Celebration of Seagrove Potters

Man, did I ever have a good time. Such a difference from last year, when I was unsure of the book and of everything and didn't know anyone. Now, the book is almost out of the embryo stage, and my research is pretty much done, so I went mostly to have fun and see some really cool people and their work. If anything I write can be as enduring, useful, and beautiful as those folks' pottery, I'll consider myself a huge success. Thanks, potters! Y'all rock.

In my NASB (New American Standard Bible), where it usually says "Be still and know that I am God"--somewhere in the Psalms--it says "Cease striving and know that I am God." I might only like it because I haven't heard it a million times, but I really like it. Until I'm asked to do it, at which point I begin to think maybe it's not so great. I figure every time I can cease striving for even a few minutes, that's something.

I'm signed up for ASP, and probably going to AWP, and I anticipate a lot of saying one when I mean the other. Wasn't going to do AWP until I realized it's the one year I really ought to network. It's late this year, in April, so maybe I'll have a job by then. In that case, I'll just go have fun. ASP (Appalachian Service Project) sounds awful in that beautiful way, with sweat and dirt and probably me crying a lot because I can't hammer right, but somehow those are the times none of us would trade. I love having a lot to look forward to.

One of my friends said she saw a PBS special on Seagrove (not Craft in America, but something old), and I put my hand to my chest and said, "Aww, who did you see?" as if those people are my long-lost friends. Which, in a way, I think they are. Philip said you won't be friends with people you write about after the project is over, but I'm pretty sure I'm still going to be showing up there. Probably less often, but I couldn't stop any time soon. That place is proof that things are basically OK.

Certainty

We had supper club last night. The hosting family has four kids, so most everyone brought theirs, which added up to ten or eleven, all boys. A lot of them looked like they could be brothers, straight blond hair, and a few were even dressed similarly. We had a new family come and were only missing one regular couple, so the cars spilled over into the street for a long way--it was epic. The food was as delicious and mismatched as ever, man are we all good cooks, and people were popping in and out of different seats all night, kids on the floor intentionally grinding crackers into the carpet, others on parents' shoulders or in arms. When we moved outside, the night had us almost convinced it was fall. It's a rich feeling, being surrounded by all that goodness, and these days a feeling that sways into bittersweetness because I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it. Stupid money, stupid jobs, making me have to think about leaving all this. I thought last night, "I want to do this every Thursday," and I didn't feel like I had anything to prove to anyone there, which is rare, and I realized I haven't wanted to move in months. Usually I have an itch under my skin to pack up and relocate constantly, but lately I've felt like stretching out some tentative roots. It's a strange urge for me, the urge to stay put, and of course this is the one time I really might not have that option come May. Even in a good economy, this town doesn't have good jobs for writers, and now, well, I try not to think about it too much. There's a lot I can do from home, though, which may yet save the day.

But even if it doesn't work--wretched thought--even if I have to move yet again despite my certainty, at least I will have for once been sure of something. I can't remember the last time I was so sure. I can't decide on meals, can't commit to a movie, so this sureness, this is something. For what may be the first time, I'm not wondering what I'm missing. I don't wish I were elsewhere. I want to follow this thread as far as it will go, live right here with these people and watch them grow and eat their cooking and laugh a lot so hard the Sunday School across the hall is continually and politely shocked. I think that means I'm growing up. Which is a different problem altogether, but probably not the kind that needs solving.

Weekend Update

I left town on Friday, a little after lunchtime, to go to Mom and Dad's. Dad was directing a play, a series of five short one-acts. I saw it Friday night and laughed and laughed. On Saturday, Mom and I got up early and picked up our friend Laura to go to Seagrove. It was a nice, relaxed trip because I didn't need to do any particular research or get any information--I just wanted to see the 200 Cups of Tea (a fundraiser for the Three Cups of Tea guy) and have fun. Laura and her daughter Molly had never been, and they liked it. It's always extra-special when you get to introduce someone to something you love and know they'll like.

Laura's husband had come home a few weeks ago with an English bulldog puppy with a hot-pink harness and leash, and said only, "Her name is Katherine, but she prefers Katie." I got to meet her on Saturday when we picked Laura up. She's three and a half months old and really, really cute in the way that only puppies are cute. If we hadn't been going to Seagrove, she'd have made my day.

Today I finally put together some syllabi. They're lookin' pretty good. It feels so weird to be going into my last year as a TA, as a student, as someone whose options are limited. I'm very curious about what's going to happen next. But also trying not to worry too much about it until there's actually action I can take.

Ohhhhhh, man.

This morning I couldn't find my favorite mug. The purple one Dr. Wills gave me for graduation. It was amazing and shameful how much I let that affect me. I used another mug for my coffee, of course, but it gnawed at me all day. I keep getting these probably-comical-from-the-outside tests, reminders that I'm not the queen anymore. The funny thing is, I think I only became the queen over the last two years while I lived alone. I don't remember being this way in college, or in any of the places I lived for the year afterward. But over the last two years, I just settled into being in charge, in control, just the way I like it. And it's not that way anymore. This morning with the mug was just such a wake-up call to how far I have to go until I am really free from the need for control and I can let God be in control. It feels like I have to run seventeen miles, but I don't have time to get my shoes, and there's no water to drink, and everyone else is going the other way watching me fall apart. And it's on that soft non-packed sand that doesn't let you go fast. And I guess whatever's at the end of the run is great, that's what everyone says, but so few people have been there, I'm not entirely sure it's going to be worth it. It's just scary. I will never understand why God doesn't make things easy. I can only hope to stop resenting it.

But I did make a more or less successful kettle corn today, after my other efforts had resulted in nasty burned sugar and even small instantaneous fires. And when I went for my bike ride and walk/run, all the emotional mess lifted from me for the whole time I was out. Like my mom says, "Endorphins are real!" So the day wasn't a total loss.

Procrastination

The new world order goes like this. The order of importance is
1. Eavesdropping on the people next to me here at Java Dog. Two of them are going to get married! Like, today or tomorrow! Probably not today, come to think of it, because they wouldn't be here, would they? And they seem pretty relaxed.
2. Putting off eating the rest of my farmers' market cinnamon bun, delayed gratification being key to maturity and self-control.
3. Alternating between anger, pity, and apathy about The Department's seemingly neverending issues. Sometimes I think we should just outsource everything to non-writers.
4. Wondering if that new show Community with Joel McHale and Chevy Chase is going to be any good.
5. Playing Text Twist 2 online. (Seven letters, not six! But some of the words are joke words, like jiveass and fatbird.)
6. Then and only then, writing syllabi and le thesis, which is what I came here for. Maybe we'll call today a practice run for the school-year-Saturday routine.

Last night a bunch of people went out for Brooks's birthday. I went a little reluctantly, having so enjoyed the hermit life lately, but as usual, it turned out fun and I was glad I went. Met three new students, caught up with a couple of people I hadn't seen literally all summer, practiced my yelled-conversation skills, and got smoked out of the Blue Post. It had a very first-party-of-the-school-year feeling. Made me one baby step more ready for the thing, hence my attempt at syllabus-writing today. While the transition can be a little eye-roll-inducing, I don't mind a routine once it starts. I even like it most of the time. So I think this year is going to be great. I'm going to write the best thesis ever and have lots of fun.

