Freckle-dressed

Today we played a money/trading game in one of my anthropology classes, and we had to talk about how it made us feel and what values we saw reflected in the different interactions and responses, and my answer although I didn't say it was IT MADE ME FEEL EXISTENTIAL DREAD. Because he never told us the objective of the game, yet everyone else was still milling around, transacting with the strange required gestures and counting their money. But apparently needing to have a goal is a cultural thing.

You know, a stranger will give you some amazing thing if you ask in the right context? You should do that.

For lunch I cooked brown jasmine rice and mushrooms in my rice cooker and had that with curry and yogurt, and then I ate the rest of the mushrooms with some Parrano cheese. My room still smells great. College is hopefully the only time in my life that I will have to slice mushrooms in my bedroom.

I haven't seen my digital camera since Friday. I'm trying not to be upset by that.

Also I typed up this freewrite from last January:

--

One of my Twitter friends asked what is your favorite beach memory. I've grown up perched on the edge of the Pacific, I have so many to choose from. But I didn't have to think long, it was the time we went to the beach last August. We rode the streetcar down and you talked about college, leaning against the doors. We got coffee, this was before I knew lattes were fatty, also before I realized that that sweater looked bad on me. Ocean was quiet and gray, the sky was low and white, foggy looking up and down the beach. I always think of August this way, a colorless sky and a quiet gray sea.

We sat drinking coffee and digging holes in the dark sand with our restless elbows, grains stuck in the rib of my sleeves. You took a picture of something with your phone. I had my camera along and I wish even more now that I had taken a picture of us, not so I could remember something I've forgotten but so I could see what was in your face, what was in my face, eyes, what did I think then standing at the edge of what I am now standing in?

I was bored with the end of my latte and poured it out into the pit I'd dug. You took off your shoes and rolled up your pants and padded down to the water's edge (I couldn't I was wearing tights).

What you said to my sister at my house, which block we were on when I tried standing on your skateboard, what you wore, but most of all how I hadn't made our friendship so weird and sad yet, I remember and I taste all this through the thick now of how sorry I am.

--

At the top of that page, I had written, "Interests: August." That part still holds.

Linkage

Beautiful photos of beautiful Greenland, including its capital city Nuuk.

"How to Take Better Photos: Leave Your Camera Behind."

Is it just mindless political correctness to criticize "Indian" headdresses as a fashion trend? Check out this blogger's excellent explanation of appropriation.

Members of a Christian foundation showed up at a gay pride parade wearing shirts that read "I'm Sorry."

A slide show of movie posters with the titles they should have been given.

Pie pops photo tutorial! Just what sound like, miniature pies on lollipop sticks. I want to make these.

Also on my must-make list: a chai mix to add to your black tea.

A thoughtful word for lovers of vintage fashion. The blog post she references and links to is also worth reading.

What if men had to follow beauty rules as stringent as those in place for women? (Rhetorical, but my answer: it would be ridiculous and sad, so why is it not ridiculous and sad that it's already like this for women?)

Adopt an endangered word HERE. I chose "eveniency", which I will from now on use in place of "coming to pass."

Some things that require whole phrases or sentences in English (the last person to laugh at a joke) can be expressed by a single beautiful word in another language. (FULERSTOV!) Better Than English posts a new one each day.

Limbs of land

Friday night I sat by a river in a little downtown of a nearby suburb and ate ice cream and cookie dough (note: not cookie dough ice cream) with my half-accented friend I haven't seen in quite a while.

Today was too hot and Hannah took me to drop off film and then to get more groceries. So now I have mushrooms, tofu, frozen vegetables, rice, and other lovely things. I realized that all the foods which I have in my room are vegan, except for the yogurt, and that made me happy.

I'm taking a break from my Human Origins reading right now. We've started out with a heavily biblical focus, reading a bajillion and one different interpretations of Genesis 1, which makes me feel like I'm still in my Old Testament class, but it's a good intro to the "fossil fondling."

And tonight was a German dinner at the house of one of the professors, where they presented their current plan for revising the major curriculum and invited feedback from the students. It was quite exciting for me because it's starting to look like a semester in Germany may just fit in perfectly with my graduation plans. I'm not a German major anymore, but I could finish a minor if I went to Germany, and the anthropology department, for obvious reasons, is totally on board with giving credit for anthro classes done in other countries.

And I made a fort by taping up a sheet around the dormer window and the air conditioner.

Things that are making me happy

a longtime blogger friend is now attending college quite near me!

one night this past week I was sleepy and lonely, and then I got a call from my oldest friend in the world who needed some help thinking through her screenplay. so she told me her story, and when's the last time you've heard a story orally? it was pretty great, and then we hmmed and questioned our way through it for an hour.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

my room for this academic year. it is on the top floor of a dorm in the center of campus, with a huge closet, a slanting ceiling and a dormer window which faces WEST over the quad, meaning I get golden-hour light in my room.

short bangs + well-defined eyebrows, a.k.a. my neighbor's face

convoluted German grammar constructions

I took my flickr contacts' feed off of my reader. I still keep track of their uploads when I can, because they're mad talented, but it's much less stressful not to see their hundreds of pictures calculated into the total of unread items.

keeping my blinds partially open during the night, so that the light in the morning helps me start waking up before my alarm actually goes off.

I haven't put on any music today, and that open sensory space has been refreshing.

wonderful dinner conversations.

friends who help you find clarity just by listening.

having an electric kettle in my room. (also: I got it from the campus donation center, and it turns out it's the one that my contesserate owned last year and donated before she graduated!)

a verbal quasi-blessing.

when my family makes jokes about things they do or say appearing on this blog (or one of these lists!).

being found by my first mentee, getting to know each other, and looking forward to working with her.

recognizing the unofficial mentors I've had as such, for the first time.

starting a 365 at Em's inspiration and encouragement, and looking forward to the finished product of a visual diary of a year. of course I already take way more than 365 pictures in a year, but the point for me is to have one shot from each day that sums up that day, that mood, especially well. I haven't decided if I will post them anywhere separate from my other pictures yet, or if I'll be the only one who knows which corresponds to which day. do you care either way?

From the last days in San Francisco

Day dreams

Shauna playing with the Etch-a-Sketch that a coffeehouse had propped in the corner. (I think that is awesome of them.)



My little sister took this picture of me and I really love it:

Tentative transplant [playlist]

I went with my original decision, to return to my college in the Midwest. So Monday I went from the City by the Bay to the suburb that birthed a book called Death by Suburb (which maybe I should read because the secondary title is How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing Your Soul).

I'm almost settled into my room. Classes start tomorrow. I've got two anthro classes (Human Origins and Biculturalism) and two gen eds (World History and Christian Thought). I'm also enrolled in Planetary Astronomy, but I'm not sure if I'm going to keep that or do my science requirements another time when it won't put me at 18 credits (the maximum possible; full load is 16).

This mixtape is a funny kind of mellow that I get at this time of year. To those of you who introduced me to various ones among them, thank you. [player exists below, feed reader gremlins.] [edit: never mind! it shows up inside the reader after all.]