Coming to conclusions, for today. (There is always tomorrow.)

Today is a reminisce about childhood day.

I don't mean that in a gloomy way, more of a contemplative way. I was thinking about how when I was in high school and it was gray and cloudy out I would just go home after school (i.e. before 3pm), make myself a cup of tea, and sit around the house. Did I do that? It's getting hard to remember but I feel like I did... sat at the kitchen table, likely cluttered with newspapers and bills, and read my book and ate toast. That's a funny memory because it should feel really warm and cozy but in reality it feels sort of cool and gray, the way those days were. Still, I would prefer it to sitting at a desk all day in fluorescent lighting staring at a computer screen.

Then I was thinking about the simplicity of some things. Home cooked food -- I know it sounds cheesy but honestly, sometimes all I really want is spaghetti or something. At Google, the food is overwhelmingly complex and fascinating and unusual and to be honest, sometimes it's frustratingly gourmet. (Oh yes, Emily, please, complain about your free lunches.) Choice can be baffling.

It's interesting to thing about the "base state" of your life. Like, what you would do with no outside influences. Obviously that's impossible -- you're beset by outside influences from the moment you're born, and if you want to get into human behavioral biology, you're sort of stuck with them even earlier -- but I mean on a daily basis. What if you lived in a city you didn't know anyone? What would you do?

I know what I would do, and I know it with a mixture of shame and longing. I find that when other people have plans, when I have a night on my own, I sit in my house and I do nothing. That's not a particularly bad thing sometimes, but it would be terrible if it happened all the time. One thing I like about living with Dan is that he doesn't really allow for the sitting-at-home thing. Meaning, he doesn't think that you should, by default, choose sitting at home over doing something fabulous in the city. Neither do I, but sometimes it's good to have him remind me of what's out there.

Still, tonight is a sitting-at-home night. I had Campbell's split pea soup with Saltines for dinner (talk about childhood, eh?) and I'm sitting here blogging and downloading some music and doing silly things like reading Self magazine and watching The Office. I like to call these nights in "dates with myself," which is probably some cheesy phrase from a dumb magazine like Self or maybe something like Sex and the City but the reality is that that's a really good way to look at it. Take yourself out, or in. You know, treat yourself like you are worth it, blah blah. I know I'm sounding even more cliched as this paragraph goes on but it is good to remind yourself of these things sometimes. When my sister was here we got into a discussion (abstractly) about our relationships with men. It was brief but my conclusion was, sometimes it is hard to be a girl. You are fighting a lot of weird, deep-seated societal habits. Not even pressures, not even oppression, but just habit, I think, most of the time. So I think I get in the habit of being unhappy with myself, my body, my brain, whatever it is... and the key is reminding yourself to break the habit.

Last thought. Today I mentioned to Justin that I was really glad that he could "deal with my crazy." (On a serious note, I am. I know he reads this, at least occasionally, so this is rather silly, but one of the most surprising things about moving to the city was my friendship with him which I'm now really grateful for. And that makes me think about how surprising friendships are... I'm still surprised that Dan and I are such good friends, I'm thrilled and surprised about how wonderfully Ace is as a roommate and friend, I am constantly flattered and amazed by the friendships I have and the loyalty that those people have and their patience and brilliance and ridiculousness and uniqueness. I will stop this parenthetical here!!) His response was "Don't get too caught up in your crazy. We've all got some of that." Suddenly I remembered that, paradoxically, the strongest I've ever felt, the sanest, the most sure of myself, was when ---- and I were breaking up and there was a moment he actually asked me if I was sure I wasn't just crazy -- because he felt like he couldn't recognize me. But that lack of recognition was because right then, I was being really strong. And I knew myself better than anyone else could. And so it's strange, but that is the strongest I've ever felt and the proudest of myself I have been, for anything. And right now I would like to find that strength, not for anything in particular but just because it was a great feeling, and I felt empowered and happy and brave. I think that is how you should approach every day. (I hadn't thought about this until Justin made that comment and it reminded me that I should never think I am crazy. Because everyone is, a little bit, and because the idea that women are insane is far too common, and because I'm not.)

It is good to have little victories like this. One of the best things about life is stumbling across things in your past that inform your present, lessons you forgot you learned, channeling old emotions or feelings or what have you into your present and using them for future good. That is, in a way, the upside of nostalgia... I find that if I can tap into the visceral feeling of something -- coming home from school and having a cup of tea and a book, feeling strong, feeling smart, feeling creative, feeling in love, feeling comfortable, liberated, whatever memory you have that you can grab ahold of, that is like a medium or a path to achieving that again, or avoiding it, or whatever it is. It's not just a matter of learning from mistakes, it's a matter of literally feeling that again, down to your bones, and hanging onto that, even if you can't replicate it exactly (you wouldn't want to). It's like a shortcut to yourself.

So I guess I have a position on the boundaries of blogging and Facebook and what have you. I guess I'll just be honest. I don't think it can hurt. I think I yam what I yam. I have things to say and I will say them.

PS

This really rang true for me:

"When you're young, you think I'll just get over this hill and then everything will be on an even keel. Then you get used to the fact that, no, you're never gonna get to the point of equilibrium. All you do is move forward. That's what life is -- being in motion."

-Steve Coogan, quoted in the New Yorker Nov 5.

