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When Buddy thinks it’s time to be fed, (starting around an hour before it’s time to be fed) he comes over and stands on the floor looking at me, with his one paw up. The paw up always means, “Feed me.” He doesn’t use it on any other occasion. Here he is asking to be fed, except Finney temporarily distracted him by flipping on his back. But notice that the paw stayed up. (I’m also noticing the scratches on the leg of my nice coffee table. Dudes. Quit it.)

This is a picture of inventor Nikola Tesla. When I was a grad student at NYU, a professor from MIT named Richard Jay Solomon used to come down once a week to teach a course about the history of technology. His stories about these scientists, and their inventions and discoveries were so good I couldn’t even take notes. I was afraid I’d miss something. He was fascinated by Nikola Tesla, and told us about him, but Tesla was one of many. You just wouldn’t believe how exciting these stories are.

So, I handed in my book yesterday, but I’ve already been mulling over what to do next. Just a few minutes ago I was reading a review about a new novel based on Tesla, which sounds fabulous, I must have it: The Invention of Everything Else: A Novel by Samantha Hunt. It got me thinking. I write nonfiction, and I get the sense that publishers are not thrilled with biographies, I imagine they don’t sell well, but that’s okay. I would love to find some thrilling moment of time in science, and write a book about what led to it.

One of the hard parts about the Duke book, was trying to represent science and statistics so that not only could people like myself understand it, but it would read like a page turner. What was probably common knowledge for any student of science was news to me. And actually, once I understood it better, I was able to judge what I could leave out so it didn’t become burdensome, and only included what I needed to show how they got from here to there, from experiment to experiment.

I’ve been thinking I’d like to do a book about audio forensics, and I’m starting to get an idea of how I might do it. I’m not quite there yet, it’s all kinda swirling around in my head, but it’s starting to come together. It has to do with how freaked out I got listening to some of these cockpit voice recordings, and a 911 call from inside the Trade Center. I mentioned this on Echo and someone who works at the Medical Examiners office said she gets more freaked out by things she hears on films that she looks at as part of her job, more than what she sees. And swirling around in there is some things I learn about audio hallucinations, and EVP, and more. Actually, I may even tie it back to some things I learned from Richard Jay Solomon about the invention of the telephone.

It would also be a good excuse to spend some time at the Bell Labs archives, which would be my idea of heaven.

You know, I realize with posts like these I am never going to have a boyfriend again in my life. Please blur your eyes potential-boyfriends. Scroll down to the shoes (and ignore the sensible ones).

In other news: I was reading on Dooce the other day about how she isn’t exactly thrilled with writing books. I thought about that. There is a moment when I first get edits back that isn’t fun. My initial thoughts go something like, “ohmygod they hate it, they don’t love me, they’re going to cancel the book, I will never get another book contract again, the cats are going to starve and die, I’m going to starve and die,” but then in a few minutes I’m “Oh, they just want me to move this here.”

I love editing. Love it. For me, the blank page can be a little scary, but once I have words on it and all I have to is make those words better, I’m in heaven. I was the same way painting. Blank canvas = evil. But then I could sit for hours adding or deleting spots of color, a brush stroke here, a brush stroke there.

I love editing so much I could tinker forever, and I have to make myself stop and hand the book back in. That’s where I am now. I think today might be my last day editing and I will hand it in tomorrow.

I was trying to get creative with this shot when Buddy jumped up and I decided to do a combination cat/shoe shot instead. Any shot is better with a cat in it. I ended up getting a fresh pair of the exact same red sneakers, because I love them, and they are so comfortable. Except I ordered red shoe laces, because those mustardy ones that come with them are actually kind of drab as you can see (I also don’t love the gold stripe, but what are you going to do, nothing’s perfect). I got a pair of green sneakers from the same manufacturer, Onitsuka. The green is better than what is coming out in the picture, and I also don’t like the white stripe, and what is with Onitsuka and the poor stripe color choices??

I don’t think I’m a real girl. These are all the shoes I own, and I can see right away that I definitely need to re-think some of these shoes. A few are pretty unattractive. I’ve decided to go in chronological order.

These are 12 years old. I bought them for a dress-up occasion (Echo’s 5th Anniversary party). They are Arche. All my nice shoes are Arche, they are the most comfortable while also being pretty.

These are Campers, they are probably around 10 years old. I bought them because I wanted a nice flat for “business casual” outfits. God they are ugly. Comfortable, but ugly. With all the cute flats they’re showing now there is just no excuse for these shoes.

Then I decided I needed another pair of dress shoes. The heel from the pair above was too high to wear for extended periods of time, so I bought these. They are maybe 8 – 10 years old and are the perfect shoe. Reasonable heel, but still pretty.

I saw these sandals at the same time I bought my new dress-up shoes, and I just had to have them. LOVE these sandals. I’ve never seen anything else like them. Aren’t they great?

I got these boots when I decided I needed a winter shoe that was a little more attractive than my regular winter walking shoes. You can’t tell in this picture, and they need a wipe down, but they’re cute.

Now we get to the worst part. I walk everywhere I go. On any given day I’m walking 1 to 4 miles. So, I’ve got two pairs of everyday, walking shoes, one for winter and one for all the rest of the year. These are my Merrells, my regular winter walking shoes. Yes, they are hideous, but what can I do? I need comfort (and warmth). I wear these with pants, so they don’t show like they do in this picture. I wear the boots above when I’m wearing a skirt or dress.

My rest of the year everyday, walk-everywhere shoes are less problematic. I usually get some sort of cute sneaker. I was in a red phase when I got these, and I will probably replace them in the spring.