GINGER

Not Folgers, exactly, but I got two free samplers of Nescafé coffee at the top of the Metro escalators this morning, so I was pretty pumped. Hey, ANYTHING that peps up my commute is welcomed. Most mornings I feel like an ant in an ant farm, following my little path, never deviating, never looking up. I even carry a heavy load, just like an ant, scurry around, just like an ant, go in tunnels, just like an ant... Let's put it this way, I can definitely relate to Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis.

Anywho, scurrying off to try the hazelnut one...

I went to New York last weekend to get out of this snowbound city (NOTHING was plowed or even shoveled by the time I got back, and we're now about 11 days since the snow fell) and had a lot of fun! I stayed in Greenwich Village this time with my friend Danielle. As I wandered around the neighborhood, I noticed that people only wore low-heeled slouchy boots. So I bought some. :) They would be très chic if I didn't have calves the size of Brooklyn, but big girls need love too, so I'm wearing them anyway.

I also went to the Museum of Modern Art on Sunday with Christina and Christoph, especially to see the Tim Burton exhibit. It was AWESOME. That man's brain is something to behold. The stuff he produces is so intricate and irreverent and creepy and funny and detailed, it was just amazing to see. Some stuff on display: old stop-motion movies he filmed, some as far back as the 70s; figurines used in movies like The Corpse Bride; costumes for Edward Scissorhands, Batman, and others; paintings of fanciful characters; short stories and poems with illustrations written on notebook paper - all just really cool displays. If you are anywhere near it, go take a tour. Try to go on a non-holiday, though, because it gets really crowded and stuffy in that exhibit space.

I was pretty unimpressed with the artist Gabriel Orozco, though, and his exhibition space was way bigger than Tim Burton's. I can tell he's one of those super eccentric people who thinks everything he conceives is art, simply by virtue of being conceived by his "brilliant" brain. Some stuff on his display: toothpaste he spit onto graph paper and let dry; an empty shoebox; five yogurt caps pinned to the wall - ugh. Admittedly, some displays were neat, like his chess board and the Citroën he cut the middle out of and welded back together, but on the whole - I was unmoved.

Call me shallow, but I like stuff that really makes me feel something (besides annoyance). Is it so much to ask to feel wonder, delight, despair, joy, or even just rightness when you look at a true piece of art? Or, in order to be cultured, do we all have to pretend yogurt caps and toothpaste spit are art?

It has snowed more in DC than Minneapolis so far this winter - by almost 20 inches! Even stranger, even more than Buffalo, New York, and they get like 90 inches some years. And a big portion of the snow fell in the last five days. This city is just not equipped for that kind of snowfall. Not enough trucks, not enough salt, not enough employees. And, quite frankly, not enough experience - I could relay some of the antics of the latinos cleaning the walks around my apartment complex, but is it really their fault? They grew up in the tropics!

I mean whatever, I got snowed in for like a million days (well, six) and it was fine because I like to sit around and eat incessantly and this way I could do it without guilt or interruption. But I did get irritated about one thing and it wasn't the lack of snowplows. What bothers me is everyone carrying on about how the federal government loses $100 million every day they shut down because of lost productivity.

Um, are they kidding me? As if ANYONE who works for the federal government is so productive that that much money is lost when they can't make it into the office. Everyone knows 90% of them do next to nothing except blame other people when work doesn't get done. It's the lazy person's dream to be a direct hire because it's almost impossible to get fired, no matter what you do - or don't do. So cut the crap about how much money the government is losing when federal workers can't make it in. If anything, they're saving money on utilities for all those buildings.