emlocke

Category: Lists

  • Prospect Park is my backyard

    Seen in Prospect Park this weekend:

    • a woman jogging with a lit cigarette and a bit of a stagger
    • a bride wearing a yellow sundress and a white straw hat
    • a bride wearing white boots with stilleto heels and buttons at least half-way up her calf
    • a puppy chillin’ in a cooler
    • a dog catch someone else’s frisbee in midair
    • another dog wearing a flower on her ear
    • two people watching a movie on a laptop
    • a man wearing an All Blacks jersey
    • two dragonflies mating
    • two lightening bugs (not mating)
    • lightening

    The weather was treacherous on Saturday night.  Sadly, these magazines drowned on 8th Avenue.

    Don’t think I didn’t stop to look for survivors.  That Dwell could have thrown herself over a Domino to protect it.  But everything was pulp by the time I reached the scene.

  • Everything I need to know about life I learned from my dad

    Twenty-five lessons

    – Proper broom sweeping technique
    – When I get a raise, that means it’s time to work harder
    – That it’s a woman’s responsibility to step in and out of an elevator first, otherwise she just holds everything up while men are trying to be polite
    – The grammatical difference between ‘less’ and ‘fewer’
    – That it’s entirely unacceptable to have the tag of my underwear showing
    – That most people only read what will confirm what they already know
    – Not to read just to confirm what I already know
    – That it’s okay to hate apologizing, but I still have to do it
    – That I deserve a man, not a boy
    – It’s just not the same to record the game and watch it later
    – To wash the car from the roof down
    – To tolerate feeling a little hot in the summer and a little cold in the winter
    – When someone calls me a ‘bad word,’ it’s not necessary to repeat that word excessively when I tattle on them
    – To take at least a moment to be proud of myself when I know I deserve it
    – If one thing isn’t working, try something else
    – To check my work
    – If my passenger has to wonder whether or not I’ve seen the stop sign or light, I’m approaching it too quickly
    – Just do the best that I can
    – Find a hobby; when the passion fades, find a new one
    – How to fold a newspaper
    – The posted speed limit is the speed limit, not the discretionary ballpark speed guideline
    – There isn’t always a reason; sometimes I just have to trust my instincts
    – To take the time to “just look” out the window sometimes, at everything and at nothing
    – To offer wine to dinner guests
    – To appreciate music without lyrics

  • Highly Notable Events in May 2008

    • walked across the Brooklyn bridge for the first time
    • skipped my first alma mater reunion event
    • my brother moved into his own house in DC and my cousin moved to NYC
    • two four of my favorite former campers went to the prom
    • started physical therapy for a herniated disc, which included wearing a corset back brace
    • filled up 1/4 of a real paper journal
    • sunbathed on my silver roof on Memorial Day

  • txt the address i’ll cu l8r

    I am a reticent text messager. I don’t like awaiting a response without knowing that the recipient has seen the message or even has their cell turned on. I almost never get a meaningful answer to texted questions. What am I to do but follow up with another message: “Did you get my text?” I wind up calling anyway.

    Making plans with text messages is the worst. It’s like playing a game when no one knows whose turn it is; a cross between ping pong and 20 Questions. Want to hang out? Yeah, okay. What do you want to do? I don’t know, what do you want to do? I don’t care. Where are you now? If it’s such a challenge to coordinate a social life, and I know that it is, why add this obstacle?

    I’d rather get together just to do the apathetic thing. Let’s keep each other company while we writhe with ambivalence, wrestle pent up energy and fend off fatigue. What do you feel like doing? I don’t care; what do you feel like doing? I don’t know; ask me again in ten minutes.

    In New Zealand, the hot cellular promotion was free text messaging on weekends. From Friday evening to Monday morning, pre-paying wireless customers (the vast, vast majority) could send as many pub addresses, estimated times of arrival, pick-up lines and where r u‘s as they could type. Which was a lot. The weekend timing was perfect. I just keep hoping that U.S. wireless companies will give in and give up a similar deal.

    And until they do, I’m going to hold out. I save texting for especially opportune situations. Because I know as soon as I really get into it, I’ll be a goner; I won’t be able to stop. I’ll communicate only in 160-character phrases and expect every word processor to guess the word I’m typing and fill in the end of it for me.

    I will enthuse that text messages are a fantastic medium for one-liners. If I were willing to pay for an unlimited texting plan (which I’m not, and that’s why relentless text messages irritate me so—twenty cents to send or receive!), I would use it to shoot quick messages to friends, just to say hi (plus a little).

    These are messages I would have sent today if I could have sent them for free:

    To: Caitlin
    Do we need 1,000 drinking straws? Four colors only $4.99!

    To: Jonathan
    Coming to see your new place. I don’t have a housewarming gift but do you need any drinking straws?

    To: Amy
    I know I said I didn’t like Leona Lewis but now I keep listening keep keep listening to this song

    To: Jimmy
    My parents are sending my car to DC with my little brother. He better not take the Mount Holyoke sticker off the back window.

    To: Will
    You better not take that Mount Holyoke sticker off my car!

    To: Rachel
    Just passed that Thai place with the purple logo and the weird bathroom sink. Take-out or gym? Take-out or gym?

    To: Chelsea
    Remember when we used to ‘smoke’ invisible cigarettes to ‘calm’ our ‘nerves’? Have fun tonight!

    To: Doug
    So, you never told me your marathon time

    To: Bridget (except Bridget doesn’t text at all ever)
    Did you know that the Harry Potter Lexicon guy is “vilified” and cast out from the HP society??

    And now, I think I have some phone calls to make.

    Further reading:

    Other New Yorkers gripe about Evites and texts in “Blame the Messager,” Alexandra Jacobs’ etiquette column in the May 4th issue of TMagazine. She quotes another Emily White (no relation).

    Anand Giridharadasa looks at textiquette and social evolution in Mumbai: Flirting by Text Message, Indians Test Social Limits

  • Highly Notable Events in April 2008

    I found this note on my keyboard when I got to work this morning. “Happy One Year!” everyone called from their offices where, at oh, 9:15 or so, they were already seated and down to business.

    Visible in this photo of the wall beside my desk is a chart of copy-editing marks and meanings. I have annotated it to include ?!?! which is the unofficial symbol for “needs so much work, I don’t even know where to begin.” Also, while wt in a circle means the wrong font has been used, wtf in a circle means (I think you know what it means). Though neither symbol is officially recognized by any style guide that I know of, they are both universally understood.

    I think the purple Post-it with “sugar, sugar” written on it was a coded reminder to a now expired password. If I needed the reminder, I know I don’t remember it now, and if I can’t figure out what the code is, I doubt you’ll be able to break it. I’ve gone through a great many passwords in the last twelve months.

    The blue Post-it says “Force Refresh CTRL + F5″—the keystrokes clear any data that Internet Explorer has saved and force it to access the ‘freshest’ version of a web page when it’s being lazy.

    Kate Winslet is on the wall because I’m told I have “Kate Days,” when I resemble her, though nobody can pinpoint the like trait. Ariel is there because she is a redhead and a princess—the like traits are implicit.

    Here is my April 2008 list:

    • celebrated one full year with my company, with a job that I keep on loving
    • flirted with a firefighter in uniform
    • received my first wedding invitation from a Mount Holyoke friend
    • took a day off just to go see August: Osage County with my mom
    • a kind neighbor brought my copy of The New Yorker to my apartment after it was misdelivered two and a half blocks away

  • Highly Notable Events in March 2008

    • flew first-class
    • wore my hair straight every day for one week
    • ran [most of] the 5-mile Rail Trail in Ridgefield
    • put in for my first complete week of vacation days
    • folded up the futon without help

    (I had planned to jot this list once a month.)

  • Everything I need to know about life I learned from my mom

    Twenty-five lessons

    – That silverware belongs at 2 ‘o clock on the plate when you’re done eating
    – That I am genetically feminine; it’s up to me whether or not I want to be a feminist.
    – To tell people what I want; not to make them guess
    – Not to choose a strapless wedding dress
    – That if you’re not just a little bit hungry, you’re not on a diet
    – That I can’t be everything to everyone
    – That I can’t expect one person to be everything to me
    – How to use a public restroom without making direct physical contact with any surface
    – That I won’t have the same taste in home decor forever
    – When my snot is electric acid neon green, I probably have a sinus infection
    – It’s more tasteful to refer to snot as “nasal discharge”
    – That sometimes, I won’t like the answer
    – That sometimes, there isn’t an answer
    – To wait two days before sending a letter that was difficult to write
    – That hopes and wishes aren’t always fulfilled exactly how or when we want them to be, but that doesn’t mean they won’t ever be fulfilled
    – Most people are more concerned with what they’re wearing than what you’re wearing
    – That to be prejudiced against prejudiced people is still prejudiced
    – How to conserve resources during a power outage
    – To buy a bra that fits on the first hook; it’ll stretch out
    – To tuck my shirt tails into my underwear to keep my blouse tucked in
    – To fold sheets with a crease down the middle and use it to make the bed symmetrically
    – To stick my feet out from under the covers to regulate my body temperature
    – An assortment of ways to justify the cost of hair care
    – To “clean as you go, girls, clean as you go” in the kitchen
    – That “a lot” is two words

  • I was just getting warmed up

    I came across the very first mixed CD I ever burned for myself. It is called Emily’s Mix #1. I wonder what number I would be on now if the iPod hadn’t come along.

    Here is the playlist:

    1. Crazy by Britney Spears
    2. American Pie by Don McLean
    3. Take A Picture by Filter
    4. Baby, I’m Amazed by Lonestar
    5. Angels by Robbie Williams
    6. LA Song by Beth Hart
    7. Bye Bye Bye by *N SYNC
    8. Genie In A Bottle by Christina Aguilera
    9. Inside Out by Eve 6
    10. I Try by Macy Gray
    11. Rhythm Divine by Enrique Iglesias
    12. There She Goes by Sixpence None the Richer
    13. Little Black Backpack by Stroke 9
    14. Meet Virginia by Train
    15. Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison
    16. Enough of Me by Melissa Etheridge
    17. American Woman by Lenny Kravitz

    I searched and searched but couldn’t find an MP3 of American Pie. I was adamant about having the song on this particular CD, so my dad brought his record player and set it up next to the computer with a nest of wires connecting them, the old turntable that smelled like oiled wood and rubber and the whirring, clicking CPU that smelled like static electricity.

    I clicked ‘Record’ and my dad played the record. We listened to the song, grinning in awe, watching the words on the album label spin around and around.

  • Twelve Christmas songs that don’t make me want to set the tree on fire

    One Christmas, I woke up with an Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas cassette tape under my pillow a few weeks before Christmas. Santa dropped in early with the surprise so I could enjoy it during the holiday anticipation. I really hoped that would become a tradition—not only because I liked having the preview present to tide me over, but also because the music put me in touch with my Christmas spirit.

    I don’t think Santa made any more early rounds to our house, but in the last couple of years, I’ve made a point to start playing Christmas music throughout the month of December.

    I really like classical pieces and avoid anything that references directly: jingling, jollyness, or any gathering of one or more of a single type of bird in the same tree. Here are some favorites:

    God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen
    The Barenaked Ladies with Sarah McLachlan
    Barenaked for the Holidays

    The arrangement and the harmonies are flawless. Sarah is Sarah and BNL is BNL. Together, their sound is tender, jovial and bright. It’s like listening to a folk tale.

    The First Noel/Mary, Mary
    Sarah McLachlan
    Wintersong

    A mesmerizing rendition of a traditional carol. The classic verses have a drum-driven, new age sound that conjures an image of angels as divine apparitions. Verses of Mary, Mary, a sensual spiritual about mother and child, ground the track. There is something absolutely earthly about these interludes. That mortal emotion is lacking from most classical Christmas music.

    Maybe This Christmas
    Ron Sexsmith
    Maybe This Christmas

    If you’ve ever had a Christmas wish for something that wouldn’t fit under the tree, you’ll appreciate this song. World peace? Maybe, just maybe.

    What Child Is This/Greensleeves
    Charlotte Church
    Dream a Dream

    I do not know how a song about a promiscuous renaissance woman with sleeves stained from rolling around in the grass evolved into a Christmas carol, but it is one of my favorites. Charlotte Church is both angelic and mournful.

    Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24
    The Trans-Siberian Orchestra
    Christmas Eve and Other Stories

    The TSO turned the true story of one intensely passionate Bosnian cellist, who is said to have played Christmas music amid the violent siege in Sarajevo, into an intensely passionate orchestral piece. In the “symphonic metal” genre, the classical elements are strong, but the rock elements are fierce. This explosive piece sounds like anticipation—of Christmas Day and of peace.

    Joy of Man’s Desire/Angels We Have Heard On High
    The Trans-Siberian Orchestra
    The Christmas Attic

    Joy of Man’s Desire has been put to good use. Since childhood, this has been one of my favorite Christmas hymns because it’s relatively easy to keep up with the verses and if you get lost reading the music, you can always catch up on the “glo-o-o-o-o-o-ria.”

    Christmas Canon
    The Trans-Siberian Orchestra
    The Christmas Attic

    A palpable element of childlike wonderment. There is also a “rock” version with a little more edge—maybe for the jaded who still secretly believe in Christmas miracles.

    Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
    Sister Hazel
    Santa’s Playlist

    Hits the perfect note—a little melancholy, but still hopeful. There’s something sort of Simon and Garfunkel about the harmony. It reminds me of Homeward Bound and this rendition evokes a similar sentiment.

    Wintersong
    Sarah McLachlan
    Wintersong

    “Merry Christmas, my love,” has never been wished with such heartbreak. The delicate piano and wistful lyrics are reminiscent of silent snow falling on an empty wood—lonely, but lovely.

    White Christmas
    Ella Fitzgerald
    Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas

    Ella’s White Christmas—much more than Sinatra’s or Bing Crosby’s—carries the promise of snow. Not even the swaying warmth of her tone could stop it. Her dream is going to come true.

    The Coventry Carol
    Alison Moyet
    A Very Special Christmas, Vol. 1

    Conveys, in a way that most versions do not, the frantic distress of mothers when King Herod orders that all the infant boys in Bethlehem be killed. Haunting.

    O Holy Night
    Tracy Chapman
    A Very Special Christmas, Vol. 3

    There are, of course, many more traditional versions of this hymn, but Tracy Chapman’s gentle, reverent interpretation is earnestly divine.

    That’s twelve—one for each day of Christmas!

  • The Strand Bookstore by the numbers

    80 years in business

    1 location change

    30 dollars for 12 inches worth of hardcovers in a color of your choice

    2 adjunct locations

    6 days a week to sell used books

    7 years selling books online

    1 illustrated copy of Ulysses, signed by James Joyce and Matisse, worth 40,000 dollars (nymag)

    5 blocks to the nearest Barnes & Noble

    89 1/2 hours of operation a week

    Over 18 miles of books