Category Archives: doing it wrong

Today there was a story in the A&E about Nick Hornby’s new book. It sounds like a must own classic.

Excerpt:

Hornby divides every month into two categories, "Books Bought" and "Books Read." There's not always a lot of overlap -- he's forever buying books he intends someday to read and not getting around to it, and defends himself by saying, "And I'll bet you do it, too."

(Jeff Baker Jan 14 05 Oregonian)

Yes, I do. I have a half dozen Signet Classics like Crime and Punishment and Madame Bovery that I bought years ago that don’t even have bookmarks in. (Sometimes I pile up a bunch of books to read next to the bed and I’ll start a few and read about 7 pages, stick in a bookmark and put back in the pile. Then I get tired of feeling overwhelmed by this huge pile of books by the bed and put them back on the shelf to read later.) I also have a bunch of ratty used paperbacks that I always think I’m going to get to like an Edward Hoagland book of essays and some Joyce Carol Oates shorts stories. The only time I look at these books is when I’m tidying the bookshelf or going on a trip and think that traveling will produce the optimum environment to finally dive into these books. Then I read everything else I brought with me and bring them back home and put them on the shelf.

This week I finished Harry Potter #5. I thought that HP #4 was mediocre except she really pulled it out of her ass at the end for a nice emotional payoff that redeemed the book. #5 I thought was a much better story that totally lost it in the 3rd act — like she suddenly realized she’d been droning on for 900+ pages and had to wrap it up quick. I could reduce 50 pp. from the book by taking out unnecessary adverbs. One time she uses “sycophantically” — is that even a real word? (dictionary.com says it is — okay, I don’t think it should be.) Also, don’t you think it’s weak story telling to get your hero into a terrible fix and then at the critical moment, have him rescued by some character(s) that have been off-stage for awhile, showing up to save the day. I think you can get away with doing this once. But this happens several times. Finally, in the writer’s favor, I will say that Harry’s 15 year old angst where he’s angry and doesn’t think anyone can understand how he feels is spot on teenage behavior. Don’t misunderstand, I liked the book but I don’t think it held up for 956 pages.

A couple of weeks ago Bob set a piece of the NYT aside for me and said it was “Pam porn.” I’ve been carrying it around with me and finally looked at it this week and he was right. It’s all about organizing your home. (If you’re checking the NYT archives, it’s from Dec 30 04 the House/Home section).

The article focuses on NY apartments with space issues and how the owners created more space using all sorts of clever cupboards and shelves and cabinets. So cool.

Right now we’re battling a kitchen space problem. If you’ve ever seen our house, you’re probably choking on your coffee about now because we have what would seem to be a gigantic kitchen area for a home our size. But the cabinets, in addition to being shoddily made and even more shoddily painted, were built by crazy people who never used a kitchen before and it’s like tons of space where nothing fits. We’re looking into a quick fix (since we don’t have $7K-$20K for cabinets like in the NYT article) and are rearranging stuff in the utility room to make room for more shelving. It’s the $100 plan.

Would anyone like to join me in publicly flogging the person or persons responsible for the low flush toilet?

I was at the Oregon Convention Center on Saturday for the RiverCity Bluegrass Festival (Del McCoury Band rocks 10 planets!) and used the facility and both times I had to flush twice for what was essentially a wad of tissue. Come on. How lame is that? And then I washed my hands at the sink. You know, where you press the button and the water stays on automatically for about 10 times longer than you actually need to wash your hands. What are people thinking?

I think I’ve explained my note taking system before, but I’ll review. I keep a pocket sized notebook and pen with me, not all the time, but at times when I think I’ll need it, like traveling, and I jot notes as I go along. The kind of details that would otherwise be forgotten. This is a critical step if you want to remember details and can easily be done when you sit and rest in the restaurant, bar or cafe. I used the jotted notes to write the stories in my spiral notebook and I pick through that stuff to write here.

Pretty much every trip I’ve ever gone on, my writing in the spiral notebook doesn’t keep up with the trip. So I’ll still be writing about what happened in the airport getting on the plane when I’m Day 2 into the trip. Usually at some point I get tired of trying to catch up and scrawl a few nouns and verbs to capture the general flavor of what we did, and usually the last days of the trip are not recorded at all. I always think I’m going to do it when I get home but I never do.

This trip was no different although Friday I sat in the kitchen with some hot tea and my notebooks and caught up some Nürnberg notes and saw this story that I forgot to tell you.

The second day we were there, we ended a very long day by going to a restaurant up by Dürer’s house. We approached the door and there was a sign that I believe said that we should enter the restaurant around the corner. We went around the corner and there was another sign that I believe said that we should enter the restaurant back the way we came. We went back to the first door and entered and they immediately sent us down the stairs into the Alte Keller (Old Cellar).

And this was not a Las Vegas phony old cellar but a real, genuine old cellar. But it was cozy and not crowded and soon we had tall beers and hot food (me: mushrooms and dumplngs, him: mixed grill with hare, venison and pheasant) in front of us.

Not far from our table, a sort of Pirates of the Caribbean mannequin hung on the wall, shackled in stocks and wearing a nightshirt. During our meal, the servers brought a trio of young women through the restaurant, shackled in stocks and laughing. They exited, I believe to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later. The server paused at the nightshirt guy and did something and then a um, large, stiff appendage swung out from under the nightshirt. Everyone in the restaurant laughed. I was thinking: you’ll never see that in America.

In the NY Times this week Nigella had a recipe for beet soup for one. It had beets, broth, ginger and lemon and you put it in the blender.

Other than being very pink, I think beets are the perfect food and I was dying to try out this simple recipe.

When I was at the market I focused on: “Don’t get pickled beets. Don’t get pickled beets.”

This apparently backfired as when I went to prepare the soup, I had a can of pickled beets. “Well, I love pickled beets,” I reasoned and made the soup anyway.

I think I used too much ginger and the ginger and pickled part blended to create a ultra-tangey and basically inedible blend of brilliant red soup. I tried. I ate about half a bowl. But it was really yicky.

You know, I never write about stuff like this.

But this terrible thing happened with the tsunami and it’s been bothering me because whenever something bad happens I never know what to do and I feel weird doing what everyone else is doing and I end up doing nothing and it feels bad.

So with the tsunami it seems that the logical thing, since it’s not realistic for me to go to Thailand or Sri Lanka and build roads, or dig irrigation ditches, or pass out food, would be to donate money. And I don’t want to go into a long thing about why I’m uncomfortable donating to the “big” relief organizations — who I am sure do a lot of good. I have my reasons. And I’ve been driving around in quiet moments, feeling like a loser because we have so much, like a warm, dry place to live and good food to eat–yet I’ve done nothing to help this disaster.

I subscribe to a fisherman type mailing list at the office and they sent out a notice about helping this organization. It was covered in the Juneau Empire here. And here’s a quote:

AMSEA is taking donations for the relief effort in this area and wiring money directly to NAFSO. This aid will get to fishermen's families sooner than large relief organizations can. NAFSO will be able to spend it on what their needs actually are on the ground, and there will be no indirect costs. Every dollar donated will be forwarded to NAFSO for their relief work.

I did a bit of checking up and felt good about donating here and mailed my check off right away. At least I did something.

Something terrible happened the other night. I was keeping both eyes on the road while I pressed buttons on the stereo attempting to find a remotely decent song.

I somehow managed to press the wrong buttons in some sort of special sequence and now the music and radio sound like it they are being broadcast from an abandoned cistern. It’s unlistenable. (Why would this feature even be offered?) I tried to recreate the button pushing sequence and now I think the balance is off as well.

Does anyone have a small child I can borrow who can figure out how the stereo works?

We have this one file at the office. It’s a tiny matter which produced an endless blizzard of paper. Actually I should say it still produces a blizzard of paper.

When the matter first started, I kept shoving the filing in one file, expecting that any moment we would be done with this matter. It became this giant, awkward thing that I began to loathe the sight of. Finally, in summer of 2003, I relented and opened a new file and I’ve actually opened a third file since then and I archived the stupid fat file.

For some reason, every time this matter comes up again, my colleague digs the stupid fat file out of the archives and then puts the new papers in it and puts it on my desk as if to say, “Hey, make a new file.”

I found it in filing again yesterday. I put it back in the archive with a note that said: “We’ve had a new file on this since July, 2003. If I find this on my desk again I’m poking your eyes out.”

Never say I’m not clear in my communications.

Updated to add: About a week after I posted this colleague came out to my desk and said, “Which file are you talking about?”

Prinzen Rolle are awesome.

Bob says they’re like chocolate frosting spread on graham crackers. He doesn’t understand my fixation. I don’t either. They’re cheap, junky cookies. Like 1,30€ for a giant tube. But they’re so yummy. I had two for breakfast.

There are other fans (Jul 22, 04).

Looks like I can buy them online

The product description says it’s not perishable. That should scare me more than it does.