postcards from new mexico

Last weekend, J. and I went to New Mexico for some of his family stuff. We went for a hike near his cousin's house. Look, it is the desert!

But there were more deciduous trees and fewer giant cacti wearing sombreros than I anticipated. It is definitely spring there.

A fence. Not pictured: The Rio Grande river, because it was really glarey. But we saw it.

Black and white = I M R-tistic.

These are the Dr. Seuss guys, no?

The next day, we visited Santa Fe, where we went into a store with this amusing barbeque sauce. The sauce helped me feel less bad about the delicious pork-filled tamales we ate on the street a few minutes later. I am not a vegetarian when the spirit of "cultural exploration" strikes, no sir.

We went to St. Francis Cathedral, right in the center of town. Outside it is a statue of the first Native American woman to become a saint, Kateri Tekakwitha.

Pretty votive candles in the church.

Santa Fe was really lovely. For all you "Rent" lovers: We did not open up a restaurant there, but the song was in my head all day.

missed connections

There's a sign in the locker room at the gym threatening to punish people who don't pay a monthly fee for a locker and then leave a lock on one anyway. Or something like that, I'm not sure; living across the street from your gym allows you not to need a locker and therefore exempts you from paying attention to signs like that.

But anyway, the sign:

Clean out your locker blah blah something WE WILL CUT LOCKS.

Why do I always, every single time I see it, think it's talking about hair?

pretty pictures

Photos from Europe are here -- in under a month, this time! A low bar, but I have cleared it. Low expectations, baby.

I wish I were still in Europe. If that were the case, I wouldn't be going to work, which would mean I wouldn't have been trying to merge onto Rock Creek Parkway at 6:50 this morning, which would mean some woman wouldn't have whacked into me with her car and cracked my fender. No one was hurt, no big deal, but inconvenient and annoying. Only one reason to want to be across the ocean right now, but a pretty decent one.

up in the air, junior birdmen

(Five pretend bucks to anyone who can explain that song to me... who are the junior birdmen? Why are they up in the air, upside down?)

I am leaving for Europe in one (1) week. That is seven (7) days from now, but really not even that, because my flight leaves mid-afternoon, so it is actually less time than I thought. I had the urgent need to touch my passport today to prove that it still existed, because I didn't really remember bringing it back from Canadia. It still exists, and is good until Oct. 17, 2010, in case you were concerned.

We will be going to four (4) (is that annoying yet?) (it is annoying to me) cities in less than two (ha! not doing it anymore! i am free from its clutches) weeks. I don't really know anything about these cities, which seems like something I should correct. Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, in that order. Ideas welcome.

re-upping

It was fun last year, so let's have a re-meme...

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?

Watched the world's highest tides come in at the Bay of Fundy. Cared about tides at all. Learned to like pretty much all seafood. Took a lot more work-related responsibility. Rode a bike.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Yeah... I always make them, and I always sort of keep them. Emphasis on the "sort of" part of that sentence -- I need some new ones now.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yes, and more people close to me are on the list (and the list of potential adoptive parents) for 2007.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, unless you count James Brown and Gerald Ford. Which I do not.

5. What countries did you visit?

Canadia.

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?

More time for everything. More writing. More self-discipline (that's the same as 2005's wish, sadly). Some sort of coherent life plan.

7. What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Er, hm. Is it bad that I already am not remembering any?

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Learning to ride a bike. At last, my friends.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not riding said bike a little more, and not keeping some of my health-related resolutions from last year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Not except for my DAMN TEETH, the evil bastards.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Bike!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Are we avoiding political topics? We are, right. Um, non-political: Margaret Atwood, for writing the most amazing book for 2006. Also Mark Haddon and several other authors, and the good folks of Bookslut for telling me about them.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

No politics, la la. Maybe some of those non-underwear-wearing celebrities, although I can't pretend I really truly care about that.

14. Where did most of your money go?

The verbatim answer from last year: If only I knew. To Amtrak, to car repairs, to various yarn stores, to my overpriced gym, to eating out way too much. [Plus: DAMN DENTIST. --ed.]

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Going on vacation with J. Seeing a friend I'd worried I'd lost touch with. Going back to African dance. Dumb reality TV.

16. What song will always remind you of 2005?

The Weepies' "Gotta Have You."

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? both, sometimes
b) thinner or fatter? about the same
c) richer or poorer? about the same

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Bike riding. (Hello, theme.) Exercising in general. Cooking. Visiting my family.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Worrying, again. Watching stupid television shows.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

Too late, but I had dinner with friends and went to Lancaster the next morning. We will be trekking out to Rockville to go to a party on New Year's.

*(now is where I started editing last year because this is getting boring and repetitive)*

23. What was your favorite TV program?

Top Chef. Or Grey's Anatomy, when I get to watch it with Shannon.

25. What was the best book you read?

Abovementioned Atwood and Haddon.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

The Weepies, also abovementioned. Thanks, H.

27. What did you want and get?

Love, happiness, etc., barf. And a digital camera.

28. What did you want and not get?

Nothing I'll admit to.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

Little Miss Sunshine.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

29, and J. cooked a lobster. It ruled.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Second verse, same as the first: If I had gone a whole year with no cavities. This is getting really repetitive, sorry.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?

Nonexistant? But I did get really nice work-appropriate shoes.

33. What kept you sane?

All y'all. (I learned to spell "y'all" correctly this year, also -- thanks, Cindy.)


34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

McSteamy. I'm such a cliche.


38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.

Oy, again. Let's do another quote:

"As humans, after all, we become that which we seek. Dairy farming makes men steady and reliable and temperate; deer hunting makes men quiet and fast and sensitive; lobster fishing makes men suspicious and wily and ruthless." -- Linda Greenlaw

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Five green and speckled frogs, sitting on a speckled log, eating the most delicious bugs. Yum, yum, yum.

kept down by the Man

The Dental Man, that is. I walked in my door just now, home early from work on a beautiful sunny day, picked up the mail, leafed through it, la la happy. What is this? Oh, an envelope from my dentist. He must be writing to wish me a happy Chanukah, right? Wrong. A bill.

(I'm going to write this next part in white, because it is really scary. Highlight it if you're not afraid of the scary scary number.)

$1,061.84

I knew this bill was coming, and I knew it wouldn't be pretty. I already paid them $850 back in the middle of all the fun, but this payment was waiting on the dentist to check to see if my insurance company would waive its $1,000 per year limit.

Hey, guess what?

It wouldn't.

[Editor's retrospective note: Why did I think it was even a possibility? Why did the dentist's office? Insurance companies aren't exactly known for flexible and forgiving policies.]

This means that I've had $2,911.84 of dental fun in 2006. Here's the part where I could go into how I have a somewhat large credit card bill this month, and how I am supposed to buy plane tickets to Amsterdam, Prague and Vienna next week. But I won't. Instead, I will just say... damn it.

a statistically representative survey

Apologies for the long absence -- things have been v. busy, so I'm a little behind on my reality TV viewing... and thus have nothing to discuss on ye olde blogge. But I am in need of opinion and turning to you in supplication. Some questions, written in traditional poll-speak:

1. How do you feel about the following poem -- very positive, somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative or very negative?

2. Do you feel that the inclusion of the word "death" makes the poem appropriate or inappropriate for a festive occasion?

3. If this poem were read at your wedding, would you be pleased or not pleased?

(Please be advised that the pollster -- me -- loves this poem very much for some reason, and the lines "O, to take what we love inside/ to carry within us an orchard" bring a bit of a lump to her throat every single time she reads it. Said pollster is just not entirely sure it's appropriate for a bridesmaid-y toast.)

