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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Photo Friday: Best of 2006

...'one'?

Merry Christmas, dear people.

You People Scare Me

Did you know about this? I certainly didn't.

Greatness

Look at THIS!

The raging wonderfulness of Flickr never ceases to amaze me.

Dream Girl Indeed.

In my dream last night, I met Twisty Faster.

Twisty is the nom de blog the creator of I Blame the Patriarchy. She is the best writer on the internet, or at least currently active in the blogosphere.

(I do miss getupgrrl, especially now, around Hanukkah.)

In my dream, I was in Austin (which is indeed the home of IBTP), leaving some sort of a conference or summer camp or something, and needed to use a phone. I stopped at a smallish house, really a cottage, with the door standing mostly open. I knocked and stuck my head in, and there in a mudroomish sort of area were 3 women, laughing and talking, relaxed and happy, doing something like potting up seedlings. 2 had garden gloves and one was potting with her bare hands. She didn't speak while I was there, just smiled sort of shyly, distractedly. She had cropped brown hair, a face that was both long and broad, high cheekbones and a big bold handsome nose.

I don't know how I knew it was Twisty, since she and I didn't speak, and no one introduced anyone (and of course I've never seen her IRL) but in the dream, I felt abashed and a tiny bit starstruck - honored, even - to be standing in someone's mudroom with Twisty Faster.

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

In other news, Christmas shopping is practically accomplished. I kicked ass, I took names, and, to paraphrase Stephen C, then I kicked the ass' names. It's the most wonderful time of the year.

for all your candlelight family service needs:

It's the Questionable Christmas Children's Word Find!

IF you go looking for printable children's Christmas activity sheets on the internet, you'll find that 80% of them focus on Santa, elves, penguins (trendy, sure, but Christmassy? Hmmm...I guess they live at a pole.)

Another 18% are designed for 8-year-olds who have a year or two of seminary behind them. 'Naphtali'? Really? In a children's circle-the-word puzzle? I had never seen that before. Perhaps the brand name for myrrh? In fact, it's an OT guy, who had land and lakes named after him, which figure in the Isaiah prohesy. So there. It's probably in the Messiah and I just never heard it.

And then, finally, you find a nice simple nativity-oriented word search, with some cute clip art and some words you're pretty sure that little kids will recognize.

Including for that one in the second row.

The kids will be coloring on Sunday night. And that's all.

(honestly, I am ashamed at how long and hard I laughed at this. I carried it around to other staff offices. No one is quite as immature as I am, but they did all snicker.)

me again

I am still alive.

I do not have a novel for you. Perhaps next year.

Though I am usually the family's designated Christmas shopper (because I love it, and because I am one of the world's most effective and efficient bargain hunters)I have not purchased ONE SINGLE PRESENT for ANYONE.

We do have the most beautiful tree ever; it's a small one (we chose to do a 5-ish foot tree on a table, to keep most of it away from the kid) and it is fragrant, perfectly shaped, and somehow just uniquely precious. I guarantee you that I will cry in January when we have to haul it out to the curb.

Unbelieveably, I am watching an old episode of Extreme Makeover because I am too lazy to get up and find the remote...even though I know House is on.

I should be designing our Christmas card.

Almost as good as Beth's

You are The Hierophant

Divine Wisdom. Manifestation. Explanation. Teaching.

All things relating to education, patience, help from superiors.The Hierophant is often considered to be a Guardian Angel.

The Hierophant's purpose is to bring the spiritual down to Earth. Where the High Priestess between her two pillars deals with realms beyond this Earth, the Hierophant (or High Priest) deals with worldly problems. He is well suited to do this because he strives to create harmony and peace in the midst of a crisis. The Hierophant's only problem is that he can be stubborn and hidebound. At his best, he is wise and soothing, at his worst, he is an unbending traditionalist.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

via my bff, bww.

and now this

from dethroner (viewer discretion advised: drug references)
via sweetney.

Our new office motto

I am so sad that this isn't available in my size.
buy one.

Incidentally, our other office motto.

Sorry, we're closed.

Thanks for stopping by. I am taking a break from blogging for the month of November. You can probably find me here, should you be so inclined.

If you're withering away without your daily dose of ME, you can check my archives here and at:
Flickr and
my baby blog.

See y'all in 50,000 words.

bon voyage

I'm going on blog vacation! (Ah, would that I were going on an ACTUAL vacation, but that's not in the cards at the moment. In church, as in retail, we're just barrelling into nutty season.) But I will be snubbing you all, turning my back on the blogosphere for a month, while I concentrate my energies on something really crazy.

Husband and I enjoyed Halloween. Our 10-month-old did not, particularly, until he could get home and peel off his lovingly-selected bunny costume and run around the living room in his diaper.

I heard this guy on the radio the other day; I think I'll be reading his book (at least one) in December.

Nobody do anything interesting for a month, okay?

the power of art direction -

I've declared my intention to write a novel in a month with NaNoWriMo, but I would be remiss if I didn't point out that NaBloPoMo has a really really really good logo.

And an even better motto.

couldn't possibly be lovelier:

I did not write this, sad to say. Unbelievably, it's a recruiting pamphlet from a college.

AT THIS VERY MOMENT, somewhere in the world. . . .
a woman is reading a letter from her son, announcing his engagement to a girl the mother has never met; a five-year-old boy is sitting in a Laundromat in front of a large commercial dryer, reading a comic book while a pink stuffed rabbit tosses around and around; it’s spring somewhere, and somewhere else it’s autumn and the papermakers go down to the railroad tracks to collect the dried milkweed stalks; a movie star is eating Chicken Vandalia out of a white cardboard container in a hotel room while watching a TV program about typecasting in ancient China; a large number of people have the same cold; a man writes a love letter, carefully shaping the letters on the creamy white paper, imagining his beloved’s face as she reads the words he is writing; an artist is loading slides into a carousel as he prepares to give a lecture about Japanese washi; a baby has just said his first word (doggy) and an old woman has just said her last words (Don’t forget–); a young graduate student is sewing together an Ethiopian style book, and humming to himself; a small group of women are sitting on a porch in a rural village watching a meteor shower, and a man in the same village watches the same cascade of meteors, and writes a poem about it; a man and a woman stand on opposite sides of a bed, smiling at each other; a third grader makes his first sheet of paper; books are burning; printing presses are churning out tomorrow’s news; at this very moment, somewhere in the world, you are reading these words, holding this slender pamphlet in your hands and thinking about the things you want to make, the ideas you haven’t turned into reality yet. Somewhere in the world there’s the perfect place to work on these ideas of yours; that place is here, at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. Wish you were here.

The Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts

Good Lord. A college brochure made me cry.

It even has an excellent URL: http://bookandpaper.org/

via Notebookism



LINK