The Friday Retrospect

Fridays have been pretty terrible for the past couple weeks – mostly because my schedule is so empty; Wednesdays are full (mainly of newspaper layout from noon til forever) and on Thursdays I have lots of class, and so Fridays I usually don’t have much to do. I’ve not been doing well lately when I have nothing to do, so I’m making a list of things that have been interesting to me this past week¹.

- oh, that’s another thing – when I’m having a bad time I tend to lose track of the time and whole weeks just kind of become blank in my memory. Another reason for listing interesting things.

Rothko. Love.

• Rothko – He came up in aesthetics and so I binged on him a bit on Tuesday night. I love his stuff – well, his later work, the characteristic Rothko blocks of color. I actually haven’t liked any other of his abstract art that I’ve seen – it feels unfinished and uncomfortable. Not sure what that says about my art tastes, but feel free to judge me if you want.
• People who know about news – specifically, people who sort of know what’s going on in Libya and can explain it to me. Why I appreciate Chris Hartline so much – he’s the web editor of the Star and writes a lot for it, and his news column this week was especially coherent, I think.
• Snack Cakes – did you know that David Foster Wallace and Haruki Murakami both wrote really terrifying short stories about snack cakes, both involving lots of gross and neurotic detail?
• Tea – will always be on the list. Also, Teavana had free shipping this week . . . which distracted me from their prices long enough to order some ginseng rooibos tea (AND they’re giving away free samples of “random chai blend”² tea with every order).
• This poem – specifically, Joe Chinn reading this poem in chapel this morning.
• The Budget Deficit – the only reason I’m vaguely interested in this at all is this puzzle made by the New York Times that invites people to try to solve the budget themselves.

¹I got this idea from a blog post by this girl, who got the idea from this guy.
²Not actual name of tea