Baby, You're A Firework... Pop Pop!

Basically, I spent the weekend on the Chicago Food Tour. I flew into the Windy City Friday afternoon ready for a weekend of good food, good shopping, and most especially good friends. Let me tell you, Chicago delivered.

Friday afternoon I took a cab downtown to meet up with one of my best friends, Emily, at her work. We dropped my suitcase off at her apartment, and then we met up with Christina at Naha for an early reservation. It was restaurant week in Chicago, so Naha had their pre-fix menu going on, and it was wonderful (though, not so wonderful as the food to come). We laughed, joked, caught up on each others lives, and generally had a pretty perfect, if very early, dinner. After we finished eating we headed over to this amazing bar called The Violet Hour for cocktails. The place will kick you out if you use cell phones, the lighting is incredibly dim, and we were led to the last room through curtains and curtains of heavy blue velvet. The place has high-backed chairs and filigree on the ceiling and basically looked like we were in some trippy Alice in Wonderland tea party. I had a Pimms/gin based drink with lots of fruit flavoring-- incredible. Emily had a drink called The Duck Hunter made with egg yolk-- apparently using egg parts in drinks is the thing these days... I wouldn't know here in my small little town with two bars :). After cocktails, we turned in early.

The drive home was the best, as we all sang loudly to Katie Perry's "Firework" after Emily commented, "Sometimes I really do feel like a firework." Christina harmonized. It felt like one of those absolutely perfect moments, when you just feel like life can't get any better, riding in a car with old friends, full of good food, happy after a wonderful evening, and singing loudly to a stupid song. One of those red-letter moments I will never forget, where life can't get any better and it all feels so worthwhile.

We then spent the evening watching our favorite movie, St. Elmo's Fire. What screwy lives those characters lead... and how incredibly unrealistic are most of the plot lines. We did feel sooo old though when Demi Moore said, "I never thought I'd be so tired at 22." 22!!?? How did we get older than the St. Elmo's Fire crowd?

Saturday, Emily and I had breakfast a great little cafe called Julius Meinl-- baked eggs with Parmesan, carmelized onions, and truffle oil, plus an almond creme croissant. Amazing. Then we spent hours in Anthropologie. I used my Christmas gift card on-- surprise!-- a pair of my favorite style of jeans-- and they were on sale! Then we took a bus up to an Urban Outfitters and looked around there, then headed back to Emily's neighborhood for some traditional Chicago deep dish pizza. So good. Plus I got toasted ravioli, which is seriously lacking here on the East Coast. Since it was snowing, we spent the rest of the afternoon/evening inside watching The Big Chill (also a crazy movie) and an episode of Community and listening to music while we got ready for a very late supper at Paris Club.

We met up with Charlotte at the train, arrived at Paris Club, and then went to the bar for a cocktail while we waited for our table. I got a kir. It took awhile to get seated, but when we did-- fantastic! We did 'small plates': duck cracklings, croque monsieur fingers, French Onion Soup fondue, macaroni and cheese, and small desserts-- I got the Pistachio Pot de Creme. Since our reservations we so late-- and since we had brunch the next morning-- we turned in after dinner (at about 1:00). And how to explain Sunday brunch?! Emily, Charlotte, and I went to the Publican for the best food ever-- ricotta and honey with dates and walnuts, red-wine poached egg, and waffles with honey butter and raspberry jam. Plus french fries with garlic mayonnaise and the most amazing 'bacon' ever. I was stuffed.

Then it was time to come home. Emily and Christina drove me to the airport, and off I flew, here to the warmth of Virginia. Weekends like this make me realize how very lucky I am. I have the best friends in the world, in the most interesting places, and I wouldn't trade it for a thing.

you just know, you just do

(VCR, The xx. Have I ever mentioned how much I love The xx? Especially this song and the video. The lyrics, that last touch at the end with her hair, it all sounds and looks like pure love to me. Not always easy, but always there. Comfortable, unassuming, wonderful love.)

On Reading, On Slowing Down

"'Read him slowly, dear girl, you must read Kipling slowly. Watch carefully where the commas fall so you can discover the natural pauses. He is a writer who used pen and ink. He looked up from the page a lot, I believe, stared through his window and listened to birds, as most writers who are alone do. Some do not know the names of birds, though he did. Your eye is too quick and North American. Think about the speed of his pen. What an appalling, barnacled old first paragraph it is otherwise.' This was the English patient's first lesson about reading."
~The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje

I'm feeling too rushed, like everything I'm doing is just a step on my way to somewhere else, but I don't know where and it doesn't really matter, so long as I'm always moving towards it. Without really looking around at life. "I have spent weeks in the desert forgetting to look at the moon." Take a breath; a song for slowing down.

Drumroll, please...

