How to wear a hat as an odious woman

It is January 29th. 

I submitted my PhD application to Syracuse 19 days ago. 

I have been checking The Grad Cafe, Reddit, and my email a billion times a day to see if any decisions have been released for UC Denver or Syracuse. Obsessive is hardly the word for my behavior. 

It turns out I DO want the approval of academics. Desperately. 

I was trying to figure out the other day if I actually want the approval, or if what I want is something that I am pretty sure I cannot have. That the obsession I'm currently living through is less to do with drive and more to do with the selfishness of demanding I be given a thing that was never meant to be mine because my covetousness refuses to allow me the grace of saying, "well...it isn't for me, and that is ok". Which thing is real? One? Both? A secret third thing? 

When I finished scouring Denver's EaHD program's professor list and finally found someone with research that aligns with my research interests, she and I emailed back and forth, very pleasantly, until I asked about future funding. My focus is...broadly...queerness. The climate has never been warm to queerness in academia...in any form, really...but very obviously this moment is practically at a temperature closing in on absolute zero. When I expressed concern about what future projects may look like (because as any prospective PhD candidate knows, programs are centered on research, research is centered on funding, and thus your acceptance is pretty largely hinged on who is doing funded research that aligns with your focus), and did she have any outlook on how bleak a future we may have as a possible mentor-mentee pair, I never heard back from her. I gave it a few weeks, not wanting to be a bother. It was, after all, the beginning of the semester, and I could only imagine the stress she was under. As the weeks gave way to months, I began to wonder if NOW was the time to email, or if I would look demanding. Was now the time to email, or would I seem entitled? Had I upset her? Did I ask a bad question? 

By the time I turned in my application, I was truly worried that I had fucked up that portion of the journey. One of the things they ask you to highlight in your personal statement is a professor you've created a relationship with who is willing to be your mentor. I omitted that from my statement. I did not know if she was willing anymore. When I got an email a couple of weeks later that my submitted application needed another transcript that hadn't been turned in, I bemoaned that those two things in conjunction made me look too stupid and careless and unfocused that I surely had blown my chances period. I was assured by almost everyone in my orbit that I was still a really good candidate, everything was fine. 

But secretly something else was gnawing at the back of my mind. Something I had really only said in an unanswered email to my would be mentor. 

Was there even space (read: money) for me in academia right now?

As I looked for professors at Syracuse who shared my focus, I found none. I reached out to three professors who had foci that were adjacent ENOUGH to my focus, got an answer back from one, and that answer felt curt, honestly, and wondered again if academia was hitting a for real brick wall moment for anybody in the DEI pathway. Not like the usual white supremacy brick wall that has always been scuttling between progress and people, but a black hole of it. When I talked with the director of Syracuse, I expressed concern at this. My focus is queerness, I said, and I'm deeply worried about funding. He assured me that Syracuse is funded separately and not beholden to the whims of the federal government. Well ok. Denver did not give me any such reassurances. In fact, Denver really does not offer much in the way of funding. Which is upsetting. 

I've spent the last few weeks thinking that the ultimate foil to my acceptance into a PhD program is the lack of acceptance of queerness. And isn't it ironic that my fucking research proposal is EXACTLY that. I proposed a longitudinal study on social attitudes toward queerness if queerness is normalized in academic settings. Syracuse asks you to propose research, that was what I proposed. Denver asks what you think is missing in the field, and I said the normalization of queerness. 

Do I stand firm by those things? I sure fucking do. But I think that Denver's hands may be tied here, and I think that Syracuse just doesn't have the professorship. 

I suppose we'll see. For all of my obsessing over decisions being released, I feel confident that I won't hear from anybody until at LEAST February. Mid to late. But I have already resigned myself to a double rejection, and while I feel pretty sure that I as a candidate am maybe not ideal just by virtue of myself, I also think that any rejections I get will be in no small part because I focus on queerness in academia. 

Waiting is misery. Just give me my rejections so I can cry about it and move on. 

