10 Things

Thursdays are the worst. It's the end of a long day at the end of long week at the end of a long quarter. Blerg.

That brings us to my ten things (stolen from a running series by MaryPosa):

1) School makes me sad. At the end of my three hour class tonight I wanted to jab my pencil into my brain. Two more weeks . . . I may die. Mostly I'm just exhausted.

2) Eating hot Dick's. Sometimes one just needs greasy, empty calories to make the pain go away.

3) The Jack Rose. Fast food and alcohol are a magical, magical combination. The Jack Rose is currently one of my favorite cocktails. Take 2 ounces of Applejack (Laird's is the only company that makes this apple liquor; French Calvados is also acceptable). Add an ounce of fresh lime juice, and a half ounce of grenadine (I make my own from pomegranate juice and sugar). Shake it over ice and pour into a coktail glass. Delicious town! GQ says it's the booziest cocktail you'll drink five of. My day is much better, by the way.

4) Kind things said by others about oneself. It's very gratifying and humbling. We're always so inside our own heads, that's it's always refreshing to hear what others think about us, especially when it's the good stuff.

5) I really need a manicure. I was introduced to this cosmetic treatment by Slarue and Rae. My nails were so pretty! Now they're dull and ragged. But who will go to the salon with me?

6) Speaking of cosmetics, my skin is looking pretty good. It's probably all that money I'm spending on strange chemicals and then applying them to my largest organ. Oh, and helpful tips from acne.org like using a featherlight touch and avoiding scrubs. One day I might like to try a more natural oil regimen (oil dissolves oil after all), but I'm afeard for my skin.

7) I finished reading Neverwhere. It's only the second Neil Gaiman novel I've read. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I think Gaiman's a great storyteller but not as great a writer (he's still pretty damn good). I think The Sandman is genius and I love his short stories, but something in the execution of his novels is lacking. Now I'm reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I'm really liking it.

8) I'm betting most of you have seen the Xtranormal videos. Here's one called Library School: Hurts So Good.

There's also a pretty good one about getting a PhD in the humanities. It makes me laugh. and cry.

9) Now that I have a job where I can listen to my iPod again, I have reunited with my podcasts (and it feels so good!). Listening to TBTL, This American Life, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, The Weeklings, Selected Shorts, and Planet Money makes work a lot better. I'm also more connected to current events. Win win!

10) Tina Fey is a comedy goddess. She was recently awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. It was broadcast on PBS. You should at least watch her acceptance speech. You can see video here.

Mary, Full of Grace and Other Stories

"I'm not very religious. So there's the risk that my praying could be taken as insincere or even an affront, which if it's a vengeful God could have made matters worse." --The West Wing

On Sunday, halfway through the Josh Ritter concert, I realized that my car, in addition to a burnt-out headlight, was expired. So as I got into my car, I said a little "Mary, full of grace" which is all I know of the Hail Mary prayer. I did end up taking a bit of a detour through downtown which I was trying to avoid, but I made it home safe and sound without getting pulled over. I thought that was very successful.

I'm still working on my car. I finally replaced the headlight today, an ordeal that nearly resulted in multiple breakdowns. Firstly, the old light would not come out of the spring clip, so I finally decided to unscrew this screw and then the whole clip popped out. Not awesome. However, the light came out very easily at this point. Then I tried to screw the clip back in, but I have very large, shaky hands which are not ideal for working in small, hard to reach places. I also lost the head of a screwdriver into the bowels of my car, so I'm just hoping that it's adding structural integrity wherever it's currently lodged.

At this point, it was time to take a break, and buy the replacement bulb. Today I decided to try again, and I did get the clip screwed in! However, at some point during the tug-of-war, I guess I broke the itty-bitty thing the clip hooks into. Still I was able to jam the light in, albeit crookedly, and replace the dust cover. The light works. I said another Mary, full of grace in the hopes that it will continue to work, and that I didn't break anything else.

I still need to register my car in the state of Washington so it will be legal and everything which means I need to find the title of ownership. My parents don't have it, and it wasn't in the usual places where I would probably keep such an important document (I really should have one, centralized location, but I don't). This means I will need to comb through my room which I have not done since I moved in way back in September. The prospects look bleak. And the replacement title from the Utah DMV, like all important legal documents, makes me feel a little bit nauseous (which, by the way, is an acceptable usage of that word).

The job hunt is bleak, as always. I don't really know where to begin, though I somehow managed to send out my resume to five places today, so I guess that's something. I'm not really sure how I've landed any of the jobs I've previously had--I've probably blocked out those memories, so I'm always at a loss as how to proceed. I was contacted by the one job I did want, but they were interviewing while I was in SLC, so that didn't happen. Le sigh.

