beginning of a lifelong fling
My dear and awesome buddy from PNG, Naki, sent us Blue Mountain Coffee from Papua New Guinea. He and I consumed ungodly amounts of the stuff when I was there in 2004. It’s some of the best (and most expensive) coffee in the universe, but in Ukarumpa, it’s pretty cheap. He included a few other goodies in the package as well. I’d afraid it had gotten lost in the mail, but it got here today, covered (literally) with stamps from PNG, to the delight of my co-workers.
Dude, you rock.
Nearly took a police escort to get out of my building last night, but I made it out. The tree is now lit.
We went to a preview screening of Amazing Grace, the movie about William Wilberforce that’s slated for a late February release, and we both enjoyed it (Amy, do you read this?). I think it’s going to do some real good. We keep hearing positive and exciting news surrounding the film - so, stay tuned. (I’m writing a review, so I can’t post too much here!)
Found via Notebookism: a list of Christmas gifts for writers.
I was actually reflecting on this whole writer thing recently. I’ve found myself suddenly much more comfortable identifying myself as a writer lately, which makes sense since people have started paying me to write for them. I’ve also found it much more enjoyable and much less like pulling teeth.
Last fall, when I first re-started writing (so to speak), I was seriously resistant to identifying myself as a “writer” - it felt so poser-ish, like saying you’re a deep-sea diver and owning all the gear but never actually diving. Cities like New York and Los Angeles are full of “actors” who’ve never really acted, and I guess I didn’t want to fall into that bucket. But now . . . I’m more confident, I guess.
I don’t find my identity in being a writer, but it’s all these small things that add up to who we are. I’m a wife, a daughter, a techie, a citygirl, a reader, an editor, a foodie, a critic, a traveler, a Christian . . . and a writer. I’m just really me, and I’m comfortable with that.
What do you call yourself?
Rockefeller Center tree lighting tonight = a lot of of random echo-y music floating into the office today.
Wow, it’s been a while.
We went to the Fairfax area for Thanksgiving to visit Tom’s extended family. Never been that far south for Thanksgiving. I really wanted stuffing cooked in the bird (not this silly “dressing” stuff), but other than that it was fairly uneventful. Lots of watching the boys play video games.
On Friday Tom and I headed DC-ward, where we traipsed from the Library of Congress to the National Gallery of Art to the Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, and all the way to Mr. Lincoln’s feet. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to DC, so it was great to see it at night, without a large crowd of people to keep together. We have pictures - they are coming soon, I hope.
We unexpectedly stumbled upon a display at the Library of Congress of the St. John’s Bible project. I’m completely amazed that I haven’t heard about this yet; it’s been going on for many years already. The Benedictine monks at St. John’s monastery/college commissioned a modern-day illuminated Bible from a scriptorium in Wales. So far, they’ve finished the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and the Gospels & Acts, and they’ve got a few more years to go on the rest of the Bible.
They had several of the originals there, including the first pages of Matthew, Luke, and John, the Creation, the Ten Commandments, and the Parable of the Sower. This is not your run-of-the-mill Christian bookstore cheese illustrated Bible. This is beautifully handcrafted/painted/gilded/collaged reverential interpretation of the Scriptures. The frontispiece for Matthew is a menorah that acts as a family tree for Jesus, including an acknowledgment of the common ancestry of the Jews and the Muslims (both descended from Abraham, one by Hagar, one by Sarah), with names in Hebrew, Aramaic, and English. All rendered with dignity and artistic integrity.
Sadly, it looks like the New York exhibition (at MOBIA) ended two days ago, but there are upcoming exhibitions in the US, so if you’re near one, you should go see it.
We traveled back on Saturday and got home late. I’d been feeling under the weather all week with a sore throat, and by Saturday I knew it had developed into something worse. I stuck a Maglite in my mouth and saw a big sore on the right side of my throat. Mmm. I felt too lousy to go to church on Sunday, so I stayed home and rested, and yesterday I called in sick to work and went to the doctor. The sore is still there, and it’s making it hard to swallow (i.e., eat), and the residual pain is going up into my right ear and making it painful, but the doctor says it’s a virus and not an ear infection, so I kind of just have to let it run its course. I had something similar last year, but it was concurrent with the mono, so at least it’s not THAT bad this time. I am at work today, trying not to swallow too much, and counting the minutes till I can go home and rest in comfy clothes.
Last night I helped Tom pile all our furniture into the middle of our miniscule apartment (as a reminder, we have a “two-room studio”, consisting of two 9′x12′ rooms stuck together with an archway, and a teensy kitchen and bathroom) and tape it all up in preparation for painting. He’s home priming the walls now, and we hope to paint tomorrow and Thursday and hopefully be done by the weekend so we can decorate for Christmas (hurrah!). The apartment will be blue, so I think our Christmas decorations are going to tend to the blue/silver/darkdeepmauve scheme. Red does not work so well in a blue apartment. We’re not going for “patriotic Christmas” here.
I finished Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller (the Blue Like Jazz guy) on our trip, and I have to say, I thought it was really great. He spends much of the book helping us to examine our motives in our promotion of morality/politics/justice/religion - is it borne out of love and a desire to see others find Christ, or is it because we need to feel superior? As he says, a reading of Romans reveals a Paul who would say difficult truths about people’s actions, and then in the next breath say how desperately he wished he could give up his own place in heaven to save them. I don’t know a lot of people with that attitude. A grace-full and incredibly true premise, in a well-written book.
Nota Bene: I am known for becoming slowly obsessed with all things Christmas-y during this season, so I apologize if you’re sick of Christmas already. I find joy in the season.
That said, the Rockefeller tree lighting is tomorrow night, and I beg you, don’t try to go. It gets more crowded than Times Square on New Years’ Eve. The tree is, however, bigger than it will even appear on your TV screen.
Confession: I’m kind of hoping we get some snow before Christmas. I used to hate snow, but now I don’t have to drive in it.
What a great concept for a holiday, eh? Sit around and eat lots of great food and focus on everything that is good and wonderful in life. A much-needed holiday.
We’re in the DC area until Saturday, visiting family, and we’ll be back in town for Sunday.
I was never much for headaches until the last couple years, and I think I’ve figured out why: filter coffee. Nooo, you say! Not coffee! Not me!
The good news is that I think it’s certain types of coffee, because when I drink coffee “out” or at work, it invariably hits, but drinking it at home doesn’t seem to bother me. Dark roasts (being less caffeinated) don’t bother me at all, but light roasts seem to afflict me with a massive headache. Espresso doesn’t have any effect at all.
So, I’ve sworn off the office coffee, which I never really needed anyway (case in point: I have had no caffeine withdrawal symptoms, despite drinking one to two cups a day since I started here a year and a half ago). I have instead taken to drinking copious amounts of red tea (rooibos), which is naturally decaffeinated and YUMMY. I can’t afford to drop down to Starbucks, the only source of drinkable coffee in this wasteland known as Rockefeller Center, and pick up shots of espresso on whim, and I like the taste of most teas anyhow - so it’s all good.
Now for the et ceteras:
- I was in the midst of writing this entry when my copies of The Relevant Nation showed up! In case you’re new to the blog, this is a book that Relevant published this fall. I contributed to the book, as did a number of others, and Heather Zydek edited. I was pleasantly surprised by how lovely this book is. It’s a great size and has 50 profiles of young Christians (under 40) who are making an impact in their field, from our very own Angela working for religious freedom all over the world, to my friend Danai who wrote and starred in an award-winning off-Broadway play, to musicians, social activists, authors, the works.
- Frivolity: I don’t usually use wall calendars, but I love this one.
We dropped on by the Angelika last night and saw The Queen, which was stellar and thoroughly worth seeing. I’d write more about it, but I’d love to get my husband to comment on it here. (Hint, hint, darling.)
Last day in the office this week! I’ll be working later on this week, but from the Blackberry. And I’m excited at the prospect of seeing DC a bit this week as well - I forgot we were going to be so close - and I haven’t been there since I was about eleven, so I think it might be fun.
We did indeed see Damien Rice on Thursday night. It’s worth mentioning because he was so good. His new album (9) came on Thursday morning and we were able to listen to it after the concert. Excellent.
We had a very quiet, fun weekend, just the two of us. We kept meaning to go places on Saturday, but we were having a better time just hanging out. We watched movies (Infernal Affairs, Independence Day, The Usual Suspects, and Amadeus). We ate lots of Mexican-type food that we made ourselves. I wrote up stacks of thank-you and Christmas cards. We played guitars and sang together. And after church yesterday, we dropped by the Container Store and got a bunch of random things we’ve been needing, the upshot of which is that my entire wardrobe is now crammed into my closet - but it fits.
We’ll be in town until tomorrow night, and then we’re heading down to Virginia for Thanksgiving. My first non-New England Thanksgiving. :)
It’s been a while since I wrote anything, but my latest was in the Radiant e-newsletter. If you don’t subscribe, you can find it here.
Tom came home early last night! We went to Biscuit BBQ to celebrate. It’s right around the corner from us. We’d actually gone to Night & Day, a restaurant that was in the same building, a few weeks ago, and then I was sitting on the couch reading Time Out and read that “the new Biscuit BBQ is in the same space that Night & Day once occupied”. Buh? You know you’re a New Yorker when . . .
So we went, and enjoyed pulled pork, biscuits, gravy, potatoes, candied yams - lots of carbs, but totally worth it.
In other news, we are going to Hiro Lounge to see Damien Rice tonight. It appears that those who say it’s an “intimate venue” weren’t joking; the site states that the room has a “standing reception” capacity of 200 and a seated capacity of 60. No wonder it sold out. (But fear not, friend, he plays the Beacon Theater in December. Check his site for details and scroll down.)
And now, because I just can’t quit linkage:
Microsoft Firefox - someone has a sense of humor. From the site:
Microsoft Firefox 2007 automatically shrinks text to abysmally small sizes, so all webpage content can fit onto a single apostrophe on your final printed page. This saves ink.
And for those of you who might not be awake yet, yes, this is a joke.
For those who eschew lemmingness in general but happily jumped on the Moleskine bandwagon because they’re worth it, there is moleskinerie. Check out this un-Moleskine related but still really cool BookCut entry:
And in a similar vein is Notebookism!
The girls on the Free People blog (yes, the clothing brand) are doing a meatless-wheatless-mushroomless foodswap/cookoff, and they have some yummy recipes up today for lentil dal and vegan shepherd’s pie. Tom and I are neither vegan nor wheat-intolerant, but I grew up around very very health-conscious folks and I’m always a little bit happy when I find recipes like this. (Also, we own two of the red “latte” bowl in the first picture, and four mini ones. Got them from Anthropologie. Good prices, too.)
I know I mentioned it before, but I am drooling over Paris Breakfasts nearly every day. Lovely watercolors, chocolate, the list goes on. Eye candy!
Last, but not least at all, I’ve been a devoted design*sponge reader for some time now, but I totally missed her Brooklyn Design Guide. And who knew? She’s a Park Sloper too. Every writer in NYC apparently lives in Park Slope. It’s quiet here.
I am working very hard so I can go home on time because my sweetie is coming home early!
So, enjoy these:
port2press
Uppercase (or should that be UPPERCASE?)
Threadless is having $10 T-shirt sale. I was in need of some vastly cooler casual wear, and I had some birthday money from my grandpa, so I got two:
• I love Republic of Tea; however, I drank the last of my stash yesterday. It works better than plain ol’ boxed for my work, as I don’t have to worry about pesky strings on the teabags, and it’s so yummy and fulfilling that I don’t want to go sneak off and indulge the dastardly Snickers habit. So, again with the last of the birthday money, I invested in some tea:
• This web color scheme generator seems very useful.
• Poetry Thursday, which seems like a good kick-start to writing poetry. Perhaps.
New music that we’re getting soon:
Damien Rice - 9
We’re seeing him in a sold-out show on Thursday night!
Over the Rhine - Snow Angels
Over the Rhine - Live From Nowhere, Volume 2
We’re seeing them in concert December 7! Snow Angels comes with a link to live acoustic versions of most of the songs.
Sufjan Stevens - Songs for Christmas
So yes, we have a lot of this already, as it was distributed online (legally) last year. But there’s some new stuff in this five-volume boxed set. Plus a cornucopia of delightfully bizarre items (five Christmas stickers? a Christmas family portrait painting of Santa Sufjan?). We heart irony. And who can resist an album containing a song called Get Behind Me, Santa?
The aforementioned Friday evening at the Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe was probably one of the coolest and most enjoyable Friday nights we’ve had in a long time. Poetry! Who woulda’ thunk it could be so . . . cool? The most unlikely people in the world are writing truly well-crafted poetry, performing it incredibly well, and eliciting heartfelt responses from the audience. We stayed through the slam competition and finally bowed out around 1:30am, before the open mic, since we needed to get home for our early-morning train.
We spent the weekend in Albany, seeing my brother’s school play (of which he was one of the best parts though he had no lines), hanging out with my Dad’s mom (who had come out from Boston for the weekend), seeing friends, and visiting the cemetery for the first time.
Tom is out of town working until Thursday, so I’m spending a lot of time working this week.
I just went to get a cup of tea (yes, I love tea, too) and in so doing, noted that Christmas is officially just around the corner - the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree has arrived. It’s getting all prettied up as I speak. I think they light it next week.
Hoorah!
There’s a guy on Union Street that I pass every day on my way to the subway with little cardboard signs hung over his wrought-iron fence saying things like “BYOP - Buy Your Own Plants”, “MYOB - Mind Your Own Business”, and “The Plant Thief Has Struck Again”. I’m curious what prompted it, as there aren’t a whole lot of plants in his front yard to begin with. This is next to the guy who hangs signs that say things like “Satan is Pleased With Your Progress” in his window. Awesome.
Last night Tom was working, and so I headed to a Brooklyn Heights rooftop party for the girls in my 7am Tuesday women’s Bible study. That is a beast of a time to be up and at ‘em, so the evening was pleasantly rambunctious. There was far more wine than fifteen girls could ever drink (eight unopened bottles when I left), plus a variety of chips and dips and little cucumber dill sandwiches and cookies, and Counting Crows and some old crooners and a moment in which we all sang “How Sweet It Is” to Carrie’s voicemail, since she was at a James Taylor concert. She called back later to reciprocate.
We plan to make our way to the Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe tonight to see Taylor Mali, an award-winning slam poet and former public school teacher. Tom took to listening to the IndieFeed Performance Poetry podcast a few months ago and discovered Mali, then discovered he was slamming (or whatever the appropriate verb is) in NYC this weekend, so we’re going.
And tomorrow morning we head northward to Albany for my illustrious brother’s musical theater debut in Cinderella. Sean, dancing, will be the highlight of the weekend. We’ll also celebrate my birthday with the family and make our first visit to the cemetery where Dad’s body is.
I saw a girl on her way to the subway today who had removed the belt from her khaki trench coat and threaded a wide cherry-red satin ribbon through the belt loops in place of it. It was just so lovely. I had a very satorialist moment where I wanted to whip out my camera and take a picture. I think I want a cameraphone.
Cool things:
- What inspires J.Crew.
- New cookbook forthcoming at Chocolate & Zucchini.
- I hope to knit this soon, because I think it is very cute.
Our friend Angela blogs a lot and it’s hard to keep up with all of it, but this post of hers from a few weeks ago struck me as so insightful and encouraging for why we should continue speaking the truth, I thought it deserved reposting here:
Driving back down here, David was telling me about taking some friends around the Capitol building who remarked, These people are talking to nobody. Which, for the uninitiated, Congressmen are, indeed, usually talking to a bunch of empty seats with the tape recorder rolling. But David said, No, they’re talking to posterity. Which is a great way of thinking about it. And judges really do read these transcripts when they are interpreting legislation to figure out what the lawmakers intended…Ocassionally it’s a surprise who finds you as a result. But you figure, with a few exceptions, it’s the choir that’s approaching you. And it’s nice to be appreciated, but so what, you found each other. What about the bad guys. Do they care? For the little bit of posterity that will want to know, for the noise that percolates to the street, for the guy who just might be on the fence that day, I’ll keep speaking into the record.
