I noticed you before in the gallery. You were being loud and sounded angry even though it was a Maira Kalman exhibit. She’s not loud or angry. She’s all about being good-natured and wry and taking things in stride. And being amused. You didn’t seem amused.

I don’t know what’s up with you today. Maybe it’s every day. You are in a wheelchair so maybe it’s that. That would be difficult. I don’t know what I’d do if I were in a wheelchair. I hope I’d be one of those inspirational people who take up extreme skiing or sailboarding and get profiled in People or on Good Morning America. I think it would take me a really long time to get there though. I mean the being great about it, not the sailboarding. The sailboarding might take me forever. (I’ve never had very good balance.)

Whatever it is that’s bothering you though, it’s not nice for the rest of us if you take it out on a stranger who didn’t know you were waiting for the mom-with-kids/handicapped bathroom stall in the really nicely designed ladies room at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Honestly, I didn’t know you were waiting when I took my time sorting A. out. Do you think I would’ve kept you waiting on purpose? I hope not. That would be a tough way to go through your day, thinking people who don’t even know you are purposely being rotten.

Not to sound like a mom, but you really didn’t need to take that tone with me. If you’d just politely said you were waiting or made your presence known - a slight cough, an amusing note under the door - I’d have been just as obliging, I promise, but you wouldn’t have put that little bit of unpleasantness into the world by making me and little A. feel bad. I know you can’t feel good about it either. No one does when they’re mean, however justified they feel they are. It backs up on you. I know. I’ve been there.

Please, next time give me a little more credit for being a person who doesn’t knowingly inconvenience strangers. And remember: other people don’t think about us as much as we’d all like to think that they do. Which means that when they drive by you in their cars, even if they seem like they’re looking right at you, they probably didn’t register your amazing ensemble, the one with the alluring hat and the matching socks that you wore specially. (Don’t worry: the people who love you did and that’s what matters.)

But it also means they didn’t mean to cut you off in traffic. They were probably thinking about something else entirely. Like how their boss yelled at them this afternoon or that maybe they married the wrong person. Or maybe they’re rushing to save a kitten, one of the really adorable ones.

Of course, there’s a very slight possibility that you’re right, that that person really did mean to intentionally rain on your day. I’m sorry if that happens to you regularly. That has to be difficult to bear. But take a moment, just today, to consider whether that’s really true, even if you really, really believe it is deep down inside. Think hard. Is the world really not on your side on purpose? Between ourselves, I doubt it. You know why? Because I wasn’t, even though you thought I was.

We - everyone, all of us - are exceptionally bad guessers. It’s the scared part of us that thinks we’re great at guessing and tells us our worst guess is the correct one. The fact is, most of the time, we just don’t have any idea what’s going on with other people, so we may as well decide to believe the nice thing, right? Because in the end, it will make everyone’s day, including yours and mine and tiny A.’s, a little brighter. And we can all use a little sun.

Have a nice afternoon.

Thanks to numupdraft for the photo.

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

Pants are killing me. Not mine, hers. The baby’s, that is. It doesn’t bode well.

I spent a sizeable chunk of my wardrobe mindspace in my 20’s and earlier 30’s worrying about my pants, so that’s already sorted. (If you’re self-aware, you make your peace with what works - Lucky Easy Riders, yes, please - and what doesn’t, which we’ll just leave with “pink,” “Juicy Couture,” and “ass.”) Fortunately, I’d left my corporate gig before I got pregnant so I didn’t have to buy a new office wardrobe, and, miraculously, I only put on 18 lbs during the pregnancy, so I made it through the nine months pretty comfortably in yoga pants (thanks very much, Lululemon and Prana) and boots with jersey dresses (Cora Kempermann and Susana Monaco, for the record).

Now, though, I have to concern myself with dressing two people, one of them with zero self-awareness so it’s all on me that she doesn’t look idiotic.

Three quarters of the way through the pregnancy, I read a “minimalist moms” list of must-buy items for your newborn. Little side-button shirts until the umbilical cord heals, then tiny bodysuits, long- and short-sleeved. Fine. But she’s not Donald Duck - what’s she wearing on the bottom? I looked everywhere. I asked other moms. Vagueness all around. “We put him in pajamas a lot,” was as specific as it got. I’m all for hanging around in sleepwear, but at the very least you should have some alternatives handy in case of emergencies. Like an earthquake. Or a date. Or the UPS truck. I’m just saying, I don’t know where your personal pants threshold is, but think ahead and be prepared, right?

In all the stacks of stuff people gave me at the baby shower, I swear to God, not one pair of pants. Pajama union suits. Little sacks to sleep in. Tiny dresses. Shoes (useless but cute). No pants. How can you receive a complete wardrobe and no one gives you any bottoms? That’s the like the worst Price is Right package ever. Are most infants just wandering - well, lying - around pantsless? That’s weird, isn’t it? In my view, wearing pants is an issue of human dignity and I think my kid deserves some.

Finally, right after she was born, Baby Gap came to the rescue. Little teensy black pants for my little teensy New York daughter. And - from the boys’ department - navy striped ones that make her look like she’s a tiny escapee from Pirates of Penzance. I got a lot of, “What adorable pants!” comments too, which leads me to believe that most of the baby-witnessing population is used to seeing unclad baby legs.

It was a lot of effort for some very small rewards, and if I were more well-slept, not parenting an infant and generally more focused right now I’d definitely cash in on that market opportunity. (If you have sleep, focus and no infant, that’s my gift to you: start making baby pants. You’re welcome.)

Not to go on about it, but now that that stage is solved, we’ve got a different pants problem. She has pants but she looks…well, she looks like an 85-year-old golfer from Boca. There’s a lot of squirm in a four month old, so her finally-found pants ride up as high as they can but since the bodysuit she’s wearing underneath them is snapped in place, it lies flat. It’s not a good look. If I skip the bodysuit and go with a shirt, that rides up too, making her look like a tacky, midriff-baring MILF with, let’s face it, kind of a muffin top. The only answer is tunics or sweaters which cover not just her waistline but most of the pants, which seems like a shame. Given how hard they’ve been to find, I think the pants should get top billing. Maybe I’ll wrap a string of battery-powered Christmas lights around the pants to make sure people notice them underneath her smocks. She won’t look strange at all. Or like her mother’s deranged. Shut up.

You know how I’m neurotic? Maybe a little paranoid with a tendency to obsess a little? Do you remember that about me? Miss it? Well, I’m happy to oblige with a dose for your summer: here’s how that’s working itself out in my parent world.

Let’s hark back to March. It’s census time. Our census form arrives. Of course it doesn’t go smoothly.

“How many people were living or staying at this house, apartment or mobile home on April 1, 2010?” Let’s leave the mobile home part of the question alone, along with yearning for an Airstream, and move on to the math. Technically only two of us lived here in March, but the baby was pending on April 22. Her pre-personhood deserves to be counted, doesn’t it? Yes, thank you. I elect to answer, “Three.” I fill out Person 1’s information (R) and Person 2’s (mine). So far, so good.

My pencil hovers over the blanks for Person 3. She has no official name yet. That’s a minor detail, really though, no? If I put “Beauregard,” and we name her, “Huffington Baby Spangles Herkimer III,” no one will care, right? They’re counting mainly, they’re not cross-referencing to our birth certificates. Maybe if I put her name in quotes they’ll know it’s kind-of/maybe. Like banks that say, “FDIC-insured,” or restaurants with, “home cooking,” on their signs. Great. Done. Beauregard F_______ it is.

I look at the form again.

“Please report babies as age 0 when the child is less than one year old.” No problem. “0” it is.

“Were there any additional people staying here April 1, 2010 that you did not include in Question 1?” Box 1: Children, such as newborn babies or foster children, etc.”

OK, hold up. First off, I just answered Question 1 not thirty seconds ago. To have omitted someone that recently and to then remember them even more recently is weird. How many people do they think are living with me that I can’t reliably count them? There can’t be that many Duggar situations out there, can there?

Related, if I do have that many people living under our roof - say, I’m training up my own soccer side in the basement - and I forgot one, why would I count that one person under Question 2 instead of just going back to Question 1 and upping the number by one? Maybe I’m passive aggressive and have a chip on my shoulder about just that one member of the household so this is my way of letting out that seething rage that I’ve bottled up until exactly this opportunity to snub them presented itself? Of course, only the government will know that I consider them a separate-question-level-sub-par citizen but I guess that’ll take the edge off my rage for another month…? OK. Maybe.

That’s not the problem though. I am not mentally deficient or passive aggressive (mostly), so I counted properly in Question 1. The main problem is the date: April 1, 2010. I was thinking of holding onto the form and mailing it in late April after the baby was delivered so I wouldn’t technically be lying re: number of persons under the roof. Now it looks like my honesty isn’t the issue. She’s not going to get counted for ten years because she’ll be born three weeks past the deadline. Now that, my friends, is some seriously garbage precedent. How will we get her apportionment of rice or crayons or Skittles or whatever they’re going to send us based on the form? We won’t and that’s the end of it.

This bothers me. I think about it at night. She’ll be ten before she’s counted. That’s messed up. It’s an identity thing, an acknowledgment that she has a space in the world. The census is, of course, missing tons of people who aren’t even prospective infants at the time of the counting, but nevertheless I’m irritated.

Fast forward a month. A. is born three and a half weeks early. On March 30. One day before the census cutoff. I’m lying in my hospital bed. What am I thinking about? How grateful I am we have a healthy daughter? Sure. How great R. has been throughout? Yeah. How cute she is? Fine. What I’m really thinking about is what an idiot I am for having already mailed the census form. So not everything is different when you have kids. Pointless neuroses still firmly intact. Excellent.

All right. I agree. I’ll stop making promises about anything for a few months, including how often I’ll get back to writing for this site. It’s become more than obvious that life with an infant is, while delightful, highly changeable. Not that I didn’t expect that. It’s that voice in the back of my brain - the one that used to think a reasonable day was one in which I got done every single thing done that occurred to me to do, all 400 of them - that gets me into even more trouble than usual since little A. arrived. That part of my brain thinks I can get the first 400 things done plus the other 400 things that I want to do for the baby. That plan is working out great. No pressure at all when I get up in the morning. Really.

Prague’s Franz Kafka International Named World’s Most Alienating Airport

No big surprise there. Also: most irritating read for teen girls in AP English.

I’m not a fan of house cats but, inexplicably, I love large cats. Come on, look at those cheetah cubs! This looks pretty cat-centric though, so if you just adore zebras, wildebeests and other kitty prey, I’d avoid it.

I’m going to get in line at the movie theater now. It comes out in 2011, so if you could swing by with some snacks and a fresh sleeping bag for me every few weeks, that’d be great. Thanks.

apportunity, (ap-er-too-ni-tee), noun A situation or condition favorable for the conceptualization (and subsequent not building) of an iPhone application, usually when drunk or significantly over-tired, to fill a “need” of an insignificant segment of the market.

Derived from noun, “iPhone app” and tagline, “There’s an app for that.”

Usage: “What do you mean there’s nothing out there to determine the ripeness of this watermelon? There is a huge apportunity here.”

My former employer is on a roll this year producing products that strain the boundaries of their Things No One Really Needs (…Except Maybe If You Have Too Much Time On Your Hands and Lots of Disposable Income) category. They’ve done well filling out that category in the past with their $500 margarita machine and the infamous Electric Vacuum Marinator, both genius ideas that I’m sure will someday achieve the success they deserve in the general marketplace. I’m totally holding my breath for that. I’m a little blue, but I’m hanging in there.

This season, Williams-Sonoma and their sibling, Pottery Barn, are in a dead heat for the top useless spot. WS blew into first place last month with a $300 see-through toaster.

Ever since I saw it, I can hardly imagine a kitchen without one. Why just this morning, a piece of priceless toast was burned to a crisp in my kitchen. Imagine: the tragedy might have been averted had I had the foresight to buy the Magimix Vision Toaster the instant the catalog arrived. Well, that and if someone had been paying attention to the toast in the first place. I think the market here is not really, “People Who Burn Toast,” but, “People Who Still Burn Toast While Standing Over the Toaster Waiting for The Aforementioned Toast,” since you really need to be hanging out right there watching your transparent toaster to avert a sooty conflagration. If you had that kind of loitering time, you probably would’ve been able to avoid burning your breakfast bread in your old toaster too because you could have smelled it going up in smoke, but who’s keeping track of those silly details, right? It’s a glass toaster for Pete’s sake! What’s not to love?

If you needed any other incentive than its obvious excellence and indispensability, the suggested retail on this wonder machine is $350, so you’re actually saving $50 if you buy it from WS instead of, um, well, traveling to Belgium to pick one up from the factory, since no one else in the States seems to carry them. So you’re actually saving, like, $1000 if you factor in the airfare.

Anyway, bravo Williams-Sonoma: you have definitively put to bed that old adage, “A watched toast never boils.” Apparently it does, my friends, apparently it does.

I was so ready to just hand over the blue ribbon to Williams-Sonoma not halfway through 2010 but then, lo and behold, WS’s sister company, Pottery Barn, upped the ante in their most recent catalog with the…wait for it… yes, it’s a giant abacus.
retailing for only $249!! Can you believe it? What luck. Just what I’ve always wanted.

If anything, this is catering to an even smaller market than the magic toaster: “People who need to do a lot of math but can’t. And who can’t work a calculator. And are blind.” Well, huzzah, Pottery Barn for finding a tiny need and filling it with a giant solution.

The abacus is an impressive two feet by four feet which means you’re going to have to do some serious rearranging of your Math Room to make it feel at home, but if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. And on a bizarrely outsized scale. That’s all I’m saying.

So now the pressure’s on West Elm, the third brand arm of the Williams-Sonoma empire. What’s it going to be, West Elm? A collection of 1000 tiny egg-shaped figurines? A life-size map of Istanbul for your living room? A live elk? Your pals have set a high standard: for the low, low price of $600 I can see my toast and do basic addition and subtraction visible to a sizable audience. The gauntlet is down.

2010 is shaping up to be a big year in retail people. Hang onto your hats.

Me: Why are you looking at me like that?
R: Nothing.
Me: Is my hair weird?
R: No, it’s good. Like done up but messy. Like, “I’m going to the Oscars but I had to get a bike ride in first.”
Me: That’s great.

I always thought that if I had kids, I’d have to break some of my bad habits. Like eating Apple Jacks and Doritos and other things with colors not found in nature. That should probably go. And watching Law & Order re-runs without remorse for several hours running. Probably not good for small children. Or crossing six lanes of traffic in the middle of the block.

(Let’s skip the conversation about how hypocritical it is for me to deprive my offspring of the very things I was denied and coveted and - probably as a result - attached myself to as a needy, media- and junk-food-backward newly independent, TV-owning, grocery-shopping 20-something.)

I didn’t think one of those habits would be writing. To be more precise, writing on things. One day a few years ago, lacking a notebook, I discovered the efficiency of writing notes on my hand. Such a simple solution when you only have half the pen and paper equation at hand. Your hand is, after all, always at hand. Of course, there is the serious down side of accidentally washing away Nobel Prize-winning thoughts while in the bathroom at Ikea. And there’s the inconvenience to one’s partner of being asked, palm extended in face, “What do you think that says? That letter there - could that be a ‘t’? Which would make that word…toupee? What?”

But other than that, it’s a winner of a habit.

Oh yeah, also except that most adults look at you like you’re a.) mildly deranged, or b.) still in second grade. But they’re looking with their head foolishly angled off to the side because they’re trying to read what you wrote all upside down, so who’s the sucker now, huh?

Anyway, R. made me promise early on in the pregnancy that the one habit I would break before she was born would be my tendency to write, in pen, on skin available somewhere below my eye line. No writing on the baby. Fine. Whatever. So I won’t write on the baby.

And I haven’t. So far. But I’ve just distributed pens around the living room so when I’m pinned down beneath the sleeping infant and thinking meaningful thoughts, there is always at least half that equation at hand. Let’s just hope she doesn’t snooze so long that I run out of space on my palms, that’s all I have to say.

She’s here. Three weeks ago today, Astrid Zealand suddenly joined our family. 6 lbs., 7.7 ounces and three and a half weeks early. We couldn’t be more delighted to have her.

Apropos of nothing, my favorite moment in last month’s Oscars broadcast:

Oscars 2010 - Steve Martin "But I don’t think the plural of whores is whores’" sound bite  Oscars 2010 sound bites

More here.

R has a beard, a moustache and long hair. He’s a good-looking guy though, trust me. His furry choices don’t resemble the current Brad Pitt iteration of facial hair or the hipster full beard mistake. He’s Mr. Trim and he knows how to work it. Here’s the thing though: babies don’t like it. I think it’s in the clown category for them. It’s unfamiliar and unfamiliar equals scary. Like beets for me.

We have a one-year-old friend who is otherwise pretty placid, but when he spies R, he goes quiet, assesses for a moment and then his small face crumples.

Our own baby will arrive in a couple of months and we’ve been considering the situation. My thinking is that our child will swing the other way. Not gay (well, maybe gay - who knows?) but hair-friendly instead of hair phobic. After all, what else will she know? R’s the man in her life.

That’s the good news. But you know how girls supposedly end up dating guys who look like their dads? That’s a little creepy all to itself, but now I’m worried she’ll wind up with a preference for the shady end of R’s spectrum, like a.) terrorists, b.) drug dealers, or, worst, c.) hippies.

I’m not sure what to do to prevent her from subconsciously being drawn to kicking it with the Taliban, stoners or the cartel. Maybe we’ll paper her room with stills from Mad Men. Or we could run Magnum P.I. in a loop in the nursery to get her clued in to the retro ‘stache vibe. Or, I guess, we could just hope she’ll swing the other way and go for clean-shaven blondes just to spite us.