Well, enough moaning, let's move on to happier thoughts, shall we?

I have now been to more concerts in Seattle (in less than a year) than I have in my entire life. Concerts are fun, but they can also be tedious and expensive, and unless I know and love the artist, I have little interest in going. Hey Marseilles gave a free lunchtime concert downtown as part of a summer series. Lillian and I went, and it was awesome: free, no waiting, and I love Hey Marseilles. Lillian and I grabbed lunch at Pike's Place and hiked up and down Post Alley.

On Sunday, as I've mentioned, I went to see Josh Ritter at the ShowBox and it was great. I have to say that Josh Ritter is a bit more awkward looking than he appears in photos, still he was infectious jumping up and down the stage grinning like a Cheshire cat. The enthusiasm of the musicians and the audience was excellent. I think Ritter's true gift is for songwriting, but he still gives a great live performance. Zacharia Hickman, on the electric bass, looked very retro-cool in a bespoke plaid suit with a pocket square, in addition to horn-rimmed glasses and a perfectly groomed handlebar mustache. One day, I want to be half as cool.

The drinking adventures of Meagan and Greg have been temporarily postponed seeing as how I currently have no money. Still, we've already had a decent start. During finals week we started out with a bang celebrating Susan's birthday, Heidi's farewell, and the start of our drinking. Chloe gave each of us dark chocolate candies made with sea salt--delicious! We started out at Zayda Buddy's Minnesotan pizza house (Minnesota pizza is loaded with meat and cut into squares) where I learned that I really don't like wheat ales, but fried cheese curds are delicious. We then went to King's Hardware we we drank cheap beer (Hamm's; it's gross) and I had not-nearly-salty-enough chips and salsa. Here is the group of intrepid librarians.

(Or rather this is where the picture would be if Blogger wasn't stupid.)

We finished the night at Tahiku where we all had specially infused cocktails that are supposedly aphrodisiacs: limit one per customer! I had the Manhattan but I didn't feel particularly drunk or aroused so whatever. Cadi and I drove to Dick's on our way home. Cheap, greasy food is essential after long bouts of drinking.

Last Friday, a group of us went to The Zig Zag Cafe, a swanky cocktail lounge at Pike's Place. I had the Alaska (gin) and Champs Elysees (brandy) cocktails, and then, finally, The Last Word, which is why we went in the first place. The Last Word is a Prohibition-era cocktail made with equal parts of gin, lime juice, green Chartreuse, and Maraschino liqueur. It is awesome. If I had money, I would consider investing in Chartreuse and Maraschino just to make this drink. We first heard about the drink at a pub trivia night. The question was to name the four equal ingredients of The Last Word, a favorite cocktail of Hemingway's (supposedly). I think we choose gin, rum, lime, and whiskey (hey, it's Hemingway!) which would surely be disgusting. We ended the night at McDonald's for our cheap, greasy food fix.

As I've mentioned, my summer reading list is falling by the wayside. I did finish Lowcountry Summer which, well... So I've been disappointed a lot lately by contemporary fiction in general--maybe the novel really is over--but this tripe is one the worst books I have ever read in my life. The story is neither funny nor poignant. The characters are one-dimensional, and the protagonist is shallow and annoying. The prose is limp and uninspired. I only finished it out of some perverse masochism. I'm thinking I should pick up Amusing Ourselves to Death since my TV habits have gotten out of hand and maybe The Magicians which is a contemporary novel, but Rae and Mary have recommended it, so I feel safe. I'm still wading through The Iliad.

I was going to post my summer playlist, but I'm still working on it and this post is long enough already. Besides, it still doesn't feel like summer here yet. I know last year Seattle had a heat wave where it broke 100, but usually the summers here don't get past the 80s, so it might never feel like summer. I can't believe it's already July.

Thoughts

I pretty much squandered last week, but that's okay because it was technically finals week. Oh, and I did finish my JavaScript project on Wednesday which only took like five hours. This is the end result--it's nothing fancy but it's done. This week is officially spring break, and I'm going to Portland tomorrow for the PLA conference. I will probably feel incredibly underdressed in khakis and whatever I wear with all those librarians. I need to do laundry today. I also need to go shopping--maybe in Portland where there's no sales tax!

