as she climbed across the table

i read way more than the average american. i buy books like they're going extinct. i love books. the paper in your hand, smell (old or new), the type, the illustrations, the covers!, the bookshelf with them all crammed together.

lately i finished one of jonathan lethem's books. as she climbed across the table. i liked lethem. he writes straightforward sci-fi modern literature. i sort of stumbled upon his books. i started with you don't love me yet, which is in this world and not in one of his strange ones. this is what roped me in. it reminded me of steve martin's shopgirl, which is much darker in the novella then the movie. next i moved onto men and cartoons, a series of short stories with male leads all involving cartoons. i found it to be quite funny. so i kept going. amnesia moon caught me off guard. i hadn't been exposed to the sci-fi qualities of this book in any of the others. then with girl in landscape, i realized it's kind of something he does. i've been avoiding his more popular books, motherless brooklyn and fortress of solitude, because i unfortunately have immediate disdain for things HIGHLY praised by others. it just pumps up something so big that it really has little chance to please you fully. whereas if you had picked it up with no previous insight, you might just love it. i love the books i read. most of them. even the tedious basic economics. i'd read these if they were received as gifts, but unless i completely run out of things to read i'm probably not going to touch them.

onto the new read. as she climbed across the table was bought as part of a stock up purchase. i had run out of things to read and was in new york. i had to buy books. when i buy books i buy them from one of two stores: borders (the national big chain store) and strand (the i'm small and quirky new york store). i prefer strand over borders, but in chicago if i have to buy books borders is my only choice. they have a good enough selection and you can order online. plus i get their rewards, which are always nice. strand on the other hand is awkward and musty and cheap. i love their displays. i don't even look at the shelves (unless i'm purchasing a gift), i just pour over their tables. there's always something excellent. i bought four books this last time, all of them from the displays. some of them 5 bucks. for 24 hours to seven days worth of entertainment. you can't beat that!

back to the book... i was unsure if i should buy it, so i opened her up. it wasn't bad. in his usual style. and i had learned to recognize the fiction from the sci-fi. sci-fi it was. and i was ok with that. spice up my literary tastes. and my bookshelf. plus i was buying three classics, i had to pick up something new. so i bought it.

i decided to take it to the park with me. good light reading. i think this is the only one i got bored with. i had an inkling of what the ending would be. that always ruins it. and the action just slagged. sort of the same thing after the same thing. very unfortunate. the other books i have of his had a lot more life to them. these crazy worlds and crazy things would happen. this one was on a normal college campus. involving a hole or portal thing called a lack. even the back of the book upon rereading is dull:

physicist alice coombs has made a great discovery - a hole in the universe, a true nothingness she and her colleagues call 'lack'. professor philip engstrand has made his own breakthrough - he realizes how much he loves alice. trouble is, lack is a void with a personality - a void that utterly obsesses philip's beloved. she's fallen out of love with philip and in love with lack...

snooze... the only really interesting part was that the book is dedicated to my english professor from my freshman year of college. she was awesome - crazy - but awesome. it almost made me have high hopes for this book. maybe that's what ruined it?

ignore this selection, and please read his others. they are much more enjoyable.

yester-today

i didn't write anything yesterday or today. too bad. well i guess this counts as today's post. so yesterday. i bailed on yesterday. maybe the government will provide me some bail-out money? i could use it.

i began to write yesterday's blog about modern art. and i knew it would very quickly become unruly, so i gave up. it's saved somewhere in the depths of blogger, but where i do not know. modern art... whew! that would have been horrendous, especially since all i really wanted to talk about was graffiti. who knew?

today was overcome by errands and apartment hunting and general mayhem. i had to make a quick dash to pearl paint to pick but some binding screws - my new form of construction for my portfolio. they failed to have them. though they suggested the paper store across the street. they did in fact have them. in a set of 20. way more then i'd EVER need. yay! then onto bed bath and beyond for a gift certificate for my cousin's wedding (another topic for another day). i love and hate bb&b. i go there and want everything and can buy nothing. it breaks my heart every time. it's like going into the container store and coming out with ONE hanger. not fair. and he gets to go a spend it! argh! this whole trek was pretty exhausting - it's 90 here today - so i popped into jewel and got me my dp before getting some chipotle. as i informed my boyfriend chipotle and argo tea are the only indulgences that i've been allowing myself. and an occasional pizza, which is being replaced by a selection of frozen ones.

after gorging on chipotle, i rushed home to drop off my purchases before heading off to an apartment visit. nathan, 25, gay, is the nicest most relaxed roommate i have ever had the chance to live with. i was, unfortunately, very talkative. and when i'm talkative, i get rambley. i pratically told him my life story. oh god... and the apartment. it was amazing! hardwood floors, decent kitchen, bathroom, living room. the bedroom was smallish but i'm already living in smallish so it can't get worse. and the closet is in the room! it was perfect. i'm crossing my fingers about that one. but i have another to see on thursday and he's going to tell me on friday. we'll see!!!

then nothing. i ate the rest of my chipotle. watched some mid-day HSN. did some web-surfing. fixed up my original portfolio with the new screws. stuff.

i ended the day with a decent romantic comedy, america's sweethearts. i love john cusack. what woman doesn't?!? and a chat with my BFF on the phone.

just did some cleaning (washed my dishes!). and now off to bed with a new book, kurt vonnegut's breakfast of champions. which i'm sure i'll write about later.

chicken saagwala

so my choices for lunch today were chicken saagwala or chicken pot pie. any guesses about which one i choose?

i LOVE saagwala. if at an indian restaurant i usually order it. unless i'm splitting with my boyfriend. but as i am a poor unemployed young adult, i cannot afford to go out to eat. when i first moved to chicago, i found at my local big chain grocery store the jyoti line of indian sauces. jyoti saved my life. this meal ended up being a staple in my diet. i had a hard time when i moved and the store nearest me of the same big chain did not carry any of the jyoti products. then i changed grocery stores again. i was wandering around my local whole foods when i found the ethnic food aisle. they had the whole array of the jyoti line! and there sat my saag sauce. now i always stock up on them when in whole foods.

inside the label are a few recipes that use this sauce. i always make the chicken saagwala. i saute two cubed chicken breasts. and add the sauce and simmer. since i don't have to wait for the chicken to cook, as with their recipe, i just cook it as long as the rice takes. i serve it with brown rice. though i do enjoy the jasmine rice that is associated with indian cuisine.

since discovering this ready-made sauce, i have moved in with an indian guy. he said he could teach me how to make the sauce. as i love indian cuisine and my boyfriend prefers homemade versus semi-homemade, i wanted to take him up on the offer. he was actually of no help. he told me to cook some chicken in some spinich. really helpful. so i went online and found this great saagwala recipe. i'd probably reduce the tomato count to one but otherwise the recipe sounds about right. i hope you enjoy!

lunch

i've given into the fact that i eat one meal a day. now don't freak out i do eat more than that one meal, but i won't consider them meals. but meals, i only eat one. it used to be my dinner. or sometimes it was a mid-afternoon thing.

upon consideration, i decided to move my meal to lunchtime. i really want to start making meals 3-4 times a week. something fresh and big and awesome.

i started this trend with homemade tacos. since i don't eat beef, i buy 1 lb. of freshly ground chicken breast from the butcher's counter at my grocery store. i know it's not as healthy as turkey, but for some reason i really don't like turkey as taco meat. but anyways 1 lb of chicken, a packet of taco seasoning, a container of pre-washed lettuce, some mexican shredded cheese, cut-up grape tomatoes, and my roommate's mini flour tortillas. yum yum.

i had this awkward experience of consuming all of my ingredients before having the chance to cook the tacos. i originally bought arugula for the lettuce, because i recently discovered that i do enjoy it. and any leftovers would have made a great salad. but this time i bought butter lettuce. wierd name, but it has the consistancy of iceberg with more nutrients. and the mexican cheese i bought originally was so good i ate the whole packet by itself, so i bought the same again. i've already finished the leftover cheese. the grape tomatoes are bought for the same reason. they were so good last time i ate them all as a snack one afternoon. i figured if i finshed off the meat in 1 or 2 servings i'd want to finish off the rest of the ingredients without relying on the tacos.

i usually use fried corn tortillas as the shell, but i'm not as good as my mom with frying them up. i had an awful experience last time. and my roommate bought the small flour ones to make quesadillas. after eating some of them just on their own, i remembered eating tortillas on their own as a child. put a little butter on them and microwave for 10 seconds. yum delicious! after that i decided i should just buy a package of the small flour ones instead when i want to make tacos in the future. but this time i used some of the ones my roommate had left. save some money.

i've been able to get two leftover salads from this. save more money.

unpacking

i got back from a long weekend in new york on tuesday. i felt very proud of myself for unpacking that afternoon. i normally let it ride out for a week or so. the same goes for my laundry. i hate folding my laundry when it's done. sorting it and putting it away is next to impossible. i can't wait to have a laundry room where i can store my finished laundry until i have the time or the energy to go through it all. and i think being able to do my laundry whenever would also be a plus. going outside of my apartment to do it is extra exhausting. funny: now that i think of it i have a similar problem with my groceries. by the time i get them back to my apartment, i no longer have the energy to put them away. i just want to sit on the couch and watch some mind-less tv to recharge. also i think children are good for these tasks. to assign them the finishing bits of tasks or chores. folding laundry and putting away the groceries.

my task of the day is to clean up my room. it's clean. but i just have stuff all over. i bought a few things that i don't know where to put them. i have a VERY small room, and space and storage is limited. i bought a new under-bed box, but i don't know what to put in it. and i bought a latern/flashlight thing for power outages. where does that go? and i still have to put my laundry away from a week ago. i smartly did my finances yesterday, but i still have papers all over my desk. uck...

the major problem is always where to start. i usually start by putting music on. something upbeat, that i like to sing along to. then i start anywhere. it usually doesn't matter where you start. all of it has to be done. though i know i won't start with the under-bed box. that'll be last.

onto the work...

teaching...

great teachers are hard to come by. i've had few in my life. a great teacher means different things things to different people. i know that the few i've had my classmates didn't always agree with me about.

the ones that have made true impressions on me have allowed me to be who i am and do what i do with minimal direction or help. i think the lack of direction or help does not hinder me. those that have pointed me towards a very precise place or feel they should carry a student through the learning process tend to do more damage then good. you learn by experience. by doing things wrong, then right. and if you are an intelligent individual you can do much of the work on your own. only when someone with more expertise is required, like someone literate when learning how to read or someone with years of design experience when you are first starting out, is the direction or help useful. especially in the design field is it helpful for the student to take their own path. so they can learn what instincts to listen to and others to avoid. if a designer is constantly directed towards which path they can take and what works especially for that teacher, their work may not turn out as desired. and they learn little about their own work and style.

i was directed towards this topic after sorting through old files of my work from undergraduate. whenever i think of my time at pratt, i never think very positively of my design class experiences. i always enjoyed my electives in the interior design department more than my actual core class. except one semester. i was taught by this lovely eccentric. every project i did in that class i loved, and still love. i remember fully grasping the concepts behind each project and really working to my fullest to create the ideal in my head. i never worked so hard in a class. i spent hours upon hours in the studio. i'd come home from the bar to leave again for studio. i spent much of my spring break and my birthday working on a model for the class. and i don't regret one moment of it. (except not having time to photograph my last project in all its glory.) i think i got more out of that one semester than i did out of the other five together.

all of this because of my teacher. she listened and questioned and let us go our way. she let us figure it out. she let us do as much as we could do. she never asked for too much. she never doubted us. she gave us direction, when we asked for it. she gave suggestions but wasn't offended when we decided against them. she was just amazing.

as i said before, not everyone agrees about someone being a great teacher. about half the class were too distracted by eccentricities to really see what she was offering us - a chance to be ourselves. she did not return the next semester. i think the department is missing out. some nice students in mississippi now get the best design professor i ever had.

hello

well... i don't know how to follow up that last one. but i'm not really going to try.

i think writing this blog was helping me. keeping me on a schedule. thinking creatively.
and allowing me to express myself.

and tomorrow will be a real post. no more of this quick mumbo jumbo stuff. a real full-on post. i promise.