in which we contemplate the absurdity of meaning

kale, oyster mushrooms, leeks and baby corn

2012-02-11T20:43:00.001-05:00

ingredients:

8 oz kale greens
1 oz dried oyster mushrooms
4 oz baby corn
one leek
one medium yellow onion
one plump tomato
quarter of a large red pepper
one tablespoonful of whole black peppercorns
one teaspoonful of cumin
half a teaspoon of mustard seeds
one teaspoonful of turmeric
three chiles de arboles
two inches of ginger

method:

hot dutch oven, oil, sizzling cumin and whole black peppercorns, and popping mustard seeds. before the spices burn, bung in the baby corn, leek, onion, tomato, chiles de arboles and red pepper, toss vigorously, turn the heat down and put the lid on for everything to soften and sweat. after about 5 mins, add kale, ginger, turmeric, and finally salt and have the greens wilt a little. this whole process takes about 15-20 minutes and yields at least three to four servings of delicious goodness that keeps the belly full and the hunger pangs every three and a half hours at bay thanks to all that fiber. i think i am going to start putting kale in everything now. next up sunchokes and green beans, probably with soy chunks thrown in for good measure.

chicken and kale

2012-02-07T20:22:00.000-05:00

wegmans always inspires me to buy at least one or two items i've never cooked with before. on this run i got a lovely curly-green bunch of kale. apparently one can substitute it for spinach in most recipes. i've had saag-chicken in restaurants, which is essentially cubes of chicken and in a cheesy-yoghurty mash of spicy spinach, and i thought i could make something that approximated that, but was lighter and did not require me to pulp the greens. it turned out wonderful, and kale's my new favourite GLV! next time i am going to try it with mushrooms and soy chunks. can't wait.

i was craving something meaty and hearty and so i ended up using three ingredients i'd given up cooking with: garlic (four fat cloves), chicken (tenders, the smallest package, a pound?) and store bought simmer sauce (robert rothschild farm's spicy moroccan sauce). apart from these the recipe calls for:

a large onion (i like the yellow ones)
half a large red pepper
about 8 oz kale
about a tablespoonful of whole black peppercorns
a teaspoonful of cumin
two plump tomatoes
half a teaspoon of turmeric
two inches of ginger
a handful of coriander leaves
half a cup of yoghurt (i like plain greek yoghurt for this: thick, creamy, and none of those artificial thickeners and stabilisers or flavours they like to put in the other yoghurts)

i like to do my chopping and dicing all together in the beginning and set everything aside in a large salad bowl. i'll heat the oil and let the cumin and whole black peppercorns sizzle in it for a bit, and then drop all the aromatic vegetables into my dutch oven, toss everything together and cover the pot with its heavy iron lid to let the onion, garlic, tomato and red pepper sweat and soften. in the meantime, i'll chop the tenders into bite-sized pieces. this is when i'll realise that some marinating in lemon juice, salt and turmeric would have made the meat more flavourful.

however by this time one can only shrug off the thought and throw the meat into the sweating veggies and hope the spices will eventually penetrate everything evenly. after the meat's seared, it's time to add the kale, turmeric and ginger, give it all a vigorous toss, and add the salt so that the greens give up their lovely juices and wilt down. i think it was at this point that i emptied the bottle of the simmer sauce into the mix to add more body and flavour. not a bad impulse, that. i always add the yoghurt and coriander after i've switched off the heat. the yoghurt requires some vigorous mixing in, otherwise one is left with unseemly little lumps that refuse to dissolve into the curry.

and that's basically it. in the pictures, i've already mixed everything with plain white rice made in my brand new rice-cooker, so one can't really tell what the actual dish looks like. it doesn't look like much, but i'm going to try this again, perhaps without the simmer sauce, and see how it goes. i suppose garlic and chicken are pretty good for the soul once in a while.

it tasted even better the next day:

i really, really like teaching worldlit

2012-02-07T12:22:00.000-05:00

my enthusiasm is not catchy, and i talk too fast, enunciating nothing in my mongrel shifty accent, but i am so glad to be teaching world literature this semester. i don't think anything can fire me up as much as explaining something as rudimentary as the planetariness of the novel form, the embeddedness of literary culture within systems of economic exchange, the transference and interference of forms, devices, motifs. i love it.

