Left to my own devices...

Apparently, I will learn to sew. Sweatshirt with oil stain + liberty fabric present finally find each other!


It's a little free-form crooked, so I kind of have to stand sideways to make it look good, but I'm fine with that.

FOUND!

Add a new item to the list of apartment awesomeness:

There are some good things lying around in boxes on the sidewalks within 4 blocks the house around 8 or 9 pm most nights of the week. We picked up all of this at just 3 places last night. Already made compote with the apples and strawberries, scarfed down the grapes with shredded ginger (magic!), I've roasted some of the eggplants for eggplant caviar, and stuffed my face with more fresh strawberries. I should add that the best find we didn't even take, which was so many hardy greens - think collards. But I picked up the winter CSA this weekend, and the fridge is seeping greenage. But point being: this neighborhood is prime free food spot!

In other news, for those keeping track at home...

We were all forced to buy new calendars.

Some hot sailors kissed.

New Brunswick celebrated global warming.

First polar bear swim of the year.

We got a new pet.EP danced with a dog. I thought this was a camera. (It's not.)

What have you done in 2012?

Statistics

My least favorite thing in the world is when people brag about page numbers. In person or on Facebook, it only leads to the listener/lurker feeling bad about her/himself, because the nature of academic life is such that you are constantly aware of the impossible task of reading everything you need to know or writing down everything you want to say. It's not academic neuroticism; it's the nature of knowledge. Still, hearing the number of pages somebody managed to bang out in a day makes one feel pitiful, a loafer, a slouch. No matter whether the pages written were any good or had a thousand long block quotes taking up all the white space, or if the book they read had pictures or was written by the Dr. Seuss of their discipline. No matter. Internal monologue: OH GOD, WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY TIME?!

And so, it is with the mental health of all my numerous and sundry Facebook friends and at the sad expense of my few, so very few but loyal blog readers, that I announce the birthweight of Chapter 1. I'm sorry to do this, friend(s), but I have to. For all the times I thought, hmm, well, if i can squeeze out 25 pages for each chapter, add 10 pages for intro and conclusion, tack on a hefty bibliography and images, maybe I'll just clear a respectable 150 pages???, I announce to you:

Chapter 1: 73 pages, not including 59 images.

*I do not know this baby.

BOO-YA!

Longest night of the year

benighted, adj. 1. Overtaken by the darkness of the night; affected by the night (obs.). 2. a. fig. Involved in intellectual or moral darkness. b. Involved in obscurity. Obs.*


What is it about the solstice that makes me want to stay up all night watching the best Simpsons episode ever and organizing my books? Is it the fear of literal and figurative benightedness? (What a great word.) Or just a ritual to remind me of apartments past where this very same activity always dependably inaugurated my feeling finally at home?

What I love about this "new" apartment:
-bike room
-record player
-HELLO?! awesome roommate!
-ceiling fans
-quantity of empty jars and jars full of grains and pulses
-huge kitchen table study hall
-remote control bed
-um, ROOMMATE!
-location location location (not a joke)

*Is this some kind of lexicographer's inside joke? Oh, O.E.D.

Happy Solstice 2011, dear reader. What are you doing on the New Year?

This Is a Thing

Wow, wikipedia (and history), blowing my mind again:

Sumptuary laws (from Latin sumptuariae leges) are laws that attempt to regulate habits of consumption. Black's Law Dictionary defines them as "Laws made for the purpose of restraining luxury or extravagance, particularly against inordinate expenditures in the matter of apparel, food, furniture, etc.".^[1] Traditionally, they were laws that regulated and reinforced social hierarchies and morals through restrictions on clothing, food, and luxury expenditures. In most times and places they were ineffectual.^[2]

Throughout history, societies have used sumptuary laws for a variety of purposes. They attempted to regulate the balance of trade by limiting the market for expensive imported goods. They were also an easy way to identify social rank and privilege, and often were used for social discrimination.^[2]

This frequently meant preventing commoners from imitating the appearance of aristocrats, and sometimes also to stigmatize disfavored groups. In the Late Middle Ages sumptuary laws were instituted as a way for the nobility to cap the conspicuous consumption of the prosperous bourgeoisie of medieval cities, and they continued to be used for these purposes well into the 17th century.^[2]

I mean, for real? Apparently so.