March 2006 Archives

Sometimes at a restaurant someone will order artichoke dip as an appetizer, and say something when it arrives like, "You gotta try this! It's really good!"

The dip is often not bad, but it's not anything like this recipe, which I got a decade ago or so, in grad school, from a friend. She got it from her mother, who found it in a cookbook called something like One-Step Delicious Dishes Using Processed Foods, with most of the ingredients being, well, pre-processed in some way or another. In this case, the ingredients were:

one large can artichoke hearts, drained and quartered
one half cup mayonnaise
one half cup grated parmesan cheese
one teaspoon pre-minced garlic
coarse ground pepper to taste

Recently a friend, aware that I have an interest in all things Buffy, asked me if I'd ever watched some show called Bones. He asked this because it stars David Boreanaz, whose major claim to fame is his role as Angel, Buffy's (first) vampire boyfriend. I had to reply that I had not, and could have added that I had no particular interest in ever watching it.

I wasn't even that into David B. when he got his own spin-off; anyone with any sense knows that Angel was infinitely inferior to Buffy. There are so many reasons for this, the first being that Angel lacked both the sparkling repartee and the psychological complexity of BtVS; it was pretty much just a crime show with a vampire doing the detective work. Secondly, Sarah Michelle Gellar might not be the best actress in the world, but she's still more talented than David B, and thus better suited to carry the weight of an entire series. (If you don't believe me, just watch "I Only Have Eyes for You" from Season II of BtVS--I could hardly bear the way DB overacted when he was possessed by the spirit of the school teacher murdered by her teenage lover.) He also didn't age that well; I admit I thought he was very hot when he first showed up as Angel in the very first episode of BtVS, but it wasn't long before he got all thick and jowly, which was odd and unfortunate, given that his character was supposed to be eternally young.

Today, I see by looking at my calendar, is the vernal equinox, also known as the first day of spring.

This is one of the days when I wish most desperately that I lived somewhere with A) a sizeable Druid population and B) warmer weather. I would really love to join a bunch of nature worshipers and frolic through the woods right about now, but I don't know many pagans here aside from myself, and it's still too stinkin' cold out.

Spring doesn't exactly suck in southern Arizona--sometimes, if it's been a wet winter, the desert will erupt in California poppies or other lovely wildflowers--but it's not something you long for, something you almost can't help but worship when it arrives, the way it is when you see this gradual but nonetheless dramatic victory of warmth and fertility over the bleak and barren cold, and you think, my god, looks like I'll probably survive a few more months after all.

I admit I never really got spring--in the sense of either understanding or receiving it--until I lived in Iowa. I remember walking along on a snowy day and noticing these strange bits of purple, like a few bright scraps of fabric strewn carelessly across a neighbor's yard. I remember the shock when I realized the scraps were flowers--crocuses, the first flower of spring. There is something deeply magical about crocuses, their petals so fragile and delicate while the plant itself is robust and bold enough to burst through ground that hasn't entirely thawed. I certainly delighted in strolling along sidewalks lined with orange trees on the University of Arizona campus, breathing in the heady, gorgeous scent of orange blossoms on a bright April morning. But that experience, although lovely and memorable, is still not as miraculous as welcoming the triumphal appearance of crocuses, tulips, hyacinths and some of the other early-blooming bulbs after a long, cold, dark, miserable, sucky winter.

I know, I know: I said I was going to quit hanging out at blogs written by devout Mormon feminists, because they annoy me so. And I haven't gone back on my word, because I haven't been hanging out, exactly: I've just visited a time or two. You see, Jana posted something really interesting about Mormons and menarche, and she began this interesting post with a quote from me. When she emailed me about it, I couldn't resist checking it out; and when I saw that it was, like many things Jana posts, insightful and provocative, I couldn't resist commenting. And then I couldn't resist going back later and seeing what other women had to say, and those comments were interesting too; so I commented again.

And then I thought, "Wow, maybe I over-reacted; maybe these devout Mormon feminist bloggers aren't so bad." So I followed some links and looked at some blogs and I can admit that I sort of over-reacted, but I can also see that I sort of didn't. I found sites that really upset me, but instead of freaking out, I took a deep breath, clicked on something else, and simply resolved never to go back to the sites that bother me.

But I encourage you to check out Jana's post and leave a comment on what you think we can and should do to make menarche a positive (if private and personal) milestone for young women.

*Mutual is one of the old names for the Mormon youth organization. I'm not sure what it's called now.

I am pained to admit that despite my earlier expectation that I had an easy week before me because I was so productive over spring break, this week has been exceptionally busy. Thursday and Friday were REALLY hairy. The duties I had that day weren't especially onerous--I had to help entertain a visiting writer on Thursday, and on Friday I spent a couple of hours being interviewed for a documentary on memoirs that turn out to be fabricated, focusing on one specific memoir that is particularly suspect.... I won't share details, because it's not my project. Anyway, it was exhausting to sit there with a spotlight shining directly into my face for two hours (it reduces unflattering shadows, I'm told) but at least the guy making the documentary was really interesting and took me to dinner afterwards, so I felt well compensated for time. But the upshot of dealing with these claims on my time was that a lot of things I thought I'd accomplish handily didn't get done, and they have to get done by tomorrow night.

In other news, for lunch today I made the taco recipe I posted earlier, but used (as promised) some veggie protein weirdness in place of the premium ground Angus beef I typically use. The vegetarian version was OK, I guess, it just wasn't totally yummy, you know? It occurred to me that one problem might be the particular meat substitute I used (Smart Ground, I think it was called), that no doubt some are better than others.... Anyone have experience with vegetarian ground beef substitutes, and want to recommend one as superior to others?

Monday afternoon a student stopped by my office and after he'd asked and I'd answered the question he had for me, he stayed for a few minutes to chat. Quite suddenly he surprised me by saying, "Wow, you're really happy today! You're, like, glowing or something. Did you get a new boyfriend last week?"

"I most certainly did not get a new boyfriend last week," I said. "And if I did, I wouldn't discuss it with you. But I'm not really that happy. You're just noticing it more because I'm easier to chat up in my office than in class."

"Nah," he said. "You're definitely happier. You must have had a really good spring break."

"Well, as a matter of fact, I did," I said. "I was, let's say, 70% as productive as I should have been, which pretty much counts as very productive, considering all I had to do. I'm caught up with most things. That makes me happy. The idea of having an easy week makes me happy."

After the student left, I analyzed my mood and realized I was indeed extra happy. For reasons I could not and cannot explain, I felt like a beloved child of the universe, blessed with abundant good fortune I was eager to share. I fully expected to come home and find some notice of success or largess mixed in with the pleas for money my mail usually consists of, but when there was no such notice, it didn't hurt my mood a bit. I was merely happy, uncomplicatedly and profoundly happy, which was great until it came time to go to bed. I was in such a fantastic mood, so full of good spirits and the delightful conviction that some entity was busy devising ways to bestow great bounty on me, that I couldn't fall asleep.

So, as I occasionally do when I can't sleep, I popped a prescription sleeping pill.

Not long ago, a friend sent me a guerrilla girls postcard detailing some of the "advantages of being a woman artist." I thought I'd share, though you can find--and order--a poster of this list here.

Working without the pressure of success

not having to be in shows with men

having an escape from the art world with your four free-lance jobs

knowing your career might pick up after you are eighty

being reassured that whatever art you make it will be labeled "feminine"

not being stuck in a tenured teaching position

seeing your ideas live on in the work of others

having the opportunity of choosing between career and motherhood

being included in revised versions of art history

not having to undergo the embarrassment of being called a genius

Last Tuesday I was talking to Wayne about what I'd done so far with my few days off and what I hoped to accomplish with those that remained. "I had to run some errands and take care of some stuff on campus today," I said, "and I've been trying to get through these batches of papers I collected last Friday, but I'm not done yet. I've got all this reading to do and I need to start working on my syllabi for next semester. And I really should do my taxes--if I don't do them this week, I don't know when I will. I was thinking I'd do some cooking, too, so I have some stuff in the freezer for later, but...."

"Good god, Holly!" Wayne finally erupted. "Do you ever think about the serious side of life? No, it's all fun and frivolity with you, all the time! ‘Grade some papers! Do my taxes!'" he mimicked, his voice becoming clipped and shrill. "I wish I could be so carefree! Holly, will you never acquire some sense of duty and obligation?"

It was a good point, but frankly I was too busy this week dealing with shit I had to do to devote much time to character-building exercises like acquiring a sense of duty. Maybe I can work on that this summer....

Anyway, today is the first day back in the salt mines after a nine-day long hiatus. The pathetic fallacy is working for me right now, in that there's a nasty gray sky spitting angry rain down on a sodden, sullen earth--ain't nothing glad about going back to work today. I really would love another few days off, but at least I accomplished a few of my primary goals. Here's what I got done:

A couple of weeks ago I got a profound hankering for tacos, so I went to Wegmans, bought all the ingredients, then headed home and started cooking. I was browning the ground beef and thinking about the fact that although I try to avoid eating meat, sometimes it can't be helped because sometimes I just need tacos, when it occurred to me that I could substitute some sort of textured vegetable protein for the hamburger in this recipe and it would turn out just fine--and that I already knew this because my friend Matthew and I did precisely that while I was visiting him last November in Brussels.

