In the midst of a hurricane
Thursday, 11 February 2010 12:47![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extemporallyWhat up Livejournal. I am at work now! And posting this entry as a reward to myself for finishing (that is, I haven't finished yet) an extremely painful task. Argh.
It's Chinese New Year in a couple of days! We've hung up the red banner at our door, my mother has made her cold vinegared pork, and just this morning we bought the pussy willows which are supposed to bloom on New Year's Eve, on the dot. Right now they're just yellow buds, though. I like them very much. Usually I view the coming of Chinese New Year with a mixture of dread and excitement (food! but having to talk to relatives! I will probably fall sick! but then red packets! a couple of days off school or work! however, temples and smoke inhalation!) but this year feels special. We'll see.
---
So I was just doing a bit of research and came across this article, which is looking mostly good, but also says:
... and then it goes on to talk about how sophisticated and complex masks from innocent, primitive cultures are. Okay then!
Which is to say, JRGHJRGHJRGH CONDESCENDING MUCH?
---
I have also taken to packing my lunch recently! All those entries about cheese and avocado sandwiches, I don't know if you guys could tell. The problem is that I've gotten a bit sick of sandwiches, and I'm not really sure what else to pack. There isn't a microwave at our place, and I hate eating cold things if they aren't meant to be cold. So that means pasta salad (short pasta, pesto) is fine, but leftover spaghetti (long pasta, tomato sauce) isn't. I tried cold roast vegetables (potatoes, carrots, onions) and that was stretching the limits on acceptable. It's a little bit weird! And very inconvenient! My palate, I mean. Does anyone have suggestions?
---
Today I went for a run in the gym, and listened to one of my podcasts. It's the podcast I always recommend for anything, In Our Time. People talking about absurdly nerdy things, in British accents! For a good while my life plans basically involved impersonating Melvyn Bragg (wrote some non-fiction, wrote some novels, talked to academics on radio, FOR A LIVING), I cannot deny.
This time I listened to him and some other people pontificate on Elizabethan and Jacobean Revenge Tragedy. One of those other people were Jonathan Bate, whom I also had a nerdcrush on until he released his latest book (kind of a disappointment). But still! Jonathan Bate! Talking about Titus Andronicus and Hamlet and The Spanish Tragedy! If I weren't running for my life I think my face would have been like this -- :DDD
---
A couple of days ago I was on the train home when I saw a hipster-man (nerd glasses, v-neck t-shirt) cuddling his four year-old daughter. She had the stupidest haircut, and was wearing a black pleather jacket. They weren't beautiful, really, but I couldn't stop looking at them, how sweet and sensible they looked. There's this part in Julian Gough's Juno & Juliet where Juliet says, "If only we could look into all the lives of the wives and daughters we call strangers", and while I've always thought that was a kind of slip on the author's part, wives and daughters sounds strange in a girl's voice instead of mothers and sisters and husbands or anything else, it's always been a statement I appreciate.
---
So the thing about posting is you (I mean I) always want to post right away, after you've finished the entry, so even though I haven't really finished my extremely excruciating thing yet, here I am. Posting! Here I go.
It's Chinese New Year in a couple of days! We've hung up the red banner at our door, my mother has made her cold vinegared pork, and just this morning we bought the pussy willows which are supposed to bloom on New Year's Eve, on the dot. Right now they're just yellow buds, though. I like them very much. Usually I view the coming of Chinese New Year with a mixture of dread and excitement (food! but having to talk to relatives! I will probably fall sick! but then red packets! a couple of days off school or work! however, temples and smoke inhalation!) but this year feels special. We'll see.
---
So I was just doing a bit of research and came across this article, which is looking mostly good, but also says:
When not trapped in the stereotypes of being "hypocritical guises" or "camouflaged farces", masks reflect the innocence of the primitive people of the world who were the real creators of these aesthetically sublime and culturally functional symbols.
... and then it goes on to talk about how sophisticated and complex masks from innocent, primitive cultures are. Okay then!
Which is to say, JRGHJRGHJRGH CONDESCENDING MUCH?
---
I have also taken to packing my lunch recently! All those entries about cheese and avocado sandwiches, I don't know if you guys could tell. The problem is that I've gotten a bit sick of sandwiches, and I'm not really sure what else to pack. There isn't a microwave at our place, and I hate eating cold things if they aren't meant to be cold. So that means pasta salad (short pasta, pesto) is fine, but leftover spaghetti (long pasta, tomato sauce) isn't. I tried cold roast vegetables (potatoes, carrots, onions) and that was stretching the limits on acceptable. It's a little bit weird! And very inconvenient! My palate, I mean. Does anyone have suggestions?
---
Today I went for a run in the gym, and listened to one of my podcasts. It's the podcast I always recommend for anything, In Our Time. People talking about absurdly nerdy things, in British accents! For a good while my life plans basically involved impersonating Melvyn Bragg (wrote some non-fiction, wrote some novels, talked to academics on radio, FOR A LIVING), I cannot deny.
This time I listened to him and some other people pontificate on Elizabethan and Jacobean Revenge Tragedy. One of those other people were Jonathan Bate, whom I also had a nerdcrush on until he released his latest book (kind of a disappointment). But still! Jonathan Bate! Talking about Titus Andronicus and Hamlet and The Spanish Tragedy! If I weren't running for my life I think my face would have been like this -- :DDD
---
A couple of days ago I was on the train home when I saw a hipster-man (nerd glasses, v-neck t-shirt) cuddling his four year-old daughter. She had the stupidest haircut, and was wearing a black pleather jacket. They weren't beautiful, really, but I couldn't stop looking at them, how sweet and sensible they looked. There's this part in Julian Gough's Juno & Juliet where Juliet says, "If only we could look into all the lives of the wives and daughters we call strangers", and while I've always thought that was a kind of slip on the author's part, wives and daughters sounds strange in a girl's voice instead of mothers and sisters and husbands or anything else, it's always been a statement I appreciate.
---
So the thing about posting is you (I mean I) always want to post right away, after you've finished the entry, so even though I haven't really finished my extremely excruciating thing yet, here I am. Posting! Here I go.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
the longest, randomest, most English-major comment ever
Date: Thursday, 11 February 2010 06:11 (UTC)BUT, I WOULD JUST LIKE TO SAY: OMGGG ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN REVENGE TRAGEDY IS MY FAAAVORITE!!! Did they talk about The Revenger's Tragedy? Did they? Did they? It is my favorite sekkritly feminist and subversive play ever (it just is okay), and the King's Men used to run it in repertory with Hamlet, which is BRILLIANT, since it's a total send-up of Hamlet, oh my heart! (See: Tam Lin.) (Also The Lady's Not for Burning - have you read it? It is full of ideas and it's Romantical while also being Terrible Sad and Witty and I loooove it. And I think it's about politics. And I know it's about feminism and agency.)
geeky comments always welcome!
Date: Thursday, 11 February 2010 10:56 (UTC)ALSO THIS COMMENT. They did mention it! But not in very great detail, or maybe I just wasn't listening to that part. But sekkritly feminist and subversive? You promise? I must check this out immediately. *g*
Re: geeky comments always welcome!
Date: Thursday, 11 February 2010 15:48 (UTC)Re: geeky comments always welcome!
Date: Friday, 12 February 2010 13:20 (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, 11 February 2010 14:23 (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 12 February 2010 13:22 (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, 11 February 2010 15:43 (UTC)*STABSTABSTAB*
I feel you.
Re: lunches? I am no help. I am the MOST picky about lunch temperature and usually I get all bent out of shape if I have to eat something cold :D:
no subject
Date: Friday, 12 February 2010 13:24 (UTC)I know, it is the worst. I made roast vegetables on Sunday and brought them to work on Monday and picked my way through them with a dubious face, like "... okay, this tasted better hot."
no subject
Date: Thursday, 11 February 2010 22:43 (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 12 February 2010 13:24 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 14 February 2010 17:19 (UTC)also I SAW AN AVOCADO IN THE SUPERMARKET BY MY SCHOOL TODAY AND I THOUGHT OF YOU
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 16 February 2010 02:06 (UTC)ALSO YAY AVOCADO. I am pleased to be associated with such a delicious thing. :DDD
no subject
Date: Friday, 12 February 2010 22:41 (UTC)Every morning you'd think
all the moths would throw themselves
into the Sun.
But they wait
for streetlights
to consume them
in small coughs
of sparkle.
My dear,
my dear,
my dear:
I have stopped
listening to my moth soul.
My dear, I am done
tilting at streetlights.
My paper wings soar,
brush
your blazing heart.
-------
I LOVE your icon. David Bowie is amazing.
no subject
Date: Saturday, 13 February 2010 05:03 (UTC)Also, I am pretty fond of that icon myself, so thanks again. *g* I kind of fell in love with David Bowie last year, so yes, he is completely amazing! I love him to pieces. :D
no subject
Date: Monday, 15 February 2010 08:05 (UTC)Uh... I'm not at all sure if you'd consider that lunch food, but /o\ it's kinda warm, and made of carbs?
Also HAPPY NEW YEAR, and guess who I am <3
Hint: YES to watching Life on Mars with you after all the CNY hubbub subsides!!!
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 16 February 2010 02:04 (UTC)But soup is a good idea, thanks. I just need to find a thermos that's big enough.