Zugenia's Procrastination Salon

So I finally dredged up out of the depths of my brain the set of lyrics from Peter Pan's "I Won't Grow Up" that had been eluding me—

'Cause growing up is awfuller
Than all the awful things that ever were
I'll never grow up
Never grow up
Never grow uh-up...
No sir!

—and they have been running though my head ever since. KILL ME.

Slept well until 6am, at which point I woke up, cleaned the kitchen, and threw all the roots in the house—potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, onions, carrots, ginger—into a soup. Maybe later I'll toss all the things that grow on trees into the juicer. I know, right? My life: try to keep up.

So our cat, Ophelia (a.k.a. Kitty), who'd slept in Derek's bed her entire life, began boycotting our bedroom after we brought Daisy home in April 2008. (I think this is because for the first couple of weeks we put Daisy's crate in the bedroom with us at night, but Kitty continued to withhold her affection long after Daisy was removed to the hallway.) About a month ago she took up with us again, installing herself nearly 24/7 in the middle of the bed the VERY DAY I put on a brand new duvet cover. Fortunately for us, the duvet cover is white and cat hair doesn't really show up on it, so we were mostly happy that she decided to sleep with us again. This was clearly not her primary motivation, because she mostly abandoned the bed for the top of an open bag of clothes I've been meaning to take to the dry cleaner, which from her feline perspective is just a pile of dark, expensive clothing that cannot go in the washing machine. This bag has been sitting, growing, on top of a dresser for the past couple of weeks, so it has the added benefit of placing her literally above us when we are lying down. Just now, I went in and found her sneering at me from a new throne: the black sweater I wear ALL THE TIME that I carelessly left lying on top of another dresser yesterday. It takes me more energy than it's probably worth to keep it relatively cat-hair free when she's NOT using it for a bed. HOW DO CATS KNOW?

In Canada they call Columbus Day Thanksgiving. For an American living in Canada, this means there are TWO THANKSGIVINGS. This is the most glorious cultural development since Second Breakfast. Last night we had some friends over for food and merriment, and today we are meeting more friends for Chinese food. Here is something you should know, though: Yellow yams are not substitutable for sweet potatoes in the context of mashed sweet potatoes with chipotle. I now have a big batch of not-disgusting-but-not-very-good spicy mashed yams. What does one do with such a thing? Can it be fried? Put in a pie?

In other news, the new volume of Eighteenth-Century Fiction is out. Guess who chose the sexy color. Guess!

I am officially engaged in a Battle To The Death with my own brain. This is what is known in science as a Lose-Lose Situation. The precise rebel factions of this meat in my head include the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus, specifically the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus. All of my counterinsurgency research has been pursued on the internet. I am not trying to diagnose myself; I simply like to have a name attached to my mortal enemies. CURSE THE PART OF MY BRAIN THAT LETS ME FALL ASLEEP AND ISN'T LETTING ME FALL ASLEEP does not have the pithy ring of FUCK YOU VENTROLATERAL PREOPTIC NUCLEUS. You see what I'm saying. If I were to allow the Procrastination Salon to be infiltrated by my Personal Problems, I could rename it "AMYGDALA AND HIPPOCAMPUS: TWO BAD NEIGHBORS." This will not happen, but I find strange comfort in the knowledge that it could.

Long story short, I could not sleep again last night. Clocked a few more tortured hours of the ongoing Law & Order marathon that is my life. But this is old hat. The real turning point in the war was when I arrived home from work at 10pm to my Best Earned Drink Of The Week and was overcome by a headache so crippling it made my whiskey unpleasant. OH NO YOU DINT. There I was, deprived of my post-pedagoguery digestif, consigned to bed with nothing to do but apply Tiger Balm and will my amygdalae to shut up about the day already, which they will not. My pillow smells like my grandfather's pillow. I am the miserablest girl who ever miserabled.

The happy epilogue of the war story is that I finally slept from 11am to 2pm. And that I plan to resume regular procrastinations as soon as I destroy those parts of me that are against me.

It would be the day I compel myself to make a full pot of coffee first thing in the morning* that I discover we are out of milk. It is Monday. I teach until 9pm today. Also, we are drinking Maxwell House because we finally drained the summer stash of imported Community Coffee New Orleans Blend With Chicory. While I am simply listing things that come into my head as they come, do you know anything about Asian Canadians relying heavily on ketchup in their cooking? D and I suspect it is so.

In lieu of proper coffee, what motivates me this morning is the fact that my Favorite Ladies In The Internet Whom I Do Not Actually Know talked about my question on their podcast this weekend! FLITIWIDNAK #1 is SJ, author of I, Asshole; FLITIWIDNAK #2 is The Egg, author of What Ladder?; and their podcast is FYCL. I love them maybe more than it is okay for a grown-ass woman to love people she Does Not Actually Know. Listen to FYCL #9. My question is the one about Canada submitted by the person with my name.

---

*You may or may not know that I have a bizarre but thoroughly documented aversion to making my own coffee in the morning, preferring coffee to arrive in my hands having been made for me by a higher, benevolent power, such as my husband, ideally, or, in a pinch, a competent barista.

Have discovered that sleep in a heat wave occurs in desperate 3-hour intervals, if at all. D and I had a few drinks before bed last night in a concentrated attempt at drowsiness. It turns out one can be too hot to feel any effect of intoxication whatsoever. We have every fan in the house trained on our bed. I woke up at 4 from a dream in which my sister Kathryn hosted Saturday Night Live (to fair acclaim) thinking, for real, that I was in the engine of a plane.

Yesterday we received an amazing care package from Arkansas Bros Dolly H. and Laine G., containing all manner of goodies including Community Coffee New Orleans Blend With Chicory and souvenirs from Dolly's recent trip to India, where she met the Dalai Lama, etc. Yes, we received stuff blessed by actual monks, and spices from the actual land of Goa. But the real treat was ARTWORK CLOCK.

