Lore & Ipsum

A Very Special Lore and Ipsum

2008-12-23T07:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers,

I met a man who sparkles and shines. We met through online dating and went on two dates. And then I saw this.

He will call me when we get back into town. Here's the question: do I tell him why I don't want to see him again?

2008-08-06T17:26:00.000-07:00

One of my godfathers died last night. He had been admitted to the hospital during a weekend trip because he had fallen during the night and woken up in pain. X-rays revealed a massive tumor on one of his lungs, and he died - we think of pneumonia - a day or two later.

Two weeks ago, he and his wife and my parents and their friend Doug met in Boston to spend a few days together (I joined them for dinner one night). Talking to my parents this evening, each of us voiced some variation of "and we just saw him so recently!" My dad thinks this is because when someone dies, we imagine that there are corresponding physical signs which we would have noticed (and what, warned him of?). But it would be a similar shock if he had been killed in a car accident on the way home from the dinner. We just saw him. This leads me to believe that either we have some idea of iminent death as noticeable, or we imagine that there is something talismanic about being with our loved ones. Validity aside, I find it comforting that this is how we feel, for reasons I can't quite identify.

ncc

2008-08-06T16:14:00.000-07:00

"not carbon copying." The opposite of bcc-ing, it looks like you're cc-ing someone, but you're not. I think this is every bit as useful as bcc, if not more so.

good news!

2008-08-04T17:53:00.000-07:00

1. No more workplace crushes. Too pervasive and creepy (me).

2. Did I mention that I have a place to live in Sept? I'll be sharing a just-renovated top-to-bottom single-family house 3 minutes from the Davis Square T with 3 folks who are moving here for grad school (nuclear science, urban planning & design, and statistics). I love them over email, and I'm really looking forward to having housemates again.

Boyfriends

2008-08-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

Our work is not interesting, so A. and I have “boyfriends” who sit on the other side of the floor with whom we have never spoken. A’s boyfriend slouches at meetings and has the surly facial expression of a male model. My boyfriend looks like one of those illustrations of the word “hipster” but also kind and intelligent.

So this is sometimes mildly entertaining. Except I met my boyfriend the other day, and now we’re emailing continuously and he’s not only handsome, kind and intelligent, but really funny and eccentric. And now I am distracted and forget how to talk every time I see him and try to look cute at work despite sweltering humidity.

When you stop and think about it, it’s hard to see how this constitutes an improvement in the state of affairs.

Public Service Announcement II

2008-08-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

Friends, if you drink and comment, do so responsibly.

a bunch of asterisks

2008-07-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

Some architects believe that buildings should be designed to minimize the extent to which scenic views might be taken for granted: soaring vista of the Pacific on the stairway landing, not in the living room. I think this view has a lot of merit*, and I think it also applies to choosing art to hang on your wall.

I find this print, for example, tremendously both aesthetically and intellectually appealing. I love to get lost in it, and I love to think hard about it. But if it were hanging on my wall, would my pleasure in either diminish?

If I were to see it every day in the context of the room that it was in, I would almost certainly start to find it less arresting. And maybe I would stop looking at it, and instead begin to passively see it, and finally see it without seeing it and have my visual cortex process: “there’s that Ole Kortzau** print I loved*** and bought."

*It shouldn’t be applied indiscriminately, of course: ocean views, for me, are less thrilling (and thus rewarding when glimpsed) than meditative. I’m contemplative enough; I don’t need to be detained on my staircase due to prolonged gazing.

** These asterisks link to his website. More of these kinds of prints under “Serigrafi.”

***Just after I typed that “d” I reflexively deleted it, and felt disingenuous and added it back - and now it seems that this could be the crux of the matter. What’s the difference between:

“there’s that print I loved and bought.”

“there’s that print I love and bought.”

I think “loved” may be used more often to echo “bought.” The mere act of saying something increases our belief in it - is this grammar affecting our feelings? Does the fact that English doesn’t have a verb form that corresponds exactly to the imperfect tense make us, on any level, think we’re done with something we’re not?

And sorry about the formatting. Word.

news flash

2008-07-28T18:11:00.000-07:00

Evidentally, the way to meet boys up here is to look for an apartment. I have another is-it-a-date (which is so much more organic and great and exciting than the previous is-it-a-date, which was really rather creepy in genesis, if not in reality) with someone whose apartment I looked at moving into and with whom I've been trading energetic email. Naturally, he's a philosophy grad student. I should see if I could start holding interviews at the APA.

personals

2008-07-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Short, moody crypto-perfectionist seeks broad-shouldered, pragmatic Media Lab affiliate. I change my mind frequently; you grew up on a ranch in Wyoming yet learned to sail as a boy. No writers, law clerks, or P.R.men. I hate dill.

adorable

2008-07-14T15:34:00.000-07:00

After my lunchtime muscle conditioning class, I was reading wikipedia to see whether my inability to know without looking whether my back was straight or hips aligned was a failure of proprioception per se, and I found the following sentence:

Magnetotatic bacteria build miniature magnets inside themselves and use them to determine their orientation relative to the Earth's magnetic field.

I think we know which bacteria got picked on by the cool bacteria.

Also, I bet they have their own little version of Wired. Maybe I could pitch it.

okay

2008-07-12T14:39:00.000-07:00

My friend H. is coming over for dinner and we're going to discuss the whole not date/not not date/predate issue.

Ha! I just realized what pre-date without the hyphen looks like! Now we know where we get the word "predator."

I will let you know what we decide.

It's occurring to me now, when I should be shopping for food, that maybe the question of "is it a date" needs (such as it is) to be posed twice: before the encounter, and as the encounter begins. So before the encounter, you may arrive at some conclusion, and it determines how you conceptualize the meeting to come. And then as soon as you get there, the date/not date counter gets set back to zero, and the encounter unfolds with its own indications of whether or not its a date.

And then there is after a date. Skipping past how you've initially conceptualized it, what appeared to have been a date could turn out to not have been a date after all.

Okay, I just previewed this post. Am I seriously like this?

Now I'm thinking it's not a date.

get thee to a nunnery

2008-07-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

Let's say you met someone two years ago when you were looking at renting his condo. Say you didn't take the condo, and that later he emailed you to see if you wanted to get together for coffee (your academic interests would hang out at parties, occassionally be each other's dinner guests, that sort of thing), but you didn't respond (possibly because you were intimidated by him).

And now, 2 years later, you saw that he was again advertising his condo, so you email to say hi and see if the situation with the condo was the same, and it turns out that it is, and you are again invited out for coffee, to "catch up."

The point is, if you go for coffee, and you're pretty sure you will, you must act as though it's not a date. And even as I type that, I don't know what "act as though it's not a date" means. I think I always act like I'm on a date, which is to say never act like I'm on a date. So there is no acting. I think it's that in the absence of information, it's impossible to conceptualize something as both not a date and not not a date. Is this a problem with genre or with romance? This has to be written up somewhere.

Is there such thing as a pre-date, or is a pre-date a date?

oh dear.

2008-07-12T13:46:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I had slept with earrings in, and immediately felt a flash of wicked glee, as though I had gotten away with murder.

How do you know when it's time to ratchet up the excitement in your life?

as if apartment-hunting weren't hard enough...

2008-07-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

I'm putting together a kinda professional website. And I expect that to a lot of people who aren't familiar with the area, the difference between:

Lore & Ipsum is an editor and writing consultant in Cambridge, Massachusetts
and
Lore & Ipsum is an editor and writing consultant in Somerville, Massachusetts

is marked.

That's not the case, right? That people would think that?

interesting.

