BIG NEWS

Thom, one of my oldest and best friends and one of my favorite people in the world, today got into Harvard Business School for a PhD program in Economics.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY

My Ruminations of the Day

1. All the women working in the gym locker room today (and every day) spoke Spanish to each other while they worked. I am trying to learn more Spanish and so was eavesdropping - and I wanted to try talking to them to practice conversation. But that's WEIRD, right? I cant quite verbalize why... something about invading their space, about attempting to talk with them when I can barely form a few sentences, etc etc. The whole thing felt odd. Stupid stratified society!!
2. why are cheese and chocolate SO f*ing delicious?
3. There is a SUPER annoying girl in my pottery class. She talks constantly, makes jokes that I only know are jokes because she cackles maniacally afterward... even when everyone else is silent. For some reason, I feel weird finding a fellow pottery student annoying. Shouldnt I be all happy-nice-hippy-loving etc etc? Isnt that what pottery is about?!?
4. My hair is the longest it's been in nearly a decade. It even gets tangled regularly when I wear it down. I remember as a kid my mom brought us to Super Cuts and it took them something like 30 minutes to un-tangle my locks before they could cut. They told us they had to charge us extra for taking care of what we so affectionately called my "rat's nest." strangely enough, this is one of my earliest memories...
5. I think I may have done too much pottery this week... I'm feeling kind of Pottery-ed-out. And my hands look like a construction worker's (and not in the hot way)
6. I broke down and bought leg-warmers today. Yes, folks, I have gone back to 1987.
7. What the heck am I going to do after this stint of joblessness?!??!? I dont know if I want to go back to the agency world or not... there are a LOT of smart people there (a plus,) but I'd end up working for clients where I either dont care about their product or actually think badly about their product (a minus.) why do I feel like I need to believe in what I'm selling? I'm such a weirdo sometimes
8. I wonder if Ben and Jerry's is accepting applications for taste-testers. I bet there are plenty of pottery studios in vermont...
9. check out the personal shopper I created on HM.com - CAN YOU GUESS WHO IT IS?? some hottie, to be sure. Fellas, word on the street is that she's single - watch out for this tiger on the prowl. RrraAAARRrrrr!

I am on a website other than my own!

The BCAE pottery studio is having an event for BCAE members - and they put a pic of me up on the site for advertising!! WEIRD

The Gods of Direct Mail love me

I got three pieces of mail today:
-A coupon to Morton's Steakhouse
-A Pottery Barn catalog
-A fold-out mailing for Big Apple Circus

I know, having done it first hand as my employment for years, that some marketers spend a lot of energy effectively choosing mailing lists to target people most likely to be influenced to respond to their product or service. But DAAAAAAANg these are some good marketers. Food, cheapness, pottery, and crazy clown antics?? It is scary how well they know me.

On a related topic... anyone want to go see the Circus with me in April?

WTF... can a movie be THAT good based on a crappy book?

My [angry] thoughts on the Oscars tonight given to No Country For Old Men:

I had heard some hype about the movie several weeks ago and bought the book on mp3. I listen to books on mp3 a lot (audible.com is quite tasty for my brain) and find that it's a really good way to do something physical (walking, pottery) while also, essentially, reading a book.

About 3 weeks ago I started listening to No Country For Old Men and had an abrupt realization - I only knew that the main character was a guy, that stuff was happening in the desert (or somewhere dry and dusty,) and that there was some sort of law enforcement involved. AND I HAD BEEN LISTENING TO THE BOOK FOR 90 MINUTES. There is something wrong with the story if it makes me zone out so much that I only knew three tiny facts, andeven those I may have just picked those up from commercials for the movie.

So it won 3 Oscars tonight, including Best Film.

Some possible explanations:
1. The Coen brothers REALLY earned that Adapted Screenplay Oscar... like, they completely re-wrote the story and just decided to keep the title to be funny.
2. You need at least one Y chromosome to like this story
3. Lots of chicks like Javier Bardem in that f*ed up haircut... and somehow managed to stuff the ballot box

The movie MUST have been good... but, given the first fifth of the book that I listened to, I cant for the life of me understand why.


ps JUNO ROOLS!

My Body Aches... and Pottery Pics!

today was my "stretch goal" day - 6 miles.



