walkability

I have moved into an apartment! Nice!

Really, the best thing (aside from the fact that living with my parents will always bring out my sulky, bratty side more than anything else) is that my new neighborhood is so much more walkable than the old one. It's a five minute walk to the bus stop instead of a twenty minute walk, and I'm served by four or five different bus lines. I can walk to the grocery store, and there's a liquor store and a Dollar General, as well as a couple of quite decent restaurants. There's even a bike trail nearby, so I could bike to the mall if I wanted (on a good day, with a tailwind).

That is one of the things I really miss about France: I could walk almost anywhere, or take a bus or a train. The towns I lived in there were much smaller than my current town is, but the public transportation and the setup of the neighborhoods was much better. The residences and schools were mixed in with the businesses and restaurants. Plus, even though there were dog-related hazards all over the sidewalks, there were sidewalks everywhere, even in the cobbled alleyways. The cities I went to in Europe were built with a focus more on the people and less on the vehicles.

This already happens in American cities, to some extent, but mostly only the really big ones, like New York, where people are already living in close proximity. Houston's business district is vaguely walkable, and they've got good buses, but the sprawl is incredible. I can't even imagine the suburbs. DC has a lot of public space that doesn't have much of anything but parks and museums and monuments, but they also have a lot of metro access, which is fantastic, and each neighborhood is packed full of conveniences.

I can't imagine it would be that hard to incorporate some businesses into the suburban residential model. Part of the charm of Europe is its use of space: apartments on top of cafés, groceries next to laundries next to bakeries next to hotels, even in small towns. I suppose they've had to be economical with space in the past (fewer of the buildings are pre-fab, and most of them started as villages), and gas is more expensive, and people are more willing to walk, and all of these things are factors that lead to superior walkability. Americans do love their sense of space, but would it really drop property values to have a cute little café and an épicerie down the road from your tiny mansion? Food for thought. Then kids would have a reason to walk, and grownups too, and if the grocery store were closer, we could buy fresher produce.

hooray for the gym

I have never been more glad to have classes start again. Not academic classes, sadly; my pining for homework has not yet urged me into grad school (nearly, though). But the gym is open again! After three weeks (vacation, gym closed for poshing up, laziness), I have turbokick again. How delightful.

I tried to exercise while the gym was closed. Really I did, once or twice. The problem is that I'm such an uninspired runner. It doesn't matter how bouncy the music is, or how lovely the day: I just get bored. If I'm not thinking of running and how I ought to keep running fairly constantly, my feet just slow down as if I had no say in it. I can jog along for about a half hour stretch, so it's not a matter of endurance when I quit after twenty minutes, but I can't really get myself going again for any reasonable distance once I've started to walk. I suppose the couch-to-5K program is not for me, as it involves lots of run/walk intervals, but maybe it would be easier if I knew they were coming up.

I am trying to mix it up some this semester, though. Mostly because my schedule doesn't always jive with the turbo sessions, I admit, but also because I know if I do that every day, the routine will get stale before its time (though not tonight, because tonight, there will be black light and glowy wristbands, and it will be hilarious). Yesterday I tried a step class. I'm thinking of picking up a toning class. There's always yoga, and the ever popular iterative combinations of yoga and pilates. Plenty of options, anyway. Thank heavens: with the students back, who could ever work in half an hour on the ellipticals? They're all taken up by sorority girls wearing baseball caps and going very slowly so that they can talk on the phone and not muss their makeup. It almost makes one take up jogging.

Memorial stickers

Last week I was in the Deep South. It always amuses me to tell people I'm going on vacation to Alabama, because the South is so misunderstood. Sure, there are a lot of hicks. Sure, there's bulletproof glass in a lot of gas stations. Yes, you'll see a Confederate flag or two. But really, it's not that bad. You're not going to be rousted out of your cheap hotel by a KKK convention or anything, and nobody's going to threaten to shoot your lily-white Yankee butt or refer to the War of Northern Aggression (unless they're being facetious or really drunk).

There was a funny new trend, though, aside from Nascar-themed license plates: a lot of people had what seemed to be memorial stickers on their back windshields. You know, Gracie Ann Jones, Beloved Sister, year - year, Angels Watch You. Things like that. I wasn't aware that this was a trend, but I saw quite a few vehicles with these stickers in the approximately 28 hours of driving it took to get there and back. Some of them have fancy embellishments and some of them are just plain text, clear cling-style stickers with white borders, but they were all over. It was kind of sweet, I suppose: better than the Confederate flag bumper sticker on my block that says "My History, Your Ignorance" (which, to some degree granted, but I have hefty opposition to that philosophy, despite being one of the Girls Raised In The South, or G.R.I.T.S.). To some extent, the memorial stickers are sweet and tasteful, but I'm a big fan of private displays of grief, and, you know, emotion in general (unless Michael Phelps is in the swimming pool or the new X-Files movie is coming out).

My question is: is this going to be the next big trend? We've had (unlicensed) replicas of Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes fame peeing on everything under the sun, we've had the OBX stickers and their subsequent knockoffs, we've had stylized stags. Are memorial stickers going to be the new thing? Will you be able to trace the family tree by peering at someone's back windshield?

I foresee mournful stickers about pets, actors, and Nascar drivers as possible spinoffs. As for me, I want historical personages and scientific theories. Abiogenesis, beginning of time - 1861, Would Have Been Awesome. Things like that, you know. Queen Elizabeth 1, 1533 - 1608, A Fashionista For Our Times. I would totally sport a ruff.

schools for suckers, or perhaps I'm just jealous

It is turning out to be another gorgeous, sunny, chilly day, and just like most Saturdays, I'm stuck in the library, gazing out through the wall of windows across from the reference desk, watching the students spread across the quad with their books and their sodas and their mp3 players. At least it's finals week now, so a considerable number of them are stuck here in the library with me.

In a lot of ways I miss school. I miss homework. It was nice to have to schedule my leisure activities around the other things I was doing. It was nice to have study sessions that lasted late into the night. I even liked finals week: I like writing papers and having deadlines. Now I feel rather shiftless a lot of the time. I watch more tv than I did at school. I feel like I get less done.

Maybe I just need a better job. It is true that now I have a better kitchen and more independence, and the ability to laugh at all those poor suckers tying themselves into knots trying to cram five more vocabulary words into their heads, or fill the other half of their sketchbooks, or frantically try to remember all the details of that experiment from three months ago to bring their lab notebook up to snuff.

I've been back from France now for a year. It's still kind of strange.

I swear I do talk about things other than the gym sometimes

One of my favorite parts of being rather a regular at the gym now (at least in my classes) is building up some gym cred with the real regulars (i.e. the fantastically fit people who don't even need classes to keep them motivated) and with my instructors. Last week, for example, the instructor that I call The Kickboxer (to distinguish her from The Other Kickboxer, natch) split us up into a sort of dance-off just to change things up a bit. Unfortunately, most of the people who knew the routine well were on one side of the room together. After the fact, she said, "You know, I should have put you on the other side. You have a memory for this stuff." I glowed.

