10October
2009
maura @ 10:11 pm
So I thought I’d write about TV, how disappointing it’s been recently which is making me grumpy. But then I realized that the end result of disappointing TV these days is that I’ve been reading more, so I thought I’d do a (some of) what we’re reading post.
Me:
The Cloud Atlas, by Liam Callanan
Someone recommended this to me ages ago, then I forgot about it. Recently I saw it mentioned again, just in time for a wave of intense fiction longing. So far (I’m about 1/3 of the way through) it’s a great story about WWII set in Alaska, with rice-paper bombs and personal intrigue and religious mystery. Ever since Smilla I’m a sucker for fantastical mysteries set in snowy locales. I’ve had it for a while but haven’t finished it yet because I had to pause when a new book I’d requested came into the library (which I assume I won’t be able to renew, unlike this book, which is older and thus less in demand).
Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger
This is the new book. I seem to be reading it fast (150 pages yesterday, I think), because I don’t expect that I’ll be able to renew it. Also I keep reading bad reviews of it and I guess I’m eager to get to the bad part. I’m about halfway and it’s decent so far. Not as good as Time Traveler’s Wife, but I think that some people only get to write one great book. TTW is definitely nothing to sneeze at — if I were Niffenegger, I’d be happy to sit on my vast piles of cash and paint (apparently she is an artist as well). Anyway, this one’s about identical twin sisters who are the daughters of an identical twin who was estranged from her identical twin who dies and leaves the daughters her flat in London. It’s also a mystery. She does write some nice, dreamy, descriptive prose, which I like.
Jonathan:
Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely
This book has a fetching blue and orange cover, and is an exploration of the variety of reasons that people don’t always behave rationally. Sometimes Jonathan will recount bits of it to me, like the part about the experiments in which people were given money and no money to perform tasks and they more willingly helped people out when no money was involved. Which, to me, proves that money is evil.
The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia, by Laura Miller
I remember reading about this when it came out but then it dropped off my radar. I don’t think that Jonathan’s started it yet; we will probably need to renew it if we’re both going to read it. I read the Narnia books multiple times both as a kid and a (now, agnostic) adult, and lately I’ve been thinking about when Gus will read them, so this book should be interesting.
Gus:
Dragon Slayers’ Academy, by Kate McMullan
Gus LOVES this book series, which is sort of a Harry Potter for the younger set with dragons instead of wizards. They’re pretty good, too, funny plots and reasonably complex language with a fair number of pictures interspersed throughout. Plus, they’ve taught him Pig Latin. He’s on book 14 (of 19) which for some reason the library only has ONE copy of, so we bought it and plan to donate it to the library when he’s finished.
Calvin & Hobbes (various), by Bill Watterson
Jonathan gave Gus his old C&H about a year ago, but now that Gus is older he’s really smack in the middle of the C&H demographic. So we got another 3 books from the most recent Scholastic flyer to come home from school. We did have a little bit of a splashing problem in the bath tonight when Godzilla destroyed Tokyo, but otherwise it’s been fun to watch Gus devour these, laughing all the way.
7October
2009
maura @ 9:23 pm
Do you think cats are pleased or annoyed by the rise of YouTube and LOLcats? Sometimes they look so pissed off, but sometimes I think they are secretly enjoying it and just seem grumpy because they know we want them to be annoyed.
Today after dinner Jonathan and I made a rap about/with Caramel. We’re not really in the YouTube demo (except for those awesome library tutorials I made over the summer), so you’ll have to read the lyrics all old school:
I’m Caramel Kitteh
I look so pretty
I like to live
in the big bad city
(beatbox interlude)
All the ladies in the house say meow!
Yes, we are a little tired + punchy here, apparently.
6October
2009
maura @ 9:54 pm
A week, a week, where has the time gone? I’d meant to blag about many things, like the way that I’m grumpy with this season’s tv so far or the reason I haven’t ridden my bike to work yet (hint: fear of theft. damn, there goes that post.). And also this morning Gus said to me, “Mom, the hamper’s getting really full, you’d better do the laundry” which for some reason just cracked me up.
BUT, today the student part of my research study started and while I am pleased as punch that so many students would like to participate I am tired from a long day of meetings + fielding student calls/emails/drop-ins. So I think it’s time for Twitter Tuesdays then bed.
Enjoy!
fair trade coffee is back in the bookstore, which makes me happy. about 8 hours ago from Echofon
@s_francoeur Sounds fun! I have an honors workshop in a few wks, would love to hear how yours go. about 13 hours ago from Echofon in reply to s_francoeur
when gus reads aloud he sounds exactly like linus in the old peanuts tv specials. it could not possibly be more adorable. 8:44 PM Oct 5th from web
@divanoir so rad! where’d ya get it? u r a nerd. :) australopithecus FTW! 12:33 PM Oct 4th from web in reply to divanoir
rain cannot stop the chocolate connoisseur http://twitpic.com/k4wln 4:32 PM Oct 3rd from Echofon
rain begone! was so looking forward to chilis and chocolates at the bbg. 2:27 PM Oct 3rd from Echofon
.@kgs yes! when google went down for a few hrs last spring it took our library site down, too, b/c of analytics javascript on our pages 9:03 AM Oct 3rd from Echofon in reply to kgs
now playing: lilys: ginger. even after all these yrs, this song still kicks ass. 9:03 PM Oct 2nd from web
thx to our awesome CLT, the new small library classroom is online + ready for workshop overflow. library instruction FTW! 4:52 PM Oct 2nd from web
.@lwaltzer hmm, not sure if I am ready for the heavy burden of research fame. 7:09 AM Oct 2nd from Echofon in reply to lwaltzer
blurgh, suspect i need a new avatar. pros/cons for using an actual photo of me? aside from having to find a reasonably good one, of course. 10:33 PM Oct 1st from web
.@cunycommons Awesome. Thanks @boonebgorges! 7:03 PM Oct 1st from Echofon in reply to cunycommons
.@What_Went_Wrong Awesome! I <3 that Postmarks single from a few years back. 6:58 PM Oct 1st from Echofon in reply to What_Went_Wrong
collection developing + listening to air: 10,000 hz legend. 4:06 PM Oct 1st from web
ah, the internets. from monkey diapers to pee-wee’s return to pet snails. that’s quality! clearly it’s time to shutdown the computer. 11:28 PM Sep 30th from web
29September
2009
maura @ 9:05 pm
Here at mauraweb! we’re always sometimes adding new features, because we know that’s how teh intarwebs works, with the new stuff coming at ya at high speed. Behold the latest mauraweb! innovation: Twitter Tuesdays!
Yeah, okay, if I’m trying to get this to sub in for a real post then it’s kind of lazy. But I’ve been occasionally casting about for ways to archive my twitters for a while now, ways that don’t involve handing my twitter password over to some other website. I did figure out how to get google to suck the RSS feed from my twitter into reader, but I don’t know what to do with it now that it’s there (i.e., how to get the feed as plain text). Since none of this is so very pressing, I spend about 15 minutes on it every few weeks and then get annoyed and quit.
So I reckon that I’ll spend 5 minutes each Tuesday popping a week’s worth of twitters in here, and then call it a day. There’s still the matter of my older twitters, but I can’t deal with that tonight. Enjoy!
(P.S. I cannot tell a lie: inspiration for this shiniest of mauraweb! objects comes from Mark Sample‘s blog [he’s a prof at George Mason Univ].)
And now, the twitterstream!
@alevtina cool! where? about 2 hours ago from Echofon in reply to alevtina
@Annefesto that kid knows his priorities! about 9 hours ago from Echofon in reply to Annefesto
@BTPearcy woah, that’s quite a trip. about 14 hours ago from Echofon in reply to BTPearcy
RT @mkgold @kfitz Care about the future of scholarly publishing? Planned Obsolescence is online for open peer review http://bit.ly/zjXhV 12:57 PM Sep 28th from Echofon
@airwalker999 Happy Birthday Mark! Hope you have a fun day. 9:05 AM Sep 28th from Echofon in reply to airwalker999
Gus made pigs in blankets today (tho they look more like sleeping bags) http://twitpic.com/jeigu 4:26 PM Sep 27th from Echofon
can’t seem to string 2 sentences together today in anything but the most flat + lifeless way. off to read something by someone who can. 9:44 PM Sep 26th from web
dear yahoo, your redesign = stupid because there is no link to groups on the homepage which is the only reason i even keep my account. #fail 9:30 PM Sep 25th from web
@lwaltzer no, I didn’t realize she wrote kids books, will have to check then out. 6:21 PM Sep 25th from Echofon in reply to lwaltzer
maira kalman’s piece on the times website is so perfect: http://bit.ly/3EFeqs 8:16 AM Sep 25th from web
@oelibrarian sounds like a great workshop. will you post notes on yr blog? 10:28 PM Sep 24th from Echofon in reply to oelibrarian
WP question for all youse: is there a widget/theme for WP.com (not MU or custom install) to wikify or commentpress-ify posts/pages? thx! 10:13 PM Sep 24th from web
today’s productivity fail: when ms word converts my colon + parentheses into smiley or frowny faces, i want to punch it. 9:54 AM Sep 24th from web
gah, fall seems a lot like summer might have been. 9:52 PM Sep 23rd from web
26September
2009
maura @ 5:33 pm
Last weekend Gus couldn’t stop talking about My Sims, which he’d watched his friend play on the schoolbus. So Jonathan broke out our 9-yr-old copy of The Sims and installed it on his computer. Gus was extremely obsessed for about 72 hours, though it’s since faded. The interface is actually kind of difficult to manipulate, and I’d forgotten how clunky it is to move furniture around, build new rooms, etc. Ultimately I think the intensive mousing required got Gus down.
