Happy Your Life as a Peasant Woman in a Balkan Village Day

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Lynn St Sirup Pancake Potluck

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Last Sunday, I attended Lynn St Sirup Pancake Potluck. Yes, the correct spelling is Syrup. The invitation reads Sirup Pancake Potluck. You are correct, I just finished writing a dissertation. I have to reproduce the form rather than the correct spelling. Perhaps the misspelling is telling of something, I don't know. I was really stressed out last Sunday, but I attended anyway, with C, A, and Baby C (BC), my cool neighbors (CN), around 10.30 am. We sat at the end of a table. Wait, that's out of order. We arrived with our potluck participation: CN: fresh, organic, sliced strawberries, Me: de-frosted mixed berries from the grocery store. We placed the food on the buffet table (as opposed to the seating tables). I noticed on the buffet the coffee on offer, labeled "Fair Trade Organic." Why the "Fair Trade Organic" on the label... Is this something brought to the buffet by people who want to be known as cool in a specific sub-culture? It is generous of them to b
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Homemade Soup (Dissertation excerpt)

I like publishing on this blog the sections of my dissertation that I know will have to be cut. I especially like the voice I found for writing this more reflective part and I really like returning to a place I love as I read this. Enjoy. “Coming to Zagreb to study display cabinets (vitrina) is like going to Saudi Arabia to study sand.” That is how my friend Dalibor N. gave me his approval of my fieldwork while we were watching people at a café on Flowers Square, one Zagreb Saturday morning. Every aspect of the vitrina in your mother’s or grandmother’s home calls up scenes in the mind’s eye and evokes feelings. The vitrina is the backdrop for silence of the room, the apartment, the building, the neighborhood, the city, Sunday from 2pm to 5pm. You, your family, your neighbors, your friends: everyone is at home, it is time for lunch. In the living room, in the apartment building, in the neighborhood, in the city, in the suburb: silence. At least there are some sounds in the house. The wa
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New Year

I think New Year comes around twice a year. We have the conventional one on January 1. Then, there is the one that starts as summer moves into fall, as school starts, as the weather cools, as you face your routines, as your face who you are again. You face your mortality as the leaves fall and the grass dies and the flowers die and one part of yourself asks the other part if you are gonna finish off these last four months any better than the last eight, or is it already over? The thing about the "Back To School" New Year is that it is private, so you don't have to let anyone know what is going on in your head, and you don't have to pretend to take change seriously or, if you do, you don't have to pretend to be "positive" or full of hope about it. You can be exhausted and angry, that is fine. There is no emotional script or role you have to fill. So just keep on going that way for a few months.
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