13: back in the saddle

The saddle on the horse of normal life, that is. We had a lovely little two-day interlude of wandering around cute cute Amherst and Northampton, and I feel fickle and disloyal to my lovely quirky Ithaca when I say this, but I could live happily in either of those places. I am into the little New England college towns for sure.

While J. was off bonding with his old department the morning after his talk, I toured Emily Dickinson's house. I am now full of a great deal of random Emily Dickinson trivia and interested in learning a lot more. Today, I kept thinking about a line the tour guide quoted and had to go look it up myself. This is from a letter to her only confirmed lover (from afar), Otis Lord:

"While others go to Church, I go to mine, for are you not my Church, and have we not a Hymn that no one knows but us?"

Damn, she was good. Pictures to come.

12: bacon-wrapped stealing

I love SG's post about this and am officially taking it as my own.

Here are a list of things I would like to be eating right now:

- Kelly's OMG macaroons

- something with coconut milk in it, such as Thai food of any kind

- rice pudding made with whole vanilla beans (this is Shannon's fault)

- banana bread with chocolate chips (also Shannon's fault)

- banana bread with raisins (yes, raisins!)

- banana bread

- bread

- bread and salad

- the bread and salad I bought myself for dinner, which has chickpeas and broccoli and marinated tofu and blue cheese and lemon sesame dressing

- the dinner I bought myself for dinner, which I have just decided is starting now

11: going around, coming around

Thanks for all of your wise counsel in the post below and via e-mail and chat today. I think I made the incident sound a little more dramtic than it was (or else sleeping on things (not literally) really does make them clearer) and this morning, I felt better about it. I also neglected to mention that the party involved was someone whom I'm pretty close to and really care about -- and work with constantly -- so after taking her metaphorical temperature for several hours today, I decided she didn't seem like she was dwelling on it and I shouldn't either. There's nothing else to say, so I'm going to drop it. Possibly a first-ever for me, so we'll see how that goes.

Assisting me with the dropping is a bit of karmic payback that came today in a form I will not even get into at all, but let's just say that I feel like the score has been evened by someone wronging me in a distinctly not-right way. But that also requires no action, and indeed might be worsened by any action on my part, so I am also dropping that. Like it is, as they say, hot.

Thanks, universe! It's funny how I actually am superstitious enough to kind of believe that there is some sort of cosmic scorecard. One of the stories in the Wonder Spot (even better as an audiobook than it is in print, I give it five thumbs up) talks about having a fairy godgod, instead of a fairy godmother, and I am not sure if that's relevant here, but I like it.

Off to Amherst early tomorrow morning and back on Friday night. Hopefully there will be a chance to take some nice photos of something beautiful and show them to you.

10: my friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends

You guys, I stuck my foot in my mouth in a really profoundly stupid way tonight. It involved coworkers and money and salaries and alcohol and... not good. The offended party seemed to recover quickly and of course said it was fine, no problem, not a big deal, etc., but in her place, I would have also acted like I recovered quickly and then stewed about it for just about the rest of my life.

The worst part about this is that I will now stew about it for the rest of my life too, and probably apologize 60 more times and not let it go and make it way worse and aargh. How do you deal with this stuff? (That sounded like a rhetorical question, but it wasn't -- I would like to know some alternative methods, even if they don't work particularly well. At least they would be a change of pace.)

9: ladies dancing

Er, uh. I think 9 days in a row has about used up my creativity, and I am running out of stuff to say and using predictable Christmas carols as titles. Hi! I basically spent all day in the car, after hanging out with Angie, small-business woman extraordinaire briefly in the morning and having lunch with my parents. Then I drove for 5 hours, got home, unpacked some stuff, went out for Mexican food with J., came home, finished up my tax stuff (YAY REFUND YAY THANK YOU OBAMA FOR THAT "LIFELONG LEARNING CREDIT" EVEN THOUGH YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT WHATSOEVER YAY), wrapped up some packages to mail, and am now talking to you.

There is much to be done before we leave for Amherst on Wednesday night -- starting a fairly large project for school, taking the car into the garage, picking up prescriptions, watching a movie AND the season finale of the L Word tomorrow night (which may require one of those Hermione Granger time-changers), getting to work early tomorrow to take pictures at a 9 a.m. meeting, going through my annual review on Wednesday.

