NY, NY: It Really IS a Wonderful Town

Dear all:

So I'm back. I handed in the dissertation (WOO-freakin'-HOO!), albeit with several ounces of trepidation, and got the hell out of dodge by crashing with my very close friend from college, Phil, in NYC. And I have to say, it was a very good move. Firstly, I had a way of channeling all the leftover excess energy AND a way of distracting myself from worrying over what I hadn't had time to finish. Secondly, I have so much more appreciation for NYC after living in a city as small and as frequently dead as Bflo, and so much more of an appreciation for being there as a fully-fledged and legal adult. More on that later.

But the weekend was, to use the word that became the Phil-Rachel watch-word of the 60 or so hours we spent together: AWESOME!! It was unabashedly, uninhibitedly super-duper fun the whole time.

I got into the downtown area around 3:00 or 3:30 pm, after hitching a ride with the NYC Airport Service Shuttle--which took a bit longer than I thought it would, but for $15 in NYC, I was happy to take this option rather than resort to a $50 plus cab ride. Because Phil was going to be at work for the next 3 hours or so, I wandered around Manhattan's Upper East Side--concentrating on Madison, Park, and Fifth Avenues--you know, where all the fancy schmancy stores are. Of course, there are fancy schmancy stores all over NYC, but this is where they're all impressively lined up. And of course, I can't afford to buy anything from any of these places, so I just content myself with recognizing fancy schmancy designer names/lines. Some of which I don't even like, and don't understand. But you see, it's fairly hard to get really lost in this area, and I wasn't about to risk getting lost. I also had a bagel with lox and cream cheese sometime around 5:00 to have an authentically NY and Jewish experience, and it was pretty cool; the bagel wasn't the BEST NY bagel I've ever had--but it was better than what Bflo has to offer, and I've not had lox in literally years. It's amazing how nostalgic you get for New York Jewish culture when you've gone without for so long. On the downside--the bagel, lox, and cream cheese was about $10, demonstrating the other side of "authentic" New York culture--really frigging expensive.

At around 6:30, I met up with Phil for a group he has organized called Culture Circle, which brings together a group of interesting, creative, intelligent, alternative folks to share their creative work--from writing, to music, to photography, you get the picture. It actually derives from the version of Dead Poets' Society we started in college which served the same purpose--though the original version, as Phil likes to point out, was clothing-optional. (I would add that Phil was the only member that ever made use of this option, appearing nude at most meetings.)

Anyway, it had been years since I've been privy to this sort of gathering and I had a wonderful time, and was extremely impressed by some of the contributions people offered. In particular, the photography of one of Phil's new co-workers, Lenny, was very, very impressive. (Why "new" co-workers: Phil has actually started to work at Meetup.com--a craig's list type of online community organization that was actually the means by which Culture Circle got started. They hired Phil after Culture Circle and one or other of his organized groups became really popular and they met with him just to say hey and found out that he's a programmer in his daily life). Lenny apparently likes juxtaposing nature with man-made/technology-based elements in his photos--and honestly, all of them were amazing. I still think the image of the plastic Starbucks coffee cup, replete with leftover swill and foam, and yet almost ethereally backlit and aglow with the setting sun in the background, was one of the most striking and could have served as some sort of commentary on the postmodern age, or as some very subtle, ironic pro-environment advertisment.

Also, Lenny provided the quote of the weekend. In describing my current oscillation between academia and non-academia, and the temptation to "sell out to the man," Lenny responded with the perspective of someone who in many ways has "sold out" to the man, but is nevertheless an interesting, morally and intellectually sound individual. His very apt quip (perhaps slightly misquoted):

"Selling out to the man isn't so bad if the man is nice to you and doesn't eat your soul."

And this just struck me as so great, because it just about sums up how I'm feeling about "the man" these days so I really appreciated Lenny's insight. Thanks Lenny!

After Culture Circle was over--around 10 p.m.--everyone present went over to a nearby diner and hung out, and I ended up chatting for 2-3 hours with Nick, a student of "positive psychology," which is essentially based on the principle that we need to study what makes people mentally healthy, what makes them feel good, rather than just what makes people ill and depressed. To me, this makes a tremendous amount of sense, but according to Nick, it is a fairly new field, and has not yet garnered much respect within the academy. Anyway, Nick is considering Ph.D.-dom, so naturally we had lots to talk about, and perspectives to share about the pluses and minuses of pursuing this most advanced degree, and he was just really fun and interesting to talk to. He's apparently also from Buffalo, which was weird but very funny, and in fact, we had a laugh over the fact that I had thought I was leaving Buffalo behind for the weekend, and now I had someone sitting across from me throwing various Buffalo-isms at me. We were at the diner until about 1, at which point, it now being July 21st, Phil and I wended our way to a Borders to enjoy the cultural phenomenon of Harry Potter, and specifically, to join the line to acquire Book 7. I had already pre-ordered the book, but Phil wanted to get it, though more for the experience than out of true readerly eagerness. Then we wandered around some more and wound up at another diner. I had matzoh ball soup, again, another authentically New York/Jewish experience, and it was awesome, and moreover, much more reasonably priced. We got back to Phil's apartment at around 4, I think, and got to sleep at around 5 a.m. So that was Day 1.

On Day 2, our priority was to go see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (which I'll just say now, I found excruciatingly disappointing--far too abrupt, far too undeveloped), to get gelato from Il Laboratorio del Gelato (located in the Lower East Side: so AWESOME), and to get margherita slushies before seeing the movie (apparently Phil has never seen an HP movie completely sober and wanted to maintain the tradition), and wandering around in general. We were also going to a housewarming party of a friend of Phil's who is a programmer but who is also a part-time model (??!!) and who had just bought a condo in Brooklyn with his sister. More on that later. Anyway, the day is now somewhat blurry, because there was quite a bit of alcohol involved, and of course, I had gone to bed very late the previous evening, but I remember the gelato--because Il Laboratorio basically rocks. The only minor disappointment was that they weren't selling the honey-lavendar I had last time, which knocked my socks off, because they only sell a few flavors each day. So I had the dark chocolate, which was still plenty awesome, and made missing the honey-lavendar more all right. Then we went to get the margherita slushies, and I know I got buzzed astonishingly quickly--those who know me know this is not at all astonishing--and Phil and I just wandered around giggling and being silly, and took lots of pictures. Many of them of skyscrapers all shiny in the brilliant weather we had, for example:

But it IS important to stress how fun it was to wander around NYC tipsy on margherita slushies, and thus, what a different experience NYC is when you're a fully legal adult. I know, because I speak as someone who experienced NYC regularly for more than half of my life, but also as someone who was always under parental supervision. I should also note that the night before, we had seen a couple of girls who were loudly, obnoxiously drunk, wandering around Manhattan. This night, however, those loudly obnoxiously drunk people were clearly Phil and I. Because we were drunk later too. Come to think of it, we may not have been completely sober from about 5 p.m. until sometime the next morning, though neither of us was in any way so drunk as to be a danger to ourselves or others. Just loud and very silly. As in, we sang songs as we walked--loud, obnoxious songs. And I don't have pictures of me yet--Phil hasn't sent them to me yet--but here's a representative picture of Phil, shortly post-slushie--and this should give you an idea of our state:

I hope that no one is too shocked or dismayed. Because clearly Phil is entirely capable of fairly coordinated movement and conscious thought. He's just a lot more giddy than usual. A lot like me when I'm under the influence. More happy, more extroverted, less easily embarrassed (though that's not saying much in Phil's case), than usual. Anyway, we bought our tickets for Order of the Phoenix shortly after the slushie, but Phil felt that we needed to be assured of our altered state for the duration of the entire film. So we went to a bar before actually going to the movie; as you can see below, he had a scotch, I had a cosmo.

According to my NYC guide, however, cosmos are no longer hip, which means, I guess, that I'll need to find another cocktail to have at the tip of my tongue. At any rate, we were obviously even more tipsy when we got to the movie, and I actually think I dozed off for a bit during the screening. But I'll say it again, our inebriation did not stop Order of the Phoenix from being disappointing to me, and given what a happy little drunk I am, that's really saying something.

After the movie, and more wandering, and I think we may have had dinner somewhere, but I honestly forget, we went to the housewarming party. The two-bedroom condo was amazing, HUGE. And perfect for dancing, although shockingly, there wasn't any (and what's up with that, you ostensibly, hip Manhattanites? You're too cool to dance? Jeez-US.) In any case, the party was full of beautiful, hip people, so naturally I stood out like a sore thumb. Well, not really, but I was definitely lacking in the hipness quotient, at least in terms of how I was dressed. Phil should warn me the next time he's thinking of taking me to a hip party to take my hip party clothes. I did get to talk to a few, cool people: Jason, Phil's friend, who I had met the night before at Culture Circle, two of Phil's other friends, Emmanuella and Marianne--the former who Phil at one point wanted to date, the latter who he actually used to date--who were both very nice, but were mainly focused on conducting matchmaking for Jason to an almost obsessive degree. I talked with them mostly by making suggestions in the matchmaking (I don't think I was much help) but was mostly bemused by the whole process. I was also introduced to the host of the party--the programmer/part-time model, Todd, who was nice and surprisingly down-to-earth, but was clearly preoccupied with hosting duties...

