Today

It's been a rough week - it got cold, and I'm ready to be working but not really ready to leave again, and I've had a lot of time hanging out at home by myself recently - but today got better!

It was cold and rainy outside, so I dressed up in my warmest clothes - tights, jeans, socks knitted by Ruthy, rain boots, camisole, t-shirt, hoodie, winter coat and scarf (both red!), gloves from Aunt Carolyn (purple!), earmuffs from Alex's parents (turquoise!) - and grabbed some library books and an umbrella (green!) and headed outside. When I'm having fun being dressed so warmly, the cold is fun and enlivening rather than draining and depressing. I walked around the neighborhood, shopping and window shopping and enjoying the day and getting some activity, for a good three hours! I went into CVS, Duane Reade, and Rite Aid, looking for straight razors for Alex and a plastic soap carrier for me, and eventually found both. I am weirdly fond of drugstores, it turns out. I looked at many flower shops and eventually bought myself a bouquet. I spent forty-five minutes in the library reading, and watched the library clerks chase out a couple sleepy drunks. I went into a piano store and looked at the sheet music and inquired as to prices for pianos (~$1400). I bought a decaf peppermint mocha from Starbucks, and when I told the cashier how excited I always am for their holiday specials, he told me that I could in fact order a peppermint mocha any time of the year!! I now feel that I possess a truly amazing secret. And on the way back to the apartment, Cheryl called, and I ended up sitting on the steps chatting with her for almost an hour!

It was all very delightful. When I got back, I baked sourdough bread, and did all the dishes and cleaned the counters and tidied up and swept the whole apartment, and put my beautiful colorful flowers in a vase, and ate lunch, and listened to the Wailin' Jennies and the Smith Sisters and Joan Baez, and blogged, and all in all have had a pretty good day so far since the time I stepped outside. I don't know what I'll do with the rest of the evening until I go to bed - evenings are harder than afternoons, because I have mostly done what I want to do and it is dark and I am tired before bedtime and no one will be home until midnight - but I'm sure I will figure something out! Actually, I haven't read much today; maybe I'll put in a couple hours and finish up The Thief!

Good night :)

Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

So Alex and Jamie and I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear) on Saturday! This was the rally held by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report. It was really fun! I have mixed feelings about the politics and morals of it all - some of it was really good, some of it was weak and privileged and maybe even detrimental to the actual message - but all in all, it was a really good time, and it felt good to be there, and we were really glad we went.

We didn't register in time to get on one of the free buses the Huffington Post was offering, so we had to pay to take a private rally bus, which, you know, too bad, but ok. The bus had way more comfortable seats than the Greyhound Alex and I took to and from monmouth (excuse the lower-case "m"s, please; I'm copy-pasting every m still, and I don't want to deal with switching back and forth from capital to lower-case!), and was generally a pleasant ride. We also had a reporter from a major Australian news station on our bus, and he interviewed me for quite some time! I think I was articulate and intelligent - or anyway, I hope I was! - and hopefully I was on Australian TV on Sunday or monday! I wonder how I could find out... wait, actually, Alex has the email of the reporter! We can email him and ask! Alex is curious about seeing an Australian show that doesn't air in the US anyway. Anyway, also he filmed Alex and Jamie and me just talking about politics and our families and stuff for a while, which was also neat.

The buses left at 5 am and arrived in D.C. around 9:30; we made our way to the mall, where the rally was being held near the steps of the Capitol. We squeezed through the tens of thousands of people (multiple estimates suggest that there were 250,000 people there, although of course rally size estimates are always highly guess-y) to a place relatively in the middle, where we could have seen the stage if we were seven feet tall and where we could kind of mostly see a couple of the big screens. We amused ourselves until the rally started at noon by reading the many fascinating and hilarious signs we saw around us, and chatting with the nutty people next to us, and snacking (we packed basically all the food in the house, and it was still gone by the end of the rally, and we had to buy dinner, and all of the restaurants had a two hour wait because of the 250,000 people flooding downtown, so we ate at mcdonalds and it was disgusting but fine).

