Pavarotti Pizza-Pierogi

I went to Petco today, which I consider to be the poor man's zoo. I bought a new beta fish! I may have failed to mention that Hootenanny died. Actually, when I told my roommate, I mentioned that I thought the cause of death MIGHT be how cold he was. I didn't MEAN to imply that she wasn't heating the house properly, but that's what she got out of it. Then two days later, she left me a highlighted article about feeding beta fish with a note at the end telling me that it wasn't the temperature-- it was me starving it to death by only feeding it every couple of days. I thought she was taking defensiveness to an inappropriate level. The article said that you're supposed to feed them 3 times a day, although it conceded that the most common cause of death for beta fish is over feeding.

WELL, when I bought my new fish, on the side of the cup-thing it said that they are to be fed sparingly 2-3 times per week. I'm just not going to tell Davida about the fish. Problem solved.

By the way, I have named the new fish Pavarotti Pizza-Pierogi. I bought a fake plant for this one, which I think will calm his nerves.

I spent the day catching up on my shows, which is my prerogative and I feel no shame. Parenthood, The Office, 30 Rock, and Weeds. I didn't totally realize that Weeds ended a while ago and I only had one episode to watch. I hope it doesn't get cancelled because I want to know what happens next! I WANTED to watch Downton Abbey on PBS, but the stupid site kept kicking me off and I got frustrated.

I know I said that I was over reading my old blog... but turns out I lied. Buuuuuut in the age old tradition that I learned from every TV show I've watched that goes beyond high school, the college years are WAAAAAY more boring!! This is largely due to the fact that I was paranoid about people reading it (parents, random school people) so I didn't write about parties or anything. Another problem was that I was much more into politics and kept posting articles. Also, I was way happier in early college, so the writing has less desperation and edge. Lame. Especially since I was using my blog reading as a way to pass the time while I'm waiting for my shows to load.

So my new book is called A Freewheelin' Time by Suze Rotolo, who is actually in the painting I'm doing of Bob Dylan. She was his girlfriend in the early 1960s. The book is actually about Greenwich Village in the early 60s, INCLUDING Bob Dylan. I don't think I would usually read a book by such a source, but this changed my mind:

"Dylan's public, his fans and followers, create him in their own image. They expect him to be who they interpret him to be. The very mention of his name invokes his myth and unleashes an insurmountable amount of minutiae about the meaning of every word he ever uttered, wrote, or sang.

As Bob Dylan's fame grew so far out of bounds, I felt I had secrets to keep. Though I kept my silence, I didn't relish being the custodian of such things. Time passes and the weight of secrets dissipates. Articles are written and biographies are churned out that trigger memories only because they are often far from the reality I knew. They tend to be lackluster yet fascinating in their fantasy. I acknowledge that memory is a fickle beast. Fragments of stories stride in and out: some leave traces, while others do not.

Secrets remain. Their traces go deep, and with all due respect I keep them my own. The only claim I make for writing a memoir of that time is that it may not be factual, but it is true."

That coupled with things like this:

"Bobby had an impish charm that older women found endearing, though my mother was immune. He was aware of it and used it when he could. But in general he was shy around people. He had a habit of pumping the air with his knees, a kind of marching in place, whether standing or sitting--all jumpy. Onstage he did it in time to the music. He looked good, despite his floppy clothes. He had a natural charisma, and people paid attention to him.

At the height of his Woody Guthrie phase, he talked through his teeth and when he laughed he would toss back his head and make a cracking ha ha sound or a small ha, with fingers covering his mouth. His walk was a lurch in slow motion. He had a touch of arrogance, a good dose of paranoia, and a wonderful sense of the absurd."

I'm SO excited for this book! I love Bob Dylan SO much. I secretly believe that part of my love of the show Parenthood directly stems from them using Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" as the theme song.

Something kind of cool happened at work that I can't really talk about online (surprise surprise) so I'll cryptically write, for posterity, that I am KIND OF a manager.

ALSO, you can now check the stats on your own blog (I discovered this like... 2 weeks ago). But some stuff is super surprising. I'll tell you two surprising things.

1. EASILY my most popular blog post is the one titled "Emile Hirsch" from Sept. 20, 2009. Today alone it got 21 views. This week: 159 views. This month: 498 views. All time (or, as I suspect, since blogspot started keeping track): 1,811 views. I'm sad for the people who find my site, as it is CLEARLY not what they are looking for (preposition!).

2. This week I've gotten visitors from:

132 people from the US

32 from the Netherlands

30 from France

12 from the UK

9 from Argentina

6 from Germany

5 from Denmark

4 from Austria

4 from Belgium

Weird. I think it's safe to assume that most, if not all, of the people from foreign countries landed on my Emile Hirsch post. I think we've learned that if I wanted to make my blog a huge success, I'd have to list celebrities as the title to all of my blogs.

Posted later: Solved the mystery. The picture I used of him comes up really high on google images if you type in "Emile Hirsch into the wild." It is an excellent picture and I must've snagged it before it was taken down by whomever I stole it from because I can't see it anywhere else.