Screeching and Rolling

This holiday has been a nice little break from work. I’ve gotten a lot of stuff done that’s been piling up, and I also got around to doing a few fun things I haven’t felt I’ve had the time or energy for, but I feel a kind of pressure to use it as a precursor to getting my business together for when work actually ends, in another week. I went through a lot setting the final date — I was offered a two-weeks-on/two-weeks-off schedule at first, but after considering it, I realized it would be less like two weeks working per month and more like two weeks working from home, two weeks going into the office, which is not what I’m looking for at the moment. I’ve been asked to keep writing my articles, whenever schedules permit, and to possibly continue coming in as a freelance editor during the deadline periods. It would be a nice little starting place as far as not being broke goes, so I’ve agreed to give it a shot.

My little riverside neighborhood is lovely and quiet, but it is a bit out of the way, so much so that arguments with taxi drivers who don’t think I know where I live have become a nearly weekly occurrence. I’ve become quite proud of my ability to give it right back even in Korean and have even succeeded a few times in getting that ultimate elusive reward — an apology from a stubborn older man. But one thing it is good for is walking — there’s a coffee shop about 20 minutes by foot from our place, which is just the right amount for getting a little fresh air and settling the mind. I’ve been heading over whenever the mood strikes in the mornings to get some reading and writing done — much easier to do when you don’t spy laundry that needs to be folded or dirty dishes or anything remotely shiny out of the corner of your eye (the laptop, mostly, if we’re being honest). Everything is still a bit scattered, and I’ve been thinking of possibly putting some notes up here, public or private, to try to get a handle on it. I don’t like writing on screens (or reading on them, for that matter), but they computers and other assorted devices can make organizing and reviewing notes much easier than it is when you are flipping through a handwritten notebook and trying to cross-reference or find themes.

Other than that, I finally got out to the Pangyo Hyundai Department Store, otherwise known as the place where Eataly is, and picked up some ridiculously overpriced fancy-pants stone-milled flours (and limoncello and sun-dried tomatoes and proper balsamic, etc and so on — things someone who has just quit their job probably shouldn’t be buying). I’ve also got down a cracking, earsplitting version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” on the violin. I always have a lot of fun whenever I get it into my head to have a go at a musical instrument — it’s so awful that I sometimes end up with tears of laughter rolling down my face. The violin is by far the worst — the screeching, the flat notes, the moment when the bow gets to bouncing off the strings — my god, my poor neighbors.

Today was meant to be for getting the compost incorporated into the soil in the planters to prepare for spring plantings, but it’s raining, and I’m nervous about getting anything down before we take off to Europe anyway. It’ll be pushing it a bit when we get back, but hopefully I’ll be able to make it work. I’m still shit at gardening. I keep hoping to make some kind of breakthrough, but it feels a bit sociopathic in the meantime, bringing living organisms into being all the while knowing I’ll probably kill them in the end.

So there’s all of that. Oh — I watched the first two seasons of The Mind of  a Chef as well, which was nice. It reminds me a bit of The F Word, one of Ramsay’s original shows from back when he was more of a chef than a celebrity. It’s produced and narrated by Anthony Bourdain, and the first season is hosted by David Chang. I was a bit annoyed by an off-the-cuff comment made by one of the other chefs in the first season, about how the farm-to-table movement is frou-frou and annoying — I think that’s a perspective only someone who grew up without a history of agriculture in the family could have, because for rural folks and especially Southern chefs, the movement has been incredibly important — much more than a fad, it’s a revival of a culture that has very nearly died out in the US. So I was glad to see they brought back Sean Brock to host the first half of the second season to get into the details of the movement and why it’s important.

Now we’re down to the last three days of the break, so I’m off to make some ridiculous cookies for Valentine’s Day and attempt to make my own clove cigarettes — the price of rolling tobacco and papers here is insane, so let’s hope I don’t screw it up. It’s worth a shot at least, given the atrocity they’ve replaced Djarum Blacks with in the US (and subsequently, Korea). B’s been in touch with an agent who places Korean tech workers in Germany and is going to some kind of a meeting or something on Sunday (very proud of himself that only six people made the cut for whatever it is, and he was one) to get more details about the whole situation. It’s starting to look less like an impractical boneheaded scheme and more like it could be coming more quickly than we thought. I guess we’ll see.