| the Baby turns 12 |
[20th May 2012|03:05 pm] |
On a hot, sunny Saturday when I was about sixteen, mom surprised us and said, “Who wants to go somewhere?” Baby in tow, middle sister tricked out in beach gear, we drove down to the Keys on a lark, just to get away. We blew through Miami, and onto the only road into the Keys, US 1, the Overseas Highway. Just outside of Key Largo we saw the gigantic pink conch shell spouting pink water on the southern side of US 1, and stopped for the show at the Theater of the Sea. It was kitschy as hell—even the name of the town, Islamorada, sounded like a 50s fantasy. But there was a quaint little dolphin show and colorful brochures that I used later to make a collage in my journal, commemorating the day. Somewhere just past Islamorada, we found a big resort and snuck in to the private beach, parking our car just up the road at some public park site. We ran into my on-again, off-again high school boyfriend, purely by coincidence, in the parking lot of the park and he sweetly offered to awkwardly ferry us from our car to the resort, and then somehow, improbably, disappeared his 6'3" frame back among the islands. All day on the beach I was worried we’d be found out, but mom didn’t care, holding the baby in the water, daring resort staff to apprehend such a picturesque scene. Instead, I fell asleep in the sun and got nice and red on the tops of my feet, something I was able to commiserate about later with dad, when we told him where we’d been. I remember the water being the crystal-clearest water I’d ever, and probably will ever, see. Warm and still, like light liquid glass. When baby’s lil’ swimmer got as soggy as it could, mom brazenly changed her on the resort’s beach chair, wide out in the open like that, and we dried off and walked back to our car. By then it was dinner time, so we found some casual family-style fisherman’s joint and sat down to eat among the nets and buoys and faded old maps. Toward the end of the meal, baby got fussy, so I took her over to the gift shop next door. I walked over, and opened the door, to reveal my high school religion teacher, Mr. Adolino, who shrieked in his wry, coy old-man voice, “Michaele Bradford, what are you doing here!?,” eyes twinkling, smile creeping up. Visiting with his family, he introduced me to his grandson, my age, and we laughed at the coincidence. What were the chances? Sure, the Keys are small, but they were a good two hours from home, and there were a lot of them: Longboat, Big Pine, Cudjoe, Marathon, Sugarloaf, and Summerland, where my best friend moved to at the end of our freshman year. Dad had gone to the Dry Tortugas several years back, to do a film shoot, and the remoteness of that island, 70 miles west of the Southernmost Point, in the middle of the Gulf, still enchants me.
We drove home that night, tired and happy, into the sparkling neon lights of fast South Florida, on the interstate flyovers with spectacular views of the urban sprawl and skyscrapers I imagined Joan Didion in when I read Miami. Back to our beds in sleepy sun-soaked Pompano, back to our home.
*
yesterday, we went down to detroit for a tigers game. in the middle of the week i had been looking around for things to do around flint, and found a frisbee golf course and a cool little park that had a pretty picture of a waterfall-looking thing, so i figured we could make a day of it, play some frisbee golf, then go see the water thing. i texted ryan about it, and he responded with, "yeah, we could do that, or we could go to a tigers game with the tickets i just bought." best bf ever. mike picked us up early yesterday, and we got some lunch in greektown, then headed into the stadium, where we were the recipients of a limited number of #14 austin jackson bobbleheads, part of yesterday's negro leagues tribute game. before the game they introduced about ten or twelve guys who had played in the negro leagues, a couple of them for detroit's own detroit stars, and a few had even pitched against satchel paige, so that was pretty cool to see. they had an interfaith choir sing the national anthem and it was so freaking good i was seriously choked up by the end of it. best rendition of the anthem that i have ever, ever seen, live. seriously. we had good seats up in the mezzanine, just past the first base line. they were far, but pretty much right over the lower level, so we had a bird's eye view of everything. before the game even started we were already in the shade, too. comerica has a little problem with seagulls flying in from the river, though, so they have a guy who shoots off some kind of noise-making gun to scare the birds away. tigers played the pirates and lost, but the night before, verlander pitched a one-hitter, so i don't think anyone minded the loss too much. because of all the in-between-innings games, our tickets ended up being worth one free haircut at great clips, a free appetizer at the hard rock cafe downtown, a free little caesar's hot-n-ready when you bought one, and $50 at art van furniture stores. haven't cashed it in for anything yet, but definitely taking advantage of some of that stuff. we were palnning on getting something to eat at supino pizzeria in eastern market, but it was so backed up around the market that we just decided to go to greektown. next time, though, definitely. i've been dying to go to eastern market for a while now.
in september, there's a massive bike-riding event called the tour de troit and i can't decide if i really want to go, or if i just want to do it for the t-shirt. i'm planning on running the crim 5k in august, and i'll get a shirt with that, but bike-riding with thousands of people just sounds like thousands of accidents waiting to happen. it sounds super cool, though, a good way to see and explore the city. but then, i also can't decide if i should see if my bike can be shipped to me, or if i should just get a used one up here. it's a 30-mile ride, so i need something that's up to that kind of wear. we'll see.
off to see the avengers now. ryan and i had to do some "research" before we could go see it, meaning we had to watch captain america and thor, so we would know what was happening. joss whedon wrote and directed, so i have pretty high hopes.
later gaters! |
|
|
| back from hotlanta to krugie's AMA |
[2nd May 2012|07:06 pm] |
just got back from atlanta on sunday, where pam and erik got married. spinal tech makes for some happy unions! beth and joe got married three years ago, even though joe wasn't in spinal tech, but they still met through andrew who did work at spinal tech with beth. and shapattack and adina are still together. but me and my two romantic spinal tech forays . . . well, no unions there, that's for sure. it was awesome to see everybody, though. shelb, beth and joe, shappie and adina, pam and erik, bowersox, erik's friends from florida. the church was beautiful and the reception even lovelier, at the houston mill house on emory's campus.
bowersox picked me up from the airport in a corvette, which was very embarrassing, but entertaining nonetheless, and we went to see the braves play the pirates on friday night. i told ryan that i saw chipper jones make a great defensive play and ryan was like, "chipper jones! jesus, i feel like that guy's been playing since i was 5!" pretty funny. bowersox and i also happened to end up at the very first chick-fil-a, which is kind of complicated. the guy who started chick-fil-a actually started a family-style restaurant first called the dwarf house, in hapeville, ga, which is where we ended up. then, some years later, chick-fil-a came about, so this dwarf house location that we were at actually had two restaurants in it, more or less, with the family-style sit-down service on one side and the fast-food self-service on the other. it was still pretty cool, though. there is not a more delightful milkshake in the world than the chick-fil-a banana pudding milkshake.
we stayed at the emory inn, on the same property that the millhouse was on, and had nice buffet breakfasts at the emory conference center, a hotel that was designed in the frank lloyd wright style. the exterior really did look similar to that of fallingwater and the interior was all very prairie-deco.
the reception was really cool, with tables set up outside and inside the mill house. instead of a guestbook they had travel-themed stickers for us to write messages on and affix to a beautiful old brown suitcase. the food was all from different "countries" like crepes and prosciutto and pretzels with mustard and sausages. too much wine mad me very silly on the dancefloor. you know you've closed down the reception when the dj comes over and asks you what last song you'd like him to play. i went with prince's "let's go crazy," though i probably could've gotten some cheap trick out of him, or some bangles or go-gos. jeez, i wasn't even trying! like i said, too much white wine. and for the cake they had fabulous cupcakes, of which i devoured a spicy chocolate confection. pam looked amazing, with more makeup on than she's proabably worn in all the time i've known her, but very classic old hollywood. her dress was beautiful, too, and reminded me of how much i loved erica's when she and dougherty got married a few years ago. erica kind of bucked the trend of all of the strapless gown with one that had straps that kind of led to a draped or cowl-neck.
the reception ended at 6 pm, so we all headed back to our respective rooms for a disco-nap, and reconvened around 10, going down to little 5 points for dinner, just at the little 5 pizza joint. we tried to get some beer to bring back to the hotel, but forgot we were in georgia, where they stop selling at 11:45 on saturday nights. we ended up just saying our good-byes, and bowersox ran off into the night to finally meet up with a girl (finally). shelby and i did the breakfast buffet with bowersox on sunday morning, then went back to the room and played kings in the corners for a while before catching our car service to the airport. too, too little time. when ryan and i are finally released into the world as fully fledged, non-americorps members, we'll definitely be making a few trips to visit shelb in brooklyn and pam and erik in their new house in atl (just a mile from little 5 points! par-tay!).
i didn't even have time last week to mention that i met this dude at the building michigan communities conference in lansing, who is a musician in chicago, in addition to having a real 9-5. he's older and turns out, knew the jackson family, as in, saw michael jackson sing in his childhood home in gary, indiana with the rest of the brothers. this guy went to some music conservatory in chi-town and toured with the nuge at one point, saying he wasn't very proud of that one, but that he used to write songs with a guy from jaco pastorius' band and once sat in with stevie wonder. it was really funny how all of his stories came up—we were getting a drink after the day's sessions with another guy we had worked with, and one of my co-workers says, "my parents had tickets to woodstock but turned around because the traffic was so bad," the musician says, "oh man, i had tickets to woodstock, but i didn't go, either." so the other guy we're with says, "okay, best rock 'n roll story! go!" mostly people just told their best concert experiences, but i told the one about my dad asking paul carrack when he was going to start his own band, and how paul carrack got very, very mad, but then, since that wasn't really my story to tell, i also added that my first concert was when my mom was pregnant with me and she saw r.e.m. and lone justice at the bandshell at florida, and how i had my picture taken with tommy stinson of the replacements and margo timmins of cowboy junkies. the guy who demanded the stories was like, "wow! that must have been like reconstruction of the fables era r.e.m.! this is like rock royalty!" another guy i work with said he and his dad once bowled with george clinton's crack dealer, and then the musician fessed up to his alternate life of bass-playing with famous people. it was a pretty awesome convo for being at a pretty intense work conference. i was super-glad i went after hearing all of those stories.
this was quite a long post, so i will end it with the news that my krugie-man, paul krugman, did an AMA on reddit yesterday. it was pretty dense, as he's a nobel prize-winning economist, and i definitely identified with this later reddit post. but, krugie did give us a good little gem, in how paul krugman explained the recession to me using a babysitting co-op analogy. hope it answers all the questions you had about the recession, like it did mine (i didn't really have any; i just thought it was a cool analogy).
ttfn! |
|
|
| that time when i was on the phone with POTUS |
[20th April 2012|05:21 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | The Band | The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down | ] |
saw chuck ragan two saturdays ago and had my first obnoxious grown-up good time in detroit. the venue was really cool, called the magic stick, part of a complex that has a big theater (the majestic), a bowling alley (the garden bowl), two restaurants (the majestic café and a pizza place) and a rooftop bar (the alley deck), plus a bar upstairs in the magic stick and one downstairs between the pizza counter and the bowling alley. ridonk. i’ve already told numerous people that it is a veritable hipster’s playground over there. right off woodward, too—probably the most storied road in detroit’s history, with some of the most wicked socio-economic disparities you’ll see in america. some of the most beautiful buildings to ever be built in this country next to some of the poorest, most dangerous neighborhoods in america. the garden bowl is one of the oldest bowling alleys in America, which ryan attributes to the large polish émigré contingent in detroit, and the whole majestic complex is across the street from wayne state’s campus and a branch of detroit medical center. the alley deck was especially cool because it looks out over the city.
but chuck ragan, man, so good. he does this thing called the revival tour where he goes on tour with a bunch of other musicians and every show is different depending on who’s on stage for the folk jamming that occurs. so on saturday night, he had dan andriano from alkaline trio, cory branan (namedropped in a lucero song on their that much further west album), nathaniel rateliff and austin lucas, plus a fiddle player who remained nameless for much of the night, much to my friend cheryl’s chagrin. so here's the funny part of the night: all the musicians get a few songs to play solo and dan andriano proceeds to sing my favorite alk3 song, “every thug needs a lady.” when he’s done, i, having had a few drinks, start yelling “radio!,” an alk3 song that chuck ragan's former band, hot water music, also covered on a split 7” with alk3. the doofus standing next to me had no idea what i was talking about, as he said, “yeah, i guess 'radio radio' would be cool!” nope, not elvis costello, friend. andriano goes on to play a different song, so i yell "radio" again after that one, at which point i guess i had really pissed someone off because someone in the crowd then yelled, “he doesn’t sing that one! learn your history!” apparently, someone also yelled "dumbfuck," but i didn’t hear that one because my heart was in my ears after being called out. turns out dan andriano doesn’t like it when crowd members insult eachother, though, even if one of them is a wee bit intoxicated and not the insultor, because after the intra-audience sparring, he says something like, “man, i just never understood why people have to insult other people’s good song choices. that’s just not cool.” and, he looked über-pissed off! even though i was the jerk yelling at him to play a song that, yes, the insultor was right, he does not sing—traditionally. but then i found a youtube video of andriano and ragan playing the song, together, a mere couple of days before the detroit show, so booya!
