Maintaining Momentum

This week has found me struggling to keep up the positive momentum I've felt since resigning from YSU.  No one thing is the center of blame, but I have known for the past few days that I've felt kinda crappy.  Among the top things I can blame:  today would have been payday.

It's not that I haven't had forward movement.  I have a second job interview tomorrow with Sur La Table in Pittsburgh.  It's retail, sure, but getting that job would accomplish the following:  1.)  It gets me to Pittsburgh; 2.)  It brings some income hopefully above and beyond what I'm getting at the cigar shop; 3.)  It allows me to show that I have no gap in my work history, even while not teaching.

I know I made the right decision to leave Youngstown State.  I had to open my email from there the other night to find a contact and found a few emails that needed reply.  Almost immediately, I felt the same anxiety, the tightening in my chest, the stress response that has so characterized my teaching experience in recent years.  No measly $400 paycheck for two weeks of work is worth that sort of harm to my body.

Yesterday, I had lunch with an old friend who I haven't seen in about three years.  We sat around for two and a half hours catching up.  During that time, she asked where I saw myself going outside of education.  Sadly, I couldn't even come up with a solid answer.

My life since the age of four has revolved around the classroom.  As undergrad, graduate student, and then professor, my existence has centered on semesters, spring breaks, and summers off since the end of the Clinton administration.  It's tough to shed so much of one's identity all at once and then immediately know what's supposed to come next.

I legitimately felt bad that I couldn't pinpoint a direction in my life.  While it's difficult to identify that off the top of my head, it's probably well worth it to figure out some things and chart how I get to them.

The simplest thing that I need to remember is my own worth.  I am worth more than Youngstown State University paid me.  I am worthy of job security, health benefits, and a sense of well-being in my career that I didn't get any of there.  While I might be a wee bit adrift at the moment, I think the biggest landmark I have to try and identify as a mooring point is that I deserve better than they were giving me.

I wish I could sit down with humanities undergraduates and tell them the truth.  Yes, you get to spend your time thinking pretty thoughts, analyzing pretty writing, juxtaposing pretty ideas with your own oddly-conceived notions.  But like the tens of thousands of high school football players who dream of someday playing in the NFL, there's a similar likelihood that you, my dear English major, will get that PhD that seems so meritorious and for the good of humankind and, even then, there's a smaller chance that you will get the tenure track job of your dreams at that ivy-clad Oxford Gothic designed university, the image of which floats through your head like so many sugarplums.

That, my friends, is winning the Super Bowl.  And you can ask a whole lot of NFL players how many ever made it to the big game, let alone winning it.

The best I have to offer today, I guess, is to let this cloud of negative energy and inertia pass and then, as I have so many times before, move on.

The End of Food Porn?

An article published within the pages of last Wednesday's New York Times tells readers how many restaurateurs are putting the kibosh on their patrons' need to photograph their meals.  Helene Stapinski's "Restaurants Turn Camera Shy" exhibits something that I know so many of us - myself included - are guilty of.

But how guilty are we?

Some people are incredibly culpable.  I have witnessed the cardinal sin spoken of within the article - the firing of a camera's flash - many times.  People who use a flash within a fancy, dimly lit restaurant should have their faces bruleed beneath a thick layer of sugar by the power of a mighty torch.  Though that might just be my perspective.

But what harm is properly documenting a meal that is, for so many, a real occasion?  (Sans flash, naturalment...)

Matt and I, from time to time, will treat ourselves to a lovely meal out at a very special place, usually one we've long talked about going to.  When the check is going into three-digit territory, I guess I don't see the harm in a lousy picture or two of the meal I hope both to remember and share with friends, at least in a visual sense.

I enjoy eating.  I don't know many people who don't.  But how does one preserve those sensory memories from what was, potentially, a meal of a lifetime?  Adjectives only go so far.  Gustatory descriptions evoke snippets of the moment, but a picture (proverbially) is worth a thousand words.

Take, for instance, this image:

It was taken on the 18th of March 2011 in Frederick, MD at VOLT.  Sitting here - honestly - I can tell you that this is rockfish atop a bed of forbidden rice and black trumpet mushrooms.  The foam cloud on the fish was soy-based.

That's without looking at the actual decription, which I have typed elsewhere.  The only thing I cannot put immediate words to is the orange reduction, which I'd wager to have been carrot-based, and what sort of radish that is on the side.  

Nearly two years later, without a photograph, I'd have a truly difficult time remembering anything much about the meal.  (In fact, I was right on the mark - having looked at my contemporary description of the meal.  The only things I missed were the exact nature of the watermelon radishes and the fact that it is indeed a carrot puree... maroon carrots, to be exact.)  

I can tell you the carrots' sweetness played against the earthy nature of the mushrooms.  The slightly toothsome texture of the black forbidden rice juxtaposed with the yielding flesh of the fish was layered with the delicate, salty air of soy foam.  The radishes provided the crisp snap and a bit of spiciness.  

But the picture... oh my.  Seeing it all and hearing how it came together completes an image beyond cost.

I guess we need to think about it this way:  

• Did I pack my hefty DSLR camera?  No, I brought a small point and shoot.  
• Did I harm anyone in the taking of this picture?  Not to my knowledge.
• Did I have to perform some feat of acrobatics to achieve the shot?  Nope.
• Did I somehow break an intellectual property law of the chef's creation?  Not unless you're a real stickler.

The long and short of things is that unless you're being unnecessarily disruptive to a.) your fellow diners; b.) the restaurant staff; or c.) the flow of the courses being presented, I don't see why some of these places are getting a bug up their buns.

The luncheon that day at Volt set us back well over $100.  For that cost we both had a delicious three-course meal and, courtesy of my photographs, a vehicle to remember how wonderful the taste details were, the lovely plating, and a wonderful day out together in a beautiful place.  

In the end, the photographs are worth far more than the meal itself.  

- Bill

The Inaugural Luncheon - Beyond the Food

While the news world has spent the past 48 hours chasing its tail on whether or not Beyonce Knowles-Carter did or did not pre-record the Star Spangled Banner, I've been on a not too dissimilar quest...

Obsessed by the gorgeous table settings at the Inaugural Luncheon, I have scoured the internet for information on the patterns of the china and silver.  For all that these two pieces of information have been kept secret, you'd think that they were in a North Korean intelligence file or a deep, dark room where the secret behind JFK's assassination is kept under multiple locks.

But beyond the lovely meal of hickory grilled bison and Hudson Valley apple pies, the speeches and now-famed eye roll performed by the First Lady, I am completely fascinated by the color palette conjured to dress up a rather dour, classically-appointed space and make it a showplace within which an elegant luncheon would unfold.

The color scheme of Statuary Hall, just outside the Chamber of the House of Representatives, is hard to work with.  Grey columns, deep wine-colored draperies, a tiled black and white floor, and dozens of statues executed, variously, in bronze and marble dominate the half-round room.  Cap that off with a creme, puce, and gold coffered ceiling and you have a slightly nightmarish room to dress up when the moment comes.

So what did this year's luncheon planners do?  They went with cerulean blue for the head table, bright orange floral settings, tables dressed with metallic woven cloths, and place settings that can best be described as banded with Tiffany blue and a gold rim.

The combination sounds like it should be some nightmarish agglomeration of disparate elements.

Instead, it was incredibly bold and wholly gorgeous.

It shouldn't work.  On paper, blue, metallics, pink, black, and white should not combine to create a dignified, sublime environment for one of the most exclusive luncheons in the political world.

I think all credit must begin with the flowers.  The orange reminds me of the robes worn by Buddhist monks and Jeanne-Claude and Christo's 2010 Central Park art installation, The Gates.  It's Japanese Torii and Fuyu Persimmons.  It's shocking, gorgeous, and it lights up the room.

The arrangements were created by Jesse Bailey of Jack Lucky Floral in Alexandria, VA.  Bright citrus shades, always appropriate to lift a pale winter mood, draw the eye to the center of each table as one soaks in the enlivened colors dotting the room.  Large silver cachepots anchored the mounded orange Ranunculus and Free Spirit roses, yet allowed the sightlines to remain open for conversation.

Can we talk a minute about those cane back chairs?  All at once, they're incredibly retro and yet so much more noteworthy than the oh-so-typical ladderback ballroom chair that one so often sees as these events.  The wood stain ends up echoing the bronze statues more perfectly than should be allowed.  But in the end, the cerulean velvet cushions win the day, bringing an unexpected note of color - and one's gaze - down, elevating the humdrum black and white floors.

The plates and silver are, of course, lovely, but since I lack information about them, we need to talk about the linens upon which they sat.  The head table, as you see above, was swathed in the same cerulean velvet that covers the chair pads.  It provides a visual anchor at the front of the room and breaks up the monotony of grey columns and creme walls.

The many individual tables, though, are where the real triumph is to be found.

This is no play out of the written rules.  The table linens tie the entire product together effortlessly.  One could easily overlook them except for the fact that they combine the bronzed metallics echoed by the chairs and statuary, the cerulean blue evoked in the chairs and head table, and the creme that suffuses the room's natural, staid decor.

I can only believe that they were custom work that was commissioned for the occasion because if this design existed beforehand, it's Kismet that they found their way into this overall look.

All too often the word "triumph" is tossed around regarding a design.  I cannot but think that this was a 12th round knockout won by the designers.  Gone are the expected reds, whites, and blues.  In their place, a bold, wholly interesting look animates and energizes a space distinctly lacking in visual spice.  The colors are optimistic, unifying, and the kind of audacious desertion of the same old same old we have come to expect in the land of Brooks Brothers suits and flag lapel pins.

There and Back Again!

Sorry about that brief hiatus.

Matt and I spent a lovely long holiday weekend in Cleveland with my dear friends from college to celebrate our fourth annual belated Christmas that's come to be known as Martin Luther Kingsmas.  Since we spend the real holiday with our individual families, this long weekend has become a nice time to gather, hang out, enjoy the gorgeous weather (well, this year's!), cook some very good food, and do our annual gingerbread competition.

It's the times like this that make you realize that, yes, even though you've entered your third decade of life, that you can still be a silly teenager if you try.  Never had that been more clear than our deciding to go onto YouTube for viewings and sing-alongs of N'Sync and Backstreet Boys hits after critiquing the latest video from modern boy-band, One Direction.

You'd be amazed at how much we remembered from the older songs...

Among other highlights:

• We've resolved to write outrageously lie-filled Christmas card newsletters about how gloriously wonderful the previous year had been after reading one from a relative of Tanja's.
• The group played Trivial Pursuit after a new game: drawing cards from the "Cards Against Humanity" deck and making it into a round of charades.
  
• We shopped and then tried out a new restaurant on the East side, basically an Italian knock-off of Chipotle, called Piada.  Good food and $1.25 peach bellini.  Who am I to complain?
• Matt helped Nelson and Pat to play our spectacular Civil War board game, Battle Cry.  Nelson managed to lose Gettysburg for the Union. 
• Pat showed Tanja and I the movie "Empire Records," which neither of us had seen before.  We, in turn, showed him "Enchanted," which I think he liked a lot. 

The battle for gingerbread supremacy reached new heights and offensive lows this year.  Nelson and Pat continued their tradition of great work with an Angry Birds themed diorama.  Tanja and Mary Kate really did an amazing job with a Wizard of Oz themed gingerbread house atop a Rice Krispie Treat tornado.  *(Unfortunately, the house didn't feel like cooperating much, falling apart spectacularly...).  Matt and I reached a new low with a gingerbread concentration camp, complete with oven and pit of deceased Sour Patch Kids.  *(I have to give credit to Matt for the whole idea and for, uhh, executing an incredible train car made out of Matzoh crackers - just for that extra attention to offensive detail).

We devoured a few dozen of Mary Kate's pierogies, demolished Pat's turkey tacos, wiped the pan clean of Tanja's breakfast bake, cleaned up most of a cake made by Pat, and I, for once, really didn't do much outside of some prep work and pan-stirring.  It was glorious to help, but not be under the gun! :-p

All in all, we're still thirty.  We're drinking more water than pop or beer.  We know that the sweets have their limits.  But still, once in a while, it's fun to get together, act a little silly, and enjoy the life we used to know back in our college years at John Carroll.

Harry Potter and the Very Long Job Application

I just finished a job application - one for a front-desk position - that took well over an hour to complete.

I don't even have much to say other than it was the third application I did tonight and took longer than most of the rest I've done in total combined.

Seriously, companies, if you want to interview me, don't do it virtually with canned questions and scenarios.

Peace, love, and ice cream folks.

Peace and love.

Plumbing the Depths

I've had to become something of an amateur plumber over the years.  In addition to that, I have undertaken minor electrical work, some carpentry, and other household-y skills that, I guess, qualify me for the "jack of (some) trades" designation.

In the last 48 hours, I've worked on the toilet (removed it, re-seated new bolts, replaced the wax ring, placed the toilet back on its spot, and replaced the inside fill column), got the bathroom sink moving a little more steadily, and, today, declared war on the kitchen faucet.

A few months back, the hand-spray on the old one decided to quit working after the diverter, which stops the water coming out of the faucet and redirects it into the sprayer, broke.  I contacted the faucet maker and, naturally, the part was no longer made.  Fun, right?

I made do without it for a few months, but I have my limits.  Now, since I'm going to be on my way out of the house, it seemed as good a time as any to put in a new fixture.

The problem?  Our sink, unlike 99.99999999% of homes with indoor plumbing, is in a diamond-pattern set in the corner.  That means the pipes are farther back, the confines smaller, and the reach that much harder to make.

Ultimately, I had to unscrew the wooden column between the doors to wedge myself in deep enough to be able to reach the faucet connections.  That, on sixty year old cabinetry, is a dangerous proposition... one that led to a minor crack on the interior.

Then, after undoing the water lines, I couldn't get the plastic fastening nuts that hold the blasted faucet to come loose.  I cursed the living, the dead, and then, as anyone in a something-Anonymous program could tell you, admitted defeat to a higher power.  The nuts came loose, the old faucet came off, and I replaced it with a shiny new gooseneck model (not unlike the old one...).

The moral of the story isn't patience.  It's not preparedness.  God knows, anyone who's ever spent time with pipes can tell you that no amount of being ready is enough.  Something will go wrong.

The point then?

Learn to do these things!  Get your hands dirty (believe me, they will...) and learn how the systems inside your house work for yourself.  It's not that hard and plenty of videos/tutorials exist on the internet to help you through.  Ultimately, it comes down to this:  either you become at least slightly proficient at doing these things or pay someone else a whole lot more in the end.  It seems that a professional might charge you as much as $200 to do what it took me about an hour and change to do.

I don't mean to go all after-school special on you, but knowledge is power!

The Disappointment of Smaug: The Hobbit

Inspired by Peter Jackson's money-grubbing, in no way, shape, or form needed to be a trilogy filming of The Hobbit, I decided to finally read Tolkein's book some eight years after purchasing said tome.

Over the course of the extended Christmas break that turned into my current, erm, self-determined vacation from regular employ, I traveled the back roads of Middle Earth with a group of gents that I didn't care much for.

I hate to admit such jadedness, but perhaps the charms of an innocent, rollicking, dragon-infused children's story are lost on a thirty year old man.

When I saw the first installment of the Hobbit film trilogy with Matt and other friends, I admitted afterwards that I found a hard time sympathizing with a single character in the story.  Whereas Frodo (in LOTR) is set up as a hero against the odds, his predecessor Bilbo is, seemingly, a put-upon creature of habit whose longest-lived lament is that he finds himself without pocket handkerchiefs.  (Oh, woeful are we...) 

My respect for J.R.R. Tolkein's achievements is boundless, but I'm afraid that I have to write off The Hobbit as a work by a younger man of fewer fiery literary talents than the man he would become during the slightly later composition of the Ring saga.

The tale contained within my volume's rich green faux-leatherette covers is enjoyable enough, but it lacks the scope, the pacing, and, yes, the depth of the Ring.  While the latter product is far longer, true, The Hobbit felt over-full with repeated episodes of "Oh no, we're in a pinch" followed by "BOOM!  Deus ex machina saves us!"

Again, this could be the disillusionment of an adult reading a children's tale.  When I picked up The Catcher in the Rye over the summer for the first time since 1997, I read five pages and quit.  Across the span of fifteen years, Holden Caulfield had become an insipid, vacuous, insolent teenager.  I guess the more salient point is that when one is insipid, vacuous, and insolent (read: a teenager) the character - as mirror of self - is of more interest.

The following two paragraphs contain potential spoilers.  If you've not read the novel and plan to, please do your best to ignore them...

I think what gave me the deepest displeasure was that Bilbo was not the character who slayed the fearful dragon, Smaug.  For well over two hundred pages, our short, hairy protagonist grows more and more into the role of the hero as Thorin Oakenshield, leader of the Dwarf group, becomes anti-heroic.  And then, when the moment comes for the dragon to die, some random person gets the kill.

Truly, this disturbed me.  It would be as if Romeo and Juliet were spiraling towards their inevitable doom and then - BLAMMO - they got shot in a drive-by.  I think the dragon deserved better.  There should have been a (forgive me) scorching battle in which, against odds, the timid Hobbit destroys this embodiment of evil.  Instead, the poor fellow is felled by a man who is, at best, peripheral to the book.

Back to business, as it were.

I don't regret reading the book in the slightest.  I purchased it eight years ago in eager anticipation of devouring it before a film adaptation could be made, but was constrained by academic work and returning to my classes for the spring semester.  It made sense that in this time of freedom I'd make the grand attempt.  I just wish that I could lend a flags-flying positive endorsement of the text as a must-read.

- Bill