sorta sad...

CNN.com - Actor Ossie Davis dead at 87 - Feb 4, 2005

bummer. he was such a cute old guy. and he was just given a kennedy center honor...
on the other hand, the oscar death montage will kick ass.

heh. new website.

hear anything particularly asinine in your workplace?
put it here.

the readability is crap but i like the idea.

(assistants, rev your engines...)

I avoided the halting, robotic tones of our POTUS last night. I couldn’t take it. Last year, my distaste of the POTUS drove me nearly insane. I’m determined to hold on tightly to mental health so I told A—that we weren’t watching it. Not when everything he says is lies and stupidity.

Bitch, PhD has a nice summary of what this crap ‘ownership society’ means – “you’re all on your own, fuckers.” Think your employer owes you anything? Think again – pay for your healthcare all on your own – you own that. Think insurance companies have an obligation to insure you? Think again. You own it. Think your government has an obligation to make sure its citizens face the future with some kind of net in place so they don’t end up beggars in the street? Too bad – you own your own future so you better make damn sure you can afford it.

That’s what ownership means – those who can afford to survive. Those who can’t – too fucking bad. I wonder if anyone knows what an ownership society looks like.

So what are we (those of us under 55) to do? Most likely we’ll stare blearily at the numbers flashing in front of us and we’ll say, ‘Dude, I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.’ We won’t realize that the benefits our meager suck-ass jobs give us are on the chopping block in about 4 years. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be 39 – too old to suddenly refinance my quite comfortable pseudo-middle class life.

This morning a coworker and I were trying to figure out the details of this Social Security plan on the front pages of the WSJ. Some questions – is this mandatory? What do they mean when they say ‘voluntary’? Like, what happens if, in 2010, I say to the government, “Screw you – keep my money where it is and when I’m 60 I better see it.” What happens then? Where are they getting their numbers? What happens if I die – who gets my benefits then? Where does my money go? Would my beneficiary get survivor benefits? What about disability? Would I be able to roll over whatever money they’re talking about into my current Fidelity 401(k)? I’m totally confused. And if they want to start doing this with fucking health care insurance, I’m totally screwed because that’s already a labyrinthine tale of “Huh?”

Our City on the Hill is beginning to look like a Besieged Fortress, lit on the inside while the growing masses get hungrier and angrier down below. Certain communities are used to this. For them, society has always been like this. They’ve always lived on the margins. But we’re not used to it, are we? We’ll freak out. When the middle class starts looking more like the poor, I’d like to see who’ll be left to take our side. When are we going to wise up and start asking ourselves ‘In whose INTEREST is it to dismantle what little social safety nets we have?” Who profits? (Think the long game, people – long game.)

Do we want to wait that long or is there something we can do NOW to stop this hysterical juggernaut into insanity? (Remember when the world maintained an appearance of rationality? Remember when we didn’t dread every new sentence emanating from our Fearless Leader’s mouth? Remember when life was actually good, or at least not like some horrific Ayn Rand novel)?

I’d really love to see us stop being sheep. Really. Stop it.

want some nudity with that juice?

here's what's going down in middle america.

(snort)

[thanks to my coworker G--]

yay!

BugMeNot.com

hate having to log on to a site just to read a cool article?
no more!

thanks, bookslut.

my head hurts

The New York Times > National > Church Groups Turn to Sonogram to Turn Women From Abortions

does anyone else feel like they're in a margaret atwood novel?
cuz i do.

GOP and Civil Rights, pt 2

Chicago Defender / Local

um...

[edited: via BitchPhD]

Safe, Legal, and Never - Hillary Clinton's anti-abortion strategy. By William�Saletan

Safe, Legal, and Never - Hillary Clinton's anti-abortion strategy. By William�Saletan

thoughts are bubbling around moral agency, motherhood, pregnancy and all sorts of stuff.

more later.

[edited: via Girl in the Locker Room!]

a break

Manolo's Shoe Blog: My Name Is Tommy, And I Have A Torch

heh - one of the special people...
(i've been working very hard and my eyes are about to pop out my head.)

why teenagers suck

HoustonChronicle.com - 1 in 3 teens says First Amendment goes 'too far'

i don't know if this says something about the way we're raising our youth or the public school system's failure to teach comprehensive civics and history or just the plain sad fact that adolescents seem to be stupider than originally thought.

(or perhaps some combination thereof.)

again with the eggs in their baskets...

The Well-Timed Period: Legislating Delivery, Kansas Style

what's wrong with kansas?

well, for one, you're not allowed to refuse medical assistance, according to one hazy bill being introduced to the kansas legislature relating to crime and punishment relating to giving birth without medical assistance.

like the virginia bill, this one is chock full of vague language and medical fog surrounding a woman's right and ability to give birth when/how she wants. unattended births/stillbirths are a criminal act - and yet it only covers hospital births. huh. go figure.

the well-timed period has the info (including the email address of the woman sponsoring the bill).

so i hope this makes the rounds and gets people riled up, too.

consistency, people - consistency!

i have a problem

i once thought alcohol was going to get me in trouble but i was wrong. it's comic books. instead of filling my brain with wonderful words from the world's literary lions, i've stuffed my head with blams, snikts and thuds. i read the stories of 15-yr old boys who get sent to prison and have out of body experiences; stories of working class magicians living in london; of the secret origin of mutants with admantine skeletons; of heists gone wrong and covert ops gone horrifically overt.

when he rang me up, the guy behind the counter said, "get ready - $63."
"hey!" i said. "that's less than a pair of shoes!"
"comics are better than shoes."
"it's getting neck and neck."

i've discovered a new series, "hard time," from the dc focus line. i've also begun to read 'constantine' (so i'll know exactly why i'm going to hate the new movie) and, while the new powers arc is a good one, it's also a slow one. churn it out, boys, i'm getting impatient! and when the hell is 'the forsaken' going to come out with their new one? 'the losers' doesn't disappoint but i wish they'd stop with the exposition and get more into the action, you know?

but this is all to say that i have a problem. a serious comic book buying problem. (you know you have a problem when your roomie says to you, "i think we have to catalog stuff.")

when up is down

Recasting Republicans as the Party of Civil Rights

ok...so let's go vote for republicans because they were anti-slavery 100 years ago!!

jesus christ people. anyone else find it hilarious they can't find anything more relevant and RECENT??

meet dan.

there are no words.

thanks, roomie.

best. show. ever.

Uffish Thoughts: I want to be stereotyped. I want to be classified.

came across uffish via bitch (you know where to find her) and squealed when i saw poor poor kevin's face. poor kevin - either bump up or go home. bad leadership, weird hair and the strange ability to be even more incoherent than the models.

but roommie and i love this show. love love love. it's gettin' down to the nitty gritty and next week, i need to see FashionMom go out in a teary, hysterical, face-in-the-drink meltdown to end all meltdowns.

