aten's allure

man, some days it hardly seems amazing that the ancients chose to revere the sun as a god. today is one of those days. hot damn. have i mentioned that i love fall?

i woke up this morning to the sun streaming through my window, accompanied by a gentle breeze of cool, fresh air, and it just made me feel all good inside, for no reason at all. i love that. i don't understand it even a little bit, but i love it.

thursday, i saw "the house of flying daggers" with markus and michele (just to avert confusion, that's the italian form of "michael," and is a man's name, despite what it might look like). that movie was wicked cool, and fantastically beautiful---though those are not unrelated phenomena. i love the way how, at various points in the film, they reveal a new tidbit of information that suddenly changes your understanding of everything that came before.

yesterday, we taught our first lab for SC741 (alcherio's class). it seemed to go alright, but will probably take the students much longer than we had anticipated. hopefully this will mean that it will be easier to write the later ones, since we can give them less to do. we also had a prospective post-doc visit, and give a talk on his thesis, and stuff.

now, this is hardly related to his visit, but it's what i spent most of the day thinking about after his talk, so i feel like writing about it anyway. it really disgusts me how shallow and superficial i can be sometimes, especially with respect to first impressions of people. i wish i could blame it on some sort of additional sense that allows me to sense people's aura, or something ridiculous like that, but i'm afraid (to my everlasting shame) that most of it, plain and simply, just boils down to physical appearance. the funny part is that, if anyone is actually reading this, they're probably thinking that the reason i'm berating myself is that i feel guilty for pre-judging a nerd, and not giving him a chance. quite the contrary. within mere moments after i first saw him, his name got inked onto the "people i want to get to know" list in my head. and i hate it when this happens (it actually happens rather frequently), because i know it's totally unfair, and prevents me from getting to know, or probably even meeting, a whole world full of cool and special people.

also, if my demons work in shifts, then i think jealousy is due for a big fat overtime paycheck sometime real soon. i hate who i am when i get like this; and in no small part because after comparison to whomever i happen to be coveting at the moment, i just hate who i am.

i want to be self-confident and charismatic too. i want to be one of the people that inadvertantly oozes "you _will_ like me, because i'm not only tall, beautiful, (and most importantly, slender), but i'm also fun to be around, and despite the fact that i'm brilliant, i'm also modest, kind, and considerate." "i always have something appropriate to say, no matter what the topic of conversation; but i never say so much that i sound arrogant or boring." "oh, and by the way, because i'm european, i was born speaking half a dozen languages, even though my family moved to the united states when i was four." "and let's not forget that i already have my phd, even though i'm only a year older than you."

the worst part is that i'm often actually successful at manipulating these people into being friends with me (c.f. enno), and it makes me feel dirty inside. probably manipulation is my talent; but even that's depressing, since it would mean that "taking advantage" of people is my special skill. people shouldn't be taken advantage of---especially the good people that i feed off of, but really, noone deserves that. it's neither fair nor kind, but i keep doing it anyway. i am a grotesque slimeball, and i hate myself.

reticent relapse

okay, for some reason it's suddenly striking me as strange that basically everything i've written lately has to do with the same person, i just realized. i hope i'm not going nuts, or turning into a psycho stalker or anything. it just that in what little spare time i've had recently, almost all of it has involved doing something with him. okay, so this is probably where i start flipping out and get all paranoid about 'wearing out my welcome,' and it does bother me a little to think about it, but on the other hand, we seem to be getting along really well at the moment. god, now i've gone and confused myself again. what the hell is up with this?

i also feel kinda bad after finding out this afternoon that with all the other stuff going on in the last week, jim's birthday yesterday completely slipped my mind, even after i kept telling myself that i needed to make sure to remember it. probably it will be easier for everybody to do something this weekend anyway, but it still bugs me that i didn't even think to acknowledge it on the actual day.

well, the past is past now, so i guess we just have to own our mistakes, and move on.

that, and i need to get more sleep tonight, so i'm off to bed. [yawn]

good night.

tuesdays are tasty

another thing that came out of our weekend full of chitchat was a suggestion of mine to start a tradition of getting together one night during the week to have a nice dinner together. at the time, tuesday seemed like a good choice, so that's what we did. for the first one, it was just us, so we could see whether or not trying to do something like that would be a total disaster, but i imagine eventually we'll get other people to join our little cult, too.

since we both had the [amazing] ricotta from the weekend, it seemed natural to try to do something with it. he had a really neat cookbook with a ricotta/spinach gnocchi in it, so we gave it a try, and while they were a little misshapen (my fault), they were indeed quite tasty. in the end, though, we both decided that it was probably a shame that we couldn't taste more of the ricotta in it.

to go with it, we also toasted some bruschetta and roasted and marinated yellow and red peppers with marjoram and some of his anchovies and capers. that was really really good. i mean, know i have a weakness for peppers in general, but hot damn, this was pushing all my buttons.

as if that wasn't enough, for dessert, we baked pears, and put walnuts and some of the ricotta into them (this was a instant success). i think he might have also added a touch of honey, but i wasn't paying close enough attention at that particular moment. he also wanted to know how i make my shortbread cookies, so we did that as well.

