the ocean

Getting my dream Beauty & the Beast style home library has led me to realize I have a lot of books, though not nearly enough to fill all the shelves in my new Beauty & the Beast style home library. (For that, I am going to bring some books back from my parents' library in Quincy; that library also doubled as my bedroom when I was a kid, so I feel I have a valid ownership claim.) Among these classic volumes with which I could not possibly part are the following:

2009 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. I have never written a novel and I haven't written a short story in years. But if I do, I will certainly want to know where I can publish it in 2009.

Spanish Beginner's Dictionary. I never took Spanish at all, so I guess I am definitely a beginner.

America's Next Top Model Fierce Guide to Life. This requires no explanation.

Hoodoo Conjuration Witchcraft Rootwork, Volume Five. This was my dad's; he was a folklorist, among other things. Aren't most dads? I do wonder where volumes one through four went, though.

The Power of Kabbalah. This is Ian's. I assume it's related to Madonna's Kabbalah phase. He's also a big fan of her turn in Evita, as of course we all are.

Make it Nice by Dorinda Medley. I imagine this was a gift? I've not read it. I prefer a more literary bent in my housewives, you know like Danielle Staub.

Two copies of The Canterbury Tales, which I have never read. I mean, I ready excerpts in high school and college, which seemed like plenty. But I do plan to get to the whole thing before I die. And apparently read it twice.

Twenty Great American Short Stories. I have read this and must say that most of these American short stories are really just kind of mid.

How to Clean Practically Anything. Maybe from my mother? I do like things to be tidy.

UN Law on International Sales. This one is just for fun.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Some of these actually remain scary, even as an adult. I rarely if ever tell them in the dark, however.

Contemplating Courts. Just a great title, frankly. I think this was a textbook from one of my college classes. I just couldn't bear to part with it!

Approximately six thousand copies of everything I've ever written. I am nothing if not a narcissist!

I've been walking around with a black eye all week. I'm workshopping lies about how I got it because the real story isn't very flattering. I was trying to get a metal desk organizer off the top shelf in the storage room at work and I accidentally dropped it on my face. There was a significant amount of blood and swelling and I had to attend a full afternoon client meeting covered in band-aids and lightly oozing. I am sure everyone was very impressed. After a few days of gentle icing and anti-inflammatories, I have lost my resemblance to  Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame, but there are still some interesting color changes going on around my eye. It's like the northern lights, but less attractive and more embarrassing.

Because the universe has it in for me, this was also the week that I had to go present about careers in white collar criminal law to a program for youths. They certainly found my eye diverting. They said they thought I was wearing makeup, which even in this somewhat more enlightened age they did not mean as a compliment. Fortunately, I was able to distract them with stories of horrific murders. I've found that everyone loves to hear about the mail bombers and hammer murderers I have kept in jail. And no, I am not suggesting that says anything positive about our society. But I'm not the one who broke it; I'm pretty sure that was MTV in the early '90s.

Now the big question in my mind is if my appearance will be back to normal by Wednesday, when of course I am required to have a new building ID photo taken. It's not so much vanity that drives my concerns as the thought that I myself would certainly not allow anyone who looks the way I do now enter into any respectable office building. Although I guess that begs the question of what respectable even means these days. I did once work with a woman who got fired for running a bedazzling business from her desk during office hours.

Ian has taken to putting on the Vevo music video channels (included with your Samsung TV, friends) while he is working. I am not questioning the soundness of this decision, as it really does provide some pleasant ambient noise to accompany one's labors without being too distracting. However, I have come to realize from this exercise that many music videos of decades past are incredibly strange.

For example, the "Doing it All for My Baby" video from Huey Lewis (& the News, of course). For some reason, this incredible upbeat, frankly saccharine tune was accompanied by a video in which Huey himself plays Dr. Frankenstein for some reason. It is seven minutes long. It literally could not have less to do with the song. Did Huey just see "Thriller" and think, hey, I guess people are doing monster videos now? It's kind of jarring for a song that even at the time seemed destined for Muzak at your local Dollar General.

And then there's "The Warrior" by Scandal featuring Patty Smyth. I think it's supposed to be post-apocalyptic? It's kind of industrial chic and there's some sort of dance battle involved, with people who are maybe aliens? Or fishermen? (There are nets, but also body suits.) It does look a little bit like Cats the musical.

Not as much as the video for "Bad Boy" by Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine, of course. It is a daring love story about a woman who seems to be sexually interested in man-sized cats. They are unambiguously cats, with tails that sometimes function as boners, whiskers, and a love of fish. And Gloria is in what appears to be a Quinceanera dress, dancing so stiffly that I literally googled to see if this was filmed after the accident where she injured her spine. It was not.

Anyway, it's all kind of a vibe. Not mad at it, but also pretty sure I'm going to have some fucked up dreams for a while.