About a week ago, I decided that I had been living in intellectual no-mans-land for too long and went on a quest to smarten myself up. This quest led me to download many, many iTunes U resources. I started with a course on the Romantics by Timothy Morton from UC Davis. So far the podcasts are very interesting (and only made better by the fact that Morton is English), but one thing in particular has struck me, and I can't get it out of my head. I'll paraphrase it like this:
A consumerist defines who they are by their choice of product.
Dr. Morton pointed out that the romantic era saw the introduction of many "isms" - consumerism being one of them. But people had always been consuming. The difference was that now people were aware of consumption. A consumerist therefore, is not just one who consumes, but one who's aware that he's consuming and one who's aware of what he's consuming.
I like coffee. I like the way it tastes and I like the way it helps me start my day. I also like coffee-culture. I'm from the NW. We like coffee there. I also like fun sunglasses. I also like volvos and literature and tea and cheese and board games and theatre and grammar.
In each of these cases, there are two things at work: actual preference for these things and an awareness that I'm the type of person who likes coffee, theatre, literature, Volvos, and fun sunglasses. But it's all a lie. We are more than the sum of our preferences. In fact, we are even more than the sum of our talents. I am not defined by the choice I made to listen to these podcasts any more than I am defined by my "love" of coffee and Volvos.
I think that these days, (at least in the West) individuals are at a loss to be recognized and identified as just that - individuals. And so we buy things. We consume things in the hope that we'll express who we are. As Tom Hanks' character says in, "You've Got Mail, "So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self..." But it's a shallow type of definition, and the fact that we find more and more ways to consume just serves as evidence to the hollowness of the system.
However, perhaps the very desire to "define" oneself is misguided. I read an article today about how internet search engines "customize" searches for you based on prior search history. Part of the author's concern related to how this customization can perpetuate the limits of one's intellectual bubble. Some of you commented on that article, noting that our own bubble (outside-of/beyond the internet) is often self-induced. We limit ourselves through our choices. And sometimes we consciously limit ourselves. "After all, I'm not a video game type of person." I can't tell you how many times I've thought that - as though playing or not playing a game will affect who I am as a person. Definition is limitation.
Jane Austen would say that most people don't actually want to be someone else. One might envy others. One might envy their specific talents or virtues, but in the end, one would never want to completely trade places with them - not if that meant giving up one's own self-hood. I think this is generally true. I can't put my finger on it, but there is a part of me that I feel is inscrutably different from anyone else - a self. And that cannot be defined.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
The Possibilities - short story
James Wilson walked along a downtown Portland sidewalk. Wearing a corduroy blazer and a wool scarf, he barely felt the cold, but he took notice that for once it wasn’t raining on a February evening. As he turned a corner, he saw a teenage boy sitting on the forlorn steps of an old bank building. With his guitar case laying open before him, he played a self-composed ballad to the mostly oblivious passers-by. James stopped, opened his wallet and took out a couple of twenties. It was cold, after all. Then he crossed the street and entered a pub on the corner.
Soft jazz greeted him as he stepped inside. He sat down at the bar and took off his hat. He was just going to check his cell phone for messages when a woman tapped him on the shoulder and sat down in the adjacent seat. The bartender took their orders and then hurried off. James turned to his companion.
“Long time no see, Kat. You’ve been rather busy lately, I’m guessing? What with all your patients coming off the holiday stress?”
She adjusted her pencil skirt and set her purse under the bar. “Yeah, you know how it goes.”
“Mother-in-laws.” He smiled. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m simply training my students to be proxies for ‘the good-listener-friend’ that no one has anymore.”
“It seems that way at times.” She glanced down the bar. The bartender was just finishing.
“But you seem distracted. You acted like there was something particular you wanted to discuss. Is it Jarrod again?”
Kat cast him a short glance and then took her drink from the bartender. “No, fortunately, he’s decided to give me a respite from domestic drama.” She stirred her drink. “It’s work.” She smirked. “I know I promised to stop bothering you with advice long ago… But it seems I keep coming back to professor.”
He smiled. “It’s nice to be needed.”
“That’s a condition you know.”
“Only when someone diagnoses it.”
“Good thing I hate labels, then.” She smiled and took a drink. “It’s a girl – college-aged. She has…prescience.”
“Visions?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes just inklings.”
“Of what nature?”
“Positive results – of her actions.”
He took off his blazer and loosened the laces on his brown leather shoes. Motioning to the drinks, “Think we’re going to need more of these?”
“Definitely.” Kat took off her jacket and slipped off her heels. She took a long sip of her drink and then leaned back in her seat.
“She first came into my office about six months ago – right at the beginning of the school year. I have a contract with her university, you see.” She sighed. “One of the perks of being young and hip, I guess. Students find me an appealing therapist. Anyway, she was shy, a little reluctant at first. Fortunately, she had written “visions” in the comment box on her sheet, so I had some idea. But, you know, visions can mean anything from weird dreams to schizophrenia. So I asked her why she wrote that. She told me she didn’t know what else to call them. I asked her,
‘How do these visions come to you?’
‘Umm, sometimes pictures, sometimes scenes, and sometimes they’re not visions at all – just ideas.’
‘And what are they like?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What emotion do you feel from them?’
