Sunday, January 28, 2007

How uncool am I?

...that I had to read about this in the freaking Sunday New York Times (EDIT: This was incorrect. It was the Washington Post. Which is probably worse, in the coolness area.) I had never seen it - or heard any mention of this video - until tonight.

I am old, old, old.

Did you catch David Byrne? It's quick, and a little obscure. I whooped so loudly when I saw him that Eric thought the cats were fighting.

Monday, January 22, 2007

okay, 5 things meme

I have given up trying to be profound or self-revelatory (if that's even a word.)
Here are 5 rather mundane things that you may not know about me.

1. I know the words to every song. This is my superpower - some people are polymaths, some people (like my brother) have an astonishing memory, some people have perfect pitch. I have the ability to recall the lyrics to literally several hundred songs. It's possible that I know more than a thousand. Everything. Camp songs, pop songs, long sections of chorales, all the verses of hymns, and entirely too many show tunes. Just to balance things out, I am completely unable to memorize telephone numbers, PIN codes, or the multiplication tables.

2. My parents met at the counter of a soda fountain in 1953. Sitting on those round chrome stools with red leather seats. I hasten to mention they were not teenagers - there were no bobbysocks or poodle skirts involved.

3. I grew up in a house where my father did all the housework, all the cooking (all the edible cooking, at least) and the lion's share of the child-tending.

4. My mother, father and brother were all professional photographers. I pretty much never took a picture in my life until I was in my 40s, when my husband gave me my first digital camera. I started to call that gift "the biggest change in my life.." and then I remembered that I had a baby 13 months ago, so I don't think I'm allowed to say that about taking pictures. Nonetheless, taking pictures (and sharing them on the web) has become kind of a big thing for me. (And I do have some awfully photogenic subjects sitting around my house.)
check out my brother's work.
and my Flickr stream.

5. My favorite dish is Tom Ka Gai. (PLEASE NOTE: I have not tested the linked recipe - I only include it to show what it is. Although it does have four-and-a-half stars, so I may in fact try it.) My favorite dessert is creme brulee, though I am also extremely fond of Tres Leche cake and Thai sticky rice.

Bonus:
The question I am most frequently asked is what kind of hair dye I use.
The answer is: Special Effects USA, available at Hot Topic ALTHOUGH it's totally worth the trip to freakin' NYC to buy it at the midtown Ricky's.
I use scary toxic powdered bleach, then Virgin Rose for the main color, and a little tasteful fingerful of Blue Velvet on the ends.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

I never get tagged...

my friend Flip has tagged me to share what he called "five important details about myself that many of you may not know…or remember."
I blather on about myself so much that I cannot imagine that there are 5 things left to reveal.

....I'm thinking! I'm thinking!



Still thinking.





Nope. I got nothing. Maybe tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

wave your hands in the air like you just don't care



So I have learned, just in the nick of time, that it's De-Lurking Week. (I think I first saw this on the excellent Metrodad.)
Anyway, check in with a comment - I'm curious who's here.

And by the way, you know I have a mommyblog, right? You know that there's a place you can go to drink in the exceptional beauty and wonder of the World's Cutest Toddler? And hear about how he lays socks across the top of his head and then grins up at you with crazy expectancy until you ask the ritual question "Is that your HAT? Do you have a HAT?"

And he just laughs and laughs.

Oh, go ahead. You know you want to. It's right here. Comment there too.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

about a purse



Okay, so as we all know, I've been feeling kind of pathetically dowdy since the birth of the World's Cutest Baby, just 55 weeks ago.

(Which is interesting, since, during my gigantic Volkswagen-van sized pregnancy, I felt absolutely fabulous - a little ungainly in the final weeks of December, maybe, but mostly 9 months of adorable, shiny, even kinda chic. Pregnant rocker girl.)

Well, my shape's not that different now from what it was last fall. That's the trouble - the pregnant rocker girl look doesn't work so much when you're not, you know, pregnant. I am utterly desparate for clothes - new clothes. I'd even settled for some of my 2-year-old clothes that don't button these days.

So I'm joining the cheap gym. I think this should help me get back into my old pants and put some roses back in my cheeks.

Since I'm planning to lose some inches, that helps diffuse some of my clothes desparation - no use buying trendy clothes that I'll be too small. I don't wear lots of jewelry, on account of the grabby baby.

So that leaves bags.

I am focusing all my desparate aquisitiveness on some ridiculously fashionable bag. Something huge and agressively trendy. Perhaps in a metallic finish. Something with buckles. Maybe a padlock.

I have practical bags. I have some cute small pre-baby bags (great for the rare trip out with no bottles, no diapers, no knitting...) I have bags that I've made, and they're artsy and creative, but they do not say "This Month's Interview Magazine!" or "Featured on Daily Candy.com!"

What I do not want is a 'real' bag. I don't want to go to Coach and spend $378 on a pink leather bag. Because I don't have $400, or even a quarter of that, to spend on...well, anything. That Betsey Johnson bag in the photo is great looking, and I'm sure its of fine quality. But if I spent $400 on a bag, I by God want to carry it for the next 10 years.

I don't want a 10 year bag. I want a right-this-minute, next-big-thing, where-on-earth-did-she-find-that-bag? bag.

For about $25.


In the midst of my attack of acquistiveness, I read this excellent paragraph in a book of personal essays by Nora Ephron. They're about being a woman of a certain age, as they say, given to me for Christmas by a fellow W of a C A.

About purses, Nora says:
I may not be good at purses, but I know that any purse that hangs stiffly on your arm...immobilizes half your body. In a modern world, your arms have to be free.

...If one of your hands is stuck carrying your purse, it means your not free for all sorts of exciting things that you could be using it for, like shoving your way through crowds, throwing your arms around loved ones, climbing the greasy pole of success, and waving madly for taxis.


- Nora Ephron, I Hate My Purse in I Feel Bad About My Neck, c. 2006, Knopf.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

What made you cry today?


In your tears,
in your blood
in your fire
and in your flood
I heard you laugh
I heard you sing

....I wouldn't change a single thing.

For you I'd wait 'til kingdom come;
Until my days...my days are done.
Just say you'll come
and set me free.
Just say you'll wait for me.


Kingdom Come
Coldplay, on X&Y, 2002



My friend Sarah used this as a soundtrack on a video recently; our office's one mac is in my office, so usually, when there's multimedia stuff being created, I'm in the room. I cried the first time she played the song for me.

And the 60 or so times I've heard it since don't seem to be diminishing the effect.

I just previewed the finished video, and stood in the booth with tears streaming down my cheeks.

Is this a song about God? About somebody's girlfriend? It certainly made me think about my husband - the first 30 times or so. Then it somehow transmuted into a Jesus song - in my head, at least (it seems arguable, reading the lyrics.)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Oh! So I have the radio on, and I'm just getting over my spiritual sniffling from the Coldplay revelation, and the crinimally trivial "Waiting on the World to Change" comes on my radio. This is a station-changer for me (Like "lips of an angel" or any Doors song except 'people are strange.') I recently argued that playing this song over the airwaves - it's a public trust, you know - is reason enough to withdraw a radio station's liscence. It's irresponsible. In every sense.

I am offended that anyone of voting age, selling records to people of voting age, could begin a song with "me and my friends, we're so misunderstood" and end it with "so we'll keep waiting for the world to change."

Barf.

I know you're young, John M., but seriously. You're more grown up than THAT.