Just popping in on a breezy evening to tell you about two wonderful dining experiences I’ve had recently, because lord knows food and friends feed the soul, and mine is currently feeling pleasantly full.

Last night Ross and I had our first dinner guest over to the apartment since the acquisition of our third and fourth chairs for the dining table — which was convenient because it meant everyone had a place to plant themselves while we consumed prodigious bowlfuls of a very successful rendition of Hainanese Chicken Rice. I could tell you that we made the meal in a manner vaguely resembling the recipe shown on that page, but that would be a big fat lie, and if I were to tell you the strict truth then the words “rotisserie chicken from Shaws” and “chicken rice seasoning in a bottle” might be involved. I was, however, extremely proud of the accompanying soup I made — basically a clear chicken broth with vegetables in it, but its flavors were given an unexpected shot of clarity thanks to the addition of three large grains of coriander and ginger salt from Christina’s spice shop. Salty and fresh. I could drink that soup every day.

The elegant CT, whose perfectly shaped eyebrows I envied all evening, joined us for dinner and a delightful conversation, the major topic of which I will not divulge because if I did it would be a betrayal of confidence and terribly rude and she would probably become my mortal enemy for life and who could blame her? So all I will say is that it was about SYOB SYOB SYOB.

(That, my friends, is code. Highly secret code that will take you long years of computational training to decipher.)

The other gustatory revalation I had was lunch with Cathie this afternoon, which if I am to be honest I was a little nervous about. Cathie is not only one of the most brilliant teachers I have ever had, she’s also someone I’ve secretly wanted to be friends with ever since she opened her mouth in the first minute of my first class at Simmons, because she’s incredibly smart, very funny, and completely fearless. In fact, I think she totally rocks. But she also presents as a somewhat intimidating personality and it’s not easy to feel sure about whether or not she actually enjoys your company. Plus, we’d never had lunch alone together before, I haven’t really spoken to her since I graduated, and I knew I’d probably have to talk about teaching at least a little bit, as well as address the question of what I think is going to take its place in the grand scheme of my life. But I wore my dragonfly earrings for good luck, and they must have worked because we had a long, lovely lunch over Thai food and beers at Brown Sugar. My next goal is to get her drunk enough to give a piano recital (she’s taking lessons! Go Cathie!). Think that’s doable?

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Update on the Ongoing Crusade to Be A Useful Person: I talked to someone from here today and it looks like when I get back from the road-trip I’m going to add yet another volunteer job to my life — this time working to organize campus book drives at area universities to raise money for international literacy projects. It’s not as glamorous as direct-service work, but on the plus side, I’ll get to boss people around, which is always fun. (Wait, did I say “boss people around?” Just kidding. I meant “faciliate volunteer committee meetings.”) And if that wasn’t enough, I also got an email from someone at a hospice center today telling me that she’s going to run a training series in Charlestown this fall (I wrote to her a few months ago because I wanted to volunteer, but their training sessions were too far out of Boston) — and am I still interested?

Yes. Yes, I am still interested. I am also interested in taking a hip-hop class and going back to choir next month and learning Portuguese and occasionally hanging out with my husband, but god help me, I am still interested. Jenn, this is all your fault.

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In my beginning I find my end; a note on food to close this entry because I’m feeling more than just emotional fullness, thanks to a luscious treat Ross and I just made ourselves. I just want to you know, so you can be dreaming of it, that the next time you come over here for dinner, you are going to receive for dessert a hot, fresh shot of espresso poured over two big scoops of good vanilla ice-cream.

Which in my opinion is something that is very, very good for the soul.

I keep forgetting to link to this brilliant Honda ad for a better diesel engine, featuring wacky animated rabbits, the voice of A Prairie Home Companion, and a completely unstoppable whistly tune that has stayed in my head for the past week and I’m actually happy about it.

The ad only aired in the UK, I guess because they don’t sell that engine here.

I rearranged my entire room last night because a new piece of furniture wouldn’t fit where I thought it would, and now it feels like a totally different space — I love it. I have Ross to thank, because I was crumpled in my chair weeping the frustrated tears of I-just-spent-an-hour-building-my-new storage-cubby-thingy-with-actual-nails-and-screws-and-I-missed-a-step-so-it-looks-weird-
but-that’s-ok-but-what-am-I-going-to-do-NOW-it-is-TOO-BIG-to-go-next-to-my-desk-my-
life-is-a-travesty, but he up and hauled everything around and now I am a happy typer. My whole desk area is so organized, in fact, that I made a list of five things to do today and every single one of them has now been checked off. Good lord, list-checking is satisfying, isn’t it? Except when you’re morbidly depressed, like I was in January, and in your masochistic and unbalanced quest for self-improvement you make lists that say things like,”Wednesday: Memorize the geography of the United States.”

Anyway, one of the things on my list was to scan and upload the first batch of pictures from a set of vintage photographs that I bought on Ebay. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them, if anything, but gosh they’re fun to look at. There’s something curiously uplifting about gazing at the faces of people long dead, their expressions made artificially stern by long exposure times and complete ignorance of the concept of candid photography. I decided to sort out the pictures by subject, and the first batch — comprising portraits of young boys — can be found here.

This face is my favorite by far, even though there are older and weirder pictures in the collection. He reminds me of one of the kids I used to teach — oh, the memories. Sure, I threw that particular student’s breakfast into the trash towards the end of our relationship and he threatened to kill me, but there were extenuating circumstances on both sides.

As the sun fades into evening (we were just noticing yesterday how dark it was at 8pm — these really are late summer days), I leave you with two of my best boys catching some light while walking back from a hard afternoon’s work helping to set up the stage for the Zeitgeist’s new production on Saturday. The thing I like best about this picture is the fact — which went unnoticed while I was shooting — that Ross has an antenna growing straight out of the top of his head. Sort of detracts from his air of studied cool.

Sounds good. Tastes pretty good.

Produces very weird burps an hour later.

And they said my time off from work wouldn’t be productive! Hah!

Well, if they had said it they would have been wrong. Look what beauty I can — wreaght (what on earth is the present tense of “wrought”?) — with only 20 minutes, a few magic markers, an old pair of sneakers, and a high tolerance for marker fumes! See how original and edgy I shall be from now on, wearing my one-of-a-kind-creation and giving no thought whatsoever to the fact that verily, I am a married woman of 26 with an honest-t0-goodness job and have no right to be coloring in my shoes like an urchin! A very cool urchin.

Anyway, apart from several volunteer gigs (I’m going to help set up a stage for a the-AT-trical perFORmance on Saturday!) and a whole lotta reading, the truth is I haven’t been all that useful or creative. However, today something happened that gave me fresh hope.: I read five or six truly dreadful short stories by Diana Wynne Jones. I mean, they were awful. At first I couldn’t bring myself to admit how stinky they really were, because I love her and I very much wanted to enjoy the beautiful hardcover copy of her book that I had spent sixteen hard-earned dollars on — but then I realized it was actually a sign. A sign that I really am allowed to produce reams and reams of dreck when I write, and that whenever I think, “Gosh darn it, this story is really quite putrid,” I can then cheerfully think, “But not as putrid as the stories in that book by Diana Wynne Jones, each of which she somehow convinced an editor to print — and none of which prevented her from going on to write and publish far, far better things.”

Of course, this was a truth that I had already known. I know it’s just dumb fear and laziness that keeps me from writing, and I know that at least the fear is something I can overcome. But it was still nice to get the message from good old Ms. Jones. Thank you, dear! Thank you for sometimes being a terrible writer!

In other news, my sister doesn’t know it but she’s about to become a guest contributor. I wanted to share with you the following extraordinary list (almost McSweeney worthy!), from her last email to me:

Words Asher can pronounce with little to no garbling:
Mama
Daddy
Bird
Dog
Book
Papa (grandpa)
Por Por (grandma)
Nai Nai (gabe ’s mum)
Jie Jie (gabe ’s sis)
Door
Bottle
Car
Go
More
Yes
No
Bath
Duck
Play
Plane
Poh Poh - Hippo
Bear
Ball
Bowl
Gone
Nani (aunti Perjaiji chose to be called that)
Nana (uncle Praji chose to be called that)
and much more!!

Words Asher is pretty sure he can pronounce but really everyone else is just humoring him because he’s so darned cute:
Fow wah - Flower
Ra Ra - Laura
Ti - Auntie
Chee - Tri
Pattle - Apple
Pittle - Hospital
Nah more - no more
geh down - Go down
Mang - Fireman
Bung - Bang
Kung - watering can
Moo - Moon
Tah - Star
Bah moo - Balloon
and LOTS MORE.

That’s my boy! He is so going to be a leximaven when he grows up.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a second shoe to beautify.

P.S. Sorry I haven’t replied to your email yet, Rani. I promise a response won’t be long now that I’ve shamelessly exploited it for my evening’s entry.

I am so close to the final word of this; I can taste it. I can hear Simon Prebble’s measured, cultured voice speaking it in my ear. The only question is, what will it be?

For afterwards, Middlesex is waiting in my ipod for me.

ETA: Darkness.

We went to see the Publick Theatre’s production of Arcadia on Saturday evening, and had a very picturesque time. The theatre (which I spell that way in deference to their chosen pretension, not because of the lingering muscle memory in my fingers — and so I recall that I have not yet written my entry on my philosophy of spelling) is an outdoor performance space, complete with deep blue night sky for backdrop, the smell of cloves floating through the air during intermission, the sound of crickets and planes overhead competing with the actors’ voices, the threat of rain drenching the scenery, and complimentary bugspray for the audience if they want it.

It was really beautiful. I’d never read or seen Arcadia before, and I wasn’t at all prepared for how funny, clever, and moving it was. Like Copenhagen, which I also loved, it’s a play that tries to manifest scientific and mathematical concepts through human interaction (and extended exposition); unlike Copenhagen, the characters in Arcadia don’t seem to be acting in service to the theories they talk about. The play also sets up a wonderfully ambiguous and playful tension — which isn’t really a tension — between the pursuit of scientific knowledge and the pursuit of artistic expression.

Too much talking. There are five more performances over the next three weeks — go see it!

*******

I called Sean on Saturday to give him the smackdown for not coming to my wedding (and to invite him to come to dim sum the next day), but then it turned out that I had to give him the smackdown for moving out of the state and not telling me, too. ;-) Poor Sean. He’s just moved to bumblefuck Georgia to start a brand spanking new Masters program in Very Old Languages and The Things That Were Written In Them, and he’s kind of having a miserable time of it so far. So I could only be righteous for so long before I cracked and gave the boy the tea and sympathy he deserved. Well, really just the sympathy. I’ll send him the tea in a care package. Sarah, how far away are you from Athens, GA? Close enough to commiserate with a fellow transplant to the South?

In any case, after a great (and quite justified) moan over not being able to join us for dim sum on Sunday, Sean did recommend a restaurant that he said we should go to, which is why Ross and Peter and I spent most of our late morning and some of our early afternoon today waiting outside Hei La Restaurant in Chinatown for a cranky woman with a microphone to say the words we were dying to hear: “Lup sat bat! Lup sat bat!” (68, our magic number.) Since they were apparently seating people in order of the size of their group, and we were a tiny dim sum eating party of three, we had to endure the heartache of sitting helplessly while numbers as high as 69, 72, 87, and, god help us, 98, were called. It was a long and hungry wait. Sadly, I was forced to eat Ross’s left forearm in the interim.

Still, the jasmine tea was fragrant, the siew mai was oily, and the company was very fine — so it all worked out in the end. (Ross only needs one hand for chopsticks.)

That’s all for now. Send good thoughts to Peter, who’s starting a thrilling internship with a NY judge next week, and Courtney, who’s looking for a thrilling job in the same genre. Go, lawyers in my life! Go do good!