I'm attracted to tall, skinny white men who look like they're recovering from the consumption

A few years ago, I graduated with my MA in Human Development. Like the completionist I am, I set myself to looking into PhD programs. I really and truly did my due diligence in looking for PhD programs that suited my focus. I know I've written about this all over the last few years...I contemplated applying to Cornell and ultimately decided not to...I didn't apply for the last year and half because I am so disgusted at how universities have responded to calls for transparency in relations with Israel/divestment from Israeli interests and the further genocide of Palestinians, the encampments in protest of genocide...places of higher education have a lot of explaining to do, and a lot of wrongs to right (and obviously not just in the last few years, but all across the board), and I had every intention of continuing to not apply in protest until several people I am in community with were like...uh bitch, nobody is calling for that boycott yet, just apply. 

So I'm applying. 

I found two programs that were an absolute dream to me:

Feminist Studies PhD (Seattle)

A dream program for me, honestly. It is ideal, and everything that I'm looking for, however I am very little of what THEY are looking for. I am an exceptionally poor, not at all competitive candidate. Derek told me to apply anyway, as he always does when I say that I am not the right fit for something. I told him the same thing I always tell him: I do not want to waste someone's time when I know full well I am not a good fit, and I also do not want someone in a position that I respect in a program I admire thinking I cannot read or understand the kind of candidate they desire. 

and

Educational Equity, Justice, Equity, and Diverse Identities EdD (Denver)

Another dream program for me, but their recruitment doesn't start until July 2026, and I am not even sure if that means their cohort meets in 2027. It could mean 2028. I think this program is a far better fit for me, but the latency of it gave me pause, and I think that I could achieve similar goals in another program. But still, an all around incredible program (in a state I fucking LOVE).

Obviously I did not apply to either of those programs. I instead went with:

Family Science and Human Development PhD (Denver)

I submitted my application for this program today, earlier this afternoon. Just under the wire, with exactly two weeks to spare before the application deadline. It is an excellent program, and while it isn't JEDI or a PhD in Feminist Studies, it is a wonderful, wonderful program. I have met with a few of the faculty, and they're all wonderful. I found a professor with a focus similar to mine that was happy to talk with me about upcoming research opportunities, which is nice, as in order to apply you have to talk with faculty and find a willing mentor. The program is very, very good. 

and

Sociology PhD (Syracuse)

I won't lie, I initially grabbed this one just to have a place in upstate/central NY because I want to go home so bad. I was not terribly hyped about this program, it just seemed pretty basic bitch to me. But then I met with the director after weeks of emailing back and forth, and I got kind of really excited about it. I think this could be a really fantastic program. They focus on eight core areas:

Inequalities

Globalization, Immigration, Transnational Studies

Population and Place

Education and Family

Health, Aging, and the Life Course, Disability

Power, Capital, and Politics

Methods

Theory

Now the latter two I could live without, but the other six? I challenge you to find a way that queerness and the further marginalized inside of the queer community are not issues for each and every one of them. Plus I really like the director. 

The deadline for Syracuse is January 10th. All I have left to do is write my personal statement....sadly my personal statement for UC Denver is not usable. I have one more letter of rec that needs to be sent to Syracuse, but she already let me know she'd need the break between deadlines to get them both done. Now, Syracuse doesn't require you to find a willing mentor, but the director did tell me it would behoove me to do so. I reached out to three faculty members, and only heard back from one. I'll be reaching back out to the director today to bemoan my lack of responses, but I'm not sure it'll matter much. 

But I have officially sent in my first PhD application. Which feels strange? I have spent the last few months really thinking about where I started my higher education journey. Once upon a time, I knew I'd be going to college. I knew I'd be getting a doctorate. I made my own college swag and adorned both my body and my room with it. I told people I was going to go to Cornell, and once I was "scouted" by Duke I told people I was going to Duke. Little me was always so sure of my academic promise, mostly because I had been hailed as a genius my entire life, in all of the gifted programs, targeted and sought after by Magnet schools (as if any of this means anything truly translatable when it comes to brains, potential, or talent, but what did I know?), but also because what else do smart little girls dream of? I never wanted to be a mother or a wife, that was all exceptionally boring. My playtime and daydreams focused on adventures and travel and bigger things than sedentary domesticity. I didn't know to dream of anything else. I stalled out when the sirens of domesticity forcibly drowned me, and I decided to make the most of the life I had by doing just enough to scrape by, and secretly knowing I could have been A Real Somebody once upon a time. I met Dan and he made me want to be a somebody again, but not for the right reasons yet...I wanted to be a somebody to HIM, and I I know I either always should have been or never should have been a partner, but wanting to be the kind of person he saw as worthy put me in college, and even though I wasn't in the right field yet, I knew college was the right starting point. I was almost to my BS in Business Administration when I was like, bruh I hate this, I hate Dan, and I hate myself for thinking this is who I needed to be...who am I actually? Changed majors to Psychology, got my BA in psychology (with honors, no less), and said to myself...is this it? Or can I be more? 

And I pushed further and got my MA in Human Development. I struggled, because higher education...education of any kind, really...is not built for autistic people. I had breakdowns, I lost faith in myself, I was angry at the lack of intersectionality, and I stuck with it and graduated with a 3.8 GPA. Not top of my class as defined by some places, but still top 20% of my class. Nothing to sneer at.  

When I started looking for PhD programs and asking for letters of rec from professors, my advisor told me she didn't think I could hack it. The words she really used were "concern about the ability to successfully cope with the rigors of a doctoral program" and I was so embarrassed. I was embarrassed to be autistic in a place that did not want me there and certainly didn't want me succeeding there. And I spent a whole year thinking about what she said and why she said it. I wrote her back in September telling her I DO want to apply to PhD programs, and the things she saw as weaknesses that gave her pause about my abilities to succeed were actually strengths, and despite all of the things she cited as reasons I would struggle, I still graduated with a 3.8 GPA, and I still stayed the course and didn't take a single semester off DESPITE the mental breakdown I had. I stayed a full time academic while having a full time job AND operating my own photography studio, while also being a full time mom and a spouse. People have done less academically with fewer life obligations and gotten glowing letters of rec, I deserved one, too.

I got them all. All of the letters of rec. All of the meetings with directors. Everything I needed, I demanded not from a place of entitlement, but because I earned every last fucking crumb of my asks. I did not submit a PhD application for Dan, I didn't do it for Derek, I didn't do it for my kids, I don't care about any of them here. I did it for me. For little me that knew I would get here. Who never doubted ONCE that I would get there. That me was thrilled to hit the submit button on her first PhD application, because she believed in my abilities without hesitation. 

Now. 

The caveat here is I didn't submit the best applications I could. And I am reticent to admit this, because if for some reason an admissions board sees this and thinks I don't actually want to be accepted, I won't be. Which isn't really true, ESPECIALLY for Denver. But there is a catch. 

Derek's marketplace opened and he put Washington State at the top of his list (Colorado is second, New York is third). I told him if he got Washington state, I would happily give up my PhD programs to go hiking for four years in the PNW. To my knowledge, I only get one crack at being alive, and I want to live it as tits out as I can, experiencing as much as humanly possible. Can I do that tethered to research for the next four years? No. No I cannot. So I took a sort of...spirited nonchalance approach to my applications. When I first set out to apply to programs, I told myself I was going to beef out my thesis (an embarrassing to me 15 pages, as Mizzou only required 13-15 pages) so I could make it longer and flesh out my ideas a whole lot more...I was going to agonize over my personal statement  until it was absolutely perfect. I was going to do this, that, and the other to ensure my acceptance into my schools, and give myself the pick of a lifetime so I could make the most of such an opportunity. 

What I did instead of care JUST ENOUGH. Did I put in an effort on my personal statement? Fuck  yeah I did. Did I put in as much effort as I COULD have? Not even close. I think I spent about ten hours TOTAL on my personal statement for Denver, and I only had one friend read it over for me. Did I beef up my thesis? Fuck no. I left it as is. 

My logic goes as follows:

If I do not get accepted by either program, I will feel sad because my ego is bruised that I'm not good enough for two state school PhD programs, but I will ultimately be free of the "what if" that not applying would forever haunt me with, and I can go on and live the rest of my life unbothered by the rigors of academia and its rotten systems. Derek and I can figure out what place we want to move to, and we can go on living our lives. I still have a master's degree, I am still a respected photographer, I still have options, I could just close the door on Academia. For good. 

If I get in to one school, and Washington State is on the table to move to, well then I'll know I'm a competitive candidate, and I'll know I could have done it. And I will (likely) decline and go live my life, content in the knowledge that knowing I could be A Real Somebody was never a fairy tale. And I will hike The Cascades as a brilliant, highly educated woman who chose a different path on purpose because life afforded her the ability to have options. 

If I get in to one or both schools and Washington is NOT on the table, well...I think I will probably take the program that accepts me/the program I think I could do more with. There IS a path forward here where I still say yes to a PhD if they say yes to me. Which is why I put in effort. And not even minimal effort, I put in more than minimal effort. But I didn't want to exert so much effort that I broke my back trying and trying and trying for institutions that will likely do their best to neg me for another four years. 

I feel like this is all a pretty solid plan. I feel excited about prospects for the first time in a long time. And I'm pretty rejuvenated that I ACTUALLY applied to a PhD program. Even if I don't get it, being able to do that seemed so far away 15 years ago. 20 years ago. 23 years ago. I haven't believed in my PhD capabilities since I was 16, and that's just fucking wild to me. 

I guess let's see how this all shakes out. 

Sharmwar's Pakistani Yeti Grill: Wisconsin Trip, Day Five: The Journey Home (the long way 'round)

Upsettingly, we were VERY on time this morning as far as getting out of the condo and on the road. We left pretty much RIGHT when we needed to...until we realized we had to stop for gas and cheese curds. So we should have left an hour and a half EARLIER. That would have set our day perfectly, but alas. We are poor planners. 

Well.

We made our way to Woodman's, and hunted out our glorious cheeses. And glorious cheese is exactly what we got. 

CHEESE.

A true embarrassment of cheesy riches, what are we supposed to do with all of these choices???? BUY ALL OF THE CHEESE??? Oh. Yeah. Yes. That's the obvious answer. My mistake. 

Oh, America. 

When your husband wants a snacking cheese, you get a block of muenster. We snack in ways that defy god and nature, taunting the laws of common decency and decorum. Those rules are not for us, we cry as we tear off chunks of cheese with our teeth, the crumbs of lesser bits tumbling off onto our shirts. We eat cheese as gods of old, without reservation, fear, or fork. 

I wanted this to be MY snacking cheese, but I cannot recall if I got it or not. It sounds fucking delightful.

HEY. 

In our defense...

So we normally do a big charcuterie board for NYE. Tradition every year. I never ask for presents for myself, I ask for gift cards so I can go balls out on cheeses every year. Last year we spent an impressive 600 dollars on our NYE charcuterie board, and it was EPIC. 

Being in Wisconsin...the cheese state of the midwest...we had easy access to all of the yummiest cheeses at ridiculous prices. We ended up buying several pounds of cheese and amish butter for 100 bucks, and all of this would normally cost us at least 300. Straight from the source for the win!

On to our bigger aim: 

Milwaukee. Which is Algonquin for "the good land". 

Our first stop was at Klode Park. It wasn't as cold out as I thought it was going to be, but it was fairly nippy. And I was a little upset, because I had to pee, and there wasn't a restroom in sight. Well. Not a "civilized" bathroom. I ended up popping a squat in a rock formation. You'll see!

The first little place I went looking for rocks, and I didn't turn up much, but the waves really reinforced how much I had to fucking pee. 

I met up with Derek at this little rock bunch. While he was wandering the shoreline, I was climbing around the rocks. Until he told me I wasn't supposed to do that. Oops! But I also am guilty of needing to pee REALLY fucking bad. Like, I deeply had to pee. Urgent. Emergency. 

So here is a shot of my husband, inside of the rock hole I pissed in not two minutes after this photo. Turns out we're both disrespectful heathens. 

Derek, seen here ignoring my calls to move on to the next beach spot. 

It took an additional twenty minutes for him to stop hunching over and to get in the car so we could move on to our next location.

All of my rocks so far!!

We drove over to Doctor's Park, and it ended up being our last rock hounding spot for this trip. 

It was really pretty! And still pretty cold, but at Klode I made the bold choice to take off my flippies and walk around in the water, which wasn't as cold as I assumed it was going to be, but also wasn't even close to fuckin' decent. It was pretty fucking cold. And I wanted to wade out for better rocks, so I had to put on my wellies. 

Derek and I wandered up the first path for about a quarter mile until I realized we weren't really making our way to the beach, we were just...moseying AROUND. We walked back the way we came, and discovered that we needed to take the path that went down and away from the parking lot. So we toddled downwards like the old fuddy duddies we are. 

This shit sucked going back up to the car. It LOOKS flat, but it's actually a pretty steep  uphill climb. I was breathing embarrassingly harder than I would have assumed, given how much cardio I do every day, but there I was, huffing and puffing. But that's not this part of the beach adventure. That's a later Drea problem. 

Well. It certainly isn't as pretty as Klode at the waterfront, but the water was also cloudier and choppier, so it also has those things counting against it. 

We had a really great time looking for rocks, though!! Derek was all about the yooperlites on Lake Superior, and here he was all about crinoids and fossils. I was just after rocks that I thought looked pretty. And I found a glut. 

I found TWO death plates and a big ass crinoid clump, and so many other pretty little rocks. A very successful rock adventure, if I do say so myself! And I do.

I had to pee again, and because it's winter, the facilities here for pottying were closed for the season. As if bladders give a shit. Anyway the moral of the story is, I walked all the way to the bathrooms, found them to be locked until spring, and then pissed all over the walls like a feral cat. I showed them!

Derek and I decided we actually wanted to go to Kimchi Pop 2 for lunch in Chicago, so we looked up the hours....closed until 5:30. We found another place with a reportedly delicious kimchi pancake, put it in the GPS, and were dismayed to see it was an almost three hour drive to Chicago. So we switched course, found a grocery store, bought snacks, and drove immediately home. 

In some very dense fog. Again.

But we made it in one piece! And we had so much fun rockhounding, and we were so sad to not get to spend more time on Lake Superior that we have been planning a trip back out there before we leave Missouri. We ALMOST booked a trip for the end of December, but thought better against it because the weather would probably be ass. 

So there we go! Our ten year anniversary trip was an all around success. 

Sharmwar's Pakistani Yeti Grill: Wisconsin trip, Day Four

Derek and I were SO EXCITED about this excursion. Today was the day we drove to Lake Superior to go agate and yooperlite hunting. In true us fashion, we did not get on the road exactly when we wanted to, but we were only an hour behind, so not too bad. 

It was foggy as fuck out:

And I initially thought nothing of it as far as concern for how the lake would be until we stopped about halfway through our trip and I saw snow EVERYWHERE. Apparently there had been a dece little snow storm, and I was suddenly worried the lake would be frozen over and our trip would be foiled. Good news from the future: It wasn't!

Derek chose a place called Little Girl's Point (...ew, potentially?) and our intention was to stop here first and mosey on over to two other locations, but that is not at all what happened. We stayed here the whole time. We arrived at around 2, which gave us really only 2.5 hours of light, and we got VERY wrapped up in rocks. 

There's the love of my life, looking for Yooperlites! I took this photo while putting on eight pairs of socks and my wooly boots, because it was truly cold as fuck out. 

I was trying to call out to Derek that a bald eagle was flying directly overhead, but he could not hear me over the sound of the waves and his hat covering his ears. I took a terrible picture of it for posterity. 

We were enveloped for the entire 2.5 hours of our entire proposed rock hounding time. I thought every single rock was a treasure, and Derek was being more discerning. I walked away with literally dozens of rocks, Derek was more particular. I told him we needed to go, since we still had a 4.5 hour drive home, and then we had to wake up early to leave tomorrow to go home, and he said I was right but then spent another 45 minutes looking for yooperlites. We did quarrel about that in the car on the way home, but oh well. Sunset was GLORIOUS. 

Thank you, Michigan, for a lovely time!

On our way home, we tried to figure out where to eat and ended up asking Heather if she'd pick up Ha Long Bay for us because we'd get back too late to pick it up ourselves. Allison grabbed it for us and left us a lovely little note on the bag:

During the drive, we decided that we would change up our proposed route home and instead leave early in the AM, head to Woodman's for cheese curds, then drive to Milwaukee and go rock hounding on Lake Michigan, then stop in Chicago for lunch at our favorite dim sum house, and THEN drive home. We'd arrive late, but thoroughly blissed out on rock hounding. And just as we were about to arrive back at the condo, I noticed this street sign and was perplexed at how to pronounce it:

...wat. 

Derek and I ate our dinner, I showered, he played with his rocks. I packed our suitcase, he played with his rocks. And then we went to bed, super excited for our busy day ahead and the long, re-routed trip home. 

Sharmwar's Pakistani Yeti Grill: Wisconsin Trip, Day Three

This is a pretty low level day. Derek and I ended up staying at the condo. I blogged, he repaired some stuff for his mom, and then we went and had dinner at Ha Long Bay with Heather and her girlfriend, Allison. Where Derek and I talked everybody's ears off for the entire two hours we were together. 

But the food was lovely!

Cute!!

I just love the buddha shaped beer. 

No beer for me!

We ate family style, and our spread was GORGEOUS. 

I was vaguely miffed that they brought me tom yum instead of the tom kha I ordered, but Allison ate it for me, as I am never going to say a negative word about service no matter how bad it is. 

A little laundry hamper of sticky rice! 

The soup I was so excited about. We had this about a decade ago, the first time we went to Wisconsin together, and I was obsessed with the soup. I have since learned to make it, and mine is superior. Sorry, Ha Long Bay. 

Dinner was on the high end of mediocre, if I'm being honest. It was GOOD, but Derek and I can make better. And the spice levels left a lot to be desired. Namely heat. But the company for dinner was fantastic. I love Allison, and I love Heather, and I love seeing Heather so happy. 

When we dropped Allison off at her place, a couple of F35s flew overhead, extremely loud and incredibly close (sorry, Johnathon Safran Foer, it isn't intentional that I steal that from you, it's just a really apt description), but they did look really cool in the extreme fog we had that night. Then Heather took us back to the condo, Derek and I stayed up and chatted for a little bit, and then we fell asleep. At an old person's hour. But this was the first night of full sleep I got at the condo. I was having weird dreams, and I kept getting up and pacing the condo during the night. 

Next day, MICHIGAN!

Sharmwar's Pakistani Yeti Grill: Wisconsin Trip, Day Two (part two)

After being greatly disappointed at both my inability to think about checking hours at Taliesin and the hours at Taliesin, Derek and I made our way back to Madison proper. We had determined that no trip to Wisconsin was acceptable without dedicating an obscene amount of time to cheese and cheeseries, so we found a cheesery to head to and charted our course. 

On the way in to The area that somehow houses House on the Rock AND Taliesin, I laughed at a building that I had initially thought was abandoned...and very horror movie looking.

Nice try, MURDER HOUSE.

I made a joke about the pumpkin stand luring in easily duped white women, and I just kind of enjoyed the general empty, creepy vibe of the place. 

....of what?

Oh.

But as we were slowly cruising the murder building, we heard a dog barking furiously at us, and assumed it may not be operational as a museum, but it is for sure not abandoned. I yelled a hello to the doggie (I'm still VERY white) and we drove through the small town to get pictures of a restaurant sign that we were perplexed and delighted by. 

What Derek and I could not determine was what was the worse reality for the image: that this place was owned by Asians who knew that the city is super racist and only wants to see white folks making "ethnic" food, or it was owned by white folks who were like, "we don't need inclusion in our logo!". We also mused over whether it would have been WORSE if there was an Asian cartoon image....how racist would that have been? We for sure chuckled over this in a way that made...at least me...feel slimy. 

We had about an hour drive back to Madison proper, chatting about this and that thing, I think I mostly complained about being tired. 

Hello, Madison skyline!

Don't you just hate the theater?

It didn't take long to spot the place where we were heading, it's pretty much right in the capitol district. 

We chose Fromagination as our cheesery destination for two reasons:

1) the pun;

B) it's queer owned and operated. 

How fucking CUTE is this little cheese shop????

I was immediately taken by this place. It is so warm and inviting when you walk in, and the people are every  bit as warm and inviting. 

Oh mylanta. 

All of the jams and jellies looked so delicious, but we didn't end up buying any. Derek correctly pointed out that I would be buying things based on what I wanted to eat, but would barely be able to have more than a tiny little taste. And while I love supporting local artisans over corporations, I feel desperately ill when I eat sugar. So. The jams and jellies remained untried and unpurchased. 

I was basking in the glory of allllll the cheese. 

We were matched up with a cheese monger who reminded me of Gianmarco Soresi, we very much enjoyed their company and I was super impressed by their monger knowledge. We started with the cheddars. Derek was SUPER intrigued by the 20 year from Hooks. 

That cheese is older than my youngest child, and almost as old as my oldest! 

...Unfortunately, I think my children would have tasted better. I fucking HATED the 20 year cheddar. I thought it tasted like a fucking belt that someone buried in fresh hay and then farted on. Dreadful taste. Very indelicately I asked for a napkin and spit out the cheese, politeness be damned, Ms. Manners can suck it. Derek loved the cheese, but didn't end up buying any for reasons I cannot recall. We both liked the 8 year, though. That was an incredible cheese, and wound up being the oldest cheese we purchased. I just could not fucking hack an older than 8 cheddar. Derek was like, you're on your period, you know it fucks up your taste buds! He's right...but I think that cheese was just gross. Like, full stop. I will not enjoy it on any other part of my cycle. No thank you. 

Notably absent from the tasting notes are leather belt, hay, and farts, but I promise you they're there.

My oldest love love LOVES tinned critters of the wet variety, and I so badly wanted to buy them some! But I think I'm going to grab them some from The Brown Derby in Springfield a little closer to NYE. But look how cute!!!

We mostly had the place to ourselves, so I felt ok to be my authentic self and openly hate the cheeses with boldness instead of trying to seem refined and polite. When I hated a cheese, I wore that hatred on my face proudly. 

I also cannot control things like that. 

BUT I didn't have to feel my usual embarrassment about it when it happened!

They sold local boozes, too, and Derek and I decided we would come back and purchase a few, as is our wont when we travel. Spoiler: we did not do that, we forgot, remembering only on our way to Milwaukee and by then it was too late. Sorry, booze makers of Wisconsin!!! Next time. 

Derek and I tried so many cheeses, and honestly, we could have done SO MUCH MORE financial damage to ourselves when we left, but we left with a very modest 100 dollar price tag and just a few of our favorite cheeses:

I couldn't POSSIBLY love cheese more. 

This really is a very modest outing for us. You'll see. 

We tipped our cheese monger handsomely, and left with our spoils. I'm fast-forwarding a bit to talk about the cheeses:

This was hands down my favorite cheese buy. Canela sounds like a super simple cheese, but it really packs a flavor whollop. I took one bite of this at Fromagination and said, "yeah, I'm gonna want a fucking pound of that." Derek was not terribly enamored on this cheese, but that's a boon for me, as I got to eat every last crumb. 

I'm writing this literally weeks after being home, and I am getting a little depressed that I ate all of this cheese already. This is Roelli's Little Mountain, an alpine style cheddar that I gasped audibly over at Fromagination. My second favorite cheese from our bunch. 

I had to really dig to recall what cheese this was, because I am not always consistent in checking my work when it comes to making sure I have all labels accounted for to credit the things I buy. But I found it after about 20 minutes of checking. This is St. Isadore's Bandaged Cheddar Cheese, an absolutely WILD cheese experience. The mouthfeel has all the hallmarks of an exceptional, aged cheddar...the old wax sensation highlighted by the crystalline crunch a tremendous cheddar gets as it ages, but the taste is like eating a caramel stuffed full of Fruity Pebbles. In the cheesiest way. I cannot explain how it works as a cheese, it should be disgusting because it borders on cloyingly sweet (for a cheese, that is. It isn't ACTUALLY sweet, but comparatively it is), but it's fucking incredible. I should have bought more. I SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT MORE. 

Derek got a bleu (they're one of his favorite types of cheese, if not his favorite) for himself. This is Roth's Blue Affinee, a buttermilk bleu, that I cared not one whit for. 

Up next...

Hook's Eight Year Cheddar, which borders on delicious and not my thing. I was alright with it in the cheesery, but I haven't tried it again since getting home and finishing my period (does anybody else's period fuck with their sense of taste and smell?). 

And the last cheese we have I don't have a picture of, because I fucking HATED IT in the store, but Derek was super convinced I would love it when I was finished bleeding. 

Blakesville Creamery's Shabby Shoe is a soft goat cheese with a geotrichum rind, and that's the least of its problems. One of my favorite soft cheese is from Cypress Grove Farms, the Humboldt Fog. I find it juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust funky enough with the grassy tartness of goat cheese to balance out the sharp edge of toe jam taste, and I get a little bit every year for our NYE bash. Derek and I shared this with our cheese monger and we were presented with Shabby Shoe. I instantly fucking hated it, Derek found it quite lovely, and he said I really needed to try it another day, because he was dead set on the idea that I would LOVE IT. I have not yet gone for it again. I hated it that much. 

We gathered our spoils and made our way to Global Market and Food Hall, highly recommended by my SIL. The light was so pretty, and I know it doesn't translate in this photo, but I'm posting it, anyway. 

There was one place I saw that I could reliably eat at there, and so many places Derek could try, so off we went. 

Looks promising to me!! 

No self-respecting international supermarket and food court can be without a tchotchke area that also includes huge vases and art pieces. 

And additional gift areas. 

This is where Derek ended up getting his food from, despite me telling him to get stuff from the African restaurant so he could FINALLY try fufu (I've been after him to try fufu for AGES, but every time I suggest we head to Levels for dinner, he sweetly chastises me about how I literally cannot eat anything on their menu), but I was GAGGING over this customer's seafood boil. I could smell it, it smelled amazing, and I fuckin' knew they meant god damn business when they handed over a bag that was double knotted. They were not fucking around. 

I was pretty surprised that this place was as empty as it was, the parking lot looked pretty full. That dark little restaurant? That's the place I could have gotten food from. Oh well!

So here's the place Derek got his food, he didn't get his from the Seafood Boil place they share a kitchen with. I actually think they're the same vendor. I'm not mad at it. 

And here is where Derek SHOULD have gotten his dinner from. I just wanted to snag a bite of plantain and fufu!!!! Can't do the simplest thing for his wife. SELFISH. 

After Derek placed his order, I wandered around the market to see if there was anything for me to get myself to cook when we got back to the townhouse. There was not, but there WAS AI Slop products!

I ALMOST bought these for the kids because I rolled my eyes so fucking hard at the pictures, and was practically dead with curiosity over what the biscuits actually looked like, and to top it off they were only 4 bucks a box, but then I decided better against it. 

I wandered around the grocery area, found myself missing Pan Asia and GW, and headed back over to Derek, disappointed in my lack of food options. Derek got his, though, and they smelled AMAZING. 

He ate a little bit in the car, said it was super salty, and then drove me to the store so I could pick up my own food and he could eat his in the car while I shopped. And then back to the townhouse we went. A pretty uneventful rest of our day.