But considering how few people I knew and my lack of hipness, I had a pretty good time. I mean, I was still quite pleasantly buzzed, after all, and though I eventually ran out of people to talk to, because everyone was talking to people they already knew, we left soon after that point, and so was it ultimately a fine evening. We took a cab home, and according to Phil, I fell asleep around 4 a.m. I should add that I was glad to see my party-all-night skills were still in relatively good shape.

Day 3:

It's important to note that the previous evening, Phil and I had thought it would be awesome to stay in our PJ's for a while on Sunday morning and watch a movie from our childhoods and eat Lucky Charms. So I should add that the remainder of that night was spent wandering around NYC still tipsy while looking for Lucky Charms and a movie of this ilk, and that we remained very obnoxiously loud and silly. At first, we thought about watching that magnificently clunky mythological fantasy from the 80s, Clash of the Titans--starring Harry Hamlin--filmed well before his marriage to Lisa Rinna, or his appearance as the murdering, cheating, dirty-middle-aged man on Veronica Mars, Season 1 (the absolute bestest season), and if you haven't seen it and you like movies so bad they're good, you should totally, seriously check it out. But earlier in the day I had mentioned the original Muppet Movie as a film that stirred equally warm and fuzzy childhood memories, and in pursuing this thread, Phil suggested that he buy The Muppets Take Manhattan as a fitting tribute to the weekend, and also so we could see whether any of the places we'd seen over the past couple of days were featured.

So the next morning, we awoke and watched muppets, and ate Lucky Charms, before heading out once more to the city for a final day of wandering. We went to a great bakery called Amy's Bread, where we split a cupcake--don't have a picture, but I think Phil might, so if he does, I'll post it later--and where he had a sandwich and I had an reportedly low-fat applesauce donut to boot. Both were excellent.

Then we went to see Michael Moore's Sicko, which was incredibly sad, but very thought-provoking and happily, not overly-didactic, and then we went to have Ethiopian food for dinner, which is probably my favorite ethnically exotic food to have. Probably because I just don't get to have it very often. In fact, the last time I had it was during my last trip to NYC to see Phil--2 years ago. Ah, Ethiopian food. It makes my palate metaphorically weep for joy.

Then Phil got a cab to take us both to the airport so he could see me off, and as if in tribute to the wonderfulness of the weekend, there was a gorgeous sunset as we drove--full of rich pinks and salmons and hints of orange--which Phil also got a picture of, and which I will also post once it is made available to me. My flight was a late one--not leaving till 11 p.m. and I got back to my apartment in Buffalo at around 1 am.

I was also ecstatic to see that Harry Potter Book 7 had arrived, as expected, in my absence, and while I had originally planned not to start reading until the next morning, I found I couldn't wait, and read till about 4 a.m. Slept in, and then finished it, and I have to say, Book 7 was, overall, a delightfully satisfying experience. I have only a couple of minor quibbles with things that struck me as inconsistent with earlier books. But the major questions were answered, and answered exactly as I predicted they would be, which made it all the more satisfying. A couple deaths I didn't expect, one death I half-expected, had given up on, but then it happened, and one death I expected that never came. Then I reread it over the next couple of days.

So that was my latest NYC experience.

But to return to the more "normal" side of my reality these days--and I use the term loosely, since really, normal for most people does not involve rationalizing 7 years of graduate work, 4 of which involve drafting what might, someday, in the best case scenario, become a book manuscript--my defense is scheduled for August 9th, and as long as I don't hear from anyone from my committee about problems in the coming week, I think it will go on as planned. I'm sure there will be revisions for me to do before I formally submit it to the university, but in the meantime, I'm contemplating what to do next--which will involve a combination of doing academic things, in case I decide I'm still interested in being an academic, and thinking and considering non-academic things in case I decide that I'm not, and in order to make jumping ship seem not completely insane in the eyes of my peers, who are likely to demand, "Why the hell would you do that? After all that work? Are you nuts??!!" But more on that later.

I'm also thinking about finishing the sweater I started knitting..mmm...probably more than 2 years ago, or the scarf I started knitting about 6 months ago but which ended up being a pain in the ass because I made the stripes too damn narrow and was dealing with a gazzilion threads of yarn everytime I switched colors. I might also bake something, because it's been a while since I've baked anything, but it's supposed to be damn hot for the next few days, so maybe that's not such a good plan. What will probably happen, though, is that I watch obsessive amounts of tv--it IS Shark Week on The Discovery Channel, after all, and I can never resist good shark tv.

Other than that, I really need to clean my apartment. I was planning on doing that this past weekend, but discovered I needed time to recover from NYC the previous weekend. So I slept a lot, and didn't do much of anything. Which really isn't so bad.

Until next time. And hopefully more NYC pictures will be forthcoming.

Pains in My Head & Heart

I suppose you think the title is purely metaphoric.

Unfortunately, I really AM experiencing chest pain (presumably heartburn) and little stabs of headache pain as well. Perhaps it's all the caffeine. Perhaps it's the compulsion to eat my lunch at 9:30 in the morning, and then having my stomach catch up to my brain and holler, "What are you DOING? Don't you know that I'm still working on breakfast??!"

Perhaps its the stress of trying to finish the dissertation in the next 3 or 4 days and trying to figure out what I have to do versus what, in ideal conditions, I'd like to do, and realizing that some of the former may become some of the latter, even though it really shouldn't be that way. Fuck.

I'll say it again: FUCK.

Compounding the stress is the fact that my office unexpectedly got slammed with a task that normally comes at a different time of the year, that has a very inflexible deadline, but that does not include the same reasonable amount of time to complete the project in question--thereby removing any illusions I had about being able to do some of my non-paying work at my paying-job. I also agreed to cat-sit for a friend this weekend before knowing about the whole working-at-work fiasco. And I am happy to cat-sit, but unfortuantely, it will also take time and attention away from finishing the god-awful beast that is the dissertation.

Personally, I blame the administration. When in doubt, always blame the university administration--the bureaucrats who have no concept of the time and energy it takes to do scut-work, or its importance, because they never do any. Scut-workers around the world should seriously unite.

"And yet," you wonder, "if you're so busy, and stressed, and overburdened by work, why the hell are you blogging right now?"

A valid question. Personally, I chalk it up to one of my many coping mechanisms--which is to repond to high stress with denial and total avoidance, as well as irony and humor. I mean, it is kind of amusing to respond to two rather high-pressure deadlines with, "Oh yes? Deadlines? Well thanks very much for the FYI but I rather feel like blogging instead. I'm just not in a deadline sort of mood right now, thanks again, so very much..."

Indeed, when in doubt, succumb to denial, paralysis, and feigned nonchalance. On the plus side, I'm going to NYC again next weekend to see my very good friend Phil, who I've not seen in two years. And it will be wonderful in many ways, but not least because by then I will have handed in the dissertation, and will feel--temporarily but magnificently--FREE. And time with Phil is always a great journey of the mind, the soul and the body. Like me, Phil is a great walker, talker, thinker, and eater of delicious, ethnically diverse cuisine, and we do all of these things together with great verve.

Ahhh..

But a lot needs to happen in the ever-shrinking space of time between now and then, and so, back to work I go, having vented my spleen a bit. If there was only a way to stop time, to not have to sleep, to take some of the pressure off...I guess for the time being, I'll have to settle for some TUMS. Everyone, please pray to and adore the academic gods on my behalf. May they be kind.

Signs of the Times: The End is Near--What the &*%$ Does that Mean???

Self-Quote of Yesterday: "Sometimes freaking out is good. Freak-outs usually mean I'm getting stuff done."

Self-Quote of Yesteryears: "Sometimes I think, I wish I didn't need to sleep...I mean, think about how much we could get done if we didn't need to sleep, if like, sleep was purely optional and recreational. We'd probably enjoy it much more that way too."

My horoscope this week from Rob Brezny's Free Will Astrology:
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In the coming week, I doubt you’ll misplace your keys or forget to set your alarm clock or spill soup on your shirt. While shopping, you’ll be intuitive about picking the checkout line that moves fastest. If you take a plane somewhere, your luggage will show up promptly in the baggage claim area. In other words, Taurus, the little things in life will go well for you, reducing your wasted time and inconvenience to near zero. May I suggest that you respond to this grace period not by cramming in more busy work, but by giving yourself regular opportunities to enjoy the luxury of taking deep breaths and gazing at the big picture?

My question: Is there a pattern here? Do these things all really go together, or is it just another indication of my frenetics this week?

i.e. It's almost time to hand in the diss--I'm giving myself a preliminary deadline of June 13th, and a final deadline of June 16th. May the academic gods be kind. But I'm still going to Taste of Buffalo tomorrow, and I'm still having a sangria slushie or three. Work hard, party harder.

DANGER: Self-Implosion Imminent

Well, the shit has officially hit the fan.

My doctoral defense is scheduled for August 9th. Which means I hafta turn in this sucker by mid-July. Crikey.

So I think I won't be blogging for a bit. Not that I have a huge fan-base of readers. Or any fanbase. Or any readers, for that matter.

My only point is, I'm probably signing off for a bit. May the academic gods be kind. I will only do one thing, and that's include the latest cartoon from phdcomics.com, because it's just so relevant these days:

Cupcakes of Yore

So I had a somewhat better day yesterday. And I'm having a somewhat better day today. Not in the sense that writing is suddenly flowing, but that I'm less tetchy about it. And I hadn't planned on a blog today. But I need a little writing break right now to clear my brain-clutter a bit, and so I figured I'd go ahead and post some of the details of the NY Cupcake Tour mentioned a couple of blogs ago.

