The ballad of anna, marlowe and abbey

The puppies are fighting in their usual playful, bloodthirsty way. When Abbey gets in a bitey mood she looks like a little great white shark with ears pushed back--she doesn't snap her jaws, she comes straight at you and anything else in her way with mouth wide open. We all miss Morgan and Kristin, who are on a boat off the coast of Belize with no phones or internet connections and I hope Morgan isn't worried about us because all things considered I think we've come through the week in pretty good shape....oh good lord I just had to go extract Zilpha from a cat fight. Someone's going to be sleeping inside tonight. Really, Zilpha.

I'm reading The Paradox of Choice at the Borders next to Central Market. It's really good, and I hope Barry does not mind that I have not payed him the royalties he deserves by buying my own copy, but he was very supportive during our leg of the living wage campaign at swat and I'm sure he'd be sympathetic to girl living on one. Anyway one of the basic ideas is that the more options you explore the more opportunity cost accumulates for any one option, since once you go with any one you're missing out on all the other options you've already considered. So if you're window shopping restaurant menus, the first restaurant you go to can look perfect, but if you decide to compare it to a few more they may all look good in different ways and you end up losing the desire to go to any one restaurant in particular. When I read that example I realized I totally use that when I go shopping in order to keep myself from buying things. If I give myself plenty of time to peruse whatever store I'm in and imagine what it would be like to own lots of different things, in the end I lose the desire to buy any one of them in particular but I come away with the feeling that I've still been able to enjoy them, that they can be a part of me somehow, kind of like the paintings you visit in your favorite museum or the places you travel too. So there's my oblique strategy for surviving capitalism for today.

I'm tired and it's totally time for bed. I wonder if the puppies think so. Tomorrow is the kick-off at Travis High School for this semester's afterschool film program. I'm excited to see Christian in action. John, who was his apprentice this past semester, says he's really good, has a natural rapport with the kids, and is just an all-around cool guy who has written screenplays and has an encyclopedic knowledge of horror movies. Score. And speaking of bosses, I am the recipient of a leaked memo which indicates that Bridget is going to work for Oxfam for the next seven months on Darfur. I'm going to write her a letter.

Carolyn Goodman is in the Washington Post today because someone finally got indicted for killing her son Andrew. Laur if you read this we have to remember to tell Mom. Also, we should make sure Hel knows because the other boy from NY, Michael Schwerner, went to New Rochelle HS. I feel like they should make an annoucement or something.

and now, for 2005

The Tom, Laur, and Helcat Visit of 2004:

Number of full days off Anna had: 2 (woHOOOO!!!)
Number of rooms which housed 4 people for a week: 1
Number of trips to HEB during the week: 10
Number of trips to HEB if you count the times Anna went to work: 14
Liters of Dr. Pepper consumed: 6
Meals Tom cooked for us: 5 (breakfast tacos twice, tacos, quesadillas, and fried chicken)
Amount of broccoli purchased for one week: 1 pound
Amount of broccoli consumed: None. Nada. Zilch. As in, I have a pound of broccoli in my fridge.
Number of channels my previously lifeless television now receives thanks to Tom sticking a paper clip in the antenna hole: 5 (Do you see a MVP of the week emerging here?)

I had such a good time with you guys, like, poetry. Let's go climb trees in Zilker Park at midnight again soon.

Should I take you down like Christmas lights at the end of December--
It was cold last week, and now it's warm again, and the season of my grief for you is over.
My lungs and my palms and the arches of my feet were howling at me, but they've quieted down:
ENOUGH! Enough. enough, enough.
There was a strange spell on this past year:
Anything you think you lost will come back to you again.