Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Roxie : Motivation :: The Pope : A Funny Hat
Clearly something freaky is going on--I've been saying that I'm going to take the GRE since probably half way through my fifth year at Centenary. I went to lunch with my Coworker Jana the other day and found out that she too is studying for the GRE and it's like something in my brain snapped. Apparently, all it took was having some one else to study with, to get me out of the apartment and whine with (and not to). I'm so motivited, FINALLY.
Jana and I went and studied after work on campus at George Washington and we studied almost 3.5 hours before I noticed. This was two days in row. Two things have come out of this:
1. I am SO relieved to find myself inspired and motivated. I've been stressing about the GRE, as a terrible chore. Instead, I find myself almost freakishly excited to see how well I can make myself do.
2. Spending the evenings back in that environment, around students, thinking in a totally different way (and for totally different reasons) than I have been at work for the past year, I am SO ready to be in school in again. I miss classes and professors and books and wearing a sweatshirt without feeling guilty.
All that being said, I had the day today all by myself (Tim's playing in a softball tournament) so I planned to spend it at the library, studying. I originally planned to go to the Library of Congress, but I felt like it might be a little stuffy so I went to the MLK library which is closer anyway. But I never really made it (not right away, anyway) because there was a GIANT street festival for all the local restaurants, galleries, artists, performers, museums, radio stations, colleges, newspapers... you name it. I had tenderloin, white cheddar mashed potatoes, and pork tacos for $4. I saw a troup of Bhangra dancers that reminded me of my mom's belly dancing troup.
It was just an awesome way to spend three hours. I'm bummed that Tim missed it, but I was fully entertained and well fed for pennies on the dollar.
Afterwards, I walked back past the library (at which point it was entirely too late to study, since they close at 5:30), but they were having a sale in their book store, which is usually closed on weekends. I bought 5 books and a t-shirt for $12 before heading home to watch Jeopardy and relax. An excellent end to the afternoon indeed.
I think this may have been the most awesome Saturday I've had since I've been here, which is good since yesterday was a pretty terrible day at work. Ahhhhh.... thank the Lord for Saturdays, motivation, art fairs, book sales and beef tenderloin.
Jana and I went and studied after work on campus at George Washington and we studied almost 3.5 hours before I noticed. This was two days in row. Two things have come out of this:
1. I am SO relieved to find myself inspired and motivated. I've been stressing about the GRE, as a terrible chore. Instead, I find myself almost freakishly excited to see how well I can make myself do.
2. Spending the evenings back in that environment, around students, thinking in a totally different way (and for totally different reasons) than I have been at work for the past year, I am SO ready to be in school in again. I miss classes and professors and books and wearing a sweatshirt without feeling guilty.
All that being said, I had the day today all by myself (Tim's playing in a softball tournament) so I planned to spend it at the library, studying. I originally planned to go to the Library of Congress, but I felt like it might be a little stuffy so I went to the MLK library which is closer anyway. But I never really made it (not right away, anyway) because there was a GIANT street festival for all the local restaurants, galleries, artists, performers, museums, radio stations, colleges, newspapers... you name it. I had tenderloin, white cheddar mashed potatoes, and pork tacos for $4. I saw a troup of Bhangra dancers that reminded me of my mom's belly dancing troup.
It was just an awesome way to spend three hours. I'm bummed that Tim missed it, but I was fully entertained and well fed for pennies on the dollar.
Afterwards, I walked back past the library (at which point it was entirely too late to study, since they close at 5:30), but they were having a sale in their book store, which is usually closed on weekends. I bought 5 books and a t-shirt for $12 before heading home to watch Jeopardy and relax. An excellent end to the afternoon indeed.
I think this may have been the most awesome Saturday I've had since I've been here, which is good since yesterday was a pretty terrible day at work. Ahhhhh.... thank the Lord for Saturdays, motivation, art fairs, book sales and beef tenderloin.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Nothin' Doin'
Tropical Storm Hannah, as I'm sure you've heard, is bearing down on the east coast, and so it is incredibly rainy and dreary in DC today. It's been raining solidly since about 7:00 last night, which actually works out perfectly because Tim and I decided that we're going to go an entire weekend without spending a single cent.
(BTW: Naming a storm after a current teen sensation makes incredibly difficult to get information about said storm on Google, Thanks National Hurricane Center.)
Of course, this means I can think of nothing I want to do more than go out to a matinee and then to dinner, but the rain is helping. And to deter myself even further, I've put the lemon tree in the shower and sprayed it with bug spray that has to dry before I can move it, so we couldn't take showers and go out into the world if we wanted to. (A note on the lemon tree: It FINALLY has a lemon, which is about the size of a penny right now, BUT in addition the brown scale bugs it has--don't worry they only like citrus and tomato plants and don't spread to people or other plants--it's got some sort of weird almost microscopic spiders that may have come in on this stupid bamboo-type thing I bought. DAMNIT.)
Really though, I like wandering around on rainy days like this. There's something kind of nice about how everything looks different when it's rainy and the sky is gray. I also like wind, and although I love summer I'm looking forward to sweater weather. Also, I'm sure there will be plenty of elbow room at the museums today. Elbow room is remarkably important. Now, when I think of the Rosetta Stone, my first thought isn't of the key that unlocked the Egyptian language and opened up one of the richest and most important cultures to ever exist, but of the terrible woman in the British Museum who stood directly in front of the case talking about some television show and blocking the view of literally 45 people who wanted to catch a glimpse. Classy. Thanks a lot awesome American Tourist Lady.
Anyway, apparently, there's a new ocean exhibit at the Natural History Museum--although I'm not sure if it's open now.
Mostly, I think the plan is to stay in and finish our current books. I lent "A Confederacy of Dunces" to Tim over a month ago and while I'm really happy that he'd finally reading it, I'm officially never, ever, EVER, lending a book to anyone ever again. So don't even ask. It look like it got run over by a thresher. I know there's that philosophical argument that book-manglers make that if a book doesn't look like crap when you're done with it, then you haven't appreciated it. Bullocks. That was the kind of philosophy that might have been ok when I was I was 12 and my parent bought all my books for me, but now, thank you very much, I have to buy them all with my own money, so I'd rather not have them falling apart at their literal seams. (Ahhhh, now that was a cheesy book pun.)
Anyhoo, I'm reading "Falling Man" by Don DeLillo, which, like everything by Don DeLillo, is briefly engrossing, and then confounds me, and then loses my interest completely, and then engrosses me again, over and over, in waves. I don't know if I can finish it today but I hope to, because I'd rather be reading Harry Potter.
(BTW: Naming a storm after a current teen sensation makes incredibly difficult to get information about said storm on Google, Thanks National Hurricane Center.)
Of course, this means I can think of nothing I want to do more than go out to a matinee and then to dinner, but the rain is helping. And to deter myself even further, I've put the lemon tree in the shower and sprayed it with bug spray that has to dry before I can move it, so we couldn't take showers and go out into the world if we wanted to. (A note on the lemon tree: It FINALLY has a lemon, which is about the size of a penny right now, BUT in addition the brown scale bugs it has--don't worry they only like citrus and tomato plants and don't spread to people or other plants--it's got some sort of weird almost microscopic spiders that may have come in on this stupid bamboo-type thing I bought. DAMNIT.)
Really though, I like wandering around on rainy days like this. There's something kind of nice about how everything looks different when it's rainy and the sky is gray. I also like wind, and although I love summer I'm looking forward to sweater weather. Also, I'm sure there will be plenty of elbow room at the museums today. Elbow room is remarkably important. Now, when I think of the Rosetta Stone, my first thought isn't of the key that unlocked the Egyptian language and opened up one of the richest and most important cultures to ever exist, but of the terrible woman in the British Museum who stood directly in front of the case talking about some television show and blocking the view of literally 45 people who wanted to catch a glimpse. Classy. Thanks a lot awesome American Tourist Lady.
Anyway, apparently, there's a new ocean exhibit at the Natural History Museum--although I'm not sure if it's open now.
Mostly, I think the plan is to stay in and finish our current books. I lent "A Confederacy of Dunces" to Tim over a month ago and while I'm really happy that he'd finally reading it, I'm officially never, ever, EVER, lending a book to anyone ever again. So don't even ask. It look like it got run over by a thresher. I know there's that philosophical argument that book-manglers make that if a book doesn't look like crap when you're done with it, then you haven't appreciated it. Bullocks. That was the kind of philosophy that might have been ok when I was I was 12 and my parent bought all my books for me, but now, thank you very much, I have to buy them all with my own money, so I'd rather not have them falling apart at their literal seams. (Ahhhh, now that was a cheesy book pun.)
Anyhoo, I'm reading "Falling Man" by Don DeLillo, which, like everything by Don DeLillo, is briefly engrossing, and then confounds me, and then loses my interest completely, and then engrosses me again, over and over, in waves. I don't know if I can finish it today but I hope to, because I'd rather be reading Harry Potter.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The only person who could ever make me hate Friday
It's truly, truly unbelievable.
Every day of the week, when I exit my metro stop, there is always a different musician at the top of the escalator--playing some familiar song and holding out the hat, as it were. They have varying degrees of talent--there's an awesome guy called Banjo Dan (The Banjo Man) and a man who plays the Spanish Guitar (and wears his hat tipped down over his eyes). There's a man who plays the guitar and lays all of his crazy sort of half-decent splatter paintings on the ground in front of him (we saw him again tonight outside of the baseball park--the Nats beat the Dodgers).
Among the not-so-winning musicians is a t-shirt wearing dude who I think might have found his sax in a dumpster. He stands across the street and plays what I imagine Homer Simpson might play if you handed him a saxophone. It's fairly terrible. I'm almost certain all of his earnings are pity donations. But he's at least funny.
In general, these people range from "this is a treat" to "well that was interesting" but there is one, mother-effing-son-of-a... I hate this guy. I call him the Light-Jazz-Syntho-Dredlock-Asshole. Imagine if you a will, a musician with the ability to use joy to single-handedly ruin every single Friday morning of your life. He's like an ambush, because I always forget that he's going to be there until I've already swiped my metro card and I have no way to get out of the metro without going past him.
He stands at the top of the escalator and plays his god-forsaken synthetic keyboard renditions of casino hits like "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" and "What the World Needs Now (is Love)" and lots of other cheesy, Bacharachy gems that get stuck in your head just at the completely utterly wrong time of your life.
It's Friday, for God's sake. Don't bore me into a coma just when I was feeling good about things, Man. And he'll stop in the middle of the song to utter in this breathy voice "I hope you all are having a blessed, blessed day" and "sometimes when the world has got you down..." He wears sunglasses for no reason. Why does he have dredlocks if he's singing the kind of lite pop music that grocery stores pump in at low volumes to psych people out of shoplifting? Are they even real?
And the "music" is so insanely, unreasonably, institutionally loud. It starts all the way on the train platform as an atonal murmur and by the time you're up the escalator it's drown out whatever legitimate music you've been listening to (or thought you might have been having) and replaced it with canned happiness of the smarmiest most unavoidable kind. It follows you up the block.
The irony of how irate this makes me does not escape me.
And I have no idea what it is, but for the first time in my life, I actually get the physical urge every single Friday morning to go over and kick his keyboard off its stand, smash his amp with his mic stand, throw the keyboard in front of a passing bus, shake my finger in his face and tell him that he actually owes me fifty dollars for ruining every single Friday morning for the past year of my life.
I would feel guilty about these terrible thoughts except that I'm certain that everyone else must feel the same way, but they're all wearing business casual so they can't flip shit. I'm not heartless. I love Banjo Man and awesome Chinese plucky music guy--even teenage flute kid doesn't bother me for the 35 seconds I hear these people one day a week.
But something makes me want to offer Banjo Dan a crisp c note to start a turf war. And if Light-Jazz-Syntho-Dredlock-Asshole doesn't redeem himself or disappear himself soon I might do it.
UPDATE: God does create miracles for the weary; for the first time in months, not was Light-Jazz-Syntho-Dredlock-Asshole not there this Friday, Crazy-Angry-Jesus-Bullhorn-Yeller and Gypsy-Rambling-Frank-Synatra-Loving-Lady weren't there either. Just a bunch of casuall dressed people on a rainy Friday morning before a long weekend. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh...
Every day of the week, when I exit my metro stop, there is always a different musician at the top of the escalator--playing some familiar song and holding out the hat, as it were. They have varying degrees of talent--there's an awesome guy called Banjo Dan (The Banjo Man) and a man who plays the Spanish Guitar (and wears his hat tipped down over his eyes). There's a man who plays the guitar and lays all of his crazy sort of half-decent splatter paintings on the ground in front of him (we saw him again tonight outside of the baseball park--the Nats beat the Dodgers).
Among the not-so-winning musicians is a t-shirt wearing dude who I think might have found his sax in a dumpster. He stands across the street and plays what I imagine Homer Simpson might play if you handed him a saxophone. It's fairly terrible. I'm almost certain all of his earnings are pity donations. But he's at least funny.
In general, these people range from "this is a treat" to "well that was interesting" but there is one, mother-effing-son-of-a... I hate this guy. I call him the Light-Jazz-Syntho-Dredlock-Asshole. Imagine if you a will, a musician with the ability to use joy to single-handedly ruin every single Friday morning of your life. He's like an ambush, because I always forget that he's going to be there until I've already swiped my metro card and I have no way to get out of the metro without going past him.
He stands at the top of the escalator and plays his god-forsaken synthetic keyboard renditions of casino hits like "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" and "What the World Needs Now (is Love)" and lots of other cheesy, Bacharachy gems that get stuck in your head just at the completely utterly wrong time of your life.
It's Friday, for God's sake. Don't bore me into a coma just when I was feeling good about things, Man. And he'll stop in the middle of the song to utter in this breathy voice "I hope you all are having a blessed, blessed day" and "sometimes when the world has got you down..." He wears sunglasses for no reason. Why does he have dredlocks if he's singing the kind of lite pop music that grocery stores pump in at low volumes to psych people out of shoplifting? Are they even real?
And the "music" is so insanely, unreasonably, institutionally loud. It starts all the way on the train platform as an atonal murmur and by the time you're up the escalator it's drown out whatever legitimate music you've been listening to (or thought you might have been having) and replaced it with canned happiness of the smarmiest most unavoidable kind. It follows you up the block.
The irony of how irate this makes me does not escape me.
And I have no idea what it is, but for the first time in my life, I actually get the physical urge every single Friday morning to go over and kick his keyboard off its stand, smash his amp with his mic stand, throw the keyboard in front of a passing bus, shake my finger in his face and tell him that he actually owes me fifty dollars for ruining every single Friday morning for the past year of my life.
I would feel guilty about these terrible thoughts except that I'm certain that everyone else must feel the same way, but they're all wearing business casual so they can't flip shit. I'm not heartless. I love Banjo Man and awesome Chinese plucky music guy--even teenage flute kid doesn't bother me for the 35 seconds I hear these people one day a week.
But something makes me want to offer Banjo Dan a crisp c note to start a turf war. And if Light-Jazz-Syntho-Dredlock-Asshole doesn't redeem himself or disappear himself soon I might do it.
UPDATE: God does create miracles for the weary; for the first time in months, not was Light-Jazz-Syntho-Dredlock-Asshole not there this Friday, Crazy-Angry-Jesus-Bullhorn-Yeller and Gypsy-Rambling-Frank-Synatra-Loving-Lady weren't there either. Just a bunch of casuall dressed people on a rainy Friday morning before a long weekend. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh...
Sunday, August 17, 2008
From here to there.
I can not believe that Tim and I have been here for an entire year already. It's sort of like some kind of strange hallucination. It's a surreal feeling partly because I've just been sloooooowly acclimating to entirely new lifestyle (sometimes I actually miss those 4:00 am nights in the newspaper office, if only because I knew I could sleep in the next day and not risk looking "unprofessional."). It's also surreal because I NEVER would have predicted being where I am now. I can more easily imagine myself pushing a popcicle cart in Florida than I can sitting at a desk all day in Washington DC.
But the biggest thing is that all of my familiar landmarks are all different themselves, and it's a little hard to get my bearings. I don't think hardly ANY of my friends live in the same houses they lived in last year. It seems like nearly everyone--friends, family, coworkers--has gotten married, engaged, had a baby, Moved (with a capital "M"), graduated, started school, changed jobs, had surgery, or otherwise gone off the map in the last 12 months.
It's a weird "untethered" feeling to have, even at the moment when I have a steady job, an apartment, a sane boyfriend... How interesting to be so effected by all of these people even when so many of them are so far away...
Our one-year-in-DC anniversary (Aug. 15) was fairly uneventful, even if this week wasn't. Last Saturday my boss called to tell me that he was officially announcing my promotion to Marketing Coordinator. It's not as high of a title as had been originally proposed, but honestly, for not having any sort of training in Marketing or anything more than one year in the industry under my belt, this makes me feel slightly relieved. I can pay more attention to craft and leave the other stuff to the newly-hired Marketing Manager, who seems like a nice guy so far.
Tuesday I went to see a Neurologist about my migraines. There's not really anything to report other than that I'm trying some new medicine which will either make me a basket case or it won't. I'm not putting my money on one or the other but I'm hoping for the "won't". The jury is still out as to whether it's better to be a reasonable, sharp-minded person with migraines or a basket case without them. Time will tell. Or maybe Tim will tell, since he's the one who has to deal with/take care of me everyday migraine or no.
Last night we went to a house-warming party for my friend Jana and her two roommates. This summer has been decidedly lacking in those sorts of events and that was precisely the perfect way to spend the evening. I've noticed that as far as beverages are concerned Jana and I usually like whatever the other person hates, but she loves dip, and I love dip, and that makes us party food compatible. She also invited Brittany, who worked at Clutch when I first started and who is utterly precious. I DO NOT use that word to describe just anyone. I haven't seen her in ages--she's planning a wedding and I've been traveling all over the country like I have a travel show (which I totally should).
Any party where Tim falls asleep on the metro ride home is a good party.
And today we walked to Chinatown and saw "Tropic Thunder." I'm convinced that Robert Downey Jr. is a genius but I still think that Ben Stiller is a fool, but not in a good way. Afterwards we ate ice cream on the steps of the Portrait Gallery and then walked to the Old Post Office to ride the elevator to the top of the bell tower and see if we could see our building (we couldn't). Very different from how we spent August last year, buried under a giant pile of boxes, trying to figure out where to buy food and how to get it back to our apartment, playing Wii until our thumbs hurt... (OK, maybe that part is not so different, but we aren't spending as MUCH time playing Wii.)
I'm sure I'll look at this post next August and laugh my ass off trying to figure out how I got from here to there.
But the biggest thing is that all of my familiar landmarks are all different themselves, and it's a little hard to get my bearings. I don't think hardly ANY of my friends live in the same houses they lived in last year. It seems like nearly everyone--friends, family, coworkers--has gotten married, engaged, had a baby, Moved (with a capital "M"), graduated, started school, changed jobs, had surgery, or otherwise gone off the map in the last 12 months.
It's a weird "untethered" feeling to have, even at the moment when I have a steady job, an apartment, a sane boyfriend... How interesting to be so effected by all of these people even when so many of them are so far away...
Our one-year-in-DC anniversary (Aug. 15) was fairly uneventful, even if this week wasn't. Last Saturday my boss called to tell me that he was officially announcing my promotion to Marketing Coordinator. It's not as high of a title as had been originally proposed, but honestly, for not having any sort of training in Marketing or anything more than one year in the industry under my belt, this makes me feel slightly relieved. I can pay more attention to craft and leave the other stuff to the newly-hired Marketing Manager, who seems like a nice guy so far.
Tuesday I went to see a Neurologist about my migraines. There's not really anything to report other than that I'm trying some new medicine which will either make me a basket case or it won't. I'm not putting my money on one or the other but I'm hoping for the "won't". The jury is still out as to whether it's better to be a reasonable, sharp-minded person with migraines or a basket case without them. Time will tell. Or maybe Tim will tell, since he's the one who has to deal with/take care of me everyday migraine or no.
Last night we went to a house-warming party for my friend Jana and her two roommates. This summer has been decidedly lacking in those sorts of events and that was precisely the perfect way to spend the evening. I've noticed that as far as beverages are concerned Jana and I usually like whatever the other person hates, but she loves dip, and I love dip, and that makes us party food compatible. She also invited Brittany, who worked at Clutch when I first started and who is utterly precious. I DO NOT use that word to describe just anyone. I haven't seen her in ages--she's planning a wedding and I've been traveling all over the country like I have a travel show (which I totally should).
Any party where Tim falls asleep on the metro ride home is a good party.
And today we walked to Chinatown and saw "Tropic Thunder." I'm convinced that Robert Downey Jr. is a genius but I still think that Ben Stiller is a fool, but not in a good way. Afterwards we ate ice cream on the steps of the Portrait Gallery and then walked to the Old Post Office to ride the elevator to the top of the bell tower and see if we could see our building (we couldn't). Very different from how we spent August last year, buried under a giant pile of boxes, trying to figure out where to buy food and how to get it back to our apartment, playing Wii until our thumbs hurt... (OK, maybe that part is not so different, but we aren't spending as MUCH time playing Wii.)
I'm sure I'll look at this post next August and laugh my ass off trying to figure out how I got from here to there.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Good Evening, Wrangler II
Fayetteville, AR: November 4-November 17.Boulder, Colorado: November 17-December 5.
Dallas/Shreveport/New Orleans: December 5-December 16.
Crawford, Colorado: December 16-January 3.
These are the tour dates for the official "Roxie's Leave of Absence Tour '08." Get your all-access pass TODAY!
How is this possible? you ask. How is this possible for someone with a full time job and no money?
Well, it's possible largely because my boss is a benevolent and understanding soul who appreciates that as long as I am under his employ, I am too busy to plan for my future, but that planning for my future is key to me not going a little Courtney Love everywhere and throwing my computer monitor through my office window. It's true that I'm broke, but in reality, this trip is an investment in a number of ways:
First, the combined tickets were actually CHEAPER than buying individual tickets for Turkey Day, the Longnutzer Nuptials, and Christmas seperately--and in order to attend all or even just one of those things, I would have had to take unpaid vacation anyway.
Second, if I don't apply for Graduate school this year, I will honestly hate myself and I will become a raving, spitting beast in stuffy office clothes.
Third, when I return, I'm taking a new position with the company which I am very excited about. No word on my official title yet, but suffice to say that it's a higher position and a more creative one, which is NEVER a bad thing.
As I told many people back a few months ago, I had intended to quit work as soon as my lease was up, put my things in storage, sleep on various people's couches cleaning out their fridges and shoveling their sidewalks for pocket money until I figured out what I want to do with myself (i.e. not being and Administrative Assistant and sitting on $40K worth of degrees). No sooner had I informed (most of) the world of this decision, than my boss offered me a new position. He looked sort of disbelieving but mostly skeptical when I told him my intended plans but--and this is the incredible part--he negotiated with me to make both of our desires possible.
So Tim and I are signing the lease. We're staying here at least until next August.
At which point I will hopefully have a choice between keeping my marketing job or going to Harvard and getting my PhD in English. Ok--maybe not Harvard, but hopefully somewhere will want me.
If anyone has any tips about taking the GRE or applying for Grad School (or what schools I should apply to somewhere in the Colorado/Louisiana/Washington State neighborhood) feel free to call me and let me know. You know where you'll be able to reach me in November and December.
Monday, July 14, 2008
A fragile bubble
Know thyself, pathologically, what a fragile bubble you are, and exposed to a thousand calamities. If you understand these things, you are man, and a genus very distinct from all the others.
-Linnaeus
While trying to maintain a little sanity in my bubble, I have actually read enough books in the past month(s) that I can pick just the good ones to tell you about. But first things first, three one-sentence reviews:
1. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë: I mean, it's JANE EYRE for pete's sake, but I've read better classics.
2. Dune, Frank Herbert: Meh. Don't watch the movie either; if you're the kind of person who gets off on this stuff, you've probably already read/seen it.
3. Snuff, Chuck Palahniuk: I read this in one sitting on a plane and spent the entire trip trying to hide it's filthy, filthy pages from the guy next to me--but I liked it anyway. Well, that was... brief. On to more important things:
Personal Days
By Ed Park
If you work in an office, and you only read the first section of this book, that will be enough for me. The whole book is excellent. But the first section is so goddamned hilarious and so, {SHUDDER} frighteningly DEAD ON that I read parts of it multiple times. Here, I'll let it speak for itself, this is the first page:
<1> Who died? On the surface, it's relaxed. There was a time when we all dressed crisply, but something's changed this summer. Now while the weather lasts we wear loose pants, canvas sneakers, clogs. Pru slips on flip-flops under her desk. It's so hot out and thus every day is potentially casual Friday. We have carte blanche to wear T-shirts featuring the comical logos of exterminating companies, advertising slogans of the early '80s. Where's the beef? We dress like we don't make much money, which is true for at least half of us. The trick is figuring out which half. We go out for drinks together one or two nights a week, sometimes three, to take the edge off. Three is too much. We make careful note of who buys a round, who sits back and magically lets the booze appear. It's possible we can't stand each other but at this point we're helpless in the company of outsiders. Sometimes one of the guys will come to work in a coat and tie, just to freak the others out. On these days the guard in the lobby will joke, who died? And we will laugh or pretend to laugh.
People to whom I would recommend this book: Kristin, Jared, and Vijay, who doesn't read my blog but would appreciate this this book is compared to P. G. Wodehouse. Seriously, if the opening credits on The Office freak you out because you might as well live in them, read this freaking book.
Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body
By Armand Marie Leroi
I'll admit it, I picked this book up because of the promise that it might have pictures and I was rewarded for my curiosity. I bought the book out of a simple morbid desire to read about people with deformities--which sounds terrible. And maybe it is terrible--but I'm surely not alone. Why else would the word "Mutants" be featured so prominently on the cover, with the sub-title nestled in the bones of a deformed skeleton?
I don't care who you are, everyone judges a book by its cover. Leroi must know this, because right away he sets out to assuage our rubber-necking guilt and let us know that not only are we all deformed in some way (the average person has 300 genetic mutations), but that this fascination with the unusual has led to some of the most important genetic discoveries. Though it is occasionally dry, this book is difficult to put down because it accomplishes the great feat of being informative, sensitive, accessible, and wildly fascinating all at the same time.
Whether he is explaining how the right-side twin in many sets of conjoined twins can be born "situs inversus," with their organs positioned in a mirror image of most human beings, with the hearts on the right and their livers on the left.... Or how one out of every ten people has an extra set of ribs (and not all of them are male--like Adam)... or how children and animals can be born cycloptic, with one eye in the center of the face... what matters to Leroi is not that these things occur, but how they occur and what they mean to all things constructed of DNA.
