Two-Timing the Cosmos

White Summer?

2009-07-14T22:05:00.008-04:00

I was very tempted by the Infinite Summer project that tons of my friends on all ends of the country are doing right now -- I attempted the book a few years back when my roommate had a copy and insisted it was his Favorite Book Ever. But I'm pretty sure I didn't get even 50 pages in before I stopped and I'm certain I'll never get through it without a good reason (peer pressure). In the end I opted out, but as a result ended up downloading White Noise on my Kindle. I've been on a bit of a crusade to get through the 100 Greatest Novels of All Time, or, more honestly, using the list to find my personal Great books that I never got around to reading, since, not being graded for the assignment, I'm not going to force myself to choke down everything just to say I did it (**cough**Lord of the Rings**cough**).

I can't lie, I've never even heard of an uncomfortable number of these books. One evening I browsed through every summary and started making lists of stories that struck a chord. My friend Katy had just loaned me Watchmen (the movie had just come out), so that was a good place to start, followed by Neuromancer, a book I'd never heard of, and loved. The founder of the "cyberpunk" genre, it's essentially the grandfather of the Matrix movies; half the vocabulary is invented and the story is so involved ... it's like one of those posters you stare at to find the 3d image when you're finally able to focus correctly on the never before defined dimension.

So anyway, I started White Noise a couple weeks ago, and barely 30 pages into it I knew it was going to be one of my top five favorite books. I also find myself wishing I'd read it in a college course, where we discussed it and were forced to sit and write papers on its themes. The dialogue and laugh-out-loud humor are enough to make it great, but as I'm reading it on the Metro (laughing embarrassingly to myself), or just speed-reading in bed because it's so good I need to keep going, I most assuredly feel that I am, well, not getting it the way I need to be. There are themes and innuendo up the wazoo, and I'm sure if I sat down and wrote a 10 page essay on it (or was involved in a nationwide sit-and-read), it would all come together, but as it is, I just want to keep plowing through to read more of his amazing/hysterical prose. Although it's on my Kindle, I suspect I may end up buying a hardcopy of this to re-read and dog-ear (I've been using the highlight feature on the Kindle copiously). I'll also be voraciously hunting down essays and cliffnotes on it when I'm finished.

I'd also like to just point out that I've been watching (and talking about) a ton of TV the past six months, but I've been *reading* just as steadily, thankyouverymuch.

Anyone feel like going through the 100 with me, or as many as you can? Here's the list, and don't worry, I don't have a very good head start. Feel free to recommend books you loved that I should move to my short list.

The Adventures of Augie March
All the King's Men
American Pastoral
An American Tragedy
~~Animal Farm~~
Appointment in Samarra
~~Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret~~
The Assistant
At Swim-Two-Birds
Atonement
~~Beloved~~
The Berlin Stories
The Big Sleep
The Blind Assassin ** short list; I've read The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake and loved them both **
Blood Meridian
Brideshead Revisited
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Call It Sleep
Catch-22 ** tried and failed a few years ago **
~~The Catcher in the Rye~~
A Clockwork Orange
The Confessions of Nat Turner
The Corrections
The Crying of Lot 49
A Dance to the Music of Time
The Day of the Locust
Death Comes for the Archbishop
A Death in the Family
The Death of the Heart
Deliverance
Dog Soldiers
Falconer
The French Lieutenant's Woman
The Golden Notebook
Go Tell it on the Mountain
Gone with the Wind
~~The Grapes of Wrath~~
Gravity's Rainbow **on my ambitious short list **
~~The Great Gatsby~~
A Handful of Dust
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
The Heart of the Matter
Herzog
Housekeeping
A House for Mr. Biswas
I, Cladius
Infinite Jest ** sigh **
Invisible Man
Light in August
~~The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe~~ ** heck yeah, the whole series! **
Lolita
~~Lord of the Flies~~
The Lord of the Rings ** no thank you **
Loving
~~Lucky Jim~~ ** thumbs down, give me his son anyday **
The Man Who Loved Children
Midnight's Children ** almost bought this the other day, but ended up buying Satantic Verses instead; close enough! **
~~Money~~ ** LOVE Martin Amis (hello I named my cat after him, sort of), but this was actually not my favorite novel of his **
The Moviegoer
~~Mrs. Dalloway~~
Naked Lunch
Native Son
~~Neuromancer~~ ** big thumbs up! **
Never Let Me Go
~~1984~~
On the Road ** short list **
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ** hated the movie, this will be toward the end of my list **
The Painted Bird
Pale Fire
A Passage to India
Play it as it Lays
Portnoy's Complaint
Possession
The Power and the Glory
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Rabbit, Run
Ragtime
The Recognitions
Red Harvest
Revolutionary Road
The Sheltering Sky
~~Slaughterhouse-Five~~
Snow Crash ** moved to short list on recommendation **
The Sot-Weed Factor
~~The Sound and the Fury~~ ** good lord, talk about needing cliffnotes **
The Sportswriter
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Sun Also Rises
~~Their Eyes Were Watching God~~
Things Fall Apart
~~To Kill a Mockingbird~~
To the Lighthouse
Tropic of Cancer
Ubik
Under the Net
Under the Volcano
~~Watchmen~~
White Noise ** almost done! **
White Teeth
Wide Sargasso Sea

Art spaces

2009-06-24T21:34:00.002-04:00

This morning I attended a business roundtable discussion hosted by Flashpoint, at Conner Contemporary (which is an incredible art space -- go visit if you haven't yet). I missed the first 20 minutes, since I decided to run a real time scenario on how much taking public transportation to H Street NE sucks red hot ass, but I managed to catch a lot of interesting discussion.

