the last stand is for the lawman

maura @ 8:19 pm

Practically every day that I go to the gym I think, you know, I should blag about some of the songs I like. This is not a music blag, but maybe folks would be interested in listening to some music here every so often. So here it is!

(n.b. I’m going to link to these songs, so if the links break because the other sites’ owners take them down it’s not my fault!)

The Postmarks: Goodbye — I think I heard about these kids on the indiepop list. This is a great sweet catchy pop song. I especially love the horns + strings. But I don’t like any of the other songs they have on their site. Very odd. Also odd: Jonathan heard this song in the Lowe’s when he was buying plumbing stuff a few weeks ago.

Annemarie: Apple (suicide on your stereo set) — These kids are from Singapore, I think? And I think a friend pointed me to this song. Very twee + singable (except that I can’t figure out what they are saying!).

The Consultants: Hollow-Bodied Evening — An oldie from my friend Ed’s excellent Shelflife label. Wistful but catchy pop, with enough BPM for the gym.

Best Fwends: Skate Or Live — You may remember that these funny crazy Austin kids were one of my fave (and only!) live shows this year. Even after 6 months I still love this song. Good for the morning, will wake you up! For some reason I couldn’t find an mp3 for this so here is a video.

MJ Hibbett and the Validators: Easily Impressed — This song is really fantastic, especially if you are tiny bit depressed. Possible downside: you may giggle out loud at the lyrics, provoking stares at the gym. Whatever. Linked from my friend Punk Rock Karl‘s blag.

we’ve no time to start a protocol

maura @ 7:14 pm

Today at lunchtime I was reading the interwebs while slurping up the delicious lamb meatball, chickpea, carrot, sweet potato and turnip stew Jonathan made for dinner last night. And here’s what I found:

I’m sure you’ve all seen that site that collects the passive-aggressive notes people leave. Stay Free points us to another hilarious one along the same lines, the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks. But do they include apostrophes, too?

My pal Steve has a great post about reading and the in-between times on the Poetry Foundation’s blog. It’s good to see someone thinking critically and productively about the recent reports about the decline of reading (rather than just whining or freaking out about it). And we could all use a little more SLOIP in our lives, I’m sure.

Tomorrow is my day off, and I am going to paint Gus’s bedroom doors. We’ll thus be mostly done with the home improvement, other than finishing up putting some books on our shelves. Gus had said he wanted us to paint trees on his walls, but tonight I came home to a new catalog in the mail and now I am thinking we should splurge on these wall decorations. Pricey, but sooooooooo much easier, no?

if i knew just what i had found

maura @ 8:41 pm

We are all still settling into our new schedule here. I must admit that I’m pretty tired, but that has as much to do with the dregs of home improvement fest ’07 and Gus’s birthday party this weekend as it does with my new career.

People! To the extent that these things are plannable, let me advise you to NOT have your children in December. First of all, you can’t just invite every single kid in town and go to the park like those summer birthday kids, oh no. It’s too cold to have an outdoor party, which means you’re having an indoor party, which is: a) messier, b) in your house, or c) at someplace else (which is never free). Budgetary + over-the-top-ness concerns mean that we opted for a+b this year, but since it hasn’t happened yet I can’t weigh in on whether it was a good decision.

Also, if you celebrate one of the many holidays that happen this time of year, the whole month will be just one gift-receiving opportunity after another for your December birthday kid. Followed by a loooooooong 11 month toy drought in which he gets not one new thing. Okay, even thrifty me is not THAT mean, but it is distressingly unbalanced this way.

Can you tell that I have a June birthday? Vote June, the perfect month for birthdays! Right in the middle of the year and with nice weather to boot. Except for that year when I turned 10: it hailed on my birthday. But that’s the worst thing to happen, really!

just tell him i’m dying to meet him

maura @ 9:08 pm

Can’t talk, too tired from a long day at work.

Yes, I did say work! I’ve got an adjunct gig at the library where I used to intern. It’s really fun! Today I taught 2 classes and did a few hours at the ref desk, among other things.

But wow, it sure is strange to leave the house in the morning and not get back ’til it’s dark. Luckily it’s a reverse commute from my house to the college, so I’m not fighting the subway crowds.

i guess it’s just what i must do

maura @ 9:04 pm

Why do I have an ad for some crazy cookie running through my head right now? Well it all started a coupla weeks ago when Gus came home from school singing a song. That in and of itself is noteworthy, since he’s typically kind of anti-music (shocking, I know!).

So he’s singing to himself, and I can just barely make it out: “don’t you want me baby, don’t you want me baby.” And I am thinking, WHO is playing the Human League for that kid?! It can’t be me, because I only have that song on vinyl and the turntable is not hooked up right now.

It seemed likely that one of his friends at school was singing it, and Jonathan suggested that maybe the song is being sampled in a current pop/r+b hit tune. I googled the song title, but I found nothing popular music-ish.

