Warm Fuzzies #5: Votes for Cookies

My last Warm Fuzzy was a compliment on my baking capabilities and, somewhat unsurprisingly, this one is too.

To get into the holiday spirit—and because I felt like experimenting with cuisine that other people would be willing to eat and enjoy—I decided to bake this weekend. After some searching, I came across a curious recipe for Crispy Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Chip Cookies. This sounded intriguing and quite delicious, so I decided to try it. (Needless to say, I did not invest in good quality white chocolate, despite the author’s insistence.)

Below is a message received from one coworker, who, as part of our lunchtime running group, received first dibs on the cookies when I sent out a message letting everyone know I had brought in treats for everyone. I don’t know what he was voting for, but if the next president of the United States has a bake-off as part of the competition, watch out Martha Stewart!*

Crunchy, tasty, airy, delicious- you have my vote. All I needed was one for the perfect after lunch desert.
Thank you.
*Ironically enough, I just discussed Martha Stewart with my two Chinese roommates and their Chinese friend. They seemed to be in awe of her, as if she were the white Oprah or something. I tactfully reminded them that Martha Stewart has been to jail, but this did not phase them. As far as they were concerned, she may as well have been Hillary Clinton. Amazing, how American Consumerism and its media-generated popularity can span the globe.

The age difference

There are a lot of differences between my life in New York City and my life in Pittsburgh. For instance, in my New York City life, I walk a lot more than in Pittsburgh, where I am forced to drive from location to location. In my New York City life, “dressing down” constitutes wearing jeans as opposed to black dress pants, whereas in Pittsburgh, the sloppy-looking T-shirt and sweatpants that I now wear to bed are my usual garb. In my New York City life, I am regarded as a single girl in her twenties who works in Hoboken, NJ and lives in Queens. In Pittsburgh, I am seen as a Woodland Hills graduate who majored in English and “some science thing” and who has “made it” to The Big Apple.

The most significant difference between my two lives, however, is the people. In New York City, all of my friends are professionals in some capacity; in Pittsburgh, the majority of my friends are still in school or are working “filler” post-graduation jobs. Moreover, while my New York City neighbors and coworkers come from all over the country and the world, very few of the people I know in Pittsburgh have ever left, nor do they ever intend to leave. People in New York City are ready to jump on the next “best opportunity,” to move, to start again. People in Pittsburgh are getting prepared to settle, to establish themselves, and to create stable lives.

Finally, there is the age difference. Every one of my New York City friends and coworkers—with the exception of one girl, who works at the desk beside me—is at the very least five years older than me. My Wiley running buddy is in his 40s, with a 3-year-old daughter, and I play volleyball with men in their 70s. Alternatively, I do not have a single Pittsburgh friend who is more than one year my senior. I never considered the implications of this age gap until I went home to Pittsburgh for Christmas and spent time with my peers en masse.

Over the last seven months, I would say I have grown accustomed to what are considered “social outings” here in New York City. Going to a bar is a social event, whether it is a late-night pub crawl or a happy hour after work. Seeing a play or a musical constitutes an outing, as does going to the ballet or the symphony. And, of course, going out to eat is probably the most common get-together of all: there are breakfasts, brunches, lunches, dinners, coffees, tastings, and “just going out for ice cream.”

Obviously, in Pittsburgh, these things would all be considered social outings, as well. Therefore, the New Yorker idea of an “outing” is not special by any means. However, I had a sudden revelation while attending a fellow’ high school alumni’s Hanukah party one evening. There I was, sitting out on her back porch in the cool December air at 11pm, drinking Pepsi out of a plastic bottle as everyone around me drank their glass-bottled beer. We were all lounging in rusted lawn chairs under one dim lamp nailed to the wall, and everyone was huddled around the gritty circular ashtrays on the tiny table in center of the porch, smoking and tapping off their ashes. It was at this point, as I gazed around and noticed that I was the only one wearing something other than a hoodie and sneakers, that I began to have the vague notion that, were I back in New York City, I would never ever be doing anything remotely like this. My realization didn’t make the activity good or bad, it was just surprising. Even if there were a porch available, everyone in New York would have been more dressed up, like me, and the place would have been more decorated, and there would have been other alcohol on hand besides just beer. What I realized even more, though was that the situation wouldn’t have been different just because I was in New York City; it would have been different because the crowd I hang out with now is 30 instead of 23. By default, 30 is a classier crowd. Everyone tries to look nicer and can afford to look nicer and is simply intent on acting more “adult-like.” I have gradually begun to assimilate into this 30-year-old crowd, and it was shocking to realize that my 23-year-old peers, who are all still hanging out with one another, are so different.