LIKE WOAH

Just after I hit 4 miles my heart started to hurt. I thought "hmm... that's weird... are you trying to tell me something? Either you are hungry for french fries or tired from exertion. Or pining for my lost love." I think it was probably door number 2, so I walked for a tiny bit. (and then ate french fries later, just in case)

In Pottery News, a few days ago one of the studio managers asked to take a picture of me for their marketing event. They want to ensure that the studio is fully accomodated as the BCAE goes through some transitions, so they are having an event where they show testimonials and pictures of people and their stuff. So this is me with some mugs I'm making for my friend Andy.

Looks like the studio aprons arent super flattering... good thing there are zero men within a 100 feet.

back to my good ol' Womens Studies days

My sister Jet sent me this NYT piece about women in power... nothing new to me (I was PRACTICALLY a womens studies major in college. I can femimaniac you up and down all day long. and you'd better LIKE it) but an interesting coalescence of some basic feminist ideas

I had already decided to wear my fake glasses (my old glasses pre-LASIK with the lenses replaced with glass. don't laugh, they're funky) to interviews when I start job-hunting... this kind of thing re-affirms how it is sometimes, sadly, best for women to down-play their femininity when making first impressions.

From NYT Nicholas Kristoff, Feb 10 2008, When Women Rule:

"In monarchies, women who rose to the top dealt mostly with a narrow elite, so they could prove themselves and get on with governing. But in democracies in the television age, female leaders also have to navigate public prejudices — and these make democratic politics far more challenging for a woman than for a man.

In one common experiment, the “Goldberg paradigm,” people are asked to evaluate a particular article or speech, supposedly by a man. Others are asked to evaluate the identical presentation, but from a woman. Typically, in countries all over the world, the very same words are rated higher coming from a man.

In particular, one lesson from this research is that promoting their own successes is a helpful strategy for ambitious men. But experiments have demonstrated that when women highlight their accomplishments, that’s a turn-off. And women seem even more offended by self-promoting females than men are."

Society, why do you make the rules so gosh-darn crazy?!?

Monster Plate

In the spirit of my Frankenstein Eyeball... Here is a plate I made a couple months ago that I call my Monster Plate. Because it looks like Frankenstein made it.

Monster Plate

Red/white clay mix; Purple glaze on rim with Bronze Green over entire piece; 8.5" diameter and 1.5" tall

I wanted to make a wide, shallow plate for every-day eating. when I was throwing it I made a tiny differentiation on the rim, knowing I'd do something odd with the glazing. I had seen this combo of Purple with Bronze Green on a test tile somewhere but had never tried it... so I put the fired plate on the wheel to help me evenly coat the rim with Purple, then dipped the whole thing in the Bronze. It appears... that I didnt mix the Bronze glaze well enough, because you can clearly see that one half has the full glaze and the other half only got the watery upper portion of the bucket.

Well... I'll just tell everyone it was on purpose. for Halloween. Or something.

Wanna see something gross?? (too bad, you have to look now anyway)

My eye started bleeding yesterday. I have a few theories:

1. Clay dust from the pottery studio somehow landed in there
2. Dirt particles were swept in by the wind during one of my many outdoor runs this week
3. I am possessed by the Devil
4. The lunar eclipse... you know, it does crazy stuff
5. I wiped my eye too hard that morning when removing leftover makeup and broke a blood vessel, and the blood will go away naturally over the next week

My eye doctor selected option 5. I would argue otherwise.

Woke up this morning to do a 5 mile run... test myself out before my Virginia Beach St Patty's Day 8K race.


The 8K is 4.97 miles... I think my goal will be to do it in 45 minutes (about 9 min/mi)
ps WHY DOES NIKE+ AUTOMATICALLY MAKE THE VERTICAL AXIS ON THE RUN DISPLAY TOTALLY NON-SENSICLE?? As a data person, this makes me angry. Come ON, making the axis so large totally flattens out any variation in amplitude or slope and omits the ability to draw insight over the course. JEEZ.

4 Big Nested Mixing Bowls

Mmmm delicious - a commission!


4 Big Nested Mixing Bowls













Red/white mix clay; noxema blue glaze on upper with randy's red glaze on entire pieces; largest approx 9.5" diameter and 5" tall, smallest approx 5" diameter and 3" tall

Commissioned by Mr C Stanvick of the Back Bay

My coworker asked me (MONTHS ago...) to make him a set of large mixing bowls that nested one inside the other. What a challenge! It was really hard because I had to measure each one on the inside and outside, make them all the same shape, TRIM them all the same shape, and then pray to the Kiln Gods that they didnt warp or mess up in the kiln. One actually did (the 2nd biggest one) and I had to re-make it, but FINALLY I was able to get them all done. I really liked doing this set because it was so challenging but also so useful... I want to make myself a set now.

