7 years late

career path

2009-03-12T10:33:00.003+01:00

my freelance writing career is off to a slow start. this is the third time i've tried to reinvent my professional life, and somehow it always surprises me that i have to claw my way in from the bottom. of course it can't help that newspapers across the country are laying off journalists so the market must be particularly flooded at the moment.

i've been pitching ideas to several magazines and websites, both in the u.s. and europe, and trying to find connections where i can. so i'm going to just keep at this, and hopefully one day i'll be able to post a link here to something that i've written and gotten paid for.

meanwhile i continue to apply to freelance positions editing, project editing, project managing, reseraching, etc. i guess this isn't a bad place to mention that i'm currently looking for work. just keep that in mind, if you hear of something or if you yourself want to hire me. it occured to me that perhaps i should clarify that.

small rant

2009-03-04T11:29:00.004+01:00

remember my new years resolutions? one of them was to send more letters and gifts, be more spontaneously caring across the large distance that separates me from many of my friends and family. and over the past months i have really enjoyed the pleasures of doing this.

but let me just make this clear: if i send you something in the mail PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me know that you received it. that way i don't have to worriedly track the package, curse the spanish mail system, get annoyed at your lack of basic human courtesy and generally ruin the entire experience for myself. a simple "got your package" email is sufficient and will make my day, i promise.

when i was a kid, i had to write a thank-you note for every gift i received. at the time it was an excruciating requirement imposed by my parents, but i now see the wisdom behind this rule. everybody likes to see polite kids and graciousness is never a bad quality in a person young or old.

but, not everybody was raised as well as i was. and one doesn't give presents to receive thanks. so i'm willing to lower the bar here. the words "thank you" are not required!

as most of you know, i am willing to make 100% of overseas phone calls and will probably travel very far to show up at your doorstep once a year. i don't think i ask too much in terms of relationship maintenance -- i am the one who picked up and left the country, so i feel like that responsibility rests more on my shoulders. so this is all i ask: please let me know when you receive something in the mail from me (this includes gifts sent by me through websites). thanks!

bits and bobs

2009-02-24T22:31:00.002+01:00

budget update: i'm 11 euros over budget and it's the 24th. in my defense, i have bought two trips this month: a may weekend in dublin with the ladies, and semana santa to barcelona and southwestern france (darling). meanwhile -- and revelations like this are why we budget to begin with -- i am 38 euros over on alcohol. and i repeat, it's the 24th. and my budget for alcohol was, um, 150 euros. well, well, well. in brighter tidings, i am 140 euros UNDER on shopping!

in television news: i love how the latest episode of flight of the conchords was all around fort greene. jogging in the park, dekalb avenue, chez oscar. it's good to see the old hood again. i'm back in love with hbo, after burning through true blood and now getting into generation kill. not only does it borrow the wire's lingo-laden conversational style and slightly difficult-to-penetrate plotline, but like any hbo show it features friends from series past. i recognized ziggy sobotka right off the bat -- after his dad frank sobotka's turn on true blood -- but it took me a while to place that other guy, who i now remember as being one of the dickish police brutality cops who did things the western district way. awesome.

finally, i saw a great band the other night. they're called columpio asesino and they're the rare spanish band i've heard that i've loved. they sound a little bit like yo la tengo, with dashes of pixies. go check it out...

we beat on, boats against the curren

2009-02-23T12:20:00.001+01:00

check out my latest piece a crucial minutiae...thanks!

the final push

2009-02-19T12:00:00.003+01:00

the sun has been shining for a week, days are blindingly bright and pleasingly warm. my wool coat hangs quietly, passed over for that wonderful harbinger of spring: the denim jacket. yesterday i spent the afternoon on my terrace, soaking in these sneaky february rays.

we're not out of the wilderness yet as far as winter is concerned, but these sunny stretches hint that we're in the final push (as my dad used to say). meanwhile, the weather is doing wonders for my disposition, and i think i may even have a bit of a tan...

bug-building game

2009-02-18T10:34:00.002+01:00

a clue on today's times crossword brought a blast from my past. i haven't thought about cootie, the game where you assemble plastic insects, in years -- decades maybe.

i can't say i remember the rules to this game, but a quick look at wikipedia suggests that the rules are staggeringly simple. the six body parts -- legs, body, head, ears, eyes, tongue -- correspond to the six sides of a die; you pick up what you roll. now why would such a facile and strategy-free game be so beloved, one of its manufacturers' best-sellers?

is it because they are bugs? i mean, if you had to collect six other things -- straws maybe, or shoelace tips -- i can't see 50 years of success. but cooties, kids love them. looking at that picture, i remember being particularly fond of the tongue.

or maybe kids don't need too much zip in their games. remember candy land? or chutes and ladders? i loved when bill and nikki played go fish on big love a couple of weeks ago. why would anybody over the age of 4 play these "games" anymore? i suppose they're like primers, getting kids versed in the rituals of dice rolling, marching your piece forwards or backwards across a board, drawing and discarding, etc.

do kids even play board games anymore? i wonder if they go straight to the video game console; instead of building plastic cooties, designing insect societies in sim antfarm.

guest bloggership continues

2009-02-16T12:07:00.001+01:00

my latest installment is up at crucial minutiae. go have a look and leave a comment if you fancy!

2008 movie round-up

2009-02-15T19:14:00.003+01:00

i think the oscars are tonight so here is my two cents.

best movies i saw
1. milk
2. rachel getting married
3. vicky cristina barcelona
4. iron man
5. frost/nixon

worst movies i saw
1. revolutionary road
2. indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull
3. speed racer
4. burn after reading
5. sex and the city

movies i still would like to see
1. man on wire
2. the class
3. harold and kumar escape from guantanamo
4. che
5. happy go lucky

movies i will definitely not be seeing
1. the curious case of benjamin button
2. australia
3. valkyrie
4. the reader
5. the gran torino

importing

2009-02-15T19:11:00.003+01:00

there are certain items that i always purchase in the u.s. not that they aren't for sale in spain, or that the spanish versions don't suit my needs. but i have my routines and tendencies and these dictate shopping.

bras, underwear and socks. only purchased in america.

the funny thing is that a girlfriend of mine revealed that she also buys these three things only at home. which made me wonder, are we all doing this? what do you buy only in the states?

walking home

2009-02-12T10:39:00.000+01:00

A rare mild night in February; leaving my friend’s house in Chueca I decided to walk the 30 minutes home. Cold weather sends me running for taxis and subways – especially after 2 a.m. But tonight there was a full moon and it felt good to stretch my legs.

It has been a while since I’ve walked through the heart of this city; normally I avoid these crowded streets. Usually I walk with my head down, dodging people and lost in the music playing through my headphones. But late at night I stick to the main drags and stay alert. No music, head up, listening.

And tonight the streets were empty, eerily calm and shiny. Heels echoing through a vacant Sol and cavernous Plaza Mayor. The minstrel song of a stumbling drunk brushing across the cobblestones, angry garbage trucks devouring bins, the sporadic questions from strangers – directions or spare change – only briefly interrupting the silence.

Do you ever walk through your city and feel like you’re dreaming? Like if you closed your eyes you could lift up and float away?

calling the kettle racist

2009-02-09T10:33:00.002+01:00

second column is up at crucial minutae, check out calling the kettle racist. and leave comments!

a couple minutes late?

2009-02-08T13:44:00.002+01:00

though i'm sure in internet time a couple minutes midas well be a couple years. surely you have all seen, or heard about this already. but it was just last night that i saw this for the first time:
i'll admit that i spend a ridiculous amount of time in front of my laptop, most of it taming the beast of google reader and thus somewhere on the scale between forboding and downright depressing. and while i like babies or whatever in the backseat or rolling around on the floor, this clip is the most balls-out feel good three minutes i have spent on the net in a while.

what i love about this is the same thing i love about burning man. here's someone working their ass off for no reason other than to create something cool and share it with people. granted there is a built-in audience but what we see before us is nothing beyond raw talent and dedication. i find that to be inspiring.

honestly, who's cooler here: beyonce with her amazing hair, clothes, styling, backup dancers, beats and choreography or this dude in his tiny room with a webcam? i kind of love him more, for the lack of commercialism, for the rawness of it.

and i know he's been on oprah and probably has a book and a reality series and a line of strappy gymwear coming out -- i am a bit late on this, i admitted that from the beginning. and of course he's piggybacking on the awesomeness of the original video. my point is that i love people creating art out of the dusty corners of their shitty apartment for no reason other than that it is bursting out of their skin.

ps. time to be youtube sensations friends; how fun does this look? let's remake this one: "forever more" by moloko. check it out here. i dig those drunken style dance moves. call me when you're ready to start rehearsing.

jacki's viewless reviews - australia

2009-02-07T16:12:00.007+01:00

she is a headstrong and proper british woman, daughter of a brilliant but ruthless land developer who has gone missing in the australian outback, thought to be captured by aboriginal savages. he is a convicted criminal who was banished to australia to serve his sentence in the wild. he has scrapped by on raffishness and chivalry alone, and is now attempting to make a name for himself as an outback tourguide/bodyguard.

despite their natural dislike for each other, these two end up on an adventurous mission to find the missing father. their cause is helped tremendously by jackman's aboriginal friend and guru whose loincloth and spear belie his wisdom and authenticity. though kidman is reluctant to take advice from this "savage," she is forced to reckon with the question of who are the real savages in this colonial world? are they the criminals and natives, as she has always believed, or the businessmen like her father who would destroy their fragile culture in the name of the (australian) dollar.

no good epic about a british colony would be complete without a certain dose of "fuck you england" and in this aspect "australia" does not disappoint. though our heroine may find her father, can she ever find her way back to the comfortable superiority and advantage of her former life? armed with a newfound respect for the land she hated and accompanied by the man she grew to love, kidman's eventual "fuck you" to england reminds of us of that other great ozzie-starring epic "braveheart," which i have also not seen but am sure i know everything about.

two leaves

2009-02-06T11:08:00.002+01:00

i've done two things in the past few days that qualify as leaves on my tree

first off, i pitched my first article to a magazine! this is something that i have been thinking about doing for a while and am finally pulling the trigger. i have another two ideas that i'm going to pitch this weekend. attempting to break into this field is like resetting the dial on my job-hunting mechanism. no more resume/cover letter combo; no more trolling through job postings (actually, those are their pitches to us, aren't they?). now i have an idea and sell just this piece of myself. it's refreshing, actually.

and today, inspired by the website get rich slowly, i spent ten minutes creating a personal budget. i've never been one to overspend, and i have a fairly good idea of where my money goes, but as an exercise in financial responsibility i'm going to put a spreadsheet to the task of proving me wrong.

(confession: i secretly kinda like spreadsheets and i don't get to use them much these days. yes i'm a nerd, but spreadsheets -- all those orderly boxes, beckoning to me with their subtle rigidity and infinite possibilities -- are relaxing to me. the quiet despair i often feel when staring at a blank document; the steady calm of looking at a blank spreadsheet.)

i digress. suffice it to say i've got a spreadsheet that i can play with every day and be a responsible ox while i'm at it. two leaves on the tree, and counting!

goals: method two

2009-02-04T12:56:00.002+01:00

my friend suggested drawing a tree, and labeling each branch with an area of your life you would like to improve. these are not actions, but personal qualities that you would like to develop. then, when you do something in your life that reflects one of these areas, you draw a leaf on that branch. little by little, you notice which goals are easier, which are getting the most attention, and which need more work.

i love this approach because rather than focusing on actions, it reaches deeper to highlight the parts of yourself that prevent you from doing these things to begin with. i believe that if you look at the underlying situation, the actions will fall out naturally, and you will know yourself better in the process. i also like that it is visual, providing a tangible, colorful reminder of personal ambitions.

so, looking back on my stated goals of yesterday, i propose my tree to have the followings branches:

- creativity
- productivity
- care for others
- emotional honesty

i think that all of my goals could be accomplished by working on these four areas. so there's my tree. what are your branches?

goals: one month late

2009-02-03T20:57:00.003+01:00

well, it's time for the third annual listing of new year's resolutions, cleverly called goals to make them seem more inspiring and fluid. let's look back at last year's, shall we?

continue with: yoga, guitar, feeling wonderful about birthdays
get nothing to declare to a solid 5 posts per week. bring readership up over 150 individual hits per day
get going on writing that monthly column
finish writing my novel in february. edit the two parts together and decide what to do with it
stay at present weight

ok. number one: check. yoga and birthdays continue to be positive enjoyable forces in my life; guitar takes a backseat but only because i'm busy with other stuff.

number two: not so much. nothing to declare hasn't been given enough attention, or the attention i give it doesn't amount to much, or it's hard to get people to write without paying them. i don't check page hit stats anymore, and five posts a month would be awesome. i'm still really proud and motivated by this project though, just not sure where it is going, if anywhere. advice? suggestions?

meanwhile, writing-wise, i did start a column, though not monthly. and the novel hasn't been touched in a year. i picked it up a few weeks ago and immediately put it down again.

number five, check.

so, not i haven't been as goal-fulfilling as last year. perhaps i need to lower the bar? or check in with them more often? but it's not as if i didn't have a productive year; i did accomplish a lot of things that i'm proud of. i suppose this exercise is just a guideline -- the idea is to be flexible and encourage yourself, not get yourself down, right?

the other day my friend suggested a completely new way to set personal goals and work toward fulfilling them. i'm going to do my goals both ways this year and see what works better. method one: the old fashioned way. here we go:

be a hard-working ox. earn more money, save more money.
try to turn writing from a hobby into some form of career.
write letters. specifically to grandma (monthly) but also to other people. use ink and paper to convey my love for my friends and family, whether over a short or long distance. keep a stock of notecards and stamps around and use them often.
cry more
revisit these goals more often

ok. how's that? i know my dad's reaction, which will be: these are not quantified goals. he'll say: number 1, save how much? number 2, what constitutes career? etc. but i'm not going to quantify, as i'm not sure how i want to do that yet. perhaps i can refine them more as the year goes on.

tomorrow, i'll frame these same ideas using method number two!

guest bloggership

2009-02-02T22:11:00.003+01:00

i am the guest blogger at crucial minutae, a very thought-provoking and lovely blog that is the side project of my friend joie's writing group in new york city. its creators are mostly all published authors, and i am constantly impressed by the variety and quality of their site.

i'm writing over there about the post-bush world outside of u.s. borders, focusing on my personal experience in spain, obviously, but also touching on other corners of the globe. so go check out my first piece, peruse the rest of the site if you haven't already, go buy the books of my hard-working hosts, oh and don't forget to leave lots of comments so they think i'm cool.

crossed lines

2009-02-01T20:54:00.003+01:00

this past fall i've been a part one of the coolest, most inspiring projects i've ever done. led by my roommate sky, a group of us envisioned and wrote an original play composed of 9 short, individually written plays. we set the guidelines as follows: each short play would be between 5-10 minutes long, would contain between three and four characters, and would share one character with the previous play and another character with the following play.

over the course of a month we wrote, critiqued and re-wrote the pieces, resulting in a truly original and moving piece of theater. the characters and situations varied greatly, but together they formed a cohesive thematic work. collaborating with eight other writers was an experience i am so grateful for and from which i learned so much. we named our play "crossed lines."

next sky held a casting, and cast a group of 20 amazing actors to interpret our work. a month full of rehearsals followed and in december i was able to watch our production in a madrid theater. it amazed me that in two months this had sprung out of people's minds and onto the stage. i'm so proud of everyone involved, especially sky for having the spark and motivation to envision and execute such a rewarding experience, not to mention write, direct and act brilliantly!

i'm supposed to be at the theater tonight, at the last performance of "crossed lines." unfortunately i mixed up the times and missed it. oops. still a little slow after the incredible cast party last night, hosted by fellow writer and gifted actress marta rubio. luckily, i'll get to see the dvd!

obama + year of the ox = get off your ass!

2009-01-31T12:16:00.002+01:00

i've resolved to be a hard-working ox this year and stimulate my personal economy, which has fallen into recession. this plan involves trying to get paid for things i now do for free, such as writing.

to get the juices flowing, i declare february "jacki blog posting month." i'm going to try to post something here every day -- writing every day is a critical part of my newfound determination.

in other writing-related news, i've resolved to write my grandma a letter every month. on my list of things to do is: new years resolutions. one month late on that front, but what a charming idea for a feb. 1 blog post!

44

2009-01-22T01:11:00.001+01:00

now the question on everybody's mind is: what's in the folder?

maybe some take-out menus and the manual for the tivo? the number for bush's weed dealer?

what do you think?

thoughts on obama's speech

2009-01-20T19:01:00.002+01:00

i started crying, unexpectedly, during rick warren. when he asked god to protect the obamas -- barack, michelle, malia and sasha -- i was choked with emotion. looking at this young beautiful family, i hoped with all my heart that they would be protected, that we would all save each other. the tears continued right through aretha, though now they were mixed with a smile: at her bringing down the mall, at that fierce bow on her hat.

and on to obama's speech. it was honest, inspiring. he at once told it like it is, while managing to create a vision of what is possible, and describing a path of how to get there. i think he is going to have to keep giving speeches like this, keep reminding us.

it's funny to think of americans as somehow lacking in confidence. here is the country that claims to have god on our side at every chance we get, that has changed the world order without allies or a thought to our reputation, that names itself number one without a blush of embarrassment. but according to our new president, this is like the "confidence" of a school bully who picks on others because he has no faith in his own talents. very interesting.

like most sweeping political speeches, this one read out the grand dichotomies of our nation: blacks and whites, muslims and christians, jews, hindus, even nonbelievers. (shout-out!) but somehow he failed to mention that one quite large sector of our society that, here in 2009, must be included. where was the "gays and straights" or even "people of all sexual orientation"? bit of a letdown there.

i love everything he said about the constitution, about the bravery and restraint of that document and the conditions in which it was written, about what it was designed to protect and what protecting it means. i loved the washington quote and the evocation of harder times, of the miraculous sequence of events that led to the founding of our country (ok, i'm a huge david mccullough fan, obviously). yes let's have a president who is rooted in history, and in science. what a refreshing way to look towards the future.

finally, my favorite line of the speech: "the world has changed and we must change with it." obama was criticized a lot during the campaign for the vagueness of his slogan of "change." but here he flips the coin on its head. change is a verb, a command. and he is inclusive; we are together -- the nation and its president -- and we together must change starting now. the change is not over, it has just begun.

they can't see... me

2008-11-16T06:11:00.003+01:00

wow. this might be the most captivating thing i have ever seen. i can't stop rewinding this over and over. watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfHXm8F13f8&feature=related

ok, in high school this song defined me, and us. but in no way did everybody get together and sing it. we did this in groups of two, in the car, at the spot, alone. we were rebellious, special, insular.

but witness these kids, feelin it, reclaiming this song. absolutely this is one of the most inspiring things i have ever seen.

"hey kid, got a rhyme for you.
they say your brain is a comic book tattoo
and you'll never be anything.
what will you do with your life?
oh that's all you'll hear from noon to night"

poignant, then and now. yet never so joyful as interpreted by these kids. feeling it. absolutely. inspiring.

beasts

2008-11-12T12:25:00.012+01:00

in september i went to the siegfried and roy animal park in las vegas to see the baby white tigers. here is some of my best nature photography:

yessss

2008-11-05T06:14:00.002+01:00

yes yes yes yes yes

wow

for an athiest, i have thanked god a surprising number of times tonight. it is 6am and we have a new president. thank god, even though i have no idea what that means.

and how amazing: surrounded by friends, americans and spanish, willing it to be possible, holding each other while jumping and shouting. i'm not saying that i have total faith in the change that may come, but i do have faith in this moment...in what we did together, in what we proved, in what we are tonight.

the world changed today, because of me and you. thank god. thank you america. i was always optimistic, thank you for proving me right...

and good luck obama. my heart is with you. you have a tough job but you are the right man for it. i can't wait for you to be our president!

buenos dias amigos

2008-10-31T10:24:00.002+01:00

friday morning, it's pouring rain. my house is freezing, i'm wearing four layers and huddled in my sleeping bag under the covers. the friday crossword is harder than usual and making my brain hurt. it's halloween, and i have a costume but it is currently spread out on the shelves of untold stores across the city. i have a day of errands and running around, but staring out at the rain i just want to go back to sleep.

what is one to do in this situation? well, it's simple. crank some live ween! it's hallo-ween after all! i think i'm going to have an all ween day. and i can't wait...

nerdplay

2008-10-30T11:07:00.003+01:00

along with listening to npr on saturday afternoon, one of my favorite new york pastimes is the times crossword. wednesday through friday provide welcome entertainment during my lunch hour -- and sneakily at my desk, on quiet days -- and sunday mornings blues are postponed only by the delight of the big puzzle waiting for me in the fat stack of newsprint. (and of course by nfl, in-season)

recently i have found a way to import this hobby into my life in madrid, by subscribing to the premium crosswords page at the new york times. now i have a new obsession to fill the cold wintery mornings. although it's not quite the same as erasing smudgy newsprint, i am now getting more than my fill of word puzzlry.

last night, impatiently waiting for the thursday crossword to be posted, i watched wordplay, a documentary about the people who make and solve the times puzzles. not surprisingly, a four letter word meaning "intellectual geek" ran rampant through this movie. yes, not for the first time friends, i find myself in the company of nerds. i mean, one guy even went so far as to point out that math nerds greatly outnumber regular garden variety copy editor nerds when it comes to crossword pros.

but, hey, we've got john stewart! when he shouts "bring it shortz!" at his completed puzzle, i felt a tingle of nerdly glee.

the etiquette of dream sharing

2008-10-28T18:38:00.003+01:00

today i've been wondering: when you have a really bizarre freaked-out dream about a friend, is it polite to share the details with them?

for example, if you've dreamed that a close friend was leaving her husband to join a band of cultish nudists led by an annoyingly charismatic hippie who spent their time on an old beat-up yacht, being somewhat free-spirited and preachy, is this information that she needs to know?

or is that just a hopelessly discourteous, and also somewhat offensive, thing to tell your friend?

this is what i've been wondering today.

dick whitman

2008-10-21T00:28:00.003+02:00

why mad men is the best show on television:

i. "i have been watching my life. i keep scratching at it, trying to get into it. i can't."

ii. "the only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief that you are alone."

transcendent...

home sweet home

2008-10-01T23:38:00.002+02:00

and, it's october. another summer passed in a hurricane of weddings, travel, toolin' for the man, trying to see everyone and do everything. it was incredible, unbelievable in that it could outdo even my own lofty expectations. i watched my two oldest, closest friends get married (not to each other). i was able to be there by their sides, to be a part of the most important days of their lives.

i spent weeks with family and had powerful bonding moments with many of them. i caught up with high school friends, college friends, people who i haven't seen in ten years, people who i've known since i was a kid. i saw two of the most amazing concerts i've ever seen. i co-starred in a low-budget horror film. i kayaked, hiked, camped on the beach, mountain biked in the desert, swam in the ocean, gambled in casinos, got drunk during many a afternoon.

i had so much fun it was exhausting. i loved my friends and family so much that it hurts to think about.

and now it's over, i'm back in madrid, picking up life #2, putting my feet back down on this foreign soil and shaking off and looking around. can you believe i did all that this summer without a cell phone? it's actually weird now, this buzzing and vibrating thing, this contact. i'm shrinking from it.

tonight i was invited out but declined; though my summer was as full as it could have been, it didn't leave much space for solitude, for quiet nights writing, playing the guitar, listening to nina simone alone in my room. so here i sit having the time of my life, just me and my laptop and my mp3s. sometimes you have to travel far from home to find it right where you left it.

shouting at the devil

2008-08-25T15:08:00.005+02:00

when i was 13 years old my musical tastes dipped briefly but intensely into the heavy/hair metal that was popular at the time. my favorites were guns n' roses, aerosmith, skid row, slaughter and of course, mötley crüe. from my shelterted suburban vantage point these guys were the loudest, the craziest and had the best music. i loved tommy lee the most, and still have a guilty pleasure affection for his brand of obnoxious irreverence.

i was always dying to go to shows, but my overstrict mother wasn't having it. i'm sure the hairsprayed whiskey-slugging rockstars flipping off the camera in the posters that adorned my walls didn't help. i'm not sure what she thought happened at these concerts, but she was sure that it was dangerous, mind-polluting and definitely not appropriate for her innocent teenaged daughter.

so it was with a sense of vindiction, relief and anticipation that i attended my first heavy metal show last friday with the perfect buddy, the one who probably got me into this music in the first place, my cousin steve. we had free passes to crüefest at great woods. i would finally be seeing the rock heroes of my youth at the venue i had begged to go to so many years ago.

these free passes were courtesy of steve's neighbor, a guy named rob with slightly glazed eyes, cutoff denim shorts and what i took to be the mild defiance of a leftover hippie. his ex-wife's stepson was in one of the opening bands and had supposedly left us tickets at will-call. when the tickets failed to materialize we were left in the parking lot, speed-dialing the ex-wife in cali to contact the dude on stage to let us in. things were looking bleak.

suddenly our luck turned around and we found ourselves knocking on doors of tour buses looking for this kid. surprisingly, this strategy worked and then we were kicking it in the bus like real rockstars or groupies, or hangers-on. sheepishly we made small talk while the tour manager procured our passes.

our luck took another precipitous turn when our tickets turned out to be mötley crüe guest pass stickers and suddenly we're backstage, like wayne and garth, trying to be cool but eyes akimbo because tommy lee was afoot. i spotted a blond head watching tv in a makeshift living room outside a bus, complete with leather sofa, flatscreen tv, potted plants and rocker babe. vince neil? oh yes. he turns to look at us. i drop the ball and play cool, missing a golden opportunity to have him sign a body part -- we even had a sharpie! we're shuffled out of the backstage area and into the venue with the rest of the rock peons.

but not all is lost. we have great seats in the center near the front and the first two bands, papa roach and buckcherry, totally rock it. nothing compares to the crüe though, they blow the roof off with pyrotechnics, flames, fireworks, ridiculous solos, tommy lee antics and everything i had ever dreamed a rock show would be. i screamed my voice away and shouted at the devil with all the angst and joy that had been almost 20 years in coming. thanks to tommy and the rest of the crüe for a kickass show, to my cousins steve and lisa for bringing me along, and to for crazy rob for making it happen.

for more on mötley crüe, i suggest nikki sixx's autobiographical heroin diaries, a wrenching, sometimes funny, always fascinating look into the year 1987 when sixx was battling his addiction demons on the girls, girls, girls tour with whitesnake and guns n roses. i picked this book up and then put it down a day later when i finished it. a must-read for anyone who loves rock n roll, drug memoirs, behind the music rockumentaries or believes that chicks=trouble.

toothlessness, homelessness

2008-08-07T15:07:00.003+02:00

i had that nightmare again last night where my teeth are falling out. they crumble and fill up my mouth and i spit out heavy mouthfuls of crunchy goo. it's disturbing, to say the least. last night my reaction was: my mom is going to kill me if she sees that i've lost so many teeth.

the other constant theme in my anxiety dreams is housing: i'm with my college friends and am somehow unsettled with respect to my living situation. i arrive in a house to find that my room has been rented to someone else, or a door opens and i find room after room of people living comfortably and i am still displaced. i have this type of dream at least once a month.

i hesitate to ascribe too much meaning to these; it would be too easy to say that they signify uncertainty or transience or instability. just as easily they could signify regeneration or adventure. i do know that at this point i wake up feeling resigned -- oh, this again? -- and relieved. a full set of chompers and an apartment to call home.

but i just got carded the other day!

2008-07-28T22:36:00.003+02:00

why is the sponsored link at the top of my gmail inbox for date a cougar dot com? (old ladies who are into young men)

should i be offended? what makes google think i'm an old lady, let alone a cougar?

america!

2008-07-18T14:45:00.003+02:00

i am back in the homeland, and being struck by the very american-ish ways of this place.

for example: double bagging. why do we do this? the average bag of groceries is put immediately into a cart, wheeled into the parking lot, lifted into the suv then carried from the garage to the kitchen. why does this relatively smooth trip require such sturdiness of plastic?

yesterday as i spent $44 purchasing a couple of items the cashier was shocked, astounded when i refused the double bag. "i'm just going across the street," i tried to explain. this was apparently unprecedented.

when did this start? i have a feeling it happened within my lifetime, maybe in the mid-90s. perhaps it was a coup by the plastic industry, similar to the one pulled by alka-seltzer when they convinced the public to take two instead of one, thus doubling their sales.

the single bag is durable and sufficient, people. let's stop the madness.

vacation

2008-07-04T10:19:00.003+02:00

a recipe for a great vacation in your own town:

5 free workdays
30 degrees (90F)
a hearty serving of motivation
a medium-length list of things to do
seasonal sales in your favorite stores
1 partner in crime

combine above items slowly, mixing and spreading them evenly in an unhurried fashion. sprinkle with coffees, lunches and dinners with friends, as available. season with ample sleep. don't be afraid to spend some money getting it all done. serve immediately. pairs well with tinto de verano, ice cream cones and siestas.

bon appetit!

vamos al final!

2008-06-27T11:54:00.004+02:00

last night the spanish football team qualified for the finals of the 2008 eurocup, to be played sunday against germany. they beat russia in a 3-0 blowout to advance.

i'm not much of a soccer fan, but i do like big quick tournaments. this one lasts under a month from start to finish. i also like international competitions. in europe this happens all the time, but we americans like our sports confined to our stateside teams, occasionally letting canada play along. usually it's only during the olympic games that we get a chance to feel national pride for our athletes.

nothing beats being in a country whose team has just won a big match -- the excitement pours out from the houses and bars into the street: a palpable buzz that builds to a frenzy. flags are waved, crowds veer on becoming mobs, pure joy momentarily approaches complete chaos. last night horns were blaring and people were laughing and shouting in the street well into the night. and this was just the semifinal.

two years ago while watching the world cup, i remember watching the tv and hearing the rattle of the spanish announcers, seeing players running across the field, understanding very little. last night i noticed that just as words have emerged from the chatter and i can now follow the commentary, the movements on the field are also distilled, clearer. i see offense and defense, the strategy of certain plays, the advantages of certain players. i am becoming more fluent in this sport.

the moment your team qualifies for a final is a bittersweet one; you feel the unbridled release of accomplishment, yet you can't help but nervously anticipate the next game. i don't know enough about soccer to predict anything, but i'm told that germany is a tough team. i'm going to just be optimistic and believe those who tell me that just making it to the finals is good enough. we'll see on sunday.

the lightness of tech failure

2008-06-24T17:51:00.003+02:00

my laptop has been on the brink for almost a year now. it functions for about ten minutes at a time, then needs a ten minute rest. forget streaming anything, photoshop, playing music or running more than one program at once. my patience has been tested to its utmost limits by this little machine -- i frequently dream of throwing it off my terrace. i think when i finally get a new one, i will reward myself by doing just that. it will feel so good.

today my external drive decided to join the rebellion. clicking and beeping, it gives me the finger while holding all my photos and music hostage. all my music? well, just what i have managed to collect since i last lost all my music in october. did i mention my digital camera is broken? my room, a frequent death zone for houseplants is now fatal for electronic devices as well. be warned cell phone. you're not that far away electric toothbrush. toaster, i would keep my distance.

somehow i am less devastated by the prospect of losing all this personal data...bits and bytes...than feels warranted. maybe the upside of having your photos and music stored digitally and so easily vanished is that they are not really irreplaceable in the way that a photo album or record collection is. i can get that music back. friends must have the photos stored elsewhere.

i like to travel light, to live light as well. i try to keep my possessions few; i like the idea of packing them all into a couple of suitcases and being mobile with all my belongings. i am constantly giving things away, paring down, never holding onto ticket stubs or trinkets for sentimental value, eliminating clutter. so maybe i need to live my digital life the same way: reduce my exposure. when i recover all my photos somehow, i need to just choose the best ones and store them online somewhere. something similar should happen with my music, although i'm not sure how that will work.

i need to travel lightly. i'll look at this now-useless beeping clicking box on my desk and remember to change my ways.

obama mundial

2008-06-11T10:44:00.004+02:00

today thomas friedman writes in the new york times about egyptians' positive reaction to the election of obama as presidential candidate. this type of thing is a double-edged sword, making me smile and making me nervous at the same time. yes, friedman claims that egyptians "know...that if America — despite being attacked by muslim militants on 9/11 — were to elect as its president some guy with the middle name “hussein,” it would mark a sea change in america-muslim world relations." great. a sea change. let's hope.

but i can't help but worry that obama is viewed similarly within our own borders: as some guy with the middle name "hussein." i hate to distrust my fellow americans, but i know there are those who see acceptance of, even excitement about, obama in the middle east as a red flag.

i can say that from my corner of the world there is similar enthusiasm about obama. a student of mine said the other day "america is a great country. sometimes they make us hate them, but sometimes they do something that is inspiring to the rest of the world." a black person could never get elected in spain, or in most of europe for that matter. they will look at us and see that it is possible.

friedman voiced a similar sentiment: "But every once in a while, America does something so radical, so out of the ordinary...that it revives America’s revolutionary 'brand' overseas in a way that no diplomat could have designed or planned."people are impressed with us, that we elected a black man; and if we can successfully eject bush's party from the white house they'll be even more impressed.

i'm ready to be the type of america that impresses rather than disgusts people with our choices. although this american "brand" isn't something i believe in too strongly, it obviously carries weight in the world -- they are all following our election, after all. i would say that people, at least in spain, feel less hatred than disappointment in america. i would love nothing more than to begin to turn that around.

i better have a good book....

2008-06-06T13:13:00.002+02:00

this is how i will get from madrid to new york

july 4 - madrid to pamplona via car, bus or train: 4 hours
july 4-7 - run with bulls in pamplona
july 7 - train from pamplona to hendaya: 2.5 hours
layover in hendaya: 1 hour
night train from hendaya to paris: 9 hours
july 8 - paris austerlitz to charles de gaulle airport via metro and train: 2 hours. please, no strikes!
paris to frankfurt: 1 hour
layover in frankfurt: 1.5 hours
flight to new york: 9 hours

total trip from pamplona to new york: 27 hours, 4 connections, wish me luck!!

i'm stimulated

2008-05-23T12:15:00.003+02:00

just noticed the check for $300 in my bank account. thanks bush! i'm economically stimulated. unfortunately that money is already more than spent on plane tickets. what with oil going in one direction and the u.s. dollar going in the other, it's pricier than ever to maintain this lifestyle of mine.

i'm heading to the beach in an hour, currently attempting to pack with a hangover. my thoughts are a little muddled, as is my suitcase. here is some random shit:

i feel guilty about my teeth. i brush them twice a day with a sonicare but i don't floss too often. thousands upon thousands have been spent by my parents and me on these teeth. they are white and straight. i hate feeling guilty about it, it's so pointless and the guilt doesn't make me floss anyway so why bother?

i have been running around for the past few months and i have photos and stories to prove it. i want to show and tell, i really do. maybe after this weekend and the next one i'll spend some quality time with this blog.

did anyone besides emily and i watch paradise hotel? i'm kind of blase about the final four. would this show not be ten times more awesome if they threw some gay people into the mix? (besides ryan, mikey, james and raheim, that is). the only true love on this show is between the boys...

speaking of final four, go celtics! i know the buzz is that they won't make it past detroit, but i've got faith. i'm going to start watching games soon.

and speaking of season finales, i was slightly eh about gossip girl, although my boy chuck never disappoints me, ever ever. he is so my favorite it's not even funny. he wears that scarf during sex? could anything be more perfect?

reado-masochism

2008-05-01T00:37:00.004+02:00

sky and i often talk about fighting off our tendencies to treat life like a series of to-do lists, checking things off as you do them. while i manage to consciously shake this off, i am sometimes derailed by a weekend full of social obligations, a pile of new yorkers or a full inbox. overwhelmed, i resort to efficiency mode.

during the year i spent traveling, checking my email was a powerful and intense moment of the day. a full inbox was a stressful delight: while i was happy to read every one of them, their number -- whether big or small -- their content, their injection of momentary homesickness, never failed to feel like a hugely important task to get through. click, read, respond, check!

nowadays that function is filled by google reader. as a daily practice i have it under control. but give me a couple of days with visitors, a weekend out of town, an especially busy week, and suddenly i have 148 items to read, 8 of which are new york times op-ed pieces, 25 of which are design posts, 10 of which are personal blogs and a bunch of other random stuff. stress. i stayed in tonight and i'm down to seven, but they are long ones. to-do list for tomorrow, check.

go celtics!

2008-04-18T10:40:00.002+02:00

as you may have heard, i am a fan of the nfl. i like the low commitment required of a football fan: one day per week is just perfect for me. and i have a certain penchant for my hometown team, a ragtag group of guys called the new england patriots. i have been known to go on about how this team is not from boston, they represent a region comprised of six states. if you don't like boston or boston fans, fine. but what do you have against maine? or vermont?

this is all to say that i'm not exactly a die-hard fan of boston sports. to tell you the truth, sox fans annoy. and as much as i don't care about baseball, i consider myself more of a fan of oakland and even kansas city than boston. hockey-wise i'm a fan of new jersey, of all places. what can i say, cool uniforms.

but when it comes to basketball, i'm a celtics fan through and through. when i was a kid and the celtics were winning titles, my dad and i would watch those games on the edges of our seats, ordering them to give the ball to bird already. similarly i hate the lakers. i don't care who their coach is or which spaniard is now on their team; i just hate them, they are the enemy.

although i don't follow basketball, i've always said that if the celtics are doing well in the playoffs i'll be watching. and this year we have the treat of the celts and the lakers in the number one positions in the east and the west. i'm ready for an 80s rehash, who's with me?

