Back again in the BK and what a weekend it was. I drove around the streets of Brooklyn neighborhoods I missed and reminisce about on almost a weekly basis. It feels good to be home and in my element. When so often I am out of my element I feel exhilarated and happy. Clearly and most definitely happy. Brooklyn of my youth, you are there in spirit and essence. Some of you is gone but most of you welcomes me with open arms and I thank you.
I took my dad for a haircut out in Gravesend. We drove down Ocean Parkway to Ave T and then Ave U and then down to West Street, just shy of McDonald Avenue. Across the street was an Italian food shop, luckily open that early in the day so A and I went to check it out while my dad waited his turn. It had all of the things you could never, ever get here. Fresh mozzarella, fresh tomatoes caprice, fresh cheeses, biscoitti, coffee not from Starbucks' brand, fresh salamis and deli meats, fresh pastas hand made and rolled. There was so much it was hard to choose. We settled on some plain and pumpkin filled gnocchi and a salami. We paid and left and expressed some remorse for things we should have gotten too like the spinach pies, or more cheeses like the fresh mozzarella. But, it would not have made the 4 hour + drive home the next day and it would seem a sin to ruin fresh mozzarella like that.
But I felt at home and revelled in my being there and I felt confident and sure of myself just ordering the food and paying for the items. Like it was my everyday thing to get fresh products like these at my neighborhood Italian deli / goods shop. I e-mailed a fellow blogger who grew up in Gravesend. She told me I was in her old stomping ground. A small world it is.
Later that day I had to get fish from the fish store my mom usually goes to. I drove down to Ave U and 27th. Just in time, too because all of the fresh fishes were put away for the day and the floors and display areas were being cleaned by a group of latino men. The man who took my order (the owner?) was kind and efficient and pleased to have my business. I ordered the farm-raised salmon. 2.38 lbs. For six of us it would be plenty. We were in and out in less than 10 minutes. I got a parking spot right in front. I am quite certain this would not be on any other day and if I lived there but it was nice to have things fall into place this way.
Later we celebrated my dad's birthday with cupcakes from Magnolia, now near my brother's work so he had ordered a bunch the day before. What a nice way to spend my weekend: with my family, in the place of my birth and my youth, so much more familiar to me than where I am daily. What a pleasant feeling and thought I have because of it: a warm feeling in my inner being that brings a smirky Brooklyn-smile to my face.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
les bacteries chez les e'crevisses
I'm a translating fool! How many fish physiologists with expertise in endocrine disprupting chemicals do you know speak French and Portuguese?
A colleague was wading through papers yesterday and several months ago trying to find information regarding some bacterial strain. She is a microbiologist. Under both of these circumstances she was trying to find the main paper that was getting cited over and over in subsequent papers in hopes of elucidating some information regarding the beginnings of when the strain was isolated. Yesterday was a French paper, in the past it was a Brazilian paper. How good I felt when I could say, Oh, you need something translated in Portuguese, I can do that. You need something read and translated in French? I can do that too!
Yesterday's French paper happened to be a strain from some bacteria isolated from crayfish. Moribund crayfish. It described the infection in the hepatopancreas, and the digestive tract and some tubule. It described the strains and what they look like (gram negative, ciliated, size, etc.). A few months ago it was a strain used to ferment something to make a well-known drink famous in the Northeast of Brazil.
Yes, I can read technical biological papers in French and Portugese. I even learned a new word : souche; referring to the strain of the bacteria.
Damn that feels good. Still floating on my translating mega abilities. M'excuser pendant que je jubile.
A colleague was wading through papers yesterday and several months ago trying to find information regarding some bacterial strain. She is a microbiologist. Under both of these circumstances she was trying to find the main paper that was getting cited over and over in subsequent papers in hopes of elucidating some information regarding the beginnings of when the strain was isolated. Yesterday was a French paper, in the past it was a Brazilian paper. How good I felt when I could say, Oh, you need something translated in Portuguese, I can do that. You need something read and translated in French? I can do that too!
Yesterday's French paper happened to be a strain from some bacteria isolated from crayfish. Moribund crayfish. It described the infection in the hepatopancreas, and the digestive tract and some tubule. It described the strains and what they look like (gram negative, ciliated, size, etc.). A few months ago it was a strain used to ferment something to make a well-known drink famous in the Northeast of Brazil.
