Connected at the Heart

"Become Your Dream." -- De La Vega

On my walk to clinic this morning, I passed a small mountain of trash on the curb in front of an apartment building. I usually pretend like garbage on the streets of Manhattan doesn't exist and powerwalk right past it, but today, I actually stopped to examine a dented white bin alongside the heap. There was a fishbowl drawn on it in thick blue marker, along with a fish, a few splashes, and the quote preceding this entry. I honestly can't remember if the piece was signed, but it didn't matter; I'd recognize that artist's work anywhere. (And if you're familiar with the sort of stuff I like to hang on my walls or my beloved "Sometimes the king is a woman" t-shirt, you'd recognize it too.) I've loved his art for years, and stumbling across a piece of it mere blocks from my building made my week.

Those fish are the calling card of James De La Vega, a New York artist who gained fame by covering blank walls, streets, sidewalks, benches, plywood, trash, construction partitions, and any other flat surface he could find with unmistakable quotes and images. Though De La Vega is a prolific artist with an insane amount of technical skill, he is most famous for his line drawings -- simple, quick little monochromatic doodles, usually accompanied by a few words of wisdom. He puts these all over the city for one reason: he wants people to think. He wants people to spot his work as they go about their lives, consider it for a few moments, and see the city, their peers, and themselves a little differently as a result. As someone who has devoted an entire blog to finding glimpses of beauty in everyday events, this is a cause especially dear to my heart.

Home for the Holidays

"New York is lovely in the wintertime, when the sidewalks are white as snow. The buildings, all the people that pass me by, how the smile on his face says he's in love." -- Rosie Thomas

It's a gorgeous weekend in New York City; the streets have always felt different to me during the holiday season, and though it's not even December yet, the anticipation and joy have already spread throughout my beautiful metropolis.

Of course, since I have a sniffle that I'd rather not see bloom into a full-fledged cold (which may be a lost cause since I couldn't breathe in my sleep and have consequently been awake since 5:30AM), I spent this entire lovely weekend indoors in flannel pajamas. Three marginally exciting things happened, though:

"Transformer man, transformer man. Sooner or later you'll have to learn the cause and effect." -- Neil Young

1. I cleaned my grandfather's apartment and, while moving a little side-table, realized that it was far heavier than it should have been. A little investigation led me to find a hidden latch, and a little more investigation caused the entire table to fold open, revealing a 1960s-era Sears Roebuck sewing machine in beautiful condition. It looks like I have a little restoration work in my future.

I also found some Sculpey polymer clay that I forgot I had, which solved the button conundrum from my second-to-last post. I made some buttons last night, then I made a scarf to match them.

"Even that's polite -- the worst pies in London! If you doubt it, take a bite... is that just disgusting? You have to concede it! It's nothing but crusting. Here, drink this; you'll need it." -- Stephen Sondheim

2. I baked a ton of Thanksgiving leftovers -- potatoes, cauliflower, asparagus, two cups of shredded turkey, and some leftover dough -- into a pot pie today, and believe it or not, it didn't turn out half-bad. Maybe I'll work on the recipe and post it one of these days.

"But I've got to stop crying! I'm not going to waste the rest of my life dreaming of a man I can never have!" -- from The Thorn Birds

3. I don't have to look at my hands when I crochet, which is fortunate since I'm a multi-tasker who can't stand to only do one thing at once. This weekend, my crocheting accomplice was The Thorn Birds, a miniseries from 1983 that spans fifty years and details a doomed love affair between a woman and the priest left in charge of her family's estate. He fights an internal war over whether he can ever love God as much as he loves her, she rails against life because she knows he is too ambitious to ever give up the Church for her, and all of it makes for ten hours of insanely good television. (It also made for controversial television in its day, mainly for the scene when he flies halfway around the world, finds her on a deserted beach, throws her down in the sand, and breaks his vow of chastity... repeatedly.) I watch the whole miniseries at least once a year, and as I'm usually a year older and wiser with each successive viewing, it always seems to inspire me in new ways. This year's viewing made me want to sit down and write an epic and meaningful story. Let's hope the impetus is still there when I finally find direction for my tale.

Gratitude

"If I told you that I loved like an ace, then I'd be lying 'cause I've made some mistakes. But I'm trying with perfect faith! When I let you in, I began to win, and now I'm just all gold. After all I've done and the road I've run, I want to thank you. I want to thank you." -- Gavin DeGraw


I'm thankful for early-morning Thanksgiving mass at my high school and late-afternoon debates about genetics, Family Guy, and everything in between that almost always follow them. I'm thankful for family traditions, and even for the gaping slice wound on my thumb (because no holiday in my world is complete unless someone slips with a knife, burns oneself, or falls into the oven). I'm thankful for food, and for having enough of it to be able to use it creatively. I'm thankful for having a roof over my head, even if I complain about it incessantly. I'm thankful for two-dollar subway fares and the men who powerwash the Bryant Park station at one in the morning on a Thursday. I'm thankful for New York City, which is equally beautiful when it's packed and noisy and crazy and when it's eerily desolate (like it was during yesterday's commute). I'm thankful for an office window with a view of the Chrysler Building and a windowless clinic seat with an, um, equally gorgeous view. I'm thankful for cancer research, I'm thankful for my job, and I'm thankful for the contract I signed yesterday that officially changed my status from new hire to full employee. I'm thankful for my quick mind, my calloused hands, my strong back, my flat stomach, my freckled cheeks. I'm thankful for the love I've offered, the love I've received, the love I've made, the love that still awaits me. I'm thankful for the opportunity to find more things to be thankful for today and tomorrow and the day after that. I'm thankful for my ability to use words to express what I'm feeling and thinking, and I'm thankful for the writers and songwriters who inspire me when my own words fail. And I thank you for reading.

Warmth

"Maybe it's the warmer climate. Maybe I'm a smarter primate. Maybe it's the beer I'm drinking. Maybe I've stopped over-thinking." -- Snow Patrol

I crochet and I'm constantly freezing, so I'm always on the lookout for warm things I can make for myself and for my loved ones. (I'm also on the lookout for quick projects, since I'm still not finished with the ugliest sweater ever made and am horrifically bored with it.) Thus, when this adorable handknit "scarflette" showed up on my Google Reader, I knew I'd have to try and make one.

I sat down with a hook, a button, and fifty grams of cornflower blue silk this evening, and a couple of hours later, I had a little scarf that turned out far more adorable than I thought it would. It perfectly protects the parts of my throat that my wool coat leaves bare, and best of all, it fits in my pocket!


Now if only I had a more elegant button for it...

Closing Doors

"When I look at you, he is touching me. I would reach for him, but who can hold a memory?" -- from The Scarlet Pimpernel

My working group scheduled a 7AM meeting for this morning; the sun hadn't yet risen when I walked into clinic at 6:45. I didn't have time to make or purchase coffee before work, so, by 8:30, I was listless, unmotivated, and staring blankly at my computer screen.

In desperate need of a little caffeine therapy, I took a walk to Gotham, one avenue away. I purchased my caffeine fix and began my powerwalk back to clinic, but my pace slowed to a near-crawl after a mere few steps. As is often the case when I'm trying to get somewhere, the majority of the sidewalk was monopolized by a slow-moving couple. Now, very few things on this planet piss me off more than people who break my stride on the streets of New York City, but I couldn't get angry at these two.

Why? This lady and gent were ancient -- so old that they were shrunken and shriveled and barely reached the five-foot mark, with wisps of pure-white hair peeking out from under their hats. They were chatting animatedly with each other as they walked, whispering, glancing at each other with unbelievable fondness. And, most notably, they were holding hands -- even swinging their clasped fingers in time with their careful steps. It took me five minutes to walk one block because I was stuck behind them, but the waves of pure, unabashed love radiating off of the couple warmed my under-caffeinated heart. In light of the beauty of their union, I decided that, just maybe, my general hatred of public displays of affection was due for a little re-evaluation.

I moved to pass the couple as I approached my building, but they veered off towards the front doors along with me. The little old man held the door open for his lady, leading her through the entrance by the small of her back.

He then turned his head, looked me square in the eye, and let the door slam in my face.

PDAs should be outlawed. Outlawed.

Destroyer of Worlds

"I explained that the visual effect of an atomic bombing would be tremendous." -- J. Robert Oppenheimer, via Peter Sellars

I spent yesterday evening in the highest balcony of the Metropolitan Opera House to see the closing-night performance of Doctor Atomic, a new John Adams/Peter Sellars opera about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, the days leading up to the first test shot of the atomic bomb, and the conflicting emotions of the scientists involved in its creation. As a woman with a little opera training and a lot of scientific training, I was ecstatic to see two of my passions merge on stage. Of course, since I was headed to the world's most renowned opera house to see a production composed by an ultra-modern, minimalistic visionary, I didn't expect much nuclear physics to be involved in the production.

Thus, I was genuinely surprised to enter the house and face a white-on-black projection of the Periodic Table of the Elements rather than the usual heavy damask curtain. I examined the familiar grid as I settled into my seat, but something didn't feel right about it. It eventually dawned on me that a few elements -- and the entire actinoid series -- were missing:My companion, a chemist, deduced that the scrim showed the Periodic Table as it looked during the summer of 1945. We picked over the projection, noted what was there and what has been discovered since, became increasingly aware of the knowledge base of the scientists and engineers we were about to meet. When the house lights dimmed, we were already immersed in a singular moment in time, in an era of science before the discovery of francium and promethium, before the threat of nukes hovered over every war, before E=mc^2 was proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Then the curtain rose and the neat grid of boxes was replaced by... a neat grid of boxes. Forty-two boxes to be specific, stacked three high and fourteen across, each covered by a screen bearing the ID card photograph of a Trinity Project scientist. The photos were creased and faded and covered in cellophane tape. Some names were typed, others handwritten, some misspelled and crossed out and re-inked. The names were difficult to read from my vantage point, but Richard Feynman, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, I. I. Rabi, Niels Bohr, Robert R. Wilson, Edwin McMillan... they were all there. The men who dedicated their lives to stretching the boundaries of human thought were each identically posed and encased in an identical little box.

The photographs then rose to reveal forty-two cast members dressed as scientists, one in each cubicle, each armed with a piece of chalk, each madly scribbling unknown equations on the back wall. Over the next three and a half hours, some of them break free from their confines to express human emotion -- Oppenheimer, our Doctor Atomic, takes center stage and becomes almost Faustian in his efforts to balance his dedication to the bomb and his fear of its potential -- but, for the most part, the scientists remain spaces on a grid, insignificant parts of a significant whole.

Ultimately, the opera about nuclear physics becomes an opera about dozens of brilliant innovators who surrender their individual identities to accomplish something for their country. And that opera ultimately becomes an opera about scientists being forced to choose between doing what they know is right for their own edification and doing what they know is right for humanity.

During intermission, I said to my companion, "I've never been so proud to be a scientist, but I've also never been so ashamed to be a scientist." That's because, shortly before the curtain fell on the First Act, when the glowing wire-covered bomb rose away from Oppenheimer to cast a vaguely spherical shadow over half the stage, I realized that, if fate had somehow landed me and my engineering skills at Los Alamos in 1945, I would have made the same choice that Oppenheimer did. Despite being surrounded by discussion of Japanese target cities, possible ignition of Earth's atmosphere, and a new age of destructive power, I would have used every skill I possessed to get "the gadget" working properly. Just because I could.

The opera ends at t-minus-one second, but that one second is stretched into ten minutes of orchestral cacophony that nearly shakes the house with its intensity. The entire cast is bunkered down on stage, unmoving, staring wordlessly into at the audience as the scenery warps behind them. The audience never sees the explosion, but for a brief moment just before the curtain fell, I felt like the bomb.

Milk In A Can

"I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose." -- Woody Allen

The title of this post is pretty self-explanatory, I think. After going years without using canned milk in anything besides macaroons, I had the epiphany of substituting it into recipes in place of heavy cream and now I'm finding more uses for it every day. Here's a pair of them -- the lower-fat vodka sauce I promised last week and a slightly more fatty yet gloriously simple recipe for pistachio fudge minimally adapted from Nigella Lawson.

Vodka Sauce

I love vodka sauce, but for some reason, cream sauces seem to make me violently ill. (Case in point: I've fainted every time I've had risotto in the last eight years.) This recipe is easier on the arteries and easier on the digestive system than any I've ever seen, and it still tastes like good homemade vodka sauce.

½ white onion, minced
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp butter or buttery spread
3 tbsp minced pancetta or prosciutto
½ cup tomato sauce
½ tsp each of tarragon, basil, and parsley
Pinch of salt and black pepper
Pinch of powdered cayenne pepper
½ cup vodka
1 cup (or 1 small can) evaporated skim or 2% milk
¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
Pinch of nutmeg (because, as I learned from the staff at my favorite restaurant, every cream sauce should contain nutmeg)

Sautee the onion and garlic in the butter until the onion is nearly transparent. Add the pancetta or prosciutto (and I like to add a little olive or sun-dried tomato paste here as well, if I have it on hand) and sautee until the meat stats to brown. Add the tomato sauce and all the spices except the nutmeg, lower heat, and bring to a low boil. Once the sauce starts to thicken, add the vodka and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about ten minutes to boil off most of the alcohol. Lower the heat a little more and add the milk in a thin stream, stirring constantly, Heat until the sauce begins to bubble, then stir in the cheese and nutmeg and remove from heat. Serve over one pound of your favorite pasta, preferably something with ridges to catch the sauce. Serves six as an appetizer or four as a main course.


Chocolate Pistachio Fudge
(Adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe)

Chocolate and salt is one of my favorite flavor combinations, thanks in large part to the pistachio and sea salt-encrusted molten chocolate cake served by the Dessert Truck. Thus, even though I wasn't a big Nigella Lawson fan, I couldn't pass up trying this recipe. Needless to say, I'm now a Nigella convert! It's one of things you make, taste, and really can't believe you made yourself. I'm definitely planning on working on this recipe a little bit and passing out boxes of it at Christmas.

Half a bar of Lindt 85% cocoa chocolate
1 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 14-oz can of sweetened condensed milk
1 tbsp butter
1 cup salted pistachios, shelled and crushed

Place all ingredients in a saucepan over low heat and stir constantly until melted. Pour into a wax paper-lined 9" x 13" pan and spread into a thin layer. Allow to cool for about two hours, then cover and refrigerate until firm. Remove from pan, and with a sharp knife, make seven horizontal slices and seven vertical slices to yield sixty-four pieces of fudge.

Early to Bed, Early to Rise

"It's too late for me and Sally. I know her too well. That's why it didn't work out -- by the time I saw her naked, she was already a person." -- Steven Moffat, from Coupling

Usually, my Quotes of the Day are inspired by my blog entries, but today, I'm posting an entire entry inspired by the quote you've just read. Spurred by my Jack Davenport love, I re-watched Series Three of Coupling this weekend. For the uninitiated, Coupling is sort of the British combination of Friends and Seinfeld: a comedic, extraordinarily well-written foray into love, lust, friendship, the battle of the sexes, and how all four intertwine to make life interesting. I highly recommend it if you ever have the chance to watch a few episodes.

The third season of the show focuses on the relationship (or lack thereof) of Sally and Patrick. They start the series interested in each other, but by a combination of confusing circumstances, they remain trapped in friendship mode. They become such excellent friends, however, that they eventually end up in bed together. And the experience is so terrible that it ruins the amazing friendship they've built and screws over their social lives for the next thirteen episodes.

Of course, since this is happy sitcom land, both of them are able to get over themselves and they eventually get married and live a long wonderful life together. But does that sort of fairy-tale ending actually occur in the real world? I can only think of two friends-first couples who have enjoyed a similar fate.

I can't speak from personal experience, either; I've never had a friendship ruined by sex, so I've never had such a friendship miraculously repair itself. I've recently acquired a friendship that has the potential to turn into something worth ruining, though, so I'm giving myself license to wonder as a precaution.

Is Patrick on to something? Is intimacy early in a relationship -- revealing the biggest secret right away and saving all the little ones for later -- really more advantageous than withholding the biggest secret until you have no secrets left to tell? Is it better to constantly long for a walk-off home run, or is it better to hit one out of the park in the first inning and hope your pitching staff can keep the lead?

Sometimes you have no choice; you meet someone you desperately want to "Patrick" but you realize that doing so would be an incredibly bad idea right now. So you elect to become friends. You keep finding more crap in common with each other, you coexist with full knowledge that you'll probably end up in a closet together one day, you long for it to happen but you put it off in fear of wrecking the incredible connection you already possess. And maybe -- and I felt extraordinarily profound when I thought of this on my walk home today -- that's how you separate the wheat from the chaff. If you can share your mind, your body, and, of course, your heart with someone and still find more stuff to talk about at the end of the day, maybe you've got a relationship worth keeping.

The Blues

"Letting go, facing up to the truth that it is time to part. Giving way to the day that well may break my heart. It's not a thing I choose; to win, I have to lose." -- from Jekyll & Hyde

This weekend, I wore my favorite pair of jeans to run some errands. They're Gap boot-cut stretch denim, blue with a greenish wash, size 6 long, faded on the thighs and the back pockets. Those jeans have served me well for close to a decade, through high school and college, through the city and the chemistry lab, through shopping and the machine shop, through living and lounging and learning, through football games and the mating game, through the Freshman Fifteen and the Senior Negative Five that, somehow, also negated two dress sizes.

I've worn them so roughly and so often that the denim is brushed baby-soft and the cut conforms to every curve of my body. I wore them on my bloated days and my skinny days, I wore them to kick around the lab and to mingle at formal events. When the contents of my right front pocket sliced a hole clear through the fabric covering my groin last autumn, I continued to wear them. When that hole ripped and widened to the point where I very nearly flashed passers-by with every step, I sewed it up and continued to wear them.

Then I graduated college. The contents of my closet have shifted in the time since commencement, with dress trousers and blouses and sky-high heels taking places of honor away from my Chucks and tees and, of course, my favorite jeans. Opportunities to slip into my beloved blues and spend quality time with them are few and far between these days, so I relished the feeling of the yielding fabric against my body on Saturday. Then I spun to check out my booty in the mirror -- come on, all women do this -- and noticed that I could see my panties clear through the fabric.

In utter denial, I threw on a shirt long enough to cover my rear and went about my business, vowing to not survey the damage until later that evening. I held out for as long as I could, then, close to midnight, I shrugged out of my jeans and took a look.

The fabric hadn't ripped; it was worn transparent. Too many years of sitting on the stoop and sitting on the sidewalk and sitting on the Steps, I guess. About nine square inches are threadbare; the damage is too diffuse to stitch up. I could try to patch them, but the results would most likely be hideous. Alternatively, I could cut my losses, savor the good years, and toss them out with the garbage.

I washed them, pressed them, and tucked them back into my closet. I'll decide another day.

People Are Alike All Over

"I look like him, I think like him. Same memories, same thoughts, same everything. Except I've only got one heart." -- The Tenth Doctor, after a fashion

Even though I didn't celebrate Hallowe'en, I'll commemorate the holiday with three anecdotes about lookalikes.

I.

My evening walk from clinic to the subway covers 3/4 of a mile, and yesterday, I passed eight Sarah Palins on the way. Eight -- I counted. That's roughly one Palin per 475 feet.

II.

This afternoon, I went to the Herald Square Macy's to pick up a few pairs of Hue microfiber fishnets, my winter hosiery of choice. At the register, my cashier -- a very old, very tiny Asian woman -- examined my credit card and gave a gleeful squeak. "Your surname and my surname are almost the same!" she squealed in a softly accented voice. "You have a G where I have a D!" She then wrote her last name on my receipt, right next to mine, and pointed out the similarity again. I laughed and decided to crack a joke.

"Wow! Maybe we have a common relative a few generations back."
"Yes! I am from the Philippines, but who knows, the Italian mafia may have traveled there at some point!"

I spent the whole subway ride home wondering how the cashier could have possibly equated the geek standing in front of her with Goodfellas.

III.

After several tries, I finally perfected a low-fat, easy-on-the-stomach recipe for vodka sauce that tastes exactly like the real deal. I'll type it up and share it as soon as humanly possible!

IV. (I lied.)

Last week, David Tennant, the sexy hunk of man playing the Tenth Doctor on the awesome long-running BBC series Doctor Who, revealed that he will be leaving the show after this season. The speculation about his replacement has already started, and Jack Davenport, AKA Commodore Norrington from the Pirates of the Carribbean films, Steve from Coupling, the pansy fiancee from The Wedding Date, and/or the dude with the bad American accent from Swingtown, has my vote. Just for the record. Here's hoping.