Topic To Be Determined...

It's been some time. Work is consuming; the Blog languishes. Who knows if I'll continue to post. There will likely be an interesting tidbit here and there, but for the moment, my regular musings on the weather, politics, and the general happenings of my day have been put on hold. I'm reminded of an article from the New York Times Magazine a few weeks back, likening the Internet to a haunted labyrinth. Therein I found one of the most ridiculous sentences I have ever read:

"It’s the zillion-lumen projector that turns the brilliant L.E.D. of reason on the rustling closet to reveal no gnomes, only parkas and moon boots."

I believe the author of this nugget actually takes herself seriously. If anyone reading this ever writes for such a venerable publication, please, PLEASE, I implore you, do not ever be so pretentious.

The entire article, which I think at least temporarily eulogizes this Blog, can be found here.

Farewell. Until I get bored and decide to do this again.

29A: ____ prime

If you, like me, look at that and instantly think, "Optimus," congratulations, you're a total dork. Just like me.

After working for three months on a consultative basis, and after the gauntlet of interviews I was put through on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I was finally offered a position as an Associate at the Center for the Study of Social Policy. As excited as I have been to this point working at CSSP, I hesitated to post anything here, and certainly didn't do too much advertising of my position. Didn't want to tempt fate. But now that I'm official, I can let out all that excitement that's been building, and let go of the "will they hire me?" nerves.

It's a great position, and I really don't know how I got so lucky.

I ask you, without the St. Louis Arch, what picture would accompany the chapter on parabolas in math books everywhere? We'd be lost!



On an unrelated note, I've spent the last 45 minutes--I kid you not--listening to a middle-aged guy yammering on about the trials of getting his one-year-old to sleep to the ENTHRALLED colleague sitting next to him. You see, the baby's especially sensitive to light these days, so it's a problem. Oh good lord. I came to this coffee shop to sit quietly and get some work done. Why oh why does it not occur to this guy that everyone in the vicinity is not captivated by sleeping baby anecdotes?!

But I figured this deserved an entry: Googling "katherine stepleton" (no quotes, despite their use here to set the search apart) yields pretty much the regular TJ and SSA hits, but now one on the website http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org. Thanks to my involvement as a blue ribbon expert in ICAH's Sex Education Curriculum Content Review, the handful of folks who might be compelled to Google my full name (again, without quotes) will know where I stand on choice. It's pretty awesome.

My night certainly did not end the way I thought it would. Our small caravan left around 6:15, heading north from Lakeview, Shaumburg-ward. The plan was to do a little evening shopping at Ikea, maybe have a meal of Swedish meatballs, then come home to assemble my new particle board goodies.

But oh. That is not how things were to be.

In fact, our reason for aborting our plans was quite banal. Traffic. No way we were driving through an hour and a half of traffic only to spend 25 minutes at Ikea. We took a second to take stock and decided to try a nearby Thai restaurant about which we'd all heard great things--Sticky Rice. Great curry, savory pad see ewe, blah blah blah. This has all been setup.

Just before divvying up the check, a woman approached our table bearing a plate of what appeared to be something brown and meaty. "We're trying exotic foods tonight," she said, "and we're wondering if you'd like to try some of this."

Well naturally I dove right in. "Sure!" Follwed by, "Looks like grubs. But sure!"

My new friend asked for permission, then stuck a microphone in my face to record my reaction. Only when the small squishy bit was halfway to my mouth did she tell us that she held a plate full of deep-fried silkworms. Yummy.

Ok, tasting oil...a bit warm...POP-squish...mealy, gritty...um, sort of the texture of a potato, or a plantain...ok really gritty...not so bad but if you don't mind I'm going to grab this glass of water here,,,and refill it.

Turns out these fine folks were recording a segment for their public access radio show, called "I ate it for radio." When I asked what the strangest thing they'd eaten yet was, I was told that this topped the list.

After much cajoling and bribery, Vanessa and Ed both tried the worms, then popped in a few pieces of gum each. Not big fans of the fried silkworms, those two.

Now they weren't that bad, but I'm not about to order myself a heaping helping next time I go to Sticky Rice. But hey, I ate it for radio.

(Will post a link to the audio, if I can track it down)

Argo Tea on Broadway, that is. I'm here using the Internet to feel connected to the world and get some work done until I get all hooked up on Wednesday at my new place.

Not sure why is smells weird in here, but the wifi and the tea are nice.

With three days to go, I'm eating as much of my accumulated foodstuffs as I can to avoid having to move them to the new place or throw them out. Tonight's dinner:

1-inch cube of extra sharp cheddar cheese. That takes care of the cheese.
2 boiled potatoes. No more potatoes.
1 hard-boiled egg. That was our last egg.
Frozen peas and corn. I'll need another day or two to polish these off.

I can't wait to see how weird my meals will get...

This was my first trip to Philly since Tom graduated from college, when I believe we stayed somewhere near the airport. Before that, my only experience with the city was staying in King of Prussia while dropping Tom off at Swarthmore. These trips left me with the impression that Philadelphia was a sprawling, decentralized city with little more that top-tier education and a very large mall to offer. Of course I knew that there was some history hiding somewhere, but it sure wasn't making itself obvious.

This time around Hotwire put me in the "Historic District," which as it turns out, is where all that darned history had been stashed. I saw characters in period costumes amble between Independence Hall, the Betsy Ross House, the Liberty Bell, and a smattering of swanky art galleries and eateries. So did I actually take time to visit any of these landmarks? Not really. But it was fun to be in the middle of it all, and to be reassured that Philly is in fact a pretty cool place.

This weekend I'm off to New Albany, Indiana, which will be a very different trip. Then the following week is my big move. I've packed a whopping two boxes.

Modeling the awesome t-shirt Tom and Yoko got for me in Japan!

Lori and I went yesterday to the Niki de Saint Phalle exhibit at the Garfield Park Conservatory. Here's a sample of the artwork, and a link to the rest of the photos we took.



(also, see new icon)

Many thanks to my aunt Ellen, who sends this advice:

"There are two likely causes to your plant's (a philodendron, it appears) problem: too much light and an unhealthy moisture level. First thing: move it away from the window to almost any other place in your room. Moderate, diffuse light is your goal. The next issue is watering. You want the soil to be just moderately moist. Never let it completely dry out (which can happen when positioned in the sun), nor allow it even a few hours in a water-logged condition. A gentle watering once every 7-14 days, and an occasional misting, should suffice. These guys are tropical, or sub-tropical, understory plants. In nature, they are never flooded, nor directly rained upon. So the key is to avoid all extremes of light, moisture, wind, and temperature; every day should be the same as the last: no tempests, floods, or droughts."

I look forward to posting a picture of my refreshed and revitalized plant once it's recovered.

See previous entry.

Now that it's made it successfully through two trial runs in my back yard, my mini-grill took it's first field trip to the lake yesterday and produced delicious food for me and several of my friends. I brought lime and garlic-marinated shrimp, along with some bean salad. All wonderful.

I took lots of pictures, all of which I uploaded to my Google account, and will now try to embed into this blog entry. Here goes nothing...

For the first time ever, I finished the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle! I did allow a little cheating, but only when I needed the name of some obscure football player from the 70s or the like. This was even one of those puzzles where they use crazy symbols in some of the squares (it was a baseball theme this week, so 4 of the squares had 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and Home, respectively). I'm awesome.

Yesterday was my birthday, actually. And here's a picture from my birthday party!



Pablo, on the left, was the co-honoree of the night, as his birthday is today. Here, Mike, the kind and helpful owner of the Village Tap brings us our cake, complete with candles from the kitchen. For some reason the camera was set on "nightshot" mode, which accounts for the weird (but kind of cool) effect here. Actually, before I black and whited it, the shot looked even stranger, tinted green to give sort of night vision goggles effect.

Anyway, hooray for birthdays! I'm 24!

The day after the first torrential rain, another thunderstorm rolled through. While the ensuing flash flood was not as severe, the storm did knock out my Internet. The thunder went BOOM and the Internet went ...fizzle... But according to AT&T, it'll be fixed by 1:00 PM yesterday, so don't worry.

UPDATE: Turns out the Internet really did fizzle. Something in my router got fried in the storm, which is curious, as I have it plugged into a surge protector. Anyway, $82.00 later, the problem has been solved.

We got some serious thunderstorms this afternoon, from about 2pm to 4. Water filled the intersection in front of my house, covered the sidewalk 6 inches deep, and spilled into my front entranceway with each passing car. As this guy passed by, he commented, "I'm from Louisiana. I'm so used to this shit."