Those of you who read my Twitter feed know that I painted my campus office an inadvertently pseudo-nautical shade of blue, and was concerned about how best to make the most of it. ARTWORK CLOCK is the obvious solution. It is full of complexity and surprise. For example, when I say the words ARTWORK CLOCK, what image comes to your mind? Got one? Was it THIS?



Yes, friends, ARTWORK CLOCK is a plastic sculpture of a motorized sailboat, whose decorative base reads "Sweet Time," whose sails are embellished with two different kinds of pink glitter stripes, and which displays a quartz clock set against a picture of an entirely different sailboat. It is art, it is clock, it is two boats in one, and yet no boats at all. It is designed with a conspicuous lack of precision (only two of the four pegs that secure the sails to the boat reach their bases at any given time), which lends it an air of precariousness, not unlike a boat upon the waves of this ever-changing ocean we call life—nay, not unlike TIME ITSELF, when kept by a novelty boat sculpture powered by a single AA battery.

The box in which ARTWORK CLOCK was packaged is itself a work of art; the copy is poetry:

VOGUE STYLE

• Time is so rare and precious


• Simulation a true style


• Suit both refined and popular taste

So true, ARTWORK CLOCK. So very true.

If you're wondering about the hat to the left of ARTWORK CLOCK, that is another part of our gift: half of a his 'n' hers pair of hats to remind us and our Canadian neighbors that we are ALL CAPS ALL AMERICAN.

Front:



Back:



I'm not exactly sure why the embroidered Confederate flag on the back is so warped, but I suspect it is because it is waving proudly in the wind that is the spirit of American patriotism. As you can see, our hats, like ARTWORK CLOCK, suit both refined and popular tastes, which is perfect for D and me, as we are the epitome of refined and popular. I propose we don our caps, crack open some PBRs, and sit in our Dodge Ram exuding American pride. THAT'S RIGHT, CANADA. THAT'S AMERICA. FEEL IT.

Spent yesterday recovering from Too Much Fun had in Niagara Falls Friday night with Sean (high school friend with whom I've stayed in touch BF—Before Facebook) and his wife Heather. If there is a place for grown-ups to eat dinner in downtown Niagara Falls that doesn't have a branch in an Upstate New York shopping mall, we couldn't find it. Ended up in an "Italian American" eatery called My Cousin Vinny's where we were served big portions of pasta by an excessively enthusiastic middle-aged waitress. She positively swooned over Heather's tattoos. "Ooooh, look at that!" she said, pointing to the ship on Heather's left upper arm. "Coooooool!" We hadn't ordered our food yet. "And look at that one!" she said, grabbing Heather's wrist and turning it to expose a parrot perched on a cannonball bomb. "What's that?" she asked. "A parrot on a bomb," Heather replied.

Our main objective in Niagara Falls was to go to the casino, and maybe catch the fireworks. D was a bit nervous about the casino plan since we have Very Little Money and I tend to get Caught Up In The Moment When Having Too Much Fun. I promised not to gamble away our last dollar. In fact, I'd never gambled at all except for some five-cent slot machines at a casino in Brisbane with my sister K. I wasn't sure I'd know what to do. After dinner we headed to the Breeze Bar in the middle of the floor and parked ourselves at two electronic blackjack machines. D put $10 into ours and a Maker's Mark and Labatt Blue later, I was up to $40. "Gambling's awesome!" I said. Next to me, Heather had just lost the last of her initial $20 and was cursing at what I thought was the machine, but may well have been me. "It's almost too easy," I said. "Should I try playing something else?" "NO," said D. "I mean, do whatever you want, but this seems like...a good machine."

Ultimately I dwindled away all the credits in the machine, having hit a high point around $45. We decided to walk over to the Oakes Hotel, which has a viewing area from which you can see the fireworks over the lit-up falls. D and I had been in Niagara Falls earlier in the week, when we met his aunt and cousins for lunch and a ride on the Maid of the Mist. D was worried that the Falls would be disappointing the way things that are supposed to be sublime often are in material reality, like the first time he saw an actual Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton and it just wasn't That Big. But the Falls are actually amazing, especially viewed through the blinding mist from a little boat right in the middle of the horseshoe. Heather had never been on the Maid of the Mist, so earlier in the day she and Sean had booked the ride. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain, and they mostly heard a roaring sound while getting completely drenched. I think the Falls may have redeemed themselves with their night show, viewed from the comfort of a 14th-floor alcove, followed by a quick elevator ride to the lounge on the hotel's top floor. We were so delighted to find that the drinks didn't cost $20 each that we set to work drinking many of them. I started and stuck with dirty Stoli martinis; D did double Johnny Walkers; Sean started on beer and quickly moved to Jameson's; and Heather experimented with a French Martini before switching to Ketel One and tonics. The sofas were comfy, our British waitress was cute and charming, and all was going swimmingly until we asked if they sold cigarettes at the bar, and the answer was that they sold two brands, something we didn't catch and something called "Playas." D—a few Johnny Walkers in—was incredulous that there was a Canadian cigarette called "Playas." "Playas?" he asked our charming waitress. "Is there really a cigarette called 'Playas'?? That's the coolest thing I've ever heard!" She smiled wanly and drifted away. I then explained that "Playas" is how she pronounces "Players," which was most likely the actual name of the brand. "Oh my god," said D. "I'm such an asshole." When our waitress returned, D explained that he hadn't been making fun of her, that he was just a dumbass from Arkansas who didn't know anything about Canadian cigarette brands. It turned out that she was actually kind of offended. "It's okay," she said coldly, "I'm used to it." She handed Heather a vodka tonic that, it turned out, contained negligible vodka. D apologized to Heather for ruining her drink. I was downing my fourth dirty martini and found the whole ordeal inappropriately hilarious.

