The Silicon Age

I miss my grandparents sometimes, but not because I knew them very well. Actually, what I miss is their oldness and the softness and mystery of that oldness. They had funny accents, too. I don’t think that these were regional accents; no, they must have been temporal accents. I think that generations speak differently and in ways that are lost over time. I can’t tell if old Hollywood movies reveal the accents of the 1940s or if that was just how people “acted” back then. The women were especially funny--talking fast and loud and with such confidence. I know that my mother’s mother never spoke that way, but my father’s mother might have. My mother’s mother used to laugh slowly and say “Good night!” when someone said a silly pun that she found amusing. I don’t feel old or anything, but I can already see how cooky I’ll seem to someone 60 years younger than me in the future. I’ll mention how little I made per hour, how cheap a gallon of milk was, and how rotary phones were common, and we didn’t have email or cell phones or laptops or blogs.

old fashioned typing:

Something's Missing

I miss…

[No, not toilet paper…read the label!]

Cyber Wars

An old friend from high school runs the guest house that I’m staying at this summer, but he is out of town for 3 weeks. It’s funny to see my friend in this role as the “guy in charge,” especially when it’s being in charge of semi-retired Quakers and a few college intern types like myself. The older crew are a funny bunch. They do a lot of bitching about little problems, like minor light fixtures being broken or construction next door or whether or not they are liable for the safety of these two adorable teen boys who are in ballet school for the summer. Of course, it’s only been a week, yet I’m joining the crowd of whiners, because the internet connection in the main office, which feeds the whole house, is working only for Macs and not for PCs. For the weekend, it was working for no one, but then one guy fiddled with the main computer and got it working for Macs. So, the PC people, to whom I belong, are crazy with the stress of being disconnected from the world, while the Mac people are feeling great relief--relief tinged perhaps with a bit of heartlessness. The guy who “fixed” it so that it worked only for Macs looked at me like, “Well, I tried, but there is nothing I could do.” Others have helpful suggestions, such as “Try the coffee house down the street. It only costs $1.50 for a cup of coffee and the internet is free.” Funny, that same suggestion, when the Mac connection wasn’t working, didn’t seem so generous to them. Well, obviously tensions are high. But, in this new environment, I’m beginning to realize how ridiculous it is to care. I’m trying to decide whether I should spend a couple hundred dollars to get my own connection or if I should take up a new hobby that distracts me from the no-internet-blues, like medication or drug use.

This morning I saw these beautiful green buds on the vine growing up the iron railing outside our apartment building. I think it is a sign of forthcoming beauty.

No Jogging in Manhattan

How in the heck can you jog in this city?! There are tons of people and then you have to stop every block to wait for the traffic light. Everyone suggests going to Central Park, but it's a pricey subway ride there and back. Yikes! Now I see why the gyms here cost so much. They are a deal compared to breaking your neck on the streets. Fortunately, a very nice girl in my building has offered me a guest pass to her gym. I'm soooooo excited to work out after so long. Plus, I think my training buddy (whose code name is Coach Meanie for good reason) is getting a little testy with my recent lack of workouts!

Umbilicus Interruptus

Aaaack! I’m having monstrous internet problems at my new place. I could handle it for a few days, but I’m about to lose it with no access to my friends and family and all my clients screaming for my words. The temporary solution is to duck out to a Staryucks and pay through the nose for beverages and a temporary “hotspot” account. I hate it when you pay and pay and pay and get very little in return. I clearly need to get back to my pre-cyberworld roots and read a good book or something. Any suggestions? Oh wait, I won’t be able to get your emails--rats!

[Image from: http://www.irkutsk.com/home/family.html]

The Seed of New Beginnings

I started the new job this week. It’s a bit of a shock working at an actual office from 10 to 6 with coworkers milling about after so many years of working in my pajamas, at all hours of the day and night, in complete silence, and at liberty to take breaks whenever I like. (Plus, I’m used to getting paid more than $4 an hour, but I suppose I’m not allowed to complain about this because it’s for college credit. Keep your eyes on the prize, Molly.) The magazine office is quite casual--thank goodness, because I don’t really fit into any of my old work clothes. Yet, this informal atmosphere does not automatically inspire professional results in me. I will have to draw inspiration from something else…perhaps the endless supply of free coffee.

I never thought that I would grow up to be one of those stuffy types who desires order and formality, but here I am narrowing my eyes at the loud cussing and general disorder of the editing romper-room/shared office space. It will probably be good for me to learn to chill a bit and take social breaks in between paragraphs. Also, they seem to be a sharp, talented group that produces quality material, so I guess they’re doing something right. And, how cool is it to be stuck in NYC for a couple of months! I think this will be a pretty fun summer. Hopefully, I’ll learn something, too.