just for kicks, we even got pictures of most of it, which is cool, since it looked all fancy and shit. sometimes it's just a whole lot of good clean fun to do something fancy like that with someone else, since you both know that you'll both appreciate it, but would never bother to go to the trouble for just yourself.

probably next week we'll either start a little earlier, or pick a slightly less involved recipe, or both, since it was like half past midnight, or something like that, by the time he left to go home. i felt a little guilty, since the busses stop at midnight, and he had to walk home, but he claimed not to mind. i offered to walk back with him, but he was right, that seemed rather ridiculous, since i'd have to walk twice as far.

in any case, we both had a blast, and are looking forward to doing it again next week.

slow work

i really need to get a grip on myself. i don't know what the problem is, but i haven't been able to focus at all today. there's so many things that need to be done, and yet i find myself just sitting at my desk staring at them, as if i didn't have any idea what i was supposed to do. i can't decide if i should be freaked out or disgusted.

well, i guess i should try to finish my story about last weekend, at least.

the hotel we stayed in was really nice. i'm still not sure why he booked two single rooms instead of a double, but the rooms were well presented, and more than adequate. i think i slept very well, which isn't terribly common for me the first night in an unfamiliar place. anyway, got up, and cleaned up, and all that good stuff, and we met around 8ish, as we had agreed, and went down to breakfast.

now, some places claim they'll provide breakfast, and you get a cup of coffee with a stale sweet roll. this was not one of those places. they had a smorgasboard layed out to rival most small bakeries that i've been in. fruits, yogurts, granolas, eggs, cheeses, meats, breads, pastries, cookies, and teas. and the lady in the back was making espresso for people (i guess it's too complicated? i dunno, i don't drink). we each went through several plates of food, and only a little bit of trouble with the egg boiler (the first time i tried it, it came out raw). i guess enno wasn't quite paying attention when we sat down, since he nearly jumped out of his pants when i reached "into the mirror" to get the salt and pepper from the table that was actually between ours and the mirror. i got a real good laugh out of this, and after he recovered, he joined in too.

we took a walk around town again, which was cool, particularly since it was light out this time. i still need to buy some clothes, and being outside of switzerland, that probably would have been a good opportunity, but i didn't see any appropriate looking shops, so it didn't happen. but we had a great time, and saw the river, and just talked.

check-out at 11:00, and it turned out to be much more expensive than either of us had anticipated; around 75 euros each. i'm still a little curious as to how he managed to make the reservation without asking the price, but life goes on, and it was a great weekend, so i really can't complain. then we grabbed the car from the parking structure, and headed back to the conference center, which seemed surprisingly easy to find (this time), given all of our previous fiascos. the fun part was trying to decide which of the 12 parking structures there to use, but eventually we just grabbed one, and it wasn't too far away.

the lines to buy entrance tickets were unbelievable, but then again, it was saturday. sure, waiting in line was a little annoying, but otherwise harmless. a benefit of this, though, was that we were standing there long enough for him to read all the signs, one of which mentioned that we got a discount with a coop card. now, never mind that the coop in switzerland is a completely different company than the one in italy, but the logos look basically identical, so i talked him into flashing mine at the lady, and it worked like a charm. :) awwwwwesome. i just love it when stuff actually works. so we were in, and got to look around in the main pavillion some more before our 1:00 session.

which was, of course, faaaabulous. "cacao: food of the gods." and let me tell you, this book lived up to its cover. un-freakin-believable. did you know that there are like umpteen bazillion different varieties of cocoa plant/bean/whatever? i didn't. but i do now. and they taught us other cool stuff too. we had a plate of different chocolates from four producers: valrhona, michel cluizel, domori, and scharffen-berger. and, since you can't have a workshop without spirits, a glass of 'aqua forte' (sic?), which was i guess like a white-grape brandy, a glass of glenmahoney (or something like that) scotch whiskey, and a glass of barolo chinato cocchi, which i think was some sort of port variant, but whatever it was, it was amazing. i _wanted_ it. i can't even describe it, it was just that _good_. and what's more, it blended perfectly with the chocolates. i could live off of that combination for the rest of my life, and be perfectly content. wow. that's all i have to say about that.

anyway, back to the chocolates. none of those presented were less than 70%, and there were four pieces that were either 99% or 100%. (interesting aside: in italy, the law does not allow a product to be called "chocolate" unless it contains at least 1% sugar; therefore, the 100% varieties must be marketed as "cacao mass.") even by my most conservative estimation, the combined worth of the items on the plate was easily many times the 16 euro ticket.

my two favorites from the tasting were a special edition 85% by scharffen-berger using cacao from "cacao nacional" in equador, and michel cluizel's 70% "tamarina" from the ile de sao tome. unfortunately, the latter didn't have a booth at the fair, so i wasn't able to buy it, but i did go wild and crazy and treat myself (something i almost never let myself do) and bought 9 x 30g of the special one, for 13 euro, and 50cl of the barolo, for 22 euro. even now, i can't believe i spent ~$45 on only wine and chocolate, but i still think it's totally worth it. spectolutely absotacular.

i actually got to talk with the lady who works down in equador with the farmers at cacao nacional. she was really cool, and a down-to-earth person that i could actually relate to, as opposed to the conference-goer food-snob types all around us. you could tell from her eyes that she was intensely passionate about her work, and she told me that they are working on completely changing the fermentation step of production, etc, etc... the way she explained that they are "going to make the best chocolate in the world soon" with such fervor, you couldn't help but believe her.

at one point, we passed a booth selling the extremist basalmic vinegar; like more than 25 years old, and about 50 euro for a 3oz bottle, or some such. but they gave us free samples anyway, which was neat. it was indeed incredibly tasty, but i can't even imagine paying that much for it.

our 4:00 session was, if this is possible, even cooler that everything else that had transpired so far. it was back in the "theatre of taste," this time with lidia alciati of "the famous 'da guido' restaurant in costigliole" (which is not to imply that i had ever heard of it either). that woman is one of my heros. of course, it helps that she reminds me a lot of my great aunt mary (yeah, that's the one; i'm always talking about how she's the one who taught me how to cook) before her health started failing. anyway, she made agnolotti. and what's more, not only did she explain the whole process and what goes into it, her chef was actually telling us the proper proportions and everything. she said she "doesn't believe in keeping recipes secret; everyone should be able to make good food." i wanted to kiss her. and that was even _before_ we tasted it. my god, it gave new meaning to the word "delicious." when it was over, i folded up my placemat (with all my notes on it), and guarded it very carefully.

we needed to get going soon, but there were a few things he still wanted to buy, so we ran back through the stands looking for the salted capers and salted anchovies that we had seen (normally, both are packed in oil), cursing ourselves for not taking note of the stand number where we had seen them the previous day. we did stumble across the mozzarella stand, though, and he thought about buying some, but 10 euro for 500 grams was a little too steep. however, while he was vascillating between "to buy, or not to buy," i noticed that they also had the ricotta. that was it; there was no holding me back. i bought it, and that convinced him that he needed one too. so we both got ricotta (about 300g packages for 5 euro each, but totally worth every penny). we then continued our crusade for anchovies and capers. eventually, we did find a different stand that was selling the anchovies, but their different sized cans ranged from 18 to 110 euro, which was clearly too much, but since enno was talking to the guy in spanish (i think), the guy decided to get a plastic container out of the back and just give him a half dozen pieces. and then, against all odds, a couple stands down was a woman with capers; not the ones he wanted, but he asked if she had them, and while she didn't, she said, "well, why don't you just take this jar home and try these?" it was craaaazzzy. he was totally on a roll. but, sadly, all good things must come to an end, so we made our way back to the car with huge smiles stretched across our faces.

finding the autostrade to get out of turin was almost as whacked as trying to find the hotel had been the previous day, and on top of that, i was dumb enough to volunteer to drive... [rolls eyes] but we did eventually locate it, even through the traffic.

okay, so here's the weirdest thing yet, but potentially also the most interesting. about halfway home, we were talking about the equador chocolate lady again, and how she wasn't really connected with scharffen-berger at all, but had gotten them to make and market the special edition chocolates (the ones we bought). so, out of nowhere, he hatches this idea that we should totally try to see what would be involved in starting our own chocolate company, and selling stuff on the internet or something. and what's even wilder, the more we talked about it, the more it seemed like it really might just be crazy enough to actually work... i mean, if we can get the raw materials from her, we're already working with superior ingredients, and then we have the advantage of being able to claim both the swiss and the dutch label, if we want. anyway, the short of it is that we basically decided that we really do need to give this a shot. sure, maybe there's a good chance it will fall flat, or otherwise be a miserable failure, but if you ask me, it sounds like it will be one hell of a lot of fun to try. probalby things will move slowly, but i'll try to keep y'all updated when anything happens. and if i eventually need reminding, or a kick in the seat of the pants to get going, i know i can count on all of you for that as well.

and so, the trip came to a close, and it was 'back to our regularly scheduled programming.' but i had so much fun it hurt (my smile muscles were sore), and i got to work on building a friendship. maybe even a really good one. we'll see.

fast drivers, slow food

okay, time to tell about the weekend. i've kept putting it off all afternoon; it's hard to decide where to start. i suppose that means we should probably just start at the beginning, then.

in many ways, all of last week was somehow odd, in a wonderful sort of way. i mentioned on wednesday that i had done things with friends every evening so far. well, thursday was no exception to the streak; markus did dinner over at his apartment, him and danesh and i, and we threw together a makeshift dahl that was _very_ tasty. then we sat around and talke for a while, and saw a really cool movie, called "mulholland drive." probably i'm going to have to get ahold of the twin peaks collection again, and we'll do the marathon again (none of the people here have seen or heard of it).

friday, i got up early and threw some clothes in my backpack, and enno came to pick me up with the rental car a little after seven (he got a little lost trying to find my apartment in the dark), and we were off. it was a long drive, by european standards (ha!), which means about four hours, but it was fun, and passed essentially without incident, save a touch of laughter and fairly continuous friendly conversation about anything and everything. i'm reminded of something a highschool teacher of mine once said. (there are whole books i could write about him, and how my understanding of how he was actually manipulating us kids has become clearer over the years, but he is not the subject of today's post. maybe some other day; maybe soon.) anyway, he said something to the effect of "a true friend is someone that you can drive for miles with, not even talking, and the silence isn't awkward, because you know each other so well that sometimes there just isn't anything that needs to be said; you already understand each other that well, and just feel comfortable and refreshed in each other's presence, without the necessity for words." now, i don't do too many road trips, but i think i have reached this point with at least one really good friend of mine. we used to spend hours in each other's dorm rooms, half the time working on separate and unrelated projects, but just content to spend time together. (you know who you are; i am talking about you, and i miss you, a lot.) everyone needs a friend like that.

so, the reason i brought all that up was just to explain that while enno and i aren't anywhere near that level yet, i get the impression that there's at least a slight possibility that we might be someday, and i'd like that. very much, in fact. but at least for now, weird silences in the car aren't really an issue, since we're still trying to learn stuff about each other, and basically, it just takes time to fill each other in on 20 some odd years life before we met. not to mention different continents, countries, and cultures. he still looks at me like i'm crazy when i ask him about dutch history and stuff, as if no one with any sense would care about such things, but lately i've been able to get him to tell me some stuff anyway.

a little after eleven, i pulled off the autostrade (we had switched drivers somewhere around the border) and, by all outward indications, into the bumper car funhouse at the carnival. in actualilty, it was just turin, and no worse than any other italian city i've seen (much better than rome, in fact). an added bonus is the fact that it's the only city in europe that i've seen so far where the streets almost resemble a grid. a sloppy grid to be sure, and neither the omnipresent construction nor the excessive amount of insane italian drivers made it easy to get from place to place, but at least it was pretty hard to get hopelessly lost. that is, of course, if you knew where you were to begin with, which, of course, we didn't. we had my map of all italy, which was only really good for freeways, and useless once we got to the city, and his little map of downtown on one page of the tour book, which would have been great, except that we had no idea whatsoever where we were in relation to anything shown on the map, or even if we were off the map to the north, south, east, or west. so we just blindly attempted to head for what we thought was the center, although we got stuck a couple of times due to streets that were one-way or closed for some market thing. also remember that i certainly don't speak any italian, and while wonderboy here is fluent in dutch, english, french, spanish, and probably other languages he hasn't told me about yet, he only _understands_ italian, and doesn't speak it (yet). this is me rolling my eyes. suffice it to say that asking for directions wasn't terribly successful. at one point, we passed a nice looking building with a sign reading "starhotel majestic," to which i joked, "hey, there's a hotel! probably not ours, though," since, of course, it wasn't.

about an hour later, we did finally locate our hotel, and get checked in, and signed up for a parking space. however, driving the car around to the other side of the square, where the entrance to the underground parking structure was, guess what we passed? oh, no, you're thinking. it can't be. but it was. the "starhotel majestic" is about 100 meters from the "hotel roma" where we stayed. i made some sound which was my throat's attempt to referee a groan and a chortle both attempting to escape simultaneously. when i pointed it out to enno, he about died laughing, but also made some apologetic comments, even though it was clearly not his fault at all. he seems so confident most of the time, but there are occasional brief moments when i wonder a little if he isn't hiding a few insecurities as well... i dunno. it's hard enough for me to figure out what it is that _i'm_ thinking most of the time, to say nothing of attempting to second guess what someone else might be thinking.

it was already after noon, and he was starting to worry that we wouldn't make it to the conference center on time for our one o'clock workshop. i kept telling him to relax, and think positively, while we walked as fast as we could to the train station. (how is it that, between the two of us, *i* ended up being the optimistic one? now *that's* strange.) anyway, he didn't know what to do, and wasn't interested in asking for directions, so i figured i couldn't do much damage, and grabbed the reigns for once, marching up to a newspaper stand and, using a primitive mixture of hand gestures and monosyllables, was able to string together "bigletti" and "lingotto." he sold us the tickets, and told us the platform number (numbers i can actually do, wonder of wonders), and attempted to pantomime something about validating them in the machine. we ran to the platform, and the train was about to leave, so i tried to stand in the way of the door to prevent it from closing while he tried to get the tickets stamped. he gave up and jumped on anyway, and then played ignorant naive foreigner with the conductor and talked him into initialing the tickets for a makeshift validation, instead of fining us. ha! he doesn't speak italian my ass! okay, so maybe his italian is nearly as broken as my french, but come on, what the hell is that? okay, i know, green isn't a very good color on me; i'll try to stop. seriously though---functionality in *five* languages?!? what am i supposed to say to that? "hi, my name is chris, and when i was little, i learned to make origami animals from a library book." gimme a break; there's just no competition.

we got off the train, and onto the free shuttle to the conference center, where we had to figure out how/where to pick up the tickets we had ordered. eventually we figured out that the problem was that somehow they hadn't charged us for the entrance fee, just the workshops. so we paid, and dashed inside, trying to figure out where to go, getting different directions from every new person we attempted to ask (once inside, though, most people could at least put up a good show of attempting to speak english, which was a great help in and of itself). finally, we found the "theatre of taste" room at about one minute after one. then we breathed a little easier, while waiting in line, and chuckling about having forgotten to adjust for "italian time."