2008-07-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

If you mistype “theoreticians” as “theoretians,” spell check suggests “tearstains.”

ugh

2008-07-10T05:18:00.001-07:00

I've been apartment-hunting for Sept 1, and haven't had much luck. Yesterday I went to see this ridiculously amazing house in Inman Square for $3200 (I'm primarily looking with 3 out-of-state people), and I was the first to see it, and was bonding with the owner, but because I couldn't immediately plonk down $3200 and 4 signed leases, she rented it to the next person. But called and told me that I was a lovely person and that she'd love to stay in touch!

So, I'm starting to freak out. Please send positive apartment-finding energy my way and/or beseech the universe on my behalf. And if you don't believe in that sort of thing (M), well, then tell me a great joke.

Now I think I might actually do a shot of vodka before heading off to work.

(I'm going through old papers and things)

2008-07-05T15:28:00.000-07:00

Coincidentally enough, that original FAAR person had volunteered early on that he had a blog, but wouldn't tell me what it was. My friend L. and I were at the Starbucks at the corner of Forbes and Murray (it was the summer I was obsessed w/their chocolate-chip banana cake) when I mentioned the secret blog. A most resourceful researcher, L. had it on up on the screen of her laptop within minutes, um, before I...had time to...object....on moral grounds... Anyway, the blog was quite unintentionally funny, and she and I discussed blog references to which I might airily refer, and proprietary phrasing I could use just enough to make him a bit freaked out, but not enough to give it away.

I should mention that this was when it was beginning to become clear that he wasn't a very good guy. I never did the subtle references, but I think I eventually told him about the discovery and the subtle reference plan, which looking back seems considerably more malevolent.

anaphoric *

2008-07-05T12:34:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, I had just begun dating someone whom I met online, and I forwarded my friend S. the link to his profile. Of the pictures, the only one that was at all clear was one of him rock climbing. S's comment was that he looked good flat against a rock.

It slowly dawned on us, as we drank together, over the phone, almost 600 miles apart, that looking good flat against a rock is actually an excellent and very desirable quality in a mate. We pitied girls who didn't know what their swains looked like FAAR, and imagined a service whereby women would send us photographs of their men from behind, and we would use Photoshop to render them FAAR. And then there was someone in particular whom I wanted to see FAAR, and S. suggested that we break into this person's apartment and replace his mattress with a giant slab of granite, and then hide in his closet. When he returned, and got into bed, we would jump out from the closet, dressed as old-timey paparazzi with old-timey cameras, and take a bunch of pictures.

At that point on our lives, we had more than a few scenarios that involved dressing as old-timey paparazzi and jumping out from behind lampposts and popping out from behind bushes, etc.

The horror, the horror!

2008-07-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

The good news is that I’ve met the FMCG. Tall, beautiful, seemingly kind, Indian, elegant British accent, working on a PhD at Harvard. The bad news is

> I “met” him when a realtor showed me the house he is living in. I don’t know his name or what he’s studying or what he looks like from behind* or anything.

> He is almost certain to have a knockout girlfriend who looks good in scarves, is quiet but never, ever self-conscious, wears jewel tones and interesting jewelry, and whose impressively-populated academic web page has a link to photos of her being outdoorsy, probably standing by a huge rock in some obviously foreign land or northern California.

> Every time I try to picture him now, my fickle mind conjures up Mohinder from Heroes, who is pretty much the most fey character ever created.

I suppose the good news is also, creepily enough,

> I know where he lives.

I could stop by and be like, “oh, hey, I lost my MacArthur award the other day, and I’m just retracing my steps…” Or I could stop by dressed as a sexy electrician. Or! A sexy electrician who lost her MacArthur award! Eh, he’d suspect something.

Huh.

2008-06-29T13:57:00.001-07:00

I just realized that I don't want to do any of the jobs I'm qualified for.

sweetness and light.

2008-06-25T14:49:00.000-07:00

Yes. Thanks to everyone who called or wrote.

Shout-outs?

First and foremost to K, who pointed out that even if I were old and ugly, there are worse things to be.* This cheered me up first because I realized that he was right, and second because I am happy to have the disposition that allows me to be cheered up by this, and third because I am happy to have such practical and level-headed friends who are also capable of being so very very un-level-headed, in the most inspiring, entertaining, thought-provoking ways.

Which leads me to T, or Pt., who works around the corner from me and whom I called to see if he wanted to meet for coffee around 2 this afternoon. He said he'd like to but didn't have time, but that I could get coffee and he could get coffee at the same time, and we could say hi. Which is an amusing new kind of social engagement. During this hi-saying, it became clear that he was in a movies-about-home-invasions phase, and I suggested that he have a movies-about-home-invasions film festival some weekend but not give an exact time, to which he responded that he should just have it at my place. Five stars to friends who are such agile idea-improvers. Also five stars to his lady S, who showed me jellyfish in the Boston Channel.

*It also struck me that the occasional old and ugly feeling is merely an environmental hazard of living in Boston, where an inordinate proportion of the half million residents are between the ages of 18 and 22 - and let's face it, if you're going to college in Boston and could have used orthodontics or the services of a dermatologist, it's likely that you had them.

so much for the icing.

2008-06-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

1. I don't have a place to live in September. I can't afford to live alone. Apartments seem to keep getting yanked out from under me.

2. I am growing to really dislike my job and find that it requires some things that I'm just terrible at (managing large amounts of constantly changing data) and that, as at my old job, my writing is too "academic" or "existential" for what is required. I had an interview on Thursday for a job in a User Experience group that I really want, and I feel that I'm a great candidate for it, but I've had a lot of interviews and feelings and they didn't come with offers.

3. A co-worker, whom I really like, had a birthday party last night. First she, another co-worker and I met at an outdoor pub and had drinks and dinner, and were joined by her husband and a pair of their friends, and that was fun. But then we went across the street, to a sort of loungey bar (this is why I never go out in Boston proper), and a bunch more of their friends showed up, and because I had to go to an ATM first, when I arrived the only available seat was on the other side of the large area we had reserved, and no one talked to me. And then when people did talk to me, probably out of pity, I said weird things. And the whole night, I felt old and ugly.

4. P has started putting some of his things in boxes. I think that the separating of our stuff is going to make me really sad. I guess it's already started to.

my subconscious is such a dork.

2008-06-14T14:58:00.000-07:00

You know that gray area between awake and asleep and back again? The other night I caught myself saying to me "Honey, life is a cupcake and neither one of us has any idea how much frosting is on it." This was said in the tone of voice that would imply that there was in fact a lot of frosting, and that it was positive.

observation

2008-05-26T10:52:00.001-07:00

People on TV are always asking each other, eyes blazing, "And why would I do that?" (presumably because it's shorter than "What do you know that I don't know you know and will compel me to action?") There should be a word for these sorts of phrases that are only ever used to speed exposition. In the meantime, I'm going to start saying it - starting tomorrow, at work.

Highlights (part 2)

2008-05-25T08:24:00.000-07:00

Whoever it was who first said that it's the journey and not the destination that counts was not talking about these.

Which New Yorker cartoon caption contest-based contest would you rather see?

2008-05-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

1. A contest in which you take the current New Yorker contest image, doctor it, and submit it along with your caption.

2. A contest in which you submit a (presumably absurd) drawing to accompany the (presumably commonplace) sentence/question/exclamation.

Um....