---

From Blossoms, by Li-Young Lee

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

demanding a recount

I might take it back -- this interview makes Emily sound really terrible. The defense "I've worked in really good restaurants, so I couldn't possibly have made food that's too salty" is incredibly stupid. I hate what she says about the woman who didn't like her stupid upper-crust ice cream, and her incredibly snotty comments about Friday's and being a chef in general. All the rest of those people are chefs too, and they managed to figure out how to do this, so don't blame the show for your lack of creativity. I kind of can't stand her now. It's all sooo coooomplicated, you know?

I worked 20 hours in a row, post-election, and now I have tomorrow off. And let's just say I'm too jaded to say more than this, but I'm not sad about the outcomes of said elections.

it's official, part II

I don't know when this happened either, but now I'm not just someone who cries at poignant sociological experiments, I'm someone who cries -- in public, no less -- at reality TV. A reality TV show I'm not even watching.

Maybe I saw part of the Top Chef premiere after the Project Runway finale, and maybe I kind of saw the end of another episode after that. And, OK, maybe I accidentally downloaded last week's episode from iTunes (yes I accidentally paid for it... it's only $1.99... I spend that much on coffee some days... that doesn't mean I LIKE this trash or anything... it just sort of fell into my open browser window...). And tonight I went to the damn gym specifically at 6 p.m. on a Friday, knowing that I'll have to take a shower before I can leave the house again later and therefore will be stepping outside into the 30-degree night with wet hair, just so I could see this week's episode.

That doesn't mean I'm watching it or anything.

Ahem. So here is a brief recap. Actually, HERE is a brief recap, told better than I can tell it, plus I missed the first 10 minutes and all the drama about the bacon-and-avocado ice cream.

I came in right as the big quiet sexy guy who always wins immunity was winning immunity. The main challenge this week is to create a dish for TGI Friday's menu, and it would be judged by a TGI Friday's chef guy and a bunch of firefighters and the really annoying permanent judges, whatever, some contrived thing, OK.

The bottom three -- as in, one of them will get kicked off the show at the end of the episode -- are:

1) an older guy who made this psychotic Alice in Wonderland thing that looked completely inedible, but you sort of had to give him points for trying

2) this woman who was sort of out of her league because she's a fancy high-end chef who hadn't ever been to Friday's or something, and whose dish was too salty

and 3) this horrendous, obnoxious, ridiculous asshole overgrown frat boy who insults all the other contestants and basically ruined the last challenge for his whole team. He, Michael, spent $8 of his allotted $100 to buy beer to drink and put back some damn cheese he needed for his gross nasty cheesesteak so he could get something for himself. He is the kind of guy who can't hold down a job and is proud of it, and he is the kind of guy who ostensibly makes good television.

[Insert paragraph about how yes, it's reality TV, and yes, they're stereotyping and editing people into characters. Totally true, and I'm sure applicable in this case, but you can't edit words into people's mouths and I would bet everything I have in this world that real Michael is not measurably different than TV Michael.]

Do you see where this is going? Michael didn't lose, and the woman -- Emily -- had to go home. You guys... it was so unfair. It was SO UNFAIR. Emily looked like someone I worked on the paper with in college, and like someone you would actually be friends with amid the sea of fake personalities. She was quiet, and she wasn't sexy like big quiet sexy guy, and she didn't make good television. They sent her home EVENTHOUGH, as the recapper put it, Michael deserved it so much more.

She cried. She cried so much because she CARED, maybe more than she should have or whatever, but you could just see how this was humiliating to her and how she couldn't stop and how oooooh I hate that freaking Michael. When the final verdict was announced from those obnoxious, manipulated judges, she couldn't even look at them, and then when she told the rest of the characters (er, contestants), big quiet sexy guy just folded her into her arms and she sobbed and sobbed. Aargh. The unfairness of the world is too much tonight, I'm serious.

I'm going to hit publish now before I delete this and try to deny I've ever seen this show. Is it the hugging? Maybe it's the hugging. Geez.

(Side note for the cooks: Some of the food, especially the grilled cheese and tomato-red-pepper soup and the skewer things and the mint fruit salad looked so good I wanted to reach into the screen and take some. The recipes seem pretty doable, too.)

it's official

I don't know when this happened, but I'm now someone who cries at things like the Free Hugs Campaign. (The You Tube video streams better, perhaps because the real site is getting too much traffic from sappy individuals like yours truly.)

a lot of sentimental valiums

I swear I've thought of six different things to blog about in the last week or so, and not a one is occurring to me now that I need some form of procrastination. Working this many hours sucks all non-election-related thoughts into some secondary brain area that will not be accessible for another, what, 10 days? Come back, secondary brain area.

Rufus Wainwright's "Poses" has flooded back into my life suddenly, after I overdosed on it a couple years ago and after XPN wouldn't stop its funding drive even after I gave money. Public radio stations should develop some kind of magical feature that lets you plug in a secret code to prove you already ponied up and turns off the heckling. I still feel guilty and the begging makes me sad. Anyway, I needed background noise, couldn't deal with more election-talk on TV or money-talk on the radio, and thus could only choose from one of the three CDs I have in my office. One is Zero Seven, which makes me fall asleep, and one is... I forget, but it leaves me with Rufus. And I am reminded that he is lovely. The end.

Another reason to love Anne Lamott: The Rights of the Born.

Randomness concluded. When the secondary area is re-activated, there will be more content, I swear...

birds do it, bees do it...

... even really blurry turtles do it, apparently. Fall in love, that is. Here by popular demand:


It's book week at Slate, and today there was this, from this:

I read somewhere once that in the 1960s fiction writers were troubled by the notion that life was becoming stranger and more sensational than made-up stories could ever hope to be. Our new problem -- more profound, I think -- is that life no longer resembles a story. Events intersect but don't progress. People interact but don't make contact.

This is well-said.

This is an anemone. Anananananemone.

gluggle-uggle-uggle

We will have to wait for the professional photographer for good photos of Shannon's lovely aquarium-style birthday, because almost every picture I took yesterday came out looking like I'd been holding the camera underwater with the fish. Nineteen out of 20 photos without the flash are too blurry to keep. It's funny how stuff begets stuff; this new camera, which I adore and have owned for less than six months, now only makes me want a better camera.

But what I can do is transcribe my favorite conversation from yesterday. The scene: Shannon and Gaby are standing in front of a big, backlit wall of oversized photos.

S: What's that one?
G: Ladybugs.
S: What's that one?
G: Clams.
S: And that one?
G: Bees.
S: How about that one?
G: BORED.

Ha! So adorable, that kid, and her mom is pretty great too. I feel acutely lucky to have her in my life, as a matter of fact. I can't believe we've known each other for seven years at this point, and that we're both knocking on 30's door.

OK, time for baseball -- oh hey, it's the postseason! Suddenly, it is the 42 seconds out of the year I care about this dumb sport, and I need to figure out which channel Fox is and start staying up way too late to watch extra innings and stuff. Speaking of late, go Yank... er, wait a minute...

the dawn's light, a little later

I told myself I wasn't allowed to write again until I had all the photos uploaded and captioned; exactly one month later, here we are!


Awesome, drippy moss was worth the wait, right?

Here is the whole thing at the Kodak Gallery, which is great for ordering prints that get delivered right to your local CVS but, I have to say, not so user-friendly with the 80 zillion hours of upload time required for each photo.

the dawn's early light

Harbor Head Lighthouse, Campobello Island; sign above the tank of Herman, Deer Island's largest lobster, who lives at the 45th P@rallel Motel; kayaking on the Bay of Fundy off Spencer's Island, Cape Chignecto, Nova Scotia; sunrise at Schoodic Point, Acadia National Park.

Mm yes.

More pictures and a link to the Kodak Photo Gallery thing when I have everything uploaded, which may be a while. But vacation was wonderful, suffice it to say -- wonderful enough that it made the 472 emails waiting in my inbox a little easier to take.

blame canada...

... if you cannot reach me for the next week, because Canada is where I'll be. I hear there might be moose there, and possibly Mounties, and maybe Cartman. I'll report back.

you make me happy when skies are gray

Run, do not walk, to your nearest theater to go see Little Miss Sunshine.

Here, here is the trailer.

DUDE(s). I loved that movie. I don't even have anything all that coherent to say about it, except that I really, really liked it. I've also never been in a movie theater -- or any kind of room, maybe, come to think of it -- that was so full of other people reacting to something in exactly the same way I was. There was clapping and shouting out loud and laughing and also laughing and crying at the same time. Kind of unreal. It just feels so much bigger than the some of its modest parts.

Everyone else likes it, too, and the Chicago Tribune got it just about perfect with, "It's difficult to convey the sheer joy of watching these characters interact." (Almost everyone else, I should say. Shut up with your "rickety vehicle that travels mostly downhill," second-rate Village Voice, what do you know, and stop being so in love with your own mediocre metaphor.)

OK, I have to go watch the trailer again.

the greens of summer

Hiking at Great Falls this morning made me feel all artistic-like. I was dawdling so much, taking pictures of leaves and bark and bugs and tiny worms, that J had call up to the friends ahead of us, "Hold on, we have to wait for Ansel Adams." Ha.


The Falls, they are Great. We were on the Virginia side; I'd only been on the Maryland side before.


This was on the lookout spot where we were standing... probably 30 feet higher and 20 feet back from where the water is now. Impossible to imagine the water that high.


Moss, rolling stone, etc. etc.


Note the accompanying image.


... makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah...

[obligatory lyric from the musical "hair"]

So, do any of you watch "Grey's Anatomy"? I just got the first DVD of the first season from Netflix, and I enjoyed it very much. I also enjoyed P*trick Dempsey, aka Dr. McDreamy. (Said dreaminess caused one of my roommates to exclaim "revenge of the nerds!" when recalling his character on "Can't Buy Me Love.")

Anyway, I think I just got a haircut that looks remarkably like his hair on that show, and... not sure it's a good thing. My hair is SHORT, circa 1996 levels of short, and feel like Dr. McDreamy without the dreamy. Or the doctor. Actually, looking at those two photos makes me realize the hair looks like the "Can't Buy Me Love" Dempsey, not the "Grey's Anatomy" Dempsey. I am skeptical:


See, that's me being skeptical. Also me looking like Mad-Eye Moody from the Harry Potter books, not sure what's up with that either.

just a bowl of cherries

Cherries at Larriland Farm, home of all the fruit picking I've been doing recently with Shannon and my very favorite Gaby, among others. (I really, really like my camera, by the way. A whole lot.)

I've also been doing a fair amount of cooking recently; something about it makes me feel grounded, like my life is organized and centered if I have time for it. Eating yogurt and toast for dinner still serves me well, but making brown rice curry salad and blueberry-lemon muffins and >gallo pinto and tart cherry pies (Exhibit A:


pretty, no?) has me feeling like things are a little more together than they probably actually are.

It's July in DC, suddenly stupid sweaty summer, and I am reminded that I hate this damn season here, and it makes me want to move somewhere less swampy.

I fell off the bike! But I got back on, and now my cool giant scratches are almost completely faded, even though I'm still wearing the big special band-aids over them.

I went to the dentist today and I have two cavities. So much for the goal of 365 days without tooth decay. Sigh.

J and I are going to Canada (blame Canada! blame Canada!) for a vacation in early August. Yay vacation. Let me know if you have any good New Brunswick Nova Scotia tips.

Speaking of vacation, I am ready for Alissa to come back from hers, because I miss emailing her. I had a really fun time in Lanky last weekend with these wonderful crazy old friends whom I adore. H and K came to our barbeque the other night. There are more fun visits and trips in the future. OK, maybe there are a few redeemable things about summer...

with thoughts of you i am aglow

You should go read/watch "Daniel Gr*ss eats a book. By Daniel Gr*ss." Ha!

So most of you probably know this by now, but after 28 bike-less years, I can finally (mostly) ride one! J's magic system, which I think basically consisted of just being really patient, has paid off. No one told me that it feels kind of awesome. Thanks to those of you who have also tried over the years -- I'm sure there was some cumulative effect happening, too.

Rejection letter count: lucky number 13. Moving on.

We had a very lovely Friday in Philly, walking on the Forbidden Road (Liss, that is what it was called, right?) and eating delicious pasteballs and seeing sweet G*rlyman with H and siblings. The rest of the weekend was fun and relaxing in that Lancaster-coma way. And now we're back to Monday, back to real life, nose to the grindstone, pedal to the metal, etc. etc. etc.

For the record, I am very much into this new bluegrass-y S*rah H*rmer album:

Well now how did they get that lady on TV
Laughing so naturally
For a Wal-Mart ad
Is it not as bad as I thought?

What else? Nothing else. You watched the book-eating thing, right? No? Go now, I'm serious.

green is all there is to be

Isn't there some line from a Muppet song about sitting on a lilypad? Totally slipping my mind.

Am off to sunny, lovely Detroit (the third time in nine months!) but will be back late Monday night, and I hereby vow to start cooking again when I return...

paperback writer

1. J.K. R*wling has a problem, and I thought the exact same thing as the Bookslut people... "Gee, it sure is hard to find... uh... piles of money lying on the ground around here! And, let's see, um, new iPods! And freshwater pearls, and bars of solid gold! Yeah!"

2. Eight rejection letters and counting. Can we make this into a drinking game somehow?

3. They had some kind of reception at my office last night, and this morning there were all of these large, live potted trees left over. Apparently they were rented, and a guy was taking them outside by himself, so the trees were lined up in front of the elevators in the morning. In the afternoon, when I went to leave, the elevator door opened and there was just a lone tree, standing there, no person in sight. (First thought: aah?; Second thought: cool; third thought: K's "tree"?)

4. May I recommend W*lla C*ther's "My Antonia." I picked it up at a used book sale it thinking it would be a good-for-me book, a classic I'd never read, and wound up loving it intensely. How could you not:

Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep. (18)

ocean crossings, mountains to climb

I spent the weekend in the Garden State, first going to a wedding in Cherry Hill and then to visit J's friends in Princeton. My train came in at 10 last night and it was pouring; I thought I'd treat myself and take a cab, but when I went around to the front of the station, there was this Lord-of-the-Flies-style scenario unfolding. People -- about 300 wet, snarling, insane people -- were jostling for the cabs like their lives depended on it.

Didn't take long for the Metro to look very inviting, but at the end of my cheap and soothing little interval underground, I had to walk home in the downpour with my suitcase, which sadly did not contain an umbrella no matter how much I tried to will one to appear.

I chose a route home that would deliberately be up one of the more residential streets with a lot of trees to protect me from the rain (note to future self: that totally doesn't work). There was this man standing in one of the really pretty, careful gardens outside some of the row houses on the street. He was standing next to a gigantic rosebush taller than he was, with these lush bright pink blooms, and very carefully squeezing the water from the blossoms into a big plastic cup. He did it so gently and gingerly. It took my breath away.

I don't know why he was doing it, if it was because he wanted to use the rosewater somehow or if it's bad for rain to pool in the blossoms, but it made me think of this song, and of the ways people can be gentle with things and each other without knowing anyone else is paying attention.

a thousand words

OK, they may not be worth that much, but I've been taking a lot of pictures with my new digital camera. Things really do look different through the lens. LCD screen. Whatever.

More words forthcoming someday soon...

from Lidiosyncratic Idife

(That doesn't work as well as "Hiami Merald," does it...)

Hi, everyone. This is A, from Idiosyncratic Life. (Hallo!) Since a lot of my readers also read this blog, I just wanted to let you know why I recently took down a few posts. My company is implementing a policy that regulates its employees' "online presence." We are allowed to have blogs, as long as we get permission first. They cited recent examples of journalists getting dooced, etc.

So I took my trusty laptop into the Grand Poobah's office and showed him my humble little blog. He got a kick out it, actually, gave me his approval and placed a record of his permission in my file. Which is actually probably a good thing, mutual protection and all that. I will probably be extra careful about swapping words a la "Hiami Merald." I took down "Musing" because I didn't want the first thing Grand Poobah to read as he reviewed my blog was that I was occasionally called a "fat dyke" in high school graffiti. That entry is now back up.

Yes, my boss's boss's boss's boss now knows about Bella and her Monkey toy. I am, however, allowed to refer to myself as "Chunky Photojournalist Barbie," which he thought was hilarious. He also knows I own a deranged fluffy white cat that pees on the dog's toy box from time to time, but what can ya do?

So that's the update. Okay? Okay. Thanks for understanding and please keep reading!

long ago, somebody left with the cup

I have been systematically reading through the archives of mimi smartypants, who is one of those famous-for-the-Internet people (much like famous-for-DC people, I guess) that I can't believe I didn't discover earlier. She is awesome, and I am sure I am subconsciously going to mimic her style, so I might as well do it openly and use a list for starters.

1. Have I told you I have an aquarium at work? I do. It's awesome. It's directly in my line of vision, and I watch my little zebra danios swim around all day. One of them, the biggest one, has taken to guarding the front right corner of the bottom of the tank, where there just so happens to be a very tasteful plastic treasure chest. (My friend R. felt very strongly that all fishtanks should have treasure chests. So be it.) A greedy pirate fish? You decide.

2. I did finally send the letters referenced in the last post. Two rejections and one not-rejection which is really really not yet anything and probably will never be anything, so stay away, evil jinxing kinahurrah eye. Shh. Here, evil jinxing eye, read this part! LOOK OVER HERE: I got one "no new submissions" rejection and one "we like your 'clear prose' but not enough to take you on" rejection. Pay attention to those two instead.

3. I went back to yoga for the first time in almost four months today. We did goddess pose and moon salutes and yay, yoga.

4. J. and I are going to the Outer Banks this weekend for a mini-break, a la Bridget Jones. I have never been there before and am irrationally excited, but please don't let me come back with one of those OBX stickers for my car.

5. Conversation overheard at the gym (between two straight guys, I think, what are the odds?):

Guy 1: So then I said, dude, no way am I going to your house. And she was like, either you are or we're breaking up.

Guy 2: That's why you broke up?

Guy 1, defensive: Yeah! I mean, dude.

Guy 2: I mean, that was totally unreasonable, sure, but I wouldn't have broken up with her for that.

Guy 1: Come on! You would have broken up with her right after that zoo thing!

Guy 2, laughing: Yeah, I guess you're right.

What could "that zoo thing" possibly be? She wanted him to go to the zoo and she wouldn't? She refused to go to the zoo when he wanted to? Something extreme and crazy happened at the zoo that was so extreme and crazy it's self-explanatory to Guy 2?

it's hard out here for a wimp

Today is another foray into the Secret World of Daytime. I took the day off of work to further recover from California (a great time, but those redeye flights leave you a little raw) and get everything ready to send to the literary agents. I came to the coffeeshop so I could "focus" better than I do at home, realizing full well that they have wireless here, which makes "focus" very "funny."

So. Here we are.

You do realize that for my job, I write great swaths of text every day. Hundreds and hundreds of words; I just kind of stare at the screen and it happens. Ditto for the novel -- I had writer's block here and there, but it was mostly in the editing process. Quality is another story, but quantity has never been the problem.

I've now written, oh, 11 original words in the space of... three and a half hours. HOURS.

I've consumed two $3.50 decaf skim lattes (yes, I know how lame and "we met at the Starbucks diagonally across the street!" a coffee order that is, thank you), one $7 salad and four animal crackers. They have Nutella and strawberries on the menu here, and I may require an infusion.

I've made polite conversation with the woman sitting next to me, who is applying for a job at the World Bank. I proofread part of her resume for her! It's good.

I also examined her scarf to see if I could figure out its awesome knitting pattern. I couldn't.

I've written six or seven emails. I read an Oscars review and an article about D*na R**ve. I read the Project Runway page and am debating listening to the podcast now. I read blogs like it was my job.

Speaking of jobs, I would be fired from mine -- I would fire myself from mine -- if I worked this way. I'm averaging, what, less than four words an hour? And the thing is, this letter is already essentially done. I'm sort of trying to merge the creative and the straight versions, and put a beginning on it that doesn't make me sound like a leprous supplicant requesting an audience with the pope.

But what I'm really trying to do is put this off as long as possible, because it's scary. While I'm still working on the letter, I don't have to be actually sending the letter anywhere. This is the part I've been dreading, the one where the agents say no in a variety of painful ways -- through ignoring it completely despite your SASE, through stock postcards that suggest they never even open the envelope, through dismissive one-sentence letters of the "just not interested" variety, through one-paragraph letters that say your book is too boring/has been done before/could use a lot of work/isn't the kind of work they're looking for this year/isn't the kind of work they're looking for, ever.

(Did you know you're supposed to be happy about that last kind, because it at least shows they read it, and that means you're doing something right?)

Anyway. Everyone knows this is part of it, the part that you feel like you didn't really sign up for when you started writing a book. And that all good writers, the writers of the best and most famous books ever, get rejected over and over. Their rejection stories are like folklore.

So let's just do this, and enough with the whining. (I'm getting the Nutella...)

until someone gets an eye poked out

Inspired by the wonderful sister/friend weekend -- see photos! and go away, internet stalkers -- I made up a game involving the friends themselves. Match the fabulous woman to the situation in which you would most want her to be with you, and that best showcases her special special talent.

Disclaimer: I mean, ideally, all of the these friends would always be there with you in all of this situations. These are just the particular specialties of each one, because she would know exactly what to do.

And sorry: This game will only be fun for some of you. My apologies to the three people who read this who have never met the sister/friends.

1. I lost my wallet and my keys and my birth certificate and my passport and my mind and anything that connects me to this earth, and I have to be somewhere really important in 20 minutes.

2. (this one is true!) I bought all this butternut squash this weekend and I'm leaving for California in two days and I want to use it before it goes bad, but I don't want soup or baked squash and I can't think of what else to do with it.

3. I need to acquire several nearly defunct drugstores, and I need to look very professional and stunning and have very smooth skin while doing so.

4. I am having an insane emotional breakdown about absolutely nothing and need someone to simultaneously set me straight, sympathize with me, laugh hysterically with me and make me feel 1000 times better. Also, I found some children who need some educatin'.

5. I need to change the oil in my car, and I need all trees to be identified as such, because I have acquired a strange disorder that does not allow me to figure out the difference between a tree and a bag of gummy bears, for instance.

Go, match, win.

one two three FOUR five

Before the 5ives: I really respect this idea of the path of least resistance. It's funny how there's lingering guilt -- a cultural bias, as she says -- about taking the easy way out, or something like that, but something about her story about making the jewelry resonates with me so completely.

Now for the 5ives: They are so great. This one and this one and this one and this one and this one. That was five, right? Right. But there are lots more great ones, too.

icthyosaurs and tigers and bears, oh my

We had a blast at the Museum of Natural History yesterday -- saw some creepy things that used to swim, played with some magnifying glasses, shared a water ice in the cafeteria. Shannon has photos, go see. (And I really, really want a poster or something of that turtle to hang where I can look at it all the time.)

Shannon told this story too, but it really was funny when Gaby kept asking to see the "real things." Turns out she didn't mean living animals, but the room at the museum with the hands-on exhibits, the stuff she could actually experience and touch. Amen to that in a more general sense.

---

Also, speaking of Shannon and nice things, she is walking in another Avon 3-Day this year, and she needs cash. It's a huge challenge, and she's serious and dedicated. (Take it from someone who SAW the infected foot last year: Shannon is not joking around. :) )

So help her fundraise if you can. She deserves it.

waffle waffle waffle

Wise Angie on Crate & Barrel catalogs, the wedding industry, the market economy and the power of fantasy:

Ang: No one really wants a heart-shaped waffle-maker.

Me: Of course not, that would be incredibly tacky.

Ang: No, I mean they literally don't want a heart-shaped waffle-maker. They want a life where they get to use a heart-shaped waffle-maker to make heart-shaped waffles for the people they love. They want the illusion that they could have a life where a heart-shaped waffle-maker belongs.

we live out where the street ends

Overheard on the Metro on Friday night:

Man to his female seatmate, brandishing an old copy of Express, the Metro paper: Why do we care about this guy in Israel?

Woman: Who, you mean Ari*l Sh*ron?

Man: Yeah. I mean, Israel is crazy. We should all just let them blow themselves the fuck up. I don't see why we're all involved.

Woman: Because all the other people over there in the Eastern... East... you know, the East? (I think the word she was looking for was "Middle.") Anyway, over there, if we didn't do anything, they'll all kill each other off and then there will only be the Arabs left, and then, you know. Look at 9/11.


A little crude, maybe, but does that sound like a cogent summary of our government's general foreign policy to you? I will withhold judgment on that.

And while we're on politics, sort of, Slate's coverage of the Al*to hearings is so good and funny and on the mark. I love the reporter who does court stuff for them.

Nothing else doing, really, as my grandmother would say. I have friends visiting and am miserably failing at entertaining them because I'm still sick and grouchy. And also getting tired of sounding like a cross between a 12-year-old boy and a bad 900-number when I talk. Eight weeks of Yiddish classes start tonight -- soon I'll be able to sound simultaneously adolescent and trashy in the language of my ancestors...

there are no songs about memes...

... and that's not really a bad thing. But let's try one anyway.

1. What did you do in 2005 that you'd never done before?

Drove across the Midwest -- ate cheese in Wisconsin; saw Dayton, Ohio (twice!); got close to Iowa; bought pants in the Mall of America; wandered around southern Minnesota looking at things that had only been fictional in my mind. Entertained the thought of LIVING in the Midwest (probably not in my future). Finished writing a book, for the 6 millionth time. Kissed someone in a forest. (Sorry, barf. Will try not to make this barfy.) Did a headstand. Became obsessed with Netflix. Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Stayed in a hotel room alone.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I kind of kept them -- I was way better about exercise and yoga until about two months ago. And yes, I will make more, probably the same ones or similar, for next year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No, although a couple people who are semi-close to me did.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, knockoneverywoodensurfaceeverywhere.

5. What countries did you visit?

Wow, I didn't leave the U.S. this year, unless you count Detroit. I'm going to England next summer to visit R., and Los Angeles in the spring to visit T., and New Hampshire over Presidents' Day with the sisterfriends.

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?

More sleep, more self-discipline, a consistently working car.

7. What dates from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

My birthday and Oct. 20. I think I'll also remember Aug. 29, the day Katrina hit.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I think I'm starting to trust people in a way I haven't before. I did a couple things I was really really scared of this year, and I think it let me be little bit less cynical and pessimistic and superstitious. My guard came down a bit in 2005. (Also, the whole book thing, maybe.)

9. What was your biggest failure?

Continuing to let anxiety make a lot of my decisions for me. Not learning to ride a bike, again. I also really really suck for not getting my knitted holiday gifts finished on time, but I'm still working on that.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

No, although this high blood pressure situation is not really to my liking.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Well, the best thing I was given is definitely insulated curtains from my parents, which I always think aren't helping keep the cold out until I stick my hand between them and the window and feel how freezing it is. The best thing I bought was probably my first-ever pair of knee-high boots.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

The panda cub. And my friends, frankly. We kind of ruled 2005.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

We aren't going to talk about politics here, right? But you can guess.

14. Where did most of your money go?

If only I knew. To Amtrak, to car repairs, to various yarn stores, to my overpriced gym, to eating out way too much.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

The new book that's in my head, and the old book that's pretty much out of it. Harry Potter. H. and K.'s new house. Getting my own office, maybe soon.

16. What song will always remind you of 2005?

What is that song that's always on XPN about the "waaaaay up hiiiiigh" -- they play it, like, every day. That song. Also the White Stripes' "My Doorbell."

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? a bit thinner
c) richer or poorer? about the same

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Enjoying things without worrying.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Do you know I actually can't think of anything, unless I went back to the last question and put it in this category? Wow.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

J. and I are going to the movies on Christmas Eve (which is also Chanukah Eve), and then I'm getting up early Sunday to drive to Lancaster to see the family and help my mom with the mammoth party they're throwing that night.

*(now is where I start editing because this is getting boring and repetitive)*

23. What was your favorite TV program?

Still Gilmore Girls (you guys, MADELINE ALBRIGHT was on the show. In Rory's DREAM SEQUENCE. Come ON, how much better does it get?). But after Netflixing the original British version of Coupling, that's a close second. It's hilarious and great.
25. What was the best book you read?

Hmm, just one... Primo Levi's "Periodic Table," and the Alice Munro short stories. And "Cat's Eye," but that doesn't count because I read it a bunch of times before.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Girlyman, Girlyman, oh Girlyman.

27. What did you want and get?

A good relationship.

28. What did you want and not get?

A digital camera. Still holding out a shred of hope for Chanukah, but I think it's not to be.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

I saw way more movies this year than usual (thanks, Netflix!) but there isn't one single standout. Oh, maybe Good Night and Good Luck, which made me proud of journalism for a change. Dr. Strangelove was great. And I adored Bride and Prejudice, although I did not adore the person with whom I saw it.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

28, and I spent it with J at dinner and at the movies (at Good Night, come to think of it). A few days later, I had the most surprising surprise party in the world. This was a stunningly good birthday year.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If I had gone a whole year with no cavities. I made six months, but still shooting for the full 365.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?

Hahahaha, right. The trip to the Dayton Salvation Army Store with H. and K. helped things along, but it's still the same old.

33. What kept you sane?

Decaf coffee. And bloggers, actually -- I've found a bunch of new ones this year and sometimes their day-to-day routines bring such a welcome pattern to my own days.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I have a little crush on what's his face from the BBC Pride and Prejudice series now -- Mark Darcy, but I forget his real name. Er... er... Bridget Jones has it too...

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

Will break the normal self-imposed silence: I got really, really into the Sc**ter L*bby thing, and the J*d*th M*ll*r matter in its entirety had me paying very close attention professionally. Personally, I was moved and saddened and horrified by the news from Darfur, and how little all of us really know about it.
37. Who was the best new person you met?

Oh, J.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005.

Oy. How about a nice quote instead:

If the real world were a book, it would NEVER find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction -- and ultimately, without a major resolution. -- spoken by Hamlet in Jasper Fforde's Something Rotten, which I am currently reading

Also:

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. --Douglas Adams

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

That's really hard... this doesn't sum up my year, and the main thrust of this song really has nothing to do with anything that happened to me this year. But um, yeah... it's probably my favorite song from an album that will make me think of this year? Or something? OK, whatever:

from "Postcards from Mexico":

When you slammed through my life
Like a screen door in a hurricane wind,
All I could think was how to find you again.
But Route 80 was snowed under,
And the roads to the canyon were closed.
For our safety, I suppose.

