Caffeinerd asked, "if money and professional responsibilities were non-issues, how would you spend the next year of your life?"
I would like to travel for a couple of months. I'd really like to see more of Africa (I've only been to Morocco) and I have a hankering to see Australia. Then, I think I'd like to live in Italy for the rest of that time. I'd love to learn Italian, and I could handle about 280-300 days filled with learning language, working on some writing projects, and eating risotto with my husband.
Anonymous asked, "how did you meet your husband?"
M. and I met in grad school. He entered the program a year after I did. I thought he was pretty cute. Shortly after we met, M. invited me to see Shaun of Dead at the theater and have a coffee. I totally thought it was a date; he apparently didn't. So after the coffee, I mentioned that some friends/colleagues of ours were at another bar if we wanted to join them. We had driven separately so we decided to meet at the bar. I called one of my friends to tell him we were coming. Apparently, he told everyone that we were on our way and that we were on a date, so that they should all leave so we would be alone. Well, M. and I both arrived an none of our friends were there. Awkward.
We ended up becoming good friends anyway, and, when I was living in Madrid, I came back here to visit for a couple of weeks. I stayed with him, and one thing led to another. Then, I went back to Madrid, and we went back to being friends. When I moved back to the states several months later, I admitted to him that I liked him as more than a friend. We started dating -- cautiously at first because we had been friends for a long time and didn't want things to be too weird if things didn't work out. Soon we were throwing caution to the wind. I completely recommend falling in love with a good friend! We got engaged a little over a year ago and got married two weeks ago.
Kim asked, "will you and the husband take a honeymoon eventually?"
Yes, but not for a few months. Ideally, we’d like to go to Madrid for a few days to see friends of mine, and then spend a week or so in Crete and Santorini, but right now our plans are complicated by a few issues, including our academic schedules.
Musing Around asked, "imagining that you had a big-deal professor salary, and not a graduate student stipend, what would you add to your closet?"
I would be very tempted to buy a vintage Chanel suit or two and more vintage dresses and coats in general. I would also definitely buy more Fluevogs and Wendy Brandes Jewelry.
KC asked, "What is your favorite book?"
Honestly I have quite a few, but I'll narrow it down to a couple of super favorite novels (and a monograph or two in the forthcoming post). La casa de los espiritus (The House of the Spirits) by Isabel Allende was one of the first books that I read in Spanish that had nothing to do with my research. It sucked me in and left me breathless and it was the fastest I've ever read Spanish. I love magical realism, and another of my favorite novels is The Baron in the Trees (Il Barone Rampante) by Italo Calvino. It is a beautiful tale about a young lad Cosimo (the eldest son and heir of a baron) who refuses to eat his dinner (snails) one day and gets in trouble. So he runs off to the back yard and climbs an oak tree. From there, he proclaims that he won't ever come down from the trees, that he'll never set foot on the ground again. And he never does. He eats, he makes friends, he takes lovers, he reads Enlightenment authors, and grows old in the trees. The love of his life, Viola, is smart and fierce. It's a book that fills me with both a painful longing and peace at the same time, and, whenever I read it, I wish I could read Italian so that I could savor it in the original language.
It might not come as a surprise that I spent as much time as possible in the trees when I was a kid, which is a bit of a paradox because I'm afraid of heights.... I had one in particularly that had the perfect nubby little branch at just the right height for an easy climb. I used to climb my tree and read in it during the summer. I probably would have climbed a tree yesterday if I hadn't been wearing a white skirt.1
1. Dress as shirt - Nine West (remixed)
Skirt - Anthropologie (four or five years old)
Cardi - Target (remixed)
Boots - John Fluevog (remixed)
Flower pin - NY&Co. (remixed)
Belt - Ralph Lauren (Filene's Basement)
Tights - Target (remixed)
Ring - Gift
So, what about you? Are you a tree climber? What's your favorite book? You get bonus points for a favorite academic book and a favorite novel!
No comments:
Post a Comment