2008-05-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

Someone at work was saying that the long, drawn out "OM" sound that's used in meditation is the sound that the universe makes, or the frequency of the sound that the universe makes, or something like that. But it seems that can't be right: the sound starts with the "O" and finishes with the "M," so is it the "M" that is the sound of the universe? And if so, how important is the "O?" It was then suggested that the "M" sound was very specific and could only exist having been preceded by the "O." I have my doubts. Couldn't the sound of the universe be "UM?" Are we really that sure about the opening vowel? I'm not blind to the fact that trying to compartmentalize the sounds in OM is extremely unOM, like as unOM as you can get.

The first time I saw a medallion with the OM symbol on it I thought it was a pendant given for 30 years of service, so that's how in tune with the universe I am.

I am an aunt for real and not just like to a dog!

2008-05-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

Alana arrived, as my dad put it, at 11:05 last night. 6lbs, 5 oz.

I used to wonder why people were so interested in communicating the weight of newborns. But what else can you say about them?

So there it is: Alana. I suppose it's good that I wasn't consulted, as I myself would be uncomfortable with a name that seems to want so much to be a palindrome. Alananala will be good when she runs off and joins an ashram. And I dislike both the New England and the Pittsburgh pronunciations of "aunt." I don't suppose my sister will let her call me "Zia Sally," if my name were Sally, but "zia" is Italian for aunt, and I think its exoticism will make her, Alana, more inclined to visit me.

anyway

2008-05-19T16:21:00.001-07:00

Things aren't tough in the least. There's no animosity. We're in complete agreement. There's a little bittersweetness, sure; but I walked into town on Saturday with a spring in my step. I thought, "I have peace of mind." And then I started wondering why I had peace of mind. Was it because I honestly wanted to settle down, just not with P? Or was it the ol' fear of commitment mutating into new forms to avoid detection and annihilation? Because I'm honestly terribly good at being single. I've spent the last ten years by myself (not counting 3 relationships each of which lasted a year and a half), because I wanted to master being alone (for its own sake. but it is also true that mastery of being alone makes you a more desirable companion). At any rate, while I anticipate a return to the Wild West of dating, at the moment I'm more interested in getting a dog.

prediction

2008-05-13T19:14:00.001-07:00

Ten years ago in April, I moved out of the apartment I was living in with my (very longtime)then-boyfriend because I felt I was too young to settle down.

Now, we're both moving out because I do want to settle down, and we have different ideas about what that means.

Next time this happens, it will be because I want to settle down, and the man in question and I will share ideas about what it means, but he will think that I had been saying "I want a metal crown."

sad news

2008-05-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

Today, P. and I established that we will not live together again when our lease is up in September. Things are sang-froid, amicable, and even loving. Wish me strength in the tough times ahead.

what it's like being me

2008-05-08T16:31:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I had an idea and thought yeah, I'm really going to do that and stick with it, and now I can't remember what it was.

a plug for parentheses

2008-05-07T16:34:00.001-07:00

Today in an email message, someone wrote "the guy next to me's cell phone..." I think this is completely clear - unless you thought that "me's cell phone" meant "my cell phone," I suppose. This is another reason why we need to expand the use of parentheses.* Email and IM-ing and texting and all is conflating our written and spoken languages, but I wish I knew how to systematically study the question of under which conditions (emailing, talking, writing in a more formal setting) which constructions show up. A more liberal use of parentheses would save people the trouble of taking more care in composing their sentences, which may not happen anyway, which will lead to unclear communications and confusion. I should look up the etymology of "confusion."

*Oh, God, I'm going to be one of those nut jobs that get written up in language books for trying to promulgate weird shit.

#$&@)(*@&Q(# @@@!

2008-05-07T16:22:00.001-07:00

I despise the fact that @ does not mean "about." It should for so many reasons.

1. "About" is a fuller, rounder word that "at," visually and conceptually. It goes better with the curvilinear @.

2. (well, they each have ZERO HITS on Googlefight.)

3. I always think it does.

"At" doesn't need such an exciting symbol. There are plenty of things that make more sense. What about a little arrow pointing to the right? I contend that no other keyboard symbol represents "about" as well as @.

the Leafy Sea Dragon (for Amanda and Shannon)

2008-05-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

If you ask me, there's some kind of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds thing happening here.

LIRIMA

2008-05-06T09:51:00.000-07:00

Today I was writing a caption for a photo of a herd of oryx, and I started to write something like "these majestic creatures," and then I wondered if they could be called majestic. What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for majesty? One coworker said she thought a dog could be majestic, like an old, wise Golden Retriever, which is just false. Other coworkers looked at me as though I were a TV show they didn't recognize. But I was not to be dissuaded, and I now present to you the Lore & Ipsum Rubric for Identifying Majesty in Animals (LIRIMA).

Does it have horns? 2 pts.
Do it have horns that appear disproportionate to its body? 5 pts.
Is it in a herd? 5 pts.
Is it significantly larger than a prototypical member of their species? (boas, pythons)? 4 pts.
Does it look tired all the time? 2 pts.
Is it a solid color? 1 pt.
Does its name seem neither Latinate nor Anglo-Saxon? 1 pt.

Is it cliche-edly majestic? -6 pts.
Would someone in kindergarten know what sound it makes? -2 pts.

Your thoughts welcomed. This is clearly a timely and important topic, and I expect to see it on the Huffington Post and spread round the blogosphere shortly.

Dear Board,

2008-05-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

Today I sat down and made a list of things that I want from a job.

Tier 1:

> to have it be in my field at a university so I can take classes for free

Tier 2:

> to be interested in its theoretical underpinnings

> to have it involve both halves of my brain

> (that is, involve problem-solving and creativity. But I'd settle for just creativity.)

> to be close to the decision-makers/decision-making process

> to be considered a professional

> to like the people

> a minimum of HR bullshit

> to get to work on different projects

> flexible work hours

etc. etc. Any thoughts?

new rule:

2008-05-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

if you read my blog, you're on my board of directors. Unless you read it because you hate me.

help a joke out?

2008-05-01T09:31:00.001-07:00

Apparently, because I scolded my brother for writing "heheh" instead of "heh heh" - and I'm not being ridiculous! Maybe if the middle h had a diacritical mark for the consonant version of this? - he felt I needed to hear the following joke (over g-chat).

Knock knock

(that's be kind of funny if I left it at that and waited for a commenter to write "who's there?")

Oblique case.

Oblique case who?

No, you illiterate - it's oblique case whom

So, I'm convinced that this joke could be funnier with a first response that necessarily calls for a "whom" - but I'm having a hard time coming up with one given that the rest of the sentence could be anything.

so, like: knock knock. who's there?

oh wait!

I've got it!

OK.

Knock knock.

one of the only invitations I've gotten all month...

2008-04-28T17:30:00.001-07:00

I just got a letter from the ICA inviting me to be the director's guest at a special members-only preview for the next exhibition if only I pledge a year of membership and indicate as much in the enclosed envelope. What do you think? Should I take him up on it? Should I start calling and asking to speak with him, and being like "I just want to know what time he's picking me up! Okay, okay....just tell me this: is he going to wear brown or black, because I'm wearing green, but it's more like a black-green than a brown-green."

In the letter, he also reminded me that the ICA was "one of the only places in Boston where you can see contemporary art (or something like that)." This is like thing with the cheeses. There should be an algorithm by which one can determine whether a thing can truly be said to be "one of the only" of its kind. Or each conceivable geographical location could have a master book of the numbers of things in it. Or the ratio of the number of things generally allotted to the category and things actually in it.

At any rate, I'm hoping to talk this over with the director on our way to the opening.

Legacy

2008-04-28T09:19:00.000-07:00

One hundred and fifty years ago in Calabria, Italy, when crops failed, farmers reasoned that at least the 'Ndrangheta wouldn't get them. Yesterday, when a great-great-granddaughter in Boston's attempt to highlight her hair didn't work, her first thought was that at least they didn't turn out badly.

No words were harmed in the attempt to make these highlights.

Highlights

2008-04-28T09:14:00.000-07:00

I tried to highlight my hair the other day, and there's this little brush you use to sort of paint them on, and it occurred to me that I could use it to spell words across my head. And then I remembered that while my hair is slightly wavy, sometimes I try to blow-dry it straight (but can't get it as pointily so as the stylist did the first day, of course. Never in the history of the world has a woman's hair looked the way it looked the day she got it done) and sometimes, when it's rainy or misty, it gets ringlet-y. So if I chose words whose letters had certain shapes and calculated the, um, sine and cosine of the various waves my highlights could feasibly display one word when my hair was wavy and another when it was straight.

suggestions?

2008-04-28T03:44:00.000-07:00

My sister's baby is due on May 23. We know it's a girl, but the name has been kept classified, until last night, when my dad told me that he knew it, and that my mom did, too.

I knew it started with an "A" because for her baby shower she asked for (ha, I'd originally typed "ordered") one of those giant Pottery Barn wooden "A"'s, and I thought I knew my sister and brother in law: Ava. I was 99% sure. I really thought they were Ava people.

But it's not, according to my dad. He then tolerated a few yes-or-no questions, during which I learned:

> it's not monosyllabic
> it's neither extremely uncommon nor extremely common
> he and I do not know someone in common with that name

and here's the interesting part: I asked whether it ended with an A, and he said he didn't think so, and asked my mom, who confirmed that it did not. So. What is a name that starts with A, is polysyllabic, of moderate modern usage, and may or may not end with an A.

I should say that I don't think they're the type to go in for things like "Mathilde" and pronouncing it with a slight A on the end.

P. thinks it should be "Alice" - or "Ollis," really, which is funny if you know their last name.

and another thing

2008-04-26T17:49:00.000-07:00

Micky Dolenz back in the day? Greatest voice on earth. Can I put an MP3 on here? Also? Dreamy. I had such a crush on (the 1960's) him when I was little. Having a crush on someone's past incarnation was tragic, but I guess it's kind of like little girls getting all worked up over horses. You know, investigating things without any danger of, okay, no more posting tonight.

Maybe all of our crushes are on past incarnations. CDeW, if you're reading, I feel like that sentence wants to run away from home and join your blog.

"remuneration"

2008-04-26T17:23:00.000-07:00

is the worst word. Because it has to do with numbers, so people think "numer" as in "numeral" but it's not "renumeration."

I also just realized that the person who has commented here as "Anonymous," whom I privately outed, is the only person I know who has witticisms attributed to him on the internet. It's like raaaiiinn, on yer weddin' day.

Also, due to city-limits signs, my movie-going, frames-shopping, snack-buying walk took me from Somerville to Cambridge to Somerville to Cambridge to Somerville.

post-it note

2008-04-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

> remember to have brought in flowers

(sigh)

2008-04-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

I, I, I am going to marry Jemaine Clement, but everyone else should buy his album:

According to the product review on Amazon, "If amazing, delightful, and hilarious is your idea of funny, then prepare for undisappointment."

Souk of Pearle

2008-04-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

Rather than spending all of one's spare time riding trains into different neighborhoods in the hope of finding a pair of frames to replace those lost on the Sam Adams Brewery tour, there should be a souk, so that all of the eyeglasses vendors are on the same street, or set of blocks, or whatever.

I guess that's called "being really rich and famous."

more overheard things.

2008-04-21T18:46:00.000-07:00

Today a skate punk asked me if I had an "extra dollar." I don't know that I've ever had an extra dollar. I should have directed him to "One Less Car."

I don't remember the context, but "....exactly nine months, two weeks, and three days to the day...."

2008-04-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

I really don't mind dumb T-shirts. But preachy dumb T-shirts? On the bike path last night I came upon a nimwit poking around the community garden with a T-shirt that read "One Less Car." What does that mean? Should I wear a T-shirt that reads "One Less Crucified Somerville Schmuck"? And why isn't it "One Fewer Car" or "One Fewer Somerville Schmuck"? I guess because you don't know the total number of cars or schmucks (although the ration seems to be 0:1, in my neck of the woods.) But back to the point - if this guy never owned a car, is it "one less car?" If he had a car and got rid of it, is he really justified in wearing a t-shirt that says "one less car?" Does he know that that his action has resulted in one less car? What if I had just gone out and bought another car? Or two other cars? Then I would have three and he would have none, and he would have to wear "One Car Fewer Than Would Be Otherwise Had Someone Not Gone Out And Purchased Two."

Or maybe not. My math is shaky, as will be remembered by the people I was having dinner with on NYE 2007 when I was rather swayingly holding forth on the relationship between punctuation and mathematical functions, and was like "IS four plus three eight, or does four plus three BECOME eight?" I suspect I've mentioned this before, but it's such an Oldie/Goodie. But I have to say that had my architect housemate not pointed it out, I do believe it would have gone un-commented upon, even if it's because no one pays attention to me.

I guess the problem is that "One Less Car" is a sentence fragment masquerading as a real thought. This is funny, as in my new job I find myself working with writers who are very suspicious of sentence fragments. I love them in theory, because when used well they show how few words need to be used to communicate, and I think that they're often compelling by structural definition. And people don't always realize the semantic power of grammar and punctuation. At work, however, the DO love the trailing-off ellipses, which often strikes me as three bullets to the heart...

One thing I can say if anyone ever considers an MAPW from Carnegie Mellon? It really does teach you how to argue for your choices, which is important in a world where, more or less, everyone thinks they can write. And they can, of course, but my sense is that with us, every single thing is considered and optimized. Back me up, Miss Marple! Daisy! (also, MAPW's? Whoa.)

In other news. a canary zoomed past our deck last night and landed on our fence, where it sat for hours. P. supposed it was hurt or freaked out by not being in a cage. Our next door neighbor tried to capture it because there was a cat lurking nearby. But now it's in our grape arbor thing, so http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/laf/648256545.html. But if all is lost, it would be sort of neat to get a photograph of the cat that ate the canary, for future comparison.

workplace invention

2008-04-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

A hat that says, on the back, "I am listening to music."

This reminds me of when I used to work on a helpdesk and had to wear headphones, and if someone came over to talk to us and we didn't want to talk to them, we'd just smile and then say, into our mouthpiece, "okay, now click start - programs - accessories...."

proposed class

2008-04-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking of putting together a class for the Cambridge Center for Adult Education tentatively called Language In Use, which would use discourse analysis to look at pragmatics, interactional sociolinguistics, a little philosophy of language, possibly CDA, and, if I don't like them, relevance/conversational coherence. Maybe something like this:

Week 1: intro. discussion of transcription techniques/theory. examples. (then they go home, record a conversation, transcribe & photocopy for all)

Then for the following weeks, we use the transcripts to talk about, maybe,

Week 2: Brown & Levinson (face)

Week 3: Grice (conversational maxims)

Week 4: Austin (performatives etc., conditions of felicity)

I also want to throw in the use of dissociation in the media, but maybe that'd be better in a class on rhetoric (the problem being the compartmentalization of "a class on rhetoric," although it could just be a broad "Intro to" with segments on history (if need be), argument, rudimentary analysis, devices. Although Argument would be a good class in and of itself.

Just thinking out loud. Comments welcomed!

music

2008-04-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

Why does taste in music often change as one gets older? Has yours?

I like to think that there are soundbuds in the ear that mature like tastebuds.

I have never been more ashamed.

2008-04-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

In an effort to lose the weight I gained during my 6-month internship with the refrigerator and bar, I've been Eating Right & Exercising, by which I mean waking up every morning expecting to look like Heidi Klum. Here, at my new place of employment, we have an on-site fitness center (which in my imagination was vast and gleaming) with an elliptical machine so haaaaaaard (you have to balance on the pedals) that the only reason I can come up with why a designer here is quitting to join the Army is because he figures that when it comes to getting fit and preserving morale, it will be easier than the elliptical machine. Anyway, the morning after I rode this beast, I got on the scale, looked down, and thought "(miffed sound!) I'm not doing this for my health!"

The Dove You-Tube people are going to come after me, use me in one of their videos, and then slay me. And it will be just.

Anonymous!

2008-04-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

I mean the one who posted about the bathing cap while reading. That totally gave you away. I know who you are.

observation

2008-04-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

Right, so I just want to point out that every day, across the globe, many people step into showers wearing their reading glasses, probably.

overheard in davis sq.

2008-04-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

Wandered into one of those cooler-than-thou little hand-crafty boutiques where you can like buy a little kit that walks you through embroidering a skull. I was ignored by the hipsterette behind the jewelry counter, which irritated me, and then I was irritated that I was irritated since normally I love being left alone by salesy types. Then someone came up and asked Hippetta if she had a different one of some thing or another, since the one was dusty, and she said "Basically, what you see is what's out."

Good but not as good as when a pair of girls was walking ahead of me through Harvard yard, and one said to the other, "I mean, we literally made eye contact."

Obviously, I have never made any sort of messy statement like these.

Litmus

2008-04-08T14:39:00.000-07:00

I was telling P. about the sailing thing that Jen and I had gone on, the one which promised "up to eight cheeses." He asked how many cheeses there were. I thought for a moment, and then told him I thought four or five, but probably five, because five is more likely to be considered "up to eight" than four was. They could have served only two cheeses and still claimed "up to eight," since this has thus far gone unregulated. Then P. said he imagined I was a big hit on the boat.

wastin' away....in Someromerville.....

2008-04-04T03:09:00.000-07:00

Of all the reasons to be up at twenty to six on an unemployed Friday morning, my favorite is when your friend Jen is taking you to Key West for the weekend.

How is it that I don't know how to eat?

2008-04-02T14:32:00.001-07:00

Okay. So, I would hate to be called a "foodie," because to me that implies elitist attitudes that I don't (like to think I) share. I like food, and like to make it, and find it interesting in general , and, truth be told, probably revel unattractively in my esteem for low-brow favorites, like Brooklyn-style pizza from Domino's, which if you haven't tried, well, I have no words for you. But I don't get exercised about where my veal comes from, and don't experience anything NSFW if a farmer's market has heirloom tomatoes, and frankly don't pretend that there is any herb which might flourish under my iron fist.

But then I've realized that I never do this thing that people on Food Network are always doing, namely, putting more than one thing on a fork at one time. This makes me nervous, but also makes perfect sense, and is the whole point of eating things with other things (of course there are exceptions what with palate cleansers etc). But if I fail to put a forkful of Ina Garten's oven-baked fried chicken on a fork along with some of her buttermilk mashed potatoes, is there some kind of alchemy I'm missing out on? There has to be, doesn't there? P. tells me that all of the rice-eating in Japan confounded him until he realized that you were meant to have a bite of fish immediately folloed by a bite of rice, and that gestalt was the thing you chewed and swallowed.

If this is true, then eating is infinitely more interesting than I thought it was.

Faithful readers? Do you do this? Do you not do this? What's the story here?

Hey

2008-03-31T10:49:00.000-07:00

I got a job. ! I'll be working as a copywriter for a company that offers international tours. Good news!

J K-Z

2008-03-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

I like to think that I talk a good game, but I am interested in a couple of things that are a little kumbaya. Reiki is one of them; I went for a treatment a couple of weeks ago, and it lived up to my expectations - it's the kind of thing that I can't imagine not working (this because I think people are spiritual ding an sich).

Another is mindfulness; which I'd read about in the past. I'm a sucker for a kit, so when I saw this at the bookstore, I pounced on it. CD's! Sound therapy! Mind training cards! And best of all - Jon Kabat-Zinn*!

J K-Z is a pioneer of mindfulness, and I've bought and not read (there should be a word for that) one of his books in the past - Wherever You Are, There You Are or something - and I have to say I'm a fan. The first of the 2 CD's, which I listened to while falling asleep last night, walks you through breathwork exercises (that were really good!) and then J K-Z comes on to present mindfulness exercises: and he sounds like a Mafia tough guy. That's what I wanted to say. Also that I truly did experience little split-seconds of states of altered consciousness, and that there's this one presumably unintentionally funny part where J K-Z is telling you to focus on your breathing and bring your mind back to your breathing when it's being distracted by thought, and then he goes through this whole long description of something that is nothing but distracting, telling us to approach our breathing (there should also be a punctuation mark that indicates that something is being quoted roughly - maybe ~") like we were creeping up on a small animal, in a forest, sitting on a tree stump, in a little clearing of light**..."~

*if - when - I have a cocktail party based on psychological theories, a Kabat-Zinn will be a glass of Zinfandel and a line of coke.

**for D. Kaufer

misplaced expectations

2008-03-07T07:49:00.000-08:00

Last night I was listening to the radio, and a song came on that I liked, that reminded me of the good old days of early high school (which meant the industrial music my boyfriends listened to), and that I thought was Marilyn Manson*. So I Googled it, and in the second line he uses an infinitive where he should have used a gerund, and I was like, "forget it."

*Funny - This book I'm reading** just talked about metonymy used as a perjorative, and hypernymy as an exaltation ("Aren't I a woman?" etc).

**The other day I was looking online for reiki practitioners, and found myself preferring one over another because one had hyperlinked a slightly long phrase and the other had just hyperlinked the significant word. The hyperlinked phrase made me instinctually find her more supportive.

This could be, though, that hyperlinking a phrase instead of a word suggests a lack of media sophistication that I subconsciously associate with touchy-feely-healiness***.

***Though I use it above so I could mention the reiki thing. I don't find myself particularly touchy-feely-healy (which my friend K calls "Kumbaya" - see asterisk 1 (or not)).

you can, can you.

2008-03-06T15:10:00.000-08:00

I have to say, it drives me mad how everyone on a Food Network show, at the end of the cooking demonstration, says - without fail - "you (I) can really taste the (ingredient)!" Usually orange zest, or tamarind, or chervil. Do these people say "wow, you can really see the yellow" or "hmmm, I'm really hearing those trombones"?

I suppose I'm being uncharitable. I imagine there isn't a whole list of things that are appropriate to say when you're eating a meal on camera that someone with their own show has made. "I thought we were ordering pizza" is funny in theory but wouldn't be in practice. "Oh...I just ate."

"You can really taste the steak..."

some boys are shameless

2008-03-06T07:35:00.000-08:00

I am a vertible faucet of Benefit of the Doubt. A leaky faucet. Which, I suppose, isn't the worst thing one could be, but it does lead to phone conversations like this, excerpted from a blog post about 3 years ago:

(some girl): hello?

me: Hi, I'm looking for J?

(the girl): okay, hold on.

(pause)

J: Hello?

me: Hey, this is mynamehere. Are you having a party?

J: I'm having a party?

me: No, I'm asking if you're having a party.

J: You're inviting me to a party?

me: No...just....just...I just ASKED if YOU WERE having a party.

J: No, no, my friend (girl's name) and I were at (some place) and (blah blah blah.)

me: Huh. So I uh. I wondered if you got the message I left with your housemate last week.

J: (dismissively) Oh, yeah. I got that. Sorry I didn't.....uh....

me: Okay. Just checking to make sure you got it.

J: Yeah. Were you at the Cage?

me: I was in fact at the Cage.

(pause)

J: I was going to swing by the Cage but (blah blah blah).

me: Huh.

J: Look, I should go, I'm getting food on the table.

me: Oh, yeah, all right.

J: So...I'll talk to you.

me: Yeah, bye now.

(both hang up)

This followed a night of indiscretion, after which he had asked for my number, which, when I didn't hear back from him, I thought he might have lost (I didn't think it was an unreasonable possibility). And that was that. Don't hate the playa, hate the game, my sister said, about someone else.

So who text-messaged me last night? Out of the blue? Saying hey, mynamehere, is still yr number? This is hisnamehere - remember me?

I think I might be a spambot.

2008-03-05T08:01:00.000-08:00

Visited gmx.com because an ad in Wired all but promised whatever email address I wanted. And I couldn't read the captcha (if it was a captcha). I guessed. Right, as it turned out, but still I was only able to get (firstname)@gmx.us, and no one will ever remember ".us". Rats.

also

2008-02-29T09:55:00.001-08:00

This, brought to my attention by my friend K., is wonderful.

wall stickers

2008-02-29T09:23:00.000-08:00

I like this for a hallway:

This for a bathroom:

And this for a dining room (just one).

And, of course: this.

From Ferm Living and Blik.

herbs

2008-02-26T15:34:00.000-08:00

I've always been certain - absolutely certain - that my favorite herb was rosemary. It goes well with the take-no-prisoners style of cooking that I like to eat; subtlety, in food, bores me, and I latch loudly onto indications that it's an Italian herb, and so part of the molecular structure of the blood that courses though my veins. Or something. But, and this has been indicative of a trend, just about everything that I'm making this week involves thyme: lemon/thyme/olive oil cookies (to which I've added mini chocolate chips), Jamie Oliver's grilled fillet with creamy leeks and white beans, Nigel Slater's chicken with garlic and herbs, and a lentils and bacon recipe. So I feel like the misguided boy in the romantic comedy who thinks he likes the hot girl but really likes the geeky one, or I assume that rosemary is the body-building beach stud who kicks sand on the 99-pound weaklings (bay leaves, maybe, or asafoetida, or any herb that doesn't hold up to direct fire), and I actually prefer the one with "smaller leaves."

What's your favorite herb (or spice)?

semiotics for sillies

2008-02-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, P. and I were looking at a chummy, "hand-drawn" map of Portland, ringed with ads. One featured a cartoon drawing of a fish, with a thought bubble reading "One free lobster, just for visiting!" I wish that were my shop, so when people came in, I could be like "What? No - that's just what the fish is thinking."

pictures do spruce up a blog

2008-02-25T14:58:00.000-08:00

This weekend we went to Portland, ME. Above is our view from the rooftop hotel bar, where we drank Stingahs, or, as they pronounce them outside of Boston, "Stingers." We had a great time, wandering, eating, drinking, and my most dangerous of pursuits - tipsy book-buying.

The Believer? I picked up the 50th anniversary issue, because it literally had a shiny cover and an interview with my hero Lydia Davis. I hate that magazine. Journal. Where snarkiness meets the New Sincerity, the practitioners of which are insufficiently in touch with their insincerities to be truly sincere. I should have examples here, but wouldn't that be just like something they'd do, back up their assertions with evidence.

Anyway, the postcards I sent to my family were about Old Orchard Beach and the winterly-ghosttowny oceanfront amusement park we passed on the train.

I love the quality of light in that photograph. So - yes. Portland ME = good weekend trip (esp. if you find Fading Grandeur Hotel on priceline.com for $64), but I think I'm more of an Ogunquit or Portsmouth NH kind of gal.

Narathon

2008-02-25T14:55:00.001-08:00

hello, new favorite site.

2008-02-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

My friend H. sent me this awesome link. The first post is a typography joke (kerning refers to the space between letters, see also this (I like the leading idea in that post)) - but the ones further down are great. I love the Polaroid frame.

Tauba Auerbach

2008-02-21T09:32:00.000-08:00

Check her out.

I love. She could have won with yes to yet to net to not, but I imagine she was going for something like love to lose to lost to lust (come to think of it, yes to yet to net to not works just as well).

There should be a word for when an artist's name is evocative or reminiscent of his or her work (as I find it here). Then a good name for Christo would be William (typographically). Others?

housekeeping

2008-02-21T09:12:00.000-08:00

Rather than going to the gym (it's okay to not go to the gym one day if when you shower, you really, really exfoliate - try to lose half a pound), I appear to be cleaning out my "favorites" list, which testifies to the onslaught of sudden enthusiasms to which I am subjected. That "History Now - American History Online" hasn't been updated since 2005 almost makes me almost want to keep it.

2008-02-20T16:29:00.001-08:00

Every now and then, I get struck by how eccentric I can seem. Like in this exchange, held today in a cafe in Davis Square. I was looking for milk for my coffee. There was none on the thing with the sugar and silverware etc, and I happened to glance to my left at the refrigerator, where there were milk, cream, and half-and-half dispensors on the bottom shelf. Then I looked back at the sugar silverware thing, and saw a sign taped to the window above: "Milk Products On Bottom Shelf In Refrigerator" with an arrow.

Then I encountered the pixie-ish, dazed-looking barista on the floor.

Me: Can I ask you a question? Do people ask you for milk and cream?

Barista: Yes.

Me: Often?

Barista (suddenly suspicious) Um....

Me (hurriedly assessing potential ways for her to answer this question: n out of m, X per hour, every Zth customer ) I just....I didn't see it. I'm interested in how often people read signs.

It could very well be me, since I'm usually pretty oblivious to my surroundings, but I think a little hand-drawn placard next to the sugar would be a better solution.

No one has ever said -

2008-02-20T09:25:00.000-08:00

that looking for writing jobs on Craigslist wasn't reward enough.

I give you this - note the take on "objective" and the current/currently in the first sentence, and this. "APPLY NOW"? Dude, I haven't even read the description.

household semiotics

2008-02-20T07:04:00.000-08:00

1
Mark and I used to play Boggle for hours - days, actually - and we often squabbled about when you may consider a word a word. I felt that you needed to have some idea of the definition of a word before you could write it down ("Gentleman's Boggle"), and he thought you could write down things that "looked like words" and look them up later and get credit if they were.

2
This morning, P. and I were talking about Mitchell and Webb, and he mentioned that Britain has a lot of comedy duos. I said that we used to, and cited "Elaine May and that other person." He said that it doesn't count if I don't know the name.

So in instance 1 we have form but no meaning, and in instance 2, meaning but no form. The question, then, becomes: would Saussure rather have played Boggle with Mark or discussed comedy with me?

Also, cards.

what is ssshhhh?

2008-02-18T15:17:00.000-08:00

Would you consider "ssshhhh" a word? Anyone know of equivalents in other languages?

No matter what, I will go to my grave insisting that neither "login" or "setup" are verbs. But neologismically I am pleased that there are people who feel otherwise.

2008-02-16T18:00:00.000-08:00

I imagine that posts whose topic is "ha ha, boy am I getting old" constitute a genre. But here's my take. P. got back from Canada tonight, and as a souvenir, he brought me an ornament of a beaver, the national animal (or so he says). And I was thrilled to get a Christmas ornament! Because it contributes to the personalization of trees! So this is where I am, needing to express my life through forestry.

