provisions

Tomorrow I begin two weeks of taking care of patients (as opposed to research, which is how I spend the majority of my time). I enjoy seeing the patients and families, but the days are almost always long and busy, and I usually get home pretty late. As a result, I did some cooking and baking today, including a favorite pasta for dinner and my favorite scones for breakfast/snacks. I also bought snacks to keep in my desk drawer at work.

It occurred to me that maybe the more obvious way to prepare for time on the clinical service would be reading the latest medical journals. Still, I figure first things first: must keep the body fed in order to keep the brain working.

Posts in the next couple of weeks will likely be short, picture-less, and probably on many days, non-existent.

when patients are four-legged and furry

A major focus in healthcare in recent years is promotion of patient safety. A key breakthrough was the recognition that no matter how conscientious we are, humans can never attain perfection. As a result, the emphasis is not upon increased vigilance by individual healthcare providers but rather improved systems of care. Experts believe that by designing systems for patient care that include built-in checks and standardized procedures, we can minimize the likelihood of human error. An example of such a strategy is the extensive checklists used in the operating room to prevent such mistakes as forgetting to administer pre-operative antibiotics or operating on the wrong limb.

I volunteer on Saturday mornings at a large local animal shelter that has its own veterinary clinic. Today I was intrigued by a sign posted in the clinic that provides guidelines for preparing animals for surgery (mostly spaying or neutering). The instructions included the following:

• Write surgical requests on cage card.
• Examine animal for old spay/neuter scars.
• Verify whether animal is male or female; if sex indicated on card is wrong, please correct.

As in human medicine, a clear concern is prevention of errors, but this list made me appreciate the unique challenges in veterinary medicine: (1) your patients can't talk and tell you what they're in for, (2) many of your patients were strays and have unknown medical histories, and (3) you can't tell with a quick glance whether your patient is a boy or a girl!

Item 1 is often true for my patients in pediatrics, but at least parents are usually on hand to help out. Fortunately, items 2 and 3 are considerably less common.

dust devil

My friend, Sharon, arrives in Boston tomorrow! I'm so excited. She's the sort of friend from whom I can be apart for literally years, yet talk with so easily that it feels like only days.

She's staying with me for three nights while attending a conference, so tonight I've been engaged in a whirlwind of cleaning. This is not because I wish to make my apartment sparkling and perfect for her; I'm aiming for minimally habitable. I'm doing the cleaning equivalent of cramming for a test.

People who know me are surprised to learn that I'm a terrible housekeeper and don't believe me when I say so. I think it's because I come across as well-organized. But a key distinction exists between organized and clean. I love to organize things, but I hate to clean them. I love to have a clean apartment, but I really don't love the process of keeping it that way.

It's too bad because clean is of course much more important than organized in terms of hygiene. My dreadful daily standard for home cleanliness is ironic since my medical specialty is infectious diseases. I'm fastidious about personal cleanliness and grooming, but my housekeeping practices are woefully slipshod. Now, I'm not so bad that I have dirty dishes moldering in the sink or anything like that, but I suspect that at times I'd be horrified by the results if I cultured the accumulation of soap scum in my bathtub.

My dream is to maintain my apartment in such a state of cleanliness that someone could stop by unexpectedly and I'd feel no concern about the condition of the bathroom or the number of dust bunnies wafting about the floors. (With two kitties, that number becomes impressive.) I tell myself that I should care enough about myself to maintain such a state for my own sake. Whenever I'm feeling short on time, however, which is pretty much always, cleaning always ends up last in my priorities. Never mind that I still manage to spend inordinate amounts of time reading novels or browsing favorite websites.

Some might argue that cleaning should be low in the priority list. Isn't there a quotation about a clean house being a sign of a wasted life or something like that? I don't agree because I do believe that a clean and comfortable environment is highly important to quality of life. My problem seems to lie in putting this philosophy into practice.

into the peace of the done

"Out of the strain of the doing, into the peace of the done."

- Julia Louis Woodruff

The presentation is done--hooray! I guess the silver lining in an event that one dreads for months, like giving a talk or going to the dentist, is the joy and relief of getting it over with. I think it went fine. I felt surprisingly calm for some inexplicable reason, for which I was grateful.

At first, I started to worry that I'd finish too soon because my audience was letting me barrel along without interruptions. It's an intelligent and usually highly question-prone group, so I'd factored in time for questions in planning my presentation. I wondered if I was so thoroughly boring people that they couldn't think of anything to ask. Fortunately, a few more inquisitive members of the audience slowly began requesting clarifications or elaborations of my points, and this seemed to warm up the whole crowd. By the end, I had several good questions, and I think I handled them okay.

As I looked out at my listeners--keeping in mind the guideline that one should make eye contact during public speaking--I noticed that some people had the oddest expressions on their faces.

One woman looked perplexed the entire time. Another appeared deeply skeptical, which was especially unsettling because I think she's an expert in the field. Unless I'm mixing her up with someone else, she was even one of the instructors for a course that I took. I hope that the countenances of these individuals didn't actually reflect their inner responses.

I tend to feel invisible when I'm part of a large group listening to a talk, but now I'll try to be more aware of what my face might be communicating. Ideally, I'll try to look like the middle guy in the picture above. Nobody today looked quite that engaged and excited, but that would have been a lot to expect. Even I admit that it was a pretty dry topic.

droning on

Tomorrow I have to give a presentation, a rather long one of about 45 minutes, and so tonight I spent a few hours practicing. I detest practicing talks, even more, I think, than actually giving them. (I hope tomorrow doesn't prove me wrong.) As a result, I probably practice presentations less than I ought to.

In the adrenaline-filled moments of trying to communicate with my audience and get to the end of a talk, I'm less aware of my awkward sentence constructions, my artificial inflections, my ums and ahs. Practicing with only myself listening, I find that all of these are painfully evident. Practicing is in fact useful because trying to express a point several times does eventually help me to work out the best wording, but oh, the process of getting there is excruciating.

My audience tonight was poor Isabel, and I quickly put her to sleep. I imagine she learned long ago to tune me out; I probably sound to her like the grown-ups talking in a Peanuts cartoon.

Here's the last slide in my Powerpoint presentation:

It's called a tornado plot, for obvious reasons. I had to do some Googling to find instructions for how to make it in Excel. I happened upon exactly what I needed in some guy's blog! I guess he figured it out for himself and then decided to share the knowledge with the world. I left a comment to express my appreciation. Thank goodness for the internet.

day tripper

Yesterday was Memorial Day, and my friend, Ellen, came up with the excellent idea of taking a day trip to Maine. Just the words "day trip" evoke excitement because I'm not in the habit of taking many day trips. Even on long weekends, I'm all too prone to sticking close to home and doing the same old unimaginative things that I always do: reading, running, shopping, napping, eating. I was especially happy to go because even though I've lived in Boston for three years, I'd never been to Maine.

We walked the Marginal Way in Ogunquit (which is not spelled as I'd imagined upon first hearing the name spoken) and ate a lobster roll (Ellen) and clam chowder (me) at a restaurant called Barnacle Billy's. We then drove to York and explored the quaint amusement park and boardwalk before eating ice cream on the beach. The day was sunny but slightly cool, my favorite kind of weather. It was an altogether satisfactory outing.

Ellen offered the astute observation that while we could have done many of these activities just as well back in Boston, knowing we were in Maine somehow made them more fun.

i think i'm in love

Check out this marvel of modern design:

This beautiful dish rack arrived from Amazon last week, and I get a little thrill every time I walk into the kitchen and see it.

I'd had my old dish rack, a simple, compact model that served me well, for three years, and it was getting increasingly rusty and unsavory-looking. I concluded that it was time for a new one and decided to splurge on a model with features that I'd been yearning for: a drip tray that drains, a larger size to accommodate more dishes, secure spaces for small objects.

This wonderful new dish rack includes all of these features and has more than fulfilled my dreams. The utensil compartments and adorable knife rack are well-ventilated. Flip-out feet underneath the drip tray promote drainage. The very best part, as shown in the photo, is the little rack above the main rack. It provides a whole second story of drying space, yet can flip up and out of the way to make room for large pots. The dish rack is extremely functional yet also attractive with its shiny (for now, at least) stainless steel and translucent plastic parts. It makes some of my dishes look a bit homely in comparison (particularly the 20-year-old insulated plastic mug that I got at science summer camp). It works as well and looks as good as I wish everything in my life did.

The objects that tend to inspire greatest affection in me, I've recognized, are ones that I use and therefore appreciate on a daily basis. It's terribly nerdy to admit love for a dish rack, I know, but this dish rack actually makes me enjoy washing dishes. How could I not love it? Now if only I could find something that had a similar effect on my feelings about cleaning the bathroom.

assumed grandeur

Today we had a bridal shower tea at the Four Seasons Hotel for my friend, Erica, who is getting married next month. Rather than ordering my usual English breakfast tea, I decided to be bold and try something new, a black currant tea, and it turned out to be delicious. My friend, Sharon, teases me for always choosing the same dishes in restaurants, which I often do; I just hate to be disappointed. It's not always true that adventurousness is rewarded, either in dining or arctic expeditions.

The tea sandwiches, scones, and pastries were excellent. In the interest of thoroughness I tried everything on the three-tiered server except the egg salad sandwich. I ate two chicken salad to make up for it.

The group was of a comfortable size--six adults, I think, plus a very well-behaved three-year-old and a mellow infant--and conversation flowed easily. It was just my sort of gathering.

Being at the Four Seasons made me reflect on my mixed feelings about upscale hotels. The part of me that loves beautiful settings and elegant traditions fervently appreciates them. Another part of me feels guilty about the extravagance of such places given that so many people lack basic necessities. Growing up, my family was always comfortable but not wealthy, and my parents were practical about hotels, aiming for safe and clean but reasonably priced; I remember when the Hampton Inn seemed luxurious.

A third part of me always feels like a kid playing grown-up. Because the accommodations for research conferences are generally posh hotels, I've stayed in quite a few of them, but I never feel like I belong. Ironically, as medical trainees enjoying the benefits of travel reimbursements, we experience being guests in such hotels long before we can afford them personally. Even if someday I really can afford them, I don't know if the imposter sensation will go away. At least today I was wearing a dress and sort of looked the part.

a quiet oasis

My Saturday routine includes running errands in the Back Bay, but today I found the area overrun with visitors attending the anime convention at the Hynes Convention Center. I have nothing against devotees of anime. Apparently part of the convention is dressing up as your favorite character, however, and I am mildly frightened of people whose pastimes involve donning costumes. I feel the same way about the Dungeons and Dragons fans who fight battles with wooden swords in the park, as well as the history buffs who reenact the Revolutionary War each year in period dress.

Today I was hungry and cranky and wanted a quick lunch, so I headed to the Prudential Center food court. It was teeming with masses of people attired in capes and boots, sporting hair in shades of blue, green, or fuchsia and wearing heavy makeup. I saw several long, furry tails; oversized cardboard weapons; and elaborate, spiky headgear. Thoroughly intimidated, I escaped and walked down the street to find someplace else to eat. I considered an unhealthy burger-and-fries lunch at Wendy's, but the crowd inside was equally surreal.

Then I remembered the Boston Public Library's Map Room Cafe, named for the images from historic Boston maps that decorate the cafe walls and tables. I thought maybe the convention-goers might not have discovered the cafe since it's tucked inside of the library. I was thrilled to find that this was true. The few patrons sitting in the peaceful cafe looked reassuringly ordinary with their nondescript clothing and natural hair.

The food at the cafe is nothing exotic--sandwiches, salads, soup--but it's good for what it is. I bought an iced tea and a corned beef sandwich, which the nice man behind the counter grilled for me on a panini press. Another employee brought out a fresh plate of Meyer lemon squares, and I ordered one of these for dessert. I ate my little feast and enjoyed the blissful quiet and felt gratitude for life's unexpected small boons.

Photo by W. Scott Heath.

idol musings

One of the lead stories on NPR's Morning Edition yesterday was Kris Allen's surprise win on American Idol. I listened avidly, not because I'm a big fan--I haven't watched the show since the first couple of seasons--but because I was so delighted: American Idol was being covered on NPR! In usual thorough NPR fashion, the piece included clips of Kris Allen and Adam Lambert singing, interviews with "experts" from the entertainment industry, and a thoughtful discussion about possible reasons why the contest turned out the way it did.

When American Idol first came out, watching it was like eating Pringles or reading People magazine--something a lot of people secretly enjoy but are a little bit embarrassed to confess to. I'm guessing that it still includes the same shameless product placements, aging guest pop stars, and and cheesily effusive judges. You can't help but be enamored even as you wonder what that says about your taste.

Yet as American Idol has gone through season after season and grown only more popular, I've noticed it popping up in conversation in unexpected settings. Someone mentioned it during our work research retreat and suddenly a heated debate ensued about whether so-and-so should have been kicked off and who was the clear favorite to win--quite a shift from discussing virulence mechanisms of Streptococcus pneumoniae or approaches to monitoring influenza vaccine safety. And this wasn't just the 15 to 24-year-old demographic, either.

I think the show has so fully pervaded current culture that nobody worries now about liking something so, well, inane. I find this refreshing. Kudos to NPR for recognizing that while its listeners do care about H1N1, events in the Middle East, and the latest economic legislation, they also have decidedly more fluffy matters on the brain.

who's in charge here?

I think Isabel has been reading my post about her efforts to wake me up in the morning. Yesterday, because I'd already hidden away the clock and the wireless mouse to prevent her from pushing them off the desk, she found a new target:

This little decorative and highly breakable inkwell.

I woke to the sound of it sliiiiding across the desk and leapt out of bed to prevent its demise. Then I looked at the clock and groaned, "Isabel, I don't want to wake up at 5:26 a.m."

She bumped my hand with her head to signal that petting should now commence.

I thought I'd be clever and relocate to the living room, leaving Izzy in the bedroom in hopes of getting at least a little bit more sleep. I settled in on the sofa . . . and then the plaintive meowing began. And continued. And then Maisie (whom I still need to introduce properly) joined in, crying for her breakfast.

And so, what else was I to do? I gave in and got up, and we started the day at 5:32 a.m.

(Izzy, I meant no offense when I called you a diva-kitty, and I apologize. Now could we sleep in just a bit longer?)

mourning what I never had

Last month, I had a birthday. Yesterday, I filled out a survey, and one of the questions asked my age, which I've never minded divulging before. As I scanned down the list of choices, however, I realized that this was no longer my answer:

b. 25 to 34

This was now the correct answer:

c. 35 to 44

Oof. I hadn't just aged up a year--I'd aged up a whole category.

I sat and contemplated what this meant. I realize that these age groupings are quite arbitrary, even though I use them myself in my research projects. Still, I wondered how assumptions about me on the part of the survey administrator might now (erroneously?) differ. Surely I had not, in the transition from answer b to answer c, morphed from Mac dude to PC guy (their female counterparts, of course). No person almost instantaneously becomes more stodgy, less open-minded, less edgy.

Pretty compelling argument, right? The only problem, in my case, is that I've never been edgy in my life and have had the tastes and preferences of a 33-year-old since I was about 12. If anything, the conclusions someone might have drawn because I belonged to the "15 to 24" or "25 to 34" categories were probably less accurate than the ones they might make now.

But for the record, this post was written on a Mac.

please do not stir

I tend to develop cravings for very specific foods that can last for years before, inexplicably and abruptly, they fade only to be replaced by the next craving. In college, it was plain bagels, toasted, with plain cream cheese. This was the beginning of the bagel craze, which, as with most trends, had reached the west coast before my little home town in New Mexico, so I basically discovered bagels in the cafeteria of my freshman dorm. I had a bagel with cream cheese and a glass of orange juice for breakfast every day for three years.

In med school, it was Post shredded wheat--not frosted Mini-Wheats but the giant, rectangular biscuits that come in little paper packets--with sliced strawberries. Hmm, I'm noticing a theme here; maybe my cravings tend to focus on breakfast foods? But the thing is, I find myself wanting to eat these things all day long, sometimes multiple times per day.

Currently, my obsession is Fage yogurt with strawberry.

If you've never had Fage yogurt with strawberry (in which case, you poor, poor thing), it's a Greek yogurt with little resemblance to its watery American cousins. Fage yogurt has a texture more akin to sour cream; it holds its shape on a spoon. And the strawberry. Oh, the strawberry. It comes in its own separate little compartment, shaped perfectly for a teaspoon, and is a perfectly sweetened concoction containing large bits of real strawberries.

When eating Fage yogurt with strawberry, keep one very important guideline in mind, as stated politely on the side of the carton: "Suggestion: Please Do Not Stir." In contrast to how you might treat an ordinary fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt, do not recklessly mix together the yogurt and strawberry, for you will miss out on the full flavor experience. Instead, the sequence that I recommend is as follows:

1. Scoop up a small portion of yogurt onto the tip of a teaspoon.
2. Next, gently plunge the spoon into the strawberry, thus creating a thin layer of strawberry around the yogurt.
3. Place spoon into mouth.
4. Slowly slide spoon contents onto tongue, savoring the exquisite juxtaposition of delicately sweet strawberry and luxuriously creamy, velvety yogurt.

My daily breakfast presently consists of a cup of tea and one of these divine yogurts. It makes me happy to see them stacked on my refrigerator shelf, and I start to feel insecure toward the end of the week when my supply is getting low. Honestly, on some days, it's only knowing that I get to have a Fage yogurt with strawberry that gets me out of bed in the morning.

a list 13 years in the making (and counting . . . )

Yesterday was not only my thirteenth running anniversary, but also the thirteenth birthday of my reading log. I was apparently very industrious on May 17, 1996; I think I was feeling thrilled to have finished my first year of medical school.

My reading log has lived thus far in a blank book that I received as a gift from my friend, Anu. The type that you can see in the margin consists of quotations from various works of Shakespeare. The log is very simple: for each book that I finish reading, I list the date, title, and author, and I number the entry to indicate how many books I've read since starting the log and since the beginning of that year. Some ad hoc statistics:

• Books read since May 17, 1996: 572
• Books read so far this year: 24
• Highest annual tally (in 2006): 84
• Lowest annual tally (in 2002): 17

Keeping this log makes me happy because I enjoy making lists and also because it serves as a sort of journal, one that I've kept faithfully since it's so easy to maintain. It is, for example, no surprise that 2002 was the most dismal year as measured by number of books finished--that was the year I started my infectious diseases fellowship. As I review the titles, I can often remember what was happening in my life while I was reading a particular book. I read The Fountainhead over a long weekend while staying with my friend, Mindy, in Denver after interviewing for infectious diseases fellowship. I read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell on a rainy, rainy New Year's Day that I was supposed to have spent with my friend, Keri; we had to cancel my visit because of huge rainstorms and mudslides where she lived in central California.

A disclaimer: lest I give the impression that I'm boasting of my intellectual prowess in reading up to 84 books in a year, it should be noted that a good number of these weighty tomes were (ahem) romance novels.

from modern dance to modern ballet

My friend, Celeste, and I bought season tickets for the Boston Ballet this year. It's the first time I've had season tickets for anything, and I've enjoyed it. One small reason is that I was one of those students who always liked to sit in the same seat in class, and so it pleases me to have "our seats" for the ballet. But the great benefit of attending the entire season is that I could fully appreciate the full range of the dance company. The last performance, "Sleeping Beauty," was lush and classical. Today's was a series of contemporary pieces. The last, which was making its premiere, featured jerky, mechanical choreography, as if dolls had come to life and were learning how to move. In contrast with yesterday's performance, today's contained plenty of abstract movement for its own sake, some of it quite stunning.

While waiting to meet Celeste before the show, I watched the people streaming into the theater and was struck by the variation in dress. Our high temperature was only in the mid-60s, and some of the ballet-goers dressed accordingly. Others seemed determined to dress for mid-May, weather outside be damned. The attire ranged from strapless dresses and strappy sandals to tweed suits and Dansko clogs.

On an even more unrelated note, I just remembered that today is my running anniversary! Thirteen years ago, during the summer between my first and second year of medical school, I started running regularly--actually, daily, which lasted until I hit my surgery rotation in my third year. Since then, the running has been more regular at some times than others but has always carried on in at least an anemic-but-not-dead sort of way, rather like my houseplants. Because I only remembered my running anniversary now, I didn't celebrate it by running today (sigh).

"in the throes of human predicament"

I am having quite a cultured weekend! Tonight I watched my ballet teacher, Nikki Danizio, perform with her modern dance company, Prometheus. Tomorrow I'll be attending the Boston Ballet's last show of the season.

Nikki was outstanding, which wasn't a surprise because even from watching her demonstrate in class, I can tell how talented she is. She has the sort of intensity that I think every person should ideally feel for his or her chosen profession.

I hadn't attended a modern dance performance before, and wasn't sure if I'd like it. I wondered if I might feel as I do about most contemporary classical music--that no matter how hard I try to appreciate it, I just don't enjoy it much. But I liked tonight's performance!

Because the movements were more organic and less stylized than ballet or even jazz, they really highlighted the dancers' forms in the purest and simplest way. At the same time, although none of the pieces was a narrative, the choreography was so evocative of moods and relationships that it felt similar to catching glimpses of other peoples' private lives, like a scene viewed through a window from the street or a snippet of conversation overheard on the train. The dance company describes itself as "rarely present[ing] abstract movement for its own sake" but rather seeking to "evoke human beings in the throes of human predicament," and they succeed impressively. I was reminded of the work of psychologists like Paul Ekman about the huge importance of nonverbal communication. Watching tonight's performance made me think about how well we all read expressions and body language without even being conscious of it most of the time or able to explain how we do it.

introducing isabel

Hello! I am delighted to introduce you to Isabel Marie Nakamura:

As you can see, she is a lovely little gray tabby with a white sock on each paw and a snowy white ruff.

I'm afraid she's not so pleased to make your acquaintance, and to be safe, it would be best not to pet her. Isabel is very uneasy around other people and afraid of other cats. She worries a lot. It makes me sad to think of the potential attention and affection she misses out on as a result.

Even though she's an anxious kitty, she's extremely brave. The quintessential cat quality of curiosity is very strong in her, so even though she's scared, she may sniff you. If so, try not to make any sudden movements; more than one unsuspecting friend has been victim to her lightning-fast left paw swipe (whack)!

Isabel will be ten years old in mid-July. I adopted her as a teeny kitten (she weighed one pound) in Nashville, on a bleary post-call evening during August of my internship year. She has been my loyal companion ever since through residency, fellowship, another fellowship . . . . She's lived in three different states and four different apartments.

Because she tends to show her prickly side around company, most people don't realize how cuddly she is. Her favorite thing during the Boston winters is snuggling under the covers with all four paws pressed against my side. She follows me from room to room and likes to curl up on my lap.

Isabel is slender, lithe, dainty, and graceful. My friend, Tory, once called her a "supermodel" cat. She's a birdlike, fastidious eater, grazing throughout the day. She also has some diva-kitty characteristics. She's persistent when she wants to be petted. If I'm still asleep but she's decided that it's time to start the day, she methodically pushes small objects off of my desk until the crashes wake me up. She's beautiful and intense, moody and loving. If Isabel were a human, she'd grow up to be a prima ballerina. I doubt it's very apparent (ha!), but I do love her so.

free is the magic word

My belief in the power of Craigslist has increased exponentially. I'd already had success with it before: I used it to find my last two apartments and to sell/give away some furniture when I moved from California to Boston. After my experience today, however, I'm convinced that it can help any seller/giver-away to find a buyer/recipient for practically anything.

When I adopted Maisie, the younger of my two kitty-daughters (whom I'll introduce properly in a later post), I tried out an innovative litter box system called the Smart Cat Box. It's described and reviewed here. I still appreciate its merits but ultimately decided, for reasons that I won't go into because they're somewhat gross, that it wasn't for us. I was then left with three unused bags of the special cat litter, which basically consists of birdseed and can't be used in other litter boxes. (I'd bought multiple bags to take advantage of a special and save on shipping.) The company that produces the Smart Cat Box will only take back litter (unused, of course) within one month of purchase, and by the time I paid shipping costs, I would have cancelled out any refund.

I felt guilty about just throwing the litter away, however. So I decided to try giving it away on Craigslist! I was highly skeptical that this would work, but I figured I had nothing to lose. Sure, strangers out there might laugh at the weirdo advertising cat litter on Craigslist, but thanks to the beautiful anonymity of Craigslist, they'd never know who I was. I posted the following ad:

Free to a cat-loving home with an experimental bent:

Three unopened five-pound bags of safflower seed cat litter for use in the Smart Cat Box system. Yours at no cost except the inconvenience of picking it up.

The next day when I checked my e-mail, I found not one but two responses to my ad! And tonight, one of the people came by and picked up the cat litter.

I didn't have the courage to ask her whether she really had a Smart Cat Box (although I can't think what else she'd do with the litter except feed birds) or what she was doing looking for cat litter on Craigslist. I hope she didn't think it could be used with just any old litter box because she's going to be disappointed and have a mess on her hands. I'm wondering if maybe some people make a habit of perusing the "free" section on Craigslist, sort of like I periodically browse the sale section on the J. Crew website, except their habit would be a lot less expensive than mine.

While posting my ad, I also discovered a new Craiglist term: "curb alert." As is probably self-evident, people use "curb alert" to signal that they just put something out on the sidewalk that is now up for grabs to the first lucky person who ventures by. I like the term and wonder who first coined it. I don't recall its being used back in California. It's clearly more convenient for the giver-away--no e-mails to monitor, no pick-up times to arrange. As the recipient, however, it'd have to be a pretty amazing item for me to respond and take the risk of its being taken before I could get to it. "Curb alert" could make for a fun reality show competition. I can imagine teams of people, poised with a van ready and Google maps fired up, scouring Craigslist for the next curb alert and then racing to seize it first. Sounds more entertaining than a lot of real reality shows out there.

the inaugural post

I'm less than halfway through City of Glass, the last book in Cassandra Clare's fabulous The Mortal Instruments trilogy, but I'm already feeling sad about finishing the series.

These books are the latest in my teen paranormal romance reading kick, which started several months ago with the Twilight series. I wasn't so embarrassed about being sucked into the Twilight books because so many other adults were equally enthralled. But whereas other people seem to have recovered, I'm still daydreaming amongst the vampires, demons, and fairies. It's partly my sister's fault 'cause she's also stuck on the same genre (maybe it's genetic?) and introduced me to The Mortal Instruments.

The embarrassment is only slight, however. Since one of my other favorite genres is historical romance, I (mostly) got over feeling abashed about my reading choices long ago. In fact, I'd rather be caught by a work colleague reading City of Glass on the T than the latest Elizabeth Hoyt or Julie Anne Long.

Clary, the heroine of the series, is featured on the cover of the second book, City of Ashes. She's an utterly cool, petite (which makes her even cooler) redhead with the best superpower ever: she can dream up runes on the spot, inscribe them on the nearest convenient surface, and thereby carry out whatever bit of magic she needs at the time: break a friend out of jail, open a door into another world, make somebody fearless . . . I won't go on to avoid plot spoilers. I remember hearing a story once, probably on NPR, about someone who asked people what superpower they'd choose, flying or being invisible, as a sort of litmus test of their character. I can't recall what it revealed if you chose one or the other, but anyhow, now I know what my answer would be: none of the above. I'd want to be like Clary.