Sisters in the City

The sisters are still tearin’ up Bean Town. It’s been a couple of ruckus days with early dinners, movie night, homework, and lounging on the couch. It’s also been filled with amazing food, tasty drinks, wedding planning (!!!), slap-happy laughing, and just good ol’ fashion fellowship. The fun continues until tomorrow morning!

Some pictures from Saturday afternoon:

Courtney lives in Beacon Hill. It's ahh-mazingly charming.

 

Even window boxes have charm

 

Courtney doing her "Beacon Hill thing." Just living the dream.

 

"Pumpkin" happens to be my favorite word in the English language.

 

A romantic stroll through the Public Gardens.

Bwah-ston

I’m going to see my sweet, little, tiny, baby sister today (we’re 13 months apart, by the way). Courtney just moved to Boston in September for a dietetic internship at Mass General Hospital. Totally neat, right? And we haven’t been able to participate in our usual antics for over two months. It’s been rough. I anticipate a weekend of inside jokes that aren’t even funny, laughing til were blue in the face and making her roommate uncomfortable, too much food and wine, and continuing to turn everything we say into a song.

 

Oh, Snap!

I got a new camera!!

I lost my other one in Thailand and have felt incomplete without something besides my mind to remember things that I see. I took my sexy new Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8 for a test drive last night with Adam. We went to Osteria La Bottiglia in downtown Charleston for some red wine and live music. What a splendid evening.

 

 

Mid-week Movie

This morning I jumped into a power yoga session, designed by yours truly. I took a few pieces from last week’s class, but made adjustments along the way. For instance, I did maybe 25 chaturangas (more or less push-ups) instead of 50 (million). Hopefully my arms won’t kill me tomorrow like they did last week. Honestly, shampooing my hair was a struggle due to how sore I was. But, like a hard drug, yoga pulls me in and sometimes I just can’t get enough.

Speaking of hard drugs, Adam and I watched the movie Half Nelson last night and I can highly recommend it. It can be really hard for me to watch people participating in drug use (mostly because drugs are scary!), but while the movie examines his addiction to crack and cocaine, it doesn’t glorify it. Ryan Gosling (heart throb) plays the freebasing teacher, Dan, whose life is in shambles. Throughout the movie we see his continuing dependence on the drug and inability to pull himself away from its grip. The movie is dark, no doubt about it, but the acting is amazing. I usually don’t push this type of movie, but I will make an exception in this case and urge you to see it. Plus, who doesn’t want to watch Ryan Gosling for an hour or two? <—Sorry, I know that’s cliche but I just had to include it.

Below is a quote from Dan, taking from a lesson he’s teaching about history. Sadly, his drug use has gotten so out of control at this point that he is now high in the classroom and trying to teach. Though his mind is certainly clouded at this point, this quote still remains thoughtful:

“Change moves in spirals, not circles. For example, the sun goes up and then it goes down. But everytime that happens, what do you get? You get a new day. You get a new one. When you breathe, you inhale and you exhale, but every single time that you do that you’re a little bit different then the one before. We’re always changing. And its important to know that there are some changes you can’t control and that there are others you can. “

Long-Winded

Right now I am reading Absalom, Absalom!by William Faulkner for my Southern Lit class. This is the second time I have read Faulkner, the first time during

I can read good.

my sophomore year of undergrad. Five years later I felt a little more prepared to tackle this literary giant and make sense out of the seeming mess of his work.

Mess is obviously the wrong word, but at first glance, that’s exactly what it feels like. His sentences are long and contrived and full of run-on sentences, abused punctuation, multiple perspectives, and hidden meanings. Don’t believe me? An excerpt:

“Quentin had grown up with that; the mere names were interchangeable and almost myriad. His childhood was full of them; his very body was an empty hall echoing with sonorous defeated names; he was not a being, an entity, he was a commonwealth. He was a barracks filled with stubborn back-looking ghosts still recovering, even forty-three years afterward, from the fever which had cured the disease, waking from the fever without even knowing that it had been the fever itself which they had fought against and not the sickness, looking with stubborn recalcitrance backward beyond the fever and into the disease with actual regret, weak from the fever yet free of the disease and not even aware that the freedom was that of impotence” (7).

I didn’t make that up, I swear. And if that isn’t confusing enough (which it is, let’s not kid ourselves), that passage is about the Civil War and Reconstruction. So, yeah. Last night I read a sentence that was three pages long. Though, that is nowhere near the record for the longest sentence in the English language. That honor belongs to Jonathan Coe’s book, The Rotters Club, which contains a sentence that is 13,955 words long. See ya never.

This isn’t a post to show you how neat I am for reading long, confusing sentences and then finding (hopefully) intelligent things to say about them. Rather, I have been comparing this Faulkner effort to the one five years ago and am very happy to recognize how much better this one is going. While Absalom, Absalom! is no walk in the park, it definitely offers an intrinsic reward for me. The effort of struggling through a book and taking pages of notes, just to stay with the plot-line is rewarding, as opposed to frustrating, like it was several years ago. Methinks I won’t be picking up every Faulkner novel out there tomorrow, but I do think there is something to be said for stepping outside of one’s comfort zone, intellectually sparring with a book and feeling better on the other side.

 

Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! New York: Vintage Books, 1986. Print.

Photo courtesy of goodreads.com

Side Order

Disclaimer: If you have a “thing” about suspicious items found in your food, items that should NEVER been found in anything meant to be consumed, then stop reading and visit another fantastic blog on your queue today.

 

So here we go: I almost didn’t blog about this, but then decided this is too heinous not to share. Again, feel free to stop reading; you won’t hurt my feelings.

On Friday night Adam and I went to do dinner after strolling around through downtown Charleston for a little Art Walk among the galleries. Hunger hit us like a force and we fled to find food. After perusing a few menus and finding everything a bit too much for what we wanted, we alighted on a restaurant, nay a bar, that I heard served good burgers and sandwiches. Perfect for what we wanted, something low-key.

We order beers and food in the same round and settle in, impatiently waiting for food to soothe our rumbling tummies. Halfway through our beer the food arrives and we quickly dive in: chicken tender sandwich with a side of pasta salad for him and a chicken parmesan sandwich with a side salad for her.

I went in for the kill on my salad as I was missing fresh produce from my life that day. I pumped the breaks on the roughage to tuck into my sammie and got a few bites in before offering a bite to Adam. A few more bites of salad, another bite of sandwich. And then I saw it.

Mind if I join you for dinner?

A whole string of expletives went through my head. I’ll spare you the details.

I asked my strong, burly, manly man for confirmation of the wild beast and he confirmed that, yes, there was a palmetto bug, a cockroach melted into the cheese of my sandwich. I wanted to give the suspicious blob the benefit of the doubt for about a millisecond: I had hoped it was only a piece of lettuce that was just really dark…and thick…and had antennae (grasping for straws, I know!).

White napkins were thrown and we surrendered to the bug and his wily ways. A waiter was called over, the situation explained, and he too went straight to the expletive and expressed how embarrassed and horrified he was. A completely free tab and free drinks for the rest of the night and a $25 voucher for our next visit were thrust upon us by the manager, along with a slew of apologies.

It was gross and it was disgusting and I still get gooseflesh when I think about finding that dinosaur bug in my food. Thankfully, the restaurant handled the massive monstrosity well and we did too. I just know that I will never be able to order another morsel of food from that joint.

(insert full-body shiver)

 

Photo courtesy of pubs.ext.vt.edu

Sometimes, You Just Need a Little Laser in Your Life.

 

I have been listening to this song for over a year now and I still can’t get enough. Adam and I were recalling yesterday that this is one of those tunes that is always a good idea. No matter what, when I hear it, I’m pumped. I never press Next or skip it; it’s a song that makes you feel good while you’re listening to it, and even a little bit afterwards.

A song that makes you want to jump up and say, “Yes! (fist pump) Today is the day that is today.”

Do you have a song like this?

Get it, Fanny!

Well, turns out that The Blithedale Romance was one part snooze-fest, one part mass-confusion, and one part complete verbosity. Not the enjoyable read I was hoping for. But, all is not lost because next up in my 1850s class is Ruth Hall by Fanny Fern. This semi-autobiographical novel was one of the most sold books of the 1850s, and by a woman no less! I’m about 40 pages in and already very intrigued.