Philippa Hughes, Jayme McLellan and Karyn Miller led the talk, and it would probably be easiest for me to say that I usually agree with everything the three of these very smart ladies say. When discussing temporary art spaces and how to approach developers and managers, Philippa brought up the excellent point that it's important to talk in their language and focus on how hosting a show might benefit them. We can talk about the intangible benefits of art to a community and even how, long-term, artists change neighborhoods, but that's not going to convince a storefront owner with a $6000/month rent going unpaid to host your sculptures for free because one day, far from now, it might make him feel good. It's not a business person's job to "better the community," it's their job to make money, and it's the art community's job to succeed in the former by focusing on the latter. If anything, the intangible and long-term benefits of art is the ace up our sleeve. The attention and $$ we can bring businesses this weekend are our cards on the table.

There was a lot of interesting talk about how this common ground might be found, and some developers and BID members were there to bring some good points to the table about consolidating efforts through initiatives like "condominium-izing" gallery spaces, particularly when many galleries feel the rug being pulled out from under them over and over as rents rise and landlords seek tenants with deeper pockets. We also talked about forums to pair available spaces with art groups, like one the Cultural Development Corporation houses.

The obvious dysfunction is that these talks go on and then nothing tangible happens. What will it take to get arts orgs in town working together, focusing on the right priorities, and doing it in a way that's palatable to people with a bigger bottom line to worry about?

Resurrection

2009-06-24T00:55:00.003-04:00

Time to give TTtC its yearly dose of CPR. So many random, strange, awesome things have happened the past year, I'm feeling a little constrained by the 140 character updates, so I thought we'd give the blog another whirl. I feel reinvigorated by my recent dip back into the space pool and excited by all the goings on with Ten Miles Square, but I don't write nearly enough anymore (unless you count my temporary editorship at DCist in May, which is a whole other kind of panic-fear-writing-for-your-life).

Today I swung a press seat to the grossly sold out lecture at the Air and Space Museum featuring the Apollo 11 astronauts and Chris Kraft, founder of Mission Control. The lecture is next month, but I'd like some place to talk about it afterwards that doesn't consist of Twitter "OMG"s. So off we go. One more time!

Grandma joins the internet

2008-06-29T01:01:00.002-04:00

Oh ho, just kidding, it's only me. After signing up for Twitter eight months ago and promptly abandoning it, something strange came over me last night and I decided to give it a go. Maybe my love affair with Flickr was waning and I needed a new digital high, or maybe I was in agony knowing that there were people out there who wouldn't know instantly about the giant bug I just saw in my kitchen. Why wouldn't you want to know, right?

So you can now follow me where ever I may go, reading every observation I make, as I, um, tweet my way along under heathermg. Enjoy!

Today on the radio

2008-06-26T10:45:00.002-04:00

You can listen in today to hear me and Lenny Campello from Daily Campello Art News on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU, 88.5 FM. We'll be talking about what's going on these days in the art world and good shows you should check out. We should be on around 1 or 1:30 pm.

Call or email in with questions for us: (800) 433-8850 or kojo@wamu.org.

Turn Me On (All Week Long)

2008-06-24T23:44:00.003-04:00

Well hey. After abandoning the dredges of humanity in Vegas, I seem to be on an upswing. Tomorrow I'm scheduled to host a live chat with the fine people at Washingtonian.com, in lieu of my renovation column this week. Tune in tomorrow to watch me answer readers' burning questions about construction loans, kitchen cabinets, and managing my own little superbowl team of contractors. You're just gonna be sitting there eating lunch anyway, right?

The good Prince at PoP mentioned it on his site today -- and of course, he's the one who started all this craziness when he interviewed me last winter. A commenter joked that I've turned myself into renovator of the year, which, yeah. Judging by how much HGTV I used to watch, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people find the renovation work interesting, but, whatever, I'm still totally surprised that people think my little ol' project is fascinating. I even have a small handful of new email friends, who've contacted me from PoP or Washingtonian asking for advice, and now we all regularly trade tips. What a strange little world this is.

Oh, which reminds me, if all goes well (and it will, right?), my kitchen will be done at the end of Friday. What's that? Yeah, I said DONE. DONE DONE DONE. Finito. Nada mas. Zip. (Okay, except for the painting.) Contractors are coming Wednesday to prep for the counters, the counter guys come Thursday, and the contractors come back Friday to install the sink/dishwasher/garbage disposal. WAAAAAHOOOOO.

One more very important thing: Today I got an email from a producer at the Kojo Nnamdi Show. Yeah, that one! Lenny, a frequent guest, threw my name out when they were looking to fill guest spots for their next local arts discussion. Check it out Thursday, either at noon or 1 (they haven't picked yet), at 88.5 FM.

Vegas Fin: Liveblogging from DCA baggage claim #12

2008-06-24T08:14:00.000-04:00

So let's just say this about me and Vegas:

Not once did I get to cash out when I left a table. Roulette, slots, blackjack, you name it. My mom, who last month won five grand during her slot tournament, was 500 down this time. After she walked me to the taxi stand last night as I headed to the airport to leave sin city, she stopped by the slots to pull a few on the way back to her room. She won 800 dollars on the third pull.

So if you were wondering if you should rub my head for anything, I'd just advise against it.

Vegas Day 3, Liveblogging from the pool

2008-06-22T13:32:00.000-04:00

So let's talk about Elton John. I have to say, not being a real active fan of the man, that was a pretty sweet concert. When we arrived we discovered it was his 200th performance in Vegas, which meant we were all treated to free feather boas to wear through the show, and which delighted my mother to no end (she'd seen one earlier at the gift shop, squealed, and vowed to buy one after the show). At least, they were pretty sweet until we left and realized they had molted all over us.

The music was accompanied by a pretty awesome display of films by David LaChapelle and giant blow up suggestive friuts and/or explicit body parts (pleased to refer you to Flickr), including the largest blow up stripper the world has ever seen. The films were largely modern/interpretive dance which was, let's be honest, a little gay. Except the film for Someone Saved My Life Tonight, which was spectacularly, amazingly gay. Like rainbows and fairy boy angels and unicorns gay. It was also the point at which we graduated from plain ol' naked fake titties everywhere to straight up flaming vag. Literally. Flaming.

No encore though, which is unfortunate. My mother had a blast, especially since it was essentially a tribute to the early 70's (and peace and protests for civil rights and hooray women and gays!), and so in addition to the bright orange tie-dye shirt she got for the hippie theme of her monthly slot tournament (for real, more on that later), and her neo-peacenik mentality generally, means this particular Vegas trip has been right up her alley.

Okay, back to the water to cool off.

Vegas Day 1

2008-06-21T03:04:00.000-04:00

So far marked off on my Vegas checklist: lost a hundred at the roulette table, another twenty at slots, learned some valuable tips for blackjack that I'll never use since I only have so much equity in my house to gamble away, drank from a humorously oversized alcoholic beverage, ate dry prime rib at the buffet, seen enough fake tits to float a bulldozer, melted in 107 degree heat, and had some drunk fuck throw up on me in the casino.

Gosh, what's left? See spectacular Vegas show (Elton is tomorrow), lose my house in a dramatic single hand of texas hold 'em, pass out drunk only to wake up in the white tiger den (with or without siegfried and/or roy), and, of course, abandon my dignity with a washed-up dot commer who flew in from Sacramento for the weekend with his boyz in another futile attempt to reclaim his glory days.

Til tomorrow!

Because it's what's next...*

2008-06-12T23:13:00.003-04:00

I've wanted to get back to the blog lately, but was waiting for something special to talk about. It came in the form of an email from Tom to a couple of his known space nerd friends, telling us that his company was holding a publicity call this Thursday evening with astronaut (A MAN WHO FLEW IN SPACE!) Gene Cernan, to talk about the awesomeness of the new Discovery Channel series, "When We Left Earth."

Of course I'm all over this (as my second astronaut meeting, which I'll happily illustrate with my 11 year younger self), and you can hear the discussion yourself in a few days once it's up on the internets (apologies in advance for my less than stellar performance, due to my short list of questions being answered by Cernan, who spoke in very great detail before I got up to bat, and then BWKP hogging the last question before time ran out). Regardless, it was pretty amazing.

Brief background: Captain Gene Cernan flew on Gemini 9A, Apollo 10 ("I painted that white line in the sky so Neil wouldn't get lost") and Apollo 17, as the last man to set foot on the moon. I thought the call would be mostly about the show, and of course I'm going to have to save up for the DVD (which, I will), but was excited to hear Cernan spend most of the time talking about his experience as an astronaut and his thoughts on the space program's place in history.

He touched on many topics, but he came back to this in everything he talked about: the space program is not just important for the tangible benefits (furthering science and technology, the place it put America in the world in a time of uncertainty), but even greater, for the intangible excitement that we, as a country, as a world, as humans, can achieve incredible, amazing things -- and that it that's spirit that moves us on to the next thing. Even referring back to the Wright brothers, their "biggest contribution wasn't the planes they built, it was the inspiration they passed onto the next generation" to achieve even more.

Though we know the story, it got the space explorer in me buzzing off the ground to hear Cernan set the scene in 1961 (slightly paraphrased because I couldn't get it all down).

Sputnik and Gagarin had just gone into space, and everyone was looking at [America] saying, 'What are you going to do about it?' Soon Alan Shepard went up, and right afterwards JFK said, 'We're going to the moon,' after we'd only seen 16 minutes of spaceflight! And we wouldn't just do it, we'd do it before the end of the decade, and before the other guy! That's the real legacy of Apollo: don't tell me I can't. Give me the motivation and I'll do anything.

Chills!

Interestingly, Cernan spoke about the presidential candidates positions on the space program, saying, dishearteningly (well, to me, not to him) that Obama has stated he'd slow down the space program over the next decade, instead putting the money into education. Cernan spoke adamantly about money not being the end-all-be-all to "education" in this country, and that if children have nothing to inspire them, why are they going to strive to learn anything? Speaking again of the Apollo program: "Today's candidates need to remember what that did to the American people."

I had a friend at my first job after college, back at the Ohio Statehouse, who was a self-described crunchy liberal. Anytime I talked about space, she used to argue with me that NASA should be wiped off the map, and we should give that money to the NEA instead. Naturally, I want the NEA to be as fully funded as possible, but that argument is asinine. With a little prompting from me (though I was actually joking), BWKP asked Cernan what he thought about people who thought the moon landing was fake, and after a good laugh, Cernan bounced back with the perfect statement: he felt sorry for them. That's how I feel for my old friend, I feel sorry that she gets no joy from the ultimate in human experiences. I mean, jeez, for people to create art, they have to be inspired by something, don't they? Maybe not the moon landing itself, per se, but by human emotions, by our history, by our possible futures, and that's all encompassed by our endeavors to travel outside our safe, snug atmosphere into the unknown of space.

I have just over seven pages of notes from our discussion, but I won't recap it all since they're posting the podcast of it soon enough. I'm incredibly intrigued by the Discovery series though. To make "When We Left Earth," they actually took the original rolls of film in NASA's archives and remastered them with today's technology, so you can see the decades old footage on high def. The series began last Sunday, but will continue for the next two Sundays at 9 p.m.

-----
*I feel like I need to apologize to BWKP for using this as the title, because he is the "owner" of all West Wing quotes ever spoken and he no doubt used it in his post, but even without his provoking I kept thinking of Rob Lowe's monologue from "Galileo" the entire time Cernan was speaking.

P.S. Also, this. Hard. Man, I miss that show.

Update: The Blog

2008-04-08T21:40:00.003-04:00

Ah, life is full of unintentional comedy these days. I went downstairs to my kitchen, not hungry enough to make a big meal, but not sure the tiny need to eat I had was worth making something in my kitchen filled with giant appliance boxes that are taking up enormous amounts of space but at least doubling as some -- any -- counterspace. Well anyway, that's why god invented Ramen, right? So I opened the cabinet to get a bowl....remembering that all my dishes have been sitting out on the kitchen table for weeks. I'm stirring the noodles in the pan and look down at my bowl. A spider had taken up root in it. Awesome.

Anyway, I think you can expect the blog to get a little sparse, as it has been for awhile. I'm in the midst of some crazy projects (one is a new side business you'll be hearing about soon) and all the home renovations -- well, now that I know I'll be writing them for Washingtonian, I tend not to need to run home and vent on TTtC right away. Especially when I can just live-flickr-pix it.

I did really want to get up here and write a very long thesis about why August Rush is the Worst Movie Ever, but sadly I have not had time. But believe me, it was comedic gold. If I ever get angry at the world again I might just sit down and pound it out (so expect it any second now).

Oh god, there was something living in the chimney

2008-03-31T21:34:00.002-04:00

You know my newly exposed chimney with the giant holes? Well I was standing by the stove tonight, cooking the last two eggs (last two anything) left in the house, and to my left I see something big enough to catch in my peripheral vision scurry like mad from the dining room and by the stove, back towards the chimney. It had to be a mouse -- nothing else is that big and moves that fast.

I know there are probably worse things going on my house that could happen, but I knew way before I bought my first place that *this* was the kind of shit that was going to freak me the hell out. Giant spiders, cockroaches, vermin large and small. I really cannot deal with unsanctioned animals of any kind inside my house. Remember the rat?? I do. And though I'm sure the mouse is snugly inside it's little coal-covered box bed tonight, you can bet I'm going to have nightmares about it running across my face for the next 6 hours.

Ugh.

Done and done...or, not.

2008-03-30T20:47:00.003-04:00

Just got home, in time to find out why my alarm didn't go off at 9am this morning...since it was set for pm. I'm a little shocked there isn't one single photo yet on Flickr from today's photo shoot. I took a few myself, but I have 500 photos from California, 300 from a behind-the-scenes shoot from weeks ago, event photos to put on a cd, and more, so they may not see the light of day soon.

Now I only have my Washingtonian blog to write, some news feeds to scour for post ideas, perhaps writing a few reviews I've had in my head for awhile, doing some of that work work that I bring home the bacon with, thinking up a name for my new business, eating this on-the-verge-of-going-bad grapefruit, and watching last week's Top Chef episode, all to do before I go to bed. It's 9pm according to my alarm -- go!

Hey look....

2008-03-30T09:58:00.003-04:00

Someone went to our Emerge Exposed panel and took lots of notes.

I know I've been slacking on the blog. I've been trying to catch up in real life and having marginal success. Today, naturally, I have to go to this photo shoot thing that I was asked to help plan (for, it seems, no apparent reason) and there's also no apparent reason for me to go except to serve as damage control officer, as usual. Either way, it's another 5-6 hours I'll spend stressing out that I could be at home getting shit done.

The good news is my kitchen renovation is heartily underway. The chimney has been exposed giving about 8" of new space, and I went to Ikea yesterday to scope out cabinets and hardware, and settled on the kind I plan to go with. Last night I graphed out the entire space, chose each cabinet, then went to Lowes.com to buy my new dishwasher, microwave, sink, faucet, and garbage disposal. Things are under way!

Remember you can keep up on my renovation adventures over at Washingtonian every Tuesday.

Overheard on the plane:

2008-03-23T15:41:00.003-04:00

My middle-seated neighbor on the plane (a defense attorney in central Cali -- if you'd like to know the rest of his life story, just give me a buzz) was accompanied by his 6-7 year old boy in the window seat.

As we took off after an hour delay, the kid got more and more excited, giving us a running commentary on what was going on, and then said as our wheels left the ground, "We're like Stephen Hawking!!"

Which, however inaccurate, just became my favorite moment ever.

Later, Bitches

2008-03-18T21:38:00.002-04:00

I'll be 70 degrees and mild for the rest of the week and into next. My voice is back, I'm done with project #2938490, and I'm headed on my virgin trip on Virgin America, nonstop to LAX. I'll be gorging myself on this and some of this. Doing a little work because God says it must be always so, but mostly visiting family and pretending my life will magically become calm and peaceful by the time I return to D.C.

Not likely, but it won't make the mexican feast any less delicious or the sun any less brilliantly sunny for the next six days. Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go find my bathing suit.

Whew!

2008-03-11T23:09:00.003-04:00

It has been a long, crazy week. Also, I'm beat. And it's not over.

I think we can say the opening of Exposed went pretty well. (Whew.) A decent number of folks showed up, even if you don't count the ones who didn't want to wait outside in a line in the rain.

I spent Saturday inside on my couch, cuddled up watching DVDs (The Weather Underground, Shawn of the Dead, and 12 Monkeys). The next morning I had a giant, almost 100% cheese omelet at Florida Avenue Grill, followed by a Vonnegut play in Virginia, promptly followed by getting sick. Ugh. It's sort of like run-of-the-mill cold meets mono. Anyway, I stayed home yesterday, mostly slept all day, and finally hauled my ass to work -- for the first time in four days -- around noon today. I'm feeling better, but I kind of just need a vacation, I think. And someone to clean my house.

Tomorrow we have our special Exposed event, which I'm excited about. The panel is pretty much sold out, but come by at 8pm if you want to check out the show during the post-panel open reception.

Oh, and my kitchen contractors emailed me last Saturday telling me they could start...Wednesday!! Wt heck? I thought we were on the same page about starting in late March, but maybe they thought I would like it if we moved it up a little. So in the wake of Exposed I was suddenly thinking about how fast I could unpack my entire kitchen, research and buy a dishwasher and microwave, and contact my flooring contractors....and I was like, no way. I called them up and told them we couldn't start until the 27th, when I get back from California, which they were totally fine with. Crisis averted, if it was one, which...it wasn't, but you know. What isn't these days.

Okay, time for more sleep.

Countdown....

2008-03-03T19:44:00.003-05:00

Only four short days to go before the opening of DCist Exposed. On the way home I lamented, "I have so much to do!" And my friend said, "Oh yeah, like what?" "Well....um, I have to go to Kinkos! And....um....wow, is that it?"

Yeah, pretty much everything is done, so really the issue is that now I just have four days to worry about everything that might go wrong, which is way more work than actually doing something. Last night I created a Facebook event for the reception, so join up if you get the urge.

Once again my biggest task left is deciding what to wear. Since I get my bonus Friday, I'm thinking about finding a few hours to go shopping this week and actually buy something new. Clothes! The act of buying them! It's been awhile, old friend.

Anyway -- you know where to be Friday. See you there!

And the Latest Epic Drama Comes to an End

2008-02-29T19:09:00.003-05:00

With heat! No thanks to Washington Gas though. I was hoping my week would end with a little less "crazy" than what it started with, but no such luck. And though this story is pretty long, it's all a little too weird not to be blogged.

The gas technician showed up a little past noon and I went outside to show him the meter. He asked me what was wrong and I showed him the note they left. "I can't fix that." "What do you mean you can't fix it?" "We don't do that." "What do you mean you don't do that??" "It's not our policy, we don't do that."

As you might imagine, this is right about where I got pretty livid. I wanted to know why the emergency person told me it was now a "service call" when he was telling me it wasn't, why the person this morning whom I told about the "flex connector" note assigned a service man if he couldn't fix it, and lastly, if he really couldn't fix it, WHYTF no one just simply picked up a fucking phone and TOLD me that instead of leaving a note underneath my porch for me to maybe or maybe not find. (Btw, my stove worked this whole time -- another reason I never realized the gas to the heater was off. I learned much later in the day that they're on two separate lines.)

He got all up in the blame-game, telling me that what they told me was wrong, and getting all upset that I expected him to do something, and I just started to tear him a new one. I'm freezing to death in my own home because Washington Gas can't get their shit together for four days to tell me I need to call my contractor? For real? He asked me if I wanted to talk to his supervisor and I said, "WHY? Is he going to FIX it?" "No, he can explain to you our policy." "I *get* it, your policy is to screw your customers over, why do I need your supervisor to explain it to me, seriously?" He did, at one point, tell me he was a Christian. To which I just started to laugh bitterly and ask, "What does THAT have to do with anything?" The one tiny step up from being a religious nutjob who foists their views on everyone, is a "Christian" who insists that they have some God endorsed right to be a jackass.

The weirdest part is that after I realized he really wasn't going to do anything I said, "Alright, so that's it??" And started to walk inside. He just stood there and kept rudely telling me how it wasn't his fault. I kept asking, "You're not going to fix it, so we're done, right?" And he just kept *standing* there. I finally just had to close the door in his face because he wouldn't leave.

About two minutes later I hear something downstairs. I'm like, "oh great, he's probably locking my gas lines or egging my house or something." So I go downstairs and he's walking down from the porch; he'd clearly come back and done something to my meter with a very long pole. I said, "Hey, can I help you with something?" And he said snidely, "No, you can't help me with nothing." Then said, "It was cement, I couldn't do it." I have no idea what that was about, except he probably needed to come back with some measurement to prove he'd been to my house.

Then I hear him again a few minutes later. This time I open the door and he's over the railing hunched by the meter, dosing it with some soapy water (used to find the leaks). He doesn't look up and I just kept watching him....I mean, what's going on? We just had a screaming fight on the porch, and now he's back here...checking for leaks he can't fix? I just let him do his thing until a few minutes later he pointed and said, "Yup, it's right there." I tried to play along, "Oh yeah?"

He got up and started to weirdly get into the same fight with me, about how this wasn't his fault, but he was speaking calmly, and so I just as calmly tried to tell him that it doesn't matter if it's his co-worker (he spent a lot of time blaming the first technician who left me the note), his corporate office, or the reps in Bangalore, it's all "Washington Gas" to *me*, and all I ask is for someone to take a little responsibility so I'm not sitting in an icebox for a week. We actually ended up having a good talk about it, and he told me how he hates the way the customer service phone reps screw everything up, to leave the technicians to deal with the then-pissed-off customers. Then he told me that after we yelled at each other, he got in his van and thought, "If I was without heat for a week, I'd be pretty pissed off, too," and so he came back to double check that there really was a leak, because if he couldn't find one, he could turn my gas back on.

He apologized to me for the service I experienced and told me that he didn't want to leave this housecall with a "bad taste" in my mouth. I apologized to him for yelling at him, though he kept saying at that point that he understood. And he left.

Yeah. That actually happened.

I promptly called my HVAC crew. Although it's true that this was their screw up (the leak itself), I still love them. They always, *always* pick up the phone when I call, are kind and polite (and apologetic if they have to be), they send someone over immediately, and if I'm not at home, they call me afterward to tell me the status. That's all I ask: a little courtesy. So when I called them today -- and I called the head honcho directly, he immediately got his #2 off a job and they both came over personally. The apologized profusely, embarrassed that I've actually had two minor gas leaks, when they often go entire years without any of their customers reporting one, and stayed as long as it took to make sure it was absolutely fixed and that my heat compressor and fireplace were working properly.

They used some new bendy type pipes on my house, and told me that although they're supposed to be high quality material, they're finding out that they get knocked out of place too easily -- which is likely what happened to mine, it got kicked or the incredible wind storms we've been having knocked it too much. They're going to come back in the next couple of weeks and replace those flexi-tubes with fixed (hard piping) tubes.

You know what? Shit happens. I understand that things break sometimes, and a little human decency in dealing with this stuff goes a long, long way. I still highly recommend these guys, so if you want their info, email me.

Update From Bangalore: My Gas Technician Will Be Here "Between the Day"

2008-02-29T08:55:00.002-05:00

Wow. I've had some frustrating calls with Indian customer service reps, mostly because I have a hard time understanding people with thick accents anyway, much less over my crappy Verizon cell phone. This guy was either hard of hearing himself or some kind of idiot, because I literally repeated everything, EVERYTHING three times, and not cause he asked, but because I'd say it and there would just be silence, and he'd then keep talking like I hadn't said anything.

Washington Gas has had my last name misspelled since I turned the service on, so I figured I might as well fix that. Oh -- wait, first, he was like, "That's not the phone number we have on record," and I said, "I only have one phone, so why don't you?" He then ran off some Maryland number I've never heard of. Idiots. Then we had some fun trying to spell my name. After five or six repeats, using military letters (alpha beta): "That's only three letters." "I SAID TWO S'S!! ARG!"

