Living in a flat in the U-S-A
# 26 Jul 2008, 12:22PM: If Only: Leonard reported seeing a guy with an Open Planning Project tee moving into our building. I garbed myself in my oldest EFF tee and went to welcome him. Turned out he was just helping a friend move out. Blah!
# 22 Jun 2008, 10:02PM: The Invalid Coughs Piteously:
Am siiiiiiick. Leonard characterizes my amount of whining as "not more than is seemly" and has been providing very homemade chicken noodle soup (seriously, made noodles from scratch and turned a whole dead chicken into soup) as well as tea and whatnot. Napped extensively, reread Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller and watched some over-the-top Psych. I should construct a Grand Unified Theory of Easy-To-Digest Media For The Sumana Sickbed. Criteria include: funny, not too original, happy ending.
Funny typo in my incoming email: "Sumana: Thanks for conforming." I'm assuming he meant "confirming" but why risk finding out what he really thinks of me?
# 19 Jan 2007, 11:58AM: Not-So-Durable Goods:
OK, a few NYT links and then a commentary. Paris and relationships, anorexia and struggle, and Michael Lewis's classic "The Satellite Subversives". Oh, and I'll also throw in Adam K.'s Clifford Pickover parody for no good reason. ("You stomp your right foot in fury, reaching for your cup of delicious coffee. You only drink the best coffee, Jamaican Blue Mountain beans imported for forty dollars per pound.")
So now: "Ordeal by Appliance: Weekend Home Tales" from today's NYT. I had to call Leonard to tell him this line: Basically this story is a tale of the New York Times Least Needy Cases, mixed with a "My 3 friends = trend" piece. As Leonard put it, this is a story of people so rich that they own a summer home, and so rich that they buy high-end kitchen appliances for that home -- rich times rich equals megarich. Given that we have a lot of acquaintances, I suggested that we might know someone who has a dacha, and Leonard momentarily thought that Dacha was a brand name.
Now that the desperation of rich people has been brought to light, I figure it's only a matter of time before savvy appliance-service entrepreneurs find a way to squeeze the market with high-end service in summer-home spots at ridiculous prices. Leonard suggested that they charge for travel time, which seems eminently reasonable.
Leonard had another point, though: these people are trying to get old-school high-end country living, which basically requires live-in servants, but we don't really do that anymore in the US unless you're really rich. You can't afford a live-in maid, and you certainly can't afford a live-in appliance fixer. The labor is too expensive and too specialized.
Another unanswered question: Why are these high-end appliances such crap that they're breaking all the time? Possible answers: they aren't actually, it's just a few anecdotes (Leonard); they're shiny gadgets meant more to impress than to work reliably (Sumana); improper use by wealthy idiots (Leonard); installation in creaky old houses with weird pipes, electricity, water, etc. that's not up to code (Sumana); unhealthy patterns of use, like "unused for 9 months then continuously working for 3" (Leonard).
One woman, tired of her Viking dishwasher breaking every December when guests came by, said, "We finally ripped the dishwasher out and replaced it with a KitchenAid." Not only will she get parts and service more easily, it probably won't break as much, even though it's cheaper. Reliability (like usability, and shipping) is a feature! Shouldn't a huge, top-of-the-line investment in a durable good come with top-of-the-line maintenance service that will fly or drive to you to ensure that feature? My coworker's horrible experiences with Mercedes amaze me in much the same way. How can a company invest so much in a brand, then let it slip away in the follow-up?
A last note. From the article: Leonard's response: "Oh my God! The village is on Fire! Island."
Together they collect their clients' complaints like fireflies in a jar until it is bright enough to shine beacon-style in the direction of mainland service providers.
Consider the extreme plight of second-home owners in Saltaire, N.Y. The village is on Fire Island off the south shore of Long Island.
