thirteen or so

• Thing that makes me sigh deeply: People using the diminutive of my name without being invited to do so. It doesn't bother me unless it has that little inflection of...'littleness', if that makes any sense?...and then nothing grates on me more. My best friend in elementary school was Jennifer. No one called her "Jenny." "Jen" was OK, every now and then, but "Jenny" had an implication of cute-little-something that she detested, even as a very small child. That's how I feel about this other name. The difference is that from some people--even most people--it is completely fine. Bah, I'm nuts. It's just one of those things.
• I'm not a fan of the Harry Potter phenomenon. In fact, I will echo the sentiment of my dear friend D: "I would rather read porn than Harry Potter." However, this line from J.K. Rowling (in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) is one with which I agree: "It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
• Remember that song "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits, which included the line "I want my MTV"? I used to sort of hum that during law school, but substituting U.C.C. for MTV. I was such a geeek.
• Has anyone seen Eyes Wide Shut?
• George Orwell is a personal favorite. He wrote the following in 'Reflections on Gandhi' in The Orwell Reader: "The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals."
• Did you know that I work in a fucking day-care center? No, really, that's what it is, some days, despite appearances to the contrary. It is treated as such by an employee who--ironically--complains vociferously about my unending habit of 'dumping work on her and her staff'. I would imagine that if one did not spend one's work hours tending to one's offspring et. al, finishing one's work would not be an issue.
• I generally avoid close observation of my sitemeter stats. It leads too far too much ego & paranoia. Sometimes, though, I get curious and check, and I find things that are just too weird. Yesterday, for instance, the blog was found with a Google Image search for "funny bacon". Why in the hell would anyone look for an image of funny bacon? My most recent visitor was the 44,754th since I set up the account (with 63,356 page views). Do I need to think about that? My favorite of the current hits is a Yahoo search for "jesper parnevik lime green clothing" (not in quotes, naturally), for which the blog came up second yesterday (but it doesn't appear at all today. Ah, the vagaries of online existence!)
• Toenails = 'Royal Flush Blush' (originally from the OPI Las Vegas collection). Fingernails = 'Hopelessly in Love' (also OPI).
• When I was younger and less thoughtful I read Susan Minot's odd little novella called Rapture, which contains these memorable words: "She had the feeling she'd walked into a house she thought she knew well and discovered a room she hadn't seen before. Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe they did have a chance. She was overcome with the same fateful feeling she'd had the night of the art opening when she stood next to him in the elevator, that there was something of herself which had suddenly leaped over, into him, and was now located inside his body."
• I did nothing of value yesterday evening. There was a large to-do list, which I completely ignored. I watched TV for 2 hours. I gave myself an amazing manicure and pedicure. I looked at catalogs--not at all seriously. I looked out the window, watching the cars toodle by at 20 or so mph. I dozed on the couch. I went to bed at 10:45 when the struggle to remain upright was too much for me. In all, it was a good night.
• I made tacos on, um, Tuesday (?). I will be eating leftover tacos until the end of time. How can something that sounded so good on Tuesday sound so atrocious now?
• You've just got to love a job where you don't need to wear shoes for several hours in the afternoon. I took mine off when I got back from lunch at 2:15 or so and haven't had them on since.
• Huh. Just looked at the calendar and discovered that I'm taking 2 vacation days next week. I wonder what I'm doing to celebrate?