esprit de l'escalier

Random thoughts

I found this Pearls before Swine cartoon at a blog I just discovered, Stories About Wolves. Pearls is not a comic I read on a daily basis, but every now and then I find one that is hysterical. Perhaps this one hits close to home? (Other bloggers should read it.)

I really don't have much to say today, except that I am going to mildly complain about So You Think You Can Dance. One, I surprisingly really like the show. I thought I would hate it, like I hate American Idol. But you know what's great? NO ONE SINGS. Plus all the kids on it are adorable and seem to genuinely like each other, like it's Fame's summer camp or something. I think their comraderie has something to do with the fact they compete with partners. Plus I think that dancing takes more talent than butchering top 40 karaoking. That said, Ben had to be cut last night, but my beef is why does everyone this Dmitry is such hot stuff? He annoys the crap out of me and I'm pretty sure he'll end up in the top three guys. Though, SURELY, he won't get any farther. Donyelle is my favorite, and I can't help but like her smiley Mormon partner Benji. Martha and Travis are excellent, but they lack the appeal of Donyelle and Benji, at least I think.

Now that I've outed my poor television choices for the summer, I'm going to leave you all for about 10 days. My parents are coming to town tonight and I've got major packing and cleaning to do before they arrive. I leave on my trip on Sunday and won't be back til the following Monday. Bliss!! I hope you all enjoy your Fourths, may there be fireworks and parades for all of you!

Stranger Things Happen

Recently I have found myself on a big short story kick. They never really interested me before, maybe I was being size-ist or something. I have really come to appreciate the craft that goes into writing short stories. (It really started when I read How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer; see my post last summer on it here. Short stories are perfect for commutes on the CTA.) I bought Kelly Link’s collection of modern fairy tales Stranger Things Happen this weekend at the Book Cellar (my new favorite bookstore). The cover drew me in – a very Nancy Drew-like figure hunting through the woods with a flashlight. Plus there were a bunch of stellar reviews by other authors (and those I had heard of though never read, like Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Lethem) and my one of my favorite critics at Salon, Andrew O’Hehir. So I bought it, even though I had just bought a bunch of books there a week previously and hadn’t read them all yet.

I’m not finished with her collection yet, but am enjoying them. They have a very surreal quality to them, very dreamlike and have crawled under my skin. Some of them are really creepy, some are really odd and some are really sad. Many have to do with ideas of loss or disappearance and travel. I finished “Travels with the Snow Queen” on my commute home last night. I couldn’t help but think about Dorothy Parker while I read it, since she’s been in my thoughts lately. The story is about a woman whose boyfriend left her (or was kidnapped?) by the Snow Queen. She travels the world to find him by walking on a mirror to find her way. She can trace her steps by her scarred feet, “There is a map of fine white scars on the soles of your feet that tells you where you have been.” Salon has an excerpt from this story from 2001 when the book was originally published.

I was thinking about Parker with this story because some plot points remind me of themes in lots of Parker’s shorts: men leave and the women follow, even though everyone tells them the men don’t really love them. Parker’s stories don’t end well, though, death even eludes the women, as in “The Big Blonde.” There is a lot of gin-soaked sadness and resignation. I like the ending of “Snow Queen.” The woman decides she doesn’t actually want the man back and takes up a new line of work. It’s more empowering about accepting your history as an integral part of yourself and being okay with it. Really the stories themselves speak to the time in which they were written, which is really where their differences derive. (Not that I don't enjoy DP, I just had to put her aside for awhile.)

I would recommend this book, if you’re looking for things to read. The tone has been perfect for these rainy, close days we’ve been having in Chicago – the torrential downpour and thunder and lightning adding special mood to my reading this morning. You can read a review of the book from Salon here and an interview with Link here. Link also has a new book out called Magic For Beginners that I will have to keep an eye out for.

“Ladies. Has it ever occurred to you that fairy tales aren’t easy on the feet?”

Tuba update

UPDATED BELOW.

A while back I posted about my cousin Carol, the youngest person ever to be hired to play at a top-five orchestra, and the only female tuba player to boot. She was on the Today show last week. You can see a clip of it here.

(Apparently my friend Dana was on the Today show this morning and I forgot to tape it! Hopefully it ends up on the web as well...)

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Dana was indeed on the Today show, and you can see her segment here. She's in a segment about long distance relationships. How bizarre that two people I know were on the Today show in the last week! (Dana, your fiancé is adorable and I can't wait for your wedding in October!)

Overdose of cherries

I overate cherries the last week and a half. It got to the point that I still had most of a big bag left but the thought of eating any more was giving me gas. I just went into the little kitchen in my office to grab my mid-morning yogurt to realize that I had accidentally bought a cherry flavored one. I usually do straight vanilla. Anything else vaguely weirds me out. Now I'm stuck with more cherries. I guess I'll try it; I hate to waste food.

Vacation countdown has officially begun

My summer vacation starts on Sunday and I am very excited. I'm flying to Portland and meeting up with my traveling companion Stacey. We are going to do Lewis and Clark related things, go camping and visit a bunch of different friends along the way and end up in Seattle. Where we get to see Miss Mariah, freshly home from Edinburgh (who is in the throes of writing her master's thesis). My sister is meeting up with me there and we are going to stay with some old family friends. (Kids I used to babysit for, one of which who is now in college!) I am so excited. Stacey is an excellent traveling partner, because she is positive and curious and flexible. Plus she's a peach for having planned so much of it (thank you, Stace). Really, I'm one of the worst packers. I generally throw a bunch of things in a bag the night before and end up with mismatched outfits and too many skirts and inappropriate shoes-- this time I've started a list of the things I need to pack. Apparently I have a deep need for a vacation that lasts longer than a long weekend.

