Because white walls are boring

I've accepted the fact that getting this place to the state I want is going to be more of a marathon than a sprint. Things like money and time, they tend to slow the process down. But one major step has been accomplished: I have started the painting. This big room is a combined living room/dining area/kitchen. And eventually it will also have my office in one corner. So I figured one way to define the space was with color. This is a tad brighter than what I saw in my head, but I'm very happy with it. The other half of the room will eventually be some sort of muted reddish brickish color. Something like that.

I did this painting, with some help. I hate painting and I'm really not very good at it. Even though (as you can see) I taped out all the trim, there are still some places where the color got on the white moldings. And there are a few places where I missed little spots. Chalk it up to a) inadequate light and b) inadequate painting ability on my part. But it's done and it didn't cost me anything other than one gallon of paint and a couple rolls of masking tape. But the next time, I'm paying somebody to do it for me. I really don't like to paint.

Gettin' in that summer zone

It's not a bad thing. It's not much of a thing at all. There's just this "do-nothing" feeling that comes over me, even while I'm hatching ideas to take advantage of the beautiful summer weather. I end up lounging around, not getting dressed on the weekends until about 11:00, sitting outside with my feet up. A good time can be had for absolutely no money if you know what you're doing!

Back to the weather for a minute. It really has been (so far) a lovely summer. We have only had a handful of really hot, sticky days. Right now at nearly midnight it's cool and breezy and crystal clear. Tomorrow is going to be a gem of a day. I keep waiting for that disgusting week of high 90s every day, with really high humidity. It hasn't happened yet. Last weekend I drove out to a beautiful little nature center in New Jersey and wandered around in the woods for a while. Just perfect.

Tomorrow I'll take another picture of the little flower stalk on my snake plant. It's grown since the last one. I hope it does actually flower -- I'm dying to see what it looks like. Some of my petunias are all bloomed out so I'm on a search for replacements. And don't say impatiens! I have nothing against them in the abstract, it's just that they're everywhere. And to me they've some to represent a lack of imagination. (I hope I haven't pissed off any impatiens lovers.) And I am getting to be very fond of petunias, which I never used to care about. I think they come in way more colors than they used to. I have some dark violet ones that are really fragrant at night. I am going to go out and smell them again before I got to sleep.

Amazing discovery

Having just suffered a near-death experience last week (see previous post) my crippled snake plant suddenly sprouted what looks like a little flower stalklet. I never even knew these things bloomed! I'm absolutely stunned. Maybe it needs to be in extreme stress, and this is like a desperation move to guarantee the next generation. I know there's a pine tree whose cones only pop open with the extreme heat of a forest fire. So who knows, maybe this is similar. Or the plant doesn't give a shit and it's just doing what it wants. Or maybe it got confused. Whatever the cause, it's doing something I've never seen before. Pretty cool.

Had a small catastrophe

Fortunately, no cats were involved in it. It most concerned the snakeplant you can see in the photo below, next to the railing. Well, it had been sitting in front of the outside of the air conditioner in the living room. The A/C got turned on and ran for many hours before I stepped outside and realized that the poor plant was getting absolutely fried! I pushed it away from the heat blast but the damage had already been done. About half of its stalks had already collapsed from the heat and some of the others were burned. The way you see it now is after I performed emergency amputations and cut off all the mutilated stalks. It was a pretty big, healthy plant. Now, it's a shadow of its former self. I apologize to it every day and water it more than it actually needs, which isn't really a good idea. But I feel so bad! I'm sure it will recover eventually. This is another one of those plants that's virtually impossible to kill. But I came pretty close! At least I know now not to put any plants in front of the outside A/C vents.

A sort of a soggy 4th

It started out just kind of grey and overcast, like it looks here. By 9:00 it was alternating between drizzling and dripping. It didn't seem to dampen the fireworks -- a surprising amount of which we were able to see from here. The main stuff was elsewhere but having been there and done that I was happy to sit on my petite veranda with a couple of buddies and eat and drink and carry on just fine by ourselves. Now I'm seeing a little bit of lightning. Fireworks of a different kind. All in all a very pleasant, low-key and fairly well soused 4th. The damn sniffle is still bugging me though.

Feel like a cold is catching me

It always made more sense to me to say it that way. I try and run like hell from the cold that's trying to catch me. Many times I'm successful. I don't know about this time yet. I'll know better tomorrow. It's been a year since I had a cold. I wouldn't mind so much but ever since I had pneumonia, and then bronchitis about 8 years later, whenever I get a cold it ends up settling in my chest and I cough and hack and wheeze for about 2 weeks, long after the rest of the cold is gone. It sounds terrible, like I'm dying or something. And it's really uncomfortable. I guess my lungs are now predisposed to hang onto these things. Especially the right one, which is the one that had the pneumonia the worst I think.

On the flip side, I have a pretty strong immune system so I don't get sick very often. And I have this trick that works for me -- if I feel like I might be getting sick, I take 2 aspirin every 4 hours for about 3 days and whatever I was going to get goes away. It doesn't always work, but at least 75% of the time, which is pretty good. So I'm going to go take 2 of them before I go to bed and we'll see what happens tomorrow. You might want to try this. I can't guarantee it will work for you, but give it a try.

A pretty garden in Old Salem

I was just looking through the photos I took when I was down in North Carolina in May. We took a walk through Old Salem, which is one of those old villages like Colonial Williamburg but smaller and more modest. We didn't buy tickets so we couldn't go into the blacksmith shop or the candlemaker or whatever. Been there, done that in other places, so I didn't really care. But we walked around the little streets and looked at all the buildings. What's interesting is that there are private residences scattered throughout the place. This beautiful little - well, not so little - garden is not an exhibit but somebody's actual garden. That's like a full-time job, right there. That's beyond my gardening talents and certainly beyond my ambitions. I was always in search of the zero-maintenance garden. It doesn't exist, of course, but it was like my holy grail. Lots of daylilies; you can't kill those things. Hardy perennials, that sort of thing. Now I just have little planters filled with purple petunias, a fuschia hiding in the corner, three little tomato plants, a couple of house plants that will go in when it gets cold and a pot of mint. That's another thing you just can't kill.

A bottle of Pinot Grigio just doesn't go as far as it used to

Or maybe it goes too far. A friend came over after work today and together we polished of a bottle of chilled-not-quite-enough Pinot Grigio that I picked up on my way home. Took maybe an hour, with lots of blah blah blah in between. But it seemed liked it disappeared way too quickly. I squoze out the last few drops by wringing the neck of the bottle -- try it next time, I swear it works. But it didn't really help the contents last longer.

Fast forward several hours and I find myself still unable to do any meaningful work. Oh sure, I can pass for intelligent, but I assure you the resemblance stops there. I just don't understand how all those famous writers used to work under the influence of multiple (and large!) doses of distilled spirits. Unless they were all lying. Or maybe they were just better drinkers than I am. Ever notice how it's always the macho men who make these claims? I'll bet Joan Didion or Margaret Atwood or Toni Morrison ever talked about how they used to go out and drink the night (or day) away and then go home and polish off several brilliant chapters. Events conspire against me.

Getting to feel like home

I'm finally starting to feel like I live here instead of just visiting or pretending. Yesterday I bought new lampshades for the bedroom at a store called - appropriately - Just Shades. And guess what, that's what they sell.

I've also been collecting take-out menus from some of the restaurants nearby. So far I have ones from a Thai place (really good!), a diner (great fries and burgers), an Italian place that makes wood-fired pizzas (haven't ordered from them yet) and an Asian fusion place (haven't ordered from them either). I need to get one from the Chinese place on the next block. There's also a place called Cafe con Leche. I'm not sure what they serve but it's a pretty safe bet that it's Mexican of some sort. I have to scout out the area for others.

There's a market right on my corner. I hesitate to call it a supermarket because there isn't anything super about it. It's more like a rabbit warren. The aisles are just about wide enough for two carts to squeeze past each other. There's not a super amount of any one kind of thing, but there's a little bit of everything. And they do have some good produce. It's also open 24 hours, which doesn't mean anything to me, but it's a good place to go for a loaf of bread or some milk or things like that. Shopping here is an activity which requires a very different mindset from the 'burbs. It means going to many more places and buying fewer things at each of them. No more throwing all the bags in the back of the car. Now it's a matter of thinking, "can I carry it all?" I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and dragged the stuff home on the bus. This is why rotator cuff injuries are a common ailment in the city. Seriously, that's what my physical therapist told me when I was doing rehab on mine after surgery. She told me that it happens because people walk around the city carrying things all the time. Eventually the wear and tear causes the tendon to, well, tear. So you don't need to be a big-league pitcher to have rotator cuff surgery. I am proof.

Over-chocolatey chocolate

Since making the jump from milk to dark chocolate, I've been boldly going where my tastebuds never went before. I've been trying all kinds of "dark" and "semi-sweet" and "special dark" and all kinds of other, way goofier nomenclatures of chocolate. And I have been introduced to chocolate elitism, which if you don't know, is very similar to coffee elitism. I swear I heard these two people in Whole Foods involved in a passionate argument over whether Madagascar chocolate was tastier than Guatemala.

Anyway, the other day I was on line at the so-called gourmet grocery in my new neighborhood and they have all these imported chocolate bars at the register. My friend picked out two and we brought them home. 75% cocoa and 85% cocoa. For comparison, I think Hershey's Dark (which I like a lot) is maybe 60%. The 75%, I have to say, I really did like. It had almost a fruity flavor and there wasn't any fruit in it. But the 85%, that's where I draw the line. It's just too intense. And not in a good way. It has no charm, no finesse. It's just a bludgeon of chocolate on your tongue. When eating chocolate becomes as much of a chore as eating vegetables was as a kid, well...why bother? Then again, maybe it's just this brand. Lindt Excellence. One of the cool things is that there are so many brands and types to explore. It could take years to complete this project!

Yikes! I've been tagged!

I've been tagged by fermicat. Not wanting to break this venerable tradition, here are my 8 random things about myself:

1. I have two sons. They are 19 and 23 years old. The younger one just finished his sophomore year at North Carolina School of the Arts and the older one (as a couple of you may know) lives in Shanghai.

2. I am a lay dummy science geek. I love reading about science, especially astronomy, cosmology, subatomic physics and all that crazy higher dimension math stuff. How much of it do I actually understand? Not sure. Probably not very much. But I love how it stretches my brain. So much of it is theoretical anyway.

3. I'm a playwright. Yes, I'm one of those artists who toils away at a day job that's sucking the creative soul out of her. But one of these days....

4. I am also divorced. But unlike fermicat, I haven't met a suitable replacement yet.

5. I am a huge blues fan. Don't know why, but it really speaks to me.

6. I've come to the conclusion that there is pretty much no food that can't be improved by adding either Tabasco or creme fraiche. Or both.

7. I had rotator cuff surgery on my right shoulder last year,

8. I was born at the end of October and I have always considered my birthday as the unofficial start of the holiday season.

Balinese Shadow Puppet

In response to a request, here is the aforementioned shadow puppet. It is a wayang kulit puppet. Traditionally they were made of water buffalo skin. I bought it a long time ago as a gift for my ex. I took it when I moved out. When I have some extra money, which hasn't been for quite a while, I collect folk art puppets.

It's down to days!

Those of you who have suffered through this whole moving adventure (or misadventure) with me can get ready to breathe a sigh of relief. I know I am. Day after tomorrow (Thursday) it will all be over. I will be out of here and into there. It will be moderately painful or extremely painful but at least it will be over. I had a packing party yesterday. Two friends came over, we drank mimosas and packed. And goofed off too. Probably a little more than we should have. But boxes did get filled. The problem with packing is that the more you pack, the more shit appears. It's a paradox. I am still so not ready. I can't believe I had so much crap in my kitchen. All those dopey little appliances. All those boxes of pasta and beans. All those freakin' cans of chicken broth! How the hell did that happen?

I'll be taking Wednesday off to do all the million things that haven't been done yet. Take down and carefully pack all the art and artifacts. I am a collector of exotic little pieces of folk art. Like a flying frog from Indonesia and a Balinese shadow puppet and a Burmese horse puppet. Things that don't take kindly to being shoved into a carton.

And taking down the window stuff. And packing the lamps and the stereo. And oh shit I still have to pack all my CDs! But fear not, my whining will shortly come to a very welcome end.

Memo to self: next time I move by myself, I'm paying the movers to pack it all!

What is it? The beginning of time!

Is this not a beautiful thing? This is the Large Hadron Collider under construction at CERN in Geneva. By next summer, those happy physicists will be slamming protons together, hoping to recreate the same conditions that were present when the universe was less than a trillionth of a second old. They're hoping to find -- finally! -- the Higgs Boson. And they're expecting to discover all kinds of weird and unexpected stuff. I wish I were a physicist.

Damn, I'm good!

Okay, I still hate my job, but a cool thing happened that I feel very proud of -- which was primarily my doing. So I'm going to brag just a teensy bit.

I just found out today that the museum was awarded a federal grant, from the Institute for Museum and Library Services. I WROTE THAT PROPOSAL. ME. I DID IT. And it was my first federal government grant. And we got it. The whole amount. That's because i did a kickass job at it. See...when I get to do what I'm good at, good things happen. Sadly, much or most of my time is taken up doing things I'm not that good at and frankly hate. But today, I'm feeling good about it all.

If I cared about the place, it might be even better.

What's going on inside

My interior universe has been really bubbling lately. I mean this in a good way. Now that the serious craziness at work has subsided and my brain has been allowed to resume some of its natural meanderings, it's been finding its way to some really interesting places. A new idea of it all -- sort of my very own Grand Unified Theory -- is starting to coalesce. Not too pretentious, comparing myself to Albert, right? But what the hell, we're all entitled to postulate our own theories.

This one has been growing little by little for quite some time. A little thought here, a crumb of an idea there, accreting over the months. Years, actually, when I think about it. Who knows, maybe the intense pressure at work accelerated the process. Kind of like creating diamonds or something. Or maybe it's just a matter of critical mass. But anyway, some amorphous, cloudlike overarching notion is floating in there. The most frustrating thing -- every so often I'll feel like I'm just about to understand something clearly and then poof! it's gone. Just out of reach. But having seen an atom or two of it, I now actively pursue it in my head. A fun little activity I engage in when I'm falling asleep.

So I've managed to say a lot about this "theory" and yet have also managed to avoid any mention of what it actually is. Clever, no? Thing is, it's not in any kind of form that I can actually articulate yet. Be assured that when it is, I'll be happy to share it.

Yup, that's me, spacing out again. Hey, I'm entitled! While I'll admit I'm not quite as deranged as I was a week or two ago, I'm still in that grey zone. Three weeks and counting till moving day and I'm sure I'm not as far along as I should be. But at the same time, I'm feeling dislocated and temporary because furniture has disappeared and cartons are starting to stack up in visible places. I swore three years ago that I wouldn't go through this again so soon. This is my fourth move since I got divorced -- okay, that was...(how long?) 12 years ago. But even so, to me that's a lot of moves. The thought of doing it again fills me with dread. But at least I'll have way less stuff to deal with.

That Empty Feeling

A guy (a friend of a friend of a friend) came by and took away a bunch of furniture. As luck would have it, he just moved to town and needs to furnish his apartment. So for a modest fee I parted with my kitchen table and chairs, big unused desk/table and a whole Ikea bookshelf, storage system. And for good measure, I also threw in a little Ikea night table. Good deal for him -- and for me. But the downstairs is pretty empty now, as is the kitchen. Well, at least I have room in the kitchen to put cartons when I pack them. But it's very unsettling to me. It's all in transition.

And wow -- did I pull a lot of junk out of the bookshelves and drawers. The floor downstairs is covered with crap! It boggles my mind how easy it is to accumulate stuff without even realizing it. I'm definitely throwing out lots. Gotta be ruthless. No room for sentiment. Sigh.

The countdown begins

It's now 30 days until I move. So much to do, and basically me to do it. I'm not exactly in denial now; it's more like I wish I could be in denial. Can't sleep more than 4 or 5 hours a night. Thinking of seeking out a little pharmaceutical help (legal, of course -- that way it's covered on my health insurance). So here's what I've done so far: I've cleaned out two closets. I've dragged over about 10 bags of crap -- you know, the kind of stuff that after the movers take everything there's still all this other shit left behind. So I'm doing it in reverse this time; I'm taking it first.

Also, I've packed one carton full of videos. Also I have put some stuff in the new closets. Not much, but some. Mostly I threw out bags and bags of old clothes, sheets, shoes, and like that. About 10 bags. I called the Vietnam Vets and they came and took it all away and left me a receipt for my taxes. What I can't figure out is how I managed to accumulate so much shit in just a couple of years. I guess I brought a lot of it with me when I sold my house.

The other thing I did was I went to the paint store and looked at colors. And I bought three samples to try out. It's the coolest thing what some paint companies are doing now. They're selling little half-pint pots of the stuff for 4 bucks a piece. What a brilliant concept! So I bought three different shades of something like terra cotta, took them home to see them next to my furniture and realized it probably wasn't the right direction. But I know what I want now. I know the color. I can see it in my mind. It's a sort of Tuscan orange/gold/parchment. I went to the Benjamin Moore website and played with colors in a virtual room. Lots of fun.

You know what really cracks me up? Paint color names. Here's just a few I found earlier today: Rhumba Orange, Sharp Cheddar, Electric Orange. My choices the other day were Red Parrot, Bonaparte and...I forgot. Goofball Red or something. That's not it but it might as well be. I did a piece of a scene in the play I'm working on all about paint color names. It's a favorite little mental game of mine.

