I've Moved

I've started a new blog with some recent posts and it's at hanna-manna.blogspot.com. I won't be blogging anymore at The Flying Nun. We've had some good times but it's time for something new. See you over there!

Surprise friday

picture by StevenM_61's

I forgot how fun it is to do something unexpected and say "yes" to an idea. After searching fruitlessly for the right cafe in Newport Beach, I sat in traffic to hit up some favorite spots in Long Beach. I ate a bean taco, potato taco, and fish taco at Hole Mole. I sat outside and licked my fingers and spooned salsa into my mouth and watched people wash their cars across the street. Then I decided, hey, why not? and drove my car over after my meal to run around before the timer timed out, foam bursting out of my brush and hitting my face and shoulders. It was wet and fun and sweaty. Now I'm drinking a ginger peach iced tea at Portfolio, an artsy air conditioned spot in the Arts District. Life feels good. And that all happened for less than $10.

Book Review: A Year in Van Nuys

Every week, I meet with my new friend Joleen for a cup of coffee (sometimes a sample cup of Trader Joe's coffee) to discuss the all important questions of life direction, job search status, and ideas. We've been meeting for about 2 months and I have to say, we've hit our stride.

Yesterday, she suggested that I write a book about my life living in the OC and she gave enough compelling reasons that I decided to give it some serious thought and read this other book I had seen in the bookstore for ideas: A Year in Van Nuys by Sandra Tsing Loh.

I've come to admire Sandra's writing recently for its wit and humor and ability to make me laugh a lot. J. checked out A Year in Van Nuys from the library for me and I finished it in two sittings. And here is what I have to say about this book (published in 2001).

• It's really really really funny. I laughed a lot, especially in the beginning.
• I was surprised at how much I related to her experiences. (Do L.A. freelance writers really have that much in common?)
• She is so self-deprecating and revealing! How does she still have friends?
• The ending does totally peter out and only worth skimming as many Amazon.com reviewers write.
• It is a writer's writer kind of book. It's all about her writing life and how much it sucked that year.
• It almost made me want to quit all this freelance business and study for the LSATs and be happy having stable income.
• Most importantly, it was a case study on exactly what not to do if you want to be sane and happy and be a writer.

Here's what her painful stories reinforced:

1. Get a life and get out or you will end up stuck in your bedroom for 3 years with writer's block and loathing self-pity.
2. Read the Ennegram, Type 4. Learn how to deal with envy or it will destroy you.
3. Have a regular practice of taking yourself lightly, forgiving yourself, and working on loving others.
4. Have a regular practice of centering, whether that be prayer, photography, or something else.
5. Do anything constructive to regularly get out of your head and your own thoughts.
6. Be a contemplative.
7. Be kind and serve others.
8. Live fully in the moment.
9. Do Welcoming Prayer a lot.
10. And the list could keep going on.

I wouldn't use her book as a model for a book on living in the OC but overall, a quick enjoyable read. Some parts--her agony, her self-loathing, her moans--were a bit too negative and not funny enough to bear but all the other stuff, the parts when she really is spot on, hilarious, and you actually realize this is all useful info to help you avoid the same mistakes--well, that's nice.

For the complete opposite of Sandra Tsing Loh, check out The Happiness Project. This woman has a law degree and is writing a book about being happy.

Summer in the OC

God is blue by Sister Corita

This summer has been the summer of ideas. Left and right, up and down, ideas are churning and brimming up--I can barely think or talk fast enough. I was talking to my friend Lydia yesterday and after 4 ideas in a row she said, "Ok, whoa whoa whoa, wait, just give me a minute, let me think about this. Okay--which one can you see yourself doing more--Writing a book or blogging short posts?" Thank goodness for lovely friends who take my ideas seriously and then actually have practical questions to get me to think of how to do them.

I'm going to apply for this 9 month Ignatian prayer program.

I'm screenprinting with my artist friend Jan next week at her parent's screenprinting studio. We're going to make summer lino prints! We're inspired by Sister Corita Kent's works.

I'm going to get the darkest tan of my life by just laying out on the grass next to my building (a surprising number of people do this) or walking to the pool and getting fried in half the time. The sun here is hot, the wind is cool, and all of the above is plentiful.

And I'm going to read a lot. Case in point, next post.

New finds

Here are some new finds that I've been loving

Yellow Owl Workshop
I am especially in love with the city rubber stamps set


Blogger: Color Me Katie
a freelance photographer, street artist, all around creativity source
Via The Happiness Project


The Uniform Project
Makes me want to get a whole lot of accessories and one uniform

Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction
A good article about writing when the internet is soo distracting

On Blogging

These days, I feel as if I have outgrown my Flying Nun theme. I've been making little changes to my blog, having fun with my newfound html and free online tutorial lookup intelligence. But something's in the air. J. thinks it's because I'm no longer single, i.e. no longer a possible candidate for nunship. Maybe that is true. I think it's something else though.

When I first started blogging, the Flying Nun emblem gave me a sense of security, a metaphor to hide behind and safely write. I feel ready to expand my wings and actually let my head poke out and feel the wind now. In other words, I feel ready to gear my blogging towards a more public audience, instead of just family and friends (scratch that, i don't think any of my family members read this) and stand behind my name.

I think that working on launching my freelance writing career has a lot do with this, as well as a better understanding of the blogging world and the ways in which it can work for you (I like this summary at typepad).

I've been studying blogs to see what appeals to a larger readership (namely, nice photos) and I've also been brainstorming daily on what I would change and topics I would focus on. If you've been following my posts and you have ideas or suggestions, I would be happy to read them.

Kitchen Finds: Fine Mesh Strainer

Ever since I discovered quinoa and learned that you must rinse it to get a soapy chemical off of it (saponin), I've been rinsing it by just filling up a bowl of it with water and then holding a plate against the bowl and tipping the water out of it slowly until the water has been drained. aka Tedious.

So I've been on the lookout for a fine mesh strainer and I thought I found it when I saw this Oxo Good Grips 8-Inch Double Rod Strainer. But at $21.99, it was worth waiting for a better deal. I waited and waited and in the meantime checked every Chinese supermarket and Korean household store I went to for a similar item. The ones I found had flimsy mesh or weren't big enough but yesterday, finally--VICTORY!

At HMart in Irvine, I found a solid 8-inch double rod strainer with two prongs on the end, not just one, which provides better balance when resting it across the sink (which it does perfectly). The 8" size is perfect for rinsing handfuls of fruit and veggies. The mesh is small enough to rinse quinoa and it has a solid dome shape that has no signs of warping or stretching. Best of all, it is only $5.99! I'm not sure who else carries it but it's worth checking your local Korean supermarket. The strainer has a "Dong-Tai" imprint on it.

Good Words: The Catholic Imagination

"Religion is story before it is anything else and after it is everything else." - Andrew Greely

how to be good to my self

I developed a serious case of envy today and had to do this exercise so I could focus on using my energy to move forward and not down.

develop a healthy lean body that feels limber, active, energetic

eat food that makes me feel good physically

wear stylish clothes that make me happy and embrace my inner designer

take risks for my dreams

go for what i want and find ways to make money along the way, not the other way around

continue to ask myself "how can i be good to my self?"

Daily Video: Touch My Body

Just because it makes people say "Oh my gaaa!"

The OC: Officially gotten good

I think it's safe to say that Jacob and I have officially gotten good at hanging out with each other in the OC.

The first few months of marriage were spent at our laptops looking around, saying, "What do you want to do?"
"I don't know, what do you want to do?"
"I don't know, there's nothing to do in the OC."
"Dammit. I miss LA!"
"I know, me too."
"Sad."
"Yeah, sad."

It all started with the 4th of July when noone wanted to hang out with us. Noone wanted to grill with us or see us in our bikini and speedo and go to the beach and prance around. Why, I wonder? Noone wanted to buy fireworks and light them up. Noone.

4th of July is a sad holiday to be alone.

We decided to make the best of it. We were determined to have fun on our first 4th of July as a married couple. So the first thing we did was get into the biggest fight we have had since tying the knot, complete with waving hands, the D word, rolling eyes, stomping off, getting space and canceling the whole thing.