(confession: i am also fascinated by heidi klum's voluptuous teutonicity. since giving birth her ass looks great.)

shoes shoes shoes shoes

Eileen Shields, Spring '05 - LEILA

thanks to bitch. phd (who is also thinking about shoes), came across this site and THIS shoe.

i love this shoe. i have versions of this shoe already. (mmm, my nude pink spanish leather tango shoes that make my feet ache when i have to run after a bus but look so sexy when i am standing still...mmm, i love you.)

i think i must have this shoe.
but it's my rent...
sadness.

smartypants = empty pants?

Times Online - Sunday Times

yet another article about how being a smart woman 'dooms' you to gristly spinsterhood.

but it's great for this one sentence:

“The bright girl, on the other hand, remembers that old saying that at first she sinks into his arms only to spend the rest of her life with her arms in his sink.”

newsflash: spine disappears

The New York Times > Washington > Senate, 85-13, Confirms Rice as Secretary of State

alas, previous reports of a democratic spine were premature.

so M-- (aka BeanCurd) leaves for brazil thursday. for two weeks or so, i forget. i'm a little bummed - the attention has been sort of nice. that sounds cruel, as if the person giving the attention doesn't matter, but that's not true. it's like a mutually reinforcing loop:

boy<=>attention<=>me

is it shallow? absolutely. i have no qualms admitting i can be about as deep as a baking tin. i should not be worried about where my next boy-action is coming from; i have resume revision, phone calls, emails and networking to get done. i have my DREAM to pursue. grr. but boy-action is nice. boy-action is...mmm...very nice.

i should go to the gym tomorrow morning.

spinal tap

The New York Times > Washington > Senate Democrats Speak of Slowing Confirmation Votes

could it be true?? are the democrats growing spines? have the jellied forms of our leaders suddenly fixed their courage to the sticking place? are they, at last, suddenly waking up to what it means to be the opposition party?

dare we hope it lasts the next four years...?

totally useless but...

The New York Times > Movies > Oscars 2005 > The 2005 Academy Award Nominations

yuck.
what a crappy list.

homework

i'm writing a white paper for my firm about how to create and pitch blogging as a communications practice.

funny, huh?

bush=poop

via boing boing

heh.

wavering between safety and a desire to do more meaningful work, i went on a frenetic cycle of interviews last week and the one before. i hated every single one. i could have tolerated any of those positions (which were just more of the same thing i'm doing now.) but i would have ended up hating everything again within a year. i'm noticing that my dissatisfaction cycles are getting shorter and shorter. a year from now i'll be totally unemployable because my bitterness and anger will make me unfit company.

so the dream is out there...floating. i'm just waiting for my next wave to bring me a little closer.

(note: networking is painful and i hate doing it. i don't care if it's about personal relationships. it makes me feel like a tool.)
...

blew off BC this weekend to trudge out in the blizzard to meet a girl friend for dinner and a movie. (A-- wagged her finger at me and said i put boys before my girls. hm. considering i've only had two boys in the past year and saw one of them once a season, i find that hard to believe. every single day i'm surrounded by my girl friends. what the fuck?) because the weather sucked so bad, i was going to call off seeing BC last night anyway, but to drag my southern california ass through snow and wet and wind for a less than spectacular movie and dinner just made me grit my teeth.

(note: 'house of flying daggers' is like an extended chinese music video. and i think a kung foo movie should be a fucking kung foo movie - i want to see kicking ass. not meandering bullshit romance and yearning. if i want that i'll watch 'cold mountain' again. more flying daggers, more kicking ass, less weird kissing and making out in beautiful chinese landscapes, please.)
...
my libido is dead.
desultory onanism results only in a mild, 'hm, that was...pleasant.' if i can't rock my own world, something is gravely wrong.
...
dreamt last night that my dad and bill cosby were friends. bill visited me specifically to ask me why i wasn't married and when i hemmed and hawed, he cast a critical eye over my outfit and said that my shoes could be better. he then proceeded to throw out everything in my closet.

bastard.
...
goals for this week: let's try and finish something, goddammit.

rude but right: social security and survivor benefits

The Rude Pundit

here's a story of my own:
my mother and father always made very modest money and when my mother died four years ago, the social security survivor benefits my father received was a cushion for a man who had never cleared more than 40k a year as a pastor (oh, some years, 30k would have been a gift.) my father hadn't expected these benefits at all; he had, frankly, forgotten they existed. when the check arrived in the mail, he cried. he was able to settle some debt and keep the house - he was able, in other words, to participate in this great ownership society of ours. (sarcasm here.)

so here's a note to those republicans who want to take away 'ordinary people's' money: hands off, fuckers.

sex & the church gal

Feminary: My Beloved Waits for Me

the feminarian is a young seminary student in california blogging about what it means to be a feminist in seminary. i like reading it because some of her struggles mirror my early ones when i was waaay churchy.

but now she's starting a project - collecting stories from women of faith about sex and sexuality. the openness and honesty is revealing. i once started a project like this for african american women of faith and it died a slow awkward death. my take-away: black women in church are more conflicted about sex and faith than we think.

anyway, go read it. it's an ongoing project but the first four are rather interesting.

why david brooks is a tool

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Empty Nests, and Hearts

[via echidne]

I reached my 35th birthday this year and my uterus still remains uninhabited. It is empty, has been empty and shall remain so. I will die never knowing what it is like to fill with a child; I will never feel my breast swell with milk; I will never watch my body shift and grow tumescent with anything other than a large meal. One by one, my eggs make their slow unpredictable journey to my uterus and they wait for a bit before collecting in my Instead cup and being poured down my toilet. Sometimes they decide to stay home. Perhaps they’ve already figured out that it’s pointless to go all the way down there when only a warm emptiness will await them. This is my body’s cycle and I have chosen to remain empty.

But David Brooks takes my emptiness, a personal vacancy that I’ve purposefully authorized, managed and maintained since adolescence, and wants me to give it up for the good of the nation, so my eggs can be rendered serviceable to the state. “That would be good for the country” he says, because there aren’t enough young people to support the old. My fecundity would become fodder for the aging. My reproductive system an offering to the homeland. In sum, I become servant to my biology for a nation that cannibalizes itself and end up not so very different from my ancestors whose sons and daughters carried the plantation system on their backs, endlessly producing generation after generation of brutish labor.

So, Mr. Brooks, this is what I say to you: hands off my ovaries, my empty uterus and the bloody clots that I flush down the toilet ever month. If my body is the nation, then I shut my borders to your reproductive imperialism and ovarial greed. Your sympathy and desire to give us gender-specific options in the workforce is hollow; if your care was genuine, suggest ways a woman could raise a child without marriage.

It’s been a mere 125 years since the Angel in the House earned the right to leave it and you want us to return to it again. Oh, you want tax-credits for ‘stay at home parents’ but you lie. You want women to stay home. We go in young and fertile and emerge uneducated and useless. In other words, you want us to have the lives our mothers and grandmothers led; lives of deferred dreams and repressed bitterness.

Ah, perhaps that is your game. Time travel.

um, mlk day pt 2: rude, but right

The Rude Pundit

if you like your homage to slain civil rights leaders sprinkled with a little, uh, salt then this is the place for you:

There will be blood orgies at the Watergate the likes of which that town hasn't seen since Ronald Reagan smeared himself with pig feces and demanded the cherries of a dozen College Republican girls be popped in front of him as he masturbated slowly, deliberately, eyes glazed over with mad power and semi-deified glory.

dude.

greenfairydotcom: Back brush step, heel drop

(in between posts, i swear i'm doing work.)

but this post from green fairy reminded me of another gender war conversation i had with my father saturday afternoon, while i was shopping for dinner things after the movie. i was standing in the abandoned aisles between chips and dip when i felt the urge to call my sister and wish my niece a happy birthday. (i tried not to feel hurt that she yelled 'thanks, tita - bye!') so one of the endless in-laws passed me to dad.

dad: so, how did it go?
me: what?
dad: the date? the doctor? how'd it go?
me: oh. that. it didn't go.
dad: oh, ding. what did you do?
me: why does it have to be me? he was boring! nice guy but really boring!
dad: you're never going to find a man --
me: (groan)
dad: --if you don't learn how to soften up. you know, be...softer. act weaker. be a lady.
me: god, dad. HE was boring. i was perfect.
dad: that's what i mean. you have to bring him to your level.
me: (now standing in front of the butcher) i don't want to bring anyone to my level. three tilapia, please. i want someone who's already there.
dad: your mother ruined you. she never showed you how to be a lady.
me: you married her.
dad: we ruined you.
me: i discovered i'm quirkyalone.
dad: you crazy.
me: i gotta go, dad. i'm cooking dinner for a guy i'm not dating.
dad: love you.
me: me too.

loving this cd

Pink Martini | Hang On Little Tomato

i listened to this cd all weekend - i dragged out the tree with the lyrics in one hand and the tree in the other, stumbling over the italian in 'una notte a napoli.' i re-heated the roast chicken singing in full voice (i never sing in full voice since i have a roommate) the lyric booklet open in front of me next to my whiskey.

but my all time favorite song: 'kikuchiyo to mohshimasu.' it's the most romantic song i've heard about a one-night stand ever. i'm desperate to find more about the original artists but my googling skills are dead. when i was a kid, i watched a lot of japanese variety shows on tv with my mom and sister, and the new year's eve shows always featured men in kimonos singing sad, melodic songs the entire audience knew.

it's a good memory.

in honor of mlk: the social security 'crisis'

Editorial: Social Security/Blacks get more, not less, from it

hmm. makes you wonder, huh? could the fact that people of color benefit more from it be one of the reasons the social security system suddenly needs to be be dismantled? hm? could it??

for once, i'd like my paranoia to be completely without merit.

oh, hey - let's all take a moment to wish mlk a happy birthday. i know i'll be thoughtfully contemplating my brownness for the next few hours.

tepid

friday night i had a drink at the tasting room with dr. B--, a man who has rejected private practice to continue providing care for poor people with awful lung issues; a funny (sorta), nice (very), smart and progressive kind of a guy. when he arrived, we kissed on the cheek, shook hands and then sat so very far from each other at the bar there was room for two chess boards between us. i counted three awkward silences and eventually became so maniacally chatty i could barely recognize myself.

after he dropped me home i ordered a pizza, watched part of a naughty movie on cable (word to the wise: 'snow sluts' apparently shows there is an apalling lack of lube in the northern climes of europe), tried to be fascinated by 'van helsing' and crashed, missing a message from Wet Nacho who called to dispel the chilly loneliness of his own apartment on the northside.
...
my alarm buzzed the next morning and i donned three layers to meet BC for breakfast and then a walk at the botanical gardens. with the temperatures hovering around 8 degrees, how lucky i was to find a cab idling outside my apartment building when i left. we beat the hipsters to the flying saucer, ate really thick pancakes, and then drove to the gardens just off the green el line. in the winter, the warmest place to be is a humidity filled greenhouse reading about palm trees, spathes, and flowering cacti. you can watch the koi gawp at the air or stand on a hidden path and, um, take a private moment. it was so quiet i could hear water dropping from the leaves to the bricks and paths below.
...
BC and i made plans to meet for dinner and movie at my place later and i spent the rest of the afternoon at the movies and picking up a roast chicken for dinner. yes, i totally faked another dinner. yes, dammit! i fake dinner!
...
it was also time to drag out the tree. it stood in our princess turret full, tall and handsome. it was naked but a pine smell still clung to the needles. so i wrestled the tree to the floor and pulled it through the apartment to the back stairs where it lodged between the wall and the landing, effectively stuck. but after being rescued by two workmen who needed to get to the roof, our tree finally rested in our dumpster. so our princess turrett is ours again.
...
renting movies with BC - horrendous. he wanted to get 'repo man.' who wants to spend the night watching emilio estevez? yuck. so we compromised - fellini's '8 1/2'. i fell asleep three times.

quiz: r u quirkyalone?

you know who you are:

you like being in a couple but mostly it's 'feh.' you're almost indifferent to it. you go to movies alone, you like sleeping in the middle of your bed by yourself, you like your friends a lot and the whole relationships as destiny thing is 'feh.'

take the quiz. i'm a 110 - VERY quirkyalone.

Girl in the Locker Room! has some cool stuff on it today, including a nod to essence magazine who's launching a 12-month long campaign to 'take back the music' - wrenching hip hop away from the whole pimps/ho's paradigm.

already the discussion on the essence board is lively, most women agreeing that the representation of black women in hip hop has to change. there are some who think it's a matter of free speech and 'artistic expression.'

i'm always hesitant to automatically oppose the image of the 'ho' with the 'lady' considering the history of black female sexuality in this country. while the reaction to emancipation for writers like pauline hopkins may have been to promote a model of black female sexuality based on white middle class mores, i think that black women (artists, writers or whatever) have recognized very keenly its limits.

for me, the matter is agency, not image. a couple of the rappers essence interviews say that the women choose to be on the videos - not thinking about the economic barrel they have these women over, not thinking about the crass commercialization they're encouraging these women to particpate in. yes, it is their choice (e.g., no one is dragging these women kicking and screaming into the studios to shoot a video) but that's a very limited and narrow definition of choice: are these women choosing from a position of agency/control or are they making a choice based on the allure of star-fucking and cash?

it's slow today, you know?

pro-life nutbaggery.

so the pro-lifers have taken the logical leap i thought they would. they're setting their sights on contraception. fringe element? wacko anti-choicer? not likely to happen?

we'll see.

