does anyone have a good book they can recommend to me? preferably fiction. i feel like i haven't read in months. i don't read on the metro (because i am a wuss and get carsick), i don't read at work (though i wish i could), i don't read at lunch (studying for GREs, eating with coworkers, being harrassed by the bums in dupont circle park, etc), and i don't read at home (i collapse into tired mess immediately upon reaching living room and reach for the remote instead of literary inspiration).

and, as usual, it almost time to go home and: i need a drink. last time i needed a tropical drink, no one would go out with me, and i had to buy pink lemonade from cvs and make my own fruity concoction. yeah. that was fun.

an example of how things often work at my organization:

basically, my position in this company (which shall remain nameless) is kind of an ad-hoc managing editor of the member magazine and the publications department. managing editor, that is, without the actual title or salary. that's why i'm always really busy for like one or two weeks each month when we're meeting deadline, and have little to nothing to do for the rest of the time.

one of the little perks of my job is that i get to pick the magazine cover artwork each issue. i don't get too choose anything too off the wall or interesting, and the galleries from which i can choose are fairly limited, but still, it can be fun.

this issue, i chose a painting called "eight ball" by john c., an african-american artist. we had been sent a variety of his slides by this gallery owner, and i loved what i saw -- bright, lively colors and interesting depictions of african-americans in their daily lives from the 1930s until today.

my editor and i decided on "eight ball", a painting of a pool hall, and i went about getting the permission and rights to use the artwork. it's actually in a collection of grant hill's right now, so, you know, i had to speak with grant hill's people (it's interesting, he's got a huge collection of african-american artwork). it took almost a month to go through all the motions, and i spoke with john coleman himself several times. he turned out to be a lovely, sweet man who was very appreciative of the fact that we were putting him on the cover of our magazine. i don't know why, because our magazine is crap and no one reads it, but hey.

so i sent the slide to the designers yesterday, and they sent us back a possible cover today. it looked great. my editor and i checked it out with a couple of colleagues, and one of them suggested running it past the president, because about ten years ago the cover featured a painting of an african-american farmer and the president of moorhouse got pissed and sent us a letter. we got one letter ten years ago because of this cover okay.

so my editor shows it to the president. turns out, we can't use the slide. the president thinks it's racist. apparently, for some reason, it falls to me to call john c. and all the people that helped me obtain permission and tell them that we will no longer use his beautiful painting because it's racist and we're afraid might create some controversy amongst our ten readers.

i say, no way in hell am i doing that, ass-fuckers. well, in more polite terms. it's terribly rude, plus there's no way i can find a new painting and get the rights in time for our deadline, which happens to be TOMORROW. my editor decides to take the dozen or so other john c. slides and show them to the president and pick one out of those. i'm okay with that; there are several other great paintings, including one of a baseball game, of a jazz singer, of a picnic, etc. (all featuring african-americans), and i feel confident there is no way anyone could interpret any of them as racist.

this afternoon, my editor comes back down and shows me the one the president has picked.

it is a painting of noah's arc. with all white people.

this is my day today.

i'm obsessed with vicariously reliving my one-year expat stint (as if you hadn't noticed), so i really appreciate this blog, written by someone who i think is a teacher in paris (i haven't read through enough of the archives to figure out her story). complete with great photos.

in other news, the sour starbursts that my coworker matt bought me to make me feel better about something crap that happened this morning are delicious. somewhere between regular starbursts and sour patch kids. the blues are my favorite, except i've eaten like five of them and my tongue is officially blue. it looks so professional.