paper room

(The room is my bedroom, but in varied incarnations, the best of one smooshed with the best of another.)

clouds of paper cranes hanging from the ceiling, twisting about with every flury movemeent causes. incense curling up among sandlewood, vanilla, ylang-ylang candles. comfy chair with an automaton. Tansu chest full of yarn stash. lots of book shelfs. loft bed like a nest. stereo to hook mp3 player to, Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, full collection of Modest Mouse and DJ Cheb i Sabbah. easel in the corner by the window with a shelf of paint & art supplies. closet of pinstriped skirts, combat boots, asian brocade blouses. full lengh mirror made of many small mirrors hung next to each other. jars of marbles on the windowsils with light shining through. a desk in front of the window big enough to sit cross-legged with your laptop while watching the people walking by, children dancing to the synagogue, fighting for love's sake outside the bodega.

Bookworm meets the world wide web

I started using the internet in the mid or late '90s as a latchkey kid. My parents were both teachers who'd been to conferences toting how the future of communication/education would be internet based. Although very protective in other ways I had unfiltered access to the whatever was online starting at eleven or twelve.

I had an email address that got very little except a word-of-the-day and weird-history-daily emails. There was a fantasy short story website with a sort of labryrinthian layout that I'd wander through. I did searches for mythology stuff on altavista and snap.com. I'd kill the three or four hours until one of my parents got home easily.

None of my friends had the internet at home for two years or more, so the internet didn't really feel like communication as much as very magical sort of never-ending, choose-your-own-adventure book. It felt very foreign to me to get emails from real people I knew and to chat online with people I'd spoken to at lunch.

I used the internet even more when I first went to college. I'd never lived in a city before, and google was a major help filling my evenings & weekends with events, parks & museums. When I did start to have acquaintances from class I started to instant message in earnest for the first time, everyone in the major would be logged in if they were in their dorm room. It was less weird that calling someone's room & getting their crazy roommate or trusting your own messages to a roommate you'd known for a few weeks. When I started talking to someone special we talked online while I was at work (a secretary's secretary, a maker of copies, a fetcher or lunches) and from our dorms even through we were sitting in rooms less than a city block apart. In retrospect he probably knew I was shy.

I'm not sure now if my view of the internet is normal. I feel sort of out of touch with how much I'm supposed to be connected to others. When it was just me and people I didn't know I felt free to skip the internet for a day to paint or go to a friend's house instead of online. Now that I have two jobs, a partner, the ability to transport myself from place to place, I feel more obligated to be present online, but have less time to do it.

Hint: A trip to Siam Garden, Court St, Brooklyn, NY would be nice this Valentine's Day

These are a few of my favorite things.... (permisson to daydream)

Siam Garden, Court St, Brooklyn, NY
Because it's not one of those fancy-shmancy places thats all booked up for V-Day. I really like their Thai art on exposed brick walls with votives on the tables. Also on V-day they have Lava Tofu which is just about the best. Also ideally the awesome toy store down the street wouldn't have closed and you could pick out toys for each other on your way to dinner. (Try to look tough walking through Fulton Mall on the way home.)

Pike Place Market, Seattle, WA
Browse Dio Del Los Muertos figurines & milagro charms at Milagros Mexican Folk Art gallery. At Cafe Yarmarke get a bowl of awesome borscht & a piroshki or two, the owners are wicked nice. Then go fiddle with instruments in Lark In The Morning Musique. Smell things in Tsing Momo. Get the newest COLORS in the big stand at 1st & Pike. Wander down to the French bakery for an almond latte. take a bus to the Frye museum, debate how to get my stuff in a museum.

manhattan, nyc
people watching over endless coffee at the Skyline diner. gallery cruzing at the Met. sketching around the skylit greek statues. go see a movie at the Anglika or another cinema. Tanti Baci would be the last stop but get off the subway a stop or two early for browsing & people watching. Wendy would be the server, so you'd feel like a guest in her home instead of like a customer.

home
Candle light only. DJ Cheb i Sabbah on the CD player. Lasagna in the oven. A nice cab-sav.

at work, libraryland
well, I really will be there. It would be nice to have a non-work email in my work email work inbox... It would be nice if the customers were nice or scarce or both...

Watch "Amelie" next time you're home sick, or...

It's whimsical and uplifting, willing to laugh at the little quirks of everyday people and utterly inersed in the fact that what makes people weird is also what makes them interesting. Also on a purely visual level this film is a work of art, composition, lush color saturation, and all the fine detail of dream before you wake up.

(However, if you're too sick to follow subtitles, and don't speak french, I would recommend "Penelope". It is also delightful in many similar ways to "Amelie".)

Book List 2009

1. Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip-- Confessions of a Cynical Waiter by The Waiter

2. The Coffee Trader by David Liss

3. Playing With Grown-Ups by Sophie Dahl

4. Memoirs of a Teenage Amenesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

5. Robert Doisneau Paris (photographs with excerpts from Doisneau's notebooks)

6. Psyche in a Dress by Francesca Lia Block (re)

7. Ruby by Francesca Lia Block (re)

8. It Itches: a stash of Knitting Cartoons by Franklin Habit

9. Nightmares & Fairytales: (Vol. 2) Beautiful Beasts by Serena Valentino & FSc

10. Frank Miller's Sin City-- Vol 4. :That Yellow Bastard

11. Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

12. Yellow Silk II

13. Blood Roses by Francesca Lia Block

14. Frank Miller's Sin City -- Vol 5: Family Values

15. Frank Miller's Sin City --Vol 6: Booze, Broads & Bullets

16. A Writer's San Francisco: A Guided Journey for the Creative Soul by Eric Maisel, Drawings by Paul Madonna

17. High-Spirited Rose is Rose: A collection of Rose is Rose by Pat Brady

18. The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo, illustrations by Basil Ering

19. Nightmares & Fairy Tales: (Vol. 1) Once Upon A Time by Serena Valentino & FSc

20. Nightmares & Fairy Tales: 1140 Rue Royale by Serena Valentino, art by Crab Scamby