Last night I partook of the free (pass-the-hat) Lo Fine show at the Apollo Grill, and it was lovely. It reminded me of the Listening Room, without the anxiety-producing pressure to remain silent and still the entire time. People generally sat and paid all attention to the band (a few people - employees? residents from upstairs? - kept drunkenly swanning around and taking multiple flash photos). The show was to start at 9, though it was closer to 9:30 (or later). My guest and I were anticipating getting a few appetizers to enjoy during the show - in fact, we'd planned and eaten light dinners so we'd be prepared. But alas, the kitchen closes at 9. Which seems like poor planning to me. The bartender seemed to get that a lot of people had come expecting food (at a restaurant...) and she gave us a plate of warm pita bread and very garlicky hummus, gratis. Awesome. It went nicely with the pinot grigio, until I managed to knock over the rest of my glass onto the floor. A server was there immediately to mop it up with a rag. Apollo Grill gets major points for service.

Lo Fine was excellent, as usual. And as usual, I couldn't understand a word Kevin said or sang onstage. But the music is always lovely.

Although I am not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, I have a problem with raw chunks of garlic such as the ones in the hummus last night. They tend to stay with me for a long, long time. Last night I flossed and swished my mouth with Listerine until my eyes watered and I still had a skunky garlic taste in the back of my mouth. This morning I can still feel it, all funky and hot inside of me, and this is after eating Key Lime yogurt and a cuppa Earl Grey. Frankly, I'm lucky that I seem to have avoided the intense gastric effects raw garlic sometimes causes me. I know you don't want me to elaborate.

Coincidentally, after the Apollo Grill I went over to chez Price to pick up my dog, and T had me try the hummus she'd just made from scratch. It was perfect, indistinguishable from really good store-bought. It reminded me of my hippie-leaning mom's hummus, who made it from scratch years before it was readily available in supermarkets. She'd fill a big old amber-glass mixing bowl with the hummus she'd made with her electric food processor, sculpting it up the sides to create a bowl shape in the middle, into which she'd pour olive oil, fresh lemon juice, and fresh parsley. It was delish.

I was recently talking to people about the Big E, and I remembered the perfect shirt that I let get away, admired here by my brother-in-law:





It would be the perfect thing to wear to Saturday's Drunk Stuntmen show, too. Damn.

It's nice and hot here at work today. The air conditioning is broken, so we have the windows open (just a few skylights, so no cross-breezes). The thermostat says it's 80 in here, and I'm secretly enjoying it. After all, I'm dressed for the hot weather, and I got my iced chai right here. All summer long I have to use lap blankets and cardigans inside the refrigerated office. I'd be fine if the temp was set at, say, 74, instead of 69, which is colder than the heat setting in January.

I just ran into my old boss who owned the fancy clothing store when I worked there. I hadn't seen him for years. He and his wife are my only non-family patrons, having bought a piece of my sculpture (for $350 plus some clothing from the store) when I was fresh out of college. He asked if I had a studio, and I said I had something set up in my apartment. I think he knows I'm now a fraud and not making "serious" art anymore. At least, I'm not welding anymore, and my stuff is largely representational, which feels like a cop-out (Hampshire taught me that). He has a cool life right now, designing and manufacturing displays for high-end stores and trade shows, as well as managing some fancy properties. He and his wife both act and appear to be gay, which is one of the reasons why I dig them. At their store, he was always in charge of the creative side, and she handled all the finances and managing; plus he's really into clothes and fancy glasses, and she has a short haircut and comfortable shoes.

Anyway. I do think I'm coming around again, after not feeling drawn to make anything "abstract" (I hate the labeling, but it's the best way to explain it) I have some ideas for some things. I might try to combine my old art aesthetic with the new cigar-box dioramas, and make an abstract/organic diorama. Fun.

I'm trying to enable comments, because it looks like Blogger is letting even the free accounts people run them. We'll see how long it lasts before it's spammed into oblivion... This post should have them. let's see...

Yesterday I took a very pleasant stroll along the Smith side of the Mill River. It was very pleasant, that is, until my dog found a decomposing beaver carcass. She gleefully rolled around in it until I ran towards her, yelling for her to stop. But the damage had been done. I threw a stick into the river so at least she'd rinse off a little, and then I had to drive home; even with the windows rolled down and the fan blowing, it was hard not to gag. She was very pleased with herself, though, sitting in the middle of the back seat, mouth open in a happy grinning pant.

Once we got home, it was immediately bathtime. It was actually a good thing, as the dog's coat gets all dull and flaky in the spring, and I had just given her a serious brushing the day before; afterwards I was driven to scrub my bathtub, finally, which is cursed with a slow drain. And though the dog hates the bath, once she's all finished and dry, her fur feels like mink.

I'm still thinking very seriously about finding a new home for her, though it would leave me semi-heartbroken. It's just very difficult to deal with her various needs while living alone in an apartment. She has relatively minor separation anxiety issues (i.e. she causes no major damage) but other than that she is the perfect dog, I think. Very energetic, affectionate, wonderful with kids, funny, playful... If you know someone who would love a dog, and who owns a house, let me know. I would be available for lots of dog-sitting.

Mystery solved - as I suspected, those circles are from farming. Apparently the perfect circles are due to an irrigation contraption that pivots on a central axis. A very, very long irrigation contraption, one that doesn't use water very wisely. You can see one and read more about it here. Thanks to Mike and Eddie for the info!

So yeah, I'm back. I was all ready to post on Friday, but I think Blogger was going through a metamorphosis and was too busy to let me sign on. California was as predicted - way too sunny, with lots of too-tan women wearing super-tight clothes and too much perfume. Though maybe I'm just thinking of the television media personalities from Brazil. Anyway, I went on a scary free-fall ride, which was fine except for all of the falling. My coworker talked me into going on it, and she laughed hysterically as I screamed the entire time we were zooming up and down in the dark.

Now I'm home, trying to learn to be patient, and to be kind to myself, which is hard because I wish I was a different person. Not radically different, just less soft. More confident. Yeah.

Here are some shots I took from the airplane, and some bonus pics from my trip.

Cincinnati cloverleaf:




Can anyone tell me what these circles are? Crops, or something, right? They're enormous. I notice them every time I fly cross-country:




There's a little town in the lower left, so you can see how massive these circles are:




As a bonus, here's a mysterious photo of the grand opening ceremony for the thing I rode. (I'm not using any searchable nouns...)



And me baking in the sun the next day, waiting with all of the other shmoes for the bigwigs to show up and tell us something that's supposed to sound really exciting:



And that was my trip to California.

I'm off for four days, to sunny California for a press trip. I might be able to post from the "media center" or something, but it's unlikely. If the plane doesn't crash, you'll hear from me Friday.

This is a beautiful, thoughtful list of 11 Hard Questions For Bush.

It turns out our friendly, local ABC affiliate, channel 40/WGGB, is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is run by a right-wing nutjob.

As such, WGGB will not be airing Friday's Nightline segment where Ted Koppel will read the names of the Iraq war casualties. You'd think that anyone would be in favor of honoring those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to our country, no matter what side of the issue you subscribe to, but apparently not - not when there's politics to be played. If you want to read the nonsensical biased reasoning behind this move, read this note on Sinclair's site. This is what happens when partisan non-journalists are allowed to control the news.

Please, please, please email or phone the station to share your displeasure. Boycott the companies that advertise on channel 40, and contact those companies to let them know why. Keep in mind that the people who work at the WGGB Springfield office are only following a directive from their corporate overlord at Sinclair, so treat them with kindness.

Channel 40 contact info: http://www.wggb.com/

Main telephone: (413) 733-4040

Newsroom telephone: (413) 733-8840

Newsroom fax: (413) 788-7640

Newsroom email: news40@wggb.com

Sinclair Broadcasting: 410-568-1500

Mark Hyman: mhyman@sbgnet.com ( conservative commentator, also VP at Sinclair)

If you want to mention your complaint to one of their competitors
here's the contact info for Channel 22:

http://www.wwlp.com/tv22/contact.html

WWLP-TV22
PO Box 2210
Springfield, MA 01102-2210

Do this (via Treacher):

1. Grab the nearest CD.
2. Put it in your CD-Player (or start your mp3-player, I-tunes, etc.).
3. Skip to Song 3 (or load the 3rd song in your 3rd playlist)
4. Post the first verse in your journal along with these instructions. Don’t name the band or the album title.

everybody come/get together
it's okay if you can't stand to let her dance
it's okay it's your right
come on and take a chance
a true romance when you dance
don't be in love with the autograph
just be in love when u scream that song
all night long

I love Dream Pets, a reintroduced line of stuffed toys from the 1950s-1970s. I managed to nab a Gypsy Giraffe from the free table at work, and she's destined for my niece Lula's room (if she wants it). These are really cool; check out their pretty website.

I will never again make disparaging remarks about various pot-bellied baseball players' lack of athleticism, for I played some casual baseball yesterday, and dammit, I can barely move today. I am sore and stiff all over; the pain is mainly contained in my hips, ass, back, arms, and legs. And my neck a little, and my ankles. The top of my head feels okay. And my toes. I only had one injury, when I managed to fumble a catch in such a way that the ball hit me square on the big tendon right below the kneecap. It didn't hurt so much as it made me instantly feel like throwing up. I didn't, though, and after a minute I felt fine. Magically, there is no bruise.

A baseball is way more fun to play catch with, but on the whole, I am used to the girly compromises of softball. The ball is bigger (and, uh, softer), and therefore a little easier to hit, and when it is hit, it doesn't go as far. And some of the people I was playing with were really good hitters. And that means running very fast into the outfield, triumphantly scooping up the ball, and then attempting to throw the ball infield using my pathetic noodle-like arm, and the ball falling with a gentle plop ten feet shy of the person I'm trying to throw it to. I think there was one occurance where I did this and managed to throw it alright and we almost got the guy out at home. But didn't. Still, though. I think with practice I could get, at the least, less embarrassing. Sita is the baseball-star girl who organized the whole thing, and kudos to her for rounding up the various aging hipsters of the town and getting them to go outside and play. Everyone was saying they want to do it again.

I took this picture last weekend of my beautiful niece.

Sure, I'll do this too.

Your secret name is jockstrap from the trash at the gym.
The animal which symbolizes you is Sandy Pants.
The color of your soul is dragon.
The celebrity you most resemble is monkey crap.
Your special pain or illness is Saddam Hussan.
Your most important time of day is dyslexia.
The shape of your life is two hours from now.
And the flavor which identifies you most is triangle.

Reading the Rockumentary boys' recap from their recent super-fun gig-trip to P-Town, I heaved a mighty sigh. If only I was in a band, I could go on fun trips like that too. I'm not even a band-girlfriend anymore, so I really have no reason to tag along. It's too bad that it's not more socially acceptable or common to go on weekend trips with a bunch of friends. I mean, it is, but not when you're over 30 (just barely over 30, boys!) it seems.

But listen, I can sing a little; maybe some punk band would have me. At shape-note singing Tuesday, the woman sitting to my left, one of the people who know all of the songs by number, said that I had a great voice and that she was glad to have had the chance to sing next to me. Wow! I really have no idea how I sound there most of the time, unless I screw up - and since the group was really hepped up last time, with lots of fast and loud tunes, my strained voice kept cracking and doing things I did not want it to do. I only hear my wrong notes because they're out of step with the rest of the altos. Thank god I can tell when things are in pitch. I am learning how to better control my voice, mostly by backing off on the volume when it feels like my vocal cords are about to start rebelling. Surprisingly (to me), I think my voice has been improving over the past year in tone and quality. It's very exciting.

This may be due to the fact that it's now spring and I'm single, but I am also suddenly in love with the entire (all male, all ages) bass section of the singing group. They just have great voices, all gruff and low and forceful yet jaunty and kind of funny with the enunciation they do, and they usually have to jump in first during the fugues, so you can hear them really well. Some of them will kind of shout a high note when it's at a climactic part of the song. I know this all sounds incredibly dorky, and if I was reading this and hadn't written it myself, I would be rolling my eyes. But you have to believe me. They are all lovely.

Feeling better today, thanks.

If my life was a book right now, it'd be titled "Smart Women, Foolish Choices." Not that I've made any choices lately. That's just the closest one I could come up with.

Still, it's going to be all right, eventually, isn't it?

This snarky version of Shakespeare's Pericles is very funny. I've never read the play but this recap is totally worth it. (via boingboing)

So I'm back from Brooklyn. The big city, yo! It was nice. I got a lot of baby time. When L isn't crying or sleeping or breastfeeding, she's very interactive and cute, smiling and staring intently into your eyes or at the ceiling fan (her favorite view). There was a lot of singing to her, and a lot of manipulating her still-uncontrollable limbs to "swim" or "run and jump" or "charleston" or "frog kick." Then, last night, a breakthrough. Sc had her on his chest, and he was blowing raspberries. She was smiling and watching very closely. Then, suddenly, she stuck her tongue out of her mouth a little bit, and made a tiny "pbbit" noise. S said "Hey, she did it! What a smart baby!! Good girl!" I came over and watched and after a few moments she did it again. We were both laughing and excitedly shouting encouragement, and then Sa came over and saw her do it, and Sa was so excited that she said "Oh my god, this is so amazing. I feel like calling Mom!" It was so cool that actual communication was happening. She still isn't as smart as my dog ... but not for much longer. And, sorry dog, but she is more adorable. Of course I don't have to deal with hours of screaming and crying each day. Which is the great thing about being an aunt.

Okay, first things first: Last weekend's photo fest at the Northampton State Hospital.

These new Bush ads are really brutal!

The current dooce is required reading for my sister and brother-in-law, parents of a baby girl. Me and my sis called our vaginas "little bottom" or "dinky." There are way better names to use on the list posted over at dooce. Like wa-zoo. Or bottom system. I bet they'll go with the warm, multiculti-ish yoni, though.

edit: Looks like I was right, as I just discovered sis wrote in a comment way down after number 500.

On Easter:

- I finally sold my futon that's been sitting in my dining area for, oh, five months or so, for $10. (I had been considering paying $25 to get it thrown in the dump.) Thanks, Aunt Clara's Closet!

- I made strawberry pancakes that were not as wonderful as I'd hoped they'd be.

- I walked around the old State Hospital and took some photos. There's now a massive, long chain-link fence around the main complex, so you can't go in and wander around the spooky courtyards anymore.

- The dog fetched a stick thrown into the water, over and over again. She's gone from being afraid of getting water on her back to happily and confidently swimming in a strong current.

- After the dog walk I drove to the mall, which was closed. Because it's easter. Duh.

- A man in a hut gave me candy.

- I kept the dog in my apartment alone for about 23 minutes, and she seemed okay when I returned. My little training plan might be working.

- I called my grandmother and my parents to wish them a happy easter. Grandma is doing great, parents seem good. They're going to bail me out by providing dog care this upcoming weekend. You know the situation is desperate when I decide tacking an extra hour and a half to my drive is worth it. But I just gotta go see my little Lula.

So yeah, I'm going to be around this weekend after all. No Brooklyn for me. Just FYI.

MY HERO!

To the Editor (New York Times):
A woman I had dinner with the other night said to me that the atmosphere in this country since the Persian Gulf war is like that at a party in a beautiful home, with everybody being polite and bubbly. And there is this stink coming from somewhere, getting worse all the time, and nobody wants to be the first to mention it.
KURT VONNEGUT

(This is old, from March 27, but I just stumbled across it.)

MY HERO!

To the Editor:
A woman I had dinner with the other night said to me that the atmosphere in this country since the Persian Gulf war is like that at a party in a beautiful home, with everybody being polite and bubbly. And there is this stink coming from somewhere, getting worse all the time, and nobody wants to be the first to mention it.
KURT VONNEGUT

(This is old, from March 27, but I just stumbled across it.)

I had a dream last night. I was walking up the stairs inside a high school and I passed a bunch of nerds. "Nerds!" I said aloud, as they glanced at me uncomfortably. I immediately felt bad, and said "I'm one too." At this, the sage nerd with the sparse mustache from Freaks and Geeks came up next to me and walked aways with me. I said "I don't know why I said that, because I'm a nerd too." He was chatting with me and being reassuring and I thought he was annoying but that I also should be nice to him. As we walked a pretty girl passed by and acted all disgusted by us. A few minutes later the sage nerd went away and I was hanging out with some female friends. The pretty girl came by and was now all nice and friendly to me. She seemed to not recognize me as the nerd from before. I told her who I was and she was actually fairly nice and apologetic about it. And that's all I remember.

The dream was similar to my high-school life, since I was friends with the nerds but not exactly one of them (never was in marching band or on the academic decathalon team or whatever it was called). I was more of an art nerd, which didn't have a tidy label to it ("art fag" was the closest, which doesn't really fit for girls) and was not quite as ostracizing as being a totally brainy nerd. Being an art nerd also earned some respect from some of the popular kids, the ones who thought they were cool enough to be considered "alternative," all the while sticking to their j. crew uniforms. (The girls who teased me were all "burnouts" with big hair and skin-tight acid-washed jeans; they were in a lower caste than the popular people.) However, we were still nerds, underneath the vintage clothes and crazy jewelry and combat boots, and we didn't mix with non-nerds/freaks outside of school. Not that we ever spent time wishing that we were.

The kinds of things the geeks on Freaks and Geeks deal with is more like my junior high school experience. Our junior high was located on top of a hellmouth. I am convinced this is so. Actually, 8th grade was when I grew a spine (figuratively) and started being "bad," and sticking up for myself a tiny bit, so that part wasn't horrible for me personally. But the entire school (the building housed 7th and 8th grades only) was a roiling cauldron of hormones and nastiness and rage that would suddenly erupt without warning. *shudder*

More about that naughty, naughty Tigger: It seems a certain person, let's call her finslippy, also had a creepy encounter with this crazy sexed-up denizen of the 100-Acre Wood. In her own words:

"I WAS MOLESTED BY TIGGER!

Sort of.

When I was 17 and my chorus took a trip to Disney World, Tigger walked right up to me, put his arm around my shoulder, began suggestively rubbing at said shoulder, and said, "Rowr."

Okay, so there was no fondling. But there might have been! If I hadn't walked away!

Still, I finally feel like I've achieved closure. Your blog brings not only entertainment--it brings healing."

So, so true.

I've also had a weird encounter with The One Whose Bottom is Made Out of Springs. When my sister and I went to that place way back in 96 or 97, we met Tigger in the very same room they mention in the article. And our Tigger, disturbingly, made these little "kiss kiss" lip-smacking noises inside of his/her fur head. The costumed characters are not allowed to talk,* but somehow this person thought that meant they could still make the kinds of noises guys make hanging out on the sidewalk as you walk past.

However, it's not the same Tigger guy as the guy arrested yesterday, because this person was a "new hire." Something about putting on the Tigger suit seems to draw out the perversion in people, I guess.

*At a press event a couple of years ago I met Sweetums. He talked. I was amazed. I said, "Hey, you talk! I thought you guys weren't allowed to do that!" and he said, "Of course I can talk! I'm not from Disney, kid." True story. I guess if you're a Muppet from the very start, and not a plush three-dimensional interpretation of a celluloid creature, then you can do what you can really do, if you get my meaning. It also sounded just like the actual Sweetums, leading me to believe it may have been the actual Sweetums, Richard Hunt, inside. Then I found out that Richard Hunt died in 1992. Shit.

This gives a bit more detail into the naughty Tigger incident, if you're interested.

Ew. Click here to read about the most not-wonderful thing about Tiggers. This is not the guy I picture inside of the fur suit when I get my photo taken with those things. I shudder.

A downward spiral sounds pretty fun. Like in Chutes and Ladders, I kind of liked getting the chutes because you got to slide down the slide. Never mind it meant you would lose the game, it was the fun that counted. I currently have a necrotizing spot of leprosy (okay, I think it's just a little impetigo) on my right nostril. It makes me want to tie a dirty rag around my face and yell "unclean!" as I walk through town. If I keep my head down and tilted to the side a little it's not so noticeable. I got some prescription ointment yesterday which is making it do dramatic things; it no longer looks like a regular scab but has become somehow more disgusting. I won't elaborate. Just turn away, if you see me, turn away from my shame. I went out after the Death Cab for Cutie show last night to buy my friend a drink (she got me in for free). I drank mine really fast and left because it was getting late, and it didn't seem to hit me until I got home. Then I was all stumbly and drunky and very tired while walking the dog and then eating cereal with the TV on Leno then Conan. I sank down until I was dozing horizontally on the sofa with the dog shellacked onto me. Eventually she got up and then I was too cold so I went to bed.

This is what happens when you have a horrendous-looking wound on your nose.

On Friday I rented the DVD set of Strangers with Candy, Season Two and watched almost all of the episodes this weekend. Today, I can't get "I'm gonna sit at the welcome table" out of my head AT ALL. It's a genius show. Four of the episodes had commentary by the three leads (Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, Steven Colbert), who have worked together for years, so I listened to the commentary and pretended they were my friends. They're so funny, my new friends! They really have it all goin' on.

I also got to watch the first three episodes of Freaks and Geeks, courtesy of H, who has the awesome DVD set. Watching the show is like going through a painful, yet funny, flashback to junior high. (Funny cuz it's true.) Judd Apatow really captures how high school was for most people. I'm not surprised the series was cut, though; I think if you're young enough to be their target demographic, and are currently a freak/geek or used to be one in the recent past, watching the show might be too much reality. And of course NBC treated the show like crap, moving it from night to night like a cheap whore. Stupid TV executives. Anyway, who cares - now, with the power of DVD, we can enjoy fine television IN OUR OWN HOMES!

By the way, the raccoon thing? Not an April Fool's joke.

Holy crap. I just got home from a friend's house (I walked, and it's pouring rain) and I come inside my building and the dog starts freaking out. I can see a fluffy tail tip near the top of the stairs, so I assume it's one of the neighbor's cats, as my neighbors are very laissez-faire about keeping their doors ajar. But no. I walk up the stairs and no, in fact, up here there are no doors open, and no, in fact, we are now facing a short dead-end hallway, the end of which houses my doorway, and is currently inhabited by a GIANT RACCOON. It's all puffy and pissed off, and of course Louise is going apeshit, crying and barking and yelling in dog language exactly how she is going to rip its throat out, and I'm hanging on to her leash like I'm trying to land a swordfish. During this the raccoon realizes the only way out is right past us and down the stairs, so it passes within inches of the lunging dog in order to reach the top step, where it pauses to turn around to give us both a defiant "haaaahh!!"-kind-of-a-hiss, and then it runs down the stairs. Man! Raccoons have serious balls. My dog was really going crazy at this point. I made her go inside the apartment and I shut the door. I still have a raccoon stuck in my apartment house. Downstairs on the first floor, there are two doors open: the door to the basement, and the door to one of the first floor apartments. It's very conceivable that the raccoon is now inside the apartment. They are scavengers, you know. (In New Jersey when you'd catch them in the middle of digging into your garbage cans, they'd just look back at you with cigarettes dangling from the corners of their mouths, like, "Whut? Can't you see I'm busy here?") I knock on the open door, saying, "hello? Is anyone home?", like there's any way if they were home they wouldn't have been aware of the wildlife encounter that just happened, what with the dog yelping and my yelling "Holy crap, that's a fucking raccoon!" and the dog claws scraping on the floor trying to find purchase. Anyway, though the door is open and lights are on, there appears to be nobody home. So I shut the door to the basement. Why? 1. If it's down there, it won't get into the open apartment, and 2. if it's in the apartment, maybe the hippies who live there will learn a valuable lesson about keeping their door wide open.

All is currently quiet.

This is such an annoying thing to me, I think I may have even blogged about it before. I work in a building full of editors. So it's always weird to get an email full of grammatical and spelling mistakes from our receptionist. She suffers from the unneccessary-apostrophe disease that has become incredibly common in the past five years or so. Today she announced that two people were having birthdays over the weekend - except she wrote "birthday's." Why add an apostrophe? Where did this come from? I just want to figure out the chain of faulty reasoning that results in turning plural words into possessives. Is it because "birthday" ends in a "y", and that's kind of a vowel, and sometimes words that end in vowels get a ... No, that doesn't make any sense. Is it because sometimes "birthday" is capitalized, i.e. "Happy Birthday," and therefore it should be treated like the plural of a proper noun, which.... also doesn't get an apostrophe unless it's possessive. Huh. Do you see why this might make an editor crazy??

Listen, I can live with the its/it's problem. (a refresher: you only use "it's" as a contraction for "it is." It's simple. And it rubs the lotion on its skin.) But this crazy, lazy, "instead of thinking, just add an apostrophe" thing is a symptom of the decline of Western civilization.

p.s.
Good: ladies' room
Bad: ladie's room (I really did see this in use)

Work has been hella busy lately. Plus, I'm feeling all weird and floaty and trembly this afternoon, possibly due to my allergies starting up, taking Sudafed, too much green tea, and the funky-ish Thai food I had (not so great, that Siam Square).

Everyone should try to catch the Daily Show tonight, since Richard Clarke is going to be the guest. The teasers for this show have a "I know, we can't believe it either" tone, since Clarke is like the number one newsmaker this week. Anyway, they'll rerun it tomorrow at 7 p.m. if you're too busy boogieing at the Fawns show at the Iron Horse tonight.

Photoblog time. Saturday was frickin' perfect outside, our first great spring day. Naturally I did my favorite hike on Mt. Tom in Holyoke, taking the M-M Trail to the Beau Bridge Trail (I found out that it's not actually named for the c-list actor). And I brought my dog. And my camera.

On the summit, taking a little rest:





Signs of life up here - very green moss!





The M-M Trail meets the Beau Bridge trail here:





Beau Bridge scenes:







A sapling arch:




root writing:




Oak leaf:




Rhinoceros:




The dog dries off, and it's time to go:

Thanks, Gawker, for printing the Best Craigslist Ad Ever:

"I have four free dogs. Two of them are large sized, about up to my waist. One is brown and the other sort of milky grey, with a large black patch of hair on his belly. The 'black hair patch' dog has a limp, as it was stepped on by a truck driver doing a delivery one day. But he's very kind. The other two dogs are about the size of a bowling ball, but not round like that. One is more round and the other pretty skinny. I don't know the breeds, but they have scratchy hair. You may have seen me with them because I walk them all together usually from Lexington to Central Park and I like to go down 80th street. I also have a monkey but he looks sort of sick. I think you'd need a vet for him. I got him in New Jersey about three years ago. All of these are free and I have individual bowls for the dog and a leash for the monkey. I have to get rid of them because I need an operation in a week that's pretty serious and I don't have anywhere for them to stay. They all get along great except for the monkey and the larger small dog. But I'd hate to split them up. Serious inquiries only. I would rather that they didn't go to the Bronx or Staten Island. Nothing personal."

A few years ago at a flea market in Chelsea, I found a pile of 1960s-era inspirational posters for GM factory workers. They were five bucks each, so I bought two. They're colorfully-illustrated mod delights. One says "Who wants reliable products? EVERYBODY!" and shows a crowd of big-headed people in suits raising their hands. The other features bees with sideburns buzzing a feminine-faced daisy, and says "Quality attracts customers - and keeps them coming back." They hang in my living room, urging me to strive for perfection and productivity.

A couple of days ago our corporate overlords sent us a couple of inspirational posters for our office. To my horror, the office manager hung them up. They are a far, far cry from the quality of my GM posters. In one, three people crowd around a computer, their faces beaming with glee and satisfaction. The text says "Our [company] team: One connection ... one community." That's it. What does that even mean? How does this lift my spirits, or make me want to produce high-quality, reliable things?

Anyway, the three people in the photo are nicely diverse - an older white guy, a middle-aged white woman, a middle-aged black woman - but they each have something in common: an extra 50-60 pounds they really should try to lose. This is not something I normally take notice of, but seriously - it jumps out at you. I even mentioned it, gently, to a couple of coworkers, and they said, "Yeah, I noticed that too! Weird!"

So what the hell? Is this the new normal? Now that we're the fattest nation ever on this planet, the model they use for the average Joe has to have a big ass and a puffy face? I admit, I'm one of those feminists who believe that the saturation in the public sphere of images showing impossibly skinny models makes girls anorexic and self-hating. But is the cure showing doughy office drones who can't climb stairs without getting out of breath? There has got to be a happy medium. Aren't we supposed to see ourselves in these advertising models? Because I don't see - I don't want to see - myself as a part of this group. Who would?

Confusingly, a second poster has the exact same text and the same scene, except the three have been joined by two slender ladies, who also hover with bright smiles. Depending on my mood, I like to imagine the third poster, which would either have just the three original people, slightly fatter and blotting bits of thin-girl from the corners of their mouths, or the two skinny people sitting at the computer, the larger trio grumpily standing in the background and out of the spotlight, looking sadly resigned and a bit betrayed at being picked last yet again.

Of course, in real life, they should all feel sad and betrayed for being roped into such a lame-ass production.

A few days ago the excellent dooce wrote her baby delivery story. It reminded me of my sister's, and I got a little choked up at the end. I'm a sap. Dooce is a great writer, though, and her baby was born two days after my sister's, which is neat.

[warning: major bitchery ahead.]

I guess spring really is coming, despite the freezing-cold nipple-shattering wind chill, because I keep getting harassed by various panhandlers/people wanting my money. There are these guys who lay in wait off to the side of the sidewalk on Main Street; depending on where the sun is, they're either in front of Faces or Thornes. They have three-ring binders, and always start a conversation with you as you approach, by complimenting you or blurting out something about the weather, and once you answer it means they've made contact and they swoop in, wanting to take just a few minutes of your time to explain why they need your money. I do not begrudge them their right to do so, and I think that (unlike the actual panhandlers) it's probably good to give them money. But I work and live here, man. I can't stop every frickin' day to talk to them, and I can't give money every day, in fact I really shouldn't give much of anything at all, and 99% of the time I can't spend the time it would take to give them the money, since I'm either on my way to work (today was the first time I've been waylaid on a weekday morning - it was about 9:15 a.m.) or on my way to grab lunch and get back to the office, or I'm on my way home. Yesterday during lunch there were two 3-ring binder guys and thirty feet away were two MassPIRG girls. Both pairs asked me to stop and listen and I had to be an asshole and say no thanks, doing the cold New York City no-eye-contact glare-at-the-sidewalk as I hurried past, my body language saying 'can't you see I'm walkin' here?' I'm not a tourist, I'm not wealthy, I don't own property here, I'm not in town to shop, I'm just living here, pretending Northampton is a town where people actually live and work and not just a quaint historic shopping center.

I hate saying no to the binder guys, though. It makes me feel like an asshole. It's way easier for me to turn down actual panhandlers, since I have a very strong feeling that they are, in the vast majority of the time, going to spend the money on Bad Things. I actually once saw this in action, when I accidentally came upon Annoying, Loud, Bad-Guitar-Playing Guy getting high with a couple of buddies on the old canal tow-path (the one from the Roundhouse lot to the Felt building). (This is the same path where a dog walker found a dead homeless guy a few months ago...)

I guess I'm just kind of a bitch. I'm a Quaker, so I should be all generous and giving, but instead I act like a cornered wolverine, snarling and snapping and hoarding my tiny stash of acorns. People, don't be like me. Live Simply, So Others May Simply Live.

My coworkers and I are professionals, but we tend to lack decorum. It's not all that noticeable, except when we have conference calls with other departments in the company located in NY and Cali. Today someone in CA was pitching a story on a man whose first name is Dick. After a couple of minutes spent discussing what Dick was like, a few of us were snickering behind our hands. But the corker was when someone said "No, Dick is never stiff!" We giggled silently so the conference call mic wouldn't pick it up. Then a clueless coworker on our end said, "Let me work on him, I'll loosen him up!" Har har har. After the call had ended, we all recapped the funniest lines in the conversation, clueing in clueless coworker, who also laughed.

The thing is, it wasn't even funny, really. It was just a geniune pleasure to act like 11-year-old ne'er-do-wells sitting in the back of the classroom, all the while conducting business with actual professionals who have to wear nice clothes to work every day. Inappropriate laughter is the sweetest kind of all.

Our huge multinational media behemoth is in the final stages of switching over to a massive new, online, "self service" system. All employees are required to take tutorials to use the new system. Unfortunately the tutorials - and the system itself - seems to have been written by a bunch of hermetical uber-geeks who are incapable of speaking like normal human beings or writing without numerous grammatical and spelling errors. The tutorial seamlessly combines intelligence-insulting, time-wasting exercises ("You started your business trip in Cleveland. Write "Cleveland" in the "destination" space, then press the Tab key to continue.") with incomprehensible corporate gobbledegook, often in the same paragraph. The graphics and fonts would look innovative ? if it was 1989. They make it impossible to actually select and save any of the tutorial text, but I just had to copy this one thing down longhand:

Cost center: Code (cost object) representing a department within the company in which to enter an expense against.

And don't get me started with the other undefined acronyms and jargon they lazily toss in there, like we give a crap enough to learn their preferred terminology. Instead of simply saying "you" or "the employee" they say "the CM/EE", because that's much clearer!

I need a drink.

Updates:

My soft-foods friend says no thanks to the party, mainly because he's doing fine with the huge selection of soups and such he got from Our Lord and Savior, Trader Joe's.

My neck thing went away a few days ago. Blood pressure was fine (I checked it for free at Stop n' Shop); I think I just pulled a weird muscle somehow.

I haven't yet heard either way, but now that it has begun snowing, it is possible the Shape Note thing tonight may be cancelled.

I'm on the Northampton snow emergency email alert list, and I just got one for tonight. And the full list of recipients was attached to the email, which isn't very considerate. I only saw one name I recognized, Dan G.

Last night I went to the open mike at the old Bishop's Lounge space. (What is that place called? It feels like one of those finished basements-turned-rec room-and-bar that your friend's dad had when you were a kid.) Kevin O'R was the m.c., and sang some lovely songs, as always. I was there with new guy to see some of his friends. One of them played (Kt, who I met pre-new guy) and was very good. Onstage she needs to be more confident in her song-writing/playing ability, since she is very talented. I liked her songs.

When we first entered the place, there was a ruddy middle-aged guy sitting in the shadows with his guitar strapped on and a harmonica, on one of those neck holster things, stuck in his mouth. He wasn't playing it, just sitting patiently, waiting for his turn, very, very prepared. Then when he got up to play he didn't even use the harmonica until the third song. K was way too generous and let Harmonica Guy play five songs.

Fuck you, snow. Fuck. You.

Hi. Hi hi hi. I'm here. I went to the Sacred Harp convention here in Northampton. There were 300 singers there, singing from 9:30 to 3:30 Saturday and Sunday (with an hour for potluck lunch). It was pretty frickin' great. I have had shape-note songs running through my head all day. Right now it's the good one that was in Cold Mountain (And am I born to die? To lay this body down?). I managed to make some small talk with people during the many breaks, though there were times I just kind of didn't talk to anyone. Which was fine. I'm adverse to small talk, what can I say. Anyway, if any of you readers out there are interested in this shape-note singing thing, there's going to be a singing lesson this Tuesday at the Hartsbrook School in Hadley, from 7 - 10 p.m. No experience neccessary. The first half will be the lesson, second half will be straight-up singin'. Talking like an impoverished Appalachian is optional.

In other news, a good friend of mine had to have mouth surgery recently, and as such can only eat soft, lukewarm or cold foods for two weeks. Anyone have a favorite Jello salad recipe? I want to throw a soft-foods party for my friend, but he may not want the attention. In fact, this post may be too much...

Sigh. My car is in the shop. It will be there until late Monday. So now I have before me a weekend of being nearly house-bound. (I can walk to town, but I can't leave my dog alone in the apartment. I know, it's a huge problem.) It sucks balls. I could rent a car, but I'm already feeling pinched for paying $650 for repairs on a car I want to get rid of in a few weeks anyway. I will probably get barely anything in trade for it. Pretty damn depressing.

Time to hit up some people for dog-sitting so I can still go to the Western Mass Shape Note Singing Convention this weekend.

Okay, I gots some pictures! These are from Sunday. First of all, here are some pretty flowers at the Smith Botanical Gardens bulb show. The hyacinths smell very nice:



This kid would not talk to me. Stony little dandied bastard:



This is just a very pretty tulip:




And last but not least, here's my poncho I knitted, modeled by a 7-year-old girl!

I'm kind of freaking out right now. There's a vein or something that keeps pulsing and fluttering in my neck, which feels constricted. Meanwhile my ear feels kind of tight and tense, as does the shoulder below the weird vein area. (Don't worry, I'm not going rushing off to the doctor because my ear "feels funny" - tm, Roz Chast.) This doesn't mean anything, right? Or do I have terminal cancer? P had a landlord who died of too many tumors, some of which restricted the blood flow to his head, making it look like he was constantly tensing his neck muscles, making the tendons stand out. This was right before he died. If I die from this, say it's a stroke or something, everyone will read this and be wowed at the power of the immediacy of the internet or something. Maybe I'll even get a mention in the next Times article about blogging.

The very bad part about living alone is that if I collapse or something, and I can't get to my phone, yet I need emergency medical treatment, it's all over. I'm dead and gone, baby. I think I need one of those old lady alarm things that automatically call 911 for you.

I watched about 8 episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm this weekend, as my boss lent me the DVD set of season one. Larry seems much more a victim of circumstance and of speaking before thinking than he does in the current shows, where he just comes off as a complete bastard. Also, the endings of the episode one shows are abrupt: Cheryl takes off her seatbelt in order to give Larry the in-the-car blowjob he won from her in a bet; Larry walks slowly up the stairs to where Cheryl is waiting for her anti-itch prescription cream. I like it when it ends with a bang, like when Jeff's parents come upon Larry watching porn in Jeff's bedroom.

Anyway, besides all of the TV watching, I also had some fun times outside of the house. I went to Harry's for the first time since they remade the pool room into a smoky fishbowl. I went to a party at an apartment of people I'd never met. I went to the Smith botanical garden's bulb show, which was gorgeous. Their jungle room is all high-tech now, with water misters on timers and piped-in rainforest sounds. It's actually very nice. I also went to the Holyoke Merry-Go-Round, which I'd never seen. It's kind of a slightly-shabbier version of the Prospect Park carousel in Brooklyn. It's very nice, still, though, and at a buck a ride, the price isn't bad.

I also did my favorite trail loop on Mt. Tom; a section of the M-M trail that forms a circuit with the Beau Bridge trail. The roadway was open for the first time in a while. They did, however, close the Rte. 141 entrance at 4:00, which I had assumed was a bluff. We just drove through the park to the Rt. 5 exit instead, which was closer to where we wanted to be anyway. I just love that park. I visited there with my aunt when I was a kid, so there's a nostalgic connection, but I also just like the slightly aged, user-friendly feel to it. Plus, the loop I like goes through pine forest, up to the peak with a great view and benches to sit on, through stands of mountain laurel, winding down to an area criss-crossed by streams and waterfalls girdled by wooden footbridges. And it ends up back in the same place you parked your car. Just don't go in the beginning of mosquito season, as I was once nearly smothered by them there. Ugh.

Spring is here, is what I'm trying to say, and just ignore the stupid snow currently falling from the sky, because it's melting as soon as it hits anything important. The snowdrops are up, the crocuses aren't far behind (they're up and blooming outside near the botanical gardens), and stupid people are buying forsythia for $5 a bunch at Stop and Shop when they could just cut some from their neighbor's bush and put them in water for a few days and get the same flowers for free. Things really are going to be okay.

Listen, I know posting has been light the past couple of weeks. Work is being ass lately, and it may continue like this for a while. It's not that I don't care about you; I do. But I also need to get my work done, you know?

It looks like Tallulah enjoys the sweet songs of Queen, at least when sung by her parents. But they have failed to sing the most obvious, best Queen song for a baby girl.

Are you gonna take me home tonight
Ah down beside that red firelight
Are you gonna let it all hang out
Fat bottomed girls
You make the rockin’ world go round
Hey I was just a skinny lad
Never knew no good from bad
But I knew life before I left my nursery
Left alone with big fat fanny
She was such a naughty nanny
Heap big woman you made a bad boy out of me
Hey hey!
I’ve been singing with my band
Across the wire across the land
I seen ev’ry blue eyed floozy on the way
But their beauty and their style
Went kind of smooth after a while
Take me to them dirty ladies every time
Oh won’t you take me home tonight?
Oh down beside your red firelight
Oh and you give it all you got
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round
Hey listen here
Now your mortgages and homes
I got stiffness in the bones
Ain’t no beauty queens in this locality (I tell you)
Oh but I still get my pleasure
Still got my greatest treasure
Heap big woman you gonna make a big man out of me
Now get this
Oh you gonna take me home tonight (please)
Oh down beside your red firelight
Oh you gonna let it all hang out
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round
Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round
Get on your bikes and ride
Oooh yeah them fat bottomed girls
Fat bottomed girls
Yeah yeah yeah
Fat bottomed girls
Yes yes


Some may find this inappropriate, but to them I say nay.

In the 80s, my sister and I spent many, many hours playing video games on our dad's PC (this was well before Windows, remember). Ever since we left the house, and the cats peed all over the boxes of old 5.5-inch floppies in my parent's basement, we have been looking for versions of these games to play again. Luckily for me, one of them has its own domain: Digger. There's no Mac version, though there is a Java-playable version without sound. Nice. I know, we wasted our youths, but I can't go back in time and fix it now.

There's one game we have both been looking for. We can't remember the name of it. It was a sort of educational game. Your character was represented by a hat and feet (yep, that Fountains of Wayne song sometimes makes me think of it wistfully), and your job was to stop the spread of a virus, which was also represented by little figures (I can't remember, but I think the virus turned the town residents into zombies, sort of - the graphics were primitive). All travel - by you and the virus - was done by train. I think the educational element had to do with map reading, as you and the virus travelled to cities all over the United States. Sometimes you'd get to a town and see many regular little people milling around, and sometimes you'd arrive at a town and everyone was already infected. The virus was extremely hard to contain and winning was a challenge. Also, the near-silence - the only sound effects were the chuffing of the train arriving and departing the various station - made everything that much creepier. Anyway, if anyone reads this and has any advice for my quest, please email me.

EDIT: My sister remembered a few other details: Once the townspeople get infected they look furry or spiky. Also, and most importantly, the virus was transferred from person to person by them just bouncing off of each other; when they'd touch, there would be a "shing!" noise indicating viral transmission - like the sound old video games would use when a sword would be drawn, or during the opening screen of the Nintendo game "Blades of Steel." (Also, she doesn't remember the guy being just a hat and feet, but she doesn't remember what he looks like, so I'm letting that stand.)

Holy crap. From Mouseplanet:

When Walt Disney complained about seedy tourist traps sprouting up around Disneyland, he probably meant tacky souvenir shops. A slightly different kind of seediness came to light recently, however, when a police sting operation netted a prostitution ring operating out of an Econo Lodge across the street from Disneyland. Police were tipped off to the brothel by three women, who came forward after being held against their will because they were fed up with being threatened by the head of the ring. The women were illegal immigrants from Mexico, lured to the U.S. with promises of housecleaning jobs, then coerced into the trade by the ringleader, who threatened to tell the women's families of what they were doing.

Maria de la Luz Menjivar has been charged with running “a house of ill fame,” a felony charge of pandering and a misdemeanor charge of running a prostitution ring, and may be prosecuted by the federal government for smuggling. The women who were held against their will and who came forward, are being treated as victims, and are expected to get visas so they may apply for legal residency. According to police, Menjivar was also running another brothel out of the Anaheim Maingate Inn a year ago.

Hi everyone. First off, enjoy this pic of my neice doing her Jack Benny impression:



I thought I wouldn't be going down to Brooklyn to visit her next until mid-to late-March, but looking at these new photos makes me want to go visit sooner.

This weekend I acted like a shut-in, only venturing outside for supplies and dog-walks. It was pretty great, actually, though spending so much time alone in my apartment gets me to thinking Bad Thoughts. (When is this world coming to?) Thoughts like, What is my purpose here? What am I doing with my limited time on Earth? Am I happy, or just content? Am I content, or bored? Am I bored, or content? What career would I have if I could have any one I choose, and how could I get into that career without going into massive amounts of debt? (Impossible, as it turns out.)

I didn't actually figure anything out, just planted some seeds of discontent. Maybe they'll grow into a major life change, maybe (probably, sadly) not. Maybe I'll do something foolish, like buy a condo. Maybe I'll go to the Amherst Massage School like I've been threatening to (to myself) for years.

I spent a lot of my weekend crafting. Go on over to Craftytown to read about that. I was in a fury of thing-making, which helped me feel worthy and good about myself, plus it's fun. And while I crafted I listened to my David Sedaris - Live at Carnegie Hall CD, and it was very funny. And then I listened to a couple of This American Lifes on my computer. And a bunch of CDS.

I also had guests over on Saturday night, the first time I've ever really done that at my tiny apartment. In keeping with the shut-in theme, we played Cranium and Scrabble, and I tried in vain to keep people well-snacked. But I discovered that the frozen Crab Bites, which I had been relying upon as a mid-evening snack, had expired in February of 2003, so we had to rely on the last third of a bag of corn chips (but with plenty of salsa) and some fading grapes the New Guy brought. Next time I'm getting some Munchkins because they are a wonderful party food. Shut up, they are.

I love this McSweeney's essay: Confessions of a New Coffee Drinker. Seriously, whenever I have coffee (and whenever it doesn't make me feel like I'm having a heart attack) I have the same reaction as this guy - why didn't I start drinking this sooner? It's GREAT!!

I've always heard this, but now I know it's true: Living with a newborn baby can be very boring. I must have watched 12 hours of television on Monday. But I got to witness several diaper changings and the Detachment of the Umbilical Cord Stump. And I had a lot of time to hold her and jiggle her and push her in a stroller, and there was a blissful hour of her sleeping on my chest, a warm little breathing loaf of a child. And sometimes when I would hold her, she'd get all squirmy for a minute and then she'd emit a tremendous, satisfying fart, and she'd quiet right down again. (Just like her daddy.) It was all pretty great. S and S are hanging in there, a little cranky and sleep deprived but generally happy and goo-goo-eyed in love with their new child.

I had left for Brooklyn on Sunday during the intermission of the Fab Faux (Beatles Tribute) show at the Academy. The first part was great, but it was an hour and 45 minutes long. I had counted on it only being 2 hours or so but no dice. I was sitting up in the balcony, which was about 15 degrees hotter and much stuffier than downstairs. Still, it was a good time: In the first half, Lo Fine and Philip with SFTD stole the show. Props to Ken for doing the concertina bridge thingy in "In My Life" perfectly. Props also to all the bands who ended sets with the trademark simultaneous bow. I wasn't thrilled with the choice of MC, the same annoying guy who emceed the Clash tribute last year (we get it: you're loud and British), but whatever.

