The OhReally Factor

If you're looking for me....

2006-10-30T11:44:00.000-05:00

I am HERE.

Several people claimed I never put my new link up. I think they're just lazy.

Moving Day

2006-08-03T15:02:00.000-04:00

It's so weird to sit down at the keyboard to write for a second time in the week. It feels like it's been ages since I have done that. I don't want to overwhelm you...

Ok, so earlier this week, I talked about how I'm leaving New York. And today is moving day. Well, we're packing the truck today; driving out tomorrow. It has been hot as Hades this week in New York and I've done little but sweat like a whore in church. To put it into idioms. I hired a couple of guys to come load my stuff into the van this morning and thank the good lord I did that. I am rarely bratty about things, but if there is one thing I am willing to pay people to do, it is pick up my heavy heavy things and take them places for me. I just hate it. And I was sweating just watching them, so I know they were miserable.

It's been kind of weird looking around my apartment the last couple of days because most of the wall hangings belong to me. And I took them down to pack them, and I just keep thinking of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, about how he takes all the knick knacks and trimmings off of everything, and there's only dirt rims from where the stuff hung and wall tacks. Being a vegetarian, I left behind the Roast Beast.

It was a little depressing to wake up in a bare room this morning; even my alarm clock was packed. I love my apartment, and of all the places I've lived in New York, I've resided there the longest. I also love Roommate, with whom I've lived for over three years. I never covered this here, but she left last fall, only to come back this summer and New Roommate (also a great gal) was away for the summer so Roommate moved back in. And there she'll stay to help take over my portion of the lease. I have joked with her that the apartment is so wonderful and the rent so great that it can never leave La Familia. She jokes with me that I'll be back by January, just in time for when New Roommate moves out to move to NC herself. I think we are both secretly serious about our respective jokes.

Anyway, it has been really fantastic to have her back here this summer in my last few weeks as a New Yorker. I haven't actually seen that much of her, because the program she's been doing has had her very busy. But she took some time out last night to help me pack up the kitchen and she was so sweet this morning to go run errands on my behalf (coffee! bagels!! my shoes that needed fixing!) that I didn't realize how much I'd miss her until right before I walked out of the living room. She was sitting on the couch and I was gathering up all those last minute little things that somehow never find their way into a box, and I stopped for a quick minute. And I looked down at her and we both just started to cry. Still, I can't really seem to wrap my head around the fact that today is my last day in New York.

And speaking of last days: I will no longer be writing in this space. It's been a good run, but it's a New York chapter. Fear not, for I'm starting a new blog here, Southbound. Sadly, some lame-oh like two years ago got his chops on the link soutbound.blogspot.com and yet hasn't ever used it, so I had to add "blog" to the url. But whatever, you'll just put it in your Favorites. I think the way this thing works, I'll still be "ORF" on all my postings, but I wanted to sort of keep all this stuff separate from the new stuff I'm doing down South. Oh yeah, did I even mention where I'm going? North Carolina. It's a personal policy of mine to only live in states that have a qualifier in their names. (Next stop: South Dakota!) A lot of the content will be the same, but I'm preparing to have a lot more "alone" time on my hands, so I'll undoubtedly publish more stuff that the non-political side of the blogging world does: i.e. "personal shit no one really cares about, but reads anyway because everyone involved probably has better things to do with their time, but no ambition." I'll also, of course, be commenting on what it's like to go from a state so blue it's electric to a state so red it practically requires an NRA membership to get a driver's license. In other words, what the world outside NYC is like. (Yes, Virginia, life outside New York DOES exist.) If you're staying behind here in NYC, just consider me a foreign correspondent!

See you all on the flip side.

Goodbye To All That

2006-08-02T00:22:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to Ms. Didion for letting me crib her title. Because, really, that is what this post is all about. I am leaving New York. And I've written a bunch of words on it already and thought them over and decided them unsufficient in saying what I'd like. I then went and re-read Joan Didion's essay on her own departure from the city at the end of an 8-year stint in her twenties and there was so much that I identified with, I considered just plagiarizing the entire thing. But I think that would be obvious. So read my piece, but if you really want to know what I'm thinking, read hers.

Because it's about how easy it is to think of living in New York in 6-month increments, at the end of which you will board a plane and be gone forever. Except that the end of that time comes and you stay; and you stay some more. People used to ask me if I'd remain in New York after college and I honestly never knew what to tell them. "I'll probably stick around a couple years, see what it's like, then go back to school," I'd placate. I was still too in love with the idea of living here that I couldn't fathom being elsewhere, but I'd already started growing weary of the hum. When I studied in Spain my sophmore year, I hated it. Mostly, that was because it wasn't New York City. I used to come back from holidays or vacations, hail a cab at the airport and breathe like I was a smoker who's been trying to quit, but just keeps going back because it feels so goddammed good. I felt alive; I felt important; I felt high. And then some Christmas or some summer vacation, I started to feel the opposite as I'd board the plane to leave my destination for New York City. I felt terrified; I felt anxious; I felt unfulfilled.

Living here is like being in an unusually high-maintainance relationship. You do most, if not all, of the work and often just wind up say, losing power for ten days (I was fine, fortunately), or stuck in a subway tunnel with no A/C, or soaked because you forgot your umbrella and even though rickety scaffolding is almost always everywhere, there is of course none to be had when it rains. And you pay $7 for a box of cereal, $10 for a movie (no matinees), triple that for a decent entree, and sometimes 50% of your take home pay for rent each month. What is more, you almost never get what you want, because there is almost always someone smarter or quicker or prettier or has looser morals or more money or knows a guy who knows a guy. A lot of putting out for not necessarily much return, BUT, sometimes the proverbial sex is fan-fucking-tastic, and that is why you court to begin with, and it's definitely why you stay. (Ironically, I suppose, if I had a nickel for everytime I've had someone say to me, "New York is a great place to visit, but I could never live here," I'd be that smarter, quicker, prettier, loosely moored, richer woman who knows a guy and has three more in her back pocket, including one named Bloomberg, and maybe I'd only be spending 40% on my rent a month too.)

My parents brought me to New York for the first time when I was 11. By the end of the trip, it seemed a foregone conclusion that I would one day live here. It was the first time I really had an aspiration in my life that existed outside the realm of my adolescence. I didn't know what I wanted to DO in New York, exactly, but I knew it was the place for me. And eventually, it was, when I hatched my ingenious scheme to attend college here. I won't dwell on my collegiate experience, but it was probably less debaucherous than your average frat party and more gallery-ridden than your typical campus, and I met all the usual suspects in my dorms and classes and it was just plain tragic when the Trade Towers came down, but the days following it were some of the most beautiful I'd ever experienced in the city. All of that already seems so far away.

After I graduated, I suffered from a considerable amount of nostalgia, yearning for a return to the late nights I spent in my friend's rooms because the opportunity I'd had to hang out with people that just by being around them I felt my cool quotient increase. I think I wanted to go back to it, because I knew that I wasn't cool, but they'd made me feel that way and that was optimal to being myself. In short, I had an identity crisis, that had probably actually started when college did, in an effort to just get by in New York and make it look easy. As I recovered from this crisis, thanks to ending a bad relationship and hiring a fabulous therapist, I realized that everyone does this here. Everyone pads their personal resume to make it all look so easy.

After that, I stepped outside my high-maintainance relationship with the city for a moment to collect my thoughts about my lover. I began to realize that it wasn't getting any easier, but I was starting to get exhausted. And I also recognized a certain sense of paralysis from all the overstimulation of the city; I had plans and ideas that I didn't know how to realize as I watched time slip by. But it was another two years almost, before I could admit to myself that I really wanted out. Before I really paid attention to the anguished returns home in the taxi cab. Momentum is an extremely powerful force. Coupled with the lure of the City, it's practically kryptonite.

Once I did make the decision to leave, I then had to start admitting it to other people. At first, I was hesitant, because everyone sort of judges you for throwing in the towel. But I noticed a funny trend: people were jealous; some even admitted it. I realized that everyone was exhausted as I was; everyone dreamed of owning-not-renting as much as I did; everyone detested pretending so damned much just to impress the next guy. I gave myself a little credit for being strong enough to say no and to walk away and realized that I'd been judging myself for wanting to leave.

Which is probably why I have spent the past few weeks resisting the suggestion that I be sad about leaving. Certainly, it took me ages to realize that if I left, my departure wouldn't be irrevocable and the world would not crumble to pieces, that there IS a life outside New York. But once I ceased to suffer from the typical myopia of a New Yorker, I felt so much more confident about saying goodbye to all that. I've gotten what I'd needed from being here. An education: practical, cultural, personal. I learned so much every day for the last eight years, but I am ready to take it with me and move on with my life somewhere else. And it's been a long time since the day in August when I stood on the corner of Washington Place and watched my tearful mother and brave younger brother drive off in a taxi cab into what would become one of the most difficult autumns of my life and I would constantly question my decision to move to New York.

The Devil Wears Mock Turtlenecks

2006-07-05T17:03:00.000-04:00

I often think about how I wish I'd been aware of this "blogging" thing long before I actually was, because the truth is that I could have beaten Lauren Weisnebgbergergr at her own game. Four years ago nearly to the day, I started a job at a place that shall remain nameless, working for a man who was a total and complete idiot, but took no less than every opportunity to tell you he was in fact "brilliant, and let me tell you why." Oh the stories I could tell.

He may have at one point in time been indeed brilliant, but I can only guess as to where and when, because by the time I got to him, his primary means of brilliance was in obfuscation and royally effing up and then royally blaming it on his royally stressed out staff (i.e. myself and a couple others...we were ever-dwindling.)

I think back on it sometimes and can hardly believe I was only there for a year and a half, because it felt like ages at the time. The upside to this tale that I have labelled "Life After Jackass" in a file on my computer chock full of anecdotes and convoluted emails, was that I met some really truly fantastic people working in this job. The organization itself was given to existing in a shambles and yet it employed some highly wonderful people to run its innards. And I got lucky enough to become friends with them. Remember the wedding in India? Well, I remember the very day I met Anjana and went to the wedding with two other people from this former job as well.

An example of the hilarity of the place was that I initially applied to work there as a nonpaid intern and wound up getting the job of the person who would have been my supervisor were I to intern. She was leaving, so they asked me to interview. And six very long weeks later, I got an official offer. Only to hire my own intern a few months later at the rate of about $25 an hour. I really enjoyed calling Kristen my "intern" because it felt so absurd because I was 22 and 22-year-olds don't have interns. And also because she was older than me, and interns are not older than their bosses. And finally, the term "office bitch" might have been a more appropriate term for her since she sort of floated around and did what anyone needed her to on any given day. Indeed, the most absurd part about the entire tale is that Kris went on to become a Fulbright Scholar in Mauritania, but only after deferring her admittance into the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

My point in sharing all of this is to link to her blog, which she has FINALLY started. She began her outlandish travels from our offices in the spring of 2004 and sent home hilarious emails and photos. And she's gotten around to starting a blog this summer and has posted all of her past musings. She seems to manage to get herself into some rather entertaining predicaments and then get herself right back out. My personal favorite to this day is the one titled "Fuck Oliver North," about her trip to Nicaragua last winter during her holiday break. But there is loads of other good stuff in there, particularly about African airlines and their ideals about customer service. Kristen absolutely puts my own adventures and itineraries to shame.

Which reminds me. One of the last things I did before leaving the aforementioned Job From Hell was to book a trip for Jackass to a conference in South Africa. He was always very concerned about finding the fastest route home and woould spend hours on the phone with Delta trying to upgrade himself when he thought my (often more cost-conscious) itineraries were not suitable. (Funny, he could never seem to sort out how to dial the phone any other time...) Booking this trip was last minute, and the shame was that the absolute ONLY route lasted about 23 hours and included a stop in Nairobi, then a several-hours layover in Cape Verde (islands off the coast of Senegal) on to Atlanta and finally to JFK.

July 4, 2006

2006-07-04T17:52:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday, America!

You'd think I was obsessed!

2006-06-20T23:23:00.000-04:00

I had this really weird dream the last night and I woke up with a sense of sorrow/admiration for President Bush. It was bizarre. Having generally maintained a sensation of distress/disgust at each thought of the Man and His Minions, feeling anything otherwise, particularly amnesty, was practically an out-of-body experience. I don't really remember what happened in the dream, but I think the upshot was that I was a Republican. Perhaps I should say this dream was a nightmare?!?

If I had to guess, I'd say this dream stems from various musings I've been having about the impending House resolution on our withdrawal from Iraq. And the death of Zarqawi. (Just a quick question about that one: didn't we, like bomb the H.E.DoubleHockeyStick out of him? How come his face was freaking flawless?? He was totally assassinated and THEN bombed. I'm just sayin'.) And the discovery of those two lost, now dead soldiers. And the article the Times published over the weekend about the alleged civilian massacre in Karbala that took place 18 months ago. In short, I've become obsessed with this conflict. My summer reading list is more "themed" than ever, and it's all non-fiction, which is a definite first for me. The stack on my nightstand is entirely related to Islam or the Middle East (perhaps that is redundant).

Last week, the New Yorker published their summer fiction issue, titling it "Life During Wartime." And while the cover was a somewhat whimsical sketch of WWII-era soldiers scribbling furiously in the trenches smoking cigarettes, the content was far from laughable. In fact, it was some of the most moving writing I've read in a really really long time. In addition to several short stories and first-hand accounts from various conflicts, the part that was most meaningful were excerpts from pieces by soldiers, marines, officers, et al. that have been part of the conflict we're currently in. I'm rarely moved to tears while reading, but this did it to me several times. None of it was embellished, none of it was particularly sophisticated, but every last word that I read was palpably real in sensation. I made my roommate read it. I'm waiting for her to finish with it so I can read it again. It's only increased my obsession with the area.

The other afternoon, I rode the subway with the little boy that I babysit for. And when we transferred onto the 2, we encountered a car full of middle schoolers. He watched them with rapt intimidation, but was relieved when we got off, as if they'd not only fascinated but terrified him in their mystique. Children are curious about other children, often in spite of themselves. Next time you're around a toddler, watch him encounter another toddler. They stare and ogle with abandon. Over time, this behavior is socialized out of us, but kids are great at doing it without feeling self-conscious, and those on the receiving end are equally intrigued. I think this is the phenomenon I'm experiencing with respect to wanting to know more about what is going on in Iraq. Because the people over there are my age and younger, and out of fascination of that, I cannot help but ogle. Fortunately, I can do so safely from thousands of miles away.

And what I've most been trying to understand and come to terms with is not only that people so young are responsible for determining the future of an entire nation (granted, it's on the orders of their superiors, but at the end of the day, they're the ones on the ground) but that there really are no rules over there. And in the end, that lack of rule affects those young people more than anyone else and there seems to be little done on this end, when they come home, to really help us understand why we want to ogle them. The incidence of Abu Ghraib is the perfect example. When the lights came up on that, commanding officers, those who give orders, scrambled like cockroaches and the ones left behind were the enlisted soldiers. No one in a position of authority claimed it. I'm not saying the soldiers are above reproach, but they were left high and dry by an agency to which they swore not only an allegiance, but their lives. In truth, there is never one single individual to blame in an instance like that. What most likely ocurred was that someone suggested one mildly kinky or distressful form of punishment and the boredom, frustration and fraternity-like atmosphere of the place just snowballed it into pyramids of naked prisoners and a hooded man with electrical wires attached to his genitalia. Sherman was right: War is hell.

Last summer, after visiting Vietnam, I came home and read A Rumor of War by Phillip Caputo. Caputo was one of the first Marine platoons to put in a Danang and he spent nearly two years in Vietnam. What he wrote was mostly re-assemblies of various battles and fights he'd been in. He wrote the book over a decade after he came back, and he confesses to having blocked out a lot of it. At the end of the book (serious spoiler alert) Caputo and several other marines are tried for the murder of a civilian. Stories were inconsistent, lies were told, things were left out, honor was lost, and yet, as you read his account of exactly how the Vietnamese man dies, you come to understand that none of the men who killed him were really responsible for where they were, or what they were doing or what ultimately happened. You have met the men he's in this fight with; they are ordinary people who have unfortunate karma. I cannot do Caputo's description of what happens justice, so if you really want to know what I'm talking about, you should just read the book.

But what I took away then, and what I've taken away from the New Yorker pieces, as well as the writing of Tim O'Brien, is that the stress of combat is really not anything anyone can fully understand without experiencing it. I imagine my trying to understand all this by reading about it is a bit like someone trying to imagine what the waves in the ocean feel like by just looking at pictures of it. As for the distress of war, you cannot prevent that from being encountered. The military can strategize and formalize and order and rank and file as much as they like, but combat doesn't lend itself to any of these things. In the end, all hell breaks loose, because war is no longer the gentleman's art it was once conceived to be. If it ever was; did you see Troy? Ok, the fact that the film was terrible aside, the brutality in that film was well, brutal. But that was acceptable back in Homer's day. Indeed, it was expected of war. Today, war is not expected in the first place.

Ok, so what does this have to do with my dream/nightmare about our commander in chief? Am I growing soft on him? No. No, I am decidedly not. And I never will, mostly because I find it hard to respect anyone, no matter who he is, who cannot observe the otherwise simple rules of grammatical syntax. To say nothing, of course, of his general (lack of) policies. I think what this has to do with, actually, is that I feel pretty damned ambivalent about the suggestion that we withdraw from Iraq pronto. Actually, I'm entirely opposed to it, because this isn't something like at Three Stooges episode where we can all run around like idiots, throw some pies in some faces, apologize merely for being silly and then hit the road and ultimately blame no one for the mess left behind. Because in this case, what we'd be leaving behind is a country that never really asked to be imploded. There is no money there; there is no infrastructure, no leadership that can keep from getting killed. The irresponsibility of that is just something I cannot abide. Dubya made our bed. Now we must lie in it. Where my ambivalence arises is when I read something like what I read last week and realize that continuing to ask what we are asking of our armed forces is painful. Moving forward, we must acknowledge the uphill battle we have, instead of continuing to say we've reached a "turning point," because there have literally been about five of those by now, and if my geometry is right, that makes a near circle. Which puts us back where we started. Let's hope that this time around, we've learned something.

Fleet Week Dispatch

2006-06-13T22:25:00.000-04:00

I've long suspected that I was born in the wrong decade. Occasionally, people will tell me that I have a 1950s look that would make a casting director for a period piece nuts for my face. I find true happiness wearing girlish cardigan sweaters and lovely, feminine dresses with a hemline that doesn't suggest I'm trying to give the nuns heart attacks. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, I am unstoppably drawn to a man in uniform who knows how to stand up straight and has good manners. I suppose between the romantic notions about being the girl of a boy who is off on some manly, patriotic mission and the simple elegance of the clean lines of a uniform itself, being around military men makes me feel impossibly feminine. If you asked a social scientist of one kind or another, they might tell you it's because the place that the military holds from a societal standpoint is historically very masculine. And what do those manly men do, but go off and protect the fairer sex from whatever threatens its kitchens? The "modern girl" in me wants to resist the suggestion that I need saving from anything by anyone. I mean, I've flown around the world all on my own, so I hardly fit the model of the wilting flower or distressed damsel by anyone's definition. But it has an appeal to it, and there I was during Fleet Week batting my eyelashes like it was my job, and as if my cat had climbed a tree into which I'd never dream of climbing.

I wrote about this last year. And when I went back to re-read what I'd written, not surprisingly, my views haven't changed all that much with respect to my impressions of the military and its role at this point in our history. Fleet Week came and went, and I made a very pointed effort to get involved this time, to see what the boys in white are all about. I'm leaving New York City, so in an effort to get my kicks in, I'm doing a lot of things that I've simply never taken advantage of. Including really actually meeting some of the adorable sailors that descend upon this fair ville on an annual basis. Oh, and I was wrong about one thing last year, well two: they stay on the boat the entire time, not at USOs, etc. and they are NOT all babies. What I encountered inevitably made me feel even more misplaced in my birth in the latter part of the 20th century, but it also corroborated my existing feelings from a social perspective about what it means to be in the military for any given member.

Myself and three friends started our "squid hunt" near Times Square on the West side of the city. My friend Alison had an eagle eye for the hats bobbing atop the crowds on the sidewalks. But we quickly realized the evening had the potential to be weird and awkward, because SO many of the sailors were obscenely young. So I called for a ground rule: officers!

I had no idea I was about to get a naval immersion when I stopped a particular lieutenant to ask after why he had a spiffy name plaque on his uniform, while others didn't. He wasn't entirely certain about that, but he was most definitely certain about a lot of other things and in spite of the fact that we were in an entirely too-fratty bar for my taste, surrounded by women who'd gained five pounds just putting on their makeup for the evening, I learned a lot. The inevitability of knowing that our political stances were probably not exactly congruent came up within five minutes of speaking to one another. Evidently, they have sattelite television on those ships, because he was smart enough to know how liberal a bastion NYC is. And that the same goes for its citizens. What I do not think he expected was that I actually DID want to hear what he had to say. Enter the perennial disagreement about whether the media is a liberal bastion or controlled by conservatives. We were of different minds about that, he and I.

We met up to bar hop the next day as well, and I listened some more; and at several points he stopped to ask me why on earth I was even spending my time with him because he was fully aware of our divergent points of view politically. "Because you're like my personal experiment," I told him. "I'm trying to learn about you and to understand why you are the way you are, what kind of effect the military lifestyle has on you. I have to talk to you to do that; in the end, you're politics don't matter. They're self-evident. It's how you got here that interests me. And what that does to your life. You're totally abnormal!"

As it turns out, this is the entire point of Fleet Week: so that the people of New York would be able to interact with him and the 4,000 other sailors and learn more about the military way of life, etc. In essence, it's a PR thing. And while they have a majorly uphill battle in NYC, they come in the hopes of perhaps changing a few minds, finding some new recruits and making us all feel better about the (obscene) tax expenditures we're funding. The lieutenant confessed to being surprised at how nice people had been towards him, saying he'd been worried about getting yelled at or spattered with spraypaint. I have to confess that as we walked from place to place on Sunday, I felt a bit conspicuous with him at my side, and took on some of his paranoia at being on the receiving end of civilian ire, but nothing happened. To the city's credit, I accompanied my lieutenant to a lot of places and every last person who spoke to him was exceedingly gracious and a few bars even waived our bills, which was awesome. (Note to self: hang out with sailors more often!)

Unfortunately, while the military's hope in coming to NYC is to make the locals feel less squeamish about martial engagement, I'm not sure it was effective. Interacting with this lieutenant and hearing his opinions and perspectives only further cemented my own viewpoint about the military's functionality in society. It is indeed a strict and doctrinal way of life that can take the biggest fuck ups and shape them into decent human beings, but there is no way of concealing the fact that the rigidity of it also confers upon the (in this case) sailors some true oddities of personality that I'm not sure can ever be taken out once they have left. The lieutenant had a little trouble staying off the topic of combat, guns, missiles, etc. and as much as he apologized for it sincerely, I wondered what his re-entry into civilian life would be like when it came. What is more, I noticed decisively this weekend that the military often attracts a certain type of person that generally feels he's at the bottom of the barrel with respect to options in life. My lieutenant wasn't the only person I encountered that felt this way in the least.

Another sailor I met while touring one of the ships was from North Carolina, my home state. He'd joined the Navy in September. And when I asked him if he'd always wanted to join the military, he drawled out that if I'd told him two years ago Christmas that he would be enlisting, he would have laughed in my face. But here he was, standing aboard a naval ship in dress whites telling me that he'd signed up right out of high school because there was little else for him to do. He'd worked on a dairy farm all his life and couldn't see doing that for good. But that once he got out, he'd probably go back to it. That is, unless he re-upped and enlisted in the Marines once he was done with the Navy. That would send him back to basic training, and evidently, that was a better choice to what he didn't have back home. Somehow, being stuck in a dead-end job, or having no job opportunity at all, seems a worse fate than eating bland food on a vessel in the middle of the ocean with hundreds of other men and no regular access to women or your family. I swear it, the military has the best PR in the business. Madison Avenue, take note.

But what is happening here when the men that are joining up are ultimately resentful of the life they've chosen as the lesser of a host of evils? I mentioned to the lieutenant at one point that perhaps the government would do well to invest some money in creating more social programs that make men and boys of a certain background slightly less hopeless about their potential for success in life. For instance, college funding as opposed to his kingdom for a horse. As it is, the military has become a last resort, default setting for a lot of kids who have high hopes and no way to get off the ground. The word "patriot" is Red-State uncool in this city, but allow me a minute to say that this fact about such a traditional aspect of our country's history is heartbreaking to me. My grandfather served in World War II as a marine in the South Pacific and I am extremely proud of it; but it is hard to feel much more than frustration for the 18-year-olds who hit a dead end at such a young age today. It is possible that comparing those two things is entirely unfair because the causes behind World War II seemed so much more transparent and just, as opposed to the muddy mess that more modern wars have become. Perhaps this is the reason I was meant to be born in the 1950s, when the idyll of being on the arm of a military man drew pride and not pity.

Nepal Travelblog

2006-05-16T01:31:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I promised Nepal pictures a couple of weeks ago and then I had a to pretty much drop out of life for a week to help a friend. And then, over the weekend, my brother graduated from college. And the top of his class. I think the fancy word they use for it is "valedictorian," and believe me when I tell you, people, that there was an audible gasp in the room when his GPA was announced. It was awesome, and I was totally right in front of the stage taking pictures and sizing up the professional photographer and whether or not I could get a good elbow into her gut in case she decided to jump in front of me to get my shot. It's times like these when I am glad I have not given in to the temptation of digital just yet and still have a fancy, professional camera that makes people think I know what I'm doing. I did attempt to take a few shots with the digital, but it had this really long delay on it that took the picture like five seconds AFTER I actually pushed the button and had already lowered the camera, so I just got a bunch of the floor I think. I seriously just cannot work those things. Just ask my brother.

However, I DID manage to get a few licks in on the digicam in Nepal. So, without further ado, here is my Nepal photolog!

Everyone says flights into Nepal can be chancey and to NEVER book on Royal Nepal Air because the flights get cancelled all the time. So, I booked with Air India, which I later found out was equally dubious. I might have known since I arrived at the airport with what I thought would be only minutes to spare, raced to the terminal and then proceeded to sit for an indefinite amount of time while the departure screen still flashed 12:30 p.m. One o'clock rolled around, and then 2:00 and I think sometime by about 3:00, they started to board the plane. There were no announcements or harried-looking flight attendants to be seen. Just a box lunch that was served to everyone. I passed because I'd scarfed down a Subway in the concourse and well, given the terrible airplane food experience I had with China Air last summer and the fact that airplane food in general is always dodgy, I decided to pass on any "ethnic" boxed food from a company that not only doesn't specialize in culinary arts, but can barely seem to muster a concern for getting its aircraft off the ground in a timely manner.

At the very least, the nice man who'd checked me in had offered to seat me on the left side of the plane so I could have a nice view of the Himalayas as I flew in. I was pumped. Sadly, because I was arriving in Nepal at the end of the dry season, so much smog and haze had built up from the months of dryness, that I didn't see much. You can see here the mighty Himalayas fighting to poke above the smog. It would seem, sadly, that even the grandest mountain range in the world must contend with mankind.

I had little trouble after that getting into Kathmandu and everyone I interacted with at the airport was impossibly smiley and cheerful. It was a remarkable change from India where people simply cannot seem to get past their curiosity of Westerners to the point of being utterly rude. I met up with my tourgroup that evening in our hotel and the next day, I woke up with a rotten bout of nausea that I attributed to the Cipro I'd been taking. Our tour for the day consisted of visiting central Kathmandu and I was concentrating so much on putting one foot in front of the other and trying not to be overwhelmed with the pungent scents of streetlife that I don't remember much of it. However, I generally had a policy with regards to the digital pictures I took, and that was to only take them of very important or noteworthy things. Which means that I'm pretty sure this temple is the Hanuman Temple in Durbar Square in Kathmandu. It's the tallest temple in the city. Another remarkable thing about the transition to Nepal from India was the change in architecture.

I got back to the hotel that afternoon around 4:00. We had to have photographs for our trekking passes, so I trudged to a camera shop to have what is arguably the absolute worst institutional photograph ever taken aside from my NYState drivers' license made. I felt like shit. And I went back to the hotel and slept a fitful sleep, intermittently disturbed by this cooing pigeon that wouldn't stop trying to make love to my window and a very loud Nepali woman singing Western tunes by Gwen Stefani and Stevie Nicks. My roommate came in and invited me out to dinner, but I just rolled over and went back to sleep. The next morning, we set out on a very, very long hike up a very, very steep hill. And I was in a phenomenal amount of pain by the end of it. Imagine my disappointment to learn that not only did our teahouse have wooden boards for beds, but also lacked heat. We were at the top of this mountain at Chisopani

And it was windblown and freezing. That night was my first introduction to "Nepali tea," which is really sake, or rice wine. It is good for keeping warm. And cold as the night was, Sweet Lord the sky was the most brilliant and amazing thing the next morning. We were up by 7:00 and gazed down into a terraced valley and across to an impressive mountain range. I think we were at about 2,500 meters. We hiked another several hours that day, crossing through a small village for lunch. We ate at a woman's home, and as we waited for her to finish preparing our food, a host of children gathered in the courtyard, enticed by the phenomenon of Westerners. They were ragged and dirty, but also incredibly charming and dear, as they fought for attention and a look at themselves in our digital cameras. I took a lot of these children because it excited them so much.

I think these two were fighting over her. Or have been taking their cues from Rocky.

The thing I found most interesting about the people in Nepal is that there is no distinctly Nepalese look to them. Some have a very obvious Aryan descent, while others appear more Mongolian. Some are mistakably Indian-looking, and still others look almost Native American. Nepal is a tiny country compared to India, but I was astonished at the genetic diversity throughout the land. And looking at the children is a really fascinating experience that I never tired of there. They are wide-eyed and hopeful to a heartbreaking degree.

After another day of hiking, we made our way to the town of Bakhtapur. I was still in a fair amount of physical pain and totally exhausted, so I blanked on taking pictures of that town. But it was real pretty, take my word for it. Then, we did some rafting, which I skipped documenting as well. After two days of that, we wound our way up a very steep 7km hill winding back and forth in the back of a pickup truck (when in Rome...) to spend the night in an old inn. The entire town was pretty much one main road that ran along the ridgeline of this mountain, but it thrived thanks to the historical lure to tourists: it had once been a major stopping point along the Silk Route from China. On our way back down the hill the next day, this young boy hung off the back of the truck the entire way. We were supposed to switch to a bus, but for some reason, that did not happen. So we took the truck the entire way to Pokhara, with the boy intact, where we started our five-day trek the following day. Along the way, I took a photo of a truck piled high with hay bales. These types of trucks were our competition in playing a bit of vehicular chicken on the road. Most of the way, there is a deep ravine into the river along one side and a steep mountain to the other.

As we started our five-day trek, we had seven of us and 18 porters. Most of them were about 20 or so and carried at least 60-70 kgs each. They took everything: food, tents, table, supplies, and even our own packs. At midday, we stopped in the middle of someone's fallow field to have lunch.

The porters had made their way ahead of us to set up the meal, and as we waited for them to finish cooking, a little girl sat and watched us with quiet skepticism. We fed her some cookies we had with us and once lunch was served, she was joined by two other little girls and they sat watching us eat. We had food left over and made up some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to give them, joking among ourselves that they were going to get lashings at home from their mothers asking why they were not hungry for dinner.

The porters were pros at setting up camp within minutes, which is what they had to do the first night as an entirely unexpected storm moved in. We'd already had some hail at the bottom of the mountain and it cleared long enough for us to pick our way up the now-slippery slate steps. But the wind and darkness moved in quickly at the top and I hadn't had time to dry out. It was freezing, dark and wet, and after changing out of my wet hiking gear into pretty much every other stitch of clothing I had in my pack, I made my way to the cooking hut to seek out alcohol in an effort to warm myself. As such, I got better acquainted with that rice wine.

The next morning, the sky had cleared and this giant mountain loomed behind the ridge closest to us. It was practically suffocating it was so near to us; we'd had no idea the night before that it was there, because the storm cloud was so dense. That day's hike was the hardest we had, although we only hiked a half day. It was straight up: we ascended about 1,000 meters in four hours. The effects of altitude begin to set in somewhere around 2500 meters. And even though I'd trained for this trip, it became evident fairly quickly that I dwell at sealevel. In addition to the relentless hill of stairs that was making me furious and frustrated, I wasn't getting enough oxygen into my blood stream. I knew that after two hours on a stairmaster, I should be feeling muscle fatigue, but I wasn't. In fact, I could barely feel my legs at all, but my breathing was hard and labored. Later at the top, I started to laugh very hard at the hilarity of hunting firewood, but I had to quickly make a choice between laughing and breathing. (Oddly, in spite of all the fatigue I'd felt on our first hike, I was practically ache-free on this one. Perhaps those three days of boot camp had whipped my body into shape.)

That night on the mountain was colder than the one before and I hardly slept at all I was so uncomfortable. But I must have been getting more than I thought because I never felt tired; when our trekking guide Hem (Hi, Hem!) asked me the next morning if I'd slept well, I told him no, but that I hadn't come to Nepal to sleep. The tents and ground had a thin layer of stubborn frost on them the next morning. By 6:30, the sun was coming up on one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, and perhaps that is what made me not need so much sleep, because these morning views were making every step taken a well-earned trek. Again, because of rain the night before, we'd had trouble seeing much along the ridge behind our campsite. But the morning sun illuminated it all.

The prominent peak in the photograph is Macchapuchare. It's also known as Fishtail Mountain and is off limits to climbers because it is considered sacred. The thing I just couldn't get over about this mountain range was how BIG they all were. I mean really up there and looming. Massive. I later flew over the Alps on my way to Paris and they looked like proverbial molehills. It was kind of funny.

The next afternoon, we set up camp and were greeted soon by some Maoists from the nearby village. They hung around for several hours and our tourguide, Dorje, sought me out at one point to tell me that if I was asked, I was NOT an American. Hem did the same a little later. No other nationalities seemed too offensive; Dorje paid them 500 rupees for each of us and received a receipt and they went on their way with their satphone and Che Guevara haircuts. We saw more of them the following night on their movements across a valley. There were probably 100 or so of them. Young men and women with rucksacks and automatic weapons. They came over a ridge, moved down it and across the river Kirsty and I had earlier "bathed" in.

While we were down there, these boys came to the water side, so I busted out the camera. They happily posed and jumped in and out of the water without a thought to the fact that the temperature of it was hardly above freezing. Again, they were thrilled to see themselves on camera! The rope bridge in the background is where the village sat to watch us on display as we bathed (and got bugbites!)

We had a few more days in Nepal, but I didn't get out the digital camera again. At the end of our treck, we held a dance party with the porters. They'd been otherwise uninterested in us for the rest of the week, as well as fairly somber in their carriage. But that night, the music got started and I swear to goodness, I've never seen people move like that. It was like Chelsea on a Saturday night at the Duplex crossed with a seventh grade dance in which all the girls huddle giggling on one side and the boys on the other and occasionally, they come together in a sort of writhing mass in the middle. True to nearly everywhere I've ever been in the world, as soon as the semi-decent hiphop music came on, the locals were rendered stiff and rhythmless. It's a bizarre phenomenon that I first encountered when I studied in Spain.

The following day, we said goodbye to Hem and the porters and took a bus back to Kathmandu and our original hotel in the Thamel district. It was chilly and rainy as I combed the streets for pashminas and other gifts. As it turned out, my flight with Air India had been cancelled entirely and our tour company had re-booked me on a Royal Nepal flight, assuring me I'd be fine. And I was. I got on the plane for Delhi and began my long journey home via Delhi and Paris and was very sad to leave Nepal behind.

Pavlov's dog!

2006-05-10T11:19:00.000-04:00

I apparently have a Pavlovian response to being in an office at a desk and it is this: MUST. READ. BLOOOOOOOOOOOOGS....pant pant pant pant pant!

I've got this freelancing gig in Brooklyn twice weekly and I'm still trying to negotiate the whole working from home thing. For the time being, I'm made to schlep (literally...it took me TWO hours to get here this morning) to outer Brooklyn and it is just not working because it makes me want to write hatemail to the MTA for making me take the N to the 5, which wasn't there so I took the 6 to get the 5, which STILL wasn't there, so I took the S to the 2 and rode to the END OF THE LINE and it took me two fricking HOURS! I love the MTA. I don't want to hate it.

But my point is, I'm at this desk, in a cubicle and am supposed to be lending my valuable expertise to this illustrious organization, but what do I do? Go straight for the bloggage! GAH! I've had ample time on my arse on my couch at home to read blogs, but I cannot get motivated for it. Here, now, I smell the food, I ring the bell, I am Pavlov's Dog.

Also, how hilarious is this?

Al Gore Brings It; You Should Go See It

2006-05-07T17:17:00.000-04:00

Global Warming, a definition: the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil release an excess of carbon dioxide into the earth's atmosphere. Usually, this is a good thing, because it helps keep the earth warm. But now there's an abundance of these gases getting trapped in the atmopshere, and the earth is getting too hot.

As a result, the following things have happened:

The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years.
Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.
The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled in the last decade.
At least 279 species of plants and animals has responded to the warming by moving closer to the poles.

Scientists anticipate the possibility of the following things happening if we do nothing to curb the global warming trend:

Global sea levels could rise more than 20 feet with the loss of the ice shelf in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas around the world.
Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.
Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.
The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.
More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.

Source: An Inconvenient Truth

Just before I left my job in February, I got invited to see a presentation by Al Gore about global warming. I wrote about it here.

And now, the New Yorker magazine is writing about the upcoming theatrical release of a version of this piece, "An Inconvenient Truth." I'm excerpting the NYer blurb below, because when I wrote that initial post and started a mini-discussion about climate control and saving the earth, I promised to Mike that I'd take a crack at convincing him that all this science, although not derived directly from the Mouth of God/Christ, was in fact true as well. So, in an attempt to deliver on that, I've posted those fun facts above from the film's accompanying website and I'm posting bits of the NYer piece to endorse the flick. If you snag a copy of the April issue of Vanity Fair, you'll also get treated to some of Gore's own empassioned writing on the subject as well as some lovely photographs of eco-philes (as well as a few I'd consider Greenwashers, but at least VF is trying.) Perhaps at long last, and just as the enviro-community's voice is becoming raspy from all its years of shouting above the din, the mainstream is finally ready to make this a trend. We should all eat some granola, in other words.

And if this piece doesn't persuade you to see the film, then I'll give you an incentive: there's a piece by Matt Groening in it that will be hilarious to believers and doubters alike.

"The imminence of catastrophic global warming may be a subject far from the ever-drifting mind of President Bush—whose eschatological preoccupations privilege Armageddon over the Flood—but it is of growing concern to the rest of humanity. Climate change is even having its mass-entertainment moment. “Ice Age: The Meltdown”—featuring Ellie the computer-animated mammoth and the bottomless voice of Queen Latifah—has taken in more than a hundred million dollars at the box office in two weeks. On the same theme, but with distinctly less animation, “An Inconvenient Truth,” starring Al Gore (playing the role of Al Gore, itinerant lecturer), is coming to a theatre near you around Memorial Day. Log on to Fandango. Reserve some seats. Bring the family. It shouldn’t be missed. No kidding.

“An Inconvenient Truth” is...a documentary film about a possibly retired politician giving a slide show about the dangers of melting ice sheets and rising sea levels....(A)s a means of education, “An Inconvenient Truth” is a brilliantly lucid, often riveting attempt to warn Americans off our hellbent path to global suicide. (It) is not the most entertaining film of the year. But it might be the most important.

...In the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush cracked that Gore “likes electric cars. He just doesn’t like making electricity.” The younger Bush, a classic schoolyard bully with a contempt for intellect, demanded that Gore “explain what he meant by some of the things” in his 1992 book, “Earth in the Balance”—and then unashamedly admitted that he had never read it. A book that the President did eventually read and endorse is a pulp science-fiction novel: “State of Fear,” by Michael Crichton. Bush was so excited by the story, which pictures global warming as a hoax perpetrated by power-mad environmentalists, that he invited the author to the Oval Office. In “Rebel-in-Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush,” Fred Barnes, the Fox News commentator, reveals that the President and Crichton “talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement.” The visit, Barnes adds, “was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more.”

As President, Bush has made fantasy a guide to policy. He has scorned the Kyoto agreement on global warming (a pact that Gore helped broker as Vice-President); he has neutered the Environmental Protection Agency; he has failed to act decisively on America’s fuel-efficiency standards even as the European Union, Japan, and China have tightened theirs. He has filled his Administration with people like Philip A. Cooney, who, in 2001, left the American Petroleum Institute, the umbrella lobby for the oil industry, to become chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he repeatedly edited government documents so as to question the link between fuel emissions and climate change. In 2005, when Cooney left the White House (this time for a job with ExxonMobil), Dana Perino, a White House spokesperson, told the Times, “Phil Cooney did a great job.” A heckuva job, one might say.

...(I)n the context of the larger political moment, the current darkness, Gore can be forgiven his miscues and vanities. It is past time to recognize that, over a long career, his policy judgment and his moral judgment alike have been admirable and acute. Gore has been right about global warming since holding the first congressional hearing on the topic, twenty-six years ago.

...It may be that Gore really has lost his taste for electoral politics, and that, no matter what turn the polls and events take, an Al-versus-Hillary psychodrama in 2008 is not going to happen. There is no substitute for Presidential power, but Gore is now playing a unique role in public life. He is a symbol of what might have been, who insists that we focus on what likely will be an uninhabitable planet if we fail to pay attention to the folly we are committing, and take the steps necessary to end it."

The irony, of course, is that as I travelled around India, I determined that were Dubya King there, well, he'd be considered to have the greenest thumb the country has ever seen. Which is terrifying and sad, given the state the Clear Skies initiative put us in. In its defense, the third world has far far bigger fish to fry than worrying about emissions controls, pollution, or even simple garbage clean up, namely AIDS and hunger. At present, cows and stray dogs prove most excellent for garbage duty it seems. Or, at least excellent enough to suit. Then again, India is a country where one of the greatest rivers in the world is considered a goddess and therefore holy enough to take a poo and also bathe and dump cremation remains into all at once because goddesses are by their very nature clean and virtuous and so these things are not dirty either. And you thought dealing with eschatologists was tough to overcome with respect to taking care of the earth!

As a result of all of this pollution, I developed a good case of black lung for the weeks I spent in India. My eyes itched constantly for nearly three weeks solid and every time I blew my nose, I had black boogers. I know they just said NY State was the most polluted in our union, but the City is like Eden in its purity compared to where I'd been. Over 30% of the population in Delhi has a respiratory disorder of some variety or another. I am surprised this number is so low!

With this in mind, it is fairly astounding to me to think about the fact that the US is still one of the largest energy producers/wasters in the world with respect to volume per capita. Then again, in spite of the diesel fumes and garbage, India probably consumes less energy sheerly because there are not 3 televisions for every citizen and much of the country's manual labor is actually still done by people instead of machinery. There are women who spend their entire day chipping tiny gravel pieces off of larger rocks and then put them into piles on blankets which are then carried to another pile some feet away. In the States, this would all be done by a machine in a refinery or quarry somewhere. The same goes for farming technology; most of it's picked by women with babies on their backs. And boy, are they big on carpooling! A motorbike rarely has just one person on it, and if you've got a pickup truck, you're probably responsible for toting around 20 of your closest friends. Being a hippie and riding a bike are not synonymous in India either.

It's hard for me to determine whether or not the War in Iraq has a direct correlation on the cost of gas these days. But I DO think it's safe to say that there is a stronger connection between these two things than say the arguments used to go into Iraq in the first place. And perhaps it will come to bear on that people will FINALLY start using the HOV lanes in California legally because paying $35 to get to work each morning in one's own car will be prohibitive. (Sometimes I wonder if the cost of living in America will start to approach the cost of living in NYC due to rising gas prices!) And maybe more people will start opting for more fuel-efficient models on car lots in an effort to curb their spending at the pump. It's most likely wishful thinking, because fools and their money are soon parted (See: Hummer ownership). Then again, Americans HATE to spend money on things that do not make them look thinner or cooler or better than everyone else. And gas doesn't really do that, unless you have like a Porsche Boxster and even that car is small enough to be relatively fuel-efficient.

In closing (assuming you've read this far!) stuff needs to be done. And if you need a motivator, then go see Al Gore's movie. He's no Spielberg, but the film is as riveting as Jaws; and considering we could all be underwater some day soon, it might be good to listen up.

India in pictures

2006-04-29T01:13:00.000-04:00

Many many thanks to Gaurav for letting me borrow his really fantastic little digital camera. It was a trooper and in spite of my aversion to them, I must confess that it took some quite lovely pics. And the best part is that I can now share them with all y'all!! Enjoy :)

The first night we arrived in Bhopal (hello, Union Carbide!) we went to Anjana's guest house to have our hands mehndi'd. It takes about ten or fifteen minutes for the women to put this on you, then you have to not touch anything so it can dry for a good hour or two. And no hand washing until the next morning!

Remember how I wrote that post about driving in India? Well, this puppy is just one example of what we had to contend with. So much for rear view mirrors! And just in case you forget about how important your horn is, every truck is brightly painted (in English!) to remind you.

Our first day trip during the wedding was to the oldest Buddhist monument in India: Sanchi. It's a big adobe-like stupa with four directional gates. These carved lions are the symbol of India and reside on the flag as well. The rest of the carvings were stories of the Buddha's life. And you know how you go to a museum to see an exhibit and there's often a wall covered with the names of people who gave large sums of money to the musuem for that particular feature? Well, the names of patrons were chiselled into the sandstone here too.

That night was the ring ceremony and after some quick pujas (blessings) among family members, we were treated to a three hour concernt performed by none other than OHMIGOD, Y'ALL! INDIAN IDOL. Just like we have American Idol, this is the Veejay Aiken the kids are all adoring these days. Never able to turn down an opportunity to make an arse of myself, I wound up on stage at one point, whereupon he looked at me and asked, "What do you think of me?!?!" I should remove all question at this point about my sanity with respect to getting on stage and say that a) this was an entirely liquor-free event and b) yes, I am crazy.

This is Anjana, the bride. And I am completely smitten with this photograph, even though up to this point the weird delay feature on the camera was wrecking all the other pics I'd needed a flash for. Gaurav's 15-year-old cousin Ragav finally straightened things out for me, but I'm actually glad it was after this moment. This was the last night of the wedding and Anjana and Gaurav had been married earlier in the day. She changed outfits like five times, the ceremony took hours, a lot of food was consumed and people talked the entire time. They had two priests, each from their respective villages, and they got into an argument on the altar about just how the ceremony should proceed. It was fairly hilarious, even in Hindi. On this particular evening, they stood on a stage in the middle of a giant field and shook about fifty million hands. Everyone was secretly there ONLY for the food, of which there was a ton. That's really what Indian weddings are about: food. And exchanging a bunch of gifts.

The next day, the Americanos hopped into a car and drove north towards Delhi. We stopped each day to sightsee. This is one of the main temples in Khajuraho. They are covered in carvings depicting the kama sutra. It reminded me quite a bit of Angkor Wat and was built roughly during the same time period, but it was much much smaller and nowhere near as mystical or majestic. Still, pretty darned cool. It was also the cleanest place I'd been yet in India, with the exception of a couple of bathroom stalls in upscale hotels where the wedding festivities had been. I guess when something is deemed a World Heritage Site (India has LOADS of them), it gets extra special care and a manicured lawn. I'm pretty sure I saw some Mexicans there, so they must import them given their world-renowed expertise in lawn care.

INTERNET PORN!!!!

This is a close-up of some of the carvings. This is surprisingly tame, as our guide later showed us some scenes where there was some man-on-horse action. Apparently, he told us, when the going got rough during war, well....let's just say that perhaps the term "rough riders" was a neologism born in India.

Our next stop was Orchha, where we stayed in these little cottages that reminded me of the smurf village at Carowinds (remember those, Em?) for some reason. We were not there long, but we got a lot of bugbites, had to abandon our shoes quite unwillingly outside of a dirty mosque, watched our tour host and the day's route guide bicker over how long the drive was to our next destination, and one girl managed to spray deet into her eye. The night we got into Orchha, we wandered through a large courtyard where this boy was selling flowers. Everything in India is just this brightly colored. I think that in spite of the dirt and poverty, this is what makes it so beautiful.

I don't imagine the Mogul rulers were really known for their prescient urban planning because the town of Fatehpur Sikri was built in honor of a resident oracle who'd told the king he would soon have a son. When the prophesy came true, the king was so elated that he went back to the oracle and told him he'd build a city there. It took 20 years to build. It also took 20 years to discover there was no good water source to the city, so it was promptly abandoned upon completion. This big mosque is still there, though and it was pretty darned big for a country of Hindus.

We arrived at the Taj Mahal just as the sun was starting to set and we watched it turn about fifty different colors in the fading light. In spite of a crowd that would put Disney World to shame, it was a pretty amazing thing to see. The sheer beauty of this monument is astounding, to say nothing of the symmetry and engineering feats that would give math nerds wet dreams. It is the Niagara Falls of India with respect to popularity among newlyweds; and even though it is a mausoleum, I would be hard-pressed to find any other testament of love that is so magnificently represented on earth. True confessions: I am a romantic to a shockingly disgusting degree. *sigh*

So, stay tuned for next week's photo journal, which will include from the highest mountain range in the WORLD!!!

I cannot stand United

2006-04-25T11:31:00.000-04:00

I want to write about the new movie United 93 that is premiering tonight down in TriBeCa, but I am having a hard time. It makes sense as I have a hard time with anything regarding the events of September 11. I can hardly look at more than about four photos at any given time; the thought of an entire film upsets me to the point of disgust. The trailer alone literally makes me nauseous and I can't get my head around what I want to say about it. The movie first popped onto my radar a couple of weekends ago when I was at the movies with a friend and a bit about it was shown on "The Twenty." I was completely appalled, although not all that surprised because it was only a matter of time before the events of 9/11 were made into a dramatization. It's just that it looked so staged and overdramatic. And even though I run the risk of sounding narrow-minded here, I really do not feel like we're all that ready for this film to have been made. I have yet to speak to anyone else who disagrees with me.

Even though the people supporting the film (i.e. the studio and the victims' family members) say that we ARE ready, the truth is that this movie has been in development since the day those airplanes crashed, which takes away from the prescience the filmmakers claim to have about it with respect to NOW being the "right" time. Maybe what makes me nauseous when I see the trailers is that I feel it represents the trivialization by Hollywood of a still-too-raw wound that we are trying to deal with. I'm NOT prepared to see a movie about this. My friend Alison likened it to movies about Vietnam that are still too hard for her father to watch. Certainly, Vietnam was far more traumatic, but it makes me think that I may never be at a point where I could imagine watching a film like this one. If we're not ready now, will we ever be?

I do think that at some point, it will be good and cathartic to have an artistic record of what happened in each of those airplanes. Plenty of writers and playwrights have already attempted to make artistic representations of it. And each of us with a story to tell is a singular historian. But for now, we are still too close to what has gone on. We are still the ones holding the mirror up to our version of history; only when the next generation comes along to do that for us can we be removed enough to start understanding what has come to pass with clearer eyes.

In addition to all of the emotional stuff tied up in even the slightest mention of 9/11, is all the political association it has taken on because it was used as a justification for the war we are now pursuing in Iraq. And that was just wrong. For the bajillionth time: Saddam Hussein has NOTHING to do with Osama bin Laden. And because that message has been disseminated to the general American public who has eaten it up like candy, they've also co-opted the emotion behind what happened on that day. I feel extremely, oddly possessive of the events of September 11, 2001. And seeing the entire thing dramatized in a way that I know just be virtue of existing feels schmaltzy and pre-meditated really upsets the monster in the basement that I keep about my emotions regarding that day.

There is a good amount of doubt on the part of critics that people will be willing to shell out money to see this film and with that in mind, maybe I should laud Hollywood for taking the chance that we will pay for it. The Almighty Dollar rules Hollywood, but this movie is tough and if there is a single society in the world who loves to dissociate with reality at the movies, it is Americans. So imagining that people will pay to be subjected to this doesn't seem likely to me. Perhaps I'm being too hard on the film; it would be nearly impossible to portray this in a classy way that doesn't offend anyone at all. But I also do not think that even five years on, we are really ready to observe something of this nature.

Shit is hectic

2006-04-19T16:03:00.000-04:00

Dear JC:

2006-04-16T21:32:00.000-04:00

Thanks for taking one for the team.

Bin Rummy

2006-04-14T17:46:00.000-04:00

I have to confess with being totally astonished at the array of photographs of military personel that allowed themselves to be featured on the front page of the Times today for speaking against Rumsfeld. It's not so much that I think they are concerned about their positions (if memory serves, many of them have retired or are no longer in a position to be scrapped), but that so many major news outlets are hitting this so hard.

The power of suggestion is, well, a powerful thing. And if anyone understands that, it's the propaganda machine that resides just on the other side of the door of the Oval Office. (For instance: the push callers who suggested to SC voters in the 2000 primary that John McCain had fathered a black baby and that became all that was written in respsect to his campaign that year. Another aside: how curious that he's now consulting the same people who ripped him apart that year in his preparation for his upcoming presidential bid). Another favorite passtime of the White House is the practice of evasion (see also: Scott McClellan) and these two things meet in the persona of Donald Rumsfeld who is evidently clueless according to people who should know. So here's what I'm wondering: how long will it take for Rummy to wake up and smell the (G.I.) Joe and understand that people actually mean what they say when they are calling for his resignation and he also realizes that this WILL have an impact on the American psyche (and it's not like the "War on Terror" is winning any popularity contests) as well as the presidency (already toilet-bound) and will step aside in spite of his pride. In other words, will he put his ego or his commander in chief first?

My guess is that Rove and the rest of Team Damage Control is already leaning on Rummy to hit the road, even though Bush has issued a statement in support of him. Let's just observe the recent departure of Andrew Card and Scooter "honestly, you're a grown man, so get a real name dammit" Libby. With those in mind and the calls for changing course in Iraq in mind, can Rummy's beheading be far away?

Also, a note to Gretchen Mol about her new movie: I saw you in my yoga class once and you are totally forgetable in your waifish way and that movie looks pretty dumb. No one cares. Just wanted to share that.

Because really, I don't let my sixteen-year-old side out often enough

2006-04-12T22:34:00.000-04:00

This is Milo Ventimiglia.

And this is a haiku about how I feel:

You are real hot
You are real hot
You are in fact so hot that I forgot everything about syllables and haiku rules or even how to count or use adverbs.

Keeping up with the Jonesewitzes

2006-04-11T14:43:00.000-04:00

In my new life as a professional nanny in Boho Brooklyn, I've encountered some unusual names in the past few weeks:
Amelia
Anselm ("Well, MY name is very common, so I wanted my son to have one that was unusual." CHECK!)
Sabrina
Tiber ("Like the river!")
Seamus (this child was fairly disobedient and I was quite certain it was precisely because his parents had done him the unfortunate favor of naming him Seamus. The only other Seamus I ever knew was a drooly cat who belonged to my high school physics teacher on whom I had a crush the size of Alaska--the teacher, not the cat)
Omre (sp?)
Rafael (with brothers named Gideon and Ezra)
Jules
Nan
Sterling
Paulina
Teddy
Hal
Ruby
Ellis (like the island, presumably)
Bodie
Satchel (whom a friend of mine couldn't stop calling "Bookbag")
Boris
And his brother, Arthur, who was either named for the popular aardvark of children's literary fame or the besotted drunk portrayed by Dudley Moore in the eponymous movie. I speak from experience when I tell Arthur's parents from the depths of cyberspace that they did him no favors by naming him after a movie character, especially one who has a social dysfunction.

I realize that I myself have a fairly unusual name, but I cannot help but feel as I keep meeting child after child, or hearing their names called by their stay-at-home mother or Haitian nanny across the playground, that they've all been named according to some big "Must Keep Up With the Jonesewitzes" competition in which the most unusual name wins.

With black people and certain strains of trailer trash (the opossum trappin' kind), it's all about creating the most unusual spelling--to the point of being unrecognizable--of the name "Kkrystahl." I rather enjoy that trend when watching American Idol. But with bougie white people, it's all about the oddest, most obscure, or otherwise unhip name possible, that could even (hopefully!) be confused for a surname, which I find really irritating. I've had to ask for spellings on multiple occasions, because in addition to being named for minerals (Sterling, Ruby), kids get named for family members (like me) or places or because the name is so uncool it's cool. Like Boris (now it WOULD be cool if he had a diabolical sister named Natasha and some cousins named Moose and Squirrel) and Seamus. Honestly. Soon enough, some poor young girl will be dubbed Ethel, and her sister Gertrude, and it will scare the next generation enough to resurrect Jennifer and Elizabeth. And possibly, in an effort to be kitschy or edgy or ironic, they'll try on an Amber or Tiffany. It's all very faux-phisticated.

I appreciate unusual names. I do. They run in my family, and hailing from the South, I grew up with loads of kids who had unusual family names handed down. I even happen to go by my middle name, which I always have a little fun explaining. But somehow, most of the kids I grew up with who had odd names all managed to refrain from sounding pretentious or competitive or like someone lost a pissing contest. Maybe this sensation of naming your child after produce or whathaveyou is strictly a New York phenomenon, because every parent I've ever met with a kid who has a weird name seems to take perverse pleasure in finally announcing that name when asked about it. I used to nanny in college for a family who had a baby while I was working for them. And the mom deliberated for a long time about what to call the baby before he arrived. She finally went for a French name, which I happened to like quite a lot and she could get away with it because she was Canadian and had lived in Japan and her husband was in a band and in spite of all this, they just weren't pretentious. But I knew it would be the source of a fair amount of heartache for the child at a certain point in his life as he explained to someone for the millionth time how to say it or spell or simply what the origin was. And then I think about that kid Tiber and realize that the woman I sat for in college practically did her son a favor when she named him compared to what Tiber will have to put up with the rest of his life. As for Boris, let's just hope Rocky and Bullwinkle re-runs are out of vogue by the time his friends get nasty enough to tease him about it all.

XXX

2006-03-28T09:51:00.000-05:00

Take a stand, bitches.

Quantum physics

2006-03-25T13:53:00.000-05:00

If someone buys you a sweatshirt that says "World's Coolest Uncle" on it and you actually wear it, I'm pretty sure you've instantly made it untrue. It's like Schroedinger's Cat or the Heisenberg Principle or something.

Not to mention that it's an entirely ridiculous claim to try to prove.

Jet(lag)setting

2006-03-23T22:25:00.000-05:00

Oh my god, can we talk about what a reject jetlag makes me? Last night, my brother called me at 11:14. And here is how I answered the phone: "What do you want?" Except that I sounded like that creepy old crotchety lady who lives down the street that kids like to harass by playing ring-and-run all the time and the only reason that I wasn't already in bed because I'd been officially retarded since about five hours earlier was that when I got home, I pretty much sat down on the couch and was too tired to move for the rest of the night except to eat some pasta salad and talk to my friend Caryn on the phone. (Hi, C!)

The trouble with going away for a long time is that you get back and you have all this stuff you need to do and all these people who want to see you or talk to you and in short, your life just goes on and you really don't have time to be retarded or else you risk alienating a lot of people. Fortunately, I've managed to keep it together for most of my friends--although my friend Monika did suggest kindly that I go home around 6:15 last night--and have saved my particular brand of nastiness for my family alone, who has to forgive me because if they were ever in the hospital they'd need my blood. (The fact that the Red Cross has deemed me unacceptable thanks to the places I've traveled notwithstanding.)

Today's adventures in jetlage were better, and I hit my "reject" wall at about 9:00 instead of 6:00. As a result, I cannot ensure that this post even has full sentences in it. Clue me in.

Welcome back, Kotter!

2006-03-18T20:12:00.000-05:00

Bear with me, because I am a little jetlag-ged! But, in addition to being worldly richer, I am also 300 Euros worth of a flight voucher richer for having tossed up my seat last night to come this morning instead. And Rumsfeld says the French cannot be reasonable!

In addition to the jetlag is a fair amount of shellshock, although much of that came when I got to Paris on Tuesday afternoon. The streets were clean (enough), the trains not crowded, the people totally ignored me. It was great! And even though I was entirely aware of how different the East and West (or maybe it's just a Third vs. First world distinction really) are when I GOT to India, I was only reminded again how fortuitous it is for one to be born in this part of the world. Life is exceedingly difficult in certain places, but this, on the whole, is not one of them.

