Gimo.

Introducing Gimo, given name Generalissimo Harpoon.

Gimo is my first pet. He lives in a blender currently, but will be moving into a more spacious (though admittedly, less unique) fishbowl soon.

sunset

I went to see Twilight on Sunday -- you might even say I saw it at twilight. I was there one-quarter out of interest to see what had been done with the book, one-quarter out of a desire to experience the newest fad to hit the pre-teens, and one-half out of amusement for the whole thing. I met a friend, just as amused as I, at the $3 theater, and we giggled and crunched on popcorn through the entire movie.

But not everyone noticed my proud detachment from the experience. When I went to buy my ticket, the man in the ticket booth asked me, "How many times have you seen it?" A little taken aback, I stumbled, "Um. Once. I mean, this is my first time." I smiled guiltily. He, surprised, said "Really?" and smiled hesitantly. I walked quickly to meet my friend (who had seen it more than once). Do I look like a pre-teen? Maybe. Will I see the sequel? Probably. (If not only to see Edward again. Actually -- I was more taken with Dr. Cullen. His appearance on screen for the first time caused me to gasp, my friend to look at me with embarrassment, and both of us to break into a fresh round of giggles.)


I am not a film critic, nor am I a book critic. Not to belittle Stephanie Meyer's attempt at the Great American Novel; the world she created was quite original, but her execution was less impressive than, say, J.K. Rowling's. I wholeheartedly embraced the Harry Potter phenomenon. And, where Harry Potter was charming and well-written, Twilight is awkward and choppy. Where Harry Potter's plot was intricate and interwoven, Twilight's is little more than a complicated love story (though I found the book sexually charged, the lovers appropriately don't have sex until after they're married). There are worse things for kids to read -- or watch. In fact, I thought the plot lent itself quite nicely to a Hollywood movie, and the special effects weren't half bad. Maybe it's unfair of me to compare it, or anything else, to Harry Potter, but that still doesn't change the laughingly awkward first half of the movie.

P.S.

Today, the high is 10. And my tire is flat again.

bicycle built for two

Today, the high was 35 degrees. And when the high is so deliciously, so sunnily, so ice-meltingly warm, I make up adverbs, get out my light coat, put on shoes that aren't snow boots, and smile up at the blue sky and the sun. On days like this, days when the ice has melted, when the snow is slushy and dirty but out of the way, when the wind feels like cold water instead of dry ice, my bicycle (see above, except now, with a big orange milk crate basket on the back) starts calling me from its dry indoor winter home.

lindsey, take me outside, take me to the grocery store, take me to the craft store, use my large, luxurious baskets. please, just take me outside. My bike apparently speaks with lowercase letters only.

So I take it out. Lug its sturdy steel frame up the stairs. Curse the whole way up. Wrap my scarf around my face (cold water is still cold). Shove my helmet over my hat and ponytail. And ride. Except today, the back tire was flat. I took my helmet off and clipped it to my purse, exposed my face, and set off via sidewalk to my friend's house. I was going to learn how to patch my own tire, dammit. (After all, I do have a secret desire to be a bike mechanic.)

Even at 35, the sidewalks are hardly as luxurious as the streets. Some stretches are shoveled. Some aren't. Some shiny pools of water between the street and the sidewalk are actually water. Some are dirty, snowy, icy water. Some are ice. I pulled (not rolled) my bike through the mess, brakes clogged with snow, cursing the whole way. A six pack of beer bouncing and clanging around in the basket.

A rusty staple was clearly the culprit, so I, in a rustic-feeling plaid button-down shirt, and my friend, in a T-shirt and a sweatshirt, set about getting our hands dirty. We pulled the staple out. We marked where it was. We found the wrenches and loosened some bolts. We wedged the tire out of the rims, we removed the tube. We found the hole, escaping air tickling my cheek. We applied the glue. We let it dry. We applied the patch. We pressed it down. We put the tube back in the tire, put the tire back in the rims, put the wheel back in its place, screwed the bolts back in. Pumped up the tire. Pumped up the other tire. My hands were black at the finger tips and I wanted to do more. There was nothing more to do. (Or, really, nothing more that I had the tools and parts for at that particular time. With a 1974ish bike, there's plenty to do always.)

I washed my hands. Wrapped my scarf around my face. Shoved my helmet over my hat and ponytail. Attached and illuminated my lights. And rode. Tomorrow, the high is 36.

hail to the chief

Tuesday, in between taking sips of milky English breakfast tea, wedging out bites of a Florida grapefruit, and typing out comments to friends in Gmail Chat, I watched the Inauguration with my spotty digital receiver. And I cried.

I didn't cry on Election Night when Barack Obama won Pennsylvania. I didn't cry when he won Ohio. I didn't cry when CNN called the election for Obama, and from the crowd of over one million gathered in Grant Park erupted a cheer that could be heard for miles (see above photo). I didn't cry when the future first family stepped onto the stage, and I didn't cry when he spoke. Maybe I was too sleep deprived from the weeks leading up to the election to really process what was happening, or maybe I wasn't really all that surprised. Part of me wondered if January 20, 2009 would ever come. And, thanks to overly intrusive but strangely, guiltily alluring sites like Politico 44, it did.

So, I found myself on Tuesday, marveling at my own ability to get emotional over something that was, of course, historic, but also for something that was two months and two weeks -- or, really, two years -- in the making. In the evening, when my tears had been sufficiently shed and dried, between bites of Chicago-style hot dogs in honor of the occasion (poppyseed bun, vegetarian hot dog, yellow mustard, relish, diced onion, two sport peppers, two tomato wedges, a wedge of dill pickle, celery salt), I asked a friend if she had a similar experience. She hadn't. "Now the real work starts," she said grimly. "The inauguration is just a ceremony. Now he's got to deal with the economy, the war; the fun part is over, the waiting and planning is over." (I may be putting some words in her mouth) I considered that for a moment, before responding, "But I trust him now more than ever. I trust him to be able to handle all these things."

As we later admitted to a party attendee who *gasp* wasn't an Obama supporter (he was opposed to government and mainstream party candidates in general), we both "drank the Kool-Aid" long ago, but I think it wasn't until recently that I could see, through his various appointments and plans, how he would actually accomplish this daunting task that lay before him. Well, and us.

Before it was about winning the election. Now, it's about change.

We ask you to help us work for that day when Black will not be asked to get back, when Brown can stick around, when Yellow will be mellow, when the Red man can get ahead, man, and when White will embrace what is right. -- Reverend Joseph Lowery, adapted from the song "Get Back (Black, Brown, and White)" by Big Bill Broonzy.

Vignettes

Professor W.'s pronunciation is at once lavish and sharp, a gravel-thick purr of deep, full-mouthed sounds ("shunamite traditions") and clacking consonants ("cross-cultural aesthetics"). She backtracks infrequently and she does it only to peel back the given layer of description and enrich it with another, adding appositives that build and never disturb. She speaks with an extraordinary aural momentum -- words move at a pace so steady that a pause becomes devastating, the listener rapt at attention in the lacuna between her full-mouthed sh and the next clatter of thought.

---

Professor E.W. delights in art. Someone once told me, "joy delights in joy," and this is what he does--he finds the joy in the brushstroke, the joy in the wonder held in the physical and temporal and emotional distance between artist and object and beholder, and he shares it, unabashedly, with a slight, toothy smile, his right eye wandering behind his glasses, boyish, his hair mussed and his brown velour sportcoat and brown corduroy pants just on the other side of matching.

He is something of a black sheep in the society crowd of the department. The monolithic, German-bellied creator of Modernism and the dapper young American ex-lawyer photography scholar engage students with their awesome stature, with the impression that they are the fundamental pillars of their disciplines, imbued with wit and armed with wardrobes of equal consequence. Meanwhile E.W. finds his way by meandering through the English language, taking his time to weave through the customary trans-linguistic snags, stumbling over idioms and holding fast to familiar expressions, furrowing his brow in deep search of the next words. But with his patience and sensitivity, he often finds himself in the clear, and in those airy moments he talks joyfully, articulating with a rich scholarly vocabulary made richer by the delight in his voice, and the smile that graces the end of each sentence.

frostbitten

I keep promising not to write about the weather and I keep breaking that promise. But leeann gave me the exclusive authority to write about the weather for arrival gate since Chicago's is slightly more extreme than Boston's and today, the coldest day Chicago has felt in over a decade, I am well within my rights to write about it. It's -8 F as I write, according to the Weather Channel.

The news is full of advice. A woman from Maine quoted in the New York Times recommends just going to work and going home; not making any unnecessary stops and spending as much time during the commute as possible in one's car. The Chicago Tribune gets advice from Fargo, North Dakota, whose residents say simply to dress warmly and in layers (even though by their standards, Chicago isn't really that cold). Another article, that focuses on why the hell Chicagoans choose to live in this (as some say) "frozen, inhospitable, arctic hellhole of a city," says Santa Barbara is probably the best place in the country to live because "they have beautiful weather all year round." Maybe i'm being a little too specific here, but I think actually coastal San Diego has better weather than Santa Barbara. I have, after all, lived in both places. And my family always insisted that it was cold up north in Santa Barbara. The Chicago Sun-Times apparently has better things to write about than the weather (I do not)--they reprinted the NYT article--but they focused on Chicago not actually being cold, but Pollock, South Dakota taking the cake at -47 F. A technicality, really. Not that you've seen me leave my house today. But as they all say, I don't really have a reason to, so I've chosen not to go anywhere til later.

That was really all a setup for me to give my two cents. My tip for the cold? Besides long johns and wool socks and all that jazz? Three letters: TEA. Tea is the most wonderful and the most complete form of warmth available in the winter, and even though it's transitory, cup after cup after cup will do the job quite nicely. And it won't over-caffeinate, though a little bit of caffeine may be a good way to combat the dead-of-winter blues.

The picture, by the way, is the view of -8 F from my window (in the words of Andrew Sullivan). Doesn't look like much besides snow. I live in a garden apartment. But just to be extra ironic and spiteful, it was of course sunny and cloudless today even as it was causing frostbite.