My Last Blog Was Not A Success

You Wanted It, You Got It ...

2011-07-06T07:36:00.000-07:00

Never let it be said that I do not listen to the voices of (ahem) fans. Coming up: A Blog About Greece, With Pictures.

Stay tuned!

The Fig Tree

2010-10-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

-- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Impossible is Nothing

2010-05-13T07:21:00.000-07:00

So some nights i wake up and think with dead certainty that if i go to law school, it will be OMG THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE. And some mornings i open my eyes and immediately think that if i turn down the law school opportunity, it will be OMG THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE.

These two options are diametrically opposed and therefore cannot both be true. Right? So i have at least a 50% chance* of not making OMG THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE.

Haha. Just kidding. I know it'll come out okay in the end. I think. I'm sure.

*statisticians need not tell me what's wrong with this thinking. thanks. math = not my forte.
p.s. I'm not sure why this post is titled "impossible is nothing," except that the combination of lofty intent and words that do-not-mean-what-you-think-they-mean seems to echo my own poorly-structured argument about 50% chances. I.e., it sounds OK if you gloss over it but if you read it closely, it doesn't make sense.

LOST

2010-04-19T06:32:00.001-07:00

Is anyone else worried that the LOST mythology is going to come down to some crappy "love is the ultimate mystery that powers the universe and the Island la la la la laaaa" shenanigans? I admit to being a little so. I love me some Des + Pen, ditto Sun + Jin, even a bit of Chahlie + Claire ... but we're stretching it a bit with the whole idea that the only way you can see "through" to the alt-universe is by having a True Love (and a near-death experience). It reminds me a little of the movie Pleasantville, where the only way the characters achieved the ability to see in color instead of black & white was by ... having sex. I mean, I'm sure it was supposed to be more along the lines of "awakening from innocence" but it basically boiled down to sex. Which was annoying.

Anyway. If that's where this is going, I will be disappointed.

I am having

2010-04-13T09:54:00.001-07:00

very major cold feet.

Sigh

2010-04-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

I'm in my second UCR at penn. i have a bad feeling about it.

:(

Late Fragment

2010-04-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

- raymond carver

Bah

2010-03-08T11:35:00.000-08:00

That's pretty much the theme of my life lately. Just, bah. Everything is bah. Work. Money. School (or the idea of school). And ... uh ... that's my whole life, right there.

What sounds so perfect right now would be to be lying in a hammock in a backyard somewhere, on a sunny afternoon, with a good book or two and a knit blanket, and maybe some. Really, that sounds so wonderful.

I'M SORRY I CAN'T HELP IT

2010-02-26T08:09:00.001-08:00

... it's a compulsion.

Frye Honeycomb boots. I love these. Why are all the boots I like Fryes? They're all like $300-$400 a pop. These are $398. Also they are too small in the calf at 14".

WHOOPS.

2010-01-26T15:09:00.001-08:00

Since I'm trying to keep the whole "I-am-applying-to-schools-see-ya-later-suckahs" thing a secret from my employers, it would really be smart of me not to print the confirmation email from the Law School Admission Council listing the 7 schools whose applications I just paid for and leave it LYING ON THE COMPANY PRINTER FOR AN ENTIRE DAY omg seriously. What is wrong with me.

Oh well. La la la la.

It's Not Even a Contest

2010-01-20T15:40:00.000-08:00

Last time I made breakfast for Haines, I made him an egg-white "omelette" with onion, mushroom, cheese, and turkey bacon. Sounds delicious and simple, no? OH HOW WRONG YOU ARE. In retrospect I should have called it a "frittata." This would still have been a lie, but at least a frittata is not expected to maintain, like, a half-moon shape. Or to not disintegrate when you try to fold it. What I made him resembled ... lichen. You know, the grey-green mossy stuff that grows on rocks in wet places. Or maybe it resembled fungus. Whatever, I learned this:

1. Egg whites don't hold together especially well
2. ... if the ratio of dense filling to egg is high
3. ... and there's not a lot of binding agent (aka cheese)

Anyway it was not a pretty shape and it fell apart about six times and the egg whites turned the color of old socks and if I could have blindfolded him I would have. However, he gamely ate it and even pretended it didn't taste like dirt (I know he was lying, though, because MUSHROOMS TASTE LIKE THE GROUND). Then, recently, I was working on my apps and he wandered into the kitchen and casually made me THIS:

It's an iPhone pic so it's not a great image, but suffice to say there was wild mushroom rice, skillet-seared tomatoes, fresh-chopped herbs, and black beans, plus the actual, perfectly-browned and beautifully-presented omelette. I really don't know why I'm posting about this except to say ... I know who's doing the cooking in this relationship from now on.

p.s. Then he peeled an asian pear with a knife in only 2 curls. wtf. my best record is like ... 12. I'm just going with grapes from here on out.

"All the Afternoons in the World"

2009-12-12T09:45:00.001-08:00

There's something about packing up, or maybe just the end of the year, that's a little ... sad. Someone just came by and bought my couch & coffeetables, and while that's totally awesome, it was also kind of strange to watch this girl come in, try them out, look bright-eyed at her boyfriend and murmur that they would fit the "new place." She had that "I'm doing something new and starting fresh and it's exciting!" look, and it just reminded me of when I first came to this city. Even though I was scared shitless and already had (presciently) bad feelings about my job, still the whole of New York (which is the world) was laid open before me like a new book, all white sheets and clean edges and possibilities. Now it is five years on and it is somehow different. I will be leaving in six or seven or eight months, and I am downsizing, compressing my life into fewer boxes, ridding myself of kitchen implements and toasters and pretty but useless things I've not worn in years. I am preparing to move somewhere that I like and that I think will be fine, but it is still someone else's home, and in six or seven or eight months I will be doing the packing-compressing-ridding whirl again, and loading my suitcases into some rented van and taking the BQE out of the city for good. And even if I come back to this city someday, even to live, I do not think I will ever have the look that girl had on her face again.

Well. I'm glad that my little sofa and coffee tables and pillows and pictures are going to start fresh somewhere else.

Something to be excited about?

2009-12-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

There's a post up on Jez right now about how this one woman was trying to find some kids' books that teach feminist gender-roles for her two little kids, and how basically the books that she found that are expressly meant for that purpose were horribly boring and not kid-friendly. The post itself isn't all that (the message is: you can't teach kids any messages at all if the material sucks, so just focus on finding books with cool heroines instead of indoctrination), but the comments below are full of these awesome book suggestions from Jez readers. I realized that one thing I'm REALLY looking forward to for having kids of my own is ... inculcating a love of reading in them!! I started thinking about books I want my little girls to know and love:

The Little House on the Prairie series (my heart for this is well-documented)
The Harry Potter series (likewise)
The Enchanted Forest series (featuring as main characters a sassy princess who has no interest in the usual princessy things, and a female dragon who ends up ruling the kingdom)
The Hero & the Crown
The Blue Sword
A Wrinkle in Time (Meg! Glasses! Nerdy! Saves the world!)
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler (Claudia was just cool)
The Anne of Green Gables series (they are old and can seem stiff, but Anne has some awesome moments and she's so spunky and smart)
Matilda (she can move things with her MIND, though Ms Honeywell is a bit of a Mary Sue)
My Side of the Mountain (OK, this has a male lead, but it's basically gender-neutral because it's all about this kid surviving in the wild and making acorn flour, etc)
Jacob Have I Loved
Summer of My German Soldier
Tuck Everlasting
Bridge to Terebithia
Julie of the Wolves (Oh yeah! Here's a wilderness-survival story that features a girl! Julie is so badass in this)
The Taran Wanderer/Pig-Keeper series (Eilonwy can be a bit of a wash sometimes, but she puts Taran and a number of other people in their places when they try to tell her what she should or shouldn't be feeling/doing ... and I like that she IS girly and princessy, because that's OK too)
Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee

This is a strangely cobbled-together and very incomplete list (the age groups are all over and some of these are way stronger than others), but I really loved some of these books and I still have super-vivid memories of them (I can recall specific passages from some). The Jez commenters also seemed to have some cool suggestions for books for really young girls (The Paperbag Princess, Jane and the Dragon) that made me even excited for having little ones. AND there are some pretty great comments about the idea of helping children learn about feminism/equality:

"You know what I just realized was more important than reading all of these great books as a kid? Having a dad that read them with me. He made the protaganists relevant to my life and instilled the belief in me from a young age that I could and should attempt to conquer anything I desired."

Yes! This will be a requirement, Future Husband. You will help our daughters and sons learn that they are equally awesome and should feel equally capable of acheiving anything they want to.

And then there's this exchange:

"HM: I think it's definitely important to seek out books with central female characters, not only for girls, but for boys, so they don't grow up to be the men who think the male viewpoint is universal, and the female viewpoint is niche. Representation matters, even if what the kid articulates about it is "boats" he or she has just enjoyed a book in which being female is a normal thing.

P: Yes! And there doesn't even have to be a message (beyond the usual kids stuff – sharing, caring, looking both ways). Just the idea that girls and women are people and the heroes in their own lives."

And that made me excited to read this stuff not just to my little girls, but to my little boys! Which is stupid because I should have known better anyway and realized that it's not only the little girls who need to know these things, etc etc etc., and probably those of you who teach for a living are like DUH. But anyway. The gist of this is: I love books. I ... tolerate kids. But I'm really looking forward to encouraging MY kids to love books! I think this is the first thing I've really been enthused about when thinking of having children of my own, haha.

I'm a Craigslist Elitist

2009-12-01T06:22:00.000-08:00

Although I have to find an apartment with fairly specific criteria on a fairly low budget in essentially the next 16 days, I am unable to stop myself from being a Craigslist elitist. Here are some things for which I have mentally rejected CL ads in the last few weeks:

(Reasonable)
1. Lack of price in listing (... idiots)
2. Unreasonable utilities costs; wrong timeframe; too much $ for too small of a room
3. Super-stringent rules regarding friends and/or overnight company
4. Smoker, or too much perceived 420 enthusiasm
5. The Dude Who Did Not Own a Microwave or TV and Preferred to Keep It That Way

(Possibly Reasonable)
6. Saying weird stuff ("your home is your peaceful white castle of sleep," wtf?)
7. Sounds too-OCD about cleaning duties
8. Sounds too desperately in need of a BFF
9. "Strict shower timing observed" (wtf? x2)
10. AD WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS
11. Too much talk about peace, serenity, zen, harmony, spirituality, etc.

(Possibly Unreasonable)
12. More than one use of "lol", or ANY use of "lulz"
13. Any use of "keke"
14. Frequent appearances of multiple continuous exclamation points ("!!!!" and "!!!")
15. Lack of punctuation, or use of comma in place of all other punctuation including ellipses ("close to every thing close to everyone,,,,roomfor rent,,, big!!!" <-- shoot me now) 16. Misspelling more than 10% of words in post. Actually, make that 5%. Actually, I just rejected one for spelling December as "dicimber" and ad as "add" so maybe make that 1%.

Basically this is a sample of what I'm seeing:

$950 - awesome room w awesome roomates in BEST ASTORIA
Reply to: housingxxxxx@craigslist.org

room 4 $950,,,,internt/tv/elec not included,,,cozy/HUGE ruom 7x8 in 3 bed aprtment starting dicimber 1. looking 4 nice, friendly girl or guy who only uses shower btwn 4-4:15 am,,,,we have 4 cats who love being 420-friendly with us!!!! u must love them to. harmonious place to live w/vegitarians, no meat here lol but wearingleather is ok lol! close to everyone close to everything! great deal wont last!!!

if ur interested in this add and R an interesting person call us at 5555555. peace!

I might be homeless come January 1, but DO YOU BLAME ME?

Montréal!

2009-11-27T09:52:00.000-08:00

I know, I know; it's been ages since I last updated. I'm sorry! I suck! But things have been happening! I mean ... for you guys. Not that much has happened with me. However, I'm at home at my mum's in VA for thanksgiving, and am taking this opportunity to update on Haines' and my Montreal trip, which we took a couple of weekends ago. Montreal! The Europe of North America! Highly recommended, my friends.

We drove up on Thursday night after work. It's about a 6-hour trip, but fortunately this wasn't a hardship on me, as I just sat in the passenger seat and looked vacantly around me while Haines did all the driving. (This also sums up much of our relationship. Sorry, babe.)

We stayed at ... the W Montreal, aka the Nicest Hotel Ever!! No seriously, the hotel was really nice. Think big flatscreen tv, huge plush chairs with pillows, a 'natural rainfall' shower (which, in French, is something like "douche de pluie," bwahaha I am so immature), Bliss shower products, an incredibly-stocked minibar (including a canister with a "personal oxygen supply" ... what?). Although ... OK, on this trip I realized that I'm much more gauche and country-mouse-ish than I thought I was, because I was all like "ooo they give you a ROBE" and "if I touch this pretty iPod dock, will it break?!" and Haines was like, what is wrong with you. Haha. The one thing about the hotel though, as you'll see below, is that ... uh the shower wall is clear. Like, you can see into the shower from the room if the bathroom lights are turned on. Consequently, any showering action during the weekend happened completely in the dark so that you couldn't see in. Yeah. Just say no to lights.

Anyway, we got a super-good deal on the hotel, and resisted the urge to attack the mini-bar. That's not entirely true -- we removed their alcohol & drinks and replaced them with ours to keep cool, haha. I'm a terrible picture-taker, so here's me looking Taiwanese-photo-y (ie washed out) in the lobby on our 1 am arrival, a bad pic of the room, and ... the infamous shower.

So on Thursday after we arrived, we drank wine (you can bring 2 bottles per person into Canada from the US) and watched a Kevin Smith Q&A on a dvd we brought, which is to say that we replicated our usual Friday night experience in New Jersey.

The next morning, we grabbed a quick breakfast at a random cafe and then headed to the part of Montreal where we knew we'd feel most at home ... Chinatown.

Haha. Just kidding. We just happened to wander that way since we weren't exactly sure where things were. Then we went to Notre Dame, the main basilica in the city. It was quite nice. Unlike the Parisian version, and most of the other Roman Catholic cathedrals I've seen, the inside wasn't worked in stone and metals, but mostly in wood and paint. Haines pointed out a strong resemblance between the altar and the Magic Kingdom castle ... which I can't really contest.

Later that day we went to the Marche Jean-Talone, a huge farmer's market and one of the highlights of our trip. We bought beautiful, freshly-made pate, fresh bread and cheese, a handful of clementines, delicious salami ... there was so much other fantastic, fresh-looking veggies and other foods, but we just bought picnic-y things. The plan was to go eat them in the Mont Royal park, but due to our lack of a map and/or iPhone coverage, we got a little mixed-up directionally and it got too dark. Therefore we ate them in the Fanciest Hotel Room Ever instead, and it was delicious.

At night we went out late and just walked around. Montreal is a pretty walkable city, and it wasn't too cold, so it was really nice to just wander. I also posed as a Very Large Fish-Like Woman In Front of A Fountain Statue at one point. I thought it would be funny but later when I saw the pictures, it was ... a little dismaying. Oh wells.

On Saturday, we fulfilled MY goals for the trip: eating. One of Montreal's famous foods is their bagels, which are supposed to rival NY bagels. We went to St-Viateur, a famous bagel shop where alas our inability to read or speak French led to us getting bagel platters with ... pasta and artichoke salad (I was going for something more breakfast-y). Still tasty, though. I must admit that I side with the Canadians on the bagel issue ... I think theirs are better than NY bagels. I'm sorry. I know. I'm a traitor.

Above is my bagel, with cream cheese, really nicely smoked salmon, and capers .... mmm. Canadian bagels are a little smaller than their NY counterparts, and are lighter (less dense) and a little less chewy. They're also slightly sweet -- the dough is soaked in honey-water before it's rolled out and cooked.

The second part of my set of goals was to eat poutine, a Quebec speciality for late night drinkers and hangovers. Or, for me, for four-o-clock-in-the-afternooners. Poutine is a dish of thick-cut steak fries smothered in gravy and cheese curds. We went to La Belle Province, a fast-food-y chain restaurant, to get ours. Canadians swear LBP's poutine is the most authentic and like the original hearty peasant version, though you can get them all fancied-up with foie gras or whatever at other places around town.

They were pretty damtasty. Haines says that in Jersey you can get this dish too, but it's called "disco fries." Jersey is weird. Oh, and those hot dogs next to the poutine are called "steamies" because they're steamed instead of roasted or grilled. This is also a specialty in Quebec.

Montreal also has this enormous underground complex called the Underground City -- it's (very seriously) miles of connected underground shopping, hotels, restaurants, etc. We spent a few hours wandering around in it, but there were a lot of shoppers and it got a bit overwhelming, so we didn't do any buying. However, we did come to realize that there was an entrance to the Underground literally 50 feet from our hotel. Would have been smart if we'd realized that earlier, instead of wandering around in the cold ... whoops.

On Saturday night, we had our fancy-pants dinner, where we dressed up and I have no pictures because I am the WORST PHOTOGRAPHER EVER and basically forgot to take any besides the food. The food shots aren't very good either since I was kind of embarrassed that I was taking them in this uber cosmopolitan city, and so I'd whip out the camera, aim in the general direction, and take a single pic really fast. Anyway the pix don't do the food justice. We went to a restaurant called Leméac and had an amaaaaazing pan-seared foie gras for an appetizer. Haines had filet mignon with bone-marrow butter (YES BONE MARROW BUTTER *DROOL*) as his entree, and I had some perfectly roasted duck breast. We also ate this incredible, enormous caramel french-toast dessert which I also did not take a picture of, but believe you me, it was good.

Sunday, alas, was our last day, but we still managed to get some good stuff (*cough* food) in. We went to Schwartz's, a famous Katz's-like deli for smoked meat sandwiches on rye, fries, and pickles. They turn over the tables really fast there, but nonetheless there was a line waiting for seats the whole time we were there. Understandably: those sandwiches were pretttty dang good. I've only been to Katz's that once when we were all in college, but I don't remember being that impressed; I might need to go again to compare. These were really tender and moist. Mmm.

(I have about 10,000 pictures of Haines mid-bite. I really should give him time to compose his face. Tee hee.)

Then we walked around the street, which turned out to be the antique district, I think. We went into this cute store called Kitsch 'n Things, and bought Canadian souvenirs, i.e., I bought a beer glass with Canadian Molson on it, and Haines got ... vintage cups celebrating the moon landing. OK, whatever, it says Montreal to me.

We stopped by the Jean-Talon market on our way out of the city to pick up some more pate, bread, and sausage to take home, as well as some plums and radishes. (We both promptly devoured these at home, each by ourselves.) Basically it was a great trip. We saw a few famous sights, ate delicious food, and went to the markets, but we really took it slowly and just chilled and relaxed the whole time. I want to go back in the spring and eat a picnic lunch in the park. Hurrah for Canada!

What I'm Craving Now

2009-09-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

What? What's that? Updates on big life changes--trip to a foreign country, boyfriend, grad school applications? Oh, sirrah, you jest. I prefer to spend my precious blog posting time on such superficial things as Stuff I Want and Can't Afford.

Exhibit A: Leather Biker Jacket.

I've literally never felt the urge to get a leather jacket before, but for some reason I'm suddenly really covetous of them. I like this one on the model a lot, but when I went to look at it, it turned out to be faux leather. And if I'm gonna look like a heartless baby sheep-killer, it might as well be real lambskin on my back.

I like this one, too. The pic looks a little bit like the model just dug this out of a closet and snapped a picture in her garage or something, perhaps as a prelude to selling it on eBay, but the close-ups of the leather are nice. It's $125, on sale at Overstock.com.

Exhibit B: Green, One-shoulder Georgette Dress.

Again, I'm not sure why but I'm really into one-shoulder dresses right now, despite the fact that they're pretty Occasion-with-a-capital-O-y. I thought about getting one for Jo's wedding but my beauteous yellow eyelet lace dress was preferable, squee, though I'm still in debt for it. Note to self: must wear that again to bring down price-per-wear.

Anyway. Wouldn't this green one-shoulder with a ruffle look great over black tights and sort-of chunky black high heels? Perhaps with a belt and a long, Joan-from-Mad-Men style necklace? $45 at Overstock.

Exhibit C: Stainless Steel, Blue-and-Goldtone Nautica Chronograph Watch.

I really need a watch. I've been needing one since I started my current job, oh, almost 2 years ago. As it is I run meetings by surreptitiously checking my cell phone, which sort of makes it look like I'm trying to text someone. Awesome.

Anyway, this will not be the watch I'm getting. While I think it's quite lovely in a structured, masculine way, I probably need something more ... basic. Like straight-up silver or gold. This is $120 (from $290) at Overstock. It also comes in black and white (... which I'm considering slightly more seriously) for $105 (from $210).

Exhibit D: Vintage Tourmaline & Diamond Ring.

Yeah ... this one is a total nonessential. But recently I've been getting into vintage or vintage-styled jewelry, where the settings and cuts seem a little more old-school (like rose-cut diamonds? Love them). Plus I've always loved big statement rings.

I like that the stone in this ring is a tourmaline, too, and the slightly watery color it has. I feel like emeralds are either deeper and more vivid (the good-quality ones), or paler and cloudier (poorer quality). This has the paler color I like, but retains the gem's clarity. And don't you think it would be a kind of fun engagement ring? (NOT THAT I AM THINKING ABOUT THAT SO DON'T EVEN GO THERE IN COMMENTS, for real y'all, I'm really not, because I'm not effing insane.) I think I always see vintage rings with a large center stone and associate them with antique engagement rings, since in the old days (pre-de Beers) an engagement ring was any kind of gem, not just a diamond. I always remember how in the Little House on the Prairie books, Laura's engagement ring from Almanzo was a small gold band, set with a garnet surrounded by two little pearls. She wore it on her index finger ... so basically it was a cocktail ring, haha.

I also always think that the only time I'm likely to receive/purchase a piece of jewelry with a big, expensive stone is when/if I ever get engaged ... hence when I see big rings I covet, I'm all "engagement ring!" Anyway. Protesting too much? I realize it looks like it could be paste, but it's real, and $2,000 at Overstock's estate jewelry site.

In my ideal world I would buy all of these items and possibly wear them all at once (dress + tights + heels + biker jacket = win!), probably minus the watch, but instead I'm going to buy myself ... applications to law school! Awesome. And just as durable, I'm sure.

Birthday Gift

2009-08-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

With my $200, should I "buy" myself:

a) a nice watch (timekeeping = important)
b) a professional bra fitting and 1 or 2 bras (good support = everyday value)
c) a higher loan payment (reducing debt = future happiness)

Best value?

Sigh.

2009-06-29T09:36:00.001-07:00

Should I retake the LSAT?

Wakes in the Sea

2009-06-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino, y nada más;
caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de pisar.

Caminante, no hay camino,
sino estelas en la mar.

* * *

Traveler, your footprints
are the path, and nothing more;
traveler, there is no path,
the path is made by walking.
By walking the path is made,
and in looking behind
you see a path
you will never walk again.

Traveler, there is no path,
only wakes in the sea.

XXIV from Campos de Castilla
- Antonio Machado, 1912

Taking the LSAT is Like Going Through Airport Security, Except that They Actually Enforce Regulations

2009-06-05T06:48:00.001-07:00

From the Law School Admission Council's emailed instructions about the test day:

"You are allowed to bring into the test center only a clear plastic zip lock bag (maximum size one gallon/3.79 liter) containing ONLY the following items: LSAT Admission Ticket stub, valid ID, wallet, keys, hygiene/medical products, #2 or HB pencils, (NO mechanical pencils), erasers, pencil sharpener, highlighter, tissues, beverage in a plastic container or juice box (20 oz./591 ml. maximum size), and a snack (for break only). The only timing device that test takers are allowed to have in their possession at LSAT test centers is an analog wristwatch. "

Guess I need to go to CVS and pick up some one-gallon ziplocks.

This Weekend

2009-06-05T06:24:00.000-07:00

I think I need to go spend a bunch of recuperative hours in the YA section of a bookstore. I have the feeling that only good new YA can soothe the tattered edges of my ravanged psyche from this week.

... what? what's that you say? I have a major test on Monday, which I am unprepared for? PSHAW, I say to you: PSHAW. Get your priorities straight.

The Real World

2009-06-03T20:48:00.001-07:00

One of the things I miss most about college/school is how nothing really mattered. I mean, yes, failing your exam or effing up your lab experiment would matter in that your grade would drop, and you might later not get, I dunno, the GPA or grad school or job offer you were hoping for ... but at the same time, it's all fake. It's all scores and rankings created in an artificial environment, and if things go awry it's not actually going to hurt anything or cost anyone. It doesn't hold any immediate-effect weight in the real world.

All this is a long way of saying: when someone screws up in the working world, there can be actual, tangible results which cost the company money and can have a real-world impact on the company's profit margin/ability to stay competitive in business/your job.

And all of that was the long way of saying: fuck-ups at the office recently, some of which were not mine but are technically under my purview, equals sick, sick feeling in the pit of stomach and a longing for the days of impact-free "work."

I.E., my week.

Love, Sweet Love

2009-05-31T21:38:00.000-07:00

... It's the only thing there's just too little of.

More pix and recap TK.

Materialism

2009-05-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

As is evident from recent posts, I am on a materialism kick. Although that's inaccurate, because it implies that at other times I am not a materialist, which is patently untrue.

Basically even when I have no money at all, I still window-shop online all the freaking time. Whatever, I paid off my credit card debt, I'm over feeling guilt about it. Anyway I kind of need to get a watch, though "need" is a flexibly-used word in the sentence.

I like these: Though they might not be the most, um, practical "watches" I cuold be choosing. There are sure a lot of air quotes in this post.

Ok, I am woman enough to admit when I am wrong ...

2009-05-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

... and I was wrong about the following:

1) Skinny jeans.

Yes, yes, two or three years ago I did say they are flattering to absolutely no one who doesn't have legs the length of Agness Deyn's ... but now I admit they are cute. And we all have them. And nothing has changed, they still probably look short and dumpy on me, but I may try to wear a pair on Saturday anyway, despite being 5'4". FINE.

Leighton Meester, I wish I was you. Weird name and all.

2. Platform heels.

I still maintain that some of them make you look like a hooker. See exhibit A:

I'm sorry, I just can't get on board this $120.00 BCBG train.

However, these:

These, I covet deeply (... and might purchase, though actually I was looking for a less formal pair. Something with a wooden heel and brown leather, maybe?). And these:

... well, these are more or less art. ($700-per-pair art, yes, but whatevs. Someday I will own you from eBay.)

3. ... Sob ... i can hardly bring myself to say it ... PEGGED JEANS. (i'm so ashamed.)

Ok, LOOK. I honestly don't even really know when pegged jeans were last in, because whenever it was, I wasn't paying attention to fashion. I was nerdy. A little, fashionless, nerdy, ugly girl. So when I first heard discontented rumblings that pegged jeans were making reappearances, this is what I saw and thus thought of:

C'mon, guys. That's bad. It's just bad. I get the comfy, slouchy boyfriend thing, but Katie Holmes is like 5'10" and even she manages to look dumpy and scrubby in these. Right? So it's understandable that I was like OMG NO DO NOT BRING BACK PEGGED JEANS (from, uh, whenever they were. The 80s, I presume? Everything ugly was big in the 80s).

But recently, searching the Steve Madden site (for platform heels. I already admitted I was wrong, okay?) and came across a lovely spread of The New Shoes that I apparently Have To Wear With This Season's Pegged Jeans Trend!!, and they were .... cute. They were all pretty cute. Of course the jeans were slimmer and not uber-distressed, and the cuffs were rolled a little higher so you can see a bit of calf, which I think is pretty.

Unfortunately I can't find this spread on the Madden site anymore, but these are a little more like it:

These are still a little strangely baggy in the crotch/waist and I am anti-ripping, but I like that you can see a tad more ankle and calf, and with a heel I think that can be pretty. So OK. Basically I'm just prepping you to say that I might roll some of my jeans this summer, MAYBE. (p.s. I have pair that I 'cuff' because they're too long to wear with flats, but I don't consider that rolling, just laziness/miserliness as I refuse to buy another pair with inseams of the correct length.)

And to round it off, current trends I love:

1. Maxidresses. Thank you, gods of fashion, for bringing this comfy clothing option back into play. The printed maxi below is like 14 kinds of cute, and brings the ability to pretend I'm comfortable in revealing, summery clothes while not actually revealing anything at all. Woo hoo!

2. Flats. Praise the gods. I love a heel as much as the next girl but it is nice to know that I can give my feet a break while not diving into frumpy-mom territory. These are cute, right? Nothing special but sweet and easy.

3. Metallics. In moderation, I do so love a good metallic--a shoe, clutch, or belt in a gold or bronze is just super pretty, and pretty safe. It's easier to get in trouble with larger swathes of metallic, but I have also seen some gorgeous minidresses, tunics, and shifts in dull or muted metallics that make me drool. (No pic, it's making my post all wonky when I try to import one.)

However, I will never get on board with these trends:

1. Super, super distressed jeans. Or anything with paint flecks. Seriously, why would I pay to look like I'e owned clothes for 4 years and painted my house in them?

2. Shoulder pads. Please no.

3. Those ridiculous peep-toe boots that came out last fall, and current their summer inverse: sandals with, like, random extra fabric wrapped around the ankle.

See leftmost picture for what I think of as caveman sandals, because they sort of look like a caveman would wear them, or, you know, someone else who was no access to civilization and/or the tools one would use to create aesthetically-pleasing clothing. See the middle and right for two particularly egregious examples of peep-toe boots: a hideous, part-Timberlands, part-gladiator, all-ugly high-heeled boot/sandal/thing; and a pair of $800 Sigerson Morrison leather "riding boots" that look like vomit.

Seriously, WTF? What on earth are these good for?

Does Not Compute.

2009-05-08T08:38:00.000-07:00

Premise 1: Many men exist who would like to meet a girl who is both not horrendously ugly and who wants to see the new Star Trek movie.

Premise 2: I am a girl who wants to see the new ST movie.

Premise 3: I am not run-for-the-hills-screaming ugly. I brush my teeth and shower not infrequently, even.

Statement of fact: I cannot find a single man to take me to see the new ST movie.

... Can someone please explain where this argument derailed?

Foods I Couldn't Do Without

2009-04-29T22:15:00.001-07:00

... when on a diet. As I unfortunately am. And need to be, apparently forever.

Salmon
No-sugar Jello pudding cups
Laughing Cow Light Cheese
Fage yogurt <-- zomg DELICIOUS
Frozen veggies, neatly bagged and easy to nuke
Lentils and all forms of lentil soup
Eggs & Egg Beaters egg-whites
Chickpeas
Brussels sprouts
Sugar-free jam
Cannelloni beans
Arnold's Multigrain Sandwich "Thins" (like a very thin English muffin. The important part is you can get bread on the bottom and top which makes it taste like real food, but it's but 100 cal total)
SEASONINGS. So important. Season-all, black pepper, chili flakes, chili pepper, lemon-pepper, etc.
Turkey meats of all kinds (bacon, ground, sausage)
Diet soda
Skinny lattes from Starbucks (90 cal, people. 90. Cal.)

... too bad I'm hungry right now, just thinking of this deliciousness.

Sorry, this is a terrible post. If I'd spent as much time thinking about, like, work as I have food over the last 87 days I've been on this diet (yes: I am counting) I probably could have cured cancer or something by now.

Awesome!

2009-04-23T10:07:00.000-07:00

Robopenguins! ... And FLYING robopenguins! Simultaneously creepy and cool. I want one.

http://brightcove.newscientist.com/services/player/bcpid2227271001?bctid=20358143001

Three Weekends Ago In SF

2009-04-11T21:52:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, scratch that, 3 weekends ago, I went out to SF to visit my brother, who is living there for several months as part of his Best Government Job Evah, and my mother and aunt. My cousin Makeda lives in SF now too, and my mom was on her spring break, so it was an ideal time to get together. I had a lot of fun and was glad to see SF, although (as I've articulated to a number of you) my trip home was so insanely hellish that I wish never to think of it again. Dulles International Airport, I have now spent more time with you than ... well, than I really ever wish to again.

Anyway! Some pix.

This is my mom, me, my aunt, and my cousin at the office of my cousin's elementary school in Santa Clara, where she's a first-year 3rd grade teacher. The school is ... super Californian, i.e., it seems to be very concerned with, you know, emotional development and teaching kids about themselves and other people, and extremely not into things like grades, or a set curriculum. I confess that, while somewhat in touch with my liberal side, I tend to be a little more, um, old-school when it comes to stuff like this.

Then we went to In 'N Out. Delicious!

After that, we went into SF and went to Chinatown, natch. Here's me and mom, and another of your typical tourist-Chinatown street.

One of SF's famous cable cars. Jarrett explained to us the next day how trolleys, cable cars, and street cars differ -- SF has streetcars which run off electricity pulled from cables running above the street, but which have tires and no set tracks. It also has several actual trolleys that similarly pull electricity from the overhead cable, but ALSO run on actual trolley tracks (this is what a SEPTA trolley does). Apparently the term trolley can mean different things in different places. However, SF's is, I think, the last/the only US place with an actual cable car still in use. With cable cars, there's a cable running under the street itself that's always moving. The car is on tracks above it, and the conductor literally grabs the moving cable (uh with part of the car, obvs) and the car is hauled along as the cable moves. To stop, he just presses the button to let go.

After this, we walked from Chinatown to the Fisherman's Wharf, and everybody was cranky because apparently people who don't walk as much as NYers get cranky about walking as much as NYers. Oops. I told them it was a long walk ...

At Fisherman's Wharf is the famous Ghirardelli factory. I am saddened to tell you that this trip, right then, was when I finally admitted after 25 years that my mother does not know how to pronounce Ghirardelli, and thus I have been pronouncing it wrong this whole time too. And I do mean this whole time; I remember knowing what Ghirardelli and Godiva were at a pretty young age since my mom was sort of a chocolate snob (she was always like "oh, Hershey, I'd rather eat chalk" and I'm like "did they even have chocolate in hong kong when you were growing up?"). Anyway I feel like I only hear the word pronounced aloud like once every year, and for some reason for the last 8 or so I've just been ... ignoring the gathering evidence that both my mom and myself were making fools of ourselves. Oh well. It's delicious either way.

The next day we went down to Monterey Bay, which is a few hours south of SF, on the coast. I'm not posting too many pix bc ... that's boring and takes forever, but here are a few.

This is of the wharf near the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is pretty famous (though not exactly inexpensive).

The aquarium itself was really good, though. They had pretty wide-ranging, well-designed, and informative exhibits, many of which were also startlingly beautiful. Consider these strangely luminous, orange-streaked jellyfish:

Or the gorgeous way the sunlight filters through this kelp forest. The kelp forest was very large and had a huge variety of fish. My camera is a point-and-shoot and couldn't adequately capture how a school of fish would dart by in a streak of silver light. It was every cliche you'd expect -- tranquil, beautiful, etc -- but cliches are cliches for a reason, I guess.

We drove farther down the Monterey coast. This is the beginning of Big Sur, an area sixty miles long down the coast, characterized by its plunging cliffs and colorful hills. It reminded me of the heath/moor on the coast of Ireland.

The next day, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge (back up in SF, going across the bay) ...

... towards Muir Beach, where there were many happy doggies running in the surf, and Muir Woods. We only got to stay in Muir Woods for 45 minutes (on the dot, because there is absolutely no parking there and my brother ended up staying the car and essentially just driving around the mountain while he waited for us), but it was pretty cool. I'd love to go back and hike some of the paths; in 45 minutes, you can basically only go down the 30-min tourist loop (esp if you are dragging a mom and aunt).

The trees, they iz big. The people, they iz little.

Lastly, we went to Sausalito, a 'quaint' (read: once local, now touristy) town next to the water across the bay from SF. We had a delicious dinner and I had a lovely beer. Mmm.

This is a pic of SF from Sausalito. It ... didn't come out well. Sorry.

Anyway, it was fun, but I really want to go back and make a proper coastal trip of it with my two HS friends this summer when we're in LA for my other friend Karen's wedding. We're not sure it will work out, but I hope so!

OK that's all. To come, hopefully soon: some NY pictures!

Ho Hum. Random List.

2009-03-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

I've been really busy lately with work and classes and just ... stuff. People coming into town, or random deadlines that have to be met for random projects and stuff I've agreed to do. And generally speaking, all of these are things I really want to do, or people I want to see or be able to help out with, but it's definitely been a sprint the last few months. I feel like it'll be crazy up until June, when I take the LSAT, simply because so much of my free time is now dedicated to LSAT stuff by necessity. But I still intend to make the most of the upcoming year.

So lately I've been thinking about a few things that I'd like to ... be/change/do this year. (That sounds strange, but I can't quite think how to word this.) Basically, there are some things I wish were different about myself, and in the tradition of Jo's "Everything Will Change At A Completely Arbitrary Point In Time" way of thinking, I've decided there's no arbitrary time like the present one to start trying to be the person I'd like to be.

1) Love New York more. The past week the weather has been pretty nice, and I've been trying to walk around the city more and take pictures and stuff. (Although in practice basically this means I wandered through NY on Friday night at 1 am, in heels, and now my feet hurt.) I'm always so focused on getting somewhere, and had never wanted to be one of those people who stops on Broadway and whips out their camera or cranes their neck to look around ... but I realized I've lived here almost 4 years, and it's only now that I'm starting to feel like it's my city or my home. I guess I've never thought of NY with any permanence, and since we moved so much as a kid I was used to thinking of "home" as just the place where you happen to live. I've never felt particular emotional attachment for a physical home, much less a location; Philly's probably been the strongest til now, and even that had an inherently transitory feel to it. I'd like to, you know, know and love my city a little more. This summer I want to try to see more of Brooklyn and Queens, too.

2) Wear cute dresses and summer clothes. Eh, I guess this comes down to a "like my body and be less ashamed" of it kind of thing. It can be kind of hard when you live in a city where the standards are so high and unforgiving, and there are so many exquisitely-dressed people around. But I'd like to stop feeling like I'm just suffering through summers and doing the minimum to look presentable, which means I need to just get over my scar issues and my body type issues and all that other BS. (Although, I mean, also losing 9 million pounds is part of this goal. I am sure that will help.)

3) Be more creative. I'm always talking about wishing I could write more or whatever. I'm going to try to just ... do it, and make the time. Write more stories. Submit stuff, maybe.

4) Say yes to everything. Um, don't get me wrong, but you know what I mean here. I'm always so cautious about life and people, and I don't want to regret missing opportunities, or not living life fully, just because I was scared of looking gauche or feeling awkward or possibly embarrassing myself. So invite me to do stuff. I'll try to say yes.

A Physics

2009-03-04T21:05:00.000-08:00

Heather McHugh

When you get down to it, Earth
has our own great ranges
of feeling--Rocky, Smoky, Blue--
and a heart that can melt stones.

The still pools fill the sky,
as if aloof, and we have eyes
for all of this--and more, for Earth's
reminding moon. We too are ruled

by such attractions--spun and swaddled,
rocked and lent a light. We run
our clocks on wheels, our trains
on time. But all the while we want

to love each other endlessly--not only for
a hundred years, not only six feet up and down.
We want the suns and moons of silver
in ourselves, not only counted coins in a cup. The whole

idea of love was not to fall. And neither was
the whole idea of God. We put him well
above ourselves, because we meant,
in time, to measure up.

But ...

