(otherwise)

i confess i don't tend to follow contemporary pop music all too closely. currently in the cd player here in my office i have shakira singing in spanish, pete droge, kris delmhorst, and neko case. i do like this newish neko album! apparently she was at the paramount in seattle last night and obviously i missed her. i didn't watch the grammies last night either but i was pleased this morning to learn that the dixie chicks (pictured, right) won 5 awards - i think they won each award for which they were nominated. i do like the chicks. i like texans who don't like bush, and thus i'm sad about molly ivins.

but let's try and smile in spite of the loss of ms ivins. kara and i are going to the paramount again soon too! on friday i bought tickets to see ira glass do "this american life." it'll be our 3rd time seeing ira, so you know we dig ira the most. that'll be on march 7. two days before that, on the 5th, we'll be up in seattle seeing art spiegelman talk about this and that. i suppose our cultural season is beginning.

actually those are all the tickets we have at this point. i don't know what might be next.

sorry if i got a little link-happy there. maybe that'll stop now. in other news, quite early on saturday morning, before 7:30, our new treadmill arrived. we're happy about that. kara had a rough time last week without a treadmill. perhaps foolishly we celebrated the treadmill by going out to breakfast at the hob nob. and on friday evening a mere boy came to our house to "detail" our bathroom sink. i don't know what's involved in "detailing" but this fellow was in and our of our house in a minute and a half, so i hope he knows what's involved. he said the new sink would "probably" go in there just fine. (now i'm getting quotation-mark happy. sorry.) the new sink will probably arrive in the next month or so. that'll be a good thing too. if it fits.

john ashbery (pictured, left) has a new book out and i'm excited about it. what's it called, you ask? a wordly country. (penultimate link this post, promise.) i'm reading positive reviews and i'm waiting for paperback. if he were coming to town i'd certainly try and see him. i don't know if he travels much. i should look into that. i saw him in seattle shortly after i moved here, round about the year 2000. i had him sign my copy of self-portrait in a convex mirror, and that's something i treasure now.

have i mentioned? last week i received my copy of mailman's first novel, woman of ill fame. (ultimate link, end of story.) she's an old college buddy of mine, another ireland aficionado, and she seems to be enjoying this success. her second novel, hexe, comes out later this year, if you can believe that. congratulations, mailman! she's a busy woman, recently married and pregnant too! holy crap!

otherwise ... i don't know. eliot needs to be shaved soon; he's starting to look like a pomeranian. not really. kara last night accidently gave sagan the tramadol meant for max. sagan's so good about taking pills and she was right there, eager. so we think she slept pretty well; she woke up okay this morning, and i suppose that's a good thing. i slept quite well last night too, even without a tramadol. i dreamt of being a bus driver; i was looking for a place to park my bus. i was driving up on the sidewalks, even though that didn't seem like quite the right thing to do. there was something significant about all of that, where to put my bus, but i don't recall now what it might have been. ideas?