BlogFerret

I find that the more interesting my life is, the less time I have to write. The more time I have to write, the less stimulated I am, and therefore have fewer interesting topics to write about. The only exception to this rule is a sort of in-between period I get after I make a decision to put myself out in the world more but before I’ve actually put the plans in motion.

In any case, I’ve been getting out into the world a bit. And I’ve been staying in a bit, too. We had a couple of friends over for the weekend. I made chicken crepes with a sherry bechamel sauce, salad and a lemon ladyfinger dessert. None of it was particularly dietetic, but it was all delicious if I say so myself. I really enjoy cooking, and I am very gratified when I make a dish and people really enjoy it. From a fairly early time in my life, I’ve always wanted every meal I cook to be at least a bit above “average.” Maybe it’s because I’m from New Orleans, but I’ve always appreciated the differences between food, good food, and great food. What’s the point of eating something that’s just “okay?” Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve decided to try something new with my website. Instead of posting random blather in a stream of consciousness style, I’m going to keep to a regular schedule and post about specific things. Novel idea for me, no?

I’m aware that my life lacks a lot of focus. I complain because I don’t reach the “lesser” goals in my life, but I am pretty unfocused and disorganized unless I have something big on the line (i.e. graduate school). I also seem to let some people influence me where I wouldn’t normally be influenced if I were more certain of myself. I feel as if at 31, I really should go ahead and attempt to figure out exactly who I am and exactly what I want. Now, a weblog isn’t really going to help me do this, but if I work on structure and focus in this small way, maybe I can see how it works on a larger scale. In any case, I’d really like to improve my writing in an online medium.

Otherwise, I’ll have to start putting “Verbose and Directionless” beneath my name on my business cards.

Ok, so perhaps some of you have noticed the MA Thesis progress bar has advanced to 100%. That effect is due to the fact that on April 8 (only 3 weeks ago!) I defended and passed. Suddenly I are an authority.

I am now in the format check stages and am ready to print the copies on bond paper. This means that I have to pull more money out of my butt. I am still not sure where the school thinks I get all this money to spend on crap like caps and gowns and 20 lb. bond paper. I also don’t understand why the school makes walking in the ceremony mandatory. I could refuse to participate, but it is actually more difficult to do that than to just go ahead and participate. Can’t I just quietly bask in my own sense of achievement instead of spending 2 1/2 hours in a smelly auditorium watching people I don’t know yammer and prance about? My family wants to come and sit through all of that just to watch me walk (and probably trip) across the stage for 5 seconds. Read the rest of this entry »

Or should that be “Anxiety, M.A.”? (clever, aren’t I? tee hee. tee. hee.)

The other day I had prepared this clever post on the nature of test anxiety and whether anxiety is actually “necessary” for success. I discussed how I always get very anxious about my exams but usually get A’s on them anyway, resulting in ridicule by dear hubby. I wondered if I would do as well on the exams if I weren’t always anxious about them.  I have to admit that sometimes I’m anxious in spite of being well-prepared for the exam, but more often I am anxious because I have not prepared very thoroughly at all.  So is the anxiety really necessary?  Read the rest of this entry »

So apparently I am injuring myself trying to carry around my books and my laptop at the same time. James got me a realy neat red laptop case from Target for my birthday but I can’t fit my school books into it. I have a sleeve for the laptop and I put it in my backpack, but I think I hurt myself carrying it like that all last week.

The obvious solution is a rolling bag. Now of course, I want one of those cool looking rolling “backpacks” or briefcases, but honestly I really shouldn’t buy something just for asthetics, and the really neat ones are always expensive. I do have a small carryon piece of rolling luggage. I am almost ashamed to admit, though, that I am hesitant to use it for one simple reason: it ain’t cool enough. I mean, why the hell should I care if something is cool or not if it keeps me from giving myself back problems and I don’t have to spend a bunch of money on it? What do I care if a bunch of stupid college students see me hauling my mobile office around in what is obviously a small overnight case?

What do you guys think? I know you’re out there.

I saw this on the childfree LiveJournal community and had to spread it around a bit. I thought it was an interesting take on people. You see a lot of real ads like this (with the babies and puppies reversed, of course) and it’s sometimes good to see that maybe it’s not “ok” to give up a family member just because you’re getting another.

We’re Having a Puppy! via childfree

I also feel compelled to mention that I still consider myself childfree despite the fact that some people who claim to be childfree can be offensive.  I am childfree because parenting isn’t for everyone, not because I think that parenting is bad.  I do know people who became parents just because they yielded to biology without thought, or worse, for all the WRONG reasons.  I ALSO know a few parents who not only made/make responsible parenting choices but ALSO don’t yammer to me how motherhood is what women were meant for (this implies that I am not a “good woman”). The latter sort of parents are not only good parents, but they are also considerate and good friends of mine.  And as soon as their children are able to make a decent variety of mixed drinks and/or appetizers, they are welcome in my home.

So I got distracted from developing a recipe blog here by the following article (by a girl who has fabulous Wordpress resources):

One man’s Trash…

Is it really “stealing” if you threw it away? I never thought of it like that. If I throw something away, then, by all means, if someone wants it, they are free to come along and grab it! If I am fortunate enough to be able to throw away still-functional objects, I would certainly hope that someone else could get good use out of it. In the best of all possible worlds, one would donate everything to Goodwill, but there’s really no shame in picking a perfectly good bookshelf up off the curb if you drive by and see that someone threw it out. Why should there be?

It is a shame that we are *so spoiled* in our society today that some of us wouldn’t want people to use something we don’t even want! Is it *really* preferable that the stuff we put on the curb goes to a landfill rather than helping someone out? Since we couldn’t be bothered, why shouldn’t someone else fix it up and use it in their own home or sell it to make a little extra money? Do we really begrudge the less fortunate something so simple?

Or perhaps we just don’t want to admit our own laziness, wastefulness, and materialism, and the people who pick up and use our trash remind us of this. I am not perfect, and I am probably just as lazy, wasteful, and materialistic as the next person. We lost a lot of furniture after hurricane Katrina. I would certainly have openly and without shame picked up perfectly good furniture on the side of the road if we had had a bigger car. I wouldn’t have been “discreet” about it. You threw it out, I needed it: it would be that simple. Why should I be ashamed of that?

Some people argue that they don’t want the “homeless element” combing through their trash in their neighborhood, and that’s why they have a problem with it. I have been on both sides of this issue: I have lived in a neighborhood that would be appalled if a homeless person was seen in it, and I have been homeless. Most people aren’t homeless by choice. If we don’t want homeless people in our neighborhoods, then we should donate our time and/or money to programs for free mental healthcare (most homeless people are mentally ill or drug addicted) and decent housing programs. If more people did this, fewer people would be homeless, and we wouldn’t have them desperately searching through our cast off goods for something they can sell so they can eat that day.

This has become one hell of a tangent, but it’s actually pretty rare that I feel so strongly about an issue in our society and actually feel as if I can say something. Most of the time I can’t say anything because I know very little about politics and running governments and what not. In this case it’s simple because I see firsthand every day how spoiled and materialistic our society has become. It really wasn’t that long ago that a village had to share an oven between all of its households, and it was very rare for someone to even own a book. Everyone wore one set of clothing all the time, maybe they had another for special occasions, if they were truly wealthy. So how in the world, only 13 generations later, can we be so caught up in the material, to the point where we can’t even share our trash?!

Think about that next time you see a ten year old child with a cell phone, or a mother with a $4,000 baby stroller. I bet the kind of people who consume in this manner are also the same people who would really hate it if someone came to their neighborhoods on trash day and picked up the sofa that didn’t match the new drapes. Of course, if they could be bothered to donate the stuff to Goodwill, or have a garage sale, they wouldn’t have to look at the icky poor people.

Now, I’m not targeting anyone in specific here. In fact, I happen to know that some people who can comfortably afford to consume “conspicuously” on occasion are actually very conscientious people who also wouldn’t mind someone taking their cast off furniture curbside. I just sometimes get angry that society has taken such a turn for the worse that we are capable of criticizing other people and making generalizations about them when they are in a situation we can’t even understand.

I have always been terrible at decision making. I am often just as stymied by what to wear and what to eat as I am by major decisions, such as whether to go to the doctor for something, or lately, where to move. I’ve wanted to put a recipe section on my blog, but I can’t decide if I should just have a recipe category with sub-categories for each type of recipe, or if I should have an entirely separate recipe blog. After Katrina, we couldn’t decide where we wanted to move when we got the money. We kept changing our minds. Incidentally, we finally made a decision, but we aren’t going to tell too many people until we actually are ready to move. This is mainly because every time we’ve said to a bunch of people, “We’re moving to _____ ,” we’ve changed our minds almost immediately after doing so.

Still, I never anticipated that after making a decision I would find something even more difficult to do: wait. I have decied to go to graduate school but have to wait until NEXT fall because we were so up in the air after Katrina, and we really need to make some money for a while. It took me 10 years to make up my mind on what to do with myself, but now that I know, it’s a looooong road from here to there. We know where we’re going to move but we have to save up enough money to move. I hate waiting. It was almost better when things were scary and unpredictable. Almost.

If I were home, and by home I mean in New Orleans before the hurricane, I wouldn’t worry about it. I would go around the corner and get a tallboy and something to cook for dinner. Then I would sit on my front porch and drink the tall boy and think that everything was unfolding as it should. I wonder if anyone here would let me borrow their front porch?