Electric Ladyland

heart wounded by five swords

there's nothing better than watching someone transfixed by the thing that gives their life meaning.  those moments are rare.  i caught one yesterday when i took dad to the met museum's gallery of musical instruments.  to me that room seems like a dour afterthought but when i wandered through it this summer and saw those guitars in the corner something clicked.  i knew i knew someone for whom it would mean a lot more.  i didn't know how much it would.  not only were there guitars lovely, intricate and historically significant, but it turned out the guitar was there.  i'd heard stories about this one.  i met the... grandson, i think, of its maker, several years ago when i was still in high school.  for me it was exciting to see dad, the guitar, the two of them inhabiting that dimly lit space.  it was actually the first time he'd ever seen the instrument that had played such a role in his life.  i'm so glad i insisted on going.  i knew there was a reason.

noel

chicken roasting in a magical mix of herbs, wine and butter.  the aroma wafting throughout the apartment.  cackling in the kitchen.  happy holidays are here.

after dinner, armagnac in the living room by the christmas tree as the nutcracker chimes from the next room. more laughter, more silliness.  getting into the mix about family, politics, human relationships, the connections between people, the spice of life.  the straw that stirs the drink.

tonight we're off to les halles for a french christmas dinner.  we did our research in advance on all the little points of curiosity, things we hadn't tried yet but had heard about.  bon appetit!  merry christmas!

telecommuting day 2

day two and we're hunky dory here in astoria.  got the christmas tree, the radiator hissing, the electric blanket for when it's not (landlords are a bit stingy with heating) and of course adult beverages that one would not normally be able to enjoy while at the office.  IMing with my coworkers, conference calling, getting a fair bit of work done from this cozy environment and it feels good! 

but then there the yanks go stealing our center fielder, our caveman savior, and now i'm getting harassing emails from my yankee fan boss.  can i get an injunction against that?  ugh.

well, at least in just over a day i'll have dad here and we can get our holiday weekend started together.  should be nice.  i've put together a playlist of christmas songs -- all the greatest hits from traditional selections like tchaikovsky's nutcracker to "grandma got run over by a reindeer."  i gotta admit i got that old magical christmas feeling last night watching the tree sparkle in my living room while the nutcracker was on.  it's been a long time.

being the media junkie that i am, i've been searching for good content about the strike.  everybody wants the TWU's head and few people are pressing the question of why the MTA is going to far to insist on $5 million in savings when they went and spent the whole $1 billion surplus last week.  and just what do the transit workers mean when they're talking about dignity and respect?  hard to find any articles exploring that since they're all so sympathetic to the government entities and the quote-unquote noble new yorker braving the cold, but the daily news's juan gonzalez gets into it here.  personally i'm glad to see labor fighting a battle like this because american workers are in a compromised enough position as it is.  this standoff does have implications for labor negotiations across the country, as a couple of news broadcasts have hinted at but not explored in their programming.  i for one love riding the subway and think the people who work so hard to get me wherever i want to go 24 hours a day should stand up to the MTA.  go TWU.

telecommuting

fun things about telecommuting during a transit strike:

• cozying up to your christmas tree while getting your work done.  i've had no tree for a very long time due to living in japan, having rampaging kittens in the apartment, or other complicating factors.  not this year though.  aah, the scent of pine...
• testing out the new hosted IM system you're setting up and getting IMed by your sales rep who is also working from home twelve blocks away from you... and apparently works just one block away from you... cue twilight zone music...
• you can make a nice lunch and you don't have to eat it at your desk under fluorescent lights.
• afternoon beer in a pint glass straight out of the freezer. 
• you can "express yourself" to the tv while watching pundits pontificate on the transit strike. 

not so fun or "eh" things about telecommuting during a transit strike:

• NY1, while wonderful, repeats the same clips over and over and over.  last night amanda farinacci kept cutting away to a pitch black nighttime scene where nothing at all was visible.  slick.
• you're tap-tap-tapping away at your computer only to look up and realize that you're watching... the view!  nooo!
• dropping by the local starbucks to pick up a little pick-me-up only to find it infested with laptop-toting 20-something hipstery upstarts.  i know that's a little hypocritical of me to say having toted said laptop over there from time to time but jeez, everybody and their hipster cousin -- they were all at starbucks today looking oh so important.
• no heat/stingy heat...  this is where your newly purchased electric blanket comes in handy.

these flippant musings notwithstanding, i am hoping the MTA and the TWU will find a resolution to this standoff soon.  it's not looking good, though.  it's looking ugly.  the timing could not be worse for everyone involved.  i have to ask:  who were the geniuses responsible for having the contract expire the week before christmas?  way to go rock stars.

japan on the silver screen

there's been a long pause on this blog but i am around and doing well.  the first week back i was majorly jet lagged (envision me getting pancaked by a mack truck and you've just about got it) and therefore a sitting duck for all the illnesses making the rounds through our office, so i got sick too.  several packets of emergen-c and theraflu plus one weekend and i was good to go again. 

did some light organizing in the apartment.  went around distributing omiyage.  went to see memoirs of a geisha and decided i should have seen brokeback mountain instead.  i didn't really like memoirs the book and so i guess it follows that i didn't really like memoirs the movie despite already being a fan of most of the actors in it.  it was actually okay as far as movies go and yakusho koji turned in a top-notch performance in particular, but that so-called geisha dance performance... where did that come from?  did we just get teleported to the cabaret?  as the reviews suggested gong li was also formidable (i think she chews on scenery for breakfast, lunch and dinner... now that's a diva, baby) but that didn't make the movie spectacular.   i could tell that they were trying to paint a theme of women being bound and unfree and i could even tell that it was affecting the female actresses in particular to explore this (one review i read said there was a lot of crying on the set after takes) but even so, despite being a woman myself, i couldn't quite connect with it because the movie just wasn't that captivating for me.  alas.  but i am finding it interesting that there have been so many well-known movies taking on a japan theme since i came home from japan four years ago.  i'm not sure what that suggests about contemporary america's continuing fascination with japan (what are we fascinated with at the moment, exactly?  looks like samurai and geisha, still... anything beyond that?) but i'd be interested in exploring that since i'm curious.

anyway, got a couple of bonenkai tonight and the holidays are upon us so it's a little on the busy side here but i hope to squeeze in some time to start writing about the november trip japan and all that it was.  soon.

dis-orient

back from the trip to japan, very jet lagged.  wasn't nearly this bad when i arrived in tokyo.  my body clock is way off and it will take a while to reset everything back to normal.  took many photos and the camera really came through for me.  in some cases the images look better than they did to my actual eyes. 

so much to say.  so tired.  having trouble readjusting but it's not reverse culture shock like in 2001 when i came home.  nothing here seems weird to me like it did then but being awake mostly when everyone else is sleeping certainly is and cuts down on your chances to connect with other people, resulting in disorientation, confusion and a bit of loneliness.  however, the trip went unbelievably well -- so much better than i could have hoped for.  superlative.

my study partner and i took the 2kyu test yesterday at columbia.  most everybody there was twitchy and scared, but not us.  we were having a great time.  as expected, the first two sections (kanji/vocab, listening comprehension) were fine.  we knew the drubbing that awaited us with the final section, reading comprehension.  that didn't faze us.  quietly exhorting "faitooo!" to one another, we sat down and slogged through it.

i honestly don't know if i passed but there is a chance that i might have.  if i did, oh the partying we're gonna do!  if not, we're still going to have a "damn we lost" party but keep our chins up.  we don't expect to pass but know for certain that we can pass next year if we continue on like we have.  the progress we've made in the last few months has been amazing. 

also amazing was the foliage i saw while in japan.  outstanding.  i'd been wondering if it was really all that but it really is, wow.  i was there having an up close and personal encounter with tiny scarlet maple leaves at a temple in kyoto about a week and a half ago... now i'm shivering and dodging snow and slush back in gotham.  how quickly the seasons have changed. 

that's it for now.  going to go curl up in bed, cross my fingers and hope that i can get some sleep.