So anyway, my friends Sasha and Laura and I have this thing we do every couple of years that is titled after a blend of our names/nicknames. It's called Salaelmofest. I won't break it down, because that would involve a lengthy explanation that I don't want to give right now. But Salaelmofest involves all of us getting together in one of our current abodes--though it has always been in either Sasha's current abode of NYC, or Laura's current abode of Boston, which significantly, used to be my abode as well as Sasha's. We don't hold Salaelmofest at my abode, because my abode, as cities go, just has nothing on NY or Boston. It's a dream of mine to eventually find a new abode that has a hip, urban vibe that is at least comparable to NY's or Boston's, but that's not happening for a while. Anyway, for this most recent Salaelmofest, our third, we obviously went to NY, and we obviously decided that cupcake-hunting was our mission. Now, we had grand expectations. Sasha, who originally proposed the idea of the Cupcake Tour, drew up a route that took us all over Manhattan, and that took us past 7 centers of cupcake genesis for our cupcake exodus, for it was to be a journey of biblical scope, to be documented for the ages. But Manhattan is big, and full of other distractions. And 7 cupcakes, well, that's a LOT of cupcakes to be had in a single day. So we ended up hitting three, and perhaps we will continue the journey at Salaelmofest 4 or 5, and then perhaps we'll make a Cupcake Tour Brochure, which will somehow become a resource for NY tourists everywhere, and will make us all scads and scads of money. Well, it'd be fun, anyway. In any case, this blog will highlight those 3 cupcake sites we visited, offer viewings of the cupcakes we sampled as well as my own personal cupcake evaluations. So here goes:

Site I: Magnolia

Now, as you may already know, Magnolia has a lot of hype associated with it. It's been featured on Sex and the City--the single girl's homage to NY--as well as on Veronica Mars, and is known exclusively for its cupcakes, though it's possible there are other confections to be had there. For some reason, however, I don't actually have a picture of the cupcakes...which I now take as a fairly ominous sign, and you should too. I'll have to consult with Sasha and Laura to see if they have photos of Magnolia's cupcakes, but in the end, I take my forgetting as prophetic, since the cupcakes were quite disappointing. They were pretty--a selection of pastel, almost sherbert-colored icings that were formed in a swirly spiral. And having once made the vanilla-vanilla cupcakes from Magnolia's recipes, I opted for a cake that had some chocolate in it, and made a quick grab. This is actually an important point--there's apparently always a line outside Magnolia, and because the bakery has a relatively small space, only a few customers are let in at a time so as not to exceed capacity. This also means that cupcakes are snatched up almost as quickly as they're set out, so you don't always have much choice. At any rate, I managed to grab a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. And after Sasha, Laura and I had all gathered and paid for our cupcakes, we stepped outside to let other people in, and proceeded to eat. Now, unlike some people, I really appreciated the crowdedness, the fact that there was an established Magnolia dynamic, a system; I took it as a sign that this was the Magnolia way and that Magnolia would live up to all its hype. And it all started off quite well--the chocolate icing was quite good--a bit too sweet, but not nearly as sweet as the vanilla, which is almost entirely confectioner's sugar--although, when balanced with cake that is quite buttery and not too sweet, this isn't necessarily a problem. But the cupcake I bought from Magnolia was unfortunately quite dry--something that took quite a bit away from the taste and texture of the cake. And after all the hype, I couldn't help but be disappointed. (Sigh).

Site II: Cupcake Cafe

The Cupcake Cafe was a decided improvement over Magnolia. First of all, it's a much bigger space that also houses a children's bookstore. And I'm a big fan of that sort of thing. Trident Cafe on Boston's Newberry Street is a similar sort of deal, though it's not specifically a children's bookstore. At any rate, there were plenty of tables and chairs at Cupcake Cafe, and a friendly staff, and the cupcakes were decorated beautifully, as were the other full-sized cakes that you could see in the refrigerators behind the counters. They also had some more unusual flavors, like maple, which is the cupcake I sampled, and which was quite good. Another plus was the decor particular to the cafe. I have only 3 words that sum up its prime feature: mechanized dancing cupcakes. It was kind of awesome. There were these three cupcakes with legs that were positioned like Rockettes' legs, and that had these eyelashes coming out of their frosting. I don't think they had eyes though. Check it out:

Pretty fabulous, right? Also, the staff was very nice about letting me take lots of pictures. Though of course, it DOES mean free publicity for them, doesn't it? I guess it does. Anyway, as I said, I had a maple cupcake--featured below. I can't remember what kind of cupcakes Sasha and Laura had, but they seemed to enjoy them. And they were all very pretty, and unlike Magnolia, very moist, though surprisingly dense. Density is not by itself a bad thing in a cupcake, but perhaps something you might not expect if you have as much cupcake experience as I like to think I have. But have a look-see:

The maple one that I tried is the one with the blue flower. Sasha's cupcake is the one with the pink rose on the right, and I think I remember now that it was mocha, and actually, I think Laura may have had a maple cupcake as well, and hers is obviously the one with the purple flower cake in the back. But they're quite pretty, aren't they? And there were other cupcakes that were much more elaborately and impressively decorated, and in quite a staggering array of colors. I would give Cupcake Cafe a firm thumbs up. You can also check out their website, which shows some of their fancier creations: http://www.cupcakecafe.com/.

Site III: Crumbs

Last, but definitely not least. Crumbs also had a respectable amount of seating--not quite as much as Cupcake Cafe, and without the same charm or ambiance--but quite adequate to our needs. They also had other confections and beverages available. (Cupcake Cafe had beverages also, I believe, but they weren't as obviously displayed. ) What made Crumbs such a rewarding experience, however, was the variety of cupcakes that were available. They advertise 30 flavors on their website, though sadly, they do not sell all 30 at a given time--which was actually kind of upsetting, because I didn't get the opportunity to try the key lime cupcake, which is the 2nd cupcake from the top on the left-hand side of the window pictured above. However, the variety was still impressive, both in flavorings and in size. There was a "mini" cupcake--though this was actually a normal/average-sized cupcake, and there was a supposedly more "standard" or regular-sized cupcake, which was about 3-4 times the size of the minis, if not more. It was gigantic and glorious. Here is a partial view of the display of these beauties:

As you can see, the "minis" on the top row are quite a bit smaller in size than the "standard" size on the row below. And I think you get an idea of the range of flavors--on the top row, we have rasberry buttercream and lemon buttercream, on the second row, I think we have some sort of chocolate fudge, then black forest, and then the last I think is snickerdoodle or possibly s'more? I really can't remember. At any rate, we tried a standard (i.e. gigantic) devil dog cupcake and a standard lemon buttercream. The devil dog was good, a sort of higher-end approximation of the original Drake Cake that inspired it. A quibble though--in my personal experience, Devil Dogs were something you ate when you wanted low-end, generic ingredients--and I kind of would have liked to see that aesthetic reproduced more accurately in this cupcake version. Conceptually, I thought it was a brilliant idea, and the cupcake was ultimately tasty, but it wasn't truly the Devil Dog in cupcake form. Not a bad approximation, but the cake didn't taste quite right, and the frosting, which was supposed to reproduce the really thick, almost paste-like cream that fills out the center of a Devil Dog, was not quite thick enough and didn't quite have the thick, delightfully cheap (and synthetic) taste either. I'm sorry; sometimes we just want crap food, even if we know it's low-quality. How else can we explain the success of the Big Mac? The lemon buttercream cupcake, however, was sublime. Moreover, the texture and moistness of Crumbs cupcakes were just what they should have been--light, and fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth yumminess. And here are the cupcakes we sampled prior to decimation:

You can see how aesthetically pleasing they are, and I can assure you that they were delicious also. A great balance. All in all, I hope the Cupcake Tour really does become a 7-site sort of affair, but for this post, 3 seems quite enough. At any rate, I think we all agreed Crumbs offered the best cupcakes of the 3 sites we visited, and I would go back without any griping, if only to track down that elusive key lime.

And the rest of the weekend wasn't bad either; lots of wandering in beautiful weather, eating ethnically diverse food, and a pitcher of sangria to boot. Laura and I did have to guard our veins from Sasha, however. Sasha is in medical school. She's very smart. She's also similarly obsessed with all things medical in the way that I and my grad school friends are obsessed with all things literary. And she and her med school friends have their caveats and quirks that I suppose only med students have. And she can do things like draw blood or insert IV's, and well, she happened to notice that Laura and I apparently both have good (i.e. visible, prominent, and hence, easy-to-find-and-stick) veins. And Sasha kept pointing this out to us. And eyeing our respective veins. To the point that we felt there was something sexual going on. To wit, we actually came up with a come-hither gesture that was vein-specific and basically translates as: "Look at my sexy veins. You want them. You know you do. And I want you want them too."

Happy Friday, everyone. I'm so relieved I made it. Now I get to spend the next 3 days on this chapter without any interruptions, save my own. Until next time.

Why Can't I Yawn Anymore?

It's been an eventful few days, let me tell you. Anyone reading Leslie's silver fork saga knows the wedding we attended on the Jersey shore was lovely. Hilda the bride and Joe the groom looked great. The beach looked great. The whole thing seemed to go off without a single hitch or major glitch, though perhaps the bride might quibble with me about that. At any rate, everyone seemed to have a lovely time. I mean, look how happy and cute they are:

I would add that there was some initial worry on the bride's part that the groom wouldn't actually dance. But he danced. With quite a bit more enthusiasm than I think any of us could have anticipated. He grooved. He shimmied. He bopped. Granted, there appeared to be a lot of self-mockery in his dancing attempts, but still, he danced. And all was well. And I took a lot of other pictures that were really quite funny--like the series of Joe and friend and groomsman Chris, each with an arm around the other, and looking quite tipsy in that way that you can only get tipsy at weddings. Indeed, each picture seemed to perfectly capture a stage of the sort of drunken conversation that frequently happens between good friends at one of their weddings--happiness, nostalgia, "deep" seriousness, and a sort of equally "deep" pseudo-pragmatism, a gesture that sums up the conversation and the state of things, a "that's life"--in Joe's case, a tipping back of his beer into his mouth. It was positively magnificent as pictorial series go.

On the other hand, the wedding ended eventually, and I had to return (once again) to my dissertation. I also had to come back to the fact that my defense is imminent, and I have a very limited time to complete what seems more and more to be an insurmountable amount of work. The trick is to care enough to get it done, but not to care enough to make it perfect. It's an ordeal. And I tell myself that in the grand scheme of things, I don't really care. But once I start writing, my desire for perfect, fluid, eloquent prose seems to overwhelm the grand scheme and starts stabbing at all the sensitive points in my brain and ego. To such an extent that I get all cranky-pants and start mentally swearing at anyone or anything that crosses my path. Like for instance, at all the guys doing construction in the office I work in. Every time someone drilled something, or didn't get out of my way as I tried to make my way to the coffee machine, or when the annoyingly perky secretary said "Hi, and how are YOU doing today??!!" I silently sent them on their merry way to Hell. I then sent the same sentiments mentally to my loving parents, who I actually love back very much, but who just said all the wrong things on the phone last night. I mean, I'm all about reciprocity, but the truth is--and it's not my subjective truth--it's an objective truth that the folks have actually acknowledged--my problems are bigger than their problems are right now, and damn it, I'm looking for sympathy, not a matter-of-fact statement that all I need to do right now is finish the damn dissertation. Damn it, I KNOW I have to finish the dissertation, but that doesn't make it finish faster. And damn it, after all their discourse on how I can TOTALLY leave academia, and find a job I like, and that I'll have their complete support, why are they so freaked about my actually talking about leaving? And why are they telling me not to jump ship just yet? The goal is to resolve my ambivalence/indecision, not to prolong it, people. So work on that, why don't you?

And in trying to get back into "I'm going to finish the dissertation now, no really, I mean it this time" mode, I've been kind of frustrated and very tired. And I've discovered this seemingly constant desire to yawn and an inability to satisfy this same desire. Damn it, WHY CAN'T I YAWN ANYMORE? Oh sure, it happens after a couple dozen tries, and in that moment, yawning is kind of the meaning of life. It's infinitely satisfying. I feel like everything is ok. And then of course, the desire returns. I'm like Sisyphus, or that other guy in Hell that's submerged up to his chin in water but every time he tries to drink, the water recedes. You know. That guy. Whazhisname. Unless that IS Sisyphus and I'm mixing up the names of the various guys in Hell sentenced to eternal tortures. But I'm pretty sure it's Sisyphus--the guy who has to keep rolling a big boulder up a big hill and everytime he gets near the top it rolls back down to the bottom. Futility really does suck.

Other than that, I continue to wonder why I originally wanted to be an academic, and if I still want to. I hate my dissertation at the moment. Oh sure, I've liked it in the past, and perhaps I will like it again someday. But right now, the hate is there, and I think it's mutual; yes, that's right, my dissertation appears to hate me back.

On the plus side, there was leftover cake in the office refrigerator. So someone somewhere threw me a tiny, little bone today. Seriously: I think I might have to run away from home. Or hit someone. Really hard.

p.s. I want to add that I've tried working more this evening, and I'm just not getting anywhere. It's a bloody mess, this chapter. And I honestly do not know what else to do about it right now. And the temptation is to call someone and vent, but I know that won't actually help me write. In fact, you know something? J.K. Rowling said something about this--either on her personal website, or in an interview posted on mugglenet.com or some other Harry Potter fansite. Basically, she said she didn't like to talk about her writing WHILE she was writing--that talking ABOUT writing took energy away from ACTUALLY writing, and I've found that this is abolutely true for me as well. And you know what else? THAT is helpful. Knowing that a bazillionaire like J.K. Rowling, who has created a book series that millions and millions of people are deeply invested in, acknowledges that there's a process to writing and that you have to respect that process, even if it's making you lose your freaking mind. Because what else can you do? I am also consulting a horoscope I cut out a while ago from Rob Brezny's Free Will Astrology that is also appropriate, and follows a similar line of thought. The seminal lines: "Progress will proceed at its own pace, not yours. The peaches will ripen when they are ready, not necessarily when you are. "In other words,try to practice quiet acceptance of wherever you're at, even if you're ready to kick and scream and gouge your eyes out about it. Not to mention, stomp on those damn, slow-ass peaches.

