I got in the kitchen and made me a sandwich.

Giant mutant strawberries are coming for us all.

Over the past four years of splitting my life between Morristown and Meadville, I've found that one thing remains constant when I come home: there's never any food in the house. There will always be leftovers more than a week old, a giant tub of baking powder that expired in 2010, a plastic lemon half-filled with juice that grows ever more acidic and not in a good way, and whole milk when I've grown used to skim and 2%, but there has never been anything I'd be excited to eat. I've been home for a month now, and yesterday was the first time I had a chance to go grocery shopping with my mom (read: without using my own money; starving grad student habits start now)...and I did with a vengeance. (Or a hunger. Damn, missed that pun.) It took two stores and four hours, but the kitchen is stocked and my stomach doesn't have any reason to complain for a few weeks.

With the proper ingredients in the house, the obvious first step is to bake. I woke up this morning and made buttermilk biscuits for my best friend, who's off to start her new life in the South and will probably have more and better biscuits in Kentucky. I ate the ugly biscuit, made up of all the fragments of dough left from cutting the prettier biscuits, as soon as it came out of the oven; the rest are sealed up in foil for future reasons that I will elaborate upon shortly.

I got more ambitious for late lunch/early dinner (had a verrry long nap this afternoon, so) and made a sandwich that came to me in a vision yesterday afternoon: prosciutto, mozzarella, and baby spinach with cracked black pepper, toasted and pressed in a buttered skillet. The abundance of food blogs I read have always helpfully suggested that a home cook with a panini craving but no sandwich press to call her own can concoct a sort-of substitution with a foil-covered brick, a clothing iron, or a particularly heavy saucepan, so being without brick and skeptical of ironing my sandwich, I tried the third method today. It looked like this:

THREE saucepans.

Not quite food blog worthy. Check out the sandwich, though!

Yeah, I eat in front of my laptop, whatever I'm a millenial.

Then I had an ice cream sandwich and cut up some strawberries, tossed them in white sugar, and put them in the fridge so that I can take them out tomorrow when they're all syrupy and make strawberry shortcake with the leftover biscuits and vanilla ice cream and maybe some melted chocolate over top and I just really love food, you know?

Blerg.

Lately I've been getting occasional bursts of energy and inspiration and motivation for self-improvement, which would be well and good if they didn't always occur in the middle of the night. I tried to go to sleep early(ish, at about half past midnight), but woke up around 4:00 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. Instead, I read up on the Supreme Court decision giving law enforcement officials the go-ahead to take a cheek swab of any arrestee's DNA without obtaining a specific warrant in advance, the nouveau riche class in mainland China, and a Philadelphia experimental theatre company's race-swapped adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin in Philadelphia. I scrolled through Tumblr for a while and reblogged some crossover fanart of John Watson à la BBC Sherlock in his soldier days with a pet Growlithe because that's the kind of thing that appeals to me these days. Then I tried in vain to find an original source for said fanart, and lamented that we live in a world where people don't think to credit artists before appropriating their work for Tumblr-fame.

Then I got sad about how much I think about Tumblr in general.

I've been trying to brush up on my French again. If I'm completely honest, a lot of that effort is driven by guilt at including "French: intermediate reading, writing, and translation proficiency; conversational speaking proficiency" on my graduate school résumé, which is...a stretch. I once vaguely considered how much I would enjoy working as a literary translator, and I still anticipate that I'll need to manage quite an advanced level of reading proficiency to take advantage of academic resources in French someday, so it's a career-driven goal in that way. I also have lofty ambitions of reading at least sections of Proust in the original French at some point in my life -- who doesn't? (People with better things to do/care about.) Part of it, too, is the stubborn refusal to let what was technically a very significant chunk of my education (six years through middle/high school, an AP class, a 300-level college course, travel in Paris and Belgium) go to waste. Duolingo has been enormously helpful in helping remind me of the basics, and I've been pleasantly surprised to realize how much I already/still understand of the more subtle nuances that don't come across so well in online software. It's also incredibly satisfying to learn new vocabulary, which is one of the most instantly gratifying intellectual experiences out there. It's hard not to brag, actually: I didn't know this word in French yesterday, and I do today, which makes me one word smarter now than I was then, you guys! Be thankful I don't tweet about it every time.

I'm also blogging again, I guess. I'm an unemployed English major; it's basically a right of passage.

Me and John Watson: SO ALIKE .

Swish and flick.

It's been a while since I've touched a video game controller. While I'm proud to say that growing up female never hindered me from holding my own in Super Smash Bros. tournaments with rooms full of boys -- always boys -- more invested in the outcome than I was, these days most of my interactions with video games involve waiting for The Boy to finish playing Skyrim and talk to me. (He always eventually does, so no worries there.) I respect video game culture, I appreciate the incredible skill and artistry that goes into game design, I have friends who play video games, etc. but it's just not my scene right now. That said, it takes something really impressive to make me sit up in my warm bed on a cold winter morning to watch half an hour's worth of video trailers: something like Sony's new Wonderbook: Book of Spells, inspired by Harry Potter and based on Miranda Goshawk's Book of Spells, the predecessor to the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 that's listed as required reading for any first-year Hogwarts student.

From a screencap of the Wonderbook game.

If that previous sentence seems to have taken a sharp left from the territory of real-world technology into fictional spellcasting -- well, that may have been the game designers' point. The Wonderbook technology is, according to the Sony + London Studios team, the first instance of "augmented reality" in game design, in which a physical book and handheld motion controller directly correspond to their virtual equivalents -- a richly illustrated magical textbook and, naturally, a wand -- to create an experience that's a little bit reality and more than a little bit fantasy.

London Studio Director Dave Lanyard refers to the experience of turning physical Wonderbook pages and having the action reflected by your character on screen as like looking in a "magic mirror," where the mirror is your TV screen, which sounds about the most apt metaphor for video game play in general. As a person who still maintains that the dawn of Wii-style motion sensor technology (however uncool the Wii itself mostly turned out to be) was one of the most exciting advancements in video games for as long as I've been a consumer of them, this kind of integration of tangible movement and virtual consequences is about a hair's-breadth away from actual magic to me.

The game illustrations are, predictably, unspeakably gorgeous. They've used the same saturated but sort of antique color palette as Pottermore (which I've written about previously), and there are flying dragons and flaming sparks and water spraying out from your wand after casting Aguamenti and I can't even, watch the video instead:

The developers' diary video of how the creatures were animated is particularly enthralling:

Frog-rabbits! The sound of the dragon's wings flapping is the sound of a fireball! Creatures and their "fantastical natures!" You guys, this is the kind of thing that makes me sad to have grown up at the same that I wonder if I really have at all.

The sad news -- for me, at least -- is that I don't own a PS3, nor do I have any immediate plans to expend my meager student savings on one. As much as I find new technology fascinating and even exciting enough to wake me up in the morning, I'm on more of an ink-and-paper budget. I wasn't paid to write about this new, crazy awesome thing I got an email about, but if I were, I'd probably buy, like, a new sweater with the money. If anyone were ever going to convince me otherwise, though, it would probably only take thismuch more magic to do the trick.

Wait, what, the game includes new original content by J. K. Rowling unavailable anywhere else?! Shit. I need a PS3.

P.S. Despite growing up in a household with a younger brother who always got the video games he wanted for Christmas and thereby provided me with access to a number of consoles for the borrowing, the only game I've ever bought for myself was Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup for GameCube. No one is surprised. (I was the best at it.)

Lest we forget.

Tragedy struck in Newtown, CT today, and amid all the professions of shock and sympathy, everyone's prayers for those left behind and their pledges to hug their loved ones tighter than ever today, I've noticed a disturbing trend in thought: "This is a time for grieving. Save your opinions for another day. This is not the time." These people are sincere in their intentions, and I understand their desire to shelter those left behind in this fragile aftermath, but with all due respect, there is no better time than right now to have this conversation.

I don't mean to be callous. Like everyone else, my prayers and my heart go out to those whose lives have been forever altered by the actions of one unhinged gunman, and I agree that even such symbolic gestures as flying the flag at half-mast in honor of the dead are the least we can do in memory of those lost, and for the sake of those left behind. But I worry about our priorities here, because these are words and actions occurring after the fact, and no comforting embrace will ever repair the damage that was done today. For 27 people, their families, and their friends, it will always be too late. The President's speech, your Facebook status, grief counseling: these may well be effective as palliative care, but what we need is preventative action.

With regards to when is and is not the "right" time: Are there guidelines for the length of this grace period we afford conversations on how to prevent future tragedies? Is there a convenient time when we can openly communicate about practical, necessary ways to protect the people we love from what's become a recurring threat to their safety and peace of mind? Because Columbine happened, Virginia Tech happened, and Aurora happened, and it was too painful to talk about then. Newtown happened, and it's too painful to talk about it now. Do you know what sounds painful? Being shot in an elementary school classroom.

