The Night Before Halloween

Tonight I completed my Halloween movie list.  I watched The Addams Family.  It's been a fun October of watching movies, and other than once again not getting any actual horror movies watched, I've had some great experiences: a fantastic Halloweentown party, a Practical Magic night with my best friend when I needed it the most, finally watching my favorite childhood film-- Sleepy Hollow-- with Zan (and feeling surprised by how much I still have memorized), pizza and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, introducing Hocus Pocus to my British friend who somehow made it into her 20s without seeing it, whilst eating buttery popcorn and lots of Halloween candy.  Then tonight, a quiet evening alone with homemade chili and The Addams Family.  In movie terms, it's been an excellent October; in friends terms, too, what with Emily's amazing wedding at the beginning of the month, a mid-month visit with Kay, and a party tomorrow evening with my grad cohort.  Also, I never wrote about it here, but I got to meet one of my heroes this month-- M. Lindsay Bierman, the former editor of Southern Living!  We talked for about seven minutes one-on-one, and he was wonderful and gracious.  I got to tell him how much his editor's welcomes meant to me each month for the past couple of years, and that even though his new job sounds awesome, I miss him at SL.  It was really cool.  We even took a selfie together!  So, I guess despite a lot of thesis-related anxiety which I'm actively working to fix, it's been a pretty good October overall.  And I have plans to build a gingerbread haunted house with Zan tomorrow after work!

Tentative Thesis Revelation

I'm a little scared to say it, since I've said it so many times before and I keep getting stuck, but... 

I've had a thesis break-through.  I think, finally, I see where I want to go.  I don't know exactly what I want to argue yet, but then, I didn't know that for about a year with the last thesis I wrote.  But at least now, instead of eagerly grabbing at anything and everything that captures my attention or seems even tangentially related to something I might possible want to write on someday, I have a more focused reading plan and something that feels like an honest-to-God topic.  I have even picked out a couple of central literary pieces from the huge mess of poems, short stories, treatises, and novels I've been looking into-- a step that has done more for me than anything else to this point.  I feel more positive about everything, even if thus far my attempts at writing on the subject have been a little crap.  Writing always starts out a little crap, so I'm not too worried.  The fact that I can envision writing sixty pages, finally, warms me to the cockles of my hitherto grad-frozen heart.  Before this is over I'll probably have several more weeks of nerve-wracking stress, feelings of inadequacy, and days and nights of questioning everything I've ever thought, but I think I've finally gotten to the point that I can just make out a path through the woods.  One foot in front of the other.

"Breaking Glass," A Film

The Kickstarter video for an independent film, "Breaking Glass."
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Sitting and Thinking

I've realize that a large part of my thesis woes stem from the fact that though I'm reading a lot, I'm thinking very little.  I quickly run through the material, make a few cursory/obvious notes, then set the article/poem/novel/treatise, aside.  Then I wonder why I haven't learned much. 

What I need is a good old fashioned thinking session.  The problem is, so much of my life (our collective 'America in the 21st Century' life?) doesn't encourage lingering over a single poem, or a single couplet of a poem to find out how the words work, or if I find it moving and how.  Everything I read online (where I jump from window to window, tab to tab, trying to quickly absorb as much material as possible) tells me how to speed read, how to multi-task, how to get the most done in the shortest amount of time.  Don't think (too hard), just do.  Rush rush rush to get it all done.  And so, slowing down, especially when I don't know how beneficial-- or at least, when I can't quantify how beneficial-- that lingering might be... it becomes very difficult.  But I've made next to zero progress (by word count, page number, outlines) on my thesis, and even though I've read a lot I haven't processed it in a way that feels worthwhile.  But instead of trying to take the time to process it, I've just kept looking for more sources to read in the hopes that one of them will make me feel like I've hit the thesis jackpot.  Maybe I already have, I just haven't thought about it enough to realize it.

So this week: I'm thinking.  I'm going back over poems I've read; I'm close-reading.  I'm looking for moments of brilliance and moments of connection-- both to eighteenth-century society/movements and to my own emotions.  My adviser told me that literary criticism should be analytical and emotional, as if the two were not usually viewed as opposites.  My thesis class professor told me that her graduate adviser told her that each project needed to be personally meaningful and to help her learn a new skill set.  For me, reading eighteenth-century poetry (actually, reading most poetry) feels a bit like reading another language, and it's a skill I want to learn.  So, I'm ignoring secondary sources for a bit so I can determine what I personally think, instead of relying on other critics and scholars to tell me what to think.  I'm going to try to learn the art, mystery, and skill of reading poetry in an analytical way.  I'm looking for what moves me and trying to figure out why.

And I'm going to write it down.

The 7th Annual Halloweentown Party

We did it again!  Another Halloweentown party come and gone.  To give you an idea of my sentiments towards this annual event I should tell you that on the morning of the party I sent an e-mail to everyone that began, "When you woke up this morning did you say to yourself, 'It's the best day of the year!' If not, you should have because today is Halloweentown Party Day!" 

I feel like this one was another great success, though I had less time to set up for it.  Since I had work in the morning, and we started the party a bit earlier than usual to try accommodate for a double feature, we didn't have: pumpkin decorations, gingerbread haunted house. We did have: black and orange table runner, homemade caramel corn, chips and salsa, warm apple cider (and a little whisky for optional spiking), too much candy for words, cookies, cupcakes, pizza, salad, and a whole lot of fun!

The movie was...well, the same as always.  Same cheesy jokes.  Same gratuitous reaction shots.  But, oh, it's just wonderful!  I love sharing this movie with people year after year.  And the thing is, for return Halloweentown party guests, the movie starts to grow on them.  Yes, we all admit that it's not good cinema.  But it's endearing, and treating it just a little bit like Mystery Science Theater 3000 only makes it greater.  The more (slightly snarky, slightly sentimental) people watching at a time the better.  And this year we got in Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge.  I had never actually watched this film before (at least not that I remember) despite the fact that it's included on the Halloweentown DVD.  We decided that the film felt Beckett-esque.  Yes, Samuel Beckett-esque.  I readily admit that our attention span was a little frayed by the time we got to the second film so I might have missed a few key plot points, but they seemed to end up in a weird limbo world where everyone turned gray and started caring about finding missing socks.  Then they briefly worried that they were trapped in the gray land for a year, left to wait out the time doing nothing.  Has any other Disney Channel Original Film more closely approximated elements of Endgame and Waiting for Godot? Meanwhile, in another part of the universe, a group of people turned into their Halloween costumes (a trope we realized can be found in film/television from The Twilight Zone to Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

But all great evenings must come to an end, and so did the 7th Annual Halloweentown party.  Thanks for another fantastic year, everyone!  I leave you with this...enjoy!

October Movies, October Foods

It's that time of the year again...

(Image found here)

October starts the beginning of movie season!  This year I really want to actually watch my Halloween films in October (and then it's Christmas movie time!).  So, the Halloween list:

1) Halloweentown
2) Halloweentown II
3) Practical Magic
4) Hocus Pocus
5) It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
6) Sleepy Hollow
7) The Addams Family and/or Addams Family Values

I'd also like to add on a horror movie or two, even though I normally hate them.   I'll let Zan pick the horror movies, as he will probably have some feel for which ones are good.  Maybe The Village or something.  I've always wanted to see The Orphanage, so maybe this is the year! 

Moreover, October starts the best season for food!  This week I've made stew and chili so far, and I have a great recipe for potato/apple/smoked trout hash and one for chicken with wild rice.  I'm also excited to make Brussels sprouts and maple butternut squash with carrots.  Yum!  Plus, I'm loving all of the fall ciders and pumpkin ales in the stores.  And, I'm harboring hopes that Zan will make me some Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes this weekend.  Isn't autumn wonderful?! 

Finally, I want to finish my bucket list from last October: I'd really like to visit a pumpkin patch, dress up in a Halloween costume, and make apple-onion soup with cheese puffs.  I'm also going to add "Make a Gingerbread Haunted House" to the list, because I saw a beautiful, inexpensive kit in Trader Joe's the other day, and I really want to do something decorative.  After all, October comes but once a year, so live it up now! (And, for a bit of Halloween thesis flare, maybe I'll dig into some scholarship on Frankenstein...)

So what do you all think?  Any movies I need to add to my list?  Any recipes you think I should try?

Eat, Drink, and Be Married

On Saturday my beautiful friend Emily got married!  Emily and I have known each other for more than half of our lives, and the wedding ended up being a sort of reunion of some of my best and oldest friends.  At one point the make-up artists asked if the bridesmaids knew each other, and we realized that seven of us ten girls in the bridal party have known each other for going on fifteen years or more!  The make-up artist commented that it was rare to see a bridal party that included so many friends made in middle school or high school.  But, we've always been a pretty close group.  These are the friends with whom I don't miss a beat.  I hadn't actually seen Dana for nearly five years, but literally within the first thirty seconds of our reunion she was offering to let me use her berry lip gloss, since the lipstick I had picked up earlier that day was absolutely not a good color on me.  It's a silly anecdote, but it really just felt like I'd come home.  These people, wherever they may be (and since high school we have become a very geographically diverse bunch) feel like home to me.

Enough rambling, though.  I think I'll tell the story through some photos.  Granted, my photo taking was... uneven, at best.  I totally missed getting a photo with Maggie, who I stayed with in St. Louis on Thursday night, or with Christina and her twins.  Still, I hope you enjoy what I did remember to photograph!

First sign I saw at the airport.  Welcome to the Midwest!

 Culver's Double Cheddar Butterburger with onion rings and fries.  I have been a Culver's fan since driving across the country to Seattle in 2011, so when I realized that I had landed in Culver's country on Thursday--and that I had no lunch plans-- I immediately visited their store locator.  I went a little crazy with my ordering.  I got a the Double Cheddar Butterburger combo with fries and a drink AND onion rings AND a chocolate malt.  The guy taking my order seemed a little shocked at all I ordered.

The Missouri River at historic St. Charles.  I forgot to get any photos of the quaint streets of the town where I met Maggie for dinner, but I didn't forget to take a picture of the river.  I grew up on this river, and when I saw it my heart surged a bit and I longed to return to those days.

This trip was jam-packed.  On Thursday I stayed in St. Louis to see friends, and on Friday morning I got up bright and early to drive down to Jefferson City to spend time with the bride-to-be!  I arrived a little early though, so I got to take some time to briefly revisit the old haunts.  Here's Whaley's East End Drug Store, where my mom and I bought innumerable vanilla cokes at the soda fountain.  I also had a chance to drive by the high school, my middle school, and my old house.  But the best part was the few minutes that I spent at Downtown Book and Toy before meeting up with Emily and her fiancee.  I loved that shop as a child, and going in on Friday felt so comforting.  I even bought a few books-- which, no, I do not need-- but that I'm so excited to read.  I got the first in the new Lemony Snicket Series All the Wrong Questions and a paperback mystery called Vampires, Bones, and Treacle Scones, by Kaitlynn Dunnett, which promises to be perfect for Halloween.

At Shakespeare's Pizza for Emily's rehearsal dinner!  Why am I in jeans and a ratty looking sweater?  Well, because due to a mix-up my hotel reservations for the weekend got cancelled, and I didn't have a chance to check in to my room or change clothes before driving Emily over to the rehearsal!  Don't worry, it all worked out in the end, though it did cause a lot of consternation for me on Friday-- combined with Zan's delayed flight, forgetting my contact lens case and solution in St. Louis, and a million other small 'snafus' that befuddled my Friday.  But look at all of our smiling faces!  Who can be sad when eating Shakespeare's Pizza?  Especially with the Cardinal's winning a play-off game in the background!!!

 The campus at the University of Missouri, Columbia.  When I was little I used to say that the columns had eyes, because their curled tops make them look a bit like E.T.  This picture was snapped quickly with one hand as I ran to our 8:30 AM meet-up spot on Saturday morning, so forgive its poor composition and lighting.

 On Friday night, Emily gave each of us mimosa fixin's as part of our bridesmaid's gift, specifying that we were to use them on Saturday morning.  Things got a bit rushed early on, but once we had made it to the church, gotten our hair and make-up done, and eaten a bite of lunch, we broke into our mimosas!  Such a glorious moment!

 Our bridesmaids dresses all hanging in a row!

 A recreation of a photo from 2005.  Yes, I've known and been close friends with these girls since 2005.  Actually, make that 1999.  And for one of them, 1992.

 Middle School/High school friends all grown up!!!

 Emily and me the next morning at the 'good-bye' brunch at Panera.  She's MARRIED!

There are a few other pictures that I wish I had, but that I didn't take with my phone, like Emily and Chad at the rehearsal, with Emily wearing her bridal Minnie Mouse ears, and a photo of all of us toasting with our mimosa glasses in the make-up room.  I also don't have any photos of the actual ceremony since I was, understandably, occupied with being a bridesmaid.  But I hope you can tell from what I do have to share that it was a wonderful weekend.  

Christina, the maid-of-honor, ended her toast with "To taking care of each other," and Jake, the best man, ended his toast with "To new friends."  I think this encapsulates the weekend: it was nostalgic, full of places and people from my past, and I need to take care of these memories and these people.  I want them in my life forever.  But it's also about new friends, new people, new places, and new events to make into memories.  We're all grown up, and we're still growing, but we're doing it together.