Then we decided to be friends again and went to the beach. It was way too windy and cold and sandy, something Jacob realized as soon as he jumped into the ocean and ran out with a grin of alarming proportions. Yeah, all those other people in there, hon? Those are the crazies with insanely warm blood. If you were a southern california native, you'd know that.

We laid out on our towels shivering, getting sand in our Vernor's ginger ale and eating sandy Sweet Maui chips and unsuccessfully moving the umbrella in 12 different positions to thwart the wind. An hour and a half later, we decided to call it quits. I was wearing my navy blue swimsuit under an army green jersey spaghetti strap dress and the only thing Jacob had to offer me was this boxy white t-shirt with Chinese calligraphy and a dancing horse on the front. Important note: he took it from his Kansan grandmother's closet. The t-shirt collar came up my neck, the shoulders kept going when mine stopped, and it stopped short at my natural waist. The whole thing looked wrong.

Jacob on the other hand was wearing silky brown fisherman pants from Thailand and a retro button up light blue shirt with thick rimmed glasses. Earlier when we passed a Hare Krishna dude rattling a tambourine on the street corner, we both looked at each other and realized, umm, you look like a hare krishna dude, dude.

We went to the car and ate the rest of our snacks in the front seats. Then we rolled down the coast through the interconnected parking lots until we had to exit. We were quite proud that we had figured out how to cruise through all the state beach parking lots and find a bathroom with no line.

We proceeded to buy fireworks at a booth in the parking lot of Norm's. I detest Norm's because I have this very vivid memory of my brother's friend Chucky cutting into a steak late at night only to reveal fluorescent orange flesh. I kid you not. Well, Jacob luurves Norm's with a passion so we sat down for a piece of pie and coffee. And this is where my freak flag came out.

Ladies and gents, I lost it in the best way possible. I knew I looked like an idiot with a chinese grandma t-shirt, I had sand in my hair, we had at least 6 more hours to go of 4th of July celebration, and I was sitting with my hare krishna look alike partner in Norm's. I started tooling around. I began to sing, talk in strange voices, make up stories, and engage in inappropriate straw shenanigans. And at that moment, I realized I had come across something big, something crucial to the success of my mental sanity and emotional happiness here in the OC. It was the power to create fun when there's nothing to do--something I have long admired my friend Allie for being able to do but just thought she was like that because she grew up in Arkansas. I guess the OC is now my Arkansas.

The night proceeded. We stopped by the 99cents store across the street and bought a box of Tony Chachere's gumbo mix, El Pato hot sauce, and a book called Saints and Animals. We ran around our housing complex, we cut through the communal gardens and ran up the hill for a panoramic view of all the fireworks in the OC. Then we ran back down and cut through the communal garden only to have to pee really bad and well, I won't say any more about what happened to the arugula. Then we lit our fireworks, danced around, gave each other high fives, saw some leftover cheeseburgers in the trash and drove to In-N-Out for our 4th of July burger. We fell asleep utterly satisfied with our 4th of July.

So that's the secret folks... or is it still convoluted? The secret to the OC (sidenote: especially if you don't have money and can't shop) is treating it like the plains, the midwest, the upper peninsula, arkansas, any rural area if you will. You have to unhinge, fly the freak flag, and learn to be your own best friend, stand up comedian, dance partner, storyteller, and mischevious partner in crime. You've got to learn the art of tooling around.

As Allie's mother once said, "You're only bored, if you're boring."
Learn to not be boring and you will never be bored again.

Blog change update

Soooo, I really wanted to unveil a new blog but it looks like I'm sticking with this one for the short term. I've learned basic html and css which has gotten me as far as changing fonts and sizes and colors in someone else's style sheet. Lame. I guess 3 days of cramming could only get me so far. I will keep cramming and hopefully unveil a new blog soon.

A night of dreams

Last night I had a dream so vivid that I thought it was real life. Now, I'm a dreamer and almost 100% of the time, I know I'm dreaming. But this time, I actually thought it was happening.

I am told from somebody (i don't know who) that I need to get on a plane, follow a dirt path, end up in a forest and wait. I must have trust this voice because I follow the directions. It is dark, the middle of the night. I get on a plane, fly over an ocean, get off and walk down a dirt road. Unlit homes line the road and I'm holding the hand of a little girl. At the same time, I think, what a scary and dangerous walk for a little girl--I'm glad I'm here to hold her hand. There is noone in sight, no street lamps, only shadows.

We walk, then make a turn, and keep going until the forest closes in on me and I can't keep going. I can only fall back and sit down on soft fern covered ground. I hold the little girl in my arms and wait in the darkness. Out of the fauna, shadowy faces emerge, people that I've known throughout my life. People that make me happy, that make me feel conflicted and upset--all sorts of people. (It's still dark, it's always dark and shadowy for some reason)

The funny thing is, I'm not threatened by the ones that normally make me feel upset. I feel a balance, a kind of peace, like I canaccept everyone. I don't feel bothered. I feel peace. I've entered some kind of "other" world, like summer camp, midst trees and mountains. I feel like I have finally arrived at my destination. I'm so glad that I'm here.

An acquaintance turns and looks me in the eyes saying, "You didn't just end up here, Hanna. You got here by listening and getting on the plane, and walking down the road even when you didn't even know why you were doing it. "

Just then, I'm abruptly awoken by violently flapping vertical blinds in my room. I get up and close the window and realize I'm not in some foresty summer camp place with people that say deep elusive things to me. I'm in Irvine and my alarm clock buzzes 5:30am.

I lay in bed for quite some time, actually wanting to get back to that dream, the place that felt more real than real life. "You didn't just end up here" keeps ringing in my head and I realize with a start that that little girl was my inner child.

I know, WILD--as far as psychoanalytical type dreams go. I haven't had a dream that feigned to have such a cohesive message from the nether worlds AND involved my inner child in...I don't know when.

I think most dreams are just the subconscious working itself out or revealing itself like a flasher when you least expect it. But I have to say, I woke up this morning with a significant kind of peace and had the most productive day I've had in a while. I thank my mind and my body for working things out for me in an unexpectedly deep and internal way through the middle of the night. I actually needed to hear that last line and it's a good message for the journey.

Happy Tuesday everyone.

Changes

I've been playing around with html and learning css in new attempts to update my blog. New changes coming soon.

Succubus to the Incubus

What a line. Only someone like a cultural anthropologist could say a line like this about Ruth Madoff, wife of the infamous notorious Bernie.

“She’s perceived as the succubus to Bernie’s incubus,” said Prof. Richard A. Shweder, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Chicago. “She was inside a circle of people whose wealth has been sucked out of the system.”

Full article here.

Definition of succubus from wikipedia: In folklore, a succubus (plural succubi) is a demon^[1] in dreams to have sexual intercourse, according to the medieval European legend. Its male counterpart is the incubus. They draw energy from the men to sustain themselves, often until the point of exhaustion or death of the victim.

since May

Some days, I feel like a complete bump on a log. The hours fly by and I have nothing to show for it. I even forget that I'm supposed to be looking for a job because there aren't many jobs to look at. But then if I look back a little closely, I see that so much has happened and there is much to celebrate. Here is a recap since May of my adventures in the kitchen, in the world of Irvine, and elsewhere.

I made an amazing sandwich from leftovers.


I sold my cute too big bike to a volcom surfer dude.


We celebrated my mom's 50th birthday at Taps Restaurant in Brea. That's my brother's cute girlfriend on the right.


I took over my mom's kitchen to do my first paid wedding floral gig. She ended up taking it over with her new bff from korea. I was peeved but relieved.


It was too much work for too little pay. By the end, I wished I had charged 3x the amount I quoted. I think I'm going to nix any ideas of a side business. This kind of nonstop labor is only worth it for my best friends.

I went to the Irvine farmer's market with Jacob. He got very excited about the 3 for $1 pomellos at the CalPoly stand.


I got excited about the succulents.

I made almond biscotti using this recipe.

And I went to a bachelorette party in Hawaii. I met a new friend Reshma, a bridesmaid from London. I reconnected with Tiff and Kate. I watched Sung-Ae eat.

