never gonna give you up

maura @ 8:41 pm

You’re probably wondering how my week off turned out. Well, I didn’t do everything I’d set out to do. But I did get a fair amount done, especially when you factor in the stomach flu that my germy germy kid unleashed on the household. HE was sick for a mere 24 hrs, but his lucky parents had it off and on for nearly a week. Kind of a drag, but MUCH better to be sick this week than next!

Today was the first day everyone really felt healthy in this house, so it was back to work for the adults. And Jonathan was back to assaulting my ears with whatever the interwebs told him to watch on YouTube. Damn you, Rick Astley, with your 80s catchiness! I will never get this song out of my head.

they took a picture, and from this cold lightning

maura @ 7:45 pm

Are you tired of thinking about Spitzer? Me too! Let’s think about music instead.

Last week at work I was talking with a friend about wearing blue mascara in the 80s and then listened to Aladdin Sane on the (delayed) subway home which got me thinking about desert island discs. Remember that? When 80s music magazines used to ask famous people to name the 10 records they’d want if they were stranded on a desert island? I thought you did.

(in alphabetical order, all librarian-like)

1. Bjork: Vespertine

2. David Bowie: I’d have to flip a coin to decide between Aladdin Sane and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

3. Cocteau Twins: Treasure

4. Even in Blackouts: Myths and Imaginary Magicians

5. Everything But the Girl: Amplified Heart

5.5. Lilys: A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns (This is only an EP, so I should get a bonus EP because they are short.)

6. New Order: Low Life

6.5 Pipas: Bitter Club (Another EP)

7. Pixies: Do Surfer Rosa and Come on Pilgrim count as one record or two? They are on the same CD. If the answer is two, then I pick Doolittle.

8. The Shins: Ditto coin flip between Chutes Too Narrow and Wincing the Night Away

9. Shuggie Otis: Inspiration Information

10. Throwing Muses: Ditto coin flip between Throwing Muses and House Tornado. Except if it’s the British CD of House Tornado which also has The Fat Skier so I’d pick that.

That was much harder than I thought it would be.

with a piece of paper and a calculator

maura @ 8:00 pm

I have a *whole* *entire* *week* *off* between jobs. Here’s a partial list of what I’ll be doing, in no particular order:

– clothes shopping (bah)
– having coffee with a friend!
– ice skating with 90 1^st graders (and bringing hot chocolate)
– filling out new job forms
– organizing my email
– reading the three (3) library books on my shelf
– (maybe) going to a PTA meeting
– having drinks with friends!
– working on an article
– attending a parent-teacher conference
– (maybe) cleaning the house
– attending a new job benefits orientation (yay for benefits!)
– having lunch with friends (3 separate times!)
– rolling up something bigger than a *#&$% bear cub for Ursa Minor in Katamari Damacy

insert title here

maura @ 9:44 pm

Ever since I started at my internship (and continuing on through my adjuncting) I’ve been watching the progress of a giant Target under construction right next to campus. Every morning I’d walk up the steps from the subway and wonder when it would be finished. Would I still be around or would I have a full-time job by then?

Technically, I suppose I won: 2 weeks ago I accepted a job offer! In just over a week I’ll be the Information Literacy Librarian at NYC College of Technology.

But I haven’t started my new job yet. Target opened its doors on Wednesday, which is the same day my appointment letter arrived. So I’m calling it a tie.

she lives in a golden square

maura @ 9:45 pm

It has recently been brought to my attention that this blag is a) long-winded and b) boring. Sorry about that! Limbo does that to a person.

So here’s a short funny post (yeah, right).

Q: Who is the winner, me or Target?
A: Target, but I’m close behind. Or, actually, I think it’s a tie.

I’ll explain tomorrow. With another short + funny post!

delicate mouse tune, crash of cat chords

maura @ 9:30 pm

Today was a good day. I had brunch with some library pals in the city and had a great time catching up. After I got home the three of us headed down to one of those so-called healthy frozen yogurt places so the boys could have a snack. It was kind of a thinly veiled excuse to get us all outside for a bit, and since Gus scootered all the way there and back it was mission accomplished.

Then we went to the library to return the book I read completely on the train home from Vermont* as well as a couple of Gus’s recent faves (Captain Underpants, Spiderwick). We were hoping to score the second Spiderwick book but it was out. So we put a hold on it and got Gus the 4 Totoro comic books instead, plus a Tintin collection for J+G.

* Last summer I read Jpod, also in its entirety, on the train home from Vermont, and thus Amtrak + Douglas Coupland have a weird link in my brain. Come to think of it, it’s really pretty appropriate to read his books on trains.

I picked up the book I had on hold, the latest short story collection from my literary boyfriend Steven Millhauser.

I really should not be allowed to go to the public library. When I’m at work it’s very worky — I have stuff to do and don’t tend to spend time thinking about all of the books I could read. But at the public library I have absolutely no self control. I am always in awe of all the books there that I could read and tend to lose my head and check way too much out.

