1.) Did you watch the White Sox-Twins tie breaker game just now? If you didn't, you should have. Talk about two pitchers stepping it up when it counted. Anyway, the Twins only had one real chance to score in the whole game. They had a guy on third, one out, and the batter hit a shallow fly to center. They sent the runner from third, betting Griffey was too old to throw him out, but Junior proved them wrong. Of course, what was key was that the White Sox catcher Pierzynski did a stellar job blocking the plate. When I remarked on that, my dad said, "Well, yeah, he's a Polock." I was like, what? our people make good catchers? I dunno. Sometimes around here it's like living in the Land of Nonsequitors.
2.) So now is the first time in 102 years that both Chicago teams will be in the postseason. Isn't that cool? The city of Chicago must be crazy right now.
3.) But, speaking of that, I'm having a dilemma. I don't know whom to root for in the Cubs-Dodgers series. On the one hand, I'm kind of committed to rooting for the Dodgers, i.e. Red Sox West in Exile. On the other, as I've mentioned before, I always root for the Cubbies, especially after 2004, when the morning after the Red Sox won that first World Series, my inbox was stuffed with emails from every single person I internet-knew from the Chicago area, at least nominal Cubs fans all, congratulating me and telling me how happy they knew I must be, having baseball-suffered their whole lives as I, and all Red Sox fans, had baseball-suffered our whole lives to that point. So, y'know, I really want to see the Cubs win a World Series; their fans deserve one. What to do, what to do.
xoxo
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
be impressed
Be very impressed.
I just had my annual review at work and, as you all already know, I'm sure, I rock. Apparently all the time I spend shopping online and blogging is not affecting my job performance one iota. But in the course of my review, I was informed that both my own department and another department have nominated me for a Partners in Excellence award. (Yeah, I work for a Partners hospital, and yeah, I am aware that with every blog entry I write, I'm making it easier and easier to stalk me. I hope all y'all are mentally stable.)
Now, I like to pretend that I am too cool to care about shit like that. I was all prepared to make the joke about my princely 3% max raise and my (possible) Partners in Excellence award buying me [the equivalent of a cup of coffee], but honestly? The fact that this other department recognized that I had gone above and beyond for them in the service of good patient care, and wanted to publicly acknowledge that, really kind of touched me. So, yeah, I guess I'm not too cool to care about public strokes. And I'm enough of a dork to brag about them.
You should still be very impressed!
xoxo
I just had my annual review at work and, as you all already know, I'm sure, I rock. Apparently all the time I spend shopping online and blogging is not affecting my job performance one iota. But in the course of my review, I was informed that both my own department and another department have nominated me for a Partners in Excellence award. (Yeah, I work for a Partners hospital, and yeah, I am aware that with every blog entry I write, I'm making it easier and easier to stalk me. I hope all y'all are mentally stable.)
Now, I like to pretend that I am too cool to care about shit like that. I was all prepared to make the joke about my princely 3% max raise and my (possible) Partners in Excellence award buying me [the equivalent of a cup of coffee], but honestly? The fact that this other department recognized that I had gone above and beyond for them in the service of good patient care, and wanted to publicly acknowledge that, really kind of touched me. So, yeah, I guess I'm not too cool to care about public strokes. And I'm enough of a dork to brag about them.
You should still be very impressed!
xoxo
Sunday, September 28, 2008
i *know*
I'm the blogging equivalent of can't-shut-up cell-phone woman! Don't worry. It'll pass. Meanwhile...
1.) Commercials I have seen while drinking my coffee this morning. Credit card commercial wherein a woman keeps redecorating her living room and finding it disappointing, until she realizes her problem is her husband sitting on the sofa. She "redecorates" him with new clothes and all is well. I hate this. It's so disrespectful. Next, a commercial from the (you can't make this shit up) high fructose corn syrup people reminding us their product is made from lovely, healthy, all-natural corn, is nutritionally just the same as sugar, fine in moderation, and therefore is not Obesity and Diabetes in a Jar. So don't worry! Finally, SAM-e, an herbal supplement that will cure my bitchy, bitchy moods. Yeah, okay, let me know when you invent herbal klonopins, kthxbai.