My mother made sure her young children got plenty of protein: we had meat--usually red--at almost every meal: bacon for breakfast, some sort of beef for lunch and dinner. Nowadays I eat less meat each week than I used to eat each day. Considering how carnivorous my upbringing was, I think I could use the slogan of those old Virginia Slims ads--"You've come a long way, baby"--but instead of raising a cigarette casually to my mouth as a sign of my very admirable and enviable progress, I'd be holding a bowl of spicy tofu and vegetables, contemplating the meal with glee.

I am opposed to meat consumption on so many grounds: it is very expensive to grow the food to fatten animals for slaughter; farm waste, ranging from manure to offal, is a significant source of pollution; most animals raised for meat in the US are treated very badly while they are alive; and last but certainly not least, in order to eat animals, you have to kill them. The only reason I'm not opposed to meat is that I really like the taste of beef, but I keep hoping that will go away.

Borrowed from the Independent UK's Woman's Day Coverage

1% of the titled land in the world is owned by women

A baby girl born in the UK is likely to live to 81 - but if she is born in Swaziland, she is likely to die at 39

70% of the 1.2 bn people living in poverty are women and children

21% of the world's managers are female

62% of unpaid family workers are female

9% of judges, 10% of company directors and 10% of top police officers in the UK are women

Women comprise 55% of the world's population aged over 60 years old and 65% of those aged over 80

£970,000 is the difference between lifetime earnings of men and women in the UK finance sector

85m girls worldwide are unable to attend school, compared with 45m boys. In Chad, just 4% of girls go to school.

700,000,000 women are without adequate food, water, sanitation, health care or education (compared with 400,000,000 men)

Women in full-time jobs earn an average 17% less than British men

Women in part-time jobs earn an average 42% less than British men

67% of all illiterate adults are women

1,440 women die each day during childbirth (a rate of one death every minute)

1 in 7 women in Ethiopia die in pregnancy or childbirth (it is one in 19,000 in Britain)

In the US, 35% of lawyers are women but just 5% are partners in law firms

In the EU, women comprise 3% of chief execs of major companies

12 is the number of world leaders who are women (out of 191 members of the United Nations)

Men directed 9 out of every 10 films made in 2004

Also see this report from the UN on the fact that women are denied representation, making war on poverty hard to win, this story on advances made by women around the world, this harrowing report on hardships still imposed on Afghan women bu Muslim zealots, and this item on the fact that men in Britain are being advised that failing to obtain explicit consent for sex could result in rape charges--in other words, men are being told that if a woman is unconscious and a guy has sex with her, that ain't consensual.

In honor of Sunday night's Academy Awards, here's a list of movies I love, followed by a list of movies I hate.

Movies I love:

All About Eve, Babette's Feast, The Best Years of Our Lives, Bride and Prejudice, Casablanca, Cinema Paradiso, Diva, Dr. Strangelove, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, From Here to Eternity, Guys and Dolls, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Igby Goes Down, Lawrence of Arabia, The Manchurian Candidate (1962 version), Mary Poppins, Network, On the Waterfront, (all six hours of the 1995 version of) Pride and Prejudice, Pride of the Yankees, The Quiet Man, The Seventh Seal, Sid and Nancy, Singin' in the Rain, The Sound of Music, Strictly Ballroom, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Unbelievable Truth, Without You I'm Nothing, Zorro the Gay Blade.

I like old movies and will watch (almost) anything with Jean Arthur, Marlon Brando, Cyd Charisse, Gary Cooper, Irene Dunne, Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne.

When I was very young, my favorite movies were Mary Poppins and True Grit.

I dig old musicals (anything by Rogers and Hammerstein, and all kinds of other things as well), old war films (All Quiet on the Western Front, Battleground, The Big Red One, From Here to Eternity, The Longest Day, etc and have no patience with recent war movies like Saving Private Ryan and The English Patient that end up being even more moralistic and simplistic than 1940s films designed to build morale–Casablanca, after all, is a war film, written, filmed and released while World War II was far from decided), old westerns (back when I had cable, I would watch anything with cactus in it, and I dig High Noon, Rio Bravo, Stagecoach, etc--this is not to say I've never seen a bad western, but I'll sometimes watch them just for the scenery).

I'm fascinated by films from the first go-round of Ealing Studios: I'm All Right Jack, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Knack, etc.

Movies I hate:

Six or seven years ago, I asked one of my teachers in grad school if he intended to watch the Oscars. He rolled his eyes in a fabulous gesture of contempt and wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Hardly," he said. "No one in the movie industry would watch an award ceremony about books. I see no reason to support Hollywood's masturbatory ritual of self-aggrandizement."

I could sort of see his point, but the fact of the matter is, I like movies, I like witty acceptance speeches, I like pretty dresses, and I like the Oscars.

I don't mess with other award shows; I tried watching the BAFTAs once but there was too much about stuff I didn't know or care about (though I should point out that this year the British Academy of Film and Television Arts knew better than to nominate Keira Knightley for her dreadful performance as Elizabeth Bennet) and the Golden Globes are just too clearly the imitator for me to get worked up about them. I stick with the Oscars.