2009-02-25T18:09:00.000-08:00

... this one's still my favorite. SQUEEE! *strokes buttery soft leather on bed next to me* Many hearts, guys.

Gorgeous.

2009-02-21T13:00:00.000-08:00

Isn't this the prettiest thing you've ever seen?
Too bad it's YSL, and $850.00 (although that is down from $1,400.00). Oh, where is my sugar daddy?

My Last Grocery List

2009-02-06T21:20:00.000-08:00

- AA batteries
- frosting
- a broom
- Michelob 64 beer

I'm pretty sure the cashier thinks I'm schizo.

Gong Hey Fa Choi! (Gong Xi Kuai Le!)

2009-02-03T20:01:00.001-08:00

I was going to write a real post with Annie's awesome pictures, but it's late and I'm supah tired, so ... this is all I got, folks!

Full Measure

2009-01-30T14:17:00.000-08:00

-- Kay Ryan

You will get your full measure.
But, as when asking fairies for favors,
there is a trick: it comes in a block.
And of course one block is not
like another. Some respond to water,
giving everything wet a little flavor.
Some succumb to heat like butter.
Others give to steady pressure.
Others shatter at a tap. But
some resist; nothing in nature softens up
their bulk and no personal attack works.
People whose gift will not break
live by it all their lives; it shadows
every empty act they undertake.

I know I posted this once before, but it's just so good. I am truly in awe of how Ryan is able to convey the whole, sweeping sense of something in a few succinct measures--and of how her poems convey a thought or meaning, then often subvert it and make you question your interpretation and judgments by the end, and see things in a new light.

This poem, "Full Measure," begins with an almost Biblical assurance: you will get your full measure in life--you will be given the same gifts and chances as everyone else. We are all equal in this sense, and the beginning is almost hopeful. But then in the very next line, she introduces a note of warning by evoking the trickster fairies of the original fairy tales (think Tam Lin, or even the fairies in Jonathan Strange, not the Brothers Grimm). Yes, this allusion says ominously, you will get the gift you wanted--but beware that what you want has a way of turning against you.

Then she gets to the meat of the poem: what happens to your gift? In my reading, what I took "gift" to mean talent or ability of whatever kind is precious to you and makes you feel that you're doing what you're meant to do. You know--your passion, what makes you different or special. We read in the next 8 lines of the many, myriad ways a gift can slip away from you: dissolving in water or melting in heat like butter; draining away after a lifetime of constant, nagging pressure; or being broken to pieces in one hard blow. These descriptions all have a ring of the unfortunate to them--with words like "succumb" and "shatter," each sounds like the description of a loss of talent or gifts. At the end of this passage, only a few are left able to resist; nothing in nature softens up/their bulk and no personal attack works. Ah, we think. A fortunate few are able to resist the awful pressures of life, whether it is the constant drain of the daily grind, or a series of misfortunes, or one terrible accident that leaves you emptied of the gift that you were given. People whose gift will not break, we read, live by it all their lives ...

But there is no line break here, and as you read your eye cannot stop on that reassuring sentiment. Instead, it runs on past the semicolon, which after all is only a pause and can only provide a temporary respite against the truth that lies in the corollary to this statement:

People whose gift will not break
live by it all their lives; it shadows
every empty act they undertake.

You can read this last line and a half in two ways. Firstly, having reached the end of the poem assuming that possession of a gift is a good thing, you can read "shadow" in one of its secondary interpretations, as a faint or reflected image. If your gift "shadows every empty act [you] undertake," then perhaps the emptiness of your actions is redeemed somewhat by reflecting, in some small way, the greatness it could be achieving. In other words, you may not be painting world-renowned works of art 99% of the time, but you bring your painter's eye and appreciation of color and design to everything, even the fliers you make at work, and this makes it worthwhile.

But in the second way to read this--the way I, and, I think, Kay Ryan would read it--these final lines don't seem to be saying that having your gift intact serves you all your life. Instead, they say, you are subservient to it. Having a gift, and knowing you have it, looms over you through all the days you will live, casting its long shadow over every empty act you undertake--and God knows 99% of the acts we do are empty. That's what most of life is, not grand moments of passion or triumph, but a long series of motions and responses in order to get past the thing you're in now, or get to the place you're going, to get along with life, to get through it, to get by. And here Ryan says that every time you do this, you'll feel the weight and disappointment of not doing more, of not doing the full measure of what you're capable of.

So, in the end, my reading of the earlier lines fell into question. What's better: to know you have a rare talent, but to live constantly disappointed by your own inability to realize your potential; or to let that gift slip away, and then merely get on with the business of living? Which cuts you worse? Do you truly want to know the full measure of what you're capable of, or will it be a further burden?

Her poem is a statement and a question, and how you read & interpret it depends on who you are and what you believe. What is the most amazing to me is that what took me 5 lengthy paragraphs to enunciate, she was able to imply/evoke in a scant 14 lines. That's the magic of poetry--how a few words or phrases call to mind a much larger question and evoke all of the warring ideas in the discussion, yet does this with such swift precision and linguistic beauty. I'm seriously in awe.

Hi, Remember These?

2009-01-24T22:43:00.000-08:00

... What? You do? Well, that makes sense, as if you are one of the three (maybe 4?) people reading this blog, you also probably received my email in winter 2006 with an embedded jpg of these, the subject line of which was something like this:

RE: OMG LOVE

And the contents of which was something like this:

RE: OMG LOVE

OMG i really really like these! they're from that UK site i was talking about and i know they'll fit. but they're soooo expensive .... should i get them? omg no i can't. but they're beautiful. what do i do?!!! No I can't. They're almost 160 pounds, plus shipping. Sob!! maybe i could stop eating for a few months to save the money?

That was when the dollar-to-pound exchange rate was over 2 to 1. Yeah. As you can guess I did not buy them, because (with shipping) that sh*t was like $380 which was at the time more than half my month's rent (alas that statement is no longer true). Now, guess what .... they're down to 70 pounds. Which in today's exchange rate is less than $100. BUT. When I was squeeing, that was 2 years ago. I still really like them ... the military-inspired look, the skinny heel ... but I've sort of moved on to a more casual, thicker- or lower-heeled look. So ... while $100 would have been a total steal for boots I would have worn constantly 2 years ago, it's still kind of a lot of money for boots I am not as enthralled by ... right?

Sigh. All my dilemmas are the same. (You thought my Great Search In Life had been subsumed by job worries and posts about adult-y things like 401ks and future plans, huh? Yeah, as if.)

(PS--if you have a really good memory you might recall I sent one or two other boot pix from the same online store in the same 2006 email. Those boots are also on sale, including one that is flat, but the sale isn't as good. And the caramel-colored boot with the brass studs from earlier this year is ALSO on sale, though again, not at such a great discount. Just saying, many wheels are turning in my head. Including one wheel that says "you could have bought these boots, but instead you spent that money on LSAT registration, you fool! where are your priorities?!")

Laziness FTW!

2009-01-22T19:25:00.000-08:00

Haha. So. When I "left" Harper, I neglected to do anything about my 401k (well, I mean, I had nowhere to put it). Then when I got my new job ... I still neglected to do anything about my old 401k, because I'd forgotten my account password with the financial company, and then I tried too many combinations and got locked out of the account, and had to call them M-F between 8-4 to get reactivated. And that was just too much trouble.

So since I didn't give them any directions, my old employer transferred my funds to a rollover IRA. And today I got two financial statements:

Change in value of my IRA: 0.6% ... so, not so great.
Change in value of my 401k, pegged to the markets: -33.5%

Hahah, .6% is looking a lot better! So, laziness was totes a virtue here. The end.

P.S.

2009-01-17T21:26:00.003-08:00

Oh, haha, just went back and looked at my Monday post in which my goals were to a) finish editing the book I'm working on; b) spend today taking an LSAT diagnostic; and c) clean house this weekend.

As you may guess none of these were accomplished.

2008 vs 2009

2009-01-17T20:29:00.000-08:00

So I just found a piece of paper with my 2008 goals on it (and by "just found" I mean, looked up 2 inches and saw it pinned to the wall above my laptop, haha whoops forgot that was there). So let's review.

2008 Goals:

Goal 1: Grow freelance copyediting/proofreading network and business
Outcome: Accomplished, sort of! I haven't done that much prf/ceing, but I've been doing lots of other freelance publicity work which I like better.
Goal 2: Join gym or other regular exercise
Outcome: My side hurts from laughing. Oh, optimism, will you never learn? Um, in April and May of this year I did a decent amount of running and situps, etc., to "prepare" for Cancun. Then I gave up.
Goal 3: Check out volunteer.match or other volunteer program, find something to help out at
Outcome: Accomplished, I guess? I did volunteer at ICNY for four months, but ... it wasn't very satisfactory, and I didn't sign up for another term. I should have, though, since I do realize that *my* personal satisfaction isn't supposed to be the point of volunteering.
Goal 4: Get out of credit card debt
Outcome: TAKE THAT BIZZITCHES!!!! As of yesterday, 1/16/2009, I am finally, FINALLY out of credit card debt. I am especially proud of this as my debt (starting January 2008) was equal to about 18% of my (pre-tax) yearly income (or 27% of my take-home pay). Yes. And that was before finance charges etc. Actually I do have $17.22 left on one card but I think I'm entitled to say I'm clear.
Goal 5: Research MLS/grad school options, apply for 2009 entry
Outcome: Epic fail. In so many ways.
Goal 6: Start writing more
Outcome: Well, I guess I wrote a couple of blog posts, but on the whole, fail.

So the tally is: 2.5 Accomplisheds/1.5 Fails/1 Epic Fail.

Um, I guess I should shoot for a little bit better for 2009. So what are my goals?

2009 Goals:

1) Study for and take the June LSAT. Actually apply to schools, not at the last minute.
*I just signed up for it! and ordered the offical 10 Tests book. Now that I'm spending the money, hopefully I can crack down and get serious about studying ...
2) Take a creative writing or other writing class, preferably in the summer or fall after acing the LSAT. (Or just start doing more creative stuff, but I'm probably not capable of doing that without deadlines imposed on me by someone else.)
3) Get a grip on my financial life (i.e., start saving $ now that my cc debt is gone).
* This past week, opened a second savings account and told payroll to divert a part of my paycheck (... a very, very small part) to it.
4) Maybe get another job, in an industry that has a better prognosis than that of the Titanic on April 14.
*Yeah I've been saying this for ages. We'll see.
5) Prepare myself for a year of utter loneliness by joining some sort of social group (book club? more volunteering?) or, you know, finding the Man Of My Dreams (sci-fi aisle, here I come).
6) Lose vast quantities of fat/exercise.
* I have to put this on the list because ... seriously it's been like a traditional part of my yearly resolutions since I was about 9. Hope springs eternal, etc.

Sigh. Check back in a year and we'll see how I did.

NOOOOOO.

2009-01-16T07:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117998641.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

G*damnit, Keanu. You have good taste in projects but ABSOLUTELY SH*TTY ACTING ABILITIES and you ruin everything. Even our shared hapa-ness will not absolve you from the crime of this if you eff it up, AND YOU WILL.

And if that Ender's Game live action movie ever makes it out of the options/production lot and into theaters, I may just give up entirely and never see another scifi movie again.

To Do

2009-01-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

Ok, seriously, I need to get my act together. Here's the week's plan:

a) spend evenings after work finishing 1st round edits of book. I have about 100 pgs left. It's ridiculous that it's taking me this long.
b) finish NYU job application
c) spend Saturday taking an LSAT diagnostic test
d) sign up for the actual LSAT, for real this time
e) clean house. it is seriously a pigsty.

... What I Am Actually Doing:
a) writing this ridiculous blog post instead of working or going to sleep.

Sigh. I hate myself.

Also, edit: I STILL don't understand the stupid time stamps on blogspot!! Why does it say freaking 9:55 when it's past 1:00 am?! grrr.

Presenting, For the Edification of the Publick, A Heart-breaking and Tragick Tale of Ill-Spent Youth and Wasted Opportunity

2009-01-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

... or, in modern parlance, A Conversation Between My Father and Myself In Which I Am Reminded That I Am No Spring Chicken.

My gchat away message: this seriously is the forever week

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Warren S. wrote:
Hi prec, and I agree, this week is endless. Cleaned out my pantry yesterday - was getting "pantry pests" as in things breeding in my cormeal, flour etc. I'm now a new man.

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Alison S. wrote:
Hmm, maybe I should do that. Perhaps I'm suffering from potato weevil malaise. It strikes the very young you know.

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 11:22 AM, Warren S. wrote:
doesn't that mean you don't have to check?

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Alison S. wrote:
oh snap. you are right. i am past the age of very young.
*goes and sobs in the corner*

On a Cheerier Note ...

2008-12-14T11:44:00.001-08:00

Jo got a dress! A beautiful, beautiful, classic but modern, flattering but subtle, expensively-made BUT SUPA DISCOUNTED (obvs the best part) wedding dress from Vera Wang! (And not just VW Wedding Collection: Vera Wang Atelier!) I am honored to have gotten a tiny baby blister from having zipped and unzipped somewhere around 30 dresses amidst a crazed crowd of similar brides & their retinues. Alas, I did not have the chance to use my Ben Hur hip guards (equipped with a spike to ram sideways into any competing chariots, oops I mean brides, attempting to close in on a dress we wanted), but I *was* awfully rude to a couple of the VW salespeople who were trying to get us to adhere to the 3-dress-per-bride maximum (we had, oh, 6 or 7 on the rack plus one hidden in a crumpled heap on the floor under jo's scarf, I kid you not, we wanted to hold on to that option) ... which is sort of inexcusable and for which I now feel bad. Vera Wang salesladies! I am sorry. I realize you were only doing your job and I was a being a bridesfriendzilla bitch. Please accept my apologies.

Anyway I really have nothing more to say except that it was fun! And the dress is gorgeous! And the wedding is going to be the bestest! That is all.

No, Seriously, It’s a F*ckin’ Bloodbath In Media Right Now

2008-12-04T10:21:00.000-08:00

So you guys know how I’m always like “yeah it’s been savage in the media world” lately and “omg there are no media jobs” and “publishing is in major trouble”? So yesterday Random House announced a major, major company reorganization which is ousting two legendary publishers. In the book world, this is a BFD. Some other bookworld sh*t went down yesterday, too, prompting Publisher’s Lunch (a daily industry email news roundup) to call it “Black Wednesday." Anyway, prompted by all of this and not feeling particularly inclined to use my lunch hour for company purposes, I decided to pull together a roundup of How Bad Things Have Been in media this year.

See below for something long and scary. And keep in mind that I really, really trimmed it. (Since newspapers have been in a continual state of triage this year, it would take many pages to round up all of their news. I’ve only included big news from earlier this year up to October; after that, we’ll go into a fun close-up.) Also, this blog called Paper Cuts, which is devoted to following the news of paper, well, cuts, has come up with this number for newspaper jobs lost in 2008: 14,447. You can see it in more detail on the site.

Also, keep in mind that many media companies (besides the big conglomerates like Time Inc and Tribune Co) have smaller staffing numbers than you might expect. A mid-level magazine can operate with only 20-30 people total. Book company news is highlighted in red.

January through September:

Jan 10: McGraw-Hill cuts 600 jobs across the board, a 3% company reduction.

Feb 13: Tribune Co. announces 500 job cuts across newspaper divisions. This will eventually include 150 staff members from the LA Times; on top of buyouts offered earlier, the LAT will now have 20% fewer editorial positions than last year.

March 30: Over 100 staffers accept buyouts at Newsweek. Layoffs are to come to make up the difference between this number and what is “needed.”

April 10: Nielsen Business Media (which publishes Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek, Editor & Publisher and the Hollywood Reporter) lays off 40-50 staffers.

Early May: The New York Times completes its months-long cull of 100 reporters and editors. (Ed note: This is their first newsroom layoff--ever.)

July 16: The Wall Street Journal eliminates 50 editorial/newsroom. Atlanta Journal-Constitution announced that it’s cutting almost 200 jobs (8% of its total workforce).

Mid-July: Hearst folds Quick & Simple.

Aug 14: Gannett Co. (largest newspaper company in the US) cuts 1,000 workers, of 3% of workforce.

Sept 30: NY Sun folds.

October:

Oct 10: Hearst folds CosmoGirl.

Also folding in Oct: Radar, Men's Vogue (CondeNast), 02138, Culture + Travel, DNR (CondeNast), Motor Trend, Compact Sports Auto

Oct 15: City Magazines (part of Niche Media) cuts 20-30 jobs.

Oct 16: Playboy cuts 80 jobs.

Oct 22: Time magazine (which famously dribbled out a huge layoff over the course of the entire year), which recently announced that no more cuts will be made, announces that they lied! 200 more staffers will go in the next 2 weeks.

Oct 27: LAT lays off 27 editorial staffers, or about 10% of ed staff (do they even have anyone left over there?). Also, Newark Star-Ledger announces a 40% newsroom staff cut.

Oct 30: CondéNast cuts 5% of staff, and announces 5% budget cuts for all titles; Portfolio loses 20% of its staff. Also, Doubleday (part of Random House) lays off 10% of its staff.

November:

Nov 3: Rodale (a former employer) lays off 111 employees—10% of its workforce. Also, the Seattle Times lays off about 130 workers, also 10% of its staff.

Nov 7: Hearst announces major layoffs across the board, including at Esquire, Redbook, and Good Housekeeping.

Nov 10: People magazine looks for 20 voluntary separations. (this is part of the 600-person Time Inc reduction)

Nov 11: Time Inc international will also be cutting, possibly up to 10% of its staff. CondeNet lays off 60 staffers (part of the 5% reduction announced on Oct 30).

Nov 13: National Geographic announces 5-10% staff cuts across company. (Ed note: Particularly horrible: they laid off their cartographer! Where is he going to find another job?!)

Nov 14: Forbes.com lays off entire staff of ForbesAuto.com. The Street.com closes its SF office.

Nov 17: MTV announces that it is planning 2 layoff rounds, in early Dec and in Jan.

Nov 18: Focus on the Family lays of 149, or 21% of staff.

Nov 20: The AP announces that in 2009 it will “loose” 10% of its staff.

Nov 21: Modern Luxury cuts over half of staff. Magazine may fold into another. Also,Source Overlink (auto publisher) cuts 150 jobs and folds at least 2 magazines.

Nov 25: Harcourt freezes manuscript acquisitions! Kids, this means the trade division of the company is folding. You cannot run a publishing company without acqs.

Thank god, the carnage stops for Thanksgiving. Those of us who survive breathe a little.

This week:

Dec 2: The publisher of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt resigns (with no company line explanation, not even the usual "leaving to spend more time with my family" bs).

Dec 3:

Simon & Schuster lays off 35. Niche Media folds Atlanta Magazine.
Random House announces major, major reorganization in which 2 of its 5 flagship imprints will be divided into the 3 other imprints. Publishers for both Doubleday and Bantam are let go. I imagine that layoffs in the spring will follow as a result of the staffing redundancies that are being created during the merging.
Thomas Nelson announces layoffs of 10%.
HMH starts layoffs, which are continuing today . Like I said: you can’t have a publishing house if you’re not acquiring. HHM’s parent company, Education Media and Publishing Group, is pretty obviously giving up.

Dec 4, today:

MTV closes NY off of Rhapsody America; lays off 25.
Viacom announces layoffs of 850 people—this is just round 1 of the 2 currently planned, remember!—which is 7% of its staff.
NBC Universal starts a layoff process which is expected to continue into next week, in which 500 jobs are expected to be cut.
HarperCollins and Pearson (Penguin) both announce 2009 salary freezes, which is totally to be expected. I anticipate that RH and S&S will follow suit. (Although apparently Hachette is giving everyone bonuses equivalent to 1 week's salary. This is probably due entirely to the success of the Twilight series. Grrr.)

And this afternoon, chickadees, I will be attending my third "what this reorganization means" meeting in two days. I am looking forward to it, you'll understand.

Everything About This Deal Clip from PubLunch Makes Me Want to Quit Publishing

2008-11-18T19:56:00.000-08:00

"NYT bestselling author Angela Knight's sixth MAGEVERSE novel, in which King Arthur and his immortal vampire Knights of the Round Table try to save modern humanity from self-destruction, to Cindy Hwang at Berkley, in a three-book deal, by Roberta Brown of the Brown Literary Agency."

... I mean, seriously. Ew. And I like vampires. And magic. And Arthurian legend.

The Search Continues ...

2008-11-17T19:38:00.000-08:00

The Frye boots were a wash (though I was sad about it--they were made of the most beautiful, buttery-soft leather. However my bank account sure looks better without them). Here's the next two possibilities:
Too studded and rocker-y? I liked the plainness of the Frye ones better, and I sort of think that if they didn't quite fit right, this sure-to-be-poorly-made shoe from Aldo isn't going to either ... but hope springs eternal. (Although, come to think of it, I do have one pair of boots from Aldo that I totally heart. But they barely wrap around the lower, normal-sized section of my legs and can only be worn under jeans. These babies look more substantial in the calf.)

And then there's these:

Yes, I know I was talking about comfy flat boots. And black ones. But. I sort of like the brass studs on these, and I do love the caramel color which women seem to wear with whatever color tights/skirts they want (I'd originally thought, you know, you can't wear dark brown boots with black pants, but people are all over that this year. So caramel has to be better, right?) And the heel is pretty chunky, and they seem like a fairly classic style ... right? These are from a beautiful UK site that does specialty calf-fitting boots, so I know I can order a size that will fit. I've lusted over this site weekly in the past few years, and almost (SHOULD HAVE) bought a pair on mad sale last winter (of course, I was unemployed, so ... that was probably the right choice). Now that the pound sterling is at a multi-year low (seriously--the current exchange rate just about matches what it did when I went to London in high school. Don't even get me started on being there last year, when the exchange rate was basically like opening my bank account and asking them to take what they wanted). The only thing is that returning them if I don't like them is ... expensive. Sigh. What to do.

... what? what's that you say? "With what money"? Why, my child, WITH THE MAGIC OF CREDIT!!! Haven't you seen the trailers for Shopaholic?

How I Feel About This Week

2008-11-17T10:33:00.001-08:00

YES.

2008-11-04T20:36:00.000-08:00

I'm seriously almost crying, and I wasn't even that big an Obama supporter (I was a Hillary girl in the beginning). But it's like this huge release of tension. And seeing the huge crowds of people screaming and cheering is incredibly moving--did you see the celebration in Kenya? My friend in Morocco told me they had a screaming celebration when Obama took Ohio, and are having a huge one now even though it's like 4 am there. And I'm still a pragmatist and a realist at heart, so I still know and believe that it's going to be a hard road and many of those who see Obama as The Answer are going to be incredibly disappointed in the long run, but, but, but--how can you not look at all this and not feel something akin to hope? There're a lot of things that have become associated with America over the past years that we have not felt good about, but this is something that fills me with pride: the fact that we have a working democracy; that we as a people can look at something in our government, make a decision on it, and if we want, as a people effect change. I loved standing in line with a million other tired, yawning people this morning, stretching in a long snake around the block around some public school, each waiting our turn for our two minutes behind that plastic curtain with the polling machine. I loved being one of the faceless many, being a part of the whole. We didn't know each other, but we were all there for the same reason: to take our turn to say what shape we wanted our country to be, no matter what our opinion on that shape was.

I am always so proud to be an American during the Olympics, when I see how racially diverse our athletes are compared to those of other countries. I've loved that our country espouses such a ingrained belief in meritocracy, whether or not it's always been true in the day-to-day practice. I've loved that we have always been a people who have gone into the world with the conviction of the right of individuals to have a determining say in their own futures. And though often these things come off terribly wrong or arrogantly or just plain FUBAR in practice, I'm still so proud that all of these things have come together tonight to show that we practice what we preach in our own nation, that we believe in our own ideals.

Of course, it's easy for me to say this now. My candidate won. But just look at him. I defy you to tell me that who he is--his background, his story--doesn't embody some of what is good, much of what is best, about America.

My dad called me at 11:03 when CNN called it for Obama, and we both just sort sat there on the phone saying "this is amazing" "this so, so amazing" to each other for awhile. Then he said with this sort of catch in his voice, "You know, I'm a lot older than you and I've seen a lot more. And I didn't grow up in racist country, exactly, though there was a lot of that around, but this ..." And he sort of trailed off, and floundered for the right word, and then he said, "This is something. This is truly something."

And by God, it is.

**Note. I realize that I only got 3.5 hrs of sleep last night, plus I'm PMSing (or as Grey would say, bleeding from my bajongo), which may explain the somewhat delerious and overly emotional nature of this. BUT. Even though tomorrow I'm sure I'll be embarrasse dby it, I'm still going to leave it up. I tend to be a glass-half-empty kind of girl, but tonight: GLASS HALF FULL.

Should I?

2008-11-04T11:02:00.001-08:00

Wait, What?

2008-10-29T19:01:00.000-07:00

Or, when Bad Clothes happen to Good People.

Politics

2008-10-26T20:27:00.001-07:00

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!

- W.B. Yeats

A Brief Gchat Between My Brother and I Regarding the Practical Applications of My Twenty-Fifth Birthday Gift

2008-10-24T21:14:00.000-07:00

Me: well, i've gotten my first 2 fob matches
Jarrett: LOL
is it that bad
Me: his headline
Jarrett: ?
Me: "the best vitamin to making friends ... is B1"
haha i mean i'm sure he's nice but ... he looks like a little old asian man
Jarrett: HAHHAHAHAHAH
this is the best gift i ever got you

It's Coming.

2008-10-21T09:47:00.001-07:00

I don't know what's happening with my fonts ...

2008-10-20T11:27:00.001-07:00

... but it's making me really cranky.*

*Edit: So I went into HTML mode and fixed it myself. BOOYAH!!! It's the modern girl's version of opening the car up and fixing whatever's broken under the hood!

Beautiful People

2008-10-19T19:12:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so this is basically filler/fluff and there's not enough of it to warrant separate posts. Instead I present to you: two kinds of people/characters I like.

1. Peppery Old Men.

And, yes, I do mean like-like, the kind of like that includes braid-pulling on the playground if you're in, say, 3rd grade. Witness:

Jon Stewart of The Daily Show.

My deep and abiding love, nay, one might even say fangirl-dom for this sexy genius is well-documented. Jon Stewart may well be my perfect man. He's intimidatingly smart and knowledgable about the world, cuttingly sarcastic, and has that fantastic salt-and-pepper hair. Rrrawr. He's quick on his feet on his show, and good at defusing the often-tense political arguments that sometimes arise. True, he's also prone to going all soft and starry-eyed when a politician he admires is on the show (see: Bill Clinton, Tony Blair), but as a fangirl I am able to recategorize this behavior as adorable. Plus if he were sitting across an interviewing table from me I would probably also lob a couple of softball questions at him, gaze into his eyes, and call it a day.

Those of you who know me are aware that intellect and sarcasm are to me as catnip is to a kitty cat. Add to the mix that he is adorably married and has darling kids and I can safely say: Jon, call me. I will do anything for you. Anything.

Hugh Laurie/Gregory House of House, M.D.

I just started watching House pretty recently and he is one hot old dude. Yes, I do recognize that House himself is just a character, but once again you see how biting sarcasm, extreme intellect & competence, and that grizzled beard combine into ... yum. (Also apparently I have a predilection for jerks, which he is, and deep personal scars, which he has.)

There are definitely other grizzled old men who I think are hot, but I'm putting them on the back burner for now so that I can present to you ...

2. Biznitches Who Get Sh*t Done.

Blair Waldorf of Gossip Girl.

She's freaking gorgeous, polished & put together, and she has a plan to take over the world (or at least the UES). I don't actually watch this show on any kind of steady basis, but in addition to having the most amazing costumers ever, every time I pass Gossip Girl on t.v. this chick appears to be sizing up the situation, narrowing her lushly-lashed eyes, and then taking control of it with ruthless efficiency. Also, she has the guy cast as the Devious Male Lead whipped into a bundle of brokenhearted insecurities, which is quite an accomplishment considering he's supposed to so heartless and Machieavellian that he started the show by attempting to rape the Sensitive Male Lead's little sister.

And while I know there are people who lo-o-o-o-ve Serena, to me she's just kind of ... blonde and boring. The show tries to intimate that she has this crazy, Ima-cut-a-b*tch past, but I've yet to see a scene where she could convince me that if you put her and Blair in a prison together Blair wouldn't be the one running the show when you opened the gates a month or two later.

Joan Holloway of Mad Men.

If you don't watch Mad Men ... that will make you one of about a bizillion other people who don't. And, uh, I'm sort of one of them: I haven't seen all of the first season, but what I've seen of Season 2 makes me love Joan. She's the office manager at Sterling Cooper, the advertising firm where the show's main characters work, and she controls the secretarial assignments (this is set in the '60s). She is very curvy and has insane style, and knows how to make her body work for her (the office boys are always going all tongue-tied and stammering in her presence). More than that, she's also extremely savvy; there are a lot of office power plays and politics at Sterling Cooper, and the office staff/secretarial pool is very much a part of that. She lives in a time where her options are limited, but she is in complete control of all of her assets and she knows how to turn situations to the advantage of herself and those she wants to benefit.

President Laura Roslin of Battlestar Galactica.

Well, look, there are going to be a couple of BSG characters on these lists. Deal with it, OK? (Suggestion: Deal with it by watching it. Become a fan, it'll do you good.) President Laura Roslin is awesome for a number of reasons: 1) she was the Secretary of Education before an attack on her homeworld wiped out the 42 other cabinet members in line for the presidency before her; 2) despite that, she still managed to keep the civilian government/rule of law and the military in balance when humanity got cut down to about 50,000 survivors; and 3), all this while she battles breast cancer. She can be heart-stoppingly cold and ruthless, and almost inhuman at times, but she's smart, ballsy, and unflinching, and she gets the job done.

Plus she's nicknamed President "Airlock" Roslin by fans of this show (which is fantastic. You should watch it. No, really), which tells you something. An airlock, for those of you who aren't aware, is chamber with two doors that allows people or objects to pass between environments with different air pressures, temperatures, etc., like from a submarine into water, or a spaceship into vacuum. Roslin has a predilection for threatening to airlock, i.e., jettison out into space, people who she finds threatening to the safety of Galatica or humanity. Watching her get all steely-eyed and tough-jawed and threatening is sort of ridiculously awesome.

3. Tasty Men

I was also going to gift you with a pictorial of characters & men I find tasty for various reasons (who ... uh ... didn't fit into the peppery & old category), but I'm tired so it'll have to wait. Sorry. But here are some names to tide you over: Don Draper. Matt Damon (as Jason Bourne). Daniel Craig. Tahmoh Penikett. (RAWR.)

One Art

2008-10-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

                          - Elizabeth Bishop, 1976

These Boots Were Made for Walking ... Through the Fire Swamp, Apparently.

2008-09-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

So it's fall in the city again, that gorgeous time of year when the air becomes crisp and the leaves start turning gold. Every day twilight lasts a little longer, and the smell of Nutz 4 Nuts drifting through the air is like heaven in a little waxed-paper bag. It's the time of year when a young woman's thoughts turn to one thing: boots.

At least this is true if you're me. No, seriously. I have calves that are the size of some women's thighs, and every fall I go on a massive, city-wide hunt for knee-high boots that will encompass their tree-trunk-like girth without making me look like an elephant. (Actually, I have bought boots that make me look like an elephant in the past simply because I can get the zipper all the way up.) I'm a leather snob and I won't wear stretch, faux leather, or fabric boots, which makes it doubly hard to find something in my size. Strangely, this ongoing obsession has led to me actually owning more boots than most women probably do. I have 3: one basic, pointy-toed sleek black pair (these are my work-appropriate pair, and I love them), one pointy-toed mushroom-colored pair (bought at almost 80% off on a summer sale two years ago! but they are hard to match), and one pair of heavy black leather harness boots that I bought because I wanted something more casual. I started regretting this purchase almost immediately, as the boots are way more Western than I can really pull off, and the heaviness of the sole/heel makes me feel like I'm walking in galoshes when I wear them. I may try to sell them on eBay this year.

But anyway! So the kind of boot I am coveting currently is a knee-high, flat-heeled style, like so:
Dangit, these images came out much smaller than I expected, and I'm too annoyed to download all the pictures and combine them into one file again. But, from top to bottom and L to R: Frye's Bonnie Tall Riding boots, BCBG Petler boots, Aerosoles [couldn't find name], and Marc by Marc Jacobs [couldn't find name]. The BCBGs are a pretty brown croc print. I heart them possibly the most, although I did see a woman wearing the Aerosoles last year and the little added hardware actually looked really hot.

I found all of these when I was window-shopping online yesterday (THERE'S NO HARM IN LOOKING). As you can see, they're all sort of pseudo-equestrian, but slimmer and not as structured. I wouldn't call them pirate or Robin Hood boots exactly--both names have been floating around for the last couple of years, but I think both those styles have fold-over tops and, like, extraneous straps . . .

. . . or would you call them that? Because later that night I turned on the TV, and lo and behold, on the screen was the swashbuckling Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, and on Inigo Montoya were ... the boots I want!!! Actually, everybody in this movie has the boots I want. Examine:

From L to R: Evil genius Vizzini; reformed drunk and reknowned swordsman Inigo Montoya; and gentle giant Fezzik. Each sporting a pair of suede boots that any fashionista would be proud to own. I believe that Vizzini's leggings have also been seen out and about town, most recently on Lindsay Lohan.

The Dread Pirate Roberts has a pair (leggings and boots):

So does the Princess Buttercup, in a charming, whimsical red that matches her romantic, fairy-tale frock. (I wouldn't recommend this look for the peasantry, as it might come off as a little too matchy-matchy while strolling through SoHo. Plus that skirt is really too full to work with those sleeves.)

Aw, Westley and Buttercup's boots, together at last. (Hmm. Maybe if you lopped 3 feet of fabric off the hem of her dress and made it a tunic, to balance the sleeves? I think I saw something like it at Macy's.)

No really. EVERYONE in this movie has a pair. Even the Six-Fingered Man, Count Rugen, and a horde of extras/henchmen:

In conclusion, I need to find the costumer for this 1987 classic freaking ASAP, because clearly only she knows how to adequately address the problems that are my C.O.U.S. (Calves of Unusual Size). According to IMDB her name is Phyllis Dalton. Phyllis, if you're reading this, please call me. I have complete faith in you. If you can find boots to fit the calves of Fezzik the Giant, you can find boots to fit me.

Srsly. Call me.

It Was the Best of Weekends, It Was the Worst of Weekends ...

2008-09-02T11:06:00.000-07:00

Oh, sob. Last week I was in denial of a lot of things, apparently, because all I could force myself to focus on was the fact that it was a Three Day Workweek (any event so momentous deserves title case, my friends). Alas, I did not consider that after my Three Day Workweek, I would:

1. turn 25
2. lose Da-E for one year

Yes, I recognize that 25 is actually quite young. But! I am no longer in my early twenties (sob x2) and let's face it, those circles under my eyes aren't getting lighter with age. Plus, after, like, 27, one's stock as a female starts to plunge like ... well, like a stockbroker on Black Tuesday*. And considering the last, oh I don't know, eight years have been pretty much meh ... yeah I gotta get to work on that.

However! It was also a supremely wonderful weekend because I spent 99% of it with my true BFFs whom I love with the strength of a thousand suns. I have no pictures as of yet but I will edit them in when I have them ready.

First, on Friday Elaine, Jo2, and I helped Jo move into her new apartment. Diana arrived halfway through the day and we immediately put her to work. Grey came up from Philly for the occasion, and thank God he did because moving was more painful and arduous than expected (and I basically expected Hanoi-level torture). However, now the Jos live in the same apartment building (read: it's our new dorm), and it is a beautiful one! All shiny hardwood floors and well-constructed bathrooms and working new appliances and tons and tons of storage space. It's gorgeous. And there is an insanely cheap Chinese bakery across the street with 50-cent cha siu bau and 2-dollar fresh watermelon smoothies, and oh my god I have to move to Brooklyn freaking ASAP.

Anyway! So after we moved I went back to Queens to shower and change because I'm stupid and didn't bring a bag. But I'm glad I did, because my friends spent the time making a delicious, delicious surprise feast of all my favorite foods! See pictures, TK below, for scrumptious mac-and-cheese-with-bacon and Jo2's amazing beef-and-potato stout stew. The bacon was such a perfectly salty counterpoint to the melty, oozy, cheese, topped with nicely browned breadcrumbs. Oh my freak. And the the beef chunks basically fell off your fork in tender hunks into a gorgeous, rich dark stout base. No cream, butter, or beer was spared in the making of these foods. Yes this is turning into a foodporn post. And it was as good for me as it sounds.

And then, when I went downstairs to Jo1's new apartment to take out my contacts, they turned off the lights and surprised me withthe most delicious homemade chocolate cake with amazing homemade chocolate-buttercream frosting!! (Unfortunately I took my sweet time in the apartment below. I think they waited like 10 minutes with the candles burning.)

And THEN they gave me beeeyouteeful presents, such as:

Pink Cephalon silicone bakeware! It folds and flops, and doesn't get hot! And you don't need to butter it; the baked cake layers slide right out! I want to use it right now.

And the pièce de résistance, this freaking gorgeous Coach bag. I am squeeeing silently to myself right now as I type this. It's even more beautiful than in this picture--the leather next to the hardware is a slightly darker mahogany than the rest of the bag, which is more chestnut, and it's so so so soft and buttery and beautiful. I've talked a lot about butter today, haven't I.

Anyway I have the best friends ever. We went to dim sum the next day (Jin Feng = my new chinatown ds place), and then out to Public for dinner and then to Crime Scene and the Park (obvs) that night, and I got supertrashed and don't remember much but it was fun-o. This year I did not become Melancholy Drunk Girl and hang all over Grey (in a platonic, drunken kind of way), although I did apparently become Apologetic Drunk Girl, which frankly is to be expected.** And then on Sunday we got burgers from Big Nick's Burger Joint and took them to the 79th street pier and ate and drank wine while the sun went down. And then played charades next to the river. And we went to Players for soju and squid & nuts, minus the squid because they ran out. Omg. Squeee!

Here's all of us at Public except for Andy, who was graciously picture-taking. Actually these are his pix too. Yay Andy!

Don't I have the prettiest friends ever? I think so too. They're all gorgeous and mostly single.

This is just a drinking picture. Cuz. Drinking is fun.

Monday, however, was a day of great and terrible sadness, because we had to say goodbye to Elaine who is leaving for Taiwan. I was going to write more about it, but it's kind of weird to do so because ... well, I mean, she's not dying. She might even be reading this (hi elaine!) and with the wonders of modern technology I can pretend she is in her office on 59th & Lex and soothe my wounded soul.

It is, however, definitely the end of a NY era for me. When I first moved to the city, I stayed on Elaine's floor for a whole month while I looked for an apartment. She and her then-boyfriend came out to my mom's car to help me carry my stuff into her room, and I think it was raining although that might be my subconciousness grieving by flavoring the memory. When, after three days at work, I realized that my job was going to bite major a**, she was there to also realize that her job was going to bite. And when, for the first year when we had no other NY friends, we were completely miserable 99% of the time, we would call each other from our respective offices at 9 p.m. on Friday nights have a conversation that went roughly like this:

Person 1: Are you still at work?
Person 2 : Yes.
Person 1 : Me too. How much longer do you have to stay?
Person 2: I could seriously stay for another 12 hours. But f*ck this place. I hate it so much.
Person 1: Ditto to everything you just said. Let's get out of here and go drink.

We are Persons 1 and 2 in this little snippet of dialogue because we were seriously interchangable in our misery. And then we would go to a bar and drink beer and gloomily talk about how awful our bosses were and how working life was terrible, and then we'd cling together in front of the subway stop and say things like "Don't die!" and "OK we can do this!" and part until the next Friday.

Alright, enough eulogizing. Da E, Taipei is lucky to have you but come home anytime.

*EDIT:Or like a stockbroker on Monday, September 15, 2008.

**EDIT 2: Apparently, I did become Melancholy Drunk Girl this year. It was just that "compared to last year, this year you were wayyyy better." Which, like, is not really that much of an improvement. Sorry, Grey!

My Heart Quails ...

2008-08-19T07:33:00.000-07:00

"Making an Arguement for Misspelling -- TIME magazine, 8/12/2008"

I agree that English spelling rules are convoluted and illogical, as are many of its sentence constructions and grammatical structures. And yet ... and yet ... there's something so terribly disheartening about the idea of just, I don't know, giving up on learning to spell correctly. It's one thing to choose to reject a set of rules because you have undertaken the task of following them and acknowledge that they're broken; it's another to throw up your hands and decide that trying is too hard.

An Economist sidebar on this same subject, which advocates "updating" rather than "scrapping" the rules, briefly explains five reasons why written English is so wonky. Which is cool! Cuz while I knew about or of some of these things, and that English is wonky, I'd never put them together before.

1. It's partly Germanic and partly Latin in origin
2. The aural Great Vowel Shift in the 15/16th centuries left written words as they were, but changed the pronunciation. (I learned about the GVS in a linguistics class. I love that this event actually occurred and is referred to in title case.)
3. Early printing presses were staffed by non-English speakers, who muddled things up further
4. There was at some point a move to attempt to align English words with Latin roots, even though the words weren't originally derived from Latin, leading to extraneous "silent" letters
5. There's never been a centralized English "authority" capable of enforcing standardization, unlike (apparently) French and Spanish

Sigh. Guess we'll have to rely on Webster's for our central spelling authority ... for as long as that lasts.

Dear New Yorkers & Tourists, Please Learn How to Ride the Subway

2008-08-14T10:59:00.001-07:00

Okay, so living in New York, you take the subway everywhere. And I like it, I really do. I like the fact that it runs 24/7 (even though there are always strange, unplanned, and unexplained detours and re-routes on weekends & holidays); I like the fact that I can get 95% of my monthly transportation needs taken care of on $81 a month (and possibly with an occasional freebie!); I like that I don’t have to deal with car insurance or maintenance or parking. I like the fact that living car-free gives me the luxury to say (and believe) sort-of-pompous things like “I think rising gas prices are a good thing since economic inviability of maintaining a gas-power-based economy is the only thing that will ever push us as a nation to seriously invest in alternative energy research,” the first part of which I doubt I would say if I actually had to fill up a tank every week. I really, really love the fact that I'm free to ride home drunk as, say, Diana Barry after several tumblersful of “raspberry cordial” (which happens quite frequently), without fear of killing myself or someone else.

But what I Do Not Love is freaking other people. Who don't know how to put the communal property that is the subway to our collective good use. You know who you are. Let me educate you.

How To Ride the Subway In a Manner That Does Not Violate the Social Contract

1. Move to the center.

2. Out-of-towners, don’t let your children sit on the floor during rush hour. A) The floors are gross. B) It is way too crowded for your princesses to lounge at their leisure. C) It is too gd early in the morning for me to think about this. You are annoying.

3. Don’t hook your elbow (or, god forbid, your knee) around the center pole. You’ll inevitably fold your arm close to your body, and thus smush your body to the pole, and the next thing I know you are twined around it like the car is a back room at Gallagher’s 2000 and the strobes and music are about to start. I need something to grab onto, and I can’t if your body is draped over 98% of the pole. Women, this is especially true for you. I will get my hands on part of that pole, and since I’m 5’5” chances are that your boobs are smushed against it somewhere in the vicinity of where my hand needs to be. I am completely capable of standing, stone-faced, through an entire ride where your sideboob brushes against my knuckles if you are not capable of picking up the body-language hint and standing back a bit. You are annoying.

4. Uncross your legs if it’s rush hour to save room. Seriously, I’m glad you scored a seat. Now can I have four inches of floor space to step forward a little bit, or are you really that intent on bringing me and the dude behind me into carnal relations?

5. Do not spit on the floor. Or drop your sunflower seed shells on the floor. Do. Not.

6. Move to the center.

7. Don’t read, Blackberry, PS2, or anything else on your way out of the subway cars or up the stairs. I am a huge proponent of reading. I have been known to go hours without sleep to finish a book. I even gave it up for Lent once as a sacrifice to God, back when I was serious about God, because I love it that much. But nothing you are reading can be that important. Make your way up the stairs at a reasonable pace, exit the station, and resume reading later.

8. Don’t stop at the top of the stairs or directly outside them. I don’t care if it’s raining. Move three feet out and to the side before you start digging around in your giant, ugly Vera Bradley tote bag for your expensive, ugly Burberry umbrella. You can do it.

9. Don’t stop directly in front of the single turnstile to find your Metrocard. You are annoying.

10. Don’t go up the “down” side of the stairs if you are going to go at the speed of molasses in winter. The left side of the stairwell is like the oncoming-traffic lane on a dotted-line, two-lane country road. You’re allowed to shoot into it, rev up to pass a slower motorist, and scoot back into your lane on the right. What you are not allowed to do is wander into it and hang out there til the road runs out. If you do this, a semi is going to come roaring down and you will have a five-passenger pileup and it will not be pretty. You're probably a tourist, so you probably have a car, so you should understand this analogy.

11. Do not try to flirt with me on the morning commute. I’m tired, hot, and touching way too many other people simultaneously. All I want to do is be back in bed (without you). In fact, the entire train is also wishing to be back in bed, and therefore it is veerrry quiet, and therefore everyone can hear every pathetic double entendre and attempted sexual riposte you’re making. It is awkward. You are not sexy. You are annoying.

12. Move. To. The. GD. Center.

That about covers it, I think.

Hearts,
me

My Perfect Day

2008-08-13T10:47:00.000-07:00

This weekend my friends and I started talking about what each of our perfect days would be. (This is assuming you were by yourself, not that your friends were pushed into another room having fun without you somewhere.)

My perfect day includes:
1. Lying in my comfy bed, with freshly-laid clean sheets
2. With a pile of unread books that I knew were good, like maybe the end of a series I'd been waiting for or a book from a beloved author who hadn't published in a few years
3. And it would be late fall, and the sunlight would come through leaves and dapple on my covers, and the breeze would come through the open window
4. Maggie would be next to me, just lying furry and sweet against my leg like she used to
5. As would a box of fresh-baked cookies, which she would beg for but I would not give because chocolate contains theobromine which is bad for doggies
6. And it would be the Friday beginning a long weekend, so I would know I have plenty of time.

There might be some mugs of coffee in there somewhere, too. And that would be my perfect day.

Ah, What the Hell, A Couple More Awesome Things!

2008-08-05T20:40:00.001-07:00

Another word cloud! Of this blog. Woot woot! Click for bigger! I don't know why "one" is showing up so prominently (nor "God," come to think of it) but I think the fact that "like" enjoys the same prominence here as it did in my earlier word cloud ought to say something about my use of the English language.

Also, another couple of fantastic poems.

These are both by Yeats, who you don't need me to tell you was a master. Despite being from an Anglo-Irish family in the 1860s ... uh okay, quick detour for a history lesson: Ireland was still under British colonial rule in the late 1800s (til 1921, actually), and England, being Protestant, had for several centuries enforced laws barring Roman Catholics from positions of power. Thus most of the ruling/wealthy/upper classes of Irish society were Protestant (and of originally British descent); they were called the Anglo-Irish and were viewed by much of Ireland as the enemy in much of the Home Rule movement (i.e., the movement for a separate Irish republic) troubles to follow.

Anyway.

So despite being from a wealthy Anglo-Irish family, Yeats was extremely involved in the Irish Literary Revival in the fin de siecle, which was concerned with reclaiming "Irish identity" in the form of the Gaelic tongue and Celtic mythology (of which, by the way, he knew none. He would mispronounce the name of Ireland's greatest mythological hero, Cuchulain, for like 8 years before somebody corrected him). Much of his early work is deeply concerned with Irish identity: the reclamation of Irish legend (any of his Cuchulain or faerie host poems; "The Rose of the World," etc), the terrible events of Irish colonial history (possibly his most famous poem, "Easter 1916," is about the Easter Rising against the English), and his own distraught and distressing relationship with the famous Maude Gonne, an actress and fellow Revivalist (he pined after her for like 30 years, and proposed multiple times to both her ... and her daughter. Ew). A lot of his stuff from this time period is basically impossible to understand without knowing the context of Irish history and myth, and a lot of it is ... well, in very vaulted, perhaps overblown language. The power of some of it is impossible to deny, though, even if you don't quite understand it (like "Easter 1916," "The Song of Wandering Aegnus," "Leda and the Swan," "The Circus Animals' Desertion," and the intense, disturbing "Second Coming," among others).

BUT. In his later years, he produced many poems which are shorter and less elaborate, and which speak to what are perhaps more universal human truths: determination and triumph; longing and regret and sorrow; the bitterness of experience and the sweet naivete of youthful hope. Here are two of my favorites.

Two Years Later

Has no one said those daring
Kind eyes should be more learn'd?
Or warned you how despairing
The moths are when they are burned?
I could have warned you; but you are young,
So we speak a different tongue.

O you will take whatever's offered
And dream that all the world's a friend,
Suffer as your mother suffered,
Be as broken in the end.
But I am old and you are young,
And I speak a barbarous tongue.

To a Friend whose Work has come to Nothing

Now all the truth is out
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honor-bred, with one
Who, were it known he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours' eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret, and exult:
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.

Two Awesome Things

2008-08-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, so you know the Harry Potter Ballad contest that Amazon.com was putting on? (No? Basically they asked for 250-words-or-less “ballads,” or pieces of prose, expressing your … love, obsession, joy, whatever, of Harry Potter. The prize was, you got to fly to London and spend a weekend with the precious Tales of Beedle the Bard book. One imagines there was more to it than that, but that’s what I remember). ANYway. So I just read the winning ballad in the 18-and-under age group, and I really liked it because I love Harry Potter, and this sixteen-year-old from Australia wrote it, and I’m PMSing so the love of HP + books + growing up brings tears to my eyes; ergo I am reposting it here:

When I was six, he was eleven
I learnt how to be brave.

When I was seven, he was twelve
I learnt to misbehave.

When I was eight, he was thirteen
He taught me how to cry.

When I was nine, he was fourteen
He showed me how to try.

When I was twelve, and he fifteen
He taught me to forgive.

When we were fourteen and sixteen
I learnt what it was to live.

When we were fifteen and seventeen
He showed me he could bleed.

But growing up with Harry taught me, mostly, how to read.

Isn’t it great! Young people growing up with Harry and learning to love reading! Sigh.

Secondly, and GREATER: I found this really awesome site/application called Wordle. Wordle makes “word clouds” out of text you enter, or URLs, etc, basing the size of the word on the frequency of its appearance in the text, and sifting out articles and other overly-common words. You can customize the font, color, and basic layout. Here’s one, based on an (extremely representative) chain of workday emails between my friends and I. (Click for larger, clearer picture.)

I think the visualization of information is a really interesting topic—for instance, did you know there wasn’t really such a thing as a graph in the Western world until Florence Nightingale? There was this awesome article in the Economist a few issues back about the emergence of visually organized data, and they talked about her apparent comfort with statistics as well as nursing. At the time, people didn’t really correlate hygiene and/or cleanliness with infection and disease. She made this strange, circular graph of the deaths of soldiers in the Crimean war below, "Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East" (click for larger scale), showing the percentage of soldiers who died of wounds, of infectious or “preventable” diseases, and of unquantifiable “other” causes. The round, snail-like visual seems like a strange way to present information to us—we’re used to seeing the horizontal x-axis as a measure of time, and it seems weird & counterintuitive that she loops it around a circle because then she has to jump to another circle to show the next year—but by using different colors and making the slices of the graph proportional to the number of deaths, you can still see without sifting through a billion numbers that deaths by infectious disease far outweigh other types of death, even when the fighting was heavy (you can see this in October & November of 1854 or June of 1855 by how large the red “died of wounds” color block is). This graph was successful in helping her get barrack and hospital conditions improved.

Anyway, I think it’s just an interesting thing. Seeing information visually displayed can be really impactful, in ways that looking at long lists of words or tables of numbers cannot be. Which brings us back to Wordle. Look at the word cloud above and notice the proliferation (and relative weight) of words such as: like, just, and omg (we are obviously very literate people); depressed, sob, dyyyiiiiiiiing, hate, work, torture, freaking, death, etc. And food words: burger, chocolate, hungry. Now you don’t have to read the chain to get the relative importance of things to us. Obviously we need to lighten up. And eat.

Want.

