Summer / Various

My life as a canvasser for Planned Parenthood has begun, and I like it. It's OK, I can sell memberships, I'm outside, I'm cheerful: I have tons of energy and am enjoying life and this season a heck of a lot more than I was last year (what a mess that was).

On the IKEA Ferry... Amurrica

Me & Don on the IKEA Ferry

For-no-reason fireworks in Astoria, over the Triborough Bridge

More fireworks (view from the roof)

Precarious

So I quit my job! And we got a kitten! And I cut my hair! And summer is here!

I feel a little crazy and I've been mysteriously anxious all week (well, not so mysterious: I have no income!), but I think this is all for the better. My moods have been in flux, but it's almost refreshing: to not feel dull, stressed, myopic. It's nice to feel energetic again. It's nice to feel the sun and get a tan!

Sebastian at 4 weeks (?)

I just want to make sure I can make rent and save up enough money for my copious vacations in August: a week of family reunions (mine and Don's); two weeks in Italy with the fam (Rome, Florence, Venice...!!); and a week in the desert at Burning Man (luckily there is only a gift economy there!). It's a big task for barely two month's worth of work...

As the wise and ridiculous Daft Punk put it: 

"If you lose your way tonight

That's how you know the magic's right."

Cheesy feel-good lyrics for a improbable summer!

More Glow Time?

Things are beginning to pick up and change: trips, adventures, new projects. It feels good to be gaining momentum again. And the chamomile seeds are sprouting!

I saw a bunch of my old friends from Artisanal at a party last night. I forgot how alive everyone is! Always stories, new thoughts, creative energy; people genuinely excited about life and your company (as in, the kind that you keep, not run). It was refreshing. We stayed out until 4am and caught up and made big plans. I realized today: I've made friends in New York. It's taken three years, but I've got a few keepers.

A Prohibition-themed bachelor/ette party at The Back Room, where drinks are served in teacups (a little too precious)

With Maddie and Charles

In other news, my name's in a book! The first time and probably the last, as all I work on are digital projects and those have no copyright pages.

Name in the copyright page! Illustrated Social Studies Dictionary

I've had a little more reflecting time recently, which is keeping in step with the warm glow theme in my life right now: I've been walking home from work a couple days a week. The Queensboro Bridge is like an old friend at this point: I know all the graffiti, the cracks in the sidewalk; I've got an aerial view of Roosevelt Island memorized. It's inspired me to start walking on all kinds of bridges, including the Pulaski Bridge (below), one of my favorites. Walking gives a whole different sense of place than biking or running, which tend to cloud my senses. I take in more details, get a whole lot more thinking done, do some stretching.

Who knew there was so much in life to just think about? How many people are not taking the time to do their thinking? I don't properly think when I'm at work, or commuting, or exercising; I really needed some unstructured time (phrase of the year) to just let my thoughts flow. It makes me sad to think that my vision of the city (and myself, and others) has been obscured simply because I haven't been doing enough thinking. I love this place and its people; I'd just forgotten how much.

View from the Pulaski Bridge

Glow time at Queensboro Plaza

Sprouting

Almost done with my Senior Year of Life! Just as difficult, not as rewarding, much more complicated. I'm looking forward to the Summer After Senior Year of Life, which if it's even half as good as the OG summer I'll be happy.

Flax sprouts in the cubicle

Emily's 20th birthday in Brooklyn Bridge Park

Bike riding on Roosevelt Island

Rusty Knot for Nicole's 26th birthday

Walking over the Queensboro Bridge 

What happens during the Fall After Senior Year of Life? Do I go back to France?

Radicals and the 99%: Core and Mass Movement

"Radicals tend to become radicals because we become disillusioned with aspects of the dominant culture. When you feel like you're up against the culture, it's easy then to develop an inclination to separate yourself from that culture. When we begin to become aware of the destructive impacts of capitalism, racism, sexism, and whatever other social systems we encounter that we see perpetuating oppression, we don't want to be part of it. We feel a moral repugnance and a desire to not cooperate with injustice.

