sconniemolly

Building/Rebuilding

Hello again and happy International Women’s Day. I hope you celebrated by reading something cool a woman wrote. And if not, well, here you are; I will have to do!

What’s new? Well…we have begun to contemplate moving. This is…emotionally fraught territory for me, for dozens of reasons. I am a Cancer, I don’t love change, I am a homebody who feels a strong sense of attachment to where I’m rooted. Madison is the only adult home I’ve ever had. I’ve had seven addresses in my thirteen years here but every single one of them (save the dorms) felt like home to me, because this city feels like home to me. It is, objectively, a great city for a youngish white woman in government and that’s why I came here. But now I’m not in government anymore and I have to rebuild somehow. My choices are to move, to enter a new field, or both.

All of my friends and family have, at some point, lived somewhere else and I envy that experience. They’ve grown and stretched themselves and lived in ways that I just haven’t. I’ve traveled, and I’m so glad for that, but of course spending less than a week somewhere running from monument to museum isn’t the same as finding an apartment, getting a job, searching for a new doctor, scouting out the best Indian food delivery. Making new friends, joining a gym or finding a few good walking routes, figuring out an alien city. Rebuilding a life, basically. All of that sounds terrifying and exhausting and…maybe fun? Maybe…the kind of challenge I haven’t had enough of?

I don’t make friends terribly easily. I am introverted to a fault. Most of my closest friendships will soon enter their second decade. Those people got to know me, and I them, before #adulting was a thing, when we were the purest and most honest versions of ourselves. We’ve all been several different people in the intervening years, as teenagers and college students and hungry 20somethings and now, in our thirties, I think we’re maybe, hopefully, back to some sense of authenticity. Not that those other selves were *in*authentic…but you know…Growth, building, learning. Images of beautiful smiling fit people hiking a mountain with clichéd hashtags abound.

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You know what I mean.

So what else. In the absence of any formal job title, I have begun thinking of myself as A Writer, if not quite a Real Writer. I don’t do much Writing these days, or even much writing (see: neglect of this blog). I’ve published only one piece (which I will continue plugging until the day I die, or until I manage to publish something better, whichever comes first). Unemployment has not made me a much more productive writer, but it’s really about momentum…the more I do it, the more I’ll do it. So cheers to that.

FOMO is super real: the Paris edition

I thought about trying to write a post entirely in French but I think that would be far too taxing and time-consuming.

We’re in Paris! We love it!

So far, my stray observations from what I’ve seen, heard, smelled, tasted:

I know I should’ve expected it but yo, people smoke waaaaay too much here. Cigarettes I mean.
Don’t hate me but I think macarons are un peu overrated.
Good God do the Parisiennes love to shop, especially for shoes. Here a mall, there a mall, everywhere a mall mall. But of course, architecturally interesting and beautiful malls. I appreciate this about them.
There is so. Much. To see. I thought a week would be a good length of time but we’re already reprioritizing our must-see list to fit it all in. (Granted we did not help ourselves by way oversleeping yesterday and today.)
People really go ape shit over the Mona Lisa.
The métro is a delight.
We keep seeing people walking around just carrying only a baguette or two and it makes us giggle.
The Louvre is epic and it is beautiful and the crowds are really really…something else.

We wanted to see Mont St. Michel and Versailles, but those would both be a whole day thing probably, and there just isn’t time. Wah wah wah.

Off to see Notre Dame and, upon the recommendation of several people who know me well, the Shakespeare and Company bookstore. 🤓 Au revoir!

Today in Homeownership

We got a fair bit of snow over the weekend. V and I stayed on top of the driveway and sidewalk shoveling like the good citizens that we are. But overnight, the city plows kinda effed a big part of that up, as they are wont to do.

We live on a corner lot. So sidewalk ramps are our responsibility. We had, of course, cleared it yesterday when we were doing the rest of the shoveling, but alas – overnight, the plows came, and left a very compact frozen block of snow in their wake. So I spent a good few hours this morning huffing and puffing and clearing that out. I am but one not very strong person. My arms are k i l l i n g me.

But wait, the fun continues.

Over the past few days, V and I noticed an increasingly foul smell in the room we use as an office. After turning the room upside down looking for the culprit, we worried that it could be natural gas, so we did what you’re supposed to do and called MG&E. We evacuated the house, Isis in tow in her little carrier, while a guy inspected and informed us that it was probably a dead mouse. Hurrah!

This morning in the middle of my shoveling extravaganza, we had a pest removal company come by. He drilled a small hole in an expertly chosen area of the ceiling to reveal a little mouse tail, attached to a very dead mouse.