As for after graduation, it hit me hard the other day that it's well under a year until I'm no longer a student or a TA, and even less than that until I have to start looking in earnest, not in a lah-di-dah way, for a job. When I realized that, I had a brief moment of something like panic, but then I realized I actually trust God with this. Because He has a great track record with jobs and moves for me, always providing the right opening at the right time. It was nice, because I had been feeling antagonistic toward Him and anything but trusting, mostly because I've been majorly agitated over not having a boyfriend and thinking, "So are You going to leave me hanging another twenty-five years, Punk?" While I know it's not ideal to trust God only about things He's proven Himself "good at," and I shouldn't need a track record to trust Him with a certain thing, it was at least a step in the right direction and a reminder of His providence. I still have lots of my own ideas and criteria for the job I want next year: I really don't want to move, I don't want an internship-type thing where it has an endpoint, I'd like something career-oriented and not minimum-wage. But I'm also thinking, God knows how much I want to stay here, so if He does move me, it will probably be for something infinitely better than what I have here, to make it worth the uprooting. (Hard to imagine, friend-wise and house-wise and location-wise, but then many of His plans are hard to imagine.) I feel a little underqualified because I don't want to teach and that's what I've been doing (though not exclusively) for three years. I figure I'll just overapply, apply to everything I remotely want to do, and statistics dictate that I'll have to get a call-back from at least a couple. I think it will feel good to be able to act on my interest when I see a good opening--I often look online at jobs but can't really do anything about it, but come Spring, when The Change is actually impending, I'll be able to respond and not just speculate. That's exciting.

In summary, if anyone knows of a job opening in copyediting, proofreading, or indexing that I can do from home or in Wilmington, send the vitals my way. My dream is to rectify all comma splices and live in an error-free world, at least on paper and onscreen. Yes we can.

Health and Beauty

So I signed up for new health insurance, right? Because it had gone up every year and I thought I could do better, and I figured, new house, new school year, new insurance, clean slate. And I go online to the site recommended by Dave Ramsey, and enter some info and pick the one I like best, and it's, like, eighty dollars less than what I currently pay! Excellent! So I sign up for it officially and wait for them to approve it. A few days later, I get a call saying it's approved. Yay! But it's about fifty dollars more than what I'd been quoted online, after putting in all of my information. Wanna know why? My height and weight. Yeah. If you know me in person, I hope you, like me, will find this ridiculous. No, I'm not very tall or very thin. But I'm well within the range of healthy normalcy. To be fair, I do see why the insurance company does it, but a) they should have been able to show me the new quote online instanty--I know Blue Cross did when I signed up there. b) They never asked me, online or on the phone, about my lifestyle. I never got to tell them I'm training for a triathlon. They don't care how much meat or sugar or fat I eat, what my cholesterol is or my blood pressure. No, all they look at is height and weight. Which are just two coordinates in an intricate system that is health. The kicker is that I was only seven pounds "over," and I had just guessed at my weight, so I thought there was a good chance I was in their range of acceptability. I weighed at student health and was only three pounds over! So my plan now is to lose three pounds and then buy the new insurance. Not without anger and frustration over their methods, but as my mom pointed out, that's what health insurance companies do. And she said it wouldn't get better when I have a normal-people job with normal-people benefits, but I said, "But then I wouldn't be paying for it," and she said, "Oh, right." So I do think it'll be better, or at least different, or at the very least cheaper, in a year. Ish.

I am still, after a couple of months, suprised by how much I like to exercise. Today and yesterday I biked and then ran, to practice doing more than one thing in a day. It's a very accomplished feeling to come into the AC and pound a glass of water and have your clothes completely soaked. Completely. Soaked. And then maybe take a dip in the channel before your shower. I must say, it's the life.

You know how people you've met only once are the easiest ones to imagine dating and marrying? Because you know so little about them that you get to plug in only great things? Like, "I bet he loves ________ just like I do," or "Of course he has the most wicked sense of humor." And there's none of that pesky reality there to contradict you or make them go against your sovereign will. Well. Sometimes I google these types of guys. (Don't act like you don't.) I googled one of them last night. And I won't go into specifics, but I now know that he cares (at least almost) as much as I do about spelling, and that he's a good writer and that he's very very smart, though I pretty much knew that already. It was the final nail in the coffin of my rationality. We are now married in my mind, and if I do ever see him again, I'll probably just work so hard to seem like I don't know anything about him or think about our long-term future together that I'll forget the outside-my-head part and not make the best impression on him. But maybe not. Who knows. Whatever happens, I can always google someone else.

