i am. thirty.

i was born.
a girl.
a daughter.
a granddaughter.
a niece.
a sister.

i started becoming.
a reader.
a rememberer.
an immigrant.
an advocate.
a friend.

some things you made me.
a sister-in-law.
an auntie-to-be.
a girlfriend.
a forgiver.
a better friend.

some things i made myself.
a researcher.
a writer.
a leader.
a follower.
my own friend.

some things i am still becoming.
a law student.
a cook and baker.
a discerner.
a jogger.
a listener.

some things i dream of yet becoming.
a defender.
a treeclimber.
a runner.
a mother.
a whole.

i am thirty.
and i'm becoming more.

robert frost(ing)

for this month's mystery box cupcake challenge, i honour the one-hundred and thirty-seventh birthday of robert frost, whose poetry has inspired and haunted me. it even made its way into my high school yearbook write-up.

whose cakes these are i think i know.
his bakery's in the village though;
he will not see me stopping here
to watch his cakes fill up with snow.


my filigree must think it queer
to stop without some fondant near,
between the trees and frosted cake,
the darkest chocolate of the year.


he gives his fragile limbs a shake
and some of them begin to break
the only other sound's the sweep
of easy mint and sugar flake.


the cupcake's lovely, dark, and deep,
but i have promises to keep,
and miles to go before i sleep.
and miles to go before i sleep.

the winner of march’s mystery box cupcake challenge will receive prizes from:

• Angela's Images; a selection of handmade crafts
• Bake It Pretty; a $5 online gift card
• Beanilla; a $7 online gift card
• Miss Kitty Creations; a handmade cupcake charm of your choice
• Simply Caked; 600 brown greaseproof cupcake liners
• Sweet Cuppin Cakes; a $5 online gift card
• Tundra Books; a selection of 3 very sweet children's books

Thank you to all our prize sponsors!

five things

pick five things that you want to achieve this month. they can be related or quite distinct, serious or fun, permanent or temporary. but they should be concrete.

my five things for december are:

1) lose five more pounds.
2) complete the december cupcake challenge with time to spare.
3) read a novel not written by agatha christie.
4) blog twice a week.
5) talk to new people at the holiday parties i'm attending.

what are you doing this month?

lawpunnery!

you know you've been reading a lot (too much?) about scotus decisions vis-a-vis the establishment and free exercise clauses of the first amendment when you get a hankering for lemon shebert.

education causes cancer, but only in women

tonight i attended greg mortenson's lecture at the the toronto reference library. for an hour or so, he talked about how he started his pennies for peace initiative, which builds schools in afghanistan and pakistan. (here's an article about his ongoing work!) he emphasized the impact educating children can have on a community, and came back again and again to the importance of giving girls in particular access to schooling.

this wasn't brand new to me. campaigns like because i am a girl also make the argument that "when you educate a boy, you educate an individual; when you educate a girl, you educate a community" (african proverb cited by mortenson tonight).

in the part of the world in which mortenson is investing, this plays out in at least one amazing way: educated women are less likely to grant their sons permission to join tribal gangs or terrorist cells. because their culture is built around the importance of a mother's blessing, educating girls will have a marked impact on the recruitment of young men into such enterprises. yay!

but here's what really grabbed me by the (proverbial) collar and shook me: mortenson said that the education of girls in bangladesh coincided with a drop from 8 births per woman to 2.8 births per woman, over her lifetime. actually, he claimed that it caused the drop.

again, this wasn't earth-shattering by itself. there are a couple of options here: either this education includes some information about birth control, or educated women get married later (if at all) and pursue careers alongside child-rearing, or a (liberalized) community that values the education of girls doesn't tend to treat women like baby-makers... or (my guess) some combination thereof. education and industrialization/ urbanization go hand in hand and i suspect that the latter always lead to smaller families.

the thing is... cancer. i've been reading malcolm gladwell's what the dog saw, which is a collection of his best essays (according to him) from the new yorker. between insights into the clairol/l'oreal hair-dye market and an investigation into dog whispering (the title of the book came from the latter) is john rock's error,which describes the limitations of the birth control pill, the impact of modern medicine and lifestyles on female physiology, and the danger of too many periods.

yes, dangers. see, because today's woman starts menstruating earlier than ever before and spends fewer years of their lives pregnant or breastfeeding than ever before, she ends up ovulating many, many more times than her ancestors did. like 400 times, compared to 100. one result seems to be an increased risk of ovarian cancer, endometriosis, endometrial cancer, and other "below the belt" diseases.

simply put, both ovulation and the preparation of the uterus for pregnancy are processes which involve cell division. the more division, the higher the statistical probability of something going wrong... and cell division gone wrong is a loose definition of cancer. studies suggest that each full-term pregnancy reduces a woman's chance of ovarian cancer by 10%. when taken over a long period of time, birth control pills also go a long way to protecting against some of the perils of modern life.*

there's a lot behind this argument, and i encourage you to read gladwell's piece on this, if you have a chance. (the whole thing is available at the link above!) but the bottom line is this: a society in which women are educated is one in which they tend to menstruate much more often... and in which they will therefore be at far greater risk of developing cancer.

all things being the same, that average bangladeshi woman was about 41% less likely to develop ovarian cancer when she was having eight kids.

so this is the inconvenient truth: our biology is not only confused, but also endangered, by our self-made destiny.


* because the birth control pill suppresses ovulation but still leads to a period, the risk of endometrial cancer is not much diminished. read gladwell's fascinating piece to find out why the stupid 28-day cycle was maintained by the co-inventor of the pill, john rock.

"you *have* to be kidding!"

too many mornings, those are the first words out of my mouth. it's been taking me hours to fall asleep at night and forever to wake up in the morning. my dreams have been vivid and occasionally emotionally exhausting, so i often walk through my day like a zombie. the dumb kind of zombie. the kind that thinks cauliflowers are brains. [(c) seth grahame-smith]

last night, as i lay in bed, between playing "6 degrees of separation"* and realizing that i have only two weeks to complete my first draft of my thesis, it was very hard not to wonder what my life will be like a year from now. will i be in toronto? will i be more sure of myself? will i be more disciplined? will i - dare i ask? - be happy?

anyway, i think my cell phone is beginning to resent the abuse. does anyone know a surefire way to convince the body that sleep is for nighttime and alert wakefulness is for daytime?

* for instance: at his audition for "glee," chris colfer sang "mr. cellophane" from "chicago." his character, kurt hummel, also sang that song in the pilot. how can i connect "glee" and "chicago"?

glee - jane lynch - julie and julia - stanley tucci - it could happen to you - nicholas cage - the rock - sean connery - entrapment - catherine zeta-jones chicago

nb: this was before i knew that jane lynch was in talladega nights: the ballad of ricky bobby. this piece of information would have simplified things considerably, since john c. reilly is mr. cellophane himself.

poirot's investigations

genre books tend to get a bad reputation, on account of appearing superficial. but the more agatha christie i read, the more i see important psychological and sociological insights in her writing. "appointment with death" has more to do with dysfunctional families than with sleuthing. the murder seems entirely incidental to the story. and it's not just the mystery genre - or, indeed, just christie - that works this way. if verne and wells are any indication, science fiction is likewise a means of dissecting sociological/political themes.

anyway, one well-documented characteristic among the more interesting fictional detectives is that they're sort of rogues - their relationship with the established process of law enforcement is a precarious one. holmes, poirot, marple, and even house all fall into that category. i haven't read enough of arthur canon doyle's work to say if this part is also ubiquitous, but it is absolutely fascinating to me how often in hercule poirot's "practice" the murderer manages to escape charges by committing suicide, suffering from a terminal illness, or ending up in a fatal accident. agatha christie just didn't seem all that interested in legal procedure, though the importance of justice was underscored in all her mysteries. indeed, she gave tacit (and sometimes reluctant) approval to vigilante justice in at least three of her novels.

i've been collecting the poirot books for years now, and when i got to 24 out of 39, i realized that the editions i wanted were no longer in print. i'm determined to get all the titles, one way or another, in close-to-similar-editions. my most recent acquisition was "dumb witness" which involves a posthumous letter, a rich spinster, and an adorable dog named bob.

owned
read
missing!

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
Murder on the Links (1923)
Poirot Investigates (1924)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
The Big Four (1927)
The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
Black Coffee (1930)
Peril at End House (1932)
Lord Edgware Dies (1933)
Murder on the Orient Express (1934)
Three Act Tragedy (1935)
Death in the Clouds (1935)
The A.B.C. Murders (1936)
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
Cards on the Table (1936)
Death on the Nile (1937)
Dumb Witness (1937)
Murder in the Mews (1937)
Appointment with Death (1938)
Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938)
Sad Cypress (1940)
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940)
Evil Under the Sun (1941)
Five Little Pigs (1942)
The Hollow (1946)
The Labours of Hercules (1947)
Taken at the Flood (1948)
Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952)
After the Funeral (1953)
Hickory Dickory Dock (1955)
Dead Man's Folly (1956)
Cat Among the Pigeons (1959)
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (1960)
The Clocks (1963)
Third Girl (1966)
Hallowe'en Party (1969)
Elephants Can Remember (1972)
Poirot's Early Cases (1974)
Curtain (written about 1940, published 1975)

also posted at diet of bookworms.

k is for kisses

cannot *believe* i've only been awake for thirteen hours... it's been a dense day.

i) a group session for our "carving out your discipline" position papers: two hours of peer review, with ginger cake! i still don't know how my work contributes to humanity, exactly.

ii) research on jeanne guyon: this led to general commentaries on the phenomenon of mysticism among women, which in turn led to simone de beauvoir's chapter on women mystics in "second sex." there was a great deal to process there, and i'll be reflecting about it here when i can. but, to start with: i'm not as healthy as i wish i were.

iii) cornerstone: walking home with charles, cleaning for an inspection, making a birthday card, teaching theresa how to use excel, decorating, drinking on the job, having a party, coming thisclose to trying guitar hero, almost making a med error (i blame the wine!), and helping bev get ready for bed.

iv) so tired. didn't bother going home... came straight from cornerstone to charbonneau, to sleep. trying to decide if i can stay awake long enough to laugh at jon.

vi) by the way, brian and beverly both kissed me today. plus, brian took my hand and sat me on the couch and passed me his jungle book colouring pad and some crayons. the glittery and metallic crayons are especially wonderful.

the crayons weren't really the point, though. it was the kisses that made my world all sparkly.

g is (taken) for granted

following my recent laptop catastrophe/calamity/tragedy, gepetto and i held hands and proceded through the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) with grace and humour. it's been a difficult process, but we've leaned on each other and have great hope that the healing will continue.

but scars will remain, and one of the most marked is the now defunct letter g. consider: it's right there, in the middle of keyboard, begging to be used! and so very many participles rely on it! i can't even call gepetto's name without it!

the irony is that i have been teased for my pronunication of (hard) g's on more than one occasion, and since this catastrophic and calamitous tragedy, my class notes and emails have resembled a southern hymnbook.

so, in memory of my recent loss, i offer a brief (and by no means comprehensive) list of other things i take for granted, in the hopes that by naming them now they won't decide to crap out on me in the spirit of that immortal principle: "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."

- big yellow taxis
- the letter x, the key for which is also not working
- the shift+f7 (the thesaurus function) which has helped me avoid that letter while enhancing my vocabulary
- platelets and white blood cells. (all blood cells, really, but those white ones have been doing a bang-up job lately!) i'm a klutz of sorts, and have really put these little guys to work over the years: overtime, called back from holidays, you name it.
- music
- forgiveness. a handful of people in my life have been very, very kind to me, tolerating more than they should have, because they had hope for me. and loved me. and were capable of giving, even in their hurt.
- equality. i've never actually felt discriminated against for being a woman or an immigrant... and i'm realizing the degree to which my experience is a function of the particular time and place in which i live. it's quite crazy. and humbling.
- time
- colours. especially blue, green, and persimmon. and purple. they feel like beauty to me.
- money. it's always come, somehow or other.
- literacy
- bobby pins. i rarely reuse one, because i'm quite careless about putting them away when i take them out... also, i destroy them. it's a nervous habit.
- today

hooker's delight

ever since amy introduced me to puttanesca, this vegetarian and easily vegan pasta dish has been a favourite of mine. recently, two of the food blogs i enjoy have featured it: first, stacey offered her recipe: a combination of olive oil, anchovies, capers, garlic, black olives, and canned tomatoes over linguine or penne. then, not to be outdone, lori lynn posted her tweaks on stacey's take: she adds basil and red chili pepper flakes in the early stage and tops the pasta-and-sauce combo with a scoop of ricotta cheese, rather than parm.

while i'm trying to break out of my bizarre loyalty to original recipes, i really do love that amy's puttanesca also includes green olives, golden raisins, and toasted pine nuts. the bigger issue, however, is the whole anchovy fiasco.

first off, isn't it a little weird that these fishies *dissolve* when you cook them?! secondly, anchovies have a reputation: from sleepover friends to the babysitters club (though apparently kristy liked them!) to friends to the teenage mutant ninja turtles, so much of pop culture has told me they're gross. but, hey, come to think of it, mr. beastly was wrong about brussel sprouts - there *are* ways to make them so super tasty! - so maybe there's room for benefit of the doubt when it comes to wee salty fishes, too.

so, despite all that the strategic brainwashing and my aforementioned devotion to (my) traditions, i'm tentatively confident (is that contradictory?) that adding anchovies will be ok. afterall, as a kid i loved sardines. and there was also some kind of fish paste that we just spread on slices of bread? so this is prolly worth a try. maybe rather than making "lady of the night" pasta for lunch today, i'll wait until i can get to the grocery store and dig up some fishy friends.

do you like anchovies?

no damn book...

tell me a story...

i love to hear. to close my eyes and imagine the people and crises and triumphs you describe. they needn't be new stories. i dream that reading won't always be a solitary enterprise. maybe that's why i so long to one day have children: they will make a storyteller of me. it's been a long time now since i realized that i could never marry a man who wouldn't read to me at night... or whisper bedtime stories in my ear in the dark stillness.

perhaps that is why the reader has completely overwhelmed me. surely it is not the only reason... but i feel i'm almost drowning in it all.

standing at a distance, from my comfortable seat, my heart shouted it out, plead with him: "you know what you must do! you know what is at stake! put yourself aside!"

but knowing right from wrong is rarely the difficulty: ethics can never grip us, mobilize us, paralyze us, so much as our fears and hurts do.

there is a moment in this movie when one touch, one smile, one infinitesimal drop of kindness might have made a tremendous difference. but it was withheld. because it was impossible. sometimes we find ourselves at the end of our compassion and love. there is only so far any one of us can go, and we are, perhaps, surprised to discover we are at that border. crossing over would be right - so virtuous, so noble, so good - but it is not within our strength. we are at the end of ourselves.

there is pain that goodwill cannot erase. our best hope is to love as fiercely and give as freely as we can - as we can - and learn to forgive ourselves for the rest.

wish list (under construction)

with 33 days left until i go back to school, i'm composing a holiday wish list... any recommendations?

- prepare a turkey dinner (and find people to feed it to... volunteers?)
- spend an evening playing hoopla, drinking egg nog, and listening to carols. while wearing sweaters. it's a tommy hilfiger ad! [(c) aaron sorkin]
- invest some time in the archives at uoft/york/conrad grebel
- look for a job
- make a snow fort
- work on scrapbooks with mike and kevin
- set up the tree with mom and dad
- read "alias grace"
- see "rachel getting married" and all the other movies i've been missing out on because i live in hamilton
- eat sushi at least once a week (x5)
- draught-proof my apartment
- pad my agatha christie collection
- read two of the textbooks for my "women in xn history" class
- knit or crochet something. (seriously, it just feels wrong not to.)
- finally check out all the music paul has ever recommended to me

regarding caspian

today i joined the mounds of lewis fans who crowded theatres to consume this summer's ration of narnia chronicles. i wanted to write out a few of my reflections, both positive and negative. if you've seen it, please weigh in!

bad news first... my top 10 issues:
10) romance between susan and caspian. just no. ok?
9) no real "repentance" scene for susan and peter, which was internally consistent (see 5, below) but sad. i love aslan in that scene.
8) competitive tension between peter and caspian. this was explicitly not the case in the book: peter assured the telmarine heir that the pevensies were just there to help, and that he had no ambitions to the throne.
7) along the same lines, an uber-ambitious, vengeful caspian. who is this guy? in the book he never imagined launching an attack on miraz until the centaur called for it. he wasn't enough of a kid here.
6) two words: mexican standoff. oh, four more and some punctuation: are you kidding me?!?!?!!?
5) the decision not to follow lucy's vision of aslan was treated very lightly, which was quite disappointing. this was a crisis in the book, almost a crucible for the pevensies.
4) the ecological bent of lewis' work was tragically underplayed. all but gone gone was the telmarine fear of trees and water, which was to be contrasted with the narnian way. there was some depiction of telmarine industry, but this wasn't enough for me.
3) dropping this line: "you come from lord adam and lady eve, and that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. be content.”
2) dropping this line: "wouldn't it be dreadful if some day, in our own world, at home, men started going wild inside, like the animals here, and still looked like men so that you’d never know which were which?"
1) not enough cuddling with aslan. i'm not kidding.

nice changes:
- including the white witch. i'm more than ok with it, 'cause it revealed important things. and because ed was the one to deal with it, and that seemed to heal up some issues from lw&w
- "for narnia" vs. "for aslan" - sweet and very much in keeping with lewis' themes. i like it very, very much.

ambivalence:
- the battle at the telmarine castle. just not sure how i feel about that change.

criage:
- war freaking tears me up right now. when the gate came down after that battle? i cried and cried. just bad. there's prolly another note coming about that.

i've recently been learning...

