My friend finslippy (see links at right) has a dad in the hospital and it is going very annoyingly and frustratingly. Send some positive thoughts her way, please. She just had a birthday so this really isn't cool.

So! L and H, my friends from home, were here this past weekend! This was the first time I have had houseguests, and it worked out well. I made a little bed on the floor for myself and gave up my bed for the lucky young couple. I got updated on the latest Valley news (wasn't much of it - it's only been three weeks, after all) and I tried to show them some interesting parts of the city while racking up points for coolness. I couldn't have done it without my bro-in-law, whom I had to call a few times for backup directions and advice. Things we did:
Ate lunch at Cosi, a NYC-based chain of fancy sandwich shops.
Subway'd to DUMBO; the first of several subway rides that were fraught with difficulty due to poor map-reading skills.
Walked around DUMBO, including that nice park by the river and a stop into ABC Carpet & Home, enjoying the extremely pleasant weather. I think I figured out why ABC is so alluring; there's no hidden storage or warehouse for overstock, so they just put all of the pink satin floor pillows they have in a huge pile out in the cavernous shopping area. In short: Their stuff is neato and there's an abundance of it.
Subway'd to the East Village, which was really just an excuse for more walking around, because I don't really know any specific points of interest besides, "This is the East Village." We did have a good time in the M2M Asian market where we stocked up on Pocky. I also got some whistle candy that came with a toy surprise - a colorful plastic ring with a "B" on it. It was promptly given to eL Bezo, who wore it for the rest of the trip.
Supped at the Chat n' Chew, a nice comfort-food place near my office.
Walked to the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater, where we saw Mother, a long-form improv thingy that was funnier than I imagined it would be. Highlights include the house with a guy living inside the refrigerator and a jazz trio in the dishwasher.

Sunday brought discovery of a diner near my home that has a generous brunch special, though the food was mediocre. We got to sit in the pretty glassed-in porch area, where I lost a point by excitedly pointing out a dog pooping in the middle of a crosswalk. What can I say, I was surprised, and didn't stop to think. Also I am five years old.
Then there was some Anthropologie time for the ladies, though we were too spaced-out to try on anything. And then subway action up to Central Park for the Ben Kweller/Fountains of Wayne show. And what do you know, as soon as we emerge from underground, it's raining. And it doesn't stop until - well - never. There was a sizeable crowd there anyway (with many children and young girls), considering how grey and cold and wet it was. L and I warmed ourselves by drinking red wine. My sis joined us too. She said "It's been so long since I've been to a concert, I feel like yelling, 'wooo! ROCK!!!'" Poor lady.
Ben Kweller is a dreamy feller (heh) but he appears to be about 15 years old. FoW were as tight as ever. But we left in the middle, our spirits having been broken by near-clearing skies that never actually brought an end to the rain. We had dinner at a Union Square noodle shop called Republic, which hit the spot nicely. Then L and H left for the country and I went to Brooklyn to watch the season finale of Deadwood, which was very satisfying. And that was my weekend.

Meet my neighbors! Rich people are crazy. (Of course I'm on the side of unfussy wildness, though I don't want a tree to fall on me, either.)

p.s. This is a New York Times article, so you may have to register to read it. Go to www.bugmenot.com for an anonymous name/password.

Two little things: I am 99% sure I passed Bam Margera (of MTV fame) smoking with a couple of friends outside of the W Union Square (a fancy hotel) last night. This is my first celebrity sighting during my living-time here (when I've been here for visits, I've seen Jon Turturro on a line with his kids for the midnight sale of the 5th Harry Potter book, and Yoko and Sean Lennon in a car at a stoplight).

Also, an apartment in my building is for sale. It's a 3-room (NOT a 3-bedroom) on the first floor, and it's priced at $700,000. The kicker is that there's also a $850-a-month maintenance fee, which is more than my entire rent back home. Ah, Manhattan.

I finally took some photos of my neighborhood, but my wifi connection continues to be very spotty and I am afraid of attempting to upload them. Anyway. Last night I did a thing the hip young people do: I took the L train into Williamsburg and went to a bar. I had to wait and wait for the train (I was meeting someone at 10:30), and once it got to the station, it was already full of hipsters. So I had to stand along with a lot of others. I had never seen so many hipsters in one location: It was a sea of vintage clothing, plastic eyeglasses, fancy yet comfortable shoes, and black jackets. For the stretch underneath the East River towards Brooklyn, the ride got very wild, bumpy, and shaky. Someone standing behind me actually said "Ya-HOO!" at one point. And then it stopped at Bedford Ave., and almost everyone got off the train, the crowd forming a bottleneck at the stairways up to street level. It was like rush-hour for the hip. On the street people were hanging out everywhere, smoking outside of bars or just wandering around; the street was all well-lit like a fair was going on, but there wasn't. It was just the neighborhood-of-the-moment (or soon thereafter - if I know about it, how hip can it be?). When I found C, the friend I was meeting, I started cracking up.

We walked several blocks away, passing many warehouses and former industrial buildings with the occasional bar or old house interspersed at random. Our destination was Union Pool, which used to be a swimming pool supply company, and has no pool table of any kind inside. They have a very nice and spacious back porch - a perfect hangout situation because you can smoke with your drink. Lots and lots of cool/artsy/dorky people there. The crowd was kind of like the people I hang out with in N'ton, except instead of there being 5 or 6 of them, there were 200. Weird.

I stayed there and met a few new people, and around 1:30 C and J, one of the new people, and I decided to go to another place. So we checked out this one bar that looked, from the outside, like it was just someone's house, but the dancing and awesome music we though might be happening was not happening. So we went to another place, Capone's, because J had heard they had free pizza. And indeed, all you had to do was get a drink and they would hand you a small pizza. And the pizza was good, but the music was loud, and nobody was dancing. So then it was 2:30 and I decided I'd better get my ass back to Manhattan. Outside a yellow cab was just letting someone out, so with some encouragement from J and C I took it. 20 minutes later and $14 poorer, I was home. And that was my big night out as a city girl.

This morning I found a dead rodent in the doorway to the bathroom. Judging by temperature and stiffness-level, he's been dead at least a few hours. This is all normal small-town life for me, except I think this rodent was a baby rat, because though it was mouse-sized, it had the hairless long tail and the big external balls that rats have. So here's a question: How the hell did a rat get in here?? I am on the fifth floor. And my windows have screens. Can they climb up through the pipes? I am praying that my cat killed it, and it didn't die naturally of some horrible plague that will now be spread to me.

[Here's a typical blog post for ya. Feel free to skip.] It's my first weekend living in Manhattan and how do I spend it? Watching TV with my sister and her husband. Actually, that's not true. Friday after work a local friend took me wall-climbing at a rec center way West on 59th. I learned how to belay and everything, and nobody fell on my watch. I did great with the climbing part, too, until my arms just kind of gave up. Afterwards we met some of her friends at a Thai place in Brooklyn and we had a fun dinner. And then I went home, but it was 11 p.m. by then, so it didn't feel like a waste of an evening.

Saturday I met my sis in the East Village and we wandered around until it was time for shape-note singing at the Living Room in the Lower East Side. Which was very nice to do. They're a new group, with only a few proficient singers, so I felt very useful during the songs I knew. They sang a bunch I had never done before; different singing schools have different favorite songs to call. I stayed there until it was done at 6, and then I walked around the LES some more. Man, that neighborhood has changed a lot. It's half untouched regular neighborhood where people live, half overpriced clothing boutiques filled with handmade stuff. Plus Moby's vegan tea cafe place, Teany, is down there (stopped in, they didn't have chocolate chip cookies, so I didn't get anything). While I was aimlessly wandering, my bro-in-law called and invited me over to Brooklyn for dinner. At this point I was so tired of walking I couldn't imagine making it the 20 or so blocks back to my apartment, and THEN having to figure out how to get dinner, and then be alone for the night - so of course I said yes. So he made a big pot of shrimp and scallops pasta sauce and we chowed down while I tried to catch up on this season of Deadwood. I love that cocksuckin' show.

And Sunday I came back to Brooklyn for bagels and then a nice walk in the park with the fam. My parents came in. There was a lot of the five adults watching the tiny niece whilst rapt with wonder. And then there was some other stuff but it's all boring, and then it was Monday and time for work. Tonight I went to Metropol down in the East Village, a bar where they show a horror movie each Monday night at 10 for free. Today's was Hellraiser, which is as gross as I remember, with acting much worse and more hilarious than I remember. So that was fun. There are a lot of awesome places within walking distance of my apartment. I discovered a 24-hour diner three blocks away. This may help me in the future. And there's the update for you.

My new office's vending machine is awesome. Not only does it have Now n' Laters and peppermint Mentos, it has Goldenberg's Peanut Chews, which I haven't had in years, but loved when I was a Jersey girl. It makes me so happy!

[written May 4:] The Q train is a nice one. It comes up from underground and goes over the Manhattan Bridge. I have taken it twice now during the evening rush hour. I never noticed before how quiet people are on a crowded subway train. It's like a library in there, and those that aren't reading are staring at their shoes or off into space. But when the daylight hits the keyed-up windows, all heads turn to look outside at the New York skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge and the Hudson River.

I already have a list of about 25 things I want to do this weekend. It's hard to vacation here when you're working all the time. I did some real work at work today, which is going great, even though my new office has military-grade toilet paper and no container recycling. And for lunch I went and got a fancy mixed salad. I think I might have mentioned this a year or so ago, but they do this thing here that they really should do in Northampton, where you pick the type of lettuce and four ingredients and dressing and a guy mixes it all up, chops it, dresses it, and then mixes it some more, before usually throwing a piece of bread on top and sending you on your way. I am still trying to get used to how things are priced here; my salad was $8.50. I am embarrassed to admit that when I saw the "850" the guy had written on the lid, I thought it might be some kind of code for the cashier and couldn't possibly be the price. P.S.: With tax it was $9.23.

I live and work in a kind of a fancy neighborhood. Across the street (Fifth Ave.) from my office is an Anthropologie, a J. Crew, and a Banana Republic. At this point I have browsed all of them. And at all of them, the cheapest and most common price for a skirt is $88, and for a simple top, $48. After looking at clothes for a while today, I started noticing the price, and if the skirt was $88 instead of $98 or $149, I'd actually consider it. This is why people go crazy with the spending here. There's also a small boutique place on my way home, called Agnes B or something, and I went in because the clothes looked simple and not ostentatious. And absolutely everything in there - a dress, a sweater, a silk shirt - cost $240. Good lord. So far I have bought nothing (save a couple of magazines and lots of food) but I don't know how much longer that can last.

There's Shape-Note Singing this weekend; Saturday is in Manhattan, Sunday in Brooklyn. I will try to make the Saturday one; It’s in the East Village, at The Living Room. Rock.

I wrote a long post at home but then I lost my "borrowed" wifi connection and couldn't publish it. Couldn't connect this morning either. Darnit. I did save the post, but that doesn't do me much good, as I can't just email it to myself at work or anything. ... I am looking into alternative strategies. Things here are fine, by the way. Keep them comments and emails comin'.

Today while wandering around Noho (the real one) I found a small dumpster filled to the brim with brand-new, trendy shoes and sneakers. All of them were paired, all looked perfect, except someone had slashed the uppers so they would be unwearable. The retail clearance system is cruel.

My drive down to the city was easy and traffic-free, and once I got to my new house in Manhattan I got even more lucky with a metered spot right across the (very quiet) street. Which meant that my sister could help me schlep stuff instead of keeping watch over the illegally-parked car. Rock. Everything in this apartment seems to be in order, except that there’s no microwave oven or toaster oven, so my dining habits are going to have to change a bit. That’s probably for the best…

My plan was to empty my car, drive it to Brooklyn, leave it in a garage with a newly-purchased monthly space, and subway back to Manhattan. But when we pulled into the garage, the guy very flusteredly said “Can’t – too busy! Come back at 10.” We offered to stay and wait but he waved us off. Sunday night is their busiest time. So I left, and weaved up and down the streets until I found a nice parking space where my car doesn’t have to move until Thursday morning. And since my plan is to watch The Amazing Race at my sister’s place Tuesday night, I’ll get my garage space then.

Right now I’m eating a scone and drinking orange juice bought at the two-story Whole Foods at Union Square. Tastes just like the stuff from Hadley, except for these I had to push through massive crowds (including at least one family of tourists moving at a bridal-procession pace). And to deal with the crowds, they have a whole check out system where you wait in roped-off lines for a helper person to direct you to the next available cashier. Even with at least 22 cashiers working it took me about 20 minutes to get to the front of the line. Besides the extremely thorough prepared food bar, the most excellent part of the store is the shopping cart escalator. Downstairs is where the serious shopping happens, so that’s where you can pick up a cart. To get it upstairs, right next to the human escalator is a cart one, where little knobs grab into the wire mesh on the sides and drag it along upstairs. Pretty nifty.

Last night I woke up when it was still dark to loud music playing. I assumed it was someone’s radio alarm, but it kept on going, not being shut off. Annoyed, I checked the time - 4:55 a.m.! Gah. I considered what I would do if someone had left their clock radio on while they were away on an extended vacation. But then as I listened I realized that it wasn’t just bass-y, I could hear the treble – in fact the sound was fairly clear. So I opened my bedroom door, and there was my computer, playing a song on iTunes all by itself. Somehow my cat had stepped on the mouse button, and the cursor must have been poised over “play” on iTunes…. The best part: it was a Cat Power song.

Here I go. I am about to pack up my computer, shove a whole lot of stuff into my car, and drive down to Manhattan. You might think that there wouldn't be that much stuff to bring to a fully-furnished apartment, but you would be wrong. Expect updates soon about country mouse living in the city.

Today is the last day of my extended unemployed-but-still-getting-paid vacation. Weekends don't count, as there will always be weekends. On Monday I start my new job in the city, and it's going to be much busier and more difficult than my previous job. Task-wise, my last job was very similar, but the pace was often languid, to say the least.

I have been doing a lot of organizing and sorting in prep for my leaving my apartment to its own designs for a few months (with periodic check-ins). I dropped off 26 of my 28 plants (I counted, just for fun) at a friendly co-worker's house yesterday. I also had a fun dinner at Thai Garden with A and T. Saying goodbye to them was hard. Harder even than saying goodbye to Thai Garden.

Today I am going to drop a bunch of stuff off at the Salvation Army, I'll try out my awesome new Swiffer Duster, I'm going to do a complete kitty litter clean, and maybe vacuum (maybe tomorrow for that), and then tonight there will be dinner with friends at a restaurant and afterwards there will be frivolity and drinking and semi-madness.

I was told that the weather was going to turn crappy tomorrow, so today I went on my favorite hike on the Mt. Tom reservation. I've taken a ton of photos of it, so this time I took just a few. It's a great time to go stomping around in the woods because things are growing green, yet the mosquitos aren't flying.

Shadowy trees:




Shy Flower, figure one:





Shy Flower, figure two:





Heh.

It turns out that being unemployed while waiting for a new job to start is kinda boring. I mean, it was fun the first week. However it is still way better than actual working.

The apartment I am going to sublet comes with linens (sheets et al). A couple of ladies I know have suggested it would be "gross" to use them. They are clean, though, so I figure it's like staying at a friend's house; are you gonna wash the sheets they provide you, even though they said they were clean? Hmm? ARE YOU?

I have been on an imposed vacation for a week now, and am starting week two of three, so I have been spending lots of time not in front of my computer (happily). All of this is to say that I am sorry for not writing sooner. I picked the second apartment I mentioned below - the expensive Gramercy Park one. Even with the crazy price, I have enough of my "allowance" left over that I can buy my car a parking spot in a garage over in Brooklyn, a mere 15-minute subway ride away.

I went to the library and looked for information on the area I'll be living in. The only thing of interest I read was in a book written by Shackleton (not sure if it's the stuck-in-Antarctic ice one or not) in 1917 or so. He praises the park itself, mostly because of the fact that it's surrounded by a heavy iron fence and is only accessible with a key, meaning that the people in the nearby tenements in the East Village can't get in and dirty it up. Sigh. I told my brother-in-law that I want to have lots of guests in for picnics so we can "reclaim the space." We'll play salsa tunes on a boombox and smoke and spit on the ground and drink. There was a suggestion made that I make dozens of copies of the key, mark them as to what they unlock, and leave them around the city. I will neither confirm or deny that I would ever do such a thing.

Happy Ruination Day, everybody! (This song happened to play during my three-hour ipod-on-shuffle drive last night.)

Hi there. So, my company, following the rule of "the higher up you go, the less you have to pay for things," has alotted me a relocation budget for my summer living expenses. And here I am in NYC, looking for a short-term furnished sublet apartment. It is just as difficult to find as you might think. I walked about 235 miles (approximate) in Manhattan today, looking at places. All were your typical shoebox-sized places, but that's okay for four months (most of my belongings are staying elsewhere).

If you visited a 10-story building and were looking for apartment #23, what floor do you think that would be on? Two? That's what I thought. I walked into the elevator-less building and looked at the apartment numbers on the doors of the first floor and noted they were single-digit - 1, 2, 3, and 4. Huh. On the second floor, after finding 5, 6, 7, 8, it hit me that the building's numbering system was much simpler than I had imagined. Yep, it turns out, 23 is on the seventh floor. The bedroom is the size of a full bed plus an 18-inch border of floor around two sides of it. And the window looks out onto the roof, which would be fine, but means the machinery pumping air through the building is two feet from your bed. The living room is an okay size (about two parking spaces-big), and it's in the Village, and the furnishings aren't terrible. And at $1800, it's a bargain. I am serious. See how I am already thinking like a local?

The other place I saw today that didn't give me visions of myself composing suicide notes inside of them was a very, very small (I mean really, really small) sixth-floor place with nice, funky furnishings, windows with nothing but views of other close-by building walls, that happens to be on the magical Gramercy Park block where only that block's tenants get keys to access the pretty and well-manicured park in the middle. That one is $2400, with a one month's broker's fee - so $3000 a month, really. But the location! And the key to the park! And the elevator!!

Real estate is fun and everything, but having to make the decision between the lesser of two evils is my least favorite kind of decision. And I get anxious deciding whether puppies or kittens are cuter, so you know this is hard for me. I'm going to see some places tomorrow morning, hopefully, and might have to come back this weekend to see some more. Unless I just pick one of these two.

If you do not know what a Scopitone is, you should. From the Scopitone blog, a clip of an article from a 1964 issue of Time Magazine:

"In some 500 bars, restaurants and servicemen's clubs throughout the U.S., the center of attention these days is a monstrous new machine called Scopitone. It is a cross between a jukebox and TV. For $.25 a throw, Scopitone projects any one of 36 musical movies on a 26-in. screen, flooding the premises with delirious color and hi-fi scooby-ooby-doo for three whole minutes. It makes a sobering combination."

The films themselves are also called Scopitones. They're low-budget and creative and strange. There are a bunch of websites about them, many in French (they started in France - go figure) some of which have the actual films online. One of these is Bedazzled, which is a sister site to the scopitone blog, and has lots of other amazing bits of film and music ephemera (just click back to the main site).

Here's an excellent representative, as is this one.

P.S. Even though this one may not be a Scopitone, it is glorious: Oh, yes.

Big news 'round these parts: The venture I've been working for over the past nine years is being terminated as of the end of the month. Luckily, I already have a new gig lined up, the one that takes me to NYC for the summer. My co-workers are not so lucky. It's very sad and disappointing; we're a little dysfunctional family, how dare they ruin what we have! So, yeah. That's what's up.

Hooray! This article uses the term "turd burglar," one of my favorite nonsensical insults. It is another good day to be an American.

Today is a good day. On my way to work, stomach-tumor man said he liked my hair. And now it is actual spring outside. I went to get lunch without a coat on, just a hoodie sweatshirt (and a skirt, but no stockings!), and was not cold ever. This is Progress.

It's tough to remember it right now in the rain and the cold and the wind, but it was very lovely outside on Saturday. I took a long walk that took me all over town. On my way down Pleasant Street towards Valley Fabrics I was confronted with three happy drunk guys in their 30s, all boozy-smellin'. The ringleader was wearing a Red Sox shirt and bandana on his head. He was very, very happy.

Red Sox Guy: Hey, you have a nice smile. Can you answer a question for us?
me: Sure.
RSG, putting his arms around his buddies: Which one of us.... (long dramatic pause) looks the most gay?
me: Hmmm.... (they crack up as I settle on the smallest one who has kind of long-ish hair) I've gotta say him. But none of you look gay, really! [for one thing, they'd be much better dressed...]
(The other two head off arm-in-arm to Northampton Lodging. RSG decides to keep talking to me, saying that he wants a TV show where he asks questions to random strangers on the street. I say it sounds like a good idea. He peppers me with questions.)
RSG, condensed: So what's your name? Are you in school? Have a boyfriend? Pining over someone? Man, I've been hung up on someone for three years. She's already had a serious relationship and had it end, and I still haven't dated anyone!
Me: (Minimal noises of sympathy.)
RSG: Let me ask you, how old do you think I am?
Me (Considering I can't see his forehead and he's all puffy and beer-bellied, it's actually hard to say, but I am always careful with this question, so:) Um, 28?
RSG, very proudly: I'm nearly 40! Come on, you didn't really think I was 28, did you.
Me: Well, it's hard to tell, plus, y'know, I was being polite.
RSG: So where are you heading right now?
Me: I'm going up to the fabric store, because I'm making some clothing for my niece.
RSG: Wow, so you're one of those people that, like, finishes stuff. I wish I could do that.
Me: ... Okay, well, I'm going to get going.
RSG: Deb, do you mind if I holler at you the next time I see you on the street? I'll be like "Hey Deb!"
Me: And I'll be like "Hey, there's that crazy guy!"

And that was that. I have a soft spot for the friendly drunks. It's probably smarter to just ignore them and keep walking, but I don't mind engaging in stupid banter with them. I don't entirely blow them off unless it feels semi-threatening or too creepy. I mean, RSG was coming onto me, but he didn't seem dangerous or out-of-control drunk (wasn't slurring his speech or swaying). And I'd never, say, go "party" with them, or give out any personal information off any kind. So what's the harm? Maybe someday I'll be getting robbed in an alley and RSG will lurch out of the shadows and tell his buddy to stop mugging me because I'm a friend of his. I'm just sayin: You Never Know.

I just wrote something about my hair over at Craftytown. Don't all stampede over there at once, their server might crash.

I finished watching season one of Deadwood last night. The last episode, The One Where They Do It (note: not official ep title), was awesome. Like the other HBO series on DVD, I became so addicted that it was very hard to not immediately start a new episode after the previous one was finished, no matter the time of night or what other plans were waiting. Also, I tend to become so engrossed that I start talking like the people in the worlds I've been watching (moreso with The Sopranos, lesso with Six Feet Under). With Deadwood, this means I have a strong desire to call everyone a cocksucker, and to start calling women "pieces of strange" or just simply "strange," as in, "So, are you going to Hugo's tonight to find some strange?"

I also want to speak in sentences so long and well-planned out that they could only have been written down first. But then I'd have to write everything down first, and that's just going a little too far, cocksucker.

Also, a line I want to find a place to use: "Whoa, slow down honey! You got a stage to catch?"

Finslippy (see links) is trying to decide if she should move her young family from Brooklyn to the NJ suburbs. I am adamantly opposed. I really just want to believe she can work it out, that living in the city with kids can work. I think it can. The suburbs were absolute hell for me. I hated where I grew up in New Jersey; there was no downtown, nothing but other houses within walking distance. We were lucky that we had sidewalks; incredibly, more modern developments don't have them. Two close relatives of mine live in the suburbs in NJ, different from the one in which I grew up, and I hate those suburbs too. Northeastern New Jersey is very crowded, but unlike in the city, there's no "we're all living together, so we have to get along" feeling. It's much more isolating to have your OWN yard and your OWN personal method of transportation, especially when your yard is small and butts against three other yards and your personal car has to share the road with heavy traffic all the freakin' time. It garners a selfish, xenophobic mentality that I find depressing. Growing up, we almost never spoke to our neighbors. Of course, the loud, screaming fights my sister and I would have, even with the windows open, might have something to do with that. And why were we fighting? Because we were bored and isolated from everyone and everything, because we lived in the suburbs. See how it's all connected?

The whole discussion makes me want to keep my move to the city a temporary one. This is worrisome. On that subject, I was told I'd have an actual answer and an offer during the first week of April. And the move could happen soon after that. So there's some news for you.

I had a social weekend, as I like to do. At one point I was talking to a friend of mine about a boy I know who has taken a shine to me.

me: We have nothing in common. Well, that's not true - we both like me! Ha ha!
(pause)
me: Just kidding. I hate me.


Thanks everyone, I'll be here all month!

Other funny and awesome blogs that I've had in my personal favorites file for literally years but for some reason have never made it into my links list at the right:

The hardly-ever updated The Excitement Machine.

Chez Miscarriage, which is actually quite funny at times.

Good ol' Defective Yeti. The current post (30 things...) made me laugh out loud in my cubicle.


This will have to do in lieu of a post right now. Sorry, peeps.

It's St. Patrick's Day, I guess. Time to avoid the ex-City Cafe. Thinking about this faux-holiday reminds me of a sign one of my sister's friends was joking that he'd seen: "Welcome to our ool. Notice there is no "p" in it. Please keep it that way" and below, in small all-caps letters, "NO IRISH".

I know it probably makes me a bad person, how funny that is to me. I could explain why it's funny and not offensive but I am sure you dear readers are savvy enough to understand.

First day of work, back from the pox, and everything is inexplicably annoying. If one more person asks me how I'm feeling, I'm going to rip their frickin' throats out. People, stop having side conversations during the meeting! Even if the particular agenda item doesn't concern you directly, those it does concern can HEAR YOU and it's VERY DISTRACTING, not to mention rude as all hell. And lady, you are my friend, but please, I beg you, stop whistling the first bars of the "Jeopardy" final-question-thinking tune every five minutes.

I have seriously been thinking of saving up a bunch of money (if I move over to the new job and an increased salary; my resolve is weakening every week) and quitting my career entirely. Instead I would make things and sell them, while doing freelance writing on the side. I know my current magazine would love to pay me to write for them, though I think I have to wait until the next fiscal year or some such legal shit. And um I dunno about health insurance, I just won't get sick, ha-ha! Since my resolve has been weakening about moving permanently, I have been at least looking at my options for staying around here. I no longer like my current apartment, so I've been looking for others, including some cool apartment-like condos to buy. And I have found a few (including a loft in Holyoke). So there's that.

I guess all of the people who always say that "life's too short to not be doing what you love" have been getting through to me. Overcoming my fears of becoming destitute will be a huge challenge, as it goes against everything I learned from my fiscally uber-conservative father. But man oh man, to not have a regular 9-to-5 office job? To get things done on my schedule? To be working on things I am excited to work on? What could be better than that?

Last night was really, really rough. I was so itchy and prickly that I could keep still, which made sleeping a bit of a challenge. I seriously thought I would go crazy. Imagine a hundred tiny elves each holding a pin, and each elf would tickle you a little with the pin or jab you with it, or just wait a few minutes and then tickle or jab you with it, for hours, at random, all over your body. Today (so far - I got up at 1:38, certainly a record for me, though I didn't fall asleep until dawn) I feel better. I am still itchy and I still look horrible but I don't feel like I'd rather be on fire. I still have a sore throat and a very minor fever (between 99 and 99.5) but nothing that's going to put me in the hospital, knock on wood.

Since I last wrote, so far I have watched Whale Rider, To Have or Have Not, three Mr. Show episodes (two of them a second time with commentaries on), and on TV I saw most of The Matrix, the second Austin Powers film, Survivor, The Daily Show, Futurama... The Apprentice is on behind me, but the sound is off, so that hardly counts.

I also made myself some turkey chili (with groceries provided by H and L, part of my Team of Heroes) and did dishes twice and worked more on the Space Invaders quilt; the top is almost done. I had three oatmeal baths and one normal shower yetserday but have only needed one shower today. I might take a bath later, though. My manager at work is coming by tomorrow with a small care package, because my co-workers are nice.

Earlier I took out some food trash and got to breathe fresh air for the first time in two days. It was nice.

A pox is upon me. Quite literally.

Did I ever tell you that I've never had the chicken pox? Well, I haven't, until, you know, NOW. More than three decades old and I have the chicken pox. I live alone and I have the chicken pox. I just got two special deliveries (Team Ex-Boyfriend is Go!) so I am all set with oatmeal bath, comic books, and DVDs. Food is another story, since we're in the middle of blizzard #396 of the season, and I don't want to endanger any more lives by sending others on errands. I don't feel that bad yet - I mean, I feel ill, like I have a head cold, and I'm a little itchy, but I can control myself and not scratch. It can only get worse, though. I only have a couple of spots on my face, yet (I have tons on my torso).

When I went to the docotr this morning she had me wait outside in the car, and then she came outside and into my car to examine me. So I had to lift my shirt to show her my pox, sitting right there in the parking lot in the snow (with the car motor running - I'm not crazy). She was amazed that I had never had them before and that I had never gotten vaccinated. I think adults aren't asked about chicken pox immunities until they're pregnant or about to be, or are going to have close contact with young kids (kindergarten teacher, say). Since I'm on the road to spinsterhood and I work with grownups, a doctor has never had a cause to bring up the subject. (Plus I heard that it might leave you open to shingles later. I'm just saying.)

So here I am, in my apartment for a week or so. Which means I will be staying inside this weekend, which happens to be the annual Western Mass Sacred Harp Convention. Dammit. I will be online a lot. Actually probably about as much as I am regularly (cough) but I will be in more need to human semi-contact. I am unclean! Unclean!

And if I ever find out which kid or kid's parent gave this to me, I am kicking his or her ass. A lot.

The work/moving thing? Still not resolved.

I discovered this weekend that I am too old to stay out until 4 (or later) two nights in a row. Man. My Sunday was a complete loss. I think I caught a virus, which made me weaker than usual, but still. My town just started a six-month trial period of letting bars stay open until 2 a.m. (instead of 1) on weekends. I have to say, I'd rather stick with the 1 a.m. Especially since with the new rules, if you leave the bar for ANY REASON after 1:00, you are not allowed back in. So, when two kind friends helped shepherd out a crazy, yelling, threatening guy from Ye Olde Watering Hole, and it happened to be 1:15 or so, the bouncer and owner would not let them back in, even though they did the entire bar a favor by stepping up and calming this guy down enough to get him to leave. Apparently the owner is himself a (Ye Olde Watering) 'Hole.

Hi. Why no, they still haven't made any decisions. I am but one of many whose fates are waiting to be decided, so I need to remember that and just chill out. It's hard to do so when I made this huge and very difficult decision a full six weeks ago, and haven't yet been able to get the green light to do anything official. I am trying to internalize my anger. It's what I'm good at.

Today I had a lovely, lovely morning at the RMV. I know complaining about the cranky old ladies at the RMV is like shooting fish in a barrel, but this time seemed excessively irritating. I had to go back after an unsuccessful try on Monday, having my "grandmother" "sign" the vehicle-as-gift form. After taking a number and being called to one of the desks, I proudly said that we had managed to get the plates off of my old car and as such would not be needing to spend $36 on new plates. The sour-faced, put-upon-seeming lady looked at one of the many forms I had brought and pushed it back to me, highlighting an error. "The insurance company didn't fill in this date of transfer, so you can't transfer your plates until they do." I protested that I had gotten my insurance transferred on Monday, and that I didn't understand why I had to go back . She repeated what she had just said verbatim. Because my incomprehension was not due to hearing loss, I was still confused. She sighed. The office had been open for a mere half an hour and she was already out of patience. "Okay, let me try to explain this again." I tried to stop her so I could ask my question in a different way, but she put her hand up. Yes, readers, this 60-year-old, pucker-mouthed white lady did a talk-to-the-hand. So I let her repeat herself a third time and then I said, defeated, "How about I just get some new plates?"

So then things seemed to be moving forward, the form was filled out some more and spanking-new plates were pulled from the Magical Cupboard of New Plates. She scratched out the old plate number that had been put on the form and wrote the new plate number over it. Apparently the RMV ladies have special governmental powers, because when I had to make a similar change, I had to fill out a special "I made an error" form and go to the UPS store to pay $5 to get it notorized. Then I asked her how much new plates cost, and she said $36, and then I noted with horror the sign that said they only accepted cash or credit. I said I didn't think I had enough cash, and she sat and watched me calmly as I counted the cash in my wallet. No, not enough. "There's no ATM in this building, is there." "No, you have to go to the center of town." "Classic," I said. "Can you just put this all aside for me, and I'll be back in five minutes?" With resigned disgust, she said, "No, we cannot 'put this aside' for you!" The RMV is a harsh mistress.

I grabbed my forms and she put the license plates back into the MCNP and I drove into town. I took out $75, more than enough. I drove back and went into the office and took a number. Five minutes later I was called to a different lady than the one I had spoken to (there are three possible "windows" but they're just desks right next to each other, everyone can hear everyone else). I explained to Lady #2 what had just happened, and she calmly went through each and every form again. "This 1997 Camry has only 23,000 miles on it?" Listen bitch, my grandmother is 87 years old. She only drove herself to church and the hair parlor. Now can I have my expensive new plates? She pulled out some new plates from her very own Magical Cabinet, and scratched out the first new plate number on the form; again, using the bureaucratic superpowers. And then she said, "That'll be $111." Say what? "Wait, I thought it was going to be $36, or $50, or something," I said, like a dope. "No, it's 36 for the plates, 50 for the title change, and 25 for the gift fee." ($25 FOR THE GIFT FEE? This is why people turn Republican.) So basically lady #1 had sat and watched me count my money and say I was going to the ATM, yet she didn't volunteer the information that my total was $111. You know, because why would I have found that information useful?

I told her that I would have to go back to the ATM. So I did. When I came back to the RMV, there was nobody else waiting, so I looked expectantly at the ladies. They averted their eyes; I had to take a ticket. My number was called immediately; I ended up back and lady #1. She pulled ANOTHER pair of new plates from the cabinet, firmly crossed out the other three licence plate numbers and added the new. I paid and got the fuck out of there. Once I get the car inspected I'll be all set. All of this money and I might be moving out of state in a month. I am a chump.

It's been a while... I have been busy. I went up to New Hampshire and got my grandmother's car, a Toyota Camry. It's very matronly, but I am enjoying the automatic locks and power windows and working rear speakers. Now I have to deal with the extremely annoying RMV about it. Apparently "grandmother" is not considered "immediate family" ("That is INSANE" I told the bitchy RMV lady) and so I cannot use the "motor vehicle transferred within a family" form. No, instead I need another form that says that the vehicle was a gift, a donation if you will, and that form requires my nursing-home-bound, 3-hours-away grandmother to sign it, within the week. So not only am I going to have to get "her" to "sign" it, I also have to say that she received no money in the transaction. Which, um, she didn't! I am not implying it was not a gift, sirs! Please don't take my car away!

The Oscars were the very definition of "eh." It was bland and toothless. Chris Rock had some good lines early on, but most of the time he was way too restrained. And the less said about the music, the better.

And no word about the NYC thing yet. They've failed to meet their answering-me deadline yet again. My head is gonna asplode soon.

This group, Improv Everywhere, does commando performance art pieces. Sort of like what happens on Trigger Happy TV, but it's not filmed for television. I've only read a few, but I can tell at least my musician friends that they must read Best Gig Ever, and then the Band Response. I also loved No Pants 2002 and the MP3 Experiment. Both made me very happy to live in a world where such things happen. Thanks to Agent Roberts for the link.

Being the artsy little fucker I am, I had to go down to the city to see Christo's Gates in Central Park. I knew it would be crowded and crazy and it was. It was also strange and beautiful and festive. I created an Ofoto album, my first one. These were all taken with my fairly crappy little camera, but they give you an idea of what it was like.

Also included: bonus koi footage!

So I heard something, but it was not at all what I expected - not even in the imagined realm of possible scenarios. I am not allowed to talk about it. Suffice it to say, I may not be moving after all. I feel like I've been knifed in the heart. Or kicked in the stomach. Or bludgeoned, in general. Not much more to say. I will know more next week but wheels are turning well out of my control, making the arrow point towards "no move for you." It'll be a miracle if I can move to NYC now, with the job I was offered.

Apparently, Superman is a total dick. Check out some of these old DC comics covers.

Most of these are also exceedingly strange. One of my favorites:

It's now been more than two weeks and I still haven't heard about the job thing.
I did a major clean yesterday, and during it I sorted through some old college papers, including a folder of contacts and cover letters and job leads all relating to getting a job at a museum or a gallery in New York. I never got one, obviously; there just weren't any openings, and I couldn't afford to work for free as an intern, so. And here I am 11 years later, working for the man in a field that's not art-related at all. Pretty damn depressing. My relocation momentum is slowing way down. Maybe I shouldn't move at all. Maybe I should try getting a full nights' sleep again, somehow.

No, I still haven't heard anything. Sigh. There's an office clean-up afternoon scheduled today, and when I heard about it a week and a half ago, I thought, "Great! That'll be a great time to get rid of a lot of the free junk I've accumulated over the last nine years, in anticipation of my leaving the office." But no. I mean I can still do that, but it won't have the same triumphant feeling. Plus I have a headache from not sleeping. (The past few nights, I stay up until 12:30, at which point I am very sleepy, then I get into bed and my brain starts whirring, and I can't fall asleep for an hour or more.)

I was in NYC visiting the sister and the baby for most of the past week (well, four nights; Sat-Weds.). I had been hoping to also look for apartments while I was there, but since I HAVEN'T HEARD YET, I couldn't. There was another reason for my visit, though, a reason I didn't tell anyone here, because I figured you wouldn't understand. But I feel compelled to tell you now.

I went to a fan convention for The Amazing Race.

TAR, being the most entertaining and least-loathesome reality show out there, is one of the three shows I try to catch on a weekly basis (and unlike with Lost and Arrested Development, I usually succeed). Television Without Pity (see links at right) recaps the episodes, and also organizes a mass viewing of the final episode; somehow the website is popular enough that they convince the Amazing Race contestants to show up. This particular event was known as TARcon6 (for the sixth season of the show) and was held at Play by Play, the sports bar inside Madison Square Garden. My sister and I went, and even though we came a little late we lucked out and managed to score some seats at a primo table with a friendly trio of ladies (two middle-aged, one teenager). The place was packed with about 350 people.

Watching the show was quite fun, with everyone booing the more hated players and cheering the more beloved ones. Most of the people there looked like they could easily have been friends of mine - for the most part, I didn't get any creepy uber-nerd vibes from anyone. It helps, I think, that TWoP is very snarky and cynical. However, there was a stout gentleman who kept standing in front of us and heckling the people on the television, then turning around to see our reactions. Some of the crap he was yelling (at the people inside the TV) was over the line and too angry, like "Just shut the hell up, bitch!" I made a point of not making eye contact with him, though I did let him high-five me once.

After the first hour of the two-hour finale, I noticed some hubbub nearby, and realized that Charla, the little person from one of the teams last season, was about ten feet away. "Look! It's CHARLA!" I said to my sister. There was no hesitation on my part - I WOULD get a photo with her. Years of working my very particular media job have made me quite comfortable at being pushy enough to get my photo taken with various semi-well-known strangers. I got a nice one of me crouching next to Charla, who was very nice. (I also got one of me and my sister with Charla, but my sister is blushing a lot, and she'd hate me if I posted it).



(You, dear reader, likely have no clue who I am talking about. This is why I didn't tell anyone about this before. Feel free to stop reading, as it only gets worse.)

Near the end of the show, the final detour challenge the players had to do was to finish a smallish-size deep-dish pizza. Which was very lame. "Aw, COME ON!!" shouted the stout fellow. "This is BULLSHIT!!" A couple who were not the crowd favorites won the million bucks. It was sort of a let-down.

After the show was over, we hung around waiting for more racers to show up. My sister was a bit unsure about approaching them but I was all gung-ho about it, instigating all the photo ops. We left our seats and went to the entrance area, where a roped-off recieving line had been set up. The racers would walk past the line and then enter the bar and hang out for a while, talking, taking photos, and drinking. For fans who had the time and the right questions to ask, they could get some behind-the-scenes dirt on the show. We were not those fans.

The first people we saw were Chip and Kim, the much-loved winners from last season. I grabbed Chip and got someone to take his photo with us. I said, "I was rooting for you guys! I actually cried when you won!" (This is true.) "Aw, that's so nice! Thanks for your support!" he said.



Like most of the racers we encountered, he seemed to be having a total blast. After all, these people are just normal people who happened to be on a TV game show for a little while, and we're all treating them like they're big stars. The whole thing was absurd and hilarious, yet I couldn't stop taking pictures. I took photos of most of the racers who showed up: Lena and Christy, the girls from Queens whose names I can't remember, and:

Aaron and Hayden:



MaryJean and Don:



Hera and Gus:



The bad, bad Jonathan and Victoria. When they came, most people ignored them.



But the show's recap writer, Miss Alli, really got into it with Jonathan. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but he was not happy:



Adam and Rebecca:



... and finally, me and my sister with the very attractive Kris and Jon. Her boobs were blindingly perfect, and she was sweet as the dickens.:



We had a great time, it was all very surreal and fun. We really didn't know exactly what to expect, but it was as great and as weird a time as I had allowed myself to hope it would be. Hooray!

Well, not that any of you cared (you know, WHATEVER), but here are the answers to my Disney word list below (1/31 post). After I posted my list, and made up four words, I decided to see if anyone else had come up with the same ridiculous (ridicutacular?) words I did. Here are the results.

Magication: The first google hit doesn't count as it is for a humor piece, a made-up interview with the makers of Clutch Cargo. But then you find that Magication writes how-to books for magicians.



You can also go to magication.com in order to get "magicated." I'm at work, so I declined.

Playtorium: My favorite hit is this story about this casino/restaurant/bowling alley in Kentucky, which eventually crumbled under mob pressure (though apparently the bowling alley is still open).

There are several Playtoriums attached to public libraries and the like. This article, about an elementary school (also in Kentucky) turning 150 years old, says the building's playtorium "is like a gym without spectator space." It was built, and I presume named, in the 1980s. Figures.

Wonderquarium: No matches! I thought for sure this one would get lots. New England Aquarium, call me - I have a genius concept for you.

Teenspiration: There's a Christian youth group based in California by this name, at www.teenspiration.com no less, but I can't access it for some reason. Instead, you can find teenspiration at ezeeDiabetes. And I quote: Hey Teenager!! ...get on over to Teen Central: Real Teenspiration is right >here.< (Sadly, the linked page doesn't appear to contain the word "teenspiration," though it does provide lots of inspiration for diabetic teenagers.)

I also came up with Animazement, but did a search before I posted and found it's the name of a big anime con. And after that happened, I thought I'd be better off not searching...

I met a new guy last night. His name is Miles.


He was tiny, and kind of orange, and didn't talk to me at all - how rude! He is only three days old, though, so. I had forgotten how weird newborns are: So small, eyes usually closed or rolling around all uncontrollably, little squeaky noises of complaint, skinny chicken legs, easy to fold into a compact swaddle sausage. Miles has a nice head of straight hair on him. Dad Max said I could brag on my blog that I was the first of our friends to meet him, so here I am. (His parents haven't even met the baby yet, because his mom has a cold! That must be KILLING her. I think my mother would have exploded if that had happened to her.) Mom Anya says Max is the best dad ever, which I do not doubt. They both seem tired and a little bit put-upon with having to deal with the anti-jaundice electric light machine and supplemental feedings, but they are very happy. And cute! They are a cute little family now. And did I remember my camera? No I did not. Max and Anya had given me a big grocery list over the phone before I came, so I went to Stop and Shop and got important supplies like trash bags, cans of soup, and 12 Stonyfield Farm yogurt smoothies (effectively cleaning out the store). That was my mission, which made my tiny single-tasking brain forget my camera. So. Pictures will be taken next time.

I wrote this for a message board to which I sometimes post:

Seven most common dreams:

- I finally consummate a previously-unrequited crush I have [not the same person every time, of course], and it is glorious. This dream is especially sad to wake up from.
- I am in a massive, multi-stall public restroom that's completely disgusting, and am trying to find a stall with a toilet I can use without getting shit or blood on myself.
- If I concentrate really hard and use my muscles in just the right way, I can fly.
- I have a baby. Where did I get it? Something's wrong with the baby; it is extremely tiny, or moves strangely. I feel helpless and overwhelmed.
- I am still in college, where it is really quite embarrassing for me to still be there for so many years. I am also not spending enough time in my allocated studio space on campus. I am alienated and edged out, belonging nowhere.
- I am on an adventure, hiding from bad guys and running through strange buildings and it's all very exciting and fun.
- Some criminal types kidnap me or try to rob me, and I end up befriending them with my kindness and wit.

Hello. Here is a nice photo of me on New Year's Eve, early in the evening when some little kids asked me to dance at the Center for the Arts.

I still haven't heard any details from the Powers That Be about my new job. I am picturing a lot of pounding on the table: "I need debl! You must give her the money she's asking for!"
"But we don't have it in the budget! We'll have to fire the janitor to make up the loss!"
"Then do it - I'll take the trash out myself, if that's what it takes! I must have debl working for me!!"

In reality it's probably more like "She's asking for, like, a 50% raise, which is just ridiculous... Let's find a way to break this to her gently, okay?"

And, somewhat unrelated and in a stolen-from-McSweeney's format, I give you:

A LIST OF DISNEY-INVENTED WORDS ALONG WITH FOUR I JUST MADE UP

1. Illuminations
2. Buffeteria
3. Philharmagic
4. Magication
5. Funtertainment
6. Panoramagique
7. Imagineer
8. Playtorium
9. Skytacular
10. Streetmosphere
11. Wonderquarium
12. Fantasmic
13. Teenspiration
14. Dreamflight
15. Innoventions


Answers later. Any guesses as to which ones I made up?

Okay.



Slow, deep breaths.







I am going to do it.



I am trying not to freak out. Moving to another state will be very difficult (unless I pay a lot of money and have movers take care of everything) but I will be making a lot of lists over the next few days; that should help me wrap my mind around this huge task by dividing it into smaller ones. I decided to do it because, besides Northampton, NYC is where I wanted to live my whole life. I have to respect that desire, even though it will take me out of my comfort zone. I love the city and I am very excited about the idea of living there. I figure my next full night's sleep will be sometime in April, after my brain calms down a little. I will be leaving a lot of people I love, but I'll be back for visits. And my friends will have a nice futon couch to sleep on when they come and visit.

Okay, so there are two best possible worlds I am picturing right now.

In world 1, I live in the Valley. I move to a loft in a converted factory building, where I devote a healthy chunk of my vast living space to a messy studio. I bike to my new (but with same coworkers) job downtown when it's nice out. I have a bunch of friends I know and love, and we go out and do fun things together often. I feel safe. Town never changes much, but I find new things to do once in a while. I travel to NYC on weekends sometimes to see my family. I have a sculpture show during one of the open studio weekends at Eastworks, opening up my apartment to strangers; I am very charming and they are all complimentary. I meet other artists in the building and we commiserate. I decide to make a large number of items to sell at the nicer craft shows in the area. In the winter I go sledding or cross-country skiing, in the spring I hike, in the summer I swim in the river.

In world 2, I move to NYC. I get a small but adequate apartment in Brooklyn, really about the same size as the one I live in now. I am a subway stop away from my sister, and a short ride to work in Manhattan. My new job is sort of what I do already, just moreso. I make more money so I can afford the apartment. I work a couple of blocks from Union Square park, and a couple of blocks more to where my brother-in-law works, and we have lunch together once in a while. In my free time, I take advantage of the many many various weird activities I can do, though I often do them alone. I reconnect with some acquaintences and meet some friends of friends. It's more stressful, but exciting. In a year or two I find a job I'm actually excited about. I can visit the Valley whenever I want, though owning a car is a bit of a hassle.

So there it is. Either way I clearly feel I can do better than my current apartment. World 1 is safe and potentially boring, but pretty, and will allow me more time for making art. World 2 is more exciting but uglier, and has the potential to make me immobilized with anxiety. The dating pool in world 2 is vast; the one in world 1, not so much. World 1 is secure and homey; world 2 is a clean slate. This is my heavy decision. I have to make it by Thursday morning.

HELP

I was talking to my brother-in-law yesterday about finding apartments in NYC. He saw a lot of very crappy ones when he was first moving into Brooklyn in the mid-1990s. One had a pylon for the Tri-borough Bridge directly in front of the entrance; one had a vast bathroom that was larger than the tiny bedroom. He and a friend visited one where you opened up the door from the street and stepped directly into the living room; there was no interior hallway, nothing. They knew right away they weren't going to take it, but to be polite, his friend asked the gruff Russian guy showing the place, "so what's the next step, do we need to give you a credit check, or...?" and the guy says, all dismissively, "No, no, no. If you want it, you can have it. If you don't want it, you can't have it."

That is wisdom for the ages, my friends. If you want it, you can have it. If you don't want it, you can't have it. It's as simple as that.

I really lucked out and found almost an exact match to my car on a finished auction on eBay motors. So now I know what mine is worth, which means I can pay my grandmother that amount in exchange for her barely-used '97 Camry. Or I can try selling my car on eBay, too, though I doubt I'll get as much as this guy did. I have lower miles but more rust and other problems. And I don't want to rip off my grandmother, even though this is the deal she came up with. And then I'll, uh, unload my car somehow. Donate it? Sell it to my ex-stepdaughter for cheap? Junk it? Enter a demolition derby?

Speaking of grandmothers, both of mine have horrible widows' humps from osteoporosis. I pretty much have a constant ache in the middle of my back (between the shoulder blades) and all I can think about is how the vertabre there are forming tiny little fractures and healing in a curve (which is how the humps form). I bought some calcium supplement capsules yesterday but I'm a bit timid about taking them; these particular babies have hydrochloric acid in them to "aid absorption."* I am expecting it to wreak havoc with my digestive system, but I'll be sure to keep you all posted.


*Why is this word not spelled "absorbtion?" It's about the process of absorbing, not absorping, after all. Stupid sexy English.

I almost forgot. Here's an updated list of contents in the Food Donation Box in my office's kitchen:

tin of sardines in lemon sauce
meat tenderizer (powder)
powdered ginger
chili mix (just add beef and beans, I guess)
pizza crust mix (powder)
2 cans of Chef Boyardee cheese tortellini

Most of the stuff has been in there for a while. We're good people, though, and we donated a ton of stuff to Safe Passage for the holidays. We're having a blood drive early next month, which I have decided I can't do because I'm skinny and have low blood pressure. It's a recipe for a pass-out. And cntrary to what you might see in the media, passing out is no fun at all.

I have not been posting because I am in the middle of trying to make a big decision and it is weighing heavily on my mind. I think that either way I decide, I am going to be sad, and that's a terrible thing to have to do. I was in a similar predicament when I gave my dog away - with neither option being the clear winner - and I still don't know if I did the right thing. Maybe I should get a tarot card reading.

In unrelated news, I just discovered that The Living Room in NYC hosts the monthly Lower East Side (sacred harp) Sing, which is pretty neato.

There's a lot of work stuff going on right now; a new venture is starting up, as an off-shoot of the current office, and a lot of people are interviewing for the new positions. At the same time, most of us will be moving into a new building downtown at some unspecified near-future date (and at an unofficial, still unannounced location, though everyone knows where it is). I've been discussing all of this stuff with a friend in the office who is also interviewing for the new venture, and we were talking about how, due to the pay structure or whatever the hell, we can only get a certain percentage raise per year regardless of whether or not we're promoted. Which means that you can get up fairly high on the totem pole but be very underpaid compared to other people in the same exact position who happened to be hired from outside. Which means it pays to hopscotch from place to place, and doesn't pay to be a loyal employee. (This is an industry-wide phenomenon, not just at this particular company.) It's pretty fucked.

So, we were talking about all of this, and after I asked my coworker if it was okay, I broke the cardinal rule of office life and told her how much money I make. I feel like I just did something really naughty and sneaky. What is the deal with that, anyway? I am certain that the person I work with who has the same title as I do makes more money, since she has a few more years' experience, and was hired from outside, and I really don't care. Much.

Anyway, I told her what I make, and I think she is shocked or at least disappointed because she hasn't yet replied to my message. She had asked, "Have you broken the $XX,000 mark?" and my response was "HA! No, I'm making $XX,000" so the attitude may have had something to do with it...

p.s. Note my careful anonymity so I do not get dooced. Be kind.

I was at Spoleto Monday evening for a baby-shower planning meeting, and during our wine-drinking and discussion session I had to use the bathroom. So I go in, and of course I just sit right down on the seat, because why wouldn't I, seeing as their toilets are like the toilets one would have in ones' house. Imagine my horror when I stand up and discover the bottom of my thigh wet with someone else's pee.

Who does the toilet hover maneuver IN A RESTAURANT? And a semi-fancy restaurant, no less? It's not like I was in a gas station restroom where one must always check for pee before taking one's seat. Never mind the fact that the pee-hover is almost entirely idiotic and unneccessary unless you're worried that the person using the stall before you has, I dunno, open, weeping sores on their thighs. Because you are not going to catch any venereal or genital nastiness from a toilet seat that DOES NOT COME IN CONTACT WITH ANY GENITALS EVER. So all you girls who hover over the toilet seat, selfishly spraying the seat with your own urine for the next unlucky fool? You are causing a problem that didn't exist before. CUT IT OUT.

I posted something about being uncool, but then decided it was stupid and hid it. Sorry charlies.

Guess what? Today is DeLurking Day, so dear reader, won't you please leave a comment using the handy link below??

Hi. So did you have a good New Year's Eve? I did. There's no situation that isn't helped by wearing a silvery sequin tiara. I got a lot of positive feedback, mainly from drunkish people asking me if I was a princess, or the queen of 2005, or a fairy. I always answered yes. I had been dreading the magically awful moment at midnight when everyone happily kisses their loves, but it was totally fine after all; I just watched the confetti fall, and woo!-ed, and then I hugged everyone in arm's reach, and swigged some champagne from the bottle. And then we marched in the middle of the street back to the 11s to watch some more Spouse.

Among the more interesting parts of the evening was the high-speed police car chase that flew down Pleasant Street as I stood outside of the 11s at 2 a.m. If anyone knows what the hell that was all about, let me know. It was a night for fighting and recklessness; I missed the altercation outside of the Calvin that ended with the police shooting pepper spray at a guy who wouldn't get down on the ground. "Amateur drinkers," says my friend Penny. Word. For one night it was like we lived in an actual city.

And now we're firmly into January and I have yet to buy a calendar (full retail price is for chumps) and the holidays are over so it's time to move things along. I've begun making little plans (social engagements, appointments) so that I won't imagine the future as an expanse of tightrope I will be forced to traverse with no safety net beneath. This is what works for me.

Looks like it's New Year's resolutions time, so here are some. I would like 2005 to suck less than 2004. I really thought this past year was going to be My Year. But despite the birth of Tallulah it really wasn't. So for this next year I resolve:

to re-convince myself of my awesome-ness

to stop saying "totally" so goddamn much

to either go on an actual vacation, move to a different city, or both

if I decide to stay here, to do serious research on getting a table at a good craft festival/sale, getting into production, and giving that whole thing a real go

to manage time better in order to have more time to create art

to be more daring, except whilst driving

to reestablish contacts with some friends who have been drifting out of touch


Things I resolve to keep on doing because they are great:

going to meeting (Quaker)
shape-note singing
yoga/workin' out (just re-started this past week)
shakin' that thang (a.k.a. dancing)
droppin' the "g" from the ends of gerunds and verbs

I reserve the right to edit this throughout the day as I think of more/better things.

I can't seem to get into my usual semi-funny rantings about my stupid first-world problems when the death toll from this insane tsunami disaster just keeps getting higher and higher. It's up to 140,000 now? Right? By the time I post this it'll have crested 150k. I keep on picturing a giant wave blasting over an entire island in the Maldives, sweeping everything away like a high-pressure hose.

Isn't this one of the signs of the End Times? I imagine the evangelical conservatives are trying very hard not to break into happy expectant grins, at least not on the air.

I've heard some of them newfangled mixed-up songs the kids call "mash-ups" nowadays, but never one as impressive as this: It's 40 Beatles songs mixed into one.

I hope all of you had a happy Christmas/long secular weekend. Mine was a lesson in patience and selflessness. You kind of have to go that way when dealing with an 87-year-old in medium-bad health and a 10-month-old with a sleep-deprived, stressed-out mom. So I relaxed into just being pleasant and giving and actually ended up having a good time. I heard some horrible stories from my Grandmother about nasty medical procedures and gastro-intestinal issues, but we had the longest conversation we've had in a year. There were many cute baby times. And as for the cranky mom, I just tried to gently remind her that nobody cared that the baby was crying in the car, and that nobody was going to force her to skip a nap, and so on.

[Speaking of babies: My cousin Liam is halfway through the first grade. He came over with my aunt to see the baby on Thursday, and at one point he sighed and said, "I wish I was still a baby." Why is that? "Then I wouldn't have to go to school." Oh honey. I tried to not dis school in front of him, even though I also hated it, saying "well, you see your friends there, right? I bet there are some fun parts." (I forgot to add, "Staying home all day gets really boring, seriously.") He said, yeah, I guess. There is something wrong when someone who's six is wistful for the days when he was encouraged to poop in his pants. Why does public school have to be such a drag, especially for little kids? They WANT to learn new stuff, why do they have to be forced to sit and stay quiet and still, going against their entire nature? It's like they're indoctrinating them to office cubicle life from the very get-go. This is why the Waldorf and Montessori schools make sense to me.]

But anyway. On Christmas Eve a bunch of family friends came over, and for the first time, well, ever, I was in a conversation with three other single people in their 30s, talking about the perils of dating at this age when everyone else we know is in committed relationships. We are all worried that after having gotten comfortable with living alone, we are going to find it increasingly difficult to live with someone else. And that's supposing we can even find someone we'd want to live with someone anyway. The one guy in the group lives in Mississippi and says he's already pretty much exhausted the dating pool in his small college town; either he's not interested, or he's interested and they're not, or she's maybe a little interested but definitely doesn't want children, and so on. One of the women is 38 and was saying she had pretty much given up hope on having kids, since it was just too late for her; even if she found the right person tomorrow, it would take a couple of years to get to really know him before she'd want to commit to having children. And my gorgeous, funny, and flirty friend who I've known since I was five has been going out on a lot of first dates with a lot of very boring men.

I know I'm getting all Sex and the City on you, but bear with me. What if we all missed the magic hour in which we could just pick someone and say "you're the one; no need to look further"? Is there a certain point where you become yourself so completely that you have no room left to add another person with their own needs and quirks and weirdnesses?

God I hope not. I have always thought I was a fairly awesome girlfriend. It's just been a while since I have had reason to break out my awesome girlfriend powers. I hope I haven't forgotten how to use them.

I got to wear an eyepatch yesterday, for a few hours. I didn't get to say "Arrrr!" unfortunately, as I just went straight home after getting it firmly taped to my face at the end of my doctor's appointment. (Warning: If medical stories make you hurl, stop reading. I left out most of the truly gross stuff, though)

See, for at least 2 months I have had a small clogged oil gland in my left lower eyelid, and this required action. After listening to the doctor present my three options (1. do nothing some more, 2. get a shot of steroids in hopes that it might shrink it, 3. get all scalpely on its ass.) I hemmed and hawed and finally chose the middle one; not too cold, not too hot.

The doctor went away to see another patient, while the nurse came in and gave me THREE different types of numbing unguents; some balm for the outer part of my eyelid, a different kind for the inside of the eyelid, and then this crazy, thick, gluey stuff that she glopped onto the eye itself. This stuck my eyelashes together, and made blinking a huge chore; it felt like my eyelid was doing some resistance training. Though I was now down 50 percent in the sight department, they gave me the "don't sue us if we blind you" consent form to read. The nurse encouraged me not to sign if I had questions, so I didn't sign. I asked questions. How could getting a simple shot cause depigmentation? Or adrenal problems? Hemmorrhaging I could see, but subcutaneous fat necrosis? The doctor said all of those things were very rare, though the nurse said that she had seen, in her 30-year career, a couple of instances when the doctor accidentally hit an artery and the patient had to "be taken next door" and I was thinking, what, to the pediatrician down the hall? Big deal! And then I remembered that we were across the street from the hospital. Oh. THAT next door.

Anyway, they had me put my head in the little head-and-chin holster they use when they want to bring that little blue halo light right against your eye, and then they did the procedure. And even after being slathered with the stupid numbing crap, it hurt. It hurt like you might think it would hurt if someone was pushing a needle into your lower eyelid. What was almost worse is that I couldn't close my eye, which means I had to watch (I trained my eyes skyward, but I could still see everything). Shudder. When it was all over, the doctor suddenly switched gears on me, saying that he "actually injected a little numbing medication along with the steroid, so I think I'm going to open up a little incision to help it along, using another needle." Wha - WHAT? Uh, okay. So I put my head back into the holster, and he used a needle to, well, make a little opening. "What are you doing?" I kept asking, and he would sort of tell me in a way like he didn't really want to tell me. And even after the needle stuff he wasn't quite satisfied, and said "Nurse, get me a small curette?" and I asked hopefully, "Is a curette one of those little glass wicking things?" (no, that's a pipette) and he said "It's a tiny spoon, like the size a mouse would use."

Wow, I hope that means we are going to have tea with Mr. and Mrs. Wiskertons now! Will Sir Hopsalot and Lady Featherbreast be joining us? When I shot him a horrified look, he said, "You don't need to know these things, really, it will just make it sound worse than it is." I said, "Don't sugarcoat it for me! I know what that thing is used for!" and he said, "Oh really, what?" And I said (stop reading now, I mean it), "For ... for scooping."

And that's when I started to feel dizzy. I let him poke at me one time with the curette and I started feeling all fuzzy and tingly and I said "Wait!" and he said "We're done!" and I sat back in the chair. Whew.

He was right, it was too much information. Sometimes asking a lot of questions at the doctor's makes me feel less helpless, but this time.... Sometimes it's good to not think about what is actually happening.

My eyelid looks fabulous today, by the way.

I wrote a long entry about shopping here and then realized it would go perfectly into CraftyTown. So if you want to read some stuff about my weekend, I suggest you use the link over on your right.

An unfortunate event happened yesterday morning, one that I will not dwell on, except to reiterate the big rule of gift-giving time: After you disseminate your wish list to family and friends, you are not allowed to buy yourself anything off of that list until after the gift-opening date has passed. Get that, everyone? NOT ALLOWED.

Yesterday I also went to Quaker Meeting for the first time in at least two years. It was nice; the meeting has swelled in size, with newcomers now outnumbering the old-timers (who were members back when the meeting met in a classroom in the science building at Smith). During coffee hour I spoke with a couple of the old-school folks, who seemed a bit bewildered but pleased about the influx of new blood, though they also hinted that it had been a bit rough at first as the new people settled in. I can only imagine the crazy (and probably super-political) messages people were saying during meeting. Everything seemed very normal to me yesterday, though, besides the fact that when the young people came in ten minutes before the rise of meeting, more than half of them were teenagers. Apparently they're really into it, and the majority of them are boys, which is super-unusual (and totally great).

And I finally watched City of God, after almost returning it to Netflix unwatched because I was worried it would get me even more depressed. I'm glad I didn't, because it was wonderful. Bloody and tragic, but amazing. An extra on the DVD, a one-hour documentary, is incredible too, and shows how true-to-life the film is.

I am still thinking about returning Dancer in the Dark without watching it first, though. Should I?

At an antique shop this past Sunday, I came across an original Atari game from the early 1980s, still in the original box, containing all of its crudely-photocopied instructions. The game was The Runestones of Ryn, which I remember playing quite a bit (seeing a picture helped job my memory). I was all set to buy it at the low low price of $2.50 but then I saw that the program was on a cassette tape, not a 5.5-inch floppy. And even though there would be only the teeny tiniest chance I could find someone to reverse-engineer the floppy, I know there is only a one-in-a-million chance of doing that with a cassette tape. That's just my theory, based on nothing (just the fact that our Atari 800 had two floppy drives attached to it but no cassette tape drive). I am still sad - and I know my sister is too - that my dad threw out the ancient computers we grew up with when my parents moved from the house mentioned in the previous post. Sure, the old Atari was covered in cat pee and dust and hadn't been plugged in for a decade - so what! I'd give a lot to be able to have that thing back again, and the two boxes of old floppies with it. I wouldn't even need to find a monitor, as it (very smartly) connected right into your television set.

I'm gonna do a little web searching for Runestones now....

p.p.s. I want this Yoshimoto Nara flip clock SO BAD but it's crazy expensive. Maybe a wealthy reader will become a patron and get it for me? I will make something artistic and amazing in return. Email me, we'll chat.

A recent post by Jennifer Myzlowski prompted me to write this: I was upset when my parents moved out of the crappy, depressing, cookie-cutter suburban split-ranch house I grew up in (from age of 2 until I graduated college). It doesn't matter that lots of crappy times happened there, and that my most recent memory of that house is when my grandfather, in the early stages of Alzheimer's, took off in his car alone and by pure luck found his way back home without police intervention, while my grandmother broke down in tears saying "I don't know what I'm going to do with him." I still have dreams that take place in the old house, just like I still have dreams that happen in the Art Barn at Hampshire.

Luckily, their new house is way nicer (though smaller) in every way. I haven't been able to get up the courage to go visit the old house, though, even though it's in the next town over. Apparently the buyers are newly-arrived immigrants (maybe from Pakistan?) who have what my mother calls "a different idea about what a garden should look like," and they've cut down almost every tree and bush and made everything symmetrical and orderly. So it won't even look the way I remembered. Maybe that's a good thing.

p.s. non-sequitur: I almost never fall for spam subject lines, but there was one this morning that had the subject: "chuff" which is an awesome sort of a Jim Woodring-y word, so I clicked on it. It was an ad for getting a college degree in two weeks.

Oh my people. I am so sorry, my people, those who keep checking to see if I have posted something new, only to be disappointed. I know of this disappointment, truly I do. There has been a sickness upon the House of Debl. I have barely been able to rouse a couple of brain cells to rub together in order to get through my day. I am all phlegmy and my nostril-skin is all red and cracked. Think of my not-posting as a protection from hearing the details of my cold symptoms. There will be more posts soon, I promise.

Alright, this is oldschool, yo. A few years ago I found a tape my sister and I recorded in 1984, when we were 11. We were making up stories off the top of our heads, using stuffed animals and china animals as the principle characters. I transcribed one of the stories, drew pictures to accompany the action, and put it on my old website - a long time ago, at least five years, no more than 9. I just refound the files and have put them back online for you, my readers. There are three pages, and they end in a dead-end because I couldn't be bothered to put a link back here. Sorry. Use your browser's back button, people, it's not that hard.

The Runt!

So, here are some thoughts I had about my experience two weeks ago, driving around the NYC-area and taking college tours with a couple of prospective students.

If the guy giving the pre-tour talk sounds really defensive, it does not bode well for the school. Don't say that the school has gotten away from the image of it being mostly a commuter school, when you then tell us (after being asked directly) that 40% of the student body goes home on weekends.

Sometimes stereotypes are true. You might think that college can't really be full of Jewish-American Princesses as you heard, and jeez does that ethnically-insensitive stereotype actual exist anymore?, BUT OH YES IT CAN and DOES. For some reason those ladies (overly groomed, love shopping, have nasal, Long-Island-tinged accent) don't live where I live now, so I had forgotten they existed. It was like coming home.

The beauty of the campus is not a good indicator of the quality of the school. Same goes for the food in the cafeteria. If that's what your tour guide loves most about her school, run away.

When asking your student tour guide about a school's visual art facilities, it is a very bad sign to get a answer like "I took a drawing class last year for fun, and it was great!" Also very bad: Classes generically named, like "ART 1."

I have no idea what publication or judging body declared Wagner College as having the most beautiful campus in the country, but they must have been smoking some serious crack.

Feel free to bail in the middle of a tour if you already know you have no interest in going there. We did this at Hofstra and, to some extent, Wagner.


I've got to tell you the story of our Wagner visit. Though it was raining and cold, we started off so hopeful about it, but then the tour started badly, and just got worse and worse. The woman leading the tour grew up on Staten Island (where Wagner is located) and loved it. She loves it still! Staten Island is the best because it is close to the city but it has grass and trees and suburbs, yay! Never mind the huge landfills, nasty traffic, and the lack of any there, there. We have lawns, people! And cars!

Luckily for everyone, also on our tour was a baby-faced boy who wants to go into business, accompanied by his starry-eyed mom. They were from Columbine, Colorado. They had not ever been to New York City before, but were staying in Manhattan. When I asked the guide how easy it was to get to the city (if there were college shuttles to the train station, for example) the boy took the opportunity to ask the guide, "So, when you're looking at the subway map, uptown is always up? And downtown is down? Because we are having a tough time figuring out where we're going." And as the tour stretched past the one-hour mark while we were exploring the dismal trash-strewn Freshman dorm, the mom saw the view of Manhattan from the top floor window and excitedly asked the guide, "Wow, what are we looking at, exactly??" As the guide pointed out the various bridges and buildings, one of my girls turned away in disgust and said softly "who cares!" which cracked me up. After well over an hour or trudging through the raw wetness, the Colorado duo wanted to see the gym, which the guide had omitted from the tour because it was too out of the way. I saved us by saying "uh, we have to go, we have another appointment" and we booked the hell back to our car.

It wasn't all crappiness. We all loved Sarah Lawrence. I don't know why I didn't consider it when I was looking for schools 15 years ago (me=old). SUNY Purchase, despite having the concrete-slab architecture I became familiar with at my expensive private college, seems like a really great place to go for arts majors. Eugene Lang, one of the four schools I applied to, also got high marks. So there was progress. And there was fun food times, and a short shopping adventure. High grades, mostly.

If it's wrong to be 32 years old and ten years out of your parents house but still bringing laundry home for the holidays, then I don't want to be right.

I have been absent for a week's time. I was occupied elsewhere, squiring a pair of young ladies to several houses of higher learning located in the New York City area, and then I traveled on an aeroplane to the state of Florida, where I spent as few of my personal monies as possible (as it is a Red State).

And in this state of Florida, there is a large park that is themed to various amusements, and I was part of a group of professionals who were at this park for an event related to my employ. During Monday evening, I and the other professionals were treated to a lavish display of electric lights and many tables laden with fine comestibles. As we dined, several amusing performers mingled with the crowd. Two of them were in character as hoboes - common beggars, if you will. How very amusing! We all laughed gaily at the young men's lighthearted representations of the mentally ill!

No, seriously. They had people pretending to be wacky bums. For sport. Because if you just look at it the right way, the homeless are hilarious! Here's me with one of them (photo taken for my upcoming lawsuit for crimes against decency):





There was a second fake homeless guy, who gave me a "funny" coupon written on a wrinkled napkin, redeemable at his "wacky" Christmas tree lot. I don't really know what it was all about, though I like the Grinch song reference. The bums loved me, for some reason (the hair?).




It's all too bad, because I usually secretly find the street performers at these parks pretty funny. At the least, I admire their improvising skills. But this, this is a little bit gross, right? I don't think I am being too sensitive here.

I think it's a little hilarious that Victoria's Secret sells career wear. What's even better is that the models all pose like they're wearing lingerie. It's really hard to tell what these suits would look like on a normal woman - you know, one who might actually go to an actual office and actually work:





Something about the way they look all pissy cracks me up. ("You WILL take me seriously in the boardroom, even though I am presenting myself for coitus like a dog in heat! Stop judging me on my sexy, sexy legs and overly-arched back!")

Wow, blogger allowed me to post, finally!

Well. What is there to say, really. All morning I was planning my "I HATE AMERICA" post but now, still feeling slightly ill from last night's Drown Your Dismay With Cheap Chardonnay!-fest, I just feel tired and depressed. I have no idea what the next four years will bring. More of the same, I guess. Lying and godless sacks of shit were elected and re-elected by idiots who were apparently never taught to think critically. It will get worse before it gets better. There may have to be another terrorist attack in our country before people wake up and notice the amount of bullshit they've been getting fed.

Or we could take all of New England, tack on New York, New Jersey, and the nice half of Pennsylvania, and secede from the Union. We can become New New England. (California can just become its own country; it's big enough.) We would have to build a really big wall to keep all of the idiot red-staters away from our clean air and healthy natural resources after all of their forests disappear and their air and water is poisioned and the terrorists are beheading citizens of Old America daily. They brought it on themselves, after all. We tried to tell them what would happen, but they wouldn't listen.

I guess I am still angry. Huh.

Damn my niece is a little cutie! She was a growly lion for Halloween. And because my sister is a crafty Way sister, she made the costume herself. More pics to the left of the pic I just linked to, if you wanna see more of teh cutes.

I just posted something kinda fun over at Craftytown. I know chowflap is linked all over the place and Craftytown, not so much. But if you're only visiting this here blog, you are missing out. If I feel like writing about crafts, or anything interesting going on in my town, or anything I've observed on my way to and from work, I write it in Craftytown.

Chowflap is for existential crises and cuss words.

I love hearing "Don't forget to vote!" As if anyone could forget to do that this year.

I can't really imagine Bush remaining president, because it would be so awful. Terrific, in the old-fashioned meaning of the word. Yet I also can't imagine Kerry winning, because I just don't believe the Republican Election Squad would allow it. Before the Sox won the Series I thought that if they did, it would be a good indicator that Kerry would win. Afterwards, I decided that the lunar eclipse allowed the Sox to win, so the omen is nullified.

Tuesday will be a very, very tense time. I already have a friendly place lined up to go and drink and watch the results roll in. Thank God.

I wrote a long and kind of funny (wait, I mean TOTALLY PANTS-WETTINGLY GENIUS) post that refers to a specific video online, and now that video's host has pulled the plug because, I am guessing, too many people watched it. Stupid ISPs or whatever they are.

I just want you readers to know that I am Thinking Of You.

Everything seems to be taking SO LONG lately that suddenly it's the end of the day and I've only finished half of what I planned to do. Plus it's autumn, which puts me (and everyone) in a productive mood; it's the back-to-school schedule that was imprinted upon our minds at an early age. It makes me want to do new things and learn and make stuff. (More on Craftytown today about that.)

Went to the Elliott Smith tribute show last night at the 11s. It was incredibly packed, not just with musicians but with college students and older folks from all over. The music was great; it's the closest I'll ever get to seeing Elliott play. It was an early show and I missed about an hour of it, but I got to hear many of my favorite songs. The crowd was mostly reverent, enthusiastic, and focused, except for a few times when people decided to just keep talking loudly over the performer.

The Bunwinkies played last, to my knowledge. I'm not sure I totally get what they're about. I heard them play two songs but I didn't recognize either of them. Were the songs really obscure Elliott Smith songs, or Bunwinkie originals? I overheard someone in the crowd say "I guess this is supposed to be avant-garde...?" Word. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) I like all those folks in the band, so I do not mean to diss them. I am just uninformed.

Also, a friend and I went to the Dakin animal shelter and played with some cats and kittens on Saturday (my sister: "So that's what you guys have to do for fun up there?"). It was quite nice. We evaluated each cat and narrowed down the choices to the best two or three. But I am not going to adopt a new cat until my current one stops costing me about 100 bucks per week in vet bills. Right now she is getting goo stuck in her eyelid twice a day (which she HATES), a steroid pill forced down her throat every morning (almost as bad as the eye goo-application), and her thyroid meds mixed into her breakfast. And I am still waiting to hear from the x-ray consultants at Cornell or wherever about her weird spot on her lung. Sigh. She is lucky she's such a beautiful and sweet animal.