I missed a week of music monday! I'm trying to be better about blogging this year, but Sundance kind of ate my life for the last two weeks.

Today, I'm sharing one of my favorite videos, ever. It features two of my favorite actors: Zooey Deschanel (who I saw in real life at Sundance) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who is a trustee for Sundance, but I didn't see him).

Zooey Deschanel is part of She & Him (you should check them out) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the Hotness (especially in this video, since he wears a suit). They made this when they made 500 Days of Summer (which I love - if you've never noticed it's very blue, and so is this video) and I just love it, especially the desk-dance off and the end.



Can this please be my career? I'd like to spend my time making movies like this.

...to copy Kristy

This is the list of books the BBC things you should have read, or something. There's an X next to the ones I've read. My favorites are in red, and the ones I haven't read in forever that I'll probably reread b/c it's been a long time are in blue.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien- X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible (in entirety)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - X
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens -X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller -X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier -X
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien -X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger -X
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger -X
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald -X (Possibly my favorite book ever written)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky -X
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck -X (soooo boring)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame -X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis -X
34 Emma-Jane Austen - X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne -X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell -X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown –X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving -X
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery -X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood -X
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding -X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - X
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley -X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon -X
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov -X
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt -X
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - X
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac -X
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding -X
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett -X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White -X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad -X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery -X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole -X (I couldn't finish this one b/c I hated it but I'm counting it anyway b/c I refuse to reread.)
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare -X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl -X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

56 to go!

One of the things I miss most about living in New York is the restaurant scene. I usually ended up going to one of my favorites in the neighborhood, but it was always nice to be able to branch out and find new places.

In an effort to get to know Salt Lake better, I've made a list of restaurants I'd like to try:
-The Copper Onion
-Stoneground
-Aristo's
-B&D Burgers (It's right by the U, but I've only ever had a grilled cheese there)
-Bruges
-Red Iguana
-Mazza
-Cucina Toscana
-Sunrise Cafe
-The Park Cafe

It's short right now, but I'm sure I'll add to it.

Some of the places I've already tried and loved:
-Moochies (it actually is authentic Philly cheese steaks, and they even have Tastykakes there)
-Cafe Trio (went for my birthday - ate the largest meatball I've ever seen in my life)
-The Dodo (I would go swimming the barbecue sauce if I could. I can't wait to try everything on the menu.)
-Cafe Rio (I know it's a fast food chain, but it is really delicious. Not so authentic, but great.)
-Firehouse Pizza
-Arella Pizzeria (pretty close to NY style pizza)

I wonder how well trying new restaurants will fit in with trying to eat healthier...

On the road to recovery. And Park City for Sundance.

I'm not posting the official video because she's sort of naked in most of it.

But sometimes, I wish I were. (Was? Were? I can never remember.)

Anyway. I have this bedroom, and it is kind of boring right now. I have one painting hanging. And a few picture frames. I want to make the space more 'me' but I'm struggling. I saw the photo below and I really love the idea of totally overwhelming the walls with decor, but my problem is that the largest wall spaces are over my bed. Not the safest place for heavy frames.

from nymag.com via several other websites

I'm thinking this should be my post-Sundance project (apart from catching up withe school, that is). I've decided to give myself projects for when I'm not doing school work so that I don't spend my downtime watching Lifetime movies and talking to the kittens. I am just not ready for that level of pathetic-ness.

Yes, I am really this transparent sometimes.

Sorry about all the weird pictures.


Almost a year ago I was listening to this song nonstop, blasting it in my car on long rides through the woods. Same song, different state.

Does anyone else think Bridget Jones' Diary is the perfect New Years movie? No? Just me? Well, I like it a lot. But I could talk about that movie forever, and that is not the point of this post. The point is another New Years resolution.

I'm going on a fast. Not one of those juice/water/maple syrup fasts. A fashion fast. Kristy is doing it with me. We've decided not to buy clothing for the whole year. I have plenty of things to wear, but I buy new clothes anyway, and it's just unnecessary. This year I'd like to learn to live more simply, and the fashion fast is part of that.

I'm clearly not the first person to try it. The internet is full of people limiting their closet, or their kitchen, or what have you. My friend Mindy let me know about a friend of hers who did a fashion fast for a year, so I googled her blog and read over how it went for her. (It's here, if you want to check it out.) She had rules, and had actually prepared for it by stocking up on wardrobe staples, but since I feel like I have more than enough to get me through a year, I'm starting cold turkey (is that a thing? it is now).

Just a couple guidelines I've set for myself:
1. Underthings don't count.
2. Necessities that wear out can be replaced (pajamas, basic tanks, tights, etc)
3. If a special occasion comes up, I'll try to shop my closet first, but if I need something special, I'm not going to limit myself.
4. For fun occasions (like a costume party or something) I can only thrift, or buy things that cost under $10.

So, that's the plan. Wish me luck.

First Monday of the New Year!

I like to think I'm not too sappy a person, but sometimes, well, I am. For me, this is one of the most romantic songs, ever.



Resolution #1 for the New Year: find my satellite. Or at least look for him.