Murmurs from the Folds

Paris Cemeteries

2011-07-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, we drove to Paris for the weekend. It's so close. I was the map reader that got us there, and I traced out the Arrondisements in a circle with my index finger while my husband drove. I never knew that they spiraled out from the center like that. I suppose I had never bothered to study a map of Paris before.

We left our umbrellas in the car, stayed in the 20th and took the subway across the city and back again, had cocktails at the Place de la Bastille, found Victor Hugo's house, got caught in a downpour in the Latin Quarter. We stood in a phone booth (thank god Paris still has phone booths - perhaps they'll leave them as 20th century relics for future historians to point to) while the rain pelted the streets and finally decided to make a run for it, ending up at a little Algerian restaurant. We drank Algerian wine and spoke broken French. It was some of the best wine I've ever had.

Mostly, we saw cemeteries. I know. There's the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Champs Elysee, and we passed our time among the dead. But it was cold and rainy, a fall weekend in the summer, perfect for cold stones and iron gates.

Pere Lachaise

With the Tour Montparnasse

Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir

The ever-loved Gainsbourg

Charleroi

2011-07-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

My experiences in the south, French-speaking part of Belgium had been limited to lovely little towns in the Ardennes, picturesque locations in the mountains with colorful awnings and gelato places. Until a few weeks ago, most of the cities still remained a mystery.

Ask any Belgian why they would want to visit Charleroi, and you will get an answer in the form of a question. The airport? The photography museum? It's no Paris. If anything, it's known as a former maiden of industry, now littered with factories, functioning and abandoned, and choked by its periphery of abandoned coal mines and slag heaps. To top it off, unemployment there is soaring.

My friend suggested an Urban Safari of Charleroi a couple of months ago, and I was game - it sounded like an interesting way to discover a city I would probably never venture into otherwise. Our first encounter with our rough-and-tumble tour guide was watching him roll cigarettes and throw nervous glances at my friend's pregnant belly. You're pregnant? You can't do this. Are you sure you can do this? She assured him she could. You have to climb over fences. Run from the police, if need be. I was starting to get nervous.

The next four hours were indeed doable, but he assured us they were a bit toned down due to her situation. We went to a grand train station, built in Charleroi's hay day of coal wealth and since abandoned and never used. Entry may not have been quite legal, so we crawled through fences and walked along the tracks to make it inside. We went to a deteriorating coal hub on the outskirts of town and ate lunch on a blanket spread outside of the ruins. We walked along the city's waterways and saw functioning factories and graffiti-ed walls. We climbed a slag heap and looked out over the lackluster suburbs. Our tour guide spoke a broken, practically unintelligible version of English (as much as I don't mind grammar mistakes, there's a certain point where understanding breaks apart), so I'm not sure I learned as much about the town as I could have. But I certainly found the scenery interesting.

There were two film students there as well with a small portable camera, catching the spirit of the trip and asking questions every once in awhile. They pulled me aside when we stopped for a drink and asked me questions about why I had come. Do you think, their last question probed, that this just reinforces stereotypes about the city? I had to reflect for a minute. Yes and no, I said. Is it any different than looking at other relics of a past age? And, all truth be told, without the tour I would probably have never visited the city. I walked around the bar where we had stopped later, a humongous former factory that had been converted to not only serve drinks but show artwork. There were interesting pieces and displays everywhere you turned. I picked up a map that they were giving away with all kinds of interesting haunts flagged over its paths. I wish I could go back now and refine my answer. Because I think the tour isn't just about urban decay, it's also about the creative ways people are converting that decay into something interesting. The graffiti we saw, my friend asked before we headed to the train station, that was a contest? I hadn't caught that on the tour. He nodded, and I thought back. It made sense - it was really too good of a display to be anything but designed and developed.

I still have the map of the city that I picked up in that raftered bar, and it offers really interesting suggestions. Perhaps I'll be back again.

Grammar Lessons

2011-06-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

I recently sat in on a talk by a language instructor, a confident and fiery teacher of Spanish who regaled the audience with interesting and hilarious tales of language learning. To what extent, she asked us, do you have to be grammatically correct to be understood? If someone asks in, say, a bar in the U.S.: You has here things for eating?, most likely they'll not only get a straight answer, they'll get one in fast-paced normal English that the bar tender won't even bother to cushion with simple vocabulary or more clear annunciation for an obvious second-language speaker. She shook her head and said Teachers are the only ones who are obnoxious. They're the only ones who will say 'You can't say it that way!' Her point settled in, and I've been going over it as I measure my progress with Dutch.

When I go over the evidence, it occurs to me that most native speakers are actually very slow to judge someone's grammar as a second-language speaker. I have been in conversations with plenty of non-native speakers and I very rarely think Wow, they said that all wrong. I'm usually too busy combing for meaning, trying to get the gist, searching for an appropriate response. My H. will let me ramble on in Dutch and I finally turn to him upon composing a particularly daring sentence that could be very clever but is most likely just wrong. He nods more often than not, prompting me to continue with what I'm saying. I finally ask him flat out Is that how you would say it? And he has to think. He reflects. He has to take himself out of what I'm saying and put himself into the how, analyze the surface for cracks in grammar or misused vocabulary. I've begun to love these moments. The larger picture is, at least, recognizable. And isn't that the important thing? It is wonderful to find that someone has been listening to what you've been saying rather than how you have said it.

And so I'm trying to cut myself some slack. My lofty notion of fluency may have inflated over the years, but now, I am thinking about all kinds of past conversations. Conversations with U.S. foreigners, all those times I've said No! Your English is really good! when their confidence lagged - I always meant it. And conversations with native Dutch speakers who give me those same encouraging words. And I am contemplating graduating myself from I speak a little Dutch - to something else.

The Circus was in town

2011-06-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

This past weekend marked the second annual Leuven Circus, a charming, home-grown affair whose organizers mine the local Circus school for participants. There were performers who can balance expertly on stilts, women who can dance atop enormous moving balls, men who are masters at manipulating exceedingly large puppets. There were trapeze artists and gymnasts and even a little wagon with a bug circus, a queue snaking out its door with wiggling children and their smiling parents. There were fireworks, right above our heads, in time with the energetic sounds of a percussion band, De Shemayet, and night goblins who rode around lighting fires. We could not have had better weather for it. It was delightful.

For the opening, they brought in the professional Big Boy, a tight-rope walker who made it from one side of Ladeuzeplein to the other, over the heads of a buzzing crowd, ending at the University Library steeple. No less than 200 meters, and with, I’m sure, quite a wind, up there all alone. In the introductory announcement, they laid all his cards on the table – Michel Menin, in his mid-60’s. He had done tight-rope walks more than 500 times, a true veteran. H. leaned over later and commented - It makes it all a little more boring to say he’s an expert. They should have told us he was an accountan who just discovered this new hobby after his retirement, and after he learned to manage his severe tremors, less than a year ago! I did plenty of nail-biting anyway.

My sister, at some point, wondered aloud if New York had anything like this – fun and cute, community-grown and community-oriented. I smiled. I don’t know, but it seems a bit unreplicable, even (or maybe especially) in the Big Apple. Authentic to my small, charming home.

Pitching Belgium

2011-06-03T15:27:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, I was leafing through a brochure from a Marketing school here in Belgium (no, not for a degree, just because it was there and convenient in some waiting room or other before some interview or other). The brochure was pitching the school to foreigners and said something like: Why choose Belgium? Belgium is centrally located in Europe - just a short train ride from Paris, London and Amsterdam! Oh Belgium. You’re like the middle child in some incredibly elitist family. In London, you compete with a distinguished older brother who just loves to talk about how proper and interesting he is, and in Paris, a romantic day-dreamer of a beautiful younger sister always stealing away your friends. And let’s not even talk about Amsterdam. You don’t even get the label of wild child of the family.

It is not a little bit twisted that this organization – a marketing school - chooses to pitch Belgium by saying that it’s incredibly easy to get the hell out of. And, I guess, that’s what people know about Beligum. This is what people said to me when I was moving here. Oh! It’s right there in the middle, it’ll be so easy to travel around!

I suppose they say this for lots of reasons, not just because Belgium might suffer from low self-esteem or an inferiority complex. It’s incredibly small, so traveling any kind of major distance really does mean getting out. It’s just a spatial certainty. Because it’s so small, the location is sometimes one of the only things foreigners know about it. And it really is an advantage here that it’s so easy to travel. I jetted up to London a couple of weeks ago, happily and without a second thought.

My mother and sister are visiting now. We talked about going to Paris. Giverny in France. Luxembourg. Germany. Amsterdam. But, in the end, we decided to pass our time here, in Belgium. They have had to cast out on their own since I have been tied to the obligations of my job (and they have done beautifully well at exploring without guides), but a four-day weekend has given me a chance to enjoy the country I now call home. Walking around Antwerp yesterday, my stomach tumbled with the excitement of discovering new nooks and breathtaking areas once again. Sometimes the weekly grind distracts me from appreciating the amazing things that are easily within reach. Today, we stayed in Leuven, enjoyed good food and beautiful weather and ice cream on busy, bustling squares that only a charming Belgian city can offer. There is so much, so close to home.

Poor trip planning (Part 2)

2011-05-15T03:48:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Italy in the middle of the day, and parked at a rest-stop for a late lunch. Waiting in line for my Panini, my stomach started to turn. I knew absolutely no Italian whatsoever, besides a basic bonjourno, prego and gratzi (and don’t judge me for my spelling here - this post is about not knowing Italian). I couldn’t even count to ten. And here I was, Italian phrases unfurling around me at every direction. We didn’t even have a hotel reservation for that night.

Perhaps I’m getting used to Flanders, where everyone and their mother speaks a bit of English, or perhaps it was just that we felt like we would pass through Italy so fleetingly that it really wouldn’t matter, but it had never occurred to me to be nervous about not speaking Italian.

We got to Livorno, the port town where we would take the ferry the next day, and literally just drove around until we saw a couple of hotel signs. We stood in the dimly lit little entryway of an old-fashioned pensione, a plump woman asking us questions that we couldn’t answer. We held up our fingers. One night. One. The t.v. was blaring in the other room, and a little dog barked a couple of times. We surrendered our id’s much too readily, and let her copy the details down by hand in an old ledger before she handed us a key with a giant chain.

The room was somehow incredibly romantic – large and sparsely furnished with a cold tile floor and a high ceiling. There was a picture of the Virgin Mary above the bed, and a Catholic cross right outside our door. We had a sink in the room, and the water was refreshingly cold.

That night, we went out on the street, narrowed in on a couple that looked like they knew where they were going, and slipped into their restaurant behind them. We were embarrassed when the wait staff tried their best to give us details in English, only to go search out the one kid on staff who had apparently passed his English exams in school, or had bragged a bit sometime that his English wasn’t shabby. He was kind to us and served us a good, Italian meal accompanied by good, Italian wine, and he asked us questions eagerly about our travels. At the end of the night, we left a sizeable tip, even though it’s not the custom. Something for the care they took with a couple of unprepared tourists. It was a really lovely time, I suppose, partly because of the language barriers. Somehow, it was more romantic that way. But I must admit, once we made it to Corsica and were back on French-speaking soil, I felt a swell of relief.

Poor trip planning (Part 1)

2011-05-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

We decided to go to Corsica before the new year. We told people we were going, and daydreamed about the trip. And then, for some reason, we did nothing. The week wholly snuck up on us, or honestly, perhaps we were just lazy. One month before H. brought home a guidebook that I did manage to thumb through. Three weeks before, we finally sat down and made a reservation for a ferry to take us and our car over to the island. Two weeks before, we still didn’t have a place to stay. It was one of those catch-22’s – we kept asking each other where we should stay, but the more research we did, the more possibilities there seemed to be, and the more difficult it was to decide. Finally (finally!) with a week left, H. e-mailed several places, and we found that our procrastination had actually paid off – it was still the off-season, plenty of places had availability, and we snagged an upgrade for a good price.

I still wrung my hands a bit. What about a hotel for the nights we’ll spend on the road? I asked. Roadside motels, he said. Showing my ignorance – But I had always stayed in sweet little, independently-owned bed and breakfasts or hostels in Europe! Do they even have road-side motels here? Yes, yes they do- enough to make America’s trucker population proud. We cruised around the edges of Strasbourg the night we stopped and passed numerous possibilities in one go. What about that place? I asked. So cheap! When we couldn’t reach it because of the giant fence (it looked more secure than the American Embassy in Brussels), we circled around to the back for access. There, we found several –ahem -ladies of the night standing in short skirts and sequenced jackets, squinting suspiciously as we did an awkward U-turn in front of them. So, perhaps my on-the-road skills need to be honed a little for the European landscape. But still, we did quite well, and found a nice place to stop down the road. A place that didn't rent by the hour or protect themselves with giant fences. With clean rooms. And families. And free breakfast. Can you really ask for more?

Free samples, Belgian style

2011-05-01T09:14:00.001-07:00

As I've said before, I'm a sucker for free samples. Sometimes in Philly, I would pop in a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe's just to see what kinds of scrumptious little nibblets they had on offer that day. Cheese squares? Microwaveable meatballs? Free coffee? Oh, I suppose I'll try it, if you insist.

It's the little things that make life here different...

A little wine tasting with your groceries? Don't mind if I do.

The Drive

2011-04-27T12:59:00.000-07:00

When we were back in Philly, we drove to my hometown a couple of times, over the dreaded Pennsylvania turnpike and then through the hills and eventual flat of the Midwest. It always felt long. I’ve never been one for car trips, and the trip across the four or five states seemed to drag on forever.

The U.S. is big. Huge. And it’s a driving country. I know people from Ohio who hop in their cars every winter and drive to Colorado for the skiing – practically in one sitting. People who have driven literally all alone from the California coast to Tennessee without so much as a shrug. People in Philly with a little place on the coast of North Carolina. Ten hours’ drive. For a long weekend. No problem.

When H. proposed driving down to Corsica, my eyes got wide and I shook my head slowly. What? Drive? Are you serious? It must be, like, twenty hours. Through the entirety of France? That’s just not doable. It turns out, as Google maps showed me, it’s more than doable. It’s doable in a day. Well, friends, we did it. We left after work on Friday and drove to Strasbourg, then completed the trip the next day, between the mountains of Switzerland, heading down to Italy, through the rolling hills of Tuscany (if we squinted and waited for a part in the bushes, we could actually see the Leaning Tower of Pisa!), and finally to the port town of Livorno, where we (and our little two-door car) caught the ferry at 8 a.m. the next morning. And the drive, quite honestly, was beautiful. And doable.

Everyone talks about the differences in mentality when it comes to distances between Americans and Europeans, but the fact that southern France is reachable in a mere day still comes as a surprise – and strikes me as a romantic luxury. When we got back, our car dusty and ready for a break, H. nudged me and smiled. This opens up so many possibilities for travelling! he said. Prague is probably the same distance by car! He knows I’ve always wanted to visit Prague. And do you know? It’s even closer.

Corsica

2011-04-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

We took the one week I have off before August and decided to do something big. H. was the one who suggested Corsica. Mediterranean? Beachy? Warm and sunny? Gorgeous views? Yes, please.

We drove down – wasted no time and left on Friday after work. For some reason, as the ferry brought us into the port of Bastia on a spectacularly sunny day, the short boat ride over from the coast of Italy, I was surprised at how incredibly beautiful it was. The whole island is just one amazing landscape after another, a patchwork of very small mountain towns that seem to be built into the green landscape, cascade off the jagged cliffs and nestle themselves into the nooks of valleys.

Driving in Corsica is not for the faint at heart. The roads twist and turn around the edges of the mountains, and, if you go fast enough to keep up with the natives, you’re flung from one side of the car to the other over and over again until you stop resisting. But every turn, every bend and every passageway, offers views that will take your breath away.

We went on two hikes while we were there, up and down the mountain ridges, explored hidden beaches where the water was so blue and so clear it makes you ache. The weather was not hot enough for bathing suits, but it was perfect, nonetheless, sunny and cloudless, with a breeze that kept the shady areas cool. And we did swim, once. We couldn’t stand not to, since we were there. We changed into our bathing suits the car and ran into the cold water. Goose bumpy and paddling to warm up. The tourist city of Calvi leaning over to us close by, rising off a mountain ridge, the color of sand, like the beach climbing vertical.

It was a lovely, lovely vacation. The weather held out for us, and on our last day, after our final half-day hike was over, it started to rain. We left the island in fog and rain, and drove back to a surprisingly summery Belgium. For now, after such a wonderful week, I feel like the sunshine is following us.

Coming into Bastia from the ferry.

Bastia restaurant and a blue, blue sky.

A private beach.

A lovely cup of coffee.

Expatriates

2011-04-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I attended a shin-dig for a tried and true expat population. There was champagne and wine and beer, and we were seated at a table full of American couples (there were some Canadians in the mix, but damned if I couldn't tell the difference). Business men and their wives, relocated corporate managers and their trailing spouses. They laughed loudly. They slapped each other on the back and talked about sports. They teased each other and toasted their friends. If I closed my eyes, I could swear I was in the U.S. The man sitting next to us wrapped his knuckles on the table and told us about the crime rate in Brussels. He discussed Brussels politics with my husband, with interest. And at some point he gestured across the table to a petite, pretty brunette. My wife, he said, is Italian. But she's become more American here in Belgium than she ever was in the states. I looked at her friends, women who were perfectly quaffed for the evening out, women who spoke with the wide, standard accent of American English. They left me at one point at the table, alone with the men, a pack of them off to the bathroom to check their makeup and chat, and me sitting between my husband and the manager of a shipping company, a short man with a moustache, who cradled a Belgian beer. So how did you end up back in Belgium? the man asked my husband. My H. opened his hands and replied: It was a mutual decision. She wanted to come. We both wanted to come. The men laughed and shook their heads. Just wait until she's away, and we'll get the real answer out of you! She followed you! That's what you gotta tell people! Because, I suppose, that is what they tell people about their own wives. That's probably what their wives tell people, too.

Later in the evening, after even more wine and beer, that same short, moustached man leaned over to us once again. This country's great for expats, he said. We live in an expat neighborhood here. We have a great community. In fact, you're practically the first true Belgian we've met! An expat neighborhood, I imagine, full of iron-gated houses and large, green gardens. They shake their heads when they discuss Belgian bureaucracy, and speak loudly to the postal carriers to compensate for not knowing French or Dutch. And why should they learn, after all? For many of them, this is stop number four or five on an endless string of relocations, a fleeting arrangement that will surely fold in on itself if they make any drastic movements towards permanency.

The entire crowd was all very American, in fact -- a few other Western Europeans scattered in, those who know English well, Swedes and Dutch and Germans and, of course, the British. They are a tight group. I am endlessly lucky, I find myself thinking, that my native tongue is English. Had I been a Spanish speaker with weak English, or an Arabic speaker with a smattering of English, or a Persian speaker with decent English, my job would have been inaccessible to me.

The very next day I attended a party, a lovely little picnic on a lovely day with fresh watermelon and wine. There were French speakers and English speakers, and an invisible line drawn between them. I sat snug on the English side, and smiled shyly when a Francophone would make their way over for a brownie or a refill. I do know Belgians just by virtue of being married to one, and I do take part in their culture, at least on holidays and special occasions. But I enjoy life here partly because of this English crowd. I am comfortable with them, I don't struggle to express myself with them, and we cling together in some ways, people navigating a different terrain, but with things, very valuable things, things normally not even an issue, in common.

I persist with Dutch and I must admit, being around those French speakers even for an afternoon made me anxious to get back to working on French. I take little, comfortable steps, and I certainly don't live in an expat neighborhood. I do feel like I put up something of a fight to challenge myself. Then again, the transition to life in Belgium has been smooth, and I know that's partially due to the English that's so accessible, the speakers, native and otherwise, who are scattered the globe over.

Packaging

2011-03-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

When we were in Philadelphia, we used to get humongous packages from my mother-in-law, gargantuan Pandora's boxes wrapped in brown paper and tied with string (I know, but they really were tied up with string), things that held the secrets of the universe. Opening them was like Christmas morning no matter when it was - they had chocolate bars and chocolate cookies, Turkish delight and gummy candies, magazines, clothes, coffees, soaps, shampoos, lotions, and always a sweet note tucked into it all greeting us both and offering a few words about daily life, this or that, who was doing what.

Now it's my mother's turn to send us things, and her packages are smaller, slivers that usually fit in our mailbox, padded envelopes or tiny boxes that hold a book or some magazines, newspaper clippings from my hometown, little explanatory notes written on scrap paper. She is quieter with her packages, but more frequent - just about once a week, sometimes twice, I open the mailbox to that hopeful little yellow envelope. She always slides our address in, too, printed neatly on an index card, just to make sure that there is no mistake, that it will reach us. As if upon seeing the envelope shredded and the contents spilled everywhere, some helpful stranger would tie up the lot with a rubber band, card on top, and carefully see it to our door. I love these little packages, I love their eccentricities (an article from the newspaper about someone I might have known in second grade, an Alumni magazine from my alma mater), and their understated, home-grown tone.

Western Europe has, somewhere in the last ten years, been saturated with just about anything an American could want. I worried that there wouldn't be good peanut butter, but I've found some of the best here, faithfully next to the chocolate and Speculoos spread. Even Mexican food, while a bit different Belgian style, is possible. Cereal choices are abundant. My mother asks me sometimes what she should send, and then I sit and wrack my brain. An American measuring cup. That's handy. I once had her send a big vat of stove-top popcorn. That I haven't found. Boxes of couscous. These things don't seem to be at any grocery store I've been to. Then again, perhaps it's no accident that I've been looking in all the wrong places. She has a collection, I know, of little, personal things to send. All she needs is that last item, a single request for something compact and package-able, and it's on its way.

