hair

In a Safeway in Sacramento, the woman at the check-out counter said to me "I love your hair."

"Thanks!" I replied, "I do it myself."

"You must not have a man at home who yells at at you if you cut it off, then," she said with a smile, laughing.

I smiled slightly and said "No one gets to yell at me" and thought but you don't have to accept this system, these systems, that your hair should be long, that long hair is feminine, that femininity is even worthwhile, that your husband or boyfriend or anyone has anything to say, much less to shout at you about it, that possessiveness is indicative of being desired or cherished, that this is what love looks like, and I said "Have a nice day."

in memoriam J.D.S.

"Seymour once said to me – in a crosstown bus, of all places – that all legitimate religious study must lead to unlearning the differences, the illusory differences, between boys and girls, animals and stones, day and night, heat and cold."

- Franny and Zooey

"You can't live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes."
- Franny and Zooey

"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it."
- The Catcher in the Rye

"This is a people shooting hat...I shoot people in this hat."

- The Catcher in the Rye

pizza!

A truly excellent variation on this was made in my oven a bit back (under the proper supervision, I assure you. I'm not taking any credit for this one). Check it out!

I don't mean to suggest

I could sing that all night. Cry all night, too, if I did, I'm sure.

let me see your sushi roll

because I won't show you mine. Saturday was great. It finally didn't rain for a bit, and so I got to go for my run. Then I went to see the Emigre exhibition at Gallery 16. Pretty nifty stuff. The clear highlight for me, exhibition-wise, was the booklet of love letters. Histrionic and erudite and dripping with the purplest of prose, it was a surprising and fun way to show off and market various Emigre fonts. Laugh out loud funny, at least for yours truly, and so pleasing to the eye.

Then in the pm my dearly beloved downstairs neighbors threw a sushi-rolling birthday party for a Japanese ex-pat accordion player. What's not to love? People brought just about every good thing to roll into the sushi, there were massive and intimidating pots of rice, and plentiful beverages. Well. Didn't I just have a good time. My serious failure for the evening, however, was in rolling the sushi. Like the true beginner I was (am), I got too excited and tried to put everything in one roll: mango, crab, avocado, cucumber, and probably a couple other more things. It was, ultimately, delicious and unstable. I think I ended up with three pieces that held together and could be identified as sushi. The rest exploded all over the plate upon slicing. But so very tasty. Then, live music and a little dancing. The company wasn't bad, either.

Sunday was quite a decent sequel. Yummy brunch, though I say it myself, and in the evening, free concert from the Conspiracy of Beards, an all-male Leonard Cohen a capella choir.

surely she's joking

Certainly many contemporary domestic scenarios are less than ideal, an imbalance which would often be at least partially aided by government-mandated (and perhaps supported) childcare. However, Sandra Sing Loh's NYT piece is so ridiculous reductive and poorly considered that I had a hard time believing I was reading it. This would not have been published in the NYT, I hazard a guess, had it been written by a man. While others – many feminists, as a matter of fact – have opined in the past that "everyone needs a wife," Loh's bizarrely idealized notion of domestic life in the 1950's shows that she should probably a) read The Way We Never Were or at the very least b) watch Mad Men. Bah. It's such knee-jerk reactionary nonsense that I'm even having a hard time getting my dander up about it.

beer!

Always extraordinary housemate Kristin began brewing beer today. What a wonderful thing to wake up to on a Sunday. While we cannot yet drink the beer (oh waiting, you are never my friend), the smell – a jumble of bread baking, tea steeping, and well, beer – wafted down the hall in the most wonderful way all afternoon.

Meanwhile, 10 points to Lea for describing the hops, which I likened to rabbit pellets, as "astronaut beer." It's got to be better than Tang.

somewhat mystifying but decidedly aromatic bag of things which compose beer