Insistence and chip pans

The thing lurking in that wad of plastic bags is a chip pan lathered in 5 year old oil. Gooey, rancid oil.

We were cooking a couple of weeks ago, and lamenting that each other's eating habits tend to nibble away at each of our basic "try not to get too fat while eating joyfully" regimens. I noted that I've been shoveling fries into my piehole at most opportunities since I met F, ranging from the luscious perfect chips of Skye to the indifferent dried out things that accompany my BLTs at the diner near the university. "Remind me not to order the chips with my next grilled cheese sandwich," I asked. "Oh, I can make much better chips!" he said. And burbled happily over to find the pan... which he realized had remained unwashed, well, since the last woman he'd lived with had moved out. Nearly 5 years ago.

"Hm, when an englishman is sad, he stops making chips," he observed. As we both gazed into the unearthly goo that had become something between liquid and solid. The sort of thing that guy at 3M would have made postits and a fortune out of.

Nothing so serendipitous. F attacked it with a scrubber and managed to pry the inner basket out of its glutinous prison. We ran out of time and inclination to deal with the cast iron part, the plastic bags containing the worst of the stink of disturbed rancid oil.

I mentioned it, in passing, to my online friends. "YUCK!" they chorused. "I'd INSIST he throw that out! He can't try to clean that."

I told F about the conversation. He's a good sport about my chatting about our lives online, but we both got stuck on this point. "I don't think I could *insist* about anything," I said. "It's your thing." It came up again in the car on our long drive back from la verendrye a couple of weeks ago. "What kind of relationship is it, where you could INSIST that I throw this out?" he said. It was partly that word that hung us up, but it also made us pensive. We couldn't put our fingers on it, exactly, but fumbled to describe the kind of merging we don't want, where one person's idiosyncrasies become the stuff of the couple, where I could paper-covers-rock trump this foible that's a bit gross but doesn't really affect me. Even if the pan sits on the counter, it doesn't affect me -- and even if this were really my kitchen, not just the terrain slightly uneasily shared, where I buy and produce good food but F still gets edgy if I put the glasses back upside down, let the potatoes on the stove boil over.

But -- what's the right level of merge, if it's not domain over each other's doings? What *is* the twined-together unit, and when *is* it okay to assert your own preferences (a fancy word for needs) about the other person's choices?

It's the essence of trying to figure out how to integrate, this chip pan. This one's a clear line -- it's his project, his icon of some cultural connection, his kitchen, at the bottom line. Not my place to really care, one way or another. But it also represents the 98% of F's life that's taken place without me. So many stories I don't figure in. I've never really had to consolidate this much history in my relationships, never had to "start over" with someone when we've both trod so many maps with other people, lived completely different lives.

It does jar sometimes. It's so easy, so tempting to try to insist on what meaning should be made of the past, to downplay what counted before we met. I've seen other people do this, to declare at second weddings that they've never known love before -- and I've been enraged by it.

But finding the right thread isn't that simple, either. Two fully formed beings merging is harder fought in many ways than supple, open-eyed beginnings. When you're jammed full of your own stories, where do you find the clean loom for new ones without forcing each other's perspectives, pasts, underground? What's the source of generativity, when it's not finding newness together, when the possibilities are less about what you can discover together for the first time, and more about seeing things with new eyes, the familiar in a palimpsest over always visible, sometimes achingly present, past lives? It's stupid things, like the disparity of realizing that I've never been to cities he's tired of. Part of me wanting to childishly stomp my foot with annoyance over that. The sensible part of me knowing that what we do together is new because it's us.

A recognition that there are things I won't do because I'm 42 and didn't do them with A... as well as realizing that there are things that for some reason, A and I didn't make possible for each other, that F and I will find together. It's constant gear shifting, finding the flow of the now and a vaguely sketched out future, when the past is present, waltzing ghosts we sometimes duck, sometimes nod in rhythm with, sometimes grab the hands of to make new dances with.

Firenze

I just booked two nights in a fancy hotel in Florence for our trip to Italy in September. At this place.

It's a short trip -- a week in total -- mostly in Rome, where F is giving a talk at a conference, and then two days in Florence. It feels strangely overdue, like I'm embarrassed at the fact that despite spending 1972 - 1974 rolling around every then-open country in Europe, vaguely carsick in the back of the orange VW popup camper as my parents' marriage fell apart, I have rarely traveled off this continent as an adult. A few trips to Spain to see Janet, a few trips to the UK and Ireland, and that's it. Doesn't fit my picture of myself, to not be the sort of person who flies to Berlin for a long weekend.

So, Italy. Mid-September. One of the few places I really want to go to that neither F nor I has been. (I have an oddly fitting, completely misplaced grumpiness at the fact that he has a million stories in Paris, and I've never been there. Like it's something I Need to Rectify immediately, some basic task of life left unattended, like paying off student loans or something).

Want to run off and plan my wanderings, but need to sink myself back into Systems Theory.

"She had a love of exotic pets"

So summed up the life of a woman killed by her pet camel, as it attempted to fornicate with her. It had previously attempted to kill the family pet goat by "straddling" it.

Oddities, fragments that say so much. My life this summer, so ineloquent. Flickering fragments. Our shared refrigerator as a way-station for food that gets tossed out. A pool I'm learning about bromine and algae balance in. Learning to make friends in a community I don't intend to be in long, and where I have no "formal" purpose. Conversations in bed about the likelihood of non-earth life forms and the time arc from learning to use tools to spinning off into space. A newfound obsession with Dr. Who (the Torchwood years, not the mangy old stuff). A motorcycle ride through the green roads where I catch a glimpse of two people dancing a waltz in a garden, awkwardly, before we rocket on.

Pulled by currents across the border, tentatively palpating the possibilities of America. Living in a low-level buzz of anxiety all the time about the 11 months I have left to Finish Everything related to my phd.

Loving my new yellow greenland style kayak, even as I battle with it in the crosswinds and go from serene exhilaration to clenched frustration. Learning to feel the water, not feel like I have to fight against it. Everything's a metaphor.

Status updates

One-line facebook status updates seem to have taken over from this blog for me. Cate is offline, in Scotland for two weeks. Cate is working on her dissertation proposal. Cate is at her last client meetings for sometime. Cate is irked with her branded products and is in a dysfunctional relationship with Bobby from Mercedes and Wayne from Apple. Cate is having an expat Pride experience. Cate is spending most of the summer on US soil, working on her dissertation.

Me, by the pool, "working."



So maybe some basic stats will revive my blogging ways. Seven subsequent days of exercise now -- four days of running, a day of lots of weights and some hoppin' about to a TV fitness program beloved by F, another day of hoppin' about followed by some very windy kayaking, and a good run this morning.

Now, some real work.

Flakiness

F and I did the most romantic thing this morning. Last week, I parked my car in Niagara Falls, ON and walked across the rainbow bridge, where he met me with the bike and we zoomed home. The zoom was real life -- poetic perfection in intention, a little bumpiness in the execution, mostly to do with cramming a LOT into one day and then misjudging how early restaurants in rochester close. But it was incredibly sweet to walk across an international frontier and be greeted by my lover.

We had a sweet productive weekend, more riding, some good food, lots of work, if not quite enough. And this morning, he drove me back to the bridge. Walked me to the turnstile, kissed me sweetly and full. I floated across the bridge a little dreamily, trying to ignore everything I need to do this week before we leave for Scotland on Saturday.

But I *did* pause to take a picture -- the falls were gorgeous, the sky was blue, the sun was out, blah blah. I was so delighted to be strolling and not part of the tailback of cars.

I found my car in the parking garage, put my bags in, and then thought I'd go to starbucks for one more coffee and a pee. Accomplished those, negotiated sweetly wit the parking attendant, who was incredulous that I admitted to parking for more than 3 days even though I didn't have my ticket. He undercharged me, I drove away.

And then, well onto the QEW, the phone rang. Mysterious 601 area code. I almost ignored it, but picked it up. Could barely hear. "Catherine, it's Mr. sfdkasflj your passport."

!

Apparently, I'd dropped it somewhere on the sidewalk (outside starbucks? outside immigration?) He found it near the duty free, I guess. I'd been sensible enough to put my sister's phone # in the "in case of emergency" space; the fates shone that she was actually home from Italy and actually HOME.

Mr. 601 area code called me back to tell me he'd left the passport at the Hard Rock Café. Ironically, the site of F's and my first "date" -- the first time we met in person, "halfway." Nearly a year ago, now.

Panicked and over-caffeinated, I circled back, parked again, fetched the precious document from Jeremy or Carlos or whatever his name was, who insisted I show him i.d. "That IS my i.d," I pointed out. I had to produce a visa. Got the passport. Navigated the parking guy who just waved me out, eyes narrowing at seeing the smartcar for the second time in half an hour.

Drove home, busy busy busy... and realized that I hadn't managed to actually take a successful picture of the Falls either Thursday or today. More flakiness.

