"Schlemiel, schlimazel, hasenpfeffer incorporated!"

I bought an iPod nano over the weekend and I finally used it yesterday. I wanted to have music to listen to while I walked to and from work. But at the same time, I was worried that not being able to hear the city sounds around me would ruin the walking experience (and maybe result in me getting hit by a car). I know I probably sound really lame because people have been walking around with iPods (and before that walkmans) for years, but it’s a new thing for me. And I have to say, it was really fun.

I kind of felt like I was in a movie or TV show and I was listening to the soundtrack of my life. That probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was listening to my TV theme songs album (it's the only CD I had at my computer). “Welcome Back, Kotter” and “Laverne and Shirley” made me smile. And then it’s probably a good thing I wasn’t wearing a hat while I listened to the theme to “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”.

Side note: I walk exactly at the same pace as the theme song to Dallas.

So I enjoyed my iPod yesterday. Imogen Heap sponsored my walk home, which made the time fly by. I was home before I knew it. I was a little mad at myself for running late this morning because that meant I had to drive rather than walk. Which meant no iPod.

Speaking of yesterday, I finally cleaned my desk. I basically work in a fish bowl. My office is what used to be the ticket office for the Rio Grande Train Station, so everyone who walks through the lobby (now gallery) can see inside the windows that line my office. Since my workspace has been a mess, I’ve been keeping my blinds closed. Yesterday morning, I opened my blinds and went to work on my workspace. I cleaned out files, threw away old junk, rearranged all my books, binders, cards, DVDs, CDs, etc. I even broke out the 409 and industrial glass cleaner.

When I got back from our afternoon board meeting, I noticed that Fletcher, while arranging the walls for our next exhibit, pushed a wall right up to my windows. So now I can’t even see out my newly opened blinds, and no one can see my immaculate workspace from the windows. Oh well. I can see my immaculate workspace. That’s what’s important. Fletcher laughed at me this morning because I gave him a dirty look when he dumped some junk on my desk.

On to the next subject: the next exhibit. Yes, tomorrow night is Gallery Stroll! I have no idea what it’s going to look like because we’re nowhere near being ready. We’ve been waiting on the video artists to get all their stuff together. Hopefully we’ll get most of it done today.

This exhibit features Mark England, Jacqui Larsen, Amy Caron and Kaiti Slater. All four of these artists received a $10,000 Fellowship from the Utah Arts Council to prepare work for this show. I really like Mark and Jacqui’s work. I haven’t formed an opinion on Kaiti’s yet and Amy’s is video art, which I’m still learning to understand. Fortunately, there’s an article written on her in this month’s edition of 15 Bytes called Amy Caron: Theory of Mind. So if you want to read about her beforehand, please do. There’s also a little video clip of her work that you can watch. You can find the article here.

As always, it should be a good time. The artists are all really nice and of course we’ll have food. Any requests on the food? I’m probably going to Costco again. If you let me know by tomorrow, I’ll take your suggestions into consideration. I have my heart set on brownies though, ever since I took Clint's "What dessert are you?" test.