ESCAPISM and other things

I'm an escapist. Very much so. I live in my head as much as I live in the world, especially since I now work from home and hardly ever have any contact with the "outside". I've convinced myself that I don't belong here - not just here in NY, but here on Earth. I belong to another world, perhaps, as the cliche, goes, in another place, another time.

I buy books before I pay my rent or get my groceries. I buy books before a much-needed winter coat, before I make a payment on an outstanding credit card bill. I know where my priorities lie. I know what keeps me alive.

I read because I like traversing other people's imaginations. I write because I take comfort in my own. I like the struggle created by feeling superior and inferior at the same time -- everyone is so ordinary, so many people are caught up with insignifant things; yet I still find myself seduced by this same normalcy and comfort.

I like to dream because I like deluding myself into thinking that I am special. Not merely unique, uniqueness is common enough after all, but special. Special. Rare even among rarities.

When I was ten I fancied myself a kind of superhero with latent powers just waiting to burst forth. When I was thirteen I recruited my whole class into my Galactic Council, complete with staffing plans and manifestos for world domination. I was fifteen before I stopped looking for fairies in the bushes. Seventeen when I stopped waiting for my glimpse of a mermaid. I am almost twenty five and although I have stopped chasing myths every waking second, I still believe in them. Incontrovertibly.

It's an inescapable part of myself, this constant believing in beyonds and beneaths and betweens. I dream because I can, because I want to. I read because stories inject possibilities into an otherwise predictable life. I write because I don't want to be forgotten. And although my dreams are waiting eagerly to crawl into willing ears, I've come to accept that I may never get anyone to stop long enough to listen.

***

A few other Euro pics from a Canadian Scientist traveller we met in Paris.


Taken inside the Eiffel


Taken in a bar on Rue Oberkampf, just a few doors down from where we were staying.

Thanksgiving

An entry about nothing, really.

My body knows that it is, indeed, the Holidays. I gained 7 lbs in the last month. I now weigh 111.5. It's still a little less than what I used to weigh when I lived in Manila, but a lot more than my normal weight here in New York. Bah.

My feast turned out great. My herb butter basted turkey looked and smell and tasted incredible. The roasted potatoes were nice, once they were reheated. The baked pilaf with mushrooms was scrumptious. And cheesecake with homemade caramel sauce was pretty good (the sauce could have been better). It looks like were going to be chomping on turkey and sides for the next week or so.

We watched Harry last night. It was fun. There were a couple of things I wouldn't have done and a couple fo things I wish they did, but the director's entitled to his creative decisions and over all it was pretty good.

I can't wait to see Chronicles of Narnia. When I was little, my cousin Nicky practically forced the series on me. That's really how I got hooked on it. Oooh, I love all my couins!

Hasta. I'm off to the kitchen!

In Preparation of Turkey Day

Problems galore.

1. I haven't done my shopping for the big feast yet and I need a whole lot of things. I need onions and rosemary and sage and broth and mushrooms and flat leaf parsley and cheese and butter and a million other little things.

2. The damn turkey won't unfreeze! It's only a 12lber and we started thawing it Friday night, so by all accounts it should have been done on Sunday and I should already be brining it. But no! It's still frozen rock solid (after FOUR DAYS in the fridge), with only 2 days to go! That means I'm going to have to skip the brining process and do the cold water thaw, which is a bit of a laborious procedure. I don't understand! We didn't have this thawing problem last year!

3. Haven't decided on the dessert yet. Narrowed the choices down to leche flan, cheesecake, and crepes. Crepes are, by far, the easiest to make, but will require last minute cooking. Cheesecake is easy enough, but I'm not sure how much continuous baking our oven can take. And flan, while traditional and reminiscent of my grandmother, is hit or miss with me and calls for a dozen egg yolks!

4. Still in need of one side dish. The first one is going to be the ubiquitous potato dish - probably au gratin or just seasoned and herb-roasted. (We're not mashing them this year because John doesn't really like mashed poatotes.) The second one should be a spinach-arrugula dish, but nothing creamed, because John doesn't like those either. And no salads. Hmmm... I'll think of something...

5. Haven't cleaned house yet and I really should. I should at least re-clean the oven because it's going to be taking a lot of abuse...

Happy Holidays everyone!

Free DISH TV?

When I was little

When I was younger, especially as an adolescent, I often spoke of just wanting the freedom to be me, as if this me was something to which I could aspire. I often thought that if I were me, if the world just let me be me, then everything would be okay and the universe would fall into place. That was the great ambition of my life. To be me.

Just be yourself, we are told. Just be who you are. And yet, too often, who we think we are, well, they're just appropriations -- reincarnations and amalgamations of characters we've seen or heard or read about. The starving artist. The introverted genius. The brainy slut. The wild child. The free spirit. The cool geek. The drifting 20something railing against the world. We become living, breathing stereotypes (and stereotype-hybrids) in an effort to be true to ourselves and who we think we are.

We keep ourselves in our neat little packages, stay under our neat little headings, because we've convinced ourselves that this is how we stay true to who we are. A starving artist will wrestle with his conscience before he decides to join a big production company because he doesn't want to sell out; a wild child will search the depths of her soul before she decides to get married to the man she loves because she doesn't want to change too much; a genius-introvert who throws a fabulous party will always get that nagging feeling that maybe he's trying to become something he's not. And when they finally make the leap, they will pour themselves into that other pre-fabricated mold, as if they had to. They will "overhaul their image" or "reinvent themselves" as if becoming one cancels the other.

We strive to define ourselves in words and neat little titles. We dress and talk and live so that our titles are more recognizable, so that everyone knows who we are, so that everyone can know which particular label we're going for. Artsy fartsy ripped jeans and vintage shirts and ethnic beads and cigarettes. It's a sham.

When they tell you to be yourself, what they're really saying is come, pick an identity. We've got a whole slew of them lined up. In every size under the sun, minor alterations on the house. And look, they even mix and match. Geek, weirdo, dork, bum, Ms. beauty and Brains. Come pick a label to live by. And when you get tired of one, there's always more. More me's to become. That's all.

***

I quit teaching a couple of weeks ago. I realized that I don't really like kids. I don't know what made me think I did in the first place.

So I'm sure they don't get lost

Some random pictures of my trip to Europe with bits of commentary lifted from my journal.

The good pictures *hopefully* are yet to come. (I hope JC still has them.)

So we found ourselves in Brussels en route to Paris from Amsterdam. We left our bags with the luggage-check at the train station and headed out. We really only knew three things about Brussels (yes, how utterly ignorant of us): 1.) that there was a little-boy-urinating fountain somewhere in the city; 2.) that they made waffles and; 3.) that they were supposed to have delicious chocolates. We had no idea where this little boy fountain was. We had no idea where we could get waffles. And we weren't even really sure if we were right about the chocolates (could be some other city in Belgium, for all we knew). So we asked around. We went inside a very POSH hotel, used their, errr, facilities, and asked the staff where the "statue of the little pissing boy" was. They gave us directions, which, for reasons that escape me now, we were unable to follow. Needless to say, we got lost and had to ask practically every other person we encountered where this elusive pissing boy statue was.


Trixie and me in front of Mannekin-Pis (aka The Statue of the Pissing Boy)
I thought it would be bigger.



Eating a Belgian Waffle in Belgium
And lo and behold, there was a waffle stand right beside it. It was a blissfully delicious waffle, I must say. There were little chocolateries near the statue as well. And they all gave free samples which we gobbled up with much greed. Scrumptious. JC started hoarding boxes of the stuff ofcourse.



In the middle of the Grand' Place (still eating my waffle),
aka Grote Markt or Market Square.
If you walk on that same street long enough, you will eventually come upon this landmark (you'll also pass by more waffle stands, more chocolateries, and a few stores with people selling all sorts of plates and wooden shoes). It was a very pretty landmark. Lots of tourists.



An incredibly FUZZY Mona Lisa taken with my trusty camera phone!
The Louvre was an overwhelming place - overwhelming to the point that you fail to give certain masterpieces the reverent awe that they deserve. Oh gee, it's the Mona Lisa. I'll just take a shot of it with my camera phone because I'm too lazy to fish for my real camera from this oversized bag. Oh and I won't even wait to get a clear shot, I'll just click whenever. Bah! (In my defense, the Mona Lisa was a bit of a letdown. I was more interested in the painting that they had positioned opposite it - a MASSIVE painting that took up the ENTIRE WALL. And it was an incredibly LARGE wall at that.)



A (better) shot of Venus de Milo taken with a real camera
I had a little more respect this time. Probably because of the lack of an elbowing and jostling crowd.