What I know and what I feel.

I was thinking a lot yesterday about my artistic goals. I'm looking forward to applying to grad programs, but it's hard to decide what exactly to study when my interests are so varied. The interests in question are centered around writing and theater, so it's not exactly all over the map, but still.

I was asking myself: what is the area in which I have the most to offer? What do I want to learn about most? What have I most enjoyed doing in the past? There is no one answer to these questions.

I know that the best thing I can do right now is to take advantage of the (ever-fleeting) time I have while I finish incubating this baby. I know that obsessing over things I wish I'd done differently in past projects is a waste of time. I know that the more I continue to create, the better I will get.

Still, it is frustrating sometimes. Even though I know all these things, how I feel is that I want to already be brilliant and recognized for it! Maybe it's silly, but it's true. I'm reading Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin for the Atlantic's book club I mentioned earlier, and as I read I keep thinking, damn, she's good. I am not as good as her. Well, of course I'm not. She's Margaret freaking Atwood! Still, it makes me sigh and look at my writing projects and tweak and edit and rewrite sentences and then sigh again.

Oh well, back to work.

Soy is our friend.

I've found that lifelong omnivores tend to be a lot more tolerant of my veganism than ex-vegans. Seriously, what is it with ex-vegans? A lot of them are downright belligerent. I've noticed this trend online (don't think I know anyone who's actually followed this path IRL) where former vegans become followers of Weston A. Price and start praising the virtues of meat and raw milk and stuff. It's kind of like former diehard atheists who become born-again Christians (or vice versa).

Anyway, here's a good article about the science (or lack thereof) behind the WAP theories and the health benefits of soy:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/01/anti-soya-brigade-ignore-scaremongering/print

Book club

I've started reading Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin on my Kindle for the Atlantic Monthly's online book club, which takes place on Twitter. I hadn't read this book before, but it was on my very lengthy "must read" list. The schedule for discussion and more details about the book club are here. Join us! There are a lot of us!

Disaster birthdays

My birthday is December 7 (Pearl Harbor Day).

My mom's birthday is September 11.

My stepdad's birthday is August 29 (Katrina day, for those not from NOLA).

I asked my guy if there have been any horrible disasters near our baby's due date, and he mentioned the bombing of Hiroshima...so now I predict that our baby will be born on August 6 (actual due date is August 1).

We'll see if I'm right.

Memories and truth

NPR has an interesting piece about the memoirs written by Augusten Burroughs, his brother, and his mother. I loved Burroughs' Running With Scissors and Dry, and although I found A Wolf at the Table somewhat harder to read (because it lacked much of the dark humor of his other memoirs), it was certainly well written.

The NPR piece raises the issue of truth in memory - the emotional truth is what tends to stick with us, though the factual details can get fuzzy. I thought of my 30th birthday party, where my Playback theater group performed, and I sat in the audience as party guests told stories about me and Playback turned them into theater. Many of those stories bore little resemblance to the events I remembered. For example, one friend told a story about a day when I was called him on the phone, stressed and upset. He implied that my emotional state was due to the difficulties I'd encountered directing a play, coupled with the chronic unreliability of my then-boyfriend. Now, those things were present, but the friend omitted that he himself had just sent me an angry text message, and my memory of that day is that I was upset that he (my friend) was angry with me. I don't know if he forgot that part, but if I were to tell the story of that day, that text message and my reaction to it would be what it was about. Now I suspect, in retrospect, that my friend was never really that angry at me to begin with (I probably over-reacted due to my already stressed out state), and that's why that piece of the story was irrelevant to him. But it's interesting how different that experience was for the two of us.

I can only imagine the differences that could occur over years and years of memories, in the case of Augusten Burroughs and his family. His brother's account sounds especially interesting, and I plan to read it.

I've joined the tweeting flock.

I wanted to join the Atlantic Monthly's online book club, so I have signed up for a Twitter account. Follow me and I'll follow you...I think that's how this thing works ;)

I'm chaikavegan.

Does baking count as nesting?

We spent all day yesterday organizing the house, and today's plan is more of the same. I like seeing my stuff integrated into the decor...it makes me feel much more at home. Especially my books. I have two tall bookshelves, one with fiction and one with non-fiction. It's a good thing I have become a Kindle addict, because I don't have much more room on those shelves!

I wish I could say I loved every minute of the cleaning and organizing, but...not so much. I keep waiting for that nesting instinct to kick in. So far, I'm still a far cry from Martha Stewart.

One thing I have been really into lately is baking. For Mother's Day last week, I made this amazing blueberry coffee cake, which got rave reviews from the non-vegans I fed it to. I got a good deal on a LOT of local strawberries at the produce market, so I froze several for smoothies, then used the rest on top of these shortcakes, with some vegan whipped cream. And then today I made these cinnamon muffins - thankfully I made a double batch, otherwise the still-sleeping dude would probably not have gotten any!