Today I exercised great strength and did not even let myself look at the new books shelves, which are perilously close to the hold shelves. But then when I got back to the kids section Jonathan was reading Totoro to Gus, so I let myself look at the kid’s shelves while I waited for them to finish. Which is how I ended up checking out this YA scifi book that I’ve heard really good things about. Stop me now! At least it’ll be a quick read, right?

i bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face

maura @ 9:31 pm

Once again we decided to take Amtrak to the great white north, and once again we encountered strange and potentially maddening delays. Actually we were all remarkably calm about it — maybe we’re just getting accustomed to the Amtrak craziness?

In this episode everything went swimmingly up to Springfield, MA, at which point we were told that a backhoe had struck a propane tank near the track somewhere north of us and the tracks were impassable. The plan was to put us all on buses between Springfield and Southern VT, at which point we’d get on another train and continue on our merry way.

It didn’t sound too bad at first. But then they told us that the buses wouldn’t be there for an hour. And then told us that AGAIN an hour later.

So we sat on the train at Springfield for nearly three hours. They’d closed the cafe car, which sucked, but there was a perfectly acceptable pizza + grinders (har — I couldn’t bring myself to ask for a hoagie) place near the station where I scored us some dinner. Gus watched The Neverending Story on the laptop (thank goodness for electricity on trains!) and Jonathan and I did a little reading.

We all cheered when the buses finally arrived, and hopped on and settled in with the Game Boy + books. When the driver started it up the radio was blasting Loverboy’s “Turn Me Loose,” which was utterly surreal. Dude, it’s a high school ski trip! It took ’til the end of the song for the radio to be turned off, so maybe it was the driver’s favorite?

The train station in Southern VT was a quaint olde timey place, all dark wooden benches and blissfully non-train bathrooms. There were two (2!) Thomas train tables with loads of trains. Gus and the three other kids (all of whom were well past prime Thomas age) seemed happy for the diversion. Jonathan and I were happy about the pretty decent coffee from a machine.

Once we were on the train again we SEEMED to be making good time. Still, we didn’t get in until after 10pm. Gus was still awake and Jonathan stauched the supercranky with the big guns: a new (to us!) Game Boy game. Lots of reading required, too — sneaky parents.

and also…

maura @ 1:09 pm

Jonathan is so famous! Check it out! (Don’t worry, it’s at 0:46 minutes in, so you won’t have to watch the whole thing if you don’t want to.)

hush hush, eye to eye

maura @ 11:25 am

Well, the writer’s strike is over, but of course TV isn’t really back to normal yet. I’m feeling much more ambivalent about TV than usual. At least about dramas. We netflixed that Razor movie thing (Battlestar Galactica) and it was kind of eh. Maybe there just wasn’t enough Starbuck. And Lost is back, but despite the fun flash-forwards it’s pretty eh too, enough so that we haven’t gotten around to watching the last two episodes yet.

Still, House has been okay. And I am looking forward to the return of The Office and 30 Rock. Maybe it’s just that right now I crave 30 minute comedies?

In other media news, for the past month or so we’ve been rocking family dinner + movie night each weekend. It’s been pretty fun — it’s amazing how excited Gus is by the prospect of eating dinner (and popcorn!) at the coffee table. We’ve seen some good movies (The Incredibles) and some lame ones (to parents, at least — yes, Lilo + Stitch 2, I’m looking at you).

We watched the hilarious mid-80s fantasy Labyrinth, starring our neighbor Jennifer Connolly and a delightfully campy Bowie. I’d forgotten how slapstick it is, right up Gus’s alley. Jonathan immediately re-watched the Flight of the Conchords ep where Jemaine appears in Bret’s dreams as Bowies of different eras, so funny!

Last night was The Neverending Story, another mid-80s kids fantasy movie. (Hey, it’s a lot of work imposing our nerdiness onto the young spawn!). He liked this one, too — in fact we are watching it again right now. But it’s a little more intense than Labyrinth, more serious w/some scary bits. I’m kind of wishing we’d waited on this, but I guess Gus is okay (other than requiring me to skip through the part when Atreyu’s horse dies).

Another unintended movie night consequence: the truly craptastic theme song by Limahl, lead singer of Kajagoogoo, has been looping through my head practically continuously. Why is it that I sometimes can’t remember what I read in the paper last week, but I can instantly summon up the complete lyrics of mid-80s Duran Duran and their cohort? In the immortal words of David Bowie as the Goblin King: “such a pity.”

mermaids waving

maura @ 10:25 pm

Today we had coffee right after lunch and right after that we made a printer stand out of two old plywood clementine crates. Yay for reusing!

First we just inverted the crates, taped them together and put the printer on them. But what had originally sent us down this path was our dissatisfaction with having the box of printer paper sitting out on top of the printer.

So Jonathan got out the sharp knives* and cut a little window in each of the crates, just big enough for our box of paper, which now slides in and out like a drawer. There.s even enough space behind it to stuff in all of the extra ink jet cartridges.

* I stay away from the sharp knives, because I’m a little clumsy and I like all of my fingertips.

Total time: maybe 30 minutes, from caffeine-fueled inspiration to finished product. Cost: free! (not including the psychic cost of stacking up the old clementine crates for weeks because I’m unable to throw them in the trash).

And the finished product: