upon finally cleaning off a tarp.

My bathtub is covered in a thin layer of playa dust.

happy!

More on the sex slaves article.

Jack Shafer is one grumpy critic, but Stacy says he often calls people on poor research and in the end turns out to be right. Upon reading Landesman article I referenced below, Shafer wrote “Doubting Landesman”. The Magazine editor, of course, responded immediately, and Shafer rebutted.

Surely politics, and the American emotional need to uphold a moral standards image, plays into the debate. (We wouldn’t have a booming sex slave industry because there isn’t enough clientele for one in our family-values-oriented nation, right?) I’m certain that some of Shafer’s points are valid; his friend the Coastal Expert sure is convincing. It still chills me to the bone to think that this is going on, regardless of its scale.

Potage des haricots blancs, coutesy of Stu.

Oh, it is nice to know foody people. Witness:

Sautée some onions, carrots and leeks in butter. Add a hambone* and the already soaked white beans (3 cups dried) to that, and 7 cups of chicken stock. Cook forever. Take out the bone, and purée. Add 1 cup cream. Consistency of soup should be that of heavy cream. Put some freshly minced parsley in at the end.

* or smoked pork hoc, or sautée up some pancetta together with the initial veggies.

Excellent, excellent. The only thing I added was a bunch of pepper; and could’ve probably used a bit more salt, but watch out: the ham might provide quite enough salt on its own. What a marvelous, simple cold-weather soup. Crusty bread with it, mmm.

How many carrots/leaks/onions? Hell if I know. Eyeballed it, putting in one huge chopped carrot, half a thick stalk of leek and half an onion, the latter without cutting it. I wasn’t sure about the amount of the onion family in the soup, and rather dislike soups that are too onion-y. So ended up taking the regular onion out at the end. In retrospect, could’ve probably put in a bit more leek; I think I like the smoky-mild taste of it, sautéed. The large half-Spanish-onion was just right. The cream I put in was light, and heavy might have just overdone it, for once. The final dish is gorgeous and velvety, with its Great Northern bean and real chicken broth base.

(Yeah, I made real chicken broth, as Whole Foods had chicken bones and I’m huddling at home as much as I can in this cold. Hopefully, this time I’ll actually freeze some of the broth to use later. Simple! Chicken, potato, onion, carrot, parsnip, Vegeta, parsley. Simmer. Don’t forget to take off the foam after the meat simmers a while, or it won’t be clear.)

Orkut oracle

Today’s fortune:
Happy events will take place shortly in your home.

Well, indeed! Getting rid of more material possessions (something I enjoy doing once in a while, a bit of purge), for my love’s moving here in nine days. How strange and exciting is this?!

I’ve been working more consistently. I like serenity deep inside.

A little too close to home.

Coming out of the supermarket yesterday, the sunset drew a sudden, laughing “whoa!” out of my chest. Cold, not a hint of the star’s heat getting through; but clouded over just enough to make the western sky a fireplace in nature’s home. Whispy orange dissolved into the gray-blue around it, and all the colors were steel-shimmery, this is what our human technology wants so painfully to achieve.

I clutched at my shopping bags with the full-spectrum bulbs and chocolate in them, my little spells against the winter. Had we never emigrated from my beautiful city, I would likely still be reasonably well educated and lived the best life I could in the changing seasons halfway across the world.

Or, regardless of my social standing or level of education, I could also have been lured by the prospect of a better life, trafficked, raped and beaten into a submissive stupor, and imported into the United States as a prostitute-slave.

Do I know any of these girls?…

so sad.

Cybertext review

I’m not a very astute self-promoter, am I? A few weeks ago, the Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies published my review of Espen Aarseth’s Cybertext. If you have any comments, I’d be interested.

How the mighty have fallen!

I’ve been tempted by, and have succumbed to, Orkut. The Google-affiliated site seems to be combining elements of Friendster’s unassuming stance with the somewhat risqué elements of Nerve Personals. I’m not sure what I think about that, especially since Orkut seems to be promoting business contacting; but I’m interested enough to see how this works out, so I’ve joined.

I’m happy to invite people, too; in fact, am actively seeking volunteers. I don’t like disclosing people’s e-mail addresses unless they’re specifically okay with it, so if you’re reading it and would like to participate, leave a comment and I’ll ping you through Orkut! One big happy Internet.

Oh, and if you’re already part of it, let me know also. I’d like to find more people.

eavesdropping

The local Indian grocer calls me “madam.” He pronounces it the way the French do, ma dame. He sells tiny zip-locked plastic baggies of cardamom and wildly purple tiny aubergines. Shriveled-looking pomegranates, obviously intended for cooking, inhabit the middle-left produce shelf near the refrigerator full of Indian TV dinners and exotic juices. Against the wall are ghee, coconut milk and spices of every shade; across the room are incense, henna and other non-edibles. He’ll sell you chopped fish frozen in blocks of ice, cheap; product of Indonesia.

