12 of 12: February

Heyyyy, it's 12 of 12, back in action after a month where I took the pictures and then was too busy to upload them. Soooo, yay for not having a life? All credit to Chad Darnell, creator and keeper of the 12 of 12 flame; for more, check out his site.

7:45 - Up.

11:27 - Proctoring a practice SAT, and let me tell you: there's nothing more exciting than watching high school students take a test for four hours on a Saturday morning. (Good book, though.)

1:34 - High school students, naked plaster ladies frolicking...must be Saturday?

1:55 - Gas is SO EXPENSIVE right now. Why is nobody else freaking out about this?

2:02 - My beloved salsa bar at my beloved Sea Casa, neighborhood health-conscious taqueria extraordinaire. Because sometimes a girl just needs some grilled fish with her pureed roasted tomatoes.

4:05 - Malibu Canyon, which is so cool that I'm always a little surprised it's a valid way to get where I want to go.

5:34 - Awesome.

5:58 - Did you know that there are grown-up monkey bars/rings/climbing ropes on the beach at Santa Monica? This is my friend, showing off an upper-body-strength-to-body-weight ratio that I cannot even hope to emulate.

6:05 - ....Winter? Okay.

6:10 - Cool! I feel like there's a geometry word problem waiting to happen here, but maybe that's just me.

8:03 - My feet. Not my fire.

8:10 - Any evening spent around a fire at the beach with friends, blankets, wine, and burgers can't be all bad. Or ANY bad, actually.

Happy Valentine's Day, all!

People, sometimes I look at this poor sad lonely blog, and I get weighed down by how much I haven't said here. Like how I moved and what I'm doing and where I'm living, and how I actually did last month's 12 of 12 but was too busy to upload it until it sort of seemed too late. It's so hard being me!

I can't do those things, but I can tell you about some things I'm pretty into these days, because if there's anything I enjoy, it's making others love the things I love. Here are some of those things:

- The Hemlock Ring
When you're a new knitter, there are certain projects that you think, if this is what knitters do, knitters must be crazy people. Things like, I don't know, lace blankets based on doily patterns from 1942? That said, a good stern blocking and extra-pointy bind-off edge make me feel like a fiber arts badass.

- Espinacas con garbanzos!:
Aha! You wouldn't click if I said "spinach with chickpeas," but this is not just spinach with chickpeas. This is tangy, and spicy, and Spanish, and totally deserving of a gratuitous exclamation point. I make it without the bread, but with a link or two of the orangest, most Spanish-like sausage I can find, and it shocks me every time with the depth of its deliciousness.

- The Civil Wars:
I went to a couple of their shows around LA in December and January—my roommate and I are tangentially acquainted with Joy Williams, having worked with her family and occasionally with Joy herself at summer camp—and fell instantly in love. Now their new album is number one on iTunes (just ahead of Mumford and Sons' Sigh No More, which is also pretty great), allowing me to be both thrilled for them and insufferably smug for knowing allllll about them, like, a month ahead of time.

- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
I KNOW. I'M SUCH A REVOLUTIONARY.  But no, really, the entire reading world is not lying to you about this series. I may not sleep until it's finished. (I also just finished Life of Pi, which I loved for completely different reasons; perhaps someday I will read something not from the Book Club Favorites! shelf, or whatever.)

See? Was that so hard? Let's do this more often, shall we?

12 of 12: December

Happy merry feliz 12 of 12! All credit to Chad Darnell, keeper and curator of the 12s. Enjoy!

8:35 - This is a visual represntation of the weekly moment where I try to convince myself that an hour and twenty minutes is totally enough time to make it to church on time, including shower and drive time. I think the ushers would disagree.

 8:50 - Not helping the punctuality situation: my roommate's late-night art project, a candy-assisted thank-you card/book for her Secret Santa beneficiary/victim. She had to give it away...why, again?

 8:52 - Loading up the candy book, some old-timey Dr. Pepper, and the recipient's favorite Do-Si-Do Girl Scout cookies. Out of season. Because my roommate's magical like that.

 9:47 - It seems that my thirty years of careful avoidance of the banana portion of the fruit-and-cream oatmeal pack was unnecessary all this time! Fake bananas in oatmeal are delicious!

11:09 - Admission of guilt: I wasn't totally excited about church this morning until I got there. Advent, man. Just TRY to stay apathetic.

