It's a magical world

The difference between life in California and life in any other place of your choosing for wordweaverlynn

This is probably going to make me sound like a jerk.

I'm not from California and I never will be. I've lived there for four years, and now that I've left I realize that I would actually like to go back and stay even after I finish my PhD: the factors that drew me there for grad school are still in force, and also, California is in many ways a really easy place to live. I heard myself say out loud earlier this year that "if the rest of the country would adopt municipal composting, I could live anywhere" and that was when I realized there was no going back.

But seriously. I feel so much better about my wasteful capitalist existence being able to compost food waste and recycle #5 plastic (NB: I have no idea whether these things even hold true in the rest of the state. I was in the Inland Empire this summer and found myself thinking that plastic bags still being available in stores was a sign of backwardness). And you know, people complain about transit in the Bay Area--particularly the buses!--and I'm just like, clearly you never had to ride SEPTA or NJ Transit, people. You don't know how good you have it. Yes, even with goddamn Muni. And you can bike just about everywhere, and I do. It's really nice actually; I would bike all the time and never own a car for my whole life if I could. Or if I did have a car, I would only drive it for extraordinary trips. In the Bay Area they have car insurance that lowers your premiums the less you drive.

The food's pretty good too, and hot damn, is the produce cheap. Meat is stupidly expensive, but it's bad for you and the planet in excess anyway, so I mostly eat vegetarian at home and eat tasty meat in restaurants. The restaurants are so good. I went back to a restaurant I used to like a lot in Philly for my birthday this summer and realized that they were charging Bay Area prices for a quality level lower than the Bay Area and I was very sad.

The other thing is, the Bay Area is totally fucking ridiculous and I find it hilarious, when it's not enraging (or even when it's both). I don't even know if it's possible to convey what I mean--I think the easiest thing is to tell you to check out bayareatng. If you find it hilarious and don't need the jokes explained to you, that's basically what I'm talking about. People who don't live in the Bay Area are liable to think that SFist is like The Onion, but of course it's actually completely serious.

Now, part of what makes the Bay Area ridiculous is also what makes it pernicious. The real estate prices and gentrification are getting so out of hand I'll probably be living in goddamn Walnut Creek when I do come back, which is basically the suburban hell I swore I'd leave forever and which makes me very unhappy. Also, I have to say, most (white) Californians drive me up the wall. In my experience they are all convinced they are special snowflakes and soooo indirect, it's so annoying. There's a joke that goes "How do you say 'fuck you' in New York? 'Fuck you.' How do you say 'fuck you' in California? 'Thank you for sharing.'" Much as I am the least Minnesota person I know, I'm also really not California--also none of them know how to drive, or rather, no one obeys the goddamn courtesy of the road, forcing people who do know how to drive to behave like maniacs.

I couldn't stay forever by any means, if only because of the property prices, to say nothing of my deep-seated need to flee back to Minneapolis or the East Coast (not Jersey anymore, unless I lived in Hoboken; sigh) but I would like to stay for at least a few more years. The other thing is, it's beautiful, and all of us who live there are totally privileged to live there. Of course, who knows what it'll look like after the earthquake, but I suppose I should pretend to be Californian and pretend that's not going to happen ever, right?

So recently the city closed off the old soccer fields that I run past basically every time I go running to redo the street next to it as well as the park, which is a city block in size. This resulted in the farmer's market that had run on the street in question on Tuesday afternoons decamping six blocks south in something of a huff, and meant that the soccer fields and the block were closed off for at least a good six months. (It's hard to remember when anything started because with the drought we've been having we functionally have no seasons here. At any point in the year, almost, it can be either sunny or cloudy and in the 60s F in the morning when I'm running. Nor does my running outfit change meaningfully.) 

I do remember that they finished the project sometime around June, and though the street has reopened to traffic, the fields, now divided into a shiny baseball field with distance markers on the fences and everything, and what looks to be a barely-regulation size soccer field, have not. They are fenced off with chainlink fencing, and though the sprinklers go on at random intervals (I ran through them yesterday and was very sad they were only at waist height, because it was hot) I have never seen anyone inside. The city appears to have spent a lot of money building an elaborate crow playground, as the flock of crows that live in the area are the only creatures enjoying the new facilities.

It might not be Night Vale, but sometimes Berkeley comes close.

