random acts

if i am dead or missing

I wanted some Law & Order-style crime drama, but it ended up being the profiles of sisters from an abusive family whose choice in men continued the cycle of abuse. I learned about that lesson from Oprah a long time ago. The lady can write though, her story just wasn't all that interesting.
C+

fall movie line-up

Not that I ever actually go to the movies, but if I did:


INSANITY


I stopped watching when he hit a nerve.



The Crush + Center Stage + Virgin Suicides = A+



This seems like a birthday present to me from the universe. I love owls, I love IMAX, and I love 3-D. Plus, Emilie de Ravin is in it & I like to support Lost alumni.

no huh

I am so sad to miss Fest this year.

*start the video at 2.09

pug beach city

Gigl wanted to go to the beach.



The Peace Garden.



The harbor.


Pugs at the beach.


Gigl in the lake.


Kate got loose again.

a pancake is not a mcnugget

*wait til 1.06

my pets

oh me


oh my

I want to go to this island on my honeymoon.

mirror mirror on the wall

oh hello, fairest of them all.

mellow yellow

I sold this bike:

It was the first big-purchase I ever made, seeing as I spent the entirety of my sixth-grade graduation money on this bike. It was a huge disappointment though, because the bike I ordered was Army Green and this one was Fire Engine Red. I was too excited to wait for the right one to be shipped in, so I said ok to red. That was a decision I regretted for the next decade or so. It was a good bike for Delaware, the Valley, etc., and the places I used to ride with my dad while he ran.

During the period in York where I was bored/crafty and bored/painted-everything-yellow, I made over this bike:
(I forgot to take a before picture)


My family vacationed most summers at Ocean City, NJ, and those vacations always included early-morning bike-rides on the boardwalk. One year, my mom really fell in love with the boardwalk biking and my dad bought her this bike so she could ride all year long. She didn't really ride that much, so let me make it over from blue to banana while in York. It is a better bike for city-riding than my old mountain bike. I broke it in yesterday riding to Staples, and today riding to T-Mobile/all along the Lake.

The other bike will always have better memories,
but this one is so much prettier.
Biking in Chicago is a new kind of stressful,
but someone always hammered into my head to look both ways.

roof wars

Holly Oak: Wilmington, DE
Holly Oak will always be my favorite roof because the millions of perfect hours spent there would be really hard to outshine.


Washington House: Newark, DE
The fact that my mom's condo in Newark had such a nice roofdeck (or 4) was a really nice surprise.


Nice tomato plants.


The second mermaid chair I have encountered.

The Markle Residence: New York City
My roof in New York was one that I heavily occupied. One of my favorite things about that roof was that I never had to share it with anyone. It was usually just me, my bag of crap, and a phone. I made so many phone calls to so many people...my sick dad, phone interviews, my oldest & newest friends. The best thing was the view. To describe the greatness of that view would be like trying to take a picture of lightning. That roof had three stories that you had to climb terrifying ladders to scale, but that was a baby price for getting to hold on to that view for a minute.

Oh hello, so very sub-par cell phone pic.

West Sheridan: Chicago
This Chicago roof has a lot of other people on it all the time, which is not awesome. But it does have a great view, in a completely different way than New York. To the left, you can see the Lake & to the right, you can see the Cubs stadium.


First impression.


Right-on baseball face.


Pretty sun.

zoning laws.

First thoughts on moving to Chicago: I dislike the time change. All of my moves in these recent years have still kept me in the eastern time zone. And with my nocturnal habits, it would be so much easier to be an hour later than an hour earlier than the east coast.


My pretty street! It does kind of make up for the time zone issues.

go budget or go home

My truck but not my house, even though it has my name on it.


Thank you for guarding my worldly possessions, G-force.


Amish traffic jam.


Hello, feminine moving truck.


Self-explanatory


Gigl making out with the Budget AC.


Hello, new city.

newark library

Four Christmases


I thought it could go either way, and I liked it more than I expected.
B+

The Last Kiss.

Less RomCom, more serious relationship thought-movie. It was ok. I like Zach Braff, Rachel Bilson's face, and the soundtrack. It wasn't all that fresh, insightful, or stylish though. But I do love that Zach Braff loves Turin Brakes & my favorite part was the end credits because of this song:

C

DNT EEC

On the drive out of York, we stopped to look at the Early Ed Center that was named for my dad and was his last big project. I could tell it was his work because it had trademark floor plan with a multi-purpose room in the middle, classrooms around the outside of the building, and the main office as soon as you walk in. It was clean, well-excecuted and had nice tile floors. I approve.


Classroom.


That's what he said.


Midgy dining hall.


In-door playground.


Outdoor playground that looks like an indoor playground.


Yes, I am.


Teacher's room.


Gillymonster.


All the little children.

dear john

I hate it when movies change the endings of the books that inspired them. However, in this movie's case, I preferred the movie ending over the book ending. Which was an unsettling realization to make.

B

moving day

Byebye York, PA:



Hello Newark, DE:

PHL-CHC

I went to Chicago with my mom to find an apartment.
I need to move to Chicago & have no explanation as to why except that it is:


Another reason:

LNC-NYP

Went to NYC



I had lovely times at the Met.
It was not very crowded at Versailles that day.


So much to say.
No time/energy to say it.
Sham on NYC, I miss you a little bit and maybe will forever.

buffalo lockjaw

I think some houses shoud get funerals. Favorite bedrooms deserve obituariaries. Certain kitchens have earned memorials. Instead we just walk away from the wrecks like amnesiacs.

This is the last book I read from the York library.

A+

19 mins

I had complicated feelings going into this book. I remember a long time ago, my dad had this book and I read the inside cover and thought it sounded like it could be good but probably wasn't. This was before I loved Jodi and my dad hadn't said he was wowed, so we the book got lumped into the donate pile. That book is probably the same one I took out of the libary to read. It made me sad to think of though, partly because anything with a dad association has a cloud around it, and partly because I wish I had read it back in the day so I could have talked to him about it. Moral of the story: always read the book.
It was a good one. There is something about school shootings that make for the best fiction, IMO. I guess because you are guaranteed a good court tangle, extreme characters, backstories/flashbacks, and just the drama of it from every angle. This book was a prime example of how JP takes seemingly straight-up situations and floods you with the specifics from life that make the unthinkable kind of understandable. She recycled two good characters fromo other books and those two characters were my stand-out favorites. I liked or loved it, but there was something about the ending that didn't click well for me.
B+

songs from humpback whale

Let me tell you a little something about love. It's different everytime. It's nothing more than a chemical reaction, an arrow over an equation, but the elements change. The most fragile kind of love is that between a man and a woman. Chemistry, again: if you introduce a new element, you never know how stable the original bond is. You may wind up with a new union, with something left behind. I believe that you can fall in love many times with many different people. However I don't think that you can fall in love the same way twice. One type of relationship my be steady. Another may be fire and brimstone. Who is to say if one of these is better than the other? The deciding factor is how it all fits together. Your love, I mean, and your life.
The problem is that when you're old enough to really find a soulmate, you're already carrying around all this extra baggage. Like where you grew up, and how much money you make, and whether you like the city or the country. And sometimes, most of the time, you fall really hard for someone who you just can't squeeze into the limits of your life. The bottom line is: when your heart sets its sights on someone, it doesn't consult with your mind.

Not my favorite JP. It felt like the leftovers from too many other books that were smushed together and made a meal that lacked order and originality. It lacked that awkwardness that is necessary for the characters to feel real and the plot to seem plausible. It felt like it could have been her first book.
B-