When I teach collective/uncountable nouns–usually as a consequence of teaching the distinction between “fewer” and “less,” and between “number” and “amount”–I find myself thinking “I should describe a collective noun as something you could take from your roommate without them noticing!” I would like to note that I don’t actually traffic in that practice unless one of my roommates offers (except for shampoo. It was an emergency), but that’s where my mind goes. A splash of milk? A palmful of conditioner?… Read more »
Posts By: Claire
Mental Space
When I started high school I remember thinking that my whole life was going to change because….I would be falling asleep at night with the image of a different set of surroundings in my head (that is, the knowledge that I would be spending most of my hours in a different building than I had for my five years of middle school was a minimal but constant presence). I was thinking about that today because the yoga teacher who gave… Read more »
Triptychs
The other day in a yoga class the teacher said something about meditation/being present that I have never heard before, even though I live with a meditation teacher. It was something along the lines of “The present moment is the only moment in which we can be happy–if we’re stuck in the past, that’s depression; if we can only think about the future, that’s anxiety.” It made me go WOT. She attributed it to–well, she couldn’t quite remember, but she… Read more »
A Party of Parties
In the wake of the Olympics (sob), I had a weekend of various life-stage parties: a 10-year NYC anniversary (mine)/birthday (my roommate’s)/lease re-signing (my apartment’s) party, a 50th wedding anniversary bash, and a first birthday party. At our small house party someone arrived bearing (ha, ha–I promise that was accidental) vodka-infused gummy bears. I didn’t actually try any, but they did look colorful and intriguing. However, they are now in two jars in our kitchen and have taken the form… Read more »
Final Olympic Thoughts: Part 2
Track and Field I don’t fully understand why track and field is only appealing to me as an Olympic sport, why I would never watch the track and field world championships or any other major competitions. I guess it mostly hinges on how Olympic track and field fits into the greater Olympic narrative…for some reason all of the analogies coming to mind have to do with foods that I would eat in combination with other foods, but not on their own,… Read more »
Final Olympic Thoughts: Part 1
Gymnastics The event finals were the first time that the gymnastics crowd seemed anything other than supportive of all of the athletes. It was amazing to see two Brazilian men medal in the Floor event final, but when they were in second and third positions with one competitor left to go, the crowd actually booed during Sam Mikulak’s floor routine. Okay: if you boo at a hockey game you might get angry looks, but if you boo as someone is about… Read more »
The greatest
I’ve lived in my current apartment for more than six years, and for five of those years I’ve lived in the room that has roof access. This has translated to: various handymen, roofers, and landlords crawling in and out of my window when there’s a hole or a leak or an air conditioner problem (not that we have central air conditioning…the store downstairs holds that honor). For a while there was a roofer named Willy who consistently called me before… Read more »
Books that made me want to go to ________ // 02
American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett made me want to go to the American Southwest, New Mexico in particular. The novel is classified as literature, horror, fantasy, and science fiction depending on where you look…so it’s none or all, basically. Reading it made me realize that as far as science fiction or literary fiction with a science fiction bent (but not wanting this to be a post about genres, categorization, or what’s “literary”…) goes, I prefer to read about very old… Read more »
Olympic Dreams
…no, not that kind. I haven’t had those since I was maybe seven and realized I was never going to be an elite gymnast (yes, it was that obvious even then). I mean LITERAL dreams. Three, at this point, which means…enough for a LIST: Several weeks ago I had a dream that Simone Biles was up on vault–it was hazy as to whether this was team or all-around finals–and that when she ran down the vaulting runway her steps were… Read more »
Olympic Thoughts, Days 6-8
Gymnastics: What’s more exciting–utter domination or the slimmest of margins among competitors? BOTH, of course. Unsurprisingly, Simone Biles utterly dominated the women’s all-around final, but her male counterpart, Kohei, was part of a men’s all-around that managed simultaneous total domination–from 1. Kohei, winning his second Olympic all-around gold (he also won silver AA when he was 19 in Beijing) and capping off eight years of beating everyone all of the time, to 2. Oleg Vernaiev absolutely catching up to him… Read more »
