Future talk
So you may have heard about Future Me, the website that lets you write emails to your future self, and set a delivery date years from now. The possible conversations are fascinating, and yet email is so clunky and leads to such asynchronous exchanges. I want immediacy in my future me chats! Thus it was with trepidation that I began an AIM conversation this afternoon with my future self.
megnut: you there?
megnut2012: yeah, what's up?
megnut: well, i'm just wondering, um, what's it like being 40? what's our life like now?
megnut2012: eh, pretty much the same as being 32
megnut: really? huh, no epiphanies?
megnut2012: nah, not so much.
megnut: what about wrinkles?
megnut: does all that wrinkle cream i've been buying lately actually work? or do you have a lot of sun damage?
My development on Future AIM Me begins in earnest later this week. Ready your questions for yourself now and look for a rough alpha in mid-summer.
29 Mar 04 @ 03:13 PM
Hello, hypertext!
Former NY Times restaurant critics William Grimes and Ruth Reichl select eateries for A Quick Guide to the Best Restaurants in New York. Handy, but why aren't these restaurant names linked to the Times' reviews?
29 Mar 04 @ 11:42 AM
Garden ahoy!
One bitterly cold weekend day in January, I sat on my bed with McGee & Stuckey's Bountiful Container at my side and began sketching my plans for this year's fire escape garden. The goals: everything (or nearly everything) would be edible so I could cook with it; good smelly flowers, so cuttings could be brought indoors; and hardier specimens, such as a lavender that's hardy to 0° so many plants will (hopefully) survive the winter. Yesterday, I reworked some plans and placed orders. And during a scouting expedition to the garden center, I purchased a pink primrose. It now sits on my windowsill, harkening spring.
You too can begin your garden now (where now equals planning and ordering but not necessarily planting since I don't know where you live and what you're planting!), and I cannot recommend the Bountiful Container more strongly. This book has proved so useful time and time again, and I constantly return to its pages for the handholding that I, a novice green thumb, require.
29 Mar 04 @ 08:18 AM
Forever in New York City
While on vacation I read
Forever: A Novel by Pete Hamill. It was
The Count of Monte Cristo meets
Interview with the Vampire, which sounds cheesier than it was. It was perfect beach reading, and I enjoyed a great deal of it. It got me so much more curious about the City's history and made me more determined than ever to dig into
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898.
Perhaps the most interesting bit for me was actually after the book. My edition contained an interview with the author in which he talked about completing the book on September 10, 2001. And then of course, needing to go back and re-write a good chunk of the end. After all, his protagonist had supposedly experienced all of Manhattan's major events from about 1740 on. I imagine the process must have been difficult for Mr. Hamil. The "present day" world where his novel ended no longer existed, and ceased to exist the morning after he put down his pen.
25 Mar 04 @ 12:05 PM
March tomorrow in NYC
I've hardly heard anything about it, but apparently there's a rally and march planned for tomorrow beginning at 11:30 AM, a "global day of action on the first anniversary of the U.S. bombing and invasion of Iraq." Here are the logistics for the NYC demonstration.
19 Mar 04 @ 04:51 PM
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly