My Niece is Cute.

Meet Lia Charlotte Oldroyd, aka Lala. She's almost a whole year old. She has actual skills now, so I think she's cool. And she makes faces - also cool. Way to go kid. 

Animals me no likey.

At about 6:00a I realized that the sleeping part of my morning was over. Cat spaz = dog spaz = me awake. So, in an attempt to be absurdly productive I made a couple of onesies for the new kid on the block. I still have some stitching to do on them - somehow in the six hours that I've been awake I haven't been able to get this done. I hope that she enjoys them, the whole five seconds she spends in them before she pukes on them. I unabashedly believe that she is going to be my favorite kid, and I've not even met her. 

City life.

I bike now. I know it was some sort of mortal sin that I didn't bike while living in Boulder - but I didn't. Now I do. I've also found a renewed love for my chacos. However, that has very little to do with living in the city, and a lot to do with the fact that all of my flip flops are darn old. They've pasted the old and wonderful stage, and headed right into the old, and old stage. Chacos, meet bike. Bike, meet chacos. Now that they're aquainted I'm sure they'll be lifers.

Thanks Grandma Jean!

Because You Can't Get Enough of this Crap.

Meet Sean. 

Sean created a photo form of himself as well from the oh so-secret-it's-killing-you-why-won't-I-tell-you-where-I-found-this place.

And here's how you play the game: 

(although I played with a bit of calvin ball rules for my own personal reasons.)

Answer the following 12 questions about yourself:

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favorite food?

3. What high school did you attend?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

6. Favorite drink?

7. Dream vacation?

8. Favorite dessert?

9. What do you want to be when you grow up?

10. What do you love most in life?

11. One word to describe you?

12. Your Flikr account name?

- Place each of your answers into Flikr's search. 

- Using only the images that appear on the first page only, choose your favorite and copy and paste each of the URL's into the Mosaic Maker (3 columns, 4 rows)

Did I do this because those questions are awesome, and I just couldn't resist answering them? No they're horribly lame. However, the outcome is something I think is actually far more incredible than those horrible questions. I hope you enjoy yourself, and struggle through the decision making process.

Me. In Photo Form.

Thanks Ruby for this charming idea. Typically I cringe and run the other direction from these personality question things. But this one got me - couldn't resist. I have resisted, however, in including the questions that led me to pick these photos. I like it better this way, but by all means you can guess if you would like. I may not reveal the answer, but feel free to take a stab at my inner self persona.   

It's Time.

Probably it's more correctly time for me to write something of significance - but my creativity and original thought have been sufficiently drained out. Sucked dry. Zombie brain is welcoming the arrival of the fall television schedule. Yes that's what it's time for. No, I don't feel that I'm wasting my life away in front of the television. No more than I am wasting it away sitting at my computer for 10 hours a day, everyday, writing papers. I'm a film major for gosh sakes, give me a break. I'm sure in some way it's my d-u-t-y to watch these shows. Don't you want to support my higher education goals? I mean, this is the big social to do right? This is what we're all hoping I achieve. You can't go questioning it now, just because it involves copious amounts of time in front of my television. 

So what am I going to watch? I'm not going to tell you if you're going to judge me. You wouldn't judge someone who went to the theater, as in musicals and plays - not cinema, all the time. It's basically the same - be honest. You would find that person cultured, and sophisticated... Fffiiiiinnnee-uh. I'll tell. It's all the usual suspects. Heroes, Pushing Daisies, My Name Is Earl, 30 Rock, The Office, Scrubs, Amazing Race... And last, but most definitely not least, Desperate Housewives, but you already know of my affinity for the beautiful satire of life. 

So I like television - maybe you like staring into the abyss and thinking deep, cultured, sophisticated, albeit slightly b.s. "what does it all mean," thoughts with your furrowed brow. We've all got our thing. I'm not going to take that away from you. You can live it up with your furrowed brow and your questioning ways. I'll be lowering my blood pressure, and stress levels, and you may be raising yours - but who am I to tell you that one is better than the other? Furrow on I say. But just remember that it might have been your fault that the Arrested Developments of our time were ended long before they should have been. You could furrow over that. 

Pictured: the clock radio in our kitchen, that sits next to our espresso maker. Use: to bring Rockies, Broncos, and CU games to whoever is cooking - or perhaps even a little "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!" - that Mo Rocca - so smart and funny, even when he's on iron chef. I mean how many people can pull off VH1, NPR and food network? Only Mo.   

Lord. I need to add an amendment. Please add Mad Men, and Boston Legal to the aboved mentioned list of shows. How I could have forgotten two of my dearest, I don't know.  

He Knows Me Well

Four Years.

Your slippers are my slippers,

your robe, my robe

your coffee, my coffee.

Your laughter, my laughter

your dinner, my dinner

your blankets, my blankets.

Shared post-its,

shared dog,

your cat, my cat.

Shared spaces,

shared songs,

your book, my book. 

Your worries are my worries,

your heartache, my heartache

your smiles, my smiles.

Your love, my love,

your life, my life. 

Downtown

My view as I waited for the bus, after waiting for the bus, and that bus getting hit by a loon.

Genius

How does it know?

Ok. So it isn't always genius, but it has been fairly incredible in my life thus far. It will never fully replace the hand-picked mixed tape effect of decades past, insofar that it lacks the love, but it does do the job swiftly... Which is real helpful when you need to write a paper, or clean the house, or any other similar task and would like a little music to help you in your endeavor, but realize that spending and hour or two putting together a playlist would really undermine what you're trying to accomplish. 

Thanks fruity computer system. You're awesome. 

If I could phrase ideas this well, that would be awesome.

"But M*A*S*H says nothing about war per se except to show that the best way to conduct yourself in any situation, even the direst, and maybe especially the direst, is to know your job without taking yourself or the rules of conduct too seriously."

So Unexpected.

Which is exactly what I have come to expect from the Coen Brothers.

Creativity and Origionality X 6 = Coffee

I am writing a paper. After that I will write another paper. Then another. Then another. Then another. Then another. Not in an I-feel-like-all-I-do-is-write-papers, never ending, looping sort of way. It's really more of an I-have-six-papers-due-next-week sort of way. And when I say 'sort of way' I mean, it is that way. Clearly one or more of these papers is going to get a serious shaft on creativity. I'm only one person. Common. 

With hesitation I say, for anyone who is a fan of Film Noir (or interested in a view of youth culture), you may be interested in seeing the movie Brick (Rian Johnson, 2005). It gets violent, and then it gets more violent. BUT in no way do I think that the violence should warrant an avoidance of the film. I was leery at first, but I after some processing, I feel that this film was brilliant - if nothing else you should sit in awe of the dialogue. 

It's the Great Paper, Charlie Brown

It's just a little past eleven o'clock in the evening. Therefore, it must be time for me to start writing a paper. Obviously. 

A paper on what?

On poetry.

Poetry? I thought you were an ignorant fool, incapable of understanding poetry?

That's fair.

But you're going to write a successful paper about it?

That's the idea.

Humm.

Yup. 

What do they call that?

Learning.

And what do they call this?

Avoidance. 

Dear Roethke, Whitman & Frost

I just got my ass handed to me in a poetry class. Frost, I am sorry I ever thought you trite. I apologize for all those who made you seem so. Your brilliance and your depth astound me. I'm glad your poems did not mean what I had been led to believe. It was so surface - so patriotic, so quick and transparent. But that is not the case with you. It's the opposite I find. The irony and the puns have made me question, made me look, made me laugh. So shrewed and sharp-witted; you have added to my life. 

I now take pleasure in your poems, 

And that has made all the difference. 

(Irony wholly intended.)

Sunday Afternoons & Walks in the City

While I sat on a bench in the park this past Sunday afternoon, and whittled away my life reading a Norton Anthology, my family relaxed. I think it was especially good for certain members of the family. Mainly those members who were not reading anything with Norton on the cover of it. Or for those who don't read at all. I think it was especially sublime for those who don't read at all.  

 

I woke up this morning to the sound of cars wooshing through rainy streets, and thought, "awww yea!" Morning tea, cinnamon sugar toast, hot shower, scarf, jacket - it was a good morning. While walking to the bus stop I passed this tree and my heart skipped a little - it's fall. Not only did it feel like fall, with the brisk 40-something degrees we were sporting outside, but the trees (I mean tree... in the singular - obviously, hence the photo) had gotten the memo. The only fleeting blemish on this morning? No chai. Hopefully the snow can hold off long enough for me to get my festive autumnal self in shape. Seriously now, it would have been movie-esque if only I had had that damn chai. 

This evening as Kenna and I took a walk around the neighborhood, and as my nose and cheeks turned just a little bit pink, I could smell wood burning in fireplaces and it made me smile and inhale deeply (those festive carcinogens!). It's supposed to be 80 degrees or something similarly horrid this weekend, but for now I'll live in a world where summer has ended because it is no longer August. September has come and it's time for fall, give it up summer - nobody likes you anymore, move on.

And So It Begins

Don't worry if the major that you picked didn't lavish lots of promotional stuff on you and hand you tickets to early screenings of films. We all make mistakes.    

Probably I shouldn't, but I'm just saying...