In the story of the righteous few, success itself becomes suspect. If a group or individual is embraced by a significant enough portion of society, it must be because they are not truly revolutionary or because their message has been "watered down." It seriously messes with radicals' heads when some of our ideas start to become popular! We are so accustomed to being the most radical kid on the block, and suddenly people we've never met are coming out of the woodwork, marching in the streets with us, and spouting some of the lines we've been saying for years. Frankly, it can lead to a bit of an identity crisis. 

Here we see the importance of checking our narratives for faulty components. If we allow the story of the righteous few to hold a place in our narrative about social change, then our efforts are likely to be seriously hindered by a general mentality to separate and distinguish ourselves from society and to retreat from success. To organize effectively, this mentality has to turn 180 degrees. We have to orient ourselves to connect with others, to notice commonalities, to "weave ourselves into the fabric of society" (quoting OWS participant Beka Economopoulos), and to embrace being embraced by society. For many radicals, this can be a big shift in our conceptualizations of ourselves and of our society."

-excerpt from "Radicals and the 99%: Core and Mass Movement," by Matthew Smucker

---

I love this! My cousin does a lot of writing for the Occupy movement (among other things), and I love his approach to group-based cooperation and success. His advice to "be the life of the party" makes the radical irrestisible -- and approachable.

At a panel on feminism and voting rights/activism I attended last fall, I asked: "What can the 'average' person to do spread this information when becoming a full-fledge activist is a near-impossible task?"

One of the panel presenters replied [paraphrase]: "Just talk. Talk to your co-workers at the water cooler, talk to people who aren't your friends, talk to your neighbors. Just getting people to listen is where everything starts."

I like this: the approachable radical.

The Breslin

I've been to this restaurant once before, for lunch -- but I was always too scared to go for dinner (high prices, fancy people, pressure to get appetizers... yikes). So tonight's dinner with my mom was something of an achievement for me, as pathetic as that is. Fortunately the people weren't fancy at all, and aside from a ridiculous $50 pork thing, the prices weren't that bad, either. The Breslin is absolutely worth it.

Run by April Bloomfield and known for its $21 lamb burger, The Breslin is one of the many fixtures of the Ace Hotel on 29th and Broadway: Stumptown, the John Dory Oyster Bar, Liberty Hall, and a number of expensive oddity stores (you know what I'm talking about). Bloomfield also runs the more well-known The Spotted Pig over on the west side, but that jump I'm definitely too scared to make, at least right now. Not ready for a suckling pig dinner!

I'm not usually a food blogger, but the flavor combinations at this place were inspirational. I'm going to list them, in case they inspire you too:

blood orange-grapefruit salad over bibb lettuce with fried red quinoa, chives, and arugula, in sheep's milk dressing
smashed ozette potatoes with sauerkraut and mustard seeds
spiced parsnip panacotta with parsnip cake "croutons," fresh pear, and pear sorbet

It goes without saying that The Breslin also has a made-exclusively-for-The-Breslin saison by Sixpoint.

All this gets me thinking about potential food projects and combinations:

homemade yogurt + cara cara oranges
different milks
jerusalem artichokes + vinegar
root vegetables as a silkener: celery root, hawaiian sweet potato (celery root rice pudding with granola?)
prickly pear + graham crackers
lychees + cream

March

I tried taking a break from writing, thinking I could reflect more without analyzing so much. I just fell asleep instead.

I did do some things in March which broke the sleep-notsleep cycle:

went to Garden Spot for Easter

braided Emily's hair

went to Kinokuniya (and found the Tattoo/Children section)

ate a Japanese green tea-flavored Kit Kat

 made a 10 gallon batch of beer (to make two smaller batches: Fat Wizard Wheat and our new Reconstruction Ale, an American wheat)

I also went down to Delaware for an alumni thing; visited Kelly in Philly; enjoyed some fancy bitters cocktails at Amor y Amargo; saw Bach's Mass in B Minor at Lincoln Center; and attended my first New York City Homebrewers Guild meeting.

Seems very exciting on paper! But I can't help but feel as if I'm trying to distract myself from the reality I dislike: the one in a cubicle, the tired one, the uncreative one.

Maybe when the weather is nice I will get outside and feel like a human again.