What It Is: 12/29/08

What I’m reading: Re-read The Great Gatsby on the flight down to New Orleans, then started Kurt Andersen‘s second novel, Heyday. It’s a fun novel, rolling across America in 1848-9, but it makes the exact same idiotic decision as Michael Clayton (and a bazillion other books and movies): Part 1 opens in April 1848, and then flashes back 2 months and spends the next hundred or so pages catching up to that opening scene. And here’s the kicker: there’s nothing about that scene that necessitated putting it at the front of book. DON’T USE FLASHBACK UNLESS IT’S INTEGRAL TO THE STRUCTURE OF THE STORY!

What I’m listening to: Boxer, by The National and the eponymous debut of The Good, The Bad and The Queen.

What I’m watching: A bunch of Bowl games, and some Cajun cooking shows.

What I’m drinking: Nothing until my last night in Louisiana, when Amy & I met up with her cousin Wade & his wife Robin for dinner at Restaurant August in New Orleans. Then I rocked a Hendrick’s & tonic.

What Rufus is up to: Being a perfect houseguest with my pals Jay & Kristy and their two greys, Ruby & Willow.

Where I’m going: Nowhere! Not even the office!

What I’m happy about: Being home. And not having any snow to shovel.

What I’m sad about: Oh, another year, etc. . . .

What I’m pondering: Whether my GPS unit has a “no ghettoes” setting for calculating routes.