New Toy!

It's my birthday in a few weeks, but since I'm leaving the country in a few days to head home to Spain, my Dad gave me a digital camera today.

:-)

This is my first digital camera, and I'm still getting used to using it. I'd sort of been looking at what they call "transitional" cameras, which have both a traditional viewfinder, plus the LCD display. The camera I got (Hey, it's not like I can complain, right?) has an enormous display, but no viewfinder. So I'm being thrust into this modern world with so much advanced technology...

Alas, the usb cable doesn't connect from the camera directly, but rather from a dock the camera fits into.

It's a fuji finepix z1 if that means anything to anyone, and it's black and matte and sleek and elegant.

Now I need to figure out how to post photos in my blog! :-)

(Or rather, how to upload photos to some hosting place, I think, since I know how to post a photo if it's already online somewhere else, just not how--or where--to upload them to.)

Yesterday and Today

...involved quite a bit of running around. But that's typical of NYC, I guess. Exhausting.

Today I met my father for breakfast, and we got caught int he rain, then home for a conference call, then down to Chinatown to buy some tea at Ten Ren, then up to the Strand, since I had promised my friend Dani I'd look for the new Nick Hornby, and while they had it it was only a few bucks off the retail price, they didn't offer it as a half-off review copy, and that was higher than what he wanted to pay for it, so I didn't get it, though I did find 9 other books, and I also bought a few things at Alabaster around the corner, but nothing at 12th Street books (nor the Salvation Army on 4th Ave, worth checking just-in-case). Will post the books tomorrow morning, when I'm more awake.

I dashed home to leave everything, then up town to catch my friend Achy Obejas at the Jewish Museum, where she was part of a panel on Writing Jewish Identity. The panel, overall, was very dull, I'm afraid, except for Achy (and not just because she is my friend!) But she is the only one who actually a) brought the discussion back to the question at hand and related it to identity (and Jewishness!) and b) had a grasp of the fluid and mulitple ways identities are formed and overlap and etc.

Rebecca Walker was so maddeningly ARROGANT at all times, spoke badly, made the audience wait 4 and a half minutes while she flipped through her memoir looking for something to read from it, etc. And she is so obviously more comfortable with her identity as a black woman than she is a Jew, and kept referring to anything Jewish in the third person instead of including herself. (Not that she ever went back to address Jewishness, even when there was an interesting question from the audience asking the panel to address the construction of race, and how Jewishness is/has been considered a race at various historical/contemporary times and places, and etc.)

So a bit frustrating, the panel, overall. At least from my point of view.

Dinner with Achy, and now home again.

Yesterday, when I sent everyone to the bookstore by mistake, coffee_and_ink joined us for dessert, and hopefully wasn't bored by our talking about people she doesn't know. I was amazed at how many books she can carry; what strength! And also amused when my friend also pulled out the manga he was reading, and they each showed each other volumes and discussed addictions. :-)

Yesterday I went back to the Spanish consulate, where I was attended by the same surly clerk. This time she accepted my forms without a fuss, even though last time she'd made my friend switch the addresses (that is, put his US address where the notifications in Spain should go and vice versa). Which means that either my or my friends s application will be rejected because it's filled in wrong. But at least yesterday when I went back, it took less than 2 minutes fromt he moment they called my number to go to the counter for everything to be turned in, signed, legalized, etc. and it's done, for now, and may actually be the end to this bit of red tape.

A gazillion other little errands and nonseuch, not worth writing about, even for my own records. :-)

One of the books I bought today was a Charlotte MacLeod writing as Alisa Craig. I've enjoyed the two MacLeod series, but have no idea what is different, if anything, about her pseudonymous mysteries. Has anyone read one?