Just like in school, I've become something of a That Kid: That Kid, who has the answers and stands in the front row. That Kid, who knows the routine and can stay on the beat even when the instructors fumble (with their heads full of so many rounds of choreography, I don't blame them for the rare misstep). That Kid, who plays up to the instructors and talks to them after class. Then again, I've shown up pretty much every day for the last couple of months, so why shouldn't I be friendly with the instructors now? It entertains me to be a sort of communication link between them, like when The Kickboxer didn't know that The Other Kickboxer had changed the choreography around, or when The Other Kickboxer didn't know why The Kickboxer had needed a sub (she had a big test). I am just a hub of information!

One of my other favorite parts is the evangelical bit of hauling people to the gym with me. I myself was hauled in the first place by a friend from knitting circle. Now I'm up to four converts. Yesterday, another girl from work came with me. "Is this like Jazzercise?" she asked as the class was about to begin. "Not exactly," I said, trying not to laugh. The Other Kickboxer's mic was broken, so I tried to mumble the cues to my colleague, who did rather well considering she didn't know any of the routine to start with. "That was way harder than I thought it would be!" she said at the end. But she liked it, and maybe she'll come back.

The last best bit is the tangible milestones. When I started doing the turbokick class, I could barely make it through the whole thing. I gasped and wheezed for at least twenty minutes after the first workout. Now my recovery time is down to five minutes, tops, and I'm putting more energy into each session. This week I completed the Fit 5-0 Challenge, which was a program to see who could take 50 hours of fitness classes between the beginning of the semester and the first of May. It's a great feeling to be able to keep up with all those genuine gym gurus. I may not be fabulous yet, but I've toned up a lot in the last couple of months. Wednesday we had a sub who was utterly new to me, who just made up a routine out of her head from bits and pieces of routines she used when she was a personal trainer in Hollywood. It was fast-paced and intense, but I got through it, only slacking off a little here and there. Friday one of the people who I know works out pretty constantly (after all, she hangs out with The Kickboxer, who pretty much lives in the gym) came up to me and we talked about how sore we were the next morning, and how hard the workout had been. It's pretty great to sort of be part of the inner circle of gym-goers now. After all, it's hard to discuss the finer points of muscle fatigue with my knitting circle, as wonderful as they are.

The only bad thing about going to the gym all the time is that I get so set in my preferences. I like a certain corner of the free weights area. I like some of the moves in turbokick better than others. I like certain of the music channels in the weight room much better than others, and try to avoid the attendants who only play rap and metal. Thank goodness the Kickboxer will be back this week: she also teaches my yoga class, and the sub's style is just not at all compatible with what I've come to expect.

turbokick! good for what ails you

They do say that the most fervent believers are the converts. I've been converted to several causes over the years, but recently, I've become a gym evangelical. Yes, me. If you know me, this is somewhat hard to believe, I'd imagine, because lazy would be a good word to describe me, but since I took up this Turbokick (TM) class, I'm hooked. I'm now one of those people who always tries to take people to the gym with her, and it's worked, some. I've gotten a couple of friends to go, and one of my coworkers, and my poor perplexed mother with her arthritic knees. I'm working on the others.

I must be irritating. One of the guys who works downstairs in my bookstore knows my gym schedule now, because I talk about it so much. My friends are well acquainted by proxy now with the deliciously sadistic instructors. But it's really a bright spot in my day, that endorphin rush. Plus I've dropped a couple of pants sizes, so that's not bad either. I almost have a bicep now! One on each side, even. It's quite entertaining for me, who's never been fit, to finally get a taste of what that feels like. I love it.

Plus, now maybe I could defend myself in a dark alley. Uppercut! Roundhouse! I am the Chuck Norris of my bookstore!

Except, of course, for Biceps, whose upper arms are still bigger around than my head, almost.

movie nights!

Last weekend, something completely unprecedented happened. I rented two movies and my family enjoyed both of them.

Granted, it probably had something to do with the fact that it's the time of year when the weather is getting nice and everyone is a little more easily pleased, but I didn't really expect both Enchanted and Dan In Real Life to be hits. My stepdad tends to rent kung fu movies, or action things, or comedies we've seen a hundred times (at one point, I am fairly certain that everyone could quote along with the entirety of Down Periscope). Mom likes things a little more esoteric and enjoys foreign films, but she'll cheerfully watch martial arts. My brother goes for scifi action films and raunchy collegiate comedies. I tend to go for indie and foreign films like the pretentious liberal arts graduate I am, so it was interesting that a partially animated musical and a comedy in the lives-of-quiet-desperation genre (made so popular by Garden State, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, and another recent Steve Carrell venture, Little Miss Sunshine) actually seemed to please everyone.

Of course, they both have their charms. Enchanted manages to simultaneously subvert and reinforce the Disney standards of love at first sight and the naive but plucky princess' journey from doe-eyed maidenhood to doe-eyed marital bliss. The songs, if not Oscar-worthy, were well-executed. I even managed to suppress my distaste for roaches through the "Happy Working Song". Giselle's series of dresses were too fabulous for words, and Amy Adams does an admirable job of being wide-eyed and cheery but nobody's dupe. My only problems with the movie were first, if you've got Idina Menzel, let her sing, and second, I was never convinced by Patrick Dempsey that he could form an attachment to anyone. But maybe that's just my indifference to McWhatever and his monotone. It would have marred the pacing of the movie to show anything worthwhile about his relationship with Nancy (or her motivations - it was nice to have the cut scene on the DVD showing that she was a hopeless romantic looking for a prince in addition to being a self-motivated, no-nonsense Manhattan fashion designer), but he did seem to fall for Giselle awfully fast when she was asleep on his couch. So much for rationality. It was a little too easy for me, but then again, I have to remind myself that this is a movie marketed to children, and that in a Disney movie, it's always going to be easy to fall in love.

Dan In Real Life was much more grown up. Even if it went along with the love at first sight trope, it was a lot more complicated and satisfying. Steve Carrell as the frustrated widower father of three was funny and warm, and the rest of the family was great too. Besides, it's conceivable to me that no one could resist Juliette Binoche. It's not so believable that everyone loves Patrick Dempsey. The only problem with Steve Carrell movies is when they degenerate into Will Ferrell-style hysterics (though it can't be denied that Carrell does a great histrionic fit, as we've seen on The Office), but the only moment where that happened was the "Put it on my tab" comment to the policeman, which felt believable at the time. Dan In Real Life was sweet and funny, if not laugh out loud hilarious. Ah, the claustrophobia of being around one's large family for a week at a time.

Oddly enough, last night's rental of Kinky Boots was a hit too, though it turned out that everyone had seen it except me. Now we'll have to see if we can continue the trend of finding happy mediums (by which I mean I will impose my movie wishes on the rest of the family and the films I choose will conquer their hearts, or at least entertain them for a while).

hey, nice car!

So Anderson Cooper is coming to speak on Friday, and the bookstore staff are organizing his book signing and hanging out at the reception, which meant that I was running around today papering all the local coffeehouses with charming photos of his dreamy face. When I came out of the last one (my usual hangout, but I wasn't in the mood for coffee this evening with the weather turning rough), a couple of guys were standing on the sidewalk looking at my car.

"Nice car!" said one of them. "That an '81?"
"'83!" I said.
"Nice," he said again, nodding sagely.
"Thanks," I said, and got in and drove away.

