Comic Con

I spent a lot of time over the weekend at the New York Comic Con, my first. It was fun walking the floor with Jody and getting free Viz bags and manga.


So You Want to Be a Superhero booth


Degrassi High panel


Line Outside


Fans

Proud Alumna

My alma matar does a lot of things that annoy me. Such as the time the development department sent an e-mail saying everyone could help the environment by giving money now, saving the trees it would need to use to make the paper to send us further requests for money. However, I was happy to read in the New York Times that the history department at Middlebury has banned the use of Wikepedia as a source. What I don't understand is why this story is so interesting that it is the number one e-mailed story in the paper, or, for that matter, why it is newsworthy enough to even be in the New York Times. I have never let students use Wikepedia as a source for a college level research paper. Accuracy is not the only issue--I think an almost $200,000 education should include learning to use the library. What a shocking idea!

Let me know what you think

Okay, so now that my orals are over and I have successfully moved into abd (all but dissertation) status, meaning I have a mere 3 years to go before I finally kiss this project, namely grad school, good-bye, I have decided to distract myself with a blog of my own all about food. I'm not sure yet what the exact focus will be but I do want to know what you think it should be called. I thought of calling it Weese Cooks, but Matt says it would be more appropriate to call it Weese Eats, but then again maybe I should go in another direction all together. I'll be writing about my life with food, which will of course include cooking, but will also range over my vast collection of cookbooks and just exactly why I think I need more, and I do think that by the way, even as I question it. I'm not much of one for restaurant reviews but when I eat a memorable meal, whether for good or ill, I do like to share the experience.

If only for the day-glow mango rice pudding.

I'll also share with you some choice food memories, including my now infamous, at least among family members, adventure in a San Antonio IHOP, followed sadly by a visit to a San Antonio Olive Garden involving the largest, most tasteless chocolate cake to exist in this world, or at least that is how I remember it. This was well before Molly had moved to San Antonio and discovered a true city neighborhood existed inside the soulless loop that encircles it. So there you have it, all things Kym and food will be discussed. So now is the time to put your 2 cents in and let me know just what title you think it should all be collected under. I provide no guarantees that I will listen even the littlest bit to your opinions, but I may, you never know.

Should I go with something like my alien tortilla for the heading? He is rather cute.

Fighting Capers

Capers used to run free, that is until he started getting in fights that were not only causing him enormous amounts of pain but me enormous amounts of money. Life since his confinement has been full of attempted escapes and a few successes.

Always the over achiever Capers has figured out how to open the side door when it is not locked. Yesterday he opened the door and made a break for it. I couldn't catch him, he was outside for maybe 2 hrs. Jerry checked him over for wounds when Capers came back and of course he had managed to get in yet another fight. Luckily I have tons of bandages and first aid supplies from the last fights.

Hopefully we won't have to make a trip to the vet, I told Capers that he was taking his life into his own paws when he runs away. I hope that I don't have to rob a bank to let my cat keep his leg.

Happy Year of the Pig

The Chinese Year of the Pig (or Boar) began yesterday. As with 2006, I'm happy to see the Year of the Dog gone. (If for no other reason, just because dog year people, with their combination of bossiness and neediness, are annoying. At least to me.)

There are preditions for what the year will hold for the various signs all over the web, but I liked this one because, for Roosters, it begins, "Compared to last year 2007 will seem a walk in the park."

And a belated happy birthday to Betsy, who was born on the first day of the Year of Pig a few years ago. Hope the next 12 months bring you luck.

Melting ICE

I am enrolled in the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic and it is by far the best thing I have done in law school. Immigration courts allow student attorneys to represent clients. I have several clients, all of them are in deportation proceedings.

One of my clients was recently granted asylum status. The hearing was in November and the judge finally ruled this past week. The client is an amazing woman from Guatemala who will now be able to remain in the United States and hopefully bring her children to the United States soon.

I currently have a client that is mandatorily detained in the largest immigration detention center in the United States. It is a difficult case made that much harder by the horrible conditions of the detention center. My partner and I visit our client once a week, every time we leave and our client returns to her cell, it is clear how unjust the entire system is.

My office mate and I have started a score board in our office. So far we are undefeated. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Beware: the St Mary's Clinic is coming for you.

Resolute

I stole one my New Year's Resolutions from Marianne at 716 Comic. In one of the volumes, she says that she tries to do one thing a week that can only be done in New York. I am not quite so strict--I have been trying to do one thing a week that New York makes it easy to do. So if a band is on tour or there is an independent movie I want to, I count it, even though, technically, I could do those things somewhere else.

