iTunes and hipster parents

Two weeks ago, on December 7, I received an email to my gmail account telling me that I received a $25 gift certificate to iTunes from ?. I suspected that it was spam and was also enundated with emails at the time and didn't examine it further. But a week later I remembered it, brought it up, and it seemed legit--the email was from apple.com. I decided to open it at work in case it contained a virus, but there were no attachments, just links, and it worked through iTunes. So now I have a $25 credit and have no idea who (from whom?) it's from. Is it from someone I know? They had to have had my email address to give it to me, I think. Was it just a random act of kindness? Will someone step forward to claim responsibility at a later date? Was it an early Christmas present?

At any rate, if the anonymous donor is reading this, thank you very much for your generous gift, I greatly appreciate it. I haven't yet purchased any new songs, but I hope to soon.


And the second thing is my friend Chris wrote this article about hipster parents and musical taste that I liked. And yes, the picture bears a remarkable resemblance to him.

Congratulations to Yul and random happenings

My man Yul won $1,000,000. He actually won. He won Survivor. How crazy and great is that? He played the game extremely well, and there's a great video on cbs.com where he talks about how the game went down--he made the comment that the game could have very well come down to the white alliance picking off the minorities one by one, but they managed to get one of them to flop, and that completely changed the outcome of the game. That certainly was the turning point. He also talked about what he was going to do with the money, and one cause he said he was passionate about was minority bone marrow awareness because of a friend who died in college from leukemia because he couldn't find a match. As a side note, Justina Chen Headley's next novel Girl Overboard coming out in January 2008 also addresses this issue--one of the main character's friend's younger sister, who is hapa, is unable to find a bone marrow match because she's biracial.

Our mutual friend James's birthday is today. I wonder if he'll get a nice present.

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Last night I went out with my roommate Rose for happy hour drinks in the 'hood. We were planning to just hit our regular spots a half a block away from our apartment (although places I haven't been in over a year!). We walked by the Banshee which was empty, went back to Session 73 which was closed for a private party, and then back to Stir, a martini bar I had gone to only once before with Tracy when I first moved to the apartment. We had two drinks before moving on, and decided to check out Session 73 again--no doubt there would be people there completely drunk from their office holiday party, and that should be good for a laugh. Was it ever. We walked in, and saw one guy dancing alone crazily on the dance floor. All other eyes were on us. We made a beeline to the bar for a drink, and immediately I turned around and there was a big guy standing behind me with glassy eyes. Just standing there, not speaking. He came up and stood right between Rose and me, but wasn't saying anything. "Uh...hi." we said. No answer. A grunt. Then he sat down on the stool that Rose was standing right behind, so it looked like he was sitting on her lap. I couldn't stop giggling and had to excuse myself to go to the bathroom. Sorry, Rose. When I got back, thankfully he was gone, but there would be more of the same. Turns out it was a hedge fund office party. And every time a guy started talking to us, a girl would come up and swoop them away. Haha--I guess I would have done the same with my guy coworkers--you can't help but feel protective/possessive. One guy--really, really drunk and still drinking Long Island Ice Teas--kept talking to me, but couldn't remember things I had said from ten seconds ago.

"Oh...so...you're a student."
"No, I just told you I was a children's book editor"
"So...where do you go to school?"

and then

"So, do you want to walk me home?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Uh, because I live half a block away from here."
"Can I walk you home?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm here with my roommate, and we'll walk each other home."

and a little later,

"Our company makes billions of dollars. I made a billion and a half this year. I could buy you some lloiud vitoiuoid"
"Uh, what?"
"I could buy you some Looouuuiiee Viiitoooon"
"I'm sorry, I can't understand what you're saying"

I finally realized he was telling me that he would buy me some Louis Vuitton. Uh, okay. "I don't care about labels" I said. I mean, I had to google it to figure out how to spell it, for pete's sake.

Anyway, I hadn't gone out like that in a loooong time, talking to random guys at bars, getting hit on, and it was fun and entertaining, especially knowing that nothing would come of any of it.


