banned books week

Banned Books Week is almost over already. i meant to re/read something juicy in honor, but The Road is still sitting here untouched, so it needs to be something short. i'm thinking 'The Bridge to Terabithia,' although i remember it being terribly sad. (not that The Road is going to be a frolic down funtimes lane.) in the meantime, i just finished my entry-- no wait, and a second entry-- in LibraryThing's banned bookpile contest-- because really, i didn't have 89475 other things to do tonight. it was actually quite fun, though i'm not looking forward to putting all these books & props back where they belong. as a random side note, inspired by my wanderings around LT's yummy website... it is incomprehensible to me that a hotel opened in new york several years ago, with a floorplan and theme based on the dewey decimal system, AND I JUST NOW HEARD ABOUT IT! not that i can afford to stay there, but damn!

no baseball for me.

i had a ton of work to do today-- still not done in fact-- and i didn't dare to think that the wednesday night game would be the phillies & nats, so i didn't even think bother turning on the tv.  round about 10:30, i decided to take a dinner break, and i checked the scores.  when i saw the game was tied in the 9th, i checked espn's home page, and woo hoo!  the game's on.  i sprinted to the tv, only to find something that was NOT the game.  hm.  maybe i needed to refresh the webpage?  tried that, and look-- it's the tenth inning now.  so i clicked on the spot that named the game, and it completely contradicted the front page.  wtf?  why do these people want to piss me off?  this is the third time in less than a week that i've had to follow a game that was supposed to be televised on 'gameday,' which is difficult on the patience.  GRRR. according to that same espn tv listing page, the game "replays" tonight at midnight.  guess what?  poker's on now.  if they pull this crap during the playoffs, i'll be forced to fire off an angry email. as if to cap off the night, i just got an email telling me i did NOT make the cut in the mets NLCS ticket drawing.  (meaning i'm not allowed to BUY tickets, not that i thought i was going to win them.)  what are the odds of me being awake tomorrow morning at 9am to try and buy phils tickets?  not bloody likely. good news is, the phils won the game.  bad news is, so did the damn dodgers.  sigh.

oh elusive sleep

for the first time since probably last year during hurricane season, i've watched local news three times today-- early am, 5:30pm, and now the beginning of the late news. i know this is no good for me, and i have no idea why i did it. (possibly because during those hours, there's nothing else on, and tv helps me keep time when i'm awake too long. i just saved myself from the bulk of the 11pm when i remembered that jon stewart inexplicably has the president of pakistan on tonight. thanks, jon.) apparently, there were three break-ins in the western suburbs, and now it's a crisis. tips on how to protect yourself, live at 6! put motion lights on your house! if you find a man in your kitchen at 1am, give him what he wants! funny, i don't remember the crime wave in my *building* last summer making the news or becoming a crisis. this is a predominantly white neighborhood, near monuments and museums, but apparently the stuff we have to steal isn't worth news coverage. (the most expensive thing i own is probably this laptop.) hmph. i'm sure the fact that i watched all four acts of 'when the levees broke' in the early hours this morning has nothing to do with my grumpiness on this matter. though that might explain the dream i had during my hour-long nap (HOW is it that after staying awake for 24 hours, i nearly always wake back up right away?!?) in which i'd won the lottery or some other giant lump of money and was torn between sending a certain new orleans resident an anonymous check or a signed one, wondering whether it mattered where the money came from, whether it would influence whether she spent it on herself or spread it out to NOLA charities. i don't remember what i did with the rest of the money, only that it was incredibly stressful trying to decide how best to distribute it, rather than the fun, spending-spree lottery dream one is supposed to have. i don't buy lottery tickets, though, so i suppose i'll never have to worry about that particular brain drain. HA! i need to watch jon stewart more often. the twinkie just lifted my mood 100% percent.

the road arriveth

moments ago, i read the NYT review of The Road and cursed myself for preordering, because i assumed that meant it would be *shipped* today, as opposed to arriving today... then lo and behold, the UPS man arrived to prove me wrong. unfortunately, i desperately need to go to sleep within the hour, and when i get up, i have a slew of work to do, stuff that needs to be done by lunch tomorrow (for once, no, i wasn't procrastinating-- i just found out about it an hour ago). so i can't start reading it til tomorrow night, anyway. kinda wishing it hadn't arrived after all. now it will torture me with its presence... i WILL NOT open it until i have slept and the work is at least halfway done. at least i'll try not to. had a lovely trip to norfolk saturday night for the new annual tradition with "old" friends from high school and earlier. we decided to revisit a regular haunt from back in the day: la galleria. i took a date there about ten years ago, but otherwise, we did the math and realized it had been 16 years. which was... shocking. the food was as good as i remembered, though the service was a tad slow. the nostalgic calamari wasn't the best, but i have a new love for fried zucchini. they obliged my annoying wine allergy so i could quench my craving for salmon, though i purposely didn't eat much of it so as to save room for the two desserts i ordered (tiramisu and the napoleon). can't believe i forgot my camera! the whole group remains healthy and happy, and we made plans to reconvene at the greek festival next year. i was surprised to see that downtown norfolk has gotten even friskier. almost surreal, given the ghost town that it was back when we used to frequent la gal. didn't get to see anyone but the dinner party, alas... i'll be back soon. not sure how i didn't know about this before, but an email from my old roomie alerted me about OpenCourseWare. brilliant! the perfect drug for us wannabe lifer students who can't afford tuition every damn semester. MIT looks to have the best variety of offerings, in english anyway.

sporty spice

the friday night game is houston/st louis? seriously? i know houston has a theoretical chance of going to the postseason, but the phillies & marlins both have better chances. (at least according to me. statistics is one of the few undergrad courses i've never taken, so there's that.) and yeah, i know the former is a real rivalry, and the latter is just two teams who happen to be in the same division. whatever. naturally, tomorrow's phillies game is being broadcast, because tomorrow i have things to do & places to be. ah well. just reinforces my hunch that this may be the first year i attempt to check "attend a postseason baseball game" off of my list. i've been poking around about how to buy postseason tickets, and it looks like the apartment we just sold may very well close on time, which would allow me to afford it. (justifying the $ is another story, but that's not something i've ever had trouble with.) (and yeah, i probably just jinxed the on-time closing by writing that.) not sure why this didn't occur to me before, but the start of spring training nicely coincides with my already-planned trip to florida for bike week. hmmm...

studio 60

how do i love aaron sorkin? let me count the ways... he loves the word 'feckless' as much as i do. he loves bradley whitford and timothy busfield as much as i do. he made me consider taking matthew perry seriously. he hires smart, talented people and makes them look even smarter and more talented. i own exactly one tv show in its entirety on tv... and it's sports night. and the only reason i don't own all of west wing-- wait, no, i don't need the whole thing, just the sorkin years-- is because as of yet i haven't been able to afford it. one of these days, though. pacing, pacing, pacing. pitch perfect. the todd louiso cameo-- and his character asking who the dodgers were playing. if my current roommate didn't own a VCR, i'd go buy one before next monday. the last time i videotaped a tv show? over a decade, easy. (no, sorry, even sorkin won't make me go tivo.) and: apparently he's got evan handler again. one little complaint: do we really need those extra seconds of daytime-soap-esque face time at the end of every amanda peet scene? she's the only major player in this thing who i don't already trust. i'll give her a chance, because sorkin likes her, but it seems to me she gets way too much dialogue-less face time considering (a) it's an ensemble piece, not an amanda peet vehicle, and (b) so far as i can tell, she possesses exactly one facial expression. that aside, i'm hooked. thank goodness 'rescue me' is done for a while... i can't stomach having two must-watch shows at the same time, unless at least one of them is available on demand.

home

home from NYC. really meant to post while i was up there, but all the work i was doing melted my brain. this uber-southern lifestyle i've got going on down here makes it hard to adjust. worked out well, big picture: helped out as needed, made some money, got those annoying teeth pulled by C's cousin, who happens to be an oral surgeon and a terribly nice guy. took nary a picture once i got up there, other than of apartments-- too busy. did a little shopping here and there, mostly just worked, so much that an old friend asked, via TM, "what happened to the diva that was u?" oy. now i'm here for less than a week, cleaning and erranding before going to the beach to see some other, even older (in terms of length, not age) dear friends next weekend. there's a certain satisfaction in being too busy to write, but only if it's brief. man, i missed my apartment while i was "confined" in those near-million dollar spaces! and my cigarettes. first there was the hassle of going outside to smoke, sometimes out to a scary fire escape, depending on where i was... then there were the rains that follow me everywhere... then i was a good girl and followed the guidelines for post oral surgery... now i just want to sit here and smoke on my couch all day. it'll pass soon enough. was hell-bent on seeing factotum while in the city, because it didn't appear to be headed to richmond, but woo hoo, the westhampton to the rescue, with perfect timing. still didn't make it to the lizard & snakes exhibit at the natural history museum, though... guess i have to go back before january. random links that caught my eye this past bit... a book gets a promo on a nascar car? and for those who questioned my change from the chinatown bus, which i swore got to NY from richmond in less time than was logically possible, to the train... sleep on the train ain't what it used to be. more than anything, i've missed my mediocre (but at the moment, spectacular) bed. off i go.

more florida pics

more celebration/orlando pics (including at the shooting range, finally) are here. ormond/daytona beach pics are here. stories to follow.