So far I've been doing pretty well. I missed a week or two, but did a few things a couple weeks, so it events out. Here is a sampling.

1) The Annie Leibovitz exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. While her celebrity pictures seem increasingly gimicky, the photos of her friends and family, including the post-mortem shots of Susan Sontag, were touching.

2) The African Comics Show at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Beautiful, touching, and brillant, as promised.

3) Sleepwalkers, the films of Douglas Aitken projected on side of MOMA. We wisely went on one of the coldest nights of the year, but the movies were still haunting.

4) Frances, at the Mercury Lounge. Neilson's downstairs roommate is the bassist in the band. Unlike many bands of friends, this one is actually good.

5) Jonathan Richman at the Knitting Factory. He was at his blissed out best and seemed on the verge of tears as realized how much the crowd loved him.

6) Steve Malkmus and the Jicks at Maxwells. A great show, with more intense guitar based rocking out than I was expecting. We got to go for free, because Neilson is college friends with the guitarist. He brought us free beers from the backstage lounge. (Also, Maxwells has great quesadillas, if you even happen to be in Hoboken.)

Coming Up: New York Comic Con and Steve Earle at the Blue Note.

look who's here!

Hi! I am so happy to be here. Kym and I are having a great few days together in Oswego. They really know how to plow here. Love flo

We're Engaged!

Hi Everyone,
As most everyone knows by now (no thanks to me) Jerry asked me to be his wife and I said YES. Jerry hand picked the emerald, it is from the Muzo mine in Columbia. The diamonds are antique and are from Jerry's great-grandmother's ring. The diamonds are cut in an antique way that makes them extra sparkley. Jerry designed the ring and had some of his friends who are jewelers create it.

We have set a date for May 24, 2008. After I finish law school and Jerry completes his flight training. We are getting married at the Inn at Chachalaca Bend. The website is www.chachalaca.com.


I love it so much, almost as much as I love Jerry.

This is the emerald before it was set in the ring.

Congratulations Jane!

I received this picture from my father last night, with the note "Jane and teammates celebrating city championship."

Oswego on TV

Oswego has been battling Obama's announcement for top new story of the day. Everyone seems to have a reporter there. Here are some blurry pictures.

It's A Freakin Winter Wonderland Out There

This will be a mostly visual post. Thought some of you might like to see what you are missing out on here in Oswego.

I'm still recovering from orals and looking a little crazed, but it is a tired, happy crazed.

Sorry about the blurry photo, but I had to rest the camera on the front porch railing in the wind on a time delay to get this picture. That is Washington Park behind me. Can you recognize it?

View out the landing between the 1st and 2nd floors.

The back porch is buried.

Goodbye 85 North 3rd St.

Last weekend, Eric and Calvin helped me move out of my studio in Williamsburg. Now I have a lovely (and relatively empty) storage space near Goshen NY.

I sometimes tell people I couldn't do something without them, rarely has it been as true as it was this time. Here are some pictures- we did have a really tasty lunch in the middle of the move.

The Tea Spot

I've been working this afternoon in my favorite new hang out, the Tea Spot on MacDougal Street. It has free wireless, excellent tea, and tasty food, including pumpkin bread and samosas. Yum. There is also a working fireplace downstairs. The only downside is that it is often filled with NYU undergraduates having some really annoying conversations, as they examine every last detail of their lives. I feel like I'm in a Felicity episode. (And yes, I am sure my conversations were just as annoying when I was 20.) The last time I was here there were two girls talking just a little too loudly about how much smarter they are than the other people in their classes. One of them seemed to have a strange relationship with her father; over the course of the afternoon, I learned he had told her she shouldn't wear flats since she refused to wear socks with them and that he had instructed her to breakup with her boyfriend when she went to law school. Right now, there is a couple clearly on a first date sitting next to me. The guy is telling the girl all about his last girlfriend and how mad he was that she started dating someone else right after the breakup. He also keeps answering his cell phone. My guess--no second date.

More on BCC Campus

Colston Hall, where my office and classrooms are, was designed by Marcel Breuer, a well known architect who was also the architect for the Whitney Museum. I'm not really a fan of minimalist, modern design, but it is still an interesting building.


My building is the one on the left.

Gainful Employment

Most people already know this, but I started a new job last week. I am an Assistant Professor of History at Bronx Community College. The first week went well. It is neat to get to know a new borough, as well.

The BCC campus is pretty cool. It was originally NYU's uptown campus and has several Stamford White buildings. The New York Times had an article on the campus recently which will give you a sense of what it is like there.

Well, I'm off to plan a lecture on the Age of Revolution.