Because it's better than actually having Lewis Carroll in the same room with you: http://crisper.livejournal.com/192670.html

In which our heroine actually looks through stuff in her room, and attempts to go to yoga. Don't miss this exciting adventure! (Inspired by Chad Darnell.)



11:12 am: Shining morning face





11:15 am: Lucy



11:15 am: That inseparable pair, graymalkn  and Clydeberry



2:06 pm: The to-dos and best news of the day (not shown): a new Jasper Fforde book is out! Shades of Grey. So excited!



2:47 pm: The (ha ha) "desk" in my room



3:28 pm: This chair used to be Lucy's "you can pet me but not pick me up" spot, and she's recently rediscovered it.



3:56 pm: Cinnamon toast and The A.B.C. Murders. Need I say more?



5:27 pm: I'm highly tempted to call this photo "So I Married An Axe Murderer," but I think that would be rather twee, don't you? Or "The Blair Witch Project."



6:49 pm: Guerrero Street, SF. So for various reasons I go to this yoga studio in Glen Park, in San Francisco. An hour's drive away in rush hour. But, get this, my class has been canceled. They've rearranged the schedule for the new year. Too funny! Ah well, at least it got me out of the house for 2 hours. You want to know the best part? Last week, while on the Bridge on the way to yoga, I realized I was having a wardrobe malfunction, so I also spent 2 hours driving around not going to yoga last week!



8:04 pm: Pasta water



10:09 pm: Horrified. Contrast with recent Humboldt County earthquake. Maybe the state of CA over-regulates, but building codes do save a lot of lives.



11:38 pm: It's raining, and my room is slightly cleaner.

Hello, one and all. Today is 12 of 12/12 day. Let the festivities begin! Sorry about the scrolling: LJ cut is being weird to me tonight. See Chad Darnell for the 12 of 12 magic.




10:30 am: I always open any available presents first thing in the morning. My lovely husband gave me a room stereo system, small-size as asked for, a gift card for Miki's Paper (the scrumptious Berkeley seller of Japanese papers), and a book on brain development.



10:33 am: Aforementioned lovely husband, and Clydeberry



10:37 am: Quite coincidentally, UPS knocked on our door with our Christmas supply of homemade cascadeberry jam and salsa from graymalkn 's dad and stepmom. Yum!



12:37 pm: Heading out of Oakland: ballet for me, last final of the semester for graymalkn !



12:52 pm: It's a little rainy in Oakland, pouring on the Bay Bridge, and not raining at all in the city.



1:53 pm: Van Ness Ave, with the Opera House on the right and stray Santas in the fairway.



2:04 pm: Mom and I have gone to see The Nutcracker live every year that I can remember. Pretty good show this year. Some actually sloppy dancing: the Spanish dance was not in unison, and the Snow King set the Snow Queen down wrong at one point—we thought she might have turned her ankle, but I hope not. But the Nutcracker Prince and his Queen (AKA Grown-Up Clara) were amazing, and the rest of the second act was quite good. The theater was full, but the recession may have affected practice time?



4:14 pm: I love our opera house.



5:04 pm: Dinner at Max's with graymalkn and Mom. Presents from Mom: Nutcracker ticket (dress circle), new pashmina (pink), and Caswell Massey soap (almond). Yay! Yay for law school finals being over!



7:09 pm: Trees outside Border's in Emeryville. It's not really my birthday without some Christmas shopping.



7:41 pm: My birthday hairclip from graymalkn 's mom is conveniently waterproof for winter wear. (It's all beads and wiring.) The MOTG also gave me gift certificates for two massages with Inga Grace, whose treatment is something I've really missed since I left Key. Woohoo!



7:47 pm: How did we spend Saturday night on my birthday? Reading on the damn couch, that's how! The Eyre Affair for me, which is becoming another holiday tradition.

Meme-edness, submitted by sillyzilly2k

1. What is the first chapter book you remember reading?
2. Tell me about voice-over: are you learning special voices, or using your own voice?
3. How did kung pao tofu Thursdays begin?
4. What would you do with a week's vacation in the UK?
5. What was the first music you bought as a kid?

I'm fine—I just happened to schedule two doctor's appointments today, is all. So a lot of shuttling back and forth. I calculated that between a drive out to Pt. Reyes on Monday, a drive to Santa Cruz yesterday, and visits to San Ramon and Palo Alto today, I've driven over 500 miles this week. Pleasant for the most part, though I wish the glorious fall weather of today had manifested itself for my more scenic drives. Kind of hazy earlier this week. 12 of 12 is the brainchild of Chad Darnell.



10:33 am: morning cat

So this is a tad late, but I have to explain the awesomeness of my Halloween. Beth and Todd's Hallowedding (not my word, ok?) was the funnest wedding, and the funnest Halloween party ever! - and I include my own wedding here, which was amazing, but not as downright fun. - It was also a great chance to take pictures, as we were all SO much more decorative than normal wedding guests!



Beth, being crazy, bought a crapload of Halloween decorations, and in the end the Bancroft Hotel really did look like someone's (very nice) house decorated for Halloween. I helped carve pumpkins and decorate. Here's my spider pumpkin (Todd did the etching, but I poked the template into the pumpkin, for HOURS.)



I was Zombie Jesus and graymalkn was Zombie-hunter Pontius Pilate. He sewed both our costumes—that's a real toga, not a bedsheet, you ignorant goths—and did our make-up. A former coworker made my crown of thorns (blackberry). Yes, that's a real chainsaw. :-) Yes, I have stigmata, though they peeled off and itched! I also have real dirt on my tunic and a lot of fake blood in my hair, though you couldn't see it. A pretty comfortable outfit, though hot for dancing in, and not in a good way.



The ceremony was both serious and funny - free of false sentiment and genuinely moving, probably because Beth, Todd, and everyone else was so happy about it all! Also, a Batman ring-bearer and princess flower girl help.



Beth (and Todd) looked lovely. And, to top it off, they did Thriller as their first dance!



So, good on you guys. Happy marriage and all! :-)

(More pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bilunabirotunda/sets/72157622590931363/)

I've never understood time. It's one of my favorite subjects, because it's so difficult, yet seems understandable, unlike, say, humanity. Though, just when you think you're getting the hang of it, someone goes and changes the rules. (Like Thursdays. No one is to change Thursdays at all.)

I think I need a new clock. My old clock is super-helpful, and super-helpfully Springs Forward and Falls Back for you. BUT, Spring Forward and Fall Back are no longer in the same places they used to be, determined by the algorithms of old, and no one told my clock. I don't know how to tell my clock that this is the second year in a row that it has made me seriously late for an important event on Sunday morning. Last year, a bellydance lesson. This year, a voiceover class. LATE!! And not, "it's-polite-to-be-10-minutes" late. Late, as in, 30-45 minutes late.

It's hard, in the arrival time distribution, to know where to stack up, and then do it when you know. Unlike SOME people I know, I hate to be late. I hate the rushing through traffic, rushing in to the room guilt of the thing. But I always am late, probably because I hate to be early too. It looks like you're trying too hard, you care too much, or something. It's Not Cool. However, the timing of being on time is probably Bistromathic in nature, and beyond contemporary understanding of the field. Particularly if I don't go to bed soon.

Tangential real-time P.S.: Jon Stewart just made a joke using the laws of probability! Technically speaking, he pointed out that, like Bernie Madoff, we've probably all had pizza made by a child molester. It was hilarious. You probably had to be there.

Mr. Pratchett's latest, and was I happy to see the kid carrying it in Peet's the other day! Ran right over to Border's to get my copy.

No strong reaction, really. It's not a dud - it has a new look at Unseen University and its faculty and staff, interesting new characters and new takes on old characters. But it's kind of slow, and there's not much action. I like action. Maybe it's that it uses football and football fans as a metaphor for life, and not only am I not into football, but I know so little about British football fans that his carefully crafted analogies are kinda lost on me. Anyway, I was happy to read it. Good on you, sir. But next time some theme more Austenian in nature?

Actually, Pratchett has to be one of THE few authors I'd be willing to let have a go at an Austen/monster mash(up). Because he loves to rethink monsters. One of his fundamental truths is "everyone is people" (or is that "everyone are people"?) or maybe "don't believe what you're told." It's what makes his world work. In his version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Mr. Darcy would probably be a zombie - a nice, romantic zombie looking for love and afraid to ask Lizzie for a dance because his hand might fall off. Or no, actually I think Mr. Collins would be the zombie - he does kind of remind me of Reg Shoe in the Discworld books: earnest, socially climbing, intent on pleasing. Yes, that would work much better - that distaste everyone feels around Mr. Collins would be explained so well by his being a zombie! It would be all metty-for-ical and shit. Poor Mr. Collins. Now I'm wondering what kind of monster everyone would be. . . What is your inner monster? Remember, monsters are people too.

Kind of an odd day. I remember when this was truly a holiday. Today, half my acquaintances were working and half weren't. Appropriately, I half-worked a half-day in an empty office. Then, I went to the city and had dinner with a friend I've known since kindergarten, but haven't seen since high school! The upside of Facebook. For 12 of 12 goodness, see http://chaddarnell.typepad.com/.



10:46 am: A pleasantly late morning.



10:46 am: Time for breakfast



10:47 am: Shining morning face



11:23 am: Checking up on my new blog: http://austenacious.com/



11:54 am: The new Terry Pratchett is out!!! YAY!! Pretty good so far.



12:48 pm: Clyde much prefers my water to her own.



3:05 pm: Oh, the exciting life of a video editor.



4:22 pm: Some things never change, though. And I hope crossword breaks never do.



5:22 pm: Smells like rain. Windy, too.



10:05 pm: After dinner in the Mission with Greg and graymalkn (between dinner and Indian ice cream, to be more specific)



11:39 pm: Ye Olde Johne Stewarte



11:43 pm: And Lucy brings us home.

Hello inter-friends: Check out my new blog: austenacious.com/ ! This is a joint venture with captainoz  and sillyzilly2k, and I promise you good times will be had by all!

Austenacious: where the women are accomplished, the men are smoldering yet virtuous, and nobody ever gets mocked for being a great reader (or, for that matter, in taking pleasure in a great many things).

Austenacious:  Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday; news, notes, humor, and thoughtfulness on the topic of Jane Austen, her works, and the culture surrounding them and us.

Austenacious: Three friends, reading and watching and thinking and talking and laughing and definitely, definitely eating, and hoping to share the wealth. Believers that Jane Will Keep Us Together.

Austenacious: It’s an adjective. It’s a community. It’s a state of mind.

Welcome.

—Miss Ball, Miss Osborne, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick

Circle of Friends, by Maeve Binchy: Reread. It's the only Maeve Binchy I've ever read, and that on the advice of captainoz  and sillyzilly2k , who, if they worked together, could probably get me to do anything. It's about Ireland, which I'm really missing right now, and it reminds me of Istanbul, because I read it there first, and it has interesting characters, and you get involved and all that. One thing she highlights to me is how dishonest people can be in their personal lives—that's sort of depressing, and I don't want to live my life that way, yet I can't say she's wrong about it...

The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield: I hate buying another motivational book. Makes me feel pretty silly. And I partly bought this one because I was in Bookshop Santa Cruz getting Halloween cards (when in Santa Cruz, buy cards), and I felt shallow for not getting a book. Is there a shallower reason to buy a book? But I've heard good things about this one. I'm only worried because he breaks out a quality he calls Resistance and sets it as an entity in its own right (Your Enemy). This kind of construct embarrasses me. And I've heard he references divine inspiration later. We shall see.

The Children of Hurin, by J.R.R. Tolkien: Bought this at Edinburgh Airport over a year ago (yikes) and am trying to use it as a sort of break-in to The Silmarillion, which I've never read either. It's a bit too saga-y for me. I know people who like it better than The Lord of the Rings, though, so I keep trying. It did make me pick up The Art of J.R.R. Tolkien again, which is fascinating, and good for the imagination. (I'm only so-so on Tolkien's art for The Hobbit, but his other stuff is better, I think.)

I Am a Strange Loop, by Douglas Hofstadter: I like and dislike Hostadter (who has too many consonants in his name, for one thing). He gets kind of precious, but so often I'll get that "hey, I've always wondered about that too!" connection that I can't not read the book. But I have to be in the mood to pay attention, which is not so easy these days.

Mirror, Mirror, by Gregory Maguire: He wrote Wicked. My friend Renee recommended I try him. Not so sure. This one is Snow White, a story that terrified me as a kid (though not as much as Hansel and Gretel).

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis: You know, I'm sure, how you start to reread an old favorite because you're tired, and then realize you just can't read it again, right now? And it is a favorite. First one I read, actually. My mom got that one for me because I liked Star Trek. Voyage stories, I'm always there.

Here's a picture of Scotland, because I miss the British Isles so much right now.

And here we are again. A very quiet working Saturday for graymalkn , the cats, and me, proving I spend 16/24 hours on the couch. Alas. Mr. 12 of 12 = Chad Darnell.



12:08 pm: The big news of today is that it rained! With thunder and everything! Mostly last night - I couldn't believe my ears. Made everything smell nice.

( Teapots, parsnips, dolls  )

I would just like to put on record that I love Pace Hot Picante Sauce with Tostitos tortilla chips. It makes me feel like I'm not a real Californian to say so, but come on! Sure, I appreciate a fresh-made, inventive salsa, but this is the stuff of my childhood. Are you telling me, you who can taste the difference between Scharffenberger and Valhrona, that you never crave M&Ms? I thought not. No other chips are as deliciously salty as Tostitos; where else but Pace can I find that cooked tomato/jalapeno/onion flavor, with no weird mangoes or other little surprises to get in the way? It's my New York pizza to your Arizmendi. I cannot even count how many midnight hours I have spent reading while eating chips and picante sauce, at college after parties or studying, at home. Own time, own place. Go be snobby on someone else.

Yes, just a plain old day making videos (clickin' OK) and watching Good Eats. Sorry to be so boring. As usual see http://chaddarnell.typepad.com/ for the 12 of 12 specs.



9:10 am: Shining morning face

( my super-exciting life follows )

Respond to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I'll give you five words that remind me of you, or failing that five words for which I want to hear your associations. Post your ponderings in your journal and, if you're so inclined, invite others to do the same.

kineticphoenix gave me Mathematics, Physics, Collage, Poetry, and Nostalgia.

All these words are about connections - connections and pattern and striving for meaning. I have always strongly associated mathematics and poetry as being distillations of essences. Maximal truth in minimal surfaces. Nostalgia for me is catchphrases linking me to others in our connected past. "Tea is wet," kineticphoenix  reminds me, and I say to her, "I need liquid now!" You see, a private language, a shorthand. Endearing when it strives for truth, so to speak, or at least friendship, but not when used to obscure the past or the present. Collage also is a private language, perhaps, or a way in which I try to convey my thoughts more completely than I can in words, try to connect :-), try to understand what I'm thinking. Connect inside my own head. My own act of creation. Physics underlies and underlines the mysteries of the universe, that hacknied phrase. Even more than mathematics or poetry, it dives into the deepest realms of truth, and is the background of my thought. Or so I hope.

So I saw there's going to be a Prisoner remake - actually two:  www.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner/ and a movie. Though, to be fair, that's just an empty imdb listing, so I don't know if it's going to be The Prisoner, or some totally different story. (I am behind the times.)

The preview looks pretty lame, despite some homage to the original in scenes repeated word for word, not to mention suffocating white balloons. I suppose Ian McKellen is okay for #2, but Jim Caviezel as #6? You, sir, are no Patrick McGoohan! They're doing him just as an Everyman, and he seems to lack the immense anger, insouciance, and intelligence of the original. So, this got us thinking of who could tackle the role of #6.

graymalkn  proposed Ian McEwan. (At least 50% of British actors are named Ian McSomething, don't you think?)
I would really like to see Brad Pitt take it on.
Or, it would be awesome to see a woman in this role, and for some reason I thought of Janeane Garofalo. Not sure why.

I am a Prisoner purist, grew up on the show (which accounts for my cheerful outlook on life), and for precisely that reason I think limbs need to be gone out on here. Which is why Ian McKellen is rather a disappointing choice for #2. I mean, he always plays that role, for good or for evil. And the changing nature of #2 in the original very much got at the show's main theme of events being completely unexpected and probably menacing, behind the surface regularity and charm. Kind of any early Borg model without the sci-fi aspect. If you see what I mean. Not that the Borg are noted for their charm, except of course Seven of Nine. (!) The individual vs. the society. Seven of Nine as The Prisoner. Discuss!

The Village itself looks uncreative and Hollywood in the remake. I don't know how you could beat Portmeirion, but surely they could have exerted themselves a little more.

Typical, that's what the remake looks. Typical. And the themes from the original do resonate today - but I don't think AMC/ITV is looking beyond the obvious. It's very irritating. Maybe it needs the true moviemaker's eye (and budget). Could any of them have the sense not to regularize and confine the story? Maybe Terry Gilliam?