Ta-da! Here's the film, Wolf's Eye. Check it out!!!
(If you look in the beginning of the third shot, you can see me! I'm in a yellow cardigan)

Soon the sun will shine, come the day say I

Last night was the 24 Speed Screening. Our film, Wolf's Eye, won first place in the Alumni competition!!! We were pretty excited. Apparently the guest judges were very impressed that we attempted and pulled off a drama in 24 hours. It should be online later tonight, and I'll post the link here. GET EXCITED!

Briefly, it's been a pretty good week. Lots of microfilm and a trip to Richmond this morning, but that makes me feel productive, and I finished reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. For Valentine's Day Zan and I stayed in, made fettuccine alfredo with extra cheese, and watched Beauty and the Beast. On Wednesday I got a haircut! It feels so much better, about four inches shorter. Here's a self-portrait of the new 'do:


And today! How to even begin to explain the gorgeousness of this weather? It's days like these that always remind me why I love Williamsburg so much. It's 75 degrees and breezy cool and the sun is shining brightly and all I can think is that it's time to read outside again with sweet tea. Oh, those happy hours of reading in the sunshine with sweet tea!!! Now, I know it's only February, but the 10-day forecast looks pretty good and while today is definitely the high point, I'm cautiously optimistic that in the coming weeks we will see many days like today. Last night after the screening I stood outside in a short black dress and a long gray cardigan. When I dressed I worried that after dark the outfit would not be warm enough, but even at 6:45 in the evening the weather was temperate. It felt like standing on a beach at night, with the cool wind blowing off of the water. It made me long for the ocean.

The spring-ness of everything is only accentuated by the growth of my forget-me-nots! Already I have six little sprouts shooting up into the world! And strawberries are planted next to them, but they've only had a few days to take root, so I'm not expecting much from them yet.


Mostly, I can't wait until I can put away my winter clothes for good, and bring out light-colored dresses, short sleeves, airy blouses, and flip-flops.

Happy Valentine's Day!

And I'm off to sit outside with a good book. Loving this warm, sunny weather!


(Photo found here; and read the article, too! It's by a friend of mine)

24 Speed: Wolf's Eye

Kick-off was at 6:00 Friday evening, and even though I easily did the least work of anyone on the team, I still slept from 8:30 last night to 8:30 this morning. 24 Speed, for those who don't know, is a filmmaking contest in which you have, you guessed it, 24 hours to make a two-to-four minute movie. We met at iHop at 5:45, decided on a genre by 6:30, and then, after about 45 minutes of planning... I took out The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Don't blame me, blame Stieg Larsson! If you've ever read these books you know that they are next to impossible to put down when you have only 150 pages to go. Which was all I had to go. It's amazing I lasted for as long as I did in the planning portion. And anyway, the movie was in the very capable hands of Tom, Zan, Steven, Annie, and Tori. And I looked up every now and again to figure out what was going on, so I wasn't totally in the dark.

At around 8:30 we broke from iHop with a conversation that went like this:
"Ok, I'll get spaghetti, candles, and two sets of clothing. Anything else?"
"No, I have knives and a gun."
"Great. Meet you at the clubhouse." I think it sounded really sketchy to the iHop employees.

I got the necessary props (including cooking spaghetti), drove to the location, then I read. And read. And read some more. I finished the book just as they finished the script. I helped set up the location to look like a restaurant. I stood in for Ed and Tori (who were memorizing the script) so that Zan could get the lighting right for the shots. I changed into my nice 'restaurant patron' clothes to be an extra in the first scene (although in the final cut you only see my arm for about half a second).

Then at around 3:30 in the morning my eye went wonky. It felt like there was something in it, so I tried to take out my contact which hurt an ungodly amount. Since I was done with all of my extra work, I went home. I had black holes in my vision (which has never happened before and was terrifying, by the way) and was pretty sure I was going blind in my left eye. Luckly, 3 and 1/2 hours of sleep sorted it out. I'm sticking with glasses for the next few days to be safe. At 9:00 in the morning, I was back at the apartment to be moral support for the editing portion, only leaving for a bite to eat and then to read microfilm for an hour and to pick up pizza for everyone for dinner. Our movie, Wolf's Eye, made it in to the competition in time-- finished and sent by 6:00 Saturday night. As soon as it's on Youtube I'll post it here for everyone to see. I'm really proud of it. I think it turned out amazingly (very little thanks to me).

Hope everyone else had a great weekend, too!

we all get the slip sometimes everyday

And I got rejected from a grad school. I'm not super disappointed about it, especially since I'm thrilled to pieces about my former acceptance and think that I'd actually be much happier at that school than at the one that rejected me, but still... it's never a good feeling to read that your application hasn't been accepted. Especially after that steep application fee. Well, one more to go... keeping my fingers crossed tight.

In brighter news, I've turned in three copies of my thesis for binding! It's out of my hands! It's done! I'm getting an M.A. in Comparative History in May! And the forget-me-nots that I planted last week have begun to grow! I have two little sprouts almost ready to bud, and three others pushing their way up through the soil! It makes me happy, to feel like I created a little bit of life.

