A NEW (YORK) FRAME OF MIND

"As little flowers, bent and closed
with chill of night, when the sun
lights them, stand all open on their stems,
such, in my failing strength, did I become."

Quali fioretti dal notturno gelo
chinati e chiusi, poi che 'l sol li 'mbianca
si drizzan tutti aperti in loro stelo
tal me fec'io di mia virtude stanca.

This is Inferno II v. 127-129. I always find something new when reading Dante, especially if I read it again after some time.

I am really enjoying the Hollander translation. It is so clear, concise, and understandable, and it really flows well. The commentaries are enriching as well, and not too dense.

As I've gone through middle school, high school, and now college, I am beginning to gain a sense of when my mentality is changing. Previously, my mind seemed like a foreign beast that did exactly what it pleased and refused to listen to any common sense. Now I understand that it's healthy for the mind to roam a little on its own, as long as you have the discipline to reign it in when things become too crazy.

Last year, my mind was entirely focused on school, getting good grades, and establishing a few close friends at NYU. Now that I've succeeded (more or less) on these three fronts, I am turning my focus to my job and my future. Whereas I used to be completely focused on getting a well-paying job, I'm now starting to looking for something more fulfilling. Working 9-5 is fine, but very monotonous, and I figure that I'm doomed to at least 30 years of that anyway - so why not enjoy life now?

The thing is, I'm not sure whether this is a healthy mentality or not. Will I kick myself 10 years from now if I turned down a position in banking and consulting in favor of Teach for America? What about law school over I-banking? Should I even be thinking so far ahead to begin with?

I feel like I'm lost and I'm finding myself, and I'm rather enjoying the journey. Perhaps I'm enjoying it a little too much, dawdling around a little too much. When I could be doing bigger and better things. Maybe it's time to tame the beast.

This comes out absolutely delicious, creamy smooth and sweet, and there's not a single animal product in it!

1 banana, ripe
1/2 cup Silk Light plain soymilk
1/2 cup Rice Dream plain ricemilk
1 and 1/2 tbsp vanilla soy protein shake powder (I use Genisoy Vanilla protein powder)

Combine and blend for one medium sized smoothie. It's as easy as that. :-)

I need to see this man in concert. I'm thinking of buying tix for his Hammerstein Ballroom concert in Sept in NYC. I can't afford to blow 50 bucks though.

Apparently the BBC reckons that most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Copy and paste - put an X next to the ones you have read.

I've read 38 of them.

1. () Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. (x) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
3. () Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
4. (x) Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. (x) To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. ( ) The Bible
7. (x) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. (x) Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. ( ) His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. ( ) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. () Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. (x ) Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. ( ) Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. ( ) Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. (x) Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. (x ) The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. ( ) Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18. (x) Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. () The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. ( ) Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. ( ) Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. (x) The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. (x ) Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. () War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. ( ) The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. () Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. (x) Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. ( ) Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. ( ) Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. ( ) The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. (x) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. ( ) David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. ( ) Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. () Emma - Jane Austen
35. () Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. (x) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. (x) The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. ( ) Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. () Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. (x) Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. (x) Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. (x) The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. () One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. ( ) A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. ( ) The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. (x) Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. ( ) Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. (x) The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. (x) Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. () Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. () Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. ( ) Dune - Frank Herbert
53. ( ) Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. () Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. (x) A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. ( ) The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. ( ) A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. (x) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. () The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. () Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. (x) Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. (x) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. ( ) The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. (x) The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. ( ) Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. (x) On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. (x ) Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. () Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. ( ) Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. () Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. () Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. ( ) Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. (x) The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. ( ) Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. ( ) Ulysses - James Joyce
76. (x) The Bell Jar - Slyvia Plath
77. ( ) Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. ( ) Germinal - Emile Zola
79. ( ) Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. ( ) Possession - AS Byatt
81. (x) A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. ( ) Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. () The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. ( ) The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. () Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. ( ) A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. (x) Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. () The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. () Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. (x) The Faraway tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. () Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. ( ) The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint
93. ( ) The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. (x) Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. (x) A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. ( ) A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. ( ) The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. (x) Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. (x ) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. ( ) Les Miserables - Victor Hugo 

This is a really awesome list, whoever put it together. Owen Meany is on it!

I found my old copy of Aeschylus's play while sifting through packing materials today. It's a completely gripping narrative, not to mention the philosophical weight of some of the passages.

"No late libation, or incense-fume
Avails to save from a ruthless doom
The man who has angered, through mad desire
The Powers that burn, but need no fire..."

That describes rather a lot of my life these days.

We've moved into the new condo, which backs into a nature preserve. The view is lovely.

After not listening to his music for about 2 years or so, it still sounds as good as when I first listened when I was 14. My username, concretefields, comes from a Matthew Good song I listened to first when I was 14 years old. ("If you laid me down in concrete fields, would I dream of grass and opera?")

My username has been with me for years and it keeps taking on new meanings.

This song is from his new album "Hospital Music"

YOU ARE HERE

I like rain on Saturdays
I like bricks and medieval alleyways
I like green hills and old english plays
but no-one knows me like you do

I like Macleans and slow moving Dylan
I like movie theatres with no-one in them
and I believe that the story isn't over
because no-one knows me like you do

you are here
and you are forgiven
I no longer live in the house
from which you were driven
you are here
and it is here that you will stay
because no-one knows me like you do
no, no

no-one knows me like you do

no, no

knows me like you do

you know its true, you know its true

no-one knows me like you do

you like small towns
and wide open spaces
you like the city nights and different people's faces
youve seen the sunset over so many distant places
but no-one knows you like I do
you like quiet afternoons and walking in the park
you like country music and whispering in the dark
and you know that the story isn't over
because no-one knows you like I do

no, no

no-one knows you like I do

and I am here can I be forgiven
I no longer live in the house from which you were driven
I am with you, and with you I will always stay
because no-one knows you like I do

we like getting caught in the rain
we like watching water running down the window pane
and we are here and you know no-one, no-one here's to blame
because no-one knows us like we do
you know

and I am never too far away

Matthew Good Band - "Running for Home"
Album: Avalanche

Avalanche

Matthew Good

they beam things into your head
the ghosts of your pleasure and contempt
when we were liars things were seamless
when we were wired the world was like a secret
I close my eyes now and I scream
I turn the light on and there's nothing left redeeming
I saw your face before it changed
the gun it makes you look nicer in a bad way

so low for how high
well it's too late
tonight
and i'm sure
you're right
so low for how high

and after this there's just the circus
and every morning your carnie heart stops working
it gets tight in there sometimes
looking for those defects
talking like it's a reflex
I close my mouth now and I scream
I open the door and there's nothing left redeeming
I saw your face before in rough
you should wait around a while cause your body is bound to turn up

so low for how high
well it's too late
tonight
and i'm sure
you're right
so low for how high
so low
for how high

I think people should be able to cancel an item they have for auction easily, and that people who have submitted payment should be able to regain the money equally easily if the auction is cancelled.

PayPal sucks too.

Just sayin'.