This evening, I rather (uncharacteristically) went out to a bar (!) after work (!) to have drinks (!) to celebrate my work-friend’s birthday along with a bunch of people I didn’t know (!!!). I had A rum and coke, so it wasn’t like I guzzled. I don’t like beer, so visits to the bar for informal gatherings such as this are always a bit weird for me. I experience mild anxiety over drink choices and the fact that not being a beer-drinker has a bit more of a pariah-esque quality than even being a teetotaler.

ANYWAY… it was pretty fun. There was good conversation. I was glad that a good number of people showed up to celebrate friend’s birthday.

But now, I’m settled in to watch Contempt (Le Mépris) and get to bed as early as possible because I have to be up at the ass-crack of dawn (meaning 5:30 a.m., which classifies as “ass-crack” in my world) to take the 6:30 train into work to get to a hotel in Manhattan for a company meeting. Early mornings and I do not jive well.

To make things easier in the morning, I’ve already decided what I shall wear, right down to the accessories. They shall be these - adorable new earrings I got this weekend at Urban Outfitters when I went shopping with my friend Sara:

Yup. They’re awfully cute. And while I don’t wear gold as a rule, I couldn’t pass these up. Besides, it’s just a touch of gold. That is acceptable.

Please note that I do not dwell in a cave of darkness (yet); zooming in on the earrings in my hand and using the flash caused the background to drop out entirely. This is actually quite a good thing since what dwells in the background is frightening and messy and not a fair representation of me. I did give myself a quick manicure on Monday night, though. So that’s nice.

And I have devised a fantastic way of spending $400; I will use it (not anytime soon) to fund the purchase of a Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC HSM Macro Lens for my Nikon D40. It’s apparently pretty good for the price and since I’m not about to spend $800 on a high-end macro lens, it will do.

I’m really enjoying macro photography and how it can make ordinary, everyday objects appear to be exciting, new and abstract, and how it captures textures. I love textures - both visual and tactile. There was a time that my friend Vin called me “Tactile Eva” since I could not walk into a store (usually a clothing store) without touching things. I like to think that a lot of people shop this way, but it seems it’s not as common as I originally thought.

Quel tragédie. Y’all are missing out.

I’m putting together a list of books I plan on buying so that I don’t end up buying three previously unplanned books next time I go to the bookstore. This list is being placed in my new Moleskine notebook (softcover this time) since that way I know I’ll have it with me.

Some would say, “Eva, you’re not a technophobe or Luddite. Why don’t you just save them as a memo in your cell phone?” You know, I could do that. But I like writing things down in my notebook. I like being able to flip it right open and know what I’m looking for instead of navigating through the phone menus and whatnot.

So far on the list:

• Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker
• The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon
• New Moon or Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (this series of vampire novels is HUGE young adult hits. Movie coming soon. I need to read one and see if they live up to the hype)
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy - NOT THE OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB EDITION. Seriously. I might end up ordering the British version through abebooks or alibris if I can’t locate an untainted copy.
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (paperback 9/2/08)

I’ve also got a few good recommendations which I’m writing down (The Outcast by Sadies Jones and A Summer of Hummingbirds by Christopher Benfey), but I’ll wait for the paperbacks on those. I prefer trade paperbacks. It’s a thing (charming quirk?) I have.

While the point of this list is to prevent me from buying far more books than I need, I want to be easy on myself. The whole magic of bookstores (which doesn’t exist in the online environment) is the chance you’ll find that unplanned purchase… the serendipitous discovery that introduces you to an author you didn’t know before or helps you find your new favorite book. That has only ever really happened for me when I’ve let myself get lost wandering the fiction section (though it’s happened in others, too).

The point is that seeing an interesting title or cover will prompt me to pick the book up off the shelf or table - and that’s something that just won’t happen on Amazon. I won’t spend an hour looking at EVERY SINGLE BOOK on the site. I WILL, however, spend an hour looking at EVERY SINGLE BOOK on a bookstore shelf written by someone with a last name beginning with M, N, O or P (for example).

And that’s how I end up with far too many books. I need to start going through my collection and unloading the retired books (I dare not call them unwanted) from my library and getting them out into the world where they might provide happiness to others. I won’t do the BookCrossing thing yet, either since some might be OK for a library and with a large quantity, bookcrossing might be difficult to do. I’d like to just fill up a shopping bag and bring them somewhere and say, “HERE. FREE!”

But I’ve had several friends request that I provide them with a list of what I’m planning on chucking since they might want first dibs. It’s nice to know that they trust my taste even that much. It’s a bit dicey with reading since I’ll read almost anything (almost) and that usually means that my more genre-minded friends will end up disappointed, as will my more literary-minded friends.

YES, I enjoyed both The Satanic Verses and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban equally. Strange, but true. I recognize them both for what they are and enjoy them accordingly. Rushdie for his use of language and imagery and humor… Rowling for the enthralling world she created and her sense of the fantastical.

This is turning into a bit of a soapbox piece. I think I’m just hungry - and a hungry Polak is an angry Polak, as my mother oft quips at family dinners. I went walking after work with my friend/co-worker and I’m now ravenous. But I can only think about soup and toast since my stomach is a little uncertain.

In another two weeks, it’s new cell phone time for Miss Eva. I’ve been waiting for an update on the Samsung phone I posted about ages ago, and that’s the one now known as the Samsung Glyde.

It could be that, a Blackberry Curve or the LG Voyager.

c|net (my initial/trusted choice for such decision-making basics) reviewed the Glyde and gave it a 7.3 out of 10. That’s good.

They gave the Voyager 8.3 out of 10. That’s really good.

c|net doesn’t have an editorial rating for the Blackberry Curve yet, but the users give it a 9.0 out of 10. This I will take with a grain of salt since people get a little too attached - the Crackberry phenomenon.

I’m going to have to suck it up and go into a Verizon store (I loathe that part of the process) to play with them and see which interface is most eva-friendly. I’m pretty savvy with those things and can learn to use a new toy quickly - but the simple matter of how it feels in my hand will be part of the decision-making process, too. When the Verizon sales dudes come up to me to start pitching, I might pretend I don’t speak English. That should get them to leave me the hell alone.

I haven’t gone to a brick-and-mortar Verizon store in almost 6 years; I’ve done all my phone upgrading and plan changes online since I just hate the wireless store experience. It reminds me of the scene in Best in Show where the yuppie couple are discussing how lucky they were to be “raised among catalogs”:

I totally get that sometimes. Also, I love this scene and I adore Parker Posey.

While I was in San Francisco, my friend Aaron recommended Christopher Hitchens’ “The Portable Atheist” to me while we were shopping in City Lights Books. I didn’t buy it there (more stuff to lug back) but I did get it when I got home and started reading it this morning since I finished up Michael Chabon’s “Maps and Legends” last night.

In Hitchens’ intro, there was a passage that resonated with me:

…the working assumption is that we should have no moral compass if we are not somehow in thrall to an unalterable and unchallengeable celestial dictatorship. What a repulsive idea! … [It] constitutes a radical attack on the very concept of human self-respect. It does so by suggesting that one could not do a right action or avoid a wrong one, except for the hope of a divine reward or the fear of divine retribution. Many of us, even the less unselfish, might hope to do better than that on our own. When I give blood, for example (something that several religions forbid), I do not lose a pint, but someone else gains one. There is something about this that appeals to me, and I derive other satisfactions as well from being of assistance to a fellow creature. Furthermore, I have a very rare blood type and I hope very much that when I am in need of a transfusion, someone else will have thought and acted in precisely the same way that I have. Indeed, I can almost count on it. Nobody had to teach me any of this, let alone reinforce the teaching with sinister fairy tales about appearances by the Archangel Gabriel. The so-called Golden Rule is innate within us, or is innate except in the sociopaths who do not care about others, and the psychopaths who take pleasure from cruelty.

Yuh-huh. Every time I donate blood, it’s not because I fear divine retribution. It’s because it’s something I can do that will help someone; it’s just considerate (like holding open a door for someone with a stroller, actually leaving a penny in the “give a penny/take a penny” cup, seeing that someone dropped their wallet/keys/money and returning it to him/her, allowing someone to switch lanes during crappy traffic, etc.). From there, it turns into a bad movie starring Haley Joel Osmont, Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey.

Now, in the realm of things that don’t inspire my faith in humanity: automotive body damage.

While I was pulling away from the train station this evening, I heard a THUNK on the side of my car. I pulled over, got out, and took a look - little dent, little scratch… and a softball on the ground nearby. There’s a baseball field somewhat close by, but the field, diamonds, bleachers, etc. are all on the entire opposite side of where the train station is. But there was a little boy just throwing a ball around and he decided it would be fun to throw it TOWARDS the train station where there’s a fun wooden building. SILLY ME, letting my car get in the way of his ball-tossing. Silly commuters, all of us getting off of the train - it could’ve been any one of us. The kid saw me get out of the car, mumbled, “Sorry” and went back to playing. I inspected and rubbed away the dust with my finger, and shot him The Eye. This elicited an annoyed, “Sorry!” (if I’d been closer, I’m sure he would’ve been muttering something like, “Geez, lady” under his breath. That was the tone).

I replied, “Be careful. You don’t want to break someone’s window or put a big dent in someone’s car. It can be really expensive to fix.”

“Sorry.” (back to tossing the ball)

The woman sitting near him (mother? coach?) just looked at me, took a drag of her cigarette, and went back to watching the kids playing on the field across the way. Ugh. I did the “I’m disgusted” head shake, got back into my car, and drove off.

I got home, checked it out closely, cleaned it off, and will do the touch-up paint thing early next week. The next few days are going to be drizzly leading up to a “rain event” on Sunday. Rock.

There was going to be an Elton John song posted here, but that will wait for another day.

My friend Sara was up visiting the NY metro area this weekend, so she came into Manhattan yesterday morning and spent the majority of the day with me. We had tea, walked a bit, did some shopping, walked some more, took the dog I’m sitting for on a super long walk in the park, ate some yummie vegan-friendly foods and had more tea.

Throughout the day, we were both finding it difficult to think of the words we wanted to use - this resulted in made-up words (I’d call them neologisms - but I’m pretty sure they’re not real), saying the wrong words (but knowing what we meant) and just lots of “I know this!” moments/”tip of the tongue” syndrome (lethologica if you can’t remember the right word; anomia is a more severe version of this that comes with aphasia - impairment of speech due to brain damage). In both our cases, this was due to lack of quality restful sleep - and I find that’s the first manifestation of sleep deficit in my world. All this week I’ve been struggling to think of words - words like “attrition” and “tomb”, for example.

Today, I’ve been feeling gross and headachey, so aside from walking the dog, my activities have included watching movies, reading and doing NYT crossword puzzles. Between last night and now, I’ve watched “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (impressed), “Juno” (underwhelmed), “Hairspray” (surprised), “Bride and Prejudice” (Bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice - Naveen Andrews line-dancing = strangely hot), and, randomly, the E! True Hollywood Story of the Kardashian family (because I thought to myself, “What the hell are they actually famous for? I’m still asking the same question…).

Aside from seeing Sara, these are all just empty diversions and I am aware of it. I spoke with my mother in Poland today; amidst everything else, she had forgotten it was Mother’s Day. The service for my grandfather is tomorrow, and I lost it a little when she told me about picking out the urn (he wanted to be cremated, so that was done on Friday) and going over home renovation plans with my grandmother to make sure that she’s safe now that she’s going to be alone (another hard realization).

She mentioned to me that she’s reminded of my grandfather everywhere she looks… when coming back from a cousin’s house last night, she looked up at the balcony of my grandparents’ home where my grandmother and grandfather would always stand and wait for us when we were arriving from the airport or from being out somewhere anytime we came to visit. We would pull up and they would be standing up there together, waving down at us and smiling. I can see them; it’s an extremely vivid memory. Now, she said, it was just my grandmother standing there waving to them - and I can’t write about that anymore.

And this is probably too personal for the direction I want to be heading here, too much information, and I think I shall end this post now.

While I’m quite used to paying a little extra for everything when I’m in Manhattan, it’s sometimes still a bit of an adjustment.

For example, I just stopped at a supermarket here to get some food for the weekend: a bag of baby spinach leaves, a can of beets, small tube of goat cheese, box of cereal, carton of orange juice, a lemon, a couple of tomatoes, a container of chocolate-covered raisins, loaf of whole grain bread, jar of peanut butter, jar of jelly and (my luxury) two medallions of filet mignon ($11, so that wasn’t too bad). Stuff to make salads, sandwiches, breakfast and a couple of dinners.

The total bill (for me to eat this weekend) was $67. Granted, if I went out for all those meals, I’d be paying a lot more, but I couldn’t help but think about how the same stuff would’ve cost me no more than $40 “back home.”

And for that moment, I felt a bit stodgy and country bumpkin-like. But I understand that that’s what it costs if I want to eat well and not get McDonald’s for every meal or eat toast from morning ’til night. I have friends at work who will do their food shopping in NJ before heading home to NY at night so they can save $10 or $20 or $30. I was toting a suitcase today, so that wasn’t an option.

Still, it’s going to be a nice change to be here for the weekend: spending time with an adorable doggie, walking in the park and taking photos, meeting up with some friends, and just not being home (where the quiet would probably begin to affect me, given the events of this week.)

Yesterday, my friend Sara called me to tell me about a used book sale going on in the next town over. She’d gone earlier and acquired a treasure-trove of beautiful old books for a total of $1.75 ($1 and $2 books for 50 and 75% off!)

Well, I went this morning before heading off to ComicCon, and they were having a bag sale—all the books you could carry in a paper shopping bag would cost you $5 (it was a fundraiser for a local school). Here’s what I brought home (minus one that I gave to my sister):

There are some I’ve heard of and some I’ve never heard of and bought because they looked like an interesting read from a time long gone and are probably long since out of print. To start, there is this gem from one of my favorite wits of all time, George Bernard Shaw (a 1928 publication):

I’m not sure if it’s a serious work or not… that time period was rife with things that would sound misogynistic these days but which were considered quite complimentary almost 100 years ago. I guess we’ll see just how intelligent a woman I am.

The purple cover below just made me smile - a combination of the title, the illustration… the whole cover treatment. Amusing. And it’s from 1909!

Then I found this very cool 1944 edition of Crime and Punishment. I love the embossing on the cover.

I have to admit that I bought this next book for the novelty of the title and the cool logo action. It’s from 1924…

And an interior that removes any possibility of having stumbled across interesting 1920’s erotica… I don’t think “happy ending” had taken on a lewd secondary meaning yet at that point.

And the Tempestuous Petticoat from this post’s title? Well, that’s from 1948, surprisingly. But I love this illustration.

I’m going to sit here for a bit enjoying the look and feel of these. Maybe I’ll even start reading one once I finish obsessing…

I don’t even know how much time I’ll have to write in the next week. Seriously.

Today I drove my friend to the airport in the morning so he could catch his flight to San Francisco, and I will be flying out there to hang out with him next Wednesday. The seven days between now and then will be both interminable and far too short.

For example, I’ll be working every single day, including the weekend. That’s when I’ll be working the New York ComicCon to represent my company’s Shakespeare: The Manga Edition series. It should be pretty cool (if providing a little bit of geek overload - which I might even enjoy a bit if I didn’t get scared by people who are crazy hardcore about [insert comic book/graphic novel/manga/TV/movie series here] ) and the days should fly by since it will be busy.

Neil Gaiman is doing an appearance and signing sometime during the convention, but one part is a $500-a-ticket fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the other (reading - $20 a ticket) is most likely going to have lines spilling out the door if it doesn’t sell out. Since I’m working Saturday and Sunday, Friday is my only free night this week (and I’d like to see my other friends before I disappear for about two weeks), I won’t be attending, as much as I enjoy Mr. Gaiman - and I do.

All that coolness doesn’t change the fact that I will have spent all the hours between noon and 8 pm (you know, hours when I could be taking care of things like laundry and shopping and packing) standing in a noisy convention center.

