Max: Did you eat the tuna that was in here?
Sara: What tuna?
Max: The can. It was right here.
Sara: The cat food?
Max: That wasn't cat food. That can of tuna cost four dollars.
Sara: Oh. Well... he loved it.
MTC: (licks lips)

on looking before you leap

Let me tell you about my bad ankle.

While studying abroad in Glasgow the International Society put together a trip to the Isle of Arran. It was a really lovely weekend. First of all the weather on the first day, by far, was the nicest any of us had seen since we'd arrived in Glasgow. It was February but we spent the day hiking in t-shirts. My friends and I ended up at the far side of the island when night started to fall, halfway through a hike to King's Cave. It was beautiful, it was easy to get distracted:



We finished the hike but missed the bus back to the hostel where we were to spend the night. February isn't exactly the peak of tourist season so we knew there wouldn't be another bus for awhile, if at all. We decided to walk. By the time we arrived at the hostel we were exhausted, dehydrated, and famished. Dinner was postponed one half-hour (twice). For consolation we were given a fifth of local whisky, a few bottles of Arran Ale, and a case of wine. This may have played some role in what happened next.

Like I said, it was the off-season. The hostel wasn't actually open for business at all, the International Society had stuck some deal with the owners. The town around the hostel was so still, deserted. Out the window we could see Lochranza Castle. It looked so romantic! The back wall crumbled as we watched it, the moon was full and its reflection glittered in the water around the castle.



I don't remember who started running toward the water but there must have been a dozen of us by the time we got to that crumbling wall. I do know that Harry and I reached the water first. We grinned at each other and charged full-force ahead, preparing ourselves for the icy shock.

The shock shocked us! It was not the water we experienced next but a short tumble down a jagged rock wall. Harry's thick Australian skin left him relatively unscathed but my leg looked like this:



The scrapes I could handle but by the next day my ankle was the size of a softball. It probably didn't help matters that I continued to hike on it. When I finally sought medical attention the doctor couldn't believe that nothing was broken or fractured.

Moral: I am invincible. Also I now know when it's going to rain. If this grad school thing doesn't work out, I can always market myself as a weather girl.

A few weeks ago I read a friend's blog about how she had been drinking Four Loko. I looked it up, realized it was similar to Sparks, and I may have emailed the company immediately to see where I could get it in Philadelphia. They emailed me back to ask me what area I live in. I replied that I live in the Rittenhouse Area, yada yada, I forgot about the exchange.

Well, today some Four reps showed up at Food and Friends (where Max works) to drop off some samples. HAHA. We realized tonight that one can is 24 oz of 12% alcohol. That is like three sparks, or about five bottles of beer. In one container. Also there is (FDA approved) wormwood in the US version, and ABSINTHE in the EU version. Oh and each can is 660 calories. HAHA. I have decided to abstain.

We EST-ers have a little under an hour left of November. I just read the first 31 chapters of Tess of the D'Urbervilles and now I am in bed, drinking an Anchor Steam Christmas Ale and trying to mentally prepare myself for December.

First of all, it is really important that I don't fail out of grad school this semester. By 'fail' I mean 'receive any A minuses.' I think. I think that's what I mean. Anyway, though, I'll strike you a deal: if you don't ask me in the next two weeks how my program is going (please don't), I won't tell you. Fair is fair.

As if completing the semester weren't enough, our South Philly house fell through! The inspector found a few things that need to be fixed immediately, but the ladies who own the house refused to fix them or bring the price down. Now we are scrambling to find a new place! We are looking at a few properties on Thursday. I will be channeling Annette Bening- "I will sell this find a house today."

IN ADDITION, I'll be spending the entirety of next Monday in court for that mugging trial. What a pain in the badonkadonk.

All that being said, I am in good spirits. I am excited about the papers I am writing, excited to decorate our new mystery house (ha), excited for Christmas break, and excited for my trip to Denver! I also had a really wonderful Thanksgiving in the Poconos. It is so peaceful and happy in my parents' home in the mountains, and my whole family was there, and I saw some of my oldest and dearest friends. To top it all off, Max came back to Philadelphia earlier than I did and he cleaned the apartment so I would have a nice space to do my work when I got home. Thanksgiving got a little silly. Tea cozies were worn, Scotch was consumed, we started up a little ragtime band.