When the rally started, there was music, and also the guys from mythbusters, none of which was that entertaining because I couldn't really see anything. But! when Stewart and Colbert came on, they were so entertaining and fun, as were their musical guests - Cat Stevens, Ozzy (!), Love Train, John Legend, Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, Tony Bennet - that it didn't matter that it was a mostly auditory experience. I had so much fun! There was for sure enough funny and enough talent and even enough message to fill the remaining 2 hours of the rally.

At the end, Jon came back onstage for 20 minutes and gave the sincere speech that was really the heart of the rally. The speech was basically a plea to be civil with each other; to remember that we are not each other's enemies; to recall that unlike what the media says is possible or impossible, we work together every day no matter what our politics are; to condemn hatred and hyperbole on the parts of both sides of the political spectrum; and to point out that while the media didn't necessarily create the problems in this country, it aggravates them by giving us 24/7 messages of fear and gridlock and doom and depression.

The speech was moving, no doubt; it was often right on, to be sure; and it may have been what the country needed to hear around now. Certainly the media pits people against each other and exaggerates problems and fearmongers; certainly the discourse in this country has degenerated to a morass of superficial bullshit and hatred; certainly calling someone Hitler is always uncalled for; certainly the left wing is not exempt from hypocrisy or shallow analysis.

HOWEVER,

that said, I think his speech was also somewhat disingenuous, in a problematic way. It is flat out wrong, for one thing, to suggest that the hate speak and the hyperbole and the shallow, inflammatory rhetoric on the left is anywhere in the same universe as the same flaws on the right. Anti-war activists, some of whom occasionally exaggerate or leap to conclusions, but who are virtually all entirely grassroots, are not in the same ballpark as astro-turf tea partiers, many of whom are explicitly racist and who repeat lies on a regular basis and are egged on and told what to say by Fox News and the massive funding behind it. Keith Olbermann and Rachel maddow are not the same as Glenn Beck. They just aren't. There is just no parallel. Left-wing pundits tend to be center-left; right wing pundits move farther to the right every day.

Furthermore, calling someone racist - or at least calling out their actions and words as racist - is completely appropriate, and neither hateful nor hyperbolic - if their actions and words are in fact racist, if they do in fact demonstrate hatred or prejudice. If we can't call out racism, how can we end it? Calling someone racist or misogynist or otherwise bigoted is not the same as calling someone Hitler, or as inaccurately calling someone a socialist. The former is a way of speaking out against oppression and for progress and - dare I say it - for civility!

The way Stewart equated these things falls into the hands of the right wing and disguises much of the genuine problems in our political discourse. The neoconservative movement has spent the last forty years pressuring the media into presenting opposing opinions in search of balance, rather than looking for and presenting facts and making sensible analysis. They have pushed the idea that there are two equivalent sides to every story, and that even if the right-wing position is extreme and not representative of most Americans, it deserves to be aired as if it is equally legitimate with a left or center-left position. Acting and speaking as if current left-wing and right-wing discourse are equivalent is doing the same thing: It is presenting the two sides as if they are equivalent, and thereby swinging the discussion towards the right by failing to recognize and condemn the current right-wing for what it is (i.e. singularly and incomparably filled with extremists, hate-mongerers, and lies).

I understand that Stewart is trying to be bipartisan and fair, and that that is especially important for him so that he can escape being labeled as incorrect due to his liberal bias (which he certainly has and has never hidden). But in his efforts to be bipartisan he has erased something vital, and has made his message less relevant and less radical (by radical I don't mean extreme, but fundamental, back to the roots, vital). Plus, it is his privilege as a straight, white, wealthy man that allows him to do so without pangs of conscience. Activists on the left - even those seen (and condemned by Stewart) as extreme - are so moved to activism and rhetoric because right-wing policies hurt them directly. Stewart can condemn people who condemn and passionately fight against the right wing for its anti-choice, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-minority, anti-muslim, anti-poor policies, because he's not the one being paid less because of his gender, or being told he shouldn't practice his religion, or being fired because of his gender presentation, or dying from botched abortions or hate crimes or hunger. Yes, he is a liberal, and yes, he is mostly on the side of human and civil rights for everyone, but by acting as if angry speech from both sides of the political spectrum are equivalent, he is silencing and discrediting a lot of people with less privilege than he has, when he maybe should in fact be giving them a voice. In this way, he's not progressive, he's regressive. He's undermining his own beliefs - which, again, he can afford to do, because he is never going to be hurt by it.

