Tuesday Musings (welcome back, self)
Oh, Livejournal, why have I neglected you for so long? I hope you're not the easily offended type. It was nothing personal.
--
When I returned from lunch* today, I caught an elevator up to the fifth floor with a co-worker of mine. She caught sight of the book I'd been reading over my soup and salad. "Hm!" she said, studying the cover. "Looks interesting!" I knew she meant this sincerely -- we'd spent time in a couple of airport bookstores together last year when we went to New Jersey to do language testing at a company that recently was bought by a Croatian company, which was in turn bought by an Icelandic company.
"Have you ever read any Joan Didion?" I asked.
"No, but I've heard a lot about her," she said. "What's this one about?"
"It's a bunch of essays written in the mid 60s," I said. The elevator hit our floor. I wanted to expand on that -- to talk about "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" and how I had made the mistake of reading it to calm my nerves after watching The Deer Hunter and how I've now got the image of the kindergartner on acid that Joan Didion observed in San Francisco paired indelibly with the image of Christopher Walken's Nicky playing Russian roulette in the movie, and then, perhaps, muse with her about whether I'm too easily traumatized by things I see and read, or if the problem is just that too much of the rest of the media-consuming world is too hardened to be as traumatized as they should be by things like The Deer Hunter and the five-year-old who goes to "High Kindergarten" -- but it was time for us to get off the elevator and go back to work.
"Now you're ready to start a revolution, I bet!" my co-worker said to me.
"Hmm, I don't know about that," I said, heading back into my office.
--
I had to work past 7 two days in a row. This is not recommended. At least this evening, I had one of the freelancers helping me out and sharing in my frustration at how the InDesign file for a book called A Tree is Growing seemed to be changing on its own. Another good thing about today is that we were working on Zen Shorts, a fantastic book about three kids who meet a panda named Stillwater who tells them Zen-inspired fables. Besides the beautiful watercolor art of the "real world" coupled with the more inky art of the fables, the best part of the book is when Stillwater is described as speaking "with a slight panda accent." I read that line every work day and just smile and smile.
--
Other things I need to write about in the coming days:
How my parents went on vacation somewhere outside the Southeast (and the country, even) for my mom's 60th birthday. How my wee sister graduated from college and is interviewing for various jobs in insurance. Some interesting houseguests we had this past weekend. Four days I spent alone in the house with Gus. How I withstood the trauma of The Deer Hunter so that I could get the Six Feet Under finale in the mail. The number of times I watched the Six Feet Under finale before finally having to let it go. How my life was being narrated in the voice of David Sedaris. Singing karaoke at a large house owned by a coke-addicted lawyer. A strange outing that ended with my co-workers and me drinking wine by a swimming pool.
Let's hope that these things are more interesting in their actual written-out form than in this curiosity-inducing summary form.
--
* = I made a deal with myself when I started working a full-time desk job that I would take myself out to lunch once a week -- no more, no less. This lunch out disproportionally happens on Tuesdays. Also, I'm very, very picky about where I go, and my choices are already pretty slim: I can go to Subway and risk getting charged a dollar for "extra veggies" when I ask for more than two cucumber slices on my sandwich, or I can go to the Mediterranean fast-food place and get a vegan wrap and falafel that are very tasty at the outset but wind up leaving a vaguely carcinogenic taste in my mouth, or I can go to Panera and wait in line for soup and salad but feel good that the dishes and silverware go to a dishwasher rather than the trash can. Or I can be really extravagant and go to Atlanta Bread Company or Jason's Deli or Eatzi's, all of which have much better vegetarian options than Subway, but also require a drive up the road and through two very major, messy intersections. I can walk to Panera, Subway, and the falafel place. So, if you're thinking that my weekly lunch outing is just as much about daring myself to keep my environmentalist's guilt at bay as it is about eating, then you'd be right.
--
When I returned from lunch* today, I caught an elevator up to the fifth floor with a co-worker of mine. She caught sight of the book I'd been reading over my soup and salad. "Hm!" she said, studying the cover. "Looks interesting!" I knew she meant this sincerely -- we'd spent time in a couple of airport bookstores together last year when we went to New Jersey to do language testing at a company that recently was bought by a Croatian company, which was in turn bought by an Icelandic company.
"Have you ever read any Joan Didion?" I asked.
"No, but I've heard a lot about her," she said. "What's this one about?"
"It's a bunch of essays written in the mid 60s," I said. The elevator hit our floor. I wanted to expand on that -- to talk about "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" and how I had made the mistake of reading it to calm my nerves after watching The Deer Hunter and how I've now got the image of the kindergartner on acid that Joan Didion observed in San Francisco paired indelibly with the image of Christopher Walken's Nicky playing Russian roulette in the movie, and then, perhaps, muse with her about whether I'm too easily traumatized by things I see and read, or if the problem is just that too much of the rest of the media-consuming world is too hardened to be as traumatized as they should be by things like The Deer Hunter and the five-year-old who goes to "High Kindergarten" -- but it was time for us to get off the elevator and go back to work.
"Now you're ready to start a revolution, I bet!" my co-worker said to me.
"Hmm, I don't know about that," I said, heading back into my office.
--
I had to work past 7 two days in a row. This is not recommended. At least this evening, I had one of the freelancers helping me out and sharing in my frustration at how the InDesign file for a book called A Tree is Growing seemed to be changing on its own. Another good thing about today is that we were working on Zen Shorts, a fantastic book about three kids who meet a panda named Stillwater who tells them Zen-inspired fables. Besides the beautiful watercolor art of the "real world" coupled with the more inky art of the fables, the best part of the book is when Stillwater is described as speaking "with a slight panda accent." I read that line every work day and just smile and smile.
--
Other things I need to write about in the coming days:
How my parents went on vacation somewhere outside the Southeast (and the country, even) for my mom's 60th birthday. How my wee sister graduated from college and is interviewing for various jobs in insurance. Some interesting houseguests we had this past weekend. Four days I spent alone in the house with Gus. How I withstood the trauma of The Deer Hunter so that I could get the Six Feet Under finale in the mail. The number of times I watched the Six Feet Under finale before finally having to let it go. How my life was being narrated in the voice of David Sedaris. Singing karaoke at a large house owned by a coke-addicted lawyer. A strange outing that ended with my co-workers and me drinking wine by a swimming pool.
Let's hope that these things are more interesting in their actual written-out form than in this curiosity-inducing summary form.
--
* = I made a deal with myself when I started working a full-time desk job that I would take myself out to lunch once a week -- no more, no less. This lunch out disproportionally happens on Tuesdays. Also, I'm very, very picky about where I go, and my choices are already pretty slim: I can go to Subway and risk getting charged a dollar for "extra veggies" when I ask for more than two cucumber slices on my sandwich, or I can go to the Mediterranean fast-food place and get a vegan wrap and falafel that are very tasty at the outset but wind up leaving a vaguely carcinogenic taste in my mouth, or I can go to Panera and wait in line for soup and salad but feel good that the dishes and silverware go to a dishwasher rather than the trash can. Or I can be really extravagant and go to Atlanta Bread Company or Jason's Deli or Eatzi's, all of which have much better vegetarian options than Subway, but also require a drive up the road and through two very major, messy intersections. I can walk to Panera, Subway, and the falafel place. So, if you're thinking that my weekly lunch outing is just as much about daring myself to keep my environmentalist's guilt at bay as it is about eating, then you'd be right.