Today I'm wearing my "I'm blogging this" shirt, but I'm not really blogging anything at all recently. I don't have any sentences. No good words. It's like the linguistic part of my brain is off doing something else. It's weird though, sometimes I'm the sort of person who can watch paragraphs flow out of my fingers and onto the screen and then read them back all "yes, that is exactly what I mean", and other times every sentence is slow and painful and, no matter how much I hammer against it, I can't make it say what I want to say. You should see my drafts folder right now: I could probably explain myself more clearly in interpretive dance.

So, who's watching Downton Abbey? I don't understand why I wasn't -- it's Dame Maggie Smith plus a lot of people in hats, seriously, why was it even in question -- but I just started and now I am. No spoilers please, I'm only one episode in.

This weekend I: cycled out to Rockaway beach (whatever this is was randomly on the path along the way), went to an Australia day party, made Syrian food for dinner (I only ever make brunch (which means eggs and bloody marys, maybe mushrooms if I'm feeling seriously fancy) so this is remarkable enough to mention), hung mirrors in our hall, ventured into Downtown Brooklyn Macy's to do unsuccessful clothes shopping, and mourned Milk Thistle Dairies, who have closed down and will never again be at our farmers market. Will I have to buy supermarket milk? Is that what happens here?

1) It's raining outside.
2) Alex just brought us another dead mouse.
3) Alex does not have wet fur.

He earns his keep, that one.

Joel's watching Fringe, which, by the way, is entirely incomprehensible if you start watching in the middle of season 4. It makes no sense. I'm reading about combinatorial algorithms and drinking a delicious Captain Lawrence Espresso stout. This isn't really a sustainable combination: soon I'll be just drinking the stout, and after that I'll be having a little nap.

This weekend I: went to the Jim Henson exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image[1], enthusiastically shovelled snow, did a password audit and changed all of my passwords and felt _very_ virtuous, watched Sherlock, projecteulered, did some end of year co-op financial stuff, worked a bit on bathroom renovation plans, started using pinterest.com to collect pictures of bathrooms I like[2], bought bread, butter, cheese and chocolate (all of life's necessities, really) at an irish-food shop, learned about teacup piglets, and picked up the start of something that isn't a cold yet but might be later and in the meantime is just brainfog, stupidity and irritability. So no difficult or annoying questions, please. Grr, etc.
 
[1] It's a good exhibit and I recommend it, even though it's in freakin' Queens, but wow the muppets sure did suffer from dogs-and-smurfs
[2] Also bathrooms I find hilarious: see http://pinterest.com/whereistanya/ if you don't mind mild swears)

Another thing! I already posted about this on gplus, but it's cool enough that I want to put it here too. This is a map that was printed in 1814. Joel got it for me for my birthday and I love it.

It's snowing! I put on my beloved red wellies and spent an hour shoveling the front of our house. It's technically the second snow of the season, but October's freak snowstorm was long enough ago that people seem to be enjoying the novelty. A slightly creepy passing man told me that I was too pretty to be shoveling, and I said "bless your heart", which is an expression I find extremely useful in my day to day life: it is Texan for "fuck you, buddy".

Our regular weekend cafe was packed and, as sometimes happens, we got stuck between two tables with VERY LOUD TALKERS, both of them edifying their friends with stories about (on the left) their small business and (on the right) how cute it is when their kids knock over chairs in coffee shops. Smoke started coming out of Joel's ears, so we took ourselves home without getting coffee refills.

The rest of this afternoon is about co-op paperwork, password changes, sorting out future travel, and various other chores of the type that hang out at the back of your todo list and start to smell. Later I expect we'll order indian food and watch Sherlock. It's good weather for quiet domesticity.

Look, here's a poll!
Poll #1812820 Important Questions
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 19

Bread or circuses?

Sounds or pictures

Words or numbers

Too hot or too cold?

Doing or thinking?

Fair or kind?

Contented or exploring?

Past or future?

Ducks or cows?

Truth or fiction?

Rock, scissors or paper?

Now or later?

This long holiday weekend weekend I: watched all of Portlandia (it didn't live up to the promise of the first episode), dealt with co-op paperwork, added weatherstripping, silicon caulk and rather a lot of duct tape to the windier parts of our apartment, learned how not to use a caulk gun, cleaned exploded caulk off hands, clothing, furniture, cats, etc, did nine project euler problems, knitted three inches of a scarf (which should be finished by summer at this rate), watched two episodes of Sherlock, futzed with the brakes on my bike, invented black-bean-and-tuna-leftover-breakfast-hash (not bad), continued listening to Machine Man on audible, and didn't leave the house at all except to buy lattes. I'm considering hibernating until it gets warm again. Oh, and I realised that it was time to start the first reread of GEB, but I can't find my copy; did I lend it to someone?

This weekend I: hiked in Cold Spring, shopped for weatherproofing materials to make our house less goddamn cold, group-solved a project euler puzzle with pen and paper on the train, played TransEuropa, rode my bike a bit, read half of What Your Contractor Can't Tell You, geeked out on maps and globes in an antique shop, and had a bunch of early nights because apparently I got old when I wasn't looking and now I just want to sleep all the time. Sleeping's lovely.

This long holiday weekend I: argued with Joel about omelettes (him: eggs should be fluffy and yellow; me: eggs should be a bit browned and chewy), played the demo for Arkham Asylum, played Dance Central, framed and hung pictures, went to IKEA, helped build an IKEA chair, watched Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Michael Caine on a train == everything I need from any movie ever), set up an account on fitocracy.com, continued working on some project euler problems (I've done 21 so far; they're fun), went to the MTA museum store and the MOMA store, rode my bike, bought a clock, continued reading Gentlemen of the Road, achieved inbox zero, approved half a year's worth of sharing requests on 23andme, called my family, hauled my sleep cycle back to New York time, played Carcassonne, and spent an unusual amount of time sitting around not doing much of anything. And liked it!