Friday, March 17, 2006

Friday, March 17, 2006 Tradeeetional Current mood: nostalgic I was just watching "O'Hardball" tonight (Chris Matthews put an "O" on the name of his show and on the names of all of his guests. He and his wife hosted an Irish-American function last night and one of the speakers said, "We're telling stories, that's what the Irish do when they get together." That got me thinking - yeah, that's true; however, they usually tell stories late at night after a few pints of "the blond in the black skirt" (as my great uncle Tom used to say) and the stories are usually told in song. This takes me back to this summer. I had the incredible experience of attending my family reunion in Ballybunion, Co. Kerry, an enormous affair which attracted about 300 of my relatives from around the world. (We're Catholics, we bred a lot!). I go to Ireland frequently, so I'm quite close to many relatives who live there. Therefore, I got invited to the "lock-ins" after the bars closed with the locals, most of whom I am related to in some way. At one particular lock-in, my cousins from England and I sat around with our Irish and American family members and listened while person after person piped up and sang traditional song after traditional song - my cousin Mike, Jim Sweeney from Florida, another cousin who's a policeman in Abbeyfeale and many more. My ex-boyfriend, Ian, sang so well, he gave me goosebumps and brought tears to my eyes. I had never seen that traditional-loving side of him before, that side of him that is so proud of his heritage. You hear often in Ireland, especially from the older crowd, that these traditions will die out with the younger generation. I think we proved this summer, that we too respect, enjoy, and want to carry on those traditions. Fladh Ceoils (don't test me on the spelling!) are still ridiculously popular throughout the summer in Ireland and you still hear traditional music everywhere. I don't think that's going to die down any time soon. Currently listening : Best of Dubliners By The Dubliners Release date: 04 October, 2005 7:00 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Friday, March 10, 2006 Stay In Bed Current mood: distressed Today is one of those days, already, when I wish I'd just stayed in bed. Bed didn't seem all that great though either. I have been plagued by nightmares all week and it's really beginning to get to me. They're the vivid kind - you know - the ones that feel really real, the ones where you wake up absolutely exhausted. I actually woke up this morning and burst into tears. That's so not like me. I'm not a crier. I have, weirdly, had anxiety dreams about teaching - the first day of teaching, and honestly, I'm not nervous about that at all in real life. I had a dream the night before last that a professor gave me a D on a paper for no reason and I got really upset and had a big argument with her. I've never even been in this professor's class. I dreamt last night that I was witness to a really brutal shower-scene type murder with lots of slashing and blood involved. For those of you that know me, you know I'm terrified of blood. Plus, the murderers were my friends and I was supposed to keep it quiet. The whole dream was in a Gosford Park type setting and that made it even creepier. There have been more of these nightmares and I'm really tired of them. Obviously my brain is trying to work something out, but if this is the way it has to do it, I wish it would just leave it alone and not bother. People get freaked out when I, as a relatively happy, apparently strong person, get upset. It freaks them out and they don't know how to deal with it. That makes me feel like I'm not allowed to get upset, ever, because it freaks other people out when I lose it. All I have to say to that is - I'm human. Sometimes I get upset for no other reason than I've had nightmares and really bad sleep all week and it's getting to me. I'm really tired of always having to be the strong person, the one who makes everyone else feel better, the one who picks everyone else up. Sometimes, I have that need too. Sometimes I just need people to listen when I'm upset and not freak out because it's unusual behaviour for me. I really do try too hard to hold it all together sometimes. If I weren't afraid of another nightmare, I would crawl back into bed, pull my feather duvet over my head and go to sleep. There is no rest for the wicked though and I have moved everything out of my bedroom so I can paint it, so I might as well do it now. It might make me feel better to do something. I know I don't usually write ranty personal blogs like this, but I am just having one of those days. It's one of those days where I feel like the piano is going to drop on my head out of nowhere (you know, like in the cartoons). Hopefully I'm smart enough