’t quite cover it…i was fussy. you know…FUSS. Y. i had forgotten a disk i needed at school, so the boy and i pulled on our shoes and decided to fetch the disk while getting some pancake mix and then come home for breakfast. i went to my desk to get my key (which is attached to my passkey to get into school and my jump drive with my whole school career on it) and found…nothing.
harumph! now, i’ve definitely lost things before, and i have a natural talent for losing things within minutes of getting home, but i have not lost/misplaced my school keys the ENTIRE YEAR. i have a pretty set system; however, last friday i taught in literally 5 different rooms on 3 different floors of school, so things were a little off.
but, how to get into school on a sunday to retrieve the keys AND the disk i needed.
i call my friend, heather, who works with me.
because she is a goddess among women (and men, too, if we’re getting technical) she agrees to pop over and meet me while we retrieve everything. [note: ironically, after this whole ordeal, i retrieved the keys and not the disk i was going there for in the first place. of course.]
we find keys in the 2nd place i thought they’d be, set the alarm and then headed out. not, of course, without first inviting heather for breakfast as repayment.
over a tasty breakfast of pancakes and eggs cooked by the chef boy, we mention to heather that we still need something for our chalkboard wall. immediately she suggests a particular quote (from memory) from a one charles dickens that we INSTANTLY swoon over. it’s perfect.
[side note: i heart my friends.]
if you know anything about the boy, you know that once he has a project he’s excited about, it’s like a dog with a bone. he must attack it, immediately, if not sooner. he spent the afternoon designing it, then spent the next evening in the dark with his projector faintly outlining the script, then spent the next evening detailing this:
dude.
duuuuuuuuuude.
it’s really awesome, if i do say so myself.
so, the beginning of our christmas season has started with a bang (not a whimper). it will be a very dickens/jetson christmas, and i can’t wait.
and the other four…
2. that today was my last day of work [at least at school] for the week.
3. that someone exists that makes me copious amounts of rush copies, collated on blue paper paper, stacked neatly in a pile, and does it while giving me a smile every time.
4. watching the boy hang his first solo show in an art gallery.
5. listening to music on big headphones that drown out the world while also making me feel like a cool space alien.
the thing is…
this poem absolutely moved me to tears today, so it’s number one on my list of things to make me happy today. [emphasis mine.]
The Thing Is [by Ellen Bass]
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
(From Mules of Love, via The Writer’s Almanac.)
[Photo from Daniel Guillan]
sara, darling. 