alice waters (http://www.chezpanisse.com) was really cool, but it was apparent to me within the first couple of minutes that these people (including most of the people in the audience with us) simply don't live in the same universe as i do. she served us a jerusalem artichoke soup and a fennel salad with rabbit. it was utterly delicious, make no mistake about that, but even if you add a couple more courses, i'm not sure i could talk myself into paying $80 to go to her restaurant in berkeley. the jerusalem artichokes were interesting; i'd never even heard of them before, and if asked, i'd have said it looked like fresh ginger root, but when they cooked it up, it tasted kinda like a squash, but was green, and mellower but with perkier flavors, if that makes any sense. at one point her chef that was there with her said something about how he thought you got a different flavor out of garlic by chopping it instead of crushing it. i found that intriguing. probably warrents an experiment or two. the rabbit and fennel were definitely good, but not particularly spectacular, as far as i could tell. also, i was still trying to recover from watching them butcher the whole rabbit in front of us, to show us how they used nearly every part, without wasting anything (the small amount that didn't somehow make its way into the dish was collected and taken back to the farm to be used as compost/fertilizer). her big soapbox was about making sure that you use local products from near where you live, and learning to make do and be creative with the seasonal offerings of your specific location (while supporting sustainable and traditional production/farming methods).

then for the rest of the afternoon, we wandered around amoung the different vendor booths, trying the free samples, reading about cool stuff, and talking to the cool people who make the different stuff, from olive oil to real basalmic vinager (like the $50/oz stuff, or the others which were too expensive for them to let us sample) to olives, capers, anchovies, and all manner of strange and wonderful foods, most in their most pure or natural state. sure, i think it would be ideal to use the best ingredients all the time too, but i highly doubt there are more than a couple dozen people in the world who can actually afford to do this. at some point in there, we got some delicious pistachio ice cream, and later paid a couple euros to go into the wine tasting room, and had a few glasses.

as seven o'clock approached, we started making our way back to the pavillion where the taste workshop rooms were. unfortunately, we couldn't get there, since there was a large blockade of uniformed carabinieri (police) in our way. eventually we overheard that it was because prince charles was doing something (we never found out what) that required exclusive use of the street that we needed to cross in order to get into the pavillion. so we stood around chatting for another 25 minutes, and then they let us in, and we took our seats for "mozzarella plus." they walked us around the plate, and explained all the different stages and processes for making mozzarella as we tasted the different products. they were all made from real buffalo milk (as the definition of real mozzarella demands), and without any acid agents to assist curdling. you really could taste the difference. the first thing on the plate was actually a ricotta, but it was so amazing that i would choose a melon baller worth of that stuff over a full dish of ice cream any day. and that's saying something, for me. it was *that* good. then there were a couple of plain mozzarellas, one aged only a couple of hours, and the other almost a whole day (everything they gave us was produced the previous day on the dairy farm). again, fascinating flavors. i think the part that impressed me the most was the fact that eating the small piece we were given in several bites was more than enough to be satisfying/satiating; it was incredibly good, but you didn't feel like you needed more when it was gone. however much you had was perfect. this was very refreshing compared to all the lousy american products (not just cheeses but everything really) that are specially engineered (by evil corporations) to have aftertastes that somehow compel you to keep eating in order to maintain the flavor and stave off the after effects that inevitably leave you wanting more. the last two cheeses were a mozzarella with myrtle (accompanied by a fresh sprig of myrtle), and a smoked mozzarella. all of them were simply divine, but the ricotta remains the way to my heart.

we didn't stay too much longer friday evening; i think we left around 9:30. we were both very glad we hadn't driven to the convention center, as the mozzarella had been served with another three glasses of different (all very impressive) white wines. the bus system took a little figuring out, and then a little more, since apparently most of the drivers were on strike that day, but we made it back to the hotel without problems, dropped our stuff from the day, and went out to walk around the town. at first we were interested in finding a nice little place to grab some foccaccia or something, but you never find the things you want when you want them (but when you're not looking for them, it seems like they're everywhere). so we didn't manage to find food, and instead settled for some nice gelato. not quite as nice as giolitti's in rome, but still very good. a side note about gelato, though; in general, i think it's too soft for my taste. i love the fact that it has fresh fruits and whole bits of whatever in it, but i would prefer it to be frozen harder, like a hard ice cream. but even if it is soft, it's hard to complain when you've got a cone in your hand. [smirk]

it had been a pretty long day, so we came back to the hotel and crashed around 11:30ish, in our very nice little rooms.

speaking of crashing, it's after midnight now, which means i should probably do the same. the saturday half of the story will just have to wait for tomorrow, i guess.

pour l'amour de l'automne

i don't know how else to describe it; today was just, well, beautiful.

The sun was shining so brightly, and the leaves have gone all technicolor---i knew i had to get out and do something. so, for the first time in what feels like it must have been months, i laced up and went running. this was moderately embarrassing when i realized that the course i had planned on crossed the path of the lausanne marathon (which also happens to have been today) in a couple places. these i carefully avoided, of course. humility is one thing. self [esteem] preservation is another. :) i took it kinda easy to get back into the feel of it, and didn't go very far or very fast, but i kept my heart rate up for a good 35-40 minutes, which i suppose is more the point anyway. my muscles feel quite stiff now; i'm definitely out of practice.

while heading east along the lakeshore, admiring the sun on the water and the leaves in the wind, another slightly strange thing happened. i don't know what it was, but at one point i passed through a rather strong odor, which wasn't even really pleasant, but for some reason, it immediately reminded me very specifically and very strongly of the tidepools near haystack rock, on cannon beach. well, minus a little of the salinity, i suppose, but the force of the association was unbelievable, and only reinforced by the wonderful combination of bright light and 'crisp' fall air---just cold enough to excite the nerve endings in any exposed skin, and make you feel alive, but never harsh or uncomfortable.

