esprit de l'escalier

Goofy polaroids

I just got a polaroid camera— I've been kind of obsessed with them ever since I borrowed one for my PacNW trip in July. My friend Kyra has been crashing on our couch the last couple of nights. I always like having guests, especially those as amusing as Ms. Kyra. I decided to break in the new camera with some pics of us. We each got to keep a silly one and a straight one. Why oh why must I always stick out my tongue like that?

Now all I need is a scanner.

Have a good weekend everyone. I'm off early early tomorrow to a wedding in Colorado. I expect my siblings and I will get into much hijinks while we're together.

The passing of a great writer

Naguib Mahfouz died today at 94. He was considered Egypt's premier novelist and won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature.

I read Midaq Alley at the encouragement of an Egyptian friend while I worked in the Middle East for a couple of months two years ago. It describes the goings on in an old quarter in Cairo. He created a wonderful sense of place and of the different characters that inhabited it. I was really grateful for the suggestion, because I don't know if I would have found Mahfouz on my own, but it gave me a wonderful glimpse into life in a different world. 94 is an impressive age, and there is still so much of his writing I have yet to discover.

Links to his obituary at the BBC and the NYT.

UPDATE: Here is a link to Juan Cole's post encouraging people to read Mahfouz. (Thanks Mom for the tip!)

Door County

Door County mosaic
Originally uploaded by clairehelene7.

I'm much too tired and just spent way too much time fussing with flickr to go much into my trip. It was quick but nice. I visited with an old college roommate and her parents in Door County, WI. It was my first time in DC, but I had heard a lot about it from my friends who went to school in Green Bay. The first day the weather was crummy, so Mary and I went shopping. Mary's powers of persuasion are still strong and she talked me into several expensive items (she has a way of doing that). The next day the weather had cleared and I got a nice sun burn at the beach— nothing like weird tan lines for the wedding I'm going to this weekend. (I spent this evening slathered in Nozema to try and lessen the redness.) Mary and I visited a lighthouse and saw some goats on a roof of a restaurant. (I tried to get the goat to look my way by yelling, "Here kitty, kitty," which surprisingly did NOT work.) Poor Mary's mom had just broken her knee— freak hammock accident— so she's all laid up for the next 6-8 weeks. I need to think of some puzzle books or something to send her. Alright, I need to go brush my teeth. There has been a flurry of activity outside my apartment tonight and I was just informed by some man that the city will be turning our water off briefly. I hope it's on by morning!

Motorcycle journey

Rare is a straight road that goes on for long. The glaciers through here gazillion of years ago have carved out an unimaginable, wonderful landscape that is felt on a motorcycle unlike you’d feel in a car. This area is not entirely unfamiliar to me. I’ve traveled around Traverse City a lot and Gaylord MI before in a car. But I don’t remember this feeling. I don’t remember feeling connected to the road.

Okay, okay, I've been talking up Sharon's motorcycle journey, but she's got a great post up today about the feeling of riding. Plus I'm too tired and brain dead to come up with anything of my own today. She does a wonderful job of putting you in the driver's seat with her, describing the twisting, hilly roads she's currently riding in Michigan.

Have a good weekend! I wish I could join Sharon on her travels. I'm running up to Door County, WI for the night on Saturday to see an old friend. I wish I could just sleep all weekend, but oh well.

A new blog to read and random bits

My life has been a little overly scheduled of late, and when I returned home last night at about 10 ’til 10 (just in time to see who got kicked off of Project Runway), my friend Elaine was there, watching PR with my roommate. She and I consulted our calendars to try and figure out a time when we could hang out next and realized a sad thing. Our class schedules were exactly opposite: she’s busy Mondays and Wednesdays and I’m busy on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I also realized that the next month or so is ridiculously hectic. Some of it is fun stuff, but it does not look like there’s enough time for downtime. I was hoping my life would slow down once summer was over. Anyhow, I'm sort of tired and apparently very whiny. Sorry!

In continuing with my shout-outs from yesterday, if anyone is interested, Sharon *has* been posting about her adventures around Lake Michigan. She’s got some pretty pictures up as well.

I also want to welcome Maryam at My Marrakesh to the blogosphere. She just started a blog about designing and building a guest house in Morocco, where she lives with her husband and two kids. She’s an American expat who’s been living abroad for 12 years. She and I met because we are swap partners in an international magazine swap organized by Holly at decor8. I think her blog is going to be really interesting, so check it out!

In other news, Plan B has *finally* been approved for OTC sales. It's about time. To say that I'm sick of the anti-thought, anti-science vision this administration has would be an understatement and probably not worth my time. I just started the newest Mother Jones, celebrating its 30th year in publication. I don't know if I can stomach it so soon after the nihilism that was Oryx and Crake. There's a timeline pointing out how awful this administration has been. I just don't have the energy to read it. Makes me to f-ing sad.

A couple of shout-outs

My friend Sharon has recently rekindled her love of motorcycles. (I like to tease her and tell her this is her midlife crisis.) But Sharon approaches this new obsession as she approaches everything in life, with a studious determination to learn how to reach her goal. Her knowledge of many things, including motorcycles, is nothing short of amazing. She left this weekend for her longest trip to date: a tour of Lake Michigan in its entirety. She's blogging as she goes, or is supposed to (she hasn't posted since Saturday). You can read about her preparations, though, and hopefully she'll post an update about the trip, as she promised.

My other shout-out goes to the lovely Stacey, who traveled to Boise this weekend to see my favorite singer in a solo gig. She too is now smitten. (I'm telling you, the man's hugs are out of this world.) Anyhow, read about her experience, or just check out the excellent photo of her and Josh, taken by her friend Raj. Look at the expression on her face: priceless.

Cotton-headed start to the day

I feel like my brain and whole body is covered in one of those lead vests you wear at the dentists—all my limbs are being dragged down by a force greater than gravity. My head is wooly with cotton and I'm having trouble finishing sentences. The last two weeks have been go-go-go and my body is now ready for a nice long nap. I curled myself up into my ergonomic chair and thought about napping, but my cube is in much too public a thoroughfare. I'd be caught for sure.

My summer session class on text and image ended last night. I enjoyed it—it was a good mixture of theory and hands on projects. It sounds weird, but now I have a better understanding of some other classes I need to take. My professor did a good job, though some of the other students annoyed me. Some of us went out for a couple of beers after we were done last night. Two of the people that annoyed me the most were there. I have a huge pet peeve of people who refuse to discuss politics with strangers. The one loud mouth guy who had to be right about everything (which only makes me argumentative, because who’s he to say he’s right about everything?) touched on something political and then wouldn’t let me continue the conversation. WTF? I can understand people not wanting to discuss politics in a job interview or something like that, but we were just sitting around chatting. AND HE BROUGHT IT UP. It pisses me off.

Anyhow, I wrote the beginning part of this post around noon and now it’s almost time to go home and I’m feeling perkier. The latte finally caught up with me. Plus I’ve been grooving to some music on Reg’s Coffeehouse and Pandora. The beats have woken my brain from its little slumber.

I'm listening to Sean Hayes’s album Big Black Hole And The Little Baby Star. You can stream a couple of songs at his website. It’s kind of funky and groovy for an acoustic singer/songwriter. I found him via Erin McKeown’s MySpace page. Check it out, it’s fantastic.

Thumbprints of human imperfection

Describing the female Children of Crake:

Every time the women appear, Snowman is astonished all over again. They're every known colour from deepest black to whitest white, they're various heights, but each on of them is admirably proportioned. Each is sound of tooth, smooth of skin. No ripples of fat around their waists, no bulges, no dimpled orange-skin cellulite on their thighs. No body hair, no bushiness. They look like retouched fashion photos, or ads for a high-priced workout program.

Maybe this is the reason that these women arouse in Snowman not even the faintest stirrings of lust. It was the thumbprints of human imperfection that used to move him, the flaws in the design: the lopsided smile, the wart next to the navel, the mole, the bruise. These were the places he'd single out, putting his mouth on them. Was it consolation he'd had in mind, kissing the wound to make it better? There was always an element of melancholy involved in sex.

—from Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

What a difference a 100 pages makes

This was going to be an entirely different post. It was going to start off with a sentence about how, when I was a kid, I chiefly read to escape. I'd hole up in my room, with my legs dangling over chair arms or sticking up in the air, devouring books. Etc, etc, etc.

Then I was going to talk about how the last several books have been getting progressively sunnier in disposition. I started off, about a month ago, finishing a collection of Ibsen plays I bought last summer. Let me tell you, The Wild Duck and Hedda Gabbler do not put humanity in its best light. The moral of The Wild Duck (from my layman's understanding) is that blindly enforcing morality leads to no good. (Well duh. Actually, once W finishes with The Stranger, he should take up some Ibsen.) And Hedda Gabbler. Goodness. I kept putting that play down. She is just so awful. I can understand why actresses would revel in playing her, but good lord.

Once I was done with the Ibsen, I picked up Persuasion. I listened to this on audiobook last summer when I was on my Austen jag. I enjoyed reading it, though listening to it was enjoyable in a different way. I love that book so much. (I think that I'm going to be one of those people who reads at least one Austen a year.)

Well, Austen got me in a better frame of mind. Sure, the world was continuing to fall apart, but at least I had my Jane, right? I decided to continue with my escapism and jump into a book of Wodehouse short stories on Crime. Mannion reminded me that Wodehouse also wrote short stories and that I might enjoy them on my commute. Plus, he said, my laughing might deter people from standing too close on the L. (He was right about that.)

When I first started crafting this post in my head, I was going to talk about how thankful I was for discovering Wodehouse. How grateful I was to have discovered this incredibly prolific writer who made me shake with violent fits of laughter. I was going to post this lovely quote on which I was somehow going to hang the whole post:

"There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature." from "Strychnine in the Soup"

Yes there were terrorist plots being foiled and dying Communist leaders, but I've got Jeeves to pull me through!

Well. This was what I was planning on writing, and then I started Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. I should have known better, or at least had done my research. Doubleday says this about the book:

"Margaret Atwood’s new novel is so utterly compelling, so prescient, so relevant, so terrifyingly-all-too-likely-to-be-true, that readers may find their view of the world forever changed after reading it."

Well shit. And I fall so easily into her prose and have devoured over a hundred pages already. I think my world has changed. Or at least my frame of mind. Why didn't I save Wodehouse for after this? Now I'm confronted with this dystopian future with all of the arts and humanities gone and strange, bio-engineered life forms. I'm entranced and utterly devastated and can't put it down.

What's a reader to do? How do I transition off of this?

Old friends and a new one

My arm was easily twisted to drop everything this weekend and head down to Bloomington for a going away party for two fabulous ladies, Bird and Sarah. Bird was one of the very first people I met when I moved into my dorm my freshman year, and I definitely wanted to be there to celebrate her leaving the Bloomhole. Seven years, friend!! Bird has also *finally* made her blog debut over at Anthony's place. I'll let her speak for herself on the party and the future. The party was a lot of fun. Much drinking, dancing and hugging. By the time Natasha and I got home, Bird had already uploaded all of her photos and sent them to everyone. I selected some of my favorites and uploaded them to flickr. Check out the little mosaic below for some pictures.

This weekend was full of lots of old friends, but it involved a new friend as well! My old roommate Jenny had her baby this weekend! Miss Ellie joined the world after 20 hours of labor! She was 9 lbs. 5 oz. with a big tuft of black hair! She looks super cute and she and new Mom are doing well. I can't wait to meet her.

Bird and Sarah's Going Away Party
Originally uploaded by clairehelene7.