maura dot vox dot com

i think joe and i are going as agent cooper and audrey horne for halloween. which means tomorrow will be spent buying supplies.

wait, it's 10:30 already?? wtf????
oh, right, i spent an hour going through old maura.com posts on the wayback machine. silly me.

last night, mooxyjoo came up in a conversation about the 'old days of ilm.'

'you know,' i said, 'when people knew who i was, and didn't just feel my wrath.'

laughter.

What is your browser's default home page set to?
Submitted by Kelev T. Cat.

about:blank. what more do you need?

so. bored.

disappointment this morning; on my way to the train, i saw that the old seaman's space on steinway -- a 24,000 square foot space with room for a second floor that would have been perfect for, say, a huge bookstore to move in -- was, after six months of being vacant, getting a new tenant ... and it's going to be yet another craptastic steinway street discount-clothing outlet. it looks like it's going to be one of those fly-by-night places where they don't even change the outdoor signage -- so, so very cheesy.

it's things like this that make me a bit bummed out about my section of astoria. there are eight billion shitty greek cafes, all selling lousy sandwiches and playing music that's even worse, but there is only one bookstore -- and it's a front for what seems to be a vanity publishing house that's filled with, like, remaindered greek mass-market paperbacks from the mid-1970s.

in other news, i got my first canadian byline today.

What do you usually do on Sunday?

wake up, have bagels, get frustrated about sleeping later than i wanted to, watch some baseball, head out to meet up with friends in another borough, come home. this weekend, i went to williamsburg twice for shows at the mccarren park pool, and i was sort of amazed at how quickly i could get to the 'burg from astoria, despite having to change trains twice in each direction. could this revitalize my dwindling days in western queens? perhaps. i know that i want to go to enid's for brunch at least once next weekend for sure. (anybody want to join me?)

What is your favorite cover song?
Question submitted by Ray.

well, there's the sugababes' version of the arctic monkeys' 'i bet you look good on the dancefloor,' which takes all the potential energy that the jet/girls aloud mashup from a few years back had and unleashes it on what is probably one of this year's best singles.
and last night i listened to saint etienne's take on 'only love can break your heart,' which is still so so sad and great. every time i listen to it my mind conjures up rain-streaked windows.
but i think right now my favorite cover is sharon jones and the dap-kings' version of 'just dropped in (to see what condition my condition was in).' because not only does it give a totally inspired spin on an already amazing song, it also has a crazy good horn section.

also: dear every band, please stop covering 'crazy.' as joe pointed out the other day, once greg dulli covers a song, it is automatically STRUCK FROM THE LIST of songs that can ever be performed by another band again.

(and yes, this includes all the sad-sack songs on 'uptown avondale,' which is quite possibly the second-best record the afghan whigs ever put out. the version of 'beware'? absolutely chilling. the take on 'true love travels on a gravel road'? like wind whistling through your body as your chest feels like it's about to bottom out from sadness. and the waves of guitar on 'come see about me' are the aural equivalent of a never-ending crying jag.)

What's the most recent vivid dream or nightmare that you remember?

i just woke up from it. i was traveling around new jersey with my mother and my sister -- we were looking at wedding dresses -- and we somehow got separated, so i walked to princeton and went to the bent spoon -- but something was wrong with their freezer (properly working freezer is at the left), and they only had three types of ice cream: two flavors of something called 'summer mud,' one with mango and one without, and one other flavor that i believe involved chocolate. the lights were low, so i couldn't tell at first if nicole was, in fact, behind the counter -- but it turned out she was, and she explained to me that the freezers were on the fritz, hence the three flavors and slightly modified layout. we drank coffee and i tried to plot a way to spend the whole day there. as i was waking up, i was trying to dodgeball that i was there, but for some reason i couldn't type 'the bent spoon' right.

prairie muffins and the 'biblical role of women'
the housing bubble / the never-ending construction of shitty 'luxury' buildings in nyc
skilfully blending chiles and jalapenos into chocolate (sadly, ixta's way of doing it was a failure which resulted in a slimy-feeling intrusion into my brownie)
paul wall's dubious walk down the ja rule path (seriously, a guest spot on a song by brooke freaking hogan?? is the grill business that rough these days?)
cartel's myspace-era 'talk to girls, don't just flirt with them online' psa (seriously, you need to watch this ... then, read this)

part of the reason i'm writing this down: last night i talked about birds with a member of shearwater who had studied ornithology in college. he told me about going to the museum of natural history and getting a glimpse of specimens from an island near the falklands that was a kilometer wide and 40 meters or so long. it got me wondering: was there any way that my life could twist and turn itself so i'd be somewhere so far from this overcrowded cluster of islands? i have still seen so little of the world.

(also, embarrassingly, i didn't know the falklands were located in the southern hemisphere.)

unrelated to all of this: i might join the softball team that my writers' space is organizing. i haven't played softball in almost 20 years, though.

internet things i have joined in the last week:

* vox (thanks, matt)

* flagr (thanks, janelle)

* yelp (thanks, kirsten)

what else is out there these days? i used to be invited to all the cool betas, sigh.

(oh, you know what's funny? i totally got an issue of courtney pulitzer's 'cyber scene' as soon as i hit post on this. ah ha ha ha!)