(On the positive side, the pest control guy was super nice and we bonded over being in interracial marriages – he’s Cambodian, married to a Caucasian woman).

So it’s been just a banner day in homeownership, friends. Between all the excitement I have eaten three things thus far, two of which are Super Bowl party leftovers: two (three?) brownie bites, a handful of jalapeno ranch Ruffles, and a clementine. I am now going to go take an unreasonably long, extremely hot bath. It’s only 1:30pm; who knows what fresh horrors – or joys!? – the day may yet bring.

Book Review: Exit West

I have been totally lacking inspiration lately, but today I finished “Exit West” by Mohsin Hamid and really wanted to tell y’all about it.

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We have our two protagonists, Saeed and Nadia, two young people living in a country where religious militants are wreaking havoc and increasingly making life untenable. (The country is never named but I imagined it to be Pakistan, which I believe is where Hamid is from; of course it could just as easily be Libya or Syria.) Nadia is an unconventional woman, estranged from her family and living on her own in a culture where that is very much not the norm. She wears a hijab, but not because she’s pious; she tells Saeed it is “so men don’t fuck with [her]”. Saeed falls in love with her wildness and as their city becomes more and more dangerous, they spend more and more time together.

All over the world unrest is thick and rising and people are anxious to leave for what they imagine will be more peaceable climes. There is word of certain special doors that act as a portal between one’s current location and another faraway one, and desperate people take advantage to try to start a new life elsewhere. Saeed and Nadia decide to do this, after the death of Saeed’s mother and the burning down of Nadia’s apartment, though it is wrenching for Saeed to leave his father alone.

The first door takes the couple to Mykonos, Greece, where they are among many other fellow migrants escaping turbulent nations. However, in Mykonos and in every locale thereafter, “nativists” are not exactly welcoming of the influx and make their displeasure well known in both political and violent ways.

Nadia and Saeed travel from Mykonos to London and from London to the Bay Area of California. They have only each other throughout this time and have, of course, not even been a couple for very long; the premature intimacy takes its toll and the two begin to drift apart. Never before have I read the dissolution of a romantic relationship so beautifully bittersweet and heartbreaking and yet appropriate…appropriate in the sense that both characters know the relationship is dwindling and while it saddens them, they don’t try to prolong the inevitable and they don’t hurt each other any more than absolutely necessary. It’s the most mature breakup ever, and Hamid just paints it so gorgeously.

“Saeed and Nadia were loyal, and whatever name they gave their bond they each in their own way believed it required them to protect the other, and so neither talked much of drifting apart, not wanting to inflict a fear of abandonment, while also themselves quietly feeling that fear, the fear of the severing of their tie, the end of the world they had built together, a world of shared experiences in which no one else would share, and a shared intimate language that was unique to them…But while fear was part of what kept them together for those first few months in Marin, more powerful than fear was the desire that each see the other find firmer footing before they let go…”

I love that tenderness. Saeed and Nadia have been through so much together that all they want is safety and security for each other, however it comes, whether or not they remain a couple. And they each find it.

I enjoyed the dose of magical realism that the doors brought to the story. It was the only aspect that couldn’t be 100% “ripped from the headlines”, so to speak, in an otherwise highly topical book. Some people might find it too convenient of a device, but for me it emphasized the porousness of borders in today’s world and made me question what really makes a nation, and what really makes a native.

I gave it 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads but would’ve gone for 4.5 if I could. (Are you on Goodreads? If not, why not? How do you keep track of everything you want to read and everything you have read???) It’s my 5th book of 2018 and easily beats out the other 4. Highly recommend.

It is somehow still January. I hope it’s been a good one for you.

Winter Quiet

It’s been snowing for…awhile now. Over 24 hours. And it’s not letting up yet. I don’t mind this at all, honestly. This is what’s supposed to happen in winter. And I love my cozy living room the most when it’s cold and white outside.

As lame as unemployment generally is, I don’t hate this part: getting to stay home and snuggle up with the cat and a book and a blanket.

Last night when the snow had really started accumulating, around 11, V and I bundled up and stood outside in the driveway for a few minutes to watch. It was so, so quiet, in the way that it only ever is during nighttime snowfall. I love that.

And I love that my California/India man has grown to love this snowy and frigid environment almost as much as I do.

That’s all, really. I just wanted to share some of this peace with you.

Donald Trump Makes Me Not Want To Get Pregnant

My internal clock is all kinds of screwed up. Normally I would be in bed right now, reading a few pages before turning out the lights. Ever since I became unemployed, time has basically no meaning. I go to bed late and get up…sometimes when Shak leaves, sometimes later, sometimes earlier. The days have little to no structure. I try to go for walks and write when the muse strikes (not often enough). I work on keeping the house presentable and cuddle with Isis and read – although we’re eleven days into 2018 and I’ve only finished one book.

Unemployed, yes. For the first time since college and it’s weird as hell. The circumstances, to put it mildly, are not ideal. My highly supportive loved ones have rallied around me and encouraged me to think of this unexpected work hiatus as a chance to get my writing career off the ground. So I’m working on that, in fits and starts.

And today the president called the countries of origin of some (brown) immigrants “shitholes” and apparently somehow people are surprised…? He noted that he would prefer more (white) immigrants from, say, Norway. Today and tonight in particular he seems exceptionally unhinged, but I know I’ll be saying the same thing a week or two weeks from now when the next previously unfathomable thing happens. If there’s anyone on Earth whose stream of consciousness should not be broadcast to the billions, it’s the one who has both the nuclear launch codes and the mental health of a drunken racist dotard. I don’t like blaming his all-around abject terribleness on senility – he doesn’t deserve that kind of a pass – but I think there is a strong case to be made that he is not a well man.

I don’t know if this is normal to do or not – and I’d love to hear from anyone else who has had similar thoughts – but honest to God, the current occupant of the White House is affecting the feelings I have about getting pregnant. I’ve been open about that not being an easy road for us, and it’s kind of a mind fuck to be taking all these extra (expensive) steps to try to get pregnant when I’m simultaneously really freaked out about the world into which I’d be bringing a kid. You’d think that a couple who undergoes fertility treatments would be like, really 1000% sure about the desired outcome. Unvarnished truth be told, it’s a little murky sometimes. Because I don’t know how I feel about ultra-deliberately bringing a child into a world where nuclear war is a more realistic fear than ever and climate change is severely fucking up our environment in ways that are increasingly difficult to work around and oh yeah, brown kids in the US aren’t super safe.

When I get really stressed out about the current state of things, I try to remember some Bible verse (for real) about there being nothing new under the sun. I’ve always found that idea comforting. The world’s been a hot mess forever, but it’s all cyclical, it will not be like this forever, etc.

I swear to God if anyone comments on this blog saying anything to the effect of “just adopt!!” they will be dead to me. I mean maybe we will, I don’t know, but don’t act like it’s just that simple.

I got myself a pint of Halo Top chocolate chip cookie dough and while it’s not unenjoyable, the cookie dough pieces are about the size of a baby ant and that’s a real downer. People hate on Halo Top but I think it’s decent.

That’s my stream of consciousness for tonight. I did spare you my thoughts on the season 5 episode of 90210 I had on while writing this. So you’re welcome for that, and also for this.

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Naan Pizza!

This is one of my favorite low maintenance vegetarian dinners. It is the collision of two beautiful worlds, two of my favorite countries: India and Italy. Is there anything “authentic” about this “dish”, in either culture? Oh my God no. It probably horrifies purists of either cuisine. But it is 1) easy 2) reasonably healthy 3) entirely customizable and 4) *delicious*.

Here’s how I do it, adapted from Umami Girl.

Naan Pizza

Servings: 2

Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 pieces any kind of naan
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/8 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup grated pecorino romano cheese
4-8 mozzarella balls (“ciliegine”, usually found in the deli of your grocery store)
a few spinach leaves
3-4 grape tomatoes, halved
freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Brush the olive oil over each piece of naan. Mix the tomato paste and tomato sauce together in a small bowl to combine. Spread evenly over each naan. Sprinkle some of the grated pecorino romano on top.

Here’s where you can really go nuts, individualizing-wise, but you know me: I keep it very simple. Depending on the size of your naan, drop about 4 mozzarella balls around the sauced area. Tear up a few spinach leaves and place them around the same area along with the halved grape tomatoes.

You want to bake this directly on the rack, no pan, but I absolutely do recommend either putting some aluminum foil or another pan on the bottom of your oven to capture any sauce or cheese drippage – yes, speaking from experience. Place the naan on the rack and bake for 10 minutes. Take it out – it should be bubbly – and crack some fresh black pepper all over.

That’s it! A 15-minute dinner (or snack) (or appetizer) (or lunch) (whatever you want)! You could add meat obviously, if you’re not vegetarian, or add pineapple or green pepper or any number of other toppings. The naan is a blank canvas for your imagination!

naan pizza

Auld Lang Syne

I have to have a “say goodbye to 2017” post, right?

