Esprit de L'Escalier

Some random bits

These two bits of celebrity gossip make me sad. I know it's stupid to feel badly when celebrity relationships go belly up, but it's too bad all the same.

I'm also sad to hear of the passing of Pavarotti. Check Lance's place for a video.

For another music clip, check out Josh Ritter's video for his new song, "The Temptation of Adam." This song *kills* me, as does this video. Nothing like a pre-apocalyptic love song. It works on so many levels. "If this was the cold war, we could keep each other warm... I didn't have to learn to love her, like I learned to love the bomb, she just came along and started to ignore me..." His new album is good (and rocking), but is lost some where in the wilds of my storage unit. Boo.

I feel like I'm getting a little sluggish and lazy at my parents'. I keep saying I'm going to get up and go on a bike ride, but it just isn't happening.

Last night, I watched a sneak peek of Tim Gunn's newest show on Bravo and was very disappointed. It's basically a re-hash of What Not To Wear, but with bigger names and labels and expensive things. I just don't think it works as well as WNTW. Don't get me wrong, I love Tim Gunn, but don't think this is working. Maybe I'll be wrong, but it's dull so far. At least Stacey and Clinton know how to throw around quips and can make a woman feel better about herself without a lifestyle coach. But Tim has access to big designers and freebies from Coach. Maybe Tim just shouldn't mingle with the normal people.

For more not-so-great-tv-but-we-watch-it-anyway, check newcritics tonight, where MA Peel will be hosting the live blogging of Mad Men. I still think that the writers just make the characters do the worst thing possible in every situation. Which I find to be lazy and uninteresting. Where's the nuance to that?

Fun part about being home? All of the old photos to paw through. Check out how cute I was at two.

Quick Friday note

I've just set some potatoes to boil and I thought I'd jot a quick post. I'm making kielbasa, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes for dinner. This dinner makes me miss living with my brother. We had an eat-in kitchen and occassionally I'd make dinner for everyone and we'd sit, laughing, talking, eating, listening to good music. It was fun. Eating alone is no fun.

I'm pages from Wuthering Heights's end. Though the main characters have driven me mad through most of the book, it's rare that I sit forward on the L while reading, as if I'm trying to get as close as I can to the book. It kept me quite absorbed, though I doubt I'll read it again.

I'm planning on doing my Etsy recommendations next week. At least three days, touching on prints, jewelry and bags and other miscellaneous things. So tune in next week!

(Currently listening to my long-lost Motown Extravaganza mixtape I made circa end of high school. I love this tape and thought it was lost in the many moves I've had over the years. Before Elaine left for her travels through Asia, she asked if I had a cassette walkman to borrow. I did, in a box somewhere, from college. In it, forgotten, was my beloved mix! Happiness all around. Current song: "The Tracks of My Tears" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.)

Random bits

Today was gray and I've been tired all week. I fell into a deep food coma après le déjeuner and convinced my friend Sharon we needed to take a quick walk to the Prairie Avenue Bookstore and B&N for magazines. To get more oxygen in our veins. Plus I wanted the new issue of Dwell, but they were out. (The fabulous Ashley G and her boyfriend Drew are apparently quoted in an article about Etsy. Plus it's my current favorite magazine.) I did pick up a Fast Company and a new (to me) Sara Paretsky. I'm heading to DC this weekend for my friend Ginny's birthday, and to see my old roommate Mary and my cousin and his wife. (I also get to meet the lovely e. of Stories About Wolves! Yay for bloggy friends!) I needed some reading material for the plane and the metro. My trips to DC always consist of me running around town with my backpack, jumping from person to person. It's always nice to visit, but I'm always a little tired when I return.

Yesterday I had an email from some discount travel service advertising $204 fares to Europe. Then today I read that the Tate Modern is doing an exhibit this summer on Salvador Dalí and film. I'd love to see that. I loved his trippy dream sequences in Hitchcock's Spellbound. Though, at this moment, I can't see me working out a trip to London this summer. As much as I might want to go.

My fortune cookie today said, "Call an old friend today." I should do that before the day ends.

Part of my soundtrack today:
"Concrete Sky" by Beth Orton
"Jackson" by Lucinda Williams
"Leavin'" by Shelby Lynne
"Good Woman" by Cat Power

The polaroid above is one I took at the end of July. After I bought my camera I took it downtown and took some test shots around work. This is one of the Indian statues that bookend Congress Parkway. I always loved them as a kid. I took some polaroids into the lab at school to scan. I'll probably continue posting my good ones.