(And a Happy Birthday to my nephew, Henry, and a happy belated birthday to my sister-in-law, Corinn... and a really belated birthday to my niece, Sophia!)

Just Happy

All of my committee members signed the approval and thesis recommendation forms today!

My thesis has been approved, the paperwork has been signed, and all that's left to do is to turn the whole thing into the Office of Graduate Studies tomorrow!!! Then they will double-check it to make sure it fits the physical standards for a thesis (proper margins, page numbers, acid-free paper, etc.), then I pay the Bursar to bind it, and it's well and truly done. I just sit back and wait until May, I suppose. And read lots of microfilm in the interim.

(The joy of a finished thesis)

Zan suggested that before graduation happens I have a 'bachelor' party, since come mid-May I will officially no longer be a 'bachelor' but a 'master.' I think this must needs happen. Goodness, I can't believe the thesis is actually finished! I've finished all of the requirements for an MA!

Because Happy Is What Happens...

It's been a pretty red-letter week, but I can't help but feel like something is still the teensiest bit off. Maybe I've just been reading too much microfilm and it's messing with my head or something. Or maybe it's the cold, dreary, rainy-ness of this morning lending itself to an overwhelming nostalgia-- goodness, I just want spring. Or a couple of strange dreams I had last night. Oddly enough, this week of all weeks I've been feeling like an underachiever, despite the fact that I'm reading microfilm everyday (including most weekends) and working on my French with diligence. But right now I'm freer than I'll ever be for the rest of my life and what am I doing with the time? Am I utilizing it to it's full potential? Should I push myself or try to take it easy or a melange of both? Why am I not putting the final touches on the next great American novel or mixed-media avant-garde masterpiece? Why am I not touring the world? Having virtually nothing that I have to do makes me anxious; having nothing to do makes me feel like I have everything to do.

But the past week has been so fantastic in so many ways! First of all, I have gotten my thesis approved by all three committee members, and by this time next week I should have all of the paperwork finished, too! Nothing left but maybe an hour or two of quick revision (a few typos I didn't catch, a sentence or two of clarification here and there), the signings, and then it all goes to the various departments it needs to go to and I just sit back and wait for a diploma! I (basically) have my masters!!! I'm so incredibly excited and happy! I've poured my heart into this and now it's done, just a few papers to sign! But maybe that contributes to the 'off' feeling-- like when a play that you're in ends, a play you've poured your heart and soul into and you're happy to have your free time back, but there's that sadness, too.

The other great thing that happened is that I have a possible future now! I got accepted to one of the graduate programs I applied to!!! I'm not sure if I'll end up going there (depends on what else pans out and how I feel once I have all of my options, etc.), but now, for sure and certain, I will not be in Virginia come next autumn. I might not even be in America! And I'm so happy! I keep reading the words of the e-mail "I am delighted to inform you..." and smiling so big! But it's also hitting home that everything is changing. That next year I won't be in Williamsburg. I've been here for six years and now, in a few months, I'm leaving probably forever. At least for a long while. And I feel as if I should make the most of my limited time here, but I don't know how to hold onto it. Maybe holding on to it isn't the way to make the most of it anyway. I have an odd desire to capture moments, to put them in a jar on a shelf for when I want them, but it really doesn't work that way.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy! But it's a bit overshadowed by some unnamed feeling right now. Maybe the happiness will take hold more fully when the sun comes out again.

Clooney in the Trashcan

When threads of several conversations become tangled with a misunderstanding, it suddenly appears that George Clooney has startled Kay by rummaging in her trashcan for leftovers. She shrieks when she sees him, scares him with a broom, and he runs away. He hasn't been in any movies lately, so he's a bit down on his luck, you see. While of course that never happened, for a good fifteen minutes the scene played out last night over a dinner of chicken and saffron rice.

Best two days ever. Sunday was warm, sunny, and so relaxed. I cooked tons of food (always puts me in a good mood), did laundry, and watched Disney's The Aristocats in French. On Monday, Kay arrived! I have missed her sooo much. We went from living together to suddenly never seeing each other. We used to drop everything to have a coffee when I would visit D.C., but now she's even farther away and we don't have that. So having a full 24 hours with my best friend? Fantastic. I saw her beautiful engagement ring in person finally, we got hot chocolate at Harbour Coffee, talked about her wedding plans, went shopping in Newport News, and had dinner/played Bananagrams with Zan. Today we both woke up early, drank tea, checked e-mails, listened to music and took it easy before she headed back up to the frozen north and I went to read microfilm for forever.

If only we lived closer to each other. Life just feels somehow a touch brighter with Kay here. Thank goodness for internet and telephones, but sometimes there is nothing quite like spending the day with one of your absolutely best friends.