02.08.10

looking out across the st lawrence today
waters frozen, still, barren
i finally understood what it meant -
when i realized that i could walk across the frozen waterway
in any direction
till i reached land
and no matter how long i walked or how far i walked
i would never find you again.

you were not anywhere out there.
you were really gone.

the holy ghost

i'm considering resurrecting this blog. i don't feel like i have anything to say about my life anymore; at least, nothing that's fit for public viewing (maybe herein lies the problem? i used to pretend like nobody ever read this? and now that nobody does anymore, maybe it's safe to begin again?).
_______________________________________________

the other week, i somehow randomly came across a tv show or other source of information that commented on cooking lamb, and how this form of young sheep was much tastier than old sheep, or mutton. i saw spots and almost had a seizure. seriously? baby sheep = lambs?

it's not two entirely different, albeit related, species (like goats? are you going to tell me now that goats are grandma sheep? and billy goat gruffs are their old corn pipe-smoking husbands?).

i had this image of little baby lambs, with tiny coltish legs far too little for me to eat (except maybe as an appetizer), hopping around in green pastoral fields, growing strong on grasses and daisies, one day growing into well-muscled, bleating adults before being herded onto a truck, whisked away from the bucolic splendor, hacked to bits, massaged with garlic and rosemary, and laid out steaming on my dinner table.

who wants to eat a fucking sheep?

while i was busy scanning my childhood database for how i could have missed this seemingly pertinent bit of information, kz was at first incredulous and then unabashedly amused. like seriously, really amused. even more amused than he was the time i told him that when i was 13 and i saw a nat geo special on llamas, i was shocked, dismayed, and disappointed to find out that they didn't have two heads. can i help it that i grew up with the old school rex harrison "dr doolittle" as a major source of my zoological information? it was the 80's, and laser discs of 'the trials of life' with david attenborough's mellifluous high-tea golf commentary weren't available yet.

the push-me-pull-you may have duped me for the better part of a decade, but i don't EAT llama. i don't get tiny stuffed llamas in my easter basket (why not, MOM???). i don't clamor for my dad to make roast leg of llama every time i come home. i don't carry around stuffed llamas in my purse and get high on swedish fish and joke to the attendant at store 24 that it's my "llama of god." i do, however, have a t-shirt that says "word to your llama" on it, and it's adorned with a cartoon of a sad looking mono-cranial llama, eyes downcast as it asks you imploringly if perhaps you've seen its missing twin head.

but seriously. lamb?
may the baby sheep of god have mercy on me.

FFL, srsly

so yeah, i'm doing fantasy football this year. scroll down to cut the crap and see my lineup.
so i just learned the rules of football from kz last season (i mean, i knew what a touchdown was, but i liked to call out "quarterback sack!" for everything short of an incomplete pass, because i liked calling that out, too; and then there were the continuous "tight end" jokes with brz). i got really into the superbowl last year and was named a blood-traitor by the rest of my giants-loving family (i mean, we are from NY) when i rooted for my local pats and sported my randy moss jersey everywhere. we had a party, and i made too little chili, and it was lots of fun, especially when it looked like we had those fuckers SEWN UP i tell you, and then all of a sudden we fucking LOST. and everyone went home early, dejected, souls deflated, silenced by their own misery. and my brother called and left me an elated, ranting voicemail i still have saved on my phone, as retribution for the smack-talking phone call i'd visited upon him on the morning of game day.

this year when the dudes in my lab offered to let me in their league, i jumped at the chance. i knew brz would be playing with his office mates, so i knew i'd be sitting through these games anyway and i figured it would be fun do to with some camaraderie (or better yet, some heated competition). anyone who knows me knows that if i decide to do something, i read up on it first and try to be awesome at it as soon as possible. so i tore out a FFL guide from the ESPN magazine in the waiting room of sports medicine, which i kept with me like a love letter for a week. i read some articles from a multitude of sites to get an overview; then i focused on the draft strategy, since i had to make it through that first. i came home with pages of my own cheat sheets, which i prompty showed off to brz and let him borrow when he made his own draft.

the day of the draft, i sweated through a mock draft on the ESPN server and was clicking my pen and shaking my knees like a crack addict. i did well and figured out how to use the software - i was ready. at draft time (7 pm) i ate a rushed dinner and logged in 20 min early; i knew randy moss would be mine no matter what - i had 4th pick out of 12 teams, and i doubted anybody else would draft a WR in the first round. indeed, he was mine.

that turned out to be the easiest part. the mid to last half of the draft saw a 45-min long spike in my blood pressure as i began muttering to myself, yelling at poor brz as he tried to eat his dinner mere feet from my cyclone of strategic fervor - tossing papers everywhere, searching for bye-week charts, screaming in rage when my next pick was swept out from under me a mere 2 turns ahead of me; these were my sleepers! how did they know??

probably because they read the same articles i did.

anyway, here's what i wound up with for Team SGT SLAUGHTER:

QB matt hasselbeck (SEA)
RB ryan grant (GB)
RB edgerrin james (ARI)
RB/WR reggie bush (NO)
WR RANDY FUCKING MOSS (NE)
WR santana moss (WA)

TE jeremy shockey (NO)
D titans
K josh scobee (JAC)

bench:
QB jason campbell (WA)
RB deangelo williams (CAR)
WR dante stallworth (CLE)
WR eddie royal (DEN)
TE tony scheffler (DEN)
RB kolby smith (KC) (i'd had NYG's derrick ward, but i just learned about depth charts this morning, and 3rd RB sounds like < 2nd RB, so...i picked smith up out of the free agents this morning)

so anyway, while of course i'd love to be legit awesome at FF, at least i'm doing it and i'll learn more about football in the process. and probably have more sex, pizza, and beer as part of sports-induced spousal bonding. i think it's a swell idea!!

jocks can be totally deep, man

this morning, as the sunlight projected lacy dancing patterns through the blinds, i prevaricated back and forth... should i ride my bike or not ride my bike.

it'd been 5 weeks since i rode, give or take. a sinus cold became a fever became over a month of both kz and me hacking into the night and nearly getting on the watchlist for maxing out the state limit of sudafed purchases per month.

after a breakfast of omelet and blueberry pancakes, i felt compelled to mitigate the damage with a short jaunt, and take advantage of a gorgeous day before fall sweeps in with its drain-clogging leaves, night frosts, and twinges of seasonal affective disorder.

all geared up in my embarrassing seat-crotch bike shorts and musty camelbak, i trotted down to the garage to greet fernando, my cheap and well-used hybrid of a year that i bought before i knew shit about bikes (i still really don't) when i didn't have much money (i still really don't).

i was overcome with guilt when i saw that not one, but two spider families and their gonad-like egg sacs had found comfortable real estate between my pedals and my brake cables. this was truly the hallmark of my decline in fitness over the last month or so. i literally have fucking cobwebs on my bike.

the ride went well; better than i expected for so long out of the saddle, so to speak. i contend that stationary biking and the 30-day shred DVD every other day don't count as offerings at the shrine of the god of exercise.

as i returned from my sunny 14-mile quickie, warmed up and beginning to build the sweaty limb salt crust, i was thinking about a recent discussion i'd had with kz about how exercise makes me feel, and why i find it so addictive. i was thinking about how he finds it so amazing how people do serious woodworking - something so satisfying to be done with your hands, a process so immediate and aesthetic on something natural and malleable but strong. and it made me think that i view myself as a similar kind of artisan, only i am both shaping and being shaped at the same time. and in being both the one who controls the molding and the object which is sculpted, no energy is lost in the transfer; it's my own closed system that i dictate and am dictated by every day.

so yeah, i went for my bike ride.

monday: a montage

so i've fallen off the face of the earth, first because i was preparing for qualifying, then because i was qualifying, then because i had just qualified and had a permi-hangover, then because i was doing all the shit i didn't do but should have been doing when i was qualifying...

and then i got sucked into the vortex of facebook, a fact which i can no longer deny. so it's been nothing but tagging mobile photos, scrabulous, and bumper stickers. you haven't missed anything.

but today sucked so righteously and i felt verbally constipated with my desire to describe why; then i realized i was missing my major bitch outlet: my blog. so here you go.

1) i got up at 6 am to finish working on a presentation scheduled for 9 am at school. true, i could have been working on this yesterday rather than sampling bbq ribs in government center and tossing back bud light lime like gatorade, but let's press on.

2) little mexican men were at my sliding glass door, prepping to powerwash at 7 am. glad i was wearing pants.

3) the dog went crazy (what dog has ever found little mexican men to be a calming presence?). i did not get that much work done.

4) i was running late, as i am wont to do, especially on a monday, especially after flying home and not unpacking.

5) i lost my ID badge so i had to hit up brz for $$ so i could park at school.

6) i drove through the shittiest storm ever, on my mixture of bald summer and bald snow tires. recall i was running late.

7) i got soaked to mid-thigh sprinting through the flooded streets and into the building in hopes of protecting my laptop in the deluge.

8) my presentation sucked. it was 2 hours of crap. but first my boss made everyone wait while i went and ran off 10 copies of a 14 page paper for everyone. at least the first 15 minutes were productive.

9) i had two things to go do at lunch: pick up my birth control and go get new tires. i forgot how to count and left school too late to run both my errands. now my ovaries are screaming at me and my pharmacist wonders why i called her 6 hours ago and begged her to fill my Rx as fast as she could.

10) i forgot i lost my ID and had to waste 15 min walking back to the cashier to pay with my parking ticket. i was running even later!

11) on the way to the tire store, my brand new $25 sigg bottle (bisphenol A-free) leaked 1 liter of fresh spring water all over my passenger seat.

12) and all over the directions.

13) and all over my brand new powder-blue purse, which bloomed with new stains from leeching of an unknown brown substance on my wet seat. hmm.

14) i got so quietly involved in my crossword puzzle, nobody noticed me at the tire store and my car was done for 45 minutes before i found out.

15) i had been away from work for precisely 4 hours and still had a 45 min drive back.

16) as i pulled onto the highway, i realized it was 4.30 pm and i was driving with all the commuting traffic out of boston. that explained a few things.

17) the sky turned black, locusts swarmed, and the next big holy hail storm cells approached.

i called brz, who told me to get off at the next exit and come wait out the storms at his office. he gave me a laptop, coffee, and fig newtons. and a hug and some sympathy. which induces me to recount the few good parts of my day:

1) fig newtons
2) brz came and had lunch with me while i waited for my car
3) coffee
4) i did not cry. yet.

happy fucking monday!!!!

who has two thumbs and just passed their qualifying exam?

THIS GUY!!!

SO I PASSED, and with flying colors, no less. the torture was over after a scant 90 minute oral examination and my chair, the dean, let me know how pleased my committee was with my presentation, my poise under fire, my enthusiasm for my hypotheses, and my well-written proposal. i was given the green light to commence thesis research.

hells yes, my friends. 2 years down; another 4 or so to go.

this spring has been reminiscent of last year's, especially the past 2 weeks where i was so stressed, i had trouble sleeping and even more trouble eating anything without the urge to vomit. i was like, where have i had this feeling before...oh yes...first year final exams and the wedding. and in 2 days, kz and i will once again enjoy a brief respite in the white mountains - exhausted and overworked and long due for a vacation, just like last time.

the familiar echoes of last spring are strange, but good; i've come so far in a year in so many ways, and have so far to go yet. every time i pass over a hurdle, personal or professional, the next one on the horizon is always bigger and more challenging. but how boring would life be otherwise?

i'm still alive

i'm just busy wading through the second most important hurdle in my grad school career.

today i made it through my abstract meeting, which was the gateway to 6 weeks in the 7th circle of hell. at the end of which, if i pass, i get to stay here for another ~4 years until i attempt the biggest hurdle, thesis defense. i'll worry about that one later.

start dusting off your vintage casks now, because as soon as this baby kicks, the corks will be flying - pass or fail, it's going to end with a lot of wine, beer steins, and a midget on a tricycle: