around the house

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at home

I watched all six hours of The Jinx in one go and scared the living daylights out of myself but other than that it was the most uneventful of weekends, a breakfast beer in Coolidge Corner because I had a gift certificate and an oil change because he had a coupon. I dropped paperbacks off at the Booksmith. I picked up some face lotion at the mall. We made steaks with blue cheese and mashed potatoes with truffle butter, roasted string beans with olive oil and salt, then walked down Broadway in the drizzle to try the new bar on Dot Ave. I packed a couple boxes. I wrote a couple hundred words. I put my tour dates down on the calendar, long stretches of travel in the next few months–everything coming quickly all of a sudden, long arrows drawn across the weeks.

“You’re here now, right?” he asked me, when I gave him the rundown. “Until we move at least, you’re here?”

“Yup,” I told him, sitting back in the passenger seat, turning up the radio. “I’m here.”

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Live Together Die Alone.

I’ve said before how much I love TV. I love TV. I think TV gets a bad rap it really doesn’t deserve. I grew up in a house where the set was on all the time, one more voice in a cacophony of chatter, and it didn’t stunt my creativity or make me suddenly obese or keep me from playing outside. Instead it served as background noise, part of the landscape of home:  Jeopardy while my mom made dinner, a weekly ER date with my sister and dad. In high school I’d get home from a good night or a bad one and find my parents watching old movies on Turner, on PBS, shifting to make room for me, my head on someone’s shoulder. I got to college and started watching a crap ton of Law and Order for the same reason I started going to Barnes and Noble all the time–it made me less screamingly, achingly homesick. It made me feel less alone.

I’d argue too that all the watching helped me as a writer, developed my ear for the way people talk: the rhythm of good dialogue, how to build a believable world. Sierra tells me David Foster Wallace opined that writers are attracted to TV because of their tendency toward voyeurism; while that’s part of it for sure (I am the stare-iest of starers), I’d say that mostly we’re drawn to it because we love a good story. Or, frankly, a bad one.

Of course, an inevitable consequence of watching TV all the time is you start to get really, really impatient with TV. “That guy totally did it,” I tell Tom with confidence ten minutes into any crime procedural. “Ugh, now, watch, that chick just left her purse on the desk and she’s going to have to come back for it in a minute and she’ll see the guy she likes making out with that other–see? I told you.” There is very little left that surprises me in serial storytelling, no secret pregnancy or drug cartel or extraterrestrial activity I cannot anticipate.

That’s why, when Jackie told me last summer that I needed to start watching Lost immediately, I put her off for as long as I possibly could. “It’s going to blow your mind,” she promised. I laughed in her pretty face, sincerely doubting my ability to be wowed by, of all things, a one-hour drama on ABC about a plane crash and some polar bears.

To quote Jerry Orbach in Dirty Dancing (which is, coincidentally, available for viewing on cable almost any night of the week): “When I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong.”

Lost, for all its flaws and weirdnesses, is probably  one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever watched on television. Besides being visually gorgeous and packed chock full of characters I want to cuddle on my couch (and whose faces I want to smash together, Barbie and Ken style), it’s TV for writer-types, meticulous and intricate and completely un-call-able. I never have any idea what’s going to happen next–and I always know. It’s terrifying and refreshing, to be surprised this way–to be so blissfully engaged. I want to tell everyone I know about it. I want to evangelize to the whole world: watch this, seriously. It is so effing cool.

Lost starts its final season tonight, and in my house we are all aflail. Oh yes, I brought Tom down with me this time–and I’m not going to lie, watching with him is one of my favorite things about watching. I  love the idea that we are starting TV traditions of our very own, popcorn and a blanket and “Previously, on Lost…”

Happy Tuesday. You know where I’ll be.

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Triptych.

Utter bliss: I just came into three (3) giant (like way bigger than science-fair size) pieces of sturdy white foamboard–for free.

Clearly some homemade art is in order–the bedroom in particular has a lot of unused wallspace–but what, is the question.

I’ll probably collage–I always collage–but I’m totally open to suggestions, too.

Please discuss.

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Lit.

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This is the conclusion I have come to: the vast majority of times in life you can get by on the cheapie brand and nobody is going to be the wiser, you included. 

Candle-buying is not one of those times. 

My favorite (and Tom’s, though he’d never admit it): Slatkin & Co’s Vanilla Sandalwood or Creamy Nutmeg. I like their pumpkin scents, too, but that’s where the boyfriend draws the line. Cozy and spicy and strong enough to fill the whole apartment, which I find just doesn’t happen with the three dollar Pier One kind.

What’s your house smelling like these days?

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Run and Done

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When I was in twelfth grade all the chicks in AP English had eighth period gym, because a good way to encourage overachievement is to make you play dodgeball for forty-five minutes in the sweltering heat after all the other seniors have gone home for the day. ANYWAY, the point is that sometimes we’d have Run and Done, which was both the best and worst kind of gym, because you had to do laps for twelve minutes (which is a LONG TIME if you are spastic like me) but then you could leave.

I don’t know why I’m thinking about that right now. 

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Anyway. Tom’s been home in New York this week doing boy things. He bought me flowers before he left.

In his absence I’ve been doing some serious around-the-house puttering: laundry is folded, coupons are clipped, and by the time you read this the brand-new bedskirt will hopefully be on the bed. I grew up in a house with bedskirts, and not having one has made me feel like we live in a tenement. Is that anal? That’s probably really anal.

Moving on. I hit Target with my friend H, took the Tank for a long walk, and finally all my loose magazine-page recipes into a notebook. I finished my entry for the Real Simple essay contest.  I caught up on some Lost. We are moving along at a steady clip here behind the kitchen door, or if we are not we are tricking ourselves into believing it. 

The air is cooling off, chickens. Something is about to change.

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Tom says I am one hell of a woman.

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I called Comcast and told them I had to cancel the landline because we’re too poor to pay for it, and they knocked twenty-five bucks off our bill, amped up our internet, and threw in HBO. 

See, that’s the kind of thing that money-saving websites always tell you to do, and I’m like, THAT WILL NEVER WORK, but lo and behold. I wonder who else I can call and threaten with defection. I wish I could do it to Dunkin’ Donuts.

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Dirty Girl

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So I accidentally on purpose got rip-roaring drunk last night (there was an Amstel promotion at the Purple Shamrock, and what were we going to do, turn down free beer?), then came home and wolfed down a giant plate of Tom’s leftover Chinese food. Not my finest hour. I was passed out by eleven and wide awake by four-thirty this morning, though, (OH MAN, I KNOW) only slightly headachey and feeling very much like I needed to repent. 

It’s ten o’clock now, and so far today I’ve picked up the bedroom, scrubbed the tub, downloaded the AWESOMEST public radio app for my phone, walked to Castle Island and back, sucked down a large iced coffee, read a couple of chapters of my book, and made a ghetto-fabulous version of Ina’s French Country omelet (with fresh sage from the garden, what what) for Tom and his sister in the hope that K won’t report back to her mom about what a degenerate bastard I am. 

The verdict? 

I should get totally bughouse every night.

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Treats for Busted Friends

Our friend A took a nasty spill outside of work on Monday and wound up with eight staples in her pretty head. Since I am neither a doctor nor a maker of helmets, I whipped her up some cinnamon raisin bread instead. From Allrecipes:

  • 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup warm water (105 degrees to 115 degrees)
  • 2 cups warm milk (110 to 115 degrees F)
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 5 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups raisins
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon water
  1. In a mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add milk, 1/3 cup sugar, oil, salt and 2 cups flour. Beat until smooth. Add raisins and enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1-1/4 hours. Punch dough down. On a lightly floured surface, divide in half. Roll each into a 15-in. x 7-in. rectangle. Combine cinnamon and remaining sugar; sprinkle over dough. Sprinkle with water. Starting with a short side, roll up tightly, jelly-roll style. Pinch seams and ends to seal. Place, seam side down, in two greased 9-in. x 5-in. x 3-in. loaf pans. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool completely. 

 

This actually rose beautifully, which I was not expecting because my bread never rises beautifully, even when I make Ina’s version which uses 2 yeast packets. If I had it to do over again I would add more cinnamon to the actual dough, and also probably put some butter in the cinnamon sugar filling. 

 

Other Friday randomness:

Craigslist Killer: HEY STOP KILLING HOOKERS. They have enough problems already.

We’re dogsitting Frankie this weekend! Expect lots of slobbery photos. Also, some work-in-progress pics of the roof deck. Last night Tom blasted the rust off the steps with a special rust blaster. You’re very manly, Tom!

Is it nerdy to like OneRepublic? I think it is. Oh well. There basically is no band I like that is not nerdy, so. 

I am planning a lot of trips. Want to hang out this summer? Give me a holler. 

Agent rejection count: 4. 

Tonight I’m going to open every window in my apartment. 

I have had two large cups off coffee. Coffee makes me chatty. I’ll stop  now. Have a good Friday.