Speaking of eponymously...

Eponymously and everything kind of meta-solipsistic (I know, I hate when I write like this too, but what am I going to do when I still have to clean my room and plan my outfit for tomorrow-)

“The mirror is not you — the mirror is you looking at yourself.”
-George Balanchine (via New York Times article about learning ballet

Pilobolus, Balanchine, the dance class at the gym...if only I were a real dancer!

The Lapp of Luxury

The sun is up
I'm so happy I could scream
And there's nowhere else in the world I'd rather be
Than here with you - it's perfect
It's all I ever wanted (oh!)
I almost can't believe that it's for real
So pinch me quick
-The Cure

Didn't this album seem like an anomaly?

I bought a daybed for my tiny room today - it's shabbily chicily (favorite adverbs much? not much in fact) white wood from West Elm.

It's so great! If maybe only because my queen-sized futon fits it to a mystic T. It's supposed to "take" a twin-sized mattress, which I thought that I would conjure up somehow. Instead, though, the extra queeniness of my futon folds up perfectly in the back (or side), rendering it more couchy. Not something I'm explaining adequately.

Happy Lunar New Year! It already feels momentous to be turning 24 this year. At 12, I was probably even more startlingly awkward (and not at all in an exquisite, long-limbed or coltish way) and sullen than I am today. Maybe this will be the year for some late blooming. Like, sometimes I listen to myself laughing and wonder who I think I am.

Jenn and I watched Avenue Montaigne on Friday night and attendant was the trailer for The Namesake. Of course my eyes fill with tears whenever I see anything with immigrants. Yes, even trailers. After having semi-stalked Mira Nair at that New Yorker event last year with Sara, and even having grudgingly read the book (I read The Interpreter of Maladies first, and I found it to be a huge bummer) and then having enjoyed it, totally sans grudge - I am so excited to see the movie! Jacinda Barrett, why are you the only remnant of Real World London that is left to us? I mean, wow, talk about 12 years ago. As in, I bought a "centennial edition" of The Fountainhead this week for no reason that I can yet discern.

Note: trimmed my bangs today.

To conclude - if I weren't supposed to be working right now, I think I'd start to look into the 12ishness of the Chinese calendar. Somehow it seems far more fitting than base 10. Or decades. To work!

Laziness

As in, is there a difference between people who want to kill themselves and people who want to die? Not that I would categorize myself either way, especially these days. I do sometimes wonder whether I could ever be truly suicidal given how fundamentally lazy I am. If I'm feeling low, it only ever extends to wanting to slowly dissolve into air as I walk along.

In other news, I really enjoyed tonight because I felt more or less (but really, more) interested in the people around me and thereby interested in myself! So much of life is environment. Possession is 9/10ths of the law. And, sitting here at whatever godawful time it is in the morning...that feels like enough for now.

Paranoid in Reverse

Guess who?

My roommate just brought me back some lemons, all "Baby wanted twelve" style. And they're enormous! Really - as big as oranges. A superlative job of balancing "size with beauty", as he said proudly.

Brimming over with happiness at times. Life's kinks are seeming to work themselves out, more often than not. When I can discern east from west, cold from freezing, I feel wise. And I'm learning to remain quiet. To volunteer less than necessary, convey more than expected. To shutter down my natural, destructive glee. To temper my soul into dreamy discretion.

Oh, my all-knowing, all-downer father. He pointed out (several times) over lunch that IBM used to be just as giddily generous as Google is today. Christmas presents for all the employees' kids (our family's wooden chess set), Family Day at the Dutchess County fairgrounds. For us, the Dutchess County fair came twice each summer. For a few years.

As my body recovers from its company-sponsored foray into snowboarding, then, I will remember that everything decays, and gives rise to something new. Therein lies the not-so-astonishing corollary. "Everything starts with an idea", he said, gesturing around the sumptuous walls of the restaurant. My friends' art, Giada's Weekend Getaways, the precious and overpriced dim-sum brasseries she visits, Google.

"That's what you probably have to remember."

Senior Moments

I'm not sure whether it's adapting to a new laptop or losing my mind, but I've been making a lot of typos recently. It's woefully embarrassing for me, because cleanliness (in spelling) is next to godliness (in spelling) and all that. Ugh.

I don't know that I even have anything to write right now except (quickly, to appease those imaginary readers):

• admit that the word eponymous sometimes confuses me


• wonder if I'll stop being so tired anytime soon (totally have resorted to drinking coffee recently)


• characterize Todd Oldham's bearing on Top Design as woefully impoverished acting...alas for the Tim Gunns of yesteryear


• invite you to encourage me to start writing a novel about the next two weeks of my life


• bemoan engagements, marriages, et al.


• ponder the merits of self-medication


• worry til sick about the self-medication of others


• shut down for the night