Author: Stephanie (Page 10 of 25)

Portugal, part one — the Dão wine region: heavy on biking, light on wine.

March 18, 2014 / Stephanie / 1 Comment

This past week, Alastair and I took a vacation to Portugal. It had been on the top of my list of places to visit for years, and since we hadn’t gotten a chance to go while we were in London, as soon as Al got the opportunity for vacation, we took it. (Incidentally, for my insane husband, who has traveled more than anyone I know, Portugal was his 99th country visited. 99th!! We think he’s going to hit 100 this summer when we go to Belize. Like I said: insane (in the membrane)). Anyway, our trip can be neatly divided into three parts: 1) the Dão wine region; 2) Sintra; and 3) Lisbon. So, without further ado, I give you: Portugal, part one: the Dão.

Azulejo, Nelas train station

In the Dão, we hoped to bike through lush vineyards while stopping frequently to taste wine. That was pretty much our entire plan. But, as we soon found out, things would not go exactly to plan.

Making the best of things = kind of our strong suit.

Immediately upon arriving in Portugal, we took a couple of trains from Lisbon to Santa Comba Dão, the tiny town where we’d be staying at an agro-tourism cabin. We have no real interest in agro-tourism, unless you consider drinking large amounts of wine to be agro-tourism, but the place we were staying, Quinta da Abelenda, advertised that it was situated near a bunch of vineyards, and it rented out bikes, so it sounded perfect for our purposes. We pictured ourselves biking idly along country roads, stopping every couple of kilometers to booze it up in some beautiful vineyard. I had a really clear vision of us laughing over a baguette and clinking wine glasses in a sun-dappled meadow. What a fool I was!

Quinta da Fata

We arrived in Santa Comba Dão quite late at night and went to bed as soon as we got in, after lighting the cozy wood stove in the cabin. The next morning, we were eager to get a move on our wine adventure, so we asked the proprietor of the establishment what route we should take. He seemed utterly baffled by the idea that visitors to the well-known wine region in which he owns tourist lodgings would be interested in tasting wine. He literally — literally — scratched his head with confusion and told us that it would perhaps be possible, in some theoretical sense of the word, to taste wine, in the same way that going to Jupiter is possible. But he didn’t have any clear ideas on how we would go about doing it.

Wood stove in our cabin

We decided, since we had gotten a late start on the day, to just try for a full day of wine tasting the next day, and take the bikes out instead, assuming that we’d pass at least a few wineries along the way. Our cabin was situated along the Ecopista do Dão, a paved biking and walking path that stretches ~50 km (~30 miles) from Santa Comba Dão to the bustling city of Vizeu. So we set off on our bikes for a leisurely journey.

Fifty kilometers and zero wineries later, we were crabby, sore, hot, starving, and thirsty. We walked our bikes around Vizeu, a pretty disappointing town, considering the vast effort expended to get there, until we found a restaurant, where we shoved food into our mouths like urchins. When it was time to go, I found that my butt was actually too tender from the last three hours of biking in jeans to remount a bike, so we found a bus to take us back to Santa Comba Dão. After quite a to-do involving taking the wheels and the handlebars off the bikes so that they’d fit in the hold of the bus, and then struggling to put everything back together again once we arrived at our destination, we sighed with relief to be back in Santa Comba Dão, butts intact. However, we found that the bus had dropped us off quite far from the cabin, and since I physically could ride no more, we had to walk our bikes several miles back to the cabin, as it was getting dark. Then we got lost. I think the low point was walking our bikes in the pitch dark along the side of a highway, semis and cars roaring by us, with no clear idea of where the hell we were. I should also add that we were hungry, I was cold, and, as I’ve already mentioned, my butt hurt. Not my finest moment.

Ecopista path

The next day, we awoke with renewed vigor, determined to go wine tasting if it killed us. Long story short: the Dão did not feel like opening its welcoming arms to two eager wine tourists, and we were stymied at every turn. Long story long: We took a train to a town called Nelas, where we had heard that there might be wineries that actually allow people to taste their wines. After fruitlessly driving around in a taxi and passing several wineries, none of which were open, we finally made it to Quinta da Fata, a beautiful winery that, lo and behold, had wine available for tasting! [Cue heavenly choir!]

Lemon tree at Quinta da Fata

Although Quinta da Fata does not do traditional “tastings,” the bottles are very cheap (and very good!), so they encourage people to just buy a bottle and sit outside to drink it. So we did that, and it was lovely. The woman who owns the place was very kind and gave us an extensive tour of the winemaking facilities, the house, and the bed and breakfast, all of which were empty when we were there. After sitting in the sun, admiring the view, and sipping some wine, we left feeling optimistic about our prospects for finding other nice wineries in the area. That optimism ended up being misplaced, because the next place we went, while open, told us they couldn’t do a tasting because the wines “weren’t the right temperature” (huh?), so we just bought a couple of bottles and took the train back to Santa Comba Dão, accepting defeat.

Tiled bench at Quinta da Fata

That evening, we sat out on our porch at the cabin, admired the horses, dogs, chickens, and cats that came to say olá, drank some of the wine we had bought, ate prosciutto and sheep’s cheese, and read. Here’s a fairly uneventful (but short) video of what our evening looked like.

Once we accepted that we were not going to have the wine tasting experience we had anticipated, a burden was lifted, in a way, and we felt free to enjoy just sitting around and watching the world go by. I think there’s some sort of life lesson in there, about keeping expectations low, not trying to plan everything, going with the flow, and so on. Lesson learned, I guess. I think we had such high expectations for wine tasting in Portugal because we had done a similar thing in the Wachau Valley of Austria in 2010 and it was magical. As I recall, everything was easy and charming and boozy and fun. But actually, re-reading my blog post from that trip, I see now that a similar thing happened then, in which our expectations, at least at first, did not meet reality, and we had to adjust. Lots of the wineries were closed, we were turned away by an angry ogre at one of them, and it poured rain on us as we were biking. I had sort of forgotten about all of that. I guess it’s easy to forget mishaps in the past because they all get lost in the fond haze of vacation nostalgia.

Overall, though, the Dão was beautiful and relaxing. We did eventually taste some nice wines, and I’ll never forget our cozy cabin with the wood stove and friendly horses. I’m calling it a success!

Next post: Portugal, part 2: Sintra.

My virtual life

February 25, 2014 / Stephanie / 1 Comment

Something disturbing happened to me earlier today, and I didn’t know how to explain it to my husband without it sounding at best, frivolous, and at worst, narcissistic. Nonetheless, I called him at work and tried not to sound as upset as I was.

“Al,” I said, “I just accidentally deleted all of my Twitter activity from my Facebook wall.”

There was a silence while Al tried to figure out how to react to this bombshell. “Oh no,” he said. “Sorry?” (He’s pretty good at guessing the right responses to things).

I explained to him that I was so upset about it because I had linked my Twitter account to my Facebook account years ago, which meant that 99% of all content I had ever posted on Facebook had actually been posted via Twitter. Thus, when I accidentally deleted all of my Twitter activity from Facebook, I deleted a huge online record of my life. And this, it turned out, was upsetting. Al consoled me as best he could, telling me that maybe the posts were salvageable (turns out, they weren’t). After that, there was really nothing more he could say. The record of my online activity was gone, and I had to accept it. Man.

After scouring through my Facebook wall, I realized that I had only deleted all of my posts since July 2013 — so, only the last seven months of my online life. But those last seven months had contained so much! My entire time in London: gone. All of the articles and essays that had spoken to me: gone. And, the real tragedy, all of the funny jokes I had made: gone. Gone with the virtual wind!

I felt strangely bereft about this, and then, right on cue, felt guilty for being so self-obsessed. On the surface, losing seven months of one’s searing witticisms (and, more importantly, one’s friends’ reactions to said searing witticisms) should not be a big deal, unless one is a huge, self-involved narcissist. Which I’m totally not, I SWEAR. But I am a writer, and my Twitter feed, which was broadcast to a more personal audience via my Facebook, was, in a way, a body of my written work, however fluffy and silly it was. And, more importantly, it was a conversation between me and people who know me (and who care enough to comment on the stuff I put on social media). Yes, the Twitter feed itself still exists (on Twitter, no less), but the mingling of my Twitter posts with my friends’ reactions on my Facebook wall is gone forever. There were some really good debates, funny back-and-forths, and challenging discussions on that Facebook wall, and now they’re lost. Which begs the question: if a social media exchange falls into the internet hole and no one’s there to re-read it, did it make a sound? Did it ever even happen?

[Side note: I realize that I’m not doing a great job at making the case that I’m not a giant narcissist, but you’ll have to take my word for it. And plus, aren’t we all a bit narcissistic online? Part of the fun of social media is having one’s own wit and good cheer reflected back at one through the validation of one’s social networks. Right? Or is that just me?]

In any case, I’m not sure why I find this experience so unsettling. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that, to speak in terribly broad cliches for just a moment, a large chunk of my life really is lived online. I work at home, by myself, and I’m a writer. Throughout the day, I interact with the world by sharing my thoughts (and, if I dare, my feelings) with people online, some of whom I know personally, some of whom I know virtually, and some of whom I know not at all. Those interactions are then preserved in the amber of the internet, most prominently through my Facebook wall. Some people, especially people of my parents’ generation and older, find this concept horrifying, that one’s personal conversations, thoughts, and feelings could be captured on the Internet for all to see, potentially forever (or at least until the grid goes down), but I find it comforting. I can go back to my wall posts from four, five, seven, even ten years ago, and see what my friends and I were talking about, or what movie I had seen, or what book I had read. It’s all there, whether I remember it or not. It’s both a personal reminder of what I’ve gotten up to, and a specimen that’s been polished and presented for public consumption.

Whether all of this archival of my personal life is a good thing or a bad thing is, I suppose, up for debate, but I don’t find that debate to be particularly interesting, mostly because I tend to be, if not judicious, at least mindful about what I post online. If I share a tweet on my Facebook wall, generally, it’s because I think my friends will enjoy it, and I don’t tend to post particularly controversial or revealing things on social media. I’m old enough and (sort of) wise enough — or, at least, experienced enough with social media — at this point not to post anything that will later embarrass me or prevent me from holding public office (I think). And if the NSA wants to read my Facebook wall, I find it hard to get worked up about it. Yes, in theory, it’s scary to think about strangers having access to my social media offerings, but in another way, it’s kind of flattering. I mean, is it so wrong that I hope the NSA thinks I’m funny?

I guess it all boils down to the fact Facebook has been a deeply ingrained part of my life for the last decade (literally). I signed up for Facebook in March 2004, as a senior in college, and I’ve been using it consistently ever since. I’m an active and enthusiastic user, although I’ve adapted and polished the way I use it over the years (for example: I now post far fewer photos than I used to and look at far fewer people’s actual profiles). A large part of Facebook’s role in my life has been as a type of online repository for my memories: an interactive scrapbook filled with photos, videos, discussions, greetings, and jokes. It was always available for me to page back through whenever I was in need of a nostalgia boost. Losing seven months of that scrapbook is not the end of the world, of course, but it’s a little sad. I wish I were one of those aloof, “Oh, I never check Facebook; I’m too busy bicycling around North America” people, but I’m not. I’m someone who enjoys and appreciates social media in my own life and I rely on it to always be available to me. It’s disturbing to see how easily this record of my life online can vanish, and how utterly unable I am to piece it back together without the aid of the internet.

Maybe the solution is that I start writing in a diary, or composing old-fashioned pen-and-ink letters to my friends, or taking photos with a non-digital camera and developing them in a dark room. Or maybe the solution is just to accept that I can’t rely on an external service to preserve my memories for me. Or maybe I just need to take a step back and realize that my stupid tweets are not as interesting or important as I think they are. Or maybe it’s all of the above. For now, though, I’ll stick to shaking my fist at the sky and cursing Mark Zuckerberg, whose fault all of this is, anyway.

Happy tweeting and Facebooking to you all. Hug your tweets close tonight.

My ancestry

February 10, 2014 / Stephanie / 2 Comments

For Christmas a few years ago, Al got me a 23andMe genetic testing kit. I let it languish on the shelf until this past Christmas when I was back in San Francisco, when I finally got up the nerve to spit into a container and send it in to their lab. I had been avoiding it because I had convinced myself that the results would state clearly that I was a genetic ticking timebomb and then I’d never be able to unsee all the weird diseases I was no doubt carrying. (Some say that I have a bit of a tendency toward hypochondria, but let me go check WebMD). Several months later, I finally got the results of my genetic testing, which have been absolutely fascinating.

In case you’re not familiar, 23andMe is a company that does personal DNA mapping. For about $100, you can have all 23 of your chromosomes mapped and receive a wealth of information about your ancestry and your health (traits, risks, and so on). However, recently the FDA passed a totally BS ruling that prevents 23andMe from distributing health reports to its customers, so if you buy a kit now, you won’t receive detailed health reports, only ancestry information. The FDA decision didn’t apply to me since Al had gotten me the kit before the decision came down, so I got both detailed health reports and information about my ancestry.

While the health stuff was interesting for me (and a big relief, since I’m not a carrier for any of the horrifying genetic disorders they test for, despite my fatalistic attitude), the ancestry information was much more surprising. Here are some of the most jaw-dropping things I’ve learned about my genes.

1. I’m 5.8% East Asian/Native American. Within that breakdown, 4.1% is Native American, and 1.7% is “nonspecific East Asian and Native American.” The Native American bit is actually Native Mexican, since my grandfather was Mexican-American. However, while I knew intellectually that Pop had Aztec blood, I didn’t realize how much; according to these numbers, a quarter of his genes must have been ethnically indigenous. Wow!

My great-aunt, Mary Rivero, 1915. This photo probably should have been my first clue that I had some Native American ancestry.

It’s funny; I feel like every American wants to be part Native American (there was a great Happy Endings episode about this where Dave discovers he’s 1/16 Navajo and starts wearing a fringed jacket out of respect). But personally, I think it’s pretty badass to be part Aztec. My people were ripping still-beating hearts out of chests before it was cool. Also, they built huge temples and invented face knives, so, you know, that’s pretty sweet.

2. I’m .3% Sub-Saharan African, .2% of which is specifically West-African. This is a real head-scratcher. My dad, my husband, and I all came up with theories about where this Sub-Saharan ancestry is coming from, but we actually have NO idea, given what we know about my family history. To my knowledge, there weren’t a lot of Sub-Saharan Africans hanging around in Ireland, Mexico, or Italy, the places where my genes most recently hail from. For a second, we thought maybe it had to do with the Moors conquering Spain and then the Spanish going on to Mexico, but the genetic report is pretty clear that I have no North African or Middle Eastern ancestry, so that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Now, obviously, I want both of my parents to map their genes so we can see whether the African blood is coming from my dad or my mom’s side. Given my parents’ respective melanin content, I’m gonna take a wild stab and guess it’s coming from my mom’s side, but one never knows.

My mom IS super tan.

3. I’m 87.6% European, 40.7% of which is Northern European, 12.1% is Southern European, and 34.9% of which is “nonspecific European.” The European piece of my ancestry isn’t that surprising (especially considering that I have two European-born grandparents) but the more specific breakdown of the ancestry is kind of interesting, because even though my dad’s mom is from Abruzzo, Italy, only 2.5% of my genes are Italian. I guess this means that my Italian grandmother wasn’t purely ethnically Italian, which makes sense given Italy’s history and demographics. Guess I can stop taking credit for all of those Roman aqueducts now.

4. I’m 2.9% Neanderthal. And yes, that’s on the high end (80th percentile, to be exact). My husband is gleeful about the fact that I am, as he puts it, “2.9% beast,” but I find it a bit unsettling. According to 23andMe, “traces of [Neanderthal] DNA — between 1 percent and 4 percent — are found in all modern humans outside of Africa.” At least I’m not 4% Neanderthal. I told my husband that, given my ethnic background and now this Neanderthal business, I could have fared MUCH worse in the body hair department. And I have no noticeable brow ridge!

So, this has all been very interesting for me. Have you done DNA testing or genetic mapping? Did you find out anything cool?

Soundtrack to my life, part 3: kicking ass and taking names

February 6, 2014 / Stephanie / 0 Comments

When I set out to imagine the soundtrack to the many moods and experiences of my life, initially I figured I’d better include a list of my favorite relaxing music (because there are certain songs and even albums that will put me into a medical-grade coma if I listen to them long enough — hi, Sarah McLachlan’s Surfacing), but then I realized that sharing my chill-out playlist would be boring and self-indulgent and decided to just skip straight ahead to a list of songs that make me feel powerful (so — just self-indulgent). So here, in no particular order, are ten songs that make me want to stride forth into the world and take it by the lapels, or whatever.

