Listen Creaky!

Update

2008-09-05T10:53:00.004-04:00

I'll take a break from things that get in my craw recounting to note a few new things that are going on this most fortuitous of falls:

1. Tornadia has left her Job of Pain and Endless Sorrow behind in suckville, where, from heretoforth, it will continue to bring drudgery and eternal sadness to anyone who claims it as their own without her. Let all the peoples of the land rejoice about her newly freed spirit while singing songs related to allelulla -- hopefully without actually using that word!!

2. I get to work with people who think I'm not an idiot this semester. More rejoicing and singing!

3. Gardens are growing. Sun is shining. Bikes have not been stolen.

Oh, happy days, happy days.

Things that get in my craw #2

2008-09-05T10:50:00.003-04:00

This guy.

Blech.

Things that get in my craw #1

2008-09-04T15:02:00.002-04:00

September is here, and I am particularly irksome. I find myself easily irked. Irkish, even. Might be the late-summer heat firing up my genteel sensibilities, some displaced annoyance over the stupid political national conventions, the position of the moon or of some particulary mood-swaying planet, or just general bristling in response to the return to the school year. I dunno. All I know is that either I am running into more things that are getting my ideological goat, or I am responding more to things. It's probably both.

Anyway, did you see that movie, Juno? I did a couple months back. Some ok stuff in there to be sure. And seeing a young, confident, mouthy female protagonist was cool. But beyond this (and its annoyingly heavy layer of too cool for school-ness), I found myself ticked off to high hades at this flick. Just pissed in many different directions. Irk-ed. Have scribbled a bit of rant on it since then, and pretty much put it away.

So, last week, the university's Women's Programs office announced that they would be showing it for a welcome back students shebang. Oh, great. I emailed to ask if there would be a discussion after the movie. The director responded saying they weren't planning it, and can do only so much with kids who typically like to watch and split, but maybe? Yeah. So, I morphed the rants into a few thoughts, and dropped them off to her during the movie. Here they are:

What happens when a young, single, working class American female gets pregnant?

Well, according to the movie Juno, after a slightly uncomfortable conversation, she will get full support of her family throughout her nine months, no guilt trips or unwanted adult “protection,” maintain her typical connections to closest friends, have easy access to information and good future options to consider, a van to drive whenever she wants, no financial worries, clear confidence and self-direction in her decisions, and latitude from parents to call the shots on the important choices in her life and her pregnancy.

She will encounter friendly, highly unintimidating protesters and cold and crassly unprofessional staff at the family planning clinic she visits, form closer bonds with family members over her ultrasound, find an adoption parent who she is able to observe and grow to trust her child’s care to in the Penny Saver, not bother the father with any inconvenient calls for support or assistance that might take him away from his normal tasks, and give her new baby over to a closed adoption without much self-questioning or residual emotion.

When the pregnancy is over, she will return to her bike-riding life as she left it pre-pregnancy – complete with self-absorbed kid adventuring and puppy love with the boyfriend who had been absent for the past nine months.

And in worrying about her state early on, she will feel assured enough to walk into the local convenience mart to buy herself pregnancy tests.

According to Juno, dealing with a pregnancy will be relatively easy and straight-forward, provided you are adequately feisty, savvy, and self-aware, and, thus, able to pull yourself up by your own neoliberal bootstraps.

Of course, Juno is a movie. Creative license is allowed. Still, Juno presents itself as a comedy-drama, not a fairytale. So being, it is important to ask if what we take in here is even in the ballpark of accurate. Is this a fair portrayal of how pregnancy in America works for most not-financially-well-off teens? How is “choice” framed in this movie? How is access? Do economics matter? What do we take with us from this movie? Cui bono, "homeskillet"?

--

That was what I wrote. It came from a few places, I think. I'll touch on just a few.

First off, I was raised in a not-financially-well-off, very religiously conservative family. My parents told me where babies came from when I was very little, but outside of that, were not into giving info on the sex. They were, however, quite willing to impress on me that they (and Focus on the Family) did not condone sex outside of marriage. When I had to get a permission slip signed in 6th grade to attend a sex ed class years back, I remember waiting until the last minute to ask my parents because I knew they would not particularly like it. They didn't, but signed, saying "now, you know how we feel about this." I nodded, and prepared myself to hear again how, as Catholics, sex is forbidden outside of marriage, and how, as Catholics, having sex outside of marriage is a sin. It came.

Still, to their credit, they did let me go to the class. But, even so, years later, my late high school boyfriend was well aware of the fact that if I got pregnant, I would run off and kill myself. I made clear that it was just what had to happen. I was a determined and heady teen -- I totally would have done it. On top of this, while I love my family, I'm thinking I'm not the only young female out there who had relationships with ps that promised to be less than supportive if I came up preggers in hs. Lou Dobson has no "parenting tips" on this one.

Secondly, I still don't feel comfortable buying a home pregnancy test at the much more anonymous grocery or even big box stores without being sneaky, even if I use the self-checkout stands. And I am, like, full blown woman old! And the whole "sexually active" thang was awesome, but, in the age of abstinence only education, how many young women are able to be that self-assured of their sexuality and their options?

And finally, I have volunteered for years at Planned Parenthood and have never, ever seen anyone vaguely like that kindly protester out front, or anyone anything like that alienating receptionist inside the building. Quite the opposite, every front PP staff member I met have been exceedingly warm and empathetic, while the vast majority of protesters I encountered at Planned Parenthood were confrontational, aggressive, and insulting. They take pictures of women entering clinics, and yell things at them like "your baby will go to hell."

Yeah. Other things too, But that's enough.

Grr. I can't believe I wrote on a movie. Been wanting to get this off my chest for some time now, though.

As a kinda side, Palin's "Triggate" bring attention back to white teen mommas. That poor daughter, to be outed and paraded to a national audience. Yet another big score for abstinence-only education! Oh, wait -- you still believe it works? Well, actually, recent studies add to the findings clearly showing that those who go through a-o not only have the same rates of sexual activity as their peers, but that they are LESS likely to use contraception then other non a-o youth, opening them up to more STDs and pregnancies. Because of this, all youth are suffering from the lack of information we are giving kids about their own sexuality. However, it seems girls are getting the shortest and sharpest shrift. Here's some info. Here's some more.

Wonder how the chorus at the RNC would be now if Obama said he had a pregnant teen daughter?

Also, arresting journalists at the RNC on Labor Day -- Amy Goodman and producers included? Really? What the hell!

/pissy irkish rant

Super happy thing number three: Big hair, big lungs, big time.

2008-02-13T18:57:00.003-05:00

Okay. I had to start thinking early today, because I'm not feeling particularly happy. But there's one ridiculous thing that always puts me in a good mood. It's a bit embarrassing and not at all cool, but then, neither is blogging, and here I am. I'm not exactly fooling anybody with my coolness. So.

Super Happy thing Number Three: "Time for Me to Fly" by REO Speedwagon.

I don't know why it is, but singing along to this song makes me ludicrously happy. A friend put it on a mellow mix tape for me ages and ages ago, and ever since it's been one of those shout along and cheer up songs. I don't know if it's the over-the-topness, or the idea of running away, or the declaration that "I've had enough", or the 80sness of it...whatever. It's cheering me up right now just thinking about it. God help you if you ever end up in the car with me when it comes on the radio.

Hmmm. Have I written this exact same post before? I might have. I'm going to have to check this.

Happy Thing Number 2: Blake, baby.

2008-02-12T18:25:00.000-05:00

Oh, yesterday it seemed like I could think of five things pretty easily...today, I'm filled with RAGE! It's interfering with my appreciation. Let's all put on our thinking caps...what do we feel happily about?

...Okay. Here's something that makes me unwarrantedly happy, or at least gleeful in a ragey and malicious way: The 1794 William Blake poem "A Poison Tree." There's something massively awestriking in the naked, glittering hatefulness in this poem. (Hmm. Maybe Gambino was onto something there?) For one thing, everybody's felt this way; but two, I love that among the beautiful, lyrical, trees-and-moors-and-virgins, little-"r"-romance world of big-"R" Romantic poets, there's this little ode to horrible, spiteful malevolence. You're floating along all "Little lamb, god bless thee" and "A thing of beauty is a joy forever"ingly, and then, bam! POISON TREE!

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright,
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine -

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning, glad, I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

So let this be a lesson for you, kids. Tell your friends when you're angry. Or save it all up and get rid of your enemies. Win-win!

A week of happy little things

2008-02-11T18:49:00.000-05:00

I've been blue, you've been blue, it's been a blue, blue winter. I'm tired of obsessing about it, so for this week, I'm going to note one thing each day that makes me really quite happy, actually.

Today: This American Life.

I am over the moon for this radio show. I am evangelical about this radio show. I know that it's frequently hokey and angsty and fairly priveleged whining, but it's also funny and thought-provoking and often enough points out that you're no more neurotic than everyone else. Mostly it's just really, really, really well done. It's edited well, read well, the music selections are just right, and even when there's a piece I don't like I feel like somebody went to a lot of effort to get it the way they wanted it. It's a little bright spot on my Saturday afternoon.

So. This American Life. Happy Super Liking Thing, number 1.

Happy happy S-Double-Lizzy Day!

2008-01-28T19:00:00.000-05:00

HAPPPY BIERTHDAY, S-DUB! Peoria misses you, the sewage-smelling loft at M&Ms misses you, the fried dumplings miss you, and Amelier and I definitely miss you so, so much. I hope reno was full of hot pants, cold drinks, and more fun than anybody possibly anticipated. You are like sunshine! Have a fun and happy and beautiful day!

In other news: Don't forget. State of the Union, tonight, 8 CDT. How many times can one man say "freedom"? Will Bush say we're totally heading into a massive depression? Will Nancy Pelosi stop applauding politely and start flicking spit balls at Bush's head? Will Dick Cheney's cold, cold heart grow two sizes that day? Anything could happen. It's family fun, y'all. Pre-electoral family fun.

HOT DAMN!

2008-01-07T19:21:00.000-05:00

Or, to be accurate, VERY UNSEASONABLY WARM DAMN! Anyway--there's a tornado watch, y'all! In JANUARY! Oh, this year is going to be so awesome.

I gotta tell you, a week-long span that goes from 0 degrees and windy to 66 degrees and tornado-ey is a very exciting week indeed. All you suckas in San Fran with your mild and temperate climate are probably pret-ty jealous right about now, right?

I'd write more, but I gotta go stare at the clouds. happy monday to you and yours.

2008: The Returnadia

2008-01-04T18:27:00.000-05:00

I had decided in, like, November that I'd start writing again in 2008. In fact, I was all hyped up to declare 2008 "The Year of Blogging Dangerously." But let's face it, not that dangerously. I do this mostly at work, and I'm too seldom drunk enough at work to post anything truly dangerous. (Kidding! I'm never drunk enough at work to post anything dangerous! Just mildly slanderous!) Plus, "blogging dangerously" kind of sounds like I might be posting while standing on a rickety ladder in a stairwell, or from a bubblebath with my computer perched on the edge of the tub or something, which I would not do. I'm very safety minded.

So. It's a new year! A fresh clean calendar with nothing horrible documented in it yet! I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, but this year I resolved to be less judgmental and more positive. It's tough, though. I literally make my living by pointing out flaws. That's what I was hired to do. It's hard to turn that off. But as it turns out, people get irritated when you take that skill away from the desk and, say, into a meeting, and then tell everybody the problems with their suggestions. Plus I find myself being hypercritical of all the drivers on the road, and the clerks at the CVS, and the fashion choices of elementary school children, and it's gotten a bit out of hand. It's almost as annoying being that person as it is to be around that person. So. Working on turning that down a little.

So far--day 4 of aught-eight--I'm...not doing that great at it. Oops--I mean, I'm leaving myself lots of room to progress! Things are looking up! There's a bluebird on my shoulder!

(See? What do you know. That's just as annoying as snippy petty criticism.)

Actually, it was pointed out today that I do indeed make resolutions, as Ross reminded me that I'd been foolish enough to post about this last year, too.

January 3, 2007
So far today I've fleetingly decided that, from now on, I'll:
* eat more vegetables
* sit up straight
* keep my wrists up while I type
* get up when the alarm first goes off instead of switching it to NPR and dozing back off
* eat breakfast
* answer the phone and check messages religiously
* answer emails right away
* process invoices and applications as soon as I get them
* be more cheerful at work
* be more efficient at work
* cut people some slack more regularly

How's that going?

Let’s see. I DID eat more vegetables and was off-and-on much better about keeping my wrists up. The getting up with the alarm thing is not happening at all. In fact, I just quit bothering with the alarm and wake up to NPR, so I don't have to get up to switch it. I do eat breakfast. I answer fun messages right away and am still terrible about pretty much everything else correspondence-wise. I do process invoices within 48 hours. I definitely did not stay more cheerful at work, but efficient, hells yeah. I'm a powerhouse, yo.

I think “cut people slack” meant the same thing as “be less judgmental.” A perennial fave, that one.

Okay. If I do stop judging so much, these blog posts are going to get really boring really quick, because I don't so much "blog" as "complain in writing." Fortunately for us all, success here is unlikel...ooops. Almost got me there, didn't ya? I'm going to succeed like nobody's business! Like that guy in the DeVry commercial, I'm getting it together and I realize! S-U-C-C-E-S-S, success!

Over and out,
T.

2007-02-21T14:24:00.000-05:00

Re: Today's Daily Illini's article
Chief's last dance signals end of era
Chief portrayer expresses sorrow over decision

One week ago, Dan Maloney was an anonymous name, but not face, in Champaign's sea of students. He went to class, worked out, grabbed lunch with his girlfriend, and no one seemed to notice. His full color photograph appeared in print across the front of the News-Gazette, video of him aired on Champaign and Chicago newscasts, but never was his image accompanied by his name - only his notorious pseudonym.

That all changed in less than 48 hours last week, as the graduate student who had hid his other identity for half his college life suddenly became the name known across Illinois. For three years Maloney had already been Chief Illiniwek. But now, as word came Friday that the Board of Trustees would suspend the Chief performance, the world wanted to hear from the student charged with maintaining the tradition...

Read more if you wanna at http://www.dailyillini.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=299af6c0-ad29-45e4-a2a7-b7fb5a770996
----

Oh, man. So much time and energy put into being a good The Chief, and now this? Ontological angst city! And at such a tender age. Tough times, tough times.

Well, at least he's young and still relatively plucky. And, who knows... maybe this will be the kick in the pants dude needs to finally call up the police officer, construction worker, leather guy, cowboy, and sailor and go on that reunion tour.

And what a rousing version of "U-I-U-C (i don't dance for no)" they will do to the tune of YMCA! I, for one, can't wait.

Chief Illiniwek "tradition" ends

2007-02-16T16:27:00.000-05:00

Aw, man. The Chiefs gone? Maaaaan, I really respected that guy.

I learned a lot from him about respect and honor and tradition and, um, Native Americanness.

I mean, granted, he wasn't really a Native American. Part of the tradition is that it was always a white dude dressed up as a Native American who gets lots of props around these parts for playing the role. That's tradition!

And the dance he did wasn't actually an authentic Native American dance - it was just something dude made up, I guess. I mean, it was nice looking though! A bunch of kicks and stern looks and spins and stuff. I liked it and felt, like, real deep reverence and honor from it that others did too, but, well, I guess it was well known to be insulting to those who do real Native American fancy dancing. But whose tradition and honor is important here, huh?

All recognized Native American groups in the US made statements calling our Chief a distorted and maligning representation of their culture for years and years. But, still, I loved that guy! He helped me make friends and get closer to strangers who drank with me and shared stories about how they loved him too. It was a community. A tradition!

I mean, if I was Native American, I'd like the Chief. I can say that cause I'm not Native American, but I know what I like, and I know I like the Chief. So if I wasn't part of the group ripping this representation off for a good time, but a part of the group whose culture is being ripped off by others who don't care what I or my group thinks, I'm sure I'd totally still like it. And I'd still totally have a good time. Totally.

I mean, how ungrateful of the Native Americans to not let us respect them the way we want to. We're respecting tradition, and honor. What more do they want?

Man, I sure am gonna miss that guy.

***************************************

bye bye, Chief Illiniwek. It's about freakin time.

http://www.retirethechief.org/

Happy Roe v. Wade day!

2007-01-22T19:16:00.000-05:00

Today is the 24th Anniversary of the decision of Roe v. Wade, perhaps the last time the U.S. government publicly acknowledged that sometimes, abortion happens, and that it ain't nobody's business. (Okay. Not really the last time.) So give a little "mmm-hmm" today to getting the government out of your hoo-ha.

Lots and lots of people are blogging about that today, and they'll do it way better than me, so go read some if you want to.

In other news, Katie Couric wrote a little piece for the CBS News webpage about being the only female at the table when big-shot journalists got together with major white house players before the big "20000 more troops!" press conference last week. That's interesting of itself; she ends by asking, "Don't more women deserve to be at the table, too?"

What's distressing and downheartening is how the comments posters have responded. Apparently, most of America--okay, most of CBS News Weblog-reading America (a statement which does take some of the sting out, I guess--most of them feel that there is no problem with the Senate being 16% female, or with Katie being the lone "skirt" at the media table. There's no bias in it, they insist. If people wanted more women at the table, or if women WANTED to be at the table, they'd be there, and who does Katie think she is, anyway? It's extremely pathetic and make me sad. I'm no great fan of Katie Couric--because I'm no great fan of network news, really--but geez, I just want to go post a message telling her to keep exposing the idiots' bias in their own words, you know?

American Naturalism, in your face!

2007-01-12T19:55:00.000-05:00

I've been reading this novel by James T. Farrell, a Chicago writer of the first half of the twentieth century. His stuff is very melodromatic and over-the-top, in some sort of hilarious ways. Props to J.T. for exploring the lives of normal poor and working class families, and for bringing some real issues to the literary spotlight. But damn, sam, did he ever even talk to a woman? All the female characters are harridans, whores, empty-headedly devout, and most of all, absolutely besotted by men. It's very weird it's all "You drunken wop, I'll tear your hair out! And then I'll have a mass said for father. Oh, Tommy, I do love you so!" That's not a real quote. But these are. You think you know how to insult somebody--say, your own progeny? You think you know how to curse?

Says Mother O'Flaherty to her daughter:
"Holy Virgin, Mother of God, may the blackest of curses of the Devil fall upon my sinful chippy of a daughter that came ass-end out of my backside on the day that she was born! May she live in want, die like a pig, and be buried in potter's field! Blessed Jesus, may all your curses and evils be poured on her head like dirty water used to feed the pigs! Blessed Jesus, may her teeth fall out, and may she die blind!"

Says six-year-old Margaret to her baby brother:
"Whore, shit, sonofabitch, whore, sonofabitch, sonofabitch, whore, shit."

Yeah. You won't find that in Harry Potter, chump.

It's a Whole New Year!

2007-01-03T18:42:00.000-05:00

On the spam front:
I'm still getting random biblically inspired phrases from myself, but a newer, more fabulous class of blatant copy-stealing spam headers is showing up in my spam report. Some ingenious devil is sending me spam with subject headers ripped from National Weather Service severe weather reports! Why can't THOSE be coming from my email address?

On the New Year's front:
It's a whole new year! A new day! The rent's due! I don't know why I think that changing from 2006 to 2007 means I'm suddenly ready to get my shit together, but I clearly do, because so far today I've fleetingly decided that, from now on, I'll:
* eat more vegetables
* sit up straight
* keep my wrists up while I type
* get up when the alarm first goes off instead of switching it to NPR and dozing back off
* eat breakfast
* answer the phone and check messages religiously
* answer emails right away
* process invoices and applications as soon as I get them
* be more cheerful at work
* be more efficient at work
* cut people some slack more regularly

And yet, because it is NOT magically a bold new day, I'm typing this slouched over at work with my wrists on the table and a friend just invited me to get Mexican food for lunch. I haven't checked the phone messages yet and I've answered the emails except for the ones that are difficult, or that I have to look up information for. Maybe January 4th will be the start of a whole new day! A new year! A new me!

The Passion of the Spam

2006-12-08T19:45:00.000-05:00

Actual spam subject lines I've received in the last 24 hours from my own email address:

* Ye that Israel and an ass's colt and the thy

* And the passover, and made a ram, round about

* But to Pharaoh's house, of them; defeat the two th...

* to the prophecy and apes, and Ivah?

* thine altar shall smite him, and he hath golden vessels things

* Pharisees also set themselves, in the dead.

* Absalom.

huzzah!

2006-12-01T19:07:00.000-05:00

Snow! Ice! Crazy weather patterns! Isobars close like the stripes on a caterpillar! Hot damn. I LOVE this.

I've got a load I should have written about and no time and no desire. The rundown:

PUERTO RICO: Looks like a Corona ad. Beutiful. People drive like lunatics. Packs of stray dogs roam the streets. Plaintains, plantains, nachos, plantains. If you stay at the Surf and Board, bring your own clothesline, and breakfast, unless it's thanksgiving, or something. Surfing looks really hard, unless you're watching somebody really good, and then it looks crazy easy. Cruising around the ocean with a pina coloda = happy. Everybody should have a first mate. Best bar ever: Watching surf videos projected over a pool while you drink (and eat sushi). Bathrooms in Rincon never have soap. If you go out for a nice dinner, make sure you tip the server, because she will follow you to your car and shake you down if she thinks you stiffed her. Oh--and apparently everybody who vacations in Puerto Rico is from New Jersey.

THANKSGIVING: I love stuffing. I looooove stuffing. Tornadia + Stuffing 4-Eva. Mmmmm. Stuffing. Also, my family is a little bit crazy, and I mean that in an diagnostic way. But I'm glad to have them. Especially when they make stuffing.

MY BOSS: Keeps lending me CDs of girl folk singers. He must be on some sort of mega chick-folk mailing list, because I literally have seven CDs sitting here by women I've never heard of, and they all sort of sound alike. If he weren't terrified of actual women, he'd be front row at every Joni Laurence concert. I feel obliged to listen to the CDs, but I can only hear so many songs about rain before I really just need to get some work done.

THIS WEEK: I spent--and I documented my time this week, so I actually mean this--32 hours this week editing and fixing and re-editing and index. Can you imagine anything more boring than reading, really reading, a 78-page index? It's like "Schenectady, 3, 56, 72n4, 72n5, 112, 144, 15zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz." Do that, and then have long email exchanges with the person who created the index to argue that, you know, people usually look up nouns like people and places, and not so much adjectives like "aggressive." It would only have taken about 15 hours, but people would NOT leave me alone this week. Every 20 minutes somebody'd come ask me a question like "Did I put a copy of this in the file?" At which point they will follow me to the filing cabinet, while I pull out the file and check. Apparently my complicated filing system is too tough for anybody else to crack, which--hey, I understand; alphabetical order is tough. Eventually I just hid in an empty cubicle until it was done. It was a very long week.

MY UNCLE'S FRIEND DAVE: apparently died of a heart attack at some point, alone in his apartment, and it took two days before his workplace called the police and they busted in and found him. My mom told me this story last night, because, as she pointed out, "You live alone! That could be you!" Apparently my mother has never considered this. Sweet dreams to you too, mom! I countered with the well-circulated story of the proofreader who died at his desk, and it took four days before his coworkers noticed. That could be me, too! (No it couldn't. Somebody'd need to know if they filed something.)

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE: Playing this weekend at the Virgina! You should see it! It's heartwarming! After the dismal part, that is. Alfalfa, the Little Rascal, is in it!

That's it. There's probably more, but it's Friday, I'm done with the index, and it's time to go. See ya, homes!

Clarification!

2006-11-14T19:10:00.000-05:00

The bar was full of Ellen and a bunch of beardy scruffy guys. Ellen was not full of beardy scruffy guys.

Just wanted to make that clear.

ROCK REPORT: Split Lip Rayfield

2006-11-14T18:34:00.000-05:00

Okay. I have officially put the Simon and Garfunkel away and think it's high time we move on to other topics. So.

Last Sunday I went to the High Dive to see Split Lip Rayfield. It was kind of a weird crowd--I ran into Brandon from Ohio, and how on earth does that happen? I got there right as the opening band was wrapping up. I misinterpreted the show time and was afraid I may have missed the show altogether, so missing only the incredibly loud opening band was a relief. Frankly, by the time the show rolled around I didn't even want to go to the show anymore; but I'd already spent the money on the ticket, so I went anyway. As always, glad I did.

Split Lip Raygield is three guys on guitar, guitar, and bass (homemade from a Ford truck gas tank and a weedwacker string). The bass player used to look a lot like Boomhauer from King of the Hill. Now he's kind of long-haired and scruffy and wearing a t-shirt with kittens on it. Isn't it odd how rockers can pull of stuff like that and look, you know, rock? And the rest of us look like junior high spit us straight into wal-mart? Anyway. No drums. But the bass kind of does double duty--I can't figure out how he does it, but he keeps a pretty consistent tapa-tapa line running through it. That's cool.

I was standing kind of closish, but not too close, because newgrass brings out the wild dancing hippies like nothing else. Seriously, it's like catnip to them. At some point I started looking around and realized I was standing in the center of a Man Mob. Three deep in any direction, it was just beardy, grubby, darkly clad guys, either college Working Class Wannabes or post-college Real Life Working Class Guys. Hard to tell sometimes. And that's fine. They weren't a freakishly tall bunch, and as long as they're not being all tall in front of me, I don't care if it's a crowd of guys. EXCEPT...except for Dude next to me. Dude was the scruffiest, stocking cappiest, college attendingest guy in the area, and he was fine for the first three or four songs. And then...he started air bass-ing. Now that's just funny. More power to you, imaginary homemade bass playing dude! But THEN, halfway through one of the awesomest rockingest songs, he busted out with a mighty "haaaaaaaaaaaha!" There's this horrible sort of bluegrass hillbilly "yeehaw" that, as near as I can tell, only guys from like Winnetka ever make. And once they get started, they'll do it every chance they get--it's like they forgot all about the hillbilly hollar! But now! Now they remember! And I knew where this was going to go, so I just turned to him, looked him in the eye, and said "Aw, HELL NO," and walked away. Better to watch the show from a little further back than to endure that.

I had a quick little recap with Betsy and Western-Shirt Boyfriend (Ethan? Evan? Ivan?) and then headed on out. I had decided earlier that I didn't want to spend money on the high dive's flat, overpriced beer, and that if the show ended before 11 I'd go get one at MnM's. Which it did, and I did. Jessica was sitting there moderately alone, so I said hey, and then she was sitting all alone, so I joined her. "Geez," she said. "I'm glad you're here. It's sausagefest tonight." And I looked around to realize that the bar seating was all full of beardy, scruffy guys, and the side tables. And Ellen. So we had girl table (unsausage table? egg table?), until seats at the bar opened, and we moved up there. Momentarily along came . . .uh . . how to say? Let's call her "Armando". She confessed immediately to being out for beer, alone. Hey! So are we! Come on over to the estrogen end of the bar! So she did, and we had quite a giggly little Girls on the Town moment. And then I went home. The end.

Damn. That was a whole lot of words for a really lame story. Read it in it's verbose glory now, or maybe I'll edit it down to a nice, modernist little "went to rock show; good, I said" type of anecdote.

All the Simon and Twice the Garfunkel

2006-11-09T19:39:00.000-05:00

I'm having a total high school moment here. I recently heard "Mrs. Robinson," and it's been stuck in my head ever since, so I brought to work today the Greatest Hits album. I spent many, many hours lying on my bed, reading books and listening to this album, and sitting here, right now, at work, listening to "I Am a Rock," I'm immediately 138 percent moodier and angst ridden. My mother told me a couple of years ago that that song always reminded her of me. Mamas, if the words "I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain" reminds you of your kids, something's wrong, okay?

Listening to it now, it's just so...it's perfect unhappy teenager music. It's romantic and overwrought and overwhelmed and searching, and ironic, but so, so sincere. It's so earnest. It's the Counting Crows of the sixties.
Man. Now that I think about it, there's a sad soundtrack for every stage of my life--Simon and Garfunkel and the Beatles in middle and high school, Counting Crows and Morrisey in college, Automatic for the People in the years right after school. Now I've got all kinds of Slaid Cleaves and Death Cab and Whiskeytown to drown my sorrows in. I'm . . . I'm fairly confident I could put together a mix tape that would pretty much make you want to throw yourself off a bridge.

Let's see. What would go on the Most Depressing Mixed Tape ever? Hmmm. Mind you, these are not the songs I'd WANT to listen to, necessarily.

"Bookends", Simon and Garfunkel. "Preserve your memories; they're all that's left you?" Damn, Sam. That's harsh. See also "These Are the Days To Remember" by Billy Joel.

"Lonely Girls" or "Blue", Lucinda Williams

"Nightswimming" REM

"Somebody" Depeche Mode

"Anna Begins" Counting Crows

"Houses on the Hill" Whiskeytown

"She's Leaving Home" The Beatles

"Broke Down" or "One Good Year" Slaid Cleaves

Hmmmm. Let me think about this. What would you put on there?

The first wednesday after the first tuesday after the first monday in November

2006-11-08T20:37:00.000-05:00

Well! What an interesting day. First, the good:

* A breakup of the one-party government! That's gotta help, right?
* A woman Speaker of the House! That means there's a woman, what, third in line for the presidency? Quick--to the Pocket Constitution^^! Yep. Third in line. That's pretty cool.
* Illinois is the bluest damn state ever!
* The Greens garnered extremely respectable votes; in my precinct, Whitney and Blagojovich were exactly tied for the governor's spot. And they got the 10% overall they needed, so that next time, they don't have to get a written permission slip from each and every Illinois citizen to get onto the ballot.
* Mike Frerichs won! Here's hoping he pulls through for labor.

^^ Did you know that the order of succession isn't spelled out in the Constitution after all, but was delineated in the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, and then was changed in 1886, and then again in 1947?

The bad:

* HOW does Tim Johnson get elected? What exactly has he done in his three terms? I mean that honestly--maybe there's something the state senate has pulled through that really does benefit farmers and rural areas, but I don't know what it could be. Our school funding is pathetic and the tax system hurts rural areas the most. I don't know any rich farmers. Gill clearly had it all over Johnson on health care. The roads are shameful and the funding to fix them goes to Chicago (who, to be fair, also has terrible roads). Gas prices have to be hard on people running tractors all day (or driving their SUVs and big-hip trucks into town to hit the Wal-Mart). I posit this as a rural thing, because Gill did quite well in the cities, but plenty of people IN town voted for Johnson too. Why? Oh, why?
* Blagojovich. Hmmm. I like his 100% pro-choice, pro-contraceptive voting record (compared to "pro-choice" Topinka's, who's record is about 17%). But I still think he's a chauvinist and kind of a jerk, and it does bug me that he won't live in the governor's mansion because it's downstate, and I do think he's got old Chicago croneyism and all that. So...you just watch it, Rod. Cause I'm watching you.
* Speaking of watching...the one good thing about having Rick Santorum in Congress was that it was easier to keep an eye on him. At least voting records are public. Now that he'll be a private citizen, he'll have loads of time to raise hell (and money) for conservative extremist groups. We need an eartag system or something, because once they're released to the wild, it's hard to keep up with what the little devils are doing.
* Bush's assish comment about recommending some "Republican interior decorators" to Nancy Pelosi. Even if he didn't mean it as a "you're a chick!" comment--which, come on, he totally did--it's still kind of jerky.

Okay, Democrats! Make sure you don't fuck it up worse!

PR, here I come

2006-11-01T19:06:00.000-05:00

Hot damn! I totally found my swimsuit.

BOOO hoo.

2006-10-31T18:15:00.000-05:00

I love Halloween. I like candy, I like dressing up, I like the notion of scaring away the things that go bump in the night. But this year, Halloween's kinda getting all stressy and pressure-y and up in my grill. Back off, halloween!

First off: Not all women want to be a "sexy" fill-in-the blank. The weird hypersexualization, and even more the hyper gender-ization, of costumes is bugging me. It is seriously ridiculous searching for a costume online. You can choose from men's, women's, kids, or couples. The men's costumes are all baggy, pants-and-shirts sorts of things. Things you might be able to sit down at a party in. The women's costumes are all "sexy." Sexy nurse, sexy schoolgirl, sexy french maid. Sexy cat. Sexy bunny. Sexy soldier. Sexy nun. Seriously? Who thinks to themselves "I'd really like to dress up like a nun. I just wish they're habits weren't so unsexy." Nobody. Nobody thinks that. I hope. And then I go to the Goodwill and I hear college girls saying things like "Do you think this would make a good dress for a nerd? Like, I mean, if I shortened the skirt and left the buttons open?"* So the women's costumes are all super short, super low cut, and super shiny. You couldn't possibly DO anything in most of them. What if you want to bob for apples, miss Sexy Cat? You'd show your entire heinie to the whole party!

And then there's the fact that the costumes are divided by sex in the first place. Mermaid = women's costume. Beer can = man's costume. And the fact that costume designers, who are apparently all 15-year-old boys, believe that all women are slim-legged and large-chested. And kind of slutty.

The New York Times ran an article on this, and it made some interesting points that I think I pretty much disagree with. Halloween gives young women a safe way to play with their sexuality! It's a fun time to try on new personas! But . . . really? An event where people are usually (a) drinking and (b) literally wearing masks is a safe space? Do so-called "men's costumes" suddenly give the wearer a stronger sense of social awareness and party restraint?
The whole point of halloween is self-indulgence and hidden identities. I'm sure there are plenty of fun, decent, safe halloween parties, but I'm not sure that's what the makers of, say, this sexy boot camp officer costume were going for.

* I actually overheard this. In real life. Sexy nerd? Is that possible?

Next up, "cultural" costumes. Feministing ran a bit on appropriating other races for Halloween costumes, and, when you put it that way, yeah. Bad. The first picture they showed was a "Pink Indian Princess" costume. Bad. And then after the jump, they went on to show an Arabian Dancer, Dragon Samurai, and Sexy Seniorita. And...I don't know. I think the names are stereotypes and offensive, but if your seven-year-old dresses up as a ninja, is that racial oppression? I just don't think that putting on the clothes is the same as putting on the race. If you dress like a ninja and draw racially caricatured features on, that's one thing. But if you dress like a ninja with a hood, is that racism? How is dressing up like an Arabian dancer different from dressing up as Jeannie, the genie? Is it really that different from dressing up in lederhosen or wooden shoes and a pinafore? Is it okay to dress as another nationality, but only if that nation is characterized by the same race I am? I don't know. There are definitely some sketchy boundaries here, but I don't know if it's really like Halloween samurais and flamenco dancers are really trying to pretend they're Japanese and Spanish. [Later: Comments posted on the ad now say a lot of the same thing--and make the point that it's the marketing that's racist, not the costume. With that, I wholly agree.]

Last up: The pressure. Halloween used to be one of my favorite holidays because it's all about pretending to be something else, and most of the time I'd definitely rather be something I'm not. And it's just plain, fun, goofiness. There's no family drama, or gift tension, or religious overtones. You dress up and eat candy. That sounds awesome.

But now it feels like every year you have to have a very clever costume. Funny, scary, sexy, whatever, it still should be terribly smart. Right now I just don't have that much energy to devote to my costume ideas. It's sapping the fun out of it.

Annnnnyway. Happy halloween, witches and werewolves and Elvises and heelys!

Random Spam, Esquire

2006-10-30T09:28:00.000-05:00

Never-wearied mother ship

!!!

They comes, and goes, and goes

2006-10-23T19:06:00.000-04:00

Two more people told me this weekend they're leaving town.

This is one of the things that sucks the most about living in a transitional town like this. All the people you really like eventually leave, and it's just harsh. And all the wallpaper people in your life--the people you aren't particularly close to, and maybe don't even like very much but see around all the time--all the faces just disappear, and they're replaced by new faces, and all the new faces are 19 and think you're lame. And if you are a person who actually stays here, because it IS a good place and you've got a good job and you've still got a few good faces around, you start to feel sort of rutted and stationary, like everybody else is moving on without you. It's like everybody else is going off to junior high and you're being held back in elementary another year, but you're the one holding you back. Or not. I don't know.

While I'm in a mildly depressy groove, one more story. A guy I work with came around today and gave everybody in the company a paper cut-out of a jack-o-lantern for their offices or cubicles. On the one hand, it's really quite sweet; on the other hand, the thought of him sitting at home this weekend cutting out fifty pumpkins and giving them little marker-drawn faces makes me want to cry.

Okay. On to other things! It's 6 pm, it's 37 degrees, and I've got a softball game to play!

Letters to people who don't care

2006-10-15T15:56:00.000-04:00

Dear Congresspeople:

"Gay" does not mean "pedophile." You don't have to take my word for it--it's right there in the dictionary. So instead of talking about finding out who all the "secret gays" are, before we start talking about ousting all the homosexuals from the government, maybe we should find all the people who've hit on their seventeen-year-old interns and babysitters and random boys AND GIRLS, and get rid of all of THEM. Maybe the "homosexual menace" isn't as big a deal as the "hitting on children" menace. Just a suggestion.
Hope you had a happy Coming Out Day!
Best,
Tornadia

Dear Civil Planners of Champaign:

Just wanted to thank you for beginning, but never finishing, simultaneous construction projects on both ends of my street. Now that you've blocked the alley AND taken away our street parking as well, I'm getting plenty of exercise! And who needs an alarm clock when the gravel truck shows up every morning at 5:30 to drop another load into the street? I'm so glad we've had this summer together. Since it looks like you're nowhere near finishing whatever it is you're doing, I'm sure I'll see your contractors again next summer!
Hugs,
Tornadia

Dear Assistant Boss:
You're not funny. You're mean. And kind of a jackass.
Don't mess,
Tornadia

your future looks...non-existent.

2006-10-11T09:58:00.000-04:00

I just looked up my morning horoscope.

It’s blank.

Seriously, it just says "TAURUS: - "

Well, shit, y’all. It’s been nice knowing ya.

Oh. What happened to September?

2006-10-06T20:18:00.000-04:00

I don't know.

Here's where my life is at right now:
It's 7:00 on Friday night, and I just got excited walking through the warehouse at work because Kleenex has redesigned its corporate tissue boxes.

These are dark days.

Okay. Potential jobs that are not life-sucking:

1.
2.
3.

I can't think of any right now. Ideas? Come on, people, help a sister out. I'm tired.

Good Things Week: Web sites!

2006-08-15T21:05:00.000-04:00

First off, please note the offical Chicago Manual of Style styling of the word "websites" in the title up there. I hate it--it looks like a bunch of middle-aged academic copyeditors had no idea what to do with this new-fangled terminology and decided to treat it like a brand name modifying a generic product. Which...is pretty much exactly what happened. "Gee, Wally! I really enjoy your Web site!" See how dumb that looks?

Second off, it's a good thing I made a list yesterday of Good Things to think about, because today was a Not Good Thing. I fought everybody today. I pissed off everybody today. Because I'm a practically middle-aged academic copyeditor just doing her job, and sweet jesus in a jam jar, people, let's just lay off the attitude and do it my way, okay?

Cleansing breath! GOOOD THINGS!

Okay. Some good websites (HRMPH!) that if you haven't read, you must, like, right now:

For somthing to think about: Feministing www.feministing.com
Feministing is the best damn thing I've seen in ages. It's got so much news, and so much of it is irritating as all hell, and they get it up there and commented on pronto, and I don't know how they do it but bless them for it. I've probably already pointed to this one, but it's the only site--besides the BBC--that I check every single day.

For weather reportage: The National Weather Service
I loves me some NWS. If you sneak around long enough, you can find the place where meteorologists hang out and discuss which projection models are likely and which ones are totally loserly.

For the saddest, most heartbreaking commentary on New Orleans: Chris Rose

First off, he's a writer for the Times-Picayune, whose NOLA.com site was the lifeline of the storm. Then when I was down there for the conference, so many people--mostly locals--told me to buy his book before I left town. So I did. It's a colleciton of columns from Rose post-Katrina. They are so sorrowful and so confused and so poignant, it takes you right there. He continues to right on post-K issues for the NOLA site. He may be crazy and he's got almost textbook symptoms of clinical depression, but his writing is so raw and honest and he's so sorrowfully, moodily, hopefully funny that you'll wish you could buy him a beer and pat him gently on the arm. Leastways, I do.

For the What Should I Read Next days: The Literature Map
This is really cool, albeit wildly inaccurate. You enter the name of an author you like and it gives you this floating map of similar authors, with people most similar to your entry closest to the center. It's openly defined--anybody can enter people they think are like somebody else--so you get some pretty oddball connections. No matter whose name I enter--fiction, nonfiction, an author I love, an author I hate--the same napes pop up on the map. Maybe I'm just that predictable.

There are a lot more Web sites out there that rock. I'll think of some more for later.

Good Things Week: Music!

2006-08-14T19:15:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to focus on things that are good, happy, positive, loveable, totally not-melancholy. So this week is All Good Things week. Except "all good things" must end, they say, so it's just plain "good things" week.

First up: Music!

I was talking recently about how I haven't had a song stick this summer, nothing to constitute The Song of Summer 2006. That's okay by me, kind of, because the official songs of summer tend to be kind of craptastic. ("My Lumps," did you say?) But that's okay, because I've been listening to a lot of superfantastico old stuff. Rock it!

Most of the summer, I've been playing Uncle Tupelo's "No Depression" album on endless repeat. I'm blown away by that album. It's so rock and so well written and so old-soul, and knowing that it was written by some bored, sweaty kids in southern Illinois who had nothing much else to look forward to...mmm. So good I want to buy copies for everybody I can think of who might not have heard it and leave it silently on their doorsteps in the middle of the night. Maybe I will. I could probably qualify for SuperSaver shipping.

But what else?
I stopped by G&Bs and picked up some records on my last trip through Decatur. I went expecting to pick up one thing, and left with three other things, and all of them were kind of "what the hell, take a chance" albums. And I LOVE them.

The Animals, "Animal Tracks"
I always like the Animals--except for "House of the Rising Sun," which makes my brain hurt--but I'd never even heard of this album. Which is a shame, because it is scrumptious. Mostly covers, and kind of all over the place; the first track reminds me of Scotty and the Ligonnaires, then it goes awesome all over Ray Charles's Hallelujah I love Her So, and gets kind of Fountains of Wayne by track 7. It's very joyful and soulful and fun.

The Shirelles, "The 21 Greatest Hits"
The other Shirelles Greatest Hits album at G&Bs only had 11 hits; so I figure this one must be extra hitty. I don't think I'd enjoy this one nearly as much if I hadn't read Amelier's copy of the awesome women-in-rock book "She's a Rebel." They're so young and lovelorn! So harmonic! So being used by white guys to propogate a manufactured image!

The Deathray Davies, "The Day of the Ray"
I don't know why I never bought their albums before, considering how much I love some of the bands they've played with. Yeah, Violents, I'm looking at you. And the Old 97s. Probably because I'm an idiot, because this album is the bee's knees.

Add to these three gems the CDs I got on the cheap at Amoeba, and I'm having a swell musical summer. Speaking of the Amoeba CDs, S-to-the-A...

There's this weird little woman who lives in the building in my backyard. I don't know if she has a job, and she doesn't seem to have a car. She's maybe in her fifties and is small and kind of very plain-spun, sort of like Carrie from the movie "Carrie" would be if she hadn't combusted before she reached middle age. She does not smile. She does, however, take a chair out into the yard, position it directly across from my front door, and read books. All the time. She never reclines, or slumps around in her chair, or tosses a casual "hey-how-ya-doing" when somebody comes out of the building. She'll just sit there straight up and down with her book in her lap, nad if you come out she might look up at you without changing expression at all, as if you might be a squirrel that she noticed in the yard. Then she goes back to reading.

Anyway. Yesterday I saw her go out of her building and around to my yard with a book. I was cleaning and had just put on the Violent Femmes album I bought out in S.F. I forgot how much cussin' there is on that album! The windows are open, and the VF are tossing out "motherfucking" this and "fuck" that. When the album finished I left my house, and she wasn't sitting by the yard anymore. Now I'm kind of worried that the weird gnome lady in the apartment building in my backyard thinks I'm a satanist or something.

I was going to write a bit about the GOOD THING that is live music, and how I finally saw some at the Decatur Celebration, and how there are fun shows coming up, but it's late and I'm hungry, and I'm going to go home now. So tell me instead:
What are YOU listening to?

...on a stick!

2006-08-10T18:38:00.000-04:00

Things you could buy on a stick at Decatur Celebration:

* "sweet meat", the "best 12 inches in the state"
* Thai chicken or beef
* Calzones
* Frozen cheesecake
* Alligator
* Shrimp
* Hot dogs, cozy dogs, and pronto pups
* Shishkabobs
Plus roasted corn (on a stalk) and cotton candy (on a tube).

The Illinois State Fair won't rest, however, unless they're the stickiest fair of all! And so, they bring you:

Egg on a stick! A prepackaged hard-boiled egg "jammed on a stick" and served with a dipping sauce. For only $1! Yummmmm! Salmonella packaged in an easy walking-around delivery system!

Here's the deal.

2006-08-09T19:29:00.000-04:00

I keep not writing because I have nothing to write about, and then if I do think of something worth tossing out general commentary on, it just seems so arduous. Some people have to try to cross the countryside while other people throw rockets at them, I have to come up with some statement of what I've done lately. We all have our crosses to bear.

So here are some things I should have written about, and haven't. If you haven't already heard everything I have to say about a topic, just ask.

* New Orleans
* San Francisco
* Corporal punishment and retaliation, and how people who are 31 maybe shouldn't get all "whoever's stronger has the power, that's just reality" after they've just had a "whose dick is bigger" contest with an eight-year-old
* The Cough of Unrelenting Tenaciousness
* Why Microsoft spell-checking software doesn't flinch at "tenaciousness" when "tenacity" is an actual, real word
* The inexplicable "planning" of the construction work near the library
* How when you drive around with the windows down people feel it's okay to mock your hair
* How I decided to get my air conditioning fixed, and then had a friend volunteer her husband to do it, and how I then pissed off said friend, and now I don't know whether I'm still supposed to come to their house, or if I should just get it fixed
* All the movies I've seen lately
* My two-year-old niece's weirdly Victorian habit of calling entire families by the name of the male head of household
* How kids these days are bugging the shit out of me
* How all of the Goodwills in the I-72 corridor have gotten rid of their dump boxes, and also refuse to accept more crap right now
* How I've been to more movies in the last two weeks than in the last two years, and how most of them were perfectly tolerable
* Decatur Celebration
* Pringles with jokes printed on them
* The effect of Pringles-worthy jokes on park district softball teams
* Craptastic but summerific books I read
* The end of Schaffer's bowling alley, and the rise of O'Flannagan's Irish Pub and Restaurant (and Bowling Lanes and Banquet Hall) (and I am not making all of that up)
* Paul Harvey's ludicrous American Marine Saved by the Healing Power of Thinking About Wal Mart story, and how Paul Harvey can't possibly still be alive anyway, and how do they think we're buying this shit?
* The pressing urge I feel to go eat and drink and shop and run around everywhere in town RIGHT NOW before the tidal wave of students eddies in, even though I've had two months to eat and drink and shop and I've mostly just stayed home
* And just where the hell has summer gone?

I'm betting there were others that are best left forgotten. What's been on YOUR mind lately?

Spam of Sacrilege

2006-06-23T17:56:00.000-04:00

I just got this spam:

Increase Your Churchs Offerings THIS WEEK!

The message really does go on to offer to sell you tips to increase your offerings by teaching you "surefire offerings killers". (Actually, "I have a Special Report available on Sure Fire Offering Killers," but I guess if you're scamming church types, random capitolizing probably makes sense.)

Ah, home.

2006-06-22T19:56:00.000-04:00

I went to New Orleans for a few days for work (and a day and a half for fun), and since I got back I've been writing and writing and writing to the point that I'm even boring myself, but I just can't stop. I've been spending a lot a lot of time alone lately, and I LOVE it, but it makes all the crap I normally say over a day get amplified in my head. And you know I say a lot of stuff over a day.

The very, very short version:

New Orleans is great and sad and broken and is, apparently, my subtropical DC. I schmoozed and mingled, got bruised and bloodied, ate way too much, drank way too much, wandered around the same blocks way too much, and talked to an awful lot of really great people (and a few not so great people, though I'm sure they're lovely underneath it all). I feel very good. And I have a mystery bruise handprint on my arm.

More soon. By the time I get it written out and added up, I'll undoubtedly have told you in person.

Best spam email title du jour

2006-06-14T18:18:00.000-04:00

she's pharmacology

Best Spam of the Day

2006-05-16T13:12:00.000-04:00

"Your love is like pi: natural, irrational, and VERY important."

Man. That's deep.

I went to Chicago for May Day and all I got was poked with a lousy stick

2006-05-04T20:01:00.000-04:00

That's not true. (Well, it's true I got poked with a stick. More on that later.) I also got a train ride and civic pride and some free hate literature.

First, the train. As it turns out, University Park is not "avoid it at night" in that it's a sketchy area of urban grit and decay; University Park is "avoid it at night" in that it's a parking lot in the middle of BFE, which a train occasionally stops by. And during non-rush hour, the train only comes once an hour. Since I got there about 10 minutes after the train, I had plenty of time to check out the situation. Trust me. It's a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. On the plus side, it's cheap and it's double-decker and it gets you into the city easy peasy, so it's nice to know it's there.

I got into Millennium Park towards the end of the immigration rally. Lots and lots of people were leaving, or were waiting around for busses to take them back to Joliet and Cicero and Kanakakee. There were lots of Mexican flags, lots of American flags. And lots of police. There were about 6 helicopters circling Millennium and Grant parks, and all the streets in the area were closed off. The cops wouldn't let anybody walk on the closed-off streets, though; one or two people would step off the sidewalk to cross the completely blocked-off streets, and a cop would hasten to point them back onto the sidewalk. I was trying to get back up to Randolph, but I couldn't cross the street. So I kind of got caught in the middle of a very big group of Latino ralliers leaving the park, with drums and hats and flags and the whole bit. Viva Mexico!

The best thing I saw all day: A little boy, about four years old, standing in the middle of a completely empty Michigan Avenue, happily waving like a madman at the helicopters circling over head.

The most disheartening thing I saw all day: The couple walking down the street against the flow of the crowd carrying a confederate flag. The demonstrators didn't pay them any attention, really, but then neither did the cops force them to step off the empty street onto the sidewalk.

About 5:00 I headed over to Haymarket for the labor rally, and gee whiz. Hello, five-oh! I tell you what: there were a lot of cops at Grant Park. But there were an astonishingly disproportionate number of cops at the labor rally. I mean, I get why--if people gathered to celebrate the day somebody threw a bomb at a group of like, baton twirlers, I'd be kind of touchy--but damn. Many of them were wearing full-on flak vests. They stood in big groups at the back and the front of the crowd. Then again, police usually have a great union, so maybe they were there FOR the rally. I shouldn't presume.

There were reps from the carpenters, hotel workers, hospital workers, IBEW. A few Teamsters, a few bike messengers. There was a group of teenagers looking for the rebellion, all "What? Oh, labor, yeah, sure. Totally. FIGHT THE MAN!" They were wearing bandannas over their faces, you know, for the inevitable gassing. One of the kids came over to the rest of the pack and said "dude, I heard one of the cops say to his cop buddy that they were going to wait until the rally started to break up, and they'd just move in and arrest the troublemakers. We've got to figure out how we're going to get out of here, man." And they proceeded to...walk away. Wily! I sure hope they made it back to Winnetka before mom got home!

The speakers were good, the memorial sculpture is good, the band that played "Solidarity Forever" was good. It was brief. When the band struck up, the cops got in their po-po van and drove away, with nary an arrest. Oh--but then tragedy struck. A woman with flag sticking out her shoulder bag moved in to hug another woman, and in the process, jabbed me in the back with the stick on the flag. (I know! The outrage!) In spectacularly graceless fashion, I skittered around to see what was sticking me, and twisted my ankle. See, it's like the Haymarket Martyrs! Except instead of being executed in a show of sham justice, I got poked with an American flag! Man. I know how it feels to suffer for the cause.

I headed back towards the lake, all gimpy and slow in comparison to the sprightly office workers heading home. I missed the train again, and broke down on my "no buying" resolution to buy a very American beer from a very, very American style sports bar. (As it turns out, not much concern about the boycott in the chain bars on Michigan Avenue. This is not at all a crowd of people who stopped by on their way out of the immigration rally.) I sat there with my ankle up watching the Red Sox–Yankees on one TV and the White Sox–somebody on another TV, listening to these guys debating the justness of calling Johnny Damon "traitor," and whether or not Alex Rodriguez is earning his keep, how Jorge Posada ranks as a catcher, whether Ozzie Guillen can do it again. And I thought, this is how they could get the confederate flag, big truck crowd to see immigrant workers. Can you imagine the Day without Immigrant Labor if the pro sports teams had signed on? It'd be, like, Randy Johnson and Chipper Jones and Greg Maddux in a stadium full of uncooked hot dogs and dirty bathrooms. Dirtier bathrooms. Wouldn't that be sweet?

Happy May Day!

2006-04-29T18:02:00.000-04:00

On May 1, 1896, labor leaders in Chicago organized a general strike to advance the cause of the eight-hour work day. Three days later the Haymarket Square Riots brought xenophobia, anti-unionism, brute authority, and sham justice to quell the protests. Thank god things have changed, eh?

Now, most of the other industrialized nations recognize May Day as International Workers' Day in direct response to the Haymarket events. We Americans, on the other hand, go to work. But not just on May Day: shift workers are more frequently being asked to work 12-hour swing shifts, electronics have made vacation days off-site work days, and I sit here typing this at the office on a Saturday after five hours of legitimate work.

We do, of course, have our own labor day, in September; President Grover Cleveland declared Labor Day a national holiday to placate irate workers after federal troops he ordered to break up the Pullman Strike outside Chicago fired on protestors, killing two, in August 1894. After all, 1894 was an election year.

And at least things have changed for poor immigrant workers, right? I mean, it's not like we're pushing Germans to work long shifts in dangerous jobs like meatpacking anymore. It's not like we force the Irish to work in back-breaking, squalid conditions nowadays, threatening them with prison if they complain. In this golden era of labor, we not only welcome foreign workers into our workspaces, we invite them into our homes! With vacuum cleaners! We enjoy their restaurants! As long as the servers at least can speak English. I mean, come on. It's just rude not to.

AAaaannnyway. Monday. Labor Day. Chicago's having some awesome super mega rallies, which you can find out all about at the Chicago Indymedia site. There's a march for immigrant workers' rights at 10:00 a.m., or possibly noon, they're not real consistent about that. Then at 4:30 there's a May Day celebration hosted by the labor movement at the Haymarket Square site.

In Champaign, the GEO is holding a rally for health care for graduate assistants on the quad at noon.

But even if you're not a rally-going type of person, or particularly interested in labor issues, celebrate May Day. Remember its essential premise: honest work for honest pay. Only work eight hours today. Heck, go nuts--stick to a forty-hour week this whole week. Remember the rally cry of a hundred years ago: Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for what we will. Sounds reasonable to me.

And if you can't do that, avoid buying crap on Monday, so you aren't forcing someone else into service on the workers' holiday. And yes, I know they'd have to be at work anyway. Just do it.

***

[A brief history of the Haymarket Square Riot, in case you're interested. Find out more here and here.]

On May 1, 1896, labor leaders organized a general strike to protest for the eight-hour work day. Two days later, workers gathered near the McCormack Reaper plant in Chicago to rally; police intervened, killing two workers and injuring several others. The next day laborers gathered at Haymarket Square, then a bustling commercial corner. Peaceable rallies and speakers occupied much of the event; in the evening, police moved in to break up the crowds. Someone lobbed a bomb at the cops, killing one immediately. Cops opened fire on the crowds. Eleven people were killed, and eventually, in a trial that is yet today considered a gross miscarriage of justice, eight activists--six of them foreign-born, some not even present at the time the bomb was thrown--were arrested. Despite the fact that none could be identified or even tied to the bomber, seven were condemned to execution and the seventh sentenced to 15 years in prison. Four were hanged, one committed suicide, and the other two were eventually pardoned.

Transitions are for wimps

2006-04-25T18:32:00.000-04:00

Miscellaneous notes:

1. Did you know Queen Elizabeth turned 80 last week? She looks pretty good for 80. I wonder what kind of moisturizer the queen uses? Probably something made by peasants. Or made out of peasants.

2. Friday night turned out to be a bit more drinky than I'd anticipated, due to the weight of group emotional weirdness drowned in group consumption of beer. I ended up in what was doubtlessly a rambling, repetitive conversation with Ed K., downstate Illinois' once-only full time radio meteorologist, who asked "Are you SURE you're not a meteorologist?" Hee! No, Ed! I'm just drunk!

3. Saturday I drove to Terre Haute, Indiana, and attempted for a second time to visit the home of Eugene Debs, labor leader and socialist. I didn't get inside, though. I forgot that Indiana, in a fit of modernity last year, decided that this would be the year they'd abandon their quirky resistance to the wackiness of this "Daylight Savings Time," as the kids call it, so I was an hour later than I thought. I meant to blame that for my failure to actually go inside Debs's house, but really, once I got there I just couldn't figure out what I thought I was going to DO there. "Hello! Just thought I'd take a peek at a dead socialist's kitchen. Thanks!" So I got ice cream instead.

4. I also went hiking in Kennekuk Cove County Park and Turkey Run. Kennekuk was weird--I was going on this trail that went to a really, really, really old cemetery, and periodically alongside the trail there'd just be an illegible marble headstone. Something was hopping all along the trail. It sounded like frogs hopping, but it's not wet enough for that, and I couldn't find any toads. It's too early for grasshoppers. I reckoned it might be the long-dead of rural Vermillion County getting pissed off that I was hiking through their final resting place, or possibly pissed off at being dead and consigned for all eternity to rural Vermillion County. Since nobody knew where to look for my body if rural Vermillions, dead or alive, decided to wreak havoc with my person, I turned around and hightailed it out of there.
The best part though was the cemetery sign by the road, an old wooden branded sign reading "Maysville Cemetery." Directly below that, a gleaming yellow diamond proclaiming "Dead End." Indeed.

5. I had a total Mrs. Robinson moment at a gas station in Veedersburg. The kid who worked ther strutted out to the island, and gave me a look back over his shoulder. Why hello, young man! I like the way you refill that washer fluid! He winked at me, I smirked back, and drove away laughing at the absurdity of it. Oh, my illicit teenage Indiana gas station lover! We were never meant to be. Sometimes it's good to be a stranger in town.

6. I walked all over the place on Sunday, then loaded up some goods and stopped by Amalier's house, which was very cozy and homey in a very comforting way. She loaded me up with a yummy sandwich and juice box dinner. Perfect!

7. We won our first softball game of the season 23-12. I didn't contribute much to that, I must say.

8. I just found out through a guy on my softball team that the editor of my high school yearbook (before me) is president of the local Scrabble club. Although I have never played Scrabble myself, it seems somehow unavoidably dorky that in the Venn diagram of my spheres of acquaintance, the overlapping wedge is situated in a coffee shop Scrabble society.

That's all I got. Happy Monday! Er, Tuesday!

Shout out from S-A-Doublelizzy

2006-04-19T19:49:00.000-04:00

Hey! Because she never posts anything herself, I'm posting on her behalf to answer the question that keeps us all awake at night:

What Would S-A-Dub Listen To?

Well, here it is, the latest in hip from the the musical missus of bay. You must hear:

* Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

* The entire lineup of Morr Music,
including Electric President, Ms. John Soda, and B. Fleischman

* and you should stop reading this, drop on over to amazon, and immediately purchase New Order's International.

The only logical conclusion being that you will then proceed to shake your booty, groove thang, or moneymaker. That part is totally your call.

S: Feel free to post your own response. Otherwise, next time I'll feel tempted to make shit up.

Sneaky Snakes go dancing

2006-04-18T16:23:00.000-04:00

Southern Illinois has snakes. Lots of snakes. When it gets warm in the spring, the snakes wake up from their winter slumbers, and wiggle on over to the rivers and creeks to find some food and begin the warm-weather snaking season, and sometimes they cross roads to do it. Down by my brother's house, there are so many of these jaywalking--jay-slithering?--critters that they actually close the roads. His report? Oh, the snakes. They're in transit. (I post this without his permission from an email he sent to our mom, who knows somebody who wanted to go camping down there.)

***
Well, pretty much all the snakes are out right now. They still haven't been real active, but with these warm days I'm sure that's changed. We've got copperheads, cottonmouths (water moccasins), and timber rattlers that are all poisonous, especially in the southern part of the Shawnee, and a whole lot of nonpoisonous ones. Further north they have the pygmy rattlesnake, or massasauga. It's so small it probably wouldn't hurt you anyway, and they are very rare. We do have one road closed to vehicles for the snake migration, but everything else is open.They will for the most part avoid humans, but I would not trust cottonmouths too much, they're more ornery. They are usually in the wetter areas like swamps. I actually almost grabbed a copperhead about a month ago. I was climbing up a really steep hill, and occasionally using my hands to help pull myself up. I stopped after one such step, and started to step up again - and stopped, since I noticed a copperhead coiled up right in front of my knee. It was so cold, it didn't even flick its tongue or try to get away. It was probably just coming out of hibernation, had probably come out to get some sun, but it was getting darker and cooler as the rain was coming and I think it got too cold to move. It blended in perfectly with the leaves.
***

Hmmm. Just another walk in the park, I guess. A walk in the happy, sunny, copperhead-and-rattlesnake-infested-swamp park.

Repent, or ye shall be tornadoed!

2006-04-17T19:11:00.000-04:00

For the second time in two weeks, I was putting gas in my car when the tornado sirens went off.

This time I had the weather radio AND the car radio, and while the sky looked pretty dark off to the west, I didn't see any reason to get all frantic about it. The National Weather Service didn't seem to have issued a warning. So I drove on across town to my grandmother's, passing all these screaming wailing sirens, and then went way out to he back of the back yard to watch the clouds rolling in. The eastern sky was clear blue and puffy clouds and sunshine. The western sky was dark, and pinkish and purplish and not so much ominous as very, very cool-looking, like a very adept and brooding fingerpainting. My dad and uncle came to join me, and when the lightning started crashing all around us I crouched down to minimize my contact with the ground, and to let the lightning strike them first. We stood there and watched, debating whether or not the wall of clouds was rotating or not, when one little arm of clouds reached around itself, forming a nice whirling little circle. My first funnel cloud! Hooray!

Then the lightning struck a bit too close, and the funnel cloud was whirling a little too directly in front of us, and the house was a little too far away, so we beat a path to the door right as the rain started. Grandma was getting the food on the table and we all sat in her nice windowy sun room and ate Easter dinner while the hail bounced off the glass and the weather radio squawked out warnings. No plague of frogs, though, so I think it was just a natural meteorological event and not a Holy Message.

The Illinois Department of Revenue Would Like to Know:

2006-04-15T15:50:00.000-04:00

Happy tax day! I think the state form must be different this year.
Social security number: right.
Attach your label: gotcha.
Check filing status: okay...
Check if you were a member of a professional athletic team during 2005.

Does anybody else think that's weird? Right between filing status and federal adjusted gross income? Are they just curious? What counts as an athletic team? Do pro bowlers count? Pro poker players? What if you're, like, base coach? Or the team sport therapist? Does that count?

Tornadozzzzzzzz....

2006-04-14T19:44:00.000-04:00

I love the stormy weather, but man, I gotta get some sleep. Between the fact that it's suddenly, and literally, 84 degrees in my apartment, and the storms that keep rolling in in the middle of the night and getting me all worked up with the warnings and the Doppler and the Igor robot voice reading off county names, I'm very excitable but very tired.
I can't blame the weather entirely, though. I've been reading this book of pieces mostly written by people on death row and anti-death-penalty advocates for work. It's getting to me. That, and all the 9-11 stuff in the news lately. When I start to fall to sleep, in that sort of half-in, half-out, dozy period, I start having rather gruesome dreams about torture and brutality, and I make myself wake up and think about something else. Rinse, repeat. It's wearying. I need to think of some nice, happy, relaxing topics to focus on as I go to sleep. Things like...uh...tulips. And the song "Sneaky Snake." And...I'm open to suggestions.

On to brighter things! Our first softball game is next week. It's a scrimmage against our pitcher's church team. Three people so far have expressed their eager anticipation of the trash-talking that will surely issue from, uh, me. That would include the actual pitcher, who arranged things with his church team.
"Steve!" I said. "It's a CHURCH team! Two days after Easter!"
"They need to be toughened up for the season," he wrote back.
Why? Are they playing the Romans?

I was just sitting here in my office typing this when the weather radio alert went off. Hooray! It does work! Tornado watch #185, for all counties, until midnight. Got it. Thanks, NOAA All-Alerts Weather Radio!

Be glad I'm not the boss of you.

2006-03-30T23:52:00.000-05:00

One of the worst things about my job is having to write things like so-and-so "shows excellent interpersonal communications skills." As opposed to what? Interspecies communication skills? Intrapersonal communications skills? "Hey, arm? Could you possibly complete that scratching motion before the three o' clock meeting? Thanks!"

Yuck.

Short track sells out

2006-03-27T18:42:00.000-05:00

HEY! Who on earth expected short track speedskating to pop up in commercials months AFTER the Olympics? Everybody's favorite big-brother web service is using short track to emphasize their big fat committment to high-speed service. And it's even got real live women speedskaters. Kudos, generic internet provider!

On an, let's call it "unrelated," note: Have you ever noticed that if you hold your tongue--literally, I mean--and say "asshole," it comes out sounding very much like "AOL"?

Haik-you, mister.

2006-03-25T18:41:00.000-05:00

I don't know if I already told you this--I think not--but one of my coworkers from another department, who really ought to be spending his time cranking out some damn work, put together a huge hallway bulletin board of full-color laser-print, taped-together freaky cats and invited people to submit cat haiku. (This is in addition to the permanent bulletin board already devoted to workers' pets, and a second bulletin board devoted to funny animal photos from the internet. My department, meanwhile, has no bulletin board, and little time for crafting cat-inspired poetry. I'm really pretty humorless on the subject, I know.) But knowing how you love the haiku form, I thought you might enjoy it, so here's one, posted without the consent or even the knowledge of my coworker, the new guy, who came to us from the music industry:

New wife's cat, a truce
Spring, he scratched my LP spines
He's gone now, of course

The Madness of March

2006-03-22T22:30:00.000-05:00

I wrote a whole thing, and the computer ate it, and I'm way too tired and hungry to stay here and write some more. Welcome spring! Welcome snow, and see you later snow! Don't forget Springfield, which really did get hit quite hard by the tornadoes, and now has 7 inches of snow. Remember to watch Bradley get whomped in the NCAA tournament tomorrow night. Remember the Alamo!

One spring-related thing I'll retype for you: About a week ago I saw a robin and thought "First robin! Spring's here!" Now, a week later, there are about 50,000 robins, and every one of them is standing like a damn fool in the middle of the road. And they're FAT! I thought springtime robins were scrawny. Where are they getting all the worms?

Spring!

2006-03-20T17:15:00.000-05:00

~ ~ ((((()))))) ~ ~

forget you, heat bills,
dark days, survival gear-wear.
march 20 brings springs!

~

the sun pummels fierce
on closed lids, sprawled limbs, still smiles.
"soon," parks promise. soon.

all hail spring! all hail spring!

happy march 20, yall.

other haikus from peoples:

dust the bike seat, spring
and peddle eastward always
toward light and lake
.lena

grad school done, new life,
worthy new project beckons
dumb project blocks way.

at long last, choice made,
no dc move, here will stay
mortgage brings closure.
.bob

zipped up now, I'm cold.
a warm air stirs my hair, quiet-
says "I'm coming soon"
.beth

Slung in my hammock,
warm breeze, coconut sunblock,
and some lemonade.
(I guess I skipped right through spring and went right to summer. Oh
well, close enough.)
.darin

spring you taunt, you tease
what the huh? snow, no, no, no.
no more tear-drawn wind
.anni

Brisk winds pummel skin,
Ominous weather looming,
Spring is just a dream.

Wake up to snowballs -
Daydreams bring tomorrowâ€™s hope
While heat bills linger still.
.joanne

Spring
I love the feel of spring time.
You can see it all around you,
can even catch its scent.
This is the time when everything comes alive.

There are the trees with their
brand new leaves.
Here are the flowers
with their lovely scent.

Hear the birds singing their song of happiness.
And the animals are surrounded by their young.

I always get a wonderful feeling
in the season of Spring.
.laurie

life springs, people walk
daffodils thrill, cleaning starts
warmed cotton, cool blue
.paula

SECOND TO Last Friday of Winter -- With Cold Comes Need for Rugs

2006-03-10T11:53:00.000-05:00

Someone finally stole the red carpet off my porch.

It had been hanging on the porch banister since i moved back in January, first to air out a bit. Later, when we launched into scraping the lead paint off of the windows and floorboards of the front and dining rooms, i left it out there to protect it from the layers of toxic dust that settled upon everything after pushing past the floor-to-ceiling makeshift wall of plastic that we built and worked within, decked in rebreathers, industrial goggles, hats, and heavy gloves, and clothes we threw immediately in the washer after finishing our day. (As a side, i had always thought "the death room" as we affectionately referred to it, would make an absolutely fabulous rave site. Everyone decked out in their radiation jumpsuits and protective wear so that only eyes could be seen. All the peoples getting down amidst the tools and dust and, uh, lumber. Preeeow!)

Anyway, on Monday, i noticed that the carpet was gone. A cold front settled in that day, and i had just dragging myself and my new winter weather-inspired doozy of a cold down the blocks away from campus and spirit-sucking work towards bed well before the 5:00 bell. Climbing the four short steps up the porch, my pressure-laden eyes focused through the banister to the street. After a moment, i realized something was strange about this. Another second had my head nodding. The awkward patch of heavy red fabric that traditionally blocked my view was now missing. My carpet. Gone. From my porch. Taken by someone. A stealer of porch things. It's true.

Just Saturday, i had thought about bringing it in. Upon orders of The Union of the Snake (all hail), we've been on scraping haitus for the past week. "But Scraping II: No Walls To Stop Us Now!" was set to begin again this week, so i decided against it, and left the thing there. That was the last time i remember glancing uncaringly past it.

Yeah. To be honest, a carpet hanging on a porch for months was probably pretty obnoxious -- akin, i guess, on some level to leaving your laundry hanging out on the line for weeks on end, or plopping your doorless car indefinitely on blocks in the front yard. It was a fine enough carpet, though, -- a sassy berried shade of red, nice textured weave. No atrocity in itself, visually. But i'm sure some neighbors weren't too fond of the color blocking it added to my entryway. "She's still got that carpet hanging out there," i imagine my frowny across-the-street not-new neighbor spitting to his wife as he pulls their station wagon out of their drive. "That eyesore! It's been there ever since she's returned. First the parties, then this." "Yes," she responds, all scrunchy-faced and tight-bunned. "Such a blight upon our trim neighborhood. Wait -- i know! Let's have our awkward, somber-looking teenaged son dress in black and steal it off of her porch in the dead of night! We can use it in the basement!" Then they look at each other in a moment of epiphany and orgasmic rapture, stop the car, and make out gropingly.

Gross. Sorry.

While the thought of irritating others around me with my aesthetic faux pas doesn't bother me too very much (um, unless i think of things like that), i can understand it.

So, now it's gone. One less toxic dust-free red carpet in my life.

i had no plans for that rug yet in the house -- no place i was looking forward to stepping or laying upon it. My house is in limbo, with no end point in site for this naive little wander into "home improvement," which, for good or for naught, negates most abilities to have deigns for one lonely lovely-ish rug in the grand setup of things. It's not alone; many nice, small things are being ignored while attention is being sucked up by this mighty to-do (and being thrown frantically out into the world of free movement and unplannedness when a reprieve is called).

It's probably in a better place now, bringing color and warmth to a floor of some room in a house of more intentional and orderly thieves.

To you, red carpet, wherever you are. Fond wishes for a more appreciative spring.

At last, Wheaties really will get me going.

2006-03-01T18:27:00.000-05:00

THIS JUST IN:

MSNBC announces that Apolo Anton Ohno and Joey Cheek will be featured on boxes of Wheaties. They wouldn't say that just to mess with me, would they?

(You didn't really believe me when I said I had "one last comment" on the Olmpics before, right? Because let's face it: I'm still not done.)

Pancake Day! Pancake Day! Let's all go to the cafeteri-ay!

2006-02-28T18:19:00.000-05:00

Short takes on the fun stuff of life:

* Did I go to the short track meet here on campus? You betcha! And it was fanTAStic. The first race we saw was a handful of very little girls running their way around the track. The youngest we saw were four or five years old; the oldest, in their later fifties. I went with Kim, and we saw a handful of races and then...a lot of Zamboni action. Bad timing. After I took her home I returned for more short track mayhem. People splatting on their faces! People crashing into walls! Girls racing against boys...and winning! Very fit young men without their shirts! It was a very good day. Amelier, though you would like the racing itself I think, I can't see you taking up speed skating spectatorship. Something about sitting in an ice-filled room in February seems un-you, but I can't pin down what it could be.

* And while we're on the track, did you see the Olympic short track finals Saturday night? I watched it at, like, 3:00 in the morning after seeing the Fiery Furnaces. A very close 500m, Ohno wins the gold, and then straight on into the relay. Yeah! Now that's a Saturday night!

* One last Olympics and speed-skating obsessive note. The closing ceremony? Crazy! WHY would the Italians have some sort of army of snowtroopers doing the YMCA? But all is forgiven, because the US team elected my man Joey Cheek to be the flagbearer, ensuring he got camera time. As a gift for all my devoted viewing, maybe.

* Today is Fat Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day, if you're of the mind. When I was a kid I had a book of holiday poetry, and one of the poems was Pancake Day. I knew that wasn't a holiday we celebrated, so I assumed it must be Jewish. (There were poems in there about Hanukkah, which we also didn't celebrate. Made sense at the time.) So you go on out and get yourself a girl! Or maybe a wagon! Full of paaaaancaaaaaaaaaaakes!

Here comes the sun!

2006-02-24T18:02:00.000-05:00

My quest for light-heartedness is going about the same as the U.S. quest for Olympic gold: a few bright spots, but mostly a lot of hype and lack of follow through.

Actually, things were going pretty well until late Wednesday. There were a few moments in the first day and a half that I nearly hyperventilated with the cleansing breaths, but I am a duck! Rain rolls right off my back! Or it did until I met my optimism Waterloo, in the form of a million yards of gold felt.

I have to make this skirt. I got stuck with the gold felt because nobody else wanted it, and everybody was being all diva about not wearing the gold felt (because it. is. HIDEOUS.), and eventually I just said for the love of Pete, give me the damn felt. I've had it at work for a few days (because there is no surface in my home large enough to lay out the fabric on, and that includes the floor) and, without knowing why I had a bolt of gold felt, several co-workers commented on its hideousness. Perhaps they were afraid I was going to cover the cubicle walls with it. EVERYBODY thinks it's heinous, and they don't even know that I'm actually going to wear it. It will be like wrapping the atomic golden mass of the sun around my hips.

But the worst part is that I also had to actualyl sew the skirt. Why I thought I was capable of this, I'm not sure; but I found myself at home last night with the speedskating on the TV and fifty feet of yellow felt and a box of pins I kept knocking over, screaming on the phone at my brother that while I was very interested in hearing about his meeting with the Walnut Association, if he could not tell me how to get the bobbin thread to pop up, he was useless to me. Sewing this skirt did not bring out the beauty and the wonder in me, I'll tell you that. But, thank god, the skirt is done, and I just have the blouse, the cardigan, the scarves, the socks, and the hat to deal with.

I'm feeling much better these days, though, so maybe the Goldenrod Skirt of Frustration was key to my personal growth and development.

In Olympic news: You know how L's German friend was talking about how exciting biathlon is? Is she nuts? Maybe it's just the televisual sameness of it, but pretty much all the events that involve cross-country skiing seem kind of dull to me. You know what would be more exciting? If they were shooting at each other. Anyway, it's no short track. Which, don't forget: Finals of the relay are Saturday night! Enjoy it while it lasts! (Or...enjoy my telling you about it while it lasts!)

Someone's got a case of the Mondays.

2006-02-20T18:58:00.000-05:00

You know how sometimes, you're having a rough time or you're just really burned out and lethargic, and you just feel sort of antagonistic and pissy and you're kind of aware of it and you kind of hate yourself for it, but you can't break the cycle?

I've kind of been having that lately, but without any particular rough times to blame for it.

So. I'm trying to break out of joylessness and pettiness and the corruption of the soul and all, starting today. I will be kind and appreciative with the people I love, instead of grumping at them. I will write postcards (maybe even sober!). I will wear ridiculous clothes because I like them. I will do my work competently and then I will WALK AWAY from it. I will not seethe at meetings because everybody else is stupid. I will NOT be resentful and sullen in tap class, because I am not a sulky teenager; I am in captain of my ship, mayor of my fate; I hold the reins. Besides, pissiness is bad for the skin. So. Wish me luck with that, right? Right. Then I'll send you a postcard.

One last glumpish thing: The Olympics is wearing me out. I can't maintain this level of attention and enthusiasm for two weeks.

But on that note, I'll recap the weekend's Olympic action:
Italy and Norway: The biggest cross-country relay rivals ever! Edge-of-your-seat suspence in the most contested race of the Games! Except not, because Norway blew it and Italy ran away with the race, and nobody cares about cross country relay.

JOEY CHEEK WINS SILVER MEDAL, LOOKS ADORABLE. Also donates another $15,000 to cute refugee orphans.

Shani Davis and Chad Henrick give NBC hack sports journalists something to hammer on, relentlessly, and completely hyperbolically. I have a lot more to say about this, but the end-of-the-day ennui is inhibiting my typing.

Bode Miller continues to not win medals.

Apolo Anton Ohno wins bronze; NBC reporter tries to get him to say the competition cheated; he doesn't quite do it.

All the people who are supposed to win the ski jump land on the earth after a lousy 120 meters, and for the umpteenth Olympics in a row a dark horse kid wins it.

The Austrian team is subjected to an early-morning raid from the ergogenics police, who saw a known (and banned until 2010) doping doctor lurking suspiciously near the Austrians. Authorities later find the doc sleeping in his car just across the Austrain border; he flees (presumably after waking up), crashes into an empty cop car, and is taken into custody. I'm guessing he's not going to be reinstated as team doctor for 2010.

It snows like the dickens and forces the cancellation of several snow-based events. This is clearly god's protest against not getting a cut of the broadcast royalties.

Some people totally got slammed into the boards in hockey.

That's your Olympics Minute! I'm Tornadia McCreaky. Higher faster farther! Peace out!

The most Scott Baio-themed post you'll ever get out of me. Probably.

2006-02-17T18:53:00.000-05:00

I didn't get to see much of last night's Olympics--yet--but here's what's on my mind. (Because I'm sure you've been sitting at your desk wondering "what's on tornadia's mind?")

** French snowboarder Francois Boivin has the best name, at least as pronounced by U.S. Commentators: Fran-swa Bah-vah. It sounds like gibberish foreign name. Like Bob Loblaw!

** Snowboard cross. When I first heard about this I thought it sounded like the most ridiculous X-Gameification of the Olympics yet. Now that I've seen it? I LOVE SNOWBOARD CROSS. Four snowboarders race down a track and shove each other around. When they come over a jump all at the same time and their arms are out all "be the crane" style, it's like an awesome Olympic parody of the Matrix or Spy Kids or something. Plus, crashes!
I've learned a little something about myself this Olympics: I've got a lot more bloodlust than I realized. And I've got a short attention span. How can you watch cross country skiing when you've experienced snowboard cross and short track?

** American figure skater Evan Lycek looks like a young Scott Baio. Scott Baio...who plays Bob Loblaw.

That's it. Enjoy the weekend!

The first tornado watch of the year!

2006-02-16T19:11:00.000-05:00

OH, my sweet existence! It's February, it's 60 degrees, the Olympics are on, and there's a tornado watch! It's like Christmas and my birthday wrapped up with candy!

* Did you watch the short track relay last night? Awesome. The U.S. team advanced easily, the Japanese tripped and got disqualified, taking down the Italian team; consequently, the Italian team moves on automatically. Know what that means? Instead of 16 skaters in choreographic chaos, there will be 20 skaters in the finals on Saturday. Mayhem! Bedlam! Anything could happen!

* They also had the preliminaries of the women's 500 meters the other night, and it's also a crazy mess because the whole thing is a sprint. Somebody fell and took down two other skaters, one of them plucky American Alison Baver. She got knocked down, but--as Chumbawumba would do--got back up again, and finished in qualifying position for the finals. (She didn't win.)
That's all great, but over the course of the evening's events the announcers must have mentioned at least three times that her boyfriend is speedskating star Apolo Anton Ohno. The first time, I was like "Oh?" After that, I was kind of irritated. In all the incessant nattering about Ohno--and god knows, I've nattered about Ohno enough myself--I've never heard anybody refer to him as Alison Baver's boyfriend. "Heartthrob," "cutie," "phenom," yes; "boyfriend of Alison Baver," no. Is it just because people won't recognize her name? Is it some sort of Cynthia Lennon-esque "don't let the fans know he's taken or they won't be as smitten" shunning? Is it because he's a stellar athlete and who cares about his dating life? And if that's it, why should we care about hers? I'm just saying.

* I finally watched the men's figure skating short program. I think the commentators are kind of bitchy. They were all over the poor French guy, summing up the conclusion of his performance with "O....kay?" I didn't realize Dick Buttons was such a shrew. They were nice enough to Peorian Matt Savoie, though, which pleases me, because maybe I'll run into him doing karaoke at the Liquor Basket and can be all "so...Dick Buttons is kind of a bitch, am I right?" Then he'd probably shake his pretty hair and sing "Through the Eyes of Love ("Ice Castles Theme Song")." Or "Ice, Ice, Baby." And then I'd probably spill High Life on his sequined shirt and get thrown out. Yay, Peoria!

* One last Olympic note: Russian speed skater Svetlana Zhurova credits her Olympic win to being a mother, because motherhood gives you strength. Take that, gents! There's one ergogenic you'll never harness!

Cheek: Yeah, baby.

2006-02-14T18:17:00.000-05:00

I think I may have found my Winter von den Hoogenbad in American speed skater Joey Cheek. In last night's qualifying race of some non-short track variety, he raced his little heart out and came in well ahead of the nearest qualifier. After crossing the finish line he looked up to the board, and apparently couldn't find his score. When he did--a whopping doozy of a score, apparently, but since I know nothing of these things you'll have to trust me while I trust the commentators--he just kind of laughed. No fist pumping, no theatrics, no crazy-man yelling. Just an "aw shucks" laugh.

But the best was yet to be. Joey went on to win the gold, handily, and in a similarly under-ostentatious kind of way. Then he went to the medal winner's press conference, where he announced he's donating his winning money ($25,000 from the US Olympic Committee) to refugees from Dafur. To an organization set up by the best speedskater from a couple Games ago, Johann Olaf Koss. Awww! Johann Olaf Koss is the boss. Cheek told reporters "I know you want to write about happy American gold medal with hearts and flowers and butterflies, but I've got a pretty rare opportunity at a microphone like this, so I'm going to talk about death." Take that, Kostas! He pointed out that "my government" has labeled this a genocide, but it's still gotten little attention. He'll donate any other money he wins, too. He gently but pointedly suggested he'd be asking Olympic sponsors to match his donations. (Nike has already said they're in.)

He's adorable and appears to be not macho insane-o and he's awesome and humanitarian. To that, I say: You, Joey Cheek, are a champion. You win the gold medal of my devotion. Huzzah!

***

In other news: Our vice president shot somebody? In the face? Who then had a heart attack? Eh. I'm sure nobody'll notice.

I particularly like that (a) the VP has time to relax away from the pressures of running a war, specifically by taking up arms. Now in his next surprise visit to Iraq, he can really relate to the soldiers. Thank god quail are piss-poor with improvised explosives. (B) that after getting Whittington to the hospital, the rest of the gang sat down to a nice dinner. Why mess with reporters when there's all that fresh meat to eat?

Potential for carnage. In Spandex. That's hot!

2006-02-13T19:10:00.000-05:00

I was thinking I didn't really have a winter Olympics sport to get really excited about, but that's because my short term memory has been killed off with cheap beer and bad whiskey. How else could I have forgotten my 2002 love, short track speed skating?

I love short track speedskating. I mean, I LOVE IT. It's crazy. Especially relay, which is just seriously, chaotically, beautifully poised for utter mayhem from the gun to the finish line. There are four concentric circles of speedskaters weaving in and out of each other and doing the most literal tush-push maneuver possible, and they're all going really fast and are about 2 inches from each other and are on ICE. It's nuts. It's like a tornado! Of sharp edges! Seriously, y'all. It's like roller derby on razor blades.

And, if that's not enough--and HOW could that not be enough?--I just found out two things that will make this day a golden shiny beacon of delight. Are you ready?

Okay. First: Do you know where short track speed skating was invented? No? I'll give you a hint. It rhymes with "Ham pain."

Second: Oooooh, this is good. Do you know where there’s going to be a short track speedskating championship next weekend that’s open to the public and FREE? AND they’re doing relay for the first time ever, so you know it’s going to be an insane mess of crashes? DO YOU?

Do you know how excited I am right now?

Lately on the TV

2006-02-11T16:43:00.000-05:00

I have about fifty things to write about, but typing and time aren't going so great these days, so I haven't gotten around to it. So instead you get QuickCaps! Tiny little disjointed notes from my brain!

1.State of the Union. Ugh. Wasn't that the most pointless SotU yet? In case you didn't get the chance to watch it, take notes, and review the videotape later, here's the gist: Our union is strong, we're the sowers of freedom in the fields of unfreedom, and in response to Sputnik we will be putting more money to math and science. Republicans and Democrats disagree on pretty much everything from Medicare funding to whether Nancy Pelosi should cut her hair. Because of the flu I was trying to watch this on club soda alone. I think we can all agree sobriety is no way to run a country. Right, George?

Some highlights from my notes:
* "Bin Laden's taking shelter in Iraq? Is anybody fact-checking this? Did that come from Downing Street?"
* "I don't know what pattern is on Cheney's tie, but it's going crazy on the TV. Mind control tie!"
* "8:32. Wire tapping. Says it's for international calls. Says 'appropriate' members of Congress have been informed. Hilary grins broadly at the campaign commercial this will make. W. looks back at her like he's going to tell the rest of the football team she totally put out."
* "8:39: God, I want to line-item veto smarmy cheeky monkey fucking face."
* "8:48: GW says 'environment' for first time. Ever."
* "8:55: credits drop in crime, abortion, and drug use to rising 'conscience' in youth and abstinence-only education. Maybe I should just have one drink."
* "8:57: [indecipherable scribbling] Laura. Whore!"
* "9:00: HOW do you compare the war in Iraq to the work of Lincoln and MLKing? On the day Coretta SK DIED? Man. Somebody better call that shit out."

I was watching it mostly on ABC, who were kind of deliciously bitchy themselves.

Here's the tally:
Appearances of word "freedom": 17
"Hope" and "hopeful":21
"Katrina": 0
"Strong" and "strength": 10
"Wiretapping": 0
"AIDS": 6
"Condom": 0
"Protect": 10
"Defend": 1
"Attack": 6

Thank god that's over for another year! But next, the TV event of the biennial: The Games of the Umptieth Olympiad.

Although I don't normally track luge results, I admit it: I dig the Olympics. I like having one fortnight every couple of years to be all cheery and sporty and into crazy sports that somebody spent every day of the last two years thinking about, obsessively, almost monomaniacally, so they could get 16 seconds to sled down a hill. I like watching it and being all "Who knew Nepal is also known for skiing?"

Last night were the opening ceremonies. They were way overblown and weird, the way they always are, because the host country has to prove that they have a long and culturally important history, but that they're all about the now! And well into the future! The future is Torino! (I was disappointed, however, but the utter lack of shroud-related spectacles in the ceremony.)

My favorite part in the opening is the parade of athletes, when each nation comes walking in to the arena and NBC's design team puts up little country factoids and you can judge each nation on it's population density and their athletes' fashions. Let's face it: It's hard to look elite and sophisticated in winter wear, particularly sporty winter wear. The US actually looked pretty good this year, nicely subtle in black or white coats. Nice to see them keeping the garish red/white/blue/stars/stripes/Hollywood-and-cluster-bomb motifs to hats and gloves. Macedonia had wicked awesome fur hats, which apparently they always wear and which give the appearance of a fox casually devouring one's head. Japan went with the winter-head-warming power of nylon baseball caps, and sported an upside-down maple leaf on their jackets. Fuck off, Canada! Somebody, maybe Russia, had delicious coats for their ladies--white with red trim that looked like retro majorette costumes. And spats boots! Yay!

But the really messed up part was that this whole lengthy parade of athletes took place to the beat of (mostly American) disco music. The first 10 or 12 nations to walk in entered to "I Will Survive." I believe the Italians got "YMCA." So, if we believe the lessons of Turin, Night 1: Italy = Romans, Renaissance, Da Vinci, Pavarotti, and Gloria Gaynor. Sounds about right to me.

Groundhog Day!

2006-02-02T18:26:00.000-05:00

Groundhog Day! Groundhog Day!
Let's get drunk and stand aroundhog day!
Will you see your shadow? Will you spread a flea?
Will you cast bubonic plague around me?
Will you hear the news and go back down to your bed?
Will you play some Patsy and wish that you were dead?
Will you see the sunshine, and think your hole is sweeter?
Will you be offended by my careless sense of meter?

There should be more jumprope rhymes about groundhogs. And the answer to that last one should be "yes," if you're a groundhog with any decent poetic sensibilities.

Today I stopped at the gas station to get coffee after lunch, and there was this sort of wild-eyed grimy guy getting coffee too. Maybe he's a construction worker, or maybe he's a murderer hobo--we don't really know. But we do know this: man likes him some sugar. He's got a cup of coffee in a go-mug, and he stood there and put about 18 packets of sugar in it, three packets at a time. He'd grab three packets, whap-whap-whap-whap-whap-whap them against his fingers, then dump them into the cup. Then he'd grab another three. I figure he's either trying to get as many free calories as possible into that cup, or else there is going to be some seriously hyper constructing going on around here.

Geez. Reading back over this, it sounds like I'm the one who put 18 packets of sugar in her coffee. Sheesh.

Flee, flu.

2006-02-01T19:05:00.000-05:00

I declare this flu OVER! Bring on the health! Whoo.

Today I found a sequin on the floor of the warehouse ladies room. My first thought: "Hey! A sequin!" My second thought: "Who the hell's wearing sequins to work?"

As it turns out, I found at least three people who could have been the sequin dropper. And that's just in the departments closest to me. How did I miss the fact that wearing sequins to work is now okay? Sequin gown Wednesday. It's the perfect counterpoint to casual Friday.

Damnable germs and viruses!

2006-01-25T19:24:00.000-05:00

1. Uuugh. I'm getting the nose-dripping head-pressurey thing everybody else has got. Don't blame yourselves. It's the way of all things.

2. I'm making a little mental list of things people should say more. Last week was "I'll see you in hell!" which, come on. That's brilliant. Imagine the uses!

You (answering phone): Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Johnson, Tornadia speaking, I'll see you in hell, how may I help you?

***

Bagger: Paper or plastic?
You: I'll see you in hell!

****

Bartender: We ran out of the rail whiskey, so I just gave you the good stuff and won't charge you for it.
You: Right on! I'll see you in hell! Thanks, man!

Today, I think that I should use "damnable" more. If you try hard enough, most things are, in fact, able to be damned in the cursed sense, if not in the actual soul-going-to-hell sense. (Hmmm. I spot a theme here.) Pretty soon I'll drive that damnable wagon home, where I can change out of these damnable work clothes. Then...then I'll see you in hell! Haha!

3. LOVING the CDs you loaned me. Nick Cave and L7 in particular.

Okay. Going home to blow my damnable nose.

Work

2006-01-20T15:34:00.000-05:00

is stupid.

Friday

2006-01-20T15:27:00.000-05:00

Rendered unable to swim, jump off curbs, chase down suspected bag snatchers, and, now, hold a conversation without either sneezing projectile germs, snorting, hacking up something globular, or having snot drip down outta my nose, i've decided to become more relaxed with a bit more anti-sociality in my CU living.

Feel... my powers.... fading.

Sometimes, you realize stuff. Sometimes, you need to be whacked over the head.

Basement of Assured Future Therapy

2006-01-18T19:21:00.000-05:00

I just heard possibly the most inadvertantly inappropriate basement/den fun furniture ad ever. I think it was for pool tables or Ping Pong or something, and it ended with
". . . the cool place for you and your kids' friends to hang out!"

The cool basement! With... your friend's dad! Where you can dance to Michael Jackson records! Just don't tell anybody, 'cause then it wouldn't be cool anymore. So don't tell. EVER.

inothernews

2006-01-11T19:35:00.000-05:00

Ibrokemyspacebar.
Makeseditingharder.

Dear Alito: Please just make them all shut up.

2006-01-11T19:28:00.000-05:00

I've been gomping the hell out of this manuscript and listening to the Alito confirmation hearings all day. Oh. My. GOD. I'm sick of hearing sentences that start with "I'm puzzled." I'm sick of hearing about the 1985 CAP letter. Remember when David Duke was all "Uh, yeah, I was totally a member of the Klan"? Now that was some prejudiced associatin' you could really sink your teeth into!

And I'm sick of the judicial committee members who are using these hearings just to deliver their own diatribes, and then conclude them with a "question," like "Liberals are destroying our nation and want to kill all the children. Mr. Alito, will you be an awesome Supreme Court Justice?" "My conservative colleagues would have us believe you've answered all the questions fully. Would you not agree, Mr. Alito, that in fact President Bush is a doofus?"

The last guy--I don't know if you heard him--was by far the worst. So I took a break from DOS to write him a letter. The subtext: "Are you, Senator Coburn from Oklahoma, not also a doofus?"

Dear Senator Coburn:

I am dismayed by your use of the approval hearing for potential Justice Alito as a personal soapbox, and even more so that you are able to do so with no oversight as to the veracity of your own statements, unlike the judicial candidate. Your citation of the NOW survey to indicate that abortion makes a women more likely to commit suicide and abuse substances is undoubtedly spurious; might not the same factors in a woman's life that might contribute to her seeking an abortion--poverty, misery, substance abuse itself--also make her more likely to commit suicide or abuse drugs later in her life?
Moreover, you asked Mr. Alito to justify a hypothetical situation involving a woman 37 or 38 weeks pregnant seeking an abortion. Third-trimester abortions are illegal in your state unless the health of the mother is at vital stake. Even in the very few states where third-tremester abortions are not strictly illegal, I defy you to find a healthcare provider in your state or any other who would perform an abortion at so late a stage of pregnancy in anything other than an emergency medical situation.
I certainly believe in your right to question the candidate, as a representative of the people of your district, in the way you see best to determine his fitness as a juror. But to use your alloted time to deliver a speech against the legality of abortions in general is not, to my mind, a particularly helpful way of determining Alito's beliefs about anything at all.

Sincerely,
Tornadia

Dear Irony: I GET it.

2006-01-10T20:17:00.000-05:00

I've spent...let's see...26 of the last 48 hours editing a collection of papers by one of the foremost founders of the American labor movement, so I can get this manuscript to the authors before they freak AGAIN. I was reading, until 11:30 last night, speech after speech, letter after letter demanding the eight-hour workday and fair wages. It's mildly insulting. But also really cool reading. Even in 1918 they were worried about the wage gap for women, and some fields becoming pink-ghetto fields, and the abuse of workers, AND the responsibilities of workers to provide honest work for honest pay.

Best very specific union I never heard of: The Straw Hat Trimmers Union. (Later the United Felt, Straw, Panama, and Velvet Hat Trimmers' and Operators' Union)

Best, or possibly worst, job I've never heard of: Screwman.

Screwman sounds like somebody's screenname.

***

Here's something unrelated: I want a car with a battering ram on the front and a tack shooter on the back, and an extendible magnet to pick up the extra tacks, and a badass stereo. I drew a diagram during the staff meeting today. It'll be sweet!

***

SPECIAL TO S-DOUBLE-L: Log in, type words, publish post. Voila! DO IT! DO IT!

Okay. Back to the unions.

A Whole New Year to Screw Up!

2006-01-06T18:50:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year, everybody! Here's hoping it looks like a bright shiny penny all year.

My holidays were good, the conference in DC was good, DC itself was AWESOMELY awesome, and newe years was low key and pleasant. Hope yours was, too.

Now onto the bitching. Bush and Co. are jetsetting around today and tomorrow to deliver speeches about how fantastically the economy is going. I'm afraid I have to call bullshit on that one, having just spent the holidays with people who are not CEOs, think-tank employees, or Congress people. Three of my relatives got laid off this year; two of them had worked for their companies more than 10 years. Another cousin works for miminum wage at a job that gives her enough hours that she's not eligible for foodstamps, but not enough hours to give her insurance. Fortunately, having a baby this year will enable her to get government assistance for health care. That's messed up.

We did Christmas dinner buffet-style, because three family members had to work on Christmas day. Different shifts, of course.

My mom's job is being "restructured." She can reapply for her own position, but because hiring is based on seniority and job class, there's no guarantee she'll get it. Other employees of higher classes are worried about their own jobs and are likely to apply. She's been there more than 15 years. If she does not get the job, she will be asked to train her replacements before she leaves.

My dad has been told, off the record, that if he doesn't accept early retirement from the place he's worked since he was 18, he will find his performace reviews drop each year until he is eventually fired for performance reasons. He is 54. He is not eligible to draw social security benefits for another nine years.

According to an awesome letter put out by the United Auto Workers, "The hourly wages of average workers are 11 percent lower than they were back in 1973, adjusted for inflation, despite rising worker productivity. CEO pay, by contrast, has skyrocketed -- up a median 30 percent in 2004 alone in The Corporate Library survey of 2,000 large companies."

So thanks, six-figure politicians and lobbyists, for letting me know how damn healthy the economy is. It's just too bad food stamps don't cover the champagne to toast you with.

Last day at work

2005-12-30T20:07:00.000-05:00

Today is!

Yee haw!

December 29

2005-12-29T01:56:00.000-05:00

it's my birthday!

Strike!Strike!Strike!

2005-12-20T15:55:00.000-05:00

The New York mass Transit Authority (MTA) is on strike.

No busses or trains are running in the city. Lines that run from Long Island, NJ, and Westchester County (north) are going on weekend schedules in solidarity.

New York has this awful law -- the Taylor Law -- that states that mass transit workers (along with cops, fire fighters, and a few other positions) can not strike. It makes striking against the law, and severely punished. Mayor Bloomburg has been heard frequenly over the last week of negotiations referring to the "illegal strike" a-brewing, and now underway.

"The mayor was referring to the state’s Taylor Law, passed after the 1966 transit strike, under which workers lose two days’ pay for every day on the picket line. This penalty was imposed after the 1980 strike that shut down the subway system for 11 days. In 2002, Bloomberg was seeking the renewal of an even more draconian injunction obtained in 1999 by his predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, that would have imposed individual fines of $25,000 a day on each worker, with the penalty doubling for every additional day on strike."

Here's what the mayor's office says about the Taylor Law.

Here's what a local teachers' union says about it. (yeah -- teachers can't strike in NY either!)

Here's what TWU local 100 pres Toussaint writes in calling the strike.

So, right now, him and the other TWU union leaders have been thrown in jail, and each worker is getting fined two days pay for every day off!

It's nuts. What an awful, awful law.

Good that they're striking.

The sidewalks this morning were filled with north-bound walkers. All quite aimeable. It was cold, but three layers of long underwear will do you good, i tell ya! And the streets were very friendly.

The word out is that most people are pissed about the strike. That has not all been my experience. And im not even hanging with the radicals these days. These are midtown office cogs from NJ, The Bronx, Queens, Westchester Cty. People empathize with the worker very strongly and at a very human level in this city. It's great. And, though its strong within, it's not just the blue collar workers with the blue collar workers, white collar with white. Lots of very vocal solidarity.

While im not gonna get a chance to zip about the city running errands and to-dos today (or for a little while, it seems), walking a bit more my last week seems like a pretty good plan. And, holy moley, if that's my part right now in supporting the effort for the people to have the power to negotiate with the big, faceless, bad-accountant-totin employers, im all about it.

Fuck the Taylor Law, the phasing out of pensions, and the ever-increasing blame of "letting down Americans/American soldiers" that big buisiness keeps putting on larger efforts for human rights. 8 percent increase in wages is hardly over the standard of living increase, dammit.

Cmon.

Hey! Economics of Access to Reproductive Control!

2005-12-13T18:26:00.000-05:00

This episode of Earth and Sky ran on NPR today. Normally that segment kind of bugs me, but this one's gold. Maybe because it has little to do with the earth or the sky.

JB: This is Earth and Sky. In 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders pledged to cut in half the number of people living in extreme poverty by the year 2015.

DB: They defined extreme poverty as living on less than 1 dollar a day. Maria Jose Alcala co-authored a report called State of the World Population 2005. The report concludes that a key to reducing poverty is to promote gender equality -- women and men sharing the same rights and opportunities.

Maria Jose Alcala: . . . if you invest in equality for women and young people and you insure that every poor woman and adolescent girl has access to reproductive health, you're going to put the world on a faster track for prosperity and development.

JB: Alcala bases this idea on studies by the World Bank and others in the past decade, showing that societies that discriminate by gender tend to experience less rapid economic growth and poverty reduction than societies that treat males and females more equally.

DB: She said that, from 1965 to 1990, the so-called Asian Tigers -- Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore -- had rapid economic growth. International experts attribute part of this growth to policies that encouraged all girls as well as boys to go to school -- increased access to family planning -- and increased job opportunities for women.

Maria Jose Alcala: Progress for women is essentially progress for all.

JB: That's our show. We're Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.
Author(s): Marc Airhart

i've figured it out a bit

2005-12-12T20:26:00.000-05:00

yes.

this cold thing.

here's something: cold weather is worst in driving towns.

it is.

and this is because of maybe eight things:

1. you are constantly reminded that it is cold as you move from heated car to frigid out-of-doors, and back. in driving towns. cause yer driving. being reminded that you are in a kind of hell is no fun. and no fun is bad.

2. your metabolism is way lower due to sitting on yer ass for months and eating foods that we were meant to hibernate with in our bellies. low metabolisms make you feel slumpy and gross. feeling slumpy and gross is no good.

3. you are not able to get into the "mood" of the season as easily cause you are, literally, watching it through windows (house, car), and not forced to mentally prepare and be out in to either enjoy it, cope with it, or die. not being able to get in the mood is usually unfortunate and bad.

4. people drive like idiots in inclement weather, and, from what ive noticed, this impacts other drivers much more than it does pedestrians. like the driver in denver (a driving city) this weekend who backed their stupid suv into the side of my little seafoam green rental car right where my momma was sitting. having that happen is bad. and being nervous that it might happen, or that you might do it, is also bad. yeah. bad. (everyone's ok. car's smashed in, but all else is well!)

5. depending on yer lifestyle, you may not see people in non-work/non-bar environments for months in driving towns during the dark, cold season. that's pretty much a sad existence. like pathetic sad. and pathetic sad existences are no good.

6. you have to focus closer on things in driving towns to keep from slipping on the ice in poorly maintained sidewalks/parking lots/driveways, as well as in your car. this, added to all of the close focusing you might already be doing at your deadend desk job at work, is very bad for you (im a big, BIG fan of "focusing far" these days. with yer eyes. literally. big fan.) and bad for you is just bad.

7. you have convinced yerself in driving towns that you need to drive to get places. so, when it's really nasty out (or even pretty nasty out), you can get all stressed out about being trapped. imagining small worlds does not always make for fun rides and worlds of cheer (after all). in this case, small, small worlds are bad.

and 8. you walk way less in cold weather in driving towns than in those that driving is either not necessary or not possible. because of this, you don't cross paths with folks as much, or have nice surprises on your way places that you can do more than honk and wave or point a mittened hand to in response. not walking is bad for the heart. and for the head. and for everything around them. it keeps people separated. nature's own version of the cubicle. bad bad bad.

so that.

sorry to not write more sooner. was outta town this weekend for sis's dance company performance in a driving city. back now. was good!

wishing you luck on the knish hunt. thanks for all the updates from last week!

December 9: I am spoiled.

2005-12-09T18:43:00.000-05:00

Man, I got problems. You know how I bought earphones for to use in my office, and I was loving the sound? I still love the sound, but I am hating the earphones. I got the kind that sort of sit on your ears and wrap around the back of your head, because I can't get the kind that go into your ears to stay, you know, in my ears, and apparently only a lamechuck fool wears the kind that go over your head anymore. But at least the headband kind were adjustable. These round-the-back earphones were clearly designed for people who have no hair, because the earpieces barely reach my ears if I put them over my hair. If I put the band part under my hair, the hair pushes down on the phones and they make my ears hurt. And then there's their vise-like grip. It's like a vise!

We got about five inches of snow yesterday, and for the moment, it's quite pretty. I very nearly got in an accident leaving work, but all's well that ends well on that end. I hear you're getting A LOT of snow. Hope it's pretty and not too cold!

December 8: Snow!

2005-12-08T18:33:00.000-05:00

We've had about 4 inches of snow and are expecting to get 2 inches more, I got a new car battery, and the Beatles are all over the radio. Except for the murder part of that, I'm having a pretty good day!

ROCK REPORT: The Redwalls

2005-12-08T18:19:00.000-05:00

I hadn't really heard of the Redwalls before the show, but my friend Hammer suggested we go, and I'm never one to turn down an invitation. So we went.

It was an inauspicious beginning. I came straight from tap, so I was already a little weirdy and irritable. [Apparently I'm not aggressive enough for tap, but that's a whole other and boring story.] Laura was late. It was very, very cold. I sat at the bar on the non-show side for about 10 minutes before either Laura or a bartender showed up. I sat there, sweaty from tap, wearing too many layers from the cold, not drinking, and feeling very middle-aged about it all, with my crankiness and my liquor and my sensible warm clothes.

I am pleased to report that Laura did show up, the liquor did kick in, and the bands did rock. Lorenzo Goetz opened, and I have to say: they really are a very fun band. Considering how laid-back most of their songs are, it's surprising how energetic their show is. The one guy has let his hair grow out, and it looks kind of like what I think my hair would look like if I tried to get a short bob cut, by which I mean kind of crazy. LG is apparently rather popular with the Planet set. That's nice to see.

We moved closer to the stage, just for a minute, but ended up staying there throughout LG and then through the Redwalls. Yay! Many of my friends say they're too old for standing now, so I either end up sitting at the very back, or ditching them.

Lights go up, lights go down, Redwalls take the stage. They look like an MTV2 band--very pale, very bedhead, very leather-jackets-and-cool-shoes. Except...their keyboard player, who looks a whole lot like Scott Ligon. Holy carp, it is! It IS Scott Ligon!

Scott used to be in this fantastic band called the Heatersons we used to see at SOP's in Peoria, then in this fantastic band called the Ligonaires we used to see at the Iron POst, then did a fantastic radio show on the Whip. Robbie Fulks asked him to reunite the Heatersons for his 40th birthday gala in Chicago, and that may have been the last time we saw him. He pops up now and again playing with some Bloodshot band or other. He rocks the organ, loves the Beatles, and always looks like he's have a whale of time. That's neat.

So Scotty's playing pianorgan, or organo, or some hybrid of piano and organ that is most likely known as a "keyboard." The Redwalls--who could practically be Scotty's kids, or at least his substantially younger brothers--commence the rock. It is good. They have kind of a nice Beatles-y garagey sound. (They sound so Beatlesy, in fact, that they eventually busted out "The One After 909." Which was very good.) The show overall was very fun, and the crowd was very bearable--we even made one kind of friend out of the guy standing beside us, though we never got around to asking something so banal as his name. And then the Redwalls Just Said No to encores, and the whole thing was over by 12:30. For a Tuesday, that's fine by me.

I wish I had more to say about them, but that's about all I've got. The end.

SubZero!

2005-12-07T13:48:00.000-05:00

Yay! Our first sub-zero day. Last night it got down to -4, shattering the previous record low of 0. It is awesome. (I say from my heated office, to which I drove in my heated car.)

It is noon.
It is 3 degrees.
Temperature last year at noon on December 7: 52.

Remember how I was all "I'm not digging the cold this year"? I'm so over that. Bring it on!

A Feast at the Video Diner

2005-12-06T18:30:00.000-05:00

The Video Diner they showed on Sunday (or Saturday? I'm not sure) was fantastic. All local bands' videos. Which is a little weird, to be watching videos and suddenly think "Hey! That guy overcharged me for my coffee yesterday!"

Since Video Diner probably doesn't play in New York (although it totally should), a rundown for you.

1. American Minor, ”Buffalo Creek." Very nice, very stylish and slick and professional looking. It's very Rob-focused, though. Bruno gets to swing past in shadowy profile about twice, Bud gets some nice guitar-man shout-outs. It looks very well done. And they look very tough.

2. Lorenzo Goetz, "Never Look Directly into the Disco Ball." Video Diner re-run! Boo! I'll cut them some slack, though. I like this song. This video looks fine on its own, but coming up after the MTV2 flash of American Minor's video it feels extra locally made. Still nice, though. Hey! That one guy doesn't have a beard! When didn't he have a beard?

3. Poster Children, "Western Springs." Also a rerun. I love this video and this song. It's all retro home movies and car-window landscapes, while the poster kids sing very flat affect and deadpan along the bottom. The song is all "I want to get back home, where I'm good and life's good and all this weirdiness is gone," but the faces are like "I am dead inside." And then die-cut Jim goes zipping all along the border like a draw-back racecar.

4. Mad Science Fair, "....". I forgot to note the name of the song. The video is pretty cool, cartoony and pipe-cleanery and storytellingy. But, oh, dear. They've used commas inappropriately in the title screens. I'm sorry to have to report that, but there it is.

5. i:scintilla, "....". I forgot to note this song title, too, and VD is apparently pretending this episode never happened, as their website lists the last episode as early November. I thought I had seen i:scintilla, but apparently that was some other band, because these people are not at all familiar to me. The song seems to have been used in a movie? And I'm guessing some of these scenes come from that movie? Or else they didn't, and they threw in the movie information to confuse us. They sound like that band with that one woman, and I've been trying to think of the name of the band (or the woman, or a song) for about a week with no success, so that's probably as accurate as that's going to get. Anyway. I'm afraid I missed most of this video due to other pressing matters.

6. The Living Blue, "....". Hmm. I could sing you the song, but I have no idea what it's called. Geez. I got to take notes. Oh my gosh! First thing you see is a bit of a crowd to watch them, but there's only one person clear enough to really see. And it's Becka! Hey! Oh, somebody just ripped down a poster for this "show" and it says "The Blackouts." Woman riding bike around Chicago. Band playing while she's riding riding riding. Steve is very perspirey. Joe's got a little mustache. When was that? The bass player is a very shadowy figure--very nice for rotating in new faces. The bike rider gets hit by a car and then becomes Vanishing Ghost Bike Rider, just as a moment before the audience for their "show" became Vanishing Ghost Audience. I'm not sure I get it. The Living Blue is so good, they'll kill you?

Edited to add--It looks like they're playing NYC tonight, should you be bored and desirous of rock.

7. The Beauty Shop. Of course I don't know what this song is, but it's kind of a nice little video of a party out in the country at which the BS put on a little show. Oh, no. No no no no! They start off with a title card with an obvious comma error! This is so sad. If we could perform a comma transplant, using the MSF video as a donor, we could benefit grammatical health all around. They did a great job of making it look like this party was super fun, with all the regular Champaign locals having a hoot and holler. The Blackouts kind of get a two-fer on video exposure, 'cause there sure is a lot of Steve in this one. And a splash of TJ Hunter, which is nice way of rooting the video very firmly in the local scene. Awww.

Yay! Good job all around. Unless we're talking about punctuation. Which I often am. (And hence, why I have no rock video of my own.)

December 6: The Best News Ever

2005-12-06T18:25:00.000-05:00

From Slate:

A study says people who have one alcoholic drink a day are 54 percent less obesity-prone than teetotalers are. (But those with four or more drinks a day are 46 percent more obesity-prone.) Another study indicates that among people who weigh too much or drink too much alcohol, those who drink more than two cups of coffee a day are only half as prone to chronic liver disease. Each study involved more than 8,000 people.

* * *

It's really, really cold here. Like, when you get dressed for work, it's 6. Six degrees of frigidation. Normally I like it to be REALLY cold if it's going to be cold, but dang. It's barely December. I think it's because we went straight from daily highs of 70 to daily highs of 15. On the other hand, it keeps snowing, and it's almost like those winters when we were kids and it snowed so much. What is going on in the universe, that the sun is turning mean on you and the cold is turning mean on me?

The Drink Detective

2005-12-02T18:41:00.000-05:00

I got this forward today, with the added advice to discuss and think. Here's what I think. Discuss?

Drink Detective Advert (Discuss & Think!)

As a woman in today' life style(1) we face(2) the increasing problem of having our drinks spiked. The consequences of this happening can result in drug assisted Date-Rape, robbery and depending on the amount of drug administered even loss of life.(4)

We as women face this each time we go out socially.(5) It is our job to protect ourselves and also enlighten all women(6) too this fast goring national epidemic that is rampant in our collage campuses, university's, high schools, bars and clubs.(7) Also, drink spikers do not only adulterate alcohol drinks, they will spike soft drinks.(8)

What can we do to combat this problem?? And perhaps save one woman from this horror that will haunt her for the rest of her life. I have personally experienced the horror and pain of Date -Rape that still haunts me today.(9)

WayPoint Biomedical offers a product that can identify the presence of illicit drugs in drinks.(10) This product can help protect woman from this insidious crime, by simply testing her drink,(11) and in a matter of 30 seconds she may save herself from the pain of Date-Rape(12)

This revolutionary new tool combats drink spikers, along with providing enhanced public awareness that will truly deter the crime.(13)

The Drink Detective (tm) is no larger then a credit card which will fit easily into your purse. The product will give you quick and accurate results within seconds of testing the drink. Our product can detect up to 60 known date-rape drugs. Priced affordably(14) and with a wealth of supportive data through our website www.drinkdetectiveusa.com, you can easily see the advantages of having such a product in your possession.(15)

Please find enclosed our tri-fold brochure detailing the Drink Detective
(tm) product and please contact me directly for further information or a sample

********

Grrrrr, this pisses me off.
+ 1. Yes. The one monolothic lifestyle of "today' woman." (Interesting sidenote: British statistics indicate 15% of reported drugged-drink incidents are reported by men.)
+ 2. I'm just going to overlook the fact that it reads as though it were written by an entrepreneurial eighth grader.
+ 3. I particularly like the use of facts and evidence to support the claims here.
+ 4. Whoa. Are you getting scared?
+ 5. Each time! Whether or not you're drinking things! EACH TIME! Scared yet?
+ 6. That's...a really big job that I didn't know I had. It is my job to enlighten all women? That's a piss-poor paying line of work, I think.
+ 7. I'm must look beyond homonym and apostrophe abuse, because the problem--it is fast-goring! Like a quick-headed bull! I rather like that one.
+ 8. Don't think you're safe if you don't drink alcohol! You are never safe! If you ever consume liquids, you are in serious danger and it is your JOB to protect yourself! But how? If only there were some way! Something I could, perhaps, purchase! Bonus points, though, for the excellent use of "adulterate."
+ 9. I, yes I, anonymous copywriter, have experienced the horror of Date- Rape, so you should trust me, whoever I am.
+ 10. Wait--you mean there's something out there that would allow me to do my JOB of protecting myself, aside from paying attention to my drinks and surrounding myself with supportive and watchful people?
+ 11. Using a pipette to draw 5 drops of liquid, to be dropped onto three separate test strips.
+ 12. So...if all women had this product, date rape would be a thing of the past? Because I thought our job was to protect ourselves from the insidious crime of drink-spiking. But since the two are apparently synonymous, clearly, the way to end date rape is to NOT DRINK LIQUIDS OR EAT FOOD. Anymore. Then there's no more date rape. Fantastic! Oh, wait. No. Be scared! Very scared! This is not fantastic at all!
+ 13. Exactly...how? Does it do public speaking engagements in high schools? Does it kick drink spikers in the kneecaps? Because I'm guessing if you pull out the test tubes and whatnot, the drink spiker would have a sudden spasm that just might knock your drink to the floor. Or an intense urge to use the bathroom. Or...to just pick you up and haul you to the shed behind the party, to beat you senseless. Of course, when you regain consciousness, maybe people will see the bruises and their awareness will be raised.
+ 14. $7.99 a pop, if you buy 12; $7.75 per, if you buy 24; $7.50, if you buy 36. Those are the only quantities available from their website, for a respective total (before shipping and handling) of $95.88, $186, or $270 for the value-priced 36 pack.
+ 15. I won't even bother with the purse and credit card crap, but I can't believe they spelled out right there in the ad that the website contains "supportive data." Wait--you mean it doesn't include nonsupportive data? I checked the website, and what is not there is any information on the percentage of rapes, acquaintance or otherwise, that involve date rape drugs. The scientific report offers some acknowledgment that while it is suspected "drug rape" is on the rise, statistics regarding such incidents are a bit fuzzy because victims often don't remember the events.
Some of the "supportive data" that IS found in the report: drinks containing skimmed milk, Bailey's, or tonic give false positives, while sherry may give a false negative. So that guy who bought you a gin and tonic, the one you just "exposed" as a drug rapist? Should have insisted on rum and coke, I guess.
Also interesting: the USA/Canada website does have some helpful information on what to do if you think you have been drugged; the British website doesn't.

Conclusion: WOMEN! You are never safe! So buy our crap and protect yourself!

* * *

It's nice that there IS a product available, I guess--apparently there's been a call for it for some time--but geez Louise it bugs me to see women's legitimate fear of being assaulted, or people's fear of crime in general, used to hawk expensive crap. If I can afford to spend an extra 8 bucks with every drink I consume, I guess I can afford to buy my own damn drinks and keep an eye on them. Unless I get distracted by my portable bar-top chemistry lab, I guess. Plus, this whole implication that date rape is something that only happens when women are incapacitated by drugs is repellent. I tried to find some statistics on what percentage of acquaintance rape involves non-intentional drug use, but all signs point to "that info is so not going to exist," that I guess I can't fault Drink Detective (tm) for not including it. Nonetheless, I'd bet my buttons that most rapes involve a lot more coercion and manipulation and force than they do GBH. (Several sites also pointed out that one known risk factor for rape is poverty. But who wouldn't pay $7.99 for security?)

I'm certainly not against preventing sexual violence, or even plain old forced drug use--which, as I recall is what this product is ACTUALLY for. Relating rape and drugged drinks for education and prevention might be useful; conflating the two into one synonymous thing is a disservice. Conflating them to make a buck is reprobate.

December 2: Scattershot!

2005-12-02T13:09:00.000-05:00

I'm a little unfocused right now, so you're liable to get a whole lot of snippets of incoherent things that pop in my head for a while. Like this!

I don't usually wear perfume, but this morning as I was leaving the house I grabbed my Demeter Cinnamon Toast cologne and sprayed it liberally. By the time I got to work I'd forgotten about it, but now every so often I get a whiff of baked goods and think "Mmmm... somebody brought treats!" Then I'm disappointed to find it's just me. But then I'm delighted I smell so damn tasty.

* * *

I've been playing the acoustic a lot lately. I believe I have now mastered "The Saints Go Marching In." Also the Volga Boatman, that droning funerally like song that indicates you're marching to your death. Oh yeah. I'm a rockstar. A cinnamon-toast smelling, death dirge droning rockstar.

More nothing

2005-12-01T18:34:00.000-05:00

Oh--almost forgot.

Last night I dreamed I was sitting in a big round booth at a bar, a lot like the old Les's Lounge, with all the good old crowd around. All of a sudden you and Sp. came running up, all breathless and laughing, to tell me the following joke:

You: Knock knock!
Me: Who's there?
You: Bowl of soup!
Me: What kind of soup? I mean, Bowl of soup, who?
You: I don't know! I don't know any knock knock jokes!

Thank goodness you're funnier than my subconscious.

December 1: A whole lot of nothing.

2005-12-01T18:25:00.000-05:00

First real snow of the year! It was 67 degrees 10 days ago, and suddenly it feels like the dead of winter. I mean, the LIFE of winter! Winter is fun! Winter is...eh, you'll never believe that anyway.

* * *

Last Wednesday I called for the annual pre-Thanksgiving happy hour at the Esquire. After several drinks, we moved over to M&M's, where we ran into a crowd of great people we hadn't seen in a long time, most of whom were well on their way to drunkenness (or, in some cases, fully arrived). After we'd been there about an hour I suddenly realized I didn't seem to have my purse anymore. (Guess which one? My fantastic not-a-Prada just does NOT want to be my bag. I think it knows that nobody would believe I was carrying Prada anyway.)

I dashed back to the Esquire to see if I'd left it there. As soon as I walked in Neighbor kind of gave a wave of alert.
Me: "Oh, great, you have my bag?"
Neighbor: "Yeah. And...I, uh, talked to your mom."

He'd got the phone number off my checkbook, which is my parents' phone number because I've been too busy for the last 14 years to change my checks. That was a very kind and thoughtful gesture, which I figured I'd hear about in great alarmed-ness at Thanksgiving dinner.

Of course it didn't take that long. My mom called me right after the bar called her, all "Someplace called 'the Scriber' just called and they've got your purse! And you're supposed to drive tomorrow! I just hope they're still open..." Then she called again at 7:30 in the morning, to make sure I'd played the messages. (Which: damn, mom, 7:30? But also, good call on the message-playing.) All is well. Safely rest.

* * *

Decatur teachers are on strike, and "people are confused why," according to WILL. Maybe because they want to work in buildings that aren't falling down on them. Anyway, I woke up today to the sound of my 8th-grade algebra teacher in my bedroom. That's never good.

* * *
Today the Chief Wants: "Come Monday," Jimmy Buffet
"Jet," Wings
Maybe the chief wants to get away from us.

November 22: Laundry List

2005-11-22T18:31:00.000-05:00

Last night I went to the Laundromat. (Did you know that's a brand name? I guess I technically went to a generic clothes laundering center.) I kept putting it off and putting it off, to the point that last week I actually just washed some shirts in the bathtub to avoid going. But I couldn't put it off any longer and still avoid doing laundry at my parents' house (generously offered, but leaves one's clothes reeking for weeks of perfumey fabric softener and the acrid, unyielding taste of GPC Ultralight 100s). So I went and did 10 loads of laundry ($18.25!), and most of the time I was the only one there except the owner.

Maybe he's the owner. He's ALWAYS there. Sometimes he does pushups on the counter in that way you do when you've been trapped in one little space for half your life. He commented on how hard I was working today! I do laundry very fast! (Which is true. I was.)

It made me wish I was like Santa Claus in the old Miracle on 34th street, when he starts talking Dutch to the little girl. I wished I could answer him in Chinese and we could have had a happy surprise conversation about who left this Kleenex in the dryer, and why would people wash cashmere in a washing machine. But I'm no santa claus, so we just kind of made very short nodding comments and went about our business.

November

2005-11-15T23:34:00.000-05:00

Today, as i stepped from my bar stool directly outside the Lotus for a cigarette, i was again struck with a wave of appreciation for the season that is upon us.

It is November 15 -- the middle of fucking November -- and coats are optional.

And though i have prepared myself to try to start digging the winter weather a bit more with the help of friendly winter fashions (borrowing the Sadoublelizzy method), i think what we are in is simply outstanding.

i like warm Novembers. It is easy to get around, and welcoming to be out in, especially after dark. Which usually is the case after work. And not feeling like the day should be over when you drag yerself home from stupid work simply because it's dark and it's cold and because hibernation instincts lie close to our genetic surfaces is a very good thing.

The warm November, i like her very much.

i am off to Austin tomorrow, and PR next week, so it's not that i am lacking for warm weather. But, "the more sunshine, the better" i say. Yes, i do.

So shine on, you crazy product-of-global warming diamond! Shine on!!

Why don't they play what the LISTENERS want?

2005-11-14T19:15:00.000-05:00

A few months back, our oldies station became a "whatever" station. In most radio markets, these are called "Jack" stations, and there's this whole marketing schtick that Jack don't play by no corporate radio rules, and nobody's telling Jack what he has to play (which is, of course, a total lie; these are corporate stations, and I guarandamntee you won't hear Black Flag or Old 97s or--god forbid--some unknown local band on a Jack station. Whatever. I digress.).

Champaign's whatever station, though, is SO badass that there's no Jack behind the scenes. It's so badass, we have the Chief picking the music. And as the tagline says about 725,657 times an hour, "the chief plays what the chief wants!"

It's obnoxious and pointed and defiant, but it's also really pretty hilarious, because what the chief--the badass chief who don't play by nobody's rules and you can't tell him what to play because he's the freakin CHIEF, beeyotch--wants to play? Smooth hits of the 70s and 80s, mostly. It's all in weirdly in-your-face and aggressive, and then he busts out with some Carly Simon.

And so, at the suggestion of S-to-the-A, we begin an occasional ten-second feature: What the Chief Wants.

Today, the chief wants to flashdance. Also, he would very much prefer it if Ricky did not lose that number.

5 Bad Names for Your New Baby Boy

2005-11-11T20:12:00.000-05:00

1. Adolph
2. Ashley, Stacy, Leslie, or, for most babies, Cary
3. Gaylord
4. Uranus
5. Tom Cruise

ROCK REPORT: Alejandro Escovedo

2005-11-10T19:08:00.000-05:00

I was worried that, after his recent serious illness and his very slow, sad last album and the addition of an orchestra section--an ORCHESTRA section--that Alejandro Escovedo might be laying off the rock.

I was wrong.

Escovedo worked the HighDive last night in fabulous fashion. He took the stage looking very very much as if he might pull some notecards out of his blazer pocket and begin delivering a lecture on the economics of Peru's market culture. But it was not to be, for he had a little lesson to deliver on the art of rockin' it punk-gone-country-gone-symphonic.

The stage was almost as crowded as the audience, sad to say, with a cellist, a violinist, a guy on pedal steel and Apple ibook, a drummer, Alejandro and his guitars, a bass player, and a lead guitarist. (Apparently, they've been playing with two cellists and two violins, but left one set at home.) The sound was fantastic (but too loud. It's always too loud, but maybe they were planning for more people to be there soaking up the sound). They brought their own sound guy and thanked him repeatedly.

The music was awesome--some of the slower stuff, but lots of big, lush, forceful, intense stuff too. It wasn't raucous, or boisterous, really, just intense. And beautiful and loud, and the flimsy hollow floor of the HD resonated like a hundred people were jumping up and down on it, but it was just the music.

The crowd did get a bit bigger, but it never did get very crowded at all. And the crowd was pretty good, as a crowd--not too much talking, hardly any smoking, not too much of the general ass-hattery you see at shows. I saw quite a number of people I like to see at a show. Amanda, Door Vixen of MnMs, and I had a mutual appreciation moment dedicated to the pleasantness of seeing each other at all kinds of the good shows. Overall: Grade A evening. Plus, early show, so we were out of there by 10:30 (and the tanktop dancing kids were in by 11:00. It's distressing that the show turnout was so poor, and we were all nodding along like "yeah, well, Wednesday, you know, it's cold, can't expect too much... and then all these people come out at 11:00 dressed in way too little to just hang out to a mediocre DJ.)

Anyway. Alejandro. Jolly good show.

November 10: It's a slow day.

2005-11-10T18:18:00.000-05:00

EAT BUNNY DUST LEROY!

Buuuurn! I love that. This, written in soap on my coworker's car, only makes sense in Central Illinois.

* * *

The other night I shut down my room in the office and strolled out to find a giant mouse sitting placidly in the hallway. It was right at the intersection of two main hallways, right outside the breakroom, right below the main light switch, and right in my path to the door. There was no way to skirt around it. And the damn thing would NOT move. I mean, it would move a little bit--lift its head, turn around, wave at me--but would not just politely get the hell out of my way.
I hate mice. My mom was seriously, insanely mouse-phobic, and it's not so much that I'm scared of them as that they just sort of piss me off with a combination of revulsion, incredulity at their brazenness in entering MY area, and...okay, fear. Fear that they will freak out when I pass by them and, in a disoriented frenzy to get out of the way, run right up my pants leg. I'm not worried about disease, or that they'll bite, or anything--I just want them to stay the hell out of my pants.
So I stomped around a little. Didn't move. I shouted at it. Didn't move. I considered throwing something at it, but the only thing I had handy was my keys, and if I threw them I'd just have to go get them back from mouse town. It was a real pickle. Finally I did what any normal rational adult would do: I went out through the warehouse door, walked around the building, came back in the front door, and reported to Nancy, the only remaining coworker that there was a MOUSE in the HALLWAY, and that I was leaving it there and going home. Which I then did, imagining the shock I would cause the next day when I reported that we have a mouse! In the house! By the breakroom!
But Nancy beat me to it. When the first employees arrived Wednesday, the following sign was posted on the facilities guy's door in beautiful Headline News fashion:
Mouse Dying in Hallway

So, to recap: I'm a wuss, we have mice, and they are properly mourned.

i can't talk to you today!

2005-11-10T13:37:00.000-05:00

oh, i can.

i just got hit by a little bitta snotty, and felt like writing that to no one in particular.

well, i did forget my cell phone at home, and, with travels to tulsa in a few hours, won't have it for the next few days, so maybe that snotty was on to something.

or maybe not.

off to be with the okies! happy thursday!

YOU CAN'T TALK TO ED!

2005-11-08T18:44:00.000-05:00

Because he's on All Things Considered RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE, talking about tornadoes in general and the Evansville tornado in particular. Ed! Kieser! on national NPR!

Dang. He's not just ours, Downstate Illinois's Only Full-Time Radio Meteorologist, anymore. Now he belongs to America.

Today, I am free!

2005-11-03T18:58:00.001-05:00

When I took this particular job position, I committed to staying in it for two years.

It's my second anniversary.

It's not that I'm planning on quitting tomorrow, but I feel like I COULD. I feel released. I mean, I know I could have done it six months ago, or 13 months ago; they don't own me. Nonetheless. I feel like I'm all paid up, like I paid the check and now I'm just sitting here, enjoying my coffee, and when I'm done with that, I can just stand up and walk on away.

Yay.

Should have put more water in his soup, maybe.

2005-10-14T20:26:00.000-04:00

From UCIMC.org, via WILL AM580:

Sad News: Local Radio Personality "Oldtimer" Kent McConkey Dies

Longtime country music enthusiast and radio personality Kent McConkey dies last night. Known as the "Oldtimer," McConkey was a regular DJ on both WEFT and WWHP and was know for his down home style, as well as a wide circle of listerners who called in requests to him. He will be missed.

This is, coincidentally, WEFT pledge drive week. I heard the news during the local break on NPR, All Things Considered.

When I first moved to town I used to lie on my bed and listen to the Old Timer on Saturday nights on WEFT. He cracked me up. I was lying there one night during WEFT pledge week, and the Prairie Dogs were playing outside the station. The Old Timer was going on, "Come on, neighbor, light up those phones, let me know you're out there!" and I decided to just go on down there and drop off a pledge. It was when I was just starting to come out of my shell a little bit, and the idea of just getting in my car and driving to a radio station and seeing a band and a crazy, wobbly old DJ seemed like high advneture, indeed. I kind of think of that as the start of the turnaround for me, when I started to be more out in the world instead of lying on my bed listening to records on Saturday nights.

He thanked me kindly and proceeded to tell the radio audience how "Roberta" had just come right to the station with a pledge, and they should do just like "Roberta" did. I didn't correct him. But from then on I'd call in every once in a while and tell him Roberta was listening.

On behalf of the Old Timer, Kent McConkey: Don't forget, put more water in your soup, milk in your gravy, and syrup on your pancakes. You'll be alright.

You saying Jesus Christ can't hit a curveball?

2005-10-13T19:10:00.000-04:00

I know you don't really care too much about this, but writing this out will make me feel better about the amount of time I'm wasting watching baseball. Some strung-together (but not strung-out! yet!) thoughts on the first two nights of the playoffs:

1. What is UP with the Angels' batting helmets? Has an acid drip developed over home plate? Are they scuffing them up with a belt sander before the game to make themselves look tougher? Are they renting them out to coal miners in the off-season to use as pith helmets?

2. Potentially Bogus Call #1: Running outside the base path. He...ran right down the base path. He stepped squarely on the bag. There could certainly be something I'm not seeing there, because I thought this rule was called mainly on 6-year-olds who duck the tag by running to the outfield, but...hmmm.

3. Why do McCarver and Buck keep coming back to haunt me? It would be one thing if they talked about, I don't know, THE GAME, but the constant storytelling on hypotheticals and things that happened at batting practice three weeks ago...feh.

4. Last night, Cardinals v. Astros. The dirt cam is always weird, but it's kind of awesome at Busch. With the dirt in the lower frame and the lit-up, arch-y* windows in the upper frame, it looks a whole lot like a set of giant teeth fixing to chomp down on the batters. Go, Busch, go! Take 'em ALL out!
* I've been to Busch a million times and never realized until right now that the columns are arches. Arches! In St. Louis! How clever!

5. Most inappropriately funny out-of-context broadcaster blather of the night: "They were banging Carpenter all over the stadium last week."

6. Second most inappropriately funny out-of-context broadcaster blather of the night: "It's not that you squeeze, it's that you squeeze, like, seven times. I hate that."

7. Could the Fox broadcast team have given less coverage of the ALCS game? I saw one game update in the first inning, then...nothing. Just the score. Don't these people talk to each other?

8. And then, when the Cards FINALLY wrapped up the carnage, we switch over to the ALCS game just in time to see the whole debacle of Potentially Bogus Call #2, which, lets face it, could fairly accurately be reduced to just Bogus Call. I mean, the ump's just doing his job, and the batter's just doing his job, but come on. That's winning, but it's winning ugly, and the Sox seem to get by on that fairly regularly. I keep telling myself that at this point, I'm in it for the baseball, man, and the best teams should be the ones in the Series, and this year, that's the Cards and the Sox. But watching them makes me feel dead inside. I want to root for them--Midwest, represent!--but they make it so stupidly hard to like them sometimes.

9. Oh--I nearly forgot. Dear GOD, who created that creepy condescending cartoon baseball? Get off my screen, curvy.

That's it. We'll see how it goes from here.

You're no good for me, im no good for you

2005-09-30T02:00:00.000-04:00

more than just American Woman-guised anti-war talk. Though it's true with that too. ENOUGH WAR! BRING TROOPS HOME, AND DEOCCUPY IRAQ! ok.

Cold weather is coming.

It's chilly here. i hear it's really cold and dark in Champaign now

Leaving work a few hours ago, I passed more people on 5th Avenue wearing coats than not. From June until late September, New York nights are beautifully balmy, short-sleeved affairs. You could sleep on the roof through early fall if you didn't mind being woken up by those little kids in one of many windows of one of the many surrounding buildings who yell "Hey, white lady!" "Hey, Chinese lady!" at you almost every time you're up there.

Tonight at the Lotus, there is not a bare arm in sight.

i've been working late a lot lately. It is a big job. And i am a Sissiphus in the City. After at least three months strewn with way too many 9 and 10pm check outs, I am going to make a point to leave, from here on out, by 6:30 at the latest. Capricorn and stupid futile idealism aside, i should give only so much of myself to this effort.

i was thinking today about how they let you smoke in airports in Spain. There are signs and periodic announcements that ask you kindly to consider only doing so in the designated smoking area, but no one pays any mind to them. People walk through termials trailing smoke, while others create small personal cirrus clouds over themselves in slow moving ques. The chairs in the central taped-off smoking areas sit empty, looking stikingly like evidence-cleared crime scenes. To cross the line seems like it would bring with it an assured indictment from society. Spain, with strong anarchist streak, is a smart country made up of independent thinkers. They're not buying it.

I guess I bring this up because i miss smoking these days. New York has effectively outlawed the sale of all French cigarettes, so, though I partake in less than 2 cigarettes a week on a normal, no-visitor week these days, being cut off to my supplier has fucked up my stability and made me a little desparate-feeling. My original plan, soon after Jolie passed away and i decided to give up giving up cigarettes, was to go back to only smoking foreign fags, since, based on no research at all, they get less cancers there. Now, my brand is banned. And i think of Spain. And of her. And of weird things.

Tomorrow, probably, i will close my bedroom window. This summer, the tree next to our flat grew like wildfire. and some mutant, tenacious branch moved from just barely crossing into my fire escape to snaking its way past and through my open window. Up until last week, the bough worked its way through the poorly affixed widow screen into my bedroom. From there, it climbed up the inner window frame, and moved quickly across my ceiling. It was pretty amazing, growing inches every day, and pushing its way into possibly interesting spaces, like the bookshelf. It was a curious foilage. Unfortunately, it also scattered a ton of dead leaves everywhere. My housemate's shopping habits find us with more than enough fruit flies in our apartment to feel the need to welcome in other tree-bourne critters. So, with some effort, i cut the bough back. The main branch dropped a bit in the process. What's left on the other side of my window now covers my nakedness to the outside with a really nice arch of leaves. Looks really lovely.

Leaving Pleasantville with Woody Harrelson

2005-09-25T23:06:00.000-04:00

Leaving Pleasantville with Woody Harrelson

So, im on the Metro North train earlier this afternoon, going from Chappaqua to Union Station, when Woody Harrelson walks on with a young kid. Yeah, Woody Harrelson from Cheers and later of stud movie fame (which i always found weird).

It's 2 in the afternoon on Wednesday, the last day of summer. As one person to a row goes, the train is pretty full. Everyone's reading their New Yorker mags and newspapers, taking up their line of seats, and keeping to themselves as we pull away from the Pleasantville, NY station (this is really the town's name).

Some glance at the pair as they walk by. Only one passenger gives a double-take. Nobody says anything.

Woody sits down in the first row of the car, the one closest to the lavoratory. Kid tumbles in behind him. The train glides on, passing trees and ambling fences and patient glossy black Jaguars at the crosstracks. Just another day riding the rails with Woody Harrelson.

i think the ride to the city would have been kinda grossly self-ingratiating and cosmopolitan-feeling if, after a few minutes, we didn't have our attention called out of our own space by Woody Harrelson, himself, who had left his chair as is pounding on the bathroom door.

BAM BAM BAM!! "What are you doing in there!" he bellows, in that way that you would imagine Woody Harrelson bellowing, all puffed chest and coke-eyed and heady whine.

He waits a second, then returns to his seat.

After a moment, a growling voice from behind the bathroom wall calls out "Who's knockin?" This taunt from beyond noticibly startles the car -- i see the shoulders raise and brow furl on the man across the row from me, as he pulls his Wall Street Journal closer.

To this, a young woman seated across from the facilities responds "Me," as Woody jumps up and moves back toward the door. "I'm knocking!" he sing-songingly swagers in return, again with the whiney bellow. "There's people waiting out here. You've been in there for like an hour. What the hell are you doing in there?"

"Changing," the male responds, his voice a bit more quiet and much less growly now than when he first addressed the car.

"Changing?" Woody repeats, and pauses, shrugging his shoulders and looking around with a look of sheer alacrity. "You're changing?" No answer comes. "Well, that's great, now. You're changing," he shoots back at the door, tugging at the collar of his baby blue t-shirt and swaggering side to side, squaring off his stance. He is the only one in the car standing. The only one speaking. i feel the train car shrink around him as he continues. It's a morphing akin to what cameras do to gun fighters before "draw!" is called in the showdown scene-- zooming in quickly down the negligible ghost town street until only the fighter fills the screen. Woody Harrelson is larger than life at the moment. And he's ready for a fight.

"That is just rude. You can tie your tie out here. This woman has been waiting patiently out here forever while you're in there changing?" As he speaks, the pitch of his voice raises in clear anger.

He's now yelling at the door, and has moved in so close that it nearly touches his forehead.

"You know what? You're rude." "You're a rude asshole!" he calls as he turns and sits back down in his chair and returns to the beeping electronic game he's been playing with the kid. "Rude asshole," he calls.

This is, now, undeniably a full-blown "scene." A full-blown "scene" featuring Woody Harrelson.

"A rude asshole is in the bathroom right now!" he announces loudly for the last time as he adjusts his position and leans back, twittering video game sounds adding an other-worldly, off-beat punctuation to his final proclamation.

It is at this point that i scan the train looking for a film crew. This seems just too, too weird to be happening on its own volition. i mean, i know everyone has a right to act or act out within the public sphere, famous or not. And it's absolutely lovely to see someone stand up in defense of somebody else. This needs to happen more. But this is just over the top. Well beyond the scope of how normal interpersonal rapport goes, especially in over-crowded New York where things that piss you off are always there, but are usually rolled with or ignored. It's so confrontational, it seems like it must be fake.

Yeah, by this time, i am pretty sure all this is staged for some "how i embarassed my famous friend with the help of gratuitous Hollywood access to public spaces and utilities" punk'd-like show. It's also possible that it's all for an even more contrived plot- or character-development driven scene in a flick about an ex-steroided athlete/on-the-surface angry guy who, underneath it all, is really a very human teddy bear of a softie just waiting for Drew Barrimore's character's lovin.

If that's not happening, though, i am sure that at any moment someone is going to burst out of the bathroom with a machete and hack each of us into little pieces. This is still New York.

i am unable to locate any cameras, so i slowly repack my reading material, gather up my bag, and ease my feet back into my heels, readying myself to flee whatever craziness is sure to follow in the wake of this molitov cocktail-styled diplomacy.

i need to note that, besides the train motions and this increasingly dangerous-feeling exchange, the car is absolutely still. No heads turn or pop up to look over other chairs toward the commotion or, at any time, at Woody. No voices join in. Nobody stirs. And, though this is the case, while most of the seats in this section face away from the lavatory, i know that everyone around me is aware of the action goin down. It's all in this very urban-feeling mode: while it is obvious everyone is listening, they continue reading, looking ahead, and keeping firmly within their own space. The whole car is staying out of it, not moving in any way that would signify that they are slightly interested in taking part in this hoo-haw.

It is almost like they are willing themselves to fade into the backdrop, to an innocent, separate, clearly uninvolved part of the setting.

"I'm not here. I'm not here."

Everyone transfixed in this concertedly feigned mass disassociation. Its contribution to the feeling of fear in the car is palateable to me, who, unlike the others, is not nearly so very city slick, and who, by now, is perched up on folded legs with neck craned to watch the interpersonal carwreck unfolding over my headrest.

After a very short while, a tall guy slides open a crack in the bathroom door and immediately darts through it, heading in the other direction. I only catch a quick glimpse of his left shoulder as he jets around the corner. "You ought to be ashamed!" Woody yells after him as tall guy hurries down the aisle away from us. The heavy metal door to the next car moans as it is pulled open, then slams shut with a solid click. "Asshole," Woody breathes. Beeep, zip, beeeep beeep, zup.

Nobody looks up.

Maybe they're just used to it.

! LISTEN CREAKY FORT FAB

2005-09-25T22:54:00.000-04:00

Some posts i put here i wanna put there.

Some posts i put there i wanna put here.

im hoping i will get back to a more regular writing routine that will let me not always double dip. Now that my computer is fixed, i think this will happen But, for now, if you will pardon my less than pure blogging manners, i will be sharing a certified pre-owned entry.

Happy Monday (almost).

The girls go to Mars

2005-09-15T19:30:00.000-04:00

Posted for Amalier:

Thanks, Tornadia. -a

To get the candy bars.

Yeah. My Labor Day wasn't too stupid. Thanks for the thoughtful wish.

Last weekend, though, was a certain delicious degree of craziness.

Coming back on the plane from a long weekend in LA that included a really nice day of surfing with my bud Andy, i decided i really wanted to go camping and surfing out here on the east coast before cold weather took back over. On lovely lady atlantic. In New York. Yeah.

So did some checking around, pulled the tent and sleeping bag we used for Spanish camp outta the closet, and wrangled my roomies into coming along for the weekend.

While originally i had wanted to go out to Montauk (zoom out to see where it is. it's so pretty there.), we decided to go, instead to Fire Island.

No cars are allowed on Fire Island. A soft white sand beach and a thin strip of cute lumpy land cobbled with dunes separates the placid waters of Long Island's Great South Bay from the pummeling coastal waves of the Atlantic. Most people come to the island for the day to swim. Camping is very limited -- 3 sites allowed from the north check point, 4 from the south. It is hike-in/carry-out camping, with the closest site about 2 miles down through dunes or over sand from the ranger's station.

We all decided we would go a few days before the weekend. At that time, since neither roomie had surfed before, we had planned to take a 7am surf lesson on Sunday morning offered by one of the local surf shops. At work on Friday, I called to confirm that the lesson was on. It was. But stopping to get some wine on our way out of town Saturday, I decided to check back again to make sure things were a go, and was told lessons were cancelled due to the rip tide. Blast! .Ophelia.

While rip tides are bad news for beginners, they fill the dreams of hardcore surfers. No teaching would be happening the next morning because all the instructors would be out in the water.

Though this was really sucky news, we decided to stick with our plans.

We got to Fire Island National Park, and checked in with the gentle volunteer ranger, who explained to us a bunch of things that, in choosing to camp, we need to know about. As he thoroughally explained the potential hazards and considerations we had ahead, he wrote down each item on our camp form: "Mosquitos." "Tics." "Poison ivy." "No cutting grasses..." The list went on, with an friendly yet intense reverence and seriousness given to each consideration mentioned and listed. Being happy "Grizzly bears," "Sharks," "Snakes," and "Verbose republicans" were not among the cautions listed, we accepted the list, and were told we could camp anywhere past a certain point behind the first dune off the beach. "You are basically going to be in the middle of nowhere," the ranger stated, and then told us what to do in case of an emergency. Ok. We were ready.

We thanked him, and got back in the Philmobile to take care of some biz. Stopped back in town to get some non-DEETed bug spray (decided on DEET-filled. in the end, the extra toxins were probably a real good choice), checked into the surf shop to make sure no one might reconsider teaching the next morning (nope), or rent us stuff (nope), and headed back to park, gear up, and begin our treck.

After first planning to pitch camp two miles in, we were moved by the savagely mosquito-infested dunes to quickly change our plans near the two mile point, and hike in four miles down the beach to get to a place where Phil knew of a clearing that might house less of the bird-sized blood-sucking swarmers. After a long and increasingly plodding hike along the coast and past the last randomly sunning mahoganied bear nudist, we decided to sit and rest. Facing out at the ocean, sun high and fierce overhead, we dropped our jugs of water, tents, and backpacks, and plopped down upon them to stare out in silence together over the endless water. Huge waves built and quickly broke with brutal downward force in the distance, and directly upon the shoreline, assembly-lined monsters rolling in three times faster than any surf I've seen. CCCRASH! CRAAASH!! CCRRAAAASH!! pssss (sea spray). Just pummeling. We sat under a brilliantly insistent beach sun and just watched. I like my room mates.

After some minutes of very lost-at-sea feeling decompression, we strapped on our supplies and started back, moving from the higher loose sand to the somewhat tighter pack and frequent sea spray near the shore, where we combined our walking with occasional quick scampers up the beach to escape from the frothing Ophelia-bourne runaway wakes. Sideways-running spastic ghost crabs darted from our path like stuck computer cursors, scurrying transparently out of dark holes to slide under delicately Sodona-colored wave-smoothed rocks.

We rested once more, and eventually reached the spot. No such luck with the clearing. Mosquitos undeniably ruled the land. And Ophelia, we clearly saw, ruled the water. We knew we would not fare well with either at night, so we chose to break one of the rules, and camp illegally on the sand. When the last sun bathers packed up and left for the last ferry back to the Long Island mainland, we got to work setting up camp.

Fire Island is a national park. In walking in, once we passed the randomly strewn nudists, we had a good two mile stretch with no one around. Where we landed after passing camped, however, had a bit more life during the day. The Bay side of our campground featured a dock for people to boat in or ferry in and hang out at during the afternoon. A lifeguard is even on duty at the sparcely populated ocean-side beach during the day. At night, though, it was all us. Pretty awesome.

Seeing how randy the surf was on the way in, we considered the possibility that we might get swept out to sea in our tents as we slept when the tide came in at night. But, somehow, that seemed more appealing than the mosquitos waiting to blanket us as we set up camp in the dunes, and buzz in our sleepy ears on off-bites, so we took the risk. We pitched tents, made dinner, drank wine, watched the brilliant stars fill the sky, then went to bed to sleep the sleep of the shipwrecked travelers, far from home.

We were ok and dry in the morn.

Ok. My computer is dead, and im outta the office next week til thurs. i'll write more then. In brief, though:

As mentioned, there was a rip tide, so no surfing was to be done the next day. This was probably for the best, because, the ocean, she was AAAAN-GRY! BIG, HUUUGE waves. And lots of WHAM! KSSSSHST!! crash. CRASHHH! (pssssht.)

After the morning air warmed, Phil and i decided to go for a swim. While Phil got out well, lady ocean atlantic would not let me past the breaks to swim at all. At ALL!

Phil paddled around in deeper water and watched as, four times in a row, HUGE wave walls grew and broke right on top of me as i tried to work my way in, tearing me from my bobbing stance, throwing me backwards into the surf, dragging me head-first in upside down circles across the ocean floor, and holding me down in the calm lower waters as curling, foaming tongues of seething wake lapped towards the beach from above. i could kinda tell what it would be like to drown. Sorta like my vertigo: clear and peaceful and matter-of-fact. Not scary or frantic. Sounds dramatic, and, from what my roomie said, looked pretty awful, but was actually nice (which i do realize is probably not the best instinctual physicial response to perhaps drowning).

Uh, it literally tore my swimsuit off of me twice too. The lifeguard had to come get me out. i felt way wussy getting a lifeguard outta his chair for struggles encountered in the shallows, but it was only Phil and me swimming (well, trying to swim), so my sitch was pretty hard to miss seeing from the shore. An the ocean was seriously kicking my ass. Getting dude's help was trickier than it sounds, though, cause his appearance coincided with one of my suit-losing moments. He called to me to try to stand up. In hearing this, my thoughts in response went something like this: "Hm. Risk drowning in the next wave, or emerge from the waters bottomless?" These are the good, simple questions nature whittles it all down to.

i still have sand in my hair. And up my nose. i also still have both pieces of my suit, too.

Gah. The computer headaches spreadeth... My computer is not posting on Blogger today for some reason, so Tornadia has graciously offered to get this on up. Tornadia -- my hero!

Thanks, T!

Happy weekend

September 12: Life's a Beach

2005-09-13T18:49:00.000-04:00

Saturday I decided to fend off stressed-outedness and an impending cold by going swimming at the beach. It's crazy warm these days, and how many chances will I have left, right? So I drove and drove and drove, through Amish country, past the Dollar General with a hitching post (complete with team and wagon), through S-double-A's hometown, till I finally found my beach. Aaaaaand...it was closed. Having driven all this way, I went back to the other beach, which I had feared would be too crowded. Ha! There were maybe seven other people there. Peace and quiet at last.

I swam around some, but found the water too fishy and dirty and sort of slimy to be really enticing, so I went back up and just sat in the shallows, letting the water push me around Eventually two girls, both about 11 years old, came over and started talking to me. And talking, and talking, and lying through their cherubic preadolescent teeth. Both had nearly drowned, they said--one of them has apparently nearly drowned seven or eight times, to hear her tell of it, but she can hardly be blamed for the time the alligator kept pulling her under water by her swimsuit straps. She just kept on talking:

Girl: One time, when I was little baby, I actually did drown, basically.
Tornadia: Mmmm.
Girl: I was like, [baby voice] ooh, fishies! And I took off the life jacket, like you know, this? And I jumped in the water and nobody noticed. And then I was just sitting on the bottom of the lake, 'cause I was a baby, I didn't know you couldn't do that. I was just sitting like WAY down on the bottom, looking at the fish, and I totally drowned. I like stopped breathing and everything. And everybody was freaking out.
Tornadia: Wow. That's...
Girl: But then my uncle? He got this stick that was like floating by in the water, and he like pounded on my chest with it, and I came back to life.
Tornadia: Oooh, look! Waves! You should totally go play in them.

At some point, Girl B--the non-alligator-drowned one--ran up to get something from her beach blanket. A minute later she came rampaging back down, splashed into the shallows, and said "Um, no offense, but we're not supposed to talk to strangers." I agreed that was a very sensible rule, while Girl A--Revived With A Stick Girl--insisted I was no longer a stranger. "Oh yes I am!" I chirped. "You don't even know my name! Or where I live! Really, a stranger! I'm going to go swim now." So I did. And when I finished paddling the length of the slimy gross water a couple of times, the girls' mother and her boyfriend had rejoined them in the water, where moms was now announcing VERY LOUDLY that she didn't care if it was in CHURCH, because even in church people could turn out to be CHILD MOLESTORS, and she knew there was a CHILD MOLESTOR around because there was a CHILD MOLESTOR at a church in Springfield, I mean of course it was a Catholic church, but they could be anywhere.

So....great! I'll just sit here, watching these boats! Trying to look as non-molestery as possible!

I know I shouldn't take it personally, that she didn't really mean to say that I AM a child predator, just that I COULD BE. Which is, in its most theoretical, entirely true. I kept kind of looking over at her when they first started talking to me, in part because I thought she might rescue me from them, and in part because I thought she'd surely notice and call them off. But she didn't, for a good twenty minutes or so, while she and her skeevy boyfriend made out on the beach.

And the more I though about it, the more it kind of bugged me, because A, she probably IS right that there could be child molesters and children shouldn't talk to strangers, but on the B hand, I was minding my own business when her lying little brats started pestering ME. So how about "Don't talk to strangers, because you might be bugging them? Because seriously, parents of the world should know: When your kids walks up to a stranger sitting alone at lunch, or browsing in a store, or on a beach, and starts yammering away about this one time? when they were little? and they were driving down the street and there was a tornado and it dropped a tree right on top of their car and cut it in half, but it went right between the front seat and the back seat and their mom kept driving and didn't even notice the back seat was chopped off?--well, statistically, the odds are much greater that she just wants to go back to her lunch or shopping or daydreaming than to take your tale-telling kids off your hands.

Oh--and if your kid has nearly drowned, like, 30 times? Or is even just telling people she's drowned? You might want to keep an eye on her at the beach. Or keep a nice life-reviving stick around, I guess.

September 8: Dallas, in brief

2005-09-08T19:45:00.000-04:00

I am returned from Dallas, or the Dallas metro area anyway, where I:

* Watched The Little Mermaid three times
* Sang "The Wheels on the Bus" three kazillion times
* Watched my sister clip and organize coupons for five hours. FIVE. Not hyperbole.
* Attended a princess party for a three-year-old
* Walked the kids to school with all the moms and dads and stroller babies from the street
* Visited the Grassy Knoll of Kennedy assasination fame (infame?)
* Learned to swim the breaststroke, which it turns out I already knew
* Went to a show at a venue called "Billy Bob's," about which you will hear more soon
* Got searched by security in a very hands-on fashion (actually, that was in Bloomington)
* Tried, and failed, to find Airport CNN in an airport bar, or terminal
* Learned this joke: Why did the turkey cross the road?
Answer: Because he's stupid!

Hope your labor day was not stupid.