‘Oh. They’re always very good visions. Very happy, wonderful things.’ She smiled.
‘What else can you tell me about them?’
‘They’re visions about other people. In them, I see what will happen to others if I do something for them.’
‘How long has this been happening?’ I asked.
‘About a year – off and on. I think maybe it has been happening longer than that, only, I didn’t recognize them before.’
‘Can you explain to me a situation in which one of these visions occurs?’
‘The first time, I mean the first time I realized, was about a year ago. It was very simple. Umm. I was taking an American history class. There was this boy; he always sat in the back; he didn’t have any friends in the class. I could tell he was having some difficulty. We were preparing for a final, so we were making study groups. He didn’t have one. I thought maybe I should invite him to my group. And then it happened – the vision, I guess.’ She stopped.
‘Go on.’
‘I saw his exam – in my mind, and in big scrawling red pen, there was a 90 written at the top. It was a vision about his success.’
‘So what did you do then?’
‘I invited him to join our group, and he said no. But I gave him my phone-number and told him that if he changed his mind we were meeting in the library on Tuesday and Thursday at three. So then he came, and we studied and then we took the test. I didn’t think anything about it, until the next week when he brought me his exam and showed it to me. It was the same.’
‘The same…?’
‘As the one in the vision. Same big scrawling letters, red pen, ninety.’
‘So then what did you do?’
‘I was shocked and I tried to put it out of my mind. I thought I was just being fanciful, you know? I mean, I didn’t think that people actually have visions. So I ignored it, but then it happened again. The next time it was at work. I work at a retail store. I’m a department assistant manager, and they told me to hire a part-timer. There were three people. Two of them were very qualified and the other one – she had never had a job before. You could tell she was from a bad background. But after I interviewed them, I was thinking it over and I thought about her and about what getting this job would mean to her. I could see her with confidence – getting hope. So I hired her.’
‘Did she accept?’
‘Yes, and she succeeded. She was promoted to full-time within two months and everyone loves her. She started taking night classes this fall. I think it changed her life.’
‘That was the second time?’
‘Yeah, so then I thought, well, that was just lucky. It wasn’t really a vision. I saw no picture that time. I just had faith and she didn’t let me down. That was in January. I still didn’t think much of it. Only after that, the visions got stronger, more lucid. Lucid, right? That’s the right word?’
‘Like realistic?’
‘Yeah. Strangers. Men on the sidewalk asking for money. And it wasn’t just the visions. If it were just visions, then I would only believe that I have a lot of hope for people. But I see them come true. I’ll meet the homeless man again, with new shoes.
‘Last March, when we had that freak snowstorm – the city buses were cancelled. I was driving from work back to my dorm. And I saw a woman at the bus stop. I felt bad – she obviously didn’t know about the cancellations. And then, suddenly, I saw her meeting a man in a blue sweater, and they started laughing and later he asked her to go to dinner with him. So I picked her up. She said she was going to a friend’s birthday party at a restaurant near my school. I dropped her off at the restaurant, but as I was pulling away, I saw the group she was meeting, and then she was shaking someone’s hand, like she was being introduced.’ She stopped. She looked up at me and her eyes were almost glowing with excitement. ‘It was the same man, that I had seen before – in a blue sweater. After that, I really started to believe that – maybe I really was seeing visions – that I didn’t just have an overactive imagination because he was the same – exactly the same. He had dark curly hair, a reddish complexion, stubble.’ She shook her head in wonder.”
Kat straightened up in her chair. “I have to admit, I was a little stumped, and since we were coming to the end of our time, I asked her why she had signed up for therapy. She shrugged.
‘Well, I guess I was just kind of concerned. I mean, like I said, normal people don’t really have visions. I guess, I’m kind of worried about myself, even though, I don’t know why I should be. I’m perfectly fine. If anything, my life is more exciting and…well…joyful now.’
‘Does it help to talk about it?’
‘Yes! Yes, it does. I’ve been afraid to tell anyone about it.’
‘Well, that’s what I’m here for.’
“I told her she could sign up for a follow-up appointment and after that she started seeing me regularly. The stories were all rather similar. I found it very interesting. I never had a client like that before, and I wasn’t sure how to approach her situation, but mostly we just talked.”
James broke in, “Did she show any signs of emotional instability?”
“Well, no, that was the problem. She had no personal or family history of mental illness, and occasionally when we talked about other things, school, work, her friends, she seemed perfectly healthy.”
“Seemed?”
“Well, that was for the first three or four months. In December, I noticed a change. She had missed our last appointment and so it had been a while. When she came in, I saw immediately that there was something on her mind. She glanced around the room awkwardly and when I asked her to sit down, she just kept standing.
‘Do you remember the story I told you about the woman I picked up in the snow storm?’ she asked.
‘Yes of course.’
‘Well, I saw her again.’
‘Oh?’
‘She’s engaged. To that man. The same man. The guy with the blue sweater.’
“I stared at her a minute. For the first time since I’d known her, she looked tired.”
James shifted in his seat. “What happened after that?”
