Friday Fill-In #126

Shamelessly yanked from the blog of my friend Wife, Mom, Knitter, who got it here.
I thought this seemed like just the thing to ease back into blogging.

And...here we go!

1. It's cold and _muggy here, but I won't complain because I'd rather that than hot weather_.
2. _When I was little I only liked ketchup and spaghetti sauce, but now I like all kinds of __tomatoes.
3. My favorite health and beauty product is _vanilla bath gel____.
4. _If I had I car, I could go for ____ a nice long ride.
5. Well, first of all _it's so nice to be done with exams. I feel like a whole new person____.
6. _My friend J. and I_; those were the cast of characters in a recent dream and it was _weird. I went to Boston but it was closed. The whole city was closed. That's just my luck__.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to _a South Park marathon____, tomorrow my plans include _going to the farmer's market and picking something interesting to cook____ and Sunday, I want to _go see some art exhibitions____!

That was kind of fun. I might have to keep doing this.

I've really been enjoying being responsibility-free this past week. There has been lots of knitting, and lots of fun (my friend J., of the Boston-is-closed dream, came to visit for the long weekend, and much fun was had by all). And there was even some cleaning. The apartment went from disaster zone to relatively under control. There are still assorted piles of paper and books to be sorted, but at least you can see most of the floor and the number of cat-hair tumbleweeds has been drastically reduced.

I have to go make the first part of item number 7 happen now. I just recently discovered that you can watch most of the seasons of South Park on the Netflix instant viewer. I can't wait! It's one of my go-to shows when I need a good laugh.

Stick a fork in me

Because I'm done!

Monday I took and passed the last of my three field exams for my Ph.D. It was American Cultural History this round, and while each of the exams was hard in their own way, this one was by far the most challenging. The reading was the hardest to digest, the written exam was the hardest to do, and the oral was hard, largely because I was a little "thought-out" by then. Also, there were no pictures to look at, unlike at the other exams. I liked the pictures. This exam was tricky. I wrote about the ways in which issues of identity -- class, race/ethnicity, and gender/sexuality -- have impacted American cultural history in the past several decades. During my oral, the professors asked my why I chose that topic (there were several possible essay prompts). They laughed when I said because it sounded easiest. (Honestly, it did.) The examiners were two of my favorite professors, and even though it was difficult to answer their questions at times, it wasn't too bad. It was very much a conversation, and it was very nice to be treated as an equal in it.

It still hasn't quite sunk in that I'm done with it all. The last few nights when I've gotten home, I've been really surprised to realize that I can relax. I don't have to read anything off my list, or make any notes on my collection of index cards, or anything. I can do whatever I want and I don't have to deal with (much) guilt about it. That hasn't happened in a while.

The next steps are picking a dissertation topic, writing a proposal, and getting said proposal approved. Then there's the small matter of writing the dissertation. But these are all things that can wait for a while. Right now I'm going to relax.

(As an aside, one of the peculiar things about being in a small program at a small school is that everyone knows what's going on with everyone else. While this can be annoying at times, it's been very nice to be congratulated every time I see a fellow student, teacher, or staff member. That kind of thing is very good for the ego.)

In the meantime, I've watched tv, I've been knitting, I even read a book. For fun. It was wonderful. I'm trying to decide what I want to read next. I'm thinking I might work my way through the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, in order. They're just about my favorite mystery novels ever, and while I read Gaudy Night once a year or so (best book about murder, romance, and higher education ever), I haven't read some of the others in ages. I also want to organize my giant stash of craft stuff so I can do some sewing and play around with the doll house this summer. It's just been sitting around since I moved to New York. I figure if you're going to keep a dollhouse in a studio apartment, you'd better be getting some use out of it.

I also have other good news to report. While I'm going to be able to enjoy my free time this summer, come this fall I'll be nice and busy. I've gotten a full time job in the library at school. With benefits! I am beyond excited. I'll also be serving as a teaching assistant for the big design survey. I'm a bit concerned about being able to get it all done, but I'm not the only student who juggles a workload like that, so I know it can be done. I'm really looking forward to getting some teaching experience.

Anyway, I think that's about it for now. I'm hoping to be a more frequent blogger, as well as a better commenter, now that I don't have the guilt of not-studying hanging over my head. But right now you'll have to excuse me. There's some knitting and a movie calling my name.

It's really a post!

Just poking my head above water to say that I just took and passed exam number two on twentieth-century decorative arts and design of Europe and America.
Yay!

Since I normally focus on early America, this one was a big stretch for me, and I hope I manage to retain at least a little bit of all the stuff I've been cramming in my head this semester. I'm afraid I'll forget it all now. Though I've been in a state of perpetual nervousness for the last few days, I actually really enjoyed both halves of the test. Is that weird? Probably.

I feel a great sense of relief, tempered by the knowledge that exam number three is lurking just a few weeks around the corner and there are still so many books to read. I'm taking tonight and tomorrow off, and will then dive back in to American cultural history.

I'll be back again on May 18th, hopefully with some good news.

A Quick Update

I have tried to write a post so many times, and it's just not happening. Everything I put down on paper (or screen, as it were) sounds too flip or too whiny, or too, I don't know, wrong.

So I'll just say this: I'm fine, mostly. I'm battling a bit of the winter blues. And I'm not studying nearly as hard as I ought to be. And those exams keep getting closer and closer. But I'm hanging in there. It will all be fine in the end.

I am beginning to wonder...

if it's possible for me to go a week without injuring myself or suffering from some kind of illness. Between the face-to-the-door thing and the cold I've caught (darn you grad school germs!) I haven't been able to breathe right in weeks. I'm hoping the cold is on it's way out, thanks to copious amounts of orange juice and generic cold medicine. It's funny, I'm very reluctant to medicate for actual pain (I think I'm stoic, my mom thinks I'm stubborn), but the minute I start sneezing, I break out the troops -- cough drops, daytime medicine, nighttime medicine. Out comes the tea with honey and lemon, the hot soup, and my warmest, fuzziest socks. Sometimes it really sucks to live alone, and being sick is one of those times. The cat is not a very sympathetic nurse.

I want to thank everybody for their well wishes regarding the whole nose/face/glasses thing. I never did get any bruises, but my face was pretty sore for about a week. Every now and then I stop to think how lucky I am that I didn't get hurt worse than I did. The scars are really not that noticeable anymore, and I actually really like the replacement frames I got for my lenses. Don't worry, I'm going to get brand new glasses ordered next week with a brand new prescription. I'm just waiting for one more paycheck before I go. Glasses should not be so expensive.

I'm working on posts with actual knitting, and with details of my whirlwind trip to Arizona, but they may take me a while, as I'm right back in the thick of exam reading again. Luckily, my examiners for the next two topics are adamant about not loading me down with an excessively long reading list. That's the good news. The bad news is the books that are on my list are very, very dense. I'll definitely be putting the new glasses to the test.

In which I make a spectacle of myself.

In my daydreams, I am fabulous. Glamorous, well-dressed and perfectly groomed, graceful, witty, the center of attention wherever I go. But that's just my daydreams.

In real life, I'm actually fairly content to go about my day unnoticed. I don't really like to draw attention to myself. Which is just one of the things that makes what happened yesterday especially embarrassing (and, as you'll see, kind of painful).

Yesterday after work I thought I'd go shopping. I had a lot of errands to run before I head out of town this weekend, and decided that a certain store whose logo is a red bulls eye would be the best place to go. I rode the subway to the shopping center, stopped at the bank, popped in at a clothing store to peruse the sale, and headed to the big store, list in hand.

I was about four feet from the door when I felt it happen. My feet just went out from under me. I reached out for the door handle to stop my fall and missed. But my face didn't miss. It hit the door just fine. I hit the door, nose first, right on the handle, and then hit the ground. I broke my glasses, got a bloody nose, and, to add insult to injury, got cuts on my face from where my glasses frames hit me. I was stunned, and then I started freaking out because I am blind without my glasses. The employees and some nice customers helped me get up and get out of the way and collected my belongings (and can I just say how grateful I am that all the undergarments I had just purchased did not spill out of their bag? That would have been the icing on the awful cake). By this time I had realized that my glasses were destroyed, and was crying and bleeding everywhere. I finally remembered that I had an old pair of glasses in my book bag, so that calmed me down a little, since at least I could get home that way, and then I started worrying that maybe I had broken my nose, but the paramedics who came (the store insisted) said I was okay. I filled out a bunch of forms, cleaned up as best as I could, got some kleenex for the road, and headed home.

Did you know that if you're covered in blood, nobody will try and sit by you on the bus? It's true.
If you like to people watch, and you take a lot of public transportation, you have seen that person. That crazy-looking scary person on the bus or the train. Yesterday I was that person.

