first fig

Every day, I get a little more excited and a little more nervous about being in Denver this summer. I just got access to the electronic edition of the daily paper (different from the Web site; this is like reading the print version on a screen) and received a copy of their 540-page stylebook. (*Tangential anecdote: When I told Grace that The Post's stylebook was this long, she exclaimed, "What! 540 pages of what you have to WEAR! That's crazy!" She wishes.)

I'm reading today's paper right now and it's really beautiful. It makes me jealous; why The Observer can't look like that, I don't know. Or the N&O, for that matter. This evening, I also printed off the "A" and half of the "B" section to the stylebook. My goal is to read through the whole thing before I leave in May. This may or may not be possible.

I also like leafing through the back section of J.Crew's catalog and dreaming about wearing all of their decadent office clothes (mile-high pencil skirts, sleek black suits, cashmere cardigans) to work at The Post. Journalists always look so glamorous in films; I'm sure it's just another Hollywood lie.

There is a 1920s-themed party going on downstairs right now (for G and S's history classes). Everyone has to dress up as a memorable character from the Roaring Twenties. Grace is, appropriately, Zelda Fitzgerald; Maria is Mary Pickford; Sam is some baseball player; there's a Charlie Chaplin and a J.P. Morgan running around somewhere, too. I dressed up as Edna St. Vincent Millay, but no one knew who I was. Not even when I said, "But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends, it gives a lovely light..."

Decidedly not a fan of John Dos Passos. Even when I was standing on the street corner waiting for the bus.

Last night, Kelsey, Grace and I ushered at a George Winston concert. The man is a musical robot. The piano was perhaps too familiar for me, but I get excited everytime he makes that harmonica dance. (Good grief. I've never heard a harmonica sound like that.) His fingers fly, but his eyes do not sparkle. He speaks the same lines over and over. It seems that, after 30 years of performing, he still hasn't gotten used to crowds. But Kelsey and Dad got to meet him afterwards and they said he was just as nice and personable as you could hope. He even gave Kelsey his sheet music with his notes on it, and demonstrated how to play a certain part of his "Variations on the Kanon" on her shoulder (Facebook has photographic proof). I am interested in people like him--the nervous geniuses with flexible personalities.

Musical anthology of the week: "Dark Was the Night," a collection by various great artists (Justin Vernon, Feist, Arcade Fire, Sufjan, Jose Gonzalez, etc.) to benefit the Red Hot Organization, an HIV/AIDS charity.

Song of the day: "I'm An Animal," Neko Case. From her new album, "Middle Cyclone."

ALSO, I'm not the only one dissing Twitter: Lev Grossman quit it and The Book Bench from the New Yorker would like you to hear its fittingly high-brow rejection of "Generation Twit."