At some point the overhead lights started flashing, and we were all impaired enough to be confused as to whether this was a signal that the bar was closing or simply someone playing with the lights. It seemed a good time to leave in either case. We headed back to the casino, ordered some beers, and parked in front of some slot machines. The objective of these machines was to make a row of lights light up, and the strategy toward achieving said objective was to continuously push a button. This was something I could do. I put in $5 and pushed the button until the button stopped working. "Did I run out of money?" I asked D. "Yes," he said, feeding a bill into an adjacent machine. "Try this one." From somewhere nearby I heard Heather cursing out another machine. It all gets a bit fuzzy from there, but at some point I apparently updated my LiveJournal and then at some other point D was telling me it was a good time to cash out and we went to a machine that gave us real cash money. "Gambling is THE BEST," I said. Heather, who I forgot to mention is from Reno, said something that I either didn't catch or selectively forgot.

By the light of the next day, it turned out that I had actually won back all the cash that we'd stuck into machines, plus $3. D informed me that as long as we didn't consider the obscene amount of money we'd spent on alcohol, we'd come out ahead. "Is that why there's money in my pocket?" I asked, somewhat dizzily pulling three dollar coins from my jeans. "Yes," D said. "You won."

My husband wishes it to be known that I, Lady Z, am responsible for his latest haircut—specifically, this:



He thinks it's important to note that he is speaking at a conference in four days.

I think it is important to note, in my defense, I did tell him, when he bought these clippers, that I had no idea what I was doing with them.

I've managed to sleep through the last couple of nights, which is refreshing, though I continue to have disorientingly undreamlike dreams. For example, last night I dreamt I subscribed to a bunch of blogs in my Google Reader and then never bothered to read any of them. I just spent seven minutes trying to recall if that was actually what I dreamt, or if I'm just remembering, like, yesterday.

Sorry for the Tweet Roundups, if you find that kind of thing annoying. I know it's lazy. But I figure since my posting is so spotty around here lately, I might as well fill the space with something. And I'm cultivating my Twitter style. You could call these posts my Twitter Juvenilia.

OK, must read five MA theses by the end of today, starting now.

Good news for those of you in the Northwest Arkansas area: this Sunday night, D will be hosting a Mystery Train night at Fayetteville's new whiskey bar, Smoke & Barrel. See video promo:


Mystery Train: Live @ the Smoke & Barrel Tavern from Derek Jenkins on Vimeo.

See you Sunday.

This is a classic Onion article from 2007; apparently, history is repeating itself.

It Only Tuesday

October 16, 2007 | Issue 43•42

WASHINGTON, DC—After running a thousand errands, working hours of overtime, and being stuck in seemingly endless gridlock traffic commuting to and from their jobs, millions of Americans were disheartened to learn that it was, in fact, only Tuesday.

"Tuesday?" San Diego resident Doris Wagner said. "How in the hell is it still Tuesday?"

( Continued... )

Exactly.

Would it be rude if, every time someone observed that I "don't look old enough to be a professor," I simply observed back that, conversely, they look way too old to serve their chosen occupation?

Just wondering.

Actually, I became such some time ago, I suspect, but I've now created a rolling archive of my own constant archiving in the form of a Tumblog, Luminary Detritus, which comprises links to posts from my three current blogs (the Procrastination Salon, i am daisy mae, and Angels in Machines), my Twitter feed, and whatever random crap happens to catch my attention at any given moment.

Yes, this is what happens when I "work" all day.

So Arkansas is doing that weather thing where it's 78 sunny degrees one day and 34 bone-chilling degrees the next day and I am not even exaggerating for effect, this is actually how warm it was yesterday compared to how cold it is today, and I'm having the kind of day where I can't not take it personally. Walking into work, I tried to go over my mental to-do list and figure out what has already been accomplished this week and what remains to be done, and I remembered doing several things that I hadn't even thought to put on the list, like redeeming a $5 coupon at Nightbird books and making a phone call to someone I know from somewhere and having a breakthrough insight on a conference paper I was writing, and then as I approached campus I realized that all of those things happened in dreams. This was a very disorienting realization, not only because it suggested that my dreams have been overtaken by my mundane life, but also because if my dream-life becomes categorically indistinguishable from my mundane life, then it's going to be very difficult to sustain a realistic sense of which mundane tasks I've actually addressed and completed for actual real.

One thing is certain: I have had neither dream nor actual lunch, and I am hungry.

I also dreamt last night that I couldn't decide whether the midterm exams I'm giving tomorrow are too difficult or too easy, which is the same thing I was thinking about while awake just before falling asleep and just upon waking up, so I'm not even sure what the point of being awake or asleep is anymore.

In other news, it's my mom's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!) and my niece Penny was born this morning (HAPPY BIRTHDAY PENNY!!).

It's Saturday night and I've just downloaded an app that lets me post to LJ from my iPhone. Let the tickertape parade begin.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Can anyone explain to me why I must take time out of my busy Monday to go to Bank of America to discuss INSUFFICIENT FUNDS FEES THAT ARE BEING CHARGED ON A CHECKING ACCOUNT THAT NO LONGER EXISTS???

No. No one can.

I hate that I instinctively flip the light switch every time I enter a room, so that I have to be freshly annoyed each time that it doesn't work.

Also, today my contact lenses are too cold to put in my eyes.

Apparently news of the epic ice storm that hit northwest Arkansas dead-on has made it all the way to Canada. We lost power on Tuesday morning, and we're not projected to get it back until sometime this weekend. Freezing my butt off and with nothing but my iPhone to connect me to the outside world, I've had to record my woeful experience through Twitter and Facebook apps. To wit:

1:07 PM yesterday: Been without power for about 24 hours. All the trees are broken glass.

1:12pm: Eugenia is not enjoying this ass-cold state of emergency, no sirree.

4:04 PM yesterday: Still no power. Tired of camping in my own home. Ready to start drinking whisky out of the bottle.

5:38pm: Eugenia 's husband is trying to make her believe the power will come back on for Lost tonight, but she has doubts.

about 20 hours ago: Finishing Little, Big by candlelight.

