I Found the Words to Every Thought

I haven't posted anything in a while.

I have pictures from at least three baking projects on my computer or camera, but they haven't done much besides sit there.  I am finding that I would rather not post just a recipe or a picture of an outfit.  I want to have a story to tell, or a thought to offer.

I still don't have a story to go with these pictures and this recipe.

The quote in the title of this post is from an Emily Dickinson poem - I've been revisiting my lit textbooks the last couple days.  When I woke up before five o'clock yesterday morning for no reason, I had some devotion time, and then I read Dante, as one does at five in the morning. Then there was sort of a chain reaction, and now I'm posting about Emily Dickinson.

Anyway, the poem, especially the first stanza here, captures how I often feel when writing, and sometimes how I feel when speaking.

I found the words to every thought

I ever had -- But one

And that -- defies me --
As a Hand did try to chalk the Sun

I don't know that I have the words for every thought, but it sure seems like I have the phrase for everything except what I actually want to say in a given moment. I have a whole host of ideas for blog posts right now, but I felt compelled to keep everything in chronological order, so the chocolate-walnut biscotti had to come first.  But I don't have words for the thought.

There's something delightfully ironic in how perfectly Emily Dickinson phrases the elusive quality of words and writing. It's hard to believe she ever had a thought she didn't eventually phrase in a uniquely compelling way. (Just for the record, though, the second stanza adds the layer of communicating with people of different background and context, and that's another thing entirely.)

I could try to make some brilliant segue here about Emily Dickinson and biscotti, but, well, I think that's another thought I have not the words to, so I'll just give you the recipe and some pretty pictures.

Brownie Biscotti
(via allrecipes.com, altered)

1 T butter (altered from 1/3 cup in recipe)
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs (altered from 2 in recipe)
1 t vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 t baking powder
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
(the recipe also called for chocolate chips, which I'm sure would have been delicious, but I didn't have any)

Preheat oven to 375

1. Cream the butter, sugar and eggs. Add the vanilla to the mixture.
2. The recipe says, as most do, to combine all the dry ingredients together and then add to the wet.  Sometimes I do that. This time I just added each individually and mixed it all up.
3. Add walnuts (and chocolate chips, if you have them!).
4. Time to make the fun logs for the first round of baking.

 

I'm trying to take slightly different pictures, since I'm sure the same picture with slightly different textures and colors is not that interesting.  Maybe I should change this feature to Biweekly Breakfast Baked Good to avoid getting too repetitive.

5. Bake the logs at 375 for 25-30 minutes.

6. Let the logs cool for about 10 minutes, then cut diagonally into slices.

7. Bake the slices for at least 20 minutes, or 10 minutes on each side if you like.

8. Now you have a brand new kind of delicious biscotti!

Why I am Untitled

Every day on the way to lunch, I go through the Indiana Jones tunnel.  And it is epic.

If you touch the statue on the pedestal, you'll hear the noise of a giant boulder rolling toward you from the boarded up alcove, and then you have no choice but to drop your food and run for your life. But then! Then the snakes that are hanging from the vines on the ceiling will coil around your legs and hold you in place while iron gates slam down to block your exits on either end of the hall! As John Williams' triumphant score rises from the hidden speakers, you will break free of the snakes and slide, baseball style, under the gate, with millimeters to spare.

I'm kidding, of course.

I would never leave my food in the hallway.

Themed tunnels and other things like this are not uncommon in my workplace.  If you look out the windows across from the Indiana Jones statue pedestal, you can see the treehouse, Endor, which has its own (cell phone signal-blocked) meeting room and can only be reached by rope bridge.

 

This is all real.

Every building on campus has its own theme, and the newer the building is, the more elaborately the theme is carried out. Put together, they paint a very eclectic and kind of chaotic picture.  Themes include New York City, wild west, dungeons and dragons (seriously), Asia, jungle, Scandinavia, and hi-tech toys. Not to mention the crazy conference rooms - one of them is designed to look like an air hangar.  I may post tours of individual buildings later, but this post has a purpose besides showing off where I get to work every day.

Part of what inspired me to start a blog were the many wonderful blogs that I read from day to day. Two of them, Delightfully Tacky and Selective Potential, both style blogs, happened to team up to put on an e-conference on independent blogging this week, just as I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing. What great timing, right? So I signed up.

Yesterday, Elizabeth and Tieka did a series of "Blogging 101" posts, and while they are sort of aimed at style bloggers, they had a lot of great information for any type of blog.  The first two posts were all about the one thing that has stopped me from starting a blog in the past: establishing a focus.

I do not have a focus. Right now, these are the things I have ideas to write about: British television, biscotti, snow, a style blogging experiment (though I don't really intend to be a style blogger), the movie Black Swan, working out, coffee shops, worship music, and travel, among other things. Tieka mentioned in her post on theme that the title should reflect said theme(s). Well. I think I did that.

So here's where it all comes together: my blogging inclinations are more akin to the entire campus of buildings - eclectic and chaotic (maybe just chaotic), when I should probably try to pare them down to a couple buildings.  (I apologize for the forced metaphor.  But I really wanted to talk about the Indiana Jones hallway. See?  I get distracted.)

This is why the title of my blog is currently "natalie. untitled."  My hope is that as I go along, a pattern will emerge, and I'll sort of....acquire a theme or two that fit well together, and maybe eventually re-title it.  One of the things I really appreciated in Elizabeth's post on focus was the encouragement to allow your blog to shift with you.  The first step of that is, I suppose, to let what I naturally gravitate toward writing in these first few months define my blog, rather than give myself a box that I discover I don't fit into.

Until then, here are some things to look forward to (or to avoid, if you wish):

• Tonight or tomorrow I will be starting a "Biweekly Biscotti" series.
• The "style blogging experiment" that I mentioned will probably start up in March and last for one to two months. It will involve a lot of dresses.
• Tours of buildings at my work.
• Whatever else tickles my fancy. Just for now.

 a cow from a conference room. because she's adorable.

Let's chat

I think a lot of people start blogs because they are bursting with words or ideas or advice to share. 

I am . . . not bursting.

I like to hold on to the things I create, to be able to prune them and let them sit for a while before I show them to anyone.  Usually, this means I don't show them to anyone.  As evidence, there are a handful of introductory blog posts like this one saved in Word documents on my computer and as drafts on this blog.  I’m never convinced that they are perfect enough to be read with a critical eye other than my own. 

But as I’ve been reading other blogs lately, and thinking about what I want to do with my own, I’ve come to the realization that blogging is not about critique – or perfection.

Blogging, done well, done in the best possible way, is a conversation.  And while you might take a moment to consider your words before you speak (I hope), you don’t get six months to prepare to talk to someone.  Conversation is imprecise and reactive.  It’s unpredictable.  It’s awkward.

I don’t know what this particular conversation is going to be about or who’s going to take part in it, but if I don’t actually start it, then the answers will be nothing and nobody.  So sans readers, sans title, and sans topic, I invite anyone who has stumbled across this to sit down, grab a cup of coffee, and join in the conversation. 

We'll see where it takes us.

(FYI, this post stayed on my computer for about a week until I posted it. I guess I still have some work to do.)