# 24 Sep 2006, 11:20PM: The Science of Sleep:
Leonard and I just saw the new Gondry film. He liked it more than I did, although I found it quite beautiful visually. I remember that I used to have more empathy for mentally ill protagonists, or flawed ones at least. American Beauty, Housekeeping, House, Enterprise....over time I just get more irritated with main characters who don't stop being self-destructive, or who hurt others.
On the other hand, I'm reading a book of short horror stories by Joe R. Lansdale. I've historically shied from horror, but a worker at Borderlands recommended this to me, and I'm enjoying it. I used to avoid horror books and movies because I was afraid they'd cause nightmares. At least that's one thing I'm not afraid of any more.
The upcoming Emma Thompson/Will Ferrell movie looks neat. Curiously enough, given its premise, it involves neither a Kaufman nor a Gondry.
# 14 Aug 2006, 07:08AM: Miscellaneous:
On Saturday Leonard and I (and some Fog Creek people) visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I got to see a Georges de la Tour that I'd long admired. I especially love this detail of a woman's face. In other art news, a print of The Death of Jennifer Sisko now hangs in our living room.
Learning to listen, learning to interrupt. I used to interrupt far too often; I've gotten better about that. Now that I work in tech and almost all my colleagues are men, I have to learn to keep talking when it's my turn.
Shukr provides modest clothes and tries to treat its workers well. Wouldn't an Underwriters Labs/kosher-type certification for modest clothes be cool? LDS, Muslim, bashful, etc. people could check it when shopping. But different denominations and levels of reserve would call for different thresholds on skin coverage, tightness, conservatism in color and plumage, etc. And big-busted women will always find it difficult to find tops and dresses that don't call attention to bosomage.
What in the world is going to happen with China? We bet that engagement would lead to democratization. Were we wrong? DeLong and his commenters puzzle over that billion-person question mark.
# 29 May 2006, 02:40PM: Leonard Quote:
I asked, in our incredibly hot apartment, "Why are only some of your [shirt] buttons buttoned?"
Response: "Oh, I take life as it comes."
# 06 May 2006, 02:45PM: Freaking Mouse: Aaaaargh. I hate hate hate having a mouse in the apartment. I don't know what's worse, seeing it or not knowing where it is.
# 20 Jan 2006, 01:20PM: Moved!: Huzzah for having moved. Huzzah for ABF U-Pack and for LaborReady. Huzzah for easy access to a subway station and to cheap restaurants that deliver. And a giant huzzah to Leonard for not only following me to New York but doing almost all the heavy lifting.
# 18 Jan 2006, 01:01PM: The Golden Ticket:
I signed a lease on an apartment in Astoria, in Queens. Astoria feels like San Francisco's Ingleside/West Portal with a bit of the Mission, only lots of Greek instead of lots of Spanish. Many thanks to Fog Creek and to John for their instrumental roles in getting me the place.
The shipping container gets delivered Friday morning; anyone in NYC want to help me move boxes for an hour?
I am getting used to the tradeoffs of living in New York. Various protocols are byzantine and efficient. One enters it after many players in all the markets have brutally competed and iterated through a lot of opportunities and loopholes, and though "[i]t is usually incorrect to believe that you are on the efficient frontier", businesses in NYC seem nearer the efficient frontier than in other cities I've visited.
The best preparation I had for living in New York was probably living in St. Petersburg for a summer and visiting Tokyo for two weeks. I learned how to get out of people's way.
In conversation, Adam and I decided that living in New York City is a skill with a big learning curve, like knowing Unix. Many people use it all the time without really mastering it, which is fine, because you only need to know the bits you use. And having a goal, or a set of tasks to accomplish, directs and facilitates one's study.
Off to change my address in a billion places.
# 06 Jan 2006, 11:16PM: A Long Goodbye:
A zillion people, including people who never worked with me or are no longer at Salon, came to my goodbye lunch at Taylor's Automatic Refresher and my goodbye party at Town Hall (a restaurant/bar on Howard). I was touched.