2008-07-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

Kay Ryan & Good Poetry

2008-07-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

Here's some poetry from Kay Ryan, America's newest poet laureate. I'd never heard of her before she was named laureate (her term starts in the fall), but I like the tautness of her work and the precision of her words. So many of her poems are composed of lines of only two or three words each, each carefully considered so that each word counts and there's no flab, no excess. And she has a way of beginning small and common, and then dropping in a word or phrase--words that aren't even particularly extraordinary or unique--which scythe out that underlying truth she's trying to tell you about. They're so short that they leave you almost startled: you know you read something that meant something, because you feel it some sort of resonance in your chest, but it's like the resonance or ghost of a note hanging in the air after the song has stopped. You have to go back to look at the score to try to parse out what those notes were.

Great Thoughts

Great thoughts
do not nourish
small thoughts
as parents do children.
Like the eucalyptus,
they make the soil
beneath them barren.
Standing in a
grove of them
is hideous.

Full Measure

Blandeur

If it please God,
let less happen.
Even out Earth's
rondure, flatten
Eiger, blanden
the Grand Canyon.
Make valleys
slightly higher,
widen fissures
to arable land,
remand your
terrible glaciers
and silence
their calving,
halving or doubling
all geographical features
toward the mean.
Unlean against our hearts.
Withdraw your grandeur
from these parts.

This Will Be A Boring Post. Seriously.

2008-07-18T07:14:00.000-07:00

I was going to give you a list of books I freaking need the authors to write ASAP, plus favorite scenes from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (aka One Of The Best Books Ever) but instead I'm just giving you a mash-up of Random Stuff/Things I Like/Have Been Thinking About Recently.

This post will be long and boring. Unfortunately, I think that's just the nature of this blog/me.

1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. This is an amazing, amazing book, and you must read it posthaste if you have not already. It's a (fictional) history of the revival of magic in England in the 1800s, and centers around the friendship and eventual rivalry of the first two practical magicians England has seen since the disappearance of its half-human, half-fey Raven King, John Uskglass, 300 years prior. It's an enormous, sprawling, beautiful work that's written in this awesomely prim, Jane Austen-ian tone (you know that way she had of skewering social niceties and egos with a few pointedly innocuous lines? Like that). Clarke also weaves a fabulously complex and believable backstory of the history of English magic that draws you into the world of JS & MN, complete with footnotes and extracts from letters and secondary sources for verification.

Anyway, it's a gorgeous mashup of history (Napoleon & Waterloo), traditionally British & Spenserian mythology (think the Faerie Queen and Tam Lin, Arthurian legend and ... Norse mythology, I guess--"Uskglass" doesn't sound very British to me), Jane Austen and Charles Dickens (society balls and society scandals), and ... pure awesomeness.

Also, I love what she does with language. My favorite scenes are probably too long and need too much explanation for posting, but look at this snippet of casual text:

"The box was small and oblong and apparently made of silver and porcelain. It was a beautiful shade of blue, but then not exactly like blue, it was more like lilac. But then again, not exactly lilac either, since it had a tinge of grey in it. To be more precise, it was the colour of heartache. But fortunately, neither Miss Greysteel nor Aunt Greysteel had ever been much troubled by heartache and so they did not recognize it."

OK. I know that wasn't groundbreaking per se, but I love the fact that this paragraph--which is a throwaway paragraph, buried in an immense book--is so precise in its description. Neither blue, nor lilac, nor grey: the colour of heartache. You know exactly what that box looks like now, don't you? And you know it's something not of this world (it contains, by the way, the severed smallest finger of lady who is under enchantment). And then the next great thing: after giving you something touchy-feely and sensitive like the colour of heartache, she goes on, in quintessentially British fashion, to brush past it with the matter-of-fact But fortunately, neither Miss Greysteel nor Aunt Greysteel had ever been much troubled by heartache and so they did not recognize it. Without so much as a comma, people!

.... reading over this post I doubt you will be impressed. I'm not explaining this tiny bit of text well. But it's good. Read it.

2. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog! Joss Whedon (Buffy and Firefly creator, along with this fall's Dollhouse and some other tv shows) currently has a 3-part web-only musical coming out, starring Neil "Doogie Howser" Patrick Harris as supervillain Dr. Horrible. Dr Horrible just wants the chance to talk to Penny, the cute girl at the laundromat (Felicia Day), and to be able to prove his worth to the Evil League of Evil, which he's trying to join. Alas, Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillian, um yum?) is there to save the day and steal the girl. Part I is up now at the link I sent you and it's really hilarious, campy and OTT in the best way. Please watch it. Seriously. He makes a song about a freeze ray into a love ballad. It's amazing.

3. Er ... More Books! Okay so I don't think people understand quite how much I read. In the past three weeks, I have read the following 10 books:

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (and oh, did I mention this is her fiction debut?! freaking amazing)
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card (Card's Ender's Game is one of my all-time favorite books, but I just can't quite wrap my mind around how ... altruistic and optimistic Card's views of humanity tend towards in his other books, this one included.)
The Wrong Hostage by Elizabeth Lowell (Lowell isn't a bad writer, but this was mass market trash. hey, I was in an airport and the selection was small)
New Moon and Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer (part of Meyer's hugely popular Twilight Saga ... YA fantasy novels. They're OK, but definitely YA, aka, melodramatic/romantic/sappy. And the heroine is really annoyingly helpless.)
The Host by Stephanie Meyers (This was supposed to be her foray into adult books and scifi; it is slightly more complex than the Twilight books, but still basically felt like a YA fantasy/romance. All of Meyers' stuff is sort of trashy, addictive fun, but not exactly mentally-straining. Which is why I read 3 of them in the past 3 weeks. Also, I was on a roll.)
The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle (This was a very beautiful, thoughtful, and sad coming-of-age story about a girl growing up on a fading ranch in Montana. The title refers to a conversation the girl has with her father when they're weaning foals from mares, a painful process involving forcibly separating the animals, who scream out for each other unceasingly for days before giving up. The narrator wants to know who watches over animals and soothes their pain the way humans believe a God does ours, and the book bring into question all the truths of that, and makes you wonder how much difference there is between us and the horses.)
In the Woods by Tana French (A fantastic book--a literary mystery about a pair of Irish detectives investigating the murder of a little girl on the same spot where two children disappeared twenty years before. Wonderful characterizations and an amazing narration.)
The Floating Island: The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme by Elizabeth Haydon (YA novel, first in a series. Capitalizing off the Spiderwick etc trend. I bought it b/c it was $4.95; didn't love it.)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (speaks for itself. Reader, I married him!)

That, my friends, is a total page count of ... 5,324 pages. Of all of these, the top three are Jonathan Strange, The God of Animals, and In the Woods. They're all very different genres and what they have in common is fantastic writing and an internal resonance with the human condition.

I Have A New Blog! (take 2)

2008-07-12T22:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I actually tried to do an initial "new blog!" post earlier--like 2 weeks ago--but obviously (in keeping with the theme of this whole endeavor) it was Not A Success since it didn't actually ever show up. Anyway. I've decided that this one will be less existential rambling about life and less excessive use of the f-bomb in relation to my job, and more fun stuff like lists, books, pictures, etc etc.

So! To start with: a few pictures from my recent trip to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Austin, Texas (the last one being the most foreign, of course). Below is the view from the sidewalk cafe directly outside of our hotel. It was on Ipanema beach (yes, the Ipanema of the famously irritating "Girl From Ipanema" elevator song).

A half-mile away, Rio's other famous boardwalk/beach, Copacabana, at night. Freaking gorgeous. (The famously irritating "Copacabana" Barry Manilow song, which, btw, I have mostly memorized, was not about this beach.)

I hadn't realized quite how beautiful and yet ridiculous the layout of Rio was--the whole port side of the city is divided up by these incredible, abrupt mountains, which means that that part of the city is segmented into little coves of beach, hills, lagoons, and enclaves of buildings. Most amazing is the way the buildings--in the rich areas as well as in the favelas (Brazilian ghettos)--wind their ways up the hills. Despite the incredible grade, buildings are just packed on top of each other all the way up.

This is the famous bonde (tram) up to Santa Theresa, one of Rio's old, bohemian neighborhoods. It's the last working tram in Rio. You can see the kids (and some older people) clinging to the sides. The rule is if that you grab it as it's trundling by (instead of at a stop) and cling to the side for dear life, you can ride it for free. I think that's supposed to be limited to the local kids, but I definitely some rather muscle-bound and mustached "fourteen-year-olds" if they're gonna stick to that story.

Jare and Dad wait for the bonde like good little (?) tourists.

We had some freaking incredible food at a little restaurant perched on the Santa Theresa hillside. Succulent, succulent pork. Even Jarrett's vegetarian meal (mmm fried cheese) was tasty.

We also went up to a smaller town called Petropolis, north of Rio and into the mountains. This is where Rio's royalty used to go in the hotter summers, and also where they scurried away to whenever disease hit the city. Anyway, the point is that we got to this crisp mountain town in Brazil ... where we encountered a German heritage celebration. Yup. Those are Brazilians in full lederhosen. They are twirling each other. There were also a substantial number of flower-bedecked carts, pulled by goats. See exhibits A and B below.

(Exhibit A. See the twirling?)

(Exibit B. You're right. That IS a small dog in a handkerchief and cowboy hat, being pulled by a goat.)

We also hit Corcavado, a high mountaintop where a huge statue of Jesus sticks his arms out benevolently and woodenly (or granite-ly?) over the city. I'm just saying. He doesn't exactly look comfortable.

A few days later, we headed to Buenos Aires in Argentina next. BA was cold--in the 50s. It's winter down there, hence the coats you see on everyone. BA felt surprisingly like a European city to me. It gave off very Parisian-slash-Dublin vibes. Probably all the cranes and the cold, grey weather. But seriously, does the street below have a South or Latin American vibe to you? Me neither.

That's probably just my ignorance though. BA was settled by the Spanish, of course, and a long time before America was even thinking about getting around to statehood. And oh look, here to educate us of that fact is a very Spanish-looking statue of Pedro de Mendoza, who founded what became the current Buenos Aires in 1536 (he wasn't the first Spaniard to get there, but earlier colonies died out under Indian attack, starvation, etc etc. Actually Mendoza's did too, but eventually people came back to the place he'd settled; ergo he gets a statue). And, in a nice nod to veracity, in the background we have an incuse of an indigenous woman throwing up her hands in supplication to the gods, probably to save her from smallpox blankets. Or maybe that was us up in North America.

And in lighter news, here's a picture of me in front of a ginormous steak at a parrilla. I'm not actually a huge steak fan but you can't go to Argentina and not eat it. Unless you're Jarrett, and the waiter definitely had a hard time understanding why he only wanted salad until he whipped out the "soy vegetariano"s.

One of the coolest things in BA was Recoleta, the huge, sprawling cemetery. These people take their mausoleums seriously--everything you see below is a house of the dead for a family or person. You (literally) need a map to navigate through the cemetery, which is laid out on streets. Some of these things were serious pieces of architecture, and even the "smaller" ones were the size of, say, a bedroom in a New York City apartment. Despite the fact that Recoleta wasn't begun until the mid-1800s, it's essentially full now. Many of the mausoleums were quite old and untended, and with the broken glass and crumbling marble you could see coffins stacked on each other, and smaller chests for cremated remains propped on top, when the room ran out.

I like how in this picture, the city of the living is only a foggy presence in the background of the city of the dead. Which has a streetlight, natch.

And here's a picture of Congress. Just for you. Somewhere inside, Cristina Kirchner is stamping on the export rights of farmers. (Actually, there was a lot of "Cristina is Evita Reborn!" graffiti on the monuments nearby. But who knows--that could have been from 6 months ago when she first took office and her ratings were higher.)

And lastly, one of me and Pop in front of Casa Rosada (the "Pink House"), which is the presidential ... uh, building, I guess ... from whose balconies Eva and Juan Peron gave rousing speeches. It's pink because back in the mid-1800s after Argentina had declared independence from Spain, but before the country had really gotten its feet beneath it, the president at the time painted it with the mixed colors of the unionists (white) and the federalists (red) in an attempt to get everybody to stop fighting each other and start fighting the local tribes. I think.

And finally, a few Austin, Texas wedding pictures! Angela, my best friend from high school, got hitched to Andy, this guy who's barely worthy of her. Just kidding. It was a really nice wedding. They had it at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and half of the reception tables were outdoors. There wasn't a lot of fripperies and adornment--they just kept it simple and used the surroundings. It was really pretty, as evidenced below.

Here's me and two of my other HS BFFs--Jenn Cheng and Karen Wang. Jenn is now married and Karen is engaged. SIGH. FINE. I'LL GO BUY MY CATS SOME MORE FANCY FEAST.

Angela looked gorgeous as always, but strangely, all of my pix of Andy were ... terrible, though whose fault that is, I'm not entirely sure. Note the one below in which he is throwing a gang sign while holding a baby. This bodes well for the marriage, I think.

Okay, here's a cute one. This is them handing out candies as the relatives leave. No, but seriously, they're a really good-looking couple and only someone who works as hard as I do at f*cking up pictures could have come out of this wedding with a roll of what amounts to outtakes. No applause necessary. I try hard.

Okie that's it for now! Soon to come: a list of sequels I really want the authors to freaking sit down and write. And maybe some amazing passages from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Sofa king good, that book. Read it now if you haven't yet.