This week is full of cleaning and finishing up the apartment, as my parents will be in town on Saturday. They are excellent motivation to finish unpacking. I'm trying to anticipate their complaints and deal with it ahead of time.

Dewey Donation System

My friend Anne sent me this link the other day (Anne-- I'd link to you if I could!), for a website that is organizing book donations to the libraries that were destroyed by Katrina. The site is called the Dewey Donation System and is organized by Pamie and Glark (of TWoP fame).

The site links you to Amazon wishlists of several libraries. You can quickly and easily click your way to helping restock the shelves of these libraries. It's an amazing cause. As Anne said in her email to me: "There have never been so many tears shed over the purchase of "A Room of One's Own" and "White Fang" as there were in the last hour in my cubicle."

Please help if you can.

Sorry for the downer to end the week, but do help (and have a good weekend!).

Green and some goodies

I have not had my act together enough to continue with the week of color, but here is my entry for today's color: green. I took it Memorial Day weekend, under some trees, next to the lake outside the Field Museum.

This week has been a fun mailbag week. On Monday I received this in the mail:

Isn't it adorable? It's from ashleyg's Etsy Shop. It's already in a frame, I just need to figure out a place to put it. I also have one of her tiny originals. She's up in my cubicle with all of my other colorful little prints and postcards.

My favorite thing, though, came in the mail yesterday. I had ordered it ages ago, but it was up in an art show in Los Angelos. I have spoken of my love of Susie Ghahremani before and when I saw I could purchase one of her tiny paintings for my very own, I couldn't pass it up. Yesterday this tiny alpaca arrived. I just couldn't stop staring at it. It's so sweet. I need to find a little place for him.

(After the break is the boob holla picture... for Bird.)

Glasses

News Item, by Dorothy Parker

Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.

Okay, okay, I know that makes me sound a little sorry for myself, but really, I don't. I've been reading The Portable Dorothy Parker for about a week now and found that poem (among others) funny, in a darkly sardonic way. (I like to read big tomes, they double as mugging protection.) I'm planning on a little write-up on that and the other books I've recently read, I just haven't gotten around to writing it yet, so I thought I'd give you a couple of her poems from Enough Rope. Boiled down, much of her writing is about the the pathetic things women do to land men who don't deserve the women in the first place. It makes me wonder what she would have thought of Sex in the City. Probably that things have not changed very much.

I am currently smack-dab in the center. The first story in the anthology, "The Lovely Leave" is my favorite so far. It perfectly captures the range and flow of emotions I would imagine one would have in a situation like that. (Where your husband, who's been away at war for a long time, has 24 hour leave. What thought processes and various cycles of neuroses one would have.) The story "The Wonderful Old Gentleman" was equally well crafted, but left me feeling like someone had kicked me in the gut by the end. Life is cruel, ladies and gents, but her writing is very well crafted and balanced. She has a remarkable ear for how people speak. I'm looking forward to her criticisms later in the volume.

Inventory, by Dorothy Parker

Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

PS: Bird, I forgot to bring the picture today... so tomorrow...

Also, I was going to try and take part in a continuation of the week of color, spear-headed by Andrea at Hula Seventy, but I just don't have my act together.

Quick trip to Bloomington

This weekend was full of old friends and places and some new friends as well. Natasha and I drove down to IU to visit with our friends Bird and Sarah. We had been looking forward to this trip all week. Bton is a wonderful place in the summer, or is through our rose tinted memories. Juxtaposed to our normal frenetic lives in the city, the remembrances of our lazy summers in Bloomington seemed so welcome. We really did not want to leave once we got there.

The two summers I spent there, after my junior and senior years were wonderful. Life was easier. True that last summer I was really living hand to mouth, but the jobs had a lot less responsibility and I miss my activities there. The long drives through the country with my music blaring and windows down, my mind wandering. The contra dancing on Wednesday nights, being twirled by strangers in a stuffy gym. Drive-ins. A porch and swing. Sure it was hot and humid as hell, but they were good summers. Anyhow, as you can see, nostalgia was on our minds, or at least mine, on our drive down.

Our 24 hour tour was very successful, as our hostesses were as entertaining as always. I also got to meet my bloggy friend Anthony in person, which was great. (This whole blog thing with my "fake" friends, as Briana's roommate likes to refer to us, is weird, but in a good way. It's nice to meet people I know through this medium. I don't want to call you all "internet friends" because that just sounds too weird.) Plus I fulfilled all of my goals for my visit, which included playing Sink the Biz at Nick's (see photo). As always a visit with the Bird included many long gab fests and lots of laughter. On the way out of town we realized that this may be our last trip to the Bloomhole in a long time. Bird will be leaving soon and as will Sarah. The last of our college ties were drifting from town and neither of us knew when we'd be coming back down. (Kristen, I know you’ll still be there, but you’ll be the last one for me.) This got us a little misty and we drove through campus, past our old haunts as a bit of a good bye.

(Pictures after the break...)

Week of Color: Red

Here is my final entry in the week of color. It is the fountain outside my parents' front door, more importantly the japanese maple next to it. The picture is from early November and I caught the maple (and all of the trees that trip) at that perfect moment of purely saturated color. Then there was a wind storm and by the time I left there wasn't a leaf left on the maple. (Actually, I just looked at the pictures again and they are two different japanese maples, but they're both red so whatever.)

Mav has a round-up of some of her favorites from the week.

I also want to say hello to the people stopping over from Shakespeare's Sister!