it's superbowl night

2012-02-05T21:45:00.001-05:00

the housemates are hooting downstairs around the giant telly. earlier i made spinach and feta, and then was persuaded to play a couple of games of chinese checkers. i called to thank someone for a rather nice gesture. enough social interaction for a day, right? i wish it weren't so cold out that the thought of a walk inspires no energy at all. a walk would be nice right about now. frankly, this chronic failure to sustain interest is getting to be quite a drag. tomorrow i have a couple of viewings scheduled, a studio and a single bedroom. yesterday i was advised against living alone again. needy, is what he said he found everyone. lately, either my expectations have increased, or people have just gotten too busy to care about incidental friends. well he was right about one thing. lately everyone bores us. best to keep to our fencing lessons, the incessant reading of completely irrelevant things, games, tv shows and suchlike. sundays are terribly dissatisfying anyway.

the most dispassionate person ever

2012-02-05T02:22:00.002-05:00

in a pinch, i can furnish this or that, but why bother to regulate the shifts in mood, why bother at all to entertain. the sun has set on so many fruitless days spent just dropping out of it all. the luxury to stop and stare. one picks up things casually along the way. the way is almost always meandering. it's alright, a lack of intensity will not kill anyone.

this has been a good week. calm and steady. i'm home.

lessons

2012-01-20T00:30:00.003-05:00

stop talking
never count on people
never seek comfort
never make assumptions
discover a way to function socially despite all of the above.
convey cheerfulness at all times
never crib
always convey a sense of workaholism
partition the day into chores that need to be completed
always have something humorous to read at hand
excise all negative people from daily life
feel less

trim the fat

2012-01-17T11:57:00.001-05:00

i suppose i could say that we are a family of hoarders, my mother incapable of wrapping her mind around the concept of disposing of things, my father never really taking the time to separate the things that need to stay from the things that need to go. we accumulate. we live surrounded by possessions we can hardly keep track of. often things needed cannot be found. i think i may be headed towards that sort of a life too. the pull feels inexorable.

when i moved out, i lived out of two suitcases for a year. then i moved into an apartment of my own, and became a sale-a-holic. obviously, i threw away exactly nothing. moving was way more of a chore than i had imagined.

the prospect of moving again this summer is therefore quite daunting: i have too many books and clothes. i had planned on selling off some of both, but it seems too much trouble offloading used clothes, especially since i tend to still cycle through my extensive wardrobe fairly regularly, at least whichever parts fit me. that's part of the problem with clothes: i have them in a range of sizes and i cannot point at something i can definitely say i will never wear again.

books however present a different sort of challenge. i have a thing for the material book, its pages, its dust covers, its smell, shelves and shelves of books stacked ceiling-high. but they're just too unwieldy to move around with. at this point in my life, i think i'd rather have a nook and my 100 item at a time graduate library privileges.

2012 wishlist

2012-01-15T03:01:00.002-05:00

for this semester:

diligent sitting in on a graduate seminar to provide some structure to all that free time i spent not dissertating last semester. i've more or less decided on zoja's "varieties of the comic" class every friday. i just hope my enthusiasm doesn't fizzle out too soon.
weekly grocery runs. must stick to this.
gym.
become a minsumer. no buying of clothes, attracted by the sale signs. no eating at tranquil, lost dog, and the river bistro every other day.
80 pages by may.
a decent set of students for world lit.
separate things to send back to india.

for the summer, when i'll be moving:

must be unfurnished. cannot abide all that 50's furniture anymore.
tiny. less surface to vacuum. a studio, although i liked my one bedroom with a study and separate kitchen.
i'd really prefer a shower stall instead of a bathtub. i hate bathtubs.
something close to downtown would be nice. more incentive to go to the gym.
no carpets. ugh.
i'm going to acquire a shikibuton, which i think is the closest to the kind of mattress i've been sleeping on since i was a wee little thing. i've had it with this box-springs and deep lumpy mattress business. i'm going to sleep on the floor like a ninja instead.
lots of closet space. too many items of clothing. but they all come in handy when i am too lazy to do the laundry, so i'm loath to retire anything from my wardrobe. although, my plan is to not buy anything new more than twice this year.

what is this infinite desire for nation, clan, culture, roots?

2012-01-13T12:20:00.001-05:00

after many returns, it is now more certain than ever that calcutta is not my ithaka. anjum hasan, writing about shillong says she feels a nostalgia for shillong even as she lived and grew there. calcutta has always escaped me. in 2005, it was a shock: humid, hydrocarbonated, and oh so ugly. in 2006, when i fell in love with it, i was already plotting and scheming to leave. did i care then about my department, my university? hardly. i spent those oppressive afternoons cooling off sweat inside air-conditioned libraries, or the mall, in a pinch. there was a rotating cast of characters i never took the effort to get to know, or make a strong impression on. at the fag end, playing cards and stories and endless laughs drew six of us together.

shillong was a rude slap this year. i am dkhar. here and there.

