Once Shy, Twice Bitten

"A friend's not a cheap little phony creep or a jerk trying to make a deal. A friend is a person who, most of all, cares about what you feel. And nothing is harder than learning a friend isn't real." -- Jason Robert Brown

Once upon a time, a prince from a faraway land was riding through the forest when he happened across a beautiful young maiden. She was weeping.

"Why are you crying, o fair maiden?" asked the prince. She showed him her hand, which was mangled and covered in blood. "I was feeding a beast and he bit me."

The prince unsheathed his sword. "Where did he run? I'll slay him!" he roared.

The maiden scrambled to her feet and clutched the prince's robes. "No, don't!" she pleaded, tears forming anew. "He's my friend, and he's been hunted and persecuted for so very long."

The prince gazed into her eyes, moved by the maiden's concern for the savage animal. He pried her uninjured hand from his chest and turned it in his own, examining it carefully. "Your skin is covered with scars. Are they all from him?"

"Yes. I keep feeding him and he keeps biting me."

"Why not just stop feeding him, then?"

"He's a beast, and biting is simply what beasts do. He still deserves kindness. I can't expect him to change his nature for me!"

The prince peered off through the trees. "Beasts can be tamed," he said. "He does have the ability to not bite the hand that feeds him, but he just won't show that courtesy to you." The maiden was silent. "Have you told him how much it hurts when he bites you?" asked the prince.

"All the time."

"Does he promise to stop biting you?"

"Always."

"Does he actually stop?"

"For a while. Then he bites me again. It seems like he forgets that I don't like being bitten. Either that or he doesn't realize how badly he keeps hurting me."

The prince ripped a strip of linen from his hem and began to bandage the maiden's hand with it. "In the faraway land where I was born, friends don't bite their friends," he told her. "Friends detest causing each other pain. You call your beast a friend, but remember: beasts aren't capable of compassion. In fact, it sounds to me like he thinks of you more as a meal ticket than a friend."

He bound off the linen in a perfect square knot, kissed it, and returned her hand with a rueful smile. "I'd tell you that your beast should be the one patching you up right now, but he clearly lacks the thumbs necessary for the task."

The maiden blushed. The prince gazed at her for a moment longer, then turned to mount his horse. "You deserve better than this, my dear," he told her as he gathered up his reins. He gave his steed a gentle nudge and it began to canter away.

With the prince's words fresh in her mind, the maiden sat to contemplate their conversation. She rose again, however, when the hoof beats of the prince's horse ceased. "Oh maiden?" the prince called over his shoulder. "A word of advice... forget beasts. Try for a prince next time." He winked and galloped off.

The maiden never bothered with animals again. And she met many wonderful princes who always treated her with the love and respect that a human deserves. And when the beast inevitably returned to her looking for another meal -- because, after all, he only ever sought her company when he was hungry -- she braised him in wine and baked him into a pot roast.

The End.

The Cumberbatch Effect

“[Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes is] lavishly, wonkily beautiful, 900 feet tall, has a voice like a jaguar hiding in a cello, and would clearly be able to work out in a second what a 15 per cent tip should be..." -- Caitlin Moran, from The Times

"The Cumberbatch Effect" is a phrase my friends and colleagues have heard me use for the better part of a year. I've been promising to blog a definition for most of that time, but life kept getting in the way.

Until today.

The man who inspired the phrase, the incredible British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, is about to get a hell of a lot more famous than he already is. He just snagged a film role portraying one of my all-time favorite literary characters in what's sure to be one of the biggest blockbusters of all time. Thus, I need to put this definition in print so people all over the world have a phrase to describe their emotions when The Hobbit is released and they find themselves oddly attracted to the CGI dragon.

the cum·ber·batch ef·fect

noun: the phenomenon by which an ordinary-looking male is perceived as being significantly more attractive than he actually is due to the deep, sexy timbre of his voice. See also: rickmanssage.

In lieu of an example sentence, I present the following:

Memory

"Oh dear, that was a great mistake! My mind wandered from repenting to thinking it wouldn't have been a sin if [the roles were reversed]. And changing them over has made me realize more and more how I have spoilt the memory... how will I face my wretched future?" -- Dodie Smith

I didn't sleep last night and spent most of my day wandering aimlessly around the upper east side. I was lost in thought, or rather, lost in memory.

One memory in particular was at the epicenter of my thoughts. For one amazing evening, I was bold, I was uncharacteristically reckless but in complete command of every nerve ending in my body, and I enjoyed an enormous payoff for my risk. Between then and now, this memory has mentally fused with other memories -- some more melancholy than others, but all of the intense, hopeful, satisfied variety -- and the resulting web has generated a full range of associated emotions. Now, calling on any of those emotions evokes the memories and dwelling on any of the experiences recalls the feelings.

Last night, as I lay awake, a new memory became ensnared in this particular web. Its similarity to the epicenter memory guaranteed similar mental categorization, but the point-of-view shift evoked the less delicious aspects of my other related experiences. And one by one, as the minutes of the night ticked by, each memory in the web mutated. An appreciative gift became pity. Pent-up longing became boredom. The epicenter memory remained relatively pristine until mid-morning, but it inevitably turned on me too.

I walked and thought and remembered, and by the time I circled back to my own neighborhood, time had been rewritten. I have a completely new set of memories now. And unlike the ones they replaced -- those blessed moments that sustained me during some pretty dark times -- these new ones make me feel terrible. I know I won't be able to call on them to help me through a single damn thing.

Appropriately, between the time I left my apartment this morning and the time I returned this afternoon, James De La Vega had been at work in my neighborhood. De La Vega, a prolific artist who chalks words of wisdom on the streets of New York City, wrote the following message on the pavement a few blocks away from my apartment:

Many of De La Vega's messages tend to repeat -- "become your dream" and "you are your best investment" are two common ones -- but I'd never seen this one before. It's a lot less uplifting than his usual stuff too, which makes me wonder whether his muses intended it for my eyes only today.

Silly Love Songs

"Why can't I let you know the song my heart would sing, this beautiful rhapsody of love and youth and spring? The music is sweet, the words are true. The song is you." -- Oscar Hammerstein

A few weeks ago, Rutila tweeted a "break-up song" for each of the last five years. I liked the exercise and wanted to emulate it, but I had trouble assigning one song to each of my failures in love. (I tend to forgive, forget, and repeat mistakes, resulting in several break-up songs per man. Whoops.) I had even more trouble assigning one song to each year of my life. (I make twenty-track albums each year for that purpose.) Thus, I shelved the project.

This week, I decided to forego listening to a particular playlist or album and just left my iPod on shuffle during my daily routines. And many times during my listening, a song played that, for some reason, reminded me of a man from my past. Some songs represent the beginning of my association with these men and some represent the end, some were assigned immediately and some retroactively, some were just plain stuck in my head while we were together. Whatever the reason, they're irrevocably linked with a certain person in my mind, so much so that I could probably relabel each song with the appropriate man's name and still be able to navigate my music library with perfect ease. When my iPod shuffled to any of these songs, I'd stop whatever I was doing -- even data entry and its associated trance-like state -- and think of him after the first few notes.

I thought the observation needed a playlist. Thus, I dusted off my old 8tracks account and created one this evening. The playlist contains eight songs; they're presented in chronological order, and each song represents a different person. Here's a link to play it, plus a tracklist.

1. Samson -- Regina Spektor

"You are my sweetest downfall. I loved you first. I loved you first."

2. Pirate on the Run -- Pat Monahan featuring Brandi Carlile

"I was perfect for her soul. I was perfect for his heart. And together, we are perfect apart."

3. Forever My Friend -- Ray LaMontagne

"I just think if we keep our hearts together, I just think if we build on this trust that we have for one another, maybe we can make this last a lifetime."

4. The Origin of Love -- Rufus Wainwright

"But I could tell by your expression that the pain down in your soul was the same as the pain down in mine..."

5. Follow Through -- Gavin DeGraw

"All I really want is you, for you to stick around. I'll see you every day, but you have to follow through."

6. I Can't Make You Love Me -- Bonnie Raitt

"Here in the dark, in these final hours, I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power. But you won't. No, you won't."

7. Goodbye Philadelphia -- Peter Cincotti

"Though we may not know it now, things are never gonna be the same. Here on Second Avenue, I tip my old top hat to you. I hope you find somebody who will love you like I do."

8. Holding Out For A Hero -- Bonnie Tyler

"It's gonna take a Superman to sweep me off my feet. I need a hero!"

Scraps

"I was too big for this town. Can't believe that I was only seventeen, a Catholic punk who couldn't wait to scream... but come tomorrow, I'll be leaving this worn-out, worn-down place." -- Peter Cincotti

I'm moving, thus I'm packing, thus I'm paring my possessions down to the bare minimum. Tonight, I sorted through a Rubbermaid bin full of my college papers and notes. I recycled a lot, but of course, I found some interesting stuff -- some great memories, some painful memories, some hilarious exchanges, way too many notes passed during boring classes, and some things that were just plain strange. I ended my evening with a stack of clippings, and I decided to share the best of the best with all of you.

This was a poster from our Senior Fund advertising campaign, designed to appeal to everyone's inner dork. Its other stars included Brian Griffin, an xkcd stick figure, Dumbledore, Master Splinter, Doctor Who, Dark Helmet, Doc Brown, and Lambda Lambda Lambda, among many others.

This was a PowerPoint slide from a presentation I gave about scabies mites. It's the cleverest PowerPoint slide I've ever made and no PowerPoint slide I ever make in the future will ever live up to its awesomeness.

My 2007 Christmas card.

A fun afternoon in Engineering of Body Fluids lecture. I have no idea whose handwriting this is, but it was a pretty typical exchange for that class.

And two whole semesters of that class qualified its students to discuss exactly one scientific topic:

Some doodles that, after lots of hard work, many sleepless nights, and requisite refinements, won five of us an engineering design prize.

Some of our engineering design ideas were obviously better than others.

Another nonsensical design idea, though if Dan and I were actually able to get it off the ground, we could have retired to Hawaii within six months of graduation.

Kim and I thought this made perfect sense at the time, apparently.

My Lab III evaluation. Seems like senioritis had set in by that point, ya think?

My earliest foray into Lichtenstein pop art, doodled on the edge of my junior year schedule printout.

And last but not least, something that still holds true in my world.

Better Sound Through Research

"Oh honey, you turn me on. I'm a radio." -- Joni Mitchell

I had you once. I was so much younger back then, but the songs are old and I'd played them all before. I'd felt bass lines pound through me and I'd soared along with the treble, but I didn't realize how powerful and thrilling the experience could be until I unwrapped you and slipped you in for the very first time.

And god, I didn't know what I was missing. Suddenly, the whole world gained another set of dimensions. Highs climbed higher, lows dipped lower, rhythms resonated through every cell in my body and every crescendo seemed more powerful than the last. I knew our relationship couldn't last forever, that I'd have others in the future and even in the present, but I couldn't imagine ever enjoying an experience as perfect as the one I shared with you. I wanted to hold on to you for as long as I possibly could.

We made beautiful music together for close to two years. Then things began to fray. And split. And crack. I clung to you for as long as I could, desperately trying out every repair I could think of, but deep down I knew our time was coming to an end. You became detached, and after a while, I just couldn't hear a word coming out of you any more.

I cast you aside and I moved on. I jumped from replacement to replacement, but they either hurt me or didn't satisfy me or failed me or flat-out didn't fit. As time passed, I realized that you were irreplaceable.

I resisted for a while -- after all, you could only be returned to me for a steep price -- but I couldn't resist forever. So I made a move and waited for you to arrive.

And all of a sudden, there you were. Your features were the same, but unlike the broken-down wreck I once wished goodbye, you were shiny and new and full of potential. I was afraid to touch you at first, afraid to handle something so perfect with any semblance of roughness, but you connected with the same ease as ever and I relaxed. Then you slipped into me as if you were made to mold to the shape of my body. You began to whisper things I hadn't heard since you left me, and it just felt right. Now that we're back together again, I'm never letting you go.

I wish I can share my happiness with you, readers, but I'm afraid that it's something you'll have to obtain for yourself. I encourage you to do so, and there's no time like the present -- the subject of this blog entry, Bose's unparalleled Triport in-ear headphones, are currently on sale for $89.00.

Someone To Fall Back On

"I know the darkness pulls on you, but it's just a point of view. When you're outside looking in, you belong to someone. And when you feel like giving in at the coming of the end, like your heart could break in two... someone loves you." -- Brandi Carlile

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, mostly because of the food involved but partially for the traditions I practice. I head out to my high school on Wednesday morning, then I have lunch with friends, then I grocery shop, then I go home and start cooking. I finish cooking on Thanksgiving morning, then I have dinner with several branches of my massive Italian family with napping in between. And at some point during those two days, I blog about all of my reasons to feel grateful.

On my drive to my high school yesterday morning, I tried to decide what I was going to write about this year. I was going to stick with an updated version of last year's list, but a conversation with a dear friend inspired me to think outside the box.

As part of our high school's Thanksgiving festivities, my friend was asked to describe a memory from his junior year of high school that makes him feel thankful. Problem was, he couldn't think of anything to share. He had awesome stories from every other year of high school, but junior year stumped him completely. So he called up five of his best friends -- all classmates from high school -- to see if they could suggest any stories, but they couldn't remember anything good either. He then realized that, despite the fact that he graduated from high school over twenty years ago, he still has five high school friends on speed dial... and that's something incredible to be thankful for in its own right.

So this year, instead of providing a laundry list of things to be thankful for, I'm going to focus on friendship. More specifically, I'm going to write about how wonderful it is to be able to care for others and know that others care for you in return.

I'm perfectly aware that I'm not an easy person to get along with. I'm generally kind to everyone I meet and I know enough to find common ground with nearly everyone, but I don't go out of my way to make an effort to get to know strangers. I'm very quirky -- I have an odd sense of humor and lots of obscure interests -- and I lose patience very easily with people who don't immediately understand what I'm talking about when I speak. I'm also not the sort of person who ever puts on any pretenses; aside from what's required for polite conversation, I don't change my speech patterns or censor my conversation for anyone. I refuse to compromise who I am or pretend to be something I'm not to impress someone, either. I've been described as completely unapproachable, and I don't deny that for a second.

And despite all of that, I have a core of wonderful friends who love me. I have friends who laugh at my jokes, regardless of how stupid they think they are. I have friends who listen to my rambling stories and my complaints about life. I have friends willing to taste my more bizarre culinary experiments. I have friends willing to stay up until three in the morning watching obscure German musicals with me. I have friends willing to care for me when I'm feeling ill at work and friends willing to let me crash at their places for a night or a weekend. I have friends who have put up with some incredible crap from me and continue to call me a friend because they like having me around. I have friends who sense when I'm hurting and try to cheer me up. I have friends who defend me and fight for me, even when doing so will cause them endless personal inconvenience.

I'm thankful for all of them today, and I hope they know how much they mean to me.

High School Traditions

"I just can't wait for my ten-year reunion. I'm gonna bust down the double doors. And when I stand on that table before you, you'll know what all that time was for." -- John Mayer

Last Saturday, I spent my evening at my high school celebrating the fifth anniversary of my graduation. I had a wonderful, amazing time in the company of people I love (i.e. the same six people from high school that I still hang out with on a regular basis), and I officially became one of the first alumnae to ever take part in one of my school's legendary all-years reunions. We laughed, we reminisced, and we discussed the traditions that bind all graduates.

My particular group of friends had a few traditions of our own to remember, too. Between wasting free periods on the gym balcony, tap-dancing in the hallways late at night, finding back entrances into locked rooms, injecting theatrical spectacle into religious services, and eating The Big Cookie several times a week, we'd patronize the Flagship Diner.

The Flagship, a dive diner on Queens Boulevard, is not a culinary paradise by any means. It has two things going for it, though: killer matzoh ball soup and a bread basket filled to bursting with fresh, steaming popovers. The popovers are perfection -- crispy on the outside, tender and airy on the inside, and light enough to justify eating about six in one sitting. Even after we graduated, my friends and I would routinely head back to the old neighborhood, visit our former teachers, spend some time on the gym balcony, and head over to the Flagship for soup and popovers.

Saturday was the first time I'd been to my high school in a long time without patronizing the Flagship, and despite the reunion's cocktail hour, open bar, dinner, and dessert, I found myself missing those popovers. A recipe for them fatefully appeared on The Kitchn this week, which inspired me to spend my Friday morning making a batch of my own. I was in the market for popovers a little sweeter than The Kitchn's recipe would provide, though, so I added some sugar and spice to my batter. (I also added some baking powder to aid in the rising process, since I made them in a muffin tin instead of a popover pan.) These should be eaten while they're hot, so make a half-batch if you're dining solo. Leave out the cinnamon, chocolate, and sugar if you'd like to use them as dinner rolls.

Cinnamon-Chocolate Popovers


2 tablespoons butter
3 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar (raw, preferably)
2 tbsp chocolate shavings -- I made these by attacking two squares of Lindt chili-infused chocolate with a microplane grater
1 tsp cinnamon

Melt the butter, then let it sit for a while to cool. (Eggs and milk should also be left out for a little while to warm to room temperature -- gas laws being what they are, the popovers will rise better if the ingredients aren't too cold). Whisk eggs, then whisk in butter and milk, then add salt, flour, baking powder, chocolate shavings, and cinnamon and whisk until just incorporated. Spoon batter into a greased muffin tin (as close to the rim of each cup as you dare) and sprinkle a little sugar on top.

Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 25 minutes. Do NOT open the oven at all during that time, since any escaping heat may cause the popovers to fall. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for one minute, then pierce the side of each popover so the steam can escape. Makes fifteen popovers.

Capturing Castles

"A few hours ago, when I wrote that I could never mean anything to him, such a chance would have seemed heaven on Earth. And surely I could give him... a sort of contentment?

That isn't enough to give. Not for the giver." -- Dodie Smith

I just finished reading my favorite book, Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, for the... Nth time, where N equals anything between a dozen and three dozen. I first picked up the novel during the sixth grade when my school imposed a mandatory half-hour-a-day reading period; it had been collecting dust in my locker for six months, so I decided to give it a try.

A hundred pages in, I thought it was an intriguing enough story. The narrator -- a mature, intelligent, hopeful 17 year-old named Cassandra -- lives in poverty in a derelict castle in the English countryside. Her journal entries (i.e. the text of the novel) speak of the castle, her eccentric family, her beautiful yet stone-dumb sister, and how all of their lives change when two American brothers become their landlords. Simon Cotton, the elder brother, soon establishes himself as Cassandra's intellectual equal and the only person alive who truly understands the way her mind works. Cassandra falls deeply in love with Simon... then he proposes marriage to her sister.

The novel, since it poses as Cassandra's journal, chronicles her interactions with Simon in minute detail, from their first meeting to their final touch. As a result, I too fell in love with Simon Cotton. Together, Cassandra and I dissected his words, thrilled in his kisses, mourned his impending nuptials, resented his fiancee, and dared to hope when the wedding was called off. Then, in the book's last few pages, Simon decided to return to America. I wept as he visited Cassandra for the last time... and then I cheered out loud when he asked her to come to America with him.

Then Cassandra said no and let Simon walk out of her life forever. Why? She recognized that he didn't love her in return and felt that both of them would be selling themselves short by ending up together.

For the next five years of my life, I thought Cassandra was an effing idiot. She found someone who saw the world the exact same way she did and she threw it away out of ridiculous sentimentality! My feelings were understandable, too; after all, I spent junior high and the first half of high school surrounded by immature idiot boys who had nothing in common with me. Ever finding a man as good for me as Simon is for Cassandra seemed like a close to impossible wish, so finding one and then letting him go seemed like downright lunacy.

Between then and my seventeenth birthday, I grew up a little. I learned more about how to critically read and analyze literature, I fell in love a few times only to later recognize it as mere infatuation, and I met a few men who understood my mind and my jokes. Consequently, when I re-read the novel during my senior year of high school, I adopted a new interpretation of the ending. Cassandra rejected Simon because she recognized that she may be in lust instead of in love and she didn't want to pledge her life to an emotion she may grow out of feeling.

I'm now twenty-three years old. In the last seven years, I've learned the difference between love and lust and I've said my fair share of goodbyes. I've also met men as good for me -- and maybe better for me -- as Simon is for Cassandra. I finished I Capture the Castle this morning and cried over the last ten pages just as I always have, but for the first time, I understood why Cassandra rejected Simon. Her feelings for Simon weren't lust and they weren't a crush; when you truly, honestly love someone, you want the best for them even when the best isn't you. More importantly, though, I now understand that Cassandra rejected Simon because she wanted the best for herself. She wanted to spend her life with someone who understood her AND loved her, and honestly, that's the best any of us can ever hope for. This morning, for the first time in N readings, I would have rejected Simon too.