1. it will never be the same again
2. no matter which beach boys' song i start out singing, i end up with "(i wish they all could be) california girls"
3. "if i stand at all, it is certainly not alone"
4. being brave feels good (after the peeing-your-pants thing is done)
5. i am deeply loved and kinda needed
6. it's not about me
7. God really wants to be known... He is the "one who has waited long for you to speak" (the horse and his boy)
8. just because everyone seems to see you a certain way doesn't mean it's true
9. the way i deal with life is fundamentally flawed
10. my family is often very, very difficult... but somehow it can be beautiful
11. sometimes it is about me
12. every story is everyone's story, somehow
13. for the record, we still can't get through mother's day without my mom crying
14. if everyone seems to see you in a certain way, you should consider that it might be true
15. no one is indispensable
16. x hours of anything-other-than-sleep = 0 hours of sleep, no matter how restful you think the other thing might be
17. most friendships don't end... they just change
18. my mom may be difficult, but i don't always have to be selfish and sensitive
19. i didn't miss provincial sales tax
20. i already miss being driven home and sitting in the parking lot for hours
21. there is no formula. ever. ok, i'll give you the quadratic formula... but it prolly won't help so much.
22. it's never too late to be loving
23. "being miserable doesn't make you better than anyone else... it just makes you miserable" (house)
24. no one is replaceable (sorry, beyonce)
25. if God isn't ok with swearing, i am in so much trouble... because:
26. sometimes the only words i have are ones i only really trust Him to tolerate and understand
27. trajectory is so, so important. (i guess i need to take the derivative to find the slope of the tangent to the curve at this particular moment... oh, wait: no formuale.)
28. "every tear i've cried, You hold in Your hand" (casting crowns)
29. what i want most is home
30. listen
31. it will never be the same again

nouwen speaks

the inner voice of love: a journey through anguish to freedom is a collection of spiritual imperatives that came to henri nouwen during a time of profound darkness. a taste:

"never allow yourself to become public property, where anyone can walk in and out at will."

run, don't walk

steve and i saw this last night.
then i went home and read the book again.
and i don't want to get over it.
some times there are great seasons to cry. :)

p.s. it was also clean monday yesterday, which was harder on my heart than i expected. wilderness can only ever be embraced if there's real hope of something better on the other side. so, here's hoping.

as for the terrors ahead - for he did not fool himself that they were all behind him - well, you just have to stand up to your fear and not let it squeeze you white. right, leslie? right.

unquantifiable

"so, how much do you *really* miss calgary, mara?"

"so much that when i passed the 10 volume set of gerhard kittel's theological dictionary of the new testament, i gave it an affectionate caress."

or maybe that just means i'm more of a geek than most of us realized.

edited to add:
never mind . . . i may have given a berenstain bears book a similar affectionate caress. maybe i'm just longing. not because this is so bad, but because in life i just can't seem to have all the good in the same room at the same time. and sometimes that's hard.

savage

what did the words exactly mean? he only half knew. but their magic was strong and went on rumbling in his head, and somehow it was as though he had never really hated p before; never really hated him because he had never been able to say how much he hated him. but now he had these words, these words like drums and singing and magic . . . they gave him a reason for hating p; and they made his hatred more real; they even made p himself more real..

~~~

one of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punshments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.

~~~

we haven't any use for old things here.
even when they're beautiful?
particularly when they're beautiful..

~~~

Christianity without tears - that what soma is..

~~~

we prefer to do things comfortably.

but i don't want comfort. i want God, i want poetry, i want real danger, i want freedom, i want goodness. i want sin.

in fact, you're claiming the right to be unhappy.

all right, then, i'm claiming the right to be unhappy.

not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.

[there was a long silence]

i claim them all.

ekklesia

maybe you won't do it no matter how nicely i ask. so, i'm taking a chance. we both know it.

just read this story - it's carver's "cathedral", if that matters.

i experienced something similar the other day, you see. in a chapel whose walls are my brown brown hair i knelt at the altar behind my eyelids. it's been a while.

my home must always be within walking distance of a swing set.

that's no longer a mere luxury.