Monday, March 26, 2007

we try but we didn't have long

[this.is.good.]

1. Flying Toasters Screen Saver Clone
If you had a computer in the late 80s / early 90s, or if you spent a great deal of time in grade school playing The Oregon Trail in the computer lab, chances are you're familiar with After Dark screen savers. Now the iconic flying toasters can once again flutter across your desktop in this clone (Windows and Mac). Is it just me, or do I seem to remember that on the After Dark module you could set how dark you liked your toast? Genius. Now if only they'd bring back that Simpsons screen saver where Homer ate away your desktop...

2. The Curiosity Shoppe
Absolutely adorable (albeit a little pricey) and unique goods. So what's worth shelling out for? The wallpaper plates, pretty much any of their stationery, and for some reason I'm in love with this silly decorative crown.

3. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
J put Of Montreal on a mix many moons ago. I listened a few times and my conclusion was: meh. His disappointment was palpable. Then I stumbled across the video for "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse" on YouTube and was instantly hooked. As it happens, the whole album is great. So yes, I am a latecomer to the wagon, but a happy one! Other current musical obsessions? Hot Chip - The Warning, Orange Juice - The Glasgow School, TV On the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain. For the record, the jury is still out on the new Arcade Fire. I am also loving Morrissey again lately (I could write an essay on why I love how completely absurd he is. See: video for "Suedehead", subsection Moz driving a tractor and playing bongos to a field of cows). But I digress...

4. Almay Ideal Lip Color
I am not one who can normally pull off lipstick, but Almay has developed a line of colors that are flattering for everyone. I bought the berry and red sets (minus the lip liner... I've progressed, but not that far...) and am impressed! I tend to play up my eyes instead of my weird lips, but now...

5. Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness Juice
1 liter = Best.Hangover.Cure.Ever.

6. Blue Planet: Seas of Life
[NB: as of this moment, the DVD set is 30% off at Amazon, which is a steal. Buy it. Now. Trust me on this one.] Absolutely stunning series on marine life, narrated by none other than the entirely endearing and mesmerizing David Attenborough. I'm pretty sure they're still showing it (although perhaps irregularly) on Animal Planet, but if you can catch only one episode make sure that it's the one on Deep Sea Life. It boggles my mind, the creatures they find down there. If you've ever joined me on one of my trips to a museum of natural history, you'll know I am marginally obsessed with freaky deep sea critters ("Bloody pilot fish! Evil pilot fish! I know your dad!!").

7. Georges DuBoeuf Saint Amour (2005)
In case you haven't noticed, I haven't met a Beaujolais I didn't like. This is a great spring red, though, as it is a little lighter and fruitier. I have a feeling it would make an excellent sangria. Hmm, perhaps a thought for my getaway this weekend...

Saturday, March 17, 2007

tomorrow, will it really come? and if it does come will i still be human?

Ugh, my brain feels so blocked lately! I have all these projects that I'm anxious to work on, and yet I feel like accomplishing anything is an uphill battle. I need a change of scenery. I wanted to venture out today, but it's far too snowy.

I spoke with K briefly on Thursday and we've made tentative plans to go on holiday together in February or March of 2008. Destination? Budapest for a few days, and then somewhere beachy in the Mediterranean to relax. This gives me something to look forward to, which I think I've needed lately. I haven't been abroad in a year, and it'll be almost two by the time I take this trip. I'd like to start whittling down my list of places I want to visit.

I'm unsure of what I want anymore. Well, not that I've ever been entirely sure, but now I feel as though I should stop coasting. I'm 26, and while I'm not quite old enough to have everything sorted out, I'm not so young anymore that I can fritter away months and years without any particular direction. Do I really want to stick around Rochester? If not here, then where? And doing what? Should I just leave it all to chance and apply for jobs everywhere and anywhere I would consider living? I don't think it's a bad idea to cast my net wide, but I'm just so weary of moving and I want to make certain that the next place fits. I'm unbelievably itchy to plant roots and nest.

MB and I had dinner at Cibon last weekend and I talked about it a little bit over champagne martinis. So many of our peers (including ourselves) have a vague sense of arrested development; that we should have our lives sorted out by now, or at the very least be working towards all the things that define adulthood in our society - a career, property, a family. We seem to be consciously putting all that off. We're afraid (or unwilling?) to commit to our lives as they are. There are certainly exceptions, but just about every 26-29 year old I talk to will say "Oh, right now I'm doing [whatever] but I only for another few years." Or, "I'm not planning on staying here long, maybe a year or two." Only half of them have ideas of what they'd like to replace these "meantime" jobs and locations with. Incidentally, all those long-term relationships that spanned my friends' mid-twenties are over, and almost everyone is single again.

It's comforting to know that I'm not the only one going through this, but at the same time I'm wondering if our idealism is leading us astray since we don't seem to act on it. There's no precedent for our generation, so it's difficult to tell if everything will work out or if we'll end up with a lot of varied and wonderful personal experiences but little lasting contribution. We have made few, if any, sacrifices. In fact, I wonder if it's even misleading to speak of "our generation." I feel that, if anything, we're so insular and obsessed with our individual paths that there is no coherence to our collective age group.

Anyway, I'll figure something out. I think I need to psych myself up about moving again. The prospect of starting over somewhere new used to thrill me, but now it leaves me feeling exhausted. I don't want to stay in Rochester for the wrong reasons (i.e., because I'm too lazy to pull up stakes and start over again), but at the same time I don't want to relocate naively either (i.e., because I think life will be entirely different somewhere else). I just want to make sure I'm not robbing myself of opportunities by sitting still.

Monday, March 12, 2007

c'mon mood shift, shift back to good again

A quick, bullet-point update since I haven't updated in about a month.

*J, I apologize for being so previously lukewarm about Of Montreal. I listened to 'Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer' quite a bit this weekend and love it. LOVE it. You were right and I was very wrong.

*Come the end of the month, I'm heading to a cabin in Central New York with MB, his girlfriend, and approximately 13 assorted strangers and acquaintances from NYC and Rochester. I'm excited. I haven't been out in anything resembling 'the wilderness' in ages. That said, there is a woodpecker hammering away somewhere outside right now. I can hear him but can't see what tree he's in.

*I would like to visit Belgium in the next year. Brussels in particular. I bet I could easily convince K to join me. Maybe spend a few days there, then take a train down to the south of France. I could use a vacation.

*Speaking of cabins and wilderness, I've been watching 'Twin Peaks' over the past few days (I just finished Season 1). Why was I so into this show? Some of the writing (particularly the scenes with Agent Cooper) is absolutely fantastic, but for the most part the show is not as mind-blowing and awesome as I had remembered. Then again, I remember Season 2 being completely different from Season 1, so maybe I should hold my tongue for now.

*In more TV news, I am less than impressed with the recent episodes of 'Lost'. To begin with... most.useless.flashbacks.EVER. Number one, no one cares about Jack's tattoos. Seriously. Calling that one of "Lost's biggest mysteries" in the promos was absurd. Number two, so Cheech is Hurley's dad. Big deal. The least that flashback could have done is let us in on some new info about the Numbers, instead of hammering home 'the numbers are cursed!' schtick. Number three, en-ough about Sayid's past as a torturer. We get it. He has skeletons. Move on! Anyway, on top of the useless flashbacks, nothing even HAPPENED in any of the post-break episodes except this last one (which was vaguely interesting only until we found out that Patches wasn't a Dharma remnant). Kate and Sawyer whined at each other, Hurley pointlessly fixed a hippie bus, and Sawyer lost his stash at ping pong. Yawn. Remember when this show was intriguing? What with the hatches and the revealing flashbacks and the Others and the smoke monster and the whispers and the visions? Now we have painful inaction on top of having to endure the useless twins Nikki and Paolo. Yar.