on tardiness and human suffering

so I originally wrote this haiku almost a year ago, but much like Moby Dick or War and Peace, it is (unfortunately) just as relevant today as it was the day it was written:

data collection
Satan invented grad school
I'll sleep when I'm dead

weirdly enough, I'd kill to be in the situation I was in when I wrote that back in May. At the time I thought things couldn't get worse, but I was oh so wrong. unbeknownst to me, I was actually ahead of the game - I had done at least ten interviews, I was reading green cleaning stuff every day and really staying on top of the policy developments. By some accounts, I was "overacheiving." Well, I sure showed them.

I basically took an extended vacation from my thesis all summer and then started a new, more dangerous period of thesis latency right after I defended my proposal. in, uh, november. thank GOD one of my professors, my beloved Uncle Bill, snapped me out of it a few weeks ago by giving me a fake assignment and holding me to the fake deadline. my other professor/thesis supervisor/boss/everything had tried to go the "no pressure, I know you are going to do a great job" route, but I found it way too eay to focus on all the other stuff we were working on.

it makes me a little nervous that I need to be lied to to get motivated to do things on time. it isn't just my thesis, or even just schoolwork. my boss tells me that our monthly newspaper deadline is the second Tuesday, when secretly it's Wednesday. my friends will occasionally tell me something starts at, say, 9 o'clock, hoping I'll make it there by 10. most of all, I lie to myself, or at least I try. all of my clocks are set fast, and not just a little. I even mix it up so as to trick myself as much as possible: the clock in my car is 33 minutes fast, my alarm clock is 25 minutes fast, and my Super Loud alarm clock (the one I keep 15 feet away from my bed, hoping in vain that it will get me out of bed, which it doesn't because I've learned to sleep through it) is 31 minutes fast. I am still consistently 5 minutes late to things like important appointments, usually about 15 minutes late to regular appointments, and I shudder to think what my average lateness to social events is.

but I digress (I think my tendency to digress, both in my own head and in person has a lot to do with why I can't do anything on time). see? I just digressed again! I think "anyhow" is one of the most common words in my everyday vernacular. Anyhow, the point here is that I suck at getting things done and I'm NEVER going to finish my thesis on time to graduate in June.

I have a few interviews scheduled, which is great, but I know myself too well to think I'll be able to transcribe everything and analyze it, or whatever, and get it all down and perfected in a month. It pisses me off to no end that I even have to write this thing. All the information is up here (picture me pointing at my head), so why do I have to write it down? I'm so f-ing sick of having to prove myself to the f-ing academic community. In the time it's taking me to write this thing, I could have organized 50 janitors, made 500 bottles of my special all-purpose green surface cleaner, and proselytized to 5000 consumers. I need to be out disseminating, not inside glued to my computer. It's making me very bitter, and I hate to become disillusioned with something I love so much.

So my first interview of this second round is tomorrow, and I'm hoping it will reenergize me and give me some of that momentum back. I need to go to bed now, or else I'll oversleep and be late. I know what you're thinking, I'm probably going to be late anyways. It might be true, but I can't plan on it...

i heart

that is all.

opium of the people

it's 4am, and I'm eating lofthouse cookies, listening to "bluegrass mandolin extravaganza," smoking cigarettes, and reading Bertrand Russell. if grad school is wrong, I don't wanna be right. try this on for size:

"We are sometimes told that only fanaticism can make a social group effective. I think this it totally contrary to the lessons of history. But, in any case, only those who slavishly worship success can think that effectiveness is admirable without regard to what is effected. For my part, I think it better to do a little good than to do much harm. The world that I should wish to see would be freed from the virulence of group hostilities and capable of realizing that happiness for all is to be derived rather from co-operation than from strife. I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than at imprisoning the minds of the young in a rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence. The world needs open hearts and open minds, and it is not through rigid systems, whether old or new, that these can be derived."

yes.

a quick top five to avoid thesis-writing

I just heard the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album, "Some Loud Thunder," which is pretty f-ing sweet, and the first new and awesome album I've heard in quite a few months. 2007 just started, so I'll give it some more time, but 2006 was just such an incredible year for weird/delightful new music discovery. So here are my top five albums of the past year or so, which I highly recommend you check out if you haven't already:

