All the things you're thinking.

Mary's Catch Up 2008 Report: October

Benjamin stayed with me until October 2nd or so. The day before he left, his friend Annika flew in from Norway. Annika works at Kirsten Flagstad Museum, and was flying to the US to go through the costume collections at the Lyric and the Met. Her New York accomodations fell through, so she joined Benji and me in my apartment for a few days.

After Benjamin left, I took Annika to the Sapphire Lounge. My friend Grace Durnford was having a show of textiles she had created while she was apprenticing in India.

Her work was scanned into a powerful computer, than woven by machine. Because she was doing this off the clock, so to speak, she could only get away with doing small bits of fabric. But what she does have is exquisite. Her themes are very militant: flies and guns, biblical stonings and bleeding hearts. It shies away from being grasping or cloying, however, and I desperately wanted to buy some of it. Unemployment is seriously limiting my role as art-world patron.

The lovely Anna O'Brien turned 23(?) in October, and we went to Le Souk, a Morrocan bar on Avenue B that was fantastically oppulent. And hip. Which naturally translated into overpriced and overcrowded. But we didn't let that get to us.

We invited the bellydancers over and shared food and sexually harrassed the waiters. We seemed to be the only ones in the restaurant having a genuinely enjoyable time. Though we had to shout to make conversation.

If it seems like I rushed through these accounts, there is a reason. I want to spend the majority of this entry talking about the single best thing I did in the month of October: The Banksy Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill.

I forgot my camera, so I was unable to document this phenomenon, but I recommend you check out Supertouchart's coverage, which has enough pictures to give you a real sense of the brilliance.

Guerilla street artists Banksy is neither the genius some hipsters make him out to be, nor the hack other hipsters dismiss him as. He's an amazing conceptualist whose work inspires a great deal of reflection, so I have no problem pinning the label of 'artist' to his mantle. And Banksy's first (official) stateside show did nothing if not inspire reflection.

Renting out a store front in the West Village, Banksy recreated a sort of demented petstore, complete with employees, accessories, and "live" animals. Next door was the Charcoal Grill, where (one supposes) you could bring your fresh pets for some grilling.

After church on Sunday, I invited Anna, Sarah, and my cousin Brooke to join me in pet shopping. A few guys heard about our plans and decided to tag along. Because men have been boring me to death lately (why are their reflections so simplistic? Why are their observations so banal?), I couldn't tell you their names. One was Dave maybe. The other may or may not have been named Mark. I wasn't really paying attention. I do know they totally refused to commit to our hip-hop shot while we were waiting in line.

Here's a description of the shop from the outside in: Outside there is an old-school mechanical ride, only it was a dolphin instead of a rocketship. A net had been drapped over it. We were waiting to be yelled at as we climbed on the dolphin, but to our surprise, the bouncers said nothing. We popped in a quarter, and sure enough, the dolphin sprang to life. It was quite a ride. We made a little girl get on it, but it took like 10 minutes to convince her because we were strangers and she probably thought we were going to do something horrible to her.

The windows of the pet shop were display cases strewn with sawdust, just like a real petshop. In one window, an animatroni rabbit applied makeup in front of a mirror. Next to her, some robot chicken-mcnuggets dipped themselves into a packet of sauce. On the other side, a leopard jacket with a tail hung from a tree, it's tail twitching softly.

Once inside, the first thing you see is a giant Tweaty bird--featherless--in a cage, looking sallow and completely miserable. You move counterclockwise around the room, where the walls are stacked with terraniums and canned food. To Tweaty's left there is a monkey (also robotic--everything in the exhibit is mechanized) listening to headphones, surrounded by beer cans and pizza watching a nature video of monkey's mating.

The wall was covered with leopard posters and puzzles. We wound our way around the cage and found ourselves at a checkout counter, where two (real) humans were talking to each other, answering all questions completely in charachter. There was a guestbook you could sign next to the register.

As you continued to move around the room, there was a large fishbowl where two fishsticks swam about. If there was a way I could have bought this, I would have.

The wall of meat was by far my favorite. In a dozen terrariums, instead of snakes or lizards, Banksy had arranged dozens of packaged meat products: hot dogs, bolognas, vienna sausages, spam. The hot dogs would crawl about, the sausage would drink out of its water trough, and the vienna sausages squiggled around as if playing with each other. And the answer is yes, I would have still eaten them.

Afterwards, I should have gone home, because it was the Sabbath, and I don't spend money on Sunday. But unfortunately, the Pet Shop and Charcoal Grill was in the Village, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to go to the Village for less than 4 or 5 hours. This was the chain of logic that followed:

While we're down here we should go see Marsha's political show over on Prince Street -->Hey, isn't that near Planet Doughnut?-->Planet Doughnet sells square doughnuts-->Isn't that near that delicious Cuban Restaurant?-->Oh my gosh we're starving.

So because I have no free will when I'm in a group of more than 3 people but less than 7, I agreed, and so we were off. I had been fasting for 28 hours before this, so I was becoming almost crazed with hunger. When I get that hungry, or tired as the case may be, I become almost incoherent. I just start saying whatever comes into my head, I start pulling on people's arms or touching them too much, I narrate allowed action and observations, and I string together elaborate metaphors that may or may not make sense. At one point, I believe I used the sentence "I am the caboose of this train. Toot tooooooooot! Caboose wants a doughnut!"

Despite being listed as one of the best doughnuts joints in the city, Planet Doughnut wasn't AWESOME. I would give it an enthusiastic "Pretty Good!" I'm thinking I need to try it when the doughnuts are fresh before I can cast judgement. And the peanut butter and jelly doughnuts were pretty good. I don't know, New York doughnuts are so heavy. Give me a Korean-baked Dallas glazed any day.

And the Cuban Restaurant was very good. Mark(?)--in town for business--stuck with us the whole day, even though none of us had any idea who he was. That seems to happen to me a lot lately--I'll form these intense relationships with strangers at coffee shops or museums, and we'll talk for 3 or 4 hours, then I'll never see them again.

I spent Halloween by myself. I'm not sure why it worked out that way, but it did. I wanted to go to the Merchant House Museum, the only Victorian row house left in New York in its original condition. Every Halloween, the Merchant's House Museum does a ghost tour and a haunted reading, and every year it sells out. Last year I wasn't able to get tickets, but this year, success!

My Halloween costume was Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development. That consisted of bobbing my hair, then walking around with a tweed suit and a martini glass calling everyone fat. I think people mistook me for Anna Wintour.

For the haunted reading, we were taken into a Victorian parlor, where a wax corpse was laid out before us, a perfect recreation of a Victorian wake. Then the curator of the museum read some penny dreadfuls, as well as some true accounts of hauntings in the museum. As usual when I enter supposedly haunted places, I didn't feel any sort of presence. You'd think my belief in the afterlife would create at least false sense of the spiritual, but no such luck. Afterwards, though, I saw a girl on the street dressed as a submission-rejected letter, which was so clever my disappointment immediately rebounded.

I took the 6 train up to the Upper East Side, where I went to the church dance. I felt awful, because the 2006/2007 dances were so awesome, that I told all of these skeptics, "hey, no, it's cool! Come to the church dance. It's surprisingly fun." And of course the one year I show enthusiasm it was a disaster. The usual venue was being renovated, so they moved us into a place half the size. And gave us a corresponding budget. This meant no food, barely any drink, huge crowds, and the worst DJ this side of a junior high dance. One guy did show up as Tobias Bluth, painted blue with cut-offs, and that did help my mood. After about 30 minutes of suffering, Patricia and I decided to bail, and spent the rest of the evening at a diner, where the greek owner flirted terribly and the quesadillas were delicious.

Favorite best week ever quote:

"Arcade Fire covered “Born In The U.S.A.” at the Obama Staff Inaugural Ball, making Obama already the indie-est president in history. Besides Benjamin Harrison, of course, because no one’s ever heard of him."

Mary's Catch Up 2008: September

Dallas
I flew down to Dallas for my 27th birthday for no other reason than I felt old and unmarried. For my celebration we ended up going to another child's birthday party (my parent's trainer's nephew, interestingly enough). The trainer (Brandon)'s mother was so happy to finally have a grandson, so she went all out for the birthday: the theme was cowboy, so she had cowboy decorations, BBQ, seven-layer dip, a cowboy cake, and party favors like cowboy boot cookie-cutters and pictures of her nephew dressed as (you guessed it) a cowboy. I don't think any child in my family had such an elaborate party.

Me on the phone with a client at the birthday party

Afterwards I can't remember where we went to dinner. Blue Mesa, I think. Southwestern/ Tex-Mex. It's the one thing I can't find in New York: good Mexican. The Mexican food here is unilaterally terrible, and every time someone takes me to a "great" restaurant I am soundly disappointed.

Ever want to know what it's like when I come home for these vacations? I think this picture says it all:



New York

Back in New York, I invited some friends to a birthday party at popburger. For some reason New Yorkers always have one pseudo-junk food that everybody goes crazy for and tries to make super-posh and ultra-hip. Right now we're going through another burger phase--the last one was in 2005 I think. I've never been to one of these upscale burger joints, so I decided to invite my girlfriends out to one. Popburger on 6th ave and 14th street is more cocktail lounge than burger joint--low tables and seats that double as beds, candlelight and model/actress/waiters. The burgers were in slider form, but on brioche and with cheddar. They were good, but they still stand below In-and-Out on the sliding scale of deliciousness. The best thing at popburger were hands down the fries. Mealy and crispy, perfectly salted, served in champagne flutes.

New York is stormy in September

I was a bit worried about my birthday meal, because I invited such a diverse group of girls: Nina (graduate school), Patricia (church), Sami (childhood friend), Krystal (church), Anna (mentor) Sarah (party scene/church). Patricia and Sarah are a little more indie, Krystal and Anna are a little more alpha-female preppy, Sami and Nina are sweet and conservative. But someone, everyone I invited came, and everyone talked easily with each other, without any awkwardness. And they paid for me, which I hadn't expected, and which was super sweet. It was the nicest non-family birthday party I've had since I was 18.

Most of September was spent chasing clients on E-lance and sending out resumes. I've applied so something close to 200 jobs at this point, and have had 3 interviews. Still unemployed!

Towards the end of the month, Benjamin flew up to visit. As before, we were determined to get off the couch and see something of the city. Benjamin had been wanting to see the New York lighthouse for a year, so one chilly day in September, we trekked up to Washington Heights.

The Little Red Lighthouse, officially Jeffrey's Hook Lighthouse, was built in the 19th century to help keep boats from a particularly difficult area of shoal on the Hudson. Soon it was obsolete, and when the Washington Bridge was built over it, everyone seemed to forget altogether that Manhattan had a lighthouse. Then Hildegarde Swift wrote a book called "The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge." Swift's children's book was a sweet little story about how everything has a job, whether big or small, and how every thing's important in its own way. This saved the lighthouse from being torn down, and now it exists under the cloisters as a little curiosity.
Benjamin and I walked down the Hudson River Walk, picking up cobalt blue glass and photographing rotten piers and decomposed fish. Because we're hipsters and these are the things hipsters do. We had lunch in a pizza shop in Harlem, THEN collapsed and spent the rest of the day in bed watch Venture Brothers. Go Team Venture!

On Sunday Benjamin and I hiked all the way back up to the Cloisters to go to the Renaissance Fair. If you look only one photo collection I've posted, this is the one. The people are amazing, as are their expressions. I have sort of a love/hate thing with Renaissance Fairs. On one hand, I'm obsessed with history, and it's a great opportunity to see rich and living history. On the other hand, I hate hippies, and Renaissance Fairs are chocked full of hippies. Hippies painting faces and selling faerie wands and belly dancing. WHICH REMINDS ME. Will someone explain to me the goth-belly-dancer-gypsy Renaissance Fair staple? Because I'm pretty sure the gypsies of 15th century Europe looked nothing like this.

But despite my reservations, I figured if a Renaissance Fair was going to be done right, the Cloisters could pull it off. And in many ways, it was the Cloisters touch that made the festival interesting for me. They had a tent where a medieval expert talked about how to mix ink from powder, and what each color meant for correspondence. They had a recipe tent where they sold medieval cakes and taught how to make Renaissance pastries. There were Renaissance armors and choirs, as well as genealogy tables. The rest was, of course, your typical crystals-and-dragons LARP garbage. For every blacksmith there was someone selling ribbon headbands or glittery masks.

After the fair we took the train down to Wall Street and had dinner with Krystal and Sami on their rooftop. Sami needs to stop cooking for me--I'm becoming spoiled.

The last trip we made while Benjamin was in town was to IKEA in Red Hook. I didn't need anything from IKEA, per se, but there's a free shuttle that leaves from the South Seaport, and Benji and I were looking for an excuse to take a boat. So we did. Red Hook (Southern Brooklyn) has a weird vibe--it's sort of a broken down port, but the IKEA sprawls out shiny and new, in odd contrast to the derelict neighborhood. Benji and I ate meatballs, planned out an entire home in the showrooms, and almost made it out unscathed...but then we walked through the kitchen utensil showroom, and I found all this stuff I needed for my kitchen AND IT WAS SO CHEAP. And then Benjamin discovered the food store. So we ended up walking out with a huge bag of plants, glass jars, spatulas, jam, cookies, and glogg.

We took the free bus to the subway, then met up with Patricia in Williamsburg to have dinner at a Spanish/Italian restaurant. It was nice to catch up with her, and Mary South joined us a little later for a delicious dessert (chocolate semi-fredo is SOOOOO GOOOOD).

Mary's 2008 Catch Up: August

When I was going to Northwestern, I never actually spent any time in Chicago during the summer. My only experience with Chicago was cold, freezing, or at best, chilly. And in June, I would get one week of warm weather before I'd fly back to Dallas. Same thing with graduate school: I was never in New York during the summer, so I never got to experience the city in a state of excited activity.

Some of it is awful. Walking around the city late at night is weird and vaguely threatening. Shady guys always seem to be milling around outside, people shout more than usual, there are more sirens. The city gets nosier. And the heat is unbearable--simmering and wet.

But most of it is not. As a way of thanking the poor and the oppressed, New York City throws open its doors. Everything is free--dances, concerts, festivals, plays, lectures. People bring their families and camp in Central Park, chatting with strangers and sharing food. I'm sure every city has this sort of atmosphere when festivals and free shows are staged, but Dallas isn't one of them, so I've never experienced it before.

The first of August, I took my friend Anna O'Brien to see DanceBrazil on Central Park's Summerstage. Anna used to live in Brazil, so it seemed like a great opportunity for her to revisit a familiar entertainment.

DanceBrazil wasn't as Brazilian as either of us would have liked. It was influenced much more heavily by African danced, and lacked a lot of the acrobatic lifts and poses in Brazilian dance. But Anna and I got to talk to a Japanese dancer (specialty African modern) and a few Brazilian ex-pats, so it was a pleasant enough night out. Afterwards we went to Crumbs for cupcakes. It's no Sprinkles, but I appreciated their ode to the Hostess Cupcake.

On August 8th, I went to the Met. Lincoln Center holds an Out of Doors series in August that specializes in music and dance. It's sort of a showcase for acts that have been invited to perform in the Met for the fall season, or as a way of trying out potential acts.

I was bored and nothing happened to be going on that weekend, so I wondered over to Lincoln Center and sat next to a German couple. The program was for Armitage Gone! and Burkina Electric. Burkina Electric is an Afro-pop french-electronica group that borrows heavily from early 80's Berlin darkwave. They played a few numbers, and I was more impressed by the band's potential than by how they chose to manifest their sound. But they had a wonderfully sexy and charismatic front woman, and that always helps take an electronic band to the next level.

Armitage Gone! was a absolutely stunning dance troupe that was a traditional ballet/modern hybrid that borrowed heavily from African dance, French ballet, and American modernism. It was a much more successful hybrid than Burkina Electric. The dancers were in such complete control of their bodies, and the diversity of body shapes, colors, and sizes blended harmoniously into a riot of color. There was a genuine energy in their performance that seemed to synthesize with the adoration of the crowd. I wish someone had gone with me so I could have discussed the performances.

The Mormon world is a small one, and nowhere was that more clear than when I went to the MOMA with Anna and her roommate Heather a few days later. The MOMA was showing a Dali exhibit (Dali: Painting and Film), and since we knew very little about Dali's film career, we figured it was worth the visit. As we were about to go into the exhibit, Heather sees the above picture of Dali holding the camera lens and pauses.

"Wow," she remarks. "That looks exactly like this guy I used to date."

"What's his name?" I ask.

"You wouldn't know him. His name's JD"

How many JDs could there possibly be? "Do you mean JD Payne?"

Heather looked startled. "Yes! How do you know him?"

"He's my cousin. I guess I can sort of see the resemblance."

Stacked glass painting

The exhibit did have some items of interest. I got to see a little bit of Un Chien Andelou and Dali's surrealist cartoon L'Age d'Or that was originally to appear in Fantasia (and rejected for being too weird). There were some beautiful stacked glass paintings he did, where each pane of glass had a small detail painted onto it, and when stacked together created the illusion of depth. But mostly, I was able to see how Dali's work evolved from rather amateur, flawed beginnings to the creamy brilliance of his peak, then the bloated and lazy pieces that marked the end of his life.

At the end of July, Benjamin moved back in with his father. By the end of August, Benjamin decided that he had had enough of being eaten by ants in South Carolina, so he came up to cook for me while I was temping at Thomas Publishing. At this point, Benjamin and I had been dating for 10 months, and had spent maybe 2 months of that time in the same state. As a result, when Benjamin would visit, we had trouble leaving the house. Just when one of us would decide we needed to "do something," the other would sabotage with "how about we order take out, watch SVU, and make out?" There is no stronger call than queso and Christopher Meloni. Fact.

But since it's important to see your partner in a variety of situations, I insisted that Benjamin and I needed to actually go out in public together at least once. So on Saturday, we decided to go to Coney Island. It was the first place I took him when he arrived in New York 2 years ago, and I thought he needed to see it in all its summer glory.

Just as it had been two years ago, our goal was to visit the Coney Island Aquarium. The last time we went, we couldn't find it. This time we did, only to discover it was like $40 admission. Each. Without any discount. That's practically our weekly food budget! Instead, we did what we did best: eat. In particular, Nathan's hot dogs and fries. It was a beautiful late afternoon, and it was a moment of wonderful simplicity to walk with my arms around my beautiful boyfriend.

Benjamin's visit was a surprise one, so I had to drag him along to all of the parties and events I had scheduled. One of these events involved painting my friend Krystal's apartment. Krystal is like 6 years younger than me, a Wellesley graduate, and currently working her fingers off at Goldman Sachs. She is fast becoming my favorite new friend. She moved into her apartment, but didn't have the time to paint it except Saturday, her one day off. She asked me for a few hours of help, which became an entire day. Benjamin assembled Krystal's roommate's IKEA furniture (while she was at work. Sneaky!), I taped and painted Krystal's tennis-ball yellow walls (and brown stripes), and then we got a group of girls together and all went to Kmart to look for furnishings. The house looked adorable when were done. Teamwork!

Mary's 2008 Catch Up: July

Dallas

Things the family did not enjoy in the Month of July:

1. Organizing our food storage
2. Canning food storage
3. Returning food storage items

Projects I wanted to complete in the month of July:

1. Food storage

With our history of nomadic travels due to local persecution, Mormons have adopted an attitude of "always be prepared." One of the areas in which the boy-scout approach is applied is food. Every Mormon is encouraged to have a year's supply of food in case of emergencies. An entire church-run industry exists to allow members the opportunity to fill, can, and seal their own dried goods, as well as buy said goods at bargain-basement prices. My mother has reached the last stage of her food supply preparation: she has done absolutely everything she needs, except canning. Sugar, flour, rice, beans--they all have to be canned. She went to the cannery to get the machine to vacuum seal the cans, then promptly became too busy to finish the project. This is when my inhuman level of industry kicked in. I made my family spend 3 days canning food, stacking it in the garage, and driving back and forth from the distribution center to get more cans. Or lids. Or oxygen package. The important thing is the project got done. Look how happy Allie and Julia were to help out!

Things are family did enjoy in the month of July:

1. Shopping for shoes
2. Sprinkles red velvet cupcakes
3. Fireworks
   

Allie Polatin values comfort above all else. It is crucially important to her that the clothing she wears be comfortable. And since she hates spending money on clothing, it is also important that her clothing be durable. So when it was time for Allie to get new flip flops, we picked up Aaron Flynn and drove down to DSW so Allie could find the most durable, comfortable flip flops every made by humans.

At any given moment, the Jones family will find itself addicted to some wonderfully terrible food item. For a while it was Snuffer's cheese fries, then it was frozen custard, and after that Keller's hamburgers. During the month of July, our addiction was Sprinkles cupcakes.

This photo is not mine, but rather from foodobsessed.com

Based out of L.A., Sprinkles are the only cupcakes I've had with delicious icing (especially their red velvet cupcakes--the cream cheese frosting is a little piece of heaven.) Any gourmet cupcake place can make a delicious cake: it's the icing that's the true test of strength. Most bakeries cut their butter with fillers so it won't melt, and it will cost less. Not so at Sprinkles! The only cupcake they don't do to perfection is their chocolate cupcake, which is a bit dark for me. I have yet to find a chocolate cupcake that surpasses my mother's.

Margaret had to go back to Provo for summer school, so that meant our Fourth of July celebrations were one short. Well, two if you count the fact that mom refuses to go set of fireworks. But the rest of the family? We love it like we love the smell of the hills after the rain.

Our Independence Day festivities began with a feast--the way our forefathers would have wanted it: with starchy vegetables and grilled meat wrapped in starch and fried salty starch products on the side. America! Eff Yeah!Zach is displaying his support for corn subsidies with this symbolic representation of America.

After dinner, mom stayed at home to catch up on CSIs, while the rest of us drove around to find a place to light off our illegal fireworks. Yes, our nation has decided it is best to celebrate our freedom from tyranny by making it illegal to accept responsibility for potentially hazardous actions. Ah, overly litigious populaces that strip of us our individual freedoms: how I celebrate you! We finally found a place that was in the middle of a corn field up in Frisco. We actually had to drive onto an unpaved road that was closed for construction in order to find a nook where we could celebrate the Stars n' Stripes in peace.

Exhibit A

Because our sparklers were old and wouldn't light we were forced to show other examples of our patriotism. See Exhibit A: staging a recreation of planting the flag at Iwo Jima. You're welcome, Japan.

New York

Around mid-July, I went back to New York to start the hunt for work. Which is still, as I write this mid-January, still on-going. July was hot. So very, very hot. Most of my time was spent watching movies and remaining inside cool buildings. I saw and loved the Dark Knight. My only issue with it was that I spent the whole movie disappointed that there would be no sequel. Heath Ledger dead meant the Joker dead, and I morned for that loss more than anything.

The heat meant it was little surprise that I couldn't find anyone willing to go to the Siren Festival with me. Coney Island, in July, crammed with people, hipster's sizzling in their black jeans in the hot sun? Everyone else turned me down, but since this was my first time to be in the city when the Siren Festival was going on, I embraced it. Even though I didn't really know of/care about any of the bands performing. I did however forget to bring my camera, so the pictures you see here are all from outside sources.

Photo: Bao Nguyen

The festival was a bit of a disappointment in the ways I expected to be disappointed, and wonderful in the ways I expected it to be wonderful. Disappointment was born from the bands. With the exception of Times New Viking, I didn't hear any music that really excited me--even Film School. Indie rock lacks melody, balls, and hooks for me, and I find myself board easily, and unimpressed with the way bands are so clearly unimpressed to perform. I was disappointed by the vast amount of American Apparel, by the realization that I look and feel old.

Film School Photo: Thomas Tobin

The positive outweighed most of this disappointment. The festival wasn't crowded because everyone had expected it to be hotter than it was. I've never been to Coney Island in the summer, so I've never seen the vendors open, the rides whirring, the colors and the old-school dreaminess of it. My favorite experience was riding the Cyclone while Jaguar Love played in the background. It was a surreal mix of old and new, and I felt like I was a much younger and more optimistic woman.

Photo: Bao Nguyen

I walked on the beach, which was absolutely packed. Don't believe a lot of the hatred about the Coney Island beaches. I honestly feel a lot of the criticism comes from places of elitism and racism--the beaches are filled with lower class families, the majority of whom are dark skinned. But the water was clean (by any big city's standards), everyone was happy and well behaved, and while crowded, it wasn't pushy, aggressive, or unmanageable. It had a warm, pulsing energy that was vibrant and kind, and I felt a real connection with everyone there.

Photo: Daylife.com

Mary's 2008 Catch Up: June

Chicago Visit

The Chicago visit was supposed to be convention of Awesomeness 3, but because everyone was finishing papers and/or studying for the bar, it ended up being just a visit, rather than a weekend of hedonism.

I stayed with Adele at her residence on Paulina. When I arrived, I was the last guest in a long stream of company: parents visiting for graduation, friends stopping by, etc. In fact, my trip overlapped with Adele's brother Bobby, so we both shared the living room for a little bit. Bobby is pretty much one of my favorite people in the world.

Bobby and Adele played an open mike night at a local bar next to a diner with a portrait of Lincoln on it's marquee. They did an excellent job, especially Bobby, whom I had never heard before.


Adele's fiance (Mark) and I went to see Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. My objection to the new Indiana Jones movie is as follows: when you are going to do a sequel, you must present the hero with a challenge as formidable--if not more so--then the challenge in the previous movie. That is why franchises like Bond have a pattern of "awesome-to-suck" with every new actor. Each new movie, the actor must overcome bigger, more elaborate forces, until by the end you have north koreans with diamonds in their faces building ice hotels in the Arctic. With Indiana Jones, the problem is obvious: there is no quest more awesome than the holy grail quest. There just isn't. So in order to one up Jesus, Lucas gives us crystal-boned aliens. The result is a movie that felt exactly like National Treasure.

Mark and I had low expectations though, so we weren't too disappointed. Afterwards we met up with Lakshmi, Adele, and Tom Sherman at Pequod's, which Adele promised me was better than Gios. And she was totally right. Lakshmi, who had never met Tom Sherman before, managed to remain more or less unoffended throughout the entire meal until Tom compared her to Kristen Schaal (superfan Mel from "Flight of the Conchords") and I told her she was chronically late (a supposition based loosely on a handful of remembered instances in college and a confusion with Anne House who is, bless her heart, chronically late).

The next day, everyone had school and work, so I headed over to the Field museum to see the "Mythical Creatures" exhibit. What a colossal disappointment! The idea was to show the scientific and historical origins of some popular mythical creatures like the kracken or the dragon. What it turned out to be was an uninspired collection of myths without any real artifacts or scientific facts, cross-cultural analysis or sociological deconstruction. The whole thing had been dumbed down to the level of "a unicorn was possibly a narwhal!" and "did you know that giant squids aren't a myth? It's true!"

