Lolita? Phenomenal. I had the best drink of my life there--ginger-infused vodka with something and something else, and a hunk of lime on the rim, in a lovely copper tankard, no weenie cocktail glasses for me! Appetizers included scallops (yum), spinach phyllo pies (ditto), and greek sausage (delicious). Dinner for me was the macaroni and cheese featured so prominently in the book, which definitely lived up to its reputation. Others ordered the salmon, pork chop, or chicken, all of which I tasted and all of which I would order for myself, should I be so fortunate as to return. As for dessert, our table ordered one of everything on the menu; the rose-raspberry tart and the Turkish coffee stand out as particularly memorable. In general: highly recommended, not far from campus, and if you're looking for a place to impress a date for around $30-40 a person (depends on drinks) then this is a great idea.
We caught the sneak preview of Superman Returns last night. The first time Brandon Routh spoke, I elbowed R and said "oh, he sounds just like Christopher Reeve." He did. He also walked like him, pushed his glasses up like him, and kept a goofily sincere expression on his face while flying like him. I thought he was an excellent casting choice.
Speaking of excellent casting choices, Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor? Nothing short of brilliant. I love Kevin Spacey anyway, but his Luthor was an especially interesting update of the old slapstick villain into a still wacky yet menacing threat.
It's a very, very violent movie. Not that there's a lot of blood and guts, or a higher violent minutes/running time ratio than most comic book movies, but in the sense that you really feel the weight of what's going on. People get thrown around rather brutally. People get shot at, and you feel both the visceral punch of that and the emotional overtones (and I think this adds to Spacey's performance)--you really understand what it's like to live in a world with people this bad.
It's a beautiful movie. Lois Lane still can't spell. Perry White is still grumpy. The Daily Planet still has lots of glass. Everyone still dresses like it's the Forties.
I'll be seeing it again.
And finally: Dear Universe:
Thank you for people who cheer in movie theaters for Superman. Thank you for Christopher Reeve's spectacular grace. Thank you for my beloved friends who have taught me that you don't have to be a cynic to be a realistic person, and that wide-eyed adoration is sometimes not to be laughed at.
And thanks for the lovely clean data this afternoon. I appreciate it.
Love,
Leigh
28 June 2006
22 June 2006
Lola, Lolita
I don't talk about Cleveland much here. Mostly because there is a dearth of new Cleveland experiences of late. However, there is one on the schedule that I am very excited about.
I am going to Lolita.
Aside from having the awesomest name ever in the entire history of language, it is a reportedly excellent restaurant run by a reportedly excellent chef who is committed to a) staying in Cleveland b) making food that Clevelanders will appreciate c) pricing said food at under $30 a plate. The combination of the above makes me extremely happy that I will get to meet this chef and tour his kitchens.
The common reading for this year's incoming freshman class is The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. I don't know if he succeeded in his goal of capturing the soul of a chef. But this book blows the last few common readings out of the water. It's actually readable, for one, if a little dry at times. And the middle section (the first is about a national chefery exam, the third about a chef and his journey towards his restaurant today) is all about Lola, (undergoing a move; the smaller Lolita is still open) and Michael Symon.
Michael Symon is the kind of person who is devoted to Cleveland. To putting it on the map, not as an imitation of some other city--Paris, New York--but as Cleveland, with its personality and sensibility intact. His restaurant is run like a giant family, and when I asked if we could get anything special on the evening (since we're promoting the book to over a thousand kids) we were told that Michael would be thrilled to speak with us, and of course we could take a tour.
These kind of things make me think that, with time, Believe in Cleveland (which always feels like it should rhyme, or have something equally resonant following it) will conquer. That more people will see this city for what it can be and not what it isn't. That Midwestern sensibility might be valued for the asset it is and not an obstacle to towering heights of excess. That my dad and I won't joke about the first sign of the Apocalypse being the Cavs, Indians, and Browns all winning championships. (though it is damn funny)
From the bridge at work, I can almost see my favorite work of public art, and it makes me smile every damn day.
I am going to Lolita.
Aside from having the awesomest name ever in the entire history of language, it is a reportedly excellent restaurant run by a reportedly excellent chef who is committed to a) staying in Cleveland b) making food that Clevelanders will appreciate c) pricing said food at under $30 a plate. The combination of the above makes me extremely happy that I will get to meet this chef and tour his kitchens.
