Eden in Menlo Park...

I was reading Gothamist this morning, and saw this sidebar ad for the the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals. I am such a sucker for stuff like this!

Anyway, I am not about to adopt another cat but, while browsing the Alliance site, I came across something I might do...

Cage Comforters: Small Quilts Changing the Lives of Shelter Animals

I love the instructions! Obviously geared toward people who have never (or rarely) sewn.

2007 has been a very bad year for me, reading-wise. I am a bit ashamed to admit that I have yet to complete a book this year. I have started a few books, but haven't gotten through any of them. For the last few months, I have been carrying A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters around in my purse, half-read and getting more ragged by the day (sorry PMD!). I don't like to give up on books, but I am also pretty much incapable of reading multiple books at one time, so if I'm in the middle of a book that I'm not really into, I tend to hold onto it with the hope of finishing for quite a while rather than starting something new and coming back to whatever book I'm struggling with at a later date.

In any case, today I decided that reading at least one book in 2007 was more important to me than finishing the book I am currently reading. Armed with a $25 gift certificate, I headed to Border's on my lunch break in search of a book, or books, I was confident I could finish.

This was a tough task, because it's been so long, I didn't really know what I was in the mood for. I started by looking for John Berger*, but the store had none. It was kind of silly for me to look for him anyway - I have two books of his at home that I have not read and want to. I looked at Paul Auster for a little while, but last year someone pointed out to me that all his books have an almost identical trajectory, which involves the same story repeating itself, with slight variations, over the course of the novel. I can't explain it very well, but it's totally true of Moon Palace and The Book of Illusions, both of which I loved, but I was afraid that noticing something like this might hamper me now, so I decided against Auster. Other go-to writers for me have included A.S. Byatt (I own every book she's written already, and have read all but 2 and just am not in the mood), Zola (they had nothing I hadn't read at Border's), Raymond Queneau (I was afraid he was not quite plot-driven enough for my current ailment)...

After nearly an hour of looking, I came back to the office with two books: Cousin Bette by Balzac and The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk. I think I will read the Balzac first. The French classics have often treated me well during times of reader's block. As for the Pamuk, I read (and loved) Snow in just a couple days last year, and have been meaning to read something else by him. And the cover of this one says it's "Pamuk's Masterpiece" (according to the Times Literary Supplement.)

Anyway, wish me luck! Also, if you have any sufficiently engaging but also literary books to recommend, please share!


*Can I say I am very disappointed there's no photo of John Berger on the Wikipedia page? I might have to find one and add it. He was a very handsome young man and is a totally awesome-looking old man.

1. Crowds make me hateful and aggressive.

2. Dudes facing each other getting all masturbatory on their guitars really pleases a crowd.

3. People at larger concerts are largely unconcerned about NYC's indoor smoking laws.

4. Playing drums is a serious aerobic workout.

5. Hammerstein Ballroom has good sound.

6. Hammerstein Ballroom has enthusiastic lighting technicians.

7. (As I have long suspected) some Wilco songs are really conducive to hippie-dancing.

This was a weekend (plus) of summer activities. I love summer!

Thursday night I went to a Cyclones game. After three innings it started pouring. The stadium in the rain was amazing and beautiful.

Friday my work had our annual summer outing. We went on a lunch cruise departing from Chelsea Piers, sailing (um... not in a sailboat, does that mean we were just boating? cruising?) around the southern tip of Manhattan as far up on the east side as the Manhattan Bridge and back. It was a beautiful day for the trip, and always a pleasure to go on a 3-hour pleasure cruise rather than spend 8 hours in the office. Also, I biked to and from Chelsea, which was great.

Saturday I biked to Coney Island for the Mermaid Parade with my friend Damien. Despite the crowds, we managed to meet up with about a dozen additional acquaintances. We rode the Cyclone and drank Bud on the beach.

Yesterday I got my mom and her husband to come out to the Red Hook soccer fields with me for lunch, which was a more fun than usual way to hang out with them. Last night I went to a BBQ in the Village as the Gay Pride parade was winding down. I had grilled pizza and ate the first oyster of my life.

I'm so happy there are three more months of this ahead! I want to enjoy every minute of this summer.

When it comes to some things, I am a total sucker.

Which is why I am actually considering placing a bet on Rags to Riches in the Belmont Stakes.

I wanna see a girl filly win the big race!

So, after pomo_drunkard told me that Francis Ford Coppola was prepared to start shooting On The Road this year, I went straight to Google Entertainment News to find out more. Here is what I learned:

Rumor has it that Lindsay Lohan was the cause of Marilyn Manson's divorce!
"Playboy model, Dita Von Teese reportedly split up with her rocker husband, Marilyn Manson because she was tired of his constant partying and closeness to Lindsay Lohan."

In other news, Britney is dating a K-Fed lookalike!
"Britney Spears was spotted Saturday zipping around in a boat off Marina del Rey, Calif., with a guy whose artfully groomed stubble, low-slung, underwear-exposing jeans and kerchief were straight out of Kevin Federline's stylebook."

Peter Jackson is still not going to direct The Hobbit (isn't this old news?)
"Cinema-goers enthralled by Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and desperate to see his proposed adaptation of The Hobbit might be set for a very long wait indeed."

And they're making a movie of Mamma Mia, the musical based on the songs of ABBA.
And Sofia Loren's husband was fat and is now dead.
And Marcia Cross is homebound until her twins are born.
And the mom from the Munsters died.
And absolutely nothing about the On The Road movie.

Here is what a Google news search of on the road brings up. (Who knows... this link may prove useful as news of the movie actually does start coming out.)


Why I even care about the On The Road movie (or, for that matter, any of the information NEWS! I posted above) is beyond me. I'm not even a fan of the book. Actually, maybe if I was I would be more horrified and less amused.

EDIT: Thanks to olamina for bringing my attention to the On The Road IMDB page. Apparently this too is old news! There was a BBC report on it from 2001. Of course, everything has changed since then.

( My Interests Collage! )

This is fun!

This is so exciting! constintina noticed that a picture of my dear Dora's kittens got posted to Cute Overload. Yay!

So, I got tagged by alice_ayers for this seven songs thing. I feel like I've done this one before not that long ago. But I gather the question is, like, "what have you been listening to lately?", so I think I can respond without too much overlap. Especially because what I have been listening to lately has mostly been records. Records! Because pomo_drunkard got me a record player for my birthday! (Thank you!!!!) Apparently, he was tired of hearing me say, "Hey, I have that album. On vinyl," each time followed by a complaint about my lack of a record player. Anyway, recently I have been listening to and liking (in no particular order):

1. "Night" by Bruce Springsteen
2. "Como Tu" by Nicolas Casimiro
3. "Tell Me One More Time" by Joe Jackson
4. "Girlfriend is Better" by the Talking Heads
5. "Dance With Me" by the Modern Lovers
6. "Martha" by Tom Waits
7. "Free Money" by Patti Smith

So, I'm not going to tag anyone since I have done this before.

This was at my birthday party, nearly a month ago. I was indicating my mis-spelled name on my cake.

It will be very interesting to see if the Vatican's position on condom-use for the prevention of HIV/AIDS is any more enlightened than the Bush Administration's.

Where am I going to watch the Superbowl??

Jerome is going to the Superbowl!

... a lover of winter sports concludes with joy that the cold weather is at hand when he sees the swallows fly south.

I finished 21 books this year. In order, they were:

To The Wedding by John Berger
The Locked Room by Paul Auster
Within A Budding Grove by Marcel Proust
The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust
What Maisie Knew by Henry James
Sodom & Gomorrah by Marcel Proust
The Immoralist by Andre Gide
Still Life by A.S. Byatt
Babel Tower by A.S. Byatt
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust
Time Regained by Marcel Proust
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
Blue Angel by Francine Prose
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen
Emma by Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

Some thoughts:
It's quite a relief to have Proust behind me.
I've loved Gide for years, but had never read The Immoralist. I find I often avoid reading the most well known books by authors. Like, I love Anthony Burgess, but have never read A Clockwork Orange.
I had never read Jane Austen before the fall of 2004, when we were subletting the apartment in Williamsburg and I ran out of my own reading material. I found Pride & Prejudice on the shelf and read it and loved it. (I found Swann's Way on the shelf too, which is what started me on Proust - I had never seriously considered reading him before that...). Anyway, after we saw Pride & Prejudice: The Movie I remembered how much I had liked the book and I went out and bought the 4 books listed here and read them all back to back.
Loving Jane Austen is also, kind of, what led to my reading Tom Jones (which I finished yesterday, and absolutely loved.) I got kind of hooked on comic (and romantic) English literature, though Fielding is a lot more bawdy, and funnier, really, than Jane Austen.

And now I will declare a favorite:
Tom Jones. Seriously. Though, to be fair, it also has the advantage of being very fresh in my mind.

From my list, I also recommend:
Snow (this was so good)
Northanger Abbey (if you didn't read it in, like, high school)
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (if you're prepared to give up your life for a couple weeks, because I couldn't stop reading it - even ausgeflippter couldn't stop reading it, and he hates books that do that to you)


Happy New Year!

On October 5, 2005, I finished Proust. The last book was pretty painful, and took me a lot longer to get through than it ought to have, but I did the whole thing in under a year, and I'm happy about that. I signed up for Netflix, and we got our first movie on Friday - Time Regained. I had seen it when it first came out, but was curious to see it again when I could make more sense of it. The effect of the movie is very different when you know who everyone is and where these things are happening, because the film itself is very disjointed. However, I failed to stay awake because, as usual, we started watching it rather late and it's a long movie.