Although tonight at midnight (I will be awake!) we're going to the Second Annual Amateur Erotic Film Competition, so take that, Father Time.

Burlesque names revisited

2008-02-16T09:31:00.000-08:00

Last night I lie awake in bed trying to think of a way to create viable Burlesques first name that don't skew towards the Meditteranean. Take the name of the last cat you've pet? Your favorite dessert? Your favorite perfume or cologne? Something else?

This is silly.

2008-02-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

I've been reading about the burlesque exposition coming to Boston, and while I have no desire to be a burlesque superstar, I find that I can't get anything else done until I decide what my name would be. This doesn't help (though I have to hand it to "Tanqueray Whispers").

I feel that this gets to most of the burlesque name templates, which I wouldn't want to be close to (because in my imagination I am a burlesque superstar). Manon Gahela? Cannellini Foxtrot?Jane Deau? Carella DeThrill? Stacy London?

OK. Take the first Mediterranean name you think of, and feminize it. Then take the last name of your favorite author, and transpose the syllables. Or if has only one syllable, read more George Saunders or John Cheever. Verchi - see? Verchichi would also be acceptable. That would be your burlesque name. But not mine - I thought of mine while I was writing that second paragraph. Mine would be the name of a friend from college; one my top three most influential people ever. She would be bemused, and then happy.

personality test.

2008-02-13T10:49:00.001-08:00

My friend K. had me do a personality test. I really do think this sounds like me.

This could be one of the most reflexive blog posts in the history of the world.

cookbook idea:

2008-02-12T11:48:00.000-08:00

Half Undone.

This morning I wanted to cook some chicken to use in a salad. The last time I did this, I had used leftover poached chicken breast from a chicken b'stilla. I started the same way: soften onion and garlic, add chicken, turmeric, ginger, cilantro*, and chicken stock, bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes, remove the chicken.

Then rather than add egg to the broth and reduce by half, reintroduce chopped chicken, and pile into phyllo dough, top and dust with crushed almond, cinnamon, and powdered sugar and bake, I ladled a bowlful of the broth, cut up half a chicken breast and added it, and sunk in some chopped cilantro. Mmmm. Tasted almost medieval, in a very good way. Though next time I will add some lemon juice.

Anyway, yes: Half Undone will feature recipes that offer rewards to the lazy, hopefully in transduced forms (pie to soup, for example). Of course the amazingness of b'stilla comes from the intermingling of sweet and savory, but this is good when you feel like a dark, spicy, almost threateningly rich broth.

*parsley works as well

huge swaths of apology

2008-02-11T15:05:00.000-08:00

I want to apologize for never checking my phone messages, returning phone calls or emails, and otherwise being a bad friend. Things have conspired to get me down in the past couple of months, and I retreat. I'll be back. In the meantime, I am happy with contact through blog. So, thank you for commenting.

Have to say...

2008-02-10T17:55:00.000-08:00

I have been very pleased with television.

school

2008-02-10T14:09:00.000-08:00

The happiest I was at my old job was when I was working on web and software user interfaces (the writing was not always terrifically compelling). It felt both analytic and creative, more directly tied to problem solving, and planted lots of questions in my head, so I was pleased as punch to find this. Especially because they offer merit-based scholarships, compelling because of the School Loan of Damocles I have now. And I'm meritous enough. Merititous. Merital.

They also offer a certificate program, which is 27 credits (the MS program is 30) and a quarter of the cost. The courses are offered in a convenient series of weekend-long seminars, but of course you don't get the project experience, by which I mean portfolio pieces, that you would get in the MS. Also, the faculty bios make it seem like it's not a den of practitioners (with all due respect to practitioners, without whom I'd be essentially helpless).

I don't know how much weight certificates carry, but it sure seems like the MS is what you want if you're looking for a career change. Am I looking for a career change? I'm looking for a career expansion. I want to be able to do more things. I want to work in a place where it's smart peoiple without titles working hard with minimal ego and freedom to decide what's right.

age-appropriate food?*

2008-02-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything offers pages of suggested menus, including:

Birthday Party - 10 Years Old
Grape-Lime Rickey and other Sparkling Fruit Drinks
Basic Meatballs
Baked Sweet Potatoes
Fried Onion Rings
Chocolate Layer Cake
Butterscotch Ice Cream

Birthday Party - 20 Years Old
Sangria
Beef-Filled Samosas
Chicken and Garlic Stew
Basic Polenta (any version)
Collards or Kale: Brazilian-Style
Baked Spanish Onions
Coconut Layer Cake

Birthday Party - 30 Years Old
Vodka Martinis
Pakoras
Grilled or Broiled Cornish Hens with Vinegar
Brown Rice with Lentils and Apricots
Braised Cabbage with Wine and Nutmeg
Basic Simmered, Steamed or Microwaved Broccoli or Broccoli Raab (sic)
Angel Food Cake

Birthday Party - 40 Years Old
Whiskey Sours
Phyllo Triangles with Cheese
Roast Cod with Potatoes, Onions and Olive Oil
Rice with Fresh Herbs
White Beans, Tuscan-Style
Sauteed Eggplant
Pears Sauteed in Butter

Birthday Party - Stopped Counting (sorry 50-year olds! -ed)
Old-Fashioned
Simplest Cheese Straws
Risotto with Vegetables
Flageolets, French-Style
Cardoons and Onions Cooked in Cream
Braised Endive, Escarole, or Radicchio with Prosciutto
Winter Food Compote

While I like that he gave the oldsters soft foods, old-fashioneds and "straws," and saved the hard-to-pronounce words for them, I'm pretty underwhelmed by the choice for the 30-year-olds. Microwaved broccoli? Cabbage? I like to cook cornish game hens, but I don't like eating them at all, not because they're cute but because I'm lazy. And I like to think of Bittman (the New York Times's The Minimalist) as open-mindedly old guard, not capitulating to the vodka martini. Though I can't say I'll be having a 30th birthday party. Not for a few years anyway...**

I like how he hedged alcohol for the 20-year olds, and I wonder whether referring to olive oil as an ingredient is a conceit more often held in one's 30's.

There's a narrative here, friends. I know it.

*my new trick: question mark = compelling post title!

**Is it cheap of me to make facetious "I'm old" jokes?

attn: Bostonians

2008-02-10T11:04:00.000-08:00

This summer, I want to go in on a house on the Cape so that I could be there 2 weekends/month, so I need to find a bunch of people who already do this or are interested in doing this.

Does anyone know how or where I can find these people? Craigslist appears to not be forthcoming on the vacation rentals page, and I don't imagine it's too early.

Also, please email me if you are interested in doing this as well! That would be ideal, ideally.

On Flyers

2008-02-08T12:26:00.000-08:00

My friend M., a professional writer, mentioned that she works with people who demand flyers for completely non-flyer-appropriate things. I thought she could take to making, hanging, and distributing flyers that announce things that reflect the status quo: "This week, the elevator will stop on (X) floors," or "Remember: tomorrow is Wednesday," in order to foment a slight sense of unease.

I was charmed to realize that this (theoretical) sense of unease emanates from Paul Grice's Maxim of Quantity - be as informative as required, and no more. His conversational maxims, shockingly, were developed to help explain the pragmatics of conversation, but it would be interesting to explore them in other contexts.

I'd love to write a paper on flyers. And then condense the paper into a flyer, and send to M. Also, M., if we worked together we could get all Five Obstructions on flyers...

cognitive bias: trapped in the wild!

2008-02-08T12:06:00.000-08:00

This morning I was driving home from Brookline (where street signs appear to be illegal, rrr), Google Maps directions by my side. While I was only tangentially familiar with the way that Google wanted me to get home, I was totally confident in the directions - but when I saw a right-hand turn that I could make onto a street from which I was 99% sure I could get home, I took it.

That's not surprising. But the thing is that I assumed that it would be shorter. I had no reason to think that - in fact, I had some reason to not think that, given that it hadn't been suggested by Google, and once I made the turn I knew that it was going to take longer and be more annoying to get home.

Also, for people who are into cognitive biases, a fun game would be to have someone tape them on your backs, and go around asking people questions to see which one you are. I think the SDS people would dig it.

Customer Donttouchpoints

2008-02-07T08:32:00.000-08:00

When I worked in branding, the idea behind customer touchpoints was, as far as I could tell, the more the merrier. Last week I had visited a chichi lingerie store to get fitted for a bra, and I bought some things. (you didn't realize this was a sex blog, did you?) Yesterday I received a fancy thank-you card, with a long handwritten note from the woman who helped me, and her card attached.

Did I appreciate this customer touchpoint? No. I felt annoyed that I had wasted my time dealing with it (I had opened it thinking that there might be a coupon inside), and my first thought wasn't "how nice," but "oh, hello ethos-inspiring customer touchpoint." I realize that you're not supposed to give your address if you don't want stuff sent to you, but it got me thinking about unwanted customer touchpoints - I can't be the first person who absentmindedly forked over their address but didn't want to receive things.

I wonder if anyone behind a brand ever thinks "what our customers want is to be left alone." Likely not today, with the branding=storytelling paradigm. The brand is you. You are the brand. Being left alone by the brand would make your life less rich, less full, less you.

jab, cross!

2008-02-06T13:22:00.000-08:00

Seen today on the Green Line:

Your tax dollars pay for keeping this car clean. Please do your part (ital. mine) by removing all personal belongings upon exit.

a plug a day...

2008-02-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

One thing I like about my friend Mark is that he has cool ideas about actual things.

Also ideas about ideas, for example, this , heretofore unimplemented.

news news news

2008-02-05T11:47:00.000-08:00

After a couple of weeks of discussion, I was offered $2400 to do a job. I replied with the math that showed that it was more like a $4000 job. This was yesterday morning, and I haven't heard back, and it feels auspicious.

I think there has to be something behind "no news is good news" more than "if you haven't heard otherwise, there is still hope." Is there a bias that bad news comes quickly? Given our comfort with the status quo, no news is good news. I don't know enough about semantics to explain this (by which I mean "make myself clear"), but no news = good news seems to be different than saying that no news has a property that makes it good news the way that a cardinal has a property that makes it red.

Also, pragmatically "good news" seems to me primarily like it is used to negate existing bad news. Good news, then, is not no news.

And then put into some real-life contexts, "no news is good news" just means that the absence of X can be interpreted in a positive manner. Which would inidicate that X is negative - "news is bad news." So no bad news is good news. Why do I do this to myself? I wish I remembered more formal logic - I don't even remember if "no news" would be illustrated with (~backwards E) or (~upside-down A). But there you have it friends. No bad news is good news. You heard it here first.

hey

2008-02-03T14:21:00.000-08:00

Things are looking up, poorhouse-wise: I'm editing a book on architecture and thought, and now have a part-time job as a tutor in the Writing Center of a local arts & design school. I'm looking forward to it - the designers I've worked with have often had an almost organic relationship to their work, saying things like "this almost wants to be black" and "it feels like (noun)." Mostly "it wants to be X." I like that, because I both believe and don't understand it, and I'm interested in seeing how arguments get constructed around it.

The Writing Center is part of the Critical Studies {amorphous segment of college}, so I don't know how often I'll be helping people write about their own work, but we'll see.

Plus maybe discounted classes. And just being in an academic environment again, reading flyers pinned up on walls is like crack to me.

old woman's rant.

2008-02-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

You know those plastic containers of deli meats, (for ex.) shaved, oven-roasted turkey? There's a lid and then the turkey is in a sealed plastic pouch? In mine, there's a little sticker on the sealed plastic pouch that says "Easy Open." And it was far from easy to open. And my frustration was only compounded by the mocking sticker with the dodgy credentials! If it had said "open," I would not have been confused, I would have known where this opening was meant to happen. The addition of "easy" does nothing - since I've already bought the turkey, it's not a selling point. No, the only thing it can do is make me feel bad.

Thanks, Shaw's brand Shaved Oven Roasted Turkey.

P. said that maybe the sticker should read "Easy for most people to open."

Namibia

2008-01-30T11:34:00.001-08:00

This is the view when you exit the plane at the capital, Windhoek. As you see, it is very clean.

We had arranged to spend a weekend in the desert, in order to see Sossusvlei (and stay here). The most popular dune to climb is called Big Daddy (370 meters), but we are wimpy rogues and climbed Big Mama. I was wearing walking shoes (good) but they were slip-on (oh boy). The upside here is that P. has a great picture of me pouring what looks like four feet of sand out of my shoe. Great because he had so many opportunities to try.

Here you are approaching Deadvlei. Sand dunes cut off the river, and these trees are said to be around 700 years old. It was stark and beautiful and quiet.

Pretty much everyone in the world has the same pictures of Deadvlei.

Though most are sensible enough to spare the Internet the ones with them peeking out from behind trees.

We spent a good amount of time relaxing at our little chalet-kalula thing. I'm a big fan of oceans, and I was happy to discover that the hypnotic effect of so much sand rippling off into the distance felt similar to me. On the right-hand side of the picture, you can just make out the corner of the freezing, freezing plunge pool that only P. used.

I was disappointed that I didn't see any gemsbok (oryx. in Afrikaans, HHHHHHHEMSbok), but pleased enough to eat them. To make up for the lack of wildlife on our "sundowner tour," our guide, Willem, would stop the truck, get out, and point out different types of African grass. I will remember that for a long, long time. Coming soon: South Africa pictures.

ahem

2008-01-30T11:22:00.001-08:00

It's hard to clear your throat insignificantly.

In other news, yesterday I interviewed for a job I think I'd love. I think I'd love half of it, and probably be fine (but possibly irritated) with the other half. It's with the (very small) reference division of a publishing house; I'd be an editor concocting my own content for a couple of web sites. Apparently I'd be given more or less free reign* to research and write about whatever I was interested in. The position would be a significant drop in salary for me (over 10K), and that makes me nervous, what with school loans, my (sole!) credit card debt, and the cost of rent+utilities out here. I'm pretty sure it's possible, but yikes.

The job is temporary for six months, and then becomes permanent. The interviewer and I discussed the possibility of doing it as a 6-month contract, which would give me a bit more money per hour, but given that I'm paying COBRA now, it might amount to the same.

I'm also lucky enough to have a bunch of part-time irons in the fire. Oh, the cobbled-together life. I suppose all lives are cobbled together. Lives and shoes.

introduction

2008-01-28T07:52:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd start a blog in the hope of forming my own (benevolent, indulgent, chuckling) Stasi. My days are largely unstructured, drive & initiative wax and wane, and I'm developing a fierce crush on Alton Brown. Huge swathes of time, little to no money, deepest winter and a 15 minute walk to the T. I think it will help spur me to productivity to know that people I care about may be checking up on me. Plus, as has been noted by my friend L, writing is writing is writing, and maybe writing begets writing, although I don't see why that would necessarily be the case, like the way in which my Secret Theory of Snow, which is that each winter there is a predetermined amount of snow that will fall and so each time it snows I can comfort myself that we're almost there, is untrue but helpful, so maybe the idea that writing begets writing will work in a similar way.

That was a lengthy explanation. Maybe it's working already.