Too Many Books. Brain Is Fried.

I have not managed to do one iota of work today (yet). Whoopsy. See, what happened is, yesterday I was on Powell's website (a thing of much beauty) when I discovered that you can sign up for used book notifications. Pick as many categories as you want, & every day they will send you an email for each category detailing all the used books they've processed.

This morning I received my first batch of notifications. It is insane. There were over 200 newly arrived used art books alone. This is really, really bad news for my re-emerging book purchasing addiction.

Then I figured out that I can browse all of their sale books. A good many more than are on display in the stores come up. Just what I needed.

Of course, at some point during all this I discovered that I can keep a wish list. So...in five hours I've managed to get through the used books in my nine categories, all twenty seven pages of the film & television sale books, & fifty pages of art sale books (sixteen pages left to go!). And that's it. I would be shaking my fist & cursing your very name, Powell's, if my attention weren't so terribly distracted by your enchanting little rucksack, which would be the perfect thing in which to haul all this book booty. Sigh. I confess, I am weak.

Anyway! The moral of the story is, if you ever feel compelled to the depths of your soul to buy me presents, I would urge you to go here, type in my email address to access my wish list & get me the most expensive thing(s) on said list. You can even make me pick it up at a store location (Hawthorne, please) & save on shipping.

Unless you want to go to Abebooks & buy me an English translation of Condillac's Treatise on the Sensations. But then I will really love you even more, as that is the book I want most in all the world.

The End Of Hair (Promise)

So here's what my $60 different-but-not-too-different haircut looks like:



The pics are kinda crap; however, I hate flash & am too damned exhausted to get my tripod & use more suitable settings. If I have time, I'll take some shots in the daylight & replace, but I wanted to document it before I pass out & ruin that fresh-from-the-hairdresser loveliness. Basically, Scott "textured" it (which seems to mean subtle layers), cut it short in the back, started to angle the front, & then did that fringe-y side bang action (which I LOVE). It's not colored...yet...though I may actually skip that for now. I think the style is rather well-suited to my natural color.

I love the salon, I love my hairdresser, I love the cut, although we're gonna grow it out a bit over the next few months. What really sealed the deal, however, was that afterward I was strolling down Hawthorne, rockin' my new hair, when a random cute girl smiled at me & said "You look great!" as we passed each other on the sidewalk. How often does that happen? Unless I've been missing out on a world of strangers haphazardly handing out compliments to each other with no ulterior motive.

And, y'know, it was true. I did look great. The ensemble overall was nicely put together if I do say so myself, but the hair was definitely the buttercream on the genoise.

You're A Silly Little Goose

1. Song of the week: Caetano Veloso's lovely rendition of Irving Berlin's "Let's Face the Music & Dance", as performed at his 1997 tribute concert to Federico Fellini & Giulietta Masina. Download here.

2. I've turned into a buy-local organic/natural hippie freak in the past three weeks. Luckily, I happen to live in the most perfect place in the world to be a buy-local organic/natural hippie freak. My quest to fulfill this unexpected destiny recently led me to the Alima Cosmetics website. It's a Portland-based natural mineral make-up company. But the best part? They sell samples of all their cosmetics online, so you can try them out before you commit to dropping $8-$18 for full-size jars. Oh yeah. They're a buck to a buck-fitty a pop & shipping's under $5. I ordered 19 different samples of foundations, powders, eye shadows, eyeliners, & lip balms yesterday afternoon - & they shipped this morning! Check it out. I'll update once I've had a chance to give 'em a whirl.

3. Hair - I finally made an appointment here to get a cut'n'color from him, on Friday at three. Which is apparently going to cost me at least $125. Plus tip, I presume. I am alternately horrified & amused that I am prepared to throw that much money at my freakin' hair. Also, I'm curious to see what Mr. Kane suggests, considering the overall strictness of my prerequisites: 1) absolutely no shorter, 2) not too much longer, 3) not radically different & 4) ease of styling & maintenance - my patience level for the amount of time I'm willing to spend on the rituals of girl-ness tends more toward deficit than surfeit. I've got about a five-minute attention span for that shit.

4. A friend & I are planning to go to Mexico to wander Mayan & Aztec ruins. Well, the ruins are my plan, anyway. And to get some tasty, tasty food. Mmm. Anybody wanna come? It's going to take me a little while to brush up on completely re-learn my Spanish & do some decent historical & cultural research (you know me, I can't just go somewhere without reading about it like a fiend &, if applicable, teaching myself how to botch the language). So I'm thinking of going sometime in the upcoming 12 months. Most likely during next fall/winter, for the warm sunny escape factor. Tickets look super-cheap into Mexico City - about $350 round-trip from PDX, anyway, so this international trip might actually happen. EDIT: Apparently Powell's entire stock of books on Mexican & Mesoamerican histories is on sale; this evening last, for $9 each, I picked up Mexico: Volume 1, From the Beginning to the Spanish Conquest by Alan Knight; Mexico: Biography of Power by Enrique Krauze; & A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya by Linda Schele & David Freidel. They all look like nice solid texts, so I'm pretty excited to read them. It barely begins to cover what I want to know; but it's a start. Project!

5. Ooh, Lars von Trier's The Kingdom 2 is FINALLY out on DVD! No joke, I just about ran out & bought a VCR last year for the sole purpose of renting my video store's bootleg VHS copy of this. Only it's been so long since I've seen part the first that I'm not sure whether I really liked it enough to warrant my severe excitement or whether it's the unattainability of the thing that's made me so hot to trot for it all these years. Eh, who cares.



6. Speaking of hot to trot, my girlfriend's coming back to town on 23 February! Sweet. It feels like only yesterday, or possibly late October 2007, that she was gazing at me & touching my arm. I can't wait.

Flabbergastingly

I'm not entirely certain how I feel about this:


Yep, that's right. Hieronymus Bosch action figures. Guaranteed to creep your shit out. I am unable to decipher how one would order 'em from that page, but London's National Gallery also sports a small selection of them.

There's something so...indecent yet intriguing about the thought of playing around with, say, The Garden of Earthly Delights collection. I can't decide if it would be less disturbing or more disturbing than the actual painting. Bosch is one of very few painters whose work genuinely unnerves & unsettles me, which I actually love, but I don't think I'd want one of these in my house. My dreams are crazy enough without throwing in a human-pooping devil nightmare mega-mix.

Don't Make Her Wear Pants, Then!

Hey, guess who unpacked the box with the baby book in it! (May need to click on the images to read them.)




Apparently I was born to dance, roller skate & not wear pants.

Like I needed a baby book to tell me that.

Sploosh. Squish. Slosh. And A Couple of Squirts.

Mud mud mud mud mud!

Mud mud mud mud mud!

Mud mud mud mud mud!

I love hiking in the mud.

Jumping The Shark

So, my hair has been pretty much the same for six years. At least as far as length goes - I've worn it straight, curly (my hair is the follicular equivalent of ambidextrous), blond, brown & a brief ill-advised auburn. The bangs were added for a Halloween costume in, I think, '04 & I decided to keep them, even though my then-boss told me I looked like Donna Reed. I could never figure out if he meant that in a good way or a bad hausfrau way, but I was pleased with 'em in any case.

Regardless, my first inkling that perhaps it was time to say goodbye to the predominant hairstyle of my 20s (new life-decade, new hair, etc.) came when I recently watched the Wong Kar-Wai, or Kar-Wai Wong, or whatevs, film Fallen Angels. And totally coveted the lead actress' hair.


So hot, right? It looks even better when she moves. She also inspired me to get all dolled up & clean my apartment in red fishnets. Seriously, how could she not - this is what she wears to clean up after her hitman cohort:


Cleaning & hosiery & fantastic hair. Does it get any better?

Moving past my own odd proclivities, obviously there is no way I could pull that hairstyle off. Besides, I don't really want long hair again. I like it short, & that's the problem with new hair - I don't want it any shorter than it already is, but I don't want it much longer either. Plus, I want to keep the bangs, because my forehead is ginormous.

Here's the thing. I never thought I would be in this situation, ever. But today I saw a celebrity's hairstyle & I actually thought, I bet that would look really great on me:


It's exactly what I'm looking for - something different, but not radically so. Longer but not long. And, bangs!

I want an opinion, because I am not going to march into Bishops, with their complimentary beer & their waiting area pornography, with a picture of fucking Katie Holmes, & tell them that I want my hair to look like that, unless it's gonna turn out fabulously. So whaddya think - am I smoking crack, or could this be teh awesome? It looks cute in back too:


Also, I did some research, & I'm not going to Bishops, so no tattooed pierced hipsters can mock me for getting Katie Holmes' haircut. I read really great reviews of this place that's right next to my neighborhood watering hole (Side St. Bar 4ever!) called Propaganda the Salon. Having received one haircut from somebody who was not me in the past 15 years, it feels like a waste of money. But I don't think I can do this one at home. And shit, you know, I think I might even get it colored. Look out!

Y'know, for the record, I wouldn't be a boy for all the vanilla beans in the world.

Place Rack In Upper Half Of Oven & Preheat To 375 Degrees

I bought the most fantastic product today at the Alberta Co-op. It's called "Aura Glow". I don't know an awful lot about Edgar Cayce. All I know is, right now...right at this very second...

I smell like a friggin' ALMOND CROISSANT.

The baker in me is mad with glee.

Blah Rain; Also, Hedgehogs & Welcome To The Super-Bitch

Uncle. I give up. I'll admit it: I fucking hate the rain. I hate it. I HATE IT. I don't care if that's why Oregon's so bleeding green. Well, to be honest, I hate it when it rains ceaselessly for DAYS ON END. Gray skies, a spot of rain, hell even a whole day of rain here & there, that's great. But it has been raining for four days with no relief.

Although waking up to melty rain on the skylight is pretty nice. I had a funny little dream last night about my folks' trailer converting to a spaceship, part of which involved David Thewlis having a button that would turn him into either a black cat or a hedgehog, depending. He also gave me chocolate. Apparently I like to plagiarize J.K. Rowling in my sleep. But the hedgehog bit, well, that's all me. One day. One day I will have my very own Spiny Norman. The dream lives!

Also, I quit smoking a couple of days ago. So I'm in super-bitch mode. I got a Chantix prescription from my doctor to help, but then I found out that I was going to have to take the pills for six months. Which seems kind of ridiculous. I quit once before, in 2003, & it only took a month before I felt human again. So I'm not taking any cessation aids, though I suspect I may break down today & buy some sugar free gum. I'm secretly fierce. Although being fierce is probably going to involve a lot of sleeping for the next few days, so maybe I'm more softly fierce than secretly.

I've got a couple of thoughts on the cold-turkey thing: (1) What's the point of eliminating poison if I have to use other poison to do it (including patches, gum, etc.)? & (2) I think it's better for me to get all the difficulty out of the way at once. I usually save the best for last, which means I have to go through the worst first, right? I'm not worried about reneging on the quitting so much - the way I look at it, it's goddamn hard & I ain't doing it but once. Besides, I'm in the process of detoxing my system overall in the next month or so, which won't exactly work if I pick up a cigarette, any more than it would work if I grabbed a cup of cofffee.

The only thing I think I have to manage is the way in which I react to sudden shocks to the system, because both times I started smoking, it wasn't really a gradual thing. It was a decision that I made in response to events - some retarded sort of revenge - "Oh yeah? Crap on me? I'll show you, world, I'll crap on myself!" But if my friend can go through freakin' Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans & not start smoking again, well sheesh, I got nothin' on that.