I tried to approach my remaining two days in Delhi with a chin-up attitude and it worked in my favor. Even though I was never at any point thrilled to be there, I DID decide to check out the Metro and this helped things considerably. I think that the people riding it were all so shocked to be moving efficiently and without threat of whiplash that they were quite content to leave me alone to a much higher degree than when I was roaming the streets. I figured out how to make the Metro go where I needed to go and I thus had to deal with nary a sexually inquisitive rickshaw driver my entire two days. C'est marvellieuse, as the French say.

I took to the Metro like a duck to water. So clean, so efficient, so well-lit, I was showing those people how to become an efficient bunch of straphangers and the other cool part was that much of it is above the city, so I could actually see where I was going and get a bit of a layout. Delhi was also cooler this time around, which made for a more pleasant me as well. The weird downside was that my flight left at about 3:00 in the morning and I tried in vain to get myself onto a direct Air France flight for Paris, but to little avail. (I slept nearly the entire flight to Milan, where I had a layover, and when I did get up at one point to stretch my legs, a flight attendant inquired of me, with all seriousness, which drugs I'd taken to accomplish that feat. I stared at him in a daze, since he'd clearly forgotten what hour we'd left the tarmac.) I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but the customer is far from king in India. In fact, customer service is a fairly non-existent ideal no matter who or where you are in the country. Maybe next time I'll try bribery because as I KNOW I've mentioned, yelling at people doesn't really cut the proverbial mustard.

In any case, at least in France you know when they are ignorning you, it is because they have a reputation to uphold. In India, I couldn't sort out why the rest of humanity appears nonexistent to anyone in a service position. Maybe because there are just so many people.

At one point during my trip in Nepal, my tent mate and I decided to have a "bath" in a freezing cold river in our bathing suits in front of an entire village of children who hung on a bridge overhead of us. The next morning, we woke up with some fairly bad bug bits all over our knees and ankles and after ruling out bedbugs, determined it was from some kind of sand mite or something and our little river show. But it did have me a touch worried that since I'd slept in oh...say close to 20 different beds by that point in my trip, that I was living on the edge with regards to the threat of body vermin. The black fly in the chardonnay, of course, was that I arrived at my apartment this morning to find men in white hazmat suits tramping about fumigating for bedbugs in my building. After a quick consult with the super, my dad and I ran around the apartment bagging all the textiles (including Roommate's, who's out of town for the weekend) and pulling the furniture away from the walls. My apartment is a complete wreck, but at least my time in the third world has kept me well shielded from "beasties" (as the Scots call them).

India: A Driving Manual

2006-03-12T15:57:00.000-05:00

1) The cow is sacred. For this reason, you must avoid hitting it at ANY AND ALL costs, including and not exclusive of the following: whiplash, motion sickness, distressed brake pads, balded tires, or physical ejection of passengers resulting from inertia.

2) Your horn is the only functional piece of equipment necessary that resides inside your car. Blinkers, mirrors, and sometimes your steering wheel, are all superfluous adornments that only serve to make your car pretty. You will find them otherwise of little use to you.
2a) Sideview mirrors can be easily knocked off by passing cars. Be sure to turn them inwards so as to prevent this from happening.
2b) The rear-view mirror is useful for picking your teeth or straightening your hair. Keep it turned towards you to facilitate these activities.

3) Seatbelts are yet another adornment of no use. As well, maintaining properly functioning headlights and signals is optional. Remember, your horn is all you need!

4) With that in mind, lay on your horn as often as possible, especially when traffic appears not to be moving. This simply lets others know you're there.

5) Be aware. You share the road with a host of things: people, dogs, birds, camels, trucks, children, motorbikes, cows, pigs, elephants and any number of planned or unplanned traffic obstructions and overturned vehicles.

6) Pedestrians are worth 50 points.

7) There is no need to learn how to sustain a particular speed when driving. Just be leadfooted as possible on the accelerator until a cow, et alia strolls in front of the car, at which point you need only wait until the LAST POSSIBLE SECOND to move your foot to the brake pedal. Apply hard.

8) For a bit of fun, try passing overstuffed wide-load trucks around blind curves.

9) Keep the windows rolled down. Inhaling smog and dirt is good for increasing lung capacity.

10) Answer all your phone calls swiftly, even if you're in the process of changing the tape in your tape deck or lighting your cigarette.

11) If you have to pee, simply pull over a bit and hop out of the car. The side of the road has conveniently replaced all need for proper reststops. Don't be bashful, as you'll likely be joined by an entire busload of people in short order.

12) If you are on a motorbike: your helmet is yet another optional piece of equipment for you and your passengers.
12a) You should be able to fit your entire family of five on your motorbike.

13) In that vein, cram your vehicle as full of people as uncomfortably possible; put the Mexicans to shame!!! Laps are excellent places to sit; backs of trucks were meant to be stuffed to the brim with humanity; the top of your vehicle is nice and flat, as well as well-aired; and hanging people off the running board, the back, or out the door is another good use of space and it provides attractive adornment as an added bonus.

14) Above all else, have fun. And as a passenger, hold tight to the Oh Shit! Bar.

Nepal: The Ultimate Stair Master!

2006-03-09T06:39:00.000-05:00

OR: I'm ASSTASTIC, thanks for asking!!!!

Most importantly, I suppose: I am alive. And, to put it simply, Nepal has been totally amazing.

I was fairly apprehensive once I got into this part of my trip because I'd kind of forgotten how physically demanding all our dashing about was going to be. Intrepid has most certainly lived up to its apt name in this case.

Our first couple of days scared me also because I was finishing up a course of Cipro (thanks, Caryn!) and while it was taking care of the bad runs I'd had, it was also making me a bit nauseous and entirely lacking in energy. Bad since we were about to set out on a three-day hike. And what a hike it was. Total asskicker.

Then, we hit the rapids for two days of rafting, since our upper bodies hadn't gotten much of a workout.

Then, a day off to ready ourselves for our five-day journey into the Nepalese country-side. And here's where the stairs come in. Actually, our first day of trekking during our three-day "walk" was made up of lots and lots and lots and LOTS of concrete stairs, all of varying size, depth, height, etc., which have been inlaid by the villagers who employ them to trip up and down the mountainside with oversized baskets slung around their foreheads, which weigh sometimes twice their own weight and all in flip flops or shower shoes. It's fairly humbling when you're huffing and sweating to save your life and some 65-year-old man goes dashing by you in the afore-described fashion.

Much of our longer trek was stair-filled as well, and by today, well, you could bounce quarters off my backside, as they say. If nothing else, all the hiking was worth it for that.

Now, you may wonder why all the stairs, and I myself did too. No, it's not some fitness mogul whose made a fortune on the Nepalese backside, but rather the enterprising villagers who still have to make their livelihoods during the monsoon season and thus need the stairsteps to ensure that the rains don't wash the mountainside away. The activity that so many (although in increasingly dwindling numbers) come here to engage in--trekking--should really be called "Earning your buns of steel," or something otherwise catchy having to do with the derriere.

The other idiom that comes to mind is the one about how your grandparents hiked uphill both ways in the snow barefooted to school when they were young. Here, it is true, because when they aren't wearing shower shoes, they're wearing no shoes around here. And I've seen the snow. And some rain (that was its own treachery), and some really fantastic views. And perhaps the most comical part of all was that on our five-day hike, there were seven of us Westerners, and 18--yes, 18--porters, which is a ratio of nearly three to one. They carried our packs, our bedding, our tents, our food, some club chairs, a table, a toilet tent and pretty much anything you could imagine, and, just like the villagers, they did it all in flip flops or less. Now talk about feeling like a fat, lazy foreigner...then again, the altitude acclimation really does make a difference and they start training the men as young as six or seven to carry burdens like that. It's in their blood quite literally and my life of leisure and machinery has entirely eliminated the possiblity that I could ever be so hearty even if I wanted to. I must say, it's an astounding feat to behold.

There is so much more I want to mention here, but I cannot just at the moment. The most important part, about my backside, has been said, so that will have to do for the time being. And oh yeah, we met some Maoists....

Give peace a chance

2006-02-25T10:48:00.000-05:00

Ok, Dubya is coming to India in a couple weeks to discuss nuclear detente, so if he's reaching out, I've decided I cannot let the Retard in Chief outdo my own personal foreign policy. I am posting about a positive experience I had in Delhi, because the truth is there IS some of the best damned shopping I've ever seen (Chatachuk in Bangkok notwithstanding, Bro. And oh man, you should SEE me haggle now. I'm ruthless!!!!)

The hotel I spent two icky nights in was in the Pahar Ganj area, near the New Delhi Railway Station. It's the backpacker part of town and generally harmless if exceedingly dirty. Most Delhiites frown on it just for being so apparently seedy. But it's alright. It's mostly one long stretch of claustrophobic street packed with people, food vendors, cycle rickshaws, shop, hotels, phone booths, dirt, and of course, cows. My hotel was well down the street and as Jean and Natasha (two of my friends who'd come in for the wedding) escorted me to the Hotel Shelton, a young man tried to stop us, asking why we were so mad. He said we looked mad. Mostly, I was just overwhelmed and hoping not to miss my stop. We dropped off my bags and walked past a few minutes later. He was there again, saying we now looked happy. Now we could stroll. He introduced himself as Omar and asked where we were from, all while we were still walking past. He followed us a bit and I jokingly asked him where he was from. "Kashmir!!" he stated proudly. "But you look Israeli," I told him. "WHAT?? No, KASHMIR!!!" I told him I'd be back later, I promised.

You cannot make promises like this unless you intend to keep them. "Later" to most people in this part of the world is a concept they've come to understand as an implicit promise to buy something, even though in the West it's really a brush off. So as I passed by the next morning after wandering around Main Bazaar for a bit, I sought Omar out and went upstairs into his shop. Ultimately, it was the most fun I've had bargaining yet and it made me realize that it never has to be a stressful event in the least.

Being beckoned above street level to some man's shop can be a bit offputting because it goes against one's instinctual habit to do no such thing in the States. But I went, into a cool dusty room piled with trinkets and goods. I found his shop not too different from the stuff you'd find at a street fair in NYC. Noting this, I'm fairly convinced the rural peoples of the world have a giant annual convention at which they all decide what kind of chintzy stuff to make and sell at mark up to hippies. None of it differs much from region to region, especially if there is sheep herding involved for the local people. Perhaps wool is not nearly so versatile as we've all been led to believe. Who can say?

At first glance, I didn't really spot anything I couldn't live without from Omar's lair. Even more than an NYC street fair, the place resembled a head shop with "glassware," hemp clothing, bags, loads of Nag Champa (gross), trinkets, cheap carvings and wooly things to wear. I searched in vain for something I "needed," but nothing jumped out at me until I spotted his singing bowls. I'd seen them in Rishikesh and had considered buying one there but figured (rightly) that I'd see them again. Omar began "singing" them for me and showing me how to use them. It appears easy, like dipping your finger into a wine glass and running it around the rim. But you do this with a stick of wood and there is no wine. The bowls are usually made of brass and each has a different pitch note. I couldn't do it.

I told Omar again that he looked Israeli to me, not a bit Indian, but he swore he was Kashmiri. He was nineteen and had moved to Delhi away from his five brothers and sisters to live with his uncle and help at the shop. He had already spent a great deal of time with me alone and I wondered at how much business he did in a day. He was working hard for a sale and if I said no, he would have made nothing.

We played the bowls some more and he filled one with water. As he tilted it, the water leapt up in a light spray. I tried the watered bowl and failed there too. I went back to plain and started to get it. Now for choosing one I liked best.

At a certain point, Omar's uncle came up and busied himself with something in the corner, but no doubt kept an ear turned to our negotiations. I'd started in on the bargaining by asking the price. Omar started at 950. The rule of thumb is to slash the cost in half and meet somewhere in the middle (or, hopefully closer to your slashed price). I countered with 500 and Omar was immediately embarassed. I knew it was a bit low for the bowl, but I had tried my chops on some other things and was really ready to play. He wasn't taking the bait, so I kept saying 500 and trying to coach him. I went up to 600. He started claiming that he didn't bargain, which is another tactic a lot of people use. "Oh, everyone ELSE bargains, but not THIS shop." Another rule of thumb: Unless the price is posted, everything is negotiable. And even when it IS posted, sometimes it's worth asking.

I'd already decided where my ceiling was. You have to be ready to part ways with whatever item you're looking at no matter what once you decide upon your final price you're willing to pay. Mine was 800 and I knew I wouldn't budge. I could find these things in Nepal. I jumped to 650 and chanted that for a bit, while he hemmed and hawed. Ok, 700!! He had already been telling me that he usually sold them for 1200 to people, which I countered by telling him it was a price one pays in the States for such a thing. He still wouldn't move. "Ok, 750, Omar." I was nearing my cap.
He came to 920 and I shot him a disapproving look. He covered his eyes, squirming at this point. Either I really was undercutting him seriously or he was a fantastic actor.

At the same time, all of this back and forthing was quite jovial and friendly. I was smiling and laughing telling him that I'd been practicing for two whole weeks how to bargain and now he wouldn't play with me. I was disappointed. He conversed with his uncle, then offered cheaper bowls, while I stayed at 750. We went silent a bit and he played the bowl again for me. "Ok, Omar, 800 is my highest. Otherwise I will not buy it. So come on!!!"

900!

800!

900!

800!!

880??

800!!!!!!

880!

800, Omar.

I put down the bowl.

Ok, ok. 800 and something from USA.

I was stumped. I had nothing to offer him. I opened my bag and pulled out my hat. It was a nice ball cap that I'd gotten from work for last year's centennial celebration and I kind of liked it. But I wanted to show goodwill. He put the cap on and went to chat with his uncle. They wrapped the bowl up and I handed him my money. He handed me my hat back. I insisted he keep it, but I secretly think he didn't really like it. Or perhaps he thought my willingness to relinquish it had indicate our established friendship. Or, maybe, he just thought I was really desperate to have that bowl. But I was glad to hand over the hat because when bargaining turns into bartering, you put a bit more of your own self into it. Omar wouldn't forget our transaction if he had my hat. But he might if it were only my money. You feel like you're both really earning something and it makes for a good story too.

__________________________________________
I'm in Kathmandu now and it is AWESOME. Much needed after Delhi's stress. No Maoist sightings so far, but it feels pretty chill here, so I'm not too worried. I'll update as I can...

Road rage in Delhi

2006-02-24T01:29:00.000-05:00

I managed to miss my train to Jaipur yesterday morning and it makes sense that there is only one per day. So, I've been killing time in Delhi. Is it possible to have an entire city as your nemesis? It's very difficult to get around walking because you get stared and honked at and nothing is close to anything else anyway, so it's just not worth it. Plus, of course, you get dirty. The most efficient means of transport is autorickshaw, but even that is arguable inefficient. It is a group effort. First, you MUST haggle the price after selecting one driver from twenty, and the drivers all act like they've never been to Delhi in their lives. They simply do not know their way around, so you stop at least five times to ask for directions. Inevitably, this turns into a swarm of men pointing in five different directions each time. Someone wants to try out his English chops, so he starts asking after your name, nationality and marital status. (The marital status thing is apparently a very common point of convo in India. I have made the mistake a couple times of telling people I'm unmarried at which point they get very inquisitive as to why. It is impossible to explain because no one's English vocabulary goes much past asking those three initial questions and furthermore the idea of a 25-year-old single woman is practically scandalous so they are awed by that too.) Eventually, you get there, but not without a bit of the scenic route first. I understand now why so many people hire private drivers in this town. I would too.

After missing the train, I needed a minute to collect my thoughts and decide what to do. I'd checked out of my hotel and wasn't keen to go back to it even though it was cheap. It smelled of mildew and was noisy. So I wandered upstairs to the International Tourist Office at the station, but it wouldn't open for another hour and a half. Men were constantly approaching me to ask, no TELL, me what I needed to do and after about the fifth one, I just lost it, shouting "FUCKING leave me alone, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST." Not my best moment in India, to be sure.

I think I started emitting some kind of evil death rays because I got the next ten minutes to myself. Until I moved into the taxi lines. I picked someone out and another man got involved asking about my hotel. I told him it was full but that I'd called ahead (I'd picked a YWCA in central Delhi out of my book) but that I was going to go anyway because they'd have a room at 10:00. This was a mistake. He tried to lure me to his office by saying it was a tourist booking office of the government and hopped into the rickshaw against my protests. We crossed the street and he tried to take my bag out and usher me upstairs. I didn't budge and sternly instructed the rickshaw walla to take me to the hotel I'd told him to or that I'd find someone who would. He nodded and started to back up his bike. But then ANOTHER man stuck his head in and told me to follow HIM. I started hollering again. This time something about the "problems" everyone in this country has and he instantly disappeared. We drove off.

It is not so good for me to do so much screaming before 7:00 in the morning. But I was pissed I'd missed the train and further irritated at being so hassled. I mean, I can fend for myself, so stop effing trying to take advantage of me.

I got to the Y and slept for about four hours. I got up and decided to give Delhi another chance and instantly met a friendly rickshaw driver who was well dressed and spoke very good English. I was somewhat suspicious, because this is far from the norm. But he offered me a fair price and off we went. But on the way to the Indira Gandhi memorial, he insisted upon stopping at a shopping emporium even though I'd told him that I didn't need to and that the museum closed around 4:45 and I didn't want to miss it. "No, this will be fine. Museum's open until 5:30." "But my book says 4:45." Why fight, I thought, and stepped inside the store. It was a nice, overpriced emporium so I took a spin around then came back out.

At this point, my driver turned nosy. I'd already told him I'd been to a marriage in Bhopal earlier in my stay and he'd asked about MY marital status.
"Single," I said. "Just haven't found the right guy."
"But you've had boyfriends, maybe?" he asked.
"Yes."

So he starts in again about the boyfriends. Asking all about why they were wrong for me, why I didn't marry them, etc. And then he asks, "but you made the sex with these boyfriends? Yes?" I wasn't sure I understood him properly at first, but he repeated himself and there was no miscommunication. I was totally aghast and told him that this was not an appropriate topic of discussion, especially between two strangers. I kept with that line of reasoning while he kept with his line of questioning and finally, mercifully, we stopped in front of the memorial. I jumped out and threw a 50 rupee note at him, feeling totally let down once again by the city. I'd tried to make it work, but it just wasn't. Here's a tip for the ladies: you are married, no matter what the truth is.

Every last person here except the people I've met at the front desk of my room at the YWCA (my third hotel in the city) and one sales person named Omar, is trying to swindle me into something. They all know a cousin or a friend who has a shop you simply MUST see and they insist on taking you there. I think "no" is a very underused word in Delhi. If it isn't a commercial interest they have, then they think your existing travel plans are a bad idea and that you should follow them to a good travel office who will help you book better ones. The only thing I can figure is that they either think that all tourists are exceedingly stupid and gullible, or all Indians are exceedingly poor and are trying desperately to make a buck any way they can. Should the US ever find itself shorthanded of used car salesmen, I know where they can outsource to. Delhi has very nearly ruined India for me. Rishikesh, the wedding, everything else I've seen have been majestic in nature, if at times puzzling. But Delhi, in a word, blows. I cannot leave soon enough.

Speaking of which, I've been keeping very close watch on things in Nepal and I even serendipitously ran into a couple who'd just come from there and everything seems to be ok. For now, the strikes have lifted, which means it's easy to get around. The couple told me they'd only seen a handful of gun-wielding Maoists and had otherwise felt fine. There are special tourist buses and shuttles that run when the strikes ARE in effect. The Intrepid people feel like everything is fine and even the British government has lifted their recommended hiatus on in-country travel. Naturally, the US government hasn't but that is because a) look who's Sec. of State ( i.e. a woman who studied during the Cold War and hates Commies) and b) they have their heads so far up their arses that they are convincing shooting victims to apologize to the shooters (ahem, CHENEY!)

(I read an article in the Hindustan Times today about President Bush's upcoming trip to India, which will include a fleet of about ten aircraft and 250 secret service (or, SS?) members. Some of those aircraft will be carrying disassembled choppers, others have spare limos in them. Sheesh!)

So tomorrow I'm on to Nepal. The Internet service, etc. is supposed to be fine as well, although a good part of my intinerary includes trekking during which I don't know that we'll have a "computer tent." Although we will have sherpas hauling just about anything else we might need. How about a mute taxi driver?

Things I would kill for:

2006-02-22T01:04:00.000-05:00

A New York Times
A ginger ale (although the lemon soda is a fine stand-in)
Some brie cheese
Some clean sheets
To go to bed without having to wash my feet
A normal bathroom with a proper shower and tub
No more runs

If you possess any of these items, watch your back!

The dirt here is still just killing me, even though I myself now permanently reside with a fine layer of it on my skin/clothes/hair/shoes/younameit! Case in point: I'm in this Internet shop right now, which actually doubles as a fabric, shoes and leather store (yes, B, I'm looking around for ya!) and some girl just came in and plopped herself down on the floor to have a look at some shoes. Oh. Gross. Deliver me to the pristine waters of the Himalayas high in Nepal. I kind of brought it on myself though by choosing to stay in the backpacker district in Delhi now that my friends have all gone to points South or back to the States. Nearly every Delhi-ite I've mentioned this area to has raised their eyebrows in disbelief that I'd be here. So that's saying something.

Speaking of Nepal, my journey there is still ago even though the Maoists called off their cease fire about six weeks ago and things are back to full-scale hostility. They have stated they are not targeting tourists, but the whole thing cannot be good for business. What is more, there's an early curfew of 9:00 at night and things go on strike indefinitely on a pretty constant basis. Should be a good time.

So, a little bit about Delhi. New Delhi and Old Delhi are all part of the same municipality more or less. Which is to say that if you sent me a letter at my fleabitten hotel, and just wrote "Delhi" on it, I'd get it. But don't do that because I'm leaving tomorrow. However, when the Brits came along and established the capital here, they left the old part of the city to history and built up a bunch of lovely traffic circles and boulevards a few kilometers to the South. This area is as planned as L'Enfant's Paris and most of the roads are even manicured and tree-lined. We drove past the President's residence and the Parliament buildings yesterday and they impose with stately European architecture. However, just like me, they are layered in dirt, dust and auto emissions. I dreamed last night that we were in the car in Delhi and could not see fifteen feet ahead, not for fog, but for fumes and pollution. Is India trying to tell me something? It's really kind of sad, because I cannot tell if the overlying puff of fumes allows people to assume it's ok to just ditch their garbage anywhere they please or they'd do that regardless of if the taxis were deisel or handsome.

Who can really say, but I cannot help but feel (and this is a gigantic assumption on my part) that the disdain with which nearly everyone here treats the ground by littering is parallel to the lack of respect they have for their country overall. Yesterday, my friends and I met with one of our hosts here and mentioned that the country is so full of contradictions. He tutted us, saying it was not and then a few moments later he said the following to us: The people here want to be your great friend. They are good and helpful. But they simultaneously wish to cheat you." I have been to countries where the pride of nationality is palpable, but I would not say I encounter that as much here. The Indians are certainly hospitable, and they enjoy welcoming visitors, but more than a few have told me that my country is better than theirs. I'm not really certain what gives a people this kind of inferiority complex, but it is a bit upsetting to me.

As I mentioned, my friends who'd come in for Anjana's wedding all went their separate ways yesterday and I'm feeling a bit small and isolated in this gigantic city. I'm staying in Pahar Ganj, which is the backpacker area, just near the New Delhi train station. My hotel is in the middle of a long street known as Main Bazaar, and it's chock full of tiny stalls and shops that are poorly lit and crammed with Indian goods. Some are obvious like food or cosmetics. Others not as much with toys like remote control helicopters or men's handkerchiefs. The shop I'm in at present is stocked floor to ceiling with colorful bolts of fabric and barefoot men (gross). Cows wander the street, bikers beep and the hawkers are positively relentless. And, as always, there are hardly any women save the westerners you see. I've seen loads of palaces covered in the lattice-work jealousies of Muslim architecture that served to allow women to peek out on the world while also hiding from it and I can only assume that the same is true for more modern day activities. Even in restaurants, it is all men, and the only time I've had a female waitperson was at an Italian place we chowed at a couple nights ago.

Traffic in Delhi is, in a word, snarled. But unlike New York or any other major American city you might travel to, the drivers are calm and patient and road rage seems fairly non existent. I've promised to post an entry on driving and I will soon, I swear it. But here in Delhi, we've even had to contend with camels and the occasional elephant. I'm just not certain any given driver in NYC would be able to cope with that.

And, as for my New York Times, I am missing very much the chance to read a quality news publication. Even the Herald Tribune is hard to come by and as any overseas traveller knows, this is the international standard English paper. When WILL I encounter media again??? In some ways, I appreciate the deprivation from all things clean/well-written/nice-smelling/sweet-tasting, etc. because it makes me a) realize I do not NEED them to live and b) it makes living all the nicer. It's a little like being on diet.

Ok, I've avoided my day's adventures in Delhi long enough for one morning. I'm off to Jaipur early tomorrow to have a quick peek at Rajasthan. I'll do my best to post again soon.

How's your Hindi?

2006-02-18T12:28:00.000-05:00

Ok, I'm not real sure where to start. I mean, first of all, it's been so long since I've used this thing called the Internet that I hardly know how it functions...
Secondly, there is just SO much to cover. So, I'll do my best to sum up a bit of a travelog and hit some highlights on the way.

First, I'll start with the Taj Mahal, where we spent this afternoon after several hours' drive from Orchha. (I'll post on the cult of driving here at some point too because it deserves an entire book!) It is indeed one of the most breathtaking manmade sights on earth. Really, very beautiful and what is more, it's astonishing how well constructed it is for a society that didn't have the convenience of Caterpillars or cranes. Man is pretty damned ingenious. Furthermore, that it's held up for so long is fairly awesome too. It is evidently an extreme point of pride to the people of this country and here is how you know:

India is very dirty. There is garbage everywhere, stray animals, beggars, pollution, yada yada yada. But you walk into the serene grounds of the Taj Mahal and the lawns are perfectly manicured, the walks cleared, and even the toilets are cleaner than most I've encountered (although this, as you might imagine, is not a difficult honor to achieve). In short, it is a quiet, resplendent respite from the typical goings-on of the hectic country.

I noticed this as well at the temples in Khajuraho yesterday. The town outside is nothing special, but you walk in and it's as if every dollar in the state is being sunk into preserving the temples and keeping up with the latest trends in South Asian horticulture.

And speaking of Khajuraho, we learned some interesting tidbits from our guide yesterday including the following (Nance, not for the boys...the temples are covered in erotic drawings from the Kama Sutra):
1) His philosophy in life: Don't hurry; don't worry; don't eat chicken curry.
2) There is nothing new under the sun (as the guide liked to remind us.
3) That "69" is the "International Sex Position."

The temples were an apparent contradiction in cultural terms since the Indians are quite modest people. Imagining that they're kosher with all the crazy activity on these temple walls seemed unlikely. But hey, there's even some beastiality on there and not a stitch of it's been desecrated so perhaps they are all just closeted about their freakiness. And, again, there's the national point of pride they take in these lovely temples tucked away in the middle of their countryside.

One more thing about the Taj Mahal: I have never in my life seen so many people at a tourist attraction!! It was like Disney World at Space Mountain, and fighting to get a good spot on the ledge down the field from the front of the Taj so you could get an unspoiled picture was practically a blood sport. I watched one Japanese woman get photographed by her boyfriend all the way across the ledge, moving left in two-foot increments. They literally took about twelve shots of her in front of the Taj Mahal in complete oblivion to the others around them struggling to make their way in.

Before setting off on our road trip, we spent four days in Bhopal (home of the Union Carbide spill of 1984) watching our friends Anjana and Gaurav get hitched in a most romantic and ceremonial style. Literally four full days of events surrounded this wedding and it was so involved it is another thing I'd like to devote more time to here on this page. A few highlights: Every last thing Indians adorn themselves with in these ceremonies means something and almost all of them are meant to add to the beauty of the bride and groom. It works. Indians are perhaps the most hospitable hosts I've ever encountered and they give the guests gifts and feed them until they've gained ten pounds. I now know why women wear saris so much because there is plenty of room for your curry/naan/dahl/paneer/masala/chai-stuffed belly. In fact, gift giving is a MAJOR part of the ceremony and the respective members of the bride and groom's families must meet (i.e. her paternal uncle and HIS paternal uncle) and exchange gifts. Then, his parents give her loads of jewelry and saris. Then other people come up and give them even more stuff. Who knows how they'll get it all back to the Sates with them, but I am pretty sure FedEx will be involved.

Even though the actual ceremony itself (which only takes an entire 20 minutes out of a full day's worth of pomp and circumstance) is considered quite sacred, people talk, take phone calls, wander around, eat food, chase down kids and take photographs through it all. I kept recalling all the bar mitzvahs I've been to and how this whole thing was surely fascinating to me but no doubt commonplace for the Indians there and began to realize that they meant no ill will or disrespect by just being themselves. There simply isn't an uptight attitude to be found in this country.

Tomorrow, we move on to Delhi for a brief tour and then we disband. Some are heading back to the States, a few to Goa to party for a weeek, and two more on to Rajasthan, the large desert province of India. I myself will probably spend a couple of days there as well and then head on to Kathmandu on the 25th. That is, assuming the Maoist rebels don't get there first...

The mystery of the dirty hippie

2006-02-10T10:48:00.000-05:00

I think I've solved one of life's great mysteries: Why hippies are dirty.

It is because taking a bath in India is an absolute pain in the you-know-what.

It's arguable that the better part of hippie culture manifest comes from India: huarache sandals, tie-dyed cloth, wall tapestries, beaded bracelets, etc. So it follows that loads of them come to the "Motherland" to buy these goods in bulk and sell them for trade on the commune back home.

The trouble is, the showers here are unlike anything I've ever seen. Even more befuddling to me than a bidet! And as much as I love a good shower each day, I've already made peace with the fact that I will most definitely not be bathing as regularly as I might otherwise. True confessions here, people.

Most everywhere here boasts of having hot water, but it turns out this is only half the battle. Because even if the little electric heater mounted on the wall pumps out hotwater like this place is freakin' Wisconsin ('sup Bob!!) and doesn't make you wait 15 minutes, well, it doesn't guarantee that it will come out of the actual shower head.

I should mention that the shower itself is less a stall and more the ENTIRE bathroom. It's a head mounted on the wall with the sink and toilet in there too. In other words, if you ahve a roommate and one of you needs to pee while the other is in the shower, well, you'll either have to wait or get wet while peeing. It's just that simple. It should be noted that an essential aspect of this entire experience is shower shoes. That is one thing I learned at Girl Scout sleepaway camp. There's a drain in the corner and a slope to the floor. And some buckets: one large, one like a sand pail for a kid.

I have yet to figure out what the larger one is for. Maybe washing clothes? But the small one is for when you go in, turn on the hot water switch, undress, place your clothes in what you hope will be a dry place, turn on the hot water faucet, turn on the showerhead faucet and then discover the two are not necessarily simpatico. You've already resolved to wash your hair, so you turn the shower off and grab taht pail. Then turn on the cold water and start moving the little pail back and forth so you don't scald yourself because at this point the hot water really DOES think you've got some lobsters to boil and you do not want to scald yourself.

This is tedious, so you say to heck with the pail and just ham your head under the faucets, nearly giving yourself a concussion because you misunderestimate how close the faucet is to the wall and this just makes you more irritated. But, in the interest of trying to appreciate a cultural roadblock for what it is, you continue with your resolve about washing your hair and so compromise by applying shampoo and conditioner as one adn wonder WHY ON EARTH you didn't just pick up two-in-one when you amde that Target run three weeks ago. Too late now!

You consider your head adequately soaked, lather up and try t rush through the process so you don't spend any more time naked with your bum in the air than you have to. You're alone in there, but it's kind of humiliating nonetheless.

And it's at this point that you come to understand why dreadlocks are also the hairdo of choice for hippies since they require little to no washing. In fact, the dirtier the better. And you wonder if Bob Marley ever spent time in India.

All of this is not really an experience you are thrilled to repeat any more often than you have to, and seeing as how there aer so many REAL dirty hippies in this joint, well what is one more? You probably won't stick out too much and you'll definitely never have to compete with that weird patchouli smell they all have, thanks GOD!

This whole experience led me to another realization: The locals bathe in the Ganges daily, contrary to all the indications that the river is full of trash and disease. They seem to survive alright, but perhaps they figure risking that is a better alternative to the pain in the arse that is showering in their homes.

Joking about bathroom habits aside, my time in Rishikesh has been really fabulous. It is peaceful and beautiful here and I can see why the hippies dig it. I'm heading back to Delhi tomorrow to meet some friends and then we will go on to Bhopal for our friend Anjana's wedding. At that point, I'll be gaining a digital camera courtesy of the groom, Gaurav (yay!), and assuming I can figure out how to snap photos in the first place (AND blogger functions from there) then I'll try to post wedding, etc. photos.

Posted on behalf of ORF

Dispatch from Darkest India

2006-02-06T23:47:00.000-05:00

Posted on behalf of the esteemed Oh Really Factor:

To say the least, there is an abundance of people in India. That is probably an understatement of the grossest kind. Yesterday morning at the train station in Delhi, it was like being in that Verizon ad where the guy buys his new phone, strolls outside the store and runs into a horde of people who claim to be "The Network." Even the "Can ya hear me now?" guy is there. That is India. Even at o'dark thirty in the morning.

The cars are not much better. We hit a traffic jam outside the station and it would have rivalled any rush hour in NYC. The Delhi-ites appear to suffer from the same delusion as New Yorkers: the horn is an effective means of vehicular communication, particularly laying on it and particularly when no one else is moving either.

An aside: horns should be used only to alert one's carpool mates of one's presence outside their homes. Other than that, people who employ horns for no good, apparent reason should be electrocuted each time.

I have yet to actually see Delhi by the light of day. I arrived around midnight, and left the airport nearly an hour and a half later and my train for Rishikesh left at 6:50 before the sun had really come up. Having now been to the trains tation, I have to say that I very much appreciate and understand the concern my friend's father has shown towards my travels here. He provided pick up at the airport, a place to crash for a few hours and also transport t the train station. Even someone to see to it that I found my correct seat on the train. I was grateful it was at the back of car full of foreign school kids who were blissed out on their iPods and laptops.

It's intimidating the number of people here, and it is nearly entirely men, or so it seems. They have a portering capacity that rivals that of the Vietnamese and they seek to capitalize on it too, offering to carry whatever they can for you. My particular favorite are those men who stack two full suitcases ON THEIR HEADS, while throwing a bag over each shoulder as well. Human pack mules.

I've spent a fair amount of time in countries now where either my westernness or femaleness or both have stood me out and consequently been the object of much staring and sometimes commentary. On the whole it's non-lascivious, but it can be unnerving none the less. And usually, I find it quite bothersome. Travelling last summer in countries that appeared to have no affinity for Western women was a relief from this usual nuisance, but perhaps also prepared me for the pendulum to swing in the direct opposite on this trip, because I've forgotten to be self-conscious.

There is really very little I can do to make myself NOT stick out, so feeling overwhelmed about it is futile. It's only taken me visiting nearly 25 countries to get past this and I'm only on day two, so perhaps a few weeks hence I'll feel quite differently. I do find, however, that people are simply curious, not harmful. And if you meet their gaze and smile, they have no choice but to smile back at you in spite of themselves and their awe.

Headless Chickens and other tales

2006-02-03T15:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I stayed up until 3:00 in the morning. I don't think it matters how organized of a person you are or aren't, because at some point in planning a big event like a trip, you're just going to have to give in to Mr. Murphy and allow the very last minute to be your time of productivity. I left the office for the last time at 6:00, came home and hardly sat down. I spent this morning crossing things off my list that perhaps could have been done earlier, but not since I was down South last weekend doing important reconnaissance related to my previous post. Thank heavens I had the foresight to give myself today to be productive by making yesterday my last in the office. Incidentally, the hours between 10:00 and 11:30 a.m. is a fabulous time to do ANYTHING in this city. I didn't have wait in line or shove someone with my elbows a single time all day! This is a record, and it sheds some interesting light on my own personal performance habits, which is that I truly hit my working stride around 2:00 in the afternoon. Evidently, I was meant to be on the street any time before then.

My proverbial day was made this morning by my Aunt Nancy and her two boys, Tommy and Freddie. Tommy did a geography project last year and sent a Flat Stanley my way. I took Stan around town, took some pics, rode the subway and then made a scrapbook about our journey together, complete with historical information on each page about the sites we'd seen. It was everything short of riding a double-decker bus. I am an overachiever even when I'm not the one being graded. This morning I got an email from Nancy in response to one I'd sent last night to a boatload of people with the url for this site telling them they could check in on me here if they wanted. Let's face it, sending emails from overseas is tedious and also usually involves a combination-if not all-of the following things: bad lighting, bad seating, bad connection, slow connection, techno music, computers circa 1992, foul odors (primarly bodily), vermin and cigarette smoke. Internet availability exists as readily as anyone with a spare chair and some plywood can provide it, but it's not always cheap and it can be very boring to sit in a cafe and send stuff out to loads of people. If you've ever sent an email while in some tiny corner of the world, you know this to be true.I tend to relish receiving electronic love, but when I travel, I tend to forget about it. So blogging is a much more efficient way to keep people up to speed since I can jot down thoughts whenever I think them and then type them up later on.

Anyway, Nancy responded by telling me that her boys think I am very cool, presumably for all the traveling I've done and all the postcards they know they'll get in the coming weeks. I don't know about the rest of you, but being considered "cool" by your considerably younger (elementary and middle school aged) cousins is a total day-maker for me. I'm pretty sure everyone I encountered today recognized how pleased as punch I was because everyone out there was just so darned friendly. Maybe that was just because I was in the store before it got too hectic and people made them irritated. Or maybe it was the freakish 65-degree weather. Who can say?

Either way, I really cannot afford to be sitting here on my duff writing this when there is a room to be cleaned, a bag to be packed, dry cleaning to be picked up, laundry to be done, photos to be hung, lists checked twice, and tons more. It's back to the headless chicken race for me!

People in the South...

2006-01-30T09:47:00.000-05:00

...are better.

Shangri-La-dee-da

2006-01-24T22:50:00.000-05:00

So the time has come for me to bust out the passport and leave the borders of the motherland once again. This time, for even longer. I'm headed to India and Nepal (and a brief stay in Paris) for most of February and March to do a host of things, all of which I hope to be able to post about here on this little webblog. Again, a call for mailing addresses if you'd like a postcard from any of these farflung places. Just email it to me at theohreallyfactor(at)REMOVETHISPARTgmaildotcom. (Take THAT spammers!)

It's going to be an action packed adventure that includes some yoga, a wedding, the Taj Mahal, a border crossing, Himalayan trekking, tea houses and even some white water rafting. And, I've already read, it turns out that this part of the world ALSO has Tiger Balm. Just in case anyone was wondering. I've already learned my lesson there so fool me once, shame on you; fool me...well...you can't get fooled again!!! I unfortunately have not gotten around to buying a digital camera, so that probably means that I will not be posting any pictures of it, unless someone wants to loan me theirs for the sake of the web community. (Read: BeBop!) The truth is, I really truly just cannot tear myself away from my standard format camera. I freaking LOVE that thing, and I don't care if you have a millionbilliongajillion pixels crammed into your digital whosenfatsit, it just will never ever look as good as my Canon does with 35 mm film. I am sorry. It just doesn't. And everyone knows this but acts like they don't. I am dispelling the myth here people and I will singlehandedly keep the traditional film industry alive if it kills me.

Ok, stepping off the soapbox now.

I'm not nearly so nervous about this trip as I was the last one, although I spoke to my dad just now and he pointed out that I seem to have a knack for choosing countries that have an impending coup. For about the last decade a band of Communist rebels have been ambishing to oust the monarchy in Nepal; they've kept things at a dull roar for most of it, although several thousand people have been killed, and things seem to be heating up. My dad is understandably concerned.

As to choosing countries that fall apart, in the spring of 1998, I was supposed to go to Indonesia for a month, when the military decided to engage in overthrowing the government there. Naturally, I was heartbroken to miss my Geraldo moment, but I'll get there someday.

The coolest part so far is that I literally have about four squares for stamping left in my passport, which doesn't expire for another three years almost. So, as soon as I get back, I'm sending that puppy in to have some more pages added. And then I'll start planning my next trip!!! Shannon, seriously...you and me, woman.

I am NOT the Messiah! OR Why I should have burned down the Politics Dept. at NYU

2006-01-20T17:45:00.000-05:00

Not by choice, but rather by an unhappy scheduling accident, the last class I took in to fulfill my Politics major in college was a Socialism class that was taught by a man who was the reason tenure was invented: so that shitty professors do just enough to get by, then are asked to stay until they are in a crypt. I stopped into his office one day to discuss the class and let's just say I'm glad I'm not a smoker because lighting a single match in there would have set the place aflame. Then again, I really effing hated that department and came to despise the class too, so I might have done myself a favor.

I was paying for a class that started with a fifteen minute "announcements" section in which anyone could get up an make ANY announcements they wanted. Seeing as how the class was on Socialism, this always inevitably led to lots of unwashed lesbians yammering on about poetry slams at the wymyn's center; the Campus Greens detailing their plot to rapel down the side of the admin building again to Free Mumia and/or vote for Ralph Nader to legalize marijuana; or this one hapless white kid who always seemed to be talking about Ozomatli. I believe the word he used to describe them was "dope." Our homework: keep a journal of our observations on Socialism that was at least 50 pages long by the time the class was over. The person upon whom our grade depended: our bitter, irritable grad student who hated life, naturally.

The ONLY cool thing I learned in the class was about Christian Socialism, which got covered in two lectures. The long and short was that the Big JC (and probably even the Baby Jesus) was a socialist. It made sense to me, who was also a Religion major. He developed a following of people and then told them all to love one another, strive to be egalitarian, help your brother, share the wealth, don't deal money in the temple, and turn as much water into wine as possible. It's all Socialist dogma. who knew Marx was approximately 2000 years too late, and by attempting to eliminate religion from society, he was biting the very hand that fed him? But seriously, it was an interesting theory and it's something that has stuck with me ever since.

My point is, Charles Marsh, a Religion professor at the University of Virginia, wrote an article in the New York Times today that reminded me of this otherwise useless class. Professor Marsh is himself an Evangelist and his article discusses the dangers he finds of the Evangelical movement in the United States moving away from its core message of helpfulness and caring and towards a far more incendiary and dangerous message of dominance and superiority with regards to the community's stance on the war in Iraq. The primary reason, he believes, is that people have identified the President as a brother in Christ and so whatever he says or does is above reproach, no matter how reprehensible that may be.

In essence, what Prof. Marsh is saying is that some of the most well-respected leaders of the Evangelical movement have held their tongues on the war or spoken out against it, but the flock seems to be ignoring the dangers of war altogether for the sake of backing the political party that has lifted them up into the position of power they hold today. It would appear that the message of war is NOT one necessarily endorsed by the leaders of the modern movement, or by Christ for that matter, but the desire to be AT war has ineptly appropriated such belief so that he states we are in danger of making a Faustian bargain of power for the soul of righteousness.

I personally cannot speak to the experience inside this movement, but it does appear that many of Bush's supporters are unswaying and unquestioning in their faith of him. Professor Marsh, I think, is trying to remind them that Bush is not the Messiah. Jesus Christ is.

On watching daytime television

2006-01-16T11:32:00.000-05:00

About the only thing worth watching at 11:00 in the morning while waiting for the wash cycle to finish is children's programming. I've always kind of been a sucker for it, actually. (I happen to love the fact that Sesame Street is filmed four blocks from my house. I went to the holiday party on set for the show once in college because my boyfriend interned for the show. It was so awesome.)

I used to watch Caillou a lot in college because the little boy I nannied for had a real thing for him. I'm kind of wondering how I never noticed that Caillou, who can walk, brush his teeth, dress himself and appears to have an abnormally robust vocabulary for a child of such a nebulous age, also appears to be a cancer victim. What six-year-old child do you know who doesn't have hair? What other possible explanation could there be? Maybe it's premature balding, but both his parents and his sister all have full heads of hair, so I don't think that's it. Maybe it's a Canadien thing.

Before I flipped to Caillou, Ellen was on. She had Kanye West on the show and the recruited pretty much the only black woman in the audience to play a little game in which Mr. West hummed one of his tunes and she had to guess it. Obviously, she knew it. Because all black people know about other black people. Then, Kanye started singing the song and he got the rest of the (all white) audience to dance to it. Because all white people like to believe that they know how to dance to rap music. It was a very simpatico moment.

Now, there is a puppet-like dinosaur on named Rexi who is quizzing us about a variety of large land animals like elephants and alligators. The sad thing is, I am probably learning more watching this stuff than if I were at work today. Thank you so much, Dr. King. Bring on Reading Rainbow and Wishbone!

If you were a president, you'd be Babe-raham Lincoln!

2006-01-12T10:36:00.000-05:00

File under: Miscellaneous Americana

There's a new nickel that's being introduced today. It will have a face forward sketch of good ol' TJ on there, which is unusual since all the coins we have now have profile shots on them. He's even smiling, which appears somewhat smug. As if to say: "Believe it bitches!" Or, perhaps he's wincing as if to say "What has become of this great republic?" Either way, it looks kind of odd. Maybe it's just because it is so different from the nickels I'm used to. Kind of like when someone you know gets a really drastic haircut after they've worn it the same way pretty much the entire time you've known them. Like when my mom got a perm once. That was hilarious. But I can't poke too much fun since yours truly sported a perm for a couple of years.

Shut up. It was in style.

Another note about Americana: the postal stamp went up to 39 cents this past Sunday. Naturally, while I was home over Christmas, I got a roll of 100. But they are only worth 37 cents apiece. I realized that this morning when I looked at a stack of bills-paid-but-not-sent sitting on my desk and commented aloud that I kept forgetting to bring my stamps in. "Remember, it's 39 cents now," my coworker reminded me. That's just craptastic. Incidentally, why did they choose January 8 as the date? Why not the 1st, so that things weren't quite so arbitrary?

This is where my little-known-yet-flourishing need for square corners (aka OCD) comes in. While I was home over the holidays, my brother and I helped our mom clean up her house a bit. We'd "inherited" quite a bit of furniture lately from various sources and most of it had wound up piled up in my bedroom. We got it, and a TON of other stuff either chucked or organized and can I just say that I actually slept better for lack of clutter. Then, I went downstairs and, for no good reason other than it was out of order and grated on my nerves, re-organized the bookshelf in my MOM's bedroom. Which I hardly spend any time in, except to walk through to use her bathroom. But there they were, up on the shelf, taunting me in their disarray. In case you were wondering, yes, the corners of the magazines on my coffee table should line up with those of the coffee table itself. I'm extremely geometric and also enjoy finding the most space-efficient way of stacking cups into one another in my cupboard. When I go to the gym to go running, I can't stop until all the numbers are rounded out. For instance, I'd never stop at say thirteen minutes if I'm at like 1.32 miles. Because that is just terrible looking on that LCD display to me. So, I'll run until I get to 1.4 but then I'm at like 13:36 and so I HAVE to make it to 14 minutes and then, well, I've got just one minute left to get to a VERY nice, round number of 15 (I like multiples of five) and by that point, I'm probably at like 1.43 miles, so I'll run until I get to 15 minutes and 1.5 miles. Weird, I know, but also good for me if you think about it.

Let's not get started on how I feel about people who wear outfits that do not match. Doubt me if you must, but it really does cause me physical discomfort.

So now, as the stamps go, well I think it is just unsightly to have TWO stamps on a letter, particularly if they don't look alike and/or the colors clash. I suppose that for the next 100 things I send, I'll just have to deal with this, but I would just like the USPS to know that I will not do it happily. Nor will I dig that new nickel.

Earth to Inhabitants: S.O.S.

2006-01-09T16:24:00.000-05:00

A little over a week ago, Mike tagged me with a meme he made up to make predictions for 2006's political status. I've been meaning to do this and simply have not had the time to really put my quill to it.

But I will say this regarding my political considerations: this NEEDS to be the year that the environment makes front page news at every chance we can get.

I spent my afternoon last Friday at an event sponsored by Audubon, Environmental Defense, and the NRDC (Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s baby) in which Should-Be President Al Gore presented one of the most succinct, fascinating, informative and heart-breaking reports I have yet to come across on Global Warming. It's a subject I read about with a degree of regularity and while most articles barrage you with incomprehensible statistics and a lot of big, scientific words that sound horribly ominous, this presentation, a slide show of sorts, was approachable, moving, and even featured a short film strip by Matt Groening. It seems that since leaving politics (he opened with a few jokes, calling himself a "recovering politician") Al has been able to embrace his sense of humor, and has even recruited America's best known animator to help him out.

But his sense of frustration with the American government remains, and it was particularly palpable as he stood preaching to his choir. (Bonus guest: a still-handsome Paul Newman and his radiant wife Joanne Woodward, who sits on the board of ED, were both in attendance. I'd just like to state for the record that were I to have one of those "List of 100 Things About Me" lists on this blog, one of the facts would include that I think Paul Newman is the handsomemest movie star who ever lived.) At one point, he all but shouted: "Why aren't we doing anything about this!?!?!" with criminal accusation in his voice. And although the room was small, you could nearly hear an echo as we were all startled by his sudden outburst. He stepped back, breathed a sigh and apologized for getting so upset.

The truth is, his passion was admirable and as I reflected on the evening, I began to wish for two things: the first was that I had taken the opportunity to go see him speak during the 2000 political election. I was never thrilled about casting my vote for Al Gore because I felt dispassionate about him, but I would have died voting for anyone else. I think seeing him speak might have made me feel more confident about him. (Dubya: take note. Oh, wait...)

The second thing I longed for was to see a change in the way the political process of running for president is waged in this country. At this point, elections are void of excitement or energy because PR managers and spin doctors have disabled their candidates from ever saying anything that is much more interesting than say a head of iceberg lettuce. Iceberg lettuce is a good staple and I'm glad to know our candidates know their ABCs; but how about a few radishes or peppers in the salad every now and again? That is one reason I admired Howard Dean (although I did not become a Deaniac), because he chose to be himself on stage and while I too found his Iowa hog call of a shout somewhat unnerving myself, I can't say that Churchill would have frowned upon it. Were it not for some of the idiotic things that come out of his mouth, George Dubya Bush would be dull as dishwater as far as personalities go and I am afraid Kerry would have been the same. The cult of the leader has all but died in this country unless you thump a Bible on the daily, and that is a sad, sad thing. Half of us are idiots; the rest just apathetic; all of us hungry for charisma.

Actually, there is a third thing I wished for: that everyone can see this presentation. I have long felt that the Bush administration is far from admirable about their environmental intentions, but after seeing this, I feel confident saying that the neglect has been downright criminal. The one thing I've noticed in reading about all of this: the facts all concur, and Mr. Gore's presentation didn't stray from that. Global warming is no science of speculation. What is happening is agreed upon by everyone in the field and while the predictions of what COULD happen vary from one another a bit, the fact remains that they are all pessimistic if we stay the current course. They also don't quibble over how we got here. This is perhaps the most salient point Mr. Gore made outside of the irrefutable sets of photographs he showed, taken 30 years apart (1970 and 2000) of various sites well-known for their weather patterns or ecology such as Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Colorado River bed. They have all changed for the worse.

If Mr. Gore were allowed to run on this platform--once he'd scared the everloving fuck out of people about the state of the earth's environmental peril (we are, quite literally, in some hot water)--I think he would also have quite a lot of people backing him. He certainly didn't indicate any plans to run in 2008 and the media has barely whispered that suggestion. But it seems to me that his knowledge would be better used as it is now. He stated that he'd spent about 20 years compiling the data and pictures for this presentation and he name-dropped countries and experts as only a "recovering politician" can. It was impressive and extremely impirical and if you find yourself in a position to see this, I highly recommend you take it. If you cannot get to an engagement like this one, fear not: it is being produced for the Discovery Channel as a documentary and I believe he also said it would be put on DVD eventually.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, the very serious truth is that the time has come for us to take responsibility for the way we interact with the environment around us. We cannot leave it to the "granola nuts" to hoe the row alone any longer. The government is not making this compulsory for the time being, so no one is going to do your recycling or buy your more fuel-efficient car for you. A challenge to the eight people who read this: try just for one week, to be more conscious about the products you buy, the things you throw away, how many miles you drive, where your food comes from (i.e. domestic or overseas), what your kids and co-workers eat, how many copies of the paper you might take daily and not actually read, etc. etc. Write it down. And next week, get better.

Further reading: A recent NY Review of Books article on global warming
An interview with Elizabeth Kolbert, who recently published a book about her 10 years of research on global warming and has excerpted it throughout the past year in the New Yorker magazine.
And there is always Grist, an online 'zine that provides endless info about environmental goings-on.

Happy New Year: From the Prezidint

2006-01-09T16:00:00.000-05:00

The boys at JibJab have another little film for you.

The end time...

2006-01-05T14:28:00.000-05:00

I'm not real up on my eschatology these days, but does the fact that Jon Stewart has been tapped to host the Oscars this year both excite and terrify anyone else as it does me?

On the one hand: Finally, someone we can all enjoy who won't piss off the Academy. I love Chris Rock, but that weird affirmation Sean Penn made about Jude Law last year was clearly due to a lack of appreciation for Rock's comedic genius. Biting, yet just charming enough to be gummed down by the set who's already sent their teeth to the Polident cup for the nigh, Stewart should suit the evening well.

And on the other: Oh my god, this might be someone we can all enjoy. And if that is the case, does this mean that Stewart has crossed over into the "easy listening" category of life? Has the caped crusader of ironic, fake-news hilarity crossed over into the milquetoast aisle? Has he become, EGADS!, middle-American?

The truth is, I'm not complaining. I recently forfeited my cable subscription for monetary reasons and boy howdy do I miss that man, so I'll take what I can get. My friend Josh questioned the wisdom of my cutting Jon Stewart out of my life to save a few bucks every month and given the withdrawal I just experienced merely by resting my eyes on his photographed visage, well...maybe Josh was right to question me. Unfortunately, I will be on a mountaintop in Nepal when the broadcast is made, so the chances of my seeing Jon that night are slim unless the Maoists have satellite. Dammit, I need TiVo!

Jack Abramoff: Mobster!

2006-01-03T17:11:00.000-05:00

Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion (all felonies) in Washington earlier today and clearly, he is erring in the same manner in which Martha did when she showed up for court brandishing her Berkin bag on her hip. Note to Jack: the feds have already proven you're a thug. I'd ditch the fedora and trench coat asap in an effort to gain a bit more plausible "victim" persona.

I'm always curious about people who make statements like the following, which Abramoff stated in the court room to the judge this afternoon:

"Your honor, words will not be able to ever express how sorry I am for this, and I have profound regret and sorrow for the multitude of mistakes and harm I have caused," he said. "All of my remaining days, I will feel tremendous sadness and regret for my conduct and for what I have done. I only hope that I can merit forgiveness from the Almighty and from those I have wronged or caused to suffer. I will work hard to earn that redemption."

What I wonder is why people use inappropriate words like "regret and sorrow" to describe something that isn't really akin to say, murdering someone. Why invoke God when the only man you've really violated, aside from the American public, is Alan Greenspan? Mr. Abramoff's "sadness" arises from nothing other than failing to cover his own dirty-dealing arse, because now he'll do some time in the pen and he'll also have DeLay's dogs after him. Abramoff is a marked man and for that he should be sorry. But no one has died here; it's not a funeral. This isn't about Jesus.

Mr. Abramoff, in addition to speaking with Carson Kresley about your wardrobe, you should also replace the phrase "All of my remaining days, I will feel tremendous sadness and regret for my conduct and for what I have done" with "All of my remaining days, I will just kick myself for doing this because it was stupid and immoral," and leave God out of it.

The body entitled

2006-01-03T12:33:00.000-05:00

I spent some time back home in North Carolina for the holidays and visited my grandmother while I was there. My brother and I took her out to run some errands and unfortunately while we were out, she took a fairly bad spill. On the upside, she didn't break anything, but she was still in considerable pain because she'd badly sprained several muscles in her right leg and since she'd fallen on her right side, she was sore there as well. She recently moved in with my aunt and uncle, so we took her back home and informed them of what had come to pass. And while my aunt can be a very attentive nursemaid when called upon, my uncle can be exceedingly obstinate (code for "total butthead!") about dispensing medication. We nearly came to fisticuffs trying to convince him of the merits of allowing my grandmother a mere two aspirin to help take the edge off of her pain. They do not keep anything stronger than Tylenol in the house, and my brother, a survivor of major surgery, swears by the power of Aleve. I won the battle for aspirin, but lost it for a heating pad because I wasn't inclined to answer his aggravating query about "why are we giving her an anti-inflamatory medication and THEN putting heat on it when that will just make it flare up?" My uncle is a smart man who has a PhD, has invented things, and once explained to me why wheels look like they are moving backwards when you're in the car next to them, but you'll pardon me when I tell you that all this is bullshit in my eyes with regards to caring for old people in general and my grandmother in particular. What is more, as opposed to most people who are adversarial about Western medicine because they believe in an alternative, he offers none. Just let her wince in pain.

I went back down to see my grandmother on New Year's Eve and she informed me that my uncle had done little in the two days since her fall but remind her about how the body is wonderfully capable of healing itself. That if we let it do, it will. It's a sentiment I agree with to an extent, because the body is fairly remarkable about seeking stasis. But in light of another conversation I had with a friend recently about the merits of prescription drugs in our society, well, I also disagree with this argument of his. Particularly when it comes to someone who is nearly 90 years old. Listen, at that age, the quality of life is already fairly low what with your eyes failing, your ears playing tricks on you, your muscles less-than-supple and your joints arthritic. If you need some aspirin to make it through the day, well, why quibble?

On the whole, I think that Western medicine is a pretty phenomenal thing: we can prevent pregnancy, fight infertility, stop migraines, unblock our intestines, prevent heart attacks, improve digestion, replace entire body parts, re-construct faces, heal some forms of cancer, replace your heart, eliminate scars, get rid of acne, fight arthritis and do a host of countless things by administering medical care. But where it falls down is when the pharmaceutical industry bases its success on its P and L margins instead of the efficacy of its products. By being such a competitive, numbers-driven marketplace, pharma giants often focus more on the bottom line and less on its customers. See: Merck and Vioxx. I realize that it costs millions of dollars to design and test drugs and for every one drug that DOES succeed, tens of thousands have failed before it. But what has happened is that the slapdash approach to medication has created a gap in which we've stopped listening to our bodies and started depending on drugs to manage the symptoms we experience. The malady itself is sometimes not addressed at all. And this is where we get into trouble.

My friend I discussed this with put in his two cents telling me he'd been very into Reiki and Eastern medicine for a long time after having dropped out of his pre-med program in college. But then he started having very bad panic attacks and when his therapist suggested an SSRI anti-depressant to control this, it changed his life for the better. His story is the upside to modern medicine. Drugs do wonderful things, like take my grandmother out of discomfort, and I've experienced second-hand how effective anti-depressants, etc. can be. I use both over the counter and prescription medications on a daily basis, so I'm by no means against medicating oneself.

But the trouble is that drugs are prescribed often times as if they were just a patch in the roof when really, the whole roof needs to be examined and possibly replaced. A biology teacher of mine in high school had a mild heart attack over our Christmas break one year. And within months he'd stopped smoking and lost about 30 pounds by changing his diet and exercise. He entirely changed his approach to life by replacing his roof, and I'm just completely baffled by people who have an opportunity for reprieve like that and do not take it.

I'm still undecided if this lack of self-awareness is an obstinate choice we make as a societal whole or just something we've been so long out of touch with that we have lost the know-how to even approach it. I think we move very fast. And sometimes, sitting down and getting introspective is more time-consuming than we can afford; it's also a little scary because it can be ridiculed as being semi-spiritual and in spite of all the Bible thumpers this country is home to, spirituality is something the American psyche doesn't exactly take to like a duck to water. Instead, we prefer entitlement, a life in which we can have our cake and eat it too, as well as the heart attack that cake might induce. So we just tamp down the tarpauline with what we can find. We manage the illness or whatever and swear we'll re-organize later, but sometimes by then it is too late.

I had this therapist for a while who liked to take my money and nap during my sessions. He never really said much and certainly nothing worth over about $10, but the one thing I DID get from him was when he made a comment about facing one's problems. Even if we think we can sort of hide from them or manage them, if we don't take them head-on at some point, it will work it's way back to the surface in time and possibly be even more inconvenient and painful than it would be to deal with it at first. I think I also heard a similar sentiment in a movie once too, which I paid $10 to see. So the moral of the story is, if you're looking for a shrink, maybe you should just try Hollywood.

As I went through my yoga certification last year, I learned a tremendous amount about the human body. It's an astounding and beautiful machine, and the truth of the matter is that most of us are entirely ignorant about how we work. This is such a shame, because if we were aware of this kind of thing perhaps we'd be more cognizant of what we're doing day in and day out with everything we consume (and I don't just mean food but media, cigarettes,family, sensory experiences, etc). Or, we'd treat our bodies a little better to begin with and maybe minimize the amount of medical treatment we need at all. Outside of heredity, I'd venture to bet that the primary reason people get sick or experience some kind of medical difficulty is because of something they do. Some habit they have or some food they eat that their body simply doesn't jive with. A daily cake, if you will, that we feel entitled to. If people were slightly more willing to manage themselves instead of letting a pill do it for them, then perhaps the bit I mentioned earlier about the body seeking stasis would be more likely to come true. Modern medicine is truly amazing, but its Icarian downfall is that it often allows its recipients to think they are impervious to further malady and can embrace their entitlementality even as their right arm throbs in pain.

A list to end all lists. Well, at least the year.

2005-12-29T21:51:00.000-05:00

Everyone else is doing lists right now, so why can't I? This one just doesn't have much direction...

I'm down South at the moment and I've noticed something quite heartening in my hometown: a fairly large number of people who still proudly bear "Kerry/Edwards" bumper stickers. I've seen considerably fewer of those annoying oval-shaped "W" stickers on cars than I remember seeing, oh, say, LAST Christmas season.

I went for a horse-back riding lesson today. This was the first time I'd been on a horse in about fifteen years. It was fun, hard, and horses smell nice. My pants now smell like horse. Also, horses are cool in movies.

Grocery stores have astonishingly wide aisles in this town. WHEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Gas prices are phenomenally high and what is with the 10 cent fluctuation just down the block from each other?

I fall completely out of touch with reality when I come home due to a lack of constantly being barraged by media or my morning rendezvous with NPR. This is both pleasant and disorienting.

My brother is a pretty righteous kid. He's the one who took me to the horse lesson today and also bought me BOTH Seasons 1 and 2 of "Arrested Development" on DVD for Christmas. This was the best present I got without question.

I had been dreading flying out of LaGuardia at 9:00 last Friday night because, well, it was a Friday in NYC and it was the last flight to NC and it was also two days before Xmas, but it was one of the least painful LaGuardia experiences I've ever had. And why is it that LGA has some of the SHORTEST security lines in the country???

The Christmas gift I purchased for my kind of trampy cousin (we draw names since there are so many of us) was a hit. She showed up to our family's Christmas dinner with her bra straps showing, her thong hanging out, some extremely holey jeans, and her awfully "friendly" boyfriend. I guess I'm now guilty of helping her embrace her trampiness. This was not my intention, but I also didn't want to seem totally out of touch with the kids these days.

And finally, some shameless plugging: If anyone happens to subscribe to Fast Company magazine, or is inclined to run out a newsstand and pick up the latest issue (Jan/Feb), yours truly has a letter to the editor in there. The heading is "Inspiration Nation." With great power comes great responsibility.

Happy New Year to all my dear ORF readers! Cheers, bitches ;)

Back on track

2005-12-23T10:25:00.000-05:00

I drove in this morning to park my dad's car at the garage because I used it last night to get everything I'd hoarded up at his apartment over the last three days. And also, it was handy for getting my bike back across the bridge. And all the Xmas presents I'd had delivered by post to my office for my family. And my friend Hassan who needed a lift to our 'hood.

My parking spot expired at 8:30 this morning in Astoria and let me tell you, they mean business about that because as I walked out at about 8:33, the traffic cop was getting her little machine out to process my license plates. I ran across the street screaming "Wait! Wait! Wait!" and "I'm moving, I'm moving, PLEASE don't ticket me!!" And she moved on. "Thank you SO much," I said, and wished her Merry Christmas. In the middle of this whole strike thing I've nearly forgotten the season.

But so yeah, I parked in midtown, rewarded myself for such a hard week with some Dunkin' Donuts and then hopped on the 6 train at Grand Central. The place was a relative ghost town for 9:15 in the morning. And in no time, I had my iPod back in my ears and was reading my book. Old habits die hard, I guess.

I'm glad I didn't actually SEE any transit workers because I'm not sure how I would have reacted to them. I mean, the last couple of days were novel and even a little bit fun because a change of pace is always a nice thing, but Jesus H. it's been a total hassle for the majority of this city and the hit commerce has taken has been brutal too. There are special post-strike sales going on across the city just to lure people into stores in the next two days. I suppose that's the whole point of going on strike: to demonstrate the unbelievable power that the workers have. But it's interesting to me that once Roger Toussaint was faced with the prospect of going to jail (the announcement to end the strike was made immediately before his hearing yesterday) he relented. Once his own ass was on the line, he quivered like the jello mold your Aunt Gladys will no doubt bring to the Christmas feast your family has this weekend. So much for principles. The TWU would do well to find someone who is a bit more than fuss and feathers.

But in the meantime, I'd like to say these final words about the MTA and this dalliance of theirs:

Coal in your stocking
It's what you deserve this year
This was SO naughty

Commute this!

2005-12-22T14:00:00.000-05:00

A couple of cool photos I found on the WNYC website from the morning commute yesterday and today. There is an interactive feature on the NYTimes site as well, complete with an audio commentary and also little "Metro Diary" stories about how people got into work written up on a little map of the city.

I left work early Tuesday afternoon to do some shopping down Broadway. A couple of things I'd had planned for the evening got cancelled due to the strike, so I took the opportunity to get all the Xmas stuff taken care of. I've got one small thing left to handle and it will depend on my finding this one specific street vendor who makes these awesome earrings that I wish to buy for a friend. There was an utter dearth of street vendors yesterday, no doubt due to the cold and their inability to trek in in their vans or whatever other vehicles they use to get here. Their absence is the perfect example of the fact that this city runs courtesy of its service industry, and while the MTA-ers might be making a fairly nice salary, union contract or no, most of the people who work in restaurants or hotels don't have the option of skipping work in spite of the fact they have no way to get there.

It's all rather ironic that the people who really RUN this city, service workers, simply cannot afford to live anywhere near it. The large majority of them live in the most remote, inaccessible parts of the city for the sake of expense. So they can't get in and I read that Mario Batali had to close one of his restaurants yesterday because NONE, not a single one, of his kitchen workers showed up. This means one of two things: they get paid so little that it wasn't worth it for them to worry about missing a day; or they get treated so badly that they chose to exercise whatever small power they might have in this situation to screw it to Batali. Who knows, but anyone who opts to have food delivered via helicopter in order to keep the restaurant running (yes, but what about the people who are going to cook it?!) probably had it coming.

I discovered quite quickly yesterday morning that my back tire was nearly flat and my front one not much better. I made it to work, but there was a distinct "thump...thump...thump..." as my rim spun around with each pedal push. A friend of mine at work helped me out by pumping up the front tire and then sent me off to a bike shop she knew to have the back one looked at. The nozzle on it was at a funny angle and she couldn't get her pump wedged between the spoke and the nozzle. The pros helped me out and here's a tip: it's a TON easier to bike when your tubes are full of air than not.

I've been staying in midtown with my dad and as much as I love him and also greatly appreciate that I do not have to bike the additional three or four miles to my apartment, I rather miss my bed. My ride home last night to my dad's was pleasant enough, although riding between a shipping truck and a town car isn't an ideal place to be. It's like driving on the highway through a construction zone with one of those temporary concrete divider walls running alongside you, except the wall moves faster than you do and could possibly crush you since it's oblivious to your existence. That dinky bell I have on my handlebars may be dear, but it hardly warns pedestrians (I've done plenty o' yellin' the past two days) let alone a cabbie or a semi. This morning's commute was great. I was almost sorry to get to my office and kind of wanted to bike around a bit more. It's a really amazing way to explore the city and you can cover so much more ground because you move around so much faster. The City has blocked off entire lanes on certain avenues for bikers, and a lot of people who bike regularly are hoping that the city will start to improve the bike laws around town and the whole event will also attract new supporters to the alternative transit movement. It's something to consider. In spite of being a bit saddle sore, I've really enjoyed biking and once you get moving, you hardly notice the cold at all.

The Times has continued their coverage of things today and I read a really great piece by a guy named Rich Cohen called "Day One on Upper Broadway." I really liked what he had to say about the novelty of this kind of thing reminding you about how great NYC is, which you totally forget on the days when everything runs more or less according to schedule and you can be underground with your head down. The article is part of the TimesSelect (GRRRRRRRRR!) stuff, so I'll just cut and paste here:

"You're supposed to feel stressed and terrible on the city's weird emergency days - blackouts, blizzards, Nor'easters - but of course you don't. Or I don't. In fact, such days are the most exciting in the city, like snow days, when, for a moment, the city is off the clock. And you suddenly remember that you came here for reason, in search of something, and that the search is still possible, if you could just remember what is was for. But you also know that sooner or later the strikers will cave or the bosses will concede or the Feds will weigh in decisively, and the trains will run on time and the sound of the timely trains will fill the city and you will forget. Which is fine."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Now all we need's a good race riot

2005-12-20T12:10:00.000-05:00

I've been through a lot in this city: hurricanes, blizzards, terrorist attacks, blackouts. And now the subway has been immobilized at will by the people who make it go each day. As my friend Josh put it last night, now all we need is a good race riot.

I am not very amused about this train stoppage thing. There is still Christmas shopping to be done and parties to attend. In general, I think that people in the city are in favor of the working man, the little guy, if you will. But when it's below freezing outside and people are told to make it there business to get into their offices, well, the working man has a duty to his fellow working men. I wasn't kidding when I wrote that haiku about taking one for the team. And Governor Pataki, whom I generally find duller than an eraser in flavor, made a good point at his press conference earlier when he said that not the teachers, the firemen or the police had gone on strike, in spite of their contracts expiring, out of a proud understanding of their civic duty to the people and the communities they serve. The transit workers serve the most of us, day in and day out and in addition to the fines they are facing, I'm not sure they'll garner much amnesty on behalf of the citizens of New York either. Except maybe from the cabbies.

This is an experience, to say the least. Something for the books. And I'll proudly sew the merit badge of transit stricken New Yorker onto my Girl Scout sash next to Terror Attack survivor and Hurricane Floyd wader. But I won't do it with joy if this goes on for much longer than a day or two. Girl Scouts are not taught to indulge childish fits of rage where everyone loses. Remember that song about "Make New Friends?" Yeah, transit workers, you are so totally NOT our friends anymore.

There are a couple of things I learned about my fellow New Yorkers this morning as I made my frosty way down to work on my own two feet.
1) A lot of us don't know about proper body-heat maintainence. While most people were well bundled, there was a surprisingly large number of people who were not wearing one or more of the following items: hat, scarf, gloves. This is much cause for concern as it was a bitter 22 degrees outside and the sun rose too low to warm either side of the street. I walked about three blocks sans hat and gloves and I had to hop into the microwave once I got to my floor in order to thaw out. I even saw some women in skirts and one girl in what appeared to be a denim jacket over a couple of thin layered T-shirts. Then again, perhaps she was reptilian.

2) A lot of us still think it's 1997 since we never got rid of those roller blades. I must have seen at LEAST a dozen people roller blading this morning. And it wasn't any of that jerky, Elaine-Benes-dancing type roller blading either. It was practically professional, so clearly a lot more of us hang out at the Roxy and/or that weird skating pitch in Central Park on the east side of the Sheep's Meadow on a regular basis than anyone was aware of.

21st Century Haiku

2005-12-15T11:07:00.000-05:00

Regarding the impending subway strike:

I know you are mad
But it's too frigid to walk
Take one for the team
P.S!! My office holiday luncheon is tomorrow which means if you strike, there's a strong likelihood I'll miss out on the only free thing I would have gotten from them all year without stealing it. So there's that.

The last time I wrote a haiku was like third grade and I recall it being considerably easier to do. It was probably about frogs or lions or something far less fraught with emotion, so that might explain it. I now have an undying respect for the Zen masters who compose these ditties. Incidentally, my respect is even more undying for the Irish Zen masters who compose Limericks. I mean, rhyming "Nantucket" with "bucket"!!!
GEE-NIUS!

"Because it was there"

2005-12-13T13:01:00.000-05:00

So a few weeks ago, I mentioned my plans to go to India and Nepal for a bit. Those plans are a bit more firm and I will be leaving this fair ville for about six weeks in February and March. This all started when a good friend announced her plans to wed her sweetie in their homeland of India. A few other friends and I secretly wondered if she'd ask us to come along. I had recently seen "Bride and Prejudice" and was totally enamored of the idea of attending a traditional Indian wedding ceremony. They are days long and literally hundreds of people attend and there is so much food and dancing and celebration how could you resist. But I started thinking about being in that part of the world, so far away, so near the Himalayas and my own mind wandered to Nepal. As well as all the yoga I do. So I decided to do it all and the trip I chose in Nepal is this one. It will come after about a month in India, and looks like it will be a big change of pace.

Not quite as much trekking as the original one I'd looked at, but there's a fair amount of moving around. So they recommend that you do some cardio activity in order to get in shape for that. Also, being higher up, there's a bit less oxygen in the air. Good times.

Now, I do a fair amount of yoga and it has made me bendy and strong. It can make for a tough workout if you're not used to it, but it's not always a cardio-fest. It is not for the ilk of Jane Fonda or Richard Simmons. Sweating, yes; "Oldies," not so much. So, after over three years of avoiding them like the plague, I joined a gym to have access to the treadmills in an effort to keep from getting winded whilst hiking high atop the world in March. I know I could hit the sidewalk, but it's effing 24 degrees outside today, so no thanks.

I. Hate. Running. Some of it is deep seated resentment brought about by the President's Council on Physical Fitness that used to mandate that we have a fitness unit twice a year in P.E. in elementary school. This included running a timed mile, doing the sit and reach and getting our body mass indices tested in front of God and everyone. I generally failed miserably at all of these (although I can touch my toes with wreckless abandon these days and would LOVE another crack at the sit and reach). To add insult to my overall non-athleticly inclined injury, our P.E. teacher was a large woman whose last name was easily risible: Ms. Eaton became "Eat-a-ton." Kids can be geniuses, but it never made up for the humiliation I felt when she hung a Garfield poster in her office that said "I'm sitting today out" and told me it reminded her of me. I did not appreciate being told I was a quitter, but frankly, I refused to believe that being able to run a mile in any specified measure of time was a measure of how good or smart I was. At that age, I was pretty convinced that I would go on to be some great world leader and she would be left to rot in that gymnasium with her rusty whistles and beeping stopwatch.

I agree there is an obesity epidemic among young children and I've never been without a few extra pounds, but I REALLY hated those freaking fitness units because all they did was send me a message that I was unfit and therefore a very bad person. Even at such a young age, I can recall other girlfriends flexing their biceps muscle in order to achieve a lower BMI, already afraid of being overweight. I'm not so sure this program actually did much to improve anyone's self-image, but that's an argument for a different day.

I spent a couple of years in college whiling away my free time on treadmills and midtown streets jogging to my headphones. Even now, certain albums make me want to strap on my Nikes. In the last few years, they've lain fallow in the back of my closet and when I dug them out last week, they were covered in cat fur. It's hellatious, but running is hands-down the best way to lose weight and build endurance. I started last Tuesday and barely made it a quarter mile. Yesterday, I ran a mile and a half. But being back in a gym is a totally foreign concept for me. It's a bit like being back in grade school but there are now boobs and mirrors. And gym technology has advanced in the past three years. There are exactly 86,352 different workout options on the treadmills and each one, as well as the elliptical machines and stationary bikes, all have their own televisions attached. You just plug your headphones into this little transmitter and you can actually HEAR Jerry Seinfeld making a joke. You can even choose your own channel, although it's pretty much ALL Seinfeld or Friends since they've been syndicated for the next millennium and you've totally seen all of them anyway, so it kind of makes the televisions useless. And so much for closed-captioning. I'd venture to bet that in the last couple of years the demand for those typists who translate (i.e. garble) the wisdom of Lou Dobbs into text has dwindled significantly. Alternately, I'm sure the power bill for these gyms has skyrocketed. And everyone around you is a pod person. I remember gyms being kind of creepy in that way because people zone out in their own private adrenaline rush, but this is just plain terrifying.

Not to mention the vanity involved in being a member at a gym. Everyone is beautiful and I'm pretty sure it's illegal to actually sweat-those nubby towels they give you are just part of the act. And it's important to wear large diamonds when you work out. It makes you stronger I think. You MUST look in the mirrors at all times and take every opportunity you can to peer at the machine of the person next to you just to make sure you're running faster than she is, or have burned more calories or run farther or are generally just an ALL-AROUND BETTER PERSON SO HAAA! I used to care that my stuff matched when I went to the gym and my T-shirts were trendy, but now that I'm there for such a utilitarian purpose, I could care less. "Get in, get sweaty, get out," is my mantra in that disco ball of feigned exertion. I secretly feel superior about being so carefree about how I appear to those around me as a mark of the serenity and introspection I have learned in my years of yoga. I do kind of get into it though when I finish up by going to the stretching mat where I get to make everyone envious of the rubber bands I've used to replace my hamstrings to say nothing of the naughty thoughts I KNOW that guy grunting away on the ab machine is thinking while I tuck my foot behind my head. (Just kidding, I don't really do that there. But I DO have a mean straddle stretch...)

When I went to sign up for the gym, the salesman was very nice, but, in true New Yorker fashion, quite pushy. He told me it was a one day sale and they had $100 off the joining fee for the gym and apparently paranoid that I didn't believe him, he showed me the email from the Gym Gods On High that stated there was, indeed, a one day sale on for new members. Somehow, he talked me into signing up for the entire year even though I really only need a couple months. They adjust the sign-up fees and discontinuation fees just right so that it actually works out to my financial advantage to make a year-long commitment and then pretend to move away and pay the $50 "break-up" fee than to sign up for the month-to-month contract. I am certain there is some sort of Keynesian explanation for all of this, or maybe it just has to do with the basic psychology of depending on people to feel just inferior enough about themselves that they'll keep coming back for more, but I really couldn't say.

Moving around the gym is kind of strange too. It's been a long time since I've worked out in front of a mirror and having gone so long without one, I'm convinced THEY are at fault for the vanity inherent in the gym culture. If men couldn't stare at themselves while doing curls then I really don't know that the world would have been treated to Ahnold's pics from the Mr. Universe pageant. And I'm convinced that some women PUT ON makeup before they start their workout. I personally really dislike looking at myself in the mirror. Some of it's insecurity, but mostly, it's just dull. Almost as dull as watching that Friends episode where Rachel and Ross kiss for the first time after they watch the cheesy prom video where Monica's fat and Rachel's date stands her up so Ross puts on a tux to take her, but then he DOES show up for the twelfth time. I know what I look like and I also know that most people look pretty ridiculous when their face is frozen in some contortion from a lack of oxygen or because they've just added 10 pounds to their reps and their muscles are tearing. So by that logic, I too probably look right silly huffing and puffing along on an electrically rotating rubber strip; I don't need a mirror to help me prove it.

Anyway, I'm trying to be vigilant about going almost daily because I should be getting my money's worth out of this endeavor. But it's kind of amazing to me how quickly I've adjusted to the gym culture. I'm starting to not mind the extra notches of bass they've got the speakers set on although I AM still struggling with the harsh flourescent lighting. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who uses a Nalgene bottle to keep myself hydrated, but then again, given that I work out around people who demand electricity to keep themselves in shape instead of hitting the pavement, I can't say I'm surprised that they're less earth-conscious than most of the yogis I know. We're still a better race, but I'm coming to understand that the gym rats are merely of a different ilk.

A tribute to Mercury

2005-12-13T11:21:00.000-05:00

Scott made the good suggestion of posting a few more pics of Mercury as a little webbased memorial. Unfortunately, the only digital camera I have to rely on is the one in my cell phone. And I've only had that since October, so I've only got a handful of pictures on there. I took loads of Mercury, but he seems to really dislike having his picture made, so most of them got erased because he'd move at just the wrong minute. It was about the only time I ever got a sense that he was disapproving of what I was doing. Maybe he thought I was trying to steal his soul.

Far from it, I was trying to preserve it. I've got a bunch of other actual photographs of the cat, because doesn't everyone just hunt down their housepet when they need to kill the last few shots on a roll? (Ok, I admit it, I once devoted nearly an ENTIRE roll to him. I don't have kids; someone has to suffer my crawling around on the floor with an expensive camera!) I don't have access to a scanner, so I cannot post those here. These three will have to suffice.

Up, up, up, past the Russell Hotel*

2005-12-12T16:32:00.000-05:00

A lot of last week was a blur, and it wasn't just the season's first snow we got on Friday. My poor little kitty cat got very ill and then had a reprieve and then fell more ill and ultimately, over $1,000 in bills later, I had to put him to sleep.

This is always a hard call to make because at a certain point, you have to decide which means more to you: avoiding fiscal dynamite or saving the life of an animal who brings you joy. Fortunately for me, in the end, Mercury's long-term well-being helped me in the decision making process, because once the vet started talking on Friday about bone marrow testing blah blah blah, I just shook my head and said, "It's very clear to me what we need to do. Please, let's just put him down." Later, as we were going over the paperwork, I had yet to shed a tear and the vet told me I was being so brave. I'd spent most of Wednesday crying from shock and concern, so I told him I just didn't have any tears left in me. What is more, I'd already begun steeling myself for having to do this on Wednesday when I first got Mercury's prognosis and I think by Friday, I'd come to terms with it.

Merx was a good cat. A ninja with extra toes and a purr that could wake the dead. Former Roommate used to call him Motormouth. He was also quite fat, and during the summer he'd just loll in a long extension on our carpet, which earned him the nickname "Sausage." Lately, he'd taken to snoozing on the floor at the foot of my bed or under my dresser and I'd started noticing he wasn't eating as much. His meow had stopped working too, which was kind of sad because even though he wasn't a terribly vocal cat, he had specific times of the day when he "talked" and I was starting to miss that. He'd try to cry anyway, but no sound would come out. It was like his throat was parched. By the time I took him to the vet, he hadn't eaten in about three days that I'd seen (he'd always suffered from being a bit bashful about eating in front of us, but his bowl would inevitably be emptied by the next day, so I never worried) and he wasn't pooping or cleaning himself. It's always a bad sign when kitties stop cleaning themselves, because they're generally otherwise meticulous masters of cleanliness. The night before I took him to the vet, I wiped him down with damp washcloth and he didn't fight me. At about 3:00 that morning, he woke me up shuddering next to me in my bed with a howling cry. He was obviously working over whatever soreness was in his throat and he was hunched over like he needed to vomit. I put him on the floor and he took about three steps and collapsed. I put him back on the bed and took him to the vet the next morning.

That afternoon, they called me with the results of his blood test and an X-ray they'd done. He had severe anemia, a minor kidney dysfunction, very advanced tooth decay and the X-ray showed some sort of mass in his belly. When the technician quoted me the price to treat everything, I burst into tears and hung up on her. Then I made a bunch of phone calls. To my mom, my dad, and the woman who'd given me Mercury, Michelle. She'd come to visit him a few times and since she'd had him for over ten years, he was almost more her cat than mine. I felt like I'd just been babysitting him for ten months. I went by the vet that evening and decided to forego the ultrasound to check out the mass because the vet felt like we could treat everything else with medicine and monitor his habits in the coming year. In other words, the mass wasn't something to be worried about immediately. The next day, Thursday, the vet called with good news that he'd done another X-ray and the mass was gone. It must have been some sort of obstruction that just reflected the light oddly in the first set. Mercury was improving and they'd cleaned his teeth, so I could take him home on Friday. I sent Michelle an email to let her know of his reprieve.

I called Friday morning to see what time I could get him and they said after 4:00. The doctor called me about an hour later with a list of ailments he felt Mercury was suffering from. I was in the middle of a store surrounded by people and my hands full of things. I couldn't focus; an hour ago, my cat was ready to come home and now, now he was on death's doorstep? I dropped everything and headed to Queens. I got to the vet's around 2:30 and went to speak with the doctor who showed me the results of a follow-up blood test he'd done that showed that Mercury's anemia had worsened and his white blood cell count was growing, which indicated he was most likely fighting off a serious infection. The anemia count was in a lethal range and the vet determined that what he'd thought was a mass in Merx's belly was actually his spleen, which had trippled in size as a result of whatever this infection was. He started asking about having tested Mercury for feline AIDS or other auto-immune disorders, but I had no idea. I'd inherited a healthy cat as far as I knew. Then he mentioned the possiblity of lymphoma or leukemia and I just started to shake my head. It wouldn't matter if I'd been freaking Paris Hilton shelling out on that ridiculous excuse for a dog she totes around with her. There was little I could have done to actually save and prolong Mercury's life with any comfort for either of us. I called Michelle at work and she agreed with my decision to have him euthanized, but I know it was a tough one for her. I offered to have her come out and then reneged. He looked so bad, so sick. The last time she'd seen him had been in August or September and I wanted her to keep that memory of him, instead of seeing him in such a sorry state.

When I was about seven, my mother had to put our family cat, Rootbeer, to sleep. I'd grown up with this cat. She'd let me chase her around the house for hours as a toddler, or use her belly as a pillow while I watched Sesame Street. She was pretty much my best friend. And I never really understood at that age why we had to put her to sleep when we could have given her medicine to stay alive. But, my mom told me, the medicine would have been in the form of shots every day and I think there would have been some dialysis involved too. I only knew that if it were me, getting shots every day would be the pits. I didn't want my cat to have that too.

And I knew I didn't want Mercury to deal with that. I'm out of the house most of the day, so leaving him at home alone while he was so sick would have made me feel horrible. In anticipation of bringing him home as of Thursday, I'd already cleared my schedule to spend the day with him for Saturday.

I remember when we first got Mercury last winter. I had to spend a couple of weeks coaxing him into my bed to sleep next to me at night. At first, he went solo, hiding under Roommate's bed. Then, he graduated to the foot of my bed and finally, right next to me. He had a towel he slept on that I'd put down to keep his fur from getting all over my comforter. (He was a shedder.) It's so weird to not have the towel on my bed anymore, or a breakfast buddy, or his little blinking eyes to peer at me when I come home at night. I almost called out to him this morning to "Be good; keep the bad guys away" as I do every day when I leave.

I donated Mercury's body to veterinary science. This is something humans have as an option when they die (my grandmother intends to) and out of curiosity, because I thought it was a little odd that you can either have the cremains to keep for yourself or have them stored in a "group" crematory, I asked the doctor if we could do this. He raised his eyebrows in surprise and gratitude telling me that most people are very appalled to do such a thing and thanking me for considering it. My thinking was twofold: first of all, my friend Caryn, who is a med student, said one of the coolest things about school so far is the cadaver work they did. Unpleasant as it may sound, she learned a lot about illness and the human body from it. And if there is one thing more important to me in this world than most other things, it's the opportunity to learn. And second-of-all, perhaps by learning something about what happened to Mercury, my vet can help another cat down the road. Besides, I would rather they do scientific study on animals that have already lived good lives than harvest them for the sole purpose of sticking them with needles and chemicals.

So that is the saga of Mercury the Ninja Cat. He was a sweetheart and I will miss him.

_________________________________________

*1,000 bonus points if you can KNOW what that's from. No Googling, bitches.

Holy hilarious comic strip, Batman!!!

2005-12-08T16:12:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, there was some commentary on here about comic books and what I should be reading in spite of the fact that I stated that I had a difficult time reading them not based on content but rather the layout, which I find distracting. Anyway, I thought today's Toothpaste For Dinner was pertinent to this discussion: voila.

Get thee to the Interweb!!!!

2005-12-08T14:15:00.000-05:00

There are two new websites I wish to pimp today. They make me high on life even though my sick cat is making be a) sad and b) feel financially challenged.

First, you might have noticed an addition to the sidebar called "MyRiffs" down there. It doesn't look totally seamless, but as we all know, I'm less than superb at making anything web-related look pretty. If the forms for blogging weren't so retard-friendly, I'd have some serious trouble sharing my words with the good people of the world. Anywho, the site was started by a company here in NYC (full disclosure: a good friend of mine was part of the launch team) as an alternative to stuff like Friendster or MySpace, and focusses a bit less on the personal "meet and greet" info and a little more on items of popular culture, activities, books, music, restaurants, movies, electronics, etc. There's a bunch of different categories and you can create your profile based on the things upon which you "riff," meaning you rant (hate on) or rave (tout) or just generally want to say something about. If you learn about something really cool, you can add it to the pile of things people should riff upon and you can also rate other people's commentary on stuff. Ok, so there's that. www.riffs.com. Check it out. (It works best in Firefox or Safari, incidentally. And they're still working out some bugs, so if you find stuff, be sure to email them to let them know!)

The next one, which I've actually already added to my riffs profile, is Pandora.com. I mentioned the site a couple days ago on Otto's blog in the comments section, but it totally warrants its very own post. If you like music, I mean REALLY like it, consider yourself a rock snob of any kind or you just like to play air guitar, you should check out this site because it might well become your raison d'etre. The guys who designed it first created something they call the Music Genome Project in which they pinpointed about 400 different aspects of songs that make up their rock "DNA." Profiled this month in FastCompany Magazine (also a cool thing, but unfortunately you have to subscribe to read about Pandora), there is a diagram that starts with "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones. The song is characterized as "gritty vocal, electric guitar riff, electric rock, blues influence" and then a family tree of sorts grows from that. "Gritty vocal" becomes "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC; "electric guitar riff" becomes "Waiting For the Potion" by Raging Slab; "Subtle blues influence," "Heavy Fuel" by Dire Straits...and so on, and each of these songs spawns a new pick based on their own respective characteristics. So by the end, after you've given the program a single suggestion, they have created an entire radio station for you to stream on your computer. This particular tree winds up with the Beatles, Blind Melon, Grand Funk Railroad and Jewel. Which brings me to the next cool point: you can tell it the songs you don't like and the algorithm perfects itself. So I'd nix the Jewel tune and it will NEVER play it again on my station.

You can give the station several different groups or songs to base your tastes around, and you can also set up a multitude of stations on the site so that Sade won't get tied up with The Smiths or Ryan Adams.

The very best part is that it's free if you're willing to put up with some ad space; like $35 a year if you want to be ad-free. And, like any enterprising site, there are buttons to click to visit Amazon.com or iTunes if you get a tune you like. No software to download, so you can log-in from anywhere and hear your own stations. I'd imagine if you have your 'puter wired to a decent set of speakers, you could augment your subscription to Sirius with this.

A word of caution, tho, if you download at work: my system administrator has already contacted me to tell me I'm back at the top of his "list" of people taking up an abnormal amount of bandwidth on our server. He's just jealous.

On death and how our taxes pay for it

2005-12-06T12:49:00.000-05:00

Last Friday at 2:00 a.m. (which seems to be the de riggeur time for executions) Kenneth Lee Boyd was put to death by the state of North Carolina. He was the 1000th person to be executed in the United States since the death penalty was re-instated in 1976. Had it not been for Virginia state governor, Mike Warner granting clemency to convicted killer Robin Lovitt, Mr. Boyd would have been 1001st. Governor Warner commuted Lovitt's sentence to life without parole because he said that certain pieces of key evidence had been erroneously destroyed and that he did not feel justified in ending a man's life when the course of justice had been so mangled.

I have to say that the fact that North Carolina holds this grisly honor is not something I'm particularly proud of, especially since of the 38 states that DO use the death penalty, the most prolific are in the Southeast. Most other states have only overseen a handful of executions each since re-instating the penalty. This doesn't exactly help the already backwards outlook the rest of the country has on people down there. I know from whence I speak; when I came to NYC and "talked a little funny" I never heard the end of it. And my accent, what is left of it, is far from strong.

It just so happens that as governor of Texas, Dubya oversaw 126 executions, the most of any governor ever. Texas has executed 355 people since 1976; North Carolina 39; California 11; Kansas 0. More statistics here. It's important to note that some of the discrepancy between the size of various states' death row populations is due to the fact that different states include varying charges of aggravation with respect to first degree murder that can increase or decrease the opportunity that someone qualifies for the death penalty as sentence

This month is a big one for the hangman, as one of death row's most notorious inmates, Tookie Williams, founder of the West Coast gang the Crips, is scheduled to be executed on December 13 for the murder of four people in 1979. Countless celebs have come out in favor of Mr. Williams, including Jamie Foxx and Snoop Dogg. And now he's seeking clemency from the Governator saying that he was once a bad person but has seen the error of his ways. Mr. Williams has always maintained his innocence with regards to the murders he was incarcerated for, but he does believe his former self was a serious sinner. In the meantime, he's held tele-conferences with youth groups to discourage gang violence, written books and been nominated for the Nobel Prizes in literature and peace.

I've never harbored much of an opinion one way or the other about the death penalty, but I have to say that in the last few years, living in a state that does NOT have the death penalty (although Pataki is calling for a re-instatement after last week's death of a police officer in a shoot-out) I've come to land on the side of feeling like it's an unnecessary punishment that is not only risk-prone to being fallible (the Virginia decision as an example), but also extremely cost inefficient. A Tennessee study in 2004 found that cases in which the prosecution seeks the death penalty instead of life w/o parole cost the state 48% more on average; a similar study in Kansas found that the appeals process in death cases are 21 times as costly; the Palm Beach Post reported in 2000 that the state of Florida could save itself $51 million annually if it were to stop pursuing the death penalty in all first-degree murder cases.

To say nothing of the fact that with the exception of a few trigger happy states, the death penalty is not even used all that often. As of July of this year, there are currently 3,145 people on death row; since 1976, 1,002 people (35% in Texas!!!) have been executed (58 this year as of December 5). Most people who ARE executed have been there for at least a decade if not two. The squeamishness with which various states actually make the death penalty a reality for a resident of death row should speak to the gravity understood in just what is involved. In addition, that it's issued as a sentence but not actually enacted all that much (relatively speaking) belies the argument that it's a deterrent in the penal system. People do not avoid committing a crime out of fear of such deadly retribution. If you're already morally skewed enough to consider committing murder, there's little chance you are spending much time thinking about the consequences. You probably do not even think you'll get caught, much less committed to death.

But let's get back to Tookie and his clemency plea. His clock is ticking ever louder as he's got one week to live. It's kind of scary to think about that. What would YOU do if you had a proscribed date of death? (It seems, dating back to the time of the Big JC, that a fine last feast is a popular choice.) Tookie's argument that he's repented and has cleaned up his life since being in prison reminds me of Karla Faye Tucker's similar plea to George W. Bush to stay her execution as a like-hearted Christian. Dubya was not swayed because the axe-murder legacy Karla had created for herself could not be expunged from her history; which, among other things, makes me ponder how much of a Christian he can really call himself if an understanding of repentance and forgiveness are not part of his personal lexicon.

However, from a legal standpoint, it's a difficult situation to be in. And if Ah-nold DOES stay Tookie's execution, then he is setting a mighty strong precedent for the state, that basically says, "If you get sentenced to death but then clean up your act once you're behind bars and help kids and collect the MOST bags of garbage on the highway in that *hot* orange jumpsuit, then we'll let you live," thus creating incentive for those already there to do just that (or pretend to do so, which is the rub!). Of course, he'll also be cutting the power of the penalty itself, what little it has, off at the knees.

Personally, I think Schwarzenegger would be wise to commute Tookie's sentence to life in prison. It's not just about celebrity, but rather about taking the opportunity to set a precedent in the state that offers up compassion but also a firm understanding of applying legal penalties. Ostensibly, he'll be doing away with the necessity of the death penalty in California, but he'll be demonstrating that prison CAN actually foster rehabilitation from a life of wayward crime in Tookie's success. Politically, this is a stronger message than merely repealing the law in the state legislative body. Because the efficacy of the penal system as a whole, not the effectiveness of the death penalty as a specific punishment, is really what's at the heart of today's discussions about this country's prison system.

Sweet Eighteen

2005-11-30T16:20:00.000-05:00

Today, the Supreme Court is hearing a case regarding an abortion law in New Hampshire. And although the case doesn't actually challenge the right to an abortion itself, thereby making the presence of anti-abortion Bible thumpers moot, this has not stopped them from gathering at the steps to sing some hymns. Because, as Senator Santorum could probably tell us, every time someone sings a hymn, an unborn baby is saved. Kind of like how in Peter Pan when the kids start clapping for Tinkerbell she is revived to her fabulous fairy-self.

The challenge to the law is whether or not a minor must tell her parents before she gets an abortion. In some states, anyone under the age of 18 is required to receive parental permission to have this procedure; in others, like NH, the physician cannot perform the procedure unless the girl's parents know about the fact she's getting an abortion-their consent is irrelevant. It's a fine line, but I have to confess in spite of myself that I do not find the law to be all that reprehensible on the level of being protective of a minor's status. If you have to be 18 to say whom you'd prefer be President of the United States, or engage in a consenting sexual relationship with an adult, then telling people they can be fifteen and entirely autonomous about such a weighty procedure seems a little counterintuitive.

Just about anything else in the life of an 18-year-old with even the remotest possibility of injury requires parental consent (piercing, tattoos, skydiving, etc.) and at present, most abortion laws bow to the health risks of the woman, so even if the parents refused and were then told their daughter could die if she were to NOT terminate her pregnancy, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't acquiesce. Even the most devout of anti-abortionists would have to recognize that were they to refuse their daughter her right to the procedure at that point, they'd have the blood of not only the unborn child on their hands, but that of their dead daughter as well.

Then again, eighteen is a somewhat arbitrary age and there are plenty of 15-year-olds out there who are more mature than their 18-year-old counterparts. I'll reference two of my younger cousins as an example. Both girls, I'll call them Mary and Amber, are 18. Mary is fairly straightlaced, makes good grades and has confessed to me that she doesn't really like drinking alcohol. And Amber, well, let's just say that her mother, my aunt, told me Amber came home at 3:00 a.m. the other night.

Mary is serious about her future and she's capable of putting together polysyllabic words around adults. She's not perfect, but she tries pretty hard to walk the line. Amber, on the other hand, apparently has an allergy to anyone older than 21 and I don't think I've spent more than fifteen consecutive minutes in her presence in the last five years. Her bedroom is lined with empty liquor bottles and she is horrible to her mother. The sad part is that if they both lived in New Hampshire, I'm afraid that it might be Amber who'd be more likely to find herself in a position to need permission from her parents to have an abortion. Am I passing a pretty big judgement about her based on her behavior? Absolutely. But I'd be willing to bet that any psychologist would give me a what what on this in terms of the tendencies and choices of rebellious teenagers. My point is, that in spite of the fact that they're both 18, I'd only trust one of them to babysit my kids (if I had any), and Amber, in my opinion, has a lot more trouble than Mary seeing her way to making smart decisions for herself even though the law says she can do whatever the hell she wants.

But the courts don't have the luxury of deciding on an individual basis just where someone lies on the scale of maturity before undergoing an abortion procedure. So they pick an age, which is based on a certain station in life that most kids have hopefully reached by the age of eighteen. It is the best they can do, but it is far from ideal when it comes to a decision like this one and it is particularly distressing to consider the bind that girls who know their parents will go into orbit (or worse) when they find out. It is for this reason that people are protesting this law. Not only do certain groups balk at the use of ANY restrictions on a woman's right to an abortion (such as the point Samuel Alito argued in favor of in the 1991 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey wherein a married woman must tell her husband) for fear of inching ever closer to losing the right althogether, but they do so out of concern for the 16-year-old girl who risks being disowned by her family or beaten by her father for having gotten herself into such a predicament.

I empathize with that potential predicament, as well as the question of the state being able to jurisdict the goings on in the lives of its private citizens and for this reason, I find myself equivocating about whether or not a 16-year-old should be self-determinate enough to get an abortion without seeking parental acknowledgement or consent. Given everything else they are required to have consent for, this should be no exception. And yet, it is in the interest of a very specific minority (i.e. teenagers whose personal lives are in danger due to informing their parents) that the SCOTUS should seek to protect the right of any woman of any age to have an abortion, regardless of who knows about it.

In which I both crucify Rent and yet defend its creator

2005-11-28T17:16:00.000-05:00

Like fifteen years ago, Jonathan Larson wrote a musical called "Rent." It came about 100 years after Giacomo Puccini wrote an opera called "La Boheme," which he borrowed from liberally in constructing the plot and songs in the play. He confessed this, although a lot of people seemed to overlook it. At the time, the subject matter was hot stuff. Instead of TB, he wrote about AIDS, the scourge of society at the dawn of the 21st century. No one seemed too interested in this modernization, but it wasn't anything new since the same thing had happened with "Pygmalion" and "My Fair Lady." Happens all the time.

But the thing is, like fifteen years after he first put pen to paper, and about ten since the play became such a gigantic hit, Rent is now a movie. New Roommate and I have shared many a viewing of the trailers from our comfy couch and each time we puzzle over the fact that a) The music is nothing new, so what's with the record labels releasing a NEW CD of the SAME CAST* singing all the music? b) AIDS, while certainly nothing to be downplayed, as a subject matter is kind of five minutes ago. HELL-O?? It's called SARS. Get with the program here!!; c) the East Village, ten years on, is now so gentrified you could call it Seattle; and c-sub-1) you'd also be hardpressed to find any black people there unless they are sleeping under newsprint in Tompkins Square Park because all of the apartments are now inhabited by whiny post-collegiates who are subsidized by their parents who live in Long Island.

Ok, so there's that. And if the creators of Rent think that they're going to catch an entirely new generation of Rent-ers with this particular incarnation, then perhaps they should have observed the general lack of interest that Nick Lachey's brother NotNick got when he starred in the show a couple years ago. Kids these days obviously prefer the "Chicken or Tuna" debate to the "pay rent or score a hit" one.

Don't get me wrong, I went out and bought that CD right away when that show came out and my high school chorus sang a medley from it. I even got a chance to see nearly the entire original cast in the show in NYC and loved every last minute of it. That song about fiftybajillion seventyfourthousand eightytwo nanoseconds still gives me a chill down my spine it's just so good. There was a time when I could quote every last word and, in the interest of understanding its roots, I even purchased a copy of Kiri Te Kanawa's recording of La Boheme, which became my short-lived introduction to operatic performance. In its time, Rent was a great show. But I have to confess to being a bit worried about its slated success, primarily because no one but people between the ages of 24 and 29 knows who Anthony Rapp IS. I'll tell you before Ebert and Roper do that those feeble thumbs will have track marks. (I'll probably go see it anyway, if for no other reason than to regale myself with my sixteenth year. Because really, who DOESN'T want to do that?)

In other Rent-related news, there's this woman, Sarah Schulman, who was interviewed in Slate.com this week about how Larson ripped her off, but that she ultimately opted NOT to sue his estate for copyright infringement. Instead, she wrote a book about how she got knocked off and in the article, she states just how:

"I [published] a novel in 1990 called People in Trouble, which was based on a love relationship I had with a married woman in the East Village during the advent of the AIDS crisis. The gay part of Rent is basically the plot of my novel, but with a slight shift. [Larson] has the same triangle between the married couple and the woman's lover, but he made the straight man the protagonist, whereas in my version he was the secondary character. But there are scenes in Rent, and events in Rent, that come right out of my actual life, via the novel."

First of all, if you've ever seen La Boheme, you know that nearly without exception, Larson just cut and paste Puccini's story. Some people are dying, everyone is cold, one guy is trying to write a beautiful song, another's a painter, a third an intellectual, Mimi is looking for someone to light her candle, they all go downtown to nosh at the rich patron's table and none of them has any cash. Granted, Larson made a couple of the players switch teams, but for the most part, he's true to Giacomo's tale. Secondly, this woman seems to think that simply because events in her life ocurred in a certain way, that precludes them from ever replicating themselves in ANY WAY in the universe EVER. Hey, guess what, lady? There are lots of people out there in bizarre love triangles, straight and gay. They're called a menage a trois and they happen all the time. The fact that Larson places his action in the East Village actually weakens this woman's claim that he allegedly ripped her life off. The East Village has long been home (until now, see (c) above) to wacky artistic antics and weird sexual exploits and so that multiple people could come up with similar stories from that time is hardly shocking.

Sadly, this woman just kind of winds up looking like an angry lesbian with some serious axe grinding to do. I recently wrote a post about the uphill battle that women have in the work place and it seems to me that lesbians and black women especially have a tough row to hoe in this world. In this, I feel for my fellow rivetresses, but being a spoilsport is one surefire way to get lots and lots of people to hate you and see to it that your way is forever barred. As someone once said to me: You get a lot more bees with honey than with vinegar. I think this is evident in that she was told if she sued Larson's estate, she'd be blacklisted. She quipped that since she's a lesbian, that was already a certainty. And while that may or may not be the case, that shouldn't be a reason for her to add insult to her own injury.

I generally find it risible (wisible**?) when people claim that a moderately commonplace ocurrence was something THEY came up with first. It's practically impossible to prove in any legal sense and it also smacks of sour grapes. If we all felt ripped off every time a character in a movie lost his girlfriend to some stranger on the Internet, then we'd be a helluva lot more litigious than we already are. Plagiarizing is one thing, but writing about the same corner on Avenue A when someone else has probably done so as well is not exactly earth shattering in its deceipt. It's just coincidence. Suck. It. Up.
______________________________________

*With the exception of Rosario Dawson who now plays Mimi instead of Daphne Rubin-Vega.
**100 points!! 100 points!! who gets it? and for an extra 50, WHAT is so damned funny?

Turkey Talk

2005-11-24T22:27:00.000-05:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, YA TURKEYS!!!!

Known knowns; unknown knowns

2005-11-21T15:57:00.000-05:00

I spent this past weekend nearly eating myself into a coma in the nation's capital. I didn't really go down for a culinary tour, but we wound up at some fantastic places. It's always really fabulous when I travel with one of my parents because they don't let me spend money on anything. My mom even covered my train ticket! The twenty I had in my wallet all weekend broke the record for most time spent in my wallet, ever.

Washington D.C. is a kind of unusual place. The city seems to run on caffeine, bargaining, sex and deceipt. These all combine together to make for a very potent energy that hangs around even on the weekend, which we discovered as a man wearing a Bluetooth earpiece and a pair of binoculars around his neck picked up a woman sitting down the bar from us who had the misfortune of being out with a friend who neglected to inform her that a) lowrise jeans are SO 2003 and b) that her buttcrack was showing well above her aforementioned untrendy pants. (We nicknamed her Madame Cracktastic.) I spent a summer working in D.C. in college and found this ether to be practically tangible during the weekdays. People act like the Bush administration invented lying, but you just need to walk around a little while and notice all its landmarks to understand that the city itself invented fabrication; Bush is just doing his job by upholding a longstanding tradition.

We went to the newly minted International Spy Museum and I learned a lot of cool things. Like how to pick a lock and what a microdot is and that there appear to be a disproportionate number of women in the CIA if the ones giving taped testimonials on the videos playing around the museum are any indication. I also learned that Washington D.C. is thought to have the highest number of spies in the world*. After World War II, Berlin took the cake when the city was divided between four different countries. But today, it's D.C. This is kind of creepy.

But it's probably true, because I noticed something very odd Saturday night as we strolled past the Department of Justice. In addition to the unpleasant aroma of horseshit wafting from its walls, the D.O.J. building is SURROUNDED by large, concrete planters. In New York, you see a lot of these outside of large office buildings along the edge of the sidewalk. They're an attractive and discreet way to protect the building from any would-be drive-by bombers. It's a line of defense. And they're usually about five or six feet apart, enough to allow people to walk between them, but not, say, a car. The D.O.J., however, seems to be taking a page from the book of the Upper East Side synagogue, Temple Emmanuel, which has done away with pretense or attractiveness altogether in favor of long, large concrete barriers that look like they belong alongside the highway to prevent people from driving across the median. The D.O.J. at least uses the planters, but they are placed end to end around the entire perimeter of the building. In front of the doors on the corner, about twenty feet beyond the edge of the sidewalk, there is a V-formation of more planters so that if you wish to actually go inside, you must circumambulate the planters and enter at an angle. It's weird and a little dizzying to look at. (I wish I'd taken a picture, but it was dark and there was also a guard standing outside one of the entrances and I wasn't willing to take my chances with the PATRIOT Act.) And, it appears exceedingly paranoid, particularly since its neighbor across the street, the National Archives, has a measly five planters in front of it.

All of the deceipt and paranoia that was evident in D.C. made me think a lot about how both of those words can also adequately describe the current psyche of the American government given what the current administration would like to have us all believe; i.e. that we ALL knew the same things they did.

Last week, the Bush Administration started backtracking in an ever so slight way about the fact that they mightpossiblybutwe'renotreallywillingtoadmitsquatsodon'tgetalldizzyyourself have been wrong about the reasons to go to war in Iraq. The way they're skirting taking the blame entirely is to say that "Sure, we thought there were WMDs**, but all y'all fools voted to go to war TOO so it's just as much y'all's fault because we all knew the SAME THING."

In addition to being a rather sheisty way to accept blame, it's also probably not true. Does anyone remember this gem? A regular Descartes that Rumsfeld is. (Listen to this link if you'd like to hear some songs based on Rummy's, um, poetry.) I always took the deeper meaning of this speech by Rummy to mean that he knew things we (i.e. the people and by extension Congress) were not privvy to. That is, the "unknown knowns" were things he had control of, but wasn't willing to share. The Bush Administration has been fickle all along about letting out any more information than they have to and what is more, they are notorious for stonewalling when asked. I find it very tough to believe that they didn't have more intelligence information at their disposal than the leaders in Congress did considering that Bush wavered merely about releasing documents Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts had written during his stint in the Reagan White House. Roberts most likely wasn't writing about noo-cyoo-lar missiles or moon landings, but Bush's refusal to offer up what he WAS writing about just made things seem that much more suspect.

Of course, the major debate now is not really what information the administration had but didn't share, but rather if they fabricated what they DID share in order to "trick" Congress into letting us go to war. If this is the case, then this situation is more than ever like Vietnam in which the Johnson administration fabricated the basis for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and allowed the president carte blanche for his actions. Fortunately, we have not, and most likely will not, seen the carnage incurred in Vietnam, but it does not excuse the illegal premise under which the government may have engaged us in warfare.

I'm not really sure it would matter if the President were found guilty of such an act of deception. The wool is slowly being drawn back from the eyes of the American people about the lack of rationale or direction for the war and people are beginning to anticipate more than a "We're not prepared to answer that at this time" from Scott McClellan in response to their questions. This kind of thing simply won't fly for much longer and though I've said it before, it bears repeating that I cannot help but wonder where this might have left us had this all been going on a year ago.

____________________________________
*Another factoid that I took much delight in recalling this weekend was that Washington D.C. was designed by none other than a Frenchman, Pierre L'Enfant. I'm just glad they didn't start calling it Freedomton Free. C. or something idiotic like that.
**On my train ride back, I noticed a couple getting off the train with monogrammed bags, that looked quite new. The monogram was WMD. Seriously? Why would you EVER do that, especially on your LUGGAGE?!?!!

Happy Blogday!!

2005-11-18T12:27:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, my blog turned one. And I forgot to say anything about it. Believe it or not, I was busy at work. I've spent about three days working on a family tree project in preparation for a meeting I had with our New York state staff this morning. And wouldn't you know that when I GOT to the meeting this morning, suffered through an hour of dull yakking about stuff that has little to do with me and then finally mentioned the aforementioned family tree and some holes I had in it, my development officer told me that he'd seen one recently and now I didn't need to worry about it. Thanks a LOT FOR NOTHING you trucking jackhole! sheesh...I could have been spending my time in a much more effective manner.

Like blogging!

Dammit.

Truthfully, though, I was researching a really fascinating and prominent family, who, if you live in New York City, you'd know who they are, and I've learned a lot of cool stuff. (I'd share it with you here, but then I'd have to kill all of you and that would tank my hits counter. So the word is, and remains, "mum.") That is one thing I happen to really enjoy about my job: I learn a lot about a lot of random people who actually aren't so random, because many of them founded or own or have a hand in some pretty major industries and such and learning their history can be pretty interesting.

So anyway, this post is dedicated to my blog and it's (belated) birthday. I've "met" some cool people, gotten some righteous postcards (Shannon, I told you Ronnie is pinned up by my desk, right? Yours with the sailboats is too, Bob. And if the rest of you want to send me postcards to put up by my desk, that would be awesome. I'll send you one from NYC!! Email me and I'll send you a mailing addy.) and read some really incredible stuff written by none other than peons like me. I think the actual reason Lachlan Murdoch quit the mogul game is because he realized that power really lies with the "little" people. So he dropped out to get a desk job, become a slacker, nearly go mindlessly numb for the boredom and then start writing a blog. Because really, that's what it's all about.

Is this like when you're playing soccer and you score a goal for the OTHER team?

2005-11-14T16:15:00.000-05:00

I don't mean to backtrack on decades of feminism here, but I have a complaint to make. This week's edition of Fortune Magazine has Martha Stewart on the cover. And inside, in addition to a long, unnecessary article about the woman who climbed up a mountain, was witch hunted back down, and is now clawing her way semi-gracefully to the top again, there is also a list of the 50 most powerful women in business.

That's all well and good and I do think it's important to do stories about the successes women have had in the business world. But here is what I do not understand: the constant need to point out that there are significantly fewer women at The Top than men. Evidently, Fortune and all other magazines guilty of running these types of pieces are all helmed by Captain Obvious and his Krazy Krew of Loveable Miskreants. What is more, all of them seem determined to mine useless reams of speculative data as to just WHY there are so few women in control of the business world. Answers range from a lack of interest in golf (as this seems to be the game of choice for all the men in power) to hormonal differences to bearing children to not being ruthless enough to do the necessary backstabbing and lying it often takes to stomp on the others around you and thereby eliminate them from competition. To tell you the truth, if I've got to sabotage those around me in order to make a bajillion dollars in stock options each year, I'd rather sleep at night thank you very much. I may not be sleeping on a Duxiana, but at least I'd be getting some shut eye.

The thing that always sort of tickles me about these articles the most is that they seem to start from a point that assumes an equality between men and women. That is, that we are the same. This is preposterous and the examinations of why women don't appear to succeed as often as men are often equally absurd. We don't think the same, we don't feel the same, we don't process information in the same way, we don't disseminate information in the same way, we don't interact with others in the same way, we don't have the same desires or objectives or methodologies for approaching them, and we certainly do not all share an affinity for a good bourbon and a Cuban cigar. Perhaps instead of being tickled by these articles, I should feel insulted for the tack that they that says women should strive to mold themselves into a man-like Golem doll so as to succeed in business.

What is more, men and women have always had anthropologically distinct roles from one another. This is a good thing. I do not wish to be a man, because I happen to enjoy the distinct social aspects I encounter as a female. Imagine if we all truly had the same capabilities: the joy of sexual tension would cease to exist and the publishing, film and any other industry that makes money on the foibles men and women encounter about one another would be devastated. So it should follow that certain industries might be more or less male-dominated based on the innate ability to fill those roles. A woman can be a forklift operator if she likes, but let's not act like her six-foot-four, 235-pound male counterpart is not better suited to the job physiologically. On the reverse, women are perhaps better suited to work in health care because of an inherent nurturing sensibility that most women seem to have.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not getting all Lawrence Summers on your asses. Girls can do whatever they heck they want; even math! It is important for women to challenge these roles in the quest for equanimity in the board room, but there is a long way to go and thousands of years of anthropology to take on as well. So when it comes to business dealings, because it is a world that was initially created by men, it follows that it should run along the lines of the way men think. That women have managed to inject themselves into the world of men in this case has little to do with their physical stature, but I am puzzled as to why everyone acts so surprised that women continue to struggle in this arena. By its very nature, it is a male-dominated system that rewards men over women not necessarily for being the superior of the two sexes, but for being the more familiar and thereby the (wrongly assumed) more suited to perform whatever task is at hand. As to whether that is fair, I'd say it most certainly is not. But that is not my point.

I think it's incredibly inspiring when women rise to certain levels of stature and power in business. It says a lot about how far we've come. But my point is the continued culture in business magazines that use the lens of masculinity to observe and scrutinize women in similar roles. At this point, it should be taken as a given that the proverbial glass ceiling still exists. Let's stop wasting ink stating that and move on from there.

Life may be nasty, brutish and short, but at least his pet tiger made it darned cute!

2005-11-08T17:05:00.000-05:00

Recently, Bill Waterson published a complete edition of Calvin and Hobbes and Slate has done a slide show on the strip itself. I used to argue with my ex-boyfriend over the merits of comic books, and, by extension, comic strips. I have a hard time reading them. The graphics and weird fonts just distract me and prove disinteresting and I never know which cell to move to next. I tried, but I could just never get into them the way he did, not even with someone so compelling as Neil Gaiman, whose other works I happen to really enjoy.

However, there was always one strip that was dependably enjoyable and that was Calvin and Hobbes. I have only positive childhood memories associated with the strip, namely, racing to its spot in the paper each day hoping that I'd beat my dad to it. This was seldom, since you have to get up very early to beat him to his morning paper. Secretly I liked it most when I was actually at the table when he read it because it almost always made him laugh out loud, which I loved. My father has a great laugh, as Bebop can audibly imitate for you, and his eyes crinkle up in a very sweet way. Seeing him laugh is probably one of my favorite things about him, so it would follow that my memories of this comic strip are so pleasant. I have several of his other collections and I've probably read the entire canon over time, but it's been years. Next time I'm home, I should pick a couple up.

Remember, vote early and often

2005-11-08T10:35:00.000-05:00

I voted this morning for the first time ever in New York. I know everyone says there's really little point in voting because single vote has little to now effect and even those Freakonomics guys wrote a column in the Times magazine this weekend about why you don't NEED to vote, but I still think it's a really cool thing to do. Until last spring, I've always voted in North Carolina because, well, it's where I grew up and frankly, I care more about the political goings on around there than I do around here. What is more, a good family friend is a state senator and I like to support her. Also, I know all my fellow Dems up here have got my back. NC, it needs all the help I can give it.

My voting experience reminded me why I like living in the outerboroughs so darned much. I got up early to head over to the precinct, P.S. 70, because I wasn't sure how long it would take me. I remember going to vote with my mother once as a child and I think we waited an interminably long time. Then again, I was about 8 and standing in line for anything takes forever for someone that age. This morning, my friend Josh was working the front desk. He told me which booth to head to and there were two people at this one booth to help me out. They were very friendly and chatty for so early in the morning. They even looked up New Roommate's name for me because she'd been concerned that since she'd moved she wouldn't be able to vote. She wasn't on the roster they had, but they told me to send her over later today and they'd take care of her. As I was chatting with them, my neighbor showed up at my booth, so we got to chatting too. It was all very small-town-like.

Then it was my turn to vote! As I stepped into the booth, there was a woman who was offering instructions. I've never used those lever things before, because I always voted absentee, so she showed me how to pull the lever over once, mark the ballot and then push the lever back to the starting point. It makes this big KA-CHUNK noise, which is very visceral and satisfying. I think it's the sound of democracy. When the radio woke me up this morning, they were saying that federal law is going to require all states to move to electronic ballot casting by next year, so it looks like this was the last time those puppies will be trotted out. Kind of sad, because now the sound of democracy will just be some lame dot-matrix printer getting jammed, I'm afraid.

Some people, like my father, are always very secretive about who they vote for. I still don't know if he picked Dukakis or Bush, but I have my suspicions. I know voting is confidential in the eyes of the counters, but I don't really have any trouble sharing who I do and don't support. (Shocking, I know.) I mean, I think you should be proud of the candidate you support, else why vote for him or her. Unless of course, it's all those obscure people on the ballot who don't advertise and really don't matter at all anyway. Those I just flipped the Dem tab on. I voted, even though he's somewhat rudely trouncing his opponent monetarily, for incumbent Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Faux-Republican affiliations aside (Bloomberg switched parties to run for office anyway) the truth is that Bloomberg has done a pretty good job of running the city, I think. Also, I saw Ferrer speak once last year during the Presidential elections and he very closely resembles a weasel who uses too much hair product. Lots of people already consider politicians to be "greasy," so why anyone would outwardly demonstrate that quality on his person is beyond me.

This would be a tough place to be mayor. It takes a certain je ne sais quoi to be mayor in this town; or maybe it's just big brass balls. Because New Yorkers are not, by disposition, particularly happy people to begin with. So start futzing with their civic well-being and well, you'll hear about it, and probably none too politely either. That's why this morning's activity was so pleasant. All the strident complaining that New Yorkers do fell away to a small gymnasium full of neighbors helping other neighbors perform their Democratic rite. The only part that made me sad was that, while I like that it only took about 7 minutes, I'd liked to have seen loads more people there excercising their voting muscle. Maybe they all read that Freakonomics article and decided to sit this one out.

My new blog

2005-11-07T14:52:00.000-05:00

I don't know how many of you ever click on the link to my profile, but if you do, you'll notice that I have started a new blog. It's about Accutane and all its glory. Because my face has a lot of acne-fied glory to get over and the hope is that the former will help the latter.

In general, I'm a fairly private person when it comes to my psychic wellbeing, so writing about the fact that I have fairly severe (well, what I consider severe) acne is a big challenge for me. You've probably noticed I don't tend to wax whiny about issues with boys or my family or my job or my personal life in general partly because that's not really what this blog is about, partly because I don't really believe in wallowing in that kind of thing, particularly not in any public form, and partly because well, I'm just not very good at opening myself up like that. I mean, sure, I'm as self-deprecating as it's trendy to be, but beyond that, I don't open up too much.

As for my skin, I'm exceedingly embarassed about it, even though it is literally written all over my face. I cannot hide from it, so I figured that a good form of self-induced therapy would be to sort of out myself and write about it. Plus, Accutane is a very powerful drug that has come under a tremendous amount of controversy in its day due to the potential birth defects you're pretty much guaranteed to encounter if you're a girl and get pregnant on the drug, and also because some Congressman's son in Michigan committed suicide a few years back and his family blames the drug. A pretty harsh accusation in my book, but one worth examining.

So, I'm trying to take a lighthearted tack to a problem that has become increasingly difficult for me to put on a good face about (sorry for the pun!) in an effort to work through some of my own issues and also to hopefully offer support to others out there who might be going through something similar or be getting ready to and would like a touchstone for it. I don't imagine that it will be of much interest to most of the people who read this, unless you just cannot get enough of my writing and you'll read anything I've penned, even if it's about zits, the way I'd go see Kate Hudson in anything, even if it's Alex & Emma . (See, this is why I don't blog personal: I'm fairly mortified I just confessed that I went to see that movie. I also now sound like I have a big head thinking you all hang on my every freaking word!) But I just want to draw my faithful readership's attention to it so a) you didn't think I was pulling one over on you the next time you DID look at my profile and b) you just never know where you find a common bond and it's possible that some of you have taken this drug and have a few pennies to throw into the change purse about it.

The blog is titled On Accutane: Wherein my zits meet their Waterloo, and the url is http://accutanewaterloo.blogspot.com

What is this? A Travelblog?

2005-11-04T13:05:00.000-05:00

In February, I am quitting my job and going to India. It's not a permanent relocation, just a trip, but it's kind of fun to say it like that. It sounds more dramatic.

Anyway, the thing is, there are an endless number of things to see and do in India, in addition to the wedding I am attending and the Taj Mahal I will be visiting. And then you're just right there so near to Nepal and Tibet and the Himalayas and LOOK at this trip. Also, India is pretty much the heart of all things yogic, so there's the dream of doing yoga in the motherland, as it were.

Paring myself down to a handful of activities is going to be quite a challenge I am afraid.

Dave, Ho's; Ho's, Dave

2005-11-03T11:15:00.000-05:00

The fancy ca-r-rrs. The women and the cav-i-ar-r. You know who we a-r-re. We're pimpin' all over the wo-r-rld.

Ok, this isn't about Ludacris. But it IS about pimping. Myself. Pimping myself. (Which is really the best way to pimp because you get to keep ALLL the monies and you don't have to worry about no whiny ho's and shit like that.)

I believe I've mentioned before that I am a certified yoga instructor (aka Yoga Pimp-Mami) and I have found a place to rent out in the city (aka Yoga Flop House) and teach a class or two (so all y'all can learn to be Yoga Ho's and Dirty Down Dogs). And some of you who might read this site might be innerested in taking a class wit' me. It's a morning class and the studio's at 19th and Broadway in Manhattan.

If you ARE interested and even if you DON'T really know me except through reading what I write (i.e. you've merely HEARD about my bendy pimp-mami ways) but think you'd be willing to give it a shot and come out to support me (i.e. pay me to help you get in shape) then holla at me in an email (the beeper's in tha shop) at theohreallyfactor at gmail dot com and let me know what's up. I'll send you further details.

Word. Up.

Did I stutter?

2005-11-02T14:30:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I think that I've developed ADD from my job. I constantly have at least five browser windows open on my desktop aside from my email application and whatever Word doc I'm working in. As a result, I jump back and forth between professional sites (i.e. Lexis Nexis) and not-so-professional (i.e. this one and all the other forty bajillion blogs I read [it seems "bajillion" has become my favorite large number indicator of late]) and also keep track of a stack of various hard rags on my desk as well. There's always something to read while having lunch. At least four times a day, I stop what I'm reading midsentence on Lexis and jump over to Toothpaste for Dinner or Go Fug Yourself. I need the funny to stimulate my otherwise oatmeal-resembling gray matter.

But then I spend days like today and I realize that I've got the concentration of a tightrope walker, it's just that the boredom that keeps me hopping from site to site. It is about 2:15 and I have done nothing today except read this site. I got up about an hour ago to use the loo and get my sandwich from the fridge in the office kitchen. Otherwise, I haven't fidgeted, made phone calls, checked my cell phone and 3 email accounts obsessively or even made tea.

Holy Christ, is it funny. And I've been waiting to pick a post of his to link to and then I came across this one and had to stifle my laughter by suddenly having a lengthy caughing fit. I don't know what it is about Tourette's Syndrome that I find so freaking hilarious, but if you've ever read Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem, I think you can give me the sha na na on this. I read most of that book on my way to Thailand, in which the main character is inflicted with Tourette's despite being an ersatz gangster. It was even more of a challenge to keep from waking my fellow sardines up at O'dark thirty in the whateverthehelltimeitisoverthePacificfucking ocean than keeping my office mates from realizing that researching some rich a-hole is really NOT all that hysterical and that I must be slacking off.

Additionally, my favorite scene in Spellbound (aside from the ones with that midwestern family's Jack Russell terrier) is when that kid goes "I.Am.A.RO-bot.I.Am.Talk-ING.Like.A.RO-bot." and then makes all those weird faces.

The Man in Black

2005-11-01T23:30:00.000-05:00

Oh, my Lord. I am counting the days. Oh yes, Jo-quin, Johnny would be proud.

And it's been a good coupla years since I made it to an opening night for a movie because fighting the crowd in this town just isn't worth it. But there's a strong likelihood that I'll be taking a nap on Friday afternoon so as to make it to this one. I think I've discussed my fetish for men in uniform before on this site. I need to start breaking myself in for when X-Men 3 comes out, bitches.

Finally, who doesn't like them some gay cowboys, 'specially if'n they look like Jake and Heath. Does anyone actually KNOW the name of that movie? Crap, I bet not even Larry McMurtry knows it!!

FIGHT NIGHT: Dems v. the GOP

2005-11-01T18:12:00.000-05:00

Reason number 50 bajillion to hate Tom DeLay:
His lawyer had the presiding judge removed from DeLay's case citing the judge's inability to be impartial.

As it happens, judges are elected officials in the state of Texas, and are thereby openly affiliated with one political party or another. DeLay and his defense have been hollering sour grapes at the fact that Bob Perkins of the 331st Judicial Criminal District Court was a Democrat and in this capacity (and quite legally, I might add) had given campaign contributions to other Democratic candidates in the state as well as MoveOn.org (who has forever been quarantined from my email inbox for being the email-sendingest email sending online PAC EVER to send emails. MoveOn.org stop that rhyming, and I mean it!) Judges, Mr. DeLay believes, should be able to rule impartially. Which means, I guess, that the replacement judge will have to be a blind eunuch from Siberia who troubles himself not with partisan ways, bad dye jobs or smug mug shot photo having Congressmen.

I've been considering a move to Texas for a graduate program of late, but I'll be damned if I can't get my head around the dirtydog (ahem: Republican) ways in which that state operates. Judging from the sheisty methods they used to re-draw the voting district lines a couple years ago, I'm not sure I really WANT to be a taxpayer down there if I can help it.

So it should come as no surprise that someone could actually get cowboybooted from residing over the case of a Republican ostensibly for the mere offense of being a proud, supportive Democrat, i.e. a member of the opposing ideological party. Even Mr. Delay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, has said as much: "The public perception of Judge Perkins's activities shows him to be on opposite sides of the political fence than Tom DeLay," he said, according to The Associated Press. Clearly, Mr. DeLay is being defended by one of the best legal minds ON THE PLANET!!!

The best, most deliciously ironic part of the whole thing, of course, is that DeLay himself is being indicted on being inscrupulous about his own campaign contribution interactions. To which I say, people in glass houses shouldn't throw Bibles...

___________________
Update: If you need any more specific reasons to loathe Rep. DeLay, have a look at another dozen dastardly deeds here.

Just don't let him take anger management classes from Russell Crowe

2005-11-01T15:57:00.000-05:00

Clearly people were not all that far off about Bolton and his demeanor of permanent disapproval. Either that or he just doesn't appreciate it when people lie under oath.

Your thought for the day

2005-10-31T17:03:00.000-05:00

Right....here....

At least there's something tasty inside...

2005-10-29T17:48:00.000-04:00

Last night, my friend Raquel and I were in a hurry to get out to Brooklyn to see a friend's band play. But we needed to eat. So we went to Little Caesar's and got a large pizza for $5. (I know, we were equally astounded at the price too!)

As we were walking across 14th Street to the subway, we had to pass through in single file down a makeshift sidewalk around a construction site. Raq was carrying the pizza, got caught in the flow of traffic and fell a few steps behind. To which she had this to say:

"I keep bumping people with my box!!!"

At least I never ate Cap'n Crunch sandwiches

2005-10-28T16:09:00.000-04:00

Every so often, I get an email from my high school alumni association. The school has finally moved into the 21st century and they've also hired someone worlds more competent* to handle alumni relations, these emails have started coming with more frequency. They are somewhat hilarious in their lameness.

High school is generally reflected upon by everyone as a time when we were at our most uncool. Fortunately, our uncool-ness is rarely pointed out to us by those who shared the experience with us because they were just as uncool. In receiving these emails from my alumni association, I think that I'm going to take an I'm- fat-so-I'll-sue-McDonald's approach and say that I was uncool in high school (a fact my college roommate C. suspected of my within moments of meeting me, which she likes to remind me of often) not through any fault of my own but because my school was so chockfull of high caloric uncool-ness! The Hamburgler totally made me wear those purple scrunchies in my sophmore yearbook picture. GAH! It was out of my hands. However, we DID throw a bitchin' prom!

My point is, I just got an email that led me to a link on the homepage and on the front page was the use of the word "pre-teens." My Rorschach reaction to that word was "That is the GAYEST word EVER!"

__________________________
*Last year's alumni/teacher luncheon was on December 16. I sent an email suggesting that all the college-aged grads would be in finals and none of the rest of us would be home a full ten days prior to Christmas thanks to a lack of vacation time, so perhaps they should move it to a day closer to the holiday so that people could actually attend. The response: if we move it, the teachers will not be able to attend.

Meet Mercury the Ninja Cat

2005-10-26T23:03:00.000-04:00

A cutie-patootie...

...with THUMBS!!!

Two-stepping thievery

2005-10-26T12:33:00.000-04:00

I just drafted a missive to OM about my shoeless existence and kind of like it. I just hope they don't think I'm being difficult about this. But seriously, two pair of shoes?!?! As I point out below, I've never been mugged on the street and yet I've been knocked off twice at my freaking yoga studio!!! Ahem!

Dear Joshua (he's the business manager):

I am a student at OM as well as a recent (July) graduate of the OM Teacher Training. Yesterday evening, between the hours of 5:30 and about 7:45, my shoes were stolen off the racks in the shoe room. A little over a year ago, I had another pair stolen off the same rack. Since last year's incident, I've been fairly vigilant about keeping my shoes tucked under my clothing in the ladies' changing room and I always take my valuables into the classroom with me. Last night, I threw caution to the wind and decided to do like all the other OMies do and leave my shoes in the shoe room. As you may recall, it was rather cold, wet and nasty last night, so I figured that I'd have the added insurance policy that no one would be so insidious as to steal someone's shoes on a night when the weather was so rotten. Clearly, I figured wrong. Someone in my class was kind enough to run across the street and buy a new pair of shoes for me. In short, it was the most expensive yoga class I've ever taken. The lost shoes were about $45, plus the $15 for the class, plus the $31.27 spent on the new pair.

I fully recognize that OM is not responsible for belongings that go missing. However, judging from the abundance of signs that have been posted lately at the front desk, in the coat/shoe room and in the ladies' room (I'm assuming they're in the men's room too...) theft is becoming an increasing problem. As it happens, both pairs of shoes that were stolen were gifts to me from my mother. At this point, she's forbidden me to even remove them to step onto the mat when I go to a class. I pointed out to her that this might be frowned upon by my fellow practitioners, especially given that space is so tight in the studios most of the time. But short of lugging ALL of my belongings into the classroom each time, I don't see any alternative to protecting my things because of the fact that OM does not offer any other way to do so. In the winter months, this will include boots/heavy shoes, my bag, my heavy winter coat, scarf, hat, gloves, possibly an umbrella, and any extra bags I might have with me from errands, etc. That is a LOT of stuff and there simply isn't room in the studios to accomodate everyone doing that.

This email is not to try to seek restitution for my lost property (although I do have a suggestion at minor redemption, which is to offer me two free classes in return for my two lost pair of shoes) but rather to suggest that OM do a couple of things to make me, as a customer, feel better about OM's efforts to protect the belongings of everyone who patronizes the place.

Let me be clear: I L.O.V.E. OM. I do not want to have to stop going there because I feel unsafe. It would behoove OM to install surveillance cameras in the public spaces as well as lockable storage spaces in the changing rooms. Patrons can be responsible for their own locks and thus use them or not at their own risk. As it stands now, I have no choice BUT to risk losing my posessions each time I take a class because OM offers me NO options for protecting them. Consequently, when something goes missing, although I signed a paper when I first came to OM saying that I would not hold OM responsible, OM technically IS responsible since there is no means of protecting my property. I know that instituting locks is against the spirit of not only OM but yoga as well, but I really see no other option.

This is a pity because I appreciate the ethos of a lock-free environment, having grown up in a home where we never locked our doors and a high school that forbade locking our lockers due to an honor system. Unfortunately, we live in New York City, where the size of the population is inversely proportional to its moral standing. The irony is, I have never once been so much as mugged, pickpocketed, robbed, harassed, etc. on the street and yet I've been robbed TWICE at OM Yoga Studio. Clearly, someone isn't getting the message the instructors espouse on our mats.

Again, I do not intend for this letter to sound like I am upset with OM at the loss of my property. I am not asking for payment, but rather I'm imploring you to try to make an effort to solve this problem that OM is experiencing. I know I am not the only person with a property loss story to tell and it's no secret this is going on. If you'd like any help brainstorming for ideas on how to solve this problem, I'd be more than happy to help out.

Regards,
Forest

Getting the boot

2005-10-25T22:52:00.000-04:00

Today was a rough day. Roommate moved out. She's going back home to Ohio to be a bit closer to her family and to go back to school in January. Getting home tonight was kind of sad because her room's all empty and the kitchen table and the artwork in our living room were gone. I'm gonna miss that girl.

But I won't be sad for long because Once and Future Roommate is moving in tomorrow. You guys might know her from the site as "B." You see, once upon a time, I lived with B (OAFR) in this big, drafty, craphole of a house in Astoria. We had a host of roommates (some cool, but most crazy) and what seemed like a revolving door on the front of the house. After we were unceremoniously awoken by the paramedics one night who were busily reviving our sadsack roommate Jason in the basement from his alcohol-induced stupor, we decided it was time to get out. Roommate (who's now en route to Ohio) was coming back from overseas and so I invited her to join in our apartment hunt. And the three of us lived like little bears in a rawther large place in Astoria overtop of a roach-infested deli. But then B got her own place and we got this one and we became neighbors instead of roommates. But now she's back!! I've lived with well over 30 people since I moved to New York, so it's nice to have a few I can recycle because most I'd rather not. Sooo, welcome to your new home, B!

The other thing that made my day kind of a bummer was that someone stole yet ANOTHER pair of my shoes at the yoga studio tonight. About this time last fall, someone stole this really lovely and cute pair of red shoes that my mom had bought for me. I loved (and missed) them so much that I bought a new pair on eBay. My mom bought this most recently stolen pair for me as well. I'm fairly meticulous about the gifts I request for holidays. I start sending ideas months in advance and it's usually made up of things that I need but refuse to buy for myself. Or things I'd really like but can't afford. Past examples: monogrammed towels, insulated tumbler glasses, an iPod, these AWESOME GREEN BOOTS THAT KEEP YOUR FEET DRY IN THE RAIN AND THE SNOW...

You see, at OM, there is a sort of ideal that even though we're all a-hole New Yorkers, we all take a break every day or two and go take a yoga class and as we step into the studio, we leave behind our conniving, backstabbing, dreamstealing ways. As a result, there are no locks anywhere, and you're asked to leave your shoes and coats in a room up front that is unattended. And the changing rooms are just full of cubbies and wall hooks. But due to a rash of stolen goods lately (for which OM refuses to be responsible), it's pretty evident that this policy isn't working out too well for all involved. I (perhaps naively) put my trust in the system because I generally try to believe in the brotherhood of man stuff and so until last fall, I always left my shoes in the shoe room. Then my little red shoes got stolen. And since then, I've almost always taken my shoes into the changing rooms and tucked them under my clothes. But for some reason, tonight, I left them on the shelves and they got lifted.

I. Am. Furious. Because I LOVE these shoes and I also HATE having wet feet and these boots keep my feet the dryest and happiest of any shoes I've ever had. What sucks about this policy at OM is that you can't really post hate notes about how people did something morally nasty and also left you BAREFOOTED ON THE RAINIEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR!!!!!!!!

So I'm posting it here on the outside chance that someone surfing the 'net will see this and realize they did something wrong AND that I HATE them for being such a louse. Boo and Hiss to you, you green boot stealer!

On Civil Disobedience

2005-10-25T08:16:00.000-04:00

R.I.P. Rosa Parks.

It's pretty much my favorite animal!!!

2005-10-20T14:42:00.000-04:00

'Tis the season to go to the State Fair. Watch out for flippin' sasquatches.

Forever Slutty-1 OR: Why I hate Starbucks

2005-10-19T14:48:00.000-04:00

Has anyone ever been into a Forever 21 store? They are clothes for girls made cheaply by children in countries no one from the West but textile companies have discovered. Oh, and they are INSANELY slut-a-licious. Like, worse than Contempo Casuals slut-a-licious. Like, most likely originated in New Jersey slut-a-licious.

Turns out, that the owner of Forever 21, Don Chang, is a deeply religious man and has the now-famous (thanks to none other than a pro-wrestler??) Bible verse "John 3:16" stamped on the bottom of their bags. I have zero issue with people printing things like that on things they hand out. It's a free country and frankly, I think people who get offended by that kind of crap should just avoid patronizing whatever store instead of raising a big stink. But I just find the dissemination of Biblical scripture alongside of trashy clothing for young, impressionable girls who need a little more Mandy Moore and Reese Witherspoon and a little less J. Ho and Britney, to be kind of incongruous. Seriously, what is that about? I'm going to take a wild guess and say that this is precisely how the whole "anal sex is* great because it's not REAL sex and we're still virgins afterwards" thinking has replaced those T-shirts that say "I gave my word to stop at third." Mixed media makes for mixed messages.

I found this nugget in an article about the uproar Starbucks' new cups are creating with various quotes on them. Last week, it was the one about being gay and this week it's the one about God. I have an idea: let's just all STOP BUYING STARBUCKS COFFEE!!!! It's overpriced, always tastes burned, is probably ALSO harvested at the expense of poor labor, and clearly offensive to everyone on earth. There is a very simple effective way to solve this problem, people. Also, America, could we find some other stuff to quibble over besides The Son of Man and gay people? It's getting kind of old.

___________________________
*Or, like Bubba said, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

HOLLAH @ MAH POPS!!!!!!

2005-10-19T14:03:00.000-04:00

Me: Hey, Daddy. How are you?
Dad: Fine. I'm just fine.
Me: What are you up to?
Dad: Oh, I'm at home. Just chillin'.
Me: Oh... (????) that's good.
Dad: So, have you heard from Natasha about that NYCares thing on Saturday?
Me: Um, no. Not yet. I sent her an email saying I wanted to go and then another saying YOU wanted to go, but no details. I guess I need to call her about it and then get back to you.
Dad: Ok, no hurry. Whenever you let me know is cool.
Me: Alrighty then....

It's possible that the only people who find this remotely funny are those of you who are or have at one point in time been related to my father (i.e. my brother and my mom, respectively; Ems, you'll prolly get this too) so I'll clue the rest of you in.

My dad is a good guy, but being up on street slang (albeit about stuff that's well over a decade old) has never been his forte. He makes no attempts to mask his generally unhip white dude materiel. (Tho he does dig Wilco, much to his credit!) He tends to read the WSJ, as opposed to say, XXL. So you can probably understand why I nearly choked when he said the word "chillin'" to me. I half expected him to tell me he had just paged his dealer, Crazylegs, and was waiting for him to get back AT him. But I let it slide because, well, my dad is still fairly new to New Jack City and I'm trying to not hate, but rather participate. My internal monologue, which is alternately ruled by a 13-year-old boy and Lil' John (and sometimes both), said "WHHHHHHATTT?????" while instantaneously thinking "A-YAAAAY-UHHH!!!!" And then high-fived itself when he said "cool" a short while later.

Of Note

2005-10-18T12:19:00.000-04:00

I have been having kind of vivid dreams lately. And here's one I had the other night:
Harriet "Rootinest Tootinest Brush Clearinest Boot Licker In All The Land" Meiers wouldn't officially state her position on abortion because it turns out she's HAD ONE. An abortion, that is. It was years ago and although the press knew, they were sitting on it. And for some reason I knew. And, Lordy, wasn't there going to be hell to pay to all those Bornies when they discovered what Harriet done gone and done??? Not only had she committed the pre-marital sex act of damnation, but she'd also killed one of God's creatures!! ("cree-otchers," Bebop?)

That was a good dream.

Gomer Pyle to the rescue

2005-10-18T11:19:00.000-04:00

Last week, Slate published an article about the fact that the U.S. Army is doing away with the long observed requirement that recruits hold a high school diploma or G.E.D. equivalent.

To which I say, look, if PFC Lindy England and whatever officer knocked her up didn't have the sense to use contraception, do you REALLY think it's such a good idea to allow people who have dropped out of high school to join up? Not that your senior year is the crucial one in which you learn all about safe sex by watching your gym teacher make an ass out of himself by rolling prophylactics onto a banana. My point is that there are lots of other far more intellectually challenging things to deal with in a combat zone and the fact that someone may have dropped out of high school is a fairly good sign that the whole book larnin' thing hasn't worked out that well for them in the first place so can you be certain they'll be able to read the sign on the bazooka that says which way to point it? Or that they can count to fifteen before the grenade goes off?

The army repealed their requisite for a high school diploma because they missed their recruitment quotas by nearly 10% this past year: they had a goal of 80,000 new recruits and only scored about 73,000. Because the army is also a volunteer gig, you CAN apply having not graduated high school, but you must pass a mental aptitude exam administered by the army. The Army is also lowering the passing score for this exam. Apparently, in the mid-to-late 1970s, nearly half of the soldiers in the army had not finished high school. But I hardly think this is something to boast about, because people who have not finished high school are arguably less enlightened than those who have. Just as someone who has earned a batchelor's degree is arguably MORE enlightened than someone who has just graduated from high school. And sending unenlightened people overseas to not only defend our country but to represent it as well sends a dangerous message to the world that we are not necessarily concerned with how we're coming across. Then again, I suppose the election of the current administration accomplished that fairly well and no one had to leave the country to do that.

But that the world already views us as a somewhat of a laughingstock is no reason to reinforce the situation. I recently spent the weekend with a high school friend who was in town. She had taken a class last year in her graduate program about military history with regards to foreign policy. And she told me they studied the history of various military powers throughout the world. For the better part of history, the soldiering class has been one of reverence, and often descended from nobility or were considered close to it. They were educated and honored and it was an honor upon a family to have a member in the military; the men who joined up saw it as their duty.

However, today a large part of our military masses are made up of the lower class, mostly kids who saw few other options or needed to make a quick buck. They are young and they are from middle America and they are increasingly uneducated and uninclined to recognize the true gravity of fighting a war. The honor associated seems glamorous, but for many, fighting a war is a superior choice to the alternatives their lives might hold. Sometimes, it is the only choice.

Perhaps the honor we bestow upon soldiers and their families is really one borne more out of pity than it is a recognition of the sacrifice they make for us and our freedom. Because the fact is, there is little they are sacrificing if they feel that risking their lives to become cannon fodder is an acceptable alternative to whatever they leave behind. That the Army has decided to lower the bar even further by recruiting high school drop-outs will only perpetuate the listless makeup of the ranks and also sends a message that if you have been unsuccessful at completing high school, about the only thing you have to look forward to is sweating your ass off in a strange land for your country. If the Army has discovered that they are having trouble recruiting the corps they want (i.e. well-educated, smart people who have the drive enough to at least attempt higher education) then perhaps they need to re-examine the approach they have taken to the engagement of war in the first place.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice

2005-10-17T16:29:00.000-04:00

I had to go to the doctor today to get my third and final shot for my Hepatitis A/B vaccination. I'm always reminded of the waiting room in Beetlejuice whenever I go to this particular doctor's office. It's not because she has buggy couches or men with shrunken heads, but rather because I feel like I get handed the 99,999 ticket and the counter's on number 4. My appointment was at 1:00. I saw the doctor at 2:00. For an injection. Can a bitch get some nurses in this place??

Other things to add to the stop-and-shop list for my doctor: a new desk attendant. Preferrably one who tastes great but is a bit less attitudinous and who will also exercise a bit more discretion when she decides to pick up the phone and bitch about you, her boss, rather loudly on the phone right in front of God and everyone. I meant to bring this to my doctor's attention, but she couldn't hear me over the roar of her rocket boosters as she zoomed out of my exam room.

I do NOT heart New York Magazine

2005-10-13T16:52:00.000-04:00

There are loads and loads of insipid crap in this city, but perhaps the flagship rag of All Things Insipidly Insipid is New York Magazine. Boy, do I HATE it. Someone once tried to convince me that it was better than the New Yorker because they were more in depth about their restaurant reviews. The New Yorker doesn't even HAVE restaurant reviews, thereby officially making it better by not wasting time and space with what has to be one of the most ridiculous things that gets reviewed in the world. I like food, but I also think food is an incredibly subjective experience, so while you might just L.O.V.E Mario Batali, I'll stick with Nobu and his bajillion franchises (Vegas, baby!) thanks! Furthermore, reading about food seems like one of the most pointless wastes of time ever, but I happen to know and love several people who get a real kick out of it so you know, whatever blows your skirt up.

Anyway, let's get back to bashing NY Magazine. Part of my job is to keep on top of philanthropy trends in the New York area by reading a lot of media that covers this area. You'd be surprised where information like this pops up and given that NY Magazine is chock full of trends, we decided to get a subscription a few weeks ago. Reading it fell to me. Each week, it has not failed to disappoint in the horrible-ness of its writing or the crappiness of its content. The first week was an article about two girls who OD'd on heroin and cocaine back in the spring. I thought perhaps it was just me who felt the article was poorly written and the pullquotes oddly placed, but Roommate came home with her copy of the mag from her office and more or less voiced my exact concerns about the same article unprompted. Another week, there was an article about Anderson Cooper, which had some great pics, but basically just talked about how awkward finding a place to have lunch with him was. I am now dumber for having read it. I was behind on my reading last week and so schlepped the October 10 copy to Florida with me for my vacation. I got to learn allllll about this rich old man who is incoherent and the court battle that is raging between his lawyer and his wife (who is questionably legally married to him and kidnapped him to France to avoid penalty). The dumbness factor was exponential on that one.

And now, now there is this...

It is certainly not out of my reach to believe that there are women in the city who are not only size 00, but relish the fact that their stomach acid eats their fingernail beds because of the bulimia they so diligently perform to to get to that size, but there is really no need to rub it in. It would seem, however, that while she's waxed pathetic about how lame it is to talk to older women, she has also forgotten her waify stature, because she finishes up by saying she likes to wear oversized clothing. Clearly, she hangs out with this other beacon of Gotham fashion.

We keep a year's worth of backlog on our periodicals around here, but honestly, I kind of wish I had a dog so that I could get joy out of ripping the pages so I could use them to pick up his poop. Now that would blow MY skirt up.

On the Road

2005-10-10T18:26:00.000-04:00

Has anyone ever noticed how inconvenient it is to charge your appliances at the airport? I'm on my (exceedingly delayed) way back to New York from spending the weekend in Tampa. I toted the iBook along to be able to use the CD-ROM that came with my GRE study manual and Tampa's airport has WiFi,* so I thought I'd take the time to blog instead. You know, because it's only been seven years since I did any math to speak of and who needs practice when you can waste time?

I started prowling the terminal for outlets near seats and instead I'm parked on the hard marble floor clinging to the wall between the two bathrooms. A well-dressed business man is squatting around the corner from me. That is sexy. Lots of others have been giving me the stink eye since I'm taking up BOTH outlets (iBook and iPod). And everyone else around me is dangerously obese. Which is good because if they had appliances that needed juice then the extra padding on their derrieres would come in quite handy.

This really is kind of absurd. I mean, airports theses days are chock full of people with Blackberries, music players, cell phones, computers and all kinds of other things that need plugging in during that seemingly never-ending wait to get on board. They should have clusters of plugs built into the ugly low-pile carpet in the seating area or some carrels or something set up where you can do business. This is Tampa. They have WiFi. Why no outlets, I ask?

I think I need to get out of New York more often. Living there sort of warps your brain in that it is true we really do think that NYC is the center of the universe. But the truth is that things that go on there are often far more anomalous than the way the rest of the world works. For instance, I found myself to be the only person laughing hysterically and quite out loud when on my Song flight down here, the flight crew performed the safety instructions to the "Soul" song. Apparently, not only are garishly colored leather seats (fuschia, electric blue, orange and apple green!) supposed to make flying a real treat, but watching overworked flight attendants act along to a Barry White-like soundtrack that sexualizes how to fasten one's seatbelt (seriously, firelogs and bear rugs were mentioned) is supposed to practically convince me that flying to Florida is nearly as fun and relaxing as sunning in the Keys. Maybe I'm just bitter, but everyone around me seemed to be charmed, including the woman next to me who acted like I was being rude when I told her the display was "ridiculous." People are cattle.

