Golden Poo

"Are you sad because you're on your own? No! I get by... with a little help from my friends." -- Lennon/McCartney

I pride myself on knowing a lot of stuff about a lot of different things. I'm well-read and well-educated, I'm familiar with many subject areas, I can hold a decent conversation with many types of people, and I have a head filled to bursting with many random facts. Thus, it's very rare for me to find myself in a place or a situation where I'm totally out of my element.

Well, it happened last weekend.

After two days that fit every possible definition of "homecoming," I found myself wandering around Chinatown. It's something I've done countless times before -- I've traversed Canal Street, ventured into Pearl Paint, eaten dim sum, and browsed the wares of the street vendors pretty regularly for years. However, I'd never been to Chinatown accompanied by actual Chinese people... and, accompanied by Q and DW, Chinatown was a whole new world.

They led us to places I never even knew existed -- streets that barely looked like New York City and shops that contained no English signage whatsoever. We went to a grocery store selling live frogs in a garbage can. I became acquainted with dried shellfish, and I'm still not sure if it requires rehydration or if it's eaten as is. I waited on line to buy dried udon noodles and briefly panicked about whether I could use US dollars for my purchase. We had Vietnamese for lunch and I didn't know how DW's coffee pot worked. Q took me to a bakery to get some buns I once tried, but all I remembered about them was that they had sweet yellow filling and that description basically fit everything in the display case. We went to an underground shopping mall filled with plush depictions of bear excrement. ("Golden poo" is allegedly a symbol for good luck, but no one knew why.) I pointed at what I thought was an endive and was told that it was actually a torpedo vegetable. I then pointed at a vegetable that looked like a carrot, asked what it was, and was told that it was a carrot.

We continued to wander, deeper and farther into shops and streets that I never knew existed, and I truly began to feel as if I had been transported out of New York and onto a different planet. Despite my cultured upbringing, the obscene amount of time I've spent with my Chinese friends over the years, and all of the reading I've done during the course of my life, I was totally clueless about everything. I felt incredibly ignorant.

Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we stumbled upon a pocket of Little Italy. Q decided that she wanted sfogliatella, we stopped into an Italian bakery... and and all of a sudden, my world once again made sense. The sights, the smells, the biscotti in the window and panettone boxes hanging from the ceiling all felt comfortable and familiar to me.

We approached the counter. One of my companions pointed at a display case, turned to DW, and said, "Ooh, have you ever had a cannoli?" I'm not sure how he answered; I was too stunned to listen. Have you ever had a cannoli?! What kind of a question is that?! In my world, asking someone if they've ever had a cannoli is like asking them if they've ever breathed oxygen or if they've blinked at least once today.

I then realized that I was the only person in the crowd with any Italian blood, and that my companions probably weren't weaned off the bottle onto cannoli like I was. And then my entire day made sense. I wasn't ignorant -- I just have a different cultural identity than the one I happened to be facing. And I'm lucky enough to have an open mind and friends willing to help me fill it. All in all, it was a pretty amazing afternoon.

The Lure of the LBD

"I've got a new interpretation and it's a better point of view: while you were looking for a landslide, I was looking out for you. I was looking out for you. Someone's looking out for you." -- Brandi Carlile

This weekend, I drove out east and spent my Saturday morning at the mall. I made a few insignificant purchases, but they don't matter -- today I'm writing about the item I could not buy.

On my way back to the parking lot, I paid an obligatory visit to my favorite retail chain and spotted a gorgeous black dress. Do I really need another black dress? Nope. Is this particular black dress entirely too fancy to wear to work? Yep. Do I have more important ways to spend my money than on another fancy black dress? You betcha.

But god, this dress was perfect. Soft, stretchy, plain and tailored but with interesting origami-like folds snaking across the front. I knew the hem would graze my knee in exactly the right place, the seams would hug my curves to perfection, the neckline would make my chest look twice as shapely as it actually is. I had to have it.

I wandered around the store for twenty damn minutes searching every rack, shelf, nook, and cranny for the dress, but aside from the one on the mannequin's back, I couldn't find it anywhere. So I went to bother my favorite fitting-room attendant.

"Hi. I'm looking for that dress."
I pointed. She chuckled and shook her head.
"Honey, the whole world is looking for that dress. We have one left in a size ten."

Damn. No worries though; I work within walking distance of two more stores and one of them was bound to carry it in my size. Right?

I visited one of them after clinic today. Wandered around, located a rack of the dresses, found three size eights and a twelve, learned that the store was sold out of their entire stock except for those left on the floor and wouldn't be restocking any time soon. The attendant suggested that I try the other store but didn't offer to call ahead for me, so I headed towards Lexington Avenue and started walking south.

On 62nd St., a cab pulled over to the curb, the door opened, and an older lady slid her legs out and leaned back to collect her bags from the seat. Half a block away, an approaching cyclist shouted "Watch out! Watch out!" and sped towards the cab's open door. The woman turned and looked, but she wasn't fast enough -- instead of slowing down or (gasp) steering around the cab, the cyclist crashed into the open door at top-speed and fell off his bike. The cyclist screamed at the lady, the lady screamed back, the cab driver honked.

I know, I know -- that anecdote has nothing to do with my quest for the dress. It didn't seem like a good omen, though.

I went into the second store in search of my dress and -- surprise -- they carried a size two and a size zero petite. They wouldn't be restocking any time soon, either. I spent a good five minutes staring at the size two, debating whether I should try and wedge myself into it, before a sales associate approached me.

"Excuse me? I'm sorry, but I just wanted to say that I love your boots."
"Thank you." I moved my coat aside so she could see the cut of the leather and the little buckle near the back of the knee. "I got them at Bandolino."
"Bandolino? Where's that?"
"These came from Bloomingdale's, but I think there's a store on Madison, near 42nd Street. Shoe Woo across the street carries the brand too."
"Thank you so much! I have to go look for them." She blinked. "So can I help you with anything here?"
"Yes, actually. I've been to three stores looking for this dress in a size 4, but I can't find it anywhere."
"Well, you won't find it in any stores, I'm afraid. That dress is close to sold out everywhere."
"Damn."
"But... I actually have a 4 on the rack in the fitting room. The stitching on the front is torn -- some woman who was definitely not a size 4 tried to squeeze herself into it and ripped the dress -- but you can try it on for size and order it from the website if it fits you."

I tried it on. It was every bit as gorgeous as I thought it would be and it's due to arrive in five business days.

And in other news, this is my 100th post on Literatura Mundane. Many thanks to those of you who are still reading!

A Lesser Babka

"What are we going to do now?! If we can't get the babka the whole thing's useless!" -- Jerry Seinfeld

I had dessert in my favorite bakery this evening, and after I settled my bill, I decided to buy some pastry for the road. I waited in line with the intention of purchasing a particularly delicious-looking chocolate babka I had been eyeing in the window all evening. Then, when I approached the counter, a woman appeared out of nowhere, cut in front of me on line, and ordered my babka. She left, I repeated her order, and, as luck would have it, she had nabbed the last one right out from under me. With no babka alternatives, I left empty-handed.

As someone who can quote whole episodes of Seinfeld from memory, this was one of the most thrilling things that has happened to me in a long time.

Comfort Food

"Just give me a chance to hold on. Just give me something to hold on to. It's so clear now that you are all that I have." -- Snow Patrol

I just finished preparing my favorite meal -- baked fish with roasted potatoes and string beans -- and since it's elegant, delicious, and ridiculously easy to prepare, I thought I'd share it with you all. I used mahi mahi today, but tilapia, flounder, sea bass, and even salmon also work. I get all of my fish from the freezer section in Costco -- each serving is individually vacuum-wrapped and the quality is first-rate, believe it or not. My Italian bread was semolina, but I've used whole wheat and white with delicious results.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Prepare the potatoes and put them in the oven first, then prepare the fish while your potatoes are roasting, then prepare the string beans while your fish is in the oven. Dinner serves four and will be ready in one hour.

Roasted Potatoes

4 potatoes, scrubbed
1/4 cup chicken or vegetable broth
Spice of your choice -- sage, thyme, parsley, and chili all work, though I used paprika today
Olive oil, salt, and pepper

Cut each potato in half lengthwise, then cut each half into slices approximately 1/2-inch thick. Place in a 9x9 baking pan (or a pie pan, or anything you have that snugly fits the slices) and toss with salt, pepper, a drizzle of olive oil, and whatever spice you chose to use. Pour broth into the bottom of the pan and bake for one hour, turning every fifteen minutes.