12:34 - Tortillas. Cheese. Eggs. Salsa. Lunch.*

 

1:15 - Tag-teaming Miss Osborne's post about plum pudding (with recipe, oh la la!). 

 1:47 - Seeing the light at the end of the Hemlock Ring. Only, um, 3500 stitches to go? Plus laughably complex bind-off?

 3:36 - Talking to my mom, I think.

 6:30 - Post-running dinner--this, simple and amazing--and Buffy. Willow approves.

 

8:15 - My down-the-street neighbors have Linus and Charlie Brown in their front yard! I don't know these people, but I would like to. Clearly, they are delightful.

8:34 - Packing for tomorrow's whirlwind--read: very short--trip to Vegas! Packin' my stilettoes and my bail money. By which I mean jammies and a toothbrush.

Happy holidays, people!

* It now occurs to me how gross this lunch looks. Sorry about that. Mmmm, brains!

12 of 12: November

Welcome to the second-to-last-ever (official) 12 of 12! This is the brainchild of Chad Darnell, who's been a generous and thoughtful host for however many years. Thanks, Chad!

And:

 6:45 - Morning glamor shot. Ooh la...la?

6:47 - Soul-crushing winter darkness aside, waking up after the sunrise is SO MUCH BETTER.

7:46 - Not gonna lie: commuting (the) 101 through the Valley is a trek. But it's not so bad on a sunny, traffic-less Friday morning (ultra-depressing NPR reports of late notwithstanding).

8:35 - Welcome to Universal. We love our entretenimiento!

8:50 - Meet my pal the Hulk, who greets me at the bottom of the elevator every day. In my mind, his barely-contained rage at being replaced by Ben Stiller will someday simmer over, evidenced only by the smashed remains of a Little Fockers poster...but maybe that's just me.

 11:00 - Yeah, that Post-It says "Reading Pile."

12:14 - Actually, though, why didn't anybody tell me that I could work for a production company and write book reports all day?

1:15 - Clam chowder and a spinach salad for my Friday afternoon.

3:47 - Every afternoon for about two hours, the sun disappears behind the NBC Universal building. I feel like this must be some kind of metaphor.

5:36 - Partially empty parking garages freak me out. Too much Alias in my brain, I think.

9:30 - Reading The Historian in front of our roaring fire; truthfully, REM sleep commenced approximately .003 seconds after this. This is why I'm so awesome at parties.

11:37 - Aaaand killing one last picture, mostly for my mother, who wants to know what my new room looks like. Here, Mom!

See you next month.

12 of 12: October (Moving Day Eve Edition)

Welcome to the packing-up edition of 12 of 12, in which I prepare for and try not to stress out about tomorrow's big move to Los Angeles. Credit for 12 of 12 goes to one Chad Darnell, purveyor of this fine photo meme.

Onwards:

8:06 - Up.

8:07 - Sherlock says good morning, by which he actually means "please rub my tummy now."

 8:50 - I wait all year for day-after-Thanksgiving pie for breakfast, and you're telling me I could do this all the time? I just have to make a pie? WHAT.

9:10 - Streaky in-between-coats legs for a table I decided to paint purple—aubergine, really—because I figure there's nothing like a good home-improvement project while you're trying to move out of your actual home.

 10:47 - Drawer and desk, drying.

12:30 - Yes, this is a yellow mustard and yellow tomato sandwich with cheese. Only the best for me.

1:20 - The messy, unsettling, everything-is-everywhere stage of packing.

2:40 - Last night's Chuck is FAR more interesting than the proper ratio of clothes to boxes in my life. (Ooh, Sarah Walker wants to marry Chuck Bartowski! Can't say I blame her.)

 3:40 - Packing up the medicine cabinet; also, if you look carefully, the Tootsie Roll bank I got in second grade and still use as a change keeper.

4:29 - Fabio: seats down, doors open.

5:10 - Fabio: half-packed, with tons of room left over. Thank heavens for a hatchback car and an engineer dad.

6:18 - Pre-posting tomorrow's Austenacious, in anticipation of how much I'm not going to feel like posting when I get there.

P.S. 10:15 - Pie for dessert. Shhhh!

What I'm Watching

Oh, people, sing it with me: It's the most wonderful tiiiiiiime of the yeaaaaaaar!

Earlier than you thought, right?

I don't, of course, mean the holidays, with their emotional stress and financial duress and nutritional abyss. I mean the TV premiere season, where new shows blossom and great old ones continue, and suddenly everybody's way more into fiction—whether or not they admit it. It's a beautiful and promising time, premiere week.

As usual, here's the semi-annual rundown of What I'm Watching:

Sunday 

Mad Men
10 p.m. on AMC
Premise: The lives and loves (and lusts) of Madison Avenue ad execs in the 1960s.
I think this is the first time in the history of Mad Men that I've been able to think critically and strategically about it mid-season—normally, everything in the Mad Men universe happens so slowly and with such subtlety that patterns don't emerge until the trajectory of each season is complete, when everything aligns with a satisfying click. But the times, they are a-changin' as the show approaches the mid-60s, and the tenor of Don Draper's life is both more fun (Don and Lane seeing Godzilla in the theater, Peggy riding circles on a motorcycle in an empty sound stage) and more depressing (Don's move from "business drunk" to "mopey, barfy alcoholic") than it was when he had a second life in the 'burbs (speaking of, little Sally Draper's experiences in the '60s are going to put her in therapy, or worse, for all of the '70s—aren't they?). This season is faster-moving than anything we've seen before, but maybe that's an homage to the cultural shift we're seeing in the show. Whatever it is, it's still great, if not even better than it's ever been.

Monday 

Chuck
8 p.m. on NBC
Premise:  Fomerly "nice underachiever accidentally downloads government secrets to his own brain; becomes reluctant spy"; now presumably "full-fledged spy slowly recruits loved ones for ultimate espionage family!" At least, I hope so.
This season, Chuck finds itself in a funny position—that of having survived. It's a show that's constantly on the bubble, always being saved by some fan campaign (which NEVER works, except for here), and having a fourth season at all is some kind of a small miracle. Last year, the premise of the show changed completely—Chuck still works at the Buy More, but it's just his cover. He's a capital-S Spy, complete with a new and improved Intersect, actual weapons training (he's still partial to tranq technology, bless his heart), and permission to leave the car on missions. He's made things officially official with Sarah, and none of his loved ones still think he's just a Stanford dropout with a minimum-wage job. So now what? I think this is where, if they know what's good for them, Chuck changes again—and becomes a spy family show. I think this is where they become The Incredibles minus the powers, or the later seasons of Alias minus the downward spiral. I also think this is where they take the opportunity to disprove in no uncertain terms the famous and misguided Moonlighting fallacy, allowing Chuck and Sarah to remain in a committed relationship without becoming either boring or dumb, or both. Whether or not this is the actual trajectory of the show, I can't say—but either way, I have faith.

Lone Star
9 p.m. on FOX
Premise: Young Texas oil man leads a double life. And, one supposes, lies about it.
Well, this is depressing. Lone Star was, if you can believe it, the only new show on my fall schedule—and it's gone two weeks in. Under normal circumstances, I'd blame FOX's long and storied history of smothering great shows before their time, but here I'm going to have to blame the viewing public. Lone Star was a good show that was consistently marketed by FOX and well-received by critics—but nobody watched it. Like, nobody. So long, surprisingly adept grab for Friday Night Lights's off-season audience. We hardly knew ye.


Tuesday

Glee
8 p.m. on FOX
Premise: Rag-tag band of glee club dorks find themselves and sing about it.
In the stable of TV-boyfriend personalities, Glee is like that guy who's totally cute and seems like a total catch, but who won't ever take out the garbage when you want him to. I spend my Tuesday nights with it,  and sometimes we have a lot of fun together, but just as often it drives me crazy. I want so badly for it to be a great show—to be as good a show as it could be. What if it had coherent storylines and discernible themes? What if it understood set-ups and pay-offs? What if it had snappy dialogue and dance-y musical numbers plus the emotional depth of Freaks and Geeks or Gilmore Girls? These, ladies and gentlemen, are the things that keep me up at night. I thought the season premiere was a mess—no actual arcs of any kind, less-believable-than-usual behavior on the part of Schuester and others, and where's my sometimes style guru Emma Pillsbury?—but I also thought it was par for the Glee course (with, to be fair, an excellent opening sequence, a cool duet of "Telephone," and a new character played by the fifteen-time national female arm-wrestling champion). And predictably, I sort of loved "Britney/Brittany"—not because it was great, but because it was competent, and it had John Stamos as a (presumably musical) dentist. I just don't learn, do I?



Wednesday

Modern Family
9 p.m. on ABC
Premise: Three branches of the same family are hilarious and endearing.
I know exactly when I decided I'd be watching Modern Family: Sarah and I were in Times Square, sitting on our suitcases and listening to Broadway on Broadway, and the ABC jumbotron overhead was looping ads for Modern Family, Cougarville, and whatever horrible thing it was that happened to Katherine Heigl on Grey's Anatomy last season...over and over and over. For like four hours. Halfway through, they had me. ALL RIGHT ALREADY, I said, I WILL WATCH YOUR NEW SITCOM, WHICH ACTUALLY LOOKS SORT OF FUNNY. GET OFF MY BACK GEEZ. And, really, I have no regrets over Modern Family. It's like Arrested Development, if Arrested Development were nice. There's no way I could ever choose a favorite character, nor would I want to (except, if I had to, I might choose Gloria because of that episode with her and Jay's dog butler, but then where does that leave me and Cam?). Also: every time I watch it, I say to myself, "This is the show I wanna write." Now that's good TV.


Thursday

Bones
8 p.m. on FOX
Premise: A socially awkward forensic anthropologist and her hottie FBI partner solve murders using the victims' skeletons.
It's true that my sunny, happy murder show has taken a turn for the heartbreaking over the past year, what with Brennan always riding away in some taxi, sadly, and Booth making his patented Face of Unrequited Love all the time. But here's the thing: as previously noted, Bones has a history of knocking my socks off just when I completely expect to be disappointed, and—ahem—with five seasons of waiting and a romance that's beginning to strain credibility, this is probably a great time for them to work some of their magic. This season's premiere was essentially unambitious—after "The End in the Beginning," I expect only silly alternate-universe hijinks, and am mildly disappointed with anything else unless it involves the circus—but it also carefully emphasized the Jeffersonian crew as one big happy wisecracking family, which is ultimately what keeps this show afloat, especially in the absence of Booth and Brennan having mercy on us all and finally making out. Which doesn't mean you're off the hook, [Showrunner] Hart Hanson. We know what we want.

30 Rock
8:30 p.m. on NBC
Premise: Tina Fey plays herself, only single. (A behind-the-scenes look at the life of a female head writer on a sketch comedy show.)
To those on the inexplicable and insulting "women aren't as funny as men" train—which, by the way, don't ever say that to me—I say, consider 30 Rock when it's written by Tina Fey and/or Kay Cannon, and consider 30 Rock when it's written by anybody else. One is hilarious and wise and true, and sometimes guest-stars Matt Damon as Liz's soulmate, and one is inconsistent and sometimes ends with un-Liz Lemon behavior and a broken heart on my part. (I'll let you decide which is which.) I'm sorry to say that I think 30 Rock is beginning to age in strange ways (not that you'd know it from the premiere, which was written by Tina Fey and was totally spot-on), but it doesn't—I'll watch Liz Lemon 'til the end.

So that's the fall schedule, and you can be sure that I'm fully aware of how unambitious it is. No new shows! How is that even possible? I'm not even carving out time for the new JJ Abrams project, Undercovers, which goes against my personal pro-JJ philosophy, and I found No Ordinary Family tedious when I saw it this summer. No matter what good things I've heard about The Event, I have automatic resentment for anything that presents itself as "the next Lost." I'm thrilled to see Melissa McCarthy—Sookie St. James from Gilmore Girls—working again, but I can't get into Mike and Molly. The new stuff's not speaking to me, is all.

Of course, this isn't exactly everything. I'm still hanging on every word of Friday Night Lights and very much enjoying Leverage as a hiatus show. I have every intention of giving Community another try (I didn't connect with the early episodes at all, but I loved the heck out of the paintball episode). I gave up on Parenthood last year, but now feel the nagging desire to start up again. I hope to catch up on Fringe and The Good Wife, which I hear only sparkling things about, and I'm only on Season Three of Buffy. There's a lot of TV out there, and so much of it is happening without me—but a girl's got to have a life (...I hear). So this is where I'm starting.