More thanksgiving

Between this article in the Times about abject poverty in Maine and the grim and gripping The Law of Dreams (Peter Behrens) about the Irish potato famine, I'm feeling pretty lucky and, well, thankful. Heartbroken, maybe ... but still fortunate.

Thanksgiving 2007

Contrast

The Moon Looks Like a Walnut

I live for Harper's magazine's "Findings." The seemingly random selection of scientific factoids is so well done -- dry as a bone and yet often laugh-out-loud funny. Here are a few that cracked me up this month:

Canadian researchers found that men are almost as likely as women to be coerced into sex and that nearly a quarter of men are coerced into cuddling.

Astronomers confirmed that Saturn's moon Iapetus is half black and half white because its front side picks up space dust, and its back side accumulates ice. They also said that the moon has looked like a walnut for a very long time.

Female African jumping spiders that lose their viriginity to large males and avoid being eaten by them after sex tend to choose small, less threatening males for subsequent sexual encounters.

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This weekend has been a long one for me. Like 8 days long, at least. That's one upside of a breakup, I guess. Really, really long weekends...

Thursday's Child: for some reason I want to play ping pong

My title (of this entry) has no real meaning. Except that I was born on a (cold, rainy) Thursday in 196-) and today is Thursday. And... "Thursday's child is full of woe" -- 'nuff said... details to (probably not) follow.

Anyway, things that caught my eye and ears (eyes, plural, actually, thanks to my opthalmologist): On deck from NY Magazine's "The DVD Queue," RESCUE DAWN -- "a dark-horse contender for Best Actor, Christian Bale brillantly plays Vietnam POW Dieter Dengler as the strange optimist found in director Werner Herzog's 1997 documentary LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY." No clue what that means but as one who still, some 20 (?) years later dreams dreams inhabited by Herzog's monkeys from AGUIRRE, I can say, I'll watch anything Herzog-related. (Oh, I also dream occasionally of Klaus Kinski but we needn't go there.)

Also, a cab ran over my right foot (corner of Hudson and Reade, possibly). And I survived. Here's what happens: a rounding-the-corner cab screech, then a strange pressure on said foot, then a completely instinctual and kinda kangeroo-ish physical jump backward and then... nothing. Until one (me) gets home and strips off tights (black, matte) to find entire top of foot is mottled black and green. Nice!

Delightfully pleasant evening with dear friend K. on Tuesday... at a Van Halen concert! WTF? I know! Well, her company (publishing) has a sky box at Madison Square Garden, obviously meant for stressed-out copyeditors to lounge in from time to time (once in a blue moon) to feel "appreciated." Or something. Anyway, I'd not been in a sky box before and it was rather kinda cool and upper-atmosphere (I wanna say... hm.. tropospheric). Yes.) and a very hazy view of the hilariously posturing David L. Roth, et. al. I definitely need to get out more. And will.

My friend A. says I use too many adverbs. Can this be right? What if adjectives just don't quite do it? Huh?

Oh. And this week's The Office made me itch to play ping pong. I'm pretty good...

What I've learned today so far

That Quaker Instant Oatmeal + Fage 0% fat yogurt plus Tibetan Gohji Berries make a fine breakfast. That John James Audubon "counted a day wasted unless he had shot a hundred birds." That fresh-cut freesia last a long time (a week!) but the white ones last longer than the yellow ones. That cats don't like warm water any better than cold. That's it for now; laundry time on a windy, cold November Saturday.