Oh yes. And I got a haircut.
I like to inform as many people as possible ahead of time, as I am squiffy about having it pointed out to me when I see people later on. :)
I’m back at work. In the past few days, I’ve been all over Pennsylvania checking out college with my brother, spent some time relaxing, working, cleaning, etc.
There’s so much I could write, but honestly, I’m a little buried in work. Onward and upward!
I celebrated my 23rd birthday at Dave & Mary Wong’s wedding today, out on Long Island, with my sweetie and a bunch of friends from college (hi, those of you who read The Blog) - hurrah! ‘Twas the best celebration they’ve ever had for my birthday, oh yes.
I got a book of e.e. cummings poems and a Zojirushi Home Bakery for my birthday! Yay! Tom has good taste.
I’m heading out of town tomorrow after church to go college-hunting with my brother in PA, so I’ll catch you all sometime mid-week. If you’re lucky, Tom will blog in the meantime.
This was dinner last night (with baguettes), and it was a winner - and very, very easy and quick. I varied it slightly with chicken thighs instead of chicken tenders, which ended up being a pain. I’d recommend using chicken breasts instead, and dice them before you put them in the pot.
This is courtesy of Rachel Ray and the Food Network website.
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
2 starchy potatoes, skin left on and diced (recommended: Idaho)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 ribs celery with leafy green tops, finely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 bay leaf, fresh or dried
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup dry white wine
5 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 pounds chicken tenders, chopped
1 small bunch pencil asparagus, trimmed of woody ends and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 cup frozen peas (a couple of handfuls)
2 to 3 tablespoons fresh tarragon, 4 to 5 sprigs, chopped
Heat a large, deep skillet or a medium soup pot over medium high heat. Add extra-virgin olive oil and butter. Melt butter into oil then add the potatoes, onions, celery and carrots, adding them to the pot as you chop them. Add bay leaf and season veggies with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning, cook 5 to 6 minutes to soften them a bit. Add flour and cook another minute then whisk in wine and cook off a minute more. Add stock and put a lid on the pan or pot and raise heat to bring to a quick boil. Slide in chicken and cook 5 minutes. Stir in asparagus and cook 3 minutes more. Turn off heat and add the peas and tarragon. Stir to combine and adjust salt and pepper, to your taste. Ladle into bowls and serve with crusty bread for mopping.
I totally rock. We’re going to see Damien Rice in two weeks. ;)
(Tickets may still be available here!)
I am not participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I tried last year, and it was a miserable failure. I’m pretty sure I’m not cut out for fiction, at least not in novel form. (Likely, I will eat my words in about twenty years and end up with a Pullitzer-winning work of thoughtful literature. Right? Right?)
Last night we saw All About My Mother in our continuing quest to saturate ourselves in Pedro Almodovar, a journey prompted by the viewing of Volver a month and a half ago. We’ve since discovered that we apparently saw his best film first, which means going back to the beginning has been . . . well . . . interesting. All About My Mother, thankfully, was the best one we’ve seen since, with good acting and a much tighter storyline (though it contains many fantastically weird plot elements).
And then we popped over to a Hallowe’en party that some of Tom’s catering co-workers were throwing. One of the more “special” elements of the night was front-row seats to the knock-down drag-out fistfight occurring across the street between a woman of considerable size and indeterminate age and a punky about-19-year-old. We spent a long time speculating on the story behind this fight. There were fifteen other punky about-19-year-olds standing around, and the cops even showed up at one point but just sort of looked at the situation and got back in their cars and drove away. Clearly not an unusual occurrence, but we are sheltered Park Slopers and don’t get to see this much in our uppercrusty family neighborhood.
Best costume I saw in person last night was a four-year-old Pooh wandering down the sidewalk, with parents pushing a stroller containing a one-year-old Honey Pot sucking on a pacifier. But I got into work this morning and my mom sent me pictures of my cousins (ages four and eight), who donned Grease-garb and apparently knew the dances, too. They win.