Where I've been

Places I've spent at least a day in:

Texas

• San Antonio
• Austin
• Del Rio
• Fort Davis
• Lubbock

New Mexico

• Las Cruces
• Alamogordo
• White Sands
• Carlsbad
• Santa Fe
• Ruidoso
• Lincoln

Other U.S. states

• Des Moines, IA
• Ames, IA
• Washington, D.C.
• Seattle, WA
• Las Vegas, NV
• Reno, NV
• Grand Canyon
• Tucson, AZ
• Phoenix, AZ
• Lake Powell, UT
• Los Angeles, CA
• Lafayette, LA

Foreign

• Juarez, Mexico
• Caribbean cruise tourist traps (Cozumel, Mexico, Ocho Rios, Jamaica, Grand Cayman)

I wish this list was much, much longer, especially the "Foreign" category.

I hope this works

I just upgraded to Blogger beta. My blog now has labels, cool.

So for tonight's class we watched I Heart Huckabees. One of my classmates made a (delicious) fancy rum cake for the occasion, so there we all sat eating cake and watching this bizarre movie, which I won't attempt to explain except to say that it's blatantly philosophical. Cake and philosophy and a movie, now there's a class. If only there were such a thing as existential detectives.

Via kottke: how to be interesting.

Aimee Mann has a new Christmas album. I like this review of it on Amazon.

Funny word

Funny word that came up in a discussion this week:

bathos - n. insincere or grossly sentimental pathos

Definition from American Heritage Dictionary via dictionary.com.

View from overseas

Perceptive observation of George W. Bush at a press conference.

Unknown White Male

I watched this movie last night. I've heard the rumors that this was a fake documentary, and I could definitely see how one could think that. There does seem to be something fake about the whole thing, like either a) the subject, Doug Bruce, was faking losing his memory and duped everyone around him or b) everyone in the documentary was in on it and they were all just acting. The family didn't seem emotional enough to me. And why did he agree to videotape his ordeal? And how does he know some things but not others? He recognizes people speaking Russian but he doesn't know what it feels like to swim in the ocean? But I think the parts that convinced me that it wasn't a total fake were seeing how he acted compared to his old friends. Something in his eyes, childlike. Innocence compared to their cynicism.

Interesting concept

From Wikipedia:
"Kairos is an Ancient Greek word meaning 'the right or opportune moment.' The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies 'a time in between', a moment of undetermined period of time in which 'something' special happens. What the special something is depends on who is using the word."

They did it! Hooray :-).

28 Up

This weekend I watched the documentary 28 Up. I heard about this series years ago and was always intrigued by it. Every seven years, the director Michael Apted follows up with a group of people he first interviewed at age 7. It's meant to be an observation of class in British society. The director deliberately chose a group that included children from upper-, middle-, and lower-class backgrounds. Admittedly, a lot of the commentary on classism is lost on me since I'm not from the U.K., but still, it's pretty clear what different worlds these groups of people live in. At 28, most of the upper-class subjects are in professional careers (lawyer, filmmaker, etc.), while many of the lower-class subjects are still working the same low-wage jobs they had at 21 (sausage factory worker, brick layer, etc.). Obviously, privilege, or lack of it, has played a huge part in determining the paths of their of lives.

Apart from the class issues, the documentary is pretty affecting as an observation of the life cycle. These are all average, ordinary people for the most part. None of them is now a celebrity or a CEO or a political revolutionary. None of them has even departed radically from the path they were on seven years ago. But it's still interesting to see the changes that happen in seven years, from the uncertain 21-year-olds in budding careers or at the end of their education, only a few married, to the more-settled 28-year-olds, most of whom are now married and settled into careers. The conversations are more philosophical and reflective; questions turn to marriage and children. It's fascinating to hear people reflect on their lives, on things they said when they were age 21 or 14 or even 7, and to discuss the reverberations of events that happened in the past that still affect them many years later.

To me, the most poignant interview is with Neil, who is homeless. This man obviously has some form of mental illness, yet you can tell he's very intelligent. He was homeless at 21 and is still homeless at 28. He travels around living off social security, staying at any place he can afford. They're interviewing him by a lakeside in Scotland where he's temporarily living in a trailer. At one point he comments on the mindlessness of modern life, he says something like, well, suburban life only buys you the privilege of riding a commuter train 5-10 times a week and staggering home, coming home on weekends to watch TV, only to do it all again on Monday, and that it's all a form of brainwashing. But then the interviewer says, well, do you think the people who live that suburban life would prefer a life like yours? Then he says something like, at least I have the kind of life I like, if I had to live the suburban life I'd end up trying to kill myself.

And you think to yourself, this guy is nuts, but in a way, don't we all at some level recoil at how desperately boring and unfulfilling modern life can be? Is it really anyone's dream to work that 8-to-5 just to pay the bills then come home exhausted, too busy and tired to contemplate anything? And yet all the other subjects of the documentary seem to live a version of it (some of the women are homemakers, so there's sort of an exception, but I would argue that it's still your conventional life). You finish the documentary thinking that it's disappointing that most of us can expect our lives to be so predictable. But what else is there, really, besides your family and/or your career? Yourself and your experiences, I suppose, but that gets old. That tendency to settle down is always there, like the laws of gravity. The moral of the story is that most people do end up settling down into predictable lives, mainly determined by what circumstances they were born into. Most people just accept their fate in life, whatever it is, and make peace with it. And I don't really know if that's good or bad. Shouldn't we all be a little more outraged at this? But we're not, most of us just float through life unaware of how different it could be, eking out whatever happiness we can get.

I would definitely recommend this documentary series, especially to someone in their 20s. This is the kind of film that makes you think about your own life and how your family background has affected where you are today. Warning, it is very British, I definitely wish there were an American version, but you will still get a lot out of watching it. And there are two later installments I'm looking forward to seeing, 35 Up and 42 Up.

Election Day

Perfect read for Election Day.

Birthday pie?

Anyone else find it weird to have pie replace cake at a birthday party?

Sort of like having my own radio station

On Tuesday I spent a few hours uploading most of my CD collection to my computer. This because I was bored and I'm too cheap to spend money on new music. I wanted to get some more mileage out of CDs I never listen to. You know, the CDs with a few good songs on them, but the rest are filler, so it's annoying to skip through the entire CD to find the songs you really like. So on Tuesday I culled the best of the collection--100 songs in all that I compiled into one playlist. I couldn't wait to hit the shuffle button. It's almost like having my own radio station. Very cool.

Interesting aside: I came across a single of the Sarah McLachlan song "Adia" that I bought some time in 1998. *Eight years ago.* Wow, I am getting old. Talk about your lost classic. It's a great song, probably up there with my Top 20.

Innie or outie?

I'm your classic introvert, something you could probably already tell by reading this blog. I once took the Myers-Brigg personality test and answered in the affirmative to every single question regarding introversion. Yeah, I have a pretty bad case of it, lol. It's really difficult for me to start conversations, even with people I already know. I tend to dread social situations, most of the time I'd rather be left alone in my world of text and information and TV and music. Not that I dislike people, but to me they are like a puzzle I don't think I'll ever solve. So complicated and illogical. According to things I've read, the "suitable career paths" for me are computer programming or writing.

And then I look at my sister who's my complete opposite and I almost have to laugh when I think about how different we are. She's so friendly and outgoing she can talk to just about anyone with ease. She has a lot of friends and she is always out and about visiting them. She's been the leader of several school clubs. She has made tons of money as a waitress, and give her anything to sell (i.e. a box of candy bars, jewelry, tickets to a fundraiser) and soon it will be gone, replaced by a stack of cash. Far from dreading social interactions, she thrives on them. People tell her she should be a businesswoman or a social worker.

It is just bizarre to me that people can be wired so differently, especially people who have the same parents. How can things that are so difficult for me come so naturally to her? OK, so I'm a little jealous. It's a small consolation that my sister probably looks at me and thinks the same thing when it comes to school and making good grades, since that has always come easily to me but is something she struggles with.

Introversion has its advantages, but if the choice were mine, I'd be an extrovert. It just seems more practical, not to mention more fun. What's the use of having all this information in your head if you're not going to share it? No more worrying about the world's problems when there are friends to see. And finally an end to awkwardness and embarrassing silences. If only there were some sort of trade my sister and I could make. Half your extroversion for half of my nerdiness? I wish.

A vegan Halloween Lunch Box. That is adorable. I especially like the baked apple shrunken heads.

Miscellaneous blog posts

• I'm 24 and I already feel this way.
• I read this post a while back and really related to it since I was a vegetarian for years as a teenager but decided to scrap that four years ago and eat meat of all kinds. The teen years, I refer to those as my peanut butter sandwich days.
• The Hamlet Weblog. I've never heard of anyone so excited about a Shakespeare play.

The week

I remember thinking to myself this week, it seems like I never do anything anymore. It's been months since I've gone anywhere outside El Paso. I haven't been to the movies in a while, and I haven't been to a concert in at least a year. Maybe once a week I'll go out to a restaurant, but it's always one I've been to a million times before. I do the same job and watch the same TV shows and even those were in reruns this week. Yeah, it was a pretty boring week. No wonder I can't think of much to write about. Hopefully that will change soon.

Ode to U2

There are bands and then there are Bands. And of the Bands, for me U2 is The Band. I was, unfortunately, too young to know much about U2 back in their supposed heyday in the 1980s. Of course I knew some of their songs from the radio, "Pride (In the Name of Love)", "Where the Streets Have No Name", "Sunday Bloody Sunday", etc., but until the past few years not much beyond that. I think I'm sort of unusual in the fact that I've become a true fan mostly based on their most recent albums, in the Bono-as-humanitarian-extraordinaire era of music.

It was 2002 when I was given the album All That You Can't Leave Behind as an Easter present. At first, I thought, oh, these songs are nice. "Beautiful Day", nice enough melody, though not what I would consider really innovative. But then the more I listened to the songs on this album, the more I was impressed by them--Bono's voice the perfect mix of soulfulness and vulnerability, the shimmering guitars that are like an ocean of sound. But most of all the lyrics. When I really stopped and listened to the lyrics I was blown away by how smart and poetic they were: the spiritual, romantic, and political themes, the biblical allusions sprinkled in, the way they are just elusive enough to keep you guessing what they're really about. Love and world peace. Bedouin fires and Noah's ark. And if you want to see me cry, "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out of."

I ended up listening to that album quite a few times over the next year or so and was so impressed I begged my sister to buy How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb for me for Christmas in 2004. But after being so impressed by their previous album I was honestly a little disappointed by it. I had high expectations, and I thought it was good but not nearly as affecting as All That You Can't Leave Behind. I listened to it a few times. Then I literally lost the CD for a few months. I eventually found it again but didn't listen to it much. Until a few months later, that is. I can remember the exact night I "fell in love" with this CD. It was New Year's 2006, the loneliest New Year's I've ever had, over a year after I had received the CD as a Christmas present. I suppose I was in the right state of mind to be really affected by the music. I stayed up until 3 a.m. listening to the whole album, and I loved every song I listened to more than the last. Listening to these moving lyrics about third-world poverty and love and individualism, with the simple but profound "Yahweh" as the conclusion, I was just amazed at how great it was. Something clicked, and since then I have listened to this album over and over, mostly when I've been down and in a serious state of mind or depressed by the messed-up condition of the world.

And what's so great about U2 is that there's still more to discover. A week or two ago I bought one of their greatest hits collections, and it made me realize there's still a huge treasure of songs from the past that I haven't heard. How can a band can be so creative and still relevant after nearly 30 years of playing music together? This is probably the only band where I could see myself owning every album they've recorded because they're just that good. I really admire music that you can listen to over and over and find new meanings in every time you listen to it. I sometimes go to this website where they offer the supposed meanings for U2 lyrics. Which is cheating, I know, but it's cool that a song can be thought to have so many meanings and that it's sort of a puzzle that keeps you guessing. Their music is satisfying in that it's both popular and fun to listen to but at the same time has a serious message. Where listening to most pop music is like eating sugary candy, listening to U2 is like eating a really delicious meal.

It's funny to think about the sets of circumstances that lead you to appreciate some things. If I had been given a different present for Easter or had never recovered that CD I lost or had somewhere to go on New Year's I probably wouldn't be writing this post. Maybe I'd be writing about the Beatles or Pink Floyd or something. But instead, for me, U2 continues to be The Band.

Time essay: Original Patents. This is funny.

Mmmm, chocolate

I've found my new favorite ice cream: Haagen Dazs Mayan Chocolate. As printed on the pint container, "Rich chocolate ice cream with a fudge swirl and a hint of cinnamon." Yum.

Paragraph I read before falling asleep last night:

"There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw--but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realise that the landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you are transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of--something not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are you not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the things I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all."

-C.S. Lewis, Chapter 10 "Heaven", The Problem of Pain

Netflix

I just subscribed to Netflix and I can't get over how great this service is. Netflix is sooooo much better than a video store. No more driving down to the dingy shopping center where the video store is. No more having the movie you want to rent all sold out. No more stressing out about having to watch the movie in five days. And the selection is fantastic. For example, I've been wanting to watch the 7 UP series of documentaries for literally years and could never find them at the video store, but the whole series is available on Netflix. It's amazing and miraculous. I should do a commercial.

Hidden track on the CD I bought last week. How appropriate.

Working nights

The house was dark and quiet when I got home from work around 11:30 Monday night. Some nights my mom and/or my sister are awake when I get home and I stay up and talk with them just before they go to sleep. Not tonight. Disappointed, I went to the kitchen to get something to eat and when I turned on the light I noticed something: the house was clean. Not just sort of clean, but really clean, clean the way a hotel room might be when you check in. The house had been slightly messy before I left around 4 that afternoon, but now the kitchen was spotless, a new tablecloth had been put on the table, the rugs looked like they had been vacuumed, and all the stuff that had accumulated on the couch had been put away. It was like some magical cleaning fairy had come by while I was gone, but of course I knew that magical cleaning fairy was my mother. Somewhere in the nearly eight hours I had been gone she had managed to clean the whole house. This happens when you work opposite schedules. You miss things. Events happen that you are entirely oblivious to. I had no idea why my mom picked a weekday night to clean, and I wasn't exactly going to wake her up to ask her. I made myself a quesadilla on the spotless stove then sat alone on the clean couch to watch late-night TV.

And it reminded me of another, sadder, memory of the last job I had where I worked at night. It was my first real job, as a cashier at a big-box store that shall remain nameless. It was during the holiday season. I remember getting home from what had been a horrendous night. It had been so busy my boss wasn't able to give me a break during my six-hour shift. I was tired and hungry. I remember standing in the dark at the door of the house with my key, exhausted and so happy to finally be home. When I opened the door and went inside to the entryway it was quiet and dark the same way it was Monday night. All were asleep. And then I saw the glow of Christmas lights, the Nativity scene on the front table, and the decorated tree. You see, every year a few weeks before Christmas it was our family tradition to spend an evening together hanging ornaments on the tree and stockings over the fireplace, settting up the Nativity scene, and decorating the house with wreaths and garland. And this year while I was at work cashiering like a madwoman, they had done it all without me. At that point I burst into tears.

Some things you never get used to. I've had sixteen months of working nights at my current job and I'm used to the schedule for the most part. I've tricked my body into thinking it should be wide awake at midnight, but it's still difficult to accept the ugliest part of working at night: the lost time, time that could have been spent with loved ones instead spent in service to a corporation. All work requires sacrifices, but more often than working a "regular" schedule, working nights you have these large and small moments of pain in realizing what you missed that make you wonder if the sacrifices are worth it.

Update: Project Runway finale

Jeffrey won. Unbelievable. No indication of it in the finale, it seemed in the bag for Uli. I can respect the guy's designs even though they aren't really my style, but it was his attitude during the show made me cringe more than anything else. And he already has a fashion business, why not give the prize to someone who is truly just starting out?

The Project Runway season finale is tonight. I'm excited. I hope Michael wins.

As presented by NewMexiKen, NPR's 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century. None from my Top 20 made the list (I only wish my knowledge of music were that sophisticated or diverse), though I spotted a few favorites like "Good Vibrations", "Let's Stay Together", and Carole King's Tapestry album. NPR has a story for every musical work (some aren't songs but albums or musical scores). Worth spending some time on.

John Mayer has a blog.

Whimsical life goals, part 1

1. Travel. Italy first, for the language and food and museums. Then the world. I'm talking Bhutan, Iceland, Argentina, Morocco. I would love to see some amazing out-of-the-way places, places no one thinks of where you can have a real adventure, maybe in Africa or Eastern Europe.
2. Have my own house. I already have this pictured in my mind so clearly--the charming little house in the city with wood floors, cream-colored walls, and plenty of windows with ledges where I can sit and read or watch people pass by. Warm in the winter. Small backyard where I can grow fruits and vegetables in the summer.
3. Get married (or close to it). *Blush*
4. Write a book. Non-fiction, probably, fiction just feels like lying to me. Some intricate, compelling, layered story that would require years of research.

The sunset

Today I drove to work along the border highway in the last light of the sunset. It was unbelievably beautiful. The sky looked like it was on fire. A sea of red-orange clouds and I drove toward it like I wanted to get lost in it.

Best songs ever

I was thinking about what I wrote in the last post about my list of the "best songs ever." I've never come up with an actual list, but after I wrote that I thought it might be fun to try. So here are my Top 20 most favorite songs, the ones on my hard drive or in my CD collection that I listen to with great delight, the ones I turn the volume up on and start singing along with when no one's looking. I thought 20 was a good number, 10 would be too few, anything over that would be overkill since there are so many songs I like. There's a definite theme- a lot of classic rock, a lot of what I would refer to as "lush melancholy pop anthems." They are listed in no particular order, since ranking them would be a pointless and impossible task. Without further adieu:

• "Time After Time" Cyndi Lauper
• "Silver Spring" Fleetwood Mac
• "You Get What You Give" New Radicals
• "Roxanne" The Police
• "Wouldn't It Be Nice" The Beach Boys
• "Drive" The Cars
• "Just What I Needed" The Cars
• "Masquerade" Madonna
• "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" U2
• "One" U2
• "Sounds of Silence" Simon and Garfunkel
• "Brown-Eyed Girl" Van Morrison
• "Paperback Writer" The Beatles
• "Something" The Beatles
• "Let It Be" The Beatles
• "Tiny Dancer" Elton John
• "White Houses" Vanessa Carlton
• "Linger" The Cranberries
• "I Can't Tell You Why" The Eagles

Retail therapy

I'm not above a little retail therapy. Purchased today:

- haircut (badly needed)
- pair of blue corduroy pants
- sweater and two long-sleeved T-shirts (cold weather looms ahead)
- U2: The Best of 1980-1990 ("I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" on my list of the best songs ever, on sale for $10)
- Lunch at Barnes and Noble- a turkey and cheese pannini and vanilla Italian soda. I managed to leave the store without buying a book, a major accomplishment.

Nice way to spend the day and a hundred dollars.

Paris Hilton

Not that I really admire Paris Hilton, but I think it's cool that a person like her even exists. She hasn't done much in the way of proving herself to the world, and yet she has all the confidence in the world. You get the idea that if you spent one day living her life it would be the most fun you've ever had.

I know writing is ultimately about being honest. But how honest is too honest? Sometimes I'm in the mood to write soul-baring truths and I'm tempted to turn this into a sort of tell-all journal. Write freely about minutiae of daily life. There's a phrase in Italian that I read in a book that I love: parla come mangia. Speak the way you eat. Or in this case, scriva come mangia. Write the way you eat. But for various reasons I don't do this because "it would be irresponsible."

Confession: I do have a journal. A paper journal where I name names, write about the day's events, and write about my feelings and insecurities, usually at night before I go to bed. I have been keeping journals probably since I was 11 or 12. Sometimes I will go back and read what I wrote. Then I realize why I don't write like that here--I realize how bad the writing is. Things I notice when I go back through my journals:

1) I repeat myself a lot. The same issues come up, the same feelings. I think to myself, you're writing about that again? Let's move on.
2) I will jump from one topic to the next randomly and write a few lines about each. Details aren't filled in and so a lot of times it doesn't make much sense.
3) Sometimes I write about the most boring things. There's no sense of priorities. I will recall that something major happened one day and instead of writing about that I will write about something trivial that happened a few hours before.
4) I will be freaking out about a particular thing and I will elevate it to crisis status. A few months later I'll look back at it and wonder why I worried about that at all.
5) I will read something and not remember that it happened. Not even a vague remembrance. That's scary. Or sometimes I will write about a person and then a year later I'll read what I wrote and not even remember who that person is.

I wouldn't say there's no value to keeping that journal. At the time of writing, it's a good release. And it's good to remember where you've been and what you felt at the time. Looking back I notice the patterns, the persistent worries and struggles, the things in my personality that I struggle with year after year. There are nuggets of insight in there amid the chaos. I suppose the key thing I realize is that there is some value to keeping that unfiltered journal, but that value is limited to myself. You can't really call yourself a writer just because you keep that sort of journal. I hesitate even to call that writing, mostly it is venting. I'm being honest, the most honest I ever get, probably, but I realize I am writing for myself and the value of posting it in public would be limited at best.

So that, in a nutshell, is why this is not a journal and I'm not very forthcoming about things sometimes. The days of coming home and sitting in front of the computer and venting are over for me. But I do want to be honest in my writing, and the question remains of how to do that. I want to spray paint my deep-down honest thoughts on my bedroom wall, so to speak, per an episode of Made. I want to show who I really am and not project some image of who I want myself to be. That's the struggle of everyone who writes, though. How deep do you want to go? You strive for that deep-down honesty, but how much of yourself are you willing to reveal? Or, put another way, how many people are you willing to offend? Play it too safe, stick to the same old topics and you're boring. Be too open and you're disrespectful and offensive. It's a fine line to walk.

What my life is like lately

Read for class-go to class-work-watch TV-sleep. Repeat.

Piano lessons

My latest undertaking to keep my brain from congealing: piano lessons. This summer I developed a thing for piano music--pieces like Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Chopin's Minute Waltz, Fantaisie-Impromptu, and the Ballade No. 1 in G minor (my all-time favorite). Even in pop music, I found my tastes veering to keyboards--Five for Fighting, Keane, Vanessa Carlton, Elton John. One day I was listening to the Moonlight Sonata and an idea popped into my mind: maybe I could play that. I had taken two years of lessons as a kid, and it sounded like a simple enough piece to play. It was probably slightly too advanced for the level I stopped at, never mind how much I had forgotten over the years. But the idea was formed and I now had a goal: take enough lessons so that I could play the Moonlight Sonata.

I already have a piano at home, and it was easy enough finding a piano teacher. But of course, the idea of playing the piano and actually playing it are two very different things. I had illusions of myself as the next Vanessa Carlton, with these beautiful melodies naturally flowing from my hands. Instead I'm sitting in my piano teacher's living room trying to puzzle out notes, fretting because I forgot a flat. Half the time it gets to be more about the notes than the music. I'm obviously not a natural-born musician. Moments of frustration occur. I go days without practicing. But sometimes I can hear myself getting better and that's encouraging. It's not such a crazy idea for me to be able to play a Beethoven piece. It seems attainable.

And the thing is, I really like playing the piano. It seems the piano is more natural to me than the guitar, the last instrument I attempted to play. I took a couple of years of guitar lessons, and when I think back, the guitar seems almost painful to play in comparison, with its hand contortions and calloused fingers. But with the piano the notes are all laid out right there in front of you practically inviting you to play. I like the the loudness and physicality of playing the piano--banging out the chords, pressing the foot pedals, playing good and loud so the whole house can hear. It's also very self-contained and I like that. You can play by yourself and it sounds just as well, no need for an orchestra or a band or fancy equipment. You don't need to know how to sing, either, good for a person like me with a laughably bad singing voice. Vanessa Carlton I'm not.

Anyway, so I'll keep everyone posted on my adventures in piano-playing. Chopin seems a long way off, but I'm giving myself two more months for the Moonlight Sonata. Finally, a goal.