P - portugal is so much fun!

2008-04-15T10:48:00.005+02:00

during the easter holiday i went to portugal with some friends. we rented a rural cottage on a 170-acre village in the alentejo region. the property was breathtaking: unspoiled views of vineyards, sculptured gardens and rolling countryside, walking paths, pools, lemon trees, and a professional-sized trampoline! check it out...

prescription drugs

2008-04-10T09:02:00.003+02:00

i asked the doctor for strong medicine to cure my ills before my trip this weekend, but damn. this is my first go-round with 3-day antibiotics and they are funner than four glasses of manichewitz. i'm literally almost tripping, hallucinating slightly, and in general bouncing off the walls.

i think there's crack in my dolls. DOLLS!

on the upside, i'm clearly on the mend.

past prime

2008-04-09T09:55:00.004+02:00

yesterday i turned 31. leading up to this birthday i was telling people that i was "entering my prime," exposing my true colors as a witty math nerd (get it? 31 is a prime number! chuckle, chuckle).

anyway, yesterday i felt less than prime. yesterday sucked. between the rain and a fever and having to cancel my fancy dinner party due to sickness, between emotion brought on by either the birthday or the fever i was a hot tranny mess. crying, illing, barely dragging my sorry ass around in the rain and crying some more. happy birthday to me!

but, things turned around, albeit slightly. i want to give two big shout-outs to those that helped turn the tide.

first, thanks to paul for stopping by with a hug and some lovely gifts. i think i needed the hug more than anything. sometimes i don't know how to ask for what i need, so thanks for figuring it out.

second, thanks to the spanish national health service for hooking me up. i was in and out of both the doctor and the pharmacy in a grand total of 3o minutes yesterday with 3 prescriptions all for the bargain price of under 7 euros. nothing but smiley helpful service, to boot. what's wrong with america?

and additional shout-outs to all my friends and family who sent cards, called, emailed, texted, IMed, facebook wall posted, e-carded and even to those who didn't. your love is felt so strongly over distances large and small. thank you so much.

well, i have no good excuse for my silence around here, but as soon as i get back from the alps this weekend darlings i will be sure to post more. coming soon: photos -- and videos! -- from my trip to portugal, preview above.

undocumented

2008-03-05T10:41:00.004+01:00

it was with bittersweet resignation that i passed in my battered old passport at the u.s. consulate last week for renewal. on the one hand, i was more than a little sick of looking at the horrendous results of my decision in 1998 -- deep into my college hippie phase -- to not bother showering before having a photograph taken that i would be looking at frequently over the next ten years. yet what ten years those were. that passport was with me for most of the defining moments of my twenties; it helped me define myself.

i remember taking that grungy photo in hanover, before tami and i went backpacking around europe after junior year of college. the first stamp was at gatwick airport and there are a good collection of european stamps from back when they did that kind of thing. it came with me on my globetrotting early retirement year of 2001-2002 where it was filled up with page-filling asian visas and stamps i accrued walking through rainy border towns in central america. it was in costa rica that i maxed it out, and proudly marched down to a consulate for some extra pages.

the latest group of stamps has been mostly banal: from airports in the u.s. and madrid. combined with a noticable lack of working visa, these present a tell-tale history of my illegal status in spain. luckily these clues are hidden like needles in the haystack of my colorful and exotically-stamped passport so nobody seems to notice.

all i have left from the little book is a set of photographs i took of its pages, which became the banner for my webzine nothing to declare. and now i sit and wait for the new one to arrive: blank pages, ten more years, a challenge to fill up those pages.

well, i have a few stamps coming up for it. i've been on a flight-buying and trip-planning rampage. portugal in a few weeks for easter. back to the alps two weeks after that. morocco with michael at the end of april. barcelona with sky in may. and all while sporting a shiny new blue book with a vastly-improved photograph inside.

i'm still here

2008-03-04T10:06:00.006+01:00

oops, haven't been around here lately. can i blame the doldrums of late february-early march city living? not exactly, because the weather has been unseasonably warm. how about my well-documented bumpy landings after returning from the u.s.? ok, but it's march! i don't know, the culprit is probably just laziness.

so what's been new with me? brace yourself....i've been knitting alot. knitting is a winter hobby for me and lately i've been churning out armwarmers like nobody's biznatch. oh, and reading. yeah, finally finished pollen's omnivore's dilemma -- totally recommended -- and now i'm burning through great fortune about the development and construction of rockefeller center, also a great read (thanks dad!).

around the internet i've been reading this:

new york times: this article inspired my column idea for nothing to declare (coming soon!) and this makes me sick. every so often there is an article putting the cost of the war in perspective which i read with morbid fascination.
i know everybody read about this last week, but i never claimed to be on time around here, did i? anyway, holy crikey! and, a year of prison is more expensive than a year of dartmouth? did anybody else find this startling?
this little easily-missed article was the best thing about the new yorker's anniversary issue, in my opinion. praising philippe de montebello's work as director of the met, it goes further to investigate why some museum experiences feel so good while others render you a pawn of the unseen deciders of the art world; it also explains perfectly what i have struggled to put into words about my disappointment with the moma expansion.

ok. so. reading, knitting. my life is boring. maybe that's why i haven't been blogging?

the alps, darling

2008-02-12T18:25:00.002+01:00

i just returned from a weekend skiing in the french alps with my friend john, who is a pisteur or patroller at chamonix. i hadn't skied in five years, so was a little nervous but ended up having an amazing time. although now my body hurts. nothing a shiatsu can't fix.

i've done the majority of my skiing in new england where the weather is cold, the trails cut down into thick forest and the verticals aren't anything to write home about. the alps are completely different -- there are no trails whatsoever except groomed bits that weave through the open snowfields. you can ski wherever you want -- even a closed section is yours to explore if you dare. another thing we lack in the east is powder; what they call "packed powder" is usually crusty manmade snow that gets skied off by the early afternoon. in chamonix although it hadn't snowed in days, the mountains were covered by fluffy bumps, making adventurousness an easier prospect. you are sure to fall, but it doesn't hurt.

my third day we skied the valle blanche, which is a glacier that comes down the side of mont blanc, the highest mountain in europe. this required no less than crampons and ropes but was the most backcountry terrain i've ever done. glaciers rose up on all sides to rocky peaks -- a larger-than-life landscape that resembled a postcard. i could hardly believe i was in it, let alone skiing down.

it seemed like everyone i met was over-the-top adventurous. if they weren't biking across south america with a parasail attached to their back they were scaling some ridiculous peak to ski down the other side. this makes me want to be more of a daredevil too. note to self: have more adventures. of the outdoor kind. i'm open to suggestions.

dream diary

2008-02-07T10:37:00.001+01:00

my dream last night: i'm at a party at my mom's friend's house. at the party are some college friends, some madrid friends, a random assortment of people. so i'm walking around the party naked because of course. not only that, my teeth are falling out. actually, i was holding my earrings in my mouth and swallowed them by accident, and while trying to spit them out all my teeth were coming out with them.

i feel like my dream is a high school student's psych paper. kinda trite, no?

life #6

2008-02-06T01:36:00.000+01:00

over a year ago i wrote a post about my swiss army knife, detailing its long history of disappearing and reappearing in my life. well, not long after i wrote that, sometime last spring actually, i realized that i hadn't seen the thing in a while. i wasn't too worried, trusting implicitly that it would turn up somewhere -- it always had in the past.

the first doubts surfaced when i was packing my room up before leaving for the states last summer. i was going through all my stuff, thowing things away, trying to keep possessions to a minimum as usual, expecting to find it in the back of a drawer or in the medecine cabinet or something. but no such luck. in august when i was getting ready for the camino, i sadly shopped for leathermans at rei, unable to buy one and admit that the knife might actually be gone this time.

when i moved back into my room i thought: "this is the last chance. if i don't find it now, it's gone." and sure enough, there was no sign of my friendly little gadget.

until a few days ago. suddenly inspired to pick up my winter habit of knitting i dumped my knitting bag all over my bed and there...there it was. of course. i use the scissors to cut yarn and the hook makes a great crochet hook in a pinch. and i haven't touched my knitting since last winter, even during the packing and unpacking.

so we are reunited, again! i'm wrestling with disbelief while simultaneously chiding myself for having so little faith. it was gone for almost a year though; this is its second-longest disappearing stint ever! it occurs to me that perhaps i'm subconsciously always "losing" the knife by trying to get on airplanes with it and not being able to find it in my damn bedroom because i enjoy this little ruse. but i dont think so, because you know what i enjoy even more? using the knife!

hooray! it's back! never leave me again!

yes

2008-02-04T04:48:00.000+01:00

yes, i'm devastated....

that was an excruciating game. it's 5am, i'm going to bed

superbowl

2008-02-01T11:33:00.000+01:00

a few months ago -- near the beginning of the football season -- i was watching the rugby world cup and i posted to say that i felt the pain of the fans of the new zealand all blacks. they were heavily favored to win, then seemingly choked in the quarterfinals. i said:

the patriots are just a little too favored, they're a little too good this year. they are set up to fail, to rest on their laurels, to believe the hype. and while i love my team and think they deserve to win this year, i know everybody else will be even more satisfied to see them lose.

yet here we sit, mere hours before superbowl. the patriots haven't lost any games since that last post.

i weathered the last few weeks in new york, hearing the haterade coming from all directions regarding my dear patriots. yes people wanted them to lose in october, but that was before the pats went out and racked up an unprecedented 16-0 record for the season, now stretched to 18-0 in the playoffs. basically, they beat the teams of all the haters -- sorry y'all.

but now the haterade is stronger than before, the recipe has been improved. everybody is so ready for this perfect season to have the perfect ironic footnote: 18-1, the 1 being a little game called the superbowl.

do i sound nervous? i'm not. we're going to pretend the giants have a chance and they do, albeit a small one. but the fact remains: anyone betting against the pats, in the post-season, after a bye week, with a healthy team is drinking some spiked haterade.

sniggle!

2008-02-01T11:22:00.000+01:00

here is a video snippet from tami and my new years eve halftime show on ice. this piece was choreographed over several days and included many cutting edge ice skating maneuvers. unfortunately the only extant footage is of the finale. enjoy!

goal oriented

2008-01-22T22:43:00.000+01:00

my dad and his friends have a great tradition where they get together and set goals together at the beginning of each year. the idea of making your resolutions public not only makes them more concrete but makes the entire process more collaborative; you have a built-in cheering squad so there is more impetus to achieve them.

last year i did my own version by sharing my goals with all of you, my dear readers. so let's revisit. last's years goals were:

start yoga again in february, continue for the rest of the year except for months when i'm not entirely in madrid
celebrate my 30th birthday in style. feel wonderful about being 30.
pick up guitar again. sit on my terrace playing guitar in summer.
read the novel i wrote in november. edit it, if it seems worthy.

wow. check, check, check and CHECK! damn, that was easy. maybe i should make them a little harder this year. ok, here goes.

continue with: yoga, guitar, feeling wonderful about birthdays
get nothing to declare to a solid 5 posts per week. bring readership up over 150 individual hits per day
get going on writing that monthly column
finish writing my novel in february. edit the two parts together and decide what to do with it
stay at present weight

ok, there's five, one more than last year. two involve writing and two involve the zine, but none of this should be a problem. ready, cheering squad??

final boarding call

2008-01-21T15:55:00.000+01:00

i am on the wrong continent. i was supposed to leave new york on saturday and fly back to madrid, but something was pulling at me, keeping me here. my gut was telling me not to go, and as my mother lovingly told me: i should follow my gut; it has not led me astray thus far.

part of the issue was that i failed in my efforts to get alitalia to book me on a direct flight back to madrid on a different airline. and the idea of boarding one of their planes and handing them back my property was making me queasy.

and then there were the patriots, who were playing in what i consider to be the best day of football -- the conference championship games. the opportunity to watch football in the afternoon on a high def tv was almost excuse enough not to go.

and there were a bunch of other small reasons, but mostly i just wasn't ready to leave quite yet. and why live this lifestyle, why have this type of freelance non-career if not to be able to be spontaneous?

so i didn't go to newark on saturday morning. instead i called my boss and convinced him to buy me a new (direct) flight back to madrid on friday evening on a real airline, in exchange for working one more week in new york. so i'm still here.

i've heard a tinge of concern coming out of madrid that this might mean that i'm not ever coming back, that i'm going to stay in new york permanently. fear not my dear friends, i'll be back on saturday morning, ready to spend a fun weekend with you all. this is merely a few extra days, one more paycheck, a different flight and a love for a little team that you may have heard of. they're 18-0 and they're going to the superbowl and i love them.

how to make your job more fun

2008-01-11T22:28:00.000+01:00

working in an office can be a real drag, especially on friday afternoons! here are some things you can try that might be more fun than working! good luck!

remove your eyeballs with the staple remover
shove staples under your fingernails
hole punch the soft spot between your thumb and forefinger
stuff clorox disinfecting wipes down your throat
empty the 3-hole punch into your lunch. pick the white dots out one by one with chopsticks
pour the copy machine toner into your ear canal. shake your head back and forth.
put the recycling bin over your head and walk into the wall repeatedly
chew on a mouth full of paperclips
sharpen a pencil. poke yourself in the brain.
slam your hand in the file cabinet door

just a few ideas!

