While washing the dishes this evening, I turned to R and said, "So who on television had the best apartment?"
Without even pausing, he replied, "Martin Tupper."
"Martin Tupper?" I asked. I tried my best to think of what his apartment looked like, but I could only remember the city out his windows at night. Not original, since every NY apartment scene has that.
"Yes, Martin Tupper."
"Okay, why Martin Tupper?"
"Exposed brick." He turned to face me. "When he went to sell his apartment, he said 'Look at all the exposed brick. Brick, brick, brick, brick, brick.'"
"And that makes it the best apartment on TV?"
"Yeah. That and he was an editor."
So I thought about it and decided there had to be a cooler apartment than that. "I really think that the Kotters' apartment was cooler. They had everything right there, and that cozy 70s thing going on. The couch and plants and kitchen. Or maybe Johnny's."
"Johnny?"
"Johnny Fever. WKRP?"
"I only watched that a few times."
I was quiet for a minute.
"No, I have it," I said. "Frasier's. Now that is a great apartment."

So we agreed to agree on Frasier (On Frasier, of course, not on Cheers). I'll have to ask E tomorrow. He is sure to come up with some just as cool.

Well, my wonderful new computer made it through the latest brownout and power surge. Viva la mega surge protector/power supply!! Huzzah!

Unfortunately, the G4 did not.

Tonight it was time for an upgrade to brand-spanking-new Intel power and a 20" screen.

Holy crap. The Web cam freaks me out, and the screen is so bright it's distracting me over here in my little corner. Now I'm a moth to a porch light.

All right, all right, so I did watch the Golden Globes last night. You know I can't resist an awards show. And this one is actually much more fun to watch than the Oscars. The actors are more relaxed so they'll come out with the best speeches. No one can beat Hugh Laurie's "let me thank 3 people at random who are listed on slips in my pocket" or Steve Carell's "my wife wrote my speech and thanks herself repeatedly." Very clever and really funny. (Unlike George Lopez on the People's Choice Awards recently, a show I'll never watch again. Ugh. How embarrassing that your own producer [Sandra Bullock] must apologize for you like your mother.) Even Geena Davis was uncharacteristically stand-up with a fake story about a small child at her feet: "As I was coming in I felt a little tug at my skirt and I looked and there was a little girl maybe 8 or 10 in her first party dress, and she said, 'Because of you I want to be president someday. ... Well … that didn't actually happen." Okay, so mock me. It was much more entertaining than sitting back here all night. Which is how the rest of my week will be. I even have to tape Lost (the winner last night, by the way!).

I saw this amusing piece on the net today. Not sure when this happened, but can things get any weirder?? Sometimes I wonder just why the heck I worry about my life and where it is going when I read something like this. I assume this is true. I mean, isn't everything on the net??

Cruise Gives Holmes DVD Collection
Tom Cruise has given his pregnant fiancée Katie Holmes a unique 27th birthday present -- a DVD compendium of every movie he has acted in. The "War of the Worlds" star, 43, decided there was no better gift for his wife-to-be than a full history of his long and fruitful career.
A source tells British newspaper the Daily Express, "Each was inscribed with a special handwritten love message to the future mother of his child."

Almost a quarter done with my project. I would love to watch the Golden Globes tonight but I don't think I can spare the time! :(

Today at the office my friend brought in her handheld 20 questions game. Apparently I was the only woman in my department who had not tried this thing. Incredulous as Langly talking to a Fed, I chose an object and started my journey. The machine guessed a loaf of bread. My object was a fur coat. I tried again. The machine guessed a hammer. My object was a wisk. So much for that.

R took a shot. The machine guessed an anteater. His object was an anteater. He tried again. The machine guessed a great white shark. His object was a coelacanth. If that had come up, I would have bought the handheld company.

Back to editing ...

If anyone is looking for me for the next 3 weeks, I'll be back here in the office.

"I have so little to do and so much time. ... Wait. Stop. Reverse that."

Or better yet, my inner voice:

"Well there's another nice mess you've gotten me into."

Despite the boatload of work I just agreed to, I will continue to force myself to write creatively and send out my poems as well. So there.

Today I sent out another packet of poems to a small press magazine. Not sure if other poets do this, but I divide my poems into three "categories" and send them to journals and magazines that seem to match those levels. I use the general terms of low, medium, and high:

• My low poems are rather basic but nice. Often the language is less lyrical or the subject is bordering on too sentimental. These poems are not my favorites but for some reason seem worthy of publishing. If a medium poem has been sent out repeatedly and is consistently rejected, it usually becomes a low poem. These are usually short free verse.
• My medium poems are solid, pleasing works. They've received good feedback at readings, and I like the way they sound. I've focused on their structure and revised them a good number of times.
• My high poems are final, well-worked pieces that have that special something. Through feedback and my own spidey sense, I know they show the best of what I am able to do (at the time). They are lyrical and show attention to a larger theme, word choice, line breaks, and sound. These represent my best chance at being publishing in the harder reviews and journals.
  

This week I want to decide on some "medium" publications and send out appropriate poems to those. One of the toughest things for a submitting poet is finding places that match up with the poet's style. There's no sense sending out my lyrical "simple moment" poems to an experimental, beat place. And if I could afford to buy a copy of every little magazine I wanted to submit to, I'd be a happy and wealthy poet.

Sunday night I actually completed what I believe is a high poem. It's currently called "Multiverse" and talks (perhaps too briefly) of the multiverse theory, the idea (not well described here) that your history and choices are different when seen from another point in the universe. In any event, it's another outlet for my thoughts on how my life could have been different, and I really like how it ends. We'll see if anyone else likes it (those "high"-magazine editors).

On a "very cool" note, I just downloaded this great, free PDF book, "What's Up 2006 - 365 Days of Skywatching" by Tammy Plotner. You can get it here. It has a page for skywatching each day, laid out nicely with photos and history. Thanks to Phil Plait for posting that cool link.

In an upcoming post ... my thoughts on King Kong and Brokeback Mountain.

So I have not been writing about my writing of late. It's rather depressing, actually. I do have poems out to one review, and perhaps today I'll get together some packets for other submissions. But I am having a bit of difficulty on the novel. I have been reading a book on writing romances, and the author emphasizes how the problem, solution, and obstacle must be clear before the story can come together. The other novel writing book I am reading stresses that the action must be bigger than life, and so I am afraid that my plot is too mundane and boring. I've thought of a way to make it "bigger" by involving something like a secret government project, but now it sounds forced and stupid. The romances I've worked on have not set up some radically great problem, and they are published works, so I might just plod along and see where it goes.

I do have to write out a much more fleshed-out background for my characters so that I can write them fully in the book. That might be what I work on today. Also, the opening chapter is full of background scenes; there's no real tension or drama until the beginning of chap. 2, so I think that has to change.

Honestly, I think I am way overthinking this thing. (As I tend to do with everything.) Some of the romances I've read can't keep one character name the same throughout the whole book, so I have to remember to write for the reader and not for me if my goal is publishing. *sigh* The challenge is to make sure I write what I like while keeping it "formulaic" enough for an agent. My friend at work thought that I might end up like a Margaret Mitchell the way things are going ... one book that took forever. I hope not.

Today we went to the American Museum of Natural History and the Rose Center to show my parents what's been updated since they last went in (which could have been during the Koch years for all I remember). We picked the Passport to the Universe planetarium show as the best one to introduce my parents to the new planetarium (a good first one ... lots of impressive zooming around stars and galaxies). It makes our crappy Earth leaders and problems seem all the more trivial and motelike. I even bought a cool new Hayden T-shirt to wear to the gym et al.

Then we hit the exhibit Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries. I was impressed with the touchscreens and interactive aspects. The large emphasis was on how technology and a reevaluation using comparison to modern-day animals has helped paleontologists update our thinking of dinosaurs -- their posture, speed, appearance, and so on. This one is the size of a dog:

Then was the Darwin exhibit. There was so much detail to it that the show actually gave me a headache. The exhibit covered everything, from his childhood to beyond his death and the arguments behind things like Intelligent Design (e.g., how could something as complicated as an eye evolve). They included live Galapagos animals (the tortoises were meandering and fascinating; the large iguana yawned) and many of the samples he collected. The longest lines were to the cases that held his journals and letters, which I also found the most awesome. Incredible to see the lists and commentary he made on the island enviroment. I also enjoyed the examples of hand and arm bone structure layed out in comparison for similarities, from human to chimp to komodo dragon, all look so much alike. There's got to be a poem in there somewhere.

No photos allowed, folks, but here's one more from the day ... not a great shot but a museum favorite for everyone, I am sure. It's my favorite space in the whole place, this oceanic hall. A peaceful cool blue that almost swallowed my headache.

I couldn't leave without a souvenir Darwin floaty pen. Come on, you all know I have to buy a floaty pen from everywhere. As I sit at this desk, just the ones I can see in my pen cup:

• FDR Estate, Hyde Park, NY (green)
• Grandma Moses in the 21st Century, Shelburne, VT (purple)
• Ben & Jerry's factory, Waterbury, VT (orange)
• Rose Center for Earth Space and Science, NY, NY (red)
• Newport Mansions, RI, The Elms (red)

I think I'll have a jazzier blog in 2006!