the friday five

1. If you had the chance to meet someone you've never met, from the past or present, who would it be? My Great-Grandmother who died in a mental institution in the 1920s or 30s.

2. If you had to live in a different century, past or future, which would it be? All of the previous ones have kind of sucked. Even if you say some really awesome time of peace and creativity like "the Renaissance" you have to deal with the lack of any proper medical care, sanitation, etc. I prefer to not have any say about what century I live in, and once I'm there I'll try to deal with the good and the bad.

3. If you had to move anywhere else on Earth, where would it be? New Zealand. I've heard great things.

4. If you had to be a fictional character, who would it be? I'd be the main woman in A Room with a View (the book - I don't want to be Helena Bonham Carter). Which I guess actually answers my century question.

5. If you had to live with having someone else's face as your own for the rest of your life, whose would it be? This question is really "Who do you think is the prettiest ever?" I like the dark-eyed exotic look, so I'll say Salma Hayek. J-Lo is very pretty too. But I'm just, I'm just Debl from the block.

Fan Checks, Inc. These are awesome; you can get personal checks with The Who on them. The other bands this company offers? Not so much. But who cares.

(courtesy of gawker.com)

This is several days old, but I love it. An essay about the logic of this war, from the NPR website.

PETER FREUNDLICH:
All right, let me see if I understand the logic of this correctly. We are going to ignore the United Nations in order to make clear to Saddam Hussein that the United Nations cannot be ignored. We're going to wage war to preserve the UN's ability to avert war. The paramount principle is that the UN's word must be taken seriously, and if we have to subvert its word to guarantee that it is, then by gum, we will. Peace is too important not to take up arms to defend. Am I getting this right?
Further, if the only way to bring democracy to Iraq is to vitiate the democracy of the Security Council, then we are honor-bound to do that too, because democracy, as we define it, is too important to be stopped by a little thing like democracy as they define it.
Also, in dealing with a man who brooks no dissension at home, we cannot afford dissension among ourselves. We must speak with one voice against Saddam Hussein's failure to allow opposing voices to be heard. We are sending our gathered might to the Persian Gulf to make the point that might does not make right, as Saddam Hussein seems to think it does. And we are twisting the arms of the opposition until it agrees to let us oust a regime that twists the arms of the opposition. We cannot leave in power a dictator who ignores his own people. And if our people, and people elsewhere in the world, fail to understand that, then we have no choice but to ignore them.
Listen. Don't misunderstand. I think it is a good thing that the members of the Bush administration seem to have been reading Lewis Carroll. I only wish someone had pointed out that "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" are meditations on paradox and puzzle and illogic and on the strangeness of things, not templates for foreign policy. It is amusing for the Mad Hatter to say something like, `We must make war on him because he is a threat to peace,' but not amusing for someone who actually commands an army to say that.
As a collector of laughable arguments, I'd be enjoying all this were it not for the fact that I know--we all know--that lives are going to be lost in what amounts to a freak, circular reasoning accident.

Parabounce: Airworld of Adventures Oh my, I really want one of these. In my flying dreams, my flight is more like large extended leaps instead of smooth steady flying, so this parabounce thing would be pretty damn close.

I'm wearing the tight pants today, except they don't feel too tight because I don't have to wear long underwear! Everything is soft and melty today and that is very good. The snow has almost vanished enough to reveal the piles of rotting leaves we left behind last fall. We aren't the only ones in the neighborhood who failed to get their leaves up before the first snowfall, though, so I don't feel like a suburban leper.

Musicians United to Win Without War This might be old news, but here's a list of musicians who are publicly against the war. there are artists from an incredibly wide range of genres - it's very heartening. And I need all I can get of that today. I keep thinking about what's going to happen and feeling like an angry clenched fist, but then I realize how powerless I am and I loosen up and just get sad. There are so many things wrong with what's happening Ñ the one that drives me the most insane is Bush saying Iraq is an imminent threat, and furthering the lie that they had anything at all to do with 9-11, when not a single hijacker was Iraqi Ñ if I try to think too deeply about it my head starts spinning. This is a dark day.

However. Even though clearly the international peace protests didn't change minds in the White House, I'm feeling even more strongly that I need to become more active. The very least I can do is stand up and be counted. And I'd rather do that little tiny thing than nothing at all.

‘Dark Orange’
Apparently once we go to war the country will automatically go to "dark orange," sort of a midway between orange (high probability of terrorist attack) and red (imminent attack likely). From the article linked above:

[begin excerpt] The impetus for the higher security levels comes from a stream of CIA and FBI intelligence reports for the past six months warning that Saddam Hussein is most likely to try an attack against the United States after an American invasion. In a closed-door Oct. 2, 2002, report to the Senate Intelligence Committee, later declassified, the CIA concluded that while Baghdad was drawing a line against going after U.S. targets directly, that would immediately change once an invasion began. The report concluded that "Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists (to use unconventional weapons to attack) the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a larger number of victims with him." Asked that day on the likelihood of Saddam doing this, CIA Director Tenet replied: "Pretty high, in my view." More recently, the CIA has been warning about the possibility of terrorist attacks on U.S. troops abroad and Mideast oil fields. [end excerpt]

Why are we doing this war thing, again? We're like idiot children poking a hornet's nest to see what will happen.

I went to the Northampton anti-war candlelight vigil last night, not because I think it will do anything to change the inevitable war we're going to start probably today, but for myself to at the very least confirm that many, many people agree with me. It was pretty with all the candles, and the crowd was huge; we stretched up both sides of Main Street. But, you know, a fat lot of good that will do. After millions and millions of people demonstrating around the world against this war have been brushed off without a moment's contemplation by the administration, I know we can't make a difference.

On Saturday Night Live last night there was a skit that had a character by Rachel Dratch in it; she played one of her painfully nerdy, socially inept, unattractive but well-meaning women. She's very funny at it; all I have to do is look at her with her big goofy smile and the slightly insane head-tremble and I start laughing. When asked to describe what sorts of things she liked to do, she said something like "Well, I enjoy buying things on eBay, watching foreign films, and ['pet my cat' or something equally pathetic-sounding]." Whatever it was, it was hilariously close to what I could say about myself, though I'd never tell a stranger that one of the things I "like to do" is "buy things on eBay." Like it's a hobby or something. Because to me, shopping is AN INCREDIBLY SERIOUS WAY OF LIFE.

Anyway, I hope no-one out there sees me as a crazy Rachel Dratch lady. I think I'm too sarcastic and self-aware and sassy (and sexy, smooth, slim, schooled, soft, sophisticated, and sensual) to be her. Alliteration is fun.

It is so warm out (or at least "not cold") that we have a couple of windows open. It's really not warm enough for that, but the lack of spring has made us crazy. In our neighborhood people are out riding bikes and kids are playing and, mainly, snow is melting, albeit very slowly. We're gonna have one hell of a mud season. I don't care! Bring it on!!

I emailed my mom some questions for a piece for class I'm trying to write (and failing - I'm really stuck) about twins. From my mom:

"One odd twin fact I'll add. I warped your brains for most of your third
year trying to toilet train you guys. Nothing. Then, in April, in a single
day, you decided this would be a good idea. You switched from diapers to
panties and never went back. Sarah was unmoved by this example for three
months. From April to July, Sarah watched you use a pottie, day and night,
without fail. Then in one day in July, Sarah decided to convert. She also
did it in a day."

Ha ha! In your face, Sarah!

eBay item 3505956011 (Ends Mar-16-03 13:04:25 PST ) - Lot of 18 PULP paperbacks! romance,mystery ! Dude, this is a fuckin' bargain yet noone has bid on it. 18 books! 50 cents a book! I paid two dollars each for many of these. Come on! I don't even expect to break even, but someone out there has got to see how great this is.

Speaking of old books, my favorite used bookstore is having a sale this weekend Ñ I think it's 35% off everything. The store is Troubadour Books (on Rt. 5 in North Hatfield), and a postcard advertises it as a "Help Cheer Me Up - I'm Depressed" sale. You're supposed to bring flowers or a joke for the owner. He's always cut me a nice deal for the sleazy pulp paperbacks I favor, so please go visit his establishment this weekend.

I was upbraided (what does that even mean?) last night for not blogging yesterday. Now that I've been linked on the BlogBeat three times I've got a rep to uphold or something.

I did go to the Tuesday night shape-note singing thing. It's like learning another language, this note-reading thing, and even though this system of reading music was made for the unlearned Puritan masses, I haven't been able to totally get the hang of it yet. I was confident in the beginning of the Tuesday meeting but the songs quickly became more complex. I hope I didn't annoy people too much with my bad notes. Because of the high volume, it's hard to hear yourself sing - like singing in a club with insufficient monitors. You can hear your neighbors very loudly but you can only hear yourself when you've either done something wrong or are singing so loudly that if you DO do something wrong, everyone in the room will hear it. Anyway. I enjoyed it and will try to come again.

We have a brand-new ventilation fan in our bathroom. It works like a charm; I had it on during my 10-minute shower this morning and the mirror didn't even fog up. I feel like such a grown-up, getting things like this done - I called the guy, told him what I wanted, and now will pay him for his services. I'm all responsible and shit.

Though not all THAT responsible. I took A and T to the mall last night. We hit American Eagle (which was all somewhat conservative preppy clothing when I was a teenager; now it's cool and sexy) and Express. AE puts their initials on everything, which I hate. But their spring line has a lot of nice almost hippy-ish stuff, like soft A-line knee-length skirts. I tried on some on-sale pants but they were too low-rise for me; I don't really mind wearing those but I feel too old for the style. I did, however, get a fruit-themed tank top and panty set. I couldn't help it, it's adorable and I feel adorable wearing it. At Express the kids both got these flirty, kind of tight miniskirts. It looked good on the older one but it looked vaguely too mature for the younger one (T). I'm not sure why. A and T have similar bodies at this point - they're both very curvy. I didn't try to stop T, however; it's her decision, and she'll learn from experience the pros and cons of wearing sexy clothing. She's smart and sassy, maybe she'll work it, in a good way.

French Fries Get New Name in Congress This makes me want to throw up. Sure, some hick diner in North Carolina can change the name of their fries, I don't give a shit - but our ELECTED OFFICIALS are spending their time (and our tax money) to do the equivalent of "I'm rubber, you're glue." Except Congress is being more immature.

Yo, help a girl out and bid on this bunch of very cool old paperbacks. Thanks.

Sacred Harp Singing FAQ This is a better Sacred Harp website than the one I linked below, if you want more info.

Also - I got sniped, horribly, in an eBay auction last night for some very cute Fluevog loafers I've never seen before. I was the high bidder 45 seconds before the auction was to end, and the next time I refreshed my page there had been four more bids and I was the loser! Fuckin' snipers! I was heartbroken, until I got ahold of myself - jesus, it's only a pair of shoes which probably wouldn't fit me properly anyway. But still. Because of it, I signed up for a sniping service, thereby ensuring that the snipe circle be unbroken.

Saw something horrible on the way to work today. On the part of Rte. 10 between E'ton and N'ton where it goes 50 mph, in the middle of my lane, someone had hit a deer. A full-grown doe. She was lying on her side with her head up, still very much alive, but her body was broken, some guts spilling out. She wasn't struggling, just looking around, stunned. The car that hit her had stopped and there was a police car there, and everyone was just standing around. I wanted the cop to shoot the deer to put it out of its misery. What were they waiting for? Animal Control, or something. Anyway. A horrible way to begin the week.

I had a good weekend. I did some art, watched a couple of Sopranos, went out to a bar and ate peanuts. On Sunday I went to the Western Mass Sacred Harp convention - part of two days of shape note singing. It was very casual, people were invited to drop in, and it was free, so I went. (Months ago, over at Dan Richardson's house, I had heard a recording of the local Sacred Harp group. It was loud and powerful - almost shouting, but tunefully - and had elaborate harmonies. It was beautiful and sad and uplifting all at once.) The crowd was lively and had a wide range of ages. There were plenty of middle-aged ladies in long skirts and men in sweater vests, but there were also a bunch of people my age, including some who were all artsy-looking in black jeans and purple hair. Encouraging. I sat in the alto side of in the huge open square and tried to figure out how to sing along with my borrowed songbook. The notes are divided into four shapes. Songs are referred to by page number only. Someone would get up, shout a number, and start the first note and the rhythm. Then the group would go through the entire song just using the names of the notes: fa, sol, la, mi, and each of the four parts were, of course, singing different notes, so it sounds kind of ridiculous and cacaphonous - about 200 adults singing at the tops of their lungs "la la la meeee so so sol mi la so la" overlapping each other. Then once the tune is gone through, the song is sung with words. The run-through was extremely helpful; I'm good at picking up melodies quickly, so I was able to follow and sing along to most of the songs, though I definitely hit some off-notes. Anyway. I might try going to the local weekly "sing" on Tuesday. I think it would be good for me on many levels.

This snow makes me want to hit people. We're getting 3 to 7 inches. There's at least 3 or 4 on my car out in the office lot right now. I'm beyond stir-crazy and cabin fever to actually, really, it's-not-funny-anymore psychosis.

Also, go read my fun dream I had last night at Your Own Rockumentary discussion room place. I kept it short.

One more thing: I attempted to watch my tape of "24" last night, but the entire program was somehow without any sound. I had also taped a show right before it on a different channel, and the sound was fine. So either Fox is fucking with me, or some weird VCR thing happened. Anyway, T and I watched the whole episode with the "mute" on so we could see the closed captioning. I read much of the show aloud which added some extra drama and interactivity to the experience. But I really would have loved to hear the big bomb go boom. Dammit.

Best. Photo. Ever.

Actual caption: Children crawl through a 40-foot long model of a colon in Washington, March 5, 2003, part of an exhibit on Colorectal Cancer. Wednesday marked the start of a nationwide tour to promote a better understanding of Colorectal Cancer, during National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.
Photo by John Harrington

[link courtesy of bartcop.com]

Just when you think our backwards country can't get any weirder...

Peace T-shirt leads to man's arrest

March 4 -- Roger and Stephen Downs had these shirts made at Crossgates Mall, but Stephen Downs was arrested when he refused to take his off and leave the mall. Lindsay Cohen reports.

ALBANY, N.Y., March 4 - A Selkirk man says he was arrested Monday for expressing his objection to possible war with Iraq at Crossgates Mall. He says all he did was wear a T-shirt bearing a message of peace, which he actually purchased in the mall.

STEPHEN DOWNS AND his son, Roger Downs, each had a pro-peace shirt made Monday night. One shirt simply said "Let Inspections Work" on one side and "No War With Iraq" on the other. The other shirt said "Give Peace A Chance" on the front and "Peace On Earth" on the back.??The men paid about $23 for each of the shirts and then wore them in the mall.
"We were just shopping. We were wearing these T-shirts. We weren't handing out leaflets, we weren't saying anything," Roger Downs recalled.
They may not have been saying anything, but they were creating enough of a disturbance to one employee, who called security.
Security asked Downs and his son to remove their shirts. Roger Downs complied, but when Stephen Downs wouldn't, he was told to leave the mall. When he refused, he was arrested.
"This struck me as a powerful way of expressing myself. I wanted to do something peaceful," he said.
Roger Downs says he is proud of his father.
"I'm impressed that he's refused to have his civil rights violated," Roger Downs said.
New York Civil Liberties Union President Stephen Gottlieb says he can't believe the peaceful T-shirts could lead to Downs' arrest.
"We believe, most of us, in the Bill of Rights, and we believe that protects the freedom to speak. Well, if there's a freedom of speech, where do we get to do it?" Gottlieb asked.
Gottlieb says he believes there is a law protecting peoples' rights to free speech, even in shopping malls.
Guilderland police say they arrested Downs because he refused to leave private property. That, they say, is trespassing.
Representatives for Crossgates did not return calls for comment Tuesday.
Signs posted at entrances to the mall say that "wearing of apparel... likely to provoke disturbances... is prohibited" at the mall.

Here's Monday blog on Tuesday. It was very windy Sunday night, so windy that the plastic on the window in our bedroom came unstuck a little, and was crackling and snapping loudly like a noisy, crinkly plastic bag. By 2:00 a.m., after trying to retape the thing to no avail, I told P, "If I'm still awake in half an hour I'm ripping that thing down."

P: No, don't. You do and it'll be 10 degrees colder in here.

Me: I don't care!

Ten minutes pass. Flippity flappity flippity flappity flippity flappity.

P: All right, rip it down.

Me: Really? Yes!!

I ripped it down and it only got a little colder. I like sleeping in a cold room, as long as I'm well-blanketed. Yesterday I installed another plastic cover, but this one seems a little thinner and cheaper. Maybe someday spring will come and we can be plastic-free.


Also this weekend I watched the first 10 episodes of The Sopranos. One of the first things I said at work the next day was "What the fuck is with that?" without even thinking about the inappropriate cursing. Luckily the person I was talking to agreed with me that whatever it was was, indeed, fucked up.

I also did a little sorting, clearing my computer desk so I could actually see wood again. I went through my books and I'm getting rid of about 15 pulp romance books (I still probably have 30 top ones). I think I'll try selling them as a lot on eBay, because it's not worth the time to do them individually. Does anyone out there want them? Name your price.

This weekend I feel the need to shed, shed, shed. I have too much stuff. I have a pile of crap I plan on eBaying, but at this point I may just give most of it to the Salvation Army. I need to be brutal with my wardrobe, since I don't wear about a third of what I own (which isn't too bad, as I try to regularly weed through my crap). I might end up giving away some of the things I keep because of the memories; a huge orange sweater I haven't worn for ten years, a tie-dyed shirt I haven't worn since college, big overalls covered with paint...

I need to feel more organized and streamlined. I'm currently the main person supporting (financially) my household and that makes me feel out of control (I do not make enough money to do this for much longer). Since I have no control over the money thing, at least I can obsessively sort things and throw stuff away! I'm sure that will make everything better! !!

Yes, I had (have) all of these, except for the kittens with yarn and scratching post, because I don't think they existed 20 years ago. See the pointy, fragile little tails? Many of my cats were "bobbed."...

My sister and I used to collect these Hagen-Renaker figurines as kids. We'd play with these tiny china animals instead of dolls, constructing elaborate homes for them in the folds of our blankets or legos, having them vacation in a jungle-like cluster of houseplants, sending them flying on Erector-set gondolas suspended on butcher-string zip-lines, building stores where we'd get each other to buy tiny tins (little sliding pill boxes) with surprises in them. We had no idea our china animals were collectibles that some adults were interested in; we were not very careful with them, repeatedly breaking the tails and legs off and regluing them with Elmer's. I still have all of them, insufficently wrapped with Kleenex, in my parent's garage. My thing was to collect all of the Siamese cat figures, but I also had a really cool owl, a couple of seals, some puppies, some horses, rabbits, mice... probably about 30 in all. I remember we stopped playing with them around age 12 (puberty, doncha know), and then a few months later we decided to try playing with them again for old times' sake. But the magic was gone. We were too self-conscious and it just seemed boring and pointless. It's very hard, as an adult, to regain that feeling of being completely engrossed in your own creative world. But I'm going to keep trying.

Today i signed up on the "interested?" sheet at work for an office summer softball team. I have never successfully played softball, and I never, ever played organized sports during school (except during the mandated gym classes). But something about softball appeals to me. I think that if I get over of my fear of the ball, and learn how and who to throw it to, I'll be okay. I know I can hit, since I've actually done that before. But I was the type of girl who went as far into the outfield as I could when my team wasn't up, and then I'd let someone else run to catch the ball if it came out that far. But I am enjoying picturing myself in a sporty little cap, all confident, being all "there's no 'I' in 'team!'," getting nicknamed "Blaze," having my dog become the team mascot, going out for celebratory ice cream afterwards. In reality my RSI will probably become a lot worse, some of my officemates will turn out to be over-competitive abusive soccer-dad-types, and I'll end up being the goat of the team. But I guess we'll see.

I spent Friday in NYC on business - saw a screening of Teacher's Pet, a Disney film coming out next February (though it is pretty much completely done). Liked it a lot. Took advantage of having to be there to spend the weekend in Brooklyn with my sister and my bro-in-law, which I seem to be doing a lot lately. I ended up spending a lot of time in Chinatown, sort of by accident; on Friday I was in town early, having driven myself to Brooklyn and subway'd in to the city, so I met S on Canal Street for lunch. She took me to a vegetarian dim-sum place off of Mott. It was just a hole in the wall, but very tasty. I loves me some dumplings. We resolved to research a good non-veg dim sum place for next time.

Saturday we met up with a couple of girl-friends and went shopping in "Nolita," which I refuse to un-quote because it's such a stretch of a name. We each bought something at a designer's market held in the gym of a Catholic school. Then there was snacking, and more shopping, and then back to Bklyn for take-out barbecue from a new place called Biscuit. Very yummy.

Sunday S and S and I went back to the Chinatown realm for a visit to Pearl River's new location. The store has been completely transformed. It was a slightly dirty warren of dusty merchandise on three low-ceilinged stories. now it's a massive Old-Navy-like huge open space, all clean and well-lit. Same stuff, same good prices, so I was happy. I bought a tremendous amount of crap, including three small beautiful bowls, some men's Pocky for P, coffee-flavored gum, cheap dry noodles and can of baby corn, some "Budlet" powdered face papers, and a cute character-decorated chopstick case with kid-sized chopsticks. Once we were fully laden with crap, we took off for our main destination, a huge, dusty, fabric trim store. It was overwhelming, with floor-to-ceiling shelves of every kind of ribbon, rickrack, piping, cording, elastic, edging, lace... it was crazy. Unfortunately the prices weren't great. Sarah tried to haggle with one of the guys - they were cranky old orthodox jews, and I'd never seen such a real-life stereotype in action, which was uncomfortable to watch - over some plain plastic buttons that were priced at a crazy 50 cents apiece. He finally said "45 each" but then charged her 50 cents anyway. Jeez. I did end up with some edging I want to add to a pillowcase skirt I made, and some cheap cut-out flocked stuff to use in one of my collage boxes.

Anyway. We ended up deciding to eat in Chinatown before I was to go home. Our choice was New Pasteur, another hole in the wall, this time Vietnamese food. It's kind of like Thai but without all the dairy and coconut milk. Loved it, and it was crazy cheap - under $5. On the way back to the subway, we passed a little hut where a man was selling tiny egg-shaped cakes - cooked, and tasted, like mini-waffles - twenty for a buck. Can't beat that. We bought a bag and wolfed them down. They were warm and sweet and eggy and crispy - so good! Damn. We finished them, and then a block later, S and I smelled them again, and immediately started glancing frantically around - "Where? where?" We quickly zeroed in on another little egg-cake stand and bought another 20 for a buck. This time they went a lot faster.

The drive home last night ranks among my top five worst drives ever, and living in New England, that's saying something. I was all happy, starting out at 5:30, that it had stopped raining. I didn't realize that the strong winds were bringing much colder air, and all the puddles would be freezing... I took the Merritt up, because it feels faster than 95, and is twisty and hilly like a roller coaster, which keeps me awake. Right after I crossed into CT, I hit really bad traffic. Really, really bad. I had to put my car in neutral and use my parking brake just so my left leg wouldn't fall asleep. Every few minutes we inched forward 10 or so feet, and then nothing, no movement for several minutes. I figured it was a new accident and it would be cleared soon, but no, I sat in that fuckin' jam for well over an hour. Finally I called my sister and they found out the cause online - a serious accident, due to icy conditions, near exit 31; expect full lane closures, it said. What the fuck? Why should I expect that? Unless they're trying to scrape someone off multiple lanes, they should just rush a tow truck in there and clear the way. I had been between exits for the half-mile or so I'dd traveled so I didn't even know how close I was to it. About 20 minutes later I came in view of the next exit sign - 31. I could even see the turnoff. But it was still parking-lot time. People were getting out of their cars, walking away, or rearranging stuff in their trunks... I decided that even though I was close to the problem, it wasn't going away anytime soon, so I waited until I could squeeze up the on-ramp, took it and got on 15 in the opposite direction. It was nice to get my overheating car out of first gear, but I quickly hit my first patch of ice; though I had watched multiple salt-trucks driving down that side of the road, I still felt some queasy slippage. I slowed way down. It took me about 20 minutes to get to 684 north, and then I was home free, going in the right direction again. I knew it would take me about two hours to get home from there, and it was 9:15. I should have been home at 8:30. I passed multiple accident sites, and they all looked the same; first a line of flares, then a cop car with lights flashing, then a big patch of black ice, then an empty, crumpled car by the side of the road. Eventually I stopped somewhere to get gas and a couple of McDonald's dollar chicken fajitas. By the time I got home it was 11:30. The whole trip felt like a dream where you're running down a hallway and you see the end stretching further and further away from you. It, in a word, sucked.

I am an idiot. I was so sure Trista was going to pick Charlie that I didn't bother watching the final Bachelorette last night. She picked bland, horrible-poet Ryan! Of course, the main reason why I didn't watch the show is that it was mind-numbingly boring.

From this wonderful site of remixed propaganda posters.

I did not attend the Papmered Chef paarty, though I heard it was fun, and I didn't get to try out my art idea, as I was feeling all carpal-tunnelly. I did watch the film L.I.E., which I loved and recommend. My sis said she started watching Donnie Darko and mentioned the early scene in which Donnie is walking into the high school and the entire Tears for Fears song "Head Over Heels" plays. Man, I loved that scene, mainly because that song is so great. I was holding my breath watching it, it was so perfect. S needs to see the rest of the film for the later scene with "Mad World" in it. In the 80s, when TFF were actually popular, I thought they were kind of corny, but now I think they're great. Excellent songwriting with a nice clear pop sound.

I ran into a new acquaintence at the Haymarket this morning. Apparently she works at the Hampshire College bookstore and does some writing for the Omen (the campus rag) on the side. She was conducting a poll so she sat me down for a mini-interview. Here's what she asked, and my answers to her (completely off the top of my head; I was rushing a little, as I had to get back to work):

1. What would you sacrifice in order to stop a war in Iraq?
I've actually been thinking about this. My car. It would be a big pain in the ass, but I could walk to the bus and the supermarket.

2. What would you sacrifice in order to stop a war in North Korea?
Hmm... wow. Well, it depends a little who the war is with. Is it us? This is harder, because giving up my car for the Iraq thing seems logical because of the oil issue... I guess I'd give up my house, which represents a big hunk of money; unless North Korea was going to nuke L.A. or something. Then I guess I'd give up my life in exchange for all of those people.

3. What would you sacrifice in order to stop a war in New York City?
Whoa. I guess I'd die, though it's tough to say - my sister lives there, and my parents live close by, and I wouldn't want to save them but then not live to see them (interviewer: But you'd be a hero to them.) I guess so. Okay, yes, I'd do it.

So there you have it. If the choice is between my life and levelling NYC or LA, I'd say take my life. But come on - like that would ever happen. I know the point of the poll was to point out that we consider strangers' lives worth less than our own (or our possessions). But it's a little too easy to say "I'd give up my life" when there's absolutely no way that exchange would be made. Now, giving up my car - that's in the realm of possibility, as reducing the amount of oil we buy from the middle east could potentially change things over there. And if gas prices go up to, say, $4.00 a gallon, I'll be much more inclined to walk a mile to the bus stop to get to work. But doing that won't stop a war in Iraq either.

It seems, at this point, that almost nothing will.

I'm trying to decide if I should go to a coworkers "Pampered Chef" party tonight. If you don't recognize the name, just think Tupperware party but with citrus zesters and stoneware chicken roasters. She says she won't pressure us to buy, and she's making yummy food for it, but I'd feel obligated to buy at least one thing or another, and I'm in a mood of discarding things. But I like trying out cool kitchen gadgets. So I'm torn.

I've been thinking about what I could sell in the art-o-mats and I might have come up with a useable idea. The trick is to think of something to make that looks semi-valuable and cool, but that doesn't take very long to make (I'd be getting only $2 or $2.50 per item sold). My image idea is kind of organic, modern, and decorative. I plan on trying it out tonight.

Also - I have no way of proving this, but I totally called the "twist" on Joe Millionaire last night. I even got the amount of money correct. I thought of posting it before the show but I didn't and now I just sound like an ass.

So I have a snow day today! My boss called me last night and said the office would be closed today. And so here I am, wearing the same grungy clothes I did yesterday. I paid a plow guy $40 to do our driveway, which isn't even very large. He did do a good job, and there's no way we could have done it, really, so whatever. I took some snaps of the snow and I'll post one or two if they came out well.

I just came back inside from a snow-shoveling session.

Mother nature and I are no longer on speaking terms.

It's snowing. Again. It almost goes without saying at this point, you know? At least I'm alone today; P has to work at the video store all day. So I can be here and go out every hour to shovel up the four new inches of snow. They're saying we'll get up to two feet.

I love this woman's illustrations. Thanks to my pal henning for directing me to her site.

I was a bitch to my 16-year-old quasi-step-daughter last night. As usual, she was yelling down from her bedroom for us to be quiet, in that extremely annoying tone of voice that teenagers perfect. I was actually watching Celebrity Mole with T, and we both haad headphones on; it was my laughter that was too loud for her. Anyway, whatever response I gave to her yelling wasn't good enough, so she continued to tell me exactly how I was keeping her awake. I yelled "I get it!! And the only person being loud right now is you!" She yelled something else, angrily, and I yelled over her, "I GET IT! NOW SHUT UP!" She closed the door, and I think I heard her cry a little, which made me feel awful.

Am I a horrible person? I just don't feel like being perfect and patient lately. Nobody makes that effort for me, so why should I do that for them? So I'm saving that mental energy for being good to myself. Yet I still feel horrible. What a mess.

I just found out that a sweet man I was almost set up with has gotten married and pregnant in the past few months. I guess he wasn't the one for me. He was cute, but kind of quiet and nerdy, and by the time I met him I was in love with someone else. My timing is absolutely horrible.

I can't find my nail clippers. One of the ways my OCD represents itself at the office is by my near-daily nail clipping. One nail is a little longer than the others? Snip, snip. Right now my right thumbnail is getting way too long. And it's a thumb nail, so I can't even bite it off properly. And I keep looking all over my desk for my clippers, and can't find them. Maybe someone else in my office got tired of listening to the clip, clip, clip, and stole them.

Oh god, I just found them! Oh happy day.

If you are in NYC, or can get there, please go to the huge-ass peace rally on Saturday on my behalf. I have to attend a party for my boyfriend's mother's birthday (it's a biggie - 70 years old). I'm guessing there will be a lot of counter-protesters there, and they're fun to yell at.

I'm going to try hard to remember to watch the final episode of Celebrity Mole tonight. I sort of accidentally started watching it, and it's hilarious, if only because of Kathy Griffin. She's snarky and skeptical and made for a show like this. Anyway, once this is done, and I see who Joe Millionaire picked next week, I am done with reality shows. At least, I'm done scheduling dates with myself in order to not miss reality shows. I've given up on the Bachelorette because of how extremely boring it was; Trista's blander than Wonder bread, and it's been obvious for several episodes which guy she's gonna pick.

Also from Blue Bloggy: "I'm trying to bring back "Dag," as in "you paid HOW much for that shirt?! DAG!" It was a very popular exclamation in my predominantly black middle school in the mid-1980s."

Funny she should mention it, as I had a humorous time trying to explain to the girls our peculiar preteen useage of the term "psyche!" (which we usually spelled, in passed notes and such, "sike!"). You use it in place of "just kidding!" Example: "You know, I watched that entire Michael Jackson thing last Thursday, and I gotta say, I think he's sexier than ever. Psyche!"

Also, I wish everyone said "word" a lot more. It's like the opposite of Dag: Word is a positive reinforcement of whatever was just said, instead of the bad-news, I-can't-believe-it tone of Dag.

Word.

My sister has blogged her response to my 8th-grade journal entries (see below) with a lengthy quote from her own diary of the time. She's written more of an analysis of the event than I have. Check it out.

I just won an auction for "Chu Chu Rocket," a game for my GameBoy Advance; I got a really nice deal. I'm pretty happy about it. Just take a look:


In other news, my dog ate half a loaf of Pepperidge Farm cinnamon swirl bread, I went sledding, and I finally saw Adaptation, which was great.

I watched most of the Michael Jackson thing last night. I ended up feeling very sad. He's just stuck in his hellish childhood, trying to get it right this time by giving "his" children (I don't think that blond kid has a drop of Jackson DNA in him) whatever it is he lacked. I think the kids will be fine until adolescence. Then they'll start becoming autonomous beings, questioning and comparing, and they'll see how intensely fucked up their situation is. Who knows what will happen then.

I did come away from it believing that MJ never touched those kids in a sexual way. He seems completely asexual to me. He's not a repressed gay man, he's not a straight guy ashamed of his urges; he's literally, pathologically stuck in childhood. He's pre-sexual.

I did think the last half an hour on Jackson's plastic surgery was mean-spirited. Also, who cares. It's obvious he's had more than two surgeries on his nose and face, but why spend 30 minutes on it? That one plastic surgeon, the woman, showed way too much glee when going through the tragedies that have been done to this guys face. I ended up just thinking 'what a bitch' instead of 'Michael is a total freak.' Though he is. Just not in a fun way.

[more from my 1984-86 diary.] [different pen here; must have written this several months later.]

The seventh grade year ended with more pissy fights. W still always had to have her way. Everyone hated her.

The summer went by quickly. W didn’t see any more of F.

The 8th grade year started. People started being meaner and meaner to W. We had notebooks We passed them and wrote to each other. Sometimes we wrote about W. K and DA wrote a story about all of us. W was the villain. W didn’t know about any of us.

We went to see a movie called “Better Off Dead” [kicking off a lifelong love affair with John Cusack]. We were going to tell W off. (K, DA, me, S, K, Sh, M, PL, D, T.) At Burger King [across the parking lot from the movie theater. New Jersey, people. This was what we had for our "downtown."], me, S, DA, K, ran ahead because we wanted the others to follow. W and the others became offended. We asked them why. They said because we ran ahead. W started crying, asking why were we being so mean, what did she do, etc. She laid so much guilt on us that others started to cry. Everyone was saying how sorry they were. I wasn’t crying. W said between sobs, “Debbie isn’t even crying!” So I thought about mean people at school and cried.

The nerve of that shrimp! She wanted everyone to cry for her!

We were all W’s friends again. Almost. I went over to K’s. M was there. I told her I still hated W. K and M said they still did too.

Whenever W did something wrong, she would ask what she should do to be better. She wanted to be everyone’s perfect friend.

Now it’s just a matter of pretending. If she found out we didn’t like her, I don’t know what would happen.

I think W is a lesbian. Seriously. Whenever she sees a big breasted/thighed woman, she says “Man! Look at that!”
[I wrote this before it was cool or at least acceptable to be a lesbian, at least in my town. I didn't say I'd come off well here... ]

Okay, I'm looking at a diary I wrote when I was twelve, in 1984. I was writing the full history of a shunning perpetrated by my all-girl, all-geek social group the previous summer. I go through the history of my friendship with this one girl, W, which began in first grade, and here we join my journal already in progress. Comments from a 30-y-o me are in brackets:

Chapter 2
The Party
My 12th birthday party. Party people consisted of [8 names omitted to protect the semi-innocent]. PL brought her Duran Duran folder. Everyone was looking at it. I was trying to start a game, but everyone was too enthralled in their faces and facts. W was talking to FA. The next morning, W said, "Well, me and F are getting to be real good friends."
F didn't feel that way.

Chapter 3: The Present
From a month ago to today

W is not popular this year. Everyone woke up and realized what an asshole she was. She was kicked out of two lunch tables, so she went to me for help. We had to let her in. She was really annoying. She has only been there for 4 days and we are sick of her.
Favors: There was a concert. We HAD to take W an hour early. We HAD to babysit her on a school night until midnight [this is terribly unfair of me; she lived alone with her overworked single mom!]. And the latest: Tomorrow night, her mom is going out. She MAY sleep over our house. She called me, and asked if I could play tomorrow. I said no, I might be going to the flea market with my friend. She asked which friend. I said K. She told me to ask her if she could come along! [I know, what a bitch, right?] I called. She wasn't home. S [my sister] called her at 10 o'clock. She asked if she could play. She couldn't S hung up the phone. Before that, S had told her that we had a Quaker potluck and wouldn't be back until 9 or 9:30. Well, W promptly got upset and said, "I'm going to be alone in a house from 5:00 to maybe even 10:00 or 10:30? Why can't I come!"
S asked mom. She said it would be a good time to get W and F's relationship straight [My mom really said that? The hell?]. Mom talked it over with Dad. Yes, she could go. But remember this is a person that thinks quaker meetings are people kneeling in a circle and praying in a church. [God, I was such a snob.] The catch is that W has to do everything she says. And if she's bothering us, I just tell mom.
Finally, today.
Dec. 15. Potluck day. She is sleeping over here tonight. I mist hide this.
I'm back. Nothing happened! We're still all friends. Rats.

[that's not the end of the journal, though. To be continued...]

I know I haven't written any meaty blogs in a while. I'm going to publish something soon for my writing class, but I'm really struggling with it. I can't stop rewriting it. So bear with me, a better read is on the way.

Turning a Digital Database Into Local Radio Wow. Carsol Daly really is a complete tool, in every sense of the word.

Family Fun, serious business Hey look, it's an article about my office in the paper. I work for an unnamed sister publication in the same building, but we're close with the other staff (like, uh, sisters).

Here is my favorite photo I took at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.




And here is the photo showing the wreck of our back porch roof, caused by a huge chunk of falling ice. Uncropped to show how desolate it is here (true, I took this shot at night, but in daylight it's not much less sad).



Luckily, the fawn is doing just fine.

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | 'Millonaire' finalist said bondage star Somehow this doesn't surprise me.

I have no excuse for not blogging at the end of last week, as I drove to Brooklyn on Saturday. I had to get out of town; the stark colorless Arcticness was getting me down. So I had a wonderful sushi dinner Saturday night with Sa and Sk, at a place that had opened the nights before. Expensive but worth it (of course Sk treated me...). Sunday me and Sa went to a sample sale in Cobble Hill. Three local designers had their stuff in an apartment, a beautiful, slightly-beat-up former industrial space with a skylight above the dining table. Very nice. I bought what was probably an $80 skirt for $20, and Sa got a funky hat and a tiny croched necklace. Then we went to the mecca of my trip, the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. We had to walk quite a ways in the freezing cold to get to the conservatories; along the way we saw a formal lily pond with large goldfish hanging out below a four-inch-thick blanket of ice. Once we got inside and reached the marsh room, it was so green and warm and humid that I felt like curling up in a corner and going to sleep, to let all of the oxygen and warmth in the room penetrate my body. Instead we kept moving through to the jungle and the warm temperate rooms. Sa and I had brought our digital cameras so we took some arty shots (will post one or two tonight).

Sunday night a drive into Manhattan took a turn towards disaster when a pipe in my engine sprang a hole, spurting warm antifreeze all over my hot engine (oh yeah), causing much steam and smoke to billow outt from under the hood. I managed to pull over across the street from the Worst Customer Service Garage ever. I walked in (after knocking) and saw a guy peeing in the bathroom with the door wide open. I pretended not to see him until he was done. They acted like it was a huge favor to even look at the car. The guy put some patching caulk stuff on the hole and we were told to come back in half an hour when it was set (and not a minute more, as they needed the garage space; "I'm doing this as a favor to you," the head guy told us). We wandered around SoHo, which is all chain stores now, and came back, and the stuff still wasn't set. So we watched the superbowl for a while until it became clear that the patch was not holding back the flow. The mechanic decided to replace part of the metal pipe with rubber pipe and some pipe clamps. I was dubious but he said it would hold me until I got home to MA. It barely held me until I got back to Brooklyn, actually, and even then the antifreeze was all but empty by the time I parked.

I started calling mechanics the next morning and I miraculously seem to have found a good one. Unfortunately the part I needed had to be special-ordered, so I was forced to spend an extra day (and night) in Brooklyn. I played a lot of Monkeyball, watched some Game Show Network, and saw most of a movie that seemed to have been someone's grad school project on the IFC. Monday night Sa hosted "Chicks with Sticks" so I used the fabric scraps I bought at the sample sale to do an applique thing for a purse I may someday make. Then Sk came home and we watched Joe Millionaire. It was a pretty good way to spend a stranded day.

Tuesday was more depressing, as I didn't know when the car would be ready, plus I was alone in the apartment. I read a book with a cat or two until I got the magic call around 2 p.m. I'm $230 lighter now (plus $50 for the "patch" in Manhattan) and a little wiser: people, always do your preventative scheduled maintenence on your car. If only I had gotten my 105,000 mile check done...

I'm here, I'm alive; sorry for the lack of blogging. I was stranded with a sick car in Brooklyn and ended up missing a day of work (I had Monday off anyway, luckily enough). More later when blogger is working again (must have gotten wormed). luv, debl

I'm here, I'm alive; sorry for the lack of blogging. I was stranded with a sick car in Brooklyn and ended up missing a day of work (I had Monday off anyway, luckily enough). More later when blogger is working again (must have gotten wormed). luv, debl

I need to write something memoir-ish for a magazine writing class I'm in, and I'm having trouble deciding on a topic. Some ideas I have now:

The death of my boyfriend's dad, of cancer. I'd probably go on too long and ramble too much, but it might be worth doing even if it's not for class since I've never written a complete account of it. (A side note: did Ozzy's t-shirt last night say "Fuck Cancer!"? If so, I want one)

My nerdily oblivious near-misses with boys in college (once I mistook a friend telling me he loved me as just plutonic love, which it wasn't; another time a guy was about to give me a goodnight kiss, and I nervously started eating an apple so he wouldn't. This was a guy I was attracted to, by the way)

Some story about being a twin, which seems to interest people. I don't know.

Something about my shelter dog. Would be tough to not make corny and Jean Teasdale-ish.

A story from when I was 13 and our geek girl posse creatively terrorized a former member of said posse; could be interspersed with quotes from my diary account of the event written the year it happened.

The time I took a hike with a boyfriend in college and we got completely lost, and I realized what an asshole he was (a voyage of discovery, if you will).

I guess I do have some ideas and I just have to start writing. But I'm afraid to start because I don't know if I'll be successful. It's the story of my life!

Al Hirschfeld, 99, Dies; He Drew BroadwayAww! I grew up searching for the hidden "Nina"s in every drawing. He's a classic.

Just a little reality check for today:

The cost of living in New York (Manhattan) is higher than the cost of living in Springfield, MA. If you make $40,000.00 in Springfield and move to New York (Manhattan), you will need to make $82,118.96 ($42,118.96 more) to maintain the same buying power.

I had a fun evening at home last night, warmed by the glow of the television and Must-See TV. It was just me and the girls. During the commercials we were all punchy and giggly. I was petting my dog, rubbing her pinkish belly, and I said, "ooh, look at this nice belly. I bet there's poop in all those tubes in there, just movin' through..."

T: (loudly) Oh my god, that is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard! Stop it!

Me: What? I'm just petting her stomach, nothing nasty or anything. Just talking about her intestines under there, and the poop moving through them...

T: Shut up shut up!

Me: (standing up) See, there's poop in those pink tubes inside here (pointing at my belly) , too!

T: STOP IT! (laughing and acting grossed out)

Me: And YOU have some in your tubes (tries to point to her belly; T screams in horrror, loudly).

A comes downstairs to see what the hell's going on. I tell her and we both agree T is overreacting.

T: You don't just start talking about that kind of stuff! You just don't!

Me: Why not?

T: Okay, fine; I've got shit in my tubes! In fact, (pulling pants down a little) I'm-a prairie-doggin' it right now!!

I glance at her exposed hip and see a pink heart markered on her skin, with a "W" in the middle. W, her boyfriend.

T quickly pulls up her pants and turns away, hoping I didn't see anything.

Me: (of course) I SAW THAT! Ha ha ha!

T: SHUT UP! (she runs out of the room, laughing)

Pretty fun. Then P comes home and everyone's grumpy again, probably because while they can potentially blame this whole moving-away-from-their-friends thing on him, they know I have no say at all in that kind of matter, and so can't blame me. I'm sure it won't last.

Fussy Go down to the June 28 entry to read an account of a very cool baby delivery, done naturally in a NYC apartment bathroom. This link presented especially for my wanting-to-concieve sister.

The Sacramento Bee -- sacbee.com -- Two-buck wine the toast of the town Finally there's a quality beverage priced right for winos. I wish the Trader Joe's our area is supposed to get would hurry up and get here. I love cheap, good wine.

I was just going through some old files today, doing a little computer desk cleaning for my New G4 iMac! (at work; I can't afford anything new in real life) and I found these anagrams from my name. It's kind of impressive how many dirty ones there are, though some of them - hair and eyebrow - are just extremely apropos. Here are the best:

a honeydew briar
I, wee barnyard ho
bony rawhide ear
bad, wary heroine
hair and eyebrow
oh, brewery naiad!
be a hairy wonder
drab wiener, ahoy!
obey hair warden
onward hairy bee
I heard "ow" nearby
draw a boy in here
Yow, a rare behind!
be in a worry head
Ride bare anyhow!
A worry: I been had
Oh, widen rear bay!
I be a randy whore

Headline on today's USA Today: Bush Approval Rating Lowest Since 9/11. Woo hoo!

Thank god everyone seems to be slowly wising up. Me, I've been too busy trying to keep up with Joe Millionaire, the Bachelorette, and Surreal Life to watch the news. Yeah, I know it's trash, and 'beneath me' and all that shit, but so what? I still read books,have a large vocabulary and solid moral values. I'm not a Neilsen family and I pretty much never buy stuff I see advertised on TV, so I have absolutely no influence over future programming. On Sunday I managed to fight with P's mom, the widow of a showbiz screenwriter and an admitted snob, over whether "reality TV" meant the End of Art and Culture. I said that reality shows get on the air because they're both popular and inexpensive to produce, and therefore highly profitable - End of Story. But she thought that the "artists" in Hollywood had the responsibility to bring more refined entertainment to the screen (and, I presume, the unwashed masses who don't know any better). She was forgetting that the artists (writers, actors) don't have anything to do with choosing programs; it's all about the money, and it always has been. She also said things like "and the people on these shows are so uneducated! The people who watch them are so uneducated!" Uh, except for me and a bunch of my egg-heady friends, I guess. I know she's just getting her husband's back, defending the screenwriting trade against the money-grubbing producers who save a buck by using "unscripted" television. But does she have to be so blatantly elitist about it? Can't we all get along here? What bad will happen to the world if we watch trashy TV shows? How can she think to presume most people are too dumb to watch these shows responsibly? She's a better liberal than me; and aren't we supposed to not tar swaths of the population with the same brush? Obviously there are more than a few smart people out there (see above USA Today headline).

Anyway. Long story short: Joe Millionaire picked the substitute teacher, which is good, and dumped Heidi, which is very good. But how could he have picked MoJo? Girl, know when to shut up.

I know, I know; I need to blog. Gotta wait until tomorrow, dude.

Tomorrow, as part of Smith College's Homeland Insecurities program, "Dr. Strangelove" is playing for free at 2:00 at the Academy of Music. "The Manchurean Candidate" is at 4:00, also free. I've seen both of them, but not on the big screen. The films will be introduced by a speaker who will (more than likely) link them to our current state of the nation. I live in a college town and so rarely take advantage of these things; I might have to go to this one.

So last night I took the Tylenol PM and it worked fine. I was sleepy all day, however, to the point of almost nodding off at the dentist's as my teeth were getting clean (those chairs are comfy!). We'll see how it goes tonight, drug-free.

030108???? Oolong, the famous and much-loved rabbit-photographed-with-stuff-on-its-head, has passed away. Here's a photo series showing his death and funeral. Very sweet and odd and moving.

Last night was my third night in a row of insomnia. My brain won't let me sleep. I'm not even thinking of anything in particular. It's not like That Big Sales Meeting is coming up or something. I'm going to try the Tylenol PM tonight. It doesn't always work; sometimes I take stuff like that and my body fights it all night, and I lie there with my heart pounding laboriously with my mind in a fog.

It's times like this that I think if I were a regular mammal, my weak-ass eurotrash bloodline bloodline would have died out long ago. If my family members were gazelles or something we would only have survived this long through an amazing series of coincidences and luck. No way a group of anxiety-prone gazelles with extreme near-sightedness, bad feet, and sensitive stomachs is going to last long in a savannah full of hungry lions.

FLY GUY This makes me so happy. Go and play!

Here's the kind of crap I deal with at work: Apparently, those star-shaped things that live in the ocean? Well, they aren't called "starfish," nimrod, because they aren't technically fish. They're "sea stars"! Nevermind that nobody actually calls them anything but starfish. I did get my way on this one (and kept
"starfish"), but the very fact that we spent fifteen minutes talking about it is enough to make me cry when I go to the mall and see professionally-made signs saying fourth-grader shit like "Happy Holiday's" and "Try them! There the best!" all over the place. I'm almost to the point of going into the store(s) and talking to the manager about why their signs are wrong, and how they can fix them. I'm totally becoming one of those asshole people. I'll think I'm being all nice and polite about it when talking to the manager, but those people always think they're being nice about it. Whether you're right or not, there's no way to correct someone without coming across as an asshole. I've gotta keep remembering that...

Sometimes in the morning I walk around outside waiting for my dog to poop and I come up with ideas for blog writings. Then I go to work. After a frustrating hour or two of people constantly coming over and asking me questions, and arguing tiny grammatical points that I shouldn't care about but do, my ideas have faded like footprints in a snowstorm. In fact, I was going to write about snow today, because it was snowing. all. day. again. It stopped a little while ago, thank god.

What the hell, here's a little essay entitled "What I Think About Snow."

It's day 10 or so of the Snow Seige. New England has been blanketed by multiple storms, and the Snow is kicking our yankee ass. It will never stop snowing; we know this now. Snow is our master. Everything is encased in white; indeed, white contains all colors and therefore all things. Bow down before the snowy world; it contains us and keeps us small. Puny humans! We push the snow around, and feel satisfied when it is piled to our satisfaction. Yet in one night Snow can make all our work for naught! Want to drive your trusty little car somewhere? Oh, it's so fancy, with its grippy rubber tires and heated windows! But snow need merely sneeze, and your car is encased with an icy crust. A half hour of hard labor is needed just to enter it. And let's not even start on the snow-driving part. Best to stay inside forever.

Here's the current view outside of my front door:


And my back door. The little hook is the top of a plastic plant holder, about 18 inches high:


I was so sick today I stayed home from work, giving up free Chinese food (we get lunch in when it's "crunch time"). I feel like I've been walking around in warm pudding all day. And it just doesn't stop snowing.

I have a nasty cold today, so bad that I'm sucking on a Sucrets. It's some crazy shit, Sucrets. I haven't had one for years, but I don't remember my tongue going numb like it is right now. It's kind of freaking me out and I'm not sure I like it, though I have stopped coughing...

I'm working on a list of New Year's resolutions. I guess I need to add "meet deadlines" to it.

I went ahead and got myself a gift I had gotten my sister, the Taschen page-a-day calendar of Natural Curiosities; it's half-price now. I never thought I'd see a page-a-day calendar I actually wanted, since most of the time I find them a complete nuisance to keep up with. But this year I'll be looking forward to each morning when I can rip off yesterday's page to expose the latest weird, intricate yet inaccurate, vulgar etching of, say, a possum's birthing pouch, or porcupines curling into balls. This calendar was created with me in mind.

The Lying Game A couple of acquaintences are mentioned in this NY Observer article about a role playing game called Mafia. Sounds very difficult, potentially excruciating, and very fun. I'd love to play but I'm not sure I have enough willing friends .... Anyway, read this article for the rules of the game. All the cool kids are doing it.

The Case for Drinking (All Together Now: In Moderation!) From today's NYT: In a study of more than 80,000 American women, those who drank moderately had only half the heart attack risk of those who did not drink at all, even if they were slim, did not smoke and exercised daily. Moderate drinking was about as good for the heart as an hour of exercise a day. Not drinking at all was as bad for the heart as morbid obesity.

Wow! So to be as healthy as I can be, I need to get sloshed every day (two drinks are plenty; I'm a cheap date). Tonight, New Year's Eve, I will drink enough to be the healthiest ever!

Hello everyone. I am back at work. This morning was the first time I've woken up before 9 in many days, it seems. I had a great Christmas down in Jersey with my folks; it was very brief and relaxing. It even snowed on Christmas (after raining most of the day). P's mom was with us, and she seemed to really enjoy herself, chatting warmly with my parents and my aunt. Her presence meant two extra dogs for a total of 6 in my parents' small house.

So, the loot: I gave my sister an airbrushed tank top with her name on it, from the airbrushing place in the mall. I also made her and my mom scarves I had knit. Dad got a woodworking book and P got an obscure Indian cookbook. I got a bread machine, something I never thought I'd have a use for, but now that there's two kids in my house it will be worth it. We made two loaves already and they were good but seemed to be missing something; they were very one-note. I'm wondering if it has to do with the way they're baked. You can set it to just prepare the dough for you. We're going to try different recipes.

After Christmas P took his mom back home and I went to Brooklyn with S and S. We had a nice relaxing time. Watched the extended Fellowship of the Rings, which is even better than the theatrical version, with more character development and exposition; the next night we saw the Two Towers, also fantastic and great. We managed to do a little shopping in Manhattan. Since I'm still on my quest for go-go boots, we went to Screaming Mimi's, where Drew Barrymore was picking out a big pile of threads. S and I were all excited but playing it supercool, not asking for an autograph and trying not to stare at her. She was cute and looked like a normal person, and seemed to be shopping alone (no friends and/or bodyguards). At one point she got a call from her honey in the Strokes. She said something like "Good morning, sleepyhead!" It was 4 in the afternoon. Rock stars, man. Anyway, no go-go boots were to be had for my twisted little feet.

We also wandered onto Canal Street. Canal Jean Co. is closing; the end of an era. It was the cool punk place to get cheap threads in the 80s; but that was back when SoHo was where actual artists lived and showed their work, and Canal was mostly part of Chinatown. Now Canal Jeans faces a huge Old Navy store. At Canal I scored a baby blue t-shirt, two belts, and two large vintage curtains that I hope to make into a dress and a tablecloth.

It was nice to be in Brooklyn sans kids and dog. It was rough to come back to an ailing P, impending financial disaster, and an unshoveled sidewalk on Saturday. I solved the one thing I could, clearing the whole sidewalk in one massive push yesterday. I'm quite sore today. And hung over from the freedom.

I had a very hectic weekend. It was somewhat fun, but stressful, like every Christmas-time ever. Me, P, sister and bro-in-law all drove up to Laconia NH to have a little Christmas with the Grandparents. G'dad has Alzheimer's, and he's not doing too good, but he's still healthy (uh... except for his brain). He didn't buy anyone any presents, of course. The lo-jack attached to his ankle prevents him from leaving his floor of the nursing home. But he did give his wife a sweet card, one of those cards where some guy at a desk in Indiana writes the sentiment in verse for you. He had signed it, oddly, "April 30," a date which has no significance that we know of. Interesting.

We ducked out when we were all done with presents and a 1:30 p.m. "dinner" in order to go to Funspot. It's a huge video game palace and bowling alley and bar. We headed right upstairs to the massive vintage video game palace: rows of original Star Wars, Rampage, Paperboy, Asteroids, Mappy, Burgertime, all the Pac-Man variants, rows of pinball machines spanning the last 30 years... P hated it there but wasn't too jerky about wanting to leave well before me, S and S, and my dad wanted to. Just like at Six Flags, it was great to see my dad enjoying some kid-like things with me. He was amazed that we could all race each other at those linked racing-game things, and then when we played he actually won. The four of us (P was, at this point, napping in the car) had a mini-tournament at the air-hockey tables and I won. Ha.

Saturday night we saw some of the Fawns and SFTD (see the Living Rockumentary at left). I always end up feeling happy and energized when I see them. Such good stuff. At the end of the Fawns set they brought up a few more people to form a local musician Supergroup onstage to sing the "Merry Christmas" song by the Waitresses.

Sunday was last-minute shopping day. I got almost everything downtown, Shopping Locally as the bumper stickers tell me to, but I had to go to the mall for the last thing on my list. It was horribly packed full of cranky people. I got lucky and found someone getting into her car before anyone else had camped out waiting for the space.

Tonight will be a flurry of wrapping and packing, and tomorrow morning I'm off to New Jersey by way of Brooklyn. Blogging will be sporadic during this time; we appreciate your patience.

Leader of 'The Clash' Is Dead at 50 R.I.P. Joe Strummer. So fuckin' sad.

Visiting Korea, but really really wish you were at Disney World instead? Get yourself to Seoulland! Besides the incredible, I-can't-believe-Disney-hasn't-yet-sued-them-yet "Space Ship Earth" knockoff, there are many fun rides your family can enjoy, like this carousel of musical instruments:


And don't miss "Rock N Roll," where riders "Spin and spin back and forth like a sieve-frame of a squirrel!"

Go to Seoulland's website for more. Open nature, exciting day!

poopboy.swf This link is blogged especially for P.

My shoulders and right arm are very stiff and sore today, from overdoing it the past two days. Not from lifting weights or doing yoga, but from knitting. I am such a girl. Anyway, I just got 15 minutes of accupressure (for $15) from a person who brings her massage table to a quiet spot in our office. She wasn't hard enough. It felt really nice, but it wasn't theraputic like I wanted. I told her to go harder, but she said, "well, okay, but I don't want to kill you," and then didn't increase the pressure at all. I wanted to be all, "harder! HARDER! Dammit, drill it into me! NOW!" but that seemed inappropriate.

Here you go: a bear that shits prime numbers. This is what makes the web great.

Sorry no blog yesterday; I had to go to NYC for one of those half-an-hour-long presentations. It was largely uneventful, and I got home early enough to do some Christmas shopping at the mall. I do so much better at the mall when I'm alone. Then I came home and knit while watching 24. I assumed Buffy was a rerun as it has been for three weeks, but maybe I missed a new one. Whatever.

Today we got our office Holiday Gifts. This year instead of a mousepad or a pen we got polar fleece jackets. And of course, even though the majority of people in the office are women, they're all in men's sizes. I have a small and it's enormous on me. It would probably be a women's size 14 or 16. The sleeves engulf my hands. I will never wear this outside of this building. The company logo embroidered on the breast would have already ruled that out. But still.

The one advantage fat people have is that all of the free t-shirts that companies send out to their "media partners" are always, by default, sixe XL. It's like, Here, fatty! Your job requires you to sit in front of a computer all day so you must be quite corpulent. And we wouldn't want to offend you by sending you a shirt that may possibly be a little tight around your protruding belly. Instead, we'll make our shirts so big that 90 percent of the people who get them will immediately cut them up for rags or donate them to the Salvation Army. We don't care.

GirlHacker's Random Log Girlhacker presents a list of outlet stores online. Nice.

How to Good-Bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way? That's the name of a real book, a book that should be on everyone's Christmas list this year. Why, just read what the author has to say (from the book's amazon.com page), and I'm sure you'll agree that you can't afford to not get it:

I think constricting anus 100 times and denting navel 100 times in succession everyday is effective to good-bye depression and take back youth. You can do so at a boring meeting or in a subway. I have known a 70-year-old man who has practiced it for 20 years. As a result, he has a good complexion and has grown 20 years younger. His eyes sparkle. He is full of vigor, happiness and joy. He has neither complained nor born a grudge under any circumstance. Furthermore, he can make #### three times in succession without drawing out.

In addition, he also can have burned a strong, beautiful fire within his abdomen. It can burn out the dirty stickiness of his body, release his immaterial fiber or third attention, which has been confined to his stickiness. Then, he can shoot out his immaterial fiber or third attention to an object, concentrate on it and attain happy lucky feeling through the success of concentration.

If you don't know concentration, which gives you peculiar pleasure, your life looks like hell.

Different boots, but still lovely Now, these chunky 70's LL Bean boots, I might actually bid on. It's got a few days for the price to go really high so I'm going to wait.

By the eBay way, I only have one bid for my five items I put up last Sunday. I thought I had this ebay thing down, but I clearly don't. I have only ever sold one piece of clothing successfully (a Custo-Barcelona shirt; do a search to see how popular these are) and I've tried selling like five things.

I just looked at the list of phrases people searched for to get to my blog and besides the usual (aunt panties, used teen panties, persuasive seat belt arguments) there's one that's s____ w____ d____, with the S and D being my sister and me's first names and the W being my last name. Kind of creepy. Whoever searched for that clearly got to the right place. Some long-lost schoolmate? My step-kid reading all the stuff I've been writing about her (a sobering thought)? A crazy ex-boyfriend stalker? Drop me a line, mystery person.

Japan loves American culture, spending thousands on crap like vintage sneakers and Levis. America loves Japanese culture, endlessly emailing around links to the latest inscrutible piece of flash animation and loving kid stuff like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokeman, not to mention sushi (guilty). My point: America and Japan should go have sex somewhere. They clearly have big crushes on each other.

my dream boots. If you want to get me something for Christmas, here it is. But forget it, they probably won't fit my monster feet, and the bidding's already up to $40. If you ever see any boots like these, knee-high and lace-up, around a size 8, buy them!

This morning at the bakery where I always get my sweet carbo treat (muffin or danish or slice of kuchen) the nerd behind the counter tried to out me as a co-nerd. He brazenly came right out and asked me: "So, the new Star Trek movie is coming out this Friday..." Expecting me to say, "Oh yeah, can't wait to see it!" Expecting me to geek out with him, a total stranger! Why does he assume I'm a fellow nerd? It's almost insulting. Anyway, I said something like, "Oh, I've kind of given up on Star Trek. I haven't seen any of the recent movies." Which is true. I felt bad for dissing him like that so I said, "Now, Lord of the Rings - THAT I'm looking forward to!" Then I walked out, as the other people on line started talking about how much they wanted to see it, too. Take that, nerd-boy!

A gave us her Christmas list a couple of weeks ago but T just compiled hers yesterday. In the middle of the list is the same thing she always asks for: "A kitten in a basket with a bow on its head. You never seem to get me what I really want." She is funny.

The first thing on her list, though, is underlined and in all-caps: A TRAIN TICKET HOME FOR NEW YEAR'S. By "home" she means back north, where her mom used to live and her friends still do. I understand that she calls it home because that's what it's always been, and there's no better word for it, but it still hurts a little, and it hurts P more. Truly, her only home right now is the one here with us. But what can you do? Tell her, "change your nomenclature, please, for it hurts our feelings"?

It's still up in the air whether or not P will let her go "home" for New Year's. We suspect she wants to go be with her boyfriend at a party Without an Adult Present, which is a no-no in my book for a 14-year-old. But she will be so unhappy if she doesn't go that P might cave. I don't know what the right thing to do is. As usual.

I had a very fun weekend. Saturday we zoomed down to Brooklyn, getting there around 2:00. we spent the afternoon eating bagels and playing MonkeyBall. Baby Henry made an appearance, and I was allowed to hold him for quite a while. He mainly slept as I did the gentle swaying-back-and-forth motion those creatures enjoy. I was trying to keep a hand clamped over his arms because he kept doing this startle reflex thing, where his whole body would jerk because he thought he was falling. I still have those horrible dreams where I'm falling and I jerk violently awake. Clearly I need someone to bundle me. Anyway, eventually I had to switch arms and he woke up. It takes a lot of effort to calm a crying newborn. After just a minute or two of high-impact lifting, jogging, and swinging, I had to hand him over to a professional. When he was distracted enough to stop cyring for a few seconds he'd open up his big eyes very wide and look all around with an amazed expression.

We went to Fiamma's 30th birthday party, held in her new and newly painted alcove studio apartment. She painted the entire place; the bathroom had been painted black by the previous tenant. Crazy. It was a potluck and someone had made perogis from scratch. Damn those are good. Poles really know how to eat in the winter. I mingled a little but spent most of the time dancing with them what brought me. It's too bad, because a couple of them - a senior editor at Allure, and a sculptor - really interested me, but we were all in light mingle-mode. Around 11:30 a few of us went over to the Brooklyn Inn to meet our pal JL. S and S crapped out due to illness and tiredness, and I barely made it myself, so it was just Tricia and me and P. Eventually T's new beau showed up; he had been enticed by T's promises of hanging out with a Famous Author. Cute. Eventually J showed, and then F. I sipped Scotch to stop my emerging cough (it worked very well). J and P got some quality time together.

By the time we got back to S's that night I was so tired I was afraid to fall asleep lest my heart stopped. It's been a while since I let myself get that tired. It was kind of fun, actually. Sunday we only had time for brunch at Two Boots before P and I had to drive back up north. Brooklyn in the hiz-ouse.

Random site of the day: A list of Disabled Recording Artists

I just put s'more stuff up on eBay. My user name is debway if you want to take a gander. The two cool things I'm selling are some nice size 8 NineWest pumps that are too narrow for my be-bunioned feet (I bought them at a church rummage sale without trying them on), and a large orange Calvin Klein peasant blouse that looked smaller than it is when I bought it at a tag sale.

I had an odd dream last night. Somehow a young woman had tracked me down, thinking I was some expert on "The Happiest Millionaire" (a live-action Disney movie from the 1960s I've never seen), and she kept following me and asking me questions I couldn't answer. Meanwhile I'm wandering through this vaguely-European-looking street full of shabby apartments. I go in one and up the stairs to see my sis's friend, Alice, who has a young baby. Unfortunately he was just put down for a nap so I can't see him right now. A shows me where he's sleeping: he's inside a shoebox, packed into a larger box with smaller boxes and blocks of styrofoam on all sides, and then there's some sort of cover with more blocks on top, and the whole thing is in this round tub like an antique washer. A seemed weary. I figured the crazy packing was to keep the baby from crying, or at least to muffle his cries for the benefit of the adults. That's all I remember.

Guess what I'm wearing today?

Legwarmers.

I am loving it. They're safely hidden under my jeans and they have been keeping my calves toasty all day. They're borrowed from T's dance stuff, so they're black and relatively sleek. In the 80s the high-fashion legwarmers were huge and cabled and lumpy. I might have the guts to wear these with a skirt, even. I have plans to try some crazy fashion action at F's party this weekend.

I said "seriously" a lot in my previous post. How about that.

I didn't go. I pulled the old "I'm sick" crap-put lie, which I never do because I have a very guilty conscience. But seriously, I've been feeling kind of sick all week, and spending the whole day on a train stuck in the snow would only make me sicker. Seriously, the city is supposed to get 6 to 8 inches today. Anyway, I'm at work now; I felt too guilty to take an entire sick day when I'm not actually sick, so I told my manager that after I slept some more and had some tea I felt better (which is true, but then again that's true every morning). Boss lady was skeptical. She espied me at my cube and came over to ask me what I was doing here. I told her I felt sick this morning. I don't think she believed me. I said I called one of the guys who was going and he said "well, I don't know when I'll see you again, the snow is supposed to be horrible." Seriously, they might end up spending the night there, at some $300-a-night hotel. For a one-hour presentation. Boss Lady responded, though, that she heard the city wasn't going to get nearly that much, that the 6-to-8 figure was just "for the coast." Of course NYC is on the coast... but I let it drop.

So it turns out I'm going to be in NYC all day tomorrow. Just found out an hour ago. We're leaving here at 8:15 tomorrow morning, and taking the train because it's supposed to snow; we'll hopefully catch the 5:45 out of the city. We're going for a one-hour-long presentation on an upcoming movie (a good one, otherwise I'd be pissed about having to go). I'm going with three older men from the office. They're pretty fun, the kind who like to have expensive lunches and take the time to shop in artsy bookstores and music shops (we have two hours to kill before the presentation). Sometimes I look at my life and I think, who the hell is this person? I don't feel like the kind of girl who must travel six hours to attend an important and exclusive meeting thrown by a major entertainment company, or who flies to L.A. to get some "face time" with other people in the company, but I guess I am. Weird.

ThinkGeek :: Midas Remote Control Watch This may be the perfect holiday gift for my dad, who has said he doesn't want anything this year. It's small, tech-y, and both silly and useful: it's a watch that's also a universal remote control, so he can secretly change the channel at his friends' houses. It might be too stylish, though.

www.mnftiu.cc | get your war on | page seventeen A new Get Your War On (from last week, 'cause I'm slow) mostly about the insanity of hiring Kissinger to investigate ANYTHING. FYI, Mark Bingham was the gay guy who helped thwart the hijackers and crash Flight 93 before it hit DC on Sept. 11 (I had to google him to refresh my memory).

Wal-Mart Values Yet another reason to not buy at Wal-Mart; they're being sued by 7 female employees who've been discriminated against because of their gender. Article contains this rather alarming factoid: Four out of ten American women visit one of Wal-Mart's stores weekly.

Reader, I was almost one of those four yesterday, in order to buy the cheapest possible gloves for my step-children. But I did not cave in. The kids are still gloveless, but my convictions are intact. I'll have to buy them gloves at some slightly-less-loathesome giant chain store like CVS or Target.

So i tried to post earlier but Blogger was down. Stupid free software. I will evenutally move to MT someday.

I had a very vege-ful Thanksgiving holiday. We cooked and hosted at our house; I let P deal with the bird and I made a blueberry pie and some butternut squash mash. We're still eating turkey (for lunch I had some of the turkey soup we made last night). Mainly what I did for four days is sit around, eat, and watch movies. What I saw:

Raising Arizona
Lost in America
The Virgin Suicides
three episodes of Buffy
Harry Potter (the new one; we actually left the house for that one)
Leon (The Professional)
the last half hour of Stepmom

I feel like there were even more but it's all a blur now. I had seen all of the flicks before except for the Virgin Suicides, which I liked. All the others were chosen by P except for The Professional, which T and A seemed to like a lot, possibly because it stars a 12-year-old Natalie Portman (the three of us agree that she's angelically beautiful).

Anyway. More regular bloggin' to come.

Here's some people on the top of the fire tower at the top of Mt. Tom. It's my sister and her husband. Just so you know. P is trying to teach me how to upload images to my website and this time I'm writing everything down. My goal today is to put a buttload of stuff up on eBay.