Sunday Currently : 6

Well, this past week was a mix of good moments and paralyzing anxiety, and I am glad that I survived in one piece. After my Tuesday/Wednesday Stress Fest, I regained my sanity and was able to refocus on the good things in life, of which there are many! Last night involved birthday celebrations for two friends, and I was able to laugh with my friends who are also going through the application process about how we all lost our minds this week, frantically changing our rankings at the last-minute, and wrestling with self-doubt as to whether we did the right thing. Ultimately, we agreed, we just had to let it go. The rankings are submitted, and now we just wait. Wherever we end up is where we end up, and it will just have to be the right place for us.

Accepting no control is oddly liberating, and I woke up this morning feeling really happy and peaceful. I could feel the warm spot of Molly, our cat, nestled up on my ankle, a refreshing breeze was coming in from the window I had left open, and even though my dreams were fading away, I knew they had been fun ones. I lay there in bed for a few moments, smiling to myself, and I knew that today would be a good day. I love those moments. Sometimes it's not about running around. Sometimes it's about sitting still, listening, and just being.

I just can't get enough of this face!

reading : Well, I finally finished Those are Real Bullets and am glad to report that it ended up being really powerful. I have a bad habit of starting and then not finishing books, and I'm glad that I didn't let myself abandon this one. Now I'm reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Beautiful Creatures. It's impossible for me to have just one book going at a time!

writing : Grocery lists. Our fridge is looking pretty barren right now, and that must change!

listening : To the hubs whistling around the apartment and cars driving outside. 

thinking : About recipes I want to try out. We've been perusing our cookbooks, and I've been making mental notes of what looks good. I sense some olive bread in our future...

smelling : The red currant candle I have on my desk. This one doesn't even need to be lit for it to smell good, but there's something soothing about having a lit candle fluttering next to me that I just love. 

wishing : That I could curl up in bed and just read all day. Luckily, with the exception of our grocery excursion, I think this is exactly what I will do today. :)

hoping : For time next weekend to do more activities around the city. I let myself get a bit lazy this weekend, which is okay, but I also want to make sure I'm using my time in good ways. There are museums to visit and hikes to take!

wearing : My typical uniform of jeans, t-shirt, cardigan, and scarf. Sundays, sometimes you are so predictable. That's okay.

loving : My braids. I've been slightly deviating from my usual ponytail and been trying to French braid my hair back off my face. Today's experiment of a braid into a bun has worked out pretty well!

wanting : To go shopping! I ordered clothes from J. Crew Factory a couple of weeks ago, but I need to make returns and don't want to pay any shipping. Since the nearest outlet requires a car, I'm waiting for a driving friend to make the journey with me. Maybe next weekend?   

needing : To get the hubs a Valentine's Day card. It's hard to believe that it's really almost time for this holiday! 

feeling : Hungry! I'm craving tacos and am predicting a Mexican-themed menu for this week's meals.

clicking : On blogs. I fell a bit behind last week due to Stress Fest, and I'm trying to catch up. Also trying to find new blogs that I might enjoy, which browsing the Sunday Currentlys seems to do quite well each week.

Link up with Lauren!

Nothing to show for it?

Last weekend, one of my friends and I were catching up over breakfast, and the conversation inevitably turned to the possibility of moving, wanting to buy a house or apartment, and how expensive our respective cities are. That New York Times article about the middle class in Manhattan struck a chord with a lot of people I know, and as sobering as it was to read, it wasn't exactly news to any of us. Manhattan is really too expensive for most people to live in, and even Brooklyn, which used to be the butt of sooo many jokes, is getting too pricey. It seems as though you have to be über-wealthy to shake that feeling of just barely getting by.

My friend and I were bemoaning the fact that although we can both continue to scrape by, it will probably always be like that if we remain in the city (NYC much more than DC, but still). At some point we'll want to expand our families, and with that comes the need for something larger than a one-bedroom apartment. Sure, by the time those babies come into our lives, we will hopefully have better salaries, but will it really be enough to cover rent and baby expenses? This started to raise a lot of anxiety about how we should have all of those things, how our former high school classmates who stuck to the suburbs or ventured to other parts of the country have those things, and how unfair it is that we will be lagging behind them just because we live in urban areas.

"I want a house!" I cried.

"I want a lawn," she whispered.

"I want to have nice furniture."

"I want to own something. I'm an adult and have nothing to show for it."

When it came down to it, we both realized that the idea that we should have a house, a husband, and babies by the time we're 30 just wasn't going to come true. Yes, I'm married at 27, but I'm also still in grad school and will just be starting my career in the next couple of years. Even then, the hubs will still be in school, and we'll be in our mid-30s before both of us are (hopefully) working full-time. We chose that lifestyle because we're both big nerds who wanted to accumulate degrees (and, you know, learn things), but it also means that unless we dramatically change our location, there will be no house-owning for at least a few more years.

My friend is also 27, lives in Brooklyn, and is partnered. She and her boyfriend have jobs (hurrah!) in the music industry, so their perspective on being priced out of even Brooklyn was particularly interesting to me. Artists are not exactly known for raking in big bucks, so when they can no longer afford to live in a city that represents mecca for so many creative types, where do they go? More importantly, how will that change artist "scenes" and communities?

I don't think I have the answers to some of these questions. What I do have is the realization that whoever made up the rule that we should be in a certain point in our lives by a given age was totally wrong. Today's reality means that I can't have all the things that I want and feel entitled to, and it will probably be a while longer before the materials around me reflect what I think an adult "should" have.

Yet even that idea doesn't sit well with me. Owning material goods shouldn't make me more or less of an adult. With the internet, it's easy to get glimpses into other people's lives and feel jealous that they have nice houses and go on extravagant vacations, but it seems silly that those things should project them ahead of me in the Adult Game. Why can't my degrees, my happiness, my maturity, and other intangible things "show" my adultness? What if what I have to show for my place in life isn't the same as somebody else's-- is one really better than the other? When it comes down to it, I don't want to feel as though I'm always competing with those around me. The news article made me realize that living in the city forever probably isn't feasible for us, and I need to accept that. It doesn't make me any better or worse, and I need to be open to being responsible over having pretty, flashy things.

I don't know what the future has in store for me. I don't know where the hubs and I will be living, I don't know exactly what type of job I will have, and I don't know if I will ever get the dream house I fantasize about. And that's okay. It's sad sometimes, and it's frustrating most of the time, but it's also okay. Living my life by the standards of somebody else is something I have never wanted to do, and that shouldn't stop now. Keeping up with appearances is exhausting, and I'm going to define my "adulthood" in my own way. It's the only way.

Busy Mind

So today is the day that I have to submit my rankings for the placement I want next year. The deadline is at midnight. For days I had stared at the Post-It list I had stuck on my bookshelf and felt sure in how I ranked the sites I visited. I thought I had it figured out. It was tough, but I felt good.

Then yesterday afternoon I started to feel uneasy. I started re-reading the brochures for my top choices and began shifting my priorities. What started as my #1 choice suddenly was up in the air and being pushed down the list, and my secure #4 took its place. The thought of passing up my first choice was terrible, but I began to think that maybe it wasn't actually the best fit for me and wouldn't give me the training opportunities I wanted. For the next few hours, my emotions went up and down as I shuffled my rankings around and frantically made lists.

Even as I write this, I'm not sure what I will decide. This sucks. It's hard to choose where I want to live next year, and it's hard to know which opportunities will be most important for my career. It's hard to think about passing up a place with a lot of prestige. It's even harder when I don't know where the hubs will be for grad school and whether we'll be together or apart next year.

I don't do well with changes. I get attached to places I love, and leaving them is really hard. The choice to move down to DC for grad school was tough, and I remember panicking when I finally accepted the offer. Even though it turned out to be the best place for me, change is hard. Change means goodbyes. It's hard not to let that color my decision.

It's also hard to give up a dream and to make a new dream. It's hard to accept that what I thought I wanted might not be what I actually want now.

My mind is busy today. There are so many "what ifs" and "should haves." In my heart, I know that any of these places will be good for me, but part of my mind is whispering to me that there is still a right choice and warning me not to mess it up. I am so confused today.

My mind is busy today.

Spicy Vegetarian Chili

When the temperature drops outside and the snowflakes start to fall, it feels so nice to cozy up inside and enjoy some warm comfort food. For me, this is the perfect time to make chili. It's filling, nutritious, and oh-so-delicious. A few months ago, the hubs and I found a great vegetarian chili recipe and have been making it pretty often. I found the original recipe online (here) but have made a few tweaks to suit my tastes.

Here we go:

*1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
*3 gloves garlic, minced
*1 teaspoon chili powder
*1 teaspoon ground cumin
*1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
*1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
*1 1/2 teaspoons honey
*1 can black beans (with liquid)
*1 can diced tomatoes (with liquid)
*1/2 bell pepper, chopped
*1 carrot, chopped
*1 cup corn
*ground beef substitute (I like Trader Joe's brand)

1. In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat and sauté the garlic. Add the beef substitute, making sure to break it up so it crumbles.

2. Toss in half of the chili powder (1/2 teaspoon), half of the cumin (1/2 teaspoon), half of the cayenne pepper (1/2 teaspoon), and the cinnamon (1/8 teaspoon). Add the honey, beans, tomatoes, pepper, carrots, and corn. Give it all a good stir to mix up the ingredients.

3. Cook for 45 minutes, making sure to stir every now and again.

4. Add the remaining chili powder, cumin, and cayenne pepper, and let everything cook for another 15 minutes.

5. To serve, just scoop into bowls. Add sour cream, cilantro, and grated cheese if you'd like. Serves four.

The end result is spicy, but not too much. I actually sometimes add more cayenne for more heat, but that's up to you. If you'd like to make a non-vegetarian version, just cook some ground beef and and add it to your vegetable mixture.

Enjoy!

Sunday Currently : 5

There are a lot of things that can bring a smile to my face in the morning, but looking out the window and seeing that last night's light snowfall is still on the ground is definitely near the top of that list. I'm crossing my fingers for more snow! The temperatures have been so off this year, and it makes me anxious to think that maybe winters are just not going to be what they should be anymore.  All I need is one good snowfall. Please!

To treat ourselves for being done with interviews, my friend and I went to get our nails done yesterday. This was the first time I had gotten a shellac manicure, and I have to say, I am really loving it. It's only been a day, so it's entirely possible that I will ruin my nails before sundown today, but I have high hopes that these will last. I can never get my regular manicures to last for more than two days before they begin to chip, so if this shellac magic pans out, consider me converted.

I just returned from the February meeting of Brunch Club, a tradition that the other ladies in my program started a few months back. The first Sunday of every month, we meet for brunch at a new restaurant somewhere in the city and catch up on whatever we have been up to. Today's brunch at Lavagna was delicious, and as we stepped outside to part ways, it started snowing! We stood there for a while as the flaked fell down, laughing, and energetically recapping our plans for the coming weeks, and I felt so happy. These girls are so special to me, and I am so blessed to share a Sunday with them, as well as the past few years. 

reading : Those are Real Bullets. At first I complained that it's hard to get into, but I have since changed my tune. Once I got into the part of the book that describes the actual day of the march and attack on civilians, I found the descriptions very gripping (and horrifying), and I was hooked. I'm almost done with it now, and I think it will have been a very enlightening book.

writing :  Some blog posts for this week and the rest of the month. I'm trying to schedule ahead of time so that the week feels more relaxed.

listening :   Mumford and Sons! I'm hooked. No apologies.

thinking :   That life rarely turns out how we imagine. So far, that has meant mostly good, wonderful things. 

smelling :   Black beans and garlic. The hubs started a crock pot full of beans and onion at about 5 this morning so that it would be ready for his Super Bowl tacos, and now the entire apartment smells like food. Not complaining!

wishing :  That the snow would stick. I feel a little bit like I'm walking through a snow globe, and as magical as that sounds, I would also love to feel the satisfying crunch of snow underneath of my boots. 

hoping :  That no matter where my friends and I end up next year, we remain close. Friends like these don't come around very often, and I want to hang on to the people who have such a prominent place in my heart. 

wearing :  My trusty J. Crew Minnie pants and bright purple J. Crew Factory v-neck sweater. Comfy, looks good, and I'm ready to roll.    

loving :   My friends! Brunch Club is a treasured time to catch up, laugh, and drink mimosas and Bloody Marys. Of course, it's nice to see everyone in between each "meeting," but when our schedules are all over the place, it gets increasingly difficult to see the people you love. Brunch Club lets us have protected friend time, and I love that so much. 

wanting :  A post-bottomless mimosa nap, but I must hop on the bus in a few minutes to our friend's house to prep for his Super Bowl party. Tacos, chili, and other assorted treats, yum!! 

needing :  To fuel my creativity. Trying out photography has been so much fun, and it has reminded of how much I love the arts and love to watch a project develop. I have made a few attempts to get back into writing short stories and am trying to work up the nerve to finish a few that I started last year.

feeling :  Happy. Oh so happy. 

clicking :  On this. Somebody posted it on Twitter this weekend, and I've been obsessed with it since. If you are part crazy cat lady like me, you will appreciate it. Two words: cat massage.

Happy Sunday, everyone! I hope you are all finding your happiness today. 

Link up with Lauren!

Is there anything better?

Is there anything better than... cashmere socks?

(via)

Is there anything better than... the Les Mis 10th anniversary dream cast?

Is there anything better than... sleepy cat face?

Is there anything better than... colorful rainboots on a gloomy day?

Is there anything better than... looking up at pastel colors in the sky?

100 Best Novels: A Farewell to Arms

In my quest to read the 100 best novels, I decided that my next venture would be A Farewell to Arms. Truthfully, I did not expect to like it all that much. I tend to fall for flowery descriptions and gripping tragedies, and while Ernest Hemingway could hardly be called a comedic optimist, my memories of joylessly reading The Old Man and the Sea in middle school left me thinking that Hemingway just couldn't capture my love the way that Fitzgerald does. I opened up my battered library copy of A Farewell to Arms, sighed, and reminded myself that if I didn't like it, I could just stop reading it.

Then I didn't put it down.

The thing about Hemingway is that he is deceptively simple. By that I mean that his writing can at first seem terse and even dispassionate at times. It's easy to interpret this as being boring and basic. However, after a few lines, something strange starts to happen. Those basic sentences, despite their brevity, start to change shape and describe very intense situations and emotions. He just hints at what is happening beneath the surface, but if you're listening, you soon have a sense of the fuller emotions and turmoil. As I read more and more, I found myself being sucked in to the story of Frederic Henry, an American fighting for the Italians in World War I.

Spoilers below!

(via)

This novel follows Henry as he meets Catherine Barkley, an English nurse, and kind of sort of falls in love with her. At first their interest in each other seems to be driven mostly by a desire for distraction,  and their interactions seem rather superficial. As Henry recovers from a brutal injury and spends more time with Catherine, however, I got the impression that maybe they really did need each other to find solace from the war and from the memory of Catherine's late fiancé. Catherine becomes pregnant, and Henry has to leave to return to the front, leaving the reader to wonder just what will become of the both of them.

The descriptions of the front are quite memorable, not necessarily because they bring to life what it was like to be fighting in the army, but because they highlight the emotion of the war. Throughout the book, soldiers are debating when the war will end, and the men seem so detached from the fighting. They are tired, and they have little more to give. The most powerful moment for me was when Henry and his men get separated from the rest of their unit, and their ambulance is stuck in the mud. Two men refuse to help get the ambulance out of fear of staying in the area for too long, and as they run away, Henry shoots one of them. His fellow solider, the ruthless Bonello, shoots that man in the head, and they leave his body on the side of the road. As they finally rejoin the rest of the troops, the Italians are retreating, and officers are being executed by other soldiers for seemingly meaningless reasons. Henry manages to escape and find his way back to Catherine.

The violence of those scenes really stuck with me. Any rationale for the war that might have lingered was by now long gone. Violence, it seemed, was inevitable, including from Henry, but it was also a violence that had the distinct air of desperation and confusion. Nobody wanted to be fighting anymore, yet they were trapped to continue to do so, anyway.

The true tragedy comes in the reunion with Catherine. Henry is facing arrest for deserting the army, and the two of them manage to escape to Switzerland. By now Catherine is nearly ready to give birth, and they start to construct a fantasy life in the mountains. However, as Catherine nears the end of her pregnancy, she is overcome with a sense of dread about their fates. Sadly, their child is a stillborn, and Catherine dies soon after from complications. The final scene of Henry walking alone in the rain back to their hotel stabbed me in the heart. After all of that, after all they had been through, Henry ends up alone. There is no happy ending here. Death is inescapable, whether on the front or in private lives.There is no hope, no permanent solace from the elements.

A Farewell to Arms was an easy, quick read, and I enjoyed it so much more than I thought I would. It is a sad story, but one that I think is important for how it portrays how people try to make sense and escape from violence and death. It is ultimately heartbreaking, for the characters never truly experience any relief or solace. There are no answers, just the sense that this uneasy tension will continue to persist. It's uncomfortable and sad, and that is what makes this novel an unforgettable one.

"Maybe... you'll fall in love with me all over again."

"Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?"

"Yes. I want to ruin you."

"Good," I said. "That's what I want too."

***

100 Best Novels

1. "Ulysses," James Joyce

2. "The Great Gatsby," F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," James Joyce

4. "Lolita," Vladimir Nabokov

5. "Brave New World," Aldous Huxley

6. "The Sound and the Fury," William Faulkner

7. "Catch-22," Joseph Heller

8. "Darkness at Noon," Arthur Koestler

9. "Sons and Lovers," D. H. Lawrence

10. "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck

11. "Under the Volcano," Malcolm Lowry

12. "The Way of All Flesh," Samuel Butler

13. "1984," George Orwell

14. "I, Claudius," Robert Graves

15. "To the Lighthouse," Virginia Woolf

16. "An American Tragedy," Theodore Dreiser

17. "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter," Carson McCullers

18. "Slaughterhouse Five," Kurt Vonnegut

19. "Invisible Man," Ralph Ellison

20. "Native Son," Richard Wright

21. "Henderson the Rain King," Saul Bellow

22. "Appointment in Samarra," John O' Hara

23. "U.S.A." (trilogy), John Dos Passos

24. "Winesburg, Ohio," Sherwood Anderson

25. "A Passage to India," E. M. Forster

26. "The Wings of the Dove," Henry James

27. "The Ambassadors," Henry James

28. "Tender Is the Night," F. Scott Fitzgerald

29. "The Studs Lonigan Trilogy," James T. Farrell

30. "The Good Soldier," Ford Madox Ford

31. "Animal Farm," George Orwell

32. "The Golden Bowl," Henry James

33. "Sister Carrie," Theodore Dreiser

34. "A Handful of Dust," Evelyn Waugh

35. "As I Lay Dying," William Faulkner

36. "All the King's Men," Robert Penn Warren

37. "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," Thornton Wilder

38. "Howards End," E. M. Forster

39. "Go Tell It on the Mountain," James Baldwin

40. "The Heart of the Matter," Graham Greene

41. "Lord of the Flies," William Golding

42. "Deliverance," James Dickey

43. "A Dance to the Music of Time" (series), Anthony Powell

44. "Point Counter Point," Aldous Huxley

45. "The Sun Also Rises," Ernest Hemingway

46. "The Secret Agent," Joseph Conrad

47. "Nostromo," Joseph Conrad

48. "The Rainbow," D. H. Lawrence

49. "Women in Love," D. H. Lawrence

50. "Tropic of Cancer," Henry Miller

51. "The Naked and the Dead," Norman Mailer

52. "Portnoy's Complaint," Philip Roth

53. "Pale Fire," Vladimir Nabokov

54. "Light in August," William Faulkner

55. "On the Road," Jack Kerouac

56. "The Maltese Falcon," Dashiell Hammett

57. "Parade's End," Ford Madox Ford

58. "The Age of Innocence," Edith Wharton

59. "Zuleika Dobson," Max Beerbohm

60. "The Moviegoer," Walker Percy

61. "Death Comes to the Archbishop," Willa Cather

62. "From Here to Eternity," James Jones

63. "The Wapshot Chronicles," John Cheever

64. "The Catcher in the Rye," J. D. Salinger

65. "A Clockwork Orange," Anthony Burgess

66. "Of Human Bondage," W. Somerset Maugham

67. "Heart of Darkness," Joseph Conrad

68. "Main Street," Sinclair Lewis

69. "The House of Mirth," Edith Wharton

70. "The Alexandria Quartet," Lawrence Durrell

71. "A High Wind in Jamaica," Richard Hughes

72. "A House for Ms. Biswas," V. S. Naipaul

73. "The Day of the Locust," Nathaniel West

74. "A Farewell to Arms," Ernest Hemingway

75. "Scoop," Evelyn Waugh

76. "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," Muriel Spark

77. "Finnegans Wake," James Joyce

78. "Kim," Rudyard Kipling

79. "A Room With a View," E. M. Forster

80. "Brideshead Revisited," Evelyn Waugh

81. "The Adventures of Augie March," Saul Bellow

82. "Angle of Repose," Wallace Stegner

83. "A Bend in the River," V. S. Naipaul

84. "The Death of the Heart," Elizabeth Bowen

85. "Lord Jim," Joseph Conrad

86. "Ragtime," E. L. Doctorow

87. "The Old Wives' Tale," Arnold Bennett

88. "The Call of the Wild," Jack London

89. "Loving," Henry Green

90. "Midnight's Children," Salman Rushdie

91. "Tobacco Road," Erskine Caldwell

92. "Ironweed," William Kennedy

93. "The Magus," John Fowles

94. "Wide Sargasso Sea," Jean Rhys

95. "Under the Net," Iris Murdoch

96. "Sophie's Choice," William Styron

97. "The Sheltering Sky," Paul Bowles

98. "The Postman Always Rings Twice," James M. Cain

99. "The Ginger Man," J. P. Donleavy

100. "The Magnificent Ambersons," Booth Tarkington