A few of my favorite things: noncompetitive soccer, New Yorker cryptics, A. J. Jacobs's The Year of Living Biblically, the lavender honey ice cream that Chris made, my porch, this itinerant cat that I won't call "mine" or even "ours" because we're supposed to be looking for a home for her, roommates who spend a lot of time with their boyfriends (even though I like them and wouldn't mind if they were here a lot, I just prefer having the place to myself), and getting an email today asking if someone could audit my class. I've been struggling with a lot lately, and my enjoyment of things like these is what reminds me that I'm not sinking, that I'm not hopeless, that the good outweighs the bad even if it has to be a lot of little good things trumping a few big bad things.

There's something to be said for visiting with babies and lounging with cats, listening to the John Prine CD Jenny made me for days on end in the car. I made zucchini brownies today and am about to take them to the home of an incoming student for a pot-luck. VBS isn't as fun as camp, but I'm enjoying it. I never get tired of the view from my new place. I just wish everyone I love or like could come visit at the same time, so I could gloat and they could catch me up. I finally got some furniture lined up where it's going to go, art supplies in the drawers. The desk is still in the car but ready to come up whenever I want. Once it's in place, everything else will fall together: a place to write will mean more writing, and an open floor will mean taking up yoga again, or my casual version of yoga.

General Update

A lot has happened since I last posted. In Atlanta with my mom, I ate at a revolving rooftop restaurant, saw an exhibit of posters for peace and social justice, and ran into some old friends from Youth Council! Those were the days. Then I went to church camp and enjoyed meeting new people from Pine Valley UMC, getting closer to people I'd known a little, and swimming in a lake that felt like a tepid bath, or maybe even less refreshing. The lake had something in it--algae, tannins, everyone had a different story--that clung to the tiny hairs you don't normally notice, so my hands looked like Wolfman's with hair coming out the backs. But one day they mysteriously settled down or something and didn't stick to us!

I thought a lot about why experiences like that--the sweaty ones--lend themselves so readily to experiencing God. I came up with a few reasons.
1. It's closer than usual to the way Jesus and His disciples lived. They probably had dirty feet and smelly clothes most of the time.
2. It forces loss of control, and forces us to admit we're not in control. Because if we were, we would've had a shower in the last 48 hours or so.
3. It promotes gratitude. In "regular" life, most of us don't thank God for every drink of cold water, every energizing meal, every helping hand. But at camp and similar experiences, we definitely don't take those things for granted.
4. It usually involves being in nature, and its beauty always points to God's sovereignty, care, and power.

So yeah, I had a good time at church camp!

When I got back, I immediately felt sluggish and had a sore throat, which soon evolved into a cough with intermittent body ache and fever. Luckily, that's mostly behind me now. I'm very grateful to be able to lounge and baby myself without missing work or class. Today I only have a slightly sore throat and occasional cough, and I was able to run the usual amount on my run/walk; it was definitely more difficult, but I made it, and later I can say, "If I did it while I was sick, surely I can do it now!"

I also signed up for a triathlon that will take place in September and got the key to the new place I'm sharing on Wrightsville. Now I'm allowed to call everyone "landlubbers," and I intend to do so at every opportunity. I might even move the big stuff tomorrow, and then I'll take my time with the (endless) boxes and bags and suitcases and satchels of junk that makes me feel good. Not without a trip to Goodwill to cleanse my stuff chakra and lighten the load, even if it's only a little. It will be really nice to have an organizational start-over, since I've been taking undue advantage of the fact that no one's seen my bedroom in months, if ever. I think it'll also be good to have roommates again, so I can relearn kindergarten things like sharing and coexisting and not being completely self-centered. Plus there'll probably be no more episodes like today's, when I came back from my walk to find the door open and men installing a new fridge and stove. It's nice because I won't have to clean them as much when I move, but I don't relish the thought that the apartment complex office has extra keys. And that won't be an issue at the new place.

I've been watching a lot of America's Next Top Model this weekend. I realized very quickly that many of the girls on the show are not that attractive in person, and a lot of "beauty" has to do with makeup and photography and poses. The ideas of beauty on that show, and in most of our lives, are so distorted as to be harmful. "That's a horrible picture," "She needs to lose ten pounds," "I'm not beautiful." COME ON! I hear stuff like that enough from women in real life who are perfectly lovely, and that's ludicrous enough. But if you're on that show, is it not clear that you've done better than literally thousands of other women? I not only feel sad for them, I feel personally insulted and angry. If they think such awful things about themselves, what does that mean they think about most women? Let me add the disclaimer that most of the comments come from the contestants, and usually about themselves and not other contestants. The show's judges are usually very positive, and when they do say things about weight or height (like 5'7" is short! Hello!), it's infrequent and they sort of do it in a way that acknowledges the silliness of it, like, "That's show biz, kid." They run it, for the most part, in a professional way that discusses the modeling industry more than beauty per se. Tyra even said a few times that models' beauty is special because it's debatable, like they have a feature that's not conventionally considered beautiful. Interesting stuff to ponder, especially when you add the neverending moral quandaries brought up by the House marathon three channels over. TV is, when handled well by a mature mind, such a good teacher sometimes.

In much sunnier news, my trip to Seagrove last week was phenomenal. Those potters just keep getting more endearing. So endearing that I wish the research part could last forever and never lead to the writing part. In my first ever writing about Seagrove back in the fall, I started with a visit there when I was seven or so; all I remember from that visit is lots of animals. Everywhere we went, all kinds of pets, or so it seemed at seven. I realized last trip that it's still true! One-eyed dog, sneaky chickens, dog licking my toes, cat who couldn't care less. Almost every potter had some sweet pet. I also got to walk a grass labyrinth (well, walked in the right way and out the lazy way, which felt surprisingly transgressive), learn a little bit about my digital voice recorder, hang out with my granddaddy, discuss the resemblance of the Seagrove situation to a Christopher Guest movie (that's when I know someone's a keeper, when they get Guest), and get a lot of fruitful information while having fun.

Back at home, I've been enjoying the warm-but-not-hot weather, checking out a room for rent at the beach, cleaning off and riding my bike for the first time in months, going for long walks on the beach. This is the life, I tell ya. Next week I'm going to start writing and reading at the library, because while I stand by my statement that TV is a good teacher, and it's fine as background noise for mindless typing, it's a not-so-good accompanist to real work. Hooray for easy solutions! And libraries!

Good News If Ever There Was

Someone from Heifer International was just on The Colbert Report. What a wonderful organization, and what great publicity for them. Steven said, "If you give a man a cow, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to cow...."

I've been thinking about my time there at the Heifer farm because I've been thinking a lot about my travels and different places I've lived. All due to recent breakthroughs in Seagrove, the feeling that I belong there even after only three trips, the feeling that I might just as well belong here, and the difficult but essentially beautiful realization that even if I find the perfect place to live, I will always have days where I wish I were in Paris, or Minneapolis, or Davidson, or Seagrove, or Wilmington, or some other place I pass through on my way to permanence.

Anyway, Heifer's been on my mind, and I stand in continual awe of its ideals, its system, and the way the latter serves the former so fluidly. That's rare, having the practice match the principles. There are so many great stories involved, a few from my time at the farm but so many more from people around the world. I'm thinking next book already. One of those perfect subjects that has every element I want to explore in writing: community, global stuff, efficiency/ simplicity/ earth-friendly living, God, people helping each other. Plus cute animals! Can't wait. In the meantime, I guess I better actually do something about book #1.

Two days of class left, and very little to do for those. Then a final project, one extra book to make, a couple days of grading, and we're off! Where, I don't know. Nowhere literally; I'll be right here in town for the summer, but there's no telling what job I might get and how I might be spending my time for the next three-plus months. I do know it will involve lots of reading, 'riting, and research (the 3 Rs of grad school), lazy time with friends, new frontiers in breadmaking, a desirable and very welcome move to some nicer digs, exercise, and general fun.