Yes, I can read technical biological papers in French and Portugese. I even learned a new word : souche; referring to the strain of the bacteria.
Damn that feels good. Still floating on my translating mega abilities. M'excuser pendant que je jubile.
Friday, June 11, 2010
A little dose of Brooklyn
I can not tell you how good I felt to be back in Brooklyn for just 4 days. I felt it the minute I got on 278, I got exhilarated as I turned off the Verrazano. I blasted "The Stoop" while traversing the Belt. I felt confident, secure and so sure of myself when driving down Avenue L and avoiding the crazed Orthodox Jews trying to get all they needed to get done by sun down even though when I arrived it was only 3:30 pm. I guess everyone was rushing home from work as well.
My long drive gave me the time to think about being in Brooklyn by myself, without A. Although I love him dearly and find his companionship all I could ask for, he is no fan of the big city and I find that a huge point of contention. How can you love me without loving what is me? Or at least, understand how it feels when you bad mouth the city and that doing so hurts me, personally. And as the song goes, "...this 'hood is my home..." and so defines me. Understand that and hold off on your insults to crime ridden neighborhoods that make you feel unsafe and trapped, and open your mind to the culture and atmosphere that is there for the offering. I don't stand there and bad mouth your home or your roots so know that it hurts when you do that to me.
I felt so good the entire weekend because I was in the skin I am most comfortable with. I was surrounded by my family, in a familiar place and saw familiar things I have known since being very little. I need to do this for myself I have decided. I need to go back to Brooklyn as often as my free time will allow. And most of that time leave A home. Although so many people asked about the dog, I don't think I will leave her home again, just A. He can stay with the cats and fish.
But this is key. This is the key to my balancing my life I think. I just need a little dose of Brooklyn every month or so...to keep me going and to keep me in touch with the me I know and love and felt like for so long I had lost.
So, when I feel the current me dwindling down to that self-loathing, INTJ, anxious, unsure of herself, low confidence having unrecognizable me, I will know to book my trip, tell A in advance he needs to stick around and take care of the cats and me and the dog are going to get our Brooklyn on.
My long drive gave me the time to think about being in Brooklyn by myself, without A. Although I love him dearly and find his companionship all I could ask for, he is no fan of the big city and I find that a huge point of contention. How can you love me without loving what is me? Or at least, understand how it feels when you bad mouth the city and that doing so hurts me, personally. And as the song goes, "...this 'hood is my home..." and so defines me. Understand that and hold off on your insults to crime ridden neighborhoods that make you feel unsafe and trapped, and open your mind to the culture and atmosphere that is there for the offering. I don't stand there and bad mouth your home or your roots so know that it hurts when you do that to me.
I felt so good the entire weekend because I was in the skin I am most comfortable with. I was surrounded by my family, in a familiar place and saw familiar things I have known since being very little. I need to do this for myself I have decided. I need to go back to Brooklyn as often as my free time will allow. And most of that time leave A home. Although so many people asked about the dog, I don't think I will leave her home again, just A. He can stay with the cats and fish.
But this is key. This is the key to my balancing my life I think. I just need a little dose of Brooklyn every month or so...to keep me going and to keep me in touch with the me I know and love and felt like for so long I had lost.
So, when I feel the current me dwindling down to that self-loathing, INTJ, anxious, unsure of herself, low confidence having unrecognizable me, I will know to book my trip, tell A in advance he needs to stick around and take care of the cats and me and the dog are going to get our Brooklyn on.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Fuck Parkinson's Disease
I wanted to rant and rave. I wanted to yell and scream and punch Parkinson's in the face. I think it should just pack up and leave and never come back or show its ugly face around here ever again. No one wants you Parkinson's. You wreak havoc in our lives and make us all miserable. You turn the best of us into harrowed souls and diminish our strongest hearts and sharpest brains into dependent, vulnerable, shadows of their former selves.
You make us cringe and gasp and choke and fall and stress and raise our anxiety levels so high and think about what could have been instead. You make us avert and deny and forget and fall into habits we can not break nor do we want to separate from for fear of losing any semblance of control we once had in our life before we realized the deterioration of ourselves.
We fight you everyday Parkinson's and you sometimes seem to have the upper hand but we continue to fight. Fuck you Parkinson's for thinking you can win. Fuck you Parkinson's for all of your nasty treatment of our inner beings who only long for ourselves to be normal and our loved ones to feel whole and of themself. You take the tallest and most brave of us all and test us all everday with your slow and steady pinching grasp. Fuck you Parkinson's for your cowardly approach.
Fuck you Parkinson's for taking over the lives of those who were independent and strong and creative and quick-witted and who I most wanted to be like. Fuck you for taking that away from him and fuck you for taking that away from me!
You make us cringe and gasp and choke and fall and stress and raise our anxiety levels so high and think about what could have been instead. You make us avert and deny and forget and fall into habits we can not break nor do we want to separate from for fear of losing any semblance of control we once had in our life before we realized the deterioration of ourselves.
We fight you everyday Parkinson's and you sometimes seem to have the upper hand but we continue to fight. Fuck you Parkinson's for thinking you can win. Fuck you Parkinson's for all of your nasty treatment of our inner beings who only long for ourselves to be normal and our loved ones to feel whole and of themself. You take the tallest and most brave of us all and test us all everday with your slow and steady pinching grasp. Fuck you Parkinson's for your cowardly approach.
Fuck you Parkinson's for taking over the lives of those who were independent and strong and creative and quick-witted and who I most wanted to be like. Fuck you for taking that away from him and fuck you for taking that away from me!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Brooklyn is the answer!
So I have been thinking alot recently that the reason I think I lost my Brooklynness is just that I am not in Brooklyn. Being the quiet type that I am, when I was in Brooklyn it brought out my true self. It forces you to in a way. You have to have an attitude because you have to deal with crazies on a regular basis. What do I do here? I get up, get in my car, take the bus to work, sit at my desk, get back on the bus, hang out with A and the dog. What interaction do I have except with the retail people in the stores I shop at? When I first got here, I had an attitude. I remember people saying I did and I did and I flaunted it. Me! Can you imagine me flaunting anything? I slowly lost that, over the years I became drained of my life force that kept me flaunting and strutting like I owned the place.
In Brooklyn it's different. You interact with people more because you walk everywhere, you commute with a million other people, not just 53 other people like on my commuter bus.
Plus, when I was in Brooklyn I was with my family. 4 other people who talk like me, think like me and interacted with me on a regular basis. When I am home I feel energized. I feel like I have new life and vitality that has been sucked out of me by the void that is Maryland (hah!). I feel at home in my skin in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is my life force and since I haevn't been there since March, my life force has drained slowly out of me since then.
The thought of returning this weekend has given me more energy than I have had in the months since I was back. I feel the possibilities are endless of how I can spend my time just being invigorated by my Brooklyn surroundings.
I don't have to think of the feeling I will get when I arrive, I will already be back inside my comfortable place that is Brooklyn, my home.
In Brooklyn it's different. You interact with people more because you walk everywhere, you commute with a million other people, not just 53 other people like on my commuter bus.
Plus, when I was in Brooklyn I was with my family. 4 other people who talk like me, think like me and interacted with me on a regular basis. When I am home I feel energized. I feel like I have new life and vitality that has been sucked out of me by the void that is Maryland (hah!). I feel at home in my skin in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is my life force and since I haevn't been there since March, my life force has drained slowly out of me since then.
The thought of returning this weekend has given me more energy than I have had in the months since I was back. I feel the possibilities are endless of how I can spend my time just being invigorated by my Brooklyn surroundings.
I don't have to think of the feeling I will get when I arrive, I will already be back inside my comfortable place that is Brooklyn, my home.
Friendship
I was given the directive that if I write more, it will help me get out of my INTJness so here I am. I want to write about friendship. Friendship to me is as tricky as falling in love and knowing if you are with the one and how to know when to spend the rest of your life with someone.
When I was younger I had a difficult time understanding what a friend was because it seemed those I considered friends would toss me at the drop of a hat for reasons that still escape me to this day (please don't ask me why I decide to dwell on dumb shit like this instead of keep all the information on GnRH in fish in my head instead and I would have been able to have had a better answer to that question at my prelims).