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In other news, besides having a weekend full of fun parties, the Randoms, and other friends both new and old, I finally received my refund from the MTA today. A month or so ago I tried buying a $20 Metrocard and it took my money and also ate my card that had just $1 on it (leftover from trips to NJ or on the Airtrain or something). I followed the directions on the customer service line, and finally today received two letters and a Metrocard. One letter said that it was refunding my $20 to my credit card account, and the other said "enclosed please find a Metrocard with $1 on it." Great. Reminded me of when my old roommate Jon received a refund check from the IRS for ONE PENNY. $0.01. No kidding. Anyway, for some reason, the Metrocard I've been using also has and odd amount on it, so I have two Metrocards that I will have to use to go to NJ on two separate round-trip journeys, or separately for one leg of a JFK Airtrain trip--except of course I'm flying out of Newark this time.

Speaking of, I'm off on Thursday evening for Southern California where I'll be until the 29th, then back to the city for New Year's. No doubt I'll write more there, update my blog to beta, learn how to add links to the side of my blog, and figure out how to cause World Peace.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Taiwan pics and randomness

...and added them to my post below, as well as a couple more fun facts.

And what else. I'm tired. Work has been crazy every since I got back. Deadlines everywhere. Updating title fact sheets. Preparing for focus meeting. Writing catalog copy. Editing. Preparing acquisition meeting proposals. Reviewing copyedited manuscripts. Reading manuscript for edit meeting. Writing flap copy. Finalizing cover specs. Answering emails. Answering phones. Putting out fires. Not answering emails. Trying to ignore the smoke. Wanting another vacation.

And I'll stop before I have a repeat of this other post. But I feel the same way. There's too much to do. And I feel bad because I'm letting deadlines I've set for authors slide in exchange for keeping the in-house deadlines. Once again, Connie has been a life saver, doing most of the work, keeping me on schedule. Props to Connie! Woo-hoo!

I've managed to have some fun--went to our monthly Karaoke outing last night--although tonight I was planning on going out but was too tired. Watched my man Yul continue to kick ass on Survivor. Not to jinx him, but he could actually win this! He has a 1 in 6 chance now (And did you know that you can watch full episodes online?). I'm catching up on one of the best shows in television, Dexter on Showtime On Demand right now, and will go to sleep early. Twisted, disturbing, and brilliant. Kinda like your mom. (Oh, sorry, that's the kind of thing my friend James would say.)

Okay, I'm obviously delirious. Time for bed.

Countdown to the marathon, and thoughts on beauty

For some reason, I've been thinking that I have 3 weeks until the marathon, but I realized suddenly over the weekend that it's just 2 weeks away. There's a counter on the official ING Marathon website that kind of stresses me out, but really, I'm ready. Well, as ready as I'll ever be! Which if good, because it's too late to do anything about it, really. So until then, I'm just planning on eating a lot of pasta, doing a few short runs, and trying to wrap up my fundraising.

Speaking of fundraising, you can donate here for pediatric cancer research. I think I've gotten one blog-related donation so far! Thank you, thank you Kristy.

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For those of you in the NY area, you should definitely check out the Chihuly exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx--it's there until October 29th. I went there for Chihuly Nights last Thursday for Saho's Birthday, and it was breathtaking. Here are a few pics:

Or check out an exhibit somewhere near you.

It made me think about the different kind of beauty in the world. That something so artificial , and surrounded by nature, could still be so breathtaking. This past weekend I was surrounded by different kinds of beauty. I took a trip out to Princeton with two friends to visit Julie and have a girls' weekend.

Here is some of the beauty I encountered there:

The beauty of the blue sky, fluffy white clouds, and the green in an apple orchard on a brisk fall day...

the beauty of finding my first-ever four-leaf clover...

the beauty of warm homemade apple cake topped with homemade vanilla ice cream...

and, of course, the beauty of friends.

more milestones and random notes

I'd like to introduce baby Samantha, born to Amy and Bryan on Sunday morning, a week early:

Hee hee--I love yawning babies.