5. Gimme Fiction - Spoon
4. Come on Feel the Illiniose - Sufjan Stevens
3. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
2. Funeral - The Arcade Fire
1. Apologies to the Queen Mary - Wolf Parade

e-crisis

this was my horoscope for the day:

Your first instincts will be to hide your feelings and give people nothing but what they seem to want. Later, you'll be set free.

oh really? when?

hi, my name is anne

...and I like Jack Johnson.
don't tell anyone! this deep dark music secret, this confession of questionable taste, could utterly destroy my already-waning street cred. I just can't help it. I listened to a few Jack Johnson songs last night, in a state of mind where I may well have been able to get into absolutely anything. why didn't I just put on some poetic Leonard Cohen, some freaky King Crimson, even some damned Phish??? Why, Jack Johnson, why? why am I so tempted by your quasi-bullshit guitar, your trite lyrics, your trustafarian charisma?

weekend of culture

I keep finding out about incredible things going on this weekend! I can't make it to all of them, but I figured I'd let people know:

sex workers art show in coolidge corner
bread and puppet at cyclorama
lizard lounge poetry jam 10th anniversary
bamako - at the mfa

what's so funny about peace, love and understanding?

thank you, elvis costello, for getting this question out on to the airwaves. it's been bothering me for years now that people think there's something odd about three of the five of the things I stand for (the other two would be fairness and community).

when I heard this song on the radio this last night, I happened to be enjoying some of the delicious pasta I made on tuesday night with some friends. I'd give you the recipe but we don't "do" recipes, and that's kind of where I'm going with this - bear with me. OK, you really want to know?
- roast some walnuts
- and some green beans
- mix some feta with some olive oil, lemon zest, salt and pepper
- boil some linguine and throw it all together.

delicious. at the last minute we also threw in some leftover spinach from an equally delicious, and equally recipe-free spanakopita. that one is way too complicated to describe. it's all up here (imagine me pointing at my head). OK, so anyways, back to "where I'm going with this."

I have two super-awesome friends, Craig and Lydia, with whom I have three big things in common: 1) love of homemade food; 2) love of pooling resources, being communal, etc.; and 3) more-or-less abject poverty. One night a month or two ago, I looked into my fridge and nearly shed a tear when i saw it was full of once-appetizing food that was on the brink of going bad. I have two roommates with very enigmatic eating habits. One isn't around much and the other, I'm led to believe, just doesn't eat. So I'm always buying fresh fruits and vegetables but I rarely get around to eating them before they go bad. and although I do love to compost, I don't have the kind of disposable income where I can be wasting much food.

so I called Craig and Lydia and said, "Hey, I've got a bunch of crap that's about to go bad. Want to come over and help me cook it?" They came over with their crap that was about to go bad, and the rest is history. We've made some delicious food, including but not limited to various spanakopita renditions, meat pies, spinach pies, breads and pies, chicken stir fry, the aforementioned pasta thing, etc. etc. The first spanakopita we made, inspired by a bitchload of ground lamb I happened to have on hand, lacked nearly every single ingredient that's normally in spanakopita, except for the phyllo dough and eggs. It had a ton of ingredients, just none that are actually used in regular spanakopita recipes. Frozen asparagus? yeah, i'm never going to cook that shit - let's throw it in! spring mix? why not?

I just can't say enough about the virtues of our "cooking crap that's about to go bad" tradition - it's the manifestation of everything I live for - frugality, cooking, sharing, improvising, and making something out of nothing. I highly recommend that everyone find some friends who share these passions, and get a "cook crap that's about to go bad" club going. It's immensely satisfying and I think, getting back to the Elvis Costello song, it makes the world a little bit of a better place.

sledding

conversation while out sledding, trying to climb back up the hill:

me: i'm so winded! i need to quit smoking.

him: but you know, you only go sledding a couple times a year. smoking is something you can enjoy every day.

handy like what

today I used the following things:

• hammer
• power drill
• spade
• nails, screws, AND brads. yeah brads!
  
• picture wire
• wire cutters
• pliers
• yardstick
• pencil
• allen wrench
  
• level
• screwdriver
• pointy stick
• sewing machine
  
• studsensor (like I need one of those)
  

who's impressed? who's impressed that I OWN all of those things? I know I am.

and another thing...

