Membranes

I love hanging out in book stores. It brings me back to when I was a kid and I could just sit in bookstores and read whatever the heck I wanted and everything new was on the shelves and the whole world was at my disposal. Book stores like Barnes and Noble always have the huge windows that let all the light in so everything seems brighter and sunnier. That's one of the great things about living in California, I guess, because right now, everything is 70 degrees and sunny and, sitting on my couch looking out onto the tree tops, it's quite beautiful. I also get inspired in book stores, and, maybe it's because I don't have much to worry about in terms of running into people I know, but I tend to hang around and read insignificant and quite crappy books and I get inspired. I always want to write a novel when I'm in there because I always feel like I can write at least as well as some of the stuff that's in the teen section, or the romance section, or the fantasy section (murderous pixies? really?). And I never have enough paper or patience to finish everything. By the time I get home, the need to write has dissipated and when I look at my notes, I think to myself, "What was I thinking? This is just as crappy as anything that's out there." Oh well.

This morning, I peeled an egg and ate it for breakfast. For a long time, I didn't know eggs had membranes. Well, I knew unconsciously, but since I saw this, I didn't really know.



After that, every time I've peeled a hard-boiled egg, I have noticed the membrane, and usually, I am in too much of a rush to deal with it, so I just peel an egg like people do and nom it down. But these days have been quite lazy, so I decided to peel it while leaving the membrane on.

See? It's squishy like a hardboiled egg!

And then I peeled the membrane off...

And ate it. Nom. 

This is what the end of an era feels like

So this is what the end of an era feels like. I expected it to be different, sadder maybe, rather than a hectic rushing off into the New Haven fog. Maybe the hugs weren't long enough. Maybe there weren't enough tears. Maybe we're all so self absorbed that it doesn't matter anymore. Sure, it's true that we're not as close as we have been for the past couple of years. We've found others who maybe understand us more, or better, somehow. It doesn't mean the end is not bittersweet.

The end to me right now, as I sit in my summer apartment listening to Kelsey cook lunch and street workers banging away at the pavement, is tiring. My bones ache. My head is alert at the moment, but the second I get the chance, I know I'm going to fall fast asleep. Probably on the shuttle to the airport. Probably.

The ending, as I look around at all our crap scattered around the apartment, is a new beginning. It's mattresses perched on a loft. It's expensive leather couches I'm afraid of sitting on for fear of scratching them. It's the smell of soba and soy sauce. It's the open bottle of ketchup that's on the table. It's Kelsey, cooking and tasting things. It's me, weary and aching and ready to go home but not ready to leave yet.

It's the end of an era. I think I'm ready to go.

phosphate of calcium

"What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered together. They are strewn there pell-mell. One of your ribs leans against my skull. A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower.) The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel. It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace. Yet it does. With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough."

- Complicite, A Disappearing Number






I have never been more affected by a play, I don't think, in my life of reading plays, marveling at the language, feeling, as I do toward real people, frustration, sympathy, and inspiration. I certainly have never been so emotionally drained after reading a play. I'm not tired, but I feel a sense of finality. Not all the loose ends have been tied up, but I just....

I had tears in my eyes at those last words. It's not a thing I like to think about, death. But to me, that love story, the one we caught so briefly in A Disappearing Number was more potent than many I have seen today. Scientists know that science is elegant, poetic, and beautiful, but it's hard to express that fact. I think, for true love to be spoken in the words of science speaks to that love, love of science, love of humanity, love of partner.

Duck Season

A lot of my Spring Break has been spent cleaning out my old things, deciding what to put in storage, what to donate, and what to save. It has left me nostalgic and not a little sad that I'm growing up literally before my eyes. I have recently found a little...rant(?) that I wrote in high school between the lines of a draft of an excused absence note. It seems oddly, and not oddly, appropriate here.



"Duck Season!"
"Rabbit Season!"
"Duck Season!"
"Rabbit Season!"
"Rabbit Season!"
"Duck Season!"

We all know what happens now. Dear old Bugs will produce a rifle and blow the ever envious Daffy to ashes. Daffy will rise to perpetuate his one-sided rivalry, and again, and again, he will lose. We laugh because it is so predictable, because although our sputtering friend lies in ashes, he will no doubt get up and try again. Bug's craft ingenuity will thwart Daffy's petty jealousy every time. Charlie Brown will never kick the football. The Power Rangers will always win...eventually. These were the norms when we grew up. We would always solve Blue's Clues. Ernie would always splish splash with his rubber ducky. The good guys will always win.

But we grow up. In a world dominated by politics, mind games, and alliances, I find myself wishing more for order, for the days when pushing someone on the playground meant you would trip on a rock and fall down yourself. Human nature is to be duplicitous, I know. People are self-serving; they are closet sycophants. But how I wish I could forget for a little while, and regress (or progress?) to the innocent candy coated world of a three-year-old who willingly gets up early to watch Willey Coyote waste his infinite wealth on backfiring Acme products.

In this world, the one in which I am trapped, Bugs Bunny lives in the future and is green. The Power Rangers wear capes. Stress causes even the strongest people to break down, to give up. Earthquakes, floods, droughts, and famine wreak havoc on the lives of those who are just trying to live. Thus, people seek escape through artificial highs that do just that: clear their minds so that they are as lucid as three-year-olds. I don't blame them. The world is randomly unfair. Cookie Monster no longer eats cookies. There is no black and white. Spontaneity is a beautiful thing, but what I wouldn't give right now to go back to the place I used love, when I was young. What I wouldn't give to regain the hope that the bad guys will always lose, even if the good guys do not always win. What I wouldn't give for it to be Duck Season.

New Year's Resolutions and Other Stuff I Must do in 2011

1. Take better care of my hair/body.

2. Find a lab and stick to it.

3. Find something financially stable to do during the spring and summer.

4. Raise my GPA.

5. Experiment with food.

6. Laugh more; laugh louder.

7. Love more freely.

8. Forgive more easily.

9. Be less messy.

10. Stop losing halves of pairs.

11. Live.

On Christmas Eve, my family eats...

What is traditional Christmas Eve fare? Is Christmas Day dinner more important than that of the Eve? I would assume so since if it were my birthday, I'd want to be celebrated on the day, not on the eve, but these days, it seems that the secular Christmas is celebrated more on the eve than on the day. Christmas day is a day for opening presents, spending time with family, etc. But as in all celebrations, there is no celebration without food.

Wikipedia says there ought to be bread at the table. I'm thinking there should be some kind of special meat. Ham? Goose? All I can think of is in A Christmas Carol (maybe a Muppet's Christmas Carol) where Rizzo falls down the chimney and onto the roasting goose. -__- But then maybe some hearty vegetables - potatoes? salad? beans? yams? Am I going in a Thanksgiving direction here? There probably should be cake. Fruitcake? Angelfood cake? Pound cake?? Ohhh I could go for some pound cake right now.

But then again, I may be thinking of Christmas day dinner. Anyways, it's not what I eat.

On Christmas Eve, my family goes all out and eats HOT POT. :)

Yum. Take that as you will.

On the first two days of Christmas before winter break...

Kelsey is pretty much awesome.

Two grilled cheese sandwiches:

And...

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. :)