11:22am: Eugenia is starting to take the lack of heat and power personally.

less than 5 seconds ago: Last night, drank whiskey and read in the truck with the motor running. This morning, walked into the office for heat and internet.

You may prefer to read Daisy Mae's more articulate account of the past 48 hours, or check out some of the bleak photos of our poor backyard:

Ice Storm, January 2009

It's been a while now since my nerdiness felt like real nerdiness—you know, that socially disenfranchised, painfully humiliated, utterly abjected uncomfortable-in-one's-own-skin feeling. In fact, I think it's been since 1991-92, i.e. tenth grade, when my complete inability to be normal was suddenly called "alternative" and became its own kind of cool. Seriously, nineties geek chic saved my life. But I also think my ability to become an acceptable version of myself circa sophomore year has something to do with the fact that, at that time, I was no longer required to go to gym. Because short of skipping out and smoking cigarettes in the locker room, which I was too wussy to do, there is no way to be cool in gym if you have absolutely no athletic ability whatsoever. Not even donning burgundy lipstick and combat boots, which is how I did it everywhere else. Gym class nullifies even the cleverest attempts at self-deprecation or cynical disdain. You can scoff at girls-vs-boys dodgeball, and be totally right about it being the most insane concept of a pedagogically sound sixty minutes ever, and you'll still get smacked in the face with a red rubber ball. You can laugh at yourself following said smack, and everyone will still be laughing at you, not with you. Gym class is the kryptonite to the rehabilitated nerd's hard-earned social graces, which is why I have avoided not only gyms but all organized sporting activities my entire adult life. In grad school, when begged by my colleagues to participate in a softball league that by definition comprised only fellow geeks (our department's team name was the "Beowulves"), I adamantly stood by my vow that all I would do is stand in the outfield and drink beer. Many excruciating years of P.E. taught me well that gym class and all things associated with it are perfectly designed to do one thing, and do it well: destroy you.

Which might be why, now that I've reached The Thirties, I'm feeling a little tubbier than I'd prefer. I already eat pretty healthily by default (when I get the munchies I eat everything out of the produce drawer, vegetable by vegetable, the guilty part of the pleasure being that I don't bother to make them into a salad), so the only logical antidote is exercise. I thought I'd actually cured my allergy to exercise a while back when I discovered that I like to get on the elliptical machine at the gym, zone out to Britney, and read beauty magazines. Then D recently pointed out that if I never really break a sweat it isn't really exercise. "But it's hard when you sweat, and it's the hard part I don't like," I protested. Nevertheless, I recognized the truth of his observation and realized that I had to choose between the pain of working out—really working out—and the pain of not being able to fit into my clothes. Vanity won over fear of the burn and I enrolled in a Group Exercise class at the university health center.

Yesterday we had our first class. It was led by a young woman who is just one long, lean muscle wrapped in spandex. I positioned myself way in the back of the studio and wondered if I should be concerned about my shorts being dorky because everyone else was wearing capris and yoga pants. That was my first inkling that something was different. The last time I was subjected to a gym class, I knew with excruciating, visceral certainty that my shorts were dorky, even though everyone else was wearing the exact same shorts (we had a uniform, even in P.E.). Whether to be concerned about it was simply not a metaphysical option. Before I could think too much about the shorts situation, though, the instructor began class by warning us that this was going to make us "sweat and hurt." "Especially if you haven't been working out over the break," she said cheerfully, "you're really going to feel this one. You're going to be in pain all week!" I calculated that since I hadn't been working out for sixteen years, I would be in pain for the rest of my life. But her enthusiasm for pain was surprisingly infectious; I was ready to go. She turned up the music and we launched into a 40-minute cardio session, which was basically a non-stop combination of kickboxing and line-dancing moves, all done while bouncing on an imaginary trampoline. I must have looked absurd. I kept kicking the wrong leg at the wrong time and my body simply couldn't make the angles everyone else's did. At several points, I ended up a full 180 degrees off from the rest of the class, facing a wall and wondering what the hell was going on. When, at the conclusion of the cardio and the commencement of the strength training component, everyone assumed a perfect push-up position and began twisting themselves in physiologically unlikely ways, I collapsed on my mat and just started giggling. I was sweaty, exhausted, slightly delirious, and kind of having fun. I felt silly, yet I had no urge to flee. I looked around and saw that the very few people who were even glancing at me gazed not with contempt but pity. And that's when it hit me: I can go to gym class now, because I'm no longer a nerd; I'm just old.

This is a Thing That Is True: Being old in gym exempts you from all standards of athletic competence. It's cute that you're even trying.

I am totally going back tomorrow.

When you find your keys—which have been missing for about two weeks—in a place you've searched at least ten times, does it mean you ... have gnomes? are the object of a conspiracy? are completely insane??

I present the text of the letter I just mailed to Bank of America:

Dear Bank of America,

I wish to close my checking and savings accounts, #------------, immediately. My decision not to bank with Bank of America any longer is due entirely to the bank’s policies of excessive overdraft fees and shady deposit timing. My online account information currently shows that I accrued two $35 fees yesterday because a couple charges posted more quickly than an electronic deposit, and another $35 fee pending as a direct result of the $70 in fees. This is not the first time I have been caught in this bank’s endless spiral of fees, but it will be the last. In the past I have spoken with customer service representatives on the phone who were able to credit bank fees back to me in exactly these circumstances. This time, I spoke with a representative who would not credit them back (I know she is required to say it is “not the bank’s policy,” but since I have received such courtesies in the past, I know “bank policy” is completely arbitrary), and who, in addition, suggested that the reason I accrued these fees is because I am not intelligent enough to count. I suppose I’ve put up with being screwed by your company in the past, but I will not be both screwed and insulted. I am done with you.

I want you to close my account and send me written confirmation, as well as a check for any remaining funds. I will not come in to do this in person as I have absolutely no desire to have any association with your company whatsoever. I am forwarding this letter to both my local branch and the national headquarters. If you wish to communicate with me on this matter, I will put you in touch with my lawyer.

Sincerely,
Lady Z

In addition to my $105, they owe me a goddamn afternoon.

Every time I listen to The Breeders' "Cannonball," I hear the line about the reggae song, "...the bong in this really gay song"—and I can't remember if, back in the nineties, this was my joke or Beavis and Butthead's. (No, I'm not proud.)

Also, from the Adventures in Testing One's Prejudgments file:

At the gym this afternoon, I was working out with my headphones on (Britney to Ting Tings to Stars to The Dollyrots: iTunes Genius really is a genius!), eyes glued to some atrocious VH1 reality show ("Daddy's Girls"?), when a leggy, wide-eyed, blond girl in a pink sorority t-shirt comes up to me and asks kindly whether I'd mind if she changed the tv to CNN. "They're showing Obama's speech on the economy," she explained, a little bit apologetically, but more as if I were, you know, slightly retarded.

Also, from the Because I'm Awesome file:

Last night, D had a craving for both soup (inspired, I think, by the lackluster Tale of Despereaux, which we saw last weekend) and turnips (inspired by...I got nothin'), so I TOTALLY MADE UP this turnip-leek soup, and am amazed at my own genius.

( Turnip Leek Soup )

Okay, I've returned all the paperwork and informed my department chair, so I guess it's officially out.

( News! )

Happy new year!

D and I had big plans for ringing in the New Year at Art Amiss's Blue Masquerade (a.k.a. The Party Where Lady Z Broke Her Dress And Her Wrist Last Year). D put a good 40 hours into the party's video installation (view promo here), and I was looking forward to an excuse to wear sexy shoes. But right now we both seem to be coming down with something throat-itchy and head-stuffy, and we're kind of into the idea of curling up on the couch with hot toddies and a movie for the night.

I think we are officially old.

I have some pretty big news for the new year, but the Internet Announcement will have to wait until after the Formal Announcement. (And NO, it does not involve babies or me having them. You're not going to be an aunt just yet, Emma.) In the meantime, I'll share a couple of recipes, which is a new thing for this blog, but our loved ones totally hooked us up in the kitchen for our wedding so I've been cooking more. D is thrilled.

For Christmas, D and I baked cookies for everyone. I don't eat a lot of sweets myself, but D gave these the household stamp of approval, and my niece and brother-in-law seemed to concur. I used these two recipes:

Carolyn Guinzio's Mom's Toffee Bars

2 sticks butter
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teas. salt
2 cups flour

Cream butter, sugar, yolk & vanilla well (2 minutes). Add salt & flour. Mix well. Spread in greased pan & bake about 20 minutes at 350.

While still hot, put 4-6 Hershey Milk Chocolate bars on top & spread.

sprinkle w/chopped nuts

after they're cool, cut into bars.

[Lady Z's notes: I used Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Bars and chopped pecans.]


Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies from 101 Cookbooks (my favorite recipe blog)

[Lady Z's notes: peppermint bark was extremely difficult to come by in northwest Arkansas. It is a thin slab of chocolate—white on top, milk on bottom—in which is suspended peppermint candy chips. The 101 Cooksbooks lady says you cannot simply substitute chocolate chips and peppermint pieces and I believe everything she writes about food. We finally found gift bags of the stuff and spent over $20 on enough for the recipe. I'm sure you can find it more cheaply on the internet, or if you live closer to civilization in a more densely populated area.]

3 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or unbleached all-purpose flour)
1 cup non-alkalized cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
3/4 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups peppermint bark, roughly chopped
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375F degrees. Position the racks in the middle of the oven, and line baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy, then beat in the sugar until it is the consistency of a thick frosting. beat in the eggs one at a time, incorporating each fully before adding the next and scraping down the sides of the bowl a few times. Stir in the vanilla until evenly incorporated. Add the dry ingredients in 3 increments, stirring between each addition. At this point you should have a moist uniform dough. Stir in the peppermint bark, and optional chocolate chips by hand, mixing only until evenly distributed. Reserve a bit of the bark to sprinkle on top of the cookies after you have dropped them onto the baking sheets.

Drop a heaping tablespoon of dough for each cookie onto the prepared baking sheets 2 inches apart and bake for about 10 - 14 minutes, until very fragrant. Cool on wire racks.

Makes 2 to 3 dozen medium-large cookies.

In making both of these recipes, I took advantage of our absolutely kick-ass new KitchenAid stand mixer and Cuisinart food processor, both from Auntie Irma Nell.

Yesterday we received a magnificent gift from D's Uncle Doug: the Mario Batali Risotto Pan with rice and a cookbook, which I used to make this for dinner:

Spinach Risotto with Arugula and Roasted Tomatoes

6 cups vegetable broth
1 stick unsalted butter
1 onion, finely chopped
2 anchovies in oil
2 cups risotto rice
2/3 cup dry white wine
1 lb. baby plum tomatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
8 oz. young fresh spinach leaves
2 cups fresh arugula leaves
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
freshly grated parmesan cheese, to serve

Heat broth in saucepan. Melt half the butter in another saucepan; add onion and anchovy. Cook gently for 10 minutes until soft, golden, and translucent but not browned. Add the rice and stir until well coated with butter and heated through. Add wine and boil hard to reduce until it has almost disappeared. Remove from heat.

Put tomatoes in roasting pan and sprinkle with olive oil. Mix well to coat and season with salt and pepper. Roast in 400 degree oven for 20 minutes or until slightly collapsed with skins beginning to brown. Remove and put aside.

Return risotto to heat, warm through, and begin adding broth one ladle at a time, stirring gently until all the liquid has been absorbed before adding more. (I'm leaving out the detailed explanation of how to cook risotto rice here, because it is a technique one cannot learn from a book. My dad showed me how to make it when I moved into my first apartment. It is seriously easy and requires only patience. Stand over the stove and stir the broth into the rice one ladle-ful at a time, stirring gently the whole time. It will take about 20 minutes or so and will use all 6 cups of broth.) Just before the risotto is cooked, stir in the spinach and arugula. Taste and season well with salt and pepper. Beat in remaining butter and parmesan cheese.