Short as it was, the obsession was intense, and brought me right back to my own obsession when we first got the game years ago. It’s true that Gus was much more amused by certain aspects of the Sims than I; of course it cracks him up that the sims forget to relieve themselves and have accidents. And he didn’t care as much about decorating as I did. He was always annoyed when his prissy sims complained about the blue formica table that Gus bought for them. (The simplistic consumerism of the game is kind of hilarious — they are happy when you buy them nice stuff! How realistic!)
But I was surprised by some of his inventive strategies. He bought his sims a computer before getting a TV, explaining: “they can use the computer to play games and look for jobs.” Ultimately, he had to buy them a TV because his woman sim didn’t want to play video games and needed something fun to do (blurgh, Will Wright, I lost a little respect for you on that one).
Somewhat alarming was the realization that in many ways Gus and I played the game very much the same. Just like in real life, Gus hoarded his money and bought his sims something expensive only when it really seemed necessary (e.g., when he realized that the fancy computer breaks less often than the basic model). And he spent lots of time really scripting every move for his sims. The sims will take care of some, but not all, of their “needs” automatically, and if you really want to do well in the game you need to control most of their actions. Gus realized this pretty quickly, as did I, and we both got kind of obsessive in trying to make them do the “right” things. So it was kind of weird watching him play.
This week we were both back to our regularly scheduled games: Gus and friends can’t get enough of Super Smash Bros Brawl on the Wii, and I’m still rocking Harbor Master on the iPhone.
14September
2009
maura @ 11:10 pm
So, I bought a bike. It’s funny, I’ve wanted a bike for ages, pining after the ones I walk by on the street, and then I finally get one and I don’t even mention it. Partly that’s because I haven’t ridden it as much as I’d like. We got them (one for Gus too, a used one for $40!) in late July but have been so busy that we’ve only really ridden them a couple of times. Gus essentially taught himself how to ride his. It came without training wheels: he just jumped on and pedaled away like he was born cycling. This past Sunday he and I rode the entire loop in the park, 3.35 miles!
Even though we haven’t ridden much I love my bike. Love love love it. It’s an older, used girl’s bike in pretty good condition, with 3 speeds and both coaster and hand brakes. It’s sort of a cloudy gray color, nothing fancy, but very dependable. Solid, you might say. I have yet to ensticker it but rest assured that’s coming soon.
I am still a little nervous about riding it on the street, but it’s getting better. Today was a work-from-home day and I decided to take my lunchtime to do a trial ride to work and back, about 20 minutes each way (so fast!). There’s a good route from here to there with bike lanes on most of the streets, and other than the occasional pesky van or delivery truck parked in the bike lane it was pretty easy. I even stopped to practice locking the bike up. I do admit to a tinge of nerves, still, when I think of leaving the bike locked up all day while I’m at work. I hope that it’s too old + boring to steal, but what if not?
On the bright side, I am already making a list of the bike accessories I will need to get. The bike has fenders (a plus), but I could use a rack over the rear wheel with those awesome folding side baskets to hold my bag + stuff. And a bell, of course. And maybe one of those gel seat covers, oooh, squishy.
“But,” you may ask, “whatever will you do with your scooter?” Never fear, there’s still a place for the scooter in my transportation stable. I’m not really prepared to ride the bike into Manhattan, so when I have meetings I will bring the scooter instead. And one good thing about the scooter is that I can fold it up and bring it to my office, so I don’t have to worry that it will get stolen. On the other hand, since the wheels are plastic it can be nearly unusable in even a light drizzle.
Maybe changing it up a bit is the best way to go: a couple of scooter days and a couple of bike days each week. Sounds like a planonus.
11September
2009
maura @ 10:16 pm
Oh dear, I seem to have fallen into that beginning-of-the-semester-hole again. I meant to blag all week, really I did, but I was just so tired at night and now that Dollhouse has gotten interesting it was much easier to watch than write.
Last Friday evening I met Jonathan and Gus at the MOMA to see Projects 90, an exhibition by the Chinese artist Song Dong. Since it was just before a holiday weekend I’d hoped the crowds wouldn’t be too bad, even though it was the free Friday night dealie. But it was packed and Gus was crabby, despite the gelato we bought him in the sculpture garden. Sigh, 3rd graders are not so easily bought off, I guess.
Still, Gus was reasonably content to sit in a corner reading while Jonathan and I took turns looking at the exhibit. It was fascinating, totally worth the grumpy kid. The story behind it is that the artist’s mother became somewhat unhinged after his father died, and she took the traditional Chinese thriftyness to a whole new level and refused to throw anything out. She packed it into their tiny house and it spilled out all over their yard. Finally the artist was able to convince his mother to move out of the house and allow him to create an exhibit of all of the stuff, which she then helped him curate.
The result: a wooden-framed house skeleton in the center of a room at MOMA surrounded by neatly arranged stuff: tied bundles of magazines, folded clothing, rows of toothbrushes, scads of plastic bottles, a stack of soap cakes, a pyramid of pill boxes and bottles, furniture, etc. Watch the installation video — it’s mesmerizing (as was the exhibit). Of course the stuff is just recognizable, normal stuff, but as Jonathan said when you actually walk around it all and see the arrangement close-up it’s almost like a model of a city. Here’s the crayons neighborhood, over there is where the shoes live. So cool. And, you know, full of implications for our modern lives and all the stuff we use and whether it’s necessary etc. etc. Sometimes I miss thinking about material culture, so I was really glad we got to see this before it closed.
And then this week, with the busy, and now it’s now. I’ve been doing a bunch of reading about writing lately and last weekend I got all fired up about setting aside time to write on a near-daily basis. But then this week was busy at work (and it was short to begin with) and I ran out of time as usual. I’ve been thinking all week about Song Dong’s mom’s house, just an empty timber frame, as a physical manifestation of my goal: one empty hour to write most days. As ever, the problem is partly my fault and partly not. Not my fault because, well, objectively, it’s busy at the beginning of the semester. But my fault because my list is too long to begin with. And my fault, too, because I tend to fall into the trap of procrastinating writing with other work. Yes, sometimes the other work seems to scream loudly: “pay attention to me!” But it’s rarely truly urgent, and certainly can wait an hour.
I was wondering today whether Anne Lamott would be disappointed in me since I didn’t meet my writing goals this week. But then I thought that she’d probably understand. And she’d probably make me a cup of tea and tell me that next week will be better.
1September
2009
maura @ 10:12 pm
We are having a weird home-screen-viewing summer. Should have been catching up on movies, but instead we watched the whole season of Fringe. Which ended up being pretty good. I mean, it’s an unabashed X-Files wannabe, but it’s always nice to see Pacey getting work, and the plots are interesting and full of weird stuff that is sometimes gross but not too much. Also the location titles floating in the sky are pretty nice (though a friend finds them ominous).
Continuing the catching-up-on-TV-we-missed-last-season trend,* this week we started watching Dollhouse. Finally! Yes, I know, what took us so long? Partly it was self-preservation: it’s so hard to get really into a show only to have it canceled. But now it’s been renewed so I feel like we should watch it before the new season starts.
* When we really should be watching The Class, which Netflix sent us ages ago and which I really really want to see. But sometimes it’s hard to commit to 2 hrs of watching, esp. when we can’t guarantee that our wee sleephater will be asleep before 9:30 these days. Maybe after school starts. Say it with me: 8 more days!
Okay, Jonathan warned me that the first 6 eps. have been widely acknowledged as Not That Great, and that it gets better. Thanks to Twitter I know that Felicia Day is in ep. 13, too, yay! But we’ve watched 2 episodes so far and I have to say that I am wavering on whether to continue. It’s just so mysoginistic. Of course Buffy was hilarious and moving and sad and bleak, and the main character was female and bad things happened to her. Some of those bad things happened because she’s a girl. But bad things happened to other people on the show, male people. And, you know, Buffy kicked ass, so that was cool.
Echo gets to do some strong stuff too, some fighting, etc. But overall she is just being used, man. The violence in ep. 2 really threw me; it was so hopeless and bleak. And mean. It’s so confusing — Joss, what are you doing?
Of course I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. It’s great to see so many of the Joss regulars and the BSG refugees too (Tahmoh Penikett kind of looks like my brother, so I like him). I’m sure I’ll become a convert in the end: Jonathan referred me to the blogosphere which is full of commentary on feminism + Dollhouse + Joss (and which I’m not reading yet for fear of spoilers). But geez, til we get there, it’s hard to watch. We’re cuing up ep. 3, which I hope helps me shake off ep. 2.
