Sometimes it only takes a few hours of mundanity the mundane to pull me across the line from “OK” to “completely apathetic” and then to “really angry.”

In between folding laundry, washing windows, dusting books, preparing for a family dinner and working from home over the weekend, the mantra (as it were) I keep repeating is, “I am meant for something different. My life should be better.”

Now I just have to figure out how to make that change.

I haven’t had much time to write. It’s OK. Actually doing stuff is a nice change from writing about wanting to do stuff, yes? Anyway, there’s been a fair amount of goodness going on and, being who I am, I am already worried about the withdrawal symptoms that will “rear their heads” (to quote from my new friend Pay-Pay, my affectionate-sounding nickname for Sarah Palin) once the fun is over. But that will have to wait. Here’s the coolness:

Earlier this month (October 2), saw Fleet Foxes in Philly (with my friends LJ and Sara). Their set was just lovely… lovely, lovely, lovely. Pardon the floweriness, but their voices and harmonies are just heavenly. The opening act, whom I shall call “Hipster with Banjo” - not so much. There are several videos from that show on YouTube - here’s one of their song “Mykonos”. You have to ignore some of the audience sing-along:

Yeah - so this was at the Starlight Ballroom. Beforehand, we got some tasty dinnerness at the Silk City Diner and some gelato at Capogiro. Mmmmm, tasty.

Later that weekend, there was some small-scale bar-hopping in Brooklyn. If hopping can be applied to going to one bar, walking a block away to another bar and then heading back to bar #1. The two bars - Union Pool and Fette Sau. Fette Sau is, strictly speaking, a barbecue joint. A barbecue joint with a smoker capable of “slow-cooking 700 pounds of meat at a time”. AT A TIME. We walked in and the smell of smokey mesquite and meat was just divine. Unfortunately, they were no longer serving food. Fortunately, they were still serving alcohol, so we had some rye (Michter’s?).

‘Twas my first experience with rye (and probably only my third or fourth encounter with the bourbon/whiskey family) and it was pleasant and without embarrassing after-effects. Honestly, those labels on meds that say you shouldn’t drink while taking them aren’t joking. While on my meds, I would have one glass of wine or one mixed drink and feel a bit rosy and sleepy already, even if I nursed that one drink forever. Sans medication, a vodka tonic here and a pour of rye there… and I was clear and good and not laughing inappropriately or anything.

Also that weekend, I saw Religulous. I’ve heard various criticisms - that said, I liked it. A lot. You sort of know what to expect from Bill Maher… he’s going to be asking questions, poking fun, potentially offending people… but all in all, he’s bringing forth some interesting truths, whether or not you enjoy the way they’re elicited. Here’s a clip from The Daily Show:

Finally, I also got to see Blindness. This got a bit of a negative response from film critics. One of those reviews was co-opted as my Facebook status message for a bit:

[Blindness is] supposed to work as an allegory for urban alienation, but soon begins to feel like an exploitation horror with pretensions of being more.

Let me first say that I read the book by Jose Saramago several years ago and re-read it a good 7 or 8 months ago when I heard the movie was in production. I really enjoy the book. I gave it to a work-friend as a Christmas gift and she liked it until a certain point where she couldn’t read it anymore, saying, “Eva, there’s just too much shit.” Meaning actual shit - fecal matter that the characters are forced to walk through/avoid. I advised her to view it as metaphorical shit, but I think people’s squeamishness and willingness to deal with quantities/levels of shit varies greatly.

That said, the movie was much cleaner than the book. I didn’t for a moment see it as an exploitation horror. It wasn’t “harrowing” or “difficult to watch”, which was other criticism leveled against it. I thought it was really well-shot (dare I say, beautifully?), with a good sense of the story; it did a fantastic job of heightening my awareness of my own sight while I was watching a bleak world of fumbling blind people. I thought it was quite good. Also, not one, but both of the friends with whom I saw it liked it. So there, critics. Moderately intelligent lay-people have spoken (and I even took a few film courses back in my NYU days, so I can throw that into the mix, if needed).

That’s some catch-up from a while ago. It’s been crazy lately. I’ve been feeling close to crazy lately. There’s much going on with work and home and friends and work (again). I’m traveling for work later next week and I need to borrow a laptop from one of my siblings (it’s something I need to buy for myself but cannot currently afford). I’ll be in Houston for work next Friday through Monday. Without a computer, I will be a bit of a wreck. For serious.

While some of the fun has been missing from shopping lately (and by lately, I mean the last three years or so), I generally find something to enjoy when I pop into a Target store. Tonight, I was happy to find these gloriously cool semi-ugly socks. Houndstooth AND argyle? I might take a page from my friend Sara’s playbook and wear an argyle on one foot and a houndstooth on the other. Or perhaps mix up the purple and orange. I just don’t know - it’s so crazy, ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN.

Oooooh. My hands are raw from climbing. RAW. I didn’t climb very well tonight. I felt heavy like lead and stiff like wood. Still, I’ve been going with some regularity. And that comes with battle scars.

And allow me to gross you out with a close-up of… cracked skin!!!

(I’m sort of proud of it actually. Especially that it’s my left hand. That’s the hand attached to the gimpy wrist. This means I’ve been USING that wrist and getting somewhere with it. Truly.)

(Also, it’s hard to belay when your torn skin keeps catching on the rope. I used tape to cover the ickiest bits.)

And I’m sorry. I must share. Seriously, though, keep the volume down. It’s cute when he barks, but his owner is mildly annoying. However, the rest of it makes me smile. A lot. Especially about halfway through. Wow.

I need to get my long post done. Just done already. It’s still sitting as a draft. I’ve been busy, though, in good ways.

Here’s a medium-sized post.

I’m reading Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino because Salman Rushdie recommended it. Yes. I caught the tail end of the segment on NPR and then read the piece on the “You Must Read This” page. Rushdie wrote,

I first read Cosmicomics in my early 20s, and it’s a book I’ve gone back to again and again. It is possibly the most enjoyable story collection ever written, a book that will frequently make you laugh out loud at its mischievous mastery, capricious ingenuity and nerve.

Mischievous mastery? Capricious ingenuity? Sign. Me. Up. So far, so good. I started reading it way too late last night so I was unable to read too much, and I was cheated out of my morning reading time on the train because the train never arrived (and yes, I know it was Columbus Day, but my train line runs on every holiday other than Thanksgiving, Christmas, the 4th of July and Memorial Day or something). But I went for a run already, had some food and I’m in for the night — so bed, a book and some tea sound perfect.

Also, one of my more interesting Netflix selections arrived and I started watching it - again, too late in the evening to be able to focus before nodding off. This time, it’s a documentary called Zoo. I’ll state outright that I’m not very squeamish about the sort of fringe elements of culture or the darker side of humanity. I’m rather fascinated. One of my favorite books is Lolita (happy 50th anniversary, btw!) and I’m a big old fan of Ian McEwan, who writes beautifully and explores topics such as incest (The Cement Garden), suicide pacts (Amsterdam) and S&M (The Comfort of Strangers) in his delicate prose.

According to the summary on Wikipedia, Zoo is “a documentary on the life and death of Kenneth Pinyan, a Seattle area man who died unusually after engaging in sex with a horse.” Zoo is short for zoophile - a person with unusually strong fondness for, attraction to or romantic interest in animals. This is different from bestiality in that bestiality involves a sexual act between human and animal; zoophilia is the interest or attraction to animals. There’s a line to cross, apparently.

Anyway - as far as documentaries go, the first 20 minutes or so looked promising and I will finish watching it in the next few days. It was quite the hit at Sundance in 2007. After that, I have the documentary about suicides at the Golden Gate Bridge called, appropriately enough, The Bridge.

And finally, it struck me this morning that Santogold has taken a good dose of inspiration from Siouxsie Sioux. This is not a bad thing, but it just hit me on the drive in to work this morning. Submitted for your comparison, “Red Light” from Ms. Siouxsie Sioux and “My Superman” from Ms. Santi White.

Red Light

My Superman

Argh. I had a lengthy post drafted to encapsulate what I’ve done this past week/weekend - and explaining that I’ve been doing stuff instead of writing about doing stuff… but through a strange combination of stuck “shift” key and weird keyboard shortcuts going wrong [Alt+Tab and Alt+T], the entire post is gone. I tried back-tracking through the old cached (so I thought) pages, but there was nothing. Apparently, whatever went wrong went wrong before the most recent autosave that WordPress does, so the ENTIRE post vanished. Links, embeded video and music - everything.

I’ve just done some deep breathing and created another post that’s a skeletal outline of the previous juicy post, trying to note specific phrases I used that I felt were particularly descriptive. But the rest will have to wait since it’s late and I have to be up early to catch the train. I’ve been getting to sleep at around 3 a.m. for the last week - which would be fine if I wasn’t feeling stressed and overwhelmed. Lack of sleep won’t do me any favors in that arena; neither will coffee.

More later on a weekend of fun including music, whiskey and animatronic dinosaurs.

Neil Gaiman’s new book, The Graveyard Book, is out. And Mr. Gaiman is on tour. And at every stop, he’s reading a chapter from the book. In order. And then his publisher (HarperCollins) is providing videos of him reading each chapter online. They’re calling it a video tour.

As someone who works in publishing, I think it’s brilliant. It wouldn’t work for the kind of books I work with currently, but it’s brilliant just in general.

As someone who is a bit of a Gaiman fanatic, I think it’s brilliant. He is a great reader (methinks) and it’s wonderful to be able to hear it. Right now, I’m writing and have the video running in another tab so I can listen to him while I’m thinking my thoughts.

This first chapter is absolutely charming. This is aimed at young adults, ages 9-12, but so was his book Coraline and that was creepy as hell. And I loved it. A 3-D movie version of that one is coming soon.

Anyway - check it out. Listen to/watch him read. And note how quiet the audience is. I can only imagine that they’re just as hypnotized by his reading as I am. I admit it - it’s a geeky literary schoolgirl crush. And that’s OK.

I’ve had a post drafted for a few days now - political in nature - but I’m still working on it. In the meantime, allow me to share another reason this country is going to hell; I saw this on the evening news:

Car GPS blamed for train accident

“Jose Silva of White Plains told police that “he did what he was told” by his global positioning system.”

Because the computer is always right. Trust the machine. Common sense be damned. DAMNED!

When it tells you to turn right ONTO the railroad tracks, and into the path of an oncoming train, just do it. I’m sure it will have you make another left or a right soon thereafter to steer you out of harm’s way. It’s just the way the GPS device likes to keep itself amused, see? Playing little tricks on people. “Tee-hee!”, it titters.

Ugh. He’s not the first and he won’t be the last, sad to say. Insert comment about Darwin awards. Insert comment about people relying blindly on technology. Insert comment about how lazy we’ve gotten that now we don’t even want to think for ourselves and think we’re excused when we use “I just did what I was told” cop-out.

Though it does remind me of this clip from “The Office” (it’s a bad clip recorded from a TV, but still - a clip of this segment wasn’t available from the NBC site):