all this thinking of networks of belonging just won't work for me in the long term. too many nodes. too many variables. a brief, brilliant friendship, always a reprise subsequently, and hence as much a success as before. any sustained connection, or longing for such, has always ended in grief and anger.

it is just as well that i am spared both nostos and algos, then.

i've been in binghamton longer than i lived in calcutta. it appears that i've grown to be rather fond of the graceless little dump. in lieu of nation, clan, culture, roots, i'd rather settle for a room of my own, long walks whenever the fancy takes me, a few regular haunts to spoil myself in, brightly lit (though always drafty/too cold) bookshops, and a vast distance separating me from parental intrusion.

anyway, all this dithering about is only because it is time again to start another semester and answer the question: who am i going to be this semester?

world literature reading list for spring

2012-01-09T10:51:00.000-05:00

i'm teaching literature again after six courses of cinema and violence! much excitement and relief. while it was convenient and kind of fun to screen films and cajole, beg and threaten recalcitrant students into reading film theory, and foucault and zizek besides, i missed the straightforwardness of teaching literature. also, i suppose after teaching large classes of more than fifty students, it'll be nice to have a smaller class again. so, delighted anticipation. i've been thinking of the texts i want to assign for a while now, only casually, without any serious rigorous disciplinary thought. when teaching world literature and literature and society courses before, often i've developed syllabi that could easily be called "books i am really taken with right now," consisting of texts with only a very tenuous thematic or stylistic connection. but i've always managed to erect a plausible defense of my choices. this time around, i've decided to write it all down in the rough before my reasons escape me so that i can have this handy when i am drafting my course rationale. i have learnt to choose short (under three hundred pages) works for my classes. that, and the fact that i wanted to limit myself to contemporary world literature (available in english from 1980), were my only constraints.

novels:

The Ghost Rider Ismail Kadare

that kadare hasn't won the nobel yet is sort of incomprehensible to me, but wikipedia says he's been in the running more than once, so perhaps it is coming to him soon. The Ghost Rider is a perfect text for a world literature course: it is a retelling of a well established and well disseminated legend (the lenore motif, SO much to say about narrative and traveling motifs here), it is a gothic detective story (who doesn't love detective stories?), it is a slim volume, the language in translation is lucid, and kadare is from albania (what does the average freshman know about albania?).

Arabian Nights and Days Naguib Mahfouz

another retelling. by a nobel laureate. and talking of traveling motifs, the nights are perhaps the most worlded of worldy tales ever collected. cannot not have them in a world lit course.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories Salman Rushdie

rushdie is a world phenomenon. since the disastrous reception of the moor's last sigh, i've shied away from assigning anything by him, but haroun is delightful and accessible, and a joy to teach because of it's unrestrained referencing and self-conscious intertextuality.

Liquidation Imre Kertesz

another nobel laureate. no one could ever think of reading about the holocaust in this way. well, perhaps readers of sebald could, but kertesz is so much more compelling in this short pomo tour de force of a novella. this is on my syllabus because i firmly believe every freshman should read it.

Ignorance Milan Kundera

i've assigned the book of laughter and forgetting before. kundera is inescapable, and ignorance creates a space to talk about home, belonging, exile and diaspora. pet topics, all.

After Dark Haruki Murakami

i've assigned murakami before, this very same title, to the general puzzlement of my students. murakami's as inescapable as kundera, and after dark is as good a novel about urban alienation as any.

short stories:

“The Life and Work of Alphonse Kauders” Aleksandar Hemon

a list short story! i can talk about danilo kis and pavic and bruno schulz and perec and experimental fiction and so much more!

“The Garden of Forking Paths” Jorge Luis Borges

come on, really?

essays:

“Cybernetics and Ghosts” Italo Calvino

“Conjectures on World Literature” Franco Moretti

“Literature as a World” Pascale Casanova

yes, i am being eurocentric. no, i am not teaching canon. if i were, i'd include one of the latin american boom authors, but anything my vargas llosa and marquez is too long, fuentes, i haven't read, and cortazar i love, but have no idea how to teach. what is the point of reading writers with the kind of reach kundera, murakami and rushdie enjoy? are they world writers? universal? global writers? is it because they, like pamuk, have managed to infuse their writing with just the right flavour of foreignness that jibes well with the leading reading markets' expectations? there is something universal about kadare's doruntine retelling, about murakami's surreal but anonymous series of night-time encounters, and kundera's hilarious and poignant tale of homecoming: they could have happened anywhere. one is not going to gain a complete picture, a la something by amitav ghosh, of the spatiotemporal location of any of these novels, a complete, and meticulously researched portrait of the weltanschauung of these foreign people-albanians and czechs and japanese, not the characters populating the texts. i am always suspicious of narratives that provide too much description of the "local culture," like an assured informant. i find myself checking the facts. this is a good thing. one is at least made curious, even if it is quite impossible to know definitively. but how many people will believe fakelore about distant cultures and content themselves with such bastadised notions?

all hail google books snippet search!

