The first book I have purchased for myself (other than textbooks) in a long, long time.

I sustained a black eye at the MSTRKRFT show this week.

It was a great show, so no matter. I've worn it like a merit badge. It's actually been pretty amusing - every day's a different color.

Except for this Saturday, when to my chagrin, I had both a baby shower AND a family event to attend.

Now, Baltimore has made me into a very casual girl.

Exhibit A: the new sneaks.

But a colorful shiner is just too tempting a target for future gossip fodder. I know how people work.

So, close to $200 later, I'm the proud owner of more fancy makeup, and a renewed sense of my ability to blend in and snob with the best of them. As the cliche goes, priceless.

Spring is usually my least favorite season to go shopping. All those brights and pastels...shudder. But J.Crew is treating me right!

sneakers shortlist

February 2008 - the books

*Friend of My Youth, Alice Munro - Excellent short stories.

*At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays, Anne Fadiman - From the author of one of my favorites from last year, Ex Libris.

*Seven Types of Ambiguity, Elliot Perlman - Loved this. An Australian import with a changing perspective.

*Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology, Paul Broks. Interesting, but as I read on, I realized I prefer my neuroscience and my philosophy a little less intertwined.

*Bowl of Cherries, Millard Kaufman - Loved this. Smart, funny and completely bizarre.

*Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, Jenni Ferrari-Adler - Pretty enjoyable collection of stories and essays on pleasures and pitfalls of eating alone. Murakami's "The Year of Spaghetti" is included.

Murakami?

I'm in the tiniest bit of a quandry.

I just don't know what Haruki Murakami book to read next.

Late last year I read (and loved) Sputnik Sweetheart.

I've now collected:

*Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World
*Kafka on the Shore
*The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles

All three are now sitting in one of my many piles of books, waiting to be chosen. Any fans, please advise.

Stuck in my head...

...and I'm not ashamed to say I'm enjoying it.

Ork!

I dig these maps. You might too. From Ork Posters.

People have always taken me to be a clotheshorse. There's something about my looks and/or personality that must suggest a barely curated armoire/closet/museum documenting a history of tastes and whims.

I'll never forget the time a male friend stopped by my college dorm suite and saw my closet. "But....where are all the clothes?" They're right there! But evidently, I was expected to have more.

It's a deadly combination of both frugality (sigh) and plain old pickiness that keeps my closet from bursting at the seams.

This trait has only gotten worse since moving to Baltimore:

1. I have the sort of job that requires little -to- no dressing up.
2. Not a whole lot of shopping temptation in the city.

So when an architecture-benefit event came up, I was woefully unprepared. It took a stressful, last-ditch drive out of the city to try to find something suitable. A sartorial Hail Mary pass, if you will.

The fashion gods smiled upon me this Groundhog day. For on the marked down rack (joy!) there was a perfect frock for the occasion. A black cowlneck dress, half sweaterdress, half constructed of silk. Calvin Klein had saved the day - er, evening to come.

Sharp, but not too dressy. A little interesting. And just what I wanted. Scoring my new dress was the highlight of the weekend. Turned out that the event was forgettable - but I have a great memento, hanging up in my closet.

here we go again.

After a year, do you really think I could stop keeping track?

January 2008 Books:

84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff - so sweet. Really liked this. I think they made it into a movie, too.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark - another to add to my formative-years-in-prep-school pile of books.
Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Jeff Lindsay - read like the TV show it was soon (destined?) to become.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie - a little tale from the Chinese re-education period.
Eating My Words, Mimi Sheraton - memoir from a former NYT food critic.
Come to Me, Amy Bloom - short stories. Really liked these.
Flights of Love: Stories, Bernhard Schlink - more short stories.

on the case

Timely: Domino Magazine's gallery on bookshelves.

My three favorites:

A friend tipped me off to the fan-freaking-tastic news that Helvetica: the film is on Google Video in its full-length typographic glory.

A thousand thanks - I know how I'm relaxing this weekend!

P.S. Is it hopelessly nerdy that I really want this mug?

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been observing one of the security guards slowly but surely (and at a faster pace than I had) making his way through that behemoth of a novel, Infinite Jest.

Somehow I find this profoundly heartwarming. Like I'm not alone --there are goofy, read-everything people out there in the world. Some of the security guards bring in little TVs or just the daily newspaper - no, this guy went all out, with a book was only slightly less difficult for me to get through than my old nemesis Gravity's Rainbow.

I'm bringing in my battered copy of A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again for him tomorrow.

FYI

In case you were wondering, it turns out that you do not need to bring your own needlenose pliers to your MRI appointment - shoulder imaging now does not require removal of that ancient navel ring that seemed like such a good idea close to a decade ago.

(So why keep it? The ring > the leftover scar.)

kopi luwak

One more foodie adventure crossed off the list...

I mentioned it before - kopi luwak, the world's most expensive coffee. And this Sunday, I had the opportunity (courtesy of Zeke's) to try it. An inner gauntlet was thrown - I couldn't resist.

The Baltimore Sun covered the event and their article is here. I spoke with the Sun reporter but declined to give details, as I somehow prefer to not have my name associated with cat poop coffee forevermore. But the "smooth" and "earthy" descriptions were mine.

december 2007 - finale of the year of books

A partial illustration of the books I read this year. (Not all are included.) Several books have been given away to friends. (Both my copies of A Suitable Boy, Suite Francaise, Stiff, Never Let Me Go, etc) Many others, especially from the first half of the year, were simply donated in lieu of my summertime move. I could carry only so many books.

December books:

*Intuition, A. Goodman
*The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, J-D. Bauby
*What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, R. Carver
*The Island of Lost Maps, M. Harvey
*Old School, T. Wolff
*Birds of America, L. Moore
*Offshore, P. Fitzgerald
*Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor Category, D. Eggers et al (ed.)
*Moon Tiger, P. Lively
*Special Topics in Calamity Physics, M. Pessl
*We Don't Live Here Anymore, A. Dubus
*The History of Love, N. Krauss

I read (approximately - possibly more) 97 books total for this project in 2007.
*58 I classified as fiction
*20 I classified as short story, essay or novella collections
*15 were biographical or autobiographical
*14 were science-related
*6 were set in Baltimore
*6 were Booker prize winners (Offshore, Hotel du Lac, Moon Tiger, Possession, Amsterdam, The Blind Assassin)

This year of reading project was due to my ability, thanks to living in Baltimore, of getting books for free. The only books that I paid for were my Penguin Great Ideas - Darwin book, my textbooks for classes, and the books from McSweeney's. A few others I was lucky enough to receive as gifts, but mostly this is the benefit of my (obviously) favorite nonprofit.

Here's to reading.

Songs of the year

There's been a lot of good music released this year. I don't think I've even gotten through most of it yet. So, instead of a top ten, here's my favorite two songs of 2007.


Prefuse 73 w. School of Seven Bells - The Class of 73 Bells


Battles - Tonto

Runners up: "Someone Great", LCD Soundsystem; ("You Got Yr) Cherry Bomb", Spoon; "Paper Planes", MIA.

I can't wait to read this.

Each year for our lab holiday party, I am politely asked ordered to bring in what has come to be my signature dish -

Low fat chocolate truffles with apricot and cayenne pepper.

The night before, then, is a sticky melty mess of various baking chocolates, apricot goo and cayenne pepper going up my nose.

But the results are pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.

the small stakes

I've seen examples of this artist's work before, here and there. (And always thought, "damn, that is a fine example of a well-executed gig poster.") His posters were always standouts, striking in their simplicity.

It's nice to see them all in one place. That would be here - the small stakes.