November 2005
December 27, 2005
The Gifts They Keep On Giving
No one should be allowed to say, "I give great gifts." No one I've ever met who has said this gives great gifts. What they really seem to be saying is "I give gifts that I would really want" or "I got all my holiday shopping done for under ten dollars." What a person gives says a lot about what they think of the recipient.
December 10, 2005
Irregular Prime
To paraphrase Casablanca: It's December 2005 in North Carolina. What time is it in New York? I bet they're asleep in New York. I bet they're asleep all over America.I'm up late. I've been thinking about today for a while. My 37th birthday. It's an oddly unroundable number 37. Prime. Not divisible by any other number than itself and one. The fifth lucky prime number. The first irregular prime number. Last prime birthday was 31 and that was an easy number to think about because it added something to thirtysomething. Thirty-seven sounds so unmonumental. I made me look for ways 37 is special.37 is the atomic number of rubidium.37º Celsius is normal human body temperature.37 used to be the telephone dialing country code for East Germany before the unification.A European roulette wheel has 37 slots.The Green Monster in Fenway Park is 37 feet tall.Shakespeare wrote 37 plays.At age 37:Abraham Lincoln is first elected to the House of Representatives.Rick meets Ilsa again in Casablanca.Poets Lord Byron, Arthur Rimbaud, Aleksandr Pushkin, Robert Burns, and Dylan Thomas die. So does Van Gogh and Lou Gerhig. Michael Hutchence of INXS goes too. Bobby Darin dies.In Monty Python and the Holy Grail the peasant Dennis meets King Arthur... King Arthur: Old woman. Dennis: Man. King Arthur: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there? Dennis: I'm 37. King Arthur: What? Dennis: I'm 37. I'm not old. John Travolta's character in Phenomenon gets special powers.Michelle Pfeifer appears in To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday.Dolores Del Río films Flor silvestre and becomes the most famous movie star in Mexico.Joe DiMaggio retires from baseball.Gioacchino Rossini stops writing operas.Igor Stravinsky moves to Paris.Julia Child takes her first cooking class in Paris.
December 08, 2005
List #2: Overrated/Underappreciated
OVERRATED | UNDERAPPRECIATED |
| stuffed jalapeños | smoked jalapeños |
| chain restaurants | local favorites |
boiled shrimp | Vietnamese hot and sour shrimp soup |
| jack cheese | Monterey Jack cheese |
| blue eyes | brown eyes |
| airport security | Social Security |
| pod coffee makers | burr coffee bean grinders |
| free hotel breakfasts | open bars |
| Christian faith | Christian acts |
| Katie Couric | Katie Holmes (no wait, I mean that other actress from Dawson's Creek, Michelle Williams) |
| notes | doodles |
| spiral ring notebooks | composition books |
| fountain pens | Number Two pencils |
| backpacks | messenger bags |
December 05, 2005
List #1: Things I _______ about Traveling
LIKE | HATE |
| watching people | schlepping stuff around |
| clean sheets every night | folding myself into airplane seats |
seeing how people everywhere are...
| seeing how people everywhere are...
|
| eating out | eating out at bad, overpriced restaurants |
| not checking email | hunting for a TV station in a new city |
| looking at people's shoes | worrying about whether I'll have enough money to get me through the trip |
| people from other countries | boring men in boring suits and bad shoes |
| the hope that the cute woman will sit next to me on the plane | wedding rings on cute women's fingers |
| going to a place and know knowing more about its history than most locals | airport shuttles |
| reading in airports | seeing that local news is awful everywhere |
| looking down from 30,000 feet | loud people on cell phones with nothing to say |
| going places they haven't heard my stories or jokes | public restroom with only hand dryers |
| announcements in English and Spanish | finding the gas cap on a rental car |
| eating food I've never had before | dry skin and lips from flying |