cleverlibrarian’s blog

wow, my first meme.  this is some kind of blogging milestone, from what i understand.  i'm having trouble thinking of five things about myself that are intersting without being gross, in the "too much information" sense.  hmmm.  okay, here we go:

1) i talk to myself.  out loud.  a lot.  this is one of those things i've done for as long as i can remember, and i've always wondered whether it's just me.  obviously, now that i have a husband & a son, i don't do it as often as i used to, simply because i'm not alone as often as i used to be.  it peaks while i'm driving.  for some reason, whenever i get in the car and i'm coming from somewhere, i have to tell myself about what just happened.  that's usually what i'm talking to myself about, in general - it's like i'm telling myself about my day.  sometimes i talk as though i have an auditor, but i don't actually imagine this person, or make up responses, or anything.  i'll just end sentences with things like, "you know?" or "right?"  god forbid i ever end up alone in old age, because i see where this could put me on the fast track to crazy-old-lady-dom.  this, and my seventeen cats.

2) i prefer to go to the movies alone, because i am the most neurotic movie-goer ever.  firstly, i never go on opening night.  there's nothing worse than paying eight bucks to sit in a crowded theater full of total morons who don't know better than to talk as though they're at home, chew with their mouths crammed full of gummy candies and popcorn, kick the seats in front of them, and answer their cell phones which, of course, are still on the highest ring setting.  secondly, if i should wind up anywhere near one of these dolts, i want to be able to get up & move without embarassing my company.  also, it's easier to get up & move when you're just looking for one seat.  so basically, i stick to weekday matinees, which is a safe bet unless you're going to an animated film, which i almost never am.  actually, i haven't been to the movies in almost a year, so this is what i did back before i had a baby.  anyway.

3) i try not to regret the many mistakes i've made so far, because, you know, there's that whole "butterfly effect" theory, but one thing i really do regret is selling my cello.  that was pretty stupid, especially when you consider that i probably spent the better part of that money on pot & beer.  ah, to be twenty again...

4) i'm kind of bad at being a girl.  the girliest thing about me is probably my perfume fetish.  i wish i was the kind of person  who just wears that one signature fragrance, but i'm not.  i love perfume.  but that's about where my femininity ends.  i don't know how to shop or how to dress; i've been wearing the same jeans & t-shirt & hoodie uniform for as long as i can remember.  i'm not into shoes; my shoe-drobe consists of chuck taylors, pink vans, lots of flip-flops, a pair of doc martens, and some gym shoes.  i have one pair each of brown & black heels, but i never wear them, and when i do have to wear them, i don't know how to walk in them at all.  i don't own skirts or dresses.  i threw out my wedding dress, and i don't regret it.  when am i going to wear it again?  what's the point of keeping it?  i don't know how to style my hair, so i stick to variations on the ponytail / bun theme.  braids, if i'm feeling sassy & my hair is long enough.  i don't accessorize.  i wear pretty much the same jewelry all the time.  i don't understand the whole purse thing that some women are into, because i think it's a total pain in the ass to have to change purses all the time.  i'd carry a backpack if it weren't weird; as it is, i carry tote bags.  i admire the women with the hairstyles & the outfits & the accessories.  there's a very repressed part of me that kind of wishes i'd been in a sorority or that i'd gone to charm school or something.  so there's a constant battle happening between my inner debutante & my inner ani difranco.  i'd like to call a truce, please.

5) i don't have a "type" when it comes to men, but i do have an anti-type, if you will.  i am generally not physically attracted to blond-haired, blue-eyed men.  i don't have anything against them; it's just that they never strike my fancy.  the victorians had this rule that you were supposed to marry someone whose physical features were the opposite of your own.  so if you're fair, you should marry someone dark.  that doessn't really apply here, as i don't live my life according to notions of victorian propriety, but it's interesting just the same.  also, some of you may be wondering about a certain lawyer from our past, to which i have to answer: that wasn't exactly physical attraction, y'all.  that was based strictly on a desire to make my loser boyfriend jealous (it didn't work).  that, and i was bored.      

Sure, most sequels stink, but what movie really needs a sequel?

i'm going to have to go with stomp the yard, even though i haven't seen it.  YET.

new obsessions for 2007 (hey, there's a rhyme in there somewhere...  obsessin' in '07?  i'll work on it.)  anyway:

1) bento boxes!!!  thanks to a random mention on a friend's real, non-myspace blog, i am now totally obsessed not only with these little lunchboxes, but with trying to learn to cook things that will fit into them cutely.  check it out: www.flickr.com/photos/dhania  then look at her "bento" group.  i want this woman to pack my lunches for the rest of my life.

2) nama!!!  which kind of ties into the first.  anyway, the point is that i'd been stupidly refusing to go to this new hipster sushi restaurant because i was clinging to my beloved, no-frills, minimalist tomo in some kind of misguided loyalist craze.  like i can't eat at both.  but talk of something called "soy joy" eventually piqued my curiosity, and now i can't stop dreaming about the next round of soy joy.  and edamame.  and wasabi hummous. 

