Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
This whole arranged marriage vs. "love marriage" business is doing my head in.
I talk to my Nepali female friends and it's a split. Half want a love marriage very badly but because they are graduate students and now 23-24-25ish, they have decided they are too old to try one and will most definitely have an arranged marriage.
The other half of the girls without a doubt want an arranged marriage. They have never dated before, are too afraid/shy to try (they tell me this- I am not inferring or passing judgment at all!), and are so relieved that they will have all of the trouble of getting a spouse worked out for them.
I look at married couples here and they seem (through my short short period of observation) to be very functional partnerships with appreciation and a general liking of one's partner. Arranged marriage is just how it's done- here is your spouse, make it works, voila it works because it has to.
I am of course only talking about all of this because I am thinking about my own life/future/etc. You can bring Camille to Nepal but you can't make her any less self-centered. That's how the saying goes, right?
I am thinking of my future. I can keep doing what I've been doing during my entire romantic adult life thus far and, every 2 years or so, keep finding a man 20 or 30 or 40 years older than me who I fall crazy nuts bonkers in love with, I can keep breaking my heart, I can actually find one with whom I can mutually commit. We can live with each other, get married, probably not have kids (but we'd have love which means a lot). We can have maybe a few decades of brilliant love, I can watch him die, and I can spend the remaining 30, 40, or 50 years of my life either alone or with some equally lonely and accommodating widower.
Or I could arrange myself a marriage with someone my age, with someone who I have similar goals to, with someone who I could form a strong partnership with. I could create the beautiful, strong family life I desire, creating the love that wouldn't present in my life in the form of romantic love. I could have a partner who I could grow old with, who I could depend on to be there, and I could be consistently very content.
Neither sound bad, neither sound great. You can't have everything, but what to choose what to choose?
My thoughts are too scattered. My energies are too scattered. I am too immature and irresponsible and unkind and uncertain for a good relationship. I don't think this is a phase.
I talk to my Nepali female friends and it's a split. Half want a love marriage very badly but because they are graduate students and now 23-24-25ish, they have decided they are too old to try one and will most definitely have an arranged marriage.
The other half of the girls without a doubt want an arranged marriage. They have never dated before, are too afraid/shy to try (they tell me this- I am not inferring or passing judgment at all!), and are so relieved that they will have all of the trouble of getting a spouse worked out for them.
I look at married couples here and they seem (through my short short period of observation) to be very functional partnerships with appreciation and a general liking of one's partner. Arranged marriage is just how it's done- here is your spouse, make it works, voila it works because it has to.
I am of course only talking about all of this because I am thinking about my own life/future/etc. You can bring Camille to Nepal but you can't make her any less self-centered. That's how the saying goes, right?
I am thinking of my future. I can keep doing what I've been doing during my entire romantic adult life thus far and, every 2 years or so, keep finding a man 20 or 30 or 40 years older than me who I fall crazy nuts bonkers in love with, I can keep breaking my heart, I can actually find one with whom I can mutually commit. We can live with each other, get married, probably not have kids (but we'd have love which means a lot). We can have maybe a few decades of brilliant love, I can watch him die, and I can spend the remaining 30, 40, or 50 years of my life either alone or with some equally lonely and accommodating widower.
Or I could arrange myself a marriage with someone my age, with someone who I have similar goals to, with someone who I could form a strong partnership with. I could create the beautiful, strong family life I desire, creating the love that wouldn't present in my life in the form of romantic love. I could have a partner who I could grow old with, who I could depend on to be there, and I could be consistently very content.
Neither sound bad, neither sound great. You can't have everything, but what to choose what to choose?
My thoughts are too scattered. My energies are too scattered. I am too immature and irresponsible and unkind and uncertain for a good relationship. I don't think this is a phase.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Meanwhile, in New York
My lovely raven-haired thick-as-thieves best friend forever is not here. You are having lots of adventures and dare I say, getting even the most dramatic and so appropriately what the fuck ailments to make your travels even more fraught with intrigue.
But meanwhile, in New York:
Today Cyndy and I were doing a crossword puzzle, and because of my pre-Med bio class that I thought I had taken nothing from, I knew that the answer to 4-down, protein in muscle cells, was myosin. Bam.
I think I mentioned this once before, but recently I was hired to be a paid contributor/blogger for an website, and today they sent me a contract and some tax forms so shit is really legit. It's exciting, and usually I feel like I jinx myself by bringing up my happiness too early in the game, before I've built up an appropriately thick wall of nonchalance, but I'm in the kind of mood where I can confront that bad and good things will happen to me whether or not my guard is up or I cross all of my fingers or I count to 17. And yes, I do all of those things.
But meanwhile, in New York:
Today Cyndy and I were doing a crossword puzzle, and because of my pre-Med bio class that I thought I had taken nothing from, I knew that the answer to 4-down, protein in muscle cells, was myosin. Bam.
I think I mentioned this once before, but recently I was hired to be a paid contributor/blogger for an website, and today they sent me a contract and some tax forms so shit is really legit. It's exciting, and usually I feel like I jinx myself by bringing up my happiness too early in the game, before I've built up an appropriately thick wall of nonchalance, but I'm in the kind of mood where I can confront that bad and good things will happen to me whether or not my guard is up or I cross all of my fingers or I count to 17. And yes, I do all of those things.
And lastly, since we are covering mitosis and meiosis in biology, I just want say that I think telophase is beautiful sometimes. And no, spellcheck, I did not mean 'telegraph' or 'cellophane,' thanks.
images via Science Photo Library
-Karen
-Karen
Friday, January 21, 2011
One of my favorite ways to cook eggs is to scramble them in a mug with some smoked Italian sausage and a few drops of soy sauce, and microwave them. I stole this idea from David Chang of Momofuku when he was interviewed on WNYC.
It's my favorite impatient, poor girl late night snack. I also like it because it had never previously occurred to me that it was possible to cook eggs in the microwave.
*Actually an old boyfriend once cooked us eggs in the microwave, but I quickly attributed that to white people magic, and filed it thus into my brain. But now the microwave is my bitch.
-Karen
It's my favorite impatient, poor girl late night snack. I also like it because it had never previously occurred to me that it was possible to cook eggs in the microwave.
*Actually an old boyfriend once cooked us eggs in the microwave, but I quickly attributed that to white people magic, and filed it thus into my brain. But now the microwave is my bitch.
-Karen
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Did you know that American Girl has discontinued Samantha? Cyndy and I were devastated to find this out. They have new dolls that we hate. We watched Samantha: An American Girl Holiday on youtube, and I think you need to see it. Mia Farrow plays her grandmother and I didn't recognize her because she looks 45 years old. Samantha's outfits are on point. Cyndy and I want all of them.
image via TVGuide
image via TVGuidePS, this morning, over 100 mafioso from the five families and the major New Jersey crime family were arrested for various crimes in a huge sting operation, and not a small number were based either in or very near my neighborhood of Bensonhurst. Exciting!
-Karen
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Being the children of restaurant owners means that people always cook for you. For my family, this meant Chinese food was available all the time, not just standard Americanized fare, but traditional and regional foods, because for their own meals, my parents and the cooks always made more traditional stuff.
Not only did my sisters and I come to expect food to magically appear before us, but we also used the cooks to do our culinary bidding. We would call my parents and ask them if they could please put broccoli, mushrooms, fried tofu and chicken in curry sauce, and then please bring the result home. Could they make me an omelet of those weird black wiggly mushrooms and sauteed broccoli with garlic?
We also never had to go grocery shopping for any real staples, like eggs, or produce or spices. They were always in supply in the walk-in refrigerator, and we didn't a dozen eggs in the fridge, we had 30.
As a result of this sheltered existence, Cyndy and I, who have since moved out of our childhood home, have cripplingly little knowledge on how to shop properly for real groceries, and one trip's worth of food typically lasts us around three days.
Then we starve for the next four, until we break down and start over again.
Kendra tried to help us by telling us to stock up on canned goods and pasta and the like, but alas, we almost never eat those things. American pantries elude us. The only times we went to the grocery store were to buy pancake supplies or ice cream.
We'd go to Costco, and spend hundreds of dollars on Dunkaroos and chocolate chip cookies. We only ever understood how to buy sweets, and too many jars of pickles.
A typical conversation at Costco went like this:
Dad: Are you sure you can eat that whole cake?
Dad: that's a really big cake. I don't think you guys can finish it.
Mom: don't let them buy the cake.
Karen & Cyndy: we need the cake.
