In the War Between.: December 2011

Me: My GOD, there is just so much going on this new years.

Greg: Yeah? What's up, I haven't even checked the events...

Me: Mikey Dunn's having a party, Sheena and Scott are having people over... there's a theme... hats or something? Phi and The Weekend Kids are having a private posh party, Empress has the big show, there's something going on at On The Rocks, some people are heading to the Crown..."

Greg: Jesus. Can't we just stay in and eat sushi and love each other and nest?

Me: BABY! We can do that any time; this is new years, we should spend it with people we love.

Greg: Who do we love more than each other?

Me: You have a point.

Greg: So we're staying in?

Me: No.

Greg: Damn it.

December 26, 2011

iPad Love.

I didn't think I would love the iPad as much as I do. Having a boyfriend who works at Apple, I would assume that the sparkle would have worn off.

It hasn't.
At all.

December 20, 2011

December 13, 2011

Winner of the 2011 World's Ugliest Dog Competition.: Yoda, the 14-year old Chinese crested/Chihuahua

Wow.
Unrelated, this documentary looks amazing:

Man Uses iPhone to Record Mother-in-Law's Attempt to Kill Him. Holy Shit.

"Salvatore Miglino had a feeling something bad would happen when he went to pick up his three-year-old son from the Tamarac, Florida home of his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s mother, so he decided to record the rendezvous with his iPhone‘s video camera. Good thing, too, because he was shot in the shoulder and rib cage by his mother-in-law, 66-year-old Cheryl Hepner, shortly after his arrival.
The iPhone video proved invaluable, as Hepner quickly called 911 to claim that it was Miglino who had attempted to kill her. Thanks to the footage, investigators were able to charge Hepner with “knowingly and intentionally plan[ing] to kill and murder Mr. Miglino from a premeditated design.”
At the root of the dispute, it seems, is the bitter child custody battle Miglino and his wife are presently engaged in. Hepner was apparently attempting to prevent Miglino from taking his son to New York.
Hepner has been booked into the Broward County jail, where she is being held without bond."

UPDATE:

And later, she accused him of shooting at her "first":
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/mother-in-law-shoots-son-654819

December 11, 2011

Thank you, Chalaundrai.

You've lived too long in New York, I told her. There are other worlds. Other kinds of dreams. Dreams in which failure is feasible, honourable, sometimes even worth striving for. Worlds in which recognition is not the only barometer of brilliance or human worth. There are plenty of warriors I know and love, people far more valuable than myself, who go to war each day, knowing in advance that they will fail. True, they are less "successful" in the most vulgar sense of the word, but by no means less fulfilled.

The only dream worth having, I told her, is to dream that you will live while you're alive and die only when you're dead. (Prescience? Perhaps.)

"Which means exactly what?" (Arched eyebrows, a little annoyed.)

I tried to explain, but didn't do a very good job of it. Sometimes I need to write to think. So I wrote it down for her on a paper napkin. This is what I wrote:

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.

"This is from an essay by Arundhati Roy who wrote God of Small Things."