Anyway, finishing Proust has left me both relieved and in a bit of a crisis. I had one book on my reading list - Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, which had been sitting on my desk for months after a friend sent it to me, but I finished that very quickly. Now I am reading Snow, which is really good, but is also going really fast. So tell me:

1. What are you reading?
2. Should I read it?
3. What should I read?


Please note: I prefer to read fiction. I prefer books over, like, 400 pages.

1. I have somewhat severe asthma
2. It has gotten worse since we got little Dora
3. We will keep Dora nevertheless
4. My asthma may have helped me get my current job
5. I mentioned it in my cover letter
6. When I was a kid, I went to Asthma Camp at the YMCA in Park Slope
7. When I was a kid, my asthma was really severe
8. When I was a kid, we had a cat and a dog
9. Then later on, after my dog died, we had 2 cats
10. I had regular asthma attacks until 1999, when I started taking a then-new medication, Pulmicort
11. I frequently extol the virtues of Pulmicort and how it changed my life
12. I still take Pulmicort daily
13. Up until recently, this meant I hardly ever had to use my "fast-acting" inhaler, which contains albuterol
14. Since we got Dora, I have to take my albuterol inhaler about twice a day
15. When I was a kid, I could have been described as sickly
16. I am afraid I'm going to become sickly again
17. In addition to asthma, I was also allergic to many foods as a kid
18. Most notably, I had a topical allergy to milk that caused me to break out in a rash and my throat to close up when I had diary products
19. This meant I had constantly to watch what I ate at friends' houses, and was not a very fun guest
20. I had lots of friends anyway, I guess it was mostly a hassle for their parents

That took 6 minutes. If you are one of the following 6 users, consider yourself tagged:
patpumpernickel
nudnik
superchango
confusingwizard
rockemstockem (yes, J. Rock, this is a pathetic attempt to get you to start posting here instead of just telling us here that you posted there.)
bklyndispatch


And now 7 songs. I'm not sure exactly what this list is supposed to be, but here are seven songs I've been wanting to hear a lot lately:

1. No More Auction Block For Me - Paul Robeson
2. Jesus Etc. - Wilco
3. I Want Some Sugar in My Bowl - Nina Simone
4. Redondo Beach - Patti Smith
5. Jersey Girl - Tom Waits and/or Bruce Springsteen
6. Because I Love You - Lenny Williams
7. Love TKO - Teddy Pendergrass

And now I have to tag 7 people:
astronomick
ausgeflippter
totalvirility (I know you got tagged for something already, but I'm hoping it was the other thing.)
saintpeg
never_the_less (btw - I'm choosing you because reading your journal over the years has made me aware of a lot of music I might not otherwise be aware of)
olde_tymer (and friend me back while you're at it -- or else! I know where to find you...)
lifenxcess
You're it!

Now, I hope all of you know the rules, because I'm doing this from email while at work and I'm not going to be bothered to find them and cut and paste.

ausgeflippter laughed at me over my shoulder about every decision I made in taking this quiz, but that's because he's a nerd and he knew what would be the result of my answers, so it's cool.

I Am A: Neutral Good Elf Cleric Bard


Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered 'normal'.


Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.


Primary Class:
Clerics are the voices of their God/desses on Earth. They perform the work of their deity, but this doesn't mean that they preach to a congregation all their lives. If their deity needs something done, they will do it, and can call upon that deity's power to accomplish their goals.


Secondary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to make other people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend to dabble in magic a bit.


Deity:
Lathander is the Neutral Good god of spring, dawn, birth, and renewal. His followers believe in new beginnings, and work for the betterment of all. They have no preferred weapon, but they typically wear plate mail and a shield, with red and yellow tinting. Lathander's symbol is rosy pink disk, typically cut from rose quartz.


Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy ofNeppyMan (e-mail)

Dear Unbelievably Thoughtful Village Voice Employee Who Found My Phone In A Cab In The Wee Hours On Sunday Morning And Subsequently Called My Mom To Track Me Down And Arranged For Me To Come Pick It Up At The Security Desk Of Your Office Today,
You are awesome! awesome! awesome!
Very Truly Yours,
hadaly

So, given that my neighborhood wasn't actually an option, I am very impressed. I live about 6 blocks from the border of Prospect Heights. And about 7 blocks from the border of my #2 neighborhood, Bed-Stuy (though, not Bed-Stuy north - I live near Medina). And I really tried to answer honestly, not to tailor my answers to where I live now.

Oh and EDIT: I also think it's really interesting that I should like Coney Island about as much as I like Fort Greene. Really interesting.