I, for one, had no alcohol on Turkey day proper... you'd never know it from the photos.

...Thomas Beckett?

One of the perks of my current life path: when it's a November Saturday and you don't particularly feel like getting out of bed, you can watch the movies of the books you're reading well into the late-afternoon and still be contributing positively to your life.

Jack: Cecily and Gwendolen are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister.
Algernon: Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.

I am getting so excited for the holidays! I want to get a tree again but it feels kind of pointless, we pretty much need to be packed by Christmas. I guess I could get one right after Thanksgiving and have a holiday get-together at some point in early December. Anyway I have been trying to find a picture of our Christmas tree from last year but all I can find is this:



Other things I love about the holidays:

Snow!




Baking!




Making Presents!

Today I spent four hours in court, and by spent I mean wasted because they never got to my case and I need to go back in December. Oh and then I got in a fight with one of those people who stand on the corner and solicit strangers for money to end global warming, or save the gay baby whales, or something. Does every city have these or is it a Philadelphia thing? Those guys are THE WORST.

Oh SEPTA is back, thank goodness. We are free once again to criticize their service and forget how much we need them.

Play me out, Violent Femmes. This is the first result for this song. Those signs are all SEPTA signs. COINCIDENCE?



Losing my mind. Fo sho.

Oh, also, MTC was Steve Zissou for Halloween.

OH BLOG. You have been neglected. I'm sorry!
Let me make it up to you by telling you some things about my life.



SEPTA is on strike, which means they're "getting there" even less than usual. This is kind of a pain in the badonkadonk as I take the subway to Temple five days a week. Temple has been running a shuttle every half an hour or so but it fills up really quickly so taking it generally means a lot of waiting. I've been waking up really early to get on the shuttle, spending the day on campus, and walking home. It has been working OK but it means that Max and I have fallen into the most absurd schedule.

It's hard for me to get up early if I don't go to sleep at a reasonable hour but he works from four until midnight and I don't get home until around four so if I am asleep by the time he gets home, we never see each other awake. We've worked out that the best way for us to spend time with each other and get enough sleep is as follows: I sleep from about eight or nine (pm) until midnight, at which point I wake up and hang out and watch TV with him for a few hours. Then we sleep until about six, eat breakfast and hang out for a little bit and then Max goes back to sleep for awhile and I go to school. I know, I know. Whatever.



This news is considerably more exciting, which is that I am a homeowner now! Or, I will be soon. Kind of. My parents bought a house in South Philly and Max and I will be paying them... well... rent, I guess, but it feels bigger. My name is on the papers at least! Closing isn't until November 30th and then we move in December 29th/30th (I will be juggling moving and the MLA conference!) We are a little nervous about moving to South Philly but I think it will be worth it. Goodbye, two room & bathroom apartment! Hello, three bedrooms, one and a half bath, kitchen, living room, garden & finished basement!

I just read back over this and realized how many exclamation points there are. OH WELL! I am having a pretty awesome day.

Oh, also, I like that people still look at puppy to puppy even though I haven't updated it in forevah.

It only took a day and a half of being back in the working world to realize how good grad school is. Good thing I am out of here at six!

GROSS. I am really mad about this. I am not having a good day.



"Ignoring a subpoena may result in your arrest." Well, at least I know that if I ignore it, they won't get around to doing anything about it until like 2012.

I got a phone call from the DA's office today, "regarding the robbery that occurred August 20th on Spruce Street." This came as a bit of a shock to me for two reasons. Reason number one: I was being driven through the Rocky Mountains on August 20th. Reason number two: I have no recollection of being involved in any type of robbery in August, except if you count how Krysta's boyfriend stole her from me and took her to Minnesota (you probably don't).

At this point I need to back up a little bit, because I was robbed in August... in August 2006. That's three years ago, for the mathematically uninclined (that's not a word) of you. It wasn't on Spruce Street but it was on 43rd near Spruce. But it was three years ago! so the event didn't exactly pop into my head.

When the confusion was settled the woman from the DA's office informed me that the case is going to trial on Monday and she'd like me to testify. I have class on Monday so I don't think that I can make it (which she said is fine) but I think Montana, who was with me, is going to go.

The weird thing is that the police told Montana and me that the man was in custody (we ID'd him)... and that was the week it happened, August of 2006. Why they waited three years to take the case to trial, I have no idea.

GO PHILADELPHIA.

Good morning Philadelphia. I am ready for some much cooler weather.

I am really surprised by how many people I know watched the VMAs last night. Really? Gross. Instead of doing that, I read the entirety of Robinson Crusoe last night. Snark snark snark. Except, today I woke up at 6:30 am to watch America's Next Top Model. People in glass houses...

I grew up in a pretty small town on the Appalachian Trail (this is not the backwoods moonshine Appalachia you imagine). I believe there are eight hundred something citizens now but when I was in high school it was closer to seven hundred. There is a one-room schoolhouse museum and art gallery that operated as a school until 1969, the local church hosts weekly town picnics for the hikers, the local jazz club is world-renowned and has been operating since the end of WWII. It is a haven for aging hippies, artists, and musicians and it is the closest thing to a perfect town that I can imagine. Just ask Teddy Roosevelt:




(Now the Deer Head Inn)

Have I mentioned that all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all of the children are above average?

Seriously, though, it is pretty good there. I like to tell the story of when Krysta and I watched the (volunteer) firefighters help a cat out of a tree. It's always reminded me a bit of Pleasantville, without all the negative connotations. I mean really. What other town would dispatch the fire department to help a feline in a precarious position?



GOOD MORNING PINE STREET! A neighbor's cat escaped out the window to the roof, somehow, and both animal control and the fire department helped kitty get home safely.

Philadelphia, I am really glad that you did this today. Firefighters, I hope you still have a job at the end of the year. You too, librarians.

Max came home from work yesterday and said he'd spoken to a woman who has lived in Philadelphia for a few decades.

"This has happened before," she told him. "The last time there was a budget debacle the city didn't maintain Rittenhouse Square for a year. It was really overgrown, people stopped going there. It was one of the best things that ever happened to Center City. It was this beautiful wilderness. It became more like a neighborhood, and less like Center City.

"But the problem when a library closes is that another library doesn't open up in its place."

THE WORST

When I worked at PCI (one of the branches of the Free Library in Philadelphia) I made most of the signs for upcoming events, etc. There is a big window that faces Rittenhouse Square where we hung all the signs. I stopped working there in May 2008 but we live really close and I like to walk by from time to time to see the new signs, and to think about how they are just not as good as the signs I used to make.

Well on my way home tonight I saw the worst sign ever.



Everyone, please write/call/do whatever you can do. Seriously. There is some good information on the Free Library's website: www.freelibrary.org

Woke up to see this comment in my inbox:

"Otago Lane is under threat from a major development of 163 new flats and 6 new commercial units. Tchai-Ovna would be forced to close and the future would be uncertain for the rest of the independant shops in the lane.

Check out the following Facebook group for more info:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=112847512460

...please feel free to send a letter of objection. If you don't have time (or inclination) it would be great if you could at least sign our petition:

http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/save-otago-lane-glasgow.html

Thanks
icsteel"

So sad :[ I am going to have to find time to write a letter on this trip.

bye eviama :[

I will miss life on the moon.

I still haven't packed. I'm having such a hard time with it. Probably because every time I open a suitcase, I see this little face:



ANYWAY we leave tomorrow. GET EXCITED.

no hours, just albums

We're hitting the road (I have never understood that expression; I will continue to use it) Sunday morning, very early. The plan is to make it to Birmingham the first day, then New Orleans. One day we'll have breakfast in Santa Fe and drinks in Denver. We'll also spend a few days in Las Vegas and some time in LA. Once we get our stuff in the car on Sunday we won't have any deadlines to meet until our plane on the 26th. That is over ten and a half days of doing whatever we feel like doing!


I am having a hard time figuring out what to pack.



I feel very strongly about seeing this:

Cadillac Ranch, in Amarillo, TX

Also this:

Lighthouse in Cedar City, UT.

OK I don't really care about seeing that last one so much but I find the description hilarious: Honoring landlocked Utah's nonexistent maritime tradition is a full size lighthouse.

Dear Temple University,
It is SO STUPID that I have to change my password every few months. No one is going to break into my account. If someone were, GO FOR IT. What is this possible perpetrator really going to do? Sign me up for the wrong health insurance? Well, great. SOMEBODY should be able to get into my account and sign me up for health insurance, because I certainly cannot as I am unable to remember my new password.
TALK TO YOU TOMORROW, CAN'T WAIT TO NAVIGATE YOUR IMPOSSIBLE PHONE SYSTEM.
Love,
Sara

a weekend in glasgow

A friend from my study abroad days wrote on my facebook wall the other day: Did you see 36 Hours in Glasgow in the NY Times this weekend? The slide show is pretty spot on.

And it is! I never thought I'd feel so homesick for a place where I never quite felt at home. It hits on all the right places.

The Botanic Gardens:


Oran Mor, that crazy church-turned-whisky-bar:

About Oran Mor the Times says Oran Mor is more than a bar; it’s a complex of multiple watering holes and restaurants, a beer garden, a nightclub and a performance space that features “A Play, a Pie and a Pint," a popular lunch series. I say, don't wander alone down the back stairs looking for the bathroom because you'll never find your way back to your friends and you'll spend two hours drinking Arran Malt with some cellist, who later proposes.

King Tut's Wah Wah Hut!


The Ubiquitous Chip, where I turned 21:


And Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, next to my house. I walked by this every day, and ran in the parks around it:


Inside:


Mentioned, also, are the Willow Tea Rooms, ceilidhs, Ashton lane! The picture for Ashton lane doesn't do it justice, I am not sure why the decision was made to photograph it during the day when it looks so beautiful at night.

This is the best picture I can find of it at night, but it's pretty disappointing. I miss you Ashton Lane, £1 cocktails, Belle & Sebastian DJs, that bartender who would set grasshoppers on fire.

The only things that are really missing from this list are the GFT, Glasgow Film Theatre, where the movie screen is covered by a curtain until the lights dim, and cobblestoned Otago Lane. The latter was, by far, my favorite part of the city. It is the home of the best little tea bar (Tchai-Ovna), a pretty decent record store (Mixed Up Records), and probably my two favorite second hand book shops ever. Voltaire & Rousseau was dimly lit and filled with piles of books, literally piles, with no real system of organization (philosophy in one corner, history in another, novels in a third). In a few places there were shelves placed directly in front of other shelves. I spent many hours on the floor there, sifting through books with a black and white spotted cat on my lap. The owner of the bookstore wore fingerless gloves, muttered to himself constantly, and kept his change in a little purse. There may have been a cash register but I never saw it, as it was (no exaggeration) impossible to reach the counter, there were so many books in front of it. I assume the cat belonged to him but, as he largely ignored both myself and my feline companion, perhaps its real owner had fallen victim to an encyclopedia avalanche and was rotting somewhere in a pile of textbooks.

I can't find any record of the other bookstore on Otago Lane and I've forgotten its name (if I ever knew it). It was the opposite of Voltaire & Rousseau, bright and clean, meticulously organized. The little old man who worked there and I became great friends. He wasn't the owner, he always told me, he was just a friend who was filling in for a few days. Still, he was there every time I visited. I helped him rearrange the poetry section once and he gave me a few books that no longer fit on the shelves, including a rare compilation of T.S. Eliot poems he had priced at £60.

And Tchai-Ovna! The most wonderful little tea shop in the world, with mismatched furnture, tiny nooks just my size, and a front porch where we'd wrap ourselves in layers of blankets and hot water bottles, braving even the coldest, wettest days for hookahs and Turkish Apple tea.