in any case, it felt good to be moving again. i _will_ beat this thing, and before i get yelled at by everyone, this time i'm not going to stop eating, so you can relax a bit. i appreciate the concern, a lot even, but now i need a second chance, to try again. if i do more stupid stuff this time, you'll be welcome (and requested) to beat up on me as much as you like, but for now, we're pretending to be optimistic. actually, another cool thing happened recently as well (related to me getting more exercise). while we were in turin, enno saw and pointed out a picture of a boat like the one he uses, and without me mentioning it, suggested that i should come out with him sometime. this is something i've kinda been interested to do since he told me about his team in the spring, but for whatever reason, i didn't feel comfortable asking. well, okay, so the reason was pretty clear; i was afraid that if he said yes it would just be out of courtesy, and that then he'd just be annoyed that he was having to do it... not rational in the least bit, to be sure, but my mind still works this way sometimes, despite my efforts to the contrary. sigh. so many things to work on. i guess this is why they say that life is in the process, not the result. anyway, the unsolicited invitation was an extreme, even if ephemeral, self-worth boost. it felt really good.

portents of pole reversal

well, i'm afraid it's going to have to be a short one today, folks.

it's late again, and i'm falling asleep as we (hrm, "i" is probably closer to the truth...) speak. but i did want to record the fact that i'm starting to pull out of my depressive episode. probably take another several days before i get all the way through the transitory phase to manic, but the first glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel is always a reassuring omen. with any luck, i'll soon be able to write about nice happy happenings, instead of all things morose, melancholy, and occasionally macabre. i imagine that if there's anyone actually reading this, they'll likely appreciate that.

somehow this week, even if it is through little (if any) fault of my own, i seem to be getting out a lot more. this is always a plus. on monday, igor invited a bunch of us over for dinner, yesterday oscar lent me some really atrocious british comedy dvds and i went to nikolaus's appartment and we watched one, and today, some people from lanos went to the chateau for pizza. with each evening came a couple of fleeting moments where i would forget to be insecure, and just have a good time for a little bit. sure, the feeling doesn't last very long before you remember, but good things seldom do, so you just have to enjoy them while they last. it's a good feeling.

on friday and saturday, enno and i are going to turin for the "slowfood" convention thing (www.slowfood.com). it should be fun. at least i'm hoping so. probably i'll end up writing about it when i get back.

clearly, i have nothing important left to say at the moment, since this post is rapidly degenerating into a poorly executed free-association session.

good night.

he loves the country, he loves it not...

well, i finally made it to the post office this afternoon.

therefore, i've officially sent in my ballot.

god. is it just me, or did it seem even _more_ depressing that usual this time? perhaps it's just that the act of trying to fill it out---and finding that i actually do care about what happens---felt like a threat to my wannabe expatriot status.

seriously, though. it was like plucking petals off a flower; "bad," "worse," "bad," "worse..." "well, i guess that means we have to go with 'bad...'" if i weren't so terrified of being stuck with "worse" again, i was totally ready to break out the big fat sharpie and write "D. NONE OF THE ABOVE" across the whole thing, as large as i could.

but no. we're stuck. we can't buck the system, because doing so _will_ make things worse. it's like an ultra fucked-up version of the prisoner's dilemma; we're not playing a zero-sum game anymore. good morning. welcome to real life. oh, and by the way, the kindergarteners had it right all along: **it's not fucking fair.** fine, so we didn't swear like that when we were five (least of all me, i realize), but twenty years later, at times when i feel just as helpless as i did then, at least i can squeeze a tiny drop of catharsis out of having words at my disposal that come a little closer to conveying what i actually feel.

and the fun doesn't stop there, either. once you get past the first question, already fighting the urge to retch, there's still three quarters of a page of other people, most of whom i knew nothing about, except what was provided in their pamphlet statements. but even those nearly moved me to tears, the way some people are just ignorant, mean-spirited, and vindictive. move over ipecac, here comes 'essence of voter's pamphlet.' then i got to the back side, where the measures are... i dunno, somehow i had maintained my [somewhat naive] view of oregon being a nice, laid-back, diverse, and generally accepting sort of place, even if behind the times by a bit, and not always entirely un-backwards. that all got shattered but good, like a crowbar run amok in the swarovski store, when i read the marriage question. it was all i could do to keep from crying, and i almost didn't succeed. what kind of hate would drive someone to even think about writing such a horrible, horrible thing? i know that the hate-bone is connected to the fear-bone by the propaganda joint, which is jerked around swiftly by the ligaments of religion and tradition. but while i accept the fact that people have differing viewpoints, i've never understood how they can justify their fascist behavior, even [or perhaps especially] to themselves.

what makes it even worse, in my mind, is the fact that, when it is on the ballot, it's not even a religious/moral issue, but a _fiscal_ one. if anyone still believes in the separation of church and state (which is laughably superficial at best anymore), it should be clear that the government does not regulate the institution of marriage because of a biblical mandate, but rather in the interest of the continued health and prosperity of the country. you can't marry your siblings or your first cousins, because a country full of mongoloids probably won't be able to maintain it's status as a 'world power.' tax breaks are given on marriage and children to encourage registration and provide a higher granularity with respect to paperwork. probably there are even better motivations, and others for the legal protections/benfits also, but i'm too tired right now to formulate a good argument, or even speculate. my point is: whatever your personal opinions and convictions on the institution of marriage, whether i agree with them or not, neither mine nor yours have **any place whatsoever** in governmental statutes. if you put them there, you are giving legal reinforcement to class/caste based discrimination which is fundamentally _identical_ to slavery, racism, and the lack of women's suffrage.

it makes me so angry. and i loathe the person i become when i'm angry. at times like this, i'm unsure whether i wish i had been gifted with superhero powers, or if i'm grateful that i haven't any, seeing as i probably wouldn't be qualified to control them. sure, i'd be wracked with guilt for causing the spontaneous combustion of ignorant pig-headed bigots, but then maybe my self-flagellation would be a small price to pay for how much better the world would be without them...

as mentioned above, i'm tired, and emotional, and freely admit that i'm probably not providing adequate backing for half of the outrageous claims i'm making. so please forgive me, and correct me gently if i need it. and now, i'm going to bed, before i get my self in any more trouble.

[[note to self: next entry should reference the recent darbnet discussion on anger management.]]

upper arms and other inadequacies

i don't think i've been exercising enough lately. probably some of it has to do with being busy and such, but i also suspect that plain old laziness probably plays a pretty significant role as well.

a bunch of us went out for dinner last night, and one of my friends was wearing a shirt without sleeves---god only knows why, seeing as it was pouring down rain outside, and the clock on the bank said it was like 8 degrees out (centigrade; i'm too lazy to convert). now, he's not stupid or anything, he wore a jacket and scarf and stuff too, but hung them up once we were inside. in any case, he looked _really_ good (probably that's why; he certainly must have realized that it flattered his physique), and i felt the claws of the envy fairy dig deep into my shoulder where she stayed for the rest of the evening, whispering nasty demeaning words of discouragement into my ear.

jon explained to me, when he was here in august, that i really should try putting a little more effort into my wardrobe. i knew it made sense, and of course he was right, but i don't think the full force of it hit home until last night, looking around and seeing everybody dressed casually, and yet still somehow appropriately, and just plain _nice_. then i thought about what i had thrown on earlier, which suddenly struck me as little better than a burlap sack or a wooden barrel, and i wanted nothing more than to turn around and run home, and climb back into bed.

okay, let me try to be fair about this. none of my clothing is spectacular, by any stretch of the imagination, but i'd like to think that it hasn't always been quite _this_ bad. i'm hoping that most of the awkwardness is due to the fact that i could probably fit two of me into any given article in my closet---after all, in the past year, i have lost nearly 50 pounds (incidentally, according to the doctor, that brings me back down to ordinary "overweight," as opposed to "obese;" a step in the right direction, to be sure, but my god the eventual goal seems so far away sometimes).

so, yeah, i need to go buy some new things, and hopefully that will help, but i still don't think i'm quite ready for the kind of stuff jon was talking about. i agree with him that form-fitting clothing looks good on other people, but my opinion is that this is because the other people in question actually have a good 'form' to 'fit.'

like i said, i'm doing much better now, and it's no longer a physically painful ordeal for me to look in the mirror, but that's not to imply that i approve of what i see there. i still hate my body most of the time, but at least now i can occasionally catch a brief glimpse of the potential for this to not have to be the case forever. i just wish "not forever" would end sooner rather than later. i mean, when you think about it, i suppose a body really is like a house in some ways (notice how i strategically and deliberately avoid the word "temple"). you have to live in it; the primary difference is that you can't sell it and move to another one (lord knows i would have done it long before now, were it possible). and unfortunately, just like real houses, it seems prone to clutter, filth, overcrowding, and basically all other manner of disorder and disarray imaginable. having finally escaped the veritable landfill that my mother transformed my parent's house into, i've come to appreciate a certain 'organization' in my living spaces, small though they may be, seeing as i currently live in europe. keeping my apartment reasonably clean isn't nearly as difficult as i would have thought, given the environment that i grew up in, but trying to expunge the residue left over from a lifetime (well, my lifetime, so 20 some odd years, at least) of being trained to habitual overeating and all around lethargy is turning out to be quite possibly the most difficult task i've ever attempted. and it's so easy to get discouraged.

(aside: unlike psychiatrists, i don't blame any of this on my parents, or even see them as directly responsible for it, even though i may sound a little bit like it at some times. rather, i just strongly resent the fact that i absorbed basically all of their [moderately destructive] lifestyle habits simply because i didn't know any better, or for that matter, any other way.)

right, so where was i, before all these tangents within soapboxes within digressions? i seem to remember it having something to do with enno's biceps being unbelievably disproportional to his otherwise 115lbs-and-27in-waist self. no, no bitterness there---just pure unadulterated jealousy. (call a spade a spade, right?) maybe i should start my own rowing team, too. or i should probably try to find something original. the copycat thing isn't generally becoming. not even if you still believe the spiel about "imitation being the highest form of flattery." i already occasionally feel like his 'tag-along' (though i admit that this is likely entirely due to my neurotic paranoia), the last thing i need to do is exacerbate the situation (even if it is only in my head).