I'm asking genuinely: when will we, as a nation, be able to talk about this? However much this kind of talk hurts now, it will never get easier. Over two dozen people died today; I can't help but think that the best possible way to respect their memory is not to waste a single moment in initiating discussion about what we need to do so that this never happens again. Grieving for the past and planning for the future need not be mutually exclusive; in fact, it's exactly that false distinction that perpetuates this pattern of shootings. If this happens again tomorrow, will we once again hold off on addressing it until the day after? Friends and family will continue to mourn, but so too will weapons continue to enter into the hands of those unqualified to wield them.

No, today isn't the day to sit down and debate gun control. That was on yesterday's agenda, but we seem to have missed that meeting, and we've suffered the consequences.

A single mass shooting should make you sad. Two dozen in the past six years should make you angry, and that anger should make you want to act: not by offering consolatory pats on the back to wounded victims or tissues to bereaved parents, but by taking decisive measures to to ensure that no further blood nor tears will fall.

We claim, with apparent sincerity, that we will never forget the victims of today. Past history says we're lying to ourselves. With each day that passes, our outrage fades quietly into the background of the latest updates about Kate Middleton's pregnancy and the next episode of American Horror Story, the next semester or the new financial quarter, the daily challenges of raising a child or the endless back-and-forth between Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate. Every day we continue to heal, but with that healing comes an amnesia that is both soothing and perilous, as the conversation that is "too soon" may once again be too late.

This day has been filled with suffering, and I don't mean to pour salt in the wound. All I ask is that we blink through our tears and find a way, once and for all, to ensure that this tragedy will be the last of its kind.

Adventures in Costco, and What I Found There.

Inspired by the single most delightful article I read this week, which features photos of Joe Biden at Costco buying pie and children's books, I thought I'd share my own most recent Costco adventure.

Full disclosure: the events depicted below did take place on Black Friday, but I'd like to defend the apparent contradiction of how I am theoretically opposed to, yet participated in the excesses of the most appalling consumerist free-for-all in American history (at least until the day after next Thanksgiving, which will be the worst until the year after, and so on for the foreseeable future).
1. I'm a college student, and only being home for four full days on break limits the times when I can make purchases I intended to make anyway, implausibly high percentage-off discounts or not.
2. I put my foot down on shopping on the Thursday night of Thanksgiving itself. Workers being forced away from personal celebration on a national holiday of gratitude so they can work mandatory shifts for faceless corporations threatening termination from their sub-living wage employment makes me angrier and wordier than any other recent incarnation of capitalist greed. I'm looking at you, Walmart, and I'm giving you the evil eye.
3. I shopped at a leisurely pace at a normal-people hour, like when there was daylight shining and everything. I returned anything I picked up and didn't buy to its proper shelf/bin/rack/table. I tried to be polite.
4. COSTCO, YOU GUYS. Costco always, Costco forever. (Have you seen the "Good Guy Costco CEO" meme yet? If not, check it out.)

Anyway, I love Costco and you should too and here's why:

 Yes, that is a plush dog larger than my nineteen-year-old brother's entire upper body. Yes, I want it. Christmas is coming up, friends...

 On the flip side of stuffed animals, here is a less-than-life-size pony that is still large enough for most children to comfortably sit astride in their sunshine-yellow playroom with their model train sets, oversize custom-built dollhouse, and handcrafted wooden block sets imported from Switzerland. I didn't check the price tag, but I assume it was extravagant, even for Costco.

 When I said these ponies were large enough for most children, I meant my feet don't touch the ground. :(

 The hero Costco deserves, but not the one it needs right now.

 More oversized plush. More things I want.

 All seven Harry Potter books in pristine, uncracked-spine, unwrinkled-pages, as-yet-unloved condition could be yours for only $47.99. I have them all, but...they don't come all matchy-matchy in a gift box like this.

 This is TOO MANY VEGGIE STRAWS, people. By that, I mean buy these and invite me over to hang out and I'll help you eat them.

  Is that chip illustration to scale? Because, if so...awesome/terrifying. (It's not.)

Costco, purveyor of fine stuffed toys that will suffocate your child if they become trapped beneath them without a well-muscled adult chaperone to save them. Maybe that's what Batman's for?

There were 24 cookies in that container. Four days later, there were 0.