i also jacked a lucero poster off the wall, for their show the following week, that i surreptitiously passed to cheryl under the table while we were eating pizza. we were supposed to see lucero last weekend back at the magic stick, but ryan almost passed out while he was driving us down there, so i turned the car around and made him drink some juice when we got home. i hadn't really felt like going down to detroit that day anyway, so it kind of worked out.
the most awesome thing that's happened recently, though, was a conference call last wednesday. i know that doesn't sound like something that's usually supercool, but let's just say that the president of the united states was talking directly to me. i was definitely on mute, but still. the call was introducing the new ceo of the corporation for national and community service, the government agency that oversees all of the domestic volunteer programs like americorps, seniorcorps, and teach for america. she sounded really sweet, being from georgia and having served as florida's director of community service, but she was going on a bit towards the end, kind of rambling it seemed, when the lady who arranges the conference call comes on and says, "i'm sorry to interrupt, but i have the president of the united states on the line." even though we were all on mute, you could feel the collective gasp. i just sat there for a good minute with my mouth wide open. obama comes on the line and says, "i hear you've been filibustering over here, wendy, " and chuckles. then he just gives us a little five-minute spiel about how what we're doing is great and important to the country. at one point he said, "you know, michelle and i started our careers in . . . " and he took a pause, in which i know the only thought going through his head was sarah palin's voice scoffing, "community organizer!" and him being like, "what now, biotch!" because he finished the sentence with "the community." so that was funny. and at the end he just said to keep on doing what we're doing and thanked us for our service. after that, i was like, dude, barry's totally got my back! i hate to think that was a strategic piece of campaigning, but it probably was, and it was still the freaking coolest thing to ever happen to me. while he was on the phone, i wanted to run out to the rest of the office and yell to everybody to come listen, and had a brief vision of all of us standing around the telephone, like one of those moments you see on tv when something incredible is happening to a large number of people. but that didn't happen. maybe next time. next time the president talks to me.
global youth service day tomorrow. having a bunch of kids down to the shelter office to do a bunch of projects like planting some flowers out front, painting a mural inside, making health and wellness kits for shelter guests and sprucing up the kids' room. there are three of us VISTAs and three americorps state kids, so we all got together, with the development director as our mentor, and planned this whole day. kind of excited after meeting every week about it and putting so much work in to it. we even got GYSD t-shirts! i'm in charge of gardening, which seems like a hard project, but oddly i felt like that was going to be the easiest thing for me to handle. just weeding for the older kids and flower-planting for the younger kids. going to buy some soil tonight to donate to the project, and some gardening gloves for myself. |
|
|
| i think, for the most part, the ataris were right |
[30th March 2012|11:31 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | big country | in a big country | ] |
the radio does still suck, but i finally found all of the cool radio stations in the tri-city area, although, one of them is not as cool as i first thought it was. they played the new blink song, but then for the music news they were talking about our lady peace and staind and rob zombie and i was like, ohhhhhhhh, this is that kind of alternative station. it was like a fast-forwarded update on all of those lame/scary hard rock bands from middle and high school. man, i watched house of 1000 corpses one time with corey. that was a weird moment in my life, for sure. the two other stations, though, are awesome, playing mgmt and big country (see my fb exchange with my aunt for why the mere mention of the band big country will forever make me laugh, now) and ben kweller and death cab. definitely struck fm gold today.
lately, i've been mildly frustrated at the fact that i don't have a BSW. if i had a BSW, i wouldn't need to get an MSW to do what i want to do. but as ryan kindly pointed out, 18-year old michaele could not have possibly known that 27-year old michaele would want to be a social worker. he's really nice. this is why i love him. UF doesn't even have a BSW, or MSW, so i would have had to study family, youth and community sciences to be anywhere near what social work is, because psychology and sociology courses don't really prime you for the socio-economic factors that affect people--they're more into determining behaviors, which is important to social work, that's just not all of social work. i looked at the fyc major just out of curiosity, and even then, it's really math and science-driven, with courses in chem, both micro and macro econ, lots of stats, rather than any methods or practice of social work. weird. anywhoodles, now i'm just figuring out where to apply.
hunger games movie was brilliant. i was skeptical of josh hutcherson pulling peeta off, but he has the heartful intensity that we all love about peeta. and apparently? there are racist hunger games fans decrying the casting of black actors? what is up with that!? so über-excited about the next movies though-- finnick! cinna being a badass! peeta going crazy!!! gonna be tha boooooooooooomb.
been working hard on a new program at the shelter. we got awarded some HUD money to run a subsidy rental assistance program for chronically homeless individuals, so i've been lining up properties to participate with us. going pretty well, so far. hopefully continues to go well.
now to fill the void left by jersey shore's ending, with some pauly d project. my dude! let's do you! |
|
|
| march madness: OVER spring: START |
[25th March 2012|04:53 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | feist | how come you never go there | ] |
while i am suffering a depletion of the bank account after yesterday's outing with jack and cheryl, i am so glad i was not home to witness the late-game rally of louisville over the gators. UUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! words can not describe how to'd i am right now, that, after reading on espn.com, louisville scored 15 points in the last 10 minutes, for a final 4-point victory. apparently we were winning for the entire game, and then louisville went and had some gatorade or something (GATORade), and we lost a bid to the final four. WTF!. i'm so to'd, i feel like using crazy punctuation right now!
anyway, i had written down a note to write about gender politics and trivia nights, but that seems completely irrelevant and pointless given this superceding soul-crushing turn of events. i will say, though, that it was cheryl and i alone tying the honeybadgers for third against the pauly ds, who had about five or six people show up on thursday night. if it hadn't been for that sabotageur from the killer bees interloping to show cheryl his "invention," (no that is not a euphemism; he really is an inventor) we would have won the flipping tie-breaker because my answer was closest to the right one, not his. never again.
just bought my plane ticket for pam and erik's wedding in atlanta in april. should be a good time. rooming with bowersox and shelby, dancing in hotlanta, seeing adina, shappie and whoever else. pretty excited.
the cherry blossom trees are all in bloom here, with some daffodils i think, and some crazy yellow bushes and white-flowering trees. really pretty up here, all scenic and verdant. as i write this, i'm sitting in the screened in porch out back, listening to the lawnmowers and chirping birds with a light hoodie on. super nice.
i just discovered this feist song on the radio the other night (college radio, what is up!!!! how i missed you!) and now that i listen to it, she reminds me of rickie lee jones, though i never see that comparison in reviews. i get that reviews tell you what the music actually sounds like, but what's a better description than to say they sound like someone that exists on a recording, instead of some abstract description of wind and ephemera, etc., etc.? whatevs; after previewing a few of the songs from her newest album metals on itunes, i'm thinking about making the leap and getting it, along with lucero's new album. gotta be ready for that show in april! ohhhhhhhhhhhhh yeeeeeeeah, so excited about that, mostly because ryan will get to witness the live lucero and i think he'll really like them. we might go see chuck ragan from hot water music, too, the weekend before lucero. that'll be a good music month. it's kind of hard keeping track of everything that's going on in the tri-city area (detroit, ann arbor, flint) since it's such a big area and i'm not familiar with everything yet. but i'll get there. i just discovered that the FIA shows art-house movies, so now i know where to go for that fix. found a karaoke place, too. finally starting to get my bearings around here. |
|
|
| late-march madness |
[19th March 2012|09:06 pm] |
|
realistically, i know that if we play michigan state, the game is going to be a struggle, but we at least have a chance in that one, whereas if we beat michigan state, kentucky is probably going to full-on kick our ass. but you know what? i made my bracket late (i feel like there are just way too many teams before the sweet sixteen anyway, so there's kind of no point; now's the time when it starts to get really exciting, anyway [pps- i'm not in any pool, i'm just a little nerdy and got really excited when the gators made it to the sweet sixteen, so i decided to fill a bracket out just to see what's up]) and in so doing have ignited the giddy hope that the gators could-go-all-the-wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. for realsies, if we beat uk, then syracuse would be a no-brainer. i can almost taste it. 2012 ncaa men's basketball champions. yeahhhhhhhh buddy! we just look so dang good, all three-pointers and synchronized rhythm. draymond green can't touch us! Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. |
|
|
| summerteeth for springtime |
[14th March 2012|09:48 pm] |
hello!
first run of the season outside of the gym! it was in the 70s today, so i just drove right past the gym, on home, and went for a 2-mile run with some walking involved. the run was just as hard as i anticipated, having suspected that running on a treadmill inside a gym is kind of like running in a vacuum. the moment i started running today, my legs felt so heavy and outside air just makes your lungs work harder. i was spitting like crazy, too, which i never have to do at the gym. basically, this means i need to start training outside whenever possible, if i want to have even a prayer of finishing the crim in a timely fashion without walking. stupid treadmills! they make running so deceptively easy! despite today's run being fraught with expended energy and more sweat on my legs than i've seen all winter, it was perfectly glorious--birds chirping, kids laughing, running on a nice little paved trail through some woods that if i weren't in linden i might be worried about disappearing into. so, so, so nice to be outside in the sunshine.
on the way home today, i was eating a plum in the car (i forgot to eat it at lunch) and briefly contemplated throwing the pit out the window, but did not, for fear of police retribution, even though there were no cops at all around. it just made me wonder, though, if those signs that say $1000 fine for littering, include biodegradable refuse as well. in considering the consequences for throwing the pit out the window, i saw two scenarios: one, police catch me and fine me even though i say the pit is biodegradable; two, i say the pit is biodegradable and they say, "oh, that's true, so it's not really litter" and don't fine me. i guess my conclusion is that they need to make these littering laws and threats clearer, so i know what i can and can not throw out the window of my car. geez! i'm surprised this hasn't been addressed yet.
given the glorious weather change, i made the most of getting off work early yesterday, and went to crust, a local bakery in fenton, for the first time. O-M-G. everything looked unreal, all freshly baked and scrumptious. i had an apricot and gogonzola scone with bacon and other herbs in it that was un-freaking-believable. i thought crust would have tables and chairs, so i brought some work to read over to make up the last hour of the workday, but alas, they did not. when i walked out of crust, though, i noticed some benches across the street, on the other side of a parking lot, so i walked over there and sat in the sunshine next to a little babbling creek and read through my work despite almost busting my bladder from having to go to the bathroom so bad. it was a lovely way to wrap up the day, i thought.
also on the drive home today, as i was listening to "roam" by the B-52s, i wondered what fred schneider was doing when they recorded that song. he's kind of a presence, i feel, in the band, and i just wondered if he was like, hanging out in the booth, or not even there because he was like "eff this song, if i can't be crazy on it!" or if he's maybe actually playing an instrument on the song. i don't usually think so deeply about the making of music, but fred's absence on the track just intrigued me today.
in work news, i went to the white house's LGBT conference on housing and homelessness at wayne state in detroit on friday. it was pretty cool getting to hear a lot of HUD assistant secretaries talk about the current issue of homelessness among LGBT youth and what can be done about it, as well as a new HUD rule on equal access for LGBT individuals (not to be confused with the Fair Housing Act, which does not yet protect LGBT persons). HUD secretary, shaun donovan, gave the keynote and was super awesome and inspiring. one of the panelists was an ED at an LGBTQ youth center in nyc, and during one of the workshops he asked someone to repeat their question because he got distracted by having just read a description of madonna's new album. funny! then my supervisor's battery died, so i stuck around for an hour after the conference ended, until we could get it jumped, got home around 7:30 and flipping passed out at 9 or 10, on a friday night mind you, because the night before SOMEONE bought me a sparks lemonade to play the shore with and i got abpproximately four hours of sleep. miraculously, i was early to the conference and felt no urge to fall asleep throughout the day.
next month, i get to go to the building michigan's communities conference in lansing for three days. the homeless to harvard girl is the keynote speaker! looking forward to getting away from the office for a bit and learning some more stuff. the same week of the conference i'm also going to atlanta for pam and erik's wedding. holler! bowersox, shelby and i are rooming together, so it will be nothing if not entertaining. so excited to see shelb! i haven't seen her in, oh geez, has it really been four years? dang, it doesn't seem that long, but i'm pretty sure the last time i saw her was december '07, so four years is right. dang. geez. that's a long time.
i just read an article in time about willpower, and while i love time, i feel like they barely scraped the surface of what the nyt mag covered sometime last year, on fatigue. realizing that the nyt mag covered this a whole year before time got on it, and did it better, made me miss the nyt mag and wonder if i could get a subscription just for the mag and not the paper. must look into this.
all right folks, that about does it for me, tonight. long update, thanks for reading. good night and good luck! |
|
|
| tea and tyranny |
[3rd February 2012|11:49 am] |
|
just a few things of note today, as i'm making tea. celestial seasonings' candy cane lane holiday tea has come out of nowhere to take the number two spot, behind mandarin orange spice, as my favorite tea, with twinings' earl grey rounding out the number three position. lj is russia's most used blogging tool, with 30 million readers a month, according to an article in time magazine. i always thought those random comments i got from russian users were just spam, because the english was so poor, but maybe they're actually from russian people reading my lj. i should pose this question to the russian lj population. also, how did russia come to love lj? snow's all melted, now to wash hannie the honda (go kart, go!) for all the salt that's on her. don't want her to get any rust spots.Posted via LiveJournal app for Android. |
|
|
| downton muthableepin' abbey, and other things i'm watching and reading |
[23rd January 2012|07:43 pm] |
as if you haven't heard enough about this show from me on fb, i just wanted lj world to know how awesome downton abbey is. here's a little hilarious recap something i scrounged up on reddit's downton subreddit. warning! spoiler alerts! there's also a lot of pseudo-analysis of downton out there right now (the least of which is probably roger ebert's journal [dude, it's called a blog] in which he doesn't understand why the treatment of homosexuality is so dated. uhhhh, because it's the early 1900s, bro? and people take this dude's advice on what movies to watch? i, too, like being hit over the head repeatedly with a baseball bat!), but i've read most of it and it seems like everyone is just agreeing to agree that downton is the first guilty pleasure we've ever gotten from PBS. and i, for one, have never been ashamed of my guilty pleasures.
on the flipside of downton, i started watching bbc's luther, the police drama that stars idris elba aka stringer bell from the wire. super good! so good, he won a golden globe! it's like if law and order was super awesome, it would be luther.
this all reminded me that i had started watching another bbc show, the hour, but when i moved up here, i lost track of it. need to get back on that. it was like a more dense, less vapid mad men. plus, dominic west aka mcnulty of the wire, ain't bad to look at.
on the book front, i finished blue nights by joan didion, one of the three books i asked for and received from my parents for christmas (thanks, mom and dad!). it was good, more introspective than visceral, as opposed to the year of magical thinking, but still a good rumination on age and being. i have since started jeffrey eugenides' the marriage plot, another of the christmas gift trio, which i thought was going to be a lot drier than middlesex, but is turning out to be quite entertaining and un-put-downable. the last book in the pile is the art of fielding by chad harbach, a debut novel about baseball that did not get compared to all of the baseball book standards, which is why i wanted to read it. i'll let you know how it is when i finish it, dad ;) i had a bunch of amazon money after christmas, too, so i bought the remaining two books to round out my kate spade lifestyle trilogy, as well as swamplandia!, another debut novel i heard a lot about, that takes place in florida. should be a nice little reminder of home. maybe i'll read a little carl hiaasen after all of this heavy, critically lauded lit. i have been meaning to read some of his nonfic, so we'll see.
didn't end up going to the DIA after all, but did enjoy a nice meal at slow's to go on saturday. well worth the trip down to detroit. i'm making reservations at roast for valentine's day, but not really on v-day, just the weekend after. gotta support the local economy, yo! expect a full review afterwards.
later gaters! |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
