beck beck beck and call

maura @ 9:11 pm

Well, I finished the books. All 3 of them. And as a consequence I have work to do tonight. So you get to enjoy a picture of one of our cats trying to convince us that he is not too big to sit in a small box, and I get to come back tomorrow and write a real post. Deal?

come out, come out

maura @ 8:34 pm

I have a big long list of things I’d hoped to get done this weekend, but so far I haven’t done very many of them because over the past 36 hours I’ve read the entirety of books 1 and 2 of the Hunger Games trilogy. I’ve wanted to read them for a while now and Jonathan bought them for me a month or so ago. They are really, really good — there’s lots of post-apocalyptic dystopian future YA novels out there these days, but these books are top notch. Compelling world + characters and a plot that moves fast but not too fast, with enough twists and turns to keep things interesting.

I should have more self-control, but more likely than not I’m going to walk into the living room and pick up the third and final volume as soon as I’m finished writing this post. I have worked very very hard this semester and have read very very little that’s non-work related, which I suppose is the reason for this binge. And as far as binges go it’s certainly mild — there are few ill effects that one can suffer as a result of too much reading. But it’s still a binge, and still means that I’m essentially avoiding the other things I could be doing instead. Which will all be waiting for me when the last page is turned, right?

put yr wallets down!

maura @ 12:11 pm

It’s Buy Nothing Day, woo hoo!!!

This year the annual avoid-the-consumption-frenzy day seems even more significant, what with all of the Occupy activity this fall. BND also marks the beginning of my traditional holiday freakout, in which I try to reconcile my personal beliefs about consumption and materialism with the realities of time, space, and other people.

But that’s for later. For today there are cousins and the zoo and leftovers and togetherness and buying nothing, yippee!

i can handle it

maura @ 5:58 pm

I am utterly behind on the New Yorker, as usual, but yesterday I flipped through this week’s issue. Only to see that I am missing the reunited partial Chameleons, now touring as Chameleons Vox, playing a couple of times over the next few days in NYC + environs.

I loved loved loved the Chameleons in high school and college. Loved them. Not sure how I even learned about them in the first place — they’re British and were far less popular here than some of the other guitary mopey bands in the early-to-mid-80s. I still listen to them on occasion and they’ve held up well. Lots of layery guitars and, it occurs to me now, sort of pre-shoegazey. They’d work well on a mixtape with Lush, for sure.

They broke up in 1987 and I never saw them play live. I remember there was a farewell tour that came through Philadelphia (we lived in Delaware at the time). They were set to play at Revival, a club on South St. I was 16 and looked far too underage to even attempt to go to the show. But I pleaded with my dad ’til he agreed to chaperone me. And then I called Revival and OF COURSE they couldn’t make an exception for an underage nerd with her dad, why would you think that?

Grrrr…even as an old lady I still think 21+ shows suck.

i don’t even like talking on the phone

maura @ 10:55 pm

Phoning it in again tonight. I’m tired, we have to leave for familiness tomorrow earlyish, and there’s a heck of a lot of TV to watch. So here are some random thoughts/observations:

- I taught two classes this week. I miss teaching classes.

- I’m trying to use the inbox zero email management system. Maybe I’ll write a whole post on that soon — it’s proving trickier than I’d anticipated, but also has some benefits I didn’t anticipate.

- So rainy and hot this week. I am tired of being rainy and hot.

- How do things get so dirty? Seriously, I cleaned the kitchen today and it’s fairly incredible how dirty our clean house can get. I know it’s the city and the cats, but I wish it weren’t because I love those things.

- I hate to drive in Manhattan and it makes me a little sad that highways ring the edges, but the upside is you get the gorgeous views of the city while you’re driving, which never fail to make me a bit tingly.

- Fun thing that came through my email recently: the information literacy playlist, inaugurated when someone on the ACRL information literacy instruction listserv (ILI-L) who does a college radio show asked for suggestions. (This is a repeat if you follow me on twitter, sorry!)

- Tonight Jonathan made sticky toffee pudding, which was incredibly delicious and makes up for all of the pie I won’t eat over the next few days because I don’t really like pie.

what you see

maura @ 10:28 pm

Now that things are (somewhat) slower I’m trying to get back to some old, good habits, things I’d stopped doing when I was too busy or too tired. So I walked to work both yesterday and today. Today I even walked the old, preferable way, which is much more scenic and much less vehicle exhaust-y but takes between 5-10 more minutes. Which is nothing, really — barely a drop in the time bucket, practically zip in the great scheme of things. And something I should totally be doing for mental health, etc.

What I’ve missed in the past couple of months is new street/public art, which is everywhere! Photos of the stuff closest to work coming soon, but also there’s a great installation on a building on the scenic way to work. I didn’t stop to take pictures today, and anyway tonight I found much better photos than I could probably take. E.g.:

Really a cool project, and I haven’t even had a chance to walk around the entire building yet. I actually kind of adore that part of Brooklyn, that intersection of Livingston and Hoyt. True that it’s grungy and dirty and rundown and sad, plus the horrible commercial crowdedness of the Fulton St. Mall (where–UGH–xmas carols are currently being played so loud you can hear them 2 blocks away!). But there are amazing and beautiful historic buildings, and a Mexican grocery with 50 cent bags of chips for after summer-camp snacks, and lots of people people people coming and going and just trying to make it work.

Here’s an article about the artist, who sounds like a cool guy.

