end of year meme frenzy

beginning with five, from someone...

1. food that you love that is far far away:
oh man. tom kar guy from Surin Thai in atlanta. linguine with pesto from that italian place in coral gables - Cafe Itallia? just about anything from that southwestern fusion place in atlanta, out on cheshire bridge... Sunset Cafe? Sunset Grill?

2. what are you doing tonight?
coughing. listening to Liam cough. making and drinking lots of tea. trying to make Nash & Liam and my own self feel better. watching napoleon dynamite.

3. and for new year's?
ha, more of the same! topped off by watching the fireworks from my window, unless I fall asleep.

4. and this weekend?
I foresee continued recuperation. I'll go to work on sunday morning, and then settle in for 24 hours of dread until my monday morning dental appointment.

5. happy new year's!
right back atcha

meyers-briggs, with a twist

Jung Explorer Test
Actualized type: ENTJ
(who you are)

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.

Preferred type: ENTJ
(who you prefer to be)

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.

Attraction type: INTP

(who you are attracted to)

INTP - "Architect". Greatest precision in thought and language. Can readily discern contradictions and inconsistencies. The world exists primarily to be understood. 3.3% of total population.

Take Jung Explorer Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

hell done froze over!
wow. I mean, you know? the snow? in new orleans? absolutely amazing. the snow in mississippi was amazing enough but here, in this city, it's so rare as to be somewhat miraculous and I'm very, very happy that I got to be part of it.
when I called a friend on the drive home from mississippi on the 24th, to report the snow, she was all, well, here in FLA it's 82 and lovely...
but I don't like 82. I don't want 82. 82 is not my lovely. snow! in new orleans! gorgeous. I wouldn't miss it for the world.
anyway. things are all okay. yesterday was a somewhat perfect day. ate chocolate, watched the sleet, saw meet the fockers (dustin! barbra! ha ha ha!), watched the sleety-snow, ate chinese food, watched and frolicked in the really, truly, fat snow, photographed the kids and their snowman, drank rum, read, slept...
the previous evening was okay, too. my mother dug out and gave to my kids two of the little vests knitted for my brother by my grandma, and although I didn't get any pictures I at least got to enjoy seeing them in them, all fancy for christmas eve and it was sweet.
now it's catch up week. not now, but tomorrow. bills to pay, calendars to mail, packages to assemble.
happy birthday to henry miller.

shirley jackson

(ganked from the writer's almanac)

It's the birthday of novelist and short story writer Shirley Jackson, born in San Francisco (1919). She grew up shy and awkward in California and never got along with her glamorous mother. So she married a literature professor and moved as far away from California as she could, to a small town in Vermont, where she raised four children.

She was a very eccentric woman. For most of her life, she heard voices and music that no one else could hear, and she believed that she was psychic. She kept half a dozen cats in her house and she said they often leapt up on her shoulder and whispered poems in her ear. She read dozens of books about witchcraft, and claimed that she had once used a voodoo doll to break a man's leg.

The people in her town talked about her behind her back, calling her a communist and atheist and a witch. Neighbors said the house was full of monstrous dust balls, and the children always had dirty tangled hair. She felt as though everyone in town was watching her and judging her, and she began to dread running into people at the local grocery store.

One spring afternoon, she returned from her daily errands and sat down to write a short story about a village where one person is chosen by lottery to be stoned to death every year. And that was "The Lottery," the short story that would make her name. She finished it in two hours and sent it off to the New Yorker magazine. When it was published there in 1948, more than four hundred readers wrote to the magazine demanding to know what the story meant, or asking to cancel their subscriptions because they were so disturbed.

Jackson was always proud that the white supremacist government of South Africa had banned "The Lottery," because she felt that they, at least, understood the story.

Even though "The Lottery" made her famous, she still struggled to find time to write while raising four children. She once said, "Fifty percent of my life was spent washing and dressing the children, cooking, [cleaning] and mending." But she loved to inspire her children's imagination. One night, during a fierce thunderstorm, she took all the children out to the front porch and encouraged them to roar back at the thunder.

