23. read something by David Foster Wallace (32x32)

I'm working up to Infinite Jest with the short stories of David Foster Wallace in Consider the Lobster. The first short story, "Big Red Son," Wallace's account of his visit to the AVN Awards, an event that has been dubbed the Academy Awards of pornographic film, and its associated Expo (originally published in Premiere as "Neither Adult Nor Entertainment" under the pseudonyms Willem R. deGroot and Matt Rundlet).

Am in love with his writing style. Also, heart the number of words I had to look up...

Plangently - having a loud reverberating sound
Synecdoche - a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (as fifty sail for fifty ships), the whole for a part (as society for high society), the species for the genus (as cutthroat for assassin), the genus for the species (as a creature for a man), or the name of the material for the thing made (as boards for stage)
Clerestories - an outside wall of a room or building that rises above an adjoining roof and contains windows
Vertiginous - inclined to frequent and often pointless change
Chicane - to use chicanery: a wretch he had taught to lie and chicane — George Meredith
Berm - a narrow shelf, path, or ledge typically at the top or bottom of a slope; also : a mound or wall of earth or sand: a landscaped berm
Fissile - capable of being split or divided in the direction of the grain or along natural planes of cleavage
Rube - an awkward unsophisticated person
Cerise - French, literally, cherry, from Late Latin ceresia
Klieg-glare - [not in the dictionary] google challenge: "three excitation modes David Hurst (after Ted Berrigan) i[sic] they can't admit in the penetrating klieg glare of television lights their natural urge to suckle"
Coterie - an intimate and often exclusive group of persons with a unifying common interest or purpose
Spiriferously - [also not in the dictionary, however I am not the first to google challenge] - Having a spiral structure or spiral parts
Leptosomatic - n., Leptosome, a person with a small bodily frame and a slender physique
Anuresis - retention of urine in the urinary bladder : failure or inability to void urine
Porkpie - A pork pie hat (a.k.a. porkpie) is a type of hat made of felt or straw. It is a type of fedora which has a cylindrical crown and flat top. This style of crown is called a "telescopic crown", but the hat overall resembles the boater hat. It is short (usually 3" to 4" in height) and has an indentation all the way around its top, allowing it to pop upward slightly when worn. Furthermore, as stated in a newspaper clipping from the mid-1930's: "The true pork pie hat is so made that it cannot be worn successfully except when telescoped." The same clipping refers to the hat also as "the bi crowned" [sic].

Distaff - As a noun, a distaff ( /ˈdɪstɑːf/, also called a rock[1]) is a tool used in spinning. It is designed to hold the unspun fibers, keeping them untangled and thus easing the spinning process. It is most commonly used to hold flax, and sometimes wool, but can be used for any type of fiber. Fiber is wrapped around the distaff, and tied in place with a piece of ribbon or string. The word comes from dis in Low German, meaning a bunch of flax, connected with staff. As an adjective the term distaff is used to describe the female side of a family.

17. go to one lecture per university in the DC Consortium (30x30)

Never really got on top of this one until recently. To be perfectly honest, some universities are better than others when it comes to publishing campus events and sometimes I'm better at getting to where I need to be than others. Not all of the events I've chosen for this item are "lectures" exactly, but it's getting onto new campuses and doing relatively inexpensive things around the city that counts and learning new things! Learn all the things!

In Washington, DC there is a consortium of universities which basically means that if the university to which you attend does not provide a certain course during a particular semester or at all during the year, you have the option to take that course at a different university within the consortium. There are 14 members of the DC Consortium (which is about six more than when I was an undergraduate at Marymount University). I've planned to attend events at most of them, except when they are not open to the public (i.e., National Intelligence University, National Defense University) and I'll update the post when I've gone to the event... or change events because other things come up (like really awesome job opportunities... see Catholic University of America)

American University - Woodblock printing Demonstration - Friday, April 6, 2012 Katzen Museum

The Catholic University of America - The Matter of Meteorites – And Why It Matters - April 12, 2012
Dr. Guy J. Consolmagno, S.J.
Vatican Observatory
Castel Gandolfo, Rome, Italy
Meteorites are rocks fallen from space, most dating from the earliest ages of the solar system. Pioneering studies at the Vatican Observatory of meteorite density, porosity, magnetic susceptibility, thermal conductivity and heat capacity have turned out to be crucial to our understanding of asteroid structure and evolution, with implications for how the solar system was formed. But in fact, none of those goals were in mind when the measurements began. Why was the role of the Vatican so crucial to these studies? What does this tell us about the bigger questions of how, and why, science is done?

Unfortunately, I was a) caught in heinous traffic on the 3rd Street tunnel, b) lost on CUA campus, and c) taken off guard by a call from an organization I would really <3 to work for and so talked with the HR manager for a half an hour. Hence, I was 45 minutes late to the lecture. There was no back entrance into the stinkin hall! C'mon CUA! Why can't you make it easy for people who have things they need to check off their lists?! However, I also saw this little gem on campus...

Corcoran College of Art+Design - NEXT at the Corcoran - April 14, 2012
My buddy Pamela Hadley was exhibiting her senior thesis, amazing work!


The Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design presents NEXT at the Corcoran, a dynamic, interactive, and innovative presentation of work by the graduating students of the Corcoran College of Art + Design. NEXT, for the first time, includes both an exhibition of the thesis work of the Bachelor of Fine Arts class of 2012 and a showcase of the Masters of Arts degree programs at the Corcoran.

Gallaudet University

George Mason University - Economics Community Forum: “Three Hard Solutions to America’s Debt Problem” - Monday, April 9
Garett Jones.
Jones is BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center. His research interests include macroeconomics, monetary economics and the microfoundations of economic growth. Previously, he served as economic policy adviser to Sen. Orrin Hatch and as a staff economist to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.

The George Washington University
Georgetown University
Howard University
Marymount University - Bullying: Educational and Legal Implications - May 8, 2012
National Intelligence University - Not open to the public.
National Defense University - Not open to the public.
Trinity Washington University
University of the District of Columbia - Calvin Jones Big Band Jazz Live - April 30, 2012
University of Maryland

15. play dominoes with dirty old men (31x31)

This weekend, Cara and I had some major accomplishments: we breathed and absorbed Vitamin D. After abandoning the idea of riding my bike or going on a run Saturday morning, I drove into DC and spent the day outside with one of the best besties a girl could ever ask for. We walked to Dupont Circle after brunch at Annie's Paramount, and after stopping into Kramer's Bookshop to look for a book on living in our future. We brought dominoes to the park with the intention of joining anyone else who happened to be playing. There were only chess players at the tables so we started our own game. It was a beautiful day, 80 degrees, sun shining. I put on sun screen not for the first time this season, so lucky for this amazing weather!

Cara taught me how to play dominoes last fall and winter in preparation for a trip to a nursing home so we could play with some dirty old men. Never made it to the home, however, there were plenty of old men around Dupont AND one of them in particular was pretty dirty. He was very concerned for Cara's dominoes getting dirty and that my phone was going to get pollen on it if it were left out in the open. We needed to have the phone out and playing music though to distract from the music man singing (like a cat in heat) by the fountain. At one point further into the game (when Cara was soundly beating me) a gentleman came over and watched us play for a few rounds. He gave me some pointers and was very kind.

In the end,I only lost by 15 points, mainly because I figured out how to read Cara's hand via her sunglasses... it's fine, I told her I was cheating.

We wandered away from the circle to Dolcezza for gelatto and into Looped for the Metro Yarn Crawl where we learned we were quite exhausted from all the breathing and sunning and so went back to her place to knit for a few hours. yeah, hard-knock life, I know.

14. Run to the top of the Statue of Liberty (32x32)

shit. the interior is closed for renovations.

I'll have to run to the top of something else.

12. Allocate 35% of net income to personal debt repayment (31x31)

Being made redundant in a "reduction in force" in July 2011, this item was seriously hindered. Because it was a RIF, I was eligible for unemployment AND deferment on my student loans (thank the baby buddah). I'm also incredibly lucky that my family was able to sustain the payments to credit organizations too.

Not like I was making big bucks when I was an entry level consultant, but damn. Let's look at it this way, let's say the average income from Jan2011-July2011 was 100%. My income with the unemployment and gifts from my family and odd jobs here and there from Aug2011-Nov2011 was 45% less than what I had been earning. After I boomeranged back to Virginia, up until now (Dec2011-Mar2012), my income is 70% less than what I was earning the same time this year. damn, gina.



That being said, because I was able to return to the roost and even though I'm only making 70% of what I used to, I have been able to make some debt repayments in the past 3 months.



The average percentage of my net income to debt repayment is 24% since January 2011. Broken out among the major life changes:
31% when I was fully employed living in Delaware,
13% living in Delaware unemployed,
25% living in Virginia unemployed.

Currently, I'm working a temp job. I'll sock away as much as I can towards my debt but I don't think it's reasonable to set any sort of expectation for the next year unfortunately.

Over and out.

28. kiss an elephant, a real live elephant (30x30)

FINALLY!

After years of waiting and multiple failed schemes (which were simple excuses to go places where I MIGHT run into an elephant for kissing), I have finally kissed an elephant. It wasn't the super-caring-loving-trunk-hugging kiss that I wanted it to be; it was only a kiss on my hand straight onto her ear. But it was still a wonderful moment for my life. And an amazing day to boot!

About six weeks ago Dar and I made plans (Because Dar and I are PLANNERS. I love it.) to go elephant-kissing with her kids, Phaedra and Cagney (Similarly, I tried to hook my friend John's 10-year old twins into going to the Insectropolis with me. They were non-plussed on the prospective excursion). She had sent a text about left-over items from past lists and I brought that one up, randomly. I googled elephant rides and low-and-behold, the Natural Bridge Zoo blipped onto my radar.

After devouring Jacob's vanilla french toast and back bacon from the farmers market and watching the last 40K of the Tour of Flanders (or Ronde van Vlaanderen...) Dar and the kids, along with her buddy Tara, packed into the car and headed west!


Phaedra has the cutest toes, in the world. whole wide world.

When we arrived at the zoo, we went straight to the elephant ride, and I immediately started asking questions about her. Like, she is from Africa. They bought her and raised her in Virginia when she was a calf. She loves the winter, actually because they are such large animals, they do very well in the cold. Her owners make sure she does not get frostbite. Her name is Beautiful. Her skin was very strange and thick with dirt, sometimes deep crevasses. There were sporadic wiry hairs.

Here's my problem: I asked if I could kiss her. This issue continuously arises in my life, I never should have asked my camp counselors if I could smoke on the sleep-away camping trip when I was 14, I should have just done it until I was caught. Then I asked "why not?" when she told me I wasn't allowed to kiss her. Apparently, kissing an elephant is on the same ettiquet elevation as kissing a stranger on the street, you just don't do it. Tara had words to the opposite effect. So, I kissed my hand and then placed my kiss on Beautiful's ear (huge, mondo, African-elephant sized ear, which also had some amount of yuck on it which then transfered to Tara's foot when we were riding).



Dar & Cagney (this is a VERY big deal, Dar is not such a huge fan of animals)



Then, we visited the giraffes!




then, the dicks of the animal kingdom (because they spit), llamas.


then, babboons!

(Urban babboon)


flamingos!


bunnies!


guinea pigs!


camels!




kids! (no, seriously, young goats)


Then we were lunch...


nononono, then we ate lunch. At the Pink Cadillac Diner!


and then this happened...

#neverletagirlwithavideocameragounnoticedinthebackseat

and then Phaedra fell asleep in my armpit.


the end.