Geeky Chic

I made a joke earlier this week about going vegan, and the response
back was, “It’ll be over as soon as someone pushes foie gras pate under
you nose.”   Today, however, I am wearing a sweater spun from
soy-yarn, and the material facinates me.  They apparently make the
fibers from soy dregs leftover from tofu production.  As for my
review of the yarn, it’s soft to the touch and non-abrasive against my
skin, but it doesn’t have the woolen look of cashmere (I am neutral on
this last point).  So, the remaining test is whether or not this
material piles or falls apart, but it will take repeated wearings to
complete it.

Edit: My enthusiasm for the soy
fabric is waning.  It’s too lint-y.  There’s a bit of green
lint on my dark coat.  Also, the sleeves have a few, large piles,
and it’s only midday.
 

I have nothing against it, but I am trying to understand the reversion to domesticity among women my age.  I just returned from a leisurely lunch with some old friends; out of the five of us, I was the only one who planned to continue working after I have a kid.  After surveying other non-law school friends, staying at home seems to be the predominant choice.  How did this come about?  When did B school become a nice finishing school for future wives?

It’s not out in American theatres yet, but I watched Wong Kar Wai’s 2046
today, and I know it will fail theatrically in the U.S.  It’s not
a bad film (though the second to least favorite of the 5 films directed
by him that I have seen), but it’s his most difficult movie to
date.  I very rarely find myself uttering, “weird,” while watching
movies, and this popped out of mouth several times today.  My one
sentence summation of the film is Wong Kar Wai meets Goddard meets
Phillip K. Dick.  I don’t want to write a full review of the film
now, but I would like to point out that the theme of disconnectedness
from Wong Kar Wai’s films played itself in this movie as different
characters spoke to each other in different Chinese dialects (and
Japanese was thrown in at times as well).

**
The rain in the city along with the break from work has steered my
clothing choices today in an unusual direction.  I was a bit
grungy today in my homeless person’s coat (this woolen plaid atrocity),
oversized taupe pants, and a black knit cap.  Oddly, it felt
liberating.  No work clothes.  Nothing that would elicit a
“That’s a nice shirt.”  It was the type of outfit that
would embarrass my mother if we ran into her friends.

This is a battle that I have already lost.

For the kitchen, I decided that it would be accented with cool hues, grayish blues, muted greens, and the like.  This was the aesthetic that I wanted to foster.

Last night, however, Finch brought home his Christmas present from his mother.  A set of Le Creuset in red.  Not just red, but lipstick red, a rather garish shade in contrast to what I had in mind for the kitchen.

Finch absolutely loves Le Creuset.  One of his proudest purchases were a couple of limited-edition, two-toned pieces when we first started dating.

He will not budge on the red Le Creuset.  He will not trade it for a blue set because he thinks the blue is ugly.  He will not trade it for a set of All Clad because he thinks All Clad sucks.  So, with his whimpering, “Please, please, can I have my Le Creuset?” the kitchen has now taken a  horrible, French country turn.  So much for modernism.

At least we can return the red, non-Le Cruset appliances.

Two posts in one day?  I don’t want to be at the office, but I’m waiting for someone to drop a skirt off at my office, so that I can be properly attired for my office Christmas party.  I hate getting gussied up for these things.   As I wait, I am reading and contemplating why a film maker hasn’t made a biopic on a fellow JHU grad, Thorstein “Theory of the Leisure Class” Veblen.  As this article points out, he was a cad of an academic who was fired for womanizing: “Legend has it that after Chicago’s chancellor worried for the ‘moral health’ of faculty wives, Veblen responded, ‘I’ve tried them all. They are no good.'”

And yes, as this prior post shows, I’m facinated by the cheap b*stard.

For those of you who know a thing or two about personal maintenance:  What is the cause of those tiny, solid, whitehead-type spots in the soft, under-eye tissue area?  Is there any way to make them go away?  I just noticed that I have a few more than usual under my right eye, and I want to know if I should discontinue using my eye cream.

**

Seven days left to Christmas, and so much shopping left to do.  This holiday is much more difficult when one is a full-fledged adult.  So far, the only shopping that I have accomplished is a gift for my secretary, and 15 tins of peppermint bark for my aunts and uncles.  I wish that I still had the starving student excuse.

Let’s hope that Justices still believe in the Sony-Betamax decision — they will be reviewing the 9th Circuit decision in the Grokster case.  With Rehnquist sick, a 4-4 decision would be sufficient to allow the lower court decision to stand.  They’ve showed their willingness to uphold the idea of fair use in a trademark decision that came out this week.

More helpful news from boingboing, if your mobile phone doesn’t give you cancer, your laptop will nuke your s-p-e-r-m.

I didn’t like Lost in Translation when I watched it last year.  I don’t like it now.  But this is my sixth consecutive day in Portland, so I am beginning to feel like Bill Murray in that movie.  When I am perched on my bed in my bathrobe after 14 hours of reviewing documents, I even start to resemble the picture of Murray from the poster.  Since I’ve started work, I’ve spent more nights in Westin Heavenly beds than in my own apartment.

An interesting obit on William A. Mitchell, creator of Poprocks, Cool Whip, and Tang.  It’s from the Atlantic Monthly, a publication esteemed by Toasty and despised by Finch.

**

It’s not every day that one is simultaneously called a “Godd*mn, Dirty Communist Capitalist Pig,” but I am having one of those days.  This was right before meaning administered three separate oaths to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution.