And my purse isn't even all that big

Inspired by The Hairpin, here are the contents of my handbag:

Outside pocket #1:
-black leather gloves (for when it gets cold at night.)
-purple cloth hat (for rainy days/cold weather. Yes, I'm in California. What?)
-tiny umbrella (from Target. It is only six inches when folded up. I love it. I don't like being wet, ok?)
-pepper spray (girly pink. a gift from friends.)
-hair tie
-folded up grocery list

Outside pocket #2:
-one red pen
-this is also the pocket I would keep a book or a magazine or a notebook in, but it doesn't have any of those things right now.

Inside main cavity:
-wallet (with driver's license, debit card, credit card, expired Safeway coupon, library card, AAA card, clipper transit card, gas station receipt, insurance cards, several business cards from friends/acquaintances, two $20 bills, change in coin purse)
-glasses case (with prescription sunglasses, because I'm wearing other glasses, and a cleaning cloth)
-keys
-pouch for iPhone (but phone is not in purse at moment)
-ticket stub (for Black Swan)
-other receipts (Bed Bath & Beyond, DB Shoes, a thai restaurant, two more gas station receipts, two ATM receipts)
-one penny

Inside zipper pocket:
-three battered tampons
-iPhone headphones
-case with tiny screws and screwdriver (for glasses repair)
-keychain pocket knife, in pink (attached to bike lock. I mostly just use the tiny scissors)
-Burt's Bees lip shimmer in watermelon (a little too pink but I still use it)
-moleskin rectangle (for blister prevention)
-one band-aid
-LipSyl lip balm in honey rose (smells nice)
-Jane mineral lip balm in brown sugar
-Clinique lipstick in currant stain (very bright, orange-y red. when I want to get Fancy)
-one lactase tablet (I'm holding it for a friend)
-emery board

A new issue of There!

The most recent issue of There is now up!

Check out new work from Dean Brink, Jeff Crouch, Lara Durback, Melissa
Eleftherion, Mark Stephen Finein, Crag Hill, Carrie Hunter, erica
lewis, Anne Elezabeth Pluto, Francis Raven, Christopher Rizzo, Sam
Schild, Jennifer Styperk, and Nicolette Westfall.

So much to do

We leave for Italy in less than a month. I am so excited about this trip (our plan is to visit Rome and the Amalfi Coast) — and I have so much to do before we go!

As I've previously mentioned, the new issue of There is soon to launch. I just have to have the latest issue live before we leave. I'm also planning to do a launch party, and I'm casting about for ideas on where to hold it. (Can I host it at home? Is that crazy? The place is actually pretty nice for entertaining.)

I'm also working on a cover story on sovereign wealth funds for The Institutional Real Estate Letter – North America (is that a mouthful, or what?), and the story is due Friday. As I've already told the editor, there is just no way it will be done by then. But the publication ships in a couple weeks — and my cover is going to have to be in it.

And then there's all the little things that have to be readied before we leave town — like getting travel-size bottles and photocopies of our passports.

Also, I just have to hope that no major volcanic activity happens between now and mid-June.

About that fallow period

Almost a year ago, I wrote a post "In praise of the fallow period", where I noted I'd been not-writing for a year. And while this blog hasn't had much activity since then, at least I have started writing again (I've gone back to the Pythia Says project, or rather, I'm doing something in dialogue with it), and a new issue of There is just around the corner.

No, really! It will be out soon (by June at the latest).

The gap in production of There can be explained by my desire to give the site a redesign. I'd hacked the thing together with some very basic Dreamweaver templates, and I really wanted to do something a little more sophisticated for the next issue. You would think, given that I'm living with a "senior web developer", that this would be easy.

So when I talked with Adam about this, oh, months ago, he basically handed me a book on HTML/CSS and said to get started on it. Now, I should say, this is probably why I love him. Instead of just building my website for me (as he has done for friends of mine! I should add), he wanted to give me the tools to build it myself. Which is a much slower process! And he hasn't been totally hands-off; he is building the complicated homepage that I wanted, and he's given some tips and done some PHP coding.

Still, I am going to use the "I had to learn CSS to get the new issue out" excuse whenever I'm asked about the very large gap between this issue and the previous.

One thing after another

We've finally made our long-awaited, much-discussed move: to a townhouse on the Oakland/Emeryville border. It's a very nice unit, with all sorts of features that we've never had before, and the neighborhood has, so far, not caused any problems. That's the funny thing about a place like Oakland. We're in between San Pablo Avenue and Market Street, and although they're only a few blocks apart, they're worlds away from each other.

Still, the process of moving has so many details! And so much goes wrong! And every victory seems to come with another setback. In the setbacks column: our hot water has gone out, twice; ants, a lot of them; complications with the internet hook-up; plus we had to spend a day and a half cleaning our old apartment just to get it presentable enough to get the security deposit back. And each of those setbacks has delayed our ability to get unpacked and moved in to this new apartment.

But finally, one week in, I am sitting at a desk in the spare bedroom/my office. And we have the DSL and the wi-fit set up, and I am finally able to once again telecommute (or blog, as the case may be). So maybe I'm gonna make it after all.

Planned is Here (There?) Everywhere

It's official: There is now a book publisher. I've taken delivery of two heavy boxes filled with Sarah Trott's Planned. You can still pre-order with free shipping until midnight.

Writing and the internet

There is something happening at the margins today, something happening just outside my field of vision, and when I turn in its direction, it moves just out of sight again. And in the meantime, I am fitting together other thoughts.

Item 1. Ben Kunkel's "Lingering" essay, which has many interesting things to say about the internet and such as, including "If you want to make a culture your own, you have to make your own culture, and not just repurpose the productions of people with more capital (or contribute marginalia to news stories)." And also, "Bloggers on the whole write carelessly, their ideas are commonplace, they curry favor with readers and one another, and their popularity is no index of their worthiness."

Item 2. Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I find Didion to be a touchstone for me, nevermind the perception of middlebrowness that she has accumulated over time. And I spent a couple hours this afternoon reading parts of that essay collection, and felt this passage from the preface to be especially apt:

What else is there to tell? I am bad at interviewing people. I avoid situations where I have to talk to anyone's press agent. (This precludes doing pieces on most actors, a bonus in itself.) I do not like to make telephone calls, and would not like to count the mornings I have sat on some Best Western motel bed somewhere and tried to force myself to put through the call to the assistant district attorney. My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is the last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.