A new blog to read and random bits

My life has been a little overly scheduled of late, and when I returned home last night at about 10 ’til 10 (just in time to see who got kicked off of Project Runway), my friend Elaine was there, watching PR with my roommate. She and I consulted our calendars to try and figure out a time when we could hang out next and realized a sad thing. Our class schedules were exactly opposite: she’s busy Mondays and Wednesdays and I’m busy on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I also realized that the next month or so is ridiculously hectic. Some of it is fun stuff, but it does not look like there’s enough time for downtime. I was hoping my life would slow down once summer was over. Anyhow, I'm sort of tired and apparently very whiny. Sorry!

In continuing with my shout-outs from yesterday, if anyone is interested, Sharon *has* been posting about her adventures around Lake Michigan. She’s got some pretty pictures up as well.

I also want to welcome Maryam at My Marrakesh to the blogosphere. She just started a blog about designing and building a guest house in Morocco, where she lives with her husband and two kids. She’s an American expat who’s been living abroad for 12 years. She and I met because we are swap partners in an international magazine swap organized by Holly at decor8. I think her blog is going to be really interesting, so check it out!

In other news, Plan B has *finally* been approved for OTC sales. It's about time. To say that I'm sick of the anti-thought, anti-science vision this administration has would be an understatement and probably not worth my time. I just started the newest Mother Jones, celebrating its 30th year in publication. I don't know if I can stomach it so soon after the nihilism that was Oryx and Crake. There's a timeline pointing out how awful this administration has been. I just don't have the energy to read it. Makes me to f-ing sad.

Tut and the Celestial Cow

My mother is in town for a training this week, but due to some miscommunications she ended up in town a couple of days early. She stayed the night with me Monday night and we got up early Tuesday morning to go see the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum. I had been looking forward to this exhibit for a while and was really happy to be able to visit it with my mom.

I've always been a little obsessed with ancient Egypt. This has everything to do with the fact that when I was about four, we visited the Field with our cousin Chenoa, who was my siblings' and my personal god for quite some time growing up. She was often with us when we were little, and we were her little devotees, the siblings she never had. Anyhow, we were in the Egyptian exhibit and Chenoa runs ahead and finds these two children mummies in a sarcophagus, side by side. "Look! Twin mummies!" My twin brother and I looked at each other and ran to see the little bodies, OUR size, wrapped in linens, dead for thousands of years. Our little minds were rocked. Anyhow, you can understand my fascination. (Does anyone else remember a Sesame Street special that dealt with the book of the dead and ancient Egypt?)

Anyhow, I enjoyed the exhibit. It did a good job of contextualizing Tut's life. A lot of the things you saw weren't actually from his tomb, though, but from the preceding pharoah's, Akhenaten, who may or may not have been his father. What I found really fascinating was that Nefertiti was the head wife of Akhenaten, and she was most likely Tut's step mother. Crazy. There was this *beautiful* carved stone head of Nefertiti. The level of detail was amazing. The perfect curve of her cheeks and the definition between her lips and cheek. I have no idea how this could be achieved in stone, but there it was in front of me. The coffin of Tjuya (see this photo gallery, it's the middle one in the top row) was also amazing. I loved the details in the hieroglyphics – all of the birds. I wished I had all the time in the world and a sketchpad (and some talent), because I would have liked to have traced and practiced those images. (Tjuya, by the way, was most likely Tut's grandmother.) It was also nice having Omar Sharif whisper to me about the mysteries of this boy king. As Howard Carter, the discoverer of Tut's tomb, said, "The mystery of his life still eludes us – the shadows move but the dark is never dispersed."

The best thing that I learned about was related to a perfectly maintained, carved wooden head of a cow. This particular item had Omar Sharif cooing in my ear about the myth of the Celestial Cow. At this point my mother and I looked at each other and giggled. The Myth of the Celestial Cow? How had this gone unnoticed by us to this point? (Another biographical side note: My brother’s first word was "cow." We were born in Wisconsin and spent a lot of time on a dairy farm and my brother would reverently point and say his one vocabulary word. My mother thought that he thought the bovines were magical. Apparently the boy’s been right all along.) My favorite quote, which I am butchering, was that when a pharaoh died they, "rose each day with the sun on the back of the Celestial Cow." How fricking fantastic.

A bit of a lag...

Sorry for the lack of posts this past week, I hope my whopper bitch about Hollywood makes up for lost time. I went home for the weekend and didn't feel like posting from there. Mostly my trip was spent listening to my mother and friend Sharon talk, argue, swap titles of books to read. I knew they'd like each other. I also saw the excellent Miss Amanda, who is still the best Bingo caller I know. I ate at my favorite gyros place (Zeta's on High Street), was astonished at the growth and change of Columbus, and further humiliated myself at my complete lack of knowledge of OSU's campus (all the while championing the glories of IU, yes I know I'm partial). I explored several campuses, actually, because what's the point in a trip to Ohio if you can't see several of the bajillion small liberal arts colleges? (That sounded salty, and I didn't mean to. The weather was perfect for seeing Kenyon and Denison.) Check out my pictures to the left.