Oh well, everyone knows what the Falls look like. Add in some dreamy romance and a little preoccupation, and that was me. And now, a HELL of a lot of relief at not having to find out what the hell the "emergency passport" routine is in the boondoggle that is the Canadian Passport Office right now.

I am not sure how I can go from being a person who drive this car:



to a person who drives this car:



in the space of two years. I guess the same way I can go from a person who dates small female artists to a person whose partner is a big ol' alpha male scientist guy. Or maybe I'm just lazy and it was easier to trade in my horrifyingly badly depreciated wee car at the place that sold it to me than to try to offload it on the saturated open market.

Those germans are wily. If I hadn't bought the smart car from them, it never in a million years would have occurred to me to contemplate mercedes for a car. But now I'm their customer, and they somehow converted granola girl to a Serious Brand.

My sales guy was very Solemn. He was rabbiting on about safety features, and when we got to the absurd claim that the hood was designed in such a way that if I -- god forbid -- hit a pedestrian, the hood would absorb 90% of the impact so that there would be less likelihood of head injuries.

Look, Bobby, I said. You have been talking a lot about safety. That's all good -- but is it because I'm female? If I were a guy, would you be talking about performance?

No, he said, straightfaced. I talk about safety because I used to work for volvo.

The only decision left to make is whether I want to spend $500 on roof and bicycle racks and get a free devinci bicycle.

This car comes with everything. I think it even comes with a kid.

Ceci n'est pas un pipe

No, it is a plumbing pipe. And I am death on plumbing, apparently. Like those people who claim they have the kind of electromagnetic fields that cause their watches to skip about like sandpipers and never keep time.

The day after my sister gave birth for the first time (at home), I flew up there to coo over the baby and help out. Using the sprayer hose on the kitchen sink while doing dishes, I broke the whole sink. (Apparently it had one of those invisible-only-the-people-who-live-here-can-see-this DO NOT USE signs on it). My brother in law had to go to home depot and replace the whole faucet etc. On no sleep. Instead of bonding with his new baby.

Last week, my ex came over to replace the guts of my toilet. So friendly. She left, it started leaking, $125 in cash to a plumber plus a tip to my super and the toilet worked.

At F's, the disposer issue that ate my Tuesday, when an attempt to clean out the fridge resulted in two sinks full of vile rotting-meat water. An unassuming internet plumber,a snake, an astonishing amount of money.

Today, no water flowing into my (only) toilet. The super, more fiddling. Problem with the new guts.

Flushing VERY gingerly.

And consoling myself with the thought of buying a new car.

Pansies

Quiet weekend. Lots of domestic stuff, currently batting even. Got car in shape for trip to roc and stuff put in place to list it for sale this month (this makes me sad, letting go of my wee car, but I am doing a LOT more highway driving than I expected to be when I bought it, and it's just not the right car for that). My ex KINDLY came over and replaced my toilet parts, but now the tank is leaking. Sigh. It's ALWAYS somethin'.

A propos of nothing, pansies around the corner from my house. Note the graffiti on the tree.

Nicoise perfection

I had a perfect day yesterday. It's finally mudluscious shoulder-baring, patio-sitting spring here... and I'm downright giddy.

Got up yesterday and marched purposefully to St. Lawrence market. Dropped $23 at every counter. Spent $30 on exotic vinegar (pomegranate champagne? really? how very Silver Palate/1985). Bought Good Fish. Marched home, humming with warmth, and literally could NOT prevent myself from hopping into real running shorts and a singlet and heading out into the sunshine.

Then, made a Perfect Salade Nicoise. F arrived for lunch (after an unbelievably busy week) and we seared two small perfect piece of yellow fin tuna to barely cooked. Drank half a bottle of a cold spritely chardonnay. Best lunch I've ever made, I think.

Had a lovely entangled relaxed afternoon to the beat of the crazy drummers (verdict: drummers quaint and amusing to walk by while eating an empanada, not so much as a permanent soundtrack right outside one's windows). Walked through the streets together to have a beer with a friend while listening to some jazz, let the warmth flow over us.

In just-spring, and the goat-footed balloon man whistles far and wee.

Traffic islands

I keep finding myself in the middle of busy streets, in that fake-safe point on the yellow line between two different traffic directions. I realized last week when I was with F at the university, I keep putting myself into the middle of the street so I can cut across the parking lot to get back to the library -- going to either traffic light seems like an insufferable burden, a waste of precious time. I keep doing that on spadina, too, have become one of those people pushing my way through traffic, perching on the little ledge that separates the streetcar lanes from the cars, darting like frogger between vehicles.

That I've noticed this repeatedly lately tells me something -- some new level of impatience, feeling pushed, no time, dashing from one place to the next. This week, I'm bloody tired, and "technically," there's no reason to be -- I've been sleeping a reasonable amount, am just WORKING, really. But just... no restorative time, and never ever getting to the one thing that's hanging over me, the pilot. So I cross streets in the dangerous middle, find myself hovering in suspension between here and there, never getting there fast enough.

April is busy. I'm peering over the hedgerows to the end, really needing breathing space.

Petals

I'm feeling frazzled -- just way too much client busy-ness this week, my dear friend and business partner S leaving for Europe indefinitely -- a lot to do, not so much bandwidth. But I needed to stop and look at the tulips opening so gorgeous-ly in my dining room. Was walking home with groceries the other day and stopped at the flower shop downstairs and asked "I have $11 in my pocket -- what can I get?" Then, miraculously, my cousins brought me some stems that matched perfectly. Perfect and luscious today.

Now, fitting in a quick run. It's above freezing and *almost* sunny. Maybe will brave the lake.

Hoot

My cousin is achieving Great Things as Miss Hooters.

I learned on the weekend that one of my other cousins apparently got a boob job as a gift from her husband. ("What'd she have done?" asked another cousin. "Bigger? Raised? Lowered?" "I don't think anyone has them lowered" offered HER husband. Then we talked about vasectomies).

The hooters thing is just... sigh.

Egg, redux

We had a family ritual while I was growing up that easter was the time we got new, cheap, one-season outdoor toys like hula hoops and skipping ropes. My dad would stress test them to their limits most easters. He'd also ringlead an egg hunt at my grandparents' in which we always maintained the fiction that we had "not found" eggs the previous year -- they were, of course, always resquirrelled after they'd been rooted out. I've blogged about this before.

Today, coincidentally, my cousin brought me over a little bag of things that my aunt had retrieved from my grandmother's house after she died. Including one of the petrified eggs planted at least two decades ago by my dad.

I miss you, dad.

***

(The package also included a hilarious thank you note that I wrote to my grandparents when I was about 8 -- "Thank you for the card and the money. It was the most money's worth of a dollar bill that I got. All the rest were one dollar bills." And to be clear, I signed my full name).

A thousand ages in thy sight

Conversation reported by my cousin, from two of her more secular friends:

Wife: What's good friday anyway? The day jesus died, right?

Husband: How'd he die again?

**

A little mind-boggling, this lack of basic cultural knowledge -- but at the same time, charmingly other-dimensional. I remember a fracas back in my grad school days in the mid-80s, when we were being introduced to the wonders of mainframe computers, and Dilworth instructed us to "type the lord's prayer" as a test of our ability to use the word processing program. There were at least two or three people in the class who said they had no idea what he meant, and he responded with some outrage about this being a basic cultural artifact, like shakespeare or the national anthem.

The conversation pings me also back to a second year comparative religion course I took as an undergrad -- I wrote something in a paper about the crucifixion being the "mythology of christianity" and the prof scrawled back "IF christianity has a mythology, this is not it."

(Again, mindboggling in a professor of comparative religion, but I supposed discovering the narrowness of realms of academic expertise has been part of my gradual awakening into adulthood. I will note that I seem to recall that this prof had some sort of seamy interlude later on in life in which he was knifed outside some bar in detroit, and I didn't have quite the same gasp of horror as I might have if he hadn't made me squirm in disgust).

All of this is really postmodernism in freeze frame action... assumptions that one's own mythology is the lens through which we all make cultural meaning -- and at the same time, so much *is* refracted against it, including the basic structure of canadian holidays and the tying together of redemption and the new life of spring. My online friend in Chicago notes that their cardinal was blessing easter baskets (wtf is that about, she says --I thought the baskets and the bunnies and the eggs were all pagan fertility symbols) when he fell down and broke his hip yesterday. Again with the absurdity of it all, like the enacted Passion in the streets of the italian neighbourhood here in which at least one of the Christs over the past decade was purported to be a well known gay leather boy sub quite into the flogging.

All balled together, creating riffs of bizarre intersection, some grappling by well meaning people for christianity that is about caring for others, all obscuring the way that religion is so efficiently used to create a "we" that others everyone else. It's easiest to think of easter as the affirmation of wanting to Do Good that my mother wants it to be, or the playful spring ritual of eggs and outdoor toys after the bleak winter my dad always made it. I squint at all the pieces that filter together across my own life, and can only find the bricolage of mud luscious spring, propulsion for rejuvenation after the bleak grey winter. Fresh hope for a drive around the lake where my car isn't in danger of being blown off the skyway.

Here at the right time

It's easter again. Last year at easter, I was such a newbie blogger, so unsettled in so many aspects of my life. Had hit the nadir of misconnection with my ex, had moved, was exhausted and feeling my fumbling way toward the next thing. Not sure where my paying work was and even less sure where my real work was. I went to windsor to see my family at easter, and drove home still frayed at the edges. I have a vivid sense memory of being in the dark car on that sunday night, driving faster and faster as the car filled with music, and in that cocoon, able to feel reborn, opened up, letting go of the stuff that was besetting me. My therapist called it my own redemption -- christian metaphors aside, it did feel like emotional crocuses.

Into that space, I reconnected with F, went to Portland, got back into my work and refound the pacific. Then really connected with F, and found our way to where we are now, a full fledged couple of six months this week. Found my way, fumblingly, so much closer to my real work.

Today, driving back from roc after dropping F at the airport for a work trip to europe, I dragged a whole new basket full of frayings. It's... so full with him. Loving joy between us, he makes me laugh and sigh in all the right ways, supports me in my work, drives me forward with his ambition. Makes it okay to be me, in all my foibles and complications, sees my future.

And yet... I can't just relax into it, can't be happy in it. I'm always *poised* for something to be wrong, can't roll with the natural disrhythmia of trying to figure out how to balance our intense then apart time, life here and first lines of warp on the loom of us there. Less tangled into lives here, not in anyone's life in roc except F's. Not sure how to be "here" when here is in love, partnered but not in the same place, no "next life" yet clear, my life in toronto still pinning down the corners of my tent every time I try to up stakes (necessarily in the work sense), but yearning for a next place where I can feel a bit settled and find a rhythm. Colleagues and friends I click with here, flesh and ideas I click with in a place neither of us particularly wants to be.

The outside world glosses my current state as "busy." "Stuffed" is more like it -- gills bulging, eyes popping, touching down into each realm just long enough to almost get it right and then resent it for not being the only thing. I want reassurance that isn't possible from F, and it's about wanting so much -- life that holds everything I want to do more comfortably, more gracefully, more easily than now, life with love and work and home and friends entangled.

When I got home from Portland last year, I wandered around my flat in my bare feet playing Josh Ritter, just feeling the now, ripening with the imaginings from F, from the sense of my work that was starting to take shape. The colour of the sky in portland still perches at the edge of my consciousness, so much promise for clearing, for the energizing splash of coolness before and after rain. So much promise for feeling at home somewhere new. I am halfway to somewhere new, and am feeling ungraceful about knowing how to hold what's important in the past, threading into onto the loom of the new.

Guest blog from F

A propos a conversation my online gang were having about easter and the purpose of the whole resurrection thing.

**

I've always been hard to disgust, but here's something that disgusts me. How come, when the dead return looking all decayed and unappealing, and stagger around a remote village, or a top-secret research facility, or an outpost on Mars, eating a bit of human flesh and moaning incoherently, and are then heroically defeated and pass into legend, that's a BAD thing..and yet, when the dead return looking all serene, pass a few apparently harmless remarks, and start a cult that intimidates, tortures and crusades its way across the world for a couple of millennia, killing millions of people and displacing millions more while espousing the highest motives, that's a GOOD thing? And now, this weekend, everyone wants to celebrate? That's what disgusts me.

Snips

Actually having a couple of days at home without meetings gives me space to breathe... it's pure delightful coincidence that it's spring like and the mud-luscious world etc. is abounding.

On my streets:

- while running, yesterday, down sodden, grimy spadina to the lake: a man, running with good form, in running tights and good shoes, a running shirt... and a navy blue satin corset, and a ponytail high on his head.

- at yonge and wellesley today, a guy in a white tshirt, running shoes, the sort of red busy cargo shorts that are completely overtechnical for anything short of a rockface, and a red santa hat; then, suddenly, a naked torso as the shirt was too much for him.

- in the cafeteria at Trinity college, working in a beverage-friendly environment: an earnest young man intoning "but in nature you are CLOSEST to GOD." And an earnest, plump, long-haired, spotty young woman who could be plunked out of any of the past four decades, tutoring an older woman on the praxis of ministry -- sermon writing, managing lay people, really making people FEEL your faith.

