emmyjean

Oh, and I’m back from Europe. Hi!

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:36:26 -0400

Oh, and I’m back from Europe. Hi!

Watching Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog and realizing that I recognize the girl in it as both a...

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:34:56 -0400

Watching Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog and realizing that I recognize the girl in it as both a Potential from the final season of Buffy and the pretentious performance artist from the direct-to-DVD sequel Bring It On Again, I am forced to acknowledge that my senior year roommate may have been onto something when she told me my tendency to make pop culture references may be why people sometimes find me exhausting.

Samo Je Jedno, the Croatian Euro 2008 football song. My anthem...

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:09:26 -0400

Samo Je Jedno, the Croatian Euro 2008 football song. My anthem for the summer. If I take nothing else away from this trip, I will have learned to rap in Croatian.

reasons i want to live in berlin forever

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:03:03 -0400

So safe here. Never feel like am racing rapists/muggers/murderers/thugs to my apartment door. Also, everyone hates guns.

People dress incredibly well in an inspiring way, not in an “oh lookit me, my boots mean I listen to better music than you do” kind of way.

No one has started a conversation by asking what I do for a living.

My rent is $500 a month and that is considered outrageously expensive.

On the S-bahn today I sat between a teenage girl with a mohawk and an elderly gentleman with a monocle.

Twenty minutes one way takes me to Museuminsel, twenty minutes the other way takes me to the beach at Wannsee.

I like colder weather and today, the 4th of July, I had to wear a turtleneck and a trench coat.

Ninety-minute flight to Milan.

Jogging in the Schloss Charlottenburg every day before class.

German is so incredibly fun to speak, even if I’m a disaster at it.

I’m actually very sad that I won’t get to see Sex and the City with my girlfriends. ...

Thu, 22 May 2008 10:14:22 -0400

I’m actually very sad that I won’t get to see Sex and the City with my girlfriends. Such a cliche, right?

all the sad young gossip girls

Wed, 21 May 2008 15:07:50 -0400

all the sad young gossip girls: On a semi-related note, I didn’t finish All The Sad Young Literary Men. While I’m sure Keith Gessen is a Very Sensitive Man who Feels Feelings and looks very nice in a tweed blazer with a hoodie underneath, this book is the literary equivalent of watching someone masturbate to a picture of themselves.

“Sequestered in Memphis,” The Hold Steady. This is...

Tue, 20 May 2008 22:05:43 -0400

“Sequestered in Memphis,” The Hold Steady. This is going on my Best of American Rock mix I’m making for all my couchsurfing hosts.

"I hear you were treated for breast cancer in 2006. I had a lumpectomy. It wasn’t that bad. Six and..."

Tue, 20 May 2008 17:24:44 -0400

“

I hear you were treated for breast cancer in 2006.
I had a lumpectomy. It wasn’t that bad. Six and a half weeks of radiation.

Did you stop working then?
I was in a play, “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” when I was getting radiation. In fact, they had my surgery on a Sunday so that I would not miss a performance. I’m able to shelve whatever emotional reaction I might be having in order to get the job done.

”

- “Questions for Cynthia Nixon”

how to be a modern gentleman

Tue, 20 May 2008 17:09:39 -0400

How to be a (modern) gentleman
1. Some things don’t change: say please and thank you and ask questions about other people rather than talk about yourself.
2. Be punctual. Tardiness does not make you look important, it turns you into an arrogant incompetent who thinks that his time is more important than other people’s.
3. The modern gentleman cares about the planet. Be environmentally aware (but not obnoxious about it).
4. Open doors for people and stand up when they enter a room, but do this for men as well as women. The modern gentleman doesn’t treat women like porcelain.
5. Be modest. Bragging is distinctly ungentlemanly.
6. Be a good father. Nothing is less charming than a man who leaves childcare to women.
7. Be honest about wherever you have come from in life. Pretension is spineless.
8. Flirt - with everyone. Good flirting is a form of politeness. Pay compliments and put your companion at ease.
9. Do not phone/text/check your BlackBerry incessantly.
10. Dress tidily. Whatever style you are going for, scruffiness just isn’t in.

