1) Maira Kalman.  She is the author/illustrator of a number of children and adult books.  My favorite of which is The Pursuit of Happiness which is an incredible and beautiful book (originally a blog on the New York Times website) all about Kalman’s experience of America.  It is brilliant and beautiful and you should buy it immediately because it’s brilliant and beautiful and really the sort of book that is glorious to hold in your hands and treasure.  Kalman is by far the best thing I’ve read in awhile; she can even make ultra-liberal me feel patriotic about America.

2) The Mark Twain House.  Big surprise here.  I live in Connecticut and have never been to this house museum before.  And I was pleasantly surprised when I attended a talk there on Wednesday night: Mark Twain vs. Jane Austen.  They had an excellent professor as a guest speaker: Dr. Barbara Mann from the University of Toledo, who deftly and humorously lectured on Jane Austen’s life and work and then argued for Mark Twain as pedophile.   No joke.  And, it was convincing and enlightening and (to be honest) kind of cool as someone who, personally, has never been overly enamored with Twain.

So, then, two things to check out: Maira Kalman’s books and the Mark Twain House (if you happen to be stopping by Connecticut).

SO, I shall share the only remotely interesting thing I’ve done since this dreadful snowy winter has begun (Weather/World Rant:  I’ve NEVER seen so much snow on the ground and they’re forecasting more!  The sky is falling in the form of snow.  With that and the cyclone in Australia and the riots and upheaval in Egypt and John Boehner as Speaker of the House all the other wacky stuff?  I’m thinking: maybe the apocalypse is coming?)

ANYWAY, I did recently finish reading Jennifer Lancaster’s Such a Pretty Fat which was, in a word, delightful.  It is, essentially, Jen Lancaster’s experience of trying to lose weight upon the realization that her lifestyle was becoming unhealthy for her.  One of her major realizations was that her high self-esteem might be making her fat because she saw herself so positively.  While the possibility of diabetes and heart disease are less than appealing, I find her sense of self and self-esteem highly appealing. But, ultimately, this book is fun to read.  It’s not the typical dieting memoir.  There’s no whining, no complaining, no endless stories of a sad, fat childhood and the psychological terror that apparently MUST go with being fat and yet she captures many of the feelings that I think almost all women experience when they do try to lose weight.  Mostly, though, this book was hilarious.

There are probably better words for it but for being stressed out and having cabin fever and all of that–this book put a smile on my face.  I often laughed aloud whilst reading it.  Lancaster’s prose is witty and clever; her story flows and reads quickly.  This is a great memoir: fun, funny, and honest.  I don’t have a huge amount more to say but what I will go on to say is that even though I’ve known of Jennifer Lancaster for a LONG TIME, I’d somehow never yet gotten around to reading any of her books and just happened to pick this one up.  It was a good choice.  Having just finished Eat, Pray, Love, I was struck by the difference.  Lancaster is just as much a privileged white woman whining, BUT she knows it.  And that makes the difference: the fabulous sense of humor.  And, it was like comfort food (crap pun intended).  So, pick up one of Lancaster’s books ASAP and read it when your looking for something fun and funny.

I believe she’s coming out with a new book in May called If You Were Here which (I think) is her first foray into fiction).  So, I’m definitely planning on looking into that because I’m really curious to see what she does with fiction having done memoirs so far.  Okay, enough said.

Until next time, I remain stress-fully yours.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to enjoy my winter break.  It was a crazy semester: I’ve never written so many research papers.  Work was stressful.  Then there were the holidays.  But, here I am on the other side of it all.  I definitely have some book reivews that I can write and some books I’m really excited to read.  Recently, I’ve read Villette by Charlotte Bronte (for Victorian Lit class) and then followed it up with Jane Eyre, which I’d somehow never read.  Both are fabulous; Charlotte Bronte is completely brilliant and wholly fascinating.  I got Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love for Christmas and read it; it was interesting and I’m looking forward to writing a review of it largely because I have significantly mixed feelings about it.  I’d already read her Committed this summer (review on this blog!) and I liked it better.  More to come in a hopefully soon-to-arrive review of Gilbert’s blockbuster.

I’m hoping to dig into some of Malcolm Gladwell’s books soon.  I’ve had Outliers recommended specifically to me and I’m hoping to dig in soon.  I’m also reading, in a roundabout way, Personality by David Nettles, which is a fascinating book which breaks down the big five personality traits.  There’s a quick little test in the back that you can take, an inventory if you will, and it revealed that mostly I’m neurotic, which I knew but somehow it isn’t reassuring.  So, anyway, I’m hoping to talk more about that book here eventually as well.

In other news, my jewelry as sold a bit at the spa but not much, which is a little sad.  I had a total jewelry making renaissance for Christmas when I gave out a bunch of my stuff and that was awesome.  I really enjoyed making the jewelry, and I feel as though I’ve really improved.  Still, it’s troubling and dispiriting that the stuff hasn’t sold that well and it’s an expensive hobby to keep up without much purpose.  I’m not giving up, per se, but I see the drawbacks.

Finally, I’ve spent a huge amount of time, especially since the semester ended, working on a fellowship article which is about PTSD and recovery from psychological trauma in Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Ceremony by Leslie Silko.  Both are fabulous novels and the paper topic utterly fascinates me but the writing can be (and often is) both draining and frustrating.  I never imagined how much work this would be.

So, that’s where I am in my life right now.  Hopefully, I’ll manage to develop a better habit of posting something here with some regularity.  So that’s that.  Hopefully, I’ll write you soon.

Anyway, the happy, happy news is that my work is now selling some of my jewelry, which is WAY exciting.  I’m totally thrilled.  Now, only time will tell how well the stuff sells but now I’m excited to make more and experiment more.  I’m toying with working more with opal, jade, and definitely more with necklaces and bracelets.  Which, of course, means I need more supplies, but at least it has gotten somewhat exciting again and, depending on if/when the stuff sells, I just might go out and buy a bunch more.  It’s a nice distraction from the seemingly never-ending monotony of school work.

I’m also waiting (have been for a month) on a student teaching placement (eep!).  This is totally nerve-wracking because several other people in my program have already been placed, and I haven’t really heard anything.  So, hopefully soon I’ll get one (although to be perfectly honest I am in no way enthusiastic about student teaching–big ick).  Although, I have made one decision, preliminarily about my potential future teaching career: I will be a total idealogue about it and my ideology will be all about teaching writing.  More to come, perhaps, on that later.

Mostly, for right now I plan to get as much school work done as possible day by day and bask in the fact that my jewelry is actually for sale somewhere.

Okay…maybe not.  Or, at least, I suspect that’s not coming out the way that I really want it to.  Let me rephrase: the impossible vastness of whales freaks me out.  I got to thinking about this because of this collection of photos I saw on treehugger.com:

Whale Pictures

And, while I was fascinated by the shots, I found them rather discomfiting, too.  And it was then that I really thought about how I feel about whales, the ocean, etc.  Now, I love the beach–I love the smell of fresh, sea-salt air; I love the look of beaches and sand and sun and the ocean and ocean rocks and marshes and all of that.  I love, too, being on boats.  But, the idea of enormous whales and the deep, vast sea, all of which could simply suck me up and make me disappear forever?  Not so much.  So, then, it’s vanity–but here’s the truth: huge creatures like whales and impossibly huge things like the ocean make me realize my own insignificance.

Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness

Gore goes on to discuss motherhood, which is fine but uninteresting to me (I, again, remember the discomfort of being a woman who doesn’t want children, even with the accepting Gore leading the conversation). More interesting to me was Gore’s later discussion of women and finances and while she discussed many issues the two most interesting to me were: micro-lending for women and what Gore calls (brilliantly) the FU fund. Can I just say that I love the very concept of an FU fund (or, if you want to couch it more positively a new start fund)? What a great idea! Basically, of course, it’s the notion that you have enough money stored away that if your job totally sucks or you need to get out of a shitty relationship, money won’t stop you. The suggestion is that you keep a couple months worth of expenses on hand for said fund. One of the key things to remember of course is that this is NOT an emergency fund. This is a fund for those times when you need to really change things up. It isn’t an emergency per se but it is a great and important thing. (I speak, to a degree from experience here.)

What Gore brings up about “micro credit” is also interesting. She discusses the creation of the Grameen banks (and banks like it) by Muhammad Yunus. Gore explains much about the Grameen bank in its early days and about women’s status in the world,

In defiance of the old-school Bangladeshi banking system, which treated women as second-class borrowers, the Grameen Bank set out to loan money to women and men on an equal basis, but bank founders soon discovered that women were more effective agents of change.  When extra income came into a household through the woman, the children’s diet, the family’s health, and the household repairs got first priority.  Men were more likely to spend some of their money down at the tavern.  Women also turned out to be more creditworthy–we repaid our loans.  But the most compelling reason to treat women as priority clients was in the Grameen Bank’s mandate itself: to lend to the poorest first.  And women represented the poorest of the poor.  Ninety-seven percent of the bank’s borrowers are now women, repayment rates are near 100%, and bank borrowers become bank owners when they repay their loans and begin saving.

