emlocke

Category: Lists

  • I am thankful

    Immensely so . . .

    • That I’ve grown up living so close to my maternal grandmother.
    • For the social life I lead during my first year in New York City, which fulfilled a wish I thought would never come true.
    • For the gift of writing well.
    • That it is not in my nature to harbor empty regrets.
    • For the privileges afforded to me by my race and socioeconomic status, and more importantly:
    • That my parents raised me with a consciousness of racial and socioeconomic divides, and taught me to take responsibility for those privileges, not to take them for granted.
    • For the bigger bedroom.
    • For the guy who taught me to say ‘no.’
    • That I’m only deaf in one ear and not two.
    • That I live in a country where we are free to make fun of politicians.

    And for you.  Of course, for you.

  • Time out. Time in.

    You might say my run for daily posts in November ended with an incapacitating muscle cramp.  Ouch.

    I had about two hours to recover this morning.  My ride to the airport didn’t arrive until 11, but I got out of bed at 8 because I so often leave for work while my roommate is eating breakfast and watching Saved by the Bell, and I wanted time to experience that for myself.  After Zack Morris got in and out of a bind involving Mr. Belding, a girl, phone impersonations, and detention, I took a hot, hot shower and finished packing for San Antonio.

    This is what I played on iTunes while I tried to pick out four days worth of wardrobe appropriate for Texas in November:
    I Feel The Earth Move by Carol King
    Extraordinary by Liz Phair
    You Shook Me All Night Long by AC/DC
    Delicious by Semisonic
    Don’t Phunk with My Heart by Black Eyed Peas

  • I am thankful

    For my natural hair color
    That professor is a gender neutral pronoun in English
    That my parents made sure I always had a car when I needed one
    For the Computer Art classes offered at my high school
    For hair elastics

  • This is what yesterday (and today) felt like to me


    Flutter of butterflies via ffffound.

    This week I have been listening to:
    Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1
    Let Me Touch You For Awhile     by Allison Krauss
    Good Mother by Jann Arden
    United by Bon Jovi
    Running by Evermore

  • Highly Notable Events in October 2008

    • voted Barack Obama for President via absentee ballot
    • decided not to get an iPhone
    • lost my pink cell phone; replaced it with a purple one
    • resolved, with moderate success, to get to work earlier
    • saw Christopher Meloni and Ice-T filming an episode of SVU a block away from my office

    “That’s Ice-T, man.  That’s Ice TEE.”

  • Sooner or later, we’re all gonna get there

    Just keep running your
    Hands along the wall ’til you
    Find the hidden door

    Playing this week:
    Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind
    Every Rose Has Its Thorn by Poison
    Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan
    Hot ‘N’ Cold by Katy Perry
    Hiding Under Water by Beth Hart

  • My mood has been a little too, “Yeah, so?” and not so, “Yeah!”

    Oh em gee.  Remember when I used to do this every day?  I don’t.  I can’t imagine how that ever could have been possible.  Did I have a lot going on?  If so, how did I find the time to write about it?  Was life too dull to occupy much of my time?  If that’s the case, what did I have to write about in all that spare time in which I had to write about it?

    It’s not that life has been particularly exciting or particularly dull, of late.  It’s just, I kind of feel like I do and think the same things every day.

    I loathe getting up in the morning.  I put on make-up on my way to work.  I want an iPhone.  I tell myself I don’t need an iPhone.  Consider getting a manicure or splurging on Blue Agava & Cacao from Jo Malone.  I do neither.  Write one of the e-mails I’ve been meaning to write.

    I try to think of a nutritious food for which I have an appetite.  I prepare or buy and eat that food and feel unsatisfied.  Open another box of chocolate graham crackers.  I go for a walk.  Jog half of the way home just because I get bored.

    Look at the calendar to see when the next Brooklyn Museum Free Saturday Night or 10%-off GapCard Purchases Tuesday or new episode of The Office or Law and Order: SVU will be.  Decide whether to wear my hair straight or curly the next day.  Make a mental note to charge my iPod/cell phone/camera battery.

    I’m used to taking a lot of pleasure from little things, like a special purchase, a special meal, a tough workout.  I looked forward to those things, got as much of a thrill from those things as I did from, I don’t know, Lilith Fair or getting my drivers’ license or quitting my first job to start my second (the first three things, in the last decade, that come to mind when I think about “excitement.”)

    God, I was so excited when I got my driver’s lisence!  But I already blogged about that.  So, I’m gonna need a new idea.

    This is what’s been playing in the background of the monotony this week:
    But, Honestly by Foo Fighters (still)
    Let it Rock by Kevin Rudolf feat. Lil’ Wayne
    Cruise Control by Mariah Carey
    Death Will Never Conquer by Coldplay
    Follow You, Follow Me by Phil Collins and Gensis (don’t ask, I have no idea)

  • Highly Notable Events in September 2008

    • Met, spoke to, and was hugged by Mariska Hargitay.
    • Bought a semi-formal dress for which I have no use besides to love.
    • Went to see Lisa Loeb perform songs from her kids’ album and got her autograph.
    • Finished two mailings in one week at work.
    • Went to Ikea with Al.
    • Hung artwork in my office.

  • At this point, it would take a whole heck of a lot to surprise me

    I feel like every time I’ve hung up the phone or walked out of a room or gotten out of an elevator in the last two weeks, I have had worn expression of utter befuddlement.

    If you watched a video that captured just my face twenty-four/seven, you’d think something was wrong with the recording because it would keep repeating the same scene over and over: squint, lateral ponytail twitch, pucker lips, soundless “what?” As in—”did that just happen?  What was that?”  Do not adjust your monitor; I really do keep living that scene!

    It’s like it’s started to take just as long for new information to reach my Logic Synapses or my Socially Acceptable Gauge as it does to process it through to my long term memory.  So, it’s not until the moment right after a conversation ends or an event is over that it hits me how tremendously odd it was.

    And even though I don’t usually censor much for the blog—I either just go there or I go somewhere else entirely—I can’t even provide diluted allusions without compromising personal and professional trust.  You’ll just have to take my word for it: everyone I know is bonkers.  Charming, for sure, but bonkers.

    This is what I’m listening to in this chaotic alterna-dimension:
    Storm by Lifehouse
    She Says by Ani DiFranco
    This Isn’t Farmlife by The Essex Green
    Galang by M.I.A.
    But, Honestly by Foo Fighters

  • It goes, “verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus” or something like that

    There was an episode of the Nickelodeon series The Adventures of Pete and Pete where little Pete, the brother with the wiggling mermaid tattoo on his arm, hears a garage band playing this one song and then can’t get it out of his head.  He realizes he’s discovered his favorite song, but he doesn’t know the band’s name or the song’s title.  Everybody he tells about his favorite song thinks he’s imagining it or making it up.

    I was probably in fourth or fifth grade, just starting to explore new music, when I watched Pete and Pete.  And I wish I could remember the songs I recorded from the radio at that age, the ones I intended to play for the clerk at Volt Records, who I sort of perceived to be the oracle of chords and lyrics and could identify the title and artists.  

    Those were the days before Google.  Thanks to the internet, so favorite song will ever get lost in a garage.

    There is only one song that I’ve never been able to identify with a Boolean search.  It’s by a children’s duo that played a concert at an elementary school in town and sold low-budget recordings when I was a small child.  It’s about a leprechaun who jumps over a rainbow and I think its melody was inspired by Seven Wonders Fleetwood Mac, so I think of it every time I hear that song.

    And now I will identify the songs I’ve been listening to this week:
    21 Reasons by Frank Black and the Catholics
    It’s You by Annie Stela
    Don’t Mess With the Radio by Kelis (“she’s only Nas’ wife!”—sales associate at Jo Malone)
    Already Gone by Sugarland
    Sun’s Gonna Rise by Citizen Cope