"If a car hit me right now and they had to go through my stuff to figure out who I am, what would they find and what kind of mental image would they get of me while I was unconscious?"
Well, let's see.
Carrying: one painting, rolled, in acrylic on brown craft paper, depicting a person being splashed by a large wave.
In pockets: two brass buttons (fell off the coat unexpectedly today), keys with flash drive, receipt for bottle of turpentine, bank card, metro map, napkin, 3.71 euros, Schoko-Bons candy wrapper, folded paper reminding me to check to see if I'm dreaming (unsuccessful, I consistently forget about it and so I never have it while actually dreaming).
In purse: cell phone, hand sanitizer, two pink rubber bands, 20 centimes, green pen, Navigo metro pass, photocopy of passport and visa (at least I know I'd be identified quickly), half-written letter (english) in envelope addressed to my cousin, wallet.
In wallet: receipt for various paints, 1.79 euros, Sorbonne student ID, Reid Hall ID, Louvre card, coupon for 10% off at the Galeries Lafayette.
In backpack: inhaler, ipod (no headphones), candy (same as the wrapper), red pen, nail file, paper palette, large empty plastic bag, recycled paper cahier containing art history notes, plastic bag containing jelly jar containing turpentine, plastic bag containing paints brushes palette knife linseed oil pencil and eraser, plastic bag containing six clementines, black pen, black fine-point drawing pen, hairtie (oh hey I've been looking for that), bunny-shaped pencil case containing three pencils and an eraser, digital recorder containing lectures from various classes.
Okay, for this I think you could reasonably conclude that:
1. I have too many pens and need to stop carrying them all around; it's unnecessary
2. I am a huge art nerd (particularly on wednesdays)
3. I really like clementines (true, but I do have a good reason to be carrying those)
4. I am highly flammable and it's a wonder I didn't spontaneously combust when that hypothetical car hit me
Is this a reasonable impression of me? I have no idea.
Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
a summary of my recent life...
...in the form of a list of
Things I Like:
1. clementines
2. kiwis
3. oil paints
4. seeing mice run around on the metro tracks sometimes
5. the picture of the pink bunny telling you not to shut your fingers in the metro doors
6. speculoos cookies
7. knitting mittens
8. walking around in the rain
9. this plaid shirt
10. fencing with the dude who has done it before and so just spends the whole time being clever and beating me terribly
11. my wool coat, which is pleasantly waterproof to a surprising degree
12. cooking
13. the end of World War II, which, among other positive aspects, gives me a day off this week
14. remembering that tests have been postponed for a week because the professor forgot about vacations
Things I Like:
1. clementines
2. kiwis
3. oil paints
4. seeing mice run around on the metro tracks sometimes
5. the picture of the pink bunny telling you not to shut your fingers in the metro doors
6. speculoos cookies
7. knitting mittens
8. walking around in the rain
9. this plaid shirt
10. fencing with the dude who has done it before and so just spends the whole time being clever and beating me terribly
11. my wool coat, which is pleasantly waterproof to a surprising degree
12. cooking
13. the end of World War II, which, among other positive aspects, gives me a day off this week
14. remembering that tests have been postponed for a week because the professor forgot about vacations
Thursday, October 21, 2010
a cumulative list...
...of instruments I have seen people playing in Paris.
1. Accordion
2. Didgeridoo
3. Acoustic guitar
4. Electric guitar (on the metro, somehow)
5. Saxophone
6. Various wooden flutes, followed immediately by...
7. Bagpipe! Also on the metro.
8. Some kind of... steel drum... thing...
9. Hammered dulcimer (this guy was so awesome I was compelled to give him at least some money, even though I am poor and thus felt kind of stupid giving him the thirty cents that I had at the time)
10. Really epic set of panpipes.
1. Accordion
2. Didgeridoo
3. Acoustic guitar
4. Electric guitar (on the metro, somehow)
5. Saxophone
6. Various wooden flutes, followed immediately by...
7. Bagpipe! Also on the metro.
8. Some kind of... steel drum... thing...
9. Hammered dulcimer (this guy was so awesome I was compelled to give him at least some money, even though I am poor and thus felt kind of stupid giving him the thirty cents that I had at the time)
10. Really epic set of panpipes.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
a list of ten things I think should be socially acceptable
1. bare feet in public establishments. I don't actually know what the reasoning behind this one is. I saw a web site or something once where some people did some intense research and figured out that being barefoot inside a store isn't actually illegal in most states. But one time I had to go to the store unexpectedly and wasn't wearing any shoes, and it was maybe the most uncomfortable thing I have ever done.
2. similarly, women taking their shirts off in public. I'm not sure how they're still getting away with this one.
3. adults playing pretend. I just feel like this would make the world a slightly nicer place to live. Also, nobody yell "LARP" at me here, because I am sorry but as much as I like public swordfighting (hello, I am taking a fencing class, did you know that) it is not socially acceptable. Also, this.
4. related: public costume wearing. Now, this is the kind of thing that I feel like I'm going to end up doing whether or not it's acceptable or not, particularly because by my own definition most of my regular clothing counts as costume and it's a slippery slope between "dressed kinda funny" and "pirate costume." But it really does make me happy when, for instance, I see a kid going to school in a Superman costume. I have a deep and undying love for halloween, but I want to be able to get up and go, "Today I'm going to be a pirate. Oh, and I'm going to the library." And! Not but, AND.
5. being extremely blunt. Do you know how much easier my life would be if I could just be like, "Sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about." "Do we know each other well enough for me to hug you?" "There's nothing wrong with this food, but I really don't like it."
6. pointing out cool things to strangers. Once I was on a bus with somebody I was sort of friends with, and I was looking out the window and suddenly, without thinking, I turned to her, pointed out the window like a small child, and said, "LOOK, A BIPLANE!" And when rather than being confused and awkward she actually looked, I knew we were destined for greatness.
7. men wearing their hair in two braids. I actually don't know why this should be acceptable. I just think it would be interesting I guess.
8. related: men wearing dresses/skirts. This one's just not fair. If I had to wear pants all the time I think I'd be pretty angry about it.
9. climbing on things. Okay, this is pretty weird, but I do this a lot. I remember my mom coming into my room when I was little and being unable to find me for a few minutes before realizing I was on top of the chest of drawers. In middle school, whenever I got out of class for some project, I used to sit on top of the lockers. I suspect that the only things keeping me from climbing up the exquisitely beautiful lampposts here is fear of getting arrested in a language I don't know that well, and the fact that I'm too short to reach most of them.
10. eating food with your hands. The basic rule in France is that if it's hot, you need silverware. There are exceptions to this (street-vendor crepes, some sandwiches), but generally speaking, you will eat your pizza with a knife and fork.* Which is just silly, because pizza practically has a handle. If I were responsible, I think my rule would be "if it's physically impossible or severely unpleasant to hold, you need silverware." Which pretty much rules out soup and pudding. Pancakes are a matter of choice. And that's how I like it.
*Unrelated story: once in high school I walked by two kids having a conversation and all I heard was one of them saying , "He told me he thought I was gay because I eat my pizza with a knife and fork."
2. similarly, women taking their shirts off in public. I'm not sure how they're still getting away with this one.
3. adults playing pretend. I just feel like this would make the world a slightly nicer place to live. Also, nobody yell "LARP" at me here, because I am sorry but as much as I like public swordfighting (hello, I am taking a fencing class, did you know that) it is not socially acceptable. Also, this.
4. related: public costume wearing. Now, this is the kind of thing that I feel like I'm going to end up doing whether or not it's acceptable or not, particularly because by my own definition most of my regular clothing counts as costume and it's a slippery slope between "dressed kinda funny" and "pirate costume." But it really does make me happy when, for instance, I see a kid going to school in a Superman costume. I have a deep and undying love for halloween, but I want to be able to get up and go, "Today I'm going to be a pirate. Oh, and I'm going to the library." And! Not but, AND.
5. being extremely blunt. Do you know how much easier my life would be if I could just be like, "Sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about." "Do we know each other well enough for me to hug you?" "There's nothing wrong with this food, but I really don't like it."
6. pointing out cool things to strangers. Once I was on a bus with somebody I was sort of friends with, and I was looking out the window and suddenly, without thinking, I turned to her, pointed out the window like a small child, and said, "LOOK, A BIPLANE!" And when rather than being confused and awkward she actually looked, I knew we were destined for greatness.
7. men wearing their hair in two braids. I actually don't know why this should be acceptable. I just think it would be interesting I guess.
8. related: men wearing dresses/skirts. This one's just not fair. If I had to wear pants all the time I think I'd be pretty angry about it.
9. climbing on things. Okay, this is pretty weird, but I do this a lot. I remember my mom coming into my room when I was little and being unable to find me for a few minutes before realizing I was on top of the chest of drawers. In middle school, whenever I got out of class for some project, I used to sit on top of the lockers. I suspect that the only things keeping me from climbing up the exquisitely beautiful lampposts here is fear of getting arrested in a language I don't know that well, and the fact that I'm too short to reach most of them.
10. eating food with your hands. The basic rule in France is that if it's hot, you need silverware. There are exceptions to this (street-vendor crepes, some sandwiches), but generally speaking, you will eat your pizza with a knife and fork.* Which is just silly, because pizza practically has a handle. If I were responsible, I think my rule would be "if it's physically impossible or severely unpleasant to hold, you need silverware." Which pretty much rules out soup and pudding. Pancakes are a matter of choice. And that's how I like it.
*Unrelated story: once in high school I walked by two kids having a conversation and all I heard was one of them saying , "He told me he thought I was gay because I eat my pizza with a knife and fork."
Sunday, October 10, 2010
things europe does better: fruit
If you know me, you may know how I feel about fruit. Or you may not, because this is one of those things that most people would try to avoid going around talking about too much. I am a big fan of fruit. Like, seriously. Like I could eat fruit three times a day and never feel like it was too much, partly because there quite possibly more fruits in the world than there days in a year. Since I was maybe thirteen one of my major life goals was to eat every kind of fruit there is.
I thought this was going pretty well, until I got here. Americans, you may not realize this, but your country is bad at fruits. This was a revelation to me. A revelation totally obscured by the variety of fruits suddenly available to me. Let us not expound on the ways that fruits became even more awesome when I got to France.
1. Plums. What, you say, we have plums in America. Yes, we do. But we do not have these plums. Our plums don't have names like Reine Claudes or Mirabelles. And while this might seem like by-any-other-name territory I'm venturing into, believe me, there is a difference. I'm not sure what it is. But a Mirabelle is not a "strangely tiny yellow plum." It is a Mirabelle, and it is probably grown in the gardens of magical fairies and then if you eat one you can never go back to the human world, and I ate a tart made of them. Sorry, humans.
2. Figs. I said this one before in my General Food Post, but I am going to reiterate. I had never eaten a fig before I got here, mainly because I had never actually encountered a fig before. I remember, as a child, reading a short story in a Highlights magazine in which a kid visits his grandfather and they have mundane male-bonding adventures like drinking buttermilk (?) and eating figs, which is apparently a male-specific activity, the reason given being that "girls don't like figs because they're weird and squishy." Figs, not girls. Though from my experience the description fits the girls better.
Anyway, I remember finding that oddly fascinating, because I had never seen a fig, and it was tricky for my mind to come up with a fruit so unpleasant that an entire gender would reject it. As it turns out, whoever wrote that story was just a crazy person because figs are neither squishy nor unpleasant, though my mother did once describe them as "weird." They are like mulberries except huge, and except for the fact that fig sap is mildly irritating and once when I ate one without washing it my lips were somewhat numb for the rest of the day.
3. Juice. I love juice (I'm pretty sure everyone does), and being here is making me suddenly realize just how limited the juice selection is in most US stores. Apple. Cranberry. Grape. Orange, tangerine, grapefruit, orange-tangerine, orange-tangerine-pineapple. And maybe one lonely pomegranate. I remember wondering why nobody made peach juice, or straight pineapple juice. But here it's another thing entirely. Apricot! (apricots are everywhere for some reason) Kiwi! (a freakish green color that I haven't tried yet but am looking forward to) Apple-raspberry-lychee! Something called "seasonal fruits" which had a picture of a fig and a pear on the front! Boggles the mind.
4. Applesauce. Well, this probably doesn't count so much, because the applesauce was pretty much applesauce, I don't think there's a lot of room for error. But: applesauce in little juicebox-type pouches that you suck out through a tube! I can't decide if I feel like a five-year-old or an astronaut. Also, once I came home and my host father was like, "Oh, hi, I made applesauce." As if it was something that you just do once in a while. Maybe it is, I have no idea, but it was pretty awesome.
So there you have it. In addition to bread and cheese, I now have fruit to be mildly disappointed about when I get back home. Do you think a fig tree would grow in Maryland?
I thought this was going pretty well, until I got here. Americans, you may not realize this, but your country is bad at fruits. This was a revelation to me. A revelation totally obscured by the variety of fruits suddenly available to me. Let us not expound on the ways that fruits became even more awesome when I got to France.
