What takes up brain space now, in pie chart formation.

And on that note...

I Blame Facebook.

When you've started blogging purely to keep up with bloggity-blah and distant friends, and then all of those up-keepers end up on Facebook, chatting and photo-sharing and thumbs-upping away, why would you bother to continue with the keep-ups-ing in the blogosphere?

That's right. You wouldn't.

Unless you had a kid or two, and lots of non-MyFace addicted or non-tech savvy family and friends needing to be kept informed of the goings on in the non-electronical areas of your life.

Unless you maintain a semi-anonymous persblogonality while in the throes of law school, as a place to comment on culture and happenings and random thoughts and all the unspeakable gossips of the intense campus/community/field into which you have begun to dip first your toes and then all the various appendages into, and about which you would not dare risk snarkifying in the SpaceBook realm due to the long, long, loooong memory of the oh-so-mature folks and future colleagues therein (but which really must be shared with friends, family, and the world at large because OH COME ON, PEOPLE, SERIOUSLY?!!).

Unless you simply want to write it all down and remember because your brain, well, your poor rusty brain is beginning to forget the day-to-dayness of it all and it would be nice to have a record of just what the eff all the time has been spent upon...

But if you started tap tap tapping away in a blogger window not just as a connection to the far-scattered friends and loved ones, but as a connection to the words that tended to escape, to the page and to the pages, and to the Giant Bubble Machine of a world out there, with so much going on every minute - spit out at you via RSS feed or Headline News or Alerts in the inbox - well, Facebook doesn't do a very swell job with all of that, I'm afraid. In fact, I'd say it manages to almost instantly (within a few replies, anyway) trivialise or diminish most everything posted or discussed within its pages (and I say that despite the experience of having the very choicest news of MJ's death being broken to me via Twitter/FB feed from a cousin in Italy, a full 30 minutes before CNN changed their headline from "grave condition" to "DEAD" - - - of course that's a moral of the story for another time). You may disagree. That's fine, I'll allow it. Let's chat about it over on my wall, shall we?

But really, I should never have stepped away, because Facebook (though I do love you, you sweet, innocently addictive crackpipe you) is no place for the in-depth, for the thoughtful, for the lengthy.* It is a place for photos, photo-essays even, edged with storytelling captions, but lacking any graciousness for the story itself. It is the land of the virtual connection, the shorthand, the easy way to reach out and click "Like!" and let someone know you are thinking of them, that you know they are out there, that you give a shit about what they are doing and saying and snapping and sharing. And for this I maintain many, daily, truly heartfelt appreciations and admirations. However, it is hardly the venue for the longer, harder, dare I say fancier braindumps and certainly not for the writings and the by-products of the (now rare) ass-in-chair, brain-to-hand scribblings, tappety-tappings or snip-snap cut-n-pastes. It's no place for the actual, I fear.

So I blame Facebook. And the sweet flood of relief of post-inauguration America-the-Beautiful that made it okay not to think but. at. all. for a few months in the blissful thereafter. And I blame therapy, of which I've certainly had too much by now.** And laziness. And indecision. And travel to California. And not getting into graduate school, AGAIN. And ambivalence. And efforts elsewhere, in strange small piles of intention and (in)action. And oh oh, gardening, the garden! I totally, lovingly, longingly blame the garden! And about a million fluid ounces of love and contentment from the constant stream of houseguests that fluttered through our giant drafty house from May to October (love love love).

But now there is no excuse. And barring babies and grad school or any tangible plans at taking over the world with my verve, vim and vigor, I'll just have to stick with what pours out of the pockets between the cranium and the sacrum and see what takes shape back here in this blackness.

So - Hi. How've you been keeping yourself these days, months and years?



*I claim none of those but the third. Ahem.

**Though I can justify the time in years (if not the money in dollars) by the simple math of twice-a-month = double the length of the process versus the standard once-a-week analysis. Right? Right.

Dear Small World of Mine - A Treat for You.

Hurry up and go to this website and watch this video before the woman responsible for it yanks it and puts up something else.

Bite My Cookie.
http://bite-my-cookie.blogspot.com/

BMC, whose web site you'll visit by clicking above, is one of my favorite ladies in Portland. She is fierce, a firecracker, a connector, a scrape-the-lining-of-her-insides-out-for-you-if-you-need-it, a ball of energy and chaos and giant-hearted snark. She's funnier than sin. She has the most adorable family (this is heresay, or blogsay, I guess, as I've not actually met them yet) and a neverendingstory of stories to tell that will make you cry with hysteria. Also, she makes the best cookies in all the land. Hopefully she's going to have a rad website selling these cookies in the next week or two (if someone you know and love can get her ess-aytch-eye-tea together ay-ess- ay-pee).

In the meantime, she's just had the ultimate crapperfull of a hellish experience in business wherein all of her talent and energy and huge vats of effort got swallowed up by The Man (in the collective patriarchal sense, as well as in the penis-bearing-personage pissing absurdities on a years worth of bloodsweatmoneytears sort of way). I think she's trying to sit still for a moment, water the roots at the base of the pruned bush, so to speak, gather her strength for the next thing. But in the meantime, she offers periodic treats on her site, but just like the incredible cookies she bakes, you've gotta run and get em while they're hot. I can't guarantee that what you'll see when you click above will be the video to which I am directing you, but hey, don't shoot the messenger.

So go, run, click, do it. BMC recently took down her archives, which were time-suckingly entertaining (and which I used to read long before I met her at work by happenstance one day, long before I realized that she was BFFs with an LA blogger, Rebecca Wolf, long linked on this site that I'd been reading for months and months.) Anyway, you unfortunately will not have the honor of experiencing those BMC, days-gone-by, belly-laughing posts, but please, please please go watch her darling 4 year old give a life lesson about what it means to be four. It is beyond precious, absolutely sums up four years old - and the important bits of life in a nutshell, really - in under a minute and a half.

Ps - I got two hours of sleep last night, due to an early morning airport run for Le Mama and some damn inconvenient insomnia involving a terribly unnecessary late night fixation on h'ors d'oeuvres (because I am retarded) for this weekend's shower-to-end-all-showers for our darling Joj, so please forgive if this entire post makes no sense, which I suspect it may not, but am too wiggy to double check. Bottom line, go watch the vid - I can't imagine you'll be sorry.

Suspicious.

I stumbled upon the following blog and was VERY suspicious that it might have something to do with a dear friend of mine. Having investigated further, I see now that it is likely just a giant coincidence and does not relate directly to her dear cat-loving, legal-geeking self. But for those of you in the know, how could I NOT think that an ASU Law Blog with Ross in the name and featuring something called "Law Cat of the Week" showcasing the cats of ASU law students was somehow related to our dear Bex?

This will only interest you law geeks - one in particular - so move along if your name doesn't start with an R and rhyme with Hecka:

Ross Blakley Law Library Blog.

(Oh, no, no, it's my pleasure, you are truly very welcome, my dear).

And while we are on the subject, congratulations times ten billion on completion of your first year of school, Honeypie. I am infinitely excited for you, even more so by the fact that you are now free to talk on the phone for five hours in a sitting again.

On a related note: I'm pleased to report that I now know how to pee without any splashing sounds echoing in the phone. Totally. Awesome.

Cannot Wait For This (Warning: Nerd Alert).

Oh, oh BSG. Where have you been all my life? What's with the bovine gestation-length hiatus, hmm?

For other fans, here is a normal, relatively milquetoast (yet still thrilling!) Season Four preview, below.



For other fanatics like me, explosive Season Four "Exclusive Preview" (with SPOILERS so if you haven't seen the end of S3 yet, beware) can be seen on this web site.

I am retardedly excited for the season to start, even though I am bummed it will be the last (I did see a headline somewhere that SciFi may be doing some kind of prequel involving life on Caprica or New Caprica? Not sure. Remind me to look up). At any rate, I love this show with the same feverish passion I held for "The West Wing." And that, my friends, is a muthalode'o'love.

Two unrelated things of great importance to share with you immediately because they are so dang important.

First:

Why did this not exist when I was a Lollapalooza/Lillith Fair/outdoor all day concert goer???

Feh. How much could I have saved in a) Money spent on expensive-ass water, b) Time on quests to get ungettable booze and c) Tissues used to ferret out all the black crusty boogers created by dusty outdoor concert locations mixed with total and utter dehydration? I remember being SO PISSED when I had to toss out the water I brought to Lollapalooza (1994? is that right? Jesus, whatever) and then having to fork over $3 or $4 for a tiny bottle of lukewarm spitwater. Had I had this lovely water jug contraption to wrap around my own jugs, I would have been stoked! I also would have looked like a Russ Meyer movie, even more than I already might have with a perky high-school-breast-worthy D bra, but it would have been worth it.

Second:

Bex's friend and former co-worker, GPP (who I had the pleasure of re-meeting and dining with a few weeks ago in Portland when much of Peachpit showed up for Karen's wedding) made an excellent point on his blog about the direction of media technology that Apple seems to be pushing for/reinforcing with the release of the envelope laptop (as I've taken to calling it). I'm sure others have been talking about this, but since I'm living in a house that Linux built, the only Mac news I get is from one half of the Watsons, or from Bex. Anyway, so it's interesting to me that part of the Mac push basically takes for granted that media will continue the march toward file formats and away from discs, CD, DVD, whatever. I don't know how I feel about that. I don't miss floppy discs either, or VHS tapes. I kind of feel like I would miss CDs and DVDs though, but then again I watch TV online, use a memory stick instead of burned CDs and mostly listen to music from mp3 files instead of on CD.

Hey, so, like 20 minutes ago when I found these things and felt like I had to share them with you, I had a ton of really interesting things to say about them. And now, well, not so much.

So I'm done now.
Bye Bye.

Uh Mah Gaw.

There are several sites I frequent where so-called "Food Bloggers" tempt me with their magical foodie material: Orangette, Gluten-Free Girl (even though these two are a little bit too high on life for a sometimes cynic like me to handle), Je Mange La Ville, Smitten Kitchen, etc.

Mostly I am inspired, sometimes annoyed, always drooling over what I find at these sites. Periodic attempts to recreate featured recipes have met with much success. Every so often I've noticed the long list of links to other food sites that adorn the sidelines of the above-mentioned food blogs, but I almost always hesitate to click through for further investigation because a) Who has time? and b) well, really it's just that who has time? The few I have clicked through in the past have annoyed me for one reason or another (too few photos, too much meat product, too heavy of an emphasis on muy expensivo ingredients, or more recently on things I just can't - or shouldn't - eat).

So I was utterly delighted when I clicked on a tantalizing sidebar link today called "Tastespotting" and found the mother of all food porn stashes. I've died and gone to -aholic heaven (insert noun there - sex, food, calorie, porno, whatever) with this site boasting hundreds of pages of large alluring photos and easy click-through links to the fabulous featured foods therein. I probably spent an hour clicking through the assortment today, dying anew with each page load.

Unfortunately, I can't eat about 70% of what's highlighted on each page, but F it, I can still imagine what each thing tastes like, especially all the crazy desserts (I've always had an unhealthy relationship to food, one might say, and this just continues the trend... but in my mind instead of on the plate. Better? Depends on who you ask, I'd bet). As for the 30% of food items in the world that are Acupuncturist-approved and with which I am free to cook up without restriction, I am totally inspired by the photos on this site. Coupled with the new "Veganomicon" cookbook gracing our countertop, I think we are good to go for a while.

On that note, I must to the kitchen, lemon and pea risotto is calling for stirrage. I leave you with the addictive food photos of lusciousness. Click at your own risk. Go ahead, click on it. I dare you. Tastespotting.com

Why the internets are weird (and why you should therefor watch "Eli Stone").

A long time ago, in a lifetime that seems very very far away, I lived in Berkeley and had a job that basically entailed writing emails back and forth to friends all day in between surfing and reading all the new exciting "content" on the "world wide web." So fresh, so weird, so prolific, all those tech savvy folks who got themselves up on the net before it was fashionable (or profitable) to do so.

One early net writer was Pamela Ribon, of Pamie.com (formerly Squishy). I read her Squishy site pretty steadily until I left my job to go shack up with Joosh, losing all my at-work bookmarks and forgetting all about places like Squishy and Disgruntled Housewife and the Gallery of Regrettable Foods.

I rediscovered Pamie's site in 2005 and was entertained anew. She's written two books, "Why Girls Are Weird" (which I have not yet read) and "Why Moms Are Weird" (which I have, and quite enjoyed). She's also a head writer on the Christina Applegate vehicle show "Samantha Who?" (which, actually, is quite enjoyable as well). Well, she was a head writer until all these strike shenanigans shut down production.

{Excuse me a moment while I have a mini diatribe about the strike: As much as I'd like for the writers to win against the greedy bastages, be compensated fairly for their efforts with a piece of all the rewards that Web 2-point-frickin-Oh may potentially reap, and for the families of all the folks that provide support services to Hollywood to put back to work and be able to afford living in LA once again, I sort of secretly wish it would continue for many more months. I think that the only way America is going to wake up and get pissed at what is going on in the White House, in Iraq, in the future, in the climate, in the back pockets of government and corporations, etc, is if they are unplugged from the boob tube. Really, part of the reason this election cycle is so intense, I think - besides the fact that it's crazy historic, obviously - is because people are paying actual attention this time, being so bored of Reality TV and all. My theory is that if the strike were to continue through the Fall (no new shows until 2009 at the earliest), Bush and Cheney would be impeached. No, I'm serious, think about it. There would be enough people paying attention, supporting congressional efforts to file the articles, feeding on that sense of drama and tension in the story arc - it would absolutely captivate a narrative-hungry audience who just might be all the more interested by any connections they managed to make to their own lives, pocketbooks, futures, etc... Okay, ending the (not-mini) diatribe, have another episode of "Lost" to catch up on.}

Anyway, so Pamie of Pamie.com used to write for Television Without Pity (which was bought by Bravo/NBC, so insert sell-out joke here), where she apparently met and befriended this lovely lady, Anna Beth Chao from Hashai.com.
AB, as she is known, is hilarious. She has, of late, been using her Flikr account to update her adoring public, instead of her blog. I guess she's over it, the blogging. (On the plus side, her photos are perfect and her home decor is absurdly lust-inducing*).

One day, AB (who lives and works somewhere in the south, maybe Louisiana?) announced this bit of craziness on her flickr/blog: She was hired by someone (Greg Berlanti) whose show she used to recap (and mock) on TWOP to be a writer on his new show, "Eli Stone". What? That happens? REALLY???? Apparently, yes. I periodically checked up on her site and Pamie's to see what was happening at what they coined to be "TV Camp." There was no shortage of drool nor envy on my part whilst reading said updates.

As much as I read about the process, the road to the show, etc, I didn't read much about the program itself, so I didn't really know what to expect. All that managed to stick in my increasingly absent-minded head was the fact that Brit Johnny Lee Miller (the former Mr. Angelina Jolie, also known as Sickboy to anyone in high school or college in the mid-Nineties) was playing an American lawyer in SF. And since the strike began, I hadn't heard anything about it - I thought maybe it had already aired and been shelved.

No no, I was wrong. With the heralded return of "Lost" (Michael is the man Ben has on the freighter, and also the man in the coffin, bet you cash money), in sweeps Eli, which IMDB sums up thusly: " A legal drama centered on a lawyer (Miller) who begins to think he might be a prophet". This summation made me skeptical, but was intriguing enough when coupled with the whole behind-the-scenes-internet-stalking thing I'd been doing to make me want to tune in. So tune in I did.

I was totally unprepared for the hook, people. If you watch TV, you've probably seen the second week ads that blow the punchline of the first 10 minutes of the first show, but if you haven't, I totally don't want to ruin it for you. Let me just say that as the organ music rises in the beginning, and as Eli (and you, the viewer) finally puts it together what the song is, never in a million years did I expect that they, the writers/producers/whatever would a) pull, and b) get away with so well, such a stunt. I couldn't stop laughing: at Johnny's face (and white boy dancing in his underwear before going into the living room), at the scenario, at my own delight for being tricked by a TV show that lulled me into such a false sense of smugness thinking I totally had the show's number before it even started... terrific. Well done. Bravo, Berlanti, Bravo AB (and all the other nameless faceless writers whose flickr blogs I do not read).

I realize my track record for show recommending isn't stellar in this blog environment ("Chuck" disappointed me by episode two, but I was too forlorn to admit it here... I will say that I was reinvigorated in episode three or four, when Bob Ross from the PBS painting show got a chuckle-worthy shout-out, but I haven't watched any other episodes since. I hope I didn't steer you too terribly wrong. At least the actor who plays Chuck is adorable, right?). Regardless of my possibly questionable taste, episode one of "Eli Stone" is totally worth checking out. Those of you who loved "Alias" (you know who you are) will be pleased to note that Victor Garber appears prominently, as does Loretta Devine (every show is better with a sassy black friend or a snarky secretary, right, so her character is a double whammy).

Watch it. See if you are as tickled as I was. If so, you can thank the strange interwoven tubular tendrils of the internets for the fact that I even knew about it enough to watch, and thus pass it along to you. If not, well, whatever, sorry. What else would you be watching right now anyway, huh?

*I was inspired by AB's bookshelves and finally got around to organizing mine about a year after we'd moved in - maybe more than a year, actually. And Bex, sharp gal that she is, totally noticed that my books were organized by genre and color. I was simultaneously impressed with her and embarrassed for myself.

Out of the closet.

I've been outed. In my haste, late last night, I forgot to switch my Google login info before posting a comment on the Watsonian blog. Bexy, the eagle-eyed future lawyer, of course spotted my odd moniker immediately and, well, now the pressure is on. I thought I might get away with skulking around the whole thing a bit more, but no. I am unveiled.

It's true that I've been saying "Maybe I should throw up a blog" for, what... at least four months now, I think. And it was back in Berkeley (ought three, as I recall) that I registered my first site with the intention of writing/posting something - anything - up on the bare white background. But again, no. Didn't happen. I was bested by the intimidating "Coming Soon" which taunted me, mockingly marring the nothingness. That particular domain expired by the time I'd been in Ventura several months and really didn't have much to say that didn't involve my nutball family relations or untellable gossip about old friends and former co-workers (CBTL5, I'm looking at you!).

But with Bextravagant taking the plunge, my interest was renewed, and my natural laziness toward invested creative endeavors started to abate. Plus I live in a pretty kick-ass town, so perhaps, just maybe, I thought, there would be a few more interesting things to write about than the non-stop back-brain chatter of my so-called "rich inner life" and the tragedy of near-Shakespearean proportions that had been unfolding in my work and personal life since my naive naive naive attempt to work with my crazypants family (PDX contingent).

The clincher, really, has been getting to keep tabs on what Bex was up to without our (now infamous in my household) marathon phone calls*. The daily treat of her various newsy finds and the diligent progress posts about the literal and figurative road to law school has been so terrific, while stalking Preggers through her Beancubation period was such a treat, and that's not to mention the periodic updates from friends and friends-of-friends further afield. All of this together in the tiny, webbed, blogosphere, that it seemed like such a perfect and totally modern way (jesus, I sound like I'm 80 years old) to keep in sort-of touch, share all the random good/weird/bad/fun/completely ridiculous/possibly very boring stuff and create a medium for some community connection without e-mail bombing 25 people or having the same conversations over and over (and over and over and over), or having to create a really ugly, assultive-music-and-nasty-wall-paper MySpace page.

So I finally did it, a few nights ago, while avoiding editing some text for a client's web site. (I accomplish so much of the Non-Vital when I am procrastinating the Immediately-Needed, it's truly amazing).

And now here I am. No matter how you slice it, I am definitely late to the Blogger-ing party, but that is typical with me and all things ever considered to be interesting or cutting edge. We'll see how it goes.


*Not that I don't enjoy our 2 hour and 44 minute "chats," but they are hard to commit to in the middle of work (or school) weeks and of course, weekend schedules are such that all of a sudden it's Monday, and I've talked to my Grandma twice and my mom at least once, but somehow didn't follow through on outbound dialing of the intended 510/805/now-480 call.

Same goes for you, Three-One-Oh Jojo, but with the miracle that is IM during work hours (where were you, sweet chat software, in 1998, when I sat for 8 hours every day with nothing to do but email friends absurd quizzes at their similarly boring, brand new, I-can't-believe-I-went-to-college-for-this-shiit job and wait impatiently for the replies to try and alleviate my growing sense of oppressive doom), I feel like it's less infrequent to be able to check in with you for a status report. Too bad you don't have a blog, too. Though it occurs to me that you probably couldn't have a blog, what with all the Hollywood secrets you have been sworn to never reveal. Shame, really.