2012-01-07T14:23:00.000-05:00

on a trip to delhi, a long time ago, i took along with me two russian books borrowed from the school library. one was a rip-roaring medieval adventure i took great pleasure in reading as fast as i could on the train ride to delhi, and the other was crime and punishment, which i read only intermittently on the way to and completed, with many soaked pillowcases, on the way back. the latter made such a great impact on me, it drove the name of the light read i'd enjoyed so immensely right out of my mind. this i discovered years later, in class 11 and 12, when i went looking for the book in the meagre library i had already exhausted and had given up using for reading material, but found that i couldn't recall its name or the name of its author at all. i searched for the red bound soviet title about cossacks a few times in the library nonetheless, but never found it.

later, i'd google phrases like "the last cossack" and variations thereof, trying to find the book that had slipped so maddeningly from my memory, but remembering only the plot about cossacks, the name of one character and the red jacket cover, i had precious little to go on. no more. apparently google books digitised the first edition of the book in january 2010 from a copy housed at the UVA library, and even though it is only available in snippet view format, i was still able to search for the only name i remembered--adikeh, et voila! i could tell that i had indeed stumbled upon that book i thought i could never find again! it's called the cossack ambassador, and was brought out by dnipro publishers in english in 1985. the author is volodymyr malyk, and although this book appears to be one of a series featuring the swashbuckling cossack arsen zvenyhora, i cannot find any other english translations of his books. thankfully, amazon lists a used bookseller for the cossack ambassador, and worldcat tells me i can acquire it from UAlbany, so i am looking forward to re-reading it as soon as i return to binghamton! yay!

always a tourist

2011-12-29T11:20:00.003-05:00

i am a woman of no roots. growing up in the northeast in a project school has some advantages. your friends are from all over the country, given to you for either two or four years. the fixtures form the background--a set of boys you will never really get to know. it teaches you the pointlessness of attachment. it teaches you to hold yourself apart. at a time of unformed ambitions, you are dimly aware that there must be more. you don't want friends so much as prizes. the thing that chills you, that makes you want to leave, is mediocrity. you want to make your peace with it. you are suspicious of standards. you don't know your own strengths. you develop no abiding interests. nothing is reliable. your childhood is a drugged dream. you don't live in the cities you grew up in. there are no vanished safe havens to pine for in an orgy of nostalgia. you have the soul of a tourist. you are always simply passing through.

2011

2011-12-27T07:45:00.001-05:00

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

became ABD. gave in to *every* impulse. hitchhiked. walked 10+ miles in a single day, along cape cod. joined a gym. got stoned, thrice. kissed a guy on top of a lighthouse. swam in an outdoor swimming pool in india. took pictures for a fashion blog. internet dating. made friends with a great dane. let someone literally pick me up and carry me around. attended an american thanksgiving dinner. drove a manual transmission car into a wall. drove an automatic transmission vehicle without any untoward incident in an empty parking lot. hunted for decent assisted living facilities in calcutta, which was a soul-parching experience. did the whole running-around-in-short-slinky-dresses-and-high-heels-in-sub-zero-temperatures-downtown thing. got to explore competition yachts. watched a sailing competition.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

no, and no. i resolve to do things as they occur to me, without waiting for another year to pass by.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

well, bodhi did.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

not anyone close.

5. What countries did you visit?

i split my time between india and the US, with long layovers at dubai in between.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

love of work.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

all those enormously fun dates with chris!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

ABD.

9. What was your biggest failure?

inability to make any headway on the dissertation.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

nope. i imagined i was severely injured in the beginning of the year. but that was just plain rage and negativity.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

my dutch oven!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

my roommates' and rohit's and ragini's and devika's and chris' and aisha's and of course, shion's!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

adhiraj, early in the year. through no fault of his i suppose.

14. Where did most of your money go?

travel, dining out.

15. What did you get really excited about?

ABD! travel! sriraka's biye! new people! new house! hypersociality in summer! roommates! dating! chris! partying like an undergrad! i was excited about everything!

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

my body is a cage-arcade fire.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

– happier or sadder? happier.
– thinner or fatter? fatter? i am always expanding.
– richer or poorer? poorer, but only financially.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

dissertating, gym, swim, hiking, traveling, dancing.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

dine out.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

woke up at noon because i'd returned at 3 after the christmas eve bonfire at hungerford. had a lavish lunch left by baba. met arjun and priyam. took a long and hilarious cab ride to park st, where we were met with an ocean of humanity, nodding santa and elephant figures, an overabundance of twinkling lights and particularly overzealous policemen, but no momos anywhere. luckily we'd had phuchkas in front of vardaan, and after being borne on a tide of humanity towards allen park where usher uthup was singing koi yahan aha nache nache, we decided we'd had enough and wrangled a cab back to golpark (thanks to argon's mad skillz) to indulge in some food-nostalgia at grub club. we ordered mounds of meat and left happy and replete.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?

less falling, more soaring.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

american horror story! no wait, game of thrones. was that this year?

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

no.

24. What was the best book you read?

cronopios and famas- julio cortazar.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

dubstep. i know, right?

26. What did you want and get?

ABD, the ability to let go and just cruise.

27. What did you want and not get?

dissertation, drive, fatloss, good posture, true stoicism.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

nothing comes to mind.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

i taught, took myself out to dinner at a fancy place, shunned company, like every year. i was 24.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

it was perfect the way it was. just what i needed.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

girly. lots of skirts and dresses and tights and soft cardies.

32. What kept you sane?

oh i fell off that wagon several times and then decided to walk instead.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

asma mahfouz.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

nothing stirred me. that's the problem.

35. Who did you miss?

not a person.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

i met so many wonderful people, but i think it's a tie between ragini and chris.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

learn to be stoic.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Où sont tes héros aux corps d'athlètes

Où sont tes idoles mal rasées, bien habillées

Dans leurs yeux des dollars

Dans leurs sourires des diamants

Moi aussi un jour je serai beau comme un Dieu

instant gratification

2011-12-26T03:08:00.002-05:00

vice. no forethought, often, only just a sense of, whyever not. the sulks don't seep into the soul anymore. i am becoming a naturally happy person. given to giggles. easily entertained. easily able to hold still, except when unproductive. but these impulsive fancies must cease. one can't have everything, but so much love for the world at large. this christmas weekend was such an unexpected success.

the holiday cheer infects me

2011-12-21T03:37:00.003-05:00

you know what i like about the fag end of the year? rereading my dissertation proposal i think for the first time after i submitted it, i begin to believe in the viability of the very simple question at the heart of it. this thing--the life of the mind--i took an extended vacation from, this life calls to me again. i know i am going to get into it, dissertate in earnest, and have a whale of a time while at it. santa's early this year, but oh lord thank you for the return of this interest, this drive, this good cheer.

the age of feeling things too keenly has passed

2011-12-14T00:44:00.001-05:00

two weeks left for '11 to end. this is the year of great heartache, acceptance, academic milestones and an almost complete loss of faith. and a loss of something else as well. something i cannot quite put into words. i could perhaps say the greatest loss has been that of purpose. but it isn't purpose exactly. i have come to realise that, at this late stage of making myself, i could not escape the fate of those unfortunates for whom work is just work: neither a yoke to be detested, nor a delight to wake up to each morning. all those churning emotions and questions and anxieties, all that zeal and fervor is long past. this was a year of leisure, of the pursuit of ever more frivolous distractions. boredom must be avoided at any cost. at the best of times it leads to unpleasant entanglements, because one often forgets, so easily, that people aren't things to do.

i am a woman of no passions, no stirring interests, no desire to throw in my lot with the 99%. my heart does not bleed at the injustices of the world, the sight of two dead horses lying on each side of the road, entrails caught between the teeth of stray dogs, the cows crammed on to carts headed surely for slaughter, the jute farmers who surely won't get enough for their bumper crop, the ragged children in my school uniform sleepwalking into a future infinitely dimmer than mine is shaping up to be despite my worst efforts. in these quarters, eaten alive by mosquitoes, heating my bathwater on the stove, sleeping on mattresses on the floor, i am thankful for shampoo, cable tv, and my mother, who insists on cooking for me, who worries about how i am occupying myself. i should be moved. instead there is ...nothing.

i grew up in this way. as cold a fish as there ever was. a storm of passions overtook me when i should have grown up. it started with a dim sense of romance, the desire to know all the secrets of great feeling, to rip someone else open and consume them whole, to own and to belong. five years caught up in this endless pursuit and longing, but this year, those demons have left me. one lets another in, one loses oneself, one goes searching soon after, but it isn't so easy to decide which of one's selves one is to reconcile with: there is a part sloughed off each year one has aged, like so much shed skin. if after peeling off the masks, the aspirations, those willed improvements, one finds within oneself nothing of great import, no lofty ideals, no investment in some great cause, there is perhaps no need to look deeper, farther. perhaps the masks make the man. in essence we are all animals, but good posture is half the battle won. that, and a lack of nostalgia. i was born with the latter. everything else is a matter of perseverance. bring it on, 2012.

becalmed

2011-11-14T04:43:00.001-05:00

the cougar is a magnificent cat. its stare, ensnaring, is the cure to all restlessness. it does not merely sprawl or crouch, it lounges, graceful as only cats can be, and it will fix you entirely with its gaze. it will not tire of holding your eye. you may think perhaps that you are waiting entirely in vain for the beast to move, to make a signal of acknowledgement, of disdain even. let me assure you, it will not have been in vain, this waiting. unbearable suspense, yes. but never any boredom from this waiting, this absolute stillness.

