Foooood... and books

I made lasagna tonight. Other than being a little crunchy on the top, I’d call it a success. I simultaneously love and hate cooking. I really like to bake and I’ve reached a relative level of comfort with that, but for some reason cooking still causes me some bizarre unfounded anxiety. I enjoy the results though. And hopefully if I continue, I’ll become more comfortable with it and then bye-bye cooking anxiety!

… I can dream.

It also helps that there are lots of recipes I want to try. I find them everywhere, from the packaging of various products, to blogs, to books(!). Some of the books I’ve read in the past have really great looking recipes interspersed within the stories. A lot of those recipes come from colorful family backgrounds and work to bring a sort of authenticating feel to various memoirs (or what I have now become accustomed to calling Life Writing).

I also have a bunch of cookbooks I should really peruse. Every once in a while I get a vegetarian cookbook and go through it and mark things I want to make. Usually things end about there. I’d like to try to take things a little bit further this summer and maybe succeed in making some of the dishes.

Teaching myself to cook is part of my bettering-myself plan for the summer. I kind of have one every summer. Or every season. Or all the time. This summer I’m supposed to be relaxing. No one seems to realize how stressful not stressing out is for me. So anyway, in between relaxing and stressing about relaxing I will be reading, taking my Chinese course, and working (assuming I get a job. I need a job. Badly. I am B-R-O-K-E), but I will also try to cook/bake more, be more active (gotta get into rugby shape!), devote more time to arts and crafts, and sleep. And update the blog, of course. AND (and yes, I know I already said it, but it’s important) read. I will be reading a lot this summer. I always do, but I need to start figuring out what I want to write my thesis on, and the best way I can figure out how to do that is by reading, so that is what I intend to do.

A re-read reminiscence

I just finished re-reading Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I read it at some point in high school, but it was one of those books that took me an eternity to finish because I would pick it up during a break or long weekend, but then totally forget about it for months at a time during the school year when other books and activities monopolized my time.

I’d forgotten how different it is from the musical. Oh yes, dear reader, I forgot to mention. There are many layers of dorkdom beyond this not-so-pulled-together façade. Other than the obvious, and among others, I am a huge theatre geek. I love everything theatre related and am thoroughly obsessed. The flames of passion have dampened a bit since I started college – less time and more demands on my attention, but the love remains. Don’t try to talk to me on Tony night. And don’t be surprised if interspersed with all the other genres on my iTunes list you find showtunes. Actually, my music library is probably still about 40% showtunes. The remaining percentage covers the majority of the rest of the spectrum. Excluding country and rap (and not even those two entirely), almost every musical genre has found a place somewhere in my music library.

I have veered horribly off-course (though still focusing on something that belongs in a library). Where was I? Oh yes, Wicked. Good book. I recommend it. Every once in a while it gets a bit frustrating, but it’s nothing an even slightly determined reader can’t work through.

Wicked is a great story on its own, but it’s even more enticing because of the familiarity of the subject matter. Everyone knows the story of Dorothy, her companions, and the Wicked Witch of the West (and if they don’t, what rock do they live under? I may not be up on all that’s hip, but the Wizard of Oz is classic. A childhood staple. But I digress…), but Maguire shifts the focus onto the antagonist of the well-loved story. Once he asks the questions – why does the Wizard want the Witch dead? How did the Witch become what she is? Is she really evil? What is evil? – you can’t help but wonder. And then you’re drawn in and there’s no turning back. Maguire doesn’t promise answers, and whether or not he delivers any is up to the reader, but Wicked’s is a captivating and enjoyable journey either way.

Readers... Bluestocking Revolution. Bluestocking Revolution... readers

And now for an actual introduction to this new blog…

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a bluestocking as follows:
“Of women: Having or affecting literary tastes; literary, learned” or “One who frequented Mrs. Montague’s ‘Blue Stocking’ assemblies; thence transferred sneeringly to any woman showing a taste for learning, a literary lady.”

According to Wikipedia, “A bluestocking is an educated, intellectual woman. Such women are stereotyped as being frumpy and the reference to blue stockings refers to the time when woolen worsted stockings were informal dress, as compared with formal, fashionable black silk stockings.”

The stereotype that developed is what has sparked my ‘revolution’. Reading is sexy. I know it, you know it, and hopefully a lot more people will know it as well.

I spend the greater part of my life surrounded by strong, intelligent, amazing women and there is nothing frumpy or sneer-worthy about them. It’s time to take back bluestocking and make it ours.

I don’t promise that all my posts from now on will be particularly enlightening or intelligent or even interesting, but it’s my blog and I’ll do what I want thankyouverymuch.

These are not spirit fingers... THESE are spirit fingers!

On an entirely seperate and, let's face it, much less intellectual note, Bring it On is on tv. I can't tear myself away... I love these ridiculous teen movies/ romantic comedies.

“There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction” ~Winston Churchill

So it's probably pretty obvious that I've made some changes to my blog.

The name and the look are most obvious, but I might try to change the focus a bit as well. Since I've decided to continue this exercise beyond the class, I think it's just something I need to do.

I'm slowly but surely making the changes and I guess we'll se what happens from there...

I can't find my book list. This distresses me much more than it probably should.

Also, I feel weird. Kind of woozy. That thought is not necessarily connected to the above. But possibly something to ponder...

Because I can only facebook stalk for an hour or two...

So generally speaking I've gotten a lot better in terms of procrastination and, you know, not doing it. That being said, I can still be an amazing champ at wasting time.

Today I was trying to work on the stuff that may or may not have been due yesterday (but it is impossible to get anything done in a timely manner when dealing with certain members of the dean's office), but it was messing with my head and just plain exhausting. So what is a mawrter in my place to do? Peruse blogs of course!

There's a blog that I love to read - Apocalypstick - and the writer is really just phenomenal. She's hilarious and smart and real - basically everything I wish I was. At the end of her posts she often links to different songs. I have spent the better part of today going through all (and I mean all) of her previous posts and downloading the songs. I now have an "Apocalypstick" playlist on iTunes and it contains 143 songs. I've got some listening to do...

I also have some translating to do. That's probably more urgent, huh? ugh.