Archive: November 2006
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Nov 27 06: change
Today was my last day—no, really, I mean it this time—as an editor of textbooks. Somehow I managed to be the last person to leave the office despite this, because I felt the need to finish the chapter I was editing.
Bought a yoga mat on the way home, and then went to Fred’s for a table for one and a dish of mac & cheese. Oh, the hedonism. Upon returning to my apartment I discovered that some spambot has discovered my domain, and is sending out boatloads of spam with variations thereon in the From: line. There were over 600 out-of-office replies, bad-address bounces, antispam verifications, and suchlike waiting in my inbox tonight. New ones arrive every two minutes or so. I wonder how long this will last? Fie upon thee, unknown goatfucker. Fie!
Tomorrow I start the new job, which because I don’t know how constrictive the NDA will be I’m not yet going to say much about here. Most exciting, though. And it won’t be textbooks.
Nov 23 06: field report: minneapolis (3)
Today as we took our walk I got to tell Avery the story of Cinderella and the Three Little Pigs. It involved a Ninja Godmother and the following dialogue:
“Now you’re ready to go to the ball! Be sure to be home by midnight, dear.”
“Midnight? Awwww.”
“Okay, 12:30. But no later.”
Eventually the Magic Shoes were driven mad by the presence of pigs—it was one of the rules: no pigs ever—and Cinderella, in order to get home in time and escape suddenly-gigantic rampaging footwear, caught a cab home. The end. It was one of those stories where you suddenly realize you’ve got more plot ideas in one place than is really healthy. But we had a good time.
It is Thanksgiving. I am thankful for the family in whose arms I am sheltered, and for the family (by blood, by chance, by choice) scattered abroad whom I keep in my heart. I am thankful.
field report: minneapolis (2)
Oh. And last weekend I finished the last of the four major parts of the never-ending Leo. If memory serves, I started working on it one year ago today. (There were long gaps of ignoring it completely; plus I had to turn the back of the sweater into balls of yarn and do it over, because it sucked and I never would have been able to wear the thing if I hadn’t.)
Tomorrow I borrow my sister’s steam iron and block the thing. I intend to have it all seamed up before I go home to NYC. I have never blocked a piece before. If anybody out there has wisdom on steam-blocking to share, now would be the time.
Nov 22 06: field report: minneapolis
There was a moment yesterday when I worried I’d miss my plane. I wandered entirely too close to the devouring vortex of an obsessive episode. Suddenly I really, really needed to know where the little bag that my new Addi Turbo #8 needle came in had gotten to. I had the needle; I’d just misplaced the bag. I didn’t need the bag. The needle was in use, and was likely to remain so for the duration of my trip. But where was the bag? Where? Where where wherewherewhereAIEEEEEE.
But no. I leapt back from the edge, at the last possible moment, and got my sorry ass to the airport. And now here I am.
I got here 24 hours ago, and I can say that thus far suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota is characterized by laughing children and the smell of wood-smoke. My sister moved here at the beginning of August, and this is the first I’ve seen her and her family since. I recognize that in many families a gap of just over three months between visits isn’t so unusual, and may even be considered frequent. That used to be the case with my sister and me, but then she moved to Long Island for a while, and I got used to having her around. It had been far too long.
My niece is now three and a half. Today we made a pear-and-chocolate tart for tomorrow’s dinner. Then we went to the gigantic family fitness center and went swimming in a big pool with slides and fountains. Now it is naptime. This evening we’ll go into the city for dinner. My nephew is just over a year old, and is smiley and delightful. There has been much rolling around on the floor and tickling and suchlike. My niece has gotten into the imaginative stage that brings on speeches like “We’re going to play house now, Uncle Andy. Come sit here. It’s a restaurant. What do you want to eat? You can have a pizza. What kind of pizza do you want? Now you look after the baby. No, now you sit here.” Sooner or later my sister and I will have a chance to sit around and gab, and that will be good too.