(via worshipping at the altar of mediocrity)

hey, i'm bleedin' over here

Nerve.com - "The One" Is the Loneliest Number by Tobin Levy

yada yada yada. boys boys boys.
35 35 35.
jesus.

my roommate is going to be out of town this weekend. normally, i'd be plotting like mad to dig up some skinny boy to ravish in the empty magnificence of my apartment. normally - jeez. i haven't done anything like that since i was 33. so i'm kind of puzzled why i'm not doing it this time. i mean, it's been MONTHS since my last carnal encounter. long wintery months. why not call up Wet Nacho and give him a chance to erase the bad sex from last year. why not let a scrabble session with BC get out of hand. (geez, this may be the problem - there're only two!!)

but i suspect i will spend friday night having civilized drinks with dr. bob and will spend saturday night watching vampire movies, drinking wine and eating cheese. and belching.

because i'm a lady.

yee haw

indeed.

Longtime DNC member Susan Turnbull said Dean still has plenty of work to do because DNC members are being cautious and want to know what the candidates would do for the state parties.

wow, you'd think this was all about them and not about the needs of the party at large. how about he'll make sure we don't suck up to the conservative appeasers in our party who'd rather sell out the base than be progressive and advocate for some real change?

[via bitch. ph.d.]

eggs remain in OUR basket: Delegate to withdraw HB 1677

heh.

i've been getting most of my info from democracy for virginia but the well-timed period also has work on it (she's a doctor!).

cosgrove's withdrawal, though admirable for recognizing what a shit-storm his poorly worded legislation would provoke, is still dishonest. it fails to acknowledge what the real purpose of his bill was. since virginia already has a safe-haven law on its books, what was the point? if it was to stiffen the penalties for dumping babies in traschcans and dumpsters, why not just change the language of the original bill?

the language of the cosgrove bill was not confusing (for those of us who could read, anyway.) it stated very clearly that women who failed to report a spontaneous miscarriage to the authorities would face legal action. it outlined very clearly the ways the state would have been able to invade virginia women's privacy and bodies. there was no misinformation, no convolution or misunderstanding.

whatever cosgrove's intent behind the bill, its implementation would have been an attack on women's reproductive autonomy.

psst, i can't sleep

well write a story for this!

bighappyfunhouse is having a contest.
you know you wanna.

(go on, close that excel spreadsheet, click on word and spit out that long yarn you've been itching to tell - the one about larry, his cat bubble and what they did with that weird kidney dish.)

am watching the bachelorette.
one word: virgins.

this is gonna be funny. (or sad.)

the salvador option

it's happened.

we have completely lost our moral mooring. we have forgotten history, we have erased our consciences and have closed our eyes to what we're about to do. our president sits in his tower telling his people he only wants to hear the good news, thus insuring he won't have to hear the horrific things we're about to unleash on his behalf.

have we no bottom?

wasting more time

over at Bitch. Ph.D., there's an amusing collection of best/worst pickup lines.

heh. i like the buddhist one.

jp is teacher of the year

he gets high off linguistics.

the reason why people don't understand bilingual education is because they don't know how it's taught; because they don't know the first thing about linguistics and language acquisition and have never thought to ask; because they think too often in binaries ('if we're not teaching kids english, we must be teaching them foreign-stuff! and if they're into foreign stuff then they're not american!')

so you go, jp - you and your code switching and contrastive analysis.

(shhh, we're not supposed to call members of the prevailing power structure dumb.)

nyt may start charging for online reading.

N.Y. Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. was quoted in the article as saying: "It gets to the issue of how comfortable are we training a generation of readers to get quality information for free. That is troubling."

yeah. because, you know, information should be paid for.

ass.

feminism, where art thou?

gack.

via green fairy (who immediately returned to bed once she received this news.)

all your eggs in MY basket, pt 2

Democracy for Virginia: Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty: HR1677 - A Reply from Delegate Cosgrove

this is why the internet is good.
you can stop problematic misogynist legislation.

sigh.

USATODAY.com - Education Dept. paid commentator to promote law

my brother, my brother.
paid. to carry the gov'ts water.

men to women: 'all your eggs are in MY basket'

follow the links. i'm too angry to do it. via Bitch. Ph.D.

so some wanker in the virginia legislature wants to make it illegal for a woman to miscarry in PRIVATE.

when you think men can't sink any lower or get any stupider they always find a way to surprise the hell out of you. i'd like these men to just come out and say what they're really thinking: hey, ladies, fuck you!

i'm a whiny baby

one of my must read blogs,Bitch. Ph.D., just announced to her very cool readership that she's quitting her academic job soon. in the comments there are quite a few people who did the same and are very supportive.

there are even a few who are now using their work in the nonprofit sector and i'll be totally honest: I AM FUCKING JEALOUS.

there. i have revealed myself to be petty beyond all pettiness. i want the dream, dammit! i want to email all these people and ask them, how the hell did you manage that?

i'm sorry. i'm stressed out and thinking about cashing out my 401(k) because i need a cash cushion (even if it's tiny and about to get me taxed to death.) and i'm stressed out because i have a few informational interviews to follow up on and i'm abso-fucking-lutely terrified. and i'm thinking of applying for an adjunct position with the city colleges here and have i mentioned i'm terrified?

i haven't looked at my CV in 8 years. jesus.

anyone have a midol? cuz i really need one. my pants are killing me.

Project Censored 2005 - Top 25 Censored Stories

i'd have more faith in this list if it was edited better.

and today, in a word, blows. tedious work, work to find other work postponed, delayed stress, and having a tremendously bad hair day. tremendously.

there is an air of rebellion at the office, there have been two nervous breakdowns this week and i think someone's getting fired tomorrow. (not me.)

all the good ones are british...

sbf iso src (single radical cleric) with long toenails and hook. you are: into flip flops and rubbing noses.

yesterday

was a good day: finished the 2nd draft of a working poem, 'indifference'; finished a 4th draft of another, 'untitled'. i read several good poems by other people (it seems i'm growing into adrienne rich) and bought a pile of comic books. let me say right now that azzarello's 100 Bullets is the best effing series i have read EVER. it's violent, outrageous, complicated, funny, and have i mentioned violent? in 'samurai' i've seen one shanking, one shower beat-down, a couple of unfortunate events involving tigers and there's at least one heavily implied scene of jail-time train pulling. i'm learning so much. POWERS has become tedious and i've decided to wait for the trades.

today...i've just spent 15 minutes talking to the customer service people at american girl place while putting in an order for coconut the dog for my boss' niece.

sigh.

Shirley Chisholm, First Black Congresswoman, Dies at 80

aw, man.

i was fascinated by her when i was a kid. she was so majestic to me. her deep voice, her long sentences, her deep seriousness.

no one is serious anymore...

so here i am, a half hour until the first day of 2005 ends and i've spent the whole day in bed. (it's never a good idea to drink 6 bottles of champagne all in one night.) i woke up at 4. so maybe it's time for some resolutions. i only bring up resolutions because it's the traditional thing to do and because, based on a loud late conversation last night with my roomie and G--, i may need some.

but...on the other hand, screw resolutions. i have enough stress in my life as it is.

bugger.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Judge won't let woman divorce while she's pregnant

if we took all the news stories showing how women get screwed by our institutions, and laid them end to end, do you think they'd reach the moon?

link via eschaton.

AHAHAHAHAHA!!!

The New York Times > New York Region > Tough Guys, Shapely Eyebrows

His girlfriend, Margie Sola, had other ideas on the matter. She thought he looked like the love child of Albert Einstein and Bert from "Sesame Street." "His face was a big mess," she said.

snort.

countess von aryan needs a bitch slap.

declaration of independence

when do we 30-somethings ever get the right to blow off our parental units and just spend the holidays the way we want?

green fairy asks the same question over on her space; bookslut makes faint mention of her holidays being a 'complete failure'; my friend R-- expressed jealousy at my stay at home christmas. almost every single one of my friends who visited family clocked at least 6 hours travel time and perhaps 2 hours of pure happiness over the weekend.

it's time for the hegemony of the holiday family visit to end.

let's declare our independence and be honest: these visits blow. they're stressful and if your family has turned your old room into dad's new office, then you're also out of a bed. if you're single, you don't really want to hang out with all the children and if you're married, you really don't want to hang out with all the children. the dear parents try to recreate a holiday that somehow existed back when you were eight, which only makes you sad; your siblings have moved to the next level of married/homeowner life (or not) and that's sad, too. no one's youthful anymore, the forced cheer is depressing and the over-scheduling of your days like you're a five year old on a play date is turning you into, well, a sullen teenager.

and sex? forget it. the holidays are the sexiest time of year and how do we choose to spend it? sleeping on an air mattress in the family room. what's sexy about that??

after your third temper tantrum over which bottle of wine to have with dinner you realize that the holidays have stripped you of of the identity you've carefully and deliberately constructed ever since you moved away from home. within hours you're no longer the snarky urban gadabout; you're 15 , misunderstood, there's no good music on the radio, you have no friends and you can't wait to get the hell out of town and move to the big city. (or, in my case, move out of the big city and move to another big city - just one that's 2000 miles away.)

it doesn't feel like a holiday. it feels like you've been grounded. it doesn't feel like a relaxing break from your busy life. it feels like a punishing squeeze into someone else's busy life. so let's be honest. we don't want to see our families over the holidays unless some things change. below are my demands, er - suggestions:

- visit me once in a while (hotels are plentiful!)
- what says holiday cheer more than a cocktail? beer, wine, champagne or eggnog, i don't care. but a little grog goes a long way to smooth out the rough edges.
- where's the fun? i don't want to run errands. i want to go to movies, go shopping, eat out, drink in, and sleep late. why doesn't everyone want that?
- get a babysitter.

if we start applying pressure on our families now, come next november, we should have the holidays of our dreams.

tsunami relief: some ways to help

my alter ego, ChurchGal, has a list of ways to donate money to help with the tsunami disaster.

if you can, check it out and give a little.
they really need it.

chit chat

sigh. they suck.

so, riding the wave of general pissed-offness from yesterday's post about the dnc giving women the finger, i surfed on over to the dnc's official blog. not only do they not mention the fact they're contemplating a position shift on abortion (and if anyone can point me to a place where they own up to that shit, i'll be suitably chastised) their open thread is full of bullshit meanderings about nature, moles, baby boomers and...that's about it.

aargh. this is our party: idle chit chat.

sell outs: Democratic Leadership Rethinking Abortion

Democratic Leadership Rethinking Abortion

fucking hell. i hate being right.

on a ndn chatboard, i screeded that the dnc would sell out brown people, women and gays - all for the sheeny shine of winning. (and remember that earlier post musing which of our progressive principles we should dump?) our party is so pathologically soulless, we are going to go soft on reproductive rights for women so we can turn some fucking red states blue.

you know what people on my side of the tracks call that shit?

we call it shit.

and what progressive has EVER advocated for late term abortion on demand?? jeebus.

what else are we going to go soft on, people? what else are we going to take a dive on? what else are we going to compromise for the allure of winning? do i want to win? yes! i want to kick republican ass all over the place. but we win with our values and with actions that support those values. by going soft on abortion, we lose everything.

so so so pissed angry.

hmm...let's see. which constituents has the dnc screwed...?
brown people, check.
women, check.

who's next?

[update: here's where to go to give the dnc some feedback.]

why all the stuff is all the way down at the bottom of my sidebar, i don't know.
i swear i didn't touch anything.

[nevermind. i fixed it.]

James Wolcott: Artificial Snowflakes Can Say So Much

A-- and i were totally late to a party because we watched 'white christmas' all the way to the end. and vera-ellen's legs? totally a gross out. when she's doing that tap number in that little yellow bloomer/dress thing? yikes, you can see her connective tissues.

ick.

christmas in my belly

i won't bore you with copious details of this past christmas (especially after boring you with the details of past ones) but this was one of the best holidays ever. and, unfortunately, i owed the fabulosity to the fact i stayed home in chicago.

no travel, no going back to los angeles, no fussing with the kiddies, no kitting out on my dad's couch (grr). i was child-free, sunshine free, traffic free and it was marvelous. A--'s mother taught us how to play mah-jong (my own asian mother would have been proud), we cooked a wonderful beef burgundy, ate cheese, drank copious amounts of champagne, had a decadent christmas morning brunch at home with a leek tart and mimosas, exchanged girly creams, emollients, lotions and candles, drank wine, listened to great music, saw good theater (hurray for gospel music), dined in a fantastic french restaurant and sang carols at 4th pres at midnight (though the dixieland 'go tell it on the mountain' for the recession was a bit much, i thought.)

the air here was bitter, like a woman left at the altar a few too many times. but the sun was bright and on christmas eve i finished shopping for my roommate and met BC for lunch, humming with satisfaction. while waiting for him at la scarola, a tiny italian joint on grand ave with some of the best food i've ever had, i slowly sipped a glass of chianti and read billy collins' new collection of poetry. BC arrived, bearing a thrift store wrapped present: a scene from shakespeare's King John mounted on a little prayer book, behind glass. i thought it was sweet, A-- thought it was hilarious and strange. ('it's so not you,' she said.)

but anyway, it was a great weekend. i hope everyone had as good a one. (even M--, far away in a strange place. happy new year, sweetie.)