and one more random thought for today: how can anyone use this many parentheses (and not be glaringly schizophrenic)?

one week and one day

hrm. well, that lasted a long time, didn't it?

remind me never to make resolutions; new year's or otherwise.

i dunno. i guess i'm still just intimidated a bit by this whole deal. somehow it feels like i expect myself to come forth with some great pearl of wisdom in order to justify my existence... dear reader, i hope you feel differently; otherwise, i fear you'll probably have to get used to disappointment most of the time.

so what did happen to me this week, anyway?

my life of late has been a jumble of frustration, confusion, and restless nights. and while i can point at any number of superficial symptoms that add up to me making such a statement, i fear there is something more sinister hiding beneath the surface, that i have yet to satisfactorily locate and identify. and that annoys the ever-loving shit out of me. how in hecate's hairdo am i supposed to find a solution---when i can't even find the problem?

if i was in a more optimistic mood, a sardonic dismissal would probably suffice. "if there isn't a solution, then there must not be a problem." but, sadly, i learned my truth tables well enough to remember that the converse of a true statement, however witty or convenient, doesn't mean shit. [insert generic deprecatory remark about me being an incurable geek here.]

but yeah. thrice this week alone, i've been approached by someone speaking russian---only to be reminded (somewhat painfully, i might add) that any progress i have made in french has only come at the rather dear expense of any proficiency (however humble) that i might have once posessed in russian. and i'm fucking pissed off about it. i mean, for crying out loud, i devoted how many years of my life to learning what i did? and now it just up and disappears? that's just so many shades of 'not cool' that i can't even fathom trying to describe it. and as if that wasn't bad enough, i'm still surrounded by francophones, and while my increasing aural comprehension is sufficient to shock even myself, i want to curl up and die everytime i have to open my mouth. i understand almost everything that's said to me, but you'd never know it, since any response i might make sounds about as comprehensible and intelligent as a toddler on dopamine. how bad must it sound to them, if even _i_ can tell it's just plain wrong? ha. and don't worry, we're not done yet. i'm starting to get scared that my english is suffering now too. yes, i'm probably paranoid, if not completely schizophrenic, but i doubt you have any idea how freaky it is to hear yourself accidentally start repeating the disturbingly common yet oh-so-gramatically-incorrect phrases used by all the people here. after all, i was warned from the beginning that the official language of EPFL is "bad english." i laughed at the time. now i start to find out how true it really is. the horror...

have you ever had a week where, for absolutely no rationally explicable reason at all, you felt like you just didn't know where you stood with your friends anymore? sure, paranoia strikes again, i realize. but i still have these holdovers from my early days of few if any playmates, and friendships are frighteningly precious to me. i know i'm being completely unreasonable; everyone is entitled to bad days. and yet, my emotions are too moronic to find consolation in this. anyway, it's totally stupid; a couple of people were just a little short with me, and it fed into my omnipresent fear that people will eventually/inevitably tire of me, and just be too polite to say it outright. god, it sounds so pathetic when i say it. just call me cassandra; i'm fully aware of how messed up i am, but i feel utterly powerless to do anything about it, no matter how much i want to just pick me up by the shoulders and shake me and scream at me. if i thought i could get a good angle on it without dislocating every joint in my arm, i would gladly attempt to bitch-slap some sense into me.

i wonder if there really is a possibility that it really is all (or even partially) just chemicals and disequilibria? i mean, i know i haven't been eating terribly well recently. yet another thing to get upset at myself for. no, don't worry, it's not nearly as bad as it was, but i'm beginning to understand that thing they say about addictions and psychological disorders: "you're never really actually totally cured; you just get better at learning how to cope." i've just been so worn out this week. after being at work from ten to ten, i didn't have the requisite energy to prepare a reasonable meal, or even do much more than snack, it seems (sometimes on acceptable items, sometimes less so). of course, it seems obvious *now,* in that disgustingly malifluous sort of way; mildly depressed, and moderately malnourished, i suppose it's little wonder that i didn't sleep well. and then it compounded for five days straight. there you have it folks, perpetual motion achieved. oh joy.

probably i really should write in this thing more often. for whatever humiliating reason, it appears (at least so far) that while attempting to explain my frustrations, they start to seem dumb and trite and petty and most importantly, to have blindingly obvious potential resolutions... sorry, this particular revelation probably isn't terribly exciting. really, i'm not completely brain-dead, just a little slow on the uptake (or at least that's what i prefer to tell myself).

step 1: "i am a tool."

yeah, yeah. i admit it. i'm probably only doing this because i've always subconsciously wanted to be like the cool kids, and this seems to be the crazyfad-du-jour amoung the people i know.

this is me making whatever sound lemmings make. yar.

eh, but i do have a secondary motivation as well. with any luck, this might motivate me to resussitate my journal from last year, which was going great---until one day when i randomly just stopped. well, "try, try again," right? or isn't that something like the crap they used to feed us? who knows anymore. frankly, there are plenty of things they maliciously saturated our impressionable little minds with that i wish i could forget. but that's another therapy session for another time.

but if anyone actually finds within them sufficient courage, motivation, or (most likely) just plain old boredom to actually read about my various misadventures and hopefully get a decent laugh out of them occasionally (even if it is at my expense, i won't mind too much), well, here goes nothing.