The weather it is bad. The weather is nasty, like a crazy, nastyass honey badger. On my foray to the bus stop yesterday, I was soaked through and my umbrella threatened to turn itself inside out. Today I will be on a polar expedition. This is one of the hazards of working – you have to turn off the mind-lulling Today Show and leave the couch to venture out into weather.

What I really want to do is read all day. I have an entire stack of books waiting for me to dig in and I never seem to find the time right now. I’m working on Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Marriage of the Century. I’ve never been a Taylor fan but I find her personal life interesting and the book is making me want to watch Cleopatra from 1962. This is the movie where Liz and Richard met and began their affair. Richard was married to a kind, funny woman from Wales, where he grew up, and Liz was married to Eddie Fischer, who comes off as a simpering water boy, willing to fetch Liz’s vodka and then make sure she didn’t drink to the point of oblivion.

If I got tired of Elizabeth’s privileged life of villas and enormous jewels, I could read Just Kids by Patti Smith. I will admit that I know absolutely nothing about Patti Smith except that people revere her as some kind of punk rock goddess. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a single song of hers. Admitting this is like saying that I never brush my teeth or that I’ve never seen Star Wars. People have been raving about her memoir of her friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, so I decided that this is the point at which I jump in.

Or, I could contemplate baking. One a whim, I requested The Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Recipe From Each Year 1941-2009 from the library. I can only imagine that I was feeling domestic and maybe a bit hungry at the time. It is great cookie porn – each page features a layout of recipe and then a photo of cookies against a stark black, white or red background. The cookies are arranged in geometric patterns, like this:

The thing is, our stove is on the fritz. The gas will simply shut off if not constantly monitored and the up and downs of the uneven gas flow make baking nearly impossible. The last time I made cookies they melded with the cookie sheets in such a way that removal would have required hours of chipping and soaking so I took all the cookie sheets with the hardened cookie slabs still on them and threw them away. So I guess I would have to make due with just staring at the  cookie porn all day (or all the stuff in Baked Explorations, yet another baking book I got from the library for no reason). Probably after 40 minutes I’d break down and walk to Patisserie 46 on 46th & Grand. They make amazing cookies (and chocolate croissants) and all I have to do is hand over some cash to get them.

Watching: Breaking Bad Season 2, also gagging over those Chico’s commercials that air every morning about 70 times. “I’m SO Chico’s.”

Buying: Marimekko umbrellas from Finn Style. With this Swag Deal through Mpls St Paul Magazine, you can get a stylish umbrella for 50% off! Yes, that’s half-off, folks. So a $40 umbrella is only gonna cost you $20. In case you couldn’t do that math. What I did… I went to the website and when I checked out I put the promo code “SWAG” in and I got the discount. This is good through March 28th.

Anticipating: Patton Oswalt at Acme Comedy Club on Thursday night! Lucky enough to hear about this semi-secret gig before it sold out.

Update: I tromped through the snow only to get to the bus station and find out that my bus was running 20 minutes late and that Elizabeth Taylor died this morning. Huh. Can I go back to bed now? Seriously, check out Furious Love if you’re interested in getting some dish on Liz. She helped the writers with the book and ponied up some private photos or it.

Also, for the quick skinny on Liz and her husbands, check out my blog post Elizabeth Taylor: Reflections In A Violet Eye.

And, just a quick rant… if you are big enough that you take up TWO bus seats, well, I feel sort of bad for you, but really? Really? You’re going to sit there taking up two seats with your stupid Blue Tooth thingy in your ear? Grrr….. honey badger don’t like that shit.