Four on the Fourth

"I wander lost in yesterday, wanting to fly but scared to try. But... if someone like you found someone like me, then suddenly nothing would ever be the same." -- from Jekyll & Hyde

Back in the day, I wrote three blog entries likening the game of chess to the game of love and explained how my playing styles in both games are shockingly similar. In the last of my three posts, I pinpointed the endgame as one of the weaker parts of my chessplay and likened my inability to achieve checkmate to my astonishing inability to seal a romantic deal. Anyway, after umpteen more failed exchanges with a favored opponent, I realized that the sense of frustration I was enduring felt EXACTLY like trying to win a rook-and-pawn endgame under time pressure with the fifty-move mark looming.

"If I see her standing there alone at the train station three stops from her home, I have half a mind to say what I'm thinking. Anyway, I don't know. I don't know." -- Sufjan Stevens

In accordance with the MTA's ridiculous new plans for beating their deficit, the W train is slowly being phased out of service and the Q line is being extended. Thus, I rode a Q into Queens today. It was an odd, odd feeling.

"'Would you like me to do it now?' asked Snape, his voice heavy with irony. 'Or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?'" -- J.K. Rowling

I received The Tales of Beedle the Bard, J.K. Rowling's collection of fables "from the world of Harry Potter," as a gift and read it through in twenty minutes. Yeah, it was interesting and yeah, I love the fact that the title page states that the book was "translated from the ancient runes by Hermione Granger with extensive commentary by Albus Dumbledore," but I wasn't overly enthusiastic about the complete product. J.K. Rowling killed my favorite character in a really crappy way in the seventh book and nothing has really mattered too much since. Could it be that I'm finally starting to outgrow the Potterverse?

"He don't eat no meat? What you mean he DON'T EAT NO MEAT?! Oh, that's okay. That's okay. I make lamb. Come." -- Aunt Voula, from My Big Fat Greek Wedding

For a quick, easy, and delicious lamb marinade, whisk together 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1/8 cup extra-virgin olive oil (or, for an extra kick, an infused olive oil from O&Co), six sliced-up cloves of garlic, half a chopped-up large white onion, 1 tsp dried or 2 tbsp fresh parsley, 1 tsp dried oregano or rosemary, pinch of salt, pinch of pepper. Throw all the ingredients into a large Ziplock bag, shake it up, then throw in 4-8 eight lamb chops, shake it up again, and place the bag flat in the fridge for at least four hours. Grill the chops without brushing off the seasonings. Alternatively, bake the contents of the bag (minus the bag itself, of course) for 30 minutes (which will yield medium-well chops) at 400 degrees. Let chops rest for ten minutes before serving.

Fool's Mate: Part II

(Click here for Part I: Opening Combination)

II. Middlegame


"Though I'd move my world to be with him, still the gap between us is too wide. Looking back, I could have played it differently... won a few more moments, who can tell? But it took time to understand the man. Now at least I know I know him well." -- Tim Rice, from Chess

You shake hands with your partner and both of you take a seat. You make a move, he reacts, you react to his reaction. You keep offering possibilities. So does he. You feed off of each other, more connections are made, more possible outcomes are offered with every response. You fortify your position, refine your focus, and your partner does the same. You watch his movements carefully in search of what he's thinking, what he's longing to do to you. Then, at any given moment, one of you finally strikes. He takes, you take, he takes again, and the exchange continues until the position is spent. You pause, you take a breath. Things slow down. The rules of the game are completely different now and so is the board in front of you, so you must reassess where you stand in terms of both.

Daters call the next phase of this game a steady relationship, but to chess players, it's the middlegame. In both cases, its boundaries are pretty ill-defined and vary from player to player. Some people think the middlegame starts once the textbook opening combination ends, but others, including me, think that the rapid-fire exchange of captures that inevitably follows every opening is the true mark of the middlegame. After this point, both of you have committed to the game, you've exchanged parts of yourself, and you're willing to navigate the new board arrangement together. And though one player may enter the middlegame with a bit of an advantage in terms of captured pieces or position, the players are always on pretty even footing if the pairing is well-matched.

Once again, my middlegame style reflects my personality with astounding accuracy. The middlegame has always been the strongest part of my gameplay because it depends on imagination as much as it depends on strong tactical skill. I have enough tricks up my sleeve to give my partner everything he could ever want in a game, and I can use them creatively enough to keep the game interesting. I'm good at keeping an open, centralized position and moving with both subtlety and decisiveness. All of my exchanges – and the middlegame almost completely depends on smart trades between players – are thought-out and innovative. I'm not afraid to pin pieces, make sacrifices, or surrender position if I know that it will make the game better in the long run. I screw myself over more often than not while playing chess, but it very rarely happens in this phase of the game.

How does the middlegame pan out for Florence and Anatoly? They fortify their positions and defeat Freddie at the World Championship. They complement each other perfectly; Anatoly's love gives Florence the strength to sever all ties with Freddie, and Florence's love gives Anatoly the strength to leave his oppressive government. They both give, they both take, and they both navigate the middlegame with even material and positions. By the time the middlegame finishes, the board is clear of all pieces but a few. The best line of play for both of them seems obvious, but Florence's family, Anatoly's family, Anatoly's career, the national-scale baggage of both players, and, of course, the constant meddling of Freddie complicate matters. When we enter the endgame, Anatoly has a choice to make. He can either remain with Florence at the cost of his perceived honor or give into Freddie at the cost of his own happiness.

To be continued in Part III.

Fool's Mate: Part I

"The game of chess, like the game of love, can be played in an almost infinite number of variations. Some are wins, some are losses, some are draws, and a few happen to end in a stalemate." -- Tim Rice

In my freshman year of college, my University Writing class chose the Iraq War as our collective final paper topic. Since I loathe political discussions almost as much as I loathe current events, I instead wrote a lovely essay comparing warfare to the game of chess. About a third of that paper discussed the use of the game as a metaphor for war as presented in Chess, a brilliant musical written by Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Tim Rice. It's set at the World Chess Championship during the height of the Cold War, and it tells the story of an American player, a Russian player, the woman they love, and their fight for control of each other and themselves. The show explores both battle and the battle of the sexes in terms of tactical chess theory, and while I spent most of University Writing class exploring the former, I've never given the latter its due. It's a pity, really; as a hopeless romantic and former competitive chess player who has experienced wins, losses, draws, and stalemates in both games, I'm an authority on the subject. And since a new concert version of Chess (starring Josh Groban and Adam Pascal) is coming to PBS next year and the song "You and I" has been running through my head on a loop for the past four days for reasons that I won't discuss here, what better time than the present? Like every chess game, this entry will be broken into three parts: the opening, the middlegame, and the endgame.

I. Opening Combination

"The one I should not think of keeps roaming through my mind, and I don't want to let that go. No lover's ever faithful, no contract truly signed, there's nothing certain left to know. But how the cracks begin to show!" -- Tim Rice, from Chess

Every chess game between two experienced players starts with an opening combination. There's no free will when it comes to chess openings -- every move should be made according to historical precedent if a player wants to stand a chance of winning. Thus, every chess student is at some point forced to memorize the most common openings well enough to play them automatically in competition.

Trouble is, there are thousands of openings and many are separated by mere subtleties, all of which determine your opponent's reaction. For example, if both players advance their King's pawns, white moves a Knight to attack black's pawn, and black moves a knight to attack white's pawn, both players are expected to follow the Petroff line of play. If black moves the other Knight and white pushes a Bishop to c4, it becomes the Giucco Piano combination. Move the Bishop out one more square to b5 and both players have committed to the Ruy Lopez opening. If white leaves the Bishop alone and pushes his Queen's pawn two spaces, it's the Scotch Game. Most romantic interactions start this way as well: two people size each other up, they introduce themselves, one offers to buy the other a drink. Accepting it opens one avenue of play, while declining it opens another.

Some people play common openings, some people play rare openings, some play them strictly by the book, some like to innovate. In my tournament days, I favored the sneaky approach and played established versions of uncommon openings. The Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack was my favorite: I would push a pawn to b3 on my first move, fianchetto my Bishop to b2 on my second, and watch my opponent squirm when he had no idea what I was up to. I've always felt that a person's playing style can be ascertained by the way he navigates his opening combination, but maybe that's because my favorite opening represents me so well. I handle the first moments of personal interaction with a potential partner the same way I play the Nimzo-Larsen: I put something subtle and unique on the table and see how he reacts. If he's proactive and builds up his center, we end up with an interesting game. If he plays it safe and defends his Kingside, I almost always win, we shake hands, and we part ways. The opening is like a first impression: it shapes what happens in the rest of the game, but you don't really know who you're playing until after it's over.

In the musical Chess, four games appear almost immediately during the first half of the first act. First, we learn that the World Chess Championship will be played between an American champion and a Russian champion as both governments argue over the awaited outcome. Next, Freddie Trumper, the brash, immature American chess champion, arrives with Florence Vassy, an intelligent and diplomatic woman who has endured the torment of Freddie's company as his lover and tournament second for nearly a decade. Third, we become acquainted with Anatoly Sergievsky, the quietly brilliant Russian chess champion whose conscience battles against his knowledge that he's merely a puppet of his Communist government. Finally, we see the actual series of matches that Anatoly and Freddie play for the title of World Champion -- games constantly interrupted by Freddie's antics, Russian accusations, and dirty play from both sides. However, near the end of the first act, all of these pairings are revealed to be part of the opening combination, mere decoys designed to make the game more interesting. The true opponents in this game aren't the US and USSR, Freddie and Florence, or even Freddie and Anatoly.

In a development that shocked me when I first became acquainted with Chess, our players are actually Anatoly and Florence. They interact as skilled chess masters should during the show's first few songs – they follow traditional opening play, stake and fortify their positions, interact only when necessary. They make all their moves by the book, but as they play, Anatoly begins to appreciate Florence's smart, civilized, nurturing style and Florence can't help but notice Anatoly's quiet intensity and honorable nature. Catalyzed by Freddie's irresponsibility, Florence and Anatoly find that, though they are technically opponents, they can't think of anything they'd rather do than spend time with each other. There's a mutual attraction, but with Freddie hovering close by and the World Championship looming, they enter the middlegame at an impasse.

To be continued in Part II.

Soundtrack of a workweek

"I'll forgive you for what you've done... if you say that I'm the one." -- Gavin DeGraw

My musical tastes usually fall pretty far from mainstream, but Gavin DeGraw owns my heart and my iPod right now. I don't often hear songs with lyrics that feel ripped from my soul, but Chariot, Gavin's superb debut album, features no fewer than nine. The first incarnation of this blog featured a lengthy article discussing the ability of song lyrics to speak one's heart in terms far more poetic than spoken words ever could, and those sentiments haven't changed in the slightest. Maybe I'll rework it and republish it one of these days.

"So before this goes too far, let me tell you what you are: you're amazing, I'm attracted, but I'm totally distracted." -- Gavin DeGraw

I consider myself a decent writer, but I've never even pretended to be a good public speaker or conversationalist. I also consider myself a pretty witty individual, but owing to my aforementioned speaking ineptitude, I always tend to spit out the perfect comeback ten minutes too late. I can be effortlessly funny only when I'm writing or typing; in-person quickness doesn't happen too often. However, I once met a person whose sense of humor was so similar to mine that every word out of his mouth felt like a great set-up, memorable conversations happened organically and entirely too often, I never had to explain myself to him, and he would understand even my most obscure references. For close to a decade, he was in a class of his own. Last week, someone teased me, I snapped back far more quickly than usual, and now there are two.

I don’t want to be anything other than what I’ve been trying to be lately! -- Gavin DeGraw

Out of anger over still being forced to inhabit it at the ripe old age of twenty-two, I cleaned my bedroom today. Every personal object more than four years old that wasn't a book or an autographed baseball got thrown away. It was definitely cathartic and definitely gave me a few more surfaces for book storage, but it didn't solve my desperate need for closet space. My house was built in the '20s -- back when people didn't have more than a few outfits apiece -- and the closets are designed accordingly. I think I might get rid of my desk, get a smaller one, and put a freestanding closet in there, so if anyone sees anything good, let me know.