all good things: thanksgiving edition

I'm taking a break from mincing dried dates to catch up on the blog. Why am I mincing dates, you ask? Because it's fruitcake time. According to tradition, Thanksgiving weekend is fruitcake baking weekend. And of course I've left it to the last minute, sort of, since the dried fruits need to be soaked overnight in sugar syrup. Yum. Let me just tell you, cutting dried fruit into small pieces is NOT easy. It builds up my kitchen knife calluses and causes high sugar intake; dates, you should know, are the candy of the natural world.

I'm swaying toward doing another "All Good Things" list tonight. The consta-writer in my mind has been absorbed in National Novel Writing Month, which I am not even trying to finish this month, but I have still found that November is a great time for me to think about the novel perpetually in progress in my mind. The structure of this story is finally starting to take shape, and yes, I have managed to jot down a few pages. Moleskine pages, but pages nonetheless.

Anyway, Thanksgiving is cut out for All Good Things lists. "10 Things To Be Thankful For This Week."

1. In the spirit of KSTO Sunday nights, let me set you up with a song. Thanks to the AMAs last Sunday night, one of my coworkers discovered the acoustic ("deconstructed") version of Die Young. We all got pretty into it last week at work, and we've got a countdown going to the EP release of Deconstructed on December 4.

2. Tomorrow is my birthday. I feel like a cheat, though, since I threw myself a party a week ago and have zero plans for tomorrow. Or if not a cheat, something is incomplete: I celebrated something that hadn't happened yet. Not that birthdays make anyone feel any different, really, and not that this is a "big" birthday. But still. The party, and all the fantastic people who showed up, definitely makes this list in flying colors.

3. Dancing. Dancing. Dancing. The other night I was moving around the kitchen feeling like I was about to explode/stumble on something world-shattering, frustrated, with a growing itch. Like wanderlust. And then it suddenly occurred to me that I miss dancing. I miss dancing so much that it's starting to detract from the goodness of my life. The wedding made me realize this, and looking at all the wedding photos has made me realize this again and again over the past two weeks. So on Wednesday, to kick off the holiday weekend, I convinced Jason to take up an invitation from a friend to check out this bar downtown called Nomad.

4. This place deserves its own number: one for the dancing, and one for the place itself. It's in a part of town I haven't ever visited before, one that felt too quiet as we drove into it at 9:45 on a Wednesday night. Except for a flashy club called The Rebel on the corner, it's the only thing on the block, and we hardly even noticed it at all. It's got this speakeasy vibe, a door set sideways and cut into the solid white wall, with one set of blackout windows and a small neon sign flashing the word "open" in the middle of it. The owner was standing outside when we walked up, and she beckoned us over and invited us in, shook our hands. Inside, it is a narrow, deep room, dimly lit but warm with old brick and dark wood decor. On Wednesday night the crowd was treated to an excellent reggae band called Island Vibe. The bartenders were great, the drinks were great, the people were friendly. I felt that we were among friends -- and some of those friends even managed to get Jason on the dance floor! I am impressed.

I could have just directed you to the Nomad Bar's Yelp page. The comments corroborate my story.

5. You know me; discovering new fab pockets of Wilmington with each week that goes by. This next one, though, I have to credit to my roommate and her boyfriend: Borgia's Subs & Steaks. It's a block from my house, super clean and charming on the inside, and a great piece of Little Italy history. I got their home-cooked roast beef sub -- I love roast beef sandwiches, but I did NOT know it could be as delicious even in a bite by itself as it is here. Jason got a burger sub and I'll just say I didn't even get a bite of it, because he strategically finished it before asking if I wanted to trade tastes.

Don't worry, I still let him have a bite of mine. Because as we all know, I like to share good things with other people.

6. Borgia's was the flourish on the end of a mindblowingly great day. Jason and I both had Friday off from work (never happens), and while it was tempting to bum the day away in sweatpants, we both knew that I would get cabin fever quick if we didn't get out of the house. I suggested we take a short jaunt over the bridge by the library, to pretend like we were going to work off our double Thanksgiving dinner the day before.

On the other side of the bridge, though, someone had installed plaques divulging the history of "Bancroft Parkway - An Historic Greenway" (second blurb on this page). How pumped was I to discover that Wilmington has a greenway? SO pumped. And when I discovered that the greenway leads to the lovely historic Rockford Park, not so far away, there was no way we were not going to follow it. (I think I even got some sun on my face, we were out so long!)

We ended up at the Tree of Life on the edge of Rockford Park, rolling out in front of us, with the Delaware Art Museum to our right. Which way to go?

'nuff said.

7. We decided to go to the art museum, which I've been reading about since I moved here but have never visited. I assumed it would be in an old house somewhere in the heart of town, with some local artists drinking tea in the kitschy gift shop. (Sorry for underestimating you, Delaware!) But this place is a legit art museum, with a great variety and a beautiful display of different kinds of painting and sculpture. We got there an hour before it closed, and had just enough time for a whirlwind tour of some really satisfying, inspiring art.

8. Also, I managed to stay awake for all of Love Actually for the first time in four years. Score!

9. I'm thankful for pies. The partners at work bought us all Thanksgiving pies from Bishop's as Thanksgiving gifts; I chose apple cranberry crumb and it was to die for. (Also last week they gifted us lovely ceramic platters from a local potter, which I've already used twice. I'm so into it.) Anyway, in addition to that pie, I also got to taste Jason's mom's pumpkin pie and my mom's pumpkin pie; banana cream pie; light, creamy pumpkin cheesecake; and sweet potato pie made by the fabby baker Shari (Jason's brother's girlfriend). Talk about DELICIOUS. I won't describe every single thing I ate but the yams were to die for. Also, I am in love with sharing food, and with other people being proud to share their food with me and my loved ones. It's such a great way to weave a tight community.

10. This is sort of silly, and unrelated to pretty much everything, but on Wednesday morning I packed up my stuff for the day and hit the gym before work -- the last day of work before the holiday weekend. I got to the gym and realized: I'd forgotten my work shoes. So it was either sneakers or 6-year-old Target flip flops hanging on by a thread with my nice black work dress. I called Katy, who was still at home, and asked her for a HUGE favor: "Can you drop off my heels at the Y on your way to work?"

And she did. No sweat. I don't think she thought it was as big a deal as I did, but it really did blow my mind.


You know, I do the whole "All Good Things" schtick for myself almost as much as I do it for my faithful listeners/readers. It's becoming clearer and clearer that I am feeling the season closing in on me. The dark and the cold give me cabin fever bad. I'm irritable; nostalgic; lonely for no reason; restless; homesick for every place except the one I really live at now; tired; unfocused. Maybe it's a natural reaction to the prospect of spending the holiday season so far away from a lot of people I love to death. But it's not all doom and gloom, because I can make lists like this, and because I have been legitimately happy a lot in the past two weeks, and because I have laughed so much and so hard. Maybe it's seasonal affect rearing its unpleasant head. I'm doing my best to tackle it at its core, and I'm doing an OK job. But this time of year is never easy.

I guess the point of sharing this is, some of you may be in the same boat and I think it's so important to know that we are not alone in feeling like this. Because I know that I'm not. And, despite this morbid umbrella hanging over my head, I really do enjoy some things. The happy just doesn't last quite as long as it does in the summer.

I'd better get back to work. It's getting pretty late, and I'm being called for dinner. I can also hear two pounds of pineapple calling my name from the kitchen, begging to be chopped...

clashing of worlds

I used to drive to work on DE-41, Newport-Gap Pike. It picked up in Newport, near my parents' house, and shoots north into Gap, Pa. Thus the name.

Approximately 4 minutes from my office, depending on how I catch the red lights, DE-41 merges with DE-48 at this strange, curved, tangled intersection. I used to approach this intersection daily with an incantation: Stay green stay green stay green stay green! Those suckers on 48 don't need to get through the intersection as badly as I do! Plus, if I was stuck behind a truck all the way up Newport-Gap Pike (apparently a critical truck thoroughfare), that intersection was my one chance to gun it and dart around him as 41's single lane split into two momentarily at the merge.

Since I moved into the city, though, I take DE-48 straight northwest out of my neighborhood.

Today, I was cutting it close on my morning commute. Traffic wasn't too bad all the way, and my incantation worked its magic on enough red lights that I was almost doing OK by the time I rounded the curve ahead of the merge.

Then came that fateful intersection. Against all odds, and at the expense of my former self, I found myself uttering the incantation -- with one key alteration.

Stay green stay green stay green! Those suckers on 41 don't need to get through the intersection as badly as I do!

I don't actually remember if it worked or not, because suddenly I found myself dazed by a head-on collision of my past and present self, an identity crisis, a clashing of worlds. As I coasted past the light and on my merry way to work, I was shaking off the strangest sensation of traitordom, an impossible contradiction in the way things are. Like a tear in the matrix.

I know, I know, I'm sensationalizing my Friday morning (can you really blame me, though?). But I have always felt particularly sensitive to world-clashings, as I juggle what feels like a whole solar system in my cerebral identity-centers.

In a related vein, I'm excited for this weekend because I'm throwing a birthday party for myself, to which I invited friends from at least 3 of my worlds: high school, college, and Delaware. And within those worlds even micro-worlds are fairly represented: people I met doing this or this, through this or this person. There are spontaneous sparks and slow-burning flames that resulted from sometimes seemingly sourceless chain reactions.

It can be supremely unnerving, but I think secretly I like throwing worlds against each other to see if they stick or absorb each other or bounce off in separate directions. I like watching people I like discover that they in fact like each other. I think people are like ions, and that connections between us completes something incomplete in the world, corrects awkward static in the fabric of a macro-universe.

In a much less abstract vein, and to finish off this quick philosophical lunch break blog, here's how I kind of like to imagine my life:

"The most random collection of groomsmen in the history of weddings." - Zoë, I Love You Man

...Speaking of making connections...

10 things that have made my life better in recent history

I just finished drafting our 2012 St. Olaf Class Newsletter, and I don't want to spend much more of today sequestered in front of a screen. Besides, my car is in desperate need of washing... But I'd say it's about time I write again! So the following items have made my life better lately.

Better than what, you might ask? Better than it would have been without them. Better than it was before they happened. I think life is continually, simultaneously getting better and worse with every passing moment. Bittersweet, perhaps, but that fact brings a promise of eternal richness to an otherwise potentially very dull world.

So here goes: a flashback to Sunday nights on KSTO senior year, All Good Things. The 10 things this week that have made life awesome.

1. Skyfall. I LOVE JAMES BOND. My second cousin Stephen just posted on Facebook some baloney about his girlfriend being extraordinary for going to see James Bond with him on their anniversary. Sorry, Stephen. I'm sure she is just as extraordinary as you say, but James Bond is a woman's man. A girl who will go see Avengers, though, or Wreck-It Ralph, is the girl to covet. JUST saying.

BUT let's be serious for a moment. Skyfall, in my opinion, was a particularly brilliant specimen of Bondery. NPR did a pretty rad interview with the director, Sam Mendes. The part that struck me most was a brief discussion of the darkness of Bond's character, highlighted in the latest installment. This darkness struck me equally in the film. I'm seriously considering reading the books now, if I can get my hands on them. I've found them singularly elusive in the past...

2. This Is How You Lose Her. Speaking of reading, just this morning I finished the latest from Junot Diaz. He was one of my most admired writers before this book, but has only been lifted higher since. Unlike The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (a brilliant piece of literature, although it begs a disclaimer as an emotionally tough book to read), This Is How You Lose Her is a collection of short stories excerpted from the life of a recycled Diaz character named Yunior. With a suspicious aroma of autobiography, the stories collectively dissect the life of a pathological cheater: "A cheater's guide to love." I liked the last story best. It closes the book with a sentiment that has rocked my world all day today: "The half-life of love is forever."

3. Harpoon UFO Unfiltered Pumpkin Ale. Another spoiler to the mythical pumpkin beer post. This is delicious. Pumpkin-y and spicy and beer-y all at once. Pleasant but not pansy. Delicious.

cha cha now y'all

4. Pat Benatar: The Hits. Found it at Target. Only cost $5. Makes life epic. The only weird thing about it is track 7, "Hell is for Children." Just don't get it...

5. JIM AND GREEN GOT MARRIED!!! I love Jim; I love Green. But I have not been so happy that they are together as I was at their wedding. It was perfect. So them. The whole thing was obviously very carefully planned. The reception was great: hand-decorated by the family, catered by their favorite restaurant, with beer and wine made by Green's family, DJ'd by the great DJ Felony (i.e. Jim's excellent pre-picked playlist). Also provided an opportunity to see quite a few people I haven't seen in a long time. For some it had been two years or more. Mostly it was good to dance with those people again. This is something I miss most nowadays.

6. My company just won some awards for social media! I am proud just to be associated with this rockstar team, but I'm especially proud to have put in a lot of personal time on these projects, both in making them great in the first place and in compiling the contest entries. So validating.

7. I have started cooking meat. As you may remember from some of my first-ever posts on this blog, I often eat a lot of tuna fish and canned beans. Since moving out this year, I still eat a good amount of canned tuna; but I've gotten into dried beans instead of canned, and even some frozen tilapia filets! This week, though, I've had non-fish meat TWICE! The other day I got some beef cubes from the Italian market on the corner, and sauteed them up with some onion and green pepper (which I found out you can chop and freeze to make them last longer!) and put it on rice. DELICIOUS! Also, on Friday night I had a friend over who is originally from Jamaica, and she showed me how to make chicken in a brown sauce. Still not totally sure what to do with all the blood and skins and all that, but I guess I can get over it...

8. Actually wrote a poem yesterday. Maybe this will kick me back into motion on the "pulling my stuff together and maybe even writing more poems" front.

9. We turned on the heat this week! In the grand scheme of things, running heat doesn't make my life better (it raises the energy bill, it makes the house stuffy, can be a fire hazard, gives me colds and allergies, basically symbolizes a surrender to winter...) But in this particular case I will tell you that it was getting unbearably frigid in our house, so now that the heat is on it's a little easier to get out of bed in the morning... and we can't see our breath in the kitchen anymore.

10. There is a lot to look forward to, and a lot of people I love. This is partially a cop-out (because the other things I can think of to fill this spot would make anticlimactic "number 10s," i.e. pruning the tree branches hanging over the power lines in the backyard) and partially a way of collecting all the good things, past, present, and future, into one: having tea with my mom on Thursdays; the rare moments when I and both of my roommates are in the house at the same time; being in touch with classmates and old friends; getting to visit my sister at St. Olaf and running into a bunch of other people while I was there. Also, my birthday is 2 weeks from today, and Thanksgiving is coming up soon, which is arguably my favorite holiday. No. Second-favorite. After New Years. And tomorrow I'm going to start up my workout routine again, which has been challenged lately by hurricanes, Noreasters, travel-related exhaustion and potential illness, so I should be more on my game and less irritable than I was last week. Oh YEAH!

Thanks for playing, friends. Always remember-- there can be more than 10. To be continued...

excuses for not writing

I have taken a little break from blogging (not really on purpose) and since my current circumstances would love to let me go another full week before posting, I'm getting on top of this.

This is ironically perfect timing for me to be making excuses for not writing, since November has just started and along with being Movember, or No-Shave November, it is also National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I failed last year on day 1, but this year I've stashed a Moleskine in my purse and I'm shooting for the 250 words a day required of MiniWriMo, a Delaware Writers' Group activity. To be honest, I failed day 1 already AGAIN, but I've been writing in my head? I used to write papers that way in college. It counts, right?

So what are my current circumstances? I'm hiding behind the Delta baggage claim at MSP, waiting for my partner in crime/research/wedding attendance to pick me up after an orthodontist appointment. (I mean Liz, for those of you more curious readers out there.)

I'm back in the Midwest for a whirlwind weekend and mainly for a wedding tomorrow somewhere in Iowa. I'm planning a few quick rondez vous in N-field, one of them being my sister, who is eager to be my Ole host instead of the other way around.

My roommates and I were certain our schedules would clear up after the summer months, but that seems less and less realistic the more time that passes. In the last two weeks (since my last post) I have tasted 10-13 new pumpkin beers (yes, my roundup is forthcoming). I have roasted weenies. We had our first gathering at the not-so-new-anymore house, and filled the living room with great girls and ill-behaved cats. I went to the Fall Festival at church intending to chaperone a youth sleepover that no one showed up to.

The next afternoon I met two long-lost friends in Manhattan from two different past lives, and managed to hop one of the last busses out of the city before the whole city shut down in front of Sandy. (Props to the coolheaded Greyhound employee with stellar communication skills and a steady voice. Quote of the night: "My main priority is to get all of you out of my city." Oddly comforting.)

Then, I was trapped inside my house for two days while Frankenstorm raged outside; saw "Seven Psychopaths" which was pretty phenomenal; threw a couple of dresses and something soft to sleep in into a duffel bag and came here. It's been the good kind of "one thing after another." Mostly. I'm rolling with it.

So. Here are the weeks in a couple of pictures...