In general, this is the kind of book I wish I was smart enough to write.
People to whom I would recommend this book: Jess Long and my Aunt Tanya, because both of them are interested in how biological things work, but also seem to be more interested in real life than in dessicated, lifeless lab specimens. Also, people who enjoyed Stiff, by Mary Roach.
The World According to Garp
By John Irving If someone was going to take certain parts of my mother's character, multiply them by 1000, and write a chapter about her, it would be the first chapter of Garp. I hope this doesn't peak my mother's interest in the book and then leave her brutally disappointed, but it's true. All of my favorite traits of Jenny Fields, Garp's mother, are traits that make my own mother so uniquely wonderful. "My mother," Garp wrote, "was a lone wolf."
She even works as a nurse at an all-boys school, which is sort of a fictionalized version of what my mother does for a living. Jenny's other traits--like her starched white uniform--are distinctly unlike my own mother. I'm not sure if I'm much interested in being like Garp--except that I'm profoundly interested in what the world is like, according to me.
I can't honestly rave about this book. It was good. It's a good, solid, entertaining read, which a few really wonderful characters and one or two parts that left me in complete shock. Irving is a master at creating a world which is wholly believable, and convincing you to fall in love with his characters like you fall in love with the weird, flawed people in your day-to-day life.
This probably doesn't sound like a winning recommendation to anyone but maybe my mom, but it is. This book was good.
People to whom I would recommend this book: Anyone who isn't afraid of a best seller.
Contact
By Carl Sagan
Oh Carl, you lovely, lovely person you. Unlike the movie, which glosses over the effects of something so profoundly earth-changing as a MESSAGE FROM INTELLIGENT LIFE BEYOND EARTH (which is a pretty big deal and probably belongs in all-caps), instead focusing on what Matthew McConaughey looks like shirt-less and how nerds like Jody Foster are generally lonely people--this book has incredible social, religious, philosophical, AND astrophysical importance.
This is sort of like the astrophysical answer to The World Without Us, which I reviewed a while ago. Only this time, it's The World With Us, When We Know There's Also a THEM.
There are only a few points in the book when Mr. Sagan gets his predictions about what life was like at the turn of the millennium wrong (how could he predict the collapse of the Soviet Union?). Otherwise, his observations about religion and society 20 years later (the book was published in 1985) are sort of disappointingly dead-on. It's disappointing only because we, as humans, are so predictable.
In general though, this is an excellent, sort of mind-blowing discussion about the nature of science and religion, set in a very inviting, very engrossing fictional world. Mr. Sagan is also wise enough to know what makes this kind of philosophy palatable to plebes like me.
People to whom I would recommend this book: My dad, and maybe Kacie--but for different reasons, which I won't go into. Both of them like science fiction (within reason) and are both sort of personally invested in the whole "What the hell is religion?" question.
So that's that. More actual news to come at a later date. :)
-Linnaeus
While trying to maintain a little sanity in my bubble, I have actually read enough books in the past month(s) that I can pick just the good ones to tell you about. But first things first, three one-sentence reviews:
1. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë: I mean, it's JANE EYRE for pete's sake, but I've read better classics.
2. Dune, Frank Herbert: Meh. Don't watch the movie either; if you're the kind of person who gets off on this stuff, you've probably already read/seen it.
3. Snuff, Chuck Palahniuk: I read this in one sitting on a plane and spent the entire trip trying to hide it's filthy, filthy pages from the guy next to me--but I liked it anyway. Well, that was... brief. On to more important things:
Personal Days By Ed Park
If you work in an office, and you only read the first section of this book, that will be enough for me. The whole book is excellent. But the first section is so goddamned hilarious and so, {SHUDDER} frighteningly DEAD ON that I read parts of it multiple times. Here, I'll let it speak for itself, this is the first page:
<1> Who died? On the surface, it's relaxed. There was a time when we all dressed crisply, but something's changed this summer. Now while the weather lasts we wear loose pants, canvas sneakers, clogs. Pru slips on flip-flops under her desk. It's so hot out and thus every day is potentially casual Friday. We have carte blanche to wear T-shirts featuring the comical logos of exterminating companies, advertising slogans of the early '80s. Where's the beef? We dress like we don't make much money, which is true for at least half of us. The trick is figuring out which half. We go out for drinks together one or two nights a week, sometimes three, to take the edge off. Three is too much. We make careful note of who buys a round, who sits back and magically lets the booze appear. It's possible we can't stand each other but at this point we're helpless in the company of outsiders. Sometimes one of the guys will come to work in a coat and tie, just to freak the others out. On these days the guard in the lobby will joke, who died? And we will laugh or pretend to laugh.
People to whom I would recommend this book: Kristin, Jared, and Vijay, who doesn't read my blog but would appreciate this this book is compared to P. G. Wodehouse. Seriously, if the opening credits on The Office freak you out because you might as well live in them, read this freaking book.
Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body By Armand Marie Leroi
I'll admit it, I picked this book up because of the promise that it might have pictures and I was rewarded for my curiosity. I bought the book out of a simple morbid desire to read about people with deformities--which sounds terrible. And maybe it is terrible--but I'm surely not alone. Why else would the word "Mutants" be featured so prominently on the cover, with the sub-title nestled in the bones of a deformed skeleton?
I don't care who you are, everyone judges a book by its cover. Leroi must know this, because right away he sets out to assuage our rubber-necking guilt and let us know that not only are we all deformed in some way (the average person has 300 genetic mutations), but that this fascination with the unusual has led to some of the most important genetic discoveries. Though it is occasionally dry, this book is difficult to put down because it accomplishes the great feat of being informative, sensitive, accessible, and wildly fascinating all at the same time.
Whether he is explaining how the right-side twin in many sets of conjoined twins can be born "situs inversus," with their organs positioned in a mirror image of most human beings, with the hearts on the right and their livers on the left.... Or how one out of every ten people has an extra set of ribs (and not all of them are male--like Adam)... or how children and animals can be born cycloptic, with one eye in the center of the face... what matters to Leroi is not that these things occur, but how they occur and what they mean to all things constructed of DNA.
In general, this is the kind of book I wish I was smart enough to write.
People to whom I would recommend this book: Jess Long and my Aunt Tanya, because both of them are interested in how biological things work, but also seem to be more interested in real life than in dessicated, lifeless lab specimens. Also, people who enjoyed Stiff, by Mary Roach.
The World According to Garp By John Irving If someone was going to take certain parts of my mother's character, multiply them by 1000, and write a chapter about her, it would be the first chapter of Garp. I hope this doesn't peak my mother's interest in the book and then leave her brutally disappointed, but it's true. All of my favorite traits of Jenny Fields, Garp's mother, are traits that make my own mother so uniquely wonderful. "My mother," Garp wrote, "was a lone wolf."
She even works as a nurse at an all-boys school, which is sort of a fictionalized version of what my mother does for a living. Jenny's other traits--like her starched white uniform--are distinctly unlike my own mother. I'm not sure if I'm much interested in being like Garp--except that I'm profoundly interested in what the world is like, according to me.
I can't honestly rave about this book. It was good. It's a good, solid, entertaining read, which a few really wonderful characters and one or two parts that left me in complete shock. Irving is a master at creating a world which is wholly believable, and convincing you to fall in love with his characters like you fall in love with the weird, flawed people in your day-to-day life.
This probably doesn't sound like a winning recommendation to anyone but maybe my mom, but it is. This book was good.
People to whom I would recommend this book: Anyone who isn't afraid of a best seller.
Contact By Carl Sagan
Oh Carl, you lovely, lovely person you. Unlike the movie, which glosses over the effects of something so profoundly earth-changing as a MESSAGE FROM INTELLIGENT LIFE BEYOND EARTH (which is a pretty big deal and probably belongs in all-caps), instead focusing on what Matthew McConaughey looks like shirt-less and how nerds like Jody Foster are generally lonely people--this book has incredible social, religious, philosophical, AND astrophysical importance.
This is sort of like the astrophysical answer to The World Without Us, which I reviewed a while ago. Only this time, it's The World With Us, When We Know There's Also a THEM.
There are only a few points in the book when Mr. Sagan gets his predictions about what life was like at the turn of the millennium wrong (how could he predict the collapse of the Soviet Union?). Otherwise, his observations about religion and society 20 years later (the book was published in 1985) are sort of disappointingly dead-on. It's disappointing only because we, as humans, are so predictable.
In general though, this is an excellent, sort of mind-blowing discussion about the nature of science and religion, set in a very inviting, very engrossing fictional world. Mr. Sagan is also wise enough to know what makes this kind of philosophy palatable to plebes like me.
People to whom I would recommend this book: My dad, and maybe Kacie--but for different reasons, which I won't go into. Both of them like science fiction (within reason) and are both sort of personally invested in the whole "What the hell is religion?" question.
So that's that. More actual news to come at a later date. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)