Of course we never ever ever finished those cakes. We would eat a single slice, be repulsed by how much thick sugary frosting was everywhere, and forget about the cake. And then we'd move on to dunkaroos, and leave my poor parents to deal with the mess we'd made. It was a blissfully terrible system.Cut to modern day, when Cyndy and I are left to do our own grocery shopping. We've never been able to shop for a whole week's worth of food. In the past three days we've been to three different places to buy very specific food, including dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, and there's no end in sight. If you knew what a child I truly am inside, you would be appalled.
-Karen
Sunday, January 9, 2011
You've got a real talent for rhyming.
Of the 9876567232 things I appreciate most about you, it ranks among the highest.
I spent most of yesterday sitting on my couch ordering things last minute from Amazon and watching Dr. Who, Matt Smith style. Whoa whoa whoa, so great.
I watched the Weeping Angels episodes which DID NOT DISAPPOINT and even the "historical"-type episode with Van Gogh left me delighted. I usually hate their episodes which feature real historical individuals but boy oh boy jeez louise did I dig this one.
Probably because I had a crush on the actor who played the painter, but also because it tugged at my heartstrings. I also loved the starry night morphing imagery at the end.
At one point Van Gogh said to Amy something to the effect of "if you ever tire of the Doctor, come back to me and we'll have children by the dozens!" My ovaries have been acting really, really unusually as of late, so when I heard that I died, became extremely jealous, and then dreamed of having 10 kids with this Van Gogh.
Aaaaand Bill Nighy was in the episode. Say no more say no more.
-Camille
Of the 9876567232 things I appreciate most about you, it ranks among the highest.
I spent most of yesterday sitting on my couch ordering things last minute from Amazon and watching Dr. Who, Matt Smith style. Whoa whoa whoa, so great.I watched the Weeping Angels episodes which DID NOT DISAPPOINT and even the "historical"-type episode with Van Gogh left me delighted. I usually hate their episodes which feature real historical individuals but boy oh boy jeez louise did I dig this one.
Probably because I had a crush on the actor who played the painter, but also because it tugged at my heartstrings. I also loved the starry night morphing imagery at the end.
At one point Van Gogh said to Amy something to the effect of "if you ever tire of the Doctor, come back to me and we'll have children by the dozens!" My ovaries have been acting really, really unusually as of late, so when I heard that I died, became extremely jealous, and then dreamed of having 10 kids with this Van Gogh.Aaaaand Bill Nighy was in the episode. Say no more say no more.
-Camille
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Every time I make my mind to get off my ass and go grocery shopping, I start by compiling a mental list of all the things I need to buy. That always leads to realizing that I need to buy something somewhere else, at another grocery store. This makes me extremely anxious, the thought of having to go to a grocery store in the opposite direction of the first grocery store.
And then I think, oh my god, it never stops. Is it even worth it? Is my whole life going to be a series of trips to opposite direction grocery stores?
And then I'm like, what the fuck, Karen. Each of these places is seriously less than five minutes of walking distance from your apartment. Get the fuck up.
And then I do. But I'll still only go to one of the stores, and decide that I can go to the other one....later....tomorrow.
I was home for a few days around Christmastime, and I spent most of it refusing to get off the couch, and my little sister trying really hard (often physically) to get me up. And I'd look at her and whimper, "GO TO PLACE????" And she'd roll her eyes and resume watching iCarly with me.
Anyway, while I was home, I passed my couchsitting, iCarly-watching time, by eating and cooking for us while the snowpocalypse was happening. Feeling gluttonous, I asked her if my face was fat and she said "you know that you are your own worst enemy, right?" What the f, little sister. When did you learn to call me out?
In any case, she was right. I'm awful to myself. But! thanks to my my own neuroses, I've recently managed to get myself hired as a paid writer for a news/entertainment/catch-all website. Yay me.
PS, I recently saw Lauryn Hill for her performance at the Bowery Ballroom, and she was everything that I ever wanted her to be. And in her immortal words, Don't be a hard rock, when you really are a gem.
-Karen
And then I think, oh my god, it never stops. Is it even worth it? Is my whole life going to be a series of trips to opposite direction grocery stores?
And then I'm like, what the fuck, Karen. Each of these places is seriously less than five minutes of walking distance from your apartment. Get the fuck up.
And then I do. But I'll still only go to one of the stores, and decide that I can go to the other one....later....tomorrow.
I was home for a few days around Christmastime, and I spent most of it refusing to get off the couch, and my little sister trying really hard (often physically) to get me up. And I'd look at her and whimper, "GO TO PLACE????" And she'd roll her eyes and resume watching iCarly with me.
Anyway, while I was home, I passed my couchsitting, iCarly-watching time, by eating and cooking for us while the snowpocalypse was happening. Feeling gluttonous, I asked her if my face was fat and she said "you know that you are your own worst enemy, right?" What the f, little sister. When did you learn to call me out?
In any case, she was right. I'm awful to myself. But! thanks to my my own neuroses, I've recently managed to get myself hired as a paid writer for a news/entertainment/catch-all website. Yay me.
PS, I recently saw Lauryn Hill for her performance at the Bowery Ballroom, and she was everything that I ever wanted her to be. And in her immortal words, Don't be a hard rock, when you really are a gem.
-Karen
Friday, January 7, 2011
My adventure is starting in a week.
In the past week I have spent an unreal amount on money on preparations.
All shots done, dream boots bought.
Made a torta de maiz for my loverboy and was blown away by how easy it was to prepare, how beautifully it came out, and how positively he reacted. Yeah yeah, I'll be doing that again.
Ain't no shame ladies do yo thang, just make sure you ahead of the game.
I'm feeling good.
-Camille
In the past week I have spent an unreal amount on money on preparations.
All shots done, dream boots bought.
Made a torta de maiz for my loverboy and was blown away by how easy it was to prepare, how beautifully it came out, and how positively he reacted. Yeah yeah, I'll be doing that again.
Ain't no shame ladies do yo thang, just make sure you ahead of the game.
I'm feeling good.
-Camille
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Yesterday I went for a walk and caught the bay at one of the lowest tides I've ever seen it. I watched as the sky turned from this into the most fiery, intense fuchsia I've ever seen in any Long Island sunset.
It was quiet and still until a city couple with their young boy drove up to the spot nearby where I took this photo, got out of the car, and started yelling at each other while angrily and hastily trying to take family photos. The boy was wearing rain boots and at one point ran into the water (IT IS COLD) saying "Mom, look! I'm in the water!"
I looked at him and thought "STUPID KID YOU ARE IN THE WATER AND YOU ARE DISTURBING MY ZEN CLEAR-THINKING TIME."
But then, looking at him directly, I suddenly was transported into a different time, still on the bay but now it was summer. The brilliant fuchsia sunset was bright as ever, and there was still a child in the water, but this time it was my child (who looked exactly like my current boyfriend) and he was clamming, digging with his little toes into the sand in the hopes of finding something. I then clearly imagined his father on a sailboat--the same sailboat boyfriend recently bought in the hopes of fixing up this winter--and I realized that this was my childhood with my grandparents, except better. Better because I was giving it to my own child with a man that I do hold a certain deep and undeniable affection for, who is kind and generous and LISTENS to me (even though I say so much, 98% of which is ingenuine garbage), and who will undoubtedly be an amazing father.
And this filled me with delight and love and happiness but it also skeeved me out and depressed me just as much, as the idea of living the rest of my life on Long Island with my original home-town boyfriend makes me die a whole lot on the inside, regardless of how lovely I know it has the potential to be.
Not proofread.
-Camille
It was quiet and still until a city couple with their young boy drove up to the spot nearby where I took this photo, got out of the car, and started yelling at each other while angrily and hastily trying to take family photos. The boy was wearing rain boots and at one point ran into the water (IT IS COLD) saying "Mom, look! I'm in the water!"I looked at him and thought "STUPID KID YOU ARE IN THE WATER AND YOU ARE DISTURBING MY ZEN CLEAR-THINKING TIME."
But then, looking at him directly, I suddenly was transported into a different time, still on the bay but now it was summer. The brilliant fuchsia sunset was bright as ever, and there was still a child in the water, but this time it was my child (who looked exactly like my current boyfriend) and he was clamming, digging with his little toes into the sand in the hopes of finding something. I then clearly imagined his father on a sailboat--the same sailboat boyfriend recently bought in the hopes of fixing up this winter--and I realized that this was my childhood with my grandparents, except better. Better because I was giving it to my own child with a man that I do hold a certain deep and undeniable affection for, who is kind and generous and LISTENS to me (even though I say so much, 98% of which is ingenuine garbage), and who will undoubtedly be an amazing father.