English slippage

2011-02-16T03:24:00.000-08:00

As a good little English major in college, I was required to study how tricky language could be, how often the signifier just does not directly correlate to the signified (Ah, literary criticism. Be still my heart.). I could write a book by now on trying to learn another language, but that's for another day. This post is about English.

I work in English. Most people here speak English. It's so pervasive - American t.v. and movies are so pervasive - that it feels almost obnoxious. Yet it's amazing to me, even here, where it seems everywhere, to find layers of the language that people aren't comfortable with. People who speak English eight hours a day for their jobs, people who have no trouble watching an American movie, will stare at me as a sentence, an expression, quickly slides off my tongue without a second thought. We speak so often in metaphors, folded into our speech patterns like spices in a dish, impossible to parse out, and mixed so thoroughly in with the watery stuff that you literally forget that they're there.

We'll put that on the back-burner I said a few days ago to a man who sometimes apologizes for his English. Blank look. No. Scratch that. We're putting the breaks... Let's try to make it as simple as possible. We're putting this on hold...Stopping this for now...

It'll snowball... I might write, before deleting it and taking an extra minute - how else would I say it? It might become an issue...

We're trying to raise the bar...I stifle to replace it, just in case of confusion, with: We're trying to do better...

At this point, we're just going to play it by ear...Oh dear. See how the chips land... And with this, readers, I'm stumped. How better to say it? Improvise? React after we see the initial results? Bleh. How boring. And those don't quite get at the meaning!

And then gradually, over the weeks, everything starts to feel slippery, everything seems questionable to me. Saying at a meeting if anyone wants to throw out some ideas might be mistaken for literally throwing them out, getting rid of them, as in what ideas are not good enough. Why is let's go imbued with action, getting something accomplished, whereas let it go - almost the same word sequence! - mean leaving something alone, holding off? And what about holding off, while we're on the subject?! It has almost the same meaning as hold on, but then there is a subtle difference there that's hard to put my finger on. Put my finger on!!

There is so much in native speech that's hard to put your finger on.

I'm not saying that these things really get in the way of communicating at the office - they don't, and most people will catch their meaning easily, if they don't know it already, in the context. But it is interesting to me, as I become just a little bit more careful about the way I say things, how these slippery phrases, the ones that seem absurd if you really think about the word sequence, are sometimes the first thing that comes to mind. How difficult they can be to put a simpler definition to. And how restrained you feel in trying as best you can to make the signifier match as closely as possible to the signified. Because who wants to improvise when you can play it by ear?

(Haven't I been writing blog posts? Surely I have. They must be around here somewhere. But I've looked for them - in between the couch cushions and under the bed, and have had no luck. Perhaps I left them on the train or carelessly strewn about the locker room at the gym. And so, I admit, weeks have been lost with no trace, no record here. I'm sorry. I'm going to try, without promises, but with a hearty, deep breath, to begin again.)

Train trouble

2011-01-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

Before I started work, H fretted over me having to take four trains every day, two there and two back withe a change-over in Brussels. I gave him a whimsical shrug. I didn't mind, I said. It seems romantic to take the train every day. I love trains, I love train rides. He looked at me incredulously, and then, after reflecting, mentioned that car rides were much more romantic to him than train trips. He had trains growing up, I had cars, and I guess in the end we both wanted what we didn't have.

That was before. After just two weeks of commuting by train, I'm amending my opinion on the train system here for the much, much worse. In theory, when it works, it could work beautifully, and there are certainly moments when I find myself in a particularly quiet and uncrowded car, gliding along, watching the patches of green and red and gray fly by, and thinking to myself how nice this is. It feels cozy and safe and warm. But the train system here has proven itself to be a veritable mess. I took about two trains last week that were actually on time - that's two trains out of twenty trains I take per week. I'm not very good at math, but I'm sure that that's a pretty lousy record. This is only after I had two trains totally cancelled on me the week before. I reluctantly climbed into a cab and gave the address of my office building. Twice in one week. At twenty-five euros a pop. (It was either that or be almost an hour late for work in my first week. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but it seems to me there's only so many times you can call in and let them know your train was cancelled.)

Recently, my husband picked up a pamphlet from the NMBS - the train system here in Belgium - with the title, roughly translated: We thank you for your understanding and your trust. It explains that in the last few years there has been a massive influx of people commuting by train on a regular basis. Expansions have been planned, construction has begun, and disruptions are an inevitable result. Delays. Cancellations. The panic-stricken faces of people scanning the announcement boards for alternatives to their interrupted course. The crowds in Brussels-North Station that are hurrying in mass unison, two minutes before their train leaves, from one track to another because a change in arrival was announced at the last minute. The people standing in the aisles during a rush-hour ride because, when a train is actually on course and on time, everyone better take it.

This has apparently been the month with the worst train record in the history of Belgium. I can feel the ripples in the pond. When I get into that quiet train car where I can settle back, stick my nose into a good book and let the steady whir of the train relax me, I still hope I find the ride romantic. In the meantime, maybe I always underestimated car trips. Maybe I can borrow some of H's visions of the open road. The symbol of independent adulthood for over half a century. Sounds romantic enough. I will, at the very least, give her a good try.

Working

2011-01-05T12:29:00.000-08:00

I'm impressive in interviews. I've been to lots, I know the ropes, and I can knock the ball out of the park at any time. I wiggle my way around questions ("Because of my extensive experience unjamming photocopiers and refilling staplers..."), throw myself whole-heartedly into management speak ("Firstly, I think it's very important to pre-plan for the planning before you plan..."), and come across as the most easy-going person ever ("There was nothing I didn't love about my last job. God! I would have married it if I could have!").

I started a new job this week. It all happened very quickly - I submitted an application in early December and was interviewed two weeks later. They called within 24 hours and offered me the job. Because I'm just that good. They knew they couldn't live without me the moment I left the interview.

Okay. The truth was they were slightly desperate (someone left last-minute), they didn't do a very good job of advertising the position, and it's quite possible that I was the only person who applied.

And so, I'm a working woman again, in a slightly different field, but sitting behind a bigger desk than I had in Philadelphia (and I mean that quite literally - my desk is, for some reason, the size of sturdy six-seater dining room table). I feel silly now for all that stewing and hand-wringing I did over whether or not I would find something. All those hours after Dutch class I poured over job ad sites, more and more obscure as the time ticked away, feeling a restlessness slowly build into panic.

And now, after all that, my time off seems so short. Not that I'm complaining. Because, as much as I joke, it really is nice to feel like I'm contributing to something again, to get up every morning and have somewhere to go, have things to do that people are depending on. One step closer to calling Belgium home. And for that, I have to say I'm thankful.

Heavy History

2010-12-30T04:23:00.000-08:00

A holiday display at the Keulen train station of the city in ruins after World War II bombings. A manger scene was placed in the middle.

When we were asking fellow travelers about what to see in Keulen, they would mention the Cathedral, the view of the river, the Christmas markets, the shopping district. And somewhere along the way, through the course of the conversation, they would casually mention the ambiance of the city as a whole: Well, you know, because practically the entire city was destroyed during the Second World War, all the buildings are new. I mean, it's a great place to live, but if you want old Europe charm, you won't find it there. Old Europe charm you might not find, but it's amazing to me how quickly such a city brought itself back after being reduced to rubble. That in itself, really, is something to see.

History, as in a series of events that happened before the lifetime of you and everyone you know, as in lectures about dead people that school children are forced to listen to with their eyes half-closed, is certainly experienced differently across the world, and I think the time of the Second World War, and the decades leading up to it, are gradually becoming real history in the U.S.

My Great Uncle was an American soldier. He died about seven or eight years ago. I knew him only as a distant relative, someone I saw every few years growing up. He spent his entire life totally silent on his time at war until the very last year of his life, when he suddenly started pulling out boxes and dumping the contents on the living room floor - German helmets, swastika arm bands, photographs depicting things so horrific that even holding the small gray images seemed like an act with the weight of lives behind it. As a teenager, I didn't know these things were apart of our family at all. It is stunning to me beyond words that this simple mid-western family man carried this with him silently for so long, and that he still recalled even the objects of this life chapter with such heavy distinctness that he would come back to them, like a frantic last confession, before he passed away.

But I tell this not to pull at your heart strings, only to relay the potency of seeing past events not as history, but as something urgent and real and affecting. I am among the last of the generations that will know people who were apart of that time, and when I was a child, we often would lean over desks and compare family histories too eagerly - I know someone who had one grandfather that was an American soldier, and the other was a German soldier, and they were stationed at the same place!... I know someone who knows someone who was a survivor of the Holocaust!...We may have been flippant at the time, but we were at least interested in our own connections. If my children are educated in the U.S., I imagine with a touch of apprehension that their eyes will droop a bit more when the lessons of the Second World War begin. They will have fewer living stories to fuel a different reaction.

In Europe, though, I'm school children even of the next generation will feel that history more personally. Particularly, of course, in Germany, the relics of war are still evolving (we visited a Gestapo house in Keulen, notes of the victims who were tortured there still etched on the walls), and the cities themselves, at least, are still testifying to thick and heavy memories (the newness of most of the city contrasted to the Cathedral, which began construction in the 13th Century, resonated with me). Perhaps some Germans are ready to move on, and I'm sure the daily lives of those who live in Keulen aren't affected at all. But as an outsider, especially coming from elsewhere in Europe, I still see a potent history etched in Germany's landscapes. Even in cities and economies that are thriving. And that is, I would think, both a burden and a blessing.

A white Christmas

2010-12-24T07:07:00.001-08:00

The Leuven University Library looking lovely in the snow.

It began to snow in the evening last night, what started as a light sprinkling and steadily built momentum. It's about the sixth time that it's snowed here during the last two months, but this one was heavier and closer to Christmas, so it was that much more special. We have ventured out, last night and today, to see the frosted buildings, the snowball fights, the kids screaching with delight as they pummel down the shallow hills on sleds, and the frustrated students who are yanking their wheeled suitcases through the stuff to make it home for Christmas Eve dinner.

Leuven City Hall snowed up.

We slept in the living room rather than up in our attic bedroom so that we could watch the accumulation during the night. I woke up several times and peered out the window to see whether it was still falling. It didn't stop until this morning, and I woke up feeling warm and cozy on a beautiful Christmas Eve.

Tredging through the park on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Fantasy Christmas Markets

2010-12-22T08:03:00.000-08:00

Christmas markets make the holiday in Europe really wonderful. Roaming around, eyeing sweets and toys and pretty little crafts, drinking steamy hot cocoas or ciders or - for those who really want to feel the warmth - wine, add a cozy glow to Christmas that I've never quite found on public ground in the U.S. In short, I love Christmas markets, even the busy ones where you get elbowed and have to squeeze your way through the crowds, and this year, with the snows we've had, it seems to double the Christmas cheer.

I'm technically not supposed to leave Belgium until my visa is settled. It would have been tempting to go to Keuln, Germany this weekend since they are known for having one of the best Christmas markets in Europe, and it is a mere hour and a half by train (and travelling by train requires no passport-stamping). But, of course, instead of leaving Belgium, I stayed home and went to the Leuven Christmas markets:

If I had been to Keuln, I might tell you that the Christmas markets made the Leuven market, sweet as it is, look like cardboard boxes held up by broom sticks (there are, by the way, five markets in Keuln). The booths in Keuln would have been elaborate fairy-tale gingerbread houses, complete with colorful characters and a soft glow that made you feel warm, even in the freezing snow:

And, if I had been to Keuln, I might tell you that I circled at least one of the markets about four times in hopes of sampling sweet butter cookies, still warm and just crispy enough to melt when you bit into them, and spice cookies and cakes, reminiscent of the Speculoos cookies here. And chocolate. Chocolate coconut cookies, chocolate-covered fruits, chocolate for chocolate's sake. I didn't have any sauerkraut or bratwurst, but choices of it there were aplenty.

And I might have told you that, in the shadow of Keuln's remarkable, breath-taking Cathedral that resides right in the heart of the city, made the markets that much more special:

But of course, I wasn't there (and you can't prove that I was!!), so I guess I wouldn't know.

The snack cabinet

2010-12-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

I was recently walking through the Leuven Christmas market with a friend, and I grabbed a free chocolate - one of the last truffles that was balancing delicately on an offering plate at the front of a booth selling candy. I thought I was justified. I wasn't going to buy anything that day, but I had bought a bag full of those very same truffles the day before to send home in a Christmas package to my state-side family. My friend gave me a suspicious look and said "I think you're addicted with chocolate."

Chocolate maybe not, but sweets, definitely. Since coming to Belgium, our snack cabinets have changed, little by little, adapting to the local culture. Tonight I was searching around for something - anything - to eat that wasn't a spreadable treat or a crunchy cookie, and I realized that we were woefully low on...well...anything that wasn't laced with sugar. Sure, there's fruit, but if you're not in the mood for sweets, a tangerine doesn't quite fit the bill. I found some old crushed walnuts I used in a Thanksgiving recipe and munched on them.

And so, readers, I give you our snack cabinet - one of the most accessible cabinets in the kitchen:

Yes, those are two jars of Speculoos spread (different brands!...and for those of you who aren't in Belgium, that would be a delicious, graham-cracker-y (or maybe gingery) sugared spice spread that's delicious on...well...anything). Two chocolate bars (one milk and one dark, because you HAVE to have a choice of both!), a jar of Nutella (and hidden coyishly behind this first jar is a locally-made version of the same thing), peanut butter (okay not too sweet of a spread, but a spread nonetheless), and to top it off, Christmas cookies at the far right. Oh, and don't forget the actual sugar, good for recipes or on plain yoghurt, in the white and red carton (makes it easy to pour!).

Your teeth may be throbbing with sympathy pains right now, but in my defense, I overbought sweets to send home for the holidays. That's right, some of this represents surplus that would have gone to my family if the box had just been big enough. I was only, let's say, prepared and diligent about my Christmas shopping. After all, the holidays come but once a year and what better time to explore the rich tastes of Belgium? I'll start with the milk chocolate please, and work my way back.

Belgian kissing

2010-12-09T10:06:00.000-08:00

Living in another culture provides endless, uncontrollable swerves into embarrassing situations, and the formality of greeting someone for the first (or second, or third) time, someone you don’t know, someone you hope to build a relationship with (a cousin-in-law, perhaps, or a friend of a friend), offers up the perfect slippery slope down into the depths of the kind of outsider-humiliation that only the most socially graceful can avoid. And if you’re especially socially awkward like I am, the humiliation can just keep coming.

In the U.S., this is problem enough. After not seeing a classmate for ten years, do you offer them a hug? A firm handshake? An elbow bump? But here, the awkwardness is taken to a whole new level.

The famous bisous of the French (two kisses – one on each cheek) are manifest in other cultures all over Europe in various forms. Here in Belgium, I always learned that it was three kisses – left cheek, right cheek, then left again. But the rule is fraught with exceptions. If you’ve seen someone recently, it’s just one kiss. If you know them very well, it’s one kiss. Sometimes there are more Frenchy-types who stick to two kisses (leaving me hanging in the air awkwardly with my lips pressed together like I’m ready to lipstick up). Sometimes you kiss on first meeting someone, but in more formal situations, sometimes you don’t.

My first embarrassing experience with bisous was, of course, in France, those many (seven…wow) years ago. An American friend of mine introduced me to a neighbor, and when she leaned in for a greeting, I literally arched my spine back like a kid trying to avoid a spoonful of spinach. She had thick glasses. For some reason I thought she was just very near-sighted. You know, coming in for a closer look. (I know, that’s a weird assumption. Made sense in my head at the time.) Let me tell you, my friends who were present for that little gem had a hay day with it.

I haven’t learned my lesson. I met a group of people out for dinner a few weeks ago, and gave a firm handshake to everyone in the party in a fashion that I apparently don’t think twice about. Until another girl showed up. Kisses all around. Ah yes, I reminded myself. The funny thing is, it hadn’t even occurred to me to go in for a bisous-style greeting. At the end of the night, while a couple of the other females of the party were getting their cheeks slathered in kisses, everyone turned to me and…waved. Awkwardly. As in: Uh…we’re guessing you object to the bisous? You’re not used to it? We don’t know, but anyway, we’ll be avoiding that landmine for the time being.

Since then, I’ve gradually proved myself a bisous-er in the crowd, and the akwardness is slowly waning. Very slowly waning. And I’m learning, sometimes it’s better to go in and give it all you got. At the very least, I can use my outsider status as an excuse. And, at most, I’ll have a good laugh at myself.

Exploring Brussels

2010-11-30T08:56:00.000-08:00

When we first began talking about moving to Belgium, there was a time that I was rooting adamently and passionately for living in Brussels. There, I was sure, I would be able to carve a niche out in the expat community, I would feel like I was living more of a cosmopolitan life, and I would, most likely, find an easy commute to a job in the city.

We, of course, didn't end up there, but we're close enough sometimes to feel the city's tugs and nudges. I have been to Brussels several times since we settled in Leuven, for various errands. We spent a weekend there a couple of weeks ago, after the last of my Dutch Level 2 test, and we walked from the north to the south in one go on Sunday morning, through dreary skies and bustling markets. I came away feeling like I knew the city just a little bit better. It's a city that has a lot in common with my former home - Philadelphia, with a brooding center that will also take your breath away with its monstrous, elaborate, and yet lonely architecture. Brussels, I feel, has that same personality, a monumental but serious beauty, one who will let you admire all you want, but will give you the cold shoulder if you try to snuggle up too close.

A city with its shoulders clenched a bit, built for deep-cutting winds and dreary rains. Or perhaps it's because I've never been there on a sunny day. Either way, I guess I prefer my cities with this kind of personality. Like feeling a city's flexed muscles. Its pose should be unwavering.

Passed

2010-11-25T01:45:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update: I passed, with pretty good marks. Level three starts Monday! Whew!

Exams for beginners

2010-11-23T02:07:00.000-08:00

I promise pictures in the next post (or maybe the one after that...heh heh), but I just had to write about this first...

Last Thursday and Friday, I took my first Dutch final exams. I always knew that the educational systems in the U.S. and Belgium were different, but one week of intense studying and a few panic-stricken days of threatening all kinds of crazy nonsense if I didn't pass, I sympathize much more with the Belgian student situation than I did before. This doesn't exclusively have to do with the cultural difference, it also has to do with my own personal background - I was an English major in college, and as all English majors will testify, nine times out of ten the "final" is a clean, double-spaced ten-page paper, typed out over late nights of thinking and analyzing and drafting and thesis-making in your pajamas, at your pc, spicing things up with some nuggets of delicious research after spending a few solitary hours in the library stacks followed by meticulous footnoting. My papers were things of beauty, my friends, and "exams" (the type where you sit down for two hours without any props or booster texts to help you along the way) weren't even a glint in my eye most semesters. And that's the way I liked it.

Here, it's not just that I've changed what I'm studying (I will admit that there is something to be said for testing language students). It's that all those little homework assignments, all those writing tasks and vocabulary activities count for naught. We even took tests to keep us on track with the curriculum - they mean nothing in the face of the final exam. Even showing up to class on time and on a regular basis (which I did -- perfect attendance, I might add!) only means that you can hope (hope!) all the class anecdotes, all that time put in will give you a head's up during the exams.

In the U.S., all this work during the semester would give you accumulating credit for your final grade. Lots of it.

For this exam there were exactly four hours and ten minutes (albeit, broken up over two days) reserved for me to prove myself worthy of moving on to Dutch level three. And even after I felt ready with the material, I was still incredibly nervous: What if something terrible goes wrong? What if you wear the wrong sweater and your back itches through the entire four hours and you can't concentrate? What if your stomach is suddenly not behaving? What if, ten minutes into the exam, you suddenly have to pee so bad you can barely hold it, but they refuse to let you out of the exam room? All nightmares of a novice test-taker.

Oh yeah, and as a former English major, I will also say that memorizing stuff is hard.

I took the exam, and thankfully, little interrupted my concentration besides a slight draft in the room and a few squeaky chairs here and there. I'll find out tomorrow if I passed or failed. So stay tuned...

Styling up

2010-11-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

Everybody knows that coming to Europe means learning to tie a scarf in about 40 different ways, to fit any outfit and any occasion. I know of two, but don’t challenge me to a scarf-off with those two, because you’d be scrambling to gather your little threads off the floor at the end, my friend. I’ve mastered them.

A fashionista I have never been. But here in Belgium, I am both blessed and cursed with a family-in-law filled with women who are, as they say in Dutch, modieus. It’s not so much that they are interested in fashion as they are careful about looking quietly stylish, with just a touch of elegance, at all times. Imagine my surprise the first time I bounded down the steps in Belgium, ready for a day of site-seeing with H’s family, in a t-shirt with my alma mater splashed loudly across the chest, shorts and sneaks (of course, what else for a day on your feet??), only to be greeted by his sister. In a skirt. And high heels. Boy was my American face red.

But, as they say, when in Rome…Here in Belgium, I’ve begun to make an effort, at least most of the time, to dress nicer on a daily basis. As in, not just for nights out and special occasions. Of course, I wore high heels at my former job all the time, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t slip them off at the end of the day and throw on some flats to get me home. The less time I spend in them, the better – that was my motto. But here, I was lucky enough to find some very comfortable high-heels that I’m actually wearing to walk around town. In the daytime! By myself! Admittedly, the first time I wore them I shifted my weight wrong and the heel toppled in a ridiculous jolt to the side of my foot about eight times in the two hours I was out. (Then I debated whether looking decent was worth the humiliation of not being able to walk right in high heels on uneven cobblestone streets. I decided begrudgingly that it was.) It’s getting better. My average now is maybe two times of slight tripping per day.

