What I've Been Up To - and Shana Tova - September 3, 2013

It's almost 5774 (and yes, I had to look that up) and Rosh Hashanah - "early" in the year. Here now.

Despite my changing beliefs as time goes on, I am extremely proud to be Jewish and I have always appreciated this time of year for the opportunity to slow down, take a few breaths, and reset. This year I am especially looking forward to that temporary peacefulness.

This also means we're in the time of year where people schedule things - things I'd really like to attend or be involved with - on the High Holidays (there are at least two things on September 14, which is Yom Kippur, that disappointed me with their scheduling this year, but every year there's something I suppose). I just had to get that out of my system.

Shana Tova. May you have a sweet new year.

Here's what I've been up to in the past few days:

At the Decatur Book Festival...

I did in fact meet Francesca Lia Block and she is delightful. (And I forgot to say about 100 things to her, but I also remembered to say 1,000 other things so I guess that's OK. Hopefully she and I will meet again, either in LA or...somewhere in the universe!) Also she was incredibly inspiring during her presentation/interview/Q&A and gave me some ideas that I hope will guide me back to working on some of the longer-form writing projects I have sitting on my hard drive.

I saw Rob Sheffield - he's manic and awesome and he made me reminisce about the karaoke nights I've had - in private rooms, in bars, with friends, with strangers, and rarely singing on stage but often singing in the audience.

I watched a cooking demonstration by Joe Yonan, who is the Food and Travel editor of the Washington Post as well as a cookbook author. The recipe he cooked was very simple - corn and pasta and not much else - and it was divine (they passed out samples). I want his new book (Eat Your Vegetables), which is vegetarian recipes for one (great for lunch, I suspect, or for nights when the rest of my family - ahem - wants macaroni and cheese for the millionth time and I want something a bit more special).

I also have been attempting new cooking projects. I made two different batches of pancakes with two entirely different recipes and froze both. Batch #1 had white whole wheat flour and whole wheat pastry flour, no eggs, cow milk, lots of baking powder. Batch #2 had eggs, almond milk, white whole wheat flour and unbleached regular flour, less baking powder. Batch #1 was eaten mostly by me and was pretty good. Batch #2 is in the freezer right now.

Part of the overarching experiment was freezing by laying things flat in the freezer first (on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper), then putting the frozen things in a bag so they don't stick to one another. So far, despite my freezer being both tiny and full, this process has worked well - both with pancakes and with frozen bananas. (I make banana "ice cream" on nearly a nightly basis - frozen bananas, a splash of almond milk, my Vitamix, 1 minute on high, eat. When I find marked-down browning bananas at the grocery store now - as I did yesterday - I do a little happy dance.)

And I tried making boba at home for the first time. I've bought tapioca pearls before and then left them in the pantry or fridge until they were thrown away. This time I forced myself to cook a batch. They were far easier to cook than I expected and they came out nicely chewy without being tough or powdery. Hooray!

Cold-brewed coffee, almond milk, simple syrup made with Zulka Morena cane sugar (non-GMO!), and boba. However, without the big fat colorful straw, this wasn't as exciting. I'll have to grab some of those the next time I buy bubble tea at a shop.

The tapioca pearls came from a trip to Super H-Mart, where I also purchased Mexican soda in tamarind and sangria. I haven't tried either yet - if you're interested, let me know and I'll post an update sometime about how they taste. Both sodas have terrible ingredients - chemicals and dyes - but hey, they also have real sugar instead of HFCS, so that has to count for something, right? Also, I try so very hard to eat clean and to be good and to avoid certain ingredients, but I simply cannot be perfect. So I bought them - and I will enjoy every sip.

The colorful wall of Mexican sodas at Super H-Mart.

And that's about it. What have you been up to lately?

I Might Get to Meet Francesca Lia Block (and I Am FREAKING OUT!)

A few months ago, I checked author Francesca Lia Block's blog and idly scanned her upcoming appearances. And then I seriously screamed out loud. SCREAMED. The Decatur Book Festival! Down the street from my house. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

FLB is a writer who is so important to me. She's up there with Tori Amos as one of my heroines, one of my touchstones, someone who helped shape who I became. It's so hard to put this into words (there's that evil little voice cackling at me "you call yourself a writer?!" Oh shut up, evil little voice. You suck...) You'll just have to trust me. I wrote about her in grad school and when I had to present the paper, I got choked up. It's a gut feeling I have about her, rather than one I can really explain, I suppose.

So I never thought I'd get to meet her. I don't remember her doing a book tour in the past, or at least not one that came anywhere near me in New York, Massachusetts, or Georgia. My friend Liz was lucky enough to take several writing classes with her in California and I thought that six-degrees-type connection was the closest I'd come. But now it looks like it might really, truly happen next Saturday!

I am fairly certain I first learned about Weetzie Bat in Sassy magazine (see: another important piece of the Marla puzzle). I ran out and read it and I was hooked. I loved Weetzie. That book was magic. And then - THEN! - I read Witch Baby and there was the connection. The character of Witch Baby really grabbed me in my angsty early 20s, grad school, figuring out the real world, Boston, New York City, home but not home.... "What time are we upon and where do I belong?" Oh yes. YES. Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys was wonderful, but when I read Missing Angel Juan, my heart cracked open. (I desperately wanted to send a passage from that book to someone who broke my heart - I even copied it out and put it aside to send, though I never did.) That book is everything to me. And then I befriended someone who worked at Horn Book and she hooked me up with an advance copy of Baby BeBop. Years later, Liz shared her advance copy of Necklace of Kisses with me - another book that really resonated with me, as I had aged just like Weetzie had. It was fascinating to find a character I'd grown up with growing up too. (I've also read and loved Pink Smog - perfect! Weetzie full circle! Although I didn't really mind feeling that Weetzie herself just sort of...appeared, fully formed, in the world, it was nice to get a look at who she had been and who she would become.)

Beyond the Dangerous Angels/Weetzie books, the other FLB book that had a huge impact on me was Guarding the Moon, which is about her first year of motherhood. I read it before I had a child and after, and I got something different out of it both times. And then there was Zine Scene, her book with Hillary Carlip about zines. As a 90s zinegirl, that book was also really meaningful for me - and friends of mine are in it! And I think I've read everything else she's ever written. I'm a wicked fangirl, I swear, and I cannot WAIT to read Love in the Time of Global Warming next.

(Probably the rarest thing in my collection is my first edition (paperback) of Ecstasia - I found it at a bookstore in Harvard Square in the late 90s for something like $2 and I treasure it. I don't know if I'll bring it along next Saturday or not...)

And now she's coming to my city. I don't know what to say! What to bring to have signed! What to wear! I think that as with the times I was able to meet Tori Amos, I might have to write a note instead and hand it over. My voice is sure to shake. I might cry. I probably will say something ridiculous instead of profound. But then again I might be brave - try to find my almost-40-brave-self - and tell her how much she means to me. How much her words have meant to me. How she's my rockstar. How when she interviewed Tori, my brain may have exploded just a little bit. How...everything.

Everything.