Already I have been in the house too long

Food. Chex cereal. Coffee. Chair. Book. Coffee.

No fire. Was fire before! Fire now? No fire still. Now? No.

Floss still asleep. Bored now! Play with me!

Book. Plastic milk top to play with. Mmm chicken.

Meow. Meow. Meow.

Meow.

End of semester

Back on Amazon Island they used to provide mountains of junk food during exams, which I hated – the meals weren’t very good at the end of the semester because they were trying to use up all the bits and scraps, but there were always goldfish crackers and M&Ms, fig newtons and Skittles. I disapproved of this and was pleased when, last year, they toned it down a little and included large amounts of fruit, at least.

K and I switched to Bare Bones rations last night. I used up the last of the milk and baking mix to make biscuits, and she cracked open an enormous can of refried beans, so we had burritos for dinner last night and biscuits for breakfast. Probably refrites for dinner again tonight unless I crack and sneak off to buy a piece of pizza.

Ever since my sister gave me this iPod, I’ve been inclined to listen to it pretty much all the time. I listen every day on my way to and from school, on the way to the grocery store, etc. I probably look kind of silly in my leather jacket with my big headphones over my hat, but I have to admit it feels neat to walk through the campus listening to “Police & Thieves.” I feel like I’ve got a chip on my shoulder. It’s amusing.

Now that my set theory final is turned in I’m finding it very difficult to motivate myself to finish my philosophy of language final. Instead I’m sitting around reading depressing Lorrie Moore stories and watching Gilmore Girls. Tomorrow I will turn in my final and then I’ll be done with my first semester of grad school. I plan to celebrate by attending something called Hairbangers’ Ball, which, if it’s anything like the other Bloomington dance parties I’ve been to, will be kind of lame, but Shana assures me there will be jumping around and I’m good for that.

Memphis Minnie Steered Us Wrong

When I came out to the Hoosier State over the summer to find an apartment, our realtor, Memphis Minnie, told me that we could do laundry in a nearby apartment. I vaguely remember her waving her arm in the direction of the apartment building across the street, which looks like a church. Possibly I was too distracted by her yellow patent leather pumps to really absorb what she was telling me. Anyway, we moved out here, and for the last few months I've been alternating between the laundry room in the basement of the church apartment (which is dark and creepy, plus it always feels illicit to me and you never know when the door is going to be locked; once I put my laundry in the dryer and then went home for a bit because of the aforementioned dark creepiness and when I got back the door was locked and my laundry was trapped) and the public laundromat, which is seven blocks away but at least has a change machine. (The one in the church basement has no change machine so K and I just have to stock up on quarters, which is a pain.)

Today K informed me that there is another apartment complex a block away, behind the church apartment, which is owned by the same management company as ours. This, it turns out, was where Memphis Minnie told me we could do our laundry. We have been doing our laundry in the building across the street when we had no right to be in there at all. Memphis Minnie, you have steered us wrong. Next thing you know, it'll turn out there's a grocery store within ten blocks! You never stop discovering things in this town.

Proof

I didn't go grocery shopping this week, since we're leaving for break soon. That means K and I are having a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches and pasta. Or, actually, I'm having pasta; pasta isn't one of K's categories. It's always surprising to me what foods surprise her: penne with tomato sauce out of a jar, spinach omelettes. I had a spinach omelette for dinner last night and she said she'd never heard of such a thing, and looked very dubious about whether it would even work. I have to say, I need to learn some new staple dishes, though, because I'm so sick of baked lentils with cheese and red beans and rice. When I get back to school next month I'm going to learn to cook some new stuff. Trouble is, I can't imagine what sorts of stuff that might be. Beans and lentils, probably. It is to weep.

One of my favorite things in the whole world, when all is said and done, is struggling through a really difficult proof. The hours spent "moving symbols around on the page" as Fred called it dismissively; trying every approach, and running into dead ends, and trying again. I love drifting off to sleep and being hit with a possible answer, as if by a brick, and leaping up to wright it down and have another bash. I love writing on the blackboard in the lounge and pacing and getting frustrated. I love when I'm just about to give up and I move one symbol and the answer is right there, it was there all along.

"How's that going?" K asked me last night as I was working on my set theory, a thin layer of dust obscuring my features.
"Still hopeless," I said gloomily. Then I looked back down at what I was doing. "Unless - did I just solve it?!" I went back over what I had done. It looked - and still does after a good night's rest - correct. I did it.

Those moments are what makes it worthwhile.

Let's Stick to the Script, People

When someone tells the story of how she caught a peeping Tom outside her window, the following reactions are permissible:

• "Wow, that's awful! Who would do that?!"
  
• "He must be killed!"
• "Oh. My. God. I have already heard this story, like, three times!" (sorry, Luke, I will never get sick of telling this story)

The following reaction is NOT ACCEPTABLE, Math Guy:

• Smiling a creepy little smile.

It was so totally him.

Thanks, Bad Decision Dinosaur!

This Cat and Girl speaks to me.

Epistemology works badly when you're CRAZY

I'm not a very good epistemic agent. Even when I know that a disastrous proposition Q is very, very unlikely to obtain, I am often unable to rule out Q on the basis of my evidence. I know that when the mathematician suggests that we go to the movies, it is much more likely that he wants to see a movie than that he wants to get me in his car so he can chop me into little bits. Nevertheless, I see the horrible looming face outside my window and I am unable to eliminate the possibility that he is going to murder me, and my belief-state gets all skewed.

We could model this with possible worlds. I love doing that! It so happens that the possible worlds in which the mathematician murders me are, as modal metaphysicians say (driving me crazy with their lack of rigor) "far away." That means the possibility is not very likely to obtain. However, the set of my doxastically accessible possible worlds (the ones which represent my beliefs) drastically overrepresent the possibility that the mathematician will murder me if I go out with him.

And no, my crazy brain is not concerned with silly math, like the fact that the mathematician being the peeping tom = very unlikely and the fact that probably most peeping toms aren't actually murderers anyway, so the odds of him being the peeping tom AND a murderer are so very very tiny as to defy description. The crazy brain cares not for statistics!

Thing is, now I basically have to go out with him, because to do otherwise would be to let the crazy brain win. And I am so busy worrying about the murderin' that I can't really focus on the fact that I have no interest in seeing Beowulf.

Cupcakes!

Saturday was my flatmate K's birthday and, finals notwithstanding, I managed to convince her that we should invite people over for delicious cupcakes. We invited all the firstyears but only two were able to make it. Nevertheless, the four of us had a nice time, drinking red wine and tea, eating our cupcakes, and talking shop.

We couldn't find any matches, so Scott struck upon the brilliant idea of lighting the candles by first setting a paper towel on fire using the electric burner. No one was hurt and the apartment did not burn down, but jeez, what kind of apartment has no matches! It's like being stranded on a desert island! Except then I suppose we wouldn't have a stove. (And I know I'm going to get snarky comments about dumb PhD students starting fires but could we just not?)

(Also as a delightful party game we had Scott go outside and stand outside my window, to confirm that I hadn't imagined the Peeping Tom the other day. I had wondered whether, with the blinds down and the light on in my room but no light outside, I could possibly have seen a face. No doubt on that score: a face outside my window looks like a face outside my window and nothing else. This at least reassures me that I was right to call the police - I don't want to be all wolf-crying.)

The Disadvantage of Living on the Ground Floor

Last night as I was getting ready for bed, I turned to the window and saw a face right outside. Horrified, I clutched my pajama top to my chest and ran into the bathroom. I called to my roommate through the door: "KRISTA KRISTA there's someone outside my window!"

I struggled into my pajama top and peeked outside. Krista was looking at my bedroom door with trepidation. "What should we do?" she asked, levelheaded as always.

"We should call the police," I faltered. "Could you -"
"Could I do it?" I had only meant to ask if she would get my phone out of my room, because I was afraid to go back in, but she made the call. She gave the necessary information to the operator and then I washed dishes with shaking hands and she dried as we waited for the police to arrive.

The cop was not long in coming. He had a blond crew cut and an Indiana accent. He promised to keep us on special patrol for a few weeks. That's reassuring, but I keep seeing that ominous face outside my window. It looked like Elijah Wood in Sin City. It also looked a little bit like the mathematician.

I mentioned this to the cop, but stressed that I wasn't at all sure and I certainly did not want him to go to the mathematician's house and rough him up. I can't be sure that I saw anything; my blinds were down, though not completely closed, and it was dark outside and light in my room, so what I saw could have been a reflection. Not to mention, the mathematician has no way of knowing where I live: my address isn't listed on my Facebook profile (and we're not Facebook friends anyway). I didn't go home until five hours after he and I parted ways yesterday, and didn't go to bed for hours and hours after that - it would have been some majorly hardcore stalking. There is no reason at all to believe it was him, or anybody, but now that the thought is in my head I can't seem to dismiss it.

I need curtains.

The Word of the Day is "Awkward"

Damn, but there was a lot of awkwardness today. In addition to my date with the mathematician (who emailed me to ask me out again so chalk that one up as a victory) I had a terrible interaction with the Werewolf. Just when I think he and I have turned a corner we get all awkward again. The Werewolf, for those who don't recall, is my officemate, an 8th-year Kierkegaard scholar. He is very nice but I find him really intimidating and we've had some miscommunication in the past.

Today I was taking a break from my interminable Lewis paper and reading Questionable Content when I heard the key turn in the lock. I tried to close the browser, but I wasn't fast enough and the Werewolf saw me scramble to look busy.

"You don't have to stop reading blogs just because I come in," said the Werewolf.
"I wasn't reading blogs, I was reading a comic," I said, blushing.
"Well, you don't have to stop."
"Yes I do. That's what office-mates are for."
"To hold you accountable?"
"Um ... in a no-pressure kind of way."
"Well, anyway, you don't have to stop doing what you're doing when I come in."
"I do though," I persisted. "I mean, I have to do epistemology."
"Not because of me," the Werewolf insisted.
"No, but I just do. And have been! For hours on end!" I insisted.
"I'm sure you have."
I stood and started to gather my things.
"You don't have to leave just because I'm here! I'll only be here for a few minutes."
"I'm not," I said. "I'm just - I have to go ... somewhere else."
"You don't have to."
I got out. And I didn't go back in my office for the rest of the day. Aaand I probably never will.

Later, after a philosophy of language meeting, the Junior who was sitting next to me asked, "What are you doing after this?"
I had been afraid of this. He was chewing gum, and throughout the lecture the sound of chewing and smell had been bothering me. "I'm going to my office to get my stuff and then I'm going home," I said.
"Can I walk with you?"
"It's not a very long walk," I said. My office is right across from the seminar room. He followed me in and I gathered my things. He followed me all the way to the Union. "Do you want to go inside? I'm not doing anything... we could hang out."
I didn't want to hang out. Eventually I said, "Don't you live over there?"
"Oh. Yeah. I do. I guess we'd better part ways then."
"Okay, bye."
"Bye. Take care! Have a good weekend!"

Look. I don't want to be mean. But I don't know how to make these people not do this. Maybe I should shave my head.

However...

Okay, not freaking out about social interactions, blah blah, yes I know, but just one thing: as we parted, standing awkwardly around, unsure of how exactly dates are supposed to end, he said "Maybe we'll keep in touch." I guess he was just groping for something to say, but surely he could have done better than that!

Just Stop

This morning for breakfast I had coffee with milk, fresh-baked bread with redcurrent jam, and a goat cheese omelette (made with a free-range egg, though not one from the farmers' market, which is on hiatus). Then I put on my snazzy new leather jacket and my headphones and listened to Blondie on my way to the office.

I am working on a paper about David Lewis's contextualist theory of knowledge for the Horse, and it is a slog. I banged on the keyboard for an hour or so and then went over to the math building to meet the cute but nonverbal mathematician for lunch.

I thought of a strategy to overcome shyness: pretend we are already friends. Just take it for granted that we will get along and be pals, and then act as if this has already happened. Why not? I do not have to worry about impressing these people; not to brag, but I have been asked out on so many dates since moving to Indiana that I am beginning to get the sense that I can write my own ticket. It is *their* job to impress *me.* So the mathematician and I went to a Korean buffet and I pretended we were already friends, and to some extent I think it went well, and beyond that extent I don't care, so there we go.

So many of my problems are problems for which the only solution is "Just stop that." I talk to myself, I pick at my fingers till they bleed, I bite my lips and grind my teeth, I fret about social interactions and blow them all out of proportion. You're right; the only solution is to just stop doing those things. A simple solution isn't always easy. I try to find tricks to make stopping easier. I wear gloves; I pretend that people already like me so I don't have to worry about making them. Sometimes these tricks work. Sometimes they don't. But I look pretty cute in gloves.

Birthday

Lying on the ground in the cemetery at midnight, sipping bourbon and counting shooting stars. Not a great year for the Leonids, but how many girls get a meteor shower for their birthdays every year? I will take it. It will do.

Email:

Now, don't take this the wrong way, Emily, but I get the sneaking suspicion that you
could be the sort of person who likes doing set theory on her birthday. But, assuming
you're not, if you do want in, feel free to suggest another time.

Hey.

Bacon Pizza

Ugh. Did you know they make bacon pizza? Did you know that I've taken up with a crowd that is obsessed with bacon? Maybe it's a guy thing, and I've never had many guy friends before (8 years of all women's education will do that) but I find it alarming how often the conversation turns to bacon these days. I have bacon maybe twice a year on a club sandwich. I was planning to have a club sandwich next week because I'll be in New York. Now, the morning after two slices of bacon pizza, I feel the need to detox and eat nothing but steamed brown rice and broiled fish for the next month. Bacon pizza. Ew.

Also, I realized yesterday that my bike has been stolen. This is severely vexing, but at least I have the comfort of knowing that I'd chained it properly. The only thing worse than losing something is losing it due to your own negligence. This is just bad luck, and bad luck I can deal with. Still, it makes me upset. I liked having a bike, and I had a certain sentimental attachment to it. Goodbye little yellow bike. We had some good times, didn't we?

Watched Serenity last night with a bunch of people at Cufflinks' house no place in particular. They talked the whole way through it which was annoying because I've been wanting to see Serenity for ages and I didn't really get the proper experience.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be 22. So there's that.

Recipe: Roasted Autumn Vegetable Soup

Last night I made an amazing soup. It was my greatest triumph to date, and so I will share it with you.

Ingredients:
5 carrots, peeled and sliced into pennies
2 leeks, just the white parts, ditto
2 onions, chopped roughly
3 turnips, cut into chunks
2 or 3 potatoes, ditto
Olive oil

About 6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
3 cups tomatoes, peeled & seeded
1 T rosemary
1 T thyme
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste

Coat the vegetables in olive oil and roast in a 400 degree oven until golden brown - this takes an hour or so. Bring the broth to a boil and add the roasted vegetables, tomatoes, and seasonings. Let cook for awhile longer and then puree the soup in a blender or food processor until fairly smooth. You can mix in a little yogurt or half and half if you like, that’s nice, but it’s really delicious just plain, too.

The thing about soup, I’m discovering, is that you can just cook vegetables and puree them with some broth and then you have soup! Nothing could be easier! This recipe is a little time-consuming because of the chopping and the endless roasting, but actual work time is pretty low, and it’s super-delicious.

Speed Dating

Every once in awhile the GPSO has a “speed dating” event. At least, it used to be called speed dating, but this was considered stressful or exclusionary or something so they changed it to “speed meeting.” After all, they explained, people want to meet people for all kinds of reasons, not just to date. The important thing is making connections with graduate students in other departments and not just hanging out with ethicists all the time, like I do.

My friend Shana is our GPSO representative, and this, combined with the fact that she met her boyfriend at one of these shindigs, means that she’s very gung-ho about the speed meeting. So last night I gave in and went.

Boy were there a lot of shoe-gazers. I was feeling pretty shy myself, but I was once again reminded that there is a spectrum of social anxiety and there are some people beside whom I look like Miss America. During the registration period before the actual event, I attempted to make bright conversation with the shyest mathematician I have ever met and a chemist with absolutely no social skills whatsoever and frightening teeth. I brought out the old, “What power would you rather have, flight or invisibility?” but it was pretty clear I was fighting a losing battle.

Presently we were herded upstairs to the Solarium, where things took a turn for the better. We were seated at a long table with sheets on which to record people’s names and whether we wanted to be friends with or date them. Then we had three minutes to talk to each person before rotating.

This musical chairs format of conversation is unnatural, certainly, and kind of awkward, but I sort of liked it. There’s not too much chance for awkward silence when you only have three minutes. Even if there is awkward silence, it can only last for so long, which is a relief.

Because it wasn’t expressly for the purposes of dating, we all talked to both men and women. I met an economist from China (we conducted our chat in Chinese, which was fun – I haven’t practiced in way too long), a sculptor who works with Indiana limestone, and a woman who specializes in Bosnia. I also met a girl from Buffalo who went to Olmsted and Performing Arts, just as I did, which was pretty neat.

Probably no dates will result from this adventure – the only person I checked the “possible date” box for was the aforementioned mute mathematician – but it could have been more painful than it was. At the very least, it was a different way to spend an evening.

Better Homes and Gardens

After nearly three months in the Hoosier state, I have finally bought a couch. It folds out into a bed, even, so if you want to come visit me, you will no longer have to sleep on the floor.

Doesn't it look homey, with the lamp and the plant and the Chagall? It's rather intimidating to own something so large and heavy, but I already have a bed, so in for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. I can never move now. Not that I'd be able to find something so well-located again, anyway.

I've been sick for going on two weeks, which meant no homemade bread this past week. On Sunday, my breadmaking day, I was too sick to even contemplate mixing, let alone kneading. I have, however, been having a lot of fun with soups. I tried Laurie Colwin's curried broccoli soup, which was pretty good and fairly easy to make, plus a ridiculously easy sweet potato soup: Bake some sweet potatoes until soft. Let cool a little and then peel, then put them in the food processor with a quantity of chicken or vegetable broth. Season with red pepper, cloves, and ginger. Very soothing.

As soon as my cough goes away and I can eat delicious dairy products again, I'm going to make some roasted autumn vegetable soup using one of the recipes I got last week at the Farmers' Market. The recipe sounds rather unhealthy so I'm going to make some alterations. I'll see how it goes.

Happy Hour at the Irish Lion last night with a bunch of people from the department. The Lion is not an ideal venue for this sort of thing because one sits at long tables and I invariably end up with a bunch of non-talkers. I rallied as best I could and brought out one of my favorite conversation starters: what was the first album you ever bought by yourself? (Mine was Jagged Little Pill, by Alanis Morisette, I think.) (Confidential to CLA: note carefully the "by yourself" part.) This was a very musical crowd and so that was quite effective.

Tonight I've got mountains of epistemology to go through. Maybe I will do it while sitting on my couch.

Aging

The thing about getting your PhD is that it takes forever. I fully expect to be in graduate school until I am at least 27 or 28 years old. The Werewolf and Mr Clean (a Tractatus scholar) are in their eighth years right now. And although I may feel differently in six years or so when my biological clock starts ticking, at the moment, I am okay with the thought that I will be here for a while.

College is over in a heartbeat. People come and go very quickly and then you never really see them again. Grad school, on the other hand, is endless, and it's funny to think that the people I know now will be around for years. (Some longer than others, obviously.) I will go to their weddings. I will dandle their children on my knee. I will attend their dissertation defenses.

This also means that the age-range of my peers has increased dramatically. I now have friends who were born in the 70s. I have peers who are bald. I have friends who remember when Snuffleupagus was invisible. (Hey, Wikipedia reveals that Snuffy became visible on the day I was born! Keen!)

Assume I stay here. May as well. Then these people may well go to my wedding. They will see me with gray hair. In a few years there will be first-years who can't remember a time before the internet.

I'd better go moisturize.

Yes-Bias For the Win

Last night was a very good example of why it is better to say yes than no. Those who know me know that I am generally incapable of saying no to things, even things I don't really want to do or which are logistically impractical or impossible. A few years ago my undergraduate advisor, Jay, asked me to spend a few days at his house while he and his wife were out of town, keeping an eye on their teenage daughter and driving her to school soccer practice. I had to turn him down because I couldn't drive. I still think about this all the time, and there is a tiny part of my brain that has never quite stopped trying to work out a way that I could have said yes. Perhaps I could have given the girl a ride on the handlebars of my bicycle!

So, while my yes-bias is ... excessive, it does spring from a fundamentally sound principle, which is that you have more adventures and things work out better for you if you are game. "God looks out for drunks, children, and feisty girls, girls who are up for anything," as Cynthia Heimel said. (Something along those lines - I'm probably misquoting.) "You're going to die eventually anyway, at which point you'll be safe as houses."

So last night I didn't really want to go out when Mike invited me. I didn't know who was going and I was afraid it'd be just me and his pal from Detroit, plus I'm trying to dissuade Mike from asking me out again. God was helpful enough to give me a cold the last time, so that was a good excuse (it also gave me a good excuse not to go to the Spoon with Cufflinks this week), but unless I become a chronic invalid there seems little hope that I'll always be sick when I get asked out. And since I am sick, that was even less reason to go out last night. But I felt the familiar tug of the yes-bias, and before I knew it I was zipping up my black boots and putting on my lipstick.

And of course I had a lovely time. It was all very low-key and agreeable; Luke and VTL were there and I got to hear VTL's awful puns and his and Luke's stories about Germany. Plus, adventure breeds adventure: if I hadn't gone, I wouldn't have been invited to go to Indy to see the Darjeeling Limited, or to go thrift shopping with Luke, or to go to Yoga with VTL and Mike. Will any of these things actually happen? I don't know. But they could, and I am all about possibilities.

Then this morning I went to the farmers' market, where half the restaurants in Bloomington were giving away free samples of delicious soups, as well as recipes. Could life be any sweeter? I fail to see how.

I am officially a middle-aged woman

Nothing else could possibly explain how excited I am about my new spice canisters. They're little aluminum canisters with clear lids, and they stick to the fridge! Pictures to follow!

Bed Bath and Beyond is truly a shrine to consumerism. Did you know there's such a thing as a "flavor injector"? You use it for shooting up your turkey with heroin flavor, I guess. Do you have any idea how many different kinds of spoon rests there are? I may have little magnetic canisters of tumeric and cloves, but at least I lay my dirty spoons on the cutting board (or sometimes, yes, the stovetop) like a normal person. Don't even get me started on trivets.

Also on my mall adventure I got a poster frame at Target. We now have art on our wall! I think the room looks nicer already. Irritatingly, my Klimt poster is a weird size and Target doesn't have frames to fit it. I guess I'm going to have to get it framed specially, which is annoying.

The Werewolf is giving a talk on Kierkegaard this afternoon, which I'm looking forward to - largely because the Werewolf has a very pleasant speaking voice and I've never heard him say more than ten words at a time before. There may be some subdued hijinks afterwards, which would be nice, although I'm a bit under the weather.

The Horse told me yesterday that he was thinking about whether I should use my real name when I start publishing, or whether I'd be better off with just initials. Apparently there's enough gender bias in philosophy that my girl-name might be a hindrance. Especially, he said, in fields like epistemology, logic, and metaphysics - "the hard stuff," as he put it. Maybe I should go with Ellis.

I just found out that a second X-Files movie is coming out this summer, which is way exciting. Not that I'm going to get my hopes up or anything, since the last season was pretty awful, but David Duchovny is at least going to be in it, so right away that's a start.

Zombies, Set Theory, and Hot Buttered Rum

Here are some weekend highlights:

• Friday: attended a grad student workshop on the Tractatus given by an eighth-year student who's finishing up his dissertation on Wittgenstein. There's maybe going to be a Tractatus study group next semester, which would be awesome. We didn't spend a huge amount of time on the Tractatus in college, so I'd be especially interested in going through it more deeply.

• Luke had to cancel his scare-fest on account of rain, which was disappointing until it turned out to mean I got to hang out with the department's Cool Kids two nights in a row instead of one. VTL gave me a ride to his house (he kind of lives in mild, undergrad-y squalor, not to my surprise) where we watched Old School with his roommates and then Shana, Luke, and Mike arrived and after a bit we went out to the Crazy Horse, where Luke warned me about Cufflinks and the way Evangelical Christians are likely to operate. I am willing to take his word for it since he was raised Evangelical (his father is a preacher, which is kind of astonishing when you know Luke) but I still think he was being a bit alarmist.

• After the Crazy Horse, we went to hear a Detroit ghetto-tech DJ Mike and Shana really dig. We danced until last call while Night of the Living Dead played on giant screens on either side of the dance floor.

• In the morning I awoke, fresh as a daisy and filled with high spirits, and read a very cogent essay by Hilary Putnam.

• Later that day I met up with the two History & Philosophy of Science guys in my set theory class to work on the homework. I have resented them a bit ever since they made fun of me in front of the Badger but now we're burying the hatchet, and I'm glad. I'm even gladder that I totally schooled them in set theory and whipped out some fine, fine, superfine proofs on the chalkboard. At the end of one of them, the Australian clapped.

• You know what's attractive? Smugness. Everybody loves a smug girl.

• And then finally it was evening and time to go to Luke's to get our scare on. Luke had built a bonfire and set up some scary mannequins. He's the kind of boy who owns mannequins, which he got at a garage sale. One of them is named Gloria. "It was kind of awkward undressing her in front of my mom," he admitted. (Gloria was tied to a tree in a prom dress and covered in "pig's blood" to be Carrie.)

• Once everyone arrived, we split up into two cars and ventured further into the heart of darkness (as Luke put it) to a very ramshackle haunted house. There, we played a reflex-testing game that gave the loser an electric shock. I played about seven rounds but wasn't shocked once, somewhat to my disappointment. It was really a rather spooky place, though I was right behind VTL, who spoiled the ambiance by talking loudly and touching everything curiously.

• The second haunted house was a little more upscale and more tableau-oriented. None of us wanted to be in the back because there were people who would follow you around, which was unsettling. A guy with no eyes and lots of rotting flesh got way up in my face, too, which was also not to my liking.

• At the end of that haunted house, as you exit and head towards the funnel cake vendors, a guy in a mask chases you with a chainsaw. It is indeed a real chainsaw, although Luke told me afterwards that it has no chain, rendering it harmless. It is certainly loud, however. I did not run (because that would be undignified) but I did walk REALLY FAST.

• After all the scaring we went back to Luke's, where we sat around the fire and drank hot buttered rum and listened to Nick Cave. It was perfect bonfire weather, the company was congenial, and the rum was very delicious. We stayed until around 2:30 and then VTL drove me and Shana back to civilization. I woke up this morning feeling like the last piece of a puzzle, like I fit where I belong. Good times don't last forever, I am well aware, but I am enjoying this good time right now.
  

It has been a fantastic weekend.

Halloween Starts Now

Tonight is Luke's Scare-Fest (as we've been calling it) and, Girl Scout that I am, I am baking gingerbread. Probably beer would be more appreciated, but hey - I've been wanting to bake gingerbread for ages, ever since I saw that the Sahara Mart carries Lyle's Golden Syrup, which Laurie Colwin recommends. I didn't anticipate that her recipe would call for a whole jar of the stuff; it's basically light treacle, and treacle's a pain to work with, I tell you what. Everything gets sticky. I will confess - I really like treacle. On my way to China we had a layover in Heathrow (yes I know I flew to China backwards; don't ask) and I bought a packet of treacle, which was very hard to eat because it was basically one huge fused mass of sugar, but I would whack it against my desk to break bits off and it was very tasty. And then, Grandma, I would always brush my teeth (with antifreezy Chinese toothpaste).

Anyway. Laurie Colwin's damp gingerbread is baking in the oven right now and no doubt it will endear me to everybody at Luke's bonfire.

Last night I went with Cufflinks to the Runcible Spoon, as usual. I actually put on lipstick though, which is sort of a capitulation and which worries me. I'm not sure why an Evangelical Christian like Cufflinks would be interested in me, but the data seems to suggest that that's what's going on, and it makes me edgy.

The Decemberists make very good Halloween listening. Shankill Butchers is the scariest song ever.

Sadly, I do not have a costume for tonight, but I guess it's better to be without than to be the only person with one.

The Badger on Love

The Badger: "Of course not all relations are transitive. What about "loves"? If John loves Mary and Mary loves Elvis, it doesn't follow that John loves Elvis - in fact, the opposite probably follows. It'd be a funny world if love were transitive!

Or imagine if love were symmetric! [he continued, chuckling] That would be terrible. Interesting, perhaps, for a few minutes, but good Lord, no! Or imagine if love were reflexive - we'd be able to tell who doesn't love himself - they'd vanish!"

Found Poetry

I love the Horse's digressions so much I have recently begun making note of them in the margins of my notes. They form a lovely sort of Dadaist poetry.
gators/garters
hockey without a mask
bizarro hair
platform shoes in Venice...
KISS - forget about it -
I know he has a long tongue, but ...
firemen's outfits
in Italy
fabulous airlines

I have made the plunge and ordered two posters for our living room. I almost chose this one but decided it would be a bit odd to have the same art as my parents, so instead I (unknowingly) chose the Chagall my sister Floss has in her room at school and a Klimt I thought was nice. This will hopefully make our space look more lived-in.

Made a rather tasty vinegar chicken tonight - my mother's suggestion. It was extremely vinegary and delicious - I added extra vinegar and now I'm all parched. K's making scones in her bird apron and it's all nicely domestic. Time to do some set theory.

(This nicely sums up my thoughts on the recent Dumbledore situation. Let's not forget the context of the question JKR was answering: does Dumbledore find love? )

Apartment Decorating Tips

Last night Kari and the Werewolf invited a couple of us over for cocktails and I was amazed at how gorgeous their apartment is. Especially compared to ours.

Okay, it is slightly better now than it was when this photo was taken, right after we moved in. There's now a plant hanging above the director's chair, and the tv (which doesn't get any channels - literally, not a single one - and is therefore completely decorative) lives on a stand. Still, one can't help but think, as my friend Andrea said when she saw this picture, "maybe the living room needs some more... it just needs some more."

The thing is, the living room is not entirely mine to do with as I will - any improvements will need to be agreeable to K. as well. So that rules out the most obvious and simple solution, which would be to just hang up the posters I had in my room at Smith. (These included posters for Rushmore, Gigantic, and the New Pornographers - none of which are K's thing.) My next choice would be a nice picture of the Brooklyn Bridge or a Magritte poster, so that my apartment would look like my parents' house. K. and I have also, perhaps not entirely in jest, talked about hanging a bunch of nudes, since we both really like drawing nudes. This would be an interesting statement. (Is it pretentious to hang your own art in your house? (Luke: "If it's not pretentious it's not worth doing!"))

Kari and the Werewolf also have a big red velvet couch which I envy tremendously and little magnetic canisters for spices which stick to the fridge. (I am so copying this idea. Craft project! Our current methodology of keeping the spices, which I buy in bulk at the health food store, in little plastic baggies is driving me crazy.)

I recently came into a windfall because I was ridiculously overpaid for drawing some comics about logic. As a result, my purse strings are a bit loose at the moment. I am a notorious cheapskate, but yesterday I bought $7 jeans and a sweater on sale at Old Navy, a $4 chess board from Target, and a Tsingtao and an order of Gong Bao chicken at the Chow Bar. I would not be at all surprised if I spent this entire windfall on frivolities instead of, for instance, rent. (I can, of course, pay my rent on my stipend alone. I'm not that out of control.)

Changes need to be made. Suggestions?

Just what I needed

So apparently my new hobby is chess. Got a call from Value Theory Lad the other night around 9:30. He asked if I was up for a game of chess later - "Maybe around eleven?" I was already extremely tired and contemplating putting on my pajamas, but I have a policy about accepting these sorts of invitations so I said okay. An hour and a half and a brief disco nap later, I was sprinting down Kirkwood to Starbucks, where I found VTL drawing a chessboard on a piece of paper. (He had chess pieces, though - apparently he just carries them around all the time. Make of that what you will.)

We played two games and he beat me in both of them, but he said I'm getting better. I castled successfully for the first time, and put him in check three times, which was also unprecedented. I suppose that chess is a useful social skill, especially for someone like me who hangs out with a lot of nerds. But it's not exactly the world's most entertaining activity.

Last night I made butternut squash risotto and chatted with my folks on the phone. Risotto certainly is a pain to make - I stirred so much I got a hot spot on my finger. I overcooked it and it wasn't properly al dente but it was all right.

So excited...

Today I got an email from that sartorial genius Luke. Excerpt:

If you are up for some pagan revelry and if you are stout-hearted enough we will convene at my house in E-ville at 7:00 where you will be debriefed.

You will then be escorted in a convoy of the damned to the Baker's Junction Haunted Train ride in Smithville (about twenty minutes from E-ville--yes, even further out in the middle of nowhere). The brave among you will test your fate against the dreaded *electroshock game*, but only those with the quickest trigger fingers will survive to board the haunted train.

Those who disembark alive will proceed with me to the Harrodsburg Haunted House (another fifteen minutes deeper into the heart of darkness) where, if we are lucky, we will spend another $8 to be forced through a pitch-black maze inhabited by a morally bankrupt
gentleman eager to demonstrate his skill with a chainsaw.

Then, if anyone's viscera are still intact we will proceed back to my place for a bonfire with s'mores and (wait for it) hot buttered rum.

My life is so awesome. I need a costume!

Things That Vex Me 2.0

• BEING STOOD UP. Seriously. Not cool.
• Pretty much anything that happens after being stood up is going to vex me disproportionally as well. Being told to "stop picking at myself." Um, okay, I will just stop. Because you told me to. Because the fact that it hurts to type and wash my hands and my poor bloody Quine book were insufficient reasons, but now that you've offered this brilliant solution a more-than-a-decade-old habit is just magically broken. Thanks, Dad!
• The awareness that I'm being a brat right now. That just vexes me even more.
• Also, being told to go to the dentist.
• Also, the fact that I put on mascara for the date-that-wasn't. I hate mascara. Good thing I didn't wear my contacts, or I'd be going into full ninja-mode right now.

Things That Do Not Vex Me:

• Scrambled egg burritos. Mmm. Eggy.
  

Psychosomatic, or merely psycho?

I've been doing well. I've been settling in to my life, enjoying my work, and feeling cheerful. Yet I have all these weird physical symptoms that seem to speak to reservoirs of tension just beneath the surface. Ever since I can remember I've picked at the skin on my fingers, and I've pretty much decided I always will. However, my fingers right now are a mess. I got blood all over my copy of Word and Object and all over the hooks I bought so we can hang our towels on our new bathroom door (yes! we finally got the beaver-gnawed door replaced! less than two months after they'd said it would arrive!). This happens sometimes and I'm not too worried about it, but much more distressing is this headache thing. I think I've been grinding my teeth or pressing my tongue against my front teeth or something. (Please don't tell me to get orthodontic headgear because I simply refuse. When I'm married I'll get headgear, or when the bloom's off the rose, whichever comes first. Not before. It's hard enough picking up boys as it is. (Maybe if I weren't wearing the exact same clothes I wore yesterday I'd be in a better position to complain about this.)) Whatever the cause, I've been having awful headaches. I never get headaches. What gives?

There must be some sort of meme floating around, because at the moment I am fixated on Everything Is Illuminated and so, apparently, is everyone else in my area, because all the copies of the book are checked out of the library (both the public library and the school one). The public library also has six copies of the movie, all of which were out this weekend, but last night I checked again and found one had been returned, so I went to the library as soon as it opened this morning and snapped it up; the librarian was nice enough to find it for me on the to-be-shelved cart. I watched it this afternoon and am currently resisting the temptation to watch it again. The book is due back tomorrow, so hopefully whoever has it will be a good citizen and return it so I can eat it read it. We'll see.

One strange thing about this book is that the author, Jonathan Safran Foer, is also one of the main characters. It's never been clear to me how much of the book is based on a true story - in particular, I wonder whether Alex, the Ukrainian translator, is real. (And if so, how real?) The movie is dedicated to "Alex" and it gives his dates, so someone named Alex is dead, but is it the Alex in the book? If so, that makes me really sad, so I am pretending it's just some other Alex. I actually have a complicated possible worlds account of this which I'll spare you. Possible worlds: is there anything they can't do?

I'm also listening to John Cale's "Paris 1919" on repeat - the song, not the album. I'm feeling a little autistic today, I guess - listening to one song again and again, and wanting to watch a movie over and over. A little autistic, but not as autistic as the ever-creepy Saul Kripke, whose talk I attended today. His voice makes my skin crawl. I am really glad I made the choice I did.

Recipe: Persimmon Rice Pudding

Ingredients:
1 pint fresh persimmons
2/3 cup Arborio rice
3 1/2 cups milk (I used half skim, half whole)
1/4 cup honey
2 T sugar
1/4 t salt
zest of 1 blood orange

Procedure:
Gently rinse the persimmons and remove the stems. With a spatula, press the persimmons through a sieve to separate the pulp, seeds, and skins from the relatively tiny amount of usable persimmon glop. You can suck on the seeds but apart from that I doubt they have any real use. You won't end up with a lot of glop, but you don't need that much.

In a large saucepan, combine rice, milk, honey, salt, zest, and sugar. Bring to a simmer, stirring frequently, then reduce heat to lowest setting and leave it, stirring from time to time
until the pudding is quite thick and the rice is soft. This will take ages. You can read philosophy while this is happening, or talk to your sister on the telephone, or bang your head on the table and think about the awkward email you got from the Werewolf this morning, about how sorry he is you're afraid to go in your office and how he'll try to make you feel more welcome from now on. Feel terrible about making the Werewolf feel guilty. Contemplate skipping town.

Oh, right, the pudding! Ah, it's looking nice and thick now, time to take it off the heat and stir in the persimmon goop. Serve warm and awkward.

My Dinner With Crispin Wright

Today Crispin Wright gave a talk on higher order vagueness. Since I know the readers of this blog are not too well-versed in semantics or fuzzy logic (nor am I, honestly) I will gloss over the content of his talk and say merely that it was very interesting. I wasn't able to understand it completely, but that's probably all right - I understood more than at last year's logic lecture at Smith, where I understood more than the previous year, and so on. In other words, I'm learning, and though progress is slow, I can tell it's happening. I'm getting there.

Afterwards there was a brief reception, and one of the professors had brought a lovely selection of noshes - including baklava, apple cider, dates stuffed with cheese, and fresh guacamole. Very delicious. The Horse tried to use baklava as props to show us where the dinner afterwards was to be held, but it made little sense to me and when the time came we just all walked over together.

The dinner was at a very nice Afghani restaurant I'd never been to before. I'd never had Afghani food, either, so it was a novel experience. The emphasis on cilantro and dill was not to my liking, but the Horse gave me some of his Cornish game hen, which was delicious, and we had a very nice baba ganouj and I had some nice vegetable dumplings.

The Horse was there, and his wife JW (who is my logic teacher and mentor), and my philosophy of language teacher GE, and two other grad students: my roommate K and a boy called Tim who is, K and I always think, very standard. The bulk of the dinner-table talk was philosophical - in particular, philosophy of logic. I was fascinated and tried desperately to hang on. There were some other topics where I was able to contribute more conversationally; I did my best to represent, as I doubt we were invited along to sit mutely. The Horse was very amusing as usual, and I utterly adore JW and GE, and Crispin Wright was awfully smart and personable. It was all in all a wonderful dinner from soup to nuts, and the sort of thing that makes me so happy I'm in academia. There will be many such dinners in my life.

Things That Vex Me

• Having to walk seven blocks to the laundromat with my arms full of two weeks' laundry.
  
• Having to carry my laundry back seven blocks, still in bags because I can't carry a basket as easily, so when I get home it's completely wrinkled
• Having it also be damp, despite three cycles in the dryer. Damp wrinkly laundry was one of the worst things about living in Beijing, and I do not enjoy reliving it.
• Not laundry-related: I do not appreciate how the cufflinks-wearing religious fanatic invites me to the Spoon every week but doesn't talk to me when we get there or before, during the break, or after our class together.
• Nor do I care for the way he replies to questions like, "Have you read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close?" - somehow he made me feel as if I am illiterate or shallow for reading a popular, contemporary work of fiction. His supercilious "I don't really read pop fiction" really annoyed me.

• The Darjeeling Limited is not coming to Bloomington. EVER. It is a new Wes Anderson movie and it has Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, and ADRIAN BRODY, and it is NOT COMING to stupid Bloomington! Why am I thwarted thus?! I can only hope that it will still be playing when I'm in New York next month.
• Not really a thing that vexes me, but just a thing: Saul Kripke is giving a talk here next week. Last year I was offered a fellowship at CUNY, which, if I'd accepted it, would've meant I'd be working on Kripke's tapes and papers, sifting through his old scribbled-on cocktail napkins and recordings of him coughing and mumbling, trying to paste together stuff for publication. Saul Kripke is one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, and I often wonder if I was crazy to pass up this fellowship. I won't go into all the reasons behind my decision, but it is weird to think that I could have been living in New York right now, in a rat-infested basement apartment in Queens, instead of out here. I could have at least seen the Darjeeling Limited, if I could have afforded tickets.
  

Sometimes you're the Louisville Slugger

Sometimes my moods don't seem to relate to the external world in any way whatsoever. I have been walking on sunshine all day, and the only real reason I can think of is that the weather is deliciously cool - I woke up this morning and NPR told me we'd be having a high of 60 and I almost kissed the radio. I got to wear corduroy pants, a sweater, and my gray tweed jacket! And it was all uphill from there!

• Since I didn't have class until 11:30, I got a nice leisurely morning drinking coffee, listening to music, and quilting
• Then I stopped at the public library on my way to school and took out a book on chess
• When I got to school, Value Theory Lad loaned me another book on chess, which he assures me is far superior.
• In Set Theory we learned about the Axiom of Choice, which is very interesting, and I didn't say anything stupid or lose my temper at the Badger or anything
• Then I had a tasty lunch of Laurie Colwin's vegetarian chili, carrot sticks, and an apple, and read Quine
• I was craving bergamot, so I went to the Union and got some Earl Grey, which I enjoyed during my afternoon logic class, which was particularly wonderful because we're finally starting derivation rules.

And of course, nothing but the weather was really notable, and even that - it's October and it's cool - not so much, but I just had a smile on my face and a song in my heart the whole day. It's funny how good days, like bad days, gather momentum and get worse or better as your mood steeps like delicious tea.

(Also not hurting my mood: getting lots of messages on OkCupid from boys who think I'm cute. Even if it never results in decent dates (for me - I know people who've been very successful), that site does provide some nice ego boosts.)

Tuesday: The Badger and the Horse

The Badger has reappeared; last week he skipped town without telling us and left a young man of my acquaintance as a sub. My philosophy of mathematics discussion group met while he was gone and since he's the only philosophy faculty member in the group, none of us knew how to proceed in his absence. We just sort of puzzled over what the hell Kant is trying to say, and concluded that we'd ask the Badger when he returned.

So when the Badger asked me today how the group had fared in his absence, that's basically what I told him. He said, "Well, the Oracle has returned." What the heck, Badger? I am pretty sure I did not want to call you an oracle. If I was being obsequious I am sorry.

Last Spring one of my Smith professors commissioned me to do some comic strips about logic. We didn't discuss an actual dollar amount of payment, but it was very clear that money would change hands. The comics have been in his possession since the end of August and so today I emailed him and asked, "Did we ever agree on compensation for those comics?" He wrote back, "You suggested $x and I agreed. I will send you a check tomorrow."

I never suggested $x. I was thinking more along the lines of $x/3. $x is a lot of money. I feel very guilty about this, but I guess I should just be grateful. I'd have gladly done them for free, but he offered to pay me and I accepted. There's nothing wrong with accepting money for a job satisfactorily done... yet I feel so guilty.

The Horse was not as amusing today as he sometimes is, but he did deliver a few gems. He was talking about how, if you want to endorse a crazy theory like skepticism, you have to walk the crazy walk and never say you know anything or behave as though you do. You have to, when you're a juror, say to yourself, "Sure the witness says she saw the accused standing over the victim's body with a smoking gun, but how does she know? She could have been dreaming." Then you have to vote not guilty. And no one wants to walk this crazy walk, so they should not be talking the crazy talk, whether in the philosophy room or in the courtroom.

"Of course," the Horse went on, "there are plenty of people who talk crazy talk and walk crazy walk, and this won't be any objection for them. People like religious fundamentalists, who say, for instance, that all moral authority comes from the Bible, and any statements that deviate from this one interpretation of the Bible should be rejected as false, and who try to get you to believe their crazy views and try to pass laws to make you walk their crazy walk and so on."

And this of course was AWESOME, because there were at least four such people in that very room, including the cufflinks guy I mentioned before, who talked that very crazy talk to me the other day at the Spoon. I found it delightful that the Horse was willing to take it for granted that we're not crazy religious fundamentalists because we are doing serious epistemology.

Then just to cap it off he digressed, prompted by the idea of a smoking gun, "Or a smoking plug - that happened to me earlier today, I plugged something in and there was this big spark and smoke started coming out of the socket... but I was like the burning bush. I was not consumed." He paused. "But I did just consume your time with that story."

But the Horse can consume my time any day.

(That reminds me of one more thing about the Horse and then I swear I'll stop: I was at my friend Sam's house and we were talking about how people always like to sit in the same seat each class. I said, "That epistemology class is two and a half hours long. I can't pay attention for that long unless I am right up front. I need to be as close to the Horse as possible." I paused. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded," I said, but it was too late. "I am so telling [the Horse's wife, who is also my advisor]," Sam hooted.)

One More Thing!

I get to have dinner with Crispin Wright on Friday. Whenever there's a speaker, three grad students get to go and have their dinners paid for by the department, and this week I pounced on it because hey! A logician! Passing through Indiana! And so I whipped off an email to the chair saying I wanted in, and he wrote back: "You're the last lucky winner." This filled me with glee.

Darn those pesky tsetse flies!

As usual on Mondays, I am barely conscious, owing to a weekend of staying out late and waking up early, since you're supposed to sleep best if you wake up at the same time every morning and I like to get my weekend chores - marketing and bread baking - done by noon. Normally I have class on Monday afternoons, but today I did not, since my prof is out of town, and so I napped all through the time I would've had class. I did, however, go into the office this morning (what a grownup turn of phrase! And it's true: I went into my very own office, despite the presence of The Werewolf, my scary officemate) and turn out another draft of my analyticity paper. It is now in a form which could be turned in, should I slip into a coma until Wednesday afternoon, and this is comforting, though I will diligently continue to tweak it until the buzzer sounds.

Perhaps I should elaborate on that allusion to The Werewolf. He's writing a dissertation on Kierkegaard (amazingly the Blogger spellcheck has no problem with "Kierkegaard" so maybe someday when I'm a famous philosopher it will stop telling me my last name is "Neutered" or perhaps I meant "Neuterers" which is a new one) and is in the office ALL THE TIME, and never says a word, and every time I go in there I want to announce, "My name is on the door!" because I feel like I'm intruding. But it is silly and babyish to be afraid of my own office, so I'm sucking it up.

Oh, and I call him the Werewolf because he kind of looks like a blend of Oz-from-Buffy combined with my mental image of a young Remus Lupin (i.e. not like this). Plus he's just kind of lupine. (His girlfriend Kari is very cool and gave me a ride once.)

Um. Where was I? I just finished The Orange Tree, by Mildred Walker, which was pretty good - it is apparently kind of a modernization of Chekhov's Three Sisters and it's published by Nebraska University Press, which perhaps partially explains its occasionally jarringly bad editing. To be fair, the editor was trying to reconcile several different versions, as Walker apparently kept fiddling with it for years and years after it was rejected, but since this editor didn't feel any compunctions about inserting references to an orange tree so the title would make sense, you'd think she could've somehow smoothed some of those scene changes. I was constantly thinking I'd skipped a page.

And it's Columbus Day, which, despite its dubious political correctness, I kind of love, because when I was little, my grandparents would take me and Floss and our cousins on an outing every Columbus Day. We'd go to an orchard and each pick one apple, have lunch at a hotdog stand, go to this beach with lots of neat rocks and interesting driftwood and debris, and then on the way home stop at the Dollar Store, where we were each allowed to choose any item to buy. It was super great. (I've just dashed off a letter to them, since this made me think of it, so no need to tell me.)

Weekend Highlights, bullet-pointed and with a minimum of personal pronouns

• Went to the Farmers' Market, of course, which featured lots of flowers and way more crafts than usual, which was cool. Music, of course, and a butternut squash which will, in the fullness of time, become butternut squash risotto, and an overpowering sense of sun-drenched wellbeing
• Drew and inked several comic strips, which made me happy, as I hadn't drawn in a little while and I'm getting to the fun part of the story. Listened to a lot of Death Cab.
  
• Drank red wine and played Fictionary with a ton of amiable people at the lovely Susan's house. Talked probably way too much but at least got a few laughs. There was one word that I really didn't know, but we were almost done and I was bored, so I wrote "having to do with awesome robots" as my definition, and bluffed very convincingly, so that Sam, who didn't know what I'd written of course, wrote "what Emily wrote" as his definition
• Went to Mass, where we prayed that people who work with animals be kind and humane like St Francis of Assisi and that we all become closer to the Virgin Mary, and I'm down with both those things
• Baked three-flour bread, except that I forgot to buy soy flour yesterday, so I left my starter mixed with molasses, oil, and dry milk and ran to the store to get some, but they didn't have any, and of course by the time I got back it had begun to rise without flour so I just hastily threw in all the whole wheat flour I had and some white flour and hoped for the best. It rose like crazy but I haven't tried it yet.
• Chess with Value Theory Lad at the Spoon - I haven't played chess in years and I was never any good, but he's going to loan me a book, and oh look I think I just found a motivation to learn how to play.
  

Slowly but Surely, Fall Comes to Bloomington

Friday Night

Friday night was very jolly, as my roommate would say. I went to the GPSO Happy Hour, which is supposed to be a way to meet people from other departments, but, though I talked a little bit to a library science major and a criminal justice guy, mostly it was an excuse to hang out with people from my own department, including Value Theory Lad; Luke (the departmental Beau Brummel); Shana, another ethicist, and Mike, a logician. We five ended up going to several different bars over the course of the evening, and had lots of good conversation, which was lovely. They were all very fun, interesting people, and it made me happy to get to spend time with them.

The Game of Good Cooking

(Which no one ever wanted to play with me as a kid. It was an actual board game, which I got as a prize in my sixth grade home economics class.)

My new version of the game is simple, though - for every use you find for an item, you get some points. So, for instance, this weekend, I roasted a chicken, which meant chicken sandwiches all week (5 points), plus I made broth with the bones (10 points) and the vegetable scraps I'd been saving in the freezer with that end in mind (10 points for planning ahead, plus another 10 points for making something instead of buying it). The broth was used to make lentil soup (5 points).

I was invited to the Spoon again last night, though I didn't go - apparently it's a standing invitation. This is ... nice, and I enjoy the music, and it's important to make friends, but must these friends talk so much about the Bible? I need to find a way to steer the conversation in a better direction. He does wear cufflinks, that's appealing. Maybe we can talk about that.

Tonight there's a Graduate and Professional Students Organization Happy Hour, so I'll probably go to that though I won't know anybody, and tomorrow Susan has invited a bunch of people to her house for a games night, which should be fun. So I've got a good weekend ahead of me.

How to Cook When You're Really, Really Manic

After my logic exam today I felt light as a feather and decided that I ought to either cook something extremely complicated or cut off all my hair. Because it was swelteringly hot, I decided in favor of the former.

We still had half a pumpkin left over from the pumpkin soup, so I wrapped the pieces in tinfoil and stuck them in the oven. I considered making this, since I am still on a quest for a good rice pudding recipe, but eight egg yolks? No way. Then I thought maybe the More With Less Cookbook's pumpkin custard, which only involves three egg yolks - much more reasonable. I'd also been considering some sort of pumpkin ravioli for awhile, though I don't remember how I'd come up with that - I've never tried such a thing. Anyway it seemed worth a shot.

While the pumpkin baked, I skipped off to the Co-op for cornstarch, ricotta cheese, semolina flour, and cream of tartar - since the custard used only egg yolks, I'd have the whites left over and I could make meringues.

When I got back the pumpkin was about done, so I unwrapped it and pureed it in the food processor. I thought better of the pumpkin custard somewhere along the line and, since we're out of bread, thought of pumpkin bread to tide us over until Sunday - but the only recipe I had called for shortening, which I didn't have, so instead I made pumpkin muffins. While they were baking, I mixed up a (slightly sticky) pasta dough with another couple of globs of pumpkin and stuck it in the fridge. Then I called everyone in my family, but could only get ahold of my mum, so I talked to her and ate pumpkin muffins until it was time to finish the pasta. I also ate the rest of the pumpkin puree right out of the food processor with a spoon - it was delicious!

My roommate came home to find me covered head to foot in flour, toasting walnuts to mix with ricotta cheese for the ravioli filling. I showed her how to run pasta through a pasta machine and then she wisely retired to her room.

Now I'm boiling some of the pumpkin linguine I made when I ran out of ravioli filling, and the mania is beginning to fade.

I've had a lot of beta-carotene today.

ETA: Pumpkin linguine is bloody DELICIOUS. I'm a genius.

Not a great day

Things that happened to me today:

• I overslept.
• I was late for my philosophy of mathematics discussion group
• I was unable to say anything particularly intelligent about Kant because he's incomprehensible
• I tried to get help on set theory from the guy who's subbing this week, but couldn't really understand him either
• I was really rude to Value Theory Lad, who was in his office eating a sandwich while I was getting set theory help from his office-mate and who was being cheerful and friendly, but in a way which made it harder for me to focus on what the set theory guy was saying, and I said, "Don't you have something you could be doing? Sandwiches to eat?" Which was not called for.
• I couldn't understand what was being said in my philosophy of language class. Am I, in fact, a native English speaker? Everyone around me just seems to be going "buzz buzz buzz" all the time.
• I fell off my bike.
• I couldn't do one of the proofs on my set theory homework.
• I burned my tongue on very hot lentils.

I think I'll move to Australia.

How did this happen?

Midterms already?

Pumpkin Soup (based on K's family recipe)

Ingredients:
1/2 medium-sized pumpkin, peeled and chopped into roughly 2-inch chunks
vegetable broth to cover
2 handfuls brown lentils
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1/2 red pepper, chopped roughly
1 teaspoon cumin
salt (to taste)

Procedure:
In a large stockpot or saucepan, bring pumpkin and vegetable broth to a boil. Add lentils, cumin, and half of the onion and cook until pumpkin is tender. Put in blender or food processor and moosh up. In a small saucepan, sautee remaining onion, garlic, and red peppers until onion is translucent. Add to pureed pumpkin mixture and add broth or water to bring to desired consistency.

Serve hot with a generous tablespoonful of your homemade yogurt, which is not going to waste, especially if you add some to the cornbread you can serve on the side.

The result is not very pretty but it is savory and filling, with a nice creamy, smoky flavor.

Moon Cakes

Oh man, it's Mid-Autumn Festival! I was never in China for this holiday, but I'm awfully fond of it. My first year, I went to a mid-autumn festival party at Smith where I answered a trivia question and won a pair of chopsticks, and there were moon cakes, which I love. Last night a young man of my acquaintance invited me to the Runcible Spoon to study and listen to an Old Time band that plays there every week, and I remember that the moon was huge and bright, but I didn't realize it was already time for the Mid-Autumn festival.

I wish there were someplace I could get a moon cake.

I am not a hippie!

Last night K and I made our second attempt at yogurt. The first time, we tried Laurie Colwin's recipe (as easy as having a baby, she says, but quicker and less painful). Laurie Colwin says not to use skim milk since it's too watery to begin with, but we were using dry milk powder, since it's cheaper, and K reasoned that if we simply increased the proportion of dry milk to water that would make it less watery. Possibly this would have worked, but we also forgot to boil the milk, and then there was the question of incubation.

There are many choices of how to incubate yogurt. You can use a yogurt maker if you have one, but of course we do not. You can wrap it in an old sweater or a baby blanket and stick it in a warm oven. You can put it in a warm water bath over the stove and turn one of the burners on from time to time. You can place it over the pilot light overnight.

That first time, we put the yogurt in glass jars in a baking pan filled with water and left it in the oven overnight (the oven was off). In the morning, we took it out - it had separated and a skin had formed on top (because we hadn't boiled the milk). It looked rather nasty, but we put it in the fridge anyway to see what would happen.

Nothing did. We did not even try that yogurt - it simply looked too hazardous. We ended up pouring it down the sink and resolved that next time we would follow the directions.

Last night we tried a yogurt recipe from the More With Less Cookbook - my standby. It called for a combination of dry and condensed milk and warm water in addition to the starter. To be on the safe side, I also decided to boil the jars. Without tongs, removing the jars from the boiling water was a two person job - I scooped them out with the strainer, and then K used two forks to hold the jar steady while we emptied it and then deposited it on the counter. Miraculously, we managed to avoid scalding ourselves. I poured the yogurt into the jars, screwed on the lids, and put them in a dish of warm water on top of the stove.

We were anxious about turning on the burners under a glass baking dish - I was afraid it might explode. Instead, we heated round after round of water, and each time the water in the dish cooled down, I would bail it out with a cup and pour in fresh hot water. This was a very tiresome procedure and needed to be done every fifteen minutes.

Eventually I grew tired and bored, so I turned the oven on its lowest setting and stuck the jars, still in their warm water bath, in there overnight. I had no idea how hot the lowest setting was, because all the numbers have worn off the knob of our stove and we always have to guess at the temperature, but I figured it couldn't be more than 200 degrees, which was only 80 degrees hotter than the yogurt was supposed to be.

In the morning, I stumbled blearily into the kitchen and removed the yogurt from the oven. It still looked completely watery, but I put it in the fridge anyway.

When I came home this afternoon, I took out one of the jars and examined it. Stirring it with a chopstick, I found that it was somewhat thicker than regular whole milk, but by no means did it have the thick, junket-like consistency of actual yogurt. I poured some into a bowl and tried it.

It's slightly tangy, but much less sour than the store-bought starter. It also has that peculiar canned quality of condensed milk. It's not bad, and hopefully it's not fatal, but I'm not sure what we are going to do with four jars of the stuff.

It's not awful, anyway. I mean, it's not worse than ... uh, it's not the worst part of my day, but we won't go there.

I guess I could always use it in cooking.

Carrot Soup

Perfect for a gray, rainy day like today.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound carrots, peeled and sliced into pennies
half an onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3-4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, chopped
1 teaspoon garam masala

plain yogurt

Method:
In a large skillet or frying pan, sautee onions, garlic, and carrots in vegetable oil until the onions are translucent. Add 1 3/4 cups broth, ginger, and garam masala and let simmer, covered, until carrots are quite soft - about half an hour. (This might be a good time to read Quine's Two Dogmas of Empiricism or, if you prefer, the New York Times.)

When the carrots are soft, pour it all into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Return to saucepan and add as much broth as you like to thin it to the desired consistency - more like soup and less like baby food.

To serve, add a dollop of plain yogurt - the nice sour, creamy note brings it together and brings out the gingerbready flavor of the garam masala. (We happened to have some lying around so I threw it in as a lark, and it worked quite nicely. Nutmeg or cloves would also work, if you have any.)

Stealth Recycling and Return of the Horse

Because we live in an apartment complex, the city refuses to pick up our recycling. This has been a major source of stress for me recently - thinking about throwing tin cans and milk cartons in the recycling gives me a stomachache, but I can't say walking 5 miles to the recycling center with my arms full of garbage appeals, either. I've been getting along okay without a car, and I can't say I wish I had one, generally, not even when I'm schlepping laundry six blocks to the laundromat or carrying groceries from the other side of town, but this recycling thing bugged me. K and I finally decided that, since the city collects our neighbors' recycling at no charge to them, we will simply slip our recycling into their bins each week. When I came back from my run yesterday I found that K had disposed of the month's worth of recycling we'd accumulated, and it was a great load off my mind. Moreover, it makes me kind of happy to get our environmentalism on stealthily like this. Recycling ninjas!

For today's class, the Horse had us read one of his own papers, although as he pointed out, we didn't know it was his - there are apparently three professors here with the same name.

"Of course, one's a violinist and the other's a cardiologist, but you never know, they might be men of many layers," said the Horse. "Anyway. I get their email."

Of course, we did know that it was his paper - it could have been written by no one but him. He writes exactly the way he talks - even in writing, he never finishes a sentence without one or four hyphenated asides and parenthetical clarifications. Possibly he meant that we couldn't know it was his paper until we had ruled out the possibility that our experience of the material world is all a dream, though this is not his position. I wonder what the violinist and the cardiologist would say to these questions.

The Orchestra and Two Loaves of Bread

A very pleasant weekend. Saturday night K. and I stayed in and studied - she prepared for today's Greek test and I started my paper for Philosophy of Language - my first paper in grad school, which makes me nervous. On Sunday, I turned out two loaves of honey whole wheat bread, which came out beautifully - the yeast loved the honey and it rose like mad. Very nice toast.

People are always astonished that I have time to bake bread every week, but it's not really that difficult. I mix and knead, but the yeast does most of the work, after all. I just sit around and read the news or do homework while it's rising and baking. And the people who express astonishment that I have time for this sort of thing also confess to watching VH1 and spending hours on Wikipedia. I get very annoyed, trying to defend the ways in which I spend my time. I feel like Jane in Laurie Colwin's story "The Boyish Lover":

... Jane began to feel embarrassed by her salads, by the dish of pears she kept on the coffee table. The attention Cordy lavished on the details of her life was beginning to make her feel not singled out and appreciated but freakish ... they had passed some point of no return - somewhere where discount pillows and imported strawberry jam cannot meet (Laurie Colwin, The Lone Pilgrim, pp 29-30). (Why yes I am a grad student, why do you ask?)

Anyway. I baked my bread and I started my paper and did all my logic homework for Thursday and then it was time to go to the orchestra. K. and I decided to get dressed up - I even wore gloves, an affectation I hope I was able to carry off. They were merely wrist-length, not opera length or anything like that but needless to say I did not see anybody else wearing gloves. It did keep me from picking apart my fingers during the performance, however; an unexpected boon.

The music was lovely - they did a Samuel Barber symphony which was absolutely thrilling. I'm not much of a girl for the classical music, but it was like magic, the musicians were able to produce such sounds. Then this soprano came out and did some folk songs, which wasn't really so exciting - I don't care for vocal music really (sorry LCA). Finally, they did some Elgar Variations, one of which Value Theory Lad informed me was one of the most beautiful pieces of music in the world.

It was splendid, but it would have been even nicer if I weren't so socially awkward - I was stuck talking to Value Theory Lad, and I found myself just saying all kinds of inane things. I would really like to be friends with this fellow, but that certainly won't happen unless I learn how to converse like a normal person. There must be a book I can read. Something.

Farmers' Market

LET IT BE KNOWN:

I AM NOT GOING TO LAW SCHOOL. No matter what else happens, even if academia doesn't work out, I will not go to law school. It's not as though those are the only two choices, people. There's a whole world out there.

The Fall Festival

Last night I went with a bunch of other philosophy students to the Irish Lion for Happy Hour. This was Susan's idea - one more reason to love Susan, who is beginning her dissertation on Chinese philosophy. The Irish Lion is actually where I had my first meal in Bloomington, back when I came to visit, and so it is a scene of pleasant memories although not the ideal venue for this sort of social event, as we had to sit at tables and there were so many of us we broke off into two groups. Whenever this happens, I always feel I am in the wrong place. I ended up next to this chap who's quite polite and probably very smart, but who is very fussy - as K. says, you can imagine him painstakingly arranging things on his desk and explaining why everything must be ordered the way it is. My love for Percy Weasley notwithstanding, I do not find this sort of thing endearing.

However, towards the end of the dinner, Susan and Value Theory Lad came over to our end of the table, and I managed to invite Susan to go with me to a screening of Serenity next week. (I knew Susan would be into Firefly. It's so satisfying when I'm right. And she probably won't mind if I go dressed as Kaylee.) And Value Theory Lad issued a general invitation to go to the orchestra tomorrow night, which I will probably do, because Value Theory Lad + Free Music sounds like a good plan to me. I wonder if people get dressed up for this sort of thing. I wonder if I can wear one of my many pairs of gloves.

I was reluctant to go home and read philosophy, so I asked whether anybody had any interesting plans for the rest of the evening. Luke suggested we go to a fall festival in the next town over - there would, he assured us, be funnel cake, and local color to appreciate ironically. This sounded like just the thing to me, and so off we went.

Luke's an interesting cat; I quite enjoy him. He's the departmental Beau Brummell: lanky and languorous, immaculately dressed, I can easily picture him at the Drones, playing cricket with dinner rolls. Apparently he goes every year to an event called Hell House, a sort of Christian haunted house that they do around Halloween to show kids that the wages of sin is death: there's a room where you go to the funeral of a gay man who died of AIDS and an abortion room and I don't know what-all. Luke finds this extremely amusing. I think it sounds distressing, but I'm probably going to end up going; it sounds like it will be an outing.

On this occasion, happily, there were no scenes of eternal damnation - merely rustic charm and unhealthy food, of which I did not partake. Some of the boys bought funnel cake and ate it, and we walked around the fall festival for a bit. Luke tried to get me to go down the super slide, but as I pointed out, that was $2 that could instead be spent on delicious beer.

"I'm convinced," said Mike, and we spun on our heels and headed to Luke's house, stopping on the way to pick up some local beer from a liquor store.

We sat in the yard and Luke piled a mountain of kindling onto the fire pit and before long there was a towering blaze. "I'm the fire guy," he drawled, pleased with himself. A log rolled off the fire, sending off lots of sparks into the parched grass.

"Nice work, fire guy," said Mike. "I'm not fire safety guy," Luke retorted scornfully.

So we sat by the fire and drank our nice, cold beers and talked. We discussed what we'd be doing if not becoming academics - rock star was a popular choice. Value Theory Lad and Luke both want to go to Hollywood. I would be a librarian or a comic book artist, or both.

It was nice, sitting outside with a beer in my hand and a fire crackling, surrounded by these people who are now that much closer to becoming my colleagues and friends. It was the sort of thing I know I ought to be doing, and enjoying. Yet somehow it was not right, or not enough, and I was cold and lonely.