You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2008.
Entertainment Weekly posted 15 quotable lines from Office Space. Click through [because the movie's awesome--thank you Ron Livingston].
Before I begin, did anyone watch Lost on Thursday? What a great episode! I had read that the second half of the season [post-hiatus] was supposed to be pay off for all the set-up early in the season. Boy, so far, so good.
Friday my dad, brother and I went for an hour and a half hike through Mendon Ponds Park, even climbing a hill so large it’s termed “Mt. Everest”. We returned home, rested a bit, then my dad and I went to the Little Theater and shared a bit of wine before watching Smart People. We both really enjoyed it, especially Thomas Hayden Church’s role. That screwed up people can find redemption in relationships is always refreshing to me. After the movie, I met up with Amy to see Uncle Plum, a band I remember seeing many times during college and after. They mostly play covers. We drank beer and danced and made fun of all the silly people around us. And afterward I met and hugged the band members, telling them how much I liked it and had heard them many years ago. Yes, I am a dork. But I had fun.
Saturday Amy and I headed to my in-law’s lake house, where we spent some time with them and Adam’s grandparents. But we were safely snuggled in our beds by 9, having been up so late the night before.
Sunday we got up, watched several episodes of America’s Next Top Model, ate lunch and headed back to Rochester. I ran a few miles to make up for the huge dinner from the night before. Then my dad and I watched Dedication, which knocked the socks off of Smart People.
Today my dad and I shopped awhile, looking for running shoes mostly, though he bought Ratatouille, which we’ll watch in a bit. I saw it this past summer and loved it. We also went to the gym before stopping by MedVed, a local running store, to buy me some new running shoes. I am very, very excited about my new running shoes.
Tomorrow is my last day here. I’m not sure what we’ll do, and I fly out at 5:17 p.m. so I have almost all day. This has been a wonderful trip, but I can’t wait to get home. I miss Adam [so much] and Penny. I also have an interview Wednesday morning. Keep your fingers crossed.
I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I have a writer friend who said he never reads books. He just goes home and pounds out page after page. I asked him once why he expects anyone to read this [self-published] books if he’s not willing to read any books at all. He didn’t have an answer.
When I was in grad school, this was a supreme no-no. If you’re going to write, you need to read, not just to see what’s out there that you may be competing with, but to be inspired and keep yourself sharp. Apparently few people see the value in this.
If you ever have a chance, read Gabriel Zaid’s So Many Books. It’s slim. And it puts in perspective what reading and book publishing means in the information age.
And blast self-published books. Just blast them!
Yesterday I was just plain tuckered out. I didn’t do much all day, until my dad and I went to Barnes & Noble and an early dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. He bought me Eat This Book, and our dinner was lovely, a bit extravagant, and expensive. Luckily, my dad received a Cheesecake Factory gift card for his retirement. We drank wine, ate our meals, and had cheesecake. It was great. Later I met up with my friend Amy for a bit more food and conversation before going home and falling [quickly] asleep.
Today I spent all day at the mall, meeting my old college friend Kristen and then my mother- and father-in-law. The mall wasn’t the most ideal and conducive for a get-together, but was centrally located. Kristen brought her two kids, one whom I hadn’t met before, and we spent the early part of the afternoon talking and wandering around. Then when she had to take the kids home for a nap, my mother-in-law showed up, we shopped a bit [and I ended up with a great pair of seersucker shorts from Banana Republic, of all places]. Then we had P. F. Chang’s for dinner, and it was delicious. All in all, not a bad day.
Tonight is a new episode of Lost [yes!]. But damn this east coast time and being on at 10 p.m. Sometimes the central time zone is just easier.
Tomorrow is a hike in the park, dinner and a movie at the local independent film house, and seeing a band at a local club.
Well, I’m here in Rochester. I traveled all day–10 a.m. flight from Pensacola to ATL, 2.5 hour layover, 2:30 p.m. flight to Rochester. It’s good to be back. I haven’t been here in over a year. [I must say also that Rochester, NY, is a lovely place to see from an airplane. It kind of looks like Mr. Roger's neighborhood from the sky.] My dad picked me up from the airport, we went for coffee, then picked up various items for dinner and have been hanging out at home since. My brother will be home in about an hour, and we have plans to go out for very, very naughty food.
I must admit I feel guilty about not blogging and especially about not job-searching. But I can’t be too hard on myself. I needed some time off and going out of town for a week doesn’t leave me available to interview. I have some leads on freelancing, but I have to weigh a few things–namely my unemployment benefits–before committing to anything. I think I’d really like to adjunct at a local college and freelance write, but we’ll see what happens [fall semester doesn't start till August].
I finished reading The Virgin of Bennington [I liked it, especially as a poet, but it seemed too diverted between Kathleen Norris's life and Betty Kray's] and started rereading Girl Meets God on the plane today. I read it three years ago, and it’s interesting to see how differently the book reads now than before. And I greatly admire Lauren Winner.
I’m really hoping that this trip home is nourishing for me spiritually. It’s hard not knowing what God has in store [especially when gas and food prices are rising so rapidly], but I know Proverbs 3:5, 6 to be true. I keep repeating it to myself.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.
I am very glad to say that I’m sitting in the coffee shop, using the internet before my meeting this morning, and it’s finally quiet. I sat down about an hour ago, started up the computer, checked my email and a herd of folks came in, making the shop quite noisy. But now, it’s quiet. I can hear milk being steamed and a few shoes smacking the hardwood floors. This is what I came here for.
There is so little going on in my life right now. I can be found reading, watching something from Blockbuster or the library or going to the gym. Oh, and also preparing for my trip next week. I called my friend Kristen, who was my RA in college but now is more like a sister, to tell her I’d be in town. We talked for a few hours. I haven’t seen her since my wedding. I have a picture of her two kids and of the two of us at my wedding hanging on my refrigerator, but there are no pictures of anyone in Adam’s or my family. I look at them often and think how funny that is–not that we don’t like our families, but that their photos somehow didn’t make it to the fridge.
I’m also in the process of making a list and schedule of what I’d like to do and who I’d like to see when I’m home. In addition to what I listed last time I’m adding getting garbage plates at Nick Tahou’s [sounds gross, but they're delicious] and eating lots of Bruegger’s bagels and cream cheese. You don’t realize how important bagels are until you can’t find a decent bagel shop for a thousand miles [give or take]. Adam’s mom also called me yesterday to inform me that we have a shopping date and will be eating at P. F. Chang’s afterward. Yum.
I’ll be honest–I miss working. I miss the regularity of it. But I realize, too, that this is a season to draw closer to God and to relax. I’m trying, I really am. On deck for today: meeting, go to bank, spinning at the gym, grocery shopping, stop at Blockbuster and the library for movies, then home to shower.
Yesterday my dad offered to pay for me to fly up to Rochester for a visit, and I gladly said yes. I leave a week from today and return the following Tuesday. So far my plans include visiting with a few friends and family [including my brother Brent], tutoring my dad on the computer [God bless him], going to The Little theater for dinner and a film, and going for several walks/runs along the Erie Canal.
What else do I have to do? Hmm. Well, today [I'm embarrassed to say] Adam and I have to do our state taxes and send them out asap. Right now, I’m doing some job searching and plan to watch The Cult of Sincerity since I’m in the local university library in a quiet spot where I can stream without interruption. Tomorrow I’m off to Vicki’s beach house, and even though it’s been [relatively] cold this week it looks like we’re headed to the gulf for some sunshine. The rest of the week will be more of the same [including an important meeting on Friday], until Saturday’s passover sader at the house of another young couple from church.
I was offered a job yesterday, which I’m prayerfully considering, and another I’ll be sending a resume to today. Having no idea what’s in store for me is both exhilarating and terrifying–kind of like moving 1200 miles away from home. Hrrmph.
Saturday I finally finished reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was delicious and ended in such a graceful way, having opened up an entire family and landing where the family line ended. I would certainly recommend it to anyone. Next up on my list are Kathleen Norris’s The Virgin of Bennington and Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. I got both from the library and started both this weekend.
I’m most impressed by Norris’s writing about her experience in New York City and becoming a poet. In so many ways I’ve betrayed my poet-self. I haven’t written hardly anything and feel so far away from those graduate seminars and workshops that kept me afloat as a writer. Now I’m in Alabama without any writer friends and with a new life and responsibilities, and somehow I lost my way. Norris may help push me back where I belong. Perhaps this time between jobs is a gift for me to send out my poems and write more (I know I said I was writing a poem a day this month, but that hasn’t been the case). I need to be more intentional about all this.
Tuesday I lost my job due to “downsizing” (strange word for a company consisting of four people). It came as quite a surprise, and I really loved my job so it was doubly awful to lose it. At any rate I’m still here trying to figure out what’s the next step in all of this and praying that God will reveal it in due time. For now I’m taking some time off to pray, think, read, write and relax.
I’ll be online as much as I can be, but it’s proven to be quite difficult since we don’t have internet access at home. I can’t get online at the library that’s a 10 minute walk from my house, and yesterday I tried the coffee shop down the street to no avail because their wireless signal strength was low. Today I’m at a library far, far away from home. At any rate, I hope to be on every other day.
We had very little going on this weekend. Adam worked quite a bit of overtime, and I did quite a bit of catching up on DVDs. Friday night we stayed in, snuggled up and watching TV. We tried Blue Moon’s summer flavor, Honey Moon, and it was delicious. That night, it rained buckets and buckets into the morning.
Saturday morning Adam worked a special event in the city, some sort of triathlon/scavenger hunt that sounded like a lot of fun. Teams of three started off paddling, then biked, then ran, all while trying to solve puzzles and “scavenge”. It’s something I’d love to try next year if Adam and I can find a third teammate who’s compulsively competitive like we are. A few years ago, our church hosted a game based on the TV show 24, and Adam and I were a force to be reckoned with (and we were serious pouters when, at the last second, we lost because we were new to the area and didn’t know how to navigate around).
When he got home, we decided to go out for hibachi and sushi lunch. We ended up getting Thai food downtown instead. It was delicious–I had ginger chicken–but gave me my first case of heartburn when I went running an hour and a half later. Note to self: Do NOT go running after eating spicy food. You will want to die as you run.
Saturday night we watched Southland Tales, which I’d gotten because the writer/director is the same as Donnie Darko. Though I love DD, Southland was far too complex for me to enjoy. I told Adam after we finished it (and looked at each other blankly) that I’d probably have to watch it another three times to get all of what was going on. And that’s not going to happen. We did agree, though, that Dwayne Johnson, aka. The Rock, did a fairly good job with the acting and is not a worse actor than Vin Diesel (which we had debated right before watching Southland).
Sunday Adam worked again. I finished the first season of Brothers & Sisters, which isn’t a half-bad show, then tidied up the house, sorted through old CDs and started the laundry. Then I went to the gym, ran three miles and decided to go to a spinning class that started right after I finished my run. I almost died. Running then spinning is tough! But I soldiered through, then made it home to finish the laundry.
Yesterday was more work on the magazine, then yoga. Tonight I’m looking forward to having an evening with Adam. Plus Hell’s Kitchen is on and, yes, we watch that.