I spent an uncomfortable night trying to sleep, and then spent most of today getting the glasses taken care of. The frames were shot, but the lenses were okay, so I found a place that could pop them into a new frame, so at least I can see again. (The old pair wasn't quite right, and I was not looking forward to having to wear them for long). I also got an eye exam and a new prescription, and am going to go order a new pair when I get back next week. As an aside, I went to two different locations of a place that rhymes with schmenscrafters, and they were so rude (although their doctor was very nice). I got much better service at what the schmenscrafters saleslady nastily referred to as "the lower end" place across the street, where they found me new frames and where I will be ordering my new pair later. Seriously, those ladies were not nice and so they won't be getting my business in the future.

Now that the glasses are taken care of, I've just got the bruises and cuts to deal with. (and a really sore nose. I keep poking it to see if it's still hurting. It is. I should stop doing that).
I have to wear a bandage on my nose because the cuts are right on the bridge of my nose where the glasses sit. I tried to be as inconspicuous with the bandages as possible, but I do look like I've had a nose job or something right now. And of course this would happen at the start of a two-week period in which my social calendar is fully booked for once. Including a date-ish thing.
Just my luck.
On the train, on the streets, at school, I felt like everyone was staring at me and my messed up face today. This is not what I had in mind when I wanted to be noticed.*

*Although, this being New York, I was still not the oddest person on the subway this morning. That honor goes to you, man wearing multiple strings of pearls.

Late as usual

My New Year's resolution post is a week late. That seems typical for me these days. But, as I so often say during situations such as these, at least it's getting done at all.

First note: my dad's socks were finished at approximately 11:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve. Dad wore them to ring in 2009 and reports that they are very comfortable. I've got pictures, but am not sure where my camera has wandered off to.

Second note: I'm currently reading Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation and loving every page. But Erin, you might be saying to yourself, isn't that a book about American history? Yes, yes it is. Didn't you swear off history in your quest to get the fun in while you could? Yes, yes I did. But I don't care. This is her book about traveling around the country to see sights related to the first three presidential assassinations -- Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Why am I reading this instead of a romance novel right now (and there are a couple of those waiting their turn on the nightstand, too)? Well, it's about the "dirty" side of history, something I always enjoy, and I really like Vowell's deadpan (no pun intended) style (I'm a big fan of her appearances on NPR, too). But mostly, it's because this book is really about more than assassinations -- it's about the way that people remember, the way that we construct history and the way that we tell our story as Americans. It's actually an area that I'm very interested in, academically speaking. But it's not dry and boring like so many of the books I read last year for my exams (and will be reading again soon). I've often wondered if there's some prohibition against being an interesting writer and also being an academic. So often the two things are separate, and that's a shame. But that's also a topic for another time.

Now the real reason I'm here: Resolutions.
Here are mine: I'm not making any.
Well, that's not precisely true. I want to pass my exams. But other than that, no resolutions for me. And that's not really a resolution so much as it is a requirement by my academic program. I don't really have any choice on the matter if I want to keep going.

I acknowledge that there's room for improvement in so many areas of my life, and I do hope to take steps toward making those improvements this year. But my history of resolution-keeping is not that great, and frankly, I don't need the pressure right now. It seems unfair to me that we should be encouraged to upend our lives and reexamine ourselves so thoroughly at the darkest. coldest time of the year, right after all those holiday excesses. It's all party, party, party, then suddenly the lights go on and you're forced to stare blearily at yourself and your life in one of those hideously unflattering department store mirrors. No wonder it's so easy to make long lists of things to condemn and improve. Nothing and nobody looks good in those mirrors.

Over at Shapely Prose, they've got a great post about this that says it more eloquently than I can, encouraging us to remember what we accomplished in 2008 as we look forward to 2009.

Here's my brief list of what I'm proud of:
1. Passed my first field exam and my German language exam.
2. Wrote several catalogue entries for (eventual) publication.
3. Made it through a year of graduate school and a year of life in New York.