It just puts a lot more pressure on me to get things done in the evenings. My usual evening routine is to get home from work around 6/7pm, change into running clothes, run for 30-45 minutes or so, shower, eat, check email/RSS feeds, and then read or watch a movie until I fall asleep. Tonight, I was unable to adhere to that routine; I got home at 6:30, checked email quickly and then ran out to stores to get vitals like sunglasses, shorts, a couple of tank tops and such. I got home at 9:00 and ate some dinner (leftover spinach and a piece of toast - PATHETIC) then tackled email, checking tracking on some stuff I ordered for said trip (durable rock climbing pants since Old Navy cargo pants won’t cut it), put away purchases, did some cleaning… and now it’s 11:00. Where does the time go?

Somewhere I can’t see. And the reasons for my blindness may vary.

But I’m glad to know that the title of a mix CD I made provided the possible title for a story my friend is writing, that I am basically guaranteed to have non-stop fun during my vacation which makes everything coming up to it worthwhile, that the stress I’ll be feeling at work will be productive stress because I’ll be getting lots of things done, and that I’m going to go rock-climbing tomorrow and it will feel good.

Objective: Prepare for a trip which will involve “camping” (at a music festival), rock-climbing and walking around a lot in a much warmer climate than I’m used to (the average temperature in late April in the Indio Valley is a high of ~90°F, low of about ~60°F).

Item 1: Comfortable walking shoes.
Method: Shopping.

My 6 year-old Sauconies just aren’t cutting it in the all-day comfort department anymore, but they are seriously the most comfortable just-kicking-around shoes I’ve ever owned. After much research into available color combinations in my size, the pictured sneakers were ordered and will be arriving on Tuesday. That color combination is called Bayou/Black.

Item 2: Single-person tent and lightweight sleeping bag.
Method: Excavation?

I am assured that someone in my family owns both of these already - but that they’re either in the basement or the attic. I have a week and a half to put on my miner’s helmet and gas mask and see what I can find… and if they cannot be found or are found to be in an unacceptable condition, I think I can borrow a tent from a friend at work, and might just have to pony up the ~$40 for a sleeping bag. Perhaps the Columbia Double Whammy Fleece Sleeping Bag and Pillow.

Item 3: TSA-approved luggage lock
Method: Damn, a trip to Target.

My big “trans-Atlantic” suitcase is equipped with a TSA-approved lock. But the suitcase I’m taking to California is not quite as fancy or huge or heavy, so I’ll have to buy a lock. I don’t want to find the contents of my suitcase strewn about the luggage carriage because they decided to randomly inspect MY suitcase and then just zipped it up halfway (it’s happened to more than a few people I know). Chances are that if there’s a lock, it will be second nature (while running through their robot-like procedures) to replace it after closing the suitcase.

There’s more (shorts! a hat!) but I’ll deal with those later.

Today is my brother’s 29th birthday. I’ve already welcomed him to Old. There will be family dinner tonight. There may be blood (or just verbal aggression). I should do some mental preparation - maybe even go running so I’m feeling relaxed before we embark upon the excitement of the evening.

While driving back from doing some shopping with my friend Theresa (Nordstrom’s and Sephora - a girl’s gotta treat herself sometimes. I behaved myself and got some Sephora brand eyeshadow as well as my free birthday gift since I am part of their “insider’s” club thingie) we were listening to the oldies station.

Radio these days plays nothing I want to hear, so I’m all about NPR, the oldies station and my iPod. With those three, I’m guaranteed to have something interesting to listen to ALL the time.

The song that was just beginning to play was Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” We both let out a sort of squeak which apparently meant (in our personal friend language) that we were going to be singing along, ‘Wayne’s World’ style.

And we did. Boy, did we. I know it’s nothing new, but it’s been quite a while since that was the hotness (if ever it really was) and we still know all the words - like, really. We were not approximating sounds. I was impressed with us - all girlie shopping and then all spazzy like that. These are the moments that make life worth living.

Now, I must away to bed. I have to be in the office early tomorrow morning and I need to go running before that, so the only way to accomplish that is to get up at least 45 minutes earlier than usual. It’s not going to be fun.

Then again, I’m going to have plenty of fun later this month when I go out to California for Coachella and spend some time “up north” in San Francisco. More on that later…