You scored as Prospect Heights. You should live in Prospect Heights! Being near the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, The Brooklyn Public Library, and Propsect Park, who needs Manhattan? There are some nice apartment buildings here, and if you look hard, you should still be able to find a bargain. There is some good southern food around this area too -- yum. </td> Prospect Heights 90% Navy Yard/Clinton Hill/Bed-Stuy north 70% Fort Greene 63% Coney Island 63% Sunset Park 63% Greenpoint 53% Williamsburg 50% Redhook 47% Boerum Hill/Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens 40% East Williamsburg/ 40% Brooklyn Heights 40% Park Slope 37% Manhattan 27% DUMBO 10% What Brooklyn Neighborhood Should You Live In? created with QuizFarm.com

I've never really considered living in Harlem, but that's because I've never really considered living outside of Brooklyn, but I suppose if I ever did think about living in Manhattan, Harlem would be one of my first choice neighborhoods. It's kind of the Manhattan equivalent of where I live now. But it's soooo far. From Brooklyn, I mean.

You scored as Harlem. Harlem stretches from Central Park North to the Harlem River and from Fifth Avenue to St. Nicholas Avenue. This is the nation's most famous black neighborhood. Harlem is not just African American; many recent African immigrants live around the 116th St area. The older areas such as Striver's Row and Edgecomb have been totally renovated. You can't find a brownstone for less than 800K these days. But despite the rapid gentrification, Harlem retains many of its charms. On hot days take a folding chair and sit one the sidewalk with your pals and talk about politics and who makes the best BBQ Thanks for taking my test! -Susan </td> Harlem 61% Inwood 50% China Town 45% Kips Bay 44% Chelsea 44% El Barrio 33% Alphabet City 33% Washington Heights 33% Hell’s Kitchen/ Theatre District 28% Upper West Side/ Morningside Heights 22% SoHo/ TriBeCa 17% Upper East Side 0% Stuyvesant Town 0% Financial District/Battery Park 0% Which neighborhood in Manhattan is best for you? created with QuizFarm.com

So, I was going to tell the story about being blocked into a parking spot by a semi very late last night, but amillionandone has already shared, so instead I'll just plug 311. I love 311. When we got to the car and discovered the predicament, I knew exactly what to do (after honking a bit first, of course): I called 311. A nice young(?) man answered the line, I explained that I was parked on Chrystie Street and that there was a very large truck not permitting me to disempark and go on my way. He took all the details of the situation, displayed just the right amount of sympathy, and gave me a confirmation number (that's always so reassuring*), and told me he would report the situation to the local precinct. Of course, we actually solved the problem ourselves (thank you amillionandone - having to knock on the side of the sleeping compartment of a semi late at night on a deserted street is not a situation a girl wants to be in alone) before there was any official response, so for all I know there may never have been one. All the same (and this is going to sound totally ridiculous, but) 311 made me feel empowered. I didn't cry in frustration (which is something that happens to me a lot in these sorts of situations, and, to be honest, might have happened had I been alone), I didn't panic (which is actually not something I'm prone to do), no, thanks to 311, I had an appropriate response. But now I had better stop this overly enthusiastic endorsement of 311 before anyone suspects me of, like, loving Bloomberg or something.

*Actually, I really can't decide whether conformation numbers are reassuring at all, but something made me feel reassured, so I decided maybe it was that.

Both because I'm trying to do this meme, and because I can only think of one thing I've done that others probably haven't. And I didn't even 'do' it exactly - I mean, it's a passive activity. Purely by chance I've:
1. Been in the Sahara when it rained.

I had a very low-key Christmas, which is how I like it to be. ausgeflippter and I spent the holiday with my dad (recently freed, due to the passing of my grandmother, from his obligation to spend the holiday in Wichita, KS, as he has done every year) in Philadelphia. We sat around the house deliberately not listening to Christmas music. We played with cats. We ate lots of fish. So did the cats. Around midday Christmas day, once my headache could no longer be ignored, we ventured out to Dunkin Donuts for coffee. My mother chose this opportune moment to call from Florida, where she was with my entire extended family. I tried not to be the asshole having loud personal conversations in small spaces, but was forced to be when my (still living) grandmother was put on the phone. Evidently she'd had a bit of champagne, which may or may not have been the cause of her difficulty in using my mom's cell phone. The big news was that my cousin's boyfriend proposed to her in front of the whole family on Christmas morning (which precipitated the champagne that got my grandma drunk). ausgeflippter and I thought that was a bit presumptuous, but my cousin sounded happy. We drove back home Christmas night. Reckless drivers abounded. In Cherry Hill, NJ, we saw a really bad car accident. The car was twisted and unrecognizable. This led me to what ought to have been a non-revelation: that no matter how much bad drivers piss me off, they really don't deserve to die. It also made me glad I don't live in Jersey anymore and that I have rarely to drive.