best friends forever. FOREVER.

i work with pets, i have pets, i've lost pets, and it's always heartbreaking, i know. it's natural to want a keepsake. when we had to put my dog to sleep i kept her collar and leash, because they smelled like her. i still have them here in my bedroom. but i never thought of putting her dog-smelly collar on a stuffed animal and wrapping my arms around it in the dead of night, and i like to think that i would never indulge in the sort of "rose for emily" pathos being catered to by comfort pets™, the makers of plush pet-replica urns designed to literally embody the memory of your faithful fuzzy friend.

oh, no. that's not right. it's really not. and here's something even less right:

My shih tzu callie was hit by a car and died last year. I couldn't bear to put her in the ground. I wanted her with me always so I had her cremated. All I got back was a hard box so I slept with a picture of Callie under my pillow and cried for days. …My Mom couldn't bear to see me so upset so she took Callie's cremated remains and gave me a Comfort Pet. Callie is in the Comfort Pet that looks like her. Now I can sleep with her and she even sits on my lap like she used to when I watch TV. I stopped crying for Callie when I got her back in a Comfort Pet.

a year. a year this grown woman has been cuddling the synthetic-material-encased ashes of her pet. and you thought your pup's habit of gnawing on the legs of the kitchen table was evidence of profound separation anxiety. way to enable, joelle's mom. don't encourage her to take up watercolors or volunteer at a shelter or anything healthy like that, it's really best to give her a foolproof way to evade reality and scare off new friends. why heal, when there's comfort pet™?

oh, that's right: because you're NOT CRAZY.

sunday best-of blogging: the tv issue

best opening theme song: the original tune written for the boondocks, which i really, really, really wish were a full-length song on a full-length album that i could buy. *ahem* HINT HINT

best presidential footage: the bit that's been all over the air of him spacing out on a dangling camera like a baby faced with a shiny mobile absolutely destroyed me, in several ways. i laughed, of course, to see w forget where he was when presented with a lone misplaced object, but it was painful too. i'm sure you understand.

worst name for a metal band: as i lay dying. i caught this band on the mtv2 resurrection of headbangers ball (yes, i sometimes watch headbangers ball; do you never yearn for the innocent days of your youth?) and thought i would give them a chance, but they do not deserve to be trotting this title out like a fancy lap dog. faulkner is whirling like a dervish on glass, i'm sure. for shame.

best network programming surprise: saturday night live is funny again! i hadn't watched it in eons (aside from the weekly update, which i can't resist, because i've had a crush on amy poehler since upright citizens' brigade) because it was so stilted and forced and unprofessional, but i tuned in last night to catch dane cook, whom i adore to no end and had missed when the show originally aired, and man, was i surprised. i don't know if it was due to his influence, because he can turn that shit around, but the skits seemed more uninhibited and inspired than they have in well over a decade. that bit about the talent show? things that defy description shot out my nose. i've been optimistic about the fate of the show recently because the cast members are truly talented, rachel dratch and maya rudolph in particular (maya has also done some great work for the also surprisingly hilarious show campus ladies), but i couldn't help feeling like the skits were just never going to top par, and there's nothing worse than a talented individual succumbing to his or her meritless environment. but i've been happily surprised, and i can only hope that this recent standard will be maintained*.

most unwatchable new television show: i have, all my life, longed to bludgeon lisa loeb with a cast-iron skillet. her music burst vessels in my eyes, her scrunchy nose and cutesy cat glasses curled my tiny nerdy hands into furious riot-grrrl fists, and possibly worst of all, she created an unshakeable personal aversion in me to brown university, the school whose radio station saved my life and whose campus i owe the majority of my happy teenage memories to. now, i thought her last show, dweezil and lisa, would successfully convince the public that she was in no way deserving of its attention, but the chipper little fungus is staining the media yet again with #1 single, which debuted this week on E!. here's the intro to the first show, as found on the show's own publicist-approved page:

Meet Lisa. She lives in Los Angeles with a quirky collection of gnomes and Hello Kitty dolls. The singer-songwriter is single for the first time in about 12 years, but she's hoping a serious dating blitz will soon turn up her soul mate--she hasn't managed to meet any eligible guys on tour.

