2009 – Page 41 – The Virtual Memories Show

January 5, 2009January 5, 2009

What It Is: 1/5/09

What I’m reading: The Last Good Kiss, by James Crumley, and Joe Nocera’s long and worthwhile NYTimes magazine article about the risk management and its role in the financial meltdown.

What I’m listening to: Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1, by George Michael and 24 Hours, by Tom Jones.

What I’m watching: The Godfather, I & II.

What I’m drinking: Plymouth & Q Tonic, and Martin Ray merlot 2005.

What Rufus is up to: Getting ready to have his first day of alone-time in more than 2 weeks.

Where I’m going: Nowhere, although I really oughtta get down to Philly sometime to see my friend Drake before he moves away.

What I’m happy about: A pal of mine from college, Craig Gidney, just published a short story collection: Sea, Swallow Me. (I really oughtta make a side-page of links to books by my friends and acquaintances.) And a childhood pal of mine whom I haven’t seen in 20 years got in touch this weekend, leading to a catch-up dinner on Sunday.

What I’m sad about: Having to go right back to work.

What I’m pondering: Whether I should score some weed and prostitutes at my local Burger King.

January 3, 2009

Meta-Unrequired Reading

Jason Kottke offers up his favorite posts of 2008. I only discovered his site recently, and realized it’s like my Unrequired Reading section, but every day of the week. So I suck.

January 2, 2009

I did stop talking eventually

Five years ago tonight, I met my true love. I can’t improve on her description of the evening; instead, I’ll offer up the photo of her that first caught my eye and compelled me to write to her:

amy

And, yes, I still have (and wear) that corduroy coat she complains about.

January 2, 2009January 1, 2009

Unrequired Reading: Jan. 2, 2009

It’s the first Unrequired Reading of the New Year, dear readers! Enjoy!

Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Jan. 2, 2009”

January 1, 2009

R.I.P., Donald Westlake

Donald Westlake died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 75. My condolences to his wife and family.

I read a bunch of Westlake’s caper novels when I was a kid, and recently returned to the first one (which I took out of my local library, 25 years ago). I picked up a few others in the last month or two. In 2003, Michael Blowhard made him the first recipient of the Michael Blowhard Award for Excelling at Making Me Happy.

He wrote till the end of his days while I, meanwhile, have yet to start on the caper novel that I felt inspired/justified to write after re-reading The Spy in the Ointment. But I refuse to revise my New Year’s resolutions.

January 1, 2009

Low-res

My health is fine, my finances are in order and my job seems pretty secure, so I don’t have much by way of “you must change your life” New Year resolutions. I did pretty well on my main one for 2008: post to this blog every day. There were still a couple of down days, but I think I did well.

Here’s my list of 2009 resolutions:

To finish reading Montaigne’s essays
To not begin writing Tuesday Morning Plutarch once I’m done with Monday Morning Montaigne
To read more poetry (and maybe fewer novels)
To get back to practicing yoga
To get back to drinking only water, black coffee or gin (well, maybe I’ll add wine to the list this time)
To brush Rufus’ teeth 3x weekly

Let’s see yours!