Somehow I seem to be dribbling more little splashes of writing onto Tumblr these days; I'll never quite figure out what goes where. A sampling from the scratchpad:

Motivational Words From Songs I Made Up Dances To In Pre-Adolescence
Show your stuff, 'cause words are not enough. - Taylor Dayne

Lane Meyer, Lloyd Dobler, and a Hot Tub Time Machine
In the dark movie theater, I wrote down one of Cusack’s lines in my notebook:
We were young. We had momentum. We were winning.
If that isn’t Lloyd Dobler all grown up then I don’t even know what is.

Chris Glass » grazing
What was once a symbol of me testing the boundaries of the nest is now a symbol of my return home.

A List Of Things I'm Currently Blaming On The Large Hadron Collider
3. An influx in the number of men we hear talking crazy talk outside of our window in the middle of the night

Music on Demand
I’m going to sound 80 years old when I say this, but isn’t there something magical about when your favorite song comes on the radio and totally surprises you? Like, I can’t believe that they’re playing this song right now?

More (including an embarrassing amount of love for mumblecore and seventies rock) can be found over there.

Frank Gohlke's Grain Elevators
Maybe it was because of a story long ago told about a family accident involving a grain elevator, I'm not sure, but I've always been fascinated by these behemoths of the American countryside. As Gohlke himself puts it: As I gained my bearings, the grain elevators of the Midway began to draw my attention. Their scale, featureless surfaces, and simple repetitive forms gained a hold on my imagination that I could not fully comprehend. . . .

I'm Here: The Movie
After we watched a screening of the shorts winners at this year's Sundance, I wondered out loud where one goes to see short films these days and none of us could come up with a good answer, apart from "film festivals." But now Spike Jonze's I'm Here, a short I wrote about loving on the Sundance Festival blog, is available online for a limited number of viewings per day. (In other robot news… Robots! Robots! Robots! And did I ever tell you about the time a robot flirted with me?)

The Best 90s on the Internet (Besides Us)
Lately, whether it's in memoriam to the second demise of 97X/WOXY, or down to the feverish approach of High School Nostalgia Season, aka Spring, I've been dressing in my old 90s uniform of Chucks (the actual ones I wore in high school), jeans, a t-shirt, comfy button-down, ponytail, and possibly some eyeliner I forgot to wash off last night. The women at 90sWoman.com (which, at this point should probably be a permanent link around here) are aware that I'm not the only one who has been tempted by the flannel shirts on sale at Uniqlo, the 90s are back, and they have a list of other sites dedicated to the 90s to prove it.

Don't Blame the Dwarf!
I know that many of you who read this site already read Jim's site, but I also know how things can fly by you in your RSS feeder, and did you read this? Did you? Particularly the flier Jim and his friends handed out to passersby. The best thing I read all week.

the universe wobbles and the same is true of my ass
For this line: You spend the first half of your life waiting for your life to begin.

I've been captive to the sofa for the past few days with what is either low-grade flu or high-grade chest cold, but today for the first time I feel well enough to write, and that's just what I'm hoping to do. But you won't see much of it here. I set a goal for myself in March to write something for submission elsewhere, rather than letting this space hog everything that pours forth from my fingers. So, while I spend my clickety-clack time working on something involving either obscure indie filmmakers, obscure early-20th-century novelists from Ohio, or obscure pieces of furniture from my grandparents' home, please browse the following.

People live and learn but you're still learning
Emily Gould, again writing something I wish I'd written. Though whenever I think of Graham Nash it is because of his unpredictable victory on Celebrity Jeopardy in the late 90s. And I have never heard this song before?

An afternoon walking around downtown
I can't get over how much I love Chris Glass's photographs of Cincinnati. Go be there now. 

Tales of the Unread
The Second Pass contributors offer up their favorite out-of-print books. (via bookslut) Mine? Shirley Jackson's first novel The Road Through The Wall. (Oh would you look at that, I used to write about books.)

Best Translated Book Award Winners
While languishing on my deathbed, I completely missed out on Three Percent's Best Translated Book Award party. Now I'm not just kicking myself for missing the party, but also for not reading The Confessions of Noa Weber sooner, despite picking it up off the bookshelf and reading its first pages several times in the store.

I hope they don't have kids in hell
Sarah Brown is also available for babysitting.

Drunk History vol. 3
I know this is really old, but I just wanted to say that I would kind of love to be friends with Jen Kirkman. I'll bring the wine.

Pantsing the Grand Canyon
I had one of those mornings of being shoved aside by people who obviously have more important places to be than I do. (There have been a lot of those mornings recently.) I got into work, pulled up my RSS reader, saw this post from Will, and thought how perfect a road trip to anywhere but here sounds right about now. (More road-tripping here. Also bound to cheer you up: watching Will dance.)

Brief Scenes From Our Marriage
Giving our household a run for our money. (Related: The most recent episodes of Wiffle and Hubbin have somehow ended up on Tumblr.)

I read just about every word in these during my bedazzled youth. Now it's the covers I love.
Right now, the sun is setting over Central Park and I can't help but think that the color of the buildings beyond the trees and the clouds and the sky would make a perfect sixties sci-fi magazine cover. Roger Ebert offers us some examples of his favorites.

Joy Formidable - Cradle
Side one track one on the mix for my next road trip. (via Maura)

There are rumblings (and some bumblings) around these parts as I build up my energy for a soon-to-be-revealed mystery project, which currently consists mostly of endless shopping trips in search of cold weather supplies. Stay tuned; I should have more information next week. In the meantime, the rest of the internet is out there for the taking! And, in all seriousness, if you only click on one link here today, please click that first one. It's so easy to help.

• Six ways you can help in Haiti.
  1) Text "HAITI" to "90999" to donate $10 to the Red Cross. Click through to find out more ways you can help.


• Wire + Twine's 50 Ways to Help the Planet
  In other helping news...


• Lift With Your Knees and Oklahoma, You're OK
  I would very much appreciate it if the Fates in charge of airline travel would cool off on inconveniencing bloggers for the time being. Until, say, mid-February would be nice. Love, Zan's Limited Remaining Supply Of Alprazolam


• 2010 Best Translated Book Award: Fiction Longlist
  Three Percent lets 24 great books duke it out for the title of Best Translated Book. I'm throwing my hat in the ring for Elizabeth Novickas' translation of Ricardas Gavelis's Vilnius Poker. I think if more people had read this book, more people would be talking about it. (UPDATE: Also be sure to read this fantastic essay on "Why More Foreign Writers Aren't Published In America.")


• I want to show you the sky...
  Sam Wedelich already does the sweetest things with her art, and wouldn't you know it, she has cinematography and musical skills to boot. Just beautiful.