Zombie Feminism

Zombie Feminism. This is a really interesting article about a bunch of movies I've always disregarded out of hand. Pretty fascinating. Now I kind of want to see Zombie Strippers, which I had thought sounded like a bunch of dreck. And maybe it is, but I'm interested in the concept this article suggests. What do you all think?

Semantic groaning

Two phrases I don't ever need to hear again:

"Wow factor" - when did this come into vogue and when will it disappear?

"Shock and awe" - after seeing it in a few too many different contexts, I can't take it any more. I kind of wish that whoever is elected passes a law outlawing all phrases coined by the Bush administration. That includes Homeland Security. What a silly faux-patriotism-inciting name.

School Days

I used to wake up in the mornings to the sound of the 8:40 bell for Morning Prayers at Memorial Church. Now I hear it as I come out of the Harvard Square T stop.

More news

Delinquent blogging leads me to need to do another news digest with previews of coming attractions. In no particular order.

1. The new semester starts tomorrow.
2. In order to make it to campus in time to organize myself, I have to leave my house by about 7:45 AM. EVERY DAY. Does. Not. Compute.
3. We finally filed for Dan's Green Card. Thus commences the waiting game. No, we still haven't seen the movie.
4. Dan starts work tomorrow!
5. In August, I baked Franzbrötchen!
6. Last week sometime I baked chocolate rolls.
7. I also cooked the inaugural Butternut Squash of the season.
8. We have Besuch from Deutschland!
9. My work status currently SUCKS. But will be okay.
10. We got pluots in our Boston Organics box this week! What the hell are those!?
11. I learned the German word for quince. Quitte.
    

News

In no particular order:

• I'm legally married.
• Going home to finish planning the big church wedding in a couple days.
• Things I've cooked:
• Some pretty tasty ginger-soy stir fry
• REALLY good potato pancakes
• Lots and lots of pasta
• Stuffed zucchini (with oriental eggplant)
• What I'm cooking tonight: Spaghetti casserole
• Loving the Boston Organics deliveries, but don't know what to do with cabbage.
  
• General exams got pushed back by a little bit (thank GOD)
• Went to world's ODDEST wedding this weekend
• Bought my wedding shoes
• Also bought some pretty amazing stripper heels
  
• Had good friends over for a couple hours yesterday
• Very very very happy playing house.
  

Banana Bread

Tonight I found myself with a bunch of rapidly blackening bananas like this. Instead of just put up with the fruit flies, I decided to make banana bread. After a quick trip to the local Tedeschi's for flour, sour cream, and baking powder, I was good to go.

The recipe I used was this:

BANANA BREAD

10 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon butter
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large bananas)
1/2 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups cake flour
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup toasted, chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Lightly grease a 9 1/4 by 5 1/4 by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan with 1 teaspoon of the butter.

Puree the bananas, sour cream, eggs and vanilla in a food processor.

Sift the cake flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fixed with a whisk attachment. Add the remaining 10 tablespoons butter and mix on medium-low speed until blended, about 30 seconds. Add the banana mixture in 3 batches, scraping the sides of the bowl and mixing on medium speed between each addition. Fold in the nuts.

Pour into the loaf pan. Bake until lightly browned and bread bounces back to the touch, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire rack to cool completely.

Of course, I used Egg Beaters instead of eggs, 8 inch pans instead of 9 1/4, and I didn't have any walnuts, in classic semi-hobo fashion. Oh, and I had to do the mixing by hand, which was a joy. Pre-baking this is the mess I had on my hands:
Midway through baking and things are looking (and smelling) very tasty.

Finally I found it!

When I was studying abroad the summer between my Junior and Senior years in high school, I went on this weird art installation tour (for like... 9 hours on a bus) around the Ruhrgebiet. It was really fascinating and I finally just found something that has a little information about it (randomly, while poking around a German food blog...).

Anyway, for posterity: http://www.route-industriekultur.de/menue/menue.html

Boston Organics!

I got the first box today! Very exciting. Today I received:

• a bunch of collard greens
• a head of lovely leaf lettuce
• a container of broccoli sprouts
• two small zucchini
• a couple pounds of potatoes
• an eggplant
• a couple kiwis
• a couple peaches
• a couple apples
• a bunch of bananas
• some black plums
• a couple nectarines
  

The zucchini and eggplant and potatoes will be no challenge, but I don't really know what to do with the collard greens or broccoli sprouts, as they're items I would never buy unprompted. BO sent along a good-looking collard greens recipe (with garam masala) that I may try. And I guess I'll stirfry the sprouts with some rice and other veg. Exciting!

Pre-Dan grooming, etc.

1. Appointment at Carriage House (next Tuesday, 12:00 p.m.)
   
2. Appointment at Gino
3. Mani/Pedi
4. Eye Appointment (next Monday, 1:20 p.m.)
5. Appointment for foot X-ray
6. Appointment for physical therapy
   

Food inspiration

I signed up for Boston Organics fruit and vegetable deliveries. I'll get a box every other week with half fruit and half vegetables. I'm hoping that having a variety of veg arrive on my doorstep will help inspire my cooking and challenge me to try out some new things and find some new recipes. Good times.

It's windy this morning and while I was out walking Lucy the wind was making ripples in the grass that moved across the field in just the same motion that the sand was being blown across the beach this time last year in Amrum. The temperature is perfect and the breeze is just a little cool (unlike in Amrum last year, where it was frigid) and it was just a beautiful feeling to be outside. I rather wished, though, that I were standing on some ocean cliff instead.

Summer cooking

I just made a Fruit Salad with Mint and Ginger Syrup.

Delicious. Photos later.

Lezebel fantasies

Some rather large part of me (maybe the Smithie in me?) really, truly, deeply hopes that Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson are actual, real-life lesbians.

To-Do

I make Dan do this all the time, so I may as well. Things to do before he gets here.

1. Obviously, work.
2. Buy wedding lingirie. Go to Lady Grace and/or Intimacy.
3. Buy wedding shoes.
4. Buy dress/outfit for civil ceremony.
5. Buy sandals.
6. Figure out Adjustment of Status and Social Security Number paperwork.
7. Get plane tickets for August.
8. Get the apartment sorted a little better.
9. Stop being a pathetic sap.
   

Blah

I'm feeling the need to do something creative. I know it's just filtered frustration because I know I need to be working, but I'm having a hard time motivating myself to do that. I know I'll feel better when I get some done, but it's still frustrating.

Maybe I have a bug up my ass, but ...

This article about the new American Girls movie is on my side, I think. Or I think A. O. (Anthony) Scott thinks he's on my side. His point about Hollywood neglecting girls (and women?) is right on and well taken, but his suggestion that Enchanted was a well-meant nod to girls doesn't quite rhyme with his bemoaning of the role models (fairy-tale princesses, Bratz and Barbie dolls, Lindsay Lohan) available to young women today (what about Hillary, Mr. Scott? Or even - God forbid - Condoleeza Rice -- let the record reflect that I do NOT like Condi, but I do respect that she is a woman who was risen to great power. Or how about Madeleine Albright? She's not too bad. Or maybe to be a role model you have to be young and sexy. That's right.). I may be mistaken, because I didn't have any interest in seeing that particular film, but isn't it a pretty standard Broadway musical cum fairy tale in which the goal of the female protagonist is to meet, enchant, and marry her man? That's really helpful.

Okay. Seriously this article isn't that bad, but I got all worked up after reading about Hillary and was mad at the media/world in general for its portrayal of women on all stages.

"Of mice and women..."

This is a very good column by Judith Warner.

It still makes me extremely sad, though, that we're talking about Hillary's run for President in the past tense. Damn it.

Maybe part of the problem is that she started out as a "trailing spouse" but then couldn't successfully negotiate the change to leading? (I don't think this is the case. She negotiated that shift beautifully. The public and her ex-President-husband left a little to desire in this area. He certainly didn't take kindly to it - note the wild campaign trail antics - and the public talked more about her as First Lady than as a potential President.

Also, this article in todays Times does portray the candidates as having come to a peaceful conclusion (read: Hillary is happy about no longer running, which I can't quite swallow), which is nice. However, the article really plays up Hillary's deference (she smiled deferentially while he spoke), wonders at the lack of physical affection between them (they're not suddenly in a relationship, even if the rally was a pseudo Love-in), and shows a photo with him in a very patriarchial/protective posture, one hand on the little girl's shoulder. Ugh.

