I Am Endlessly Fascinating

Stacks and Stacks, and a Found Photo

2010-10-26T21:21:00.006-04:00

Last year at some point, a young woman from Bucks County's Pennsbury High School, for her senior project, collected 25,000 books (twenty-five thousand, yes) and donated them to the Trenton Public Library to sell at their book sale fundraisers. You may remember the fanfare that surrounded this generous donation, and certainly her charitable impulse and recognition of the importance of urban libraries should be celebrated. But think about this: 25,000 books. Imagine what that looks like, and how much it would take to sort through them. I don't have to imagine, because last weekend I went over to help do some sorting, and the piles and piles of boxes of books were daunting, and kind of depressing. And as I sorted through box after box--some full of books people may well want to buy, but many full of 30-year-old encyclopedias, out-of-date textbooks, etc.--and as mold and mildew filled my lungs, I thought: this is why we need eReaders. Because the fact is, a large number of those books--the moldy and damaged ones, of which there were many--are just going straight to the trash, where they probably should have gone in the first place. And many won't go to the trash at first, but will sit out at book sale after book sale until someone decides to give up and throw them away. And although I'm one of those old school readers who likes to feel the book in my hands, I could definitely see the argument for going electronic if it meant that someday no one would have to spend a Saturday in a basement trying to decide whether anyone would buy a 15-year-old Fodor's guide to Ireland.

On the other hand, if I hadn't been there sorting, I would never have found this photo, which fell out of one of the books.

This Rabbit Is Disappointed in You

2010-08-01T10:17:00.003-04:00

My Name Is Karen, and I Am on Foursquare.

2010-07-18T08:48:00.001-04:00

Like most of my friends, who are, in general, not terribly interested in the latest technological fads and social-networking shenanigans, I was not an immediate Foursquare convert. And, like most of my friends (at least those who even bother with Twitter), I was mostly just annoyed by all the check-ins and mayorship announcements cluttering up my Twitter feed. Do I want to track your every move as you spend your Saturday doing errands? Do I care that you have been to the local Red Lobster or Ladies' Workout Express more than anyone else on Foursquare? No. Why on earth would you even want me to know that?

But...thanks to one friend who is, unlike most of my friends, an early adopter and technophile, now I'm on Foursquare. And I love it. And, done right, it seems like pure marketing gold, at least when turned loose on suggestible types like me. In simple terms, it makes me want to go places more. All places, especially those I've been to before (so that, yes, I might someday be mayor), or those with Foursquare deals. I also admit that I like to scan the "who's here" list to see if I can identify other Foursquare players.

But because most of the people I go places with are not on the Foursquare bandwagon, and because I am old enough to believe that it's rude to whip out your mobile device while you're, say, at dinner with someone, I am actually a closet Foursquarer, checking in discretely when my companion is in the rest room or otherwise distracted. I confess that I have actually checked into a couple of venues when I was in the rest room myself, which really makes it feel dirty. My Foursquare behavior is ridiculously similar to that of a closet alcoholic secretly pulling sips of Jack Daniels from a flask in her purse. So yes, I'm keeping my Foursquare participation on the DL, but the good news for you is that in keeping with this you will not see updates on Twitter every time I check in somewhere or become the mayor of something. But just fyi, I'm the mayor of Villa Park (just the actual park, not the neighborhood), which I hope comes with some authority to get the kids to clean up after themselves a little better, and maybe to help referee the soccer games on the tennis courts.

Family Fun Time

2010-07-16T17:46:00.007-04:00

Last month I was out in South Dakota for a family reunion. My mother's very large family is from the eastern part of SD, and most of that side of my family is still out in that general area, with some farther-flung exceptions in Utah and Oregon. We try to do these reunions every few years, and this was the first year that the planning fell to my generation instead of my parents'. The task was originally assigned to my oldest cousin, but as he is an engineer and not a party planner, things were kind of falling through the cracks--so much so, in fact, that this reunion was actually supposed to have taken place last summer. Oops. Anyway, with some prodding from my aunts and some help from me and various others, cousin Bill managed to pull it off this year. The weekend was chosen to coincide with a Czechoslovakian festival in Tabor, SD, since we all have a bit of Czech blood in us. Not as much as this woman in the Czech Days parade, though.

I would totally vote for her, though, based on this alone.

This float features 2009's Czech Days prince and princess. I got the sense that the king was pretty much ready to give up his crown.

A fine time was had by all, as you can see by my aunts' and uncles' faces.

Bike Tour, Without the Tour

2010-05-23T09:33:00.006-04:00

The 14th annual Trenton Bike Tour was yesterday, but this is as far as I got in terms of actually riding in it. This was partly because I realized only as I was putting the bike on the bike rack to head to the park that my tires were completely flat. But of course that was fixable, given the 200+ other riders plus the Knapp's Cycling folks who were there at the ride start--somewhere there would have been an air pump to use. The main reason was that I was helping my fellow TCR members in getting everyone registered and waivered, then going to get more fruit for the pit stop at Artworks (since there were so many more riders than we expected--woo hoo!), then setting up the pit stop. Here's a picture of everyone heading off on the second leg of the tour after the break.

It was also Artworks' Art Making Day, where people were invited to come and make art to sumbit for Art All Night on June 19-20. So while we were waiting for the riders we got to see the various art-making classes and activities in progress, which was also very cool--they also seemed to be getting a great turnout. And if you haven't yet seen the Ellarslie Open, which has works at both Ellarslie (the Trenton City Museum) and Artworks, I recommend you go. The works are amazing, as are both of the spaces that house them.

More Good Than Bad

2010-05-19T21:15:00.008-04:00

So like most everyone else I know (though possibly not like most of the paltry 20-something percent of registered voters who bothered to vote last Tuesday), I'm disappointed about the election results. It's not as bad as I feared, but it's not as good as I'd hoped by a long shot. We'll see how the runoff goes, but at this point I'm hard-pressed to even say what the best case scenario is in most of those races. There are many more qualified and well-informed than I, however, who can help you out there. (See: Trenton blogroll -->)

To try to manage my general frustration, I've been playing a simple little game with myself as I walk or bike or drive around the city. There's plenty bad to note. Tonight, for example, as I was walking my dog, I encountered a woman getting out of her car, which she had parked on the diagonal (like in those old fashioned midwestern towns where backing up right into the street to get out of a parking space seems like a perfectly fine idea), in front of a fire hydrant. This in itself, of course, is barely worth noting. I'm at the point now where if you're "parked" in the middle of the street, so that traffic can maybe only just barely get around you, if at all, despite several perfectly fine parking spaces within spitting distance of your car, I'm only really pissed off if you don't at least have your hazard lights on. But this incident was pushed into the negative because the woman let out a ridiculous shriek when she saw me and my dog approaching, and when I said, trying to be kind, keeping the dog close to me, "she won't hurt you," she sucked her teeth in some combination of fear and annoyance, shouted "I'm terrified of dogs," and ran up onto her friend's porch where she cowered behind a lawn chair. Now people, I know the point of phobias is that they're irrational, but this is my dog:

It's hard to imagine that you could have been so traumatized by dogs in general that the sight of her, on a leash, trotting happily toward you would lead to screams of fright, but there you have it. It's not a big thing. I really don't begrudge her her fear of dogs. My problem was really only with the out-of-all-proportion magnitude of her reaction. So it made me feel a little sour as Francine and I continued around the block. At least I managed not to say "are you also terrified of parallel parking?" because that would have been rude.

So there are the bad things, yes. Crazy parking, trash blowing around, bricks inexplicably missing from the walkway around the veterans' memorial, and also, oddly, holes dug haphazardly in the dirt around the park--like there are huge dogs looking for bones. I can't figure out what that's about. But then there are also the good things. Kids playing Red-Light-Green-Light. A dad and his maybe-2-year-old daughter trying to sneak up on birds, the daughter squealing delightedly every time they fly away before she can catch them. The dogs I know were once strays who are now being walked by the generous folks who took them in. Etc. I'm not trying to get all sappy or anything. It's just that in order to keep myself from despairing too much about being trapped by a crappy real estate market in a city that seems ever further away from the Renaissance we all keep hoping for, I need to keep a scorecard. And as long as, on average, per walk, or drive, or bike ride, there is more in the good column than the bad, I can keep hanging in there. So far so good.

Happy Spring

2010-03-30T20:30:00.007-04:00

One of my friends, who has a fairly common name, periodically gets email that was meant for someone else. Yesterday he got an email with no message, just a bunch of pictures attached, and this, oh happy day, was one of them.

I'm not sure what the Elks were up to that involved this guy having to wear a red plastic pig on his head, but I have decided that somehow the appearance of this picture in my life is a good sign.

How About This?

2009-12-29T08:14:00.001-05:00

It is, it seems clear, pointless to hope that the glut of mayoral candidates in Trenton will winnow itself down to a reasonable number *and* still contain someone capable both of being elected and of effecting some positive change on the city. I'm no political scientist, but it seems unlikely that those who have already thrown their hat into this ring, or who will soon, are likely to look around at any point and say, "hey, you know, that guy/gal could probably do a pretty good job here, and I'm splitting the vote in such a way that it's impossible for either of us to win the election, so let me just step down." I mean, it's possible, but egos being what they are, it seems like a long shot. And I know there's the whole run-off strategy--if no one gets 50 percent of the vote then there's a run-off between the top two candidates. But to me it seems cynical to hope that the city will be so divided among the dizzying array of options that we have to force a simple majority in a run-off election--an election, incidentally, in which voter interest will likely be much lower than in the regular election. And it's not like we usually have a huge turnout to begin with.

But I have a dream, and it goes a little something like this. Maybe the various civic and community groups in the city could behave more rationally. Maybe they could all band together with one primary goal for the next few months: to thoughtfully and objectively interrogate all the candidates, determine the one who's best for Trenton--taking both electability and leadership potential into consideration--and support the living daylights out of him or her. Or maybe all we need is one group, with a strong and energetic membership, to take this on. The TCCA? Beautiful Trenton? Others? I know these groups were not created with such an overtly political purpose, so maybe we actually need a new group with this specific goal. But it sure would be helpful if there were already an infrastructure in place to get this started. Is that nuts? Am I being naïve? I just want to be able to do *something* for crying out loud. And knocking on doors all by myself seems a little lame.

Some Good Records

2009-12-13T14:30:00.001-05:00

I used to think carefully and deliberately for weeks about my favorite albums of the year, just out of sheer musical geekitude. Now I only really think about them as I'm filling out WXPN's year-end survey in the hopes of winning a giant TV. And because I just didn't acquire that much music in 2009, and because I have long since stopped striving to keep my finger on the pulse of modern music, I'm not even pretending these are The Best Albums of 2009. They're just a few I like.

Bitte Orca (Dirty Projectors): It's just nine tracks, with enough eccentricity for at least twelve. Yipping, wailing, and clapping, plinking guitars, electronic trills and whines and the occasional driving drum beat. Sounds like something I would normally hate, but, strangely, I don't.
The Ecstatic (Mos Def): Stripped-down, classic hip-hop beats with some straight-up experimental weirdness. Not a lot of real hooks--though Quiet Dog is quite bouncy--but it draws you in anyway.
I and Love and You (The Avett Brothers): I am not the first person to say this--I have read many a glowing review, and I'm guessing you'll see this one on a lot of legitimate lists this year--but this is just a great, great record. And Kick Drum Heart is my new absolute favorite bounce around the house song.
Adventureland (Soundtrack): Adventureland was a cute movie with that girl who's in those vampire movies. The soundtrack has a lot of hipster favorites from the 70s and 80s (Bowie, Lou Reed, etc.), and that is all well and good. But the track I sing into my hairbrush? Your Love, by The Outfield. You may think you have no idea what song that is. But if you are roughly my age, I promise you, you'll know it when you hear it. Catchy (and cheesy) as hell.
Grand (Matt and Kim): Many commercials and episodes of Gossip Girl featured songs from this record, so it must be good! And despite the fact that the whole Brooklyn hipster thing is starting to exhaust me, I love a lot of these songs.
Tell 'Em What Your Name Is! (Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears): This is like if someone discovered a James Brown record that no one knew existed. With extra cussing!
One Fast Move or I'm Gone (Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar): Three of my favorite things: the guy from Son Volt (a.k.a. the better half of Uncle Tupelo), the guy from Death Cab for Cutie, and Jack Kerouac. Brilliant.
Glee: The Music, Volume 1 (Soundtrack): I am almost ashamed at how much I've listened to this record since I bought it a few weeks ago. A bunch of kids singing a cleaned-up version of Golddigger? Journey and REO Speedwagon hits reimagined showchoir style? Bring it on. At least this proves that my bitter, cynical heart still beats human blood.
Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future (The Bird and the Bee): It's a little twee, yes, but it's a lot of fun, in a way that kind of makes you want to make a martini and watch The Jetsons.
Noble Beast (Andrew Bird): Good background music, lush and mossy, with lots of fiddle and whistling. Perhaps it's my midwestern, Little-House-on-the-Prairie-loving roots, but I am a sucker for fiddle and whistling.

Real Estate Envy

2009-12-06T08:47:00.008-05:00

The Mill Hill Holiday House Tour* was yesterday, and boy are my legs tired (so many stairs!). The houses were gorgeous and beautifully decorated for the holidays, though if I had one wish it would be that the entire scented candle industry be put out of business. That "Christmas" scent, whatever its supposed ingredients, was stuck in my nostrils all night. Feh.

Smartly, a few of the places that are for sale in Mill Hill were having open houses during the tour. This was true during the Cadwalader Heights tour a couple of months ago too, but I did not feel any desire to look over there. Some of those houses are unbelievably gorgeous, but in general they're way too big for me and my small dog, and any that I could afford would require more work than I can even imagine doing. And as nice as that neighborhood seems, it feels too suburban for me--too spread out with nothing you can walk to. But I did check out the ones for sale in Mill Hill; I've secretly (or not so) fantasized about living over there ever since I bought my place. I love the look of the tidy little row houses (I think the one on the far right in this picture is one of the ones for sale), and it's clear that the Mill Hill residents have a built themselves a strong community, which I also find really appealing (as it's not as prominent where I live now).

So now I'm debating whether to move beyond fantasy and call a realtor. So far my practical side keeps winning out: it would be tough to sell my house (especially if I want to get at least what I perhaps foolishly paid for it), my mortgage payment and taxes would be higher over there, those high ceilings would mean way higher heat bills, etc. And then there's the general upkeep--I have proven myself to be a fairly lame homeowner thus far, and that's not likely to improve in a bigger, older house. I'm fond of my current neighborhood too, and I'd miss my neighbors. Plus, to be honest, in the back of my mind I wonder whether a move within Trenton makes a lot of sense. I'm kind of waiting to see what the next mayoral and council elections bring, because I'm not sure whether I'll want to stay in Trenton if its leadership doesn't change substantially. I'm already a little disheartened by the sheer number of people who have declared an interest in running for mayor, and how many of them we've seen (and not been terribly impressed by) before. I'm trying to stay hopeful for now, but I'm not sure I'm quite hopeful enough to go through all the trouble of moving across town. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

*The picture is from the gallery on the Mill Hill neighborhood website. I, once again, forgot my camera. I suck as a blogger, I know.

Criminal Mischief

2009-11-01T12:43:00.006-05:00

Sometime last night someone decided, I guess, that my car looked like it might have treats inside and smashed my window in to get them. There were no treats, really--the most expensive thing in there was a coat I had left in the back seat, and they didn't even take that. They took some CDs (I hope they like Whiskeytown!) and the mount for my GPS. They also, I am happy/grossed-out to report, appear to have done themselves some injury, since many of the extremely unvaluable papers they pulled out of my glove compartment were blood-stained.

I called the police this morning after I went out to get the newspaper and saw what had happened, and a few minutes later my neighbor, who is a Trenton police officer, was ringing my bell to take the report. He doesn't actually work in our district but saw the call and came over himself, which was super nice. And because of the blood he actually called a tech in to see if they could get fingerprints--just like on tv! Of course, assuming that kind of thing only happened on tv (and honestly not even expecting an officer to show up in person--when I called the TPD, the woman said she'd have an officer call me), I had already been in the car to see what was missing and picked up the stuff that had been strewn in the street. My neighbor kind of tsk-tsked me and said that next time I really should wait for the police before touching anything. (Next time!)

So this kind of thing happens, and I'm not really that freaked out by it (though I did decide that getting your car broken into means that you can eat as many donuts as you want for the next 24 hours), but I admit I am hesitant to tell people who are already critical of where I live, and who will almost certainly start dusting off their speeches about how I should move. The thing is, people break into cars all over. The likelihood of criminal mischief--and various other crimes--is higher in cities. People live in cities despite that fact, because, typically, there are advantages to living in a city that they believe outweigh the negatives. The problem, of course, is that Trenton's advantages are not as easy to pinpoint these days as the advantages of, say, Philadelphia, or even Baltimore, whose crime rates are also high, but whose cultural offerings make up for it. Or even of Newark, which may not be a cultural mecca at the moment, but whose leadership seems to at least be making an effort to make things better there. And because I'm not really in the mood at the moment to regale naysayers with my list of Things to Love about Trenton, I'm laying low today. So do me a favor and don't tell my dad, okay?

Babies Are Awesome

2009-10-23T21:08:00.005-04:00

This is my new niece. My brother now has three children, increasing the odds that someone related to me will be around to take care of me when I'm old. I just spent a few days in Florida hanging out with her (and my brother and other various family members, but who cares about them?). I know many people think babies are boring, but I love 'em. They make hilarious sounds and faces, they are mostly uncomplicated in their wants and needs, and they stay where you put them. That's best case scenario with kids, if you ask me.

On Cream of Celery Soup and Other Convenience Foods

2009-10-15T20:41:00.003-04:00

The other day I tried to make a dessert bar thing my mother used to make. She just called them Special K Bars, so named because, of course, she got the recipe off the side of the Special K box. Sadly, Kellogg's stopped providing that recipe for us long ago, so I turned to the internet and found many that seemed kind of right. Basically, you mix cereal, peanut butter, and Karo syrup together, smash it all in a cake pan, pour melted chocolate in a layer over the top, and stick the whole thing in the fridge for a couple of hours. That's it. So I figured out what seemed like the right proportions, ignored the infidels who claimed you should melt butterscotch chips in with the chocolate, and gave it a shot. Only the peanut butter I used was fancy-pants Trader Joe's peanut butter, not Skippy or Jif or whatever my mom used to buy, and the chocolate I used was Belgian whoop-de-doo semi-sweet chocolate, also from Trader Joe's, instead of regular old Nestle's Toll House Morsels (how great a word is "morsel," by the way?). You'll be happy to know that I did use Special K, though, and not some Kashi cardboard facsimile, and Karo syrup, which of course I did not buy at Trader Joe's, because I'm sure they don't make their own brand of high-fructose corn syrup. And the bars were okay, I guess, but they did not taste like I remembered, and I'm sure that's because of the newfangled ingredients. Next time I feel like I need to make an entire pan of retro refrigerator bars to eat by myself, I'm definitely going Skippy and Nestle's, all the way.

Making those bars also made me a little hungry for other things we ate occasionally growing up... pork chops over rice baked with cream of mushroom and/or cream of celery soup, for example. Mmmm, sodium! Or that "Chinese" food that came in cans and consisted mainly of water chestnuts, bean sprouts, and some weird, white, gloppy sauce, poured over those crispy noodles. Which all makes it sound like my parents were terrible cooks--they weren't. They were children of the 50s, when everyone became enthralled with supermarket convenience foods, like cake mixes and instant pudding and cans of soup that inspired entire recipe books.* And though in general their tastes had become broader and their cooking skills more sophisticated, they still had a few oldies but goodies in their repertoire.

Now, of course, the supermarket convenience foods that enthrall us are far, far different from those that made our grandparents' lives easier. Which brings me back to Trader Joe's. Maybe I'm just missing something, or haven't bought exactly the right salsa, or crackers, or frozen seasoned meat to make me understand what all the fuss is about. I've only been twice since the new store opened locally, and had never been to one before that. So while I will grant you that their instant chocolate pudding is pretty freaking good, by and large I'm just not getting it. Clearly I'm in the minority, though, since the last time I went the checkout lines were halfway down the aisles toward the back of the store, kind of putting a damper on my desire to go back. So for now I'll stick with things I can make with Campbell's Soup. And stuff you can buy at Whole Foods, which, thanks to Trader Joe's, has been blissfully empty the past couple of weeks.

*And a dress!

Circle It on the Circle Line (Toot Toot)

2009-10-06T20:31:00.012-04:00

On Sunday my dad, stepmother, and I met in New York to take the three-hour Circle Line tour. I was born and grew up in New York State, never more than a couple of hours away from the city, and sometimes I actually even lived in Manhattan, but I had somehow managed to miss this staple of Big Apple sightseeing. My father had done it once with his father when he was a little boy (the Circle Line has been around since the 1940s), and my stepmother, who's not from around here, had never been. So we took the tour, and in so doing, I also saw (from the water) several other sightseeing staples I've managed to miss...Ellis Island, the Cloisters, the United Nations, and the little red lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge. Or, at least, I think I've missed them. As we have established, my memory is terrible.

For example, as we were sailing by Riverside Church my dad said "I climbed up to the top of that tower while I was waiting for you to finish your interview at Barnard. Remember that?" No. I did not remember. I said, "I applied to Barnard?" "And you got in!" he said proudly. We mused on that separately for a bit. Then it became clear that my memory is not the only spotty one, because he said, "I never understood why you didn't go to Columbia." Now this I believe I have a clear memory of, because I really, really wanted to go to Columbia, but, at least in my version of events, I was told it was too expensive and we couldn't afford it. When I reminded my dad of that he said, yeah, other schools had offered me scholarships and/or were less expensive, but in his mind at this point clearly that shouldn't have been a deciding factor. Huh. How about that, ya'll? I could have gone to Columbia. And then probably not met virtually any of the friends I have now, whom I met either in school (grad school too, but who knows whether I'd have gone to the same grad school, or grad school at all, if I'd gone to Columbia as an undergrad) or through the job I now have, which I have because of someone I met at the college I did attend, or because I live where I live because of the job I now have. Freaky. Anyway, please enjoy some pictures from the cruise.

Watch This Space

2009-09-21T20:35:00.001-04:00

Not a very exciting week. We've just been sitting around, waiting for summer to be over so this big fur coat doesn't seem so inappropriate.

Protesting Too Much

2009-09-15T19:44:00.012-04:00

So a few weeks ago the Trenton Times printed an editorial about how Trenton's stock as a city was rising, citing Art All Night and the success of the Broad Street Bank building. Then some guy who does not (and I believe never did) live in Trenton wrote a letter to the editor to say that, in fact, Trenton's stock is not rising, it never will, and we should all just give up. (Please forgive me if I am getting the details wrong. I'm pulling all of this from my foggy memory, because the NJ.com website is absolutely useless if you actually want to find anything, and I abandoned my search for anything pertaining to the editorial or letters that followed after 10 minutes of fruitless clicking and wanting to punch someone. I guess I could dig through the actual papers, but it's recycling night, and they're already out on the curb.*) In the days that followed, some of my fellow Trenton citizens wrote letters to the editor talking about how Trenton is really a great place, full of dedicated people living, working, and trying to bring about change, and about how negativity is a bummer, man. (Again, I am paraphrasing.) Then, and this is my favorite part, one of my fellow citizens gathered up some Trenton-made items (Ana candles, a Tektite flashlight) and drove them to the original letter-writer's house. If that guy didn't immediately get a restraining order, he has more self-control than I would have in that situation, I'm telling you that right now.

So yes, it's kind of a douchebag move to write a letter to the editor trashing a town in which you do not live. And I am also tired of having people look at me funny when I tell them I live here, or overhearing comments about people's fear for their very lives every time they find themselves within our borders. But I think it's a waste of our collective breath to try to win over letter-writer guy, or anyone like him, with plaintive letters to the editor and gift baskets. It's like trying to win back an asshole ex-lover. He's not coming back, and we don't really want him. In fact, what we need is a younger, hipper, braver, more energetic lover, with a less cynical outlook, who hasn't convinced himself that coming to visit us is going to result in his untimely death from a gunshot wound. We also need a lot of other things too, like competent leadership and a plan** for dealing with our budget woes. But in the meantime, I promise you, we are not going to convince people that Trenton is the grand place we all know it can be just by saying it's so. Or bringing them candles.

*Okay, I found a link to the article about the gift basket delivery. Not on nj.com, of course. Because they suck.
**Reinventing Trenton has a plan...check it out.

It's Not the Years, It's the Knees. And the Flowy Tops.

2009-09-08T21:19:00.003-04:00

People, I am here to tell you that the slippery slope of middle age is, in fact, a precipitous cliff.* It was only a year or so ago that I was sniggering about the catalogs that had started showing up at my house. Remember that? Well kittens, I went shopping with a friend in Flemington NJ over the Labor Day weekend. She and I often meet there because it's about halfway between our houses, but there isn't anything to do there except shop, or go to the oldest, mustiest, creepiest still-operating multiplex on earth. Not feeling much like watching The Time Traveler's Wife** or similar, on a screen barely bigger than the one in my living room, with duct-tape upholstery patches digging into the backs of our necks, we opted for shopping. There are outlets in Flemington, and a new shopping center that appears to have been conceived and built during happier economic times...right now it's a few stores (excuse me, "shoppes") and a lot of empty space for rent.

Neither the outlets nor this new shopping center are exactly filled with stores that scream Young and Hip. I didn't expect to buy much, thinking the outing was really just an excuse to walk around and chat with a friend. But by the end of the day I had shopping bags, and I am still stunned by their origins. Talbots and J Jill are the most shocking. Talbots, for crying out loud! The only thing I ever pictured when I thought of Talbots was the mom/grandmother on Gilmore Girls. Now, of course, *I* think the things I bought are cute. But I also readily admit that they are all kind of soft and flowy, and probably designed to hide what we middle-aged ladies like to call our "figure flaws." I even, god help me, went into Coldwater Creek. I didn't buy anything there, but I did try things on, which was confusing at first because everything I tried on in my normal size was way too big. Then I realized that their sizes were scaled up. Extra Small was a 4. There was no size 2, or 0, or, for the extra-anorexic, 00. So one thing I will say for Coldwater Creek is that they spare you the experience of having the person in the dressing room next to you call out to the saleswoman and ask "does this come in a 0 long?" The answer to which I always want to be, "no, but here, let me force-feed you a sandwich." But clearly they are not targeting the younger set.

So anyway, this could be all about how my misconceptions about these stores were proven false after all these years. But I really think that it's just another example of how getting older works...just like you never thought you'd say the things your parents said, or forget what you came into a room for, or buy the wrong kind of cereal at the grocery store (gross, maple-flavored Quaker Oatmeal Squares, I'm looking at you), you never thought you'd dress like they did. But I am quite certain that the flowy tops and skirts that I bought over the weekend are the equivalent of the blouses and wrap-around skirts my mother wore. And I guess I'm okay with that. Because honestly, have you seen what the kids are wearing these days? Shameful.

The other thing I've noticed aging-wise is that I have my mother's knees. I remember her complaining about her weird lumpy knees when she got to be in her 40s, and I have definitely inherited them. This picture doesn't really do them justice...in the right light, they are like a bowl of congealing oatmeal.

*And I don't need you to tell me, by the way, that it's obnoxious to complain about your age. I know that if you are even five minutes older than I am you're all "oh, just get over it." I know this because anyone even five minutes younger than I am who complains about his or her age gets a big old eye roll from me. Hell, I'm even annoyed at myself for the posts I wrote a year ago about how old I was then.

**How bad does that movie look? Seriously? You knew that the guy you were marrying disappears periodically without warning because he is a time traveler. Did you really think that was going to work out? Quit whining.

I Collect Spores, Molds, and Fungus

2009-09-03T07:41:00.006-04:00

This freakishly huge mushroom popped up in front of my house the other morning. That's what 20.4 inches of rain since June* will get you.

*a.k.a., 161% of normal, which may be what I rename this blog

An Embarrassment To Smart Grrrls Everywhere

2009-09-02T21:04:00.014-04:00

I have a terrible memory. Most of my childhood is pieced together in my brain from stories people have told me and pictures I've seen so many times I feel like I remember them being taken, but since I don't remember any of the moments leading up to or following the scenes in the pictures, I'm guessing those are not memories at all. Of course, I do remember some stuff--I wasn't in a fugue state or anything--and one thing I do remember is that I had a huge crush on my oldest cousin, Bill. I only saw him once every couple of years, usually when all my mother's siblings would gather in South Dakota for a family reunion. My clearest memories of Bill are from the summer of 1976: he was 18, and I was 7. He was hilarious. He had long hair. He could play Doobie Brothers and Eagles songs on his guitar (not that I knew jack about The Doobie Brothers or The Eagles when I was 7, since all we listened to in our house was 50's rock-and-roll (dad) or classical music (mom)). We younger cousins all gathered around him in complete awe of his super-coolness. Or at least that's how it seemed to me; they might disagree. They saw him more than I did, so maybe he didn't hold the same mystique for them. But I was entranced.

I saw my cousin Bill last weekend; he was visiting Philadelphia with his wife and I met them and her son and daughter-in-law for brunch. Much life has been lived between 1976 and now, and it must be said that Bill, though I love him still, is no longer as crush-worthy as he once was. He is a 50-year-old engineer with an ex-wife, three grown kids, and a fondness for golf and the attire that goes with it. We were reminiscing, as we old people like to do, and he told a story about when he and his mother came east to visit us in New York one summer. I was probably in 7th or 8th grade by then, and I'm guessing he was in graduate school. The story goes that while they were visiting, he helped me figure out Algebra. He had very detailed memories of telling me that I was making it too complicated for myself. "Just start inside the brackets, and work your way out," he claimed to have told me, and apparently it was like a light bulb went off, and suddenly I got it. I, not surprisingly, have no memory of this whatsoever. But we all laughed and I said, "Thank goodness for you, cousin Bill, because I think I did pretty well in math after that!"

But the more I think about it, as horrifying as this is for me to admit, I think I must have been faking my poor math skills. Because the fact is, I rocked in math. Always. I don't think I struggled until maybe a little in calculus. So I am pretty sure I was pulling a maneuver from one of the lamest teen movie/sit-com plots of all time: smart girl plays dumb to get cute boy to tutor her in the hopes that, over that history book or those flash cards, he will suddenly fall in love with her. I was totally Lindsey Lohan in Mean Girls. And, probably, all of the girls on Facts of Life and The Brady Bunch at some point, and possibly also Rudy and/or Vanessa on The Cosby Show and Joanie on Happy Days. I can't remember for sure (I know, shocking) whether that plot ever showed up on those shows, but doesn't it seem like it must have? Anyway, I am mortified. Clearly my budding feminism* was not strong enough to combat my need for a reason to make my cousin hang out with me. Because surely I must have known it was wrong, right? On some level? I wish I could remember.

Also, in completely other news, I got free avocados at Shop Rite yesterday. They were an insane $1.99 *each* but I needed three and didn't feel like stopping anywhere else, so I was going to suck it up. But at the register the kid looked up the price in that little laminated book, made what seemed to me to be a shocked "wtf" kind of face, and only charged me for one. I have no idea whether he was sticking it to The Man, morally outraged at the very idea of anyone paying two bucks for an avocado, or afraid I would throw a fit when I saw the price, assuming that no one in her right mind would have come to the check-out intending to pay two bucks for an avocado, or, because of course maybe I'm reading too much into this, just not paying attention. He was, now that I think about it, carrying on a conversation with the checker in the next aisle about a mutual friend who'd been arrested. So maybe the "wtf" face was related to that discussion, not my produce. But regardless, I got free avocados. Which may be the best thing to happen to me all week.

*Why does feminism always "bud"? That phrase always strikes me as slightly gross for some reason.

She's Back

2009-08-29T21:15:00.005-04:00

As all three of you noticed, I took the ol' blog down a couple months ago. It was giving me pain, knowing it was out there all un-updated and shit. And for the life of me I just couldn't come up with anything to write about. Not able to bear the thought of people checking to see what's up with Miss Karen and finding the same Beastie Boys video link over and over again, or, even worse, the thought of people web-browsing their way to yet another defunct blog while innocently searching for camera phone pics of big asses in trenton nj, or what have you, I hid the damn thing. And for a while, it was good.

To be completely honest, I still really have nothing to say. But I just finished reading Julie and Julia, and I saw the movie a couple of weeks ago. And goddammit, that was not a very good book. It wasn't a very good movie either, although it is worth ten bucks to watch Meryl Streep channel the shrill loopiness of Julia Child. I never read Julie Powell's blog, but I'm assuming it was no less self-indulgently whiny than the book she based on it. And the whole time I was reading the book I kept thinking, if that woman can be this annoying and get a book *and* movie deal, there is no earthly way to explain why I am not famous. I mean, I also find Philip Roth annoying and whiny, but I admit freely that he can write circles around me. Julie Powell cannot. And so I'm back. I may have nothing more to say than I did a couple of months ago, but out of sheer spite for a mediocre writer with a gimmick, I am going to keep this nonsense up. And if anyone has any gimmick suggestions, shoot 'em over.

Sweeter Than A Cherry Pie With Ready Whip Topping

2009-05-29T07:46:00.005-04:00

You guys, the Beastie Boys are old. I mean, I know I'm old too, so this should come as no surprise, since I believe they are older than I am. But somehow seeing them with gray hair is almost as bad as finding out that a coworker's kid, whom I last saw in a cub scout uniform, is heading off to college in the fall. However, they do still kick ass, which is comforting. I find Jimmy Fallon absolutely un-fucking-bearable, but The Roots *almost* make his new show worth watching, and check them out here, complete with a goddamn sousaphone, backing up the Boys on So What'cha Want.

The Best Soy Latte That You Ever Had

2009-05-05T08:04:00.001-04:00

In the absence of original content, because my brain and life are essentially empty, here is another video. A lovely medley of some of the worst songs ever recorded.

Medley from Riki Lindhome on Vimeo.

RIP Bea

2009-04-26T11:47:00.000-04:00

There's Nothing Funny About 40

2009-04-19T21:16:00.006-04:00

My fortieth birthday was last week, and I'm taking this milestone a little harder than I expected to. Thirty, as I recall, seemed a little alarming, but forty is really quite unbelievably sucky on some psychic level. I'm thinking I should have held at 39, like Jack Benny, who celebrated his 39th birthday 41 times, because, he explained, there's nothing funny about 40. So far, I have to agree.

However, remember how I was trying to decide whether or not to have a party? Well I did, and it was lovely. Or, at least, I think it was. I forgot that when you have a party you actually don't get to do much actual partying. Because there are things to attend to. Not that I can remember what those things were at this point. The only things I remember clearly are the tiny failures. Like how no one heard this one couple knocking at the door...for twenty minutes. And how I forgot to put out some of the food. And how I had a Spanx-induced stomach ache the whole night, which prevented me from truly enjoying the food I *did* remember to put out, like barbecue from Sweet Lucy's, and cupcakes from The Bent Spoon, and myriad varieties of crostini that one of my wonderful guests kept churning out in the kitchen, plus the trifle and the chocolate pie and the fantastic cheeses from Olsson's at the Trenton Farmers' Market (whose website is all of a sudden defunct). But I did enjoy playing the hostess, which I haven't done for years. And the best part was watching people who had not known each other before that night chatting and getting to know each other. It seems like a bit of validation of your own coolness if your cool friends all like each other.

And then, lucky for me, once I recovered from foundation-garment-itis, there was a lot of stuff left over, including an enormous amount of liquor. I bought booze like my guests and I were closer to 20 than 40, apparently. And so for the last week I have been easing into 40 by eating leftovers and finishing opened bottles of wine and doing gin taste tests (Hendrick's is the winner). And enjoying my presents, which include a special edition DVD of Footloose, a beautiful collage/clock featuring a picture of my dog, and a bumblebee pin I have barely taken off since.

So the upshot is, I love my friends, and I am glad that I decided to have the party instead of just getting the cupcakes and eating them by myself. But that is totally what I'm doing next year.

Well, Duh

2009-04-17T13:42:00.001-04:00

This was my horoscope yesterday, but honestly, I think it might as well have been my horoscope every day for the last 25 years:

Although you may not be satisfied with your current situation, you're ready to call off the battle for a while so you can take it easy.

And I Thought I Had A Storage Problem

2009-03-17T18:06:00.006-04:00

So, this guy is a friend of one of my best friends, and I have hung out with him a few times. You really can't tell, if you just meet him out in the world, that he is an insane genius collector of crap. So despite the fact that, as you will see, he is currently sporting the *worst* haircut I have ever seen in my life (sorry, dude, but it looks like a blind person cut your hair with pinking shears), you should not be afraid if you run into him on the streets of Denver.

Christmas in February

2009-02-22T09:04:00.006-05:00

My Christmas cactus bloomed this year for the first time in a decade. It's a cutting from my mother's, which was a cutting from her mother's, and mom's blooms every year without fail, right around Christmas if not before. The closest this one has come for the past few years is buds that fall off before opening, but this year I actually got three full blooms in early February...and a lot of buds that fell off before opening. I tend to have poor luck with house plants, so I'm really just grateful that I haven't completely killed this one yet.

This year I did use the tough-love solution that my mom often employed with hers: I put it outside in the late spring and ignored it until right before the first frost. Supposedly they're so happy to be back inside and taken care of again that they bloom abundantly out of gratitude. I had never tried that method before because it seems kind of twisted and cruel, but I guess I can probably attribute my belated and limited success to that cruelty. Plus though the blooms were not exactly abundant, the foliage looks healthier than it has in a long time. So I'll probably try it again this year. Don't report me to PETP.

FLIM FLAM

2009-02-21T21:50:00.007-05:00

I subscribe to Trenton's reverse 911 service, so I get phone calls and/or emails now and then telling me that, for example, there will be no trash pick-up on my regular trash pick-up day, because it's a holiday. But of course the main purpose of the service is in the case of some city-wide or neighborhood emergency; I believe folks in the Island neighborhood were called via reverse 911 when they needed to evacuate those floods a couple years ago. So obviously this is a valuable service.

But something seems to have gone awry in the reverse 911 system somewhere, because over the last 48 hours I have received the same message ten (10) times. Eight times in English, and twice in Spanish. Two emails and eight phone calls, four at home and four on my cell phone. Now, this is partly my fault for giving them my email address and both phone numbers in the first place; I guess my thinking was that if there were truly an emergency, I would want as many ways of finding out about it as possible. But I really think that one message to each number/address should be sufficient. Maybe two, one in English and one in Spanish. So something is clearly up with the automated calling robot...or do you think they were just trying to be especially thorough?

The real reason I'm telling you this, though, is because of the message itself. This is the email, and it was read verbatim for the phone message:

HELLO, THIS IS SGT. PEDRO MEDINA, TPD PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER. I NEED TO INFORM YOU ABOUT AN IMPORTANT MATTER. RECENTLY WE HAD TWO “FLIM FLAM” INCIDENTS IN WHICH ELDERLY MEMBERS OF OUR COMMUNITY WERE TARGETED. IN BOTH INCIDENTS THE SUSPECTS STATED THAT THEY WERE WORKERS OF THE WATER DEPARTMENT. AVOID BECOMING THE NEXT VICTIM AND TAKE PRECATIONARY MEASURES THAT WILL KEEP YOU AND YOUR BELONGINGS SAFE.

THINK! BE ALERT! DO NOT LET ANYONE SUSPICICIOUS INTO YOUR HOUSE. ASK FOR IDENTIFICATION, LOOK OUT YOUR WINDOW FOR A MARKED COMPANY VEHICLE. IF IT APPEARS SUSPICIOUS DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR AND CALL THE POLICE. TAKE ALL THE SAFETY MEASURES NECESSARY WITHOUT PUTTING YOURSELF IN ANY DANGER. REMEMBER CALL THE POLICE – 911. IF ANYONE HAS HAD ANYTHING SIMILAR TO THIS SITUATION OCCUR PLEASE CALL [...] AND REPORT IT. THANK YOU.

First of all, "flim flam." When is the last time you heard someone use that term? Probably in a movie featuring a gumshoe and his dame, I'm guessing. Second of all, I love that "flim flam" is as specific a piece of information as we get about these incidents. We have two facts: guys dressed up as water department workers and...FLIM FLAM! I'm guessing that this is actually a law enforcement term of art...they have probably been calling these kinds of crimes by this name for 100 years, so they all know what it means and it does not sound hilarious to them. But although of course I hope that the victims are okay and that there are no more such incidents, I have to say, it does sound hilarious to me. FLIM FLAM!

Also, in case you were wondering, the term they used in Spanish is "estafador," or con man. I guess there is no true equivalent of "flim flam" in Spanish.

In Which A Trentonian Columnist Puts Images In Our Heads That Really Don't Belong There

2009-01-22T12:18:00.024-05:00

I do not read The Trentonian. I have the time and inclination to read only one local daily, and although The Times of Trenton seems to be getting skinnier every day (I swear that someday soon it's just going to be the winning lottery numbers, Dr. Gott, and high school sports scores), it still fulfills my need in that department. Plus I have a fundamental problem with the tabloid format, i.e., a newspaper that, among other affronts, includes as a daily feature a full-page picture of a young woman in a bathing suit.

The one advantage I can see, though, to reading The Trentonian on a regular basis is that you wouldn't have to wait to find out from other sources, e.g., Twitter, that columnist L.A. Parker has come out with yet another fantastical, you-wouldn't-believe-it-unless-you-read-it-for-yourself opinion piece, combining poor grammar, convoluted metaphor, disorganized ideas, and bizarre/inappropriate subject matter, with hilarious results. Today's column features L.A.'s musings about the Obamas' first night in the White House master bedroom. Yes, you heard me. No, I am not kidding. I know times are tough in the newspaper biz, but seriously, Trentonian? Is there no one over there to even read this guy's work before it goes out the door? No one to say, um, dude, I'm not sure that depicting our new President and First Lady getting it on after the inaugural balls is really the best way to go, even as an intro to a poorly constructed ramble about the importance of family or love or whatever point it is you're trying to make? Plus, seriously, pick up a Strunk & White. They have a new illustrated edition that's really quite lovely. Because, despite the fact that he is, according to his by-line, an award-winning columnist and reporter*, here is how L.A.'s latest offering begins:

Now that President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, have danced their night away on a night that they seemed more like newlyweds than our nation’s most noticeable company, let’s take care of one undiscussed topic.

The prez, after what seemed like a hundred nuzzles of his wife’s neck, cute smooches on her waiting lips, and whispers that seemed to perk the First Lady’s interests, looked like he was working his way toward a successful bedroom diplomacy strategy.

First of all, I'm not even sure what the first sentence means, entirely: "...have danced their night away on a night that they seemed more like newlyweds than our nation's most noticable company...." The hell?? Who or what exactly is "our nation's most noticable company"? George and Laura? The Bidens? J-Lo and Marc Anthony? And the second sentence is creepy enough to give me hives, not to mention structurally convoluted enough to give me, and anyone who's ever taught freshman English, a strong desire to rap someone's knuckles with a ruler. Now, I know that during the waning days of Clinton's presidency, we as a people spent a lot of time making jokes about Bill's sexual dealings in the White House. That made me squeamish too, I'll be honest, but Clinton at least buttered the bread that we then all had to watch him lie in. Or something. (L.A., your nonsensical metaphors are contagious!) The Obamas did nothing more than appear to be fond of one another on what must have been the most overwhelmingly awesome day of their lives. And for that, sadly, they must endure a grammatical and stylistic nightmare of an homage to the apparent health of their relationship. It's unfortunate, but at least there's virtually no danger that they'll ever have to see it. I'm guessing the Obamas don't read papers that involve a Page 6 Girl either.

*Actually, it says he is "a Trentonian award-winning columnist and reporter." Does that mean he just won some award that The Trentonian itself gave out? And might that just be some Christmas party prank award, like "Most Likely to Fall Down Drunk in a Staff Meeting"?

Three Things That Are Funny

2009-01-09T20:47:00.008-05:00

Jon Stewart is one of the few remaining things on this earth that can reliably make me laugh out loud. And when I first heard him exclaim, "Oh my God...it's Oates!!" (about 2:30 into the clip), I shouted so loudly with laughter that my dog woke up with a start and began barking at the tv. (Update: This page, at the moment, still has the video clip...does Hulu content expire???)

Another person taking full advantage of Craigslist to flex his (I assume, in this case, not her, but that's just sheer stereotyping) creative muscles. Plus, free MC Hammer Pants!

Fuck You Penguin: a much-needed antidote to Cute Overload, etc.* I think "Reindeer Act Like They Don't Know" might be my favorite. Or else, "I Know You Can Hear Me, Fox."

*Which is not to say that I don't have a Cute Overload page-a-day calendar on my desk at work, because I totally do. Yesterday was a tub full of prairie dogs. I forget what today was.

Christmas Letter

2008-12-28T09:30:00.002-05:00

This year, for the first time, I sent out a Christmas Letter. I was way behind on the holiday-related errands and activities, so although I kind of think the mass holiday letter is lazy, impersonal, and too often used as a way to pretend that the sender's life is worth bragging about when it clearly, clearly is not, I just didn't have the time or, let's face it, the will to write the same boring thing by hand in each of my relative's cards, like I usually do. So I summarized 2008 in all its glory, threw in a couple of pictures, and sent it out.

As I was writing it, I was also writing a parallel Christmas Letter in my head, a letter that more accurately captured the happenings of 2008. It went a little something like this.

Dear Family, Friends, and People I Never Hear From Except When You Send Me Photos of Your Children Without So Much as a Note:

Well, 2008 is drawing to a close, and even though it certainly has not been a terribly exciting year, allow me to take this opportunity to generically share with all of you a few of the mundane details.

I am still at the same soul-crushing job, being too lazy to figure out something better to do. It has been twelve years now, and at this point I'm pretty sure that unless I get fired, which would almost be a blessing, I will be there until I die, or retire, but who still thinks we'll actually be able to retire, right? Ha ha. At least I have been fortunate enough to travel to several exotic locales for business, including Richmond, Virginia, which, if I am not mistaken, holds the world record for most chain restaurants per square mile. But boy oh boy, their TGIFriday's sure is one of the best I've ever visited! I was also lucky enough to visit San Antonio, Texas, on a couple of occasions this year. I know what you're thinking--that's where they have that lovely River Walk, right? Yeah, right. Have you seen it? It is like a cross between the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World and your least favorite tee-shirt-shop-lined tourist town, and the rest of the city is, as far as I can tell, a giant tangle of half-constructed highway overpasses and access roads leading to a staggering array of chain Tex-Mex restaurants. Delightful.

So that's work. But I mean, there's a support group for people who hate their jobs, right? It's called everyone. They meet at the bar every Friday night. Ha ha.

I am still living in Trenton, a fact that baffles me when I stop to think about it, which thankfully is not often. (I find that the less time one spends thinking about things, the better, and you have to admit, that philosophy seems to be serving me quite well!) The city is no less a disaster than it was when I moved here, though I guess it's really no more of one either, so at least we have that going for us. Our mayor continues to delight residents with his bizarre, self-aggrandizing moves, proclaiming what a fantastic job he has done in Trenton to anyone who will listen and perhaps give him a job so he can get the hell out. And I have to say, as much as I'd like to see him gone, if the other option is to have him boast his way into a federal gig, where he could shortchange millions of people instead of the 80,000+ Trenton residents he currently underserves, well, I think I need to ask myself not what my country can do for me, but what I can do for my country, and keep him here. So I am working on organizing a group to put him on some kind of resident-enforced house arrest, especially now that gas prices have gone down and we can more easily afford to drive to his place in Hunterdon County. So you'll have me to thank for keeping him out of your hair, everyone! You're welcome!

Also, no, I am not seeing anyone. I think I have now ruled out every straight man within a 50-mile radius who has a profile up on any internet dating site. I used a very rigorous screening process to work through them all, first weeding out anyone who used any of the following words in his profile: lady, passion, values, Harley, philosopher, separated, princess, camping. Also eliminated were all men whose profiles contained more than 5 spelling or grammatical errors or were written in all caps. This eliminated an enormous number, of course, but there were still plenty left to actually meet in person, so I also endured a bazillion first dates at Uno's (or similar) during which I often wished that a freak lightning storm would whip itself up and strike the bar stool next to me. But eventually, I got through them all. Every one. Quite an accomplishment, right? Now I can settle into spinsterhood with a clear conscience, knowing that I gave it the old college (and grad-school, and gainful-employment) try.

The good news is that I am working on an arrangement with my neighbor across the street, who is quite a loner himself. We are setting up a signal system so that if one of us has fallen and can't get up, or died and is being gnawed at by pets, the other will know because the window shades were not raised to their specified height that morning, or something. We are still working out the details.

Speaking of death, I am going to be 40 in 2009! Isn't that exciting? In planning the celebration, I am vacillating between some kind of blow-out with karaoke and strippers and kobe beef skewers, and locking myself in the house alone and making cupcakes and eating them until I vomit. I will let you know what I decide, and depending on the outcome, and whether I actually like you, you might be getting an invitation, so better save the date!

And here's the best news of all, which I saved for last: I got Verizon's HD cable deal. So now I really have no reason to ever leave the house again! And even though I have DVR, so I can theoretically pause the show I'm watching to pick up the phone when you call, I doubt I will, since that would also involve getting off the couch. Don't take it personally, though. Ha ha.

So that's about it! I wish all of you the very merriest of Christmases, or Hanukkahs, or whatever it is you do. And I look forward to seeing the pictures of you and your kids next year.

Love,
Karen

Of course, some of that is exaggerated for (admittedly marginal) comic effect. But not much.

Miss Karen Doesn't Mean To Be A Scrooge, But

2008-12-19T16:02:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I had to leave a conference call I was on in my office because there was some kind of caroling activity in the nearby lobby, complete with flute, saxophone, and guitar. Electric guitar. "Good King Wenceslas" was being bellowed so boisterously (and so, so off-key) by my coworkers that I could no longer hear myself or anyone else on the call. Now, I know that I am not exactly overflowing with Christmas Spirit in any context, but really, at the office, do we seriously need there to be Christmas caroling? In the middle of the day? Next to people's offices? For years I have studiously avoided something called the Sing-Along Sign-Along, which roams among the various work cafeterias at this time of year, offering achingly earnest performances of holiday songs (secular and non, from all cultures, of course), accompanied I think by some kind of electric piano and, obviously, sign-language interpreters. And jingle bells. Sometimes I get my timing off and stumble upon a performance when I'm ducking into the cafeteria to get a sad cup of soup or something, and that is traumatizing enough. But at least then I am not trying to do anything productive. Paying attention on a conference call is difficult enough when one has working internet just inches from the phone...I certainly don't need Pam from Marketing screaming the words to "We Three Kings" 20 feet from my office door.

Also, hearing my colleagues sing holiday songs crosses some kind of work/life line that I require for my own sanity, but which others clearly do not hold similarly inviolate. In this category also are people who exercise at work and, more horrifyingly, people who shower at work. Am I the only one who believes that there is no justifiable reason for anyone to be naked at the office? Ever? Why do we even have showers in our building? I mean, maybe, MAYBE if your job involves dangerous chemicals or you work on an oil rig, you might occasionally need to scrub yourself down at your workplace. And I guess that people who work in hospitals and have 18-hour shifts and have to wear uniforms may also have a reason to at least change clothes at work, and, all right, possibly take a shower. But I work in a regular old office building. We sit at our desks, talk on the phone, write email, and go to boring meetings. No one should be sleeping there, and no one should be breaking a sweat. If you need to work that 4-mile run into your day, for god's sake get up earlier and do it before you get to work, and then shower in your own home. Please? For me?

All Ages Show

2008-12-10T19:43:00.008-05:00

This week I proved to myself that I am not yet a hermit or a hopeless old person by deciding at the last minute to go see Vampire Weekend at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair.... on a Monday night. I know. Crazy! The last time Miss Karen went to a show on a school night was probably back when most of you were still hoping the babysitter would let you stay up late enough to watch Buffy.

But I know that my hopeless old person days are not that far away, because although the show was very enjoyable musically or whatever, here are the parts that thrilled me the most:

there were seats
my friend got there early and saved me one, so I was able to both skip the opening band and have an awesome view of the main act
the seats were in the balcony, where all the other old people were sitting, far, far away from the screaming, writhing twelve-year-olds downstairs, where there were no seats
Vampire Weekend has only made one record, which contains 11 songs and runs just over 34 minutes...so even with a couple of new songs and a Fleetwood Mac cover, they were done in about an hour, and I was in bed by midnight

The lead singer of Vampire Weekend is apparently from Montclair* or environs, and so was the opening band, so many of my fellow old people were actually parents, uncles, aunts, neighbors, etc. As we were leaving I heard one woman say to a tall, bearded, awestruck-looking guy, "Your son is a rock star!" Is it weird, do you think, to know that your parents and Aunt Nan and the guy whose lawn you used to mow are watching you dance around on stage in tight pants?

*This despite the fact that he has an accent that makes him sound vaguely South African, but in that made-up way, like how Madonna now sounds kind of British, or Kathleen Turner sounds like a lunatic German.

Choice and Anti-Choice

2008-09-24T21:56:00.001-04:00

Hello, friends. Miss Karen is back from vacation and thinking about choices. There is, of course, that election thing going on, but I don't see that choice as being a particularly difficult one, and you certainly don't need my puny advice or opinions on that topic. I would prefer to talk about the choices I have made about my own endlessly fascinating life. For example, I chose to take my current job because I had been doing a teeny bit of freelancing for a friend, and that turned into an internship, which turned into a job for which I never even applied or interviewed, all because I had (and still have) a master's degree in English Literature, no desire to teach, and poor job-hunting skills. For another example, I chose to move to Trenton because my boyfriend at the time had just bought a house here, and he made it seem like a relatively easy thing to do, and my landlord was starting to piss me off. So I started looking at houses, and that process, in Trenton at least, is pretty entertaining, so I was kind of enjoying looking at all the crazy-ass wallpaper and Paul Anka shrines and mirror paneling. And then when I found a house that I could actually see myself inhabiting, it seemed like I had no choice but to buy it, because I had invested so much of my own (and my realtor's) time in the looking. Plus, remember when we thought Trenton was right on the verge of turning itself around? Or, rather, remember when I thought that? And you were all thinking, what a gullible nincompoop! How adorable!

Now I've been at that job for 12 years and in my house for, um 5? Or 6? I'm not saying that I regret either of those choices--I don't (though I do regret not having chosen anything different on either front since then). They are merely illustrative examples of my decision-making process. I don't analyze. I don't make pro-con lists. I mostly lie around on the couch waiting for something to happen, which I think might be the practical definition of ennui. But I don't really want to bring us all down, man, by whining about my rut again.

Today, children, I want to talk about the little choices. Like when you think to yourself, I need cilantro and eggs and a couple of other things, but also a comforter because there was a Varnish Incident in my basement laundry area when the floor refinishing guys were here, resulting in some lost items, among them the comforter I had thrown in the cellar on the first warm day of the year and never got around to laundering because, you know, I'm so busy watching tv. And now there's a fall nip in the air, so it seems like a good time to go buy a new one. And in an attempt to combine errands--something I was mildly obsessed with even before we were all supposed to be Reducing Our Carbon Footprint--I decided to go to a grocery store that is next to a department store. And that department store was Kohl's.

The current marketing campaign for Kohl's is very, very good. Because it is an absolute fact that I do not really want to wear anything in that store. And yet the television and print ads make everything look so cute that a couple of times a year I get sucked in. Since they also have housewares, and since it had probably been about 8 months since my last visit, I succumbed once again and spent much of Sunday afternoon wandering through the aisles of Daisy Fuentes and Simply Vera Vera Wang offerings, some of which seem vaguely appealing from far away but are oddly shiny or poufy or lumpy close up, but I still for some reason felt that I needed to try on many, many garments. And the more things I tried on, the more depressed and disgusting and suburban and fat I felt, but somehow I couldn't stop myself until I was snapped out of it by one particular high-waisted skirt with zipper trim that I hadn't noticed until I had the skirt on. Beware the zipper trim, children. It seems to be everywhere these days, in the most unexpected places.

But even more depressing than the clothes were the other customers. I saw: a woman sniping at her young teenage daughter about how said daughter might not be so cold all the time if she would cover herself up and not dress like such a whore; an elderly couple complaining about the spoken English skills of the store employees ("We're in THEIR country, I guess, they're not in ours..." etc.); and, best of all, a guy going completely postal at the cashier who had a) dared to ask to see the credit card he was trying to use, and b) declined to accept it because it wasn't his card. My favorite part of the rant was when he claimed it was illegal for her to even ask to look at the card, and he's a business owner so he should know that it's totally okay to use someone else's credit card. Of *course* it is. That whole signature-on-the-back thing is just, you know, so you can practice your handwriting. Oh, and he also asked her if she's a handwriting expert. "So, what?" he sneered, "you work for the FBI part time?" (She pointed out that it wasn't so much that the signature didn't match as the fact that he was a man and the card was a woman's.) The poor cashier I was paying for my comforter was almost in tears, and I couldn't even bear to look at the one he was yelling at. I hope douchebag does call the "corporate office," as he was threatening to, so they can school him. I would have schooled him myself, except that listening to him drained my last remaining ounces of will to live, and it was all I could do to sign my own credit card receipt and drag myself into the parking lot with my new comforter.

So the really lame point of my story is that simply choosing where to buy bedding led me into a soul-sucking void that stoked the fires my hatred for humankind into a raging inferno. And then I had to go to Wegman's.

You Probably Think I Don't Love You Anymore

2008-09-05T19:12:00.003-04:00

And honestly, maybe I don't. But to prove that there are no hard feelings, here is a ska video about Jesus (via BoingBoing, but really via @Jordan_Morris), which may or may not be a parody, but I think it hardly matters.

I am going down the shore for two weeks. Maybe I'll call you when I get back. Maybe I won't.

Duck and Twitter

2008-07-29T15:11:00.007-04:00

Good to know that people will Twitter even in the face of a natural disaster.

In Case You Were Wondering

2008-07-20T20:05:00.011-04:00

Here are some of the things I have been doing in addition to not updating this blog.

Getting the floors in my house refinished. They look gorgeous, and with every passing day the pain of having to move every single piece of furniture from the room where it lives to another room and then back again is fading.
Going to my dog's first birthday party. I know, ridiculous. But one of the people who adopted one of the other puppies from Francine's litter tracked the rest of us down and invited us over for a puppy reunion. I was horrified for about 30 seconds when I first received the "baby's first birthday" invitation and realized it was for a dog. And then I thought, this is going to be hiLARious. And it was. Much puppy scampering and cupcakes and comparing dog notes. This is Francie with her big (literally--I don't know about birth order) sister.

Chauffeuring a friend around and doing her errands...she injured herself to the tune of not being able to drive for 2.5 months. Which in central New Jersey basically makes you a shut-in. And when a fellow spinster needs help, we all must heed the call. Gas prices, blazing heat, and extreme inconvenience aside.
Attending the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. Basically, a bunch of drunk people in body paint and, sometimes, pasties, frolicking in procession under the shadow of the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel. Very fun.

Gardening, and hating every second of it. My backyard is a travesty of weeds, some of which have bark. I hacked down a bunch of them last weekend but couldn't manage to do anything with the refuse, so there is a giant pile of silk tree and various other vegetation by the back fence, which in another couple weeks will, as a punishment for my staggering laziness, no doubt become a home for squirrels or rats or worse. What's worse than rats? I don't know. Snakes? Demons? Oh, plus I now have a bag of each seasonal variety of lawn fertilizer, all of them unopened, in my shed. Because I have had various spurts of big plans for my tiny lawn, and no follow-through. I fully expect a visit from homeland security any day.
Watching John Adams and Season 2 of Big Love on DVD, and waiting patiently for Season 5 of The Wire to be released (in 23 days).
Being stressed out by Google Reader. I have way overcommitted to my feeds, and the number of posts I am theoretically supposed to care about in a given day is averaging around 200. Because I am crazy, I cannot let the unread feeds pile up, so I often click on "mark all as read" in a given category, "geek," say, or "cocktail," after just a cursory scan, which makes me feel guilty because it's like lying, but the pile-up of information I don't have time to pore over makes me feel worse. Is there a support group for this?

I know. It may not sound like much. And it's not. Summer is a slow time here at the Miss Karen Ranch. There's a lot of lying around being thankful for air conditioning and trashy magazines. Not exactly the endlessly fascinating content you've been promised, I know. You just keep reading your other blogs and be happy that I'm not adding to the unread post count on your feed reader.

You Have Already Seen This

2008-07-03T22:38:00.004-04:00

But you should watch it again. And if for some reason you haven't seen it yet, you should watch it. And then watch it again.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

via Boing Boing, among other places

Ohrwurmig, And Not So Ohrwurmig

2008-06-08T12:00:00.009-04:00

There is a German term for a song that gets stuck in your head: ohrwurm, or "earworm." People have compiled various lists of the most ohrwurmig songs of all time, but this week I believe my brain has been alternating between the true, undisputed, all-time top two, neither of which appears on any list I can find:

The theme from The Greatest American Hero (sometimes with the alternate Seinfeld lyrics, when George records himself singing "Believe it or not, George isn't at home...."* into his answering machine)
"It's Not My Birthday," by They Might Be Giants

The lists do often mention the "Gimme a break..." Kit Kat jingle, which is definitely a contender. And is now in my current ohrwurm rotation. Sigh.

Definitely not ohrwurmig at all, as far as I can tell, is anything ever recorded by Deerhoof. I briefly (and very unstrategically, managing to see only the bands I had no interest in and missing all the ones I wanted to see) attended The Roots Picnic in Philly yesterday, and the Deerhoof set was about the strangest thing I saw. Well, except for the woman who was wearing suede boots in 95-degree heat. Anyway, the Last.fm page on Deerhoof describes them as "by turns cuddly and chaotic," and claims that they mix "sugary melodies and an experimental spirit into sweetly challenging and utterly distinctive music." All I can say is that I couldn't discern much melody, sugary or otherwise, and also I am clearly too old for "experimental" music. It just makes me angry, especially when it's 95 degrees and drunken, sweaty 20-year-olds keep careening into me. I'm also, sadly, too old for drunken 20-year-olds. But at least my caftan was breezy, and my orthopedic sandals were very comfortable, thanks for asking.

*Seriously, how did we live before YouTube?

A Bedtime Story

2008-06-04T20:39:00.006-04:00

I know you are all waiting with bated breath for the post I promised you about The Vermont Country Store. I will get to that one of these days, I promise. Between the fact that I am getting my floors refinished, which involves moving every one of my belongings from the room it lives in into another room, and then moving it back, in stages, and the fact that a good friend tore her achilles tendon over the weekend and can now just barely hobble around and can't drive and needs things like groceries and rides to the doctor (and also just so happens to be the friend who was supposed to be helping me move all the aforementioned furniture), I've been busy. And not sleeping well, because, like TrentonKat's, my neighborhood is not exactly fond of quiet time. It's dogs, mostly, making the racket, and ATVs, and general yelling and engine revving and assorted mayhem, usually until well after my bedtime. But the other night was exceptional. Get this:

At 3:30 in the morning my dog went nuts because someone was ringing the doorbell. At first I tried to ignore it, but the ringing was incessant, and so was the barking. So I went downstairs and peeked out onto my porch and saw a man I took to be my next-door neighbor, who is a police officer. So I thought, well, if a police officer rings your doorbell in the middle of the night, you should probably answer it. So I opened the door and was shocked to see not my policeman neighbor, but a guy who used to live across the street, until he and the rest of his household moved out suddenly about a month ago. I referred to them as The Yelling Family, because, well, they yelled. A lot. There was this guy and his girlfriend/wife and two very cute little kids, and as far as I could tell none of them ever spoke below a shout. There was also a fair amount of unpleasant fighting, and the police were often called. But like I said, they all moved out about a month ago. And then there he was, standing on my porch. Asking me for money. To take a train. Somewhere. And he would pay me back. Now, again, it is 3:30 in the morning. (When, incidentally, there are no trains.) And the longest conversation I had ever had until that moment with this man was to comment on the weather, I think. I wasn't frightened--although I'm pretty sure I should have been. I just kept saying "I don't have any cash." And he kept saying "Please" and telling me I was the nicest lady on the block and sometimes calling me "Mommy," which kind of made me want to laugh, except mostly I was just desperate to come up with a way to get him to go away. Which finally just turned out to be me saying "Look, you have got to go now." And he did. And as I tried to go back to sleep, my adrenaline belatedly pumping, I just kept thinking "that kind of shit does not happen in the suburbs." Seriously. In Pennington I promise you that people do not ring your doorbell in the middle of the night with some ridiculous story about how they have to take some fictional three-thirty-in-the-morning train but they will totally pay you back if you just give them $5 or $20 would be fine if you don't have change. Or if they did, your neighbors would hear the commotion (because they're not having to sleep with earplugs to drown out the city noise) and come help a sister out or at least call the cops.

So yeah, I'm also getting a little tired of having to lower my expectations for what a reasonable quality of life should entail. Chrissy, I'll come over with my SuperSoaker, and you can use your garden hose, and maybe we can pick off some knuckleheads together. It probably wouldn't help one bit, but at least it would be satisfying!

How Direct Mail Can Make You Feel Like Crap

2008-05-25T08:03:00.023-04:00

There are many ways that you can tell you're getting old. You can't drink and carouse until the wee hours, for example, and still drag yourself to work the next day (or at least be any kind of useful when you get there). You hear yourself saying things that a) your parents used to say and b) you remember making a mental note never to say. And sometimes you are just going about your day, and you'll see something that makes crushingly, maddeningly clear the immensity of the gap between you and The Kids Today. Yesterday morning, for example, I watched a young girl, maybe 16 or 17, walk past me in shorts, and I could not stop staring at her legs. They looked like they were airbrushed, but in real life: perfectly smooth, perfectly unblemished and uniform in color, long and slender and perfectly formed. I felt a mixture of awe and regret--my legs used to look like that, dammit. Of course, probably like her, I was not under the impression when I was 16 (or 24, or 32) that there was anything about my body to be especially proud of. So I watched (hoping no one was watching me ogle this poor girl), wishing that I had had the good sense to appreciate my 16-year old legs when I had them. But of course that's not how it works. And I will sitting here in 10 years wishing I had better appreciated my 39-year-old body. And knowing that also makes me feel a kind of anticipatory regret, because of course I am not happy unless I am inventing new ways to make myself miserable. But I digress.

Another sign that Miss Karen is getting on in years is a new collection of catalogs that have been showing up at the homestead. Caftans feature prominently in these catalogs, as do orthopedic shoes. The titles are familiar to me from the coffee tables of elderly relatives. I do not know how these catalogs found me, or what I bought that made the great marketing forces in the sky determine that my address should be added to these mailing lists. Maybe it was that case of liniment. At any rate, I think the catalog deluge started with Norm Thompson.

The blinding hideousness of that jacket pretty much says it all. The designers of clothes for women of a certain age often seem to be asserting that wearing a garment with pictures on it--in this case pictures that look like they were drawn by a three-year-old--will make one appear youthful. Pictures of puppies, kitties, or duckies will apparently serve the same purpose, as will artists' renditions of international landmarks:

And of course it doesn't hurt that the models in these catalogs are youthful and attractive, giving the impression that if you buy these clothes you will be in the company of these sassy, smiling young women, who, I promise you, do not ever ask to take any of these clothes home from the shoot.

Among the other catalogs that have shown up lately is something called Soft Surroundings, which is Norm Thompson-esque in its approach but with a weird and obsessive focus on, as the name suggests, softness. All of these retailers seem to think softness is a selling point--along with "slimming," the word "soft" appears on practically every page of these catalogs. But Soft Surroundings takes it to a new level, with a softness rating for every item, from "(1) So Soft" to "(2) Heavenly Soft" to "(3) Ultimate Softness." For example, the Grecian Caftan (in which you will "summon your inner goddess") rates a 2, while the Amelia Island Pant ("subtle cargo styling with ruffled pockets...in a supple blend of linen and cotton gauze [that] gives them a hint of sway") rates only a 1. And then there's FootSmart, which is not just a purveyor of sensible shoes and sandals, but a source for overall "lower body health." Ew. Here are a few choice options:

And yes, everything comes in beige. Some things come in other colors too, but beige is almost always an option. Do you see why I can't help but feel a little bit concerned that somewhere, somehow, someone thinks that there is some chance that I might find myself in need of a pair of Propet Women's Mary Lou Washable Walkers Slip Ons, or maybe some support hose? How did this happen?

But the absolute best catalog of all--the one that almost makes me glad I somehow got on these mailing lists--is from The Vermont Country Store. That wondrous document is so rich with fabulous items in which young and old alike (but mostly old) can delight, I think it deserves its own post. But here's a teaser: they sell Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific. In its original packaging.

For serious. So stay tuned.

A Mother's Day Warning

2008-05-11T20:31:00.003-04:00

While watching this segment on the CBS Sunday Morning News Program for Old People (note: that may not be its real name), at first I was all, awwww. But now I'm thinking, maybe this cross-species caretaking is the animal kingdom's first step toward booting us humans down a link or two on the food chain. Think about it. They're probably figuring that, given what a shitty job we're doing taking care of the planet, they are going to have to take matters into their own hands/paws/hoofs, perhaps over our dead bodies. And wouldn't a good step toward that goal be to make sure that they can cooperate with one another, and perhaps rear each other's babies, to ensure greater survival? I'm just saying. The leopard at the end of the clip was probably thinking, yes, that baboon will make a tasty dinner for me and my brood, and her tiny baboon baby has opposable thumbs that will be useful when the revolution comes....

Kitties, Anyone? Seriously?

2008-05-10T15:24:00.003-04:00

Make that three kittens, and a mom who is fierce and did not wish to be photographed. So c'mon, now, you know you want one. Of course, there will be a rigorous screening process, so all you kitten-sacrificing satan worshipers just leave us alone.

Kitty, Anyone?

2008-05-10T08:50:00.006-04:00

It was mewing and mewing and mewing in my neighbor's yard, and it was so, so tiny and wet, and I am a sucker. So I stepped over the fence and scooped it up and brought it inside, where it promptly ate half of Francie's dinner. Then we had a couple of hours of insanity, as Francie believed I had given her a hilarious new toy, and then I locked kitty in the basement with some more dog food and water and a fine array of soft things to sleep on. Now it's back outside with its mother, who was nowhere to be seen last night but is now conveniently located under my shed, and at least one other sibling. I would like to find a home for the kittens, other than mine. I am allergic (my throat is just now opening back up), plus I like my furniture. So if you would like to provide a happy home to a very scrappy little kitten or two, email me.

Miss Karen Needs To Start Carrying A Flask

2008-05-09T11:21:00.007-04:00

So my brother's wedding was lovely, and the castle was weird and gorgeous. However, because my brother and his new bride do not have two nickels to rub together, and also because they clearly don't understand basic rules of polite society, there was no liquor at the reception. None. And no coffee. It was like we had all suddenly become Mormon. But the upside to that was that it was a very quick reception.

Then I came home, went back to work, and immediately got sick. EVERY time I see my niece and nephew I get sick a few days later. I don't know what kind of special toxic germs those kids carry around with them, but I'm going to start rubbing them down with alcohol and wearing surgical masks and gloves when I see them, I think.

So now I am high on Sudafed and wishing I were lying on the beach in St. Augustine again, watching the kids build sand castles* and listening to the ocean as flocks of pelicans fly overhead. Instead I am snuffling and shuffling around my house in sweatpants on a cold and rainy day, waiting for it to be time to dial in to yet another ridiculous conference call. Home sweet home. Feh.