And I watched beautiful Sung Yeon and Joe get married.

And I watched the single groomsmen forage and hunt.

It was a blast. Complete with cupcakes and paddleboarding.


And lastly, today, I created a new address logo using Adobe Illustrator CS4 which some of you will be seeing in your mail.

Here's to the rest of June. May it be filled with new friends, new experiences, and fun times at the beach.

p.s.- i have no idea why my pics are coming out small.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

I have a friend who blogs about her practice of living inspired. I admire her constant search for inspiration and how she continues to find inspiration in unexpected places, filling her life with wonder and new possibilities.

Last week, an email exchange with her reminded me of her valued search for inspiration and I began to think about what inspires me. If you're not used to thinking in those terms, it's a little hard to get there. It takes some warming up and I drew a blank.

Spivak inspired me last week although it's still a swirling mass of challenging and intriguing ideas around my head. Did baking an amazing zucchini orange marmalade bread from the Tartine cookbook count as inspiration? Maybe.

But today, I finally finished What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Vintage International) by Haruki Murakami and when I had read the last page and closed the book with satisfaction, I said emphatically, "Aha! This book inspires me!"

It's interesting, you know. From reading the book, I didn't feel like I should pick up running or even write a book. Murakami wrote this book as a memoir of sorts, a quest to find out for himself what his personal standard has been as a runner and writer. He chronicles how he first started writing, first started running, and how those two shaped each other and his life's perspective.

Towards the end of the book, Murakami writes about becoming a better swimmer for triathlon competitions. He finds a coach who strips his form down and teaches him one thing at a time. At first, it is "awful and awkward" and he can't understand how learning to swim (for ex.) flat as a board without rotation is going to help him. Next, his coach introduces rotating his left shoulder only and makes him swim up and down the pool doing only that. And so on ad tedium until one day, everything clicks. Every part of his body is moving as it should. His old habits have been broken, his old form is no more, a new form has emerged, a synchronization of all the new parts. Revelation!

Murakami's experience reminded me of learning to play the piano. I started piano lessons when I was four years old and ended in college. For a time in my youth, my parents were convinced that I was going to become a concert pianist and I would practice for 2-3 hours and could only leave the bench to go to the bathroom. Since then, my fingers have become stiff and I am nowhere near the kind of fluid alacrity I had on the keys. But I remember the drills and the experience of revelation. I remember the scales, the arpeggios, my worn out Czerny book. I remember how good it felt when I conquered a scale and my fingers flew over something that had troubled me a few weeks before. I remember how my teacher and I would break down a piece and how I would practice each trill, each measure over and over again until it was flawless and everything came together. I had no false illusions about becoming a world class pianist overnight. I knew it would take hours of practice, dedication, and years of devotion.

Similarly, I feel the same way about printing and book arts. I have no illusions of becoming a letterpress printer over night. Slowly but surely through my classes, I have gained a vocabulary and dexterity with my movements that have helped me become more and more proficient at designing, setting type, and printing correctly.

Why is it then that I never applied this to the art of writing? Maybe it's because it's so foreign (unprofitable, impractical?) and language around it so pretentious and lofty. How many times have I read or heard, "writing cannot be taught"? The idea is that talent for writing is innate and either you have it or you don't. Everyday, I sit in front of my laptop or notebook (or worse, think about sitting in front of my laptop or notebook) and wonder about how to do what I want so much to do i.e. write the damn novel. The writer's life feels shrouded in mystery and fantasy, an inacessible dream. Or in other word(s), bullshit.

Murakami's memoir shows me that writing, like any other craft and skill, is about the process of doing things over and over again, mastering each small thing, taking each step towards the finish line, getting a coach, doing whatever it is to keep on the journey of living the way your heart takes you and learning to do it with the pain of Reality. And when you finish something, you get up and do it again or find something new to challenge yourself, to keep learning about yourself, to keep being healthy. The learning and growing never ends.

After reading the book, I didn't feel like I should pick up running or even write a book. I felt and thought these things:
1. I need to do writing drills like I used to do piano drills.
2. I need training: a good coach, exercises, a space and structure for practice.
3. When I sit down to write, I cannot sit down to write a book. I sit down to write a word, a sentence, and to grow and learn.

Inspiring.

Thanks mom and dad for all those years of piano lessons. And thanks Liz for the inspiration to live inspired.

Spivak, the Subaltern, feminism

One of the perks of having no job to report to each day is that I get to attend seminars on UCI's campus. UCI gets an impressive array of world class scholars to visit, especially when it comes to deconstruction and critical theory (like Derrida).

J. invited me to attend a two day seminar by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, a scholar whom I had never heard of (which only speaks of my ignorance in such things). I declined the first day's lectures. J. came back raving, muttering for hours about feminism and Hannah Arendt and reproductive heteronormativity and the notion of honorary male in post-menopausal women. I was intrigued enough to attend the second day.

To be honest, for the first half of the 3 hour session, I had no idea what her work was supposed to be doing. It was obvious that she was a powerhouse of a scholar. She was cross-referencing philosophy, literature, and anthropology and translating from original texts in multiple languages (french, bengali, german) while she taught about her feminist theories. It was so esoteric with only slight glimmers of understanding and practical application that I began to realize there were people such as her who lived on a completely higher level of thinking and the only way the masses got it was to have it trickled down bit by bit by people who kept breaking it down into dumber more understandable morsels.

By the 2nd half however, things started coming together. It's much too convoluted in my head to even try to explain "what" it was that was coming together for me but I left inspired and challenged by her passion for feminism, her intellectual rigor, her discipline and activist energy. I realized that what she was trying to do with all of her work, her deconstructive readings of literature and philosophy, her reflections on contemporary society, was to show how there was no legitimate understanding or place for the role of "woman" and the closest thing we had to a place and/or recognition was the status of honorary male given to post-menopausal, aging women who were post-reproductive (thus unable to be identified as woman by the ability to reproduce) and intelligent enough to command respect in the sphere of men. Or something like that.

Afterwards, we shook hands. J. and her had a little tete-a-tete over tea sandwiches. After all that, it was nice to see her as a normal human being who talked about her past lover and needed to run off to the gym because she hadn't worked out in 10 days.

A stimulating afternoon even if I only understood like 2% of what I heard. A couple things became clearer. Whatever my life work is, it will have to do with women. And it is becoming clearer that I must continue to be in places that nurture ideas and consider them a necessary part of being.

Doing it for your soul

J. and I had a weekend guest. His best friend D. from college was in town shooting weddings (he's a professional photographer) and stayed with us. Thus the popcorn popping, the Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demon watching, their late night bike riding shenanigans.

D. said two things I really liked.

He said, "I haven't ridden a bike since middle school. Riding a bike last night was like being born again. Seriously!"

The second thing he said had to do with his fiance, S., a filmmaker. I asked him if one day, S. wanted to be a big time director like Ron Howard or do indie flicks. D. shrugged and said, "Neither actually. I don't think she cares where she ends up. She just know she has to keep making films for her soul. She needs to tell the stories in her own voice. She's doing it for her soul."

Doing it for your soul. What do you do for your soul? What do I do for my soul? What a good question to ask and live by.

A month ago, I heard a lovely old Holocaust survivor talk about her thoughts on life and dying on NPR. As a widowed pyschotherapist in her 80s, she continues to date and is unafraid of anything life has to bring her, including being widowed again.

She told the interviewer, "Relationships with others are important but the most important relationship is with your self. That is the longest relationship you will ever have and will continue regardless of whether others live or die."

She honored her relationship with her self and was able to be unafraid to truly live or die.

I'm going to ask myself what I need to do for my soul today and then do it.

Ciao.

Popcorn

I popped corn for the first time in a pot on the stove. I never thought about how people popped their corn before microwaves! Strange and disturbing how you can be ignorant of a simple manual procedure because of the commercially manufactured product.

I used this recipe by Rachel Ray for delicious kettle corn. We ate a whole bucket of this stuff while watching The Da Vinci Code last night. And then we ate some for breakfast and a late afternoon snack. Addicting.