Not yet sure how much I’m allowed to say about the job in so public a forum as this. But I start first thing Tuesday morning. Huzzah!
Nov 20 06: exhaling
Oh my god, I got the job.
More details will be forthcoming soon. Right now I have a million things to do as I try to extricate myself from my current gig as quickly as possible.
And I have to do a happy-dance around the room. Maybe more than one.
Nov 17 06: whine and food
The phone rang eventually. Progress, but no resolution. I guess I’m waiting until Monday, then. Aaargh.
In the mean time, though, here’s something to chew on: a foodie does Puebla. Oh my stars and garters, does this make me hungry.
Nov 16 06: this week on csi: chelsea
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. You don’t see this very often, but it happens. You can put your kit away, by the way. This isn’t a crime scene. Death was accidental.”
“Grissom, you’ve got to be kidding. Are you telling me it’s not a homicide?”
“Nah. The guy who called this one in is probably a rookie.”
“But—the brains! This guy’s brains are everywhere! My god, there’s grey matter a quarter-inch thick across the entire desk!”
“Right, but look at this.”
“Huh. Cell phone. I took it for bone fragments.”
“Right. And if we look—here, hold this—if we look at the phone’s incoming call log, what do we see?”
“Nothing.”
“Right. The phone hasn’t rung in over twenty-four hours. I’d say that he was waiting for a call, and it didn’t come in, and—”
“And his head exploded?”
“Yup.”
“Whoa.”
Nov 15 06: hangin’ on the telephone
Ring, damn you, ring!
(Will explain soon. Big Things afoot.)
Nov 14 06: on the lifting of voices
Last night the JCU performed at Carnegie Hall, as part of a leukemia foundation’s annual gala. It’s easy to be blasé about singing there once you’ve done it a few times—until that moment when you walk out on the stage and look out into that magnificent hall and think about all the people who have stood where you’re standing. (And how does one get there? Easiest to take the N/R/Q/W to 57th, but it’s within convenient walking distance of pretty much any subway line.) The NY Pops played the music. Marvin Hamlisch was the special honoree, meaning there were all kinds of famous people there to sing his material: Judy Collins, Robert Klein, Lucie Arnaz, Maureen McGovern (awesome), Brian D’Arcy James, Charles Osgood (!), Liza Minnelli. Liza Minnelli is the most amazing Liza Minnelli impersonator I’ve ever seen. Hamlisch was hilarious. The JCU was better at the dress rehearsal, alas, but I think that even so we managed to be okay.
Meanwhile, in Finland—and haven’t you always wanted to have a reason to write that?—the Helsinki Complaints Choir sings on. As Neil Gaiman points out in the blog-post where I found this, some of it is universal, and some is Finn- and Helsinki-specific; but it’s all fun. (Note that there’s no big surprise at the end after the clip fades to black; just twenty-odd seconds of blackness.)
Maybe, though, dreamy pop-inflected odes to inconsiderate sauna-users and ubiquitous Nokia abuse aren’t what you need right now. Oh, sure, the Finland thing is right, but couldn’t there be more… more shouting?
Your wish is granted. Try the Mieskuroro Huutajat: a whole buncha Finns shouting at the top of their lungs. They’ve screamed at icebound ships; they’ve hollered The Star-Spangled Banner; and now they’re in a documentary that I really really want to see.
Maybe they should appear onstage at Carnegie with Liza Minnelli. Now that would really be something.
Nov 8 06: may I just say
That notate is on that list of words that make a little muscle in my cheek twitch when I hear them? For instance, take the sentence “Please notate the number of tickets requested in the memo line.” (Please.)
The word is note. I will make allowances for notate when describing the act of recording musical notation on staff paper, or maybe when writing up choreography or something, but that’s pretty much it.
further thoughts on election night
Favorite moment of punditry last night? Hearing Paul Begala describe Rush Limbaugh as a “drug-addled gasbag” on CNN. Petty, but satisfying.
