Our nation's carp
Well, people, I'm back. Not entirely myself, still a little bruised and sad and freaked out by the whole not-getting-a-job thing and the uncertainty of my future (academic and otherwise), but getting better. If slowly. Really, a lot slower than I expected. Plus the jetlag from a recent European workshop has been keeping the energy levels a bit lower than usual -- I don't know why I have a harder time heading back in this direction, but I always do. My current plan: regain some equilibrium and balance, and only then figure out what the hell I'm going to do with my life -- a daunting prospect, to say the least. That's all I'm going to say on the subject for the moment, as dwelling (as I was raised to do -- you know, to pre-worry, worry, and then dwell), it turns out, is not so good for me.
Anyway, my first post, predicated by a series of events over the last few weeks, was going to be a little "what the hell is wrong with so many men I interact with?" screed about being lied to and lied about, but I've decided to save that for another day and instead continue in my attempts to focus on the positive and the present rather than the negative and the absent (it's not as easy as it sounds) (really!). It's "spring break" this week, although since I'm research faculty and not teaching faculty I only get the first three days of the week off. I only learned last week that I had this little vacation time, and determined as I was to maximize said time and fill it with exciting artsy and social activities, it turns out that I have been too tired and low to plan anything really, too tired even to hop a bus up to New York and hang with J-ka et al, which is always delightful. So instead I've been letting myself engage in restorative lounging -- I spent yesterday and Sunday in pajamas right up to 5 or 6 pm, when I rushed off to various social events (Saturday's Irish-fest involved rather a lot of drinking, which may explain a good deal of Sunday's low energy levels) . But today I felt perky enough to head out of the house by 11 -- first, ten miles east to a new, recently hyped discount designer warehouse-type thing that turned out to be mostly too silly for me -- sure, in principle 75% off Prada is great, but when it means going from $4000 to $1000, it's still not headed into my closet anytime soon. After making a more modest purchase (a semi-punk pink ruffled lacy miniskirt, if you must know, which I now have to figure out where to wear) I headed over to our nation's arboretum, located nearby, to see if there were any adorably budding trees to reassure me that spring is really on its way. (It snowed and sleeted Friday night and has been cold ever since.) It turns out there weren't, at least not in easy walking distance, so as the day grew greyer and colder and windier I found myself crouched by the koi pond near the arboretum entrance, listening to the sound of chainsaws hacking down trees nearby and a woodchipper going at full blast. (Our nation's arboretum, by the way, apparently subcontracts out these tree-maintenance/destruction activities -- shouldn't they have staff for that?) Although the machine-generated noise rather undermined what was meant to be a more peaceful, meditative visit, I found myself entranced by the koi. Koi, which are domesticated carp, are meant to be all decorative and are bred for their patterns (e.g., Asagi, with blue scales on top and read scales on bottom), but they're actually kind of freaky and prehistoric looking, and even a little menacing when they swim to the surface and check you out with their bulgy eyeballs and waving whiskery things.
My old camera died a slow and painful death in Puerto Rico this January, and I only just replaced it with something slightly fancier, just fancy enough to confuse the hell out of me, especially since I seem to have put the manual someplace incredibly safe. But after calling J-ka's digital camera technical support hotline, she helped me figure some stuff out, and this is its first public appearance. Hopefully you'll be seeing some slightly better-quality pictures in the weeks and months to come as I figure stuff out, but in the meantime, here are some portraits of our nation's carp, supposedly newly surfaced after wintering at the bottom of our nation's (really quite shmutzy) koi pond.
This one was my favorite, although it did appear to be angry each time it swam by and all I was aiming at the pool was a camera rather than food pellets. Or maybe it could tell how much it reminded me of the delicious smoked whitefish my grandmother used to bring us from her deli in Queens?
This little white one (I keep on wanting to write "this little guy", but really, it could just as easily be a lady fish, no?) was the most persistent in its attempts to subtly indicate how shocked it was that I wasn't feeding it.
Although maybe it's cuter this way:
By the time we hit this little horror-movie moment here, I decided maybe it was time to head out...
Anyway, my first post, predicated by a series of events over the last few weeks, was going to be a little "what the hell is wrong with so many men I interact with?" screed about being lied to and lied about, but I've decided to save that for another day and instead continue in my attempts to focus on the positive and the present rather than the negative and the absent (it's not as easy as it sounds) (really!). It's "spring break" this week, although since I'm research faculty and not teaching faculty I only get the first three days of the week off. I only learned last week that I had this little vacation time, and determined as I was to maximize said time and fill it with exciting artsy and social activities, it turns out that I have been too tired and low to plan anything really, too tired even to hop a bus up to New York and hang with J-ka et al, which is always delightful. So instead I've been letting myself engage in restorative lounging -- I spent yesterday and Sunday in pajamas right up to 5 or 6 pm, when I rushed off to various social events (Saturday's Irish-fest involved rather a lot of drinking, which may explain a good deal of Sunday's low energy levels) . But today I felt perky enough to head out of the house by 11 -- first, ten miles east to a new, recently hyped discount designer warehouse-type thing that turned out to be mostly too silly for me -- sure, in principle 75% off Prada is great, but when it means going from $4000 to $1000, it's still not headed into my closet anytime soon. After making a more modest purchase (a semi-punk pink ruffled lacy miniskirt, if you must know, which I now have to figure out where to wear) I headed over to our nation's arboretum, located nearby, to see if there were any adorably budding trees to reassure me that spring is really on its way. (It snowed and sleeted Friday night and has been cold ever since.) It turns out there weren't, at least not in easy walking distance, so as the day grew greyer and colder and windier I found myself crouched by the koi pond near the arboretum entrance, listening to the sound of chainsaws hacking down trees nearby and a woodchipper going at full blast. (Our nation's arboretum, by the way, apparently subcontracts out these tree-maintenance/destruction activities -- shouldn't they have staff for that?) Although the machine-generated noise rather undermined what was meant to be a more peaceful, meditative visit, I found myself entranced by the koi. Koi, which are domesticated carp, are meant to be all decorative and are bred for their patterns (e.g., Asagi, with blue scales on top and read scales on bottom), but they're actually kind of freaky and prehistoric looking, and even a little menacing when they swim to the surface and check you out with their bulgy eyeballs and waving whiskery things.
My old camera died a slow and painful death in Puerto Rico this January, and I only just replaced it with something slightly fancier, just fancy enough to confuse the hell out of me, especially since I seem to have put the manual someplace incredibly safe. But after calling J-ka's digital camera technical support hotline, she helped me figure some stuff out, and this is its first public appearance. Hopefully you'll be seeing some slightly better-quality pictures in the weeks and months to come as I figure stuff out, but in the meantime, here are some portraits of our nation's carp, supposedly newly surfaced after wintering at the bottom of our nation's (really quite shmutzy) koi pond.
This one was my favorite, although it did appear to be angry each time it swam by and all I was aiming at the pool was a camera rather than food pellets. Or maybe it could tell how much it reminded me of the delicious smoked whitefish my grandmother used to bring us from her deli in Queens?
This little white one (I keep on wanting to write "this little guy", but really, it could just as easily be a lady fish, no?) was the most persistent in its attempts to subtly indicate how shocked it was that I wasn't feeding it.
Although maybe it's cuter this way:
By the time we hit this little horror-movie moment here, I decided maybe it was time to head out...
posted by Pangea at 3:14 PM
1 Comments:
The horror-movie shot reminded me of the X-files episode about the fluke man.
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