more new pics.

The sun on the pool during my lunch break.



See how lucky I am?

music box with a shaky transmission.

I've been driving the Purple Dream Cruiser again, now that it has a new battery and all. The other problems are not yet sorted out, but I drove to Boyle Heights last night to see my Grandmother. On the 101. And I'm alive to tell the tale. Suggests that perhaps it takes more than a long period of boredom and at least two traffic accidents to keep her down.

I don't know why I just made my car female. Not that I think it's male either.

This all amounts to three things:

1)A considerable increase in my current level of automotive spunk.

2)While the battery was dead, this newly-female set of wheels took up our one space in the garage. I don't have to look for street parking anymore.

3rd, Final, and Most Enjoyable-considering #1 suffers greatly by my being doomed to never drive above 50mph ever again apparently)A CD player that involves absolutely zero thought. Our other car has glorified walkman with a cassette tape adapter thingie. I had to plan to change the CD in that car. No more.

So I've been listening to more varied music, rather than the same CD over and over for weeks. Today I was belting out lyrics along with Sheila Nicholls, who I have greatly neglected in recent months. She's fantastic.

Yesterday I was listening to Scarlett's Walk. And then last night I saw a commercial for Tori's new CD...on TV. T.V. It was like seeing an ad for Ralph Nader. You know, everybody knows who they are, but no one expects them to pop up in People magazine any time soon.

Okay, so maybe it's nothing like seeing a Ralph Nader ad. But it was still...weird.

As I was looking at Tori's page to link it, I couldn't help noticing how much the new design looks like the design of this book I've been looking at at work called Wintering. It's a novel about Sylvia Plath. Whose poems include a lot of bee imagery because her father was a beekeeper. Oh. And Tori's new CD? It's called "The Beekeeper." Perhaps there really aren't that many graphic design paths to take with this theme.

John and I have had the stereo on and the TV off tonight. I was reading. Which felt good. Except that the book is dragging along and I got tired of it. Meanwhile, Ben Folds is singing to me. And I think tomorrow Sheila will go back in my rainbow-colored CD binder...

found art.

testing out our new nikon.

John and I got a new fancy-pants digital camera. To try it out, I took some pictures of the pool...and one of John. Oh yeah, and I tried out the new gallery program handy computer-god Jim set up for the little "community of vanity" known as the websites on Jim's server.

exploring the infinite abyss.

I just watched Garden State for the first time since I saw it in the theater back in October, I think. We rented it last night, along with Ray, which was way sadder than I ever would have imagined. Anyway, it was strange watching Garden State again now...after so much is different in my life now.

We first saw it in Alhambra, which felt like the middle of nowhere...because it sort of is. And we got there really early, ended up eating at the Denny's down the street before hand. John and I were arguing about jobs and not having them. And about whether or not we were even suppose to be in California. And then we saw this movie that defines family as "a group of people that all miss the imaginary place," that imaginary place being the elusive definition of "home."

Things not being so desolate now, I watched it again, right after a rather disappointing work week. Disappointing because I'm a snob and feel self-conscious when I hand ex-employees, who've just been accepted to impressive East Coast schools, their change.

When I read this article in the Times on Sunday, the two things seemed related. I don't really know why exactly. The article really annoyed me though. Mainly because I got the feeling that Charlotte Allen is not only not in the position to judge, but that she doesn't realize how much she contradicts herself.

For example:

Allen mentions Deborah Tannen and that she writes about "how the sexes are socialized to communicate differently" in an article that basically says women, of late, are only good at being privately intellectual.

From Tannen's book You Just Don't Understand, discussing a sample couple:

"Returning to Rebecca and Stuart, we saw that when they are home alone, Rebecca's thoughts find their way into words effortlessly, whereas Stuart finds he can't come up with anything to say. The reverse happens when they are in other situations. For example, at a meeting of the neighborhood council or the parents' association at their children's school, it is Stuart who stands up and speaks. In that situation, it is Rebecca who is silent, her tongue tied by an acute awareness of all the negative reactions people could have to what she might say, all the mistakes she might make in trying to express her ideas." (page 87) In other words, women are chatty at home, men are confident in public.

Now, is it just me, or is there something missing in Charlotte Allen's assessment of female intellectuals? Or should she simply not have made reference to Tannen, whose book holds such a persuasive argument Allen herself has chosen to ignore?

And then I think about myself. And in what direction, if there is one, that I'm heading. And I wonder, when does the need for progression slow to a halt?

The truth isn't that I'm some lost child, searching for the way back. I'm just looking for the way out.

23 is the new black.

Happy Birthday, John!

store.

Okay, so, I went through with the store idea. If you're in the mood to do me a favor, go look at it...and then come back and comment on whether or not you think it's a silly idea.

By the way, any money earned from said store, which wouldn't be much, would go towards the upkeep of this site, Walkonboy, Amazing Amoeba and 32bit Kid, all the sites on Jim's server.