TASTING LIFE TWICE

For someone who isn't into math, I'm all about the headline equations lately.

One of the challenges of the world today is that you have to be very thoughtful of your actions in public in a way you may never have had to in the past. Politics in particular have seen how this phenomenon works. Gaffes and debacles that might have blown over ten years ago now have longevity and can go viral before you even realize it. Controlling what happens when you do stupid things is near impossible with technology like Youtube courting millions of users around the globe.

Take Monica Conyers, Detroit city council woman. Her appalling behavior will now serve as a marker for many on what not to do (like calling the bald city council president, "Shrek").

I'm not sure why I never have anything to say anymore, on either of my blogs. I'm usually spewing some drivel or another so you might think it would end up here, but well, I have to chalk it up to laziness.

At least with a list like this it proves you can find pretty much anything you want on the Net. And that Stumbleupon rules. Here are a few of my favorites to keep you busy for hours.

 And so, for your lazy link pleasure:

• Sunbeam Poem Projector
• LSD vs Alcohol vs Tree
• Stun your friends with these crazy Latin sayings!
• Mentos and Coke Record Explosion
  
  
  

  Mentos and Coke Record
• An Error
• Lots and lots of cat facts
• I am a Zombie Filled with Love
• The Ten Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts
• Star Wars Urban Photography
  
  
  

  Don't Mess with Boba Fett
• 100 greatest dance songs of the 90s
• I'm a Creep
• Frank Melech's Dreamworld
• Book Autopsies
• Velociraptor season is here. Are you prepared?
• Don't Panic!
• To satisfy your morbid fascination
• 19.20.21
• Forbidden books
• World of Inspiration
• Sickeningly cute
• How to make roses from maple leaves (useful, I know!)
• CandyKitty will take care of your money (coveting)
• Cottonmonster
• May the force be with you
• 349 scandals in eight years with time for more!
• Face your childhood fears

Candy by Joshua Hoffine

That should keep you busy for now. :)

I have a few years to go but my father tells me that my new pic at the left makes me look my age. I just laughed. ;)

I've been trying to get a good pic of me for awhile so was glad when that one turned out. My hair has grown so long!

not sure which forces are aligning but my sister and I are ending our jobs at the same time. In both cases we have been a valuable part of the company and both companies really really didn't want to see us go. Her company (she manages cosmetics for a major retail department store in the southwest) was pretty much BEGGING her to stay. No extra compensation offered, just a plate of good, old fashioned guilt. Which made her waver a little, but in the end today is her last day.

And tomorrow is mine. I'm most excited to not have to use Lotus Notes anymore. Hate hate hate that product. Not looking forward to leaving behind colleagues who have become friends, especially my former manager, while I know I'll remain close to her, it just won't be the same not being able to pop down to her office on a whim and rant or rave about any given thing.

The worst thing about my sister quitting though is that my supply of free cosmetics and perfumes (Lancome, Dior, Givenchy, etc) will come to an end. And well, I can't justify spending $60 on face cream or $40 on mascara, so I guess it's back to CVS for me, sigh. Still, it was very very good while it lasted. :)

Yesterday Joe and I took advantage of the few hours of sunshine that Boston had and went down to check out the tall ship Stad Amsterdam which is docked at Rowe's Wharf for just a few days. The ship has luxury accomodations for special trips. Yesterday they had clearly done some sort of day trip and were just coming back to port. I wish I could have snagged some pictures with the sails up.

Stad Amsterdam coming into port

Stad Amsterdam in Boston

Stad Amsterdam docking at Rowe's Wharf

Tulips!

oh wait, we were...at this Jens Lekman show. In fact in watching this Joe realized that we were standing next to the guy filming. You can hear us laughing, my screaming and I can even pick out places where you can hear me singing along.

He's telling the story about the song, which is about a time when he went to Berlin to visit his lesbian friend who had lied to her father about him being her fiance--and the embarrassing dinner that ensues.

Crabapples near Harvard (2007)

3 comments

Sooo I just scored a new job as a PR Director for a big tech firm, helping grow the PR program for one of their newer divisions. It will be a good challenge for me and I'm really excited.

The tough part is telling people at my current job that I'm leaving. My timing is bad, so that doesn't help as we're hiring a new PR firm and we're going to be doing a lot of transition related to that change, much less having to transition my own work. Some people are worried about the hole I'm leaving and I can sense frustration when I mention I'm going. Many understand my reasons. Others are outright joyful that I'll be doing something good for me. But for the most part people have been sad, as I have felt--sad that I won't be working with such great people anymore.

But it's spring now and the peepers are out--I heard them yesterday. What a wonderful sound!

Spring.Peeper

The crabapple and cherry trees will bloom in a few weeks and the grass is starting to pop up through the dirt. The temperature will be 70 today! Everything is poised to start bursting and blooming, to follow along the cyclical change and flux of the seasons.

It's a good time to change things up. Fall and spring always seem to represent new transitions for me. New job, new creative infusion, new possibilities.

• 
  
  
  
  Jens Lekman at the Paradise
• Battlestar Galactica Season 4 (argh it starts the night of Jens Lekman! TG for TiVO!)
• Colin Meloy at the Somerville Theater
• Planning a little wine tasting party
• SPRING at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery
• Spring in general!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Ice cream season
• Cleaning up the back porch, potting flowers and getting ready for summer.
• Sitting on that same back porch and writing (although half the trees are gone and there is a massive house just feet away from ours now...maybe I'll have to scope out a park)
• Lavinia, by Ursula K. Leguin
• Going to the Langham Chocolate Bar for my birthday in June. I've been wanting to go since I moved here 11 years ago and this year is not going to pass without me going!
• Receiving this in the mail sometime this week!
• And this.

I haven't been posting as I go for the 50 in 365, but I have been reading. Sooo here is the backtrack for what I've read in the last two months.

#1-3

The Gormenghast Novels

The Gormenghast novels are really three books, Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone. Incredible books, especially the first two, which chronicle the story of a very odd castle and its strange inhabitants, including the just born Titus Groan, the 77th Earl of Gormenghast. It's a well-written gothic fantasy of sorts, although it can hardly be called fantastic in that there is no magic, just an amazing cast of characters.

I highly highly recommend these books. The BBC and WGBH put out a mini-series a few years back that is based on the first two novels. I think that the mini-series would have been confusing to me if I hadn't read the books, but I thought that they did do justice to the story and they did a great job with casting. Netflix them AFTER you read the books.

Now You See Him: A Novel

I've read quite a few other books as well...

#4  After Gormenghast, I read Eli Gottleib's Now You See Him. It's not the type of book I would normally buy but I scored a free reviewers copy. It's a short, easy read. Interesting literary mystery novel if you like those sorts of things.

#5   I was looking for a book on my great reading list that I could take with me on a business trip I took in January. Joe convinced me to bring Great Expectations, which I, shockingly, have never read. In fact, I've never read any Dickens beyond certain passages handed out in writing classes in college. This is very strange to me, being such a literary freak and such a fan of British literature in general. Dickens' collected works are on my list to read, definitely. I really enjoyed the book but found it hard not to picture Ethan Hawke, Gwenyth Paltrow and DeNiro as characters. I hardly remember that movie but reading the book brought it back and it was difficult not to think of those actors as I was reading.

#6  I picked up Love in the Time of Cholera at the airport in Oakland, CA on my way back from that trip. I hadn't read it yet, nor have I seen the movie, but wow, what a beautiful story. I do want to rent the movie...can anyone tell me if the movie does the book justice?

#7 The Glass Castle was interofficed to me by a colleague who knows I like books. I don't typically read many memoirs but this one threw me for a loop. It's written by a now-successful journalist who was raised by parents who were rather fucked up but still loved their kids. The story chronicles the story of how they lived, in shacks, often without food or money or clean clothes. I was absolutely riveted.

Finite and Infinite Games

#8  Another book that I read, Finite & Infinite Games by James Carse, was a slim volume that I picked up as a result of some random blog post I read about cognition. Basically Carse presents a philosophy of looking at the world, either as a finite game or infinite game. Children play infinite games...neverending games without rules or boundaries. Adults define, place rules around and create finite games, which in turn create stress in our lives. I like the idea of figuring out how to let go a little, how to take life less seriously and how to shape the world into a game that I want to play rather than to play the finite games of others around me.

Incredible Good Fortune: New Poems

#9 If you love poetry, you must pick up Ursula K. LeGuin's Incredible Good Fortune. It's been a very long time since I have read a book of poetry that has pleased me so much. The poems are delightful, smart, charming and they are incredibly accessible.  I love the magic that weaves in and out of her words, as much here as in the many wonderful stories she has published throughout the years.