Buon Pesce

4 fish steaks, thawed, rinsed in salt water, and dried
A good three-inch-thick chunk of crusty Italian bread
2 tbsp Smart Balance or butter, melted
5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tbsp dried parsley or 2 tbsp fresh parsley
Juice of half a lemon, plus four slices from the other half
Olive oil, salt, and pepper

Cut the bread into cubes and throw it into a food processor with the butter, garlic, and parsley. Pulse until crumbly. Coat the bottom of a 9x9 baking pan with olive oil, then squeeze in the lemon and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange the four steaks in the pan, then flip them over so both sides are coated in seasonings, olive oil, and lemon juice. Spoon breadcrumb mixture atop each fillet and top with a slice of lemon. Tightly cover in foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and the lemon slices and bake for an additional 10-20 minutes, until the crust browns and the center of the thickest piece of fish flakes.

Sauteed String Beans

Four handfuls of fresh string beans, washed with the ends snapped off
Two cloves of garlic, sliced
Olive oil, salt, and pepper
Dash of balsamic vinegar

Blanch the string beans in boiling water until they reach your desired level of softness. (I like my string beans al dente, though you may like to go softer.) Heat a large skillet, then sautee garlic in olive oil on low heat until it begins to brown. Add string beans, salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar, quickly toss until coated, then remove from heat and serve.

Brainy Specs

"Aw, and out they come! The brainy specs! You don't even need them! You just think they make you look a bit clever!" -- The Tenth Doctor

I got my first pair of eyeglasses at the beginning of the sixth grade -- horrible round-ish lavender wire-framed atrocities -- and, consequently, I hated my life for the next year. I swapped those out for a sleeker pair with Flexon frames in the seventh grade, then swapped out those for even sleeker bronze no-wire frames in the eighth grade. Then I went to high school, got contacts, and only wore my glasses for the five minutes in the morning before I could pop my lenses in.

After three years of contact lens-wearing, my prescription had deteriorated to the point where I had to get the lenses on my glasses replaced. I opted for a new set of frames too -- and chose a Nine West style modeled in chunky black plastic. Now this was 2003, way before horn-rims came to epitomize geek-chic, but since I hated the way I looked in near-invisible frames, I figured I'd try the other extreme. I found that my new glasses fit my personality surprisingly well, and for the first time during my vision-impaired life, I didn't want to vomit when I looked at my glasses-wearing self in a mirror. I started to wear my contacts less frequently and ignored the countless critics moaning about how my frames looked too retro and hid half my face.

Halfway through college, I swapped out my chunky black frames for an even chunkier pair. The same year, David Tennant replaced Chris Eccleston as the title character on Doctor Who and chose a pair of rectangular tortioseshell frames -- he called them "brainy specs" -- as part of his new costume. This blew my mind; I wore glasses like The Doctor's because they didn't make me completely hideous, while Tennant wore them because he wanted to. He was suave and confident while wearing his brainy specs, and for the first time in my life, I started to view my glasses as stylish... and even kinda hot.

I'm now on my third pair of brainy specs, and I love them so much that I only wear my contacts around once a week. I can slip them on with my Chucks and feel nerdy (in a good way). I can slip them on with a pencil skirt and pumps and feel professional. I can slip them on with an armful of unintelligible textbooks and feel smart. I can slip them on with tousled hair and an intense look and feel sexy. My glasses are a part of me, and I'm a total advocate of people like Tennant, Tina Fey, Diane Keaton, and Johnny Depp who try to redefine the public's notion of beauty by wearing their glasses to public events.

On Sunday night, I sat down to work on a graphics commission and turned on the Primetime Emmys for background noise. Andy Samberg was interviewed on the red carpet... wearing reddish glasses. Then Justin Timberlake presented in a pair of plastic tortioseshell frames. Then Simon Baker walked out wearing chunky horn-rims. Then Dana Delany slipped on a pair of brainy specs before reading a list of nominees. All of them looked absolutely gorgeous, too. I stopped caring about the winners and started watching for bespectacled audience members... and there were far more of them than I ever thought possible.

When I climbed into bed that night, I took a fond look at my brainy specs before setting them on my desk. It seems like the world has finally caught on, and the sixth-grader in me is jumping for joy.

Leave Unsaid Unspoken

"Another day is going by. I'm thinking about you all the time. You're out there and I'm here waiting. And I wrote this letter in my head 'cause so many things were left unsaid." -- Simple Plan

A couple of years after she wrote I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith wrote a romantic comedy based on the novel. The play was produced in England in 1955, was poorly-reviewed by London critics, and has been out-of-print ever since. As a result, I paid entirely too much for an ancient old library edition in hopes of gaining a different perspective on my favorite novel. I received my copy yesterday and devoured it in two hours. The content was largely the same -- the plots are identical and 90% of the dialogue is lifted right out of the novel. There was one major change that I didn't entirely agree with, though.

The novel is driven by Cassandra's love for Simon. They're friends and intellectual equals, but their "relationship" only exists in Cassandra's head. No romantic notions (aside from one platonic kiss) are ever verbalized or made tangible, and it doesn't matter that we never find out what the hell Simon is thinking because Cassandra has completed her arc of personal growth.

The play is also driven by Cassandra's love for Simon, but since they don't really talk and they don't really connect, her love basically comes out of nowhere. Then, at the very end of the play, all of that unspoken amazingness I blogged about two weeks ago is replaced with this:


Yes, it's the ending that most readers long for, and it's an ending that makes sense given the rest of the play. However, it turns a beautiful, moving story into a mediocre romantic comedy. Cassandra still turns Simon down, but it's not powerful, not tear-inducing, and, frankly, not good. I'm taking the author's advice (and yes, she actually wrote this instruction in a preface) and I'm currently giving it a re-read. Hopefully that will help.

Pens Envy

"It's a thousand pages, give or take a few. I'll be writing more in a week or two." -- Lennon/McCartney

I've always had some pretty weird habits when it comes to my pens. During high school, I'd take science notes in green ink, and if I didn't have a green pen handy, I'd take my notes in pencil and overwrite it in green when I got home. During college, I'd choose a differently colored uni-ball Vision elite every week in lieu of dating my notes. I sign consent forms at work using Pilot G2 gel rollers and I keep my journals using my Cool Ordinary Pen of the Moment (usually a TD Bank pen, a drug company pen, or a pen with my old high school's logo on it). I also like to hang onto the same pen until it's bone-dry and tend to panic when people borrow it for more than thirty seconds.

Last week, I bought a set of Sharpie pens and soon discovered that, though they look, feel, and behave like fine-tipped Sharpie markers, they don't bleed through paper. As a result, I fell in love, decided that they are the greatest invention ever, and packed one in my handbag for use at work.

The next morning, I arrived at work, clipped my Sharpie pen to my hip between my pager and my ID, and raved about it to anyone who would listen. Around three in the afternoon, I placed it on a countertop for a moment after using it to sign some forms. A guest then crossed behind me, said "Can I borrow a pen? Thanks," and snatched up my Sharpie before I could hand him a different one. He uncapped it and began writing. I could tell he was pressing entirely too hard.

He then snapped the tip clean off the pen. It scooted across the countertop, crossed in front of me, and landed on the floor a few feet away. I swear the whole thing happened in slow-motion.

"Sorry!" the man said, shrugging and tossing the remnants of my Sharpie in the nearest waste bin. All of my colleagues gasped, looked at me, and burst out laughing. I finished my signatures using one of the pens our storeroom stocks (ew), then I scoured the building for a suitable alternative to my poor defunct Sharpie pen. Luckily, I found a Pilot G2 near my PI's office.

The Pilot G2 served me well until earlier this week, when my boss borrowed it off my desk, took it to a meeting in a different building, and lost it. (If you're imagining a thinly-veiled expression of furiousness on my face and a neck twitch or two upon my discovery of this, you'd be absolutely correct.) I'm now down to my last half-dozen or so good pens, which suddenly don't seem like enough. I'm waking up extra-early tomorrow morning to go to Staples and will probably come home with entirely too many new pens... just in case.

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.

The Beholder

"I have an eye for spotting men with designs. I have a sense for all the obvious signs. And pal, I know when someone's feeding me lines! Don't feel too bad; you had your try. You have the touch, but not with me! I have an eye." -- Lucie Arnaz

That quote sums up yesterday morning, and as such, it was a pretty amazing morning. Then I went to make copies. Scanned my document, asked for 60 collated and stapled copies, wandered away, wandered back, found the thing jammed and beeping on copy 47.

I'm unnaturally gifted at fixing copiers, so like any engineer with too much time on her hands, I peeled off my sweater, dropped to my knees, and popped the casing open. I twisted knobs, I flipped switches, I slid trays, and I found all the usual problem areas blissfully clear of paper. Then I noticed that one of my documents had been shredded in the narrow crevasse between the stapling tray and the output tray. And after a few moments of fruitless exploration, I realized that the machine manufacturers didn't account for paper ever getting jammed there.

I have thin arms and long fingers, so I was able to carefully reach inside the machine to tease the paper free in pieces. The jammed area had lots of sharp parts and little room for error, though, so I emerged from the experience with my right hand bleeding in four places. Open wounds aren't a good thing to have in my work environment, so I washed, treated, and bandaged my hand before returning to clinic. It looked pretty strange, but I swore off handshakes for the day and trusted people to not draw attention to it.

Then I got the hiccups. Big, scary, near-constant hiccups that refused to go away even after several hours. I held my breath, I swallowed three times, I drank water upside down, rightside up, and with a spoon in the glass, I endured countless colleagues jumping out of the shadows to spook me. Nothing worked, so I just came to terms with the fact that I'd have to talk to people around hiccups all day.

I perfected a little speech: "Hi, my name is Ashley. Before we speak about the research, you'll have to excuse me if [hic] I need to pause every sentence or so. I've had the hiccups all day [hic] and they won't go away." People tolerated it for the most part, surprisingly -- they laughed if I laughed first, but they had the grace to ignore my hiccuping if I didn't draw attention to it.

Then, at the very end of the day, after I had been speaking for several hiccupy minutes, one woman burst into hysterics. "Oh my god, this is terrible!" she said between giggles. "I can't believe you've been working like this all day!"
"It's been an interesting day."
"And if you don't mind me asking, what happened to your hand?"
I flexed my heavily bandaged appendage. "I had an altercation with the copy machine."
"Oh boy. You know what you need to do? You need to go home and go to bed before anything else happens to you today. Just get rid of August 20th a little earlier than usual and hope that August 21st is better."

I'm usually the one who sits in exam rooms and dispenses information to people, so to have it turned around on me was a peculiar change. Her treatment plan worked wonders, though -- I decided not to work overtime, declined happy hour with my colleagues, went home, changed into my oldest nightgown, and watched hours of Project Runway in the air conditioning. I woke up this morning with no hiccups and four beautifully formed scabs on my right hand.

Living Proof

"Almost cut my hair; it happened just the other day. It was getting kind of long. I could have said it was in my way. But I didn't... and I wonder why I feel like letting my freak flag fly. I feel like I owe it to someone." -- Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

I have ridiculously thick, riotously curly hair -- the kind of hair that a person can lose a hand in. When it's cooperating, it flows over my shoulders and halfway down my back in loose, glossy ringlets. When it's not cooperating, my head is covered in a vaguely triangular cloud of brown.

For the last few months, my hair has been more cooperative than usual thanks to Living Proof frizz products -- and as a result, I praise them to anyone who will listen. Developed by a team of biomedical engineers, they contain a novel polymer that seals the hair shaft against moisture better than silicone does. I don't have fierce loyalty to many beauty products (cough except for Tarte Flush, Too Faced Lip Injection Extreme, Hope in a Jar, and Kiehl's leave-in conditioner cough), but Living Proof's curl-making cream is an essential part of my daily routine. I've been able to ditch my arsenal of serums and treatments as a result of it; I get out of the shower, comb in my leave-in conditioner, smooth on a little frizz, and let my hair air-dry. Et voila.

The stuff works miracles, but having great hair in mid-summer in New York City in the rain needs more than a miracle. Thus, while my curls looked okay yesterday, they didn't look as good as usual.

I arrived early for an 8PM dinner reservation, so I killed some time by wandering around SoHo. I browsed through Michael Kors, J. Crew, Banana, Victoria's Secret, then eventually found my way to Sephora. Directly inside the front doors stood an enormous display of Living Proof products, and I approached the pyramids of bottles to see if they were offering anything new.

Almost immediately, a salesperson swooped down on me. "This is a fantastic new line, and you have the perfect hair for it! It will tame your flyaways and frizz, define your curls, give you shine..."

I let the guy ramble on for a few minutes, then when he paused, I gave him my most brilliant smile. "I actually use these products. I'm wearing that one right now."

"Oh," he said after a moment's pause. "Sorry?"

I thanked him, left, and headed back towards the restaurant. I had a good story to tell my dinner companions.