What were you doing five years ago?
- I had just gotten my B.A. from Brown and moved to Italy to be with Carlo, the Italian guy I was dating then. I was writing and trying to figure out what to do next with my life. I already had a vague plant to apply to MFA programs.
- looking for a job teaching ESL in Bologna, going from school to school handing out my resumé and trying not to get too discouraged
- reading Ulysses
- cooling off my feet in the bidet – it was really freaking hot
- writing in my journal what would later become the Souvenirs poems
Pictures of me five years ago:
What are five things (in no particular order) on your to-do list for today?
Well, I just arrived in Berlin yesterday, so I have lots of settling in things to do, like:
- look into get a monthly train pass
- look into getting a SIM card for old Italian cell phone
- buy some food basics (olive oil, yogurt, fruit, pasta, cheese) and odds and ends (hangers, postage stamps)
- walk around my new neighborhood and get oriented
- buy addi turbo lace needles in size 5 to start a new shawl
What are five snacks you enjoy?
- popcorn (sometimes I like to melt the butter with sage or thyme)
- fresh raspberries (I could pretty much live on them)
- pickles
- cheese (often with pear or apples slices)
- hippie corn nuts
What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?
- give money away to charities for clean water, food, etc. in poor places
- buy dangerous amounts of yarn
- take various people on various trips (ie. go to the south of France with Sophie)
- get a larger apartment in Palo Alto or even (gasp!) a house, so that Caleb and I could each have studio space, a large kitchen, a guest room. . . maybe a garden. . . .
- buy various old and heavy equipment for various kinds of fiber (for paper: letterpress printer, guillotine paper cutter) (for yarn: loom, spinning wheel, etc.), also some kitchen gadgets
What are five of your bad habits?
- staying up all night to finish a piece of knitting or a gripping book
- procrastination
- that awful sort of trap not working efficiently but then never being in a fully non-working mode. I think it's really easy to fall into this in PhD school, and getting over it is one of my biggest goals.
- using all the canvas bags in the house. When I need to go somewhere and I'm in a hurry, I just grab a new bag and put my papers or knitting or whatever in it. Then I end up with various things in 4 different bags and I think I've lost things and Caleb gets annoyed when we don't have a bag to take to the farmers' market.
- spacing out on the internet for hours and then saying that I don't have time to write.
What are five places you have lived?
(These are all for at least a year)
- Palo Alto, CA
- Brooklyn, NY
- Providence, RI
- Bologna, Italy
- Portland, OR
What are five jobs you have had?
- adjunct community college English professor
- ESL teacher in a private language school in Italy
- library/bookstore work in college
- waitressing (also mostly in college)
- babysitting (for as low as $3 an hour)
Which five people do you want to tag?
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2 comments:
Another bad habit: using the word "various" way too many times - haha.
I'm glad you are settling in - and I hope there is less "fouling" there than there is in Italy!
ignore mom's english criticisms . . . she corrects my spelling on IM. :P
even though i know all of these things about you already, it was really fun to read this. :)
let's go to the south of france!
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