It was a busy but great weekend that kicked off with a Friday happy hour, then Mariko's Super Sweet 25th birthday party where we surprised her with a giant replica of an iPod constructed by Sarah (we did also get her an actual iPod, although she said she would have been happy with just the cutout):

...then Saturday night was Don and Nikki's wedding in a Manhattan loft with a great view of the Empire State building (or "Mr. Empire" as the Frenchies used to call it), and Sugar Sweet Sunshine cupcakes! They guarded the cupcakes closely before it was time to eat them, so closely that when I went to take a picture, I heard one of the "guards" mutter to another, "She's too close!" But I finally got one.:

...and then on Sunday a 15- mile run. This one was so much better than my last one. For one, I didn't have to stop to drink--just plowed through it. This was the farthest I've run without stopping, and I'm not counting my 19-mile run because I stopped to use the bathroom.

Just two stories from my run in Central Park:

1) Around 75th St on the West Side where that little lake is, there was a guy performing, playing guitar and singing, and the first time I passed, he was singing a song about how "it sure can suck to be single in this town." I thought the singer had a nice voice, and the song was pretty amusing.

An hour later I passed by the same spot again, and singer was still there. And guess what. Yup. He was singing the exact same song! I didn't find it as charming as I did the first time.

A little less than an hour later I passed the same spot again and thought, "If that guy's singing that same song, I'm going to kill him" (I was cranky around then) and luckily for both of us, he was singing "What a wonderful world" which was beautiful, and especially nice because out of desperation, I had started reciting "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" except I had started at 88th Street with "88 bottles of beer on the wall" and was kinda despairing that after getting down to 50 bottles that my mind would force myself to keep singing until no beer was left, but thankfully I started singing 'What a wonderful world" instead.

2) When I was finishing up mile 11 (right around the second time I heard the guy sing about it sucking being single in this town), I ran behind a running couple. The guy seemed to be limping along pitifully, and it turns out for good reason. I heard him say, "We're nearing twenty...I'm feeling funny" and then laughing proudly at this new "rhyme" he had created, he repeated it: "Ha ha--I'm nearing twenty. I'm feeling funny" and then proceeded to "rhyme" a bit more, more that didn't actually rhyme with twenty (although all rhymed with funny): "Almost twenty...I'm hopping like a bunny. Haha. Almost twenty...I can't believe I'm not doing this for money..." It kind of reminded me of a bad children's rhyming picture book submission.

But after I ran another lap, as I found myself nearing my goal of fifteen miles, I started the rhyme game myself:"Fifteen...you know what I mean. Fifteen...I'm gonna rupture a spleen. Fifteen...I'm feeling serene. Fifteen, I need to use the latrine"

Yeah, see, that's why I don't write children's books. Especially rhyming ones.

As for work, I've had a productive two days. Got out yet another editorial letter, responded to a bunch of LA SCBWI queries (if you haven't heard from me yet, you will! I promise!), helped my assistant with her very first editorial letter, and it's only Tuesday. More to come.

A snarky comment to my Blue Rose Girls "How I edit" post of last Friday was disheartening, and almost made me not want to blog anymore, because now I know there are readers out there who are looking for things to criticize, who are not kind, and that makes me sad. But I know it comes with the territory.

Still juggling...but fewer balls now

So, I'm still busy, but it's not as overwhelmingly crazy as it was last week and the beginning of this week. I'm surviving and being productive and feeling good.

If you want to get a better understanding of exactly what I've been doing lately, read this post on the Blue Rose Girls blog. Friday's are generally my day to blog, so check there every Friday if you want to read a chidren's book-related post by me. We also have a question of the week at the beginning of each week where we all try to answer a question.

As for me...I'd like to introduce Tanya and Chris's new daughter Annelise. These pictures are from the hospital two weekends ago:
And I couldn't resist posting this picture of "Auntie Alvina" that Antonella took of me and her daugher Alessandra at the hospital. I had no idea what expression she had on her face when I was holding her, and I think her smile is so adorable:

Last weekend was our wonderful, inspiring, rejuvenating Blue Rose Girls get-together where we tried to "get down to the cupcake level" to take a picture, and then realized, geniuses that we are, that we should bring the cupcakes up to our level instead:

I went to Nate and Ingrid's baby shower last Sunday when I got back. Brought Sachin to his first baby shower, which he enjoyed, because it was more Super Bowl Sunday than baby shower.

This week was filled with goodbyes to my roommate Lisa who is moving today to Chicago--so sad to see her go! We had a drink on the terrace one last time on Wednesday. Also went to a cocktail party for that crazy building "Blue" in the Lower East Side which was kinda a bust (badly planned drinks and food) but was worth checking out anyway. Last night was the bachelorette party for Nikki--fun gals, good food and wine at Supper, and lots of cheesy bachelorette "flair." Tonight is happy hour, then Mariko's birthday party, tomorrow night is Don and Nikki's wedding, and Sunday is my day of rest, with Little Miss Sunshine, I hope--finally!

As I was waiting for the bus the rain came down on me

Tonight as I was walking home from work, the sky looked threatening and dark, and it was starting to thunder. Right when I got to 57th Street it started raining and then pouring, and since I didn't have my umbrella I decided to take the bus (and I realized while on the bus that this is one of the only times I've taken public transportation home from work since I moved to this apartment!). The rain didn't look to be letting up, so after I got off the bus I stopped at the grocery store to get stuff for the baby shower, and although I was able to get there without getting too wet, I got soaked running the half block home on my street and almost knocked one of my contacts out. But I didn't really care since I was just going home to my cozy dry apartment anyway. But now...

I open the door to my apartment building, and something isn't right. I hear the sound of rain, and it's loud. It's raining in the lobby! I can hear the rain gushing in the elevator shaft. As I walk up the stairs, I see water raining down on each landing. I remember that my room leaked in the corner above one of my book shelves during a big rain last year, so I worry about what I'll find when I get up there. I open my apartment door...whew, no rain pouring down in the kitchen, although the windows were open and the floor is somewhat wet, but no biggee. I run up to my room, and thankfully the corner where the previous leak is dry. I think I'm home free. But then I hear dripping--where is it coming from? Finally I realize my ceiling is leaking near the wall by my computer. But it isn't bad yet, and I pull my computer out away from the wall. I have some buckets to catch the drips now, but it seems to have slowed down. Guys who live in the apartment have been running up and down the stairs to and from the roof, and I think they've fixed something--something about the drains being blocked.

Hmm. How did you like the present tense?

Seriously, I love my apartment, but it really is falling apart. So sad! The rain seems to have stopped for now. Man, our elevator is probably completely dead...and the baby shower is Saturday! I don't want pregnant Tanya to have to walk up 6 flights of stairs...

Last night was a goodbye party at Loreley for Eveline (who is moving to China), and Mathieu (who is going back to France), and both flew out today--not the best day to fly, both weather-wise and bomb-threat wise.

I was exhausted from my LA trip, but managed to stay out till 11 and have fun doing it, dammit. But the Randoms are now minus 2 key members. I'm sad.

And now this post reminds me of a poem I wrote in 8th grade that was published in the school paper, even though it was bad. Take it out of rhyme, people! But I still have some of it memorized:

As I was waiting for the bus
The rain came down on me.
Without an umbrella, there I was,
It rained so hard I couldn't see.

And then I forget the rest. All for the best.

Defense Finance and Accounting Service

I get a lot of wrong numbers at work. And many of them are looking for something to do with the military--the defence finance and accounting service? I've discovered that the area code for that number is 216, while mine is 212. I would better understand all the wrong numbers if the correct area code was 213 or 211, but 216? That's a number over AND a number down.

Oh well.

Maybe I should start doing what Kramer did when he started getting calls for Moviefone. "Welcome to Moviefone!"

"Defense Finance and Accounting Service, may I help you?"