28August
2009
maura @ 10:07 pm
Today was Gus’s last day of camp and my first day of the new semester, so it feels like summer is officially over.* I have to admit that we were a little worried at the outset. He’d rejected his camp of the past two years which left us scrambling around way back in February to find suitable alternatives (it’s insane how fast camps fill up). We finally decided on three different camps for a total of 6 weeks of camp, interspersed with (and determining) our 3 separate weeks of family visiting + vacationing. Three camps sounded like a lot to us grown-ups, but since he’d rejected the one camp with the flexible schedule that goes for the entire summer we didn’t really have much choice.
I was painfully shy for much of my childhood. We moved houses and I changed schools a bunch, and I remember feeling like it was so hard to make new friends time + time again. Jonathan moved a lot, too. Gus was pretty shy as a toddler + preschooler, so we naturally assumed that he’d continue to be shy as a kid. Transitions to his new classes have been easy the past few years, but then again he’s been in the same school since kindergarten so he’s super familiar with it by now.
One of the things that continues to shock me about being a parent is the extent to which our kid is, in certain ways, actually not like us at all. I probably spend too much time gnashing my teeth about the bad traits Gus has inherited from me: stubbornness, temper, lack of physical grace (yes, we are both clumsy), small feet (hmm, is there a connection?). But I rarely think about the good stuff he’s got that I don’t have.
And it turns out that Gus had a great summer. He loved all three camps, even though they were very different and he only had one prior friend at one camp. He came home with contact info for a friend from each camp, too. This year he seems to have been especially popular with the ladies. At his first camp he showed me how to stand on the edge of his locker to open the locker on top of his for S., a little girl in his group. At his second camp he told us of his friend C.: “she’s a talker.” On the last day the kids + counselors signed each others shirts and C. wrote her phone number on the back of Gus’s shirt. And at this last camp he discovered that S. also plays the online Harry Potter-esque video game that Gus is totally into. They’ve friended each other and he’s helping her level up (what a gentleman!).
* Except that it’s not! That moaning sound you’ll hear emanating from the NYC metro area sometime in the middle of next week will be directly attributable to the public schools not starting until September NINTH. Yes, that’s right, this year Labor Day is as late as it can possibly be, w00t! Tune in next week for tales from the trenches, Camp Mommy + Daddy style.
23August
2009
maura @ 10:21 pm
I hadn’t planned to when I woke up this morning, but as it turns out I caulked two sinks and the base of one bathtub today. Like most things, it’s the cat’s fault. Yesterday we got home from our week @ the beach with most of my family* to discover that one of the cats had picked at** a bit of the caulk that joins the bathroom sink to the wall.
* 7 adults + 6 kids under 8 = chaos! But fun, too. I actually kind of miss it.
** And maybe eaten? Hard to say, but I wouldn’t put it past him. Since Caramel ate 1/2 a ribbon the last time I wrapped a birthday present (and pooped out a bow-tied treat later, eew), I’m betting he’s the culprit. Lucky for him he’s so soft + pretty or he’d be out on his kitty behind, I tell ya.
I spent most of the morning walking around in a post-vacation stupor, doing piles of laundry and feeling grumpy.*** After which I helped triage Gus’s school forms + supplies list (which gets longer every year, it seems) and felt grumpy. Every so often I went into the bathroom, and each time I saw the gaping hole in the caulk I sighed a big sigh.
*** Why is re-entry so difficult? I like my house, my bed, the relative quiet of my family of 3. And I’m cool with going back to work tomorrow — the semester starts this week and my research project is starting in earnest, too. Still, I moped around today like someone kicked me in the shins, seriously.
Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. A few weeks ago I’d up and caulked one of the bathtubs, so we had some caulk left over from that adventure. What I hate most is the decaulking — it’s always much more work than you think it will be to pry it out and scrape it off. But for some miracle reason this old caulk pulled free quick as a flash. A little masking, a little caulk, a little smoothing, and then it was time to cover it with a plastic bag so it can cure ’til tomorrow. Good times!
Then I was on a caulking roll. The caulk on the section of the backsplash near the kitchen faucet looked kind of grotty, so I scraped that off too and slapped on some shiny new caulk. I thought that was it, but then I noticed a bit of a weird spot in the other bathroom where the tub meets the tile floor. I stupidly gave it a tug and a huge chunk of caulk came off there, too. And who can leave a clean spot? Not I. So I scraped + slapped again.
Now there’s lots of caulk under plastic bags in our apartment, and I’m having a beer and feeling much less grumpy. Not bad for day 1 post-vacation, not bad at all.
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