I need to start crossing stuff off my anxiety list. This is right behind, “Don’t let her fall off the deck,” and, “No drinking bleach.” I think that’s my priorities in order, right?

(Thanks, Swiss Miss, for the onesie tip-off.)

I’m going home later this week. Maybe I can get a ride…

Maybe naming him Rimbaud wasn’t such a good idea.

(Dwell, February 2009)

This is a brilliant, brilliant site. Check it out: Unhappy Hipsters.

(Thanks, Nicole, for the tip-off!)

Setting aside the fact that its job is to wake me up, it keeps doing it with the most depressing news. (I have, naturally, chosen the NPR news as my 1 of 1000 choices.) The health care plan’s demise. The election of a Republican in my home state of Massachusetts. The Supreme Court’s latest blunder (corporations are people?) Plane crash in Africa. The death toll in Haiti.

I could turn the blame on Obama, on his disappointing lack of specific leadership (like providing the Keystone Kops in Congress with a healthcare blueprint to start from or using his popularity to fulfill campaign promises like allowing gays in the military) or his misreading of how to manage Washington’s self-interested, over-tanned criminals…sorry…Senators, but, as far as I know, he can’t make natural disasters like earthquakes and Rush Limbaugh (yet), so I’m just going to be steamed at my alarm clock. Like I always say, “Shoot the messenger.”

Stupid clock.

1. Mumford,1999, Lawrence Kasdan (weird, right?) with lots of people you know. A comedy about a guy named Mumford pretending to be a therapist in a town called Mumford.
2. Home Fries, 1998, Dean Parisot with Drew Barrymore, Luke Wilson and Catherine O’Hara (Best In Show? Anyone?) Incorrectly marketed as a romantic comedy when it’s actually a weird, cheerful black comedy about a knocked-up drive-through-window waitress, the misguided boy who falls in love with her, a military helicopter and a homicidal stepmother.
3. Happy, Texas, 1999, Mark Illsley. Ex-cons passing themselves off as gay, kiddie-beauty-pageant coaches in small-town Texas. Where else can you find Jeremy Northam, Steve Zahn and William H. Macy all playing light in the loafers?
4. The Imposters, 1998, Stanley Tucci. It’s on all my lists. Wanna-be actors in the 1920’s end up as stowaways on a cruise ship full of insane people.
5. Addicted to Love, 1997, Griffin Dunne. Meg Ryan pre-lip-inflation with Matthew Broderick and Tchéky Karyo in a romantic revenge comedy. Imperfect but original. And funny.
6. A Midwinter’s Tale or In the Bleak Midwinter, 1996, Kenneth Branagh. The most marginal on the list. It’s a slapstick, black and white faux documentary about a production of Hamlet patched together one Christmas. I think Branagh was using it as a workshop before he filmed his full-length Hamlet the next year. Some really excellent actors in it. (Fair warming: Might only be lovable by theaterphiles.)
7. Hamlet, 1996, Kenneth Branagh. The only un-cut version on film, certainly the only one with serious production values. I imagine Branagh cashed in a lot of favors to get this made. No weird interpretations and thankfully missing the Olivier Oedipal hammer, just the entire play with (mostly) good actors. Brace yourself: 4 and a half hours. Yes, that is Jack Lemmon as one of the guards.
8. Emma, the BBC version, 1997, Diarmuid Lawrence, with Kate Beckinsale before she went all Hollywood hottie and Mark Strong before he went all evildoer (which he’s very good at, I agree). The most true-to-the-text Emma out there. I should know.
9. Something to Talk About, 1995, Lasse Hallström. Remarriage comedy with horses and sarcastic southern women (Julia Roberts, Kyra Sedgwick and Gena Rowlands in the role that made me want her to be my bad-ass mom). Also, the only movie in which I have ever liked Robert Duvall.
10. Stranger Than Fiction, 2006, Marc Forster. Brilliant cast, potentially disastrous concept brilliantly executed. Very, very funny. And touching. But not in that creepy Hollywood way.
11. Frost/Nixon, 2008, Ron Howard, with Michael Sheen and Frank Langella (and Oliver Platt - hooray!). I know: it’s Ron Howard, so maybe more than eleven people saw it. On the other hand, it was written as an un-filmable play by the excellent Peter Morgan, so maybe not. David Frost interviews Richard Nixon post-Watergate. (What is up with Michael Sheen being so good and still moonlighting as a campy vampire?)

Did you know that four pounds of the weight you gain during pregnancy is blood? That’s a lot of extra blood to pump and carry. That tidbit makes me feel better about my inability to make it up the stairs in one go: it’s not just the extra weight but the fact that my heart is pumping like a flooded mill.

Another piece of baby trivia: it’s hard to find black baby clothes. This makes no sense since babies spend most of their time making a huge mess and black, as we all know, is the best color to cover that up. The pastels that dominate the market are the worst possible choice to hide the unfortunate accidents that beset a very small person incapable of holding up her own head while eating.

Also, black is slimming, so unless you have a premature infant, a baby in black will look svelter and more chic than her playmates which I’m sure is critical to her later development as a society hostess, fashion editor, or just generally one of those girls you hate because of her preternatural sense of style.

I’m thinking about registering for eight gallons of black Rit dye along with the baby clothes: I’ll just throw the whole batch in the washer together and we’re there.

I’m not sure what to do about the colorful shoes though. Maybe a well-applied Sharpie will do the trick. I did that once with a pair of suit pants I liked that had irritating exposed contrast stitching running down the sides. Unfortunately, the toxic Sharpie smell never went away. Having a meeting with me was like hugging a dry-erase board and I’m guessing a baby can get stoned/brain damaged pretty quickly on Sharpie fumes. Plus, they put things like their shoes in their mouths. Maybe I better come up with a different plan for the shoes.

I did find this: the Black Orbit Rocker Cradle. It’s as close as I can get to a bassinet that would fit in at a Manhattan cocktail party.

I have to be careful here though: if she’s too minimal and stylish as a baby, there’s a chance that when she gets rebellious, she’ll go all hippy or start wearing teddy bear sweaters and collecting Home Shopping Network kitten figurines. Maybe I should suck up the Fisher-Price aesthetic for a few years so she can rebound into Prada later on.

God. So many decisions.

(I admit this is overkill. I’m going to deal with that situation any day now. Or maybe the three of them will rumble some night. Three men enter, one man leaves, if you take my meaning.)

That’s why my cupboard and drawer habits are so puzzling. R recently noted, with admirable good humor, that whenever I leave the kitchen, every hinged door or rolling drawer I opened stays open. Same with the dresser drawers in the bedroom.

I was kind of surprised. My perception is that I’m always tidying up - collecting used glasses from the coffee table, hanging the bathmat, closing the shower curtain - as I move around the apartment. The reality appears to be that I am also leaving behind a chaos of open cereal boxes, left-out butter, Splenda packets, and small spoons.

Why do I do that? It’s weird, right? For someone as tidy-oriented as me, right?

It was a casual question last week, a little passing, “Ha, ha! Isn’t that surprising? Aren’t I quirky?” but this week, since I can’t find a ready answer, it’s starting to really bother me. Why would someone who invariably makes the bed, who straightens the couch pillows every morning on the way through the living room, and who is always lining up the remote controls, why would she leave the kitchen looking like the poltergeist had just taken its revenge? Is it a “leave my mark” thing, like peeing the perimeter or carving my name in a tree? Is it subconscious rebellion? Is it make-work? I am the one who usually, eventually, circles back through and closes everything up again… What the hell is going on?

I’m going to come up with a theory this week. It’s going to be good. It’s going to have a lot of psychological complexity, sub-points and moving parts. That or it’s going to be insane. Like that I’m trying to make sure the invisible beasties that live in our cupboards get enough air and a chance to exercise before I close them back in. Not that I think beasties exist. Of course I don’t. That would be deranged.

Just before we knew we were pregnant, I complained that the general public felt free to ask personal questions about our sex life over cocktails, e.g. when and how many children we intended to produce. Apparently, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Now that I’m obviously pregnant, a whole new world of boundary violations has opened up.

For starters, there’s the touching. I thought we’d all gotten the “show me on the doll” memo when we were kids, but clearly some segment of the population feels that a.) that doesn’t apply to children before they’re born, and b.) it doesn’t apply to other adults who are carrying those children.

Let me ask you this: when was the last time you walked up to someone you haven’t seen in ten years, a co-worker or really anyone you’re not sleeping with, and put your hand on their stomach like you were their high school boyfriend copping a feel between first and second period? Never, that’s when.

I get that it’s interesting that I’m carrying around the equivalent of a bear cub in my abdomen. Yes, it’s weird. Yes, she moves. It’s fine that you’re fascinated. That’s your deal. My deal is that I still retain air-space rights at least several inches around my body. If you want to enter the no-fly zone, you ask. Period.

Then there’s the advice. International law on this one is unclear. The United States offers all kinds of unsolicited input to countries all over the world, especially ones in some kind of transition: don’t stuff your ballot boxes; don’t blow that up; don’t eat that; stop hitting them, and so on. Usually though, there’s a cash incentive (like, we’ll give you money for counter-terrorism) or a serious disincentive (like, we won’t give you snacks).

That makes sense, since, let’s face it, unsolicited advice implies that you’re doing - or about to do - something “wrong” or that you don’t know what you’re doing at all, which, unless you’re really evolved and secure, makes the advice-giver seem like kind of a jerk, however well-intentioned or correct she or he might be. Money softens that blow. It’s kind of like employment: you pay me so I’ll do what you tell me to do.

Apparently where pregnancy and children are concerned though, there is no such arrangement. Advice, usually absurdly specific to the giver’s situation, is not accompanied by a cash incentive.

Just between you and me, if you handed me a roll of twenties before advising me not to take drugs during labor, I would definitely be more receptive to your suggestion.

Worse - and more common - than the advice is the unsolicited negative input. It’s the lazy man’s advice: it just sits in your path like a suicidal frog on a road in a rainstorm. No plans, no suggestions, it’s just out there. I can’t make out what the intent is in recreationally telling someone who is inevitably going to have to deliver a baby in a few months all the things that can go wrong when she does. Unless you have medically relevant information to disclose, discussing disastrous deliveries with an expectant mother is like stopping by the JFK security line to share the latest on airplane crashes.

Also inexplicable: telling me how I’ll be sleep-deprived after the baby arrives (as if I’m not now) or how my life will never be the same again. Since I don’t live in a cave, am sentient, reasonably well-educated, and not sixteen years old, trust me when I say that I am already aware that my life will change and it will, for a while, include less sleep. (We thought of that before we decided to have kids, didn’t you?) So the intent can’t be informative, right?

And don’t tell me it’s just making conversation either, because when you make small talk with a non-pregnant person you barely know in an elevator, I guarantee you don’t start with freak accidents or Things I’m Bitter About. You say pleasant things about rain showers and television shows and puppies. OK, maybe not puppies, but please know that I’d much rather hear about them than how your cousin’s husband cheated on her while she was pregnant, who you know who had a late-term miscarriage or how your daughter grew up to be a teenaged mother living in your basement. I can say unequivocally that I do not want to hear any of those stories because a.) they do not bring any useful information into my life, b.) as stories, they are total downers, c.) I am often awake and paranoid at 4AM and your story’s not helping, and c.) they make me want to kick you in the shins, which is kind a losing proposition for you too.

Let me return the favor and offer some advice of my own: unless an expectant mother asks for your rundown of worst case scenarios or Your Least Favorite Things About Being a Parent, say supportive things. Say happy things. Mention what you love about being a parent. Tell her what’s gone right. If that’s beyond your reach, save it for your close friends, say, “Congratulations!” and move on to the weather and small animal antics. Your shins will thank me.

Here’s the thing: you know sperm whales, right?

Hang on. Let me back up and add some context.

In November, we were in New Zealand for a while. One grey afternoon, we went, as you do, on a whale watch off the east side of the south island. We ran across a couple of sperm whales. While the boat was tracking down said whales, the guide gave mini lectures about the local whale populations. These speeches were accompanied by short graphical videos. Maybe it was because she looked all of twelve years old or because of her strange, lopsided haircut or because the video representation of the whale made it look like it was four times the size of our boat, but a lot of it sounded like she got it out of comic books.

For starters, only Moby Dick was four times the size of our boat. I looked it up: the largest male sperm whale on record was 67 feet long. That’s eleven times longer than your average man. (And by “longer” I mean the man’s height, just so we’re clear.) I didn’t lie down on the deck or anything, but that boat must’ve been 60 feet at least. Which means the largest whale we’d see outside of Gulliver’s travels would be about the same size as the boat. That’s plenty threatening, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the 180-foot whale the video made it out to be.

It’s not the misrepresentation of the whale’s size that’s bothering me most though. That just got the skepticism ball rolling. It’s this thing about the oil in its head.

Apparently, most of the space in sperm whales’ heads is filled up with oil, which inebriated whalers mistook for sperm the first time they split one open, hence the embarrassing name. “Sperm Whales: the story of drunken idiots getting their feet wet in zoological nomenclature.”

No one knows why the oil is there. This baffles me. If Facebook can figure out what size shoe I wear and we tracked down water on Mars, how have we failed to sort out why one of the biggest mammals on the planet is schlepping around a head full of oil? How did that not make the list years ago? I would have thought Jacques Cousteau would have been all over that. This seems like a massive project management oversight on the part of whoever’s running the planet, much like how we lost track of an entire population of turtles between the ages of one and five.

In the absence of real data, “scientists” have been spending their time making up answers instead of suiting up and figuring out the actual answer.

Here’s my favorite: when the whale is on the surface, hanging out and breathing and what not, the oil is liquid. When the whale gets peckish, it magically solidifies the oil, which weighs it down enough to take it to nearly 10,000 feet underwater to collect snack packs of squid. When it can’t breath for having eaten so much squid, it liquifies the oil again, creating a lightheadedness that allows it to rise to the surface.

I understand the logistical appeal of this buoyancy theory, but my question is this: where is it getting and then storing all the freezer packs necessary to solidify gallons and gallons of oil? Related, how does it power the space heater required to re-liquify the oil at 10,000 feet down? Does it have giant pockets filled with mini fridges and generators? Please show your work.

Why can’t we test this theory anyway? If we’ve sequenced the human genome, I can get text messages from halfway around the world, and someone as jerky as James Cameron can sort out a submersible camera capable of examining the Titanic, how come we can’t tail a whale with a thermometer and some binoculars?

The other going theory involves echolocation wherein the whale can bounce sound around inside the oil to magnify its volume before s/he emits what must be a hell of a bellow, given the size of the head and the amount of oil we’re talking about. I like this one, because it implies that with a little training, we might be able to get a whale on board for some kind of voice-throwing Vegas act, which would be awesome.

Barring that though, which admittedly might take a while what with the tanks and the contracts and the so on, I think it’s about time someone got on the stick and figured this out once and for all. Really, how hard can it be? Once we do, someone needs to send a memo to that guide in New Zealand so she can stop misinforming tourists. Make sure you include a note about the inexplicable haircut too. That’s got to go.

Two weeks later though, they said she was about the size of a bag of coffee beans, which is neither cute nor - in my limited experience as a barista and zookeeper - larger than a bear cub. The following week, they likened her to a banana, which is a completely different shape all together and not even remotely in line with a progression from a baby animal to a rectangular bag of anything.

Either my baby has gone haywire or someone over at Fit Pregnancy needs to head back to kindergarten to re-take Shapes 101.

Someone gave me, in my Christmas stocking, a box of Band-Aids - sorry: Boo Boo Kisses Adhesive Bandages. Fine. Good so far. Who doesn’t need sexy band-aids?

The package says, “FREE TOY INSIDE!”

OK, still with you. Everyone loves a toy, especially a free one, especially me.

Here’s where things get weird. Turns out the “toy” is a tiny plastic man in a black tie, grey dress pants, and heavy black-rimmed glasses which frame his catatonic zombie eyes. I can see that being stuck in a metal box of Boo Boo Kisses Adhesive Bandages for an extended period might make you catatonic. That I get. But is this guy really a “toy”? He has no moving parts and, more disturbingly for the category, he looks like a mental patient. And he would definitely get caught in my throat if I swallowed him, so not so much a toy for, say, a cat. Or a child under the age of…well, 38 apparently.

Why are they putting a tiny non-action figure from Mad Men in my box of naughty band-aids? That’s weird, right? Right?

I like lists but they’re tricky. For instance, over the holidays, two people - a teenager and a septuagenarian - asked me to provide a list of the top ten movies they should have seen. Those lists can’t possibly be the same, can they? I majored in film (roughly) in college and have seen far more peculiar and probably a broader range of movies than most people really should. Also, I have strong opinions about “good” and “better” and the canon in general, so I would seem to be a solid candidate for generating lists of things, especially directive lists.

Sadly, not so.

I sink early: do you want a list of the absolute best movies? Because you probably won’t like a lot of them and then you might take it out on me later when I’m trying to have a nice cup of coffee with you and you’re bent on revenge because I made you watch that bit where the weird man cuts the girl’s eyeball with a razor blade. What you probably mean, when you ask for “the movies I should have seen” is “the movies you think I should have seen that you think I will like.” Which is, as I’m sure you know if you think about it for a second, a very different list.

Or maybe you mean a list of my favorite movies, which are certainly not the best movies ever made or ones which you might enjoy and, unless you’re my therapist, will probably just confuse you. Then I’d have to provide explanations with each one about why it made the list so you don’t think I’m a standard-less idiot for loving French Kiss but not The Godfather.

Any of the above will expose me to censure. If it’s a list for just you and I choose titles you don’t like, you may very well end up thinking I don’t know you at all. If it’s a list of my favorites, you may end up thinking you don’t know me at all. If it’s a list of best overall, you will either lose respect for me because I omit a film you worship or you will think I am a snob/deranged/unfeeling because I include things you have not seen and, after you have seen them, wildly dislike.

See? It’s kind of a lose-lose for me. (Also clear: I’m a little neurotic. Just a little.)

It’s a new year, however, and we’ll soon have a small child to imprint with good taste, so I’m going to have to buckle down, channel my inner Harold Bloom and commit to some kind of canon.

Let’s start with a set you’ll find hard to judge: I’ll list the top ten movies I can think of right now that I saw at exactly the right time and to which I have irrationally attached myself. I guess that makes this my Top Ten Favorite Movies list. Of course, I reserve all available rights to change my mind immediately when I think of other movies I like, my mood alters, the weather alters or whatever else alters, so don’t get all worked up if I left something off: it might make the revisions round.

1. 8½, Federico Fellini, 1963, with Marcello Mastroianni . Even after doing a frame by frame analysis of one of the scenes, on a VCR no less, I still loved it. See it some rainy Saturday afternoon: you’ll need daytime levels of focus and the time afterwards to have a nice dinner and calm down your crush on Mastroianni.
2. The Grass Is Greener, Stanley Donan, 1960, with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Flawed but hilarious and brilliantly written romantic comedy. An oddity really: starts with them already long-married + no melodrama around the infidelity (hers, no less).If it feels a little jagged and talky, it’s because it’s from a play - just go with it.
3. French Kiss, Lawrence Kasdan, 1995, with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline. Again with the excellent script. Again with the romantic comedy. Also again: not your usual path to the altar, thank God.
4. The Imposters, 1998, Stanley Tucci with Oliver Platt, Stanley Tucci and 1000 other fantastic actors. You have to see this movie. Old-school clever, ridiculous, bizarre and possibly my all-time favorite movie. On the strength of this film, I will go see Stanley Tucci act in a dumpster for the rest of my life if I have to.
5. Nobody’s Fool, 1994, Robert Benton, with Paul Newman. A near-perfect film, narratively speaking. No pyrotechnics, no groundbreaking cinematic techniques. It’s all story and acting. Cemented my hope that Newman would finally leave Joanne and marry me.
6. Grosse Pointe Blank, 1997, George Armitage, with John Cusack and Minnie Driver, Dan Aykroyd and Joan Cusack. Whoever doesn’t want to attend your high school reunion, raise your hand. If I were an assassin, I’d go though. Really.
7. Monsters, Inc., 2001, Peter Docter. I didn’t see an animated film until I was 23 but R has converted me to the cause. I keep this on my iPhone to watch when I’m so jetlagged I can’t sleep. Beautiful writing, fantastic story, amazing tech (watch the blue fur move in the air).
8. The Philadelphia Story, 1940, George Cukor with Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart. You could watch it or come by and I’ll quote you the entire script. Your call. The classic romantic comedy to trump all others.
9. My Blue Heaven, 1990, Herbert Ross, written by Nora Ephron, with Steve Martin, Rick Moranis, Joan Cusack. Not a masterpiece but definitely what the rest of Steve Martin’s films should have looked like. Quirk and laughs. Thank you, Nora Ephron.
10. When Harry Met Sally, 1989, Rob Reiner, written by Nora Ephron, with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. It’s a little harder for me to love Meg and Nora and Billy these days as they’ve headed for schlockier waters, but this movie is a monument of romantic comedy. Can’t be helped: must be on the list.

See? I told you: you think there’s something wrong with me now, don’t you? No Star Wars on there. No Godfather or Ghandi or Lawrence of Arabia. Remember though that a.) I’m a writer, so James Cameron and George Lucas types irritate me, despite their strides for the industry, and b.) these are the movies that have been important to me, not the ones I think have been important for a large population or the general advancement of cinema. Those are different lists.

On that subject, A.O. Scott wrote up an excellent piece in November here. Click through to his Movies of Influence list and Movies of Quality list. He’s pretty on-track, with the exception of Shrek on the former (what the what?!) and Gosford Park (possibly the most boring movie ever) on the latter.

At the very least, none of the above will bore you. Movies are supposed to entertain, after all, right? Right. So enjoy. Maybe I’ll produce a ton of lists in 2010 and you can wake up each morning and sputter into your coffee as you read through my Top Ten Bedspreads and Top Twenty Picks for UN Ambassador to Paraguay. It’ll be fun.

Well, as my little New Year’s present to you, I’ve solved your problem.

There I was in the freezing Colorado dusk vainly trying to slide that little unlock bar across the front of my phone with my gloved finger so I could take a picture. No luck. I kept trying. And by “trying” I mean doing the exact same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result. Stubborn? Yes. Ineffective? Also that.

You know what works though? Licking.

That’s right, kids, the iPhone is just looking for a human touch, appendage indiscriminate. (If you’re squeamish about sanitation, you could use an alcohol swab on the face of the phone pre-licking, but that would also require removing your gloves, so six of one, half dozen of the other. A little dirt never hurt anyone. Think of it as a friendly reminder to your immune system to stay on top of things.)

A little swipe of the tongue and it unlocks. Another touch and photo complete. Your phone just needs a little love, that’s all.

You can thank me later.

2009 has been a difficult year, there’s no denying it. On the global (war, fraudulent elections), national (foreclosures, job loss, plus who can actually be against health care, for Pete’s sake?) and personal fronts, this has been a challenging, exhausting, and - let’s be honest - occasionally hopeless stretch.

But Christmas still comes like clockwork, regardless of surrounding circumstances, bringing with it little sparkling lights in the darkness, the opportunity to give generously to others even if we’re not sure we’re up to it, and - if we can look past the difficulties, the disappointments and the snarled traffic - the chance to see ourselves as part of a larger, hopeful whole in a world rife with small miracles.

That’s what I am going to be focusing on from inside my mountain of to-do lists, wrapping supplies and as-yet-unbaked baked goodies.

May your Christmas Eve and your Christmas Day be full of excitement and joy.

Merry Christmas everyone!

(Thank you jimsabis for the cardinal.)

Monday was different. On Monday, I got a notification that the Guggenheim Museum was following me. That’s right: THAT Guggenheim. The round one in New York. My favorite museum. Is following me. (Not literally - I’m still talking about Twitter. I’d have noticed if a block-sized museum was lumbering after me in the street.)

I’m sure it’s not personal - I just posted something that caught their spider or whatever - but I’m choosing to ignore that practical knowledge in favor of irrationally basking in the fame that goes along with being followed by a major world institution. I just know someone important - maybe the Director - is sitting in a curve of that rotunda checking his iPhone every few minutes to see if I’ve tweeted.

Don’t ruin my dream. It could be true. You don’t know.

Last year, I was on about these insulated Uma boots from Salomon (different pattern last year, but you get the idea). Toasty Christmas present for Emma.

This year, I set my sights on these Kenneth Coles. They fit with my pregnancy fashion plan: no mumus, no maternity-only clothes if I can possibly help it, lots of black, and cool footwear. My concession to schlepping another person (albeit a small one and internally) around with me all the time is that high heels may have to (mostly) take a back seat, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to wear trainers every day.

Welcome to this year’s boot pick.

Sadly and inexplicably, these are only available through Eileen Fisher and Garnet Hill, both of which companies were sold out for the last several weeks. But lo and behold, a Christmas miracle: earlier this week, more arrived on the Eileen Fisher site, so you too can have these super-comfortable mid-calf, buckled boots for gallivanting about in the winter. You’re welcome. Happy holidays!

Just in time for Christmas, our doves are back.

Our deck and the carriage entrance below us used to be home to an expanding family of them, but the unwelcome arrival of a cat (stupid neighbors - thankfully since moved - them and their stupid cat and their stupid band) and the pod of pigeons who found out about our garden fountain one particularly hot summer, pushed them out. It was like reverse gentrification. The doves stopped building their nest, stopped believing we were a safe neighborhood for their kids, and moved on to parts unknown.

Before they went, the entire family, twenty-three birds, made an impressive cameo appearance and then they were gone.

Perhaps sensing that I missed them or that the evil cat was gone or that this has been kind of a tough season, three or four of them have come back to sit on our railing and look relaxed. I’m so glad. They’re that lovely soft gray, their eyes are so dark and intelligent and their cooing makes me feel warm like cocoa.

Welcome back, birdies! We’re glad you’ve come home.

I didn’t realize I hadn’t published that latest bit of offspring information until I got a few emails from readers who’d picked it up from my Santa Lucia Day post. Of course, we might’ve been having a boy and just be so attached to Santa Lucia Day that we were planning on crossdressing him for the holiday. Never assume.

We found out last month and are delighted. Of course, we’d have been equally delighted if it were a boy, but I was less sure what I’d do with a boy. They do love their mothers, those boys, so I’d have been set for life, but first I’d have had to survive the rambunctious childhood and then the sweaty teen years with no first-hand advice to offer. As a woman, what specific input do you give a boy? “Don’t rape anyone”? “Share your blocks and remember that mom said sexual assault is bad”?

He would have adored me but all the practical input would have had to come from R.

I feel more confident that I’m bringing something to the table for a girl. Not that any of it will be welcome between the ages of twelve and twenty, but that’s OK: I’ll just stuff her full of everything she needs to know by the time she’s eleven and she can bond with her father (and the therapist she’ll need as a result of my overparenting) while she’s a teenager.

Or maybe I’ll draw up a handy reference book of everything I know, publish it under a pseudonym, and have someone give it to her as a gift when she’s fourteen. Then she can take the advice without feeling all crowded by her super-cool mom. That sounds easy, doesn’t it? The publishing industry is in free fall, so maybe in ten years they’ll publish anything, including my book for an audience of one.

So yeah, it’s a girl. This is going to go great, don’t you think? It’s all about having a plan.

I spoke with my father late last night and, as a result, this morning’s early thoughts were of his sister-in-law, my aunt, whose cancer, after a break, has returned. Her prognosis is not good: this will be her last Christmas.

Family matters being what they are on that side of my family, I have not known her well, have maybe met her six or seven times, but she has always been very nice to me and I know the outlines of what has always struck me as her difficult life. I am so sorry that she will not live to old age, to enjoy the smoothing out of those wrinkles.

Early this morning, I stuck on the “last Christmas” part of the sadness. Somehow, the stretch of illness, however inevitable its end, is not as hard to imagine as a stretch of “lasts.” How would I approach this Christmas if I knew it were my last? For what future would I be storing up memories or requesting gifts? Wouldn’t the terrible knowledge of my near and unavoidable demise undermine the acquisition and metabolism of anything, from knowledge of a nephew’s sock size to material I might use in my writing? How, without a future, would I store anything for use - emotional, mental or literal?

Four AM is not the time to consider these questions. The rainy pre-dawn does not lend itself to clarity of thought, (unless of course you’re one of those people who gets up at four all the time, in which case, I think you might need professional help). But I did have a thought and it was this: having things - slipper socks, successfully produced plays, time with grandchildren, memories - was never the point. Giving them - using them, handing them on - is.

The point of my aunt spending time with her new granddaughter goes beyond the joy of the moment: she is giving the child affection on which she will thrive and which she will go on to offer to the world around her. The reason you acquire knowledge - reading books, learning - is so that it is of use to others when you expand their thinking or fix their drain, not so you just “have it,” whatever that means. You take your slipper socks and…well, I’ve got nothing there. They’re slipper socks. Enjoy them.

When I’ve been uncomfortably confronted with mortality before, I’ve always thought of my work. What writer or artist doesn’t? We are, as a whole profession, looking to leave something of ourselves behind, hopefully something substantive and permanent. In the absence of understanding - or being able to value - what I have personally brought to my immediate world, there would be comfort and structure in knowing that, say, like Philip Roth, I had contributed a book a year (are you kidding me? the man is a machine), or like Salinger an influential masterwork, or like Tracy Letts a masterful production, or like Nora Ephron a career of rational perspectives. That knowledge would, I think, free me up, give me some peace: if nothing else, I had made good on my potential and would leave something concrete behind.

I took that road this morning again, but, when pushed, even that path ended in giving. Why, after all, do we publish or produce or show our work? Even the most egomaniacal artist is giving his work to the world. Perhaps charging them $125 a seat or $4 million a painting or $24.95 in hardback, but giving it to someone nonetheless. If the work goes unseen, un-given, it may still have value, yes, but its value is unrealized, its natural journey incomplete. It’s all a gift.

I am grateful that I do not know that this Christmas will be my last, that I have an unknown stretch of time ahead of me to give more, to create more to give, to see and shape what I do as a gift rather than just a thing. Or a slipper sock.

That, in itself, is an amazing present. Thank you, Aunt Julie, for that. And Merry Christmas.

I know you’ve been up all night wondering how the weekend baking went, so let’s get right to it and relieve your anxiety so you can get back to wrapping up the cat.

It’s hard to believe that as a.) a girl, and b.) a Swede, I have never torn open a packet of yeast. I’ve cooked and baked, but just in front of yeast is where I’ve drawn the line in my kitchen endeavors. It’s sat there my entire life in its deceptively innocent yellow packaging just across the DMZ behind the unfurled barbed wire. My reasoning has been this: if I can’t manage to keep myself, my kitchen and my loved ones free from sticky residue when I buy my dough from a store and only have to roll it out, what hope is there for any of us if I attempt to create said dough from scratch?

I’m just trying to make you aware of the risks. Emma + dough = umm….let’s say, “street luge.”

Yesterday, December 13, was the date I set to break my yeast embargo because it was Santa Lucia, an inexplicably Swedish celebration of an Italian saint whose eyes were gouged out with hot pokers before she was burned at the stake for converting to Christianity around 300 AD. Isn’t that a lovely and heartwarming story?

In Swedish households, the oldest girl gets up at some ungodly hour of the morning, bakes nice things, makes hot drinks, loads it all on a tray, puts a wreath of candles on her head and goes around the house in a white robe waking her family with songs and delivering tasty treats. She’s on the hook until she’s thirteen, at which point the next daughter in line takes over.

My Lucia career was pretty smooth until I was twelve and misjudged the under-construction curve of our stairs, dropping the tray of cocoa and toast down the stairwell as I barely prevented my hair and the house from catching on fire when my flaming head wreath slipped sideways. If the real target of Lucia is to get everyone in the house up and at ‘em, mission accomplished.

Every year I try to get on the stick and make Lucia happen and every year toast is about as far as I get. This year, I was determined to beat that poor standard. I got up early (for a Sunday) and made the dough. So far, so good. No major mishaps except when I’d pre-read the recipe on Saturday I’d missed the part where I had to let the dough rise for two hours before turning it into spiral rolls, so we had to re-plan the first half of our day and “Lucia breakfast” became “Lucia midafternoon snack time.”

Start time: 7:30AM. By 10:00 the dough was supposed to have doubled in size but hadn’t. Maybe a third bigger. By 10:30, my patience had expired, so I rolled out the unpuffy dough and started distributing butter and sugar.

Put all the rolls in the pan. Took all the rolls out of the pan when I realized the nut and sugar coating was supposed to be making a diabetic bed for them in the bottom of the pan. Make the bed, reinsert the rolls.

At this point, the rolls are supposed to rise again for, according to the recipe, 35-45 minutes. Until they’re double their original size. Again with the double. After 2 hours and 15 minutes, which is a massive, massive miscalculation in the recipe if you ask me, the rolls were nearly big enough to be candidates for the oven. 25 minutes later - correction, six hours and 25 minutes later - voila, sticky buns!

They’re good too. The dough part is fluffy, thanks to the extra two hours of rising I’m sure, and the coating is appropriately coma-inducing, if a little on the burned side, but who’s counting? Nothing caught fire and no one’s missing a limb.

See? It’s all about how you set your expectations.

To close the day, we hopped over to the Swedish-American Hall (who knew we had one? Thanks for sorting that one out, R!) for pepparkakor and glögg and to watch a proper Santa Lucia procession and concert, complete with a blonde Lucia from Stockholm with flaming wreath, (poker not included). A young boy in a white wizard’s hat with silver stars on it joined the girls, which we thought was weird, but I guess an extra wizard here and there can’t hurt your chances for a successful outcome, right?

The whole event made me miss my Swedish grandmother awfully, but soon we’ll have a small daughter ourselves to carry on the family tradition and Vivy would have loved that, so here’s to Swedish girls and old ladies and traditions handed down far from the homeland.

It was our most successful Lucia Day ever and a lovely day overall. Hooray, Christmas!

(Thank you, swissmiss)

Well, maybe not for you, but my grandmother always scored one from somewhere and we had it with Ritz crackers and egg nog on Christmas Eve as a pre-dinner lactose tolerance test. Maybe it’s because I’m pregnant and seeking comfort food like a missile seeks a…well, some sort of sweet or savory target. If missiles do that, which they probably don’t. But it would be excellent if they did. Small missiles. Programmed to find macaroni and cheese. And Mallomars. Someone should get on that. I’m talking to you, Pentagon/Steve Jobs/Better Homes & Gardens.

Maybe it’s because it’s been a pretty daunting autumn and I’m determined to make Christmas feel like home. And by “home” I mean the parts of the holiday chaos that I enjoyed, not the yelling and the tube socks.

Has everyone had a difficult time these last few months? Divorce, career disruption, family issues, financial problems, unwelcome moves, relationship drama, you name it, someone in my inner circle is dealing with it. And, of course, I’m pregnant for the first time, which is not at all a bad thing but has become something of a private thing in the surrounding storm. So I’m turning to cheese balls for steadiness (they can get quite sturdy if you freeze them) and planning a low-key, carb-heavy, small Swedish Christmas in our little apartment away from the economic and metaphorical recession.

A key feature of that plan is items that involve risen dough, namely my grandmother’s sticky buns (sweet rolls with an extra coating of sugary goodness) and homemade bread. For those of you unfamiliar with my background in the kitchen, this is not a solid plan. Dough and I have a history, a history in which I have consistently been on the losing side, as have the walls of the kitchen. Dough and I, we’re like Afghanistan and anyone who’s invaded Afghanistan. It seems like I might be the destined-for-victory, well-intentioned exception when I come by with my troops of well-organized ingredients and clean counters and what not, but as soon as I get a toehold of control, the stuck-together insurgency creeps off into the tricky hills, taking any hope of smooth success with them. I’m left holding a bag of flour and staring at a pile of mess in some country where I don’t understand the rules or the language.

But Christmas isn’t just for winners, people! If the sticky buns come out like little nuggets of holiday cement covered in burned sugar, well, we’ll goddam well eat ‘em anyway, because it’s Christmas and you weren’t raised in a barn, so show a little class and finish what’s in front of you.

Now that’s the Swedish Christmas spirit I remember!

Really though, I hope you’re taking a moment out of the chaos to score a tree, have some cocoa and listen to a little soothing Christmas music. Even with the chill and the drama, if you pause for a moment, Christmas is a lovely time of year, don’t you think?

Fit Pregnancy’s Week 21 update: Some women report feeling better and more energized at this stage of pregnancy than they have at any point in their life. We hope you’re one of them!
Me: Bite me.

Last week, my brother’s company released an excellent iPhone game called Categuru and you should run right over to your phone (or pull it out of your pocket or your purse or your dog’s mouth or whatever) and buy it. At the very least, you need to try the free lite version.

Here’s the deal, per their web site: “Categuru is a new original word and trivia game. You are given five words, and your goal is to figure out what category they belong to. The catch is that you get the words one letter at a time. The fewer letters you use, and the faster you solve, the more points you get.”

So if the screen displays “GHTMS” (vertically, not horizontally like that) and the next slide reveals “RAIAA”, you might guess “sharks” as the category. As in great white, hammerhead, tiger, mako and…I can’t remember that last one. Salmon?

It’s brilliant and addictive and you should try it. And I’m not just saying that ‘cause he’s my brother. Really.

Yeah, well, I just got that look.

I’m usually on the giving end, but there I was with my marshmallows (it’s cold and I need cocoa), Cheez-Its (I didn’t have breakfast before I went shopping), frozen California Pizza Kitchen pizzas (er…), and ice cream (R doesn’t like desserts except ice cream, so let the man live a little). The self-righteous guy in a hat behind me glanced over my selections with disdain as he divested his basket of things like the aforementioned yogurt and a live, free-range chicken.

OK, there was no chicken, but all that stuff he had looked pretty healthy and rangy.

Maybe I need to work harder to look more pregnant. Do you think that would work? Eating for two and what not.

I don’t think that means two adults though, which is a shame.

Here’s my Monday Question: why do people read or watch things that clearly upset them?

I do not watch Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck. I do not listen to Rush Limbaugh. Why? Because I do not think they have anything useful or educated to contribute to the political conversation or my day. As such, I find it extremely irritating to be in their company, especially when there’s yelling.

Likewise, I do not go out to dinner with people I know to be rude, offensive or just plain boring.

Let’s add a clear exception here for education and directed moral action, shall we? No one enjoys reading about historical atrocities or the current genocides in Africa, for instance, but it’s best we know about them. Likewise, there’s a time and place for opposition research, like, say, if I thought I could get Beck off the air by landing a job at Fox News in the mailroom, working my way up to becoming his producer and manipulating his deranged ranting with subliminal messaging and voice dubbing to make him sound like a combination of Big Bird and Hitler. (Come to think of it, he’s pretty close to that combo now and no one’s pulling his show, so I might have to come up with an alternate plan.)

Aside from those two cases though, why would I recreationally engage with content that makes me irritable? I have so many things I really, actively want to do on any given day, what possible reason could I have for adding optional, annoying things to that list? Like reading someone’s blog, for instance, if I don’t think they’re funny, like their writing or find them interesting, entertaining or inspiring? Why would I do that? Call me crazy, but that just seems silly to me.

I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday about my writing and I mentioned some negative feedback I’d gotten on a couple of occasions. I’m fine with that input, (as long as it’s respectfully expressed, which, of course, it isn’t always, but that’s another subject). I am writing in a public forum. I don’t think I write about particularly incendiary issues but some of the subjects I write about are open for disagreement and some portion of my readers are, as a result, bound to disagree with me at some point or another. No problem. What I don’t get is why anyone would continue to routinely subject themselves to reading things that regularly upset them. It is so optional. Why would they do that to themselves?

I’m not talking about constructive conversations full of even tempers, reasonable suggestions and lots of facts. I’m talking about, ‘You’re a jerk!’ upset. I’m not sure what the possible positive outcome is there for anyone involved. There are a stunning ton of these people out there posting poorly spelled, angry responses on op-ed pages and filling the airwaves with distinctly unconstructive criticism, so there must be a reason for it or some satisfaction to be had from it. I just don’t understand what that is.

(Not that I’m myself fielding the real crazies here. I’m not big enough for that. But it’s the same, “I don’t like you,” phenomenon, only milder.)

Maybe this is akin to taking pleasure in watching horror films (which I also don’t understand): some people inexplicably enjoy being irritated and upset. I just don’t get that - life is short, no? - but each to their own, I guess.

So here, for distressed readers who routinely read or listen to media they find stressful but insist on following anyway, are a few suggestions for other things that might engage your attention and fill your time in equally or more upsetting ways:

1. Bill O’Reilly. Dumptrucks of bilge every single day. Bonanza. You’ll love it.
2. The rest of the internet. I hear it can be very, very upsetting in places.
3. My Christmas shopping. It has a lot of annoying bits, including driving to crowded places, parking in crowded places, shopping in crowded places for an indefinite number of undefined items for a wide range of recipients, and carrying those items around in insufficiently reinforced shopping bags through crowded places. Bliss.
4. 2012. It’s a very bad, very loud movie about multiple apocalyptic events, so you’ll have a headache and be depressed. Two-for-one holiday fun!
5. Dropping moderately heavy objects on your feet. This doesn’t sound fun or productive to me, but who I am to say? Give it a go!

So there you are. I hope that helps. And a lovely, sunny day to all of you, especially the ones who are starting it off all avoidably worked up.

A couple weeks ago, New York Magazine’s Intelligencer column interviewed 100 random pedestrians in SoHo about what they would be willing to pay for, with a primary focus on media, e.g. newspapers online, TV, commercials, etc. This was the final question:

Which of the following nominally free things would you pay for if that was the only way to get them?

Subway musicians: 14
Radio programming: 24
Sex: 38
The right to vote: 39
Network television: 43
Public bathrooms: 43
The love of parents and family: 44
Air: 55
Drinking water: 60
Copies of The Onion: 90

OK, so let me get this right, 90 people would be willing to pay for The Onion, but only 55 would pay for air? That is…upsetting?

To be fair, The Onion’s offices are in SoHo, so that might’ve skewed the results a little. And what is life/breathing without humor, after all?

flawesome, (flaw-sum) adj. Flawed, idiotic, but awesome, excellent, breathtaking. Usage: “Attempting a back flip in a kitchen that size was incredibly stupid but still really impressive. Flawesome, dude.”

We live in a studio apartment. Two of us. And we’re not twenty-three or impoverished, so we have no excuse. Our studio was about the right size for one of us before the other of us, who shall remain nameless, moved in with the other one of us.

All right, it was me. I moved in and ruined it for everybody. Space-wise, that is. Since we’re engaged and having a baby, I’m going to be free with my assumption that I didn’t ruin everything.

Why do we stay in our too-small place? Because we live in the sunniest neighborhood of this foggy city, and our little flat gets morning light in the bedroom, evening light in the living room and has a big deck with a view of over San Francisco Bay and pots of roses and lavender. It’s a nice little oasis in a town I otherwise find pretty grim.

We’re not complete idiots: we’ve tried to move. But all the other houses, apartments, condos, tracts of land, what have you that we’ve looked at face only east, only west, or neither. The apartments don’t have decks. The houses’ yard/gardens (yardens?) are all enclosed and low-light or tiered down the side of a hill and what the hell do you do with a tiered garden? Grow rice? Display stuff? Display rice? No one can grill or play properly on a slope. Unless you’re into sledding, in which case good luck in San Francisco, you poor winter-loving bastard.

I’m getting off my point though. My point is that if you live in a space that’s about half the size of the space you need, at least twice a year, you face the music and tear the place apart, eliminating a bit of kitchenware here, boxing up a set of psychology books there. Since I’m way too organized, I can’t just toss stuff into boxes until all the clutter has been cleared to storage or Goodwill.

I clear by category. Everything in the kitchen is under review. Have we riced any potatoes lately? (Be grateful it was just Thanksgiving, potato ricer.) Cored any pineapples? (Yes.) Do we really need bowls? (Yes.) Eleven jars of mustard? (No…unless that mustard-only Christmas plan comes through.) All the books get reviewed, as does all the stuff in the bathroom, the closets and so on. Which means the place - the tiny place - is a complete shambles for however long it takes.

I agree: I’m kind of a nightmare. But it’s a really organized nightmare.

I spent this last weekend on just such a nightmare (which dragged on even longer than usual ‘cause I’m also busy growing another person, which, it turns out, is tiring), and I’m a little on edge. All right, a lot on edge. I don’t like mess. And then, just as my hand grasped the air beyond the end of my rope, it happened: that perfect moment when everything around you falls into perspective. Flipping through some about-to-be-recycled magazine, I saw it: Hoarders, the new reality series from A&E.

I thought they were kidding, but they weren’t. I thought it was maybe The Onion, but it wasn’t. They’re actually producing a show on people who live in the tunnels among the back issues of National Geographic 1962-1980.

(What the hell has become of A&E, by the way? Doesn’t “A&E” stand for “arts and entertainment” not “ass-bad execution”? Their web site is one scary browsing experience.)

The Hoarders home page encouraged me to “Watch full episodes,” but I just couldn’t do it. I get the gist from the photos, and it is all-over scary: people whose perms and dental work were updated the last time they went vacuum cleaner shopping in 1971. Scanning the before/after section is no more inspiring. The houses the team uncovers under all the garbage are pretty terrible and what’s the incentive in that?

Speaking of which, it’s not technically a “hoard” when you just let the place go to hell. Merriam’s defines a hoard as “a supply or fund stored up and often hidden away.” I’m not sure dead cats qualify as a “supply” and the mountains of crap are definitely not “hidden away.” But I’m quibbling. These guys are definitely hoarding the crazy.

Here’s what I’m getting at: our place is just not that bad and your place probably isn’t either. Sure, I have too many back issues of The Believer (which I don’t even like) and the forthcoming Christmas tree is going to squash up against our DVD collection (which R refuses to watch because it’s not HD enough), but mostly we’re clean livin’. No one’s dentures have gone missing in the trash heap and we haven’t lost track of any pets in the clutter, so we’re good. Relativity to the rescue!

Now if I could just find that National Geographic from April 1969, I’d feel all safe inside.

I know. It’s a kitten, it’s YouTube, and I’m not eleven years old, but this is adorable. Happy Tuesday!

I was just sorting through the mass quantities of spam comments the site got swamped with over the Thanksgiving holiday and came across this one:

“Hi everyone. Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. Help me!”

It goes on much less interestingly from there, but what a start! I could not agree more. Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese, and it’s high time that stopped.

I love cheese. I even have a cheese journal to record which cheese I love more than other cheeses. It just stands to statistically reason that there must be poets who love cheese and have cheese journals.

So pull yourself together, poets! Now is the time: the season of cheese balls is upon us! Bring your best haikus, limericks and the like! Also, feel free to send me that cheese ball four-pack. That looks awesome. And by “awesome” I mean, “made entirely out of food coloring and preservatives.”

Hooray, cheese!

1. I do not like reality TV, especially watching grown women act like spoiled four-year-olds.
2. I am one of those self-righteous etiquette watchdogs who make exasperated noises at people on cellphones in Starbucks.

My instinctive response? “Jail ‘em, the tacky bastards!! Bring out the cone of shame!!”

I’m glad to see that a couple of Senators agree with me: levy charges to discourage idiocy in all its forms. But I’m pretty sure Obama will come down on the side of a scolding only because he’s a stay focused on what’s important kind of guy.

Whatever. I say it’s time to bring out the manners hammer, boys!! This is your chance!

And while you’ve got everybody in the room and all worked up, if you could issue some kind of prohibition against bankers and older men wearing cellphone headsets when they’re not actually on the phone and couples arguing loudly in restaurants and girls who just came from the gym chatting loudly on their cellphones about their boring, boring social lives while waiting for their skim, two-Splenda, light whip, double shot lattes, you’d make my day. No other holiday present needed.

I like to think we’re Catholic in our traditions but driven by common sense, which is a tough balance as far as faith is concerned, since faith is “belief in things unseen” and common sense is founded on seeing all kinds of things, including political motives and human frailty. This makes me face all sorts of inconvenient truths, like that the writers of the Bible were human and therefore products of their time when recommending rotten things like multiple wives and stoning homosexuals, that versioning of the Bible was politically driven and not the word from on high, and that an ex-Nazi in Italy might not be the source of compassionate, inclusive, non-sexist wisdom for our modern times.

(While I cannot agree with some of the fundamental precepts of the Catholic church, I also wasn’t raised in that church, so, with the exception of a stretch dating a rigid adherent, I’ve managed to sidestep the conflicts those precepts present to my morality. By no means do I intend to be dismissive of the struggle of those born into or devoted to the Catholic faith who must sort out a way to partition their social beliefs - equality of women, birth control, gay marriage, etc. - from their church’s inflexible teachings on the subjects. I don’t envy you and cannot agree with your church’s doctrines, but I certainly respect your challenge and efforts.)

In general, apart from my specific beliefs, I’m a fan of “live and let live,” religious policy. If you get your holy day groove on with chanting nuns, casserole dinners or that dude you can only see on the JumboTron, it doesn’t matter to me. As long as you’re not oppressing anyone else.

I’m not much on the practicing part of Christianity of late, but this news piece did catch my eye: the Catholic church is bending their rules on liturgy and their prohibition of priest marriage to allow the absorption of the most conservative branch of the Episcopalian church. That branch has been alienating itself from Canterbury since the 1970s when we ordained women, and the writing was pretty much indelibly on the wall when we ordained our first gay bishop a couple years ago, so it’s not a surprise they’re headed for Rome.

What was amusing though was that the piece in the Times on the subject of the defections profiled a church in Rosemont, PA, which which I have a history. The Church of the Good Shepherd, just up the street from two women’s colleges, featured a rector back during the women’s ordination brouhaha who sought out a parish with a female officiant for the sole purpose of biting her during communion. It’s all about the high road with them.

Good Shepherd was the closest church to my apartment in college, not to mention the prettiest, so I went one Sunday.

(The property on the wealthy Main Line outside Philadelphia is probably worth an enormous sum, belongs to the Episcopalian diocese and is a key issue in the church’s secession from the Anglican communion.)

God help me, the sermon was about service. The priest highlighted how we are each called to serve in different ways. For example, men are sometimes called to the priesthood and positions of lay authority in the church. Women, on the other hand, are called to serve at coffee hour. Literally.

The absurdity of this sermon being preached within a mile of two institutions devoted to the education and advancement of women was not lost on me, but what can you do but laugh in the face of that kind of anachronistic obliviousness? As I left, never to come back, I was accosted by a young officiant. Was I new? Where did I live? Would I like more information about the church? I would be very welcome at any church event.

I took this to mean they’d run out of women to serve snacks and gave them my address. I do enjoy first pick of tasty snacks after all.

A week or so later, I got a welcome card from the church’s outreach office. Since I was only writing my thesis that week in addition to carrying a full load of classes and working at a part-time job, I took the time to reply. I politely said I could not in good conscience attend or support an institution that overtly classified me a second-class citizen and I could not fathom how they hoped to recruit female students with a platform that violated both Episcopalian church doctrine and equal rights.

I got my response. Two pages of response. The young priest condescendingly but sincerely quoted scripture and pointed out the errors in my thinking. I had to hand it to the guy, if only for the brass balls of belief it required to send that kind of note to a young woman like me.

To be fair though, the “like me” part probably wasn’t evident to him. I’m tenacious, wildly overeducated on the church, and - at twenty-two, anyway - was not one to walk away from a fight. Also, he had no idea what a fierce procrastinator I was on that thesis.

I happened to talk to my mother that week. She’s a priest (hence my overeducation in religion) and volunteered to send me some exegetical notes for my reply. A few days later, I got her comments in the form of a four-page saccharine epistle rebutting his points and adding about a hundred others, worded along the lines of, “There, there, sweetie: don’t let the bad man upset you.”

My mother is not that kind of mothering mother, but presumably the priest wouldn’t know that and would miss the sarcasm so I sent her letter along unedited, appending a brief foreword saying I thought that that about covered it.

A few weeks later, I got a small card in the mail with a bird on it. It looked like it had been issued in about 1953 and had sat in a desk cubby since then, waiting for its day in the sun. It seemed era-appropriate, coming from a man like that with principles like his. Inside it said, “All we can do now is pray for each other. - Father ______”

In all honesty, I have not, in fact, prayed for him or for the Church of the Good Shepherd, but as the holidays approach, in the spirit of generosity, perhaps I will issue a small prayer in their direction: may they find a happy home with their restrictive Vatican brethren and give that beautiful stone church back to the Episcopalians. Good riddance. Amen.

A sampling of

a.) something funny
b.) an excellent use of pie charts

(Thanks, swiss miss.)

Read full entry here.

From: Simon Edhouse
Date: Tuesday 17 November 2009 3.29pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Logo Design

You really are a fucking idiot and have no idea what you are talking about. The project I am working on will be more successful than twitter within a year. When I sell the project for 40 million dollars I will ignore any emails from you begging to be a part of it and will send you a postcard from my yaght. Ciao.

From: David Thorne
Date: Tuesday 17 November 2009 3.58pm
To: Simon Edhouse
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Logo Design

I know it’s only Monday, but it’s good to stay ahead of things, right?

“I have never believed that everything happens for a reason. But I do feel very strongly that everything happens so that it can be turned into a column.”

- Gail Collins in her 11/19 column for http://www.nytimes.com/

I love the autumn, don’t you?

If you’ve been been feeling a bit neglected, looking for a bit more writing, wondering why I haven’t sent you any emails or have noticed that I’ve been hedging a bit when you ask how I am, that’s why. It turns out that being pregnant is attention-consuming. Who knew?

Everything’s fine so far, and I’m feeling a bit more on-target these days than I have the last couple of months, especially with the break on the other side of the world, so business as usual to come, I hope. At least re: writing and so forth. The whole “an additional small noisy person joining the household” maybe not so much usual. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

Fiji first - a week - then New Zealand for two. With little to no planning, I might add. We booked our seats two weeks ago and we have a place to stay in Fiji and that’s it. We’ll get a car in New Zealand and see as much of the country as possible. That’s the extent of the planning. Under normal circumstances, this would make me crazy because I like planning - I need planning - but this time the single priority is to get away. Everything else is secondary. So we’re winging it.

Here’s what I know about Fiji:

1. It’s warm and there’s diving.
2. The international airport is inconveniently located all the way on the other side of the main island from the local airport.
3. Cast Away was filmed there.
4. We will not be going to that island because that movie freaked me out and I don’t want to tempt fate. I have a lifelong fear of being resource-less. If I’m going to end up on an island somewhere, let’s scrap the bullshit questions like, “What one book would you take?” and the, “What one person would you want to be stuck with blah blah blah?”

   A book and a dude are not going to cut it, much as I enjoy reading and what have you. I’m going to need, at a minimum, a pen and a generator. And a gas station for the fuel for the generator. The dude could work at the gas station, actually, so that kills two birds with one stone. And, after seeing Cast Away, I’m probably going to need a good dental plan. Also, more than one book. Although one book at a time would be fine. Maybe a BookMobile. That would work. And not like a kids one either. I don’t want to be reading Bunny Goes to Market for the next four years.

   I also have no wilderness training and am not a very good cook, so I’m also going to need a wilderness trainer and a cook.

   You see now why I can’t go to that island? Think of the expense, putting that team together. I’ll stay at my nice hotel, thank you very much, and save us all some money.
   

That’s it. That’s what I know about Fiji.

Here’s what I know about New Zealand:

1. There is a town called Whatawhata on the north island which we will definitely be visiting. I have no idea what’s there but we’re going. And taking lots of pictures of signage.

   Am I the only one who thinks that Whatawhata is an awesome choice of name? “Where are you from?” “Whatawhata.” “I said, WHERE ARE YOU FROM?” “Whatawhata.” “Are you deaf? I asked you the name of your town.” “Whatawhata.” And so on. Excellent.

2. The Lord of the Rings movies were filmed there but they tore down all the cool stuff because of - excuse me?? - “copyright issues.” I don’t understand that - do hobbits have imaginary good lawyers?
3. Zoe Bell, the stuntchick for Xena and Kill Bill, is from there. (If you haven’t already, check out Double Dare - cool documentary on stuntwomen.)
4. The Bone People, a harrowing but excellent book about a Maori boy, is set there.
5. It’s green.
6. There are many, many opportunities to get very, very hurt: bungee jumping, black water rafting, heli-skiing, sky diving, river sledging (whatever that is - I’m not going to check, I’m just going to sign up), abseiling and driving on the wrong side of the road, to name a few.

   Since I get hurt walking through your average doorframe, I think this is going to go really, really well.

Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? I know. Maybe the lack of planning will make it a huge, messy adventure. Here’s hoping!

I’ll be off the grid for most of the time, so be patient with updates: I’ll do what I can. If you don’t hear from me after three weeks though, you should check that Cast Away island, OK? Please? Promise? Thanks.

Completely unrelated, Cambria Cove also does pre-designed calling cards. If you’re a girl and like birds - who doesn’t like birds again? - these might be for you.

At home, in the northeast, the leaves are turning, the air is crisp, the bags of apples are waiting at roadside stands and the light has taken a lower, flattering angle that is full of unrealistic promises, like homemade Halloween treats that don’t taste like sofas, Thanksgiving without family quarrels, and a snowy, stress-free Christmas.

I love the fall.

More photos at The Big Picture.

The “they” was usually my parents or older brother, and I imagined that “someday” would mean, say, Thursday, and not twenty years hence, so I could be sure that the certain forthcoming consequences were a direct result of my wrath.

As a child with no access to nuclear gadgetry, large sums of cash, or an invisible jet (all necessary to combating injustice), the literal imposition of my revenge was difficult to effect.

Even at the age of seven though, I sensed that moral revenge - the inducing of massive regret in the offending parties - would last longer. Tearing off the lower leg of my brother’s Boba Fett action figure had only made Boba look more bad ass, but if I could make my brother sorry, make him see how deeply and permanently wounded I was by his Lego hoarding, then I could look forward to a lifetime of conciliation, apology and handed-over baked goodies.

For the record, inducing regret in a nine-year-old boy is well nigh impossible.

Sometimes, when I’m worn down, I still hear that child’s righteous voice in the back of my head, wishing that guilt would sweep over my oppressors du jour, swamping them with too-late understanding, like the Red Sea closing over Moses’ pursuers. (It’s possible I may have spent too much time in Sunday school when I was young and impressionable.)

But here’s the fact of it: most people just don’t think about other people that much. That’s why the spontaneous regret induction plan doesn’t work. It’s not that you’re not hurt enough or they’re bad people. They’re just not looking in your direction at all. Most personal crimes are crimes of inattention, not intention. Their eyes are on their road - in front of and behind them - as yours are on yours, so swerving into other people’s lanes when roads intersect is all but inevitable.

What to do? As I see it, there are two options: alert the other driver to the accident their swerving’s caused on your side of the road (which might or might not result in a straightening out but will at least mean you’ve attended to the wreckage blocking your path and you can drive on), or locate the keys to your invisible jet.

Of course, I really wish everyone were like my nearest and dearest and attentively checking their side mirrors, but that’s just not how the cookie crumbles. Stupid cookie.

Anyone seen my keys?

Things here have been kind of all over the place, but no one has broken any bones, been indicted or taken a gun to a public event, so we’re still this side of trouble/insanity. I think it’s important to keep things in perspective when the road gets rough, don’t you? It’s a comfort to me, when I wake up at 3AM, to remind myself that there is steel-cut oatmeal in the kitchen, I’m still writing, New York’s still standing and that there’s a whole wide world out there that isn’t concerned with playground bullies, family conflict or how much tickets to New Zealand cost when you buy them with less than a 14-day advance.

Not to get too specific there, but yeah, we’re going to New Zealand. Next weekend in fact. It’s kind of a catch 22 with the vacation planning when you’re as worn out and un-vacationed as we are: you’d like to have a well-planned holiday because that’d be optimally restful but planning it well would require even more of that energy you’ve been having trouble locating recently, so you have to pick between going at all (first choice) and going with seasonally appropriate clothing and any destination research beyond, “Hey, that looks pretty, right?” (currently in second place).

In fact, you’d like to be able to get the break you need without flying halfway around the globe to start with, but experience has shown us that that’s not going to happen, so off we go, braving the jet lag and the left-side-of-the-road driving so we can evade email, get some sleep and reclaim our priorities while basking in another nation’s sunsets. We’re buying flights and renting a car and winging the rest of it. (If anyone has any recommendations of places to go or things to do, now’s the time to send them, yeah?) We’re tacking on a week in Fiji at the end of the trip, just to make sure we get some tropical drinks and a tan on the agenda. It’s not a real vacation unless someone comes home with a tan. Or a snow globe. Or a tropical disease. Whichever.

Of course, you’ll also have 3500 pancakes. I’m thinkin’ fire hall, Saturday morning, some pig wrestling to follow. A nice old-fashioned pancake breakfast. Just you, your entire town and the Chefstack Automatic Pancake Machine.

Atkins is rolling over in his grave. I say, good riddance. Bring me my syrup funnel.

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

Remember that article in The New Yorker about kids and self-control and marshmallows? This is the video that was never made of that study.

Ever since I read it, I’ve been preoccupied by that story. Would I have eaten the marshmallow? Is there a way to reverse engineer my way back through my life to see what I’d have done? That theoretical marshmallow could have determined the course of the rest of my life. If only I’d known.

Disappointment lies in the gap between expectations and reality.

Unless of course you keep your expectations really low, below the reality line, in which case, you probably come across as a pessimist who is surprised a lot, which probably makes you seem a little unbalanced to your friends. I do that. More often, though, when the butter slides off the pancake, I get caught in the trough between what I hoped would happen and what did happen. Then there’s a lot of indignation and words like “shouldn’t” and, “what” and, “the” and, “hell.” As in, “She shouldn’t behave like that!” and, “Since when can gerbils chew through metal? What the hell?”

I used to think that the sweet spot to avoiding that disappointment was to lower my expectations just enough that they would line up exactly with reality and then I’d never be disappointed by someone letting me down, a situation going sideways or a loose gerbil eating my paperbacks. Turns out that that line up is a tricky proposition and well nigh impossible to locate: reality is too inconsistent to plot. So I either ended up pessimistically underexpecting and looking silly - “Human flight is just so improbable… Oh, wait - we’re landing?” - or still overexpecting and feeling foolish, “I hope he won’t do that again… Oh, wait - he did?”

I’ve been talking with a Buddhist for a while and it turns out there’s another option. Buddhism advocates abandoning expectations altogether. This isn’t so you can avoid being disappointed. It’s because expectations and the resulting disappointment or elation cloud your ability to see the situation as it is, and that is a bad thing. If I’m navigating my disappointment, chances are I’m not seeing what the gerbils are actually up to (which might be interesting or just clarifying, like if they’ve gotten their hands on some files and are sharpening their teeth) or what unforeseen market opportunities metal-eating gerbils might present.

At first, I thought abandoning expectations meant abandoning what I’d learned through experience and naively opening myself up to even more disappointment (i.e. “I expect nothing,” equals, “I know nothing,”) or, related, abandoning my good judgment about avoiding a bad situation in the future. Not so, apparently.

Learning from history and planning accordingly are still part of the landscape - just not in the moment itself. If I’m upset by the marauding gerbils, I can decide ahead of time to build a reenforced concrete pen. Or abstain from keeping rodents entirely. I can plan to show up late when meeting a chronically late friend or not to be friends at all with someone chronically unreliable. Once I’ve sorted all that out and agreed to enter a situation however, expectations of how it will turn out are better checked with my coat.

It’s a good plan and it’s worked well when I’ve been able to implement it. You can just take it all in as it comes. It’s a tough habit to get into though when there’s conflict involved. Heading into a difficult situation with your eyes wide open is no walk in the park. I used to arm up with defensiveness (the negative expectation) or unfounded optimism (the positive expectation). Now, I try to just show up and see what happens.

It definitely gives me a clearer view of what’s happening, but sometimes what’s happening is pretty difficult to take. Without expectations, I don’t get angry anymore, I just get sad. What do you do then? Well, a guy I worked with for a while used to say, “Facts are friendly,” and he was right: it’s better to know what’s up even if it sucks. A clear view gives you the chance to correct your course rather than continuing in ignorance down what could very well be a wrong road that ends up nowhere nice. If you eliminate expectations, the reality of the situation is neither bad nor good, it just is. It might make you sad in the short term, but that’s no worse than being disappointed and indignant. It’s what you learn from that reality and what you do with that knowledge that matter. Now, at least, you’re starting from a solid platform of observation rather than trying to plot a course through the blur of frustrated expectations.

So. Onward and upward. It’s been a rough week, this last one, with more than a few disappointing surprises, but here’s to a better and calmer continuation on the path to enlightenment.

None of the surprises had anything to do with gerbils, by the way. Why do you ask?

Here’s why: I’m trying to finish my play. Or give up on finishing that play right now and turn my attention to the next play in the meantime. So I’m spending a chunk of my day on the play and a smaller chunk on the blog, which means possibly less for you to read right now but massive fame, fortune and pictures of me collecting my morning coffee in People Magazine later for me, so which would you pick?

Actually, I’m not sure when the last time I saw a playwright in the pages of People was. Wallace Shawn and Tony Kushner just aren’t that photogenic. I’m sure Mamet’s been in there at least once though and Sam Shepard’s definitely made the cut, although neither of them for writing plays I’m sure. Hmm. That is disappointing. But that means there’s an opening, right? I could be the Diablo Cody of playwrighting. Without the stripping, of course.

I’ll keep you posted on the progress there. The playwriting, not the stripping. There won’t be any stripping, so stop asking.

The shirt’s not the man, no, but we’ll let that slide.

I’m still mad at David Mamet in case you were wondering. He’s got two shows opening this fall at the Atlantic Theater Company.

Me: No way am I going. No way.
R: Why not?
Me: What?? Because of November.
R: That was one play.
Me: And because he turned into an NRA Republican freako.
R: The plural of “anecdote” is not “data.”

Whatever. I’m still not going.

Let me just say this: moderation in all things, people.

I promise you that only your most uninteresting friends care what you just ate, said or posted on your blog. (It’s not cross-marketing if you’re using one channel of communication merely to state that you’re using another channel. That’s call forwarding.)

Likewise, on the other end of the spectrum, Twittering the birth of your first child does seem to me to diminish the importance of the event. Call me old-fashioned.

I had settled on two categories of tweets I like. One, the info tweet from places like MUG (Manhattan User’s Guide) that sends event alerts and such. Fine. Two, the clever tweet, the one-liner dispatched into the ether to substitute for a witty pal when I’m all alone at my desk.

Today, September the 8th, I would like to officially retract my endorsement of that second category.

For a while, I giggled to Favrd’s stream of favorite tweets but then it went sideways. Reading through them was like having a conversation with someone who’s going for the laugh with everything he says and not paying attention to the rest of the conversation (or his life, it would seem, in the case of these tweeters). You start out thinking he’s funny, but then he thinks he’s so funny that you end up thinking he’s kind of a self-involved a**hole.

Then I read this piece in Wired on how Twitter is the new joke notebook for comedians: they can try out all their unfinished material in a place that’ll archive it for them. So first of all, get a back-up drive and leave me alone. Second, that’s the official word: I’m deleting all you comedians - wanna be and actual - from my following list.

If you want to see who I’m talking about, check out Paul Feig’s feed. God. What a jerk.

I don’t want your B material, for Chrissake. If I did, I’d come by your apartment and watch you annoy your girlfriend with it. I know Twitter’s free and not $20 + a 2-drink minimum, but I’d much rather pay for actual punchlines than cringe through your practice round. That practice round, by the way, makes me want to never, ever hear you say anything again, so it may cost you my twenty in the end as well as the future of our non-existent but maybe-someday-when-I’m-famous potential friendship.

Show some decency guys. You’re approaching reality TV levels of self-humiliation. My aunt used to say, “If you don’t have something nice to say, come sit by me.” I say, “If you don’t have something interesting to say, shut up.” Some things are just better left unsaid.

Finally tracked down my favorite set of Fiona’s on Crackle. Sorry about the intro advert - apparently unavoidable.

“I’ve always believed that because you have access to people’s minds and communicate to people that there is a corresponding responsibility: the responsibility of being a good citizen and also recognizing that if you have the ablity to transfer ideas from one point to another that those ideas should cause no harm.” - Milton Glasser

This is exactly what I was getting at when I wrote about the upsetting irresponsibility of District 9. So there.

The House season premiere is on 9/21. More importantly, the Glee premiere is next week followed by, God help me, season six of So You Think You Can Dance? I’m not leaving the house until Thanksgiving.

See? It’s a film reel and a scaredy face!

(Thanks, Ramon!)

That’s kinda true. Not the job, but the diners yes, please.

At a massive truckstop at the foot of the Rockies I saw a truck with a deluxe cab that was to all intents and purposes an apartment, complete with bed in the back and upholstered everything. That’s what I’m talking about. Bring me my Prius and some brocade fabric and I’ll get started. And a staple gun. I’ll definitely need a staple gun. And some more coffee. And maybe a hat. And a CB radio.

‘Nuf said.

For the last four weeks, jackhammers, white trucks, men in day-glo vests and fold-up barriers have taken over the ‘hood. Every intersection in a ten-block radius has been hit. All the corners have been torn up. The middle of the 16th Street artery has been sawed open. The side street where my cafe of choice waits for me has been blocked off completely. What the hell is going on?

Instead of asking one of the dozens of guys who are wandering around, I prefer to speculate. Landing strips for the alien pods. Limited release installation of the magnetic guidance lines for those cars they keep talking about that are guided by magnets instead of people. Deterrence of jaywalking by electrifying crosswalks. New Constant Employment Initiative in which construction workers are compensated just for showing up and whatever they do with their time is their business. (I think that one’s been in effect for a while, since this is, like, the fifth time in five years that they’ve dug up that same street.)

Upon further examination yesterday, I’ve come to the boring conclusion that all the fuss and noise has been about installing yellow rubberized ramps on all the corners so the handicapped among us (like me on a bike - really, I’m a hazard) can get onto and off of sidewalks. That’s not interesting at all. I’m going to stick with the aliens thing and I’m going to go get my night vision binoculars just in case.

It’s not like that anymore. It might be a function of being so far from Manhattan or it might be because I’m 38. Whatever it is, “So, are you going to have kids?” has become this year’s, “How ‘bout them Mets?”

It’s weird to ask people about their sex lives over cocktails, isn’t it? (Unless the people in question are your Sex-and-the-City, personal girlfriends, of course.) Not just that: they’re also asking you to summarize your plans for the rest of your life in what will probably be a drive-by conversation lasting no more than five minutes.

Maybe I’m taking this too seriously. Maybe it’s understood that the kids question is like the co-worker’s question about your recent hospital stay: no one actually wants you to tell him about how the surgeon left a sponge in your chest cavity that’s formed a third lung and kept you on painkillers so long that now you’re going to have to go to rehab like your second cousin Larry who’s been living on the streets of Minneapolis for the last six months with his three-legged ferret Myrtle. Maybe they’re just asking to fill the time and be polite.

Except asking about kids isn’t like asking about your health: presumably you already have some health to discuss whereas you don’t already have kids. Isn’t that as random as asking me if I want to get my pilot’s license? Or something more serious, like if I’ve been considering leaving my life of single, western world privilege to go help out in Sudan. I wouldn’t broadside you over a mojito with, “So, thinking about reconfiguring your concept of life, liberty and the pursuit of your particular happiness this fine weekend?”

Here’s what I’m thinking. People usually want something when they act oddly, right? Not from you: for themselves. They’re displacing what’s on their mind onto you. So it’s not really about you at all.

Parents want grandkids, but some instinct tells them it’s inappropriate to request that another person bear live young so they can spoil them with treats. Instead of finding a quiet moment to talk about their personal life with you at brunch and saying, “I look forward to having grandchildren someday,” and appending a respectful disclaimer about how that desire may not converge with your thinking about your future, they punt managing their desire onto you at a crowded potluck with, “Do you think you want kids?”

Same with pals. What they’re really asking is, “Do I want kids and can we please talk about that?” If they already have kids, they’re saying, “I hope you’ll have kids too because I’d like some back-up for my choice and someone to talk to about it.”

(Of course, there are exceptions. Some of my close friends really are curious about what I think. But they’re not the ones trotting up to me at bars to discuss it. Kids are best discussed over non-alcoholic beverages. Come to think of it, alcohol and kids don’t really mix from conception onwards, so good rule of thumb there.)

Instead of being privately offended or tactfully declining to respond, I’ve settled on the inappropriate response to the inappropriate question. I got the grandkids question at a wedding overrun with children under five last month and responded that perhaps arrangements could be made to rent some of the existing toddlers rather than adding to their number. The next time a half-drunk acquaintance tries for my position, I’m going to pull up with, “I don’t know. But how do you feel about nude camp? ‘Cause that’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while.”

I’ll let you know how many people are still talking to me in a month.

(That’s me in the picture by the way, working hard at correcting my 20/20 vision in a plastic swimming pool.)

Thanks, Teddy, for your work and your example. May we all live up to your standard.

My mother was an unorthodox cook, coming as she did from a long line of Swedish Lutheran casserole makers but caught up in the ’60s hippie craze for oil-slicked, all-natural peanut butter, spinach flat noodles and homemade granola. Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking layered crepes suzette, cheese souffles, and boeuf bourguignon onto our bland culinary lives and probably saved us from a future of iceberg lettuce salads and goulash like we had at my grandmother’s house. (Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed iceberg lettuce with Russian dressing - ketchup, mayonnaise and sugar, in her version - as much as the next seven year old, but it wouldn’t have provided a broad foundation for culinary curiosity later in life.)

I didn’t make the connection between Julia and the boeuf that appeared occasionally at dinner and I was more mesmerized by the lurid, Technicolor photographs in the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook than by Julia’s text-heavy tome on the same shelf, but Julia’s French Chef was my favorite celebrity (after Aquaman, of course). Given that our access to TV was restricted to PBS, this is like my uncle saying that I was his favorite niece during the years when I was his only niece, but that doesn’t diminish the attachment. I felt connected to her through my godmother, who was a producer at WGBH, the PBS affiliate in Boston, and I liked how civilized Julia’s life and kitchen seemed compared to ours, which was overcast by my parents’ marital strife and the endless unfinished construction projects they inflicted on our house.

Come to think of it, I led a pretty bifurcated life for a little kid. Boston’s restaurants, Julia Child’s crepes, the Boston Camerata, Gilbert and Sullivan productions, English riding lessons (for a little while anyway), private school and soccer practice were one part of my life, the part I desperately wanted to live in full-time. The other part was home with my mother’s hatred of the suburbs, her unstable health, the crying, the fighting, the moods, the impending divorce and the fearsome knowledge that that other life I wanted wasn’t ever going to be safe from the wild swings of my parents’ unhappiness. It was also increasingly clear that I was, in fact, not the misplaced child of either a.) gypsies, or b.) royalty, which was a significant blow. Julia was an unflappable, cheerful voice of domestic sanity piping out of the TV into our distinctly not sane home.

I had a warped time of it media-wise too. On one hand, there was the usual, we-make-our-own-mayonnaise-and-(mostly)-don’t-let-the-kids-watch-TV childhood of Sesame Street, Zoom and the Electric Company. (Mr. Rogers was deemed creepy and, as an adult, I have to agree. His simpering manner reminds me of those piano teachers on Law & Order: SVU who turn out to have stashes of kiddie porn hidden in their basements.) On the other hand, there were evenings of Julia Child throwing around omelettes and Monty Python tossing around livestock. Between the French Taunter and the French Chef, it’s no wonder I grew up a little weird.

In the early ’80s, my brother and I got hooked on Dinner at Julia’s. It aired on Friday evenings, and we’d rush to watch it on the TV in the corner of the living room. Why were two pre-teen kids so into the show? It included a segment where Julia would go on an outing to track down some component of that episode’s meal. Often, she’d visit a vineyard to sort out a wine pairing, tasting the choice with the vintner on-site or back in her dining room with her lapel mic two inches away from her throat. All the swirling and swallowing was picked up on the audio track. As a ten-year-old, I thought this was beyond hilarious. I know: we were super cool. Also, clearly, media-starved.

I was kind of hoping, when my brother graduated from Harvard in the same ceremony that Julia got her honorary doctorate, that she’d pull up with a personal message for me and her other loyal childhood viewers of my generation or at least swallow something loudly, but no such luck.

I still have my mother’s copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking nestled next to the Better Homes & Gardens binder and The Joy of Cooking. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never cooked anything from it, but I’m glad to have it and know that, when the time comes to pull up with a souffle, Julia will be there to hold my hand as I ease it out of the oven in my also-hereto-unused Williams-Sonoma fluted souffle dish. At least I’m well-prepared for my future, theoretical French cooking efforts. That’s got to count for something, doesn’t it?

In the meantime, I’ll be over here munching on these excellent cookies I made from a recipe I found on the internet. Bon appétit!

Photo picked up from The New York Times, Julia Child on the set of The French Chef, 1963.

When it arrives, the autumn feels to me the way I imagine the New Year should: full of anticipation and excitement with the shiver of new opportunities in the air. At the beginning of January, I’m either hungover from Christmas or on the road, and I spend New Year’s Day making the obligatory lists of resolutions without the motivation to do anything about resolving them. Who wants to go to the gym or climb Mount Everest in January? No one, that’s who. Maybe if my resolutions were something wintery and within reach, like, “Get a kitten,” or, “Have some cocoa,” I’d get off my duff and get to it, but I’m too overachiever-y to pull up with something like that. I end up setting goals that are either way too broad or way too specific, like, “Win a Pulitzer,” and “Don’t forget to call Nicole.” Sometimes, I throw in a vacation destination or two, just for good measure. Clearly, in the wetness of midwinter, I’m in no mood to step back and take aim at my future.

Last January, I tried something new. I labeled a set of vases and a champagne cooler with different categories - Job, Travel, Wedding and so on - and R and I wrote down individual goals on Post Its and dropped them in the appropriate container. My thought was we’d get all the stuff we wanted to accomplish out of our heads and into the world and after a couple of weeks, we’d have a few drinks and pick a couple reasonable ones from each category for 2009. That two-step process was clearly too much for us. I sorted the contents of the vases about a month ago and found a Post It in the Wedding bunch that said “CPR” in R’s handwriting. Either he was being sarcastic or he’s got some ideas about what’s going to go on at our wedding that need to be discussed.

When I was about twelve, I figured out how to handle Lent, that next season of promises made and often unkept. The Catholics had abstention all sewn up with their fasting and fish, but we Episcopalians weren’t all up in the ritualized self-denial, leaving me to come up with something original to deny myself. There was candy, but that was crap because who can give up candy? Ice cream likewise. Beating on your sibling was frowned upon year round. What was left that was possible without requiring an inconvenient amount of suffering and self-denial?

I must have been in about sixth or seventh grade when I thought of the ideal solution: aim for something that was pretty well under my belt already, like giving up yellow mustard or heroin. Foodstuffs were low-hanging fruit since I could include things I already didn’t eat and things I’d rather not continue to eat: fruitcake, mushrooms, pudding, anchovies. I’d struck on what the self-help and team management books proselytize: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based goals (or SMART goals, for short). The relevancy might have been a little lacking, but I had the rest of them down.

The winter months clearly aren’t the right time of year for me to stiffen my spine and get down to business, so September has become my January.

Right now, though, there’s too much on my autumn list, too many things waiting to get sorted when the crisp fall weather rolls in in a few weeks. What I need to buckle down to is somewhere between Everest and yellow mustard, a few - maybe three - things I can sink my teeth into as we roll through the end of 2009. If I can get there, I can kick off 2010 with a sense of achievement and maybe a kitten.

Here are my current candidates:

1. Go to Thailand.
2. Finish Draft 1 of my new play.
3. Sort out the renter’s insurance.
4. Start a salon. (Think Dorothy Parker not AquaNet.)
5. Climb Mount Everest.
6. Double traffic to my site.
7. Settle on a date, location and budget for our wedding.
8. Get a new cleaning girl.
9. Drop usage of the word “like” to a level I can tolerate when I hear myself on tape.
10. Global peace.

That sounds do-able, right? Four months? Sure. Although you’re right: the renter’s insurance thing is pretty complicated.

OK. I’ll go for 2, 4 and 6, with a side dish of 7. Global peace is a Christmasy thing anyway.

Before he shut me down, I had addressed him as “Obama” and not “Mr. President.” Maybe it was that. Or maybe he was just distracted. He seemed distracted.

I constructed this after-story where I said something really sad and passive aggressive under my breath about how maybe I didn’t matter because I was middle class and his aide heard me and told him and then Obama sent me this really apologetic, nice letter. It was like that fantasy you have when your 10th-grade crush ignores you in the hall and then goes home and writes you a song and calls and then invites you to prom because he realizes he’s been a cad and didn’t notice the shining light of your inner beauty. Like that only with the President.

He did write that sweet, “Please excuse…” note to that one kid’s teacher when she missed class to go to one of his town hall meetings. (Photo from The Big Picture.) He might write me a letter. It could happen.

I think it was because I said something awkward about Nantucket. Maybe it was that.

More here.

(thanks Print)

I took a look at my shelf to see what you might see, and here’s what’s there:

• A lot of plays, heavy on the Pinter, the Albee and the Stoppard.
• Books on writing, including personal reflections like Annie Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Huffington’s book on blogging, and structural stuff like The Seven Basic Plots.
• Collections of essays (David Rakoff, Nora Ephron’s books old and new, Calvin Trillin, David Mamet), a bunch focused on New York (New York Stories, which is a collection of essays on the Big Apple from the New York Magazine archives, and Adam Gopnik’s Through the Children’s Gate which makes me so homesick I can only read five pages at a time.)
• Non-fiction like Carol Dweck’s Mindset about how we learn and its effect on success, Malcolm Gladwell, Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice on how choice and freedom aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, the dissection of disasters book The Unthinkable (excessively interesting), Judith Warner’s Perfect Madness about the ridiculous state of motherhood in America, and so on in that vein.
• Random loves, like Maira Kalman’s The Principles of Uncertainty and everything Alain de Botton has written.
• A lot of psychology books (Willard Gaylin’s Hatred and assorted other of his books, John Bowlby’s series on psychological development, Daniel Gilbert’s scientific analysis of happiness) with an increasing large dollop of writings about Buddhism (Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama).
• And, of course, fiction, which I’m not reading enough of, but it breaks my heart when it doesn’t turn out to be good fiction, so I have to be more careful there. I’m about to finally read Prep. We’ll see.

Enjoy your judgments! Happy Wednesday!

Last night, I got to go to an improv class with ten friends and it brought back memories of that Drew Carey show Whose Line Is It Anyway? that R introduced me to when we met. (Well, not “when we met” but sometime after I’d already fallen for him. Headlining with, “I’m into improv!” gets about as many girls as announcing you’re a mime.) I’d always clicked past the show because the set looked too much like cringe-worthy ’80s comedy clubs, but I got hooked after seeing a few episodes. Stephen Colbert passed through there, as did Greg Proops, Eddie Izzard, Jerry Springer, Robin Williams, and, er, Lassie.

If you’re lucky, your career and your calling are one and the same. However, despite all the advice on bookstore bookshelves and daytime talk shows to follow your bliss and get down to the business of starting your own rock quarry, mail-order marshmallow shop or edible book emporium, most of us hold down day jobs we feel we can’t afford to leave behind. The barrier might be a psychological one in some cases, but in most I’d bet it’s a financial one: it’s hard to see how you’d get by on a diminished salary (if you’re on your own) or on just one (if you’re in a couple).

I was in that boat until February. Having held increasingly well-compensated jobs for twelve years, it was hard to imagine how we’d do if I left my salary behind so that I could get down to the business of doing what we think I was meant to do instead (be a writer, that is). In my case, the push came in stages over a couple of years: a six-month break before my last job, concern about moving into that job when I took it (since it was so similar to the previous one), mounting distress that the position wasn’t what we’d hoped, and so on.

The same week I left my job, 30% of my company was laid off. Granted, it’s a different thing to plan to leave and do so voluntarily, and to be suddenly escorted out of the building, but in both cases you wake up the next morning with a different kind of day ahead of you. What are you going to do now?

Marc Colucci made a documentary about what some of the 70,000 laid-off creatives from the advertising field have done with their unplanned freedom. I hope the feature is as inspiring as the preview: “I got laid off and I started doing my life’s work.” Hooray freedom!

(thanks Molly)

The tour included business and theater in London (humid, grey), a wedding in Switzerland (formal), a couple of sweltering days in Milan, holiday with family in Venice, a little down time in Zurich, a lot of time in flight, a couple days on trains, and short trips on trams and boats. That’s a lot of different climates and even more transitions from flats to hotels and back and forth between countries.

Across all that, there were a few things that stood out as being incredibly handy to have and made the trip’s insane logistics so much easier to manage.

The Best Bag Ever (especially on the road): Marghera Convertible

To be fair, that laptop is a Mac Air (which, incidentally, I love like my unconceived children), so its weight doesn’t put a strain on the bag’s leather shoulder strap and its unusually slim form allows it to slide horizontally into a bag like this that wouldn’t accommodate either its Apple bretheren or any other standard size laptops. Don’t look at this as a drawback though: this is your opportunity to justify both a new computer and a new bag.

When not housing your ‘puter, the capacity is generous enough to hold small purchases in addition to the usual wallet, iPhone, keys and assorted cousins. Two flat outside pockets are exactly the size of your airline ticket and one small one inside will hold your passport.

Where to get it: Sundance Catalog. Currently on sale for $250.

iPhone

R talked me into an iPhone the day before we left the country, mainly so I could make international calls and send text messages in Europe without buying a just-for-international phone with a different phone number everybody then has to remember. I was ambivalent. Did I really want to get worked up about something so many people are already worked up about? Wouldn’t it be more fair to the coolness marketplace to get worked up about something more obscure? And wouldn’t I look cooler if I did that second one instead?

Also, I liked my little Blackberry Pearl and the consistency of Verizon. Why move to something bigger with AT&T’s terrible coverage?

Because it’s pocket-sized awesomeness, that’s why.

Really, though, the main thing was having a phone and text messaging which meant we could split up for the afternoon and still coordinate keys, dinner, and so on. I don’t know what we’d have done without it.

Where to get it: Apple.

iPhone App: Hi Converter

It converts things. Correction: it converts EVERYTHING. Do you want to know how many hectares are in a bunder? How many ngarns are in a square angstrom? Did you know there was such a thing as a square light year? The area converter can help. When you’re done there, the distance converter will turn your miles into gnat’s eyes (.00000007761). You can do electric current and digital image resolution conversions in your spare time.

Where to get it: App Store.

iPhone App: Collins Italian-English Dictionary

Since I speak German and a chunk of Spanish and can get by in French, I’ve been arrogantly cruising around Europe for quite a while without having to feel like a complete tourist. Those days came to a jarring end at the Italian border. Enter the iPhone (again).

Of all the dictionaries I tried, the $25 Collins was the best. It covers a lot of ground: direct translations, peripheral usage, colloquialisms and common (or, in the best cases, not at all common) phrases.

$25 is a lot for an app and I know no one wants to pay more than 99 cents, but the frustration of looking up a word and finding no results repeatedly on other apps gets old fast. You spent $1200 to get to Italy, you can spare another $25 to pull up with, “L’ho gettato nel water,” to explain the whereabouts of your passport/hairbrush/traveler’s checks. (Translates to, “I threw it in the toilet,” by the way.)

Where to get it: App Store

Hideo Wakamatsu 20” Viewer Trolley

The day after we got back from Barcelona in June, I biked over to the Hideo Wakamatsu store to check out superlight international carry-on sized luggage. I biked home with a silver 6.5 lb., 20” Viewer Trolley hanging from my handlebars.

My problem is that we have a bunch of stuff - some of it heavy - that I won’t check. R’s 35mm camera, my jewelry, things I’ll want on the plane (sweater, megaphone, another sweater, snacks) and essential clothing (an extra T-shirt and undies, plus whatever we would die without if they lost our luggage, like a swimsuit if we’re going to be beach or my dress for the wedding we’re attending). That pile of stuff always ends up being more than I want to carry in a shoulder bag, but I don’t want to drag around an actual suitcase with all the rest of my non-essential stuff too. (Besides, most American 22” roll-on suitcases are too heavy, once packed, to meet international flight restrictions.) What to do? Until last month, I chose “suffer” rather than add another suitcase to the mix.

That was the wrong choice. The Viewer kicks ass. It’s super light for getting in and out of bins, and its four wheels allow you to roll it next to you with your computer bag on top. It’s like walking a very quiet, rectangular pet. Your hands are free, your shoulder is relaxed, and you look like the seasoned traveler you actually are.

Quick warning: the lovely matte finish on the bag will mark, so brace yourself for that before you check it (if you ever decide you need to, that is). I haven’t checked it yet myself, so I’ve no idea how well it holds up to airline abuse, but it’s done beautifully inside planes, trams, and trains.

Where to get it: Currently out of stock at the eponymous shop but available - albeit inaccurately described as having two wheels and not four - at Flight 001.

Business Class

Traveling in business class (or above) is the way to go. I know there is no one (except possibly this jerk) who is in favor of the turn that air travel has taken in the last ten years. These days, the coach cabin on a long-haul flight looks more and more like the back of a Central American chicken truck. Between the the addition of bad things (longer lines and delays, ineffective security, fees for everything) and the elimination of good things (space, food, customer service), there’s pretty much nothing positive to say about flying except that you will get where you’re going not dead (mostly).

R travels for work, which rots but has a significant up side: he accumulates crazy numbers of miles and little stacks of upgrade certificates. We use the former to get me where he’s already going and the latter to get us there, occasionally, in business class. I don’t need warmed nuts and real china, but the quiet and the space bring the airborne experience back from the brink of catatonia into the land of, “I might not maim someone first thing when I get off the plane.”

Where to get it: Get a job where you a.) travel a lot (our way), b.) make a lot of money or c.) can commit a lot of untraceable financial fraud.

Seriously though, I’ve been on one of those - what is it the MBAs call it? - “constant improvement” kicks for the last few years to reduce the amount of luggage and stress that gets tacked onto our trips as a result of what are, really, manageable issues.

In the interests of helping others who are similarly handicapped, here are a few of my top-line tips.

One, trying to trap myself into wearing things I never wear at home by taking them on vacation with me is a losing strategy. That is, unless you’re planning on leaving your plaid pants, your pith helmet and your mint green Members Only jacket in your hotel room on the other end, in which case, go for it. Who’s to say that the Salvation Army in Boca doesn’t need your castoffs more than the one around the corner from your apartment?

Two, I’m not a boy, which should have been obvious to me a long time ago, but apparently wasn’t. When I finally owned it, I stopped trying to pack the way R does, namely in ten minutes the morning we’re leaving. You are who you are and you gotta do what you gotta do.

Three, for me, what I gotta do is pack at least two days ahead of time so that I have a couple of mornings between me and departure when I can wake up in a sweat remembering that I’ve forgotten to put any pants in the suitcase or that I’ve accidentally included a parka for a beach holiday. Give yourself a break on the day of the trip: pack early, re-pack often.

Four, save your complicated, one-time-wear costumes for events happening within driving distance of home. Simplicity and interchangeability are key on the road. Your glitter jumpsuit needs to stay home, as do complicated hats, and that layered look that involves a bolero jacket, a fur cape and two or three turtlenecks. You might think you’ll look cool when you get there, but that’ll be offset by how uncool you look schlepping a steamer trunk into JFK.

Five, related, unless you’re going to a wedding or a formal event, don’t take shoes that can only be worn with one outfit. Five-inch heels don’t go with running shorts, ever, not even if you’re on Sex and the City. (God, I still remember that one outfit all these years later? That’s called scarring, right?) Take as few shoes and boots as you can manage. Once you’re at the number, eliminate at least one more pair. If you can’t get down to three pairs, you need to buy some new shoes that are more outfit-interchangeable. (I’m here to help. Really.)

I have more tips, of course, but I need to pace myself, so more later. One of them involves stacks of Post-Its, a radio show, quite a lot of detailed list-making and sedatives. If you’d like to get a jump on that one, maybe that can be a fun weekend guessing project for you and the kids. Enjoy!

Check this out: 911 transcripts. Awesome.

5:33 pm: Officer is responding to report of belligerent hitchhiker at Hwys. O and 53.

5:44 pm: Above officer reports that belligerent hitchhiker will be moving along.

8:12 pm: Hitchhiker is lying in ditch by car dealer and roundabout. Officer drove by, and formerly belligerent hitchhiker waved at him, is fine and is just resting.

News from the home front? Our landlord changed the locks on our building while we were gone, which is always a nice welcome home, and, in the garden, she hacked down the climbing rose I’ve been tending for two years because, “They grow better when you cut them back.”

On the positive end of the stick, our car was neither stolen nor vandalized, as has so often happened during long absences, and nothing has burned down, so we’re generally pretty set. Except for the crap grey weather here in Summer Central, which does suck. It just doesn’t feel like San Francisco is really making an effort most of the time, does it?

Fortunately, we’re feeling like citizens of the world these days, so I’m pretending to ignore the fog while secretly planning a move to Zurich or Paris or someplace else that has proper seasons. I’m going to spring the news on San Francisco at a cocktail party some evening right before we leave, right when it’s talking to some cutie like Ann Arbor and hoping to score.

I’m not a fan of Star Trek or Conan, but this seems like a more appropriate forum for Sarah Palin’s bizarre resignation speech than her front lawn.

1. Have they no shame?


2. True or false: Having a picture of yourself in a place is more essential than actually having seen that place.


3. What exactly does a pictogram of a camera with a red line through it mean in Japanese?

Now I can’t stop saying that. It’s a handy phrase. Try it with me, “I guess I picked the wrong gay weekend to stop sniffing glue.” See? It’s an all-purpose, cheerful addition to any bad situation.

Now that is a good morning.

Of course, if you’re in a panic not related to being eaten by a nearby lion, that shutdown is less helpful. That’s where I am. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.

The 50th wedding anniversary party for R’s parents last weekend was a success by all outside measures: the feted couple was delighted, the guests appeared happy, we didn’t run out of anything and nothing burned down. Mission accomplished.

In parallel news though, the side effects of organizing and executing a major family event have proven difficult to manage, as anyone with a troubling family history who’s ever gone home for Christmas could probably have predicted. I might have predicted them myself if I hadn’t been a.) changing careers, b.) traveling internationally and c.) fending off planning a wedding.

Robert Sapolsky, a biologist at Stanford, wrote a book about human stress and coping called Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. In it, he talks about a zebra’s response to moving grass. If the movement is caused by a lion, the zebra’s best bet is to run. If the movement isn’t caused by a lion, the zebra can stay put. Since the cost of guessing wrong, though, is death, the zebra bolts when the grass moves, without first investigating the cause. Makes sense. For a zebra.

Humans have the same wiring. That is, our fight-or-flight reflex is also tied to predicting patterns (moving grass might = lion) and risks (moving grass might = lion, lion = likely death). (I’d like to discuss what the fight option might look like for a zebra - boxing? - but we’ll come back to that some other time.) Fortunately for us, we are not often stalked by lions, so the consequences of faulty reflexes, bad guesses and poor peripheral vision are not routinely deadly. Unfortunately for us, perceived emotional risk is handled by the same circuits that manage perceived physical risk.

For instance, if you grew up in a predictable, safe home, you probably have no emotional association or resulting pattern prediction with the sound of the front door opening. Someone’s arrived. End of circuit. If you had an unstable mother, however, you might associate that same sound with the arrival of threat because it might mean that mom’s home and therefore bad things might happen, so your amygdala preemptively amps up, tension kicks in, panic takes over, positive outcomes darken, and so on. For a zebra (prey) or a kid (powerless), that’s the right response: run or brace. For adults with more options (fences, airline tickets to the other side of the country), that chain reaction is often an ineffective and upsetting misfire, a learned response to conditions that no longer exist. Hence, ulcers. Or panic attacks, flashbacks, and very unpleasant weeks.

The good news is that with concerted effort, you can retrain your amygdala to pipe down once activated and, eventually, you can reset its trigger point, so you’re not stuck with your current wiring. (See your local cognitive behavioral therapist for assistance.)

In the meantime, under stress, my amygdala isn’t making fine distinctions. It kicks in when it thinks I’m cornered, and it’s not built for detail. The connection of “family” to “hazard” applies to all families as far as it’s concerned (even nice ones) and there’s nothing like trying to rope together a sizable family event on a too-short schedule to trip the wire. (Yes, again, even for the nice ones.) For the last few weeks, I’ve been in varying states of panic, claustrophobia and heightened anxiety. There’s been a lot of unprovoked (to the outside eye anyway) crying, not a lot of writing and quite a bit of imagining bad outcomes.

So today, in an effort to reboot the part of my brain that can imagine positive outcomes, I’m taking a break. I’m not checking email, which I’ve never tried before and which is proving very difficult, especially as the little red number of unread emails is glaring at me from my dock. I’m not thinking about the unbelievably stressful and disassociative day I spent trying on wedding dresses earlier this week (beyond writing that sentence, that is). I’m not contemplating the prospect of getting on the plane for London on Monday evening and am explicitly not imagining the two weddings and two and a half weeks abroad, mostly with family, that lurks on the other side of tomorrow.

Today, I decided last night, I’m writing and doing pleasant things only. (I’m very lucky to be able to do that, I realize.)

If you have any stories with happy endings, fluffy bunnies or tasty chocolates you’d like to drop by, today is the day. Come on over: we’re retraining my brain - it’ll be fun!

We think that’s a reminder to tour guides that they maintain an appropriate silence within a house of worship of historical importance but it’s also an uncommonly frank admission by the church that they won’t be taking any questions anytime soon, especially if you’re Catholic. Or a cult I’d guess too. Cults aren’t big on questions either.

I know: it’s absurd. We just got back from Spain. Don’t say it. The planning seems lacking, if not downright ridiculous, but it was unavoidable. Trust me: I tried to avoid it, but there it is.

London for three days (business for R, theater for me), then Zurich for four days (wedding), then Venice for ten days.

July - well, summer in its entirety - is not the time to go to Venice, but we’re doing it anyway, because that’s how our particular cookie crumbled. Given the summer heat (which I hate) and the summer crowds (which I hate), I’m going to need a plan to make this work. Here’s what I’ve been thinking:

1. Buy my own gondola. Live in it for ten days. Refuse to come out.
   

   
   Pros: I will not have to pay to get anywhere, thus avoiding the $176/hour fares for private gondola rides. (For $176/hour, that gondola better be made of gold and taste like frosting.) If I want company, I can charge other people for giving them a ride.

   Cons:
   

   • I do not know how to, er, gondol.
   • I get seasick.
   • Gondolas cost $35,000.
   • Gondola insurance might be required to transport strangers.

   Con mitigation: air bags, shock absorbers, gondoling classes, win the lottery.

2. Go out only between the hours of 1AM and 7AM.
   

   
   Pros: No crowds. No heat.
   Cons: No light. General suspicion that I am a vampire.
   Con mitigation: Flashlights. Avoid drinking blood. No capes.

3. Navigate based on crowd density: if there are more than ten people already in a street, take a different street.
   

   
   Pros: I will not get claustrophobic.
   Cons: I will spend most of my day standing in the middle of an intersection.
   Con mitigation: Step 1: Get very famous. Step 2: Hire assistant to clear streets ahead of me.

4. Invent the human hamster ball I’ve been meaning to get around to inventing.
   

   
   Pros: Air-conditioned comfort. Personal space. Floating transport.
   Con: Generator required for air conditioner + intercom system for communicating presence of oncoming hamster ball to crowds may weigh too much to allow for floating in canals.
   Con mitigation: Also invent floating generator. Take megaphone.

If you’re not watching Season 5 of So You Think You Can Dance, you should be. So get on that.

If you are, how much do we love Mia Michaels? I think she’s mean and would hurt every last one of my feelings, but she can bring some choreography. Best piece yet, I thought, and in a week when all the other choreography was really pretty terrible.

While we’re on the subject of ‘terrible’, if Tyce Diorio (the resident “Broadway expert”) never worked on the show again, it would be too soon. I cringe when I hear his name and I imagine the dancers do too. When was the last time he made dance or any one of those couples look better with his work?

Also on my “why haven’t you fired them yet?” list are the freakish Jean-Marc and France. (Let’s be clear about that name: she’s not actually French, she’s French-Canadian.) I don’t know where to start or finish with them. Yeah, ballroom is legit, but their offerings are through and through sappy. Also, they look deranged and creepy and like they might hurt my pets.

Sonya looks deranged too but in a good way, because there’s nothing as attractive as competence, right? Her choreography kicks ass (remember Courtney and Mark last summer?) If Nigel would just boot the Quebecois whack jobs and the Broadway nutter and fill their slots with Sonya or Tabitha and Napoleon, I might faint I’d like the show so much.

Sidebar: for those of you who caught last season, is Kupono this season’s Comfort or what? That dude has got to go. Seriously.

And finally, a home front shout out to R for tolerating three hours a week of my yelling at the television when the show airs. I can see how that might get irritating.

I’d definitely pay $300 to get the actual boy and the penguin though, if they’re on offer. Which they probably aren’t. Housing a wild animal within city limits, even if it could roam about on the deck and I got it an iceberg, is, I’m betting, illegal. As would be buying a child, I assume. Although, in the book, the boy does appear to live alone. Which seems irresponsible on the part of his original parents and the state.

Maybe he emancipated himself after the success of the books. In which case, he could choose to come and live with us and no one could stop him. I’m sure we could figure out a way around the penguin-in-captivity problem too if they showed up together. (The penguin seems pretty focused and resourceful, so odds are we could sort something out with animal control.)

While I wait for them to show up, I’m going to get some ibuprofen and a smoothie. Stupid dentist.

I’ve been doctoring it up recently. It’s not a good time to add appointments to the calendar, what with our fast-approaching return to Europe, planning a major event for R’s parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and two weddings to sort out in the next three weeks, but there it is. I’ve hit the optometrist and the dentist and taken the plunge with a new orthopedic adjustment.

You wanna know how all that’s gone? Not well, that’s how, thanks for asking.

First of all, the new orthopedic therapist is completely creepy. He’s oddly tan and pudgy and his personal manner is reminiscent of the guy you know from frame one is guilty on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. I was afraid to let him touch me in case he left a trail of slime. Unfortunately, he was pretty effective which made my decision to never come within ten feet of his creepy, creepy office again more difficult. But I got there.

Then I went to see my super-nice optometrist. All good. Except they tried to upsell me into anti-glare coating on my glasses lenses. On the inside. This made no sense to me - what kind of glare can be generated in the half-inch space between my glasses and my eyes? - until it occurred to me that maybe I was scowling during the appointment and they were trying to discreetly steer me towards reabsorbing my own ocular aggression. Like, they’re trying to bounce my glare back into my head rather than protecting me from any glare the world’s sending my way. Kind of insulting but also ingenious. If that’s what they meant. Which it probably isn’t.

To round out the disconcerting triumvirate of healthcare experiences, I had a full-blown panic attack at the dentist’s yesterday when they pinned me down for over an hour to do two fillings back to back. It was like Terry Gilliam had set up shop in the suburbs.

For your future information, in case you were going to try this at home, smocks with puppies and Fisher Price toys in your peripheral vision don’t offset the claustrophobia induced by having a large block of rubber wedged in your mouth and hooked up to lights and vacuum pumps.

After that ordeal, I moved on to the judgmental dental hygienist who gave me the silent treatment because I had accumulated too much plaque for her liking. Like I lie awake nights rubbing my hands together evilly and producing wheelbarrows of plaque just to spite her. It’s plaque for cripe’s sake, not nuclear warheads. And while we’re on the subject, I’d like to know who doesn’t lie about how much they floss?

I didn’t used to be an anti-dentite, but I am now. It took them a while, but they drove me to it.

From now on, I’m going to either avoid healthcare entirely or drink heavily before I go. That should make things more entertaining. For me, at least.

As with the other guides on this site, I don’t pretend to cover everything. These are my personal highlights and low lights of what’s out there. I hope it’s the supplement you were looking for to narrow down, expand or otherwise warp your itinerary. Enjoy!

A quick note on travel guides: I was a Let’s Go girl when I lived abroad. Then they got a little newsprinty and I cut over to Lonely Planet, but they’re not as selective as I’d like (I know what they include or omit constitutes an opinion but they don’t narrow it down a lot), so I went looking for a new, more opinionated and organized guide for this trip to Spain. My new best friend is the Top 10 series by DK Publishing: excellent photography, small enough to carry around, removable map included, and content divided by area and category. Sweet.

What You Should Do

Sagrada Familia

Let’s just get it out of the way: yes, you should probably go and see Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s unfinished monster cathedral. You’re going to see it whether I say you should or not, so I’ll get behind your effort. I can’t stand Gaudi and the Modernista style, but the cathedral does have sort of a Guinness Book of World Records appeal, given how long they’ve been building it (128 years and counting). In my view, that’s on a par with the world’s largest ball of twine, but, truth be told, if I were within walking distance of that twine ball, I’d probably go see that too. Seriously though, it is impressively large and unique, so man up, get over your horror of tile work and head over there. I wouldn’t walk to the top of the spire though - punishing trip, I hear.

Unless you’re a fan, Sagrada Familia will also relieve you of any responsibility to go out of your way to catch Parc Guell, or the apartment building La Pedrera, other highly recommended Gaudi constructions. You’ll probably pass some Modernista work on your way to other places you’re going anyway, so no need to plan special outings.

Palau de la Musica Catalana

Surprisingly, given that it’s also in the Modernista style, the Palau de la Musica Catalana makes the top of my list. Maybe that’s because I love me some stained glass and the concert hall has a one-ton inverted stained glass bell in the center of the ceiling. Also, unlike Sagrada Familia’s endless ramblings, the palau has a tight, efficient design with a purpose: a concert hall with the best possible acoustics for one of the first co-ed professional choirs. All the sculptures and tiles and columns and iron work fooforah support that objective. Mad props. It’s an amazing thing. Oh - and they got the whole thing built in a mindboggling three years. Take that, Gaudi.

To see inside, you have to book a tour (in the right language, mind you) or attend a concert. Tour’s just under an hour and they run regularly in English, but the tours book up and the Palau’s web site is not helpful, so it might be a good bet to wander by on your way elsewhere, buy a ticket at the box office for another day so you know you’re sorted.

Eat fideuà, olives, and jamon iberico

See notes on fideuà and restaurant recommendations here.

If you don’t like olives, as I didn’t before my first trip to Spain, this is the place to learn. You don’t have to go out of your way to find them - they’ll be served before almost any meal at a restaurant - but you may want to track down a grocery store to bring some back with you after you’ve had them. Most likely the ones you’ll be served are manzanilla olives, native to Spain, or manzanillas stuffed with - don’t gag: they’re not the same as the ones you pick off your pizza - anchovies.

Jamón ibérico is a must. It’s cured ham from pigs fed exclusively on acorns. Which sounds boring for the piggy but is salty and tasty for you. You don’t have to buy one of the entire legs, hoof included, that you see at the grocery store to gnaw your way through before you get to customs (or smuggle it in a tennis racket case as someone who shall remain nameless told me she did); the cheap stuff in sandwiches from bodegas will be stringy and unsatisfying, and the $95/lb. offerings are a little rich for some of us. Start with ordering some at a proper restaurant one afternoon and see how you like it.

Picasso Museu

Picasso was a misogynistic jerk, we all know that, but the man could paint. And draw and collage and pot, which is a welcome expansion of the usual, “Look at my naked cubist ladies!” museum repertoire. Barcelona was something of a hometown for Picasso, and the Picasso Museum been willed an excellent collection of his early and student work: drawings for larger works, small oil paintings on wood, notebooks full of pencil sketches and so on. Of course they have large, important works as well, but the most appealing part for me was seeing the early classical grounding that allowed for Picasso’s later evolution into groundbreaking styles. The artist in progress and so on. The museum is housed in a city castle, which makes for a charming but also somewhat disorganized and labyrinthine experience.

Montjuic and related activities

Barcelona, in case you haven’t noticed, is ringed by mountains which provides a handy opportunity to take funiculars up the sides of them or, if you’re deranged, bike up them. Montjuic is one of said mountains, the least suicidal one to bike, and home to, among other things, the Fundacio Joan Miro (a museum dedicated to, er, Miro), the imposing Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, the Olympic stadium (built for the 1936 Olympics, used in 1992) and a warren of very lovely parks with, sometimes, views across the city. The funicular to the top is part of the metro system, so heading up and making an afternoon of it isn’t nearly as complicated as the map looks like it will be. Definitely hit the Miro, wander the gardens, skip the stadium, if you’re up for it take on the National Museum and then meander downhill via escalator, stairs and paths among the fountains and gardens that will land you in the Placa d’Espanya where you can check out…

The Barcelona Pavilion

The Barcelona Pavilion is a “house” by Mies van der Rohe built of steel, glass and marble for the king’s reception at the 1929 World Exposition. They tore down the original, thought better of that bad decision and reconstructed it in the ’80s. If you have any interest in architecture or design, you have to go. It’s small and costs about $7 to get in, but it’s worth half an hour just to be inside those straight lines. We ended up here after a long, long day, happy to discover it was open until 8PM and intrigued that the brochure clearly labeled “English” was just as clearly written in French. I assume this was in keeping with one of van der Rohe’s less well-known utopian plans for future society. (Architectural info + bad photos here. Better photos here, especially here.)

What You Could Do (specialty)

Formatgeria La Seu

The artisanal cheese movement has yet to catch on in Spain, so it’s a rarity to find a place so focused on and willing to discuss cheese. It’s not that Spaniards aren’t making cheese in huts on the sides of mountains and meadows, it’s that Spain isn’t flooded with the wine-pairing classes and Whole Foods’ marketing and retired bankers going into goat-rearing that America and France have. Formatgeria La Seu has been chipping away at that for several years now. The shop is central (if tiny), the proprietress is Scottish so you can ask questions freely, and the cheese is phenomenal. Follow her lead and buy whatever she tells you to: she knows whereof she speaks since she goes out into the countryside to find and collect the best cheeses herself. If you have a spare Saturday afternoon, you can even swing by and take a class. (Hours: 10-2, 5-8)

Get yourself some espadrilles

I know. I don’t wear ‘em either. But these are some kickin’ kicks. Handmade on the premises, the espadrilles at La Manual Alpargatera come in everything from the traditional flats to crimson gladiator wedges. I bought two pairs and love them like my future children. Who will also, presumably, provide little in the way of arch support.

Liquor

Some restaurants, especially the ones on the water that serve that day’s fresh catch, drop off bottles of clear liquor and shot glasses at your table after you’ve finished eating. Have some. It’s a digestif made out of fruit and gasoline. You’ll like it, especially if you’ve just had half a bottle of wine with dinner. In fact, you’ll like it so much that you’ll swing by the grocery the next day and buy a bottle for $7 to bring home with you. The stuff is terrible but highly addictive.

Vincon

Vincon is a design shop a few blocks north of Placa de Catalunya and worth a visit, if only to buy a few gifts and wish you had that much money to spend on a minimalist bassinet your baby’s going to outgrow in 20 minutes. The place is huge and offers everything from rubber handbags molded to look like roosting hens to high-end kitchenware to Pantone luggage.

Sant Felip Neri Square

Round behind Barcelona Cathedral in the Born neighborhood is a tiny square with a small café outside a wildly expensive hotel. There’s a lovely tree, a fountain, it’s off the beaten path and the café con leche is perfect. While you bask in the afternoon sun, you can think sad thoughts about the bullet holes in the church wall across from you. Location here.

What You Could Do

Tibidabo

We didn’t re-visit Tibidabo this time, but it’s worth a trip after you’ve been up Montjuic, that is, which is a nicer mountain. Tibidabo does have better views though, given that it’s much, much higher. Drive, if you have access to wheels, and you can stop at various points on the way up or down the hill to take photos. Otherwise, public transport will get you there and you can visit the highly impressive Temple de Sagrat Cor church, wander the park, sample the amusement rides which have inexplicably been installed next to the cathedral and generally take in the sun and altitude. (Panorama preview here.)

Museu d’Historia de la Ciutat

The History of the City Museum is not gripping and was, for me, a little tedious, but it does allow you to go underground and view excavated Roman ruins still laid out as they were found. Streets, laundries, wineries and so on lie under suspended pathways beneath modern Barcelona. If you - or your kid - are into archeology, you’ll like it here. (Their web site is spectacularly unhelpful. Check your guide book.)

Museu d’Art Contemporani & Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona

What You Can Totally Miss

La Rambla

I think all the guide books are high when they recommend La Rambla as a must-see in Barcelona. It is distinctly an “avoid it if at all possible” on my list, crammed as it is with foreigners, pickpockets and the worst of the worst of tourist-pandering shops and restaurants. If you want the rambla experience (trees, cafes, shops), get off the subway at Placa de Catalunya and walk north on Passeig de Gràcia or Rambla Catalunya.

Corte Inglés

Again with the crack-smoking by the guide book editors, Corte Inglés, the biggest department store in Barcelona, is a mess. Yeah, it has a little bit of everything, but it also has mostly nothing. If you want the clothes, go to the shops themselves: Mexx, Kookai and Desigual all have stores elsewhere in the city with better selections than the sub-boutiques crammed into Corte Inglés. The whole Corte Inglés experience was like going to a pointless WalMart masquerading as a Macy’s. (One exception: the basement of the location in Placa de Catalunya has a comprehensive drugstore for buying only-sold-in-Europe products, and a fully stocked grocery store.)

Anything Olympics-related.

Unless, of course, you’re a future Olympian. In which case, you might have a word with them about using the track for a couple of laps.

Camper shoes

I don’t understand the appeal of Campers. They’re wide, unflattering and not even a little bit chic. I thought maybe I’d missed their point because I had only seen the styles they export to the United States. Turns out they export all their styles to the United States and they cost just as much in the city that spawned them as they do in the States. Still stumped.

I, like everyone else, has something to say when I leave the theater, but mostly I don’t write about it (even though, unlike most everyone else, I actually have a degree in film). Why? Because there are a lot of people already saying things about the movie I just saw and I don’t like crowds.

Today, however, I’m going to make an exception. Again with the, “Why?” My, aren’t we inquisitive, this Monday morning! Well, I’ll tell you. Because yesterday, R and I saw The Hangover and I spouted on a bit about some other movies we’ve seen recently and how to rate them and R said he’d like to hear more, so here we are. That just goes to show how much I like him. And if you disagree with me on any of these, you can take it up with him.

I rate movies based on how successful they are at doing what they set out to do, not how they stack up against the best movie ever made. If it weren’t on a relative scale, Casablanca and The Philadelphia Story would get A’s and Bad Boys, all of the James Bonds and the VeggieTales would get F’s. I love Pierce Brosnan too, but you know I’m right.

Angels & Demons. C minus. Even without the godawful haircut Tom Hanks sported in the first one, this sucked almost as much. Without the overlay of religion, the plot looks like something out of Superfriends, especially when you count the exploding helicopter. If Ewan McGregor weren’t so good at being good while shoveling down a plate of ham, I’d have given it a D.

Frost/Nixon. A. While we’re on the subject of Ron Howard, this is recently out on video. Given his abysmal record (Apollo 13 was a long time ago and no one but me loves The Paper) of directing quality (not “money-making” but “quality”) movies, I was very worried to hear Howard had gotten his hands on Peter Morgan’s (The Queen) script and might cut out Frank Langella (who played Nixon in the stage version and - bizarre and irrelevant - dated Whoopi Goldberg for ages). Glory be, though: he kept Morgan and Langella’s work intact and the movie kicks some Watergate ass. Also: extra points for the super-effective preview.

Up. A. Yes, I’m upset too that there wasn’t a not-dead girl in sight in the movie but them Pixar boys (yes, they’re mostly boys) produce some quality entertainment. 3-D was an OK gimmick but inessential. It’s quite a feat to make a movie that everyone from my management-consultant father to my urban artist friend to an eight-year-old is quoting three weeks later.

While we’re on the subject, that animation crowd needs some therapy re: killing moms. Either they can’t write ‘em (which is a sign of laziness but not malice) or going home for Thanksgiving must be quite the ordeal.

The Hangover. B minus. It lacked the poignance of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and some of the brilliant banter, but the premise was excellent, the resolution not cringe-inducing and Zach was weird but not outta hand. Whew. (Is Bradley Cooper shark-y or what?)

Terminator Salvation. D. Trust me: there’s no salvation for anything/one/cyborg here. Completely forgettable. Thank you, Christian Bale, for forcing them to dilute the original storyline so you could get more camera time. I love Batman as much as the next guy, but McG, this ain’t no music video: the star doesn’t rule the shoot. Also, stop being a schmuck and using your ghetto nickname in the credits like you’re not an overpaid, blonde white guy.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine. B minus. Brace yourselves: there are, like, 50 X-Men named in the previous movies, so this Origins series is gonna be a long one. Thank God they started up with the hot one. I hate the facial hair, but I can’t forget Hugh’s tragic look and slim hips or Liev’s vicious incisors and claws, so they must’ve done their job. And by “job” I mean “getting me into the theater even though I saw part of the pirated version and it looked like it might be a complete train wreck but decided that seeing it on an extremely large screen might make up for its obvious shortcomings in plot and execution.” Well done, boys.

Star Trek. Drag Me to Hell. Oh wait, are those two separate movies? Not for me, they’re not.

Transformers: The College Years. C. No, I haven’t seen it, but I’ve done the math.

Muscle cars (hot in 1983)[-72]
+ Shia LaBeouf (over-exposed a la Jude Law circa 2004)(-23)
+ Megan Fox (get over your-“I’ve never been a big believer in formal education”-self)(-NC17)
/ sequel [possible -37]
-3.02 (which is about a C).

This dude could clear brush with his laser vision, that’s all I’m saying. Bad #$*&#! ass.

(Sorry about Comedy Central’s terrible video quality. Original here.)

Officially, de Botton is a philosopher, but he writes about his subjects (architecture, literature, society) in the context of history, sociology, art, anthropology and pretty much every other discipline. He might be a total crackpot - I cannot imagine having the time or energy to fact check all his references and agree or disagree with all his associations - but there’s no doubt he’s an interesting read. Kind of like Malcolm Gladwell: you don’t have to buy everything he’s selling, but there’s no doubt he’s thinking about and connecting ideas, facts and theories in a new way, and that, in itself, is inspiring.

Check out his website for a preview and photos not included in the book.

Yesterday, I read an interview with de Botton about his last book which was about architecture, how it affects our lives unconsciously, and what we’re drawn to as “home”. The interviewer asked him about where he, de Botton, feels most at home.

I tend to feel very much at home in transitory spaces — the sort of spaces that Edward Hopper often painted. Put me in a diner or airport lounge, a hotel or railway station, and I’m generally very much on home-ground. I’ve tried to analyze why. I think it has to do with the curious comfort these places offer: they make you feel that you’re not alone in being alone. They are places where everyone is on the way somewhere else, where everyone is an outsider, and so this can be strangely more comforting than feeling alienated in a domestic, supposedly cozy environment.

When I read that, I flashed back to how I used to feel about train stations and airports, back before a year of numbing delays and red eyes flying back and forth between New York and San Francisco for work, before trips to and from Europe became routine, before airlines began their current decline into knee- and spirit-crushing inhospitality.

Back then, I feigned nonchalance to cover my excitement about joining the club of people with purpose. Having spent years not being part of that club - picking my father up and dropping off my mother’s friends, watching other children get on planes, knowing that they were going places while I headed back to the car, to the drive home, to the daily grind of being a kid with a messed up family - I thought the appeal of travel would never fade. Travel had an intentionality that I yearned for down to the toes of my itchy 1970’s cable-weave tights. If I had had a ticket, it would have meant I had somewhere else to be, somewhere else where I was expected. It didn’t matter if those other kids were going to Albuquerque, it might as well have always been Paris as far as I was concerned. I just wanted up and out.

To make it worse, I - we - used to be able to go all the way to the gate to enviously surf the wave of departing passengers’ distracted anticipation and catch a glimpse of arriving passengers’ studied (to my young eye) boredom, with their loosened ties and the top notes of light perspiration, relief and mints.

When I did start to travel, the time in the airport, the time on the trains, my own seat, the sterile, uniform cabin, the waiting area with its artificially expensive magazines and soda and over-preserved food, all combined to form a reassuring cocoon of structure and intention that confirmed my childhood projections. I was there for a reason. I had somewhere to be.

No matter where it was, pleasant or unpleasant, I had a cushion of space until I got there, a stretch when I didn’t need to worry about what was next, if I was pushing forward hard enough, if I was getting “there” fast enough, if I was trying fiercely enough. I knew what was next. I didn’t need to push or worry or try: the pilot, the conductor, had it covered and I was left to myself for a few hours. I would get there when I got there and if I was late, it would not be my fault. Between origin and destination, estimations of sufficiency were meaningless. With my feet very literally off the ground, any effort at forward motion was pointless, foolish even. Nothing was required of me except that I arrive and, once there, those on the other end were required to welcome me, to look for me specifically, to find me and be satisfied for having found me.

Of course, the actual travel was, even from the beginning, something of a disappointment. Until I stopped suppressing it for the sake of the fantasy and started taking medication, I was almost always a little nauseous on planes. Amtrak regularly pushed that breezy, “being late doesn’t matter” envelope a few inches beyond my tolerance for being in a confined space. And, naturally, I felt so much pressure to take advantage of the suspension of expectation that I couldn’t sleep or, more to the point, become an entirely different person in my few hours en route.

I’ve adjusted to travel. I take, as needed, sedatives for the claustrophobia, Bonine for the nausea, and R for the pleasure of leaving and returning with the person I don’t want to leave and always want to return to. Having loved and lost, I carry my valuables and essential clothing with me. Because aerodynamic is better (inside the plane and out), I check as little as possible in as sleek a suitcase as possible. I wear boots and cashmere to keep me warm, upright and ready for chance encounters with someone I admire, Europeans, or anyone who’s ever intimidated me.

Every once in a while, most often on trains, sometimes in business class, there is a moment when, suspended by travel, I feel at home in my life, am surprised that, in the main, I have the actual fact of the image I used to envy at airports and on train platforms. It’s a lovely, lucky feeling when you have somewhere to be, when you know where you want to be, and it’s where you are.

It’s even better without the scratchy tights.