Stuff White People Like About Boulder
5. Farmer's Markets: If you've spent more than a half an hour with me in the past couple of months, you've probably heard me evangelize for local produce. I'm currently deep in the foodie thrall of Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and Marion Nestle and I love to tell anyone who will listen all about it.
15. Yoga: I think it's good for the ego every once in a while to do something for which you have no absolutely natural aptitude. Our first days in yoga class were hysterically humbling. Instructor: "Now cartwheel forward into chatarunga, exhale chatarunga dandasana, inhale into urdhva mukha svansana, meeting in adho mukha svasana, downward dog." Meanwhile my roommate Emma and I are looking around like "which leg do I lunge with for sleeping pigeon?" I absolutely love it. Today I managed to get into my first inversion (crow pose), which I held for all of .2 seconds. Namaste.
20. Being An Expert on YOUR Culture:
Voila! My uniform at my new job serving Ethiopian food at Ras Kassa's restaurant. I'm now officially working at the pretty much the only diverse work place in Boulder (diversity being another thing white people like), reporting to a tiny little Ethiopian woman named Tsehay who calls me either her daughter or "the midget." If ever I'm moving around too quickly to fix a drink or take out an order, someone is guaranteed to grab my hand and say "Lauren...how are you? Come eat" and hand-feed me some flatbread. It's good being the baby.32. Vegan/Vegetarianism: My lovely new roommate here in Boulder is a vegan, so I've been adding some fun new recipes to my repertoire. Are you interested in making some fabulous vegan bread? I thought you might be...
2 cups nondairy milk mixed with 2 teaspoons white distilled vinegar (this makes "buttermilk")
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 grains (I used my hot cereal with some millet)
2 tablespoons Earth Balance
Oven at 425. Mix the milk and vinegar and let it sit. Mix the dry stuff, add the butter and rub it in until it looks like bread crumbs. Stir in the milk until the dough is nice and sticky, then knead it about 10 times and put it in a lightly greased bread pan or cake pan. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes. Delicious.
43. Plays: I'm currently volunteering as a house manager/set builder/costumer/extra for the Upstart Crow theatre company. We're about to start work on Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors.
53. Dogs: Here are some of the dogs I've considered adopting in the past couple of days: Cookie, Fruity Pebbles, and Rocky.
81. Graduate School: the 280 dollars I just signed over to ETS will bear me witness on this one. I am now officially in the process of preparing for graduate school. Someday. Probably entering in the fall of 2011. For those of you who haven't heard my plans, I'm thinking about doing a PhD in literature, hopefully focusing on drama and theatrical performance. (See number 43.) And while getting ready for the GREs (especially the wretched subject test) has been a fairly tedious process, I'm actually experiencing a sizable excitement about going back to school. And not just because that means I can finally get a dog. (See number 53.)
115. Promising to Learn a New Language: The Mexicans in the kitchen at Ras Kassa's are teaching me about a word of Spanish a night. I say "muchos gracias" when I bring them my dishes and Rodrigo always responds "This is Spanish, senorita!" Rodrigo's pretty generous.
120. Taking a Year Off: for frequent readers of this blog, this one requires very little explanation. Although they didn't say "taking three to ten years off," so I'm not sure whether that makes me less white or uber white.
128. Camping: I haven't actually made it to Rocky Mountain for a camping trip yet, but I wanted to end my Boulder update with a little gem from Stuff White People Like:
"Ultimately the best way to escape a camping trip with white people is to say that you have allergies. Since white people and their children are allergic to almost everything, they will understand and ask no further questions. You should not say something like 'looking at history, the instances of my people encountering white people in the woods have not worked out very well for us.'"
I think white people also like irony.
That's all for now from Lake Woebegone, folks. I'm living the hip life.