A street fair scene on my work commute route:

Measuring Volume through Displacement

Well, I’m a New Yorker now, or at least for the summer. Don’t worry, I promise I won’t become mean, start smoking, or learn to dress all snazzy. However, I will learn to live in cramped spaces and pay way too much money to do so. I’ve moved into the tiniest space I’ve ever lived in, and oddly I’m wanting to cut the room in half again. No, I haven’t lost my marbles, I just don’t want to use a loft bed. To make the room more spacious, the super’ has added a loft bed so that there’s room for a desk and dresser underneath, as well as a bit of space for pacing around or something. Yes, it opens up the room, but I can’t stand loft beds. I’d rather create a narrow maze on the ground with my meager furniture than climb up a damn ladder to get to my bed every night. The initial climb is not that big of a deal. It’s just the “packing up” to go to sleep that gets to me. You have to brush your teeth, go to the bathroom, get your book, set your alarm clock, and grab your cell phone, water bottle, and all your other bedside accoutrements before hauling your tired carcass up the steep, wobbly ladder. If you forget something or decide you need to go to the bathroom again, you have to balance your groggy self on tiny slats while gingerly feeling your way down backwards. What a pain! And then, as I’m awkwardly making my way down, I’m thinking, if I fall and die or paralyze myself, I will forever be known as a clumsy person. “Hey lady, how did you get in that wheelchair?” “I fell out of bed.” Okay, I’ve only slept one night in a loft bed now, but I think I’d like to avoid ever doing it again.

For the curious, tiny pictures of my tiny room:

Rumtastic

Karen’s new husband, Wayne, is from the US Virgin Islands, which is the main reason why the wedding was on St. John. His mother, Cristobel, who still lives there, cooked us up the most amazing feast the night after the wedding. There was curried goat, spicy boiled fish, homemade hot sauce that made Scott cry tears of pain, stewed chicken, barbeque chicken, stir-fried chicken, pigs foot stew, roast ham, baked cheese and macaroni, potato salad, spicy mashed yams with tomato paste, fried plantains, and deviled eggs ALL IN ONE MEAL! And, to cap the whole thing off, she presented five black cakes (dense fruit cake soaked in rum), six coconut tarts (yeehaw!), and uncountable loaves of sweet bread. Each dessert was amazing on its own, but together they were a cornucopia of delicious. She sent us home with one entire cake of each type. They are in my freezer, but I plan on reliving the dream when I return to Boston in a week. If only I had snagged some leftover stewed chicken…

Oh wait, I almost forgot to mention the amazing pineapple rum cakes we bought at the gift shop. They were so good that Scott and I stuffed one in our mouths before we caught up with the rest of his family. It was like crack. Once the word got out, one family member after another would secret off and purchase one, tearing into it before he or she hit the door on the way out of the shop. The islanders made a lot of money off of us this weekend, on rum cake alone.

In the airport, on the way back, we saw a girl who had a bag of about a dozen of these little rum cakes. We told her we were going to mug her, but she said that she was having such a bad day that she would probably be able to put up a pretty good fight. Apparently, she got stopped by security and hassled and missed her flight because of it. She was pretty distraught. After a brief conversation, she shocked us by offering us one of the chocolate rum cakes as a gift. It seemed like too generous of a gift (we knew they were precious and must be like gold off the island), but she insisted. She said that the only way her day could get better was if she knew she had done something nice for someone. I thought that was a pretty classy technique for curing the blues, one worth trying the future.

[Image from: http://www.tortugarums.com/]

PS. The other thing I like about the Caribbean: you can have a pina colada at every meal!

Back from the Tropics

I’m still aching from a cramped voyage involving myriad forms of transportation: a 6 am ferry to catch a 6:30 taxi to catch an 8:30 plane to catch a 5 pm bus to hop on a 5:30 subway to walk home half a mile lugging two pieces of luggage and three dense cakes. But, it was all worth it. The sunsets were beautiful. The water was azure. The fish were exotic. The flora was fragrant. The wedding was lovely. The new in-laws were charming. Really, only pictures could show you what my sister-in-law’s wedding was like.

A friendly iguana

The new family

A relaxed starfish

Beach kiss

Island sunset

Greenery

Just in time for the end of my carefree summer break, my little plants have come into their own. Now, whenever I need a little respite from the pains of working life, I’ll be able to relax on my porches and gaze at their velvet, verdant visages. I added a few herbs this week to keep my petunias and tomatoes company.

