whoosh!

whoosh!

I’m on my way to Washington DC. By train, a high-speed tilting train – who even knew there was such a thing?

The last time I took the train, there was that unfortunate “Eternal Flame” sing-a-long incident that got me thrown out of the quiet car. This time, my biggest worry is lifting my suitcase up to the overhead rack, which is higher than the overhead bin in an airplane. So I’m packing light.

All seasoned executive business women know that packing smart means packing coordinates. Taking it to an extreme, I’m packing monchrome and the chrome is grey. Grey slacks, grey tunic, grey shirt, grey striped shirt, white shirt!, grey sweater, dark grey slacks. By this mix and match method, I should be able to keep the suitcase light enough to lift without assist.

If I can’t lift it, Plan B is that I will stand next to a strong looking guy and put him into a trance due to sheer boredom from looking at all that grey. Then I will hypnotize him to lift my suitcase and maybe even let me sit in his seat before we start tilting off towards Washington.

Travel Update: I have arrived at my destination without much incident at all – just a little bit of red hot glaring at the seat hogs who piled their bags next to them so no one else can sit there. And then THEY LIE about it when you sk if the seat is free. If someone else is already sitting there, then where are they? Hmmm? It’s a train – there’s not that many places to go. I topped off the hate fest with some gentle snoring for most of the trip.

Jonathan Corzine Seagull

Observe the campaign literature sent to my daughter as an independent voter in the state of NJ. Jon Corzine, America’s most reckless governor, is sending out pages ripped out of the 1970 publication of Jonathan Livingston Seagull without any modification whatsoever.

better days are coming

movie soundtrack. neil diamond.

“The Part One of the book finds young Jonathan Livingston frustrated with the meaningless materialism and conformity and limitation of the seagull life … In the second Part, Jonathan transcends into another society where all the gulls enjoy flying … In part Three, Jonathan returns to the Breakfast Flock to share his newly discovered ideals and the recent tremendous experience, ready for the difficult fight against the current rules of that society.”

So the bird is kind of an academic community organizer.

jonathan corzine seagull

The book, inexplicably still in print, is a kind of mash-up of Taoism, Christianity’s  deffered rewards program  and a pillar of the 70′s  self-help and postive thinking  culture. The beauty of the thing was that you could project your own meaning onto the tranquil photos and the vague snips of text on every other page.

She mocked me when I spent $1.00 at abebooks.com for a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull but now she’s able to make the cultural reference, which puts her far ahead of 99% of the people who are going to receive this thing.  Who was it that said I was a supercool mother? Damn right I am.

Rain Water Continues to Pour Down the Dining Room Blinds

At approximately 6:00 pm, a mighty wind blew through and dragged some wicked cold temperature and torrential rains along with it. That’s what I heard, anyway. I was crashed on the daybed in the computer room. Work has taken its toll on me.

Long story short: water in the dining room again. Yesterday, it was easier to maintain equilibrium about the whole thing. Today, it’s more  of a depressing crisis.

In Which I Control The News Cycle

o

Hey, look how current I am. Yesterday, I blogged the names Rene and Georgette Magritte and today I read that a famous Magritte painting is in the news. For being stolen, too bad. The painting, “Olympia” is called famous and highly recognizable, although – because it doesn’t have an apple or a bowler hat in it -  not by me.

Rene painted it and Georgette modeled for it.

I hate it when I have so much power to affect current events. I have to be so careful about what I say.

Après la guerre, le déluge.

the classy carpeting of Suzette

The guardian angel of catalog carpeting protected us today when water started cascading down the blinds in the dining room. There was a minor tiff between the happy couple today about getting rid of some superfluous (I say) packing boxes piled up on an unused piece of furniture. It brought the whole rainy day project of switching the small dining room area rug for the big parlor rug to a creeching halt.

Good thing, too because when the rains came, the water puddled up on the beautiful red oak planks and then made its way over to the carpeting. Only the very edge of the small rug got wet. It would have been damage on a much bigger scale if the rug switch had been accomplished earlier in the day.

And they say there’s no such thing as kismet.

Related music, but only in my own head:

There they are, a Belgian surrealist painter, his old lady and their pooch, dancing naked in a hotel room, window-shopping on Christopher Street and getting dolled up to dine with “the power elite.” [...] It’s a hilarious and magical juxtaposition of images that’s also touching, because Paul Simon obviously identifies with the figure of the grown-up, respectable artist irrevocably smitten with those doo-wop groups, “the deep forbidden music” that originally made him fall in love with rock & roll.