Firstly, brava Mr. Yunus!  Second, interesting to see that those who have generally been treated with the least respect and power with regards to money are the best with it.  Interesting.

In any case, Gore’s book makes for a fascinating read which does read something like a manifesto of female happiness.  I genuinely enjoyed her voice and attitude and her melding of hard data and experiential data.  Gore’s is a clear and reasonable voice among the many currently clamoring to corner the market on happiness.  I genuinely enjoyed her feminist–and feminine–perspective.

Frugality has been on my mind a lot lately.  I’m a mere 13 days away from the beginning of my second year of graduate school (let’s not talk about it, okay?) and this will be the year that I student teacher (in the spring; let’s not talk about that either?  Please?) and so I am planning to be very, very poor.  Or, rather I’m accepting that reality and trying to figure out my game plan.  I’m fortunate enough (so, so fortunate) to be with someone who’s with me 100% and has a full time job.  But, it’s still on my mind.  I’ve vowed (only to myself, until now) that I’m going to seriously limit my spending.  I’m no longer buying shoes, or dvds, or purses, or books or any of the things that used to be my biggest temptations.  I plan to keep this up for as long as possible, but it’s a challenge.  It’s especially challenging when I think of things that could be cut out of my life (monthly bills leap to mind–things like internet and cable and cell phones, etc) and things like food that are totally necessary but suck up money like a black hole.  Well, in any case it’s the cell phone situation that’s on my mind right now because my contract is up and I’m torn.  I kind of want an iPhone or some other smart phone but I suspect that it may ultimately end up a kind of empty purchase–the thing you think you really want and would be super cool and then you get it and it’s a total letdown.  You know, one of those things that absolutely epitomizes that money/stuff can’t bring happiness?  So, I’m thinking about it and I’m thinking about various ways not to spend money.  And so, I found it interesting that today, via Twitter, I stumbled across this post about things learned from frugality.  (As a note while I’m totally into living simply and keeping finances really simple, I also don’t ever want to be cheap; cheap people are the biggest killjoys EVER).  What’s interesting to me about reading this man’s post is not his observations (it’s a lot of what you’d expect) but the knowledge that someone did it and that these were some of his observations.  Certainly worth considering.

Blog Post from The Simple Dollar

To get anywhere close to unraveling this subject–women and marriage–we have to start with the cold, ugly fact that marriage does not benefit women as much as it benefits men.  I did not invent this fact, and I don’t like saying it, but it’s a sad truth, backed up by study after study.  By contrast, marriage as an institution has always been terrifically beneficial for men.  If you are a man, say the actuarial charts, the smartest decision you can possibly make for yourself–assuming that you would like to lead a long, happy, healthy, prosperous existence–is to get married.  Married men perform dazzlingly better in life than single men. [...] Dishearteningly, the reverse is not true.  Modern married women do not fare better in life than their single counterparts.  Married women in America do no live longer than single women; married women do not accumulate s much wealth as single women (you take a 7 percent pay cut, on average, just for getting hitched);  married women do not thrive in their careers to the extent single women do; married women are significantly less healthy than single women; married women are more likely to suffer from depression than single women; and married women are more likely to die a violent death than single women–usually at the hands of a husband, which raises the grim reality that, statistically speaking, the most dangerous person in the average woman’s life is her own man. (Gilbert 166-167)

What?!?  Hi, excuse me, why the fuck would I want to get married after hearing that?  And, furthermore, why do little girls still dream about getting married; hell, why do adult women still dream about it?  I’ve always been a bit skeptical about marriage–even more so about having children, an activity that I think is truly good for precious few women–but this (!).  Ouch.  Gilbert points out as the passage continues that this “Marriage Benefit Imbalance” is continually shrinking, but still.  If you’re looking for something to be mad about as a woman, this isn’t a bad start.  Especially when one considers the oh-so-irritating nagging wife reputation that women seem to be almost universally judged by.

And, if you want my opinion about men, well, consider this passage,

Traditional societies have long recognized that nothing is more useless to a community than a whole bunch of single, childless young men (aside from their admittedly useful role as cannon fodder, of course). (198)

Aha!  This explains so much about my own, personal opinions about men, based (I might add) almost solely on my own experiences and observations–because, you see, I have primarily observed men my own age who are these “useless,” “single, childless young men.”

Seriously, though, in marriage men may need to give up a bit of their wildness but women inevitably give up much more.  To be a wife is to be a caretaker and, usually, a mother–and what’s more absorbing?  Time-consuming?  And, let’s be honest, for some women, soul-sucking?  And, yet, women almost universally feel compelled to do these things?  We inevitably pair off (and if we don’t, we usually wish we did) and have (usually) have children and while I am wholly unfamiliar with the very notion of this many women (I have seen this on more than one occasion) seem to do both these things with very little thought or preparation.  Why?  I can’t say and neither can Gilbert.

But, ultimately, Gilbert is searching for reason to get married because she’s being forced by by Homeland Security.  Her love is a Brazilian of Australian citizenship and will not be allowed to enter America if they don’t pass government inspection and get married.  And, so, she wants to make peace with marraige.  And, one of the ways she does so is to explore the subversive qualities of marriage.  Gilbert discusses a book, The Subversive Family, by Ferdinand Mount (Sir William Robert Ferdinand Mount) that argues that far from being the institution we typically think of marriage as it’s actually an enduring product of couples themselves and that while churches and governments like to take ownership of marriage as an institution, they only do so because they cannot stop it.  Fascinating.  So fascinating I’ll say it again.  Churches and governments first try to outlaw or stop marriage.  For centuries the Christian church did just that–they argued for the avoidance of marriage if at all possible.  Anyone who has read with any focus the teachings/epistles of Paul in the Bible would know that he strongly argued against marriage and for universal celibacy.  Then, when they (in this case, the Catholic church) realized universal celibacy would simply never happen they took ownership of it placing all manner of rules and regulations on it.  Then, they pretended that they made up the whole IDEA of marraige in the first place.  Ditto for governments, which is why the “family values” people pretend as though the institution is something that flows out and through government and country itself which is simply an historical, cultural and societal inaccuracy.  The truth is, what happens between people behind closed doors is always their own business and thus, Gilbert and her husband are right when they say, “Marriage is a game.  They (the anxious and powerful) set the rules.  We (the ordinary and subversive) bow obediently before those rules.  And then we go home and do whatever the hell we want anyhow.” (265).
I shall stop ranting now to say that I can understand Gilbert’s enormous success with Eat, Pray, Love (though I have not read it).  She presents a lively and lovely personality through her narrative with just a lovely hint of neuroticism that I think every woman can fully relate to.  Struck through all her writing is shrewd intelligence coupled with a homey, pleasant narrative that I found remarkably easy to relate to.  I enjoyed “getting to know” Gilbert in this book and found that her words helped me meditate further on my own beliefs.  (She also made me want to travel more, which is probably something, given my finances, that I didn’t need, but someday… )  Gilbert also advances the most honest, non-defensive, and intelligent argument in favor of women who choose not to have children.  I find it quite tempting.  But, that is, perhaps, enough of my ranting for one post.

Alright, this picture is blurry and does not do these earrings justice.  They’re really pretty and they catch light wonderfully.  They are made of sterling silver and same color but different sized crystals, clustered together.  Gorgeous.

To the left is another shot of these earrings, perhaps better, with another pair of cluster earrings in the foreground make of lovely oval beads that are a luminescent pink.

Next we have a really lovely pair of hanging cluster earrings, this time make of green, circular shells, very thin and assorted other green beads.  These are longer, probably 1 1/2 to 2 inches.

Next, is a necklace.  The pendant features a lovely, bright green bead with sterling silver ornamentation.  The pendant is hanging on two, purple beaded strings, twisted together.

These earrings, made of oval, light green jade, and accented by gold hang only very slightly.  When actually worn, they cluster together much more than in this picture.  The jade stones have a really lovely, light green color. These could also easily be re-created using silver as the accent and the earwire.

Well, that’s it for now.  The more I look at them, the more I think these pictures are truly dreadful representations of the jewelry, but what can I do?  I only have the old digital camera and it does NOT like taking these pictures.  So, this is what you get.  Oh, well…

Until next time…

No, seriously, we did this.

I said it didn’t hurt that much…but, then, I wouldn’t want one to just FALL on my head.  And, really, how often do you have a pillow over your head when you sleep?  Personally, not that often.

I imagined my cat, Eli, crippled.  I imagined needing to explain it to the vet.  I imagined seeing him in some sort of kitty wheel chair.

We immediately removed the mirrors we’d affixed thus far and returned them.

I created two collages in 12×12(ish) album frames with photographs I’ve taken in my (meager) travels.  I bought a long rectangular asian flower print.  Chris was supposed to make his own two collages (or anything that would fit in the frames) thereby completing the tableau (right use of this word?) but that hasn’t happened yet.  (I made mine in February.)

So much for home improvement.

At least we realized that the dishwasher we thought was broken was actually not broken but connected to a light switch and thus will only work when said switch is in the on position.  Glad we were too lazy and indecisive to buy a new dishwasher (I’m dead serious when I say that for months we thought the dishwasher was simply dead.  During these months I did the dishes by hand.  These were NOT good times.)