subscribeSome photos
Saturday July 31, 2010
Yesterday we had some of the best weather in New York City I’ve seen since sometime in June. Low humidity, sunny, breezy, cool. I was inspired to turn off the internet and head out to some of my neighborhood writing spots, but before I did, I grabbed the camera and took a few (dozen) photos. I told myself I’d take some panorama shots of Manhattan from Brooklyn on the next low humidity day because what people say about New York is true — when it’s muggy, there’s a definite haze. Luckily the weather cooperated… and luckily, I figured out how to use Photoshop to stitch panoramas together!
Here’s the noon shot I took from the roof:
Williamsburg Bridge to Empire State Building, July 2010
A non-panoramic shot:
Looking south at the Williamsburg Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, and Brooklyn Bridge; downtown Brooklyn is to the left, downtown Manhattan to the right (including the East Village & farther away, the Financial District)
Then, later, from the pier:
The clouds darkened the image... but they might be the best part.
I love New York. Love, love, love.
And, because I can — Rachel the five month old kitten.
Yep. Lots of adorable kitten right there. (And yes, she has a flying squirrel toy she is intent upon eviscerating one day. My little predator.)
French, my frenemy.
Wednesday April 29, 2009
Foreign languages and I are long-time frenemies. By “foreign languages” I mean languages other than my native of English; by “frenemies” I mean friendly enemies. I claim to speak both French and German, but this is mostly French I am talking about. French and I get on from time to time, sometimes so smoothly as to seem siblings. But most of the time, as much as I want to say I am fluent in any language, really, I’m not. Plain and simple, languages usually hate me. My battle with French was a long one, and it’s one I’m still unwilling to judge. French easily walloped me, but by how large a margin, I’m not sure. Certainly I don’t know French half as well as I’d like, but I have been and can still be a successful tourist in France — thus, did I really get what I needed to out of my language learning? I’m not sure. I’ll never read and wholly understand L’Etranger in its original form, but I can sure as heck dig through it and get quite a bit out of it. When a random French word pops up in everyday use in America, in New York, 9 out of 10 times I know it, and am richer for knowing it. I can pronounce French accurately enough not to embarrass myself. I’m a perfectionist so I always tend to look more on the side of what I cannot do, rather than on the side of all that I have accomplished, but when I try to look on that side I know I’ve accomplished a lot. But is it enough to make me happy?
I was declared “Proficient” in the French language in 8th grade, when I was thirteen. By fifteen, New York State’s Board of Regents declared me almost perfect on their exam with a score of 98 out of 100. So by high school academic standards, I was pretty good at listening, speaking, reading, and writing French. One of the best experiences I’d had in high school French was the speaking part of the Regents Exam. The teacher read a card with a scenario/question and I had to respond and have a mini conversation. The scenario was, in French, that aliens had landed on Earth and I had to go back to the Important People and describe the aliens to them, to answer their questions regarding the aliens — the descriptions of which I had to pull out of my head. Creatively describe aliens in French? It was an awesome exam question and I was utterly thrilled with myself afterward.
Yes, I got excited regarding an exam. Yes, I have been and am a very large nerd.
College French class, however, was a kick to the teeth. I realized then any sort of fluency I’d pretended to was really my own bloated ego’s desire to be seen as having accomplished such a thing as “fluency”, but it was far from the reality. Fluency means you can carry on a conversation. French sputtered and died on my tongue. Fluency means you can write sentences… without halting every two words and skimming through the grayed recesses of dusty memories for that verb tense or that noun. Really, I was barely fluent.
But the difference, by the end of that semester of intermediate — yes, intermediate — French was astounding… when it came to two things: reading comprehension and writing. I am a grammar whiz, and foreign language grammar is no different. Teach me a rule, its corresponding logic in English, and I’ve got the rule down. Teach me a word, however, and I’ll forget it within a day unless it’s repeated with driven intensity into my skull through a song or repeated phrase. (“Un, deux, trios, pretty mama… quatre, cinq, six, I miss you!” or so sings Bryan on occasion; I’ve no idea where it’s from, but it sticks, even to him, the boy to whom no languages stick.)
Reading comprehension was little different from grammar for me; I’d make a lot of educated assumptions based on context and verbs and grammar rules and, provided some key vocabulary was not above my ability, I’d generally get the idea enough to turn around and argue it in an essay. We read Tocqueville and I read Tocqueville and understood it. I thought I’d finally accomplished something with language learning.
Speaking, however, was and is a different matter.
Forget for a moment that I have bouts of anxiety-driven “stage fright.” (I shook with anxiety through every speech I’ve ever given.) Speaking French was hard for me mainly because I am a visual learner and there is nothing visual in my brain about speaking. Call me crazy but I need to see a word spelled out on the page before I can comprehend it if it’s a new word or a homonym or attempted homonyms.The problem with listening and speaking French is that half the entire language, it seems, can be silent at one point or another, or sound like something completely different than what it is. Les pommes rouges, les jeunes filles — you don’t hear the plural except for the pronunciation of “les” (“lay”) thus without catching the signifying article, you can easily mistake a plural for a singular. That was the absolute least of my issues, but it was a big enough one that when I took the AP Exam in French, I knew it was a doomed endeavor. (Before I was sitting in the room I’d managed to convince myself it wasn’t doomed. Let alone the fact that our teacher for it was more or less a buffoon who toyed around with yahoo.fr instead of actually teaching us…)
So any gains I’d made with my French were always hopelessly torn asunder, in my mind, by my inability to be a well-rounded student. Forever doomed to reading and writing it — and what good, I kept thinking, would that do in France?
A lot, let me tell you.
Traveling to France made me feel a lot better and prouder of my ability with French because I realized that being able to read signs, maps, menus, instructions, and the like is half the tourist battle. The other half is having the gumption to follow through, meaning once you read the menu and understand what’s on it, you have to have the courage to attempt to order it from the waiter. Which naturally does involve some speaking and listening, but hey, it’s contextual after that. Thus I spent a few days in Paris alone, learning at least as much as I had in a year of high school French just by reading everything constantly. Even today, I navigated to Yahoo.fr (which apparently comes http://fr.yahoo.com) and I could read and understand the stories on the main page. If not every single word, enough from context, grammar, and photo to get the article. (Thank goodness, too, for cognates, words that look enough like their English counterparts as to help with vocab — like “célèbre”, “musique”, etc.) Heck, one of the headlines on the entertainment French Yahoo page was “La dé-li-rante parodie de “Twilight”… avec un cheeseburger dans le rôle de Bella ! Regardez !!!” Naturally my interest was piqued and I found this video, which was well worth the time spent browsing. Oh, how I enjoy especially the article, which says,
Avec un gros zeste d’humour, un soupçon de moyens et un plaisir sans borne, l’histoire d’amour entre le vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) et l’humaine Bella (Kristen Stewart) se transforme en une folle attirance entre un jeune homme gourmand montant aux arbres et un délicieux… cheeseburger !
Which is so much more enjoyable in French than it would be in English. If you can’t read French, it doesn’t matter — the only important part of that whole paragraph is the last bit, how the satire is the story of a young gourmand who climbs trees and “un délicieux… cheeseburger!” Yes, Bella as a delicious cheeseburger. (Twilight now makes sense! Bella was a cheeseburger all along! Who could resist sitting next to that in biology without having a visceral reaction?!)
So in essence, I can’t speak French, but I can read and certainly enjoy it. A victory? Perhaps. Am I fluent? I still wouldn’t claim to be but I suppose I can be satisfied.
Adventures in Snowland
Friday April 3, 2009
I haven’t posted in an age because of moving into the new apartment — and I’ve been skiing!
Today is our last day in Utah after a week (since Friday the 27th) of skiing at Snowbird. It’s a large, gorgeous mountain in Little Cottonwood Canyon outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s civilized without pretension and really focused on the skiing, which makes it very ideal.
The sun came out long enough to throw a little shadowy contrast on the slope I've just skied down.
This week we’ve had repeated spring storms dumping inches upon inches of powder upon the mountains. There was only one day of sunshine — last Saturday — but all of the rest has been cloudy, windy, and snowy. It’s been good, generally, but tough good, challenging good, not the sort of sit-back-and-ski sort of snow. (But then again, if you wanted that kind of snow, you wouldn’t be in Utah, the place to be for tough, steep, powdery skiing.)
The first year I was here, 2007, was my first encounter with powder. I’d never seen snow on a mountain like it; the east coast’s snow tends to be icy, thin, and oftentimes machine-made. They don’t do any snow making here — they don’t have to. I’ve gone from being terrified of the greens (the easiest slopes) here in 2007 — greens in the west are equivalent of black diamonds in the east — to being able to do groomed blacks out here. My best days are sunny days on groomed trails of all sorts. When the sun is out I am a happy camper.
When the sky is blue and the sun is out, you can see all of the way to Salt Lake City from Little Cottonwood Canyon. It's my favorite skiing weather.
While I know how to ski in powder, I’m not thrilled about it, in general, unless I can actually see, as this week has made even more clear to me. When the visibility is such that the slope in front of me looks uniformly white — when a blurry, cloudy haze makes seeing the pitch of the slope and the quality of the snow upon it impossible — then it’s tough. The easiest way to fall or crash with powder is when you’re going from groomed to powder or powder to groomed, where that consistency changes, and most especially if it’s heavy powder. Powder slows you down, so if you catch one ski in powder and one on the groom you’ll probably go flipping, skidding, or spinning wildly. (The wildest falls we term a “yard sale” when every part of your gear — skis, poles, maybe goggles/hat if you were stupid enough to not wear a helmet — go flying all around.) So when there is bad visibility, it makes it hard and a little scary for even the expert experts.
The clouds here make the light flat, but it's not too bad for skiing. When it's snowing and/or very windy, the visibility is much worse.
When I can see what I’m skiing I can do a lot of things on this mountain, but when I can’t, I start having a panic attack and reverting to the oldest how-to-ski-a-steep-slope lessons (meaning, skiing as perpindicular to the slope as possible and making the turns very sharp), which isn’t a good idea. Especially in powder. Powder, as I know and I am consistently reminded, will provide resistance and slow you down, so you really don’t want to go horizontally or slow down too much, let alone stop, because you run the risk of being stuck up to your shins (or knees, or thighs as we were on Monday with 22″ of fresh powder) in snow the density of which can vary from feathers to thick snowman-making-snow. I don’t like skiing too fast unless I know I’m in complete control of my edges, and that requires (at this point in my skiing experience) a consistent snow surface. I haven’t had enough powder experience to gain that confidence, so I freak out in the thick stuff. Which made this morning — our 8th day of skiing and the morning of our departure — a really difficult morning.
This morning I made it down one long run (about 2,500 vertical feet) and gave up. I fell about 4 or 5 times, catching edges and being surprised as well as intentionally sitting down on the slope when I felt my balance waver. I wasn’t the only one falling either. Every new slope had at least one person foundering through the powder on butt or knees, even the experts who jump through the cliff zones (like Bryan) were falling. Falling once every 2,500 feet is usually my max; more than once and either I’ve had some bad luck or it’s time to go inside. (Like Thursday I fell twice in 2,500 feet, once was my own fault for catching an edge, once because an old man bashed into me and sent my skis flying — I hate when little kids or elderly skiers decide they can handle low light conditions and end up crashing into people.) When I fall too much, and it’s a result of my being sloppy or the stuff I’m doing is too challenging (aka too powdery), then it’s time to go inside. There are a bunch of “rules” we use when skiing, like when your legs are tired and you feel like maybe, maybe you have one run left… that usually means you don’t, and you’re wishfully hoping you do, so it’s time to go in. The last thing you want to be is cramping on the way down; when your muscles don’t react quickly or well you end up getting sloppy, which leads to crashes, high speed, or you risk hurting yourself.
I also tend to get panic attacks on the mountain. They overwhelm and surprise me. Bryan and I have developed a system for figuring out when a panic attack is me being stupid and over-thinking an easy slope or when I am done and it’s time to go in. I have a tendency to over-think everything, skiing included. Bryan and his family taught me sometimes I really do need to stop thinking and just throw myself face first down the mountain (really; you do want to face downhill, even lean downhill, while skiing) and do it. My technical skills are there, and I surprise myself when I discover they are there. Looking uphill at something horrifically steep that I’ve successfully completed is pretty exciting, too. (That’s where the visibility issue can come in; if it’s hard to see the whole vertical when you’re at the top, it’s hard to panic about it but rather approach the slope one turn at a time.) The biggest thing, usually, between me and any tough slope is my own head. Getting over that to the point where I’ll be comfortable on every slope will take time. Every year I do a bit more, challenge myself a bit more. I’ve no desire to throw myself off cliffs, but being able to tackle all of the trails on the mountain is something I’d like to see myself accomplish. In time.
This year we were exhausted early on a consistent basis. Where in years past we’ve stayed out from 9am to 4pm, the whole time the lifts are open, this year we came in at half days or sometime in the early afternoon, or we went out at 11am and came in sometime in the mid- to late afternoon. It’s hard to do a full day out here, though; when every slope is a challenge of powder or low light or when you consider one “run” can be 2,500 or 3,000 vertical feet… you get tired, exhausted, muscle sore, or winded after a few runs. And being from New York, the altitude is another hurdle you often don’t expect to knock you out, but it does hit you, especially if you’re exerting yourself. Seven days of that and it makes sense as to why we were exhausted this morning. It’s really time to get back to New York and reality, as much as we were trying to avoid thinking about it. But now it’s back to reality, and back to work.
Things my studio apartment taught me.
Wednesday January 21, 2009
Living in 400 square feet is hard. Sharing that space with your future spouse is even more difficult. I’ve spent since July 2007 figuring out how to do this despite the fact that I dream of the day we can move into a bigger space — and gripe about the unrealistic sizes/costs of the New York City apartments in films/TV shows set in the city…. But even so this has been valuable. Moving from an admittedly gigantic bedroom I did not share into a dorm room (that I had to share…ugh…) was a special kind of pain. Moving from that into a one bedroom apartment at Pittsburgh rent prices was different. Moving from that to an apartment a fraction of the size of that apartment’s living room was… oh, dear. But as the title of this post indicates, I like to think it’s taught me something. Or many things, all of them being valuable. I am a glass-half-full person. If I wasn’t I’d be mad for several reasons by now. So here’s the rundown of my lessons to live by in a small apartment.
Lesson #1. If there is empty space — horizontally or vertically – anywhere in your apartment, you’re wasting valuable storage real estate.
This includes under desks, on top of bookcases (to the ceiling, people!), on top of dressers, underneath the bed. (Every single square inch of under bed space is currently used. Every single inch.) Under the desk go the printer, file boxes (I file everything quite meticulously), a box for the space heater when it’s not in use, and a little chest of drawers with office supplies & electronic gadgetry. We use a bookshelf near the kitchen for kitchen things — coffee maker, blender, fruit bowl — and a cubby hole storage unit near the entranceway/kitchen for dry food goods, winter hats & gloves, shoes, and my purses/bags. On top of the bookshelf go baskets of various things (candle holders & seasonal items; storage items like bubblewrap & foamy stuff I’ve been collecting to prepare for our move eventually; plastic serveware).
The miracle of today’s storage solutions is that things like baskets, colorful boxes, and patterned bins exist solely for the purpose of storage in plain sight. So long as it’s attractive, you can store anything right where everyone will see it. Really. Don’t think about stashing everything away, especially when you’re going to (with shoes or scarves in winter) use them frequently enough to find pulling them out of closets or under beds a hassle. Just go ahead, store it where everyone can see it.
Lesson #2. Stack. Everything.
Open our kitchen cabinets — they are all cabinet doors, no drawers whatsoever — and you’ll see that it’s packed as tightly as is possible for food to be. Of course that tends to lead to accidents — if you don’t unpack the cabinet when reaching for the tuna, the honey, soup, and tahini come tumbling down. But it’s a miracle what some shelf-shelving (the stackable stuff; undershelf hanging baskets for plasticware & plastic bags) plus some gosh darn OCD ingenuity can do for your kitchen storage space. Our silverware holder sits on top of a seldom-used mini loaf pan. Our fire extinguisher is stuck in the little corner made by stacking 9″x9″ baking pans on top of 9″x13″ baking pans. Every little bit of space in our kitchen is being used for something and if not it’s for good reason. (i.e. I kept knocking the same thing over so many times when it was stored in one location I knew it was time to keep that location clear.)
Lesson #3. Rethink ways to use items beyond their suggested uses.
Bookshelves are not only for books. Turns out books can be stacked 2 rows deep and shelves can be used for stacked organizers for files and papers.
Shelves can be used as locations for colorful storage bins that hold any number of things (shoes, winter accessories) that can slide in and out. DVD shelves can be used for series paperbacks & computer discs/games. Dressers can double as media stands (as our short one does for our television).
A “desk” can become a “dining room table” just as it can then morph into a “computer desk.” (Currently our “dining table” is both multi-purpose flat space, dining table, & computer desk; we are two people with two computers.)
Magnets, magnets, magnets. In the kitchen, a magnetic “bulletin” strip became a holder of pot holders (magnetic hooks are your friends), our swiffer duster (magnetic clothes pin), & recipes. The wall above my desk is also a filing cabinet of important documents, organized through a bulletin board, magnetic board, and dry erase board (an adhesive “for college students” dry erase board that is terrific). Everything important gets tacked or magneted up and the place gets cleaned of old things on a regular basis. If it’s in front of me I always know where it is. The front door, made of fire-proof metal, is also magnetic. Instantly (using the STRONG magnets) holds letters & bills to be mailed, reminders of not to forget things on the way out, coupons, & dry cleaning receipts. We’ve never been late on the rent and I’ve never lost a dry cleaning receipt.
Lesson #4. Boxes (stackable, square or round) are your friend. As are (colored) permanent markers & labels.
Having learned from the kitchen that “stack everything” is crucial, this then requires boxes. Whether they be small kitchen plasticware, recycled shoe boxes, or recycled UPS delivery boxes, one can never have enough boxes. In fact, one should always keep a stack of various sizes (collapsed & stuffed behind furniture) on hand at all times. These boxes, filled & properly labeled) can be stacked to excess in the very tops of closets (go to the ceiling) along the sides of closets (you know, the part on the floor you can’t see because it’s hidden away from the door? Fill it with stacked boxes. With labels.) and everywhere else you can think.
Lesson #5. The smaller the space, the more frequently it needs to be cleaned.
Keep on hand at all times: a hand-held vacuum, antibacterial or pre-moistened wet wipes of various kinds (the all-in-one glass, counter, computer ones? Yes), a duster (preferably one that is not feathered & has disposable fluffy parts), & air freshener (via candle, spray bottle/can, plug-in device, or other method). Believe me when I tell you they have been indespensible to my existence. Perhaps it’s because when it comes down to it I’m a neat freak, or perhaps it’s because we’re people who lead really active and dust-raising lives, but I feel I have to do the cursory clean almost daily and the spring cleaning deep clean every month. Oh, and the air freshener? It’s amazing what having the kitchen share the air as the rest of your living space will do to your nose. Let anything sit in the garbage too long… Ew. (Which reminds me: don’t have a garbage can bigger than what fits the standard “medium” 8 gallon garbage bags (which are hard to find in a city where convenience stores and drug stores value shelf space as much as the rest of us do). 14 gallon? Pshaw. Your garbage will be sitting there for too long if you wait for that big boy to fill. We have a counter-top bin for organic waste (orange peels, egg shells) that gets tied and put in the big bag to be taken the chute, minimizing on scent all around.
Another tip: Clean when the sun hits the apartment. You know there’s a golden hour when the sun hits every [New York] apartment (well, not basement or the really cheap ones). Whenever it is, plan to clean then. The wonderful thing about direct sunlight is that it shows you just how dusty your bookselves are and where the bunnies are hiding under your desk. Cleaning at night with every single light on isn’t nearly as effective at showing you the little things you can easily miss in the quick once-over of the apartment. And you do want to clean quickly and efficiently, don’t you?
Lesson #6. Be realistic about keeping things around.
Every single inch is a treasure in 400 square feet. If you have the luxury of family (aka free and happy storage units) nearby, that’s one thing, but if you don’t, think about everything you’re keeping around. Realistically, will you use it? Will you wear it? Donate, donate, donate, and use your garbage can. Goodwill got to have the shoes & clothes that I couldn’t justify keeping in my closet with its negative space. The local library’s used book shop will enjoy the books I finally make myself donate because I just won’t read them ever again and really, I need the shelf space for the books I will reread. (When I do that, ugh.)
Lesson #7. Strive to keep things in their proper place at all times.
Not only will you remember where things are if they’re always where you expect them to be, but it keeps the floor and all horizontal spaces clear if you put things away immediately. Kitchen counter gets cluttered with dirty and clean dishes — put them in the dishwasher/sink or cabinets. Purses or bags on the floor? Empty them of the important stuff and shove them or hang them where they go. That sweater you wore once that’s still clean and is currently hanging over the back of the chair? Soon the sweater becomes the pile which is then a monstrosity of organization to have to deal with. Prevent the pile and put the darned sweater away immediately. This was the hardest lesson I had to learn and I’m still trying to be good about it. I’m pretty good about emptying bags/purses and putting them away and both Bryan and I got good at hanging jackets/sweatshirts up immediately last year out of necessity.
I can’t wait to move into a bigger place, but “bigger” will probably only be another hundred square feet, if that (though a bedroom door would be lovely). Living in a studio has forced me to be more organized than ever, simply out of sheer necessity, and it’s given me a measure of satisfaction to see how much stuff I’ve been able to pack away by using my proven storage methods of boxing and stacking and cramming. It’s really worked and really… I’m glad we’ve gotten to live here. It has tested our sanity but if we can handle this, we can handle a lot of things.
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