December | 2001 | Nil By Mouth

Today i made this :

It is a collection of the characters “O” “6″ “8″, and “Q” in the font Roundhouse that are duplicated, flipped around, beveled, plastic wrapped, and drop-shadowed beyond recognition. I don’t really know why i spent half my day on this. I originally wanted to just make the words “Tasty Christmas Candy” in a funky font with a lot of tacky filters… and somehow… this happened. It kind of reminds me of vomit, except cleaner.

But hey, it’s in the shape of France.

Dec 21
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Ordinarily something like the Winter

Ordinarily something like the Winter Solstice means nothing to me. I leave that type of earth worship to the hippie types who pilgrimage out to Venice Beach drum circles. But this year i am anticipating it like any kid does Christmas. The solstice, the longest night/shortest day of the year is December 21/22. This of course means that after tomorrow night, the days will get progressively longer, the nights progressively shorter. The solstice means that soon i may be able to emerge from my office with some sunlight left in the sky. It means that when my alarm rings at 8am, there might be some light shafts in my bedroom. The winter daylight in Paris is so sparse. I can understand here, now, why one would celebrate the solstice. But in LA, the seasonal difference in hours of daylight is pretty minimal. It’s been awhile since i lived there, but i’d guess not more than 45 minutes difference on either end, if even that. But then again, i always find drum circle hippies just a touch misguided. Anyhow, this year i’m going to celebrate. There aren’t too many people around right now, but i will do something special tomorrow night. And then i’ll write about it.

Speaking of Venice Beach, my dad and his friend are coming to visit for the triage of holidays known as Christmas->My Birthday->New Year’s. His soft California hide is gonna freeze to bits here. I told him to pack like he was going skiing. This is all we southern Californians know of cold weather, but as i know now, pretty-vacation-skiing cold is kinda different from dreary-regular-city cold. Where you need not only be prepared for a biting cold outside, but for a sweltering metro ride, a lukewarm restaurant, and plenty of walking. He has lived in cold climes before, but 20+ years in SoCal might dry up those defenses.

Dec 20
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Whenever i walk by this

Whenever i walk by this poster of Elijah Wood in Lord of the Rings, for at least a second i think it’s Winona Ryder. Am i alone?

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Also, as a revision to my old lady evening last night, i did end up going out and having a nice evening of fresh veggies and wine. Nils helped me practice my pronunciation of Rue Roi de Sicile which is the cross street for my apartment. The “r”s on rue and roi just kill me. And it would simplify my life quite a bit if i could make myself understood when explaining where i live to somebody. I did make some progress on being able to do that purring r sound thanks to Janine. I can’t tell you how many times i’ve longed to purr at someone, and came up short. The thing with purring, is you absolutely must do it right, or you look like a real big dope.

When working on the “rue”s and “roi”s, it reminded me of when i was in speech therapy in elementary school for my “s”s and “l”s. It still strikes me as sort of weird that the miracle of communication can really be boiled down to something very physical, like where your tongue touches your teeth, the shape of your mouth, and how much air you’re blowing during a particular sound.

Dec 20
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We had our office Christmas

We had our office Christmas party this afternoon. Here in France, there’s no beating around the bush, naming things Holiday this and Holiday that. It’s plain old Christmas. It was passably fun. I did manage to cross the line on the fois gras. Yum! One of those things you either love or hate. At the moment it’s sitting in my stomach a bit uncomfortably. I cut out early, which i’m not sure was ok. But i really don’t have too much school spirit right now. I left while everyone was finishing off the champagne and gathered around the new foozball table. In French it is “Baby Foot”, as in baby football (soccer). Things are pretty tenuous at the company, and i do think that the foozball table may have lifted the atmosphere considerably. Maybe it was the booze.

I also bailed out on a going away party night for one of my coworkers. I’m not sure what it is, but i am uncharacteristically not in a party mood these days. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Drinking and chatty small talk just ain’t holding the same allure. Instead it’s lemon tea and an old episode of This American Life on Real Player. I also want to post a link to this blog by Amy which i stumbled upon yesterday. It’s really good.

Dec 19
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Buck? Maggy? Euro Needs Handle,

Buck? Maggy? Euro Needs Handle, Too

Imagine, 12 new sets of slang will have to be developed for the Euro on Jan 1. What a time to be alive.

Dec 18
594 Comments

It’s been awhile since any

It’s been awhile since any meaningful posts have shown up around here. I’m not sure if there are any really good explanations for this. Today i am sort of in the dumps. Culprit numero uno this week is my job. I’ll just say it weighs heavy on my psyche and leave it at that. But of course this could all be accentuated by the double dose of PMS i find myself with.

The good news is that I may have spontaneously developed a social life. This past weekend we went to Parc de la Villette. The tagline reads, “Jardin Des Cultures” [Garden of Culture]. Ambitious. According to the site it used to be a slaughterhouse, which fits in with the total random jumble of stuff that it is. This place was way weird folks, but really really cool and trippy. Some highlights include a garden of mirrors, garden of same-sized and manicured “rolling” hills, gigantic buried bicycle, frozen water art, mirrored geodesic dome, a lot of children, 2 enormous exhibition halls, and the circus tent we went to for shopping/cabaret/wine. I took a few pics i’ll put up soon. The only thing missing was hallucinogenics, but hey, that’s so new economy. There was also practically no one there, which surely added to the coolness. I’m guessing no one was picnicking in the trippy gardens because it was insanely freezing. But some of us are brave. (Note: There was a lot of whining.)