january '007 fucking ten: goldeneye

explain

jesus h. christ if'n that ain't the most Ned-like post ever.

Yes, which personally I always think very sad for the dogs. :-/

1. my new blue sweater w/zipper
2. retro-espionage novelist Alan Furst
3. SCTV on DVD Vol 2
4. (temporarily) out of debt
5. kid accepted @ new school for next year
6. outstanding & inexpensive vietnamese meal last week at obscure joint on sidestreet in NY's chinatown that I managed to find again after many years and was startled to discover was not only still there but actually cleaner than it was back in the day!
7. Sonic's Rendezvous Band box set -- four CDs of my favorite long-lost 70s band, triggering memories I didn't know were there.
8. Spring Awakening on Bway -- a rock musical that er rocks.
9. finally writing about non-music subjects
10. entering the last year of my first half-century

Awesome.

I was thinking of that, actually, but the amount of goodness I wanted to talk about outweighed it!

=o is nobody else going to comment on this???

Yes, you do, and more besides.

Well yeah! You can have a bigger fruitcake next year. I just had a piece today too -- if it makes it to February, it will only be because I've ordered a Russian cake. Meanwhile, the fruitcake(s) I gave my mother to bring to the office are still sitting in her fridge, because she keeps "forgetting" (she hates fruitcake). Fuck a buncha New Hampshire civil servants!

*seething jealousy* Anyway. So it's good, I take it.

Man, I want Russian cake, too! Or do I want king cake? Man.

9. Nieces, nephew forever...if I had ever had a desire to reproduce, they would be the impetus (Also, ILX mothah/fathah thread, just for the fact that it alternately thrills and, um, sort of repulses me? Only when it gets into greenish poop smelling good.:)

8.Feeling content where I live - mostly because I am finally on the academic path, and am able to take advantage of some good art/music offerings...2nd Friday artwalks, especially. And all the University guest lectures. Being ON campus helps...

7. New Congress. New Governor. Some progress might be made somewhere.

6. Having a long Jan. break to read some novels, including:
The Dress Lodger - Sheri Holmes (?)
By A Slow River - Phillipe Claudel
The rest i will post to ILB.

5. Not turning on the heat until this morning. (maybe one hour five times since last Spring.) It's worrisome for the environment, but I loved not paying the usual astronomical bills.
Also, I was merrily cleaning the house and re-potting plants last Friday - in shorts and a t-shirt!
It's winter now, as it should be, so that's good, even 'though I hate it.

4. Doing a practicum with rape/crisis advocacy and starting to be on the 24 hour hotline. It was an incredible experience - the practicum - and I was able to work out some shit...it was life changing, for me.

3. KITTENS! We adopted two, who were being threatened with drowning...they came to us, tiny and desperate with:Ear mites, fleas AND worms. They are now very healthy specimins; um, the boy kitty is 7 months old and weighs 10 pounds.
I AM a good mommy. Just for things that are covered in fur!
The older kitty is still not pleased, so i empathisize with parents, because I only go through 1/1000th of what you do with babies, siblings, fighting...and I just shut them in a different room and go back to sleep! (See #9 again)

2. having both more and less respect for money. I feel like I have become much more financially responsible ( paying debt while borrowing, being concious of my overall debt) - and I feel like I choose to splurge on really good things - a great restaurant meal, a driving trip for two days. Although this is not actually true, because i have been flying by the seat of my pants as well. So, the seat of my pants, having been patched and mended, are more secure than should be expected, and I respect the seat of my pants more.

1. MY FRIENDS!

And if I brought it to work on the weekend, it'd still just be a couple people and BtB eating it, and fuck that.

This is how traditions get lost, you know, this is where pink tinfoil Christmas trees came from.

1. 2 day work week. thanks ice storm!
2. sewing, sewing and more sewing!
3. new kitty
4. old puppies
5. my goofy guy
6. new kitchen being pieced together
7. great job in a shiny new office
8. the mavs
9. lean cuisine paninis (I'm easily pleased)
10. lamictal

ooh dirty talk on a thursday morning!

In Texas???

See, you have learned wisdom.

well you could do worse than austin. This current freeze is very rare for us. we haven't seen proper snow in 5 years. (dallas and other north texas is a different story.) The week before this cold snap our highs were hitting the 80s!

No offense, just ... no! Aside from the fact that I went to Hampshire (and everything has changed since then, both the school and the town), there's just no way I'd ever live in the northeast again once this spell is up. I'm coasting on the novelty value of "oh yeah, I forgot about scallop rolls" and funny accents right now, that won't last forever.

(We carry Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, though, so I Fucking Love This Job.)

xpost; Yeah, don't worry, you know I won't let it happen.

haha, we live near one of these. G. got propositioned in the parking lot once. Does yours sell tiny drug baggies and black booty magazines?

That Hampsters-should-stay-in-the-Valley thing is one reason why I wanted to get as far from Amherst as I could get when I moved, I didn't want to fall into that. If I'd stayed, I'd probably be picketing Starbuck's for taking over Pioneer Valley Coffee or something.

I do love Atkins Farm, though, and I want to try to get out there in the fall if I'm still around.

:). Which short stories have been your favorites?

BTW, interesting bisection here with my newest fascination, Watergate: I think Hugh Sloan would've been perfectly cast as a Fitzgerald hero for a Hollywood movie, perhaps Anthony Patch from The Beautiful & Damned. Though maybe he'd not have preferred to even pretend to be that kind of person....

Oh, and had I been a teenager in the '20s, I'd have had a serious crush on Mr. Fitzgerald. Man was awfully handsome.

:). Which short stories have been your favorites?

Winter Dreams has always been a favorite of mine and since i have started reading the nearly 800 page anthology of his short stories, The Swimmers and Absolution have joined Winter Dreams. I have never gotten around to Tender is the Night, so that will be my next endeavor after i finish the anthology.

cider doughnuts are in my top five foods ever. when i was back in nyc over xmas, one of the first things i did was to pick some up at the borough hall farmer's market.

I did as well, but I ain't gonna put that in my top ten cause it fucking sucks big time.

2 - my little bro is engaged! to a wonderful wonderful lady

3 - new mp3 playah + limewire = emsk heaven. walking the streets and being stopped in my tracks by something AMAZING i've never heard before, or finding myself quietly dancing on the train

4 - domestic bliss. 7 months in and this may be my most successful flatshare ever. sadly flatmate and her tiny human are both off to brazil for five weeks from next week :( ok, i get a spanish girl in exchange and she's ace too, but i'm really really gonna miss them both

5 - gmaps pedometer = wicked toy. thank you, oh google overlords

6 - ludicrous work stuff making me larf

7 - crispy yellow winter

8 - miraculously not being completely broke - how??

9 - THE PRISONER! we have fallen asleep in front of this for the last two nights now. gives good dreams

10 - the promise of a digital camera

It's not by them! Or at least, the pedometer/route mapping bit isn't. It's just some other dude (though it is still awesome)

:-D

Yep! I was back last year for an afternoon -- wait no, fuck, it's 2007? I was back two years ago, summer of '05. I remember because I thought it was weird that there were Hampshire people on Hampshire's campus, which never would have happened in the summer in MY day.

All my old coffee places are Starbuck's now -- I'd moved the year the first Starbuck's opened in Amherst, so that was REALLY weird -- but the French bakery on or right off Main in Northampton was still there. The Raven was still there, and thank God Herrell's was still there. The Blue Flame had been gone over ten years at that point.

My experience of the Valley as a college kid was a little different because I was raising kids, so I spent as much time at Wildwood Elementary as I did at the Iron Horse. Oh, the Jamaican place was gone, I think. But yeah, pretensions abounded. Oh, and they put a Newbury Comics where my hamburger joint used to be, man. I bought Bronson Arroyo's CD there as a souvenir of the trip.

I miss Bruegger's, too, just cause they don't have them (or bagels at all, damn near) in New Hampshire.

I want to show Aimee all that stuff, so a trip's in the cards, just a question of when.