In short, Ruth leads a pretty rough life and has been harrassed by just about everyone she has ever known, family included. The novel is more or less about her story of struggle and her ability to eventually overcome odds that everyone felt were against her. Ruth Hall was heavily criticized, however, because people just couldn’t believe that a woman could be filled with so much emotion. Seriously. They thought that Fanny Fern had written in such an “unfeminine” way, and it made it difficult to appreciate anything about the novel. This kind of justification for a negative review would never hold today, but it’s so interesting to think of the double standards and unfairness that women lived with 150 years ago.

In the introduction to the book, written by Susan Belasco, a small excerpt is included. Fanny Fern was a highly esteemed journalist (even if not everyone agreed with her novel) and had this to say to the readership of the New York Ledger:

“Write! Rescue a part of each week at least for reading, and putting down on paper, for your own private benefit, your thoughts and feelings. Not for the world’s eye unless you choose, but to lift yourselves out of the dead-level of your lives; to keep off inanition (sic); to lessen the number who are yearly added to our lunatic asylums from the ranks of the misappreciated (sic), unhappy womanhood, narrowed by lives made up of details. Fight it! Oppose it, for your own sakes and your children’s! (August 10, 1867)” (xxxix)

I mean, come on. How great is that? I couldn’t agree more on the importance of reading each day, even if it is just a little before bedtime. I’ve realized over the past couple years how important writing is to me as well. I truly love coming up with things to write about on this forum, and even emails can be a pleasure (nerd alert!). Dare I say that my paper writing has become less of a burden? No, not yet. That’s just too fast, too furious.

But, honestly, I think what Miss Fern had to say was so inspiring. Whatever may be burdening our day, our mind or our heart, take a little time to read and write and let’s see how much better we feel.

 

Belasco, Susan. Introduction. Ruth Hall. By Fanny Fern. New York: Penguin Books, 1997. xv-xlv. Print.

Tru Luv

It’s official: True love reigns supreme.

It is impossible for me to be more happy for Jared and Courtney. Congratulations on your engagement!!

See how fantastic they look being so domestic? Can you say, Meant to be?

I’ve Got the Power

Yes I do!

I went to a Power Yoga class today, per the suggestion of a girl I met this weekend. She had great things to say about the studio so I figured this week would be a great time to try it out (first time is free, wahoo!). I decided on a noon session to break up my studying day. I have a midterm tomorrow night (remember tests??) and knew I would need a brain break at some point. Yoga seemed like the perfect cure.

When I got to the studio I filled out my waiver (totally normal) then put everything in a cubby and attempted to make my way into the practice room. The teacher stopped me beforehand and gave me a towel and asked if I have a full bottle of water and something to secure my hair– “You’re gonna sweat, girl!” This got me a little weary, but I wasn’t afraid. I was ready for practice.

I walked into the room to find it a balmy 90 degrees. Yummy. As I laid down my mat and started to prepare for class I noticed everyone throwing these towel-type devices on top of their mats. I went to the teacher to inquire the purpose of these pseudo-mats and she informed me they were to absorb all the sweat–“It gets really intense in there!” Bad sign. Have we met? I sweat an extraordinary amount during fitness.

So here we are, a few minutes into doing our yoga thing in a summer atmosphere (not quite Bikram, but almost there), and I can feel the sweat just on the inside of my skin waiting to jump out like it’s a surprise party. Then, BAM! just after we start going on sun salutations I am a leaky facet. For realz. (By the way, apologies if you got all the way to this point and you are totally repulsed. I should have given a warning.) For the remainder of class I attempted to keep my footing on the mat and not treat it like a slip ‘n slide.

Overall, I really enjoyed the experience. It was not the same flow as the practice I am used to. This was much more focused on strength and constant movement to build body heat as opposed to flexibility and deep stretch (obvi, it’s called Power Yoga). It’s been a while since I have worked my heart this hard because of the break I have taken from running, so in that sense it was great to get the blood flowin’. Next time (if there is a next time–the classes are $15 a pop) I will definitely invest in one of those anti-slick mats and prevent a possible head injury.