notes to myself

There are almost no surprises anymore. Nothing happens that couldn't have been foreseen; few things happen that I didn't foresee.

But if there is one thing I know, it's that seeing the missile coming doesn't stop it from landing. And when it lands, it hurts.

How trite. How pointless. How utterly useless to sit here, typing it out, accomplishing nothing. Words plop down like teardrops, inconsequential. Who cares, anyway?

Fool. Fool.

Am I wrong? Am I wrong to live as I do? I never wanted to drown in contentment. Is that why I've never been happy?

It's all so fragile. Where does one find happiness, anyway? How does one recognize it? Is it simply the absence of pain?

I like looking at the ocean. I like long, solitary walks. The sky, always, any time. Good music. Good poetry. . . . . and what was that Woody Allen had named in "Manhattan"? Ah, yes. Yes. Always that. Always that.

I'm making no sense, and I don't want to make sense. For the first time in months, I just want to buckle and cry. Just go limp. I've had enough. I've had enough sharpness. I'm exhausted from feeling too much.

Enough. I give up.

I hate it. I hate everything about it. I hate the mazes of barricades on the sidewalks, the bored-looking cops everywhere. I hate the crowds of grinning, gawking tourists. I hate the cameras all over the place. I hate it.

Why do they have to turn grief into a convention? Why do they have to make a fucking street fair out of this?

Why does NO ONE ELSE seem bothered by this?

Why am I so bothered by it? I was 5 miles away. I lost no one.

Every day, every single day, I read about 9/11 for work. I read the transcripts of phone calls from the plane companies to the families, descriptions of what they wore or carried on that day. I read articles, the Commission Report. I look at photos of the hijackers. ALL THE TIME. I work right next to Ground Zero. The Brooks Brothers store in my building was used as a morgue for a while. I'm always OK.

When I interviewed, they asked me, "Will this bother you?" And I said no. And it doesn't usually bother me. I don't think about it very much. It's a job. We all whore somewhere.

And I've stopped thinking about the big construction site next to my building as anything more than a construction site, even though, every time some wide-eyed, camera-wielding tourist asks me to point them to Ground Zero, I want to shout - it's THERE, it's that big fucking hole in the ground, you feel fucking MOVED yet? You feel like you can go back to your friends in Indiana and shake your head meaningfully and talk about how fucking TRAGIC it feels to be there, just before you segue into a discussion of the latest episode of "The Amazing Race"? So THERE, it's over there, and there's not much poetry about it anymore. Sorry, they had to get rid of the bodies. I know, it would have made a better picture that way.

I've never said that. I've just pointed and walked on. A few times, I've had to bat away a conspiracy theorist. It's not that big a deal.

It's NOT that big a deal. Not to me. I was lucky. I did the vigils and the blood drives and the marches right afterward - for about a week. And then I moved on. I didn't have very much to move on FROM, anyway.

But today, today - I just can't stand it. I can't stand how normal everyone is behaving. Am I really the only one who can't think straight? I can't be. There are so many families, so many people who are ripped apart all over today. I have no right to feel like this.

I just hate it. I hate the streets. I hate these narrow little streets, oozing with slow-moving flesh-colored lava. Reminds me of Pompeii, of all things. Petrifying everything with its idle curiosity. What the hell are they hoping to find here? What are they here to celebrate? Don't tell me they are here to "remember." No one is listening to the list of names - you can hardly hear it over the chatter of the onlookers and the noise of traffic.

It's dirt, it's all dirt. And I'm part of it.

I've got to stop thinking of madness, instability, etc., etc., as something seductive. That crap only works in the movies, when the actress is thin and hot.

I sometimes wonder if all that astrology bullshit is really entirely bullshit. For the past few weeks, maybe more, the stars have been oddly aligned in my favor. Being neurotic, this means I am now waiting for the stars to slyly rearrange themselves in such a manner as to make the sky collapse upon my unwitting head, but, for the sake of record-keeping . . .

A running theme has been reconnecting with old friends.

- January 13, GBS concert. Ran into best friend from high school; also, first boyfriend. Hadn't spoken with him in about 8 years.
- March 17. Got an e-mail from a woman I'd once worked for, whom I'd liked very, very much and always regretted losing touch with. Will hopefully find way to reconnect.
- Also, March 17. Visit to office from guy who used to work here; it had only been a few months since we spoke, but longer since I'd seen him. Quite exciting, actually. We're making plans to hang out soon.
- Yesterday, in Union Square train station. Bumped into yet another old friend - this was one I'd known in college - whom I had not spoken to in, oh, a bit over 5 years. Will most likely see him again, intentionally this time.
- Call from my cousin this morning, another person I hadn't spoken too in months, referencing LJ and making me come back here to, once again, take a mental tinkle in this corner of cyberspace, and mark it as my own.

Made a new friend as well, a girl who works at my firm; fun, crazy, chock-full of neuroses oddly aligned with my own. We even share a somewhat unusual similarity - a scar on our foreheads. (Doesn't read Harry Potter, or the significance of that would strike her as much as it did me.) She is, however, quite possibly the only person I've ever spoken to who truly "got" the magnitude (and pettiness) of the "fiddler fiasco."

Two other trips to Newfoundland, of course. Detailed in my third Moleskine - all the joy and pain and madness and peace, all the broken pieces and the glue between. And so many wonderful new friends. Sometimes, I think how unimaginable all this was a few years ago, and then, everything becomes imaginable, everything.

The AC/DC weekend, just under 2 weeks ago. God. Will not go into detail here; partly because it would take too long, partly because it's already been written, partly because what has NOT been written is due to the abject lack of words on the subject. No words, just music. (Er, NOT AC/DC music; the weekend took place in Atlantic City and Washington, D.C., hence the shorthand.) And yet another example of the uselessness of "unimaginable."

The funny thing about updating a blog so sporadically is that it's hit with the same syndrome that comes upon you when you meet an old friend you hadn't talked to in ages. There is always SO much to talk about with people you speak to every day - all the minutiae seem like real, urgent, breaking news that must be spoken of, analyzed, rehashed. And then, you meet someone you haven't seen in five years, and when they ask "What's new?" the only response that comes is a sheepish "Nothing much," and a feeling of failure for having done so little. And then, a dutifully compiled itemized list of events/developments that sound so much less meaningful than they really were. And it seems so foolish and so false to go into detail on anything in particular - it's all been said already, albeit elsewhere, and will it even interest anyone at this point?

So perhaps I should give up on this journal, or else make it a point to return to it more often, but I doubt I will. If nothing else, it's time-lapse photography.

I wonder sometimes.

It has been years since I've managed to convince myself that all the idealistic notions of the world that I'd clung to as a teenager were bullshit. That the truth is, what matters is mostly looks, money and how impressive your résumé sounds.

And now, I am starting to wonder again. I'm wondering whether it's bullshit after all.

I don't know when, where or how, but I think somewhere along the line, I developed an idea that people have to earn their right to exist. Maybe it's a New York thing. I know sometimes I walk down a street, or talk to people, and feel that I have less right to be a New Yorker than they do - because I'm NOT really successful, or financially well-off, or beautiful. And I know it's psycho, and I don't really indulge in this feeling beyond the initial moment, but the initial moment is there.

And now I am starting to wonder. Because, it's starting to look like some people DON'T feel this way about life. And some people manage to be passionately loved despite being objectively mediocre.

It's weird and it's stupid, and I don't know why I am suddenly thinking this tonight, and why I want to write it, but sometimes, you just want to be told that you're fabulous. More than that, you want to be able to BELIEVE it. To believe that you aren't just another lump of pulsating flesh taking up oxygen.

And to think, I thought I had come to terms with being nothing more than that lump.

Can't decide whether this thought it making me serene or depressed tonight. Maybe I just oughta go to bed.

Last week, I came back from St. John's, Newfoundland. Funny, isn't it, after all the prolonged Montreal-centred madness, my first trip in YEARS to Canada was to a place I'd barely heard of before last spring?

I'm blogging quite haphazardly about this - mostly, I just don't want this to be lost to the ether (although there's paper record as well; and more explicit at that). So I'm not sure what details to relate here. Also, it's the same feeling that accompanies any attempt to describe falling in love while you are falling in love - nothing seems adequate, even the fanciest turn of phrase rings hollow, muted and artificial.

Trite as it sounds, it felt like a magical place. For years, I'd been joking that I no longer have a soul, that I'd lost it in law school. I think I got a little of it back in Newfoundland. Something about the air on Signal Hill, I guess, it's sunny clarity; or the way the ocean curls and slams into the scarred cliffs and sends fountains of foam up 10 feet high; or trying to keep up with the speed of a flying fiddle on the dance floor of a crowded pub. Or laughing with strangers, or looking into a person's eyes, expecting to find some sort of barrier, some sort of frontage or bullshit, and finding only openness.

I have never seen so much uncultivated beauty, so much unassuming power, so much dormant, unexploited history. I have never been so moved, or drawn so much joy from a place. Never, not even in France.

And it was a little frightening, how perfectly, how seamlessly my fantasies came to life. The music . . . my God, the music . . . it was everywhere, it was as though the tracks of my CDs had suddenly sprouted human bodies. A little confusing, actually, when you are trying to reconcile the normal-seeming man you are talking to with the demi-god whose lyrics you'd come to worship.

So I suppose that's why I am blogging about this after all, lack of details and all. I've fallen in love. Like a schoolgirl, moony and distracted and given to sudden swings between euphoria and despair. And falling in love is a big thing in a girl's life. Something very bloggable, I think.

Last night, I finished HP7. I read most of the second half last night, actually - Amazon delivered it the morning it came out (bravo, Amazon, and I didn't even pay for delivery), but that weekend was a busy one and I didn't manage more than the first chapter. Last Saturday, though, I laid out on my back porch for a few hours and managed to read juuuuust to the point where no one should be expected to stop reading . . . and then, innumerable Muggles began interfering. Actually, they were numerable enough, and were mostly my boyfriend, and the rest of the weekend was lost in endeavors of the carnal and culinary persuasions.

So last night, I rushed home after work and devoured what was left. Seeing as how I am not exactly a bonafide Potterhead (I read each book only once; during a marathon week-long stretch last summer, while procrastinating studying for the bar), I didn't trouble to avoid the spoilers, and wasn't too troubled when I was spoiled. In fact, the first thing I did upon receiving the book was peek at the last page to see if those scans that came out a couple weeks back were genuine. They were, but aside from making sure the trio survived, I didn't peek at anything else. (I, unlike most normal people, want to know when a beloved character is slated to die. It makes it easier for me. Life is plenty full of negative emotions - I don't need to add shock and illogical, slightly embarrassing grief to the mix. I like to know what's coming, and I like the opportunity to slowly say goodbye as I am reading.)

Let the record show that I actually was surprised by Rowling's choices of victims. I have been expecting Hagrid to bite it since a few books back. He is the perfect set-up for a Sad Death - a huge, super-strong softie, a perennial victim despite being built to victimize; his death would wring tears out of anyone, esp. since he has been there since the very beginning. I admire Rowling for not going for that particular cliche.

Incidentally, the death that came nearest to making ME cry was Dobby. I suppose this is because it's still a children's book, but most of the deaths were more or less skated over lightly enough. The ones that seemed most REAL were Dobby and Fred. And, unlike much of the female fandom, I've never developed any great attachment to the twins. Dobby . . . aw, I always did like Dobby.

I vastly enjoyed the entire sequence of the Great Battle in the end, and all the other battle sequences as well. Clearly, Rowling has a gift for play-by-play narrative - witness the Quidditch matches - and it all felt very much like watching a movie. In a good way.

Similarly grand was the chapter in the Otherworld. The crying baby was amazingly creepy, considering that I don't normally get creeped out by the HP-verse. All the talk of how perfect and wonderful and great Harry was did feel a little Mary-Sue-ish, but, eh, that's the nature of the game.

In the same vein, I felt somewhat conflicted by the epilogue. OK, I'm a girl, and I read children's books, and I cry when babies are born in movies, so, yeah, I enjoyed the whole "happily ever after" aspect, but Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, the epilogue reminded me of all those women's self-help books. "My friend Sue was once shy, overweight, and constantly forced to duel a soul-less monster on her school campus. After reading my 10 Tips on Disarming Your Inner Monster, she became vivacious and outgoing, learned snippets of broken Latin, married a wonderful man and now has three beautiful children." Really, too, too saccharine. Couldn't even ONE of them have ended up an alcoholic or a nymphomaniac or a bitter, ranting divorcee? Percy, for example. Couldn't Rowling have thrown in a bit about how Percy's bank account has just been emptied AGAIN by his latest 17-year-old part-veela Hogwarts drop-out, and how he's been drowning his sorrows in firewhiskey until his wand drooped and stopped working? No? OK, that's my next fan fic.

All in all, it's kinda funny. It's over, and I am glad I got the chance to get into it just in time. Now, perhaps I will re-read all the books again. Or perhaps not.

Thought I'd blog this, just 'cause. Last week, Brooklyn celebrated Bastille Day. I realized it kinda late and headed out not knowing what it would really entail, and carrying only my little camera.

Aside from giant crowds speaking French and playing pétanque, there was a little skating . . . er . . . course? field? court? . . . set up nearby, with a little ramp and some cinderblocks (or whatever they are called). Not familiar with the terminology, but it was sure fun watching these guys. Especially the little baby skaters, like this one here.

It occurred to me this morning, as I was trying to cross a street, that the next time someone whines to me about how man is being replaced by machines, I will refer them to the phenomenon of the crossing guard.

With two perfectly functioning streetlights, do we REALLY need some municipal dork standing in the middle of the intersection, waving his arms like he's doing the dance moves from Madonna's "In Vogue" video, and generally IMPEDING vehicular/pedestrian efficiency? Do we really need someone who carries on a very loud conversation with his counterpart on the other side of the intersection and doesn't do ANYTHING until you try to walk, and then he whips around and begins waving his arms wildly in your general direction, an angry expression on his face, like how DARE you try to cross the street on the green light????

I am sure that, in theory, crossing guards can be quite useful. But in practice, they annoy the bejesus out of me. Their flailing arm movements are meaningless, they have that distinct Soviet-bureaucracy air of it's-not-the-measure-of-my-power-it's-how-nastily-I-use-it, and I have to say, I prefer the quiet, automated dignity of the common streetlight. It's perilous enough crossing a street in the financial district without adding pointless confusion to the mix.

In other traffic observations, today I saw an interesting little ad on a taxi cab. The ad was for the Jimmy Kimmel show and its text read "I Jimmy while eating babka." Which is cute, and is even cuter (in a repulsive way) if you know that "babka" is Russian for "old peasant woman" (approximately). A small part of me wonders whether this was intentional, and when I recall who Jimmy's girlfriend is, that small part gets bigger.

Last night, I returned from an awesome 2-week cruise through Europe. (Yes, more details and pictures - though no really good ones - are to come.)

This morning, upon opening my mail, I found my tax return checks. Excellent, as I was getting worried about when they'd get here.

I also found a surprise check from my school - like most schools, they were getting kickbacks from Citibank for pushing their student loans. Now that they are being investigated, they realize how wrong it was, and are sending people pro rata shares of the kickbacks. Mine is, ahem, not insubstantial and may just pay for my plane tickets to Paris in the near future. (Did I mention my cruise hit Paris and La Rochelle, and I am, more than ever, planning a vacation in France?)

And . . . I passed the New York Bar Exam. On my second try. Just found out today. Boyfriend called this morning - he passed on his third try - and made me check my results online, although I didn't want to (I was SURE I failed again). When I saw I passed, I began laughing maniacally and then crying hysterically, and it was about 2-3 minutes before I could actually speak.

So now, I feel like my life can finally begin.

You know something? I don't even want to get drunk to celebrate. THAT's happiness.

So I went to a concert on Saturday night, which was amazing and fantastic, except that the idiot boyfriend spoiled the tail end of it, the details of which are (probably) to come b/c it is now 3:45 a.m. on Monday. I just want to say this - my little cam? My little Canon? Is a trooper and a half. It spent most of the night on, and the battery indicator did not so much as blink. It took surprisingly decent shots in bad lighting conditions, its automatic white balance was true to life, it metered light nearly perfectly, and it recharged quickly. It was its first major test, and it passed with flying colors. I love you, little Canon. I love you.