Oodles of Light, What a Beautiful Sight, Both of God's Eyes Are Shining Tonight

I left for Seagrove/Greensboro/Badin Lake on Friday afternoon, dropped my friend Erin off at a music festival in Pittsboro, and this afternoon when I picked her up it felt like a week since I'd seen her. So much happens every time I go to Seagrove (I wish I could make a sound effect that makes the music Patti always had on the show Doug). This time, I absolutely cracked the case, broke the story, just blew this thing out of the water. And when I say I, I mean the potters and their people. I just wish I could replay it all word for word. Tell me again about the Irish funeral. Tell me again about the cave in Belize you had to swim to get to and how the Mayan calendar is going to end in 2012. Tell me again about the cocaine, the adultery, the gambling habit, the convicted child molester manning the kids' tent, tell me again about the gunshot story. (I was acting even more writerly than usual, in that way writers have of going, "Hells yeah!" when something utterly horrific is revealed.) Oh, and tell me again about how great my book is going to be and how many people will buy it. You know who you are. Every single person I talked to was more helpful, informative, articulate, and passionate than I would have dared to ask for, and that's not counting the surprises. It's almost scary now, having all this information just bestowed upon me. I'm acutely conscious of the nonfiction writer's responsibility toward her subjects, and really glad there are other people whose job it is to deal with legal issues and that that's much later. For now, I just feel like the luckiest girl in the world, who is going to have the best thesis ever. Who cares if I didn't do the other work I planned to do this weekend? My thesis is my commitment now, and some other areas of my life are henceforth going to be imperfect. (Ha. "Henceforth," because, you know, it's all been flawless until now.)

I must have listened to my John Prine CD five or seven times today, first to get in the Seagrove mood and then because Erin hadn't heard it. When the first song ("Illegal Smile") came on, she nodded and said, "This sounds right."

Here's something my computer said to me: "Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation." Each word is familiar, but together they just don't make sense. It would be awesome as heavy metal lyrics, though.

Thanks

It is over sixty degrees outside, and the gallery on Front Street always has Brian Andreas pieces in its windows, and I'm going to Chicago on Thursday to see Art Spiegelman, and I have good friends with loud laughs, and there are two people I can count on no matter what and a lot more I can count on, and I live near the beach, and I'm eating fondue this week, and I just started a new blank journal, and my church is the most wonderful one that I could imagine, and everything is getting easier every day.

The Varieties of Religious Experience

Yesterday I was doing what I usually do on a Saturday, spending a few hours at a cafe getting ahead of the week's schoolwork. Actually, in this case I was researching for my thesis instead of grading papers or other school stuff. The preacher of a local megachurch came in and sat down. At first I was a little flustered--it felt like a celebrity sighting. Then I thought about how wrong that is, to me: pastors shouldn't feel like celebrities to us. I took great comfort in knowing that if any of the pastors at the (non-mega) church I attend now had come in, they almost surely would have recognized me and probably come over to speak. Then I felt bewildered at how different people are. Clearly, the man I saw has touched many lives. His church is blessed and not just growing but booming, so for lots and lots of people, it doesn't matter that their pastor doesn't know them. But for me, that was a big part of why I stopped going to his church. Good preaching, cool music, but the dude couldn't pick me out of a lineup, and the people whose hands I shook during the one-minute greeting time were people I would never see again. That bothered me. And now I am blessed to be in a church where lots of people remember my name (even if I still can't keep theirs straight), where the preaching actually remains in my head after it's over, and where there are numerous low-pressure opportunities to serve or study outside services. And seeing that other preacher made me much more aware of it and grateful for it. So even if I hadn't gotten any work done at the cafe, it still would have been a good and productive Saturday.

Keep Calm and Carry On

That post title comes from a poster that was produced in Great Britain on the outbreak of World War II. They made a lot but didn't use many because it was reserved for times of extreme crisis (which makes you wonder what constitutes extreme crisis if not WWII in Britain, other than WWII on the continent). It is very simple, one word per line, centered, in sans-serif all-caps. Oh wait, I can link to it! http://www.keepcalmandcarryon.com/products/keep-calm-and-carry-on-poster. It comes in many colors, and I like it very well.

While we're linking, go ahead and bookmark http://www.goodsearch.com/. You can designate a charity, and it will give them a penny for every search you perform. For everyday use, there's no difference between it and Google. I bet I have given the Heifer Project at least a quarter this year.