One last dispatch from 2008

I'm writing this from a Starbucks in Texas, because my parents are still on dialup and one whole week without internet access was making me just a leeetle bit crazy.
After passing my exam not quite two weeks ago, I promptly went to sleep, got snowed in by a rogue snowstorm, and headed home to Houston, where temperatures have ranged from the low 30s to the 70s. It is really hard to pack for this kind of weather, but since I haven't worn a coat since I got here, I can't complain too much.
I've very much enjoyed being home for a while. It's always good to catch up with family and friends, and it was sort of reassuring to see that while there's still plenty of clean up from Ike left to do, Houston is well on its way back to something resembling normal. The marina near our house has boats where boats shouldn't be (the parking lot, the median by the road, etc.) and there are plenty of blue tarps dotting the roofs around here, but things look good overall. It's very relaxing to be home. I've been catching up on my sleeping, reading, and knitting, and have been trying out my mom's big Christmas present -- a Kitchen-Aid mixer (I'm a little jealous, but there's no way I could fit one in my apartment's kitchen, so I'm just mixing everything in sight while I'm here instead.)
Christmas was really nice. I am now well-armed with a variety of fun books, as opposed to books for my exams, and am doing my best to read as much as I can before I go back to New York and have to start studying again. I'm supposed to squeeze two exams in this next semester. Blech. I want to try and keep up with making a reading list this year. It may look like I slacked off on the list this year, but actually I just never got much of a chance to read for fun after about August or so.
I've also been knitting like a madwoman, mostly on my dad's socks, which I am determined to finish before I head back east on Saturday. I've currently got one-and-a-half socks and see no reason why I can't finish them before the end of the year.
And since the baby in question has made her appearance, I thought I'd share the baby gift I knit for my friend S's little girl.

That's a Tender Blankie (Thanks Wife, Mom, Knitter for alerting me to this pattern), a baby hat from the first Stitch n' Bitch book, and baby ballet slippers that I made up from a bunch of different baby shoe designs. I'll try and get the details up on Ravelry when I get back to New York. Here's a closeup of the shoes.

I think they turned out pretty well.
Well, I have to leave the coffee shop (and their speedy internet access) to go pick up my mom so we can go do our part to revitalize the economy. I don't expect that I'll get back online much until I get back to New York, so I'll close by wishing everyone a very happy new year. I, for one, will be glad to see the end of 2008.

Merry Christmas to Me!

I passed the exam.



I can't tell you how relieved I was the minute they told me. I didn't know how much stress I was carrying around until it was gone. It feels so nice to be free of it all, just for a day or two. It's a little hard to stop smiling.

I took the written exam on Tuesday and had my oral this afternoon. The written part was every bit as excruciating as I had thought it would be. I thought three hours would be a long time, but it seemed to go by so quickly and before I knew it I was handing in my paper. I managed to churn out 8 double-spaced pages of my (more or less coherent) thoughts on the progression of geographic influences on the design and production of American decorative arts from 1600 to 1900. I stumbled home (through the snow!) ate some dinner and tried (unsuccessfully) to get to sleep.

Today during the oral part, my professors had a few questions about what I'd written, and then we moved on to the slides. They put up pictures of different objects and I had to talk about them. There were a few where I didn't quite get everything (despite my best efforts, I still have no real idea of how clocks work), but I did pretty well on that part overall. And in a stroke of incredible luck, several things that were in the last few books I read ended up being on the exam. I'm so glad I crammed them in. And cramming is what it felt like -- I really did feel like I had run out of room in my brain. I don't know how I'm going to be able to do this two more times.
So we chatted about andirons and quilts and retablos and Louis Comfort Tiffany's dining room, and then it was over!

And luckily for me, the school holiday party was this evening. It's almost like they threw it just for me. I won't lie, it was really, really nice to get congratulated by everyone. This has felt like a pretty lonely endeavor sometimes, so it was nice to have a social event to cap it off.
Now I'm home in my pjs, cup of cocoa in hand, and I just feel so relaxed. Tonight will be the first night in weeks that I haven't gone to bed worrying about this thing. And tomorrow, I'm going to the library to clear all the books for my exam off of my shelf. That will be a very cathartic experience.

Now that I'm temporarily sane again, hopefully I can be a little more present here on this blog, and in the comments of all of yours. Who knows, I might even show off a little knitting in the days to come. (Wouldn't that be a shock!)

It's Alive! (Post-Thanksgiving Edition)

Just a quick note to say that studying for my qualifying exam has not killed me yet. I am alive and mostly well (except for a cold -- the third this fall), and hope to see the light sometime after December 16, which is the date of the big exam (both the written, and, hopefully, the oral). A date that is approaching a little too rapidly for my tastes. I'm taking my first subject field in American Decorative Arts, 1600-1900, which is an area I have been working on for the last eight years. It's not the material itself that is the problem, it's trying to decide which bits are worth remembering that is worrisome. I am encouraged by the fact that very little of the material is new to me, and also by the fact that my bullshitting improvisational skills are pretty considerable.

I don't think I'll be around much until then, but I hope I'll be back with good news. Wish me luck!

Yes We Did.

We sure did.

I'd love to write something profound, something poignant, something meaningful. But I'm still crying. It's like every Christmas ever rolled into one beautiful night. I know that Obama's no magician -- there's still so much to fix, so much to do. But for the first time in a long time, politically speaking, I feel so hopeful.