Anyway, in what follows is a long, rambling, incoherent stream of thoughts about not just the health care bill, but about our nation's political health in general. Let me be clear--these are my own nascent thoughts. So the health care bill finally passed, and I actually don't know that much about it. When I still lived and worked in Utah I listened to NPR's Morning Edition every morning and Talk of the Nation on my way home every afternoon. I will admit that I think NPR generally, usually leans left of center although NPR denies it. Still, I think they embody journalistic integrity, and when listening to NPR, I felt well-informed. At work I listened to and Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me!, This American Life, and TBTL. Since moving to Seattle I only occasionally listen to TBTL and never to NPR. I miss it a lot, but I hardly ever drive here (radio is so much better in the car!), and I'm months behind on the one podcast I semi-regularly listen to. All of this is to say that I have no idea, none whatsoever, what the current health care bill that we finally passed looks like. Still I'm excited since this means I will probably have health care one way or another, that Obama got to pass the pet issue he led and championed--otherwise he would already be a lame duck president--and also that the Democrats finally found the cojones to pass the bill.

In not knowing what the health bill comprises, I am sure I am not alone. I feel that the Republicans have been spreading a lot of misinformation and fear about the bill. Remember Death Panels? What a joke, except people actually fell for it. I respect Republicans who have a different vision for what's best for the country that differs from the Democrats' vision. However, I do not respect people, on either side of the political chasm, who participate in the xenophobic abuse we've largely seen from the conservatives: refusing to even participate in an open dialogue about issues, stonewalling every attempt, crying fowl whenever the Democrats engaged in the very same behavior that Republicans have used to their own advantage in previous Congresses, and spreading misinformation about the issues. The same tactics that have lead commentators, and the public, to believe the government is broken which stems from what? That the president is black? At one point, the health care bill looked very similar to a previous health care bill created by Republicans. Health care itself has been broken for years, so it seems only irresponsible to not try to fix it, but these tactics are even more irresponsible. If Obama and the Democrats could not pass health care, their platform issue, I think the Republicans believed they would take back Congress in the midterms and the White House in 2012. (And who knows, they still might.) So the Republicans refused to even be open to health care. It was not about responsible governing, it was about politics. It's really a shame that politics and governing go hand in hand since they're diametrically opposing forces.

Not to mention that Republicans receive a lot of money and support from big business and insurance companies. It's not the complete lack of bipartisan compromise in Washington, but also the obscene lobbying that leads me to believe our government is broken. It's going to take some serious and real campaign finance and lobbying reform in D.C. before we can have open and reasonable discourse again (so probably never). But maybe the Enlightenment principles that our country was built on, no longer work. They certainly don't apply when those in power disregard them. Perhaps the Constitution is a quaint document in the political malaise of our nuclear, information age and imperial presidency. All empires eventually fail--maybe this is the beginning of the end for us.

Still I find it bemusing, it would be more amusing if it wasn't so terrifying, that the Republicans are the populist party and the Democrats are the elite. Really? The Democrats who have been (or were, for some time) the party of women, minorities (blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals, etc.), youth, the dispossessed, the educated, and so on. While the Republicans are the party of the upper-class white male. They claim to speak for the middle-class and Middle America, but I don't think that's really true. Maybe I'm wrong. When everyone was claiming the GOP was breaking apart, I thought that eventually we might have a Republican party worth voting for again. Perhaps the dissolution is taking longer than I thought, or maybe this is the party we will have to live with for some time.

But you have the Glenn Becks of the world (and the Bill O'Reillys, Rush Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys, Lyndon LaRouches, Anne Coulters, etc.) engaging in libertarian populism (are those two philosophies even compatible?) and demagoguery as opposed to rational discourse--remember the Enlightenment principles I was talking about? Anger is the easiest emotion to appeal to, and in Glenn Beck's case I think he is using it in a highly irresponsible manner. By the way, Glenn Beck as a libertarian does not belong to either party, but I don't remember him raising the pitchfork when W. was in office. Now Americans are angry; we're living in a Post-9/11 world where everything feels a little less safe, and we're just now (hopefully) getting out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Thanks Wall Street! Remember when the Democrats were angry at Wall Street? But Glenn Beck is angry at socialism, not unregulated capitalism. Yeah, that makes sense. I think my favorite Glenn Beck moment, covered by The Daily Show (an entertainment program that has a higher degree of journalistic integrity than FOX news), was when Beck declaimed the ills of progressivism after reading about it in books at the library, because the library is free. Of course John Stewart pointed out that libraries aren't free, they are a progressive institution paid for with tax money. Stewart goes on to note that the first public library was established in Boston in 1854. Statement of purpose? "Every citizen has the right to access community owned resources." Community owned? That sounds a lot like communism. Seriously, Glenn Beck! He makes me ashamed to be a Mormon (well ex-Mormon--my Mormonism is the subject of a whole other discussion [Also, the Mormons could really used more Brandon Flowers and fewer Glenn Becks]).

