Fuck Off, I'm Fabulous

Great phrase, yes? I LOVE it. It's not my invention, sadly - it's from the Joanne Harris book I'm reading, "The Girl With No Shadow" and the malevolent and witchy Zozie (fab name too) teaches Anouk to say it to herself and aloud when the girls at school are being mean to her - but I find it's useful and empowering for all of us to affirm, schoolyard or not. Try it - go on. Tell me it didn't make you smile and stand up a little straighter?

Busy busy here on the last day of March, oh thankfully, the ides of March have been blowing some ill winds my way for sure - I don't know how it happened but despite the best of intentions, I spent most of this month in a mood combination that included adjectives such as: morose, blue, angry as hell, irritable, ugly mean spirited gleeful flying high yippee happy then circling back to fuck off I'm fabulous.

I don't intend April to continue in this way. Blue and morose are only good for listening to Billie Holiday while it's raining outside. But as I heard on the radio early this morning when I could not sleep - I woke up at 3:29 and didn't fall asleep until 6 something, only to have to get up at 7:30 to get to work for a 4 hour meeting at 9am -ICK - so I listened to WBAI for awhile and I heard the broadcaster say it's truly an ill wind that blows no one any good so let's move right on into April, the cruellest month of all - but let me try and prove Mr. Eliot wrong, April can and should be downright lovely - I noticed in Brooklyn this weekend - despite the coldish and stormy weather - that there are cherry and magnolia trees budding so that means some springtime beauty is just around the corner and so I'l finish this month and move on and try to turn the ill wind good, lest it turn my brown eyes blue - ah, does anyone remember that song from the 70's? Alas I have blueish/greenish eyes to begin with so it doesn't really apply to me).

Speaking of Brooklyn, I'll just share the three things at the Brooklyn Museum that impressed me most, that have stayed with me - the exhibit was "Burning Down the House: Building A Feminist Art Collection and I loved the two Kara Walker pieces - "Burning African Village Play Set with Big House and Lynching" and "Keys to the Coop" - I'd buy this in a print if they sold it:



and Kiki Smith's "Born"with Little Red Riding Hood and her Grandmother being born from the wolf - again, why don't they sell these as prints, how many Barnard Chicks like myself would totally put either one of these up on their dorm walls? No one is doing the financial thinking over there:

St. Patrick's Day WEIRDNESSES

So, I went to a St. Patrick's Day Parade in Brooklyn yesterday and saw some very weird things - and this was PRE-Guinness and PRE-Irish Coffees...

1. I was waiting for my friends on the corner and a cop in a kilt (one of the parade participants) came up and gave me a huge hug and then said "HIGH FIVE"! Before I could protest, he was gone. I'm going to suppose he had already been a part of some pub crawl and therefore, slightly tipsy...still I saw him playing those bagpipes in the NYPD part of the parade, so there you go. Didn't affect his musical abilities any.

2. Mayor Bloomberg came up to me and shook my hand and thanked me for coming - you are welcome - it was my pleasure!

3. There was a real leprechaun marching...I swear, I'm not lying...honest to God...okay, he may have just been a really short man..nah, it was a leprechaun.

There you have it, Brooklyn is full of magical things, if you keep your eyes open and look in the right places..wink wink...

You know Spring is approaching for real when...

You (meaning me) purchase and eat your first Cadbury cream egg of the season...I haven't had one of these yummy treats in a few years, I do believe, but I have been the victim of some MAYJUH mood swings these past few days and I felt the magic of the cocoa bean was in order...seriously I've been awful. I can't stand to be around me. Lucky for me, I was able to stick to myself in my office for most of the day and not take it out on anyone. The most attitude I displayed was when I bought my sandwich for lunch and the blonde bimbo in front of me was on her cell phone, had already paid for her massive iced coffee and yet was just standing there, idly putting her money away and chitchatting on the phone as a line was forming behind her and the cashier shouting NEXT! while glaring at her. She still didn't move. So I elbowed her and meanly snarled "are you going to move or what"?

She was asking for it, I don't feel bad...

But the egg made me feel better - although I have to gripe, they are much smaller than they used to be and I'm not sure that's a bad thing since they are SO rich - this was about as much as my poor teeth could handle.

Now I want another one.

DAMN YOU EASTER BUNNY...

