A Modest Cult Following

Whatcha Watchin'?

2011-07-03T14:59:00.000-07:00

Oi!

I realize it's been ages since I've written. Apologies. But I love this blog and want it to live on, so to speak, so here I am.

Here's what I've been up to:

I moved to a small town. I actually grew up here and vowed as a teen to never return. Never say never, as they say! It's true.
I've been focusing on my writing more, less on other dreams. It's strange but not because I don't feel I cannot accomplish those other dreams, but more like my tastes have changed and I no longer want that.

I hope to do some traveling this year, 2011. Of course, I'll keep *you* in the loop, dear reader.

Also, I've taken up the hobby of writing letters, like work-of-art letters. (Strange, I'm just remembering a dream I had last night of Jane Austen!)

Tonight I have three dvds from Netflix that I have had forever. I often wonder if the people who work there keep tabs and have contests on who takes the longest to return them. Doesn't it seem like they would? When I worked in London, we did silly things like that, like keep a list of peoples' names that were strange. "Eukan Fuk" was at the top, as well he should've been!

More later - but sooner!

What I SHOULD Like...

2009-06-01T00:26:00.000-07:00

Lately, the movies I've been watching have been foreign and/or independent. I don't go much for the big blockbuster, for some reason. (The movies I mention here are those I've watched at home, not gone to the cinema to see.)

What I find really interesting is that the movies and filmmakers who grab my attention are also those from whom I am put off, somehow. Take David Lynch. I know he's good; I know he's a genius....I just get creeped out watching his work. (Like above moment in "Lost Highway". I remember a guy in the audience laughing - and it was a strangely funny, bizarre moment - but as a viewer I was a little more scared than jovial. And this is like Kubrick's work, too: You know he was good, that he had something important to say and said it through his work, yet there's something strange that keeps me away, like an invisible fence and a border collie. (Just let the damned collie see the movie!)
It's the same thing with literature or anything that's worth it, really. You KNOW "Infinite Jest" is a masterwork; you know you should read it, yet you're put off by its sheer volume. It *is* a great tome.

These things are best approached gradually. Let Lynch and Kubrick and Wallace in little by little. They are a taste worth aquiring, I say.

If one doesn't allow in what's a bit creepy, a bit overwhelming (Proust?), then one must resign herself to watching "Gossip Girl" and going to the grave thinking that was great acting.
So....
so.....
sleepy.......
xo

Serial Killers and the Groupies that Love 'em.

2008-05-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

Hey there.

A co-worker of mine is really interested in serial killers. Some times he brings books to work on the subject. I find this fascinating. And, like, creepy, too. Could you imagine listing that in your interests...anywhere??! It's funny because people like Ann Rule can get away with it: she's a writer and knew Ted Bundy. But just everyday folks ... I guess it makes us wonder what the morbid curiosity is.

haha sickos.

XOXO

What the...?

2008-04-20T14:48:00.000-07:00

So it's gorgeous outside and what am I doing? Watching (or listening to, rather) a court case documentary that I've seen before years ago. (What's a girl to do?)

Sundays are cleaning days for me. Always has been; I don't know why. I can hear the faint grumbling roar of a vacuum in someone else's apartment and so I know I'm not the only one.

Ah, I think I'll take a walk later ...early in the evening.

Happy spring! (Finally!)
xoxo

How's the Weather?

2008-04-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

Look, I'm not one to normally complain about the weather. In fact, I'm not doing it now; I just wonder if this is the longest winter in history. (Excepting Michigan winters in the 1970s....)

I actually prefer the cool weather. What is that, you say? "Freak"? Well, so be it. It just has always seemed to me that it's easier to warm up then it is to cool down when the heat is oppressive. Also, there is the element of fashion that comes into play. Precious few people look good in summer-wear. It's true. These few - we'll call them the Ford Models Division of the population - can actually pull off a belly shirt, which is ironically named since to wear one, one must've have a belly. When it's winter (or, in our case, spring but still freezing out side), who cares? You can dress in layers and even wear a silly hat without the Nigerian cab driver asking you for your phone number. (Come to think of it, though, coats, scarves and obnoxious hats didn't dissuade a driver or two in asking for my number last year.)