Yesterday I got my new Chase bank debit card to replace my old Bank One card. I also noticed that the top of the Bank One building now has the Chase sign as well. This made me sad. I have deep brand loyalty to Bank One, my first bank. I also have issues with both it and Marshall Field's changing names. Especially the Marshall Field's flagship. I am so sad about this. Columbus still has Bank Ones as Bank Ones. I guess the trickle effect hasn't hit them yet. Lucky bastards.

In other news, I'm about half-way through Joan Didion's new book, The Year of Magical Thinking. It's beautiful, but I can't say I'm in the cheeriest of moods. My reading for class is over, so I now have time to read for pleasure again, which is really nice. Plus the Didion book is small and fits perfectly in the pocket of my trenchcoat. It's a nice weight, swaying next to me as I walk. Sharon, her friend Pat and I are going to try and hear her speak on Saturday as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival, though the session is booked. I trust in Pat's powers of persuasion.

More on my pumpkin

Today when I bought my pumpkin, it was raining. I had my messenger bag slung over my shoulders and an umbrella in one hand. I picked my pumpkin from the muddy crowd at my feet and made my way to the sodden table of vegetables. It was difficult, but somehow I managed to get my wallet out, keep my umbrella over me and not get covered in mud (the trick lay in crooking the umbrella between my shoulder and chin). The good people at the vegetable stand gave me a garbage bag to put my pumpkin in, saving me again from the mud, and the bag lasted til I returned to the office.

Then I cleaned it in the sink, marvelling in its beauty. Isn't it a nice pumpkin? On my journey home this evening I just carried it in the crook of my arm, not unlike carrying a toddler around. Just a little smaller. I kind of expected more odd glances, I mean, I'm not used to seeing large gourds on the CTA, but maybe I just don't ride it at the right times.

The weather cleared up a bit today, though. The sky looked similar to the sky below.

Musical chairs (literally)

Tonight I have finally put my living room back together again. Or rather re-invented it. Recently I've been taken to watching a lot of HGTV. This has lead to me have major nesting urges. As well as some redecoration urges, which meant, that it was time to get rid of some of our dorm-style furniture.

In our front room we had a futon (that's Natasha's) and a twin bed (mine), as well some trunks serving as coffee tables, the tv, etc. I was very reluctant to give up the bed. It's extremely comfortable and when we all moved in together, we didn't have anything else to use, so we used it as a day bed. Having the futon and twin bed has been great for all of our houseguests, but it was time for something to go. Since the futon was not mine to get rid of, and because the twin bed really made the room look like another bed room, the twin bed got the axe. But it went to a good home, my friend/co-worker Neva has taken it in exchange for a love seat, which is what brings me to the musical chairs portion of my evening.

On Sunday I almost bought this velvety sage green sofa. The stars were seeming to align. My friend Ryan was going to help me move it and the guy selling it was moving to my hometown! But something didn't feel right, so I decided to call it off. Sunday evening, Ryan called me with an offer of a velvety green couch that Al, Ryan's old roommate and Natasha's boyfriend, bought. It didn't fit in his new condo. So I got exactly the sort of couch I wanted at half the cost of the other one! And in exchange I told Al he could have the love seat Neva was giving me.

Tonight we did the dance of the furniture exchange. Neva and her fiancee dropped off the loveseat at Al's and then came by and picked up my bed. I was finally able to arrange the sofa in its new location and move somethings around. It's all looking much better. I've got to get a lamp for the sofa, but all in good time my pretties... Plus my camel pillows from Qatar look great with the new sofa!

Before:

Don't think less of me for that photo. When I'm bored and by myself I sometimes take pictures of myself and my apartment with the timer on my camera... I should have added that to Shakespeare's Sister's list of people's inner geek. Kind of embarassing, but hey, so's life.

After:

Both pictures show our drastic need for some sort of art on the wall... But that too was a compromise between roommates...

Vsechno nejlepsi k Tvym narozeninam!!

Happy birthday to Vaclav Havel! I believe the title for this post is "Happy Birthday" in Czech, but don't hold me to that. My Czech, which was never very good, is extremely rusty.

In honor of his birthday, I scanned some pictures from the Czech Republic. The first is from this very cute town square, somewhere in Bohemia, near Theresienstadt.

The second is my friend Eliza when she visited me in Prague. We walked down the steps from the Castle, through some gardens. In the background are the spires of Malá Strana. These are the best pictures I have, but there the best I can do at midnight on a work night.

Um, ha.

This has everything to do with the fact that I went to Indiana University, known for its Little 500 bike race, and briefly dated someone who rode in it. (And for those of you who would like to comment on how funny it is that I dated this person, please hold your tongues.)

ANYHOW, this headline: Serious Riders, Your Bicycle Seat May Affect Your Love Life, by Sandra Blakeslee in today's NYT, made me giggle.