01.27.09: frak.

it's been a bit more than a week since we relocated our microwave and toaster oven to the appliance morgue beneath the trash chutes next to our building.* we've done pretty well without the toaster oven, i must say; it might get hectic the next time we need to, like, toast some pine nuts, but we're not big bagel people (read: i love bagels so much that it's safer for everyone to keep them out of the apartment), and i think we could broil something in the oven if we wanted it badly enough. i thought we weren't big microwavers, either, but i was oh so wrong: while we don't zap much frozen food, we do make big sunday night batches of dinnerish stuff (chili, soup, lentils) that need to be coaxed back to the world of the living during the week. i tried playing the tough guy and eating cold chili after work last week and it nearly killed me, man.

so we're in the market for a microwave. in the course of our search, we've learned that microwaves, like americans, are a lot bigger than they were a decade ago; most microwaves are butt ugly; the 29th result for "microwave oven" on amazon.com is an episode from the fourth season of bones; and it's really hard to shop for microwaves online.** you have to be able to slam the door, beep-boop the buttons, all that good stuff.

we know that we want something big enough to fit a dinner plate, probably stainless steel, hopefully not gigantic. futuristic, but in a retro way (a '78 cylon centurion, if you will - not a reimagined one***). have you seen that sort of microwave in your travels, internets? if you like the one you have at home, does it have a sister (that is, would you recommend your model)?

*i'd feel guilty about that, but both of them still worked, technically; if the microwave in particular could make it from an anonymous hallway to our friend tony's place however long ago, and then from tony to us in 2003, i think it will find a new host (in both senses of the word) without trouble. also, let's all ignore how i just told you our microwave came from a hallway.

**harder than shopping for skinny jeans online, and how is that possible?

***translation: NO POPCORN BUTTON.

01.22.09: my bologna has a first name

i can hardly describe the mellow yet formidable southern californian rage that churned around in me as local newscasters refused to give me word of the academy award nominations breaking this morning. yes yes, hillary clinton rolls into the state department, caroline kennedy won't be our next senator,* whatever. give me my movie news, ruffians!

i have a huge backlog of titles yet to see, so i'll spare you most of my predictions for now; instead, i'll comment on the few that are already under my belt. what have you seen so far, folks? any early calls, or strong feelings about what i should be sure to see?

as in previous years, films i've seen are asterisked.

best actor

richard jenkins - the visitor
frank langella - frost/nixon
sean penn - milk
brad pitt - the curious case of benjamin button*
mickey rourke - the wrestler

i love brad pitt in david fincher movies (fight club might still my favorite movie of all time), but there wasn't a lot of acting for him to do in this one: he won't win.

best supporting actor

josh brolin - milk
robert downey jr. - tropic thunder*
philip seymour hoffman - doubt
heath ledger - the dark knight*
michael shannon - revolutionary road

can we talk about robert downey jr. as sherlock holmes? directed by guy ritchie, with jude law as watson? this has nothing to do with the oscars, of course, but it's so sacrilegious that i'm afraid i can't get behind RDJ winning anything ever again. also, heath ledger really was incredible.

best actress

anne hathaway - rachel getting married
angelina jolie - changeling
melissa leo - frozen river
meryl streep - doubt
kate winslet - the reader

i have a feeling that i'll like anne hathaway - that movie looks brutal in the best way - but who can say?

best supporting actress

amy adams - doubt
penélope cruz - vicky cristina barcelona
viola davis - doubt
taraji p. henson - the curious case of benjamin button*
marisa tomei - the wrestler

again, i think the benjamin button contender hasn't got a chance (though she was decent). marisa tomei, maybe? i'm on the fence about whether the prospect of seeing the wrestler excites me or makes me want to nap/die, but i have accepted that it needs to happen. i really like darren aronofsky (requiem for a dream was good, and i think pi was brillliant), so that's some consolation.

best director

david fincher - the curious case of benjamin button*
ron howard - frost/nixon
gus van sant - milk
stephen daldry - the reader
danny boyle - slumdog millionaire*

danny boyle edges out david fincher for me; both are heavy on style, but boyle's is better suited to his material (fincher's made a forrest gump narrative slightly more interesting, but really, brad pitt's face did most of the heavy visual lifting in benjamin button).

best picture

the curious case of benjamin button*
frost/nixon
milk
the reader
slumdog millionaire*

it's not impossible to dislike slumdog millionaire, but i think it's impossible to get through it without liking something (i myself liked many things about it). early call: danny boyle's india for the win.

*i still say it's going to be cuomo, though there's a bit of wish fulfillment in that (joe's life would be simpler, and i would have more opportunities to say cuomoerotic, which is still my favorite fake word).

