Resorting to bullet points
- At work, my only current task is to read for YA anthology selections; I'm using the time to (mostly legitimately) read Prep, which I figure is not YA lit exactly, but is about YAs and therefore fair game. I'm almost halfway through, and mostly loving it, though I wouldn't say I love Lee Fiora and her self-sabotaging ways. Reading it, I sometimes think, Is this how we are? Girls, I mean?
-
As some of you know, I am the freckliest girl alive. I come by my spots honestly--as my mother points out, between her and my dad, I never had a chance--and they don't bother me much as long as I'm vigilant about the sunscreen. I look on my skin mostly as an excuse to visit my super-nice bow-tie-wearing dermatologist, chat about books while he checks me out, and then go to the fancy outlets in Napa on the way home.
In any case, for many years, I've had a tiny mole on my right eyelid, right on the lash line. Occasionally, for reasons I don't totally get, it ends up in contact with my eyeball, and it rubs a bit. Then it stops. Yesterday, I woke up and it was rubbing a lot, enough that it actually hurt, and my eye wouldn't stop watering. I called the Kaiser advice nurse--what I will do if I ever have to switch health care programs and don't have an advice nurse to lay my problems on, is something I don't care to think about--and she said she'd pencil me in for the opthalmologist to remove the mole. Which: AIEEEE! I'm not squeamish about having moles removed--freckliest girl alive, remember--and I don't mind having my eyes tampered with, but the combination...this sounds like a bad idea to me. Not excited. I have to call them back to choose an appointment time. Ugh.
- I am obsessed with the weekend farm stand across the street from my building. Everything I buy from this guy is incredible. The peaches this summer were the peachiest peaches EVER, and the potatoes in my lunch today were the potato-iest potatoes OF ALL TIME, and yesterday he had Empire apples, which are my favorite hard-to-find-in-California apples. I bought tiny white-and-purple eggplants for tonight's Lebanese-style stuffed eggplant, and can only expect that they will transcend all previous grocery-store eggplant experiences. I am going to be so sad when October ends and he's gone.
- Netflix informs me that I'll be receiving Sydney White in the mail tomorrow, for which I have secretly been waiting an embarrassingly long time.
- I saw
I loved it as an exploration of love and creativity, and the intertwining of the two; it was gorgeous and thoughtful and a scary rumination on the dilemma of doomed love, and maybe on love generally. Unfortunately, my attention span is not totally up to the death-by-consumption genre--it just takes so long! I got a fidgety towards the end, which is probably not ideal.*
Also, Campion is a good writer and has a wonderful eye, and the movie is beautiful, but I didn't care for the rhythm of the scenes--whether it's a directorial decision or an editing thing, I thought many of the scenes ended too early. Some needed more dialogue, I thought, and some just could have used an extra bit of fade-out time to give that sense of closure. It felt choppy.
Abbie Cornish and Paul Schneider were both excellent (HA, Mark Brendanowicz! You are a real ack-tor!), and I expect Cornish to be nominated, rightfully, for something when the time comes. I guess Ben Whishaw was also good as Keats, but mostly he came off as kind of a weenie with hilariously 2000s emo hair. Also, I don't really like Keats's poetry, or any of the Romantics. I am not a luxuriator.
Verdict: Liked it a lot, but would have liked it even better if they'd gotten on with it a bit.
* I may also have lost my focus when Dave coughed during a Serious Consumption Moment and I got the giggles.
-
Mad Men: I'm still way behind, but I wanted to say: Did Pete and Trudy Campbell just do a little choreographed dance at Roger's garden party? Because that is hilarious and, weirdly, so right for who Pete secretly is, or was at some point. I think this is why Trudy married him.
Also, I listened last week to a Fresh Air interview with Matthew Weiner, Jon Hamm, and John Slattery, and now every time I see Jon Hamm as Don Draper, I see what Matthew Weiner saw in him. It's not that he wasn't fantastic before--it's just that I like knowing the backstory, and I think Weiner was exactly right.
The Office: I loved Jim and Michael sharing a drink at the end of last week--now there's the despairingly sweet show I know and love! Also, I like that Jim continues to be a terrible manager, as he always has been. Now: WEDDING TIME. I am unabashedly excited for this. Have you heard Jim's speech in the promo?
Bones: Sad sad sad! And also sort of filler-y, except for Cam and Michelle, which I am willing to grant them.
Community: I'm going to stop watching this show. I don't like it.
Parks and Rec: I'm not going to stop watching this show. I love it.
Fringe: I am...watching this? I'm an episode behind, and I almost can't even say what I like about it, but I do like it. Apparently I would like it more if I saw the end of last season, which hasn't happened yet, but I'm on board.
- On a related note, I folded and started buying up some of the music from Glee. It was the "Maybe This Time"/"Somebody to Love" one-two punch that got me; how did we ever live without Cory Monteith's first note and his cute and surprisingly spot-on Freddie Mercury impression? Also, any embarrassment I may feel about "Gold Digger" is immediately overshadowed by my desire to randomly shout, "WE WANT PRENUP! YEAH!"
- Subpoint: Does anybody actually know anybody with a prenup? Does anybody know any statistics about the divorce rate of marriages with prenups vs. those without? I'm curious.
- Four more days, and then double three-day weekends! I get Columbus Day off, for which I have no concrete plans, and then I'm taking the next Friday off to meet carmen_sandiego and girlunravelled in upstate New York for a weekend of knitting and lounging and eating and a trip to the New York Sheep and Wool Festival. My excitement for this is unspeakable. Hurry up, time!
-
As some of you know, I am the freckliest girl alive. I come by my spots honestly--as my mother points out, between her and my dad, I never had a chance--and they don't bother me much as long as I'm vigilant about the sunscreen. I look on my skin mostly as an excuse to visit my super-nice bow-tie-wearing dermatologist, chat about books while he checks me out, and then go to the fancy outlets in Napa on the way home.
In any case, for many years, I've had a tiny mole on my right eyelid, right on the lash line. Occasionally, for reasons I don't totally get, it ends up in contact with my eyeball, and it rubs a bit. Then it stops. Yesterday, I woke up and it was rubbing a lot, enough that it actually hurt, and my eye wouldn't stop watering. I called the Kaiser advice nurse--what I will do if I ever have to switch health care programs and don't have an advice nurse to lay my problems on, is something I don't care to think about--and she said she'd pencil me in for the opthalmologist to remove the mole. Which: AIEEEE! I'm not squeamish about having moles removed--freckliest girl alive, remember--and I don't mind having my eyes tampered with, but the combination...this sounds like a bad idea to me. Not excited. I have to call them back to choose an appointment time. Ugh.
- I am obsessed with the weekend farm stand across the street from my building. Everything I buy from this guy is incredible. The peaches this summer were the peachiest peaches EVER, and the potatoes in my lunch today were the potato-iest potatoes OF ALL TIME, and yesterday he had Empire apples, which are my favorite hard-to-find-in-California apples. I bought tiny white-and-purple eggplants for tonight's Lebanese-style stuffed eggplant, and can only expect that they will transcend all previous grocery-store eggplant experiences. I am going to be so sad when October ends and he's gone.
- Netflix informs me that I'll be receiving Sydney White in the mail tomorrow, for which I have secretly been waiting an embarrassingly long time.
- I saw
I loved it as an exploration of love and creativity, and the intertwining of the two; it was gorgeous and thoughtful and a scary rumination on the dilemma of doomed love, and maybe on love generally. Unfortunately, my attention span is not totally up to the death-by-consumption genre--it just takes so long! I got a fidgety towards the end, which is probably not ideal.*
Also, Campion is a good writer and has a wonderful eye, and the movie is beautiful, but I didn't care for the rhythm of the scenes--whether it's a directorial decision or an editing thing, I thought many of the scenes ended too early. Some needed more dialogue, I thought, and some just could have used an extra bit of fade-out time to give that sense of closure. It felt choppy.
Abbie Cornish and Paul Schneider were both excellent (HA, Mark Brendanowicz! You are a real ack-tor!), and I expect Cornish to be nominated, rightfully, for something when the time comes. I guess Ben Whishaw was also good as Keats, but mostly he came off as kind of a weenie with hilariously 2000s emo hair. Also, I don't really like Keats's poetry, or any of the Romantics. I am not a luxuriator.
Verdict: Liked it a lot, but would have liked it even better if they'd gotten on with it a bit.
* I may also have lost my focus when Dave coughed during a Serious Consumption Moment and I got the giggles.
-
Mad Men: I'm still way behind, but I wanted to say: Did Pete and Trudy Campbell just do a little choreographed dance at Roger's garden party? Because that is hilarious and, weirdly, so right for who Pete secretly is, or was at some point. I think this is why Trudy married him.
Also, I listened last week to a Fresh Air interview with Matthew Weiner, Jon Hamm, and John Slattery, and now every time I see Jon Hamm as Don Draper, I see what Matthew Weiner saw in him. It's not that he wasn't fantastic before--it's just that I like knowing the backstory, and I think Weiner was exactly right.
The Office: I loved Jim and Michael sharing a drink at the end of last week--now there's the despairingly sweet show I know and love! Also, I like that Jim continues to be a terrible manager, as he always has been. Now: WEDDING TIME. I am unabashedly excited for this. Have you heard Jim's speech in the promo?
Bones: Sad sad sad! And also sort of filler-y, except for Cam and Michelle, which I am willing to grant them.
Community: I'm going to stop watching this show. I don't like it.
Parks and Rec: I'm not going to stop watching this show. I love it.
Fringe: I am...watching this? I'm an episode behind, and I almost can't even say what I like about it, but I do like it. Apparently I would like it more if I saw the end of last season, which hasn't happened yet, but I'm on board.
- On a related note, I folded and started buying up some of the music from Glee. It was the "Maybe This Time"/"Somebody to Love" one-two punch that got me; how did we ever live without Cory Monteith's first note and his cute and surprisingly spot-on Freddie Mercury impression? Also, any embarrassment I may feel about "Gold Digger" is immediately overshadowed by my desire to randomly shout, "WE WANT PRENUP! YEAH!"
- Subpoint: Does anybody actually know anybody with a prenup? Does anybody know any statistics about the divorce rate of marriages with prenups vs. those without? I'm curious.
- Four more days, and then double three-day weekends! I get Columbus Day off, for which I have no concrete plans, and then I'm taking the next Friday off to meet carmen_sandiego and girlunravelled in upstate New York for a weekend of knitting and lounging and eating and a trip to the New York Sheep and Wool Festival. My excitement for this is unspeakable. Hurry up, time!