warning: history
having to go back to work this morning was not as weird as i thought it would be. it didn't hurt that we're having an end of year lull and there wasn't a lot to do. (apparently tomorrow a lot of partners and managing directors are going to some out-of-town conference, so i expect it will be realllly quiet. i'm ok with this. if i type fast i can rush an ending for my nanonovel! oooh.)
because my parents are going home tomorrow, we went out for dinner tonight, and because apparently you can't get good sushi in sarasota (which, what? seriously?), that's what we had. we (and by "we" i mean "mom and i") ordered slightly too much, so i, uh, took the leftovers home. and ate them already. i don't think salmon skin rolls will keep that well, y'know? they won't still be crispy tomorrow, after having spent the night in the fridge. it was nice to have the parental unit back in town, but it won't be weird for them to leave again. i think i've just gotten used to them not being around. is that bad?
yesterday i added enough words to the nanonovel to push it to 52k (yay!) altho i have no idea where to end it. i should figure it out soon, tho. and then last night we TIED at curling, altho it was a very close game so i'm not too annoyed. a guy on the sheet next to us was wearing a utilikilt and i don't understand how his thighs and boyparts weren't freezing. we had a sub, and said sub told me that his wife got sick over the weekend (which is le suck), and that they spent all day saturday sitting on the couch watching all the star wars movies. all seven of them. holy carp, that is a lot of space opera. i was impressed.
saturday i went to the art museum at harvard (technically i think it's three or four museums kind of hooked together), which is free for mass residents before noon! i did not know that! it's a good thing to know. we walked through the mid-century art galleries, which really isn't my thing, and then i discovered the early 20th century and social realism galleries, and that was better. 1930s, 1940s, social critique, wpa [1] photos of dust bowl families - look, it's the 30s, i'm all over it. the photos especially prodded a sleeping plot bunny involving a photographer working for the farm security administration [2] and the dust-bowl-impoverished farmer he meets. i think the wpa (and a lot of new deal programs generally) is totally fascinating and i know there's like a million stories buried in there, and if i didn't already have a bigbang idea i really liked (even if i have no idea how to write it), i'd be feeding this bunny. it's a very dusty bunny but did i mention the 30s?
so, uh, plot bunny free to a good home! involves the dust bowl, the wpa, grinding poverty, despair, the middle of nowhere, and photographers.
saturday night was birthday dinner (tapas!), and my cousin got me a cake stand! which is one of those things i'd never buy for myself but which i still kind of want. it has a ribbon around it, which means a. it's going to be kind of hard to wash, but also b. it's super cute. now i just need an excuse to bake a cake to put on it.
[1] works progress administration, which was one of roosevelt's new deal programs during the depression. it mostly put men to work building shit - roads, bridges, buildings, dams (the hoover dam was a wpa project) - but also included arts programs that (most famously) employed artists to paint murals in municipal buildings, and hired writers and illustrators to put together guidebooks for big cities, and other things i can't think of right now. (i think putting actors to work in the circus was a wpa project.) there's a post office in somerville with a wpa mural.
[2] the fsa was intended to help poor farmers by educating them on better land management and buying really crappy land and resettling the farmers. it also loaned money so tenant farmers could actually buy their own farms. the photography program was basically a bunch of photographers traveling around documenting rural poverty to (i think) help convince the rest of the country that these folks really needed government assistance. one of the most iconic photos from the project is migrant mother, which helped make dorothea lange (the photographer) famous.
because my parents are going home tomorrow, we went out for dinner tonight, and because apparently you can't get good sushi in sarasota (which, what? seriously?), that's what we had. we (and by "we" i mean "mom and i") ordered slightly too much, so i, uh, took the leftovers home. and ate them already. i don't think salmon skin rolls will keep that well, y'know? they won't still be crispy tomorrow, after having spent the night in the fridge. it was nice to have the parental unit back in town, but it won't be weird for them to leave again. i think i've just gotten used to them not being around. is that bad?
yesterday i added enough words to the nanonovel to push it to 52k (yay!) altho i have no idea where to end it. i should figure it out soon, tho. and then last night we TIED at curling, altho it was a very close game so i'm not too annoyed. a guy on the sheet next to us was wearing a utilikilt and i don't understand how his thighs and boyparts weren't freezing. we had a sub, and said sub told me that his wife got sick over the weekend (which is le suck), and that they spent all day saturday sitting on the couch watching all the star wars movies. all seven of them. holy carp, that is a lot of space opera. i was impressed.
saturday i went to the art museum at harvard (technically i think it's three or four museums kind of hooked together), which is free for mass residents before noon! i did not know that! it's a good thing to know. we walked through the mid-century art galleries, which really isn't my thing, and then i discovered the early 20th century and social realism galleries, and that was better. 1930s, 1940s, social critique, wpa [1] photos of dust bowl families - look, it's the 30s, i'm all over it. the photos especially prodded a sleeping plot bunny involving a photographer working for the farm security administration [2] and the dust-bowl-impoverished farmer he meets. i think the wpa (and a lot of new deal programs generally) is totally fascinating and i know there's like a million stories buried in there, and if i didn't already have a bigbang idea i really liked (even if i have no idea how to write it), i'd be feeding this bunny. it's a very dusty bunny but did i mention the 30s?
so, uh, plot bunny free to a good home! involves the dust bowl, the wpa, grinding poverty, despair, the middle of nowhere, and photographers.
saturday night was birthday dinner (tapas!), and my cousin got me a cake stand! which is one of those things i'd never buy for myself but which i still kind of want. it has a ribbon around it, which means a. it's going to be kind of hard to wash, but also b. it's super cute. now i just need an excuse to bake a cake to put on it.
[1] works progress administration, which was one of roosevelt's new deal programs during the depression. it mostly put men to work building shit - roads, bridges, buildings, dams (the hoover dam was a wpa project) - but also included arts programs that (most famously) employed artists to paint murals in municipal buildings, and hired writers and illustrators to put together guidebooks for big cities, and other things i can't think of right now. (i think putting actors to work in the circus was a wpa project.) there's a post office in somerville with a wpa mural.
[2] the fsa was intended to help poor farmers by educating them on better land management and buying really crappy land and resettling the farmers. it also loaned money so tenant farmers could actually buy their own farms. the photography program was basically a bunch of photographers traveling around documenting rural poverty to (i think) help convince the rest of the country that these folks really needed government assistance. one of the most iconic photos from the project is migrant mother, which helped make dorothea lange (the photographer) famous.
