i hate reading...(?)

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours."
— The History Boys


I've never seen this movie. Also I found out it's rated R, so I guess I never will. I always say I hate reading, but I'm determined to read all the books I bought and never read for school, or otherwise sell them. But last semester I read On The Road for pleasure in the midst of going to school, working, and pioneering, and since graduating I've finished two more books, so I'm beginning to question the veracity of my own insistent claims. I guess this quote from The History Boys pretty much sums up why I sometimes like reading. My most recent read was Still Life with Oysters and Lemon by Mark Doty. I bought it for an American Lit class on ekphrasis. Obviously I never read it when I was in the class, but I remember liking the prose and the cover art and besides that, it was short. 

This isn't really a book that has anything to be given away. It's more or less an exploratory essay in 70 pages about the relation of still life paintings to objects in real life to which we latch on and assign memory and delegate meaning. The still life's "lesson, ... is to remind us of the strangeness and singularity of things, and therefore of ourselves. Singularity, they wish us to know, resides in the physical, the particular, the seen; this knowledge can be looked at, can be held" (55). The objects in still life paintings inspire inward reflection, which seemed so counterintuitive to me before reading this because I had a strong prejudice against still life paintings as being the most boring of all painting genres. 

Doty's highly elegiac prose changed my mind though. Still lifes are tangible representations of memory infused by death. "Not that grief vanishes -- far from it -- but that it begins in time to coexist with pleasure; sorrow sits right beside the rediscovery of what is to be cherished in experience. Just when you think you're done" (47). Just when you think you have no willpower to go on, you go on, because life goes on. 


It's not enough just to live your life, though. Meanwhile you have to "Say what you see and you experience yourself through your style of seeing and saying" (67). I keep recognizing now the importance of the English major -- the importance of harnessing the talent of description and expression as a reflexive exercise. Experiencing yourself. Leaning that much closer toward understanding who you are by your reactions to environmental and emotional stimuli. Because there are so many times when you don't realize what you think or how you feel until it's been verbalized. If only prospective employers could see this importance..


I feel like I'm doing homework, except it's self-imposed..You can take the girl out of school, but you can't take the school out of the girl...? Where's Eugene to misapply idioms and scriptures when you need him. Maybe I really am starting to like reading. Good thing Colin just added me to their book club...since I haven't been in various makeshift book clubs for the past three years and never read the books..also known simply as "English classes." I'm getting lost in my own sarcasm.


In any case, I wish I still lived a train ride away from the Met so that I could see this painting. I need to test out this new way of looking at still lifes to make sure my prejudice is gone. In the meantime, I'd really like some actual oysters and lemon. I think Roux on Canton is still on scoutmob. Only problem is the 50% that I still have to pay for...

road trip, redefined.

It appears the side effects of reading On The Road are lasting longer than expected. I worry for when the movie releases... I realize that most car rides under a three hour duration are not technically called road trips, but for my purposes I am going to go ahead and designate any trip to explore anywhere new as a road trip, mini though it may be.

Jenn and I have been feeling guilt-ridden for always conducting our Bible studies and then running off and never taking our students out or spending time with them. Now that I finally have time, I wanted to do all the things on my list of Things I Want to Do More of Once I Graduate. Among them was spending more time with Grace. 

So we took her on a mini road trip to Athens:

bast frands!

And then on a mini-er road trip to downtown Roswell on a Bible study double date with Jenn and Miranda:

i love this girl.

our budding Bible scholars.

And what better way to teach them about the Bible than to eat raw oysters. Because they're from the ocean. Where there's fish. And we are fishers of men...

clockwise from top left: shrimp and grits w bacon,
cajun chicken bacon wrap,seafood pasta,
& crab cake sandwich

Next up: downtown Dahlonega.

dating ice skating.

This is an ego boosting post for Karen. Because she has such remarkably low self-esteem as it is.

Today was basically a daylong date with Karen. We had all three meals together. I brought her yogurt and granola for breakfast. She bought me a cappuccino. We talked to a police officer who thought all Jehovah's Witnesses were black. I had a conversation with a Mexican man in my broken Spanish about the preaching work. We went to Virginia Highlands and looked at houses we want to live in. I dropped Karen off at a Starbucks while I went in for an interview for a part-time job. Meanwhile, she secretly bought me this cup I've been wanting for a long, long time:

I didn't know you got me the big cup! :D What a sweetie.

I got the job. We went to our original date spot in Decatur and had Farm Burger for lunch. We went to the Urban Outfitters on Ponce, which was a pretty sizable loophole to the usual after Christmas crowd. Karen doubled up on sweater purchases while I wasn't looking. So sneaky. I went to my RV. Karen went to hers, aka Jenn Wang who is the best. The three of us made plans to go shopping for our imaginary apartment. Karen even left Jenn a cliffhanger question to answer on her next visit like the best pioneer.

We drove back to my house for dinner and ate leftovers from last night's party. We had double fudge brownie ice cream for dessert, compliments of Mike Lim. Then Karen did the dishes like a good housewife and may have demanded documentation of it, which is so unlike her.

Then Karen left my house and sent a goodbye text from her car while she was still out front to tell me what a great time she had today.

Great friends are such precious gifts from Jehovah.

athens bucket list.

football game.
service in athens.
mama's boy.
the royal peasant.
five star day.
georgia theatre show.

georgia theatre rooftop bar.
clocked.
schoolkids records.
wuxtry.
walker's.
open mic night.
pauley's.

40 watt show.
five & ten.
last resort.
trappeze.
cine.
the national.
farm 255.
farm cart.

heirloom cafe.
the grit.
white tiger.
ohh, boy!
agora.
minx.
boutique shopping.
silver lining cupcake co.

ike & jane.
big city bread.
little kings shuffle club farmer's market.
bishop park athens farmer's market.
park hall rooftop.
hotel indigo.

last year's pup strut.

It's getting close to the home stretch. It's a little upsetting that there are a few things on this list that will never happen. Not until at least next year, if at all, and not while I'm still a student here. And there are other things that will never happen again because they've gone out of business. What's the English word for 아쉬워? I thought it was somewhere in the neighborhood of bittersweet, but Google Translate tells me it's 'disappointed.' Not quite what I was going for. Maybe I just never understood the proper connotation of the word. In any case, it's been a good enough 2 1/2 years. Time to make these last 2 1/2 weeks count. And figure out how to get rooftop access to Park Hall.

hide & boutique.

It's been my mission to explore every clothing boutique and thrift store in downtown Athens for some time now. The past three years to be close to exact. My tendency to procrastinate - what I prefer to call working well under pressure - led me to hit up all of them in one day, a meager month before graduation. I went in search of a dress. Here's what I found:

Community.

An unassuming door, a winding flight of stairs, and another door later, a secondhand women's clothing and accessories boutique appears, promoting local and sustainable fashion with reworked pieces and vintage originals located in a sweet loft above Jittery Joe's overlooking North Campus and Historic Downtown Athens. In short, I wish I lived here:

community.

Or instead of my giant run-on description, this tag neatly summarizes what this boutique is all about:

The owner is a tall hot blonde German woman. No boutique snobbery, just friendly and genuinely welcoming, which never goes out of style. I saw this lovely number in the revamped section and tried it on even though it was a size 4, but even vintage has its limits I guess. I had to hold my breath to fill out the dress with my expanded diaphragm, but I quit the swim team after a week back in 7th grade and never smoked anything in my life, so my lungs never got the training necessary to hold up this gorgeous dress:

goodbye, beautiful :(

Dynamite

Next door neighbors with Community, give or take a floor, this thrift store featuring new, used, and local goods was way bigger than I expected from the tiny door that leads into it. I think I spent the most time in here, but it seems this is all I have to show for it:

these reminded me of sarah.

