November 2008
60 posts
Review: Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember... →
Could this be my new (old) favourite book? It could, it could!
“Q: Your other film, which is out in February, “She’s Just Not That Into You,” is...”
– Jennifer Aniston interviewed here (via gauntlet)
Post my last proper break-up, a rather ouchy dumping that prompted me to stay up all night, phoning friends in different time zones as the night wore on, my lovely friend Emily (in New York, probably needing to go to bed as the sun came up in London)...
Happy Birthday, Arthur
Today is my brother’s 30th birthday. I don’t think he reads my blog (at least, Google Analytics doesn’t seem to think so) but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t get an appropriate post in tribute. Pretty much all of my earliest memories have bits of Arthur - of course they do, because of course all I wanted to do from the time I could stand up was follow him around....
Tomorrow will be the eighth Thanksgiving that I have spent not only away from home, but in a foreign country. This is most notable not because I miss my family - oh, of course I do, but I see them at other times which is nice - but because each year I find myself in a bizarre search for distinctly American foods, or as my friend Ben calls them, ‘not-foods’. Somehow, these comestible...
I am really stressed
Trying to get to Edinburgh next weekend to see my sister. Flying is cheaper than taking the train, but it is still hugely expensive. Of course what I really should do is take a bus, but the last time I did that, we had to pull over for hours on the way there so that a woman could be rescued by air ambulance. As if that wasn’t traumatising enough, on the way back the people sitting behind me...
What if they bottled it?
tumblelikeyougiveadamn: Listening to The New Yorker: Out Loud and wishing I still got the magazine.
One thing I like especially about the New Yorker is its distinctive smell. Do you think if you could listen to the podcast while inhaling the scent of the paper and the glue - Eau de New Yorker, if you will - it would do the trick? This, as well as my idea for the laminated bathtub edition, is...
It got cold in London this weekend: London cold, which is a lot less cold than the Montreal cold I once mastered, but still, cold. You would think, after living in my current flat for three years, that I would have learned to master the radiators? You would, you would! But I have not. Every winter, I remember that I don’t know how to use them, but then I also remember that the landlord is...
Post-partum
I sent my editors a draft of my book yesterday, before going to work, and am thus feeling the requisite mixture of elation and depression. What am I going to live for, now that I’m done writing? Answer: hour upon hour of revisions, of course! Yay.
Anyway, I am excited in an almost creepy way about tomorrow, when I am going to wake up early and make a list of all of the things I have to do...
“As Mr. Obama prepares to take office, I wish I could say that smart people have...”
– Op-Ed Columnist: Obama and the War on Brains (via somethingchanged)
Oh, come on! I, too, have occasionally employed ludicrous illustrations like this to prove a weak point before (deadline presses, I need the money, oh dear) but this is perfectly silly.
“The latest is the Aussies’ ingenious “muffin effect”, whereby you know the...”
– BAD IDEA magazine | Desperate Economic Indicators: Muffins, iPods, Starbucks, Lipstick
I love the word ‘muffin’. I also love muffins, good ones. But I love them so much get really traumatised when they are bad - if I am going to consume 600 calories in muffin form, they’d better...
“Mr. Obama: There sometimes it’s soothing to wash the dishes.
Michelle...”
– The Obamas On Their Personal Transition, Talk About Their Family’s Move To The White House, And Efforts To Preserve Sense Of Normalcy - CBS News
Oh, adorable.
“Yes, rickety sounds rickety to an Anglophone, but to a speaker of Swahili or...”
– Limning Language
I am learning so much about language from my wee sister’s blog!
I am so sad....
…that I wasted my first five years in London, without a bicycle. Frustrated beyond belief by writing this afternoon, I took Attitude out for a spin down Regent’s Canal to Limehouse. Not only did this dispel my writerly angst, but along the way I saw all sorts of marvellous things in my neighbourhood that I’d never discovered before, even though I’ve lived here for over...
Change your bookmarks...
…I mean, if you have them. I feel presumptuous to insinuate that you might. Anyway, I am changing things up with my eponymous website - it will obviously still belong to me, but if you want to continue to follow my blog (and I certainly hope you do), the address will be http://jeanhannah.tumblr.com. Yay.
“Dear Jean,
I am contacting you to let you know of the upcoming 800th...”
– Dear Cambridge University, I think you need to hire a new PR.
“Only the smallest details are excluded; traffic tickets carrying fines of less...”
– For a Washington Job, Be Prepared to Tell All - NYTimes.com
On the West Wing, wasn’t there a character whose job it was to write the jokes for the presidential speeches? I want to be that person in the Obama administration! It would be a new dawn for American irony. Sadly, however, I once got...
Laura Bush to publish memoirs before President... →
I wonder if she’ll be accused of plagiarising American Wife?
“I find that sitting at a table opposite three Ernest Hemingway lookalikes...”
– Extremely excellent comment on my post on writing processes.
“But the best thing I discovered was the fake commute, recommended by a...”
– Routine inquiries: what goes into a writing ‘process’? | Books | guardian.co.uk
“Now wipe away those tears and follow me please down to the hotel restaurant. As...”
– E-Day in Erbil, Iraq, by Sebastian.
WatchSadly (for me, not for her, as she is going to have a great time), lovely flatmate Bex has decided to return to the Antipodes in January. So I am going to have to move.
Happily, chances are that it will be to a place where water comes out when you turn on the tap.
Thank you!
To everyone who wrote and offered advice and assistance for the design of my new website…all sorted now. Watch this space!
Help, please, Internet-savvy folk
Internet-y people: I want to make a new website for professional purposes - I’ll carry on blogging, but I want to re-design my site so that it focuses more on my work and less on my newfound interest in cycling safety gear. I’d like something not dissimilar to Seb’s website, perhaps, albeit with text instead of photos.
And thus my question: how best can one make a basic website...
“Her résumé is similarly unexpected: A Rhodes scholar and an Oxford Ph.D., she’s...”
– The Secret to Rachel Maddow’s Success — New York Magazine
I am, from afar, a big fan of Rachel Maddow, but why does every profile of a person with an impressive job have to include this litany of crap things that they did before they had an impressive job? I mean, it is hardly...
“They’ll be sorry when I’m a famous auth…er, medium-successful...”
– Me, to Lauren, trying not to jinx myself.
I went out to the Co-op this evening to pick up some food for dinner. On the way there a man stopped me to ask me for directions.
‘Excuse me. Do you know where Barclay Street is?’ he said. I wrinkled my forehead.
‘Actually, I don’t,’ I said.
‘Are you AMERICAN?’ he said, and the only way to describe it is to say that his face lit up with pure,...
What Obama's win means for science →
He’s going to fix SCIENCE too.
(via sasharappaport)
VERKLEMPT
It’s the only appropriate word to describe my feelings right now.
I will write more when I have had some sleep.
Today, Dadelstein blogs too. →