Here’s a view of the back porch:

This is what it’s like to be a tomato plant:

Succulents with 4th-grade art project (a piranha ashtray of course):

Still life with rusty mini-trike:

Next week it’s Karen’s wedding in the Virgin Islands. (I know, be jealous.) And, then I’m off to Manhattan. Theses little dudes will miss me, I can tell.

Escape from Bitch Mountain

I could have cried in my apartment and let the dog jump on me and bark loudly in my face to “calm me down.” Or, I could have gone for a run to blow off some steam. I chose option 2, and to shake things up I took the new humorous/inspiring/fast-paced mix CD that my training buddy made me. So, I’m sprinting because I’m very steamed from work hassles, and I’m grinning and laughing hysterically because each new song is a surprise from a seemingly random artist, genre, and era, wholly unrelated to the previous song. When “Eye of the Tiger” opens and three cars come to screeching halts in the crosswalk in various wonky directions blocking my way and slowing my nice pace, I think, Did Rocky have to deal with this crazy urban bullshit? When “Shot Through the Heart” blasts and I narrowly miss the giant, plummeting defecation of a large overhead bird, I think, Is this what Bon Jovi had in mind when he wrote this? When “Spare the Horse, Ride a Cowboy” twangs as the gray sky turns into a glasses-smearing, walkman-shorting, shoe-muddying, sweat-mixing downpour, I think if the Dixie Chicks covered this and made it about cowgirls would it sound misogynistic and gross? And, speaking of gross, this sidewalk is gross, and I feel gross and cold, and so much for burning off steam.

[Image from: http://www.anticoemoderno.it/Antico/Vinile.htm]

Having No Boss Does Not Mean Work Is More Fun, It Just Means You Don’t Get Paid When Other People Screw Up

I had to go for a run because I had major mis/non/messed-up-communications with three clients this week, one involving a schedule crunch that prevents me from getting the work and the other two involve having to rewrite major sections because the clients changed the specs *after* I had done the work.

Quotations are word-for-word from one client’s email:

“We’re envisioning the two-page narratives for this theme to be short biographical excerpts that are clearly tied to the content the students will be reading about in the expository section.” blah, blah, blah--(read: You have to throw away 6 pages of writing and redo it all because we changed our minds and a loophole in the contract means you have to do it for free)--blah, blah, blah “I know we didn’t include this in the guidelines. It just seems to make sense to do it this way.”

It just makes sense to do it this way. It just makes sense. Sense.

[Image from: http://bandsonhand.com/proddetail.php?prod=03035]

Numerologist’s Dispatch

[Warning: Reader discretion advised. A quick reread of this post, and I realize that I delve pretty deeply into my solid nerdy core. Please read no further if your coolness is easily bruised.]

Well, it’s a little personal tradition of mine to send letters to people on numerologically significant dates. And today is a pretty fun one, though it has brought out all the dilettantes due to a little tradition that associates six hundred and sixty six with the devil and perhaps goth coolness or something. Anyway, I sent only one letter today, but it was one of my masterpieces stationary-wise and stamp-wise. I used a shiny copper colored envelope with a gorgeous, hand-painted peacock on it, which I purchased from a stationary merchant in Bombay market last year. As if metallic copper paint wasn’t fancy enough, I sealed it with a giant gold star sticker, but wait! Really, I haven’t gotten to the best part! Because the Indian stationary was a little on the weighty side, I thought I might need more than the usual single-rate stamp. What is it at these days? 48 cents or something? I didn’t think that the lame-ass squash series that I bought in a hurry at the post office last week belonged on such a special envelope. But then a beautiful thought came to me! I finally have an envelope and occasion worthy enough for the two 33-cent stamps that I have been saving for a special day. (Well actually, I originally purchased them for normal mailings, bills, etc. but it was during that crazy year or two when the price of stamps kept going up so often, our heads were swirling. They just became special from being pent up in a drawer for ten years. But, I digress.) Anyway, I used the two best stamps from the homage to the 1940s series: the Slinky and Rosie the Riveter.

Out of focus, but isn’t it spectacular?! I don’t think I can best it.

A Stack of Potential

This is my favorite stage of quilting, when all the pieces of fabric have been cut and they are ready to be pieced together. It’s the protoquilt. This weekend, I cut out 288 triangles and 720 squares, for a total of 1,008 pieces of fabric. They stand in tidy stacks, their velvety strata the result of about six hours of hand cutting. (That’s because I can’t find my rotary cutter, so I was forced to go 19th century on those ten colorful yards of calico.)

Now for the piecing stage. That's when I find out whether I got the math right. In my textbook writing, I’ve tried to include a few quilting questions in the math workbooks. However, oddly enough, most real-world quilting geometry is too advanced for even the high school level. It’s those pesky right triangles with their ¼-inch seam allowances. Anyway, yesterday I started piecing, and I’ll know within a few more hours of work whether I got the calculations right.

“I Miss My Solitary Sorrow”

A friend who is going through a hard time said that to me today. Her mother is visiting, so I guess there is less time or space for her to mope about during this rotten phase she is going through (a very difficult break up). I’m not going through a particularly hard time or anything, but I can relate to the sentiment. I miss my solo time keenly. We just have so much less space in this apartment, and as a freelancer, I was used to having the house to myself for ten hours every weekday. I feel this acute lack of privacy especially now that Zephyr has taken to jumping on me and barking loudly in my face every time I get upset. If I start to cry, yell, or raise my voice, even just to complain about some passing annoying political issue, he’ll get really agitated and try to make me be happy, or at least that is what I suppose he is doing. It is very sweet theoretically. However, in practice there is nothing more irritating to an already-upset cat person than a dog physically restraining her and emitting piercing barks in an effort to control her emotions. Anyway, the end result of all this nonsense is that Scott and I regularly fantasize about the place we will live in next. It will be ridiculously large. And, it will have a backyard. I didn’t realize how much alone time I had just by virtue of it being warm enough to go outside for more months of the year. Even public spaces are smaller and more crowded when the weather is bad. I think I need to go camping or something.

[Image from: http://www.thehotspotonline.com/eyecandy/popart/]

Urban Tri

I usually try to do a full version of the triathlon at the gym before the big race. I call this the Easy Gym Tri, because it involves sitting in the hot tub, running and biking on ergonomically correct gym equipment, lazing about between segments, and generally not pushing oneself too hard. It takes about twice as long as the actual event. Anyway, I mentioned it to this year’s training buddies, my science journalism classmates Liz and Kate--who are turning out to have a lot more pep than I originally anticipated--and they said, Why wait until a couple weeks before the race? How about this Friday instead? I didn’t have a very good argument at the time, so next thing I know I’ve committed to doing a full sprint-length triathlon every three weeks until the actual triathlon which is on July 30th.

Anyway, today was the second of these doozies. Only, these ladies have left the “Easy” out of the equation. The last Not-so-Easy Gym Tri of 3 weeks ago kicked my butt, but today’s qualifies as a full-on triathlon in my book. Instead of doing the gym thing, we laid out a nice urban course that winded past garbage heaps, sped us through highway interchanges with billowing clouds of car exhaust, ran us through a herd of burly street geese (who were trying to cross the street), forced us onto glass shards and into potholes, wove us through phalanxes of power-walking moms with double-wide baby strollers, and finally spit us into my stinky, garbage-y, puke-lined avenue. Only 10 feet from our final destination, a semi parked in our crosswalk and then we had to maneuver around an armored car parked on the sidewalk. I think this last one-two doubled the length of our final glory leg. Ow. I am in lots of pain now.

Here is what I looked like after a race a few years back. I do not feel as peppy today.

Quilting in the Electronic Age

Because driving around Boston is such a hassle, and because drunken bar people have been whittling our car down to a tiny smashed nub, I thought I’d try a new approach to fabric shopping. I tried a little experiment to see what ordering fabric online might be like. I am itching to start three different quilt projects, one for a brother who got married a year ago, one for a brother who is getting married this summer, and another for my sister-in-law who is also getting married this summer. Anyway, I shopped online and found the perfect fabric combos, got them approved by all three couples, and then tried to order the fabric. Let’s just say I will be braving Boston traffic and heading to the nearest fabric store once I get some work done this week. It did not go well. Not only did the e-fabric-stores not have a third of my chosen prints in stock, but of course, I just got the package, and none of the fabrics look like their pics. I know, this was always a serious risk, but it was shocking to discover how wrong they could be. All the reds were oranges and none of the peaches matched in intensity. Oh well, it was a nice try, even if a very pricey try.

My conclusion: Like other aspects of quilting, don’t bother getting high tech. The old-fashioned way is pretty much the best way. Hmm…I’ll have to make an exception to that rule. Rotary cutters are freakin’ incredible inventions.

PS. I must admit that receiving a tidy little package packed snug with vibrant crafting potential was quite a delight. They even included a little chintzy piece of tissue paper to keep the full-color receipt from bleeding onto my calicos. It was a seamstress’s fantasy come true. My crumby cell phone camera doesn’t do it justice:

PPS. Now imagine this quilt:

With these fabrics:

Very exciting, n’est-ce pas!