Resolved in January

So, no. 1 on my resolution list done for this month - keeping track of the resolutions. Hurrah!

1. See above. Take this for granted from now on if I manage to do it every month.
   
2. Body fat update. Started at 29%, now down to 28.3%. In a fortnight, that's not bad, with only a couple of gym visits and slightly healthier eating. Still, that sort of trajectory not going to last forever. I'm trying to get my knee ready for a 5k, at least, so running starts again today, too, which should help. FYI, although the information doesn't seem to have a strongly reliable source, the recommended amount for youngish women is 20-21%, and the average US woman has 22-25%, so I've a way to go before then.
   
3. Big nights on the backburner at the moment, what with TOH's dodgy knee. Still, had a serious dance on Friday night while wearing the most horrific 80s outfit - not sure what was worse, going out in public like that or knowing that each and every item came from my own wardrobe, not bought from American Apparel that day. But it was a BIG night (and led to my breaking, without much inner struggle from me, each of my extra resolutions for sensory deprivation).
   
4. Classic movies not got through yet, although we have made a list of the IMDB's top 250 that neither TOH or I have seen, we've borrowed the Godfathers from a friend, and have many visits to the cinema planned for the Film Forum's United Artists season. We just have to work our way through all the movies people loaned us for TOH's recovery.
5. Currently reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and have The Trial coming up next, plus all the other classics from Law & Literature - hallelujah for that class.
6. We do have fresh flowers in the house, thanks to TOH yesterday... although the cats are trying to eat them already. We're thinking about seeds, and growing things. I'm nervous.
7. We made Nigella's beetroot & mustard soup last week (tasted pretty much like beetroot & mustard, but that means yummy, to me at least). Tonight I'm probably going to make something from one of our favourite books, Pasta Improvvisata. Never a dud yet from that book.
8. Well, yesterday went to the Hispanic Society of America museum. Wednesday we're finally getting to the Kara Walker at the Whitney. Yay!

Rock on February.

Yo Soy Boricua

... and not just because it's mentioned in one of my favourite ever overheard in new york quotes.

TOH worked out the other day that this is the longest, since leaving Sheff for university, that he's ever lived in one place. And I think that's true for me, too; obviously lived in London, but in various places. Yet we are embarrassingly ignorant about where we live. Therefore, we are embarking on a mission to tour the riches around us, before we head off for other climes (which may well happen later this year).

One of the most obvious omissions has always been The Hispanic Society of America, which is based in the campus of Boricua College. It's on Audubon Terrace, on Broadway between 155th and 156th. It was founded by a museum founder; seriously, that's what he did, with lots of others founded, no apparent connection between the themes. According to the museum, he was obsessed with Spanish culture, having read travel memoirs of it as a young man in the early 20th century. TOH and I are both enthusiasts of Spanish painting, yet until this afternoon had never visited this place two blocks south of our house that houses works by Goya, El Greco (his and my favourites, respectively) as well as Velázquez, Zurbarán, de Ribera, and Murillo.

It's a modest, but lovely, collection. The most important painting there, however, is a glorious Goya that is extremely famous - the portrait of the Duchess of Alba, dressed in black mourning clothes. There's a lot interesting about this painting. He painted two of her, and the one of her in virginal and highly fashionable white is displayed in a palace in Madrid. In contrast, the "Black Duchess" was never given to the Duchess, or indeed shown in public, essentially because it represented Goya's apparent passion for the widow. When you think about it, it's a really quite cheeky thing: she's in her mourning dress, but has a ring on her finger saying "Goya," and is pointing to the ground where the words "Sólo Goya" ("Only Goya") have been etched into the sand, apparently by her - after all, she is alone.* Robert Hughes, in his wonderful biography of the artist, states

This is not what she feels, but what Goya hopes: she is in mourning for her dead husband, and Goya is the only man for her. It is the painter's fantasy, not the subject's, and presumably that is why the portrait did not pass into the possession of La Alba; she would hardly have wanted visitors to see so striking a declaration of a love that she did not in fact feel.** In the painting she is beautiful and imperious, the yello of her gold-embroidered blouse and the red of her facha, or knotted sash, powerfully suggest the burning coals of passion, glowing through the black filigree of lace. One can imagine the painter staring at it through the privacy of his studio and wishing it were so.

