On Sunday I took myself to the zoo & spend a lovely afternoon wandering around, looking at animals & feeling relaxed. The zoo was surprisingly large & pretty crowded, but I enjoyed watching all the families there. I didn’t see any other foreigners & I don’t think I attracted too much attention, so it was nice to feel inconspicuous for a while.
As always, many more pictures on my Flickr page.
My friends’ band, Natural Monuments, just came out with a few digital singles. Their first album, For Sanity’s Sake, quickly became one of my favorites & got a lot of play. It now brings back vivid memories of driving around Jackson, MI in the summer, windows down, singly loudly.
You can download the new songs for free from this website & check out some of their older stuff on their Myspace.
Here’s the press release they’ve written up:
On their first release since 2007′s For Sanity’s Sake EP, Natural Monuments have added a slight punk edge to their summery pop hooks. The drumming is still precise and quirky, but their guitars have upped the amount of chime and jangle ala R.E.M., The Feelies and The Byrds, creating a sound somewhere between classic Kinks and Slumberland Records bands
I’m lucky to have such talented friends!
Back in January, I made a challenge to myself – read 50 books in 2010. Excited, I made a Twitter account for reviews, complied a long “to read” list, began winter semester & promptly stopped reading.
Well, now that I’m here all alone in Egypt, I’ve started reading quite a bit – 5 books in the two & a half weeks I’ve been here so far! My total is up to 7, which is a long ways off track, but I’m hoping to have 25 books read by the end of July. It’s a lot, but I have a significant amount of time on my hands, so it shouldn’t be too hard.
Lastly, I’m not sure I ever put up pictures of my newest tattoos. A lovely birthday present from my husband, my half-sleeve is nearly complete. I added a skull, another book & some flowers. It truly has become an “information sleeve” – a card catalog representing libraries, a skull & book representing archives & birds from a book representing dissemination of information.
All of it’s been done by Frank at Depot Town Tattoo – I high recommend you check out the shop if you’re ever interested in getting tattooed, they’re all amazing artists & wonderful people!
Break time’s over – back to work!
xoxoxo