The latest installment of the Life Props series (about "Spring and Fall", a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem) is posted over on feeling listless. "Most art, especially art that someone might describe as their favourite has that quality - you'll often describe it as a favourite for reasons that have nothing to do with the item itself and its true meaning." So true. *Sigh* what a great post.

Summer photos

I finally got around to getting some photos from this summer developed. My favorites from the set:


Ah, summer. Here are my feet in my favorite sandals.



Here's a picture of a vacant lot near my house. The purple flowers and clouds reminded me of this Monet painting.



My across-the-street neighbor's mailbox. In the background you can see the steeple of Trinity Lutheran church. I like living across the street from a church. At night the cross lights up and I can see it from my bedroom window.

Commercials I can't stand

• The commercial for Colonial Penn life insurance where an elderly woman is trying to keep up with her grandchildren. She stops to put quarters into a parking meter. "Don't you wish life were just like this parking meter?" Such a tacky metaphor and I hate how it exploits the fears of older people.
• The U.S. Army commercial where a young black man stands in the kitchen talking to his father. "Dad, I figured out how I'm going to pay for college." By signing your life away to the Army and being shipped to Iraq shortly after you graduate? At the very least, why can't the Army be upfront about its purpose? The Army is obviously not first and foremost a college financial aid program.

Andrew Sullivan on faith and religion. This is a great essay. Worth reading all the way through if only to get to the fantastic quote in the second-to-last paragraph.

"No matter how much they pay, the paycheck isn't enough." This post came up in a Google search. I find it pretty relevant.

There's no better thing than driving back from work on a Saturday and seeing my sister's car in the driveway. She had brought a bag of pomegranates (picked from a tree in her backyard) and a loaf of French bread home with her. So we sat on the couch and sucked the juice from pomegranate seeds while watching The Mirror Has Two Faces. Good times. Then she showed me the gi-normous load of homework that she was stressing out over and I remembered how much work it is to be in college. I sympathized as much as I could. That's about all I could do. I wish she still lived here, that I could see her more than once a week and help her in some way. Forty-five minutes doesn't seem like such a long distance but it turns out it is. I miss her a lot.

Space blog

Last night I read an article about Anousheh Ansari, the first female space tourist. Her blog of the expedition on the International Space Station is fantastic. I came to it a little late, since as of today she is now back on earth, but the posts about her journey in the past two weeks are worth going back and reading. Read Page 2, where she writes about the weightlessness, the view of earth, and trying to wash your hair in space. I like how she writes about the details of everyday life and about her personal thoughts. You really get the sense of how meaningful this is for her. Video clips are included, too. In one you can see her necklace floating as she speaks to the camera, and you think, wow, she really is in space. It's a very interesting site, definitely worth visiting.

Here's an interesting Q and A with the obituaries editor of the New York Times.

The one-year plan

It's past midnight. The first minutes of Thursday morning. It's hot and there's no A/C. I'm in a contemplative mood. I've been keeping mum about a lot of things since I don't want to write some long, emotional rant about everything and nothing. I save that for pen and paper. But sometimes it helps me to write here, to write about myself, to take a step back and try to make sense of my life. So here goes.

Last night I made a list of four scenarios of what I could do in the next year. Four scenarios, all very possible, four different directions my life could take. Honestly, from one day to the next I change my mind about what I want to do. One day I'm so enthused about one direction, the next I think it's lame and want to do something else. I think about jobs I could do, degree programs I could apply to. I think about whether I want to have money or whether I want to have time. I think about how most people hate their jobs and how I don't want that to be me.

I think about this stuff all the time but I don't make concrete plans. In some ways I'm so organized--I'm a very scheduled person, I'm always on time, I did well in school. And yet something about planning rubs me the wrong way. The one-year plan, the two-year plan, the five-year plan. It reminds me of a corny John Mayer song. A professor once asked me, what do you see yourself doing in five years? I didn't have an answer. I don't think about the future very much. I never really have--in high school I saw adulthood as some big blank space that I'd figure out when I got there. Maybe I thought I'd die before then? Even now I don't think of the things I do as means to an end, they are just things I do to make pocket money and keep busy. I suppose in many ways I don't see myself as a full-fledged adult. I still think of myself as a kid and have the attitude that careers are for "grown-ups". The day I commit myself to something is the day I give up my freedom. I'm also self-defeatist and I think that even if I did have this grand plan it would never work out anyway. For whatever reason I don't really have a plan. But I'm 24. I should make some plans soon.

So the four scenarios, the four alternate versions of me. Sometimes I tell myself, just pick something, damn it. You can start in one direction, but you can always quit somewhere down the line. But can you? It gets more and more difficult once you are committed to something to backtrack and try something else. I wish I could see down the end of each path. But I can't, it's all just trial and error, and the errors can be harsh. Right now, one looks superior to the rest, but who knows about tomorrow? Yeah, I'm lost, I'm confused, I'm just like everyone else.

I have one comfort in all this, which is a belief that no matter what I choose I will eventually end up where I need to be. Call it faith or a belief in fate or whatever, but I think all rivers lead to the same ocean. Even if I make a rotten choice or two.

Bootsie the dog

My dog Bootsie. Photo taken May 2006.

Modernism

Further complicating my attempts to understand what postmodernism is, today I read this description of modernism by Berman from 1982:

"There is a mode of vital experience - experience of space and time, of the self and others, of life's possibilities and perils - that is shared by men and women all over the world today. I will call this body of experience 'modernity'. To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world - and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are. Modern environments and experiences cut across all boundaries of geography and ethnicity, of class and nationality, of religion and ideology; in this sense, modernity can be said to unite all mankind. But it is a paradoxical unity, a unity of disunity; it pours us all into a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal, of struggle and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish. To be modern is to be part of a universe in which, as Marx said, 'all that is solid melts into air.' "

Fall is here

The unofficial first day of fall--as of today the heat is turned on and the swamp cooler shut off until spring. Kind of a sad occasion since I hate winter and cold weather.

UTEP lost :=(

Unfortunately, UTEP lost to UNM this weekend, 26-13. I watched the whole mess play out live on digital cable on Saturday. I really get a kick out of the pictures of the fans--they seem to be a lot more fired up this year than in years past. Check out this guy who quit his job so he wouldn't miss the UTEP-Texas Tech game.

Update: dinner came out well. Everyone seemed to like it, anyway. Asparagus was slightly overcooked, but no cooking disasters. Who knew, I can cook.

Random thoughts

Today is my mom's birthday. I volunteered to make her birthday dinner--steak, mashed potatoes, baked asparagus, and garlic bread. We'll see how this turns out, I may be in over my head.

I filled up my car with gas for what seems like the hundredth time this month. I really hate waiting in line to get gas. To me it doesn't seem worth it to wait in line at the cheapest gas station. I'd rather pay $.05 extra per gallon if it means I don't have to wait.

Tuesday night I watched Knife in the Water on Turner Classic Movies. This movie gave me a scare--it was midnight, it's in Polish, and I totally expected someone to get murdered.

I like this post. Current priorities: 1) freedom, 2) family, 3) fun, 4) force, 5) fortune, 6) fame. Does that mean I should be a college professor?

In this week's Time magazine, the two songs The Edge says he wish he had written: "Wonderwall" by Oasis and "You Get What You Give" by the New Radicals.

The Last Kiss

Last night my sister and I went to see the midnight showing of The Last Kiss. It was pretty good. It reminded me a lot of High Fidelity as far as the subject matter. Here's a good quote from the movie (I'm paraphrasing): Love doesn't matter because it's only a feeling and because it's a feeling it only matters to you. The only thing that matters is what you do to the people that you say you love.

Top 10 Nostalgia Shows

My top 10 nostalgia shows. I'm talking pre-2000 shows that I would totally watch a marathon of if I came across it while channel-surfing. Apologies in advance, I know this list sounds like an episode of "I Love the 90's".

