May 21, 2008
I’m not even going to write about American Idol (though i’m happy to say that the one person I voted for consistently, David Cook–who happens to look like my younger brother, only with a bigger head than my younger brother–won. Yay!).
David Cook 
and My brother, Justin
Separated at birth?
Here’s a pic of me and Justin from last Thanksgiving. Anyway, if you want to read a play-by-play of the American Idol finale, check out Ted’s blog.
*
I’d rather talk about the fact that I SERIOUSLY need a dashboard notepad. Where can I get one?
I did a google search but only found this,
which I think is in only sold in the UK.
I write things down in the car ALL the time. It’s been happening more and more lately since I listen to NPR on my way to work– yes, i’ve become one of those people who listen to NPR on my way to work.
I keep pens in the car, but rarely remember to keep paper. So instead I end up writing on gas station receipts. And when I write it’s usually while driving, so I sometimes put the paper on the steering wheel, or I put it on the passenger seat. Either way whatever I end up writing looks mostly like chicken scratch.
Recently on NPR I heard the group Dengue Fever, a Cambodian band that fuses pop and psychedelic 60s music. I was trying to write the name down so I could google them later and what I ended up writing looked like Danke Peter. After school that night when I got home it took me all evening to figure out who Danke Peter was.
Sometimes I get ideas for my book, or for stories or essays, while i’m driving. I commute about 15 minutes each way to work, which isn’t far, but you’d be surprised the ideas that come to me.
Ted says he doesn’t want me to write while i’m driving but can I help it if that’s when ideas come to me?
Wouldn’t he rather I write safely with a dashboard notepad?
If anyone knows where I can get one let me know.
Well, it would’ve been, could’ve been worse than you would ever know.
Oh, the dashboard melted, but we still have the radio.
–Modest Mouse
Posted in cute photos of me, my writing, shopping 
3 Comments »
May 19, 2008
I sent in two different photos of me to see which Celebs I resemble most.
These are the results:
Wayne Knight and I do sort of have the same smile.
I have a little bit of a cleft chin, so I sort of understand the Kirk Douglas… but why is there a 66% connection with Sarah Michelle Gellar?
Any thoughts?
Posted in questions that plague me 4 Comments »
May 18, 2008
It’s official. I now have a green thumb. Or at least a green pinky.
I have at least four tomatoes growing in my garden now!
I, who have never grown more than a cactus in my lifetime, have now brought vegetables to life.
I can’t wait to make a salad with my new tomatoes.
These are called Patio Tomatoes; probably because they grow on the patio, yuk yuk.
This one is my prize-winner. It was the first one that started growing and now it’s HUGE!
This one was the second one to start growing and now it looks like a teardrop.
Here is a veritable salad.
Nothing yet from the Cayenne Pepper plant or the Lemon Tree.
I wish I could also grow artichokes. We had baby arts for dinner last night. MMmm, MMmmm.
Posted in food, my plants 1 Comment »
May 14, 2008
I promise more blog posts this weekend. Just trying to dig my way out of a pit of papers and other work.
In the meantime, isn’t this awesome? I don’t know how I found it; I was surfing the net, reading travel blogs (obviously not doing the work I was supposed to be doing) and somehow this popped up:
Cracked Me Up.
Posted in Uncategorized, cary elwes, travel 1 Comment »
May 11, 2008
This was a very productive weekend, for the most part.
I did a ton of grading (finally caught up after the literary event at the college had set me back), took care of
my three rapidly growing tomatoes (yes, we have 3 now!), did a little note-taking and fleshing out of a character for my novel, and made two new postcards for the latest postdue postcard swap.
Here they are:
This first one is for a woman in Brazil, Indiana, who loves knitting.
And this second one is for a woman in Singapore, who loves, among other things, mermaids (I tried to find some ephemera with Esther Williams on it but, alas, I couldn’t; plus I wondered if she might not get the reference, after all not everyone has been infatuated with the MGM Film/swimming star of the 1940s and 50s since they were eleven, like I was).
Posted in Uncategorized, collage, postcards 1 Comment »
May 9, 2008
Just got a new laptop. Ok, not JUST got a new laptop… more like, got one 3 weeks ago but was so darned busy with school stuff that I only got to setting it up yesterday.