1. Plums. What, you say, we have plums in America. Yes, we do. But we do not have these plums. Our plums don't have names like Reine Claudes or Mirabelles. And while this might seem like by-any-other-name territory I'm venturing into, believe me, there is a difference. I'm not sure what it is. But a Mirabelle is not a "strangely tiny yellow plum." It is a Mirabelle, and it is probably grown in the gardens of magical fairies and then if you eat one you can never go back to the human world, and I ate a tart made of them. Sorry, humans.
2. Figs. I said this one before in my General Food Post, but I am going to reiterate. I had never eaten a fig before I got here, mainly because I had never actually encountered a fig before. I remember, as a child, reading a short story in a Highlights magazine in which a kid visits his grandfather and they have mundane male-bonding adventures like drinking buttermilk (?) and eating figs, which is apparently a male-specific activity, the reason given being that "girls don't like figs because they're weird and squishy." Figs, not girls. Though from my experience the description fits the girls better.
Anyway, I remember finding that oddly fascinating, because I had never seen a fig, and it was tricky for my mind to come up with a fruit so unpleasant that an entire gender would reject it. As it turns out, whoever wrote that story was just a crazy person because figs are neither squishy nor unpleasant, though my mother did once describe them as "weird." They are like mulberries except huge, and except for the fact that fig sap is mildly irritating and once when I ate one without washing it my lips were somewhat numb for the rest of the day.
3. Juice. I love juice (I'm pretty sure everyone does), and being here is making me suddenly realize just how limited the juice selection is in most US stores. Apple. Cranberry. Grape. Orange, tangerine, grapefruit, orange-tangerine, orange-tangerine-pineapple. And maybe one lonely pomegranate. I remember wondering why nobody made peach juice, or straight pineapple juice. But here it's another thing entirely. Apricot! (apricots are everywhere for some reason) Kiwi! (a freakish green color that I haven't tried yet but am looking forward to) Apple-raspberry-lychee! Something called "seasonal fruits" which had a picture of a fig and a pear on the front! Boggles the mind.
4. Applesauce. Well, this probably doesn't count so much, because the applesauce was pretty much applesauce, I don't think there's a lot of room for error. But: applesauce in little juicebox-type pouches that you suck out through a tube! I can't decide if I feel like a five-year-old or an astronaut. Also, once I came home and my host father was like, "Oh, hi, I made applesauce." As if it was something that you just do once in a while. Maybe it is, I have no idea, but it was pretty awesome.
So there you have it. In addition to bread and cheese, I now have fruit to be mildly disappointed about when I get back home. Do you think a fig tree would grow in Maryland?
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
a short list of food
Here is a short list of things I have eaten since I got here. I am pretty sure I would feel way too awkward to be one of those people who takes pictures of my food before I eat it, so for now you're going to have to imagine these for yourself.
A Short List of Things I Have Eaten in Paris, All of Which were Ridiculously Good in a Way That Does Not Make Any Sense:
1. pain au chocolat (less than a euro!)
2. pain au chocolat with candied orange peel (exactly the same price as the regular kind, but with extra stuff in it? There seem to be economic principles that just don't apply here.)
3. Chevre sandwiches from three different bakeries. I went on a mission to figure out which one was the best. The answer: two of them are equal but not identical (cheaper but without tomatoes, more expensive but with herbs and purple cabbage and good tomatoes), one is far inferior (too much mayonnaise - they've got a thing about mayonnaise here, but I'll get into that later - and rather unfortunate tomatoes).
4. Some kind of pastry filled with coffee-and-hazelnut flavored cream. I despise coffee, and this was still amazing.
5. Salmon and spinach quiche. This was actually a mistake, I asked for a cheese and broccoli one, but the girl behind the counter appeared to be at her first day of work and clearly didn't really understand what was going on. I watched as one of the other people showed her how to magically turn a piece of paper into a little pastry holder and she stared in complete confusion with one of those expressions that says "Oh no I am totally not absorbing any of this," which I recognized easily because this is what I spend much of my life thinking. When she took my order there was all kinds of confusion, because I have a funky accent and probably pretty bad pronunciation, and those glass food-cases block sound like nothing else. So I didn't feel like complaining, and it was pretty good anyway. Once again, I have never had a quiche that I liked in America. This confirmed my suspicions that we're just doing it wrong.
6. A Canele Bordelais. I actually had no idea what this was, and got it because it was the least expensive of the desserts at the above bakery, and it turned out to be one of the best baked goods I have ever eaten. The idea is a small cake (Wikipedia tells me they are flavored with rum and vanilla; the one I got mainly tasted like all the best qualities of an angel food cake) baked in a little fluted mold, with a very dense, moist interior part and the outside caramelized into a dark, chewy crust.