I’m celebrating the end of this godforsaken year hanging out with my best friends drinking pink moscato and watching #Baahubali and Fast and the Furious 6 (7?) and attempting to play HQ Trivia despite its best efforts to stop us (get your shit together Rogowsky) (just kidding i know it’s not your fault #traptrebek). There’s really nothing I’d rather be doing. I have no desire to squeeze into a sexy dress and go downtown and pay a lot of money to hang out with strangers and dance. Not that I’ll never do that ever again, but this year at least, it is not my speed.

This year. This fucking year. Took a definite curveball toward the end. I got a new job in March. I lost said job in December.

I traveled to Seattle, New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Boston.

I took a seminar on freelance writing, which led to my very first published article and I am still so proud of it.

We got a puppy for about 24 hours in May and realized that that was actually not a good idea for us at all (hope you’re happy with your family somewhere, Juno).

My mother in law visited for about 6 weeks in the spring and it was so much fun and I miss her a lot.

I made approximately 30 batches of chocolate chip cookies.

I read 65 books, with a heavy emphasis on memoirs by young feminist women.

I took probably 84 naps, minimum.

I saw performances by John Mulaney (with the husband) the Foo Fighters (with the husband) , Bassem Youssef (with Christina and the husband), Chris Rock (with the husband, Brandon, & Rachel), Ilana Glazer and Phoebe Robinson (with Jen and BJ and the husband). John Mulaney was definitely my favorite but they were all a blast.

I became a vegetarian! I think the official date was January 4, 2017 and I haven’t looked back since. That’s not entirely true. I did have scallops at my birthday dinner in June – partly because there were almost no veg options on the menu and partly because I just really like scallops. And once, I accidentally ordered a burrito from Taco Bell that I thought was meatless but turned out…not to be. Other than that, I’ve done well, and that is no small thing from someone who loves bacon as much as I used to.

I’ve made some new friends, reconnected with a couple old ones, and strengthened ties with ones I have. Most of the people closest to me have known me since middle school, and I prefer it that way. (Sorry Rachel, I would photoshop you in if I knew how!)

Happy 2018, friends. I’m optimistic in spite of everything.

Merry Christmas!

This was a different sort of Christmas for us. On Saturday we held the usual gathering of my mom’s extended family at my grandmother’s house, which is always a nice time seeing my cousins who are scattered throughout the country. On Sunday we celebrated with my parents and my brother and sister-in-law with the traditional feasting on overnight French toast (breakfast) and fondue (dinner). Plus the hilarious treasure hunt that my mom creates every year with her rhyming clues for each of us. I would share the photos that my dad took, but I look incredibly heinous in all of them and vanity shall carry the day, today at least.

So that was the normal part. Today, Christmas Day, Vyshak and I celebrated alone at our own house, which is a first. I think we are both still digesting how we feel about that. I know he misses being with his family; I miss being with them too. As much as we loved having his mom with us for a month or so in spring, it would be great to have her again over the holidays – though I don’t know if she’ll ever agree to visit in the season of subzero temps and snow!

We opened our presents to each other, ate a scrambled eggs and breakfast potatoes brunch, drank a bunch of cranberry mimosas, FaceTimed with family in Fresno, took a nap, baked red velvet cheesecake swirl brownies, had mushroom risotto for dinner, watched some Planet Earth II and have now gone our separate, yet individually delightful ways: PC game for him and reading for me. It was a fun day and I’m glad we had it together, but I think we were both a little lonely for family and friends. We’ll see what next year brings…every Christmas is a little different.

(I really don’t mean to use alliteration as much as I do. I’ll work on that.)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE LAST JEDI EXIST HEREIN.

Let’s just get this out of the way from the jump: I am not the biggest Star Wars fan. Which is NOT to say that I dislike it – I don’t! It was a part of my childhood the way it was for most older millennials and younger Gen Xers. My brother loved it. I’ve seen the original, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi more times than I can count. All I’m saying is, I’m not a diehard. I don’t know the names of tertiary or even secondary characters. I never played with the Legos or wrote fanfic about Han and Leia or dressed up to camp out overnight for a premiere. Fan service moments in later movies sometimes go over my head. And I have never even seen two of the three prequels so don’t @ me about whatever key I’m missing that can be found there.

My husband is deeply into a lot of things that I am not, and Star Wars is on that list (along with anime, Pearl Jam, and spicy food). So there we were at 9:30 on Thursday night, trying to be among the first to see The Last Jedi. What follows are the non-chronological meandering thoughts of a rather lukewarm (HA!) fan, who admittedly does not always see or understand the larger Star Wars universe.

I really, really liked The Force Awakens; it’s probably my favorite of the whole collection. It was funny, it was refreshing, it was very very human in a way that the sterile prequels were not. I was hoping that TLJ would be similar and for the most part, I wasn’t disappointed, though I think it’s fair to say that TLJ is a lot more somber than TFA. I love John Boyega as Finn and Daisy Ridley as Rey and I wish they’d had more screen time together this time around.
Like almost everyone, I was super amused by the pseudo-nun-caretaker creatures on Luke’s hideaway island. (Vulture did a delightful piece on these characters that echoes pretty much all my sentiments about them.) The Caretakers are totes adorbs and I love that they DGAF about Luke and Rey’s drama or really anything at all outside of the island they are charged with protecting. (Charged by WHOM? And since WHEN? Are they celibate? Is there another sacred island with male Caretakers and they sometimes get together and have coed dances and games like summer camp or the single-sex private schools of yore? If not, why not? I NEED TO KNOW)
Luke doesn’t really seem that happy to see Chewbacca when the latter barges into his man-cave dwelling. I thought it would be a nice reunion but he was just all “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” and then realized something must be amiss because he was without Han. There was no warm nostalgia and that kinda bugged me.
I was very entertained by Finn and Rose’s sojourn to Canto Bright, the playground of the galaxy’s rich and sexy, because it was such a nice change of scenery from…space…more space…and Luke’s island (which admittedly is also gorgeous). I always get a kick out of SW scenes set in more interesting locales, like the cantina, or Maz’s bar/Jedi storage facility/whatever the hell it is in TFA. I read that the Canto Bright scenes were filmed in Dubrovnik, which has been on our travel list for a couple of years, so now I only want to go more.
While I like Rey as a character, her persistence in believing that Kylo Ren could be “turned” annoyed me. Like, girl, YOU CAN’T FIX HIM. I guess she didn’t have a mom or girlfriends or Oprah to teach her that that’s the worst possible thing to try and do with a man, so honest mistake on her part, but it just felt so absurdly naive. Rey has been on her own for her whole life and she still believes that hard in bad boys changing for the good? Damn.
And while we’re talking about Rey, let’s talk about Daisy Ridley’s skin and how much I love it. I want to know her routine. I want to know what that brand and shade of barely-there lip gloss is. Glossier? MAC? Just flawless beauty in so many close-ups.
Laura Dern as Vice Admiral Holdo is queenly and elegant AF. That olive, high-neck jersey gown that she so gracefully adjusts after running to the driver’s seat of their ship to distract the First Order from blowing up all the escape shuttles? The (Nagappala) Oscar for Best Costumes has been decided basically entirely on the merits of that dress (and the Caretakers’ nun habits).
Yes, the porgs are adorable as all get out, there is no point in pretending otherwise.

On a more thematic note: my husband pointed out to me that TLJ is about failure in a lot of ways. There’s Luke’s failure to keep Ben/Kylo Ren on the Jedi side, Finn and Rose’s shit luck in Canto Bright getting caught up with Benicio del Toro’s con artist weirdo, Poe’s cowboy guns-blazing philosophy costing the Resistance a hell of a lot of lives, Rey’s inability to convert Kylo Ren away from the Dark Side. It was an interesting exploration. SW movies, and a lot of action movies in general, seem to spend their third acts with the protagonists getting setback after setback almost ad nauseum, so much so that it’s almost unrealistic; that was definitely the case here. We’re running out of fuel and the First Order is gaining on us? Let’s jump to lightspeed. Oh, they can track us through lightspeed? Since fucking when?! OK, we’ll devise an elaborate plan to break into the First Order’s ship and mess up their electrical system (the details of that plot point kinda got away from me)? Well you need a codebreaker, not just any codebreaker but the MASTER codebreaker. You never quite get a chance to meet him because the Canto Bright law enforcement doesn’t have shit to do in this Hamptons-ass town and therefore wants to jail Rose and Finn over a parking violation? This knockoff master codebreaker will have to do. Oh, he betrays you to the First Order because he’s a nihilist and a “both sides!”er? Don’t you hate it when that happens?!

But I digress. Obviously a movie needs conflict to move the plot along, so it’s not like I can fault the writers for throwing all those obstacles in the characters’ way – it just got a little tiring 2.5 hours later. In general, I only support Bollywood movies going that long, and they have lots of song and dance to eat up time.

(that’s Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge to those of you who know even less than me…only one of the best Bollywood films ever)

So basically, I liked it. I didn’t love it. I think TFA is better, or if not necessarily better, just more fun to watch. And now I look forward to the SW stans telling me all the reasons I am wrong and/or ignorant. Happy Tuesday!

(Husband tried explaining to me that Luke didn’t die, he “became one with the force” which is not the same thing as dying…*shrug emoji*)