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2011-02-19, 11:53 a.m.:
Ah, Genji. 0 comments
2011-01-30, 11:15 p.m.:
I've been puzzling for years over the conundrum of what exactly to put on my calling card beneath my name - Peter insists it should be a single word, as on his card ("Expert"). Thanks to this review in The Guardian of Black Swan, I am thinking it should be not "Glorious Misfit" or even "Frau Doktor Doktor Princess," but rather ... "Wrecked Gamine." I love it. 0 comments
2011-01-30, 8:27 p.m.:
It's when it occurs to me that I don't even know where my journal is that I realize I have actually already gone insane. INSANE. 0 comments
2011-01-12, 5:57 p.m.:
The Best of 2010 Stuff that made the year for me. YMMV.
MUSIC
Hands down, the two albums that moved me the most, that blew me away, that were very simply the best thing ever, were
Lauren Pritchard - Wasted in Jackson
and
Sarah Jarosz - Song Up in Her Head.
Honorable Mention goes to
Elvis Costello - Secret, Profane & Sugercane (When Elvis goes country, I go crazy. This album puts the bees back in your knees. It makes you want to get up and dance, no matter where you are or what you're doing - in church, on an airplane with the seatbelt sign illuminated, stuck in Virginia with the stomach flu.)
Levon Helm - Electric Dirt
Yasmin Levy - Mano Suave
Taylor Swift - Speak Now (I'm almost embarrassed to mention this one, but I did listen to the album obsessively in my car this fall. Also, if you know me well, you know of my (un)abashed love of mainstream country.)
BOOKS
It seems I finished 58 books in 2010. I started countless others.
The Very Best:
Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel (I could heap more superlatives on this book than I already have on Goodreads, but I won't. Read my Goodreads review for that.)
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Dumas the elder
RIvalry, by Kafu Nagai
Honorable Mention:
During the Rains and Flowers in the Shade, by Kafu Nagai
A Tale of False Fortunes, by Enchi Fumiko
Goethe's Selected Poems (I read and re-read these in several bilingual editions I own since I was working on my big, Romantic-era translation project - a volume of German poems from 1830 - and I wanted to see what translators were doing with meters and rhyme schemes. These poems in German are like accessories worn by angels. They are things of such beauty.)
The Stieg Larsson trilogy (I have to mention these, in spite of earlier grousings about aspects of the books, since it seems there is not life after Lisbeth Salander. It's like I know her or something. It's like she's my first cousin. She seems to be the most famous person in the world right now. Now THAT is a good character. For a made-up person, it's saying a lot.)
The Sugawara Akitada series (These are so fun. A noblemen detective living in Heian Kyo - old Kyoto when it was Japan's capital - in the 11th century.)
The Shardlake mystery series (A melancholy hunchback lawyer detective living and striving in Tudor England? Who can resist such blandishments?)
MOVIES
Were there any truly exceptional movies in 2010? I can't think of a one. Well, OK. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. And Winter's Bone. Just those two.
So, movies I liked, in no particular order:
Inception, Kick-Ass, How to Train Your Dragon, Toy Story 3, The Runaways
Of course, I haven't seen Jackass 3D yet. Or Sex and the City 2!!!!!! Those two could still change my life. No, seriously.
MY YEAR IN THINGS
The Kindle 3. Indispensable. Especially because I am particularly vision impaired now that I have reached the dread middle years.
The iPad. More fun than a barrel of angry birds. If only Atticus and Ronan would ever let me borrow it.
My new guitar. It's a Gibson L-200 in a beautiful pale curly maple, the "Emmylou Harris model." It was love at first sight. In fact, we fell in love online. I will endeavor very strongly to become worthy of it. 4 comments
2010-11-29, 11:13 p.m.:
 "What a great picture," I told Atticus. "Is that a zorg attacking a building?" Eye-rolling. "NO. MOM. Yes, that's a building. But that [points to bottom left] is a halfpipe, and that's a giant polar bear with three mouths and two tiny eyes." 0 comments
2010-11-17, 11:51 a.m.:
The writing has suffered a tad since this came into my life (early Christmas present) (!!!): 
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2010-11-10, 1:51 p.m.:
Turns out I decided to "do NaNoWriMo" in 2005. I swear, as the saying goes, I've forgotten more than I ever knew. What novel I was speaking of, I have no idea. 0 comments
2010-11-10, 12:49 p.m.:
Day 10 of NaNoWriMo and all I got to show for it is this one, rhyming poem. Rhyming! This is not what I meant at all. 0 comments
2010-11-04, 3:51 p.m.:
NaNoWriMo blog: November 1 - Nothing. But I do tool around the Internet reading other people's blogs about their NaNoWriMo exploits. Some people scoff at 50,000 words as dilettantish and low-bar; because I am writing poetry (though I would dearly love to write fiction), for me it's all about the doing of the thing, and the fun and comradery of doing it in November, and having a set deadline and a shared raison d'etre, and the competition and the creative frisson and fusion and all that ... In short, I am sort of more of a joiner than even I know, and I love projects, endeavors and grand actions. I just want to devote myself to something discrete and big for one month's time. November 2 - I got nothin. But I do think about my office a bit, theoretically at least. I think about writing there. It smells nice in my office, and it's painted like a Naiad's idea of Versailles. Day 3 - I realize which project I indeed want to work on: my novel in verse and/or dramatic monologues, telling the story - or a story - or many stories - of Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. With just one hour to work with - because I have wasted the sweet spot of the day on exhaustion and napping - I organize my reading material, my notes, my blank notebooks and writing implements, my desk space and my very own self; I actually get myself situated in writing position at my desk; and I begin writing. First things first, the first poem. Not sure where it's going, no outline to work from, and because this project has been on hold so long, I have no list of characters/pieces. I once had such a thing - at least a vague idea of what notes I wanted to hit and where I thought I should hit them and who exactly would be singing those arias. These jottings are now god knows where now. I think I may find them. I think also that, if I don't, it won't matter. I will have moved past them. I have just the one hour, then I have to pick up the boys from school. We skip kid yoga in Boulder, but I'm still exhausted from my ridiculous sleep schedule lately, and so I spend the rest of my time for the day perusing my reading material: 'Everyday Life in Early America' comes first. It's my one-month anniversary of quitting smoking for realsies. I have gone 31 days, 5 hours, 54 minutes and 17 seconds without a cigarette. Cigarettes NOT smoked: 469. I have gained back 3 days and 13 hours of my life. I am also $116.25 the richer. November 4 - Exhaustion. I feel better after morning yoga with Julia from 9-10. An hour's intense writing gets done. For some reason, I am rhyming. In iambic tetrameter. What is it with me and iambic tetrameter? Is this my own personal meter or something? The pace and cadence at which I breathe, walk, cook, read, write and shower? This evening I'm finishing the first book and dipping my toes back in 'The New England Primer.' 'The New England Primer' never fails to inspire ... something ... in me. With Adam's fall / We sinned all. 0 comments
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