January 2003
1.31.2003 / Force Feeding This Beverage to Friends
I have persistently craved Mexican
Hot Chocolate for the past week. Those who are still Swiss
Miss fans: wake up and smell the Ibarra!
Mexican hot chocolate uses hunks of dark or sweet chocolate laced with
cinnamon and sugar, and sometimes a little cocoa liqueur. Just break
off a piece and throw it in the blender with some hot milk, and you will
never need a solid dessert again. Boo-hoo for the
lactose-intolerant.
I think Mexican Hot Chocolate could definitely be worked into the EastWest
Diet of Champions, don't you?
As, of course, does my mom Sandi's
Impossible-Without-Processed-Canned-Goods Tuna Casserole!
1.29.2003 / Good Morning, Sunshine
My co-worker gets a cup of coffee at the same Korean deli every
morning. Check out his morning cup of joe:
1.29.2003 / Popcorn, Indiana
My IU Alumni News alerted me last night to a new Hoosier in town: Popcorn,
Indiana. Of all things, it's a popcorn store on the Upper
West Side, founded by natives of the real town of the same name.
1.22.2003 / Beep Beep. Beep Beep. Yeah.
My friend and ex-housemate Eric the Honda Lover went to the 2003 North
American International Auto Show recently. He and other attendees
weigh in on the latest in automotive innovation from the young, hip
person's perspective at their website, AutoSushi.
In other news, I'm off the crafting kick (for now) and onto a reading
kick. I'm working on
Birds of America by Lorrie Moore, and am impressed.
Her characters are impressively flawed in a way that has helped me out
somehow. Thanks to Park Slope's Community
Bookstore for the rec.
1.17.2003 (2) / What Does a Craig's Lister Look Like?
This is fascinating. My first thought is that this 'missed
connections' section of craig's list is sad and a little lovely. My
second thought, and someone help me out here, is a question:
What does it mean to 'look like a craigslister?
as in...
Rhetorical subway question
Maccers asks: 'Is it so wrong to eye contact cute men on the
subway and then get out your book and display the title prominently and
then smile wistfully at them when you get off just because they look
like a craigslister?'
1.17.2003 / Lemme In
Fascinating site of day. Howstuffworks.com.
Figuring out how
to pick locks. Feeling nonverbal. Have good weekend.
Bye.
1.13.2003 / Gawker
Two finds from Gawker,
a weblog for Manhattan's "media and financial elite."
Don't ask how I found this blog.
The first is an article in the NY Times called "The
Mean Season," an article that suggests that just maybe the
perfect resolution for this new year is to try to be just a little bit
meaner. Don't know if I agree, but there is a rather amusing tidbit
at the end regarding the impending invasion of New York by dorks, freaks,
and wierdos: the Republican National Convention:
Cindy Adams, the acerbic New York Post columnist, isn't planning
on it. "So now we're going to have all those fat behinds all over
our sidewalks for two weeks with their hair parted on the side and
flapping over their scalps like wet linguine," this quintessential
New Yorker said, "and they'll be wearing their uniform of red ties
and blue suits covered with white dandruff. Red, white and blue. Very
patriotic."
The second is a blog called Cohabitation
Nation by the author of the book Unmarried
to Each Other. Apparently, the book stirred up the usual
melee of controversy about the profusion of unmarried, committed couples
in the world. I continue to be shocked at the issue-dom of
cohabitation in contrast with the teeteringly high divorce rate in this
country. Though as a cohabitator myself, I can't say C. and I have
experienced much discrimination on that count. One gets the sense
that this may be one of those issues the world is willing to tuck into bed
in a decade or so. Anyway, the blog is new, interesting, and worth a
gander.
1.12.2003 / A Lack of Amazing Adventures
I just finished Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier
and Clay. It has been a very long time since reading a novel so
made me want to be a novelist. I liked the centrality of the Golem
in the book. I liked its three main characters. Their stories
made me feel like a very boring person, though, and made me despair a
little about the times. The current ones, I mean. We seem to
have swung from boring to bleak in a matter of just a few years. We
are jaded by the history that's unfolding under our feet. We feel
totally powerless to influence the direction of the world. The way
Chabon fictionalized his 'Golden Age' and the lives of comic book artists
made me nostalgic for a time in which people actually . . . lived real
lives. I am not yet sure what that means. Of course people
live real lives now, but they probably do it more often in novels.
How is all this despair connected to the merit of Chabon's book and to the
impulse to be a novelist? (By the way, Michael
Chabon has his own quite interesting website) Well, it was
just a darned good, entertaining story (i.e. - the merits of the book)
that made me feel a little dull and undramatic (i.e. - the desire to be an
artist, to know interesting people, to be one).
I remember being prompted to feel this way once before, by another
excellent book - The Art Lover by Carol Maso.
Anyway, this is something I've been struggling with a bit lately - how
I spend my time, how I've meted out my own creative impulses, whether all
this learning of new hobbies and crafts stands in for what I'd really
rather be accomplishing, or what I'm too timid to try.
Maybe if I could just find amazing adventures to embark on more
frequently.
1.10.2003 / Other News & Flossiness
I wish I had more earth-shattering things to report around here, as
the new year is often a time for big news. I guess the most exciting
thing that's happened to me lately is, for those of you who don't know,
that I'm in at two law schools so far, NYU
and University
of Pennsylvania.
Let's see. My resolutions this year are simple as usual. Every
year I resolve to floss more often, and every year I make a wee bit of
progress, but not so much that I can't re-resolve the same thing the
following year. This year both Chris and I have also resolved to
make one night a week a guaranteed, consistent night of running, going to the
co-op, and no internet.
Speaking of floss, do you know someone with stinky breath? Floss.com
actually has bad
breath e-cards you can use to tell them so.
1.8.2003 / Good Design How I Love Thee
Wow have I been delinquent in keeping up the site. I promise to
be better, promise!
Meanwhile, I'm back at work, thinking about what makes me feel content
in the middle of all this miserableness. Of course there are the
lovely people I know. In addition, though, good design makes me feel
better about the world.
Take Cydwoq
shoes for example. Someone is still cobbling out there, and
cobbling well. So what if I can't afford my own pair? It makes
me feel better to know they exist. Just like it makes me feel better
to know that trees,
Vespa,
and Red
Lipstick exist.
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