Awake

When did this happen?

How is it that every winter, I forget how colorful the world is with leaves, and every spring they take me by surprise?  When I stepped outside this morning, it suddenly seemed like an entirely different season ... just in time for May.  I saw a lot of women out wearing nice skirts and dresses for spring (or in one case, a pair of seersucker shorts and sandals - I think she's one season ahead) - it makes me want to put on something pretty and light and floral myself.  So as usual I have to remind myself that there's a reason that I don't own any florals... (they make me look like an extra from Little House on the Prairie, all I'm missing is the bonnet) 

On that note, I have to get to work, but this afternoon I'm going to head down to the farmer's market where there's probably still not much but where, due to nice weather, I'm bound to see people eagerly snapping pictures of the food.  Of course, I do it too, but there's something humorous about the multitude of people with enormous SLR cameras, zeroing in on things like piles of scallions.  Sometimes I want to tap one of these people on the shoulder and say, "you can eat them too, you know!"

Tea Biscuits

I have a new passion in my life, and it's LU Rich Tea Biscuits, these cookies that are sort of like the bottom half of a Petit Ecolier but without the chocolate slab on top, and butterier.

Of course, it's an unseasonable eighty degrees outside, so it seems rather silly to be sitting around eating tea biscuits after lunch (and dinner).  Tea biscuits are the sort of thing that I think go with rainy, fifty degree days in March or November.  To be eaten with tea, of course.

But I think I've gone crazy for tea biscuits because as I've mentioned before, I tend to want to eat whatever people are eating in the book I'm reading at the moment.  And over the past week or so, I've been indulging in a re-read of Cold Comfort Farm, which I first discovered a few years ago in the "British Literature" section of the McNally Jackson bookstore on Prince Street, and bought within minutes of opening it.  I'm glad I did, because it's the sort of thing that I like to peep into every once in a while, and in fact lately I've developed a sort of obsession with the heroine, Flora Poste, who as of this moment is officially my idol.  (Long gone are those high school days when I wanted to be just like Dorothea in Middlemarch... I can't remember why anymore, but I think it had more to do with what I perceived at the time as unselfconscious candor, than with her choice in husbands.  I'll have to reread it to find out!).  No - instead I want to be like the ever-sensible, determinedly cheerful, Flora, who likes everything to be neat and tidy, and whose favorite book is The Higher Common Sense by the Abbe Fausse-Maigre.  If only such a volume really existed!

Cold Comfort Farm was published in 1932, and apparently Virginia Woolf was absolutely disgusted when it won a prestigious award in 1933 (the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse).  It's really a parody of a certain sort of British pastoral novel, and the florid, "earthy" style popularized by DH Lawrence and his many offshoots.  Young Flora Poste enters this rural setting, where every bud and dew-drop is ripe with symbolic meaning and her relatives are mired in unhappy drama, and marches straight through, determined to get everyone into order before getting on with her own life.

The biscuits appear in a scene in a tea-shop where she encounters Mr. Mybug, a writer who just loves tramping around the countryside on long walks in any weather.  Excerpt below:

[Flora] was just beginning on her fourth buscuit when she became conscious of a presence approaching her from behind, and before she could collect her faculties the voice of Mr Mybug said:

'Hullo, Flora Poste.  Do you believe that women have souls?'  And there he was, standing above her and looking down at her wtih a bold yet whimsical smile.

Flora was not surprised at being asked this question.  She knew that intellectuals, like Mr Kipling's Bi-coloured Python-Rock-Snake, always talked like this.  So she replied pleasantly, but from her heart: 'I am afraid I'm not very interested.'

So I say, if this Flora is eating biscuits when she makes this sort of reply... I want some, too!

Little Treats, Big Treats

One of the downsides of being self-employed - especially in the beginning - is that your income at times can seem a bit dubious - if not downright precarious.  There are good months, where you have steady work and you know what you're making - and then there are those other months, when ... well, you don't.  And so there's a tendency to want to hoard if and when you can, and suddenly what, when you had a steady salary, seemed quite normal - buying your favorite overpriced kombucha drink AND seeing a movie AND splurging on medjool dates at the grocery store, all in the same week (gasp!) - is no longer tenable, if you expect to end the week with a dollar or two left in your pocket.  

And I always like to have a dollar or two left, which I then hoard somewhere for rainy-day splurges that don't really fit in my budget, like expensive face cream or a new pair of sandals.  This goes with the line of thinking of, if you spend $20 a week at Starbucks, by the end of the year you'll have had over $1000 that you could've spent on something else - like an APC leather motorcycle jacket!  (Just kidding - and if only... I'm afraid it's over $1,000!)

And so in the beginning of my perilous quasi-employment, I hoarded the absolute maximum every week for my 'frivolous purchase' fund - which believe me, is growing paaiiinnnfully slowly.  But then I realized something about the wonder of treats.  Maybe, just maybe, I'd rather spend $5 or $10 on little treats every week, than have a really expensive something at the end of the year.  Because if you recognize that your medjool dates are really luxurious and you really enjoy them, then that week you can feel happy that you've had a good treat, budget be damned, which is a big psychological boost when you're feeling tired of preparing your own meals three times a day (in New York truly exceptional!) and saying 'no' to yourself every time you press your nose against a store window (yes, I'm being a bit melodramatic!)

I was thinking about it because last night, I went to a nice cafe with a friend, a verrry nice cafe in the West Village, with a beautiful bar in the middle, and white marble-topped tables, and black and white photos on the walls, and I had a very nice black coffee, and we had a nice long chat (about moving to Paris and buying penthouses in the West Village, no less)!  She is also self-employed, and she mentioned that when she is running around the city working, she often enjoys stopping and having a coffee somewhere.  And I thought, "hm, I really maybe should do this more, instead of being so set on never having coffee out - just allocate money to be OUT of the apartment and sit and see people and think..." so I was so set on thinking about how I ought to do it but don't, and figuring out how I could do it (fewer farmer's market vegetables?  Sacrilege!) that I realized that I almost forgot that I had just DONE it!  Yes, I had just come from sitting in a very nice cafe, looking around and having a good long chat.  And I pretty much overlooked it and was already on to the next thing.

Which I suppose means that my point is very hackneyed: enjoy these small pleasures, appreciate the moment, blah blah blah.  I forgot to say: "remember that the best things in life are free!" Like going for long walks in good weather (I took the picture above last weekend on the Hudson River - yes the WEST side, rarely get there) or the Metropolitan Museum (well, almost free ... you can get in for a $1 if you're really insolvent).  My personal hope is that I remember to enjoy the little treats that I indulge in every week... and that I ALSO manage to save up enough dollar bills for a new pair of ballet flats - mine are looking pretty down and out!  

Cogitating

I was just sitting on my living room floor staring at my foot, when I remembered that I had a blog (!) and that I'd taken some nice, springy pictures on Saturday, and I should post them.  This is what happens when you're out of the habit...

While I examined my foot, I was thinking about how people are always so eager to define themselves, put limits around their personality.  The topic was on my mind because lately I've been thinking, "oh, I wish I were one of those really, chill people," by which I mean a sort of imaginary hippie girl in a peasant blouse and a breezy long skirt, who lets things sort of roll off of her while still managing to wish everyone well - who isn't petty or always weighed down with exaggerated concern over what others are thinking /feeling / doing.

Then I thought, isn't it funny that I would like to be 'one of those people,' instead of just thinking that I, such as I am, should try not to spend as much energy on worrying?

And then my mind wandered again until I caught myself thinking about how very often, people who don't know me well mistake me for 'one of those people,' since I don't tend to emote - yes, I sometimes pass undercover as an unambitious, unworried, live-and-let-live-type. But, I thought, if I'm mistaken as such, then I can't truly be the jittery neurotic that I become a few times a year at least.

Which made me think, "there I go again, thinking 'am I like this' or 'am I like that?'  Why is it not possible to say, "I FEEL anxious," instead of "I AM anxious," or "today I feel unhappy," instead of "I AM unhappy?"  Why the temptation to sort ourselves into types or archetypes - worrier, slacker, rigid controller, obsessive compulsive person, spendthrift, miser, outgoing, reserved, etc.?  It's funny how the dilemma of 'who am I?' and 'what am I like?' doesn't really get left behind with adolescence - and we're so endlessly curious about ourselves.

I use "we" and "our" because I don't think I"m alone in doing this.  But I think I would do well to retire this imaginary flower-child for fiction, and just focus on living.  I suspect that's the only way to really learn to manage...

April Showers...

I don't remember now whether it always rains this much in April, but I don't think it does.

Actually, it's not really rain I'm thinking of, it's the gray skies.  And surprisingly it took me until I was about thirty to notice that the days when it's damp and overcast out are the days when I feel the most, really, bleary-eyed and tired.  So that's how I've been feeling.

Which doesn't make for a very exciting blog post, so I'll add the fascinating tidbit that I finally, finally, finished cooking up that bag of millet that I've been complaining about almost as long as I've had this blog.  And from now on, I leave millet strictly for the birds.

I was so excited when I bought it, because I'd been reading in a healthy-food book about all of these amazing new (to us Americans) grains that are so wholesome and will make you strong and healthy until you're 102.  Millet, Amaranth, Quinoa, etc.  And I have to confess that I'm leaving my attempts to make tasty things with these grains with the conclusion that pasta, rice, and barley (for soup) suit me much better.  Which is not to say that more brilliant and dedicated chefs than I have not incorporated millet etc. into delicious meals, and I'm afraid they'll be running marathons in their eighties while I just snip roses in my garden (I hope I will be so lucky, anyway).  But it's so easy to make them all dry and bland, and the 1 cup you cook turns into what feels like 2 quarts of dry and bland fluff.  So.  Yes.  I will try again one day, but spaghetti is on the menu at my house tonight!

On that note - time to finish my coffee - yes I dared to write before having a full cup!  But i need to get to work...!

Hello

 

Hello out there,

Excuse me for my long blog hiatus!  I think for even the most regular bloggers, there comes a time when you feel utterly brain-dead or drained of words, and simply haven't anything to say.  At all.  Or what you would say, if you had to say something, would be so mundane that no one would want to read it.  Like, "I wonder how I can wash the outsides of my windows without falling out," or "gosh eating Choco Leibniz cookies is much more economical than buying my favorite chocolate bars."

But I feel better now and I'm going to start trying to update again!  In the meantime here are a few pictures I would have posted if I had been posting...

January

February (in Boston area)

March