*I am so lazy that all the pictures I have of the kids on the beach look like these, because I couldn't be bothered to get up off my ass and go over to where they were playing. I just used the zoom lens from the comfort of my beach chair, and have about a dozen pictures of their backs. I'm pretending they're artistic.

2008-04-30T14:01:00.008-04:00

My brother is getting married at Castle Otttis this weekend. Yes, that's with three t's, which apparently are supposed to represent the Trinity, as in the father, son, and holy ghost (if I remember my Sunday school lessons correctly), although please note that none of those words begins with a t. It would make more sense to me if the word had only one t, maybe a capital T, rather than three, but perhaps I am quibbling. Anyway, it looks like a beautiful, but freaky-ass place. For one thing, "all of the masonry work was done by two individuals working together without the aid of laborers, helpers, elevation drawings, or models...." For another, during the construction, "the building seemed to exert its own insistent will." Yipes. However, I was relieved to read that "engineering data was employed to ensure structural integrity," though I'm not entirely sure what that means.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Tweet Peeping

2008-04-27T18:27:00.008-04:00

It's official. I no longer ever seem to have enough to say to fill an actual blog post (and some would quite reasonably suggest that this has been true for quite some time). Recently anything I've had to share has easily fit within the 140-character-per-tweet limit on Twitter, and so I have been twittering more than blogging. But today I will blog about twittering and about micro-blogging in general. Let's call it meta-micro-blogging.

First off, let me admit that I am not comfortable with my new addiction Twitter. It all started with Facebook, my social networking gateway drug, where the status updates had always been my favorite part. Because I am nothing if not pithy, you see. So Twitter was the natural next step, since it is simply all status updates, all the time. But unlike Facebook, where you have to ask to be friends with people, and where I, at least, feel that you should actually know the people you friend, you can follow almost anyone on Twitter with just a click of your mouse. Which is not to say that it makes any logical sense to follow the minuscule updates of people you don't know and very likely never will. And yet...I do it. I admit it. Of 13 the people I currently follow on Twitter, here is the breakdown:

People I actually know: 1
People who know people I actually know: 1
Famous people: 3 (Henry Rollins,* Barack Obama, and Hilary Clinton)
Not famous people per se, but people who have blogs I read regularly: 5
Other random people who seemed interesting: 1
Organizations/groups: 2

I know. It's weird. But then again, I know only 1 of the 17 people who are currently following me, so obviously I'm not alone, and really most people seem to follow hundreds of people, and I can't imagine they know them all, right? So anyway, we all send our random, tiny, stupid, boring updates out to each other, and that's Twitter. That's the whole thing. Sometimes we even talk to each other publicly on Twitter, instead of using IM or email or txt or any of the other bazillion communication options we have in this, our modern era. Because why? I don't know. Honestly. I can't figure out the appeal, except that it must be, in part, the same frustrated exhibitionist streak that made me start a blog in the first place. But I honestly don't love it as much for being able to share my own minutiae as I do for being able to see the minutiae of my peeps. Even Though I Don't Even Know Them. Why do I care that some guy who knows a guy I know went dancing to get his mind off a breakup? Or that some very nice-seeming woman who writes an excellent food blog is baking meringues? I can't imagine why, but I do. And then there are the myriad other sites where you (and by that I mean, "I") can see what other random people are taking pictures of, listening to on their iTunes, etc. For what? To what freakin' end? How is that that the more inundated with information we are, the more we want? Even if said information has no conceivable value? And is really not even interesting? At all?

Probably I'm just somewhere near the apex of this curve, and it will all be over soon.

In the meantime, feel free to see what I'm up to in 140-character increments, until I move on.

*Actually, I met Henry Rollins once. In Pittsburgh. A friend and I drove him to the airport after a book signing he did at the bookstore where her boyfriend worked. He was UN-bearable. Absolutely the most self-centered person I have ever, ever encountered. But also totally fascinating. Although his Twitter feed? Not so much.

Bring Me A Better Toy, Immediately

2008-04-24T07:27:00.003-04:00

He's all: toilet paper roll, schmoilet paper roll.

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

2008-04-16T18:10:00.008-04:00

So first I find this article about a children's book that helps little tykes understand their mothers' need for boob jobs and lipsuction, and then this one about women who are bringing their pre-pubescent daughters in for bikini waxes (no, I am not kidding). Can there be any question that our society is hurtling toward its own well-deserved demise with alarming speed? Can you even pretend to argue that that's a bad thing? If anyone needs me, I will be hiding my fat, hairy self under the covers.

Miss Karen Does A Double-Take

2008-04-14T20:39:00.005-04:00

photo courtesy of wired.com

I was just reading this post on the Philadelphia Will Do blog, and I suddenly remembered that yesterday, after three and a half hours of driving with an anxious dog in my lap (I know, I know) and a stomach ache from too many cinnamon rolls and other ill-advised parental food, I believe I saw a Trenton Police officer on a Segway. I may have been hallucinating, or maybe I dreamed it and I just think I'm remembering it, but god, I hope it's true, because it's awesome. Awesome! Has anyone else seen this?

Anyway, the awesomeness of it made me do a little research, and I discovered that there is a Canadian company that sells a line of Segways especially for police officers, including the "Personal Transporter (PT) x2 Police," which is "a versatile and productivity-enhancing policing solution, designed specifically for the needs of police officers and security personnel who work in a variety of terrains." Uh huh. I'm glad it's not just my ridiculous workplace that needs to make everything a "solution" nowadays.

Birthday Boys and Girls

2008-04-13T17:53:00.006-04:00

I don't know if this is universally true, or just true in my particular circle of humanity, but it seems like a boat-load of people have birthdays around this time. I happen to be one of them. Another one, whose birthday is today, was complaining that I don't post to this blog enough. So dude, this one's for you. It's lame, I know, but please enjoy these family birthday photos. I believe that's my brother's ninth birthday and my fourth, respectively. As you can see, we had some pretty awesome cakes in my family. Don't you wish someone would make you a Pac-Man cake?

More Trash Talk

2008-04-07T20:29:00.000-04:00

As Anonymous pointed out in the comments on my last post, sometimes I don't know what I'm talking about. Trenton does have a clean-up day, and apparently it's in its 21st year. It happens in conjunction with Earth Day, and there are tee shirts. It's on a weekday, and it seems like most of the volunteers tend to be school kids pressed into service, but more power to 'em, I say. And if I can get the day off, I am totally serious about putting together an East Ward JCL Clean-Up Brigade. Email me if you're in, Haters.

In completely unrelated and unbelievably uninteresting news, I cleaned out my Netflix queue.

Am I alone in this, or does having way more movies in your queue than you could watch in a lifetime, and not being able to even recognize most of the titles or recall ever thinking that you wanted to see them, cause you anxiety? What's that? It's just me? Dammit. Anyway, I'm down to a list of about 60, and I am currently rewatching the Bourne trilogy. And let me just say that if Matt Damon ever needs me to drive him to Paris, and maybe wants to cut and dye my hair in some crappy hotel room, I'm down with that.

Nobody Likes Trash

2008-04-02T19:04:00.012-04:00

I just saw this PSA* during a Law and Order commercial break and had to run to the internetz and find it so I could share its awesomeness with ya'll. First of all, Jimmy Rollins is a-freakin-dorable. Remember when the Phillies had those billboards on I-95 that proclaimed him "stealer of bases and hearts"? He is truly both. His weird little smile at the end of the clip gave me butterflies. And Mayor Nutter may be a great big giant nerd, but he is growing on me too, from a personality perspective, anyway...I have no idea what he's doing or not doing in terms of governing.

Wouldn't a cleanup day in Trenton be nice? You know how I feel about the garbage. Wouldn't it be great to see Mayor Palmer in a Thunder uniform inviting us all to give Trenton a good spring cleaning?

Love where you live, Trenton.

*I tried to embed the clip. I couldn't do it. I can't figure out why. Sometimes I hate you, Blogger.

Spring! Spring!!

2008-04-01T19:28:00.002-04:00

It is April.
The temperature is above 60.
I went outside in a tee shirt today at 6:00 p.m. and was not cold.
And, maybe most importantly, the donkey-tail spurge I planted a couple of years ago is blooming its ass off.

Soon it will be barbecue time!

More Random Crap

2008-03-31T19:39:00.007-04:00

This clip is about 4 minutes too long, the narrator of the opening part is kind of annoying, and I can't decide whether I care at all about the mini-documentary at the end, but how can you really argue with go-carts in the shape of cupcakes?

Also, this clip does contain, I guess because Boing Boing needs to eat too, one of my current favorite commercials: the ad for Verizon Fios featuring the awesome-demanding Michael Bay. I, too, demand things to be awesome. It seems to be working out better for Michael than for me, though.

Speaking of my current favorite commercials, I also want a Sven. I need someone with whom to recap my sked-juhls.

And speaking of things that I demand to be awesome, the Phillies opening day was not (unless you're a Nationals fan...is there such a thing?), but the fact that it's baseball season again surely is. Mayor Michael Nutter threw out the first pitch at the Phillies game, inspiring thousands of squirms of embarrassment on his behalf. What do you think the chances are that Mayor Palmer will even show up at a Trenton Thunder game this year? As TrentonKat points out, it's not like he hangs out here much.

Finally, here's another battle in which I cannot choose a side: the Mexican Emo Riots. Anyone? I'm no advocate of violence, but maybe the whining has gone on too long....

A Few Things, In No Particular Order

2008-03-24T13:44:00.005-04:00

Can't Buy Me Love was on television over the weekend. This is one of the few 80s teen movies I missed the first time around, maybe because it is really not very good. But now it's back on the basic cable rerun rotation no doubt because it stars Patrick Dempsey, recent People Magazine cover stud and star of Grey's Anatomy, which, yes, I watch. I hate myself for it, but I am not made of wood, people. The reason I bring it up, though, is that the kid that plays Patrick Dempsey's younger brother is Seth Green, though I did not recognize him and had to replay the scenes he was in when I saw the credits (thank you, TiVo). Of course, no one cares about this except for those of us who are still bitter that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was canceled. Or maybe those of you who remember Robot Chicken, but you may not want to admit that. Oooh, and he also had a guest role on Grey's Anatomy last season...his neck exploded, if I remember correctly. See? Symmetry. But anyway, back to Can't Buy Me Love, there is a huge blond boy who plays a football player, and the actor's name is Phil Simms. I briefly convinced myself that this was New York Giants (or as my father would say, "The New York Football Giants") quarterback Phil Simms, who, in my head, moonlighted as an actor during the off-season. Of course, it turns out that Phil Simms the quarterback was not, in fact, playing a high school lunk-head in a wannabe-John-Hughes flick the same year he was winning the Superbowl against the Broncos. In case you were wondering. Never mind that he would have been 32 that year, a smidge old to be playing a high school kid. I mean, Luke Perry must have been at *least* 30 by the time 90210 finished shooting, right?

One of the food blogs I read regularly and drool over, Married...with Dinner, featured the Dark-n-Stormy as its drink of the week in a recent post. Almost exactly a year ago I was in Bermuda, drinking Dark-n-Stormies in their native habitat. And I'm telling you this, you can be a scofflaw and build your cocktail with something other than the sanctioned Gosling's Black Seal rum, but you will be drinking an inferior beverage. It's that simple.

Gnarls Barkley, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, and Roots, among others, are touring this summer, and while in the end I will no doubt decide that I am far too old and crotchety and delicate for an outdoor music festival, at the moment I cannot wait.

Also, lately I have been scrolling to random places in my iTunes, which at the moment is sorted alphabetically by album name, and playing. This led me to listen to a bunch of Meat Puppets the other night and then the Superchunk track "Slack Motherfucker," which I had not heard in eons. And all I have to say is, I'm working, but I'm not working for you.

Expectations

2008-03-19T18:50:00.006-04:00

I have two things to share, one that rocks far more than I thought it would, and one that rocks a little bit less. The bad news first. Vosges' new chocolate bar with bacon in it (Mo's Bacon Bar) is not nearly as yummy as it should be. Which is not to say it's not yummy. But--and I never thought I would say this about a chocolate bar--it's really not bacon-y enough. I could barely tell the bacon was there, to be honest.

The chocolate was very nice and creamy, and what bacon there was gave it an interesting chewiness and some saltiness, but I was really excited about the prospect of getting a real hit of bacon with my chocolate. Call me crazy. And it just wasn't there. Also, what in the HELL is "alder wood smoked salt?" It says that on the front of the package, but the ingredients list just plain old "salt." Hmm.

On the other hand, the thing that has exceeded all rocking expectations for me over the last couple of weeks is this guy:

Gary Vaynerchuk is the director of operations for Wine Library in Springfield, NJ. He also does a daily video podcast about wine. Now, when I heard about this, despite the glowing review I was getting, I thought, meh. I like wine, but I have never been able to distinguish much beyond red versus white in terms of taste, and serious wine people have always struck me as pretentious dorks. Gary is serious, to be sure (and maybe a little dorky, in a good way), but he is far from pretentious, and he is also a freakin' riot. This is my favorite episode so far for his sheer enthusiasm, but they are all quite impressive, in terms of both information and entertainment value. So far I have only found and tried one of the wines he recommends (the 2006 Castell-Roig Xarel-lo), and it was yummy, though I admit I did not really smell the hay and apricots. But I look forward to doing more tasting, trying to detect cement dust, pig crap, tar, and the myriad other flavors and aromas that are apparently lurking in our wine. Who knew?

Music To Which To Lie On The Floor In The Dark And Think About How Much Your Life Sucks

2008-03-17T19:32:00.007-04:00

Okay, I was going to call this post "Music To Kill Yourself To," but that title has already been used by (among others) several hypberbolic people who bothered to create playlists of sad music on Amazon.com. Plus I don't actually want to kill myself, I'm just kind of in a funk. About a 6 on a 1-10 scale of funks. And when I am in a funk, happy music is an affront. So I turn the iTunes shuffle to the playlist I call "Kill Me," and shuffle around the house grumbling and eating unhealthy foods and periodically weeping. Lovely, right? But I figured that since I've got nothing else for you at the moment, I'd share a list of songs that help me enhance feelings of extreme melancholy. Because there's nothing like a good wallow, is there?

Cannonball: Damien Rice.
Persuasion: Richard Thompson. There are many Richard Thompson songs in the Kill Me rotation, but this one is, I think, the most wrenching, because of the aching hopefulness but also weariness. Plus his son, Teddy, who sings with him on this, has a voice that would melt butter.
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down: The Band. That one's a little embarrassing, but I cannot lie...it gets me every time.
Flyswatter/Ice Water Blues: Lyle Lovett.
Moonshiner: I think the Uncle Tupelo version is my favorite, but they're all pretty freakin' depressing.
Hallelujah: This is another one that many people have covered, and every version kills me. The Jeff Buckley original is heartbreaking, but so is the Rufus Wainwright cover, and the Willie Nelson cover, etc.
Angel From Montgomery: John Prine with Bonnie Raitt.
Falling Slowly: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. From the Once soundtrack. That movie will also make you cry like a baby if you have one ounce of humanity left in your tired, angry soul.
I Will Follow You Into The Dark: Death Cab For Cutie. Yes, it's emo. Get off me.
Fix You: Coldplay. Here's another embarrassing one, and this is why: I think the only reason this one does what it does to me is that it was the soundtrack to one of Marisa and Ryan's gazillion weepy reunions on The O.C. There. I said it.
Why Can't He Be You: Patsy Cline.
Come Pick Me Up: Ryan Adams.

So there's a little sampling, in no particular order. If you have any suggestions for additions, send 'em along. Who knows how long this funk will last....

Domino Effect

2008-03-11T17:40:00.002-04:00

Last night my neighbor's chihuahua began barking at around 12:30 and did not stop for about 90 minutes. After that it took a break, just long enough to allow me to let go of my fury and go back to sleep, and then it began barking again for about an hour. This pattern continued all effing night, so for 6 hours I vacillated between murderous rage and fitful sleep. There were points where if I had had access to a gun or a crossbow or a pea shooter, that dog would have experienced the business end of it. But of course it's not the dog I'm really mad at, it's the owners who a) leave their dogs outside all night when b) they are not even home to hear them barking. I guess I could have called the police, but even in my murderous rage I was rational enough to realize that the Trenton police have way better things to do at 3 in the morning than agree with me that those dogs really should shut the hell up. With the owner not at home, what else could they do?

So needless to say I was not at my best today. It's amazing how much of a difference one night of disrupted sleep can make. For one thing, I am basically wearing a clown outfit today: loud colors, big pants, and weird shoes. I don't even really remember getting dressed this morning, but something obviously went horribly wrong. Also, I had way too much caffeine in an attempt to compensate, and then I ate four Yodels* when I got home, so now I am nauseated and vibrating, and my head is pounding. If that dog is out there barking again tonight, all of Mercer County should probably up its Miss Karen Threat Level to Orange, because I only need two nights like that in a row to become completely unhinged. Remember the Incredible Hulk? It's kind of like that. Only with sarcasm instead of muscles. And no purple spandex shorts. Thank god.

*I was researching whether Yodels are the same as Ho-Hos (they are), and in so doing I found this old Ho-Hos commercial, and on that page are links to some other lovely old ads, including my favorite, the "arguably racist 1960's Jell-O ad." Thank you, YouTube.

Sunday Morning Gluttony

2008-03-02T10:59:00.003-05:00

I got up this morning as the sun was just coming up* and ate my usual bowl of fibrous hippie cereal with soymilk. On a typical day that and a couple of cups of coffee are plenty to carry me through the morning. But not today. Today the idea of pancakes took hold and would not let go, so I made up a batch of chocolate-chip-cinnamon pancakes and ate them until I had to go lie down. If this were a food blog I would give you the recipe, but if this were a food blog the recipe would probably be more than "do what it says on the Bisquick box and add some chocolate chips and cinnamon." Oh, so wait, I just gave you the recipe. I highly recommend you go follow it. Right now. You won't be sorry, though you will need a nap.

*I am compiling a list of reasons why you should not get a dog. Never again being allowed to sleep past 6:45 am is on the top of it.

OverMatched

2008-02-27T17:25:00.004-05:00

After several months--this time around--of internet dating, I would like to formally announce that I am done. Just done. All of my profiles are down. I will not be picking out any more first-date outfits. I will not be sitting at any more bars at any more T.G.I.Fridays, dressed in my first-date outfit, waiting for any more men to show up looking like they just rolled out of bed. I will not be checking my phone as I sit there wondering how many minutes late he can be before I'm allowed to leave. I will not be ordering any more whisky to get me through the small talk. I will not be wishing he would stop talking with his mouth full, or making that whistling sound with his nose, or flirting with the bartender. I will not be gagging on any more bad cologne. I will not be spending any more time scrolling through profiles and getting annoyed, or depressed, or bewildered, depending on the day. I will not be wondering every time I go out (or go to work, for god's sake!) whether that's the guy who looked at my Yahoo profile last week, or if it's just a guy with similar hair. I will not be hoping he calls, or hoping he doesn't. I will not be wondering how a person can think it's okay to post a 15-year-old picture on his profile and pretend it's current, or neglect to mention prior to the date that he is currently under indictment. I am tired, and bored, and I am giving up.

Which is not to say that I think internet dating is bad. In the modern suburban world* I'm not sure what the other options are for meeting new, ideally single, people. Language classes? Religion? Stalking cute guys at Wegman's? None of those seems terribly promising, frankly. Plus, what I liked about internet dating is that the point of the activity is clear. You both know you're there to assess the possibility of a relationship of some kind. Whereas if you just stalk a guy in Wegman's, he will likely have no idea what the hell you're up to (especially if you are as socially inept as I am) and may call security. But I think that clarity is also the problem in some way--it's clear, but it's also completely artificial. Suddenly you're engaged in a complex interaction with a total stranger, where on the surface you're talking about where you went to college and how many siblings you have and who you favorite Top Chef contestant is, while you're really trying to figure out whether this is something you really want to pursue, based on his participation in that totally banal conversation, and maybe whether he has food in his teeth or makes eye contact or lets you get a word in edgewise. I honestly am starting to wonder not why I haven't met anyone this way in a while, but how anyone ever does. And of course I'm not alone--this article from last week's Times of Trenton is hilarious and rang totally true for me. I only wish my dates were anywhere near as hilarious as hers--especially number 9. That story almost makes me want to go back online and try to find some freaks, just for the stories to tell afterward. Almost.

This also reminds me that, a long time ago, I took a quiz on one of the dating sites that was supposed to, oh, I don't know, give me deep insights into my personality and what kind of person I would be best suited for. Or something. I can't really remember. What I do remember is that for some reason at the end of the questionnaire, as part of your results, they decided it would be a good idea to tell you what percent of the members were your ideal type, and what percent of members would be attracted to you. If I am remembering correctly, the answers for me were 5% and 2%, respectively. Two percent. Two. Nationwide. I guess it's no wonder I'm not having much luck. But if any of those lucky 2% are wandering around Wegman's, they'd better look out.

* Yes, I know, I technically live in a city. In terms of crime, trash, and pit bulls per capita that is clear. But lifestyle-wise I feel no less suburban in Trenton than I have felt in any suburb I've ever lived in. I still have to drive to get any but the most basic essentials, there are no reasonable public transportation options, and there is hardly what one would call vibrant night-life. Or day-life, for that matter. There are also almost no single people, which is, to me, another hallmark of suburbia.

RottenNeighbor.com: Revenge Of The Nerds

2008-02-22T13:52:00.006-05:00

I found this site on Boing Boing today (I am starting to have a Boing Boing problem, btw). It allows you to find your neighbor's house via Google Maps, highlight it, and leave a comment about the rotten things that neighbor perpetrates on society. And I know we should all be trying to love our neighbors as ourself, but seriously, how much do you just want to start detailing all of the ways that all of your neighbors suck? I am going to step away from the computer for a while to try and collect myself, otherwise the only comments in Trenton so far will be for houses immediately surrounding mine. And that just doesn't seem prudent.

Miss Karen Supports A Woman's Right To Not Answer The Goddamn Phone

2008-02-20T20:31:00.004-05:00

Dear NARAL,

I am steadfastly pro-choice, and I have supported your organization monetarily in the past. I have also written letters to my elected officials supporting a woman's right to make the very personal choice to terminate a pregnancy, and, if she makes that choice, to have access to safe and legal means to do so. And I, too, am alarmed by how that right is eroding in various states, and by how the overturning of Roe v. Wade seems, frighteningly, more and more possible lately given the shifts in the Supreme Court.

However, is it really necessary for you to call me between 3 and 8 times a day? Every day for at least the past six months? Including weekends? And holidays? Seriously. When are you going to give up? Maybe it's petty of me at this point to not just pick up the phone and put you out of your misery, and mine. But now I just kind of want to see how much longer you can keep this up.

Oh, and also? Why are you the only telemarketers left in the world who do not understand the technology we call voicemail? Because it's not bad enough that you call me at all hours of the day and night (well, 8:00 am to 8:00 pm, roughly, but still), but then you leave me a message EVERY TIME. That message is always the same. It goes, "Hello! May I please speak to Karen [insert bizarre mispronunciation of my last name here]?" Except sometimes when you're feeling sassy and informal, and you go with "Hello! Is this Karen?" No, dumbass, it's Karen's voicemail. I don't know what feature or methodology the rest of the cold-calling world has mastered that you have not, but somehow everyone else knows to hang up when they get a machine. But not you. No, not you. Your hopeful voice has shown up in my inbox every day for months and months. Now, maybe if I were to answer the phone and send a donation, you'd be able to afford whatever gadget it is that tells your callers when they are speaking to a recording and not a person. Or to hire smarter callers, if that's the simple solution. But at this point I am sorry to say that we are in a stand-off, and you are not going to win. This is why the good lord invented caller I.D.

Again, I support your work wholeheartedly, and I wish you the best in your efforts. I may even make a donation through your website. Would that get me off of your call list? Ha ha. Just kidding. That would be asking too much, I know.

Sincerely yours,

Miss Karen

Forum Etiquette

2008-02-20T18:59:00.002-05:00

May I suggest this as required viewing for all internet forum junkies? Remember, a high post count does not automatically make you cool.

How To Behave On An Internet Forum

(via VideoJug, via Boing Boing)

Miss Karen Is Almost 40, And She Is Just Sick About It

2008-02-19T15:57:00.004-05:00

One of my bestest all time friends turned 40 last week, and he and his wife threw a party to celebrate. Since I will be turning that wondrous age myself in a couple of years, I figured it would be good practice--and good karma--for me to go to Denver and join the festivities, plus they adopted an adorable baby girl over the summer whom I had not yet met. Everything was lovely. The flight out was full but on time, I got to see the new Denver Museum of Contemporary Art (which is in a kick-ass new building AND has a full bar...that's my kind of museum), the weather was gorgeous for a spin around the lake near their house with the baby in her stroller, waving at every single person and dog that walked by. Other friends of theirs whom I'd met at their wedding also came in from Los Angeles for the party, and we all had a fine visit. We went thrift-store shopping. We watched Superbad, which I'm admitting to you, but you can't tell them, that I didn't actually think was all that funny. The major birthday event was a brunch on Sunday, and I had a great time seeing all the people I've met and hung out with on visits over the 11 years that the birthday boy and I have been friends. My flight was early Sunday afternoon, so I got a ride to the airport from some party guests who were heading in that direction, and arrived at my gate soon before boarding.

Then it all went to hell. That "too many pancakes" feeling in my stomach that I was attributing to all the fabulous brunch food turned out to be the beginnings of a nasty, nasty stomach flu that presented itself full-on about an hour into the 3-hour flight. I will not go into details, mostly because I'm still weak enough that thinking about it too much could cause a relapse, but let me just say that a) I have now vomited in places that no one should ever have to vomit, and b) I would not wish that experience on my worst enemies, though that is a little bit fun to think about.

So my apologies, reader, for not being more prolific lately. Between the travel and the flu, I have been focusing my energy elsewhere (for the last couple of days on the path between bed and bathroom, almost to the exclusion of anything else). But I think I'm on the mend now, so I'm sure there will be many more fascinating blog posts here for your enjoyment in the near future. In the meantime, I'm going to avoid birthday parties for a while. And planes. And food.

This Week's Winner

2008-02-10T08:14:00.000-05:00

This week's Most Hilarious Google Search Terms That Led Someone To Click To This Blog:

camera phone pics of big asses in trenton nj

Again, thank you for visiting, though I'm sure you were disappointed, since it was "camera phone" + "trenton nj" that brought you to me, not "big asses." And thank you, too, for giving me something new to be afraid of: people taking pictures of my ass with their phones. I may never leave the house again.

Super Conflicted

2008-02-05T07:58:00.000-05:00

I do love voting, and I can't wait to head over to the Knights of Columbus, which I will do in an hour or so. But I still am not 100% sure of whose button I will push when I get there. I've been reading and watching the debates (well, clips of them online while I'm supposed to be paying attention to conference calls at work), and it all seems to come down for me to intangibles and emotions that have little to do with either candidate's actual position on issues.* I was going to try to analyze my feelings on this for you, because I know how much you love that, but then this morning I read Bitch Ph.D.'s description of her struggle to decide, and all I can say is "that goes double for me." There are always intangibles: personality and "likability" (does that word exist outside of politics?) always factor in when you choose a candidate. But this time it all makes me feel vaguely icky because I feel like my reasons for liking or disliking either candidate are almost certainly, to some extent, bound up in race and gender stereotypes that I'm not even fully aware I'm engaging. It almost makes me miss the white guys. Almost.

Also check out Bitch Ph.D.'s previous post about her experience volunteering for the Obama campaign, which also contains my favorite blog quote of the month. She has just been saying that most of the women she called during her phone bank volunteering were not willing to say whom they were planning to vote for:

So thinking all day about how these women reacted to being interrogated about their voting plans, I was really disappointed, upon getting home from watching the Superbowl, to read the following line in this NYT article: "But at the Upper West Side gathering, four white, liberal, baby-boomer women defended Mrs. Clinton’s feminist credentials as they sipped red wine and talked politics with a gusto more often reserved for topics like sex, husbands, children and real estate." I am getting really tired of the "all women are now like the characters from Sex & the City!" meme. Get over it, world. Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda are characters in a television show. Ask any actual woman which character she's like and she'll probably be stumped, because they are not like real people. They are archetypes, and they are interesting archetypes who eventually change and progress, but they do not represent women. Anyway, this is patronizing and sexist. Women actually care about politics?! No!

In that same post she also mentions my favorite effect of Edwards dropping out of the race: people keep talking about what the educated white men will do now. Poor lambs! What will they do without one of their own to vote for? Suck it up, boys, and come ask the rest of us for pointers if you want. We've been dealing with that for decades.

*Clinton or Obama, duh. Did you think I was talking about McCain and Romney? Please.

Sugar + Caffeine = Happiness

2008-02-03T15:54:00.000-05:00

I just made some mad yummy rice-krispie-treat-like things, from a recipe I found here. They are not your standard RKTs, though, in that they don't have marshmallows, and instead they have peanut butter, cocoa powder (because I am a hater: see yesterday's post about my relationship to veganism), and instant espresso powder. So basically, my three favorite things--coffee, peanut butter, and chocolate--all bound together with Karo syrup. Mercy. Now if I could only stop vibrating.

Not My Idea Of A Fun Vacation

2008-02-02T11:07:00.000-05:00

I use Sitemeter to see how many (or how few) people have looked at my blog, but more than the numbers, I love looking at the search terms people enter that return my blog in the results. My absolute favorite one ever came this week. Someone in Australia entered "waxed bald labia vacation" into Google and got a link to my August post about the disclaimer I had to sign at a salon. I do not know, nor do I want to know, what kinds of things this person actually hoped to find, but I do thank her or him for visiting.

Mac Daddy

2008-02-02T10:14:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I was having delusions of healthfulness. These spells come on me now and then, and usually result in an expensive trip to Whole Foods and a cupboard full of things like spelt and textured vegetable protein, but unfortunately the spell often passes before I get around to doing much with my new ingredients. I was in the midst of this particular spell while I was trying to use up a Christmas gift card at Borders, and I found a cookbook that I had read about online (here, among other places): the ominously named Veganomicon. I am not a vegetarian, much less a vegan, but I don't cook very much meat at home, and I am also pretty intolerant of lactose (it just pisses me off, really), so I thought I might find some useful recipes in there. And it was full of aggressively healthy things made with millet and brown rice and soy yogurt, and I was in a health spell, so I brought it home.

The first recipe I decided to try, for some reason, was their vegan version of macaroni and cheese. I guess I was craving actual macaroni and cheese, which I should have realized was actually a really good reason NOT to try this particular recipe. The only commonalities between this recipe and mac and cheese were the elbow macaroni and the overall look of the dish when it was done, though even there the tint was a bit off. The "cheese" part was a sauce made of vegetable broth, spices, mustard, and nutritional yeast flakes (only available in a giant tub at Whole Foods--another thing that will sit in my cupboard untouched for the next decade). The macaroni was mixed with tofu and then the yeast sauce, and the whole thing baked in the oven. Aside from the fact that this person added greens and I didn't (though that might have helped), this is what it looked like. Ew, right?

But by this point I was starving. And even though it looked somewhat questionable, it didn't smell that bad. So I spooned a giant glob of it onto a plate and tucked in. And really, it was quite edible. The edges got crispy like real mac and cheese, and the whole thing had kind of a nice texture. So then I had a little more. But somewhere in the middle of that second helping a dark feeling came over me, and my tentative feelings of good will toward the dish started to fade. It was not until after I finished eating, however, and turned to the cooling mass of Mac Daddy still sitting in the enormous (why didn't I think about how much would be left over??) 13x9" pan that it all went bad. Suddenly the smell was toxic, and my stomach turned a little. Trying to repress these feelings, though, I got out a few food storage containers (I did not have one big enough to hold all of the leftovers) and divided up the remains, putting some in the fridge and some in the freezer. The recipe did say that this dish freezes well, after all. And probably I just overate...I'm sure it will seem appealing again the next time I'm hungry, I thought.

But no. I tried to heat some up a couple days later for dinner and I could barely even look at it. After a few bites I knew it was a lost cause. And for a couple more days it was like it was taunting me from the refrigerator...I was too grossed out even to look at it long enough to throw it away, and I did seriously contemplate just tossing the tupperware and starting over. Or moving out of my house and leaving it behind. Eventually, though, on garbage day, I managed to dump it all, put it on the curb, and get the containers into the dishwasher on the super-hot pots-and-pans cycle. I'm mostly over it now, though sometimes I still wake up screaming with it in my dreams. And I honestly don't even understand what went wrong--because it really was not that terrible, at first, and it's not like I have very high standards for what I'll eat. Maybe I was being punished by the vegan gods for dabbling in their world with no serious commitment to the cause. I mean, they do say that the intent of the book is to prepare me for the vegan revolution. I'm obviously not ready for that. I will actually probably be among the first against the wall when that revolution comes, with a Rossi's hamburger in my hand.

Facebook, I Love You

2008-01-25T18:51:00.001-05:00

Because you enabled some guy to engage in a hilarious bit of data mining: Books That Make You Dumb charts the top 10 books at every college listed on Facebook against average SAT/ACT scores at those schools. I'm kind of surprised about Wuthering Heights, though.

Back On The Bandwagon

2008-01-21T14:24:00.000-05:00

The Red White and Blue was hopping on Saturday when a couple of fellow Trenton bloggers and I stopped in to see what the bric-a-brac shelves held in store for us. The last couple of times I'd been there the pickings had been slim, but I have also found some incredible gems there, so I am ever hopeful. And man oh man, my hope was not misplaced this time:

At $1.95 each, these were a tad pricey, although honestly I didn't even look at the price tags until I brought them to the counter, and despite the cashier's questioning--nay, judgmental--look, there was no way I was putting them back. Oh, and yes, they are the kind of glasses that change when you put hot or cold beverages in them. Their underwear melts away. I am not kidding. Unfortunately, these must have been run through the dishwasher, because now only putting them under really hot water seems to do the trick, and I have to believe that they used to work with cold drinks, because people don't generally drink hot tea out of glass tumblers, right? As is often the case when I find something particularly choice at a thrift store, I am dying to know whom these used to belong to. And why, oh why, would they have gotten rid of them??

Between this outing and my trip to Galicja on Friday night, I am right back on the Trenton bandwagon. As Hidden Trenton attests, that place rocks. And it helped me remember why I wanted to move here in the first place. You're not going to find $2 drafts and free pierogies in any of our neighboring cities or towns, and that kind of makes up for the garbage and crime and general nonsense in my book. And of course, if you get rid of all the garbage and crime and nonsense, and start making a city like Trenton a desirable place to live, eventually the free pierogies dry up, because those folks can't afford the rents anymore, and you end up with an Applebees where Galicja used to be. Of course, that is so far from happening here that I'm not too concerned--I think there will be plenty of $2 beers and free buffets for years to come.

If You're Not Part Of The Solution....

2008-01-18T13:49:00.001-05:00

As virtually all of my fellow Trenton bloggers have extensively discussed, City Council passed a resolution on Tuesday that gives Mayor Palmer a week to make Police Director Santiago either say he will move to Trenton or face dismissal proceedings for violating the city's residency law. Given both Palmer's and Santiago's past statements on this matter, there doesn't seem to be much chance of either thing happening without further intervention. Never let it be said, though, that Miss Karen isn't willing to think creatively to help solve a problem. If Santiago's hesitance to move here is due, at least in part, to the financial burden of maintaining two homes while he sells his current house in Stirling, I am hereby offering my spare room to him at a very reasonable weekly or monthly rate. Even though, if his claims of harrassment are true, I may be in for worse than dog pee on my morning paper, I'm willing to make that sacrifice if that's what it takes. And I think it could have its upside too: I have visions of us sitting in our jammies watching Charles Osgood on a Sunday morning, and maybe making waffles. Or walking the dog together around the park (where, honestly, lately I've been feeling like I could use a guy with a loaded weapon by my side). And maybe he's into home improvement projects, in which case he could help me put in that quarter round on all the upstairs moldings, or help me clean out the dryer vent. So I'm going to make a call and let him know he has options.

Apologies All Around

2008-01-09T18:53:00.001-05:00

Please allow me to say I'm sorry for being such a whiny-pants in my last post. My cold-induced self pity got a bit out of control. The fact that I can't get a decent latte on a Sunday in Trenton is obviously far from the most serious problem facing the world today. It's not even the worst thing to happen to me lately. That honor goes to the new chicken mcnuggets commercial. Those little rapping freaks are invading my dreams with their paean to that deep-fried crap.

Anyway, to make it up to you, I offer you the cutest father-daughter photograph ever taken. I am still scanning up a storm, and I've only made it to the mid 1970s.

Greener Grass, Cleaner Cars, Etc.

2008-01-06T18:06:00.001-05:00

I get my car washed *maybe* three times a year, but I had enjoyed my trips to the car wash down near 29 on Lalor Street ever since I moved to Trenton. First of all, they were, in their words, Vacuum Crazy!! And there were pictures in the corridor of what the car wash looked like in bygone days, as well as a fine assortment of air fresheners and greeting cards, all of which you could enjoy as you waited for your car to come out the other side, where it would be vacuumed (like crazy) and dried. But a terrible thing has happened. I was too stunned to notice whether it has changed its name or ownership, but they have revamped the whole place. Now you have to pay first at a little drive-up machine, and then stay in your car as you go through the wash. There was a guy there to help me with the machine, and I was glad he was there, since though I am generally quite able to handle drive-up tellers, I was somewhat disoriented by this one. It had that disturbing electronic-lady voice and it did a lot of talking. I explained to the guy that I wanted a wash and vacuum, and he punched in some buttons, swiped my card, and handed me a receipt. Okay, fine. So I don't get to admire the pictures and the air fresheners. I can deal.

But then I got to the end, drove up to the vacuum area, and started to get out. It turned out, however, that according to my receipt, I had only paid for an exterior wash, though that wasn't what I'd asked for. And I was summarily dismissed without so much as a single rag swipe. Sent on my way in a dripping car. Then I got home and noticed that my car was still quite dirty and now, also, soapy. Grr. At least it only cost $5.

So then the next day I was on Route 1 and decided to stop into the Tiger Wash or whatever it's called to right the wrong that had been done to my poor car. And man, those people can wash a freaking car. In the end you could have eaten off the hood. Or off the driver's side floor, which is even more impressive. And which I have done on occasion, though not on purpose (when your french fry drops, are you just supposed to leave it there??).

So it's a little thing, I know, and you can chalk it up to my aversion to change if you want. But it is the little things--like having to drive all the way to The Princetons or somewhere else outside my fair city to get a decent car wash, or a good cup of coffee on a Sunday, or friggin' groceries--that are wearing me down about living in Trenton. That, and the garbage. I feel a little bit like Andie MacDowell in Sex, Lies, and Videotape when I say this, but seriously, I don't know what to do about the garbage. The seemingly endless amount of trash that blows into my bushes every day is killing me. Oh, and the fact that I am, I swear to god, the only person in my whole neighborhood who picks up after their dog. I'm almost embarrassed to do it, because I feel like people are looking at me like I'm crazy. But I'm going to keep doing it, dammit, because that's what civilized people do. And p.s., to the person who periodically lets his/her dog pee on my newspaper in the morning...there is a special place in hell for you, sir or madam. A very special place, with a very special smell.

Obviously, there are many more important problems in Trenton than dog shit or car washes. The schools, and the crime rate, and the increasingly questionable antics of our elected and appointed officials, to name a few. And of course they're all tied together--the garbage and the other problems, the little and the big. And most days I'm fine with picking up the 300th pizza box liner/ lottery ticket/ soda can off of my sidewalk, paying my taxes, and working in my own little ways to bring about change. I'm mostly just full of crankiness and a head cold tonight. But I also have to tell you, now when I go back to the small town where I used to live, a quaint and snooty place I was totally sick to death of, I think, my god, how clean it is. And how completely safe I feel walking to my car at 10:00 at night. And how nice that there are several places to get a cup of coffee that are open all weekend long. I won't say "is that too much to ask?" because right now, in Trenton, I already know it is.

Her Majesty's Royal Pelicans, And Etc.

2008-01-04T15:17:00.000-05:00

I am no travel writer, but here are a few things about London I thought I'd pass along.

The queen has pelicans. Big–ass pelicans, living in St. James Park in front of Buckingham Palace. I would have thought that pelicans would find it too cold in London, but they seemed happy enough. Apparently you can watch them being fed if you're there at the right time. We weren't. We just got to watch dozens of tourists feeding the squirrels. Why? I don't know. Do they feed the squirrels where they come from? Do they not have squirrels where they come from? Is there a place on the planet that doesn't have some kind of squirrels?
I was surprised at how dirty London is...even St. James Park was litter-strewn. Seems like the queen would not stand for such nonsense, and I can't imagine it's good for the pelicans. Though this may just be timing--the whole city seems to take a two-week holiday at Christmas, so maybe the litter-picker-uppers were on vacation. But I also found it odd how few trash bins there were on the streets.
Speaking of the whole place taking a two-week holiday, if you are in the Smithfield Market area on New Year's Day and are looking for a place to eat, let me save you some trouble: this is the only place that's open. Luckily, the food is delicious, and the wine list is ample. However....
The music in all public spaces in London (and I remember this being true in Paris as well) is just awful. Awful, and way too loud. At Ortega they were playing Rod Stewart's greatest hits. All of them. And you'd be surprised how many "hits" Rod Stewart has recorded. You'd also be surprised at the volume at which Mr. Stewart was being played, given that there were maybe eight patrons total. And really, where have you ever gone to dinner in this country where the ambient music was an entire CD of someone's greatest hits? The only example I can think of that comes close is when my ex's band was playing at Conduit (which is now the 449 Room, I guess? I lose track of what has come and gone from that space), along with another band, and before the show started, between the bands, and after the show ended, the music coming through the loudspeakers was Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water album. The whole thing. Seriously. It was unbelievable, but so was the fact that they made all of us eager patrons Stand Outside In January while the bands did their sound checks. We could have been inside, paying for drinks, instead of vehemently cursing the owners, managers, and anyone with a passing association with the joint. Instead, we were standing outside, where incidentally we could hear the sound check perfectly, in 12 degree weather. But I digress.
On a less annoying note, The National Gallery, in addition to housing an enormous number of artworks in a beautiful space, does a very nice tea in their cafe. And although I am generally not a fan of the guided tour, the London Walks outfit runs some very cool ones. On the Chelsea Pub Walk, for example, we went to three pubs we never would have found otherwise, and we learned lovely tidbits like that Mick Jagger and Julie Andrews were next-door neighbors in the 60s. I bet that went well.

That's all I've got for now. My post-vacation cold is clouding my memory, and my sinuses, so I'm going to go lie down.

Cheerio!

2008-01-03T15:30:00.001-05:00

So I spent the last days of 2007 and the first of 2008 in London. I have a very good friend who is there for three months for work, and I am not one to turn down a free place to stay in a fun place. Ever. Plus, this friend and I spent last New Year's Eve together, and it was hands down the most depressing one either of us had ever spent. In a nutshell, I got to her place around 8, with the intention of figuring out somewhere to go out, even if it was just to her neighbor's NYE party. But we really didn't want to go to her neighbor's NYE party, and we were having trouble coming up with a better option. So we opened some champagne and turned on the tv, you know, to think about it, and soon got sucked into some god-awful movie...maybe one of the Mission Impossibles? I can't really remember. Then we started talking about all the ways in which 2006 had sucked. So I was depressed by 9:00, drunk by 9:30, home by 10:00, and asleep soon after that. We were determined to do better this year, which, we figured, would not be hard, because even if we ended up doing exactly the same thing, i.e., getting drunk in front of the television and falling asleep early, the fact that we'd be doing it in London would make it automatically better. You see, as usual, my bar is very, very low.

Thankfully, it turned out that New Year's Eve itself was much better than last year, even if on the surface it didn't look that different. There was champagne and television again, but this year it was after a full day of sightseeing and a couple hours at a cool pub, and the television was not a crappy movie, but BBC3's thoroughly, appallingly entertaining The Most Annoying People of the Year 2007. Among those I recognized on the list were David and Victoria Beckham, Amy Winehouse, Pete Doherty, and Heather Mills, plus a respectable number of Americans (we can annoy from all the way across the Atlantic, apparently), including Britney Spears. But the vast majority seemed to be either footballers or on the British Big Brother, both of which are taken very, very seriously over there. And here's something that I found surprising but oddly comforting: people being snarky about other people can be funny even if you have never heard of the people at whom the snark is being directed. Like music, snark is a universal language.

Evidence That Some 1960s Upholstery Fabric May Have Been Capable of Driving Children To Madness

2007-12-28T18:54:00.000-05:00

Look at the eyes, man. That couch is clearly evil. Never mind the matching drapes.

Stollen Update #3: Christmas Epilogue

2007-12-27T08:12:00.002-05:00

So there were three loaves of stollen in the end: one was not cooked through and fell apart into a doughy mass when I took it out of the pan. One was a little bit burnt, but not too badly, and one was, more or less, just right. Or at least my father claimed it was--I don't care for the stuff myself, so I don't have a clear memory of what it's supposed to taste like. And he may just have been being nice. Otherwise, Christmas was lovely. The puppy got some treats, a fine dinner was eaten, and no one got drunk, belligerent, or weepy. I did not quite finish the photo album rehab project because there are many, many pictures to scan--for example, this lovely shot of me and our dog Gretchen on my first Christmas. Those snowflakes and little soldier head ornaments are still on my tree. But don't ask me what that is I'm holding--I'm guessing some well-meaning neighbor made it for me--I know it was no one in my family, as those women were crafty as hell and could have done way better than that.

Stollen Update #2

2007-12-25T08:59:00.001-05:00

The good news is that the dough did not overflow the bowl and creep all over the counter. The bad news is that I don't think it rose enough, and the second rising doesn't seem to be going all that well either. And I am cursing my lazy ass for not attempting this more than 24 hours before my dad arrives, because he has his heart set on the stollen our mothers used to make, and I suspect I will instead be offering him leaden bricks with raisins. Merry Christmas!

Stollen Update #1

2007-12-24T18:27:00.000-05:00

I wish I'd thought of this before I and my kitchen were covered with flour: I do not really have a mixing bowl big enough to mix 12 cups of flour, a pound of butter, 2 cups of sugar, and 3 cups of milk, never mind a pound of raisins, a pound of citron (though I actually only bought a half a pound of citron--I was so excited that I found it in the first place I forgot how much I needed), and the rest of the ingredients. So I kind of mixed the dough in two separate bowls and then recombined and put the giant ball in the biggest of my not-big-enough mixing bowls, into which it barely fits. Now it's supposed to rise for 12 hours. I suspect when I wake up tomorrow it will have taken over my kitchen.

Miss Karen Is Having Herself A Merry Little Christmas

2007-12-24T16:05:00.001-05:00

So I finally got a tree on Friday, and given that I found it only a few days before Christmas, I have to say it's not half bad. A little Charlie Brown, but not embarrassingly so. And just in case you ever need to know, a 6-foot tree will fit inside a Mini with the seats folded down and a considerable but not unsafe amount sticking out the back.

The presents are bought and wrapped, the cards are sent, and the Christmas dinner fixin's are bought. The only thing left to do is make the stollen. I promised my father and my uncle I would make it and so now I must deliver. But timing is everything, since the recipe my mother used, and which now I must follow, requires the dough to rise twice, the first time for 12 hours. I guess when you involve 12 cups of flour and a pound of butter, significant rising is necessary to ensure that each loaf (the recipe makes only two) doesn't weigh 35 pounds. I will let you know how it goes....

Meet Cute

2007-12-22T08:27:00.000-05:00

I learned a new term this week, and it happened in that way that I always find kind of spooky. You know, when you read or hear a new word or term or concept you've never in your life heard or read before, and then you keep coming across it--suddenly it's everywhere. In this case, I was watching a cheesy holiday movie from last year, about how Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet swap houses for Christmas and thereby fix everything that was wrong with their lives, mostly thanks to Jude Law* and Jack Black,** respectively. The term I learned was "meet cute," which refers to the contrived meeting of romantic partners in a romantic comedy. Then that same term turned up in an article in Entertainment Weekly about Charlie Wilson's War (no, that is not a romantic comedy, though I have heard it's quite funny). And THEN I was doing a little blog surfing and I came across What's Alan Watching, a nice TV blog, and in an October post the term is used about an episode of How I Met Your Mother. So, anyway, weird.

In other news, among the Christmas gifts I've received so far this year is a box of Polish chocolates. There are very few English words on the box, so it's hard to know what you're putting in your mouth, but luckily there is basically no limit to what I will eat if it is covered in chocolate. I do not speak any Polish at all, but there's a phrase on the box that, in what is I'm sure a completely wrong pronunciation, has started rolling around and around in my brain. KOLEKCJA SMAKOW. With an accent over the O in SMAKOW, which I have no idea how to produce in HTML. Or to pronounce in Polish. So in my head, it's "kolecha smackow." Try it. I think, in Whitman's sampler terms, it means "delicious assortment," or at least that's what I've discerned from a Polish translation site, which tells me that KOLEKCJA is "collection" and SMAKOW is "relish"--the verb, not the noun, I assume. So, anyway, yum.

And finally, to make all of you other procrastinators feel better, here is a list Christmas items I still don't have:

A tree
A completed list of sent Christmas cards
A present for my father
A clue about what to make for Christmas dinner

* What has happened to Jude Law? Remember how lovely he was in his early movies, most notably The Talented Mr. Ripley? He is not so lovely anymore. Though I'm still not going to kick him out of bed for eating crackers.
** I love Jack Black. I may be the only woman on earth over the age of 25 who owns a Tenacious D album. But he is downright creepy in this movie, I think because he is trying to play just a straight, regular guy. And we all know he is not a straight, regular guy. He is a mad genius.

Pathetique

2007-12-15T09:42:00.001-05:00

If there is anything more simultaneously ridiculous and sad in this world than a dog with a cone around its neck, I don't know what it is.

Also, the vet calls that an "E-collar," short for Elizabethan collar, but it is certainly a lame-ass version of this:

If Francie had something that looked more like that, I'd feel less bad for her. But I have to say I don't think this is really a better solution, dignity-wise.

But Not A Leopard-Skin One To Be Found

2007-12-13T17:26:00.001-05:00

My parents were married in 1965, which was also apparently the year of the pillbox hat. The first picture is of my mother and her oldest brother. I don't know if this is the actual wedding or the reception--I think they both took place in the same building, whether it was a church or a rented hall (Elks Lodge, maybe?). Anyway, her brother would have "given her away," since my grandfather died when my mother was a teenager. The other picture is of my two grandmothers: one who lived the better part of her life in Westchester County, NY, and one who lived her entire life in Yankton, SD. I bet you can guess who's who, despite the almost-matching hats.

Me and Mom

2007-12-09T19:32:00.001-05:00

Having volunteered to take all the old falling-apart family photo albums and rehab them as a present for my dad for Christmas, I figured it would also be cool to digitize some of the better photos. So I bought a scanner/printer over the weekend, and after some initial setup issues (thanks for the help, Geek Wizard!)) I've been scanning like mad. So I suspect you'll be seeing more of me, and my mom's fabulous outfits, in the weeks to come.

Another Reason Why Living Alone Does Not Suck

2007-12-03T20:02:00.000-05:00

I have never really mastered the concept of meals. Being able to have more than one thing be ready to eat at the same time, especially if any of them involves cooking or heating in some way, seems like a superpower to me. Luckily, my standards for what constitutes a meal when I'm feeding myself are pretty low, and I have no problem with eating things sequentially, as they become ready. I also have no problem eating peanut butter sandwiches for dinner, for that matter.

I went to the farmers' market over the weekend for apples, and I also came home with brussels sprouts (because they were still on the stalk and that seemed cool) and a huge fennel bulb (because it was $1, and somehow that seemed like a deal I couldn't pass up, not that I have any idea how much fennel should cost). So tonight for dinner I had brussels sprouts and fennel and parsley salad. Because I can follow a recipe (though both of these barely count as recipes, they're so simple). Both things were extremely good. But I was still a little hungry, so then I made cinnamon toast. And had a handful of almonds. Now I'm full and happy, but I am also aware that there is no way I could serve such a strange collection of things to someone else. Even though all of them were yummy and, together, relatively nutritious. But for some reason, and I don't think I'm alone in this, meals shared with other people seem like they have to take on a more traditional shape, even when they're other single people, who you know spend many a night standing up in the kitchen eating cold cereal for dinner. But I love my weird dinners, and I would hate to give them up. Of course, the way my dating life is going, it doesn't seem likely that I'll be forced to make that sacrifice any time soon. Unless I need to take in boarders to help me pay my vet bills.

Listening to: Rilo Kiley and Modest Mouse
Reading: Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn
Buying everyone for the holidays: Spam subject lines as hand-lettered art

Look! Over There!

2007-11-30T07:27:00.000-05:00

Like all right-thinking mammals, I respond to the cold and constant darkness at this time of year (never mind the impending H-word) by hibernating in a nest of fleece and Smartwool. I basically have not left the house except to go to work since the day after Thanksgiving. Consequently, I have very little to talk about except what I have been reading on the interwebs. To wit:

Bitch, PhD got a hilarious letter and responded hilariously.
I spent a fair amount of time coming up with dirty things to put here and sending them around to my friends.
Hamstergate! Tinsel, the hamster I babysat (pet-sat? hamster-sat?) a couple months back is the subject of some controversy. Or, a couple of disgruntled letters to PW. One or the other.
This post, from Kate Harding's Shapely Prose, is a good read for those of us who, when we are not in our nests of fleece and Smartwool, are typically baking treats to take back to said nest. And then feeling bad about it.
And speaking of treats, I am pleased to report that a crew of dedicated snackers are diligently eating every packaged snack food they can find and giving us their honest assessment. Not sure you want to go ahead and buy those Hostess Glo Balls you're eyeing in the discount bin next to the check-out line at the drug store? Whip out your iPhone, get online, and see what the experts have to say. In this particular case, they basically say back away slowly.

