Sorry I have not been moved to post. Trying to write other stuff, and mostly not doing enough worth writing about or thinking about things worth posting about... But here goes:
1. I was watching ten minutes of the Today show on Sunday, and they were talking about Sarah Palin's last day in office, and the reporter said something like, "Sarah Palin spent yesterday making the 7 hour trip to Fairbanks for the transition, and although she didn't talk to reporters, she wrote a Twitter post about the music she was listening to on the trip. Why she would waste an entire Twitter post on something like that, who knows." That's not a verbatim quote, but basically the reporter was trying to say that Sarah Palin is a moron because she's Twittering about her music. There might be a million reasons why Sarah Palin is deserving of criticism, but, come on, what else is she supposed to Twitter about, how is it "wasting" a Twitter post to say she's listening to Kid Rock and Rascal Flatts, and, hey, some people might care, and what's the difference. I just thought it indicated a poor understanding of Twitter on the part of the Today show.
2. I don't know how many people read about the Mets crazy press conference yesterday where in the course of firing their VP of Player Development for challenging players to fights and generally being crazy, the General Manager threw a Daily News reporter under the bus, saying he originally discounted the articles the guy was writing about the VP being a nutcase because the reporter had "lobbied" for a job in the Mets front office. Ignoring the idea that if the writer wanted a job with the Mets, he'd probably be better served writing puff pieces than stuff that would get a guy fired... it seems pretty crazy that anyone would be either surprised nor scandalized by a sports reporter whose ambition is to perhaps work for a major league team. After the press conference, the Mets owner basically said that, sure, the reporter had made some general inquiries about how a writer might one day transition into working for a team, and the reporter said, sure, he's asked around and had conversations with people about that... but no one's actually saying his stories haven't been accurate, or that he's done anything but a good job covering the Mets... so what's the big deal? A beat reporter spends six months out of the year following the team, talking to people, and, since he's a human being, I'm sure he ends up having conversations about all sorts of things, including his own career ambitions, and it's not like this is Watergate he's reporting on, while trying to figure out a way to work in the Nixon White House.... Bizarre.
3. I'm sure these commercials have been on forever but I haven't noticed until the other day -- a commercial for Toaster Strudel, where they tear down Pop Tarts, saying Toaster Strudel is so much more awesome and why would anyone eat dry cardboardy Pop Tarts. I haven't eaten either one in 15 years, but, sure Toaster Strudel might be tastier, but it also (a) requires a toaster, and (b) has the lamest name in the world. If they want to make it appeal to kids, stop calling it Strudel and change the name to Pastry Pockets, or even Toaster Danish or Hot Jam Sandwich, or Frosted Fruit Packs. I don't know. Strudel sounds like something for the elderly. (although I admit I like strudel.)
4. Nina and I went raspberry picking at a farm in Westchester on Saturday, since it was her only day off of the week and we figured it'd be fun to get out of the city. It was fun, and the raspberries were good-- except you'd think they could charge less than $6/pint since you're doing all the work for them and there's no middle man, no? Anyway, with our $12 worth of raspberries, we made a raspberry spoon bread (like a big muffin) and had the rest of the berries in cereal and on their own. They were very good. Berry picking is fun, and tasty.
5. Three books I finished in the past week. First, "Patient by Patient" by Emily Transue, about her experiences as a doctor. It's a solid member of the doctor-memoir genre, although I guess I didn't get a ton from it that I hadn't gotten from other similar books I've read. I imagine the audience for books like this are mostly medical students or aspiring medical students, since actual doctors would likely be bored by books about other doctors and experiences similar to their own. But perhaps not. A lot of stuff in the book about the author's grandparents and dealing with their decline, which hit fairly close to home, leading me to...
6. Update on my grandma -- she's been really pretty stable for the past few months, which is good because she's not declining further, but bad because it's more and more apparent that her memory issues aren't going to resolve themselves and she's in a much different place than she was before her stroke last year. I visited her last week and brought our wedding pictures, so she could see-- and we got a lot of great shots of her with me, which are great to have-- and she sort of remembered being at the wedding but sort of didn't, and every page I had to re-explain who people were and what these were pictures of.... I try to talk to her every day on the phone, and there are days that are better than others, days she's aware that she's having trouble with her memory and days she isn't, days she remembers something about what's going on in her life or my life and days she merely remembers who I am and that she loves talking to me but doesn't really remember a lot about much. So it's hard, because she used to be such a part of my life and a source of advice and now she can't really be that, and it's frustrating. But for now she feels okay physically and is getting out of the house when the weather permits, and her aide takes her to the botanic gardens or the library and she's happy... which is all I can really hope for at this point.
7. The other books I recently finished-- Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. A great read, along the same lines as Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely and The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow. Really enjoyed Nudge, was glad I finally got to the top of the library wait list and was able to read it.
8. And yesterday just finished As They See 'Em, by Bruce Weber, a book about major league umpires, the umpire training school, and how it's not as easy as it looks. That will either sound interesting or it won't-- if it does, it's a good read.
9. I'm still trying to figure out what my life ought to look like now that I'm back in New York. I'm writing some new material, and making decent progress with it, but after my two years in LA, and the year of Anon Lawyer book writing before that, I'm genuinely tired of sitting in front of my computer all day and trying to write. I did my best work when writing was something I did out of passion coming from other things I was doing in my life-- like law school. I've been networking a little bit and trying to figure out some projects to be working on besides my own writing, whether that's somewhere in media or marketing, or something outside the box completely. Part of what I'm struggling with is a lack of defined focus-- it's hard for me to make the case for someone to help me find opportunity X when I don't know what that is. I do know I want to be working with smart people on projects where I feel like I'm adding value and making some sort of an impact somewhere. But everyone wants that, and it's too generic to be of use. I e-mailed some private high schools to see if they could use me to teach a class. I've talked to some folks in advertising to see if there might be a fit somewhere. But I bring a varied enough set of experiences to the table-- author, law school, blogging, some TV experience, some software marketing experience before law school, some publishing experience on the editorial side-- that it doesn't really form a straight line toward anything, and at least at the gatekeeper level, it's not a resume that makes sense to pass on for a recruiter swimming in resumes that make a lot more direct sense for any particular position. Not sure why I'm necessarily throwing that out there, except to say, if there's a way you could use me, or an idea you've got for who might be able to, I'm all ears. The longer Nina's days in the hospital get, the more I start to go stir-crazy in my apartment-- which is my own fault and completely solvable, except I haven't solved it yet.
10. Dating In The Dark on ABC -- caught much of last night's episode, where people go on dates in a dark room and then see what the people look like. I expected so much worse -- I expected Beauty and The Geek, in the dark -- but it was actually kind of perfectly fine-looking people, being matched up with each other... but then I wasn't sure why they needed the gimmick at all. Why not just let them see each other? What point was being proven? They might have liked each other just fine without the gimmick anyway. I don't know if I have a point there.