Sometimes watching history is wonderful. It was tonight.

Thank you Susan B. Anthony!

I headed out to the polling place before work this morning. There was more of a crowd than there was for the primaries, but not that many people overall. I think that there are many immigrants in my neighborhood, so I am not sure how many of them can vote. Still, it felt good to do my civic duty. (Even though I didn't get a sticker. I like the stickers.)

Here in New York we have the old fashioned machines with big levers. I like them much more than the computers we had in Texas. Pulling the lever is fun. (and also, these machines are apparently harder to mess with than the computerized version).

I have always lived in states that go pretty solidly red or blue, so on the national scale, I've never felt much like my vote was all that critical (the local scale is a whole 'nother story, though), but I've always been excited about voting and have voted in all the major and many of the minor elections since. I remember how angry I got in grade school when I learned that women hadn't always been allowed to vote. It seemed (it was) so incredibly unfair. I'd like to think that had I been alive in the nineteen-teens and earlier, I would have been out on the front lines with the suffragists. So for Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Pankhursts, Carrie Chapman Catt, and all those other women (and men) whose names and faces aren't as famous --

thanks for giving me the right to say:

To tide you over...

Yes, I'm still alive.
No, grad school hasn't beaten me yet, though it's been close.
Yes, I have been sick three times so far this fall.
No, I don't think it's fair either.
Yes, I did get approved to take all my field exams.
No, I haven't freaked out about it (yet.)
Yes, I have created my first exam bibliography.
No, I don't think there's any way I can read all those books by the beginning of December either.
Yes, I had a lovely time when my parents came to visit, even though I had to stay up until 2 a.m. most nights in order to get my work done.
No, that "easy" extra research project I took on isn't done yet, largely because they keep adding more work to it. They also keep adding more pay to the project, so I'm not that upset, though I look forward to being done with the whole thing by the end of the weekend.
Yes, I have been knitting. Not much, but it's been keeping me sane-ish.
No, I'm not going to Rhinebeck (Wahhh!). But while I am sad, my wallet is okay with it. (I also made up for it with a MMMMalabrigo purchase last week)

I'll try to update in more detail soon. But until then, here's something I read today and was utterly charmed by. I'm posting it here because maybe some of you might enjoy it, and also because I know I'll forget all about it otherwise.


On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

--Billy Collins


May all your psyches be mumps-free, and have a good weekend.

Catch-up Day

My lack of blogging can be explained by two things.

1. I'm not doing anything interesting
2. All those boring things I'm doing are keeping me terribly busy.

So here's what I've been up to, in a convenient list form.

1. My parents are fine, and they just got their power back yesterday. Seabrook is still pretty much a mess, but things are slowly getting back to normal.

2. I've just about finalized my field exam subjects and examiners, and I now I'm worrying about creating my bibilographies. Two of the exams I'm taking are new fields, so there aren't existing bibiliographies to work off of. Why do I always have to make things so complicated?

3. I've bitten off too much to chew with research projects this month. I've got a bunch of catalog entries due on the first, and a freelance job due on the 5th. I suppose it will all get done in time, but I don't expect to enjoy it.

4. My parents are coming to visit. This means I have to clean. Really clean. At least it's giving me the kick I need to make a few improvements around here.

5. I work until 5 most days, either in the library or in the exhibitions department. By the time I get home, I am exhausted. I haven't done much in the way of cooking lately, and I've eaten an unbelievable amount of frozen pizza. I did manage to make chili today. It seemed like a good way to celebrate the beginning of fall. But now I'm REALLY tired, and I still have to get my laundry ready, take out the trash, and do the dinner dishes. And then I need to work on one of my reports. And I want to watch Heroes, and I would have liked to get some knitting done too.
There are simply not enough hours in the day.

6. I'd keep making list items, but then I'll never get anything done. So I will leave you with one of my favorite songs right now.

After the storm

Well, my parents and brother made it through the storm okay at his place. They don't have water or power as of 3 p.m Eastern time, but neither does most of the rest of Houston. Not much damage in his neighborhood, so hopefully the power will be on soon.
As for home, reports are that my suburb did okay*, with water from the lake not getting more than a few houses beyond the shore. Lots of wind and tree damage though. It's the trees I'm worried about -- we have two huge live oak trees in the front yard and one of them has been dying, which means it might not have been strong enough to withstand the storm. Irony of ironies, my parents had their roof replaced last month.
The AP has a picture of the state highway near us with a sofa and a boat in the middle of the road. Things appear to have been much worse for the areas right near the bay** -- apparently the local Dairy Queen was pretty much submerged, as was T-Bone Tom's, home to some truly excellent BBQ.
My best friend (she's in Arizona) and I have been calling each other, commiserating about whatever news we can get off the net. At least it's something to do. I'm also cleaning my own apartment, which is sublimating my feelings of helplessness quite nicely.

