Frances

I really love the name Frances. My first encounter with it was in reading the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. GREAT book. And Frances, Francie, is the young female protagonist. A cousin of mine has a daughter named Francesca, nicknamed Frankie, and I always loved that nickname, too. Not long ago I came across the name again, watching the movie Frances Ha on streaming Netflix - and loved it (very Generation Y).

Anyway, I ran across this poem this weekend and enjoyed it, and was again brought back to Frances.

Sister Cat

Frances Mayes

Cat stands at the fridge,
Cries loudly for milk.
But I've filled her bowl.
Wild cat, I say, Sister,
Look, you have milk.
I clink my fingernail
Against the rim. Milk.
With down and liver,
A word I know she hears.
Her sad miaow. She runs
To me. She dips
In her whiskers but
Doesn't drink. As sometimes
I want the light on
When it is on. Or when
I saw the woman walking
toward my house and
I thought there's Frances.
Then looked in the car mirror
To be sure. She stalks
The room. She wants. Milk
Beyond milk. World beyond
This one, she cries.

The Order

People say a lot of things about PMS. For me, it is a very real and fairly consistent phenomenon that is best described as a monthly existential crisis. Typically, I'll watch a movie or a TV show and from it extract a meaning about the fragile and fleeting nature of human life, break into tears, and spend an evening talking/wondering-out-loud about how to really live a life. This happens almost every month. I blame it on my hormones and my major in philosophy.

This weekend, for Valentine's Day, SB was so sweet as to surprise me with chocolates, a book of Billy Collins poems, and "My Future Listography: All I Hope to Do in Lists" - a book that is essentially a notebook of list prompts. I LOVE to make lists.

Paging through the book one afternoon, I saw "List Who to Find in Heaven." I felt tears welling up. Then I got to the final list in the book - "List the Things You Hope to Experience Before You Die." I turned the page and saw that this list had 3 pages of lines to fill, compared to the 1 page every other list was given. It hit me hard. I could barely hold back the tears. When I told SB about the lists I finally cried. (oh dear.)

And then I started planning our Europe trip again. (oh dear again.) What can I say? The list book inspired me. I'm instinctually a "play it safe" person, but I aspire to a lot and sometimes I swing into action mode and seek a more adventurous and impulsive path. And hey, a Europe trip is the one item on our pre-children "to do" list, so now seems like as good a time as any. Perhaps there will be more to come re: travel plans...

Note that I actually really appreciate these mini-breakdowns, and am grateful for the perspective that they provide. My husband is a generous listener/conversationalist and my anchor, for which I am extremely grateful; and, as a result of these conversations, I end up feeling more deeply interwoven with him and excited about our shared future.

Below is a poem from my new Billy Collins collection that also struck a chord with me during this existential crisis weekend. It is a privilege to be able to take life for granted, and it is a gift not to.

The Order of the Day
Billy Collins

A morning after a week of rain 
and the sun shot down through the branches
and into the tall, bare windows.

The brindled cat rolled over on his back,
and I could hear you in the kitchen
grinding coffee beans into a powder.

Everything seemed especially vivid
because I knew we were all going to die,
first the cat, then you, then me,

then somewhat later the liquefied sun
was the order I was envisioning.
But then again, you never really know.

The cat had a fiercely healthy look,
his coat so bristling and electric
I wondered what you had been feeding him

and what you had been feeding me
as I turned a corner
and beheld you out on the sunny deck now

running in place—
knees lifted high, skin
glistening, and that toothy, immortal smile.

Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day!

I usually make a point to stay in on this holiday - to make a home-cooked meal and watch a movie and skip the crowded fine dining experience. This year is different - SB and I splurged a month or two ago and bought tickets to WITS, a live public radio show that features comedy and music acts in an improv environment. Tonight's show features a favorite comedian of ours - Marc Maron, and the musical performer is Jason Isbell, a country-americana artist (formerly of the Drive-By Truckers).

Marc Maron

I am excited about this show because it is such an interesting format. Comedians have their shtick, musicians their songs, but the improv format will be an opportunity to see these folks in a whole new way. We know Marc Maron as well as we know ourselves as a result of listening to his twice-weekly podcasts for years and seeing him live, his comedy specials, his TV show - so it'll be particularly fun to see him in this new context.

Jason Isbell is new to us - we've heard a bit about him and generally like him, though I wouldn't call him the lyricist of the century. That being said, some of his lyrics are pretty poetic and, in my opinion, country music as a genre has always conveyed more powerful emotions than insights. This seems like the case for Jason Isbell, too - he's got a lot of heart and a great voice. His wife will also be in the show tonight, as she is part of his band and will be accompanying him on violin.