I understand it's not her place to run the show anymore, but the press is going to have to find a better vocabulary to deal with that fact. I'm stunned by the continued sexism even after she's stopped being a threat to the country's collective machismo.

And no, Obama's little crack about her being able to "anything the boys can do, and do it better, and do it in heels" doesn't help. Anyone else ever noticed that the word boys has an entirely different effect than the word girls? It implies a kind of bosom-buddyness, an inside-joke tone, a faux humility which tries to come off as self-deprecation but instead actually brags of its down-to-earthness. It says "look at this powerful man who is confident enough to still feel like just one of the boys." There's the Old Boys network from the north and the Good Ol' Boys of the south. Always centers of power-brokerage. Girls, on the other hand are weak, deferential, and the use of the word generally doesn't cross into dialogues of politics or power. It's confined instead to girls' nights out, girly movies, girlish figures, etc. And what kills me is that Obama is signalling his consciousness of this voacabulary issue by very carefully saying that "Women can do whatever the boys do." He knows he isn't allowed to call Hillary a girl, but it suits his cause better to refer to himself as one of the boys. Anyway, what the FUCK do heels have to do with anything? Quick boys, undermine her authority and seriousness as quickly as you can! She could still go off at any moment!

Polemic over.

Purging

Also, tonight I had a brief period of wardrobe mania. I cleaned out my closet and got rid of things I've been needing to get rid of for years, found a few pieces that could be altered to fit, and realized that some old things I had been saving in hopes of losing a few pounds fit again. Now I want to go shopping.

This is one of the many double-edged side-effects of watching three episodes of What Not to Wear in a row.

Trailing spouses

This post on Jezebel and the article on CNN that it refers to are really interesting. The idea of trailing spouses is one I've been thinking about a lot lately. I'm on a career path at the moment that is likely going to force me to move around for a while at least (at least until I get tenure or give up). I worry about my young man finding a job that is equally satisfying and demanding and that might not be very flexible, location-wise. I worry about us having difficulty deciding who will "trail" (though I think that term is really irritating) and who will lead (or whatever).

The other problem with this analysis of the problem is the vaguely sexist idea that it's the woman's own fault for choosing a more flexible career. Like it's her own damned fault? That's a little difficult for me to swallow.

Anyway, this is one of the many things I worry about heading into marriage. It's funny to be thinking about all these issues concretely (since the Hitching is just around the corner) instead of just theoretically. Very very very strange.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So much is in transition right now... I've moved to the new apartment and am waiting for Dan to arrive. But I am still living out of a suitcase and sleeping on an air mattress because I haven't finished moving and don't have a chest of drawers. I'm cooking for myself, but don't have enough dishes or surface space to do much. I'm trying to start reading for my generals, but I don't really have a good place to do that yet.

Oh, and I'm going to be legally married in a little over a month, crazy as that sounds. I'm having all the attending nerves and jitters, but am entirely excited. Planning is going very well. While I was trying on the dress I ended up buying, I also found out that my very best friend is engaged, which is exciting, but also unsettling. It's so strange that we're all growing up. I'm reminded of a passage in one of the Anne books when Diana is getting married, I think. Or maybe it's in Little Women, when Amy marries Laurie (which is STILL upsetting). I should look up those passages. Might make a good toast for the wedding...

It's just unbelievable to me that we're going through these major life changing events, and at the same time. It's nice to have company and to be making these decisions at the same time, but it's also kind of sad. Clearly, life is changing and with it our friendship will probably also change by millimeters. I'm not worried about it ending or anything like that, but am trying to understand how life is going to look once I'm not living by myself and once I'm committed to someone for Ever. And trying to get used to the idea of making big decisions based on more than just myself.

It's a lot of transition all at once, but I'm sure it'll all shake out in a pleasing way. It might be unsettling for a while, but once we're settled it'll be clear that it's the right thing. It's already clearly the right thing, but it's a bit nervous-making. But then I've always thought one would be certifiable if one weren't a little bit nervous before saying the big I Do.