comp lit and mediaphilia

Waiting to be written… (Photo credit: smoorenburg)

This is my second-ever-in-life autumn , and it’s already wonderful. The Tucson desert has its own charm, to be sure, but experiencing autumn has probably been the best part about relocating to Boston. Fall is so cool, you guys! It’s also a little frustrating and can’t make up its mind, but that seems to be part of its charm.

Also, like I think I’ve probably noted before, all of the magazines I’ve read my entire life that talk about things like “sweater weather” and “layering” make sense now, and I am celebrating my new understanding by buying blazers, oversize cardigans, and other things that will keep me warmish without overheating. I love it. Even with my little fashion savvy, I always thought my style was more suited to autumn and spring weather than winter and summer, which are the only two seasons we have in Tucson (though nothing beats Tucson monsoons or those few summer nights when it’s breezy instead of still hot). I like sundresses and long skirts in the spring, and I absolutely adore that they now make skinnyish jeans that look attractive on my body type for fall. Also, hi, boots. Boots are my favorite. My feet hurt in just about every kind of shoe because they’re so arch-less, but boots are my besties. Never met a pair I didn’t like. Continue reading →

Posted in writing

Tagged boston , fashion , seasons , tucson , writing

Oct · 03

I’ve been rained on in Hawaii, and it was misty and light. I’ve been rained on in Prague, and I got to sit in my windowsill and journal to the drizzle. I’ve stood under coconut and mango trees in the rain in Brazil. I’ve slid in a van on the dirt roads in Kenya that turn completely to mud in the rain.

It’s all marvelous. Being a desert rat, water that isn’t cured with chlorine holds the same quaintness as does a single-family home with stairs in it. Anything will do. But our rain isn’t just anything. Nothing beats the way we do rain in the desert. I wish I knew some way to express how creosote smells. Do people who aren’t from Arizona know what it is? Because I’ve only smelled it here, and the fact that you can predict rain by the creosote smell in the air is so soothing, so homey, so delicious. It’s my favorite smell in the world, above baking smells and almond extract.

Tucson also has a really cute rain culture. Since essentially none of our major or neighborhood streets have gutters, big rainstorms are characterized by everyone driving as close to the center lane as they can. The right lane is totally empty, except for the river of rainwater in it. Also, since we live dangerously and are unused to wet things, we tend to speed and drive in really scary ways when it rains. That part I’m happy to leave behind.

We haven’t had a good monsoon for awhile. The last one I remember was the summer I graduated from high school, when the rain was so heavy that a bunch of stoplights stopped working, and cops were directing traffic standing knee-deep in water that had nowhere to drain. There’s always some jackass who ruins everyone’s enjoyment of the rain by not understanding that you can’t drive through an underpass, or who underestimates the potentially fatal things that are flash floods, but I think most of us just marvel at the silly water world our city becomes for those few days or hours.

Fellow Tucsonans (never Tucsonians or T-locs), I love how we collectively gush about the miracle of rain, and how none of us know quite how to react to it, or how to deal with it safely. I love how any of us can sniff the air and say, “It’s going to rain.” I love how we watch lightning the way other people watch fireworks. Never change.

Posted in adventures

Tagged lltt , nature , rain , tucson

Jul · 21

Notice that I didn’t say Mexican food . That’s delicious, and probably nothing can beat living in one of those American cities where you can buy 99-cent tacos on any street corner, and where the best restaurants are the ones you have to speak Spanish in. But Boston probably has one or two decent Mexican restaurants. What they won’t have, and what I’m worried about finding, is all my favorite Mexican groceries.

I like to laugh at people on the East Coast because their Dos Equis costs, like, seven dollars a bottle at a bar. Poor fools. Here? Two, maybe three. Soda makes me want to vomit, but every once in awhile I really like to enjoy a Coke or a fizzy, fruity drink. Enter Mexican Coke, which is still made with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, and Jarritos, the best fruity sodas ever. I may not be able to drink Dos Equis anymore because of the gluten, but I’m really going to miss glass-bottled sodas every once in awhile.

This is actually not a given in all of Tucson, because white Tucson probably doesn’t have a whole lot of idea what I’m talking about, but I think it will still be more problematic in Boston than it is here: there is a huge population of people that think Tabasco is acceptable hot sauce . It’s not. First of all, it tastes sweet and disgusting, and second of all, it is not hot. So it is sweet pepper sauce. Tragic. Cholula, though, is where it’s at, and even if I might have trouble finding it at some restaurants, I know I can always get it at the grocery store, and it scares me to think that I might have to start buying Tabasco in stores on the East Coast. I don’t really know what to expect, of course, but since Cholula is another delicious Mexican import, it stands to reason that it will be hard to find in Boston, and that it will probably be rather expensive. So I’m packing a few bottles with me.

Finally, something else I’ve already had to say goodbye to for gluten reasons but that makes Tucson Tucson is the abundance of fresh baked Mexican pastries at every grocery store. Yes, a croissant is delicious and can be found everywhere, but I can’t say the same about pan de huevo. And those conchas are just so good.

I am exceedingly worried about not being able to find essential grocery items when I get to Boston, but at least the prospect of being able to shop in Chinatown for products I can’t buy in Tucson is exciting.

Tagged food , lltt , the future , tucson

Jul · 20

My lease in Allston starts on September 1, which means that I now have fewer than three months to live in Tucson. For someone who has millions of different passport stamps, and for someone who begged her parents to send her to boarding school when she was seven, I am surprisingly apprehensive about my move. Not scared, but a little worried about whether I will still be the same person (and whether I will still be as secure with myself as I have finally learned to be) once I live totally alone. So to forget my fear, I’m going to start saying thanks, I love you, and goodbye to my favorite Tucson things. I’m not saying a real goodbye to Bookmans anytime soon, as I’m sure I’ll be stopping in another hundred times before I leave, but here it goes anyway.

I don’t care how many used bookstores Boston has; I will probably patronize each one anyway. Nothing is like Bookmans, and no other place do I understand culturally and sociologically the way I do Bookmans. I have worked very hard to know how to navigate that store successfully, literally and intellectually. At what other store can I be sure to find a decent copy of that book that everyone has read and I need to have read and also find the most random, out of print novel that I’ve never heard of but is brilliant, and also find some awesome work of lit theory or history or cooking and grab a couple of magazines on my way out? I don’t really know, because I just keep going to Bookmans for it all. Where else can I “buy” (usually for free, because I always have trade) an eclectic smorgasbord of reading material and get compliments and recommendations on it, earning me both respect and hipster points? Also, where else have I ever felt so comfortable being by myself in public? I love you, Bookmans. I’ve loved every piece of paper I’ve ever taken from you. I’ve loved every time you’ve taken an ARC from me and given me trade for it, even though you claim that you don’t take galleys for resale. I’ve loved every cashier who has ever given me their employee discount. I’ve loved every author I never knew I needed in my life before finding their book at Bookmans. I love the beautiful set of dishes my mother found in your tchotchke room. I love that every Bookmans location has a distinct personality, and the one on Ina is clearly not for hipsters or avid novel-readers. I love you, Bookmans. And it’s a love that lasts a lifetime.

Tagged authors , books , lltt , love , tucson

Jun · 02

The last thing I have is free time. The last thing I need is to go back to my third job when they call me. Yes, I need the money, but I also don’t, because my parents would help me if I asked, and really, I have plenty to be doing that doesn’t cost money. Homework, piano, voice, and reading books that I already own doesn’t cost me anything, and neither does hanging out with friends. Most worthwhile things don’t cost money, or, at least, if they cost money, it’s money I already spent awhile ago.

It was nice to go to my old job today, though, as I haven’t worked in months because of state budget cuts and lack of referrals. I had three little girls, 7, 8, and 10, and they were very sweet and easy to take care of. The oldest one was especially interested in music, and all three told me how they wanted to go to college where I go.

This about the only time when I am ever proud of going to U of A, and it’s very humbling to remember how lucky I am that I get to go to college, and that I get to live a pretty nice lifestyle for a college student who supports herself. Going to private school for five years tricked me into thinking that I was too good for U of A, and that I had nothing in common with anybody who had less money or education than I’ve been fortunate enough to have, because the people I went to high school with did live like that.

I can’t stand people who think poor people are beneath them, or less than, or are poor because they choose to be. I can’t stand people who think they have nothing in common with others unless they are exactly the same in socioeconomic, ethnic, cultural, and religious terms. I love that I got to do a little inspiring today, just by watching “It Takes Two” and coloring and chatting with these three very smart, bilingual girls, and I love that one of them drew me a picture and wrote “Thank you Hannah for being nice to me and for playing with us.” One of them said she thought I was mean when she saw me, but then she changed her mind. I was mildly offended, but maybe I do come off as a snob, partly because that’s just me, and partly because I was conditioned to be one for five years. Private school is excellent for the academics and the great teachers, but it is also extremely unhealthy.

I had a great morning. It went by very quickly. And I wasn’t spending all my time with the kids itching to get away, to read, or to just watch the movie. In fact, two of the girls complained that they didn’t want to watch anything, because the TV is always on at home, so we stopped paying attention and did origami boxes and fortune tellers instead.

Last semester, I came up with my professional plan for the next ten years or so. One more year of undergrad, followed by two or three years to do my dual master’s degree program in Boston. After that, a five-year PhD in New York. Dr. Hannah before my thirtieth birthday. Not bad. People ask what I plan to do with my degree in music, and I usually say nothing, not because I’m going to give up music when I graduate, but because I’m not planning on teaching or being famous (well, maybe a bit that last one. Win a Grammy and get a PhD? Pretty sweet). The master’s degrees will be an MA in children’s literature and an MS in library science. The doctorate, a five-year program I randomly stumbled upon called media, culture, and communication. Could not be more up my alley. And it’s still hard to say what I want to do with that, because it’s not a one-word job, like doctor, lawyer, or professor. And I would die before saying that I want to be a teacher, because that’s what both of my parents, my sister, and tons of other family members and close family friends do. Bleccch. But no matter how I try to get around it, I always end up back at education, because it’s just so important. Education and social services and the arts. Just hanging out with kids who aren’t stupid or bad or perfect, but just a bit at-risk, whether it’s because they are financially disadvantaged (being too poor or too rich equally leave you out of getting a lot of what the world, and Tucson, have to offer, I think) or because they haven’t gotten the best education possible, or because they haven’t had as stable a family life, or whatever it is. Thanks to my excellent parents, my excellent hometown, the excellent opportunities I had to get educated in and out of school, and my excellent job at Child & Family that I just don’t appreciate enough, I am completely preoccupied with the idea that role models, the arts, language skills, and different kinds of educational opportunities, from after-school programs to court-ordered community service to youth groups, can change a lot about people, and therefore society, for the better.

Sometimes I can’t believe that I would ever want to be so selfish as to marry well and not work (not that it’s in the cards at the rate I’m going with boys), or to just write and be musical all the time, or to be famous, because not to change things or help things almost constantly seems so vapid and boring. Getting a doctorate and maybe publishing a few books or recording an album is all the selfish I have time for. After that, I hope to find a job in a library, a museum, or a social service agency where I can work with other people who do the really important stuff and just do my part to provide really useful programs. Mix upper, middle, and lower class kids together. Turn off the television. Read books and learn to love them. Journal. Make good choices and not get arrested before age 14. There is so much good out there, and so much good to do, that people don’t see.

Wow, I’m sappy.

Posted in future

Tagged "philosophy" , education , other people , school , tucson , work

Jan · 30

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