in our angelhood

maura @ 9:34 pm

Today’s unanswered questions:

– What should I get everyone for Christmas?

– Why do the cats keep scratching the rugs (and the corollary, why isn’t the new anti-cat-scratching spray working?)

– How do you spell “corollary,” anyway?

– If I get a USB turntable, can I plug it right into our prehistoric amp + speakers? And if we get rid of said ancient (17-yr-old!) hi-fi stereo amplifier, how will I listen to my records on my new turntable?

– Assuming acquisition of said turntable, will I ever find time to rip my records to digital files?

– And speaking of time, how can I get back on my daily reading track?

– Will I have time to sew myself a new iphone cozy, purse and in-bag purse-like organizer over the holidays?

– If I go to sleep now, will I kick the exhaustion that’s dogged me for the past few days?

– Are accurate lyrics for older Cocteau Twins songs available anywhere online? Or was Liz Fraser just making it all up as she went along?

– Will I ever get over my annoyance at that nightclub in Philly that wouldn’t let my underage self (accompanied by my dad) in to see The Chameleons play on their last ever U.S. tour?

– What should I get my brother for his birthday?

– Did we pay less than our fair share at Japanese dinner tonight?

fashion crisis hits new york, part deux

maura @ 7:43 pm

(because French is the fancy language of fashion!)

To continue: last night I was saying that lately I seem to be completely unable to dress myself. Not in the mechanical sense, though I would love a machine that comes out of the floor to dress me in the morning (like Robert Downey Jr. had in Iron Man). No, in the looking-put-together way.

(I should mention that the title is a song by Irish pop band the Frank and Walters, and that it pops right into my head on mornings when I’m standing in front of the open closet and having a particularly rough time of it.)

Problem #1 is, as ever, my unreasonably high expectations. I want to wear clothes for work that fit me well and that are fashionable in a classic yet interesting way. I like colors (and plaid and stripes!), but I like black/gray/brown, too. I guess the look I’m going for is quirky yet professional. And a bit dressy, because that’s the way we roll @ MPOW. I also want to be able to get most of my clothes secondhand, for ethical + thrifty reasons.

So. Usually I shop at my local Goodwill, which has a surprisingly great selection of clothes. I always say that it’s like the rich people from the adjacent neighborhood just dump all of their slightly used stuff at this store, because I often score clothes from Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, etc. I’ve been able to find a lot of great pieces at the Goodwill, and supplement them with a few things from real stores (mostly H&M and Old Navy). And if for some reason the item of clothing just doesn’t work out, it’s only $5 max down the drain.

The problem comes down to matching. Lots of my clothes match easily, but I can’t seem to find appropriate things to wear with many others. Which is frustrating, because I don’t have time to shop often, so the unmatchable items end up sitting in my closet for ages, despite the fact that I love them. While shopping I’ve tried to think about what I already own that matches things I’m considering buying, but that hasn’t worked. And I’ve seriously considered taking pictures of every piece of clothing to bring with me on my phone to the store. Which is just crushingly nerdy, and probably wouldn’t work anyway. Sigh.

The solution is clearly uniforms. Librarians for uniforms — who’s with me?

like the sound of a bird

maura @ 9:42 pm

I’m sick, bah. Standard head cold, nose is a faucet, you know the drill. Not sure how it happened — no one else I know is sick. Of course, Gus started camp last week so maybe he brought something home with him. Germy germy kids.

I have to go to bed, so what to do with the blag? Why, paste in twitter updates, of course! Recently twitter is the only interwebs thing I can manage. Call it summer brain, or snot brain, or something. Anyway, enjoy my past 2 weeks:

mauraweb still snotty, bah about 3 hours ago from web

mauraweb feeling a bit better, hoping to feel better enough to walk to work tomorrow morning 09:28 PM July 14, 2008 from web

mauraweb still sick, still crabby, sipping ol’ doc johnny’s medical lemony bourbon 09:16 PM July 13, 2008 from web

mauraweb constantly blowing my nose, hating summer colds 08:25 PM July 12, 2008 from web

mauraweb considering whether to feed twitter onto my blog 09:59 PM July 11, 2008 from web

mauraweb finished my outline, yippee!!! 12:34 PM July 11, 2008 from web

mauraweb 3 5 0 1 2 5 go! 09:21 PM July 10, 2008 from web

mauraweb gearing up for tonight’s work: reading (not writing, sadly) 08:21 PM July 09, 2008 from web