Of course, being the idiot I am, I forgot to take a picture of them all nested together... d'oh!

Tim is my new Running Coach... for better or for worse

I needed new running sneakers... badly. I guess I hit that 300-mile or 400-mile or WHATEVER threshold where the cushioning turns to the consistency of charleston chews and my knees were whimpering "please, Rosie, PLEASE! you need us to be happy if you want to stay out of a walker until at least 60"

Yesterday included a visit to both NikeTown and Marathon Sports. At NikeTown I approached the dude in front of the running sneakers and told him about my problem. He asked, "OK, do you need stability?" Me: "Umm... I dont think so...? not sure." Him: "OK then probably not. So these shoes (points to a full one-third of the shoes) dont have extra stability. You would do well with any of these."

Are you kidding?!?!?? These guys are supposed to specialize in SPORTS and TRAINING and all that cr&*)p. He should at LEAST be able to help me narrow down my needs to fewer than 8 TYPES

So I went to Marathon Sports on Boylston. The woman had me take off my shoes, roll up my pants, and walk up and down the store with her at ground level looking at my feet. Lets just say, this was a much better precision-sports shopping experience. I ended up picking out a pair of Nikes... but I had a coupon for Niketown so I bought the pair there today. (I'm so sorry, Marathon Sports lady!! I wanted to give you the commission, but 25% off was calling the cheapness within the depths of my soul)

To break the shoes in I wanted to do just a short run, but thought it'd be good to do it as fast as possible. I've been doing about nine-and-a-half minute miles recently, so my goal was to do 2 miles at 9 min/mi.

CHECK IT OUT:

8:40 min/mi!! When I finished this chick came on saying "Congratulations! This is [insert the name of some famous runner i've never heard of]. You've reached a new personal best for the mile!" Rock On, Rosie.


I started telling my buddy Tim about my running, and he (being the former High School X-Country Running Captain that he is) gave me a bunch of advice on speed-training. I'll let his words speak for themselves. Included, for illustrative affect, is a pic of tim and me this past halloween

tim: i can give pointers on speed workouts if you need any
rose: yeah pointers = much appreciated
tim: cool. well one thing you can do is do a 3 miler. start off slow for the first 5 minutes. then ramp up to above race pace for the next 5 minutes. then cool down to a slower speed for the next 5 minutes after that, etc. keep switching off
rose: ok interesting
tim: another involves track workouts. get yourself to a track (like the MIT one) and do intervals around the track. you go about 80-90% of how fast you could at top speed. then you take a quick breather and get back out there and do it again. there are a few ways you can structure your intervals...
tim: one example is 200, 400, 800, 800, 400, 200. kind of like a ladder
(one lap around the track is 400 meters)
rose: ok. so 'breather' = stop? or go slow?
tim: stop. i would give yourself 1-2 minutes of rest in between
tim: another way to do it is run like 8 laps around the track, which is 2 miles. but here's how you run it. you sprint the straight aways and then really slowly jog the curves
tim: the purpose of these workouts is to increase your VO2 max, which is the threshold that your body starts losing it in terms of oxygen debt
rose: nice!!
i'm going to do a speed-concentrated run Friday so I'll try this out then
tim: okay. i would only do one speed workout a week
tim: you shouldn't have asked me for running tips. this is going to be like dwayne wade and charles barkley now in the t-mobile fave 5 commercial. HAHA

Amber Lidded Form

There are a few things I made last year that I forgot to post about - here's a special one

Amber Lidded Form with Heart Handle

White clay; golden green glaze; 4" diameter and 4" tall
Gift to the collection of Ms. M Lohrasbpour of San Francisco

this was a lidded form I made for my BFF Mitra. It has a heart handle (I love her!) in yellow (because we're friends. duh.)







I never got a great pic of it in the sunlight, though i did snap a photo of Mitra modelling with it when I visited her in SF in November. She's such a cutie!

Oh Joanne, how I've missed you

"Life goes on, men continue to be jerks, the world around"
-Joanne Sprague (recent resident of Boston, Kenya, Egypt, San Francisco,) 7:36pm EST this evening

In other news - I ran 7.25 miles today. HOLY CR*P. my previous best was 6 miles with a little walking in the middle... thanks to Juliet for joining me after 4.3 miles and forcing me to do another 3 :)
I'm SO going to be able to do that half marathon in a few months! Anyone know of a good one to do this summer?

Joanne on NPR

It will take me a little while to organize my pics and post the most salient/scandelous ones here, so in the meantime, check out Joanne (my friend/travel-soul-mate) on NPR talking about her experience with the Peace Corps and being removed from Kenya recently.
Many of you know that "my friend Joanne" was living in Kenya for the last year and a half and I was intending on visiting her this spring - but the extreme civil unrest has made living and working there very difficult. It's a tragic situation that we all hope will improve soon

Vitamin D - ACCOMPLISHED

Something I forgot to mention about last night

sitting at the bar in a restaurant downtown, the guy next to me yelled "You've got to be f*ing kidding me, GUINNESS????" and he and his two buddies struck up a convo with these two fine ladies. one minute later, the drinks they had bought us were delivered and we were having a fun conversaion about why they were all living in the USVI and how weird the people here are. After a little while the original commenter (the only cute one in the crew) got up and left, but the other two guys kept chatting with us. That would have been fine, except I couldnt get over the notion that they both looked like pirates. Long hair, sun-beaten skin, and massive hoop earrings on both ears. The one talking to Juliet said his nickname was "Two-livers"

They told us about how untrustworthy everyone on the island is... and about how you can do anything here, even drink and drive... and then proceeded to offer to drive us back to our hotel. Seriously? No thanks, I didnt want to be killed by a pirate that particular evening. Maybe on my next trip here. If I'm feeling extra frisky.

day 3

i spent 45 minutes in a national geographic movie.... or a live-action acquarium or something. snorkelling in a coral reef with signs embedded in the coral was a BIT surreal. Good thing the ol' sunburn brought me back to reality

Pictures of US VI

actually, we can't connect our cameras to the hotel computer, so you'll have to wait for pics of our vaca...

for now, please enjoy this little tidbit

Tonight we went out to a bar/restaurant and these guys started talking to us... state-side guys who had been living in the USVI for a couple years. They were telling us about how transient and untrustworther people here are... and then proceeded to offer to drive us back to our hotel. IN YOUR DREAMS, freaks.

Day two of My Caribbean Vacation

7:30 am - woke up to a tropical sunlight
8:00 am - ran 4 miles along the bay (and by "ran" i mean "mostly walked and ran a little... because apparently SOMEONE [Juliet] didnt want to run much)
9:00 am - showered and did a little yoga on the porch
9:30 am - had a nice breakfast overlooking the bay. You'd think that "tropical fruits" in the tropics wouldnt be CLEARLY from a can and in light syrup... meh.
10:30 am - sat on the beach. YUM
11:30 am - showered because the long run in the sun, sunscreen, and beach = gross rosey
12:30 pm - took a shuttle to the main town, Charlotte Amalie. Cute, but apparently no cruise ships are in town on Sundays and the cruise ship tourists basically triple the population when they are in town. So a lot was closed, including Blackbeard's Castle. At least we got pictures with a pirate flag - because that is what is most important in life
3:30 pm - got caught in a mini rain shower and ducked into a little place to drink coffee and cet cat calls from the homeless men nearby
4:00 pm - walked back along the beach back to our hotel

the rest of the night... tbd :)

In Paradise. Would have been better with a cute guy, but my sister will have to do.

Landed in St. Thomas, USVI, 6:30pm local time. Walked about 100m to our hotel DIRECTLY on the beach - it is located on the edge of a small bay. We have a balcony facing the bay from our room, with a palm tree shading us. We drank tropical cocktails and went for a quick swim in the pool. SHOULD I MOVE DOWN HERE???

going to the Caribbean this morning!!

:) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Look what I made for dinner!!!

It looks like just a simple piece of pottery....






BUT NO!




It contains DELICIOUS purple cauliflower with garlic, olive oil, and Parmesan cheese!




There is not much that is quite as satisfying as combining my two great loves... cooking and clay :)

My new favorite piece... big blue platter

Large Seaglass Blue Serving Platter


















Red clay with white slip rim; Seaglass blue/yellow glaze; 12" diameter and 2" tall

Gift to the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Hays of Jupiter, Florida

I am kind of in love with this piece. I keep staring at it... the glaze is just so beautiful!! I cant take much credit for the glaze (I didnt invent it or anything) but I did a darn good job of applying it in the best way possible ;)

This was a large platter that I made with red clay, using wooden ribs to curve the center and then to flatten out about 2" of the edge. My idea was to make it something to put cheese in the middle or crackers around... I'm a housewife, I'd better have something with which to entertain!!

I then painted a thin layer of white clay (slip) on the rim to form a little differentiation. Many glazes react differently to white clay than they do to red, so this would bring out an interesting affect.