I just started reading The Journey of Desire, which is bittersweet because it's the last John Eldredge book I haven't read (that I know of). He says, "Now, what if I told you that this is how it will always be, that this life as you now experience it will go on forever just as it is, without improvement of any kind? Your health will stay as it is; your finances will remain as they are, your relationships, your work, all of it.
"It is hell."
I had to stop thinking about it very quickly, because I would have quailed before the prospect. I realized that would indeed be hell. I mentioned the idea to my small group this evening, and a collective shudder went through the room. One of them even said, while shaking her head, "Living with that roommate forever!" It's partly because we're all young, mostly single, mostly not in our ideal jobs, and not "fulfilled" in the traditional sense of the word. But I bet most people feel that way. People who have the jobs they always wanted, the spouses they dreamed of as kids, the kids, the cars, the house. Not that that's what makes people. It's just what I snap to when I think of the future. I want to consider how we can shape our lives into something that we want to last forever, nail down the moments of bliss and stretch them out so that we never want to skip this chapter or even flip, God forbid, to the end. I'm only ten pages into The Journey of Desire, but I think it's going to be about doing just that: finding the moments you want to last, and making them do so. What a concept. And if the book goes in another direction, this idea is now a seed for me.

In Harris Teeter today, I sampled this Alouette spread, like a goat-cheese deal, with sun-dried tomato and basil in it. It was on sale for just over half of its normal price. I snatched that sucker up so fast, and now it's about to go on a homemade ciabatta-bread sandwich with pepperoni and salami. It's amazing what those goat-cheese people can do.

Advice columns used to be called agony columns.

Good night and good luck. Keep calm and carry on.

Welcome to the Future

I don't believe people should wait for the new year or for anything else to make resolutions, to reflect on their lives and decide what needs to change and how to change it. But it is a convenient time to do so, and I do always find myself thinking about it considerably more during the turn of the year. I think 2009 will be a wonderful year, just like every year in that way. I am going to try not buying books, clothes, DVDs, or CDs, with a few exceptions (like I can buy books for classes, and I can buy new pajamas because I think I'm going to need some soon). This isn't a money-saving choice so much as a simplification choice: I looked around last month and realized I'm pretty much set. I have everything material I need for now, so I'm not going to keep accumulating things. I also plan to have a solid first draft of my thesis by this time next year, and I'm going to eat every day and sleep every night.

In the realm of things I'm going to try that aren't necessarily resolutions, I'm going to make some leek soup, and if I like it, I may do a leek-soup fast one day a week. And/or eat only fruit one day a week. The soup comes from French Women Don't Get Fat, and the fruit comes from Simplify Your Life by Elaine St. James (or one of its companion volumes). These are health and simplicity choices but may also help with finances, because I think food is one of my greatest expenditures. I do buy the cheapest brands of things I buy, but because I'm committed to some restrictions and qualities, I often can only go so cheap. This isn't a problem--actually it is, in that less tampered-with foods should be less expensive but for some reason the sketchy non-natural things cost more--I mean it isn't a problem that I spend so much on food because it's at the root of the quality of my life. Anyway. That's one experiment I'm making this year.

This evening, as it was my birthday, I planned to go to Coldstone but got so comfortable on the couch, and it was cold outside, and it's rather far away, yada yada, I ended up inventing something sweet to meet that desire. I let some frozen raspberries thaw in the blender while I watched the Monk marathon, then put six non-measured spoonfuls of plain yogurt, 2 spoonfuls of sugar, and one (all of these are heaping) of cocoa. Blended away, and I was pleasantly surprised with the results. I'll definitely be going back to that. It's quite healthy, too, compared to ice cream.

For Christmas, I got the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. I feel like an evangelist here. I was skeptical when I first heard about it, but now that I'm on my third batch of dough, I'm a raving convert. It's like having a secret key that makes it infinitely easier. I'm now playing with loaf shapes while getting the basic dough down-pat. Next, I'll check out some different doughs--wheat, etc. That alone makes 2009 a promising year.