Vote!

Oh geez! I just realized today is the NH state primary election. I have to make sure I go and cast my vote. I've known one of the democratic gubernatorial candidates since I was born and that's pretty much reason enough for me to vote for him. (Not wanting to blow my recently regained bloggish anonymity, I'll just say it's the candidate from Portsmouth.)

Feeling Parenthetical Today

The demons are best battled with allies. It might seem like a common sense notion, but I've always been used to battling them alone.
Today started off rough. I am being forced into a (temporary) situation that requires me to cut some corners I would rather not cut and it stresses me out. Apparently the stress was more obvious than I meant it to be this morning. Not long after the advanced class ended and I was back in my office doing some work, there was a little knock upon my door. It was three of my students (and the boyfriend of one of the three students) bearing a sweet little bouquet of flowers for me with a card that said "ganbatte ne!" (means "Keep going. Keep trying") I'm really surprised I didn't cry at them, except it was such an absolutely sweet and thoughtful gesture that I wasn't going to ruin it by crying. They told me they heard me stressing out over the technical difficulties I was having with the computer in class today, which was more like an extension of the technical difficulties I seem to be running into in life these days, and they wanted to cheer me up. I don't know what I'm going to do after this year where there are no more classes they can take in my subject. Most of them have one more year of school left, maybe we can do an independent study or something.
And then before lunch time, I IMed my guy and asked if we could go for a walk together. We work down the street from each other and one of the things I've been looking forward to with the semester coming into session was the chance to kill two birds with one stone, meaning spend some time with him and get some exercise. I could have done what I've done the past couple of weeks, namely stay cooped up in my office working through lunch and feeling stressed and then bummed for being too sedentry. But being back to work seems to inspire me to find the time to create little breaks in my day so it doesn't feel like I'm constantly rushing around for everyone but myself. So, I joined him and his boss (they had already made a plan to walk together) and we walked for about 50 minutes on this most gorgeous day.
So, I started out the day battling demons, but I got some allies on my side and the demons are mostly gone now. It would be much too ungrateful and self-indulgent to feel bad when I've got so many people around me helping me feel better. I try to never let myself get that far gone.

Halfway to Everywhere

It's Saturday night. Today was basically mellow. It started out really nice and even by the end of the day it didn't suck.
I made my first visit to the laundromat on Broadway this morning. On the way I saw the result of what happens when someone in a large UHaul truck tries to drive under a railraod trestle with a 9'6" clearance. It appears they got halfway through before the top of the truck peeled off. There were a couple of fire trucks and a bunch of men in blue business suits on the scene. It was quite a sight.
The laundromat was fine. It's a wooden building with high ceilings, lots of machines, very clean and with a nice attendent working there. I chatted with her a little and she said it's usually much busier there on Saturdays. Most of the time I was there it was fine, but it was starting to get crowded by the time I left. They have free coffee and Dunkin Donuts there too. I had some coffee, but no donuts. I read the paper and started reading a new book.
My girl got here at 12:30. I shouldn't write about it much here, but her father is giving me a very hard time these days and even tomorrow wouldn't be soon enough to be able to legally and properly refer to him as my ex. Anyway, the girl and I hung out, had lunch, did some errands and later in the afternoon we went and played tennis. It's more ball chasing than tennis at this point, but it's fun and it's exercise, so it's good.
Now it's Saturday night. The dishwasher is chugging away. The girl is watching something on Nickelodeon. I'm on the computer. I suppose I'm about halfway to where I really want to be with my life. That's not so bad.

Procrastination on a Beautiful Day

It's too beautiful today. The sky is blue with puffy clouds that rarely seem to block the sun. There's a steady breeze riffling through the leaves that won't start to show their fall colors for a few more weeks. And just now I'm realizing that this new perch I have in my office is a little closer than I've ever been before to the office view I used to imagine. You know all those books about the power of visualization that advise you to see in great detail the things and places you want in life? I used to read them sometimes and I'd visualize an office with a desk in front of a window that was up in the trees, looking over cliffs down to the ocean.
Well, I don't have the cliffs and ocean part yet, but I do have a desk looking out a window that is nicely framed by the branches of a maple tree in the yard and a view of the quiet street and a gray ranch style house with a lot of black eyed susans planted around it. And actual work to do at this desk. Work that involves writing (well, translating, which is a form of writing) and being paid for it, while I sit here on a Friday afternoon, already home from my other job, with a nearly full cup of chai and a really intense feeling of deja vu, like this is something I read somewhere else a long time ago.

Roll With It

You gotta roll with it
You gotta take your time
You gotta say what you say
Don't let anybody get in your way
Cause it's all too much for me to take
-- Oasis

But There's More to Life Than Being Smart

An Indiana University study concludes that having children significantly lowers
parents' IQs . Well, guess I wasn't just imagining things then.
I'm waiting for the follow up studies to see if the loss of intelligence is reversible once the children grow up and if having more children causes even greater losses.

My Choice, huh?

You are an enzyme. You are powerful, dark,
variable, and can change many things at your
whim...even when they're not supposed to be
changed. Bad you. You can be dangerous or
wonderful; it's your choice.


Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Eat Greek

This weekend I got to do something I had been saying I want to do every year-- go to the Greek Festival. I love Greek food and I don't know of any restaurants in the area that serve it anymore. When I was a kid, a friend of my dad had a restaurant in Portsmouth that had some greek dishes on the menu, but that was a long time ago. The only chance to eat real Greek food around here if you don't know someone who can make it for you is to go to the Greek Festival.
The festival is basically about the food, which is certainly fine with me. It was held at the Hellenic Center out on Long Hill Rd in a part of Dover I have never explored before. It looks like there are some nice, quiet neighborhoods out that way. There was dancing at the festival, but we missed the 12:30 show that was going on while we were standing in line for the food and we didn't really feel like hanging around until 2 for the next show. I'm sure the dancing was good, but we were so stuffed and the weather was so fine that going back home and taking a nice nap became the next order of business. (I love napping in the afternoon when the weather is beautiful. It feels so decadent.)
We ate good. I had the spanakopita (spinach pie) plate, dolmathes (stuffed grape leaves) and a little of my boyfriend's souvlaki (lamb kabob). The pastitsio (a meat and pasta casserole topped with cheese and bechamel sauce) looked good, too, but I didn't have room to try it. The didn't have moussaka on the menu, but they had several other dishes I had never tried before. There were also several long tables full of pastries, and the menu listed a baklava sundae that sounded like a marvelous idea, but I was too full from the meal to have desert. I just can't eat like I used to.
This is a great area to live in. It has a lot to offer, but I really wish there were restaurants serving good Greek and Korean food. If I could eat good spanakopita and good bibimbap once a month, I'd be really happy.