"Is that all?" "Uh, no, I already told you that's not the reason why I was calling -- why would I wait on hold for 45 minutes to change two letters in my name?"

So I explained to him the situation, which he did not understand, but put me on hold anyway. Then he came back, asked me to repeat it, put me on hold. Then he came back, asked for one bit of info, put me on hold. One more bit of info. On hold. And everytime he came back he said, "Thank you for your patience with holding," and...well you can guess what I wanted to say to that.

I read him the "flex connector" thing from the note. Which he didn't hear at all, even though it took me at least 10 seconds to read fully. Then he kept asking, "Is it fixed?" "I can't tell from this note." "Okay, but is it fixed?" "I don't know!!" Three minutes later. "Did he fix the problem?" "I AM NOT A GAS TECHNICIAN, HOW THE HELL WOULD I KNOW IF IT'S FIXED!!"

After my 20th time on hold he came back and said, "Okay we'll try to send out a technician today." "What do you mean *try*? I've been without heat for 2 days and it's 20 degrees outside. Send one over NOW. This should be your top priority." "Okay please hold." Then: "Okay a technician will be coming over between the day." "What?" "*unintelligible english*" "Wait, what?" "Between the day." "Oh my god, that is NOT an English phrase." "Please hold." Two minutes later, "Okay a technician will be coming over between the day."

[[smashes head on desk]]

They tell you at the beginning of the phone call that you should stay on the line after you speak with a rep for a customer survey. Of course I've never actually done that because my phone calls to Washington Gas typically end with me with hanging up angrily on the service rep and throwing my phone across the room. This time I held on: "Washington Gas is having technical difficulties." And then I got sent to the main menu.

Hate.

HATE

2008-02-28T21:24:00.002-05:00

The contractors who did up a little kitchen design and estimate came over today to go over them with me. These are the same guys who noticed a gas leak last week and said I should call my heating contractor. I did, and the heating guy said that he smelled it wafting from the ground, underneath the meter, which means I needed to call the gas company.

That in itself sucks pretty bad, because I've had nothing but incredibly rude, incompetent service from this bunch of buffoons since I bought this house. I called their emergency line and they said they'd send someone out as soon as they could. This was early, I was at work, and with the zillion things going on, I just forgot about it after a few hours.

That was last Friday. The heat stopped working on Tuesday.

As my kitchen guys were leaving today I said, "hey, do you smell any more gas?" Because I didn't smell it in the first place, so I figured they would if it was still there. They said they didn't, but they're typical touchy handymen and both went to inspect the meter. One of them said, hey, there's a little note attached here. I hadn't seen it, and definitely couldn't reach it. The contractor nearly fell over the railing trying to pull it off. It says: "FLEX CONNECTOR FITTING LEAKING. NO ONE HERE TO SIGN." And my contractor added, looking at the meter, "The gas is turned off."

Well folks, I guess we figured out the mystery of the programmable thermostat. THE GAS HAS TO BE FUCKING ON FOR IT TO WORK. ARRRRGGGJAOPERJIANJKE;FNA;EFJA;.

And no one at Washington Gas could have picked up a god damn phone and called me? I had to figure it out by freezing to death for 24 hours and waiting for someone with better eyes than me to practically crawl underneath my porch?? And maybe you can see how the four day difference between my "emergency" (if there was ever a use for scare quotes) call to the gas company and them actually sending someone out means I didn't make the connection about my heat right away.

So I called the emergency line back and was like, "Get over here and turn my gas on RIGHT NOW." After putting me on hold for five minutes, she informed me that this is now a service call, and I'll have to call back at 8am. Guess how much I swore in her perky little ear?

And the stupid part is, I know how to turn the meter back on, but I can't tell from this poorly written note if it's actually been fixed or not. But guess who's probably going to have to take a day off work to figure it out? And it's not perky "emergency" services girl, that's for sure.

Did I just singlehandedly disable my entire HVAC system with one push of a button?

2008-02-28T17:25:00.002-05:00

I think that I did. I have a fancy programmable thermostat that was installed with my new heating system, but taking 2 minutes to actually program it hadn't been in my schedule, so I just turned the heat up and down when I left and returned, no biggie.

But the other day I accidentally hit the mysterious "hold" button before I hit the "up" temperature. The compressor (the heat part) never came on. I changed the temp a bunch of times, took out the batteries on the thermostat, but I got nuthin.

So I was like, fine, I'll program the damn thing. I scheduled all four settings (wake, leave, return, sleep) and checked and rechecked them. The scheduled temp always went up or down on cue, but still, the compressor wasn't turning on (and obvs, the real temp wasn't changing). I tried turning the fan from "auto" to "on," and it came on, but still no heat was coming out. Even tried overriding my brand new schedule with the "temporary" and "hold" buttons (now I know what they do). I'm pretty much at a loss now.

A few days ago it wasn't that cold and my house was retaining a decent 63-65 degree temp inside, but today I got home and it was 59. I dragged all the space heaters upstairs, but...? I just flipped the breaker, no dice.

So I checked out the troubleshooting manual. Here we go, "Condenser fan runs, compressor doesn't." Okay! What do I do?

Possible cause / Remedy

Run or start capacitor failed (single phase only) / Replace
Start relay defective (single phase only) / Replace
Loose connection / Check for correct voltage at compressor - check & tighten all connections
Compressor stuck, grounded or open motor winding open internal overload / Wait at least 2 hours for overload to reset, If still open, replace the compressor (!!!)
Low voltage condition / Add start kit components

Well. Okay! My compressor, by the way, is on the roof with access only from a 30 foot ladder, and just to be clear, the compressor is the entire heating system. So, I'll get right on all that. Or I could just call my HVAC contractor, who will come over probably just to tell me I needed to hit up, up, down, up, down on the thermostat, like the manual says. Duh.

Keeping Up with the Who?

2008-02-26T23:25:00.003-05:00

Ah, the blog! Hi. Sorry. Shits been nuts up in here. Cliffnotes (foreshadowing!):

I got some very, very good monetary news at work the other day. Let's just say that March 7 is going to be on me. Like, all of it. Whatever you want boys and girls, you want that lollipop? Its yours. Credit cards? Be gone! Kitchen renovation? Yes plz. Guess what? I worked a lot of effing hours in 2007, it turns out. I kind of remember it.

Speaking of March 7. Exposed is almost upon us. It's bigger this year, which means a couple snags here and there, but we'll hit that finish line, I hope, quite awesomely. Though I'm not even kidding about retiring on March 8. Seriously. I'll be in Cabo with something frosty and no communication devices in sight.

My second article is up on Washingtonian. It's the dreaded mortgage column. It had to be done. Speaking of which, I meet a contractor on Thursday to go over three design proposals he made for my kitchen. As long as it includes cabinets that don't open the wrong direction, any counter space at all, and a garbage disposal, we're good to go.

Good news! The Sound and the Fury is finally started to make sense. Of course, it required going to Wikipedia and reading the entire synopsis of each chapter, but you know, I'm totally getting it now. Actually I'm glad I did that, because although I more or less got that Quentin killed himself, once I got to the third chapter and suddenly Quentin is a GIRL and SEVENTEEN and I was like "wtf my mind is exploding" because I totally did not get at all, even a little bit, that Caddy got pregnant, married, and dumped by her husband for cheating. I mean, not even a little bit. So I'm all caught up now, and Jason's hateful chapter is moving right along.

Which, I think I'll go read now. So long!

Bring on the chemical warfare

2008-02-21T21:37:00.002-05:00

I forgot to mention one other thing I did this weekend: tape my new insulation kit over the windows to keep out the wintery drafts. Obviously, this is not a permanent solution, but hunting around to find leaks and caulking up all the windows is the kind of time-consumer that's low on my list, especially when I have an easy temporary solution. (Note, however, that I did discover one of my upstairs windows has a bad, bad water leak, and will probably need to be totally replaced eventually. Someone put that on the list.)

I also imagined it probably wouldn't be as "invisible" as they advertise, but I had no idea how bad it would actually be. It kind of looks like I went to ready.gov, drank a couple gallons of kool-aid, hopped the first bus to the hardware store and bought out their entire stock of duct tape and plastic sheeting to prepare fully for the coming nuclear apocalypse with the terrorists. All I need is a stash of gas masks and a cellar full of canned beans and I'm good to go.

And somehow, amazingly, it's colder now. My only guess is that since it's not constantly drafting freezing cold air inside, the heater isn't running as much as it used to, so the hot air all kind of drifts to the ceiling (again: high ceilings aren't always so amazing) and the chillier but not freezing air left behind isn't replaced in a timely manner.

So. Another house issue resolved, like all the others.

Need food, sleep, vacation.

2008-02-20T17:24:00.001-05:00

Okay, I've started and stopped this blog post for like three days now. I am slightly overwhelmed, folks. I've always been one of those insane people who isn't happy unless she's working on 10 different projects, but sometimes I go a little overboard, and now is one of those times. But of course, it's all awesome and fun and I don't want to give any of it up, it's just that when snags or schedule shifts or other issues arise that everything suddenly turns to chaos. Like a race car going 150mph, happy as a clam, speeding along quite nicely, but all it takes is a tiny little pebble to get under my tires and....well you get it.

Anyway. I didn't want to mention this until it actually came through for sure, but the Washingtonian is now running a weekly column about my renovation experiences. So if you haven't gotten enough "ZOMG I BOUGHT A HOUSE WHAT AM I DOING" on the blog here, click on over for a slightly better written (with editing and like spell check n' stuff!) version every Tuesday. Big thanks to Catherine for opening the door there.

Dudes. I saw the freaking space shuttle this weekend. SPACE SHUTTLE. And it was awesome. Then I watched Atlantis glide its way safely back to Earth early this morning, before catching the total lunar eclipse tonight, and then logging on to Flickr to see that I can count on my nerds to get me some good pics -- look at the freaking DCist pool! And then I totally caught the destruction of the spy satellite on film! (Enquirer, call me.) So it's been a good week for space, folks. I'm all riled up, anyway.