I can recall three instances in my younger years when three different people I considered friends one day just started to ignore me. For no reason. One of them even wrote my name in their calendar with a "= hate" next to it. How could anyone hate me? I never say anything! Maybe in those days I had less of a filter. Then I decided I needed to filter more and more and suddenly found myself with less to say for fear it would make someone not want to be my friend anymore. I took this with me into my romantic relationships. Always fearing if I said something less than flattering it would end the relationship right there. So why bother saying anything negative therefore I would endure the worst kind of being taken advantage of you could imagine and then I would cheat on that person and couldn't figure out why I was so unhappy. Wow that seems really a dumb way to go about shit.
Wow.
Glad I saw the error in my ways.
Not.
Anyway, I still kind of struggle with knowing how to maintain friendships and how to start them. I guess it really depends on the personality of the person I meet. I have learned that friendships like romantic relationships need to be cultivated, encouraged and are two way streets. I broke out of my shell this week and invited two friends from grad school who I see infrequently only because our lives are so busy, to lunch for dim sum. One could not make it, the other came with her boyfriend (who I have met on many occasions and who I like very much) and her boyfriend's daughter. We had a great time. We got to catch up on each other's lives and enjoy delicious food all at the same time. I live for that! What a great day. A true friend.
This makes me think of another friend of mine who I cherish more than she probably knows. She helped the most at one of the lowest points in my life. Not to sound too corny but she was a shining beacon in the grimness and greyness my life was at that time. She believed in me when even I would not and the rest of the world was falling down on me. I can not express how grateful I am to her, to this day and always for how she picked me up when I was low. I have told her many times but I do not know how much she knows she changed my life by just encouraging me and not letting me give up when I really, really wanted to. So this friendship I know how it works, and I don't take it for granted and I enjoy every moment we spend together.
What a treat it is to know where your true friends are. I know she would never toss me at the drop of a hat.
When I was younger I had a difficult time understanding what a friend was because it seemed those I considered friends would toss me at the drop of a hat for reasons that still escape me to this day (please don't ask me why I decide to dwell on dumb shit like this instead of keep all the information on GnRH in fish in my head instead and I would have been able to have had a better answer to that question at my prelims).
I can recall three instances in my younger years when three different people I considered friends one day just started to ignore me. For no reason. One of them even wrote my name in their calendar with a "= hate" next to it. How could anyone hate me? I never say anything! Maybe in those days I had less of a filter. Then I decided I needed to filter more and more and suddenly found myself with less to say for fear it would make someone not want to be my friend anymore. I took this with me into my romantic relationships. Always fearing if I said something less than flattering it would end the relationship right there. So why bother saying anything negative therefore I would endure the worst kind of being taken advantage of you could imagine and then I would cheat on that person and couldn't figure out why I was so unhappy. Wow that seems really a dumb way to go about shit.
Wow.
Glad I saw the error in my ways.
Not.
Anyway, I still kind of struggle with knowing how to maintain friendships and how to start them. I guess it really depends on the personality of the person I meet. I have learned that friendships like romantic relationships need to be cultivated, encouraged and are two way streets. I broke out of my shell this week and invited two friends from grad school who I see infrequently only because our lives are so busy, to lunch for dim sum. One could not make it, the other came with her boyfriend (who I have met on many occasions and who I like very much) and her boyfriend's daughter. We had a great time. We got to catch up on each other's lives and enjoy delicious food all at the same time. I live for that! What a great day. A true friend.
This makes me think of another friend of mine who I cherish more than she probably knows. She helped the most at one of the lowest points in my life. Not to sound too corny but she was a shining beacon in the grimness and greyness my life was at that time. She believed in me when even I would not and the rest of the world was falling down on me. I can not express how grateful I am to her, to this day and always for how she picked me up when I was low. I have told her many times but I do not know how much she knows she changed my life by just encouraging me and not letting me give up when I really, really wanted to. So this friendship I know how it works, and I don't take it for granted and I enjoy every moment we spend together.
What a treat it is to know where your true friends are. I know she would never toss me at the drop of a hat.
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