Primrose Road

I've been tagged by squib, whose blog I first encountered when I was searching for evidence that Shakespeare is an alien.

What Was I Doing Ten Years Ago?
- Taking the American History Regents (high school-level exam) four weeks after the American History AP (Advanced Placement, for college credit) and being told that if we failed the Regents after passing the AP we'd pretty much make fools of ourselves.
- It was a really good day to ask me this question, because I clearly remember that we were celebrating my friend N.'s birthday by eating rum balls and standing in a circle in the middle of the street outside her parents' house late at night, freaking out the drivers who went by.
- And, of course, I was getting ready to start a Creative Writing bachelors' at NYU. Oy vey.

Five Snacks I Enjoy in a Perfect, Non-Weight-Gaining World
- chocolate ice cream
- cheesecake (esp. my own No Redeeming Value Pie)
- funnel cake
- pecan pie from Witches' Brew, where I haven't been in eleventy billion years
- mascarpone brownies

Five Snacks I Enjoy in the Real World
- chocolate Italian Ice
- Special K chocolate cereal
- cheesecake (who can give up cheesecake?)
- mascarpone brownies (cheese is important)
- pretzels

Five Things I Would Do if I were a Billionaire
- buy my dad the New York Mets
- donate millions to causes that support women's rights to their own bodies all over the world
- start a college fund for my not-yet-existent children and create a fund to allow economically disadvantaged students whose futures would benefit from higher education to college.
- buy an apartment in Manhattan, a house in Lincoln Nebraska, and a jet so I can 'commute' to class
- have Shakespeare brought back to life so we can settle some important questions ;)

Five Jobs That I Have Had
- Receptionist at NYU Law School (a job that ended when I came to work one day after a week's vacation and found that the building I worked in had been demolished)
- Starbucks' barista
- International Student Advisor
- Academic manager for a test-prep company (a job for which I had two cellphones and a PDA)
- University T.A./adjunct

Three of my Habits
- Twirling my hair
- Three cigarettes a week (prior to returning to NY; now I'm at one a month ;))
- Gambling: having been raised in a family who travels regularly to Atlantic City, I've managed to get myself comped at two casinos and I have memberships at five. I actually only play around $50 every three months, but am concerned that I am fast becoming known as the grad student who regularly gambles away her entire 'pocket change' paycheck.

Five Places I Have Lived
- Whitestone, Queens, New York
- East Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York
- 24th Street, Lincoln, Nebraska
- 23rd Street, Lincoln, Nebraska (moving across the street is always an adventure)
- Bayside, Queens, New York

5 People I am Tagging with this Meme
I'm not sure that I know 5 bloggers who haven't been tagged yet with this meme. So here's the deal: if you're reading this, BOO! you've been tagged, and must post your answers on your blog under penalty of failing Freshman Comp. (I don't care if you've taken and passed Comp years ago; I can still arrange to have you retroactively failed.)

"Truth" exhibit at the Ontario Science Center (yes, there were other childless grownups there too):



After being "sorted" (excuse the sidewaysness, Blogspirit is annoying this way):



A nice exhibit ...



Until we got to the part about alternative possibilities for what "health" means, where they presented info about acupuncture minus the proven fact that it doesn't work:



I felt much better after enjoying a plate of poutine, i.e. the Eastern Canadian rendering of cheese fries and gravy:



Lest you think all we did was visit museums and eat french fries, there are more pictures on my Facebook page, all of which are right side up.

Piece of advice: always travel with someone who can, after studying a map for five minutes, completely internalize any city's public transportation system.



Royal Ontario Museum:






The Broadway plague spreads:


Yiddish!


Touristy pics from the top of the CN Tower:

Was supposed to be 12 hours on a train, but there was a fire in Buffalo. According to my friend B., who grew up in Toronto, Buffalo is *always* on fire.




Buffalo's Broadway, which is, happily, not on fire.



A handful of Toronto pictures will be posted tomorrow.

While this post is disembodiedly posting itself, I am on the Amtrak Maple Leaf to Toronto, either taking pictures of the Hudson Valley, snoring, or listening to the SigOther laugh at me as I take out a copy of The God Delusion (the only copy in the entire Queens County library system!) for some nice leisurely reading.

I'll post pictures when I get back. Until then, go read someone else's blog. ;)

In attempting to contribute an article to RationalWiki about the Shakespeare authorship "debate" -- relevant in my view only because of the ways in which the arguments behind it resemble Intelligent Design and various pseudohistorical propositions -- I have overlooked one important factor: any great idea I have after 20mg of Flexeril is probably not such a great idea after all.

I am also not what one would call a "good writer," especially when it comes to types of writing I encounter outside my specific field of study. In fact, this is one reason why I blog; I need to constantly write in order to keep my writing skills at a level where I can at least cogently express my thoughts for academic papers.

So I'm putting a request out there: if you're a better writer than I, and feel that you can better express the reasons why (1) Shakespeare's plays were for the most part accurately attributed to the guy from Stratford, and (2) the argument "one author wrote another author's plays" simply doesn't make sense in the context of what we know about writing and stage practices in the English Renaissance, please contribute a better article than the one I did.

Meanwhile, here's a picture of a door to nowhere on the third story of the Starbucks on 86th and Broadway:

(Yes, I know I am theoretically a grownup. But still.)

I've received an anonymous six-month gift subscription to American Baby magazine. Incredibly unfunny given that I've just decided (well, under the advice of my committee) to take at least one extra term to complete my dissertation, and yet absolutely hilarious somehow. I'm simultaneously offended and amused.

I contacted the magazine, and they sent me through to someone else who will supposedly be able to tell me who ordered the subscription. And, of course, I'm not going to cancel the subscription in order to ensure that whoever ordered it will have to pay for the full six months.

The following LOLcat best describes my feelings towards whoever left a slip of paper (a receipt from Waldbaum's, in fact) with the words "selfish parker" written on it pinned to my windshield this morning. I did not take up two spots, but merely left my car on the street -- I have no reserved parking spot -- for four days while I was at the Renaissance Society of America conference in Chicago this week. I figure I have the right to park on the street while I'm away without having rude trash put on my windshield. Anyhow,

It's spring break, and though I still have 21 papers to grade and much dissertating to do, I dragged the Sig. Other to Atlantic City for a quick escape from said grading and dissertating. OK, I didn't really *drag* him, but I have a feeling he's going to call Gamblers Anonymous on my behalf sometime soon ... ;)

(In my family, you always vacation near a casino, and you learn to play poker at the age of four.)

An update on one of very few non-headless Lenin statues in the United States:



Lenin, who stands outside the Red Square restaurant, now carries a ... martini?

Then there was



which, unfortunately, was a Michael Godard "gallery." The guy calls himself the number one selling artist in the US and a "rock star artist," but I find saxophone-playing olives to be more suburban-kitchen-kitsch than rockstar.

The ocean's still notably unkitschy, though.