listen to margaret cho and neil gaiman say what they would put on a record if they were going to send it into space, knowing the record would outlast this planet. It's Radio Lab, "Looking Up." the whole show is good. it starts out with star gazing on fire island.
Ok, I tried to live in San Francisco once when I just graduated from college. I found that I missed NY terribly. Now that I have lived in NYC for 13 years, I sometimes get this romantic vision of San Francisco, like it's callling me to try to live there again. My best friend moved to Berkeley, so I would have a support system, but hey, it was hard to be involved in TV and live in SF. I guess I could work for Current, or maybe I would begin a career in the healing arts.
That was meant to make everyone laugh.
Did you ever wake up one day and think to yourself, I should be living in a different city, working in a different field?
I would want to keep the girlfriend - maybe she will get some job in Northern California and I will be "forced" to live out there- hey, I can dream.
Thousands of people flap their arms and legs in unison, creating angel imprints, during a world record attempt for the most snow angels, in Bismarck, N.D., Saturday, Feb. 17, 2007. Organizers said they believe almost nine thousand people took part in the event. The previous world record was 3,784. (AP Photo/Will Kincaid)
I have been getting accupuncture treatments for weeks now. I am recovering from sciatica which was getting me down, and out of my life. It is incredible if you just take the time to deal with your body when it needs some help.
My accupuncture doctor said during one treatment "oh this leg, she is complaining, she is so tired, she is saying: "you use me so much."
Every treatment I have had so far, has brought me back to feeling like myself and not frankenstein.
I have to admit that I was afraid I would freak out about needles.
If my doctor places a needle in a place that is sore and tender, I sometimes wince, but she just touches the area nearby and I am ok- it's local and temporary. The really good treatments hit points where I can feel the energy sink down-that is so powerful.
Every time I go, my doctor examines me, and knows exactly where to put the needles- it's uncanny.
I am in bliss after lying there with the needles for 30 minutes.
I am so happy that I trusted myself to try this, and that I found a really great doctor.
Ok, this investigation with the Hell's Angels is getting way out of hand. Last week a car with a loud speaker announcing if anyone in the neighborhood has seen anything to come forth to the NYPD.
Listen, I am a neighbor of the big red machine and these guys are great neighbors!
I don't belive for one minute that they had anything to do with the beating of Roberta Shalady.
I still feel as I did when I moved in to the neighborhood in 1994 when the NY Times asked me to quote on the 1994 Clubhouse verdict
I do not feel intimidated by the Hell's Angels- they have been guardians of this street since I have lived here AND I AM A WOMAN!
There is alot of traffic on 3rd street, pedestrian and vehicle- the hell's angels literally keep the peace in an orderly way, like neighbors, I do I think that anyone who tries to start anything with them is just stupid- and believe me I have seen people start shit with them and get at the very least a verbal assault.
I do not know anything about the events surrounding Roberta Shalady's attack, but I do find it hard to believe that she was thrown out on the street in front of the clubhouse by hell's angels inside the clubhouse. It's not easy to obtain entrance inside the clubhouse. To me, that's the part of the story against the Hell's Angels makes the least bit of sense.
I hope this gets solved soon, so the neighborhood can rest.
I have had this debate about the blood type diet with my best friend Kim since Dr. Peter D'Adamo wrote the book Eat Right for your Type, the blood type diet book.
I have been a practicing vegan for 2 years until recently.
Since this past holiday season I added tuna to my diet, as Kim had visited before Thanksgiving and we had again engaged in this debate. Kim is a type A blood type, and it was her vegan example that inspired me to be vegan.
I told Kim that I felt like I was eating too much soy and was bloating from it, Kim again suggested the blood type diet, and that I should think about eating meat- beef - and see how it made me feel.
Just the last week, the opportunity presented itself. I was at a gala at the Waldorf Astoria for the Citizens Committe of NY with my girlfriend and a filet Mignon was placed in front of me. I had said to my girlfriend that I wanted to eat it. It wasn't this earth shattering event at first, but the next day I noticed that my belly had gotten smaller, it was funny.
So now I am no longer vegan and I think there is something to this blood type diet- if it is practiced correctly.
I still feel like I am betraying some vegan cause- even though that was not why I went vegan in the first place- i did it for health-not to save the planet. How weird that it turns out to be healthy for me to eat red meat!
What I find myself eating when I have beef, there is no grain, but salad- thai salad and beef, specifically cilantro and beef is what I eat. I do not want to eat chicken- chicken is neutral and for that matter I 'd rather have the tofu andjust not over do it.
But I find it strange that red meat is healthy for me after following a vegan diet. I did not think I would be on this side of the debate-ever! There is also the fact that my family's medical history weighs heavy on my mind and makes me not want to eat red meat often.
Eventually, I am going to seek the services of a blood type diet practitioner and try to strike a balance that is right for me, I am serious about my health, it seems 2007 has brought health issues into the foreground, and I am addressing them.
This goes in the "things worth watching" category... Animal Planet's yearly answer to the Super Bowl, it's the Puppy Bowl. (ads are easily muted)
there's a Kitten Half Time Show.
and there's the water bowl cam.
time well spent, Animal Planet friends.
... stuff blow up. boobs. confused animals.
unlike the many movies and tv shows where you never see anything except people talking to each other, the Beastie Boys video anthology includes the following entertaining images, in order of appearance:
giant robot
kung fu
dancing matching dolls
mad scientist
lobster claw
subways
electrified pitchfork
people pretending to fall
fist fight
space travel
disco
kitten on a turntable
cheering section made of fruit
sulfery, misty hot springs
earth from space
bombs exploding
fighter jets lined up on a field like a suburban subdivsion
gun getting smashed with a mallet
rubble
burning oil fields
dog tongue
casino
guys in tuxedos
sushi
mariachi band
cowbell being played by a wall with arms
scuba diving
sex
dance contest
cast of characters
a whip
surfers in slow motion
skateboarding
the moon
a cat through a fish eye lens
chasing that cat with said lens
doing so while repeating "it's gonna get ya!"
snowboarding
a complext heist
a man with a nightcap being beheaded
swordfight with a ninja
bunny slippers
powdered wig man
human slingshot
helicopter chasing black sports car (yes!)
machine gun fire
car tumbling off cliff
executive air cabin
jumping from a plane
fighting in mid air
a bird attacking a man
plane blowing up
parachute landing
underground lair that resembles a 1950s hat box
fiesta ware
lava
tornado
nuclear explosion.
My best friend Kim let me know last week, in case I had forgotten, that my life is frought with irony. She's right, and what's even stranger is that irony was one of my favorite devices as an English major at Rutgers when I was an undergraduate. I lloked for it in every book I read, anticipated it. When I went to film school after I graduated, it was the same thing, but with a keen critical eye.
Last week, my nana who is an old Italian lady of 89 years- soon to be 90 in June, experienced another mini-stroke. I am the primary care taker of my grandmother, my sister is also a caretaker, but I think it is fair to say, I shoulder much of the burden of caring for my grandmother in a big picture sense, in other words, I am a problem solver, I make things happen.
So when I got another one of those dreaded calls one who is in the position of responsibility gets in the early AM, I leapt into action. Alexis was right by my side- no hestation, wow, thank you, really.
I called my sis and we all converged on Somerset Medical Center, as my nana was found "unresponsive" for a bit and then came around later, she was out long enough for a trip to the hospital.
When I saw nana, her face lit up, although she did not recognize me fully, it was enough that I was a familiar. My grandmother has the condition of non-stop speaking stream of consciousness and asking questions. This was very entertaining and I'm sure helped me define my critical eye when I was younger, now as a 40 year old woman, it is interesting to be present to the same questions I have been getting for years. I found myself answering her, comforting her, tending to her, the routine I have taken up as her granddaughter. I knew she would be confused in the hospital, an unfamilar, unfriendly environment, and I did not want her to be there long without me, so I could converse with her, answer her questions, let her know that she is not alone.
It was interesting fodder for a script I may write someday, if I bring myself to it.
You fainted and that's why you are in the hospital, to make sure you are OK.
No, this isn't the morgue, you are not dead.
You are not bleeding downstairs.
You have enough money to be cared for, for the rest of your life.
Your husband died 5 years ago, I know it must be hard to want to remember that.
I'm Jackie Anne, that's Lisa.
This is not Raritan, but it's close.
You are not alone, we are here.
Film
I had never seen Ghost World. How could that have been? What an utterly Necessary film. I feel about it the way 30-year old jewish men from new york city with intellectual parents feel about The Squid and the Whale.
Just to be clear, The Squid and the Whale sucked. To me. Nothing ever HAPPENED in the film. It just introduced some characters, and then there they were, all gross. You never get to watch them do anything really worth watching (like ride a motorcycle, or fight an alien).
Ghost World is a little more plot driven, but not much. basically nothing happens. I just liked it because i'm a 32-year old jewish woman from the suburbs with irrelevant parents.
and it was a comic book movie (best kind). plus scarlet johansson is so damn hot, even then, and thora birch is too, although she's costumed in unflattering lines.
Dressing Rooms
The other day i went speed shopping. I entered 3 or 4 dressing rooms in about 45 minutes. Here's what i noticed: the nicer the store, the crappier the dressing room, and the less security there is in the dressing room. Macy's has barely-standing stalls in a messy back room and no one on staff. The Gap has decent stalls with doors and someone directs you to an empty one. Daffys (where i got a fabulous stripy thing) has well-lit little private rooms and a staff person who counts your clothes and gives you a cartoonishly big tag that you fear might burst ink all over you at any moment. I plan to enter a few more over the next couple days. I wonder if the pattern will continue.
