it’s that time of year again

Or at least, it is here in Phoenix. It’s that time of year where I try desperately to become a somewhat successful gardener because the weather has turned and the herbs are fragrant and my windowsill looks bare without greenery.

It is still too cold for basil, my one friend in the gardening world, so I’m trying to quench my herb needs elsewhere — namely parsley (foreground), rosemary, chives, and cilantro (all currently unsprouted.)

I also ventured to the farmer’s market on Saturday (after a week of being unable due to maneuvering with the car. I have still not worked up the bravery to bike 45 minutes for vegetables) and a gentleman was selling these small black cherry tomatoes (have you had a black cherry tomato? they are amazing) and some sort of pepper plant. I indulged. They were too beautiful. I am hoping that, since I have had so little luck with large tomatoes, that maybe these small ones will inundate me into the world of fresh picked tomato goodness.

As you can see, I have also become slightly obsessed with using all possible packaging for my plants this year. Old yogurt containers, almond milk, half and half — I’ll be honest when I say I wish the two on the end weren’t in styrofoam, but that was how the man was selling them. Perhaps I can use them again when I replant them into a larger container.

In other news, I am still getting immense satisfaction from riding my bike almost everywhere. I’ve even started to decorate her a little, and I find myself looking for stickers to put on her everywhere. Still, for most decorations, I am too indecisive. I did ride my bike to the optometrist’s office this week, because I noticed that I couldn’t read adequately at night time when I do have the car, and sometimes in the classroom I was squinting. She served me well, although I remember how much I love bike lanes when I am forced onto the sidewalk.

Last but not least, I am trying to experiment with different types of food. I’ve become obsessed with different types of Thai food, and for good reason. I think Thai food is one of the few types of cuisine I can enjoy without meat or cheese. I’ve been eating curries and Tom Yum soups and Drunken noodles like they’re going out of style, and Saturday after the farmer’s market I tried to make my own red curry. It was okay. I haven’t mastered the sugar-spicy thing yet. I’ll work on it, and when I nail it, I’ll share. But until then, I eat leftovers.

(My curry and rice on the left, drunken noodles on the right. Also, let it be known that these casserole dishes are the only reason I can live without a microwave. Top one of these babies off with a lid and put it in the oven — perfectly heated, without going dry. Why didn’t I learn this sooner?)

Mighty Be Our Powers by Leymah Gbowee

Mighty Be Our Powers by Leymah Gbowee

I saw Gbowee on the Daily Show and she was so funny and her story was so amazing that I knew I wanted to read this book, and I’m glad I did. It’s worth it. It’s a story of war and the people who suffer for it and the power of demanding change.

My only hesitation, and I’m not sure if it’s a hesitation as much as it is not having figured out my reaction for myself yet, is that this book will not really make you feel the pain of the people going through war. It will tell you, blatantly, about it. It will tell you of the rape, the killing, the boys with guns. But for the most part, it is all told, and as a reader it never broke my heart more than, say, a news story would. It’s a catch-22 — I appreciated it, because I’m not sure I could have gotten through the book if I had felt every moment of the people’s pain. But then I also never fully felt their pain.

The other thing is, in many ways, what people focus on is the “sex strike” the women go on in order to change things. Don’t focus on that. This is not that story. It happens, but the media has clung to that small part of the story more than it deserves. It is really about women standing up to change the country, and the sex strike was one small part of that movement.

It’s worth reading. Especially when you feel like seeing the world outside your own, comfortable space.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

What a book. It’s massive, sometimes you want to scream “WHAT?!” and shove it in people’s faces to try to explain it to you, and at the same time you get invested in the (several) different stories. It was interesting reading this in a class atmosphere. On the one hand, as a picky reader, I may have given up as the first chapter is difficult to read and I got afraid that I wouldn’t understand the whole book, but continued on because I had to for class. On the other hand, as a class, I felt like our attention focused really heavily on some strange topics (cannibalism? actual reality vs. virtual reality?) which, while they were present in the book, didn’t necessarily stand out to me as vitally important.

Let’s just say… it got pretty “literary” up in there, and sometimes it’s hard to be in a room full of English majors (I say that lovingly, being one myself) trying to find “meaning” in a piece of text. The writer in me thinks, “what if he just likes the color blue?” or “maybe he just read up on cannibals?” and the English major in me goes, I think I’ve figured it out! The whole novel! In one term! Turn to page 484523!

Anyway — this book. Worth reading, I think. Some people found it trite, but I really enjoyed it, as long as you can get past the first chapter (and, last chapter, as it goes.) And if you get past the first chapter, it’ll continue to pull you along.

Also worth nothing, this book just feels good in your hands.

the semester so far

family and puppy time

thai food between classes

walks with Echo

studying

reading

writing at coffee shops (I like to be surrounded by people… who won’t talk to me. This has been mostly successful — the beginnings of three stories in two weeks)

hot tea with friends (photo by aeolione)

Work, School, Books, Sleep, Repeat

See that? That’s 150 pages of a novel, also known as my reading for for this weekend… for one class. Which, hey, I can handle, except… I worked every day this week (and am about to head to work.) Still. I’m getting through it. And loving this book. And next week shouldn’t be nearly as hectic.

Have any of you read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell? I am loving this book to pieces but I realized that I probably wouldn’t have made it through if I weren’t having to read it for class (it’s not a straight narrative — it’s half of several different stories and then you get the second half later in the book.) SO, because I really like it so far (I still haven’t finished), if you have read it or want to read it, please feel free to email me or ask-box me your feelings. I love feelings about books!

(Would anyone want to start a book club of contemporary award-winning literary fiction? I feel like I get so much more out of books when I talk about them with people.)

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Bossypants by Tina Fey

A coworker was nice enough to buy me this for Christmas and I totally devoured it. It’s not particularly deep, you won’t get too many meanderings into politics or social justice (something I kind of like in these types of books), but Fey is extremely funny and knows how to write about her own life in a unique and hilarious way. She also seems to be able to both complain and be grateful in this book, which is a trait that I truly admire. The only issue I had was that I’d somehow managed to read a good fourth of the book on the internet before hand, through quotes, excerpts, and chapters passed off as essays. I was almost afraid I’d already read the whole thing!

Read this if you want a quick, light read that’ll keep you laughing (and have you telling yourself, just one more page, and then I’ll sleep, just one more page!)

So this just happened.

From this:

To this:

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I kept seeing this book everywhere, which is a really great way to get me to read a book. Eventually I grabbed it from the library.

For the most part, I thought it was a very good read, consistent, inviting, intriguing. The middle got a little bit over-wrought with description for me (as much as the physical surroundings in this book are important, I didn’t want to see them in every detail, and it often caused me to skip ahead) and I found myself just wanting to know “what happens next?!” rather than caring about smaller details. I wonder if the ending was a little bit too happy.

Read it if you’re in the mood for a beautiful, magical world and you want to get lost for a little while.