Her sister Debbie Loeb thinks all Lisa really needs is a good push-up bra. The problem is, date number one, Steve, seems barely worth a sports bra. He doesn't eat vegetables (don't ask) and serenades Lisa with a cringe-worthy karaoke version of her own hit "Stay."

oh, lisa. the song was always cringe-worthy; a karaoke version is probably the only truly fitting tribute, and i'm sure it's infinitely easier to listen to. i didn't want to watch, i swore i wouldn't watch, but i stumbled upon it completely by accident one afternoon and, as when watching an inevitable car crash play out from a distance, i was as horrified by my own inability to move or avert my eyes as i was by the fact that it was happening in the first place. while making kugel in her mother's kitchen, lisa weepily confesses that she used to look at the old people alone at parties and think to herself, wow, poor them, they're not married, how sad, and now (*sniffsniff*) she is one of those people (she's about thirty). when her mother cautions her against letting herself get trapped in another six-year relationship with mr. wrong, lisa assures her that she isn't staying with anyone else for six years unless she's getting married. ivy-league educated, successful (for a moment, anyhow) in a competitive artistic business, confidently kitschy, tall and not ugly and smarter than plenty of girls—life set lisa up to be the poster child for self-assured, independent, gen-x singer-songwriters, and here she is using what's left of her celebrity clout to engineer a high-profile private dating service, because she'd rather die than be single for one more second. it is great to be loved, lisa, and there's plenty to be said about the upside of being in a happy, committed relationship, but it is okay to be single at some point between the ages of 18 and 30, too. it can even be good for you. trust me.

girls named lisa, man. they're nothing but trouble.

worst commercial: the new zetia ad that features a wise old doctor meandering through the grounds of a hospital with his herd of bright-eyed young newbies wins for sheer awfulness, as its premise is nonsensical and we're beaten over the head with it for an interminable period. but honorable mention must go to the contact lens commercial where some whiny woman opens with a fully disqualifying statement along the lines of, "when my contact lenses are bothering me, i just can't go on with my day!" unbelievable. i wonder what would happen to her if we told her she had to drink full-fat lattes for the rest of the afternoon. you know what, honey? don't. don't go on with your day. the world doesn't need you.

most shocking project runway development: chloe broke unimaginably new ground this week by veering miles outside of her standard color palette of turquoise, black and beige to stun the world with this remarkable combination:

look at that chocolate brown! it's revolutionary! and that white is a very honest white—no beige in sight. no wonder the judges can't get enough of this girl. she's the only one who's keeping them on their toes.



* if you saw the show and thought it wasn't that funny, keep in mind that i had downed most of a very stiff tanqueray-and-tonic by the time it aired.

dear santino rice: don't go breakin' my heart

ohhhh, santino, you brilliant, beautiful, bratty son of a bitch. you very nearly killed me last night on project runway, burdening a figure-skating outfit with a five-inch-deep carpet of plumage. some feathers can be intriguing, but those feathers were gertrude mcfuzz on a pill-berry bender.

what? what? we get it, already: you're a visionary. how about you suck it up and prove that you are also capable of being a competitive businessman, and construct any one garment with someone besides yourself in mind. this is a contest, honey. you have to play to win*. the pretty little skater girl told you exactly what she needed, and you gave her none of it. bad designer, ignoring your client—even if i did like your idea, and why was everyone so excited about chloe's turquoise? she uses that color in every single design. turquoise and beige, turquoise and beige, dull as rocks, smother me with a bolt of chiffon. whatever. i know the producers have as much, if not more, say about who stays and who goes as the judges, so how could you not end up going all the way, being the charismatic instigator that you are… but i don't care about sports, so this is my superbowl, and your attitude is fraying my nerves to such a degree that it resulted in an honest-to-goodness anxiety dream. wrote a song about it; like to hear it? here it goes.