Wednesday: King Tut. Started with line-waiting (3 separate lines), then a 1.5 min movie narrated by Omar Shariff to get you in the mood, then a cheesy doors swinging open to reveal a dark room with a lighted statue at the end of it. As soon as the guide said we could go in, I was on my way, but everyone else hung back from mystical terror or timidity, perhaps. It got better after that. Egyptian stuff always feels so natural to me - in no way alien or foreign. There were many things here I'd never seen, and I've been obsessed with ancient Egypt since I was 7. I loved all the expressions on the animals in particular. So funny!

Everyone who passed one of Tut's very famous alabaster canopic jars remarked that it looked like Michael Jackson. And it did! I said, "maybe this is what he was aiming for," and have now convinced myself of this. I mean, he'd see lots of parallels between his life and Tut's (The Boy King), and might have *wished* he died at 19...

My mom was determined to buy something at the gift shop because the art critic for SF Chron was so down on the popularity and commercialism of the exhibit. Normally she doesn't like the prominence of gift shops either, but he really annoyed her. I think he never outgrew the "I can't like it if it's too popular" phase. Are art critics out of a job if people just like art without being told? I don't think so.

Thursday: Hearst Castle. We stayed in Cambria, and were surprised to find that it's easy to spend a lot and eat very well, but hard to eat vegetarian or on the cheap, considering that it's California. And there's NO Indian food. Shocking. Plus everything in town has British names. - ?



Friday: Nitt Witt Ridge, a self-built house, old San Simeon store, elephant seals, that really famous view in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Unfortumately my camera battery died looking at elephant seals, who are very cultural, in case you were wondering. I'm sure Vogons were modeled on them.

Today was a special Sunday, being one of the few weekend days this summer that graymalkn and I did not have plans for. We focused on, yes, the moon, and Indian food. For more 12 of 12 fun, see http://chaddarnell.typepad.com/.



11:16 am: Lucy says, "oh, you're awake already?"

( (pork in a tube and more) )

captainoz is quite right: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a repellent book at first glance. It looks incredibly twee and self-consciously Britishly book-clubby. (I mean, the name alone...) And it's all written in letters. The beginning part, focusing on the authoress, is rather precious, and clearly the trick is a steal from 84, Charing Cross Road. But really the letter device allows the author to describe the German occupation of Guernsey in WWII in a series of short stories. And then it's heartbreaking and funny and thought-provoking, and everything that a book should be. The Literary Society part mainly allows her to show what unsophisticated but open-minded readers might think of various famous authors. I must say, I now want to read The Essays of Elia, and I never did before. (Crossworder alert: Elia is Charles Lamb. But you all knew that.) And I was very frustrated to not hear what one freethinking lady thought of Pride and Prejudice. OK, yes, there was a plot point around that, but I did so enjoy the pithy comments!

The book really brought home to me something I've been thinking about for awhile: how we can't seem to face the problem of global warming. I mean, we Americans can't seem to imagine that times could get really bad here. We just don't think it will really happen. I think that must be because they haven't been, for so long. On Guernsey the slide happened obviously, with the British deciding not to defend the islands, and the Germans walking in and making things just worse and worse by degrees. Are we now hearing the bombs over France and thinking they just won't get to us? Not quite yet, I think...

On a lighter note, now I want to visit Guernsey. Anyone been there? Is it all touristy now, or what?

(Special note for captainoz : Did you notice the similarity between Charles Lamb's experience and Truman Capote's? Also, wasn't Lamb's  experience a lot like Dumbledore's?)

Driving from Oakland to Long Beach - an action-packed day. As was today, hence my lateness posting. LJ was being pissy about photo uploading, so I had to resort to Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/bilunabirotunda/sets/72157619702698164/

Sneak preview:

8:20 am: Shining morning face
9:00 am: Taking the car in for maintenance
11:16 am: Surprise visit to the tire shop (all new tires!)
1:39 pm: Clean kitchen!
3:32 pm: Face being zapped for TMJ treatment - also known as reading time
4:58 pm: Heading out of San Jose
5:45 pm: South of Gilroy
8:03 pm: Sunset on the hills north of San Luis Obispo
8:25 pm: Dinner at the Apple Farm in San Luis Obispo
12:18 am: Turning on to the 405. (Attentive individuals will recognize "Sacramento" and "Santa Monica.")
12:52 am: Nearly there
1:01 am: graymalkn   and his mom, Bobbie
2:16 am: Bed

P.S. I know some of these pics were actually taken on 12/13, but it's not the next day until you go to sleep, is it?