La Grande Bibliothèque

Second snow day in a row. I like my Me Time as much as anyone, but I'm starting to go a little bit crazy. (Crazier?) I might don my Uggs and attempt a trek to the gym later on today but for now, wishing I lived here.



I took this pic at the Château de Raray outside of Paris a few years ago. It happens to be the location where the 1946 film La Belle et la Bête was filmed. As a child, my very favorite movie was Beauty and the Beast, and my favorite scene is still when the Beast presents Belle with her very own library. I desperately wanted (ok, still want) my own libary. I also wanted one of the slide-y ladders Belle uses to perform her interpretative "I love books" dance at the beginning of the movie. However, that dream died a few weeks ago when I was forced to climb one to reach one of the higher shelves at Borders and it was terrifying. That thing MOVES!



Though many have hypothesized that Belle's favorite book is The Count of Monte Cristo (far off places, daring swordfights, magic spells, a prince in disguise...), this is incorrect. For one, there are no "magic spells" in The Count. Its actually Beauty and the Beast that she's holding when she makes that proclamation. And another brief aside: of course women have unrealistic notions of love when they've been raised on romantic nonsense like that. Personally, I don't need to be gifted a library, I'm just happy if I guy has ever set foot in one.

Gaston "How can you read this? There are no pictures!"
Belle (petulantly)"Well, some people use their imagination"

Snowpocalypse 2011

view from outside my apartment Wednesday morning

I just can't get enough of this buzzword. I can, however, get enough of this weather. Chicago is supposed to get up to two feet in the next 24 hours. The office closed early today, so I hightailed it to the grocery store, where instead of milk, bread, and eggs, I bought diet coke, twizzlers, macaroni and cheese (um, forgive my ignorance but when did Kraft discontinue the Rugrats variety) and an array of tabloids. My vices, however, pale in comparison to my elevator mate who shamelessly told me he was going to invest in frozen pizza and beer to get him through the next few days.

On my to-do list: drink lots of coffee, an SVU marathon with homemade chocolate chip cookies (can't get enough Elliot Stabler, especially when he tucks that tie), and making some headway in The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer's 1056 page magnum opus that I can so far classify as brilliant. And heavy.