The common reading for this year's incoming freshman class is The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. I don't know if he succeeded in his goal of capturing the soul of a chef. But this book blows the last few common readings out of the water. It's actually readable, for one, if a little dry at times. And the middle section (the first is about a national chefery exam, the third about a chef and his journey towards his restaurant today) is all about Lola, (undergoing a move; the smaller Lolita is still open) and Michael Symon.
Michael Symon is the kind of person who is devoted to Cleveland. To putting it on the map, not as an imitation of some other city--Paris, New York--but as Cleveland, with its personality and sensibility intact. His restaurant is run like a giant family, and when I asked if we could get anything special on the evening (since we're promoting the book to over a thousand kids) we were told that Michael would be thrilled to speak with us, and of course we could take a tour.
These kind of things make me think that, with time, Believe in Cleveland (which always feels like it should rhyme, or have something equally resonant following it) will conquer. That more people will see this city for what it can be and not what it isn't. That Midwestern sensibility might be valued for the asset it is and not an obstacle to towering heights of excess. That my dad and I won't joke about the first sign of the Apocalypse being the Cavs, Indians, and Browns all winning championships. (though it is damn funny)
From the bridge at work, I can almost see my favorite work of public art, and it makes me smile every damn day.
Of Mice and Men
I hit some combinations of CTRL-letter and it switched my keyboard to Greek. Kind of cool.
On Music
I had a profound disinterest in popular music for the first sixteen or so years of my life. I was musical. I played flute and piano and sang. I was only interested in the music that I was playing--in other words, classical. I knew I didn't like Mozart, and that I did like Beethoven, and that was about it.
I never wanted to get into popular music, performance-wise, and I usually resented being asked to play more modern-sounding composers. My musical goals included symphonies, but never, ever, a band.
Music used to play a very important role in my life. But I think with the advent of college, and being valued for other of my skills than my musical ones, its importance has dropped off.
I have never, really, cared about popular music. I know that it was fashionable to dislike boy bands. But honestly? Music is not that important to me. I find it difficult to care what people like and dislike, and even harder to foist music into unwilling or unknowing ears.
Perhaps it's that when in college I found a group of people who were, really, into music. I just didn't get it. I still don't, really
To me, it's just music. I can happily go days without my iPod (never at the gym, though) and don't miss the radio in the car. I don't often crave new music, and aside from a few artists to whom I am loyal, I don't particularly seek out concerts.
The thing I really don't get, in any form, is proselytation. I've been known to shove poems under people's noses, yeah. But I've stopped doing it because most people don't like poetry. I'd rather not share something than have someone resent me for it.
I've finally hit the point where I really don't care what people think about my taste in music. I know it's random, and I know it's scattered. It's just hard for me to work up the energy to battle the indifference.
On Literature
I have always, always been a reader. In the bathtub. While cooking. At family gatherings, to my mother's dismay. At sporting events, to my father's. In between classes at college. During classes in elementary and junior high school. I've said it before, but I can rarely remember being told "no" in a bookstore. I have quite a collection at home, and quite a few up here with me.
My friends freshman and sophomore year--music was important to them. Literature is important to me. It's what I do when I get a chance--I read, and I think about what I've read, and I talk about it with like-minded people, and then I read some more.
I know that very few people read like I do. I loved The Scarlet Letter. I love Hawthorne in general, and Steinbeck, and Poe, and all sorts of books that are required for people to read and hate.
And I love poetry. Today's reading as I image cells will be Shakespeare's sonnets. (I'm looking for more things to put on my poetry pants) And people, generally speaking, do not like poetry.
This is all just fine by me. It'd be a dead dull world if we all liked the same things.
On Work
Speaking of things I love...I'm imaging my own cells today. Cells for my personal project, not cells from my personal self. And they are beautiful. They're rat cells, and we've never worked with rats before, so we weren't quite sure how they'd turn out.
They're hardier than the guinea pig cells, much harder to kill. They express their fluorescent proteins (literally) brilliantly--it's hard to look through the microscope at them, they just blaze away at you, so brightly.
I got into work this morning an hour early to get a head start, and ended up being right on schedule, as there was a fire in the basement today. Still no word on what happened, or if the animals stored there are okay.
I am surprised at my enthusiasm for this project. I'm personally interested--it's a refreshing break after having no clue what I was doing or why last summer. Simply put, as I say once or more a day: I love my job.
In case you're curious, I'm working with beta adrenergic receptors in the heart cell, which are responsible for the production of a signaling molecule (cAMP) that helps regulate the calcium channels in the cell. What I'm doing now involves stimulating all beta receptors, then blocking one specific type, then blocking the other type, just to get an idea of who's responsible for what here.
I love making the solutions, mainly because I love chemistry. Also, the beauty of adding one clear liquid to another and being able to see them mix--try it with a concentrated sugar water, or a clear alcohol, and water--never fails to amaze me. I love culturing the cells. I even love the dull parts, because back here in the dark room is where science happens, science that can one day improve life for all of us.
In the future, never let me have caffiene. Particularly after having given blood. It is very bad for me.
On Music
I had a profound disinterest in popular music for the first sixteen or so years of my life. I was musical. I played flute and piano and sang. I was only interested in the music that I was playing--in other words, classical. I knew I didn't like Mozart, and that I did like Beethoven, and that was about it.
I never wanted to get into popular music, performance-wise, and I usually resented being asked to play more modern-sounding composers. My musical goals included symphonies, but never, ever, a band.
Music used to play a very important role in my life. But I think with the advent of college, and being valued for other of my skills than my musical ones, its importance has dropped off.
I have never, really, cared about popular music. I know that it was fashionable to dislike boy bands. But honestly? Music is not that important to me. I find it difficult to care what people like and dislike, and even harder to foist music into unwilling or unknowing ears.
Perhaps it's that when in college I found a group of people who were, really, into music. I just didn't get it. I still don't, really
To me, it's just music. I can happily go days without my iPod (never at the gym, though) and don't miss the radio in the car. I don't often crave new music, and aside from a few artists to whom I am loyal, I don't particularly seek out concerts.
The thing I really don't get, in any form, is proselytation. I've been known to shove poems under people's noses, yeah. But I've stopped doing it because most people don't like poetry. I'd rather not share something than have someone resent me for it.
I've finally hit the point where I really don't care what people think about my taste in music. I know it's random, and I know it's scattered. It's just hard for me to work up the energy to battle the indifference.
On Literature
I have always, always been a reader. In the bathtub. While cooking. At family gatherings, to my mother's dismay. At sporting events, to my father's. In between classes at college. During classes in elementary and junior high school. I've said it before, but I can rarely remember being told "no" in a bookstore. I have quite a collection at home, and quite a few up here with me.
My friends freshman and sophomore year--music was important to them. Literature is important to me. It's what I do when I get a chance--I read, and I think about what I've read, and I talk about it with like-minded people, and then I read some more.
I know that very few people read like I do. I loved The Scarlet Letter. I love Hawthorne in general, and Steinbeck, and Poe, and all sorts of books that are required for people to read and hate.
And I love poetry. Today's reading as I image cells will be Shakespeare's sonnets. (I'm looking for more things to put on my poetry pants) And people, generally speaking, do not like poetry.
This is all just fine by me. It'd be a dead dull world if we all liked the same things.
On Work
Speaking of things I love...I'm imaging my own cells today. Cells for my personal project, not cells from my personal self. And they are beautiful. They're rat cells, and we've never worked with rats before, so we weren't quite sure how they'd turn out.
They're hardier than the guinea pig cells, much harder to kill. They express their fluorescent proteins (literally) brilliantly--it's hard to look through the microscope at them, they just blaze away at you, so brightly.
I got into work this morning an hour early to get a head start, and ended up being right on schedule, as there was a fire in the basement today. Still no word on what happened, or if the animals stored there are okay.
I am surprised at my enthusiasm for this project. I'm personally interested--it's a refreshing break after having no clue what I was doing or why last summer. Simply put, as I say once or more a day: I love my job.
In case you're curious, I'm working with beta adrenergic receptors in the heart cell, which are responsible for the production of a signaling molecule (cAMP) that helps regulate the calcium channels in the cell. What I'm doing now involves stimulating all beta receptors, then blocking one specific type, then blocking the other type, just to get an idea of who's responsible for what here.
I love making the solutions, mainly because I love chemistry. Also, the beauty of adding one clear liquid to another and being able to see them mix--try it with a concentrated sugar water, or a clear alcohol, and water--never fails to amaze me. I love culturing the cells. I even love the dull parts, because back here in the dark room is where science happens, science that can one day improve life for all of us.
In the future, never let me have caffiene. Particularly after having given blood. It is very bad for me.
20 June 2006
Please Come to Boston
I envy, probably more than I should, the Victorians who read Dracula before it became such a part of our culture. Imagine reading Dracula for the first time, when you don't know that vampires don't show up in mirrors.
In general, about 7% of the time I regret reading books because I will never be able to read them for the first time again.
I am such an insufferable snob about literature. This is one of the things I dislike about myself (my tendency towards superiority complexes) but when it comes to books, I can't say I hope it changes. You can, of course, still be a good person and think Ann Rice is a good author. I know some people who do, and they are good people. However, they have no idea about books and thus I will probably not take them very seriously when they talk about anything text-based. Tolerance and open-mindedness will get you far, but at some point, stupid is stupid.
I am beginning to be horrified at the vast quantity of chick lit flooding the market. I like brightly-colored covers as much as the next girl, but this genre does literature and chicks no favors. It should have stopped with Bridget Jones. Or, more happily, I could have been the only person to ever have read and loved Bridget, and thus the terrible, terrible second movie would not have been made.
Sometimes I wonder about the serial. If television has replaced it entirely. I wonder if anyone will watch Friends in thirty years, or fifty. I was never a Friends fan when it was on, so I can safely say that I will not be purchasing the DVDs to pass on to my children.
PS: I love the title song. It is sappy and ridiculous and everything I love to ridicule, but I have a non-ironic love for this song, particularly as performed live by Kenny Chesney. Despise me if you dare.
In general, about 7% of the time I regret reading books because I will never be able to read them for the first time again.
I am such an insufferable snob about literature. This is one of the things I dislike about myself (my tendency towards superiority complexes) but when it comes to books, I can't say I hope it changes. You can, of course, still be a good person and think Ann Rice is a good author. I know some people who do, and they are good people. However, they have no idea about books and thus I will probably not take them very seriously when they talk about anything text-based. Tolerance and open-mindedness will get you far, but at some point, stupid is stupid.
I am beginning to be horrified at the vast quantity of chick lit flooding the market. I like brightly-colored covers as much as the next girl, but this genre does literature and chicks no favors. It should have stopped with Bridget Jones. Or, more happily, I could have been the only person to ever have read and loved Bridget, and thus the terrible, terrible second movie would not have been made.
Sometimes I wonder about the serial. If television has replaced it entirely. I wonder if anyone will watch Friends in thirty years, or fifty. I was never a Friends fan when it was on, so I can safely say that I will not be purchasing the DVDs to pass on to my children.
PS: I love the title song. It is sappy and ridiculous and everything I love to ridicule, but I have a non-ironic love for this song, particularly as performed live by Kenny Chesney. Despise me if you dare.
16 June 2006
Coming Up for Air
The internet's been out at the apartment for almost a month now. We also no longer have a working phone line. Now, this was supposed to change as of yesterday (for the DSL) and Wednesday. (for the phone) SBC says there's a problem with the line, and if it's on my end and they discover it, I owe them seventy dollars in addition to my startup costs. Which means I get to call my landlord and ask him where the network box is, in addition to reminding him that my roommate and I are, in fact, illegally squatting (/cooking/watching TV/having fondue parties) in an apartment without a lease, so could he please send the paperwork like I asked him to three weeks ago when we were not illegally living here?
I am currently at work. Specifically, I am currently in the back room, which is about the size of a Case dorm room, but longer and thinner, sitting in the dark with four plates of cells and a microscope. The computer, as I type this, is taking pictures of the cells through the microscope. It is an easy job if you aren't a space cadet like me and manage to understand the postdoc's instructions as twenty microliters of virus per plate instead of twenty microliters of virus total. This mistake means that the cells do not glow quite as prettily as they usually do and it is harder for the computer to take pictures of them. However, it was a mistake made two days ago and, in the grand scheme of things, not actually that bad. I will have pictures of cells. Graphs of the light they produce. It's what is needed.
Life these days goes. I have yet another idea for a story. This one might actually make it past the idea phase. I have such a short attention span when it comes to writing; I get tired of things very easily and then rationalize that because I like to read things and I don't like writing this, no one else will want to read it and it's okay to give it up.
Reading back over what I've written, I realize that I write (today) two types of sentences: Extremely short. For added drama to content which is not actually dramatic. At all. And long, more flowy sentences that don't so much flow as ramble, in a random-walk sort of way, towards first one conclusion and then another, unrelated end. These are the kind of sentences that, should you run across them in another's work, might strike you as being quietly lovely, or incredibly pretentious, based on your mood and the skill of the author in carrying such a sentence off.
The damn cell keeps wriggling out of focus.
Today in my group meeting I had graphs to show. I could even (kind of) explain what they meant, and nod knowingly as my supervisor suggested where to go from here and why the results (the graphs) were not as he had expected. Next week I am supposed to start my project instead of running everyone else's. It will be a relief; if I mess up my own cells, I have nothing to do but start over. I haven't slowed anyone else down.
On a completely unrelated note, for the first time ever I am getting fuzzy on the details of my past relationships. I have usually felt like the snail from one of the Dr. Doolittle books, carrying people in my shell wherever I go. Not anymore. I don't clutch the memories. I don't hide away the feelings and pore over them at night. I'm free.
It has occurred to me multiple times over the course of my employment here that in the past I may not have been able to do this job, as regards The Killing of Things and Then Butchering Their Still-Warm Bodies. Something has changed over the past year, and I am having a hard time putting my finger on it. I have hardened. I have the capacity to be unmoved by things which are moving, and that was something I lacked before. I have the ability to push my thoughts and feelings aside to do what is in front of me.
I mean, I don't hate guinea pigs that much. I'll never own one, but I would never kill them on the street, or in a first-grade classroom. But for a good cause? Absolutely.
It is a very strange feeling to look at yourself a year ago and see very little in common with who you are now.
I am currently at work. Specifically, I am currently in the back room, which is about the size of a Case dorm room, but longer and thinner, sitting in the dark with four plates of cells and a microscope. The computer, as I type this, is taking pictures of the cells through the microscope. It is an easy job if you aren't a space cadet like me and manage to understand the postdoc's instructions as twenty microliters of virus per plate instead of twenty microliters of virus total. This mistake means that the cells do not glow quite as prettily as they usually do and it is harder for the computer to take pictures of them. However, it was a mistake made two days ago and, in the grand scheme of things, not actually that bad. I will have pictures of cells. Graphs of the light they produce. It's what is needed.
Life these days goes. I have yet another idea for a story. This one might actually make it past the idea phase. I have such a short attention span when it comes to writing; I get tired of things very easily and then rationalize that because I like to read things and I don't like writing this, no one else will want to read it and it's okay to give it up.
Reading back over what I've written, I realize that I write (today) two types of sentences: Extremely short. For added drama to content which is not actually dramatic. At all. And long, more flowy sentences that don't so much flow as ramble, in a random-walk sort of way, towards first one conclusion and then another, unrelated end. These are the kind of sentences that, should you run across them in another's work, might strike you as being quietly lovely, or incredibly pretentious, based on your mood and the skill of the author in carrying such a sentence off.
The damn cell keeps wriggling out of focus.
Today in my group meeting I had graphs to show. I could even (kind of) explain what they meant, and nod knowingly as my supervisor suggested where to go from here and why the results (the graphs) were not as he had expected. Next week I am supposed to start my project instead of running everyone else's. It will be a relief; if I mess up my own cells, I have nothing to do but start over. I haven't slowed anyone else down.
On a completely unrelated note, for the first time ever I am getting fuzzy on the details of my past relationships. I have usually felt like the snail from one of the Dr. Doolittle books, carrying people in my shell wherever I go. Not anymore. I don't clutch the memories. I don't hide away the feelings and pore over them at night. I'm free.
It has occurred to me multiple times over the course of my employment here that in the past I may not have been able to do this job, as regards The Killing of Things and Then Butchering Their Still-Warm Bodies. Something has changed over the past year, and I am having a hard time putting my finger on it. I have hardened. I have the capacity to be unmoved by things which are moving, and that was something I lacked before. I have the ability to push my thoughts and feelings aside to do what is in front of me.
I mean, I don't hate guinea pigs that much. I'll never own one, but I would never kill them on the street, or in a first-grade classroom. But for a good cause? Absolutely.
It is a very strange feeling to look at yourself a year ago and see very little in common with who you are now.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)