Today was the most beautiful day for XC skiing yet this year. We went to our favorite “local” spot, just across the New Hampshire border, and the sky was cloudless and a vivid void of blue. In the forest, snow from Friday’s storm still clung to the pines and coated the rocks. The mild temperature lent an air of relaxation along the trails; there was no need to exert ourselves to create warmth or hasten the day’s recreation. Except for the requisite serious XC ski jocks, everyone was smiling and friendly.
Wouldn’t you know it, though? We neglected to bring our camera today, which is a shame because it was, as I said, the most beautiful day. However, I do have this nice photo, on the right, taken about a month ago in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Although that day was not as beautiful as today, there is a stellar view of Mount Jefferson in the background, not to mention the sexy pants.
I love Paul Thomas Anderson. I think he could film a low-impact aerobics class at a senior center and I would pay money to watch it. He is a master at using genuine humor to underscore profound tragedy. His style carries hints of other great directors like David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, and Alfred Hitchcock. And there’s an epic quality to his films – Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love – even though, by themselves, they really don’t deserve to be epics.
There Will Be Blood is truly epic cinema. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis as an early-1900s self-made oil tycoon, and it is a simply astonishing movie. It proves that Paul Thomas Anderson doesn’t need to rely on quirkiness to engross an audience; he can use plain, old-fashioned insanity.
The weakest element of the movie is the story, which is based on Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil!. The story started off good but unraveled to a puzzling conclusion. That is not what I will remember, though. I will remember the lush scenery, the fierce acting, and the gripping, atmospheric music soundtrack.
As compelling as the movie was, I don’t think ‘there will be Oscar’ for There Will Be Blood, simply because No Country for Old Men is still giving me goosebumps, three months later.
One of the perks of being disemployed is savoring lunch at home. Lunch means an omelet with salad and fresh bread, followed by my own private cheese course. We always finish dinner with a cheese course, so at lunch, I’ll only take a modest sliver… of each one. Usually, we try to limit ourselves to three cheeses in the refrigerator at any time. But as you can see, when a Frenchman marries an American and they spend their winter days cross-country skiing, things escalate quickly. Nous avons beaucoup de fromages!
Let me guide you through this veritable landscape of dairy indulgence:
On the lower far-left, we have the French Ziegenbrie, a Goat Brie. It’s got that classic, processed texture of cow brie, minus the triple-cream heft. Mr. P isn’t a fan of goat cheese, which works perfectly for me—more goat brie for lunch!
Upper far-left sits a raw milk Fontina Val D’Aosta, an Italian classic born in the Alps, similar to French Alpine cheeses like Gruyère and Tomme. It’s a sturdy yet supple choice that sings of green pastures.
Second from the left, top row, is the infamous French Munster. It looks deceptively creamy and inviting, but don’t be fooled. The smell is so intense it could make even the bravest cheese lover pause, and I brace myself whenever the fridge opens and releases its potent musk. Yet, if you muster the courage to taste it, you’re rewarded with a flavor that’s unexpectedly rich and delicious.
Second from the left, bottom row, is Gran Queso, pretending to be Spanish but really hailing from Wisconsin. We bought it on special, and while it’s strong and interesting, it likely won’t earn a repeat appearance in the fridge.
Third from the left, bottom row, is Tomme de Savoie, a French favorite of Mr. P. It’s the sort of mild, enchanting cheese where a keen palate can detect hints of alpine grass upon which the cows grazed upon mountain slopes.
Third from the left, top row, my personal champion: Campo de Montalban. This Spanish delight blends cow, sheep, and goat milk and has been our staple this month, thanks to a well-timed sale.
Far right, we have the iconic French Camembert, like Brie but bolder, with a storied past graced by Napoleon’s own affection. Mr. P shares that fondness, though I abstain from it at lunchtime. Camembert begs for wine, and while midday cheese indulgence is acceptable for the disemployed, wine would be tipping the scale into decadence.
And so, after lunch, I lean back, feeling almost princely in my humble domain. Sure, the future is uncertain, but in this moment—nourished by soft, aged comforts and the simple pleasure of a midday feast—I can’t help but smile.
Today, I’m dedicating myself to building my shiny, new professional website. This is the space where I’ll showcase and market my skills as a writer—the polished, professional version of myself that knows how to weave words into compelling narratives and convincing pitches.
Meanwhile, this site remains the wild frontier, the digital home for my hodgepodge of neuroses, eccentricities, and musings on life that refuse to be tamed.
Since no one’s cutting me a check for being human, these are the FREE WORDS you’re getting from me today, folks.
My first full day of forced unemployment… or as I prefer, disemployment. I woke up at the same time as Mr. P, determined to keep up appearances and jumped straight into the shower. Mustn’t let personal hygiene slip into chaos, after all! But then, an unexpected wave of emotion hit as I glanced into my sock drawer. Last week, I’d hurriedly rolled my socks, convinced that I couldn’t waste precious time on such trivial tasks. Now, time is the one thing I have in abundance.
I spent a good part of the day fielding emails and IMs from concerned former co-workers, colleagues, friends, and family. Most carried the energy of a frantic scream, the kind where someone runs at you full speed, yelling right into your face. “BAHHHHH! LAY-OFF! RESUME, INTERVIEWS, REFERENCES, DECAYING ECONOMY! BAHHHHH! NETWORK! NETWORK! BAHHHHH!” My nerves hummed, strained by the chorus of panic.
A younger version of me would have jumped headfirst into the chaos—firing off resumes for half the jobs on Monster.com, listing possessions on eBay to scrounge up cash, already calculating how many loaves I could bake from industrial-sized bags of flour.
But today, on Disemployment Day #1, I took a different route. I rolled my socks properly, and made myself a decent cup of coffee. Because if I’m going to weather the storm of unemployment, it won’t be by flailing with the wind. It’ll be by standing still for a moment, breathing deeply, and knowing that not every second needs to be productive to have value.
This morning at work, the corporate grim reaper tapped my shoulder. Yes, my start-up dreams finally crashed and burned after the company’s latest round of fund-raising floundered in an increasingly tough economic climate, necessitating a 33% reduction in force resulting in the elimination of my position, hence…I was laid off.
I can’t say I’m surprised or even upset. Actually, I am a little upset that I was halfway through the arduous and incredibly invasive process of attaining a Top Secret security clearance from the US government for the job, and that everyone whom I glanced at in the past 10 years has been subjected to an interview by a private investigator regarding their knowledge of my activities and lifestyle. Sorry, folks! It was all a big, embarrassing waste of time.
So at 10am this morning, I walked out of the glitzy high-rise office building in downtown Boston probably for the last time. It was the Tuesday morning after a three-day weekend; I had been rearing to work. Although I had only been there six months, I felt jarred at the unexpected freedom and sudden permission to forget about everything I had been doing.
My prospects are much better than the last time I was laid off in 2001. For one thing, I currently have a consulting writing gig for about 10 hours/week to keep me occupied. I have a husband with a good job and health insurance. Even better, I have solid experience, references, and a portfolio.
I walked home on the bike path, my mind chewing on my options. Two leash-less dogs sprinted past me, romping in the crackling brush alongside the trail. I could hear their owner calling to them behind me, but the dogs did not heed his call. They yelped to each other, ducking and racing through trees and rocks, joyous, exuberant, and free. I felt happy to be there on the bike path to watch them.
This is the first President’s Day that I’ve had off from work in over six years. All this pent-up energy to give Washington and Lincoln their due accolades! But downpours of rain kept me inside most of the morning, watching old music videos like Sir Mixalot’s “Baby got Back” on YouTube and dancing around the apartment, shaking my healthy butt, reliving the glory days with what I believe history will judge to be the defining song of 1992: “Oh my God, Becky! Look at her butt! It is so big.”
The Ivory Coast is currently experiencing something resembling a “Baby got Back” craze with the song “Bobaraba,” which translates to “big bottom.” The video for “Bobaraba” features endless footage of Africans, men and women, shaking their butts in the camera (here for YouTube). According to the BBC, the song’s popularity has “spawned a black market in treatments claiming to increase one’s bottom size” (here), including bottom-enhancing injections and topical creams of questionable value and safety.
Didn’t the obesity “epidemic” begin around the early 1990s? Scores of books have been written about its causes and origins, but perhaps it can all be traced back to Sir Mixalot, himself a rather chubby little man, who gave women justification for ballooning their butts to be thick and juicy and unleashing an unconsciousness hunger for bottom-enhancing muffins, coffee drinks, and stuffed-crust pizza. “Baby got back! And sides! And front! And chins!”
