Rogue Seeds

When Javier and I returned from our trip to Tucson, our garden looked more or less like this:

Lettuces predominate, and these are from seeds I planted last August when my dad and Javier helped me build my little 4'x8' raised bed.  What did not seem to magically sprout were the seeds I haphazardly pushed in to the soil hours before taking off on our cross-country adventure in May. So those hardy lettuce seeds hibernated through the mild winter in the warmth of a raised bed, an extra layer of compost, and the DIY mulch of fallen leaves Javier piled on throughout the more bitter months. To me, the taste of these lettuces is reflective of their hardiness: they are, to me, a bitter green I can not abide by, much like I can't abide by other, usually more darker greens, like arugula, and mustard and turnip greens.  Javier, however, picks the leaves, plies them with our homemade dressing or soaks them in vinegar and then haves at it.

Though the additional lettuce, beet, chard, spinach and carrot seeds that I lazily planted in May did not take root, we do have rogue seeds that have turned in to lovely, mysterious plants.  I believe these seeds, which now appear to be a jalapeno plant and a cucumber vine, came from our compost, the very compost that protected the lettuce all winter.  

Again feeling like a lazy gardener, I bought some starter plants when we returned: a crook neck squash, a zucchini, an heirloom tomato, and a yellow pear tomato, and nestled them in next to our rogue plants, which you can see below. If anyone is better at identifying plants than me, I am open to suggestions until the flowers bear fruit and reveal the answer to the mystery.

Early shot of the rogue plants

Shot from the rogue plant today with lovely climbing vine

The Quiet Year

This past year in Bowling Green has been a quiet one.  Though I'm not one to party, or to constantly seek out entertainment, my life in Tucson was considerably, and usually satisfactorily, busy, both socially and with work.  With the multiple jobs I had in Tucson, my mind did not have as many opportunities to be quiet, and I could always rustle up time with friends when I wanted to.  Despite some instances of an unquiet mind due to anxieties of health and employment, overall the quiet life in Ohio has suited me well.

This is not to say I want another year quite like I had this past year.  While being a sub teacher left my time outside of the school day blissfully free, I demand more from work long-term. I seek a career that is creatively and intellectually rewarding and challenging, in addition to having a steady, positive, and collaborative work environment.  Fortunately, in August I begin a program that will, I believe, provide these qualities for the next four years and beyond.  Though the demands of a doctoral program will provide the structure and stimulation I desire, come this fall when the visceral reality of academia sets in, those vacuous afternoon and weekend hours when I subbed will be missed.

With the freedom of time and mind, I was able to throw myself in to the fun of academic coursework, namely  the gothic literature class I took in the fall.  Never before had I been such a good student, primarily because I'm at a point in my life where the social education of school does not factor in to my expectations of school.  Not that I don't seek relationships from fellow students, but the time and effort needed to foster these relationships doesn't hold the same urgency as it did when I was younger.  There also, quite simply, weren't as many social distraction.

The issue of friendships has, I'll admit, been a mental occupation for the duration of this quiet year.  Over the past eleven months I've begun friendships that briefly flared only to sputter and fade. I've attempted friendships that never purchased. Javier and I have made friends with other couples and occasionally we make dinner for one another, or go out for drinks.  We've made acquaintances (all with librarians, it seems) that hover on the edge of what could be deeper friendships, but haven't been pushed past the dinner-party-invite line, and maybe never will.  For someone who thrives on deep relationships with friends, I haven't found a "bestie" yet, a woman who I don't have to think twice before I call her for coffee, a walk, or a drink.  Sometimes this lack of an intimate friendship, or even the lack of an immediate and easy group of friends, has bothered me, but mostly, and much to my surprise, it hasn't.  I have drawn the perimeter of my energies inward, I have focused my love on my husband and dog, and myself, I suppose. I continue to foster my relationships with friends and family scattered elsewhere by writing letters, and making more phone calls, and using Skype.  Though a year without intimate friendships was fine for the time, it will be difficult to continue in this trajectory. After returning from Tucson where I indulged in the experience of so many friends at our wedding, and also in the easy manner of gathering with various groups of friends that live in Tucson after the wedding, the contrast to my social life in Bowling Green was abrupt, if not stark.    

During this quiet year, and especially during this even quieter summer, I have had more time to think, to read, to write creatively, to take ambling walks, to experiment with cooking and baking, and to indulge in watching movies and television shows. I've had more time to suss out what I want in life, and to make steps towards securing it. I've had time to address the panic-inducing fear of flying I developed two years ago, and I'm glad to say I've made great strides with this as even the thought of a plane no longer brings me to tears.  I've reconnected with old friends who live in the area, and explored cities and regional landmarks. This quiet year has been remarkably self-indulgent in some aspects, and I am privileged to have the time and resources to do so often what I please.  

It  is difficult for me to reconcile that I may be in Bowling Green for a very long time.  While I am thrilled with the home Javier and I have created, and I believe the town to be (mostly) lovely, I am still surprised and usually dismayed to find myself surrounded by cornfields, farm houses and pre-fab buildings when we drive out of town on the Dixie Highway.  Though I resist the idea of raising children and retiring here, it may be a very real thing and, when I push myself to truly meditate on the all the variables of life, I would be extremely fortunate to spend my life with my family in a quiet piece of Northwest Ohio.

Food Diary IIII

My love for avacados and mac n' cheese combined! Recipe via   http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/ 

Rajas poblanas tacos

Making the tortillas

Mollorcan Ensaimadas: Spanish breakfast rolls

Just yer ol' tortilla soup

Weighing In on "How Should a Person Be ?"

Last week I was introduced to Sheila Heti and her latest novel How Should a Person Be? in James Wood's New Yorker review.  While the review piqued my curiosity (I'm generally curious about what women, especially women my age, create), I also felt somewhat dismayed.  Part of me wanted to read the book and part of me thought, Gawd, it sounds obnoxious.   The intrigue lay in the multiple forms the novel takes (email transcriptions, mini-essays, script-like dialogue, etc.) and in Heti's artistic background, especially as the novel includes large doses of autobiography.  But this infusion of "real life," or at least what Heti decided to include of "real life" or how she chose to portray it, was part of my hesitancy ( I want to say revulsion, but it feels too strong a word).  Reading about North American artists living in Toronto making art and pondering life could be interesting, but it could easily veer into privileged whiners talking a bunch of dribble. In his article, Wood includes a line from the book that summed up my fears. At one point the narrator's  friend says, "everybody we hang out with is pretty competent at vaguely intelligent party talk."  Wood then confirms that, to him, this was "a fair summary of the book's presiding atmosphere."

Later, on my Facebook feed I saw a comment about the novel by Cathy Park Hong, a poet whose work I deeply admire.  She wrote something to the effect that it was refreshing to read a novel that deals with women's friendships revolving around art and intellect, not around relationships and babies.  this was enough to tip me over the edge.  How refreshing indeed to read something of this nature.

What Cathy Park Hong describes above is what salvages the book for me; that and, at least substance-wise, the fact that there are moments of clear, and often true, understandings of male-female relationships. Though not a feminist book, it is powerful to read a young female character intone, more than once, about men she casually meets that he was " just another man who was trying to teach  me something." 

Before I go on, let me explain the plot--though traditional narrative trajectory is not a primary focus for Heti here.  The narrator, also named Sheila, is a playwright experiencing writer's block. She hangs out with friends who are also artists, her best friend being Margaux, a painter. (These characters are named and based on real life friends of the author).  Popping up are brief flashbacks of Sheila's childhood, her marriage in her early twenties, and the beginning of her friendship with Margaux.  Though set mostly in Toronto, Sheila also travels to Miami, New York City and Atlantic City. Sheila not only suffers from writer's block, but also from one existential crisis after another, the main crisis captured in the novel's title. There is also her job at a salon, a sado-masochist relationship with a man named Israel, and an ugly painting contest that serves as a metaphor for how Heti constructed her book and for the narrator, which I will get to momentarily.

I read the book in a day. When finished, I felt somewhat furious. As I suspected, the narrator is completely obnoxious.  This is part of Heti's plan, to make Sheila "ugly" as she reveals the character's desire for fame, for writing a play that will "save the world", for a being a leader for the people.  Heti certainly does not intend for Sheila to be a heroine, nor do I expect it, and yet it is an irritating process to read through the intentional failings and shallowness of this character.

