Taxi...TAXI!

I. Love. This. It makes me stir crazy and all wanderlusty.

A note from my past

Back in August I told you about a website I stumbled onto called Future Me. You write an email to yourself and the site will deliver it on whatever future date you specify. The only rule is that it has to be at least 90 days in the future.

So...way back then...I sent an email to myself as a test. I completely forgot about it in the meantime, and was surprised when my message was delivered last week. Now that I know it's legit...it's game on. I'm going to send all sorts of notes to The Future Me. I absolutely love this idea. The Future Me might get sort of annoyed with The Past Me...but whatever.

Totally addicting waste of time

So over Thanksgiving weekend my dad showed me his virtual cafe and virtual apartment, encouraging me to become his business partner and neighbor. He introduced me to the Facebook apps Cafe World and YoVille (they're like SIMS lite, more or less). Up until two days ago, I was completely unaware such apps existed. I scoffed and ridiculed him for indulging in such low-brow time wasters. Important people have important things to do, I explained, and I couldn't possibly find the time to play these silly games with him.

Well, about that.

That's a screen shot of the living room in my YoVille apartment. Yeah, I know.

And that's a screen shot of my cafe (aptly named: my madeleines). I know, I know!

But dude, seriously. He tricked me into this addiction by letting me remodel his cafe. He had taken all the starter furniture items and done nothing to the cafe, focusing only on the food served leading to the bottom line dollar. Pssh...that's where I come in. I rocked a remodel and his business went through the roof. "Money well spent," he said as I drained his bank account from over $30,000 to $500. You gotta spend money to make money, I always say.

No. I don't actually say that. I'm not even sure I know what that means.

But I do know what it means to design and decorate. Blame it on the Libra genes or some other inherent esthetic, but I've always been good at it. After remodeling my dad's cafe I held out as long as I could (about three hours) before caving, downloading both apps to my Facebook account, and proceeding to establish my own little virtual empire.

I find it kind of annoying that I have to play stupid games and cook food and work and stuff in order to get enough little gold coins to do what I want to do; which is to say shop and decorate. It's also all well and good that I worked ahead with my homework and had time to indulge this weekend...but I don't wanna think about the mess my little virtual world will be in when work hits the fan tomorrow morning. We'll see if I bother to maintain my addiction or decide to detox.

Bloodsport

My family is highly competitive. I, thankfully, got the recessive genes and only care to compete with my perfectionist self. However, for the rest of these yahoos, everything from Jeopardy to making it through the soon-to-change traffic light is a very. serious. competition.

Take for instance the pleasant arts & crafts project my mom whipped up for us today: Decorate a gingerbread house. Seems simple enough, but oh no. It was only a matter of time before we were entrenched on opposite sides of the dining room table, men versus women in a battle to the death, our voices raised as we debated the engineering of the graham cracker roof beams.

Shouting trash talk across the table we hurled, "Your Necco roof is not structurally sound!" "Oh yeah? Well your garden path is so not to scale!" Not a hint of irony. Not a whiff of the absurd. We were dead serious.

Just as we thought we were finished with our task, my mother called two different neighbors over to the house for an independent judging commission. The tiebreaker turned to Facebook. A post to my mom's wall, a post to mine. It was on.

House #2 was the women's creation and I don't need to tell you it's clearly better. It also won the Facebook polls by a landslide. I'm just sayin' ...

Beats doing dishes

My grandparents flew in from California, as they have every Thanksgiving since my family moved to Utah; and we enjoyed the outrageously awesome feast at the Foundry Grill at Sundance Resort. I'm grateful for a family that plays hard, works hard, laughs hard, and loves hard. I'm also grateful that we genuinely enjoy each other's company.

Photos, photos, and more photos.

It's amazing to watch creativity creep back into my life as I settle into a holiday weekend and enjoy less homework than I've had all semester. I've added 13 more photos to madeleines written with light, such as this camera I found at a flea market in Searsport, Maine.

I can't wait for winter break. I'll have two full weeks paid vacation and a needed break from constant academia. Expect more photos!

I'm gonna get me a navy pea coat...

Today is the first time I've been cold this season. We've had a lovely Indian summer that melted right into an Indian fall...but now it's snowing and blistering cold outside.

I find myself listening to a lot of Brett Dennen in an effort to boost my spirits. I find this ditty particularly wonderful right now (take a listen, will ya...you won't regret it and you really do need the full effect). No, I'm not in break-up mode, I just find it bouncy and delightful. I'm also hurting for time in San Francisco. It's been too long.

Go, if you want to go;

But I won't follow,

Just so you know.

Leave, if you need to leave;

But I won't be here...

I won't be here when you come home.

I'm gonna to move to San Francisco,

Look up some old friends.

I'm gonna get me a navy pea coat,

And an old Mercedes Benz.

This old town it keeps shrinking.

There's too many people in my junk.

I'm gonna do a lot of drinking,

Cause it don't hurt when I'm drunk.

Go, if you want to go;

But I won't follow,

Just so you know.

Leave, if you need to leave;

But I won't be here...

I won't be here when you come home.

I'm gonna rent me an old Victorian

Down in the Lower Haight.

I'm gonna get me an old accordion

Play for the tourists on the golden gate.

I'm gonna plant a garden.

Paint my bathroom blue.

I'm gonna try real hard

To get over you.

Go, if you want to go;

But I won't follow...

Just so you know.

Leave, if you need to leave;

But I won't be here,

I won't be here when you come home.

Here in the city, life doesn't move so slow.

There's plenty of good people I know.

Up in North Beach they drink spicy Italian liqueur.

Down on Market there's a lot of hobos and the hustlers.

Down in Hayes Valley, there's a lot of real good restaurants.

Deep in the tenderloin you can get anything you want.

Over in The Mission it's always a sunny day.

It's a real good baseball town but my team is across the bay.

Go, if you want to go;

But I won't follow,

Just so you know.

Leave, if you need to leave;

But I won't be here...

I won't be here when you come home.

29. That's right.

I had a really creative weekend. I spent a lot of time catching up on sleep. I watched a few documentaries that have been on my wishlist for months. I spent serious quality time with muffin, catching up on 3 months of So You Think You Can Dance a'la DVR and making awesome greeting cards. I also hit some sort of photography energy field and finally posted 29 pics from my Maine vacation.

Yes, the vacation I took in June. Finally got to it. I know, I know. Whatever.

Just enjoy...http://madeleineswrittenwithlight.blogspot.com

Getting off gets the crazy out.

"Hysteria — an exclusively female illness, its name derived from the Greek word for "uterus" — was something of a catchall condition. It was irritability, it was sleeplessness, it was anger, it was feeling solemnity. Any behavior beyond the prescribed feminine ideal. Anything that was pretty much unacceptable to the people around you."

*sigh* Any behavior beyond the prescribed feminine ideal. Seriously. I read this and know that it's in reference to prevailing wisdom of the Victorian 19th Century, but I can't help roll my eyes at the reality that many would presume this text was contemporary. Furthermore, my eyes roll completely out of my skull knowing that many would find nothing objectionable about it.

It pisses me off. Actually.

That's why playwright Sarah Ruhl and I would be friends. Like, if we both lived in New York and ran into each other in a coffee shop or some fabulous dinner party at a mutual friend's loft, we'd end up hanging out. A lot. BFFs, Sarah and I.

Her play, In the Next Room, tells the tale of women who used to visit the doctor for hysteria, the doctor would proceed to...ahem, manually stimulate them, and post-orgasm: voila. No more hysteria.

Sure, this is funny at first. Then, it's really sad. As this NPR piece points out, the play explores issues of intimacy and awareness. "Ruhl centers her play on how we separate out bodily functions and labor and love." I've been ruminating a lot lately on how disconnected women can be from their bodies, how unhealthy I think that is, and how culture/society can perpetuate (and even honor) that disconnection.

Clearly, I'm not the only one to ruminate on such issues as of late. I would've loved to see this play.

Mayer's latest

I've been getting acquainted with Battle Studies these past few days.

I want to be blown away. I really do what to tell you that my life has changed.

Meh.

I like the album. I like anything John Mayer does. It's just that I know he is an outstanding musician and I was in the mood to be blown away musically. It's clear that this album was a lyrical growth for him, but musically there's not much going on that he couldn't pull off a decade ago. Humph. Maybe that's not fair. There are a few bluesy moments, but nothing compared to his work with the Trio, say.

Oh well, whatever. It's strong, solid Mayer. I'll be blown away next time.

...and while we're on the topic

That's all.

oh. my. my.

Yes, please.

A real life vacay

All my frivolous web surfing this weekend is reminding me of more relaxed days. I did sneak a vacay into my hectic semester. Since MBA classes are 7-weeks, with a one-week break between them, I decided there was nothing for me to do but run away to Florida. You should know by now that I'm as behind on photo processing as I always am. At some point I'll post to the photo blog, and at some point I'll share vacay stories here, but in the meantime...

I just had to revisit this glorious image. That's where I sat for a week avoiding all things productive. Ahhhhh yes.

I text allegiance to the flag...

I text allegiance to the flag of the United States Of American Apparel and to the facebook for which it friends, one nation, OMG, indivizzibizzle, with Liberty and Jonas for all.

(Stephen Colbert)

Socialnomics

I couldn't care less about the make-more-money economic argument, just not my thing; but the social capital argument, hell yes. Welcome to the future of organizing.

Two words: Esperanza. Spalding.

Time to buy every note of music Esperanza Spalding has ever touched. Thanks, White House. You're like my hip friend who recommends all the best music.

Until you have seen a deaf girl dance...

White. House. Poetry. Jam. Enough said.

"Until you have seen a deaf girl dance, you know nothing of passion."

Coming up for air

Grad School.

One MBA class down. Got a solid A grade and flattering kudos from the professor. I've been knocking out A grades on all my MA Community Leadership course assignments. My new MBA course is going well and I rocked an A on the first assignment. All is well. It's hard. I love it. It takes every single spare moment of my time. It's worth it.

Work.

The director of my department left the college in September. I was appointed Interim Director. This is in addition to everything else I do for my already more-than-full-time job and the new federal grant I'm managing. It's a great opportunity and I'm in the right place at the right time, but it's wearing me out. I now manage 7 staff members and a $400,000 budget. In addition...in addition... *sigh*

That's that.

I have a light homework weekend. This hasn't happened since...well, since I started grad school. I took this time to clean my apartment. No. That's a lie. I took this time to surf the web and watch hours of hulu. I'm about to dump a lot of neat interweb finds on this blog.

Ready. Set. Go.