Commercialists for Obama

I'm starting to realize that some people have lots of free time. Maybe if I didn't have such a full RSS reader, I would have more time, but I also wouldn't find gems like these.

Buttons that apply to me:

















And one I wish applied to me:

Staples Opening Saturday

We all know know about my love for office supplies. So I recently went into the new Staples by my house (in Columbia Heights) to see if they had Mix it Up, which I received an email about.

Though they don't have the penny candy approach to buying paper clips, binder clips and thumb tacks running yet, they are holding a grand opening on Saturday with specials and sales. So exciting!

Objet de Carte

I have a minor paper obsession, so when I stumbled across this site today, I already started filling my cart. Objet de Carte is maybe the best paper store name I've ever heard, and the cards are adorable, including these from the Sudoku series. Also in the Sudoku series? Sushi, teacups, and cupcakes.

Button Sudoku

Springtime Sudoku

Dragonfly Sudoku

The Belle Turns 177

Today is Emily Dickinson's birthday, and seeing as I just spent a whole semester in her study, it's worth a mention.

I thought I would post one of her poems, but instead I've decided to post one by Billy Collins, if only to illustrate her vast influence. Collins, one of my favorite contemporary poets, gave the most wonderful poetry reading that I've ever heard, at a small chapel in Vermont, in October 2005.

“Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes”

First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer’s dividing water,
and slip inside.

You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

The complexity of women’s undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything -
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.

What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that reason is a plank,
that life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.

Things I am Currently Looking For

1. The OPI Russian collection. I want Midnight in Moscow and Russian Navy.
2. A book of Christian Morgenstern poems. In English.
3. The aforementioned Pimm's Winter.
4. Unique winter tights that I can wear with Uggs and dresses.

Prizes to anyone who can locate these items for me, preferably in the District.

The Writing on the Wall

I still haven't solved the mystery of who wrote three lines of Keats's Lines on the Mermaid Tavern on the wall during our housewarming party in September. There were too many people in attendance to really figure it out, but I eliminated all of my friends — even though they would be the likely suspects, with half of them being literature graduate students. If anyone has any insight, tell me. But before you all rush to claim authorship, whoever wrote it left out the third line of the stanza, which both opens and closes the poem.

Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?

The Little Black Apron

At my favorite bookstore of all time this weekend, I got The Little Black Apron cookbook. I have yet to try any of the recipes, but it's adorable, and nothing sounds too difficult.


It also makes me want an apron:

A Week of Loveliness, in Objects

1. Miss Potter
2. The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett
3. Chocolate raspberry cupcakes from Sticky Fingers
4. Weather under 90*, meaning I have started wearing pashminas over everything again, along with the green sweater that has been sitting unworn in my closet

This Could Have Been My Other Career

If I wasn't a writer, I would be a teacher. And I would probably teach elementary school. My mother, who teaches second grade, relayed this story to me today via ichat, about one of her students.

Mom: We were having circle time on the rug and I was teaching them a math game and Alivia (who's adorable) said to me at the end that Trent was meowing the whole time
Mom: so I called Trent up to me and said "Trent, why were you meowing during circle time?" and he said "I'm half cat"
Mom: dead serious
Mom: and I said "You're half cat?" and he said yes
Mom: so I very seriously said to him "Who's a cat , your mother or your father?" and he said "my mother, she's part cat"

NYT Wedding Videos

Maybe if I stopped watching the NYT vows videos, I would actually accomplish some work.

It's also disconcerting how much I want a wedding announcement in the Times.

Kate Spade's website

This page off the Kate Spade website is so cute. It's partly an ode to summer reading, and one of the books shown is Hermione Lee's biography of Edith Wharton, which is currently sitting on my shelf, waiting to be read. Be sure to look at the "Things We Love" link.