The most sacrosanct rule of good writing is: Know your audience, and write for them. I flagrantly violate this rule every time I post about XC skiing because there are no XC ski enthusiasts who regularly read this website (as far as I know). I must pretend that my audience is interested in this arcane, snow-dependent sport, or that my audience draws inspiration from me, a past-her-physical-prime woman who overcame her utter lack of balance and fear of rapid downhill mobility to become a pretty darn good XC skier. Failing at either of those two avenues of appeal, I present to you… sexy pants.
This weekend, we skied at two XC ski centers on opposite ends of the Swank Scale. First, at the lower end of the spectrum, there was the Franconia Village XC ski center, which sums itself up nicely on its website: Most of the trails are single track in width, winding through the woods, over brooks and across meadows. We believe our single track trails create a very intimate feeling with the forest, unlike the larger double track commercial touring centers.
Indeed, Mr. Pinault and I interacted intimately with the forest as we slid on the uneven, semi-groomed trails weaving through it in 10-degree sunshine. We encountered the Bridal Veil Falls trail, and the name seemed terrifically prophetic because my father had gifted our weekend’s lodging partly as a honeymoon for our civil marriage. We quickly discovered the name “Bridal Veil” accurately described how the forest’s growth hung over the trail, covering our heads in frozen pine needles.
No biggie. If anything, the rugged trails highlighted how spoiled I am by the “larger double track commercial touring centers” like Waterville Valley, which is where we headed today. There is something to be said for intimate interaction with the forest, but there is also something to be said for gliding at top-speeds on a flat, even track without tree branches snagging one’s hair. V-room!
Pictured below is the sunset view from the inn in which we stayed… that’s Mount Lafayette on the left, which I climbed way back on my 29th birthday. Pictured on the right is the alpine skiing area on Cannon Mountain – I snapped this picture from a moving car on the highway.
I was moved to compose a Valentine’s villanelle for my new husband. However, I was quickly encumbered by the dearth of words that rhyme with love. And I never noticed before, but nothing rhymes with poem. Despite the title’s promising alliteration, it quickly spun out of control, crashed, and burned. I present my failed effort here only for your amusement.
Valentine’s Villanelle
I wrote you a poem on Valentine’s day
To express the depth of my love
In the most romantic way.
Yes, sentimental verses are so cliche
But since it fits my emotions like a glove
I wrote you a poem on Valentine’s day.
Actually, villanelles are not an easy way to say
Things that I want to speak of
In the most romantic way.
“Bouquet, cabernet, souffle, sorbet…”
But not many words rhyme with love.
Umm…I wrote you a poem on Valentine’s day.
I guess villanelles are poor to convey
The esteem that I alluded to, above,
In the most romantic way.
And when my words may go astray,
Just give me a shove —
I wrote you a poem on Valentine’s day
In the most romantic way.
I didn’t wear red for Valentine’s Day, because I don’t own any red clothing suitable for a windy February weekday. Red is a color I should avoid, I was told once. With my ruddy-undertoned pale complexion, I best stick to cool colors – blue, green, maybe a bit of magenta or pink. Even if I had red clothing, I would not have worn it, for fear of looking festive. I am a career girl, to be taken seriously. I put on a green sweater, gray slacks, gray coat, and sprinkled myself with my sexiest perfume, Nina Ricci’s Premier Jour.
All day, my eye caught bits of red: The scarlet blouse of a gorgeous Asian lady in the restroom. The crimson tie of the security guard by the elevators. Clashing patterns of red-themed plaid on a bike messenger wearing a persimmon cap. A beaten candy-red windbreaker that is too thin for the frigid weather on an obese woman who I stride past on the sidewalk.
I read once that primitive instinct drives women to wear the color red to advertise their fertility when they are ovulating. This is simultaneously full and devoid of romance, for it affirms red’s stature as the most amorous color but reminds us that our modern-day notions of love evolved from the fancies of lusty cavemen.
On the train I sit across from a blond woman in a red beret, with red tights peaking out from under a red felt coat and red knee-high leather boots. She reads her Metro newspaper with a small smile, perhaps enjoying the bit of attention that her garish ensemble has garnished. I sneak peaks at her, thinking she is festive, she is fertile, and she is ruddy.
