Grab-Bag Day

I don't have anything pressing on my mind that I feel driven to blog about, so here's a random smattering of what's happening in my life.

I'm moving! Hopefully. Apartment hunting is difficult when you can't feasibly pay more than $500 a month for your own share and you have highly specified geographic needs.

I'm auditioning! I think. For this group called True Colors, an out youth theater group in Boston. I have a friend who worked/works with the program. I haven't done any theater in so long, I would be really happy to get back into it in any capacity. Audition is this Thursday. Gulp.

I'm knitting! A scarf. I should also be crocheting a hat and knitting fingerless gloves, but I'm having trouble sticking with one project (story of my life).

I'm using the computer more than ever! Which is funny, because mine is broken, and I have to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS. Funfact: I'm more likely to use the internet on someone else's computer than on my own!

I'm planning themed updates! Maybe. I just have so many things I'm thinking of doing, I'm wondering if posting about them on given days of the week/month might encourage me to keep up with them. Like practicing violin. Or knitting projects. Or writing poetry.

I'm late for work! Oh, really am late for work. Wrapping up then.

Thought of the Day: For reasons unknown, I seem to be pathologically unable to correctly make a roux, or even remember what a roux is.

Isha

Epicurean Adventures

Tonight, I made food. Successfully. This isn't exactly unusual, but I did it without the help of a recipe, and mostly off the top of my head, which is quite unusual indeed. So I now present (with special thanks to Rachel Schneck):

Epicurean Adventures: Parisian Stir-fry, Variation no.2

Begin with 2 parts boredom, 1 part avoidance of blogging. Now, enter kitchen and assess the situation. Gather:

Potatoes

Carrots

Onions

String beans

Chicken Breast

Slice chicken breast into strips. Thinly slice potatoes, as though scalloping them. Wash and cut carrots julienne style (think the approximate size of french fries, slightly thicker). Cut onions in thin slices. Wash string beans. Microwave carrots for 30 sec to a minute, and potatoes for 45 sec to 2 minutes. In a large pan, combine chicken and onions in oil. Sautee with salt, pepper, tarragon, rosemary, nutmeg and basil, to taste. Add potatoes and carrots. If there is clearly more than can fit in one pan, sautee chicken separately. Cook on low heat with cover to avoid burning. Either place string beans on top of mixture to steam, or braise/steam/boil separately. Allow to cook for 20 minutes, checking periodically.

Decide that you need to make a sauce. Open fridge. Gather:

Heavy cream/ Milk/ Half n' half/ Light cream

Cheddar/ Parmesan/ Emmental/ whatever you can grate

Butter

Flour

Make a very imprecise roux. Melt a tablespoon of butter at low temp in saucepan, gradually stirring in flour until thickish and fluffy. Begin adding cream in similar manner. Grate in cheese, always stirring vigorously. Use a wooden spoon or whisk. Continue until you have reached desired quantity and thickness. Remove from heat and pour over French stir-fry. Enjoy.

Mine came out slightly under done, owing to too much potato and not enough pan.

In other news, might be auditioning for an out-youth-theater-thing here in Boston. Could be fun. I think I need a monologue.

Thought of the day:

Why do I only want to read romance novels in a house filled with Vonnegut and Coelho?

Isha

No excuses

So I spent all morning in bed and I have to be at work in 40 minutes. I'm also reading my blog from yesterday and cringing at all the drivel. Tempted to delete it, but then I'd be short a post.

Since I have no time to do anything interesting here, I'm going to send you there:

McSweeney's Internet Tendency

Go read some hilarity from people more eloquent than myself. Might I suggest "Decorative Gourd Season".

(Politically Incorrect) Thought of the day: In post-Soviet Mafia faction ruled Russia, hooker kills you!

Isha

And this is why I try not to watch the news.

For a long time, my boyfriend identified as an anarchist. For a brief time, he believed in collapsitarianism. He has never believed that Obama would be a good president. This is perhaps the only point of contention in our relationship, and it isn't particularly contentious, as neither of us sees any merit in arguing over our personal stance on a man we have never met.

I support Obama. During the 2008 elections, when total economic collapse seemed frighteningly possible and Sarah Palin might have been our next Vice President, my support had a sort of grim desperation to it. I believed in Obama, but I was braced for the alternative; deep down, I was preparing to lose. Then we won. I went to a school of 600 students, 98% Democrat/Other, 0% Palin supporters, 100% cynical, jaded hipsters, hippies, and intellectuals, breath held and fingers crossed. 10 minutes after the preliminary electoral results, half my campus sang "God Bless America" outside the Student Center. It was like a miracle.

Yesterday, I watched Jon Stewart. Topic of the day; State of the Union Address. It's been two years since, with high hopes and great expectations, we inaugurated the 44th President. I don't really watch the news, or read the paper, and I'm not very well informed about National or Global affairs, so I admit that I had only the vaguest of outlines of what has happened in our country these last two years. How's the country doing, these days? Well, according to Obama, as interpreted by Jon Stewart, not that great. And although the address was interesting, and Stewart entertaining, what piqued my interest was his guest on the show. Jonathan Alter is the author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One. Alter paints an interesting behind the scenes portrait of the decisions Obama was a part of and pushed through in his first year, and boldly stated that he had "accomplished more, in terms of his record, than any president since Lyndon B. Johnson." Jon Stewart made, obviously, a wry remark about quantity vs. quality of those decisions, and that got me thinking.