She eventually wrote two best-selling memoirs about the experience of parenting, Life Among the Savages (1953) and Raising Demons (1957). She also wrote horror novels such as The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962).

Shirley Jackson said, "I tell myself stories all day long. I have managed to weave a fairy-tale of infinite complexity around the inanimate objects in my house... No one in my family is surprised to find me putting the waffle iron away on a different shelf because...it has quarreled with the toaster... It looks kind of crazy, of course. But it does take the edge off cold reality."

She also said, "[Writing is] a way of making daily life into a wonderfully unusual thing instead of a grind."

and after the holidays: the jazz funeral for democracy

papa noel

yesterday was long, long, long. my big plans for a bonfire party were foiled by the inexplicably hard (for me) to discover news that the algiers bonfire was actually last night, not next saturday. so all day, the kids and I went from one festive event to another: the fair at church, a friend's going away party, and then the bonfire. it was too much.
but the bonfire was cool - I mean, it's a really big fire, what's not to love? right after they light it, papa noel comes riding up on a boat. I have to say, I got a little teary when my kids started jumping up and down screaming for santa. as proud as I was when three year old Nash referred to mr. claus as "that christmas guy" - that's how touched I am when they get all psyched for santa. it's a trade off. I mean, if the life and adventures of santa claus didn't exist I might not have been able to buy in, but what the hey. santa was part of my atheist childhood and we really, really enjoyed him. it feels okay for him to be a part of my children's atheist-uu-paganesque upbringing, too.
I was relieved to hear Liam ask santa for a bionicle and not for a chameleon or a puppy, which were included on his earlier lists. I didn't catch any of Nash's conversation with the man.

minding the days
I got my 2005 edition of yo mama's daybook in the mail today and damn, it's beautiful, the cover is black and red. I am looking through, filling in birthdays and road trips...
tuesday I will pick up the 2005 mama calendars, and they will be beautiful, too, although in black and white.
I love to mind the days!

fa la la la la
so I've started my weird month of watching holiday themed/related movies. the other day we watched 8 crazy nights (ugh), and last night it was the shop around the corner ( lovely!) and then, after the kids were alseep, bad santa (great although with a dose of heaviness that I wasn't expecting). next will be the rugrats chanukah special! which is the only rugrats thing that I've ever enjoyed. aside from the watches, I mean. and then the cartoon network holiday dvd. watching the johnny bravo christmas episode has emerged as a holiday tradition for the kids and me over the past three years. it's amazing!
I have so far been unable to secure a copy of emmet otter's jug band christmas. this is devastating. I'm also looking for the pee wee's playhouse christmas special. no luck.
last night I watched hi life, another seasonal selection that I found by searching for films with "christmas" in the description... which makes me feel like the biggest of weirdoes... but I loved it, it starred some of my favorite people. watching campbell scott I realized he is who I wish had been the male lead in eternal sunshine. by the same token I'd have cast julie delpy in shakespeare in love.
we also celebrated last night by baking the season's first chocolate chip cookies. it was my first experiment with earth balance shortening: good, but a little more dense than crisco cookies. it's harder to stir and has a little bit of a smell before baking. but no trans fats! hey!
I'm looking up recipes for body scrubs and other stuff that I can make for gifts. brown sugar scrubs with ginger or vanilla. I'm into it.

ariel's blog entries are so beautiful, I'm overwhemed with inadequacy. all I can say is go, read.

I've heard this one before...
You are a WRDL--Wacky Rational Destructive Leader. This makes you a Enemy of the State.

You are charismatic and winning and a very dangerous enemy. You favor justice over compassion, and would almost rather see your opponent fail than you succeed.

You impact the lives of those around you more than any other personality. People remember your name and respect you. You are a tremendous amount of fun to be around and astonishing to watch. You are generally abstinent in your habits, and you like things tidy and ordered.

When picking teams, it is smartest for others to pick yours.

Of the 63295 people who have taken this quiz since tracking began (8/17/2004), 1.5 % are this type.

you go