At 1 a.m., everyone decided to leave and play Frisbee. That was when I knew I had become different. This felt weird to me. Frisbee? At night? It was just not something that occurred as a fun activity we should go and do. (Thirty-year-olds don’t play Frisbee unless they have a dog, a child, or a team to play with—as far as I am know—and they certainly don’t play it at 1 o’clock in the morning.)

As it turned out, playing Frisbee was fun, in spite of the fact that I had to run around the parking lot in black flats that flapped on and off my feet while the rest of the boys ran in laced-up tennis shoes; still, I did the best I could, and no one seemed to mind. Afterward, we went to a local hole-in-the-wall bar where the boys paid for my drink, and the fact that I was impressed made me realize how little I think of boys my own age.

No matter his age, I am always appreciative when a man has the courtesy to pay for my drink, meal, or ticket. As a rule, though, I am almost always more surprised and impressed when someone my own age makes this gesture than when someone older does it. Perhaps I think that older gentlemen have been raised differently or assume that they will have more money and therefore will be more generous with it. Whatever the reason, I felt very aware that I was probably making more money than most of these guys, and although the majority of them were still accepting money from their parents (either in the form of tuition or room/board), I still felt impressed that they were willing to pay for my drink.

It is strange to think, however, that my Pittsburgh friends are “catching up” to my New York friends. One or two have children, now, and a few are engaged to be married. Fortunately for me, I have a good many New York friends who are single and in their 30s. Granted, several of them have been divorced and/or have children, but at least the road is not paved solely with marriage and children. And maybe there’s even room for some late night Frisbee-playing, too.

Snapshot Book Review: Twilight Series

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Although they are independent books, the Twilight books are best reviewed as a package deal. Granted, no one would review the Harry Potter books as one complete entity, but that series is both longer and more diverse in each of its “novelesque episodes.” The Twilight books play out one singular storyline: that of Bella and Edward and the fate of their—literally—undying love.

To give a sense of the books in general, let me say this: if I were still twelve years old and desperately seeking a “someday, a boy will swoop into my life and rescue me with his undying love” kind of novel, these books—particularly the first three—would undoubtedly earn five-star ratings. Plus, I have to give Meyers credit: the novels include every form of fantastical escapism—in the way of the vampires’ and the wolves’ beauty, power, and sexuality—that any preadolescent reader with an active, “yearning” imagination would desire. (I can attest to this, because I was such a reader.) Essentially, these novels are exactly like the Christopher Pike and Amelia Atwater-Rhodes books I used to devour back in my prepubescent days. I was addicted to the sexuality, the violence, the grace, and the torment of the characters in Pike’s The Last Vampire series, and I was transfixed by the beauty and longing written into Atwater-Rhodes’ novel In the Forests of the Night, particularly because she wrote it when she was only fifteen. I was fifteen; I wanted to write a best-selling novel.

But back to Twilight. Looking at the series from this perspective, I can understand its appeal. Why this particular series has become so wildly successful, as opposed to Pike’s The Last Vampire Series or some other such thing is probably due to a dozen tiny factors. However, one of the larger ones is that a great portion of Meyers’ readership is composed of the mothers of the girls who became obsessed with these novels. The mothers then also picked up the Twilight epidemic because a) the novels are written by a Mormon mom who intentionally imbued the books with abstinence and anti-abortion messages (which might not even have been particularly obvious if Meyers’ Mormonism hadn’t been so touted by the press), and b) they mimic a genre of book that middle-aged women tend to adore: Harlequin Romances. Then, because these mothers not only approved of but also became obsessed with the novels, they were willing to indulge in and even encouraged their daughters’ infatuation. Thus, the books jumped inside two audiences’ pocketbooks, and linked audiences at that. What better way to get a mother to buy a book’s T-shirt, pencil case, poster, and magnets for her daughter than if she wants these things for herself, too?