“I tried to talk to her like normal, but she wasn’t listening to me. And then, she didn’t come back for over a month. She kept making appointments and then cancelling at the last minute. Finally, last week, she kept her appointment. She looked so different, it was distracting. She wore a baggy sweatshirt didn’t have any makeup on. She looked as though, at any moment, she would burst into tears. She just sat before me, wringing her hands and looking back and forth between her lap and her feet. Finally, she stood up,
‘I can’t keep going on like this.’ She burst out. ‘I did it again! Just today! Again, I denied someone. They needed my help and I refused.’
‘Please sit down,’ I said. She did so. ‘Now tell me what happened.’
‘There was an old man ahead of me in the checkout at the grocery store. When his total came up, he looked in his wallet and he didn’t have enough money. I think he had only five dollars. He looked rather disheveled, his pants were old and his sweater had moth-holes in it. I saw a picture of him going home to a tiny little apartment and making dinner for a little woman in a wheelchair. They were happy together.’ She started crying. ‘But I only have fifty dollars left till my next payday, and his bill was nearly thirty. So I—’ her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘did – nothing.’
‘Then what happened?’
“She looked up at me, her eyes full, ‘He picked a couple of small things out of all his groceries and bought those only. The teller put the rest in a basket and slipped it under the counter.’ She wiped her eyes but the tears kept flowing. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I’m so selfish. I could have gotten along with only twenty-five dollars. I have a meal plan and the school covers my medical. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to pay for his groceries. I shouldn’t have to help everyone I meet. And now I feel like – the most horrible person. I feel miserable.’
‘Has this happened before?’
She sighed. ‘Yes. In December. That’s when I stopped feeling happy about the visions. That’s when I realized they weren’t always good, because…I’m not always good.’”
Kat took a sip of her drink and leaned her head on her hand.
“Was that the end?”
“Pretty much. I tried talking to her about personal responsibility, about taking control of your own life. But she would have none of it. She told me she couldn’t forgive herself for having the power to help others and refusing to use it.”
James stared at her for a minute. “Kat, she has a condition.”
“Oh undoubtedly. Though I have no idea what, yet.”
“Well, it’s only the beginning.”
“True.” She slowly swirled the ice in her empty glass.
“Kat why do I get the feeling that there’s something else that you’re not telling me?”
She glanced at him and bit her lip. “It is interesting, isn’t it? I mean, James, can you imagine what it would be like to live in that head?”
“That’s probably the one thing you shouldn’t do.” He motioned to the bartender for refills.
She turned her gaze away and stared at the glittering bottles before her. “Yeah, I guess so. It’s philosophical though.”
“So are schizophrenics.”
She nodded.
“They – they think too much,” he continued. “They think about the things that would make normal people go crazy. You don’t actually believe that she has visions, do you?”
She turned back to him. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t.”
He sighed. “It sounds like guilt, but honestly, it could be anything.” He watched her for a moment and then reached over and touched her arm. “Are you okay?”
She hesitated. His grip on her arm tightened slightly. “Yeah,” she shook her head. “Yeah, I’m fine. I guess it’s just a difficult case during a difficult time. You know everyone else, is, like you said, bickering about their in-laws and relating long histories of past Christmas tragedies, and this girl seems so…transcendent in comparison. Truthfully, she makes me uncomfortable.”
“Do what you know how to do, and she’ll get better. You’re a good therapist. You can help her.”
She nodded.
He looked at his watch. “Well, I have to get going. Class prep: it never ends.” He smiled. “Let’s catch up more often.”
She stood and shook his hand. “Let’s. I’ll see you.”
He picked his hat off the bar, took his wallet out and put a few bills down, and waved goodbye.
Kat sat at the bar for another few minutes. Then she finished her drink, gathered her things, and walked out.
Soft jazz greeted him as he stepped inside. He sat down at the bar and took off his hat. He was just going to check his cell phone for messages when a woman tapped him on the shoulder and sat down in the adjacent seat. The bartender took their orders and then hurried off. James turned to his companion.
“Long time no see, Kat. You’ve been rather busy lately, I’m guessing? What with all your patients coming off the holiday stress?”
She adjusted her pencil skirt and set her purse under the bar. “Yeah, you know how it goes.”
“Mother-in-laws.” He smiled. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m simply training my students to be proxies for ‘the good-listener-friend’ that no one has anymore.”
“It seems that way at times.” She glanced down the bar. The bartender was just finishing.
“But you seem distracted. You acted like there was something particular you wanted to discuss. Is it Jarrod again?”
Kat cast him a short glance and then took her drink from the bartender. “No, fortunately, he’s decided to give me a respite from domestic drama.” She stirred her drink. “It’s work.” She smirked. “I know I promised to stop bothering you with advice long ago… But it seems I keep coming back to professor.”
He smiled. “It’s nice to be needed.”
“That’s a condition you know.”
“Only when someone diagnoses it.”
“Good thing I hate labels, then.” She smiled and took a drink. “It’s a girl – college-aged. She has…prescience.”
“Visions?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes just inklings.”
“Of what nature?”
“Positive results – of her actions.”
He took off his blazer and loosened the laces on his brown leather shoes. Motioning to the drinks, “Think we’re going to need more of these?”
“Definitely.” Kat took off her jacket and slipped off her heels. She took a long sip of her drink and then leaned back in her seat.
“She first came into my office about six months ago – right at the beginning of the school year. I have a contract with her university, you see.” She sighed. “One of the perks of being young and hip, I guess. Students find me an appealing therapist. Anyway, she was shy, a little reluctant at first. Fortunately, she had written “visions” in the comment box on her sheet, so I had some idea. But, you know, visions can mean anything from weird dreams to schizophrenia. So I asked her why she wrote that. She told me she didn’t know what else to call them. I asked her,
‘How do these visions come to you?’
‘Umm, sometimes pictures, sometimes scenes, and sometimes they’re not visions at all – just ideas.’
‘And what are they like?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What emotion do you feel from them?’
‘Oh. They’re always very good visions. Very happy, wonderful things.’ She smiled.
‘What else can you tell me about them?’
‘They’re visions about other people. In them, I see what will happen to others if I do something for them.’
‘How long has this been happening?’ I asked.
‘About a year – off and on. I think maybe it has been happening longer than that, only, I didn’t recognize them before.’
‘Can you explain to me a situation in which one of these visions occurs?’
‘The first time, I mean the first time I realized, was about a year ago. It was very simple. Umm. I was taking an American history class. There was this boy; he always sat in the back; he didn’t have any friends in the class. I could tell he was having some difficulty. We were preparing for a final, so we were making study groups. He didn’t have one. I thought maybe I should invite him to my group. And then it happened – the vision, I guess.’ She stopped.
‘Go on.’
‘I saw his exam – in my mind, and in big scrawling red pen, there was a 90 written at the top. It was a vision about his success.’
‘So what did you do then?’
‘I invited him to join our group, and he said no. But I gave him my phone-number and told him that if he changed his mind we were meeting in the library on Tuesday and Thursday at three. So then he came, and we studied and then we took the test. I didn’t think anything about it, until the next week when he brought me his exam and showed it to me. It was the same.’
‘The same…?’
‘As the one in the vision. Same big scrawling letters, red pen, ninety.’
‘So then what did you do?’
‘I was shocked and I tried to put it out of my mind. I thought I was just being fanciful, you know? I mean, I didn’t think that people actually have visions. So I ignored it, but then it happened again. The next time it was at work. I work at a retail store. I’m a department assistant manager, and they told me to hire a part-timer. There were three people. Two of them were very qualified and the other one – she had never had a job before. You could tell she was from a bad background. But after I interviewed them, I was thinking it over and I thought about her and about what getting this job would mean to her. I could see her with confidence – getting hope. So I hired her.’
‘Did she accept?’
‘Yes, and she succeeded. She was promoted to full-time within two months and everyone loves her. She started taking night classes this fall. I think it changed her life.’
‘That was the second time?’
‘Yeah, so then I thought, well, that was just lucky. It wasn’t really a vision. I saw no picture that time. I just had faith and she didn’t let me down. That was in January. I still didn’t think much of it. Only after that, the visions got stronger, more lucid. Lucid, right? That’s the right word?’
‘Like realistic?’
‘Yeah. Strangers. Men on the sidewalk asking for money. And it wasn’t just the visions. If it were just visions, then I would only believe that I have a lot of hope for people. But I see them come true. I’ll meet the homeless man again, with new shoes.
‘Last March, when we had that freak snowstorm – the city buses were cancelled. I was driving from work back to my dorm. And I saw a woman at the bus stop. I felt bad – she obviously didn’t know about the cancellations. And then, suddenly, I saw her meeting a man in a blue sweater, and they started laughing and later he asked her to go to dinner with him. So I picked her up. She said she was going to a friend’s birthday party at a restaurant near my school. I dropped her off at the restaurant, but as I was pulling away, I saw the group she was meeting, and then she was shaking someone’s hand, like she was being introduced.’ She stopped. She looked up at me and her eyes were almost glowing with excitement. ‘It was the same man, that I had seen before – in a blue sweater. After that, I really started to believe that – maybe I really was seeing visions – that I didn’t just have an overactive imagination because he was the same – exactly the same. He had dark curly hair, a reddish complexion, stubble.’ She shook her head in wonder.”
Kat straightened up in her chair. “I have to admit, I was a little stumped, and since we were coming to the end of our time, I asked her why she had signed up for therapy. She shrugged.
‘Well, I guess I was just kind of concerned. I mean, like I said, normal people don’t really have visions. I guess, I’m kind of worried about myself, even though, I don’t know why I should be. I’m perfectly fine. If anything, my life is more exciting and…well…joyful now.’
‘Does it help to talk about it?’
‘Yes! Yes, it does. I’ve been afraid to tell anyone about it.’
‘Well, that’s what I’m here for.’
“I told her she could sign up for a follow-up appointment and after that she started seeing me regularly. The stories were all rather similar. I found it very interesting. I never had a client like that before, and I wasn’t sure how to approach her situation, but mostly we just talked.”
James broke in, “Did she show any signs of emotional instability?”
“Well, no, that was the problem. She had no personal or family history of mental illness, and occasionally when we talked about other things, school, work, her friends, she seemed perfectly healthy.”
“Seemed?”
“Well, that was for the first three or four months. In December, I noticed a change. She had missed our last appointment and so it had been a while. When she came in, I saw immediately that there was something on her mind. She glanced around the room awkwardly and when I asked her to sit down, she just kept standing.
‘Do you remember the story I told you about the woman I picked up in the snow storm?’ she asked.
‘Yes of course.’
‘Well, I saw her again.’
‘Oh?’
‘She’s engaged. To that man. The same man. The guy with the blue sweater.’
“I stared at her a minute. For the first time since I’d known her, she looked tired.”
James shifted in his seat. “What happened after that?”
“I tried to talk to her like normal, but she wasn’t listening to me. And then, she didn’t come back for over a month. She kept making appointments and then cancelling at the last minute. Finally, last week, she kept her appointment. She looked so different, it was distracting. She wore a baggy sweatshirt didn’t have any makeup on. She looked as though, at any moment, she would burst into tears. She just sat before me, wringing her hands and looking back and forth between her lap and her feet. Finally, she stood up,
‘I can’t keep going on like this.’ She burst out. ‘I did it again! Just today! Again, I denied someone. They needed my help and I refused.’
‘Please sit down,’ I said. She did so. ‘Now tell me what happened.’
‘There was an old man ahead of me in the checkout at the grocery store. When his total came up, he looked in his wallet and he didn’t have enough money. I think he had only five dollars. He looked rather disheveled, his pants were old and his sweater had moth-holes in it. I saw a picture of him going home to a tiny little apartment and making dinner for a little woman in a wheelchair. They were happy together.’ She started crying. ‘But I only have fifty dollars left till my next payday, and his bill was nearly thirty. So I—’ her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘did – nothing.’
‘Then what happened?’
“She looked up at me, her eyes full, ‘He picked a couple of small things out of all his groceries and bought those only. The teller put the rest in a basket and slipped it under the counter.’ She wiped her eyes but the tears kept flowing. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I’m so selfish. I could have gotten along with only twenty-five dollars. I have a meal plan and the school covers my medical. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to pay for his groceries. I shouldn’t have to help everyone I meet. And now I feel like – the most horrible person. I feel miserable.’
‘Has this happened before?’
She sighed. ‘Yes. In December. That’s when I stopped feeling happy about the visions. That’s when I realized they weren’t always good, because…I’m not always good.’”
Kat took a sip of her drink and leaned her head on her hand.
“Was that the end?”
“Pretty much. I tried talking to her about personal responsibility, about taking control of your own life. But she would have none of it. She told me she couldn’t forgive herself for having the power to help others and refusing to use it.”
James stared at her for a minute. “Kat, she has a condition.”
“Oh undoubtedly. Though I have no idea what, yet.”
“Well, it’s only the beginning.”
“True.” She slowly swirled the ice in her empty glass.
“Kat why do I get the feeling that there’s something else that you’re not telling me?”
She glanced at him and bit her lip. “It is interesting, isn’t it? I mean, James, can you imagine what it would be like to live in that head?”
“That’s probably the one thing you shouldn’t do.” He motioned to the bartender for refills.
She turned her gaze away and stared at the glittering bottles before her. “Yeah, I guess so. It’s philosophical though.”
“So are schizophrenics.”
She nodded.
“They – they think too much,” he continued. “They think about the things that would make normal people go crazy. You don’t actually believe that she has visions, do you?”
She turned back to him. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t.”
He sighed. “It sounds like guilt, but honestly, it could be anything.” He watched her for a moment and then reached over and touched her arm. “Are you okay?”
She hesitated. His grip on her arm tightened slightly. “Yeah,” she shook her head. “Yeah, I’m fine. I guess it’s just a difficult case during a difficult time. You know everyone else, is, like you said, bickering about their in-laws and relating long histories of past Christmas tragedies, and this girl seems so…transcendent in comparison. Truthfully, she makes me uncomfortable.”
“Do what you know how to do, and she’ll get better. You’re a good therapist. You can help her.”
She nodded.
He looked at his watch. “Well, I have to get going. Class prep: it never ends.” He smiled. “Let’s catch up more often.”
She stood and shook his hand. “Let’s. I’ll see you.”
He picked his hat off the bar, took his wallet out and put a few bills down, and waved goodbye.
Kat sat at the bar for another few minutes. Then she finished her drink, gathered her things, and walked out.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Quote for the Day: From Chesterton's "Orthodoxy"
The main point here, however, is that this idea of a fundamental alteration in the standard is one of the things that make thought about the past or future simply impossible. The theory of a complete change of standards in human history does not merely deprive us the pleasure of honouring our fathers; it deprives us even of the more modern and aristocratic pleasure of despising them.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Food Excursions: Greek sandwiches with Tzatziki Sauce
When I moved away to college, I started trying new international foods. Being from a large family, our cuisine rarely ventured out of the confines of casseroles and stir-fries at home and Mexican, Chinese and Italian when we went out. But in Seattle, I started eating more Indian and Thai food. And it was in college that I experienced the glories of hummus and pita bread. The first time I had gyros, I was seventeen and in France. One girl in my group had taken French in high school and was trying desperately to communicate with the rather annoyed shop-attendants. Later on that same summer I had them a second time in California at a chain restaurant called Daphne's; I think there were lots of baaaaaa's throughout that meal with my teenage friends, but it was delicious. The next significant time was on the day I moved away from home and into my dorm-room, junior year. Mom and I found this tiny Greek cafe in Kirkland, Washington and had gyros and Greek fries. And senior year, ReBekha and I visited this hole-in-the-wall place near Taproot Theatre in Seattle's Greenwood district. I think that was the day that we skipped Literature of American Diversity to see a play. :) We both thought the flirtatious guys behind the counter were ridiculously hot. It was that very same class that Rick made Tzatziki sauce and someone bought pitas from the local cafe for one of our culture-themed lunches. Ever since then I've wanted to make the famous cucumber-yogurt sauce. Needless to say, international food is a bit hard to come by in Japan, although I've had a gyro/kabob sandwich on the rare occasions I make it to Tokyo.