The museum is free, peaceful, and this painting is utterly exquisite. There's also a lovely Sagrada Familia by El Greco, a beautiful small head portrait of a little girl by Velázquez, and a couple of striking Zurbarán portraits of female saints that actually bring to mind the society portraits by Singer Sargent, with opulent cascading materials, rather than traditional saintly images. Further, there's a Spanish impressionist, Sorrolla y Bastida, that we'd never seen before, who warrants further investigation. Apparently they have an extensive collection of his work - indeed, a whole room - but that is closed until 2009, sadly, so a return visit is definitely necessary.

* It may just be me, of course, but she looks much more... buxom, standing in a more sensuous and challenging position, in the black than in the white.
** Of course, there are many who suggest that it was indeed reciprocated, or at least they had an affair.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

I'm Glad It's Your Birthday

Today is the 35th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Therefore, here's a few things on the world wide web that have been written by extremely eloquent, interesting people about why that's a good thing, and what's at stake if the anti-choicers get their way.

• Jill at Feministe's ten ways to support reproductive justice.
• Jessica at Feministing on why she votes pro-choice (and from last year, why she trusts women).
  
• Bean at L, G & M on voting for reproductive justice.
• RH Reality Check has great comprehensive coverage.
• The National Partnership for Women & Families sums up some of the editorials printed today (including anti-choice stuff, such as the "moral deficit" caused by abortion access... arseholes).
  

NARAL asks you to blog for choice if you are pro-choice. As I am, here's why I'm pro-choice:

Women cannot be equal unless they have control over their fertility and the ability to deal with when whatever precautions they do (or don't take) go wrong. Economic development is key to greater autonomy and power and, hopefully, equality, and you can't be economically developed if you are having children with no choice over the number or timing of your children.

But, even more so, you have no right to force me to carry or not a child; it's my body, my integrity, and my choice. Yet choice is such a luxury for most people, let alone women alone, in the world; so many women have so little power over the course of their own lives that they do not have a number of options from which to make a choice. Hence abortion is not a luxury, and not something we take lightly, but something that is essential to our lives, but we need more: better contraception, better insurance, better healthcare, better education. Better everything.

Overturning Roe v. Wade won't do anything but put women's health in danger, bring more unwanted children into the world for poor women who can't afford the transport to and care in states where abortion is available.

But even if there were no divide between rich & poor, the privileged and the not so, it would still be my decision and my choice. No one has the right to make it for me; I don't force it upon you, so how dare you, Huckabee et al., force it on me? And that's my moral stance: religious men and women do not have the monopoly on morality; my morals dictate that I don't force people to do with their bodies what they do not wish. Abortion is just one part of it - but an essential one for bodily integrity; and, with it, soulful integrity and dictating the course of your life.

I wish I could vote in this election.

Extra Resolute

A dear old friend of mine has challenged his nearest and dearest (one has to wonder, how near and dear am I given what he's asking me to do?) to the following Health & Culture Attempt. What you do: seven cultural events and seven pieces of exercise in the next fourteen days. Also, some form of sensory deprivation is called for, and therefore I shall not be eating cheese, or drinking spirits, "heavy" beer, coffee, coke, or dr. pepper in the upcoming fortnight.

Some of you may remember how utterly awful this blog got in my obsession with (lack of) caffeination for Lent last year. Therefore, I suppose we should all be grateful that this is a mere two weeks, and not the forty long, miserable days of last year's effort.

Question: Does attending legal celebrations count as "cultural"?