So, my resolution is quickly evolving into results, and I feel good about that. Not so good as to drop my habit of slipping into my pajama pants and a comfortable sweatshirt the moment I get home for the day, but at least I look decent in public. And perhaps in the next few months I’ll even try a third scarf-tying technique. Not to get ahead of myself, but you never know. I just might be ready for it.

Time away

2010-11-05T10:04:00.000-07:00

When I was a junior in high school, I was accepted into a summer academic program, a sort of overnight camp for nerdy types, and my parents dropped me off and left me hours away from the house I grew up in. It felt huge. I spent six weeks living in a college dormitory and attending a class on African literature (of which I remember very little, so don’t ask), and by the fourth week, it felt like an adrenaline rush to the finish line, a tight-rope walk to when I could be home again. I still vividly remember, after getting home, standing upstairs in the hallway that led from my parents’ room to mine, running my hands over an old quilt that they hung on the back of a chair, and feeling like I could relax, like there was something in me that had stayed tightly wound for all those days and hours that could finally unravel a little bit.

It’s funny how, as you get older, big gobs of time feel so much less epic, and not much more than a drop in an expansive ocean. Six weeks now rushes by in the blink of an eye. We’ve been here for about one blink, and there have only been one or two fleeting pangs of homesickness. Home over the past ten years has been divided between so many places – my hometown, my college town, Philadelphia – but I’m lucky to be far enough away from the entire expanse of my country that I get to miss it all, in one fell swoop, every now and then. Technology makes it so easy to keep in touch with the people I’m close to, and to see them, so that most of the time I don’t feel so far away. But every once in awhile, something sets my head reeling just for a moment. Seeing pets over the camera is one of them. You can’t chat with pets, and when my sister’s cat makes her way into the camera’s view, I feel the distance a little bit more. When my mother’s dog looks pitifully at the talking computer that seems to know his name (before he scrambles away – he’s the sweetest dog, but he’s incredibly cowardly), I feel like tearing up, just for a second.

I was a frequenter of independent coffee shops first and foremost in the States, and I only ever went to Starbucks because I was desperate (and it was the absolute only place to get a warm drink in the independent-business-wasteland of a neighborhood where my job was located in Philadelphia), so when I saw that big, round, green and white glow during a recent trip to Antwerp, I was surprised at how jelly-legged I suddenly felt. It was a cold and overcast day, so I sat and had an Earl Grey tea. The smell evoked something vague and desperate, no specific time and no specific place, not even specific faces. But it was something melancholy that made me think carefully about where I was, and, just for a minute, reminded me both cruelly and sweetly of where I was not.

Laundromat treasures

2010-10-29T09:59:00.001-07:00

There's something just a touch romantic about laundromats. Okay, okay, I know, that's a strange thing to say, but I bet you can think of at least one romantic scene in some movie or t.v. show that takes place in a laundry mat (remember Ross and Rachel on Friends?). How many commercials have there been with the laundry mat as its setting - the soft whirl of the dryers, the florescent lighting that puts everything in plain view, the gorgeous girl folding her delicates, and some guy's inner monologue -- "Oh God, there's Megan. Okay, just say hi to her...be cool. Be cool." You know you've seen it. Multiple times. It usually ends in them sharing a coke or something.

We don't have a washer here, but thankfully, there's a laundromat practically right next door to our apartment. I did the laundry there for the first time yesterday. Not that I'm in it for the romance. Truth be told, it was cold and felt dampish and I was the only one in there besides an older Hungarian woman who literally sat right in front of the washer and did nothing but watch it spin around and around in a bit of a creepy way, and who spoke to me in Dutch and then tried to speak to me in Hungarian (she kept saying that I LOOKED so Hungarian).

But romance comes in all shapes and sizes. I always end up washing things that don't belong because I forget to empty my pockets - spare change, receipts, grocery lists, gum wrappers, all kinds of things. As I was transferring a load from the washer to the dryer, I picked out a wet receipt that was globbed to the damp ball of clothes, and, after putting in the money and hearing the comforting sound of the machine at work, went to throw it in the trash. Lifted the lid, and there, on top of plastic rap and lint balls, empty detergent boxes and water bottles, was a fifty-euro bill. Literally, just sitting on top. Waiting for someone to find it. Yes, it was in the trash can. But it was dry, clean trash. It was crinkly and had the slightly faded look of a bill that had just gone through the dryer (like I said, I've seen plenty of those in my time). I closed the lid. I opened the lid again. I looked at the Hungarian woman who was intently staring at the whirl of her clothes in the dryer, paying me no mind. I hesitated. I shut the lid again. Do I take it? It's not mine, it really belongs to someone else. But how would you even go about finding the person who threw it away (and we'll assume it was by accident)? You can't. You just can't. But I'd feel kind of sleazy. I mean, it feels a bit like stealing. Then again, if I don't take it, the next person will, and why are they more deserving than me? Or worse, nobody sees it again and it ends up in a landfill. When I could have taken it! After all, if I found it on the street, just lying on the sidewalk, I would have no qualms about picking it up. It's in a public place. In a trash can... Blog reader, I opened the lid again and took it. Slid it casually down in my pocket. I examined it at home that night, and it has all the appearance of being a legitimate 50 euro bill. Is it pretty gross that I took it out of the trash can? Perhaps. Does it make me a greedy, sleazy person? Maybe. Will karma come swinging back around to show me a thing or two? I don't know. I'm considering it a down payment on 10 future loads of laundry. A reward for not rushing out and spending money on a washer and dryer, money that we should be saving. Maybe I was meant to find it. The universe, after all, works in mysterious ways. At the very least, it'll make my next visit to the laundromat a little bit rosier. Who knows what I'll find.

Bike culture

2010-10-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

In Philadelphia, I had a bicycle that I was really excited about and then rarely used. A few rides in Fairmount Park, and much fewer into the city. When it got down to it, I was often concerned that I would have to carry things home (I had no basket on my bike), or make numerous stops (and who wants to lug a bike around to 10 different stores), or the weather was bad (I just couldn't ride in the winter. Just couldn't do it.), or the city traffic seemed to whiz by at just the right amount of intimidating for an amateur rider like myself.

Okay. So it was often quite often the last reason there.

When I first put foot to petal in Philly, it was the first time I had ridden since I was about 10 years old. And even as a kid, trips around my tiny hometown block seemed like excitement enough for one ride.

Here in Belgium, the bike culture stands tall and firm as reality. Everyone bikes here - the kid going to school to the mother buying fresh bread to the retired. Bikes are just as frequent as cars, and it makes sense - cities are too small and streets are too narrow to worry with a car for a simple errand.

H and his family found the bike that was destined to by mine in a bush at his grandparents' house. At least I think that's the story. When nobody came to claim it after 3 months, they figured it was fair game, and I got a free bike. I'm glad to have it - it really does make some trips so much quicker. But, mind you, I'm not quite up to Belgian riding standards. You see expert riding here - people literally carrying a bag of groceries and biking, or biking with someone perched on the back, or just pedaling away with their hands at their sides instead of on the handlebars. (This always makes me narrow my eyes. Stop showing off, you Belgian cycling nut.) It's like they were born attached to a bicycle.

It's the carrying things that's the problem for me. And the few times I've tried it, it just hasn't gone well. Last week, I got groceries with my bike and was smart enough to bring a messenger bag I could wear on my back. Until it fell forward, tipping me over into the side of a truck. I literally fell into a truck. I've biked to my new gym a couple of times balancing my gym bag carefully on my right shoulder. For any Belgian, a quick flick of the bag when it seemed to be teetering towards the precarious place where shoulder meets arm would be an effortless and casual readjustment while pedaling perfectly straight uphill. For an unpracticed American amateur biker, it's me chanting in my head 'please don't fall to my arm', raising my right shoulder awkwardly while I try to find a good place to stop pedaling and coast a bit on a quiet stretch of street. This, so that I can reach my hand up as quickly as possible while letting the bike swerve out of control for a second to secure the bag. And I don't always make it. The bag has fallen before and thrown me off balance. Today, I literally just fell off my bike in the middle of a busy intersection. I also couldn't turn quite sharply enough and ran into a pole.

So much for fitting in, I guess. But of course, I'll keep trying. Until then, I hope the Belgians know to get the hell out of my way.

P.S. - We finally have internet in our apartment! Finally...

Wireless in Leuven

2010-10-11T08:15:00.000-07:00

I've hinted at this in earlier posts, but finding free wireless in Belgium is like finding a contact lens in a pool of unpoppable bubbles. Last week, when I first got here, I scoured the city looking for a coffee shop with the tell-tale signs - quiet tables of one, laptops out, brows furrowed and eyes wide with the possibilities of all the virtual worlds there in front of them. The idea of asking whether a place had internet before ordering (and then, if answered with a negative, turning around and walking out) totally mortified me, and seemed beyond rude in a culture that puts even culinary simplicities like afternoon coffee before wireless access, so on the first day of looking I made it a point to order a drink first and then, ever so casually, ask if they had wireless, with a smile and a shrug if they didn't. I had three cups of coffee that day. (Okay, so it wasn't coffee every time, but it sounds much more dramatic that way.) I saw only a single person on a laptop that day, in a cafe that I eagerly made my way into, only to find that he must be connected to the University's wireless system, password-protected.

I find it both charming and frustrating that this small city doesn't offer more wireless. It's nice, in a way, that people still go to cafes to visit, and enjoy an afternoon treat. It's also nice that apparently this country isn't so addicted to the Network. The University Library, for instance, has about two computer terminals that I've seen. We visited the reading room in the spring during finals time, only to see a sea of students with their noses pointed into books, a practice that I think, sadly, is dying in higher education in the U.S. How charming!, I thought at the time How refreshing and healthy.

Yet, when I found an American style coffee shop down not two blocks from our apartment, with free wireless, laptops perching at attention, and individuals ordering drinks in a mix of accented English, alone, ready to turn their attention to their virtual connections, I couldn't help but sigh with relief. It just feels so familiar.

Dutch for non-beginners

2010-10-04T06:18:00.000-07:00

When I signed up for French courses at the Alliance Francaise in Philadelphia, my last experience with language learning, I took a placement exam that literally included 5 minutes of conversation with the head of the school, followed by a simple recommendation from her about how I should be placed. For some reason, when I showed up to take my Dutch placement exam last week, I was expecting something similar - an informal, easy-going, in-and-out-in-ten-minutes kind of deal. I showed up fully planning a big grocery shopping trip afterwards, bag in hand. I was led to a large lecture hall with at least 80 other students, their pencils sharpened and erasers at the ready, and what I got was a formal, timed test - two hours for 100 multiple choice questions and an essay, followed by an oral exam with a language teacher furiously scribbling notes about my stilted performance. Three hours later, I left after it was dark outside, and with the exciting and slightly scary reminder that I was, in fact, now a student at a real university again. Because I was lucky enough to go to a graduate school that offered dutch in the U.S., I came here with two semesters' worth of knowledge (albeit that knowledge is now over 3 years old). Hence, I signed up and tested for the third level. I went into the language school bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, scanned the posted roster for my name, only to find myself listed with the second-level students. And so, to class I went with a slightly bruised ego and the wrong books. There are around 20 students in the class, and at least 4 of them are retaking it after failing the first go-round, which makes me sweat a little bit, but will also hopefully light a fire under me. Six weeks and 3 hours a day, I'm suddenly relieved not to have started work, and hoping for a quick adjustment into a territory where I feel at least comfortable with everyday conversations, like pulling off a band-aid. Of course, the university reminded me with their definitive placement of my skills in the second level, not to put the cart before the horse. So, I am both humbled and hopeful. I'll stay on my toes, level two.

P.S. - Forgive me for my sparse appearances on the internet for the next few weeks - we have no connection at home, and it's the devil trying to find free wireless in this town.

A new home in Belgium

2010-09-30T04:07:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Belgium on Sunday, after an unplanned stop-over in Lisbon, and slept embarrassingly late on Monday morning (let's just say, it was after lunchtime when I finally sidled downstairs to H's parents' kitchen). With a few bursts of melancholy here and there, a couple of minutes of discomfort about being away from my family and friends every few days, this move to Belgium has felt like just about any other move in the states. Perhaps it's because I have family here that I know I can trust, perhaps it's just being older and more easy-going, or perhaps it's the giddiness of being with my husband after six weeks of distance, but it feels natural and fine. Then again, I've only been here five days, and perhaps there are rockier paths ahead.

We have a beautiful apartment in Leuven - three floors of a large rowhouse with balcony space and floor-to-ceiling windows to please all the nosy neighbors. The second floor - the kitchen - even has two balconies - one on either side, and opening the sliding glass doors in the morning to hear the bustle of University students on their way to class, and to enjoy the fresh, crisp air makes for a perfect morning cup of coffee. That is, of course, when the weather isn't being particularly Belgian and rainy. We have big plans for outside table and chairs, for quiet dinners with sweeping views.

We have been busy going back and forth after H's working days to retrieve the necessities from his parents' house - a good hour by car or train, so our nights have been late. We have now set up a kitchen table with two chairs, filled our cabinets with odds and ends of dishes, and lay out a couple of twin mattresses for the bedroom until we can get a proper bed. I'll be relieved when we get a couch to curl up in. I'll be even more relieved when we get internet access. (I post this from a Quick - European hamburger chain, and just about the only place listed when I Googled 'Leuven and free wireless'.)

I promise to update this blog much more frequently from here on in. I suspect it will become more of a lifeline here, and a way for me to chronicle my adjustment. For now, I head into my new city with its gnarly, compact streets to find odds and ends for our new home.

Furniture breakdown

2010-09-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

When we moved from the small college town where we received graduate degrees, H and I just took everything and made a new home out of our old furniture. It was still a student home - a hodgepodge of hand-me-downs that matched just well enough to offer some interior cohesion. I remember standing in the doorway of our former neighbors - eyeing the Ikea splendor that was their apartment. They had painted their walls a series of matching soft rose colors. The angular, clean couch was situated just-so behind a rug that matched everything perfectly. The t.v. was flat screen. There were plants. Plants! When I returned to the white-walled furniture potpourri that was our apartment, I could only just sigh and shrug. Plants weren't my thing (I've killed every one we've had). Our 10-inch t.v. was over ten years old (it had a VCR built in, for God's sakes), but it was still chugging along. Interior design just wasn't my thing.

My furniture ignorance showed through when I tried to describe various items over the phone to some poor volunteer at a local charity. What kind of wood? It's...brown. Err...like, kind of a darkish, reddish brown color. It's, you know, an old-fashioned writing desk. With drawers and stuff. (Yes, something to that effect came out of my mouth. It was more than a little bit embarrassing.) I had to stop and really consider our collection of things only when this local charity wouldn't take certain items (they did take the writing desk, and a chair). Really? Is my furniture so horribly ugly that I can't even give it away? To our household's credit, the charity just blanket didn't take certain items. And so, I frantically looked for neighbors to unload the last few things onto someone - anyone. And as everything went out, scooted by strangers' hands, I felt not a smidge of nostalgia, but only a sense of relief. Goodbye ridiculously heavy couch! So long burdensome, old-fashioned writing desk! The only time I felt any kind of regret was when I balanced the television badly on the closed car trunk as I was loading the last of the items for a trip to Goodwill. It fell with a terrible crash while I helplessly looked on from the other side of a car door, and the screen shattered into tiny crystals that we did our best to sweep up, and if not up, into the large cracks in the sidewalk. You always hope the stuff you get rid of will find a new, good home. But some things, I suppose, you just can't save.

Still in Philadelphia

2010-08-11T09:45:00.001-07:00

Haven't I been updating my blog? I could have sworn that no time at all had passed between this post and the last, but now I see, an entire month has come and gone, and my little space here has languished.

I promise to update often once I'm settled across the pond, at the very least. I'm not there yet, though my head is somewhere in between, maybe hovering over the tip of Greenland and leaning ever more heavily to try and move east. H leaves this Sunday with three large suitcases and a list of apartments to see next week. I'll stay state-side until the end of September, a choice I'm now regretting a little - we're dealing with all our big furniture and books and winter clothes before he leaves, so a rather empty apartment will await me every night. More than that, we're having epic conversations about the future, and I realize now that I'll miss him much more than I thought. The second year we were together we spent on separate continents, surely six weeks will be nothing. But I can't help wishing we were making the leap together. My head, anyway, has seen all it wants to see of the tip of Greenland.

In the meantime, I'm trying to focus on work - editing videos of people talking endlessly (a stutter or a throaty hesitation sounds so absurd when you hear it ten times over), and staying altogether very calm and unsentimental about leaving. The only time I do have slight fits of panic is when I'm trolling websites looking for jobs. Would it be unwise to take time off and write my memoirs? A romance novel? A niche nonfiction history of salt and pepper shakers?

A Pittsburgh view

2010-07-08T17:21:00.000-07:00

Pittsburgh View

Duquesne Incline

The Fourth - Pittsburgh style

We spent our last Philadelphia fourth of July away from Philly altogether - skipped the nation's first capital for one of the rust belt cities that's seeing a comeback on the horizon -- Pittsburgh. I love hills, so it was in some ways a place for me, one steep reach after another with the city center nestled in between. When I was in graduate school and applying for jobs, I eyed one with good benefits in Pittsburgh. I decided not to apply, for various reasons (one of them - a trusted elder asserted that Pittsburgh was "no great shakes" - I remember it very clearly -- ), and have had a vague pining regret of it ever since. I really should just apply to any job I consider. I always end up regretting the ones that I don't.

We battled it out for a great view of the fireworks on a stunning hill that overlooked the city, and let me just say, people are not kind when the stakes are as high as a good view of fourth of July fireworks. There was the overloading of teenagers on a public statue of - ironically - George Washington (one person literally sat on poor George's head), there was the small posse who stood in front of a poor wheelchair-bound girl, and there were nasty comments galore (Where do you think you're putting that chair? -- How am I supposed to see now? -- Am I bothering you? Damned right I'm not bothering you!) It was a sad display for a national holiday, and it made me believe a little less in the power of collective intelligence and respect. Or perhaps I'm just not a crowd person. But the fireworks were lovely. And I'll be damned if there wasn't a single head between me and the view.

Stuffed

2010-06-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

Thinking about packing everything up, particularly in this heat, has been making me feel the need to purge and purge quickly. I'm not sure how we accumulate so much junk, but H and I have agreed wholeheartedly that whatever apartment awaits us in Belgium, it will be all the better because it won't be so stuffed. Whatever we pack up and lug back to my hometown will wait out the years ahead of us in my mother's basement, dank and dusty, until we're really settled and have more space. We must get rid, now, of whatever we can possibly bear to part with. Which, I'm afraid, it turns out is not much.

I've started with the desk drawers. We managed to accumulate about 20 highlighters over the years, sets of different colors, fat and still functional. I dumped them all in my work bag and smuggled them into the supply closet at the office. That's right, I've been reduced to pawning my old, personal office supplies on my coworkers, and if I get into trouble, it'll be for putting things in the supply closet rather than stealing from it.

On the same journey into the dark depths of our desk drawers, in between crevices stuffed with old scrap paper and Christmas cards from five years ago, I find something, I think, that we can quickly and easily make a decision on. A sweet, small present from H before my grad school days that's now old, chalky, and hasn't been used in years. Attached to the zipper is a furry monkey key chain. I'm getting rid of it! I say. H just looks at me. But I gave that to you! he says, puppy-eyed and quivery-lipped. It's sweet. It's really for a student, though - I just don't need it anymore. I thought it was a decent, sensitive argument. Suppose you could use it for work in Belgium, he counters. I start to feel guilty about giving away a gift, but even so, I stick to my guns. Must be strong! Too much stuff! Nope, it's going in the get-rid pile. He hangs his head, before mumbling the final, sad request: At least keep the monkey. And so, the knickknack goes back in the desk drawer for another stretch, and I'm left shaking my head at our weaknesses minimalism. This is going to be a hard, mean battle.

The more time passes the harder it is

2010-06-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

Because the more time passes the harder it is, exponentially, to begin writing once again after a hiatus, I will spew a few words here to press the reset button, to finally in one confident stroke rip off the band-aid.

I'm sorry it's been so long. I was away, and even though the internet was accessible, I decided to take a break from my blog checking and writing. And so I declare with certainty that I, for one, am not addicted to the internet. I can do without for days on end. I can curl up with a book or a magazine, tuck my feet under me and feel cozy and (almost) totally satisfied with the day's reading material. I have no blackberry, no i-pod, no rectangular, vibrating, hand-sized device that absorbs my attention, and I feel happy that I don't have the need for one.

Or perhaps it's just that my need for abundance and drama has been fed through other channels of my life in the past few weeks. Things are changing. We are unofficially-officially moving to Belgium in late summer, and I'm going two or three times a day to stare at the little squares that mark out the days between then and now, between Philadelphia and something entirely different. The weeks don't seem like enough. There are still places on our list - day trips to do, city restaurants to sample, art galleries to peruse. And I'm looking at the little blank squares and thinking - Will it all fit?

Coins on the counter

2010-05-22T10:18:00.000-07:00

I heard awhile ago that when someone pays with real money, something registers in their brain more firmly and they feel the significance of the transaction more. It makes sense - when you have plastic to slide through a reader, it's much harder to watch those hypothetical dollars disappear, just like when you order a hamburger it's hard to imagine concretely the slaughtering and the packing and the trucking that got that meat onto your plate.

I have been known to leave my wallet at home - sometimes I take it out of my purse and stick it in another bag. We've all been there, standing there starkly vulnerable at the front of the long line at the post office, frantically feeling for something we know intuitively isn't there. We smile and shake our heads and say You know, this is just crazy, but I don't think I have my wallet! I, just, I'm so embarrassed! It seems to have happened to me at the grocery store more than anywhere else. Once, in my small midwestern college town, when I had just a few items sitting there on the register, waiting for me to hand over the green, I found I had no wallet and was two dollars short for the whole purchase. The girl behind me watched me struggle and then, in a gesture that I'll always remember, reached out and handed me the two dollars that I was missing. Don't worry about it, she said casually. It was just such a nice thing to do. Earlier this week I stopped for groceries at Trader Joe's, and found that, as I inched my way closer to the check-out counter, I was lucky enough to, firstly, realize that I had forgotten my wallet before getting to the front of the line, and secondly, have exactly $56.00 in cash. I had lots of groceries, but Trader Joe's is cheap, and I decided to gamble for it. I told the clerk and we watched the total jolt up slowly, 56 minus X and counting. It was kind of fun. Leave the oranges and scan the lettuce. Don't worry about the barbeque sauce unless there's enough wiggle room a the end. I went home with one dollar, almost all of my groceries - I left behind the oranges and the barbeque sauce, and a few stray cartons of yoghurt - and a sense that I had collaborated with the cashier on something somewhat interesting for the day. Most of all, I can tell you exactly how much I spent.

There's a little deli down the street from us, one of those places that seems small at first until you're looking for the low-sodium beef bouillon that you need for a recipe and -- to your utter surprise and amazement -- not only do they stock it, but they have three varieties for you to choose from. It's on the ground floor of a high-rise and shares its modest space with a diner. I hear tell (I have not witnessed this myself) that there's an old woman who goes shopping there on a regular basis and who always arrives at the check-out counter with too many food stuffs than she has the money for. I picture her standing at the counter, counting out the money and the change over again, one dollar, one penny at a time, touching her pockets, her jaw kneading up and down as she tries to figure out what happened to those other bills, or that other wad of coins she was sure she had. The cashier and the manager give each other a tired look before they begin to scan things back through the register again to subtract to the total. I suppose the management just gets used to it and starts to feel like she's a nuisance. The image makes my heart ache. The next person in line, I'm sure, will replace the click of pennies, counted out one by one on the counter, with the slick sound of swiping, plastic on plastic. Without even glancing at the sum, they'll assume that the money, all of it, is just there.

My mother was visiting

2010-05-12T19:55:00.000-07:00

My mother was always a small woman (she could fit on the head of a pin, Louise used to say), and though she's changed as age sets in, her feet always seem the same. They are lovely, even as she gets older, and white and clean, but she prefers slippers to being barefoot, so I see only glimpses of them before she gets into bed, or when she slips quietly from her bedroom to the bathroom for a shower.

She couldn't help but finger through our kitchen again during this visit - a cramped kitchen, she's told us every time she's here - and she discovered the large plastic bowl of leftover turkey soup that we squirreled away in the freezer after Thanksgiving. She got it out and let it thaw, the clumsy mass shifting every so often in the sink, and then set it to simmer in our stock pot on the stove. She is always concerned about the leftovers. She bends down and rummages through the refrigerator with meticulous dexterity - she always has, ever since I can remember. She will throw together the rice left over from Tuesday night and the zucchini and tomato mix from Thursday for a weekend meal, while H and I go out on a Friday for a decent but pricey spread, only to discover the leftover casserole that we could have eaten months later, pushed to the back of the refrigerator and growing something wretched.

When I was small, she once dumped a plate of food on my head. I remember it - there were fruit chunks that splatted to the floor, and a dry sandwich flopping around. I was being picky about lunch, and in a very rare show of anger, she doused me with the closest weapon at hand, turning my food wholly against me. This was one time in thousands of lunches that she served us up - grilled cheeses, chicken salads, lunch meats, cans of kids' snacks that we requested, while she scoured the fridge and pulled out whatever was left for her own meal.

We ate the turkey soup together, with a sprinkle of salt and pepper and a side of bread with cheese, and I took the leftover leftovers to work for two more meals. There is still more than a serving left, but I can't bring myself to eat any more. I went out for a plastic-wrapped salad today and left the turkey in the fridge. I'll dump it down the drain tomorrow.

She gazed out the window with a pensive expression the night before she left, lamenting the fact that this might be the last time she ever visited us in Philadelphia. I hugged her and reminded her that there would be other places, other apartments with more luxurious kitchens to enjoy, and with refrigerators just the same to rummage through, slipper-footed, warmly and maternally at home and reminding me of the order of things, of how far I have to go.

The conference in-crowd

2010-05-04T09:53:00.000-07:00

I was at a conference this weekend in a mid-western city, at a hotel out in the middle of a large parking lot, eating industrial-strength brownies that they set out as snacks and watching carefully as my skin dried out in the air-conditioned, windowless hotel rooms, one pore at a time. The only thing I forgot was my toothbrush, and I smeared the hotel's complimentary toothpaste on my finger and did the best I could.

It was a small conference, just over 300 people, and I was fortunate enough to know about 10 of those people and to meet, through my acquaintances, and get to know (enough for a 48-hour conference, that is) about 10 more, so in every session, at every cocktail hour and snack break, I was good to go with a ready-made and decent-sized posse. And a posse we were. All from the same graduate school, we chatted about the professors, the people we knew mutually, the political decisions of the university, the charming college town where we all spent at least two years of our lives. We smiled sweetly at the other people around us, and then proceeded to let them know, with a quick "Oh, how is Professor Humbledoo?" or "You know what I miss? That sweet little Indian restaurant..." that listen they were welcome to do, but participate in the conversation they could not. We were the in-crowd of the conference. The cool ones who met in someone's room after a session for a round of beers, who actually ventured out into the city for a night at a real restaurant, who skipped out on sessions to meet at the hotel bar and snickered as we texted each other during breaks. It felt like getting a little bit of school back.

I had to remember, after the conference, a large meeting I went to recently in the city. I was alone, and I knew no one. There was a breakfast spread with built-in time for chatting, and I hovered around the buffet table (being the free food vulture that I am) and took my time looking over the muffins, anxiously shifting my eyes to try and figure out who in the hell I would go stand next to after I finished loading my plate. When I finally drummed up the courage to step back from the table, I actually made eye-contact with a woman, smiled, and proceeded to do a full 360-degree turn around the room before coming to join her in her corner. Looking for someone better? Maybe. Just being my plain, socially-awkward self? Definitely. It's that initial meeting, plate-in-hand, that's so painful. That smile and "Hi, mind if I join you? My name's..." that feels so forced. I'm sure I'll find myself in that situation again in no time. When that happens, I'll remember my posse and pine for the days when I was in the in-crowd. It was a nice feeling.

Faces from the past

2010-04-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

When I'm jogging, it's a very rare occasion that I see somebody I know. I used to see my neighbors every now and then, and once I ran into a coworker of H's. Every so often I'll recognize a face from the gym and nod in their direction, but no one to pause and chat with. Normally, it's stranger after stranger.

Philadelphia is big, and neither H nor I grew up here. We, in fact, settled here less than three years ago. The people in our lives are scattered over cities, and even over continents across the world. I suppose that it's the true, modern American way. Yet when I'm jogging in the park, I'll often see someone walking ahead of me and, as I come up to them, there's just one suspended moment where I'm convinced it's someone from my past. Is that Lizzie Johnson from high school? Sarah Morgan who played violin with me? Mike Rust from graduate school? I never see people from Philadelphia in those perky gaits, those swinging pony tails, those informal clothes - even people I know from Philadelphia. It's always someone from other times and other places. And as I gain on them, come up on them from the side, I always turn my head just slightly to see for sure.

It's, of course, never who I think it is. Sometimes I can tell while I'm still behind them, from the jaw line or the temple, and I adjust my gaze before they notice. Other times, I give them a full-fledged side glance as I pass, usually greeted with a surprised, annoyed look as the long-shot of a friendly reunion melts away to a stranger's face. I wonder now if I'll still do this once we've moved even farther, once we're settled across the ocean. Perhaps the farther you get, the stronger the urge to look. And I'm sure I will look. But the glance won't be long, and I promise, after that moment when reality sets in again, I'll quickly avert my eyes and focus once more on the road ahead of me.

Palm Springs

2010-04-18T16:32:00.000-07:00

When you really get down to it, all major hotel chains are alike. Stay at the Holiday Inn or the Hilton, you'll get a room with tightly-tucked sheets, a desk with a leather-bound folder, complete with laminated restaurant suggestions, a humming air conditioner and windows that are bolted shut. If you're going really classy, the room will probably be done all in white. If not, the bedspread will match the tropical flower pattern of the curtains.

Two weeks ago, we whiled away the days in sunny southern California with a quick trip to Palm Springs. H had a conference. I didn't - I had a date with a lounge chair by the heated pool at Korakia Pensione. It felt so luxurious. It was ninety every day. I wore flip-flops and spent my days ordering smoothies, taking short hikes and then recovering with a swim. But what made it really special was the fact that we weren't in a hotel - we had a sweet little bungalow all to ourselves, with doors that opened to let fresh air in, and stone floors that kept the place cool during the day. There was no white tile in the bathroom, and there was a large, friendly, spine-cracked coffee table book of American photographs sprawled open next to the couch. Open up all the french doors, and indoor and outdoor became seamless and indistinguishable.

After a gorgeous week, weather this weekend was Philadelphia classic - much too windy to be spring, with the sun making cameo appearances too often for it to be considered really cloudy. I traded my running gear in for a trip to the dark, musty gym. The windows stayed shut, and the whir of the fans kept the air circulating. I missed that California sunshine, that poolside, and even the desert heat.

A sloppy lunch

2010-04-09T10:08:00.001-07:00

I work with the public, and my office is off the main lobby of our building. It's an area that's normally swarming with people by 11 a.m. or so, and I can see it all happening - shortly after I began here, my boss insisted a window be put in my door. So people could see if I was in. Brilliant idea for someone who works with the public, so long as they always look presentable. Normally, I don't mind. It keeps me connected.

Then there are the indelicate moments. I usually eat lunch in my office - browse the web or read a magazine or just work through the hour on something with a deadline. The leftover lunch after spaghetti night is always a social gamble that I make because it's just too delicious to give up. Let me clarify, I never learned how to eat spaghetti properly. Whenever I try, I always end up with a forkful that's way too big to fit in my mouth, or tiny nubs of spaghetti that are impossible to catch with utensils. I go for the all-out stuffing method. Grab a forkful and fit as much in your mouth as possible. Then bite. The slop, the mess, the potential for serious stainage is all something I take into consideration, but my partiality to the meal always wins out. So, when I'm hunched over, stuffing like mad, and I hear a faint knock at my door only to look up and see a colleague eying me awkwardly and shifting anxiously through my little window, all I can do is finish the bite, wipe my mouth, and pleasantly wave them in.

A rare condition

2010-04-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

I had a biology teacher in high school who decided that we needed to know about rare genetic disorders and diseases. He gave us a packet with short descriptions, an encyclopedia of toe-curling, spine-tingling, nerve-twitching knowledge. Perhaps it was just a lesson to trick us apathetic teenagers into engagement, but if he was particularly morbid, we were particularly fascinated. Tissue turning into bone? Bad muscle control? We're listening. I remember distinctly learning about Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's disease through this unusually grim set of papers.

The Mutter Museum (part of the College of Physicians) here in Philadelphia is like a Pandora's box of "medical oddities" as they like to call it. I've been there three times myself with tourists in Philly. It's interesting that half of the visitors we have here shake their heads with large, terrified eyes when we mention it as a destination, and the other half already have it on the top of their list. Colons the size of a car tire. Bodies of conjoined twins. Skulls with holes in them. It's always a curious visit. When you go there and as you wander, it eventually occurs to you, between the hernia replicas and the giant ovarian cyst, that no matter how respectably 'medical' they try to make it, the collection will always come across as really more of a Ripley's Believe it or Not, a type of dark Carnival, than a scientifically relevant showcase. At least that's the way it feels to me.

I had reason yesterday to do a bit of research on rare diseases myself (not that I have one, or anyone I know has one), a topic that seems strangely lacking in the annals of Google (isn't there some guy walled up in his basement whose hobbies include web development and unusual chronic illnesses?). The best I could come up with on the fly was the Diseases and Conditions Encyclopedia from Discovery Health. I can tell you that the rare genetic disorder, Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (the one where tissue turns to bone) is not included. But I always knew that airline travel with children should be a true medical condition. I've suffered from that several times in my life. Clearly, and as the Mutter Museum must learn, one's definition of 'diseases and conditions' has to remain flexible.

Right now, the Internet seems vast and scary, and I'm missing my handy-dandy paper encyclopedia of rare genetic disorders. I remember it still - I kept it in a little red notebook that I'm pretty sure I tossed (with a little whimper) a few years ago. In a junkyard somewhere, the only biology lesson that has kept my interest to this day.

Who are you again?

2010-03-23T16:27:00.000-07:00

When I was in college, I had a professor with 80 plus students in his class every semester, and by the third week of class, everyone sat back with their mouths open while he took role by mumbling each name to himself, glancing up, and nodding towards the corresponding face. He had memorized all of us. I was later a teaching assistant for him and learned his tricks. He watched the students in his class like a hawk. He wrote down details in the first two weeks -about their features, but most importantly, the people in his past that a particular student conjured up in his memory. I, in fact, reminded him so much of someone named Susan that, more than once, he shouted the name once when I stood in his office doorway, before quickly apologizing and correcting himself. He assured me that, once you got to his age -- You've already met every type of person, and it's just a matter of categorizing them accordingly. How strange. But, it seemed to work. He could tell you, within every class, who was friends with who, who was just hoping for a decent passing grade because they were getting married at the end of term, who was struggling with the content and who would pass with an A without studying. He was a sociology professor, and so he was innately interested in people and in categories. Teaching, for him, was the perfect fusion of the two. I wondered at how neat it all was.

I recently saw a woman from a different department at work, a woman I don't interact with much, and I proceeded to have a full conversation with her before walking away and realizing she wasn't the person I thought she was. I suppose, in reflecting about it, the conversation was just vague enough to allow her to respond, perhaps with suspicion, without saying flat out that she had no idea what I was talking about. I asked if she had found a document she was looking for, and then I asked about her trip (a simple "How was your trip?" Everyone goes away every now and then, right?) Perhaps she didn't notice. Perhaps she did and was just being polite. I was lucky I didn't ask her something more direct.

But now I have to think back to Professor Category. I don't seem to be very good at remembering people. I can think of a few occasions in the last year when I've been introduced to someone and they've replied immediately "Oh, we've met before," with me trying to seamlessly change the gesture of holding out my hand for a first-time handshake to some other cool, natural movement. I try and nod like I know. But sometimes I just have no idea. And don't get me started on remembering names.

It seemed a bit too impersonal and sinister, his way of categorizing people. His quip that eventually everyone in your life is just a repeat of someone you've already met. But I guarantee, he remembers everyone who visits him. And, he remains one of the most popular professors at the university. So, here's to a little memory trick. Perhaps next time I begin a job, I'll work a little harder at the categories.

New York luxury

2010-03-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

We spent yet another rain-drenched weekend in New York, watching the cat paw at Chinese Checkers and ogling over the Real Housewives of Orange County on my sister's HD tv. We battled our way to a cozy restaurant and a delicious dinner in the Village, huddling under our flimsy umbrellas, hoping that those thin little wires would hold just long enough, and pointing to all those other abandoned umbrellas - we must have seen at least 40 or 50 the whole weekend - that littered the street. Why do we always choose the worst times to go? It just seems to work out that way. The rain was spottier on Sunday. We got out in the morning, to a museum in the Park, through the afternoon, before catching the bus back to Philadelphia. It's the third time H has been to the New York since living in Philadelphia, and the third time the sky has cracked open over the Big Apple and pummeled us with heavy city rain. Eventually we'll catch a nice weekend. Until then, I suppose we'll satisfy ourselves with the decadence of sprawling out on a New York couch and not going out. Because there is something so sumptuously luxurious about it, isn't there?

Adjusting for Spring

2010-03-08T10:10:00.000-08:00

My mother wakes up every morning to a tiny, timed bedside light ticking on -- a silent indication that the day is coming before the sun gets too high, and I picture her waking gradually, stretching her arms and blinking her eyes slowly open to a warm glow. This isn't our style. The alarm next to our bed, our own air horn to my mother's peaceful morning light, must be set to NBA-arena volume to get us stirring. This radio has been stuck for some time between stations - a loud, obnoxious morning show with dirty jokes and Lady Gaga music blares at 7 a.m. in between waves of static. We snooze for at least a half-hour, so the sound of it jolting back on every ten minutes might drive our neighbors crazy, if we had any. It's been like this for weeks, and neither of us have bothered to change it. After all, we're not morning people to begin with, not by any means, and anything we wake up to will be on our hit list of worst enemies - might as well be something we already don't care much for.

The weather here is finally changing, and I put on my walking shoes and took small bites out of the city this weekend, one step at a time. Kelly drive was delightfully crowded, and I walked out to the edges of it with a friend, sat on the banks of the Schuylkill and basked in the sun. On Sunday, I walked deep into the city, had a smoothie and went bathing suit shopping. These first few hints of spring's mildness, even if we do have a few more bursts of coat weather, are just so, so sweet. Whenever this time of year rolls around, I find that I'm much more ready and willing to jump out of bed in the morning and face the warm day, the sun, the possibility of a thin cotton dress instead of layers and layers of clothing. Even my trip to work seems a little bit more colorful. And in the next few weeks, after changing the bed-clothes to something lighter and cracking the windows for the first time in months, I just might readjust that radio dial to something pleasant and airy.

Tea time

2010-03-01T19:53:00.000-08:00

At a new tea bar in my hometown.

I'm a tea drinker. I start the day with a dark black and a splash of milk, I treat myself to a light green in the early afternoon, and every now and then I return to a sweet cup of Rooibos at night. I'm not a tea researcher, certainly not a tea writer, and by no means a tea expert - I just like the stuff.

This summer I met a Brit at a conference, born and bred, and spent a bit of time with her. When I shook my mug and told her that I was a tea drinker, she cringed. American tea is just awful, she told me. Those little tiny bags...the only way I can stand it is to make a pot using twenty of those damn tea bags. Or loose leaf.

I had never bought loose-leaf until my husband came home with a bag of it for me last week. What a charming idea, I thought. How cozy. How posh. I'll go and buy a nice diffuser, perhaps even a tea pot, and become a real tea drinker who can discern the quality stuff from the corporate grind, who has a little cupboard with glass tea jars lined up and labeled, that will chink with friendly little reminders of their quality when I reach in for the one I want. Yes. This little scene struck me as just the right progression in my tea-drinking education. So, it was only logical to visit the little tea boutique in the city this weekend. I walked there with a friend who has abnormally refined taste buds (I have told her time and again to please become a food writer...she can rattle off comments about tannins, citrus infusions and cedar aromas like no one I've ever met). But, I must admit, after my experience, I'm not sure I'm ready to become a total tea buff. I walked around the store, gingerly cradling glasses and trying my hardest not to knock things over while my friend had a ten-minute conversation with the cashier about the differences between first-flush and second-flush Darjeeling (oh, she explained it to me, but hell if I can remember). I wondered anxiously if I was allowed to take the large tins of loose-leaf down and smell them by myself or if I had to wait for help. I fingered the more bizarre instruments with a furrowed brow before replacing them carefully on the shelf. I walked away with a nice little tea pot, perfect for two cups, and a small steal diffuser, both of which were probably a bit overpriced, but worth it overall for the true tea experience. I felt very smug until I flipped over the tea pot and saw those three little mood-killers that were printed in precise letters on the bottom...Made in China. Ah well. The Chinese do know something about tea at least, don't they?

My new tea pot, trying its hardest to create that cozy tea atmosphere.

A valuable cab ride

2010-02-22T10:02:00.000-08:00

I never, but never, wear rings. When H and I decided to get married, there was no engagement ring, no jewelry exchanged at all (and let me just say now, with my aversion to everyday bling, I wouldn't have had it any other way.) So when he shoved that platinum band onto my left ring finger over a year and a half ago, that band that's supposed to represent our lifelong commitment to making sure all those versions of us remain supple and durable enough to thrive through years of real living, I remember being incredibly aware of the ring for weeks after. It was always there. It was uncomfortable. It felt itchy. I would sometimes take it off at work, set it carefully to the side for awhile, and sigh with relief. I'm used to it now, but old habits die hard - H and I both have apparently taken to fidgeting with our rings in moments when our hands are unoccupied but our fingers are anxious for play. I myself have been known to twirl mine around my ring finger, even to take it off, slide it on my other fingers, and every once in awhile (yes, I realize I have the habits of a ten year old), give it a good spin on a hard surface.

We went out for a date night for the history books this weekend - there was fancy dining with wine (at Bistro St. Tropez yet again), and there was a cozy, white-table clothed jazz club after, with a few rounds of cocktails. When we left, I was a little bit more than a little bit tipsy. In the cab on the way home, I remember distinctly playing with my ring and losing grip on it. I found it with a sigh of relief in my lap. I shook my head and scolded myself. Put your ring on, dummy, and stop playing with it! Not even a minute later, though, it was back off my finger and somewhere - somewhere, somewhere lost in the car. We looked. We stuck our hands down into the seat cushions. We felt under the front seats, under the floor padding. My hands have been in cab crevices that you probably wouldn't even want to imagine. The cab driver, most fortunately, was really very nice - he pulled over, got out a flashlight and helped us look. We managed to lift up the ENTIRE seat at one point (who knew that you could do that in any car?), and low and behold, there it was, gleaming in the glare of his flashlight. We laughed, thanked him profusely, gave him double what we owed him, and walked the rest of the way home. And today, I'm back to playing. I sometimes wonder if I'm just a storm drain, or a gutter, or a picturesque mountain overlook away from having to buy a new wedding ring. At least, for now, I know where it might be next time it flies out of my hand in a cab.

The hot of it

2010-02-16T20:55:00.000-08:00

When I was in the fourth grade, someone from some non-profit organization came to talk to us about environmental conservation, and give us the very fervent hope that all children seem to be given at some point or another that all was not lost, that by encouraging our parents to recycle more and with efforts to conserve water, we, too, could save the environment safely from our own suburban homes, one little step at a time. I went home that night and put little clinging plastic reminders on our bathroom mirror that declared "Take shorter showers!" and "Conserve water!" with tiny cartoon icons of faucets and steam. I didn't think too hard about the message, but I thought their slick material was totally cool (they stuck to the mirror without being sticky!). For the next few years, my sister and my parents never let me live it down. If anybody needed to take shorter showers, they said, it was me. I turned on the faucet and was lost to the world for the next twenty minutes. I sang. I talked to myself. I examined my fingernails and scrubbed in between my toes.

When we moved to Philadelphia and got settled into our apartment, we noted to ourselves, then to each other, then to our neighbors, how the water wasn't quite hot enough. It got worse over the two and a half years we've lived here until a lukewarm shower was just about all that we could hope for. In the middle of winter, let me tell you, I could be in and out of that bathtub in less than five minutes. I even considered making a special trip to the gym for the sole purpose of a hot shower. But, somewhere along the way, several weeks ago, H put his foot down and decided to call the landlord. He should know about it, he said. If we need a new water heater, then we need a new water heater, he said. But, it turned out, the problem was much simpler than that. Embarrassingly simpler. Two and a half years of less than desirable showers were remedied with a wrench and a quick one-two on some knob or other. The plumber said to call him back if the problem wasn't fixed. There has been no need. Oh, the heat! The steam! The soothing flow of piping hot water on your body at the end of a long day! It's back in my life, and I have to admit, I missed it. Now my showers are creeping back again to real events. Twenty minute events, off-pitch show-tune medleys included. I'm sorry I've let you down, fourth-grade guest speaker, but I'll just have to find some other way to save the environment. My showers are just too precious.

A meaner snow

2010-02-10T13:46:00.000-08:00

Well, we're getting pummeled again, but this time is different. The first two snows were light and frothy - snowflakes that didn't stick to your coat and landed ever so tenderly in heaps that dusted up and swirled cheerfully at the slightest breeze. But now it's back, and it's not as friendly. It's heavier, wetter, and all around meaner. The breeze turned into a biting wind, and the snow is really showing us who's boss. We thought you would be fun for awhile, we thought we'd just have a winter fling. We welcomed you, spent time with you and bonded with you just enough, but apparently you've gotten emotionally attached - you came back again, grumpier and needier, showing us your teeth.

As stir crazy as I get spending all day indoors, our quick trip outside today soaked through even to the sweater under my giant spaceman coat (I believe that's its proper name), and I was ready to curl back up on the couch with a hot cup of tea. We're relieved that no new neighbors have moved in across from us (yes, that apartment is still vacant), as we strip down, shed our winter gear, dripping all over the place, to the driest of our layers. Everyone is home today, everything is canceled, and even the chain drugstores are shut up with handwritten notes on the door - You can't really expect us to staff this place in this mess, can you now? We've spent a good bit of time standing side-by-side at the windows in our apartment, watching people sludge through the streets and neighbors scraping the sidewalks, seeing other heads at the windows across the way, watching the power lines anxiously as they get weighted down with icy snow. We're all a bit smug about having the day off, but really, staying indoors is the only possible way. There's just no moving in this stuff.

Snow in Philadelphia

2010-02-07T15:30:00.000-08:00

Perhaps it was the panic-stricken, frantic hours that held us in a tense freeze last time a major snow rolled in, but this snow fall felt calmer, more relaxed but also quieter - the neighbors didn't seem nearly so breathless and eager for contact this time (or did we just not leave our house long enough to notice?).

We stayed in for most of the day yesterday, avoiding the dreary grey sky and the drift - billowing thick and blurry, piling up outside our window as we watched in wide-eyed excitement.

But we had our moments in it, too - Friday night, after celebrating a friend's birthday with a warm, softly-lit dinner, we headed home in the few inches that had accumulated since our meal began, through a high-rise parking lot. While the lights overhead flickered on every now and then, sensing our movements, and amidst peeks outside by a furrowed-browed security guard, we balled up chunks of snow, stealthily running around poles and behind cars, trying our best to catch each other in moments of distraction. It was a snowball fight for the records: full of joyful screaching, sopping coats and gloves, and unabashed, irreverent clawing and stomping on the pristine stuff. We even lost a cell phone during the mischief (recovered only because the ringer was set on loud -- we called it over and over and over again, and finally found it, buried in white and nestled in a bush). And today, we walked in the sun, marched through snow up to our knees, built a proper snowman (snow lady, more precisely, complete with a hat), and made a few angels before coming home to cups of dark tea and hot winter chili.

This is, really, the only proper way to do a snowy weekend.

Inappropriate eye contact

2010-02-01T10:22:00.000-08:00

I attended a small, interactive session at a conference this summer, and giggled a little bit when someone nudged me and pointed to their computer screen - another poor soul in the room was twittering about how the speaker, who was, ironically, speaking on the art of good public speaking skills, needed to be told a thing or two about inappropriate eye contact. It's true - he lumbered around the room slowly, trolling for victims, and stopping directly in front of some poor onlooker who happened to shift their eyes upward at the exact wrong moment, when he would catch them and hold them in a death stare as he spoke directly to them for at least 20 seconds. I was one such victim, to my recollection, a couple of times during the talk. Engaging your audience just gets creepy when you seem to be trying your hardest to pretend, however briefly, that you and a single attendee are the only people left in the universe, and that communicating directly to them the next five bullet points of your powerpoint just might save you from certain destruction. It was that intense.

Looking someone directly in the eye is an act of intimacy that just feels mortifyingly inappropriate at certain times. Every once in awhile in a gym class, we'll be doing something terribly embarrassing, like laying on our backs with our legs spread apart, or plowing over so that our feet come over our head and touch the floor behind us. In these moments, the last thing you want to do is look someone in the eye. It's just not the time. Yet, it happens. There you are, facing me, with your legs flailed up and spread-eagled, raising your chin in a crunch, whincing and grunting, and we're just not paying attention to where our eyes are falling. We look away as quickly as we can. Let's pretend it didn't happen, okay? We'll be casually friendly after class and forget the whole incident. We were both vulnerable, and it was a mistake. Don't read into it. Just keep crunching, and make a mental note to always, always keep your eyes on the ceiling in compromising positions.

Two fancy meals

2010-01-27T16:55:00.000-08:00

My husband and I both occasionally pick up classes at the French Alliance here in Philly, mainly to sit in a room the size of a closet and try our little hearts out to butcher the language with slightly cleaner cuts than we had managed the week before. This has led to a few friendships, and more than a few acquaintances, some of whom appear to be prominent (and wealthy) city socialites - people who jet off to their apartment in Paris "for the weekend" and attend galas and fundraisers in ballgowns. I'll never quite understand the connection people automatically make between France and haut culture (a connection that, I'll admit, I sometimes make too), but learning French, no matter how late in life, is apparently a must in high society. One thing that we've both noted about this sophisticated lot is that they compare chef stories and restaurant experiences like teenagers compare song collections on their i-pods - whoever can call up the little gem that nobody else knows definitely triumphs as the true connoisseur, a position envied by all.

H and I never find ourselves in the running. He has at least managed to pick up a few important chef's names here and there, but I'm hopeless. It's not that we haven't been to nice places in town, for birthdays and anniversaries and such - it's just that they've amounted to a handful of cache when you really need a mountain to play the game.

We've been trying lately, though. Last weekend, we were invited out by a woman, nice enough to put faith in our manners, however simple they might be, to an Italian restaurant everybody's apparently been raving about - "It has a real following..." her friend told us over wine and handmade bread. H and I had the pheasant. It was bony. I was hungry again an hour after we ate, and wished I had gotten dessert. It just didn't meet my expectations of fancy dining.

Our attempts to culture ourselves with good cuisine didn't stop there, though - this week happened to be Restaurant Week, a little celebration of all food Center City that some corporation or other sponsors twice a year, when you can sample a real, live, fancy-schmancy 3-course meal for a mere $35 dollars, a steal of a deal in some restaurants. Choosing the restaurant is an art in itself - some places are a bit dismissive of restaurant week eaters and end up giving you the cheapest bits of the menu while turning up their noses at you for going the bargain route. On the other hand, you don't want to choose a restaurant that's too cheap - the point of Restaurant Week is to experience something a little beyond your normal price range. Very delicate. I have to say, though, we made the perfect choice, and it's all thanks to our Alliance friends. Apparently, Bistro St. Tropez has been the talk of the French Alliance for awhile now, and we had a delightful meal of FOUR courses (they threw in an extra, just to be nice). They were overly polite, doting and generous, and we stuffed ourselves silly with mushroom curry soup, scallops in a cream sauce, bleu cheese encrusted salmon with pistachios and duck on a bed of lentils and raspberry chutney. The glow of the neon, blinking palm tree somehow managed to enhance the ambiance, and the 4th floor view of the Schuylkill River, was perfect. It might not be a mountain of cache, but it's another chip, I suppose, on our little pile. Even if it was during Restaurant Week.

Girl Scout Cookie Season

2010-01-23T11:46:00.000-08:00

Those girls. They work so hard. According to a colleague with two girl scout kids, there's so much competition to push these little boxes of happy that some troop leaders actually try gorilla tactics of sabotage, making deals under the table before the official start of selling season, and stabbing other parents in the back for prime real estate. And who could deny the vital importance of the parent's workplace in the fundraising formula?

I was never a girl scout myself, but having the cookies in the house reminds me of my childhood in a different way -- I would be offered, as a treat, a box from my parents, or I would scrape together enough allowance to indulge myself a little with a box of samoas (always my favorite), and squirrel them away under my bed. The sad image of me hunching over to dig one out every so often, eating it on the floor alone while picking at the carpet isn't really my favorite childhood memory, but, looking back, I'm amazed at myself for how long I stretched those babies. I sometimes still had unfinished boxes the next time girl scout cookie season rolled around. (Where did that resolve go? Sweets are so much more precious when you're a child.)

This year, my coworker, a confident, assertive woman with a healthy streak (she steers clear of the 25-plus birthday cakes we help ourselves to every year) sent out an e-mail announcing the start of cookie season, and I went the same day to put in my order. She handed me the brochure with a sigh - she has only so much patience for things like fund-raisers, apparently even for her kids. I stood in her office, drooling over the pictures and agonizing over the fat content of a single thin mint before telling her exactly what I wanted. I hadn't even gotten to samoas yet when she replied in a chipper but slightly cautious tone: 'that's enough.' That's enough. Three boxes is enough. "Oh," I said. A girl scout cookie mom telling me to stop the madness that is my gluttonous free-fall into cookie overload. Yes. Now there's an admonishment you should really listen to. She brought me my cookies the following week, and I must say, I'm slightly disappointed. Have the cookies changed, or have my tastes? All I know is that next year, three boxes will, indeed, be more than enough.

The best remedy for food poisoning

2010-01-18T15:35:00.000-08:00

I'm terrible at being sick. Whenever I get even a hint of the sniffles, I put on my pajamas, shuffle around our apartment wrapped in a blanket, pouring myself nonstop cups of tea and complaining to anyone who will listen. I was caught this weekend with a mild case of food poisoning - at least I think that's what it was, those ripples of pain in my ab muscles that someone I can't recall, probably a Web M.D. addict, once told me was a sign food poisoning. I spent yesterday on rotation between lying on the couch and clutching the porcelain bowl, between sleep and watching VHS tapes of pretty horrible romantic comedies that I used to collect in college - Emma, As Good as it Gets, and -- the worst of them all, and, shamefully, still a favorite -- You've Got Mail (oh Meg Ryan, remember when you could actually move your face?) You have to understand that normally I'm an avid reader, and I don't think much of turning on the t.v. unless H and I are watching a Netflix-ed item, curled up on the couch, an hour in the evening that we warmly consider 'together time' (we, in fact, had a decent conversation about what would happen to the character of Jackie on The Sopranos today, proving once again that t.v. can be the best bridge between spouses who might otherwise pass a lonely meal without exchanging words - thank you, HBO, for making my marriage just a little bit more stable). But, when it comes to being sick, I have a natural aversion to anything printed (What? I'm sick! You expect me to concentrate on reading when I'm sick?? Who can read when they're sick!).

Today I knew it was the last straw when I pulled out the second season of Full House on DVD that my sister gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago. (She got it used and cheap, and it was meant to be a gag gift. Sort of. Who doesn't have a small soft spot for little Michelle Tanner?) Two episodes in, I decided I better try and eat something. Because if bad '80's t.v. shows don't have the power to heal, then what the heck does?

Neighborly nice

2010-01-12T16:55:00.001-08:00

It's amazing what sort of neighborly congeniality natural disasters, or any kind of disasters, can conjure up. Last month during the winter crisis, neighbors were out in the street, shoveling the sidewalks together, helping to maneuver cars out of parallel parking spaces, smiling at each other with a Wow, can you believe this?? sort of expression. H helped a neighbor push his car, wheels spinning, to a spot where the tires were able to catch, building up enough speed to get himself down the street. His wife, a neighbor who must live within 20 feet of us, and seemed quite charming, dropped by some lemon bars the next day as a thank you. We had a short conversation, I closed the door, commenting to myself that they seemed like nice people, wondering vaguely about the possibilities of striking up a new friendship, and I haven't seen her since.

A friend of mine once commented that the end of a final exam was like that - you could walk out of the exam with someone you hadn't spoken to all semester long, and chances are you would still have at least a 15 minute conversation about the exam questions, how hard you thought it was, how you thought the professor would grade, etc. - because all of a sudden you had something stressful in common, the same vulnerability and desperation.

Our neighbors have crawled back inside their apartments, gone back to their normal social circles, and began diverting their eyes quickly again when they see each other. I suppose it says something that people ban together in a desperate situation, when they really need each other. Maybe it's a bit sad that we really don't have things to say to our neighbors on a regular basis. I do think it's a shame that connections and nice encounters don't happen like that more often. Guess we'll be waiting until the next winter crisis to make headway on our neighborly relationships.

My to-do lists

2010-01-07T19:13:00.000-08:00

When I start to feel a little overwhelmed at work, I often start a to-do list - scrap paper, a pen, my scribbly handwriting, and a quick 30 seconds makes the day suddenly seem much more orderly (take that, technology!). Today, I did so around 10 a.m., and this represents the internal dialogue I had at 11 a.m. - a dialogue that I often have with myself throughout my working days as I turn back, periodically, to that to-do list:

Yes! Finished something else. Can scratch it off my list. Where is my list? Ah yes, here we go -- e-mail to Christine, done! Hmmm, where is...? Oh. I didn't add that e-mail to my to-do list. Wow. That's too bad, it would be really nice to see something scratched off my list for the effort I went to. I mean, it did take me a good 15 minutes, and it was productive. Hmm. Maybe I'll just add it to the list. E-m-a-i-l C-h-r-i-s-t-i-n-e...That really deserves an exclamation point, too - it was pretty important. And -- drum roll, please! Line through it! Mission accomplished! That's THREE things on my list with lines through them!

I really wonder if this is normal.

Christmas trees

2010-01-02T05:44:00.000-08:00

The holidays have nipped at my heels like a beast that's excited with innocent energy but doesn't know the most appropriate ways to show his affection. They've been wonderful, really - kept me running around with visits to special people, and I honestly haven't sat down at a computer for longer than five minutes in the last week. All of this is supposed to be a pathetic apology for not posting. So there it is.

I received, for the most part, very nice gifts this year. My friends and I have all agreed on no gifts (and it's a relief - we have too much stuff already, and it's nice to be able to spend a little less). A woman that helped raise the children of our family (and who is by virtue of this fact a family member herself), Louise, gives us a tree every year in a city park - a really special gift that goes beyond stuff. She brought us a picture recently of the first one, the one that we planted ourselves (since then, a simple phone call takes care of the arrangements and the actual planting), us bundled up in our coats, me with mittened hands folded in front of me, squinting at the camera and flashing a grin that showed off the large gap between my teeth that braces have minimized since. No one could remember the exact year, but everyone agreed I must have been about five or six. She's given us a tree, and we've met there every year on Christmas day, ever since.

As we drove to the park this year in search of the new one, I felt a pang of guilt for not having any idea where any of those trees actually were. Sadly (and slightly ironically), Louise informed us that the first one (the one we actually worked so hard to drag to the middle of the park and plant with our own hands) died a few years ago (there goes any suggestion that our thumbs might be even the slightest shade of green). Still, there must be over 20 others. I can blame my incredibly dull sense of direction, and the fact that I don't live in my hometown anymore. Truthfully, I'm not sure any of the other children (inside and outside my family -- she took care of lots of children during the same period) she devotes the tree to have any idea about their locations, either. But maybe someday, during a warped reunion where we all marvel a little longer at grown-up versions of ourselves, we can walk through the park and map them all, so that we'll have a key back to each one. And we can put a little red 'x' on the map, marking the hole where the first one used to be.

An old-fashioned Christmas tradition

2009-12-26T08:48:00.001-08:00

We always decorated our tree a couple of weeks before Christmas when I was still in school and had those nice long breaks, but this year, the tree had to wait until all the kids were home from their working lives to help, until December 23. Decorating the tree in our house always has to be accompanied by appropriate cheery music of the season, and the only Christmas music we have in the house is a Time-Life collection of records. We bought it when I was young, and it seemed definitive to me - all the classics done by (and I know nothing about music here) the best singers (who could argue with Dolly Parton's, Elvis's, and The Jackson Five's legendary statuses?) But the record player has to be at least 20 years old, and the speakers gave out every once in awhile, so I had to run and tinker with them to preserve the proper tree decorating ambiance. Typical of us - we never invest in new technologies unless we absolutely have to. The records just barely got us through this year, but (finally) with a new cd player in the house, we should probably stock up on some cheap Christmas cd's for next year, and, with a few sniffles about the end of an era, we just might have to consider finally chucking that old record player.

The Christmas tree will only be up for the week, but the Christmas spirit that went into assembling it (nurtured by records) is worth the whole season! (Oh, that's so tacky to say, and not really my style, but it's Christmas time, and what else can I write?)

Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!

Winter drama

2009-12-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

In the northeast, people always have a winter weather story – abandoning a car by the side of the road, dealing with no heat for several days, slipping and ending up with a bloody nose. I suppose small gestures in the midst of minor weather disasters can, like a butterfly effect gone haywire, collide and leave you with a serious mess on your hands. Now, in my third winter in the northeast, I have my story (and let’s hope that story is complete).

A couple of weeks ago, I lost my keys. This is a fairly ordinary occurrence for me (second set that disappeared this year), and it left us with one precious car key that I, for some reason, decided to leave on a tiny key ring all by its lonesome rather than attaching it to a larger bunch of keys – I was sure, actually, in my idiotic way, that I would watch that key much more carefully, guard it much more securely if it was on its own. I meant to get another copy made, but just hadn’t gotten around to it (in addition to being forgetful about my keys, I’m also lazy about errands, even important ones).

This weekend, in the midst of a record-breaking snowstorm, I decided to move my car to a safer place. After backing out into our little one-way street, I was distracted by a neighbor, and in a split second of deciding to turn the ignition off and pocket the key before getting out of the car, my little winter adventure began. I returned to my car door, reached into my pocket to find – no key. Check all your pockets. No key. Check inside the car. No key. Check –all those feet of deep white snow around you. Holy sh-- No key. We searched for hours, our car boldly stretched across the entire road, blocking the way for any brave people who ventured down into our neighborhood. There was cursing (much, much cursing), frantic digging on our hands and knees (It has to be within this 10 foot radius!), careful shoveling (we thought we could sift through the snow), and a bit of crying (I just felt so stupid); concerned neighbors (concerned about the street, not about us – They’re going to skip us when they come to plow!), redirected cars (waving our arms – Back back!), telephone calls to AAA (We aren’t doing service in the city now. Only people who are stranded. You’ll have to wait until morning.), and the police (begging them to just tow us away -- Sacre bleu! What a story! And, yeah, absolutely nothing we can do about it now.). Perhaps the sheer elation I felt when the tow truck finally did show up at 4 in the morning (the brave tower got stuck in the mounds and mounds of snow three times, spinning his wheels to no avail, having to get out and dig), was worth at least some of the trouble. Worth even more was the feeling of vulnerable gratitude to my dear, patient, and amazingly sweet husband, who never raised his voice, and spent more time out in the cold than I did through the whole ordeal; it makes me weak in the knees and ready to swoon for him all over again (mushy, but true). And the happy sleep I got Sunday, the warm house, the Christmas wrapping paper spread out everywhere, and the bottle of wine I shared with friends Sunday night were all the more delicious and precious. High drama, at least, can sometimes lead to happier days. I just hope that’s the last of the crises for this winter.

And yes, a new set of keys has arrived (my mom saves the day again), and never, ever, ever again will we be without a spare.

Fundraising Fruit

2009-12-16T10:45:00.000-08:00

I remember the days of fund raising only vaguely. I'm probably blocking out all sorts of humiliating moments, standing on neighbor's doorsteps with four-page catalogs of chocolate-covered pretzels and coconut flavored cookies, with nothing but the piddly little ounce of natural charm I could muster up to get me through the experience. And then there was always the easy way out - hand off the catalog to my mother to push on her colleagues. Now that I'm working, it's cosmos payback for all those orders that people placed with me, probably out of pity and with a realistic sense of just how much they actually needed another can of flavored popcorn for the holidays (I have to admit, though, I do love the flavored popcorn). For a mere $25 and a sense of smugness at having made a little girl's list of orders a little bit longer, I am now the proud owner of about 20 oranges and about 15 grapefruits. I'm not sure how we're going to consume so much citrus goodness in the next week before we leave for Christmas, but we will try our little hearts out, and probably end up giving some away (what doesn't make for a nice neighborly Christmas gift but a lovely bouquet of oranges and grapefruits?) I have to admit, fruit is an excellent healthy alternative to all those candies that I used to offer in my catalog. I don't even know what the fund raiser is for (does anybody ever bother to ask?), but I hope she enjoys her new softball uniform, or her new band instrument, or her field trip to Washington D.C. I know I'll enjoy my fruit.

More on late nights (and early mornings)

2009-12-10T10:33:00.001-08:00

I remember the exact moment I discovered that I was "not a morning person." A friend of mine turned around in our first-period sophomore History class and asked me a question that demanded a nuanced answer. I must have looked very grumpy and not responded to her liking, because she immediately rolled her eyes and said "You're so grouchy in the morning!" That phrase shocked me out of innocent adolescence like none other. I don't understand! , my mind raced. It's morning...isn't everybody grouchy in the morning? It's before eight a.m., for the love of those evil high school scheduling gods! I was totally flabbergasted that she didn't feel the same way. Could it be that some people actually...like the morning? That some people are perky in the morning? It didn't help that we had a math teacher the year before who was adamantly for changing the high school day to a later time. She was a teeny, tiny woman with a big voice and a very practiced expression for laying down the law in her classes, and she told us with a high, assertive chin that she never got up before 11 on the weekends and that research had shown that high schoolers don't actually fully wake up until 10 a.m., and that we really couldn't expect to absorb much, as a result, those first two hours of lessons (and I thought - yup, that sounds about right). I suppose I just assumed she spoke for absolutely everybody.

I found that my fuzzy mental construction of night versus day people came into much more detailed focus when I befriended a tried and true night person in college. She would show up when the sun was setting, ready for the first meal of her day, sit at dinner with her eyes half closed and declare dryly, You know, the world is ruled by morning people. Morning people control everything. They seem more productive because they're the first to work. They get things done ahead of everyone else. It's really not fair. I'm pretty sure she was a part of some secret night-person society, bandana laden and drawing out plans for a mass conspiracy - some fateful day when no alarms would go off and all storefronts would stay locked and dark until noon. I was always in awe of her ability to go for days without spending time in the sun. She, by the way, remains a good friend, and now has a 9 to 5, confirming her worst fear: they suck you into their life, those morning people. It might take awhile, but they eventually get you.

Late nights

2009-12-08T11:53:00.000-08:00

I am by no means a morning person. If there was one thing that deterred me from becoming a high school teacher, it was the early mornings. I come from a family of early risers, and it was always just a bit painful to come downstairs at 10 a.m., bleary eyed with hair going every which way, and find the cheery bunch of them, their fourth cup of coffee in hand, with a list of chores already completed for the day, errands already run. I would say it balanced everything out when they all went to bed early and left the house to my mischievous wiles, but that stopped being fun and started to feel a lot lonelier when I stopped being a teenager.

But I find as I settle into a real working life, things are changing. I am lucky enough in my job to be able to roll out of bed a little after eight, and I've actually gotten quite used to it. I'm finding that late nights just don't do it for me anymore. This weekend, we decided to pretend like we were artsy adventurers and headed off to a late showing of Taxi Driver. The movie began at midnight (or thereabouts), and when we left the house a little after 11, I knew my body was telling me that I was now much more suited to a midnight night cap in some comfy pajamas. Not that I would refuse a late-night party or a rousing night at the bars every once in awhile, but my days of just staying up for the heck of it are over. I doubt I'll ever be up with the early risers, but perhaps next time I'm home, they'll only be on their second cup of coffee, and still in the middle of their morning routines, when I join them, a little less bleary-eyed than before.

Free food

2009-12-02T14:21:00.001-08:00

I'm a sucker for free food. You announce that there will be a spread somewhere, and you've got my attention. When I arrive at an event with refreshments, I immediately begin some serious investigating -- how soon is too soon to head to the free food? How interested do I have to act in what's going on before I stuff my face? Have other people helped themselves yet? And if you make me wait through a presentation while the food languishes in the back of the room, spread out and untouched, you can usually find me pretending to be interested in what the speaker is saying while checking my watch, licking my lips, and shooting longing glances at the cookies every so often. What I wouldn't do for free food.

A store close to work recently advertised a small holiday celebration (all day!), complete with refreshments. I internally cheered since I had brought a sad little soup lunch that day, and geared up for a midday visit to the little place. I told coworkers that I still had a bit of Christmas shopping to do, so why not pop in and see what they had? When I swung through the door, hungry for munchies and sweets, I found...nothing. No food. No other customers. Only the blank faces of the clerks. I circled around the place a couple of times, in and out of the aisles, trying to find the buffet table, and wondering if I had gotten the wrong day, or if this was some kind of mean trick. And then I saw it. Right there, up by the cash register. I see your plans, I thought. You aren't going to feed me unless I buy something. And this is where the story gets really sad. Because, I did. I bought something. It wasn't entirely for the food -- I came away with two mediocre Christmas presents for cousins that I rarely see (I got one a candle that supposedly smells like the beach (she misses California), another one of those chrome water bottles...not too bad of a gift, since he's a biker) -- but I would be lying if I said the food didn't play a little part in it. Chips and dip, breads with cheese, and cookies. But, even if my dignity is a little bit bruised, that's two more Christmas gifts I can cross off the list, not to mention a half a lunch. And, I suppose, it was better than walking up, stuffing my face, and leaving the store empty-handed. There's comfort in knowing that I haven't hit rock-bottom quite yet.

Thanksgiving in Philadelphia

2009-11-29T18:27:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is fast becoming one of my favorite holidays in my adulthood for the very reason it wasn't a favorite when I was a young kid - it's probably the least commercial holiday (although all those poor turkeys might beg to differ). I spent this Thanksgiving in Philadelphia with my family, and I'm proud to say I orchestrated a pretty good meal out of it, with enough time to spare to walk down and see the Thanksgiving day parade -- the only pageantry of the day that might smack a bit of commercialism, what with the Campbell's and Starbucks sponsored booths and all, but we have to be willing to indulge ourselves a bit, right? It's in the spectacle of holidays and big events that Philadelphia blushes in slight embarrassment to our big, more successful sister two hours north. Macy's day parade, we learned from television, had a guest list so stuffed with stars it could have been a galaxy of its own. Philadelphia, on the other hand, does its best with floats of Elmo and Frosty, and tries to get at least some mileage out of the star power of Miss New Pennsylvania. Some soap opera star was at the bottom of the art museum steps (not being a soap opera watcher, I wouldn't know who), and sang a version of "I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus," complete with choreography by not-so-burley men. Not much competition for the endless concerts given by the likes of Shakira and Justin Timberlake in New York. We in Philly will smile sweetly, thank Santa for his appearance, and hope we can dazzle them with Mummer's on New Year's day.

We'll always be the quieter, slightly less successful sister that people forget about, but we've got a charm all our own, too. We'll be proud of being a bit less overwhelming, and a bit more accessible for real living. And, of course, we'll always have Rocky.

The beginning of a mini-marathon

2009-11-25T18:27:00.000-08:00

Benjamin Franklin Boulevard, cutting from City Hall all the way up to the Art Museum, is normally a main feature in any Philadelphia bike or foot race, and usually represents either the first or the last stretch of concrete that the athletes must tread. You can often tell when the city is gearing up for a weekend of racing by one major sign: blue port-a-potties appear lined up neatly on either side of the street, boxy and patient, like colorfully dressed soldiers waiting for orders. There are sometimes a few, sometimes hundreds of them, secured by little plastic locks, shiny and clean, reporting proudly for duty. Every time I see them lined up, I always have the same reaction, and the same conversation with myself: Firstly, I can't imagine why there is a need for so many of them - surely all the athletes won't need a potty all at the same time - then I reason that maybe there's a certain capacity the potty can reach, so that once, say, 20 people have used it, it's gone from decently clean to disgusting to absolutely unusable, and whatever it is inside the potty that holds all that unpleasant stuff is at a dangerous capacity. At that point, there would be a need for the next potty, so that the next 20 people can use it. So the port-a-potty company might figure, if you saturate the area with potties and there are lots of potties to choose from, different folks will choose different ones, reducing the probability of one potty going bust to a safe recess. I then try not to think about the process of cleaning all of those potties, and the poor people who have the job of doing it. Who knows. I suppose, though, if I ever do run that marathon, having a new, clean potty to use at the end of the race will be all the more incentive to cross the finish line sooner.

The end of a mini-marathon

2009-11-22T14:25:00.000-08:00

Today was the Philadelphia half marathon. I did not run it. I didn't even stand on the sidelines and cheer. What I did do was go jogging myself at the tail end of the race, next to the river on Kelly, with the sun glaring and powerful, the river high and muddy. I watched the stragglers as I headed past; dragging their feet, or walking, heads low, exhausted but still going. There wasn't any sort of crowd left to watch the race, but those of us on the pedestrian path, even while we were moving, cheered them on and sometimes got a bit of a nod in return. When I reached the art museum steps (the beginning and end of any proper Philadelphia race), the announcer declared that all runners - those who stayed on course - had crossed the finish line. There was a lull, and then he said, as an afterthought If you're still waiting for people, they might have gone off course, they might just be walking on a sidewalk at this point. I imagined a family waiting expectantly for Uncle Willie, a sign that said You made it! or We believe in you!, drooping as they looked up helplessly at the announcer on stage, wondering what to do next.

Though I have never acted on the impulse, I've always played with the idea of running in a real race - maybe starting with a 10K and working my way up to a half-marathon (I would stop there. A full marathon gets into real athlete territory, and that I will never quite be). It must be really exhilarating to have a whole crowd of people cheering you on as you pass, waving and smiling, encouraging you to go for it.

I jog regularly - on average 5 miles or so. The farthest I've ever made it is seven miles (my best estimate), and my husband assures me that I could do a half marathon with one leg tied behind my back -- after all, at a certain point, you're trained up and ready for any distance, right? He's not a runner, and I'm not so sure. But, maybe next time I should take a page from Uncle Willie's book and go for it - after all, if you run, walk, or limp across the finish line, you've still made it. And that's something those stragglers, even the ones who veered off course, can be really proud of.

My side of the bed

2009-11-18T18:35:00.000-08:00

H and I, like most couples, chose a side of the bed and stuck to it when we first moved in together. I was on the left, he was on the right. People, it seems, claim their side of the bed and guard it cautiously, building up mountains of stuff by their night tables, their kleenex boxes, their pictures, their little glasses of water and leisurely reading -- all a sign to say 'Keep Off,' like a dog marks his territory with a raised leg and an attempt at aim. I began this ritual, too - it only seemed natural - until one night I headed into the bedroom to crawl to sleep, shuffling through the door wearily, only to find that my husband had firmly but innocently stretched himself a bit too far into my territory. I shoved him a little and whined, but then he raised the ante. He gestured to the alarm. Our only alarm. On my side. What if we switched just for the night? He had to get up later than me. He could be responsible for the alarm and let me sleep. At first, I firmly shook my head. I was shocked. The nerve! Proposing to sleep on my side! And what if I need one of my many...things here on the night stand in the middle of the night? But he was unbudgeable and I was tired. So, I crawled over to his side huffily and fell asleep. Somehow, though, I found that I liked being on the other side. It was away from the door and closer to the window. It felt cozy and protective, and, it was true, I didn't have to worry about the constant beeping in the morning.

We now switch off regularly - depending on who has to get up earlier, who goes to bed first, and just how we feel. I've even started rotating the pillows we use. We have a flat one and a fluffy one. He takes whichever strikes my fancy slightly less on any given night, sometimes with a groan, but mostly with a shrug and a lazy blink. I wonder if it'll stay like this, rotating, playing musical bed-side into the years. The most logical solution might just be to get another alarm. But what's the fun in that, hmmm?

The club scene

2009-11-15T14:44:00.000-08:00

I'm sure the club scene in Philadelphia is a rip-roaring good time that could potentially knock the socks off of any bass-beat addict or cocktail junkie. I wouldn't know.

I was walled in yesterday, trying to put a dent in a project that has long been hanging over my head, and in a fit of very serious cabin fever, I whined to my husband (who is by now very accustomed to my intolerance for long periods spent in our apartment), who immediately told me that, before any discussions about where to eat dinner or what we would do after, before my head collapsed in on itself, before he had to listen to me cry about being in my pajamas all day, and in a fit of healthy spontaneity, we just needed to leave the house. We put on some decent clothes and went to a pub on South Street for some greasy food, and then decided that we should expand our horizons a bit and try out the music scene. A couple of weeks ago, we went to a half-empty jazz club with friends and shared cocktails and a few laughs over a band named something super cheeky (whose name, I'm now realizing, just didn't stick with me). It was a fun night, and we decided to give live music another shot.

On the corner of Arch and 21st, hanging outside of the real city scene, and in a space with only a few meandering pedestrians at night, there is a piano bar that both of us had noticed a couple of times. We shrugged and headed over. Just after ten o'clock, we were greeted by four very big black men at the door, who gave us a quick up-and-down and said hastily You're looking for the piano bar. It's moved. They explained politely where it was and shooed us away only after we innocently inquired what the old piano bar had become. The Lotus Lounge, they told us. One of them added a vague We open at ten. You can come in if you want, but... We walked away.

I went merrily down the street, oblivious to our send-off. My husband explained. They didn't want people like us in their club. We had, apparently, been turned away, that last 'but' hanging in the air like a dividing line between the us (me, fuzzy-haired, turtle-necked and in practical black boots, my husband in a plaid button-up shirt and suit pants), and the them of the new, posh Lotus Lounge (men with jelled hair, in jeans a bit too tight for them and snake-skinned boots, no doubt, and women with sparkly tops, high heels, and bight-colored lipstick). I smiled and laughed. Well, so what if we looked like we wanted to go to the piano bar? We were looking for the piano bar! I can count the number of times I've been in a real 'club' on one hand (I can actually think of only three times, twice when I was underage). I'll leave the thumping, the bright lights, the expensive drinks, and the serious grinding to other people. Even in their haste, the bouncers had made the correct assessment. We just weren't club-ready.

The piano bar, we found, had a line out the door, so we ended up in a dive bar below ground with a decent d.j., a television muted with the Wizard of Oz playing, graffiti-ed carpet on the door and signed dollar bills pasted to the ceiling. I had a cosmopolitan, and my husband looked smashing in his suit, sipping a martini. Our kinda place.

Whitewater

2009-11-10T19:23:00.000-08:00

I have gone whitewater rafting three times in my life - all three with the same route, on the New River in West Virginia. I have a friend who is a huge rafting enthusiast (I don't use the word 'enthusiast' lightly, but that she is), and she accompanied me down the river the first time, and graduated to raft guide for the subsequent trips. I thought when I was first convinced to go that if there's any extreme sport, this one's surely for me. I took to water when I was young like a fish takes to...ahem...water (if the metaphor fits, I guess...). What's a short swim through some white water? I become one with any body of water the minute I'm immersed, and I was sure I could take it.

The first time, I managed to stay in the raft all the way down the river. It was a pretty light trip, and I was actually surprised at how easy it seemed. But whitewater and I made for a troubled marriage. I would learn that it was just not meant to be. The second trip, I took a plunge when we were surfing in a whitewater hole. An easy plunge, mind you, that plenty of people take. I went under the raft, pushed around like a ragdoll going through the permanent press cycle, bubbles flying and my head kicked around so much that I wasn't sure which end was up. I came to the water's surface, with the aid of my life vest, gasping and sputtering. That, dear friends, was the end of that. My love affair with whitewater had officially and suddenly come to a clumsy end. I braved the last trip solely so my husband could see the beautiful West Virginia mountains, and I clung for dear life to the side of the raft with knuckles so tight they competed for the whitest thing on the scene. I am not cut out for extreme sports in any way. Nothing even remotely intense. I'll take my jog through the park, thank you very much, and leave the other stuff to the professionals.

My friend visited this weekend, and told wild stories (she always has them) about her trips down the New and the Gauley, animatedly motioning with her hands to represent the flow of the water, the tip of a particularly mean rock. She talked about people making clumsy splashes, and others getting their foot wedged underwater, only to be pulled up minutes later. Some of her stories ended with a chuckle, some with a gasp and an open mouth. I sat back while I nodded and reacted, sipped my tea, listened to the steady tick of the clock, and relaxed.

Fall in the city

2009-11-06T17:59:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine has a little house tucked away in the Poconos. She moved recently, and I haven't been to see her at her new (owned!) house yet, but I have no doubt that it's as charming a place as you could want for a quiet time by the fire with a hot cup of cocoa. I was hoping to get there this fall - with the pending move to Europe hovering somewhere in our near future, I realize that I could very well be spending my last fall here, and the foliage has struck me as particularly beautiful this year as I make my way through the city, trying to freeze the image of the soft, deepening colors in my head. I can only imagine how it would be at that look-out point to which my dear friend can hike, gazing down across rows of mountain tops that crackle with autumn in such intense ways that it makes your heart pound.

For now, because of busy schedules and weekends that seem to slide by under our noses without the courtesy of a pause, that visit will have to wait until the trees are bear and frozen. I only have the respite of city parks to carry me through the fall - a different but still sturdy alternative. In New York last weekend, I took a breath and some time to enjoy Central Park in all its foliage-laden glory, and was thankful that such a bustling city has havens for those craving a bit of quiet nature and seasonal celebration. The scapes were really beautiful, even if they weren't in the mountains.

If you look closely, you can see a little girl climbing the rock.

Maybe when I do make it to that look-out point, I'll have trees shimmering in snow cover waiting for me. In a last winter here in Pennsylvania, that would be at least some recompense for missing the fall. And that cup of hot cocoa will taste all the better in the cold!

How the Village does Halloween

2009-11-03T14:46:00.000-08:00

I have been waiting to post for a couple of days because we suddenly can’t seem to figure out how to upload pictures from our camera to our new mac. Ah, mac. They say you do things so much better, but I’m not convinced. Why won’t you read my camera input? Why be so stubborn after we’ve treated you to our business? Been loyal to you for a full two months? Filled you with all sorts of meaningful bits of our networked lives?

But, I digress- this post was never meant to be about the mac/pc war.

This year was a New York Halloween for me, and I couldn’t stop my heart from fluttering at the messy finesse that New Yorkers apparently put on the spooky day . We stopped by Washington Square to see the children’s parade ending, all the little ones spilling into the empty fountain’s pit, squirrels chasing lizards, princesses in a row, swinging their dresses gently, witches trying to keep their hats from sliding into their eyes as they climbed on the fountain’s spout, and parents grinning and flashing their cameras furiously. (There was one toddler with hospital scrubs on who, when he turned around, revealed a sign pinned to his chest that read Death Panelist. Ah, New York parents. You can’t even blame them for using their children to make political statements- they just enjoy it so damn much, and honestly, they’re so damn good at it.) We also stood for a brief minute at the trick-or-treat bag line and sighed, eyeing the free bags of candy longingly and wondering if it would be wrong to borrow someone else’s kid to make us legit enough for one of our own.

This little boy was a helicopter for Halloween.
As you can sort of tell, his parents were very proud.

We didn’t go to the Halloween parade, but we took a stroll around the Village before leaving, which was parade enough for us – the zombies, scarecrows, giant cats, Supermans, Fred Flinstones, Marios and Luigis (a popular one this year, although I’m not sure why), slutty nurses, slutty red riding hoods, slutty lady bugs, slutty donut girls, slutty baseball players, and slutty nuns (YES, we did actually see a slutty nun) offered plenty of amusement and giggles. We, at some point, rounded a corner to see some poor woman eating outside, bent over her plate, straining her neck to reach her food…in a hot dog costume. Complete with yellow tights. She wins my prize for best costume, purely for the circumstance. A hot dog eating soup al fresco in the rain. Apparently, it doesn’t get more Halloween in NYC than that.

My address book

2009-10-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

I was never very good at keeping an address book. The best I seem to be able to do is a little notebook that began as a proper directory of the names and contact information of the people I loved, but which was gradually stuffed up with messy slips of pastel-colored paper, post-it note scribbles of some dear friend's phone number or some family member's address. For our honeymoon, I knew I would want to send postcards, and so I stood in my mother's living room and copied from her large and orderly address book all those names and numbers by hand, address after address on a single sheet of college-ruled paper that is still folded up, yellowing, crumb-infested, and buried somewhere in my purse (I find it every once in awhile and, for some inexplicable reason, feel like it would be best just to fold it right back up and put it right back into the tiny pocket from where it came).

I'm just not sure why I can't keep it together. Perhaps it really is the dependence on technology. Address books have gone the way of memorizing telephone numbers in the last few years...why bother when you can find just about anything you need in life's little tech gadgets? (Facebook has everybody! Just, right there! Their birthdays included!) I think it's more that I'm just a scatter brain who's bad at the orderly details of life (and I am). Either way, it's a shame. My little address book is quite pretty, and there's something romantic about having a complete one that you could just stick in your baggage when you leave for vacation or move, a connection to all the people you love at once that doesn't depend on phone calls or text messages. Ah well. I suppose it will continue to be a good little paper weight, colorful and sweet-looking. And I do still need a few of those little slips of paper stuck in its pages...even if it's not the neatest way to keep things, I always know where they are!

Halloween

2009-10-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

After three years in Philadelphia and much chatter about going, H and I finally ventured to the carnival-esque Terror Behind the Walls phenomenon at the Eastern State Penitentiary this Wednesday. We live within an easy walk to the site, and we've never even been there in the light of day, let alone at night, so it was definitely due. It was more of a raucous good time than the terrifying thrill that the site's FAQs promised, and H complained that they should have let only a few people in at a time, leaving us to wander the cell blocks alone. How scary, after all, can something be when you're filing through it shoulder to shoulder like school children filing to the bathroom? We gave it an A for effort and theatrics though, and I was glad we went.

I never considered Halloween a favorite holiday of mine until recently. When I was seven years old, my parents, innocently nurturing my love of classic American musicals, brought home Little Shop of Horrors from the video store, and popped it into our VCR without a second thought. I remember very vividly hiding under a giant pink and yellow flowered blanket with my then best friend Amber as we watched, giggling and screeching. At the time it seemed like innocent fun. But, as I'm sure we can all testify, fun and games when we're with other people can turn into dark rooms and creepy basements when we're alone, warping in our little imaginations to fanged funhouse jaws that are ready to eat up our souls whole. To a seven year old, this is especially true. I spent the next two years of my life terrified that we had an actual man-eating plant in my basement. Nightmares aplenty, I would run frantically up the steps whenever I had to be down there, absolutely sure that there was a green tentacle following behind me, ready to wrap its rubbery slime around my skin and yank me back into the abyss. I think the trauma of such associations (and, weird movie as it is to be afraid of, there WAS trauma) led me to firmly believe that I was a terribly easy scare, and I steered myself away from horror movies, haunted houses, and Stephen King novels for years after. It's a shame, because, as I've been gradually discovering as an adult, I actually really like these things. Ah well. Better a late bloomer than never - there will be plenty more Halloweens to profit from in the coming years, and plenty of quiet nights just waiting for a good horror movie. Just maybe none featuring giant, flesh-eating plants.

Neighbors

2009-10-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Our apartment, tucked away as it is, has thin walls and close neighbors. We've gotten knocks on our door from time to time, asking us politely but firmly to quiet down , and we've probably heard a bit more of our neighbor's lives unfolding than they would care to imagine (erotic moans and sob-filled conversations among them). Our immediate neighbors (the apartment just across from us), though, a really nice young couple that we got to know fairly well, were pregnant this summer, and searching frantically for a house and a more settled life than the city could offer them. They moved out in a hurry. The door remains open, and we've ventured in a few times, comparing our kitchen appliances to theirs (they have a newer dishwasher!), and the shade of bathtub (both a 1970s thick yellow that would probably symbolize death in some very thin and very dark avant-guard novel). It's strange to hear the echo of our own movements ricocheting around the vacant, hard spaces, as we climb the steps and unlock the door to our home. We chatter sometimes about who might end up in that apartment. Noisy college students (our apartment has its fair share)? A nice young couple ? An older widow, moving back into the city for the convenience? My husband saw our landlord showing the place to a man with a baby a couple of weeks ago, and came home a bit kerfuffled. What if they move in and the baby cries all the time? We'll hear everything. A family can't live in that place! It's too small! I smiled sheepishly, and responded Better than beer-pong at 3 in the morning. And with that I realized that my college days are really over - I now prefer the company of calm, family folks over crazy drinkers who are stirring up shenanigans at all hours. I can see myself marching out to the hall in my bathrobe, swearing and scowling, and asking them with a curmudgeonly squint Do you know what time it is?

For now, we have no news one way or the other about the vacant apartment, and having the hallway space to ourselves has been really nice, echos or no. I'm sure our own place will feel just a little bit more cramped when new neighbors do arrive, whoever they are. I just hope they're as nice as our last ones.

The little microwave that could

2009-10-18T15:52:00.000-07:00

Our little microwave has been with me since my first year in college - my father presented it as the perfect going-away present for a dorm room-bound university newbie, and it got plenty of use as the agent for late-night popcorn munchies, hot cocoa on cold winter nights, and the infamous ramen noodles that remain a staple for college kids looking for a quick, cheap meal. The little white microwave followed me obediently to graduate school, and then to Philadelphia - working maybe a little slower than some of the new-fangled machines out there, but still good enough for us.

Lately, though, it's been a bit more of struggle to coax it to work than all the years before. A couple of weeks ago, the start button stopped working. We now have to press the little 'automatic' buttons instead to get it to go - baked potato, popcorn, and beverage all have their own buttons, the microwave's best (normally underestimated) guess at the time it'll take to actually cook a baked potato, pop a bag of popcorn, or heat up a beverage. This is now the only way we have of turning on our little machine. And these timers, of course, are often not exactly the time we need, and so we have to stand, twiddling our thumbs, and wait to shut off the buzz of the box at just the right time. As if that weren't enough, a few days ago, the stop button seems to have picked up a little bit of an eccentricity that would be charming if it weren't for the questionable health effects - it now only works when the microwave is off. In other words, we can clear the old timer with it to start a new timer, but we can't seem to actually stop the microwave with it. Which means that we just have to open the door to stop the microwave while it's running. We can only hope that those little nuke waves aren't going to come back to haunt us later with bodily manifestations I'm much too sqeemish to even mention here.

My sister once lived for two years without a microwave, and I'm starting to picture us in such a state...panicking as I cradle my tepid tea in an apartment growing colder by the day. If our plans pan out, we'll only be here for a few short months yet...a year, at most! I'm fighting for my old, dirty, underdog microwave to hang on for dear life until the last days of Philly. That's all we need. It's lasted me this long, surely another few months isn't too much to ask!

The diner

2009-10-14T12:17:00.000-07:00

For the past 5 or so days, I have been sick. I enjoy a work day away from the office every now and then, but I have a threshold, and yesterday, I took one look at the daytime talkshow blaring on the television, the piles of tissues, the used tea bags and my bulgy bathrobe, covering up a sweat shirt and flannel pants (it's cold here), and shot straight through that threshold over into if I don't get out of the house I'm going to kill myself kind of territory. After he got home and saw my state, my sweet husband bundled me up, ushered me out into the cold, and took me to a warm, inviting little diner. Just what I needed. As we got settled and ordered drinks, I chuckled, and leaned over to H -- we were just about the only people in the restaurant under the age of 65 (the building the diner was snugly pushed under, we realized, must be a haven for retired folk). With my voice breaking between a whisper and a low, weak rumble, we didn't say much to each other the whole meal, and when we did, H had to ask a few times what I had said; I ordered the split pea soup with an egg sandwich and carefully crumbled the cracker packets into my dinner. Yes indeed. We fit right in. It was actually a very pleasant time. And, who knows, maybe, 60 years from now, it'll be our daily routine.

Speaking of overheard conversations

2009-10-12T17:51:00.000-07:00

I rode the bus several months ago with a couple of school girls who sat across from me, and I found myself unable to concentrate on my book due to their slightly loud conversation. (In other words- I also really enjoyed eavesdropping to their crazy stories, and put my book down all too willingly). One was tall and thin with a bushel of blonde curly hair that she couldn't keep her fingers out of. Her legs seemed very white to me. She did most of the talking. The other, with short hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, had retro black glasses on, a dark green army-style backpack, and sat most of the time with her hands in her lap. Both were wearing Catholic school-girl skirts. They apparently went to the same high school, but the awkward conversation that ensued clearly indicated that they were neither friends,= nor hung in similar crowds...this was my assumption after hearing the hands-in-lap girl preface everything she said with "I'm a big dork, but..." (which I read as - I'm incredibly self-conscious around you, and don't know quite how much I should reveal about myself to you...). She also said at one point "I guess everyone in school thinks we're pretty weird...", and with that, the blond, leggy one rebuttaled with avoidance, tinged slightly with meanness: "Everyone in school knows who you are. You and Kelly. You guys are always together. Are you guys going to the same college? Everybody knows who you are." (which I read as - Yes. Everyone thinks you're incredibly weird. Partly because you're always together. What are you, like, a couple or something? And everyone, in turn, talks about your weirdness and your too-close relationship with Kelly with everyone else.) Kind of sad.

The piece of their conversation I found the most funny was when the hands-in-lap girl said that she wanted to be a photo-journalist for National Geographic. Leggy blond replied right away "Me TOO! Oh my gosh! We have the same ambitions!" They then promptly agreed that they would just DIE if they had to work a regular, 9-5 day job. I had to smile a little bit - I probably said similar things in high school too. Little do you know when you're younger...a 9-5 actually isn't the worst thing in the world. Your own time is yours, and you get to come home to a warm house and a home-cooked meal, rather than a hotel in...well, if you work for NG, it could be in any wayward corner. But, I suppose I won't knock them too hard. Those are the types of big dreams you're supposed to have when you're looking at your whole life spread out in front of you.

i-don't-pod

2009-10-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

I have a very shameful confession to make: I have no i-pod. No mp3 player. I don't know how that happened, but the recent music headphone technology has passed me by. H even bought an i-pod two (three?) years ago, and it's been collecting dust on his dresser when he's not using it, full of some of my very own music. I listen to the radio, or to cd's in the car, and to nothing when I'm walking. I have to put up with the horrible college rock they play at my gym (if I hear that Taylor Swift song "You belong with me" one more time...), and I read novels on the bus. I sometimes wander online to the old last.fm radio at work when I'm doing something mindless, too, a little treat for myself. (I have a little, secret piece of paper where I'll scribble down notes about which bands I like periodically, hidden just enough to hide its true purpose under my pencil holder.) When I listen to podcasts I either sit at my computer and surf the net or play some old-fashioned game like tetris or solitaire, or I perch the speakers somewhere nearby while I do mundane housework, like prepare a meal or unload the dishwasher. It's true, I get an overdose of what's actually around me much too much of the time, including strange half-conversations that people have into their cell phones (one of the best: "Pickles?? Pickles!! Pickles! Yes!!"), real conversations that people have in person (one of the most intriguing: "So, apparently her dad is worried about her, like, not being taken care of after the wedding, so he pulls David aside and offers him $10,000, just like that...") , and, every now and then, very intense conversations people have with themselves ("The devil's gonna get us all! Yes he will!"...err...maybe that one was actually directed at me...).

The funny thing is, I'm totally unopposed to using that spare i-pod most of the time. (I really do hate that Taylor Swift song. And "Who got the hootch", which has been known to play every so often, too...oh god. Don't get me started on that one). It's mostly just that I'm not in the habit of grabbing it or thinking about it. Maybe, after writing about it, it'll cross my mind more as a possible accessory. In the meantime, bring it on, Philadelphia. I suppose I can take it.

Shredder

2009-10-06T14:50:00.000-07:00

We bought a brand new shredder recently. (It's funny, the sounds in that word are so fitting for what it does...its low hum when you turn it on, like breath between the teeth, its crackling that punches the air like a consonant.) It was the cheapest one on the shelf (we aren't really people to spend a lot on electronics), but it's still sleek in its simplicity, black and silver with the product name written in a sans serif, all caps font, angular and sparse, to remind you that the future is here, man, and that future is sitting next to your Macbook and ready to erase your former, paper-bound identity about four sheets at a time, staples included. We started with old bank statements, old checkbooks, bank cards that were expiring, but I've since gone a bit shredder-happy. Old student papers from when I taught? Let's just see how she handles these. Printed-out e-mails? Not so confidential? They're e-mails, still: Give her a go at 'em. The bibliography of some research article from graduate school? So what if it's not personal. Let her rip. Scrap paper with tiny doodles in the corner? Better not risk it...turn her on and watch her go. Not sure what happened to my sensible head and my determination to save any paper that might be used again, that I could give new life to by writing or printing on the back of. The whirl of those teeth is just calling a bit too loudly.

A hip evening

2009-10-04T12:33:00.001-07:00

H and I ventured out into serious hipster-artist territory this weekend (skinny jeans, colored cowboy boots, funky belts and carelessly-flung scarves all made appearances) for a gallery opening in center city at Vox Populi (an 'artist collective' which is, as explained to me, a non-profit to which artists can pay a small monthly fee in return for a membership and a chance to exhibit their work). There we wandered the old loft spaces with squinted gazes, sliding over hardwood floors slowly, trying not to jostle the transparent plastic cups filled to the brim with cheap wine. We stopped every now and then to take a closer look, or to duck behind a black curtain for a constantly-running video, or to try and figure out how something was rigged up. There was a black and white film depicting a herd of horses running around ordinary household objects...the rim of a sink, the top of a radiator -- it was in a dark little corner with giant foam blocks to sit on. My favorite exhibit was an amazing, 8-foot-high wall of clothes that acted like a damn for a huge, messy pile of more clothes (by artist Derick Melander). White ones, on the floor, to light colors, to darker, then to black at the top. There were just so many clothes, it was a bit astounding to look at for that purpose alone. (Makes you wonder how big a wall you could build out of your own clothes....I suppose I don't want to know.) And they were stacked so neatly, we questioned whether they weren't rigged around cardboard or something. They might have been pinned, but we came away pretty sure they were only anchored on top of clothes and more clothes.

I love art openings. My friends and I used to go to just about any we could in college, and I have to admit, I go just as much for the chance snatches of conversation, the cheap alcohol that makes your cheeks burn and your head buzz around angular objects and interesting colors, the little cheese bits and fruit plates that they put out to munch on, than I do for the real art. It's nice, though, to have such a festive, party atmosphere that's centered around something bigger than just the socializing. To be able to wander alone without feeling like you're being antisocial (and, hey, you always have an excuse to leave a boring conversation -- I actually haven't seen that gallery yet. Let me just sneak away, I'll catch up with you later.) To be able to challenge yourself just to the edge of your comfort level with something slightly grotesque, and then come back to the warmth of friends and conversation. We didn't know many people there, but the people we did know were friendly and open. It was a really lovely evening. It always is.

Gendered animals

2009-09-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about my own writing on our visit to the zoo, and a fellow blogger's post that included some discussion of cities and gender, and I started to wonder about my choices to always refer, during the italic sections that represent comments, to the animals as 'he'. Some objects seem to just shout that they're female rather than male. (Who doesn't know someone who has given their mode of transportation some awful name like 'Bluebell' or 'Lucy', and who wouldn't say some places -- lots of countries, I think - France, Canada, even the U.S., for me...'lady liberty' and all... -- are just female). But what about animals? People tend to refer, it seems to me, to almost all animals (even prissy cats and flouncy poodles), as 'he'. The fact that female-ness seems to fall into deviance aside, it's interesting that we are bound and determined to associate a sex with animals (I suppose they don't have a 'gender'), but often don't seem to make an effort to know which sex is the right one.

Two stories come to mind: I used to cat sit for a nice family up the street from me when I was a teenager, and the mother of the family, who always used to give me the same orientation of the house (this is where the food is, this is where the litter box is, this is the scoop to clean the litter box, etc.), referred to the cat as a 'he'. Naturally, when I arrived to do the necessary duties, I continued to think of the cat as a he. But, as we got more used to each other, and as I gradually bent down to rub the cat's head, then back, then belly, the cat was very clearly NOT a he. HE had teats. Prominent ones. And absolutely no...boy bits. I thought maybe my lack of biological knowledge (see last post) had caught up with me, but a talk with the woman's daughter, who showed up unexpectedly one night, confirmed that the little thing was indeed a female. Now, as a pet owner and an attentive, caring, and also intelligent woman, Mrs. Neighbor must have known, somewhere deep down, that he was a she. I can't imagine the embarrassing situations that might have ensued, otherwise, at a new vet. She must have been told at some point that the cat was a she (her own daughter knew it). So, why the insistence?

The other scene actually took place at the zoo: We were standing by the hippos at one point in the day, waiting for them to rise to the surface, when a fellow zoo-goer came up next to us, examined the still surface of the water, and then read the sign introducing the animals very carefully while waiting to catch a glimpse. The sign very clearly said the zoo had two females. I saw her read it. She practically went over the whole thing with her finger. Yet, when one of the animals finally broke the water's surface with her enormous back, she bellowed: Look how BIG he is! Is it just inattention? Or is it really something pressing in people, making them think that hippos are big and powerful, so they always must be a 'he'? To me, an animal is imbued with something of real gender when we know their sex - I think a good deal of pet owners would agree. This probably really is imagined. My mother's dog is no more boy than those hippos are girls. But I can't help but feeling like there is something (call it respectful in human terms), real or imagined, to knowing.

Visiting the Zoo

2009-09-26T17:34:00.001-07:00

Today, H and I ventured out in temperatures that fell bit by bit as clouds drifted unhurriedly across the sky, tucking in the sun like a patient parent waiting for their child to wind down before bed, and went to the Philadelphia Zoo. I love Zoos. I love watching the animals and cocking my head at their strange features. I love the surprised, obvious observations people make: Wow! Look how big he is!, or Oh he's sleeping! or, Look at him! He's climbing a tree! Do you see him climbing the tree?, like they're discovering something new and so intensely interesting, they just can't contain themselves. And even, for the most part, I enjoy the children who point and tug at their parents and poke their fingers in the cages, and ask, wide eyed Where is he? or What's he doing? Unlike most other family activities, it's a place parents and children seem to discover together, both unknowing, with furrowed brows and open mouths.

I used to go to Zoo Camp every year when I was a child, a day camp where we'd follow flirty, too-confident teenagers around, stopping at animal cages and learning quirky facts (Do YOU know what color a polar bear's skin is? I did, by my third year at zoo camp!), finally ending the day with a trip inside a starkly white building, in a starkly white room, where we were able to pet, with a gentle two-finger touch, one at a time, a snake, or a porcupine, or a chinchilla. I liked zoo camp, and rediscovering zoos as an adult always makes me wish I had ignored all of that hatred for my high school Biology class that I had built up over lists of vocabulary words and natural cycles I thought were dry and boring, and marched forth to study Zoology or Animal Behavior, to change the world with bold activism and field work that would save many a species from extinction. As it is now, I look excitedly at the animals, and diligently but lamely at their name plates and descriptions, knowing full well I won't remember any of it.

Over a gooey, warm waffle and a steaming cup of coffee after our adventures with the animals, H commented that it's the third zoo we had been to together, as a couple. That made me smile. I've enjoyed every minute of my recent visits. And I can safely say, wherever we live, my children will definitely get a big dose of zoos (if not Zoo Camp), and a little encouragement that studying animals, even making the obvious observations, is much too exciting and interesting to give up on, even over a tedious and drab Biology textbook page.

The empty tin

2009-09-24T16:17:00.001-07:00

We usually have an overabundance of chocolate in our house - one of the advantages to being married to an expat is that his thoughtful mother, my wonderful mother-in-law, loves to send him (and me, by extension) enormous packages full of cleanly folded new pajamas (for both of us), lotions and nail files, and, of course, chocolate. Chocolate bars, chocolate Easter eggs, chocolate for making hot chocolate, chocolates to have with coffee, chocolates to spread on bread first thing in the morning, chocolates to savor before you go to bed. And these are good, quality, European chocolates wrapped in foil and smooth as good china. The last package was no exception. She included, in this batch, tiny coffee bean shaped chocolates, the perfect amount of luscious, smooth dark chocolate that melts into a the richness of coffee just at the right moment. They were delicious.

I have a terrible, terrible sweet tooth, and I had been grabbing two or three beans to eat before work every morning as I head out the door, a morning treat I've enjoyed since the package arrived a couple of weeks ago, and that has now became a dangerous if temporary habit. But I woke up today and went to our chocolate box to find it entirely empty. H had cleaned it out, packed it all off to work for his coworkers to enjoy, and left me with an empty tin and an unhealthy craving. He didn't realize I was eating them at all...but the joy of those tiny treats is to savor them a little at a time, I think. I hope his office mates savored them properly, and I suppose, in the end, I should thank him for the calories he saved me. Then again, I've just replaced them with the much less pure but still chocolatey enough Mr. Goodbars they've had in the back office at work. It's a sugar fix and does the trick, but I have to say, it does make me think about the differences in quality. One chocolate certainly isn't the same as another.

City walking

2009-09-21T20:24:00.000-07:00

I had a friend in town this weekend (my pathetic excuse for not posting here), and whenever a guest arrives to ‘see Philadelphia’, the first question I ask after they’ve dropped their bags is: Are you ready to walk?