Funny thing is, that happens fairly frequently. People who own Volvos like my car a lot. There are a few around town of about the same vintage, big old station wagons with peeling bumper stickers. The other day, I saw one on my way to the gym, and the driver had her window rolled down, so I said, "Nice car!" and she grinned as she went on her way. It's kind of like being in a cult. A cult dedicated to vaguely retro things. If we ever had a meeting, we should probably wear bellbottoms and serve that cheese dip made out of Velveeta. And talk about the latest literary novel, of course. We're Volvo owners.

Lots of people are fond of their cars, sure, but I love my car more than most, I feel. It's been in the family since before I was born, as you can see: Mom bought it new and we've had it ever since. It's two years older than I am, and apart from the occasional cosmetic bit falling off, it runs pretty much like a dream, albeit a dream that is sometimes interrupted by the transmission falling out (hyperbole). For a car that spent a long time in coastal states, the paint job's still pretty good. She's been fairly well-maintained over the years (I suppose only having one owner helps with that, as most Volvos of that era have been bought several times). Of course, it's nicer from the outside. And once you get in, it's hard to get out, since the doors don't much work. But I love it anyway.

The Volvo is the car I grew up in. It's the car I came home from the hospital in. It's the car I learned to drive in (mostly). It is my fat-bottomed car. So there are no air bags and no air conditioning. The heater still works really well, which is a plus, and I've learned how to wedge my coffee mug between the parking brake and the passenger's seat, so everything's groovy, except it could use a radio. I cruise around town with my windows rolled down bellowing Sara Bareilles and gathering all sorts of indie cred. Plus she's easy to find in the parking lot, and no one would ever want to steal her.

Someday (soonish) the Volvo will probably cease to function normally, but knock on wood, that day's a few years off. I know I'll miss her when she's gone.

lists!

Like so many people, I am fond of making lists. So here are a few.

Things of which I am quite fond, at the moment:
01. Turbokick
02. A sunny, warm Saturday, even if I am stuck inside
03. Free tickets to the university production of an Oscar Wilde play
04. Scrabulous
05. Lists

Things that I have at some point claimed not to like, but now enjoy:
01. Broccoli and asparagus
02. Flipflops
03. Exercise
04. Soy products
05. The Facebook newsfeed page

Things that I am trying to like but probably never will:
01. Ankle socks: better than tall socks on bare legs, but with that weird feeling
02. People who come to the library regularly to use the computers and act entitled to being logged in that very minute, even if I am with a patron with an actual question (and they only want to play games and look up local prisoners), after which they take it upon themselves to police everyone else with respect to cellphone and headphone policies

On an unrelated note, what's with Israel and Jewish voters claiming foul if anyone says anything positive about Palestine? Note this, Israel: saying that your policies regarding the way you've totally overrun and continue to oppress Palestine and the Palestinians, most of whom are not involved in Hamas, is not anti-Semitic. It's a political issue, not a religious one, and knock it off.

I watched Juno

So with the Oscars last Sunday, and my knowledge of this year's films anything but nuanced, I was kind of surprised to see Juno in the running for Best Picture. Sure, I loved it, and sure, there was the strike on and all, but really? Best Picture? Isn't that the hallmark of stunning epics and things with lots of violence? I haven't even seen any of the other nominees and it was clear that Juno was not going to win, which it probably shouldn't.

Don't get me wrong. I was charmed. Ellen Page? Delightful. Allison Janney? Exquisite as ever. Rainn Wilson's cameo almost made me burst a seam. I laughed, I nearly cried, I said "aww" at all the appropriate bits, etc. But the problem with Juno is that it doesn't have much of a sense of resolution. I'm not asking for an anti-sex moral, or an anti-abortion moral - I'm not anti either of those things - but we never really saw the consequences of Juno's pregnancy. There were a couple of scenes in the school, but she never really seemed ostracized, or at least not any more ostracized than she had been as the weird girl. She was huge, but she wasn't in much more discomfort than that, and her parents still let her run around all over the place.

Part of Juno's charm is its lightheartedness, but at points it's a little too lighthearted. It doesn't confront the realistic consequences of teenage pregnancies, or the difficulty of finding a good solution. Juno doesn't confront the idea of giving away her child, though the weeping at the end was convincing enough to me.

The other problem is the relationship between the adopting couple - they hardly have any rapport, even at the beginning of the movie. It's a puzzle as to why they're together at all. I couldn't be sympathetic at all to Jason Bateman's character: he's cold at the beginning and a jerk at the end, never getting over the selfishness we see in his first scenes. He was cruel and inappropriate to put the problems in his relationship on Juno's shoulders when her load was already heavy enough for a high school girl. One wonders just what Jennifer Garner ever saw in him.

Juno is a movie I'd gladly watch over and over, but it isn't a Best Picture. Its scope is too limited, and it isn't nearly gory or sweeping enough. The soundtrack is quirky and sweet, but not epically moving. I'm sure No Country For Old Men fit the mold much better.

I was still pleased that Diabolo Cody got the award for best screenplay, but maybe Helen Mirren can teach her what to wear - nobody does classy and non-transparent like Helen Mirren.

fat-phobia

Americans are afraid of fat.

We spend vast amounts of money on gyms and on fat-free foods and diet pills. We get all up in arms if someone calls someone else fat, as seen in this blog post by Dick Cavette, or even the comments to this NYTimes blogpost by Tara Parker-Pope about the importance of fitness in emergencies. Fat people sit around stuffing their faces all day! say some, and nuts to them if they can't get down the stairs! Cruelty! trumpet the others, and how would you feel if someone left you to roast in a fire? Admittedly, Cavett's mention of Nazis and Mafiosos in the same breath as the obese is a little over-the-top, but he's from a generation less likely to grasp for slights and victimizing remarks.

We're a nation of fad dieters and gym rats and couch potatoes, obsessed with celebrities who are thin to the point of appearing malnourished. We get riled up about clothing sizes, about portion sizes, about video games that will supposedly keep us fit. We watch "The Biggest Loser". We tell each other, "Of course you aren't fat!" We're mostly lying.

Why are we afraid to be called fat? In India, salespeople would look me up and down and give me a size bigger than I asked for. "Big size!" they'd insist. The local population was much slimmer. The Indian-American girl on my study abroad program was thrilled that at long last she wasn't being "penalized" by being made to pay the same price for her smaller, less-fabric-intensive clothing. The French didn't care enough to remark on my size, but I had trouble finding jeans that I liked (this did have something to do with the fact that I'm not big on rhinestones or pre-ripping, though).

I'm a fat girl. I've always been a fat girl. At five foot three and 165 pounds, there's no way you could call me normal weight. This is not to say that I'm not healthy - I don't have breathing or joint problems, and my cholesterol levels are fairly enviable. I eat pretty well - not too much, mostly vegetables (I can't help but think that Michael Pollan would be slightly proud and slightly dismayed, given that I'm not an omnivore). I don't have to shop in the plus size section and my BMI doesn't qualify me as obese. I don't consider myself unattractive. The reason I'm overweight is because I'm lazy. It's only in recent weeks that I've started going to the gym regularly. Though I played outside as a kid, it was mostly dreamy introspective games that involved building tiny playgrounds out of twigs and aquarium pebbles, not running and jumping. I wish I'd kept playing soccer after second grade, because it might have instilled some healthier gym habits in me. I wish I could say that I have a grand health plan in mind with all these gym hours, but really I just like the look of my collarbones, and I'd like to be fit enough to be less sweaty when I work out.

I suppose being overweight is something of a vicious circle. It is irritating to go to the gym and see all the skinny girls bouncing along on the ellipticals at two miles an hour, as if they don't have to work at it, or the massive guys heaving massive weights around on their massive shoulders. It is hard to schedule that treadmill time into your day. It isn't entertaining to diet or do crunches. And the heavier you are, the harder it gets to convince yourself to do something about it.

Why are we so afraid to be called fat? Sure, fat kids get bullied. But skinny kids get bullied too, and bookworms, and poor kids, and all sorts of kids. Children are cruel at times. I don't really buy the argument that a bunch of five-year-olds can ruin someone's life forever. Fatness shouldn't imply a lack of mental acuity or a dearth of social skills, but it seems to. Maybe I just didn't experience these damaging taunts because in addition to being the fat girl, I was the smart girl, and you don't want to alienate the person whose help you want with your homework.

Listen up, Americans: we are fat, we do need to get off the couch, and we need to stop playing the victims and acting offended that the rest of the world thinks we're porky, with our Twinkies and our burgers and our spread-out towns that make it inconvenient to walk anywhere. I'm not going to go so far as to say that fat people endanger society, but they do make us a source of (more) amusement for the rest of the world. Sure, some people have gland problems or other health conditions that contribute to their weight, but most don't. It isn't a moral judgment when someone points out that you're overweight. Someone might be implying that your will is weak or your motivation is lacking, but I wouldn't bet that way. Fat is a fact.

Meanwhile, skinny people (and don't think I believe that all of you just have high metabolisms), it's not really your place to be making people feel disgusting and awful. Exposed ribs aren't what I want to see at the beach, so if you and all the celebrities can just eat a sandwich now and again, I think we'll all be better off.

things that annoy me about the gym

As someone who's now at the gym pretty frequently (and will no doubt be at the gym even more when she suddenly has several extra hours of free time in the morning), I have some beefs with my fellow exercisers. No doubt they have beefs with me too, but they don't necessarily have blogs, so nuts to them.

01. What's with wearing makeup to the gym? I come to the gym straight from work and I don't even have on as much makeup as these girls do. In fact, I try to remove it before I get all sweaty, because how is it possibly a plus to have mascara on while you're lifting five pound weights? Seriously. That can't be good for your skin, to have all that stuff getting into your pores. And I know they had time to remove it, because while they all seem to go to class in Victoria's Secret sweatpants, they don't go to class in hotpants or leggings and sneakers.

02. Gym couture. When did it become necessary to have fancy fancy clothes for the gym? I was just showing up in old t-shirts. Now I have a tanktop and yoga pants made out of microfiber or some nonsense, but that's not nearly as fancy as the clothes a lot of the girls wear. Coordinating, specially tailored to be aerodynamic, ergonomic bicycle shorts? And the best part is that they have ruffles on them and cost $50. Actually, I think my favorite part is the tiny tailored coordinating hoodies - why would you want to be more warm while you're kickboxing? And why do so many girls wear hats? It boggles my mind. Not that the men are much better, in their Underarmour and their wifebeaters.

03. People on cellphones. You can't take an hour out of your day to not answer the phone? Also, Women's Health told me that if you can talk while you're on the treadmill or the elliptical, you're not working hard enough. I don't need to hear your conversation about omg the party you, like, went to at that frat or whatever, and I wish your phone weren't turned up loud enough that I could hear the other half of your gossip circuit.

04. Men who look sideways at me when I go to the weights area to do squats or bench press. There's a reason I go to the gym at godawful hours of the morning before it's filled up with sweaty grunting guys. Sure, I don't lift a whole lot, but I'm not going to find a 60 pound barbell in the women's area with the yoga mats and the Bosus, so you just keep on keepin' on, men. I like my muscles too.

05. Aerobics classes where no one gets sweaty. What's the point of that, then?

06. When the attendant in the weight room decides that loud rap is the best thing to play. At least keep it at a volume that doesn't make my ears ring when I try to listen to my super classy Pointer Sisters/musicals/Bollywood workout mix.

cupcake disasters

I'm pretty good in the kitchen. Oddly good in the kitchen, in fact, given that I experiment a lot and hardly ever measure things properly. That only makes the times things turn out badly more of a disappointment, though, when I expect deliciousness and am greeted with something disgusting.

I made the red wine cupcakes again on Monday afternoon. The cupcakes, thanks to my very capable sous-chef R, turned out beautifully. The glazes did not. Because they were so easy the first time, I figured they'd be fine this time. And then I used baking chocolate instead of regular chocolate, so the glaze came out more like a cross between taffy and fudge, all grainy and chewy. It's still sitting in the fridge, oozing that sort of liquor that comes out of dark chocolate and doesn't taste like anything much. I'll figure out something to put it in, I guess, that involves an oven. At least that one came out edible.

The caramel, however, was an unmitigated disaster. I think I didn't cook it over a high enough heat, and the sugar wouldn't brown properly before the water boiled off, so it wouldn't react with the cream, and when I tried to stir the cream in anyway and see if it would reduce, I ended up with a thin, curdled, sugary syrup that I promptly poured down the kitchen sink before it made the whole kitchen reek of sour milk. Good thing I had some goat milk cajeta handy that I could use instead. The ladies at knitting circle appreciated it.

Another delightful case of "Read the Question!". The only saving grace was that we didn't set anything on fire. And warm chocolate cupcakes, I suppose. And that I didn't have to do the dishes.

Oh, well, I guess everything turned out all right after all.

hi-yah!

So, I'm a chubby girl, and in general I'm a lazy girl. I like to go to the gym, but I get a little bored, and I find it hard to stay motivated to go. Ellipticals are fine, but not particularly interesting. The weightlifting section is always full of men. The treadmills are always full and also I tend to overdo it and burn myself out in ten or fifteen minutes. Girl might as well not go to the gym in that case.

But not this week.

Last week, one of the women at knitting circle told me that she'd started doing a Turbokick class at the local gym. It was fun, she said, and I should come along. Since classes are free for university staff, I thought, "Why not?"

Now I'm hooked. I could only go three times this week, and I pouted all yesterday when I had to work late and miss it. Why do I learn about everything so late? I thought it was just a my-gym thing, but apparently there's a whole Turbokick culture. It's a good workout too - kind of a mix of hip-hop and kickboxing. Do that for an hour and tell me your heart rate isn't up. I thought I was going to die after the first class, when I was sore before I even got home (and it's only a ten minute drive). But it was fun, and it was fast-paced, and unlike the regular hip-hop class, everyone was flushed and sweaty, down to the instructor. So I pushed through the pain like a real trooper the next day and lo and behold, it turns out just getting moving will help your aching muscles. And I thought I'd stuffed my brain full of all the knowledge it could use while I was in school.

I don't know why a class gets me to the gym when my own health doesn't. Maybe it's having an on and off gym buddy. Maybe it's being in a whole room full of people punching and kicking and shaking their booties. It does remind me some of my year on dance team. Or maybe it's just that the instructors have enviable bodies and I am convinced that, given a few weeks of jab-cross-hook-uppercut, I'll start to look like them. Just think if I skipped knitting circle and went five nights a week, how fast I'd be fit and fab.

And maybe I'll have a few smooth moves, as long as I don't roundhouse kick anyone in the club.

Super Fat Tuesday!

Ah, Super Tuesday. What more satisfying day for the political junkie? Plenty of candidates, lots of states: much more fun than Election Day, because there's still a satisfying stretch of months.

High school civics classes need to step up their efforts, though, or local news stations do, because apparently many people are wrongly convinced that Super Tuesday is when everyone votes. This ABCnews.com story elaborates on this misconception, though I feel the title of "Dumbocracy" is a little unfair. Super Tuesday is massively hyped and talked about. Other states aren't. The fact that there are primary competitions of some sort until June is hardly discussed at all.

Last time there was a presidential election, I got to caucus in Iowa, which was satisfying. Casting my ballot yesterday was good too. Look at me: I'm in a state which (almost) matters! As if there was ever any doubt that Arkansas would go to Clinton and Huckabee. Still, I was glued to cnn.com's Election Center all night, just for the thrill of it.

This year's goign to be a corker, and no doubt about it. Hard-fought Democratic primaries! The right wondering whether it ought to gnaw its arm off rather than support McCain! Drama drama drama! It's almost a good thing that there's a writers' strike on - all the networks have to offer is election coverage (and reality tv, but let's be serious: I'd rather see a candidate catfight, even if there aren't bikinis or proposals of marriage). On the other hand, no Indecision 2008, or little of it. Can't win them all, as the candidates have learned.

Although maybe somebody could have swept it, if only they'd started flashing for votes in the grand tradition of Mardi Gras. Show us something!

ready for some football?

So it's Super Bowl Weekend, and I even know who's playing this year. That's an accomplishment, given that I'm one of those pretentious twits who sniff and say, "I prefer real football," meaning soccer, but that's what comes of trying to talk sports with a bunch of French high schoolers whose football is played with round balls by handsome men in shorts with no helmets. Despite my year on dance team in junior high, I never really picked up the fundamentals of the game (by which I mean I didn't understand what downs were), but once it was explained to me, I found it much more stimulating.

This year I'm excited because my default team to cheer for is in the Bowl! Hooray! I know nothing about football, quarterbacks, running backs, and the merits of the various teams, but by God, if the Patriots are playing, I'll cheer for them. I am not sure why this is, whether I liked their uniforms or whether it all started because my little brother liked the Patriots, but I am all over it now. I even know who Tom Brady is (admittedly, mostly because they did a piece on national morning news the other day about how everyone had a mancrush on Tom Brady, except when they polled people on the street, they didn't explain the term mancrush, so everyone denied it at the risk of looking randomly gay, and anyway, he's still not doing as well as Jesus).

It's weird that I never thought about football much until I went abroad. I missed hearing the marching bands practice. I missed the games being on in the background. So I went to a few of the home games this year, despite the fact that I'd not been to a college football game since the tender age of four or so, and that was just the end of an LSU game. Now I almost know what a running back is (with DMac and Felix Jones around, who could help it?), but my appreciation of the game is rather limited to enjoying watching muscled men fling themselves into heaps over a piece of leather, and also trash-talking the other team, even if my insults are more along the lines of, "Your understanding of differential equations lacks nuance! You wouldn't know a trochaic foot if it bit you!"

My Superbowl Sunday will mostly entail waiting for House to come on post-Bowl, but! The Patriots are going to crush the Giants and I don't care who knows it. After all, I'm fairly certain that the Giants couldn't replicate Rutherford's gold foil experiment with a lunchbox, a sheet of paper, and a rubber ball.

For that, you need Quiz Bowl.

this is not a food blog

Though this is not a food blog, I do tend to spend a lot of time thinking about food and making food, so I might as well do a food entry. There have been two birthdays this month in my department at work, and so I set out to establish myself as the master baker, as if the pumpkin scones all autumn didn't prove that.

For the guitar-playing cashier, I made Dulcedo's Red Wine Cupcakes, because they sounded too delicious not to try. Indeed, they were, and beautiful besides - somewhere around I've got a photo that I'll add. I baked them in a rush one day after work because my family wanted a glass of wine, and I wanted them to be fresh (the recipe warns that they can go stale easily). Warm out of the oven, they were heavenly: biting into them gave a strong breath of merlot, and the caramel and chocolate drizzled over the top was melty and perfect. They were good when they cooled off too, but without the hit of tannins. The wine flavor was much more subtle, though the chocolate flavor was much stronger, as I actually had time to frost them when they wouldn't melt.

Bosslady wanted something chocolate too, so I went for the Starbucks Cinnamon Chocolate Bread, which has been a hit even though I burned it around the edges. It was rich and crumbly on this slushy day, and there's only the burned end left since the cashiers went to town on it. I added a little chili powder to the topping, because I like my dishes with a bite to them. If it hadn't been for a pregnant woman, I probably would have added some coffee, too. It's a little dryer than I expected, given the sheer volume of butter, but that's a poundcake characteristic, I suppose. Ought to have tea with it or something.

I'm thinking my next baking project will be less chocolately. For my birthday, I'm imagining Raspberry Eggplant's Mango Kulfi Cupcakes, though I'd probably modify the frosting, since I despise meringue (except for the crunchy fruity meringue macaroons I got in Lille). Good plan.

John Edwards, we hardly knew ye (except your family's history of working in mills)

Poor Giuliani. This morning's NYTimes Online had a big photo of him and McCain and a huge headline about how Giuliani was dropping out and endorsing McCain.

Then, of course, John Edwards' bowing out leaked, and suddenly the big photo was a large and flattering shot of Edwards looking patriotic and vivacious. After all, Giuliani is a has-been now and McCain is so old he's practically dead. Why not show Edwards? Hey, maybe someone will make him the VP candidate again? There's no denying he's great at shaking hands and kissing babies, and I imagine he's got a little less pride on that score than either Clinton or Obama would have if the other extended that sort of invitation.

Ah well. Got to love the American political system. Just think! Only a few days more until Super Tuesday, which will no doubt perpetuate a knockdown dragout fight until the end of August! Then another knockdown dragout fight until the beginning of November! Joy of joys.

I watched Walk Hard

I ended up going to the movies a lot more than usual while my other best friend was home. This isn't surprising; I really only go to the movies with people, and when most of my friends have moved away. I think that until I went to see August Rush in November, the last movie I had seen in the theatre was Ratatouille. Then in the space of a few weeks, I saw I Am Legend, Walk Hard, and Juno. At least I know where the new cinema is now.

Anyway. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is not the kind of thing I would usually pick to go see. It's like a Will Ferrell movie, only without Will Ferrell (and while he's got some chops, I don't like his comedies much). The blatant innuendo in the title alone would be enough to turn me off the film. But I like John C. Reilly, I like it even better when he sings, and The Office (US) has awakened me to the charms of Jenna Fischer, so I said yes.

There were parts of the movie that amused me. Mostly the absolute hyperbole: the grown man masquerading as a fourteen-year-old, the woman playing his twelve-year-old girlfriend, the way that it all got worked into some expository dialogue. It was almost surreal, the way they discarded any pretense at realism. A song gets written on the spot, the musicians are so hip to the jive that they're able to play along, and within 35 minutes (thanks, DJ Exposition!), it's topping the charts! Amazing! I can get down (somewhat) with a movie that doesn't take itself seriously.

Despite Jenna Fischer's cleavage, the movie did drag on a bit. The whole-life approach meant a bunch of costume changes and a little bit of aging makeup, which was interesting, but I felt that the lessons could have been learned in much less time. Dewey Cox is no David Bowie, to go through a hundred phases and still be interesting. He wasn't that interesting in the first place. I liked the band members all right; they got short-shrifted in all kinds of ways.

The movie doesn't quite go far enough to be true parody, but I did enjoy the self-aware moments. And I'll admit it, I laughed at some of the cheaper gags, but more in "They did what?" shock and half-horror than in true entertainment. But then, I'm pretty hard to please when it comes to comedies.

Overall, I don't really regret seeing it, but I wouldn't see it again in the theatre. I might watch bits and pieces if it were on within earshot, but mostly for the novelty of seeing Jenna Fischer all dolled up. And maybe for the fake Beatles. That part was funny.

quizzical about quizzes

Clearly I am just as deep into it as most people but guys, really, the internet is ridiculous.

Not that this is news.

I was just playing Scrabulous on Facebook (might as well, before it ceases and desists), and I glanced over at the ad in the side panel. "ARE YOU FAT?" the ad screamed. "Take this quiz and find out!"

What kind of questions are on that quiz, I wonder? "Do you enjoy cramming junk food into your face?", like, or is it more along the lines of "What's your BMI?" Do I have a fat personality to go along with my hefty hips? Oh, if only I could think thin! Maybe the quiz will tell me how.

It used to be all "attend this event!" and "buy things from this website!" in that sidebar, along with "please be my roommate!" and "I lost my dog!" local ads, but now it seems to be quizzes. Quizzes, quizzes everlasting. It's like a British pub, only less classy. Really? A quiz will tell me if I'm a kissing master? A quiz doesn't even know what flavor of lipgloss I like. Unless touchscreen technology is a lot more advanced than I thought and also has been secretly installed on my laptop, I doubt a quiz is going to tell me anything.

Okay, I've taken my share of internet quizzes. But mostly only the ones that had cool badges to post afterwards. And it was more things that told me my Celtic astrology sign or what nonsensical object I was like or even what character from a book. None of this "are you fat" nonsense. The internet has descended from exalted academic resource (hah) to perversion to drivel. Alas for the days of yore (not really).

Ah well. Even if Facebook's sold out, I can still get an engineering degree in three weeks from home and enroll myself in identity theft protection. Now that's a better world.

Camping Out By Chick-Fil-A

Here's a funny thing: until this morning, there was a tent city in front of the new Chick-Fil-A that went up at the corner of the two main drags near my house. Well, fine, so it was more like a tent hamlet, but still, that's a curious thing to see in front of a restaurant. Especially a fast food restaurant. The only time I see a line like that at McDonald's or Taco Bell is on New Year's, when the wait at Taco Bell was about 20 minutes for the first one we tried, and they had run out of food, they claimed (we went to a second franchise and they served us, though they were out of beans). But tents! Never! It was like a really boring tailgate party! There were all sorts of grills and lawn chairs and what looked suspiciously like violations of open container laws, and then no game at the end. Those souls are braver than I am, that's for sure.

It was such a mystery. Why tents? Why Chick-Fil-A? Surely if they were hungry, they could have just gone to any of the assorted fast food restaurants nearby? The local high school has an open campus lunch, meaning the students can leave, so the place is fraught with sandwich shops and burger joints. Surely if they needed housing, they might have chosen to take a room in one of the cheapish hotels half a mile down the road? They all looked prosperous enough with their posh tents and their North Face fleeces, warming their hands around a barbeque.

Had I checked Wikipedia, earlier, I might have learned that there's a whole traveling group called "The Herd" who attend grand openings of as many Chick-Fil-As as possible. I might have learned about the First Hundred promotion whereby the dedicated first hundred people to enter the doors of a new Chick-Fil-A get a coupon for a free combo meal every week. Ah, if only I had done my (questionable) research, I would not have been so puzzled and amused.

Anyway, the grand opening was this morning, and there was some poor soul dressed as a cow in a nightgown dragging a billboard around through the morning frost. The tents had all vanished like John Edwards' hopes after New Hampshire. I'd imagine the camping out part was more a draw than the food - I don't know anyone whose passion for chicken sandwiches would normally convince them to wait around in thirty degree weather for hours and hours. Maybe I should have told Biceps about it, though. He appreciates a good piece of chicken, as I am reminded every afternoon when he starts to heat up his Tupperware of pasty chicken and smooshy peas. I really hope that the genuinely homeless people in the area found out about the promotion - they're a lot more in need of a chicken combo meal than the people I saw making merry in the early evening in the parking lot of the brand new Chick-Fil-A. Ah well.

I shouldn't mock. If they ever offered a nifty promotion for a vegetarian fast food chain (oh, I have high hopes), I'd probably be out there in my sleeping bag with my little camping lantern too.

tiny bubbles

On a lighter note, things I should not do at work: read about Trappist ales and extreme beers all morning. After all, even if there were cafés about where one could get a humble pint of Affligem or Chimay or Leffe (a favorite in the little white house in Cambrai, probably because it was cheap), it's not even noon. My American sensibilities don't approve of beer at breakfast hours. On the other hand, it's four in the afternoon in France, a perfect moment to sit down in a bar.

Really, the American attitude toward alcohol is regrettable. We have the all-or-nothing gumption that serves well when it comes to exploration and stealing other people's lands, and less well when it comes to binge-drinking. How scandalous to have drinks at lunch! How daring! How will one ever refrain from saying or doing regrettable things in the workplace? But one glass of wine or beer does not most people drunken make. Witness the bottles of wine in the teachers' lunchroom at my lycée. The French don't drink to get drunk, at least mostly not during the work day. It's just part of the daily life just as much as the long lunch is, though I can't deny both probably helped my colleagues deal with their unruly adolescent charges.

Anyway, the point is that I'm extremely suggestible, apparently, because now I'd love to dash to the liquor store on the main drag and pick up a can of Guinness with its rattly little ball, or maybe the double chocolate stout, since the big warehouse-style booze emporium that might have Trappist ales is a bit of a schlep. I'm going to spend my lunch hour wishing I had something fizzy and hoppy to be a counterpoint to my Thai leftovers. I think what I'm more longing for is the town square in Cambrai where we usually went for a beer, the sunshine and the tiny cars dashing over the cobblestones and the utterly stylish pedestrians and the inscrutable statues on the dome of the town hall. It's not so much the bite of the ale as the smooth patter of French all around me and the sense of ease and comraderie.

Unfortunately, I don't think my boss would be down with the idea of me keeping a six-pack in the office fridge, so that idea is dashed all to smithereens. I like my propriety anyway. It's constricting, but the support is like nothing else. I just ought not to read the Dining section of the NYTimes until it's properly time to eat things.

On the plus side, it does distract me from my desire to punch Bill Kristol in the face.

you go, girl.

This primaries thing just gets more and more interesting. Given my own leftist politics, I find the Democratic front-runners (meaning Clinton and Obama, natch - Edwards doesn't have the appeal or the dazzle to make it a real three-way race) fairly equally palatable and the Republicans equally eerie and over-zealous to get their grabby hands on my civil rights (though I might like John McCain, if he weren't so firmly for the war, or Giuliani, if he weren't a bit cracked). Today is the New Hampshire primary, and of course we've already got the early results in from Digg's Notch and Hart's Location. The frustrating thing about primaries (and the Republican caucus in Iowa) is that it takes so long to count the votes. Polls open at 8 and close whenever they do, and after that you still have to wait. At least caucus is instant gratification.

Obama's got the early lead, apparently: the media's portrait of Clinton as desperate and flagging is working, which I think is a pity. As Gloria Steinem points out in today's New York Times, Hillary gets a bad rap if she's stern (too cold! too reserved! possibly a robot!) and a worse one if she shows any emotion (isn't it just like a woman to be all emotional right now! women are too weak and ruled by their hormones! what if she cried in the White House?). There's absolutely no way she can win that war. Meanwhile, Obama goes on with his highly emotional pontification and appeals to our deeper sorrows. He's a good speaker and a moving one, but that kind of speech isn't available to Clinton.

Steinem has several other good points: why can Obama use his race in a way that Clinton can't use her gender? Why is he "allowed" to talk about civil rights struggles and Clinton has to shy away from sexism for fear of being accused of playing the gender card? She is a woman. That's an incontrovertible fact, despite snide comments. Why shouldn't she talk about being a woman? More than half the country's population is women; perhaps it's time for a candidate who truly understands women's issues. Clinton and Obama are equally progressive; Obama's voting record during his most of a term in the Senate has been almost identical to Clinton's. It's hard to say who's got more at stake in terms of a fight for their rights - both are wealthy, well-educated, and privileged.

Perhaps the problem is that Obama is viewed as a man of the people (aha) and Clinton is seen as someone who's more independently motivated, less receptive to the voices of her constituents. Clinton's aggressiveness and reserve would be praised if she were a man. Don't we want a President who will fight for their country? Admittedly, getting elected isn't the most poignant struggle in the world, but it is a challenge that requires dedication and passion. Each candidate has their own reasons for wanting the position, but I believe that the greater good of the nation is among Clinton's motives. So she wants another chance to effect change. Who can blame her for that? The First Lady is a nice title, but the position doesn't come with much authority, and it's clear she's always had ideas of her own about policy. The number one reason I heard for voting for Bush when I was calling voters in Iowa before the 2004 elections was that people wanted to give him another chance to fix his mistakes. The mistakes of the Clintons were much less heinous; a failed health care plan is hardly a quagmire of a war or a shambles of an education policy. So give Hillary a chance to restructure her own plans gone awry and I believe she'll fix Bush's errors as well. She'll surround herself with good people and she'll behave like a president ought to: strong, motivated, and broad-minded.

That doesn't even touch on the whole "Iron My Shirt" debacle. Can you imagine if some redneck idiot stood up and made a racist comment to Obama? Aside from Fox News commentators, of course. The uproar would be instantaneous and furious. Tell people about this and I guarantee that a good percentage of them will be hiding a smile or a titter. There's an idea that this is the kind of commentary Clinton should deserve or expect. Who's asking Obama or Edwards or the Republicans how much effort they put into caring for their children or doing the housekeeping? Most of them are rich enough to pay for housekeepers and nannies if they feel that they need them, but that wouldn't be seen as a cop-out for them; meanwhile, Clinton is expected to talk about her family life and her domestic abilities. Rather sickening.

Personally, I'd be happy with either of them as a candidate. Look at America, feeling good about itself when the two most viable candidates are a white woman and an African-American man. That's progress, at least.

Maybe people are just tired of political dynasties. Admittedly, Bill Clinton's fine legacy of policy making, peace-keeping, and governmental competence is overshadowed by the ridiculous impeachment and the way Bush spent the surplus into the ground, took us straight into a war, and underfunded things like No Child Left Behind, which might have worked. Maybe that's why Obama seems fresh and hip enough to appeal to young voters and charm the jaded middle-aged. It is impressive that he managed to draw out the overwhelmingly white population of Iowa on an icy January evening. But if you really want to overturn the status quo, why not vote for a woman? Women are still underpaid, still expected to hold down a job and raise a family, still at a political and a social disadvantage. Not to belittle the continuing influences of racism, but it must be remarked that Obama isn't quite the disadvantaged wunderkind, here to unite black and white, conservative and liberal (and how would he be doing if he didn't have a white mother from Kansas, I wonder?), man and woman. Sure, he listens to his wife, but you can't yet vote for Michelle Obama.

Hillary's always going to be a polarizing figure. She's always going to stir up resentment for one reason or another: she stood by Bill, she didn't stand by him enough, she's too New York, she's a carpetbagger trying to build on her husband's Southern charm, she plays the gender card, she's not womanly enough, she implies a return to the feel-good Clinton era, she has her own policies and agendas to implement. There's never not going to be people with strong opinions about her and I value that. At least she inspires. Nobody's ever going to have all good press or all agreement. That wouldn't be rough and tumble American politics, and frankly, I like it this way. All the drama! Less of the bloodshed! Nice work, America. It's time for the apathy to end.

If Obama is the nominee, I'll throw my support behind him. Anything to get Bush out of the White House and this country out of its slump, and besides that, I genuinely like him. I'm all for the politics of hope and actually looking forward to the State of the Union. But you know what? I'm not giving up hope for Hillary Clinton breaking that glass ceiling.

Caucus!

Like so many others, all I can talk about today is last night's Iowa caucus. Iowa! Iowa! You don't realize how much you miss it until it's all over tv; I swear I recognized 98% of the towns they were talking about on CNN. They all had exits off I-80, for one thing. I kind of wish I were still registered to vote in Iowa, though it would have meant an eight-hour drive to sleep on the floor of the gymnasium in a sleeping bag. Iowa is the first rock in the avalanche! It's the buzzer that starts the game for real! All that initial trash-talking was just prelude to the barrage of ads that will come after the first results are in and campaigns start re-tooling to please the people.

It's hard to explain the appeal of caucus to someone who has never caucused (for instance, a Canadian friend of mine who asked, "Can't I just do my voting from home?"). It's true it's a bit of a schlep through miserable dark January weather to spend a couple of hours in a school gymnasium with a bunch of other people in winter gear that becomes rapidly much too warm, but on the other hand, it's a lot more entertaining and engaging than a voting booth. The whole point of caucus is to argue and cajole! How great is that? It's a highly-compartmentalized microcosm of national-level politics. In rural Iowa, this means it's half your town cramming into someone's living room. You recognize the people in your ward, you are well aware of all the weaknesses (or enduring truths, if they agree with you) of their political positions, and you're prepared to take advantage of their candidate's obvious non-viability (or glory, if they agree with you) and shore up support for your future leader. It's national politics at its most local and charming.