I know, two posts in one day after a veritable lifetime of nothingness... Anyhow, I just wanted to let everyone know that my flickr is back in full effect (I had made it private due to some stalker-ish ex issues). If you like pictures of

cute babies









food









and me being a weirdo









then this is the place to go.

power is a great aphrodisiac

Henry Kissinger, who I FUCKING HATE, said that. I guess that means he was lucky with the ladies, and although I weep for my entire gender if that is true, I wonder if he had a point. Personally, I think power corrupts, and I also think power tends to coincide with money, another characteristic I find generally unattractive. It's one thing to make a good income, but it's another thing to have a lot of money hanging around - that means you either make way too much and you're contributing to the ridiculously wide gap betwen rich and poor, and/or you need to give some away (i.e., you're selfish).

But I digress, back to power. I found that quote on an egregiously sexist website about Ladder Theory. I first heard about Ladder Theory at a friend's party - the girl who mentioned it was one of those highly-manicured types who feigns "edge" in such a nauseating way. She talked endlessly about how useless men are, moments later sucking face with another girl just to get a guy's attention (not that she needed to go to such lengths considering the gratuitous amount of tittie popping out of the corset-y thing she was wearing). But again I digress, and also I'm starting to sound bitter. I'm not, she was just gross is all. And she subscribes to Ladder Theory, which comes as no surprise.

Anyhow, since I looked up Ladder Theory it has been nibbling at my brain - it seems like total bullshit at first glance (as well as second glance, third glance, etc.) I especially disagree with the pie chart breaking down why some women are attracted to jerks. I disagree both with the ingredients in said pie as well as with the statement that "women dig assholes". I think it's kind of a sexist generalization that encourages men to be jerks and women to think that masculinity is equal to jerkiness. That's a whole other story though, and the God's honest truth is that over the past three years or so I've witnessed a majority of my girl friends dating JERKS. After college, at least 75% of my closest friends settled into long-term relationships with incredibly lame boys - from the innocuously lazy to the maliciously jealous, cheating and lying and verbal abuse and everything in between.

Three and a half years later, I'm happy to report that at least half of that original group has broken up with their Mr. Lame, and learned some valuable lessons along the way. I think the biggest lesson I learned was that "all of your friends can't be wrong". For some reason people think "Oh, I don't care what Suzie says, Johnnie is a wonderful person on the inside and he's just misunderstood". But when Suzie, Mary, Steve, your parents, and the Suffolk County District Attorney ALL think your significant other is bad news, perhaps you ought to listen. This is not to say that I'm adept at taking my own advice - trust me, I'm not.

OK, I have digressed beyond the point where I could strategically transition to the point I was originally trying to make, so I'm just going to go for it. To make a long story short, I just got off the phone with a friend who shall remain nameless. She wondered how to politely avoid making plans with a guy she just met, a guy she is not interested in a romantic relationship with. Here's where Ladder Theory may or may not come into play: the tricky part about this situation is that of course, the guy did not call and say "Hey, female, would you like to go out for a drink sometime? We can develop what you think is a beautiful friendship, while I strategically gauge how long it will be until I can bang you."

Now Ladder Theory would have us believe that every guy who ever meets a girl, no matter how attractive or not, compatible or not, etc., definitely wants to sleep with her. The difference between actually sleeping with her or not depends upon two factors: 1) whether or not she's interested and 2) her position on "the ladder" (i.e. is there a way hotter girl standing two feet away?) I hate hate hate this! But back to the story; she's not 'interested' in the guy but of course can't presume that the only reason he wants to get together is because he is 'interested' in her. That would be, in her opinion, not so much conceited as just...dangerous?

Ladder Theory has me all worked up now, and I have dishes to do. I'll await other peoples' opinions instead of obsessing over it myself, at least for a few hours. Today I'm off to Winterfest, which if all goes well, will be a little less ridiculous than last year.

tha wood

Last night after the scintillating (really) Grad Student Association meeting, I went down to Norwood to get all up in some greek food with Roo Roo and Laurie. We went to a place called X&O in Stoughton, and it was delicious. I could detect the Greek ownership the second we walked in the door: big black menus, lots of overwhelming "art", corner table (in an otherwise empty room) full of 30-something guys dressed in black, drinking and talking on cell phones. It made me a little wistful for the days of yore when that might have been my table. It would have half-sucked because those guys, at least three of whom would be named Benny, would get everything comped and run me around like they were the only people on the planet... But it's always a pleasure to wait on people who know how to eat, know how to drink, and know how to walk that fine line between familiarity and sexual harassment.

As always, I have digressed. The food was super-delicious, the waitress was obviously brain-dead but had a cute headband and got Amanda to order a Viagra Martini ("You had the Viagra, right?"), which was also super-delicious. I got a cucumber martini with Hendrick's and frankly, it scared the shit out of me. I'm not usually one to fear alcohol, especially gin, with which I've developed quite a rapport since college. This martini was nuts - not even Amanda, after two other martinis, could get it down. Laurie suggested I give up trying to drink it and just wash my face with it. It stayed, we left. I pity the unsuspecting busboy who went to clear the table and drank it in one gulp, thinking he'd stumbled upon a treasure trove of almost-untouched "shift drink" deliciousness.

At the bar, Amanda and Laurie taught me some life lessons I'll not soon forget. I was lucky to have been in the company of two such wise women of the world, whose sage advice I'll be trying out sometime soon, once I grow a pair of [metaphorical] balls. I'm 25, but a lot of times I think that movie "13 Going on 30" (not that I've like, seen that movie or anything) could be based on my life.

urbane renewal

I have a lot of catching up to do. To all three of you people who actually read my narcissistic ramblings, I hope you haven't been crying yourself to sleep every night, asking The Lord why He has not answered your prayers for more blogging from me. I also hope that my lack of blogging hasn't caused anyone to get more work done while at work. As you know, people died so that we could slack off and read blogs at work.

Now then, where to begin? Let's go back, way back in the day to Christmas. It was good. I decided that "finishing my final papers" was a pipe dream, asked my kindly professor for an extension, packed up my most festive belongings, and went to Worcester. Only one of my Woo peeps was around so I was forced to spend a lot of quality time with my family. They have recently given up hoping that I'll get married and resigned themselves to Single Anne in some very interesting ways. Case in point:

Yes, that's me with the awesome set of Tupperware my parents got me for Christmas. Their line of reasoning, as my mother so tactfully explained, is that normal people get Tupperware (et al) as wedding gifts because they are "setting up house." Since I won't be getting married anytime soon, it logically follows that I won't be getting any wedding gifts. I do, however, need Tupperware just as much as a married person might. Despite many key differences, I have a few things in common with married people, namely that I Cook Food, Eat Food, and Put Food In The Refrigerator. Other notable presents included a nice set of Pyrex, a cookbook, and a double boiler. My brother got games and money and other fun stuff, but I'm not bitter.

So while at my parents' house, one of my traditional favorite activities is to go through the drawers and closet in my old room, scrounging for stuff that may be useful to me now that I'm a starving Rad Student. I found some good books that I never read when they were assigned, some shoes I'll probably never wear, some age-old chocolate that I totally ate anyways, and... my old diary in the drawer of my nightstand...

Now, finding an old diary could be considered a happy occasion - it's fun to look back and remember all the crazy shit you did when you were younger. Reading my old diary, however, my nostalgic giddiness was soon replaced by a feeling of extreme panic. This diary, chronicling my last year of high school and first year of college, had been laying around in a drawer in my room for seven years. About two years ago, my mother began sleeping in my room occasionally because my father snores loudly. About five years ago, my parents began moving random crap (the Nordic-Track, appliances, etc.) into my room. Most importantly, about twenty-five years ago my parents began going through my stuff at will. I'd be very naive to assume they never happened upon this old diary, and I'd be even more naive to assume that if they found it they'd say "Oh, look, it's Anne's old diary. We'd love to see what's inside... But no, we have the utmost respect for my daughter's privacy, as well as the utmost faith that there's nothing in there that she wouldn't have already told us! We're walking away now, bye-bye Anne's diary!"

It's pretty likely that given a whole seven years they've read that thing at least once or twice, and I am officially mortified. My only hope is that they got distracted by a phone call or fire alarm right before they reached the deflowering episode. Needless to say I put that thing right into my overnight bag and brought it back to Lowell, where it can't do any more harm than it's already done.

Well, I'm not doing a very good job of catching up here, but I have a Grad Student Association meeting to go to. I love being part of an organization whose members are so f-ing cool that they meet on Fridays from 5-7pm. Peace!