"so. how's married life?" i am besieged by this question, and being myself in all my nerdsome glory, i've become entranced by its implications. i've cobbled together a couple of general precepts, and will list them. once listed and understood, i will follow these premises with my response to this ubiquitous and vexing query.

1. i have been asked this many many times, but almost exclusively by unmarried people. given that married people seem not to feel the need to ask, and all unmarried people ask in the exact same way, this implies that there is a general social understanding that all marriage is inherently similar. if unmarried, one asks the same question of everyone, thus suggesting a particular expected response, and once married, one no longer asks the question, implying that one knows the answer firsthand.
2. the existence and pervasiveness of the question imply a general concept of married life as necessarily distinct from unmarried life, and even somewhat mystical by comparison.

So. How IS Married Life? (you ask)
not very different from unmarried life, at least for me. the inherent implication is, of course, that my experience is abnormal - so don't take this to be representative of the general population. however, i never was the type of unmarried person to have meaningless trysts, nor even to engage in (what i considered to be) casual relationships. romantic or otherwise, my relationships have always been committed and meaningful, born of mutual affection and personal compatibility (or combatibility, in bryce's case).
for the year or two before we got married, caitlin and i had been living together, in either official or unofficial capacities. and even before that, we lived very near to one another, and spent much of our time together. we argued "like a married couple," made decisions together "like a married couple," and generally seemed to behave in ways that most of our friends described as analogous to married life.
so now that i'm married? it's about the same. as i told the man who most recently asked me The Question - my life now contains approximately 30% more Caitlin, my diet has improved, and the tax breaks are nice.

good evening.

-r.

like omelettes? me too. i don't cook much around here, since caitlin's an amazing chef and i'm a lazy bum, but i do cook a mean omelette pretty regularly, and i've gotten pretty efficient at it. here's my favorite:

Ingredients:
3 large eggs
milk
shredded cheese
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 slices of smoked turkey, chopped
salt
black pepper
turmeric
chili powder
garlic powder
dry basil

Butter a 12" frying pan, and fry up the onions and turkey until lightly browned. While frying, whip the eggs with a splash of milk (don't use too much, or it runs in the pan), and add the above spices to taste - for a spicier omelette, use more pepper and turmeric; for sweeter, fry a little more onion, and use more basil. Remove the onion and turkey from the pan.
Pour the whipped eggs/spices into the pan. When the egg has cooked approximately halfway through, spread the onion and turkey over the center of the eggs. Use a spatula to fold the sides over the onion and turkey. Flipping the omelette to cook the edges of the other side can be tricky, so I like to either cut the thing in half or use two spatulas. Anyway, flip the omelette, and let it 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on desires runniness. Flip back over, sprinkle with cheese, and serve.

i actually went out for pizza and beer with...dare i say - friends! this marks the first time i've just hung out with people since beloit without needing some kind of pretext (i.e., gaming, frisbee) to do so.

very exciting! now caitlin and i have both found some kind of casual, non-each-other relationships!

-r.

(i have absolutely no time whatsoever to post. and yet.)

-during the 2008 presidential election, Hillary Clinton was often painted by the media to be the "first female presidential candidate." she was nothing of the sort. in 1964, Margaret Chase Smith submitted her name for the Republican nomination, and in 1972, Shirley Chisholm became the first woman, and the first (major party) black candidate to submit her name for the Democratic nomination. both women were pretty cool, albeit very different in their experiences and politics, and both have been largely lost to the biases of textbook and history book publishers and authors. check 'em out.
-this one's not new for me, but it's worth saying: eminent anthropologist and epistemologist, Clifford Geertz, wrote the worst sentence in the history of modern english;

as may be apparent, i'm back from minnesota. i was there for a funeral, and it was accordingly not an easy trip, but i think we're all handling it the best we can. i delivered my first eulogy - a bizarre experience - and got to visit my grandfather's grave for the first time in years, which was cathartic.
now that i'm back, i have a monstrous amount of make-up reading to do, which is in fact what i should be doing at this very moment.  but i've accomplished quite a bit of it already, and have also put together a preliminary annotated bibliography for my thesis - at this point it's really nothing more than a list of books, and descriptions of why i think each one might end up being helpful for me, but it took a long time and should make the research process flow a little more smoothly.

-r.

-in 1969, a Native American cultural group in San Francisco took control of the recently-abandoned Alcatraz Island, claiming it under the terms of an old treaty in its capacity as federally forsaken land. They claimed the land and its buildings, saying that they intended to turn it into a Native American cultural center. The federal government, however, ignored the issue entirely, and after a year the media and the public lost interest in the story. The activists on the island lost all momentum in the public sphere that after a year of occupation, and simply left.

other news? i have an art-blog now. i'm still setting it up - i need to go back and enter captions - but all the images are up. i created it mainly for the sake of being able to involve myself in the weekly meme, Illustration Friday. but i thought you all might be interested as well. you can find it at http://idlehands-busymind.blogspot.com.

some weeks ago, i was on the phone with my mother, from whom i have inherited my great love of literature, and she recommended to me a book. "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," by Junot Diaz. i was skeptical at first, because while she and i may share a passion for books, we have fairly divergent tastes. but she told me that she and my sister both enjoyed this book, and i agreed she should mail it to me. which she did, and fifteen minutes ago, i finished reading it.

this is a remarkable book. with any conscience at all, i must warn potential readers that it is at many moments sexually graphic, unflinchingly violent, and designed to tear the heart to pieces. the story chronicles the life of oscar "wao" cabral - an ugly, nerdy, deeply romantic but hopelessly asocial young man - as told through the history of his family's experiences and ultimate escape from the Dominican Republic under the cruel dictatorship of President Trujillo in the mid 1900's. it is a tale of superstition, destiny, fear, sex, violence, and identity.

in the interests of fairness, i will say that there are moments when the voice of the narrator becomes confusingly anonymous, and i would think that a basic knowledge of Spanish is extremely helpful (if not necessary) for full appreciation of the text. but overall, Diaz paints a horrifying but extremely moving portrait of a man trying to live a life of meaning. if you're interested in history; if you enjoy dark, gritty fiction; if you're interested in ethnic studies or social psychology - i recommend you pick up a copy of this book.


(by the way? my birthday is on october 30th. if everyone i've ever met pitches in a dollar, you guys could get me a copy of "The Red Book" diary of Carl Jung. just a thought.)
(and if we work together to set up an international fundraiser, and everyone who's ever lived donates a dollar, i can buy the original manuscript.)

-r.

-i'm told by a reliable (yet unbearably obnoxious) source, that lesbians are actually generally at a higher risk for breast cancer. this is because, apparently, the lower rate of births and breast-feeding amongst lesbian women has something to do with putting a chink in the armor of their immunities.
-according to studies done by one dr. spiegel at Stanford, the average life span of women with breast cancer is lengthened by approximately two years by attending breast cancer support group therapy for a year.

a classmate in globalization tonight asked me to e-mail her my reaction paper and notes on the book we just finished discussing in class. apparently she found my discussion points thoroughly insightful, to the point where she wanted record of them along with my interpretation of the text.
i also submitted my application for a job today for which i am radically unqualified, but which represents the very height of what i could possibly hope for in a job right now.
and faust's been extra cute today.

it's been a good day. sleep well, friends.

-n.

-apparently during the early days of Italian immigration to the United States, there was some tension between the Irish and Italian communities related to their interpretations of Roman Catholic practice, particularly as related to feste. Feste is a religious festival celebrated by Italian Roman Catholics, which seems heathenish and actually pagan to the similarly marginalized Irish Roman Catholics.
-walgreens only offers one weekly planner, and it costs $15. i've been assured that this is a pretty middle-of-the-road price, but i still can't help feeling i've been screwed with my pants on.

i've decided that i have trouble remembering to post here. and it's not that i don't have things to say, but more that i have trouble thinking of interesting or creative ways to say them. but i've had an idea. i'm going to start a series, which will inevitably fizzle out, of items of trivia from my life. the content of the trivia will give you some idea of what i'm up to on a day-to-day basis, and the series shall be called,

"OH KNOW HE DIDN'T"**

10/11
-Did you know that the popular "and God bless the United States of America" that ends every presidential speech was not a convention until Reagan started saying it?
-Cuban American students as a group have much higher achievement and school engagement rates than Mexican American or Puerto Rican students, but while Cuban American students tend to feel disengaged when they are not achieving high scores, Puerto Rican students tend to feel more or less the same level of engagement regardless of their academic achievement.
-George W. Bush's economic policy took Keynesian economics - which suggests a regulated market and a distribution of wealth to combat poverty and inequality - and perverted it such that he regulated the market and used deficit funds to cut programs for the lower and middle class and offer tax breaks to corporations and the wealthiest 5% of the population. his economic policy was actually an keynesian abomination, manifesting with the worst possible effects of neoliberal (anti-keynesian) practice. that's talent.


-r.


**kidding. just kidding.***
***it will be called "KNOWTABLE FACTS"*****
*****seriously though. it won't be called anything. i'm just going to knowtify you of knowteworthy items.

the small-government people make me crazy.
[whiny, frightened voice]Oh NO! if the government gets too big, we won't have any freedoms anymore! whatever shall we do?[/whiny, frightened voice]

shut up and ponder the state of the world a moment, would you? [ironic, judging tone]as if government is really the only power in the world that could or would curtail your freedoms. as if corporate interests wouldn't eat your Goddamn freedoms on toast.[/ironic judging tone]

it looks like it's going to be a busy quarter. i'm apparently taking 1 additional class more than the standard workload. anyway, while i haven't had the kind of full exposure to them that i'd need to make a full assessment, i figure i could probably jot down a ( few initial impressions: )

Here's tonight's dinner. It's my attempt to pretend that it's autumn in the awful 90 degree hot place that I currently live.



It's a butternut-apple-sweet potato squash soup, with herby biscuits on the side. Nick really liked it, which was awesome.

Here's a close-up:



Wunderbar!

-Caitlin

i had a conversation about my thesis and my theory-related future plans with professor rob lafleur** the other night, during which he told me with excitement and pride that our respective research fields would put us in a great position to "be of use to one another."
One Another.
i might've cried.  if i were, like, a human.  who did that kind of thing.  you know?  i might've.

last night, i sojourned to the mountain of knowledge, and attended my first graduate level course.  it made an impression, and i'll talk more about that once i've been introduced to the other two courses.  i have decided one thing, however:
grad school's gonna be hard.


**of the beloit college anthropology and history depts. - a wonderful man and a great mentor

-N.

Hey all. I (Caitlin) made a bread pudding today. And I think it looks pretty darn nice.



Yum!

-C.

Better Angels wallpaper.  One of these days, Buttons is going to send me her sketches.  She promised.

In the meantime, I keep producing piece after piece in the name of a project for which I have no intention of doing any of the art, and for which I seem utterly incapable of writing a damn word.

i seem to be posting a lot. which i guess is largely because i'm drawing all the time and like to share. here's something marginally substantive, to tide you over until we do real things:

our new apartment comes equipped with a gym, of sorts. it's actually a large game-room/lounge area that's been (mostly) converted into a workout room. it still has some remnants of its last incarnation - a little coffee table, a couple comfy-but-ratty chairs, and a beige couch that may have been just about any other color, but many years ago. time has worn away that memory.
since its renovation, the management have added to this room some exercise equipment. there're two treadmills, two stairmasters, an eliptical (which is a bike that doesn't go anywhere), and an all-purpose weight machine, which is a jumble of metal beams that may or may not have been developed during the age of steam power and monacles. one of the treadmills, one of the stairmasters, and the eliptical thing don't work. there's also something called an "ab-roller," the point and use of which might be surmised from the name and the design of the thing, but it would have to be done by a brighter mind than my own. for now, the weird thing has me stumped.
as i think about it, i might be developing a principled aversion to workout rooms, and exercise equipment in general. at their core, these machines are meant to simulate physically demanding life experiences, but they do so without providing any experience of life itself. they are, at their most basic level, a sham - designed to develop the appearance of strength and fitness for operating in the physical world, on people who lose time spent living directly proportionate to the amount of time spent cultivating the appearance of vitality. they are lie machines.

however, they also serve this purpose so that i can work on my health and fitness without looking like a noodly idiot out in the world. so i'll probably keep going. the good news, for now, is that i can still run a mile. i'll work my way back up to two, and hopefully just keep getting better.

-r.

post-photoshopping