... and, those are my errands and random work tasks. I am going to put this entry out of its misery. Here is a picture of my former roommate's rabbit:
If you are going to make us read a boring list of miscellany, could you at least bring some raisins next time? Thanks.

8: hey, mr. producer, I'm talking to you, sir

Along with the multitude of audiobooks, I also got a couple CDs from the library. I knew I would be spending some serious time in the car with my parents when we drove to visit my grandmother, and the only radio programming we agree on is Car Talk, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and particular Broadway musicals, so I picked up this recording of Follies, which is a live concert recorded in 1985 of famous people just singing the music (rather than doing the whole play) with the NY Philharmonic.

It was very excellent, and also took me right back to 199... uh... 5? 1995? and high school's rendition of it. I found myself recalling all sorts of weird details, including the name of A*m** St*pp*er, someone whom I haven't thought about since probably 1995 itself. Do you H*mpfield people remember any funny stories from that year? Besides the apocryphal "Mr. Lehman, your arm is so hairy!" tale, which someone really should recount in the comments for those who didn't have the privilege of attending high school with us. :)

7: meat! fruit! both!

Is it cheating that I'm writing this post on Thursday, too? Am I still in the spirit of challenge or is this blatant rule-breaking? They do have computers in Lanky, I'm aware of that, but I know we're going to be away for a lot of the time I'm there, and it doesn't go over well when I only visit once every few months and then hole up in the office for hours at a time, so yeah. Happy Thursday Saturday!

I have been meaning to tell you about my very favorite new-to-me podcast: WNYC's Radio Lab. It's quick and fun and science-y and awesome. My favorite episode so far has been about choice, and...

... I just wrote a long explanation about it and then deleted it, because honestly, you should listen for yourself. To the part about numbers and cake and fruit especially. Go, fight, win!

6: publish or perish or both

Thanks to the magic of Blogger, I am writing this on day 5 of TTWD, but you are reading it on day 6! Maybe, hopefully.

That makes it hard to know what verb tense I should use here. I will be going to/am in Lancaster tomorrow/today and will therefore be/was therefore in the car at the time I would have been/am posting this. I have taken out 3 audiobooks for this purpose -- Melissa Bank's The Wonder Spot, Roddy Doyle's short stories of some kind and Jonathan Franzen's new collection of essays about his childhood -- and am looking forward to/have really enjoyed listening to them.

I'm especially happy that I found and was able to interlibrary loan an audio copy of the Melissa Bank book, because I went to a reading she did at C*rnell a few weeks ago, and it was flat-out amazing. She is all the reasons I want to be a writer. After the small discussion group in the afternoon, my friend convinced me it was OK for us to go up to her and the other authors and act like freaky fan girls, and I introduced myself by saying that I'd interviewed her once upon a time and now was trying to get my own novel published very unsuccessfully. The timing was perfect, because the book had just been rejected once again by someone I thought I might have had a slightly better-than-average chance with, and I was experiencing my usual reaction to the rejection, which is to want to light the manuscript on fire and then light myself on fire and then go hide under the covers for approximately a decade.

Not surprisingly, Melissa Bank did not think that was a good idea and instead very earnestly told me that she had been rejected for years and years, and that to keep going is the best and only thing you can do, and it'll happen. She then inscribed the book, "Gwen, Keep going -- don't forget, it's an endurance test." which I need to hang as a permanent fixture in front of my face or something. I have been struggling not to sleep with the book under my pillow.

So, I'm looking forward to spending a long, boring, rush-hour drive with her tomorrow. She reads the book herself (which must be a really weird experience for an author), so it will be just like spending time with her, right? Something like that.

5: better than anything else that I've tried

(I've just ensured that that Sarah McLaughlin song will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day now, eternally making me think I'm waking up in my freshman-year dorm room, late for 9 a.m. Hebrew class.)

I officially survived the vampires at the clinic this morning. I am now ready to celebrate with two scoops of ice cream topped with melted cheddar, shrimp, shredded coconut and a whole stick of butter. Mm, a cholesterol sundae!

Actually, I am going to celebrate by getting in my car and going to Syracuse and not having time to finish my reading, so I really should get out of here. And J. is going to New Hampshire to give a talk for a few days and then I will be hitting Lanky for the weekend, so we won't see each other for a few days and I should go say goodbye. Yay for victory against the undead! We all live to see another day.

4: where everybody knows your name

Do any of you watch The L Word? Which is kind of indefensibly bad at the moment but wasn't always that way? (I have issues about the bad TV I watch, but I'm realizing that I don't have that much to be embarrassed about based on the number of people I've seen talking/writing/twittering/Facebook-status-updating about The Bachelor. Apparently some atrocious thing happened, whatever, that show is not my drug of choice, but I am taking comfort in the fact that everyone in the world seems to have TV transgressions.) If you do watch America's favorite lesbians on Showtime every week, this is hilarious. If you don't, it won't make any sense.

Anyway, the point is that a friend from work and I go to the same bar (Sherri: Felicia's -- did you ever go?) every week to watch, and we always order the same amazing hot chocolate drinks with Godiva and Bailey's in them. And for the last two weeks, the bartender has recognized me and known what I wanted. I am a regular! I am Norm on Cheers! Soon, they will be shouting my name when I walk through the door!

It kind of sounds like I spend all my time in bars, doesn't it. That is far from true but it has been a long day... late to work, forgot my yoga clothes, spent several hours editing something shall we say challenging, now trying not to freak out about my impending blood draw tomorrow morning. I think we all need a dose of everyone's favorite existential comic, Garfield Minus Garfield. It's worth going to read the description of what this guy is doing (apparently with the blessing of Jim Davis), because I think it's a little brilliant.

3: bird is the word

I'm hopelessly addicted to Twitter. I love it in a way that it isn't totally healthy to love a social networking application. I went so far as to design a lesson plan around it for one of the classes I'm taking this semester, and in a really ill-considered fit of motivation, volunteered to teach the lesson. Like, to real people in a real library. This was maybe not so smart, but that's another story.

Anyway, I was thinking about this today, and I realized that what I like about Twitter is the instantaneous access it gives you to a lot of people's thoughts. An extension in my browser (TwitterFox, if you are interested, which you should be, because it is awesome) pops up these little 140-word messages in the lower right-hand corner of my screen whenever anyone updates. Former coworkers and NPR newsgatherers and friends from school and the people at my library's reference desk and some of my oldest, closest friends and my favorite bloggers whom I'll never meet -- they are all lumped together and given equal weight. Something about the equity and fairness of that appeases my Libra sensibility, and also entertains me and makes me feel weirdly connected to the human race. I feel like that's what we're going for with all of this Web 2.0 stuff... we want technology to link us together and make our worlds feel less isolated, and in this case, I think it works.

(Join Twitter! Yes, you! Why am I always pressuring people to do stuff here? Is it annoying? Don't answer that.)

2: anchors away

Woo! I am happy that several of you are joining This Thing We're Doing. It will be awesome. And I'm realizing that March is sort of an interesting month to undertake this wee challenge, because there will be several exciting cliffhangers in my exciting cliffhanger-y life:

Crazy job things are happening. Will I still have a job 30 days from now or will I be investigating my "unemployment options," a hilarious phrase if I ever heard one?

We have actually have to write, like, stuff for school this semester. Will my partner A. (code name, "Bunny Watson," and thank you by the way for not revealing my blog address for all to see) and I conquer all, or will we be defeated by the marketing plan?

I have a follow-up doctor's appointment at the end of the month. Will my cholesterol go down or will the lack of cheese drive me insane?

Garden sign-up season is upon us. Will I get a good plot near the water line or will I be relegated to the far corners of the field?

The Obamas are getting their dog. Will it be a that crazy Portuguese water whatever or will they go for an awesome awesome poodle like they should?

I am going away next weekend and the weekend after. Will I learn how to use the scheduling function in Blogger or am I already setting myself up for failure?

Tune in next time, when you'll hear Dr. Bob say...

... "I can't operate on anybody made out of wood -- I can't stand the sight of sawdust!"

1: the loneliest number

Hello and welcome to the first day of This Thing We're Doing! "This thing" would be blogging 25 days out of one month (see No. 16 to your left) and "we" would be me and Cara. It should also be you, though! Yes, you. I would love to read your blog almost every day for a month, seriously, so you should keep us company. Seriously.
It pleases me that I've actually started off the month with a slightly interesting story: I did something I never thought I'd do tonight. Specifically, I sang at a bar. Not a karaoke bar, a normal bar -- kind of a great bar, actually, that is far away from the multiple colleges here and sort of a townie place, I guess. I was there with a bunch of friends and it was quite fun and we played pinball and that awesome fake bowling with a puck (I won both and have decided that bar sports are the only sports at which I have any talent whatsoever) and then a few of us wound up dancing in front of the band. And then the singer put the microphone in our faces and we sang part of a Johnny Cash song and the responses to Mustang Sally and a lot of other ridiculousness, and it was really excellent. I felt very... uh... happy.

OK, maybe not so interesting. But I'd had sort of a bad, trapped-in-my-head day, and then I got to escape my usual ideas of what I will and won't do, and that was nice. Yeah. Here is a photo from tonight: Great, the first day of this thing and already she's publishing blurry, self-indulgent self-portraits of herself in mirrors. But it's a pretty awesome bathroom, isn't it?

paging Quitty McDitchDigger

I wouldn't say that Po Brosnon's book, "What Should I Do with My Life?" helped me make the decision to leave journalism and become a librarian, but I did like the book when I read it several years ago, and some of his ideas were probably running around my subconscious somewhere. Now, he's written a follow-up article that addresses career stuff in The Economic Downturn, and I found it really comforting. Especially this:

There is no one-perfect-thing each of us is meant to do on this planet.... For each of us, there are dozens, hundreds of careers, any one of which could provide you a sense of meaning and goodness. You don't have to find "The One," you just have to find ANY one. The biggest mistake is being seduced by the myth that you're looking for the right answer, as if there is only one answer.

Also this:

Don't tell me you don't know what you want from your life. Don't ever say that, don't ever fool yourself into that stupor. Of course you know what you want -- you know the feeling you desire -- fulfillment, connection, responsibility, and some excitement. The real problem is figuring out how to get it -- how to find a path that doesn't suffocate those natural feelings in you. Which is hard. Of course it's hard. It's supposed to be hard. If it weren't hard, you wouldn't learn anything along the way, and thus you would never get there. If you don't know how to make the best of a bad situation, you will never get there. If you are not willing to put up with some shit work, you will never recognize that a good opportunity is staring you in the face. If you are not willing to be humble and repeatedly be a beginner in new areas and learn the details faster than the next guy, you are not capable of transformation.

i fought the law and the law won

Dear Gravity,

Just wanted to write and say thanks for stopping by to say hi today. You know, I take you for granted sometimes. I know. I know! It's really not cool of me. Those four stairs down to the sidewalk from our front porch, coated in a transparent sheet of ice -- which we can chalk up to the fact that our house has no gutters, so the melting snow on the roof drips directly down onto the porch and refreezes on the steps -- were your perfect opportunity.

But I have a small quibble: It wasn't really necessary to remind me so HARD. The multi-hued, dinner-plate-sized bruise on my lower back and upper ass... it kind of hurts. I'm aware that the ass is nicely padded, but, you know, I can still FEEL it. I'm sorry to be ungrateful for all the things you do for me, though, like not allowing objects to fly randomly around the room and hit me on the head. (Or on the ass -- which, come to think of it, makes this a very apt punishment.) I promise I'll never forget you exist again. I know. I know! It's really not cool of me.

You take care now,
Gwen

freezy

I just saw "2009" in my iPhoto upload thingie and thought it was a typo. Can it really be 2009? But I guess it is: My wonderful visiting friends have gone home, this two-week break that I so needed will be over tomorrow, the wheel of work and school and daily obligation is slowly grinding into action again.

This morning, I finished (and totally loved) Anne Lamott's Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. The word "faith" never sits that well with me; I am not a very faith-full person, in a lot of ways. I described myself as an "agnostic Jew" on my online dating profile once upon a time, and that's pretty much right in terms of the whole God thing. Most of the time, I also don't have much faith in my fellow humans, in our government or anyone else's, in myself, in the idea of "meant to be." H. recently sent me this amazing sermon and I've been thinking about radical self-acceptance ever since -- could I ever have enough faith to do that?

I'm totally mimicking Anne Lamott's writing style right now and completely annoying myself. So I will just quote randomly from her and slap down a few photos from a New Year's Day mini-hike to the frozen waterfall near my house. May your year be full of amazing icicles and nice friends and everything you want and deserve. Bring it, 2009.
"During the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy received two letters from the Kremlin. One was aggressive, the other gentler. And because Kennedy said to his men, 'Let's respond to the saner message,' we didn't get blown up, or have to blow up to the world. So I tried to respond to the kinder voice." (66)

"I love my life more, and me more.... And as that old saying goes, it's not that I think less of myself, but that I think of myself less often. And that feels like heaven to me." (176)

"My mind is my main problem almost all the time. I wish I could leave it in the fridge when I go out, but it likes to come with me. I have tried to get it to take up a nice hobby, like macrame, but it prefers to think about things, and jot down what annoys it." (259)

a year in review

Third Fourth time’s the charm!

