I've started online window shopping at work

Add this sofa to the list of things I'm coveting for our living room.

(Santa, I would like mine in 'pearl,' please.)

Source: Macys

Incoming Goodies for the Living Room!

Looking forward to receiving these fun new things to give the living room a mini-makeover!

Sources: Etsy, Amazon, CB2

Durham -- A Place to See

Humble Durham made the NYTimes list of 41 places to see in 2011.


Strangely, it appears right after Kurdistan (“the risk of terrorism in the Kurdistan Regional Government-controlled provinces is markedly and statistically lower than in other parts of Iraq,”) and right before Kosovo ("just over a decade ago, Serbian forces destroyed myriad towns and cities and killed thousands in their pursuit of independence fighters").

A glamorous position, indeed.

Love at first sight...

I'm *in love* with these pendant lights.

However, the absence of a posted price leads me to believe I probably cannot afford them. What a tease, Studio Bel Vetro...

PS. Just saw that the seller's tagline is "Luxury. Illuminated." If that's not code for 'I'm out of your price range,' then I don't know what is!

Law School -- Not for the Faint of Heart

"Law school is a pie-eating contest where the first prize is more pie."

Read more here.

Books -- Soon to be Obsolete?

Between this article about using books as objects of home decor and recent news reports I've been hearing about the wild success of eReaders, I'm afraid that books--as least the paper-and-ink books that we know--are going the way of the typewriter and the VCR.

Now, I feel no remorse about the loss of the typewriter or the VCR. I think we can all agree that computers, despite their imperfections, make our lives better. I'm glad not to be typing this blog post on a typewriter (namely because, if I were using a typewriter today, it would probably signify that there were no computers, and hence, no Internet, in which case my "blog" would probably not be very successful). Likewise, DVD players offer many features that VCRs just could not match.

However, I feel great saddness that paper-and-ink books are becoming obsolete. Don't we all have fond memories of the way a favorite book looked or smelled or felt in our hands? I for one love lending and borrowing books, and that physical act of giving is going to be lost... pinging my latest great literary find to a friend's Nook isn't going to be the same as handing it over, face-to-face.

And what of the great pleasure of perusing other people's bookshelves? Is there any better way to truly get to know someone?

Moreover, I'm an annotater, which makes this whole situation even worse. I love to mark in books, underline, scribble, leave mysterious bookmarks in key pages and then go back, sometimes years later, to see what the me of a different time was thinking. To relive the original experience of enjoying a favorite book. It's literary nostalgia, I guess.

In any case, I'm afraid that, much as my mother has a record collection still sitting in our basement, which I mock, I will someday have a book collection, obsolete and also the object of derision.

The Only Thing I Enjoy at the VA

The only thing I enjoy about working at the Durham VA is interacting with these hilarious robots. (They perform a job carried out by human "pharmacy techs" at most hospitals--that is, delivering medications from the pharmacy to the wards, where the patients are.)


It's almost like working at the hospital of the future...or, the hospital of some dystopian future, where there are mildly recalcitrant electronic helpers; a computer system whose glitches make order-entry feel like two-steps-forward, one-step-back; and a cadre of nurses/ancillary staff who are well-acquainted with the business-end of a pack of Virginia Slims.