why? and oh well...

So my car broke down yesterday. For the first time in the 7 years that I've owned it! I kept trying to feel stressed and overwhelmed after it happened, but I just kept realizing that I can handle it and it isn't really all that bad.

My first reaction was to consider buying a new car. Then I realized that 1) I don't have the credit for such a purchase and 2) my car isn't THAT broken down. I'm no grease monkey gear head, so I'm not going to go into details about what happened. We WILL say that I feel extraordinarily grateful for where I am in life right now that I was able to handle the situation with such ease.

I was in Germantown, about 2 miles from my apartment, and due to be at work in 30 minutes (about 7 miles from work, and 2 miles from any recognizable bus system that I'm familiar with.) Fortunately I was going to carpool with my good friend Marcy Rae, who lived about 3 minutes from where I found myself. So I was able to just call her and ask her to pick me up at my break-down locale, instead of at my apartment.

That being said, it isn't like this a concern, however I just am refusing to let it get me down. Being as how I had the wonderful pressure to take a Political Science class this semester titled, "The Politics of Oil", I'm suddenly learning the true effects of energy-dependance, and the entitled attitude of Americans in owning cars, and shunning alternative transportation as something for poor people. I'm not saying that's how I feel, I'm just saying that's the general consensus. But I definitely do feel like my freedom and mobility has been hampered, not having my car. So I'm welcoming the challenge of overcoming that feeling, and reclaiming the cheap mobility I had when I was at the University of Washington, and utterly car-less. Guess what? I was able to buy groceries, visit friends and family, and get all over town with no car. I can do it again. And our energy resources (or lack thereof) and the earth will thank me for it. Right?

That being said, I'm totally going to the mechanic, about 2 blocks from the breakdown, to try to get it fixed today, even though I can't really afford to. Hmph.

It is probably more out of concern for my poor car's well being, considering that it is in Germantown as it is anything else.  I'm worried about it!

Fall has finally hit Louisville, and I couldn't be happier.

What's that? What am I reading right now? Oh, I'm glad you asked! I gave up on the slightly too technical writing of Paul Farmer, in his "Infections and Inequalities", and am now reading Tracy Kidder's book ABOUT Paul Farmer, which is much more accesible.            

                                        Mountains Beyond Mountains

If you want to read a book about someone who actually gives a damn about the well being of others, and has dedicated his life to pursuing that concern, then read this book. It will give you a little more faith in humanity. It is easy to read, and Tracy Kidder has a very sympathetic eye and hand.

Ok. I have a French exam today on the passe compose, the imparfait, and the plus-que-parfait, all of which I'm still a little fuzzy on, and all of which I have studiously ignored all weekend. And all Monday morning so far.  Time to get crackin'.

Ketchup

I don't have enough time to write about everything that's been going on, like: dogsitting at the flea-bag hotel (i.e. The Dirtiest House I've Ever Been In), my Fulbright panel interview during which the interviewers were more nervous than I was, school getting so hectic that I forgot what day it was HALFWAY THROUGH THE DAY and missed my second morning class as result, and so on.

Instead - a need to transcribe the weird dream from last night. I dreamed of houses. Huge houses. A house I was to move into that was absolutely enormous. I was moving in with my brother Ed, who was always gone and I literally never saw him. I just settled into this mansion of mansions and kept showing friends around. Even though we were living in this huge place, we claimed small areas and took them as our own and never left them. Huge spaces in the mansion were a mystery to us because we would sequester ourselves in our small, familiar rooms.

It then devolved into a stress-school dream in which I was in class with Virginia, who I have a few classes with this semester, who now was my arch-nemesis. Prof McCarthy, who is teaching a class we are both in this semester, was teaching, and was always extremely vague. He spoke in broad, sweeping tones to the enormous class, and really said nothing. Everything we discussed was of an ephemeral format, which would morph and change and twist. His tests were impossible - they looked easy but I got a 40 out of 90 on one. He would trick us also, he would tell us something, then people would leave because they were frustrated and thought class was over, and he would then divulge further information which completely changed everything. Part of the anxiety was not knowing if I should tell my peers who had left class already, or if I should keep it to myself and blame them for leaving too early.

We then morphed back into the big house, where many people were now. And we were part of a bizarre, real-life video game that we experienced, in the house. We could get hurt, and even die, as we chased robots and strange creatures around the ever-expanding mansion. Rooms literally appeared before our eyes as we twisted and turned, chasing the impossible villains. Occasionally we could be paused by an outside power, who would enlighten us to tricks and means to capturing the creatures. The solutions would appear impossibly intricate and involved, and we would fret and desperately try to memorize the techniques before being unexpectedly thrust back into the game.

Weird, eh?

books

As of this morning, I've sold 38 books on amazon.com. Not bad, right? That's more than one book-box when moving! Not that I have any immediate plans to move though... It just feels good to have room in my bookshelf. And a little extra cash coming in here and there. I'm not ordering nearly as many books these days, self-control is kicking in and I'm using the, hush, drum-roll please, pause for dramatic effect,... LIBRARY. Checking out books not just for school, but to, gasp, READ. This is so weird. Who does that anymore?

I recently finished two books: So Many Enemies, So Little Time, a book which held enormous promise for me because it is the autobiographical tale of a female Fulbright winner who goes to teach in Kyrgyzstan in late August of 2001, for ten months. Unfortunately by the end I thought she was a nosy, arrogant, and annoying traveller with too much money to spare. On the other hand, she revealed quite interesting views into Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq in late 2001, and early 2002, as she travelled to all those countries during her tenure.

I also finished Shadow of the Pomegranate Tree, an extremely polemical and one-sided (Muslim) account of the ultimate fall of Granada and expulsion of Muslims from Spain in the late 1400s. It was nice at times, but I mostly found it tedious and difficult to pick back up again. Good for me for finishing it!

Now I'm starting Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues  by Paul Farmer, a renowned author and scholar/physician in medicine and health inequalities, as well as human rights. It basically deals with the role of anthropology in confronting poverty and disease, and comes highly recommended. Lets hope!

That is all.

My new flame. I will own them before fall comes. I must. I must. I won't be happy without them. 

Even as I post that image of my current obsession, I still come back to the need for simplicity. Around once a week I find myself rummaging through drawers and shuffling through closets, flinging unused "things" into plastic yard bags for Goodwill or friends. But it is a cyclic bitch because as I'm throwing things away, I'm also on the internet at amazon/anthropologie/luckybrand/abercrombieandfitch/zappos to name just a FEW, desperately seeking out that which I NEED. NEEEEEED. 

I am applying for a scholarship that will pay for me to live in Jordan for one year, starting in one year. Hence my desire to rid myself of excess that I just don't want to pack. Excess that merely collects dust, takes up space, monopolizes on valuable coat hanger usage, etc. So why do I continue to buy stuff? Well I NEED new boots. Right? I don't own any good black ones. All my black ones (besides the UGGs) are from when I couldn't afford NICE boots. Now I want a pair of NICE black boots to go with my grey Fryes, my tan Fryes, my brown Fryes, my black Frye booties, my black Italian crazy-heeled boots, my two pairs of Hunter galoshes, my three pairs of UGGs, (do you see where I'm going with this?). 

The books for school don't count. I don't get rid of books from school that could prove to be valuable to myself as a scholar and student in the future. I'm even reading a book from the LIBRARY right now for PLEASURE! Don't that beat all? 

I know I need to be smarter with my moolah, pay off bills, but its just so BORING. I will make a few desultory payments in their direction, then focus my real attention on my obsessions. Clothes books scarves boots heels shoes shoes shoes. Mamma mia, if only my therapist thought this was worth discussing!

besos

Cold Light

I woke up freezing cold this morning - the A/C in my bedroom was running at low, out of habit, however I think I would have been perfectly comfortable all night with it turned off.

Fall is arriving.

It is about time.

Last night I found myself driving home from a shopping trip to Whole Foods, swerving like a madwoman around the freeway, creeping out of stoplights at a ridiculous pace, no doubt frustrating and terrifying other drivers on the road. Why? Grapes.

Keep in mind friends, these were no ordinary grapes. These were the sort of grapes that CAUSE such erratic driving. Having had a VERY long day at school with classes, meetings, appointments, and such, I was famished. After a blitz, and mildly regrettable shopping trip at Whole Foods for some well needed provisions, the only snacks I could find for the ride home (I was REALLY hungry guys), were some Concord grapes I had bought.

I don't like grapes. I don't like the modern day "grapes" you find in your average grocery store anyways - modified over years to withstand travelling long distances, they no longer taste like what we associate grape flavored things with. Purple popsicles? Where did that flavor come from? It sure doesn't taste like any of the seedless monstrosities in my grocery's produce department.

Well these Concord grapes are different. I bought them because they had all the characteristics of a proper grape - they were packaged in a plastic clamshell, which told me that they couldn't handle being jostled around and smashed. The grapes were deep, rich purple tightly clustered spheres. Beautiful. I couldn't wait to dig in.

I got in my car, and took the first bite. Heaven. The skin pops when you bite into the grape, then the skin slides gently off the silky interior (isn't this sexy?). The flavor - a slightly musky but intensly... PURPLE flavor explosion. Sweet and wonderful, the epitome of what a proper grape should taste like.

Because they were so perfectly ready for eating, and not engineered for travel and hardiness, they kept falling off the stems. Insert me, swerving all over the freeway, terrorizing the good people of this state. Let no grape fall under my carseats, these are too valuable to let get away!

Ridiculous. I can't handle driving and talking on the phone, now I can't handle driving and eating grapes.