marla garla: RIP, Pluto

Raise your hand if you're distraught over Pluto losing its planetary status! I feel like my entire childhood was a lie. It's like saying, "You know that red spot on Jupiter? Yeah, that's a marshmallow." Or, "Those two objects over there? The ones you call your parents? They're Rhode Island."

Here's where I start to sound completely ridonkulous. Please bear with me for a second:

I was never a good science student, which I found frustrating because it always fascinated me. And I loved learning about space and going on planetarium field trips. Pluto was the unsung hero of the cosmic lineup: It was small, it was out there at the end of the line of nine all by itself, it had the same name as the coolest Disney character. I'm completely overreacting about this and I feel like a giant douche, but Pluto getting Alderon-ed made me sad — it's made me feel incredibly nostalgic. I sort of think that, especially when you're a kid, you rely on the knowledge that your planet is protected and everything is working out there as it should, the way you learned it to be. When you hear an asteroid is barreling toward Earth and will miss it by 100 million miles or something, you think, "That's close, right?" and you get a little scared. Growing up, I knew very little about what was Out There, but I did know that there were nine planets and they orbited the sun. Period.

Intellectually, I know this is all semantics, and in the grand scheme of things, semantics don't mean much. If my parents were actually Rhode Island, it doesn't mean they didn't raise me. (Did I really just say that?) In any case, I'm going to teach my children to rebel against the elite astronomers of the world, and we're putting Pluto into every styrofoam diorama they'll ever be forced to make in science class.

On a completely unrelated note, here are some random shots I've taken lately:

This is a sign in the ladies' loo at Jasmine, a Thai restaurant on the Upper East Side.

My sister Jen with Lucy Madonna (the wee one who thinks she's big), Henry (the Lab who looks like a golden retriever and thinks he's small) and Sir Charles Barkley (the golden retriever who looks like a Lab).

Charlie

I wanted to take a close-up photo of this guy, but I couldn't tell from moment to moment if his eyes were open or closed. And if they'd been open, well, that would have been incredibly awkward.

What caught my eye first was the woman in the center's pink hat. Her fashion sense isn't mine, but I thought she had great personal style. I love how she's staring down the guy who's checking her out. I watched her group for probably 20 minutes and could not for the life of me figure out what they were doing with the boxes and the suitcases and what-nots.

Like most people, I love the Strand bookstore.

I'm basically allergic to it, what with the insane amount of dust and all, but you will always leave that store with at least five things you didn't know you were looking for. I am particularly in love with the view of the upstairs windows from Broadway, books piled to the ceiling.

But I think I most love the sale books they leave outside. It's the most random collection: I once found an ancient book about postage stamps for my dad. The pages were so smooth and thin that they made the crinkling sound you think of when you remember your grandparents' books, and the pictures of the stamps were intricate sketchings instead of photographs. It was beautiful. And you can't beat the people-watching outside the Strand. Check out the guy with the beard and the "212" hat. He had the most incredible face, but I love that in this photo, all you see is beard and hat.