Also, I'm tired of having to go out in the rain to destroy myself. See? It's all a circle, folks. A CIRCLE OF ADORABLE HEDGEHOGS.

Oh, this is not some sort of lame-ass resolution thing, for the record. As if.

Finally: the third of season of "Lost"? I change my mind. I take back all those things I said about how "sick I was of the fucking Others" & that the six episodes I saw "kind of sucked". I suspect that Season 3 is, in fact, the best season yet. Those bastards got me back but good; & for the first time I truly believe that they actually do know where they're going with this. Bless 'em.

Wore My Heart On My Sleeve Like A Stain

HAPPY FREAKIN' NEW YEAR! 2008 will be wonderful. Just puttin' it out there. I also haven't slept since Saturday. I think. Well, Sunday morning. Not on purpose. Yeah.

BUT. Today I found THIS. Which is a compilation I made circa 2003-04 that sort of explains my love for Lloyd Cole. I remember spending so much time on this that eventually Music in a Foreign Language came out & then I had to rearrange everything to get "People Ain't No Good" on it. The time was worth it, I s'pose - as a comp it holds up pretty well, save a track or two (*cough* "Big Snake"). The goal was to include at least one song from every album, & I did, except for Plastic Wood, which is all instrumentals.

Lloyd Cole : Half Of Everything

Tracklisting:
01. Chelsea Hotel (I'm Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1991)
02. Lost Weekend (Easy Pieces, 1985)
03. So You'd Like To Save The World (Bad Vibes, 1993)
04. Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken? (Rattlesnakes, 1984)
05. Big Snake (Mainstream, 1987)
06. You're A Big Girl Now (Etc., 2001)
07. Happy For You (Love Story, 1995)
08. Half Of Everything (Don't Get Weird On Me Babe, 1991)
09. Undressed (Lloyd Cole, 1990)
10. Four Flights Up (Rattlesnakes, 1984)
11. My Bag (Mainstream, 1987)
12. She's A Girl & I'm A Man (Don't Get Weird On Me Babe, 1991)
13. Love Ruins Everything (Love Story, 1995)
14. People Ain't No Good (Music In A Foreign Language, 2004)
15. Old Enough To Know Better (Etc., 2001)
16. Man Enough (Don't Get Weird On Me Babe, 1991)
17. Rattlesnakes (Rattlesnakes, 1984)
18. Downtown (Lloyd Cole, 1990)
19. That Boy (The Negatives, 2001)
20. Unhappy Song (Love Story, 1995)

The first time I encountered Lloyd Cole was fall 2001, when I discovered his cover of "Chelsea Hotel" on the otherwise dreadful Leonard Cohen tribute album I'm Your Fan. I kind of fell in love with his voice, one thing led to another, I quickly realized that he also has a brilliant way with words & within a year I'd acquired a decent collection. So clinical sounding! Ah, I can do not better tonight. My brain is fuzzy.

One ought not to play favorites I s'pose, but fuck it, I'll say it: I could listen to "Undressed" for endless days. Its innocence & endearing sweetness are enchanting. Having listened to it at least 20 times today & having not slept in about 60 hours, I've concocted all sorts of harebrained notions about it, none of which are as eloquent as "We could disconnect the telephone/Just sit around & mess around & tell your ma we went to Rome, Tennessee". Obviously I love all of these songs, but damned if I'm not a sucker for sweet. Must be the ovaries. Then again, I've also listened to "People Ain't No Good" about 20 times today too, which is, uh, not very sweet. So go figure.

But for the albums, well, Love Story is one of my all-time favorites. As in, ever. Holy crap. It's just...beautiful. If some bastard came to rob me of my Lloyd Cole collection, I would weep fiercely & plead for Love Story to be spared. The CD, anyway. I guess he could have the cassette tape.