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[05 Jan 2010|08:30am] |
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[04 Jan 2010|11:49am] |
Just because I need some joy in my life today:
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[04 Jan 2010|08:30am] |
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[02 Jan 2010|10:20pm] |
Alex just read aloud an Art Spiegelman graphic novel.
No, not that one.
This one. Jack and the Box, a graphic novel for emergent (i.e., beginning) readers. Which just happens to have been written by Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer prize-winning author of Maus. As you might expect, it's a somewhat unsettling story with dark notes under the surface. But engaging! Alex seemed to find it less creepy than I did.
Spiegelman's wife Francois Mouly is in charge of a new line of comics/graphic novels for very early readers. As far as I can tell, Spiegelman's only written one of them so far. I've listened to a lot of early readers lately, since Alex has been on a learning-to-read kick, and man are most of them painful to sit through. This one was cool.
I like this quote from a Booklist review: "It’s one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for moments," says Spiegelman. "After years of saying comics are not just for kids, we sort of have to say, 'But wait, they’re also for kids!' "
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| 2009 Year in Review |
[02 Jan 2010|06:01pm] |
2009 year in review:
Well, unlike the previous three years, I actually did NOT think that this year sucked ass. As I mentioned in last year's review, I was taking the pursuit of mental health more seriously and, actually, did a good job of it. I felt gradual improvement of my feelings of "weirdness" throughout the year, and then, somewhere toward the end, my crippling self-doubt disappeared as though a gypsy curse had been lifted. I'm not entirely sure why, but I no longer felt like I was being menaced by the world, I felt lucky again, and I felt like I could handle things.
While I could say that I still spent the year "dicking around," I've also realized that it's a pretty dick move for me to discount accomplishments and experiences that other people would be proud of, as that is basically implying to other people "you don't do shit and your life is worthless." So, instead, I would say that the year was swell, although perhaps not as productive as I would have preferred.
For another year, I have failed to win the lotto or make more money. My therapy, however, has taught me not to tie that to my self-worth, so whatever. My life is still a party. I got to be in another awesome off-broadway play and work on some fun projects with fun people that will hopefully pan out into bigger things this year.
So, going over last years goals:
1. Secret!
Okay, so I can fess up now about my secret goals. This goal was to get some of my writing published. I did not accomplish this goal because I decided at a certain point that I didn't feel like trying. I know I'll just sound like I'm a quitter making excuses, but it's partly explained in my post about self-identifying as a writer and my thought that publication might just be a meaningless exercise. I mean, as it stood, I could probably get an article or story published SOMEWHERE, but why? If my goal is to have my work seen, it will be seen by more people on the internet. If my goal is validation, well, the quest for validation from external sources doesn't often lead me to a good place, psychologically. If the goal is money, well, the truth is, I'm afraid of falling into nickel-and-dime writing, since years of nickel-and-dime drawing basically made me despise it. In a sense, I don't want to ruin writing for myself by making into another thing I have to do.
2. Secret!
This goal was to settle my copyright lawsuit with Dreamworks/Paramount for a designated sum of money. While the lawsuit WAS finally settled, the goal was not necessarily achieved and I am not at liberty to discuss it due to confidentiality agreements I had to sign. Nonetheless, I am very glad to have the whole thing resolved as two and a half years of this negative thing hanging over me had a very oppressive effect. In fact, I think the resolution of this conflict might have been the final key to breaking the aforementioned gypsy curse of self-doubt.
3. Secret!
This goal was to pay off all my debt. Due to my income slump and the previously mentioned situation, my debt became quite alarmingly vast. I did not pay it all off, but I paid off about four-fifths.
4. Get in shape and drop my weight back down to 54 kg / 120lbs.
I did, in fact, go from size six pants to size 4 pants, although the holiday food binges are threatening to oust me from them. I also stood on a scale that said I was 120 lbs, but my wii fit says I'm 132. The discovery of spanx this year got me back into several of my old dresses, but it's still not as easy as it used to be to control my weight. I'll call this one MOSTLY accomplished.
5. Read 30 Books
I READ 50 BOOKS BITCHAZ! CAN I GET A WHUT WHUT? Kindle for iphone, you are my salvation.
6. Revamp Evilkid.com
Haha... totally not done...SLACKA!