I'm always amazed at the gall of some cabbies. There I am, trapped, as we fly down Lake Shore Drive while he asks me, Am I married? Why not? Any children? Why not? And, lastly, Do you live alone? That last question sends the chills. I usually ask to be dropped off a couple of blocks away from my apartment. But maybe it's just sheer boredom when they ask. Or maybe they think they got more game than Bob Barker. Who knows? I just hate being on the receiving end of it.

This is why I wear my headphones. Remember the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine pretended to be deaf in order to avoid conversation with the boring, nosy driver? Close. Very close. I just keep my headphones on - Jack Murphy and company playing daft punk loudly in my ears - I watch as the cabby mouths something to me.....Something....But I can't make it out.

Till we meet again,
X.

2008-04-11T00:16:00.000-07:00

Hey there.

I've decided to start looking for a bike. Last summer I saw a guy riding a portable bike and I thought it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I guess the big question is, How to start? How to know where to look? The research begins!

(That bike right there is English.)

If I have my druthers this summer - and why can't this be the summer of my druthers? - I hope to do some hiking and, hopefully, some biking, too. (I've got a little more cardio to do before I'm in bike-riding condition...) The thing is I always fall in love with my bikes. Every day from the time I could ride, at about age six until my twenties, I rode constantly.

Ah, I can't wait!

Enjoy the sporadicly warm weather.

x.

Of Love and Literature

2008-03-30T00:56:00.000-07:00

Hey there.

The New York Times has a funny essay on romances and reading - that is, how what we read sometimes affects our romances. Though it amuses me that people have broken up over literary tastes, it doesn't surprise me. I once read of a woman who broke up with a guy because he didn't like Pearl Jam. And people wonder about our high divorce rates...

Most of the guys who would interest me, I'd bet $1000, are Sci-Fi readers or of some related ilk. I hardly ever crack open a sci-fi/fantasy book, ever. But this difference doesn't send me running for the hills. In fact, I think it broadens my horizons. One friend, for example, had a love of comic books - the old school Spidey, Batman et al books. While I'm a long way off from becoming a fan of any superhero, I did gain a huge amount of respect for graphic novels and zines.

I think the only kind of reading that would turn me off would be someone who hasn't read anything or who has an active dislike of reading. Then again, I like geeky and nerdy boys, so there ya go.

People in our society, I believe, are often too quick to dismiss a mate, a love, even a friend, because the tastes don't line up as exactly and as frequently as the planets align themselves. Newsflash: People like different things. And thank goodness, too. I mean, it's wonderful to find the similarities with someone, especially in the early stages of a relationship, but it's the differences that make the other person unique and isn't that what drew you to him or her in the first place?

x.

Should I Take Body Guards to the Wiener's Circle?

2008-03-27T08:14:00.001-07:00

Good morning, campers!

Got ya some Alpha-Bits there. Did you know that if you put a bunch of monkeys in a room with some Alpha-Bits, they will eventually eat an unabridged version of "War and Peace"? It's true.

Though they are just yards away (and famous for their charbroiled hamburgers), I can't bring myself to go to the Weiner's Circle for a hot dog. Those women in there are vicious. BUT! I have an idea. Right now I work with some of the toughest, trash-talkin' women this side of Pulaski. I was thinking of showing up to the Wiener's Circle with them as my posse to trade in these street witticisms that not even the British could understand. Just a thought. My bodyguards.

Just a thought.

x.

Runner's Envy

2008-03-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

You know, I really do envy runners - the stamina and dedication it takes to make one's way through thickets of SUV-sized sidewalk strollers, slow-walkers and the like, and to - as Nike likes to say - Just Do It. In high school, during the Paleozoic Age, I ran track. I was mostly a sprinter, longer running just wasn't in the cards for me. To this day, I wonder if people can work up to that somehow, even if they can barely run to save their lives.....

Right now I'm working to build up stamina so I can actually just work out longer. (It's crazy; I know it.)

I'm not a runner, though, not yet. More of a walker, though a speedy one. To quote Futurama's Fry, I make Speedy Gonzalez look like Regular Gonzalez....

Beyond the Relationship Event Horizon

2008-03-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

Ah, love! Let us be true to one another!

OK, here's the question of the day: at what point does the person that one is seeing or, as the kids like to say, "talking to", become More, become somewhat Official? To put it plainly, I guess it would be just asking, "Is this person my boyfriend?" Some would say, Ah, just ask the other person. C'mon. Aren't you, after all, seeing this person?

Well, yes. But this is a murky area and I don't want to jinx it. (Yes, I said jinx. Some things just shouldn't be messed with even if the approach of superstition is irrational.)

Someone once said - it might've been Socrates but I think it was Steve Winwood - "Just roll with it, baby..." Wise words.

Time, I believe, time. In the meantime, I guess I'll continue to find my way in the dark. Just don't rearrange the furniture.

x.

At Once on India and Reading.

2008-03-22T12:49:00.000-07:00

One day, Bombay became Mumbai, now I've found that in 2001, Calcutta became Kolkata. I guess, beyond all considerations economical, philsophical and political, the biggest question is, Why didn't anyone tell me?? I had to read about it in The Atlantic, like a commoner. (This is actually a very good article about Kolkata, with its new name taking on Bengali nuances, and how the city itself is growing, slowly trying to distance itself from its impoverished past.

There is no seque here.

I have way too many books to read, yet I'm interested in these:

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach.
The Fortune Cook Chronicles, by Jennifer 8. Lee (Yep, that's her name.) Not just about Chinese food but about the Chinese cultural diaspora.
Skim, a graphic novel by Mariko Tamaki.

It's been far too long since I've been zine shopping. When I do go, I'm looking for the latest issue of Caboose, which regularly makes me laugh. Liz, the author, recently became my friend on MySpace, so now we're, like totally BFFs forever!

These days I'm still reading Kenzaburo Oe and a book about books, which might sound strange...But it's true.

Later, crew.

Oh, Why Didn't You Tell Me??

2008-03-14T14:12:00.000-07:00

(Hey there.)

This morning, worming my way onto the #36 southbound, I spied an empty seat to my left, an aisle seat. Mostly I don't care if I sit or stand, but since it was there, I took it. Within nano-seconds, I realized why it had been vacant on such a crowded bus: O' the aroma! (O' the humanity!) Of course the fellow in the seat next to me seemed oblivious to my micro-panic, my eyes as they shifted to the woman across the aisle who smirked knowingly as if to say, "Ha ha! Sucker!"

I worried that like some kind of airborne virus, the stench would somehow adhere to me, making me look like the unwashed culprit. I sat for a few more stops until we came closer to my exit. Someone immediately snapped up the vacant seat. (Ha ha! Sucker!)

When I lived in New York, I remember watching as a man working at one of the subway newsstands sprayed Lysol directly onto the huge, rasta-haired man with the poncho. The funny thing was that, like most hulking creatures in movies, the poncho'd one failed to react to the disinfectant flying at his face and body. He simply kept looking on at "Barely Legal" et al. (Homeless or not, a man's got needs, ya know...)

I don't know why I take the bus more often than the train. Sometimes the slow, annoying pace of the bus suits my mood, as in "I'll get there when I get there..."

I really should take the EL more. I really should.

X.

2008-03-10T19:18:00.000-07:00

Yes! I am re-inaugurating this blog, hence the broken champagne bottle on the side of this laptop. (By the way, don't do that. It'll mess with your keyboard.) Well, welcome.

Quite recently, I made a strange purchase of curry flavored peanut butter. (I actually bought it for my Dear Friend but keep forgetting to give it to him.) I WILL give it to him. (Remind me! Remind me!)

O' Chicago! When will the madness ever end? It's been winter for nine months now! Oh, OK. I exaggerate, but still... And the thing is, I'm not even a fan of warm weather, either. Spring! I like spring but that's it.

So far, I've lived in three major cities: London, New York and now Chicago. The best transit system is London. They win. (Blighters.) Then NYC. Then .... a gap. Then Chicago.

Good night, Chicago.

-X.