in the next competition, the challenge was to design a formal gown for hillary rodham clinton to wear to a fundraising gala, and you whipped up this crazy blood-orange-and-espresso affair with an asymmetrical skirt hiked up over the knee on one side and brushing the floor on the other and, like, cattails or something sticking up over one shoulder, and michael kors and nina garcia rushed the runway and beat you with their chairs, and you fled and went into hiding in a mud hut in a mountainous region of asia, vowing never to handle another shred of fabric as long as you lived. but john galliano** sought you out, and when he found you he revealed his secret identity as the master of a little-known meditative art that centered on the endless sewing of tiny stitches, all identical in length. through his dedicated teachings you learned to gain control over your opprobrious egocentricity, and after what played out like years but must have actually been about eight hours, you went back to project runway and presumably wiped the floor with everyone else's refuse (i can't say for sure, as i was awakened by my alarm before things were allowed to play out fully).

rock.

but it'll only be one girl's glorious dream if you haven't stopped being an abrasive, narcissistic jerk. have you stopped that, baby? i bet you have. well done. and not that i'd have to say it, but really, darling, you don't belong at banana republic. they're prudes. just, you know, keep your rational, intelligent, calculating eye on the prize. and if you've already lost, at least nicky hilton's got your number.




* unless you are playing against me, in which case you could probably just slap some glitter glue on a scrunchie and tell me a story about the first time you saw a fish, and i'd throw up my hands and forfeit, 'cause, um, you're fucking fabulous. but snotty. but fabulous.

** the dresses in john galliano's most recent autumn/winter collection made me simultaneously weep and ovulate.

sunday best-of blogging: the "i'm cranky" issue

album i always want to listen to when wearing my peach wrap-around cardigan with the floral embroidery and sequined embellishments: seven swans, sufjan stevens. i can not begin to explain this.

most ridiculous automotive fact: my mechanic can not buy an oil pan for my 1995 dodge neon from a supplier, because the part is no longer manufactured. i'm pretty sure i don't have the lone existent neon, and if cars of this sort were going to need new parts they'd start doing it right around now, wouldn't they? so why would dodge tell us we can't have them? like we're all going to go out and buy new neons or something. if i had a 1949 mercury (and believe me, if wishes grew on trees i might) i would understand various parts for it being unprocurable, but that isn't at all the case. see? ridiculous. and i would never drive a mercury, those things suck gas like nobody's business . . . but damn, they're some sweet-ass rides:


most infuriating sound to be woken up by on a sunday morning: toadie's parrot's favorite toy is a small plastic frog with a mirror in its belly that makes what i assume is meant to be interpreted as a ribbiting sound whenever its head is pressed on. the ribbiting is not the infuriating sound, though; that sound is the one that's made by the hard plastic body banging against the floor and walls of the hallway outside my bedroom, where the bird most likes to play with his frog, maybe specifically because of the plastic-on-wood racket. what's really infuriating, though, is that toadie would never think that maybe it was a teensy bit impolite to set the bird loose in the hallway at seven o'clock on a sunday morning, or any morning, for that matter, and allow him to make all that noise. i would never do that to her, or to anyone. some people are so blind about their kids' bad habits, and their own.

most suspicious closing of a criminal investigation: oh, army, army, army. you're so dang skeptical.

the army closed a criminal investigation of abuse allegations by an iraqi detainee last year, finding no reason to believe his claims, even though no americans involved in the case were questioned, according to pentagon documents made public yesterday. internal army documents about the iraqi's capture on jan. 4, 2004, and his subsequent interrogation at an unspecified facility at or near baghdad international airport were not reviewed, the records show, because investigators were told they had been lost in a computer malfunction.

skeptical and conveniently disorganized. i'm a bit of a skeptic myself, though relative to slightly different points, as evidenced by my disbelieving italics. i don't have an objective problem with the military, but i do tend to bristle at people who assume they know everything before they've begun, with utter disregard for relevant evidence, as our army is wont to do. please stop treating us citizens like stupid, whining children. we recognize a supercilious brushoff when we see it.

best alito interview: nobody sticks it to 'em like fafblog. i've tried to stay abreast of the recent confirmation hearings, but it's tough for me to stay involved, what with it all seeming like a meaningless exercise the way it does. if fafnir had a news channel, though, it would be all i watched, except for sometimes the cartoon network and any channel airing svu, which i've recently been forced to proclaim myself powerless against. this, too, i am unable to explain.

weirdest partnering: that between starbucks corp. and lions gate entertainment corp., who have joined forces to market and distribute the movie akeelah and the bee, yet another heartwarming tale of a young spelling-bee champion. why were these things not popular when i was a kid? i'd have been a superstar. oh well. anyway, i think this is creepy. maybe i shouldn't, given the role of fast-food chains in pushing blockbuster paraphernalia on the impressionable masses, but i do. i think this quote is the one that really drove me over the edge:

"While we are a coffee company at heart, Starbucks provides much more than the best cup of coffee—we offer a community gathering place where people come together to connect and discover new things," said Howard Schultz, Starbucks chairman. "We are always looking for innovative ways to surprise and delight our customers, which is why we are so pleased to be working with Lionsgate on 'Akeelah and the Bee' as the first film to introduce to our customers."

oh, come on. here's what jarvis cocker and i think of you and your community gathering place, starbucks: grass is something you smoke, birds are something you shag, take your "year in provence" and shove it up your arse. you want our money and you'll shake us down every which way you can. well, i'm buying my espresso elsewhere, you shameless, heartless whores. nyah. p.s., your cds suck.

most despicable film adaptation: tristan and isolde, the wb rendition. i can't even force myself to learn enough about this movie to be able to criticize it effectively, i'm so angry. i'm so angry. how could you, kevin reynolds? you go to hell. you go to hell and you die. grrrrrrrrrr.

best act of rodent vengeance: monday morning, i heard a story on a local radio station (100.7, maybe? this is the classic rock station in boston, which, sadly enough for yours truly, now plays songs off of rem's automatic for the people. *sigh* i'm old.) about a very bad man who found a mouse in his house, captured it, took it outside and threw it into a pile of burning leaves in his backyard. bastard! i thought, and so did the mouse, i guess, who caught fire in the pile but did not go gentle into that good night and instead turned and ran back into the house, setting it righteously ablaze. do unto others, my friends; it's the only rule worth remembering.

something is amiss, something is not right . . .

right now, at 9:30 p.m. on the night of january 13, it is 48º F on my front porch. for the past three days i've been comfortable outdoors without a coat. the ground is not only thawed but muddy; if i wanted to, i could head out into the yard this very second and plant a bed of tulip bulbs while wearing nothing but jeans and a thermal shirt. the current five-day forecast for my neighborhood predicts a high of 56º on wednesday. fifty-six degrees, in mid-january, in massachusetts. it vexes me. i am terribly vexed.

is boston suddenly closer to the coast than it once was? it should be fifteen degrees, there should be dirty, crusty snowdrifts all up and down the street, my face should hurt by the time i make it to the bus stop. what in the world is going on here? everyone i know is thrilled about it, they think it's the best winter ever, and i have to admit that i don't hate much more than the traditional new england winter, but my hatred of it has never prevented me from accepting the innate rightness of it. today's temperate, humid breeze didn't feel pleasant to me; it felt wrong.

does it feel like january where you are? i'm anxious and fidgety, and i won't feel completely better until the gallon of water i keep forgetting to take out of my car freezes, but if it's only happening here i might relax a little. maybe. just a little.

theoretical physicists are soooooo dreamy

werner heisenberg, from science as a means of international understanding, delivered at göttingen university on july 13, 1946:

At the end of the Middle Ages man discovered, apart from the Christian reality centred round the divine revelation, yet another reality of material experience. That was "objective" reality which we experience through our senses or by experiment. But in this advance into a new field certain methods of thought remained unchanged. Nature consisted of things in space which changed in time according to cause and effect. Outside of this there was the world of spirit, that is, the reality of one's own mind which reflected the external world like a more or less perfect mirror. Much as the reality determined by the sciences differed from the Christian reality, it nevertheless represented also a divine world order with man's action based on a firm foundation, and in which there could be little doubt about the purpose of life. . . .

But this view of nature has also become undermined during our century. Fundamental attitudes of thought lost their absolute importance as concrete action moved more and more into the centre of our world. Even time and space became a subject of experience and lost their symbolic content. In science we realize more and more that our understanding of nature cannot begin with some definite cognition, that it cannot be built upon such a rock-like foundation, but that all cognition is, so to speak, suspended over an unfathomable depth.