Delicious Biting

my friend, julie's blog.

it's about food, the surreality of living in l.a. and just about everything in between.
i already love it and her photos rock.

like me, she chucked the academic life (she literally threw her dissertation into the seine) and her wry, dry, acerbic words do more to make me feel at home than most anything.
i hope you enjoy her.

therapy

Scared of Santa photo gallery

thanks to growing up in a baptist household, i never suffered through this ritual of sitting on some old guy's lap and whispering in his ear.

apparently, it's scarring.

the day is dark and cold and i want to run the clock backwards, back to the time i was curled in my dark soft lumpy bed and everything was perfect. we're lurching toward another holiday and i admit to feeling decidedly un-christmas-like (bill o'reilly and his campaign to save christmas can kiss my ass.)

we have lost the war in the middle east, our soldiers are fodder for missiles and bombs; our president still has the ability to rouse hatred and vomiting in at least half the populace (oh, for a freakish cosmic accident that will show our POTUS bursting into flame as he touches the bible during his inauguration, the first recorded human combustible); every conversation i have with a conservative brings up bile and contempt and if i am ever to exercise control over my temper i will have to shun them - or resign myself to immediate ad hominem attacks and call them vile, deceitful cramps who would rather lick the brown boot of karl rove than help their fellow man.

and where is my side of political spectrum? (crickets, crickets)

there is much to celebrate - life, family, friends, liberty and straight teeth. but there is all that stuff above. there is the new boy, who haltingly told me the story of his divorce last night while we sat in a red and green lit tiki room in river grove; below the muted giggling and chatter around us, he spread his hands and shrugged and said all he ever wanted was to be loved and isn't that what this life is about? and i could only nod and crunch another pretzel.

there is the story of the woman and the carved out baby, but there is also the mini-skirted octogenarian woman in a river grove bowling alley who walked her ball down the lane, dropped it with a thud and watched as it rolled, as if by a magnet, to a strike; then she'd turn, shuffle back to her table and flick a smile at her equally shriveled husband who just watched her roll strike after strike after strike. it could have been sad but it looked sweet to me.

there's doesn't seem to be time for reflection this time of year, although i suppose that's what it's for - to slow us down and make us see the world a little differently, as a thing worth saving, inhabited by tiny lonely people shuffling to...something.

but, in the abridged words of my roommate, why does everyone have to suck so much?

so it's slow at the office...

NPR : Making Sperm, No Men Necessary

i'm sending this article to my dad just to see how bad he'll freak out.

Girl in the Locker Room!

Girl in the Locker Room!

she was one of the first women sports reporters allowed in the locker room, back in the day. i like her blog - it's like reading the letters from someone's cool, ballsy mom.

what did they think would happen?

The New York Times > AP > International > Company Admits Indonesia Mercury Release

did they think the mercury would just magically disappear??
idiots.

get over it

The New York Times > Health > Vital Signs: Behavior: Sweaty Palms at the Pharmacy

are these young men and women also sheepish when they have to buy tampons? we have raised a generation of sexually active morons.

i fear for the future.

3.09 pm

accomplished as of this moment:

1. labeled a stack of red files. (abandoned red files almost immediately.)
2. stuffed, licked and metered Madame's stack of corporate holiday cards.
3. ate one teeny bag of cheetos.
4. smoked one cigarette.
5. rearranged bra (wearing an ill-advised demi) 5 times.
6. visited the darkness' web site (was wondering what all the hullabaloo was all about and still don't get it.)
7. discussed with A-- which potato dish to serve with christmas dinner.
8. pondered briefly amy sullivan's article about abortion and the democrats before giving up and decided to be upset later.
9. distributed 3 personal holiday cards.
10. went to the ladies' restroom.

it feels like a much fuller day than this...

barf.

Chicago Tribune | Time Selects Bush As Person of the Year

pot, meet kettle

VOA News - Cuban Authorities Retaliate Against US Christmas Display

heh.

we can dish it out but then, when the democracy-stifling cubans call us on our own precarious moral position, we get our feelings hurt.

crazy asian girls

i have several recommendations today, so bear with me.

1. do all your christmas shopping online. i was on the phone with my sister, listening to her whisper what she wanted for christmas and i deftly clicked over to jcrew and found exactly what she wanted. then i tapped over to rollingstone.com to read some reviews (i prefer spin's taste, actually) and decided what i was going to send my brother in law. my father is going to be the proud amazon recipient of either a book about female sexuality, gay people or barack obama's memoir. in any case, it should be educational. the little critters will get what i gives 'em. or what i can find in my bedroom and make like it's a funky bohemian thing.

2. do not go see that crazy korean thriller 'a tale of two sisters.' it's like 'the other', 'sisters' and 'the grudge' AND 'the 6th sense.' but on crack. BeanCurd (BC) and i sat scrunched down in our seats, begging the stepmother not to look under the sink. begging. covering our eyes (so he's not the manliest of men.) the film starts out simple enough - someone is crazy. then it spins into this crazy dinner party from hell and a morality tale on regret, the past, bad timing and why it's REALLY important to take your meds.

3. scrabble is a good way to round out an evening: date 3 ended after a two hour scrabble game and an hour watching late night tv. i totally got my ass kicked. however, i laid down 'roque' which was impressive. of course, he laid down 'prize' and won 78 points, but whatever.

words of wisdom.

this year, as i did last year, i will buy heavy blank cards and will stamp each one with the label of some old french champagne. (champagne screams holiday, don't you think?) and then i will open a bottle of wine and see just how bad my card messages get over the course of one night. then i will pound stamps on the little envelopes, think about the death of the epistolary life, and woozily do something else.

henceforth, he is GeoMetro

there's a 3rd date.

i'm frustrating the hell out of A--, who just stares at me and says, "I don't believe anything you say anymore." she refers to the fact that i can only be honest about the boys i like/don't like after they're gone. in the moment, i seem to disappear and just go with it.

so because i failed to answer these questions satisfactorily last night, i'll answer them now, putting them on the record, if you will.

do i like him? yes. he's smart, funny, reads good books, knows how to play the piano, has a kick ass record collection of music i would actually listen to (except led zeppelin) and wears cute shoes and leather pants, despite having a slight 37-yr old guy paunch. (who's perfect? i can't even touch my toes right now because something got wrenched.) i suspect he may have a brown girl thing going on, but i'm not going to speculate too much. he seems to not be an ass and he used to be a teacher so he communicates well. (is he my ideal guy? no. but there's only one of him and he's taken. not to mention he's gay, living in the hollywood hills with his partner, drinking tea on one of the terraces of his villa. sigh.)

[*Note: GeoMetro is NOT Phantom of the Opera, who had a serious cleft palate situation going on and was less socially adept than GeoMetro. POTO lived in a flame-vulnerable garret filled with candles and sheet music. GeoMetro actually has a design scheme.]

am i attracted to him? it seems so. as attracted as you can get after two dates and playing pool while consuming a whole bunch of whiskey. am i dead inside when he touches me? i don't think so. so yes. i am attracted to him. if you're really asking about a scale of attraction (10 being ... shoot, i can't think of a ten - oh, the guy in new york, S--. yikes, he was an intense 10) then i think GeoMetro falls somewhere between 7-9. an 8. that's not bad, an 8. i think that's a good place to start, right?

i mean, who starts at a 10?? there's nowhere to go but down!