In addition to all her other shortcomings, Sheila also struggles with being a good friend.  She demands much from Margaux, from advice, to reassurance, to ideas for her play, to adding depth to who she is based on her proximity to her friend.  

Margaux, on the other hand, is an excellent foil to Sheila (While reading I often wished the book was about Margaux instead).  Margaux also waxes existential. She isn't sure that painting is meaningful, but she is a hard worker and a successful painter nonetheless.  Margaux is certainly more self assured, more clear-minded about how she wants to live, which includes making "the big mistakes" in order to be more free, especially in her art.  What I don't understand about Margaux is why she is friends with Sheila. At one point the two are talking and Margaux delivers the line that irked me so much in Wood's review:   "everybody we hang out with is pretty competent at vaguely intelligent party talk." "But," Margaux goes on to say to Sheila, "you say things that make me think better..."  I think both Sheila and I were stunned by this declaration.     

While the two often talk about art, Sheila leans so hard on Margaux's personality that as a reader I forgot what Sheila herself genuinely thinks about it.

In terms of the book's craft, there were elements I appreciated, such as the multiple narrative forms I mentioned above which, if not new, appear fresh here. A clear, direct prose often materializes as well. However, there are many times when an image is given more weight than it deserves, such as police horses moving outside Sheila's bedroom window.  There are lines where any poetic intention falls flat.  For example, upon writing about her experiences with Margaux in Miami, Sheila feels "pride bloom(ed) in me like spring, like something new was being born."  There is also the messy inclusion of Sheila's dreams.  Early on Sheila consults her Jungian analyst about a dream she has; while this initial dream reveals Sheila's fear of being perpetually stuck and resisting artistic risks,  the analyst never appears again and yet the reader is stuck with more dreams that serve nothing more than tedium.

As for the sado-masichist relationship, I only wish Sheila recognized Israel as being  "just another man who was trying to teach  me something."  

In my brief obsession with this book, I read an interview where Heti says that all she wants is to be funny.  Some of the other reviews of the book describe this book as funny. While I do see how Heti's writing is deliberately hyperbolic, how she is poking fun at how many of us experience a world saturated with fame and ridiculous ambitions, I still fail to see how Heti executes humor.  

I certainly don't believe that Heti is naive, so this is another reason why it is difficult to have a narrator who perpetually appears to be in her early twenties (however much this references the Jungian analyts' mention of puer aeternus, "the eternal child").  Perhaps Heti has astutely portrayed a general atmosphere of North American culture, of artistic sensibilities and personal anxieties of a certain class of young women, but in doing so her novel gets bogged down in gawky writing and self-indulgence. 

Tools of the Domestic Arts

Otherwise known as "appliances." Kitchen appliances in this case. Never in my life would I have thought to write about such a topic but with a lot of time on my hands, with a new influx of cooking gadgets, and at thirty years old (i.e. an adult, though I'm not sure what I'm implying here when I say adult: That adults like me have far too many unnecessary materials? ), here it goes.

Over the years I have slowly gathered a fine collection of appliances, though they mostly started out as gifts. In graduate school, Javier, horrified by what constituted as my cutting board (a ceramic saucer) bought me a high quality wooden board and shipped it to me in the mail (he also mailed a power strip as he was equally horrified that I unplugged and plugged in lamps, my laptop, my toaster whenever each particular need arose).  "That's a very romantic gesture," my friend Joel said at the time. "He's buying you something you need."  I guess Joel was right. Not only is Javier still in my life, but so is the cutting board.

Once I moved out of the Sarah Lawrence dorms and back to Tucson, and eventually in to my own place, the need for practical cooking ware grew, but so did the opportunity for acquiring appliances grow, especially as how my dad saw it. I've received some surprising appliances from Dad, items I may not have bought myself, but most of which I use to this day.  For example, the Bella Cucina Rocket he gave me saved me many a time when I was late to work. I'd blend my yogurt smoothie and then pop out the door and drive to work drinking my breakfast.

The Rocket!

My dad also gave me a quesadilla maker which, though I used it rarely, I have to admit was pretty awesome.  However, it is because I used it so rarely that in a  packing-for-Ohio binge, sadly, it did not make it out to the Midwest.

Pretty red quesadilla machine no more

A pattern emerges in the timeline of my life with kitchen appliances, from the blender and egg beater I bought at Goodwill, to the tagine I asked my sister to bring from Morocco which I prepped for cooking and never used, to the roasting pan Javier wanted for his birthday that, again, my Dad gave him.  From that roasting pan, to incorporating the cast iron skillets Javier brought from Chicago into my cooking rotation, the only place to go in the quality of appliances was up.

As my, and Javier's, cooking ambitions grow, so has our arsenal of supplies. This arsenal has been bolstered, of course, by getting married, though it was preempted by a crowning glory in the way of kitchen machinery: the CuisinArt food processor I received from Javier on my 30th birthday.  Though well used, I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what that sucker can do as I've only used it to make dough: from pizza, to pretzel, to various breads.  Addendum: I did use it once to make an entire pie: from the almond crumble topping to the sliced apple filling.

Back to the wedding-backed influx of arms (err, I mean appliances. I just read a New Yorker article about  Mexican drug cartels and that diction is crossing over into this post).  Truly believing (and rightfully so) that our house was full of wonderful cooking toys, Javier and I didn't register anywhere for our wedding.  But then we got asked: What do you want for your wedding? Or, we were given appliances because, and I take this as a compliment, my reputation precedes me and people know all I really do now is cook and bake. Or we received very generous gift certificates and with that free pass dreams of appliances bloomed in our heads. I guess that's what happens when we have too much of something good, in this case "free money" at prescribed locations: we come up with ways to use it.

Once we received the gift certificates (and I saw a sale at Macy's) suddenly it was vitally important to get a pressure cooker. For one, I know I won't have much time to spend on meals when I start my doctoral program. But also, honestly, isn't it awesome to cook beans in the wink of an eye instead of in a matter of hours? I took the process of selecting a pressure cooker very seriously: I did extensive internet research to see what materials reacted with food and which brands came with instruction manuals. I asked my friends who own pressure cookers what their opinions were, and what meals they made. I finally settled on one and I'm proud to say I've cut the cooking time of long grain rice in half!

Javier too was bit by the bug and it became crucial for him to find a stockpot to better cook hops and malt for the beer he brews.  The remainder of the Macy's gift certificate? Done.  New stockpot. Then I decided I really couldn't stand to eat Kroger tortillas (plus I read how easy it is to make your own in Bon Appétit) so an Amazon gift card bought us a tortilla press. Javier lamented that we still had the Goodwill blender ( a sad piece of equipment, I'll admit: the saucer solution I enacted in grad school returned: once we lost the blender's top, a ceramic saucer became the substitute).  No more blender? Well, Javier spotted a Ninja Prep Master box in his Mom's closet and asked if it was for him. Boom. A Ninja traveled back to Ohio with us in the trunk of our car.

This thing is scary: I cut myself on the blades first thing out of the box

As I mentioned above, we did receive some tangible appliance gifts. The one thing I knew I wanted ahead of time was an ice cream maker, and my friend Beth obliged.  My friend Joon also surprised us with a pretty, retro looking food scale, which has helped enormously when I use recipes out of a British cookbook that is my baking Bible and it switches from cups to ounces.

I don''t know why I'm making this face. I'm truly excited about the berry sorbet about to emerge from the ice cream maker

Retro style food scale

This post is definitely not an advertisement for various appliances, though I do name them by name.  It is, embarrassingly, an accurate reflection of what has been on my mind as of late (not the only thing on my mind, but still, there it lays before you).  At a deeper level, hopefully, is a little bit of commentary of what I mention at the beginning of this post: that someone like me can easily accumulate gadgets and will become swamped with the detritus of consumer desire.

However, I do not plan on our house becoming cluttered with anything, especially machines of steel and plastic.  Let my tools of the domestic arts aid and challenge me in my cooking, and whatever else will go the way of quesadilla maker.