Tupac vs. Biggie, Revisited

I have been thinking a lot about regional differences lately--particularly the differences between the East and the West in America (because really, we can just skip all those flyover states)--since I visibly offended a New Hampshire native with my vehement and rather blatant disgust and dislike of Canadians. In my defense, working at VGP, I was constantly assaulted with the dumbest of the dumb from all countries (if you cannot make your own hotel reservation, or cannot find your way into the Boeing tour facility when you are sitting in the parking lot, or you want me to find the number of rivers in Washington state for you, then you should probably just give up on life altogether), but the majority of our calls were from dense and extremely caustic British Columbians. In his defense, his family is recently emigrated from Canada, Canadian pride runs unfortunately strong in these parts, and it is mildly unfair to hate an entire country of people based off of what I consider the dregs of their society. (And here I go again, probably offending countless others...Luckily my readership is minimal. I gotta get me some readers if I want Julie Powell fame...)

Evidently, what I thought was acceptable dinner time conversation was decidedly not for this East Coaster. I didn't mean to offend. It's not even that I truly hate Canadians, but I was being very frank about my experience with the Canadians who were my customers for so many years at the call center. And that's what I think the whole issue boils down to: my frankness. I don't have a filter. I don't want a filter. Filters, as I recently told Ian, are for coffee and the meek (put that on my headstone when I kick it, will you?) I would now like to extend that over-arching generalization to include East Coasters.

A quick Google search of East Coast versus West Coast stereotypes will corroborate. And, as we all know, stereotypes found in a forum online are always accurate and based on fact. East Coast people tend to be stand-offish, more formal, and less likely to offend (although New York City natives tend to complicate this perfect binary, I should think that this is generally true for New England, at least). And those of us from the West Coast are laid back, informal, and generally honest about our opinions (complicated again by LA, where people are passive aggressive and will stab you in the back while smiling and complimenting your skirt).

This leads, evidently and inevitably, to me--poor, sweet, well-meaning little me--being made out to be some kind of bitter, caustic, and rude foreigner who has no clue how to conduct an appropriate mealtime conversation. When really I'm just being honest and direct. And that New Hampshire native probably secretly thinks Canadians are annoying and awful customers, too. Alright, alright, I'm deluding myself. Perhaps I'm not the sweetest girl of all time (I mean, I was always pretty pissed I never won the humanitarian award in elementary school...Which is probably why I never won it in the first place...) but I'm not mean. Right?

I could go on about how I think this stems from the East Coast's closer connection to original English culture and social mores--how the frankness and earnestness started somewhere after crossing the Mississippi--but I've discussed all this before. And I've just pulled a loaf of bread out of the oven. Julie Powell, I'm coming for you.

These are the Things that Make Me

I have seen an octopus squeeze itself through a one inch hole. In a youtube video, of course, but I watched the whole thing.

Once, on a day trip to the nearby town of Beziers, I saw an ostrich from the train. Later, in the town center, I saw a camel. A CAMEL. I wish I had touched it. We all have our regrets.

Almost four winters ago, I sat on a couch, under a comforter, wearing my black ski coat and a hat--I don't think I had my hot pink one yet but I'd like to pretend for a second that it was my hot pink one--and drank hot chocolate with mint schnapps in it just to stay warm. I offered my boys peanut butter balls and they gave me a book wrapped in a microwave.

I was told very recently that in an average conversation, most people cannot go more than 20 seconds without mentioning themselves. Even in telling you this, I am making it about me.

I have danced to Time to Pretend at a nightclub in Barcelona at 6 in the morning when I was all dolled up and wearing red lipstick. And I discovered that night that if the conditions are just right--and this night the conditions were near perfect--one is liable to get confused and think the song was written about them. Feeling rough and feeling raw has a whole new meaning on the other side of dawn.

Evidently I've become fluent in French.

Hanging above the table at which my high school English teacher sat to lecture, there was a round purple sphere. It was the Grape of Wrath.

I've somehow managed to make a vague connection between love and gummy bears.

I saw a fox the other day! This was not a youtube video. This was real life.

I'm Going Back Home to the West Coast

There's nothing like a long evening drive through the Whites to make a girl good and homesick. At times NH-16 and 302 felt much like Hwy 2, and North Conway could be mistaken for any one of those small mountain towns. These New Hampshire mountains try their hardest to stand tall, and do a pretty good job when you're right inside them.

Only four more weeks.

Moi, La Gourmande

On Monday, with a batch of chili in the crockpot for the following night's meal, and a plate of pasta in front of me, I sat down to watch Julie & Julia. Finally. I know I am little late to jump on this bandwagon, but for a while I had a boyfriend who thought his masculinity would suffer if he subjected himself to such a film. And I know, I know, I should have taken a cue from a poet friend of mine, who went to see the movie himself in theaters (yes, himself. And no, his masculinity did not suffer). Hindsight though. It’s better than my myopia, that’s for sure.

To be brief, I loved it. What I loved, of course, was the food. The food! Always the food. Chocolate pies, pan-fried bread topped with fresh bruschetta, boeuf bourguignon (And it is emphatically not ‘beef’ bourguignon when we’re discussing Julia), deboned duck, butter, butter, butter.

What I also loved, however, was Julie (and Julia, of course, but that goes without saying.). And how we could be friends. Besties, maybe. Or sisters, or long-lost somethings.

At a certain point in the film, Julie is watching an old cooking video of Julia Child’s, when she points to the screen and says in awe, “Pearls. She’s wearing pearls in the kitchen.” I had to pause the movie and call Ian to confirm that this sentence is exactly something I would say, exactly something I would marvel at. He confirmed. Julie cried—several times—over failed dinners. Tantrum in the kitchen kind of cry. Anyone who’s been around me in the kitchen for more than a month is familiar with my reaction to a burnt sauce. There’s a lot of slamming. A lot of thrown spoons. A lot of tears.

But it wasn’t all kitchen disasters—for me or for my new-found friend Julie. A girl after my own heart, Julie Powell spent her evenings away from her stressful and depressing job cooking. And enjoying it. And while she might have dished up delectables to an adoring husband while I attempt to engage Clementine in conversation over the salad course, the sentiment is still the same.

For those unfamiliar with the film, Julie Powell was (is?) a New York City resident in 2002, who decided to begin a blog where she chronicled her attempt to cook every. single. recipe. in Julia Child’s cookbook in one calendar year. That is almost 500 recipes in 365 days. And I don’t even want to know how many pounds of butter.

She succeeded, of course, and became wildly famous and had a book deal and now has a movie about her. Ms. Child, however, did not approve. She considered Julie Powell’s blog a “stunt” and refused to endorse the blog’s project—but her commentary proved to be only a minor setback to Julie’s kitchen endeavors.

After watching Julie & Julia, I entertained the idea of undertaking a similar feat. I couldn’t do Julia Child’s fabulous cookbook, of course, but I do have a Soup Bible with over 400 recipes in it…Or I could blog about going through SmittenKitchen’s blog, making every recipe, and constantly referencing Julie Powell’s original blog. But then I realized that I’ve already blogged about how I can’t have a themed blog, which would mean that I couldn’t blog about following a food blogger’s blog in order to replicate an original food blogger’s blog. And then I stopped because I couldn’t handle that many levels of meta. And I made myself dessert.

On Contrasts and Color

Driving from New Hampshire south into Boston is figuratively equivalent to driving from segregated Mobile, Alabama to Eatonville, Florida, circa 1925. At first, I felt vaguely racist for noticing the increasing number of non-white people, for having an ear that is unaccustomed to foreign languages.

In June, I flew back to Seattle from the Boston Logan Airport via Baltimore. This was the first time I've been outside of the New England area since Christmas, and I was struck by how ethnically diverse the other parts of the country I saw actually were. Because while Boston does have its diversity, it's got nothing on Bodymore.

In Jamaica Plains, my sister's Boston neighborhood, a good portion of the population is of Hispanic or Latino descent. They come from countries such as the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Puerto Rico--very few are from Mexico, which is where many of the Hispanic population in Washington have their roots. I had my first Cuban sandwich of my life around the corner from Scarlet's condo, and walked past quinceanera dress shops and latino grocers and hair salons catering to Dominican women.

When driving into my sister's new neighborhood in Boston for the first time, I passed a car carrying four or five elderly African American women, and each one was wearing a beautiful black crown with flowers and veiling and feathers. I'm not sure if they were on their way to a funeral, wedding, or church, but it's surely not a sight I would ever see where I currently live.

In 2008, 95.5% of the State of New Hampshire's population was Caucasian. Of 48 students, I have not taught one who was non-white. Not a single one. In my previous classrooms, the white students were outnumbered--either by students from Korea or Taiwan, or by students whose parents emigrated from Northern Africa: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia.

I found myself struggling last year as I taught essays by Malcolm X or Frederick Douglass to my students at UNH. Or rather, I found my students struggling with comprehension and even acceptance, and I struggled against their initial struggle. (Sorry, I just like the word struggle.) My peers who teach 401 joke that some of these students coming from Northern New Hampshire have never seen a non-white person before coming to university, and this is where their baffling views on race--or rather the lack thereof--come from.

But this joke is actually true in many cases. When Kili visited in the spring, she told me that in her entire time in New Hampshire, she saw only two other non-white people besides herself. She then realized that she had just seen the same person twice. And this in two of New Hampshire's largest and most diverse municipalities.

Oh, New England.