slightly worrying: wordpress randomly erased the post below. as in, it was there last night, and when i came this morning, it was gone. fortunately Google cache saved the day. has anyone else had this experience? and furthermore, can anyone recommend some other kind of blogging software for this humble site?

when i heard that the new Star Trek movie was coming out on May 7th, i knew it would be an inauspicious release date for me, firstly because i would be in the final throes of my semester and thus completely insane, and secondly because the people i wanted to see it with (my Dad and Malcolm) would be 350 miles from me on opening day. Malc went to see it at the midnight showing and sent me a text at 2 am proclaiming that it sucked (an opinion he later retracted). my dear father held out until i finally came home and we saw it in the last days of May.

the film was amazing. and so, so sexy, which was a welcome respite from the Shat rolling around on screen like a beach ball in the last few films. everything was exactly as it should be - a homage, taking the source material and doing it justice, but allowing new life to breathe through it. it was amusing to see the new actors incorporate small mannerisms of Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and especially DeForest Kelly. it was reverent, but not overly so. of course i loved it.

a few minor quibbles, however. one, Amanda Grayson was killed? if J. J. Abrams continues to fuck with Star Trek mythology in this manner it’s going to give fanboys and girls alike all sorts of headaches while they are compiling their exhaustive histories (many of which i own). and furthermore: Winona Ryder? what the fuck? also, i REALLY missed the Sarek from TNG, played by Mark Lenard. i wished he could’ve continued the role (i always loved his portrayal) but it turns out he passed away several years ago.

so epic fail on both of Spock’s parents. but massive WIN on Spock. my only regret is the PG 13 rating, when i saw that i knew there would be no hot Vulcan sex. sigh.

HELLO GORGEOUS.

Star Trek is such a huge part of my cultural DNA.  i always knew this. from the time TNG first came on the air in 1987, i was hopelessly hooked. this, i thought, was just the way things should be the future. but i realized recently just how much the characters in Star Trek has affected who i’ve dated and fell in love with. i have probably spent most of my adult life looking for an amalgamation of Jean-Luc Picard, Data and Spock, with perhaps a dash of Worf thrown in to make it interesting (oh, and by the way: there is a “how to have sex with a Klingon” manual floating around somewhere on the internet - i have read it). i have always been drawn to people who are inveterate geeks, with weird interests and passions that they pursue doggedly. i appreciate Spock and Data’s faith in the infallibility of logic (it warms the cockles of my little agnostic heart), and understood this to be a good counterpoint to my flights of uncontrollable emotionality.

my heart rose and fell with every episode with Jean-Luc brushed up against love (why is resigned singleness the condition of all Starfleet captains?). i desperately wanted him to find someone, like that archeologist lady or some alien singularity worthy of his awesomeness. but he was always alone, even in the episodes where we flashed forward to the future. forget New Kids on the Block or any other boy band of the late 80s: my dreamboat was a bald Starship captain in his fifties who strode confidently across the bridge, giving orders in an elegant baritone so clearly honed by years of Shakespeare. i also have to attribute Jean-Luc’s bald pate to my attraction to shaved heads, my infatuation with British accents, and of course, the occasional cup of Earl Gray tea.

i have an amazing student this semester. when i first got to know everyone in my tiny class (which dwindled from 13 to 9 once i proved what i hardass i can be), i pegged her incorrectly as a sorority girl taking my class for “fun” to fulfill her last requirement before graduating in May. like most initial assumptions, i was wrong, so wrong, but happily so. it’s always an incredible thing to have a student who is not only completely into what they’re doing, but also soaks up all the information like a sponge and then turns around and makes it all her own. she told me that she was a english and communications major, and had absolutely no idea what she was going to do once she graduated. i mentioned the minor/certificate program that the university has, we talked about it a bit, and then i set up a meeting with a faculty member. she came back with good news: she could complete the minor in only one additional year, and had decided she would do it. could i help her take photos of her work to be admitted to the art school?

of course, of course. so we met last friday and i set up the camera, lights and backdrop. i showed her the rudiments of taking good images. we talked a bit about what she wanted to do after her she got the minor, i suggested a post-bacc year or residency to hone her craft. it excited me so much to see someone at the beginning of this journey.

then there’s this: my class starts at 9 in the morning. at 8:30 that same night, when i came through the throwing room, she was still working in the same exact spot, having produced a number of vessels, including an entire teapot with lid, spout and handle. “you’re still here!” i exclaimed.

“oh yeah,” she replied. “i get going and it’s like no time passes at all…it’s so great.”