. . . In those branches of science in which we have found that our knowledge is "suspended in mid-air," in just those branches, have we achieved a crystal-clear understanding of the relevant phenomena… We can rest assured that there will be a final decision as to what is right and what is wrong. This decision will not depend on the belief, race or origin of the scientists, but it will be taken by a higher power and will then apply to all men for all time. While we cannot avoid in political life a constant change of values, a struggle of one set of illusions and misleading ideas against another set of illusions and equally misleading ideas, there will always be a "right or wrong" in science. There is a higher power, not influenced by our wishes, which finally decides and judges. The core of science is formed, to my mind, by the pure sciences, which are not concerned with practical applications. They are the branches in which pure thought attempts to discover the hidden harmonies of nature. Mankind today may find this innermost circle in which science and art can hardly be separated, in which the personification of pure truth is no longer disguised by human ideologies and desires.

. . . Science can contribute to the understanding between peoples. It can do so not because it can render succour to the sick, nor because of the terror which some political power may wield with its aid, but only by turning our attention to that "centre" which can establish order in the world at large, perhaps simply to the fact that the world is beautiful. . . . Take from your scientific work a serious and incorruptible method of thought, help to spread it, because no understanding is possible without it. Revere those things beyond science which really matter and about which it is so difficult to speak.

sunday best-of blogging

best album to hem a dress to: penthouse, luna. i met this band in providence, ri, when i was 18 and made them sign the poster i stole off of the door to the club they were playing at, and it was dorky and pathetic, and we all knew it, and i didn't care. i love you, dean wareham. thank you for not laughing at me to my face. if it matters, i bet you'd like the dress.

artist most frighteningly devoted to his craft:



here's christian bale the way most of us know and love him, ripped like jesus and relieving my lungs of their troublesome burden of air more swiftly than a cannonball to the solar plexus. while i know mostly nothing about him as an individual and can't speak to his character, i can say with a great deal of certainty that this is the body i would program into my vanilla sky lucid dream. it's perfect, people. perfect. i crave it in a way that makes me blush even when i'm all alone in a dark, silent room. and here's christian making me want to die in a much less fun way in the machinist, which i got for christmas from my mom and watched for the first time on thursday:




MOTHER OF GOD. i've loved me some skinny men, but christian's body was so luridly grotesque in this film that it made me physically uncomfortable; i had a hard time sitting still in my chair while i was looking at it, and not at all in the happy, goose-bumpy way i've come to expect from past times with mr. bale. i was honestly uneasy. now, i know the movie came out a while ago and the sixty-plus pounds he dropped for the role are sort of old news, but they were old news to me, too, and i still got queasy watching him haul his jangly skeleton around for an hour and a half. a lot of that was the movie itself, though, which i think was great, although i probably need to watch it again to be sure. it was definitely troubling. christian plays a (drumroll, please) machinist who hasn't slept in a year, for no readily knowable reason, and he's a little edgy. the entire film is shot in overcast, brushed-metal tones and moves like a snowball rolling down a mountain, gaining density until what started out as a four-inch ball of packed powder ends up razing entire villages in the viewer's muddled, flinching head. at first i was annoyed by its orchestral score, sort of a cross between a scaled-down "peter and the wolf" and the instrumental background of every cheesed-out 1950s sci-fi debacle, but by the time the whole story finally came together i was so tense and distraught that i felt a tiny bit insane myself, so i guess it worked better than i expected it to. let me put it this way: the sixth sense didn't surprise me, and this movie made me pull my hair and talk back to the screen. (lest anyone be overly concerned for his health, christian finished the machinist and immediately transmogrified back into his hale and beautiful self in order to film batman begins.) congratulations, cast and crew, and thank you, christian bale, for being the only boy on the planet talented enough to make me sweat and/or recoil in horror at your command. you so crazy. oh, and just to be self-indulgent, let's take a moment to remember christian the way he was when he first caught my dewy little junior-high eye:



heh. dork. but heaven knows i'm soft for 'em. swing heil, indeed.

most poignant exchange from grey gardens:

big edie: that cat's going to the bathroom over there, right behind my portrait.
little edie: oh, that's terrible. isn't it terrible? it's just terrible.
big edie: i think it's wonderful. it's wonderful that someone here is doing exactly what they want to do.

now, maybe you know about grey gardens and maybe you don't, but the fact is, big edie is absolutely right—the cats peeing in the corners, and i guess the raccoons getting fat on wonder bread in the attic, are the only ones in the house who aren't endlessly mourning, or at least constantly reliving, the choices they didn't make, the chances they didn't take, the lives they're still sure they were meant to have but never will. when the camera zooms in on the face of the terrible/wonderful cat, its expression is one of utter calm and contentment; while big edie, at 79, has the bearing and attitude of a lot of older folks who are well past caring what the hell any of the rest of us think of them, it's still an expression i have a hard time imagining on either woman's face. i don't know if i want to recommend this movie, exactly, but i do believe a dedicated viewing will encourage you to think a bit differently about what course of action in any given circumstance is truly the least regrettable. i love my mom, and i've shot myself in the foot a few times trying to take care of her, because at the time it seemed like The Right Thing To Do, but there's no way i'd let us end up like this.

best e-mail alert: i have an extensive list of puerile sound clips that i rotate through as my mood shifts, but this one is my favorite right now. i'm on the hunt for some classic ren & stimpy quotes, so stay tuned. as if you could help it.

and you thought your alarm clock was grating.

i like balance. i like symmetry and complementary colors and meals that incorporate appropriate portions of all of the essential categories of foodstuffs. part of it is maybe that i'm a libra, but i think a lot of it is that i'm a biologist. i am happiest when systems function cooperatively in an effort to support a greater whole. i like it when my personal physiological systems do that, i like it when my household and workplace do that, and i am elated to the point of an out-of-body experience when my society and/or planet does that. if you have read a paper or watched the news lately, you may have guessed by now that i am infrequently elated. if you have spoken to me or read this blog lately, you know that i am routinely paralyzed by hopelessness and disgust.

tonight's dose of anti-homeostatic despair was delivered to me by the national geographic special whales in crisis. the documentary, airing on pbs, suggests that human-generated noise, in particular that made by sonar equipment used by the navy, has a horrifically distressing effect on whales and can often drive them to strand themselves on nearby shores. i'd never considered this cause-and-effect scenario before, though of course i should have; marine mammals are completely dependent on their own intrinsic sonar systems for communication and to locate food, so they would naturally be hypersensitive to any external sounds of a similar frequency. in deeper waters, the sonar can sometimes drive whales to surface too rapidly, and they can end up with the bends. the navy is supposed to be abiding by environmental regulations limiting where and how often they can conduct such exercises, but who knows whether or not they'll follow through, and it's likely that numerous exceptions will be made, given the standards of the current american government. i wish i were able to appreciate the opposition points that insist navy training exercises involving sonar are essential for the safety of military personnel and civilians, but my head says we don't really belong on the open ocean at all, and we definitely don't belong on it in navy destroyers that are driving its native species to suicide almost a hundred at a time. we are such a cancer in this body, indifferent to the health of any cluster of cells but our own. we keep enough systems up and running to keep us fat and multiplying, and after that it's just so much useless tissue.



bad cancer. bad. this earth loved you.

sunday best-of blogging

best holiday album: the jingle cats' meowy christmas. since i stopped living with imo, no one but toadie will let me listen to it all the way through. we love it to death, though; in fact, it's the only holiday music any of the three of us can stand. it appears to be one of the tests of true friendship for me, along with a willingness to laugh until you cry at bloodsucking freaks and vast sentimentality over the sad plight of cujo. go ahead and sample the cat rock yourself, and you let me know whose side you're on.

best/worst dog: my parents have a chihuahua named peanut, whom i don't know well, as they got him after i moved to boston and i don't usually get home more than once every three or four months. he is unnaturally attached to me, though, considering how little he's seen of me, and whenever i spend the night at my parents' house he sleeps on top of me and stands guard. any time anyone comes to the doorway of my room he stands up on my hip and growls, and if the intruder comes within less than two feet of me he goes berserk and bounces around barking and snapping until a more secure perimeter is established, at which point he lies back down as though nothing happened. i think it's pretty cute, especially since he's such an itty-bitty (and relatively toothless) critter, but my parents, who take freakishly good care of him, are less amused. my mother has been nearly bitten by him trying to remove him from me in order to bring him outside to pee, and that's bad, 'cause he should know that no one needs to worry about being killed in her sleep by my mom—if she's going to do away with you, she's going to do it to your face. still, though, it's pretty funny. but wrong. but funny.