1. “Telephone,” by Lady Gaga and Beyoncé. Everything about this song screams lady empowerment. The lyrics are about how Lady Gaga and Beyoncé are sick of your insistent phone calls, everyone. They’re too busy out in da club sippin’ dat bub (I think?) to bother picking up their phones so just give it a rest, okay? This song allows me to imagine what it would be like if I were wildly popular and pursued by many admirers. I think I’d enjoy it. Also, it must be said that the beat is amazing, especially when you’re working out and your energy is starting to flag. This will perk you right up!

2. “Walk Away,” by Kelly Clarkson. I unabashedly love Kelly Clarkson. She is one of the few American Idols that have not been an embarrassment to our country (looking at you, Taylor Hicks). Her songs are consistently catchy and I particularly love the ones where she gets a little sassy. “Walk Away” is one of those.

3. “Burn It Down,” by AWOLNATION. I first heard this song, appropriately enough, on an episode of Sons of Anarchy, during one of that show’s many high stakes motorcycle chase scenes. And that pretty much sums up the tone of the song, which is sort of shout-y and involves clapping, enthusiastic drums, and inscrutable lyrics that I think might be referring to some weird sex thing (but I’m cool with it).

4. “Titanium” by David Guetta, feat. Sia. First of all, I’m a big Sia fan. In case you’re not familiar, she is weird as hell and all of her videos give me the creeps, but dang, lady’s got a pair of pipes on her. This particular song was really popular when I lived in South Africa, and I used to listen to it while working out at my shitty Joburg gym along with some scarily muscled Afrikaans dudes and a smattering of old ladies. With lyrics like “You shoot me down, but I won’t fall; I am titanium,” it’s kind of hard not to get pumped up while listening to it, am I right?

5. “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” by U2. Even though “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” my all-time favorite U2 song, is about resisting violence and promoting peace in the face of the misery of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, something about it makes me want to strap on a gun and march into battle. Any battle! I know that’s not the point of the song — in fact, it’s the opposite of the point of the song — but that infectious, warlike drumbeat — who can resist it?

6. “The Distance,” by Cake. Here’s the thing about Cake: you either love ’em, or you hate ’em. Me? I love ’em. Like I said in my last post, I’m a sucker for a good horns section. “The Distance” not only has horns, but it has special meaning for me because it was my high school cross-country team’s pump-up song one year, and what a pump-up song it was! (Incidentally, my own personal pump-up song for the last two years of high school track — and please don’t judge me for this — was Sisqo’s “The Thong Song.” To this day, whenever I hear “The Thong Song,” I want to go run 3200 m. as fast as I can).

7. “Forgot About Dre,” by Dr. Dre and Eminem. I probably shouldn’t like this song, since it has zero relevance to my life and, now that I think of it, zero relevance to probably to 99.9% of humanity’s lives. It’s pretty much only relevant to Dr. Dre’s life. But what can I say? I have a soft spot for Eminem (Detroit, what), despite his many flaws. Plus, this song includes some of my favorite rap lyrics ever (despite the poor grammar involved): “So where’s all the mad rappers at? It’s like a jungle in this habitat. But all you savage cats knew that I was strapped with gats when you were cuddling a Cabbage Patch.” Bless Dr. Dre’s heart for finding a way to incorporate both Cabbage Patch dolls AND gats into one phrase!

8. “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” by Dropkick Murphys. I lived in Boston (okay, Cambridge — lay off me!) for three years and while I lived there, I used to take this amazing spinning class at the law school rec center. The instructor, a real Boston girl, would always play this song during the hardest part of the workout and, needless to say, everyone loved it. It’s catchy AND motivational: imagining a sailor looking for his leg (which he lost climbing up the topsails, by the way) really puts the difficulty of a tough spinning class into perspective. “At least I have both my legs,” I’d always think to myself. “Things aren’t so bad.”

9. “Mala Gente,” by Juanes. I wasn’t kidding about being a big Juanes fan. “Mala Gente” is from that same life-changing album as “Luna,” Un Día Normal. “Mala Gente” (“Bad People”) is about Juanes telling a lying woman to take a hike, and also letting her know she sucks. It’s very satisfying.

10. “A Quien Le Importa?” by Thalía. The title of this song translates as “Who cares?” As the title suggests, it’s a ballad about not giving an eff about what people think, and it rocks. Thalía (Mexican pop goddess and wife of Tommy Mottola) has a bunch of great songs (one of which, “Seducción,” has been my ringtone for, like, seven years) but this one is the most kick-ass of them all. Lyrics include: “My destiny is what I choose,” and “I’m this way, I’ll continue to be this way, and I’ll never change.” Go girl!

Well, looking back on this list, I can say with some confidence that it’s totally random and arbitrary. However, every one of these songs, in its own way, pumps me up. What are your favorite blood-pumping ballads? And am I the only one who has that perverse reaction to “Sunday, Bloody Sunday?” Does anyone else like Cake? Let me know.

Soundtrack to my life, part 2: joy

January 31, 2014 / Stephanie / 3 Comments

My last post on the soundtrack to my life was all about the angst. And while I love Alanis Morrisette as much as the next thirty-one year-old, there is a time (turn, turn, turn) to every season (turn, turn, turn), and so forth, and so now it’s time for a little joy (and pain — sunshine — and rain). [Editor’s note: I have recently diagnosed myself with a disease where I can’t write a sentence without inappropriately inserting song lyrics. It comes and goes.] ANYWAY. In this installment of my life soundtrack blog, I want to focus on the opposite of angst: pure, unadulterated joy. There are certain songs, you see, that I can put on and know that my mood will be boosted. These songs are either great fun to sing along with, or they remind me of a specific, happy time in my life, or they just have infectious, happy-making tunes — or sometimes, all three of the above. Here, then, are ten songs, in no particular order, that never fail to make me smile.

1. “It’s A Great Day To Be Alive,” by Travis Tritt. This was my freshman year dorm’s theme song (what up, Otero 2001-2002?!) and it speaks for itself. If you’re not a country music fan, I ask you to listen to this song and make an exception. Also: name me one other song that involves not one, not two, but THREE full-throated howls (“oww-oooooo!”) followed by banjo interludes? Other reasons to love this song: it references microwave rice, homemade soup, Harleys, Fu Man Chu beards, and the word “goofy.” TRY NOT TO LOVE THIS SONG. I dare you.

2. “There’s Too Much Love,” by Belle & Sebastian. As I mentioned in my last post, this is my “jaunty walking song.” If this song comes on in my earphones while I am walking, you best believe things are getting jaunty. There’s just something about the melody and instrumentation of this song that is like catnip to me. I think it’s the strings. (By the way: if you’re listening to this song for the first time, by all means, make sure you wait until the strings kick in). God, I love a good strings section! But while we’re talking about Belle & Sebastian, they have a whole catalog of really cheery-sounding songs that just perk me right up. Try “Sukie in the Graveyard,” “Funny Little Frog,” or “The Blues Are Still Blue.”

3. “Já Sei Namorar,” by Tribalistas. You can’t spend any amount of time in Brazil and not come out of it with a profound appreciation for Tribalistas, a Brazilian super-group/collaboration of three already famous singers. They only produced one album but dang, it was a good one. “Já Sei Namorar” (which means “I already know how to love”) is one of the best on the album and it is catchy as heck. If you’ve ever been to any gathering at my house, you’ve probably heard this song on in the background, because it’s perfect for any occasion, and it’s nearly impossible to feel bummed out while listening to it.

Tribalistas

4. “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” by Whitney Houston. First of all, RIP, Whitney. Second of all, this song makes me want to dance — like, REALLY dance — every single time I hear it. Including now. And the video is awesome (Whitney’s neon make-up and crimped hair!! I miss her).

5. “Australia,” by The Shins. I listened to this song on repeat when I was taking a break from studying for the California Bar Exam. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, let me assure you that I needed a heavy duty dose of happy to pull me out of the self-pitying misery that defined my bar-studying experience. I used to put a CD with this song on in the car when I drove to and from my yoga class (the other thing that kept me sane that summer) and totally rock out.

6. “Luna,” by Juanes. Maybe I should start a separate list of my favorite peppy Latin songs, but that could take all day, so I’ll confine myself to just a few. Juanes, in case you’re not familiar, is a pop sensation (and all-around good person) from Colombia. I first discovered his music in 2003, when I was studying abroad in Chile and his album Un Día Normal was being played non-stop everywhere in Santiago. My friends and I all jumped on the Juanes bandwagon and never got off. I recall standing in one of my friends’ teeny-tiny bedrooms in her host family’s house and blasting this song, “Luna,” over and over, while shrieking the lyrics at each other. Good times. (Our host families loved us.)

7. “Would I Lie To You?” by Charles & Eddie. This song makes me smile every time I hear it because it reminds me of hanging out with my high school best friend, Rachel, driving around and singing along to this, one of the stupidest of songs ever produced. Yet, you have to admit, there’s something catchy about it — maybe it’s all the “woo!”s? Also, if you can get through the video without laughing, you are a stronger man than I.

8. “Mi Primer Millon,” by Bacilos. Okay, I know this list is Latin-heavy, but come on, there’s a reason for this. And that reason is HORNS. I love a good horn section almost as much as I love a good string section, and “Mi Primer Millon” (“My First Million”) has the horns covered. For those who speaka da Spanish, the lyrics are really fun (I always sing along to the line, “Tranquila, querida, Paulina solo es una amiga“), and for those who don’t speak Spanish, it doesn’t matter. This song is great and undeniably joyful.

9. “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise,” by The Avett Brothers. Oh, The Avett Brothers: marry me! (Kidding – sort of). This may not be the peppiest song on the list, but I find it uplifting, soothing, and, most importantly, sing-along-able.

10. “California Love,” by 2Pac and Dr. Dre. No explanation needed. Okay, fine: I love so many things about this song. I love that it involves rapping AND singing, and I rap and sing along with it, well aware that I sound like a jackass when I say things like “ever since honeys was wearin’ Sassoon,” especially since I don’t actually know what that means. But listen, I lived in California for a few years, and I feel justified in loving this song unreservedly and letting out my secret West Coast rapper whenever it comes on. RIP, 2Pac. (Also, just because: my favorite Chapelle show sketch of all time.)

Obviously, I have a lot more happy-making songs on my playlist, but these ten are near the top of the list. Stay tuned for my future installments, including songs to chill to, songs for romance, and songs for kicking ass and taking names.

Soundtrack to my life, part 1: angst

January 24, 2014 / Stephanie / 1 Comment

Like any narcissist, I often dream about the movie that will inevitably be made of my life. I don’t focus on which actor would play me (although, let’s be real, Jamie Lynn Sigler could use the work), but I do tend to fantasize heavily about the soundtrack. When I think about the soundtrack to my life, I don’t try to connect songs to particular scenes that I’ve lived (since most of the foundational moments of my life were not, as it turns out, set to music), but I match specific songs to moods that I’ve experienced or general feelings that I’ve had. So, for example, my happy, jaunty walking song will always and forever be Belle and Sebastian’s “There’s Too Much Love.” Listen to this song and try NOT to walk jauntily. It’s impossible.

Since there are so many songs that I love and that figure prominently into any dramatic rendering of my emotional life, it won’t do to try to sum them all up in one post. So let’s just start with the most fun: the angsty songs — you know, the songs you listen to when you just want a good wallow. Sometimes I listen to angsty songs when I’m in a good mood, just to feel superior (it’s like Schadenfreude). So, here, in no particular order, are ten (plus a couple of extras) essential, angsty, life soundtrack songs.

1. My go-to, moody, blissfully sad, self-indulgently angsty song: “Goodnight L.A.” by Counting Crows. Counting Crows is one of my all-time favorite bands. They’re up there with The Beatles. They’re geniuses, and I won’t hear anyone say a word against them. My cousin Catie and I actually joined the Counting Crows fan club as high schoolers and we used to blast August and Everything After and This Desert Life (and yes, Recovering The Satellites, although it’s not their best work, in my humble opinion) every time we were together. Adam Duritz’s beautiful, ragged voice is present throughout a large chunk of the soundtrack to my teenage years. “Goodnight L.A.,” however, is off of the album Hard Candy, which came out in 2002, and which I listened to heavily during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. Hard Candy, for me, in some ways signaled the beginning of the end for Counting Crows. It included their awful, plasticene cover of “Big Yellow Taxi” (ugh), and although a lot of the songs on the album were good, only a few moved me. “Goodnight L.A.,” though, is perfect. The melody is gorgeous and the lyrics are pure, old-school, poetic Adam Duritz (“So I put my head on the ground, and the sky is a wheel” kills me every time). Whenever I’m feeling like I want to wallow in loneliness or angst without going full Elliott Smith, I put on this song. It’s wonderful.

Counting Crows: angst kings

2. My other go-to angsty song: [Insert any Sarah McLachlan song here]. Oh, Sarah: I love you. So much. Here’s the thing: Sarah McLachlan has the voice of a Canadian angel, and her lyrics are so lovely and heartfelt. If I had to pick one song out of her catalog to be my go-to angst song, I’d probably have to go with “Elsewhere.” It’s slightly churchy in its arrangement and harmonization, the lyrics are great (yet inscrutable), and it’s angsty while still being soothing. You could totally take a nap to this song. A sad nap.

3. My angsty-with-banjos song: “Maybe,” by Allison Krauss. I seem to recall listening to a lot of sad country songs when I was a freshman in college, when EVERY moment in my life held what felt like great emotional import, and I was surrounded by people from Texas: so, a perfect storm of banjo angst. Allison Krauss and her sad, sad voice (lady always sounds like she’s about to burst into tears) was delicious during these moments.

4. My angsty-in-love-in-my-head song: This song hasn’t really applied to my life since I was in college, but I used to listen to Guster’s “Either Way” and just feel like it was speaking to me, about my actual life, even though I never had a real boyfriend until I was out of college and spent most of college pining after people who did not return the feeling. I was basically Noel from Felicity. Anyway, from its first notes, “Either Way” just captures the feeling of delicious misery of having one’s heart stomped upon as a young, impressionable person. It’s hard not to listen to this song, with its sad violins and sad piano, and not immediately picture my freshman year dorm room and its chili lights hanging over the bunk bed. I love it! (Runner up: “Only In Dreams,” by Weezer. Oof.)

5. My so-depressing-you-can’t-even-take-it-seriously song: “Talk Show Host,” by Radiohead. It’s Radiohead. Enough said. (Runner up: “Karma Police.”)

6. My slightly drunk, angsty song: “Wildflowers,” by Ryan Adams. I say “slightly drunk” to be generous to Mr. Adams, who once fell off a stage during a concert. I’ve seen Ryan Adams twice in concert, and he was visibly intoxicated both times, but do you think that stopped him from singing and playing the harmonica, the guitar, and the piano, sometimes all at once? Hell, no. The man’s a dynamo (and I think he’s been clean and sober for quite a while now — hat-tip to the sobering presence of Mandy Moore).

7. My late-nights-working-at-the-law-firm sad song: “The Sword and the Pen,” by Regina Spektor. Used to play this one a lot past midnight while sitting in front of a glowing computer screen.

8. My favorite angsty cover song: Bon Iver’s cover of “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” Holy crap. Shivers.

9. My saudade brasileira song: “É Isso Aí,” by Ana Carolina, with Seu Jorge. This is set to the same tune as Damien Rice’s “The Blower’s Daughter,” which is pretty angsty in its own right, but there’s something about the acoustic guitar and Ana Carolina’s husky voice that makes this version even better. Brazilians are known for being happy and upbeat, but they’re also experts at saudade, the feeling of longing or nostalgia for the past, or for a place or person far away. This song pretty much nails saudade.

10. My obligatory Ben Folds angst song: “We’re Still Fighting It.” I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a Ben Folds song on an angsty music list. The guy’s like a teenage girl trapped in an adult male body. I adore his music, and a lot of his songs capture specific life moments. “We’re Still Fighting It” is about growing up, and a relationship between a parent and child. It’s sad, but ultimately hopeful. And it still gives me chills when I listen to it.

So! Everyone feeling nice and angsty now? What are your favorite sad, wallowy songs? I’m sure I’m missing some gems here, but I wanted to keep the list relatively short so as not to overwhelm. Happy/angsty listening!

Unpacking

January 19, 2014 / Stephanie / 2 Comments

I’m writing from my new apartment in DC where, for the past 48 hours, I’ve been a virtual whirlwind of activity: unpacking and breaking down and throwing away boxes, putting away clothes and shoes and dishes and glasses and books, directing movers, getting groceries, doing laundry, driving, walking, scurrying — yes, there has been a lot of scurrying going on.

Putting away dishes is strangely satisfying.

And now, 48 hours after repatriating, all of my furniture is in my apartment, I have an internet connection, and the majority of the stuff is put away. The apartment, which 48 hours earlier was an empty series of rooms, finally feels like the place where I live. Now all that’s missing is Al, who’s coming back from the UK next weekend, and the belongings we shipped from South Africa, which are going through customs at the moment. Whew!

My moving process involved wine and Felicity on DVD.

Finally settling into an apartment that’s ours — not a corporate apartment, or a hotel, or some other form of short-term housing — has made me feel very happy. It’s also energized me practically to the point of mania (hence, the scurrying), which only began to peter out this afternoon, after I finished color-coding my bookshelves. Tomorrow, I think I’ll start to settle into my life outside the walls of my apartment: I’m trying out a new yoga studio, going to the Walmart a couple of blocks away, and having dinner and drinks with friends.

It feels good to be back.

Book review Monday: The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

January 13, 2014 / Stephanie / 0 Comments

Programming note: book reviews are back on Mondays (for now), as my Tuesdays will henceforth be consumed by blogging about The Bachelor over at Previously.TV (you can check out my posts here).

I’m a big fan of Donna Tartt — really, as big a fan as one can be of an author who has only produced three novels. I thought both of her first two books were brilliant: both The Secret History and The Little Friend were well-crafted, chilling, and un-put-downable. So, I was really excited to read Tartt’s latest effort, The Goldfinch. Since I’m an enthusiastic fan of her work, I dove into The Goldfinch without even bothering to read its flap-copy, let alone a review. Unlike how I approached Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings, I went into this thing completely blind, and I’m glad I did. The Goldfinch is one of those books with a twisty, turn-y plot that’s more enjoyable if you have no sense of what to expect; it’s like a haunted house ride, and you’re constantly waiting for the next ghost to pop out of nowhere and give you a thrill.

The barebones plot summary of the book is as follows: thirteen year-old Theo Decker and his mother are wandering through a museum in New York City when a terrorist’s bomb is detonated. Theo survives, and — for reasons that are a bit complicated to go into here — walks away from the scene with an exceedingly rare painting, Carel Fabritius’s The Goldfinch, in his possession. The novel then follows Theo from his early teenage years into adulthood, tracing his wild, unstable trajectory as he’s bounced from house to house, state to state, country to country, and his increasingly precarious situation as an international art thief. Even though the novel is a hefty 755 pages long, the plot moves — and changes — so quickly, that you understand why Tartt expended so much ink capturing the many facets of Theo’s story.

As always, Tartt’s writing is impeccable. The characters, like real people, are colorful, yet sympathetic, understandable, and yet essentially mysterious. Theo, as the narrator, is complex and multi-dimensional. At various times, I felt sorry for him, was annoyed by him, rooted for him, and wanted him to fail. Tartt masterfully develops the jarring conflict between Theo’s inner life — one wracked by guilt and self doubt — and his seemingly confident and respectable outer life. Other characters are also given their own layers; although there are a few stock characters thrown in (Kitsey and Andy spring to mind), most of the main characters seem like real people, with their good sides and bad sides, noble impulses and cowardices.

One of the characters who plays a major role in the story is Hobie, the proprietor of an antiques shop whose life and livelihood eventually become intertwined with Theo’s. Although Hobie was one of the few characters — perhaps the only character — in the story who seemed to have no human failings apart from a few mild eccentricities, I enjoyed Tartt’s descriptions of him nonetheless. I particularly loved this passage:

By contrast Hobie lived and wafted like some great sea mammal in his own mild atmosphere, the dark brown of tea stains and tobacco, where every clock in the house said something different and time didn’t actually correspond to the standard measure but instead meandered along at its own sedate tick-tock, obeying the pace of his antique-crowded backwater, far from the factory-built, epoxy-glued version of the world. Though he enjoyed going out to the movies, there was no television; he read old novels with marbled end papers; he didn’t own a cell phone; his computer, a prehistoric IBM, was the size of a suitcase and useless.

Now, a small complaint. As gifted as Tartt is as creating marvelous, complex, interesting characters, her ear for dialogue seems, to me, to be fundamentally off. The characters in this book are so real, and yet they don’t talk like real people — or, at least, not like real people in this century. For example, Kitsey, a love interest, is supposed to be a young, modern woman in her mid-twenties living in present-day Manhattan, and interested in fashion and parties and glamour. Yet she sounds as if she was plucked from a Connecticut estate in the 1940s. She says things like, “Really? Are you sure it’s all right? We none of us drink it — Daddy always ordered this kind…” and, “Do say, Theo, I know you must prefer one of the two.” Similarly, Theo, as a teenager in the mid-2000s, said, in one passage, “Say, you ought to try one of these peppermints.” Say? What kind of old-timey teenagers has Donna Tartt been hanging around with, if this is her impression of how young people talk? I often found the dialogue to be so jarring that it took me right out of the story, and made me wonder whether Tartt wrote this novel from inside of a time machine.

My only other complaint about this book was the finish. Without giving too much away, things get pretty neatly tied up by the end in a way that felt out-of-step with the rest of the story, which was consistently wild and unpredictable and chaotic. Also, at the very end of the book, Theo, the narrator, spends a long time pondering the meaning of life, death, and art in a way that I didn’t find particularly engaging. I understand that Tartt was trying to imbue the story with greater meaning, but I don’t think a soliloquy was necessary. On the contrary, I think Theo’s relationship throughout the book with The Goldfinch in particular and with art in general spoke for itself, and didn’t need to be elaborated quite so explicitly at the end of the novel.

Despite my little complaints about the book, overall, it was a great read, and Tartt’s writing is astonishing. As a writer, I appreciate her exceptional ability to cast otherwise mundane objects, moments, and feelings in a meaningful light. I recommend this book for other Tartt fans, for those looking for a long but engaging read, and for those interested in fiction involving art.

Lessons from 2013

January 1, 2014 / Stephanie / 1 Comment

It’s the last day of 2013 and I feel as if I should write a post reflecting upon the year: the places I went, the lessons I learned, the ways I grew. But quite honestly, to quote Sweet Brown, ain’t nobody got time for that. Plus, I already did one of those posts, way back in October. And all of the stuff I said in my earlier post still applies: I still like routine, I still like putting things away in drawers, I still hate getting rejected. So today, I’d like to add just a few additional (and surprising) things I’ve learned over this past year of living abroad, moving constantly, and trying new things.

1. Writing takes perseverance.

I’ve said this one before, and I’ll keep saying it, if only to remind myself that this writing thing isn’t meant to be easy. When I started off on my professional writing endeavor last October, I knew, intellectually, that it would be challenging and would require a certain amount of stick-to-it-iveness. I didn’t realize, though, just how much stubborn, unflappable perseverance it would take. I’ve learned, after a year of trying, that to hack it as a professional writer, you must develop a skin of rhino-like thickness, constantly muddle through morasses of confusion and disappointment, and force yourself to continue to pursue a goal that might not actually be reachable. Because it’s worth it. (And I’m still not giving up.)

2. You don’t need that much stuff.

Since moving to London in July, Al and I have moved apartments (and/or hotels) eight or nine times (we lost track of the exact number after a while — I blame PTSD). And the main thing one learns very quickly after being forced to haul one’s stuff around London in a taxi cab at rush-hour is that one simply has too much stuff.

When we moved to South Africa last October, Al and I put most of our earthly possessions into storage in Virginia and brought only a fraction of our belongings with us to South Africa. Then, when we packed up for London, we took only a fraction of THAT. And now, after living in a series of one-room corporate apartments, that amount of stuff even feels like too much. At this point, we’ve each pared down to two suitcases of stuff, because we only have a month left in London, and traveling with more is just too hard.

When we move back to DC in a month, I’m really looking forward to getting all of our things in one place and doing a giant purge of our belongings. We did a purge once before, a few years ago, and man, it feels great (and it’s cheaper than therapy, a spa day, and/or buying more stuff). By the way, anyone interested in doing a purge, or even in just decluttering, should read the excellent book The Hoarder In You. (Don’t be put off by the title!) The book breaks down the emotional reasons why we hold on to stuff and gives the reader strategies for simplifying, decluttering, and lightening. Highly recommended!

3. However, some stuff enriches your life. Keep that stuff.

I could never get rid of ALL my stuff. What would I do without yarn, knitting needles, books, and my running shoes? What about my underwater MP3 player, my pink leather gloves, and my Le Creuset Dutch oven? Sure, I COULD get rid of that stuff — but it would negatively impact the quality of my life. I’ve learned that some stuff is not just necessary, but happy-making. My advice is to figure out what those things are for you and hold on to them. Get rid of the rest (or at least, a lot of the rest).

4. Coming home is still the sweetest part of travel.

I love to travel, and I wouldn’t trade our last year of adventures abroad for anything. But I’m really looking forward to coming back to the States and starting my life there, with Al. We’ve enjoyed being away, but we’re so excited to come back.

So, that’s it: just a few life lessons I’ve picked up during the past year. What have you learned this year? Was 2013 a good one for you or an absolute stinker? For me, it was one of my best years — but I’m optimistic that this next one will be even better. Happy New Year to all of my readers, whoever and wherever you are. I wish you success, peace, and joy in the new year. See you in 2014.

Dashing through the snow

December 30, 2013 / Stephanie / 0 Comments

I know I said in my last post that I’d write from California, but I just didn’t get around to it. Sorry. The truth is, I spent ten days in San Francisco relaxing and didn’t do one ounce of writing the entire time I was there. Sometimes you need a break, and I figure Christmas vacation is the perfect time to embrace laziness. And embrace it I did!

My mom hanging with Dougal on the back porch, San Francisco

Now I’m in Bangor, Maine, with Al’s dad, step-mom, two brothers, and his family’s two dogs and three cats. It’s a full house but it doesn’t feel crowded. It just feels cozy. I love coming to Maine around Christmastime because it really feels like Christmas here. It’s cold (and getting colder). There’s snow (and there’s a lot more on the way). We all sit inside near a blazing pellet stove and eat unhealthy food. Like I said: cozy.

Hanging out in Bangor

It’s quite a contrast from San Francisco, where the weather during our visit was stunningly gorgeous: warm and bright, with clear, blue skies. We took walks to the beach in short-sleeves, I went on a bunch of perfectly temperate outdoor runs, we had drinks on the back porch, and we saw some beautiful sunsets. I love a good California Christmas, and always will. But Maine in late December provides that classic, wintry feel that reminds me of growing up in Michigan, where Christmas was always white.

California Christmas weather

Yesterday morning, I went for a five mile run around Bangor and enjoyed the snow. (Ginger, Al’s step-mom, let me borrow her snow cleats, so I didn’t fall on the ice — always a risk with me). I paused to take some photos of the streets as I ran, and tried to remember the last time I saw snow. It must have been Christmas two years ago, when I went to Ottawa to visit Al’s mom and step-dad. Crazy!

Snowy Bangor

Since Al and I have lived abroad for the past year, we’ve totally missed out on seeing any snow (not that I’m complaining, mind you), so it’s quite a shock to be surrounded by it now. And Maine’s just getting started: the weather report says that there’s a big blizzard on the way, and the high temperature in Bangor on Thursday will be negative 4 degrees Fahrenheit. I repeat: NEGATIVE FOUR IS THE HIGH.

Those kinds of frigid temperatures are mind-boggling to me. I guess I’ve been away from the North for too long to be able to even process what negative temperatures mean anymore. Not that I’ll be venturing outside to experience them for myself. No, no: you can find me by the pellet stove.