I've been doing a really good job of procrastinating tonight. The freelance job that I've been whining about endlessly is still in progress. Just when I think I can see the end, they send me more stuff. At least the money will pay for the move, but it's turned my brain to tapioca along the way. So even though they're expecting stuff from me tomorrow, I've found all kinds of creative ways to not work. I'm so good at this, I should get paid for not working.

Where are we going...and why are we all in this handbasket?

Been thinking some about the whole Don Imus incident. I used to listen to him all the time up until about 3 or 4 years ago, when he started getting way too self-involved and tedious. I don't condone his comment for a microt, but I think in a way what happened was a good thing because it really brought home to a lot of people just how subtle and pervasive racism and sexism is in "our society". And I think there is a sort of double standard. And I also wholeheartedly agree that the idea of civility in social discourse has been completely obliterated. The question is, how to change that, when half the conversation you hear on the street or on the bus or wherever is fuckin' this and fuckin' that she's a fuckin' bitch and whatever else you hear. I'm all for using the right word at the right time, and sometimes fuckin' is the right word, but rarely. Not when there are so many other better ones around. And of course it's not just the words themselves but the hostility behind them. Why is everyone so fuckin' angry at each other all the time? Did we used to be? I don't remember that we were.

I think the loss of civility has gone hand in hand with the increasing stupidity. People seem to think and speak and act with less thought and less nuance and consideration. By that I mean that they don't consider things. They don't examine ideas or thoughts or issues. They blurt without thinking. Their worlds and their brains are getting smaller and cruder and coarser and less hospitable to sprouting complex thoughts. Present company excepted of course.

It makes me sad.

Playing hookey

Let me clarify. It's not strictly a day off from work. I'm working at home. Mostly I've been working on a freelance job that just never ends. I thought I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, but the client just informed me today that "we're about half done." Imagine my joy. I've been working late at my day job nearly every day, getting stressed to the point of meltdown and then coming home to work on this other thing. Amazing my brain works at all lately.

Also let me clarify something else. I didn't, strictly speaking, play hookey. I didn't wake up this morning and call in sick. It's an official work-at-home day, sort of. My boss suggested I do that and, well, who would turn down such a generous offer? Actually, I kind of manipulated her into offering, but she doesn't know that.

Even though I've been working pretty much all day, it's been a nice mental health break. I could use a lot more of these.

Thought for the day

Spring in fits and starts

First daffodils and pussywillows. Now baseball. I don't care that it's chilly and damp today. I've seen the sure signs of spring. So no matter how pathetic my life has been recently, nothing can stop the tilting of the northern hemisphere toward the sun. At least my pathetic life can't. And isn't that a good thing?

I've been thinking recently about how utterly insignificant we all are in the cosmic scheme of things. But rather than make me feel even more pathetic, it actually makes me feel kind of great. Because when you break it down to the tiniest level, or conversely, take it up to those higher dimensions, we are specks of equal value with every other speck. (At least with the 4% of the universe that isn't dark matter or dark energy. But I'm not going there now.) Having reduced myself to the speck-ular level, I fit happily into the fabric, just like all the other specks. Part of the whole, rather than standing apart from it as an observer. Think of it as my own goofy little superstring theory.

My cell phone is missing!

I just discovered a little while ago that my cell phone disappeared. I know I had it this afternoon. I was talking on it while I was driving home at around 1:30 or so. (Used my bluetooth headset -- didn't break any laws.) And I brought it in from the garage. At least I brought in the headset and the phone isn't in the car, so I'm fairly certain I brought it in. But it's not in the house now. I tried calling myself, and nada...no ringtone, nothing. I did go out again, but I'm not sure I brought the phone. In fact I think I didn't. But somehow, it's vanished. Weird how a thing that up until a couple of years ago I got along without perfectly fine, now suddenly I feel completely lost without it. And the thing is, I haven't a clue as to where it might be. Musta fallen out of my pocket or my purse somewhere. Or maybe it got sucked into another dimension. I wonder if they'd get a signal over there.

Let me crawl under a rock

This has truly been the week from hell...and it isn't over yet! At work, I committed a colossal blunder, one that could end up costing my museum a vast sum in lost funding. And nobody knows yet except me (and one other person). Yes I admit, it's my fault. But it most certainly wouldn't have happened if we hadn't all been so overworked, overloaded and overstressed. If I had had the proper amount of time, I would have been on top of this project. My brain wouldn't have been scattered and fractured and burned out.

When I started work there last summer, this same grant proposal was being worked on. At that time the department had twice as many people working in it. There was an admin assistant who knew the thing backwards and forwards. And they had an outside guy who came in especially to write the thing. And they were all still running around like lunatics at the 11th hour, trying to get it all done and out! This year, there was me. And my manic boss whose best thing is making everyone else crazy. For weeks my friend in the department and I have been saying, something is going to fall through the cracks. Something is going to fail. Well, it did. Unfortunately on a very important project. But honestly, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. The system was overloaded and it crashed.

At least it has thrown into focus for me how much I really don't like this job. I didn't like it when I started and I really don't like it now. It's too tedious to go into the whole thing, but bottom line is, I gotta get out. How is it that I've managed to cram as many uber-stressful things into my life at once? Moving, looking for new job. Now all I need to do is get married again and I'll hit the trifecta of most stressful situations. Lucky (or not) for me, there's no potential husband around.

Saving My Sanity

I've been an absolute basket case for the last week, ever since I signed the lease on my new apartment. I've been in a flat-out panic trying to figure out how I was going to be able to pack and move in four weeks while all hell was breaking loose at work and I had not a minute of extra time.

Thanks to my landlady, I have come to a realization. There is in fact not enough time to get it all done. But just because the apartment is mine as of April 2nd, doesn't mean I have to move in before the end of April. So I'm going to push it back to sometime in May. Yes I know it means still paying for my current place for another month but you know what, it's a small price to pay to keep my sanity. As soon as I realized that, suddenly the knot in my chest went away. I felt okay about the whole thing. I now have time to sort through my stuff, decide what to keep and what to get rid of, just basically figure it all out.

I know it seems like a pretty obvious thing, but it took me a while to get there. Sometimes the most obvious things are the ones you totally miss.

On a completely different topic...

I read an interesting article the other day about black matter and black energy, which make up 96% of the universe.
The writer says that it's like the ultimate Copernican revolution - not only are we not the center of everything, we're not even made of the same stuff as everything! If all the stars and planets and galaxies suddenly vanished, the universe would be basically the same. We're utterly irrelevant. According to the cosmologists, dark matter is not "normal", meaning it doesn't react to gravity or electromagnetism. So trillions of atoms of it could be passing right through us at any time and we'd be totally unaware of it. Talk about parallel universes! Kinda takes the pressure off, though, doesn't it?

Well, who'd a thought?

Day 4 (?)
Crazy. I was expecting this to take months. Hoping it would take months, in fact, because I couldn't face the prospect of actually moving. We never get what we want. Or, we get what we want but not how we want it, or expect it. It's not 100% certain, but it looks like I'll get the apartment. A perfect case of be careful what you wish for because you might get it.

Gone and done it

Yes, I have. I put a deposit down and filled out a rental application. What a ridiculous exercise that was! I told my cute little real estate guy that when they run my credit rating, they're gonna want to pay me to move in! He said, they'll probably ask for an extra month's security or a co-signer because my salary isn't high enough. I asked him if he realized how utterly laughable that was, not to mention insulting. I didn't take it personally of course, but I'm not going to get a co-signer. I don't need no steenking co-signer. I'll show 'em my tax returns from last year. I might even consider an extra month's security but seriously guys, forget the co-signer. If they don't want me, the hell with 'em.

Day of Decision -- it's too soon!!!

Day 3

I saw four places this afternoon -- and one of them I loved! One was too expensive and not great anyway. One was not very intresting. One was quirky and really interesting but not really that nice. But then there was this REALLY GREAT PLACE! It's all brand new, just renovated. Lots of really nice details, like crown moldings in all the rooms. The kitchen is gorgeous. Beautiful granite countertops, all new appliances and really nice cabinets with lots of drawers. It's open to the living room with lots of counter space. I think there's room for my dining table. And how about this -- it has a BIG balcony!

The small bedroom is bigger than the one I have here but the master bedroom is smaller. But even so, I think it's big enough.

Drawbacks: there's only one bathroom, although it's brand new with very nice fixtures. Also, there's no garage in the building. So I'm going to have to find somewhere for my car. And I'll have to go back to taking my laundry downstairs and sticking quarters in the machines. But the price is in my range. Oh - I forgot to mention, I really like the neighborhood. It's pretty much exactly where I wanted to be. And one of my really good friends lives right across the street.

Now I have to make a decision! I hate having to make really important decisions under pressure! I didn't want to put myself in this position! It's probably the nicest place I'm going to find that I can afford. But this is a big deal. And I'm so not in a hurry to go through the whole moving thing. AAAAHHHHHHHHH! I don't know what to do!

A foray on my own

Day 2
Saw a place on craigslist. It was being listed by the onsite rental agent, so I went on my own. I felt a little guilty but what the hell. The building is new, six stories high. It's in an area that's kind of on the fringes of the main residential part of this particular neighborhood. It's in midtown, which is...kind of hard to describe if you don't know it. It's a combination of businesses and working class residential buildings. But they're starting to build and renovate farther and farther west, which means farther from the center of where life happens. So, the rents go down but the nice things that make a neighborhood desirable also go down. This mean artists live here. Which is a good thing. But it also feels kind of isolated. The building's on the south side of the street and the apartment is in the front, which means the windows face north. But, they're not really windows, they're walls of glass. Which means there's more light. But it also means that you're very visible from the outside. There are blinds on all the windows but even so, I'm not wild about it. Also, the windows face across to a brick wall. There's one window that faces west so I would get nice sunsets, but eh. The rooms are small. I would have to jettison about half my furniture. I'm thinking no on this one. But at least I took a look at it.

Also, no drawers in the kitchen. And no microwave.

The Illusive Apartment: The Search Begins

Day 1:
Met my agent during my lunch hour at a building near where I work. He is the son of the woman who helped me buy and sell the house I no longer own. She was fabulous and I made out like a bandit on that transaction. Her son is very cute and seems to know what he's doing. Since I said I was fairly open as far as neighborhood, he figured he'd show me a few places downtown in the financial district, which is literally a few blocks from work. After 9/11, a lot of effort was put into making downtown an attractive place to be again. So developers were given lots of incentives to convert half-empty office buildings into residential ones. The problem is, it's not the kind of neighborhood I'd like to live in. It's very busy and crowded during weekdays and fairly dead the rest of the time. More and more people are moving in, and I see more baby strollers every day, but even so, I don't like it. And the apartments, well...even if I liked them I couldn't afford the nicer ones. The rooms are small and the worst thing is, most all of them are dark. The is the area where the original city was built back in the 1600s, so the streets are narrow. And the buildings are all tall so very little sunlight gets into these places. Too grim for me. And too expensive. So at least one positive thing came out of today's looking: I know I don't want to live down there.

I'm gonna poke around on craigslist over the weekend but now that I'm using Jeffrey, I think I'll let him do most of the legwork. The next thing we're going to see is on Tuesday. He says it's very nice. It's on a high floor and has lots of windows and a great view. If I remember, I'll bring my digital camera.

Big decision, other big problem solved

I've been talking about this for months now and I figured either I'd better shut up about it or I'd better do something about it. So I've opted for the latter. I'm about to begin apartment hunting. I'm moving back into the city. Enough of this lurking in the burbs at the city's edge. I no longer have a reason to be here. Most all my friends live in the city. Those that don't have cars and have no problem with driving in. I work in the city and my commute is now an hour and 20 minutes each way. I have a real problem if I want to do something after work because the buses run less and less frequently the later it gets. So tomorrow I'm meeting a real estate agent on my lunch hour to look at a few places. I don't have a lease now and I don't have to get out of my place at any particular time so I can look until I find something I really like. Of course I'm going to have to pay more but I'll save on utilities because most apartments in New York include gas, heat and water. So I'll only have to pay for electricity. Some even include AC, but not too many. This month, my utility bill was $350. But those savings will be offset by having to pay for a garage. I am NOT parking my car on the street. So I'm pretty excited about this. What I'm definitely not excited about is packing. I'm trying to not think about that part.

The other big problem solved was a structural problem with my play. Two nights ago I figured out how to fix it. I'm thrilled! Now I can go ahead and write the scenes. For me, the hard part isn't the writing, it's the construction of the story. Now that I' know how it works, it shouldn't be too hard. Yahoo. This calls for more Peeps.

Life begins again, and not a moment too soon

In my universe, there are two sure signs that spring is on the way. The first happened a couple of weeks ago when pictchers and catchers reported to spring training. And very shortly now, I'll be able to hear that very special clack of the bat on the ball -- the unique and wonderful sound you can only hear in March. Once they come back up North and into their full-size ball fields, the sound is different. Less intimate, less immediate. Minor league ballparks come close, but it's still not the same as spring training games. But for now, just knowing that the guys are down there is great.

The second sure sign of spring -- well, I saw it today. I can't believe it had evaded my seasonal radar till now. But be that as it may, I was in CVS, scouting for nifty little who-knows-whats, and there they were. Marshmallow Peeps. Yup. Peeps. I don't know why they hold such a special place in my Hierarchy of Important Icons but they do. It's largely symbolic, I think. I mean I do eat them but my affection for them has to do with much more than just soft, sweet squishy stuff. A Peep embodies everything hopeful about spring. The sense of renewal, of anything being possible. Kind of like the confectionary version of the bat on the ball in a Florida ballpark.

Of course now they make Peeps for every season. But you know they're not really Peeps. They're just Marshmallow-y shapes that taste the same as Peeps. Real, true Peeps are the chicks. Not even the bunnies count. And yellow. They have to be yellow. I mean, whoever heard of a pink chick? Or even worse, purple? There's just certain things you shouldn't mess with. And Peeps are one of them.

But today I can forgive them, because now I know spring is truly on the way.

Why is there never enough time?

I should be doing my Italian homework about now. Actually I should have been doing it several days ago. The class isn't till Saturday but I know I won't have a chance tomorrow night or Friday night. I missed last week's class because I was out of town. It doesn't make it any easier that I'm not 17 any more, and new stuff -- especially new stuff in a foreign language -- doesn't stick in my brain as readily as it used to. That's part of the reason I started taking Italian. Because my brain needed to get back in shape. No, that's ridiculous. I started taking Italian because I love the way it sounds. And I've always wanted to learn. And after I learn Italian, I want to learn Brazilian Portuguese, because I think it's the sexiest language on the face of the earth. Got French beat by a landslide. I've been studying Italian since last summer. But two and a half hours, one day a week is not the best way to learn. I get the whole concept of the verb tenses and moods but who can remember all the conjugations? And you know, Italian's one of those languages where nouns are masculine and feminine, so things have to agree, which is a whole thing in itself. And then of course there's this thing called work, which takes up far too much time in my opinion. Far too much time and brain juice. Especially these days. I'm plum outa brain juice by the time I get home. Then there's this crazy play I have to rewrite. And who's got the time -- not to mention the brain juice -- for that, I'd like to know? And then...I have a new freelance project to start on because my job (the one which sucks up all my brain juice) doesn't pay enough. I took a hefty pay cut with this job, at which point my friend who snookered me into taking the job promised that I'd be able to keep my freelance clients, and it wouldn't be a problem to take a little time now and then if I needed it. But with all the staff cuts, I now have about three times as much work to do as I did when I started, so of course I can't take the time here and there. So I'm forced to squeeze the freelance work in at night and on the weekends, when I'm supposed to be doing my Italian homework and rewriting my play. There really is just never enough time. But I do really look forward to seeing Angelo, my Italian teacher. I've got quite the crush on him.

Holy Shit!

I'm sensing a theme here...or is it a pain in the ass obsession? Could be. But come on, admit it, this is one kickass nebula. Thor's Helmet, it's called. Also known as NGC2359. Not quite as catchy but a little more informative...if you know the code, that is. Me, I don't know it. But I don't care. I only that when I look at it, I get all goosebumpy on the inside. Go think about that for a while. I'll never make it in this lifetime. I probably won't even make it to Mars. But in my mind, I'm already there.

A little jaunt to gallactic center

Imagine if our li'l world were located closer to gallactic center, instead of being stuck out here in the boonies. I went out to dump some trash tonight and looked up at the sky as I did. One of those clear, cold winter nights when the sky is crystal clear and the stars nearly pop out at you. Considering how much light pollution there is near my house (street lights, house lights, a big honkin' city just a couple of miles away) it's amazing how many stars I could see. I stood there, transfixed. It was like someone gave me a present, that's how wonderful it was. There have been many times when I have been out in rural areas at night, when I could see the Milky Way like a band across the sky. And that was pretty spectacular. But imagine how mind-blowing it would be to step outside at night and see something like this. I look at it and I feel like I'm falling into it. Cosmic. Truly.

Another Kitty Pretzel

This one is not quite as twisted up as Moxy but trust me, she would do that too. Seems I keep getting inspired by fermicat's photos. Well, you know what they say...imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Strange and beautiful soundscapes

I have become addicted to the ambient music channels on my iTunes. I don't have a 'pod - I just listen on my computer when I'm working. Most music is too distracting for me to listen to, but this stuff is perfect. But it's not just that it's inoffensive audio wallpaper. The music generates strange and beautiful soundscapes in my head. All kinds of fantastical universes and environments. Or just altered states of brain activity. I really love this stuff. I can just zone out and write and let the music (or whatever it is) inhabit my head. Way cheaper than drugs, and completely legal!

A weird little thing

I picked my car up from the body shop today. The door panel looks good as new...oh wait! It is new! They replaced it. And the door opens from the outside again. No more leaning over from the back seat. Only there's this one weird little thing. I kind of smells like skunk inside the car. Not a lot, not enough to be really bothersome, just a little. But why? How? I don't get it. I hope it goes away. When I took it in, it still even had the tiniest bit of new car smell left in it. After a year and half, that's pretty good! So where did this skunky aroma come from? I'm at a loss.

I've got this kid...

He's one of those kids (and I use the term loosely now) about whom everyone always used to say, "He'll go far!" Well, he certainly did...about as far as you can go before you start getting closer again. All the way to the other side of the planet. My dear firstborn now resides in China. I won't go into the whole story of how he ended up there, but there he is, in Shanghai. Of course when I tell people that, they always say, "Oh how interesting! What does he do?" And that's where I go all mumbly. I don't know how to describe it.

He's sort of in partnership with some other guys he met over the last couple of years there. (By the way, he's all of 22.) They're trying to put together all these various development projects. Construction projects, financing projects, what have you. They're spending lots of time going to lots of meetings with lots of different Chinese officials and businessmen in lots of different cities trying to put these deals together. If any one of them works out, ka-ching! We're talking major bucks. But so far, he hasn't made a dime at it. I guess the short way to put it is, he's a wannabe player. Sometimes I tell people he's honing his world domination skills.

He's really, really smart. He's like a knowledge sponge. He didn't speak a word of Mandarin when he went to China, and now he's totally fluent. People who know him are all convinced that he's going to be wildly successful.

And yet, I still have this vision of him 20 or 30 years from now, a shady-looking middle aged guy with three-day-old stubble and frayed cuffs, scrounging drinks from some young yuppie types, feeding them all these stories about how he used to be somebody important.

It's a mother thing.

Strange Day

This picture has nothing to do with my very strange and unsettling day. It just makes me happy to look at it. It's sort of an antidote.

12 people got laid off at work today. I was not one of them. I'm still not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. Right now I'm leaning toward bad. It was not a total surprise, although I didn't know it would be that many. A few I am very happy to see gone. They made working there very difficult. Others I liked, some I didn't really know very well. But even so, it was weird. What it means for those of us who are left is that we will have a lot more work to do. A lot. And of course there's no more money in it for us. Financial problems are the reason all those people were let go.

Instead of feeling optimistic and psyched about the challenge, I am feeling a like a huge boulder is about to be dropped on me. Also, at the staff meeting after the deed was done, we were told that the board is considering merging our museum with another cultural institution in the city. When that happens, it probably means we'll be let go. That won't happen for many months, if it does. But I think it will. So I'm thinking I should probably start looking for another job now. Because even if we do a spectacular job at bringing in new funding, we're still going to probably lose our jobs. I could be wrong, but I think it's definitely time to start looking. I really don't feel like job hunting right now.

Mojitos strike again

I thought my head might explode today. I actually became distraught...over something totally not worth it. After slogging through some incredibly stressful days and swimming through some evil dren without breaking a sweat (or at least without creasing my brow too deeply), I finally blew a gasket over a stupid newsletter. But it was so bad, in so many ways, I couldn't wrap my head around it. Let me explain that I have in the course of my working life created and put together god knows how many newsletters. It's one of the things I do. And here was one that was so awful, I mean just so unbelieveably bad! It set my teeth on edge. And the person who did it had no idea how awful it was. She thought it was fine. That's part of what sent me over the edge.

I knew at noon that I was headed for mojitoville after work today. And that is exactly what I did. I met a colleague at the bar. My boss in fact. And she told me that half the staff is being laid off on Monday. I, sad to say, will not be one of them. But the perpetrator of that newsletter atrocity will be. And again sad to say. I'll probably be asked to take on that task. That's fine, but I already have enough to do. But since we're losing three people from our department, we'll all have to take on some new responsibilities. More money, did you say? Not a chance! That's one of the reasons we're losing all these people...financial problems.

Why stay, you ask? Inertia for starters. I'm already there. Also, even though the salary sucks, they do pay 100% of the health insurance. Which is not to be sneezed at these days.

Should be an interesting week coming up. More news as it becomes available.

More fungus

Inspired by fermicat's fungus picture, I searched out a shot I had taken about a year and a half ago at a cool little nature reserve not far from my house. This place is a great place to lose yourself, figuratively anyway. It's not really big enough to get seriously lost. But it has enough places where you can feel completely removed from everything. I grew up near an enormous wildlife sanctuary. Probably hundreds of acres. There were lots of hiking trails; one went up a (small) mountain to a fire ranger's watch tower. I loved the feeling of being completely surrounded by trees. Interesting though, because one of my favorite things is being able to see a long way. I love huge views. I loved the view from the fire ranger's tower. But back to the trees for a minute. I love the sensation of complete quietness. No other voices. Just tree noises and maybe birds. Nothing like it.

So why do I live and work in a huge city? What can I say, I'm very complex.

Stupid Way To Start The Day

Some jerk in a Ford Bronco sideswiped me this morning. I was sitting at a red light, in the far right lane of a four-lane limited access sort-of-highway. The light had just turned green and I don't think I had even started moving when the aforementioned jerk comes up on my left and plows into my door. His excuse was that the woman in the car next to me wasn't going fast enough, so he swerved to go around her. Never mind that I was there. He was angry at her! Brilliant, huh? He also hit her but I think I got the worst of it.

So we all pulled over and traded information and called the police. They were very nice (and pretty cute, too) and told meI was in the clear as far as fault, which I already knew. I had a nasty dent and scrape on the driver's side door, which is ugly but is only cosmetic. Then I discovered that I couldn't open my door from the outside. The cops tried it and they had the same problem. So now, until I get it fixed, I have to get in the back and reach up to open the door from the inside. Put me in a rather cranky mood. And it also made me an hour late for my Italian class.

Router Issues Redux

So I went and got a new wireless router. I didn't get the Mac Airport router because of the price - about $189. I opted for the cheaper solution, another Linksys. Right away, things began to go south. No instructions, no user manual. Instead, a setup tutorial disk. Great! Except it's only for Windows. So I try the tech support route. I call Verizon. My experience with them is hit or miss. Either I get a knowledgeable person with real problem-solving skills or I get a moron. This time it was moron. They made a token effort, then told me to call Linksys. Of course Linksys tech support is only there until 9 PM and it was too late.

So I figure, I'll try their website. Gotta be something there. Bingo! Downloadable instructions. Which I do. Only problem is, it's only for Windows. So I poke around some more. A link! I try it. It gets me closer. It gives me the numerical IP address -- which I now remember from the last time -- that I need to go to to do the setup. Problem is, the page won't load. I try three different browsers. No luck.

So I just plug my ethernet cable into my computer for the time being. Works fine, but kind of blows the whole notion of a wireless laptop. I hustle home from work today so I can spend some time on the phone with tech support. I'm on hold for about five minutes and then there's Bangalore Bill. I can't hear him too well because that big earthquake off the coast of Taiwan had really caused havoc with the fiber optic cables to Asia. But anyway, we start trying stuff. He finally comes to the conclusion that the router is faulty. He says bring it back and get a new one. But that still doesn't answer the question of why the page won't load.

So...(feels like it never ends, right?) I check out the community forums on the Linksys page. I hit paydirt! Jackpot. Right there is a posting about the problem with the new WRT54G routers and how Macs can't load the setup page! Yippee! The guys posts a link to the download for the firmware that will fix the problem. I'm so excited, I can hardly stand it. I download the thing. I try and open the thing. It won't open. I update my Stuffit. The thing still won't open. All the air has gone out of my balloon.

I think I'm going to bite the bullet and get the Airport router. I've already spent more than the difference in aggravation.

Tired of being the smartest kid in the room

Went for drinks after work to that place with the killer mojitos, which I'm sure I mentioned before. $5 during happy hour -- you can't beat it. Anyway...there were three of us; me, a co-worker and our boss. I got into a conversation with my co-worker about an art exhibit at one of the museums in the city. We were chatting away about American expressionists and our boss was trying gamely to keep up. But it was obvious she knows close to nothing about art. That's fine. She's a good sport and a very loyal boss.

But I got to thinking about when was the last time before this that I had a conversation of any substance with anyone I worked with. You know, about something besides movies, TV and food. No, even counting those things. It was probably several years. And I realized that I was tired of always having to dumb myself down to fit in.

I wonder where the smart people are. That's not to say that everyone at work is a moron. Okay, maybe a few of them are. But most are reasonably bright, or at least good at their jobs. But no one with real wit and intelligence. Or at least some intellectual curiosity. Well, now I know there's one at least. Can't tell you how happy that makes me.

Sometimes the good guys actually win

Well, who'd a thought? The abysmally bad situation at work has taken a 360! The stupid, ineffectual president of the board of trustees resigned and the nasty, petty, incompetent executive director was fired. I'm very nearly speechless. This is very, very, very good news for me and my colleagues in my department. It means that the people who were trying to discredit us and force us out are gone. Of course it also means that now we have no one to blame but ourselves if we fail to accomplish what we want to. But that's a good thing. I'm all for accountability.

But yipee! No more having to try and raise money for stupid programs that nobody wants. No more being stymied and undercut. Now we get to set the agenda. Or at the very least, our ideas will be listened to.

This year is starting out very interestingly.

Perfect way to welcome in the new year

So I went into New York and had dinner with some people in a lovely apartment on the 38th floor with a spectacular view of the city. Great dinner, fairly unexciting evening. We ate well, discussed deeply and were done by 11:00. I was home in time to watch the ball drop in Times Square. I was not in front of the TV though, because the phone range and I was in the other room. But I heard the countdown. Woo hoo.

Call me old and jaded but I really don't care about that part any more. I did the wild blowout New Year's Eve party. I don't feel the need to do it any more. I think the thing that really breaks you of the habit is having young children. They don't care that you've been up till 3 and drunk way too much. They still want to get up at 6:30 or 7:00. Ack. So when my guys were little like that, we started having New Year's Day open house parties. Soooo much more civilized. And I always thought New Year's Day was such a bringdown of a day anyway, after all the night-before partying. This was a mellow and very festive way to enjoy the holiday. So I just got into the mode of skipping the night before and doing the party thing on the day.

So I've got my champagne chilling for tomorrow. I'll start drinking mimosas around noon and just sail on through the rest of the afternoon like that. Great way to welcome in the New Year.

Oh. The other thing I like to do is (don't laff) clean my house. Give it a thorough going over. Move the furniture, vacuum under absolutely everything. Scrub the cabinets and the appliances. I put jazz on the stereo, get my mimosa buzz on and I'm good to go. It is a wonderful way to start the year.

Happy Holiday

How do you get in the "holiday spirit" when you don't buy into the myth behind it? That's something I have struggled with for quite a while. Yes, it's been secularized but as a secular holiday, it doesn't have much of a clear reason for being. Wishing one another peace on Earth? That's nice, but why is it any more sincere at this time year? Giving gifts is nice too but there are plenty of other times when it might be more appropriate.

Well, I read a piece yesterday that made me feel a little happier with the situation. It talked about how Christmas has evolved into the perfect American holiday. As a patchwork of borrowed rituals and mythologies, Christmas is a great analogy for a country founded and populated by immigrants. It's the quintessential melting pot holiday, from the 12 days of Saturnalia (ancient Rome) to the decorating of trees (Druid) to the winter solstice (every pre-Christian civilization) to the lighting of candles (Judaism). Then throw in Hannukah and Kwanzaa and you've got the perfect all-purpose festival. I had known most of this before, but the way it was presented suddenly made more sense to me. I think if it were acknowledged by the promoters of the holiday that it was a joyous amalgam of celebrations, I'd like it even more.

But anyway, I'm feeling pretty festive now. Still not expecting Santa down my chimney but I've got a nice bottle of pinot noir just waiting to be uncorked with dinner tomorrow and that's reason enough to celebrate.

The Ideal vs. The Reality

It's been a particularly difficult and weird week at work, and I intended to sit down and write about it. And I will. But as I imagined recounting this story, I also realized that this is not what I had planned this blog to be. This was not supposed to be a place to delve into all the little things that make up one's daily life. I mean, you can do that with your friend at lunch, or over the phone, or even online, in one of those essential but totally ordinary conversations that we have every day, countless numbers of times.

No, this was a place for bigger things. A place for hashing out the big questions. The universal topics. The thoughts that needed to see themselves written out. Not my stomach flu or my vacation. So what happenend? Reality is what happened. The universe reminding me yet again that things rarely turn out the way we want or even expect.

So let me get back to the work thing. Back in July, as I was (as we freelancers like to say) between assignments, a friend recruited me to work for her in a full-time position. The job was in a small non-profit cultural instituion, in the development (fundraising) department. I was ambivalent but I took the job. Lousy pay but great benefits. It did not take me long to realize that the place was badly run. But okay, I came in, I wrote my grant proposals, I got paid. There were a couple of good people in my department. The job had its stressful periods and required more sustained mental engagement than I really wanted to give it, but I did. Because that's what you do. You do your job to the best of your abilities.

Over the six months that I've been there, the political situation and the atmosphere in general has become more and more unpleasant until it is now downright toxic. There are a lot of very real reasons and causes for the ills that beset this poor place, but that's doesn't excuse the powers that be from taking action to stop the ship from sinking.

Honestly, I've never worked anywhere where there is so much outright hostility and acrimony between individuals and departments. It's a conspiracy theorist's playground. None of this nastiness is directed at me personally, but a huge amount is directed at my friend, who runs my department. This week in particular, it seems the gloves have come off. No one is even making an effort to hide their animosity and malice. My buddies and I look at one another and shake our heads. I can't understand how anyone expects that a) we don't notice or b) we don't mind or c) we have any desire to take sides. So the last few days I have spent picking my way through a minefield, all the while trying to get out a proposal and a final report, and complete my goals and projections for the coming year.

I had a worse job. I had a hateful job that I kept for four years because I had to. I used to say I worked in hell. That place was depressing and demoralizing, but everyone felt that way. We were all in it together. This is different. I don't feel personally oppressed, as I did at the other place. But I feel as if any minute I'm going to get caught in the crossfire. The whole thing has been so surreal. I half expect to come back after Christmas and find that the whole building has collapsed under the weight of nastiness that's filling it. Just crushed to dust.

When you say you work at a museum, there's a certain cachet attached to it. Y'know, it sounds kind of classy. But the reality of it is, it's a half-assed operation run by a bunch of amateurs who are constantly sniping at each other, sapping whatever positive energy there is there.

So there you have it: the ideal vs. the reality. Kind of like my plan for this blog. Hey, what do you know! There's my bigger thought!

Pre-holiday bug

I have been laid low all weekend by a nasty virus. Friday night was spent clutching my toilet bowl. Saturday I shuffled painfully from bedroom to kitchen to living room sofa and back to bedroom again. By mid-Saturday at least I could eat again. That is to say, it was staying put. But absolutely nothing was appetizing, except raspberry sorbet. Cool, sweet and thirst quenching, the perfect apres-sick food. Also works for a hangover, by the way. Flavor is optional. Today is marginally better but I'm still exhausted. This is the longest 24-hour bug I've ever had. Don't know if I'll go to work tomorrow. The christmas party is tomorrow evening though. I don't really care that much, so it won't be a tragedy if I miss it. Guess I'll see how I feel in the morning. Wonder how many sick days I have left.

Why is it?

Why is it that I always put myself out for my friends but they never seem to want to reciprocate? Is it that everyone else is just so self-involved? Or am I just bad at picking friends? This leads me to the larger question: why are some people the ones who others do things for, and why are the rest of us the ones who do the things? My theory is, it's pheromones. But who knows. Maybe it's gravity.

I had dinner with a friend tonight. An old friend, in fact she's now the friend, of those who I still see, who I've been friends with the longest. We're pretty close. We've been through some stuff together. But I've come to realize that her comfort and convenience always comes first for her. So tonight, well...forget the details, but suffice it to say I'm pretty annoyed at her disregard of my situation. And this leads me to another larger thought. Maybe I should start a "why me" blog. And maybe it should be communal. A place where we could all come and complain and carry on about the things that really piss us off, but that we feel stupid or petty complaining about in other venues. I think it might be good. I think it could get very creative and very entertaining.

Yes, I'm going to have to think about this.

God, I love online banking!

I do, I love it! I resisted for a while but I'm so glad I finally gave in. Just paid my Amex bill. Rather, I scheduled it for payment in two weeks. Now, as soon as the bills come, I schedule the payment and forget about it. I haven't been late with anything in months!

I gave up trying to balance my checking account a long time ago. When all I did was write checks it was easy. But now that I pay for stuff with my debit card all the time, and take cash out from the ATM, who can keep track of it all? I used to worry about it, but now if I want to know what my balance is, I just go online. I'm telling you, this is a wonderful thing.

And no, Bank of America did not pay me to say that.

This is where you find out how geeky I really am

I was reading this article in the paper today on the way home from work. It was about how this guy who was a master cryptographer during the Cold War is now working on analyzing the mountains of data gleaned from DNA sequencing. It went on to say how biology at the pure science level has become an information science. Now the people working on cutting-edge biology are physicists and mathematicians and the like. It was at this point that I got really excited. Why, you wonder? I'm neither a biologist nor an astrophysicist. In fact I'm not a scientist at all.

I discovered a while ago that one thing that really tickles my brain is when I notice how systems and processes in one realm have analogs in other realms. Examples: after watching countries in Eastern Europe form and break apart and reform after the fall of the Iron Curtain, it occurred to me that it was like plate tectonics. The rules that govern how the planet works also govern how the people on it work. And the same with space.

So I'm reading this and the writer in me is jumping up and down, yelling, "There's a story in here somewhere, I just know it!" Kind of like the little kid who saw the huge pile of horseshit and got all excited because she was sure there had to be a pony in there somewhere. There may in fact be no story at all in there, but it made the rest of my commute home very happy.

More on this subject as it oozes out.

I am SO there!

Have I mentioned how much I am enthralled with Mars? I have, right? So imagine my delight and excitement to read that it looks like there may be actual water on Mars! Actual liquid water that actually flows...well, from time to time, anyway. But water means life is possible. I'm not talking about indigenous Martian life, although that may be there as well. I'm talking about human life that's going to be there. I think it was highly likely anyway, but this just about seals the deal. I can be packed in, like, an hour! Sadly, realistically, I'm sure I won't get to go. By the time that mission gets off the ground, I'll be too old and of no possible use. But at least I hope I'm around to see it happen.

I'm convinced there is life out there somewhere. But who knows, maybe Earthlings will be the first to venture out, the first to colonize other planets. Again, that's probably not so. But maybe. Years ago, I read a great book by Ursula LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness. It was one of her Hugo or Nebula prize winners. In it, a representative of the planetary alliance (forget exactly what it was called) made a first visit to a new planet. This new planet had a highly advanced civilization but they had never ventured into space. They had never even built aircraft. Why not? Because there was no bird life on the planet. They had never seen creatures fly, so it never occurred to them to try it. So you never know.

Router issues

Hmmmm. Seems as though my wireless router has bit the dust. After trying all kinda things and making several tech support calls (2 to Verizon and 1 to Apple Care), I've given up on the darn thing and just plugged the ethernet cable into my Powerbook. Not that it really matters right now -- the computer is spending most of its time on the desk. At least I can get online.

Question now is, do I chuck the stupid router and get a new one? It's probably a rhetorical question since nobody fixes this stuff. Also my printer died. I only had it for about 3 years. My first printer lasted me for at least twice that, probably longer. I would still be using it except it's so old, nobody has the drivers for it any more. I hate how all computer stuff is so disposable.

New router, new printer. Not cause I want to, but because I need to. Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas.

R.I.P. Sweetie

I realize that that might be a little misleading. No, Sweetie did not get flushed away. I just thought it would be appropriate to post a photo of her in a typical pose. She loved to drink out of the toilet. So there she is, doing what she loved.

After ten years of being a Splendid Cat, Sweetie developed kidney problems, as older cats often do. Fortunately it was not a long, protracted decline. Within about a week of my noticing that she was not eating very much and was acting kind of sad, her kidneys were in near total failure. I brought her to the vet, suspecting it might be a kidney-related problem, having been through it several years ago with another cat. A quick exam, a couple of blood tests, and within an hour we knew that her prognosis was grim. Rather than drag it out and make her remaining days miserable with misguided attempts to prolong her life, I told the vet to put her to sleep. He agreed with my decision.

Her funeral, if you could call it that, was like something out of a Stephen King novel. After leaving with vet with Sweetie wrapped in a blanket and stowed in a carton, I took her to my ex's (and my former) house for burial in the family plot. Actually it's a patch of brambly earth behind the old stone garage. It was 8 PM by this point and completely dark. So there we were, by the stark light of a bare bulb, digging a grave in the Pet Sematary. Quite funny, actually. A good way to end a sad day.

A thought from the subway

I'm wondering today if people behave the way they do totally in response to others around them? Not just reacting to someone who annoys you at work or bumps into you on the street. I mean, do we calibrate our behavior to elicit certain responses from others? It's obvious we all do this sometimes. A woman will act silly or sultry or do what's necessary to attract the attention of a guy she's interested in. Or a person in a relationship will do things or say things to please his or her partner. I'm talking only about adults here, not kids. People free of the need or desire to get the grownups approval or to torment their siblings.

We like to think that we "are who we are" and that it comes from the inside. But how much really does? It'd be interesting to be able to observe people when they're alone. Be the proverbial fly on the wall. See if the girly girl belches out loud, or the surly guy watches weepy movies. Guess I'll just have to wonder.

Out From Under

There are some signs, itty bitty though they are, that Things might actually be getting better. In my life, not necessarily the world. And as I said, itty bitty. Itty witty bitty. But hey, I'll take 'em as I find 'em. To quote Richard Farina, an old hipster from the 60s, been down so long it looks like up to me.

I don't really believe in fate, but I do believe in the the law of averages. Of the cosmic pendulum. Of how nature abhors a...well, besides a vacuum, a too-muchness of any one thing. And so, if you wait long enough, and struggle mightily enough, a long stretch of crappy life can in fact come to an end. Of course to counter that I also believe that certain people are blessed with -- not luck exactly, although it presents that way to the outside world -- a capacity to attract good things to them. I'm convinced it's pheromones. Some people have it in spades, some of us are running on empty.

But even for those of us who were at the back of the line when they were giving it out, life doesn't have to turn out to be one long unrelenting load of shit falling on our heads. We just have to work a lot harder for the good stuff. So maybe that means we value it more, I don't know.

So what are the itty bitty signs? Not important, except to me. But the upshot is, I'm feeling more optimistic about things today. Even though mostly nothing is different, I am. No, I was not in danger of doing damage to myself. I was not even angling for a Prozac prescription. I was just oh-yeah railing impotently against The Injustice Of It All. Today, I just don't care so much. My god...I'm almost happy!

Feeling a little buggy

So I finally got to the end of the Week From Hell. Hysterical (and not in a funny way) day Friday right down to the wire -- the 4:00 PM deadline. My stuff was done on time but this was a multi-person project and some others were not prompt. But I couldn't enjoy my Friday evening because I had to run out and go directly to see a freelance client and work there for 3 hours to meet their deadline. This morning I had a class, then went back to the freelance client to finish up. About an hour into it, I start feeling a little...well...not great. I keep working but after another hour or so I had to call it quits. I was feeling really crappy. Really fatigued, headachey, not quite nauseous but definitely queasy.

I told my client I had to go home. Sweet guy that he is (and I mean that), he was very concerned. He offered to give me cab fare. It was a bit of a walk to my car but I think the air helped. By the time I got home I felt a little better but more tired. I lay down on the sofa, put on the TV and fell asleep for about 3 hours. Can't tell if I'm really ill or if it's just my body's delayed reaction to several weeks of stress and overwork.

Whatever, I'm not moving tomorrow. Hell, I'm barely moving now. Yup, I think it's back to the sofa for me!

I've got those Second Draft Rewrite Blues

Sigh. It's been over three months since I had the reading of my play. It was the first draft; the reading was purely for the purpose of helping point out things that need to be fixed. And believe me there are plenty. But happily (very VERY happily) it's structurally sound. The basic plot framework is in good shape. The story as a whole works. The characters are basically sound.

The actors gave me lots of great feedback. They even found things in the characters I didn't know was there. How cool is that! That's what I love about theater. It's alive, it really is. You create these (hopefully) fully-formed characters and set them loose in a world and there's no telling what they'll do. They can surprise you. Seriously! There are times when I've tried to make a character do something and they absolutely did not want to. They'd resist and resist and I'd finally have to give up. Often I feel like I'm just following them around, eavesdropping. But anyway...

I've got my first draft. I've got lots and lots of notes. And I haven't been able to get started. Part of it has just been me digesting it. Letting it percolate. But then of course there's the whole thing of how overwhelming and daunting it is when I think about how much work there is to do. It took me five years to wrestle this thing to the page the first time around! I don't think it will take me nearly that long for this go-round. But even so, I look at it and I kind of, well, deflate. I know once I get started, how I look at it will change. (see my previous post about writing)

But then there's this goddam working for a living thing! When o when will the government realize it needs to subsidize its artists? Plenty of youse know exactly what I'm talking about. But in the meanwhile, we are forced to put our primary purpose on the back burner and spend all those precious hours at some other labor. And what is the result? The result it....

I've got those Second Draft Rewrite Blues!!!!!!!

Give me chocolate!!!!!

Today was a major chocolate day. Unfortunately, I didn't have any. The needle on my stress-o-meter was way, WAY off the scale. This whole week in fact. And last week. Difficult deadlines made even worse by the geometric growth of the amount of work needed to be completed by then. Then being tomorrow (Friday). And after tomorrow, there's another one next Wednesday. And in between there's a deadline on Sunday for a freelance project I managed to sandwich in there.

I did finally get my chocolate -- on my way home from the bus at 9:30, I stopped at the 7-11 and got a bar of dark 60% cocoa. But by that time I had kind of decompressed. It was good of course but not as necessary as it had been hours earlier. I think I'll take the rest to work with me tomorrow so I'll be equipped to handle anything.

My Post-Election Pronouncement

Yessirreee, I'm feelin' pretty good about this election. When's the last time I've been able to say that? Not for quite some time, I can tell you! And on top of that, Rumsfeld's departure. It's good to be on the winning side once in a while. But it's not just the winning of course. It's that it offers the possibility of undoing some of the damage that's been done to the country and many other parts of the world in the past six years.

I'm not going to get into details or policy or anything like that. I just wanted to say that for the first time in a long time, I feel not quite so in peril. That's a very good thing.

My Pre-Election Pronouncement

First of all, I have to say THANK GOD FOR CALLER I.D. It has protected me from a non-stop barrage of last-minute (or in this case, last-week) electioneering and pleas and harrangues to vote for this guy or that guy. I absolutely intend to vote tomorrow. I'm adamant about voting. But I already know who I'm voting for and these folks aren't going to change my mind.

This is the first election in a long time that I feel hopeful about. I'm resisting the hype that says the Republicans are going down hard. I don't want to get my hopes up. But it's a major moment for sure. Their stranglehold on the government is about to loosen up. And the slow erosion of the checks and balances that has historically held those in power accountable will hopefully be stopped.

But that isn't what this is about either. I've been thinking recently, in light of the New Jersey State Supreme Court's decision about equal family rights for same-sex couples, that there are two kinds of legislation. The first is the kind that comes from visionary leaders who change the course of social interactions. The creation of Social Security. The TVA. The WPA. Civil rights laws. These were innovations. They induced changes that would not have happened on their own.

The other kind of legislation is the catch-up kind. The kind that simply codifies behavior and actions that have already been going on. Things that were initiated at the grass roots level by individuals agitating for change. That's what the whole same-sex marriage thing is. It's going to happen. It's a natural force like gravity or plate tectonics. And the best thing the government can do is fold it into the legal system as soon as possible. I know that won't happen. But (and here's where we get to my pronouncement) I'm telling you that within 10 years or so, it's going to be the rule rather than the exception.

And within 20 years, no one will be using gasoline in their cars any more. But that's a whole 'nother thing.

Shop till you drop. Or not.

This is the Grand Gateway Mall, one of five malls at this intersection.

Okay, here's the deal about buying stuff in China. I know that everything we have here is made there. So naturally we would all think that everything must be really cheap there. Not so! The same rules that apply here apply there. With a few variations.

Here's a for-instance. Say you want a pair of Ralph Lauren jeans. Yeah, if you go to the factory outlets, you can get some insane deals. First problem is, it's a big freakin' country! There's factories in lots of places! Second problem is, which factory? The garment factories are contractors. The guys who ran up that last batch of Lauren jeans are now working on North Face parkas or Sears flannel shirts. And they don't put signs out front saying, "Now appearing...Ralph Lauren jeans!". So you have to know a guy. Now if you want socks, that's a no-brainer. Just go to Datong (aka "Sock City"). There's also a Tie City. But really, how many ties and socks can you own?

The same applies to leather goods, shoes, whatever. I was told by he who knows that if I wanted to go up north to like Harbin where the furriers are I could get a full-length mink or sable coat for, like, $300. But I was absolutely nowhere near Harbin, which is in Manchuria, which borders Russia. Also, considering the time of year and the weather, it would have looked rather odd for me to be sporting such a garment. But you get my point.

So...you're looking for jeans. You go to the mall. You go to their version of The Gap or Old Navy or The Limited or Abercrombie & Fitch. Yes the prices are a little lower, but only by about 20-30%, which if you wait for a sale you can get here.

So now we come to the knockoff goods. The fake Fendi bags and the fake Vacheron Constantin watches. Things in this department are not what you'd expect either. There was this big enormous marketplace, kind of like a permanent street fair, where all the vendors of pseudo goods sold their stuff. It got closed down recently. Partly because of pressure from the real manufacturers, but mostly, I think, because the property just became too valuable to house a bunch of crappy little one-story stops. It all got torn down to make way for (what else?) a giant multi-use office tower/upscale shopping mall/5-star hotel/luxury condo units. But I digress.

Now in order to get the really high-quality knockoffs, you gotta know a guy. Fortunately, we did. The guy met us at his cousin's or his aunt's boutique. We went into the back, out the door, up the stairs into a private little showroom. I wanted a watch. No particular watch, just a nice-looking watch. I found one, an Omega Constellation. Not the real thing of course, but a nice looking watch. I thought I also might like a new wallet since mine is falling apart. I ended up with a "Gucci" wallet. Very nice but now that I have it home I don't like it. It doesn't work right for me. Same with the "Fendi" purse. It's too small and everything gets all jumbled up inside. So now what do I do? I can't sell them on eBay as genuine because they're not. I can't very well list them as phonies either. So I guess I'll just wait until somebody I know needs a gift. But at least I got a watch I like. Cost: about $30.

What else did I buy? Some truly kickass green tea. I got it at the tea market in Shanghai where Westerners rarely go. I also got a clever little tea maker. Total cost of tea and pot: about $12.

At a craft market I bought a very pretty shawl/scarf. Cost: about $4. And also a colorful wall-hangy thing. Another $4.

That's it, the extent of my purchases in the land of We Make Everything Cheaper.

Small digression

I just decided today that I hate my job. No, that's not really accurate. I don't hate the job itself, I just hate that it is keeping me from doing what I really need to be doing. And it's often very stressful and it drains me of all my brain juice. Sometimes by 3:00 it's gone. By the time I get home, I can't do anything creative. I can't think deep thoughts or write clever writings. I'm tired and downtrodden. At least I feel like I am. Something must be done.


But at least I have good health insurance.

More from China

This looks more like what everyone thinks China is supposed to look like, right? This is a party boat on I forget the name of the lake in the resort city of Hangzhou, about a 2-hour train ride from Shanghai. Compared to the grit and the hustle of Shanghai, this place was positively laid back and funky. Kind of felt like a Florida resort town but with no theme parks. And way less cheesy. Although the cheese factor was in evidence from time to time. But the lake is ringed by a beautiful public park with footpaths and oodles of restaurants and cafes. Our favorite one was called La Luna. Great place to sit in the evening and people watch. There were also dancing fountains (like those ones in Las Vegas, only in colors) and a light show across the lake. Very touristy, but still charming.

Charm...one of the things Shanghai lacked for me. Keep in mind that this is a very cosmopolitan city of upteen gazillion people. As a percentage of total population, Westerners were not that numerous but neither were they a rarity. There are plenty of American and European expats living and working there, plus a complement of travelers. Absolutely no feeling out of place. Just another body amidst masses of other bodies. I did go to a couple of areas where round-eyes congregate in the evenings, but as I was with someone who lives there, mostly I got the insider's view. Which was very cool. And since my companion is also American, I got the best of both views.

Food...some was very good, some was rather mediocre. I ate Chinese, I also ate Thai, Italian and Brazilian barbecue. (Told you it was an international city.) Had some crappy Chinese buffet breakfasts at my hotel, and had some decent American breakfasts at various cafes around town. Big surprise: I did not have a bad cup of coffee anywhere in China! No kiddin'! And forget Starbucks (which like everywhere else is on every other corner). I hate Starbucks coffee in any country. But at other cafes, at plain little restaurants, all the coffee was decent or better. They just LUV coffee! I also drank some superb tea (which I brought home). But I can't tell you how thrilled I was to hang out with a good cuppa Joe.

Next installment: What's good to buy. Where's good to drink. What's fun to do.

I'm back...didja miss me?

Yes, back from the mystic East. NOT! Shanghai is a big, noisy, dirty city in a big hurry. And this is coming from a New Yorker! I'm still sorting and analyzing my impressions. But for starters, Shanghai is not a very charming city. In fact, it really has no personality at all. Not surprising considering it's in the process of reinventing itself. Shedding its skin. Molting. Half the city is under construction and the other half will be soon. In another 5-8 years there will be precious little left that's more than about 20 years old.

This is a view from a very chi-chi bar on the roof of some building or other along the Bund, which is kind of like 5th Avenue if it were along a river. This bar had sand on the floor and beach lounge chairs out. This city lights up like Vegas at night. It was kind of like Blade Runner on steroids. Except it wasn't raining.

Full of contradictions and weird juxtapositions. More later.