Plus ca change....

Instead of going to the gym I'm scanning old photos. It's very.... aggravating and slow, truth be told. My scanner is my non-printing printer which is ridiculous since its such a behemoth.

Meanwhile, it's a cool, sunny Sunday and I'm in the middle of renovating my apartment. Step one: move ginormo bookcase that I found on the street (how on EARTH did I get it home alone? I'm so impressed!) out of the bedroom and into the livingroom where it looks very nice against the dusky blue wall. Next step: move all the books (around 350) and arrange in the way that makes me look the smartest.

I do not know why my mother thought it was okay to send me off to first grade in a dress that short. I guess that explains why I was so popular. I remember that pencil-box with such fondness. The shoes? Not so much. Yikes.

Richard Rules: Serra at MOMA

Horrifed at my recent lack of cultural activity (I don't count reading*) I zoomed up to MOMA on Saturday to take in the Richard Serra show. Big. Big, big, HUGE pieces of metal, curved, rusting in the Sculpture Garden. You can walk between the four curves and get a lovely claustrophic feeling that I would liken to being trapped in a cargo ship's inner hull. I can't quite figure out how he made them; it must have been very difficult. What's easy is taking bad photos of them. They are NOT photogenic. Inside (where photography isn't allowed, dammit) there are even more wondrous... large curved things. The exhibit continues in the same theme, gigantic curved objects, some conconcave and some convex, so many that you feel lost among them. Neat!


Now, I must confess a love of going to museums alone. I have a very short attention span and usually die before the other person is finished perusing. Yesterday's outing, for example, took a grand total of 17 minutes (not including transportation). This way, every moment is... precious. Or something. Anyway, better photos and Serra himself here.

Of course, before posting this I had to google "que Serra, Serra" on the off-chance that I might be the first briliant humorist to use the phrase for a blog posting. Alas, no. But I did get a hoot out of this short mediabistro.com post.

Recent reading: Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns (phenomenal); Augusten Burroughs' Possible Side Effects (quite funny); Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History (salty!).

What I Love... What I Hate. An Ongoing Survey

This will be an evolving litany of things. I hate touching shower curtains. Everyone now and then a certain confluence of humidity, water temperature, wind and angry spirits will draw a shower curtain toward me as I stand, batting away, dripping shampoo into my eyes. Horrible.

I love slivered almonds, avocados, fresh cilantro, red wine, fresh-water pearls, pedicures. I loathe finishing a good book (and will leave it around, still bookmarked or splayed on a surface or set somewhere like my desk as if it weren't all over and already fading into my literary memory). I currently love the two books I'm reading: Michael Ondaatje's (wow, I spelled that right on the first try!) Divisadero and Wendy Werris' An Alphabetical Life.

I love that C. praises me when I announce (on the phone) that I'm considering (or just took) a nap in the middle of a sunny Saturday. More to follow.