The sun is still a bit stiff and disused, not certain it wants to lure people outside just yet. But it's making me restless.

Shedding skin

It's been just over a year since I moved into this place. An overstuffed backpack of a year, with shoes stuffed awkwardly into side pockets and not-quite-dry jackets bungied onto the back. If I string together the runs I've done over the year, I patch together a trek through the humid, ominous suburbs of Houston, a "river" trail in albuquerque where I discovered the bizarre practice of fishing in a completely created pond in the middle of the desert, a loop around the dusty old market centre of Santa Fe (where I face-planted on a loose cobble), the verdant river of central Portland, the raging open beach of the Oregon coast, the civilized sunny beach trail in Santa Barbara, the rocky beach of Monterey, the stiff suburbs of Penfield, the damp concrete of Toronto. Not as much mileage in actual *running* as many other years, but so many different touchdown points, such a map of desire and yearning and experience.

Last year at this time I was an open wound, really, still. I had moments of connection and smoothness with people, and half-formed ideas of what I wanted next, and a lot of yearning -- but a lot of blind fumbling and bouts of bleakness. Today? Lucrative, involving paid work and good collaborators. A much more focused sense of my academic work, life's work. A lover I'm passionate about and see a future with. A warm friendship with my ex. Tight bonds with other core friends.

One of the most sharp-edged effects of that year is about that emergence of "core friends" -- and a lot of chafing shedding that's gone along with that. Many factors in this -- on the surface, time, and at another level, a transmogrify of self and arenas people who can be part of this sometimes very navel-gazey shape-shifting. I've had incidental losses of friends -- people who fell off the map when B and I were not longer coupled and the connection patterns disappeared -- and I've had more wincing losses, where people bluntly told me that they didn't really like the person I am now. I can make easy meaning of this -- I *am* more self-absorbed -- simple time and also trying to focus on some pretty massive things I'm doing -- but it still stings.

It's a kind of... consolidation process. A collecting of the critical mass of people who are my compatriorts through the different gateposts, who have lust for an resilience and acceptance about continual self-creation. My tribe, as it emerges and shifts.

There are people I wish I simply had more time to hang out with, more space to let in -- because they're fascinating, lovely, warm and amazing people. And I've also found new...deep clicks. One completely new friend who is a loving co-conspirator as we each go through our different self-authoring... and two people in my academic world I am always more tightly wound to. A colleague I am partnered and balanced with as never before. F, of course -- so much possibility, so much now.

The people who've fallen away... skin shedding is the right metaphor. They were part of me, they helped shape who I was, they wrapped around me. And, as I grew, as I went through new seasons... the cells were no longer vibrant and alive. The hollow, dried husk of skin left behind is reminder, is poignant, is something I'm grateful for... and I feel twinges of regret and guilt for not being the person they could have stayed connected to. But I'm not unhappy with my vibrant, wriggling self, scooting forward, more aware of what I'm doing in my relationships, how we're making each other.

Stories to tell

Such a bad blogger I am, not shaping any of my busy little life into stories. Lots of activity, not a lot of movement.

Am in ROC for the week, pecking away at some work stuff (which just keeps MULTIPLYING) and trying to figure out what my pilot project for my dissertation is. In the middle of this, I received an email from the woman-I-met-on-a-plane whose wedding I randomly went to in Santa Fe last summer. She spent a year in Afghanistan working on an alternative livelihood project, and just wrote a really riveting piece for the Washington Post about the futility of such development work.

Her email also said:

After the piece ran, I received nearly 200 responses from all over the world, many of which stunned me with their humanity and kindness. After all was said and done, these responses proved to be more moving and meaningful than anything I had written. I hope to find a way to share some of them at some point.

Very sobering stuff, and pokes even more sharply at my questions about how my work can be meaningful. Sometimes I really envy F the concreteness of his science :-).

Instead, I spend my time with distractions like scouring the internet for an extremely good coq au vin recipe. Apparently StraightCate can cook things like this.

Hidden from view

My cousin sent me an email this morning:

"She posted one last entry about how well-laid she was, and then she was never heard from again!" [Your Mom doesn't check your blog, surely?]

Yes, too damned busy and nothing coherent to say. Working working, fretting about school and momentum, enjoying my life, drinking too much good wine, trying to put some shape to a distributed life.

It was a year ago this week I took possession of this flat. So much frenzy that was, so many pages now flickered through the year. It still doesn't exactly feel like "home," but it feels like *my* place. And a jump-off point to whatever comes next.

Feh, more work to do, more words words words later.