Mystery Solved!!!!

I feel better...at long last! A weight lifted...oh I'm so dramatic and phony... so for the past 4 years, since I've been taking the E and V trains to work, I've seen these ladies on the train in the morning that looked like Amish ladies and I could never figure out where they were coming from and where were they going? Why are there Amish people in Queens, riding the E train? I thought they shunned all modern technology, such as steel horses and such? Am I imagining them, are they some sort of glitch in the Matrix and from another century, another dimension and somehow, being that far underground, the time-space continuum as we know it has been breached and I'm able to see them? WTF?!!!!!

As I said, I'm being dramatic. As I get off the E at 42nd Street on Sunday to transfer to the uptown 2, I see the group of them standing there, including the one woman I always see with the rosy cheeks that I think looks like how I imagine Caroline Ingalls to look, and they are handing out pamphlets...I slyly take one and keep walking with a smile because ... it's about to be revealed ... they are Mennonites and they have a church in Sugar Hill and do work at Columbia Presbyterian way uptown and they apparently have a small community in Queens:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B07E6DC163AF933A25753C1A9649C8B63

Apparently, I was mistaken - the subway is NOT the same thing as a time machine or like Dr. Brown's Delorean and so all is as it should be. It did remind me of Amelie when she figures out that the man in Nino's scrapbook is just the photo machine repairman though - I totally had an "A HA!" moment!!

So now I can move on to wondering about other weird things that I spy during my daily travels...whew!

Gone but not forgotten...

I apologize to My Beloved Bloggie for such serious neglect...I don't know what's the matter here, I just get all wrapped up in stuff, have the best of intentions...and yet...not a post to be had! It's downright embarrassing. So let me just update a few things such as listing some things that I've done - good and bad - to get you educated about the most recent version of ME. Today I am middling good. Hey, it's Monday, I don't want to push it...I don't know why I wrote that, I don't actually mind Mondays. I've always liked them because they are a little mini tiny recurring weekly new year's days - a good day to start things, stop things, begin anew, make promises you won't keep, forswear oaths you have no intention of honoring, setting out on quests to find holy grails, all sort of things can happen - and only on Mondays. The other days of the week just don't have that significance for me. So. That being said - HAPPY MINI NEW YEAR!!!! WOO HOO!!!

So the Opera in HD that I went to last Sunday was good - not great. I think seeing it live would have been great, but the film experience just isn't the same and the set and costumes and such were so dramatically awesome, I think the only way to really capture it is a live show - it's just like when they show Cirque du Soleil on Bravo, it's not breathtaking at all to watch on TV. It's cool and pretty, but there's something to be said for live performances of anything - theater, music, opera, ballet -doesn't matter. I think the whole vibe is different, you are using all of your senses and there most definitely is a mob mentality - I mean that in a good sense, not the scary riot and violence sense - but there's an excitement to a live show - like watching the Mets on TV versus being at the stadium - you know, the roar of the crowd and all that.

But the coolest part was the first act which had the Rhinemaidens, the Sirens, in these water cages and this giant gold fetus in the background which would sometimes switch to having this weird Gollum like lizard face and I found that fascinating and terrifying all at once - very nightmarish. Now the gold fetus reminded me of these little cute fat Buddha figurines I have here on my desk at work:

Plus, can I tell you, I found my people at the showing of this film - Opera People HATE noisemakers. And I HATE noisemakers. It was the quietest film I've ever been too, if someone just whispered or unwrapped her cough drop (wasn't me), you were promptly reprimanded with a loud and miffed "SHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

But it was still a very pleasant Sunday afternoon and then I walked and walked the west side which I rarely visit and it's odd for me to do so - I used to live up there and that was my neighborhood sort of when I went to college - we'd walk down as far as 72nd Street or to the park. And it's odd for me because it all seems so long ago - that was a different life - that used to be my grocery store, there's Mitchell Liquors (ha ha), there's the Barnes and Noble I was always in, I used to eat there all the time, or get coffee over there, hey there's no more Royal Canadian Pancake House, oh there's Harry's Shoes. And it made me find my Cultural Event for this weekend which was also at Symphony Space. I saw Man on Wire - the documentary about Philippe Petit, the guy who walked on the high wire between the Twin Towers and I oh so highly recommend seeing this - he's just this charming little elf pixie of a Frenchman, a very magical and funny character and the film is done as if they are describing how they pulled off a bank heist so it's got some drama to it even though you already know he pulled it off successfully. But it's funny too and just a well-told story and I've had a slight fascination with him ever since I heard him on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" late last year. Here's a fellow blogger's review that I found - he has some good stills from the film, as well as the trailer:

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=8020

And now I bring you a list of current obsessions and likes:

1. Wait Wait Don't Tell Me on NPR

2. Car Talk on NPR - yes, I agree, I think I've become an NPR geek. I have absolutely zero interest in cars, but they are so funny and their nonstop laughing at their own jokes or at their own expense always makes me feel good and I find that I typically catch the Giggles from them.

3. Beef barley soup for lunch on Wednesdays only (the only day the soup place makes it!)

4. 3 Current Earworms - Black Cab and The Opposite of Hallelujah by Jens Lenkman and The Rising Tide by Sunny Day Real Estate.

5. Frozen peaches

6. 1 tablespoon of molasses dissolved into a cup of boiling water - an old herbal remedy that's supposed to give you some vim and vigor. Snake oil or not, it's a very soothing drink and I always feel better after sipping some.

7. The Joanne Harris book I bought yesterday "The Girl With No Shadow" which is the sequel to Chocolat, one of my very favorite books, and which I cannot seem to put down but want to make it last so I need to read this in doses only.

8. Eel rolls and seaweed salad for a special treat lunch..eel makes me electric! And as I joked to my mother, if you get near me after eating it, I'll demagnetize all your credit cards...I won't embarrass her by telling you whether or not she believed me.

9. Dead Poet's Society...this was on TV a few weeks ago and I'd forgotten how much I love this movie - I have it on DVD, I should make it a point to watch it more often.

Hmmm, well that' s all I can think of to say to you ... but see what happens when I don't write a thing here, I go CRAZY and it all comes tumbling out...I swear (see, there's that Monday Making Promises thing I wrote about up above) to be a better correspondent.

Girl Scout Honor.

Long time, no see

Me not write much lately..me been very busy here at work, here at life, etc...me has regressed into a big baby child, not a grown adult with only death and taxes on her mind, oh poor poor me!!!

Speaking of taxes, I did mine way ahead of schedule, the forms are in the mail and all I have to do is wait for my refund to be deposited, so YAY for moi!

Other than that, what have I been up to? What's taken me so long to post here? I've been wrapped up in STUFF with a capital S - work has been crazy but in a good way, I've even been called names because of my actions and behavior here:

1. Psycho - by my boss because I like it when he gives me system problems/issues to research and resolve

2. PeopleSoft Nerd - self-proclaimed, because I get WAY too excited when I figure something out that no one else could and we don't have to consult Oracle because they just give us the standard "Case Closed - Works as Designed" answer

3. PeopleSoft Hero - by an IT Guy because he thought Nerd was too harsh

And I've been wrapped up in my class, which I am still enjoying and still finding difficult too. I've been exceptionally good about my 3 Pages First Thing In the Morning - the first week I did 5 of 7 days and last week I did 6 out of 7 as well as most of the other tasks she laid out for us. One of the other agenda items for the class is to help you "refill the well" so to speak, to stimulate you in a creative way. So you have to go and do something outside of the home, by yourself - so watching a dvd on your couch does not count! The first week, I went to a gourmet/ethnic food market and sampled some items and last week I went to the Morgan Library (even though technically, I did this with Cousin Megan, I'm still counting it as my cultural-creativity-sparking event of the week) which we both loved by the way - it's a beautiful building, especially his original study and library. We got to see a Gutenberg Bible, I thought that was pretty cool! Now this week, I'm going - by myself - to Symphony Space to see on opera on HD film - Wagner's Das Rheingold - something different for me, so I'll report back on what I thought of it. That's kind of the point, to try things you normally wouldn't do - going to the museums are very typical of me, so this is bit out of the ordinary. Here's some photos from the performance, it's quite Cirque du Soleil, n'est-ce pas?:





Let's see what else...my mind's a bit warped from too much thinking so I think this is quite the boring update but I feel kind of exhausted ... so me going back into tarzan/ape/baby talk...me not want to write much more, me want to go home and rest my weary bones...