Urban Jungle

This is how kids on my block play basketball. The bottom of the milk crate is not cut out; hence the ladder standing nearby.

Tip-Toe. . .

It's tulip season here in Albany. (For those of you who don't live here, the tulip is Albany's city flower.) They are beautiful, and everywhere. We may as well be in Amsterdam.

Recommendation of the Day

The new Feist album is very yummy. Go get it.

Frickin' Wednesday

I am just exhausted. Simply exhausted.

Please, someone, bestow upon me the will and energy to go the gym tonight.

Love in the Form of Flowers

I got home last night and found these beautiful flowers which Mitch bought me and left for me in the kitchen, with the sweetest note ever. Kathy commented that in the realm of karma, the balance is off in regards to how many flowers I've received in the span of just a couple of weeks. It's true, but I love it! I love flowers and I love it when people think to send them to me. Thanks, Mitch! Love you.

Virginia Tech Tragedy

Pulled this from the CNN 360 Blog a little while ago. It really resonated with me and put the tragedy into very real perspective. It's a difficult, but short, read. . .


Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Volunteer contributes what he can: Body bags

It was a tearful, lonely drive for Brian Horne.

The Christiansburg, Virginia, resident was called to the Virginia Tech campus Monday morning as a member of the local volunteer fire and rescue squad. Horne did not see the carnage; he was stationed at a command post on campus.

But as authorities began to comprehend the scope of the disaster, Horne volunteered to take care of a sober task. His family owns a funeral home about 10 miles from the campus, and Horne drove back to collect 36 body bags.

"We knew then there were at least 30 dead and possibly more," Horne told CNN in a brief interview outside the funeral home, where a giant American flag flies at half staff in honor of the victims.

Horne said he has responded to many tragic events in the past, but nothing anywhere comparable to the scope of the campus massacre. "It is difficult to comprehend, but at that moment I knew I could assist with what we needed to do," he said.

Horne would not speak on camera out of respect for the victims. He also said he did not want to overstate his role in the rescue operation, saying many friends had it much worse. He recounted their stories of helping collect and count the bodies, even as the victims' phones and PDAs rang and vibrated.

-- By John King, CNN Chief National Correspondent

Catching Up

Sooo I've been busy and therefore I haven't blogged too much in the past week or so. Here's what's been going on. . . .

Friday night I went to see the Five Alpha Beatdown/Brent Gorton/the Orange reunion show at Valentine's. The show was excellent. 5ABD covered "Under Pressure" and it was SO awesome! It was good to see a whole lot of old friends out and about, too. (I kept on hearing from each of them: "Yeah, I never really get out anymore." It's funny that people who don't "get out anymore" always seem to go out on the same nights and to the same places as each other. Hehe.)

Saturday and Sunday I was home in the Southern Tier/NEPA to see my family and, of course, to do laundry. On Sunday we had a nice big lunch that half of us considered Easter dinner and half of us considered a nice big lunch on Sunday. Gotta love blended families.

Monday night I took my Little Sister to see Meet the Robinsons in 3D--it was so much fun! Here's Diamonique looking very fashionable in her glasses.

. . . and I got some really terrific news over the last few days, and to celebrate, Amie sent me a beautiful bouquet of pink carnations. Thanks, Ame!!

New Word!

I learned a new word this week! Ready?

It's . . . . (Drumroll, please!) . . . . . heteroflexible. You read that right--heteroflexible.

According to UrbanDictionary.com, the definition of this word is "a person who identifies themselves as primarily heterosexual but can find the same sex sexually appealing."

I think we used to call this "experimental." Ah, how times have changed.

Demo . . . At Midnight

So late last night I started to hear these continuous crashing noises. The crashes were very loud, and very close. You would think a house was being knocked down! Well, lo and behold, a house WAS being knocked down, like 10 feet away from our house. Our neighborhood is very typical of old downtown Albany--streets full of row houses, all inches from each other, if not attached to one another. So Mitch opened the bathroom window shade and told me to come look. The house that sat between our house and Dove Street was being demolished. It was so close to our house, and we had a great view from the bathroom window, so I took some video. I can't believe it's legal to knock down a house so late at night. What's wrong with doing it, oh, I don't know . . . during the day?

Flowers to Cheer Me

Joe sent me a beautiful bouquet of my favorite flowers to cheer me up because I was sad that Kate moved away today.

So . . . last night I hung out with Kate and some of her TU peeps and had some food and some drinks and managed to keep the tears at bay until after she headed home.

You better come back to visit soon, or else! (I know that sounds like a threat, but it's not. Really.)

Read Newjack

Over the summer, I went to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies national conference in Little Rock, Ark. (Y'all may remember the photos.) Anyway, while I was there, I attended a seminar given by Ted Conover, who talked about his experience writing his most recent book, Newjack. In the early '90s, he was working on a story for the New Yorker about the lives of corrections officers at Sing Sing. The NY Department of Corrections absolutely refused to let Conover visit the training academy (which is here in Albany), or with any of the officers in the prison, so he applied to become an officer himself. When he gets accepted to the academy (like a year or so later), he goes, trains, becomes an officer, and guards Sing Sing for a year. People like this are so inspirational to me. Anyway, needless to say, I bought his book and (eventually) read it, and I suggest you do, too. It's simply fascinating. I liked the book so much that I emailed Mr. Conover and told him so. (I often do this with authors I enjoy, and they always email back, which I think is very cool of them.) I wrote:

Hi Mr. Conover,
I heard you speak at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies in Little Rock, Ark., last summer, and bought Newjack shortly thereafter. Though it took me a while to get to it, when I started reading, I flew through it. I'm fascinated by prison culture, and I found your book gripping from beginning to end. I just wanted to drop you a line to tell you how much I enjoyed it, and how much I respect what you do as a journalist. Thank you for the opportunity to gain such rare insight into a part of life that few even take the time to consider.

Sincerely,
Kathryn Lurie

He wrote back:

Hi, Kathryn,
Thank you for the kind email. I appreciate it--and glad to know of the connection to the AAN meeting. It will be interesting to see how/whether NYSDOCS changes under the Spitzer administration: I hope he has the guts to challenge that giant, mindless system ...
Best,
Ted Conover

Super Scary Question

Am I even capable of writing anything that isn't ridiculously formulaic anymore?

The Weekend Report

This weekend Gram and I went to see the revival of A Chorus Line on Broadway. It was terrific. I have always known the music from the show, and I knew the story, but I hadn't seen it before. They really did a great job with it.

The rest of the weekend was spent at Gram's, eating, relaxing, chatting, doing (free!) laundry, etc., and yesterday I drove home to Albany.

When I got home, I found a gift on my bed from my brother and his girlfriend. They've been collecting Build-a-Bear stuffed animals, and whenever they bring one home, I always comment on how I'd like to have one because they're so huggable and cute. Yesterday, they got me one! Mitch had texted me to ask me, inexplicably, what my favorite boys' names were. I told him, and he picked one to name my new stuffed cat--Josiah. It's so fricking cute. They dressed him in a tux with fancy shoes. It was a really sweet gift and Josiah couldn't be more huggable. I'll blog a photo soon.

P.S. I am NOT too old to have a stuffed animal.

Kate Cooking

I Joined YouTube

I have joined YouTube so I can actually blog some of the videos I've been taking with my nifty new camera. It's exciting.

As Chet just said, "how very 2003" of me.

Kickboxing = Hard

I took my very first (cardio) kickboxing class last night. The Guilderland YMCA offers many, many more classes than the Albany ones do, so I convinced Heather that it was a brilliant idea to attend a class there, and we went together. It was a great class, even though we were pretty uncoordinated and I was not as good at actually kicking as I had hoped. My knees, which turn in (making me slightly knock-kneed, which makes running, etc., impossible for me), did not help matters. But all in all, it was a positive experience. And the instructor was cute as a button.

I was feeling OK earlier--not nearly as sore as I had imagined I'd be--but now, after a few hours at my desk, whenever I get up and walk around, somewhat inexplicably, my calves burn! I didn't think that I worked out my calves too much during the class--I guess I was wrong. I'm feeling it a bit in my shoulders, too. I'm currently trying to talk myself into going to the gym tonight for a regular workout, but I haven't convinced myself yet. We shall see.

St. Patrick's Day

I spent St. Patrick's Day sipping brews with Kate and Nate. Here are my awesomely goofy friends hanging at DeJohn's.

All I Can Do. . .

The waiting game is kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilling me.

:-(

Weekend in the Snow

This weekend we had another snowstorm. About a foot to a foot and a half fell between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. We had another snow emergency, so I spent a good portion of yesterday digging out my car again. But then afterward I took Asa to the park, where he proceeded to be incredibly cute. I took some photos to demonstrate (if you can't tell, in the first one he's airborne). Click on 'em to make them bigger:

He's just so adorable.

Lending Library

I wrote a scenery piece about a knitting group that meets at Slow Jed's Mudhouse in Averill Park (a suburb of Albany). They meet on the second floor of the coffeehouse, in the lending library. Such a sweet, cozy little spot. Here are the rules of the lending library: