Things I Have Been Thinking about This Week

(a partial list)
  • Hedgehogs
  • Cheese
  • My New Year's Resolutions for 2006
  • The Elements of Style, now illustrated by Maira Kalman. (I bought a copy at the opera on Wednesday night, and it's a gorgeous example of both creative illustration and fine bookmaking.)
  • The most beautiful indoor space in New York City: the Tiffany-colonnade room in the American Wing of the Metropolitan? the Rose Reading Room at the New York Public Library? Other nominations?
  • A novel and a picture book I want to acquire
  • The fact (and the excitement!) that Lisa's first draft of "Emily Ebers, Starting Over" is due on Monday
  • My lovely tall black boots, which I wore for the first time this fall this week
  • New clothes and makeup, and the uses of fashion in general
  • How to crash the New York City Marathon, just long enough to cross the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
  • The excellent, funny, sexy, smart novels of Jennifer Crusie
  • The equally excellent, funny, and smart essays on her website about writing and romance, particularly "The Five Things I've Learned about Writing Romance from TV"
  • Alan Rickman's voice
  • Rachel's birthday present
  • My next Scrabble play
  • Vegetable love
  • Zits
  • Purling
  • Friendship
  • Which of two novels I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo, and whether the hell I can actually write one
  • Literalism vs. imaginism, for lack of better terms -- living within certain rules of thought and action laid forth by an ancient text or leader, versus living unbounded -- and the consolations and perils of each
  • Better terms than "literalism" and "imaginism"
  • Marketing books with nonwhite characters to white people
  • Writers who are brilliant plotters and mystery-builders -- Joss Whedon, J. K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, others? (I would include J. J. Abrams, but I think he's actually more of a tease than a qualified mystery-builder, because he either doesn't know where he's going or he refuses to pay off.)
  • "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," posters for which have started to appear in NYC subway stations
  • "Elizabethtown," which I want to see, despite it's likely being incredibly frustrating
  • How having lots of money shapes (and especially warps) one's thinking
  • My bridesmaid's dress for my sister's wedding
  • "Entertainment Weekly"
  • Ted Kennedy's head

Your thoughts on any of these items or questions more than welcome.