Most of my running shirts are from my alma mater, St. Olaf, the nerdiest of which has to be the one that has the three dropped letters of the Greek alphabet, Stigma Quoppa Wau, on the front, and "best fraternity ever" in Latin and Greek on the back. The most obvious, however, is the one says "St. Olaf" and then my class year in big letters.

Every so often while I am running along the treacherous streets of Berkeley someone will see the shirt and say to me, "I went to Carleton!" Which, for those of you not intimately acquainted with small Midwestern liberal arts colleges, is the other college in my college's town and also incidentally the real-world double of Blackstock in Pamela Dean's Tamlin. After much internal struggle (WTF do I care that these people went to Carleton), I decided that my stock response to this would be to say, "Um ya ya!" Which is our fight song chorus, and appropriate because we usually trounce Carleton at sporting events.

Today, however, while I was stopped at a corner, a young woman took off her earbuds and said to me, excitedly, "Is that a Golden Girls T-shirt?" Because, if you don't know small Midwestern liberal arts colleges or music schools, most people have only heard of St. Olaf as a joke made on The Golden Girls. (Full disclosure: Gatsby also worked for two weeks as a janitor at St. Olaf after the war.) I looked at her and I said, "No, it's a St. Olaf College T-shirt. It's actually a real place." 

Yup, that one takes the cake.

I went to see the A's play last night with my friend J, who got us field level tickets free through her work. It was a very different experience from the last time I was there, and for the most part, for the better - though the stadium wasn't quite full, it was pretty darn full, and the crowd was hugely into the entire game. (It was also about 90ºF in the stadium, which added a certain something.) Our ticketed seats were actually stolen by some jerks when we went to get food in the second inning, so we wound up in the way emptier section on the other side, where the people around us weren't jerks. The most interesting inning was the first, when the A's went up 2-0 at the end, but in the top of the 9th when their closer, Balfour, got the job done in about 12 balls, that was pretty great - we were all on our feet the entire time. Pretty awesome, all around.

I went running this morning and there was a cold wind off the Bay, with fog rolling in, or trying to.

Summer is coming.

I've been trying to cook very seasonally, so I'm also trying to post recipes in as timely a fashion as I can.

# Asparagus with Almond and Yogurt Dressing - These were really good, though I will note that faux-grilling them in the pan set off my smoke detector twice and I was scrubbing the pan with the copper scrubby for a good five minutes straight afterward. I think I would try to substitute an oil with a higher smoke point if I made it again.

# Mexican Zucchini-Corn Soup - This is tear-jerkingly good, I'm not gonna lie. I would definitely cook the zucchini for a full five minutes to get as much liquid as possible out of them and into the soup, since mine wound up more like stew than soup even with my putting in as much of the tomato liquid as I could. But oh my god, it is so good.

# Strawberries and Cream Biscuits - The ¢99 as-is strawberries at Berkeley Bowl are one of the best things about living here, and they were fantastic in these biscuits. I am not even that good at biscuits, but these are amazing. (I used more than a cup of strawberries. Je ne regrette rien.)

Obligatory disclaimer: I'm fine.

So I got doored on my way back from a housewarming party on Friday night and spent about four hours in the ER on Saturday morning. ( Details, not too gory )

There are a lot of bloodstains on my messenger bag now (they complement the coffee stains), and as I was riding over on BART last night this dude sitting across from me was clearly checking out the bloodstains and my bandaged hand and cut knuckles and bruised face and judging me. Screw you, dude.

But last night I had dinner with a lovely crew of people (marina, epershand, kuwdora, nextian, and J who's not on DW) and then we gathered even more people unto us and watched XMFC and played the X-Men: First Glass drinking game and I cannot convey how much awesome it was, seriously. ♥
Originally posted at Dreamwidth Studios; you can comment there using OpenID or a DW account.

So I went on an adventure down in the South Bay with damned_colonial and epershand to see a bunch of bands last night, and in the way of adventures, it was fun and only slightly hairy (I would just like to note, I can still find my way through places I have never been with no map. It's actually easier out here because everything's more or less built to a grid). This involved driving through the suburban wasteland on both sides of the Bay; oh, I'm so happy to be out of there, you have no idea. 

# Broken Bells were up first - I saw The Shins on the last date of their last world tour, in Osaka, and even though they were basically going crazy on stage, it was still only a notch or two up from staring at their picture while listening to their music. Broken Bells has the same lead singer and the same essential problem, which is that he is a block of wood on stage. Also their music, which I actually like, is deeply unsuited to the arena setting. 

# The Black Keys - I'd never seen them before, and only vaguely heard their music,  but they put on a pretty good set, way more dynamic than Broken Bells, though their music is a little too close to roots-ish for me to really get into wholeheartedly. I want the lead singer's leather jacket. 

# Phoenix! - OMG, I love Phoenix, and I was quite glad that they are just as awesome live as they are on their albums, though their shows are definitely not for the seizure-prone. Apparently Daft Punk have been showing up at their shows randomly of late, to promote their new album (i.e. the Tron: Legacy soundtrack), but there was no Daft Punk tonight. I don't care, Phoenix are awesome all by themselves. 

# My Chemical Romance! - The real reason we trekked down to the South Bay, and even though I am a fairly casual fan, they did not disappoint. I teared up a bit when Gerard sang "Cancer," which I expected, but they put on a great, dynamic show, and the crowd thankfully, finally got into it, and it was great. It occurred to me in the car on the way back that their music shares a certain something with Holly Black's books--I'm not sure it ever rises above the level of atmospherics, but they both definitely have a kind of North Jersey Gothic sensibility. 

We were hungry, so we skipped The Smashing Pumpkins and headed back up north. Along the way we stopped at an In 'n' Out Burger, which is a California Experience, and now I have had it. My verdict: Five Guys is better at the "burgers and fries made from actual meat and actual potatoes" thing, but quite tasty, and damn cheap. 

P.S. Dear California: Your highways suck. No love, Me. (Let me just say, if I ever talk about getting a car out here, somebody please slap me back into my senses.) I'm not even talking about the traffic, which was horrific, as I entirely expected. But having expected it, it was never an actual annoyance. 

In what will probably be the first of many, I am not typing "what the hell is wrong with these people" for this one. Instead, I am merely pointing out that jonquil has a post on an ongoing epidemic of pertussis in California. If you live in or are visiting California in the near future, you should get a TDap/DTap booster vaccine, or get vaccinated if you weren't vaccinated previously. I myself am getting a booster shot tomorrow.

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A fan near Philly needs to find a new home for her two cats.

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The lovely and talented (World Fantasy Award nominee, actually) elisem is having a 50th birthday sale to fund an epic trip around the world--items on this post are currently at 40% off, and they'll be going to 50% off tomorrow. (She will also be looking to sell a lot of her extensive BPAL and Nocturne Alchemy collection quite soon.) Steampunk! Awesomeness! Yay!

And now I must go pack.

Danticat, Edwidge. Brother, I'm Dying. New York: Knopf, 2007.

In this memoir Danticat tells the story of her uncle, who was like a father to her while her parents emigrated to New York City, and of her father, both of whom died within a few months of each other in 2004: her father from end-stage lung disease, her uncle at the hands of U.S. immigration officers' abuse and medical neglect after seeking temporary asylum from gang violence in his neighborhood of Bel Air in Port-au-Prince. The gang members were wrongly convinced that Danticat's uncle Joseph had given U.N. "peacekeepers" his authorization to use his church in their assault on the neighborhood.

It's a horrible story, and after the January earthquake it's impossible not to remember constantly while reading that Joseph's son, Danticat's cousin Maxo, was killed in the quake, and the neighborhood destroyed. But as much as the book is about their deaths, Danticat also writes eloquently about their lives, both in Haiti and in New York, apart and finally together: they are buried next to each other in Queens, since Danticat's Haitian family told them it was unsafe to repatriate Joseph's body for burial (the gangs wanted to behead his corpse). Having watched a parent die slowly in my own home, my heart went out to Danticat (who found out she was pregnant right after her father was given his terminal diagnosis, in an appallingly unprofessional manner) doing the same thing, and I wished uselessly that she and her family had been better able to accept her father's dying while he was doing it. But everyone's experiences with this (including my own) are ultimately personal, as jonquil pointed out in this post, which I really needed to hear without realizing it.

Anyway. I never used to like memoirs; I never used to like non-fiction, period. But I was missing out, and Danticat's book in particular is a wonderful example of what the genre can do.

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McGuire, Seanan. A Local Habitation. New York: DAW Books, 2010.

