jamie lawrence-howard • highly absorbent redundant and superfluous verbiage • clogging tubes since 9.1.98
kirk and i love to cook, so thanksgiving is just about our favorite holiday. here are the links to some of what’s for dinner at the howard-lawrence or, if you will, lawrence-howard household.
we’re also having cope’s corn and potato filling, which is a secret recipe from kirk’s mom and you can’t have it.
happy thanksgiving to all my readers!
the mta, or metropolitan transit authority, is the outfit that runs new york subways and regional rail service, among other things. and it’s the most poorly run excuse for a bureaucracy i have ever seen, and having worked in quite a few bureaucracies, that’s saying something.
a few months ago all we heard was that they are going broke. and now we hear that they have a surplus of hundreds of millions of dollars, and that they are going to share the wealth by giving everyone a break on the cost of their december holiday travel.
let’s take a look, shall we?
Continue reading “today’s mta gripe”
i have two ways to search this site. one is using the greymatter blog search box located at the top right of the main page. it searches the blog only. the other is the “search entire site” page which uses atomz.com to perform the search.
by the way, that’s the only place you’ll see ads on this site. i gotta fix that sometime. i hate ads.
and greymatter keeps a record of what people search for, and atomz.com sends me a weekly email summary, so i know what people are looking for. not surprisingly, 95% of searches are for some variation on “naked” and “men”.
sorry to disappoint you.
this week’s summary email brought an interesting search , though. so now, in the spirit of satisfying my public, since apparently someone is interested in this, i will discuss the phrase “men dating me”.
Continue reading “men dating me”
if you have a chance to see bauhaus on this tour, don’t miss them. peter murphy and daniel ash have lost none of their onstage presence, they sound amazing, they do all the songs you want to hear.
amazing evening.
the nokia theatre, not so great. bad acoustics. plus there’s something odd about walking around with a cocktail in your hand listening to chamber music while awaiting the start of a bauhaus concert.
the crowd was very very odd.
Continue reading “bauhaus was fantastic”
bela’s not dead. bela’s alive.
or, to put it another way, i’m reliving my gothic youth tonight. bauhaus is playing the nokia theater, and i have tickets.
it’s a real kick in the eye. har har har.
Continue reading “black clad flashback”
i know i shouldn’t dwell on this subject, which probably bores everyone but me absolutely silly, but the corporate strategy of intuit, the makers of quicken, just continues to flabbergast me.
the latest chapter of lunacy involves their high-end product for businesses, quickbooks.
Continue reading “more intuit looniness”
well, add texas to the list which i know includes virginia and ohio.
texas yesterday passed their version of a gay marriage ban. its wording prohibits the state from “creating or recognizing any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”
which means that kirk and i, who have legal papers to approximate the legal rights of married couples, cannot go to texas because our papers have been invalidated. read all about it yourself.
one more state added to the list of states in my own country where i, as a taxpaying american citizen, cannot risk going.
i’ve used quicken, the personal money management software package, for years and years. before there was quicken, i used check free software to pay bills online.
i haven’t written a check for a bill since about 1989.
so i have some expertise in this area. and my one gripe about switching to a mac was quicken.
it’s not apple’s fault. intuit, the publisher of quicken, just does a lousy job with the mac version of the program. it’s completely inferior to the pc version. i’ve adjusted, but i’m doing a lot of things manually that used to be automated.
here’s why i’m so gripey about quicken.
it’s greed.
Continue reading “getting rid of quicken”
here are a few quick thoughts about various political-type things i’ve been mulling over recently. mostly political, anyway. i’m not sure what the list will consist of.
i haven’t written it yet, have i now?
Continue reading “quick political takes”
lunch yesterday was one of those quintessential new york experiences, one that i feel extremely lucky to have had.
it was lunch in the basement speakeasy wine cellar room of the “21” club, the secret room hidden behind a brick wall accessible only by pushing a thin wire into just the right hole. click on the link if you don’t know anything about this–it’s fascinating.
and the food was surprisingly solid and good–nothing that passed the spontaneous giggle test, but really enjoyable nevertheless.
Continue reading “the spontaneous giggle test”
i wore a tie to work today. and a jacket.
usually, i have to admit, i’m a bit of a schlub. we have business casual rules in our workplace, and i usually dress a bit under even that. i live in black jeans. and blue jeans.
but today is an exception.
Continue reading “dressed for success”
last night at the daily show was an absolute blast.
if you’ve never gone to a taping of anything (i never had) then you should go if you ever get a chance. it’s a real experience.
Continue reading “at the daily show”
since i’m coming down with a cold and therefore am taking cold medicine and am therefore tired, cranky, and balloon-headed, this will be, as the topic suggests, short and sweet.
and probably not very organized. probably pretty scattershot.
Continue reading “short and sweet”
i want an ipod.
actually, that’s not quite accurate. i want kirk to have an ipod. i already have my ipod shuffle, but i don’t want to share it anymore. i’m selfish that way.
but which ipod do i want kirk to have? or, more accurately, which ipod, if any, will kirk buy vicariously for me?
Continue reading “ipod fever”
i’ve been putting off this task at work.
for about three years.
obviously it’s not something that had to be done immediately, and wasn’t mission-critical, and we got along just fine without me jumping all over it.
but today i did it. whee. i feel good, knew that i would now.
Continue reading “dusty satisfaction”
lots of good happenings upcoming for kirk and me. last week was just hectic–every night with something different going on.
and i am a bit of a homebody, and i like to go out and do things, but not every single night. i need time to decompress. i like sitting around the house and wasting time however i choose to waste it.
that said, the next few weeks are bringing some fun things. spaced out a bit, so i can’t complain.
Continue reading “cool things coming”
so it’s all ok.
i just get nervous about class, because, to be honest, i don’t study enough. and my post earlier today was pretty much just displaced anger. i really have no one to blame but myself–everyone has different teaching styles, and i just need to take the best from everyone and move on. and if i don’t get something, then it’s my responsibility to get it somehow.
i gotta crack the books this week. the french books. kirk says to read a french newspaper every day. that sounds good.
i’m gonna do better.
more kvetching about this french class of mine.
which, to be honest, since i paid for it, i should do something more about. but for some reason i am unusually non-confrontational about the issue.
but i need to do something.
Continue reading “dreading class”
walked down 6th avenue to 45th street to walk over to the schoenfeld theater to get tickets for the upcoming chita rivera one-woman show. i told you sometimes i’m a big queen.
but on the way, on 6th avenue, i saw one of my favorite new yorkers.
the handbill guy that snaps.
Continue reading “the snap guy”
the subject, by the way, is a somewhat obscure judy garland reference. i can be a big queen when i choose to.
we saw brooke shields in chicago last night. the play, not the city.
and lived to tell the tale.
i don’t say that because of brooke shields, because she was really great. i say that because of the idiots i was forced to sit near.
Continue reading “we’ll do chicago”