Highlights from other boutiques:

you can't really tell here, but this dress @flirt was an impressive shade of evergreen.

beading on a potential grad party dress @flirt.

i want this dress from pitaya for my actual grad ceremony.
with my red patent leather stiletto pumps.

or these round toe pumps, also @pitaya.
i'm obsessed with velvet lately.

And to round things out, I went to a coworker's CD release show at the Caledonia after my meeting:

tumbleweed stampede @the caledonia

And played a trombone for the first time! Thanks to the trombone player at the far right who gave me a crash course after the show. Really amiable group of guys. Fun show. Fun day. Super tiring. I was once again reminded that I hate shopping and I love Athens.

one dollar.

This week at school, a thrift store explosion had evidently taken place in the Tate Plaza. That is to say, some student organization was selling sackfuls of secondhand goods for charity. One might normally respond to such an auspicious event by grabbing everything in one's size and asking questions/permission/forgiveness later. Ever since the sad state of my savings account, however, I have had zero desire to shop, much less dig through mystery meat clothing. 

But curiosity got the better of me, and I had to take a look.

one dollar!

Yeah. A dollar. This dress was cheaper than anything else you see in this photo. Except maybe those Office magnets on my mini-fridge in the background. Those were possibly also a dollar.

A bit last season but plain enough to work into a lot more to come (the dress, not the magnets). And the best part -- it looks like it was never worn, which is very probably the only circumstance under which I'd buy something white secondhand (Ignorance is bliss, and ignorance is hard to come by on a white garment). 

The more this week progresses, the more I pat myself on the back for mustering up any motivation to shop. There is, of course, the obvious fact that I can't really wear this dress until next year -- and by then I will probably forget I own it -- but somehow buying a dress that's cheaper-than-the-lunch-you-packed-from-home kind of suspends the relevance of that. Now, only 144 more days 'til spring...

And on that note, happy Fall Break! Also known as Friday...

Here are some pictures of all the different outfits I can make with this dress to celebrate.

field service.

teacher.

40s housewife.

little house on the prairie.

summer reading.

So versatile!

public service announcement.

I have a whole queue of posts about other, more relevant things that I was going to publish next, but being stuck at Tate with my air quality at the mercy of the guy sitting next to me has caused this post to supercede all the others.

This is a post for smelly people. A public service announcement of sorts. The announcement? You smell bad. The public service? I have kindly compiled a questionnaire to help diagnose your problem.

1. Are you fat?
2. Do you sweat a lot?
3. Do you make a habit of eating pungent ethnic foods?
4. Do you sweat a lot AND make a habit of eating pungent ethnic foods?
5. Do you have bad hygiene?
6. Do you put your clothes in the washer/dryer and forget about them and wear them after they dried in the dryer?
7. Do your parents plant mothballs in every single closet of your home...

a little organic chem review: naphthalene, aka mothballs.

If you said yes to even one of the above questions, you probably smell. Bad, in case that wasn't clear. (Side note: This is not to suggest that just because you're fat, sweat a lot, or eat pungent foods you smell bad. That would be stereotyping. And stereotyping is mostly bad. If, however, you make a habit of letting your undried clothes dry in the dryer and wearing them, you will without question smell bad. That is not stereotyping. That is fact.)

Scent is the strongest sense tied to memory, according to a reputable source (Old Spice commercial, circa 2004). Don't be remembered as the smelly kid. Kindly do yourself and everyone else a favor and take frequent showers, use antiperspirant despite its potential contribution to Alzheimer's (it's mostly genetic anyway),  promptly put your clothes in the dryer and make sure they've dried all the way so you don't smell like old rag, and throw out all the mothballs your parents plant in your closets. You can't beat moths anyway. They will always win.

Just look what they did to Dave's argyle sweater.

may or may not be Dave's sweater. or even Dave. but something very similar happened to his very similar looking argyle sweater.

http://www.ehow.com/info_8435616_do-moths-make-holes-sweaters.html

Addendum: There are so many empty seats here.

Guess where Smelly McSmellsalot sat...

http://luckybogey.wordpress.com/category/humor/page/4/