Daily Archives: March 16, 2003

Really real

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I don’t watch reality tv too often. It just doesn’t interest me. I’m mildly annoyed by it, but not to the level that others I have heard.

I always thought, How real can this be? These people are walking around, trying to act normal while they have huge camera crews following their every move.

That’s got to be distracting. I mean, how do you ‘act’ natural? kind of an oxymoron.

Well, today I understand better than I ever have how annoying those cameras can be.

My favorite coffeeshop, the Psychobabble on Vermont has it’s open mike night sundays. I’ve been going. It’s a very cool, laid-back, accepting kind of environment. I like it.

A couple of weeks ago, a cute newcomer came, her name was Jett. She sang a few songs to her guitar, and she wasn’t half bad. She was nervous, and young, so she seemed endearing.

Well, as it happens, Jett came back tonight. Jett is a member of a sorority. And guess what else? Jett is on that show, “Sorority Life.”

My open mike night was completely invaded. They were redoing everything, re-miking, re-lighting, wandering around with release forms. I was trying to be a good sport, I let them use my face.

But the camera guy was SO intrusive. He wandered around everywhere…On the stage, behind the performers, everything.

I like Jett, and I welcome her to join the lineup, but I really wish that the fake little enactment scenes and camera crew could have not screwed up my stomping ground.

Middlemarch by George Elliot

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I finally finished this book. I think it took me upwards of 6 months. It’s long. And it’s not really that fast-moving.

I did care about the characters though.

But the real reason I persevered is because my Victorian lit teacher said that Middlemarch is Elliot’s quintessential book. I had read Mill On the Floss in his class and truly enjoyed it. He said he would have liked to have us read Middlemarch, but it was too long to read for the class. We were already reading a lot of other books.

When I finished Middlemarch, I really wished that I had read in it a class. It seems to me that there was a lot going on, and that I would have been better able to understand it if I’d had some people to talk it out with.

I especially thought that the ladies in the book were interesting archetypes. This was not a book about one female heroine. Or even one male hero. There were a lot of stories of different people who chose to live their lives in different ways.

Dorothea is the most interesting character. But Mary Garth is very sympathetic, and Rosamond had promise. Celia, Dorothea’s sister, could have gone either way. She ended up being a little too good a fit for the mold of society. That made her much less interesting.

But she had no desire to be interesting.

Well, in the absence of a class discussion, I looked up some websites to see what others had to say. Here is one website’s list of major themes.

But the specific treatment of the women on the book was lacking.

Too bad. I guess nothing really takes the place of free discussion.

I think, right now, that I liked Mill on the Floss much better. But maybe Middlemarch will grow on me with time.

kinda like french fried twinkies

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I have been admiring the new IHOP stuffed french toast from their TV commercials. They sounded yummy to me.

So when we were in the middle of Saturday’s downpout, me and Chris decided comfort food was in order. IHOP popped to mind.

We looked over the menu carefully, but they weren’t listed. We did, however, find out that the International House of Pancakes is a California company, started here. That made me like them slightly better.

I do try to maintain a snobbish avoidance of chain restaurants, but the fact that it is a local chain is slightly better.

Chris would prefer to eat at the same three chain restaurants every day of his life. Fortunately, our relationship is more than just what we eat.

We asked Maricela, our waitress about the stuffed french toast. Apparently, there is a separate flyer-type dealy that explains your stuffed toast options.

There is the regular option, and then the Big option which has two extra pieces of fatty meat. The Super option included a total of six pieces of various fatty meat.

I thought two pieces was enough, so I got the regular. Cause I was mostly interested in the toast, anyway.

Well, the toast was like two pieces of bread sealed on all the edges. You might think it would be difficult to seal two pieces of bread. It is. IHOP’s solution was to deep fry it shut.

They must have deep-fried it, and then warmed in up again on a grill, because one side had an extra browning on one side.

Well, they had fruit and whip cream on the top. THe filling seemed to be cream cheese with a lot of powdered sugar mixed in. Mine did not have a lot of filling, which is probably good, because it was very sweet. Since there wasn’t too much, it tasted pretty good.

It reminded CHris immediately of the State Fair’s deep-fried twinkies. We hadn’t actually tried the deep-fried twinkies, but we could imagine.

It was good. ALthough the grease sat on my tummy the rest of the day. I’m glad I didn’t opt for the 6 pieces of fatty meat.