there are no songs about memes...

... and that's not really a bad thing. But let's try one anyway.

1. What did you do in 2005 that you'd never done before?

Drove across the Midwest -- ate cheese in Wisconsin; saw Dayton, Ohio (twice!); got close to Iowa; bought pants in the Mall of America; wandered around southern Minnesota looking at things that had only been fictional in my mind. Entertained the thought of LIVING in the Midwest (probably not in my future). Finished writing a book, for the 6 millionth time. Kissed someone in a forest. (Sorry, barf. Will try not to make this barfy.) Did a headstand. Became obsessed with Netflix. Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Stayed in a hotel room alone.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I kind of kept them -- I was way better about exercise and yoga until about two months ago. And yes, I will make more, probably the same ones or similar, for next year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No, although a couple people who are semi-close to me did.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, knockoneverywoodensurfaceeverywhere.

5. What countries did you visit?

Wow, I didn't leave the U.S. this year, unless you count Detroit. I'm going to England next summer to visit R., and Los Angeles in the spring to visit T., and New Hampshire over Presidents' Day with the sisterfriends.

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?

More sleep, more self-discipline, a consistently working car.

7. What dates from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

My birthday and Oct. 20. I think I'll also remember Aug. 29, the day Katrina hit.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I think I'm starting to trust people in a way I haven't before. I did a couple things I was really really scared of this year, and I think it let me be little bit less cynical and pessimistic and superstitious. My guard came down a bit in 2005. (Also, the whole book thing, maybe.)

9. What was your biggest failure?

Continuing to let anxiety make a lot of my decisions for me. Not learning to ride a bike, again. I also really really suck for not getting my knitted holiday gifts finished on time, but I'm still working on that.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

No, although this high blood pressure situation is not really to my liking.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Well, the best thing I was given is definitely insulated curtains from my parents, which I always think aren't helping keep the cold out until I stick my hand between them and the window and feel how freezing it is. The best thing I bought was probably my first-ever pair of knee-high boots.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

The panda cub. And my friends, frankly. We kind of ruled 2005.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

We aren't going to talk about politics here, right? But you can guess.

14. Where did most of your money go?

If only I knew. To Amtrak, to car repairs, to various yarn stores, to my overpriced gym, to eating out way too much.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

The new book that's in my head, and the old book that's pretty much out of it. Harry Potter. H. and K.'s new house. Getting my own office, maybe soon.

16. What song will always remind you of 2005?

What is that song that's always on XPN about the "waaaaay up hiiiiigh" -- they play it, like, every day. That song. Also the White Stripes' "My Doorbell."

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? a bit thinner
c) richer or poorer? about the same

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Enjoying things without worrying.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Do you know I actually can't think of anything, unless I went back to the last question and put it in this category? Wow.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

J. and I are going to the movies on Christmas Eve (which is also Chanukah Eve), and then I'm getting up early Sunday to drive to Lancaster to see the family and help my mom with the mammoth party they're throwing that night.

*(now is where I start editing because this is getting boring and repetitive)*

23. What was your favorite TV program?

Still Gilmore Girls (you guys, MADELINE ALBRIGHT was on the show. In Rory's DREAM SEQUENCE. Come ON, how much better does it get?). But after Netflixing the original British version of Coupling, that's a close second. It's hilarious and great.
25. What was the best book you read?

Hmm, just one... Primo Levi's "Periodic Table," and the Alice Munro short stories. And "Cat's Eye," but that doesn't count because I read it a bunch of times before.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Girlyman, Girlyman, oh Girlyman.

27. What did you want and get?

A good relationship.

28. What did you want and not get?

A digital camera. Still holding out a shred of hope for Chanukah, but I think it's not to be.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

I saw way more movies this year than usual (thanks, Netflix!) but there isn't one single standout. Oh, maybe Good Night and Good Luck, which made me proud of journalism for a change. Dr. Strangelove was great. And I adored Bride and Prejudice, although I did not adore the person with whom I saw it.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

28, and I spent it with J at dinner and at the movies (at Good Night, come to think of it). A few days later, I had the most surprising surprise party in the world. This was a stunningly good birthday year.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If I had gone a whole year with no cavities. I made six months, but still shooting for the full 365.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?

Hahahaha, right. The trip to the Dayton Salvation Army Store with H. and K. helped things along, but it's still the same old.

33. What kept you sane?

Decaf coffee. And bloggers, actually -- I've found a bunch of new ones this year and sometimes their day-to-day routines bring such a welcome pattern to my own days.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I have a little crush on what's his face from the BBC Pride and Prejudice series now -- Mark Darcy, but I forget his real name. Er... er... Bridget Jones has it too...

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

Will break the normal self-imposed silence: I got really, really into the Sc**ter L*bby thing, and the J*d*th M*ll*r matter in its entirety had me paying very close attention professionally. Personally, I was moved and saddened and horrified by the news from Darfur, and how little all of us really know about it.
37. Who was the best new person you met?

Oh, J.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005.

Oy. How about a nice quote instead:

If the real world were a book, it would NEVER find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction -- and ultimately, without a major resolution. -- spoken by Hamlet in Jasper Fforde's Something Rotten, which I am currently reading

Also:

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. --Douglas Adams

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

That's really hard... this doesn't sum up my year, and the main thrust of this song really has nothing to do with anything that happened to me this year. But um, yeah... it's probably my favorite song from an album that will make me think of this year? Or something? OK, whatever:

from "Postcards from Mexico":

When you slammed through my life
Like a screen door in a hurricane wind,
All I could think was how to find you again.
But Route 80 was snowed under,
And the roads to the canyon were closed.
For our safety, I suppose.

The sound of your voice is like longing feels
When you whispered my name in the dark.
And the thick yellow Brooklyn
Night sky through the window
Burned itself into me,
Deep as my history.

i'm a little hunk of tin

My own little hunk of tin -- not a Ford but a Honda -- had its first ever Great Big Adventure yesterday, when it decided it wanted to stop in the middle of Rock Creek Parkway. Just wanted to curl up in a little ball and go to sleep for a while, and stop going 40 miles an hour in the left lane in heavy traffic. And although I understand the feeling, it was slightly inconvenient.

Twenty-four hours and a new distributor later, it's found a new lease on life. The funny thing is that although I might has well have taken $500 and set it on fire just to watch it burn, I'm not even upset. That car has served me well since 1999, without a single complaint. It's earned a little downtime, right? $500 worth of downtime, oof, but still. Is it too much to ask for it to go another 100,000 miles without asking for another nap?

want to knit you a sweater, want to write you a love letter

So, I have a new theory on why this round of revisions on the book is killing me so slowly and softly with its song. Unbeknownst to me, I have turned into a tragic literary heroine and someone is drugging me with some kind of Snow White/Juliet/etc.-style sleeping potion. That's the only possible explanation, right?

I took a five-hour nap yesterday afternoon. Buoyed by the tiny boost -- "boost," because something that short-lived needs sarcasm quotes -- the sleeping marathon provided, I stayed out at a party semi-late last night and got up reasonably early to go to a knitting store with a friend. And now I just fell asleep for another two-hour stretch of my day. I just woke up. It's dark. Again, still.

Blame the weather, sure, but I have reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder, remember? I love winter. I love that it's so cold in my room right now that I can't feel my fingertips. Hypothetically I love that, anyway. I am the picture of lassitude; I have become Miss Piggy without the bonbons or karate chopping. I didn't even have the energy to go to yoga this afternoon -- how could I possibly scream "hi-ya" and throw poor Kermit across the room.

If anyone's absolutely dying to get me a Chanukah present and hasn't yet, this would be good. Or this. Or maybe just these.

finding faith and common ground

(Having now seen D*r and G*rlyman twice in as many months, I've decided that all song lyrics in my head belong to them.)

We fed 45 or 50 people in our house this weekend's pre-Thanksgiving festivities. At once. Really.

There was food as you have never seen food.

There was wine as you have never seen wine. Seriously, there are 24 empty bottles of wine in our recycling bin. We like wine here.

There was a red jello mold in the shape of the United States as you have never seen a red jello mold in the shape of the United States. People ate off the blue states first, so a big red glob of midwest and Florida was all that was left for a while. By the time we cleaned up, there was just a silver-dollar-sized chunk melting somewhere around Wyoming.

There were awesome friends as you have never seen awesome friends. They were all talking to other awesome friends, and it was really quite something.

There was cleaning up afterward as you have... well, you probably have seen cleaning up afterward like that after small-scale industrial disasters such as TMI.

But there was happy as you have never seen happy. You all had better come next year.

look, ma...

... no cavities! It's sad that this has to be so exciting, but maybe if I didn't have cavities every single time I go to the damn dentist, it wouldn't have to be. But! Not this time! I saw for the first time my new W*tergate dentist next door to my office. He is very sweet and solicitous and also the dentist to some famous-for-DC celebrities; moreover, he told me I have no cavities, and therefore I love him. When he said he'd see me in six months, I almost kissed him.

This:

is on first Google image search page that comes up when you type in "no cavities." Hallelujah and pass the spinach, Olive Oyl.

the paper they were signing said they'd never fight again

A Saturday morning moment of cosmic dissonance: I'm in the science and engineering library at the U of M*ryland, where J. goes to school, and I'm listening to his "Very Early Joan" (as in B*ez) CD, and all around me are SCIENTISTS who are WORKING on SCIENCE and ENGINEERING. The guy across from me looks like he hasn't seen the sun since the Reagan administration, and all around him are books with names like, and I am not making these up, "Levy Processes and Circumstantial Applications," "Service Design for Six Sigma" and something that literally has squiggly little symbols in the *title*. They should give tests before they let anyone in this place, and turn people like me away at the door.

I am very obviously goggling at this poor guy and should probably stop. But my library task for today is to read one book (with words, not symbols) I have to review this week and work on another one that I'm supposed to be editing, still, again, still still again still still still. Oof. I'm feeling somewhat fat and happy, as they say, as well as cosmically dissonant, and am not too inclined to start working on either of those things right now.

Ms. B*ez is giving me a bit of a headache.

These editorial cartoons about R*sa P*rks are really lovely. Interesting how many of them depict her in heaven... if there is a heaven or whatever, I sincerely hope no one has to take the bus there...

W*nkette posted the most brilliant of brilliant SCOTUS ideas yesterday: The baby panda for the next justice. Non-DCers, I have no idea if this has made national news, but the panda our zoo gave birth to a really cute cute cute tiny panda who just got its name last week. But up until then, many people (my coworkers included) were calling him "Butterstick," because when he was first born there were all these stories about how he was the size of a stick of butter. Anyway. This is a great idea.

And with that, I read. Or nap, maybe. Don't tell the scientists.

brown paper packages tied up with strings

It is fall, and that is my favorite thing.

I am now going to spend the rest of the evening unpacking all my junk and reading the new J*nnifer W*iner book with the ridiculous cover that I spent a ridiculous amount of money on this weekend. I can't remember the last time I bought a new hardcover book, but between this and Sunday's ticket to "In Her Shoes," I might as well start mailing my paycheck directly to Ms. W*iner. But I would, if she wanted, because I love her.

route 80 was snowed under..

... and the roads to the canyon were closed
for our safety, I suppose...

Before I forget: Girlym*n, people. They are amazing. H. and I saw them open for Dar last weekend and I've never loved a band so much or so instantly. I now go into Girlywithdrawal if I don't hear the CD at least once every two hours.

For a couple weeks, almost every day, I keep being reminded of Angie's mom's question: How good can you let things get? It's a really profound question in its way, a way I can't communicate right now, but... the things, they are good. He's good. We're good. Better than good, good in a way I didn't know things could be.

It's also kicking the crap out of my vocabulary, apparently. And, as most of you know, my natural superstition about jinxing myself (now joining forces with my paranoia about revealing things to the whole world wide web) doesn't approve of me saying much more -- in fact, it thinks even this has gone a little too far.

The sound of your voice is like longing feels
When you whispered my name in the dark.
And the thick yellow Brooklyn
Night sky through the window
Burned itself into me,
Deep as my history.

sixteen, going on sixty-four

Isn't it funny when something happens that you've wanted for a long time -- a thought like a rough stone that's been rubbed smooth -- and it's both nothing and exactly like you expected? And you feel like you're in a new place you never quite imagined, but also a totally familiar place that isn't really any different at all?

Quite apart from the above, someone at a dinner party last weekend brought up the subject of natural age, and I've been thinking about it ever since.

I love the idea that internally, we all sort of settle at some age that expresses ourselves perfectly -- one of my roommates' natural ages is about 52, for example, because he's kind of a middle-aged soul, somehow. Another roommate's natural age is 13; he plays practical jokes that involve pantsing people and displays fanatical devotion to cartoons with scatalogical humor, but those are more symptoms of his natural age than the real reason he is just intrinsically 13. It's not the fact that he likes that stuff that makes him 13, it's being 13 that makes him like it.

But it works for some people and not for others. H. and I couldn't really figure out our own, and some of my coworkers were totally obvious and others not at all. I might be developing a theory that the people who don't really have a clear natural age are actually currently AT their natural ages, but I'm not sure if that really holds true.

Does this make sense to any of you? Several readers of this blog have natural ages that seem blindingly apparent to me, but I don't know, maybe it's less clear when you're looking at yourself. What are your natural ages? Thoughts? Feelings? Just want to share a self-indulgent metaphor about stones? Like sands through the hourglass... :)

katrina

No idea who this blogger is, but he or she has it exactly, exactly right.

close my eyes, make the pies all day

I set my alarm for 8 this morning, ambitiously planning to bake and clean and iron and yoga today. Instead, I finished the last of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and can't bring myself to leave my room and drag my laundry basket down the stairs. I need to make some sort of fancy dessert for a dinner party tonight and figure out just what exactly to do with the huge quantities of peaches and apples and blackberries Shannon and Gaby and I picked yesterday. Twenty-six pounds of peaches, three and a half pounds of blackberries and what, maybe eight pounds of apples between us? It's quite a haul, in any case.

Great Gaby moment: We're walking back to the car with all the fruit, and Shannon points out the ripening pumpkins in the field next to us.

Shannon: The pumpkins aren't ready yet, but soon they'll be nice and big.

Gwen: And orange.

Gaby: And delicious!

Delicious! Here is one of Shannon's photos, because I do not have my digital camera yet, but I swear I will someday:

makes you think all the world's a sunny day

Rrrrrrrrrroad trip photos are up in one of those fancy-pants Kodak Galleries -- go to the slideshow to start your exciting journey through our trip. Don't expect too many pictures of landmarks or anything, but do expect pictures of ducks, dogs and racist signs. Woo!

I was f-i-n-e fine

Tomorrow begins the glorious, glorious period at work known as the "dark" or "nonpublishing" weeks, in we do not put "new content" on the "site" so we have time to catch up on old projects and start new ones. Dark weeks are the most wonderful time of the year.

And I'm going to do an off-the-job dark-week project as well: Fix my damn room. For those of you who don't know, I have a gigantic room. Literally, five of my junior-year dorm rooms could fit in this room -- it has a sort of office-y desk area, a sitting area with a couch and a recliner, a bed area, an area where only things I don't use live.

But that whole thing about how you expand or contract to fill a space? True. I'm tired of the gigantic yellow room being a gigantic yellow mess. What's stopped me from dealing with this before, aside from abject laziness, is that it's not unliveable... the mess is sort of underground, in the structural organization. Like, I can see the top of my desk, but my phone bill from 2002 is cohabitating with my vacation photos from last summer, and the big zip drive I haven't used in three years is within easy reach but I can't find my favorite t-shirt.

Do any of you have organizational solutions you think I should implement? I'm thinking about going to the Container Store today just to look around and get ideas (read: I'm thinking about going to the Container Store today to wind up spending $50 on random things that probably won't help me but look pretty) but I'm pretty open to things. I would move furniture around, or acquire another piece of mass-produced Swedish yuppiedom if it would help.

Main problems:

1. Clothes.

  1a. Exposed clothes. Why, when I have all this furniture, do I need these plastic bins for my socks and tanktops sitting out on the top of my stuff?

  1b. Overcrowding. Must get rid of things. Must.


2. Bills and papers. Right now, they're in gray file folders that look nice and neat, but I don't want to pull them out and file things every time I get another piece of paper from the bank, so I pile everything on top of them, both obscuring their function and design.

3. Plants. Too many, most not thriving on sunless window sill (how am I slowly killing an aloe plant? Aren't they supposed to be unkillable?)

4. Weird bad area. The place near the couch where old things live.

5. Old laptop and printer. I need to sell these things on craigslist.

6. CDs. Except for the occasional new one, I haven't listened to a real live CD in like 2 years, since the birth of iTunes. Do you sell them to a second-hand place? Put them in a box in the basement?

So! I know many of you are organizationally inclined, so please feel free to offer any suggestions that have worked for you, especially in the bill-filing and clothes categories. Also, if you'd like to come over and magically complete this project for me, I would not complain.

a sad, sad limerick

There once was a girl from Lancaster
Whose book could be one huge disaster.
But she said with a grin, to her slight chagrin,
At least it is done, really actually done, and she, I mean I, won't be working on it any more because really it's actually done this time at least until an editor gets his or her hands on it which I hope happens someday because that would mean maybe I had an agent who maybe maybe please might be trying to sell -- sell? sell! -- the book and that would be so crazy that I'm almost scared to even imagine it so let's just concentrate on the fact that it's really actually done and shipped off to someone who's going to read it and comment which is scary but I'm not thinking about that either so let's just concentrate on the fact that it is really actually done. Which I already said. The end. Good thing I'm not trying to convince anyone to read my limericks, right?

why you think the 'net was born?

You guys, how great was the to-Minnesota-and-home-again road trip. I'm back. It was great. There was too much funny (Anne) and awesome (Anne) and revealing (the Minnesota farmland) and weird (Nan the Innkeeper) and scary (Mall of America! oh my god) stuff to even try to describe here.

Photos will follow -- photos from the borrowed digital camera that revealed what a truly crap photographer I am. I take badly lit pictures of, like, pretty patterns on the sidewalk and funny ducks near Lake Michigan. I take a LOT of badly lit pictures other people's pets and random signs. I do not take pictures of the stuff you're supposed to take pictures of on vacation, like your traveling friend or the stuff you're actually seeing, so please do not expect them.

Off to the beach with Angie and co. on Thursday, and then I will be back for good until Labor Day. I came back from this vacation feeling like I never ever ever wanted to come back, like I wanted to stay in Ann Arbor and go to coffeeshops and live in Anne's apartment with her forever, but maybe the mini-vacation will be easier to leave. Doubting that, but let's hope.

solitude standing

Things I thought I would never say, v. 1.0:

1. It's actually a little lonely living by yourself, even just for a weekend. Part of the time it was the solitary paradise I anticipated, but for about an hour or so, I really wanted someone there to talk to.

2. I just ended that sentence with a preposition and I don't care. Notify the grammar police.

3. Due to No. 1, however, I am finished with the editing of the book. FINISHED. EDITING. FINISHED. Imagine how much I would get done if I lived by myself, lonely or no.

4. I now own a two-piece bathing suit. Be not afraid, though, it covers just as much as a one-piece.

a double-kick drum by the river in the summer

(In the manner of Cindy, big bonus points for anyone who's been paying attention to trendy alterna-pop well enough to get that song reference...)

Remember how I said a little while ago that it's hot here? Well, it's still hot here. Shocker, right, since it's July and all. But even though the Turkey Hill mint cookies and cream was on sale for $1.99 at the new Giant -- an amazaing, beautiful monstrosity of a suburban grocery store that magically materialized about a mile from my house, thank you to all the gods in heaven! -- I don't like the weather any better.

I feel the way about summer that I think other people feel about winter, like reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder or whatever. It's 95 degrees with 80 percent humidity? I don't want to go outside. I want to stay in the airconditioning, hang out with my fan and sulk. But it's socially acceptable to feel that way when it's cold out; in the summer, people are like, "it's so beautiful out! let's go have a picnic! let's go walk the whole way across town! let's go hiking!" So there's this sort of lingering guilt about hating summer. I am here to say: no more. It's gross out. I have to get on the bus in an hour and I'm not excited.

I just read something in some random blog about fall, and I thought, "fall? fall doesn't even exist." I can't even imagine the weather being different and leaving hellish evil summer, even though I've obviously seen 26 summers turn to fall in my life. It always feels like this huge relief when it's time to dig out the sweaters, because I didn't really believe that time would ever come again.

It made me see the larger pattern, too: I take things too permanently. If my hip hurts from hyperextending it in yoga a few days ago, I think it's never going to get better. If the link to my favorite ambient music radio station isn't working, I worry it's broken forever. If someone I'm expecting to hear from hasn't written, I assume s/he never will. If someone is annoyed at me, I think we'll never get along again. I waste all this energy trying to adjust my reality to these really temporary situations that won't be around in a few months, or a few days or hours. My hip stopped hurting yesterday. The radio station played an hour later. The non-writer wrote back. The annoyed person, who may or may not have actually been annoyed in the first place, returned to acting normal in half an hour. And summer will end, right? Just not before I have to get on the bus. Damn.

what I learned is that grass really grows slow

I'm having a patience problem recently, and today I found myself gritting my teeth, literally. I always thought that was just an expression. I don't remember ever doing that in my life, actually thinking, "why does my jaw hurt? oh. guess that's why."

Gritting your teeth. The words even sound unpleasant, gritty grit in your mouth. Ugh. Shouldn't the 6 million yoga classes be teaching me to relax my shoulder blades down my back and breathe from the belly and let go of my thoughts and live in the moment? Isn't teeth gritting the wrong direction?

Sing it, C*tie C*rtis:

I spent all day yesterday sitting at a red light
'cause she told me to give it just a little more time.
And I lost my car in a parking lot.
Bought a newspaper and I decided to walk...

hot time, summer in the city

It is so freaking hot here. Every summer, EVERY summer, this happens -- it sneaks up all quietly somehow, until it's June 13 (happy day-before-your-birthday, Annie!) and you have everyone making the requisite comments about how DC is a swamp blah blah, and the Metro station seems to exhale hot breath all over you, and just the air out the window looks likes it's melting, and you need more ice cream than should ever be consumed by one person just to make it through the afternoon. Not to mention early and late evening.

Which is why I say bravo to this advice to deli-owners everywhere:

Don't waste valuable freezer-case real estate on Bomb Pops that you could devote instead to the Flying Sicle Brothers: Pop, Fudge, and Cream. I love Creamsicles. Love them! If the deli stocked Creamsicles, the deli owner could build a new wing on his house in about a month, because I would buy them, daily, frequently, early and often, even in the winter, because of the very deep, very real love. I would buy Fudgsicles, too, even though it annoys me that it is spelled "Fudgsicle" and not "Fudgesicle," and I would even now and then on a very hot day buy a Popsicle, even though eh.

Hear hear. I would also like to append to Sars' brilliant essay a note to my own corner deli: Please, please, get the Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches back. I know they cost $6.99 for 6, which is obscene; I know they frequently were smushed beyond recognition; I know you never had the really good mint ones they sometimes have at Safeway. I didn't realize how good I had it.

I broke down last night and walked the WHOLE WAY to the Soviet Safeway in the sticky heat after the first store (unnamed, as far as I know, although in my head I call it Pseudo Safeway because it only sort of sells Safeway-brand but isn't called Safeway, I don't know)didn't have any Skinny Cows. The only package they had was so damaged, so beaten and bruised, that it looked like it had fallen off the back of the truck and been run over 15 times in the middle of 17th Street. I wound up with a half-gallon of Edy's mint chocolate chip, and in my panicky no-ice-cream-in-two-hours withdrawal, I wound up buying some kind of no sugar added version when I thought I was buying the lowfat version. It has Splenda in it instead of sugar. And if I cannot be trusted not to eat a whole half-gallon of not-that-great-but-it'll-do-as-a-substitute lowfat ice cream, what am I supposed to do with something that has the addictive powers of Splenda AND lots of nice delicious fat? What, I ask you?

Eighteen hours later, it is three-quarters gone. I am not the sole perpetrator of the eating of the ice cream, but I am for sure the main one. I was eating it when I came home from an eventful day of work at 2:30 p.m. today. I am eating it now, at 6:32 p.m. I am helpless in its many-Splenda'ed grip.

So this is a long way of telling the nice people at V*rginia Market on the corner, who will never read this: If you can't get the Skinny Cows, if you insist on only carrying the same three flavors of Ben and Jerrys that just don't hit the spot in the summer, at least get a small freezer case for the Flying Sicle Brothers and let me help you put a new wing on your house.

spent so many nights thinkin' how you did me wrong

Wedding two of six down, and I just realized with a start that the remaining four don't pick back up again until Labor Day. Crazy! Wedding season hiatus. (And yes, at last night's festivities, they did play the aforementioned song, the ultimate inappropriate wedding song, about how Gl*ria G*ynor should have changed that stupid lock. It always is shocking to me that it's on so many wedding playlists -- is it that the wedding couple is thoughtfully putting others' interests ahead of their own, just because they know people like dancing to it? Is it that they are just totally not superstitious about potential implications of a song about a terrible breakup being played on their Very Special Day?)

Apologies for the stereotyping, but I was reminded just how much fun it is to be at an event like this with the right kind of gay guy. The one I was with last night, another friend of the bride who hadn't been invited with a date and didn't know most of the other people there, was just the right kind: funny, charming, wonderful dancer, brings you drinks, willing to be catty at all the right moments, way more considerate and good date-ish than any straight guy (maybe one exception, but just one) with whom I've ever gone to a fancy party. And this was FANcy -- at the D.C. R*tz C*rlton, black tie, incredibly beautiful with candles and red tulips everywhere, etc. I did see a bunch of college people I never was really close to there, and they were lovely and cool and more fun than I remembered. One of them lives a five-minute walk from me, and we will start hanging out, I think. I am starting to think that part of the reason weddings exist in their present form is so people can act way outside their normative social sphere, whether it's friendlier or sluttier or funnier than they usually are, and that's why weddings can be so good or so not-good, depending on... how they are. This one was good, though.

Very profound. I need some breakfast.

But, and this is the real reason I started posting -- for all the Narnia fans in the last comments, you can watch the trailer online here. Go, watch, win.

with wookie good relationship have I

Yes, I saw it, and was sadly disappointed in the lack of dressed-up Star Wars nerds seeing it with me. No stormtroopers, no guys with light sabers, no Patalie Nortmans with big prosthetic fake bellies, nothing. I guess I would have had to go opening night or something for that, huh. But as someone who had not seen either of the first two prequels -- or really paid much attention to the originals, thereby requiring visiting guest G. (of G. and C., of Lanky and college fame respectively) to provide a preliminary briefing on the way over -- I was still able to appreciate the story and the horrendously bad acting from formerly good actors. (The guy playing Anakin is also the guy who played Stephen Glass in "Shattered Glass," which was incredibly distracting because I LOVED that movie in an "oh my god this is so painful I feel like I'm going to lose my mind" sort of way.) And don't forget the insanely political overtones. Anyone who believes Leorge Gucas really wrote these movies 20 years ago and didn't intend any blatant reference to Beorge Gush and his administration has been brainwashed by the dark force.

Anyhow. I'm not sure I get the big debate over the whole thing, and in my mind the Lord of the Rings stuff is 80 million times better and deeper and more meaningful. If you are wearing a Bewchaka costume right now because you love it so much, I apologize for my blasphemy. But it was fun.

Also fun: Going to the American History museum Saturday and standing behind a kid who, upon viewing the display of first ladies' dresses, says (as quoted by C., somehow I missed this display of awesomeness), "Mom, this is just like a really boring trip to Old Navy." Yay for the youth of America!

from storypeople

My grandma used to plant tomato seedlings in tin cans from tomato sauce & puree & crushed tomatoes she got from the Italian restaurant by her house, but she always soaked the labels off first. I don't want them to be anxious about the future, she said. It's not healthy.

Love that, and love the let us pick one for you feature on that site. Perfect.

the power of three

Ickle was captain,
And Pickle was crew,
And Tickle served coffee and mulligan stew.
-- Shel Silverstein, "Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too"

If, in my whole life, I can ever write anything half as good as Shel Silverstein's worst poem, I will have succeeded. His website has recordings of him reading some of them (I also had a tape of him reading from Where the Sidewalk Ends when I was little, and I used to play it on my red Panasonic tape player in the backseat of my parents' station wagon) and they're gorgeous. If it's still in circulation, I think I need to get that recording for my favorite two-year-old ASAP.

You -- well, I, at least -- don't just love these poems in that I-liked-it-when-I-was-a-kid-and-so-I-like-it-for-how-I-used-to-feel-about-it way, either. They're amazing to adults, just clever and skillful and actually really deep in their own ways.

That is all for now. Life continues unabated. I'm a little afraid of May, how busy it will be and how I will not be home for more than 4 days at a time for several weeks, and how the book will languish during that time. Ah well. I wish I had a flying shoe like Ickle's, but don't we all. Over the sun and beyond the blue.

trading in his Chevy for a Cadillac-ac-ac-ac-ac-ac

One of my editors commented recently -- after being informed, not for the first time, that I actually know nothing about the subject he pays me to write about every day -- that he thinks the fullest realization of being a working adult is being able to fake it, all day, every day. Fake your knowledge of particular subjects and about everything in general, and to do it convincingly enough that everyone else still feels comfortable leaving you to run the ship. I think I love this theory. Do you think it's true, though? Do all those seemingly competant people really not have a clue?

This made me proud.

This is making me excited about cooking, specifically about making fruit salad this weekend.

This, which I saw with A and T this weekend, was great.

This had me nodding at my computer screen at work.

This had me laughing out loud on the train. Once I was so shocked and pleased and "woh, so true" about something she'd written that I instinctually covered my mouth with my hand. The woman in the next seat looked at me as though I was contagious.

huh

Somehow that last post about the living wills was deleted. Weird. Here is the link if you want.

Also, I saw Melinda and Melinda last night and liked it much more than that review suggests. I especially liked that people were sitting around with mostly empty glasses of wine and having three-hour conversations about whether comedy or tragedy is the baseline state of life -- which is actually a conversation I had very recently, independent of this movie and in a different sort of context, but same basic principle. I like that we have the intellectual luxury of that kind of talk in our lives sometimes.

make it simple, to last your whole life long

Someone outside the window -- the window and everything directly outside of it is really the main character of this blog, isn't it. I should give it its own username and password and let it get its own -- is singing "I am extra-Latin! I am extra-Latin!" at maximum possible volume. Thinking these lyrics were somewhat improbable, I stared at him for a while, but no. I can see his lips move. Definitely "I am extra-Latin." Extra-Latin! Yay?

This dovetails nicely with a dream I had last night... in the dream, I was watching a movie in a theater. All the dialogue was in Russian, but I could understand it up until some unidentified person next to me pointed out it was in Russian, and then I couldn't understand it any more. And then I left and went outside, only to discover I was in a big screening room on an airplane, which also had an outdoor courtyard you could fall through to get to the ground. Extra-Russian?

headshrinker, headshrinker, shrink me a head

Ha. Alissa understands that title.

So my father finally explained (in a way I understood; he had explained it many times before when I hadn't understood) why it behooves our fair government to tax us too much during the year and then send big checks to make up the difference. But I definitely think there's a psychological element to it, too -- the money I'll get from Uncle Sam in a couple weeks will be far more exciting than if it were just tacked onto my paychecks where it should have been in the first place. Something nice about a big lump sum, which I suppose is why lottery winners always choose their prizes that way even when it means they get less money in the end. That poster-sized check is kind of irresistible.

Anyway, I'm already sort of scheming what to do with it. I really might go on a writers' retreat this summer, hopefully in the Midwest, where I will not be so dumb as to say y'all (note the correct usage and spelling! I can be taught) or to think that Kansas is somewhere it isn't.

Something about this weather lures me to this desk, where I sit and look out at the street and write about nothing. Yes, it is snowing, but I need to get up and recognize that this very very nice weekend is over and that tomorrow will be Tuesday. If you're not ready to accept that yet either, this was a great article on the real Hotel Rwanda.

hi. we're in... delaware.

Not your mama's geography quiz -- it's fun! I got

45 out of 50 perfect
90%
average error: 22 miles
256 seconds

although, in the interest of full disclosure, that was my second time. The first time, it started with Kansas and I was about 200 miles off. But come on, Kansas? I'm a journalist, for heaven's sake. Everyone knows we don't do red states.

OK, tell what you all (would they say "ya'll" in Kansas?) got on the quiz. Peer pressure. We'll see who's s-m-r-t smartest.

throw your gown up and down

Is that really the line from the Dar song? I always thought it was, but writing it looks so strange. Hm. Anyway -- I was only even thinking about that because in the car just now, I was listening to the Best of Dar mix CD that H. and I put together a hundred years ago, and "Playing to the Firmament" came on, and somehow the line when did you cave into this role that you were cast in stuck out, and then it dovetailed with something I've been meaning to write about here for, like, a year, and now I'm writing here instead of working on the freelance project/book review/letter of recommendation I'm supposed to be working on, and that little wordless problem we talked about a while ago? Yeah, not so much -- there are SO MANY WORDS in my life right now, and fortunately many of them are quite lucrative ($35-an-hour lucrative, lucrative such as these words have never seen), but they are not leaving too many left over.

Yes.

Anyway.

What I was thinking about was this: It's funny how many prospective lives all of us tease out. I feel like we all have these sort of alternative realities, most of them involving us living together in some kind of big communal space and working on some kind of big communal project. First it was the Spinster Lodge (which, let's be honest, is still my favorite) -- but it's kind of fallen apart because several of the lodge's planned residents are dramatically reducing their qualification for spinsterhood by doing things like getting married.

Then there was the applesauce (don't ask) farm in Vermont with my college friends. There was the daily commuter newspaper I was going to start with other people from college, the idea for which has been completely appropriated by the W*shington P*st in the last year or so. With no credit to us, I might add, and we suck for not doing it first. There was the semi-pathetic "if you and I are single and age X, we're getting married and having babies," which of course resulted in him being the first one of my friends to actually get married. Now there's a new one, recently floated by my old roommate J., which consists of all of her DC political friends getting together to run one of us for C*ngress; I now have a job among these people overseeing hypothetical polls and writing hypothetical press releases about how awesome she is, which I would do in a heartbeat.

(There are also a few that only I participate in -- including but not limited to writing books in the silence of a snow-covered cabin in Canada -- but those don't count the purpose of this story.)

Why do we do this, do you think? Is it just a beautiful thing to think about so many people you really like being in one place, working toward one real true thing? Do we all just like the junior-high vision of us being 2gether 4ever? It's such a bittersweet pleasure. We know it probably won't happen -- but it's so funny, even in that sentence, I can't bring myself to leave out the word "probably." I can't bring myself to rule out the possibility. Each one is so appealing, things that seems like they should be within our collective reach, and I don't know if the fact that they're (probably) not is good or bad. They make me sad and happy at the same time.

OK. That was my single profound idea for the evening. No more words! Editing lucratively now. Edit. Words. Go.

P.S. I feel like I have to confess to the Lanky friends: I am cheating on you by going to the Melting Pot tonight with 14 other people (same number as the wineglasses of the last post -- what are the odds), none of whom know the meaning of "meat! fruit! both!" Even though I think most of you, especially the Queen of the Melting Pot, have been there with other people, it feels wrong somehow. I will think of you when I drop my piece of broccoli in the boiling oil stuff and have to fish it out with a spoon...

post-dinner-party party

Sometimes standing in the kitchen washing 14 wineglasses by hand and talking about how much you like everyone is the best part.

the world below

Sitting at my freezing desk, looking out the second-story window at the night of the winter's first snow. The sidewalks are icing over, but the street is too traveled to be cold enough to freeze yet. There's a heightened police presence because of the inaugural stuff; a thousand motorcycles and squad cars make way for fleets of black SUVs and implacable otherworldly limos, forcing everyone else to a standstill so they can pass. Helicopters and sirens are making the windows rattle and it feels like we're under invisible attack. One day when I don't live here, I will remember that window rattle specifically, the view from this chair, the way light pools on wet streets, how there is more red than any other color.

I didn't watch any good-bad reality TV today, which may seem like a step up, but I'm weird and edgy and lonely and I can't call any of you because a potential new roommate is about to show up. I don't want a new roommate. I don't want to be waiting for something unrelated that I shouldn't even care about, and I am very much under the influence of Oh What's The Point.

restaurant weak

What do you get when you cross a psychotically lavish seafood buffet with two people who do not eat at psychotically lavish seafood buffets on a normal day?

Sickish. You get sickish. T. and I went to Cafe Promenade Friday night, and we both felt vaguely ill afterward, but somehow, five days later, she is fine and I am still sickish. Restaurant Week is a biannual event during which the unwashed masses dine at posh places on a $30 price-fixe menu -- and, as promised, the restaurant was amazing and we had the best time ever playing like people who could actually afford to eat at a restaurant like the Promenade (we're on a second-name basis with it now). Going hiking the next day in 30-degree weather didn't help. I have no regrets about any of it, but I do feel sort of bitter about the lingering sickishness... being all healthy and going to the gym and yoga should give me a pass on this kind of stuff, not cause this kind of stuff -- which is my going theory, that my body just can't handle lavish and seafood in the same sentence.

Now I'm eating toast and desperately trying to think of a headline so I can finish my freelance article and pretending I'm not watching the Real World/Road Rules Battle of the Sexes, which I will not justify with a link. I'm so watching it, though. I don't really understand the premise or why it seems like both teams have to vote people off no matter who can or cannot balance on a purple plank suspended a zillion feet above a city, but maybe if I pretend not to watch long enough, I'll figure it out. If any of you know, and are not too ashamed to admit that you know, please enlighten.

---

Update: The guys are throwing the mission! They fell off the purple planks on purpose! Nuh-UH. Oh my god.

hey, look over there

Not over here, because it's not done yet, but the transition was pretty smooth. Please stand by and our operators will assist you shortly.

greener pastures

Who knew it could even get greener than leafygreen? It feels like breaking up with our website, but we're leaving the lousy hosting company. Blogspot, here we come.

Take It Easy is going to be the tester -- I'm going first and this will be my last post at this URL. From now on, my heart belongs to leafyg.blogspot.com.

leafyg.blogspot.com. Go. (Fight. Win.)

Goodbye, leafygreen.org! You were a good website (until you weren't, and that wasn't your fault) and I'll miss you.

water and earth

Just came back from a yoga class where Kim talked a lot about the tsunami and its impact on the world, about how bodies are 85 percent water and how earthquakes of any kind affect water in unimaginable ways.

I donated money to CARE today -- I didn't research extensively or anything, but if you're looking for somewhere too, I did enough checking to ensure that it's legitimate and not religiously affiliated. (It also has long-standing ties in the region, so some systems to deliver help are already in place instead of having to start from the beginning.) Funny that we/I fall back on established religion-y patterns with stuff like this, though... the only number I could think of to donate was double chai, the letter that represents life in Hebrew -- as in "l'chaim, l'chaim, to life" -- because that's what my mom always gives. Not even a tiny fraction of a drop in the metaphorical bucket, almost less than nothing, but it was the only thing I could think of to do.

It seems like a very Western thing just to throw money at problems and then demand they fix themselves, but I don't see many other options; my "skills," such as they are, wouldn't help most people in Sri Lanka even on a good day. What they do need is totally unfathomable to me, almost as unfathomable as the disaster itself. So sad.

a cup of kindness yet

Wish I was an English Muffin
About to make the most out a toaster.
I'd ease myself down, coming up brown.
I'd prefer boysenberry more than any ordinary jam.
I'm a Citizens for Boysenberry Jam fan.
-- Punky's Dilemma

It's going to be a boysenberry jam kind of year, if I have anything to say about it. I bet Maceo agrees; his "fingers on the pulse of funk" told us so last night. And today, Hefk and I made Mondo Beyondo lists. They will be in the back of my mind while the front of my mind works on my new year's intentions, in the service of which I am prepared to go above and beyondo all of my own low expectations. Full speed ahead, 2005.