[Update: he is, henceforth, BeanCurd.]

tremble.com: we clap on the downbeat

indeed we do.
anyway, i thought this was funny.

(i spent the whole day procrastinating...bad EA, bad.)

if you want to freak out your nieces and nephews...

then get them this.

i'm trying to find something snarky to say but i think i'm all tapped out.

thanks, bitch ph.d, for the link.

scene from a second date:

(in little geo metro, tooling around the westside of chicago)

boy: BELCH. oh, excuse me.
me: um, s'okay.
boy (waving a hand in front of his face): oh, euwww. gotta crack a window. must've been all that bean curd and bean paste at dim sum. BELCH. oh, jesus. i'm so sorry!
me: A HA HA HA HA HA!

i can't help it. gas makes me laugh.

ok, i shouldn't have called frank moronic, asshole or a bag of masculinist shit.
that was rude.

he's just ignorant.

they still don't get it

on the national democratic network, there's a conversation going on about the direction of the party. (ndn is apparently a sub-group, like the dlc, of the dnc. try to keep track.)

all sorts of people, including yours truly, are putting in their two cents. one guy (in fact, more than one guy - and it's significant that they're GUYS) are saying that we need to chuck abortion rights and reproductive rights out the window since it's clearly not what the majority of the people want. he doesn't think overturning roe v. wade would be a bad thing, necessarily.

his point? we shouldn't frame abortion and reproductive freedom as 'rights', per se. words like 'rights', 'choice' and 'freedom' make regular people uncomfortable. oh, crap. i'll just cut/paste what he said (it's so much better that way):

Democrats need a change after 30 years, we need to be liberal which means,
ready-to-change-for-the-better. I for one am not ready to sacrifice everything
else Democrats stand for, because some special tnterests want to keep the same
old loser-language of elevating abortion by calling it a euphemism like "choice"
or a "right." Let NARAL do their own PR work.

thanks, frank.

you don't get it. for YOU maybe overturning roe v. wade wouldn't be such a big deal. try being a woman, you asshole. we're not a special interest. we're over half the population.

keeping the autonomy of your body is not a euphamism; retaining authority over what you can do and what you can't isn't about 'loser-language', you bag of masculinist shit. then, later, he says:

We should be listening to the American voters and adjusting our party creed
to what people want, not adjusting voter's attitude what the party creed is.
Abortion is a good example. Roe v. Wade should be overturned so States can
make their own rules. This would actually benefit Democrats.

but is it good for women? the democrat's position on CHOICE is pretty simple: what a woman does with her body is between her doctor and her own moral conscience. that's the choice, you moron. you make the decision, or someone else makes it for you. and the federal law now supports abortion as an option because it didn't exist before at all. (where is he getting his history??)

a bit of ranting: so let's say we let them overturn roe v. wade; what next, frank? think they'll stop there? how about the recent attacks on basic contraception? think they'll stop there? when should women stop other people making decisions for them? get in the mind of a poor woman or a married woman who doesn't want to have kids and you'll get a whiff of desperation from her that won't go away. sex is a choice? yeah, well, not everyone has access to birth control, you moron.

what pisses me off? the fact that women ARE voters isn't even registering with him.

whose fault is that? moronic frank or the scores of young women and women in my age group who don't even make the effort to fucking vote? (the women who remember what it was like before roe v. wade vote.)

tonight, the opera. (thanks, G, for the ticket!)
tomorrow night, the holiday party at K--'s. there, i hope to run into my ex-roommate and ask her why she's walking around the neighborhood in a wig.
sunday afternoon, brunch date. i hope i'm devastatingly hungover and louche. that is, if we're still on.
monday, tutoring (must remember to bring snacks).
tuesday, drinks and dinner with A-- and her friend E.
wednesday, PAYDAY!! oh, sweet baby jesus, pay day! not a rent pay day - i can buy christmas goodies and pay my cleaning lady! oh, happy happy day!

i emailed dewey darko today. just to say hi and ask if he'd been attacked by a moose. his silence acts like a subtle rebuke to my poor handling of our weekend together.

this is what i'm talking about

it's one of the most tacit attacks on women's reproductive health and you BACK OFF??

The state's two U.S. senators, Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, also praised the proposed suit. Boxer had threatened a Senate filibuster over the abortion amendment, but backed off when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist promised a vote next spring on a bill to repeal the amendment -- a longshot in the Republican-controlled Congress.

jeebus, people. my niece has more guts than you do.

Subversive Friday: The Yes Men

love them.

their site makes it increasingly clear how ... incredibly stupid we are. we bend over for corporate greed and kiss the ass of every man in a suit; we blink dumbly in the face of the insanity coming out of the white house and the heritage foundation (their description of the heritage foundation conference is absolutely chilling). we're stoking our own ovens.

queer. here. get used to it. (pt 2)

remember that crazy gay book ban?

well, now the homophobe who proposed it is invited to talk to george bush about it.
gee. wonder what that conversation will look like? i can almost picture it:

POTUS: gerald, i'm a little concerned about this little book ban you've got going down there in alabama.
GA: oh, don't you worry mr. president. we've got a righteous movement starting.
POTUS: i'm sure you do, scary gerry. mind if i call you that? we're just worried that this might send the wrong message to the country.
GA: we have to protect people, like a stop light. people can't run the light.
POTUS: i know that, scary gerry. but we don't make the people who run the light disappear.
GA: i wish you wouldn't call me scary, mr. president. that hurts my feelings.
POTUS: i regret that, scary gerry. i really do. but you can't make homosexials disappear.
GA: but i want to.
POTUS: but you can't.
GA: but i--
POTUS: scary...
GA: yessir.
POTUS: let me see if i can explain it. homosexuality is a fact. gay people exist. like andrew sullivan - and he's a republican! we may be uncomfortable around gay people but to erase the existence of them, even figuratively, is to impose an agenda of heterosexual coercion on our nation. it is not the role of government to erase those things that make us uncomfortable. and it is not our role as caretakers of government to replace personal morality with public authority. moreover, this sort of police action, that is so clearly homophobic and reactionary, will lead inevitably to even more radical actions. for instance, when you get rid of the word gay and the representation of gays in literature, is the next step an internment camp to insure our children don't even see a homosexual? or perhaps you folks down in alabama would like to take surgical steps, a medical 'final solution,' if you will. i'm sorry, scary gerry, but i cannot allow that. being the student of history that i am, i fear this will only take us down a road of totalitarianism and internal schism.
GA: uh...
POTUS: i thought so, scary gerry. thanks for stopping by.

you think??

give me ignorance or give me...

Teen's mom rekindles debate over novel

WHO still gets upset at Catcher in the Rye??? and WHO has NEVER read Catcher in the Rye?? i read this stupid book when i was 14.

the english lit major in me howls in despair at the utter liberal arts stupidity of most people in our country.

(thanks, bookslut.)

why did this make me giggle at my desk?

could it be i had too much caffeine and shouldn't have bumped up with my vitamin this morning? could it be because my conversation with my firm this morning went really well and i'm actually feeling really good about my prospects? could it be because i look really good today (fishnets, pencil skirt and curvy sweater)?

it could be.

ok, enough fooling around.

things i must do soonish:

1. find a way to transform my lameass corporate resume into wacky creative fun.
2. actually, dammit, compile a portfolio. like, seriously.
3. land one interview before christmas. or even two.
4. make a list of people i want to talk with or i need to stalk for a job.
5. finish the stupid article. and that other one.
6. contemplate briefly what will happen on sunday brunch with the guy from last saturday night. briefly. (i'm too stressed out to stress out about a boy with cute glases and frodo hair!)
7. make a holiday shopping list. (does baking cookies count as gifts?)
8. budget for holiday shopping. (might have to cut off all my hair and sell it to o. henry)
9. boil down my dream to an elevator talk so i won't sound like a fool when i try to explain why i quit my job.
10. wonder why there is no one (hello oprah!) who will pay me to stay home and do stuff like this all day...

things i will actually do:
6. contemplate briefly what will happen on sunday brunch...

um. you are totally alone.

guh

...why the british will never win culinary awards

green fairy is one of my faves. she's cranky, witty and cruel. she talks about marmite alot. after weeks of wondering what the hell, i finally googled it.

gag. just lick a pub floor after last call, why don't you?

ding does the blue states

i have visited (or, uh, frolicked in) 31% of the united states.

(incidentally, they were all states that voted for kerry! good to know my sex and my politics are so aligned!)

yes. i'm totally bored and not wanting to look for more work. it blows.

blowage

i hate looking for work.
hate it.

hate.
it.

sisterhood is dead

This is a good collection of all the ways the right is moving against women's reproductive choice.

(as in choosing to reproduce... geez.)

the magnitude of misogynist thinking behind this net of legislation is stunning. poor women, single women, young girls and overburdened married women are eventually going to be funneled into a narrow channel of patriarchal laws that define female sexuality in only one way: married and not her own.

i'm also stunned at the lack of action in the women around me. these are laws that affect all of us and yet we haven't become angry enough to demand that our rights be protected. just think - women have enjoyed reproductive freedom for only 31 years. that's just my lifetime (give or take 5 years.) if all of these laws pass, i could possibly see a MAN take away my right to make decisions about my body and what i do with it. yet, women my age are worried about 'what if he's just not that into me?'

what bullshit.

*thanks to xx blog for posting original link

brooks...late again

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The New Red-Diaper Babies

poor david brooks. doesn't he realize this topic was SO done, like, 5 months ago?

and he can call them 'natalists' all he wants. i like the word breeders. again, parenting is more enriching than, say, not. what a load of crap. again.

Salon.com Life | He loves me, he loves me not

Salon.com Life | He loves me, he loves me not

So here's my two cents: I read it, laughed, read the best parts out loud to my friends and then put it away. But it made me think - not about why HE'S not into me, but why I don't care if he is or not.

For bitchy lazy women like me, who put relationships somewhere behind watching Regency House Party, not calling and not worrying about what's going on in some guy's mind is preferable to acting like a junior high idiot who traces the boy's name into her notebook, over and over again.

I'm sorry, I have 50 other things I'd rather do than waste mental space on whether a guy likes me. (For instance, I'd rather just wonder about the next time I'm having sex.)

There is nothing complex in deconstructing something that doesn't exist. And there is nothing wrong in saying, basically, "You want me? Come get me. Cuz, otherwise, I'm busy."

well, despite the fact i miscalculated horrifically with my finances (thus leaving me with $40 until next week) i had a wonderful weekend and it has a lot to do with my roommate. i suspect that 20 years down the road, we will still be best friends and we will be loud old women drinking spiked tea and making lewd jokes about big burly men. people will *think* we have a boston friendship, but those people would be wrong. we're just so weird and dorky, no one else gets us.

anyway, christmas. i took my bad back and my bad sciatica to evanston with my roommate and we saw 'sideways' (yay for mature, funny, painful and well-written dramas). then we drove to andersonville to get our tree. we saw it immediately - so tall and full it was the platonic ideal in trees. i think we both stamped down any pangs we felt during the tree-buying. when the sky is dark indigo and the air is crisp like a salt cracker, there is nothing more romantic than buying a tree, running your fingers over needles and branches, thrusting your face right in the tree. but we ignored all that. so, lickety split, it was cut, wrapped and strapped to the top of A--'s car. we dragged it upstairs and jammed it on our stand and just gazed at it, like it was a newborn.

whee, our tree!

so we let it rest that night. quite frankly, my back and lower regions were so mysteriously wrenched that i couldn't have handled a bulb if my life depended on it. still, i managed enough strenghth to go on a date that ended surprisingly well. i will blame the 5-minute necking in his front seat on all that tree business.

so now the tree is decorated - it is all golden, peachy and coppery beauty. it's so tasteful and pretty it hardly bears any resemblance to us at all. we have lights, boughs, wreaths, tinsel, lights, ribbons and have i mentioned the lights? (A-- thinks they're sparkly.)

but it's official. christmas is here and we are absolutely drowning in holiday cheer.

really?!?

SomeAbstinence Programs Mislead Teens, Report Says

i think this is my favorite part:

One book in the "Choosing Best" series tells the story of a knight who married a village maiden instead of the princess because the princess offered so many tips on slaying the local dragon. "Moral of the story," notes the popular text: "Occasional suggestions and assistance may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess."

if i ever find my niece reading this kind of crap i will set it on fire.

we suck

The Revealer: No Country, No Medicine, No Chance

a critically acclaimed writer's uncle dies in custody of Homeland Security and no one is responsible.

i feel like i'm taking a tally of all the ways we suck as a country, as a government, as a people. the hatch marks are too many.

here, queer, get used to it

Gay book ban goal of state lawmaker

i shouldn't be surprised at yet another example of sexual panic in the red state south, but there is something about the thoroughness of his ban that makes me rear back in alarm. it's not that his homophobia compels him to ban gay marriage (which is to be expected from a semi-rural ignoramus) but that he wants to erase homosexuality entirely. he wants it not to exist. he wants it to be nonrepresentable. he wants there to be a huge hole where he can dump homosexuality and bury it.

let's be clear. he's not merely saying that homosexuality gives him the skeeves; he's saying gay people skeeve him out so much he's willing to make sure all representations of them disappear. that's what these people want. that's their desire boiled down to its essence. it's not enough that they don't want gay people to marry. they don't want gay people to exist.

the article gets the whole thing wrong. we shouldn't be focusing on censorship or book burning. yes, yes, yes, that's awful but it's not the point. the real issue seethes below his crazy book ban. will erasing the word homosexual, the image of homosexuals, the fact of gay people be enough? will that satisfy their monster? i think not. their virulent hatred won't end until real gay people are gone. erased.

what does this sound like to you?