THIS. this is what makes this stupid MFA worth it, with all its attendent bullshit: the stress, the panic attacks, the medication, the frustration, the constant sense of doubt, the fact that i didn’t pass my thesis the first time, all of it, all of it, is worth it to know that the light in her eyes, that sense of purpose, all of that passion - in some small, tiny way - i was responsible for it.

thesis proposal today, in about two hours. i am really nervous.

i rarely write about my dubious domestic exploits here because they are frequently embarrassing and pathetic, and not in a “oops, i bleached my underwear!” kind of way.

anyway, i am writing to tell you that i improvised a surprisingly successful soup today. grad school has left me with little time for normal cooking (as if i did it that much to begin with), so the good ol’ crock pot and i are becoming good friends. the level of mushiness achieved over an 8 to 12 hour cooking period is pleasing to my finicky food texture preferences. this soup was very special because i scraped the bottom of my pantry for it; that is, i fished long-forgotten ingredients from my auxiliary pantry on the landing outside my apartment and from the back of my freezer, burned to all hell but still edible. there is nothing more pleasing that concocting a meal (or in this case, about ten meals) from practically nothing.

to whit:

2 packages of cooked frozen whole leaf spinach

12-16 oz spicy sausage, already cooked (i should mention that when i rescued these from the depths of my freezer, they were in ziploc bags with my mother’s handwriting on them: “spicy sausage, 10/18/08″. food freshness FAIL)

1 small can of mushrooms (i imagine fresh would be better but i wanted to get rid of this can as i’m pretty sure i’ve had it since 2007)

6 12 oz. cans of stock (i had chicken, or you can use bouillion cubes)

Some random amount of orzo (maybe 4 oz?)

2-3 bay leaves

salt & pepper to taste

cut the sausage into smallish pieces. cook the orzo to al dente. dump that and all the rest of the ingredients in the crock pot. i don’t think it really matters how long it cooks since all the ingredients are already cooked. i left it in for about 8 hours on low.

i should mention that this makes a massive amount of soup (like 5 quarts). that’s just how i roll in grad school, but feel free to make your portion smaller.

tomorrow: how to remove two week old macaroni and cheese detritus from your great-grandmother’s antique enamel stock pots.

ooof. sorry.

so, what the hell happened to this past week? i don’t know. i’m not going to write about it.

last spring i took a fabulous art history class that changed my life: Feminist Perspectives in Art History. it was taught by Magali, who was so amazing i asked her to be on my committee. she has been a continuing voice of intelligence and sanity in this crazy ass MFA program. anyway, it was an undergrad class, so it consisted of me, one of my colleagues from the department, a few really amazing smart sexy ladies (one of whom i had a girl crush on), and the rest were terrible dead undergraduate weight, mostly girls who spent all of the class time texting on their Sidekicks. and this was a small (20 or so people) discussion class. FAIL.

a major part of our grade was a presentation and paper, natch. i did mine on Barbara Kruger, who is amazing and changed my life. most of the other presentations varied in quality from the excellent to the utterly ridiculous. one of the latter was by one of the Sidekick texters, who gave a presentation on “women in music”. it consisted of, and i shit you not, her displaying lyrics by Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos and Gwen Stefani in a powerpoint, and opining vaguely on how they were empowering women and they were all feminist and stuff. by end of the ten minutes, i was ready to jump out of my chair with indignation. when she called on me, it went something like this:

“why these people? why not Kate Bush? why not Annie Lennox? why not Liz Phair? why not Ani DiFranco? why not Hole? why not the fucking riot grrl movement? what about them?”

to which, most predictably, she answered. “who are they?”

headdesk.

yeah, of course she would pick the girl singers who were left to fight over the scraps of the meat left by all of the above (i put Sarah and Gwen in that category, Tori, not so much). she’s fucking all of 19 and thinks that Gwen Stefani singing about how she’s just a girl in a world like totally speaks to how women totally are not treated the same way as guys.

but i digress. i was actually introduced to the bands that comprised the Riot Grrl movement my freshmen year of college. my roommate had on a constant rotation of Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill, and when i occasionally emerged from my haze of Tori Amos-love, i saw how this was totally kickass music. kickass music i could’ve used about five years earlier, when i was feeling terrible about being myself and terrible about being a girl. i wish, somehow, that i could’ve seen another way to be a girl, that i could be proactive, fabulously nerdy and intelligent and totally, completely kickass. i have a feeling it would have helped me be braver.

the reason i am writing this is because of the excellent Riot Grrl Retrospective put together by the Experience Music Project. you can see all the links to the various parts here on Jezebel, or start here with part one:

i woke up yesterday morning massively sick. it had been gestating since at least thursday, and for a long time i thought it would just be a little sniffle or two. i rose at 7 yesterday, ready to do battle, only to see that school had been cancelled. i rolled around in bed for a few hours, unable to sleep, and upon hearing that the studio had opened at 10:30, crawled out of bed and spent the next six hours rather uselessly, moping and trying to eat and drink fluids and listening to sundry history podcasts while puzzling over the shit incubating in my studio.

another question not easily answered: if your MFA program is making you hate yourself and hate making art, is it really doing its job? the story at 11.

it’s a consequence of my line of work that i possess a lot of ceramic objects, both my own and those i have bought, borrowed or traded from various colleagues throughout the last decade or so. owning this many breakable objects (as well as my general klutziness) it’s surprising that breakages aren’t a more frequent occurrance.

first thing i broke was one of Delaney’s little ceramic trays from a wood firing at Tyler. it has resided on my coffeetable for the last two years or so, and it toppled off while i was cleaning, falling approximately 18 inches onto a rug which was on a carpet and breaking cleanly in two. i stared at it for a moment, not quite comprehending, because it just didn’t make sense that it would break from such a short, relatively well-padded fall. i read her name on the back of broken tray: “Delaney 02″. suck.

the second thing i broke was a pink glass mug that Jeanine had given me. i was talking to my grandmother on the phone and trying to do dishes at the same time. i had just placed it on the dish rack when another plate fell and knocked it to the floor. smash. i said shit into the phone but my grandmother was mid-sentence and didn’t hear me. i still haven’t cleaned it up, so a corner of my kitchen is covered in small shards of pink glass. the prettiest pink you can imagine. damn. i loved that cup.

well, reading is a bit of a misnomer, as i no longer have time to read, but instead listen to audiobooks almost exclusively while working in the studio (i also have a large complement of podcasts, most of the NPR-PRI-New Yorker ilk). when my iPod was finally finished reading to me, i was overcome with a feeling i haven’t felt in a while: that delicious mix of happiness and sadness that one feels after finishing an amazing book. happiness, because your life is now so much better than it was before, and sadness, because all those characters you loved have finished their story for you, and you will never get to experience something new with them ever again.

the book in question was Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. i had started listening to it when i was driving home for winter break, and it sat neglected for several months, mostly because my iPod had organized it strangely and it was thus all of out of order. i picked it again at the end of January.

Foer seems to have an affinity for writing about collecting and organizing the detritus of our complicated world. this was a tendency i also observed in Everything is Illuminated, though i have only seen the film and not read the book (it is next on my list). all of his characters cope with their various tragedies and heartbreak through the accumulation and organization of things; indeed, it is the only thing that can make sense of the senseless things that happen to them. words and writing in their various forms seem to be the most frequent used device: one character, after surviving the bombing in Dresden, Germany, moves to America and responds to the terrible things he’s seen by slowly “losing words”, until all he has left is the word “I” and then wanders around New York City saying “I I I I” until he finally loses that as well, and must resort to communicating through tattoos on his hands (one palm says “yes”, the other “no”) and a small daybook in which he writes what he wants to say, though he inevitably runs out of room by the end of the day and must reuse the words he’s written. these daybooks, one for each day, pile up around him and he can pick any of them up and recall conversations that happened months before. another character writes her life story on a typewriter with no ribbon, and then when she finally finishes hands it to her husband to read, unaware that the pages are blank because her eyesight is so bad. another smaller character, a former war correspondent, organizes everyone he’s ever met in a card catalogue under a few select categories: “War”, “Money”, “Father” and so on.

everything in this book seemed to be speaking to what i am going thinking about and struggling with right at this moment in the studio and in my life. an incredible sense of loss permeates the experience of these characters, but with that loss an enormous opportunity to manifest one’s pain and in doing so, understand and honor it as a physical presence. exploring a space in between, that is neither one or the other, neither here nor there. i desperately want to talk to Foer and pick his brain about all of this, maybe i could find some clarity about what i am thinking about, how collecting and ordering and understanding why and how can save one’s life.

my lungs still hurt from the third-hand smoke. one of my colleagues has a minivan that i borrowed today to move into my new warehouse space. he is also a heavy smoker, which means his car reeks, and he is also 23, which means his car is full of all sorts of strange boy paraphenalia - empty beer bottles, empty cigarette packs, an unbelievably fucked up cassette tape of Jimi Hendrix playing in the stereo and about four baby booties sitting on the dashboard. yeah, i don’t know either.

but i am not complaining. his car allowed me to move into my new studio. now, a word on the “warehouse space” of which i speak. i’m sure, gentle reader, you are conjuring in your head visions of trendy converted lofts in some godforsaken corner of Brooklyn about to tip over the cliff of gentrification. not so, here in New Bedford. i have walls, yes, and lighting, but they are of the most elementary kind, and heat, unfortunately, is not currently in the offing. it has hardwood floors that i wouldn’t walk barefoot on if my life depended on it. still, it is mine, all (partially) mine, perhaps 600ish square feet? i haven’t measured it yet, but i’d guess it’s somewhere between 2.5-3 times the size of my studio at school. huge, huge. sawtooth ceiling, reaching up about thirty feet. all the verticals i will ever need, for the princely sum of $175 a month.

in this rare, rare instance: New Bedford FTW.