mea maxima culpa

I was out of line the other night. (Surprising, I know.)  I wrote some things here that, though not untrue, should not have been written.  (How's that for an apology?  Reminds me of that wonderful scene from Anne of Green Gables, wherein she abases herself before Mrs. Lynde for being rude -- not because what she'd said hadn't been true, but because it shouldn't have been said.)

But in all seriousness, I am sorry.  On some level I forget sometimes that the stories I write here -- stories I consider in the moments of telling them to be wholly and entirely my own -- also belong to other living breathing people whether or not, or to whatever degree, we still inhabit each others' lives.  What I originally wrote has since been rewritten in the clear light of day, and reflects more honestly what I meant in the first place, a little further removed from that late-night place of insecurity and hurt.  It wasn't my intent to in turn be hurtful.

Unfortunately I share with Anne not only her fiery red hair and overly active imagination, but also a quick temper, a loose tongue, and an ugly tendency to hold on to a grudge.  All things to be worked on, and things that are being worked on, most of the time.  Also perhaps a little more discretion and, you know, self-censorship, would be in order.

ellensburg, 6.17.10

on wedding invitations, playing the victim, and trying not to

There was a piece in Slate last week about a study that looked at adults and children, bullies and victims, and the different ways they interpret harm.  Adults tend to understand that intent matters, and that the way we respond to harm depends on the intent (or lack of intent) of the person causing it.  Young children generally don't understand this difference:  to them harm is harm regardless of intent.  Bullies apparently understand these nuances but just don't care.  And perennial victims, well, in some ways they stay children forever, and are sometimes prone to seeing victim-hood in situations where there was no underlying intent to harm.

Something about this study resonated with me, and I found it deeply disconcerting.  I had my own experiences with being bullied back in the day at good old George Washington Elementary School, as I've mentioned here before.  Sometimes I worry that those days have affected my ability to trust other people, or rather my confidence in my own reading of other people.

I have a rather unbecoming tendency to assume that people are out to get me, or if not necessarily to such an extreme, that the people I care about don't care about or think about or love me in the same way, don't see me as being smart enough or pretty enough or interesting enough or generally worthy of their time.  Silly, I know, but there it is.

I got an invitation in the mail a few days ago to a friend's wedding.  I have known this friend for a decade now, ever since he and my brother lived next door to each other in their college dorm.  We ran in the same circles for awhile, back in the day when there was a great big crowd of us spending lots of time together.  As everyone graduated and got jobs and moved around and all that post-college stuff, many of us have gone partly or largely our separate ways.  We still overlap now and again of course -- when my brother's in town, when one or the other of us has a party or dinner party or show of some sort, when a group of us flew to my parents' place for Christmas a few years back.  We've rarely been one-on-one friends, if that makes sense, but still there has always been a lot of mutual affection

The invitation arrived on Saturday addressed solely to me, and this threw me into a bit of a tailspin:  were partners not invited?  He does know I have a boyfriend, right? Of course he does, he and his fiancee came up to our place last winter and partook in Evan's cooking.  He met Evan ten years ago when he and Nathan lived next door to each other.  We brought a delicious cab franc to their engagement party! Was I not supposed to bring him to the engagement party? Have I already committed an unforgivable faux pas?  Do I really have to go to this thing by myself, maybe share a table with my baby brother and his wife, the ex-boyfriend and the woman (okay, now wife) he left me for, all those other happily married friends and their partners? Why do I feel like I've been relegated to the kids' table, my relationship not deemed grown-up enough to be taken seriously?  Is this really happening?  Couldn't they cut down on the "black-tie-ness" of it all and include everyone that should be included?  Meaning my boyfriend?  Why do they hate me so much?!?

I thought myself in knots, twisted and turned and grew increasingly upset, to the point where I couldn't fall asleep and sat up till the wee hours scribbling in a notebook.  In the morning, over cups of coffee, I poured out this hurt to Marianne and declared my intent to abstain from the whole sorry affair.  Marianne just gave me one of her patented Marianne looks and said, "Don't be ridiculous, Em. You've known him forever.  You love him.  Of course you'll go."

And of course she was right.

I finally worked up the nerve to email him later that morning, just to clarify that partners really aren't invited, and that I should let Evan off the hook as far as having to suit it up for this black-tie affair.  And he wrote back later that evening saying to the contrary, that of course Evan should come.

This made me feel a lot better about things.  I'm still not convinced that I have not committed yet another egregious faux pas, but I am happy and relieved that I get to have my boy with me.  And if I should ever end up getting married there will be a little shindig, perhaps in Mom & Paul's back yard if they'll have me, or perhaps at the lake where I grew up if it'll have me. And it will be totally informal and unconstructed so as to avoid any stress or confusion. There will be Bermuda shirts and birkenstocks and dresses and jeans.  There might be platters of oysters and ice chests of cold home-brewed beer if I'm lucky, and mounds of cookies and gallons of gazpacho and twinkly fairy lights festooned across trellises and tree branches.  And maybe a knitted lace canopy just for the hell of it, even if I'm not Jewish and can't lay claim to a chuppah.  And if someone should ask whether or not they can bring their boyfriend or girlfriend or long lost third cousin twice removed from Kansas or that hot chick they met at that bar last week, I'll say sure.  Just pick up an extra bottle of wine on your way over.  Or, you know, maybe some cupcakes.

In the meantime, I'll be working hard at not creating situations of victim-hood where there are none, and will be looking forward to getting all gussied up (this seems to be a theme these days) in preparation for these friends' big day, possibly even to the extent of getting a pedicure. In pink. Shocking, I know.

the things i'm reading today

Atul Gawande, Letting Go
POP: Larry on Nerve
Love apparently really is like a drug
The New Abortion Providers 

(Suggestions welcome!)

“Of course I agree with the preacher of Ecclesiastes that there is a time to love and a time to die—and when my skein runs out I hope to face the end calmly and in my own way. For most situations, however, I prefer the more martial view that death is the ultimate enemy—and I find nothing reproachable in those who rage mightily against the dying of the light.”
-Stephen Jay Gould

self-portrait w/ (cold) feet

(Idaho, 6/16/10)

krispies treat, 7.23.10

(At the C.W. Post Chamber Music Festival, Long Island University)

oh veronica

I confess.  I have been watching an obscene amount of Veronica Mars these last few weeks.  I love rich bad boy Logan and rich good(ish) boy Duncan and sweet best friend Wallace and computer geek Mac and sexy Jackie and dead Lily and even whip-smart (if sometimes incredibly stupid and often incredibly annoying) Veronica.  But most of all, I think, I adore the relationship between Veronica and her father, former local sheriff turned private investigator extraordinaire, Keith Mars.  (So I have a soft spot for bald guys, what can I say?  Luckily for me, this show also sports Francis Capra.)

Also, the music.  Seriously, any show that navigates from 46Bliss (just wait, it gets so good) to  Leonard Cohen to Pete Yorn to  Neko Case to Thievery Corporation to Sia (remixed) to Tegan & Sara to Spoon to dear old M. Doughty, doesn't have an absolutely horrible theme song, has a character who reminds me a little bit of an old friend (and who turns out to be a suicidal psycho killer), and manages to work in Willow, Cordelia, and a Joss Whedon cameo pretty much rocks in my book.

Except that Kristen Bell looked so much hotter (more hot?) with her choppy 'do of the show's early days.  Her latter-day long and golden curls, not so much.

down by the river

dinners

Dinner tonight found me and Nick serenading Dan with a (decidedly off-key) rendition of Tiffany's (rather unfortunately gender-'corrected') rendition of I Saw Her Standing There.  (Wouldn't dear Tiffany just be that much more adorable if she was crooning over another adorably dolled-up '80s girl?)

The thing is, Nick and I have a long history of dining together, sharing everything from not losing track of language to sharing strangely prescient moments to tolerating my tirades to sharing moments of unexpected grief to indulging in pride on his behalf to taking many pictures of to yet more discussions of language to old songs to confessions to shared love for old school science fiction to more music to commiseration to random news to dreams (well, at least that one came true in so far as the hot blonde) to ridiculousness to 9/11 to chocolate to many more shared stories before this blog's beginnings (going back at least to the fall of 1999 if not a bit earlier even than that).

Having Dan join us in our nearly weekly dinners is a more recent incarnation.  And having my boyfriend Evan and Nick's girlfriend Sarah (sweet girl of the above chocolate story) is even more recent than that.  And I like these new iterations of our nearly weekly dinners, 99% of the time.  But in certain moments, in a caught breath between the thought in my head and the words coming out of my mouth, I miss our one-on-ones, our tete-a-tetes.  It is a new reality (and a good reality), these expanded dinners of ours, but it takes some getting used to.

polaroids

(Sia, Breathe Me, Dionysuz Remix)

'everything but the kitchen sink' soup

Too lazy (and cheap) to go grocery shopping yesterday so found myself ransacking the refrigerator for last week's CSA remnants.  This soup is weird but tasty, and even better the next day served cold.

Everything But The Kitchen Sink Soup:

Cooking oil
Bunch small purplish/reddish onions, chopped
Red pepper flakes to taste
A small eggplant, diced
Green beans, chopped into 1-inch lengths
Some unknown greens -- really thick stems and frilly curled leaf edges -- torn into small pieces sans stems
Most of a head of lettuce, torn into pieces
Chicken broth
Some parsley
Some mint
2 itty bitty cucumbers

Saute the onions and red pepper flakes in oil over medium-low heat.  I've been using coconut oil lately and it's subtle and delicious and smells really good.  Add the beans and the eggplant and cooked till softened.  Add a little bit of broth and the unknown greens and stir, then leave covered for a little while so the greens wilt.  Add the parsley and the mint and the lettuce and enough broth to cover, and let cook for a little while.  Add the cucumbers and blend in the soup pot with a stick blender.  Refrigerate long enough to chill, add the bit of cream or milk or yogurt, salt and pepper to taste.

Like I said, this turned out rather strangely.  But it has the potential to be delicious.  I would cut way back on the mint, add some garlic at the beginning, and maybe put through a food processor to blend to a smoother consistency.  And of course the joy of it is that none of my CSA goodies went to waste this week, and are now in a form that could either be frozen indefinitely or at least keep in the refrigerator for another few days.  Maybe I'll even bring some to work tomorrow for lunch.

'our world is full of sound...'

Our world is full of sound
Our world is more lovely than anyone's
tho we suffer, and kill each other
and sometimes fail to walk the air.
(Amiri Baraka)

bikes

boots