I suppose caucus, like so many things about the US political system (electoral college, anyone?) just seems strange and rowdy from the outside. Not that it isn't a little strange and rowdy on the inside. But caucus is so much more interesting than a straight-up primary: there's a lot more dialogue, a lot more things to do while you're waiting around for results. Sure, Iowa is an incredibly white-bread, decisively moderate, mostly agricultural state that gets a disproportionate amount of attention and influence, but the 75% of the time that's not election year, they're a flyover state, so give them a little love.

The Democratic caucus was clearly more interesting than the Republican caucus, partly because of the quicker returns when you're counting delegates instead of votes (and seriously, Des Moines Republican caucus, when you pass the hat to pay for supplies right before you start voting, it sure starts to look like a poll tax), and because Mitt Romney never really had much of a chance in Iowa. Iowans pride themselves on stubbornness and good Christian values. It doesn't matter whether Huckabee is a bit of a slimy jerk (despite his fairly progressive stance on immigration): he's a solid Christian. That'll get him an edge any day over Mitt the Mormon, no matter how much money and charm Romney doles out or how organized his campaign is. You want to win in an agricultural state? Look grass-roots and down-home, which Huckabee does (admittedly, his charm is somewhat disarming). Poor Giuliani, with his citified ways, never had a chance; I would have gone to Florida too, where the weather at least doesn't resemble the ninth circle of hell. So there's the Republican nomination sewn up for Iowa, but what about Hillary and Obama? What about Edwards, with his dapper good looks?

Turns out the young people turned themselves out in spades, and they all went for Obama. He got the youth vote, he got the women. The Iowa women were a big force in this caucus, caught between Obama's enthusiasm and Hillary's stand-together attitude. But Hill, unfortunately, can't seem not to look establishment, while Obama's fresh and new. My personal view of Edwards' strong finish is that all the men were voting for him. Leery of Hillary's reputation as a strongarm and Obama's youthful appearance, who are the men of Iowa going to vote for but Edwards? He's young (but not too young!), sensitive (but not too sensitive!), not part of the Clinton legacy (too soon?), and won't he look fine someday in his presidential portrait? So the men flocked to Edwards, and some of their wives and girlfriends went with them. Fascinating. Sometimes the star power of Clinton and Obama doesn't work in their favor, and salt-of-the-earth Iowa proves it.

My only real worry, as we wait for New Hampshire, is that the media will turn Hillary into the next Dean, working themselves into a frenzy over her supposed has-been status until it becomes a reality. The front page of the New York Times has a photo of her looking angry. It's true that she wasn't expecting to finish third, but the margin between her and Edwards is so small that it's almost insignificant. She's not the "big loser" she was called repeatedly last night. Her speech may not have been as impassioned as Edwards' or indeed, Obama's (now there's a man who can orate), but Hillary's never been as outwardly passionate or emotive as the other two. A large part of her image is her self-control, which doesn't tend to endear her to the American voter needing to feel personally spoken to and cared for. She didn't talk about New Hampshire and Nevada and Carolina the way the others did, which could give the impression that she's giving up, but if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.

Chris Beam, liveblogging for Slate.com, speculated that if Hillary had visited Grinnell - ah, the consequences of the question-planting incident - and managed to convince just thirty people to caucus for her, she could have pulled ahead of Edwards and all this kerfuffle would be dampened. A fellow Grinnellian points out that this is not inconceivable given the number of collegian caucusers supporting unviable candidates like Kucininch, Richardson, and Dodd (Biden was viable in Grinnell 1), who swung mostly to Obama. If Hillary had had just thirty more people, it wouldn't have mattered if all of the undecideds went to Obama: she would have been viable in Grinnell and picked up enough state-wide delegates to edge Edwards out. Coulda woulda shoulda, I suppose, but it's amazing the difference that one more Maid-Rite loose meat sandwich can make. Edit: Beam has retracted this based on fuzzy math (Hillary needed to pick up State Delegate Equivalents, not precinct delegates), but the point remains valid that a little more work might have secured her a significant enough of the delegates left milling about when their candidates weren't viable to nose ahead.

There's no doubt Hillary could have done more in Iowa to improve her profile, but her race isn't over yet. Not everyone is looking for a candidate to bring them personal reassurance; after W's misguided attempt to combine small-town-style just-folks concern with his macho persona, it'd be refreshing to have a president who doesn't seem to want to come to our house for a potluck and to maybe shoot some things. Hillary was always going to play better outside of the Midwest, where her reserve comes off cold. (Elizabeth faced the same problem in The Queen; maybe Hill should get Helen Mirren to give her speeches?) Wait until the coasts get hold of the vote (not that the East Coast and the Left Coast are, according to Huckabee, part of America).

The influence of the Iowa caucus is certain (unfortunate is a whole other question). Their anointed candidates don't always make it all the way, but Iowa's had a good record of choosing winners for the last few elections. Now that the South Carolina voters have seen Obama pull in a strong response in a state whose population is almost 95% white, it's almost certain that some of the black voters will swing from Hillary to Obama. Edwards' unexpectedly strong finish will probably pick up a few undecideds, or maybe some disgruntled Republicans. The game is afoot! Suddenly the idea of an African-American as a viable candidate seems like a real possibility, and not just a nice idea.

Iowa: for better or worse, they get to vote before you do.

Also, can we please not call Huckabee "Mike" for the next ten interminable months?

Pretentiousness with a twist

There are many ways in which I am rather pretentious. I use the word "rather" with a particular frequency, for instance. I'm not sure that attending a small elitist liberal arts college or spending the subsequent year in France, cradle of haughtiness, have helped this tendency of mine, but now that I'm back in the humble Upper South US, I can't just go on talking about obscure literary theorists and high-class cheeses. Most of the time, I try to keep my snobbery under wraps, in the name of politeness and being a real human being.

On the other hand, there is one place I glory in my preference for things high-end and obscure, and that's at the local yarn shop. Sure, I'm still something of a yarn novice. Sure, I started on Red Heart like every other chump. But now I'm aware there's a bigger, better world outside of Hobby Lobby eyelash yarn. Cashmerinos! Aran tweeds! Big fat fluffy wools! Bamboo yarn, even, gorgeous and slippery. Yes, it's a whole wide world of texture and color out there once you get past semi-self-striping acrylics.

Not only are there a lot of different fibers (alpaca, cotton, various wools, silks, and the unlikely but lovely bamboo, among others), but there are so many different weights of yarn. I've petted wools that will give you one stitch per inch on needles the side of magic markers, and laceweight wools that knit up airy as anything on even the smallest needles. Some yarns are plyed, others semi-felted to begin with. I've gone back occasionally to the lingering generic acrylics in my stash, but there's just so much less you can do with them. They don't felt. There's no interesting variation on the color. Lots of them don't even have dye lots, much less fascinating textures like my anonymous green stuff, twisted together from several different colors with some incredible slubs, or the small remainder of Mango Moon in my bag, made from recycled saris. It's kind of like drinking instant coffee for years and then one day walking into a Starbucks (or equivalent, more delicious independent coffeeshop). You never really want to go back. And each skein has a story that way. "Oh, I picked that up in a little place in the smallest town you ever saw." "This? It's from that amazing yarn superstore. And that one was a gift/inheritance/piece of booty."

I have to say, I'm glad to be a part of it. So go on, ask me about my yarn.