Well, ok, that's my rant about that. Had to get it off my chest :). And it's not to say that he didn't say some things that need to be said, or that the core of his message (that the media is fanning the fire, and that hyperbole and hate and inaccuracy are hurting a country in which we have the capability of working together) isn't valid. And I still like Jon Stewart and I'll still watch the Daily Show, and I had a good time at the rally. But I couldn't let the flaws and the problems and the privileges of it all go unremarked on.

You can look here and here for reactions similar to mine (I highly recommend watching the Olbermann video, at least the beginning of it before the interview part, which is kind of boring).

And you can look here for a really excellent musicalized version of his speech, by a group who has also created such gems as this (from the original), this (from the original), and this (possibly my favorite!).

Stuff and Nonsense

Today Alex and I met at Chocolate By the Bald Man for a snack date after he finished his errands in the city! It was lovely and delicious; we got a hazelnut cream chocolate milkshake - the best, oh so good, mmm, vanilla bourbon ice cream, dark chocolate truffle, whipped cream - and the chicken bacon cheddar rolls on sticks with buttermilk dressing. The food there always sounds kind of mundane and unappealing to me, but I have learned not to feel that way, because the flavors are always so incredible! Oh, man, that buttermilk dressing....

Yesterday I made those delicious chocolate espresso cookies that Ruthy loves! Phew, they are so good. I keep them in the Madeleine lunchbox that Ruthy gave me! I get a lot of compliments on that lunchbox. That is because it is a great lunchbox. I also get a lot of compliments on those cookies! That is because they are great cookies.

The "m" key on my keyboard is freaking out! It is really hard to get it to make an M when I push it! But I just got my screen fixed, and I am not yet ready to deal with more computer repairs! That said, once I got to the right person with Dell last time, it was really fast and easy from there, and free because I have the extended warrantly. And now I have the direct phone number, so it actually wouldn't be that much work. Maybe I will get it fixed, then, before I go to Maine.

I started recording the Plaid Tidings score today, for the choreographer; Pro Tools - my new recording software - is certainly high quality, and capable of doing anything I need it to do, but is super finicky and does not come with adequate instructions, so it can be very frustrating to work with! Still, once I get the hang of it, and it starts to feel straightforward and automatic, I think it's going to be very useful - especially as I will be able to record vocal reels for aspiring singers, and charge good money for it!

I've started copy-pasting every "m" I need to type. I think this a sign that I should call Dell already :P

Anyway, Alex and I just bought two trash cans for our room - one for trash and the other for paper recycle. Look how great they are!:

Ok, how great one of them is. For some reason, I can't successfully download the picture of the other one! Here it is on the website. (Of course I remembered too late that we are supposed to be boycotting Target. I can't keep all the places I can't shop in my head! I do pretty well at remembering Nike, Old Navy, Whole Foods, and Nestle, but after that I lose track.)

But Target does have many exciting wastebaskets, as you can see! This one - which we did not buy - is my actual favorite.

It reminds me of something you would find on Catalog Living! Now if only I could think of a good caption....

Ok, well, in the meantime, now back to reading Like Water for Chocolate! (It turns out I do, in fact, like magical realism in some cases, just not ridiculous upsetting super depressing magical realism with, like, witches and angry pig corpses. I like magical realism with some romance to it! I like whimsical magical realism! I like it in, for example, books like the ones by Sarah Addison Allen, or, for another example, Like Water for Chocolate.)

P.S. Here is a great video! (The blog it's on is great, too.)

P.P.S. Ok, for some reason the link to Catalog Living doesn't work! The address is catalogliving.net, and if that doesn't work either, just searching for "Catalog Living" should lead you to it. It is well worth checking out!

Fun with Books!

In rainbow order...

...and in rainbow shape!

Everything, but Mostly Food!

So I've been at home for a couple weeks, and baking up a storm!

I made Practically Perfect Cookies, which I thought was Aunt Carolyn's recipe but which she doesn't recognize the name of, but anyway they are delicious chocolate chip cookies and I used Ghirardelli bittersweet, semisweet, and white chocolate chips in them and it was great.

I also have made two loaves of sourdough since I've been back. I made the first one in a loaf pan, to be sure it would rise up instead of out (the problem I had with my last few loaves);

the second one I made into a free-form boule loaf but rose it for only 4 hours instead of 12-until-doubled, so although it rose out instead of up in the bowl, it had some rising power left to poof in the oven. It didn't poof as high as it was supposed to (maybe the dough was too soft and not gluteny enough? I'll try adding more flour next time) and was quite dense, but it wasn't the biscotti loaf of August.

That said, neither of them tasted of sourdough! Which is very confusing and frustrating. I know my starter is still alive - and for the second loaf, it was freshly fed - because it is rising the bread, and also it still smells like it did before. But it must be a starter problem, because what else could it be? I wish I'd frozen a bit of the starter before I left for Maine, in case something went wrong like this. I'm going to keep trying for a couple more loaves, and ask the internet some more about what might be going on, but I am kind of bummed.

Oh well! I have also made regular white, whole wheat, and butternut squash bread since I've been back, and also a beautiful butternut squash pie,

Also I made a tiny adorable pastry roll-up

with the leftover pie dough.

It was delicious.

and also a really weird attempt at chai ice cream,

The makings of chai. So beautiful!

Too bad it turned out so

chewy

and so weirdly

pumpkin-pie-tasting.

and also a delicious dark chocolate ice cream! So food is going well :)

Alex and I have been buying our groceries at the farmers' market and Trader Joe's as much as we can (there are THREE Trader Joe'ses in New York now, so they are all much less impacted!), which is leading us to cook more, as we have more ingredients and less pre-prepared/box food. We made free-range chicken breast with mustard sauce (a recipe my mother modified deliciously) the other day, on whole wheat rice, and it was great! And I cooked up some whole wheat rotini one day, and tossed it with olive oil, parmesan-like cheese from the farmers' market, and garlic and fresh basil also from the farmers' market. Mmm, delicious!

I don't know why this is sideways.

And Alex has been learning to make pasta sauce out of fresh tomatoes.

It is a good food month!

Also, Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Thomas were in New York the other night, after what sounded like a lovely two week trip through autumnal New England, and took Alex and me out to dinner at Manetta's Fine Foods, a lovely and scrumptious Italian restaurant in Long Island City near Hunter's Point. I had spaghetti carbonara; Alex had smoked salmon pasta; Aunt Carolyn had linguini nere (colored black with squid ink!); Uncle Thomas had lasagna; and I finished with a delicious (but large!) creme brulee. I will be going back there, for sure!

While we're talking food, I should mention the date Alex and I went on while still in Maine. We decided we'd head for the coast, although we didn't know where. We located a little town called Richmond on the map, only half an hour away, and headed that way. The drive was beauuuuuuuutiful, all fiery trees and winding highways and rain;

Richmond was less beautiful, as it was neither exactly on the coast nor a cute town. Tiny and economically depressed looking, actually. But we drove on down the highway, wandering in and out of towns, until we found Freeport, which is not on the coast either, but which is super cute! We wandered in and out of stores and around the streets, looked at restaurant menus, and finally went into the Azure Cafe, and upscale and relaxing little joint that made us feel very adult. (Although, as Lorelei put it on an episode of Gilmore Girls I just watched: "You know what grown-ups never do? Talk about how grown up they are.) We ordered an appetizer of spinach artichoke dip with crostini; the crostini were perfectly crunchy and neutral, and the dip felt like delicious, delicious air in my mouth. It was like nothing was on my tongue except the taste of heaven!

For our entrees, we went all out: "Filet Tartuffe," a filet mignon with black truffles and crimini mushrooms and gorgonzola mousse and garlic mashed potatoes; and, of course, lobster!

Also, by the way, there was delicious salad,

and I don't even like salad.

I don't know why this picture is sideways either.

Lobster. Also, butter.

Oh, what a good day.

Now out of the reverie and on to today! I'm going to break topic and not talk about food, now!

Yesterday was lovely. Alex and I went on a walk and ended up in the park, where we sat and played cribbage at one of the chess tables (adjacent to the chess table occupied by the regular chess-players). That is what we do recently to get out of the house and relax, and it is great. Then Jamie and I went shopping, and I bought a black blouse in an effort to diversify my work clothes, and a purple sweater at Express. The sweater was $40, but it was the most beautiful thing I have seen in weeks, and it fit me perfectly, and I don't have anything that color, and I hardly ever buy clothes anyway, so there.

It is more beautiful without the belt,

and it is also more purple than it appears in this picture.

Hopefully, you will see it in person soon!

I also, much to his delight, bought Alex a purple button-down to replace the one he lost while I was at camp. I also tried on a really cute, pseudo-business-y grey dress at H&M, which I don't need but might go back and buy with my gift card, and also at Express a pale pink strapless ruched minidress, which looked super hot on me but was $98 and which therefore I did not buy.

I want this dress.

Then, when Jamie had to leave for rehearsal, I took the train up to Bryant Park, where I tried Lilly O'Brien's for the first time. It's a "chocolate cafe" on the south side of the park, with all different kinds of hot chocolate and coffee and hot chocolate coffee. I got a dark hot chocolate (and a couple pieces of dark chocolate), which was delicious, and sat and read my book (Insatiable, by Meg Cabot, which I wasn't going to read because it is a vampire romance and it got bad reviews, but which I picked up in the library and ended up checking out because I feel that I should always give Meg Cabot a chance because I love so much of her stuff, and because it references Dr. Zizmor on the first page, and Dr. Zizmor is my favorite subway advertisement by far. Unfortunately, it is not a good book. Everything else I've read by her [and I think I've read everything she's written, including her adult romances under pen names, excepting her Allie Finkle middle-grade series] is light and goofy but engaging and clever and well-written and fun. Insatiable, on the other hand, is info-dump-y and heavy on the description and poorly edited and has an awkwardly brooding vampire male love interest, and also I am pretty sure her publisher just insisted that she capitalize on the vampire trend, because A) it is about a TV writer who is forced to write a vampire plotline even though she doesn't want to because she is tired of vampires in the media and thinks the whole shebang is misogynist and stupid, and basically it is like Sara Bareilles telling her producer via song that she is not going to write him a love song, except if that song were also a love song; and B) it does not read like a lot of effort went into it. That said, I am still reading it.) and it was lovely, and then I went home and watched football and also the baseball playoffs, although I had to turn off the Giants game in the 5th or 6th inning because it was too depressing. At least we are back in PacBell for the next game! That park is our 10th and best fielder.

Anyway, that is all for now. I will try to blog more often, and then I will only have to do little blogs, like when I started, and then I won't procrastinate it because it seems like so much work and time to catch up on everything! That said, it is fun when I am doing it, so I shouldn't procrastinate it anyway :) The end.

Apple Town!

We went apple-picking! It was great. Kathleen, the stage manager, drove us up to the Ricker Hill farms, where we stopped in at the store for delicious homemade pumpkin doughnuts and a bag to be filled with 10 lb of apples. We also explored the corn maze, which Tony figured out on the first try. Then we went out to the orchards! Where there were apple slings, which were fun!

Also, there were apples, of course. The apples were enormous and sweet - I don't even really like apples, but there were some delicious ones that I had several bites of and enjoyed a lot - and we had a lovely time wandering through the orchards, although the signs were sometimes confusing.

We also found a discarded pre-paid ten pound bag sitting on the ground, and we naturally couldn't let it go to waste... so in the end we came home with twenty pounds of apples! They are still not quite gone, although we have been eating plenty of apple cake and apple cookies and apple fritter! Actually, I take that back. I think they are gone as of today - two weeks after we went picking.

On the 25th, which was Alex's and my one-year anniversary, Nikki's parents came to visit, and they took us out to lunch at Da Vinci's, a super delicious Italian restaurant - I ordered some fancy and excellent ravioli - after Alex, Nikki, Tony, and I had explored AppleFest in the morning. AppleFest happens once a year in Monmouth, and is very cute. There are booths selling apples, of course, and the old corn processing building is open, as are the two Monmouth museums, and also there is a scarecrow contest! We did not have time to build our own scarecrows, but we did have time to pick favorites!

Maine!

Is great!

Working with adults is great, too. They learn their music ahead of time! They have years of training and experience! I can give artistic notes, instead of making melodic compromises!

Don't get me wrong - I love love love working with kids - but this is a delightful break.

In other news: I get to work with adults again, soon! I got hired to music direct Plaid Tidings at the Penobscot Theatre on Bangor. Yay!

Now for updates on the past three weeks.

I live in Toad Hall, which is a sprawling, old Victorian house across the street from the theatre, which is in Cumston Hall, which also houses the library.

Toad Hall

Cumston Hall

My new library card!

Alex and I got here on the Greyhound through Boston. We had a good time!

Alex and me, having a good time

I read If On a Winter's Night a Traveler, by Italo Calvino (which is written in the second person, and which I highly recommend! It is a weird book! But neat.), and also watched episodes of Gilmore Girls. Alex read Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke.

Anyway, we got to Lewiston successfully, and were picked up by Dave, the producing director at the Theater at Monmouth, who delivered us to the supermarket, where we met Nikki, Tony, and Colleen, our delightful housemates. (Joey came later in the weekend, because he was working at the US Open.) We soon arrived at the house, where we moved into our room.

One angle of our room. There is another bed,

which is the one we actually sleep on,

hidden by the door.

Also, two more dressers.

There is more furniture in this room

than in my room in New York -

which is saying a lot!

Well, actually,

now that the black dresser is out of the bedroom,

things are looking a lot better.

But still.

Anyway, it is a perfectly lovely room, with lovely views of the backyard and of the street. It is not even cold anymore, now that we found a space heater in the laundry room/bathroom.

The house holds around 18 people in the summer, for the proper season, so it is positively roomy with only six of us - just the perfect amount of space, actually. Four bathrooms; one on each floor, and one of which is also a laundry room. The kitchen is wooden and upstairs, which is weird, but it is functional. Eight bedrooms, five of which are occupied and one of which contains about ten mattresses, all in a stack. Two living rooms and a dining room. Also, adjoining, the scene and costume shops and relevant storage, but we don't venture there often. Dave buys our groceries, so we eat delicious food, which we frequently cook together or at least for each other. It is lovely!

We also, because Monika, who is in the Pirates cast, has a semi-adopted barn cat who just had five kittens, and needed someone to foster them, have three kittens!

From top to bottom:

Kaipo;

Climbing Gus;

Pip.

I am trying to convince Jamie to try to convince Rita, our landlord, to modify her no-pets policy. But then I would have to pick only one or two to adopt! I don't know how to choose! Pip is super chill and sleeps a lot and is not afraid of anyone and also is kind of adventurous. Climbing Gus will climb onto your shoulder, and also onto other things, and is super playful but also will cuddle when tired and is the smallest and therefore the cutest. Kaipo was the scarediest to start with, and is still nervous about new situations and new people, but is actually very curious and cuddly, sort of in between the cuddliness of Pip and the activity of Gus.

So difficult to choose!

But I probably won't even have to choose, because probably we can't have cats. Alas. We will see.

Anyway, as you can see, this is a fun house, with fun people and animals! I have to go eat lunch now, and take a walk, but I will update again this week! Next up: Apple picking; AppleFest; Narnia tea party; Freeport; delicious baked goods.