The sound of your voice is like longing feels
When you whispered my name in the dark.
And the thick yellow Brooklyn
Night sky through the window
Burned itself into me,
Deep as my history.

i'm a little hunk of tin

My own little hunk of tin -- not a Ford but a Honda -- had its first ever Great Big Adventure yesterday, when it decided it wanted to stop in the middle of Rock Creek Parkway. Just wanted to curl up in a little ball and go to sleep for a while, and stop going 40 miles an hour in the left lane in heavy traffic. And although I understand the feeling, it was slightly inconvenient.

Twenty-four hours and a new distributor later, it's found a new lease on life. The funny thing is that although I might has well have taken $500 and set it on fire just to watch it burn, I'm not even upset. That car has served me well since 1999, without a single complaint. It's earned a little downtime, right? $500 worth of downtime, oof, but still. Is it too much to ask for it to go another 100,000 miles without asking for another nap?

want to knit you a sweater, want to write you a love letter

So, I have a new theory on why this round of revisions on the book is killing me so slowly and softly with its song. Unbeknownst to me, I have turned into a tragic literary heroine and someone is drugging me with some kind of Snow White/Juliet/etc.-style sleeping potion. That's the only possible explanation, right?

I took a five-hour nap yesterday afternoon. Buoyed by the tiny boost -- "boost," because something that short-lived needs sarcasm quotes -- the sleeping marathon provided, I stayed out at a party semi-late last night and got up reasonably early to go to a knitting store with a friend. And now I just fell asleep for another two-hour stretch of my day. I just woke up. It's dark. Again, still.

Blame the weather, sure, but I have reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder, remember? I love winter. I love that it's so cold in my room right now that I can't feel my fingertips. Hypothetically I love that, anyway. I am the picture of lassitude; I have become Miss Piggy without the bonbons or karate chopping. I didn't even have the energy to go to yoga this afternoon -- how could I possibly scream "hi-ya" and throw poor Kermit across the room.

If anyone's absolutely dying to get me a Chanukah present and hasn't yet, this would be good. Or this. Or maybe just these.

finding faith and common ground

(Having now seen D*r and G*rlyman twice in as many months, I've decided that all song lyrics in my head belong to them.)

We fed 45 or 50 people in our house this weekend's pre-Thanksgiving festivities. At once. Really.

There was food as you have never seen food.

There was wine as you have never seen wine. Seriously, there are 24 empty bottles of wine in our recycling bin. We like wine here.

There was a red jello mold in the shape of the United States as you have never seen a red jello mold in the shape of the United States. People ate off the blue states first, so a big red glob of midwest and Florida was all that was left for a while. By the time we cleaned up, there was just a silver-dollar-sized chunk melting somewhere around Wyoming.

There were awesome friends as you have never seen awesome friends. They were all talking to other awesome friends, and it was really quite something.

There was cleaning up afterward as you have... well, you probably have seen cleaning up afterward like that after small-scale industrial disasters such as TMI.

But there was happy as you have never seen happy. You all had better come next year.

look, ma...

... no cavities! It's sad that this has to be so exciting, but maybe if I didn't have cavities every single time I go to the damn dentist, it wouldn't have to be. But! Not this time! I saw for the first time my new W*tergate dentist next door to my office. He is very sweet and solicitous and also the dentist to some famous-for-DC celebrities; moreover, he told me I have no cavities, and therefore I love him. When he said he'd see me in six months, I almost kissed him.

This:

is on first Google image search page that comes up when you type in "no cavities." Hallelujah and pass the spinach, Olive Oyl.

the paper they were signing said they'd never fight again

A Saturday morning moment of cosmic dissonance: I'm in the science and engineering library at the U of M*ryland, where J. goes to school, and I'm listening to his "Very Early Joan" (as in B*ez) CD, and all around me are SCIENTISTS who are WORKING on SCIENCE and ENGINEERING. The guy across from me looks like he hasn't seen the sun since the Reagan administration, and all around him are books with names like, and I am not making these up, "Levy Processes and Circumstantial Applications," "Service Design for Six Sigma" and something that literally has squiggly little symbols in the *title*. They should give tests before they let anyone in this place, and turn people like me away at the door.

I am very obviously goggling at this poor guy and should probably stop. But my library task for today is to read one book (with words, not symbols) I have to review this week and work on another one that I'm supposed to be editing, still, again, still still again still still still. Oof. I'm feeling somewhat fat and happy, as they say, as well as cosmically dissonant, and am not too inclined to start working on either of those things right now.

Ms. B*ez is giving me a bit of a headache.

These editorial cartoons about R*sa P*rks are really lovely. Interesting how many of them depict her in heaven... if there is a heaven or whatever, I sincerely hope no one has to take the bus there...

W*nkette posted the most brilliant of brilliant SCOTUS ideas yesterday: The baby panda for the next justice. Non-DCers, I have no idea if this has made national news, but the panda our zoo gave birth to a really cute cute cute tiny panda who just got its name last week. But up until then, many people (my coworkers included) were calling him "Butterstick," because when he was first born there were all these stories about how he was the size of a stick of butter. Anyway. This is a great idea.

And with that, I read. Or nap, maybe. Don't tell the scientists.

brown paper packages tied up with strings

It is fall, and that is my favorite thing.

I am now going to spend the rest of the evening unpacking all my junk and reading the new J*nnifer W*iner book with the ridiculous cover that I spent a ridiculous amount of money on this weekend. I can't remember the last time I bought a new hardcover book, but between this and Sunday's ticket to "In Her Shoes," I might as well start mailing my paycheck directly to Ms. W*iner. But I would, if she wanted, because I love her.

route 80 was snowed under..

... and the roads to the canyon were closed
for our safety, I suppose...

Before I forget: Girlym*n, people. They are amazing. H. and I saw them open for Dar last weekend and I've never loved a band so much or so instantly. I now go into Girlywithdrawal if I don't hear the CD at least once every two hours.

For a couple weeks, almost every day, I keep being reminded of Angie's mom's question: How good can you let things get? It's a really profound question in its way, a way I can't communicate right now, but... the things, they are good. He's good. We're good. Better than good, good in a way I didn't know things could be.

It's also kicking the crap out of my vocabulary, apparently. And, as most of you know, my natural superstition about jinxing myself (now joining forces with my paranoia about revealing things to the whole world wide web) doesn't approve of me saying much more -- in fact, it thinks even this has gone a little too far.

The sound of your voice is like longing feels
When you whispered my name in the dark.
And the thick yellow Brooklyn
Night sky through the window
Burned itself into me,
Deep as my history.

sixteen, going on sixty-four

Isn't it funny when something happens that you've wanted for a long time -- a thought like a rough stone that's been rubbed smooth -- and it's both nothing and exactly like you expected? And you feel like you're in a new place you never quite imagined, but also a totally familiar place that isn't really any different at all?

Quite apart from the above, someone at a dinner party last weekend brought up the subject of natural age, and I've been thinking about it ever since.

I love the idea that internally, we all sort of settle at some age that expresses ourselves perfectly -- one of my roommates' natural ages is about 52, for example, because he's kind of a middle-aged soul, somehow. Another roommate's natural age is 13; he plays practical jokes that involve pantsing people and displays fanatical devotion to cartoons with scatalogical humor, but those are more symptoms of his natural age than the real reason he is just intrinsically 13. It's not the fact that he likes that stuff that makes him 13, it's being 13 that makes him like it.

But it works for some people and not for others. H. and I couldn't really figure out our own, and some of my coworkers were totally obvious and others not at all. I might be developing a theory that the people who don't really have a clear natural age are actually currently AT their natural ages, but I'm not sure if that really holds true.

Does this make sense to any of you? Several readers of this blog have natural ages that seem blindingly apparent to me, but I don't know, maybe it's less clear when you're looking at yourself. What are your natural ages? Thoughts? Feelings? Just want to share a self-indulgent metaphor about stones? Like sands through the hourglass... :)

katrina

No idea who this blogger is, but he or she has it exactly, exactly right.

close my eyes, make the pies all day

I set my alarm for 8 this morning, ambitiously planning to bake and clean and iron and yoga today. Instead, I finished the last of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and can't bring myself to leave my room and drag my laundry basket down the stairs. I need to make some sort of fancy dessert for a dinner party tonight and figure out just what exactly to do with the huge quantities of peaches and apples and blackberries Shannon and Gaby and I picked yesterday. Twenty-six pounds of peaches, three and a half pounds of blackberries and what, maybe eight pounds of apples between us? It's quite a haul, in any case.

Great Gaby moment: We're walking back to the car with all the fruit, and Shannon points out the ripening pumpkins in the field next to us.

Shannon: The pumpkins aren't ready yet, but soon they'll be nice and big.

Gwen: And orange.

Gaby: And delicious!

Delicious! Here is one of Shannon's photos, because I do not have my digital camera yet, but I swear I will someday:

makes you think all the world's a sunny day

Rrrrrrrrrroad trip photos are up in one of those fancy-pants Kodak Galleries -- go to the slideshow to start your exciting journey through our trip. Don't expect too many pictures of landmarks or anything, but do expect pictures of ducks, dogs and racist signs. Woo!

I was f-i-n-e fine

Tomorrow begins the glorious, glorious period at work known as the "dark" or "nonpublishing" weeks, in we do not put "new content" on the "site" so we have time to catch up on old projects and start new ones. Dark weeks are the most wonderful time of the year.

And I'm going to do an off-the-job dark-week project as well: Fix my damn room. For those of you who don't know, I have a gigantic room. Literally, five of my junior-year dorm rooms could fit in this room -- it has a sort of office-y desk area, a sitting area with a couch and a recliner, a bed area, an area where only things I don't use live.

But that whole thing about how you expand or contract to fill a space? True. I'm tired of the gigantic yellow room being a gigantic yellow mess. What's stopped me from dealing with this before, aside from abject laziness, is that it's not unliveable... the mess is sort of underground, in the structural organization. Like, I can see the top of my desk, but my phone bill from 2002 is cohabitating with my vacation photos from last summer, and the big zip drive I haven't used in three years is within easy reach but I can't find my favorite t-shirt.

Do any of you have organizational solutions you think I should implement? I'm thinking about going to the Container Store today just to look around and get ideas (read: I'm thinking about going to the Container Store today to wind up spending $50 on random things that probably won't help me but look pretty) but I'm pretty open to things. I would move furniture around, or acquire another piece of mass-produced Swedish yuppiedom if it would help.

Main problems:

1. Clothes.

  1a. Exposed clothes. Why, when I have all this furniture, do I need these plastic bins for my socks and tanktops sitting out on the top of my stuff?

  1b. Overcrowding. Must get rid of things. Must.


2. Bills and papers. Right now, they're in gray file folders that look nice and neat, but I don't want to pull them out and file things every time I get another piece of paper from the bank, so I pile everything on top of them, both obscuring their function and design.

3. Plants. Too many, most not thriving on sunless window sill (how am I slowly killing an aloe plant? Aren't they supposed to be unkillable?)

4. Weird bad area. The place near the couch where old things live.

5. Old laptop and printer. I need to sell these things on craigslist.

6. CDs. Except for the occasional new one, I haven't listened to a real live CD in like 2 years, since the birth of iTunes. Do you sell them to a second-hand place? Put them in a box in the basement?

So! I know many of you are organizationally inclined, so please feel free to offer any suggestions that have worked for you, especially in the bill-filing and clothes categories. Also, if you'd like to come over and magically complete this project for me, I would not complain.

a sad, sad limerick

There once was a girl from Lancaster
Whose book could be one huge disaster.
But she said with a grin, to her slight chagrin,
At least it is done, really actually done, and she, I mean I, won't be working on it any more because really it's actually done this time at least until an editor gets his or her hands on it which I hope happens someday because that would mean maybe I had an agent who maybe maybe please might be trying to sell -- sell? sell! -- the book and that would be so crazy that I'm almost scared to even imagine it so let's just concentrate on the fact that it's really actually done and shipped off to someone who's going to read it and comment which is scary but I'm not thinking about that either so let's just concentrate on the fact that it is really actually done. Which I already said. The end. Good thing I'm not trying to convince anyone to read my limericks, right?

why you think the 'net was born?

You guys, how great was the to-Minnesota-and-home-again road trip. I'm back. It was great. There was too much funny (Anne) and awesome (Anne) and revealing (the Minnesota farmland) and weird (Nan the Innkeeper) and scary (Mall of America! oh my god) stuff to even try to describe here.

Photos will follow -- photos from the borrowed digital camera that revealed what a truly crap photographer I am. I take badly lit pictures of, like, pretty patterns on the sidewalk and funny ducks near Lake Michigan. I take a LOT of badly lit pictures other people's pets and random signs. I do not take pictures of the stuff you're supposed to take pictures of on vacation, like your traveling friend or the stuff you're actually seeing, so please do not expect them.

Off to the beach with Angie and co. on Thursday, and then I will be back for good until Labor Day. I came back from this vacation feeling like I never ever ever wanted to come back, like I wanted to stay in Ann Arbor and go to coffeeshops and live in Anne's apartment with her forever, but maybe the mini-vacation will be easier to leave. Doubting that, but let's hope.

solitude standing

Things I thought I would never say, v. 1.0:

1. It's actually a little lonely living by yourself, even just for a weekend. Part of the time it was the solitary paradise I anticipated, but for about an hour or so, I really wanted someone there to talk to.

2. I just ended that sentence with a preposition and I don't care. Notify the grammar police.

3. Due to No. 1, however, I am finished with the editing of the book. FINISHED. EDITING. FINISHED. Imagine how much I would get done if I lived by myself, lonely or no.

4. I now own a two-piece bathing suit. Be not afraid, though, it covers just as much as a one-piece.

a double-kick drum by the river in the summer

(In the manner of Cindy, big bonus points for anyone who's been paying attention to trendy alterna-pop well enough to get that song reference...)

Remember how I said a little while ago that it's hot here? Well, it's still hot here. Shocker, right, since it's July and all. But even though the Turkey Hill mint cookies and cream was on sale for $1.99 at the new Giant -- an amazaing, beautiful monstrosity of a suburban grocery store that magically materialized about a mile from my house, thank you to all the gods in heaven! -- I don't like the weather any better.

I feel the way about summer that I think other people feel about winter, like reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder or whatever. It's 95 degrees with 80 percent humidity? I don't want to go outside. I want to stay in the airconditioning, hang out with my fan and sulk. But it's socially acceptable to feel that way when it's cold out; in the summer, people are like, "it's so beautiful out! let's go have a picnic! let's go walk the whole way across town! let's go hiking!" So there's this sort of lingering guilt about hating summer. I am here to say: no more. It's gross out. I have to get on the bus in an hour and I'm not excited.

I just read something in some random blog about fall, and I thought, "fall? fall doesn't even exist." I can't even imagine the weather being different and leaving hellish evil summer, even though I've obviously seen 26 summers turn to fall in my life. It always feels like this huge relief when it's time to dig out the sweaters, because I didn't really believe that time would ever come again.