So anyway, I have very fond memories of the meal. Now let's move on to cooking.
Gyros pose a problem since the meat is made in a rather difficult manner. They skewer it with spices and fat and then cook it through. Then they shave off the meat into sandwiches or onto salad.
This poses a problem to anyone who doesn't have this equipment and although I did find recipes to make the meat in a meat-loaf style, I didn't want to go to that much work. However, I thought that perhaps with some spices and marinating, one could capture the flavor of the meat, if not the texture. So I did a little research, and tried to figure out what spices to use. In the end, I decided on garlic, oregano, salt, pepper, and paprika if I could pick any up. Alas I could not. I ended up eventually adding cumin and that seemed to spice it up in an appropriate manner. I mixed these with extra virgin olive oil. The meat I chose was a kind of fatty steak. I cut it up in about 1 inch strips and poured the olive oil mixture over the top. Then I rubbed the mixture into the meat and let it sit while I worked on the sauce.
I found a recipe online for Tzatziki sauce that sounded good. I like to use www.allrecipes.com to get different ideas about how to make things. I generally find the comments on said recipes as helpful as the recipes themselves, since helpful members will post their own alterations. I used 1 part sour cream, 2 parts yogurt, cucumber, lemon juice, pepper, and extra virgin olive oil for my sauce. I threw the cucumber in the food processor and then poured it into a cheese-cloth and squeezed out the extra liquid.
In all actuality, I don't think the sour cream is really necessary. If the sauce was too tart, more olive oil would have done the trick I think. As it was, I only used a tiny bit of olive oil, adding a little at a time, stirring it in and tasting it. Also, I only used a little squeeze of lemon as well. The finished sauce tasted incredible.
Then I chopped up red onion and tomatoes.
At this point, I had done everything I could do and since I was hungry, I wanted to cook the meat immediately. It probably would have been best to marinate it longer, but as it was, it turned out flavorful and delicious. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of fat (partially from the olive oil) but I drained off what I could.
I bought the pita bread at Costco in Kobe and it's been in my freezer for a few months now. But it held up just fine. I took out one piece before I went to the grocery store, so it had about 2 hours to defrost. I stuffed it with meat and veggies and dabbed the sauce on top.
It was amazing! Soooo delicious. I had of course tasted the meat to make sure it was good and tasted everything separately, but together it was incredible. And best of all, it wasn't all that difficult either.
I'm looking forward to making these again in the future and making them for other people to try as well. Unfortunately, it was just me home tonight. But I was accompanied by wonderful food, and that helps quite a bit. ;)
Goodnight!
So anyway, I have very fond memories of the meal. Now let's move on to cooking.
Gyros pose a problem since the meat is made in a rather difficult manner. They skewer it with spices and fat and then cook it through. Then they shave off the meat into sandwiches or onto salad.
This poses a problem to anyone who doesn't have this equipment and although I did find recipes to make the meat in a meat-loaf style, I didn't want to go to that much work. However, I thought that perhaps with some spices and marinating, one could capture the flavor of the meat, if not the texture. So I did a little research, and tried to figure out what spices to use. In the end, I decided on garlic, oregano, salt, pepper, and paprika if I could pick any up. Alas I could not. I ended up eventually adding cumin and that seemed to spice it up in an appropriate manner. I mixed these with extra virgin olive oil. The meat I chose was a kind of fatty steak. I cut it up in about 1 inch strips and poured the olive oil mixture over the top. Then I rubbed the mixture into the meat and let it sit while I worked on the sauce.
I found a recipe online for Tzatziki sauce that sounded good. I like to use www.allrecipes.com to get different ideas about how to make things. I generally find the comments on said recipes as helpful as the recipes themselves, since helpful members will post their own alterations. I used 1 part sour cream, 2 parts yogurt, cucumber, lemon juice, pepper, and extra virgin olive oil for my sauce. I threw the cucumber in the food processor and then poured it into a cheese-cloth and squeezed out the extra liquid.
In all actuality, I don't think the sour cream is really necessary. If the sauce was too tart, more olive oil would have done the trick I think. As it was, I only used a tiny bit of olive oil, adding a little at a time, stirring it in and tasting it. Also, I only used a little squeeze of lemon as well. The finished sauce tasted incredible.
Then I chopped up red onion and tomatoes.
At this point, I had done everything I could do and since I was hungry, I wanted to cook the meat immediately. It probably would have been best to marinate it longer, but as it was, it turned out flavorful and delicious. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of fat (partially from the olive oil) but I drained off what I could.
I bought the pita bread at Costco in Kobe and it's been in my freezer for a few months now. But it held up just fine. I took out one piece before I went to the grocery store, so it had about 2 hours to defrost. I stuffed it with meat and veggies and dabbed the sauce on top.
It was amazing! Soooo delicious. I had of course tasted the meat to make sure it was good and tasted everything separately, but together it was incredible. And best of all, it wasn't all that difficult either.
I'm looking forward to making these again in the future and making them for other people to try as well. Unfortunately, it was just me home tonight. But I was accompanied by wonderful food, and that helps quite a bit. ;)
Goodnight!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Writing adventures
One of my goals while in Japan was to read and write more. I figured I would have a lot of extra time on my hands that I could devote to these things that I had neglected in college. The reading has slowly been coming along. The writing has been a bit more difficult. Although I completed Nanowrimo (writing 50,000 words in the month of November) last year, the content I was working with was a story line I had been dreaming up for years and years. Frankly, I'm sick of it. As I've gotten older and imposed limits on my once absurdly limitless imagination (one cannot live in a dream world ALL THE TIME), I've had difficulty coming up with new material.
However, it seems as though I might be finally conquering this obstacle, or at least climbing up it a bit. I wrote my first short story in over a year last week (please see previous post). Also, I started work on co-writing our AJET production for this winter, our very own 'Treasure Island.' It's not an original piece, but there will be a lot of original thought going into it. We'll be adapting it to Japan in a way, with Japanese characters, locales, and jokes. I'm super excited. It's going to be a ton of fun.
I'm hoping to be almost finished with the first draft by November. Hopefully, I'll still have time to participate in Nanowrimo this year, which brings me to my third point. I think I may have found a group of characters to write about in November. I've already realized that plot is not my strong point. I have to start out with a group of characters and situations and find the plot from there. I suppose this weakness probably has something to do with the fact that my favorite part about writing is the dialogue NOT the narrative. However, I've realized that some novels aren't necessarily dominated by an over-arching plot, but rather are just about people with relatively interesting lives. All this to say, I can't wait for November. I have a little over a month to work out some ideas and then I could start on my third novel attempt! I'm quite excited for this.
One last thing I've been thinking about: when I've approached writing in the past, it has often been as a perfectionist. I read my work with disgust sometimes because it didn't meet some standard I had set. I've realized this is the last attitude I should have about my writing. I'm an amateur. I'm probably even less worth-while than an amateur. I should write, not because I expect myself to write the next NY Times bestseller but because I want more practice and because it's fun. I enjoy writing. I like creating. If I'm lucky, my mom and my boyfriend will read it, and that will be it, and that will be okay.
So, here's to someday writing something pretty cool, but for now, being okay with less than mediocre :)
However, it seems as though I might be finally conquering this obstacle, or at least climbing up it a bit. I wrote my first short story in over a year last week (please see previous post). Also, I started work on co-writing our AJET production for this winter, our very own 'Treasure Island.' It's not an original piece, but there will be a lot of original thought going into it. We'll be adapting it to Japan in a way, with Japanese characters, locales, and jokes. I'm super excited. It's going to be a ton of fun.
I'm hoping to be almost finished with the first draft by November. Hopefully, I'll still have time to participate in Nanowrimo this year, which brings me to my third point. I think I may have found a group of characters to write about in November. I've already realized that plot is not my strong point. I have to start out with a group of characters and situations and find the plot from there. I suppose this weakness probably has something to do with the fact that my favorite part about writing is the dialogue NOT the narrative. However, I've realized that some novels aren't necessarily dominated by an over-arching plot, but rather are just about people with relatively interesting lives. All this to say, I can't wait for November. I have a little over a month to work out some ideas and then I could start on my third novel attempt! I'm quite excited for this.
One last thing I've been thinking about: when I've approached writing in the past, it has often been as a perfectionist. I read my work with disgust sometimes because it didn't meet some standard I had set. I've realized this is the last attitude I should have about my writing. I'm an amateur. I'm probably even less worth-while than an amateur. I should write, not because I expect myself to write the next NY Times bestseller but because I want more practice and because it's fun. I enjoy writing. I like creating. If I'm lucky, my mom and my boyfriend will read it, and that will be it, and that will be okay.
So, here's to someday writing something pretty cool, but for now, being okay with less than mediocre :)
Sunday, September 12, 2010
New Short Story: Expensive Brownies
Please head over to my creative blog to check it out. :)
http://evidentialparadoxes.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/expensive-brownies/
http://evidentialparadoxes.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/expensive-brownies/
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
And we begin again
Kody arrived September 1, which means that I'm no longer a lonely, lonely girl. :) His job is about a 45 minute drive, and while I won't make it everyday (due to gas expenses and keeping my life in order), I'll definitely get to see him 2 or 3 times a week I think. He doesn't have a car, but I do, and that's going to make this year a lot easier all around.
This summer was a breath, and now it's gone. I went to Tokyo twice on JET business. My hotel room looked out on the Notre-Dame-inspired Tokyo City Office, or “Tochyou” as they say in Japanese. It was quite fun. And the beach, the beach in Tokushima is wonderful. I must have gone swimming over 10 times this summer, sometimes several times a week. We can still swim because of the heat, but there's an increasing risk of jelly-fish stings, which curtails my enthusiasm.
And now September is here and we have record heat. It's been in the 90s all week, if not over 100, and though today it says 87, the humidity is probably through the roof judging from the cloud cover outside. This is when I bless my car. Last year at this time, I was putting on slacks and nice shirts and getting nice dark freckles due to the 8 am sun that greeted me on the way to work. I don't have pimples, except in Japan, where I sweat like an overexcited puppy.
One year changes a lot. Everything comes in stride now. The stress is gone. Frustration remains at times, but the stress has ebbed. I have a favorite bakery where I buy my favorite bread. I know the cheapest place to buy shredded cheese and ground beef and chicken. I know how to use my japanese microwave oven to make banana bread, and I've learned the secret to keeping my apartment cool without topping $100 in electricity fees. I can bumble my way through buying almost anything, and I no longer squirm when I spend $12 on ingredients to make dinner or $4 on a 12 ounce jar of pasta sauce. I eat sashimi as if it were cheese, and rice as if it were bread. My coffee addiction is worse. Notice how almost all of these have to do with food: Japan has forced me to cook – for a lack of anything else to do.
I've also learned how to use my extra time at work. Novels, Japanese, GRE books, writing, and budgeting fill the black whole that is free time. Goodbye yahoo news and celebrity gossip. Oh dear those were the dark ages. Okay, so I sometimes play Settlers of Catan online, but only sometimes. ;) I'm still struggling to tame the wild beast that is evenings alone at home, but I think I'm getting better. The cooking has helped with this a lot. And I'm sure that having Kody so close will help as well. I'll have fewer evenings to myself, which means I'll have to be more careful with them.
In a week and a half, I'm off to visit ReBekha in Okinawa! It will be the first time I've been, even though I promised her long ago that I would come visit. It will be really nice, after just having gotten back into school, to just run off for over a week. I'm wonderfully excited. Though I might come home and be more discontent than ever. I hear she has great cafes. Hmmmmm. I'm hoping to convince Kody to go to Kyoto with me in October or November for my birthday. As always, it's difficult because it's so ridiculously expensive to travel in Japan, and Kyoto might even be worse than Tokyo. However, it's also one of the most famous and beautiful places, so we have to go.
I'm going to end this now. (That sounds like I'm breaking-up with this blog – ha) I'm afraid this might be terribly boring, but oh well. My writer ego is not so strong anymore.
This summer was a breath, and now it's gone. I went to Tokyo twice on JET business. My hotel room looked out on the Notre-Dame-inspired Tokyo City Office, or “Tochyou” as they say in Japanese. It was quite fun. And the beach, the beach in Tokushima is wonderful. I must have gone swimming over 10 times this summer, sometimes several times a week. We can still swim because of the heat, but there's an increasing risk of jelly-fish stings, which curtails my enthusiasm.
And now September is here and we have record heat. It's been in the 90s all week, if not over 100, and though today it says 87, the humidity is probably through the roof judging from the cloud cover outside. This is when I bless my car. Last year at this time, I was putting on slacks and nice shirts and getting nice dark freckles due to the 8 am sun that greeted me on the way to work. I don't have pimples, except in Japan, where I sweat like an overexcited puppy.
One year changes a lot. Everything comes in stride now. The stress is gone. Frustration remains at times, but the stress has ebbed. I have a favorite bakery where I buy my favorite bread. I know the cheapest place to buy shredded cheese and ground beef and chicken. I know how to use my japanese microwave oven to make banana bread, and I've learned the secret to keeping my apartment cool without topping $100 in electricity fees. I can bumble my way through buying almost anything, and I no longer squirm when I spend $12 on ingredients to make dinner or $4 on a 12 ounce jar of pasta sauce. I eat sashimi as if it were cheese, and rice as if it were bread. My coffee addiction is worse. Notice how almost all of these have to do with food: Japan has forced me to cook – for a lack of anything else to do.
I've also learned how to use my extra time at work. Novels, Japanese, GRE books, writing, and budgeting fill the black whole that is free time. Goodbye yahoo news and celebrity gossip. Oh dear those were the dark ages. Okay, so I sometimes play Settlers of Catan online, but only sometimes. ;) I'm still struggling to tame the wild beast that is evenings alone at home, but I think I'm getting better. The cooking has helped with this a lot. And I'm sure that having Kody so close will help as well. I'll have fewer evenings to myself, which means I'll have to be more careful with them.
In a week and a half, I'm off to visit ReBekha in Okinawa! It will be the first time I've been, even though I promised her long ago that I would come visit. It will be really nice, after just having gotten back into school, to just run off for over a week. I'm wonderfully excited. Though I might come home and be more discontent than ever. I hear she has great cafes. Hmmmmm. I'm hoping to convince Kody to go to Kyoto with me in October or November for my birthday. As always, it's difficult because it's so ridiculously expensive to travel in Japan, and Kyoto might even be worse than Tokyo. However, it's also one of the most famous and beautiful places, so we have to go.
I'm going to end this now. (That sounds like I'm breaking-up with this blog – ha) I'm afraid this might be terribly boring, but oh well. My writer ego is not so strong anymore.
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