Sassy, brassy, Jewish lady from New York living in the dirty south, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to wear all black, talk fast, walk fast, and be generally New Yorker-like. Let's be real here.

I snort when I laugh, can be aggressively banterful, and am generally pretty bawdy.

On my best day I'm Fanny Brice from Funny Girl or sassy comie Barbra in The Way We Were before she meets Robert Redford. But wait, I do have goy-love sometimes....well maybe a lot of the time....so maybe I have more in common with post-Robert Redford Barbra? If this all just went over your head, well, I feel sorry for you: go watch some Babs and get back to me.

Yes, I'm a huge Barbra fan, as in Streisand, not Walters. Yentl makes me especially happy--I mean who wouldn't fall in love with a Jewish lady from the shtetl who dresses up as a boy to be a talmudic scholar. So. hot.

Old Hollywood glam does it for me. I like watching Studio-Era films and wearing red lipstick, if you don't like either I'm probably not the gal for you.

grad schooling and academia. i know. you're jealous.

knitting things I never end up finishing.

loving black kitties, specifically one very special one named Gilda.

i like sketching and drawing to offset the grad school dulldrums. big fan of painting found objects but lately have been into more art deco drawings of pretty ladies.

looking retro without looking hipster. my friend recommended i make a blog to inform others how to do just this. i dont think it can be taught...

also, thinking about writing.

giving random things important names. i have a stuffed whale named Hermie. his given name is Herman Melville, my car is named Rita (as in Hayworth).

that I look like Regina Spektor apparently, I've been getting a lot of this lately, or Scarjo or Christina Hendricks. It's probably because of similar body types or something because I don't really see it.

music: things that get my toes tapping or my heart feeling or my head thinking (or all of the above).

Gilda (with the glorious Rita Hayworth, also the namesake of my kitty), Return from the Ashes (1965), Mulholland Drive, Borderline (1930)

my record player
retro-style brassieres (these babies work wonders)
light of my life, my kitty, Gilda!
my students. i love teaching my little undergrads.
red lips
books (new ones, old ones, big ones, little ones)

how H&H Bagels closed forever and forever while I'm living here in NC. so much unspeakable grief. oh to have that everything bagel with Flaum's lox spread. oy, what a shanda!

how Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock are so very similar. don't let those cute little Muppets fool you--it's really all about the proleteriat working underground for the bourgious up above. haha. i'm a nerd with comi tendencies. so what.

whether i'll lose my New York accent down south. gah. if i come back saying y'all, i'm hoping someone will slap me hard to get it out of me. Update: Been here three years and still say "youz guys." I'm doing pretty well, then.

And Marion Cotillard and whether we'd ever have a chance encounter and she'd fall in love with me and want to have my babies. Oh that woman is smoking. hot. damn.

hoping there's a dance party in Durham where i can shimmy and wiggle to my heart's content.

I tore a ligament at a party, so I'm currently sporting an orthopedic boot. Super sexy , I know, and, quite literally, a pain.

You think I sound brilliant and arresting and want to figure out how to enjoy this town with me.