2.) I'm watching this landscaping show where the homeowners must get rid of the cacti, rosebushes, and blackberry vines in their lovely backyard because omfg, they have a toddler and she might hurt herself. You know what? If little Precious gets a cactus thorn in her lil hand, she will quickly learn not to touch them again. Cause and effect is a wonderful thing to learn at a tender age. I'm all for babyproofing that calls for removing potentially *fatal* hazards. But worrying that Sweetie might get a booboo? Give me a fucking break. (I hope the potential parents of my theoretical future step-grandchildren aren't reading this, because I'm never gonna get to babysit, am I? Goddamn it.)
3.) Wishlist. I saw a picture of someone's beautifully restored and remodelled 1920's bathroom with gorgeous clawfoot tub, beadboard on the bottom of the walls and paint above, no tile. I had such bathroom envy I could hardly stand it and I realized why: that's the kind of bathroom I grew up with (not gorgeously remodelled of course) and some part of me still thinks that's how a bathroom should look. I also think my ideal (retro) kitchen would have a separate pantry, like the one I grew up with. Also, a deep double sink that you can bathe a baby in. I see these $20,000 bathrooms and $40,000 kitchens with the steam showers and the granite and the whatever and while I can appreciate that they are often pretty and always fancy, I don't think that even if I had the kind of money to do that, that it would be what I want.
xoxo
1.) Commercials I have seen while drinking my coffee this morning. Credit card commercial wherein a woman keeps redecorating her living room and finding it disappointing, until she realizes her problem is her husband sitting on the sofa. She "redecorates" him with new clothes and all is well. I hate this. It's so disrespectful. Next, a commercial from the (you can't make this shit up) high fructose corn syrup people reminding us their product is made from lovely, healthy, all-natural corn, is nutritionally just the same as sugar, fine in moderation, and therefore is not Obesity and Diabetes in a Jar. So don't worry! Finally, SAM-e, an herbal supplement that will cure my bitchy, bitchy moods. Yeah, okay, let me know when you invent herbal klonopins, kthxbai.
2.) I'm watching this landscaping show where the homeowners must get rid of the cacti, rosebushes, and blackberry vines in their lovely backyard because omfg, they have a toddler and she might hurt herself. You know what? If little Precious gets a cactus thorn in her lil hand, she will quickly learn not to touch them again. Cause and effect is a wonderful thing to learn at a tender age. I'm all for babyproofing that calls for removing potentially *fatal* hazards. But worrying that Sweetie might get a booboo? Give me a fucking break. (I hope the potential parents of my theoretical future step-grandchildren aren't reading this, because I'm never gonna get to babysit, am I? Goddamn it.)
3.) Wishlist. I saw a picture of someone's beautifully restored and remodelled 1920's bathroom with gorgeous clawfoot tub, beadboard on the bottom of the walls and paint above, no tile. I had such bathroom envy I could hardly stand it and I realized why: that's the kind of bathroom I grew up with (not gorgeously remodelled of course) and some part of me still thinks that's how a bathroom should look. I also think my ideal (retro) kitchen would have a separate pantry, like the one I grew up with. Also, a deep double sink that you can bathe a baby in. I see these $20,000 bathrooms and $40,000 kitchens with the steam showers and the granite and the whatever and while I can appreciate that they are often pretty and always fancy, I don't think that even if I had the kind of money to do that, that it would be what I want.
xoxo
Saturday, September 27, 2008
changing tastes II
Here's the part I didn't get to.
There are some people who can tell you "x is my favorite y" whether y = food, book, actor, painting, or any of a thousand other things with both certainty and consistency. They know their favorite whatever and it's been their favorite whatever for fifteen or twenty-five or forty years. Me, the only y I can say that about is movie; my favorite movie has been my favorite movie since I was ten and time and repeated viewings have not changed that. But everything else? Not so much.
It's not that things I used to adore I now look at and say, "what were you thinking?" Usually. [Insert obligatory ex-husband joke here, kthx.] It's more like "Persistence of Memory" where I can still appreciate it, still like it, and still remember why it grabbed me like it did when it did, but its power as my image of "the best" is gone. Similarly, for years I would have told you that Heart Shaped Box was my favorite song, but then suddenly some time in the last couple years, it just wasn't anymore. It wasn't even my favorite Nirvana song anymore. I don't hate it, I'm not sick of it, and I still remember exactly what it was about it that made me just love it so very much. But when it pops up on my iPod these days, I don't think "Best.Song.Evah." (I could keep giving examples, but I hope I've gotten across what I'm talking about.) And I wonder what this means about my personality. Or my aesthetic sense. Or how my brain works. Or...I dunno...something.
In a related note: so my friend L is one of those people who has a very consistent set of likes, a very consistent aesthetic sense. She likes the same things she liked 30 years ago, and is kind of confused about people who don't. She'll say to me, "Oh, you really really like [whatever], right?" and I'll be like, "Well, I did when we were in college, but [whatever] isn't my favorite person/place/thing now" and that honestly puzzles her. Whereas I could pick out a piece of clothing, piece of furniture, piece of music for her based totally on what I know she would have liked in 1980 and be certain she'd still really like it today. It seems like a really basic divide on our respective takes on life and I wonder if it means she's got a stronger aesthetic sense than I do, less of an aesthetic sense than I do, or if it's all relatively meaningless.
And yet and yet and yet... I *do* think I have a lifelong overarching aesthetic sense, that there are kinds of ys that I'll always like, even if the exact specifics change. This is perhaps best shown by 25 years of various and sundry friends referring to certain footwear as "Andrea Shoes." I couldn't quite define what those are, nor could my girlfriends, but we know 'em when we see 'em. Andrea Shoes are Andrea Shoes, even if this Andrea has never had her foot in them. And, as I may have mentioned lately, much as you people sit at your monitors and roll your eyes and snicker at Boho Paradise, I've always taken a little crap for some of my less...conventional...decorating decisions. But even some of the mocking people come through with, like, leopard-print vases for Xmas, because even if they don't like it, they know an Andrea vase when they see one on the clearance table at Kohls.
So, yeah. I'm probably over analyzing this, since mental wanking is as sad of a character defect in me as the fondness for animal prints and sparkly shit.
xoxo
There are some people who can tell you "x is my favorite y" whether y = food, book, actor, painting, or any of a thousand other things with both certainty and consistency. They know their favorite whatever and it's been their favorite whatever for fifteen or twenty-five or forty years. Me, the only y I can say that about is movie; my favorite movie has been my favorite movie since I was ten and time and repeated viewings have not changed that. But everything else? Not so much.
It's not that things I used to adore I now look at and say, "what were you thinking?" Usually. [Insert obligatory ex-husband joke here, kthx.] It's more like "Persistence of Memory" where I can still appreciate it, still like it, and still remember why it grabbed me like it did when it did, but its power as my image of "the best" is gone. Similarly, for years I would have told you that Heart Shaped Box was my favorite song, but then suddenly some time in the last couple years, it just wasn't anymore. It wasn't even my favorite Nirvana song anymore. I don't hate it, I'm not sick of it, and I still remember exactly what it was about it that made me just love it so very much. But when it pops up on my iPod these days, I don't think "Best.Song.Evah." (I could keep giving examples, but I hope I've gotten across what I'm talking about.) And I wonder what this means about my personality. Or my aesthetic sense. Or how my brain works. Or...I dunno...something.
In a related note: so my friend L is one of those people who has a very consistent set of likes, a very consistent aesthetic sense. She likes the same things she liked 30 years ago, and is kind of confused about people who don't. She'll say to me, "Oh, you really really like [whatever], right?" and I'll be like, "Well, I did when we were in college, but [whatever] isn't my favorite person/place/thing now" and that honestly puzzles her. Whereas I could pick out a piece of clothing, piece of furniture, piece of music for her based totally on what I know she would have liked in 1980 and be certain she'd still really like it today. It seems like a really basic divide on our respective takes on life and I wonder if it means she's got a stronger aesthetic sense than I do, less of an aesthetic sense than I do, or if it's all relatively meaningless.
And yet and yet and yet... I *do* think I have a lifelong overarching aesthetic sense, that there are kinds of ys that I'll always like, even if the exact specifics change. This is perhaps best shown by 25 years of various and sundry friends referring to certain footwear as "Andrea Shoes." I couldn't quite define what those are, nor could my girlfriends, but we know 'em when we see 'em. Andrea Shoes are Andrea Shoes, even if this Andrea has never had her foot in them. And, as I may have mentioned lately, much as you people sit at your monitors and roll your eyes and snicker at Boho Paradise, I've always taken a little crap for some of my less...conventional...decorating decisions. But even some of the mocking people come through with, like, leopard-print vases for Xmas, because even if they don't like it, they know an Andrea vase when they see one on the clearance table at Kohls.
So, yeah. I'm probably over analyzing this, since mental wanking is as sad of a character defect in me as the fondness for animal prints and sparkly shit.
xoxo
changing tastes
I really have more I want to write about this and some other things, but since I only have a brief window of opportunity here, I'm just going to do a quickie before the urge is out of my head.
I was just searching for something on art.com, something I have bookmarked on my laptop at home but now can't find without the bookmark goddammit, and in my search came across the (totally unrelated) "Persistence of Memory" by Dali. This, for years, was my favorite painting. Absolutely. In college I even had a poster of it. It gave me that same kind of unsettled feeling that I enjoy in photographs of gates and doorways, fiction I read and fiction I (used to) write, certain of my favorite movies, and my sex life.
Looking at it just now, I realized that while it still is kind of a cool painting (and it *is* an acknowledged masterpiece, right?, or have "they" changed that?), I wouldn't want a print of it now. There is nothing about it that would compel me to put it on any of my walls. And I sort of wonder about that. I can still appreciate it. It still evokes that similar kind of emotional response in me. But it's lost something. Or I've lost something.
Talk to me about this. Tastes that have changed for you and tastes that haven't.
xoxo
I was just searching for something on art.com, something I have bookmarked on my laptop at home but now can't find without the bookmark goddammit, and in my search came across the (totally unrelated) "Persistence of Memory" by Dali. This, for years, was my favorite painting. Absolutely. In college I even had a poster of it. It gave me that same kind of unsettled feeling that I enjoy in photographs of gates and doorways, fiction I read and fiction I (used to) write, certain of my favorite movies, and my sex life.
Looking at it just now, I realized that while it still is kind of a cool painting (and it *is* an acknowledged masterpiece, right?, or have "they" changed that?), I wouldn't want a print of it now. There is nothing about it that would compel me to put it on any of my walls. And I sort of wonder about that. I can still appreciate it. It still evokes that similar kind of emotional response in me. But it's lost something. Or I've lost something.
Talk to me about this. Tastes that have changed for you and tastes that haven't.
xoxo
Paul Newman died
That's sad. I always liked him. His movies, his eyes, and his salsa and popcorn.
xoxo
xoxo
Friday, September 26, 2008
strange days indeed
Is there a debate I'm supposed to be watching or something?
Well, be that as it may, I'm watching the Sox game. They just showed a whole hell of a lot of empty seats in the stands. I gotta say, if I were there, in the 60 degree rain, waiting through an hour and a half delay, to see a late season Yankees-Sox game that means absolutely fucking nothing (and how very sad those people who were ecstatic to have scored these tickets back in March must be), and then they scratched Dice K in favor of, more or less, a minor leaguer, I'd have probably decamped to the Beer Works by now, where I could watch the game in warmth and dryness and with better beer value for my money.
I know that makes me a bad fan and probably a bad person. And I'm okay with that.
I wish, however, that someone could explain to me why I am so unenthusiastic about this team and the upcoming playoffs in general. I think I'm having post-traumatic Manny-loss stress disorder or something. Perhaps the Dodgers will make it to the World Series and I'll have a team to root for. I always was a D-Lowe fan anyway.
xoxo
Well, be that as it may, I'm watching the Sox game. They just showed a whole hell of a lot of empty seats in the stands. I gotta say, if I were there, in the 60 degree rain, waiting through an hour and a half delay, to see a late season Yankees-Sox game that means absolutely fucking nothing (and how very sad those people who were ecstatic to have scored these tickets back in March must be), and then they scratched Dice K in favor of, more or less, a minor leaguer, I'd have probably decamped to the Beer Works by now, where I could watch the game in warmth and dryness and with better beer value for my money.
I know that makes me a bad fan and probably a bad person. And I'm okay with that.
I wish, however, that someone could explain to me why I am so unenthusiastic about this team and the upcoming playoffs in general. I think I'm having post-traumatic Manny-loss stress disorder or something. Perhaps the Dodgers will make it to the World Series and I'll have a team to root for. I always was a D-Lowe fan anyway.
xoxo
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