I remember how gargantuan and bustling the city seemed to me when we first arrived. After the decision was made, saying to people We’re moving to Philadelphia had all the muscle and electricity of a real adventure, charged with the promise that only an expansive maze of steel, concrete, busy sidewalks and endless honking can offer. Neighborhoods seemed to morph endlessly, one into the other, in an unreachable myriad of happy unfamiliarity, and the stretch between 2nd and 50th streets seemed entirely unbridgeable. As I got to know the city, learned the personalities of each neighborhood and discovered the gems in the city that have come to be home to me, I gradually redefined what it meant for me to go places. I cross blocks by the dozens every weekend, sliding from one neighborhood to the other without a second thought. Center City gradually seems small. Chinatown always seems accessible; the Eastern-most stretch of the city, there by the Deleware River, those cobble-stone streets that represent the mythic past, kept tidy for tourists who expect another world here, all seem, now, very solid and very reachable. Why is it that a place we’re unaccustomed to seems to be so much bigger? Is it just the potential of a new life that was harbored there, in those first weeks as I discovered the streets and found myself entirely taken with a disorientation that made my head buzz with impatience and want? But as I’ve learned my way through the city, I can say I’ve also grown to love the same paths I take, the fact that walking for miles seems normal, the steadiness of the expected as I pass it. So that sometimes, when someone suggests we bike or drive somewhere in the city, I have to reflect for just a minute and shake my head faintly, feeling a sense of calm at the thought: no, let’s walk.

Conferencing fun

2009-09-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

Conferences can be a time to put your career into perspective, to reflect on long-term goals in the workplace, and to refocus on the things that matter most in your organization. To me, they’re also a blur of faces and nodding heads, comments that contain the wisdom of 10 minutes, career stories that probably won’t stick with me, and business cards and pages of notes that will eventually get stuck down in some drawer or other. (They also mean dry over-air-conditioned rooms and way too many snacks, but I suppose that’s for another post.) I met and rubbed elbows with a lot of interesting people at the last conference I went to – it was a long one, and fairly small, so names and faces stuck with me for a little bit longer than they generally do. But something else was different about this conference as well: they had Karaoke night. Outside the hotel, with tiki torches and a much too accessible bar stocked with the hardest of liquors, we were able to witness such incredible things. Full-fledged. No turning back. These are your colleagues, this is the cream of the working crop, and this is the way you sing I Will Survive in off-key shrillness while attempting to bob and bounce in some kind of regulated rhythm. There’s nothing like hearing the woman who stood up in Session 4, gently readjusted her glasses, and made that very thoughtful comment about the future of our profession telling me, in so many words, that she doesn’t think I’m quite ready for the jelly that is her bootylicious body. Now that puts everything into perspective.

Action movie economics

2009-09-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

One night, while sitting around my parents' living room, wallowing in glasses of cheap wine and under a layer of shallow lamplight, we asked my Father casually how he liked the movie Collateral. He mumbled something to the effect of "There were a lot of high paced chases down tunnels, and cars flipping over." (This response, slightly curmudgeonly, out-of-touch, and cynical, made the edges of all our mouths crawl up into subtle smiles.) Then he suggested with a smirk that Hollywood could use the same damn clips of cars flipping over and blowing up, whirling into tunnels and through back alleys, for practically every action movie they made. Imagine the money and energy it would save. And, quite frankly, would anyone really notice?

H and I rented an action movie this weekend, and, before it was even in the dvd player, I dead-panned that there would be at least one shot of a helicopter. I could picture it, the camera below, on the rooftop of a building, the blades swooshing as the seemingly unwieldy beast hovered in mid-air. And low and behold, within the first five minutes, a helicopter made an appearance just like so. We've all seen this same scene a dozen times, and is one shot really so different from any other? And so, we'll add a chopper clip to the pile, Papa, wavering above a deep blue sky, and call your archive near complete.

Fall weather

2009-09-11T14:01:00.000-07:00

The weather has been turning nippy...today, with rain and winds to make me long for hot cups of tea, my couch, my pajamas, and a good book. H and I dragged out a comforter from our big wooden chest last week (because the chest is cedar, the comforters always smell crisp and smokey for the first few nights, like a log cabin...it's so cozy). It's the lightest comforter we have in the house, but still -- having slept with only a sheet for a few months, it seems like a giant step towards Fall.

When the weather first started getting cool last week, I continued to leave the house in bare legs, open-toed high-heels and sleeveless tops, shivering through the cool morning air defiantly. It's only September! Who needs pants and long-sleeves?? But this morning I rolled out of bed reluctantly, and bundled myself up in the first comfy, warm things I saw - an old cardigan and thick, cushiony boots that will keep my feet dry. I usually dress much nicer for work, but casual Friday takes on a whole new meaning when the weather is this dreary. And now, I suppose, it’s time to grudgingly admit defeat, take a long breath of the cool, moist air, and shove those summer clothes to the back of the closet once again until next year.

Less than honest discounts

2009-09-08T21:28:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, on that rainy Saturday in New York when we were looking for an escape from the weather, we ended up ducking down to the Subway and making our way to Central Park and the lobby of the very crowded, but still very intriguing, Natural History Museum. The line for tickets, kept neat by linked velvet ropes, snaked around and doubled over on itself five or six times, and we stood open-mouthed for just a moment, deciding what to do. Luckily, they have installed do-it-yourself ticket machines, following cues from any airport or grocery store, and we waited for mere minutes to finish our transaction, 21st century style. There, we checked out as 3 adults and one student...and that student would be me.

At museums, or any cultural experience put behind the barrier of ticket booths, I have, for two years now, pulled the I.D. from my old Alma Mater quickly from my wallet, bandied it about tauntingly under the noses of whoever I was with, and said discreetly "My I.D. is labeled as still valid! I can still pass as a student, I get a decent discount, and no one will know!" I kept my I.D. out as we headed into the museum, ready to present the evidence assuringly if any ticket-taker dare question my status, but no one did. I put it back in my wallet with a sigh, before checking one last time the tiny date printed in the corner: 08/09. It was my very last student discount. Now, with a heavy heart, I have to retire the I.D. for good. Finally, after two years of sneaking around pretending to be a student, I have to own up to my true status as a salary-earning, full-price-paying adult. It hurts. Then again, there's always senior discount to look forward to!

A Meat Eater's Book of Excuses

2009-09-06T14:25:00.001-07:00

I'm a very un-picky eater, I'll eat just about anything you put in front of me as long as it doesn't involve brains or feet. But when someone wants to go out to eat, I've been known to immediately suggest Asian food -- yellow and red curries, pad thai, basil-spiced stir fry are all among my favorite dishes, and the thought of them can make my mouth water like a Pavlov-trained dog with a hyperactive bell. I always, too, order these dishes vegetarian style. I actually really enjoy tofu, when it's done right, and even in more traditionally American restaurants, I often order a salad without meat or a sandwich loaded with veggies. This, along with a dose of those shocking images of animal abuse that we all sometimes inadvertently stumble upon, all makes me think, frequently but fleetingly and entirely hypothetically, of trying to go vegetarian. Whenever I bring this idea up to my husband, I say I feel like I'm partly inhibited by what's easiest (he loves sausages, hamburgers, steak and meatloaf like there's no tomorrow, and having to cook two meals a night might just cause me to lose my head), and I'm partly inhibited by trying to be accommodating to others (I imagine arriving at a dinner party -- or worse, at my in-laws, good old-fashioned meat-loving folks -- and having to announce that I just can't eat half the meal). He nods patiently, and then says that he thinks I love meat more than I think I do.

This weekend, H and I ventured into the Poconos for a little romantic get-away. We arrived at our hotel amidst the hubbub that only a local festival could offer, a tiny town swarming with families and neighbors, dogs sometimes in tow, meandering through rows of booths, shaken lemonade and chicken wings in hand. We got settled into the hotel and ventured out to find something to eat, and I immediately made a b-line for the hot dog stand. As much as I like my tofu, nothing beats a good ball-park hot dog complete with ketchup and mustard on a hot summer day. This morning we popped into a diner for breakfast, and as I ordered my pancakes with a side of bacon (I LOVE bacon), I reflected on my choices. I've been eating more meat lately. And I've really been enjoying it. So, I suppose in the end, my husband is right. The choice to not go vegetarian may have something to do with convenience and a bit to do with accommodation, but a large part of it is probably just my own, regular old cravings. Regardless, I'm a meat eater by training and I supposed I won't be crossing the bridge to vegetarianism anytime soon. Of course, that doesn't mean I can't still enjoy a nice bowl of tofu curry every now and again.

Umbrella weather

2009-08-31T09:55:00.000-07:00

I don't think anyone ever has real luck with umbrellas. H insisted, awhile ago, on buying a nice, real umbrella (rather than one that shrinks up for easy accessorizing) in order to avoid that embarrassing scene when a flimsy umbrella, unable to handle the Philadelphia winds that whip like mad, pops out of shape like a rubber toy. (You all know what I'm talking about - when you see it happen to other people, it's like a comedy show. But when it happens to you, it's just plain embarrassing.) What he ended up with, mere weeks later, was a mess of little, delicate rods that were supposed to connect the cloth of the umbrella to the base, broken up and made completely dysfunctional by that same forceful weather that had thrashed our other umbrellas in and out of shape (but at least, I told him, they don't break entirely!). That umbrella went directly into the trash.

For some reason, I have been stubbornly avoiding buying another umbrella ever since. But we were in NYC this weekend, and were out on Saturday, hoping the drizzle wouldn't be able to stop us from making it to the new High Line Park where we planned a walk and a nice lunch. The rain, though, was just too much. We sopped it up for about 10 minutes before I caved and turned to a street vendor for whatever item he might have in his bag of tricks remotely resembling an umbrella. I bought what he handed to me for five dollars, no questions asked. It's small, but it'll definitely do. And when the wind blows on it, maybe I'll look ridiculous for a few moments, but at least I won't feel like I lost an investment. Now if I could have only gotten my shoes and socks dry for the day...

Dixie cup Church

2009-08-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

I'm from the almost-south, a city perched between the midwest and the southern states, with some of the charm of each. It's a place that's both tenaciously liberal (on my side of the tracks) and, in some cases, staunchly conservative. Religion comes in all shapes and sizes in my home city, but I will say that they haven't avoided the mega-church phenomenon by any means. There's a church out in the suburbs (out with the strip malls and the giant parking lots and the mega-Wal-marts), a massive octagon of black glass with a giant cross on top. Upon arriving in the U.S. for the first time to visit, my husband, a quiet adventurer with a curiosity for quirky nooks and crannies that are a bit off the beaten tourist path, demanded we go. He had to see it. It was a spectacle. I shook my head slowly -- after all, neither of us is particularly religious, and I have some bad memories of mega-church-going folk. But I was slowly convinced. Wouldn't it be interesting , after all, to see a church with two balconies and an escalator?

We sat as far up as we could, and watched the show. They had the giant, see-through pool, where they must baptize at least one person a week (they did two while we were there...a grown man who smiled goofily the whole time, and a child), they had the pop band on stage, singing about Jesus. But the thing I thought was the most incredible was the Eucharist. Grape juice passed out in little, plastic cups to everyone in the audience. Now that's the way to take in the body and blood of Jesus. In disposable cups that will be of use for 5 seconds before going to litter a landfill. Thank you, Dixie cup corporation, for your contribution to Eucharists in mega-churches everywhere. Your role is positively vital. How else, in God's name, would they get all that blood to all those people??

Kickboxing like a champ

2009-08-26T19:03:00.001-07:00

I'm a pseudo-kickboxer twice a week, meaning I go to the gym dutifully every Monday and Wednesday night where I, among other things, knee and punch a giant, stationary bag, play with imaginary nunchucks, and go wild with jump-kicks that could cause some serious damage to a threatening but unsuspecting jaw. I'm pretty sure that would translate into real-world street fighting skill absolutely not at all, but let's leave that for now.

There are always two different instructors for the two nights, each with a slightly different style. Monday is a non-stop fire-cracker of a woman who makes the time fly by because I have to furrow my brow and bite my lower lip in concentration most of the time just to keep up with her. Wednesday's instructor is slower, steady, with combinations that aren't as complex - but she kicks our butts when we go to the floor for ab work. But tonight, there was a substitute. And maybe it was out of sheer exhaustion from kicking and punching, or maybe it was delirium, because I have been known to let my arms flail a bit too much, with the consequence of hitting myself in the face every now and then, but I could swear I hardly saw her lift a finger the whole class. She yelled, she barked, she counted out the number of hits we had dealt, but she walked...slowly...around the room, like a nun in a Catholic school ready to rap your fingers for going out of form. I don't trust these teachers. I think, if you're going to show me how to do it right, you've got to sweat at least as much as I do. After all, we would like to pretend, at least for an hour once a week, that we're bad-asses who deserve to be led by an instructor who is, herself, an ultimate fighting machine.

The best way to go

2009-08-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

Having visitors is always fun, and is an opportunity for us to drag out into the open all the possibilities this city has to offer, making it a memorable trip for friends but also a good exercise for us. It rained Saturday, always an adventure since we (walking-folk) have to get creative, but we ended up in a mammoth warehouse of a store just outside of the city, with rows and rows of antiques, rickety old chests and marble-topped tables, brass plates and long, thin Turkish rugs, funky lime-green sofas and crazy sculpture-chairs made out of bottle caps (I'm not kidding). The strangest thing was just overhead, though: as we were milling our way through unique collections of material culture, you couldn't help but, at least once or twice, let your eyes roam upwards to the vaulted ceilings. There, on platforms high above our heads, were large, cushioned containers that looked vaguely like cello cases. One done in white silky material, another made to look like a boat, a third to look like a boxy car, we finally saw the sign: they were coffins. Fantasy coffins from Ghana, to be exact. My heart jumped a little, but how cool, hey?

Later, after taking it all in, we were relaxing on one of their couches, browsing some of their paper catalogs, when an employee came around with piping hot Moroccan-style tea for everyone to enjoy. Ikea, you've been one-upped. I'll definitely be returning when I'm looking for that perfect, Mercedes-Benz-shaped coffin to match my new living room decor.

Bland but Bubbly

2009-08-23T19:36:00.000-07:00

Upon returning from Europe this summer (the first time I had visited my husband's family in four years there, thanks to schooling and visas (my husband's...not mine) and lack of money), I found myself having a hankering for something that I never expected to even like: sparkling water. The first time I tried the bubbly stuff, over five years ago, I thought I would spit it right back out again. I'm not sure why - I suppose just because I never had had it before, and I somehow subconsciously associated it with carbonated anything (my midwestern mind was thinking 'oh sure, like coke!') - I was expecting something sweet and...well, something with flavor. Any flavor. Even a little bit of flavor. Heck, even a bad flavor. What I got was a mouthful of fizzy wetness. Fizzy, yes, but totally bland fizziness. I drank as much as I could and made sure to practice my pronunciation of 'flat' in my less-than-perfect accent. But this time around, I decided to give it another go. I had a fourth of a cup at one meal. I upgraded to a half a cup at another. I added a zest of lemon at a party. I suddenly liked it. I suddenly liked it a lot. I suddenly felt the need to pout just a bit internally when someone was turning the bubbly water bottle upside-down at lunch, getting the last drops of it, and all that was left was my boring flat. Flat water was suddenly like slightly grainy reception after I had been watching clear, crisp, digital genius on a screen.

And suddenly here I am, back in the States, in the midst of August heat at its best, my cup of flat, iced water sweating out of its glass next to my computer, and remembering that time a European friend asked nonchalantly for sparkling water at a restaurant here in the city and got a very confused look from the waitress who said abruptly "oh, we don't serve that." Yet, I also distinctly remember, mid-planning for a fancy party at work, someone suggesting that we serve 'bubbly water.' My ears perked up. I may just have to stick a little bit more closely by the buffet table for that shin-dig. If it's got a snobby reputation in the U.S., then call me highfalutin' and leave me to my bubbles.

A point of clarification about said adventures with city pests

2009-08-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, as I mentioned in my last post, we have had our fair share of mice. But I feel the need to elaborate so that I won't be written off as just plain gross. It was right after we moved in, H and I were settling down to a nice episode of Netflixed something-or-other, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Something scurrying? No...it couldn't be. Suddenly, my husband was saying the same thing. Is that...? No. We tried to settle back down to the story-telling bliss that is HBO drama, and then it was unmistakable. A blip in our image-flashing apartment, clear as the blood-curdling scream I let out the next moment, squeezing between a tiny little hole at the bottom of our front door. Oh, did we ever pay our city-dwelling dues then. We caught roughly 10 mice in the next week. We rigged our apartment up like a giant booby-trap, tiptoeing around metal jaws meant to break little mouse backs. When we discovered the peanut butter delicately but completely licked off one of our own safeguards, we started to buy other things: sticky traps and plastic ones that were supposed to snap shut when the mice wandered in. And here's where the oh so gruesome part of the story comes in. Those plastic traps don't work. Not well enough. In the middle of the night, just as sleep is setting in and our minds are melting into puddles of fuzziness, we here a distinct snap. Followed by a distinct squeal. Followed by a flapping noise and more squeals. We headed out to the living room to find not one but TWO little baby mice feet sticking out of the jaws, kicking and trying their hardest to get somewhere. It was, let me say, awful. To make a painful story brief, my husband dropped the trap in a bucket of water, while I sat on the couch and cried. I won't even go into what happened with the sticky traps.

So that's our mice story. And if you take away one thing let it be this: if you're catching mice, stick to the traditional traps. If they lick the peanut butter off, throw the trap away and set a new one. Words of wisdom from a reluctant but seasoned mouse torturer.

Adventures with city pests

2009-08-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

My husband and I have known our share of pests in our teensy city apartment - not that we're filthy people, but this isn't a squeeky-clean luxury condo in Bel Air (a la Fresh Prince pool house). This is the city, and if you're going to embrace it, you have to pay your dues with a little teeth-grinding over four-legged, six-legged, eight-legged, 20-legged creepy-crawlies that invade your spaces. We've had a mouse or two (or ten...ahem), and several of those damn silver fish that seem to get bigger and grow more legs by the day. Now, we're lucky enough to live in a place with a fresh little garden right outside our door, a quiet space where neighbors could mingle - that is, if we weren't dead-set on ignoring each other to prove that we're tough-skinned city folk - that offers sprays of beautiful pinks, purples and yellows and swaths of green enough to tickle any park-starved-city-dweller's fancy. A few days ago, my husband and I discovered, in this little nook of green space right outside our door, a giant web, with a giant spider busy at its center, its legs frantic with earnest work. We examined it for awhile, commented with astonishment at the magnificence of its web (it was a good four feet across), and left it alone, off in its corner to do its nature-lovin' thing. For the past several days, we've noticed that his web disappears and reappears (Does he really rebuild it every night?, we ask each other. Wow! That's amazing!) But last night, as I made my way home in the dark, rounded the corner to our door, I felt the distinct, slight, uncomfortable brush of a single silk strand run across my face. I turned to see myself face to face with our little friend, who had apparently decided that it was time to expand his territory into ours. I shuddered at the thought of a humongous, spotted spider (does that mean it's poisonous?) running up my neck, disoriented and scared, fangs ready. I dragged my husband downstairs, toting a long, flat box as our weapon of choice, and with one smooth stroke, the large anchors of his web were broken, the silk sinking slowly into a one-dimensional line, and the spider going with it. With another swoop of his arms, my husband had catapulted the spider across the yard. I pouted a bit. It seemed like such a rough hit! Couldn't you be more gentle? What if you killed him? I understand his point - he really did have to be put properly in his place, but I hope that he's still out there, ready to get busy on the other side of the garden!

Two stories of the South (well...sort of)

2009-08-16T11:34:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we biked into an oasis on the corner of town, an area so absolutely green and with such little traffic that you would think you were in the mountains of West Virginia. We went down the bike path, full of tiny hills and overlooking a picturesque river, until we came to a restaurant you could swear was right out of a movie about the Old South: a free-standing block with large windows, white, peeling columns and spacious porches on the first and second floor. Young men in white jackets were setting up for dinner, lazily putting knives and forks out on white clothed tables, and I had to think, if you walked inside the house, you're sure to see some woman in a flowing, light-pink cotton dress, nursing a jack daniels, pushing her hair out of her eyes, fanning herself and defending her father's honor with a proud, haughty chin and a milky drawl that would make you swoon with thoughts of dead worlds. It had a slowness, and a sweetness to it, that you don't find much while living in the city, and that was really pleasant.

I rarely meet people from the South, but I was recently in Florida - I swam in the Gulf on a pretty, warm evening, the only one out in the sea for a few minutes, before one man, beer-gutted and carrying a plastic pepsi bottle with some kind of neon yellow liquid in it, came out to my area. He was followed by a buddy, and they talked to me for awhile. They were from Mississippi, had taken up jobs as roadies to get out of their hometown. They liked Florida, and they laughed hysterically when I told them I was in town for a conference. As I was leaving the water, one called back that he would come around and find me in my part of the world when they visited.

I've traveled a lot of places in the U.S., but I've never really been to the deep south, besides Florida (which doesn't count as 'deep south', does it??). Its history is fascinating at times, grotesque at times, it seems to me. But for me, and maybe partly because I really have never been there, the real South, outside of the swarming cities, will always be heavy with the majesty and tragedy of families, fictitious or not, that once clung to haunted space. And I wonder now whether the Mississippi boys, Mountain Dew guzzling, tattooed and friendly as all get-out (to white women, at least), would agree. Who knows. Maybe they'll find me someday, out of the blue, and I can pose the question to them properly.

An Imperfect Space

2009-08-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

The idea for a blog has been stirring in my head for a year now, and there it has gone through dozens of manifestations: a platform for commentary on gender, a place for play, a chronicle of tidbits that reflect the weirdest and wackiest from the pages of printed material (where the title of the blog came from - which stuck with me), an outlet for the complaints of a lowly nine-to-fiver - but finally, here I am carving out a tiny space for myself, on a whim, and trying to stay focused on letting it be *imperfect* and wind its way around all of my interests, my lives, and my stories, over time. I'm away from what was long home, and it never hurts to have a place for reaching out to old friends and new ones. So, welcome! Come and go. Read and comment. I hope I can offer you something worth your time and attention.