Also, I meant to make a schadenfreude pie! And I never got around to it. But given that I would have ended up having to eat it all by myself, it’s probably just as well. Maybe I’ll make one to take into work this week instead.
morning in america
Well, it’s raining in NYC, but the sun is shining in my heart. I am doing the happy dance in my bedroom, naked and with abandon. With abandon, I say.
(I am turning into my mother. I spent last night shouting at the right-wing bloviators on CNN as they tried to convince viewers that the Democratic gains underscored the essential failings of the Democratic party, or some such piffle. Just as well nobody came over, because I’m sure I would have come off as a total loon.)
However. Let me leave off the delirium for a moment to point something out. As previously discussed, the Republican get-out-the-vote strategy was to lure in their voters with ideological bait. Not ready to come on down and vote for our guy? Okay, well, how about if we give you a chance to spit on some queers while you’re at it?
Courtesy of the daily kos, here are some of the ballot initiatives that passed last night:
Colorado
Amendment 43 - Add same sex marriage ban to state constitution (but no ban on civil unions) [43%] 57% Yes; 43% No
Referendum I - Domestic Partner Law [45%]: 45% Yes; 55% NoIdaho
Amendment HJR 2 - No civil unions [39%]: 65% Yes; 35% NoSouth Carolina
Amendment 1 - No civil unions [97%]: 78% Yes; 22% NoSouth Dakota
Amendment C - No civil unions [79%]: 52% Yes; 48% NoTennessee
Constitutional Amendment on Marriage - One man, one woman (civil unions not banned outright) [96%]: 81% Yes; 19% NoVirginia
Prop. 1 - No civil unions [99%]: 57% Yes; 43% NoWisconsin
Referendum 1 - No civil unions [53%]: 59% Yes; 41% No
I know that this, too, shall pass. Someday our nation will look back on this idiocy as a wave of petty, small-souled nastiness. And I know, also, that I can’t just lay this in the laps of the Right. If you look at the numbers it’s clear that there are more than a few Democratic voters who feel it’s important to protect America from the possibility of queers with inheritance rights and access to health-care and visiting their loved ones in the hospital. And not everybody fell for it. Arizona shot down their civil-unions ban. Yay, Arizona. So, having said this, that’s all the irritation I’m going to give this today.
Back to dancing. Then I go to work.
Nov 2 06: something I should say
I was thinking at first I wouldn’t say anything on this topic at all on the blog, but not doing so has turned it into the gorilla standing between me and being able to say much of anything else here. So.
One month ago today I moved out of my apartment, ending a ten-year relationship. It was my decision, and not one I made happily, or lightly, but one that I still think was the right one. Paul and I both want very much to keep our friendship, which is still important to both of us. Thus far that seems to be going okay, hard as it has sometimes been. I think we are both going to be okay. Our friends and families have been as supportive as we could want, and as understanding as I could hope for, under the circumstances; and for that I am grateful.
If you want to reach me, my e-mail is as ever, and you can call me at my cell.
something you should see
This is one of the most moving things I’ve read in a long time; it has haunted me since I first saw it, which was about a month ago. And if you’ve never seen it either—well, now you have.
Against Entropy
The worm drives helically through the wood
And does not know the dust left in the bore
Once made the table integral and good;
And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.
Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,
A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;
The names of lovers, light of other days—
Perhaps you will not miss them. That’s the joke.
The universe winds down. That’s how it’s made.
But memory is everything to lose;
Although some of the colors have to fade,
Do not believe you’ll get the chance to choose.
Regret, by definition, comes too late;
Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.—John M. Ford
Mike Ford passed away on September 25. He was an astonishing writer who could dash things like the above off at a moment’s notice. In the case of this particular sonnet, that’s pretty much what happened. He was a dear friend to friends of mine, and he was a vibrant part of the community at Making Light. I only met him in person the once, but he was as fine and fascinating company as his writing had suggested he would be. He also had truly remarkable eyebrows. This is hardly the only thing he created that stays with the reader for a long time—far from it—but it’s the thing I wanted to share today.