GOBAMA!

2008-01-04T15:05:00.000+01:00

from the new york times: "mr. obama’s victory in this overwhelmingly white state was a powerful answer to the question of whether america was prepared to vote for a black person for president. what was remarkable was the extent to which race was not a factor in this contest."

fantastic. thank you, iowans. and thanks also for turning out in record numbers to vote. you have set a great example for us, even though your caucuses are basically bullshit.

noncellular

2008-01-03T15:47:00.000+01:00

my mom pointed out that every time i do my little stints in new york city, i end up sick in bed. she's right. i need to figure out how to do this differently, how to not get so run-down. on the one hand i have so many people to see while i'm here and i would like to see each of them at least twice. on the other hand, going out every night and working for the man all day isn't healthy.

so i think i have a solution. this time around, i'm not getting a cell phone. shocking, revolutionary! no cell phone? but how will i survive?

we're taking a step back, to a bygone era, to a simpler time. back when plans were made in advance and people showed up on time. this will make socializing more difficult. friends will not be able to flake out at the last minute. i will be unreachable after working hours.

to tell you the truth, i'm liking this so much i'm considering getting rid of my cell in madrid. (i jest, but maybe not?)

so i can be reached on email during business hours and sporadically after work. i have a direct land line in my office. for emergencies, call michael.

it is a daring social experiment, let's see how it turns out.

alitalia sucks

2008-01-02T18:00:00.000+01:00

flights are expensive this time of year, and so when i bought my flight home for christmas i chose the cheapest flight that avoided london, putting me on alitalia through milan and into newark. i had had a disappointing experience with alitalia a few years ago, so i was nervous about flying with them again.

i arrived in newark almost two weeks ago, and my suitcase did not. and still has not. in the first six days i spent upwards of 3 hours a day on the phone and did not speak to a single employee of alitalia. in all, my entire christmas break that was supposed to be spent having quality time with my family was mostly spent on the telephone yelling at people or trying to calm down after yelling on the phone.

the problem is that foreign airlines outsource their baggage handling to third party companies or partner airlines. therefore, the people who are charged with finding your bag have no real interest in serving you because you are not their customer. with alitalia unavailable for 6 days surrounding christmas, i took stronger measures.

i filed a complaint with my credit card company, who tried to help me but couldn't reach alitalia on the telephone. i called airports in boston, newark and milan without reaching an alitalia employee. i filed a complaint with the attorney general's office of new york state. i filed a complaint with the department of transportation's aviation consumer protection division.

i wrote a news story and sent it to news outlets in new york and massachusetts. this seemed to work. after six days, using a direct phone number given to me by the new york attorney general's office, i was able to reach a person in customer relations. on the seventh day they returned my phone call after i had forwarded correspondance from a new york city television station and my complaints to government agencies. they assured me that they were doing everything in their power to find my bag. they assured me that managers were being called. they assured me that a certain employee of newark airport was reprimanded for certain things she had said to me, including "ma'am, i work for delta" and "you are at the bottom of the pile."

i felt better. i went to new hampshire for five days and relished the lack of cell phone reception and internet to disconnect and stop angering about it constantly. today i returned to new york and i resumed my daily calling: the tv station, newark airport, customer relations. again i leave messages that are never returned; phones ring and are never answered. finally a phone was answered and they told me that a bag that might be mine will be arriving tomorrow. they told me not to get my hopes up. this is difficult.

so why am i writing about this here? a few reasons.

first, to let you know what you're getting into if you fly alitalia. maybe the flight will go perfectly. but if you have a problem, you'll be in trouble. i have traveled alot and this is by far the worst customer service i have ever experienced from an airline

secondly, i've heard of companies that for a small fee can help in situations like this. they put a GPS device on your bag, so that when the italians lose it for 14 days there is some way of finding it. i would recommend this service for anybody who is flying with a foreign airline outside of its own country.

third, if you experience a similar situation, i wanted to document the steps i took to finally get service. i spent countless hours doing research into how to be an outraged consumer, who to contact and how to get noticed. i found that the local news was the most effective means, and i used this website: complaint.tv to spread my story around.

so let's hope that the bag arriving is mine. now i have the fight ahead of me to try to get reimbursed for the necessities i purchased while my bag was lost, and another fight about my return flight to madrid. i obviously don't want to fly on alitalia and they certainly will not be allowed to touch my luggage. so we'll see. for the moment my hopes are slightly bolstered...

holy grail

2007-12-17T12:45:00.000+01:00

i have this english class that amounts to the holy grail of this "profession." it is a class that cancels. they call you and suddenly you don't have to go to work. you're getting paid to get back in bed and watch a movie. when this happens twice a week for the third week running, you have hit the jackpot.

everybody gets one, eventually. you spend years sitting back and watching other english teachers effuse about the wonders of a class that cancels while you trudge loyally to your job and try to teach something. or some new kid will show up and have beginners luck, annoying everybody. but then it happens to you, and your friends shake their heads at you over coffee, call you a bitch, wonder what you ever did that was so wonderful that you deserve this, but are ultimately just waiting to grab that golden ring themselves or thinking back wistfully to their glory days of past.

request

2007-12-16T00:32:00.000+01:00

can someone please explain to me why no country for old men, the new coen brothers movie starring spanish film star javier bardem -- for which senor bardem has just been nominated for a golden globe -- isn't opening here in madrid until march? MARCH. not to mention the fact that the darjeeling limited is neither in theaters.

nor is the jesse james pic with casey affleck, the ben affleck-directed boston pic with beattie russel from the wire, the yuma movie that the new yorker loved or anything else remotely being raved about.

so what is playing, you ask? well, tomorrow night's shows inlude i am legend, that animated shit starring big screen poison jerry seinfeld, that horrible one lions for lambs -- about which has been said that its best asset is tom cruise....tom cruise!...in a film that also stars meryl streep and robert redford, a kevin costner vehicle (oxymoron?), the golden compass -- featuring creepy poster of nicole kidman's forehead, guaranteed to scare small children and the faint of heart -- and last but not least 1408. and i hate to judge a book by its cover, but i can guarantee based on the poster and the fact that i've never heard of it that it is not worth the ticket price.

fortunately i will be back in my homeland in under a week. back to glorious massachusetts, where the malls are numerous and crowded, the cars have seatwarmers, the cereal aisle is ample, the patriots play in the afternoon, the gays can get married, the health insurance is mandatory and subsidized, and the films are current.

young face, old face

2007-12-06T06:16:00.000+01:00

yesterday outside of the supermarket a guy called me senora. senora, as in "old face"

i was hanoi-d

but today a door-to-door salesman rang the doorbell. and asked me "are your parents home?"

so i felt a little better. super "young face."

yet today is a special day, the day we celebrate the passing of one seth spiro into the realms of the thirties. welcome, my young apprentice. welcome to old face.

i'm sure you will all join me in agreeing that seth is a force of nature. and if you don't know what i mean by that, you haven't met seth yet. shame on you.

he reminds me of air in that i could not possibly live without it. and i like to take deep breaths.

while you have always been younger than me, no gulf was greater than the last eight months while you soaked up the last bit of those twenties. so now we are together again my love. we did twenty together and thirty is even better. happy birthd.ay

strangers in the morning

2007-12-04T01:13:00.000+01:00

anyone who has spent more than ten minutes with me in madrid will contest to the fact that i hold a special disdain for accordians. their attempted play for old-world charm is so trite it midas well be a werther's commercial. the accordian ranks up there with the fiddle as instruments i wouldn't miss if i never heard them again in my life. the accordian repetoire consists of a maximum of six overbearingly precious tunes that hold all the freshness of a mariachi band.

now add this to a crowded smelly metro train, amplified by a dime-store speaker system powered by a gerbil in a treadmill and you will understand why i dislike these whiny puffed-up casio synthesizers.

and yet, yet.

was is the crisp breeze blowing across the plaza this morning? the eleven o'clock sunlight finally cutting a swath through the morning mist? was it the yellow leaves scraping across the sidewalk; was it my wool scarf scratching across my face? was it that i had just got paid?

was it the song, pumped loyally by the toothless old spaniard: "strangers in the night," certainly outside of the usual playlist?

did i really feel like spinning around? i was certainly smiling. and so, despite my rush, despite having two banks to go to, not to mention the grocery store, before work, i stopped and dug through my wallet, tossing a fat two-euro coin into his greasy case. it made my whole day.

to-do list, another list

2007-11-22T00:42:00.000+01:00

to do:

write heartfelt tearjerker mom tribute post on her birthday yesterday
tie that into record-breaking second heartfelt tearjerker post in one week re: thanksgiving, what i'm thankful for and how much the patriots rock
get knitting!
wait, finish the novel first
spend the next four days rocking the casbah with mr. michael
keep the zine up and running
stay updated on the news! days go by without my glimpsing the nyt front pages. going back to the states for the holidays, must keep up with current affairs!
20,000 words and counting (eek!)

another list, this one unnumbered:

here's a nice "what i'm thankful for" blog post. what she said!
eli's helpful tips for taking good digital photos
if, like me, you're not going to be in the 'ham for thankgiving, here is a amazing series of still photos from the niner back when it was navegable. home sweet 'ham.

happy thanksgiving everyone!

nina

2007-11-16T10:42:00.000+01:00

nina simone is just one of those artists where...sometimes you feel like you know the vast majority of her oeuvre -- at least all the good stuff, which is most of it. then one day you're writing your novel and a song comes on that blows your mind. how have you lived so long without this song? how has it escaped your notice for this long?

and i'm not talking about a particular song, although i did have a similar experience yesterday with "nobody's fault but mine" off of her legends cd2. but what i'm saying is that i think i could continue listening to nina for the rest of my life and while writing like my 60th novel i would hear some new-to-me song that would have the power to stop me mid-thought so i could listen intently to every note she sang and played, almost make me cry and practically change my life.

you know what i'm talking about. or you do if you are familiar with ms. simone.

thanks, america!

2007-11-16T10:34:00.000+01:00

my mom emailed me yesterday to say that a suprise package had arrived at her house in the 'ham. the us embassy in madrid mailed my keys and wallet, complete with license and credit cards. although i have had to cancel and replace all of those things anyway, it is nice to know that somebody, somewhere along the line did a good deed.

so thanks, random stranger, for help restoring my faith in humanity. and, i know beggars can't be choosers, but if only you could have included my armwarmers in your care package, they are so irreplacable! but thanks, i really mean it.

and thanks, us embassy, and more specifically the us state department and by association condoleeza rice for doing a girl a favor!

i found it

2007-11-09T12:54:00.000+01:00

i found my writing music: my muse, so to speak. this year it's you are free, by cat power.

i realized that this was the one yesterday when i was burning through my daily 2,000 words, trying to finish so i could hit the town. i was on a roll, typing as fast as i could think. suddenly the album ended, and not wanted to break my rhythm i simply hit play and started again from the beginning.

and there you have it: perfect writing music. it has to be something old, something that i have heard many many times before, but haven't listened to in a long time. it has to be smooth and steady with lyrics that aren't too demanding. but i also realized that having lyrics is important; the ratatat just wasn't working. i would listen to the music instead of writing. so ms. chan marshall, i thank you. i put down those 2,000 words in an hour and was soon out the door, humming the tunes as i hopped on the metro.

nothing to declare

2007-11-07T09:47:00.000+01:00

in my spare time i have been working on designing and creating a webzine called nothing to declare. from the zine: nothing to declare is a webzine started in november 2007 in madrid, spain. it is inspired by the unique experiences that occur when one is traveling or living away from one's home. we look for original voices to bring these experiences to the masses.

i'm going to try for five previously unpublished features per week: monday through friday. i want to make it as multi-media as my internerd skillz can handle; i'm hoping to include photography, music, video etc. i also have a wishlist of design/functionality changes that should be rolling out over the next few months.

the idea was born the day i watched my friends paint a mural on the wall of my terrace - i thought: wow, my friends are so talented, they really rose to the occasion. i felt like many of my talented friends don't often get the opportunity to showcase their brilliance. thus, the webzine.

i am still looking for more people to add to the roster, so if you or anybody you know is interested in contributing, send them my way. and please help me spread the word! u hope you enjoy!

music to write novels to

2007-11-06T10:35:00.001+01:00

when updating my profile on the national novel writing month website, i noticed a new field: favorite music for novel writing. you may recall that part 1 of this novel was written mostly to the tunes of badly drawn boy. i had randomly downloaded that album last november and it just happened to be the perfect writing music: steady, melodic, not too catchy, not demanding too much attention.

this year my music collection stands at about 20 albums. after 40gig of un-backedup music was stolen from me, i'm back at zero: a blank state. i'm slowly piecing it back together which is either extremely frustrating or a fun challenge, depending on how you look at it. (any music contributions/donations are welcome! really, i've lost everything!)

but the real question today is, what to put on while i'm writing? right now i'm rocking the ratatat, but will it carry me through? will it be the soundtrack to part 2? any suggestions?

personal projects

2007-11-05T11:02:00.000+01:00

november is upon us again, which means that it's time for me to write a novel. last year i wrote a 120-page story that i'm really proud of and that has received good reviews by the few people who have read it. i've decided that what i wrote last year is a good part 1, and this year i will continue the story with a part 2. together i hope the two parts will form an actual novel.

in other news, i've been working on putting together and launching a webzine. this has been eating up all my free time and is a project that i'm extremely excited about and proud of. stay tuned for official launch info later this week.

and, shmemily came to visit last week and we spent the last six days gallivanting around madrid and granada, celebrating halloween, conversing and drinking some scotch.

SO. that is my news. i have been busy. here is what i have been reading, in the meantime:

steveO wrote a great piece on CWILFs at 10 zen monkeys
eli started a blog
springsteen covers at stereogum
GO PATRIOTS!!!!!

maddington mountain bear anderson

2007-10-25T09:52:00.000+02:00

on saturday august 11 2007 the world lost a beautiful being, a kind soul and a loyal companion. bernese mountain dog maddington mountain bear anderson, aged two and a half of orford nh passed away from cancer. she left behind owners tami and adam.

maddington was a part of nature, even as she loved nature herself. she loved mountains, water, snow, grass and other creatures. she was never more beautiful than when running through a field or standing proud on top of a mountain.

yet maddie was also a vital part of the human life she inhabited. a perfect housepet, she neither barked nor chewed nor scared children. she loved people with her whole heart and they loved her back. she touched the lives of everybody she met.

so this is maddie: the perfect blend of wild and tame, of animal and human, of pet and friend. a dog to take camping or swimming or hiking, or to have at a bbq or to cuddle in bed with. she is gone from our lives in presence but not in spirit, always in our memories and our hearts - the best dog, our dear friend.

i was attacked

2007-10-23T17:50:00.000+02:00

as many of you may already know, i was attacked while walking home last friday night. a man came up behind me and strangled me with his arm, cutting off my circulation until i passed out. i woke up lying on the sidewalk and my purse was gone. i think i was unconscious for under five minutes, but i didn't see anybody else and nobody was around to help me. there had been another man across the street when it happened, but they must have been working together because he didn't do anything to stop the attack or help me.

i must have hit my head because i have a huge bump. also my neck was sore from being strangled and my tongue was swollen from biting down on it. at the end of the day, i was extremely lucky that this was the extent of my physical injuries. it could have been so much worse.

things i lost (tangible) include my phone, mp3 player with my entire music collection (not backed up), armwarmers, wallet with about 40e inside, monthly metro pass, sunglasses, and the bag itelf.

things i lost (intangible) include my ability to walk around without being scared. for now i am taking taxis and taking my friends up on their offers to escort me places.

i filed a police report, but i didn't really get a good look at the guy so there isn't much they can do. the police told me that this type of thing is fairly common. and i agree; these things happen and i guess my turn was up. again, i'm lucky to get away with just minor bumps and bruises.

it is going to take me a while to get over this, and i am doing so at my own speed. i have good and bad moments. needless to say, i will be much more careful when and how i walk alone at night. however, there is no way i can avoid it altogether; i am a single woman without a car living in a city and i go places after dark.

i so appreciate the outpouring of love and support that i have felt from all of you. the reason i'm writing this is to tell you that i can't talk about it anymore right now. i need to stop reliving it two or three times a day in individual conversations or emails. so now you all know what happened and how i'm doing. i feel everybody "there" for me and it means so much, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

a quick list

2007-10-22T00:05:00.000+02:00

three times i miss living in the u.s.:

1. in the cereal aisle of the grocery store
2. sundays during NFL season
3. when a new wes anderson movie is released (spain release date: january 18)

my favorite poem

2007-10-17T12:03:00.000+02:00

i'm not one for poetry, but this is my favorite. i read this in college and it continues to put a smile on my face, making me think of new york, of looking on the bright side of things, of love and sunny days and a bounce in the step.

steps - by frank o'hara
How funny you are today New York
like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime
and St. Bridget’s steeple leaning a little to the left

here I have just jumped out of a bed full of V-days
(I got tired of D-days) and blue you there still
accepts me foolish and free
all I want is a room up there
and you in it
and even the traffic halt so thick is a way
for people to rub up against each other
and when their surgical appliances lock
they stay together
for the rest of the day (what a day)
I go by to check a slide and I say
that painting’s not so blue

where’s Lana Turner
she’s out eating
and Garbo’s backstage at the Met
everyone’s taking their coat off
so they can show a rib-cage to the rib-watchers
and the park’s full of dancers with their tights and shoes
in little bags
who are often mistaken for worker-outers at the West Side Y
why not
the Pittsburgh Pirates shout because they won
and in a sense we’re all winning
we’re alive

the apartment was vacated by a gay couple
who moved to the country for fun
they moved a day too soon
even the stabbings are helping the population explosion
though in the wrong country
and all those liars have left the UN
the Seagram Building’s no longer rivalled in interest
not that we need liquor (we just like it)

and the little box is out on the sidewalk
next to the delicatessen
so the old man can sit on it and drink beer
and get knocked off it by his wife later in the day
while the sun is still shining

oh god it’s wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much

links for my friends

2007-10-10T10:33:00.000+02:00

for jeff: the social patterns of baboons. basically, the popular kids are the ones who get laid.
for seth: chicken-related genius
hey ladies: here are some things to look for in a man, thanks to popular mechanic. oh, and fellas? you're a bunch of assholes.
this one's from emily, and goes out to those of you who like to break the law and get away with it. fascinating.
for mark, and other folks from the 'ham: old school.
this is required reading for everyone: genius.
and this is just "hilarious"

two weeks late

2007-10-09T23:43:00.000+02:00

two weeks ago the one-year birthday of this blog passed unnoticed by me. a selfish and self-absorbed lady i am, busily nursing her one child (laptop) while the other (website) sits in the corner crying and unloved.

a year ago, in my first post, i set out three reasons for writing here, and a year later i can say that two of the three have been quite successful.

first, i wanted to get in the habit of writing every day for the upcoming novel project of last november. well, every day is a lofty and rather unrealistic goal -- but, this is my 117th post which means that i write about every third day. not so bad, considering i take months off. also, this has been great for my confidence and motivation as a writer. hey, i even finished that novel last year and i'm ready to do it again in a couple of weeks!

second, i wanted to pose questions to myself and my readers. ok this one didn't really stand the test of time. but the questions i did ask provoked some comments, which are always nice.

third, i wanted to "better keep in touch with myself and others." my, how this has happened. i am continually amazed by the amount of people who actually show up to and read this blog: mothers of friends, friends of mothers, long lost high school buddies, people who i have never met. it is also a highly convenient and efficient way of letting everybody know what i'm up to, which makes seeing people after a long break more enjoyable because there is less catching up to do. and keeping in touch with myself? as i said a year ago, i'm not a diarist, so short of reading old emails i've sent this is the best way for me to remember what i've been ranting about in recent times, to make sure i'm not too repetitive.

most of all this blog has made me want to be a better writer: to think harder and form more concrete opinions and express them wittily and with insight and wisdom. i'll come back to that sentence next year and we can see how i've done.

thanks for reading, though. xoxoxo

rugby football

2007-10-07T13:02:00.000+02:00

i always say that americans don't like teams that win too much; we prefer underdogs. a team that wins its first championship in years is a crowd favorite. if the same team wins again the next year we are happy for them, but losing our patience. a third win in a decade and the team is suddenly the one to root against, the common enemy.

as a new england patriots fan i witness this phenomenon all the time. nobody likes the patriots, and why? "they always win" is the complaint i most often hear. ok, they've been winning for the last five years, but for the first 25 years of my life they never won. and now it is the du jour to hate the patriots. we americans don't like winners.

last night i went against this seemingly ingrained american quality by rooting for the favored-to-win new zealand all blacks against the french les bleus in a quarterfinal game of the rugby world cup. the bar was full of french people and i was with my kiwi friend. although i didn't have too much emotion riding on the game it's easy to root for new zealand, and easy to root against the french.

new zealand dominated the first half of the game, and seemed to be easily coasting to victory, as was expected. but then france snuck up and played harder, made fewer mistakes and wanted it more. although the french fans in the bar were kind of obnoxious you had to be happy for them. their jumping up and down and cheering in the face of the annointed favorites gave me a taste of how everybody will react if the patriots lose this year.

you see, the patriots are just a little too favored, they're a little too good this year. they are set up to fail, to rest on their laurels, to believe the hype. and while i love my team and think they deserve to win this year, i know everybody else will be even more satisfied to see them lose. so to the all blacks and the rest of new zealand i lend my condolences and hope i won't be sharing a similar fate come january.

camino de santiago

2007-10-04T14:55:00.000+02:00

i spent two weeks at the beginning of september walking 300km across northwestern spain. i was tracing the steps of ancient pilgrims before me, who for centuries have been wearing the path toward santiago de compostela and the remains of saint jacob. this is one of christianity's three great pilgrimages, the other two being jerusalem and rome. but the camino de santiago is currently the most popular, with over 100,000 pilgrims each year.

a pilgrimage is a spiritual journey, and the night before i started walking a nun at the pilgrim's benediction service told us that pilgrims are searchers. "what are you looking for?" she asked, and her question stayed with me during the long walk ahead, always playing in the back of my mind, like a song i couldn't stop singing. initially, i was searching for peace and quiet after a busy summer, for a chance to be alone and disconnect. but the pilgrimage is more than the trail itself, it is a way to bring questions like this into focus, so that you can bring them home afterwards. and questions like this do not always require an answer. indeed, what am i searching for?

the camino taught me how to suffer, and although the physical pain -- for me, it was localized in my feet -- was often overwhelming, it is already dissolving from my mind and will not be what i remember about the camino. the physical beauty of the trail was specatcular: the cold mornings watching the sun lift out of the fog, the dank wet cowpaths in galicia, the stone villages full of toothless farmers, the blooming wildflowers, the steep mountain passes, the cobblestone streets. as well, the beauty of my fellow pilgrims was incredible and humbling: there is an instant camraderie bordering on love that develops between people who are experiencing something like this side by side. i have never been so well cared for by strangers.

so now i am a pilgrim returned home, changed in ways that i am still appreciating. my feet are still recovering, but my spirit is ready to keep searching.

brain crash

2007-10-03T09:11:00.001+02:00

a long time ago when i lived in san francisco a colleague told me his personal theory that our devices -- computers, cell phones, pdas, etc. -- have become offloaded parts of our brains. certain functions previously accomplished by the brain such as remembering phone numbers, organizing schedules, keeping track of birthdays were now being done by the parts of our brain that consisted of zeroes and ones.

therefore, he posited, when one of these devices crashes we feel as if a part of our brain has malfunctioned. it is more than a mere inconvenience, worse than our car breaking down or our refrigerator dying. it is as if a part of ourselves has crashed as well.

it is in this state of crash -- partial crash, really -- that i have been existing in the last few weeks. my two and a half year old laptop has suffered a mysterious affliction, one that has had me up nights, waiting by the hospital bed, saying encouraging words, trying to nurse it back to life with the help of experts. this effort has been compounded in the difficultly that i am operating on limited brain power. i have crashed as well. you may have noticed: i am less informed on news and celebrity gossip. blogging has been nonexistent. emailing is sporadic. my sunny disposition has also been affected.

currently we -- my computer and i -- are back up and running on a provisional level, but things are still touch and go. in lieu of flowers, please send your good thoughts and any brand new laptops you happen to have lying around.

things i've been reading

2007-08-10T15:32:00.000+02:00

i leave new york today at 4pm on a flight to dc. this trip has been amazing, so chock full of memorable events, friends old and new, and stories that i have been too busy living life to blog about it. this hectic pace landed me sick on my ass for a day this week, but now i'm up and at it again, off to the next phase of this rapidly dwindling summer.

i want to thank all my friends in new york for a most incredible month. i feel so lucky and blessed by the spirit and generosity of my new york family. special love to michael, emily and timmy who have made this one of the best months of my life.

before i head off, here are some things i've been reading of late, enjoy.

astaire vs. grant: who is the style king?
are you sick of the election yet? with all the debates and snippiness, here are 20 things you won't here the candidates talking about.
a theme for the summer could be: infrastructure failure. between the steam tunnel, the bridge in minn, the subway shutdown, a 4-story building collapse in east harlem, i'm beginning to get scared, fear tactics notwithstanding

ok there's more but i have to finish up some work, and work socializing, before i'm audi!

bullet

2007-08-07T15:04:00.000+02:00

no reservations: worst movie title since maid in manhattan

more soon, i promise

jacki's viewless reviews - music and lyrics

2007-06-21T11:14:00.000+02:00

this is a new feature on my blog, where i'll review a movie based purely on the title, the poster and my bitter soul. i promise never to see these movies or read anything about them, so you'll have to let me know how far off i am from the truth.

music and lyrics (2007)
(note: this movie just came out in spain)

he is a has-been songwriter who has penned hits for several manufactured pop groups - think spice girls. he was renowned for his radio-friendly hits, his forays into drugs and alcohol and his scandalous affairs with salacious members of said pop groups. this has led to demise, and liberal usage of the term "washed-up."

she is a classically-trained pianist who is gifted but not quite good enough for juilliard. she has always shunned pop music as culturally devoid nonsense, but now she needs money/is learning to push her limits/wants to make a name for herself/wants to get back at the ex-boyfriend who left her for the lead cellist of the boston symphony orchestra.

there is some kind of contest, some kind of reality show where one song will win and the songwriters will win lots of money and eternal fame and the chance to avenge all their past mistakes. somehow, despite their differences, through the encouragement of their adorably wacky best friends, these two team up and give it a shot.

hilarity ensues. and musical montages. slowly they grow on each other, learn from each other. romance blossoms. then disappointment - he appears on page six stumbling out of a strip club with the girlband vixen. but the contest is tomorrow! a midnight expression of love, possibly in central park. he begs for forgiveness. she relents.

somehow the lessons they have learned are perfectly expressed in their winning song, which they sing onstage together in front of screaming fans - this song bridges the pop-classical gap, appeals to all the fans they had and lost, and finds new ones. true love.
THE END

top five cartoon crushes

2007-06-14T10:35:00.000+02:00

animation has provided us with countless lady hotties, but cute cartoon guys are harder to come by. maybe because this is classically a domain of prepubescent boys and older male nerds. however, i've had my share of cartoon crushes, and here are the best of them:

5. silver surfer - ok this one is going to seem trendy because of the movie, but some of you may remember that i had a silver surfer action figure way back in college. his appeal is unquestionable: he's basically a big silver hunk of man on a surfboard, a perfect combination of intensity and laid-back surfer chic. kind of like owen wilson. i mean, this guy will save your life, then take you for a fish taco on the boardwalk.

4. james barris - confession: i have an enormous crush on robert downey jr. so when he showed up in a scanner darkly my crush naturally transferred to his animated version. this is classic rdj: although he is a brilliant actor he never seems so comfortable in a role than when he is playing a druggie. his magic - and i think this also holds true in real life - is that he can make even the biggest fuck-up irresistibly charming. although, as you probably know, i'm a longtime member of the keanu fan club, rdj stole the scene here, as he always does.

3. aladdin - all you have to do is scroll down this list of disney princes, and see that the role of mr. charming was historically lacking in hotness. here we see a bunch of middle-aged looking wasps who usually arrive in the last few minutes of the film to sing a song and sweep the damsel away on a horse. well that all changed with aladdin. he's basically a homeless guy with a bangin' bod, a great personality, a hilarious buddy and a cool pet. i love how his scrappy bravura cracks to show a vulnerable side once he assumes his alter-ego of prince ali. let me tell you, chicks dig this type of thing. we were all there swooning with those ladies as he paraded through town on an elephant, knowing that his confidence was concealing a secret shyness.

2. rio pacheco - rio is one of those guys you like even though you know that he's kind of an asshole. he started out as basically a good guy, a volunteer at the foster home and jerrica's boyfriend. however he eventually developed a crush on jem and the show ended on a cliffhanger with rio double-timing two girls who are the same person. this is undoubtedly one of the great unsolved endings in television - this whole sopranos thing pales in comparison! the truth is, rio's bad side is what makes him sexy: the lying, the deceit, the secrecy, and yet he can be a real sweetie when he wants to. i mean, if jerrica really trusted him then wouldn't she tell him her identity? perhaps with a guy like this you need to have your own secrets.

1. trent lane - absolutely the most crushable cartoon fella out there;
even the ever-cynical daria couldn't help but blush a little when trent was around. trent's rockstar slacker attitude was peppered by a hint of zen calmness, his soft raspy voice delivered the type of inane truisms that only truly attractive people can get away with, and his slight slouch suggested a world weariness - a wiseness, dare i say? - that perfectly defines a classic childhood crush: your friend's older brother.

any to add to the list?

storytime: cambodia, part 1

2007-06-12T23:45:00.000+02:00

lately i have been lazy, or uninspired, when it comes to writing in my blog. it doesn't mean that i haven't been thinking of things to say, i just never get around to saying them.

i have alot of things i want to post about. for example: the sopranos season finale. my weekend. thoughts on things i've seen or read. see, even coming up with examples seems tiring.

so, inspired by my friend mark's new blog, i'm going to do some storytelling around here. i told that hitchhiking story a week ago, and it was fun. so today begins another travel story: my trip to cambodia. this one comes from the same 2000-2001 trip i took with ange, about 3 months after the hitchhiking adventures in australia.

we left bangkok at 5am. retrospectively, our six-month trip broke into three parts: the first was just the two of us, a few months on the road together. then the second part: visitors. boyfriends and friends and other travelers. the third part began that morning that we left bangkok. seth left the same morning to begin his trip back to the us and we got on a mini-bus headed for siem reap, the city where angkor wat is located. the rest of our trip would be shaped by our experiences that day.

like all buses in southeast asia, this one fell short of expectations. it was small, stuffy, rattly and crowded with other backpackers. the air conditioning was non-existent. it was late september - rainy season - which meant humidity. by this point in our journey we had befriended valium as an invaluable traveling partner, so we spent the morning sleeping as we headed toward the border. the trip to siem reap was advertised as nine hours, we expected to be there by early afternoon.

we pulled into the border town a few hours later. as border towns go, this one was particularly decrepit. the poverty was such that there were naked 3-year olds carrying 1-year olds. everyone was selling, or looking for something to sell, or just begging. everything was hanging on the edge of ruin.

so the border officials decided to hold us there for what ended up being four hours without explanation. our thai bus drivers just shrugged their shoulders as the time ticked slowly past. it was interminable, we were in the hot sun, surrounded by chaos, faintly worried that we might have to spend the night, or the year. looking back, it was part of an elaborate manipulation to get us to spend money but at the time it felt like a desperate situation, made worse by the desperation in the eyes of everybody we saw in that town.

i'll never forget this vehicle we saw trying to lumber down the street. at the bottom was a small wooden wagon on wooden wheels, something from the previous century. on this precarious base rested a pile of something two stories high, hanging over the edge in every direction and swaying. this beast was rolling unsteadily down the uneven dirt street pulled with ropes by a few small guys, trying to fit under a concrete arch that marked the border. it had about an inch of clearance. it was almost impossible that this thing would make it anywhere, disaster was imminent any way you looked at it. yet they slowly tugged this thing along, all of us standing there watching, grimacing, waiting for the inevitable crash that never happened. this vehicle seemed like an allegory for the entire situation.

eventually they stamped our passports and we got back on the bus as evening was falling. we were happy to be on our way, until the next stop, a mere hour later.

to be continued...

in other news:

seth has a new blog. bookmark it, put it on your google reader and get ready to laugh
paul takes better photos than me. check out his pictures of my bbq and our picnic for zoe's bday on saturday.
mark posted an incredible 1960s video of nina simone singing four women. all i can say is wow. and i stand by my claim that if i could see any concert of any artist alive or dead, it would be nina.
good stuff on crucial minutiae of late. often i have been fascinated by the miracle of the "guy friend" - how they are so adept at explaining the mindgame bullshit of other guys. here, a serial guy friend tries to explain it all.

summer is upon us

2007-06-05T10:30:00.000+02:00

i've done it, i've broken down and bought my ticket back to the us for the summer. you don't want to know what i paid, but let's just say it's less than $1000. but not by much. and i have layovers in frankfurt, lovely.

so, my summer plans are set and here they are:

July 2-11: framingham, with a weekend yoga retreat in the Berkshires for the 4th
July 11-15: big star lake, michigan
July 15-Aug 10: nyc, working for da man. weekend trips to beer olympics (july 21) joie's wedding (july 29) and hopefully riis park, dia beacon and belmont
aug 10-14: washington dc
aug 14-10: new hampshire. internship at the sunny grange, other granola-based activities
aug 20-23: ogunquit. lewin family vacation.
aug 23-31: framingham. this is the frontier, the last week of the summer, mostly unplanned.
aug 31-sept 15: northern spain. camino de santiago

so there it is, folks, my summer. please make yourself a part of that schedule if you haven't already done so.

in other news, it has come to my attention that there's a little rumor floating around that i'm planning to move back to the us. this rumor has legs, and wings; it has crossed a continent and an ocean and five people to arrive to my terrace. so let me set the record straight: for the time being i have no plans to move back to the us permanently. although i do plan to continue spending 3-4 months a year there and eventually would like to be able to split my time.

sydney or bust

2007-06-01T11:10:00.001+02:00

my dad has always let me know what he expected out of me without saying it outright. perhaps because i was such a damn well-behaved child, or because disciplining was mostly my mom's job, i can't remember him ever drilling into me the classic parental lessons of "eat your vegetables" or "don't talk to strangers" or "don't drink and drive."these types of lessons were implicit, rather than explicit.

however, i do specifically remember him making me promise not to hitchhike, or pick up a hitchhiker. this was said explicitly, and i promised like the faithful obedient child i was. i always wondered why he felt so strongly about this, was there a dangerous episode he wasn't telling me about? to this day i still wonder...

but of course, like most kids told not to do something, even the most well-behaved kids, i went out and broke that promise. ange and i discovered hitchhiking in fiji, where it was the only way to get across the island. our next stop was australia, where the idea of getting from cairns to sydney entirely on buses was suddenly unfathomable.

once you start hitchhiking, it seems ludicrous to pay for transportation. we set up some general rules for ourselves - which we mostly kept to - and spent long days on the road. we wouldn't get into a car if either or us felt the slightest creepiness or unease. we would stay awake, alert and watch the road. we wouldn't take rides from truckers. we would stop before dark.

the hardest part was just getting out of town, most people are driving short distances. most people have been told by their fathers not to ever hitchhike or pick up hitchhikers. but we must have been so cute standing there with our backpacks. it was never too hard to get a ride. most people couldn't believe we were hitchhiking, especially once they found out we were americans.

usually the people who picked us up were fathers who had daughters and were trying to save us from the dangerous fate of the hitchhiker, or other people who had hitchhiked in the past and were paying back some karma. i have mostly stuck to my promise of not picking up hitchhikers, but i do feel a special twinge of sympathy when i see one.

the hardest part was having the same conversations over and over again. we would spend three hours in the car with somebody, tell them all about our trip, where we were from, why we were hitchhiking, etc. then ten minutes later get into another car and have to start all over. sometimes the best rides were the ones where everybody was just silent. more often than not we met kind people who were unbelievably helpful and generous. without all the urban myths and fear, hitchhiking is a lovely system, a way of sharing and mutual convenience, a way to meet people you might not ever know.

so, sorry dad, i broke my promise. but i suspect you have at least one good hitchhiking story too.

unrelated: richard serra talks about the installation of his 40-year retrospective at moma in this new york times audio slide show.

bullshit blog post

2007-05-29T00:01:00.000+02:00

i stayed in a whole 24 hours after that last post. then i spent the rest of the weekend walking around the city - through rain and shine. it's hard for me to really be a hermit.

the other night i saw pirates of the caribbean. man, i was just in the mood for pure entertainment, swashbuckling, etc. and this movie paid off. i sat with wide eyes for three hours, laughing and enjoying the spectacle. when i read any bad reviews for the movie i think: what a bunch of cranky pretentious mouth breathers. seriously.

meanwhile, spain had its local elections yesterday and there was a move toward conservatism, echoing a general trend across europe. i think it's interesting that in a county that is ninety-something percent catholic they vote on sunday (day off), causing me to wonder why we vote on tuesday (work day) in the u.s. it's because they want to discourage voting, right? most of the spanish people i spoke to said they usually go vote with their families then have a lunch. those of us who live here know that that is so typically spanish it's practically spain itself.

in other news, i've taken the first actual steps in a project that has been swishing around in my mind for some time now. i've been inspired by certain friends of mine who lately have grabbed their lives by the reigns and started steering themselves in productive directions. so i've decided to follow suit by putting some plans into actions. and wouldn't you know, it's super fun to have a new project to work on. details to come...

i suppose that may excuse this rambly disorganized and decentralized blog post, the type that i have tried to steer away from. coherence will return tomorrow.

happy memorial day.

precipitation frustration

2007-05-25T00:14:00.001+02:00

ok i admit it, i like to bitch about the weather. i believe it affects my moods, i let it affect my moods. i take it personally. any therapist or sane person would tell me this isn't healthy. irregardless.

the weather sucks right now, it's been raining forever, and - as previously noted - we don't need the rain. the other day it rained so hard my plants suffered holes in their leaves. the forecast shows rainy clouds until saturday and i've decided to have a vigil. i'm staying in my house until the sun comes out. i dare you to lure me out.

i have a book, i have my internet, i have dvds. i have a new yorker. i have 3 economists. i'll be good for a few days at least. i refuse to spend one more minute trudging around the city with wet feet, being sprayed by passing cars. bah.

meanwhile, what a lovely moment for the morning news to post their annual awards for online excellence. lots of fun new sites to play with, hours of rainy day entertainment. and here is my first annual list of what i consider the best of their list to be:

indexed. as they put it, simply brilliant. and hilarious. i only wish i could be half as clever and spot on. check it out immediately!

ok. that's totally the best site they linked to. the others i'm still exploring, but i'm sure there are tons of gems. also, they link to mindy kaling's site. this girl went to dartmouth with me and now she is not only on the office, but her blog is being linked to by the morning news -- under the header of "celebrity" blog. sigh. my blog is content to simply mention her blog. she writes about things she bought, like a mini cooper and a $1000 handbag. did i mention it's raining?

other links of late:

not overrated, not underrated. the ten most accurately rated artists in rock history. (via amy's robot)
the top five tv shows of my youth. you know i like lists. i agree, mostly, but shouldn't JEM be #1?? (props on the bitchslap to rio two-timing jem and jerrica)
if you could check out one classic rocker live in concert, who would it be? well, here's your chance: wolfgang's vault has tons of vintage concerts streamed for free. (thanks dad)
recordreviews is disappointed with the new wilco album. "father’s day is right around the corner: are you buying this for somebody or is somebody buying it for you?

the dreamlife of me

2007-05-23T10:35:00.000+02:00

lately i have been having vivid and strange dreams in the mornings; i wake up disoriented and puzzled, having spent the last few minutes in my head under the strangest circumstances with friends and other people who i would never have expected to have conjured.

this morning i was riding around new york city on a magic carpet type contraption, flying through the streets and avenues, trying to make my way to the beach where i was sure there was a party. eventually an ex-boyfriend joined me, and we ended up underwater going through a plastic tube in the river.

i hesitate to read into dreams like this, partly because i have no idea but also because it would seem to be too easy to make it mean something convenient, what i might want it to mean. however, there are some recurring themes or events in my dreams and i often wonder why.

when i was traveling in 2000-2001 i had many dreams about my teeth falling out. the teeth would crumble into small pieces and i would end up spitting them out. i sometimes still dream about this, and i know it is a classic dream with probably a classic interpretation. i remember tony soprano once had a similar dream.

a form of nightmare, or unsettling dream, that i have had many times involves the friends i lived with in college. usually i come back from being away and they are all living in a large and strange house, sometimes labyrinthine, sometimes resembling a house where we actually lived, sometimes like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. i walk around, wondering where my room is, lost and confused. everybody else acts like everything is normal. i've had versions of this dream dozens of times.

the worst nightmares i've ever had used to occur when i was a child, usually when i was sick. i would dream of large imposing masses in space, closing in on me, dwarfing me. sometimes there would be large spheres spinning slightly off their axes and this would scare me more than anything.

any amateur psychologists out there?

happy bday katie

2007-05-20T20:56:00.001+02:00

today is also my sister katie's birthday. katie is officially half my age: today she turns 15.

katie has that rare combination of intelligence, beauty and humor yet she pulls it off with modesty and charm. she is girly, sporty, silly and most of all tons of fun.

she makes up for her small stature with a big personality, and it has been such a pleasure spending half my life knowing her.

so happy birthday katie! can't wait to celebrate for real at six flags this summer.

happy bday kim

2007-05-20T20:48:00.000+02:00

today is my "cousin" kim's 30th birthday. kim is a smart lady, she has always impressed me with her intelligence wit and humor. of all my friends, she has the most religious presence in her life yet she represents this part of herself in the way that is generous, non-judgmental and enviable. i wish all christians were just like her.

her friendship has been a wonderful example to me of how two people who have so many superficial differences can have so much in common where it matters.

so happy 30th kim. hope your day is full of red sox, karaoke and jon stewart.

100th post!

2007-05-16T20:47:00.000+02:00

in lieu of words, i present a photo essay of the painting of a wall on my terrace by some very talented and artistic friends.

a question of etiquette

2007-05-16T19:00:00.000+02:00

yesterday was lovely: a madrid holiday spent barbecuing, painting and appreciating the artistic genius of my friends. but there was one stain on the day, one situation that has left me with a bad feeling, as if i didn't handle something properly, as if i was not a proper hostess. after much reflection, i can safely say that it won't happen again, but i'm wondering, what do you do in a case like this?

what do you do when a friend brings her new boyfriend who is perfectly friendly, helpful at the grill and gracious...until he removes his t-shirt to reveal a swastika tattoo on his arm? what do you do?

my first instinct was to kick him out. nazis are, plainly, not welcome in my house. but, saying something might create a scene, might force a for-the-moment benign nazi to say something really offensive, raising the stakes, upsetting the sunny fun of my party.

so instead i said nothing, did nothing. went about my business, ignoring him, whispering to other friends, being appalled. a very polite simon told me that kicking him out would only fuel his hatred, would equate to coming down to his level. and what did i expect to change? it's true that while his tattoo said one thing, his behavior was quite the opposite: there were many gay people and lots of non-aryans (not to mention jews) around and he was hanging out with everybody.

what i should have done is pulled my friend aside and asked her to ask her guest to put his shirt back on because his tattoo is offensive. safe to say, future incidents of the sort will be prevented.

although at the time i felt justified in not confronting the problem, today i feel guilty, as if i didn't do enough, didn't do my duty. what do you think? what do you do when a nazi comes to your bbq?

i heart murakami

2007-05-12T11:42:00.000+02:00

you probably already know about my love for the writing of haruki murakami. his book the wind-up bird chronicle is probably my favorite book, and i've read it at least three times. it is at once a mystery, a love story, a coming-of-age story, and a fantasy. he creates characters that are magical and strange and unbelievably ordinary, but who are as fully developed as characters in a good television drama and who have stayed with me over the years like old friends.

his other books have been hits or miss for me, but there are common themes throughout. he likes to write about average guys who are loners or misfits without being socially awkward, they are just outside of japanese mainstream society. he loves disappearing women, this often forms the central theme of his novels. he is fascinated by only children, animals, jazz music and american culture. he writes about a japan that i have not often seen portrayed in other media: absent is the hurriedness, the business-is-war mentality, the thirst for pop culture. murakami's japan is more easy going, mixing elements of foreign culture unconsciously, yet with a sense of alienation at its core. i would like to study his fiction in a class with a professor. i want to read and write essays about it.

although none of his books have moved me as much as wind-up bird, other notable mentions are hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world - which is his novel that is the most different from the rest - and south of the border, west of the sun - which is more formulaic but still lovely. his newest novel after dark came out in hardcover last week, and here is an excerpt (thanks emily). from a glance, it seems like vintage murakami, but intriguing. its events take place over the course of a night in a tokyo denny's. if anybody had read it i would love to know what you think, and i would love to borrow your copy this summer!

meow

2007-05-10T01:19:00.000+02:00

"oh you fucking spanish people
makin' me smile
black-haired little cuties"
-chan marshall a.k.a cat power

word

we don't need the rain

2007-05-09T11:01:00.000+02:00

spain is a country with a water shortage. water conservation is strongly encouraged by the government and, as far as i can tell, mostly observed by spaniards.

ever since i moved here, every rainstorm be it on a saturday afternoon or any other inconvenient time is met with knowing shrugs and the mantra "we need the rain." complaining about rain isn't allowed. spain needs the rain.

ok, well guess what? the reservoirs are now full. any more rain would have to be released into the rivers to prevent flooding. so we no longer need the rain. spain has enough water for two years. while this is great news, it belies how much rain we've actually had this year. tons.

granted, this is the time of year when the temperature crests the 90s and never looks back and rain isn't likely in the near future.

good, cuz we don't need it.

points, bulleted (bulletted?)

2007-05-08T19:48:00.000+02:00

today i present a few tidbits, in list formation:

bill clinton wrote a crossword for last weekend's new york times magazine (online only). i finished it, can you?
the new album turn the lights out by the ponys is the best thing since sliced bread. definitely the best new album i've heard since crane wife. asked to describe this music i was at a loss for comparisons. strong beats, heavy bass lines and extremely addictive.
if gwb wrote obama's book
france elected a new president: nicolas sarkozy. for a clue on who this guy is and what he stands for, check out this great new yorker article. then go around asking people what they think of the elections in france, and sound really smart. at least, that's what i do.
i've noticed advertisements in spain in portugal by the sides of the roads and on bus stops using the weak dollar to entice europeans to visit nyc. "the euro buys you more in new york." sure, once you get there. what they don't warn you about is that flights back to the us are now significantly higher than they have been in the last 2.5 years! and by hundreds of dollars. what up? anyway, any bright ideas out there? anybody work for the airlines or have some extra frequent flyer miles you don't need? private jets? i'm talking roughly jul2-aug 31 plus or minus a few days on either side....

happy 30th raf

2007-05-02T18:30:00.000+02:00

my buddy raf turns 30 today. i met raf on my bday, when i was turning the unfathomable age of 23. back then he had no road rage, but i changed all that.

years later, raf remains a friend, somebody who i'm always happy to see, someone who usually has a smile on his face and who can bring a smile to mine. so happy birthday raf!

and by the way, i was listening to tribe the other day and i still contend that midnight marauders is their best album.

apology

2007-05-02T16:10:00.000+02:00

i just got back from a great weekend in barcelona. this is my fifth time visiting the city, and definitely the best. rather than spending any time doing touristy stuff i saw friends, walked around neighborhoods i didn't know and relaxed. i sat on three beaches. i got a sunburn that was gone by the next morning.

to tell the truth, before this trip i often spoke a little disparagingly of barcelona. like boston, i would say, it is a nice place to visit but i wouldn't want to live there. or i had my big metaphor about barcelona being like one of those really good looking people who really doesn't have much personality.

but i admit when i'm wrong. sorry, barcelona, i just hadn't looked in the right places. i mean, you not only have a beach, but beaches that stretch for hundreds of kilometers in either direction. i like your wide sidewalks and flat streets. i like how every restaurant seems to think having organic food is a good idea. you're a totally fun place to hang out, plus lots of my friends live there. forget what i said before, my bad.

no crush for you!

2007-05-02T16:04:00.000+02:00

i try not to complain about these things, especially here. however. it's not often that i meet somebody and actually find them crush-able. even the simplest crush can feel like a fresh breeze.

so, it was with considerable excitement that i realized last week that i had met one of these elusive fellas. and he walked me home!

fast forward a week, i have learned in a series of ever more disheartening pieces of gossip from friends that: 1. he has a long-term girlfriend 2. she's german and 3. actually, he left madrid. he lives somewhere else.

can a girl catch a break around here?

cooking is meditative

2007-05-01T13:01:00.000+02:00

i read a piece recently in the new yorker that mentioned cooking as a meditative practice. this is interesting. although i often say that i have a hard time shutting my mind off in attempts to actually meditate, while cooking i enter a kind of trance that must be close to what i'm aiming for.

i love cooking and right now i'm in the throes of a cooking phase. i get off on chopping vegetables, there is something extremely satisfying about it. also, cooking is one activity - like shopping and going to museums - that is quite lovely to do by yourself.

last night i made meatballs in chipotle sauce and veggie enchiladas. currently i'm making brownies (from scratch). now is a good time to try to score a dinner invite...