In honor of Valentine's Day Eve, here's a site by a gentleman with a disturbing proposal for his ideal situation: a small stable of baby-mamas, who can choose to not be involved in their kids past infancy, and the right to decide the child-bearing partners of all of his future children. Why? "For a long time, I have shied away from male/female involvement, though desiring such involvement, due to my non-alignment with the commonly accepted and expected practises in this arena."

EDIT: I just looked all over this guy's site and am left feeling empty and sad and (after looking at the "Erotica" section of the Pictures) a little grossed-out. So be careful out there.

Hostile takeover bids? Horrible, unflattering clothing? I guess the 80's really are back. Shit.

This is a product that I can really get behind: g r o o v e t u b e .

The Citgo station on Rt. 9, near the Coolidge bridge, has a new advertising banner. It says, simply, "We know you."

We know you.

So don't try to hide, because we are on to you. We have got your number, muthafucka, and we know where you live. We know what you like to eat for breakfast, and who you sleep with at night. We know you.


Sure makes me want to go buy some gas for my car!

Seriously, I do not get it. Who wants to be "known" by a big faceless company, in this day and age? Did Citgo not get the memo about the public's huge concern over loss of privacy and identity theft?

What makes it weirder is that the banner is on the same station that offers full service, and the full service provider guy is a kind of odd, extra-friendly person. Last time I was there he offered to clean my rear windshield and he did so, but he did it poorly, leaving a big streak of un-squeegeed water. (It was a big improvement, though.) He then apologized to me, saying "I'm just no good at cleaning windshields."

Well, I can understand that, since it's such a tricky tool to truly master. Except, you know, it's not.

I can't complain much, though, because they give you full service for the same price as regular self-serve gas over on King Street. So if you don't mind being "known," and it's really cold or rainy, I'd go over there.

Okay, get a nice big cup of coffee for this one.

So I got a call on Saturday early afternoon from my sister S, who said she was having regular contraction-like pains. They weren't very painful, though, more like menstrual cramps, though they were time-able - one minute long every five minutes. We decided to reconnect a few hours later and see if anything had progressed. In the meantime I took A and T to the Hadley mall, where I bought some nice Old Navy things that were way on sale. I called again and her pains had gotten a little worse, but then they felt the same again, or something, but it was a Saturday so I said I'd drive down. I went home and finished packing and quickly top-stitched the crib dust ruffle thing and ate an Amy's pot pie and drove on down. I got to their apartment around 10 p.m. and it looked like S was in more pain than before, needing to bounce and rock through the contractions. Her husband Sc was busying himself in the tiny nursery room, finally making up the crib bed (he was superstitious about it) and turning on the Wet Wipes warmer and tidying everything up. I was in charge of writing down the times and duration of the contractions, which were remarkably exact: still one minute long every five minutes.

A bit later we decided it would be a good idea to try to sleep. At this point we still weren't sure if this was real labor or not. I tried to fall asleep but I just ddozed dreamily, a little anxiously. At 2:45 the hall light came on and Sc walked into the room, saying, "You know, I think we're expecting an alarm to go off, or a light to start flashing inside S's vagina, and it's just not going to happen that way. She's in a lot of pain, she can't sleep at all, so come on - let's go." And then he did his clap-clap! thing.

The drive over the bridge to Manhattan was quiet and easy. Poor S by this time was having trouble talking during the contractions, clinging tightly to the shoulder seatbelt. At the hospital Sc procured a wheelchair and we went up to a triage room on the birthing floor. They hooked S up to a couple of monitors that measured her uterine contractions and the baby's heartbeat, which was turned up loud so we could hear it reassuringly going shush-shush shush-shush. S was having a hard time. While waiting for a doctor to come in and see if she was dilated she barfed into one of those little vomitorium dishes. That was the first time I started feeling woozy and ill, which was my fear - that I'd be too incapacitated to help in any way. Thank god for pharmecuticals; I took a Xanax and in a few minutes I was ready to be helpful again.

Anyway, the doctor finally came and stuck her hand inside and said, "You're four centimeters dilated." Which means admission to the hospital. Which means this thing was gonna happen, and soon. No false labor here. Whee! They already were bringing up the epidural option, but Sc was following the agreed upon script of "Let's just get to another centimeter and see how we feel," trying to get her through it all without the drugs. We moved to the actual birthing room which was spacious and had soft lighting and cable TV and a CD player and an ominous wheeled metal bucket with a big red plastic trash bag under the bed. S was in a lot of pain, barfing again in the bathroom sink and hanging onto Sc during each contraction. I inflated her birthing ball and S bounced on it for a few contractions but finally she was telling Sc to shut up with the pep talk, she wanted the epidural. The anasthesiologist was this gruff, to-the-point eastern European man. He said things like "I can tell she is not going to make it without epidural" and when we were trying to evoke from him the possible risks he said impatiently, "look, would you buy car without air conditioning?" Good point - why live without a simple modern convenience? Unless you think air conditioning harms the environment and you're willing to live a very sweaty life in the summer, of course. So he gave her the epidural, which involved a tiny plastic tube being lodged in between two vertebre and then taped down very securely. The pain subsided and she was able to relax. I even took a nap on the pull-out chair thing.

A couple of hours later they checked her cervix and it had only dilated to 5 or 6 centimeters, so they decided to break the amniotic sac. The doctor (a woman in her mid-30s) took what looked to me like a wooden paint-stirring stick and gently jabbed inside my sister's wide-open hoo-hah. Fluid gushed out, a lot of it, and pooled around her butt where she was sitting (on some waterproof padding). It looked like pulpy pink lemonade, except, you know, more gross. S watched us looking at the fluid trickling out and laughed at how horrified Sc was and how fascinated I was. It was really cool, what can I say. They changed her padding so that she was dryer, but each contraction made more fluid gush out (getting bloodier each time, which was normal) so she needed several changes.

They also decided to give her a little oxytocin (note: not as fun as Oxy-contin) to start the contractions moving forward. They gave her a low dose, but it worked great - the monitor showed the contractions going off the chart. Unfortunately very strong contractions make the baby's heartbeat slow down each time, which is dangerous, and they had to give S oxygen at one point, and had her lie on her side to give the baby more room at another. But it was going fine.

Later, around 11:00 a.m., S was saying she really felt she had to shit (they call it "rectal pressure") which is a sign of it being time to push. The nurses were spoken to, and they offhandedly said "yeah, uh, tell us when you really really feel a lot of pressure." Ten minutes later, S still felt she really, really wanted to push, so finally we were insistent enough to ccall in the doctor. She quickly checked S's cervix, and the doctor said "Alleluia!" We were at ten centimeters, which meant it was time to push. It was go time for Team S!

Sc said "We don't know how to push!" and the doctor told us: Sc and I each grab a leg, pushing her knee up to her chest and spreading them open a bit (S said this felt good, and wasn't overly stretching her muscles) and we could also help her lift her head so her chin touched her chest. The idea was to help her form her body into a scoop shape. S would wait until a contraction, when we'd get into our leg positions and she'd take a deep breath, hold it for a count of ten (which Sc and I counted aloud) and push, then release the breath and quickly take another, so that there were three long breath-holding pushes for each contraction.

At first S had a hard time keeping the breath in for the full count of ten, letting air out around 7 or 8. The nurses brought in a big mirror on a stand so she could see herself and the baby, whose head was now peeking out a little during each push, in hopes that this would spur her on. But she took one look and said no, no, I don't want to look! "Take it away, it's freaking her out!" I told them, and they wheeled it away. Then a few minutes later something seemed to click in S. She said later it's when she decided to close her eyes and just focus exclusively on what her body was doing. She began holding the push past the count of ten. (During all of this I was wiping her forehead with a wet paper towel. Sweat was beading around her mouth and I tried to wipe it off but she said no, just do her head. A few minutes later, an oblivious Sc tried wiping her mouth and S said, "No - don't ever do that again!" Hee.)

Finally we could see the head even between pushing. A few big pushes later and the baby was crowning. This is when the mom feels the "ring of fire," when she's stretched open as far as she'll be getting. "Ouch ouch ouch!" said S. "It's the ring of fire!" I said. "It burns, burns, burns! The ring of fire!" She nodded. The nurses and the doctor went into a flurry of activity, making the foot part of the bed fold away, scootching S down so they could catch the baby more easily, and finally the bucket o' gore was put into position. Another big push, and the head came out, and suddenly the whole body slithered out in a gush of blood and gunk without another push needed. It was 12:32. I had been watching S's face so all I saw was the baby suddenly placed on top of S, this crazy new flailing wet creature, a girl, rolling its eyes around and making little noises, that had just then winked into existence. I saw S's face register complete and utter shock. HOLY SHIT! I instantly started crying in shock and disbelief and relief and oh. my. god. there's a baby here now, and it just came out of my sister. The doctor had said "Oh, she's pooping!" and I had assumed she meant my sister had pooped, but no - there was a big smear of tarry meconium (newborn shit) on S's thigh. It went well with the other gore now covering the entire lower half of her body. They asked Sc and then me if we wanted to cut the cord and we both said no, just cut it!

They took her to the warming table and they tried to get her a bit more awake and pink. They even called in the pediatrics team to "revive" her, though she looked plenty pink and was making noise and moving and all of that. Sc was looking scared though. Meanwhile the doctor was pulling gently on the rest of the umbilical cord, and S delivered the placenta, and they tossed into a metal bowl (which became filled to the brim with afterbirthy gore). S said after the placenta came out she felt the greatest sense of relief ever.

During this time they thwacked the baby on the bottom of her feet, they vigorously rubbed her all over, they picked her up a few inches and dropped her... Eventually, after about 15 minutes, they got whatever their desired result was, complained to the birthing nurses that this had not been an actual emergency, and left. The nurses bundled Lula up and gave her back to S., who upon holding her started bawling so hard she couldn't see. I got her some tissues and she kind of laughed at herself about it. She put the baby to her breast and got her to latch on for first drink. We just hung out like that for about 20 minutes. I kept going over to the warming table and poking at the short length of umbilical cord they had left on it.

Eventually I let my parents and my aunt in to see the new baby, Tallulah, 6 pounds 11.4 ounces. They had been waiting right outside of the door for the last hour and a half. Part of my job had been to give them updates and keep them at bay.

And then there were two full days in the hospital, which was its own trial of patience and endurance, and now the new family is home and trying to figure out little things like proper breast feeding technique and ways to deal with hemorrhoids and how to get some more sleep, possibly. Little Lula is adorable, as you can see from her blog photos. I had to fight Sc for the chance to hold her and burp her. It is hard not to wake her up in order to look at her cute skinny chicken legs and her baby-back ribs. She makes heart-melting little peeps and Cindy-Lou-Who noises. And she has great lungs for crying. Being an aunt is awesome so far.

Okay, I'm back. It was very hard to leave my sister's pad last night. I am still very tired.

Hey Look! It's my niece, and she already has a blog, with many cute photos.

I have a lot to say about the whole experience, but right now I am at work, trying frantically to catch up and not get fired. So you may have to wait a bit.

Please welcome my niece, Tallulah Way Klein, to the world. She was born yesterday at 12:32 p.m. She weighed 6 pounds 11.4 ounces. I was there. It was magnificent. More later.

It sounds like Pixar is walking away from a deal with Disney after ten months of negotiations. Pixar spent most of it trying, no doubt, to gently convince them that they're the most valuable partnership Disney has ever had, and worth more than the peanuts Disney is probably offering to them. They let that Lizzie McGuire girl get away, too, because they believe you can get and keep creative people by paying them less than they're worth. Stupid, stubborn, no-talent jackasses!

I'm just guessing, of course, but it's an experienced guess. I hope this is just a bluff by Pixar ...

Please welcome a new member to the chowflap link family: finslippy.

So I googled my name yesterday, and discovered that I am:

a woman who died in Nantucket in 1783
a graduate in the class of '98 at Princeton, raised in Laramie, Wyoming, and headed for a career on Wall Street
a street in Fanwood, NJ
a teacher at an afterschool program at Grace Covenant Church in Charlotte, NC
a short-fiction writer
editor of the Minneapolis Monthly
second wife of Country music artist Gary Buck
Professor at Arizona State University, teaching a class this semester titled "Gender and Communication"
the Actue Rehabilitation Unit director at a hospital in southern Missouri
the contact person at the Medford, Oregon Rifle & Pistol Club
a street in Chowchilla, CA
crew of a yacht that finished last place in a regatta

I contain multitudes.

I haven't done a vanity google in a long time. Found many DWs I had not found before. And then, strangely, this passage popped up, from the National Review Online: "... the feistiness and confidence of Jewish women can be spotted far back in the Old Testament, in the stories of Sarah and Deborah, way before Judaism achieved a settled form."

In the little kitchen area of my office is a cardboard box for donations to the Food Bank Farm pantry (which provides free food to families who need it). The box has been there for a few months, and has gotten filled with enough good stuff that it was brought over to the pantry a few times. Occasionally I will put something in from the list of suggested items to donate (whole-grain cereal, pasta, canned vegetables, tuna fish, etc.). But for the past several weeks, some of the intelligent, creative, and sensitive people I work with have been abusing the purpose of the box. I might have to post a sign saying, This is not a depository for food you would just as soon be throwing away.

Recently these items were found in the box:

five plastic bottles of what appeared to be cola, marked only by dot-matrixed computer-print-out labels that said something like "internet testing corp" with a url and a long coded number.

Two "Milky" white chocolate candy bars from Great Britain with an expiration date six months past

A dented can of sliced pears in light syrup, clearly marked as being for distribution as US food aid (think: government cheese)

A small jar of fancy chocolate-brandy "hard sauce" (an unwanted Christmas gift)

What's really messed up about these "donations" is that it signals a severe lack of respect for the people who rely on our handouts. Poor folks like to eat normal stuff too, you know. There but for the grace of god, and all of that. At least others besides me have been noticing; the cola and the candy bars were removed after a week or so and, I assume, thrown away. As they should have been in the first place.

You may want to read the Complete list of Oscar nominations. Some comments:

Johnny Depp is up for best actor for Pirates of the Carribean. Did Disney pay someone off for this? It's a major coup. I like it when comedic roles get recognition, it's very rare. But then why not have Jack Black in School of Rock, or Will Ferrell in Elf?

Hooray for all of the noms for Lost in Translation. Lord of the Rings was a given. I need to see Mystic River (which is back at Cinemark) but I think I've lost my chance for Master and Commander.

Seabiscuit I will not see, and have no desire to see. From what I've read about it, it sounds like formulaic "triumph of the human spirit" tripe. At least they could have given a shout-out to Cold Mountain, which had problems but at least had some original moments. I mean they might as well have gone ahead and nominated "Radio."

Speaking of Cold Mountain, a song from that film, penned by Sting, is up for Best. Doesn't that bitch get enough awards? The Academy could have thrown one to my boy Jack White if they wanted to honor Cold Mt.'s music. Pablum-loving oldy-oldensteins... It will be fun to see the Mighty Wind song performed at the awards show, though.

For best animated feature, Disney is up against itself and a short French-made animated movie that hardly anyone saw. I wonder who will win? (Okay, not really. Finding Nemo will win.)

Best Actress, I've seen only one of the films on the list so I can't comment. I've heard pretty unanimously that Charlize Theron is excellent in Monster, though.

Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress; same problem. Except the one I saw, for In America, the role Djimon is up for is terrible. Noble/savage black man teaches white family what's really important? Give that guy a statue! And Renee's Cold Mt. role was an easy and fun one to play. It just didn't seem like a huge effort, you know? I mean, she was great, but the role is not award-worthy.

Best Documentary; I saw Capturing the Friedmans and loved it (a very very creepy, yucky subject). What about Spellbound - or was that open last year? If not, it should be on here. Dammit.

As for the rest - does anyone really care?

Hello. How was your weekend? Mine was great, thanks. Friday night I finally went and saw Cold Mountain. I declare it flawed but good. Worth seeing, I say. I was super thrilled when the shape-note song started playing (during the turkey-shoot scene near the beginning of the film), and extra super thrilled to see Nicole and Jude singing a shape-note song a little later. Both of those songs I've sung numerous times. The movie is beautiful and suitably horrible at times. I was happy when Phillip Seymour Hoffman showed up unexpectedly, playing a sinful preacher. In smaller roles, Natalie Portman did a great job, as did a surprisingly-good Jack White (from the White Stripes). Besides that, I hated that the climactic tragedy had been so clearly foreshadowed that it held no drama for me, but I did really love the little tacked-on afterword scene at the end (which was not in the book, I heard). I still think Nicole is a little too pretty for the role (even when she was supposed to be at her grungiest, her hair was perfectly tousled and clean) but she acted well. Renee was great. My hatred of her might be thawing a little. Jude is gorgeous and did a fine job here. Both he and Nicole have perfect asses (I think his is even dimpled).

On Saturday I shopped at some second hand stores with A and T. They both found interestintg and perfect-fitting vintage dresses for cheap. I bought an apron. More about this on Craftytown.

Then Saturday night was the Spanish for Hitchhiking and School for the Dead show at PACE. This Easthampton venue used to be just a big open gallery with folding chairs, but in the past few months they got a bunch of AMC movie theater chairs donated and have built a genuine theater out of the space. It was very quiet in there, and the audience refrained from applause until the last note of each song had faded into air. Spanish was excellent; transporting, beautiful, and heartbreaking. I loved the new arrangements of some of their older songs, and the new songs are fabulous. Play out more!

SFTD was great, I always love seeing them play. The full five-piece was there which is always a pleasure. They had some new songs as well, and all were great and alarmingly well-rehearsed. School also has new shirts for sale, this time in ladies' sizes. I am psyched. The stage banter was particularly funny that night. Also, I do know the "It's so funny, how we don't talk anymore" song, though like Brian and Ken I do not know anything before or after that particular line. What amazes me about Ken is that when he's asked to play a random song, he doesn't simply play the melody, he plays the keyboard part of that song. So for "Holiday," he doesn't play the melody that Madonna sings but the synthesizer part that starts off the song. And he goes right into it without pausing and taking a moment to remember how it goes. Ken is a robot.

After the show I went over to my old house to hang out with M and A, and showed new guy M around. He liked the house and was sad on my behalf that I didn't own it anymore. I don't feel sad; I am happy that very good friends of mine own it now. It also looks much better under their care than it did when I lived there.

As for Sunday, you will have to check out Craftytown.

A bunch of coupons, possibly from the inside of a Yellow-Pages-ish thing, are currently magnetted to the office refrigerator. Among the ones for "$1 off two Calzones" and "Free Oil Change with Each Set of New Tires" and the like, is a coupon for a buck off of Emergency Contraception (the morning-after pill) at Tapestry Health. Now, I'm very pro-choice and everything, but this strikes me as a little odd. Are they really thinking that a woman, in the midst of the feelings of guilt and recriminations and anger at herself, plus the trepidation of taking the pill iself, which makes you throw up and feel like crap, is going to suddenly remember, Well, at least I can save a dollar! Things aren't so bad after all!

First there was Friendster. Then there were a whole bunch of ironic imitations. And then Craftster. And now, finally, there is Dogster. I can't wait to put up my dog and link her to her dog pals!

I got Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark at Turn it Up on Monday. It is nearly perfect. The first five songs are particularly great. Why did I wait so long to own this album? I blame my mother for this one. Unlike many parents of friends that I know, mine liked popular, modern music. So it's taken me a while to feel comfortable liking some of the bands they liked while I was growing up. Call it an extended adolescence that's been isolated inside my music fandom. Simon and Garfunkel, Simon solo, Joni Mitchell, Elton John; they all seemed terribnly square when I was a teen, just because my parents owned their records. The Beatles got a pass, of course, as did bands whose albums they really shouldn't have owned, such as Queen and The Cars.

Anyway, Court and Spark has been playing over and over at my house and I'm enjoying the happy, slightly familial mood it's been putting me into. I'm listening to it and it is sounding so familiar, yet new, because I've never paid any attention to the lyrics before. Now I listen and try to piece together the deeper reasons my mom felt such a connection to this album during a period in her life with two difficult children, a husband who hated his white collar job, shitty part-time jobs at the local university, and traveling in a half-broken car to Newark all the time for work.

I had a dream last night about my pregnant sister's baby. Even though it was a couple of weeks old, I had never gotten to hold it yet. So S said, "just look over there, she's asleep." And I looked and saw a tiny baby asleep on a little folded blanket on top of a saucer, dressed up like a little mouse with thin felt ears. Totally adorable. The saucer was atop another saucer or shallow bowl, and the two pieces didn't nest quite right and whenever the baby moved the saucer wobbled precipitously. I picked the baby up and she became almost normal sized.

Also, I'm a big fan of this Essay (actually there are two). My theory is that it was written by a bored but creative (and funny) high school kid who got just one too many stupid essay assignments. A high school kid who kills people and burns down trees.

Hey look, there's a new Get Your War On and it's right up my alley. Sample:

I love how great the president's staff is at deflecting attention away from themselves whenever their shit seeps through and comes to light (see: O'Neill's damning book about Bush's pre-9/11 plan to go to war with Iraq, and the subsequent and ongoing bluster about spending a trillion bucks to build a moon base and visit Mars). The next time (and there will be a next time) some former Bush white house staffer comes forward with juicy tales of unethical practices, I expect to see "BUSH WANTS FIVE TRILLION TO BREED UNICORNS" or "BUSH ASKS CONGRESS TO FUND PERSONAL HOVERCRAFT TECHNOLOGY" or " 'WITH 15 TRILLION, WE CAN BUILD A LADDER TO HEAVEN,' ASSERTS BUSH." And then the media and the public will get all excited to talk about the dreamy new project, ignoring the complicated and uncomfortable and just plain icky bad, bad stuff that's been going on behind the scenes, because it's just such a downer, you know?

I forgot until just now that I was pulled over by the cops (well, a cop) last night. I was on the way home from M's house, which is out in rural Hadley, and I was speeding, because yet again I was looking forward to about 6 hours of sleep, tops. The roads were clear, except I kept driving through these tiny snow squalls that were literally about ten feet in diameter - I'd see a white patch on the road and when I'd drive over it, it would be wildly snowing, but just until I emerged. Really, really strange, but it matched well with the odd orange glow in the sky (from UMass? possibly). Did I mention it was 1 a.m.?

Anyway, I was speeding down Rt. 9, and saw a cop car lurking at the Place of Many Lights (that big gas station next to the car wash), so I hit the brakes, because I'm subtle that way. And I passed him and didn't see him throw on the flashy lights, and so I figured I was in the clear. And then a car came up behind me, which suddenly sprouted some flashy lights. Dammit. I pulled over near the Aqua Vitae and awaited my doom. The cop was a young-ish fellow, and seemed friendly. Luckily I didn't say what I was thinking of saying ("I'm usually on this road when the traffic's so bad we're barely moving, so I have no idea what the speed limit is here!" - all true), because the cop said he pulled me over for a broken tail light. He took my registration and license back to his car to make sure I wasn't a wanted man, and a few minutes later he gave me a written warning and a pat on the ass and a "scoot!" and I was on my way. Whew! I have not had much luck with cops in the past five years or so, so this encounter was quite a relief.

I know Christmas is over, but pleeeeeeeaase???

(link courtesy of Fussy)

The baby shower went off without a hitch. My sister will now have the best-dressed baby ever, and will have to change outfits several times a day in order to get to wear them all before she grows out of them. It was a little bittersweet, and exciting, to say goodbye to her and my bro-in-law, since this was the last visit to Brooklyn to hang out with them as a childless couple. The next time I see my sister she'll be in labor (knock on wood). I told a coworker friend about planning on being a birth-partner, and she related to me that her best friend was at the birth of her first child, and it was a great experience. Her friend and her husband kept laughing behind her back (she was very goofy and crazy and funny on painkillers), though they'd pull a sober face if she looked their way. It sounds like everyone was in a jubillant mood, which is unlike the somber, clinical seriousness I was picturing (damn you, Maternity Ward!!). And they did both help, each grasping a leg when it came time for serious pushing. Her friend said "you're having an avocado!!" when the head was emerging.

It's all a little unreal to think about being there at this birth. But I'm trying to make it real. Today I printed out and wrote down info and directions to the hospital where they'll be delivering, and I'm going to keep it in my purse so I don't lose it. Thank God for cell phones, also.

Speaking of henning, he had a little photo portrait studio set up at his post-Christmas, pre-New-Year's-Eve holiday party, and now selections from the evening are posted here. I like my photo, I think I look fetching:

Thanks to henning for this scary link, which needs no comment, really.

Now that I'm essentially done with my sewing project, I can start thinking about getting back to knitting something. I found an inspiring selection of ideas from a bunch of 1960s-era issues of the magazine Hand Knits for Young Moderns, via this wonderful site. Definitely worth an extensive look.

If you saw a woman wearing a big puffy red coat walking a dog wearing a matching red coat down 66 towards Main Street this morning, yes, that was me. The matching color was a mistake, an accident. My dog was sporting her new Land's End Reversable Squall Jacket because it is Very Cold and I had to walk from my mechanic's to the office.

Indulge me, for I am going to tell a story about my dog: The receptionist here keeps dog biscuits at her desk for the office dogs. This morning she made L sit for a biscuit, which L dropped on the ground, sniffed, and ignored, looking up hopefully. The receptionist says "Oh, she doesn't like the vegetarian ones," and goes into her desk for the regular kind. After scarfing up the regular meaty biscuit, she quickly leans down and scarfs up the vegetarian one. The sneaky bastard!

Speaking of bastards, it turns out that Dennis of Span-hike fame is a secret cartoonist. He thinks he sucks, but his cartoons made me laugh. My favorite was one titled "Bastard Children of Incredible Bastards," I think. Anyway, he and his lovely girlfriend hosted a craft night last night, and we tried to talk him into publishing, on the web at least. So at least you can bug him to show you his stuff next time you see him.

Just to cheer me up, here's a cute picture of a kitten in a sleeve.

There's nothing I hate more than when someone does some work on something that overrides me (presuming to be better than me, hah! keep yer dirty mitts off my work!), and I get all lathered up with anger and defensiveness, and then I'm told by someone else that what the other person did is an improvement to what I did. So even though the person overstepped their bounds, it doesn't matter, because the final product is improved. And then I have to calm the fuck down and relax, because I'm a grown-up now and can't go stamping up to my room to scream into my pillow.

Sigh. Things are okay, really, it's just the job getting me down. I hate work stress. I don't want to expend any emotional energy on my job at all. It's not worth it. So sometimes I have to remind myself that it just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.

Here's a little pre-baby-shower link for my brother-in-law: Some funny smart guys talk about becoming fathers.

Alright already, stop your nagging. Chowflap took a little holiday vacation but now it's back. And here's a rambling Larry-King-esque post to prove it to you.

The crib bumper project is moving along nicely. I am at the final assembly stage.

Brick walkway freezes before sidewalk surface. Ow.

Brasserie 40-A is a very good restaurant.

On my walk to work today I passed what looked like a giant, glistening eelskin laying on top of a bush. Upon further inspection it was revealed to be a forest-green scarf encased in ice.

Seven-year-olds think I am an artistic genius.

The meat bastilla pie at Amanous is very tasty but sits like a lead brick in your (okay, my) stomach.

Just after recovering from eating the meat pie, it is not wise to then have a BLT with fries at 2 in the morning.

Salon.com is losing me. I've been a subscriber for a couple of years but recently I've been feeling alienated. Firstly, Anne Lamott drives me up a frickin' wall. I can't wait until her son turns 18 and sues her for destroying his privacy. Then they gave a glowing review of In America, which I went and saw and do not recommend (there were some beautiful sequences, but also some inexcuseably cliched parts), and their movie reviewer slammed Cold Mountain because there weren't enough black people in it (haven't seen the movie,and it may be awful; but there weren't any black people in the movie because it was about poor white people in the mountains, where there simply weren't any black people. Slamming a movie for this makes me embarrassed to be left-wing). I dunno, maybe the love affair is over and it's time for me to move on.

I'm not making any difficult New Year's resolutions. The only one I know I want to do for sure is to try to get to work closer to on-time. Today I got here before 9:30. This is progress.