• Picket Fences - This was a show about Rome, Wisconsin, the weirdest town in the world. A pretty mature show for me to watch at age 12 or 13, but that was part of the appeal.
• Blossom - My slightly nerdy, introspective teen role model.
• The Wonder Years - Two words: Kevin Amold. *cracks up*
• Full House - Growing up as the oldest of three sisters, I could relate to this show. Could never decide whether I was more like DJ, the oldest, or Stephanie, who was my age.
• Saved by the Bell - Spent way too much of my childhood watching Zach, Screech, Kelly, Slater, Lisa, and Jesse. I watched an episode of this the other day and still thought it was funny.
• Murphy Brown - Why I wanted to work in the news.
• Quantum Leap - Loved the concept of this show plus Sam Becket is still my ideal man of all time.
• Hey Dude - A Nickelodeon show about a bunch of teenagers who work on a ranch. Cheese factor was very high even for a kids show.
• Party of Five - Theme music alone is worth watching this show for. Mopey, but you'd be, too, if your parents died.
• Dawson's Creek - Caveat: first two seasons only. Dawson and Joey, that song by Sixpence None the Richer, the Paula Cole theme song. Sigh, this show is the 90's for me.

I love Poetry Friday on Reassigned Time. Poetry is not really my thing, but this English professor comes up with some amazing selections that keep me coming back week after week. This week's poem: "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by Keats. I also have to mention "Pleasures" by Denise Levertov, the fantastic poem posted two weeks ago.

Magazine meme

I barely noticed I was tagged with this meme. How exciting, I've never been tagged with a meme before. Here are the magazines I read:

• Time - I've been reading Time since I was 12 years old. What can I say, I was a weird kid. I don't always read it cover to cover but I usually try to get through as much as I can each week in the attempt to stay aware of national news.
• O, the Oprah Magazine - I adore all things Oprah, but especially this magazine, which manages to rise above ordinary women's magazines with some really great articles and in-depth interviews. There's even a section about books.
• Discover Magazine - Yes, I'm a geek.
• Reader's Digest - I borrow this one from my dad. My dad always challenges me to the Word Power quiz. Plus I like the interviews.
• USA Weekend - This comes with Sunday's paper and for some reason I end up reading it every week. The articles are hit-or-miss fluff, I mostly read it for the gossip page.

PopText

For some reason I was thinking about PopText, a blog I used to read back in the day that had great reviews of pop music plus actual MP3s to download. I checked it out today and it looks like its on hiatus, but the "I'm taking a break from blogging" post is worth reading, along with the archives, of course.

The date on the calendar

It's hard not to notice what day it is. At work Sunday night I had to type in today's date a few times, which I found sort of strange given all that has come to be associated with it. When you see that date in print or hear it in conversation, everyone knows immediately what subjects are probably going to be brought up next, but there it was showing up as just another day, a mere matter of record-keeping. I almost feel like that date should be shelved and not used in the regular rotation of days, just taken out and set aside as sacred.

Before I left for the night I checked the wire service and there were at least a dozen stories on the anniversary of the attacks. I read a couple of them. Shortly after that I left the building and walked out to my car. As I often do, I glanced up at the Wells Fargo building a block away, probably the tallest building in El Paso, with its windows lit up in the pattern of an American flag. I have probably looked at that building a few hundred times before, but tonight a connection clicked in my mind that had never been made before. My brain froze for a second and I had a strange feeling in my stomach. It could happen here. I know how remote that possibility is, but I know that it's true all the same. It could happen anywhere and on any day at any time, even a beautiful clear September morning, and that's the scariest part of it.

Rosie on The View

So I finally watched Rosie O'Donnell on The View. In high school I used to watch her show every day after school while eating a stack of Oreos and drinking Pepsi. I think I secretly wished Rosie O'Donnell was my cool but still nice older sister. There's a little of the same magic of the old show there. Surprising the whole audience with tickets to The Wedding Singer, that's something only Rosie O'Donnell would do. Finally The View is bearable to watch again. Oh and check out Rosie's blog, www.rosie.com.

Blue Like Jazz

Blue Like Jazz is the most honest book about Christianity (or "Christian spirituality," as Miller puts it) I've ever read. Not everything in the book rang true--some of the ideas were a little too nutty and liberal even for me--but so much did resonate with me, being a Christian but not the type of Christian that votes Republican and doesn't listen to secular music and gets married by age 21. It's different from many other Christian books I've read in that it dares to tackle the messy realities of life today--the postmodern condition and the uncertainties we all have about faith and relationships and ourselves. There are some really refreshing thoughts about faith, thoughts that I think most of us have at one point or another but that most Christian authors wouldn't dare to put down on paper. I'm talking about doubt here especially, an issue that most Christian authors won't touch with a ten-foot pole. It's a really smart book, and I especially like that it's not preachy, the author just kind of says what he has to say and leaves it to the reader to learn more if they are intrigued. Read this book if you're interested in spirituality, Christian or otherwise.

I so wish President Bush would actually give this speech.

Postmodernism

I was reading through an assigned chapter about postmodernism and the world facing college graduates, and this description stuck in my mind:

"We have the feeling we live in a decentered world, a realm of fragmentation and incoherence, without a nucleus or foundation for experience.....Ours is declared an age of image and spectacle, and we are daily bombarded by a variety of sensory assaults--from the shopping center to the TV....We live in an age of "simulacrum," of simulations that take on a life of their own, appearing more "real" than what they represent--even more real than immediate material conditions....For those with the means and the time, life becomes a rich succession of manufactured events, a simulation of the past or future, the end being detachment from the concrete material and social conditions of one's historical moment. One defeats time and space and escapes the depressing features of daily life--the dark side of the new regime--through manufactured public performance."

From "Chapter Three: The Postmodern Predicament" in Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures by James Berlin

Books I read in college

"I would never attempt to dissuade anyone from reading a book. But please, if you're reading a book that's killing you, put it down and read something else, just as you would reach for the remote if you weren't enjoying a television programme.

Your failure to enjoy a highly rated novel doesn't mean you're dim - you may find that Graham Greene is more to your taste, or Stephen Hawking, or Iris Murdoch, or Ian Rankin. Dickens, Stephen King, whoever.

It doesn't matter. All I know is that you can get very little from a book that is making you weep with the effort of reading it. You won't remember it, and you'll learn nothing from it, and you'll be less likely to choose a book over Big Brother next time you have a choice."

from "How to Read" by Nick Hornby

I read this a couple of weeks ago and thought it was awesome. I had just been thinking about this subject the other day as I was thinking about college and all the amazing books I read during that time. My idea: to write down all the books I read in college, for my own recollection and for others to possibly get some ideas of good books to read for themselves.

Before college, in high school particularly, reading books was a chore to me. Junior and senior years, on top of the novels and plays we read as a class, we had to read "the classics" for reading comprehension tests that were given every six weeks. You could pick any novel off an approved reading list provided that you could pass a computerized test on it at the end of the six weeks. I always had the best of intentions, but about 90 percent of the time I ended up finishing the novel the day I had to take the test. The Hobbit. I think I read this but I don't know since I don't remember a thing about it. Jane Eyre. I rushed through the ending so I could finish it on time, which basically ruined the meaning of it for me. The Grapes of Wrath. I rushed through this one, too, not to mention the fact that I hated it. This was a horrible, horrible way to read novels, I think everyone would agree.

Even the books I read for "fun" on my own time were well-known classic-type books since I considered popular fiction to be trashy romance, horror, and mystery novels written at an elementary-school reading level. I was a book snob, and many a classic was slogged through just to say I had read it. At least there was no time limit like there was in school, but reading was still like running laps around a track at 6 a.m., done because it supposedly was good for me but with no real enjoyment. I struggled through Beloved and Slaughterhouse Five, not finding either to be nearly as fantastic as they were supposed to be. I bought a copy of Catch-22 at Barnes and Noble once, having heard it was a great novel, only to find it so weird that I read one chapter and never finished it. I tried to read Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. Booooring (except for Pride and Prejudice, which I liked). I managed to read a few books that I liked and were meaningful to me, but for the most part I found reading a book about as fun as climbing up a mountain.

College was different. Freshman year I discovered the browsing section in the basement of the UTEP library with its cozy low velvet armchairs and amazing selection of new books. It was like finding a secret treasure. It was there that I found books like Geeks and Microserfs and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, books that were funny and modern and ironic and emotional, books that I actually enjoyed reading. I don't remember the first book that I checked out where it clicked for me (hey, reading books can be fun), but I do know that some time during freshman year I gave up on the classics altogether and started reading anything and everything I thought looked interesting--books recommended from bestseller lists, reviews in magazines, Oprah's Book Club, websites and/or blogs, whatever. I read what I liked and if I didn't like it I quit reading it. I read a ton of nonfiction with some modern fiction thrown in for good measure, and it was one of the most fun aspects of my life in college. Most of the books I read weren't considered great literature, but they all meant something to my life, whether they were funny or serious or informative or just had a great point-of-view. Most importantly, the books I read left me wanting to read more. Completely opposite from how it was in high school, now I go into a library or bookstore with great anticipation, even excitement, of what I might find, and that's really the only way it should be. Honestly, if you don't feel that way about reading, then don't read. Life's too short, find something else to do that you can get excited about.

Anyway, so here is my list of books I read in college that were most memorable. There are probably many that I've forgetten that I'll add later on, but here are the ones I remember most and would recommend, categorized more or less in order of how much I would recommend them:

Non-Fiction:
Travel
On the Road Jack Kerouac
Breaking the Limit Karen Larsen
Assassination Vacation Sarah Vowell
Blue Highways William Least Heat-Moon
Around the Bloc Stephanie Elizondo Griest

Adventure
Into the Wild Jon Krakauer
Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer
Ice Bound Jerri Nielsen

Crime
In Cold Blood Truman Capote
Under the Banner of Heaven Jon Krakauer

Religion
No Greater Love Mother Teresa
Traveling Mercies Anne Lamott
A History of God Karen Armstrong

Biography/Memoir
My Life Bill Clinton
Living History Hillary Clinton
Girl, Interrupted Susanna Kaysen
The Spiral Staircase Karen Armstrong
The Seven-Storey Mountain Thomas Merton

College crisis
What Should I Do With My Life? Po Bronson
Working Studs Terkel

Writing
How to Write Richard Rhodes
Bird by Bird Anne Lamott

Love
The Bridge Across Forever Richard Bach

Nerdiness
Geeks Jon Katz
Moneyball Michael Lewis
A Brief History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson

Fiction:
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers
Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers
Microserfs Douglas Coupland
Mr. Ives' Christmas Oscar Hijuelos
How to Be Good Nick Hornby
I Don't Know How She Does It Allison Pearson
Lying Awake Mark Salzman
The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver

Hooray, Alex the Girl is blogging again.

The end of civilization

Outkast was on The View this morning.

Cool blogs

• The Irish Trojan by Brendan Loy, who was featured in Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. Here's a post explaining the blog to viewers of the HBO documentary.
• The Ross Blog by Ross the Intern on the Tonight Show. I've heard the blog mentioned on the Tonight Show a couple of times, so I decided to check it out. It's funny! If only they did give Emmys for "Best Flamboyant Television Personality on a Late Night Talk Show" (see Aug. 27).

You must try bubble tea at least once in your life.

I wish it would stop raining.

Busy again

"Busy" isn't a word I would use to describe my life in the past nine months since I graduated with my master's degree. I've worked part-time and the rest of the time....well, the rest of the time I've done whatever I wanted. Slept late, watched TV, read books, gone to Wal-Mart during the long, lazy afternoons, listened to jazz late at night, spent time with my mom and sisters.

It's a wonderful luxury to be able to be careless with time. There have been times in the past where I've been so busy that I've craved free time the way I crave water when I'm thirsty. But the past nine months I've had nothing but time; I've been swimming and floating in time the way you would in a pool of water on a hot summer day. I thank my parents for being good parents and allowing me to do this for awhile. To try to figure things out, to break the chains of commitment that had me going forward on a train I didn't want to be on in the first place. Time to think. Time to just be.

But those days are coming to an end. Not that I wanted to do that for much longer. It was OK for a season, not for a life. It's like the alarm went off in my head, nine months is enough time, it's time to quit being a bum, it's time to think about the future and making money and being self-sufficient and all that other stuff that regular people do. *Groan* but I know, it's time to wake up. So I'm back to being a busy girl--this week I signed up for more hours at work and I'm taking a class at UTEP in the hopes that I'll get somewhere I want to be. Yesterday I had two hours of class, then four hours of work without a break, and afterward I felt tired and it was like, welcome back to the world of being busy and stressed. It wasn't an altogether bad feeling. Here we go again, back to the real world.

A year later

Everyone in America should see Spike Lee's documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts about Hurricane Katrina. You see those images, you know the ones I'm talking about, the dead bodies floating in the water, the people in line outside the convention center with no food or water, and you just wonder, how did this happen in America? This happens in Third World countries, not the United States of America, the richest country in the world. People were treated shamefully with no dignity whatsoever, and the poor, the elderly, and the sick were the ones who suffered the most. The government failed these people and basically allowed them to die.

My reaction to the documentary was shock, then sadness, and finally anger. You want to point the finger at someone, put the blame on Ray Nagin or Michael Brown or President Bush. And don't get me wrong, those people were responsible, but after mulling it over for awhile, I had this realization: at some level every person in America is responsible for letting something like this happen. Including me. Ouch. We live our comfortable lives and allow ourselves to turn a blind eye to the suffering of others going on all around us, even in our own communities, not to mention around the world. We allow people to slip through the cracks and live in poverty, and when a disaster like this strikes somehow we're surprised that they are the ones who get hit the worst?

And I think the government's handling of the situation highlights our national attitude problem, this attitude of I can't do anything, I don't matter, let's not prepare for a disaster, let's just wait for it to happen and then deal with it. Let's enjoy life now and deal with the consequences later. When we fail we'll pass the buck and refuse to take responsibility. We're extremely bad at long-term planning, witness the war in Iraq and our failure to deal with environmental issues like global warming.

And finally we are the ones who put the current leaders into power, leaders who 1) are incompetent and 2) care more about protecting the interests of the rich than protecting the poorest members of society. Not that I voted for Bush, but you didn't exactly see me campaigning against him.

Watching this documentary made me angry, not just at our government but angry at myself because I see all these problems in our society and yet I do nothing about them. This documentary really brought it home for me--this is what happens when we fail to act. And it makes me want to do something, protest or feed the homeless or donate money or build a house, anything so that I'm changing the world for the better and not just sitting around watching and criticizing. Maybe that's the whole point of the documentary, to not only make us angry but to motivate us to change.

Boys of summer

My dad and my sister and I went to the Diablos baseball game last night. It was the second-to-last game of the season. I bought tickets right behind the visitor's dugout this time so we could see all the players from Coastal Bend waiting for their turn to bat. There was also this really cool batboy sitting there who would discreetly toss a baseball to some kids in the stands every once in a while. What a nice kid. It was a pretty good game from what I could tell even though I don't know much about baseball. The Diablos stayed ahead the whole time and won 5-4 in 7 innings (it was a short game since it was game 1 of a doubleheader). OK, then the fireworks show started. It had threatened to rain the whole game, so we were all kind of relieved the game hadn't gotten rained out and they were still going to put on the fireworks. The fireworks were awesome, as usual. So then the fireworks show ended and a minute later it started pouring rain. I almost had to laugh out loud at the irony of the situation. It makes you think that maybe God has a sense of humor. So I thought as we all got drenched walking back to my dad's truck. There was a mass exodus at that point and I don't think anyone stayed for the second game, which apparently was started but got rained out in the fourth inning. Anyway, it was a pretty fun night. Both times I've gone to games I've had a really good time. Kind of sad that the season is over. Until next summer, I guess...

Aristotle on Happiness

"We may define happiness as prosperity combined with virtue; or as independence of life; or as the secure enjoyment of the maximum of pleasure; or as a good condition of property and body, together with the power of guarding one's property and body and making use of them. That happiness is one or more of these things, pretty well everybody agrees.

From this definition of happiness it follows that its constituent parts are:-good birth, plenty of friends, good friends, wealth, good children, plenty of children, a happy old age, also such bodily excellences as health, beauty, strength, large stature, athletic powers, together with fame, honour, good luck, and virtue."

From Aristotle's Rhetoric

I've been reading Aristotle for the first time. It's amazing how the things he wrote 2,500 years ago are still true today.

New logo?