- via Times of London

Happy birthday to my wonderful father, a man who has survived hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a...

Mon, 19 May 2008 16:53:35 -0400

Happy birthday to my wonderful father, a man who has survived hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a gallbladder attack, a Southern Air Force family, innumerable John Gorka concerts, working for Big Auto in Detroit in the 90s, community theater in Ann Arbor and living with three very opinionated women (four if you count the cat). I love you so much.

Reading at Tryst this afternoon I started making a list of various sites I’d like to visit...

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:10:38 -0400

Reading at Tryst this afternoon I started making a list of various sites I’d like to visit when I’m in Europe this summer. Most of them are either recent memorializations and monuments to state-sponsored genocide or the grounds for major ethnic conflict in various Balkan countries. After some research I found a personal tour guide who will take tourists into the soccer stadium in Srebrenica!

And yet, people are still asking why I’m traveling alone.

Final stop at my place on Friday’s progressive dinner...

Sat, 17 May 2008 17:58:12 -0400

Final stop at my place on Friday’s progressive dinner party.

darwin award winner since 2008

Fri, 16 May 2008 16:20:40 -0400

I spent the entire day panicked that I’d deleted a crucial folder in my office’s shared drive, one that contains agendas for every meeting I’ve ever had with my boss and a guide on how to do my job that I’ve been working on for, oh, six weeks or so. Three frantic phone calls to tech support, two opened tickets and entirely too much coffee later, a very helpful network guy discovered I’d moved it to the next folder listed in the directory, probably when I turned off my computer last night.

So really, does it surprise you that after the opera last night I tried to walk up a down escalator at L’Enfant Plaza?

OMG CENTER STAGE 2

Fri, 16 May 2008 09:56:29 -0400

OMG CENTER STAGE 2

ten of our favorite commencement speeches

Thu, 15 May 2008 16:36:12 -0400

ten of our favorite commencement speeches: Tony Kushner’s speech takes my breath away.

There is a story by Julio Cortázar, “House Taken Over,” in which...

Thu, 15 May 2008 14:31:10 -0400

There is a story by Julio Cortázar, “House Taken Over,” in which a brother and sister are forced to move from room to room as something unnamed occupies, inch by inch, their entire house, eventually forcing them out into the street. I foresee a day in which my books, like that anonymous invader, will complete their gradual conquest. — “A 30,000 Volume Window On The World,” NYT

journeys to foreign lands

Thu, 15 May 2008 12:24:00 -0400

Last night I went to Georgetown for the first time since a very goal-oriented Christmas shopping trip last December. Walking down M Street to meet a friend at Tacklebox I passed a group of about six people, all white, all decked out in the preppiest get-ups I’d seen in a long, long time. The guys were all in khakis, white or pink dress shirts and navy blazers. One had a kicky silk scarf folded into his jacket pocket. The girls were all in little sundresses in various pastel shades, some with tasteful pearls, one with a sweater casually looped around her shoulders, all with big sunglasses pushing back bouncy, straightened shoulder-length hair. They were so coordinated, so thoroughly embodying the stereotypical idea of “preppy” as they swept past me in a cloud of Polo and casual superiority, I just assumed they were on their way to either a J. Crew photoshoot or a Tennis Pros and their Hoes party.

As I recounted this story to my friend over grilled tilapia and calamari, she looked at me with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. “Em,” she said, “they weren’t models and they don’t do irony. You’re in Georgetown. That’s how people dress here. You need to start leaving Columbia Heights more.”

God, but I love the Daily Mail.

Thu, 15 May 2008 09:05:11 -0400

God, but I love the Daily Mail.

things that are younger than john mccain

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:52:58 -0400

things that are younger than john mccain

i wish i knew people with small children to whom i could give this CD

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:47:12 -0400

i wish i knew people with small children to whom i could give this CD