best photo of the friendliest stray cat in italy:

that's toadie's leg he's wooing. you can see his much shyer female companion entering the frame from the far right, and on the left you can see our hostess' glorious yellow plastic boots. in the back there you can see the slushy lake that symbolizes the soles of all of our shoes for the last three days of the trip, but this was the first of those days and we didn't know how moist things were about to become, so we were all pretty happy to hang out in the muck and caress the locals. apparently they were happy with that as well. think of us fondly, kitty, and know that we carry your heart in our hearts.

best exchange from a crime drama: the following was transcribed verbatim, but i can't remember now what show it was on, because i was transcribing it from my bed after weaving in and out of sleep for fifteen or twenty minutes:

"fresh off an airplane from a conference, and BAM! i got seminal fluid."
"some things never change."
"what?"
"cocaine."

most socially oblivious comment made by a radio personality: "i hope you don't have too long of a walk from the parking lot to work today, because it is frigid outside." and if, by either choice or necessity, you make use of public transportation, or you couldn't afford the heating bill this month because all three of your kids are on antibiotics for strep and you haven't had health insurance since you got laid off in october, or you just got kicked out of the last available atm vestibule in the city, well, it sucks to be you. maybe you should try and get a gig as a dj, 'cause it's snug as all get-out in this here booth.

best cousins: the children of my father's baby brother are both such phenomenal human beings that every time i see them i want to pack up and move to georgia just so i can see them a little bit more. the boy will be graduating with his master's in may, two years ahead of schedule, and already has a job lined up as a math teacher in a public high school near athens. he's a supergenius and is always happy to spend hours talkingwith me about incredibly dorky things, but he also shares my exact tastes in movies and books, and all of my political and social views. when he was born i was about five years old, and i was obsessed with him and tried to claim him as my very own baby. today i would be every bit as thrilled to be able to show him off as my son, but i'm pretty content with the current situation. his sister, who is about a year and a half younger than him, is also a genius and an outstanding writer, but has decided she would rather spend her summers on the road with the warped tour than taking extra classes, and i think that's equally fabulous. she's wanted to be everything from a veterinarian to a music journalist (hmmm, who does that remind me of?), and right now she's thinking about maybe interning with a small music label and then looking into PR, but i tell her every time we talk to try everything before she makes any decisions, because you can't be sure about it until you're there. her mother doesn't necessarily appreciate this, but i couldn't care less, because i'm pretty certain it's the best possible advice. college will be there whenever she needs it, but the time won't be. we both get very excited about stripped-down indie rock and sanrio paraphernalia, and we both want to maul andie macdowell. she happened to drive to new york city a week after i did, and out of all the stores in manhattan we both have the clearest, happiest memories of yellow rat bastard in soho, which each of us stumbled upon accidentally. if everyone were lucky enough to have two friends of their caliber built right into the family there might not be any more frivolous law suits.

best new year's resolution; stop putting things off. and i don't mean washing the dishes or starting that book you bought three months ago or cutting back on white flour, i mean the real things. everyone has, or at least i imagine everyone has, a vision of the way his or her life would be if everything were just right, and still we trudge through days that are nothing like that vision, largely because we are waiting for the opportunity to get everything right all at once. well, i'm not going to do that anymore. i'm going to make a baby step towards the big, shiny picture every chance i get, starting this week, when i'll meet with someone about a new job. it's not exactly the job i fantasized about in exactly the city i've been dreaming about living in, but it's a lot closer to it than the job i've been hating going to lately, and that's all that ought to matter. it's true that you can never reach a point if every time you make a move toward that point you only halve the distance, but it's also true that all that halving will get you a hell of a lot farther away from the place you wanted to leave. so i choose motion, and happy travels to all of you, too.