This weekend: a zillion people want to come over, to see us one last time before we go, to help us move boxes into other, larger boxes, to buy us dinner and drinks, to give back borrowed books and take away unwanted furniture.
We are so busy, so frazzled, and so lucky.
I'm listening to Vienna Teng and to the William Shatner/Ben Folds collaboration. I'm watching the house empty, pouring my life into cardboard boxes, keeping track of a thousand details, and convincing myself (with Leonard's help) that it'll all be okay.
Maxine Hong Kingston wrote in The Woman Warrior that it's tough to distinguish the layers of one's heritage. What comes from your parents, and what from theirs, and what from your village, and what from being your ethnicity, and what just from your own idiosyncratic history?
Saying goodbye is like that. All at once, I say goodbye to Salon, and to my loose affinity with Berkeley, and to BART, and to Northern California, and to almost all my friends, and to San Francisco, and to the futon I've had since 1999, and to the comfy brown chair I've had since 1991....
The rituals help. I sent the mass email, Subject: Farewell. There will be more. It's never enough.
# 26 Dec 2005, 09:09AM: Request For Help: There is one piece of sentimental-value furniture (a large dresser) that needs to get moved down to Leonard's mom's house in Bakersfield, and we'd pay to get that moved. If you know someone with a pickup truck who regularly travels between San Francisco and Southern California, please let us know.
# 23 Dec 2005, 10:10PM: Collections Of Links For Advice:
Book-shipping advice from one who knows!
The Moving Scams website is being very helpful to me in finding a way to get stuff across the country.
Note to self: join MeFi and ask this user and this user for moving-to-NYC advice, based on hints they've dropped in some threads.
Leonard and I need a two-bedroom in Queens or Brooklyn with a non-awful commute to midtown (Fog Creek is on 8th Avenue around 37th St.). We'll be looking in all the usual places: Craigslist, etc. If you have special magical knowledge of a place with the below-mentioned criteria, please let me know.
Apartment criteria listed in descending order of importance:
Under $1800/mo
2 bedrooms
Brooklyn (Park Slope? Sunset Park?) or Astoria in Queens
<= 5 minute walk from subway, 10 minute walk maximum
<= 3 blocks to full service grocery store
Low crime neighborhood
Washer/dryer in building
Low street noise at night, preferably during day also
Dishwasher
Big kitchen
Well-lit by natural light
Part of house rather than apartment building
Gas range rather than electric
<= 10 minute walk to restaurant clusters
Known responsive landlord
Little or no vermin problem
On first floor of building
Things that are okay:
1 bathroom
Small apartment building (< 6 units)
Open questions
How much storage space?
# 21 Dec 2005, 11:39AM: Big Giant Announcement:
I have been extraordinarily fortunate in the caliber of the institutions that have employed me since I left college. I did a tour as a retail warrior at Berkeley's landmark of literacy, Cody's Books. I've now worked for more than two and a half years at another incredible institution -- I'd been reading Salon Magazine for years and couldn't believe it when they called me for an interview, much less hired me.
I've been reading Joel Spolsky's weblog for years and he's consistently given me new ways to look at software, economics, psychology, and a mess of other fields. So I applied for the Fog Creek Software Management Training Program and Fog Creek has done me the honor of accepting me.
Fog Creek's office is in the Fashion District (a.k.a. the Garment District) of Manhattan, in New York City. Within the next month, Leonard and I will sell and give away a lot of belongings, pack, and find and move into an apartment, probably in Brooklyn or Queens, with a reasonable kitchen.
It's all happening fast, but it was prefigured long ago.
Please email recommendations, advice, and congratulations.
Paulina, my roommate at the time: "You could go to New York and try to make it big."
Last month:
Me: "Oh, that's so twentieth-century."
In other cycle hypotheses, many smart suburban/small-town/small-city Californians I knew went to Berkeley, then moved to San Francisco, and are now moving to New York. I assume they will then move back to smaller towns to have kids.
# 27 Nov 2005, 08:29AM: Column and Moving Sale:
MC Masala this week recounts the tale of the one and only hickey I've ever gotten.
Also, my friends Steve and Alice Shipman are selling stuff at great prices so they don't have to move it across the country. (Bah to friends moving great distances away! But huzzah for neat opportunities and cheap airfares!) There is awesome stuff.I gibbered that it was a bug bite and looked, pleading, at the nurse. She saw the desperation in my eyes.
# 24 Nov 2005, 10:59AM: Nonexistent Shirt:
Sumana: Should we dress up for Thanksgiving at your uncle's?
Leonard: No, we don't need to dress up.
Sumana: OK. I'll put on my ripped Poison t-shirt, then.
# 23 Oct 2005, 10:40PM: Decluttering:
This week's MC Masala focuses on how to make more from less.
Completely unrelated: Libelous Claims About Large Corporations is a comic strip/blog sort of in the fashion of Spamusement!, but also like that other stick figure one with stories of a cat and a grandmother and whatnot.
Some people may react to a nomadic past by living lightly, keeping only enough possessions to fit in two suitcases for quick getaways. I lived with someone like that, whose room resembled the cell of a secular monk. I would peek in, awed.
# 17 Oct 2005, 01:14PM: Decision Procedures:
When I go to a restaurant, I limit myself to choosing from a fraction of the offerings at that restaurant. I have made one very big decision (continuing to be vegetarian) that frees me from many tiny decisions throughout my daily life. It is much easier to choose among four equally appealing options than among fifteen. Since I live in an area where restaurants always have a few vegetarian options, I don't lack for variety, but I space the variety out among meals.
Sometimes, I'll go to Greens, or Herbivore, or Golden Era, and find myself gobsmacked at the choices available to me. Just as, after turning 21, I had to rerender my map of the world, reminding myself of each bar I passed that I could enter it freely and legally, I stare at the Lucky Creation menu for minutes, trying to accustom myself to the concept that I could eat anything on there.
I've cleansed my closet and dresser of clothes I didn't want. So now I have a slightly more limited selection of clothes, but all of them are ones I want to wear. I've both created and removed constraints. And constraints are how we get anything done.
# 16 Oct 2005, 05:28PM: Progress Redux:
It's Weekend O'Minor Renovation! Recaulking the sink, building tacky snap-together furniture, hanging up pictures, sorting stacks of dead tree for shredding and storage, and sending notes to charities asking them to take me off their mailing lists. John, you'll be happy to know that I've been, you know, opening and filing or shredding that old mail you saw.
It's so easy to get over decluttering inertia when I just concentrate on getting one little thing done, get it over with, enjoy the surprising and wonderful change that's made in my life, and ride the high to the next, spontaneously chosen project. The cause could also be the stimulants in my anti-allergy medication.
# 16 Oct 2005, 12:30AM: Progress:
Yesterday (Saturday) I tidied my room, dug a bunch of seldom-worn
clothes out of my dresser and closet, took them and Leonard's rejects
to Buffalo Exchange, got a tiny amount in store credit and dumped
the BE rejects into their donation bin, washed my sheets, and cleaned
some more. And then I went to a party! Parties feel so much better
after accomplishments.
I'd wanted to toss some dresses for years. Last night, I finally
realized what was holding me back: the internalized, imaginary voices of my
mother and sister, who think they are nice dresses and that I should
wear them more often. Bah! It's my closet and my tastes and needs
shall reign.
Two weeks ago, Sarah gave me some very nice clothes that don't fit
her needs anymore. In fact, I am currently wearing my new favorite pair of
pants, a khaki-esque dealie that she gave me. So now I feel bad that
I did not reciprocate and offer my perfectly nice dresses, pants,
shirts, skirts, etc. to my friends and acquaintances. But many of them
were not attractive, and I really just wanted them all gone and out
of my home and my life.
One can get a high from decluttering. The Buddhists know what's
going on.
# 29 Aug 2005, 08:00AM: Miscellany:
I helped put together a pile of stuff to give away, and a corresponding list, yesterday.
# 25 Aug 2005, 08:23AM: Self-Plagiarism As Cannibalism:
As I'd sort of warned you, my MC Masala column this week is about a silly anecdote. Specifically, I cannibalized a July weblog entry about seeing a mouse. Enjoy.
I slammed the bedroom door, immediately ceding the rest of the apartment to the mouse's dominion. This was no time for thoughtful action or empowering gestures. This was a time to freak out.
# 03 Aug 2005, 10:47PM: Trader Joe's Goodness: Am currently eating the frozen mushroom risotto mixed with soy taco filling. It's pretty good.
# 31 Jul 2005, 10:35AM: Mice Are Completely Unfair:
How is this fair? The day after I clean the kitchen, I see a mouse. Now I'm stuffing towels in the cracks under my bedroom door as though waiting for firefighters to rescue me from smoke inhalation, and making loud glossomanic sounds before leaving a room so as to scare away the vermin. The neighbors must think I've started a home Pentecostal church. If only I had snakes around my neck - maybe they'd catch this damn mouse.
If you have a cat that catches mice, would you consider visiting me? Soon? With your kitty? I'm allergic to cat hair but I can sweep it up. Mice, no.
I had a moment while writing this where I feared that the mice would read it and learn of my countermeasures. No, these are not The Rats Of NIMH. These are not terrorist mice where it's not politically correct to try and figure out what they want and how to deny it to them. As far as I know, it is one solitary mouse who has succeeded in changing the way I live. Congratulations and damn you.
# 14 Jul 2005, 02:49AM: Stayin' Awake:
When I wake up very early, I wonder whether I can get back to sleep. Sometimes a cup of water or trip to the loo will do it, sometimes daydreaming will. But what doesn't help: hearing the following sounds from the street:
So I called 911 and made my calm, lucid report, and now I am definitely awake. Time to write.
# 26 Apr 2005, 10:24PM: Batteries It Is: The ugly little cubes that plug into a power outlet and recharge a phone or power a mobile cassette recorder or what have you have a special name. The hip call them "wall warts." Tonight I am upending the house in search of the wall wart for my tape recorder. Any wart supplying 3 volts of direct current would suffice. I found 4.5V, 15V, 3.7V, all sorts of mutually incompatible adapters instead. Standards, people!
# 06 Feb 2005, 09:06PM: Cleaning Service RFC: Request For Comment. I'm considering hiring a cleaning service to thoroughly clean a one-bedroom apartment - a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen, a small bathroom and a tiny foyer. If you have any experience with San Francisco-area cleaning services, then please email me recommendations and tell me the reasonable price range. I could imagine reasonable vendors charging anywhere from $30 to $100 and could stand some guidance.
# 04 Feb 2005, 08:43AM: Conversation:
"I was just pointing out another reason that I'm right, and I think you should take that in the spirit in which it was intended."
"I think I did!"
# 13 Jul 2004, 02:02PM: The Chart Does Not Lie: Make A Cost-Per-Wear Chart and embarrass yourself into wardrobe reasonableness!
# 23 Jun 2004, 08:44PM: America's Moving Adventure: Leonard just moved slightly further from my apartment. It will now be slightly harder to visit him for dinner four nights a week.
# 14 Jun 2004, 10:03PM: Post-Weekend Update:
My performance evaluation went fine. Evidently I am doing a very good job but we still have ideas for goals and improvements.
My haircut makes me look like Anjali from Alison Bechdel's strip.
On Wednesday evening a guy harrassed me on the street in my neighborhood. I responded calmly and prudently but he unnerved me; this hasn't happened to me before in my neighborhood. Among his blithering I heard him ask whether I was Iraqi. Real reassuring.
I left work early on Friday to talk about tax history with a Berkeley professor and then to see Mike Daisey. Both rewarding. Then I basically spent the whole weekend working on Heather's show. No major mistakes on my part - huzzah! I'd forgotten how tedious and nerve-wracking shows can be. No offense, Heather.
# 17 Aug 2003, 02:05PM: I bought some mockmeat bacon and got home to discover that the expiration date was the next day. So I ate it all. I think the last slice was not quite as tasty as the first.
# 09 Jul 2003, 01:56PM:
I have to go to Leonard's place to watch Last Comic Standing on NBC, as I don't get Channel 11, and Enterprise's new season on UPN hasn't started yet. So the worthwhile channels that I can see on the TV at my new place are PBS and whatever Channel 32 is. Sometimes Channel 32 shows English-language German programming from DW-TV. The DW Journal has anchors with US accents, which makes me wonder whether I'm watching the US version of the show and DW-TV produces the show in five languages every day, ACK-style.
Sometimes channel 32 is the ARTS channel, with operas and dance and so on. But it's on TV, so I don't feel pretentious about having it on in the background. How hoity-toity can it be if they don't want my money?
# 29 Jun 2003, 06:54PM: Tonight is the last big load. After a bit more net I'll disconnect the computer and load up the last of my belongings here into my car. Goodbye, internet at home. See you again someday.
# 28 Jun 2003, 05:45PM:
Graaa. Finishing up the big move. Man, I hate moving cathode-ray tubes. Fortunately I persuaded a man on each end to help me lift and move the TV my sister's giving me. The VCR is lighter than my CD/radio/tape player; huh?
Things I'll miss about Berkeley include: walkable, familiar, nearby downtown; campus memories & resources; friends; lower prices; laid-back atmosphere. And Internet access at home, although I'll remedy that eventually.
# 22 Jun 2003, 11:08PM: S*** I Don't Need:
I packed most of my belongings today. Michael made brownies, remounted my old corrupted disk image from months back so I can copy the important stuff off it, and helped load the van. Zack loaded, twiddled with, started, and drove the huge, clunky old van that my landlord very kindly lent me, and he and I unloaded it at my new place. My new landlord gave me a rice cooker. I drove us back.
I still have a sedan trip or two to make before the end of the month, but at least the hunk of it is over.
I won't have Internet access at my new place for a while, so for weekends and nighttime phone will be the best way to reach me.
The title references a Janeane Garofalo bit. "When you're moving, a month before you start packing. The first few nights your boxes are neat and labeled. 'Books.' 'Clothes.' The night before, you're throwing stuff in boxes, scribbling, 'S*** I DON'T NEED.'"
# 02 Jun 2003, 05:18PM: Geeks Great and Small:
Adam is staying at my place for a bit, as he's between apartments on his way to New York City. It's barrels of fun. Yesterday we saw the awesome spelling bee documentary Spellbound (Flash site), which we both really liked. So many smart kids! And so many of them were Indians! (IMDB solves a mystery: "...there was a total of 165 hours of material, and that they originally followed 13 kids. Dropping five of them was a very painful decision....")
Then Leonard came over and we all had dinner and they played songs on Adam's guitar for hours. How extremely pleasant it was, I can't convey.
Today I'm at work, grinding through the weekend backlog. However, I am cheered by the fact that I get to call Andrew Leonard "Andrew," and that from the back he really resembles Adam.
# 01 Jun 2003, 10:42AM: Sumana Homesteading Update:
My time at Salon has only reassured me as to my future there, and it gets tiring to live an hour away from Leonard and forty-five minutes from work. And lots of my friends are moving away from Berkeley, so it's not as much of a saddening thing to be across the bay from the remainder. So I decided to move earlier than I'd thought.
After viewing a few adequate places, I snagged a beautiful three-room apartment just a few blocks from the Balboa Park BART station, with non-outrageous rent and a sensible-seeming landlord. I'm moving in this month, and hope to stay there for at least a year. Heck, any new job I get will probably be in SF, so I don't feel too much anxiety about entering into a long-term commitment. Yeah, the immediate neighborhood lacks excitement, but I work downtown. That's what glamorous Salon parties are for.
# 20 May 2003, 06:24AM: America's Moving Adventure: IF this job lasts, as I believe it will, then sometime in the early fall I'll move to San Francisco. Leonard doesn't plan to move his homestead, so now I have solid criteria for my new place: within walking distance of public transit to work (preferably BART), within walking distance of Leonard's place, at least a bedroom to myself, not too much more than $800 per month. Heck, if something doesn't work out I can always find another job and/or move back to the East Bay, or somewhere entirely different for that matter.
# 08 Apr 2003, 09:59PM: What Adam & I Ate Last Night: Apples. Plums. Dried sour cherries. Roasted almonds. Linguini and marinara sauce with olive oil and mockmeatballs. Whole wheat tortillas. Hummus. Soy ice cream pies. Orange juice. Water.
# 12 Mar 2003, 08:59PM: I'm writing this from my much more functional PC. Thanks, Michael. Thanks also to Leonard.
# 11 Mar 2003, 08:31AM: Geek or Weak?:
My PC has been nonfunctional for months, since a few really unfortunate
accidents where I hit the power strip button without shutting down. Last
night I finally attempted to reinstall the operating system with a Debian
CD that Michael had lent me.
For those of you who don't know (and if you are a computer geek, don't
read this paragraph, as the simplifications will annoy you): I use Linux
at home, not Windows or the Mac OS. There are many flavors of Linux, many
independent distributions each concentrating on enhancing certain aspects
of the software. Debian is the "I'm such a geek, I want all the
functionality you can possibly give me, and if something doesn't work I'll
fix it myself by hacking the code" distribution. The Debian organization
is also well known for its commitment to software freedom.
Well, I shouldn't have done the Debian dance. I should have used one of
the "You don't really know what you're doing, do you?" distributions. As
of right now my computer is running a very minimal installation of Linux,
but I can't figure out how to connect to the Net, so I can't download the
software that I need. I was too exhausted to use Michael's computer
to trawl the Net for help documentation, and he wasn't here, so I just
cheered myself up with my Firesign Theater tape and went to bed. I've
waited nine weeks, I can wait another few days.
# 22 Feb 2003, 07:45AM: Brief Fierce Conversations in Hideous Climates:
One nice thing about living with Michael is that he has many neat friends and acquaintances.
I meet them and they guest star in my life for a few hours. The cameos have
rarely turned into recurring gigs, but it could happen.
Last night I met Geordan Rosario, who played for us The Moog Cookbook,
which I dubbed "They Might Be Esquivel" (or "They Might Be Weird EsquivAl"). It's mindbending and wonderful and I recommend it.
Geordan is quick on the riff and quite observant: during our meal at
Cancun Taqueria (tasty nopales), he pointed to a mural featuring a many-winged bird and said, "Did it drink Red
Bull?"
Ladies, he's single!
# 02 Feb 2003, 10:28PM: Poetry Slum:
Another trick to not getting booed by hostile audiences: rap or recite poetry
at them so quickly that they hear no pause to fill up with booing. In
that spirit, well, in a completely different spirit, I present the
poem I wrote my ex-flatmate to get him to return my stuff. ("I'll
bring it back given the appropriate ransom (let's say, a limerick about
shampoo).")
And then there's the lovely note I saw hanging from my doorknob a week
back, "Ode to a Phase-Shifted Roommate":
I told you that our word "pajamas"
(Balarama is a character in Indian mythology. Krishna's brother, I
think.)
Originates in Balarama's
land. So does "shampoo,"
and "karma" does too
So gimme it back, or your mama's!
Every night
except a few
I sleep at home
and so do you.
We both wake up
and check our mail,
And look for food
to no avail.
We both have weekends
off from work,
And both enjoy
this little perk.
We often walk
the same small street --
Some day, we
might even meet.
# 12 Jan 2003, 07:54AM:
I turned into Andy Holloway for a weekend. I'm still up, dawn
has long since broken, but my room has order and a visible carpet and
décor.
Michael: "Any time you feel conflicted about your identity as a geek,
just look at the crimper in the drawer, and remember that
you
know how to use it."
# 23 Dec 2002, 09:34AM: The Island of Mathematicians and Morons: Last night Michael shared a logic problem with Devin and me. Evidently Smullyan, in What Is the Name Of This Book?, mistakenly said it was insoluble, and Michael corrected him. But it took Michael at least a few months, at age 14 or so, to realize the solution, so expect a solution in this space perhaps five years from now. Title credit Devin.
# 23 Dec 2002, 01:19AM: Pinging in the Rain: Well, I'm sure rain will come soon enough. My point: I finally implemented network access in my room, with Michael's help. Finally, broadband on Unix in my room! I never knew I wanted this till now, much as with my recent NewsBruiser upgrade. Thanks, guys! ("Guys" here includes the inventors of broadband and python and all the foundations for my current fun.)
# 21 Dec 2002, 10:02PM: Flashback to AcaDec:
My flatmate is watching Saturday Night Fever (IMDB entry). I heard, on the soundtrack, "Night on Disco Mountain," which reminded me of good old "Night on Bald Mountain" from my Academic Decathlon days in high school.
Watching prime-time TV requires me to say "What?!" about every thirty seconds. This last commercial break was no exception. Some ABC ad for The Music Man convinced me to watch it and then nearly convinced me not to watch it. Then, I found out, it's "Coming in February." February? I'm supposed to make room in my head for a Television Event two months from now? Who knows where I'll live, or how many civil liberties I'll have lost by then? Rights come and go, TV grinds on.
# 29 Nov 2002, 09:35AM:
Yesterday the flatmates and a friend and I spent about six hours, on and off, making food. There was turkey and mashed potatoes and cranberry-sauce salad and pumpkin pie and gravy, and I made a pretty good spontaneous-ish soup; I'll post a recipe here when I have more time.
Tip: when you're slicing a carrot, and it occurs to you that you're doing it unsafely, and go ahead and do it that way anyway, you *will* cut your finger, as I did.
All the food was good and people said what they were thankful for and dug in and loved it. Also, I played Dance Dance Revolution, and it was fun. Whee!
# 25 Nov 2002, 09:04AM:
A good evening last night: the flatmates and I made burritos and ate them. A feast! Sure, I usually use avocadoes, tomatoes, lettuce, Herdez salsa, cheese, and sour cream, but I never would have thought to use bell peppers or grilled onions. Also included: yummy Morningstar "Grillers" (fake ground beef) and homemade taco seasoning (cumin, oregano, paprika, salt, cayenne). Dessert: blocks of Ghirardelli chocolate and raspberries. Music: mix CDs, including the one Adam made for my birthday. Conversation topic and internet- and whiteboard-facilitated demonstrations included Kannada script and language, Cyrillic script and Russian language, Japanese script ad politeness, forbidden American English, "The Eye of Argon" vis-à-vis "The Good, The Bad, and Scarface", currencies, Cliff Stoll's sale of engraved portraits of Gauss, and the music and food. Of course, Michael and I watched "The Best of the Chris Rock Show Volume Two." Hey, movie rentals are expensive and I'm gonna get my $3.51's worth.
Today I really start my new job in School and Corporate Sales. In other bookstore news, I got to show a customer our books relating to The West Wing yesterday. He may have been unnerved by my enthusiasm; whoops.
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