Ok, wait. Ted only got to setting it up yesterday.
I’m so bad with computers.
Anyway. We haven’t yet figured out how to get my scanner working (ok… I haven’t yet figured out… you know what I mean!), so I can’t put up new pics of my rapidly growing Patio tomato. But as soon as it gets set up i’ll do that.
This weekend is going to be a grading, writing, postcard-making weekend. I’m actually excited about getting some projects done (let’s see if I do it, huh?).
I got some awesome discarded books from the library at one of the colleges where I teach and so i’m going to make postcards out of the book covers. Is that bad? Destroying a book? They actually were going to be thrown away, and have stamps on the inside and the spine and the pages that say: Discard. I’m actually going to recycle them, right? I’m going to use the covers, and most likely the pages, too.
I’m not a bad person am I?
Hermia says NO.
Posted in crafts, hermia, ted 2 Comments »
May 4, 2008
That’s the title of a memoir written by the incomparable Marge Piercy. Piercy spoke Friday night at the Literary Arts Festival at one of the colleges where I teach. She was great: cranky, funny, obnoxious, generous– and such an amazing poet. When asked by a student what advice she had for new writers she exclaimed: Read! Read! Read!
Amen.
Sleeping with cats is also what i’ve been doing the last two nights since Ted is in San Francisco for the weekend. With more space in the bed Betsy and Hermia have been flanking me– i’m terrified to roll over on one of them; no matter which way I roll they are right there.
I’ve also been doing some gardening. We don’t really have a yard, but we have a patio and i’ve been tending to the plants. About 6 weeks ago I bought some tomato plants. They were about six inches tall then, but now they are about two feet tall and one is growing a tomato!!! This is the first time i’ve ever grown a vegetable. I’m so exited. It’s called a patio tomato, and will hopefully turn red (it’s pea-green right now–see the pic on the left). I’ve also planted yellow tomatoes and peppers.
Friday I bought a lemon tree and re-potted it. I don’t know how long it will take to grow lemons (the guy who lives upstairs from us has a lemon tree in a big pot and it’s growing these huge lemons), but maybe by the time Ted and I move out of the apartment i’ll be able to plant the lemon tree in an actual yard.
I’ve also got a bougainvillea growing, several cacti and jade plants. You should have seen me out there, re-potting in my little green garden gloves, spraying for bugs, feeding the plants with Miracle-Gro, while Jack and Betsy sat in the sunshine. Here are some pictures of the cats in the ‘garden.’
Jack contemplates the tomatoes
sometimes Jack runs away from me and I have to chase him into other peopless’ patios– he’s especially partial to the patio belonging to the cute, blond, Scandinavian-looking surfer guy next door. Bad Jack! Bad!
Hermia thinks that rolling around in the dirt and grass and filth is detestable.
But she does miss Daddy.
Posted in books, cats, poetry, ted 2 Comments »
April 30, 2008
You may have heard a piercing, high-pitched wail coming from San Diego yesterday; it was just me, turning 39 years old.
39
Sigh.
Yes, 39. But I don’t feel a day over 37. Just kidding.
Actually, I really do feel younger than my 39 years. I feel somewhere close to 32 or 33.
I still wear black converse low tops and wacky t-shirts; blue jeans are my primary pants (does anyone really say blue jeans anymore?). I carry a book bag that has buttons on it– one shows the B-52s, another is a felt patch that says “Wenis.” I have a sort of faux-mullet-haircut (courtesy of that other Peter Pan, Eduardo).
Will I ever grow up?
So how did I spend my birthday yesterday?
I taught my classes and had office hours — at two campuses. Then I drove back to the first campus through rush-hour traffic to go to a Student Reading (part of our Literary Arts Festival). A definite highlight was my buddy Jess, who read a piece titled “The Chemical”– Jess and I read together at the Photobooth Reading (and will be doing it again in June). The other standouts, were, of course, my two students who read their poems.
When I finally got home about 9:30 pm Ted was waiting with champagne, raspberries, and a WW Chocolate Cheesecake he had made himself! What a stud, eh?
We watched American Idol on our brand new WIDESCREEN television (little David Archuletta now looks like a 40 foot Robot).
Natch we voted about a zillion times for David Cook.