Cover and let rest for a few minutes. Fold in tomatoes and their juices and serve immediately.

[Lady Z's note: I used an extra anchovy and added a little soy sauce to the broth for flavor. D had never had risotto before and he loved it.]

So there you have it. Lady Z is seeing in 2009 from the kitchen, with Secret News, and a much lesser chance of dancing herself into the emergency room (knock on wood). Happy new year however you're doing it. See y'all on the other side.

It's four a.m. and I can't sleep because I have Picture Pages running through my head.

Curse you, Bill Cosby!!

D and I are having our first Thanksgiving in our own home this year. We're so tired of traveling (and poor) that it seemed ideal to hole up in Fayetteville and use some of our new kitchenware. To that effect, here's the menu for tomorrow:

Roast turkey with stuffing (turkey from Richard's Meat Market, the best market in Fayetteville; stuffing recipe courtesy of "Good Eats")

Mashed sweet potatoes with chipotle (also from "Good Eats")

Braised mustard greens with ham (Sarah Moulton's recipe)

Cranberries (my mom's recipe)

Apple crumble (I don't remember—Paula Deen?)

So, yes, everything I know about cooking I learned from my parents or from the Food Network. And I think that's okay. Although if you believe everything Alton Brown tells you, you'll find yourself scouring your hometown's supermarkets and Wal-Marts the day before Thanksgiving looking for a freaking organic cotton bag to stuff your stuffing in before stuffing it in the turkey, and you will be unsuccessful and have to settle for just stuffing the stuffing in the bird the way people have been doing it for generations. D is a little worried I'm going to poison us all with all this stuffing business but I have assured him that I am armed with two probe thermometers and Alton Brown has shown me how to use them.

D is also making homemade challah right now for my stuffing recipe because we live in a place with no Jewish population and hence no challah. Surreal.

We read somewhere the other day that the reason people call stuffing "dressing" down here is that some women's magazine way back when thought the term "stuffing" was inappropriately pornographic. I think that's awesome.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been having a pretty blecchy week, for reasons both personal and professional not worth going into, and was sitting here privately feeling sorry for myself about the nonstop stream of student conferences I was in the middle of, when one of my students made a point of saying how much she was enjoying our seminar, and another actually gave me a Thanksgiving card thanking me in detail for all the things he has learned from me this semester. I swear to god, it was, I believe, my first actual Hallmark moment. I have been moved right out of my slump into heights of counter-gratitude.

So, as we move toward Thanksgiving week, I'd like to extend a general, heartfelt thanks to all students, past, present, and future, for making my job so extraordinarily gratifying even when it seems like it sucks.

I'd also like to thank Tristram Shandy for being so totally wonderful and always a joy to talk about.

I just had the best weekend of my life. To date.

I'll have fuller albums available once the official photos start coming in, but for now here's some preliminary documentation courtesy of my Aunt Georgia, who took a series of amazing shots.

( Wedding pics! )

Well, readers, I am officially licensed to wed. D and I stood in line at the city clerk's office yesterday and walked out with marriage license in hand. I also bought undergarments to wear with my wedding dress, which, taken all together, makes this thing pretty much a done deal.

Today, D has to finish a piece for the Oxford American, so I'm taking my premarital ass down to Soho for a spa day.

It's sunny and warm in the city and I am so happy to be back in New York. Updating my blog isn't really part of the agenda for the next few days, but I promise to relay any drama and to post a picture or two.

So I'm lying on the couch watching TV, as I am wont to do. And every so often, I watch an ad for the new film "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People," based on the book by Toby Young, which I have not read, and starring Simon Pegg, whom I find extraordinarily funny. These ads have been running for a week or so now. I don't know if I will go see this movie. I might; I might not. I just don't know. But I DO know that every time I see the ad, I get a LITTLE MORE IRRITATED by the fact that the voiceover that says the name of the film at the end EMPHASIZES THE WRONG WORD.

The title of the film, which is also the title of the book, is what we call a "how-to" phrase.

The syntax of this particular phrase is such that, when spoken in the conventional English idiom, the stress falls thus: "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People."

I think I understand why. The words emphasized are the ones that this particular handbook—if it were, in fact, a handbook and not a memoir entitled comically as if it were a handbook, the joke being that no one in his right mind would deliberately fashion himself after this protagonist—anyway, that this handbook targets. What do you want to lose? FRIENDS. What do you want to do to people? ALIENATE THEM. This is, in fact, crucial to the humor of the title, because these are precisely the things that normal, socially competent people do not want to lose nor do to people.

The voice in the advertisements, however, says, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People."

I think I understand why. It is repeating the stress pattern of the first phrase—it turns both phrases into iambs. But this disrupts the sense. It DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. It suggests that this handbook—if it were, in fact, a handbook and not a film titled after a book entitled comically as if it were a handbook—that this handbook would teach you how to focus all those alienation skills on—what?—people. This is a joke that simply doesn't work. A handbook that teaches you how to "alienate people" is funny because it is the opposite of the kind of handbook a sane person (well, by American self-help cultural standards) would buy: "How to Be Nice To People," How to Please People," "How to Win The Hearts And Minds Of People." A handbook that teaches you how to "alienate people" is funny in contrast to what? Books on "How to Alienate Goats"? "How to Alienate Inanimate Objects"? "How to Alienate Aliens"?

No. None of these makes any freaking sense.

Of course, as you are already thinking, I am overthinking this. But the point is that I don't even need to think about it because I SPEAK THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. When I say, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People," my words naturally fall into place: "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People." Iamb followed by trochee. Perhaps "Lose Friends" is a spondee, both syllables stressed evenly. That makes sense too, and it sounds perfectly natural. But I have tried these phrases over and over and not once has my English-speaking tongue naturally uttered "alienate people." Because it DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.

And this is how I am spending my Thursday afternoon.

