January 2012
21 posts
5 tags
December 2011
52 posts
5 tags
Although I love the ease and convenience of my Kindle, I am secretly delighted when Amazon doesn’t have a book I want in Kindle format. It lets me justify buying a real book. Pages. There’s nothing like the feel of actual pages passing through my fingers.
4 tags
So, The Devil in the White City. This is going to be kind of awkward, but in the interest of honesty I have to tell you I was thinking (hoping?) you’d be something more along the lines of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I mean you’re OK and all, it’s just…well, maybe we would’ve hit it off better if I hadn’t spent time with Midnight first. I know...
5 tags
My mother has been weeping for more than eight hours at this point. I look at her and I can almost physically feel the pain of her depression, her brutal self-pity. When it’s like this, I’m a balloon tied to an anchor. And the more she cries, the worse it gets because when she feels this bad even trying to feel better seems like a distant and unreachable horizon.
I also want to grab...
3 tags
4 tags
Ugh. I need to learn to leave well enough alone.
3 tags
I left The Reckoning at home because it was too much of a tome to bring on the plane and now I’m reading The Devil in the White City. It’s OK. But seriously, Amazon? Get David Halberstam’s stuff in Kindle format already.
In all seriousness, I’m glad to be home for the holidays this year. My family enjoys harassing each other. All in good fun, of course.
4 tags
4 tags
I don’t get football. At all. And you know what? When the camera pans to the crowd I get even more turned off.
6 tags
Book Review: Steve Jobs
Do the ends justify the means? Is your iPad worth the tears, bullying, and abuse Steve Jobs piled upon his friends and colleagues to get it done? If he hadn’t, would we ever have had anything that matches the iPhone?
I finished reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson today and I am torn. Anyone who’s been paying attention knows by now that Steve Jobs was a total prick, a...
7 tags
You know how some people have 1,000+ facebook friends? I’m that way with books. If I could “friend” all the books I love, then I’d finally be popular. I’m much more comfortable around books than I am around people. Which is why this Christmas Day was near to perfect for me. I just ate, drank, and read. Hilo brings that out in me. I come here full of ambitious plans to...
4 tags
The bad: My dad had trouble breathing last night and had to go to the emergency room. They said it might be some kind of virus.
The good: He seems fine now.
The bad: But he’s decided to skip out on his friend’s Christmas dinner and will be home harassing my dog and possibly irritating me.
Conclusion: I am an idiot for repeatedly scheduling 10-day trips home. I can usually stand a...
6 tags
5 tags
4 tags
Fact: The rain sounds prettiest in Hilo. I think it’s the metal roof on my parents’ house. And the gutter next to my bedroom window. And the bickering birds harmonizing in the background.
1 tag
“If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.”
– Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore (via bookmania)
6 tags
“Be aware, don’t get bent out of shape over every little thing, and...”
– My dad
5 tags
The cute ones are always jerks
My brother was so excited to show me what he’d bought with the JetPens gift certificate I’d given him for his birthday. He was enthusiastically explaining which pen had the best grip, versus which one wrote the best versus which one looked the classiest. He even brought out a notepad and urged me to write something with each of the pens so I could decide which one I preferred.
In the...
5 tags
5 tags
6 tags
Bad: Chance’s kennel doesn’t fit in my rental car.
Good: At least I figured this out now, four hours before I have to transport him. And I have a solution. I’ll just have to take the kennel in two pieces and put it together when I get to our destination.
Conclusion: OK, there’s no need for me to feel as irritated as I feel right now.
5 tags
5 tags
6 tags
3@12: Confetti →
Another creative use for double-stick tape. I’m loving all these kraft paper wrappings I’m finding online….
5 tags
4 tags
“Almost all of his (Walter Reuther’s) contemporaries at the UAW leadership...”
– The Reckoning, by David Halberstam
Walter Reuther is my newest hero.
“I try to pull the language in to such a sharpness that it jumps off the page. It...”
– Maya Angelou, Paris Review “The Art of Fiction #119” (via thelifeguardlibrarian)
6 tags
“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are...”
– Francis Bacon
Deep down I believe this. I think it explains a lot about why I am the way I am.
4 tags
3 tags
2 tags
Today I feel like…quitting…and flying to the other side of the planet.
So quitting and winning.
5 tags
Jobs I've had so far this year...
Part-time copy editor for an alt.weekly
Part-time proofreader for a Taiwanese Buddhist organization (this one took me to Taiwan before letting me go)
Part-time delivery girl for a local farmers market delivery service
Technical writer/proofreader for a bank
What the hell. Could next year possibly bring. Just bring it.
“The only way you’re getting any money from me is if I take a gun to my...”
– Customer to my co-worker. I temp at the collections department of a local bank. It’s one week ‘til Christmas.
5 tags
diy project: vintage card jotters | Design*Sponge →
I’m totally going to do this with the Christmas cards I’ve been saving…
1 tag
I have good instincts. My problem may be that I don’t heed them enough.
5 tags
8 tags
3 tags
5 tags
Me: Sometimes I feel like Chance is wasted on me. He *should* be a service dog. He would be a great service dog for a soldier with PTSD. I feel guilty for having him because, you know, I'm not disabled.
Dad: Well maybe you don't realize you're disabled, but your dog realizes you're disabled and he feels it's his obligation to help you.
3 tags
“I like this ‘Minamalist’ theme and all but I HATE that it...”
– Me
6 tags
Every year I grossly underestimate how much time it takes to give handmade Christmas gifts. And really, when someone is willing to wield pepper spray to nab crap from a Wal-Mart, is it worth it?
Yeah it is.
1 tag