3) meryl streep!!!  seriously, she is so fabulous.  i need to watch more of her movies this year.  ditto robert altman.

4) six feet under!!!  oh my god, why was i wasting all that time on carrie bradshaw & all of her petty bullshit instead of watching this show?  man!  the actors, the scripts, the plotlines - this is the best show i've ever seen.  and i'm only on the first season.

5) trying to figure out what the fuck i'm going to do with myself when noah goes to preschool!!!  this is obviously something i've got plenty of time to work on, but it's something that's been on my mind, nonetheless.  you know, i majored in english literature because i foolishly believed that i should devote myself to something i was passionate about.  and for me, that was literature (well, when it wasn't partying, i mean.  but you don't usually get credit for that).  i didn't really give much thought to career planning; i just kinda assumed i'd become a professor.  that was before i understood that being an english professor was essentially tantamount to writing a lifetime of essays.  and even though that was unappealing to me, i couldn't think of anything else to do besides going ahead with my original plan.  uh, i'm here to tell you that there's not much you can do with a b.a. in english lit that doesn't involve further schooling or using whatever connections you may have to find yourself some sweet job.  i keep thinking about different career paths, but nothing really strikes me as, you know, a passion.  so i'm trying to get a jump on figuring out what it is that i'm passionate about that can also somehow be translated into a fulfilling career.  i figure i've got about 3 years.  

What's something that you're really proud of, which most people in your life don't know about?
Submitted by CosmicBabe.

kicking my celebrity gossip habit.  any more serious answer is too cheesy for vox publication.

What's the most obsessive-compulsive thing you do in a normal day?
Submitted by Nikki. 

i'm ridiculously meticulous about feeding my 10-month-old son.  i wipe everything as it gets dirty, instead of just waiting for the dirty to accumulate throughout the meal.  like, i don't even like for the bib to get dirty.  the bib, y'all.  where does this come from?!  i haven't a fucking clue, 'cause lord knows i'm not what you'd call a neat freak.  i keep telling myself that it'll get better as he gets older.  i hope i'm right, because i don't want to be raising the next felix unger.

What's your dream career? 
Submitted by Something.

i think, since we're talking fantasy here, i'd say novelist.  this dream career comes with a dream brownstone in brooklyn and a dream bank account, too, of course.

What was the first movie you remember seeing in a movie theater? 
Question submitted by mainmor.

ummm, i have fuzzy memories of both "e.t." and "snow white," both of which scared me, but i think the first one i saw (or the one i remember most vividly, at least) was "indiana jones and the temple of doom."  i saw it by accident, during a lock-in-type thing at my day care (i know!  remember the '80's?  when there was no parental control on remotes?  when, apparently, no one on staff at the movie theater batted an eye when a bunch of five- to eleven-year-olds were herded into the late showing of "temple of doom"?).  i was totally enraptured.  the things that stuck with me were, of course, the most gruesome: the room full of bugs, the eating of monkey brains, and the, uh, heart removal.  my mom was furious that they took us to see that movie because the day-care apparently had no permission to do so.  it was years before i realized that "temple of doom" came after "raiders of the lost ark."  i always thought that the one i'd seen first was the first in the series.

If you had a band, what would you call yourselves?
Question submitted by Zoot.

oh man, see, i am married to the World's Biggest Music Nerd.  seriously.  dave owns thousands of cds, and he also has quite the library of music-related books.  he knows everything about music, excepting disco and top-40 stuff.  yes - SURPRISE! - the music nerd is also a music snob (he denies this, but that doesn't make it any less true).  wait, what was the question?  oh!  right.  so i'm convinced that all the good band names are taken.  think of something clever, and i guarantee that there was some little punk band in the seventies with that name who used to play the masque all the time but they never recorded anything and their drummer dated kira from black flag and blah blah blah...

on a semi-related note, one of my favorite band names of all time is jesus chrysler.  i also think my bloody valentine is good.  velvet underground, that's pretty evocative imagery.  anyway.  on a less-related note, years ago, when i worked in a record store, one of our favorite games to play was kind of an indie band mad-libs, where we'd try and make the longest sentences we could using the names of indie bands.  like: today i got up, threw on MY MORNING JACKET, and hit the PAVEMENT on my SILVER SCOOTER.  wanna play? 

so thursday is our first day of kindermusik.  i have to admit, i'm going to kindermusik not so much in the hopes of ensuring noah's eventual genius-hood (wow.  because he'll obviously just go ahead and inherit "genius-hood" from me), but because i really really need to meet some other mothers.  some mothers who exist, like, in my county and not just on my favorites page.  and maybe some of these mothers will have husbands, and they'll befriend my husband, and then we'll have couples friends.  that's the dream, people.  i am but a simple girl.     

What is your favorite cover song?
Question submitted by Ray.

oh man, there are plenty of good ones out there.  it's hard to narrow the field to one, but i'd have to go with johnny cash's cover of "hurt," by nine inch nails.  because he's johnny cash.  on the lighter side of cover songs, though, i'm also a huge fan of no doubt's version of talk talk's "it's my life."  and the video for that one was pretty entertaining, too.