I always think that calm and rest is just around the corner, but so far into my adulthood (ha, if you can call it that) I have to say that this seems a lot more realistic.

"This life has been a test"

"So when Rayanne Graff told me my hair was holding me back, I had to listen. 'Cause she wasn't just talking about my hair. She was talking about my life." -Angela Chase

The identity is a mysterious thing, especially the online one, especially the fractured pieces here and there, the different audiences, the different "levels" of communication. Recently, I linked this blog to Facebook, thinking that way, I could share my silly Facebook-posted-items style things with my blog audience, largely consisting of my immediate family, and that I could share my longer stuff with my Facebook audience, if indeed I have one (so far it seems like I don't). But it does present some interesting dilemmas. The stupid shit I post on Facebook seems mundane and boring and unblogworthy here (probably it would seem better on Tumblr, but the real problem is that that is too short-form for the kinds of long posts I occasionally want to do). And then I feel like I can't write a lot about personal thoughts/feelings because in the event that some random news-feed reader comes across that post in Facebook, I don't really want them to know about my issues. (And Facebook is, and I'm being totally honest here, starting to feel a little creepy, just because of all the news of late about Facebook employees being able to read your private messages, change your profile info, log in as you, and, oh right, the big one: look at which profiles you view. I guess it makes me a little more aware of my own Facebook "stalking," which of course I do somewhat, but what about the people I'm just curious about, whose photos I realize I never looked at before, who had a favorite book listed that I wanted to remember, etc. Are people at Facebook going to misjudge or misunderstand my purposes for looking at a profile, and will it have real-life consequences? I don't want to get too far off the topic, and I have a problem with overusing parenthetical statements, so I will stop here, but: still. It's weird. If I do have any Facebook readers out there, and especially if you work at Facebook, which is only unlikely because I don't think any of the people I know working at Facebook would be interested enough to read this, give me your thoughts.)

So, the subject at hand is how to express yourself, or, let's be straightforward, myself, and really be honest, when you want an audience, and you want it to be somewhat general, but not worldwide? Maybe there isn't an in between anymore, or maybe there isn't for someone like me who has this urge to share in the first place. (Clearly I could just e-mail close friends, or something, or family, or write in a diary, or not connect my Facebook to my blog, or have another blog, but these things all seem less than ideal for a variety of reasons.) I'm not sure. A while ago I said I was just going to be honest here. You know, to own up about being hungover or sending a stupid text message or being unsatisfied with myself or being happy with myself. But that's really hard to do and see in print, even if it's just in HTML. And no one wants to be a whiner, and no one wants to read whining. Even if (my brain spins too fast -- I feel like I always have a rebuttal to my own statements, so pardon the circularity) that's what blogs are all about anyway... or at least personal blogs, the whiny ones, the stupid ones like this one. This isn't a real blog, it's not of interest to anyone who doesn't know me, and I am not sure if that should matter to me or not. (It sometimes matters. Sometimes it doesn't.) I'm also not sure if brutal honesty would be more interesting or less.

My point is, I'm thinking about things a lot lately, and feeling more than a little unhinged and disorganized and too high (figuratively) and too low and too all over the place. I know what my ideal life is and I know what my life is now and I don't know if the two shall meet or can meet, and I don't know if I can ever have that ideal; I assume I can't, but trying to rationalize and wrestle and ground your ideals is sort of like what happens to little girls watching fairy tales and playing with Barbies, this shit gets ingrained, and then you want a prince charming or what have you and you've lost sense of reality, and if you are aware enough of that then you end up second guessing everything and third-guessing everything until you're blue in the face and writing extremely babble-y blog posts for no one. (Insert John Mayer reference here.) I just don't know what version of the story to trust anymore, and I mean that in most senses - I don't know what people to go to for advice, I don't know whether my paranoia or my overthinking is my instinct, I don't know whether the way my life is now is just a phase or maybe just the way life is, maybe it never stops and it is always baffling and tiring and awesome at the same time. I wish I could explore that here, or somewhere. I wish there was a freelance magazine column titled "Girl tries to figure shit out" because I think I'd be qualified to write it, and that's about the only thing I feel qualified to do right now, so that's unfortunate it's a figment of my imagination.

You see what I mean? Lots of stuff going on here. And I can't pin it down. I would like to try, here, but I just don't think that's a good idea either... not when I am so exposed as me here. Except that's the fucking point. What's the point of partial exposure, and what's the point of expository self-writing if you don't go there, if you don't push the boundaries at all. I don't know. Maybe I'm not brave enough, or maybe I'm too self-conscious (um, this is likely, but I don't think it's everything), or maybe I'm not old enough to pull a Stephen Elliot or insert-famous-writer-here and just bare it all. Or, maybe I just need to stop, for a second, and take a breath, and stop trying to puzzle out the meaning of it all ("one of those 'what does it all mean' things") and just take my life without contemplation (the unexamined life may be easier to live) and just go to sleep now and wake up tomorrow and start all over again.

But I'd rather not. (I am going to sleep though. I will think more about this tomorrow.)

Just to round things off in style, I leave you with another of Angela Chase's brilliant moments: "This life has been a test. If this had been an actual life, you would have received instructions on where to go and what to do."

The sad truth is, sometimes I do feel like Angela has it right.

More, more, more

Not surprisingly my stomach hurts today thanks to my weekend of epic eating and the fact that my body hates me. So it's hard to concentrate on work. It's easier to concentrate on blogging.

I have a collection of blogs I read of people I vaguely know but don't know well enough that we actually admit (often) to reading each other's blog. One such person is Ellen, who lived next door to me at the Columbia Publishing Course, went to school with the "east coast half of the Lasky twins," the west coast half of which is one of my friends. I guess this is sort of a public de-lurking and it's inspired primarily by NaBloPoMo (it's because Ellen was doing it that I remembered it existed and jumped on the bandwagon) and also partly by the fact that this girl posts to goodreads.com even more than I do, so she is therefore awesome. Anyway, she essentially started a meme the other day for the "Last Five" books that you've read. For you loyal goodreaders, this is old news, but I felt like doing it anyway (remember, I have an excuse to post useless things today).

Last 5 Books...
-Mysteries of Pittsburgh. I saw it on sale at Green Apple (remaindered) for around $8, but it seemed wrong to buy it after I just finished it. Still, you already know I appreciate this one.
-Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Genius. Also almost bought Consider the Lobster yesterday until I realized it was more than $8. I only bought books under $6 yesterday.
-The Last Picture Show. I liked Lonesome Dove better. But. Still. Good.
-Not Fade Away. I quoted this for you already. Wow, I think I am a better blogger than I thought.
-Jonathan Franzen's "The Discomfort Zone." Better than many of the reviews indicated. He has a great way of synthesizing random things and thoughts and ideas and making them all seem related, which I appreciate in a memoir, and aspire to do myself, and often do, in a sloppy way.

Probably my last 5 movies (half-watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Edward Scissorhands, The Darjeeling Limited, Into the Wild, Match Point) are more interesting, or my last 5 concerts (Broken Social Scene, Josh Ritter, Justice, Dan Deacon/Girl Talk, and... Feist? Was it that long ago?).

Grump. Back to work.

(Edit: You know what's actually really strange? That all of this stuff you could already know if you were plugged in on the Internet just slightly more. Meaning, there is this site called FriendFeed, started by a couple of ex Google employees, which basically aggregates ALL the stuff you use online -- Netflix queue, Amazon wish list, Flickr photo posts, etc. -- on one site. You can get all the info all the time. Is it creepy? A little. Am I intrigued? A little. Ok. Back to work for real this time.)

I think they call this a weekend roundup

I had a great birthday weekend. It was long and luxurious and I can't believe it's over.

It started Friday when a work colleague/friend presented me with a box of black & white cookies from The Grand Bakery in Oakland. He had been with me during a failed trip to a bakery near the Google SF office, which claimed to have black&white cookies but actually had chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips. Liars. So Marcin (the friend) ended up tracking them down and going to Oakland for them! I was pretty floored, and baffled by the sheer quantity and size of the cookies (5 of them, about as big around as my hand from wrist to fingertip). I still haven't eaten them all and my waistline thanks me.

Then Dan and I went to dinner with Ivan, Dan's old roommate who moved to Princeton this year for school. We discussed how baffling and strange the east coast prepsters are while eating dinner at Weird Fish, a restaurant I've wanted to go to forever. I had a good grilled trout, but the star of the show was definitely Ivan's fish & chips. I'll have to go back for that. Friday night I went to bed at 10:30pm, after watching only 30 minutes of The Last Picture Show. (I pictured Mrs. Popper very, very differently, but am withholding judgment otherwise.)

Saturday, as you know, we went wine tasting, after a truly ridiculously decadent and messy breakfast of Tartine pastries in the car. I'd never been to Tartine before, so this was a random last-minute inspiration on our drive to pick up friends in the Lower Haight. I of course had a croissant, which was pretty much pure butter and delicious. I'm not a big breakfast pastry person besides croissants and scones, but, I do love my croissants and they are a special treat.

WINE! We were ahead of schedule despite the Tartine diversion, and made it to Cline, our first winery, at 10am. Then on to Schug, where we got a free (empty) half-barrel of wine for garden planting. To fit it in the car, which was already full of 5 people, we had to take out the spare tire, nestle the barrel in the spare tire well, and replace the tire inside the barrel. It was a pretty amusing operation and I was glad I am friends with male engineers who can fit wine barrels in my car.

The best wine we had was at Elyse, and appointment-only place with an adorable friendly wandering dog on the grounds and an $80 cabernet sauvignon for tasting (complimentary tasting, too). I loved it, but talked myself out of the $80 purchase. I just don't think $80 wines are in my budget at this point, but it was quite excellent. They gave me a wine glass for my birthday. (My comment: "Does it come full?" I actually meant that seriously, but only because the way the guy offered it was a little confusing.)

Continuing the theme of "Nothing that is not addictive should pass your lips" that we'd adopted earlier on, we hit up Taylor's Refreshers in St. Helena. I have been obsessed with Taylor's for about years. We discovered it on my very first trip to Napa, senior year spring break, when Cristina, Rachel and I were all quite tipsy at the Coppola winery and decided what we really needed was chili cheese fries. (I think that was Cristina's decision.) That turned into, we really needed a burger. The guy at the counter recommended Taylor's and we were sold, immediately. I was re-sold on it when I discovered the sweet potato fries. So Saturday's meal was a patty melt and sweet potato fries. Yum. Wow, I think I ingested like 40,000 calories this weekend. I don't normally eat this well (or, um, poorly).

After lunch, we finally had all our party with us except for Dan, who was off getting keys to the cabin we were going to stay in at night. He was absolutely wonderful this weekend, by the way, getting everything set up for the trip even though it was all my idea and really just a shameless celebration of myself (I did pull the birthday card once or twice, with mixed results). We went to Heitz, which was inattentive and meh, and then Saddleback, which was lovely. They have picnic tables outside and they bring the tastes to you in the sunshine, scant yards from the vineyards. Mumm was next, where they were closing in 15 minutes, so we just bought a bottle to share and overtipped the waiter because he was nicer than everyone else there. (Birthday card did not work there.) Finally we went to Peju, where the guy hosting our tasting did weird impromptu raps (he was about 60) and freestyled about (what else?) my birthday. It was sort of mind bogglingly ridiculous but I let it go.

I guess I shouldn't make you read about my entire weekend, but it was great. Maverick was absolutely delicious, and then on Monday after Lucie and I woke up, we had Burma Superstar for lunch (no wait, it's great) and then I spent a bunch of money at Green Apple Books (another birthday gift to myself) and got an Eggling at Park Life. We basically meandered all day, and took a lot of time to do not a lot. At the Candy Store, back in my hood, we got matching little owl dolls made of burlap (I have this weird obsession with me and Lucie having a few matching trinkets like the matching ivory elephants in the Secret Garden, so we have these two Buddhas for some reason and now these owls), and I got a new wallet, which is great except I realized it doesn't have any places for cards... I need to find a place to buy extra inserts for cards. (Any ideas?) After that we went to Therapy where I bought a coat, a shirt, and a necklace with an E on it made from a 1935 typewriter. We made brief stops at the Valencia standbys, the pirate store and Paxton Gate, before heading to Berkeley for tapas & pisco sours (in my case, at least). Somehow we ended up at the diviest of dives, with my cousin Owen, and then at what he called "the ultimate grad student bar" where my friend Peattie was hanging out. Back in the city, Lu and I met two more friends from high school for a few drinks. I had this sudden flash of what my life would be like if I hadn't left Whittier. Strange.

To top it all off!! When I came to work this morning, I discovered a giant Happy Birthday banner and confetti all over my desk. My coworkers pretended that we had all had a big party together (the banner had a bunch of things on it like "The party was awesome" and "Crazy how those candles burned off your eyebrows" and there were cupcakes with already-burned candles in them). It was pretty damn funny and it came with an Anthropologie gift card. Consider me flattered and pleased.

Happy Tuesday.

Casey's classroom library

My friend Casey teaches middle school English in LA. She's trying to get funding for her classroom through this site Donors Choose. I don't have the hugest readership or anything here, but I want to help her out if I can. Here's what she says:

Below are three proposals I'm trying to get funded through donorschoose.org. You may have seen Craig Newmark (of craigslist fame) on the Colbert Report recently. He's been pushing Donors Choose, a wonderful site. Teachers are able to list their needs, and people can fully or partially fund the proposals. I'm hoping to build a better classroom library, and I know better than to think my school material budget will stretch. I'd really appreciate it if you'd give my proposals a look.

You can donate here. (The link was wrong before. This is the right one.)

Rage. and fried chicken.

It's amazing how quickly your mood can change. Like, for example, if your plumbing in your apartment is broken for the third time in a week and your landlord keeps pretending that he can fix the problem without a professional. That can affect your mood pretty quickly.

Not to be a total downer, though, I guess. Last night for my birthday I went out with a few people and my sister who is staying with me for last night and tonight. We went to Maverick and it was delicious. This has been a luxurious weekend food-wise, really. At Maverick I got the fried chicken and the pumpkin fritters, which I guess means I had two fried dishes, but, really, who is counting? We had a good pinot noir and then a Zinfandel that I had had at a winery earlier this year and really like. Justin and Dan both ordered the antelope, and I tried it and it was quite frankly amazing. The dessert was good too. All in all a great birthday meal. Lucie was laughing at us because, as she puts it, only in San Francisco can you get fried chicken for $24. Probably not entirely true - you could probably get it for that in New York and maybe LA. But I guess it is a very SF thing to have like free-range antelope and fried chicken and milk & cookies for dessert, all for about $300 for 6 people. Still, I recommend it highly. We'll be going back for brunch.

More later.

Napa = great success

James and me on a HUGE chair.

This, as Dan says, really sums things up. After the last winery we opened a bottle of Mumm in the parking lot and stood around listening to Broken Social Scene (played via karaoke machine and iPod in the trunk) drinking it and hanging out in the twilight.

lovely.
They made me pretend to throw the empty bottle into the vineyards.

This was our cabin. Five of us, $125 for the night, $170 worth of food at the grocery store, and all fire lighting. It was amazing.

Wiiiiine

And, we're off!

This is a cheating blog post today. I don't have time to write anything actual! I have to go start drinking wine at 10am!

First, some coffee.

A manifestation of the will to quote things...

"I anticipate a coming season of dilated time and of women all in disarray."

"On the way out again, I suddenly saw everything clearly: Sigmund Freud painting cocaine onto his septum, the rising uproar of the past hour and a half, the idling Audi full of rash behavior that lay ahead, the detonating summer; and because it was a drunken perception, it was perfect, entire, and lasted about half a second."

"I felt another of those sudden onslaughts of love, the desire to run to them and embrace them both, to be seen in their company, to live my life among men and women who dressed up like this and then went down the sidewalk like cinema kings."

"This bar was esteemed for the quality or at least the profusion of the graffiti in both its gentlemen's ad ladies' rooms, which were rarely washed or repainted. I read this exhange:
WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT WOMEN, ANYWAY?
And, lower:
HEY, EVERY WOMAN, PAL, IS A VOLUME OF STORIES A CATALOGUE OF MOVEMENTS A SPECTACULAR ARRAY OF IMAGES
Then:
PLUS THERE'S THE MYSTERY OF LEARNING ABOUT HER CHILDHOOD
A fourth man had concluded:
AND OF EVERYTHING THAT'S CONCEALED UNDER HER CLOTHES"

"That evening I rode downtown on an unaccountably empty bus, sitting in the last row. At the front I saw a thin cloud of smoke rising around the driver's head.
'Hey, bus driver,' I said. 'Can I smoke?'
'May I,' said the bus driver.
'I love you,' I said."

"How about 'a manifestation of the will-to-bigness.' "

"When I remember that dizzy summer, that dull, stupid, lovely, dire summer, it seems that in those days I ate my lunches, smelled another's skin, noticed a shade of yellow, even simply sat, with greater lust and hopefulness -- and that I lusted with greater faith, hoped with greater abandon. The people I loved were celebrities, surrounded by rumor and fanfare; the places I sat with them, movie lots and monuments. No doubt all of this is not true remembrance but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything."

--The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

Tricked you!

So you thought I wasn't going to do it... that I wasn't going to make it through NaBloPoMo and I was going to fail on Day 2. As Bethany used to say, fooooo' youuuuu!

I admit, it's something of a miracle that I'm here on a Friday night, almost 9 o'clock, and I'm sitting alone in my empty house writing instead of out doing something mildly self-destructive. But here I am! Dan is out at a play, and Justin is in LA. If either of them were here I'm sure I'd end up doing something non-solitary, but it's probably good for me. I'm considering this night in a birthday gift to myself. The gift of rest and reflection.

I recently finished "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," which came to me via a recommendation and loan from Laurel. She told me it was reminiscent of our lives and I think it kind of is, in many ways but not all. The book is about a guy who recently graduated from college in Pittsburgh and finds himself suddenly friends with a new crowd over the summer, and if you boil it down to the essentials, it's about friendship and that kind of madness that affects you when you are surrounded by people you admire so much it's almost painful. In that sense, it reflects where I am now. Since I moved from Palo Alto to San Francisco, just three or so months ago, I have felt maddeningly joyful about my life more often than ever before. It's not that I'm never sad or bored or frustrated, but it's that the highs are so high here... and the lows are just normal. I feel really lucky to have met and had the chance to hang out with the people who live here, who are now my friends.

It's not that I don't have great friends in Palo Alto - I do - but the intensity of the city life is different. I sound stupid right now, I know it - I sound really naive - but really, it's true. We all live now in this crazy, constantly happening environment, where you can stumble across something amazing any moment. That ratchets up the intensity of things pretty fast. Throw into that a lot of really smart, strange people and that's pretty much my life of late. It's hard to really comprehend it, to really grab ahold of that and make it conceivable, because things and people and interactions are too sprawling, too big, too boundless to be pinned down.

All I know is that I'm grateful. I have to remind myself, because I've been really tired and burnt out lately, that it's all for a reason, and that this is a place and a time that I can't live again, not ever in the same way I'm doing it the first time. So I am happy that it's here.

Tomorrow I'm going wine tasting with some friends, some very new, some old. I know it will be another weekend like the ones I've had recently - a blur, a happy blur. I'm excited.

NaBloPoMo! NaNoWriMo!

Which to choose? How about both!! I have crossed the line into crazy!

Or not.

National Blog Post Month is supposed to be chiller than National Novel Writing Month, but I am adopting them both with the same spirit. For the novel thing, I'm not thinking of a novel.. I just want to get some words on paper. The same with the blog. I'm not trying to write deep, insightful posts every day, I'm just doing a little expressing. And I want to introduce a kind of routine, or rather, rhythm, to my life. (Right now the rhythm is like this: AHH CRAZY AWESOME WEEKEND OR WEEKNIGHT, AHH SHIT WORK, AHH SO EXHAUSTED BUT AHH STUFF TO DO, AHH CRAZY AWESOME WEEKEND OR WEEKNIGHT, AHH, REPEAT.) Some kind of quiet routine. Hence: a writing routine.

Wish me luck, and feel free to keep up.

another 3191

I love the grape stems in this 3191. They look very Halloweeny... like hands or creeping branches. Definitely something in motion.

MSCL

I need more free time, for a lot of reasons, but one such reason is that I need to re-watch a lot of TV shows. I've been going through this weird (for lack of a better word) parental thing with Justin because he's watching The Office from the beginning, and I'm loaning the DVDs to him, watching occasional episodes, and receiving reports on the ones he watches by himself. (Not actually as formal as it sounds.) So I'm of course feeling this pang of nostalgia for the first watching of the Office, an experience really that no one can understand until they've watched them all and are witnessing someone else do it for the first time (hence my use of the word parental). I'm also feeling the need to re-watch all the Wes Andersen movies, because I saw The Darjeeling Limited a couple of weeks ago, and I need to re-read and re-watch Wonder Boys, because I recommended the book to my friend Peattie and now can't remember anything about it. This is a disturbing trend given how much new media I have that I'm behind on - my Netflix are gathering dust, I am still not done with Season 1 of Deadwood, and if I delay anymore on watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer my friend Santiago might just kill me. Plus there's all the books I need to read and the New Yorkers and Believers threatening to pile up... it's a problem. Anyway, with all of this it's a really bad time for the release of the updated, apparently awesome boxed set of My So-Called Life, which I already own in old, apparently not awesome boxed set form but, well, the point is my set isn't awesome, and now that I think about it I do kind of want the awesome set. I also want to watch My So-Called Life again, and get my nostalgia on for the first time I watched that, which was sophomore year in college, while I was finishing crocheting an afghan, and I stayed up until like 4am on a school night alone in the lounge watching MSCL and crocheting in the dark. It was awesome.

Just occurred to me: Is it wrong that I have nostalgia for watching TV?

On Dumbledore & Homosexuality

It's articles like this one that make me want to be a critic and a PhD student at the same time, and yet simultaneously feel like I couldn't really be either. It's a pretty good read, and I agree with most of it (I think it's weird to see JK Rowling spouting random apocrypha about the books - it's not really necessary, the books are self-contained, and it just ends up feeling like a DVD extra or, worse, like when I used to write stories and spent more time elaborately charting my characters' minutia than I spent writing stories). What impresses me most is this:

In her outing of Dumbledore, Ms. Rowling seemed to be confirming the smarmy kiss-and-tell insinuations of her gossip-mongering character Rita Skeeter, whose lurid biography of the apparently saintly headmaster — titled “The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore” — is described in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”

“Coming next week,” a newspaper article on Skeeter promises, “the shocking story of the flawed genius considered by many to be the greatest wizard of his generation.” Skeeter drops teasing hints about Dumbledore’s “murky past,” about his not being “exactly broad-minded” and suggests that in his mentoring of Harry there is an “unnatural interest,” something “unhealthy, even sinister.” As for the idea that Ms. Rowling suggested — that as a teenage prodigy, Dumbledore had a homoerotic infatuation with another prodigious young wizard, Grindelwald (who later went over to what in “Star Wars” is called the Dark Side) — Skeeter hints at this in coded allusions.

She proposes that when the two friends had a falling out in a dramatic duel, Grindelwald did not fight but “conjured a white handkerchief from the end of his wand and” — the passage then gives way to an obvious (in retrospect) sexual double entendre.

Such homoerotic imagery, at any rate, suggests a strong mischievous streak, not just among these dueling wizards but in Ms. Rowling herself, their contemporary chronicler in the world of Muggles (which is, of course, how the wizards refer to those of us lacking wands or the magic to use them).

What a read, huh? It makes me vaguely proud of JK Rowling for hinting without saying (usually not her strongest suit), and it reminds me of when I failed to realize that Billy Budd was an allegory for Christ. My analytical skills as an English major, are, I fear, lacking. Or were.

Jumbled

I just read a bunch of McSweeney's lists and feel the need to replicate them except I only have one item for the list.

Incidentally, have you ever thought about the two main formats for McSweeney's lists? They usually go like this:

LIST OF NAMES YOU COULD CALL SOMETHING IF IT WAS OTHER THAN IT ACTUALLY IS (e.g. alternate titles for things, what someone would have written if they hadn't written something else)
-Overly complicated run-on sentence that says something pretty realistic and/or witty
-Punchline (single word, sudden seriousness in place of irony or lightheartedness, or replacement of realistic complication with something pithy and short, or something mundane in conjunction with something lofty)

That's the basic template. The important part is the punchline - it's all about timing.

Actually, it's more complicated than that. Catbirdseat does this "Music-Blogger Best of 2007 list Cheat Sheet" and it's pretty awesome. I feel like I could do a cheat sheet for McSweeney's lists. That may be forthcoming.

Doesn't mean they aren't genius. I love lists and their proliferation in society, and frequently think of (um, for example, wow, I am a nerd, I can't believe I'm about to say this) the tags/labels on my blog posts as a sort of microlist - the same goes for tagging Facebook photos. They border on found poetry.

Anyway. Here is my McSweeney's-style list for today, with only one item on it.

Things that cause me to be consumed with a combination of bewilderment, indignation, and a feeling that possibly God, if he ever existed in the first place, has forsaken me
-TiVo inexplicably failing to record the Office.

The Hills

Breaking News: Reality TV not real!

I don't watch the Hills anymore but I read recaps and news. I don't know if that's better or worse.

Unread books depress me

I got this via Pages Turned... You're supposed to indicate which of the top "unread" books on LibraryThing you have or have not read. I'll do it like she did, and bold the ones I haven't read. God, this is going to depress me.

1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (guess I should get to this sometime, I keep thinking about buying it)


2. Anna Karenina (someday)


3. Crime and punishment


4. Catch-22


5. One hundred years of solitude


6. Wuthering Heights


7. Life of Pi : a novel (started it once, but didn't finish, even though I liked where it was going and it was highly recommended. I think I have a copy at my parents' house)


8. The name of the rose


9. Don Quixote (assuming that excerpts in Spanish 3 don't count as "reading" this)


10. Moby Dick


11. Ulysses


12. Madame Bovary (LOVE IT)
    


13. The Odyssey (again, excerpts. I really want to read the Robert Fagles translation)


14. Pride and prejudice


15. Jane Eyre


16. A tale of two cities


17. The brothers Karamazov


18. Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies (own it, haven't read it. Think Lucie borrowed it)
    


19. War and peace


20. Vanity fair
    


21. The time traveler's wife


22. The Iliad (same as the Odyssey)


23. Emma


24. The Blind Assassin


25. The kite runner (have been told I should read a Thousand Splendid Suns. It's apparently better. But I feel like I should read this before that one, but I don't really care to read this.)
    


26. Mrs. Dalloway


27. Great expectations (I'm counting this even though I read an abridged version. I just don't want to ever think about reading it again)
    


28. American gods : a novel
    


29. A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
    


30. Atlas shrugged (NO interest)
    
    
31. Reading Lolita in Tehran
    


32. Memoirs of a Geisha (Mike gave this to me for a birthday. Have not read it.)
    


33. Middlesex
    


34. Quicksilver (what is this?)
    


35. Wicked


36. The Canterbury tales
    


37. The historian : a novel


38. A portrait of the artist as a young man (I didn't finish it. I was like 15 pages from the end. I am a bad person.)


39. Love in the time of cholera


40. Brave new world


41. The Fountainhead
    


42. Foucault's pendulum
    


43. Middlemarch (I actually want to read this because I listened to Rachel talk about it all the time when she was writing a massive paper on it)
    


44. Frankenstein


45. The Count of Monte Cristo


46. Dracula


47. A clockwork orange (borrowed this from Pablo. Did not read it. Returned it.)


48. Anansi boys : a novel
    


49. The once and future king (REALLY need to do this sometime. I've read the Sword and the Stone. Can't believe with Mom as my mom, I haven't read this)
    


50. The grapes of wrath


51. The poisonwood Bible : a novel


52. 1984


53. Angels & demons (I would literally have to be tortured into submission to read this book)


54. The inferno (really want to read the entire Comedy someday, especially after I read a New Yorker review of the latest translation)


55. The satanic verses (Own it. Started it twice. Really need to get back to it)


56. Sense and sensibility


57. The picture of Dorian Gray


58. Mansfield Park


59. One flew over the cuckoo's nest (bought it, haven't read it)


60. To the lighthouse


61. Tess of the D'Urbervilles (actually want to read this. I liked the movie, and I liked Jude the Obscure a lot)


62. Oliver Twist (don't much care)


63. Gulliver's travels (for school! twice! or, like, once and a half!)


64. Les misérables (started it, put it down. it's fat)


65. The corrections


66. The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay : a novel


67. The curious incident of the dog in the night-time (should I care?)


68. Dune


69. The prince (Read this on Diane's urging in high school. I find that funny.)
    


70. The sound and the fury (still haven't read any Faulker. Bad English major.)


71. Angela's ashes : a memoir


72. The god of small things (sadly, still haven't finished this, but started it and read a LOT of it, TWICE)


73. A people's history of the United States : 1492-present (have wanted to read this for ages, just haven't built up the nerve)
    


74. Cryptonomicon (what the hell is this)
    


75. Neverwhere (ditto #74)
    


76. A confederacy of dunces (my mom hated it, but other people I know loved it. What do I do?)


77. A short history of nearly everything


78. Dubliners
    


79. The unbearable lightness of being
    


80. Beloved : a novel (honestly? no interest. )


81. Slaughterhouse-five


82. The scarlet letter


83. Eats, Shoots & Leaves
    


84. The mists of Avalon (boy does this take me back)
    


85. Oryx and Crake : a novel


86. Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed (kinda wanted to pick this up from my boss's bookshelf. resisted. stayed employed)


87. Cloud atlas : a novel (started it. didn't finish! this is a bad pattern.)


88. The confusion (?)


89. Lolita


90. Persuasion


91. Northanger abbey


92. The catcher in the rye


93. On the road
    


94. The hunchback of Notre Dame (don't know if I care)


95. Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of…
    


96. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance : an inquiry into … (borrowed from Jordi, freshman year)
    


97. The Aeneid (same as Odyssey & Iliad. I'm weak on the Greeks, what can I say?)
    


98. Watership Down (bought it. have yet to read it)


99. Gravity's rainbow (bought it used, started, read about a page. will read it someday. sigh)


100. In cold blood (someday)
     


101. White teeth


102. Treasure Island (I think I was supposed to read this, and did not)
     


103. David Copperfield (considered borrowing my sister's copy once)


104. The three musketeers
     


105. Cold mountain


106. Robinson Crusoe (no, THIS, not Treasure Island, was what I was supposed to read and did not)


107. The bell jar


108. The secret life of bees (ugh, unfortunately)


109. Beowulf : a new verse translation (have had this for years. have still not read it. Really want to. someday.)


110. The plague


111. The Master and Margarita
     


112. Atonement : a novel


113. The handmaid's tale


114. Lady Chatterley's lover

edited: I realized I had read On the Road.

More book memes. I'm a nerd.

