Eight weeks, eight pounds, German Shepherd mix, a black fuzzball with feet bigger than mine. Welcome to Tuesday Night Basketball, Brenna.
Category: Roommates
Caitlan went out a week and a half ago and graduated from a small, private liberal arts school, after acing the comprehensive oral exams for two different programs (even though she’s a single major) and producing an Honors thesis, summa cum laude. Oh, and she did it in three years. She’s going to England in the fall to get a second bachelor’s degree, as the first and only successful applicant in her school’s credit-sharing program with Oxford.
When I explained Maria’s educational progress at a family gathering a while back, I watched my grandmother’s eyes grow wider and wider: yes, she went to an Ivy, yes, she’s going to be a medical doctor, oh, but right now she’s getting her PhD, and in brain sciences, right–and I had to laugh and admit the simple fact that my girlfriend is out of my league. I should have looked around, then, at the women there: my mother and grandmother, my aunts and my genius sister. When you grew up seeing the standards set that high, what else can you do?
The last sentence of this post is sarcastic
Today I used my camera to take pictures of the parade! I got a really perfect shot of Maria which you can never see, and a whole bunch of pictures of inflated mascots, and some inexpert pictures of confetti. I underexposed about everything, but that’s what Paint Shop is for. I also discovered that sometimes the autofocus loves me:
I like having a camera! Perhaps I will make my pictures of the parade publicly available. I understand there is a site called Flicker where you can put them on lines.
I’m 25
I made brownie pie and we ate Spinelli’s. DC and Beth got me a book and a bunch of great Actors Theatre stuff, and Yale got me some stuff he found in his car, and he, Ken, Kyle, Scott, Lisa, Monica, Mom, Ian, Maria’s family and especially Maria got me a present I would never have let myself buy: a real camera.
Thanks, ballers.
Maria is sick.
Brendan: “I should go get you some cough syrup.”
Maria: “Hmm… I don’t know how I feel about that. The guy in the X-Files sent somebody out for cough syrup, and he died. But then again, he was British.”
Brendan: “… Your logic is flawless.”
Right now people searching for breakdancing videos still comprise the vast majority of my bandwidth users. That’s just not right, and we should fix it. But how, you say? By shooting breakdancers. The end!
Oh, and also: Jon’s got a new EP out, and you can download it! It’s called West State Line and it’s amazing to hear his music finally given the pro treatment it deserves. There are snares and backing vocals and even a little bit of string! Let’s listen to it together! I’ll make popcorn! I will also make calf eyes at you.
My favorite parts so far are Ghost Town, especially the bridge, and Meg White, which needs to be an indie anthem.
I am a big fan of refurbished electronics and appliances, despite the fact that they are maybe the worst things to get refurbished (rapid depreciation, complicated things that if they broke once, etc). I also display a startling brand loyalty to KitchenAid. Thanks to Simply Recipes, I found a refurbished, fairly high-end KitchenAid blender on Amazon for less than half price, with free shipping. You can guess the result.
Tuesday everybody brought stuff to try in smoothies, and Wednesday Maria and I experimented with chocolate pseudomalts and strawberry-orange slushies. Last night I found it difficult to establish a decent texture for a real milkshake; Maria found recommendations online that say if you’re using skim milk (we do), stick it in the freezer for ten minutes first. I firmly intend to do so.
Basically, I’ve enabled myself to drink ice cream. If I were a betting man, and I were in a boxing match against getting fat? I would put my money on getting fat.
Cooking
Maria: “This is your favorite recipe ever! ‘Cook some butter. Eat it.'”
Reluctant openness
I don’t like talking about money, but here goes!
I am considering self-publishing an Anacrusis book: 101 of the best standalone stories from the last two and a half years, plus one (completed!) bad penny story arc. I would purchase one copy for myself, one for Maria, one for my grandmother and one for my mom. That’s all the demand I anticipate, which is why I’d be going with a print-on-demand company (likely Lulu) rather than an offset press with some kind of hideous minimum print run. I am not going to sell a thousand copies.
It would come in two versions: a fancy dust-jacketed hardcover, which I’d limit to 101 copies at $24.95, and a “viral edition” cheap paperback at $9.95. That doesn’t include shipping cost. I’d make a couple bucks off either, which I would put back into web ads, review copies, etc. I probably would not break even in the end, but it would be a relatively cheap way to raise my profile as a writer. Anybody who took the trouble to ship me his or her copy would get it signed and shipped back for free.
The chief goal of this project, though, would be to give people who like reading Anacrusis something tangible to show their friends. You might be one of those people. Do you want something tangible? Which edition would you prefer? Would it interest you more if the book came with exclusive content (eg ten new stories) or would it make you feel jerked around? (Everything would be released under BY-SA, as usual, so anybody who wanted could just repost them somewhere.)
I’ll be reading the LJ comment feed on this entry, of course, or you can spam me any time.
We came back with all our teeth!
Bee was incredibly gracious in putting us up (and putting up with us) all week, and we owe her a lot, but to repay it in rent she’d have to stay with us for four months. Not that Maria or I would mind, because Bee is awesome. I also finally got to see Graham perform live with the Bathtub Marys–I’d only seen seen him in rehearsal and heard him on mp3. We spent seven hours trying to absorb the Met (art, not opera) with Leonard, then had dinner and games and a subsequent Saturday Day Basketball with him and Sumana.
Louisville seems a lot shorter after nine days in Manhattan, but then it seems a lot sunnier too.