Life Continues

Really everything is boring right now. No exciting news. My friendster profile continues to get more hits than my web log, which only means that I should advertise this on Friendster, except that since I don't post so much anymore there isn't much point. I've been reading quite a bit. In the last few weeks:

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers. She published this at the ripe old age of 23, but it's good but not great, so don't feel bad. I read this for the girl book club I'm in. Last time I was the only person who finished the book (Delta Wedding, by Eudora Welty). We meet again tonight.

Pnin, by Nabokov. Charming and succinct, the main character, except for the dentures, sounds like a Russian deadringer for Dr. Justin Frank (there are lots of descriptions about his very tan, bald, head.)

Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson. Sometimes you just need sci-fi, and this sci-fi was pretty good. I got a little lost on the Sumerian shit, but I liked all the stuff about the privatization of the planet, The Raft (a floating community of third world refugees) was a pretty cool concept, as were the burbclaves (The Mews at Windsor Heights I found particularly amusing.) The Metaverse/samurai shit made me feel—as did the dot-com stuff in Cryptonomicon—like a huge nerd. That's fine I guess.

Some book about Cuba by a woman named Isadora Tattlin. I forget what it's called. It's basically this woman's diary from when she was living as a housewife in Cuba where her European husband was transferred. It makes me never want to get married and/or have children. This woman's whole life is her cocksure husband and kids, and he is super annoying at times and she's an idiot and worries a lot about stuff like what she is going to bag the kids' snack food in. It was annoying.

I just started Band of Angels by Robert Penn Warren but I don't think I'm going to finish it.

The band decided on The Lazy Fair, no "e." The other was deemed "too brainy." Go figure. How about them Oscars? I hadn't seen any of the movies. I don't go to the movies anymore, which is sad. In New York it was all I did, which was sad in another way, because I'd always go alone. Part of a recently burdgeoning problem in Little Rock is that I go out every night, and I drink heavily every night, and this week I think I'm going to put a stop to it.

Weird saudades

While listening to NPR this morning, the words "snow-covered city on the Rhine" provoked the strangest bout of nostalgia/longing for Minneapolis in midwinter, when everything is dead and ice-covered. I guess since it has been very warm here in the past few days, and all the flowers are blooming, and I've been taking lots of long walks around Little Rock with friends, swinging a cut switch and talking to dogs. Today it is pouring, which is just as well. We have finally named our band, although the spelling is still unresolved: it's either going to be The Lazy Fair or The Lazy Faire. I kind of like the last one. Any thoughts on that one? We have three songs now.

Oh the weather's been gorgeous, until today that is. Still sort of warm, but the sun is back into hiding. Hey, did everybody know I live in an earthquake-prone zone? The New Madrid Fault maybe? Apocalypse. I waitress now, serving pao de queijo to the masses. The masas. There is nothing else to say.

I have quit my job and I am now trying to make it on my own, located in study carrel #235 of the Little Rock library, where I waited with all the homeless folks at 9:01 this morning to be let in. Sigh. I don't know what I'm doing.

In other news

On Friday, my last day of work, we all went out and had some country cooking (fried catfish, greens and mashed potatoes at Trudi's), came back to the office and had some cake, went out after work and drank for many consecutive hours and I made some final farewells. On Monday I came back to work at 9 a.m. to "finish some things," as I have Tuesday, Wednesday and today. It's worth it, I think, or at least I think the OA Southern Food Issue is going to be really really good. I'm ready for my new life as an underemployed bohemian though.

Today should be my last day, but given that I am writing on this and not Quarking it up such predictions are dubious. I was asleep when Lawrence came to pick me up this morning. One of those days. We had band practice last night, where we put finishing touches on our first single, which looks like is going to be called Party Fowl, and is a pop tune about the chickens having a party before they go to slaughter the next morning. You get to think about this a lot when you commute to work on the interstate, like I do every morning, and you see truckloads of Arkansas-based Tyson chickens plump against the bars, their small feathers festooning the surrounding traffic. It's poignant, the chickens seem so fat and nice, and boneless, skinless chicken breasts seem sort of repugnant and dry anyway. Chicken has never been my favorite food, as I sometimes feel like I'm eating a fleshy insect or reptile.

I just finished The Outlaw Sea by William Langewische. The book was pretty good, but the last chapter was really much better than the other three put together. It's about the scrapping of ships, and it captures that nebulous place where first world waste and third world want form a dismal industrial economy.

The boys are having a party this weekend. They haven't had a big one since I moved here. I'm excited. After New Year's and Art Amiss in Fayetteville, January was a recurring stream of slow weekends. February, I think, will be fun.