Oh, and my dog has cherry eye. Do not click the link unless you have a strong stomach. So yes, she has gone from being the cutest puppy in the world to being kind of scary looking. But she smartly waited until I had become just bonded enough to her that not paying a bazillion dollars on a surgery to fix it that has only a 50% success rate is inconceivable.

Realtor Pie!

2007-11-21T22:40:00.000-05:00

To contrast a bit with my previous post, I would like to give you one example of something that isn't pissing me off. You might, given the season, even say I'm thankful for it. It's Realtor Pie! I bought my house, what, four years ago? Five? Something like that. But every year, around this time, without fail, my real estate agent (or someone from his office, or someone hired as a temp by his office to drive pies around) drops off a pie on my porch. Every year. Do any of you homeowners out there still get this kind of love from your realtor this many years after the sale? I wonder if all of his clients get the same treatment, or if some of us are on the perpetual pie list for special reasons. In my case it might be because I very likely overpaid (though of course you'd still have to sell three of my houses to afford to buy anything like my house outside the Trenton borders). Or because I actually bought the house of the woman from the realtor's office who was responsible for showing me houses? (I maintain that she just sold me her house to get rid of me. "Jesus, you don't like these three either? Just because they have seven layers of hideous wallpaper in every room, plus roof leaks, plus wiring that dates to the Eisenhower administration, plus mice? And ghosts? Fine, Ms. Fancy Pants, just take mine.") Whatever the reason, I have pie! Apple cinnamon crumb. Happy Thanksgiving!

Miss Karen Is In No Mood

2007-11-20T12:26:00.001-05:00

People, it is cold, and dark all the time, and it will not stop raining, and the holidays are upon us, and my dog just simply refuses to be housebroken, and, as I have mentioned, they have stopped selling donuts in my office cafeteria. And that's just for starters. So in lieu of thoughtful commentary or amusing anecdotes, I'm going to have to just give you a short list of (other) things that are pissing me off. Because I know it's been a while, and you miss me, but I am just not capable of anything more sophisticated than that at the moment. Okay? Get off me.

That Victoria's Secret commercial with that skinny British girl, in which apparently we're supposed to be distracted enough by her exposed ribcage and poofy (or is that "poufy," if she's British?) boobs to not notice that the insipid limerick she's reciting rhymes "air" with "air." Couldn't they spend five more minutes coming up with an a/a/b/b/a rhyme scheme that doesn't actually use the same freaking word more than once? I don't know why that pisses me off so much, but it does.
That commercial for Sync, that voice-activation tool for your car, where the guy in the fancy SUV-looking-thing is talking to his stereo, and he says, "Play artist: The Strokes." And he is so smug and self-satisfied as he's saying it, like he's soooo cool for listening to The Strokes who, by the way, the rest of us got over YEARS ago. And it always makes me wonder how long it took for those ad writers to come up with a band that, in their opinion, was hip enough to impress their demographic, which must be people with the right amounts of gadget love, disposable income, and tolerance for Microsoft. And they probably nailed it. Those people probably are Strokes fans. They are just old enough to remember their hipster days with fondness, and perhaps to still believe they are not yet behind them. But they are. Clearly.
Football. More specifically, Sunday afternoon football, and the fact that for some reason the games always take longer than they're scheduled to, which pushes back 60 Minutes, which pushes back prime time, which means that somehow, every Sunday, I end up watching a large chunk of The Amazing Race while I wait for the admittedly schlocky Cold Case to come on. And if those contestants are not absolutely the most annoying people on earth, I would like for someone to tell me who the most annoying people are. I could barely keep from hyperventilating last Sunday when one of them couldn't manage to milk her camel and was crying like the world was ending.
Christians. More specifically, the ones who are getting all bent out of shape about The Golden Compass. Because it might expose children to ideas other than the ones their parents are inculcating them with. Wouldn't that be tragic? As if simply learning that there are other perspectives in the world will turn young Christian moviegoers into bands of dangerous, marauding atheists, bent on worldwide destruction. You didn't see me getting all exercised when The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe came out, did you? Did that make young impressionable kids demand to be sent to Catholic school? No, it did not.

Okay. That is all. I promise to try to calm down.

Dog Bites Man

2007-11-11T20:18:00.000-05:00

If you've been keeping an eye on news in The Princetons lately, you have probably read about Congo, the German shepherd who attacked a man in Princeton Township last week. There is much debate around whether, or how much, the man provoked the dog, but there is no debate around whether it was a brutal mauling. (It was.) So a judge has determined that the dog should be euthanized, as is, I guess, common practice in cases like this. But the dog is a beloved family pet, and the story has caught the attention of the local papers, so that family's heartbreak has turned into a minor media event. There are Save Congo blogs, rallies, message boards, and petitions, all with the same message: Congo deserves to live because he was just protecting his family. That's entirely possible. As one person interviewed for the Times of Trenton article said, "The only one you can get a true story from is the dog, and he's not talking."

I don't at all want to trivialize the family's sadness about this. Their pet has been taken away, and that situation is clearly upsetting for everyone, not least of all the dog, who is living in a cage awaiting a decision about his fate. But it also make me wonder how this whole story would have played if the dog were a pit bull and not a German shepherd. Would people be calling, as they have in other cities, for a ban on pit bulls? Even though a) the pit bull is actually not a recognized breed (so how, exactly, can you ban it), and b) obviously other dogs can be vicious too? And what if the family were not affluent Princetonians?* I don't know whether dog attacks (pit bull or otherwise) are among the underreported crimes in Trenton, but it's certainly the case that it's been a long time since I've seen anything in the paper about one. So in this case, is the groundswell of support for poor Congo simply the result of the media attention, which is in turn possibly the result of the fact that the attack happened where it did? Would we feel the same way about any dog and family in this unfortunate situation? Would we see message boards and petitions imploring us to save some poor pit bull whose owner lost control of it in Trenton, allowing it to attack a man? A teenaged boy? A woman? A child? When does our sympathy kick in, and for whom?

This may be a cop-out, but my sympathy is almost always for the dog first. We take these animals in, train them as well as we are able or willing to, and basically hope for the best. Having a dog always means taking on a certain amount of risk, no matter how fluffy or harmless-seeming the dog may be. And no matter how well you train it. Even if you're Cesar Millan. Because in addition to being loyal and protective and willing to humiliate themselves for treats, dogs, sometimes, bite when they perceive a threat. This does not make them evil, and in an ideal world a dog would not be punished, or killed, just for behaving as its instincts tell it to (or for having an owner who either didn't train it well enough, or didn't adequately control the situations it was in, or both). But in the end we have to put the safety of people ahead of the safety of dogs. I guess the gray area comes in figuring out how to do that.

This whole thing also made me remember and reread an article by Malcolm Gladwell that appeared in The New Yorker a while back, in which he talks about pit-bull bans in the context of racial profiling. It's quite a fascinating analysis--as evidenced by the fact that I read it almost 2 years ago and it stayed in my brain. That is a minor miracle, given the mush into which my brain seems to be turning. So check it out.

*Okay, I'm just assuming they're affluent, because they live in Princeton Township, and they had a team of landscapers coming to work on their property. And they can apparently afford to feed six dogs. My one puppy is about to put me in the poor house, so I can at least tell you that these people are more affluent than I am.

Guest Blog

2007-11-10T11:45:00.001-05:00

Francie spent the day with a friend and her dog yesterday, and my friend apparently encouraged Francie to release her inner blogger. I am unclear about whether Francie was typing or dictating.

Dogblog. 11/09/07. 10:36 am.
after a long time in that weird moving thing that always makes me feel like barfing, mom and i got to the place with the big black and white dog and that nice human i see sometimes. big dog and i went outside and ran in circles and rolled and rolled and rolled in the dirt for a while and then ran around in and around all the green stuff and then rolled and rolled and rolled in the dirt and slobbered on each other. then we did all that again a few more times. big dog finally seemed to be tired of the game (don't know what's wrong with her) and so we both went to the white door to the inside place and slapped our muddy paws on it and whined. the other human let us in. not sure where mom went. after playing in the indoor place for a while the human put the long rope things on our necks and we walked near some loud water and some loud moving-thing path noise. there was a lot of interesting poop to smell. big dog did a poop but i didn't. don't like to so much with that rope thing on my neck. then we were outside all these other indoor places and the human left the big dog outside where some guy did human barks into his hand and petted her. i got picked up (finally) and human and i went inside and the place smelled like that stuff mom has in the kitchen every morning and the other human gave a puppyish human four big green leaves and got a white container with good smelling stuff in it but i didn't get any. and then we walked even more (i was getting really tired, though you'd never know that now because big dog and i are now "quiet playing" in the inside where other human and big dog seem to live...but i digress) and then we went into another indoor place (while some human puppies in a moving thing that wasn't moving made funny "aaaawww" "puppy" noises at us) and inside there were all these things like mom has (human removable fur/hair, i guess) and an older human gave us both green crunchy treats. yum! then we cam back here. i'm tired but i'm gonna fight it till i can't keep my eyes open anymore. gotta go pee now.

The Trans Fat Police Are Ruining My Life

2007-11-07T10:12:00.000-05:00

I really, really want a donut. But the cafeteria at my place of employment, in an apparent effort to safeguard my health, has decided that while scones and muffins are allowable, donuts are not. I'm assuming this is some kind of trans fat issue. Needless to say, I am furious. I live a quiet life. I am not a risk-taker. I do not leap out of airplanes or mainline heroin or hang out with Danny Bonaduce. I rarely drive more than 10 mph over the speed limit for crying out loud. So if I want to take my life into my hands by eating the occasional donut (gasp!), I fail to see why the Aramark juggernaut should decide that, for my own good, they will not sell me one. I was fine with the seatbelt law, though I do feel nostalgic for the days when no number of kids was too many to pile into the back of a car. I was fine with the smoking ban, though sometimes I still long for a cigarette while drinking at a bar. So it's not like I'm a Libertarian or anythng. But this is taking paternalism too far, don't you think? Give me chocolate glazed or give me death!

The Democratic Process

2007-11-05T13:52:00.001-05:00

I love voting. I love the election volunteers, and signing my name in the book, and the old lady who watches to make sure the curtains close properly behind me when I go into the booth. I love that I can never remember what ward/district I live in, and there are always two lists at the polling place, and I always have to make both of them look me up, which they do, happily, every time.

I do miss the mechanical voting booths they had in New York when I was growing up and first old enough to vote, though.

There was such a satisfying "chunk" sound when you pressed the lever down by each candidate's name, and somehow the fact that opening up the curtains with the big red handle also registered your vote and put all the levers back up seemed like an engineering marvel to me. I remember going with my mom to vote in the "cafetorium" of my elementary school, and standing with her in the booth as the curtains closed, and the one time that she let me pull the handle to open the curtains, even though I think she may have thought that was slightly illicit, given that I was only 9 years old.

The little push-button light-up booths are not nearly as sensually pleasing, but I still enjoy them--the little "bleep" sounds are fine in their way, and the green lights are lovely. I am not sure what it says about me (or about this slate of candidates) that I am more excited about pushing the buttons and seeing the lights light up than I am about actually casting a vote for anyone who's running.

The image above came from here, which is actually a fascinating little history of voting, if you're into that kind of thing.

Before and After

2007-11-04T09:18:00.001-05:00

It may be kind of hard to tell from these pictures, but Francie got her first haircut this weekend. That's the good news. The bad news is that she smells like a freaking Yankee Candle store. Not a single Yankee Candle, which might be bad enough, but the whole damn store. The groomer was very sweet,* and seems to have done the job with a minimum of trauma to the pup, but holy crap, the smell of whatever shampoo they use is giving me a headache. I wonder if it's like the car wash, where you can ask (though it doesn't always work) that they forgo whatever vanilla strawberry toxic deodorizing nonsense they usually apply at the end. I will try that next time.

*I had driven by the place--Debbie's Pampered Pets--dozens of times on my way to the farmers' market, but didn't decide to go there until I read Hidden Trenton's write-up. I do like to keep my business in the 'hood, whenever possible.

Scoot

2007-11-01T18:37:00.001-04:00

Enough depressing weird shit has been happening around me lately that I have been finding myself often in need of quick, easy mood enhancers. This video, of my friends' daughter Isabel, has been doing the trick.

Better Stuff Than This To Read

2007-10-22T20:32:00.000-04:00

Once again, Heather Havrilesky's take on something made me go "yeah." This time, it was the Ellen DeGeneres dog shenanigans. As you may recall, I was turned down for a dogs by a couple of private shelters for having the sheer gall to be employed full time. I'm sorry for Ellen and her hairdresser, but I hope that shedding some light on these "priggish control freaks" does some good.

I have also been sheepishly reading Andrew Keen's blog and am curious about his book. I admit that I was totally anti-blog--especially the very kind of blog I write--before I suddenly found myself sucked in by Blogger. I maintain to this day that it was mostly the joy of choosing layouts and font colors that drew me in.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I've been reading Blogography. That guy has totally embraced minutia as an art form.

Socks

2007-10-21T20:25:00.001-04:00

Over the years my anti-NPR stance has softened somewhat. I used to find the murmured righteousness hard to take, but as I age, and my brain softens, I am able to listen to, and even enjoy, many of the programs. I still want to shake Terry Gross a lot of the time, but she does interview interesting people, so usually I am able to tune her out and just listen to them. Ditto Ira Glass. The news programs are generally innocuous enough, and probably helpful in making me a better informed citizen, since my other primary news source is The Daily Show.

But the Philadelphia public radio affiliate--WHYY--has got some humdingers on during the day. A lot of call-in shows. Call-in shows give me hives--I just cannot listen to them. Sometimes I try to force myself, but as soon as "Jack from Langhorne" gets on and starts blathering about how his own personal life experience is so very, very relevant to whatever the hell the topic of the show is, I have to change the station. It's Pavlovian. I have absolutely no control over it. Sometimes I can't even get past "Thanks for taking my call."

Anyway, on a trip home the other day to let the dog out at lunchtime, I got to listen to a bit of Dr. Dan Gottlieb's Voices in the Family. Dr. Dan is a family therapist, and about Dr. Dan himself I will only say that he makes me even more resolute in my stance against therapy. His guest was Stephen Fried, an essayist who has recently written a book about how hard it is to be a married guy. Or at least that's what it seemed like it was about based on the 20 minutes of interview I heard. He and Dr. Dan were talking about socks--specifically, how men can't ever seem to get them in the hamper. Near the hamper is the best they can do. So let's pretend for a moment that that is not an absurd generalization (I have never witnessed this behavior myself, but perhaps I only know neat-freak men). I was interested to learn why it is that men supposedly can't perform this simple task. "What are they thinking?" I wondered. I thought at least I would learn what Stephen Fried is thinking when he throws his dirty socks in the vicinity of the hamper, but not in it, despite apparently knowing that this makes his wife insane. But I did not get an answer to that question. Neither did Dr. Dan, though he did ask point blank. Instead, Fried wanted to talk about socks a metaphor for all the petty things that wives want their husbands to do. "Women want so many things," Fried whined on behalf of beleaguered men everywhere. "How are we supposed to know what the important ones are? Can we get a list of the top 5?" The implication was that if socks made it to the top 5, they'd happily put them in the hamper. But then don't try to make them stop drinking straight out of the orange juice container, or putting their beer on the coffee table without a coaster, or whatever other male/inconsiderate behaviors wives are supposedly losing their shit over.

Whatever. It all sounds like more useless gender stereotyping to me. What I still want to know is, why can't men--or Stephen Fried at least--get their socks in the goddamn hamper? It's one thing if you take off your socks in some part of the house that is not near the hamper. Then I totally understand. I believe there is a particularly uncomfortable bra downstairs that I took off while watching tv several weeks ago and have yet to retrieve. But if you are near enough to the hamper to get the socks close to it, why can't they go in? The best theory on this I've heard is that maybe, on some level, the guy is thinking, "I might need those again. Better keep them where I can find them, in case there is some kind of emergency and I need easy access to socks." I guess I can get behind that. Maybe I will make someone a fine husband someday.

The Little Things

2007-10-16T20:54:00.000-04:00

I guess I have kind of a problem with change, which is why I have had the same job, and essentially the same life, for as long as I have, despite the fact that I can't say that I'm especially happy about it. But that's a discussion for another day. My problem with change, though, doesn't just center on the big things. Little, peripheral changes also mess with my equilibrium. For example, my favorite gas station (Roger's on South Olden) just all of a sudden all closed up. Gone. Shuttered. It looks like forever. It doesn't seem like they're putting in new pumps or anything. It's just dark and closed. Now, obviously, I can get gas somewhere else, and now that I have a new car with a many-year service plan, I wouldn't even be going to Roger for oil changes and new light bulbs anymore (which in itself made me a little sad, to be honest). And I do know that Roger opened up a cheesecake place recently (Angelo's on Whitehorse-Mercerville Road), so maybe he's just decided to get the grease out from under his nails and move on. (Now that Michele Lorie's is closed, he's probably doing a brisk business.) But every time I drive by the gas station, and see the blank white squares where the gas prices used to be, I get sad. I wonder where my favorite gas-pumping guys are now. Bon chance, do-rag guy and droopy-pants guy who always called me "sweetie"!

Another, even more pathetic example? One of the anchors on the lame morning show I watch is leaving, and this is after I was just finally getting used to him...he replaced another anchor (my beloved George Mallet) a year or more ago, and that put me in a morning funk for weeks. I don't know if I will recover this time.

Oh, in other news, I am famous. The Downtowner (which still has no website) now apparently has a regular feature on Trenton blogs, and I made the October cut. I would complain that they did not properly identify the name of my blog (they called it Killer Louise), but the name of my blog is so dumb that I can't really blame them. And really, since the name is not even the dumbest part, I find it kind of hard to believe they even bothered to mention me in the first place. But hey, I'll take it! I haven't been mentioned in a newspaper since my parents put my college graduation announcement in the local paper. Yeah, that was super cool.

Is It Just Me?

2007-10-08T21:09:00.000-04:00

Or is this blackberry disturbingly huge?