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?

Moved in with J. Quit journalism. Started becoming a librarian. Went to grad school. Volunteered for a political candidate. Took out student loans. Grew a garden. Co-painted a whole apartment. Wrote a press release. Kayaked solo. Switched to tofutti cream cheese.

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

31 for 31, my dears. Someone just pointed out that if I live a long life, that list is going to get really impressive (i.e., impossible) eventually.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Shannon!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Just found out about a dog I’ve known for a long time, which is sad, but no humans (no kinahurrahs, please).

5. What countries did you visit?

No foreign travel this year except Canada. All your money belong to us, says the government.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

More self-discipline (fourth year running! again, that one is probably a permanent resident of this list). A regular yoga practice and/or exercise regimen. A more diverse garden. A clearer focus on school. A Zen-like sense of calm and detachment. Ha.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

May 31/June 1: moving days. Dec. 14, my mom’s 60th-birthday surprise party.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Changing a lot of stuff about my life without more drama than necessary, hopefully. Also making some really lovely new friends both at school and in Ithaca.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Lack of progress on the novel(s).

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I had bronchitis and strep throat this summer... I’ve been sick with minor things more in Ithaca than I was in DC.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

An old-fashioned wicker sewing box for $2 at the Unitarian Universalist rummage sale. Also the donations from the alternative gift fair in the same church.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

I guess I have to give a few hundred million voters a shout-out here. Yes they can.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Let’s award this one to every member of the Bush administration who didn’t see this recession coming.

14. Where did most of your money go?

The credit card company, is the short answer.

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

The election. The idea that Hillary Clinton could wind up on the Supreme Court. The selection of the presidential and vice-presidential puppies. Starting school. Getting a Wii. Living with J.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

Not exactly a song, but this is the year I became relentlessly hooked on multiple podcasts and re-established a close relationship with my old-school 2004 iPod.

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

a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? thinner
c) richer or poorer? poorer

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

Spending time outside in the summer. Visiting DC friends. Exercising. Writing.

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

Worrying -- fourth year in a row and probably forever. Also whining.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

Watched “Seven Pounds” (awful) and went out for Chinese food (good) in Lancaster with my parents.

*(editing starts here)*

23. What was your favorite TV program?

Mad Men, Brothers and Sisters, Project Runway, Top Chef, How I Met Your Mother, The Wire. Thanks to Neflix and the Internets, I manage to watch a lot of TV for someone without cable.

25. What was the best book you read?
Elizabeth Crane’s “When the Messenger Is Hot.” According to GoodReads, my other five-star books were Kate Atkinson’s “When Will There Be Good News,” Calvin Trillin’s “About Alice,” Kiara Brinkman’s “Up High in the Trees,” Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own,” Ann Patchett’s “Run,” Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Unaccustomed Earth,” Alice McDermott’s “After This,” Marjorie Williams’ “The Woman at the Washington Zoo” and Margaret Hathaway’s “The Year of the Goat.” Either I was participating in some grade inflation or it was a good reading year for me.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Anais Mitchell, from a friend at school.

27. What did you want and get?

A wonderful new home in all senses of the word.

28. What did you want and not get?

Everyone I love living in the same place.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

I loved Doubt, Silver City and Rachel Getting Married.

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

31, and J and I made sushi.

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

Depressing that these are always the same. Just like last year: A published book with my name on the cover. A year with no cavities. Both seem equally impossible right now.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

Decimated, then rebuilt. I got rid of tons of old stuff when I moved, and now I seem to have replaced it all from the secondhand store that’s way too close for me not to be tempted into it every few weeks.

33. What kept you sane?

Aw, you.

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

Kind of in love with Don Draper on Mad Men, even though he is a jerk and I also do not know the actor’s name. Also still in love with Philip Seymour Hoffman and possibly Meryl Streep.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

Getting an annual physical will not cause a complete mental breakdown.

