Scott Huler recently published No Man’s Lands: One Man’s Odyssey Through The Odyssey. It's a travel book. It's useless, that's all you need to know. But it's got Neal Pollack thinking about his "next remaindered work."
The Sheltering Guy: A Quest To Sleep With All The Male Prostitutes In Tunisia. An unlikely attempt to recreate the mid-life adventures of Paul Bowles.
Random House UK has developed a little game that has something to do with Chuck Palahniuk's Rant. I didn't read it, so I have no idea what the connection is, but ramming cars into other cars is fun.
Marc Hauser, evolutionary psychologist and author of Moral Minds, and filmmaker Errol Morris discuss whether there is a biological basis for morality, Morris's new documentary about Abu Ghraib, and Scared Straight vs the Milgram experiments.
Morris: Well the movie was really, really bad. On the level of craft, I thought: This is just awful. Then someone wrote an article about it. The kids in this program had come from an upper middle class suburb where the recidivism rate is zero. So, now I thought: bad movie and really bad social science. If the recidivism rate is zero, then it really doesn't matter whether they are "scared straight" or not, they are going to "go straight" regardless. And then I thought: really bad morality: Is this how you want to ensure compliance in a society? By scaring people?
The Milgram inoculation is a little bit different. It's scaring people by giving them an example of what they're capable of. It's not by saying: I'm going to take a two-by-four to the side of your head. It's not A Clockwork Orange.
- 12:55 hungry like the wolf #
- 13:09 feeling stressed out about finding my clothes and bridesmen clothes #
- 13:09 feeling stressed out about finding my clothes and bridesmen clothes #
- 14:10 feeling lonely #
- 15:44 hard drive at work is full. making work hard. #
- 15:45 too hungry to ride home, but have to anyway #
Ok, I'm done.
Good grief, it's almost one in the morning!
What, oh what have I been up to today? SO glad you asked.
I had PT today and Eric was at work (not working from home), so I had to drive there. Ouch. Driving a standard sucks. But PT was good. I *am* getting better.
Since I was out and about (ZOMG! Without a chaperone or trained monkey companion animal!), I stopped by Whole Foods and bought some treats - pizza, chips, a muffin. I ate a LOT of food today.
I went outside and lay in the grass and took photos of flowers.
I looked up the etymology of "courgette" and "zucchini."
I cut up some wc paper into 5" x 7" collage grounds. Shouldn't have done that - weird bending. But whatever.
Lots of Diet Coke. Cancels out the fog from the muscle relaxants.
Brought in fresh lilac cuttings from the garden myself. TV room smells awesome.
Watched cats play with a paper grocery sack.
Fielded calls from scam charities, angsty friends and... ok, that was it.
Listened again for a moment to the continuing silence from the gentlemen who have MY version of the purchase and sales agreement for Dad's house. Decide that silence fairly SHOUTS and decide to call a realtor as soon as I'm back on my feet.
Do new PT corrections. Apparently my hip cocks to the left.
Do Sudoku games/problems online. Is it a game, or a math exercise?
Recognize recognizable actors in small parts on Law & Order.
Troll internet for free (and legal - don't get in a snit) MP3s.
Email husband. Contemplate how I'm going to get along without him for four days (he's leaving Thursday for his organization's annual meeting).
Find handful of my own old pics tucked inside a childhood book I liberated from The Excavation, including one of a snowman I made and another of the twelfth birthday party.
Check out jade bonsai instructions on-line.
Break down and download some TV on itunes.
Contemplate the fleeting nature of life and wonder how best to "live each day as if it were my last" when I feel so incapacitated, then fall asleep in the middle of philosophizing.
Consider writing a book - not "Digging Up Dad," but something less wrenching. Come up goose-eggs on ideas.
Tidy up a bit, even though it cost me dearly; lie down with an ice pack.
Wonder what Edward Norton has been up to lately.
Futz with Netflix queue. Pat self on back for remembering how to spell queue.
Surf Etsy for stuff not to buy.
Get irritated at Eric's work all over again for f***ing up the health insurance thing (still don't have proof of insurance. These past two weeks have been Very Bad Weeks for not having proof of insurance.)
Look up info on bloodroot and night-blooming cereus.
Feel sleepy, but not tired. Gods.
Try to eat dinner at the kitchen counter with Eric, but end up on the couch in short order. Dammit. Not healing fast enough.
Realize I'm boring my friends to tears and stop blogging.
If you don't follow me on Twitter, you missed this trio of Tweets on Friday:
wilw @ 09:06 AM May 09, 2008
Kenny Loggins was at the ticket counter near me. The girl checking me in was early 20s and had no idea why her cow orkers were so excited.wilw @ 09:12 AM May 09, 2008
I was unable to see if his destination was the danger zone, but it was clear that he was alright, so there was no need to worry about him.wilw @ 09:25 AM May 09, 2008
I heard that the TSA made him kick off his Sunday shoes, right in front of everybody, but he was cool with it and just cut loose.
I am easily amused, and so totally hands-on-hips proud of my stupid self.
Our "esteemed" Governor actually signed a bill today that will allow wine sales over the internet into Georgia.
The jackass won't let us vote on Sunday sales, but he allows internet wine sales.. uhm...... okay.
It's a start, I guess.
YouTube video leads to MARTA arrest | ajc.com
MARTA officials said they have arrested Nafiza Ziyad, 25, as the result of an online video in which a young woman appears to be threatening an elderly woman on a MARTA train. The video, posted on YouTube two weeks ago, has drawn more than 7,000 comments on the site and been viewed 600,000 times.
Crrrrrrrrrrrrreeepy stuff, brings it all right back for me. Extra creepy is that the second clip with the outdoor furniture moving around looks a LOT like footage from Ghost Hunters :)
- endroit:Atlanta, GA 30303
- humeur:
scared
Well I'm in baghdad, and I'm alive. That's about all I can say on that. I've finished another two of my master's degree classes, bringing my total up to 9/12. And no, Susan, they are not underwater basketweaving :P .. at least, not all of them.
Tonight's bit of personal drama comes from confirmation of something I'd been thinking for weeks - Ashley's started dating someone else. I had to find out through someone that wasn't her which makes me a bit sad. Even though I broke up with her, even though I wish her nothing but happiness - sunshine, kittens and all, there's a certain sting to knowing that someone else makes someone you care about happy. You feel... less special. And, in this case, I feel that much more alone.
Being deployed is like being in stasis. I tried to explain this to a friend a few nights ago - it's like you're frozen in a block of ice, through which you get to watch the world move around you. Everyone moves on with their lives, and you sit there wanting to do all of the same things, but you can't. You just feel the time, life slipping away, like blood from a small, but never clotting wound.
And so you work.. 12, 14, 16 hours a day to keep from thinking about it. And if you're doing something productive, it can all seem worthwhile. You forget about the wound and focus on building something - anything - that you can claim makes it worth it.
But, instead, when you're bashing your head against a wall, over and over again, blocked by bureaucracy and ensnared by redtape at every turn, unable to even make proper use of your time in captivity, it can just seem pointless. And all you can do is sit there and bleed.
So the biggest news is that we bought a car. A Honda-Certified Accord with 70K from Carland over on Alpharetta Highway. Pretty good experience. It's Jeremy's car; I will drive the Impala till it dies or doesn't run without thousands of dollars in repairs at a regular clip. We financed with Delta's credit union and that was an awesome experience. I got a terrific rate!
I also got my hair done. The wife of an employee of my restaurant has done magnificent, bold color work on some of the employees, and so I trusted to go see her at Ecotage in Macy's at Lenox. She corrected my stripes (the red I went in January, the blond that my roots turned when I went again in March to return to normal, and the brown roots that have grown in since then). I am now a lovely natural dark blonde with surfer blonde highlights around my face and part. It's not exciting! color but it's pretty enough that Idon't have to wear make-up if I don't want to. And that's nice.
My two days off for this week have come to an end. I begin what I hope to be a great week at work. I don't have a lot of home progress to show for the days, probably because I drove Atlanta so much. I did get to spend about three hours in Inman Park yesterday at the park next to the Marta station, reading, writing letters, and appreciating this lovely weather. I am trying to make a point to read my magazine subscriptions outside during the waking hours. It's a bargain with myself.
The remains of my to-do list, if you're curious
call a plumber to look at all the commodes
get the new car registered (?)
homework assignments from Wendy
pay bills
watch Juno and Darjeeling Limited
My boyfriend and I are moving out of our super-duper cramped 2 bedroom apt into a nice huge lots-of-house 3 bedroom house. :D I'm lazy and refuse to move my crap by myself again (I've done that way too many times the past few years), so I was wondering if anyone could recommend a mover? Good experiences? Bad? People to stay the hell away from?
Thanks much!!
- endroit:Buford
- humeur:
calm - musique:Seether
I hope that I'm only days behind on this, and not weeks or months.
(Marginally NSFW in an 8-bit kind of way. Also, language.)
I'm going to make a not-so-shocking confession: I love Scarlett Johansson.
I realize that it's a tremendously controversial position to stake out, especially when you've read my blog for all of one post and have firmly affixed yourself to the idea that I hate women, but there it is. I admire the hell out of her acting, she's painfully beautiful, and in all her interviews she comes across as carefully sculpted out of pure awesome. In my dreams, I see the two of us alone in my golden submarine, while up above the waves my doomsday squad ignites the atmosphere.
Anyway, she's done an album of Tom Waits covers that I like an awful lot.
Sayeth Listening Post:
Combine Esquire's "sexiest woman alive," the much-loved music of Tom Waits and producer Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio fame with guests like David Bowie and members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Celebration, and you have pretty much the perfect recipe for a much-anticipated release.
Her label, Warner Music, has partnered up with imeem to let all of us unwashed masses listen to the album in its entirety before it is released later this month. Bully on WMG for embracing all of us onliney listening types, instead of treating us like criminals:
This album isn't for everyone, and comments at Listening Post are 100% hating on it. Eliot says, "I can't get behind every track on the album ('Fannin Street,' for instance, is a bit of a dirge)". I'm not crazy about "I wish I was in New Orleans," but I like a lot more of the album than not. It feels haunting and lush, with Big Sonic Heaven candidates throughout. If you enjoy Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Massive Attack, My Bloody Valentine or Portishead, I think it's worth a listen.
Even if you don't like it and want your five minutes back after a couple of tracks, I hope you'll join me in applauding a major label for embracing this model. I hope this represents a step toward sanity from the recording industry mafia.
We dined at Parish Sunday night — I’ll be reviewing it soon — and the place was packed. It’s a beautiful space. There’s just one problem: If you’re handicapped, you’re not going to eat there — at least not in the main dining room.
There is no way into that part of the restaurant that doesn’t require using stairs. My bad knees make it very difficult for me to walk down stairs, while I have little trouble walking up them. I got in, but, when I went to use the restroom, I discovered that it’s down a steep flight of stairs.
A server told me that an alternative to the stairs was going to the back of the restaurant by way of an inclined sidewalk and entering through the deli section called Parish Market. That’s a lot of trouble to use a bathroom.
As far as access to the main dining room if you’re in a wheelchair, forget it. Another server told me that people who cannot negotiate the stairs have to eat downstairs in the market, which, granted, is a convivial, attractive space itself. But…I’m just saying.
I looked up the American Disabilities Act and found that Parish does qualify for exemption, but it’s disappointing the restaurant didn’t find a way to better accommodate handicapped folks.
Since I’m complaining, here’s another one: valet parking. Last night, we ate in a restaurant with a very large, very sparse parking lot. Nonetheless, we were expected to use the valet. I refused and the valet rolled his eyes so hard I could hear them clattering. But why should I turn the keys to my car over to a valet and tip him $5, if there’s a parking space 10 feet away?
(Photo of wheelchair-bound Blanche Hudson and Baby Jane Hudson in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane from MovieMail.)
Sticky Pages
Okay, I’m a little scared of today’s Sticky Pages. Mainly because I’m just a little scared of the book. However, the author is Ian Kerner. He wrote the profoundly important, She Comes First, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. I have since considered making my presidential choice based on the candidate who comes out in favor of every tax paying American getting, not economic stimulus checks, but rather, a copy of Kerner’s seminal work.
The book today is Sex Detox. It has a hot pink cover, which I’m naturally drawn to because I’m a woman and my X chromosomes condition me to believe all books with pink covers are meant to enhance my life without putting too much pressure on me to think about stuff, like character development, or language, or plot, or stuff other than shopping and rich men. And high-heeled shoes.
My life would be so much richer if Penguin would just release their classics with pink covers.
So Sex Detox. Kerner is saying that by not having any sex for a month, you’ll have greater sex when the month is over. And he has all of these scientific studies to back it up. The book is filled with exercises and tests and journal ideas to keep you busy for the month. He encourages exercise and a good diet to improve your sex life (I recommend pomegranate cocktails -- antioxidants and social lubricant!). And, of course, visiting his website, www.iankerner.com.
Because I’m a girl, and the only tests at which I excel are about relationships, I’ll excerpt a few questions from one of Kerner’s quizzes. This one is to determine How Toxic Is Your Sex Life?
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