to dodge it, but the erratic sleep has left me not really on top of my game. Currently listening : Achtung Baby By U2 Release date: 19 November, 1991 9:14 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, March 05, 2006 Curry Fest 2006 As it is now my Spring Break, I find I now have the time to go out and do a mammoth grocery shop for curry ingredients. I went to three different grocery stores yesterday and spent a small fortune on various spices and vegetables. If it grows, I plan to curry it this week. I was quite the busy bee yesterday - I even made cheese (paneer, an Indian white cheese made from milk and lemon). The cheese part was fun. It's for a recipe called Sag Paneer which is basically curried spinach and cheese cubes. I curried about four pounds of spinach! I'm trying to adapt some of my favourite Indian meat-containing recipes to vegetarian equivalents. I'm trying to make Tofu Tikka Masala. The tofu tikka part came out quite well, different from chicken, but good in its own right, and I still have to make the actual sauce. I ran out of steam and ingredients today though. I am trying to make traditional Indian vegetarian dishes too. I plan to make one that involves fried okra. I've never bought okra in my life before, but I am seriously trying to use this vegetarian thing to broaden my culinary horizons. I am also planning a cauliflower and potato one. I'll probably use all the leftover vegetables to make a hodge-podge curry - eggplant, mushrooms, corn, peas, peppers - you name it. So I'm having a blast creating culinary delights and a mess in my kitchen. I really have needed some cooking therapy; I just haven't had time to relax and get my cooking groove on while school's been going on. I'm making enough to feed the army of a small country, so I'm sure I'll get sick of curry and start palming it off onto other people soon........ Currently reading : The Curry Secret: Indian Restaurant Cookery at Home (Right Way S.) By Kris Dhillon Release date: October, 2000 10:56 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Wednesday, March 01, 2006 Eat Your Veggies! Today is the first day of my temporary(?) vegetarianism. Coincidentally, today my book group that is reading Fast Food Nation met. This has stiffened my resolved to give up eating flesh of any description. We talked today about health and social implications implicit in the meat-packing industry. I had to think about what's at stake when you eat meat: Who worked one of the most dangerous jobs in the country for little money and no health insurance to supply my steak? Who lobbied the government so they would ignore massive breakouts of e-coli and other dangerous health threats in packing plants? Who pumped the animals full of hormones? What does that do to my body? Who is keeping fast food businesses in business? How "humanely" are these animals kept and killed? All this fortifies my decision to give up meat and might help stave the cravings. Today I have fared excellently without any meat. I had a veggie-burger for lunch and for dinner, I made a fantastic salad with spinach, sprouts, cucumbers, red peppers, spicy tofu, and homemade ginger-soy dressing. It rocked. If I can eat this well every night, I wouldn't miss meat at all. I also had the best sandwich ever on Sunday. It should win the BEST SANDWICH EVER AWARD. They make it at Frothy Monkey on 12th Ave. S. and it is called "The Ned." I highly recommend it, especially for vegetarians looking for something incredibly yummy. I have been fantasizing about that sandwich for days! (Yes, I am a very sad person!). I am looking forward to trying new ways of eating and experimenting with new ingredients. This week I have a big crush on alfalfa sprouts. I want to eat them with everything. They are incredibly tasty. I want to discover the delights of vegetables that I don't think about eating because I am too preoccupied with meat. Wish me luck! Currently listening : Strange and Beautiful By Aqualung Release date: 22 March, 2005 8:04 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, February 26, 2006 South and my lovely grammar nerds.... The Restraining Influence of Fear If you're anything like me, you sit terrified of the blank page or blank screen, afraid to write or type anything. This fear, you know, is irrational, like arachnophobia. You know the page isn't going to bite you if you write something terrible. You know this, but you sit, petrified, unable to connect thought to page. I recently read a few wise words by author Anne Lamott from her book Bird by Bird relating to this fear. Her words made me feel as though great writers share my struggle, that I am accompanied, not alone. From p. 22: "Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled. They do not type a few warm-up sentences and then find themselves bounding along like huskies across the snow..... For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts." There now, doesn't that make it all feel better? Fear of not attaining perfection can restrain our potential in so many ways, not just in writing, but in life in general. In life, you don't often get the chance to go back and "re-write," but in writing, you do. Take advantage of that great opportunity and have the courage to write really, really shitty first drafts! Posted by Claire 11:14 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Saturday, February 25, 2006 Old I will share with you a moment this summer that made me feel old. I remember my first "feeling old" moment a couple of years ago when I heard MTV announce "Real World 10," but this one was worse. I took my eighteen year old cousin and her friend shopping this summer in Tralee (Co. Kerry, Ireland). We went to this shop called Shindig (in which I remember shopping as a skinny, insecure, wanting to be cool sixteen year old). I hadn't been in there for years, but my cousin and her friend wanted to go in, so in we went. They have always had cool stuff. That's the thing about Ireland - you can be in a reasonably small town and find the coolest, most individual little shops. They had this whole series of tee-shirts. Some of them had really funny Irish phrases (in Irish). We had to get my grandad to translate (he blushed at some of them). And some of them were just general pop culture stuff. I saw one that said "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" and started laughing my head off. My cousin (and her friend) didn't get it. We were in some trendy-teen shop. I felt more in my element than they did. They had no idea what it meant. They looked at me like I was the cool one. "You get that?", they said, with googley, you're a cool older person eyes. "Yeah," I said, "you've seen Dirty Dancing, right?" "No." "What, you're kidding me, that's the cheesiest film ever. It's so bad, it's good....." You can imagine how the rest of this conversation went. But the underlying point is, they didn't know why you couldn't put Baby in the corner and what the social implications of such a threat were. It made me glad to be old. At least I know why you can't put Baby in a corner. Currently listening : Astral Weeks By Van Morrison Release date: 25 October, 1990 11:24 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Thursday, February 23, 2006 The time has come, finally.... Current mood: bouncy Here is South's U.S. tour schedule! Note: West Coast venues and dates to be confirmed. March 24 - The Social (Orlando, FL). Tickets $15 via Ticketmaster. 18+ only. March 26 - Tamiami Room @ Jannus Landing (St. Petersburg, FL). Tickets $12.50 advance, $15 at the door. All ages. March 27 - The Loft (Atlanta, GA). Tickets $12 advance via Ticketalternative, $14 at the door. All ages. March 29 - Sonar (Baltimore, MD). Tickets $12 via Ticketmaster. All ages. March 30 - 9:30 Club (Washington, D.C.). Tickets $15 via Tickets.com. All ages. March 31 - Northstar Bar (Philadelphia, PA). Tickets $12 advance via Ticketweb, $14 at the door. 21+ only. April 1 - Maxwell's (Hoboken, NJ). Tickets $15 via Ticketweb. 18+ only. April 3 - Lee's Palace (Toronto, ON). Tickets $15 advance, $20 at the door. 19+ only. April 5 - Cabaret de Musee Juste Pour Rire (Montreal, QC). Tickets $15.50 advance via Admission/Ticketmaster, $17.50 at the door. April 6 - TT the Bear's (Cambridge, MA). Tickets $12 via Ticketmaster. 18+ only. April 7 - Bowery Ballroom (New York, NY). Tickets $15 via Ticketweb. 21+ only. April 8 - Showplace Theatre (Buffalo, NY). Tickets $8. April 11 - Blind Pig (Ann Arbor, MI). Tickets $12 advance via Ticketmaster, $15 at the door. 18+ only. April 12 - Skully's Music Diner (Columbus, OH). Tickets $8 at the door. 18+ only. April 13 - The Vogue (Indianapolis, IN). Tickets $12 via Ticketmaster or at the door. 21+ only. April 15 - Double Door (Chicago, IL). Tickets $12 via Ticketmaster or at the door. 21+ only. April 17 - Varsity Theater (Minneapolis, MN). Tickets $10 via Ticketmaster, $12 at the door. 18+ only. Support for all dates from Margo & The Nuclear So & So's. Currently listening : Speed Up/Slow Down By South Release date: 23 August, 2005 4:12 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Wednesday, February 22, 2006 Girl Scout Cookies I feel like I'm being constantly ambushed by an army of pre-teen girls brandishing yummy sweet treats. They are everywhere I go. I have no weapons against the chocolatey, crunchy coconutty goodness of Samoas. I just don't. The whole arsenal of my self-control (such as it is) can offer no defence. And, if the army of pre-teen girls isn't enough, then you have the Marketing Mothers, who bring the order forms to work and accost you with them. I have surrendered and am currently waving my white flag. It gets worse. MTSU's agriculture department makes its own milk. I discovered, the other day, that this milk is phenomenal. It tastes just like the organic milk I usually buy; actually it tastes better. It is the perfect accompaniment for Girl Scout Cookies. I really don't need to know these things. Currently listening : Wonderland By Charlatans UK Release date: 11 September, 2001 11:01 PM - 3 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Monday, February 13, 2006 You Know You're Too Busy When... Current mood: cranky ...you get home at ten o' clock and have to clean up the spray-painting roses black in the dining room mess you made yesterday before you can eat dinner. You forgot, by the way, until you'd cleaned up the mess, that you hadn't eaten dinner. You're hungry, but you have no real food. Well that's a lie - the real food you have doesn't go together, in any way (Naan bread, brie and bok choy?) - you decide not. You finally decide on frozen Mexican appetizers left over from a party months ago, some dried cherries, a bit of the brie, and a Boca Chicken pattie. Yum. 10:59 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, February 12, 2006 The Worst Valentine I Ever Got So, as some of you may know, I (and a few others) have organised an Un-Love Slam at the Writing Center tomorrow night. It is an evening of poetry reading (both original and old favourites) for the cynical. We are reading poems of heartbreak, of catharsis, anger, desperation etc... It's a way for me (and hopefully others) to direct atttention away from this Hallmark holiday designed, it seems, to make most people feel inadequate and unhappy. Don't paint me as your average cynic. I know that Valentine's Day can be enjoyable (if taken with a grain of salt). In my 27 years, I've had one good one - I know they can happen. I still retain a little hope. Now, stop me if you've heard this story, but there is a Valentine's Day that sticks out in my mind as particularly bad - Valentine's Day, 2003. That whole year was bad, in various ways, so it seems fitting. I worked as an Assistant Manager at Waldenbooks. The job mostly sucked, but I did get to be around books, so there was some reason to do it. I agreed, this particular year, to work Valentine's Day night because, well, I didn't really have anything better to do. I thought that at least working would keep my mind off it. Well, wasn't I wrong! About two hours before we were about to close, the other girl I worked with had gone on her break and I was trying to help a customer in the children's section pick out some books. Now this lady was not having a good day. She was yelling at her children (who really weren't doing anything wrong) and generally being very snippy with me and my attempts to assist her. She finally decided which children's books and which heavy, hardback, bargain cookbooks to buy and came up to the register. Waldenbooks, at that time, had a "Preferred Readers" discount card they required their employees to push with unbelievable corporate tenacity. I think, ultimately, this is the reason I quit that job (oh, and the crappy pay, let's not forget that). So I asked this customer, tactfully, almost timidly (for me, I'm not good at being timid) if she had a Preferred Reader card. She pulled out a card for another store (not even a bookstore, I don't think). I told her (nicely, too) that that wasn't our card, but I would be happy to look her up in the computer and give her the discount that way. Instead of accepting this compromise, she proceeded to tell me that she was indeed showing me the right card. I (very politely, believe it not) told her that it was not the right card and there was nothing I could do with it, but I could look her up. Well, she must have been having a very bad day, because instead of listening and agreeing, she decided to pick up her very heavy sale cookbooks off the counter and throw them across the counter directly into my chest. When I recounted this story later, people have repeatly said "why didn't you call security?" Seems rational, but to be honest, I was too shocked. There was no one else to man the store, but I didn't care. I went into the back room, sat down on a pile of books and burst into tears. She actually dented my chest, bruised me and made me bleed. I just couldn't believe it. I felt so violated and shocked that I wasn't feeling rational enough to do anything about it. Looking back, she could have been arrested for that. I think that's one of the few times in my life though, that I've actually been scared. Her rage was so random and unwarranted, so unpredictable. Although Valentine's Day will never probably be my favourite day of the year, I hope that 2003, complete with crappy job and physical assaults, will remain my worst, or at least in the top three worst.