Learning nothing from the mythical creatures exhibit, I went to my favorite part of the museum: the gems and minerals collection on the second floor. The Field Museum has a vile of stardust which has long been my favorite thing to see. It's a vile of small diamonds that are created whenever a star is born. It was hard to get a good picture without the flash, so this is all you get:

That evening Adele and Lakshmi's band ("Rod Blagojevich and the Chicagirls") were set to play at the redline tap. Though I can't sing or play an instrument, they allowed me to come perform with them as "special guest Eliot Spitzer."

I was in charge of the tambourine, and though I did a terrible job, the girls were very gracious about it. I am disappointed that the amazing, intricate songs of RBC were not published on itunes after the Blago-Senate-Seat controversy. Do you have any idea how much money you guys could have made? Seriously.

My last day in Chicago Adele took off work, and we went shopping and had lunch. Lakshmi met up with us about halfway through, and we all managed to spend too much money, despite the fact that the weather was terrible.


Theron and Mark met up with us at a Greek restaurant for dinner, where we had a waiter who was a little over-eager. As much as this makes me sound like an elitist, I cannot stand a chatty, jokey waiter. I want service, I want to be left alone, and I don't want to talk with you unless you're really hot and you will lean over me and gently graze your arm against mine while you read me the specials. And even then, don't tell me any jokes.

Theron was pretty quiet the whole evening, a situation I chalk up to "how he rolls."

Afterwards we went across the street to get ice cream and ran into Will Butler and Jeff Chambers from Northwestern. Will had been invited into town to play DJ at Dillo Day, so we talked for 5 minutes and then broke off to go to our respected parties. I love Will so much, and everytime I run into him, I never manage to communicate that. I guess it's because I find his success intimidating--that he'll worry any affection I show him will be construed as an attempt to get free Arcade Fire tickets.

Fun at the ice cream parlor.

Sadly, the weekend ended on a sour note when I missed my flight to Dallas and had to go standby. I must have spent 5 hours in O'Hare. But other than that, the weekend was another confirmation of how much I love my friends, and how much I love Chicago.

Dallas

When I returned to Dallas, everyone was home for summer vacation. Benjamin was still living with us, Margaret and Julia were back from college, and Allie had to move out of her apartment, so she was staying with us too. With all these distractions, I still managed to clean the garage and organize my parent's room. And the attic. Too bad everything was trashed within days of my leaving. Now I know how Kim and Aggie feel!

Aaron Flynn came up from Austin to hang out with his family for a while. To break up the monotony of cleaning-dinner-movie, we took Aaron to Plano's infamous "Cockroach Hall of Fame."

I don't know if any of you have ever had the experience of something truly awkward and wonderful and horrible happening at the same time, but such was our visit. The CHF is run out of an exterminator's store. To your right are rat traps, glue traps, and pesticides, to your left is a dusty cabinet filled with various dioramas of cockroaches dressed up in tiny outfits.

The history of the Cockroach Hall of Fame is a uniquelyAmerican one: Exterminator has a dream of killing insects, and shows up to town with nothing but the clothes on his back and a bucket of poison. To get free publicity, he spends $100 on a single roach, and when the media begins to cover it, he announces his intention to collect as many roaches as possible. Then corporate sponsors come in, host a "roach diorama" contest, and the humble exterminator displays them in his humble shop. Fame and Fortune arrive swiftly, and soon our exterminator is on Carson and Leno! Then his wife left him, he moved into his shop, and now people don't build roach dioramas like they used to...

He encouraged all of us to make new ones, perhaps a president barroach obama. That could get us on Ellen! And he would totally fly there with us. Oh, what fleeting stuff these dreams are made of.

June was also the month of our Six Flags trip, which Julia refused to participate in because she is terrified of rollercoasters. Jordan, however, has no fear, and made me go with her on so many rollercoasters I became physically ill. But one particular detail of this amusement park visit stands out. There is a booth over in the Mexico part of the park that does spray paint art--usually, it's hearts, or the name "Mike" in graffiti letters. Margaret's been rocking the hip-hop prep look lately, so she had her heart set on getting one of these. Ideally a foam fronted cap, but she was flexible. We roll up to the booth, and this is the dialogue that then ensues:
Margaret: So....do you guys do custom work, or do I have to pick from this book?
Guy: It depends. You may have to pay more, but yeah, we do custom jobs. What did you have in mind?
Margaret: Ok, I want a picture of Biggie and Tupac. Hugging. In heaven.
Guy: Wow. Um, let me ask Renaldo. Hey Renaldo! You got a sec?
Renaldo: Whatchoo need?
Margaret: I want an airbrushed cap of Biggie and Tupac hugging in heaven
Renaldo: Well, your problem is, the cap isn't big enough. You'd have to get a shirt. And even then, a job like that, the detail, you're looking at like 10 hours work. We can't do it. (Renaldo gestures to the side, Margaret moves over to follow him. Then, whispering, says) Ok, I can totally do this for you. But it's going to cost a couple of hundred, and it may take a week. Think about it. I know you won't be disappointed in my work.
Margaret: Give me your email, and I'll be in touch.
Guy: So you want anything else?
Margaret (Sighing): I guess I'll take a ballcap that says "Peep Game."

Behold, the ballcap that says "Peep Game"

The last exciting moment I can remember in June was Zachary's 11th birthday. We're entering an awkward stage with Zach, where all of his present wishes are not things that we wish to present: video games, phones, ipods, cameras. Electronics in general. We sort of have this old fashioned idea that kids don't appreciate those sorts of things until they get older, and they should be using their imagination as much as possible.

This does mean that finding gifts is a challenge. Mom dealt with the challenge in an interesting way. She found war costumes, grenades, battle axes, and most impressive of all, a suit of armor.

The battle axe had to be hidden after about 2 hours of Zach swinging it around. Maybe it will make an appearance next year.

My dad calls me around 3:30 this afternoon and tells me that a plane just crashed into the Hudson river. I ran over immediately, but even though I arrived 30-45 minutes after it hit the water, the plane had already sunk, and the survivors had been rescued. The entire area around the dock was roped off with yellow tape, but with all of the confusion, I just grabbed my camera like I had a press pass and walked right through the roped off areas. The photos aren't too impressive, but here's what I got:

My New Year’s resolution is to have a greater online presence. It’s true that I work a ridiculous number of hours, it’s true that I have a very awesome network of friends who keep me out of the house, but the truth of the matter is, if I don’t write down the things that happen to me, I forget very quickly what’s happened to me. Not the action so much, but the context. What year it happened, when chronologically it happened, what I was actually feeling at the time. And as I get older, my brain is beginning to fill up with stupid, trivial facts, and it’s more important than ever to document things that are important.

I am going to begin the painful backlog of chronicling the things I have done in 2008. I am doing this for my own edification, not because I believe anyone should read the inevitable 50 page document which is sure to follow. I want to strike while the iron is hot, while I’m currently in between jobs. Because if not now, then when?

I suppose I should start with my graduation. The previous months of 2008 were spent studying for my Master’s Exam and looking for work, so lets begin where the fun began: May

May 2008:
Graduation

My parents flew up for graduation, which was very sweet of them, and more than I was expecting. I told them it wasn’t worth the money, and I meant it, but of course once they came I realized how important it was for someone to be there. What surprised me was how happy I was the whole day--happier than I had been at my Northwestern graduation. There are many reasons for that, the chief of which being a sense of accomplishment. If I got struck by a bus and killed with a B.A., an unmarried virgin without children, I feel like my life would be a big disappointment. However, dying with a Master’s Degree at least shows I had promise, I had done something of distinction, you know?
Here is a photo of me with my graduating class. We all studied for the Master’s Exam together, so we were a tight-knit group. It was good to have people to snark to when the graduation speaker reached the half hour mark (“and another thing about why I’m so amazing…”).

After the ceremony, my parents accompanied me to the bus station, where we took the 108 back to Manhattan. Fact about wearing graduation robes: everyone acts like it’s your birthday. Even the homeless. I got a million congratulations on the walk over, causing me to remove my robes on the bus out of sheer embarrassment.

Graduation Trip
My parents decided that I needed a graduation trip, since my trip to Iceland AND the Barbados AND China didn’t happen (don’t ask). Our compromise was Canada, specifically Prince Edward Island (Yes, you Anne of Green Gables fans. The very same!) As soon as our bus returned to Manhattan, we packed our bags, picked up the rental car, and began the drive to Boston.
Those of you who know my dad are familiar with my father’s food tourism. This trip was no exception. In Boston he wanted to go to this doughnut place called Kane’s in Saugus Mass, and he also wanted pizza from an Italian restaurant called Santarpio’s. The only problem was, we were going to be in Boston for 12 hours, 10 of those sleeping in a hotel. But dad HAD to get his pizza, and he HAD to try these doughnuts, and was beginning to panic that his dreams would not be made manifest. By the time we got out of the city, it was 6pm, and Santarpio’s closes at 11. And it’s a 4 hour drive. So counting gas, that leaves a 15 minute window. He wouldn’t let mom and me stop for drinks, food, nothing. We HAD to get to Boston, before Santarpio’s closed! Do you even understand the immensity of this pressure? At 9pm, I saw a sign for Roy Rogers, one of my favorite restaurants, and my lack of lunch was beginning to catch up on me, so I asked to stop. My dad started getting hysterical when mom pulled off, which tipped off a nice fight between them about “getting it together” verses “letting a person get some joy out of life.” After break neck driving, then getting lose near the airport, we finally get to the restarant, and as we’re waiting for the light to change, my father gets out of the car and literally sprints across the street to get to the restaurant minutes before it closed. Mom couldn’t enjoy her pizza, which tasted bitterness had turned to ash in her mouth.

The plan was to sleep in until 10, get up, get doughnuts, and head to PEI. But it turns out dad had forgotten his garments (a special LDS item of clothing), so we had to find a temple so he could get more. Dad began to get his nervous, strained voice, complaining how this trip would ruin his chances of getting doughnuts, and he would just wash the one pair he had in the sink for 4 days. At which point mom turned to dad to make sure she understood that he would rather wear the same underwear for 4 days in a row than miss a chance to get a doughnut. Defeated, my dad agreed to go to the temple.
Afterwards, we tried to get to the doughnut store, and just as it had the previous night, dad’s hysteria that “the store would close at noon!” informed every turn. He was second guessing every navigational turn, and asking “are you sure you know where you’re going?” every two minutes. When we finally made it to Kane’s, he was out of the car before we parked.
The cool thing about Saugus is how distinctly New England it is. I was struck by an intense desire to move to a Boston suburb and live happily ever after in a colonial house, going to farmer’s markets with my daughters.
And sadly, the doughnuts were not awesome. They were a bit stale, and very heavy. Maybe I would feel differently if I had them fresh.
The road trip continued, up through Maine, into colder and colder air. Once you past Acadia, the highway turns into a country road, cracked and potholed. There are no cars, few houses, and fur trees everywhere. We stopped in towns, where everyone had delightfully thick accents, and were sweet/rude in that distinctly New England way.

Once we crossed the border to Canada, however, it was like the sun broke out of the clouds. Towns cropped up full of small British-style houses with white trim, and cute whistlestop cafes dotted the railway. Everything was clean, all the roads freshly paved, everybody sweet/quiet. And pepsis in bottles! Oh my gosh, can I even tell you the delicious elixir that is pepsi in glass bottles?
I think the discrepancy between the Northern Maine/Southern Canada can be explained by geography. Northern Maine is the farthest North you can get in America, a no-man’s land filled with crazy survivalists. Southern Canada, however, is the furthest south you can get, the warmest place in the country. Canada’s Florida if you will. So everyone is grateful and optimistimic to be so close to the sun. It’s all about perspective.
Canada radio played music, good music, with like, rock bands and stuff, which never seems to be the case when I listen to American radio. There was also nothing around once we left the border towns. No lamps, no buildings, no houses, nothing but pitch black, with trees blocking out any topography that might have occurred. The sun did start rising when we got to PEI, however, at midnight. And that was a little weird.

Prince Edward Island looks nothing like it does on Anne of Green Gables. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in May might as well be Seattle in October: cold, wet, grey, cold, wet. Did I mention wet? I had completely underpacked for the weather, and the damp was so all encompassing, it crept into my skin easily.

My dad had booked us at a “gay bed and breakfast,” which was, indeed, a hotel establishment run by a homosexual couple. The breakfast part was hosted in their formal living room, on old damasked couches with special folding trays. After breakfast, we shivered our way to the car and drove to the other side of the island to see L.M. Montegomary’s Aunt’s house (the original “Green Gables”).
I’m not, in fact, a terribly big Anne of Green Gables fan, despite the fact that it has all the trappings of a book I would enjoy: plain, verbally dextrous girl reads too much, is made fun of, has anger issues, achieves success and romance through intellect. It was mostly because I found the actress that played Anne in the miniseries super-obnoxious—the kind of girl I’d want to hit in the mouth.
But despite my lack of enthusiasm, Green Gables was a beautiful place. It was surrounded by picturesque meadows and forests, and the house itself was preserved in all of its Edwardian splendor.

The House:

Drawing Room:

The Haunted Grove:

Lovers Lane:
My dad obliged me by posing as a ghost in the haunted grove, so I could photoshop this amazing picture:
And in case you wanted to know why I didn’t send any of you cute tchotchkies because the gift shop was literally one of the worst ones I have ever seen in my life. I mean, you have Canada, you have nautical, you have a little girl, Edwardian colors, cakes, ribbons, flowers, and literature as your themes, and the best you can come up with are some plastic lobsters and some pewter spoons? I am ashamed for you, Green Gables gift shop.
We went down to the sea side, even colder, with red mud rocks and almost no shells. We stopped by an old time toy store with wooden toys and little model ships. We tried walking around the mall, to diasterous results:

Rather than look at food court graveyards all day, we went into Charlottetown, got some food, and then went home and watched “How Not to Decorate.”
The next day was the drive back to New York. We stopped by the Bay of Fundy, which has the world’s most dramatic tide, with a huge disparity between high and low tide. (see http://www.bayoffundytourism.com/tides/). The sun finally came out, and it brought out my and my dad’s frolicking side:
We hiked down to flowerpot rock, and while I can see the flowerpot shape, I got a different vibe all together from it:
I think my laughter was disturbing to the other patrons.
We spent the night in Kennibunkport, another New England town so cute I my head nearly exploded, and then continued to New York the next day.
When we arrived in New York, dad surprised mom by taking her to Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant at the London for their anniversary. I got to tag along as a kind of “graduation dinner,” and I have to say, it was the single best dining experience of my life. I can see what Frank Bruni meant when he described the décor as “a bordello,”
but that said, who cared about the décor when the food was so amazing. I was tricked into eating food I would never normally put in my mouth (salmon mousse, seared fois gras,), and I was melting. It was so absolutely delicious, so beyond good, it was a transcendent experience. It had like 7 courses, different appertifs, just unbelievable.

Yesterday's episode of this This American Life was so funny I cried. The theme was "Numbers" -- it focused on three stories of people attempting to quantify unquantifiable things. The best segment was about three guys who attempted to write the world's most wanted song (which will be "uncontrollably liked" by 72 percent of the population) and the world's least wanted song (which fewer than 200 people in the entire world will enjoy) based on the results of a survey of people's musical preferences. Although both pieces should be heard to be fully appreciated, the descriptions alone are pretty hysterical.

The most wanted song is about three minutes long, features guitar, piano, saxophone, bass, drums, violin, cello and synthesizer, with low male and female vocals singing in "rock/r&b style" and narrating a love story.

The least wanted song "is over 25 minutes long, veers wildly between loud and quiet sections, between fast and slow tempos, and features timbres of extremely high and low pitch, with each dichotomy presented in abrupt transition. The most unwanted orchestra was determined to be large, and features the accordion and bagpipe, banjo, flute, tuba, harp, organ, and synthesizer. An operatic soprano raps and sings atonal music, advertising jingles, political slogans, and elevator music, and a children's choir sings jingles and holiday songs. The most unwanted subjects for lyrics are cowboys and holidays."

Ira Glass noted that he kind of liked the least wanted song, and asked the researchers why that might be. One of the composers (who also admitted to liking the worst song) said the likely explanation was that Ira was an elitist and wanted to feel like he had rare taste in music.