Wardrobe essentials for the youngish TA

2011-07-03T13:38:00.000-04:00

The first two classes I taught began at 8:30 am. Bit of an adjustment, since last I'd taken classes myself that early was in highschool. I wasn't too bothered about putting together a sort of everyday teaching wardrobe before I relocated, but I did get some nice tailored button-down shirts. I remember I took special care the first couple of weeks to plan my outfit before I went to bed. I was living out of a suitcase then, so I didn't have too many items of clothing to confuse me. Then of course, as the semester progressed and it got colder, both my students and I ended sporting up pretty much the same look: the fall out of bed and rush to class in fleece-wear and the t-shirt you slept in look. This was a period of waist-length hair and no make-up for me. Not even kohl. I never accessorized. No earrings or nailpolish or scarves. It added to the whole just-out-of-bed look.

In the spring, I was still teaching at 8:30 am, but had sufficiently adjusted to the weather and to the schedule to include scarves in my outfits. They were kinda necessary because I gave up wearing sweaters and the wool coat I wore most often left my neck bare. I still had waist-length hair, but most of it was now a shocking violet-pink. The worst hair-job decision I've ever made. To compensate, I wore a lot of solid blacks, whites and grays that semester.

The next fall, I had black hair and a cute bob. I no longer lived in a matchbox room out of a suitcase, and had an apartment of my own with actual dressers and proper closet space. By this time, I had the basics right, and though my wardrobe didn't really differentiate me from my students most of the time, I felt secure in my clothing choices.

This is the list of my wardrobe essentials. It's quite a feat for someone as sartorially challenged as I, but I really don't think even I can go wrong with these.

Solid black tee/top/shirt. Blue, white, purple, gray. In a scoop-neck, crew, V, square-necks. Short and full sleeved. No ruffles. Minimal adornment/detailing of any kind.
Button down shirts. Fitted and flowing both. Checks, stripes and plaids are fine but the real must, must have is the one in pure white or ivory that fits like a lycra dream.
Dark skinny jeans. Until I jumped into the leggings bandwagon, which was fairly recent, I wore skinny jeans and the same pair of knee-high boots every day of cold weather.
Woolen leggings. So comfy. No belts, no muffin-top, no checking to see if your shirt's covering your lowerback. And so warm. Paired with cardies, long fitted tops/camis and anything but UGGs, they actually don't look that bad or that sophomoric.
Long camis. To cover your butt while wearing leggings or just as an insulating layer. Must have. I became a fan of layers when I realized how the heat in different parts of uni varied wildly, and wearing several soft, thin layers works way better than wearing a thick sweater or jacket.
Black, three-quarter sleeved buttonless cardigan-shrug hybrids. I don't know what they're called these days, but that's the best I can do to describe them. They go with everything sleeveless and are super flattering.
Gray and white argyle cardigan. Nothing more scholarly than that.
Solid black cardigan. Versatile, flattering, and really, one can't have enough black.
A nice, structured woolen coat. My favorite is bright red, knee-length, and awesome.
Flats. Like the fall-winter boots, I wear my flats every day of warm weather. I buy one at a time and wear them till they're worn out.
Woolen and nylon tights. Very sassy. Total must have.
I teach in an area with subarctic temperatures for nearly half the year, and so I can't wait to get out of jeans/leggings in the late late spring. From then till fall, I only wear skirts and dresses and linen pants. Semi-formal dresses are great to teach in, and make for great conference-wear too. Mine are mostly solid colors, not too short and have sensible sleeves.
Pencil skirts. In the plural. I know, I know, not ideal for rushing from class to class or from conference venue to conference venue, but they'll make you feel powerful and efficient and differentiate you from your students in a jiffy. I wear them to class sometimes even if I feel a little overdressed just for the I'm-your-boss vibe it gives off in the classroom.
A structured suit jacket. For conferencing and other formal events.
Scarves. Checks and paisley. Not because everyone wears a keffiyeh but because you really need to protect your throat. I do have an A&F keffiyeh type thing, but I have a bunch of colorful silk and wool ones procured by my mother too. They spruce up the usual dark/solid colors I favor and feel soft and nice around my throat.