I wish I had better pictures from my time in Glasgow. I had a crappy camera and iPhoto resized everything into tiny, sad images. I guess I'll have to go back!

rainy sunday

Toast, tea. Belle, Sebastian.

I made myself a twitter. I know, I know. Whatever. I thought it would be fun to update while we were on the road, but not before then (and hopefully not after). It's here if you want to follow it. Sigh.

It's hard to be sad for too long when there are such weird little creatures in this world.

from "winter hours" by mary oliver

Another present for you, while I try to remember what it means to have a blog.

I.
I think a great deal about Shelley's boat, a little world sailing upon the greater world, to whose laws it must, of necessity, submit. As we know, it soon carried Shelley to his death, and his friend Edward Williams and the boy Charles Vivian as well. The details we do not know, whether it was the wind mainly or altogether, or the leafy waves, or the wind and the waves together, or a larger boat bearing down through the sudden storm. But this we do know. Before it happened, I mean when they left land and sailed away over the Aegean, in the clear summer air, on the untroubled sea, the boat must have looked like a white bird, a swan, floating so lightly and rapidly it was all but flying. And sailing in it must have seemed like entering, with justifiable exhilaration and total faith, an even larger, lovelier, statelier and steadier world than the manifest ocean. As, perhaps, it was.

II.
There are as many worlds as there are imaginers. Down-shore there rests in the restless water a sailboat; one line holds it from leaping away. Little bell, little chain, little this and that, on it, taps and clanks in the wind. I stand and listen. Its bow, built of boards steamed to a sweet curve and join, like a bird's breast, tugs against the line. What is it it wants to be? Once, in Union, Maine, as we were passing a field, five white birch trees became five white ponies. Their feet shuffled in the long grass, their white faces shone. This is called: happiness. This is called: stay away from me with your inches, and your savings accounts, and your plums in a jar. Your definitive anything. And if life is so various, so shifting, what could we possibly say of death, that black leaf, that has in it any believable finality?

"that's racist!"

Geeze louise.

Been busy visiting old friends, reading in the park, planning a journey west and throwing dinner parties for 22. Posting to resume soon.

Scott Fiedler is definitely one of my top two favorite Fiedlers.

I have been looking for this character description since I was reminded of it in Paris by my chain-smoking companions. First I thought it was Dickens (Miss Havisham, perhaps), then I was convinced she was an Orwell creation. I reread the entirety of "Coming up for Air" in search of her, to no avail. Trying to fall asleep the other night I realized- she's from that silly book by Murdoch, the one where they steal the German Shepherd acting dog. "Under the Net." I read it in Glasgow while working my way through The Modern Library's list of the 100 Best Novels. I don't own it. I told myself I'd go to the library one day and check it out. I probably would have, eventually.

I'm in the middle of "Travels with Charley" and have been trying to get my friend, Sarah, to pick it up. I've sent her a few pieces via text message and this morning I emailed her a particularly long passage, practically the whole first page. I do this a lot when I really like a book, fill journals and inboxes with bits of it. As I thought about this, that light bulb lit up.



Success! Please accept this gift of words.

From Iris Murdoch's "Under the Net"

"In the midst sits Mrs. Tinckham herself, smoking a cigarette. She is the only person I know who is literally a chain-smoker. She lights each one from the butt of the last; how she lights the first one of the day remains to me a mystery, for she never seems to have any matches in the house when I ask her for one. I once arrived to find her in great distress because her current cigarette had fallen into a cup of coffee and she had no fire to light another. Perhaps she smokes all night, or perhaps there is an undying cigarette which burns eternally in her bedroom."

I have been on the "Fishing With John" bus for a long time but it was only within the last year that I was turned on to his paintings.