I . . . really don't know why it was so important for me to blog about this. But it was. Thanks.

PS - the dude in the picture? Yarrgh, he has replaced the whale in me nightmares. And, if you know me at all, you know exactly what I mean.

(NO, you filthy pervert! I meant, it's a SIMPSONS reference! You know, the old sea captain? "Yarrgh, that's going to replace the whale in me nightmares?" What did you THINK I meant?! Ugh!)

(Heheh. Nah, you were right the first time.)

This is why I prefer low-budget Russian porn to its overglossed, overinflated American counterpart. Not only is Russian porn the only way I can still get in touch with my early years - seeing as how most of it takes place in very Soviet-era settings, with rugs hanging on the walls, armchairs that unfold into twin-size beds, and heroines wearing only bras, thongs and FUZZY FLANNEL SLIPPERS (tapochki) - but Russian porn in the only kind of porn where you will see the dude dramatically and aggressively dragging a woman's panties off over her Czech-made sandals (bought on the tolchok), get them stuck on the little plastic decorations (because this is what happens EVERY TIME in real life; complicated shoes really should be removed before serious nookie ensues; boots are an exception), and, as he struggles, the girl starts giggling and turns her face away from the camera. (He heroically did not lose his hard-on. I was impressed.)

Someone should really compile a blooper reel of things like this. Ah, hell, someone probably has.

So I missed a bus. As I swore and ranted and shook my fist in the air, it pulled away from me, and an ad for the new Hilary Swank movie, "The Reaping," floated into my field of vision. I registered the tagline: "What hath God wrought?", lettered in a font similar to that used for Blair Witch, Ms. Swank looking lusciously haunted against a parchment-textured brown background. It looked like every other horror movie poster from the last 10 years.

Except that I started thinking that, damn, Hollywood is really stretching its reach when it comes to horror-movie bad guys. Psychos, sociopaths, disfigured freaks, even MONSTERS are no longer enough. The new horror movie villain is God.

I mean, how are they ever gonna top that? You don't get much scarier than the Almighty. Hence the name, after all. I really can't imagine a Freddy vs. Jason vs. God sort of thing.

And are they going to make a sequel? The Reaping II: What Hath God Wrought This Time? I can just imagine the cold open - a crack slowly appears in the heavenly firmament. A cold, eerie grin appears in the frame as the strings throb on the soundtrack. Smash cut to Sarah Michelle Gellar in the shower (with juuuuust a tiny suggestion of nipple in the out-of-focus part of the frame). The phone rings. "Hello, little girl. Have you said a prayer today?" Cue running around and screaming.

See, you wouldn't even be able to have a decent chase scene without a lot of suspension of disbelief. If there's anything we can learn from the folks of the pyramids, it's that God don't chase. He smites. Yea, verily, and with extreme prejudice. And smiting really wouldn't make for a great chase scene. BOOM! Yer smote.

Of course, I am 90% sure that none of the plagues turn out to be God's fault in the movie. It is probably all some brilliant scientist who has been failed by science in some way and has gone stark raving mad and has decided that what the world needs now is some opiate for the masses, goddammit, and if he has to personally beat, I mean smite, godliness into the masses, then by jingo and by Jupiter, he shall. In the climax of the movie, he will somehow die by his own hand (that's IRONY, film critics), there will be a spectacular explosion with an echo of a banshee's howl that will denote how very creepy and climactic this part is, and Hilary Swank will take a breath that will heave her gleaming, dewy bosom, stagger upright, and exchange a meaningful glance with a blue-eyed priest as the music mellows and the sun comes out. And, in the final frames of the movie, we will have a closeup of a church or crucifix or an altar boy's cherubic face to remind us that, sure, science is science, and God wouldn't hurt us like that, but he COULD, and don't you forget it bub, now go bring Father Connolly his daily dram o' what-not.

Incidentally, no, I have not seen this movie and I don't plan to.

Hhhhheh . . . I love writing that. I have started a poem, a regular story and an alternative story, all with that title. (Yet to finish any of 'em.) If you know what I'm talkin' 'bout, wave or something. And have a drink.

Anyway, so I presume it IS a rainy night in SoHo . . . it was a rainy day all over New York today. As I stood outside my office building, debating whether I had the nerve to battle the apocalyptic winds/rains for my daily salad, I reflected bitterly on the fact that, just days ago, I wrote some happy shiny bullshit about springtime in New York. (For the record, I ventured out from under the awning for exactly 28 seconds before darting back in and buying an overpriced Starbucks wrap.)

It was one a' those days, man, one of those days when I really friggen wished I wasn't wearing the suit and long black Wall Street coat. I was antsy all day today - antsy and surly, despite blasting GBS into my ears. I dunno, I generally don't mind my grown-up look, but today felt like I should have been wearing jeans and smoking cigarettes endlessly while an old man growled the blues in the background. Know what I mean?

Have realized that I inevitably drift to this journal when I want to write stuff that I wish I didn't want to write about simply because wanting to write about said stuff indicates a condition that should probably be medicated or at least observed by a professional, and then I refuse to write about said stuff because I figure refusing to write is refusal to acknowledge is refusal to think.

Confusing myself also helps.

Am decorating Moleskine Pt. Deux. Découpage once more. Wonderfully soothing shyte, I must say. Have decided to be bold and make a collage out of random odds and ends. I am not sure it came out so good. Mm. I'll let the découpage medium dry and then perhaps will take some snaps. Because I'm self-indulgent like that.

Have been writing in a majorly prolific way for the past three weeks. Shortly after I started this notebook, I typed all the viable poems from the first one, and I think that act has opened some floodgates or something. I am actually writing almost every day. Not just responses to, er, stimuli either. Am proud of self - even if I produce mainly crap, at least I produce, which I hadn't been doing much of in recent times.

Wish I could kick-start my photography that way, though. Keep planning to go out into the city on a sunny day, but sunny weekends are hard to come by in this fickle season. Last weekend wasn't bad, but I spent it in Philadelphia, getting very, very drunk and watching Sacha Baron Cohen videos on YouTube with my friend. (Incidentally, all ye damsels may wet yerselves for that tall drink of Manischewitz NOW, when his unmodified shayner punim has appeared on every major program, but let the record of my LJ show that I realized he was hot in something like last May. And I don't know why this matters, but it popped into me noggin', and better out than in I always say.)

Incidentally, a mildly amusing verbal trip the other day - after spending a day (er, two weeks) listening to sea shanties and then spending an evening tormenting friends with my renditions of said shanties and talking like a pirate ("Yarrrgh! Gimme a coat hanger for dis coat 'ere!"), long after I'd stopped goofing off and was about to leave, I said, with absolutely no forethought, "Hey, where's me purse?" I realized it a second later and was suitably perturbed.

And with that, I shall depart to inhale the tender fumes of découpage medium because at this point, the crazy has no place to go but down.

And just as I was having thoughts that French seems to be creeping to the background . . .

Was trying to explain the concept of poutine to a co-worker. Elicited very disturbed reaction when the "cheese turds" were mentioned.

And all because I once read a description in French that described the objects in question as "crottes."

Good to know I can still come up with a cross-lingual mental fart.

Was surfing web today and ended up on a LiveJournal site and had that errant, "hey, I oughta . . ." thought, and realized - hey, I have a LiveJournal, why not scribble something in it for a change?

Lately, I've been writing in my beloved Moleskine (working on #2 now; we're still happy together), and dropping the occasional mental turd onto my MySpace blog. Yes, of course I have a MySpace. FYI, I have had it since BEFORE it was the playground of webcam girls and pedophiles. Anyone else find it strange that they started trekking in shortly after I showed up? . . .

Surely do wish I had something exciting to put here, but then, it would be fiction. Well - some new interests have appeared in my life in the last few months, I guess, most notably comics. Two of my co-workers are HUGE fanboys. One of them actually became a pretty good friend and introduced me to all sorts of stuff, comics among them. I now have a small section of my personal library devoted to comics. And a Zippo engraved with "Fuck Communism."

Between that, the fact that last summer, I managed to get myself into the Harry Potter books, and my recent foray into reading books on Irish history (of all things. . .), I think I should be getting my nerd-wings in the mail any day now.

Speaking of Irish things, part of the sudden-onset Hibernimania was a re-exploration of the music. I had quite the starter set from my high school years, but have since plumped my collection up quite a bit. And, wouldncha know where my mental journey has brought me to. Right back to Canada! Just as I thought I was working myself free of the siren song of Quebec (though I am doing my best to keep up the French, as one never knows . . . also, 'tis sexy and snooty and generally delish; also, they've apparently just opened up a place in NY where one can procure poutine! Shall shortly investigate. Where the hell was I, anyway), I fall under the spell of Newfoundland! Of all the places . . .

When I began chirping to le boyfriend about my sudden fascination with Newfoundland, he mocked me by saying "Yeah, Newfoundland, it's the next big thing! Newfoundland: Catch the fever! As you certainly will, because it is fucking cold there and pneumonia is a question of when."

Anyway, the way this happened was that, in my meanderings through Celtic music, I came upon Great Big Sea. The irony was that, when I was about 16, a friend of mine had given me a Chieftains CD called "Fire In The Kitchen," which contained a bunch of songs recorded by the Chieftains and assorted Canadian artists. My favorite song on the CD happened to be "Lukey," with GBS. Much more recently, I got a compilation of Celtic punk drinking songs, which included a few of the band's numbers, including "Lukey." I liked the sound, and, when I Googled Great Big Sea, I came upon the YouTube video of that particular song. And . . . well, goddamn, they do grow 'em good up there and I am but a woman. I felt the inexplicable need to hear more. And did. And did, some more. And, yea, 'twas good. 'Twas so good, I needed a cigarette afterward.

AAAAAAND, they are coming to NYC in a couple weeks. I am going :) All alone, but ah well. Just as well that no one will see my making the faces that I will be making.

So, that is my life for the last few months. Work, writing and new musical interests. When you think about it, what else do you need?

I decoupaged my Moleskine! I went to Pearl Paint for decoupage medium (and ended up spending 2 hours touching things, buying glitter pens and chatting with a random artist), and then, I basically acted like a happy kindergartener, fiddling with sticky stuff and cutting out pretty pictures. I gotta tell you, it's fun to glop glaze on stuff.

I think I like the end result. For one thing, I like the picture (I found it in a calendar of old French ads). My work isn't as neat as my friend's (who gave me the decoupage idea in the first place), but it still came out a lot less hideous than I was half-sure it would. And I managed not to stick any pages together. And it also makes my notebook all shiny. It reminds me - a little - of those laquered address books my parents used to have, the ones with the faux-Palekh designs on the covers. And it's all textured. I like touching it now.

Side benefit - the Moleskine has lost its intimidating "virginal" feel - I have been scribbling and doodling much more in it now that I've marked it as "mah proper-tay."

Since my last entry, I have acquired a few new toys. It's funny, when I was maybe about 9 years old, and all I really wanted out of life was a Barbie Dreamhouse, I once told my mother that it was all so unfair - that, by the time I was old enough to afford the Dreamhouse, I would no longer want it. And I asked her, "Do people still want stuff when they get older?" She barely refrained from laughing at me, and now, I understand why. (And I am not even going to mention what happens when I get too close to a Harry Winston window.)

Anyway, so the first new toy I got, shortly after my birthday, was a new-gen 4GB iPod nano, silver and sleek and skinny as a fashion model. Side benefit of a skimpy 4GB of space - I was only able to load it with my FAVORITE music (is anyone surprised that most of it is French? Anyone?), so I can put it on universal shuffle mode and I almost never need to hit "skip." For my new toy, I bought a really cute new accessory - a lipstick-red leather case with a detachable flip-top cover. Mm. Nice. I've also finally figured out the arcane photo function on iTunes (they clearly discriminate against those of us who MANUALLY update) and loaded it with pretty, pretty pictures. Mm. Very nice.

Still not sure what I will end up doing with my 30GB iPod (so clunky-looking, now . . .), but will probably end up keeping it permanently attached to my radio, since it's so much easier than managing CDs and the like.

My second new toy arrived in the mail two days ago, and is the Canon SD700. Yes, I am a Nikon girl, but Nikons make really crappy compact point-and-shoots, and I needed a tiny camera to toss into my tiny purse when I go on my tiny nights out. And dpreview.com raved about this baby, so I sold my old Nikon CP5400 on Amazon (can't believe someone actually wanted it; can't believe I managed to find the original box and all its contents after all this time), and bought this instead. So far, is OK - pretty fast for a non-SLR (an eternity faster than any other P&S I have ever held), decent image quality for what it is, and just enough bells and whistles for me to fool myself into believing I have any bloody control at all over the image (luckily, Canon's Auto function really is top-notch - a total retard would have trouble taking a truly bad shot). In any event, for the casual shooting I plan to be doing with this, it should suffice, and meanwhile, I get to fondle shiny new electronica. (Now, if only I could find a PCMCIA adapter for an SD card . . . Will take a trip to J&R soon, I think.)

My third new toy is not entirely new, and is ridiculously predictable to anyone who knows me. So, a couple months ago, I was in Barnes & Noble, ogling the notebooks, and finally decided to buy something by Moleskine - I had seen them in lots of stores, and always secretly coveted them, despite not understanding WHY a plain black book cost over $10. So I bought a set of 3 little "cahiers" (not my craziness this time; 'tis what they are called) - small blank pamphlet-style books. I kept one in my regular purse, one in my business purse, and one around my room. I doodled in them, and jotted down phone numbers, and wrote ideas and fragments, and all that jazz. And today, my friend and I were in Kate's Paperie (love! love!), and I decided to buy an actual Moleskine notebook - tiny, but hard-covered with oilskin, with an elastic strap to hold it closed and a cute little ribbon bookmark attached at the spine. It made me swallow hard when I first unwrapped it.

So then, A. was driving me home when I began babbling about the Moleskine, and he thought it was made from an actual mole's skin, and I disagreed, and he told me to Google it when I got home. Well, I was proven right (no mole was harmed in the making of the Moleskine), but I did find a small group of similarly unbalanced individuals at Moleskinerie, where there is a plethora of posts about Moleskine "hacks" (post-its in the back, a printed calendar page glued to the front cover, etc.), the best pens to use with Moleskine notebooks (the Pilot G2, it seems; and I have already ordered a dozen; though can they truly be better than my Sanford Uni-Ball Fine Points?), how to deal with first-page anxiety (start on the fourth one), and other concerns that, yes, I do find legitimate and compelling. So nice to find a little cult to belong to.

(Am also planning to decorate newest acquisition with a small project involving a new technique I heard about, called decoupage, or, as my friend calls it, "arts and crafts for retards.")

Oh! And there was another new toy, as well. So, a few weeks ago, my computer began acting up again, and I called up Dell warranty support for the umpteenth time, and, somewhere in the course of my conversation with the techie, I blurted, "After all these repairs, you might as well just send me a new computer!" (To clarify, "all these repairs" amount to: 3 motherboard replacements, 4-5 keyboard replacements, 1 hard drive replacement, 2 power-cord replacements, 2 fan repairs, and 2 monitor replacements in the last 3 years.) To my surprise, Helpful Techie took a look at my history, gasped, and told me she would ask her supervisors if they could replace my whole system. Well, the supervisors were OK with it, BUT, since they no longer make my D600, they sent me a D620 last week - which is much the same, but with twice the HD space, a faster processor, and a wide-screen monitor. Dude. Sweet. (Although, in a testament to Dell's workmanship, the letter "N" popped off a few minutes ago, but I popped it back on.) Moral of the story: ALWAYS shell out extra for a warranty, because this means you can abuse your computer like an altar boy and still end up more or less happy.

In honor of me hitting the quarter-century mark and officially becoming an old fart, my Mini presented me with a rose today (with only a little help from the humans and their fancy-pants opposable thumbs). This looked so much like a Precious Moment type sapscape that I couldn't resist :)