the dirty dozen, continued: slacker (!) thursday
o, the metashame! i was dragging my feet on putting together a regular post, then dragging my feet on a numbered post (when was the last time i made it to twelve?) - then jen rocked a list of thirteen. why is my output so peer-sensitive?
05 on last night a dj saved my life: the history of the disc jockey:
[a blood bank, at the juice and cookies table.]
WOMAN: [to NURSE] your job must be exhausting. watching people eat cookies all day!
NURSE: ...
WOMAN: [to LAUREN]: what are you reading?
LAUREN: a history of the dj. it was a gift.
WOMAN: are you a dj?
LAUREN: no. i don't even like going to clubs, actually. it's really interesting, though.
WOMAN: i hate the cover. i'd not want to read it just because of that.
LAUREN: ...
i put last night on my amazon wish list several years ago at the urging of...someone or other, and forgot about it until my sister sent it to me this christmas. though i hate dancing more than...george and my sister and i hate audrey hepburn, the book is really interesting: a lot of audio techniques (especially the disco-era tricks) were pioneered in and around midtown manhattan, so i'm learning lots of fun and disturbing things about my 'hood (the giant meat restaurant next door used to be a big gay disco! george lives around the corner from one of the most notorious clubs of the '70s!). i also know next to nothing about reggae and first-generation hip hop, so i've appreciated the primer. to be honest, i haven't yet gotten to the bits about paul oakenfold and the ministry of sound (i'm only 250 pages in), but i'm...kind of looking forward to learning about that lot as well. i still refuse to dance, though.
06 i'm also reading suze orman's women & money: owning the power to control your destiny (offered as a free pdf last week) for a group finance blog / book club a friend of mine just started. both orman's comments in the book and the other gals' posts about their money habits are resonating all over the place with me: it's both shocking and comforting to learn that my particular dysfunctional relationship with my finances is a common one. as of march 1, the book will be kicking us all off on a five-month plan to get our crap in order. it won't be pretty, but i get the feeling that it's worth doing. go go gadget financial hygiene! also, i am so old and boring!
07 mothwar, my since-'05 tussle with the clothing-destroyers in our bedroom closet, has been going about as well as our war in...no, that's not a tasteful comparison. suffice it to say that our losses have been severe, and that a moth-gang actually managed to spell FUCK YOU with holes in one of joe's sweaters. this weekend, it was time for mothballs (which are famous for stinking, but i always assumed the stink would be "extra-strength grandma's house," not "napalm in the morning"). mothballs do not smell like victory, internets: there are no words for what mothballs smell like. we gave up and threw them all away on sunday night. if you're better at repelling moths than we are, please help.
08 joe, returning home from work the other night: "hey, i've got the new york with lindsay lohan's boobs!" let us not speak of the lohan / marilyn monroe / bert stern photos, for they horrify me. let us speak instead of the much smaller and more clothed piece in that new york magazine about people with monochromatic wardrobes - specifically, of the magnetic fields' stephin merritt, who claims to wear only brown.* yeah, i said claims: at the lincoln center shows we saw in '02, merritt made a point of talking about his colorful striped shirt, saying that it was expensive and designer and a vice of his, he had several (paul, jacob, and joe, can you back me up on this?). i realize that was six years ago, and SM could certainly have browned out in the interim. but! if one is to be featured in a magazine for one's sartorial eccentricity (the four other new yorkers in the piece are the real, wacky-substitute-teacher deal - with the possible exception of karim rashid, who wears pink AND white), one should really commit, is what i'm saying. stephin, you are no karim rashid!
*i know, i know, that's a link to a village voice blog post on the new york piece; the new york site eats browser windows like those damn moths eat joe's fancy suit pants. also, the voice post makes the excellent, unrelated point that amy winehouse is a dead ringer for janice from friends.
7 comments:
Re the moths: Ceder. Helps and smells lovely.
Re: Suze Ormand. AH! That woman is crazycrazycrazy. You need to sit down and watch one of her Oprah shows where she just screams horrible things in people’s faces and calls it tough love. However I do recommend, while we are on the subject of personal finance and pop psych, Oprah's "debt diet" programs from a few years back, I think the programs and the worksheets are on her website.
I know. But Suze Ormand!
That said, I lurve personal finance in a totally unhealthy/obsessive sort of way (budget? I'll show you a budget... sigh... swoon...), and this project sounds very cool to me!
i may have mentioned these to you when i was out there, but i bought the lavendar cedar blocks for the container store a while back and love them.
http://www.containerstore.com/browse/Product.jhtml?searchId=12990374&itemIndex=13&CATID=72585&PRODID=66517
there's a variety of types, so pick what you like, but i'm into all of em. i suggest some hanging blocks AND hangers. fuckin moths.
i tried big sacks of dried lavender and had little success; i've read, in turn, that cedar doesn't always work (though i haven't tried it myself, so what do i know?). i think the closet, because of its size, door gaps, and proximity to an outside window, is just a lost cause; i'm going to try cedar and the cupboard. and then i will try anger management and polyester.
Caveat: I have read this article --
http://bostonreview.net/BR30.5/warrentyagi.html
-- but not the numerous responses to it. Still, fascinating stuff about the financial picture of the middle class. Which reminds me yet again that I need to move my pitiful IRA to a different fund and continue my current practice of incantation, candle-lighting, waggle-dancing, and failure to contribute actual money to it.
@pica: the "hey, that's me too!" moments i was talking about in re the orman book have more to do with squeamishness than an actual failure to save, which is kind of ironic: i'm in far better financial shape now than at any other time in my life (i contribute to a 401k, i have my taxes more than under control, i've tamed my debt), but i still don't want to think about it. i'm not the sort of maternal figure who, as orman would say, nourishes her family before she nourishes herself, but there's some wackiness there that really needs to go.
as for the boston review piece you linked, i confess that i just read it and, like you, have yet to read the discussion of it; let's agree to address that when we've rested a bit. first, and as a bit of an aside, i was struck by its then-and-now income comparison: do today's 2-income families really earn only 75% more than our 1-income parents earned? the women entering the workforce earn less than men do, sure, but yikes.
home ownership, parenting, cars - i spend nothing on any of those, so i was preparing for much of the piece to have little to do with me. then came the idea that those of us in the middle class who aren't dropping that money (or profligate) are still vulnerable, which...is true, i think, and frightening.
as to whether predatory lenders are to blame for the credit crisis: a second topic for the ladies' financial book club?
earlier this week i actually typed the words "what would suze orman do?" in a chat window when discussing paying off a student loan with a friend ... i read The Courage to be Rich years back and frankly, i love her stern tone and straightforward talk because someone with my "spend it like you'll die tomorrow" history really needs (needed?) it.
and thank you for reminding me that (prompted by Jezebel dot com I think?) i, too, downloaded that .pdf and then promptly forgot to read it.
the best thing i read about the lohan/monroe pics was (one of the many variations on) "does this mean lindsay will die six weeks from now?" cruel, perhaps, but i just haven't really liked that girl since Parent Trap. and what did she do to deserve those breasts, anyway? b*tch.
sharon p (of the parenthetical, it seems, today)
i'm pretty neutral on la lohan, actually; i liked her in mean girls, as i recall (more on that later, in re: tina fey on saturday night live last night), and haven't really seen her in anything else. i feel sorry for her in this case, as i think her fixation on marilyn blinded her to how exploitative that session really was (homage to the original photos in the sense that those were, too? okay, maybe, but that's squicky). i don't mind that she HAS voluminous breasts, i just don't want to see them (or anyone else's, including my own).
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