SOME ANIMALS NOAH HAD ONLY ONE OF, THE ONES THAT CAME BY TWO PUT ON A MUSICAL, WHICH LIKE MOST MUSICALS WAS BAD


PANTHER OUTSIDE OF HOUSE AS PHOTOGRAPHED BY ABRAHAM ZAPRUDER


BIRD HAS ABSOLUTELY NO FACE

Lurie says painting saved his life. He has been in ill health since the mid-1990s, and lived largely in seclusion. I couldn't find a lot about it on the internet but it it's all in his paintings.


I NEED TO KNOW IF THERE IS LIFE AFTER DEATH AND I NEED TO KNOW KIND OF SOON



www.johnlurieart.com for more.

Jacob, Max and I are sorry that we didn't believe you a year ago when you said the apocalypse was imminent.

TADPOLES.

Oh, there's more! FISH!

I am a terrible scholar. I did nothing for Bloomsday. I worked all day so I couldn't go to the Rosenbach and the only other thing I can find to do is this:



Which would be great minus Philebrity and the 700 Club.

Maybe I will just read Ulysses and recreate one of those cocktails. Except I don't have any of those ingredients. Or Ulysses.

Well, bourbon and Dubliners it is.

happy anniversary, max!

Yesterday was Max and my two year anniversary. I made these delicious molten lava cakes with raspberries and ice cream.



I am getting used to blogger but it frustrates me that I can't make my images any wider than 400 pixels. Also my font size is always different. WHATEVS.

Anyway, happy anniversary, Max! I have a lot to post about but very little time! I was promoted at work and am training two employees today. I am the busiest bee.

a modest mouse proposal

Tomorrow is the full moon. Because I work at a hippie spa I am convinced that everything that's gone wrong this week for everyone- and that's a lot- can be blamed on the moon. Increased appetites, insomnia, general grumps, localized grumps, whatever. It's the stupid moon's fault. I mean, seriously, if it affects the tides of the ocean it can probably cause a little crazy crazy.

Considerably less seriously, Mr. Show and I have found the solution:



The idea is facing considerable backlash from the animal kingdom. At least, I think these guys are from the animal kingdom.



And this clip, I believe, speaks for itself.



I've been thinking about the moon a lot recently, as you can tell. I wonder if there really is something to this moon thing, or if I am just losing my mind. The internet has a lot of answers, but none that I'm willing to get behind. Here's an example. This is one of the first hits on google for "moon effects."

REALLY? REALLY? The website might have some decent information, but I'd never know, I am way too distracted by all of the flashing. What is that icon on the top left, an Interstellar Police car? I guess the moon question will just have to go unanswered, until Krysta Tanico writes her first book.

me: i need to stop listening to rilo kiley and modest mouse on repeat.
i feel like i am in a funk.
maybe it's the moon.
jacob: and antarctica

4000 Flavors

There was a surprise waiting for me in the mailbox yesterday morning- Volume 3 of 4000 Flavors, a zine created and compiled by friend and Philly neighbor (he lives on the other side of the river but we are all neighbors here), Sean Hamilton. I sent him two pieces when he first dreamt up the zine and was pretty stoked when he used one in the first issue. I didn't make it to the release party (working on Saturdays is for the dogs, man) but he was kind enough to send me a copy and I really dug it. I wrote about it here and included my submission.

Laziness and other vices set in on my part shortly thereafter and I lost track of this tiny gem (speaking of tiny gems, please check out this blog by the Vassallo siblings) until yesterday. While I was "sleeping" Sean was hard at work- Volume 4 was released in May and Volume 5 is in production. 

As for Volume 3, it's pretty damn good. It's cool for me to see what some of my former classmates are doing, and to add new names to my mental rolodex. Plus, a piece of mine is in it! I'm not putting this piece online- you'll have to buy Volume 3 to read it. Volume 1 and 2 are available online here- for $5 or less! Even if you can barely afford your rent, like Sean and I, you can shell out $5 to enrich your life. I plan on purchasing Volume 2 as soon as I get my next paycheck.

I've linked it twice already, but please check out the 4000 Flavors blog. I've really enjoyed catching up with it today and yesterday. There is also a pretty cool article on Phrequency about Mr. Hamilton. 

Alright, time to make my hubby dinner and play fetch with the cat. Check out those links.