mauraweb looking at all the things to be done, wondering where the day went 09:14 PM July 08, 2008 from web

mauraweb watching a kitten spinning on the chair while one of its owners hums pee-wee music 07:30 PM July 07, 2008 from web

mauraweb sliding down the slippery slope to coffee time 02:02 PM July 07, 2008 from web

mauraweb family yay! traffic boo! home yay! 10:08 PM July 06, 2008 from web

mauraweb recovering from a strenuous day of sitting at a couple of playgrounds and hauling a pile of kids’ books home from the library 05:55 PM July 02, 2008 from web

mauraweb wondering if i will ever have time to read everything i want to read 09:33 PM July 01, 2008 from web

wednesday’s index

maura @ 10:45 pm

Years since we last subscribed to Harper’s Magazine: 11
Days since a colleague gave me this month’s issue:* 6
Issues of The New Yorker ahead of Harper’s in the ToT** magazine queue: 3
Times I have laughed out loud at this week’s New Yorker cover, by the amazing Roz Chast: at least 4
Boxes of stuff I brought from my cube to my temp office space: 1
Pairs of shoes: 2
Coat trees: 1
Hours of sleep I got last Sunday night: 5.5-ish***
Cups of coffee consumed per day on Monday and yesterday: 3 (plus 1 cup of tea on Monday)
Hours of sleep last night: 7.5-ish
Cups of coffee today: 2
Episodes of Battlestar Galactica watched in the past week: 3
Episodes remaining until we’re done with the season: 1
Days this month I’ve kept my writing pact with myself: 13****
This past week: 3
Summer Fridays I’ll be trying to devote to writing an article: 5
Summer Fridays I’ll be waiting in a long hot line for water slides and trying to avoid being hugged by Elmo at Sesame Place: 1

* She was finished with it, and we were prepping for moving day, which was today. The second floor of the library is being renovated over the summer so about half of us are temporarily displaced, split between 2 big rooms. It’s got kind of a college dorm feel. I’ll be hanging up my Joy Division and Cure posters tomorrow.

** Top of Toilet

*** Gus came in at 5:16am Monday, which is neither unusual nor typically a problem, except that he woke up the kittehs who then decided it was purr -n- playtime, bah.

**** I’m trying to write something most days recently (unless I’m crushingly tired), to prime the pump. Blag, journal, incoherent scholarly-ish ramblings: they all count. Keeping track on a calendar, because I’m a nerd like that.

banned from the end of the world

maura @ 11:19 pm

Gentle readers, have you been waiting with baited breath, wondering how my owies are doing? You have? So sweet of you. Why yes, I’d love to share the gory details, thanks for asking!

(If you were here I’d show you the wounds, but you’re not and the camera is all the way in the other room, and my knee hurts, dammit!)

We’re now on day 6 post-idiotic-falling-while-running-accident, and I’m pleased to say that nearly all of my wounds have stopped oozing. Yippee! A glaring exception is my knee, which is still in pretty bad shape. But this morning Gus said, “Mommy, your face looks better!” He then proceeded to kiss my eyebrows (sort of his security blanket, my eyebrows), so I know he means it.

One thing about injuries, they provide a fantastic vocabulary-boosting opportunity. Did you know that the yellowish-white goo that oozes from an abrasion is called exudate? Did you? Well, now you do.

I ointmented and bandaged myself up on Monday and hobbled into work (damn those 50+ subway stairs), where I was instantly mortified by everyone’s sympathy (yes, I am an idiot, please don’t remind me!). BUT, I’d completely forgotten that one of my coworkers is a bicycle racer, and thus knows a thing or two about road rash. He had some great tips, chief among them this new, cool, cling-wrap-esque bandage that’s actually letting me bend my knee without excruciating pain. Thanks, Xavier!

However, my face, while mostly non-oozy (save for a tiny spot on the bridge of my nose), is still a sight. I now have 3 big and 2 tiny red patches where the ooze used to be. Luckily I can cover them with makeup now, since they’ve dried out (and luckily I still have some coverup from last year’s forehead carcinoma removal, the first of what I’m sure will be many forays into the land of skin cancer). But vanity, thy name is ME, ooh boy. If the carcinoma is any indication, these owies will fade to lovely pale white spots, paler than the rest of my skin. Thanks, Celtic heritage, for giving me that easy-to-scar skin. Off to the pub to drown my sorrows in a pint.

Or not really. Really I am drinking a glass of wine and wondering why I am still awake at 11:05pm. It’s Gus’ fault — he didn’t conk out til after 9:30 tonight, and I gots stuff to do, blogs to read, PTA tshirts to coordinate. Plus, after 11 days of evil heat (ending with a few days of the mid-90s, a temperature that I believe should NEVER be reached at this latitude), it’s a breezy and fabulous 70-ish degrees today. The house is airing out, and the piles of laundry I couldn’t stand to do in our apartment without an outdoor-vented dryer are all lined up for tomorrow morning. All is right with the world.

I suspect Gus, at 3 1/2, may finally be ready to give up his nap. The problem is that he goes to school every day and they nap there. So we have no control over it, really. I guess we’ll just move the bedtime stuff back a bit to accommodate his wakefulness. Drag, though, as that shrinks the evening grownup time evermore. Maybe we can get him to play quietly by himself while we check email. HA hahahahaha! I’m so funny.

oozy, sad

maura @ 11:50 am

No Poconos for us, no nature, no getting out of the hot hot city. Woke up this morning and though my face has scabbed over nicely (if there even is such a thing) my knee is still oozy and swollen, and has produced in me a fetching limp. Man, this sucks. Plus, every part of me that hit the pavement (nose, lip, chin, shoulder, elbow and esp. knee) still hurts. Owie owie owie.

So now we’re stuck here all weekend. Jonathan’s taken Gus to the playground this morning, and hopefully by the afternoon I’ll feel okay enough that we can all do something together.

Mostly I just still feel like a huge, total, complete loser. I dread going into the office on Monday, and having to explain the face carnage. Maybe I should start making up stories now. Barfight! Mugging! Chainsaw accident! Sandpaper mishap! Nah, none is as lame and painful as the actual truth.

Mope, mope, mope.

in the corners of your mind

maura @ 9:37 pm

I did a hugely stupid thing today: while running to get the bus (wearing slip-on shoes and dragging the folded umbrella stroller beside me, duh) I tripped and did a giant face plant right on the sidewalk. My hands are abraded, my arm has a few scrapes, my knee is angry red hamburger, and my nose + mouth area looks like I got into a fight with sandpaper (and lost). Sigh. What a klutz am I. A friend/neighbor even walked by when I was sitting there on the ground, cleaning myself up with wipes. O, the embarrassment.

Then I had to surrender the day and sit at home with ice on my face + knee, ditching Gus pickup (Jonathan did it, I didn’t just leave him at school forever!) and our afternoon playdate, too. Sigh. I think I have the beginnings of a black eye, too. Gus said, “Mommy, your face is yucky. If I had those owies I would cry. I do NOT want to have those owies. No no no.” Thanks, kid. Luckily he followed it up with an offer of a hug to make me feel better.

And then he insisted that I paint the the toenails of my right foot with his blue nail polish (I’d already done the left foot yesterday). Yes, I recently purchased my son his first makeup: a bottle each of blue and pink nail polish. A little (boy) friend of his at school’s had toenail polish on recently, and Gus has been mighty envious. Of course, he is completely deprived in the makeup department, since I don’t really wear any (except face powder, which he occasionally asks to use and applies with a completely straight, serious face. It slays me.). So I bought him some nail polish. He’s been carrying the bottles around ever since, proclaiming his love for them. He prefers the blue, because it’s his favorite color, but pink is his second favorite.

Meanwhile, I am remembering from high school that, man, I hate nail polish. As my friend IMed me this morning, makes me feel like my nails can’t breathe. I’ve consented to do the feet but there is no way he’s getting that on my fingers, no way in hell.

Between the wretched heat (in the upper 80s with matching humidity here all damn week), some general grumpiness and today’s sidewalk mishap, it occurs to me that this has been a pretty crappy week. EXCEPT for the most excellent new Ivy CD, which Jonathan gifted me for my bday last week and which I really, really love. There are a few tracks that are kind of eh, but the good ones are really, really good. Of course I am doing that thing with music that I seem to not be able to stop doing lately, which is listen to it over and over and over again. Then stop, and move on to a different CD. Obsessive, much?

That’s pretty much it from my world. Tomorrow we are supposed to go to the Poconos with some friends/neighbors for fun + nature, but I might have to call it off if my face hasn’t improved. Drag, too, as I speedy-ordered a new bathing suit for river swimming, having been possessed by sudden and insane vanity this week. Which of course is probably why I did the face plant. See, it all makes sense now!