Today, three young men jovially burst in and chattered animatedly in what must’ve been Hindi, glancing around the store with casual interest. Suddenly, one of them turned to the seller and asked: “How much for a whole lamb?,” almost immediately adding: “I can see you’re excited, I know – so how much?”

As my debit card transaction was going through, I learned that a 23-24 pound lamb is likely to cost about $85.

It has just been pointed out to me:

Today is 1/23/4.

facing west.

My windows face mostly west. On clear, cold days, the setting sun sets everything around me on fire with brilliant amber; within three minutes, cools off with a pinkish Martian red. Slate dusk descends just as suddenly.

fruits of the web: chocolate and zucchini.

Entry number 101 feels like Food 101: I can’t believe I haven’t yet raved about Clotilde’s weblog. Her relationship to food makes me swoon, and I want to try ALL of her recipes right NOW.

fruits of the earth and sea.

Cooking is one of my most beloved activities. It is, largely, how I relate to people. Why don’t I blog more about things I make?

Friend came over today, for dinner-making and conversation. Marvelous evening, all told, complete with some culinary experimentation. I often make things I’ve never made before, either from interesting-sounding recipes, or from my head. The two of us put our heads together to come up with the below-described seafood dish; the soup is from my Mediterranean cookbook, easily the best volume on my cookbook shelf.

Zucchini soup. Mm-mm. Who would’ve thought to put dolcelatte (or, in my case, sweet gorgonzola) into a pureed soup? Not me, not just now. But oh, what fragrance. Fry up a medium-sized Spanish onion in some oil and butter until soft. Add 2 lbs. zucchini, some salt and pepper, and a teaspoon – they say – of dried oregano. (I used a bit more than a teaspoon, and my oregano was ground.) Stir around to soften, for about 10 minutes. Add 2.5 cups of vegetable stock (mine was mixed 3/4 veg, 1/4 tasty mushroom bouillon), bring to a boil, then simmer slowly for about 30 minutes.

Phase two. Add 4 oz. of crumbled dolcelatte and stir until it’s melted. Blend in a food processor, the recipe admonishes, and strain back into the pot through a sieve. I personally used my trusty hand blender, and did not strain. This may have left it coarser than the original chefs intended, but gave it a wonderful character and made it more interesting to eat, lingering on the texture. Add between 2/3 and 3/4 cup light cream. (Another substitution - I used up my last packet of thick Italian panna and diluted it with 2% milk. What?! It was what I had! Plus, it’s tasty; plus, it’s Parmalat and thus makes me nostalgic.) Stir, taste and adjust for seasonings, heat back up until hot but not boiling, stirring all the while. Serve with some freshly ground black pepper and more swirled-in cream. And fresh oregano on top, if you’ve got it. Oh, and crusty, well-made (but not strongly flavored) bread.

So that was the modified-recipe mode. Improvisational mode kicked in when we turned our attention to the 1-lb packet of frozen seafood I’d defrosted but had no specific plans for. C. and I came up with the following, rooting through the cupboards.

(Incidentally, I *heart* those ever-more-frequent moments when I can root through my cupboards and find interesting things with which to improvise.)

Fry up some shallots, a yellow pepper and shiitake-like dried mushrooms, soaked in some more of that broth we’d used for the soup. Butter and olive oil serve as the fat base, and we added some lemon as well. When the veggies are nicely browned but still retain their dignity, throw in the defrosted seafood (which, in this case, consisted of tiny shrimps, many baby octopi, ringlets of squid and pieces of clam). I seasoned with a very little bit of cayene, and significantly more white pepper. Saute until done, Do Not Overcook or the seafood will toughen. Add a little more of the broth, if need be; it’s much better to boil off a little excess liquid than have dried-up dish. Serve with ground black pepper on top.

Coffee and decadent dark chocolate with orange, later. My inner child is delighted.

Oh, you son of a bitch.

I don’t usually swear gratuitously in writing. Lest I continue sputtering uselessly, I will shut up, and refer you to a short post by Xtina, who curses much more to-the-point than I.

When is this goddamn administration going to stop telling me what to do with my body, my interpersonal relationships, my life?!

bibliographic sos.

Does anyone happen to have book 5 of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, Wolves of the Calla? I’m checking them out for work, believe it or not. If you’ve got a copy and are not afraid to loan it to me, you will have my undying gratitude. The loan would have to be for at least a month, optimally until May or June.

the invisible blogger dissertates.

While, it might seem, being a female weblogger may be a frustrating, futile affair, I’m not discouraged from posting. What I am discouraged by, at the moment, is the weight of the Thesis. It is seeping into my bones, massive and menacing, as expected around this time. I am yet a year and a half away from graduation (best-case scenario), but there’s a lot to do, and it is monumentally difficult to take a project of this magnitude one step at a time.

