Friday, May 19, 2006

On the other hand, I sure hope it's not rude to ignore people's e-mails, because I do this all the time. Most of the time, I reply to e-mail from friends or family (a reasonable percent of it, anyway, and within a reasonable amount of time, but not necessarily right away), but I hardly ever reply to strangers' e-mails. And not because I don't like their writing to me or don't appreciate what they say (if they write to tell me they like one of my websites, for example)... it's just that I get way too much e-mail, and I don't have the time/energy/social proclivities to respond to every e-mail I get. If I tried, it would take away too much from the rest of my life. Especially since I am a recluse, and I don't want to get into a situation where I end up feeling obligated to write back and forth. I may be a cheerful/friendly recluse, but that doesn't mean I want to make friends. I hope people understand that. Sometimes people send me really nice e-mails, and I feel sort of bad about not answering them, but I guess I look at e-mails kind of like phone calls. They're unsolicited, so you should be able to not pick up the receiver if you don't feel like talking.

Posted at 5:05:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

I slept simply horribly last night. But at least I had some entertaining dreams. In one of them, I visited my parents at their new house (it was nothing like their real new house) and left my bike lying on the lawn for a couple minutes; when I got back, it had been stolen. I knew who did it, but the hard part was getting them to admit it and/or just give it back. The neat thing was that the bike in my dream really did look like my actual bike. That's never happened before.

Every morning while I eat my salty oatmeal, I read Ask MetaFilter. I really like this question today, "What are the best manners that I am not aware of?" It's very interesting which ones people bring up. I think some of the manners that serve me best are ones that involve expressing appreciation and thanks when people do things for you. I thank people a lot, including in situations where it's probably not strictly necessary to say anything (like when it's the person's job--I always thank the barista at Starbucks when I pick up my drink, for example, and the cashier and bagger at the grocery store). It's easy to do, and I just think it's important to acknowledge people and show appreciation to them. (It makes them feel good, and, also, as a side benefit, be likely to do nice things for you again in the future!) (Like the response I got from my thank you note to the Postmaster after he went out of his way to get my package to me on Christmas Eve!) (The other thing is, don't expect people to do nice things; when they do, be pleased and surprised, and show them as much. In general, never expect anything.)

The same thing goes for gifts and hospitality. Always thank people for gifts, large or small. If you don't, they have no way of knowing, in some cases, if you even got the gift, and, in all cases, whether you liked the gift or not. (Okay, you should thank them even if you didn't like it, but you know what I'm saying.) It's crazy to just assume someone knows that you appreciated their gift/hospitality. If you don't say anything/write a thank you note, it's more likely they will assume you didn't.

I think I thank people both from a "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" perspective and (kind of subconsciously) from a selfish perspective, because, when you thank people, they're a lot nicer to you. :-)

(What's with all these long posts lately??) My throat hurts.

Posted at 1:44:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

That was so good. I want more! The Rudi's hamburger rolls were actually perfect, because I had two pods of milt and they curled in a circle to fit exactly on each half. My new grindy sea salt obsession only made the milt even better than ever. It turned out perfect: beautiful, pale, delicate and soft. And both the fiddleheads and asparagus were perfectly grilled, juicy and flavorful. I got everything except the shad ready ahead of time and stuck it out on the grill, and didn't take any photos, so for the first time ever it wasn't nerve-racking. (Cooking lots of things at once, especially unfamiliar things, isn't my forte.) Dean even said he liked his fake kielbasa and peppers.

Best homemade (by me) meal ever, maybe. In my opinion, that is. My neck is still killing me but it didn't stop me from savouring every last morsel. I love shad milt. Note to self of next year: buy shad milt!!! I almost wasn't going to.

Posted at 6:27:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

When shad season's over and the river recedes, they can change this sign to SHAD NOT RUNNING. Picked up my milt! ($3.50.) The cigarette holder guy had it stashed in the door of an old refrigerator. He made a comment about putting it somewhere where it wouldn't get crushed. I asked him if I was the only person who ever bought milt and he said a few other people do. Wow! The milt-eater population of Connecticut is increasing! They did have a blown up photocopy of the milt-eating description from John McPhee's book which I bought in last year:

In "The Market Assistant, Containing a Brief Description of Every Article of Human Food Sold in the Public Markets of the Cities of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn" (1867), Thomas De Voe reported that not a few people prefer shad milt to shad roe. On some days, I'm one of those people. The milt of the buck shad--in its firm, pink pods--sketches the same bilateral outline as shad roe, but is thin and lies flat. The milt within has the consistency of heavy cream and is as white as the whitest quartz. The matrix is water. The sperm cells are white and opaque. But all that is invisible, being well sealed in its encasing membrane. In euphemious England, milt is called soft roe. The French call it laitances. Salt and pepper the pods. Shake flour over them, lightly. Sauté them in butter and oil. Pan-fry them as if they were eggs. Place them on soft variable toast--white, whole wheat, sourdough, Russian rye. This dish bestows status on the buck shad. It is reminiscent of the marrow in osso bucco. The word for it is not semen but savory. In England, herring milt on toast is served at the end of dinner as a savoury. American shad semen, after all, is herring milt. On toast, with squeezed lemon, it is melting with freshness. If you had your choice between shad semen and a pink-icinged Pop-Tart, which would be more acceptable? Which would you take between a shad's semen, a calf's brain, a chicken's liver, and the inside of an ox femur? You just can't sit there eating Ferdinand's tongue and talk that way about shad milt, so cut it out.

Posted at 2:42:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

I ruined my neck; i have no idea how. It was fine earlier. Can barely move      intense, radiating, even if I sit perfectly still       why???   

I am going to wake up better tomorrow.

[Edit: I didn't. :-( This is messing up my Miltday!]

Posted at 1:20:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

I celebrated Shad Day by driving down to the ferry launch at Rocky Hill to look at the river and put in a request for shad milt at Hale's. When I pulled into the parking lot, I immediately said "Wow." I've never been to the river when it's flooded. There were people down there just to look at it, including a lady taking photos. She told me she's a merchant marine and travels all over the world, but came out just to look at the flooded Connecticut River. I took three photos; sorry they're a little boring, but you sort of had to be there (and to know what it normally looks like.) Rocky Hill is where we launch our scooter, so I pretty much do.

Most of the parking lot where people park their cars and boat trailers was flooded (if you look hard, you can see the yellow parking space stripes under the water), and the ferry dock was completely underwater (I think that mostly-submerged sign says "Ferry Not Running") (the thing with the flag on it is the ferry); a bunch of Hale's dirt parking lot was flooded, too, with trees buried up to their knees (okay, I mostly took this picture because of the little "Boned Shad" sign). The river was like an overflowing bathtub.

The same guy I talked to last year was sitting outside in front of Hale's (smoking a cigarette using a long HST-style cigarette holder), along with a younger guy wearing those cool bright orange waterproof fisherman's overalls, and I asked them, "Can I put in a special request for shad milt?" They said sure, and the younger guy said he had a couple shad right then that he hadn't gutted yet, but I told him I couldn't use any until tomorrow (Dean has his ground school class on Wednesdays, so I knew we'd be eating late today). He said, "It'll be ready tomorrow, whenever you want." Then he asked me, "What's it taste like?" I said something like, "Kind of salty... I don't know, I only have it once a year." He also wanted to know how I cook it, and I told him I fry it up sort of like eggs. I mentioned that I found out about it in a book, and the cigarette holder guy said, "Yeah, The Founding Fish. You brought it in last year; we have it blown up inside." (The recipe, I assume.) So I have my order in for milt, to be picked up tomorrow afternoon!

I've got asparagus, fiddleheads (crazy croziers), Rudi's Organic whole wheat small batch hamburger buns to lay the milt on (the wrong shape, but they were all out of hot dog buns, so it's the next best thing), butter, lemon, and fake kielbasa for Dean... now all I need is the milt. Tomorrow! (I used my Shad Bag today, of course.)

Posted at 5:10:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Oh: today is Shad Day! (According to my calendar.) Happy Shad Day! I have not placed any orders for milt yet, however.

Posted at 2:40:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

No more so-called art for tonight. But first here's my second piece (NOT a self-portrait). I used a pencil (a very dull Ticonderoga), a silver Sakura gel pen (for all the scales and fins), a couple of golden-toned sparkly Sakuras, a black Sharpie (for the spots and the eye), and lots of oil pastels, including my silver one, but I don't think I like the silver one very much. Then I scanned it in and messed around with it a little on my computer (wonky-eye double vision scale effect! which is my favourite part, I think). The original is much lighter, obviously (considering that I used a silver pen). It's supposed to be a shad, by the way. Swimming in greenish New England water. With her insides full of roe.

Posted at 2:19:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Heh. Okay, here's my first try with the oil pastels. And yes, I did this while looking in a mirror, like a proper self portrait.

Posted at 9:50:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Wow, the sky cleared up and Dean's going on a night flight! I'll have to play with my new oil pastels.

Posted at 7:52:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

The sun came out for a few minutes after I left Oats! It was weird. Bright. (Well, bright-ish. The sky's still pretty much completely blanketed in clouds).

I'm a pretty laid-back person, but it drives me insane when people keep nearly bumping into me. I must've gotten nearly run down by people in stores about ten times today. I don't know why this happens to me so much. Is it because I'm quiet? Why do so many people look one direction and walk in another? Little kids are the worst--they never seem to watch where they're going, but at least they have some sort of excuse. Why do adults do it? I have to be constantly vigilant, jumping out of the way to avoid being collided with by bodies and carts. It scares me.

Posted at 6:09:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

More rain. Listening to rain fall makes me lie in bed late. It's an entrancing sound (and you don't get too inspired to get up and go out in it).

I discovered a new item for my Things That Are Better With Salt (salt grinder sea salt, natch) list: plain yogurt! (Or, Grogurt, in any case). I suspected as much, since I love salt lassis.

Posted at 12:02:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Monday, May 15, 2006

!!! I can't believe it. I figured it out! It's "The Garden of Earthly Delights III" (you can barely see anything in that picture, though.) Raqib Shaw's MoMAudio about it is hilarious.

(I like listening to these audio files as if they were podcasts.)

Posted at 11:32:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Okay, New York (Pt. 1). I loved The Museum of Modern Art and I'm extremely glad we went. I would love to go back. It's officially my favourite museum. The art was just very appealing/interesting to me (and I'll be honest and admit that I often find museums kind of boring). June and I just sort of wandered around in a non-structured way, looking at whatever caught our interest. It was cool because although we were there for the Edvard Munch (June's fav) exhibition, it was on the top floor and we were drawn in by other stuff along the way. I distinctly remember beginning our ascent but being irresistibly attracted to this large installment that covered several entire walls, made from hundreds of square tiles [steel "baked enamel like a refrigerator" plates], each different but part of a whole. It was on one of the lower floors and wasn't by a famous artist. I was just sucked over to it, and we started looking. Some of the images were crude and childlike, others simply bold shapes, a few were delicately detailed realism, some were composed of glossy gridlike dots of paint in shades of aqua blue (these were my favourites); many depicted houses or trees. I can't remember it all. I really liked it. It reminded me of David.

[Edit: Finally figured out the name--it's Rhapsody, by Jennifer Bartlett. The MoMAudio on this is interesting... especially the part about pushpins, and her comment, "Then I had an idea: what if you did a work of art that was really like a conversation? As we talk, we drift from one subject to another, and I'm drifting from subject to subject about my idea of art." Maybe that's part of why I liked it... it's linear in structure, which attracts me, but is also so anti-linear, and it is like a conversation, like one of June's and my endless talks, which drifted very naturally from one random topic to the next.]

My favourite floor was the one with the architecture & design objects. Furniture and drinking glasses and typewriters and utensils, a welder's mask, a scuba rebreather, my camera (!), and a pop art paper dress with the head of Bob Dylan. And this was neat, with all the different types of drawers. (My favourite was the little orange one, toward the lower left. I like drawers, and imagining what to keep in them.) There were a lot of beautiful chairs. That kind of design stuff captivates me more than paintings. Like the Bauhaus-inspired tableware at The Modern.

We didn't look at all the paintings (there's so much at MoMA, and we had an unspoken mutual agreement to not OD), but I asked one of the curators where to find the Delaunay (Dean and I have four framed Delaunay prints in our house), and we were directed to the fifth floor. I saw it the second we entered the gallery. It was very cool, round, orange, textured with paint strokes. It seemed weird that it was alone, the only Delaunay. We wandered and looked at some of the famous paintings. I kept saying over and over to June, "I have this on a postcard." June: "It's not a postcard!" I also recognised a bunch of them from my old calendar and my modern art coloring book. :-) I even showed off by remembering the name of Broadway Boogie Woogie before I was close enough to read the sign. Really liked seeing the Mondrians, especially this one. And Three Musicians, because it reminds me of The Band. June asked me which guy was Richard, and I pointed out each musician to her: Richard on the far right, Robbie in the center, and Rick on the left. (I remember saying, "That's Rick Danko.") I forgot to point out Hamlet the dog lying on the floor, though. Didn't see Around the Fish, unfortunately. (I have it on a postcard, stuck to my slidy-doors metal filing cabinet). There are a lot of paintings we didn't see, but I liked the way our approach was so casual, so random. We ended up seeing things (like the weird erotic undersea fantasy, whose title I later regretted not writing down) we might have skipped if we'd headed for the popular, crowded stuff.

The Munch exhibit was incredible (and still teeming with people, in its last week on display). I was amazed by how many Munches they had. We looked at them all. I liked the glowing white faces, and reflecting moons. Loved the title of Self-Portrait During the Eye Disease, (wrote it down in Zi at 3:33 PM) and we agreed I should do my own version. (Already mentioned this.) My very favourite was Separation. Very, very powerful.

Posted at 9:28:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

"... A Flood Warning continues for the assabet river... Charles river... Concord river... Connecticut River... Farmington river... Merrimack River... Nashua river... Pawtuxet River... piscataquog river... shawsheen river... souhegan river... spicket river... Sudbury river..."

River, river, and river. I like the river names. But I wonder what's up with Wunderground's erratic capitalization efforts?

Is it raining where you are? Of course it is! I am weirdly fond of all this rain. For now. If it really rains for 10 days straight, maybe not.

Posted at 2:31:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Repressed, or reserved? (Or both.)

Posted at 2:13:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Laura (reading): "[He wore a blue suede tunic, blue-and-white butcher-stripe pants and dark glasses.] His tangled, wooly hair looked as if it had been pitch-forked onto his head."
Dean (laughs): That's so true!
Laura: Does my hair look as if it's been pitch-forked?
Dean: Mm-hm.

Posted at 9:38:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

!!! Profit has a humuhumunukunukuapua`a in his fishtank! A very tiny one.

This featurette is really good.

Posted at 1:45:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.