As it is, I have sucked down all 800-odd pages of them (each!) within 48 hours of opening the covers. I’ll admit, I do like the feeling of being in junior high school again, racing through the story, and feeling that fast-paced thrill of anguished love. Meanwhile, however, I must acknowledge what I once put up with what I did not notice as a junior high school reader: predictable plot turns, stock characters, and piles of angst-ridden melodrama. These considerably insurmountable hurdles are at the heart of my complaint about the Twilight Series.

I zoomed through the first book, Twilight, in spite of the fact that I never was convinced that Bella would fall in love with Edward (or him with her, even if he was supernatural) so quickly and so completely. I zoomed through the second book also, because I wanted to know what would happen. Was this really going to be a happily-ever-after story, or would the vampiric “darkness” prevail? Then I got to the third book. By that time, I had already read over 1600 pages of “I’m-so-self-sacrificing” Bella and “I’m-so-overprotective-because-I-love-her” Edward. I needed a change. Unfortunately for me (and every other reader reading these books in direct sequence), there was no change. Sure, Meyers tried to introduce a second love interest, in the form of Jacob, but it never really stuck. Bella never really doubted herself, and therefore I, as the reader, never really doubted the outcome: I knew she would end up with Edward. Consequently, I didn’t end up rooting for the happy ending, I ended up rooting for Jacob! (Not quite what Meyers had in mind, I’m sure.) Still, I could barely even root for Jacob, because even he was unbearably predictable, in his violent mood swings and “I’m-coming-back-for-more-because-I-love-you” masochism.

The books’ plots were equally banal. I knew what would happen before Bella, Edward, or any of the characters did, whether Meyers wanted me to or not. It felt like back when I used to read Nancy Drew novels and tried to figure out the mystery before she did. Now, though, I wasn’t even trying; the plots just unfolded themselves with appalling predictability in spite of my attempts to remain ignorant. With this loss of suspense, my desire to continue reading waned. By the end of the third novel, I was so disillusioned by the quality of the writing, I had to take a break. Certainly, I still wanted to find out “what would happen,” because the whole saga was plot-driven, and the ultimate questions hadn’t been answered yet, but I simply could not bear the thought of reading any more “woe is me, I love Edward so much, how can I cause him pain, I am such a bad person, wah wah wah” from Bella. The angst seemed to have grown from sentences in Twilight, to paragraphs in New Moon, to pages in Eclipse. At this rate, I was terrified I’d find chapters of the stuff in Breaking Dawn, and if my patience were stretched that thin, I’d probably go away hating all teen fiction ever written.

After my two-book “break” (I read novels by Saramago and Perez-Reverte to cleanse my mind), I read Breaking Dawn with considerably less irritation than I might have, had I gone straight into it after reading Eclipse. Looking at the series as a whole, I think that the first and fourth books (Twilight and Breaking Dawn, respectively) were the most unique and, therefore, the most interesting. New Moon and Eclipse could probably have been condensed and combined into one novel, without much—if any—story being lost. Still though, my other criticisms stand: the plot was predictable, and the characters were stereotypical, even in the ways Meyers tried to make them dynamic. It irritated me in the last book how all of the characters could be so oblivious and slow in their realizations and problem-solving skills. It’s one thing to realize something before a character does, but it’s another thing to feel as though characters who are supposed to be very intelligent and cunning are stupider than the average reader.

So there is no real final word on these books. They’re easy reads, and very addictive in that pop-mystery/romance-novel way, particularly for the teen/pre-teen female population (and their mothers). The writing is not very “literary,” nor is it meant to be, but this should be considered when incorporating oneself into an audience of readers whose average age range and literary expectations may be lower than your own.*

From reading a spot-on, side-splitting review by Jayne Bielak, I discovered that the Twilight books were written on an approximately fourth-grade reading level. This leads me to believe that perhaps the books were targeted at the reading level of the average American. If so, be content with considering yourself above average. Leave me to do the English-major-y griping and groaning.


View all my reviews.

Coronation: Runnership

Today is the day I am true runner.

I remember the day I decided I was a true swimmer. It was a cold day in the middle of winter, one where my hair would probably freeze against my neck after I left the pool. I had practiced with the Woodland Hills Aquatic Team (aka WHAT) all summer, swimming the first long-course practices of my life and finding, to my surprise, that I actually preferred the long, uninterrupted 50-meter laps to the shorter, more customary 25-yard ones. Initially, that humongous pool had intimidated me; in my mind, only real swimmers swam in long-course pools. Still, I survived the summer and actually found myself reluctant to return to the indoor 25-yard pool when fall returned.

