Month: February 2017

I was talking about school uniforms with some friends and I wanted to upload a picture of my school uniform to show them. That’s me in the center front row, with the bow on top of my head. We also had these cute hats, that were kinda like Peter Pan hats, but without the feather.

I saw Get Out on Saturday. It’s a horror movie about racism from Jordan Peele (of Key and Peele). The audience I was in applauded at the end, it was so much fun. And horrifying! Catherine Keener freaked me out the most, she is a very scary bad guy.

Everyone did a great job, but the leads Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams were stand-outs, as was Catherine Keener, as I already mentioned, but Lil Rel Howery! He was the lead guy’s best friend, and he had the most fun and funniest part. I’m just realizing that anything specific I could say about why, or my other favorite parts, would contain spoilers. Just go.

A shot from Valentine’s Day, when the Empire State Building was lit up in red.

One of my favorite tv day/night of the year. I watch the pre-pre-show, then the pre-show and of course the show. This year I’ve seen a lot of the movies so I have opinions. The ones I missed: Hacksaw Ridge, because it’s Mel Gibson violence-porn, Hell or High Water, (I started it but couldn’t stick with it) and Fences, because it looked too much like a static play. Two that I didn’t watch but wish that I had: Captain Fantastic and Loving. Loving looked too upsetting, and I wasn’t even aware of Captain Fantastic.

Update: I watched Captain Fantastic and I’m now rooting for Viggo Mortensen.

I found this stray photograph, misfiled. I forgot to note the date. It could be from last year. We had a decent snowstorm last year. But this is my block.

Last night I got an email inviting me to interview for a job I applied for recently. Once again I had to call up and reschedule jury duty, but this was for a job at the ASPCA. Taking care of kittens. This is a real job! AND I GOT IT. I am going to be paid to take care of kittens! More specifically, neonatal kittens, in THE ASPCA’S relatively new Kitten Nursery (2014 was their first year). I still can’t get over it. I’m not giving up writing, I plan to write more books, but kittens!!! I am going to be paid to take care of kittens!

Coincidentally, the founder of the ASPCA, Henry Bergh, makes a brief appearance in my Blackwell’s book. Bergh was also one of the founders of The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. It formed in 1874 after Bergh and Elbridge T. Gerry, counsel for the ASPCA, started looking into the case of an abused child named Mary Ellen. Interesting that the laws preventing cruelty to animals preceded the laws preventing cruelty to children (the ASPCA was founded in 1866). I’m sure that’s because there were at least stronger social restraints against harming children, and maybe people assumed that laws protecting them were already in place. Whereas with animals, you could do any horrible thing you wanted. I read a bunch of the ASPCA’s early annual reports and oh my god, I may never recover.

But here is my new place of business—this wonderful organization!

I’ve postponed twice, but so far nothing has come up so it looks like I can show up for jury duty tomorrow. It’s Supreme Court. I wish it would say if it was civil or criminal court. Of course I hope it’s criminal. Except I’ve become so jaded about the word criminal these days. Only certain people get labeled criminal, and the biggest criminals, committing the most far reaching crimes, are off the hook, for the most part.

An alleyway to a thrift shop, where everything was relatively reasonably priced. WEIRD. This was likely an alley to a stable. Horses would have once been brought through here.