My Friday Six seems to have gone on holiday. I’m not sure how this has come about. At least it wasn’t my whole blog like this writer’s.
My commitment to a non-materialistic Thoreau-ish lifestyle also seems to have gone on holiday as I’ve been getting ready for the super fab SCBWI national conference in LA. You really do need to be dressed every single day, I’m pretty sure.
Seems I’m not the only children’s lit person thinking about fashion. I just watched the Newbery/Caldecott On the Red Carpet and it was hilarious!
But when you get fortune cookie fortunes like this one, what are you going to do? Even ancient Chinese wisdom thinks I should be thinking about clothes.
My Oregon Drivers License has been attained! Why is taking an exam and passing it SO satisfying? And why don’t we get to take exams like this in real life all of the time just to get that feeling of Yes, I got them all right!!! I passed! Because that’s just plain fun.
It was a hard test too. Like how many feet behind an ambulance you’re supposed to drive when its siren is on and which way you’re supposed to look when you approach a two way uncontrolled intersection (do you look left first or right first? or one of two other options?) etc. There were only a couple of questions that some of the answers to were actually so ridiculous they made me laugh out loud — maybe it’s growing up in rural Wisconsin, but the possibility that a sign with a leaping deer on it might be to direct the driver to a fun deer viewing party struck me as hilarious. Or that someone wouldn’t know which snowy/icy conditions (on a list of possible snowy/icy conditions) would be the most treacherous. Otherwise, you had to have actually read the handy DMV booklet to pass the test.
You’d expect after such a hard earned win that there would be a nice prize at the end, like a lollipop. Or cake. But no! Instead you have to sit for a photograph to be taken. A photo that will be with you for a looong time, the one second of your life when the shutter of the DMV camera opens haunting you for at least ten years.
I’m not especially vain about this photo — you have no control over it and who cares really? In fact, last time around I said to hell with it, I’m not succumbing to the standards of beauty in MY license photo, and I wore my oldest, ugliest glasses, put my hair back in a messy uncombed tangle, and wore a sweatshirt.* This time, I didn’t make any dramatic efforts in any direction, and just went to the test as is.
Despite not caring too much about how my photo turned out, it was still a bit of a shock when the picture taker took one look at the finished image and yelled “Uugghh!!!” before RUNNING from the room with the photo in his hand. I shouted after him, “Is it really that bad????” But he’d disappeared!!!
When he popped back around he was all, “No, no, you look great, really.” Which was unconvincing to say the least. Turns out the horror was not, in fact, from general photographic hideousness. It was from The Swoop!
If you don’t know what The Swoop is, it is a bit of hair fringe that SWOOPS down in front of one eye. When I first ended up with one, I thought perhaps the purpose was to both blind and irritate the wearer. But, as my harassed hairdresser explained, it is not for this purpose at all. It’s for some kind of sultry look which he didn’t realize I would never be able to pull off. And which, it turns out, is ILLEGAL to have on an Oregon license. By covering one eye, The Swoop messes with their digital imaging/matching software or some such thing so they can’t track you down later if say they’ve caught an image of a mad bomber**Â by comparing the distance between pupils. Who knew that Oregon had such sophisticated (and anti-sultry haircut) systems??? Apparently, the photo man had run off to show the manager my problematic Swoop photo to get permission to do a re-take. I’m not sure that this was actually cause to shout out “Uugghh!!!” but Portland seems to have its fair share of dramatic types.
I definitely feel like I’m an official resident*** now. We even got our vehicle registered and got our new plates. If I were a super nerdy librarian (okay, I am, but nerdier even) I would totally have personalized this exact plate. The letters on it? DUY. Yes, my friends, as in Dewey, the man with his own System. The three numbers also happen to correspond to one of my favorite Dewey sections which I can’t tell you because I think it’s probably a bad thing to advertise around my actual license plate, but I bet some of you could guess. At least I won’t ever forget it.
Bridget
*This backfired. Whenever I tried to use my ugly glasses license, people were all, “Where are the glasses? Are you SURE this is you? Why doesn’t this look like you? Are you hiding something? You look sort of like a mad bomber in this photo. Do you have a secret lab in your basement by any chance?
**I swear I’m not a mad bomber — I don’t even have a basement!
***As official a resident as I can be with only a paper copy of my license. Check back later for the Swoopless photo on my license when I get it in the mail.
If you’re reading this and you don’t have Skype yet, you need it! It’s so, so cool. And so, so free! Say you’re sitting around wasting time on the internet (not that you would ever do such a thing) and you discover this great pair of Corso Como flats with rhinestones in the sole and you need to tell someone about them right away. Of course, you could e-mail them or call them, but that’s so last decade.
Instead, you open your Skype account, click on their name and then a window pops up on their computer saying “Accept or Decline” and when they hit “Accept” (because they were just thinking about you and wanted to tell you about Dr. Horrible because they don’t waste time on the internet either) then you’re hooked up. You just start talking and they can hear everything you say OUT OF THEIR COMPUTERS! I know! So amazing.
And if you hit the button with a video camera on it (and you have a camera in your computer), they can see you too! It’s v. space age. You can be like Mr. Spacely at their home or office. Beware of moving too close to the camera though. This can be an issue when at a loud coffee shop where there’s a musician playing next to you and coffee beans grinding etc. and your partner Skypes you from home and you lean in to be all, “What? Did you really just say you made me cookies?” And your head gets too close to the camera and they end up with something like THIS large screen on their computer:
Scary.
I’m not sure how moving close to a computer camera makes you look not only big but deranged as well (it could be that it’s just me), but to be on the safe side, I’d stay well back.
Just keep this precaution in mind and you too can become an ultra cool Skype user!
Posted in Films, Portland at 7:21 pm by Bridget Zinn
Powell’s had Eoin Colfer, the author of the Artemis Fowl series, in town and we went to see him at the very cool Bagdad Theatre. He is so Irish and SO funny. Some of his stories though — yeesh! They were really, really, really, really gross. Really. In a non-subtle kind of way. I almost threw up. And Barrett caught it on film! There’s the sound of me retching in the background of one of the clips. That story was too gross to post, but here is a funny (and not vomit inducing) clip:
While I haven’t been blogging about them too much lately as moving to Portland has taken over my life, I have been reading a nice supply of books. Not as many as usual maybe since I’ve also been reading Harry Potter since I moved here, so there’s been only so much time to spare for other books. I thought it would be nice to spend some time in that familiar world since everything else around us is new. Hang out with the HP gang and all that.*
When I got to Chapter Twenty Six of Book Six though, I have to admit, I seriously thought about quitting right there. Like when you read the first book in Series of Unfortunate Events and you get to the second to last chapter and it says something along the lines of “And they all lived happily ever after and everything was great. If you want a happy ending, stop here. If you want to know the dreadful thing that happens next read on,” and since I wanted the happy ending I stopped reading right there which pretty much put an end to reading that series since you have to read the last chapter of that book to move on to the next one.
It was just like that with Harry Potter Six. I knew what was going to happen in the rest of Book Six and what was going to happen in Book Seven. But if I quit reading, I could just PRETEND like those thing never happened. I could have my own alternative ending where none of the really horrible stuff happens. In the end, I couldn’t do it. I had to keep reading and I think it may have been slightly less painful this time around. It’s the fourth time I’ve read Book Six (how’d that happen? seriously?), though only the second time I’ve read Book Seven, but knowledge of the horrors to come did give me a bit of a buffer. I was prepared for them (sort of). There are some shining moments in Book Seven and I thoroughly enjoyed those while I was reading them.
Some of the other books I’ve been reading:
Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson. This is one of her new romance novel-esque/historical/European novels that she’s been writing lately and I decided to give one a go. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m not sure that it’s marketed to YA but it’s totally something I would have read when I was that age. It’s sort of a romance novel, but with interesting twists like nudists and suffragette mothers. It was a great summer read and even made me think that I too could enjoy doing laundry and other domestic bits the way the main character does. Sadly, it didn’t work for me, laundry is still boring and I’ve discovered I have little in common with that loveable domestic goddess in the book (even though I really liked her) and probably more in common with the super evil opera singer Brigitta (our names are almost the same so really I never stood a chance) except without the tremendous talent Brigitta has. But given the option between being carried around on a litter and hanging out in villas or doing the laundry and selflessly cooking in the basement for a million people, I’m pretty sure which one I’d choose. I like cooking, but think about all those dishes!
The Underneath by Kathi Appelt. This is a mid-grade novel and somehow this book really sunk into me. I’d heard people talking about it, but hadn’t really known what to expect and I’m not sure if you can give a description of it that does it justice. There’s something folk-taley about it, but like an older, darker folktale where you aren’t sure that everything is going to turn out all right but you get pulled in by the fabulous characters anyway (even if you are prone to liking happy endings like I am). The main characters are, I have to admit, animals, but they’re so much more. I love that hound. And the kitties. I’ve never heard purring described so well or had a description so accurately convey just what purring is. It takes place in the bayou. I don’t know, I think you have to read it yourself to get it. Although I did tell Barrett the whole book from start to finish and quoted a few of my favorite sections and he’s still talking about it and asking me questions about Garr Face, so maybe it’s more pervasive than just the words on the page.
Let’s see. I’ve also read a few graphic novels. The new Nancy Drew graphic novel series is pretty fun. I love old school Nancy Drew, but it’s a relief to not have to read over and over the description of Bess as slightly pudgy and how she likes to eat. I mean, come on! Poor Bess. This version of Bess is super cool. So is George. Anyway, it doesn’t have the lovely nostalgia factor of the real deal, but there’s something refreshing about them too. I’ve also read a couple of graphic novels by Kazu Kibuishi that Barrett turned me on to. Kibuishi does robots mixed with non-usual robot worlds really well. Daisy Kutter: The Last Train is more adult and it’s got a kick ass woman who’s an ex-train robber. And there are robots. Amulet: The Stonekeeper is more for kids and it’s a creepy mansion sort of story. With robots. They’re definitely worth picking up, especially if you didn’t think you’d like graphic novels with robots in them since these are like robot stories for non-robot lovers. Right.
I’ve also been delving into some Jeeves and Wooster. They ALWAYS make me smile.
What are other people reading this summer?
Bridget
* Luna was totally my favorite character this time around. She is so great!
While I haven’t been blogging about them too much lately as moving to Portland has taken over my life, I have been reading a nice supply of books. Not as many as usual maybe since I’ve also been reading Harry Potter since I moved here, so there’s been only so much time to spare for other books. I thought it would be nice to spend some time in that familiar world since everything else around us is new. Hang out with the HP gang and all that.*
Song for Summer
The Underneath
Let’s see. I’ve also read a few graphic novels. The new 