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

"’Cause we don’t want to be the ones/
To lie and cheat and slander/
So we hold each other up to a higher standard/
But I’ll tell you what, I’ll never try to make it hard/.
‘Cause when you’re hard just to be hard/
The only thing that’s hard is you.”

better late than clever

Kindly look to your left and observe the new 31 for 31 goals, posted just two short months after my 31st birthday. There are some old familiar faces (who wants to join me on the 20- and 30-mile bike rides?), but I cleared just over two-thirds of the 30 for 30 list. A few that I didn't make, like hiking Humpback Rock, were made somewhat irrelevant by pregnancy (Shannon) and relocation (me). A few were also irrelevant because my goals changed, and a few didn't happen either because I am not flush with cash or because I am completely lame.

Note that many of them are financially focused (fun!) and health-related (more fun!) Let me know if you think I missed anything or I'm heading for a train wreck.

just... one... more... quiz...

You know what's awesome after a full day of work (at a job, by the way, that is not quite as secure as it once was, due to The Economy You Know How It Is I Mean Don't WORRY About Your Position Exactly But Maybe Worry Just A Little Bit)? Reading 50 pages of "Foundations of Library and Information Science" and taking a quiz on it.

You know what else is awesome? Opening up an estimate from your insurance company that says it will cover exactly FOURTEEN DOLLARS of the proposed $4285 that your dentist wants to charge you for some really fun and exciting times in your future. Great timing.

Damn it. All I want to do is bake some pumpkin muffins and watch some crappy television on the Internet. I would like to do those things with a paying job and also with all my teeth. Is that too much to ask, universe? Actually, it sounds like a lot when phrased that way, so maybe it is.

you say it's your birthday

Shannon had her baby! Woo! I can't figure out exactly which date is wee Katie's birthday... Shannon called to say her water broke around 9:30, and then the she's-here-yay! text arrived at 1:10 a.m. Assuming that texting me was somehow not the first thing Ernie did the very moment after his daughter was born, does that mean she was born very late on the 10th or very early on the 11th? Mystery!

Anyway, she is adorable. I am not technologically adept enough to be able to get the photo from my phone onto the Internets, but I'm sure she will be posting photos soon. (Shannon, not Katie, although I'm also sure that Katie will surpass all of our technological know-how by her fifth birthday. Also, Barack Obama was the president-elect when she was born. Awesome.) In the meantime, in her honor, here is the meme Shannon tagged me for a little while ago.

Seven interesting/odd facts about me.
1. I like writing things in lists.
2. But I don't usually make to-do lists.
3. But I do have a list of the holiday gifts I am knitting.
4. I am obsessed with grammar but I have no trouble starting sentences with conjunctions. Ah, the contradictions.
5. I have alien connected toes.
6. I kind of wish I had liked science and math more in school, or at least tried harder to like it.
7. Are any of the things on this list really interesting or odd? Maybe just the toes thing.

Now for the eights.

8 Shows I Love to Watch:
This is hard for me to admit, but here goes:
Brothers & Sisters (shut up)
America's Next Top Model (seriously, I know)
How I Met Your Mother (slightly more socially acceptable)
Project Runway
Top Chef
uh... hm... that's all the current-ish shows... how about some old shows?
Six Feet Under
Friday Night Lights
A Different World

8 Things That Happened Yesterday:
1. Finished American Wife, which was decent.
2. Whined about having a cold.
3. Ate pretty much nothing but J.'s homemade chicken soup.
4. Started watching "Brother from Another Planet."
5. Started writing an assignment, an interview with a reference librarian.
6. Finished writing an article about an awesome online exhibit.
7. Got on the Wii Fit.
8. Played Word Twist on Facebook.

8 Places I Love to Eat (and the links to go with them):
Ithaca: Moosewood, Taste of Thai Express, ABC Cafe
DC: Udupi Palace, Bistrot du Coin, Oceanaire, Coppi's Organic
Everywhere: Chipotle

8 Things I Am Looking Forward to:
Visiting DC in a week and a half!
Thanksgiving with my family
Going to Lanky afterward
Meeting Katie
The first big snowstorm
My classes next semester
My library internship
The new season of Top Chef

8 Things on my Wish List:
Obama presidency Thoughtful and deliberate Obama administration
One published novel
OK, more than one published novel
More time to write
Fulfilling jobs for me and J. in the same place
New pots to replace the one(s) I've ruined in the last few weeks
Thai food