Lindsey Astin profile picture

Lindsey Astin

Ironical authoress

About Me

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests: snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft against the
inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
...
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
-Seamus Heaney, "Digging"
I take pictures, badly. If you wanna see my flickr, go here - http://www.flickr.com/lindseyastin

My Interests

Anthropology, Indie Rock, Journalism, Tea, The Washington Post, Concerts,Batman, Washington DC, Arabic, NPR, This American Life

I'd like to meet:

My current favorite people: Bayard Rustinand Dan Savage

Music:

-Afghan Whigs -Twilight Singers -Regina Spektor -Leadbelly -Pearl Jam -Jeff Klein -TV On The Radio -Mark Lanegan -Manic Street Preachers -Embrace -30 Seconds To Mars -Various crappy Arabic pop -Neko Case -The Replacements -Goo Goo Dolls -Murder By Death -The Smiths -Scissor Sisters -Ted Leo and the Pharmacists -Nellie McKay -Cafe Tacuba -Augie March -Gym Class Heroes -Damien Rice -David Bowie -William Shatner -Cat Power -Iron Maiden -Johnny Cash -Sufjan Stevens -Mates of State -The Mountain Goats -Shout Out Louds -Billie Holliday -Jay Farrar -Mansun -Remy Zero -Youth Group -Radiohead -The Pogues -Juanes -The Streets -The Pixies -Bjork -Smog -REM -Motion City Soundtrack -The Academy Is... -Neutral Milk Hotel -The Decemberists -The Ramones -Kanye West -Nick Cave -PJ Harvey -Joseph Arthur -Jonathan Coulton -Prince -Patrick Wolf -Ryan Adams -1990s -Stars of Track and Field -Andrew Jackson Jihad -Q and Not U -The Weakerthans

Movies:

-Some Like It Hot -This Is Spinal Tap -The Edukators -Moulin Rouge -Paradise Now -Amelie -Say Anything -The Crying Game -Lagaan -Goodbye Lenin -Coming To America -Singles -Pride and Prejudice -Amores Perros -Quills -Sense and Sensibility -Whale Rider -The Life Aquatic -Batman Begins -Velvet Goldmine -Y Tu Mama Tambien -Annie Hall -Big Eden -Bad Education -West Beirut -Roxanne -Hard Day's Night -The Lives of Others -24 Hour Party People -The Royal Tenenbaums

Television:

-House MD -The Office -Scrubs -Entourage -Dexter -Torchwood -Doctor Who

Books:

-Stephen Fry -PG Wodehouse -Naguib Mahfouz -Oscar Wilde -Kahlil Gibran -Seamus Heaney -Jim Carroll -Ghassan Kanafani -Marjane Satrapi -Jasper Fforde -Jane Austen -David Foster Wallace -Chuck Klosterman -David Sedaris -Dave Barry -Christopher Buckley -Michel Foucault -Ruth Benedict -Khalad Hosseini

Heroes:

-Batman -Eddie Vedder -Jane Goodall -Stephen Fry -Oscar Wilde -Dr. Alfred Kinsey -Ira Glass -Andy Goldsworthy -Franz Boas -Margaret Mead -Ruth Benedict -Mary Douglas

My Blog

It’s ok to think about ending

So I graduate in a couple of weeks.  Scary thought, eh? And I just finished the draft of my thesis.  The culmination of 6 or so months of research, condensed into 24 pages.  Wow.  ...
Posted by Lindsey Astin on Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:50:00 PST

not in kansas anymore

OK, so our host family has a Western bathroom.  Which includes a Western toilet and a shower.  However, it's not usually a good idea to flush the toilet, since I think water is kin...
Posted by Lindsey Astin on Fri, 15 Jun 2007 04:07:00 PST

Askun fi Maghreb

I've been in Morocco for almost a week now.  It's been surreal to say the least.  It's kinda sad that probably after another week or so here, everything's gonna feel kind of old-hat, you kno...
Posted by Lindsey Astin on Mon, 04 Jun 2007 04:20:00 PST

adios for now

On Tuesday, I'm flying off to Morocco to study Arabic at the Arabic Language Institute in Fes.  I'll be gone until about mid-July.  I won't be taking my laptop so my only computer access wil...
Posted by Lindsey Astin on Sun, 27 May 2007 01:08:00 PST

goodbye frawley

So, Frawley was fired.  And now the university must do another million dollar scavenger hunt for a new president. He was a good guy and he showed a lot of promise.  I think he could have don...
Posted by Lindsey Astin on Wed, 02 May 2007 09:23:00 PST

update on tech, etc.

In the aftermath of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, it's been a rough past couple of days.  It's been really unsettling and upsetting listening to friends of mine talk about what it's been like dow...
Posted by Lindsey Astin on Thu, 19 Apr 2007 08:51:00 PST

freaked

I'm scared for someone right now.  Like, really scared. And it's not good at all and I don't know what to do.
Posted by Lindsey Astin on Mon, 16 Apr 2007 09:17:00 PST

My president pregames harder than you party

You know, I was hoping that one day, the University of Mary Washington would make a name for itself.  I didn't think it would happen quite like this. William Frawley, who happens to be the presid...
Posted by Lindsey Astin on Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:48:00 PST

Festival des Musiques Sacrées du Monde

This is probably only exciting to me but whatevs. I found out that I'm going to be in Fes during the famous World Sacred Music Festival!  The festival is held every year and is a week-long celebr...
Posted by Lindsey Astin on Mon, 19 Mar 2007 09:42:00 PST

Adventures from Katsucon, The End

So, where did I leave off?  Oh yea. Saturday night, after dinner at Murphy's, the...8 or 9 of us collapsed in the hotel room for a bit before Nina woke us up to go to the rave.  Grumpy thoug...
Posted by Lindsey Astin on Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:41:00 PST