Thanks for all the sympathy and virtual hugs and cocktails. My last post actually worried my parents a little bit, so I want to assure everyone that my good humor remains essentially intact. Last night I went home from work and cleaned the bathrooms and the bedroom and today I feel much better.

For all my griping about the Catholic marriage-prep weekend, I did benefit from it in some ways. My favorite lesson was on making "life-giving" choices in marriage rather than "life-draining" ones. Surprisingly, this was not the lesson on Natural Family Planning. It was, rather, about becoming aware of how your choices and actions affect other people, and striving to be a positive rather than negative force in other people's lives. As part of this ongoing process, I have begun to categorize everything in my life as either "life-giving" or "life-draining." A clean bathroom is life-giving; a filthy bathroom is life-draining. Having to navigate Bikes, Blues, and BBQ on your way to work is life-draining, but getting to tell your students funny stories about your runs-in with bikers at the beginning of class is life-giving. Waking up to find that your puppy has pooped on the floor is a little life-draining, but puppy kisses first thing in the morning are very life-giving, so the puppy is overall a life-giving element. You get the idea.

Well, while missing Jenny Lewis's set at the end of a very long and trying day and having to settle for the likes of Conor Oberst is life-draining, Jenny Lewis remains quintessentially life-giving, and so I urge you to follow the link below to watch this beautiful video by Autumn Wilde for Rilo Kiley's track "Silver Lining":


Watch video for "Silver Lining"

1. We are planning a wedding. (Honestly, at this point my mother is doing most of the work. But the daily reminders of things that we need to do and things that we need to pay for are beginning to push us to the edge, for all the reasons listed below.)

2. Last week, D's car died on the highway halfway between Crossett and Fayetteville (about 2 1/2 hours from both). Seriously, D was picking pieces of shrapnel out from under the hood. Apparently, the engine just exploded. We'd been in Crossett for a wedding shower so the car was stuffed full of crystal and other fine housewares. And Daisy Mae. D's dad and brother drove up from Crossett with a trailer hitch, drove us and our dog and our fine housewares back to Fayetteville, and turned around and drove the car back to Crossett where it is being sold for scrap.

3. As I believe I have mentioned before, in addition to my regular teaching load, I am directing EIGHT masters theses and sitting on three (maybe four?) dissertation committees.

4. This past weekend, D and I had to drop everything, rent a car (an electric blue PT Cruiser which was, seriously, the most absurd thing ever to hit an American highway), and drive five hours to a Catholic marriage preparation retreat just outside of St. Louis. From 8pm Friday to 5pm Sunday—with two 7-hour breaks to sleep—we did nothing but work on our communications skills, receive less than subtle hints from the presiding priest that we were evil fornicators because we already cohabitate, resist the urge to be nasty about the Natural Family Planning indoctrination, and, I don't know, get with God. We rolled back into town late Sunday night, got drunk, and watched the Arkansas-Alabama game which D had DVRed. The Hogs had their asses handed to them.

5. I am trying to put my book proposal together. I am undergoing my third-year review.

6. Monday morning, when we went to return the PT Cruiser, our remaining car—my '95 Nissan Altima with 150,000 miles on it—wouldn't start. For a while, it's had trouble starting, which up to this point has meant that every once in a while you have to go under the hood and hit something with a hammer until it starts up. This time we had to hit something with a hammer for about half an hour before it worked.

7. D just informed me that he has some Amy Grant song stuck in his head. He said, "It's killing me." Now I have an Amy Grant song stuck in my head. It is killing me.

8. Yesterday, Daisy Mae graduated from Beginning Obedience! She is very good at Sit-Stay and even better at Down-Stay. I am going to frame her diploma.

9. After we left the Canine Connection last night, we were going to go home, feed Daisy, and head to George's Majestic to see Jenny Lewis open for Conor Oberst. I am not a big Conor Oberst fan, but I had decided that it was worth spending $25 each for us to go see Jenny Lewis because she is just about my favorite singer these days and I thought that in the midst of all this chaos it would be rejuvenating to see her live. The Altima, parked outside the Canine Connection, would not start. D banged on something under the hood, in the dark, for an hour, while I tried to start it and Daisy Mae chewed on a pile of unpaid bills in the back seat. It never started. We got a friend to come pick us up and take us home which was very generous of him because he "doesn't like big dogs" and so did not particularly want the new graduate in his truck and when we finally got home we discovered that I had left the keys in the ignition of the abandoned Altima and we were locked out of the house.

10. We sent our friend away because we were about to lose it with each other.

11. D got into the house through the back door. We let Daisy in and she ran out the front door and out into the street and D went chasing after her and some asshole in a Camaro came tearing down our street and D was terrified that he was going to hit Daisy so he jumped in front of the car to stop it and it just tore on around him and I heard all the screeching and yelling from inside and I needed a shot of whiskey to carry on.

12. D was fine. Daisy was fine. We got another friend—one Sweet Voice C, who is a godsend and loves our dog—to come pick us up to take us to the show. We stood in a huge line outside George's listening to Jenny Lewis and her band play her set inside. I nearly lost it and yelled some very unkind things about Conor Oberst until I was informed that the young woman behind us had driven all the way from Kansas just to see Conor Oberst because she loves him so much and I realized that I was a horrible person and made the very Christian decision not to spread my own misery but just to drown it in cheap beer as soon as I got inside.

13. One of the reasons I am leaning on the crutch of alcohol is that my insurance recently increased the co-pay for my anti-depressants to $50 a month which I can't really afford so I've been conserving pills by not taking them as often as I should.

14. We got inside in time to hear the end of Jenny Lewis's set. I drank several Bud Lights and watched Conor Oberst and thought about how overrated he is and all the other ways we might have spent $50 such as a month's supply of Lexapro. We came home and watched tv.

15. Three shows into the first season, it is clear to me that Fringe sucks, and I had really, really hoped that it would be good.

16. Our house is not only an absolute nightmare of untidiness and filth, but apparently infested with fleas. Our feet, ankles, and legs are covered in bites.

17. Now D has to go deal with the Altima in the parking lot of the Canine Connection. I think this will involve replacing the thing under the hood we have been hitting with a hammer and hoping that then it starts because if not then we will have officially become a no-car household. How Green of us.

18. I can't remember the last time I went to the gym.

19. We can't remember the last time we watched a movie.

20. I have to finish my coffee and walk to work.

First day of classes. Lady Z, waiting in line for the office copy machine, attempts to make small talk with those standing around.

Lady Z: So D and I are on day two of the Abs Diet—we're trying to get hot for the wedding.

Secretary: How is that going?

Lady Z: The hardest thing for me is eating high-protein snacks regularly. I'm used to just drinking coffee all day and then wolfing down a plate of spaghetti at night. But now I have to eat protein all day long ...

[Student wanders into the office looking for administrative assistance.]

Lady Z: ... so, it's like, lately I'm shoving nuts in my face at every opportunity. It's exhausting.

[Student turns around and walks out.]

Lady Z: Hmmm. That's really not the kind of thing I should be declaring in the office, is it?

Secretary: No.

Today is the first day of the fall semester and I am in denial.

I haven't completed several of the things I needed to complete before the summer was over, including getting my tan on. Guess it will have to wait for next year.

Daisy Mae has started obedience school and D and I have started a diet-and-exercise regime to try to look less slobby for our impending nuptuals. The next six weeks promise to be ... interesting.

But the biggest news around here is that we think we figured out what Daisy Mae is, and it's really, really cool.

Stay tuned for updates on obedience, wedding dresses, my summer reading list, and everything else BUT my bachelorette extravaganza. (What happens in P-town stays in P-town.)

Recent hiatus brought to you by Lady Z's Bachelorette Party in Provincetown.

If you're wondering about the spotty posting lately, I regret to inform you that the reason is the same as always: Lady Z has actually been too busy to devote a respectable amount of time to procrastination. There is no way, in the three minutes I am currently allowing myself to make this post, adequately to convey how unrestful my summer has been—but here's a brief synopsis:

Since June 30, I've been teaching two classes, with a total of 40 students, every weekday. In one we covered British literature from 1700-1900; in the other, the British novel from Aphra Behn to Jane Austen. I made the students in the latter (and myself) read a novel a week. My friends think I am a sadomasochist. On July 31, D and I flew to Rochester for my grandparents' birthday family reunion. We reunioned. On Monday, August 4, we flew back to Fayetteville. I taught three more days of classes, covering Austen's rewriting of eighteenth-century tradition into the nineteenth-century novel (see Venn diagram:

)

and the whole of the Victorian Empire. On Wednesday, August 6, D ran a screening of the DVD he did for the Oxford American 2008 Best of the South issue (on newsstands now). We drank to his success with friends and editors. The next morning, August 7, also my birthday, I wrote final exams, which my homeless colleague Shelia Collins administered the next day. Why did I not administer them myself? Because as soon as I was done teaching and writing exams, D and I threw a bunch of clothes back in our bags and drove down to Crossett, where some friends picked us up the next morning to drive down to New Roads, Louisiana for a wedding. We stayed in cabins on the False River and drank beer and waved handkerchiefs in the Second Line. Good times. Sunday, August 10, we drove back to Crossett and played with D's 2-year-old niece. Monday—yesterday?—we drove back to Fayetteville, and now—Tuesday—I am reading final exams and papers and entering grades before running home and throwing a bunch of clothes back in a bag before getting in a car with Shelia to drive to Little Rock to have dinner with her family tonight before catching a 6am flight to Hartford, where I will catch a ride to Providence for karaoke before heading to Massachusetts with NKB before heading to Cape Cod for my bachelorette party which will last through Monday unless I fail to survive that long.

Please remember that I am also in the throes of planning a wedding. I field several emails and calls a day from anxious mothers. I deal with the perpetual guilt of avoiding our priest because I'm sure there's something I'm supposed to be doing for him but I can't remember what it is. Thursday I need to carve out an hour en route to the Cape to try on a dress at the Providence Place mall.

So send me whatever vibes of sympathy you can, or don't, because I'm too busy to really accept them right now. My grades are due in an hour and I need coffee and a shower.

This past weekend, D and I traveled to my hometown of Rochester, NY for my grandparents' joint 90th birthday party. It was a blow-out family reunion organized around an incredible Chinese banquet, with more cousins and aunties and uncles than I've ever seen all in one place before. I met clans from California and Beijing for the first time. I ate abalone for the first time. (Abalone used to be over the "too Chinese" food line for me, so this was a form of cultural progress. I still wouldn't try the jellyfish, which D tells me was delicious.) I saw my baby sister Emma, who flew in from London, for the first time in ages. She met D for the first time. Saturday, Emma and D and I stole some time at the end of the night to bond at the hotel bar (big thanks to Mom and Dad, who footed the extraordinary bill, at Dad's insistence, by the way, Mom) and the next thing I know, we're the only ones up to entertain my mom's mysterious cousin Robert, whose flight was delayed for eight hours, so that he arrived post-banquet, as most people were drifting toward bed, only to have to head back to the airport first thing in the morning. It was a mind-scrambling weekend, equal parts fun and drama, but it's left me feeling that I only barely saw my close family before being snatched away by my life again.

While in Rochester, when I wasn't reunioning, I couldn't sleep enough. Now I'm back in Arkansas, facing a last week of teaching and a pile of overdue projects, and my insomnia is back. For several weeks, I haven't been able to sleep through a single night. I thought maybe a long weekend would jag my brain back into working order, but at 4:50 this morning I was wide awake with deadlines and Sufjan Stevens's rendition of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" coursing through my head.

Daisy Mae spent the weekend boarded at the kennel for the first time. D and I missed her like the crazy puppy-parents that we are. She just came trotting into my office from the yard reeking of shit and I can't tell if she's been eating it or rolling in it. I am so not ready to face today.