7. Mirabelles, aka tiny yellow plums. According to my host family it's been a good year for plums because there's been a lot of sun, and while I have not been here long enough to confirm this, the plums were definitely incredible.
8. Figs! A kind of shameful fact about me: before this trip, I had never actually had a fig. To be honest, I'm not sure I'd ever seen one. But they're everywhere here. So, in a move that required a lot of mental and temporal preparation (tip: check the store hours, they are not intuitive), I went to the nearest produce store and bought two figs, opened them with my pocket knife because I am a ten-year-old boy, and ate them sitting on my windowsill. Guess what - I like figs. I like them a lot.
And, of course,
9. cheese, and
10. bread. I actually did my required oral report on bread and why it is important in France, and can now spout off a few random facts if anyone starts to seem interested. Did you know that a baguette is approximately 250 grams? That the average French person eats 58 kg of bread in a year? That there are over 30,000 artisan bakers in the country, and they produce 70% of the bread, and the price of basic bread is fixed so that everyone can afford it and people from Algeria bake their bread differently from French people and France is the fourth producer of wheat in the world and and and bread riots! The French revolution! tHE BREAD DECREE OF 1993!
Bread, guys. It's serious business.
A Short List of Things I Have Eaten in Paris, All of Which were Ridiculously Good in a Way That Does Not Make Any Sense:
1. pain au chocolat (less than a euro!)
2. pain au chocolat with candied orange peel (exactly the same price as the regular kind, but with extra stuff in it? There seem to be economic principles that just don't apply here.)
3. Chevre sandwiches from three different bakeries. I went on a mission to figure out which one was the best. The answer: two of them are equal but not identical (cheaper but without tomatoes, more expensive but with herbs and purple cabbage and good tomatoes), one is far inferior (too much mayonnaise - they've got a thing about mayonnaise here, but I'll get into that later - and rather unfortunate tomatoes).
4. Some kind of pastry filled with coffee-and-hazelnut flavored cream. I despise coffee, and this was still amazing.
5. Salmon and spinach quiche. This was actually a mistake, I asked for a cheese and broccoli one, but the girl behind the counter appeared to be at her first day of work and clearly didn't really understand what was going on. I watched as one of the other people showed her how to magically turn a piece of paper into a little pastry holder and she stared in complete confusion with one of those expressions that says "Oh no I am totally not absorbing any of this," which I recognized easily because this is what I spend much of my life thinking. When she took my order there was all kinds of confusion, because I have a funky accent and probably pretty bad pronunciation, and those glass food-cases block sound like nothing else. So I didn't feel like complaining, and it was pretty good anyway. Once again, I have never had a quiche that I liked in America. This confirmed my suspicions that we're just doing it wrong.
6. A Canele Bordelais. I actually had no idea what this was, and got it because it was the least expensive of the desserts at the above bakery, and it turned out to be one of the best baked goods I have ever eaten. The idea is a small cake (Wikipedia tells me they are flavored with rum and vanilla; the one I got mainly tasted like all the best qualities of an angel food cake) baked in a little fluted mold, with a very dense, moist interior part and the outside caramelized into a dark, chewy crust.
7. Mirabelles, aka tiny yellow plums. According to my host family it's been a good year for plums because there's been a lot of sun, and while I have not been here long enough to confirm this, the plums were definitely incredible.
8. Figs! A kind of shameful fact about me: before this trip, I had never actually had a fig. To be honest, I'm not sure I'd ever seen one. But they're everywhere here. So, in a move that required a lot of mental and temporal preparation (tip: check the store hours, they are not intuitive), I went to the nearest produce store and bought two figs, opened them with my pocket knife because I am a ten-year-old boy, and ate them sitting on my windowsill. Guess what - I like figs. I like them a lot.
And, of course,
9. cheese, and
10. bread. I actually did my required oral report on bread and why it is important in France, and can now spout off a few random facts if anyone starts to seem interested. Did you know that a baguette is approximately 250 grams? That the average French person eats 58 kg of bread in a year? That there are over 30,000 artisan bakers in the country, and they produce 70% of the bread, and the price of basic bread is fixed so that everyone can afford it and people from Algeria bake their bread differently from French people and France is the fourth producer of wheat in the world and and and bread riots! The French revolution! tHE BREAD DECREE OF 1993!
Bread, guys. It's serious business.
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