30 songs

Challenged, prodded, reminded and gently nagged by a dear friend, I responded to a Facebook list posing the following question:

What are 30 songs you cannot live without? Ones that come on and you have to totally STOP what you're doing just to listen, or break out into intolerably loud singing, or dance. You know, you won't get out of your car until they're over. Or you will dance down a supermarket aisle with nary a care. And you can listen to them over and over and never get tired of them.

I don't tend to do well with the choosing of favorites, so this isn't in any kind of order and I'm sure I've left out something crucial, but these are all definitely songs I love. Try a list for yourself, and post it on Mike's blog. He'll be thrilled. I should really hyperlink these, but if I wait for the time it'll never happen. So here, unlinked, is my list (And I've already thought of something I left out. Sorry, Ben Folds.):

1. Killer Queen – Travis

2. The Queen & the Soldier – Suzanne Vega

3. Simple Twist of Fate – Bob Dylan

4. Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair (live version off The Colpix Years) – Nina Simone

5. Pounding – Doves

6. Say Yes – Elliott Smith

7. Lion Song – Jason Harrod

8. Thursday – Morphine

9. Fake Empire – The National

10. Do You Love Me – Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

11. Come On Up to the House – Tom Waits

12. You Can’t Always Get What You Want – The Rolling Stones

13. Polaroids – Shawn Colvin

14. The Boxer – Simon & Garfunkel

15. Invitation to the Blues – Tom Waits

16. Bachelorette – Bjork

17. Long as I Can See the Light – Creedence Clearwater Revival

18. The Great Beyond – R.E.M.

19. Pot Kettle Black – Tilly and the Wall

20. Steal My Kisses – Ben Harper

21. Galileo – Indigo Girls

22. Running to Stand Still – U2

23. Crazy Love, Vol. II – Paul Simon

24. Polyester Bride – Liz Phair

25. Standing in the Doorway – Bob Dylan

26. Chain of Fools – The Commitments

27. Shuffle Your Feet – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

28. Cactus – Pixies

29. Mofo – U2

30. This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody) – Talking Heads

plumber. caaaaaandygram.

It's been a long time since I had any funny drinks-related pictures to offer. This one, I trust, needs no explanation; still, just in case, here it is:

Land Shark | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

introducing a design change at urban legend

pop rocks necklace

In order to offer some lower price points, I've started using gunmetal components in several of my designs at urban legend. I'm really excited about this, as it allows me to offer lots of new durable, high-quality bracelet and necklace designs at about half the price I've had to charge in the past. For my customers with sensitive ears - don't worry! All of my earrings hooks are still sterling silver. I know several of you rely on me to provide high-quality irritation-free hooks, and that won't change. But you'll start to see several necklaces and bracelets made with gunmetal wire and chain in my shop. If you prefer sterling silver in any design, please contact me - most designs can be reproduced in sterling for an additional price. This change only affects my jewelry in the urban legend shop; my designs at Leaves of Glass will continue to be made and listed with sterling silver. Here's a sampling of what's already available in the new gunmetal line at urban legend; look for lots of new pieces to start listing in the next two weeks. I encourage your input on this change; please feel free to contact me with any comments, questions or concerns!

baggage necklace

orchid thief necklace

nomad bracelet

summer reading review - part one

I always have grand plans for my summer reading - and a teetering stack of books - that I never manage to conquer. This summer, though, I did manage to get through half of my list. It doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment, but it felt like one to me. Here's something to be said for a struggling economy: I didn't spend the whole summer bulking up on stock and had a lot more time for clearing clutter out of my apartment and savoring my pile of books.

The last school year was a particularly difficult one, and felt like it lasted forever. When it was finally over in the first week of June I wanted something that I knew would be absorbing, well-written and completely escapist. Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys fit the bill. It was a thoroughly satisfying read: well-paced, beautifully funny and full of likeable and thoroughly unlikeable characters. Favorite line: "By the windmills of Babyland he sat down and wept..." Any book that offers such a wildly complex and irreverent joke is recommended.

A friend loaned me Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp (by C.D. Payne). It's hilarious, but very long, and I got tired of it before I reached the finish line. In all fairness, that may have something to do with my job - when you work with teenagers, it's a little awkward to read their deepest triumphs and humiliations presented as a felony-charged hormonal romp. The distance from reality ought to have been refreshing, but it stressed me out a bit. Well-written and truly funny, and recommended to people who don't spend their days arranging counseling for exactly this kid. Mainly, I really want to know: where are these magical doughnut shops where Nick gets maple bars and orange-glazed plain cake and all manner of other tempting sugar fixes? Perfectly summed up with a doughnut-related quote: "I experimented with the house specialty: a blueberry-filled raised roll, topped with peanut butter and chocolate chips. It was good, but somewhat lacking in focus."

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff was another loaner. This is Groff's first novel, and for a long time (3/4 of the book) I didn't think she was going to pull it off. It's overly precious and I was more interested in two tiny plot points than I was in the main character's storyline (please write a novel about Clarissa's parents next time). There's a lot of historical backstory for the main character, presented in alternating chapters in the voices of different narrators. When I was 200 pages in and she was still introducing characters, I was sure there was no way out of the morass. I was wrong. Groff surprised me with a gracious and completely satisfying ending (and then ended the book two more times). Still, in its love of place and home, this ended up being a moving reminder of my own family home and the ghosts of history.

More booknerdiness to follow; stay tuned.

and then it was my turn.

Thanks again, Katie!

Owl Swappie with birthday hat by skunkboy creatures.

humming quietly to myself...

...Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me... I'm 36 today. I'm a little taller now than I appear in this picture. That's the last time I looked cute in bangs (and I'm relieved that Dad abandoned the mutton chops within a few years of this photograph). Panda is still with me, although he's very shabby now, has undergone several surgeries, and no longer plays Frere Jacques. I found him in a box recently, poor thing, and liberated him to sit in the armchair with my collection of Etsy bunnies. The bonding has been a little rocky, with all parties feeling faintly threatened, but I have hopes that they'll work it out.

It's been a mostly good 36 years. I have wonderful family and friends who are very dear to me, time to practice a craft that I love, and feel lucky to have a good job in hard times. My old wandering gene is making me feel restless these days, though. I have an internal buzzer that goes off every few years and tells me to move on. It went off over a year ago, but I don't feel like I can leave Chicago right now, and I'm not sure where the wandering gene is telling me to go. One of my goals for this year is to do some research into places that appeal to me and plan a trip next summer to see friends and do relocation recon.

I also have some smaller-scale goals for my next year, including:

1. Paint my apartment (Why, you ask, if you're planning to move? Primarily because it will make me ludicrously happy in the short run, but also because the move probably won't happen for a couple of years. Also, paint chips are delicious fun and I like an excuse to collect them.)
2. Get in better shape (I'm currently using an accursed elliptical machine and hobbling around like a wounded thing)
3. Get at least 7 hours of sleep every night during the school year
4. Blog about things that are not remotely business-related
5. Write more letters (or indeed, any at all)
6. Quit Diet Coke once and for all
7. See more movies
8. Take more pictures

Wish me luck. I'll be starting my year of good intentions with cake.

tribute

Today is the 10th anniversary of my maternal grandfather's death. He was a brilliant, gentle and stately man, a New Jersey Supreme Court Judge, and I was prodigiously proud of him. One of my prized possessions is a hardcover edition of my favorite novel, All the King's Men, inscribed to him by his best friend. For all of my childhood and into my early 20's, we spent two weeks every summer with my mother's parents at our family summer house in Nantucket, and I found the book in the house a few years after he died. These summers were rich and familiar in so many ways, but it's the little daily things that continue to evoke the memory of my grandparents. To this day, every time I see half a tomato on a willow ware plate in the refrigerator, I'm reminded of Grandaddy's chicken sandwiches.

The last summer I spent with him was right after I graduated from college, and it was difficult. He'd begun to show signs of dementia, and we suspected Alzheimer's. I went to Nantucket to work for the summer, and to help my grandmother care for Scotty. He began as usual, keeping up his daily walks and usual habits, but he was deteriorating quickly and the change of location to the summer house made him worse. My grandmother struggled with his memory losses and difficult behavior, and kept thinking of earlier and earlier instances in which he'd behaved strangely, convincing herself that he'd been sick for some time. The lawnmower story is apocryphal, and several of us can't agree on whether or not it happened this way, but it resulted in one of the most special gifts I've ever received so I think it's an appropriate tribute for today, true or not.

The yard in Nantucket used to have several big, lush hydrangea bushes along the fence and near the house. At some point they all got cut down, and no one can remember why or by whom. That summer, my grandmother swore that Granddaddy had cut them all down the previous summer while he was doing yardwork and became confused about which plants were flowers and which were weeds. She was sure it indicated that he'd been sick for longer than we thought. It doesn't seem likely; I'm not sure that he could have done it even before his illness (he would have been 89 at the time). A lawnmower can do a lot of damage, but I don't know if you can mow down shrubbery with one. But as I say, I don't know what happened to them, and over the years it sort of became my accepted story for where they went.

My grandparents ended up leaving the island early that summer, and Grammy found a full time care facility for Granddaddy and admitted him early that fall. He continued to deteriorate, although he remained in good physical health, and he never went back to Nantucket. A few years later, I had moved to the island year-round and told the lawnmower story to a colleague who remembered admiring the bushes years before. My grandfather passed away August 21, 1999, and I went to New Jersey for the funeral. When I returned to the house in Nantucket, I found that my friend had left a beautiful new hydrangea bush on the porch for me. It was the most touching sympathy gesture I've ever received. I planted it behind the house in a sunny, sandy patch of yard, and it still thrives there a decade later. I took a cutting from it several years ago, and my parents nurtured it into a healthy little plant for their own yard in New Hampshire. My dad takes pictures of it from time to time to let me know how it's doing. This summer Mom traveled to Nantucket for a couple of days and also took pictures of the original plant. There are some lovely old photographs of Granddaddy in the house in Nantucket, but I don't have copies of any of them, so in their place here are the pictures of the two hydrangeas that grow in his memory. They seem a fitting tribute to my love for my grandfather and the place that Nantucket has in my memories of him. As hydrangeas go, they're still young and the New Hampshire one didn't bloom this year, but they're growing and thriving and I hope they last for years to come. With love.