That said, I’m thinking that a different format – something more thematic and with a purpose – might work better and inspire me. Much in the same way that a budget or a deadline or a very strict format can inspire people to get creative with a project, I think giving myself some limitations or constraints might also help. After all, given the option to write a haiku or 30 lines of free verse, I think I’d start with the haiku.

Stay tuned.

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With a deadpan, Beck insists that he is not political: “I could give a flying crap about the political process.” Making money, on the other hand, is to be taken very seriously, and controversy is its own coinage. “We’re an entertainment company,” Beck says. He has managed to monetize virtually everything that comes out of his mouth. He gets $13 million a year from print (books plus the ten-issue-a-year magazine Fusion). Radio brings in $10 million. Digital (including a newsletter, the ad-supported Glennbeck.com and merchandise) pulls in $4 million. Speaking and events are good for $3 million and television for $2 million. Over several days in mid-March Beck allowed a reporter to follow him through his multimedia incarnations, with one exception, his 5 p.m. daily show on Fox News, which attracts just under 3 million viewers. (FORBES has a relationship with that channel via Forbes on Fox.)

Sure, sure, deadpan. Here’s my response — which will simply come across as preaching to the choir to my politically simpatico friends and as unworthy of notice for anyone else:

Dear Glenn,

Glad to see you’re being honest with yourself and acknowledging that you’re really just putting on an act designed to feed into the fear and anger of some of the most narrow-minded members of the right wing movement. It’s unfortunate that even if your “constituents” are faced with this exact comment from you, they will stubbornly insist that it was taken out of context and twisted out of shape by the manipulative liberal media to discredit you. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

Enjoy the money!

Regards,

me

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Construction + spring blooms = visual interest for me.

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As of yesterday, I am sick-sick-sick with allergies, despite the fact that I’ve been taking my Zyrtec for the past two months. Having started my new job just over a month ago, I’m in my one-month-no-insurance limbo until May1st, at which point I’ll be marching into the allergist’s office and seeing what the hell I can try next. New RX meds? Allergy shots? There’s got to be something.

In the meantime, I have Sudafed – the kind that you need to show ID to purchase.

Not exceeding the legal limit.

All I can think to do is sleep… I can’t really focus on much of anything with this sinus headache that continues down into neck pain… my eyes are watery and red and swollen… and you know it’s bad when a co-worker comments on how tired you look and you’re not at all tired.

My TPH (tissues per hour) rate was only 3 yesterday. Today? Three-quarters of a full box of tissues since I woke up this morning.

Fellow sufferers: I advise the use of a sinus rinse. I advise drinking lots of fluids. I advise the purchase of a tube of Boroleum ointment for soothing inflamed nostrils.

I only wish I could taste food. I am hungry and can’t even think about eating because everything tastes of cardboard.

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I like the real flower touch.

It was a really beautiful spring day. There was lots of color. I tried to capture some of it on film. Winter isn’t a particularly easy time of year to photograph, I’ve learned. I am glad that spring is here, though it means I am sniffly and congested and my eyes are watering and I’m sneezing. Still – it’s good.

Candles that spell out "Happy Birthday" but melt far more quickly than regular birthday candles, but they also melt more interestingly.

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This was far prettier than the parking lot I found it in.

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… on an already packed A train, a homeless man shoved his way aboard with a rusty hand-truck. He didn’t look at anyone and I didn’t see if his eyes were even open, but he kept repeating, “‘Scuse me… gotta make room for my cart.” At first, no one moved. Then he let go of the cart and let the jostling of the train send it bumping into peoples’ backs and legs and arms. The train was crammed full of people, so it was a domino effect – cart into people, people into other people, so on and so on. We found ourselves squeezing closer and closer together as passengers tried to get out of the way of the cart and the man. Finally, a woman gave up her seat since the cart kept smashing into her knees; the man sat down and pulled the cart alongside his leg, where it kept smashing into the shins of the woman seated on his other side. She got up at the next stop; he spread his legs across three seats, gave a sigh of satisfaction and slept for the rest of the way between 14th Street and the High Street/Brooklyn Bridge station, where I left him to it…

… I stopped at a department store after work to buy some t-shirts, a work-appropriate blouse or two and some jeans. On the way out, the sun had already set, but there was still enough half-light to make the clouds glow. The wind kicked up and it got quite cold; since it’s still humid, it felt terribly clammy and colder than it is. The little mounds of nature they place in the parking lot, partially to keep people from speeding through it and partially to lend an air of pleasantry to the asphalt landscape, has been mulched recently and, in the humidity, gave off the pungent earthy smell of decaying wood and rotting organic matter. Yet, for some reason, between the clouds and the half-light and the breeze and the cold, I still found that moment, when I walked outside into the smells and sensations, quite enjoyable…

… I bought an overpriced bar of chocolate at an overpriced grocery store in DUMBO. Why? I wanted good chocolate, and the wrapper was just too lovely to pass up:

FINE & RAW chocolate wrapper. Pretty.

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She’s got another album coming! The first single is called “Fembot”! I’ve been listening to it for a couple of weeks now and it’s catchy as hell and I think I have a brand new girl crush on Robyn (again).

Here! Listen!

Download audio file (Fembot.mp3)

Wishing you automatic booty applications and lollipop dreams,

-eva

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I believe in getting settled in to a new environment as quickly as possible. There are certain things I always have at my desk – ample scrap paper/notepads, a calendar, tissues, hand cream/moisturizer and lip balm. In this photo, you can see some relative placement:

Cleanliness hovering near godliness - kind of. Buddhists can weigh in.

(The hand sanitizer’s a new addition – between the train and the subway? Extra precaution.)

I am also marveling at how close to precisely twelve hours long my workday is. Yes, this is the parking garage ticket. Yes, it really says $3.00. Yes, for twelve hours of parking. This is one of the benefits of living in New Jersey, near a large commuter train station that happens to be at a large state university, thus requiring ample parking for commuters, students and faculty… and somehow, some way, that keeps costs L-O-W.  Incroyable! When I worked in Hoboken, I could get eight hours of parking for $18. In DUMBO, three hours of parking set me back $32. Go figure.

No, really. Get out a piece of paper and do the math. I know some of them don’t charge “by the hour” but rather “x” the first hour and “y” for every hour after that, or “x” for up to “y” hours, and so on. If we assume straight hourly rates, though…

NJ Transit parking garage at Montclair State University: $0.25/hr.
Hoboken: ~$2.25/hr.
DUMBO: $10.67/hr.
Various parts of Manhattan: might be worth hunting for street parking – or getting a ticket.

In all cases, YMMV. This is just my story.

I'm not the only one who keeps military time.

I am extremely happy the weekend is just about upon us. I have much to do and far less time to do it in.  Oil change, post office to return a dress I ordered that’s just too low-cut for anything, bringing clothing donations to Goodwill (must sift through remainder of old don’t-fit-me-anymore clothes first), brother’s birthday brunch and/or dinner, getting a run or two in since I’m feeling sedentary… and sleep. I want sleep.

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