Kind of well. My stomach is not pleased with the amount of food I placed into it this evening. It was a bit more than it’s been used to lately. But it was a business dinner - the restaurant had a three-course prix fixe thing going on… what’s a girl to do?

My workday was exceptionally long-feeling and, frankly, a bit overwhelming. Not to the point of tears or anything, but I haven’t multi-tasked like that or accomplished so much in so little time (or started so much in so little time) in a few months. And it’s not like I’ve been sitting at my desk twiddling my thumbs over the last few months either. Therefore, a business dinner with a small group of people I enjoy was just what the doctor ordered.

We went to Tabla. Mmmm, tasty.

First off, signature cocktail: the Tablatini. Imagine if you will: Skyy Citrus with Lemongrass-Infused Fresh Pineapple Juice. Served in a martini glass with a shoot of lemongrass resting atop it, piercing a wedge of pineapple. Points for presentation and many more points for taste.

I started off with the braised duck samosa, served over a salad of shaved fennel, orange & pea tendrils. That was mighty tasty. Since my colleagues had all decided upon fish for their main courses by this point, we ordered a bottle of white wine - Vouvray, Prince Poniatowsky, “Clos Baudoin” 1989. I had a glass before I started my main course just to get a taste - a mite sweet, but very good. And I’m not usually a fan of white wine.

I moved onto chili rubbed hanger steak & braised short ribs of beef with purple Adirondack potatoes and baby spinach. This was some red meat heaven. Prepared medium rare (my preferred level of done-ness) so it looked lovely on my plate as well - red and purple and brown and green… rich jewel tones, really. Aesthetically quite pleasing.

In between courses, we discussed our ethical issues (or lack thereof) with eating things like foie gras and veal, and how our connection with cats and dogs is the only thing that saves them from being food-stuff, talked about playing the ukulele and ukulele festivals, documentaries and the Anglican church, then drifted into talking about work, then forked off to talk about Facebook and Twitter first in a work capacity and then in a personal… and it was soon time for dessert.

When the dessert menu arrived, there was really only one thing I could pick - not because there weren’t other delicious options, but because I am obsessed. With crème brûlèe. If it’s on a menu, I am ordering it. Period, end of story. A lot of that has to do with Amelie - but not all of it. I’m not that easily influenced and shallow. There is something romantic (in a poetic old-timey way, not a bouquet of roses way) about the cracking of the caramelized sugar. Mmmmm. But there it was: coconut crème brûlèe with carrot cake, tamarind sauce, coconut ice cream and carrot sorbet.

And I am so full now, and so tired, and still have a bit of work to do from home. But it’s well worth it after this tastiness.

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.

I should be doing something more than sitting here. I’ve packed what I can since I’m currently laundering the clothing I want to bring and I can’t pack up my toothbrush and stuff until the bitter bitter end. And I’ve got a full calendar of stuff to do outside of work as well -friends to see, errands to run, errands to run for friends, exercise to do. BUT BUT BUT… I wore heels today. My feet hurt. I’m so tired from not having a weekend, I can’t focus much. I am getting a late dinner with friends and then probably going right to sleep so I can go into work early tomorrow.

And it’s amazing how people crawl out of the woodwork when they realize you’re going to be out of the office for more than a day. I mean, it’s fine - a little stress-inducing, but OK. I’m glad to feel all useful and stuff.

But a fun thing today: I was talking to my boss about things that I might need to leave in her hands while I’m away and she asked me if I’d have time for an important meeting tomorrow with another co-worker. And I said that I actually had a meeting with this co-worker at the same time she was suggesting - to which she responded, “Great - that means we can go to Rita’s for two-stamp Tuesday!”

There’s a Rita’s (”Ice. Custard. Happiness”) in Hoboken and we’ve gotten into the habit of walking down there once -OK, a couple of times- a week. On Tuesdays, they stamp your frequent buyer card twice for any purchase. My co-worker is in her third trimester of baby-prep, so ice cream cravings are allowed. The rest of us are enablers. Or just willing to interrupt our work day for some Italian ice (though I vastly prefer the custard and get myself a kids’ size chocolate vanilla twist when we go.)

Yes. So I accepted the meeting invitation for tomorrow afternoon. The meeting called, “Two-stamp Tuesday at Rita’s!”

And it’s not even a team-building exercise. The team’s built, yo.

…since I’ve mentioned my obsessive reading habit. It’s still here; it’s just sometimes a bit overwhelming to write about reading because I do a LOT of it. A LOT.

And I’m not really good at writing about reading. I can analyze ’til the cows come home and write you a lengthy paper performing a close-reading of three lines from Hamlet - but I’m not a good reviewer. This is something I’ve come to terms with and can accept.

Instead, I’ll just mention two books I read this week, quote a bit from them, and make note of the fact that I really really enjoyed them. Good? OK.

Book the first: Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading. One of my greatest regrets from college is that I wasn’t able to take the Nabokov colloquium that NYU offered, like, once every two years. I took the James Joyce colloquium and that was great - but Nabokov does rate higher than Joyce on my literary love list.

So, Invitation to a Beheading is pure Nabokov in terms of his use of language and voice; the plot, however, is allegorical and surreal in a very Kafka-esque way. The very first line of the novel is the pronouncement of the death sentence for the protagonist - from there, it’s a psychological exploration of that waiting game. He knows he’s going to be executed, but doesn’t know where or when, and the cast of characters surrounding him (prison guards, lawyers, fellow prisoners) serve only to frustrate him further and drive him to lunacy.

It’s hilarious, frustrating as hell because you’re in the same boat as Cincinnatus (the protagonist), and I enjoyed it thoroughly. There’s a great segment where the narrator calls attention to our process of reading the book:

So we are coming to the end. The right-hand, still untasted part of the novel, which, during our delectable reading, we would lightly feel, mechanically testing whether there were still plenty left (and our fingers were always gladdened by the placid, faithful thickness) has suddenly, for no reason at all, become quite meager: a few minutes of quick reading, already downhill…

I found myself smiling while reading that passage since I do read that way; feeling ahead with my right hand and deriving pleasure from feeling that there are yet pages and pages to read. This isn’t the only reason to enjoy it–there’s a gem of some sort on every page (IMHO). But I really enjoy Nabokov.

Then there’s Paul Auster. He’s another one–I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve ever read by him. And I’ve read a good bit. Not everything yet, though. That’s a goal. The most recent thing I read was Oracle Night which I purchased at The Strand a couple of weeks ago. I started reading it on Saturday night and finished up on the train today.

But I’m realizing that I should hold off on the Auster-love for tonight and hit the hay since I have an early morning tomorrow…

I’m calling this volume 1 because I can’t imagine that I won’t do some sort of post like this in the future - a summary of stuff that’s been helping me occupy my time lately. So here goes:

White Dwarf : a fairly addictive (simple) Flash game. You gather green circles with the white circle, while avoiding the red circles. Blue circles bank green circles and are OK.

Project Prostitute: utterly NSFW warning. So this person had the idea to ask random people to draw prostitutes. It’s spread and people are submitting their own illustrations to the site. Some are raunchy, some are wrong, some are funny, some are surprisingly lovely. When I’m not laughing at the stick figure renditions (I guess some people really can’t draw) I can even recognize this for what is really is: a supremely interesting sociological project/experiment capturing how people view sex workers… some with disdain, some with disgust, some with degradation, but some with sadness and even a certain kind of admiration. Interesting to say the very least, once you get past the surface.

A Selection of Perfect Ads: These things inspire me. I’m sad that way.

The Hype Machine: It’s been a few months since a friend told me about this site. At first, I looked and wasn’t all that impressed with the look and feel so I didn’t return for a while. What was I thinking? I mean, really - a music blog aggregator that lets you search for freely and legally shared mp3s from bloggers who are reviewing music and introducing you to new music you might not stumble across in your daily travels? How on earth could that be cool or useful?

Yeah, I was a bit slow on the uptake, but I’m pretty officially addicted (thanks, Kofi!) You know how you can go to Wikipedia or IMDb and look for one fact or actor and end up going on a fantastic voyage for 45 minutes, adding books to your Amazon wishlist and DVDs to your Netflix queue? (Or is that just me?) Well, the Hype Machine does the same thing but with music. Search for an artist or a song and then see how your trip unfolds as you discover them on a lists bands someone saw this year, along with another band who made their list of top albums of 2007, then listen to an mp3 from that band, link through to a post about who they’re touring with… etc. etc.

CHA MA GU DAO: “(ancient tea and horse trail) is a contemporary tea house offering 250 of the world’s finest teas, herbal and fruit infusions.” OMG. Best new place ever. Located in nearby Montclair, NJ - a teahouse from the heavens. Tons of teas and tea blends and tisanes to choose from, and cookies made with tea to boot (the lemongrass-ginger cookies were the favorite of the variety my friend and I tried). Perfect for an afternoon or evening of tea and conversation and cookies. And you can order the teas online, too - ship a bit of Jersey home to you?