December 31, 2008
Leaving New York is always so instantly liberating.
It's like, as soon as the train resurfaces from the tunnel, minutes from New York, the possibilities are so endless. Well, at least the scenery is exotic.
At a local supermarket
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December 30, 2008
I just did four loads of laundry
Am tidying up my space and getting ready to ring in 2009 out of town -- in Pennsylvania! It's my first grown-up (as in, not in a bar, not in a club, involving proper food, conversational-level music) New Years Eve ever. Most years I either go out and have a bad time or stay home and fall asleep before midnight. I'm really excited about not having to flag down a taxi (impossible feat!) at 2:00 a.m. or try to find something to eat at 4:00 a.m. -- one year, I went out with my friend Alex and they let us into Pastis at 4:00 a.m. for a very late dinner. That year the weather was brutal, snow up to our knees, we went to at least three parties that night and I wrecked my new Marc Jacobs shoes walking through the slush. Ah well. Tomorrow? All civilized all the time. I hear that deer sleep in my friend's front lawn. That would be a lovely first thing to see in 2009.
December 29, 2008
Best day ever, 2009 looks promising
2. The City starts tonight on MTV.
3. After three years of ongoing frustration with my rubbish expensive cable/internet/tv people (RCN), I FINALLY talked to the smartest person ever over there, a woman named Melissa in Client Retention services. She was amazing, and I'm not even being facetious. She fixed all my billing problems (which were not really my problems, but problems with their computers, which created problems for me) and knocked my monthly bill in HALF. Seriously, she is amazing. By far the best cable experience I've ever had in my entire life.
December 28, 2008
"Cold and oblivion were all I was looking for at the time, but this didn't worry me. Sooner or later, I knew, I'd rejoin the world of the living.
OMG I'm cooking
December 27, 2008
December 26, 2008
At Barneys. 75% off is wonderful, but sad for luxury, and what it means is terrifying.
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December 25, 2008
Merry Christmas!
And Christmas cats.
December 24, 2008
December 23, 2008
December 22, 2008
Fun with old photos: Jordan

In early 2000, Elizabeth and I thought it would be fun to rent a Hyundai stick-shift hatchback and road-trip through Jordan for five days visiting the medieval ruins in the desert. Yeah, we talked about this recently when we met up in Hanover for reunion and in retrospect, we're not sure what we were thinking. We just kind of landed in Amman, picked up the car, and went. Since I can't drive, it was up to Elizabeth to do the steering and, well, no offense E, but she wasn't really that good with the stick. I remember pulling up in front of (I think I remember it) the Castle Hotel in Karak, a very hilly town, in the middle of the night and we had to keep accelerating up the hill as we rolled down the window and shouted at the man in front of the hotel to please jump in and help us park the car because it kept rolling backwards downhill. At one point in the trip we got lost in the middle of the desert -- the sand in south Jordan is fine and red, like a Burnt Siena crayon red -- and kept driving, didn't turn around until we saw a sign saying we were 40km from Saudi. The car didn't have a CD player, and the only tapes we had with us were a Don Henley's Greatest Hits mix and some other music that I think included Dave Matthews, which makes my ears bleed, so we drove through the red desert listening to and rewinding "Boys of Summer" over and over and over again for days. I remember gas was 9 cents a gallon. We didn't talk that much after the first day, but one morning we were on a long stretch of road and there were no cars in front of us and no one behind us, just mountains and desert and Don Henley and Elizabeth said to me, "Wouldn't you rather be doing this than sitting in an office anyday?" Yes, I would, absolutely.