It made me see the larger pattern, too: I take things too permanently. If my hip hurts from hyperextending it in yoga a few days ago, I think it's never going to get better. If the link to my favorite ambient music radio station isn't working, I worry it's broken forever. If someone I'm expecting to hear from hasn't written, I assume s/he never will. If someone is annoyed at me, I think we'll never get along again. I waste all this energy trying to adjust my reality to these really temporary situations that won't be around in a few months, or a few days or hours. My hip stopped hurting yesterday. The radio station played an hour later. The non-writer wrote back. The annoyed person, who may or may not have actually been annoyed in the first place, returned to acting normal in half an hour. And summer will end, right? Just not before I have to get on the bus. Damn.

what I learned is that grass really grows slow

I'm having a patience problem recently, and today I found myself gritting my teeth, literally. I always thought that was just an expression. I don't remember ever doing that in my life, actually thinking, "why does my jaw hurt? oh. guess that's why."

Gritting your teeth. The words even sound unpleasant, gritty grit in your mouth. Ugh. Shouldn't the 6 million yoga classes be teaching me to relax my shoulder blades down my back and breathe from the belly and let go of my thoughts and live in the moment? Isn't teeth gritting the wrong direction?

Sing it, C*tie C*rtis:

I spent all day yesterday sitting at a red light
'cause she told me to give it just a little more time.
And I lost my car in a parking lot.
Bought a newspaper and I decided to walk...

hot time, summer in the city

It is so freaking hot here. Every summer, EVERY summer, this happens -- it sneaks up all quietly somehow, until it's June 13 (happy day-before-your-birthday, Annie!) and you have everyone making the requisite comments about how DC is a swamp blah blah, and the Metro station seems to exhale hot breath all over you, and just the air out the window looks likes it's melting, and you need more ice cream than should ever be consumed by one person just to make it through the afternoon. Not to mention early and late evening.

Which is why I say bravo to this advice to deli-owners everywhere:

Don't waste valuable freezer-case real estate on Bomb Pops that you could devote instead to the Flying Sicle Brothers: Pop, Fudge, and Cream. I love Creamsicles. Love them! If the deli stocked Creamsicles, the deli owner could build a new wing on his house in about a month, because I would buy them, daily, frequently, early and often, even in the winter, because of the very deep, very real love. I would buy Fudgsicles, too, even though it annoys me that it is spelled "Fudgsicle" and not "Fudgesicle," and I would even now and then on a very hot day buy a Popsicle, even though eh.

Hear hear. I would also like to append to Sars' brilliant essay a note to my own corner deli: Please, please, get the Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches back. I know they cost $6.99 for 6, which is obscene; I know they frequently were smushed beyond recognition; I know you never had the really good mint ones they sometimes have at Safeway. I didn't realize how good I had it.

I broke down last night and walked the WHOLE WAY to the Soviet Safeway in the sticky heat after the first store (unnamed, as far as I know, although in my head I call it Pseudo Safeway because it only sort of sells Safeway-brand but isn't called Safeway, I don't know)didn't have any Skinny Cows. The only package they had was so damaged, so beaten and bruised, that it looked like it had fallen off the back of the truck and been run over 15 times in the middle of 17th Street. I wound up with a half-gallon of Edy's mint chocolate chip, and in my panicky no-ice-cream-in-two-hours withdrawal, I wound up buying some kind of no sugar added version when I thought I was buying the lowfat version. It has Splenda in it instead of sugar. And if I cannot be trusted not to eat a whole half-gallon of not-that-great-but-it'll-do-as-a-substitute lowfat ice cream, what am I supposed to do with something that has the addictive powers of Splenda AND lots of nice delicious fat? What, I ask you?

Eighteen hours later, it is three-quarters gone. I am not the sole perpetrator of the eating of the ice cream, but I am for sure the main one. I was eating it when I came home from an eventful day of work at 2:30 p.m. today. I am eating it now, at 6:32 p.m. I am helpless in its many-Splenda'ed grip.

So this is a long way of telling the nice people at V*rginia Market on the corner, who will never read this: If you can't get the Skinny Cows, if you insist on only carrying the same three flavors of Ben and Jerrys that just don't hit the spot in the summer, at least get a small freezer case for the Flying Sicle Brothers and let me help you put a new wing on your house.

spent so many nights thinkin' how you did me wrong

Wedding two of six down, and I just realized with a start that the remaining four don't pick back up again until Labor Day. Crazy! Wedding season hiatus. (And yes, at last night's festivities, they did play the aforementioned song, the ultimate inappropriate wedding song, about how Gl*ria G*ynor should have changed that stupid lock. It always is shocking to me that it's on so many wedding playlists -- is it that the wedding couple is thoughtfully putting others' interests ahead of their own, just because they know people like dancing to it? Is it that they are just totally not superstitious about potential implications of a song about a terrible breakup being played on their Very Special Day?)

Apologies for the stereotyping, but I was reminded just how much fun it is to be at an event like this with the right kind of gay guy. The one I was with last night, another friend of the bride who hadn't been invited with a date and didn't know most of the other people there, was just the right kind: funny, charming, wonderful dancer, brings you drinks, willing to be catty at all the right moments, way more considerate and good date-ish than any straight guy (maybe one exception, but just one) with whom I've ever gone to a fancy party. And this was FANcy -- at the D.C. R*tz C*rlton, black tie, incredibly beautiful with candles and red tulips everywhere, etc. I did see a bunch of college people I never was really close to there, and they were lovely and cool and more fun than I remembered. One of them lives a five-minute walk from me, and we will start hanging out, I think. I am starting to think that part of the reason weddings exist in their present form is so people can act way outside their normative social sphere, whether it's friendlier or sluttier or funnier than they usually are, and that's why weddings can be so good or so not-good, depending on... how they are. This one was good, though.

Very profound. I need some breakfast.

But, and this is the real reason I started posting -- for all the Narnia fans in the last comments, you can watch the trailer online here. Go, watch, win.

with wookie good relationship have I

Yes, I saw it, and was sadly disappointed in the lack of dressed-up Star Wars nerds seeing it with me. No stormtroopers, no guys with light sabers, no Patalie Nortmans with big prosthetic fake bellies, nothing. I guess I would have had to go opening night or something for that, huh. But as someone who had not seen either of the first two prequels -- or really paid much attention to the originals, thereby requiring visiting guest G. (of G. and C., of Lanky and college fame respectively) to provide a preliminary briefing on the way over -- I was still able to appreciate the story and the horrendously bad acting from formerly good actors. (The guy playing Anakin is also the guy who played Stephen Glass in "Shattered Glass," which was incredibly distracting because I LOVED that movie in an "oh my god this is so painful I feel like I'm going to lose my mind" sort of way.) And don't forget the insanely political overtones. Anyone who believes Leorge Gucas really wrote these movies 20 years ago and didn't intend any blatant reference to Beorge Gush and his administration has been brainwashed by the dark force.

Anyhow. I'm not sure I get the big debate over the whole thing, and in my mind the Lord of the Rings stuff is 80 million times better and deeper and more meaningful. If you are wearing a Bewchaka costume right now because you love it so much, I apologize for my blasphemy. But it was fun.

Also fun: Going to the American History museum Saturday and standing behind a kid who, upon viewing the display of first ladies' dresses, says (as quoted by C., somehow I missed this display of awesomeness), "Mom, this is just like a really boring trip to Old Navy." Yay for the youth of America!

from storypeople

My grandma used to plant tomato seedlings in tin cans from tomato sauce & puree & crushed tomatoes she got from the Italian restaurant by her house, but she always soaked the labels off first. I don't want them to be anxious about the future, she said. It's not healthy.

Love that, and love the let us pick one for you feature on that site. Perfect.