tavie.com

Who was I kidding, with the "following my dad and his friends around used book stores" thing?

Who do I think I am, someone other than Fred Phillips's daughter? I got three new books, and only because I was very restrained. There is no following with me and used-book stores; there is browsing, and there is buying.

New favourite used-book store: Housing Works Used Book Cafe. How had I never been there before?

Dad got me a present, an old, hardcover edition of Gulliver's Travels that I'd been browsing-- judging the book by its cover, which is the real pretty gold-stamped creaky hardcover variety I'm a sucker for. I discovered on the subway home an inscription in an elegant, old-fashioned scrawl:

Master Harry Ingraham,
from his friend
J. Lyman Mcveagh (?)

Christmas - 1881 -

Awesome. Maybe it was this Harry Ingraham, whose family was apparently into inscribing books...

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:51 PM | shower me with attention

Today is my dad's big shikar-- book hunt. I cleared my schedule for him weeks ago because he came to me very solemnly, with big eyes, and said, "Tave, do you know what I want for Father's Day this year?"

"What, Dad?"

"I don't want a present in June, I just want you and Kirsten to come with me on my shikar on April 9."

"Oh... hey. Of course we'll go, Dad."

And his face lit up like a candle, It was so cute.

He always invites us on these things and we always blow him off, because it is very boring to follow Dad and his friends around bookstores and end up at the inevitable Chinese restaurant. But it's so easy to make him happy...

So a-hunting we will go!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:44 AM | shower me with attention

Friday, April 08, 2005

People who will accept one kind of behaviour from a man and yet can't handle the exact same behaviour from a woman make me absolutely ill.

People who can't tell the difference between the real world and the military make me ill.

People who are scared of women make me ill.

There's something about them I just don't like.

Pussy.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:21 PM | shower me with attention

I've joined a blog for a knit-along of this pattern from the new issue of Knitty. Hopefully that will motivate me to keep the needles clicking.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:52 PM | shower me with attention

Happy STEVE Day!!!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:15 AM | shower me with attention

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Holy god, I've found it. Ladies and Gentlemen, THE GAYEST LINE IN MUSICAL THEATRE:

I'll always be Alice Toklas
if you'll be Gertrude Stein...

-Vera Charles to Auntie Mame

Why are you in Tavie's head? 4:54 PM | shower me with attention

NEWKNITTYNEWKNITTYNEWKNITTYNEWKNITTYNEWKNITTY

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:44 PM | shower me with attention

This guy's list of top 25 Sesame Street moments (c/o Boing Boing) is perfect.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:15 PM | shower me with attention

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Following the worst night of (non) sleep in recent memory, I had a rip-roaring kind of excellent morning in which I was threatened with death by a man on the subway who apparently didn't hear me say "excuse me" to him as I made my way onto an incredibly crowded subway car. He proceeded to make the most atrocious kind of comments about his perceptions of my appearance-- with focus on my size, shape and skin colour-- and what he presumed about my personal life based on said appearance. Tacked onto these delightfully abusive assumptions were comments that he would kill me "right here on the subway, kill yo ugly ass", made to his female companion, who laughed and agreed with him. My favourite comment, though, even more than "28-year-old virgin", was "got nothin' better to do than go to work every day."

Obviously this man was a complete waste of sperm (and subway space), going on to heckle a panhandler elbowing his way through the car, and met with disgusted looks by just about everyone when he finally got off the train. Nevertheless,on top of my nearly sleepless night, I was not prepared for this sort of verbal attack, and it took incredible control to remain stone-faced; I burst into tears almost the moment I made it into the ladies' room at work.

That just pretty much set the tone for my day. Nothing bad happened after that, but the day was endless and exhausting.

Zombie Tavie love home sleep bed.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 8:45 PM | shower me with attention

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to talk about how lucky I am to have such a close, loving group of friends in my immediate geographical area. I have a lot of close, loving friends who happen to live far away and I don't want them to feel sad or left out when I talk about how happy I am to have the ones who are here.

I can't help but think about how good it is now because this is going to be a big year of changes for everyone. It's already started, what with Cheryl moving down from Rhode Island, she and Gina and I getting ready to move in together, and erin, Kitana and Kirsten all leaving around the same time this summer (to go to Portland, India and Japan, for six-plus months, two months and a year, respectively.) Not to mention Steph M and Mike heading out to Park Slope, and Steph P and Cathy already rooming together in Williamsburg. And, heck, Jen (Pardilla) is coming to New York in the fall! We'll be clustered and scattered in odd configurations come summertime. All sorts of new arrangements to get used to. And big things happening anyway; people graduating, and starting their careers, and losing weight, and getting rock-singer haircuts, and newsgroups dying, and Projects coalescing, and cats and parents being left.

Addendum: I don't normally like to edit posts this long after posting them, but I feel that my little mental catalogue of comings-and-goings over the past year wouldn't be complete without correctiong the egregious omission of the fabulous Serra, of whom I've not seen nearly enough because I am so loathe to leave the house on weekends anymore. This does not detract from her excellent, New York-living-in-ness.

It's nuts, all the stuff that's going on, if you sit back and think about it.

I like to get mushy when I do and remember that song that Ade (one of my far-aways) played for me, the one I think of as "our song", "This Will Be Our Year" by The Zombies. That's a great song and it makes me cry. I miss my far-aways.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:33 PM | shower me with attention

Monday, April 04, 2005

I have gotten so! Much! Done!

I left work exhausted but when I got home I started cleaning my room and packing my stuff and when I looked at my watch two hours had gone by. I managed to condense my books from three huge storage bins to two, and to pack most of my non-work clothes, and cds and DVDs and miscellanea. I dusted my bookshelf and DVD shelf and CD shelf and threw out a whole lotta garbage.

Really, all I have left to do is to pack the rest of my non-essential-for-the-next-month clothes and go through all of those videocassettes. Which is a formidable task, to be sure. But it can be done. If I could bear to leave behind so many of those books, I can surely make some judicious cuts to my unreasonably large store of VHS tapes.

I wish I had a DVD burner.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:37 PM | shower me with attention

The original cast recording of Pacific Overtures is incredibly beautiful.

Except for "Four Black Dragons", which is weak, and "Please Hello", which is hilarious, but not beautiful.

My new favourite rhyme ever:

If the tea the shogun drank will
serve to keep the shogun tranquil...

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:47 AM | shower me with attention

Sunday, April 03, 2005

I'm registering a couple more books at Bookcrossing.com and releasing them into the wild. I expect to be setting more free as the packing-and-moving process continues...

Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:11 PM | shower me with attention