i walked through chinatown today,
lower lower chinatown,
across columbus park, and onward even further to seward park

i tried to contain my nostalgia as i stood behind the excited men watching and discussing heated games of chinese chess, thinking about the groaning afternoons that i spent in extracurricular chinese chess classes after obligatory chinese school. the chess games were set to a soundtrack of the straining, gasping lilt of the erhu filtered through shouts from the soccer fields.

in true Amelie fashion, I sank fingers into and through the bins of watermelon seeds, thinking of all the times we sat at the kitchen table cracking our molars on opening those seeds to get the tiny morsel of flesh inside.

i walked slowly through the bakeries, inspecting the sweet glutinous rice treats. i felt heartsick about the Mandarin language as i listened to toddlers point out in bird-like voices the "tu shu guan" (library) to their smiling and proud mothers. heartsick because our children may never experience as close of a link to their "heritage" and language as we did, as the sons and daughters of immigrants.

i thought about my grandmother's wrinkled hands gripping my tiny ones too tight, but how i never dared to complain. all i could think about was the pain of the handhold as she sang me songs in Fukinese, songs that i never understood and don't remember.

i thought about the value of the mangoes my mother cut up, how she saved all the fleshy parts for us. she only ever ate off of the peels, biting off what was left after she fed us. i felt immense gratitude flood across my heart, for the times i never saw the sacrifice that helped put the grapes and strawberries and Asian pears on the kitchen table. the water added lovingly to congee, to stretch the grains of rice just a little bit further. the pots of soup that were made from not just the chicken, but the bones themselves, to stretch it just a little bit further too.
this actually haunts me regularly these days, in the face of the seeming gluttony of our $12 salads (oh and add four dollars for chicken breast).

perhaps it's all so pessimistic. perhaps i'm dancing the fool's dance, thinking this way. i feel almost guilty, that it's all too easy to walk down a few blocks with a few dollars in hand acquire the rare and coveted and scarce treats of my childhood.
i feel like if i put all the words i could craft together in a bucket, it would still be too shallow to show my family how i feel about this, to tell them that i understand now. it feels a little like walking backstage and seeing what really made the play come to life.

i stood quietly behind a fence, watching a lone man practice qi gong. i studied the sweeping and dancing of his feet, the discipline behind his movements, the serenity that sat in the stillness of his face.
i know i panic daily, everything is in a rush, has to be part of a plan. it ruins lives, all this planning. let me learn how to slow down.

how do you sink into the noise around you? how do you transcend it?

hey guys, happy friday, and remember to:




recently my mom and i have gotten into the habit of exchanging text messages daily about our meals.
yesterday she asks me, "guess what i'm having for lunch??"
and i said, "a slice of the ice cream cake that's been sitting in the freezer"
and she said "yes!! i haven't eaten any in two days, i had to catch up."


breakfast today-
- 2 poached eggs (can use splash of sushi vinegar in the water, bring to medium heat. drop egg in ramekin. swirl water. drop egg gently in the vortex. swirl occasionally for 3-5 minutes. take out with slotted spoon.)
- black beans
- mushrooms sauteed with garlic and black pepper
- top with cracked red pepper
serve garnished with avocado and ample amounts of sriracha.

Sunny mornings sitting outside. Chai latte and books.

rooftop shenanigans. Open bar with free tequila spells trouble for Texan transplants.

Met a girl from Berlin who cussed more than I do. A man who started a company who helps children learn how to cook healthily. And who also finnagled a free bottle of prosecco for us. A CEO who helps lazy people order anything from their, um, la-z-boy. A girl, tome, whose name meet innocence.

also broke a wine glass nonchalantly and ate guacamole and chocolate muffins. I think I see a rude springtime awakening happening. 

And hope. That grows daily.

oh man. oh man.


it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

(frank o'hara)

It never gets easier. It shouldn't. We should hunger for something more from life. From ourselves.

Every day, you should ask yourself, how have I impacted my soul? How have I grown?
More often than not, I am surrounded by people who instead ask themselves, How much money have I made, and how much more can I get?

Mistakes get harder to make.
We don't want to fall. We don't want to fail.


John McPhee in the Paris Review-

INTERVIEWER

I suppose one of the hard things for a young writer is to learn that there’s no obvious path. 

MCPHEE

There is no path. If you go to dental school, you’re a dentist when you’re done. For the young writer, it’s like seeing islands in a river and there’s all this stuff you can get into—where do you go? It can be a mistake to get too great a job at first; that can turn around and stultify you. At the age of, say, twenty-one, you’re in a very good position to make mistakes. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four—each time the mistakes become a little more costly. You don’t want to be making these mistakes when you’re forty-five. But the thing is, in steering around all those islands, and finding currents to go around them, they’re all relevant. 

fine. admittedly, i might have just consumed a dozen cookies for dinner.
and the equivalent of a carafe of mango rooibos tea.

i can hear my heart beating against my shoulder blades. as in, the back of my torso.

spin, spin sugar.

today's lunch.

 honey marinated salmon.

4 salmon filets (about 6oz each)
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons tamari or soy sauce
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon black pepper (i was liberal with this)

i always have trouble with honey and coconut oil. i clumsily melt it into the mixture.

anyway. i mixed the last four ingredients in a quart-sized ziploc bag.
marinated salmon inside for about 15-20 minutes.

i cheated and made a bit more marinade with the honey i had left.

i let the saucepan heat up on medium up. sprayed it down pretty well with some olive oil.

placed the filets on the skin side. i drizzled the extra marinade on top.
cooked 5 minutes. pressed down on the tops with a spatula so that the edges browned evenly. sort of.
repeated on the other side. kind of winged it, since there was a smaller filet, i let that cook for a short period of time.

i committed the cook's crime of eating while standing up.

i read some Shantaram.

i found this great spice store in the east village. i could have stayed there forever.
there were bags of cardamom, coriander, cumin, teas of all kinds,

the guy at the checkout register was this young-looking indian guy with long hair. he said hi to me as i was finishing, and chatted with me (in his distinctly American accent). this older indian guy came into the store and started mumbling something in another language, and i smiled patiently as the checkout guy seemed to respond.
checkout guy looked and me and shrugged, "Don't worry. I don't understand a thing he's saying either." And grinned.
i think he was joking. but i couldn't really be sure.
i laughed and said that i feel like i never understand what people are saying, no matter what language they are speaking.
we talked a bit more about language.


--
two weeks ago when we were in new orleans for french quarter festival, i rediscovered the virtue of apples.
i'm kind of a banana girl, and my mom says it's because i'm lazy. i don't like to wash fruit.
every morning, our hotel would have green apples sitting in a basket in the lobby. the apples basically kept me from going insane from hunger while we "looked" for places to eat (which usually means wandering around for 2 hours).

my refrigerator probably now contains a lot of curb-rose's-hunger fruit. including about 2 dozen apples. i think it's working out well.

april drizzle. 
windows open. 
haven't felt like going dancing, and as B said the other night, "if you have even a sliver of doubt about going, you won't have fun"
ain't that the truth. 
chamomile and lavender instead, and some eileen myles. 

“Literature is love. I think it went like this: drawings in the cave, sounds in the cave, songs in the cave, songs about us. Later, stories about us. Part of what we always did was have sex and fight about it and break each other’s hearts. I guess there’s other kinds of love too. Great friendships. Working together. But poetry and novels are lists of our devotions. We love the feel of making the marks as the feelings are rising and falling. Living in literature and love is the best thing there is. You’re always home.” 
- Eileen Myles

breakfast. 

1/4 cup almond milk, unsweetened 

1 tbsp chia seeds, whole

1 soy yogurt (I used silk strawberry)

mix vigorously in a jar and place in the fridge overnight.

wake up.

top with fruit (I used bananas and strawberries).

if desired, shake an ample amount of cinnamon on each bite.

watch the sun appear between the buildings.

weekend notes:

- spontaneity may breed a bit of carelessness (read: no cutting utensils, no sleeping pads, lack of matches?)  but it sure does allow for creativity (read: bite your potatoes in pieces and spit them back out into foil, son)
- with a bit of patience, some ingredients thrown in foil cooked over a fire can be damn good. especially after a whopping party bag of chex mix for appetizer
- waterfall treks are always worth it
- give thanks for the sunlight. give thanks for the sunlight. give thanks for the sunlight.
- cold builds character. i'm still waiting for my character to build, but there you have it.
- the beginning of spring can look a lot like autumn
- look at the bareness of trees in a different light- the lack of foliage gives way to the sun streaming through
- with most uphills, there will be a downhill. take your time.

“Hurt is a part of life. To be honest, I think hurt is a part of happiness, that our definition of happiness has gotten very narrow lately, very nervous, a little afraid of this brawling, fabulous, unpredictable world.”

-  Julian Gough, Juno & Juliet

(coincidentally a book about twins)

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
Don’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins.
Don’t even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don’t keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll’s tiny shoes in pairs, don’t worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic — decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don’t even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don’t sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we’re all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don’t answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.

— Louise Erdrich, from Original Fire: Advice To Myself

I am listening to the ice against the window, in the middle of April.
Snow is illuminated beneath the street lamps.

Earlier, I was walking in it.
The wind blew ice in between my eyelashes.
Thinking about how one possibility was that I could feel cold and wet,
but think of all the other feelings I'd miss.

And so I broke into a run, and reveled in it.


--


Consider the Hands that Write This Letter (via poets.org)

  by Aracelis Girmay
         after Marina Wilson

Consider the hands
that write this letter.

Left palm pressed flat against paper,
as we have done before, over my heart,

in peace or reverence to the sea,
some beautiful thing

I saw once, felt once: snow falling
like rice flung from the giants’ wedding,

or strangest of strange birds. & consider, then,
the right hand, & how it is a fist,

within which a sharpened utensil,
similar to the way I’ve held a spade,

the horse’s reins, loping, the very fists
I’ve seen from roads through Limay & Estelí.

For years, I have come to sit this way:
one hand open, one hand closed,

like a farmer who puts down seeds & gathers up;
food will come from that farming.

Or, yes, it is like the way I’ve danced
with my left hand opened around a shoulder,

my right hand closed inside
of another hand. & how I pray,

I pray for this to be my way: sweet
work alluded to in the body’s position to its paper:

left hand, right hand
like an open eye, an eye closed:

one hand flat against the trapdoor,
the other hand knocking, knocking.

almond butter cups!

I experimented with some almond butter cups from Oh She Glows. Another note about being super amateur- I had to figure out how to use K’s food-processor-blender-in-one. I had only used it to make smoothies thus far, and I had to put together the food processor. I know, rocket science.

I’m glad my bachelor’s degree came in handy, since I did eventually figure it out.

 Raw Almond Butter Cups from Oh She Glows

Almond Butter Cup Base:
3/4 cup raw almonds, ground into a meal
1/4 cup rolled oats, ground into a flour
2 tablespoons raw almond butter
1.5 tablespoons coconut oil, warmed
1.5 tablespoons pure maple syrup (I used fresh Vermont maple syrup from our road trip!)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
pinch of fine grain sea salt, to taste

for the topping:
3 tablespoons coconut oil
3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
pinch of fine grain sea salt, to taste

1. Add almonds and oats into a high-speed blender and blend on high until a flour forms. Dump into a large bowl and break up any clumps with your fingers.
2. Add the nut butter, coconut oil, maple syrup (or agave), cinnamon, vanilla, and salt into the bowl. Stir until thoroughly combined. The dough should be fairly sticky like cookie dough.
3. Line a mini (or regular) muffin tin with paper liners or use a silicone muffin holder. Portion the dough into each muffin cup and press down until even and smooth.
4. To make the chocolate sauce: Whisk together the coconut oil, sweetener, cocoa powder, and salt until no clumps remain. Spoon the sauce over top each of the cups, distributing evenly. Garnish cups with sliced almonds if desired.
5. Place in the freezer in a flat area for 30-45 minutes, until firm. Pop out the cups & enjoy immediately!

My batter did yield slightly more than I could fit into one silicone mini muffin tray, and the cocoa sauce got a little gloopier for the leftover few that I made. But still tasted good!

last autumn.

If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it

Isadora Duncan

Lately:
- Food & Wine's article on Jean George's French and Asian influences
- Ae-ran Kim's Ascending Scales

notes:
- azaleas in bloom yesterday, and wilted today
- the bravery and potential injury recovery time of children playing on playgrounds
- when mom wants to go somewhere to eat, accompany her.

I don't often tell people where I am, or report on how I'm doing, or where I'm going next.

This week, I've been home.

What a profound word, one I never fully understood because I was naive enough to think that I traveled enough to know what it means to be away. What a foolish thought. It has only been a pair of months, which is less time than some of my extended vacations. But there is a tangible difference.

I drove around the sun-drenched city in a daze. Walked the neighborhoods in wonder at how quiet everything is. Awoke every morning to such dense silence. Sat for long periods of time at the park, taking in the space and the green and the children's laughter untainted by other noises. I drowned myself in food and family, which is what you do when you are home. I felt the need to shed this relentless wintry sadness, punctuated by moments of sharp hope, or something closely resembling hope. I thought about how when under the pressures of certain periods of time, I do not allow myself time to meditate or write or create- these times when I need those activities the most.

Today, I willed myself to walk into the yoga studio. After weeks of feeling like a robot when I go to classes, I felt even more reluctant to go today. I saw on the schedule that S. was teaching, and I knew that every fiber of my being needed to hear her speak. Her embrace flooded me with relief. We may not have known each other long, and our "knowing" only consists of sporadic meetings here and there. But I knew that she'd understand this concept of home.

She described it as a relationship- you try on a new city. Maybe you are in love with it. Maybe you have known for a long time that you are mad for it. Maybe you know that you will never fall out of love with it. But leaving that city is like breaking up with a lover that you are absolutely head over heels for. Her words rang in my ears, "I absolutely love that city, yet I was dying inside."

I face my new city, the way it faced me. Daring me, challenging me, willing me to give up. It chants this daily, nightly, the streets alive with this chanting. What a daunting chorus.

And yet, I'm singing along, right back at the city. An octave higher, and crescendoing louder.

---

Every day, I read honest, soulful writing- in food blogs, in photo blogs, in travel blogs, and yes, sometimes even the news. I realized that I rarely allow myself the luxury of being honest and complete when I write. Say what you will about how technology impacts humanity, but bloggers are the bravest people I know, because this ain't fiction. It feels vulnerable to bare weakness, to bear an audience, to be truthful, to share thoughts of fear. For me, there is still that lighthouse, that beacon- the very reason I continue to write. Universality of experience and the hope that what I write will may even one person's heart exhale with relief that "god, someone else knows exactly how I feel," or "this is exactly what I needed to hear today." 

V. came up to me on the boat and talked to me about how much it impacted him to read something I published a while ago. I was so moved that after months, he still remembered and felt compelled to let me know. I put this feeling in the palm of my hand, and pocketed it for the future. 

that was some strong-ass coffee at 5pm. hence, i am awake listening to pitter patter of precipitation.

there was rain today here in the south, and i reveled in it. there is nothing like being home.

i have never noticed such deafening quiet in the mornings.
my skin has never been more shocked at the heat that touches it when enclosed in a sun-drenched car.
this is how it feels to learn warmth again.

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”

- Henry David Thoreau, journal entry on July 25, 1839

Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.”

― Joss Whedon

“I only feel close to people who arouse my energy, who make enormous demands of me, who are capable of enriching me with experience, pain, people who do not doubt my courage, or my toughness. People who do not believe me naive or innocent, but who challenge my keenest wisdom, who have the courage to treat me like a woman in spite of the fact that they are aware of my vulnerability.”

- Anaïs Nin, from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

bennington, vt

“Get scared. It will do you good. Smoke a bit, stare blankly at some ceilings, beat your head against some walls, refuse to see some people, paint and write. Get scared some more. Allow your little mind to do nothing but function. Stay inside, go out - I don’t care what you’ll do; but stay scared as hell. You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.”
- Albert Camus

“When I first met you, I felt a kind of contradiction in you. You’re seeking something, but at the same time, you are running away for all you’re worth.”

- Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.”
- Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5 (1947-1955)

writing these days feels terrifying to me, because i have so many beginnings with no ends to pair with them. 
says a lot about what happens to me in relationships? maybe?

i ran along the hudson river on the first appropriately warm day since i got here. 
i wrote a bunch of notes about being here, 

but they felt so melancholic.

i'll leave them here anyway. 

--


february, the beginning, 2014

The cold was impolite, and all the brutal thoughts I’ve had about New York City were realized. It was not made for love. 
I came to see why only the best flourish-
Only the bravest dreams survive this city. perhaps only the strongest love. 


They did not lie about the sleeping. Lying awake here well after you should be asleep throbs with aching normality. No one seems to sleep, yet the everything seems to nod off with the hum of a well-oiled machine. All the people in their black, weary coats, carrying shopping bags at all hours. Briskly, briskly. 

The smells of various hot foods wafting through the air, chasing you as you walk the sidewalks.


Anonymity becomes a strange duality, when you can look into your neighbor’s windows and not know a thing about them. When you are practically sitting on strangers’ laps on the subway without knowing their names. 

We gingerly climb along the edges of snow, which really is no longer snow. 
The ridges of ice rim this city, and wall out most warmth. As a result, we look for warmth desperately. Almost unable to find it because we are looking so hard. 

There are unfamiliar sounds for me:
the hiss of the radiators, 
the birds too loud in the morning singing on the fire escape. 
the sunsets and sunrises dictated (defined?) by the valleys between skyscrapers

walking in the cold becomes meditation, because it has to be. 

Do people come here because it becomes ok to yearn to escape?

Some people have said that there is no other city for them

What do they create here, that makes them feel this way?

It would seem that the debt the winter demands is somehow repaid- rather, perhaps I’m paying for the times that I found freedom here in the aloneness. 

I thought, fleetingly, that perhaps my entire life has been lived in the temporary, rather, impermanence. 
fleeing from? something. or setting down my bag in a hotel room with the thought that this would not last. 


I meet a lot of extremely religious people here
You can feel lost in this city of dreams
you can feel like you are not dreaming big enough
that your faith is not big enough
that you don’t believe in anything real enough.

the city slaps you in the face with real. this is real. show me real. here i am. 

what keeps you warm in single-digit weather? vegan banana blueberry spelt muffins might just do the trick. 

i've been baking and cooking a lot. New York winter will do that, when you don't really see the point of going outside and yet you still want to feel like you've created something with your day.

“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.”

- Francois De La Rochefoucauld

hmmm.

In poetry, the number of beginnings so far exceeds the number of endings that we cannot even conceive it. Not every poem is finished — one poem is abandoned, another catches fire and is carried away by the wind, which may be an ending, but it is the ending of a poem without an end. 

Paul Valéry, the French poet and thinker, once said that no poem is ever ended, that every poem is merely abandoned. This saying is also attributed to Stéphane Mallarmé, for where quotations begin is in a cloud. 

Paul Valéry also described his perception of first lines so vividly, and to my mind so accurately, that I have never forgotten it: the opening line of a poem, he said, is like finding a fruit on the ground, a piece of fallen fruit you have never seen before, and the poet’s task is to create the tree from which such a fruit would fall.

- Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey

“This is not a poem.
This is a 3 a.m.
phone call to 911
from the back
of a stranger’s trunk.
This is a prayer.
This is a bar napkin secret
flushed down the toilet
of a one-night stand’s
studio apartment.
A bucket list –
only 7) fall in love
crossed out of it.
These, my hands.
Things I would ink
on skin if all the paper
in the world disappeared.
This is a swear. A gunshot
fired, echoing, from a distance.
Me saying yes
to myself
and no to anyone who
makes me feel like I don’t
deserve it. This is
the afterthought
of a door slamming.
The anatomy of a parentheses.
Another name for the heart.
This is my mother,
seven years old
and surviving on nothing
but soy sauce
for dinner.
This is never an apology.
This is what the night would say
if it had your mouth
on my mouth
before I punched you
on the mouth.
But mostly what the light
would say. Always,
the word
stay.”

- "When It All Comes Down To It," Kim Visda

Where the danger is
grows also what can save us.

Friedrich Hölderlin

(via TM)

Sontag, on love and sex:

 We ask everything of love. We ask it to be anarchic. We ask it to be the glue that holds the family together, that allows society to be orderly and allows all kinds of material processes to be transmitted from one generation to another. But I think that the connection between love and sex is very mysterious. Part of the modern ideology of love is to assume that love and sex always go together. They can, I suppose, but I think rather to the detriment of either one or the other. And probably the greatest problem for human beings is that they just don’t. And why do people want to be in love? That’s really interesting. Partly, they want to be in love the way you want to go on a roller coaster again – even knowing you’re going to have your heart broken. What fascinates me about love is what it has to do with all the cultural expectations and the values that have been put into it. I’ve always been amazed by the people who say, “I fell in love, I was madly, passionately in love, and I had this affair.” And then a lot of stuff is described and you ask, “How long did it last?” And the person will say, “A week, I just couldn’t stand him or her."

I was satisfied with haiku until I met you,
jar of octopus, cuckoo's cry, 5-7-5,
but now I want a Russian novel,
a 50-page description of you sleeping,
another 75 of what you think staring out
a window. I don't care about the plot
although I suppose there will have to be one,
the usual separation of the lovers, turbulent
seas, danger of decommission in spite
of constant war, time in gulps and glitches
passing, squibs of threnody, a fallen nest,
speckled eggs somehow uncrushed, the sled
outracing the wolves on the steppes, the huge
glittering ball where all that matters
is a kiss at the end of a dark hall. 
At dawn the officers ride back to the garrison,
one without a glove, the entire last chapter
about a necklace that couldn't be worn
inherited by a great-niece
along with the love letters bound in silk.

-Dean Young, Changing Genes

Susan Sontag was born today in 1933.

INTERVIEWER

Is it old-fashioned to think that the purpose of literature is to educate us about life?

SONTAG

Well, it does educate us about life. I wouldn’t be the person I am, I wouldn’t understand what I understand, were it not for certain books. I’m thinking of the great question of nineteenth-century Russian literature: how should one live? A novel worth reading is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility, of what human nature is, of what happens in the world. It’s a creator of inwardness.

—Susan Sontag, the Art of Fiction No. 143

 

because it is spectacularly random and curious, i wanted to share the list that amanda shared of all the notes we created during our 18 days without regular internet to look things up. she took notes on the various topics we discussed and wondered about while being unable to do a google search.

here's just a tiny part of we came up with:

1. What does the fox say?
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE update: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/what-sound-does-fox-make
2. What is the name of the Star Wars robot?
   C3PO (yeah, Rose!!) note: we thought of this question when we determined that i would make a good ewok. after hours of hiking and some brainstorming, we finally remembered the stupid robot's name. hah. 
3. Tell me more about Afrikaans (origins, uses today, etc.)?
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans
   
   Afrikaans /æfrɪˈkɑːns/^[3] is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia, and to a lesser extent in Botswana and Zimbabwe. It is an offshoot of several Dutch dialects^[4] spoken by the mainly Dutch settlers of what is now South Africa, where it gradually began to develop independently in the course of the 18th century. Hence, historically, it is a daughter language of Dutch, and was previously referred to as "Cape Dutch" (a term also used to refer collectively to the early Cape settlers) or "kitchen Dutch" (a derogatory term used to refer to Afrikaans in its earlier days).^{[n 2]}
   Differences with Dutch often lie in a more regular morphology, grammar, and spelling of Afrikaans.^{[n 4]} There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages—especially in written form.^{[n 5]}
4. Marriage citizenship test 
   Sample questions from NYT: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/marriage-test/?_r=0
   More sample questions:http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/fiance-marriage-visa-book/chapter13-20.html
5. US Citizenship test - did you pass?
   20 Q's that will be graded: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/03/12546953-could-you-pass-the-us-citizenship-test?lite
   100 Sample Q's:
   http://cltr.co.douglas.nv.us/elections/100questiontest.htm
6. Mr Jones Lyrics meaning - verdict: about a real person (via Wikipedia)
   The primary topic of the song itself is perhaps how two struggling musicians (Duritz and bassist Marty Jones of The Himalayans) "want to be big stars," believing that "when everybody loves me, I will never be lonely." Duritz would later recant these values, and in later concert appearances, "Mr. Jones" was played in a subdued acoustic style, if at all.^[2] On the live CD Across a Wire Duritz changes the lyrics "We all wanna be big, big stars, but we got different reasons for that" to "We all wanna be big, big stars, but then we get second thoughts about that," and "when everybody loves you, sometimes that's just about as funky as you can be" to "when everybody loves you, sometimes that's just about as fucked up as you can be."^[4]
   The song is often interpreted differently. Some believe it is a thinly veiled reference to the protagonist of Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man",^[5] a theory supported by the lyric "I wanna be Bob Dylan, Mr. Jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky." Others^[who?] have suggested that Mr. Jones refers to flamenco guitarist David Serva (Marty Jones's father), although the lyric "she dances while his father plays guitar" seems to suggest Mr Jones' father is another separate character within the song.^{[citation needed]} Another possibility is that Mr. Jones is an imaginary friend, or Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols.^{[citation needed]}
   In a 2013 interview, Duritz explained that the song is named for his friend Marty Jones, but that is about Duritz himself.^[6] "I wrote a song about me, I just happened to be out with him that night," Duritz said. The inspiration for the song came as Duritz and Jones were drunk at a bar after watching Jones' father perform, when they saw Kenney Dale Johnson, longtime drummer for the musician Chris Isaak, sitting with three women. "It just seemed like, you know, we couldn't even manage to talk to girls, but if we'd — you know, we were just thinking if we were rock stars, it'd be easier," Duritz said. "I went home and wrote the song."
7. Black sheep origin? (via wiki)
   In most sheep, a white fleece is not albinism but a dominant gene that actively switches color production off, thus obscuring any other color that may be present.^{[citation needed]} As a result, a black fleece in most sheep is recessive, so if a white ram and a white ewe are each heterozygous for black, in about 25% of cases they will produce a black lamb. In fact in most white sheep breeds only a few white sheep are heterozygous for black, so black lambs are usually much rarer than this.
8. Are penguins monogamous? - Sounds like some are for several seasons.
   Many penguin species are monogamous and may stay with the same mate for several breeding seasons. And penguins make very good parents. Both the male and female care for eggs and chicks.
9. Why do penguins shake their heads? There may be other explanations, but here is an interesting one - penguins were interested in us? (http://www.sciences360.com/index.php/courtship-and-breeding-cycle-of-king-penguins-5224/)
   Despite the fact that mate selection is female choice, the males do display a short courtship behavior to get the attention of the female penguins. Male king penguins will raise their flippers and point their beaks toward the sky in an ecstatic way to catch the eye of one or several females. If a female shows interest, she will stand face to face with the male. Both of them vigorously shake their heads. After this occurs, the male will strut around swinging his head from side to side. Many people refer to this as “the advertising walk” of the male king penguin. After this victorious walk, both the male and female face each other again in a sort of dance by shaking their heads while stretching up and bending down in sync with each other. They will also become vocal as well as clapping their bills together.
10. How do penguins defend themselves?
    To protect themselves from the cold, emperor penguins huddle together in close groups. To protect themselves from killer whales, they depend on their very skillful flippers to swim very quickly, darting back and forth in the water. Because killer whales cannot turn quickly, this gives the penguins an advantage. The penguins quickly head to shore because once they make it to land, they know the whales can't get to them. They don't have much in the way of protection from leopard seals so the only thing the can do is stay alert and remain in a group with other penguins, knowing that the leopard seals will go after any stragglers.
11. What is the type of fruit that reminds me of sweet potato?
    Sapote - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapote
12. Coochie Face song from the musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (get ready to be weirded out)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpxysdGFwyM
13. Why does the default camera vs video on iPhone look different?
    I can't figure it out.

I spent the weekend in strangers' arms.
Many asked if they could do it again.
Many smiled noiselessly.
Many felt music differently from me.
I spent the weekend saying hello and then walking away quietly in the span of 3 minutes and 28 seconds.
We can live a lifetime like this.
We can build a lifetime like this.

1) hello, my name is
2) where are you from?
hold each other.
move with each other.
feel intimate, or don't.
"i'm sorry i hurt you, it was an accident"
pause. or move on.
staccato, or to add a fermata.
"i am sorry, this is too fast for me. perhaps next time."
"could i find you again later?"
"i really enjoyed that. could i dance with you to different music?"
3) are we on the same rhythm? can we coexist to the same rhythm while moving differently?
move quickly, violently.
move slowly, sensually.
improvise. or follow patterns.
fall into habit.
fall into novelty.
try something new. fail.
try again.
fall down.
4) thank you.
5) ...
look for the next one.

I came to, feeling thrilled. I had lost the past three hours. The room was still throbbing with light and sound. I realized I couldn't feel anything below my shins. The first thing I did was turn to my friend and whisper, "it's so hot in here."

She put a glass of water to my lips.

this earth we live on(!)

 we should stay a while.
maybe even find ourselves enjoying it a little.

how to improve any work day: ginger snaps, hot tea, and good music.

I sat on the edge of the luxurious bathtub, watching it fill. We were quiet from an argument after dinner. Something about a tone, and then a look someone gave, and someone got offended, but we don't remember which was which. If you asked us now, it would seem immaterial. I remember silently getting up to get my coat, and stepping out into the unreasonable cold. The icy streets had rendered my leather-soled boots absurd. I wanted to laugh, but even smiles froze before they could get to my face.

The water in the bathtub was too warm. Still, we sat - touching but not really touching since the touching wasn't intentional and it was only a byproduct of the size of the space- in the tub with the roaring jets that sprayed hot water at our backs.  

We made lighthearted conversation about how good it felt, and how soft our skin was from the salts. 

Our hands brushed occasionally. I watched my long hair surf the waves. 

We fell asleep wearing our robes, not touching, but side by side, in front of the fireplace. 

I awoke, groggily, and my stomach felt like it had a fist trying to punch outwards from inside. 

I spent the next twenty four hours prostrate on various surfaces and feeling like dying. Sometimes, I would shuffle to the window and watch the snow. Mostly, I watched various shows that I didn't understand because they were all in French. Even Harry Potter spoke French. Willing my stomach to feel better. 

We held onto the privacy of disappointment. Allowed that to be a place where we hid from each other a little while. You raised your voice once, telling me to stop telling you to go do something else exciting, away from me. Because, you said, it wasn't that I was sick. If I was sick, we were sick. Together. Then you apologized for raising your voice. 

You force fed me some water from my purple water bottle. We ate chicken soup from tin cans and congee that I made. 

An hour before midnight, I woke you up.  Wearing more clothing than I had ever put on at one time in my life, we walked outside. Our bodies, limited by the huge lumps of warm clothes covering them, twisted in funny shapes as we tried to dance with each other in the snowy cold while holding hot beverages. Our gloved hands clumsily clung to each other. Our eyelashes and nosehairs froze as we shook off all the ache from the previous day. As we lifted our eyes, fireworks filled the mountain sky. 

Paula Schargorodsky's 35 and single

here's to not settling!

For a new year's resolution:
"Be the best prisoner you can be." - Chris Huntington for the New York Times

When the battery in my watch died, I still wore it. There was something about the watch that said: It doesn’t matter what time it is. Think in months. Years. Someone loves you. Where are you going? There are some things you will never do. It doesn’t matter. There is no rush. Be the best prisoner you can be.