Is Blogger's new logo a dog with a party hat on? Weird.

For the curious

I uploaded a photo to go with my profile. I'll probably end up taking down soon. I'm getting embarrassed just thinking about it.
Update: Decided to go with a different picture. It's me at my 24th birthday holding my gift- a teddy bear.

My first comment

Hallelujah, someone is actually reading this. And her blog is pretty cool, too- Big Brown Girl.

Rhetoric defined

Rhetoric- n. 1. a. The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively. b. A treatise or book discussing this art. 2. Skill in using language effectively and persuasively. 3. A style of speaking or writing, especially the language of a particular subject: fiery political rhetoric. 4. Language that is elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous: His offers of compromise were mere rhetoric. 5. Verbal communication; discourse.

From the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition.

Question

Is it better to know a little about a lot of things or a lot about a few things?

Sandwich nights

Sunday night was "Sandwich Night" in our house back in the days when my parents were still together. It was like a lot of family traditions in that I don't remember how it started. It just was--here was a Sunday night, time for sandwiches. My dad hardly ever cooked, but for some reason he was put in charge of making the sandwiches.

My dad was a true sandwich artist. I'm sorry to admit that Mom's sandwiches couldn't hold a candle to his. Her idea of a sandwich was two pieces of stale bread, a leaf of lettuce, a couple of tomatoes, mayo, and bologna. My dad, on the other hand, had a complete sandwich-making technique, you might even call it a philosophy. He would make each person's sandwich according to their specifications. Mayo or mustard? Turkey or bologna? I would ask my sisters and report back to him. So many times over the years I would watch him make them in the kitchen, completely fascinated by the intricate process. On a big wooden cutting board he would chop lettuce into very fine slices along with tomatoes, onions, and pickles. Sometimes he would add mushrooms or avocado, even alfalfa sprouts if Mom had bought them that week. He would toast fresh rolls spread with butter in a pan on the stove and melt pieces of cheese with them. He would spread mayo and/or mustard onto the bread. Then he would layer all the vegetables and meat onto one half of the toasted bread and sprinkle salt and pepper over the whole thing. Ever the perfectionist, my dad even had a technique for that: hold the salt and pepper shakers high above the sandwich, he explained to me, that way the salt and pepper gets evenly distributed.

When he would finish making my sandwich, Dad would bring it out to me on a plate. He would dress it up fancy the way a restaurant would--the sandwich cut diagonally in half, toothpicks with olives holding it together, chips set between the two halves. It always tasted fantastic, with just the right mix of vinegar, cheese, salt and pepper. Even now the idea of it makes my mouth water. Every Sunday, my mom and dad and sisters and I would sit and eat our sandwiches on TV trays and watch "60 Minutes" together. Those were good times, as close to perfect as I remember in our family. I really can't explain to you how much I miss those nights. Somehow it just seemed like all was right with the world back then. I'd give almost anything if there were a way to get that back.

Font deja vu

Is it just me, or does the font used in the new HP "The Computer is Personal Again" ads remind you of The Nightmare Before Christmas? This is so weird, because when I saw the ads I thought that right away and wondered how the HP people could rip off the font like that. Then it occurred to me that Nightmare was released 13 years ago (!) and the ads' target audience probably isn't old enough to make the connection. Further evidence that I am getting old.

Knit-a-little

Found a nice local blog (about knitting) through an article in today's El Paso Times: knitalittle.typepad.com.

Weekend update

The weekend:
- Five girls and a U-Haul was all it took to move my sister into her new house on Saturday. I got to ride in a U-Haul for the first time. Exciting.
- Sunday night I started to get sick with a cold :=(. So begins a week of drinking water and staying in bed with a box of Kleenex.

Pandora

Pandora and the Music Genome Project. Awesome.

Untitled

The good thing about living here is that after ten minutes of walking I can be right up against the side of a mountain. I walk past two blocks of houses and a gas station, past more houses, past bunches of weeds with purple flowers and yellow berries, past a pair of roadrunners. Then I cross the main road and keep going on a side road that leads up to a higher point on the mountain. A few minutes after that I stop hearing the noise from the main road and it becomes strangely quiet.

At the highest point of the road I arrive at a clearing with huge rocks, desert brush, and tons of mosquitoes. I sit for a few minutes on a rock. It is warm from the day's heat, almost hot. My mind is full of anxieties and I sit there and let them go through my mind as I swat away mosquitoes. Finally the mosquitoes annoy me enough that I want to move someplace else.

I walk a few steps and reach a ditch full of sand and debris from recent rains. I walk through the sandy ditch like it's a road and finally I stand at the perfect view. I look out on a beautiful valley below. A few hundred yards away from me a large pond of water reflects right in the center of the cactus and brush of desert landscape. It looks so out-of-place- water in a desert. Further off, there's a good-sized mountain range of brown-black mountains with pale blue and pink sky above it. Before that, I can see the last line of civilization before the landscape turns completely to desert- the white canopy of the baseball field, US Hwy. 54, houses, businesses. I contemplate the valley for a few minutes, wishing I had a camera.

Then I look behind me. Above the peak of the large brown mountain there are gray clouds rimmed with sunlight. A plane flies into those clouds, leaving a contrail that dissolves right into the cloud. Rays of sun peek through the clouds, though the setting sun itself is hidden behind the clouds. Dragonflies fly all around me. The scene is stunningly beautiful.

Once again, I become aware of how quiet it is. My life is noisy- the TV or radio is always on, the A/C is on, people are talking, cars are passing by, and here it is finally quiet. I went up there thinking it would be a good spot to reflect and maybe shed a few tears in privacy, and yet at the moment I stand there I feel calm and serene and the tears don't come. The permanence of the mountains is calming- knowing they will be here long after you die, long after everyone you know has died, and suddenly a day's worth of anxiety doesn't matter as much. A constant when everything else is changing.

My legs are tired by this time, I start down a pile of rocks and head back to the house. It has been 45 minutes, it seems like less. But it's darker now. I hurry home. Back to the road, past the gas station, past apartments where someone is grilling their dinner. Ten minutes and I'm home.

Summer viewing

Because the shows I watch during the regular season are in reruns, I've found a few replacement shows to be obsessed with this summer:

• Project Runway. Catty, talented designers fight it out on the runway. Unlike a lot of reality shows these people actually have skills, i.e. actually went to design school, run fashion businesses, etc. Tim Gunn is my favorite.
• Reruns of The Office (American version). My sister got me hooked on this show. The American version is not as good as the British one- it's way less subtle than the Brit one and can get over-the-top with the stupidity of the boss, but it's probably still the funniest sitcom in current production. There are a few episodes I've watched that make me laugh just thinking about them.
• 30 Days. Documentary/reality show/social experiment. I -heart- Morgan Spurlock.
• Reruns of Felicity. Reruns have reappeared on cable this summer after a long absence. I've already seen most of the episodes, but I think they're worth a second or third viewing, which for me is saying a lot. I like how the show is both funny and dramatic. The other night my (other) sister and I started talking about the characters on the show like they were real people. Which either shows that Felicity is really absorbing or that my sister and I are both a little nutty.

Because I can't get enough of interviews with bloggers

Interview with Jason Kottke on Rebecca's Pocket. 8-10 hours a day online? Damn.

Quote

"Self is another dodgy concept, since I am, when I subject this "I" to careful inspection, not much more than a swarm of flickering affinities, habits, memories, and predilections that could go either way--toward neediness or independence, for example, courage or cowardice."
-Barbara Ehrenreich, p. 24, Bait and Switch

Blue mood

I had the best cup of coffee I've ever tasted this morning. Fresh-ground Starbucks coffee beans, brewed in a coffee-maker that looks like a glass jar with a strainer. The pastor's wife poured the coffee into four non-matching mugs. I took one and stirred in a drop of Half and Half. So so good, accompanied by cranberry bread made with fresh cranberries. It was the most satisfying breakfast I've had in awhile.

Anyway, I've made a promise to myself to keep the moping to a minimum on here. But I'm just in this emotional mood, the kind of mood where you stay up until 3 AM writing in your journal and listening to jazz. I've been reflecting on things, particularly the past two and a half years, grad school and why it became the mess it turned out to be. I think it's something I need to deal with in order to put it behind me and to move on to the next phase of my life. So I've been dealing with it, writing about it with the intent to eventually post something about it.