Here’s what I did find: a cookie commercial (that supposedly aired during the Super Bowl last year). We neither watch (live) TV nor football (of any sort), so of course we hadn’t seen this. But it seems like a promising suspect, no?

I called Gus in to watch the commercial on YouTube, and then we had to watch the other commercial, too. And here I am, two weeks later. Oi oi oi!

you’ll feel better if you whistle

maura @ 4:59 pm

Gus + I are at my mom’s this weekend while Jonathan selflessly finishes the painting at our apartment. This morning my mom asked Gus to help her get the xmas tree + decorations out of her basement + start setting them up.

So I took a peek in the basement, too. I’ve got a few eight (8!) boxes of stuff from my child-through-college-hood taking up space, and thought maybe I could declutter here, too, just like at home. Plus, sometimes I find cool stuff for Gus.

OMG, it is just incredible what a packrat I am! Old letters, yearbooks, a few precious concert t-shirts, Chairry, my MacPlus from college? Okay, those are fine. Someday I will have room to bring them to my house, and I do think they are worth saving.

But other old random stuffed animals, raggedy ann dolls, dollhouse stuff (much of it homemade), puzzles, and knicknacks? Aiieee! Why do I need these? Why did I ever think I needed these?

I have a plan, though: I will make a special trip down to my mom’s house in the spring, before we are set to have our annual stoop sale. And I will sell it all there! Because SOMEONE wants this stuff, right?

don’t forget to buy…nothing!

maura @ 11:21 am

you had to know that i was fond of you

maura @ 8:44 pm

Phoning it in some here tonight. I am tired and a little bit freaked out about all that there is to do in the next 9 days.

Recently I wish I could see the future. Not for the usual lottery-winning or betting-on-horses reasons, though that could be a nice extra. No, for me the main benefit would be improved personal activity planning. I’m better when I’m kind of busy, when my time is occupied. But to get to my optimal level of busy I sometimes say yes to what seems like a reasonable amount of activities at the time my mouth says “sure, I’ll do that!” but then ends up to be a huge hectic pile.

And that’s kind of where I am right now. I haven’t been to the gym in a week and I have lots of things scribbled down on post-it notes and did you know that xmas is practically right around the corner?

Thankfully (har!) all of my regular (double har!) readers are probably too stuffed (the laughs just keep coming here at mauraweb!) to notice that tonight’s entry is so lame. See you tomorrow, interwebs!

you’re so ethereal in my cereal

maura @ 8:52 pm

Happy Thanksgiving! What, you mean it’s still Wednesday?!

In our house we had the big meal a day early because our visitors need to leave tomorrow. And of course it was delicious! Jonathan made squash AND kale (w/bacon!), because orange + green veggies are good for you. He was also happy to be able to make brussels sprouts and not be the only one eating them, since his mom likes them too. The stuffing was a wee disappointment (too much rosemary), but it was from a bag so it wasn’t our fault.

Yes, we used bag stuffing, but without it there wouldn’t have been time for the cornbread, which was delicious.

Because we are gluttons we are even having ANOTHER big meal tomorrow, with our neighbors. This time it’ll be enchiladas + sangria though. Yum. Surely we’ll all be too fat to walk by Friday.

on the banks of the beautiful river wahoo

maura @ 8:55 pm

Some people are doing NaBloPoMo AND NaBloShoeMo. I am not one of those people. I’d have run out of shoes to photograph two days ago, even including hiking boots, rain boots, slippers and ice skates.

I am having lots of low-level shoe disgruntlement these days. Thinking about shoes while looking at others’ entries this month can do that to a gal. Probably it is Gus’s fault. I had lots of shoes that I really liked and that fit me really well. Then I got pregnant and it all went downhill.

Actually it is really my own fault. I just have weird feet. First of all, they are really little. They’re bigger now, but not much. Also they are a tad on the wide side. I’ve practically never had shoes that didn’t require at least some breaking in, but then things are usually hunky dory.

Now it seems like I don’t even have ONE pair of shoes that fits well. And they all have slightly different problems: some are too big, some too small, some need thick or thin socks only, some have Dr. Scholl’s products to assist them.

Most tragic are my beloved wing tip Docs, staple of the cold weather months. I wore them today and for the second time in recent memory they made my foot hurt in a weird way. They are a little bit too big — Docs don’t come in half sizes — which might be the cause of the weird pain. If it turns out that they are the cause I’ll be sad sad sad.

And annoyed, too, because I will have to go shopping for shoes. Probably try them on, even. Who wants to spend time on that? I prefer to just ogle shoes from afar, preferably online. Yep, I’m a shoe stalker. Here’s my latest footwear to drool over, from those crunchy folks at Simple. Look at that stitching! Foxy.