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2006-05-30 - 11:45 p.m. It just got hot. The beginnings of a lifestyle (and I like lists): Sweating through my shirts on the ride home in the afternoons, helped by the vinyl bench seat. Commerce: I've been trying--and failing--for weeks to buy a particular camera on eBay. I bought twelve rolls of 800-speed film the other day. I was the only bidder. I paid $9.95 for the shipping and $0.01 for the film. I don't understand that slice of economics, but the fact remains that I got the film in the mail and I'm excited because I've never shot with that stuff before. I did some research, though, and it'll come out grainy. I like the possibilites of shooting in low light. I don't know how to use a flash properly. We're talking of going to Ireland in October. She's got friends who just moved to County Cork. I've been to Vancouver, but that's it. Media notes: The New Yorker's been running some pretty great short stories the past month or two. My favorite in a long time is Steven Millhauser's story from five or six weeks ago. It's about a miniature-maker. A guy who builds tiny versions of things for the king. It's tight as a jewelry box and just whistles. The last sentence knocked me in my gut. I finally bought some Broken Social Scene albums after digging on "7/4 Shoreline" for a long time and, like a lot of straight-indie bands, it seems that I like one or two songs per album. I'm giving them an especially long try, however, because I like those one or two songs a lot. After stalling on "Never Let Me Go" a few months ago, I finished the last few chapters. Motherfucker. I'm still a little sad after that one. I told myself I was going to read it for the craft and not for the story, but the story won. It broke my heart a little. Such sustained melancholy. Reminded me, in theme, of "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Liked "Middlesex." Reminded me of "Kavalier and Clay." Me notes: I got a rejection from The New Yorker much sooner than expected. This is absolutely no surprise. Ostensibly, I sent it to the Shouts and Murmurs section, but there's no telling who actually read the first paragraph. I've thumb-tacked their slip to my bedroom door so that everyone can see that I get elegantly rejected. Had a phone interview for a lecturer position at the school where I got my grad degree. I did fine and it pays substantially more than I thought it would, but I'm pretty sure I don't want the job. I'm back home and I don't want to move back to a town I never liked all that much (and which carries some tough recent memories for me) for a job that will help me only fractionally more than my current path: working a straight crap job and teaching a section of English composition once a week. I do hope that they ask me down for an on-campus interview, though, so that I have a reason to get my books and basketball shoes and pots and pans out of my friend's storage space. I hope he hasn't thrown them away. Went to the zoo on Monday. With glass in between, we got about three feet from a male chimpanzee. Chimpanzees are amazing. Their deltoids and biceps and forearms scare me in a primal way. Giraffes got close. Mountainous gray rhinos slept in the shade. Same for a lion. I can see why there are so many children's books about animals and why children are so drawn to these guys. Beautiful and scary and charismatic because of it. 0 comments so far
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