I've been reading Mockingbird by Charles J. Shields, a portrait (biography?) of Nelle Harper Lee. I don't know why I'm so fascinated by this woman, she just seems so unusual, a true writer. Write one of the most brilliant novels of the 20th century, retire to Monroeville, Alabama, never publish another novel, and refuse all interviews. It seems very romantic and brave and the true definition of living life on one's own terms. She recently published a letter in O, the Oprah Magazine, about books, which was lovely to read, after I got over the shock.

My apologies for the all-over-the-map post, but there it is just to give you an idea of where my mind is at right now. Blue moods, people, gotta love them.

Pain

"...when pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all."
-C.S. Lewis, introduction to The Problem of Pain

Storm 2006 update

"August 2006: The days a drought-stricken city stopped praying for rain" reads the banner on the El Paso Times' Photos of the Week feature. It's still unbelievable that this actually happened in El Paso. I've been to that Sun Harvest grocery store so many times, it's so odd to see the photo of it flooded with water.

Five days later we're still a soggy city, the clouds are still out and ponds and lakes have appeared all over the city that weren't there last Monday. This was a week to remember for sure. Fortunately it looks like the end is in sight. The sun came out for a few hours mid-afternoon today, and the forecast for Monday looks hot and dry. Thank God for that, I think this city has had enough rain to last for the next year or two.

Classic Cat

Classic Cat is a great site if you are in the mood to listen to some classical music. It's well-organized, comprehensive, and, best of all, free. I found a recording Vivaldi's Concerto for Violin and Two Cellos in C on this page. Heavenly.

Flood

I was supposed to go to the ladies Bible study this morning and then spend a lovely afternoon browsing books at Barnes and Noble. Instead I'm here at home, having spent a most of the day bailing water out of our flooded back porch. It has been raining from the time I got up at 8:30, with about an hour break from 11:30-12:30, then it started again. The whole backyard is flooded and water is still trickling in to our back porch. This despite the fact that we live on the mountain. I'm scared to think what it's like in low-lying areas. From the news coverage I've seen it's not pretty. Starting to feel a little like Noah in the Old Testament- when will this rain end? And how I am going to get to work? This is not supposed to happen in the desert.

Birthday interview

My interview with Stuart Ian Burns, creator of feeling listless, is posted over at the site. The site has been a favorite of mine since I had the good fortune to come across it on Blogger's list of recently updated blogs one night back in 2003. It was artistic and British and introspective and unlike any other thing I had encountered on the web. From the beginning I have been curious about the how's and why's of the site and its enigmatic author, and I thought the five-year anniversary might be a good occasion to finally ask about it.

I think the result turned out really well. It certainly answered my questions, plus it was fun to reminisce a little about the past few years on the site and to get a 'behind-the-scenes' view into the blog. And what can I say, Stu is an interesting guy, it's rare that you encounter anyone that interesting in life, online or off, so the opportunity to interview him was a fun one for me.

I encourage anyone new to the site to look through some of the earlier posts mentioned in the interview. I meant what I said at the end of the interview, it really is a great collection and you will find it well worth your time.

It was a real honor to be included in the fifth anniversary of feeling listless. Thanks, Stu, and best wishes.

30 Days

The new season of 30 Days started this week. I absolutely love this show. The first episode about immigration was probably the best one yet- a member of the Minutemen border militia group goes to live with an illegal immigrant family for 30 days. I came close to tears about three times while I was watching this episode. Even living on the border, you forget how difficult life is for undocumented immigrants. The family in the episode had seven people living in a one-bedroom apartment living off whatever the father could make as a day laborer. By U.S. standards, these people were very poor. And then you realize, as bad as their living conditions are here, these people were even worse off back in Mexico. That was the punch in the gut for me, just being confronted with the reality of poverty and thinking about how many people live like that around the world. The immigration debate takes on a new dimension when you think about it like that. This is definitely a thought-provoking show.

Fireworks

Went to the Diablos game today for the first time this summer. They lost 7-4. Fireworks after the game were spectacular, though. I live about a mile away from the baseball field so on nights when they have a fireworks show I can see it for free from my front yard. Yet to actually be at the ballpark makes a big difference. I was surprised how thrilling it was to see the fireworks up close and personal choreographed with some well-chosen Aerosmith songs. I read some article about how people are now hiring pyrotechnic experts to put on fireworks shows for events like weddings and family reunions. After seeing tonight's fireworks show that sounds like a neat idea.

Photos

Some photos I've accumulated from the last two months:

The plane wing as we were taking off from the El Paso airport

Iowa State University in May

View over the brick fence in my backyard

A copy of the New York Times my mom brought back from New York City. It was very cool to have a physical copy of the paper since I'm so used to reading it online.

New template

I changed the template for the blog. The black background was getting kind of depressing to me. Plus I like the font better on this one.

Annette's Notebook v. 2.0

My sisters have been home from college for awhile now, since mid-May. Which is great, but access to our PC and Internet has become a luxury with four people vying for time on one computer. One of my sisters is looking for a job, so she gets the privilege of monopolizing the computer and Internet all day for her job search. At first when this happened I went through major Internet withdrawal, since before she came home I probably would have been classified as an Internet junkie. I was spending a huge amount of my time on the Internet and in the "blogosphere." It took being cut off from the Internet for me to see just how big a part of my life blogs had become. When the Internet was cut off I felt like I had this huge void in my life. But after being forced to spend a few months living mostly in the "real world", I now realize that the Internet/blogosphere is a nice place to visit but not a great place to live.

It has been really good for me to spend some time away from the Internet and to put the focus back on my real life where it should be. It has also given me some time to think about why I do this. Why do I blog? I first got into it for the introspection. It was for me to navel-gaze, basically, and to rant and let off steam. And then I realized that a few people were actually reading, and the empathy was a nice side benefit. And it was just fun to write personal and outrageous things and have random people on the Internet see them.

But lately I have been kind of disillusioned with blogs and blogging. I discontinued my other blog because I was becoming too self-conscious about having all my secrets out there for anyone to see, including co-workers and family members. I wrote some really crazy stuff, some really stupid stuff, and it was OK for awhile but I really felt like the time for writing crap like that had passed. I was basically just writing whatever came to mind after coming home tired from work, which was usually some self-pitying rant against the world. The same old problems, the same phrases even, and it was just not something I thought other people really needed to be reading about me.

So I started this blog as a reaction to that. I have read a lot of blogs and I wanted to try to make a blog that was a little more like the ones I enjoyed reading, meaning less about me and my angst and more about other stuff that interested me, like news and social issues and fun links. No more self-pitying rants, no more just sitting down after a hard day and just spewing whatever I felt like. I would take the time to write posts worth reading. And I would also try to keep out the personal stuff that I didn't really want people to know about me. So I started this blog but somehow it all felt very hollow and fake to me. I would write about Bush and obesity in America and post links from the New York Times, but the whole time I felt like I was writing for this imaginary high-brow audience and not really for myself. It wasn't much fun, it just wasn't really me.

To me, the fun part of blogs is to hear the voice of the person behind it and to just have it be sort of spontaneous and fun and not all serious and censored. It may not always work, the posts may not always be fantastic pieces of writing, but at least it comes from an authentic place. I really missed writing about myself and my misadventures. I missed the type of introspection that I had gotten used to with the other blog. And I missed the empathy aspect of having people read about my experiences and possibly relate to them.

And so, I guess where I'm going with all this is that I want to make this blog a little more me. Not to say I'll write self-pitying crap, but I want to make this a blog that's more fun for me to write and doesn't feel like a term paper. There's a difference between writing an introspective post about yourself and what's going on in your life and writing a self-indulgent, poorly-written rant about how unfair the world is. I want to make this blog something that I will enjoy writing for myself. Hopefully readers will follow, but even if they don't it will still be something that I have enjoyed writing. So here we go, Annette's Notebook v. 2.0.

My new favorite show

America's Got Talent. This is the most entertaining thing I've seen in months. Cheesy but hilarious.