And Natch, I bought myself a birthday present:
This AWESOME Calendar from a 1974 beauty parlor (from equally awesome Etsy seller Loubelledejour).
Makes turning 39 just a little easier, no?
**thank you to all who called, texted, myspaced and facebooked me to wish me happy day (that means you felicia, david, jason, jason, jason–I know a lot of jasons, kevin, james, peter, janel, heather and peyton, wendy, syd, laura, drew, my sisters Andrea and Allyson).
Posted in food, shopping, ted 6 Comments »
April 27, 2008
Write now (ha ha, I made a literary joke!) i’m totally into my New Yorkers.
Especially at the gym, which i’ve mentioned before. The elliptical… you know what I mean.
This last week I read the article A Dip in the Cold, by Lynne Cox, about her latest long distance swim through the Northwest Passage near Greenland. It was so completely entralling, gripping, intriguing.
It was featured in the Travel issue (called “Journeys”)– always one of my favorites from the magazine. This is the issue where various writers contribute stories/essays about travel and geography both physical and emotional. This is where I found the essays by Mary Gordon and Nicole Krauss that I teach in my Creative Writing classes.
I love how Cox weaves the amazing history about some of our most notorious explorers, like William Perry, John Ross, and especially Norwegian Roald Amundsen, throughout her own story of swimming through these freezing waters, bumping against jelly fish and with the fear and knowledge that she is the prey of other deadly animals. The last few pages had me completely in their grip:
I paused mid-stroke when I noticed a scarlet jellyfish the size of an apple moving towards me. The tentacles, fire read and thick as spaghetti strands, trailed behind;they were six or seven feet long and I knew that they would hurt if I touched them. As I swerved right, my left hand grazed the dome and I recoiled. Staring down into the sea, I saw hundreds of these red jellyfish. They were beautiful–like flowers blossoming in an underwater garden–and terrifying. I pulled my hands in tight under my body, trying to get higher in the water so that I wouldn’t get stung.
Eeesh!
Today, while doing my 25 minutes on the elliptical, I read about the Penny– the article from the March 31 issue of NYer, titled Penny Dreadful, by David Owen. Such a great essay about, what else, the penny (as the subtitle states: America’s Most Annoying and Useless Coin).
I loved this piece. Come on–the history of the Penny! What’s not to love? It also introduced me to the term–
Seigniorage: The difference between the value of money and the cost to produce it - in other words, the economic cost of producing a currency within a given economy or country. If the seigniorage is positive, then the government will make an economic profit; a negative seigniorage will result in an economic loss.
Seigniorage may be counted as revenue for a government when the money that is created is worth more than it costs to produce it. This revenue is often used by governments to finance a portion of their expenditures without having to collect taxes. If, for example, it costs the U.S. government $0.05 to produce a $1 bill, the seigniorage is $0.95, or the difference between the two amounts.
Brilliant!
Posted in Uncategorized, books No Comments »
April 25, 2008
Amen to that. (did you know Jeff Goldblum was in this movie?)
It’s been such a long week; i’m so glad it’s Friday.
Last night was another function for the Literary Arts Festival that i’m a part of at the college where I teach. The readers were all local/San Diego writers and included:
Jim Miller read from his novel Drift.
his lovely wife Kelly Mayhew who read from Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See
Adrian Arancibia (who did some amazing spoken word poetry)
and Mel Freilicher who read from his fascinating book The Unmaking of Americans: 7 Lives, which looks at the lives of Dorothy Dandridge, Bettie Page, Joey Stefano, Margaret Fuller, Margaret Sanger, Bayard Rustin, Billy Stayhorn, through biography, poetry, and prose. “Fact and fantasy mingle in this work which looks squarely at grave social and personal ills - abuse, prejudice, neglect, and loss - while heralding the intellectual and creative triumphs of seven provocative figures from history.”
One of my favorite parts of the night was during Jim Miller’s reading from Drift, where the character refers to San Diego as
Bland Diego
hilarious.
Posted in books, fiction No Comments »
David Cook 
and My brother, Justin
Here’s a pic of me and Justin from last Thanksgiving. Anyway, if you want to read a play-by-play of the American Idol finale, check out Ted’s blog.
which I think is in only sold in the UK.
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