Will all the planets please step forward?

Not so fast, Pluto.

apartment living!

Rawr!

Having to listen to the yappy dog with the separation anxietyin one apt at the same time as the loud sex in another apt makes me want to live on my imaginary country manor, raising sheep. Sheep don't yap or have loud sex, as far as I know.

not even getting up to pee

This afternoon I figured I'd had just about enough Law & Order for awhile (this whole staying home sick thing is getting so boring). I needed to spend some time reading. I'd started Altered Carbon, a sci-fi noir novel, and it's good, but damn, it's so aggressive. Too much maleyness, as I like to call it. Sci-fi and noir are sort of boys' clubs already, not to mention what happens when the genres cross pollinate. Looking on my shelves, I couldn't find anything suitabily femaley that I hadn't already read (wasn't in a rereading mood) but luckily I saw The Passion by Jeanette Winterson on the shelf in the kitchen. Not having read any of her work, I was still fairly assured the voice was decidedly feminine. Plus it's short and wouldn't distract me from finishing my already started books. So I read it all in one sitting. There aren't many books that I've read in one sitting, frankly. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Invisible Cities, Cat's Cradle, and a few others, I'm sure, but as Poe pointed out (more about Poe in coming weeks, I promise!) work is more powerful when you get to read it all at once. The book was pleasant, its pleasure augmented by absorbing it in one dose, and had this one line I loved: "I go on writing so that I will always have something to read." There's something so strange about that line, it's self-involved and oddly naive and I can't quite figure out how I feel about it.

leave the gun. take the cannolis.

So I've finally seen The Godfather now. It actually took me three tries, but I watched it all today, in my mucus-headed fog. I enjoyed it, and moreover I can appreciate it, which is what we're supposed to say about such things, right, but I certainly can't say that I loved it. I just don't find organized crime all that fascinating. And the core story, the whole idea of the tragic inescapability of family, has been explored in myriad ways, some of which engage me more. I like that Al Pacino has to change his hairstyle and stop wearing brown once he starts working for the family.

I also saw Snakes on a Muthafucking Plane. And perhaps my only complaint is that while it did "go there" and by "there" I mean "gratuitous places," it could in fact have gone a little farther. I don't think any babies got eaten. But it was like a classic joke: you set up the stereotypes, you knock them right down, you add some 13-letter expletives, and if all else fails, you can throw some rubber snakes around the audience to get the cheap prop gag.

I didn't comment at all on my recent trip to NYC, but it was fantastic. Living so far from so many of my dearest friends is torture indeed. I'm seriously cheesily treasuring all the moments, from the intense morning shower races that have become ritual, to drinking beer at the Gowanus Yacht Club, to my visit to my old building, where the doormen argued over my name, settling on Maria (close enough?) and where Maggie put me to work framing a collage of her hat-designing career that was surprisingly more prestigious (Bergdorf Goodman windows!?) than I had realized. I love San Francisco, but New York still feels like home.

best thing i've overheard lately

A conversation between two girls. From what I gathered, the situation was that one was "interviewing" the other one as a potential roommate.

Interviewer: I really don't want to live with someone who has frequent, unannounced, overnight guests.
(ed note: Most diplomatic way of saying "I don't want to live with a ho" ever!)
Interviewee: Define "frequent."

fun games to play

I went to a show at the Independent last night and we invented a game of imagining what the bands were up to in high school and what music they were into. The results:

The Fabulous Entourage

What were they doing in high school? Theatre.
To whom were they listening? Meatloaf, the Ronettes

Bobby Birdman

What was he doing in high school? According to John, hiding in corners and reading Rilke.
To whom was he listening? Equal parts Wu Tang and Frank Sinatra.

Hot Chip

What were they doing in high school? Painting their sneakers, kissing other boys.
To whom were they listening? Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Talking Heads.

The other fun game that has come up recently? Coming up with the list of movies you've "seen" but were actually making out through most of so that you don't remember large plot details or even if you like the movie or not. You have to play this game with other people, of course, and share the lists.

The other game I learned this weekend? The Game. The rules, if I remember them correctly: Once you hear about the game, you're playing it. Whenever you remember you're playing the game, you lose, and you have to say it out loud.

Because I can't resist posting this photo:
Noah and I saw this glass bridge this weekend (this was the view above my head).