Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Have I mentioned I like tea?
I just got my refund check from the federal government and along with some jeans and a pair of sensible shoes, (and a few payments to the demon overlords known as Sallie Mae) I will be feeding my tea habit with a selection of samples from Special Teas and Adagio Teas. So tomorrow (which is my birthday, by the way) I think I'll indulge myself in a little tea porn - pots, kettles, cups, strainers, and storage tins included, of course. If you find you can't get in touch with me it's because I'm sitting in a dark room salivating over some tippy assams.
Is tomorrow my birfday? I gotta find a calender. Last night my mom was super-convinced it was Wednesday. After she corrected herself twice she got excited because the Lost season finale was on in two hours and I said, "Mom. It's still Tuesday." Gosh, she's funny. I had to give her a big kiss after that. With the two-hour Lost season finale on tonight, we will not see who wins American Idol. I'm pulling for Taylor, but honestly, since Chris got knocked off I've lost interest. He was great at making the eye babies. Oh, and he sang nice, too.
I finally sat down and got to work this morning. This computer actually has Word now, which is great because now I can like, space my lines and figure out how many pages I have and stuff. I pulled up this 27-pager I'm only about two-thirds finished writing and I realized something: I hate it. I hate its guts. Everything that I used to think was innovative and interesting and insightful is now gimmicky and childish and full-on hackery. I feel like I need to forget everything and start all over again. Which is basically how I feel about everything I write after a while. It's kind of like a fucked-up romance. Eventually I get my head on straight and can look at my work with an objective eye and not the "Everything I do is complete shit" eye, and see it's real merits and where I can improve. It's just that right now I think the entire thing needs an overhaul from top to bottom and I don't know where to start. Eh, if I give it two weeks I'll probably be in love with it again. Such is the life of a writer.
I'm off to Borders in a few minutes with the wonderful Miss Tracy, where I will most likely buy a book or two and possibly an overpriced pastry and/or coffee drink of some kind. Refund check you know. And Amy, I got your card in the mail today. It is so precious. I love you!
Is tomorrow my birfday? I gotta find a calender. Last night my mom was super-convinced it was Wednesday. After she corrected herself twice she got excited because the Lost season finale was on in two hours and I said, "Mom. It's still Tuesday." Gosh, she's funny. I had to give her a big kiss after that. With the two-hour Lost season finale on tonight, we will not see who wins American Idol. I'm pulling for Taylor, but honestly, since Chris got knocked off I've lost interest. He was great at making the eye babies. Oh, and he sang nice, too.
I finally sat down and got to work this morning. This computer actually has Word now, which is great because now I can like, space my lines and figure out how many pages I have and stuff. I pulled up this 27-pager I'm only about two-thirds finished writing and I realized something: I hate it. I hate its guts. Everything that I used to think was innovative and interesting and insightful is now gimmicky and childish and full-on hackery. I feel like I need to forget everything and start all over again. Which is basically how I feel about everything I write after a while. It's kind of like a fucked-up romance. Eventually I get my head on straight and can look at my work with an objective eye and not the "Everything I do is complete shit" eye, and see it's real merits and where I can improve. It's just that right now I think the entire thing needs an overhaul from top to bottom and I don't know where to start. Eh, if I give it two weeks I'll probably be in love with it again. Such is the life of a writer.
I'm off to Borders in a few minutes with the wonderful Miss Tracy, where I will most likely buy a book or two and possibly an overpriced pastry and/or coffee drink of some kind. Refund check you know. And Amy, I got your card in the mail today. It is so precious. I love you!
Labels: Good News Everyone, The Thesis That Ate Hoboken
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Or Massachusetts, as we like to call it here in the motherland. When my mother showed up at my house on Long G'Island, I seriously did not think that all my shit was going to fit in the back of her Tribute, but we managed to pack it in with room to spare. Although, I did forget to leave my key, which is understandable because I never used the damn thing. We never could get the lock on the front door to work. When we left it was sunny and cool with a nice oceany breeze blowing. We stopped at Orlando's Cafe, this little sandwich shop in Hampton Bays, for a lunch of soft tacos that mom really liked. If the Hamptons were good for only one thing, it certainly made up for all those bad meals she had when she was in Frederick.
The drive was lovely all the way up the North Fork through the wine country. I don't know why, but we started pointing out wisteria and particularly large lilac bushes to each other, and, of course, I had to slip in a little of my newly acquired (horticultural? arboreal?) tree smarts in. Like, "Hey, see that tree? That's a red bud. They come in weeping varieties, too." We even stopped at a farm stand and bought some fresh spinach and string beans. About half way across the Sound it began raining. What a shitty little ferry. I'd include a link to a picture of the Carribean, but the runty little fucker isn't even on the Cross Sound website. The closest is the North Star, but that thing looks like a Carnival cruise ship compared to the row boat we boarded. The worst part was that we had to back up and my poor mum couldn't see over all my crap, but we managed to back off without creaming any of the crew against the guardrails.
I was passed out through most of CT. My wonderful friends from work, Paula, Lynn, and Chris, threw me a going away party at the Publick House in Southampton and afterwards the roomies and I went for one last round of fooseball at the Tide, so I was up until about two am the night before. Also, I was working up a pretty decent head cold. I woke up just in time for the downpour in RI. And it didn't stop. The first five hours of Mother's Day were spent vaccuming six inches of water out of the sump pump hole in the basement(the pump looked like an archaeological artifact, it was so corroded), taking about ninety seconds to dump the water into the shower that the previous owner put down there, only to come back to find the water at the top again. Four trips to Home Depot and about 150$ later, Brian did a little guerilla plumbing and got the new sump pump installed. So then all we had to do was go downstairs every hour or so and suck up the water seeping out of the walls. Along with the flowers and candies I had sent to her from Harry and David for Mother's Day, my mom also got a new sump pump installed (she was seriously giddy with delight) and after hearing her complain about how lifting the shop vac over the lip of the shower was killing her back, I taught her how to dead lift.
We were seriously lucky. The pictures taken in Peabody are less than a mile from my house. Thank god I live in Witchcraft Heights. All the old mill towns were flooded and everywhere they were (and still are in some places) talking about the collapse and possible collapse of bridges and dams. A major sewage line busted. And the Merrimack is like one big toilet, sweeping all this garbage out to Newburport and dumping it on Plum Island. The shellfish beds in the Gulf of Maine are going to be closed for quite some time, I'll wager. And still, this being New England, you still hear fairly frequently, "Thank god this wasn't snow."
The drive was lovely all the way up the North Fork through the wine country. I don't know why, but we started pointing out wisteria and particularly large lilac bushes to each other, and, of course, I had to slip in a little of my newly acquired (horticultural? arboreal?) tree smarts in. Like, "Hey, see that tree? That's a red bud. They come in weeping varieties, too." We even stopped at a farm stand and bought some fresh spinach and string beans. About half way across the Sound it began raining. What a shitty little ferry. I'd include a link to a picture of the Carribean, but the runty little fucker isn't even on the Cross Sound website. The closest is the North Star, but that thing looks like a Carnival cruise ship compared to the row boat we boarded. The worst part was that we had to back up and my poor mum couldn't see over all my crap, but we managed to back off without creaming any of the crew against the guardrails.
I was passed out through most of CT. My wonderful friends from work, Paula, Lynn, and Chris, threw me a going away party at the Publick House in Southampton and afterwards the roomies and I went for one last round of fooseball at the Tide, so I was up until about two am the night before. Also, I was working up a pretty decent head cold. I woke up just in time for the downpour in RI. And it didn't stop. The first five hours of Mother's Day were spent vaccuming six inches of water out of the sump pump hole in the basement(the pump looked like an archaeological artifact, it was so corroded), taking about ninety seconds to dump the water into the shower that the previous owner put down there, only to come back to find the water at the top again. Four trips to Home Depot and about 150$ later, Brian did a little guerilla plumbing and got the new sump pump installed. So then all we had to do was go downstairs every hour or so and suck up the water seeping out of the walls. Along with the flowers and candies I had sent to her from Harry and David for Mother's Day, my mom also got a new sump pump installed (she was seriously giddy with delight) and after hearing her complain about how lifting the shop vac over the lip of the shower was killing her back, I taught her how to dead lift.
We were seriously lucky. The pictures taken in Peabody are less than a mile from my house. Thank god I live in Witchcraft Heights. All the old mill towns were flooded and everywhere they were (and still are in some places) talking about the collapse and possible collapse of bridges and dams. A major sewage line busted. And the Merrimack is like one big toilet, sweeping all this garbage out to Newburport and dumping it on Plum Island. The shellfish beds in the Gulf of Maine are going to be closed for quite some time, I'll wager. And still, this being New England, you still hear fairly frequently, "Thank god this wasn't snow."
Labels: Out and About
