Weeknight movie night.

Weeknight movie night is just asking for it. Asking for what, you say? I'll tell you: weeknight movie night is asking for

• fat traffic all the way down the freeway spine of the valley, from south to north.
• once you get downtown, no place to park WHY.
• people waving their leisurely online ticket printouts at the ticket taker, all please scan this in a leisurely fashion while I am waiting with my fuming IRL ticket that I just bought with money at the booth LET ME IN, dammit!

Okay, weeknight movie night, maybe I was a tiny bit too stressed for your action packed lifestyle.

On the other hand, I did get to see Spotlight for the second time with one of my favorite work friends, and she did wear pink velvet shoes, which I totally coveted and simultaneously renounced in my mind because you can't really buy pink velvet shoes when your friend bought them first, it just wouldn't be right. AND the movie was just as brill as I remember it being, maybe even more so, AND I totally recognized the voice of an actor who only did voice work in the movie (he was talking to a reporter, in several scenes, on the phone), even though he was uncredited! 

When I got home, I had to collapse in front of my laptop and do the following:

• respond to panicky student emails
• send my manuscript to a competition
• send a packet of poems to an illustrious journal that's just going to reject them anyway, and probably after a freaking leisurely period of time 
• make several lists
• etc.

"I shouldn't have gone to the movie," I said to the historian, as I was getting on my take-the-dog-for-a-walk-in-the-wintertime boots (they are so choice, but they are NOT pink velvet). "I actually knew I shouldn't go before I even went. But I went anyway, so."

"Well," he said, without drawing a conclusion, at least not explicitly. But, you know. I kind of got his gist. 

And then we went for a walk in the wintertime. And now I shall complete the remainder of my agenda, deferred because of weeknight movie going shenanigans, but hey, it was worth it! Probably! Draw your own conclusions!

Things I love.

1. Finding a five-dollar bill in the pocket of a coat I haven't worn since last fall.

2. Discovering that the crazy leopard print canvas oxford shoes I bought two years ago are all of a sudden the cutest shoes in the whole wide world.

Today is the day

I got caught up, or got started on the get-caught-up project.

Today is the day I received lavender shoes in the mail.

Today is the day I made sloppy joe (I don't think it needs a plural, do you?) for homeless guys. (join this project--it's a good one!).

Today's the day I realized yet again that I find watching the Jazz play in high stakes games almost unbearable. Never mind that a Chauncey Billups/D Will matchup is kind of awesomely watchable. If only I could stand to watch.

Today is the day I was home, quiet, working, with Bruiser--presentiment of summer.

Today, two poems, neither of them much to speak of. Today, no (visible) snakes.

Thirteen ways of looking at April 13.

1. Pancakes for breakfast.

2. I got to wear my yellow coat.

3. New poem.

4. However, odd poem.

5. Walk with Bruiser in the cold.

6. Escaped from challenging meeting dignity etc. intact.

7. Saw Dr. Write at her signing. Huzzah!

8. Rose to the challenge of making dinner after long day.

9. Inspiring homemade mac and cheese--perhaps the best ever made by anyone, ever? Perhaps.

10. Cute shoes.

11. The historian greeted me when I got home.

12. I shall arise early to greet the dawn and also the Board of Trustees on the morrow.

13. In the meanwhile, I shall sleep. Huzzah!

Hightouchmegastore: The Quarterly Review.

My day's activities, rated on a five point scale.

Sex and the City, viewed in the afternoon with Dr. Write: ****1/2
My new haircut: *****
Lunch at Big City Soup: *****
Getting the stuff on my "To Do" list done (bills, library books, buying snacks for the road, list-making itself): *****
Returning library books on time, no fines: *****
Loading stuff onto iTunes: **** (one cd caused my cd-rom player to make a terrifying grinding noise)
Syncing my iPod (music collection now measurably more awesome): *****
Bruiser out for some exercise: *****
My packing plan (to be executed in the morning): *****
My outfit (polka dot sweater, yeah!): *****
Cute but also comfortable shoes: *****1/2

Comprehensive review of today: *****!

[Scale: * = abysmal
** = abysmal, and one
*** = level-ish
**** = darn good
***** = stellar]

Surprise shoes.

I'm taking things a little at a time. For instance, yesterday, it seemed to me that one way to make a little headway in my study would be to organize some stuff. Okay, organize my shoes. And it did help. Approximately fifty percent of my study is sorted, organized, possibly tidy, and I can visualize and then put my hands on any pair of the shoes in that closet.

Today, I started in on the shoes in my regular closet (as opposed to those in my auxiliary closet, see above). Which yielded an unexpected benefit--two pairs of shoes I had totally forgotten I owned.

One pair I wore today down to my sister's house for a big family gathering--a pair of open toed pumps with a stiletto heel and some kind of fake jewel ornamentation. They are probably black, but to me they look a little bit navy, so that's what I call them. They are swell. I bought them at T.J. Maxx for the kind of price that makes you buy stiletto heels with fake jewels on them--cheap. I figured I could easily get $20 of pleasure out of them, and I was right, even before I forgot I had them. Now I'll probably get twice the value out of them. Thrice the value, even.

Finding the other pair made me feel a little chagrined. I bought them in the U.K. the last time I was there. They are very cute, blue, with a reasonably not-too-high heel, a strap and a big button. They are Mary Janes, in effect. With a big button. Just this week, I saw a young woman wearing a pair of shoes like these with jeans, and I thought, Cute! then, I wish I had shoes like that! and then again: I wonder where I could find some?