Social Caffeine

So,

This past weekend was the most social I've been in literally months. And yes, sadly, that counts Memorial Day weekend, when I went to NYC to visit friends Sasha and Laura, and to participate in a NYC Cupcake Tour, though we didn't quite get as far along the route as originally planned (pictures of the Cupcake Tour to be posted soon). It wasn't that that weekend wasn't social, but that Saturday's social interractions were with the largest number of people that I've interracted with in a while. I spent 3 hours on the phone; 1 hour/3 different people, 3 hours talking over a glass of wine with one person (thanks to Lorna for spotting me the glass of wine, and to the girl at Aroma Cafe, for the free muffin!), and then another hour over another glass of wine with a group of people. Anyway, my point is, after all this socializing, I was all jittery-like, and unable to sit, and thus, unable to work...it's hard sitting down to write by yourself when your naturally garrulous disposition has been unleashed after months of confinement. I had trouble sleeping. I watched too much t.v. I started re-reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (in preparation for the release of Movie V in July) for the millionth time. And eventually, I konked out, but seriously, dissertating often lends itself to social starvation, which for me, obviously poses the risk of serious side effects. Yet another reason to jump the academic ship.

Anyway, I'm continuing to have difficulties sitting and working...At the moment, I blame Leslie. We are getting ready to take an all-girl road-trip (ok, so that misrepresents things--it's just the 2 of us driving most of the way, though we'll detour to Philadelphia to pick up our friend Maya) down to the Jersey shore for our friend Hilda's wedding (a subject that dominated 2 of Saturday's phone calls) and according to Leslie, my mission, which I choose to accept, is to research the area, find out all the cool things to do, where the cool places are to eat, gamble, shop, etc. And this is an important function, and I take it very seriously.

I already know that we simply must visit a quaint little eatery known as "The Dixie Picnic," which is apparently family-run/based, and chock fully of familia memorabilia, which is the kind of thing I love. I love when an organization or company has a genuinely charming story to tell and does so in cute little anecdotal gems.

Not to mention, one of their specialty items is something called "upcakes"--that's right, my cupcake fetish simply must rear its lovely head--which are apparently enlarged cupcake tops. The idea is apparently that the whole cake is frosted, so the issue of biting cake without frosting is rendered obsolete. And plus, let's face it, the tops of the cupcakes ARE the best part.

Plus, they've done the same thing for muffins--I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone clever thought cupcakes should be in on the fun too.

Plus, they apparently have key lime frosting as one of their flavor pairings for the yellow cake (they of course have chocolate also), which will make up for the disappointment I felt when I wasn't able to get a key-lime cupcake at Crumbs in NY, after previewing their website, www.crumbsbakeshop.com and getting all psyched up for it. I just hope Dixie Picnic really does include the key-lime among its regular selection, as advertised on their website, www.dixiepicnic.com, and that I don't suffer similarly dashed hopes...

Here, check out the upcakes. This is a picture taken from the Dixie Picnic website, if you don't actually hit the link to check it out. Although, come to think of it, don't these look more like the BOTTOM halves of cupcakes, rather than the tops? What if that's what they did? What if, in an act of malice, they CUT OFF the tops of the cupcakes, and are using the bottoms to pose as enlarged tops? The thought is simply chilling. For the time being, though, I will keep faith in Dixie Picnic, and not succumb to the plague of doubt.

My point, however, is that with all this wishing, hoping, planning, I have little time to focus on my chapter revision. It's a case of self-delusion, of course. I KNOW I can work on my chapter; it's just that planning a trip to the Jersey shore is so much more agreeable, not to mention, so much easier.

Finally, did anyone else stand up and cheer and whoop with sadistic glee at the news that Paris Hilton, the subject of my last post, was returned to prison? I did. And I think Lorna, Saturday's compatriot wine-sipper and chatter, probably did as well. In fact, we both waxed nostalgic over Sarah Silverman's Paris Hilton pre-prison shout-out at the recent MTV movie awards, which was delightful. I don't tend to watch anything on MTV for more than about 5 minutes before confirming that, well, there's nothing really there, but it turns out the fates had me watch the 5 minutes in which Ms. Hilton was an"it" girl in a way she actually HAS earned.