Here's a little sample:

Mr. Wind-Up Bird

I'm off to a good start this year - I finished another book!

This was my third Haruki Murakami book in the past two years. He is a favorite of mine because he pairs ordinary characters with surreal and extraordinary worlds. And, as an added bonus, he loves philosophy and music and references both often. 

This book, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, followed suit. There are ordinary characters and there are unique ones with strange and powerful intuitions. There are frequent jumps in place and time. There is mounting suspense that leads to absolute surreal madness, worlds colliding, before calming down to a mostly-resolved conclusion. I tend to love about 90% of each book and spend the last 10% confounded, trying to fathom what just happened, and then trying to decide if I liked it or not. 

While my most recent read is one of his more popular books, I think that my favorite of the three I've read thus far is his most recent - 1Q84. SB recently finished Murakami's nonfiction book about running and writing called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Inspired, having never read any of his fiction before, SB just started Murakami's coming-of-age novel Norwegian Wood. In short, we are soon to own the entire Haruki Murakami library! :) 

I'm taking a break from the Murakami-marathon for a little light reading - A Cook's Tour by Anthony Bourdain. I read Kitchen Confidential several years ago and really enjoyed it. There is something about his slightly arrogant renegade foodie voice that I enjoy. VERY like Hunter Thompson, only about travel and food. After that, I'm thinking maybe some Sherman Alexie - perhaps Reservation Blues. More to come!

Sunday Soup Day

I heard someone say that we may be "turning a corner" weather-wise, with the gradual warm-up beginning soon. First - hooray to be almost out of the subzero weather! Second, before that happens, I want to share a new favorite soup recipe with you. Roll over Chicken Noodle, because a new get-well soup is in town.

Chunky Miso Vegetable Soup

1 Tb olive oil

1 large yellow onion, diced

pinch of salt

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 c peeled carrots in 1/4" slices

2 ribs celery, cut into 1/4" slices

4 c cauliflower florets

1 c green beans trimmed and cut into 1" pieces

6 c vegetable broth

several pinches ground black pepper

15 oz kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1/2 c mellow white miso

1 c thinly sliced scallions

Preheat 4-quart pot over medium-high heat and add oil. Saute the onion in the oil with a pinch of salt until softened. Add garlic and saute for 30 seconds, until fragrant. Add carrots and celery and saute 3 minutes or so. Add cauliflower and green beans, along with broth and pepper. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook with lid slightly ajar so steam can escape - 10 minutes or until cauliflower is tender. Add kidney beans and miso and stir to dissolve the miso. Once dissolved, taste for seasoning. Add scallions and serve. 

The Doctor

Thanks to the glory that is Netflix, SB and I are truly obsessed with another television show of the past -- Dr. Who. While the good Doctor has been on TV since 1963 (with a gap stretching through most of the 90's and early 2000's), SB and I picked up with the newest series', which began in 2005.

In brief, Dr. Who is about a "time lord" (read alien, though he looks like a human) who travels through space and time for fun, often with a human companion, and ends up always saving entire peoples and planets and universes. At first I thought it was too weird, and I couldn't get into it. And I didn't really like the first actor to play the rebooted Doctor, Christopher Eccleston.

Fortunately for me, as part of the story, the Doctor "regenerates" periodically, meaning that he transforms physically and is thus played by a new actor moving forward. Not wanting to give up entirely, we decided to skip to the next incarnation of the Doctor, played by David Tennant. BAM! We instantly fell in love.

David Tennant played the Doctor in a funny, lighthearted, quirky way for three seasons, between 2005 and 2010. He is incredibly thin and wears glasses (often), a pinstripe suit, and Chuck Taylor sneakers. His weapons for fighting alien wrongdoers are his brilliant mind, his curiosity, his determination, and a "sonic screwdriver" (that mostly just opens doors). Essentially, he is the king of nerd heroes. 

But what makes Dr. Who special to me (besides my love for David Tennant), is that Dr. Who manages to be completely absurd escapism while also being surprisingly scary at times, and almost always incredibly touching. The Doctor is, more than anything, a compassionate hero. And his relationships with the other characters are somehow relatable despite the completely unreal scenarios in each episode. It is like a comic book with a whole lot of heart. 

How much do I love Dr. Who with David Tennant?

a) I have honestly had dreams that are my own Dr. Who episodes.

b) We recently used a Christmas gift card to purchase this Dr. Who mug! (The mug features the tardis, the Doctor's time/space machine/ship, disappearing from a London street and reappearing in space.) No joke.

So get your nerd on and check out Dr. Who!