Image credit: sabeth718

puppy love

maura @ 10:29 pm

This evening I taught a class so I came home a bit later than usual. And apparently I came home at dog walking time, because there were all manner of dogs all over the place on my walk home from the subway. Big dogs, little dogs, jumpy dogs, dogs smelling other dogs’ butts, you name it!

I’m kind of really wanting to get a dog lately. There is no good reason for it, but I keep seeing these dogs and thinking how fun it would be to have a dog to play with. We have two cats who are themselves somewhat doglike: the one that likes me best runs to the door when I come home, and they run around the house crazily and try to jump out the window to catch birds. But they’re less snuggly than they could be, which I think is why I’m pining for a dog.

We do not need any more animals in this house for sure. No more hair, no more other maintenance. One of our humans in this apartment (guess who?) is lobbying for a snake of late. While snakes are cool, again, the maintenance, oof. His best friend just got a snake so it’s been getting harder and harder to deflect the snake talk recently. And his birthday and xmas are coming…

fishy thoughts

maura @ 10:35 pm

Today we went to the aquarium, because it was beautiful outside and that’s what Gus chose to do. It was actually a perfect day for it, not even very crowded. Weirdly, many of the animals were kind of hyperactive! Maybe it was the warm weather? The aquarium’s only partially outdoors, though.

First up was the moray eel. When we got to the coral reef exhibit the moray was just sitting there on top of the reef as fish swam by incessantly, typical eel stuff. But then it suddenly took off and started swimming around. It swam all the way down to the end of the tank, then looped around and came all the way back and stuffed itself into a hole. They’re so weird-looking when they swim, all snakey and slithery.

We also passed by the penguins. Usually they’re standing on the rocks just sort of staring at you, which often prompts me to wonder who, exactly, is in the exhibit? But today we were walking by the underwater viewing area and they were in the water swimming like crazy! They sped in circles around the tank, jumping out of the water and looping around below. It was as if someone had challenged them to prove that penguins are good swimmers. Or given them coffee. Or something.

But most impressive was the octopus. Gus is a huge fan of cephalopods and, having spent the morning researching colossal squid on the internet, was primed to ogle the octopus for a spell. Its tank is rather small and usually the octopus is squeezed up into the corner of the tank, all smushed together and rather difficult to see. But today was different! When we got there the octopus was lying vertically alongside of the front of the tank and we had a great view of its head and body. Then, suddenly, it stretched out to practically its full width, unfurled all of its tentacles, and moved slowly to the middle of the glass, changing color from milky white to reddish-brown as it moved. It settled in on the front of the glass, all splayed out with the tentacles suctioning right on the glass, and turned back to white again. It hung out there for a while and *then* moved to the opposite side of the tank to resume the vertical arrangement it started with. I finally dragged Gus away after about 40 minutes.

I realize that this doesn’t sound so impressive as I type it, but it was truly a big deal. Seriously, I think this is more than we’ve *ever* seen it move in the 9 or so years we’ve been going to the aquarium, maybe even more than all of those other times combined! I think somebody gave the octopus coffee, too.

bussed out

maura @ 10:26 pm

We’re home today, having only taken the quick trip north. Where quick = the length of time we spent in Montreal, not the length of time we spent on a bus. Lots of sitting, oof.

Tired tonight and lots of TV to catch up on, so please enjoy some of my random photos from the trip!

We stopped at the Duty Free on the American side of the border on the way up, and in addition to cigarettes and liquor there were many somewhat unusual finds:

Who doesn’t love the full set of Lord of the Rings Pez dispensers? Look at that Gollum head!

Enormous candy abounded. I’ve only ever seen a Hershey bar this big at Hershey Park!

Also how would you even eat this gigantic lollipop? Wouldn’t it get all icky before you had a chance to finish it, like Homer’s sandwich? (Okay, how weird is it that I can only find that clip in German? Copyright stinks!)

When we got through Canadian customs we were waiting to reboard the bus near a door with this sign on it. I get that it means first aid, but it *looks* like it means “extra bandage-wrapped hands in here!”

And then there was poutine, and there was beer, and there was great rejoicing. Followed by cafe au lait and tarte de sucre, not pictured here. Candy bars were brought home as well, one Coffee Crisp and one Crunchie for each of us. Heaven forfend we ever move to Montreal because we will clearly become enormously fat!

this totally still counts

maura @ 10:48 am

This conference has been an interesting experiment in connectivity detox. I’m typing this on Friday evening at about 10pm, but I won’t get to post it until tomorrow because I’m too tired (and in my pajamas!) to go to the hotel lobby and it seems silly to pay for wifi in the room just to post my blag.

When we got here yesterday we thought we’d pay for wifi today, but then we were barely here at the hotel all day. There is wifi at the convention center — I won’t mention which toll access publisher sponsored it. But before our paper (at 8am!) I tried to connect and couldn’t get on. Which was probably just as well — what’s the etiquette on livetweeting your own session, anyway?

I finally figured the wifi out later on and greedily caught up on twitter and email. Otherwise I’ve been grabbing wifi in the hotel lobby as we’re coming and going, and using that to face time with Jonathan and Gus.

I guess that’s enough. Since it’s Canada here I’m not using the phone for internet, which means no connectivity except for wifi. And there’s been less wifi than I expected. I admit that I’m a little twitchy, much more so than when we were in a similar situation in London 2 1/2 years ago. There’s the usual email and rss and twitter reasons to use the internets, of course, but I also feel like there are lots of conference tweets I want to catch up on since there were sessions that seemed interesting yesterday that we couldn’t go to.

Fingers crossed there’s wifi on the bus home tomorrow. You’ll know we’re wified up if you see this post in the morning!