7. Travel to a continent other than North America and Europe.
Okay, not done, either. I did, however, hit up North America and Europe a little more this year and went to Canada, Mexico, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic and the overall west coast of the US as well as the Florida Keys.
Okay, so if we look this over, my goal accomplishment for 2009 was pretty piss poor. I expect the upcoming year to be an improvement, though. And so, moving on:
Goals for 2010!
1. produce a book-length quantity of writing.
I don't know if it will be fiction or non, stories or essays, but I just want to see if I can do it.
2. learn to pop and lock
omg, how rad would I be? Seriously!
3. take better care of my skin
I've already started on this by trying to buy myself the proper products and follow the proper regimens. Now that I'm getting older, I can't fuck around with my skin anymore, I must be ever vigilant!
4. Read 30 books
Best to keep in the groove. Also, I have a stack of "real books" here next to my bed that I need to plow through in my quest to go fully digital.
5. digitize my record collection
Speaking of going fully digital, I got one of those USB record players about a year or so ago and I still haven't digitized my vinyl. This is a project I really want to finish.
6. Be more socially proactive
I need to quit laying around like a big lazypants and waiting for people to come over. I need to go do more fun stuff and see more people.
7. accomplish something that will actually make me impress myself
See, here's the deal: I'm basically this jaded asshole who's all been-there-done-that, so I tend to view my own accomplishments like "meh, whatever. It's not like that's a big deal or anything." So, essentially, I want to actually accomplish something this year that I can genuinely say "Yeah, I'm really proud of that. That was something."
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[01 Jan 2010|08:16am] |
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| violin |
[31 Dec 2009|06:49pm] |
I acquired a violin at the beginning of this week.
I'm hoping that I'll be able to make consistent notes on it within six months of practice or so.
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| A One Joke Christmas |
[31 Dec 2009|08:16pm] |
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http://dickonedwards.co.uk/diary/index.php/archive/a-one-joke-christmas/ http://dickonedwards.co.uk/diary/?p=1571 
View from the flat a few days before Christmas.
I pass the Christmas week painlessly enough, cat and flat-sitting on my own in Crouch End. The freedom of having a whole flat to myself including a bathroom (I’ve spent most of my life sharing a shower with other bedsit tenant), plus no worries about heating bills, is reward enough. But Jen also gives me a generous Christmas present to unwrap on the day: a year’s membership to the NFT. It comes packaged with one of the BFI’s DVDs, Richard Lester’s surrealist 60s classic The Bed Sitting Room. It’s only now that I realise the apt nature of the title, given the escape from my normal dwelling.
Another present: a glider postcard from Maud Young. Also pictured is Erika Moen’s excellent autobiographical comic book, ‘Dar’, a present to myself which arrived in the same post.
My present to Jen is a copy of William Burroughs’s unlikely essay on his love of cats, The Cat Inside. It’s just been republished by Penguin:
Christmas Eve: I realise I need to buy Christmas crackers for the duck feeding ceremony in Waterlow Park the next day, as Ms Silke will be joining me.
Well, I say need… Funny how personal Christmas rituals can creep up on you. Yes, every Christmas Day I feed the ducks in Waterlow Park. And if a friend comes too, we pull crackers by the pond and put on the hats and pass around wine and mince pies right there. It’s just become the thing I do.
Me modelling the Budgens Deluxe Christmas Cracker hat. It’s essentially a hair band made from a red bin liner.
Buying Christmas crackers has to be done long before the 24th, which I discover too late. By now all the local supermarkets have sold out, except for Budgens. Which curiously has a tall stack of boxes of 12 ‘deluxe’ crackers (in so much as Budgens does ‘deluxe’) behind the counter. I see other shoppers coming away with a box each, and with big smiles. But curiously, it’s a smile of amusement, not relief.
‘They’re half price,’ says the cashier. ‘Because they’re faulty.’
‘Because they don’t make a bang?’
‘No, they bang fine. But they have all the same joke.’
This makes my Christmas. I spend the next twenty-four hours musing on the significance of this One Joke To Rule Them All. What can it be?
Noon the next day, and I pull the crackers with Silke at the duck pond.
Q. Where do snowmen go to dance?
A. To a Snowball.
Times twelve.
We then walk to Alexandra Park to feed the ducks there too, given it’s close to Crouch End. After the proper spate of snow a few days before, Christmas Day is only White in patches. The snow has vanished from the pavements and grass. But the duck ponds are still mostly frozen:
We also manage to see some proper Christmas Day snow. The tennis courts in Wood Vale have a thick layer of the white stuff, entirely untouched.
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[31 Dec 2009|08:30am] |
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| Awesome show alert! |
[30 Dec 2009|05:44pm] |
Saturday Jan 2nd
SubMission Art Gallery (Mission between 17/18th)
$6
3 of my favorite local bands:
Mama Lion - EP release party (produced by yours truly)
Slow Trucks (fun Pavement-esque indie rock)
The Dead Westerns (totally awesome moody western)
rumor has it that I'll be making my SF singing debut as well...
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| some songs via jwz |
[30 Dec 2009|10:21am] |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jwz released one "mix tape" per week in 2008, and I downloaded them all and am slowly working through listening to all of them...
I've made a list of the songs I heard that caught my attention (I've heard about 500 of 1500 total), not counting those I already knew. I've included a few words for each to indicate what I like about it.
First, a collection of more accessible songs...
And here's the rest:
- Bastard Fairies We're All Going To Hell (explicit lyrics) (2007) production, lyrics/music contrast
- Jem They (2004) production, voice, melody
- Babes in Toyland Mater Dolorosa (explicit lyrics) (1998) rhythmic shifts, screaming
- Mono Silicone (1997) trip-hop
- Pretty Balanced Euros and Pounds (click "free mp3" to hear whole song) (2007) in 5
- Pretty Girls Make Graves All Medicated Geniuses (2003) chorus energy, guitar variations
- Skeletal Family She Cries Alone (1985) mood, guitar melody
- Vervein Lustig (preview) (2003) dueling guitars, mood
- Los Campesinos! This Is How You Spell, "HAHAHA, We've Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics" (2008) "like a final, fatal livejournal entry"
95% of these have female vocals.
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| Smackdown, travel, and other miscellaneous notes. |
[30 Dec 2009|11:00am] |
We got home from Memphis last night. I'm in the office - the only day I'm coming in this week - and I must admit I'm kind of enjoying the peace and quiet.
I finally snapped at Michael's stepmother. As we were packing up to go she kept very persistently trying to get me to take Michael's bronzed baby shoes. I smiled and said nice things the first several times. "Oh, we'll definitely want them eventually, but I don't want to take them away from Bill." "Yes, but I really think Bill likes to have a reminder of Michael's babyhood around." She kept insisting: "Oh, don't worry about that. We've got plenty of reminders of Michael around." (Like the picture she hung back behind a cabinet, I guess.)
So finally I just looked at her without smiling and said flatly: "Betty, if you want them out of the house, then yes, we will take them."
So of course she backpedalled. And had the nerve to try this one out: "You just insulted me, saying that I want them out of the house." Uh huh.
Michael's father came in to talk with us about it. He said that he wouldn't take any amount of money for those baby shoes, but that we could have them if we wanted them. Although he would worry about them getting broken in transit. Anyway, he just wanted to make sure that we understood that they weren't trying to get rid of them. I felt bad because I really try not to put him in the middle, but.
Our flights home were beautifully uneventful. There didn't seem to be any increase in security at the main screening lines, and when I got pulled for secondary screening (I always do, because my artificial hip sets of the metal detector) the TSA who screened me seemed perfectly relaxed and easygoing. They had a TSA at the gate pulling some people aside for random pat-downs, but it was the most ludicrous security theater imaginable: he only stopped men, didn't stop anyone who had a ton of stuff to carry (presumably so he wouldn't inconvenience them too much), and only patted them down above the waist. He would've found someone carrying a gun in a shoulder holster, but that's about it.
Our kids are beautiful travelers. When I see other people dealing with screaming tantrums on a plane, I feel very lucky.
I did learn an important lesson about Colin and traveling, though. (Did I know this when Alex was his age and then I forgot it? Maybe so.) Yesterday I gave him solid food for breakfast at my in-laws' house, and then I nursed him throughout the day as we traveled home. He got frantically unhappy in the car on the way home from the airport; I nursed him again and he cheered up, so I decided to give him some solids even though it was already 8pm. And that boy ate: a full slice of deli cheese, three handfuls of Cheerios, a jar of baby food (chicken-apple compote, one of the higher-calorie options), and at least a quarter-cup of mango bits. He was starving. I think of solids as being kind of optional to his diet, replaceable by nursing, but it's now obvious to me that at this point they really aren't.
I have a big important meeting in an hour and a half, and I am nervous. To give you an idea of how important a meeting it is, I am wearing a blazer to work - something I do about twice a year. Some of you will be coming along in the form of a silver otter pin which you chipped in to give me at alt.polycon 12, so, thanks. It's nice to feel like my friends will be with me.
Now that I have a webcam on my work computer, I can show you what I look like when I'm trying to appear professional! Here I am:
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[30 Dec 2009|08:49am] |
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[29 Dec 2009|08:30am] |
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| Naughty children |
[29 Dec 2009|01:22pm] |
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http://dickonedwards.co.uk/diary/index.php/archive/naughty-children/ http://dickonedwards.co.uk/diary/?p=1547 The papers today carry a photo of the man of the moment, the failed Nigerian leg-bomber who tried to blow up a US jet on Christmas Day. Though his attempt was mercifully thwarted, it’s still meant for a new range of over-the-top security measures. A full hour before landing, passengers on US flights now have to sit tight without anything on their lap: no trips to the toilet, no video or music, no newspapers, books, blankets or cushions. All thanks to young Mr Leggy.
The photo the papers are using is from seven years ago, when the unkind leg fetishist was a 16-year-old visiting London, as taken by his teacher. He stares directly at the camera with typical teenage defensiveness, while tugging at the brim of his Nike woollen hat as if to draw attention to the brand. It’s that Nike tick that gets me: the ubiquitous symbol of US corporate domination. I wonder if he’s still got the hat, whether embracing it (’they’re enemies of Allah, but they still make nice hats.’). Or perhaps he’s inverting the Nike slogan with grim irony: ‘Just Do It’.
Everytime I have to take my shoes off in airports (never Nikes), I think about Richard Reid, the equally thwarted shoe-bomber who nonetheless achieved a petty kind of success: the introduction of those x-ray machines for shoes. Like those soap products from Lush which carry a little cartoon of the staffer who made them, I think of the machines bearing a similar cartoon of Mr Reid. Failed terrorists still get to be choreographers of new inconvenience, and so achieving a small scale victory. Somehow, it feels like those nonsensical instances at school, where teachers would adopt a kind of homeopathy approach to justice. ‘Because one child was naughty on the school trip, we’re never having that trip again. It’s his fault.’ The measure made no sense to me then, and still doesn’t now.
Similarly, seeing armed policemen at Heathrow never makes me feel safer about being there. Quite the reverse.
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[28 Dec 2009|11:06pm] |
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back
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[28 Dec 2009|08:34am] |
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| Give. Me. Strength. |
[27 Dec 2009|06:24pm] |
Michael's stepmother... Jesus Christ.
One of the first things I noticed is that the big framed picture of an infant Michael which has been in his father's bedroom as long as I've known him has been moved to a rarely-used back room, where it hangs in a place which is blocked from most points in the room by a cabinet.
Then in the course of our first 24 hours visiting, she:
- Tried to convince me to take Michael's bronzed baby shoes home, because God forbid there be any memories of his childhood on display.
- Asked me when I was going to wean.
- Said in the snottiest voice imaginable, "Don't you teach him 'no'?" when I moved several small glass-framed photographs off a floor-level shelf. She never put anything out of her babies' or grandbabies' reach.
- Went on two different diatribes about how awful Obama is. Not to mention Michelle, who buys all those expensive clothes while being BLACK, so it's totally not like any other First Lady ever. She seems very disappointed that we're not rising to the bait.
It's only a four-day visit. I can make it, right?
Right?