One of the instructors suggested I use this glaze. It is new and not many people have used it, but I am not in LOVE with it. It appears differently based on the thickness (yellowish when then, light blue when medium, dark blue and shiny with yellow crystals when very thick) and the clay (greenish on red, light blue on white.) On the underside here you can see how the extra thickness on the edge spilled to under the plate in those dark blue shiny fingers.

On the top in areas it pooled a little bit it turned into that dark blue with yellow crystals - it's amazing how much variation can come through!!


Delicious clay.... so delicious

I am going HERE tomorrow:

DELICIOUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

My latest sewing project!

Look at my materials!!!


















I'm making a cute top (for salsa dancing, going out, being a crazy person, etc) out of this beautiful silk charmeause in a tea-rose color. Then I'm using the cream-colored silk rope as straps.

Tim pointed out that I sew, I cook, and I clean - I'm basically Kelsey's house-wife. And I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yeah... clay.

Brett has been complaining CONSTANTLY about my lack of posts of new pottery.
"Where is your pottery? I miss the beauty! It brings joy to my life. Without pictures of your work in clay, I feel a huge hole in my heart."
He actually said "FYI, NONE of these entries have to do with pottery." But I know what he really meant.

HERE YOU GO, BRETTY

Blue Teapot with Yellow Tears - Rest In Peace

White clay; Fleckners' blue glaze over dots of golden-green glaze; 3" diameter and 7" tall

This was my 2nd attempt at a teapot. I thought the body was nice, and the lid fit PERFECTLY (quite a feat, let me tell you. Especially considering that I did a double-fit lid, which is the hardest.) However, the spout looks like an elephant trunk. I should have just added big ears to the sides to complete the look.

Alas, fate hates me... when I was carrying it home I put it in my purse, and despite having wrapped it in a scarf... I knocked it on a shelf in a bookstore. I killed the elephant!!!





Despite my great sadness at the loss of my blue pet, it was actually pretty cool to see the cross section of the spout. The glaze is essentially glass, and you can see just how thin and crystaline it looks. Hey, I might as well learn from my screwups! Thats how I justify being so smart... because I f* up a lot.

Weird Dreams and Running in the Snow

Last night I had a super weird dream... actually two.

In the first dream, I suddenly got two emails from this guy I had gone on a pseudo-date with a couple months ago. We met up in a bar on a dude-ranch in Montana. And drank Bourbon. And that is all I'm going to write about THAT.

The second dream I had last night included getting an incomprehensible letter in the mail from my pottery studio - it had all these non-sensible sentences and bizarre diagrams. I went into the studio and asked them about it... it turned out the whole thing was a passive-aggressive attempt to get me to make less stuff and take up less kiln space. :| And the trauma of that moment made me wake up.

So apparently the topics drudging through my brain are boys and clay. It's not such a bad life I lead :)

This second dream made me wake up at the UNGODLY hour of 7:45 am. I have been avoiding going running because of the rain recently, but I couldnt keep making up excuses so I went running this morning. 4 beautiful miles in the snow. it was actually great! Though I've NEVER seen the Esplanade so deserted... There was one other woman I ran across 5 or 6 times since we were both doing loops. By the end I thought I should introduce myself... I like to be creepy.

Puppies make EVERYTHING better

This evening a bunch of us were sitting around the television with our hands over our mouths, in shock and great sadness at the Pats loss of the Superbowl. Samantha managed to recover and shout "PUPPY BOWL! turn to animal planet!" we switched channels, and saw this:



Can I just say... This is BRILLIANT. There is nothing better to cheer you up from a big game loss than seeing puppies play and wrestle on a fake football field. And see a weird dude on his knees on the fake turf, periodically blowing a whistle and declaring "Puppy foul, Shitzu out of bounds. 5 yard penalty."

Salsa party

Last night consisted of 3+ hours of salsa dancing in Central Square. Have I mentioned that I LOVE dancing? It gives me an excuse to shake my hips, act like an idiot, and put my hands oh-so-suggestively on cute men's shoulders.

Juliet is a salsa master, so of course she came. And then my friends Dan, Nathan, and Samantha also wanted to come - I was so impressed! It's hard to try something new, especially when it runs you the risk of stepping on strangers' feet. They mostly sat on the side nursing their beers, but I managed to drag each of them out for a few dances :)

the club takes pictures every night, so our debauchery will forever live in internet infamy. The last one is a bit of a Where's Waldo - can you see us???















































AND, the best part - Sam/Dan/Nathan enjoyed it so much they suggested we go back next weekend! Delicious...