01.18.09: avalon

the good news is that our buggy laptop is back from washington and well again; the bad news is that we don't seem to have its current password, so my MLK internettery is limited to what i'm willing to accomplish at the office (i am, sadly enough, not the only one here).* on a more festive note, i give you joe: sleeveface.

*the other bad news, speaking of bugs, is that we also lack both a microwave and a toaster oven; the former got itself kicked out of the apartment when i opened the door immediately after zapping something and found a live cockroach taking laps around the perimeter like a racewalker at the mall of america. i decided the cockroach had earned the microwave and left them both on the curb. the toaster oven...was an accomplice, and ten years old and awfully grotty in its own right. it's peanut butter jelly time, as it were.

01.16.09: at night, the ice weasels come

(e-mail) 1: I wanted you to know that I froze to death on the walk to work this morning and am now but an icy lump in front of the T-Mobile store, so you are free to marry George.

(e-mail) 2: It is as I foretold!

Are you being snarky, or was the walk as brutal as I imagine it was?

(e-mail) 1: I am being snarky. It really wasn’t that bad, though I did change into pants because my sweater smelled funny.

01.12.09: good-bye to all that

going to the gym in the morning has the magical effect of making me suitable for little more than television and couch-lounging, at least for an hour or two, which is why i could never be one of those people who goes before work (i'd be unemployed in a week). forgetting that we had a luscious netflix pile of dark shadows and x-files episodes, the missus and i blew a bit of our saturday on a style network "dos and don'ts" show (don't paint yourself orange, do follow trends [except for the painting yourself orange trend], &c).

to my great surprise, the item about excessive facial piercings actually got to me. my eyebrow bar and i are great friends, and i could give a monkey's about what people in the office think about it, but i was finally able to admit to myself that it doesn't have a lot of relevance for me these days. joe and i had a long talk, i took a deep breath, and i took out all of my exotic piercings* - for good. the tragus ring that inspired mom to threaten to keep me from going to college: adieu! the cartilage bar i acquired in berkeley on a date with paul: bless! the eyebrow bar, snagger of sweaters, instant dater of wedding pictures, way to kill fifteen minutes in london when lukas refused to leave a record shop on berwick street: may the wind ever be at your back! you were all great friends of mine, and i feel pretty naked at the moment, but i think i needed to slough a few outdated bits of identity. also, i've always been a big fan of monkeying with my appearance: change is the constant, no?

okay, really naked.

*except for ye olde navel ring. it's had such a hard life (remember, kids: captive bead rings are not key rings) that i don't have the heart to confront it again.

01.07.09: new year's realizations

kyle maclachlan is much more attractive than i'd given him credit for being.*

reading poetry is dandy, but writing it leaves me a bit cold at the moment (and that's fine; we'll reconnect if we're meant to settle down together).

there is nothing wrong with failing to own belts.

if bed bugs want to live in your apartment, they pretty much will.***

i've got a photography ego (even though i'm a newbie and i know it).

i'm fond of my job. quite fond of it, actually.

*poor kyle: david foster wallace's "david lynch loses his head" (in which he became "nerdy and potatofaced") really did a number on a generation of ladies, i think.**

**exception that proves the rule: kick-ass agent cooper tattoo.

***not my way of saying we have or have had them ourselves; i've just been reading about them (fun book, incidentally, though it'll freak you out about the bee crisis).

01.06.09: keywords

what ho, internets! being trained to Blog (and then Blogging) for the ladymag has already deprived me of my will to live (and blog for personal amusement). i'm sure it will return shortly; in the interim, please enjoy this photo of a beer and a ms. pac man table.



i would like to be enjoying those things right now, as it happens.

12.23.08: harrison ford in the cupboard*

joe took great interest in the tree we brought home on sunday (which makes sense, i suppose, since i made him carry it). i thought sister emily and i did a fine (if slightly haphazard) job of draping it with white twinkle lights; they can be rearranged so very easily once the tree is established in the window, and all. instant perfection, she isn't a must. he started grumbling as strand after strand clumped together near the bottom of the tree, though, and thought we should pull everything out and start over, and when we refused, he staged a twinkle light coup and insisted on redoing the whole thing. i made fun of him for being so fussy, but he did in fact do a much snazzier job.



the original plan to use the wee army men i turned into ornaments two years ago foundered when they went AWOL in the hall closet (such a small space, yet so voracious with the stuff-eating; i wouldn't be surprised to learn the moth colony in there has developed a taste for plastic human flesh), so i repurposed the wee rubber cowboys and indians i'd ordered at the same time. they...are kind of politically incorrect when mixed together (which is not to say i haven't placed fake cowboys in sniper positions on the tree above fake braves, and vice versa), but hey. i haven't made any smallpox blanket jokes, and that's what matters.

*anyone else remember the indian in the cupboard books (about a little boy whose plastic toys come to life)? i have a feeling i'd find them wildly offensive these days, but the first few were pretty exciting when i was seven.

12.19.08: intimate waters

alas! i won't be Blogging until the new year (something about corporate upload and a truck), so i can't share my obsession with holiday gift wrapping with the ladymag-public. i can, however, inflict it on you:



transporting, no? i realize that everyone else got tired of chopping up fashion magazines in the eighth grade, but i still dig it.

we're in the middle of both a ferocious snowstorm (get home safely, jacob!) and a ferocious february close (i don't care how awesome hair dye is, i'm not dyeing my ladyparts purple!*) here; i hope to be out in time to make a big pot of snow day chili, but we will see what we will see. how are you, internets? i hope you're holidaying.

*the scariest thing to swoop across my desk all month, though bidet in a bottle was close on its heels.

12.16.08: ring of fire

(text) 1: what the hell is this?
(text) 2: it looks to me like a cartoon story of a cigarette going on a date.

12.10.08: während du schliefst

i am neither a big list-maker nor a particularly effective self-starter, but i get all hot and bothered about Gettin' Things Done (and then Recording Said Things) when joe is out of town and i'm forced to amuse myself. what's gone down since he left for mexico* on sunday? well, let me tell you.

(icelandic thrillers and other) reading: abbreviated, as the key to our mailbox went to mexico with joe and i can't pick up our new york (no big loss) or our new yorker (nooo!). i did, however, just finish voices, the third arnaldur indriðason thriller now in translation. this one takes place over the week leading up to christmas - it's about a murdered hotel santa claus, actually - and gives what i imagine is a fairly true-to-life idea of what it must be like to be in reykjavik in december. murder aside, it sounds really lovely: i'm starting to feel like a visit during the off-season (instead of next summer, which was my original plan) might not be the worst idea ever (even though we'd be limited to reykjavik, since domestic travel when iceland is choked with snow is not so feasible). it's so much cheaper (though the icelandic economy is in the crapper, airfare from new york is still exorbitant once spring gets going), and we're already going away twice next summer for weddings...but it's hard to justify such a big trip in such a weird economic climate. hold on, iceland! i'm doing my best!

gymgoing: also touch and go, since i'm getting over an especially pernicious sinus infection, but i squeaked out my customary six miles on the treadmill yesterday. our gym has discontinued towel service, for they are cheap bastards, and i discovered that the leetle bit of lung capacity i'm still missing made, as frost would say, all the difference - so in terms of workout-related sex appeal, last night might have been a personal best for me. i'm heading back tonight, but i am not running.

the craft: the stag beetle needlepoint (beetlepoint?) i picked back up last week is tootling along nicely; there is very little on television that i need to absorb this week, so i've been stitching away while listening to jarvis cocker and various scottish bands.** in bigger craft news, i was seized last week with the unexpected urge to pitch myself as a lifestyle expert and, after doing circles around our building with furrowed brow, nail-biting over mock posts, checking with our editor in chief, and hunting around for a thumbnail photo that doesn't make me look like an asshole, i'll be Blogging for the ladymag. i'm guessing that i won't make much mention of Blogging here, since the 'champ is wee and personal and i would like it to stay that way, but if you'd like to know more about the site (once it's up and running, probably in a month or so), drop me a line. Blogging, with capital letters and everything! i'm nervous but happy, i think.

*yeah, the missus went to mexico with his folks for the week; after the political shenanigans of the last few months, he's due some rest and relaxation (and has a ton of vacation time to spare). i too have a ton of vacation time to spare - and i love mexican food and the beach even more than he does (especially the beach; he refuses to get involved with the ocean, due to a bone-rattling fear of sharks, whereas if i could figure out how to swim while eating nachos i would never come back to shore) - but we're closing an issue of the ladymag this week, and now is not a good time to look less than utterly committed to print publishing. i told him to bring me a friendship bracelet.

**i used the joe-absence as an excuse to netflix a bunch of stuff he'd hate (come to me, the diving bell and the butterfly!), but see above re: the mail key. he'll be returning to a postal bomb of subtitled sadness.

12.03.08: stopping by woods on a snowy evening

1: you know, some people have coverlets that they put over their beds during the day to catch cat hair and things. we could do something like that for barf.

2: like a tarp.

1: i was thinking more like a blanket.

2: we could get some rubber sheets.

1: you want rubber sheets? you want the cats to sleep on a rubber sheet?

2: [...]

1: "fetish."