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| Best Christmas Pageant Ever |
[26 Dec 2009|09:55pm] |
So the church Christmas pageant has three Sunday morning rehearsals followed by an evening dress rehearsal the night before Christmas Eve. Only this year we got about 20 inches of snow the day before the last Sunday morning rehearsal, which meant that it didn't happen. Instead, on Wednesday night a bunch of excited hyper pre-Christmas kids showed up for the first rehearsal with costumes (which weren't done, incidentally), the first rehearsal in the sanctuary (which always leads to insane aisle-running), and the first rehearsal without scripts (which was supposed to have happened that missed Sunday).
They had done a surprisingly good job of learning their lines, but everything else about the rehearsal was pretty awful. It's hard to nail down a lot of the blocking before you have the sanctuary to work with. The kids were pretty crazy. I honestly left the rehearsal expecting the performance to be a disaster.
Christmas Eve I was so flustered that we were parking outside the church when I realized that I was still wearing a pair of jeans and a grungy brown wool hoodie over a faded red T-shirt. "I forgot to get dressed!" I wailed to Michael. He looked down at his own jeans and sweater. "...So did I." It was 5pm. I had told the kids to arrive no later than 5:10. I was planning to be onstage for much of the pageant.
We dashed in carrying the last few props and an eleven pound ham. Threw the ham in the oven in the church kitchen and asked someone who happened to be in the kitchen to put the brown sugar glaze on it at 6:30. I took both kids with me to the sanctuary while Michael ran home to change and bring my clothes. The majority of the kids didn't show up until sometime after 5:30. We had no chance to rehearse, but we did go over my list of Important Last-Minute Reminders: Everyone speak LOUDLY and SLOWLY. Face the audience when you speak. When the Herdmans are being bad kids, they shouldn't actually make any physical contact. When the Herdmans are in the pageant-within-a-pageant, they stop goofing off and take it seriously. Angels and shepherds need to be quiet when they're onstage.
Also in this time period, one of the mothers went to town on the Herdmans' faces with a mascara wand to make them appropriately grimy and smudgy. They were all thrilled to be at church in their oldest and most awful clothes. I did not tell them how adorable they were, because they would've taken it the wrong way.
Ten minutes before the service was supposed to start I herded all the kids out of the chancel to the robing room. No, they were too loud to be there. To the little entryway behind the robing room. Still too loud. To the upstairs hall. I tried to engage them in conversation about Christmas to stop them from shouting and chasing each other. Michael brought me Colin to nurse at the last minute before church. I kept on chatting with the kids on my end of the hall until I looked over and saw a few of them at the other end of the hall looking at me like this: O.O O.O O.O "It's just how babies eat, guys," I said and hoped that I wouldn't be hearing from their mothers later on.
6:05. I marched the kids down the stairs, through the entry, through the robing room, into the chancel, and down the steps to the front pew. There was a welcome and a chalice lighting and then we were on.
And the pageant went beautifully.
We had some luck with the play-within-a-play format, because I could stay on stage the whole time (as a parent helping out the pageant director, very realistic) and move people into place if necessary. But the kids needed very little help. They said their lines beautifully and with feeling. They were mostly in the right place at the right time. They did not burn down the church when I let some of them hold candles. They looked fantastic, even the ones who were in totally makeshift last-minute costumes. And they had the pageant spirit, just beautifully.
Afterward during their shaky and confused bows acceberskoorb swooped down on me with a bouquet of white roses and, um, something else pretty. I don't know flowers.
And then we went to the Christmas Eve potluck. Last year there wasn't enough food and Michael didn't get any dinner. (That's partly why we brought a ham this year.) This year there was plenty, and we feasted on turkey and ham and smoked gouda mac and cheese and horseradish scalloped potatoes and tzimmes and all kinds of miscellaneous side dishes and desserts. And Alex actually ate food instead of just running around being hysterically excited. (Colin had a jar of pureed turkey-apple-cranberry holiday dinner, because I fall for marketing tricks like that.)
And we went home and put the kids to bed and hauled presents out of hiding places and wrapped a few things and hung candy canes on the tree from Santa and I lost one of Colin's stocking presents. And poured ourselves glasses of red wine and curled up on the couch to watch the first-season West Wing Christmas episode, "In Excelsis Deo," except that Colin kept waking up and finally we went to bed without finishing it.
Christmas Eve was good. The pageant was wonderful. We have amazing, amazing kids at our church. Is it too early to start worrying about what story we'll do next year?
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