More to Digest

I'm now the proud new owner of a tumblr account, readers. It's called "Transit Rife with Peril" and the address is amealyapple.tumblr.com (I'm keeping it simple for you).

I will continue to maintain this blog, in addition to the new one. The difference between this blog and T Rife with P is the difference between what I do and what I like. I'll use the tumblr as a vehicle to share various forms of mixed media that I find interesting or inspiring, but it will be less personal and self-involved than this one.

I hope you'll keep up with both.

Paris, or The City I Forgot to Tell You About

At the beginning of January, Anna and I embarked on a train journey to the City of Dreams, the City of Gastronomic Proportions, the City of Poetry on Snowy Cars. While we were there, we did some stuff.

We walked by a wide and winding river. We ate some Kravitz-approved falafel. We ate some non-Kravitz-approved falafel. We hurt an ankle. We got lost in the snow on the grounds of Versailles. We were only wearing tights.

We stayed in a hotel with lavender hallways and an elevator so small we didn't want to be in it at the same time (well, Anna didn't want to be in it at the same time as me). We got overcharged for breakfast pastries. We saw a small painting of a very famous lady, and a lot of bigger paintings of less famous ladies.

We ate duck. We drank absinthe. We drank wine. We put cheese on our windowsill to keep it cold. We argued about the temperature of the room at night. We thought about buying a new pair of boots. We went to a market.


We saw a tower that glitters at night but not in the sun. We saw graves with kiss marks, and graves without kiss marks, and graves that look like someone's been sleeping in them. We saw beds that look like no one's been sleeping in them.

We smoked a tiny cigar, and we listened to "Aux Champs Elysees." We went to the Amelie cafe. We rode through a long, dark tunnel on a train that dropped us off outside our front door.

Flaunting Your Wealth in Three Easy Steps

After a week filled with work, and writing too many words in too few hours, I needed to relax by doing something with my hands instead of with my brain.


Melissa provided me with a crisp dollar bill, a needle and thread, and some instructive aid.


I don't like patches and I don't like pins, but I've long been longing for a dollar bill on my denim jacket. With spring coming, and hipsters in the air, I thought it was about time for some DIY in the UK. Hey, England: You probably didn't know, but this is what freedom looks like.


"Oh, great," said my father. "That way, all the terrorists will know you're American."

George Szirtes, "Dressing"

Out of the dark a torso, more garment than flesh,
the weight of invisible breasts behind the high
empire line and twist of cord; empty and fresh

as air. It is just waiting for you to try
the outfit on for size, to become woman
and fill it out without pondering the why

and how of it, to step into the common
form-hugging sheath and gracefully undertake
the obligations implied by such things. No-one

goes naked in the world after all. For whose sake
do you become who you are? Are you alone
in the dark? Is it for yourself you ache

in the morning? Even if you were stone,
like a goddess, you would desire beyond
your fixity something already half-known

yet negotiable. As a child you respond
to the adult’s gravity with a blank stare
of instinctive hunger. You touch your blonde

hair and bunch it in your fist. You prepare
your flirtatious look. You play at control,
then lost, start crying at the small despair

you’re stuck with. But this is the soul
prepared for you, these garments that glow
in the dark and burn as fierce as coal.

and out of the same dark step the slow
suitors in their allotted garments, unsure
of their own identities, hoping to follow

the patterns they’ve guessed at, a mature
untroubled roundness weighing at their hearts,
and the breasts press against cloth as if nature

insisted they do so, as if there were darts
piercing them, as if becoming were all
in the hollow waiting garment that closes and parts.

You haven't gotten bigger.

Today I saw several buses bearing the simple reminder that "Creme Egg season is here." Cadbury Creme Eggs, only sold from New Year's Day to Easter Day annually, had completely slipped my mind until now. These delicious little buddies are my favorite thing about Easter, along with butter lambs, a bizarre metaphor for Jesus' rise from the dead.

As a seasonal item, Creme Eggs are unique in that they leave our sights and our stomachs long enough for us to forget their exact dimensions. But don't be fooled -- we've definitely been put on a restrictive diet by Cadbury in recent years.



But Cadbury is also making headlines lately because it's been bought out by Kraft, a move that puts thousands of jobs at stake. The loss of Cadbury, a "successful, iconic, independent UK brand", to big, bad, debt-ridden Kraft is stirring up a lot of negative emotions in the British collective consciousness.

I can't help but feel bittersweet now, sitting here with my two-for-80-pence, chocolatey, fondant-filled, maybe-smaller-than-last-year-but-still-big-enough-to-warm-my-heart eggs. What's a girl to do?

Prague, or The Prettiest City You Ever Did See

Prague was golden, beautiful, picturesque. It was also unbearably cold, which certainly put a damper on my sight-seeing abilities. But it's small; it's manageable; its subway system is so easy to use that it's almost child-like.


The thing about Prague that you realize soon after arriving is that it's One of Those Cities Where You Can't Find the Things You Want.

Let me explain. Since eliminating words from my vocabulary like "developed/developing" and "Third world country", I've had to find a new way to explain things. And it's all come down to questions like "Can I find the biscuits I want in your grocery stores?", "Is there a chance I might get sick if I eat in your restaurants?" and "Do you have authentic Indian food?" (Note: In India, the answer to the last question is a resounding yes, but don't be fooled -- it's still One of Those Places).

In Prague, the answers to these questions were "No", "Yes", and "Well, there's one place."

One thing you can find in abundance is coin-slot-faced babies. That's right. They're everywhere. Crawling up the TV tower, lounging in Kampa Park -- these sculptures by Czech artist David Černý were my favorite part of Prague.

Berlin, or The Search for the Perfect Christmas Market

Five Christmas markets. Four days. Three sausages. Two indefatigable travelers. And one creepy, creepy tower.


Our adventures began at Potsdamer Platz, where the Christmas market was laid out in one long row, 2.5 magical kilometers, making it easy to navigate and appreciate. This was the perfect introduction. Highlights included seeing pretzels in their natural habitat, some tasty little donuts, and a lone little boy riding a carousel to the strains of "It Must Have Been Love."

The next afternoon, Rachel and I trekked through the Heart of Darkness into the depths of West Berlin to visit the market at Schloss Charlottenburg. I bought some delicious organic nougat, Rachel bought some lebkuchen, and we took the U-bahn back to Alexanderplatz due to sub-zero temperatures.

But we hadn't had enough Christmas market for one day. The advantage of the Alexanderplatz market is the feeling of being constantly watched by the TV Tower, arguably my favorite public monument of all time. I can't really explain why I love it so much, except for the fact that it's always there. Watching. Waiting.



Gendarmenmarkt was probably the best. Even though they charged 1 Euro admission, they more than made up for the cost with all of the free samples. Foods and crafts were fancier here, but they were missing traditional Christmas market staples like wurst and gluhwein.

On our way home, we swung by the Opernpalais Christmas market for a last hurrah. I ate a Langos, the ordering of which allowed me to speak my longest German sentence to date: "Ein langos mit zucker und zimt, bitte." I was so proud.

The thing about German Christmas markets that makes them infinitely more bearable than American craft shows isn't just the Christmas spirit, the fairy lights, or the novelty I experience as a foreigner -- it's the lack of repetition. Sure, each Christmas market has the same stalls. But there's only one of each stall at each market. You see the wood crafts, the lace doilies, and the scented candles -- and then it's over. Kitsch is kept to a strict minimum in order to concentrate on what's really important: Food.