Last year, I took a look at Joan Bolker’s Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day: A Guide to Starting, Revising, and Finishing Your Doctoral Thesis. Of course, she isn’t proposing that the “you”-subject of the book only work for fifteen minutes each day. She is, however, proposing that I make myself do fifteen minutes of good, solid work, and then see where that leads me. There’s more, of course – a book’s worth of decent advice, actually – but this is the gist. If things just aren’t productive on a given day, that’s okay. Squeeze out the fifteen minutes and go on with life, doing things that you feel can be accomplished at this moment when your brain just isn’t in the right frame of mind to dissertate.

It takes me a while to get into a good working groove on Roland. [Once|If] I do, several more good hours are likely to follow; but the getting into it part is difficult. So I’m adopting Bolker’s advice, with modifications. A two-and-a-half-hour stretch set aside, in which I can only work on thesis. If thesis isn’t going, I’ll participate in activities that require no external input (thinking, meditation, yoga) and produce no external output (no blogging or cooking or cleaning, for example).

Part of me wonders whether this will affect my personality, as it is expressed in relating to other people. Will I become less likely to seek others’ company? More likely to go for long walks? More or less articulate about the subject of my thesis, let alone other important topics? Hm.

On a different note entirely, there are no official provisions for collaborating with others on the subject of one’s dissertation, in the humanities. Or are there? Am I just not seeing guidelines where some actually exist? Perhaps I will contact the Graduate Council again, and formally arrange with them for technical collaboration with a colleague. So that there aren’t Issues later.

Of course, if said colleague releases some code as open-source (or a Creative Commons-type license), then even a formal permission shouldn’t be necessary.

round and round.

I get into these mental loops

where I take the time to reconnect with myself and my [larger-than-Roland] world
and all the while question whether I can afford to be taking the time
but *know* that it’s important, and that it’s what keeps me happy
but then wonder if I’m just a slacker who’s all talk and no action

and then I look at my work and think no, I’ve done some things I’m proud of, and others are in progress
and return to the reconnecting, but go through this same loop again
none of it is drastic, just kind of comes and goes in waves

taking time out to reconnect should probably happen regularly, no matter what, because burnout is no fun and after a while you just start spinning your wheels while trying to work, and not using time efficiently –
but the trouble is, overload-mode is sometimes my most productive time

but yes, it’s important to take the time regularly
although it doesn’t get me out of the loops: I’m a graduate student, am not *supposed* to have a life ever

etc.

Libraries, and privacy.

It’s so much easier to throw up the smaller updates once you’re done with the larger one.

Remember when the gummint made waves, trying to track terrorists and similar undesirables through library records? Well, this is heartening, at least.

words end in winter.

First we forgot where we’d planted those bulbs last year, and then we forgot that we’d planted at all. Then we forgot what plants are altogether, and I blamed you for my freezing and forgetting. And the nights were long and cold and scary; can we live through February?

I took the time to go to California over the holidays, to visit my family, have my love meet my mother, and go preside over a session at the MLA in San Diego. (Preside, v. bask in the coolness of one’s presenters and participate in lively debate, without actually having had to write a paper.)

MLA was fun! I very much wish I could’ve stayed for the whole thing, but family took precedence. My session’s respondent was stuck in Denver with a broken airplane, which was a cryin’ shame because we’d all been really looking forward to having him there. Hopefully, our paths will cross at some later point.

Holidays with my California-residing family are never boring, and this year proved no exception. For the first time since my father passed away, I was there on the anniversary of that day; so E., my mother and I made the trip over to the cemetery and stood in the drizzling tinny rain, contemplating words to say. On another day altogether, two of us sneaked out of the house in the early hours of the morning, drove over to Malibu and the Pacific Coast Highway, and greeted the sun on the ocean’s shore. Rather chilly, but the most gorgeous sunrise I’ve seen in a while, with the added bonus of a lapping-water soundtrack and ocean salt on our breath.

My grandmother’s Alzheimer’s is progressing, and things are difficult for everyone. There are so many challenges associated with this that the sole mitigating factor of my mother’s cousin being there to help out is but a drop in the bucket.

Upon returning home to Providence, I spent a week or two reassembling my worklife; which brings us to now. Now, the weather is cold and dreary. Hasn’t been daylight enough in ages, which affects me more strongly than I’d like. Tasks take much more time than usual, and sleep is a precious commodity of which I seem to need more in the winter. It is difficult to do anything, much less keep up the pace I usually have no trouble maintaining.

And so I light candles against the darkness, put on music, buy gorgeous vegetables that do not smell of summer at all and wake them up by cooking them. Then I work, huddled in sweater and blanket, Earl Gray with milk in the mug beside me, soft warm metal of the laptop reassuring against my leg.

Solstice is past, and the days are lengthening little by little.

You know the little film that sometimes forms on top of milk, if you’re warming it slowly enough?

I actually really like that. It’s silky and tenuous.

If I get enough work done tonight, I’m allowing myself the luxury of updating the blog that’s been so neglected, the peanut gallery has actually begun to expostulate. And, oh, I’ll get enough work done tonight: it seems to be Appreciation Eve for my drug of choice, hot and fragrant in its black coffee mug with yellow writing.