On this particular winter day, I went through the usual routine with WHAT: abs for half an hour, and then two-and-a-half-hours of swimming. What ended up being particularly unusual was the distance we swam: 6,500 yards. Climbing out of the pool at the end of that practice, my sense of accomplishment was unparalleled. I had completed a “real” swimmer’s practice, alongside other swimmers who had been training this way since they were eight years old. I had been at the exhausting 5,000-yard IM practice yesterday, and I would return for the 5,500 yard sprint practice tomorrow. I finally identified myself as a true swimmer.

By that same measure, it could be assumed that I would deem myself a “real” runner on the day I finished the Philadelphia half-marathon. After all, if swimming 6,500 yards makes someone a “real swimmer,” wouldn’t running 13.5 miles make someone a real runner? However, I was sure that any reasonably fit athlete would be capable of running 13.5 miles, even they paid dearly for it afterward. (One woman who came on the trip did exactly that and only finished about fifteen minutes behind me.) Plus, I didn’t feel any self-identity with the sport. If someone had asked me, I never would have termed myself a “runner.”

Today, I woke up at 8:30 a.m. Snow—leftover from the storm two days ago—still blanketed the roofs outside my window. The shiny globules and matching tap-tap-tap against my windowpanes, however, did fit with that wintry image. Rain? Tap tap tap. It was raining on top of all that snow. Fabulous. I hadn’t gone running for two days, and already yesterday I was getting antsy. (Picture me, in the Times Square Virgin Records store, doing everything in my power to keep from breaking out and dancing along with the tunes the DJ was blasting from the speakers. And yes, there is a DJ in the Virgin Records store.)

My entire plan had consisted of waking up early, putting on my running gear, and going out for an extra-long run in order to satisfy my cranky dormant muscles. However, this rain was the consistent kind that gets you thoroughly soaked, starting with your feet the minute you step out onto the snowy slushy sidewalk. I hesitated at the door, but only for a second. I was going to run, darn it. I removed my sneakers and ran back up to my room to retrieve my raincoat. I might sweat a little, but it would be better than being soaked to the bone and ill within the first five minutes.

Keys tied into my shoelaces, mp3 clipped into my ears, watch set, and I was off, dodging puddles. Yes, it was unpleasant, but shockingly I wasn’t miserable. I was just happy to be out and moving. My muscles felt ready to go, and were bit annoyed at the fact that I kept them restrained, purely so I didn’t slip on all the ice and slush and break my neck. It was slow-going, and there was wind and icy rain in my face the whole way, but I felt purely happy to be moving. No one in their right mind would even want to be outside right now, and you’re running through slush puddles in a hat and a raincoat, I thought to myself. And that was when I knew: I am a runner.

The Time

If I only had the time, I would learn to play the oboe. I would pick up the piano again. I would join a flute choir.

If I only had the time, I would get in shape. I would start running twice a day, once before work and once a lunchtime. I would build up to sixty miles a week. I would strength train after work three times a week and swim at the public pool on days when my muscles needed to recover. I would train for a marathon.

If I only had the time, I would learn to cook. I would make good, healthy, delicious food all the time and take my time eating it so that I savored the flavors and planned to next time add a little more salt or a little less onion. I would experiment in the kitchen, create new recipes, bake cookies for work every other week, send homemade candy to friends on their birthdays. I would take the time to learn what those mysterious vegetables sold in my neighborhood are and how to cook them. I would expand my palate.

If I only had the time, I would write that novel I’ve been putting off. I’d sit down, flesh out the characters, spit out the three hundred pages necessary to start the process, and get down to the task of refinement. I would discard the ideas that didn’t work and try to find new ones to take their places. I would write every single day, when I got up or before going to bed. I would back up all of my files, print copies before work, proofread them on the train, on the bus, striking out line after line with a red pen. I’d look for an agent, and keep at it until I found one. I would make progress on a dream that has faded into a wish.

But now I am at a place in life where I do have the time. And suddenly I realize that the problem was never a lack of time, but a lack of will. It was a lack of priorities. Because I could have done any of these things, and I can still do any of these things if I set my mind to them and schedule my life around them. But I haven’t. And, without a “higher order” (the parent, the professor, the coach) ordering me to do so, I won’t.

Funny how we blame “time” when we really only have ourselves to blame.