I looked around the web a little, looking for things that Obama's done had a hand in accomplishing, and noticed that most of the lists weren't very favorable. Most of what I found was on personal blogs, so of course there's a prejudice, but there was a repetitive formula of "he promised x, we expected y, and instead of delivering z, gave us Q.

This is where the opening paragraph is relevant. My boyfriend is the person who would point to these things and say, Not a good president, QED. I am the person who argues that he came into office under a tremendous amount of pressure, in an impossible situation, that he has had to contend with surprising opposition even when making compromises, and he's just halfway through his first term. I make excuses. I'm having some trouble being that person today.

I'm not sure Obama is really a good President. I hope that he's trying to be a good President, I hope that he does succeed in his goals and I hope that he does prove himself to be one of the greatest Presidents in our history. But hope isn't enough.

When Gene Robinson gave his prayer the day before the inauguration, he said something I considered insightful, and looking back now, mildly prophetic. He implored the American people, and perhaps just people, not to make him into the Messiah; he asked God, essentially, to allow us to see him as a man, and remember than men are flawed. Obama went into office a colossus, larger than life, with all our hope settled firmly on his shoulders. Those hopes have not shrunk, but the colossus has revealed himself to be not much bigger we are.

I don't have a conclusion to this observation. I find myself wondering if the man we made a legend, is really just a myth. I wonder what happened to the shouts of "Yes We Can"; to the spontaneous peals of "The Star Spangled Banner"; to the Democratic majority; to withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan; to reforming healthcare; to change? I wonder if we can stand behind a man when we're no longer in his shadow. I wonder if anyone is willing to try.

Thought of the Day: I am.

Isha

Analog People

It's very noisy in my head today.

Yesterday, while on the phone with my mother, I described myself as an "analog person". We were having a discussion about bulletin boards in relation to apartment hunting, and I made the observation that bulletin boards are less frequently used these days than online message boards. By online message board, I mean anything from Craigslist to the more recently discovered Lemmingtrail.com, insipid, hipster-trolling wasteland though it may be.

My mother stopped me, questioning, Analog person? You'd describe yourself that way? I hesitated a moment, stalling. Well, yes, in the sense that I find the thought of an actual bulletin board comforting; made of real cork and covered in flyers and posters and business cards. When it comes right down to it, when I need to write a note, I'm always going to reach for the pen and paper before I reach for the smartphone.

Now, though, reflecting a little, I'm not sure that's entirely true. The part about the smartphone, yes, but I'm more likely to use Craigslist than a flyer on a telephone pole. I certainly use email several orders of magnitude more frequently than the postal system, and there are certain people I am much more likely to converse with over Facebook than on the telephone. Even by making this blog, I am admitting that I'm more likely to write something if I'm posting it to the internet than if I'm writing in a leather-bound journal. Which brings up all sorts of interesting questions about introspection and the public forum, but the more relevant question here, is, if I am an "analog person", wouldn't I prefer paper to a key board?

I'm rethinking my answer, considering very carefully. I am not, to my own mind, tech-savvy enough to consider myself a "digital person". On the other hand, I have an email address, a Facebook account, an aim screen name from middle school, a Skype account, a defunct LiveJournal account I created under duress and never used, hell, I even have a blog that I've resolved to use daily. It would seem disingenuous, and more than slightly naive, to not describe myself as digital.

This dichotomy, "analog people" and "digital people"; well it actually seems a little contrived. Fifteen years ago, not so much. Ten even. Relevant for many born before 1950, belonging to certain religions, or raised in a far-flung or impoverished corner of the world, by American standards at least. In a similar vein of sweeping generalizations, if you live in what has been termed the first world, and frankly even if you don't, the odds of not encountering digital technology in your lifetime have dwindled to practically nothing. The odds of using digital technology have increased manifold, and the odds of it becoming an every day convenience or necessity are probably approaching 2:1.

I'm getting away from myself. I'm not posing a general question, I'm posing a specific one, a personal one, and I'm looking for a personal answer.

I look at the calendar on my wall more than the one on my phone. E-readers, though useful and compact, seem a poor replacement for paperbacks. I planned half my senior project on a dry-erase board and butcher paper. I have a vinyl pressing of Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life, none of which is in my iTunes. And I think no matter how technologically inclined I become, most of these things will remain true. No matter how cool or convenient digital media becomes, some things are more satisfying when they're not on a screen.

I suppose the truth is I'm a hybrid person, inclined to use a combination of what's easiest, what's nearest at hand, and what's most personally rewarding. And I think the same can be said for most people.

Thought of the Day:

I do not fancy myself a philosopher.

Isha

Reboot

Ok, so the truth is I'm just terrible at ever keeping up with anything EVER.

Thusly I have set a new goal for myself: everyday, between now and next year, I will post something to this page. It could be anything. A video, a poem, a song, a thought I had on the train. A picture. A word. Just something. Anything.

Welcome to my personal attempt at consistence. Project open to public viewing.

Thought of the day:

I have escaped the pitfall of wanting "fake love", as presented by Chuck Klosterman, by virtue of the fact that my boyfriend has never seen Say Anything, When Harry Met Sally, and does not listen to Coldplay. We revel in our ignorance and idealism.

Isha