Aplace

The week between Christmas and New Year's

The week between Christmas and New Year's is the deadest week of the North American business year. My coughs and sneezes (sick again!!!) echo through office halls unanswered. There is no line-up for coffee. I easily get a spot in the cafeteria. More importantly, I am getting things done!  Everyday when I get into work, I make a list of what I have to do that day. Invariably, something more pressing arrives that messes up my plan and I only end up doing 3/4 of it. Not this week though. I had stuff to do and I am doing it. And I even have time to blog about the stuff I'm doing.Apparently this week is the best week of the year to advance my career. But I worry enough about that the 51 other weeks . This week I will just enjoy the quiet and the productivity.  I wonder what wondrous things I will accomplish this week. Stay tuned.

A touch of leprosy

Hi all. I've been remiss around here. As I am known to be. Would you believe I've been fending off a yucky condition known as post-sunburn-itis. I got a sunburn about three weeks ago and my arms are still flaking off in unattractive patches. Well, rather the skin on my arms. It's disgusting. I keep finding little flakes of skin on the arm of my work chair. Yummy!

In other news I've begun to feel old. I've never felt that way before but this year, it's been really acute. I think I have issues with the number seven. The switch from 16 to 17 felt so momentous to me when it occurred. And it was.  How does one combat this feeling? It's obviously ridiculous. I still have all the good things in life facing me and yet, and yet... This is why I don't blog more often. I just feel an overwhelming need to vent about the contents of my mind instead of adding something wonderful and new to the world.

Burning Woman

My eyelids are sunburnt. Not sure how I managed that. Also my nose and forearms. Owwweeeeee! For some reason I decided to go for a long leisurely bike ride under the blazing hot California sky and was punished by the gods for doing something so carefree and exciting. The chain on the rented bike snapped halfway through and I ended up spending about two hours walking it back to the rental spot under the unpitying gaze of the sun.

Blergh!

I have more pictures from my trip to post up soon and if any of you know any good sunburn treatments, let me know.

Ferd

Bah.

I signed up for guitar. My instructor moved away.
I signed up for German. It was canceled for lack of enrollment.
I signed up for acting classes. The studio where classes were to be held is damaged in a small fire.

sigh... the universe does not want me to extend myself, apparently.

three years two months four days

An annotated list of my interests as at January 2005 So have you heard about livejournal? Of course you have! it’s this v. intuitive blogging software that took the world by storm circa 2000-2002.  I signed up for an account in 2005 basically so I could put a nice icon on the comments I made to other livejournalers. When you sign up, you are asked for a list of your interests. I felt it would be interesting to revisit a list of things I claimed to be interested in at the time. The list has been annotated as follows:

Bold: Things I am still interested in
Underlined: Things I was interested in but am not interested in anymore
Italics: Things I was never interested in and only put on the sheet in order to look interesting
ALL CAPS: Things whose inclusion on the list I cannot comprehend.

8 women, about a boy, allure magazine, american history, andrea levy, ann patchett, banana yoshimoto, before sunrise, before sunset, bill bryson, buffy the vampire slayer, cargo, chloe sevigny, chris rock, CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN, chungking express, crazy/beautiful, dave, DAVID STARKEY(who is this man?), defamer, digital photography, dvds, entertainment weekly, eric satie, freeform five, french food, gabriel garcia marquez, garden state, geoffrey chaucer, ghost world, ibook, ibook g4, ivy league, jack johnson, jason mraz, jeff buckley, jennifer weiner, john irving, john mayer, jon stewart, london, los angeles, mac, macintosh, madonna, manhattan, manicures, margaret atwood, mark haddon, mcgill university, MIDDLEMARCH, modest mouse, moliere, new york times, nylon magazine, ottawa, paris, relaxers, sake, san francisco, sarah slean, say anything, scrubs, shakespeare, suede magazine, sushi, teen vogue, the daily show, the killers, the o.c., the robber bride, the shins, the west wing, tom ford, us weekly, voltaire

There is of course a corollary to the Italics category which is things I didn’t put on the list for fear of looking boring, things like President’s Choice food products, the BackStreet Boys, Star Trek: Voyager and more yet that I am not willing to commit to the page/screen.

Cinematic Review 2007

Wherein, for your reading enjoyment, I rate all the movies I saw this year (that I can remember). Underlined equals not bad, bold means amazing, go see and plain text means "you suck, movie".

1. Children of Men
2. Babel
3. Catch and Release
4. Because I Said So
5. Freedom Writers
6. Dreamgirls
7. The Kingdom
8. Music and Lyrics
9. Stardust
10. Blades of Glory
11. Are We Done Yet?
12. In the Land of Women
13. The Lives of Others
14. Waitress
15. Knocked Up
16. Superbad
17. Ocean's Thirteen
18. No Reservations
19. The Bourne Ultimatum
20. The Nanny Diaries
21. Interview
22. Eastern Promises
23. Sydney White
24. Good Luck Chuck
25. Michael Clayton
26. Dan In Real Life
27. Enchanted
28. Juno

My favourite? Eastern Promises. It was remarkable. REMARKABLE! Rent it when it comes out. Michael Clayton was quite good as well, but ultimately less emotionally affecting. Good Luck Chuck was the least favourite. It was an affront to my sensibilities and my basic humanity, actually.

What was your 2007 favourite?

Next post? Music singles of 2007

Two-dimensional woman-shaped blank

Wow, just finished reading Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth, (yah, I know, I’m about fifteen years behind the times but whatever, it came out when I was eleven and only read John Grisham and Star Trek novelizations ) Anyhow, so wow, basically the patriarchy hates me and is so clever they’ve managed to get me to subjugate myself, which is kind of brilliant. While I’m trying to figure out whether to eat the bacon cheeseburger or the salad, a dude is eating the cheeseburger, putting his tie on and using the remaining time to get ahead in the world. Also has a whole section on why wearing glitter is like a totally normal response to the invisibility of women in society. Oh and in a diseased world where women must be thin to be attractive, and thus are forced to choose between food and sex, bulimia is a rational response that allows you to have both (!!!!!!). She also points out that the average daily calorie allotment on most major commercial diet programs is equivalent to the daily rations alloted people in the Netherlands during the World War II. Is she equating the two? She says no, but then, um, actually, yes. In fact many times in her book she equates dieting and disordered eating to involuntary famine !!???!!

Mind you, I think it’s supposed to be empowering, but in the end it’s sooo not because it says, basically, that if you are not thin and/or don’t look like a porn star, society will reject you, men will reject you and you will reject yourself. Obviously, she takes a v.strong moral stance against this fact but she never questions for a second the truth of it in practice. I mean, gosh, is this true? Also, her book is all about rich, white, educated, young women and there are other people in the world who are affected by the Beauty Myth is vastly different ways and I think that could have been addressed. Also, i once saw Naomi Wolf on the street in NYC and she is really beautiful so I wonder how that plays into her whole analysis of the issue.

New job

I had my first day at the Competition Bureau today. Everyone was super nice but it was pretty boring, a lot (!) of reading. Also, I had sort of forgotten how crap I am at the whole balancing work and school thing so tonight I was working on a paper that's not due till Thursday but when I looked at my schedule I realised there was no free time, really, for me to do it before then...sigh!  Time management should be added to the list of resolutions, I think...

Also, I spoke to Becky's mom and the recovery is going well ! Huzzah !

Alumni magazines

Sigh, if you want to quickly destroy my mood or self-image, forward me a copy of an alumni magazine. Those things can make you despair of your life like none other. Whether you're reading about the newly married, newly babied, newly hired on at a fashion house in Paris or whatever, it seems everybody, *everybody* is doing great, "never-been-happier, every-day-is-a-blessing" great.

There are two possible reactions, of course. 1) You share in the joy others and use their accomplishments as encouragement to achieve things in your own life or (and you know there has to be an "or" because this is my blog) 2) You despair of your failure and fall into a shame spiral of envy and depression. Now, my firend Caroline once made the interesting point that alumni magazines only include positive events. Nobody ever writes in to say: "Hey, I got divorced" or "I declared bankruptcy" or "I'm stuck in a dead-end job and have a terrible relationship with my parents". The alumni magazine is not a baseline of human achievement that we must compare ourselves to. I try to remind myself of this. One day, I suspect,  when the tide turns, I, too, will write into the alumni magazine to share my accomplishments. Until then, fair readers, you alone will have the privilege of hearing about my triumphs and tribulations !

Say it Right

Okay here are the resolutions. I know you're supposed to keep things small and manageable but f*** small and manageable, right? Grandiose and unwieldy will be the watchwords for 2007! I don't expect myself to accomplish everything on the list. 'twould be well-nigh impossible but I just wanted the universe and my future self to know this is what I want out of life right now. So with that annoying caveat out of the way, the resolutions:

1. Try growing hair seriously. Do not randomly hack at it at 1 in the morning on Sunday nights because you are bored. It will not look cool. Trust me...
2. Exercise 3 times a week. Anything.
3. Learn to drive on the highway. Having panic attacks before you get to the onramp is not good. Sign up for highway driving classes. Buy a car. Consider seeing shrink about this.
4. Get a boyfriend (with car preferably, if resolution 3 does not work out) or if this is impossible, at least any type of social life that does not involve me playing cribbage with my mom on Friday nights. Sigh...
5. Resolve relationship with mother. things are getting v. fractious, we need to work it out (the cribbage is not helping things).
6. Save, save, save !!! You *do not* need a designer anything. Get over yourself.
7. Maintain and keep up on my health. This is everything. Everything ! Get tested for high cholesterol which is hereditary.
8. Go to Europe. Stop saying you will and do it. Do it Do it !! You are allowed to spend on this (and prescription sunglasses, you need those)
9. Get good at guitar. You got one for Christmas, now use it.
10.Broaden social circle. Make one new non-lawyer friend.