I admit I almost didn't watch the Oscars this year; I forgot that my neighbor fixed my TV antenna while he was cat sitting over Christmas break and that I now get ABC. I'm glad I remembered before 8 p.m. last night: I felt this year's ceremony was pretty much worth all three and a half hours I invested in it. I thought Jon Stewart did a perfectly respectable job as host; I hope they have him back again. I especially liked the repeated invocation of film as the art of storytelling, and I was pleased when Larry McMurtry reminded everyone that we need to preserve the culture of the book.

Here are some of my own awards:

Yesterday I finished my spring cleaning. It is, admittedly, a bit early for that kind of thing. I had originally planned to do it over my spring break, which begins today at 3 p.m. (Good god, I can hardly wait!) But there came a moment last weekend when I simply couldn't endure it any more; I had to vacuum my basement stairs and scrub my toilets right that second. Unfortunately, that second hit when I had lots of other things to do as well, so while I managed to attend to the basement stairs and the toilets, I had to postpone for a few days tasks like polishing the toaster, or sweeping and mopping under the beds.

But at 3:59 yesterday afternoon, it was all done: every last dish was clean, the ones I'd washed most recently drying in a newly scrubbed dish drainer; all the clothes but the ones I had on were laundered and neatly put away; and except for fur clinging to the exact spot where my cat was sleeping, every bit of cat hair in the house had been vacuumed up. (She's a smart kitty and retreated to the basement where she was out of my way.) It felt good. And even though I took care of one major task a bit early, my spring break to-do list is still going to keep me well and truly busy--but at least I'll be working in a thoroughly clean house.

I love to-do lists, and I feel strongly that the more detailed the list, the better. There are two reasons for this: 1) The more detailed you make it, the less likely you are to forget some important task. 2) The more detailed you make it, the more things you get to cross off, and most of the pleasure of a to-do list comes in crossing items off.

For instance, when I cleaned my house, I didn't just write "Clean house" on my list. No, I wrote:

So, I just learned that Women and Authority by my friend Maxine Hanks is soon to be available in its entirety on the web. For those of you who've never heard of this book, it's one of the ovunal (as opposed to seminal) texts in Mormon feminism.

I really wonder why Signature is putting the book on the web, where no one will have to pay for it. Yes, the web makes a great archive, provided you've got a working computer and internet access. And documents on the web can be printed out, although it takes incredible amounts of energy. And I also suspect that this means that from here on out, Maxine will receive NO ROYALTIES for her work.

There is plenty more I could say about Signature Books and the way it treats women. But I think this pretty much sums it up: if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you'll see a link to "Mormon Housewives." The site linked to is actually a blog of Feminist Mormon Housewives, but the good ol' tools of the patriarchy at Signature just erased the word feminist. It makes for a pretty significant difference, especially since the link comes right after one for "Mormon Polygamy."

Way to go, boys.

Very nearly everyone is sharing their own version of these maps, which let you highlight all the countries, states, provinces etc you've been to. Here's my world map:

create your own visited country map

Well, I guess I've been a few places, haven't I, though there's a real problem with the southern half of the globe--I've never been south of the equator. I think managing that has just become a goal. I've always wanted to go to Kenya, and I'm pretty hot to get to Australia as well--I love beautiful deserts, and Kenya and Australia have those. So I'd best find a way to get there.

As for the northern half of the globe--the map above makes it look like I've been all over North America, when in fact I haven't. All of Canada is blocked in, but I've only been to Toronto. That will change this summer, however, when I go on a cruise to Alaska with my family and we stop in British Columbia (which I have long wanted to see).

There's also that itty bitty white space known as Switzerland fouling up the middle of my map of Europe--I really should go there, considering that one of my aunts is Swiss and one of my cousins was born there. Soon....

Here's a map of the states I've been to:

create your own personalized map of the USA

That's right, I've never really been to Nevada even though I grew up in a state bordering it, because I'm not counting states where I've never ventured beyond the airport. I once spent a hellish night in the Las Vegas airport thanks to America West Airlines, but I don't think that counts. Same goes for Michigan: I've flown in and out of Detroit dozens of times, but I've never left the terminal.

You can also see I haven't been to the far northeast reaches of the US. I was born on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, and I like history, so I've always been keen to get to Boston, but somehow I haven't done it.

What really bugs me about this map is that North Dakota is unmarked. I took a little trip with a friend a decade ago or so, and we went to Devil's Tower and Mount Rushmore and such and we could have driven into North Dakota and I could have added it to my map, but my friend was driving her car and she had already been there and didn't want to go again, so we didn't. Chances are good I may never make it back there--who just ups and goes to North Dakota? Sure as hell not me.