traveling light

2011-06-22T15:32:00.002-04:00

never discount the value of sunscreen. even if you're brown as a walnut already and have spent most of your life in muggy subtropical hills facing the sun every morning for an hour for the school assembly. wash off your sunscreen in the ocean and lie baking in the 7pm sun on a bourgie beach on the east coast and your face will feel unpleasantly warm, invite comments on a becoming blush the next day and then gradually feel like the tanned, dried out hide it is. after this, all you can do is wait for it to peel off. so yes, remember to put your sunscreen in your bag along with the sunglasses, beach towel, water bottle, camera, maps and book.
do your laundry before you leave. that way you don't have to return to a week of doing laundry everyday to eliminate the mountain you've accumulated.
you really don't need four dresses for a weeklong vacay.
sensible girls don't go dancing on feet that've been killing them already.
flats are not sensible walking shoes. invest in some before you decide to walk 13 miles in one day.
always eat at vietnamese or thai restaurants if you cannot abide american fare and shelled sea creatures. they're cheap, lighter and more flavorful than the hunk of grilled salmon and buerre blanc and greens you'll probably end up ordering elsewhere. but always go a few fancy places. after having checked their menus out of course.
never order a virgin pina colada.
never tell the waitress that you don't drink alcoholic beverages when she arrives with one at your table compliments of someone or the other in a fancy restaurant on the waterfront which doesn't allow men in the bar unless they're properly attired. reserve that attitude for bars.
if you meet a competition sailor with a cute accent and he follows you to the pier to ask if he'd scared you off earlier with some harmless remark, do not lie back on the deck chair with your book, clearly unwilling to vacate it, and just let him ask you if he could show you his boat.
never entertain invitations to boats extended by tipsy persons.
when you do get on a yacht, remember to take pictures instead of focussing all your energies on retaining everything they say about sailing for some vague future reference which will never materialise.
kids selling lemonade for 50c along a beach trail will charge you a dollar for plain water.
the picture will never replicate what you are seeing. stop trying to make it so.
don't flip out when the greyhound is late, you don't have tickets, the ticket counter is closed, and you really need to check-in to your accommodations in a different town in order to avoid paying two establishments for a night's stay.
when someone offers you a ride to a place you can't engineer a day-trip to using public transport, take them up on the offer instead of taking the ferry elsewhere and telling yourself you'll come back later with better plans.
avoid the hard rock cafe in boston at all costs.
telling yourself that you're just going to take a couple of hours for a stroll through a few places in boston and get something to eat is a blatant lie. always set aside six hours between connections.
always use megabus and the chinatown buses.
always stay in hostels.
never fear unintentional trespassing.

16 bean soup

2011-05-28T14:08:00.000-04:00

ingredients:

half an orange pepper
half a cup of dried 16 bean mix
one dried chile de arbol
one medium onion
one small tomatillo
an inch and a half of ginger
a tablespoonful of coconut milk
a level tablespoonful of dried basil
a teaspoonful of turmeric
a squeeze of lemon

method:

the dried bean mix needs to be soaked overnight. otherwise they don't soften no matter how long they're boiled. so many disasters with dried beans in general, i was beginning to give up. but. success! spectacular success! yay!

beans need to be boiled in unsalted water for at least 20 minutes. maybe more. lots of poking individual beans with a fork to check firmness is called for. i add the turmeric right before i start adding the veggies. i save the ginger, basil, salt and chile for the last, right before the coconut milk. then i turn the heat off and let everything stew in the residual warmth from the beans.

i like my ginger chewy and almost raw. i don't peel it, but rather just sort of brush it vigorously under running water. i also don't grate it finely so that it sort of disappears during the cooking process. i like the crunchy bits of rough chopped ginger in my food and i put it in almost everything i cook, always at the very end like a garnish. i'd put fresh coriander too, except they're a hassle to store and clean.

go-to breakfast: couscous

2011-05-27T16:58:00.003-04:00

i don't eat salad. or raw foods. unless it's poke or sashimi or something with smoked beets/salmon in. i don't eat pasta either. i'll have skinny rice noodles, but nothing made of durum. except. except tabouleh. so much minty goodness. i use bulgur wheat and couscous interchangeably when i tire of rice and miss wheat. who would've thought such a thing was possible? one misses the strangest things--concrete, wheat, furniture.

anyway so this is my couscous breakfast. and yeah, i could and have had this for all meals in a day and it never gets boring. which is what i like about it. apart from the fact that it requires zero effort. if only i could add little matchstick sized carrots or something to it to make it more meal-like and balanced still be sure that i'd like it. otherwise it's just a lot of carbs with condiments thrown in. but i hate carrots and love this as it is. it's such a challenge to find something half healthy i can make at home and will willingly eat.

ingredients:

1/8 of a cup of couscous (and however much water the package indicates)
3/4 oz of mint leaves
1/4 of a large red pepper
1 tomato
1 inch of ginger root
half a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil
the juice of half a lemon

and that's it. no parsley, onions, no endless chopping. just boil couscous with the olive oil added, let it rest, fluff it, and add the diced veggies in. it smells fresh and wonderful and makes you really full really quickly. this is good of at least two servings. if i could stick to a diet, i'd have this for brunch and lentil/bean soup for the rest of the day. except, i see a quiche a immediate want it. i think of sacher torte and immediately run to crepe heaven to get one. i stay on the arc trainer for half an hour and decide to reward myself with mambo chocolate love right after. true story. my arteries must hate me. i'm already feeling the hate from all muscle groups. maybe i can appease them by feeding myself lentil soups for the rest of the week.

lentil soup?

2011-05-22T22:33:00.001-04:00

1/8 of a cup of lentils (i used moong dal, i think, but i'm not sure)
1 cup water
1/2 a teaspoon of turmeric powder
1 teaspoon of minced garlic
1/4 of a medium red pepper
1 small tomatillo (i think the tomatillo is my new favourite fruit, love the tartness and fresh hit)
1/2 a cup of storebought coleslaw mix (which is basically shredded cabbage, carrots and suchlike from a bag, without the dressing of course)
1/2 a cup of peas
1 inch of ginger
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 dried chile de arbol
1/2 a teaspoon of ghee

right. the aroma of this thing is unbelievable. needless to say, i ate it all before i thought to take a picture or record the recipe. the tomatillo i think really holds this together. but i'm not sure if i should call this soup. none of the usual diced onions, carrots and celery business here. but i think this tastes better than any of those kinds of soup. the coleslaw mix adds the bulk and crunch and makes a whole meal out of it.

anyway, method:
wash lentils, add water and turmeric and bring to a boil. let simmer for 10 minutes. add garlic and peas. i use frozen peas, directly thrown into the pot without thawing, and i like them soft and buttery, hence their addition so early to the pot. after the water's come to the boil again, the peppers, tomatillo, and coleslaw mix go in. at this point, i'll whisk everything together and cover the pot, turning the flame down and wait till the lentils are almost done. say about 10-15 more minutes. i''l then add the ginger, and instead of doing a chhownk seperately, because i just can't be arsed, i just splonk the frozen solid ghee at the centre of the bubbling goodness, wait for it to melt, and then add the cumin and crushed chile de arbol in the little pool of melted ghee. when the ghee too has heated through and started simmering and i can smell the cumin and chile cooking, i whisk the little pool of spice into the rest of the soup, salt the whole thing, and switch off the flame. unbelievable yumminess.

edit:
picture. leftover yumminess.

somewhere a creature sighs content

2011-05-21T13:48:00.000-04:00

it is somewhat juvenile to admit it, and you won't, not here anyway, but we know that your heart is most mended, most full, most unknotted, when your senses are filled with Art. crude, plebeian as you are, all things you judge fine in the world hold you in their thrall. all things fine sate your sense of the lofty, of the sort of beauty you could never tire of consuming with your eyes, your mouth, your fingers. you are a fool. but not because you think only words endure while flesh is always treacherous.

in the interest of peace

2011-05-20T12:25:00.001-04:00

...no community no nation no affiliation no allegiance no filiation no love no belonging no network no node no rhizome no inside no cult no gang no family no love no war no home no obligation no conforming no clique no commons no...

hack away until you think you will be free. until no dreams come. until your life is a series of activities. until you are alone, surprised, dead.

at the close

2011-05-15T23:40:00.000-04:00

the first image is a dream, is a story, is the grief you let grow like so much grass every year you age. the first dream is a song you see inside a fossil you broke open to feel the soft cool red meat inside. the first song is dried meat from the beginning of time staining your fingers as you hoarded your useless treasures. did you know then, eating dirt and sunshine in equal measure, that every summer would begin with the dream of three red walls, a blindness so purple you think first that it is only a bruise, and a hunger for life too indecent for one living? picture this. picture that first playground you never revisited. picture your first cruelties. picture the first time you learnt the secret of sitting still, your eyes unfocused, your mind wandering. turn away. diminished, indigent as you are, you were not meant for small talk. you were not meant for fire and tenacity. flicker, shimmer, haze through things that come. a story's hardly a picture. all tyrannies shall end if you only let the wandering begin. all tyrannies shall end because summer is coming. all tyrannies shall end.