Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Feeling Kinda Memey

In honor of Teeny's first post in awhile, I'm going to try her meme. Then, I'm going to tag five of you loyal readers & make you do it, too. ;)

1. The rules of the game get posted on the beginning.

2. Each player answers the rules about him or herself.
3. At the end of the post, the player tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they’ve been tagged and asking them to read his [or her] blog.

What I was doing ten years ago:
Let's see - I was 16. So I was a sophomore in high school & just about to get my license. More importantly, my parents had just bought me my first car - a 1965 Ford Mustang! That thing was wonderful . . . :) I'll see if I can dig up a photo & scan it.

Five things on my To-Do list today (I'm listing things I've already done, as it's 11:30 @ night & there's not much left to do):
1. Finish the exhibit panels for my "19th century brewing industry in Portsmouth" final project.
2. Buy a growler of Dirty Blonde Ale @ the Brewery to bring to class as a "prop."
3. Try to stay dry in the monsoon-like weather.
4. Take out the trash & the recycling.
5. Feed the kitties.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
My answers are much like Teeny's & Sarah's, actually. In essence, I would take care of all of my & my family's financial debts, buy a lovely home somewhere & just live life fully - a life filled with good books, leisurely mornings on a deck/patio/other type of outdoor space, and loads of laughs. :) And I'm happy to say I wouldn't quit my profession, because it's just what I love to do!

Three of my bad habits:
1. Like Teeny (& Susie), I tend to stay up late for no good reason & struggle to rise in the morning.
2. One word - procrastination. I've never been one to do now what I can do in an hour, or tomorrow, or next week.
3. I like being the last dog hung, i.e. one of the last patrons ushered out of the bar by tired bouncers at 1 or 2am. I don't know why, but even if I'm only having one drink, I don't like going home earlier than the bar is open.

Five places I’ve lived:
1. Hometown, an affluent suburb near Boston, where the cars in the student parking lot @ the high school were often equal to if not better than my own parents' vehicles.
2. Small Town College town, which was lovely & small & a perfect place to become a real, thinking adult.
3. Edinburgh, which was lovely & big & a perfect place to become a more learned, well-traveled adult.
4. The Davis Square area, which was loads of fun & wonderfully/dangerously close to my favorite bar in the wide world.
5. Portsmouth, which is just, well, sigh. :) I know I've said this before, but I bloody love this town. I really hope I can get a job around here & stay for awhile when I finish my degree.

Five jobs I’ve had:
1. Bagel sandwich maker
2. Caterer
3. Archives intern/organizer
4. Assistant Director of . . . well, never mind. The job wasn't that great, but doesn't the title sound cool?
5. Currently, many things to many people at a great museum. The more, the better to get my foot in the door, right?

Five books I’ve recently read:
1. Slightly Chipped: Footnotes in Booklore
2. Frank Jones: King of the Alemakers
3. Street Haunting
4. Outside Lies Magic
5. Beer in America: The Early Years

Five people or communities I’m going to tag:
1. Eileen
2. Susie
3. Melissa
4. Caity
5. Jason

Monday, April 28, 2008

Because it's almost like Twitter . . .

Earlier tonight, I was reading some of my old "status stories" on Facebook. And it really is like a Twitter feed! Check it out:

April 30
Stacey is bringing beer to class tomorrow as a "handout." ;).
12:10am

April 29
Stacey had a good weekend & now has to get to work!
10:36am

April 24
Stacey is LOVING the nice weather. :).
12:34am

April 20
8:11pm

April 13
Stacey is loving the Sox, hating the rough draft.

10:57pm
Stacey is writing her paper. Finally. I swear.
12:17pm
9:38am

9:41pm
Stacey is tired of moving & just started today!
12:53pm

March 30
Stacey is sunshine & open windows - finally!
12:43pm

9:07pm
2:09pm

March 24
Stacey is up to her ears in fantasy baseball!
11:10am

March 19
Stacey is back @ the library. So productive this week!
12:11pm

March 18
Stacey is @ the library. Only grad students work during spring break. ;).
9:41am

March 16
11:51am

March 14
12:42am

March 12
10:19am

March 10
12:37am

March 9
12:55pm

March 7
4:44pm

March 4
11:07pm

March 2
2:20pm

March 1
12:34pm

February 28
12:00pm

February 26
11:42pm

February 25
Stacey had a great weekend. :).
2:00pm

Saturday, April 26, 2008

My Private Secret Diary

Quick post, as I really should be working on a final project (on beer brewing in Portsmouth in the 19th century - how much does that rule?). I just want to call attention to my New Favorite Blog. It's called "Private Secret Diary," which is, of course, a great thing from the start.

It's written by a guy who lives in Norfolk, England. His life describes
visits to the Village Pub and funny interactions with his neighbors & other villagers. He's kind of a cross between A.A. Milne & Bill Bryson. And as you can imagine, that + that = awesome & hilarious! This is one of my favorite posts thus far. It made me laugh so hard I actually couldn't breathe.

So go. Read it & love it. If you really do, you can also join his Facebook appreciation society. ;) I already have, as you've probably guessed.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Hump Day

What a beautiful day today! :) When I got up, I knew it would be nice, so I put on a cute t-shirt & my favorite white skirt. I had a meeting on campus, so I drove up around 2, with both front windows down & the music up. After my meeting, I shared a late lunch & two pitchers of Sam Summer with some friends in Campus Town.

After that, I drove home to Portsmouth to meet other friends at the decks for some dinner & a pint. It was actually my first time down there, which is shocking, I know. For those of you not from P-town, "the decks" are a linear series of riverfront decks that belong to, respectively, Poco's Bow Street Cantina, Old Ferry Landing, The Stockpot, and Harpoon Willy's. They each have a gorgeous view of the river & its bridges and are a popular dinner and/or drinks spot for the young & thirsty in Portsmouth. ;)

Now, after spending the bulk of the night drinking wine & watching TV with my roommate, I'm heading to bed with shorts on & the skylight open! It's a brave new world of summertime temps around here, you guys.

(Photo of the view courtesy of Poco's website)

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Street Haunting

Today was a pretty low key day. I attended three events last night (two parties & a live show - aren't I the popular one?), so I slept pretty late this morning. Spent much of the afternoon reading blogs, listening to music, and nursing a cup of coffee.

I slipped out around 6pm to run some errands, but took a detour along routes 1A and 1B first. This lovely route takes me through New Castle & over some of the smaller islands in Portsmouth Harbor. Along the way, I saw a man in a suit jacket riding a bicycle, so I felt the detour had been worth my time. :)

After filling my gas tank, pricing supplies at Staples for an exhibit I'm working on, and picking up groceries & a bottle of wine at Hannaford's, I returned home to make dinner. A chicken pot pie later, I spent the rest of the evening reading, listening to music, and nursing a glass of shiraz.

After re-reading Slightly Chipped: Footnotes in Booklore, I moved on to Virginia Woolf's Street Haunting. The first essay of this Penguin compilation of short stories is called "Street Haunting: A London Adventure." And I love it. I've written before about roaming city streets (Edinburgh, South Boston, and Cambridge). Obviously, though, I've never written about it in quite the same skilled way as Woolf. Otherwise, I'd be the world famous (though tragically insane) deceased author. Here are a few excerpts.

No one perhaps has ever felt passionately towards a lead pencil. But there are circumstances in which it can become supremely desirable to possess one; moments when we are set upon having an object, an excuse for walking half across London between tea and dinner. As the foxhunter hunts in order to preserve the breed of foxes, and the golfer plays in order that open spaces may be preserved from the builders, so when the desire comes upon us to go street rambling the pencil does for a pretext, and getting up we say: “Really I must buy a pencil,” as if under cover of this excuse we could indulge safely in the greatest pleasure of town life in winter—rambling the streets of London.

As we step out of the house on a fine evening between four and six, we shed the self our friends know us by and become part of that vast republican army of anonymous trampers, whose society is so agreeable after the solitude of one’s own room. For there we sit surrounded by objects which perpetually express the oddity of our own temperaments and enforce the memories of our own experience. That bowl on the mantelpiece, for instance, was bought at Mantua on a windy day.


Circumstances compel unity; for convenience sake a man must be a whole. The good citizen when he opens his door in the evening must be banker, golfer, husband, father; not a nomad wandering the desert, a mystic staring at the sky, a debauchee in the slums of San Francisco, a soldier heading a revolution, a pariah howling with scepticism and solitude. When he opens his door, he must run his fingers through his hair and put his umbrella in the stand like the rest.

Second–hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world. There is always a hope, as we reach down some grayish–white book from an upper shelf, directed by its air of shabbiness and desertion, of meeting here with a man who set out on horseback over a hundred years ago to explore the woollen market in the Midlands and Wales; an unknown traveller, who stayed at inns, drank his pint, noted pretty girls and serious customs, wrote it all down stiffly, laboriously for sheer love of it (the book was published at his own expense); was infinitely prosy, busy, and matter–of–fact, and so let flow in without his knowing it the very scent of hollyhocks and the hay together with such a portrait of himself as gives him forever a seat in the warm corner of the mind’s inglenook.

But we are come to the Strand now, and as we hesitate on the curb, a little rod about the length of one’s finger begins to lay its bar across the velocity and abundance of life. “Really I must—really I must”—that is it. Without investigating the demand, the mind cringes to the accustomed tyrant. One must, one always must, do something or other; it is not allowed one simply to enjoy oneself. Was it not for this reason that, some time ago, we fabricated the excuse, and invented the necessity of buying something? But what was it? Ah, we remember, it was a pencil. Let us go then and buy this pencil.


. . . to escape is the greatest of pleasures; street haunting in winter the greatest of adventures. Still as we approach our own doorstep again, it is comforting to feel the old possessions, the old prejudices, fold us round; and the self, which has been blown about at so many street corners, which has battered like a moth at the flame of so many inaccessible lanterns, sheltered and enclosed. Here again is the usual door; here the chair turned as we left it and the china bowl and the brown ring on the carpet. And here—let us examine it tenderly, let us touch it with reverence—is the only spoil we have retrieved from all the treasures of the city, a lead pencil.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Bloggy Words of Wisdom

It's been a busy week! Luckily, however, I've gotten most of my obligations met for the week & the weekend will be just fun. :)

I just wanted to quickly share a great quote from a post of Stonch's:
"We should all aspire to live a beautiful life. That means going places and doing things that lift the spirit - it means making fewer compromises."


Good thought to take into the weekend, huh? :)

Monday, April 14, 2008

Sniffle, Sniffle, Sigh

Announcement: I just want to say that it is very difficult to write your "big major important research article" when your nose is running like a marathoner & your head is as congested as Storrow Drive at rush hour. :(

(P.S. Also, think it's at all possible that I grew up in Boston?)

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Embarassing Pics of Me

So, without being a total Judgy McJudgerson, I have to tell you about one of my pet peeves: people un-tagging themselves on Facebook. I completely understand doing so to ensure future employers don't see a picture of you with a pair of underpants on your head & a quart of Jaeger in your hand. That, I get. ;)

However, I think most people un-tag photos of themselves that are merely unflattering or goofy. That's what I take issue with. That's life, people. Unless you walk through life with a film crew, there are going to be times when you look utterly ridiculous. Usually, it's when you're having the best time.

So embrace the embarrassing photo! Own your silly poses & goofy faces. As proof that I'm not all talk, here are some embarrassing photos of me. They were remarkably easy to find. ;)

My Canadian friend Mark got drunk & accidentally stepped on my other friend's glasses. This was the result.

Fall 2003 in Edinburgh. This Guinness hat was awesome, except when you turned your head too quickly. Nothing like a tiny wooden pint in the eye to remind you that you are, in fact, a drunken idiot.

The title of this photo is "Nobody told me we weren't still singing."
No, it's really saved that way on my friend Kate's computer. Also, I like that you can see right up my left nostril.

Stuffing hot dogs in my face for the Hot Dog Eating Contest last spring

At a friend's birthday party. We were talking about getting old, so I made an old-timey ear horn out of a napkin. Clearly.

Back when I cut my hair super-short, I made it really messy one night & posed. I know - I totally look like a guy.

The recent hot tub night. We had to walk through the snow to get to the tub, so we wore our shoes & hoodies. Between the boy shorts & the chucks, it was like someone was filming a Pac Sun commercial.

This face is Edinburgh, circa December 2003. I am clearly appalled by something someone has said, but we've never been able to piece together who it was & what s/he said.

This lovely face is courtesy of my last night in Edinburgh, June 2004.
I like how you can see white all the way around my irises.

This was actually taken the night I met D.B., the "Night of the Giant Straw." It's a wonder he ever wanted to date me.

Christmas 2006. I think I was overwhelmed by all the presents.
Either that, or I started drinking early.

This one's not too bad, except that I look like I am very sorry for whatever it was I did. Will you forgive me? What about if I give you this beer?

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Sweating the Small Stuff

Unexpectedly, today turned out to be a lovely day! And I almost didn't appreciate it.

When I woke up this morning, I heard the rain pelting my skylight. When I actually got up, I was feeling chilly & crappy (I've got a bit of a cold). After my shower, still chilly & grouchy, I pulled on a sweater, blazer, and warm socks. I then walked out into what I thought was a cold, drizzly day.

Surprise! The sun was beginning to peek out & I had to pull out my sunglasses. By the time I got to campus, it was warm, sunny & lovely. Walking to the library, I couldn't help grousing to myself a little: "I'm wearing too-heavy clothes for the weather, I thought it was supposed to be colder, etc. etc." Then, I stopped & reminded myself to just enjoy the weather & stop worrying about the little things.

So here's to a nice day today & a few forecast for later in the week. Here's to stepping outside without bracing yourself for the cold! Here's to the decks in Portsmouth opening last Thursday night! And here's to letting go of your stressful life, even if just for a minute, and enjoying the first real days of spring. :)

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Mr. Right vs. Mr. Right Now

(Warning - I got a little "1am rambly" and this post ended up much longer than I anticipated. Might want to get yourself a cup of coffee if you decide to stay for the duration.)

I've been thinking lately of what qualities "My Dream Man" might have. Much of this is because I wrote a paper last night & this morning about The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart. I read this book back in September and dredged it up again for this paper. And, truth be told, I'm really half in love with Stewart. Even my Facebook status says, "Stacey is really half in love with Rory Stewart," so you know I'm not lying to you now. ;)

The point is that I secretly (on the internet) half-love this man because he is many things that are important to me. He is thoughtful, intelligent, funny, well-spoken, and he also gets out there & does things. He walked across Iran, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Nepal, for goodness sake!

At the beginning of last summer, I blogged about my "summer boyfriends." The first "boyfriend" was the entire '07 Red Sox roster & we know how well that turned out. ;)

The second two were historians & TV show hosts, Dan Snow and Josh Bernstein. These two lads remind me a lot of Rory Stewart, actually. They are handsome, intelligent, self-possessed, and immersed in the study & interpretation of history as a career. Is it any wonder that I think they're the bee's knees?

Which brings me to my current dating life, where I like both of the contenders, but don't necessarily think either of them are the aforementioned bee's knees. D.B. (who still needs a better nickname) and Sports Center are both nice, funny, sweet guys. They are both clearly interested in me, despite obstacles like long distances between us.

However, I don't find myself thinking, daydreaming, smiling to myself about either of them. And I'm a goofy romantic at heart, kids. I like, want, need all of that thinking, daydreaming, smiling to myself about my mate.

Further, I keep thinking about something that a happily married friend of mine said recently: "Don't underestimate your market value. You're smart, pretty, and funny - you need to find someone who's a good match for all of that." And without being a total egomaniac, I know this. I know that I'm attractive, funny (at least to myself!), smart, and fun to be around. I'm the kind of girl that a guy can be proud to introduce to both his mother & his drinking buddies. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the same in a boyfriend.

Am I being too picky? Maybe. Probably. All the same, though, who am I to decide at the tender age of 26 that my dream man isn't out there? Some Saturday night, I could turn around from ordering an oatmeal stout @ the Brewery or a cask-conditioned Old Thumper @ the Coat and there he'll be - tall, handsome, with mischief in his eyes & a pint of good beer in his hand. Hey, it could happen. ;)

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Loyalty

So I'm meeting one of the curators of the Smithsonian today. Neat, huh? However, since it's Opening Day at Fenway, I'll be doing it in my Sox t-shirt. Classy, huh?

Hope he understands. ;)

(cross-posted at Museophilia)

Sunday, April 06, 2008

I'm in!

Just a quick note to say that I'm officially in my new place! This is the view of my new room from my bed. :)

Have a good night, all!

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Blog Anniversary/Silence whilst Moving ;)

I haven't posted too much this week & won't be posting much in the next week or so. I know - way to lure you in with the first sentence, right?

I'm in the process of moving now & things are a tad hectic. Furthermore, I don't have wireless set up @ the new place yet. I may still be able to snag my neighbor's wireless signal from the new place, but I am as yet unsure. Hence, potentially no (or little) blogging over the next week or so. My sincerest apologies.

However, I do want to take a moment to belatedly congratulate myself on my 2-year blogging anniversary! My first post on Hodoeporicon was on March 27, 2006.

Actually, if we're being completely candid, this is closer to my 2-and-a-half year anniversary, since I had another blog from December 7, '05 until March '06. Either way, yay for me! :)