Author Archives: Emily Chapman

Researching beards

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“Evolution: it’s a thing,” is one of my favorite video lines on the internet.

My trivia team took a turn for the biological last night. About ten minutes after I sat at the table and started chatting with my computer sciencey teammates, the conversation came to beards. Specifically, my teammates wanted to know if I knew why men grow beards.

And I thought about it. It turns out that I do not.

It’s an interesting question. Vast swaths of the world’s men don’t grow beards, for one–so it’s not like the bearded have outcompeted their clean shaven brethren. There are no survival rations stored in facial hair.

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New Favorite Drink

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So this weekend was my little sister’s birthday. It was celebrated, as all good family shindigs are, in a house in the hills. This particular hill house was in Helen, GA.

Helen, for those of you who are Not From Around Here, is best-known for its epic Oktoberfest and–during the slightly less beer-soaked rest of the year–an agressive attempt to stay on theme. (The theme being twee and German.) Helen is the sort of place that is horrifying if you’re between the ages of 14-18, and absolutely weirdly delightful if you’re not.

There’s just something about Ye Olde Fudge Shoppe (and its 18 rivals, the Slightly Less Olde Fudge Shoppes and the Look At Our Fudge Innovation, We Learned This in Europe Shoppe) that is delightful. It’s probably the man in lederhosen outside, strumming his tiny banjo and renting out his parrots to children. As long as you can overlook the Confederate kitten t-shirts (it happened, I swear to you), the whole town is a weird escape from anything approaching real life.

But Alpine Helen eventually wore me out, and it was then that I retreated to the hill cabin to drink.

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Raising Rates, Weeding Clients, and Internet Coincidences

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So, as y’all know if you’ve ever spoken to me in meat space, I am super in to Jen Dziura‘s life/career advice columns up on The Gloss and The Grindstone. The column is both titled and concerns being Bullish, and it is wonderful because it contains lines like:

“I will help you pick a new business right now. Take something exciting that you do actually like, and that many other people also like. Now think of something very scary, difficult, or boring. Merge those things; make your enthusiasm for the fun thing bleed into the scary, difficult, or boring thing; help scared, frustrated, and bored people; become a millionaire.”

— “How to be a Productivity Unicorn“

I think pretty much everyone should read her.

Anyway, because her column is targeted primarily at women in the early stages of their careers, she has a particular focus that I like a lot–work-life balance. (Also, “Maybe Work-Life Balance Means You Should Work MORE” is a great column title.) The general idea is that women tend to accept salaries (or ask for rates, if they’re free-lancing) that allow them to get by.

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On Street Fests and Local Commerce

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King of Pops cart.

My favorite! Licensed under CC, linked to source.

The Candler Park Music Festival was this weekend, and that means that summer festival season is (for me) officially kicked off. Atlantans love nothing more than standing outside and eating food from trucks while sweating, so we basically swarm street festivals all year ’round. I feel like–a month into being back–I am officially at home.

The kickoff to the festival was a stop at the first King of Pops cart I could find, natch. For those of you not in Atlanta, King of Pops is a local popsicle company whose umbrella-ed carts show up every time more than 20 Atlantans gather in a single spot. The flavors are on-point, the umbrellas are cheerful, and the popsicles are cold. I branched out a little, flavor-wise* and went with the (new this summer, I believe) fig, honey, and cream-sicle. Though not my usual bag (my usual bag involving graham cracker crust and/or as much sugar as you can put in a frozen treat) it was tasty.

My friends and I were actually at the festival to see the Futurebirds, which was fun. It was a fun show, and folks seemed pretty familiar with the band. (I was not, because I only learn of new music six months after my dad gets into it. True story.) A girl who was by all appearances schwasted climbed on stage during the last song and nearly knocked over the steal guitar/banjo player. So that was fun. The lead guitarist wore a suitcoat with the arms covered in feathers, because, y’know, Athens. Continue reading →

Eco-Casks and Giant Beards

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Licensed under CC, linked to source.

Earlier this week I picked up a box of wine at the grocery store, because I am a Classy Lady with Classy Lady Tastes. (Wine is one of those things that shouldn’t be cheaper in bulk and yet is.) Before I stuck it in the fridge (behind the pimento cheese, in front of the pesto), I took a gander at the box copy.

And that’s how I learned that I wasn’t drinking wine from a box. I was drinking wine from an “eco-cask.”

You guys? I think I have a new favorite word.

I realize that the person writing the non-Franzia box wine copy is not lying when they say that boxed/bagged booze is better for the environment than glass bottles. But there is something inherently hilarious to me about the fact that that’s the new marketing tack for a product that I basically associate with soccer moms.

Other than my friend the eco-cask, it’s been a weird week in ways that are not relevant to the blog. But–I did go see Bon Iver with my dad and m’colleague Anna, which was a lovely reminder that the Bon Iver guy is maybe a little bit crazy. The set design was reminiscent of giant beards/Spanish moss, and Anna and I passed the opening band’s time on stage trying to guess whether or not Bon Iver dude was nesting in the beards. (Answer: possibly.)

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Volunteer Jobs and Beer

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[Source]

I have finally started my internship. (Or, as my mother calls it, my “volunteer job.”) I’m doing work with the part of my school that handles sexual assault prevention, which basically is the same thing as I do during the school year* but now I have to wear a plastic name placard and follow a dress code. (For those interested, we are not allowed to wear skorts. I weep.)

Skortless though I am, my indentured servitude is going well so far. I felt super incompetent for the first big group meeting (everyone else had project statuses to report on, while I had vague feelings about social justice and also possibly needed a nap), but then I realized that I started work three weeks later than everyone else and those feelings went more-or-less away. I can haz emotional context!

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Mongols and Public Services (It’s Good to Be Home)

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I will miss these guys, though. (Just kidding. They’re terrifying.)

I had big plans for my first week back in the US. I was going to eat Mexican (and Indian and Ethiopian) food. I was going to drink a mint julep in a porch in some alternative universe where I wear jean shorts and like NASCAR.

What have I done since coming back? A lot of tedious things, it turns out. Today, for example, I submitted an apartment lease application (woo hoo!). I also cleaned my bathroom drain using a drain volcano and, when I was feeling fiesty, called my bank about giving me back my freaking debit card (and opened a bank account with a new, less-terrible bank).

It’s been a pretty exciting eight days, I tell you.

However, there’s been stuff that I’ve done that has been unexpectedly fun. Atlanta in the summer is a good place to be. Why is that?

Art festivals: The day after I got back, I headed out to the Decatur Arts Festival. This festival is not normally a highlight of my own personal summer festival calendar, but it was unexpectedly wonderful to wander over there and be greeted by life constants: the “veggie” corn dogs, my familiar artisanal popsicle cart*. Plus, as I was wandering through the boutiques on the backend of my local square, I happened upon one that was having a PBR-themed art exhibit. Upshot of that? They were offering free PBRs and oatmeal cream pies. Y’all, nothing says “welcome back to the south” like the diabeticly sweet embrace of free hipster beer and Little Debbie. Corn syrup and lard, I have missed you.

Big screen movies: Yesterday, I finally got it together with a friend from high school and headed to the theater to see the Avengers flick. Because it was Joss Whedon, there was beloved secondary character death and hilarious throw-away dialogue. Because it was a super hero film, there was also the Hulk grabbing villan-Loki by the throat mid-monologue and slamming him into the ground repeatedly whilst Iron Man played fireworks music in the background. USA! USA!

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Museum Brochures and Crying with Voltaire

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While I was in Paris I didn’t have access to wifi. I still blogged, though! This entry dates from Thursday, the fourth (and last full) day I was in town.

I think today was probably my favorite of the trip, in no small part because the weather was intensely excellent. (The day didn’t even involve any human remains!)

I started the morning off at the Orsay, which I wound up going to mostly as an afterthought to the Louvre yesterday. I don’t care about Impressionist art that much (yes, I am going to hell), at least not when marketed as such–and that’s what the Orsay’s writeups draw attention to. They need to hire new brochure people and reframe it as what it is: a fabulously well-curated collection of really accessibly famous art in a beautiful building.

As stated before, I know very little about art history, but I literally had a moment of, “Oh, wait, those Tahitian paintings that I had to do a presentation on in French class? Those are all here!” There were Degas and a whole room of Toulousse-Lautrec and the original of a Van Gough print my grandmother had on her wall for years, and that was just two random rooms that I stepped into. In addition, there was a great cross-continent look at art nouveau (my favorite!) and the modernist response to it.

I left the Louvre feeling like I had gotten some mildly unpleasant obligation over with. I left the Orsay feeling refreshed. This might have something to do with the Orsay’s beautiful, well-lit building, which used to be a train station. There’s a lot of clock faces and marble and a lot less of the painted Baroque ceilings of glowering allegories of eternity going on. Also, there was basically no one in the museum.

Basically, A+ to the Orsay. Unexpected success!

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Paris Continues to Improve

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While I was in Paris I didn’t have access to wifi. I still blogged, though! This entry dates from Wednesday, the third day I was in town.

So today’s Paris adventure was a marked improvement over the last two days, in no small part because Paris stopped trying to kill me with its weather. Huzzah! As a result, my body could go back to doing what it normally does and try to implode itself. Literally every single muscle in my legs, feet, and shoulders hurts right now, and I’m pretty sure I have given myself some sort of butt rash from a combination of excessive sweating and being gross. (Fellas.) So, you know, the accumulated mass of my various travel injuries should cause me to keel over at around 4 pm tomorrow. I’ll let you know.*

But at least if my injuries will end me, I’m going out on a good note. Today was a great Paris day, tourist-wise. (Minus the six different couples that I saw dry hump in public today. Jesus, people.)

Paris is My Fitzwilliam Darcy

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While I was in Paris I didn’t have access to wifi. I still blogged, though! This entry dates from Tuesday, the second day I was in town.

So I’m pretty sure that I am one of those people who is Supposed to Like Paris. I’m sullen and brunette and like stripes. I am at this moment wearing a boat neck top. La Belle France is the place for me.

I was thinking about this at 2 pm the day that I arrived here, as I stood–feet numb from soaked shoes, being made fun of by some high school student because her very midwestern mother tried to help me with my bag–in the world’s longest taxi line outside of the Gare du Nord.

If Paris is supposed to be my great love, we’re starting out on Darcy and Lizzy Bennett footing. (Barcelona, in contrast, was like a drunken bar fling. I have no idea what anyone was saying, but it was beautiful and fun and full of sangria.*)

The leadup to the world’s worst day was pretty much my fault, sadly. Two things happened: I took the redeye in from Dakar, and I forgot that weather exists. As a result, I was stranded when the woman whose flat I’m staying in got stuck in a meeting, and I was wearing Dakar-appropriate summer clothing when Paris was 50 degrees and pouring rain. I like my $6 Senegalese espadrilles a lot, but they’re basically made of hope and a scrap of fabric–it’s been a day and a half now and they’re still wet from the trip.

Because I got in four hours later and 200% sadder than expected, I gave up on my first day plans of seeing the Pantheon and Saint Chapelle. Instead, I spent the afternoon walking around the neighborhood and taking pictures. I’m in the very heavily West African neighborhood of Paris, which means that I saw eight tailors with wax print in their window and got (charmingly) hit on in the street by two Senegalese men. It was kind of a great bit of weirdness. (Unlike in Dakar, these dudes accepted it when I turned down their invitations for coffee, I wished them a good day, and we parted ways. Yay!) It was nice just to see the neighborhood here, and I stopped in my obligatory paper goods/hipster curio boutique to buy some souvenirs.

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