at this moment in time

Wanting
A new winter coat. If I can't have one made of penguins (did you see that movie? those buggers never got cold), please let there be down involved.

Needing
An exercise routine. Not like a dance routine to "Mony Mony," although that would do the trick if I did it regularly enough, but a habit. A regimen.

Enjoying
Stripey orange wool socks, knit by my mother-in-law and mailed in time for Christmas, but intended as a June birthday present. (My kind of woman.)

Reading
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. Her Slouching Toward Bethlehem was the first book I read after graduating from college: It hit me like a Mac truck and left me gasping for air. In a good way. The Year is doing the same. The first chapter appeared as an excerpt in the New York Times Sunday Magazine--if you read it and did not feel moved, please check your pulse.

Yesterday I finished Julie & Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen by Julie Powell. I suppose I should have felt inspired by a blogger who turned her idea--cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year--into a book deal, but, um, I didn't. I was impressed with her, however, for revealing that she discovered an entire colony of maggots thriving on the counter beneath her dish-drying rack. Not so impressed with her house-cleaning skills. But still, gusto.

Watching
Country Boys, the documentary airing on PBS in a couple of installments, about rural Kentucky. It's another world out there, folks. A highlight: Cody, who loves Jesus and sings about him in his metal band, is called in to the principal's office a few days shy of graduation. Cody is nervous because he thinks the principal is going to tell him he won't graduate. Instead, he asks Cody to be valedictorian, in large part because of his stellar attendance record. Delighted, Cody goes home to tell family and friends that he is "valevictorian." (Thanks, Sooz, for the recommendation!)

Awaiting
From Amazon: "At San Quentin (The Complete 1969 Concert)" and "At Folsom Prison," two glaring gaps in my Johnny Cash collection. I ordered them moments after watching the closing credits for Walk the Line. Also, just because, "Extraordinary Machine," by Fiona Apple.

From Netflix: Another disk of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and All About Eve, the 1950 Bette Davis number. I ordered it because, although I've never been much of a Bette Davis fan, I feel like I owe her another chance.