How many books do you own? No idea... My guess is around 200, here in SF.

Last book you bought? Just bought "Not Fade Away," "Ulysses," "Infinite Jest," "No Country for Old Men," and "Saturday" on Amazon a couple of weeks ago. Oh no! wait! it was "High Fidelity" and "Slam," the new Nick Hornby book, at Borrone's when I went to a reading. Oops... I may have a problem. I black out my book buying.

Last book someone bought you? I can't remember. I think it was "The Book Thief" which my mom got me for Valentine's Day. My friend Christian gave me "The Road," but he didn't buy it for me.. just gave me his copy.

Last book read? David Foster Wallace's "Supposedly Fun Thing I'll never do again" - and now I'm on Chabon's "Mysteries of Pittsburgh," as you loyal goodreads.com-ers know.

Five books that mean a lot to me:

The Dwindling Party. I really want to get my own copy of this, but it's so much money now, since it's out of print. It's really sad and awful, but my aunt and uncle's house was in danger during the fires in Running Springs, CA, and the first thing I thought about was this book, somewhere in their bookshelves. (I should probably clarify that they themselves, and their pets, and their essentials, were and are safe at my parents' house. Also that, thank god, their house is out of danger now.)

The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes. I have this memory of my sister giving this to me the Christmas I was six years old. IF that memory is accurate, then she had nothing to do with actually picking it out, since she would have been 3 at the time. But I remember that, and so this is the most precious of my many Calvin and Hobbes books (even excluding the deluxe edition that weighs about 80 pounds).

Timequake, by Kurt Vonnegut. This was the first Vonnegut I read, and it's a backward way to go about reading him. It basically repeats everything from all the other books, all his little wisdoms. But it was first, and I loved it first, so I still love it, even though I have read everything else he's written which is arguably better or more original.

(This is starting to get really hard. I feel like I am excluding things.)

The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I wrote the author of this book because I LOVED it, so so much. I illustrated it with watercolor pencils (remember those?) I got busted for "reading ahead" in 5th grade when, home sick I finished this book the day after we started it, and went back the next day totally jazzed about talking about it and then really disappointed when it turned out I couldn't share and also sad my teacher yelled at me for reading ahead. Yes, this is a great book.

I guess it's time to go for an adult book, besides Timequake. For that, the Unbearable Lightness of Being, because it is, to quote Nellie Olsen, too-too. (That is what she says, right? In a later book, though.)

Ack!! No! I take it back! I will say instead The Long Winter, because how could I not include a Laura Ingalls Wilder book in this list? And, why the Long Winter? Because it is long and depressing and heartwarming and scary all at once, and because Almanzo came back with the wheat.

Josh

Whenever I think of Josh Ritter, in the back of my mind I hear my friend Rachel say the name "Josh," since for a while her cousin was his drummer (not sure when he stopped). I saw Josh Ritter perform in London three years ago, and afterwards we went out with him and the band to some bar called Crowbar somewhere off of Oxford Street (ok, I admit it, my memory is extremely hazy). Last night I saw him again, two albums later, at Bimbo's in San Francisco (a venue that reminds me vaguely of the House of Blues or the Fillmore, only smaller).

It was a great show. He seemed like he was having fun, and I love it when musicians seem like they are having fun. In fact he seemed positively giddy. He played all of the songs I would have wanted him to play except for "Me and Jiggs," which I have fond memories of him playing before. Seriously, I feel like I've been trying to get people to listen to him for ages, including my parents, who I feel like should definitely like him, but no one has. So without further ado I present you with Emily's guide to Josh Ritter songs and awesomeness.

I was very happy when he rolled into Kathleen and a disco ball started going. I really, really love this song. Laurel and Rachel and I used to be obsessed with it, and I still am. It fits into the genre of art I feel like I appreciate either more or less than I would if I had had relationships in high school. I think I appreciate it more, but because I just imagine that maybe this is what it would have been like. Sorry I couldn't find a better video for it. You can actually download it form his website or by right clicking here and selecting save.



One of the great things he did last night was play a couple of songs entirely acoustically. Meaning, he unplugged the guitar and stepped away from the mic and just sang. It was pretty amazing to have the entire club silent, no sound, no falling bottles, just a slightly-mood-ruining air conditioner blowing in the background. Here's the song he played like this for the encore:



I listened to this next song on repeat for about three months straight. I'm pretty sure I've posted it before. He played it last night and the only downside was that he let the audience sing along, which sometimes bums me out. I'd rather he just sing it, or maybe let the audience sing along if it's in a tiny venue:





This song was the big surprise for me last night. I hadn't really listened a whole lot to the new album, and so I'd missed this one. I think it's my new favorite. You can download it here until Thursday Nov 1.



I guess part of the reason I like Josh's music is that it's sort of grounded in all that Western lore I'm so into. It makes me think of Lonesome Dove.

Couple more things:
"Empty Hearts" may just be my New Year's resolution song
"Still Beating" was the other all-acoustic-no-mic song and really lovely.
"Harrisburg" is kind of awesome.
"Mind's Eye" was the rockout song at the end -- I think -- when the whole band wore Roman legionnaire's helmets. I love this new trend in music where people just wear crazy shit that has nothing to do with anything, like Sufjan Stevens and his whole band wearing fairy butterfly costumes.