And this filled me with delight and love and happiness but it also skeeved me out and depressed me just as much, as the idea of living the rest of my life on Long Island with my original home-town boyfriend makes me die a whole lot on the inside, regardless of how lovely I know it has the potential to be.
Not proofread.
-Camille
Saturday, January 1, 2011
My motto entering my last/most current relationship was "fake it 'til ya make it." Well, after too many breakups, arguments, acts of infidelity, lies, and cases of what can be considered nothing but emotional abuse, I made it.
And it is so confusing.
I made it. I faked it for 6 months minus 4 days and now I've made it! I love him and it's comfortable. I'm not afraid to be honest about my hopes, fears, regrets, wants, and needs, and he is either there already or pretty damn close.
But now I have such a suffocatingly heavy ambivalence towards my future, I don't know what to do.
I would be perfectly content and happy to move in with him right now, have a springtime wedding, and get knocked up by summer. I would be his happy and quiet, patient and ever-supportive partner for the rest of my life.
We have lots of fun together, we are good to each other, and ... we are both young and fit and fertile and with a fair amount in common.
Arranged marriage does not sound like a bad idea. Couples learn to love each other, as I seem to have done here. Fiery romance ends in flames or smoldering, painful ashes. I'm tired. I feel like all of that which I once enjoyed--the tingling, fluttering, heart-aching bliss I've enjoyed before--is not for me. I'm just an animal: I only need a warm body, a little bit of patience, a fit supplier of sperm for when I decide to spawn, and someone to help me raise those spawn.
I am so tired of crying over D, the man I've been convinced is "the one" since I was 14, every fucking time he puts up pictures of himself with his new"the one!" girl on facebook. And there is a new girl every 2-3 months.
Tired. Not sick, not angry, not dolorous, not impassioned. I am twenty years old and I am weary from all of this. I feel it in my bones and it's like a slowly spreading cavity: a bitter emptiness that is certainly there, but I don't need to feel unless I pay attention to it.
Paulina told me two days ago that she thinks I'm going to marry him in the end. I think I'm going to settle, actually. Better to be safe than ...
I am going to Nepal in less than two weeks and I'm hoping these weeks will drag by. I want this lack of enthusiasm to pass soon because it's horrible.
All I've been doing is playing this on piano, humming the melody to myself, and wishing that my life had a clear, directed path.
Also, his parents fucking hate me now. Unexpected, undesirable plot twist.
-Camille
And it is so confusing.
I made it. I faked it for 6 months minus 4 days and now I've made it! I love him and it's comfortable. I'm not afraid to be honest about my hopes, fears, regrets, wants, and needs, and he is either there already or pretty damn close.
But now I have such a suffocatingly heavy ambivalence towards my future, I don't know what to do.
I would be perfectly content and happy to move in with him right now, have a springtime wedding, and get knocked up by summer. I would be his happy and quiet, patient and ever-supportive partner for the rest of my life.
We have lots of fun together, we are good to each other, and ... we are both young and fit and fertile and with a fair amount in common.
Arranged marriage does not sound like a bad idea. Couples learn to love each other, as I seem to have done here. Fiery romance ends in flames or smoldering, painful ashes. I'm tired. I feel like all of that which I once enjoyed--the tingling, fluttering, heart-aching bliss I've enjoyed before--is not for me. I'm just an animal: I only need a warm body, a little bit of patience, a fit supplier of sperm for when I decide to spawn, and someone to help me raise those spawn.
I am so tired of crying over D, the man I've been convinced is "the one" since I was 14, every fucking time he puts up pictures of himself with his new"the one!" girl on facebook. And there is a new girl every 2-3 months.
Tired. Not sick, not angry, not dolorous, not impassioned. I am twenty years old and I am weary from all of this. I feel it in my bones and it's like a slowly spreading cavity: a bitter emptiness that is certainly there, but I don't need to feel unless I pay attention to it.
Paulina told me two days ago that she thinks I'm going to marry him in the end. I think I'm going to settle, actually. Better to be safe than ...
I am going to Nepal in less than two weeks and I'm hoping these weeks will drag by. I want this lack of enthusiasm to pass soon because it's horrible.
All I've been doing is playing this on piano, humming the melody to myself, and wishing that my life had a clear, directed path.
Also, his parents fucking hate me now. Unexpected, undesirable plot twist.
-Camille
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