And then you have the LaRouche demagoguery comparing Obama to Hitler. If I wasn't so scared of talking to a rabid person, I would ask a LaRoucher to explain just how Obama is Hitler. Seriously! Democrats: next we need to fix that other progressive institution--public education--so we can educate our children about what Hitler was actually about and what the Nazis actually did. Painting a Hitler mustache on anyone is a cheap shot to start with, but it also lessens the actual atrocities committed by Nazis. Not cool. People hurl intellectual elitism at the liberals, and I'm sorry, isn't intellectualism a good thing? When did anti-intellectualism become chic?

So the Democrats finally passed a bill without Republican support (at least I don't think there was any Republican support), which frankly I didn't think the Democrats had in them. We've taken years of xenophobic abuse, and like an abused puppy we keep coming back for more, and to top it all off, we're scared to upset our Republican "allies." When the other party keeps bullying you, you can't just keep cowering and handing over your lunch money. Eventually you have to take a tough stand. I think politics would be much better if we could reach bipartisan compromise through rational discourse (pesky Enlightenment), but partisanship isn't always such a bad thing. I can't quite remember all the way back to my American history class, but I think the Federalists believed the Framers may have had partisanship in mind. Of course, I may be completely off. The Framers did believe in the educated elite governing the country. We also tend to forgot that America is not a democracy, it's a republic. We elect the people who govern, and who hopefully represent the people who elected them. Otherwise, we elect somebody else the next time, or if the elected abuse their power, we may impeach them. Still, in 2008 the people spoke choosing a Democratic president and a Democratic majority. And the elected have spoken in passing the health care bill. This year we will speak again in the midterm elections. Perhaps we have changed our minds.

In either case, if you haven't seen your Facebook home page today, go check it out. It's pretty funny, but also frightening in its implications. Those who have made a comment concerning health care are either 100% for or against it. And the comment sections are sometimes fraught. And these people are our Facebook friends! The country has been politically polarized and people are discussing politics in highly emotional states. I would hope at least are leaders could discuss politics in a more dispassionate manner. But after all the Enlightenment (logic) was succeeded by Romanticism (emotion). While this is a rant in its own way, I hope I'm open for a rational debate. I may have been harsh on conservatives, but I don't think I have been unfair. I certainly haven't compare anyone to Hitler. But if you disagree let me know. It's also on the Internet, a great shield for people to hide in anonymity and forget civility. You know who I am, you know I'm a liberal, and I hope I've been civil.

I think that's all I'm going to say on that for now, so if you want to jump straight to the comments, go ahead. However, in the meantime, I want to tell you how disgusting silver tequila is. My first experience with tequila was a bad one, and I've never really cared for it since. However, I do like a good margarita every now and then as well as a long island iced tea, two cocktails which use tequila. The only two cocktails in my mind that make a case for tequila's existence. So I was a caipirinha kick, and they are delicious, but then I started to make some long islands. The perfect long island iced tea recipe, courtesy of Dale DeGroff, is as follows:

1/2 oz vodka
12/oz gin
1/2 oz (white/light) rum
1/2 oz (silver) tequila
1/2 (triple sec) Cointreau
3/4 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
top with Coca-Cola (3-5 oz)
So you shake all the ingredient, except the cola, with ice, strain into a large glass filled 3/4 full of ice, top with Coke, and throw in a lemon wedge.

So basically it has four liquors and one liqueur, but is still delicious by combining them in small and equal portions, and surprisingly tastes a little bit like iced tea. So I had some 1800 reposado tequila, which is rested tequila. But all my cocktail books call for silver tequila in cocktails, which is not aged at all. And in the long island the vodka, gin, and Cointreau are clear, and so it calls for a white rum and a silver tequila to keep things equal. However, I was using my reposado and it worked just fine in margaritas and long islands. But then I used my last bit. So I went to the liquor store and decided to try silver tequila, buying 1800 brand 100% blue agave silver tequila. Huge mistake. The resting period of the reposado takes the edge off the silver tequila which is vegetal, peppery, and terrible. I made a silver margarita and it was the worst margarita I've ever had. So then I made a long island where you can't really taste any of the liquors since they're all mixed together. Except, through the vodka, gin, rum, Cointreau, lemon juice, simple syrup, and Coca-Cola, I could taste the 1/2 oz of silver tequila, and it almost ruined the long island--it's definitely not as good as with reposado. So here's my advice: avoid tequila always except for a margarita or long island, and then only use reposado tequila. I now have a big-ass bottle of silver tequila that I will probably have till the end of time.

Time to get ready for Portland!

Week in Review

Right now I'm listening to a CD of Belle & Sebastian and Kate Bush that Cathy gave me. Thanks Cathy! Ask and you shall receive.

So last Monday I finally had more than two people over to my apartment. I got about six other librarians-in-training over to play Trivial Pursuit because we're hardcore like that. It was really fun, and it made me clean my entire apartment which doesn't happen all that often. It was so lovely--it's pretty much gone to hell again already. It's at times like these that I understand my mother's frustration in keeping the house clean for more than five minutes. So it's the 1981 Genus edition of Trivial Pursuit that Ellen gave me for Christmas. I never got my Pink wedge because I don't know '70s pop culture. Really I don't know any pop culture before 2004, and even then... I also don't do well with the orange sports category unless it's a leisure (read: drinking) question. I read enough GQ that I could pull out a contemporary athlete's name even if it might be the wrong sport, but athletes and games before 1981--I'm helpless. I got one question about a quarterback, and Ady said Greg doesn't know any quarterbacks, only wide receivers and tight ends. Thanks Ady. I did do better than Heidi who answered every question with Jesus. It was pretty sweet when she got a question about the book Heidi though. Chloe had to leave early which meant that Tim won, of course.

On Wednesday, my group in Research Methods had to give a twenty-minute presentation on our paper. I had made slides the night before and sent them to Andra. Well I checked my email at school realizing I had sent a PDF file and not a PPT file, and so I had to run home send the slide, and run back to school up the giant hill. So much for being calm and poised. The presentation actually went pretty well. It just wasn't a fun day.

On Thursday we had a celebraxination for 530 which started with brunch at Portage Bay Cafe whose motto is Eat Like You Give a Damn--y'know locally grown, ethically raised, organic, and environmentally friendly food. I got the lemon curd French toast which sounded delicious but the lemon curd was too sweet. I also met Moritz, Maggie's German sweetheart, who is on his spring break or something. We were trying to find something that wasn't too sweet for him because his German, and so we settled on the buckwheat pancakes, except none of know exactly what buckwheat is. It did lead to a interesting discussion of challah and communion wafers. After brunch, I was going to work on my Zotero assignment and edit/rewrite my final paper, but I watched TV instead waiting until it was time to go to Chapel to continue the celebraxination.

Chapel is a sophisticated martini bar in Capitol Hill. It was actually a former funeral home converted into a lounge. Now, as you well know, I'm a cocktail and gin snob. Martinis are made with gin and dry vermouth, stirred over ice, and served up with a lemon twist or an olive. End of story. Just because you serve a drink in a cocktail glass doesn't mean it's a martini--appletini, flirtini, pomtini, chocolate martini, etc. Martinis go in martini glasses. Fortunately, I had a coming to Jesus moment. Their so-called martinis first of all have more creative names than just adding -tini at the end, and secondly are delicious. I started, in my snobbery, with a John Doe--a gin martini that was super strong. But then I had a lavender martini which was a revelation! Then the Edie Sedgwick which is a lot like a cosmo, the Campari martini, because I love Campari, and finally the NYC. So I realized that I can make myself an excellent gin martini anytime at home, but I can't make an infused cocktail like the lavender martini.

So Meagan drove us there, us being Susan, Andrew, and I. Our original game plan was to have one drink, or two, and then go home like responsible students who have an 8:30 Friday class. Well drink one derailed us from this plan of attack. Halfway through her Stigmata, Meagan was like we should stay out ALL NIGHT and go to IHOP and then to class. I strongly protested this line of thinking. Anyway, there were about twenty people there and we it was lovely to see everyone and converse and drink. So after five drinks, singing "Somebody Told Me" with Meagan, and falling down in front of the font, the party decided to travel down the street (far, far down the street) to Neighbors, a gay dance club.

So normally, I'm not one for clubs or dancing, but I was drunk enough and they played enough awesome songs that I just went with it. We were probably there for an hour and a half or so. It was awesome to see our professor out there shaking it. Grad school is awesome! We left shortly before midnight, our dreams of staying out all night had been sensibly crushed, and Andrew and I had a dance-off (not really) to see who the most sober to drive. Andrew won. But first we had to go to Dick's for some hot, greasy food to soak up all the alcohol. I got home just before one, took some ibuprofen, and drank a couple of glasses of water. (Meagan took pictures of all the madness, which I'm sure will be on Facebook soon enough.)

I woke up in the middle of the night realizing that I had to complete two assignments later that day, and wondered why, oh why, did go out last night? And then when it was time to wake up, I had no problems getting out of bed, surprisingly. I usually don't get hangovers, and this wasn't even the worst I've felt after a night of drinking, but I didn't feel super great either. So at 8:30 when our professor started talking about social issues, I was like, I can't handle this. Why am I here? It was a short day though, so that was nice. I had Ben help me export an RDF file from Zotero because I had no idea how to do something like that.

Anyway, after my last class, I raced home, and had little over an hour to complete my Zotero assignment. In the RDF file, I had to identify the XML namespaces and other identifiers. First of all, I have no idea how to read XML, so I basically made it up. It was due at 5. I submitted it at 4:59. Booyah! On to my paper. So in class, our professor had some us talk about papers so we could hear what other people were working on. In class I was like, I don't even remember what my paper's about because I haven't looked it since I got my peer review comments back. Anyway, I went through the comments, made some changes, read through it, fixed my citations, and turned it in. Not my best paper, but oh well. 16+ years of schooling has reinforced the concept that I can put everything off until the last minute and be fine. Jeannie was having an end-of-term/St. Paddy's party that night, but I was pretty much catatonic at that point, so I stayed home.

Yesterday, I went and saw The Last Station which was a perfectly fine film. And then I walked home, down the Ave and through campus, and it was such a beautiful day. Sunny, and warm, and all the cherry trees on campus in bloom. Then I decided to make Turkey Loco burgers. So I mixed up the ground turkey, onion, and spices in a large bowl, formed the patties and grilled a couple of them. Then I got out a smaller bowl to make the guacamole topping--this is the "loco" part. So the guacamole called for a jalapeno, minced. This was my first jalapeno and I didn't wear gloves. However, I did hold the pepper with a paper towel and didn't touch any of the seeds. Fortunately my hands didn't catch on fire, but I rubbed them in oil just in case. After I had eaten, I was putting everything away, and I realized the smaller bowl I got out was still clean. Then I realized that I had made the guacamole in the same bowl as the raw turkey. Awesome. Well, I'm not dead yet.

I also made a Caipirinha, Brazil's national cocktail, which is lime wedges muddles with raw sugar, add cachaca and ice, then shake it all up. I had no idea what cachaca was until yesterday when I discovered that it's a lot like rum, but whereas rum is made from molasses, cachaca is made from sugarcane. So I don't really like rum, but I bought this 10 Cane rum from Trinidad which I really like. The thing about 10 Cane is that it's made from sugarcane and not molasses which makes it more of a cachaca than a rum. Anyway, Caipirinhas are delicious, and I might just make them every day for the rest of spring break.

Afterward, I drove to Capitol Hill since Cathy was having a small party. We played Partini, which is a bit like Cranium (more party, less brainy), and there's a cups and ball game. So I went to pick the ball up off the floor and my fingernail hurt. I looked at my fingernail and realized that there was a flaky piece of wood or something from the baseboard jammed up my fingernail. I took it out and it bled a little bit, it wasn't too painful though. But I might die from tetanus, if the salmonella doesn't get me first that is.

Well, that's what I've been up to. Today I need to go through my email, apply for the FAFSA, and work on my final JavaScript project which is due tomorrow. Then I'll be officially free.

Christmas Time is Here

I think this may have been the longest I've gone without posting since starting this blog one year ago today. I've had a lot I've wanted to say but just never got around to blogging. Well I am back in Utah for the moment--yay!--and spending Christmas Eve with my family. Well, except for right now while I'm typing away. And fall quarter is over, thank god! I'm still not sure how I feel about Seattle or if LIS is the right program for me, but I know that I hated 510, along with the rest of my cohort, and I will never take another class from that professor if I can help it. And that's all I will say on that except that I aced my final--booya! I thoroughly enjoyed my other class which was engaging, challenging, and good overall. I only took 10 credits this quarter and am signed up for 13 next quarter and looking for a part-time job. So we'll see how that goes. But for the rest of the break I'm not going to think about school except that I really need to go through my school email inbox which has been a disaster since late October.

There was a lot of bonding that went down at the end of the quarter so that's really good. First there was the Mad Men party hosted by Janelle and Althea, who live in a charming house in Ravenna with four other girls, and that was really fun. Here are some of my fellow library students. Since I didn't have a suit I took my inspiration from Miles Fisher in season three, which I haven't seen, but where I believe he plays a dope dealer. Miles Fisher, by the way, is the love child of Tom Cruise and Christian Bale. Anyway, my find that day was a knit tie at J.Crew for $10! Pretty much awesome. There were '50s and '60s records and dancing and lots of booze. There was a sherbet punch that had a good liter of gin or so and tasted like candy but aside from that I stuck to Jameson neat. They had gin but it was the cheap Monarch stuff that comes in giant plastic bottles and I just can't get down with that. When I went home I did make myself a proper Gimlet before retiring for the night.

I took my final for 510 on Sunday and my last paper for 520 was due on Friday, so on finals week I only had class for 520 since we didn't have an actual final. On Monday night, after class, we hit up the College Inn Pub for some beer and nachos, and then we stopped in at Big Time since I had a coupon for a free growler. If like me you didn't know what a growler is, it's a gallon sized bottle for holding beer--or other forms of alcohol--it looks like those moonshine bottles with all the Xs on it. However, they didn't fill my growler they just gave me the bottle, which was lame. But we had some more beer anyway, and then made our way to Flowers for more drinking and some grub. I ordered a Negroni off their menu listed as gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth, so I thought I was safe. If you know me, you know how much I adore Negronis but I have no idea what I was actually served--cheap gin with a splash of sweet vermouth. I couldn't even tasted the Campari which has a very strong flavor, and it was only the faintest of red while a true Negroni is a beautiful ruby color. Still, a pub crawl on a Monday night--how awesome are library students?

I also hung out with Maggie whom I had hardly seen since midterm. We grabbed some delicious pizza at the Wallingford Pizza House. And on another night we rented Julie & Julia and I opened a bottle of Cava I bought for the end of the quarter and we made Buddy the Elfs. Buddy the Elf is a drink my friends and I invented. My friend Dain is really into making liqueurs by macerating fruit in liquor. He's made some good limoncello as well as a strawberry liqueur, but his zenzerino is the best. Zenzerino, Italian for little ginger, is a liqueur with grated ginger peel, orange and lemon zest, and I believe a cinnamon stick or two and some cloves. Soak it in some vodka and Everclear for a bit, strain it, and add a bunch of sugar water. Awesome. Anyway, we took an ounce or two of zenzerino over ice, added some amaretto, and topped it off with ginger ale. It smells and tastes like Christmas. We originally called it spice cake before changing it to Buddy the Elf--what's your favorite beverage?--over my strong objections since I don't really like Elf, but the name has stuck. Anyway, if you are ever in possession of some zenzerino, you need to make this drink, especially around Christmas.

By the way Julie & Julia is really good and was one of my favorite movies of the summer. I love Julie Powell's memoir which is hilarious and profane, and if you like cooking, breakdowns, and butter, you should definitely read it as long as you don't mind a few F words. Okay, a lot of F words. However, in the film it's the Julia Child storyline that works the best based on her memoir My Life in France written with Alex Prud'homme. Meryl Streep earned herself two Golden Globe nominations--one for Julia and the other for It's Complicated which comes out tomorrow, I believe, and which I need to see. She was also in the nominated Fantastic Mr. Fox which I will not be seeing since it is stop animation. Speaking of the Golden Globes, there are nine more movies which I desperately need to see including Up in the Air which is getting all sorts of critical love, Nine, A Single Man, The Princess and the Frog, The Young Victoria, The Last Station, Invictus, Precious, and Avatar which I thought was the stupidest looking movie I had ever seen a trailer for, but which is not only nominated for Best Picture but is also getting excellent reviews. Fine, James Cameron, I will go see your movie.

So on Saturday I made my way all the way down to Sea-Tac which is $48 far away plus tip. And after a very short, 90 minute flight, I was home in Utah. On Saturday I got together with college friends for Apartment Christmas and fondue, presents, and old friends. Valerie gave me the seventh and final season of The West Wing to complete my collection which began at Christmas seven years ago. Slow but steady wins the race. Anyway, I'm already half-way through. It's not nearly as good as the first four seasons, but the seventh season is much better that seasons five and six. In addition to The West Wing, I've been catching up on Dollhouse which is insane! I can't even handle it. On Tuesday I saw Elise and Justin and we watched Meet Me In St. Louis which I had never seen before. We saw Judy Garland and her corsets, singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and learned about bloom. We also decided that between the three of us, we could handle twenty men.

Yesterday, I drove around Salt Lake shopping for my final Christmas presents which are for my parentals who are the hardest people to shop for which means they will have to settle for gift cards. By the way, I love driving in Salt Lake--compared to Seattle there's no traffic, free parking everywhere, and you actually know where you're going--most of the time anyway. However, I have to use my family's cars since mine is back in Seattle. Boo. Anyway, I got my mother a gift certificate for a Japanese restaurant, and I was going to get my dad movie tickets for his favorite cineplex--which is half an hour away--but they were sold out of gift cards. How do you sell out of gift cards?! Especially at Christmas?! So I ordered one online from a different cineplex, and he'll just have to wait for the mail to deliver it. He also wanted The Road by Cormac McCarthy which I own and have been reading, so maybe if I finish it today, I'll wrap that up for him. I bought The Road a couple of years ago but just recently decided to give it a go, since I'm not really into post-apocalyptic art. However, it's better than I expected, plus it's really easy/short. Well this brings us to Christmas, so there you go. Time for more parties and lots of movies. Hopefully there will be more posts soon. Merry Christmas Everyone!

A Few of My Favorite Things

Last night I finally saw Tori Amos live in concert, and it is definitely one of the highlights of my existence so far on this blue marble. It was a perfect birthday present to myself. I'm not a regular concert-goer, but this definitely kicked ass over all other concerts I've attended. The energy in the audience was electric, and Tori is known for her live performances--and she didn't disappoint. I'm not a huge fan of her latest album Abnormally Attracted to Sin--such a great name though--but the selections she performed from this record benefited wonderfully from a live performance. She also played a lot of material from albums past, especially Under the Pink, for which I'm grateful. "Cooling" may have been my favorite song of the night. It's so beautiful, and I think she was referencing the incident on Temple Square with these lyrics: "and is your place in heaven / worth giving up these kisses / these, yes, these kisses." And judging from the reaction of the crowd, I think I'm right--and there were a helluva lot of gay men there; it was certainly fun to people watch. So I'm now able to cross this off my bucket list, though I definitely hope to catch her live again. AMAZING!

I've recently started watching two television shows on DVD. Let's start with Brothers & Sisters which I believe is on ABC. It's a family drama about a group of adult siblings and with Sally Field as the matriarch. The rest of the cast includes Calista Flockhart as the conservative TV pundit from a liberal family, Rachel Griffiths (one of my favorites from Six Feet Under) who is in the family business, Matthew Rhys as the the gay brother, Ron Rifkin (from Alias) as their uncle, and Rob Lowe eventually joins the cast. However, I haven't made it that far yet, but it's something to look forward to. Anyway, the acting as you should be able to tell is fabulous, and the writing is superb. And what is richer than family drama for material? It did throw me off at first with all these actors from other series--Rachel Griffiths, Ron Rifkin, and Matthew Settle (from Gossip Girl), but I got over that quickly enough, and now I am riveted. I also think this is the phase I'm entering in my life. My brother's still in grade school, but one of my sisters is married and the other is starting college, so we're entering the adult world which changes the sibling dynamics.

The next show is True Blood, the vampire series from HBO starring Anna Pacquin who's all grown up. The series does feature a lot of sex and a lot of Ryan Kwanten naked--but as he's super gorgeous, I'm not complaining. Maybe it's just that it's set in Louisiana but it reminds me more of Interview With a Vampire than Twilight--oh and the fact that it's really good (sorry, Val). In fact the opening sequence posted here really evokes the bayou country for me--even though I've never been to Louisiana--and reminds me not only of Interview but also of The Skeleton Key.

Anyway, Pacquin plays Sookie, a telepathic waitress--which isn't nearly as terrible as it sounds--and she falls for a vampire (Stephen Moyer). The vampires have recently come out of the coffin, so to speak, after the development of True Blood, a synthetic beverage that satisfies all of their nutritional needs--though that isn't to say some vampires don't still prefer the taste of human blood--and they're pushing for a vampire rights ammendment. One of my favorite characters is Sookie's best friend, Tara, a black girl with a big attitude. "Isn't that funny a black girl being named after a plantation? No, I don't think it's funny at all. In fact it really pisses me off that my momma was either stupid or just plain mean." Anyway, I've only seen the first two episodes, but my Netflix que-u-e for the next little while is full of True Blood and Brothers & Sisters.

The last thing I want to adulate is the Pimm's Cup--British cocktail extraordinaire. Pimm's No. 1 Cup is, well no one's really sure what it is, but it's like a gin-based vermouth that tastes a little like vanilla, spice, and citrus fruit. Anyway, in the summer the English combine this with lemonade and cucumber slices to make the sublime Pimm's Cup--perfect for picnics and aperitifs. Now in England, lemonade is a carbonated soda water with lemon juice and is either unsweetened or lightly sweetened. So I had to go to a specialty British shop to buy Schweppes Bitter Lemon which was bloody expensive--I don't know why Schweppes doesn't market this in the U.S. Anyway, I may have better luck with San Pellegrino's Limonata product. Still, it's a fabulous concoction and I look forward to enjoying many more summer days with a Pimm's Cup in hand.

Finally, getting Fridays off is another one of my favorite things. Yay for holiday weekends--even silly Utah ones! And then finally I wanted to link to this list about how to meet and woo nerdy girls. I heard about it on TBTL and it's awesome.