Thursday, March 27, 2008
Sometimes I Miss My Old Job
It has come to my attention that ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies) of Warren Ellis' new novel are soon to be distributed. Once upon a time I managed the SciFi section of my local independent bookstore, and I might have qualified for such an object. I would have written a newsletter review and made a special sign and obnoxiously recommended it to every poor soul who happened to wander into my section looking for the sports biographies...but alas. I no longer work in a bookstore. Some of my friends still do. But they will not give me their ARCs. Fuckers.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Pastry School Here I Come!
I went down to Santa Cruz last weekend to visit my mom, and formally signed all the papers for my student loan. I walked out of the bank on Monday with a check for $9,000. Wheee! I am now fully capable of paying for the Tante Marie Pastry Program, and I start next Monday. I'm also now fully in debt, and trying really hard not to worry about it. I think the worry will fade behind a mountain of delicious food and fantastic mess. I wonder who my classmates will be?
The syllabus is crazy, they pack a huge amount of content into 16 hours a week. I realize I don't actually have any idea what they will teach me. How much chemistry, how much practical lecture, how much plain practice? Updates will follow, I'm sure.
The syllabus is crazy, they pack a huge amount of content into 16 hours a week. I realize I don't actually have any idea what they will teach me. How much chemistry, how much practical lecture, how much plain practice? Updates will follow, I'm sure.
This is Your Brain On a Head Cold
I appear to have caught one of the various viruses going around. I beat something into submission right before I left for Puerto Rico, and now I may be paying for it. My thought process is very slow and floaty. It actually has some of the detached feeling of an anti-anxiety med. Odd, but acceptable. I've been watching the new Terminator series on my laptop, because that's about what I'm good for today. Is anyone else faintly disturbed by the similarity in the programmed kill-bot roles of Summer Glau?
That's That
Follow-up to Friday Night Blues: The casual thing is now a former casual thing. I wanted more, he didn't, and the only notable part of the story is that even a casual thing can't end casually. Instead of tears, this just ended in awkward. C'est la vie. Back in the pool.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Friday Night Blues
I was really excited. I hadn't seen him in two weeks, and I had lots of time on my hands to plan a fun dinner. It was farmer's market day, so I bought all kinds of fresh veggies, and two heaping baskets of strawberries for a shortcake dessert. I cleaned the house and made the bed, and debated between fried plantains and mashed sweet potatoes, satay or teriyaki chicken. I went to my usual class at the gym and came home buzzing with hormones and ready to start cooking. I was just washing up some earlier dishes when my IM pinged. He was sorry. It was his friend's surprise birthday party tonight. He'd forgotten to mark his calendar...
We have a casual thing. It's an open relationship, and we mostly only have time to see each other on weekends. Also, I respect the importance of friends, and their birthdays. But I was so excited. I was going to tell him about my trip, and make an amazing dessert. I'd been thinking about it all day. I have to go down to Santa Cruz on Saturday evening, and I'll be gone through Tuesday, so this is the only real time I have before another week goes by. Well meet for lunch tomorrow. I probably won't cook. Part of me doesn't even want to see him at all. We may be casual, but we've been seeing each other for months. Couldn't he have invited me to the party? Or split time and made it here for a quick bite before heading out with his friends? Or...something?
So here I am. It's Friday night. None of my friends are around. The house smells like strawberries, but I'm not hungry.
We have a casual thing. It's an open relationship, and we mostly only have time to see each other on weekends. Also, I respect the importance of friends, and their birthdays. But I was so excited. I was going to tell him about my trip, and make an amazing dessert. I'd been thinking about it all day. I have to go down to Santa Cruz on Saturday evening, and I'll be gone through Tuesday, so this is the only real time I have before another week goes by. Well meet for lunch tomorrow. I probably won't cook. Part of me doesn't even want to see him at all. We may be casual, but we've been seeing each other for months. Couldn't he have invited me to the party? Or split time and made it here for a quick bite before heading out with his friends? Or...something?
So here I am. It's Friday night. None of my friends are around. The house smells like strawberries, but I'm not hungry.
Travel vs Tourism
My time Puerto Rico has led me to ponder the distinctions between travel and tourism. I have done a lot of travel in my life, and I love it. I train-hopped from Paris to Barcelona, lived with a family in Singapore for a week, and slept in the living room of total strangers in Romania. Travel has it's own cultural and moral value. It connects us to new people and perspectives, helps us remember how small we are in the scheme of the planet, teaches us to relinquish control and thrive in uncertainty. As a traveler I scorned tourists, the way young hip ignorant kids do. Tourism was hedonism with no redeeming value, belittling to the locals and damaging to cross-cultural relations. How middle-class, ugh. Then I spent four days on a beach drinking mojitos.
My San Juan trip was undoubtedly Tourism. We stayed on the hotel strip, ate at fancy restaurants in tourist districts, and basically failed to see a single culturally significant landmark in the city. The extent of our interaction with residents was to converse with hotel employees and ask directions of people on the street. Even the big box profusion was welcome. Our first afternoon we walked across to the 24 hour Walgreens and bought Go Lean Crunch, Dannon Light and Fit Yogurt and 2% Milk. I ate the same health-conscious breakfast in PR that I eat every morning in Oakland, California.
I'm not saying we were uber-tourists. There are some tourism behaviors I don't think I'll ever adopt. We rode the bus around the city instead of taking a taxi. We did make it to the open-air mercado to buy one of every kind of fruit we didn't recognize, to supplement our standard breakfast. And for one day we left the beach to visit the rainforest and bioluminescent lagoon, which was an amazing experience deserving of its own post. But basically, I alternated between the ocean, the hotel-provided beach chair, and my bed. And it was perfect.
My life lately is one big ball of stress. Frances' job is enough to drive most people barking mad. We needed a vacation, not an adventure. We needed to be physically and psychically comfortable for a few days. We were looking for mellow pleasure, not the thrill of the new. We wanted to eat the same breakfast every day, and go to a comfortable and delicious and easy restaurant every night, and have no obligations in between. We could have done most of these things if we stayed at home, but we also needed the escape. We needed to be tourists.
There were a few things about our trip that were certainly not good for the island. Buying food at Walgreens doesn't do much for the economy of Puerto Rico. But generally we were a pretty benign presence. We ate at local restaurants, tipped like crazy, respected the natural beauty of the place, and smiled at everyone we saw because we were so happy to be where we were. This dedicated traveler has discovered that tourism has its place.
My San Juan trip was undoubtedly Tourism. We stayed on the hotel strip, ate at fancy restaurants in tourist districts, and basically failed to see a single culturally significant landmark in the city. The extent of our interaction with residents was to converse with hotel employees and ask directions of people on the street. Even the big box profusion was welcome. Our first afternoon we walked across to the 24 hour Walgreens and bought Go Lean Crunch, Dannon Light and Fit Yogurt and 2% Milk. I ate the same health-conscious breakfast in PR that I eat every morning in Oakland, California.
I'm not saying we were uber-tourists. There are some tourism behaviors I don't think I'll ever adopt. We rode the bus around the city instead of taking a taxi. We did make it to the open-air mercado to buy one of every kind of fruit we didn't recognize, to supplement our standard breakfast. And for one day we left the beach to visit the rainforest and bioluminescent lagoon, which was an amazing experience deserving of its own post. But basically, I alternated between the ocean, the hotel-provided beach chair, and my bed. And it was perfect.
My life lately is one big ball of stress. Frances' job is enough to drive most people barking mad. We needed a vacation, not an adventure. We needed to be physically and psychically comfortable for a few days. We were looking for mellow pleasure, not the thrill of the new. We wanted to eat the same breakfast every day, and go to a comfortable and delicious and easy restaurant every night, and have no obligations in between. We could have done most of these things if we stayed at home, but we also needed the escape. We needed to be tourists.
There were a few things about our trip that were certainly not good for the island. Buying food at Walgreens doesn't do much for the economy of Puerto Rico. But generally we were a pretty benign presence. We ate at local restaurants, tipped like crazy, respected the natural beauty of the place, and smiled at everyone we saw because we were so happy to be where we were. This dedicated traveler has discovered that tourism has its place.
The Joys of a Sugar Momma
Despite being unemployed, bored, and perpetually anxious, my life does have some perks. For instance, my roommate and good friend from college happens to work for Google in a fancy-pants position. This means she makes an absurd amount of money, and is often happy to share it with me. Two weeks ago was "Google Bonuseve", otherwise known as the week that Googlers receive their bonus packages for the previous year. (We are inventing a whole set of greeting cards around the specific holidays of the tech sector. Ex: Congratulations on Your Cliff Date!) When we realized exactly how much money she was going to get, we decided that a tropical vacation was the only possible response. So that Saturday we bought plane tickets and reserved a five-star hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We left the following Thursday. I planned the trip, and she paid for it. Like I said, perks.
Puerto Rico, for those of you who aren't aware, is gorgeous. I think a lot of people still associate the island with the tap-dancing gangs of West Side Story, but a lot has happened in the last 50 years. Large parts of the island are still rural, spotted with small towns, but the few metropolitan areas have become tourist hot spots, especially San Juan. This has some unfortunate side effects, like an explosion of fast food restaurants and big box stores vomited across the landscape. On the other hand, if you're willing to venture away from the hotel district you can discover as lovely fusion culture. And even a strip mall feels a little different when it's 85 degrees with a breeze and 100 feet from a glowing blue ocean.
One thing I will say for San Juan, they have done a great job of protecting their beaches despite the waves of tourists. The beaches are clean and welcoming, and even crowded they feel authentic because just as many locals are on the sand as tourists. I am a water creature, so for me the ability to simply bob in salty water at body temperature is a kind of heaven. As Frances said "My hindbrain is so happy right now."
Puerto Rico, for those of you who aren't aware, is gorgeous. I think a lot of people still associate the island with the tap-dancing gangs of West Side Story, but a lot has happened in the last 50 years. Large parts of the island are still rural, spotted with small towns, but the few metropolitan areas have become tourist hot spots, especially San Juan. This has some unfortunate side effects, like an explosion of fast food restaurants and big box stores vomited across the landscape. On the other hand, if you're willing to venture away from the hotel district you can discover as lovely fusion culture. And even a strip mall feels a little different when it's 85 degrees with a breeze and 100 feet from a glowing blue ocean.
One thing I will say for San Juan, they have done a great job of protecting their beaches despite the waves of tourists. The beaches are clean and welcoming, and even crowded they feel authentic because just as many locals are on the sand as tourists. I am a water creature, so for me the ability to simply bob in salty water at body temperature is a kind of heaven. As Frances said "My hindbrain is so happy right now."
Rhythm
Yes, I blog with spastic irregularity.
Since my last post, I have been fired, survived the holidays, and begun collecting unemployment. My current daily life consists of going through the humiliating process of applying for work with various green building companies, dicking around the house, and trying not to lose my mind. I figure blogging might help with the last bit, so here I am again.
Since my last post, I have been fired, survived the holidays, and begun collecting unemployment. My current daily life consists of going through the humiliating process of applying for work with various green building companies, dicking around the house, and trying not to lose my mind. I figure blogging might help with the last bit, so here I am again.
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