*And can I just say thank God for the internet? Between the websites of the Houston Chronicle and the sites of some of the t.v. stations, as well as streaming radio, I've been able to keep up wiht the news, see photos of my area, and, through a forum, read reports from as close as a few streets away from my parents' home. It's probably kept me from going even crazier.

**Though Galveston got off easier than expected, thanks to an "only" 12-15 foot storm surge, apparently as many as 40% of the local population didn't evacuate. Then, of course, they started calling emergency services late on Friday night, at which point nobody could go in to rescue them because it was too dangerous. While my heart goes out to those too poor or sick to evacuate (and there were buses off of the island well into Friday afternoon, so one would hope there weren't too many of those), many of the people who stayed seemed to be nothing more than stubborn. I hope they don't have to pay too high a price for it all. One man in particular made me want to reach through my computer screen and strangle him myself. He said he was staying because "if it isn't your time, you'll be fine." Well buddy, I sure hope it wasn't your time. Seriously, I'm a bit of a fatalist myself, but come on. If I thought the hurricane was out to get me, I certainly wouldn't make it so easy for old Ike.

Edited to add: Heard from a family friend who works for the city and is in our neighborhood -- the trees and the house are still standing. It's nice to find something to be happy about. I just wish that everyone could have a home to come back to.

Not what I wanted my 100th post to be about

If you can spare a few thoughts and prayers today, please direct them towards Houston and Galveston, Texas. My parents were smack in the center of the mandatory evacuation zone for Hurricane Ike (we're about 20 min. from Galveston and our town, a suburb of Houston, is on the bay), but have made it safely to my brother's house. He lives across the city (Houston's a big town, so that's about an hour away) and they should all be safe there.

I've been looking at pictures of my neighborhood online, and the flooding from the storm surge alone is already pretty bad with most of the roads under a good amount of water. The storm hasn't even hit yet. It's hard to tell these days, because "gloom and doom" seems to be the default setting for the weathermen, but they are predicting that Galveston will be a direct hit -- which the island can't necessarily take -- and then the storm should head up towards Houston and to the northwest, which will pretty much take it through our neighborhood, darn it.

Things shouldn't be as bad as Katrina -- though the storm is as big, it isn't as strong, and there are apparently fewer people who couldn't evacuate. Unlike many of the hard hit areas of New Orleans, most people in the Houston/Galveston area have cars, so they have been able to get out, and people are more careful now than they used to be. There are always a stubborn few though. It's funny how they always manage to get shown on tv or the papers. I never know what to think of them. Part of me wants them to quit being a hero and get the heck away, and part of me knows how hard it would be to leave, not knowing what might happen while you were away.

It's so hard to be up here. Not that there's anything I could do if I was back home with my family. And I'm certainly glad I don't have to sit through the storm tonight. It's hard to worry by yourself, though. Aside from my concern about family, friends, and neighbors, I am rather selfishly worried about my home -- the physical building, I mean. Which makes me feel terrible, that I should care about that right now. But still.

I hope everything will be okay. We'll know in the morning, I guess.

Like Any Other Day

I haven't been able to get good reception on my clock radio lately, and with no cable, I don't watch much television. I don't read the newspaper, though I usually check the New York Times and a few other news sites during my coffee break at work (shh... don't tell) and again when I get home. So with such little exposure to the media, it was pretty easy to forget what today was.

Well, almost.

Today was gloomy, promising rain that hasn't come yet, but earlier this week the sky was bright and blue and cloudless. Just like that day, seven years ago. A co-worker remarked that this kind of early fall weather is almost spoiled for her now, and everyone else in the office who had been in the city then agreed.

I stay away from the financial district and lower Manhattan. Not consciously, really. It's just I generally have very little reason to be down there. But I go down there sometimes, and when I see that giant scar in the ground, or that hole in the sky where those two icons used to be, I remember. And I feel a little sick.

All that death and destruction. All those lives lost. All those people who were minding their own business, just going to work. Who thought that day was just another day.

I wasn't in New York on September 11, 2001. I was in Delaware, getting ready for a meeting with my thesis advisor. I remember hearing the reports on NPR. One plane hit. Everyone thought it was a mistake, an accident. I took a shower. When I came out, everything was different. The second plane. The Pentagon. The crash in Pennsylvania. I drove to school. Didn't know what else to do. We were all in shock, I think, trying to be normal. People who knew people who worked in New York tried to call their friends and family, just to check in. A few hours into the day they closed the museum campus, "for security." We all thought that was funny, in the way that things can be funny and sad and horrible at the same time. I drove home (I remember the streets seemed oddly empty) and turned on the tv, watched for as long as I could stand, and then curled up into a little ball in bed and cried.

I had been to New York City for the first time earlier that year. I loved it immediately. But my love was a tourist's love, a reader and movie watcher's love. I loved the magic the city promised, I loved all the history it held, but I knew very little about what living there was really like. I loved the idea of New York, and dreamed that maybe I could live there one day. I didn't know the practicalities, the challenges of the daily grind, the gritty but often wonderful reality. I know a little more now, one year into my tenure in the Bronx. Though I can never really know what it was like in the City that day, knowing life in New York as I do now, I can barely begin to imagine. But even the city I love is different than the New York that existed before 9/11. Shaped in innumerable ways by a tragedy too terrible to contemplate. I wonder how the city I have come to know would be different now, if things had been different.

Seven years is a very long time. But sometimes it isn't very long at all.

***
If you've made it all the way to the end of my rambling, and if you can stand to read one more thing about that day, from someone who was there, and who can say it far better than I, I highly recommend this. The first two links in her essay will tell you all about Sars and her search for Don, if you need a little background. If by some chance Don sounds at all familiar to you, please let her know.

Labor Day

I spent my Labor Day the way I've spent much of the past few days -- asleep or knitting. I came down with a summer cold last week and have been unsucessfully fighting it off ever since. I had to miss a cookout because of this darn cold, and I hate missing the opportunity to eat a charred meat product.

But at least there was knitting! Since the Summer of Socks knitalong ended today, I rushed along and finished my Oriel Lace socks.



They're from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks, and I made them in Dream in Color Smooshy (color: Lunar Zazzle), which is my new yarn crush.

And there's been baby knitting, too! Inspired by Wife, Mom, Knitter, I am working on Wendy Bernard's Tender Blankie for a friend who is expecting. I'm using up various colors of Caron Simply Soft in an attempt to knit from the stash. I didn't have enough yarn to do the blanket in one color -- so voila! Stripes!



I'm part way into square 3 right now. This is a really easy and fun knit and I will definitely keep it in mind for future baby knitting needs.

Also, like every other knitter on the planet, I am making a baby surprise jacket from the pattern (well, it's really more of a guideline) by Elizabeth Zimmermann. I've been wanting to make one for a while, and the recent spate of babies has provided me with a good excuse. Thursday I went to my LYS after work to buy the pattern and look at yarn. In what I can only assume was some karmically earned serendipity, they were having a BSJ knitalong that very night. So I also bought some needles and sat down and got started. I'm glad I did, because while the knitting isn't hard, the pattern is very brief, and assumes that you know to do certain things that other patterns would normally spell out for you. I'm glad I had someone to walk me through the beginning and to point out a few quirks in the pattern language. I don't have a picture yet, mainly because it doesn't look like much right now, but I promise to show you it soon. I am using a worsted weight yarn, and I'm afraid the jacket is going to be pretty big, but the nice thing about babies is that they grow, so it will fit eventually I guess.

In other news, school starts tomorrow. I don't have any classes to take this semester and will be mainly working on my exams this year. I am a little nervous about how this will work, since I don't do well without deadlines. Even though there's no class for me tomorrow, I still will be showing up bright and early since I'm going to be working in the library. I even get to man the reference desk for a while. Exciting!

And finally, before I sign off to go get my stuff together for the morning, here's a cat photo.



Minnie says, "I have a Ph.D. in napping."

Yum!

There will be knitting updates as soon as I can rouse myself to take pictures. But until then, how about a meme? I got this one from Dr. Wende.

Favorite food to crunch: Popcorn. With salt, but butter's optional.

Favorite comfort food: Mashed potatoes and gravy. No contest, hands down, my favorite comfort food, and a definite contender for favorite food ever.

Favorite picnic lunch: When we used to take family road trips when I was a kid, my parents would pack a cooler so we could eat at rest stops along the way. Our big treat was Underwood meat spreads, a canned food that we rarely got at home. It also came in deviled ham and roast beef varieties, but the deviled chicken was our (my brother and me) favorite. Spread on bread with Miracle Whip, mustard, and a slice of cheese, the sandwich meant that vacation was underway. Half the fun was eating it at a rest stop picnic table, with paper towels for napkins and chips or cold pork n' beans as a side. Somehow I don't think it would taste as good eaten at home. I'm also not so sure it would taste good now that I'm an adult. But at least I have the memory.

Favorite food scene in movie: The sequence in the first Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with the "Chocolate Room" (this is the part where Gene Wilder sings "Pure Imagination"). I'm not a big fan of the movie as an adult, but I used to dream about being set loose in that room when I was a little kid. All that candy! That river of chocolate! Those little edible buttercup teacups....

Favorite food lyrics: "And when I promised my hand / He promised me back / Snow Cherries from France." I don't know what French Snow Cherries are, but don't they sound wonderful? This is one of my favorite Tori Amos songs, all about love and wandering boys, and promises kept and broken. It sounds like the beginnings of a fairy tale, or a grand adventure story.

Best food smell memory: The smell of my grandma's caramel pecan rolls. She used to make a pan every time she came to visit. The smell of the yeasty dough, of the caramelized sugar, of the melty butter you spread on before you eat them -- they remind me of her, and how much she loved sweets and baking and sharing food with her family. I attempted them by myself for the first time last Christmas. They smelled just right.

Favorite summer snack: Strawberries. Sure you can get them all year now, but they're best (and cheapest) in the summer, and I try to eat as many as I can before they're gone.

Food that reminds me of the ocean: Fried soft-shell crabs on a roll, preferably eaten at the West Haven beaches.

Favorite winter snack: Eggnog. I've had some killer homemade versions, but I like my dad's the best. He gets Pennsylvania Dutch brand and doctors it up a bit.

Most likely to eat for lunch: Last year it was soup from the Soup Stop. This year it will probably be burritos from the Burrito Box (what is it with lunch places and alliteration?). Or whatever else is near school and relatively inexpensive.

Least likely to eat for lunch: Something I brought from home. Despite my best intentions, I am terrible at packing lunches. I always mean to do it the night before but then I forget and don't have time in the morning and run off to work with a bottle of water and some crackers or something.

Makes me gag: Raw cucumber. (but not pickles!)

Food tradition I love: My mom's Christmas morning egg sandwiches. They're a homemade version of Egg McMuffins and it wouldn't be Christmas without them.

Food tradition I loathe: I hate black-eyed peas and I don't care if it's good luck to eat them on New Year's. They're terrible.

Favorite wild foods: I'm a child of the suburbs. Food comes from the grocery store.

Favorite medicinal food: Chicken soup, especially Vietnamese chicken soup. It's good for what ails you.

Food that reflects my heritage: I'd love to name some classic German dishes, but they really aren't foods that got eaten much in my family (with the exception of German potato salad). My culinary heritage is good old Midwestern-type casserole food, preferably incorporating a can of Campbell's cream of something-or-other soup.

Food most like me: Burritos. They're packed with interesting stuff. ;)

Favorite raw food smell: Limes. They smell fresh and clean and like summer and the beach and refreshing drinks and maybe even key lime pie.

I came, I translated, I kicked some butt!

Summer internship: over, except for a few last details (whew!)
Library job: restarted, and they'd like me back for the fall (yay!)
German: learned, sort of (arrgh!)
German reading exam: passed (hooray!)
Next step on the road to Ph.D.: proposing my qualifying exams (aack!)

Sorry to have dropped of the interwebs like that. Things got a little crazy once I realized how little time I had before the German exam. But it is over and I have passed (thank goodness) and now I'm right where I should be on the degree schedule. I just got the email with the results - I was a bit afraid to look in case the news wasn't good. I still can't believe I passed. I've reread the email several times just to make sure.

The exam was hard. I got the paper and looked at the page full of German and freaked out a little (ok, a lot). It seemed to take me forever just to get through the title and I started to panic a little. I just kept going, though, and things got easier and I got faster, and by the end of the three hours I had made it through the whole passage. By the end, I felt like I more-or-less had the basic idea of all the sentences down, but I just didn't know if it would be finely tuned enough to pass muster. The German instructor was rumored to be very tough, so I just didn't know. I spent the evening making chocolate chip cookies to console myself, just in case. Now they can be cookies of celebration, instead!

I'm off to enjoy myself for a day. For once, there's very little hanging over my head. Tomorrow it's back to work and back to figuring out what to do about those qualifying exams, but I'm just going to enjoy the day today. Auf wiedersehen!