December 29, 2006 at 11:18 am (books, holidays)
I haven’t been getting much done but I desperately needed a break.
And I’m sort of snowed in, which also doesn’t lend itself to getting much done or going out much.
I’ve been busy eating and drinking and also finishing eating half-eaten chocolates. My father and stepmother got drunk on Christmas and decided to take a bite out of every chocolate in a box that was given to them by a neighbor. I have decided that perhaps coming home after Christmas is a wise thing to do. It is so low-stress and much more enjoyable. I hate crowds and I hate shopping. So I did do all my shopping on Amazon but I’m sure that if I’d been here I would have felt that I had to go out and get more done. And get angry.
I have picked up a book. I am only one chapter into it. I have decided that everyone MUST. READ. IT.
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December 24, 2006 at 2:20 pm (holidays)
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Who is there, that singeth so, Noel,
Noel, Noel?
1. I am here, Sir Christhismas,
Welcome, my lord Sir Christhismas,
Welcome to all both more or less; Come near, Noel.
2. A maid hath born a Child full young,
The which causeth for to sing,
Noel.
3. Christ is now born of a pure maid,
In an ox stall He is laid,
Wherefore sing we all at a braid,
Noel.
Make good cheer and be right merry,
And sing with us now joyfully,
Noel.
English carol (one of my two favorites, along with Joseph Lieber, Joseph Mein) circa 1500.
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December 23, 2006 at 9:19 am (bureaucratic bullshit, jobs, work)
Seven months in this place without a single break is SERIOUSLY beginning to wear thin. Not to mention the fact that I work two extra jobs to make ends meet.
I think I may have to return to publishing one of these days, since the job market for librarians is lousy and is probably not going to get any better, owing to the fact that so many library schools are accepting more and more and more people into their programs every year without a job market to go into or a pot to piss in.
I’m working all day today and tomorrow. Probably Christmas mostly alone, although I may spend part of it with a fellow choir member and I got an invitation from a very nice coworker.
I can’t wait to get the eff out of here on Wednesday and go home.
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December 21, 2006 at 11:45 am (work)
these were both from the same person.
Who is Keith Richards?
What is a countertenor?
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December 21, 2006 at 9:58 am (Uncategorized)
Thanks to Chad, with whom I hope someday to host www.mypethornet.com.
This komodo dragon had a virgin birth.
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December 20, 2006 at 5:52 pm (Uncategorized)
OK, I really didn’t realize at all how bad this is. If my mother wanted to fly to New York anytime soon, the next possibility will be late next week. That means that my aunt and uncle are not going to make it to PA at all for Christmas.
2-3 feet of snow already.
Governor Owen called out the National Guard.
Just like in The Shining. Well, OK, no National Guard, but it does make me think of the isolated hotel and no one being able to get to it. Stephen King did live in Boulder, after all, when he wrote it.
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December 20, 2006 at 5:23 pm (Uncategorized)
Tomorrow a bunch of us are going to go see my cousin play Raoul in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. The person who spearheaded this was my mother, who was going to fly from Colorado to New York to see him in the show before he quits at the end of the month.
Unfortunately, my mother is going nowhere. She is snowed in at DIA. She and my stepfather are quite a hike from the airport. My father lives in Denver and would happily pick her up and put her up for the night, but Pena Boulevard is closed and there is no way to get to or from the airport. My mother tells me that they aren’t even providing cots for passengers.
I don’t know what it is about my mother. She seems to attract natural disasters when she travels. She and my father survived not one, but two massive hurricanes in Hawaii in the ’80s.
I guess we had lots of big blizzards on Thanksgiving and Christmas when I was growing up. It never seemed like a big pain to me because I was a kid and because we never went anywhere for Thanksgiving or Christmas: we just always stayed in Boulder.
I am so disappointed I won’t get to see my mother tomorrow and that she’ll miss Carrington’s show. 
As bad as it must suck for my mother tonight, I can’t forget the fact that TWA stranded me for FOUR DAYS in the St. Louis airport in January 1995, owing to fog. We were flying to Hartford, CT, so there was no way we meant anything. The NY kids kept getting to fly out. All four days were comprised of standing in line all day long to get onto the next flight, after one was cancelled. You make friends in situations like that, though, so I would tag team it with the friends I’d made (an elderly couple and their 30-year-old son).
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December 19, 2006 at 7:55 am (people who suck)
So I just got accosted by a woman in the staff bathroom. I don’t know who she is. Anyway, I was opening the door into the bathroom while she was apparently simultaneously pulling it. I didn’t realize this. As I stepped in, she was of course trying to step out, and I wasn’t really thinking about it, except that I just needed to get to a stall to pee.
Then she yelled in my face and said, “EXCUSE ME!!!!!” There was another woman at the sink and she looked up in the mirror like, “Um.” I just kind of shrugged at her, because I was surprised by the woman’s behavior.
Now of course, this isn’t important, but the woman who yelled at me happened to be short and quite ugly (and white). I sometimes get randomly yelled at by short, ugly women who I don’t know. Not entirely sure why.
When I lived in the midwest I sometimes felt like I was rude because I don’t say “excuse me” all the time. I will definitely say it if I actually trip over someone or bump into someone or it’s definitely my fault. But for the average “understood misunderstanding” I don’t think it’s necessary. And while I may be a friendly person and somewhat outgoing depending on my mood, I am not one for basic social gratuities. Maybe I’m just a bitch. I’m not a “good morning” type person — I think I’m actually more of the grunting type. 
Thoughts? Comments?
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December 19, 2006 at 5:26 am (holidays)
I seem to be the only person in my entire generation who still likes multicolored Christmas lights.
To me, multicolored little lights are so much more special than white lights. White lights are used year-round for outdoor and indoor lighting. It’s similar to why I never liked diamonds: they’re boring compared with colored stones (yes, I know there are colored diamonds, but they’re rare-ish and even more expensive).
I also do not understand why so many family trees these days are decorated in a color-coordinated manner. It’s so wonderful to see someone’s tree decorated with keepsakes from generations past. My mother’s tree, for instance. Thank God she hasn’t given in to the white-light fad, like my father and my aunt have. Unfortunately, she can’t put nearly as many lights on it as I would like because her tree is like 20 feet tall every year.
Now here is one tree with white lights that I love. It has white and yellow lights. This is the tree belonging to my fabulous friend Les and his partner, who live in the Hancock Building in Chicago:
One with flash
And one without flash:
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December 16, 2006 at 6:33 am (novelty)
Richard Milhouse Nixon nostalgia is all over the place, from Jenny’s blog to Elizabeth Kolbert’s article about the Clean Air Act and current environmental regulations in The New Yorker.
For years, Esquire magazine had this great feature at the end of each calendar year called The Dubious Achievement Awards. They always had at least one snippet called “Why is this man laughing,” or after Nixon died, “Why is this dead man laughing?” Here is a run-down I found online about this Nixon feature. And here is the picture they always used:
I am not exactly sure what happened to the Dubious Achievement Awards. They were beyond hilarious. They consisted of an actual news item with the punchline as the item’s headline. An example:
Apparently, a fish does need a bicycle
(for when Gloria Steinem got married in 2000 — they used the news clip three times with three different headlines)
In 2001, Esquire decided it would be distasteful to do them for that year. My father and I have looked every year to see if they’ve done them again: apparently they did Dubious Achievements in February of this year but I never saw the issue. I wish they would bring them back for the end of the calendar year.
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