dude, why the hell did I abandon this?
I'm enjoying my first break that's a Real Live Break since, well, since a damn long time ago. grad school breaks aren't real breaks, and all of a sudden I have like TWO WEEKS with nothing to do. except read (Bleak House, which I kind of got sick of after about 500 of the 800 pages), knit, and eat. mostly eat.
more later.
studying for quals is making me an unhappy girl, and in spades. there aren't enough hours in the day -- not nearly. add to that new lab work (I'm measuring coarse vs. fine fractions in sediment cores, with potentially interesting results), dad's book (FINN), and generally having a life (johnbryk, yarn, food, gym), and I'm more swamped than I want to be. oof.
last night I baked tasty cookies, but learned that adding 1/3 c cocoa powder to plain ol' toll house cookies does make them delicious and chocolatey, but also makes them kind of dry and more likely to burn. also, oddly, the ghirardelli dark chocolate and white chocolate chips are different sizes. why in hell would they do that?
Back in NJ from a fantastic week at home, one from which I completely did not want to return. But, return I did, and I'm in my office posting pictures of knitting. Which may, come to think of it, tell you more about what I do in my office than I fully want to reveal.
I posted an ad on craigslist the day before yesterday, advertising my desire for a decent-quality road bike for cheap. after wading through a few replies (a pink huffy? baroo?), I found a guy in my very own town who was moving soon and had a whole passle of bikes to get rid of. john came with me, in case dude was a serial killer, and I made off with a bright red, late '70s motobecane grand touring, and john got a blue peugeot. both need some work (mine moreso, in that it lacks a chain, etc.), so I'ma take mine to a bike shop this weekend to convert it into a single-speed. maybe I'll even learn something?
don't we know by now that only slutty women have breasts!
good grief.
while I'm not dismayed at all by the conversation that should have developed -- the one about feminism and bill clinton -- I am highly distressed by the ones that actually took place. there is virtually no discussion of actual feminism here. hell, there is virtually no discussion of what anyone else in the photograh is wearing. there is exclusively discussion of the way that it is inappropriate for jessica's breasts to be "on display." my problems with this:
- as a woman with breasts, I can vouch for the fact that is virtually impossible for me to hide them. if I were to attempt to do so, I would have two basic choices: first, actively seek out undergarments devoted to binding my chest to give the illusion of flat-chestedness (i.e., wear a sports bra, minimizer, etc.). this is not a reasonable option. a majority of undergarments of this nature are not designed for minimal visibility beneath standard business attire and, honestly, it's pretty damn uncofmortable. second, I could wear loose clothing to hide the appearance of any proturbances from neck to navel. however, as a woman with what we will call an hourglass figure, this will mean wearing a shirt, dress, etc. that hides the multi-inch difference in circumference between breast and waist and waist and hips -- we're talking about essentially dolling women up in maternity clothing for meetings. god only knows in what clothing these requirements would put women who are actually pregnant.
- jessica, the woman in grey about whom all this is directed, is standing no differently than either of the men who bookend the photography. they, like she, have removed their jackets, presumably because summer is a warm season. however, jessica is "posing" with "a fixed grin for the camera" whereas the rest of the peole are standing with "geniune smiles" (see the "let's-take-a-closer-look-at-those-breasts" post for this). is the shortest woman in the room is standing front-and-center, or is she playing the temptress, trying to show bill clinton her succulent backside? how can we know from a single photo, and why do althouse et al. feel compelled/entitled to make these judgements about a woman with whom they (presumably) have had no prior relatinships/interactions?
- shouldn't we be beyond all this? I get a twinge when I think about what I'm wearing at my office today -- a pair of jeans and a black shirt. and the shirt? fitted. this means I'm trying to seduce my bosses into accepting subpar work in exchange of the implied promise of sexual favors. did you know?
so, after a long, long day at the race expo on saturday (where I got seriously fantastic deals on a new sports bra and a pair of running tights), and after the pre-race ctf pasta dinner way out in hilltown, and after a bedtime of 11:00 and a wake-up of 4:45, wendy, liza, and I headed for montgomeryville and, via a large-scale caravan, to eakins oval and the charity village.
our team was fantastic, not in terms of running (at which we were fine, I will say, but not like finishing-in-an-hour-and-change level), but in terms of personal experience. we had a woman who had lost her husband to nf and whose two children had been recently diagnosed, a few men and women whose own children had nf, people with brothers and sisters with it, some friends of friends, all this, and it built up a really fantastic camaraderie and commonality of purpose. it's funny: at the expo, the idea of a half-marathon seemed really, really intimidating, but at our own little tent on race day, the people on our team made it seem very doable. (this does not mean, however, that I did it, though I have secret plans for next year's race, maybe . . . .)
my run (the "big walk for little feet" fundraiser for the children's wards) didn't start 'til after the half-marathon, and while I'd hoped that there would be a roughly equal number of walkers and runners, I was sadly misguided. there were maybe 20-30 runners, so I had the completely odd experience of being at the front of the pack yet barely
afterwards, wendy and I joined up with the daughter of the woman I'd run some of the half-marathon course with. she was nervous about doing the kids' race by herself, so we joined her for the mile run, effectively meaning that I ran in all three races of the day. (there is no particular glory in this, but I will handily bet that I was one of the only ones there to do it . . . .)
one last note. the high-level runner wendy, liza, and I met on the boat on friday was in fact abdi abdirahman, who went on to come in second place by two seconds thanks, once again, to poor signage on the course. he just called wendy and wanted her to send him more ctf bracelts, singlets, that kind of thing for himself and his friends. (I feel like it's so mercenary of us to be way excited that he's expressed an interest in the foundation largely because he's a significant runner, but it would be so great to really get the word out . . . .)
ps: what are y'all doing for rosh hashanah?
anyway. according to jacob, I had a hella group surrounding me. I'm like 90% sure we spent some time chatting with kenenisa bekele, who was extremely nice and extremely soft-spoken, despite wendy's repeated attempts to draw him out and to convince him to wear a ctf singlet on sunday. no dice. (also spotted khalid khannouchi, I am certain.) I feel like I should have asked them insightful running questions (training questions? something?), but I don't know enough to even ask a question. I'm not sure how conversationally great it would have been, anyway. frankly, think about this. you come to an unfamiliar place, another one in a series of unfamiliar places. you are going to do your job (which, if you are them, is running, but whatever). do you legitimately want to only discuss your job, or are you pretty happy to spend some time talking about places nearby you might like to visit, what a nice boat it is, normal, daily things? because I am totally in the latter camp.
I finished up my self-designed skull pencil case last night. there are a few things I'd do differently (more space on the sides for seaming, use real wool so I can block it, etc.) but overall, I'm pretty pleased with myself.
heading home tonight for dinner with the philly distance run organizers, then the distance run expo saturday and the run itself sunday! rah! (I won't be doing the actual distance run, since I've been running for only a week and a half, but I will be jogging the big-walk-for-little-feet fundraiser for the children's ward at jefferson hosptial.)
ps: I came into my office this morning to find the remains of a bottle of champagne from my officemate's thesis defense on my desk. how celebratory.
I made a seriously intense knitting schedule today. (god. who refers to a knitting schedule as seriously intense?)
anyway:
- 1 pair knitty's fetching in baby blue (for a buddy!)
- at least 1 (possibly two) of the alexander-mcqueen-knock-off-sweater which I will refer to as steve mcqueen -- one for me, one for mom
- 1 pair knitty's knucks in leftover pink yarn from a long-ago sweater attempt
- 1 of knitty's branching out, just because I want to learn how to use lace. I'm thinking of paton's grace in ginger for this one?
- 1 of knitty's pasha, not because it's necessarily better-looking than the penguins I knit last year, but because I have a ton of yarn leftover from my failed afghan prject and because the edition someone posted on craftster is adorable.
so this is what I'm doing with myself.
howdy.
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eric said:
random commenter - i'm just doing my monthly crawl through vox looking for posts about bicycles!sounds like you got a... read more
on tangerine emergen-c is way better than raspberry -
i can hardly imagine a better flavor than raspberry. but, noted! read more
on tangerine emergen-c is way better than raspberry