I read and enjoyed the first book in the adventures of Toby Daye, Rosemary and Rue, last summer, but this book has many of the problems of a second novel: to wit, it doesn't move as fleetly, leaving me more time to realize all the ways in which Toby's non-conforming-conformity to urban fantasy stereotypes is grating. Also, I totally spotted the twist relating to Alex after about one chapter, and I passionately hate when I can out-observe the characters without the narration's complicity in keeping the wool over their eyes. At the same time Toby = Luddite is less amusing this time around, and I was rather thrown by the complete disappearance of her human baby-daddy and child from her thoughts. All the same, I'll probably keep reading, because I've been getting these out of the library.

Downum, Amanda. The Drowning City. London: Orbit Books, 2009.

I confess this book had me at the dedication: "For New Orleans," and the epigraph, from Emily Dickinson, and all in all Downum (aka stillsostrange) does not disappoint. The story follows one Isyllt Iskandur, necromancer and agent provacateur, as she attempts to incite a rebellion in the conquered city of Symir so as to subvert the expansionist Assar Empire's designs on her own country across the Inland Sea. Isyllt's an engaging character, very human despite her chosen professions, and for the most part the people she encounters are a well-rounded, believable bunch of mages, spies, conspirators, politicians and rebels. There's a definite feel of cultural melange to Symir; in some ways it seems very Middle Eastern, while in others it's very clearly Southeast Asian, and Downum modulates between both influences well. In some ways the book reminded me of nothing so much as Tamora Pierce by way of Sarah Monette--gemstones, volcanoes, mages, spies, and not too explicit sex, which frankly surprised me. There's even an unambiguous reference to Monette's Doctrine of Labyrinths in the epilogue. In any case, I'll definitely look out for the next book about Isyllt, The Bone Palace, when it appears.


McGuire, Seanan. Rosemary and Rue. New York: Daw Books, 2009.

Rosemary and Rue is the first book in a series chronicling the trials and tribulations of Sir October Daye, changeling (i.e. half-Faerie, half-human) and P.I. in contemporary San Francisco, by Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire). In the prologue of the book, Toby is turned into a koi for 14 years by her liege's brother and enemy, which naturally wreaks havoc on the life she'd built outside the Fay Court with her human lover and their four year-old daughter. Six months after the enchantment breaks, Toby's life as a night clerk at a 24-hour supermarket is interrupted by the murder of one of her oldest friends, Evening, Countess Winterrose, being recorded on her answering machine, and becoming blood- and curse-bound to find Evening's killer. Naturally, Toby is drawn--more like dragged kicking and screaming--back into life among the Faerie, and though as a changeling and a former P.I., she's tough, she spends most of the book injured, confused, and in pain. I like it when female protagonists go through the wringer not because of their gender but because of their profession or circumstances (The Drowning City does this too), so I appreciated that Toby gets injured and has realistic aftereffects of those injuries. The book is a cracking good read, a real pageturner, and I don't normally care for stories about the Fair Folk (War for the Oaks being a notable, and at least slightly comparable, exception in this regard), but I have to recommend this book. Toby is a fascinating, painfully real character, as are the people who surround her, and McGuire's evocation of San Francisco, as well as of the power dynamics in the Faerie Courts (in which changelings are only a few steps up from dirt), feels very believable. I'll be looking for the next book, A Local Habitation, which comes out in the spring.


Bear, Elizabeth. Dust. New York: Bantam, 2008.

I read this book on a whim, and on one level it's a fascinating take on--whose law is it again? Heinlein's?--that science looks like magic when it gets to be advanced enough. It follows Rien, a servant in the House of Conn, who must undertake a perilous journey to the other side of her world, to Engine, after she rescues her sister Sir Perceval from the dungeons of their cousin Ariane Conn. They must also deal with the machinations of Jacob Dust, the Angel of Memory, and his plans for Perceval and for their world, Jacob's Ladder. As usual, Bear writes beautifully, and the epigraphs to the chapters have gotten me interested in the New Evolutionist Bible. But the characters, who are all rich, complicated individuals, drive the narrative as much as the fact that the binary system around which the ship is orbiting is about to go nova. I liked this book a lot, and I very much will read Chill, which comes out at the end of this year. But then, it's hard not to like a book in which the answer to "Why are you called the Angel of Poison?" is "Because there is no ancient Hebrew word for 'mutagen.'"