Just get us the freak off the ground, do some flying and put us back down, ok? Stop trying to convince me that I made the right decision by paying an exorbitant amount of money for my ticket only to get delayed, switched to a new flight, stuffed in the middle seat, and told I have to PAY FOR MY MEAL ON THE PLANE, because you are only insulting me. And also, do you REALLY think we do not know how to fasten a seatbelt or that we cannot smoke in the lavatory (who uses that word besides people in the military?)

Hope y'all honored Christopher Columbus in the best of ways. See you on the flip side!
__________________________
*My adorable French neighbor Francois calls WiFi "wiffy" with an adorable French accent. Oooh la la indeed!

TomKat to have kittens

2005-10-06T14:45:00.000-04:00

Oh. Man. Joey Potter, WHAT have you done gone and done???? I give it eight months. TOPS!

Seriously, if the state senates wants to keep quibbling over how gay marriage will destroy the institution itself, then perhaps they should address the cavalier attitude so many celebrities seem to take towards marriage as well. Let's consider the union at hand, shall we?

Tom Cruise was married to Nicole Kidman for a little under ten years. Conveniently enough, it wasn't QUITE the amount of time the state of California required a couple to be married before the dissolution of a union meant the equal distribution of assets. Thus, Tom got out with his butt intact. And moved on rather quickly to date Penelopepper Cruz, leaving Nicole to pick up the pieces. At least she could FINALLY wear heels.

Katie Holmes-abominable acting aside-was above reproach before all of this. Her engagement to Chris Klein came after a fairly demure courtship. BUT not six weeks after she and Chris call it quits, she takes up with Tom. Who then goes on national television, disobeys every mother in America by jumping on the furniture, and then proposes to Katie a week later. I agree with Aaliyah that age ain't nothin' but a number, and even though the couple is now engaged, the fact remains that Katie has gotten knocked up out of wedlock. I might have expected this of Britney (Brittany? Brittney? Brittttanie? Britny?) Spears, but Katie Holmes? I guess Tom felt she would be an acceptable vessel to bear Spawn-of-Tom but got his timing a little off.

This happens. I know people it's happened to. And I'm not really in a position to judge anyone it happens to because frankly, I love Murphy Brown. However, I think it's an appropriate time to address the fact that I haven't seen Ellen Degeneres or Melissa Etheridge or even Carson Kressley waving their marital and/or child-bearing intentions in anyone's faces, but there are loads and loads and LOADS of straight celebrities who pick out a big rock, tell their publicist, get an entire page in USWeekly to talk about it, make wedding plans, change the wedding plans, change the plans AGAIN citing paparazzi and then ultimately call it quits. The most recent example is Paris squared, but just dig back a few months and observe the Zellwegger/Chesney union or all the crap Bennifer put us through. Gone are the days of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Now, in Hollywood, you're no one unless you've broken an engagement, had a secret wedding, been to Vegas or gotten an annulment.

Again, I understand that unions sometimes fall apart. But what I am trying to say here is that celebrities have an unbelievably powerful subliminal influence over our society and the proliferation of luxury culture is the perfect, less-insidious example. How many women do you know who carry a real or knock-off Louis Vuitton bag because Jessica Simpson got one for her birthday, but would be hard pressed to actually say his name correctly or tell you that Marc Jacobs is the genius behind the rebirth of the brand? We are no longer keeping up with the Joneses, but rather the Lopezes and the Lohans. Celebrity behavior with regards to marriage is just as influencing as the list to get a Birkin bag is long. It seems that marrying someone you have no intention of actually spending your life with has replaced merely sleeping with the "right" people in Hollywood as the best way to get ahead. We should pay attention to the dangers of accepting marriage as a PR stunt or something to put on your resume. I'm not saying that celebrity marriages should be outlawed-- although if I thought that it would remedy the world of having to deal with more people like Bijou Phillips then perhaps I'm onto something--but rather that there is a double standard being applied to the anti-gay marriage argument for the sake of appearing to be PC.

I'd prefer the argument against gay marriage to turn to the truth of the matter, which is that people are just totally grossed out by or scared of the idea of one man sticking his hoo-haa into another man's backside, which is considered by many to be aberrant or "squirrely" behavior. Or that if we send little Britney (Brittanie? Brrtny? Britni?) over to play at Janie's house that Janie's two mommies will turn Britney into an Ani DeFranco-quoting lesbian with their black magic and voodoo. But people are not willing to admit this in public because it's nearly as bad as confessing to being a racist and besides, everyone knows at least ONE gay person about whom they say, "Oh, but not Jim. He's ok. You know...for a gay person." Certainly politicians cannot afford to alienate their arrayed constituency by taking a hard line like that either. Instead, these fears are confessed in hushed tones at dinner parties or Bible group meetings and it all has very little to do with this sanctity of marriage and everything to do with fear and loathing.

If it's sanctity of marriage we're TRULY concerned about here, then James Bakker deserves to have his straight-man priveleges revoked. I am sure he was thinking about how sacred his marriage was whilst pegging that secretary of his. And just so I'm not bashing the Right here, what about Bill Clinton? He has clearly had his share of moments in which his marriage appeared to be less-than-foremost in his mind. Should he be forced to divorce Hillary and wear a chastity belt? This could get absurd though if we follow this line of reasoning to its conclusion, because we'd have to outlaw marriage entirely.

My point is, people in glass houses should not throw stones, particularly when it comes to the state that marriage is already in in this country. Everyone should have the right to participate in the spectacle of it. And also, Tom Cruise should stop jumping on the furniture.

The pseudo-redemption of Vice

2005-10-05T16:56:00.000-04:00

I've looked at Vice magazine a few times and each time I put it down, I feel like I'm discarding a bit of my self-respect along with the magazine. Vice is all about how cool the cool people on the cool pages are and how un-cool the un-cool people who are NOT on the cool pages are. Always a good time. Paying only $3.95 to verify your lack of coolness is a steal in this town, although you can get it for free just by strolling into an American Apparel store too.

Anyway, Vice also runs a record label, which gets away with making you feel slightly less bad about your uncool self since it's about music not publishing, but not a whole lot. Both are cooly based in the cool nexus of the cool universe: Williamsburg. (For those of you uber-un-cool non-NYers, that is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, just over the river from Manhattan.)

However, Vice seems to be recognizing that there IS a life outside the 'Burg by putting out this little ditty: "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?" which is the brainchild of two indie rock performers, Nicholas Diamonds and Adam Gollner. Vice even let their arch-enemy yuppie rag, the New York Times, run a story about it. I do not know these two guys or their music, (see the bit above about being un-cool) but I DO have enough cachet to have heard of most of the 30 or so performers on the record. And to be able to mean it when I say that David Cross is a comic genius.

The song is a spoof on that insipid tune "Do They Know It's Christmas," which Bob "crankypants" Geldof originally wrote in the 1980s to raise money for Band Aid. This time the song will raise money for UNICEF, and for once in their angst-ridden lives, those trustafarians in Williamsburg are using their heads for something other than displaying their ironically messy $300 haircuts.

Somehow, I think we can all identify with this guy

2005-10-04T12:20:00.000-04:00

In my case, Roommate and Future Roommate excluded, I have certainly had my share of roommate-induced desires to stab things.

In fact, Future Roommate--who could more accurately be named Once and Future Roommate, since we've shared two roofs (rooves?) before--shares with me a common bane in the form of a roommate who shall remain nameless but is a pathetic hack and is now married to and lives with a former friend of ours who shall also remain nameless, but is even more pathetic for letting the aforementioned hack squander some right good opportunities she might have had in her life had she not been sucked into the vortex that is her husband's self-pity and useless immobility.

Um. Right. Where is my therapists phone number?!?

Religion and Politics: Two things your mother told you never to discuss

2005-10-03T15:26:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, my dear friend the Attractive Nuisance came in for a visit to accompany me to a panel discussion about religion and politics hosted by the New Yorker Festival. I have been trying for about three years to get tickets to the events for this thing, but because the venues are often quite small and the interested population is decidedly NOT small, it's tough. I've addressed the ticket issues this town has before...

The panel was made up of a hardline secularist, Susan Jacoby; Catholic Democrat Jim Towey, who now oversees the Faith Based Initiatives department for Dubya; Patricia Combs, who is the President of the Christian Coalition and somewhat less ummm...boisterous than Pat Roberts; and Stephen Carter, a law professor at Yale who was quite concerned with the effect that government grants can have on the institution of religion itself. Staff writer Peter Boyer, who said he was there because he was about the only member on staff who attended church with any semblance of regularity, was the moderator.

The panel was outstandingly Christian, which Boyer commented on, but which did little service to addressing one of the most pressing religio-political issues of the current day: America vs. Islam. And while the discussion was certainly interesting, it was focused very much on domestic policy in the same myopic way that New Yorkers all believe that we are the only city in the country that matters. Well, aren't we? As I'll reveal in a moment, this infamous myopia was out in full force at the expense of two of the panel members. Bonus points if you can guess right now who on the panel was less-than-appreciated by the crowd.

Although it could be argued that Towey, being a Dem, is aligned with the Christian left, he proudly stated that he'd voted for Bush in both elections. He also towed the Republican party line when asked by one audience member just how he slept at night when tax cuts were making the poor poorer and the rich richer and in the end wasn't all the talk about faith-based groups providing much-needed public services to people a lot of crap if you really looked hard at the Bush administration's spending. Mr. Towey sleeps quite well, thank you.

Professor Carter took an interesting tack, claiming that faith based groups put themselves at risk when they accept government funding because they are at the mercy of the administration in power. If it changes in two years and decides to re-align its thinking about how money can and should be distributed to religious groups then, he reasoned, those groups could stand to lose that money. An interesting discourse for sure, but one I think holds little water. Losing funding does not necessarily put someone's faith at risk and furthermore, I think it's safe to say that most administrations are agreed that offering money to religious groups for certain activities is beyond the scope of harmdoing. But perhaps I am wrong.

Ms. Jacoby made me wince. Although eloquent, she weakened her argument with her strident and adversarial approach to the panel and all I could think was that everyone else up there with her was tolerating her the best they knew how all the while calling her an uppity bitch in their heads. This is precisely the problem the Democrats are having. They use big words and talk about big theories and it floats right over the heads of the American public. In Ms. Jacoby's case, the majority of this country believes in SOMETHING, be it specific or nebulous and so while I admired greatly the thinking she has done about the threat of religious dogma to American political ideals, I felt that she would do well to at the very least acknowledge the spiritual existence of the nation. Religion exists. Now let's figure out how we should approach it.

Finally, there was Patricia Combs. And let me state that while I admire a strong Southern woman with conviction more than just about anyone else who reads this page because, as the saying goes, we do it all IN HEELS! well, Ms. Combs is kind of an idiot when it comes to being convicted. She said the least of all the panelists, was befuddled by just about every question asked of her (at least those she could hear as she begged deafness when asked very pointed questions), and didn't feel much need to defend her faith. I had been the most excited about her presence on the panel, hoping to hear some insight into how the Christian Right reconciles itself with some less-than-biblical approaches the Bush administration has in say, its economic policies. Thus, I was the most disappointed in her for the glossy statements she made about "sharing the table with everyone" and "helping our brethren." Admirable positions indeed, but just HOW the Coalition goes about this is still a mystery to me after having heard her speak. At one point, she stated unprovoked that she thought President Bush was a kind, compassionate and God-fearing man on a couple of occasions and was booed loudly by the crowd. (SHOCKER!!) Instead of rushing to defend herself she shrugged and said, "It's alright. I'm used to it by now. Y'all can boo all you want," as if she were a two-timing babymama in tight clothes on stage at Jerry Springer. I half expected her to put a string of profanity at the end of the sentence. Except that that would make the baby Jesus cry.

As for myself, I take little offense at the existence of religion. I read a recent interview with Bill Maher in which he said he despises it. While I do feel that it can often be dangerously kin to turning people into sheep on the order of the success Hitler had with young Germans, it is effective in addressing two deeply held needs for most human beings:
1) a sense of belonging to a community;
2) a sense of understanding human existence, afforded by submitting that which we cannot explain to the machinations and will of a higher power.

These are important aspects of life. Religious groups address them and they also often teach positive values such as sharing, being kind to others and living one's life according a moral standard. Of course, just what that standard is is where dispute often arises between religious groups. The perfect example is gay marriage. But I am not getting into that here.

Where I begin to have trouble with adding the ingredient of religion to government is when dogma becomes a synonym for policy. An astute audience member who beat me to the microphone asked the same question I'd had stirring around in my head for the duration of the panel. Why was it that the Bush administration had seen fit to discontinue funding on the order of several millions of dollars to aid agencies working in Southern Africa on the AIDS crisis if those groups were distributing condoms instead of teaching abstinence? Show me an argument for abstinence that does NOT have its basis in the Bible and I will show you a destitute woman in Africa who has been forced into the sex trade to keep her children fed who understands fully just why a white man in America has the deed to her fate.

The government is welcome to fund faith-based groups, many of whom often do the work that others are unwilling to do. And if they choose to approach the AIDS crisis by teaching abstinence, that is their prerogative. At least they are doing something. However, the government should not penalize non faith-related groups for also acting as good samaritans if they do not adhere to a certain faith-based condition. Allowing religious dogma to infringe upon the ability of aid groups to do their jobs is arguably immoral in that there are not enough of those groups, faith-based or otherwise, to do this kind of work in the first place. So to discourage their work at all is devastating to the people who need it.

For the next time you make a trip to D.C. and plan on visiting the White House...

2005-10-03T14:16:00.000-04:00

...be sure you're in line with the dress code.

I plan on posting a real post later, but need to get this out for now...

2005-09-30T12:57:00.000-04:00

Online A.D.D. manifests itself the world over!!!!!

It is now 12:45 and I haven't done a lick of work for work today.
Here's what I HAVE done:
checked my four different email accounts
talked to my boss on the phone who's working from home today
looked at some pics my friend Michelle sent to me of the Arcade Fire a couple weeks ago from when David Bowie came on stage
emailed with Michelle about the awesome-ness of this event
the Friday Random Ten at Otto's place
spoke to a friend about lunch plans twice
accompanied a co-worker to the bank
bought and drank some orange juice
looked at the NYTimes online
perused the racks at Tower Records next door
read some blogs and commented, etc.
now, it's time for lunch!!!

I will be leaving at 3:30 or so to go pick up my dad's car to drive myself and Roommate out to the Killers concert tonight in Jones Beach. There's a good chance that since I'm going out to lunch shortly I still won't have accomplished anything remotely work-related by the time I leave for the day.

Part of my job includes reading magazines. So maybe I'll get around to one of those? Not sure.

I think my cat's teeth are starting to rot. He IS rather old.

Is anyone else as excited about the upcoming season du cinema? There is SO MUCH good stuff coming out. To wit: I recommend seeing "The Constant Gardener" as it is beautifully shot and also very smart.

My iPod's random selections have been stellar this morning. Stellar.

And speaking of music, my friend Penny invited me to THIS tomorrow. I am so psyched.

Ok, I'll hopefully be back later to wax ruminatory...

UPDATE:
And speaking of online ADD...the entire reason I signed on to post was to say that I am in fact SO bad at keeping up with television schedules that I did not make it home in time to watch Alias!!! HA!

What is this? Television Without Pity???

2005-09-29T10:25:00.000-04:00

In spite of claiming yesterday that I don't really ever keep up with television shows, I'm posting again today about...television!!!

Tonight is the season five premiere of Alias. A former roommate of mine, who turned out to be a dreadful person, got me into this show in its second season. It was awesome. It made you think and it's always cool to see a sweet-looking girl kick some ass even when she's decked out like a Geisha. The good guys and the bad guys were clearly delineated and there was even a faux-scholarly storyline running through most of the episodes having to do with a DaVinci-like inventor from the 16th century. The show was so good it nearly got cancelled. (See also: Arrested Development.)

Interjection: If the woman on the other side of my cubicle wall doesn't stop opening and closing the three-ring binder she's fiddling with, she's about to kiss one of her kidneys GOODBYE!!!!

Ok, back to Alias. So, season three was equally enthralling, but things started to drop off last year as Jennifer Garner gained fame/notoriety and Sydney's tortured on-screen relationship with Vaughan, her handler, began to mirror Garner's off-screen romance with Michael Vartan, which had fallen apart. (Confidential to Michael: While I do not possess the "guns" that J-Gar has, I am so totally hotter than the girl who is now one half of Bennifer, The Sequel. I'm just gonna put that out there...) The show got too hi-tech and fancy and the writer's got lazy. Syd's arch-nemesis, Arvin Sloane, came back as her boss to whom she had to swear allegiance as part of a double-double black ops division of the CIA, and we more or less re-lived season two as Sydney struggled to re-connect with Vaughan after having offed his double-agent wife whom he'd married the previous season after Sydney had disappeared for two years. Got it? Yeah, it just gets more complex from there and my respect for the show started to wane sometime last year after I watched one of the DVDs in which J.J. Abrams, the show's creator, confessed that from season to season and sometimes even episode to episode, they have no idea what's going to happen to the characters. They just write down ideas on post-its and tack them to this giant board and at this point, each of the characters have the most ridiculous and unplausible lifelines imaginable. With the exception, perhaps of Marshall, the tech geek who is the constant North Star to the wandering wisemen, asses and camels of all the other characters. Bring on the myrrh!

So, last season ended with Vaughan confessing he's a double agent (after like SIX YEARS undercover and he was also double agented upon by his now dead wife?!?!) and then they get into a car crash. This season starts with Sydney realizing she's pregnant with Vaughan's baby and trying to figure out just who Vaughan IS. I'll watch tonight just to see how they resolve this stuff, but I have to confess that given that they've a) moved the show to a weeknight, which I just can't handle and b) made the storylines so utterly cockamamy, I'll most likely move on by next Thursday. PLUS, rumor has it that Vartan is being kicked off the show by his former lovergirl and there are all these new people being introduced into the cast. One thing I have always really liked to the show is that the cast is small and fairly easy to follow. Adding more people will just dilute it further. I really wish they'd followed Sarah Jessica's lead and left the party while it was still good. But now, I can't take it anymore. And frankly, watching a pregnant lady will just add stress to my life, which I most certainly don't need.

Last of the hip white reality shows*

2005-09-28T10:22:00.000-04:00

Reality shows were cool for about a minute back in 1843 when MTV first hosted The Real World in New York. Ever since, reality shows have spiraled into the deep, dark pit of shameless exhibitionery that, according to the Nielsen Ratings, appeals to like 95% of the American population. And, when I myself don't want to think too hard while watching television or I need a good laugh at the expense of my fellow patriots, well, I too seek out some reality fare. Who knew so many of us were mouth-breathers??? I confess: It's a lie when I say I haven't desired a wit as brief as Carson Kressley's.

But that sound you hear this morning is the true death knell of the hip-ness of all things reality TV because the First Lady has made her debut in Extreme Makeover. I wish I could say that it's the EM where they go all surgically plastic on your asses because I'd like to slap those glazed doe eyes off Totally White House Barbie as much as the rest of you, but it's the home makover edition. (zzzzzzzz.) Which might explain why she was seen here, looking anxious to wield a power drill (because I think it's safe to assume that given his penchant for blowing things up and ruining ecomonies, Dubya's ahem, "drill," is less than powerful. But I digress...)

It seems to me that the sheer number of secret service agents and all the background checking that needs to go on when a visit from one of the First Fambly members is emminent would preclude the element of surprise often involved in reality television since it isn't supposed to rely on scripted elements. But this defeatist attitude of mine is probably why I am not a network television producer. Then again, be sure to read the last line of this story.

_____________________________________
*Otto, I so totally DID NOT STEAL this idea from you. Imagine my horror when I clicked over this morning to get the link to the photo and discovered you and your crew were on top of this. Dammit! How early do you get up?!?!

I'm not dead yet! I want to go for a walk!

2005-09-27T14:04:00.000-04:00

I swear to goodness that I didn't jump off a cliff last week after my little mini-Chernoble. I had a few good conversations with Roommate and Future Roommate and the Attractive Nuisance (God, it sounds like my friends are all Barbies or something!) came back from outer space, and got my head screwed back on straight. However, we DID have a departure in my department so work is only getting busier. Since I usually do this thing during the work day, I am having to neglect my blog for the sake of my work. And dammit, don't I feel almost like I have a kid and am leaving it at home all day long to fend for itself. I am dealing with a lot of guilt over this right now, but this will have to do...

I finished reading "A Rumor of War" on the train this morning and nearly burst into tears. It is about the 18 months Philip Caputo served in Vietnam as one of the very first platoon leaders who put in at Danang. I have not read a more simply and yet beautifully written book in a long time. The entire thing serves to vindicate an action he takes about a month before his tour is up and once the event happens, you are so totally on his side about it even though it's fairly reprehensible. I've started and stalled on several posts in the past few months about the current conflict in Iraq and some of the points I HAVE managed to get across on the war are in the book itself, even though it's about an entirely different war.

I'd really like to write some more here about the book, but don't want to spoil it for anyone who's interested in reading it. I'm going to try to write some more in the next few days, but I had a thought recently. Would anyone be up for starting a bookclub blog with me? If you join, you'd have priveleges to post on the blog itself, not just in the comments. And we could rotate turns moderating the discussion, choosing books, etc. They don't all have to be of one genre either...just put a word or two in the comments section if you're up for it.

Oh, also, Michael Brown was just quoted on NPR saying "blah blah blah...tipping point...blah blah blah." You, sir, are not allowed to let those words cross your lips as they were coined by a liberal man. Horse-kissing retard.

UPDATE:
It ocurred to me how ridiculous I am. I started out talking about how busy I am, which is preventing me from posting regularly and my solution is to suggest starting another blog. Maybe I am the horse-kissing retard...

When will my shampoo make me look like Cindy Crawford?

2005-09-22T13:02:00.000-04:00

So, I kind of flipped out on my mom last night. Not AT her so much as at myself and some of the things that I keep thinking about doing with my life. And what it all really comes down to is that upper middle class white kid malaise that seems like it's the end of the blaming world that you could a) go to Kenya on safari; b) become a White House intern; c) move to California and work in the Napa Valley as a winemaker's apprentice; d) go to Guatemala and help the indigenous people learn about proper hygiene; e) go back to school for ANYTHING! or f) take some low-paying but possibly high-profile job that will be a big payoff in the long run and get you laid for sure as well as make sure you meet all the right people, etc. etc. But you, white girl, you're practically paralyzed each morning when the alarm goes off, until the nurse comes in to stuff some Xanax down your throat and give you a cocktail* just so you can make it to the shower. In truth, it's really kind of a blessing to have choices. Especially when I stop blubbering for a GD minute and look at those people in New Orleans who didn't have a prayer of getting out of that town and whatfor. But right now, I am so stressed out about having choices that I ultimately just don't choose anything. Which makes it all worse.

There's a country song that has a line about "I ain't never had too much fun," and it goes on to say it's like a girl too pretty or a car too fast. In other words, just this totally mythical idea that is absurd. But there CAN be too many choices in one's life. Take, for instance, the list of blogs I keep in my favorites tab. There's at least fifty. And I probably read fifteen of them regularly. But its always a tough decision on where to start each day. I feel badly when I've missed one for a week and have to catch up. What the hell IS that?

I subscribe to several magazines and can never read them all before the next one comes, but for some reason refuse to get rid of any of them. I simply cannot decide which ones to stop taking because I don't have time to read them and decide on the ones I like best, so I take all of them and read none. Bonus anxiety (it comes free with each subscription): I am wasting paper!!!

And when was the last time you went to the drug store to buy some new toothpaste or shampoo? I have literally paced the aisles for up to 45 minutes trying to decide which hair products will make me look like Cindy Crawford. They all do the same fucking thing, which is: clean your hair. And not one of them makes me look like a damned bit like Cindy Crawford. Maybe Gidget.

Or, my iPod. Which has nearly 4,000 songs on it. Sometimes, when I pull it out of my bag in the morning to decide what to listen to, I just put it right back in because I'm too exhausted to make a decision so monumental. I mean, FOUR THOUSAND SONGS!!!!!!!! Inevitably, this summer consisted of about ten different albums on heavy rotation because I'd choose them by default; I couldn't bear to scroll through and see the reminder of an album I hadn't listened to in a while. Or worse, hadn't listened to at all. I'd pick these ten because I knew they were safe. Beck, Bloc Party, Gwen Stefani (that was early summer, she now languishes unheard), Handsome Boy Modelling School, Paul Simon's Graceland (because I find this fits just about any mood in a weird way), and a few others. I was at my friend Allen's house recently and he put on some Sade. And I was all, "oh, shit! I LOVE Sade. I have almost all of her albums. It's been forEVER since I listened to her though!" And the reason is because I've just got so many other albums that are going unlistened to on my iPod that I should get to first before I go back to her. This actually causes me anxiety. There. I said it. MY iPOD MAKES ME ANXIOUS!!!! I've even considered getting a smaller one in order to MAKE myself eliminate 75% of the choices. For the time being, I've chosen to just stick to the random play and let the hard drive on there make my decisions for me. But I'm convinced that it plays certain things and not others, so that too leaves me unsatisfied.

So, you see, if choosing some background noise is this panic-inducing for me, you can imagine what it's like when I have to make REAL, BIG GIRL choices in my life: well nigh impossible. I called my mom last night to tell her I had it all sorted out and had this big plan for this big change I'd like to make in a few months. And things were kosher until at some point I started talking about this one thing in my life that is making me utterly miserable and she pretty much called me out and pointed out all these OTHER things in my life that are making me miserable but that I seem to just cope with or refuse to acknowledge and that she's concerned I'm getting paralyzed by this OTHER main thing in my life that is just totally in my way and has been for several years, and I totally fell apart. Because even though I don't really have these heart to hearts with my mother so much anymore, it's downright frightening sometimes how well she knows me, how clearly she sees through me and how right she is. I am sorry to report that I don't intend to get into specifics here, because this is all about 12 hours old and my therapist totally gets to hear it before cyberspace does. I have a feeling it will play itself out soon enough on these pages and I really just needed somewhere to vent for the morning instead of doing work and well, little blog, you're it. Because work is so not where it's at right now.

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*I don't ACTUALLY have a nurse who lives with me.

Dear God:

2005-09-21T16:54:00.000-04:00

If you ever, ever, EVER make me into one of these women* and I find myself "in the womb of the great Goddess," I will totally punch you in the kidney.**

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*Be sure to click on the photograph to make it larger. Better effect.
**Wow, I am getting a lot of mileage out of this threat!

Gouge Away

2005-09-21T10:52:00.000-04:00

I found this silliness on the blog of the illustrious Otto Man & Co.

You know, even I WERE a fan of George W. Bush, I would still find him an endless font of derision-worthy activity. It's just impossible to take someone too seriously when they cannot even spell that word themselves.

Am I not Nanook of the North?

2005-09-20T13:39:00.000-04:00

I decided just now that I cannot wait to go through menopause. Because if having hot flashes means I can spend an entire day in my office without nearly freezing to death then I say "bring it!"

So fresh, so clean

2005-09-19T11:26:00.000-04:00

The entirety of this week's Frank Rich article is, as usual, compelling. But his final statement is really all you need to read:

"Having turned the page on Mr. Bush, the country hungers for a vision that is something other than either liberal boilerplate or Rovian stagecraft. At this point, merely plain old competence, integrity and heart might do. "

'Nuff said.

How to prevent the Vietnamization of Iraq

2005-09-18T23:00:00.000-04:00

Since coming back from my trip, I've been doing a fair bit of reading and movie-watching about Southeast Asia. It's, perhaps not surprisingly, a narrowly addressed topic. Thailand, which I'm the least interested in, has a decent-sized independent film industry and there is plenty to be read about the various tourist sites. It's a peaceful country with a relatively un-checkered past and frankly, I found my time there kind of dull. Tiger balm, notwithstanding, of course.

As for Cambodia, it would seem that the only thing that ever happened of import with respect to the West's eyes were the four years of reign under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. This is so prevalent in Western dispatches, in fact, that it wasn't until I actually went to the country that I realized that "Khmer" is not a dirty word to those people. The Khmer are the ethnic people of Cambodia, who descend not from Chinese or other sub-asian conquerers. In effect, they are to Cambodia as the Native Americans are to the United States. Their history is fascinating and their modern lives are complex and tragic, but finding much about it is difficult to do. It is clearly overshadowed by the easy beauty of Thailand and the sordid history of our relationship with Vietnam to be bothered with. Further, it is exceedingly poor and small and the population is quite young so that it has been marginalized on the world stage.

Finally, there is Vietnam. Having been raised in a time when we rush to learn the lessons of transparency from our recent past (or have we?), and in classrooms that shed equal light on patriotism and war crimes, well, I find that the word "Vietnam" carries a lot of weight when I say it out loud. Before leaving for my trip, I had lunch with a professor of mine who'd served in Vietnam and I confessed to being scared out of my mind at what I might find there. I didn't know what to expect and all I'd ever read about it, in history books or courtesy of Tim O'Brien, was gory and/or politically amoral. Just as every generation seems to think they've discovered or invented sex, so too do they consider their political innovations to be new, but the truth is that political subversion has gone on for decades. We talk about falsified documents and claims of weapons of mass destruction these days as if it is a revelation, but the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution should be remembered as a modern ancestor to mysterious satellite photos, yellow cake uranium contracts and empty weapons-grade shells and all of the tomfoolery employed by Bush to take the country to war in Iraq. He virtually ripped a page right out of Johnson's handbook.

Other than western colonization and the war, there is really nothing to read or see about Vietnam, as if it did not exist prior to modern treachery. Perhaps we are still in a mode of purging the demons of the conflict and if the book I am currently reading is any indicator, the demons will haunt us for years to come. They clearly haunt the people of Vietnam too as they celebrated the 30th anniversary of the re-unification of the country in April and also seem to bear the badge of devastation and hardship brought on by the war with pride. In fact, I've been to about 20 different countries and I'm not sure I've ever seen a prouder one. Except for maybe Russia. Which also has a history of being dangerously inimical to the United States with regards to ideology.

The tenacity of the war's memory is strong and pervasive in Vietnam and yet, the Vietnamese are forever moving forward in a manner of beauty and complexity that I still struggle to put into words for people who ask me about my experience there. Initially after my trip, I was intrigued to return to Cambodia, and still am. But as I've moved away from it in time and done more reading about Vietnam, I've come to realize that my fascination for that country instead is growing. I barely touched down there, spending four days in Ho Chi Minh City, and was certainly nowhere near the main actions of warfare, most of which was fought further north. Even if the West is loathe to concern itself with the ancient history or modern beauty of the place, I can only hope that we will be wise enough to at least observe carefully the ten years of Vietnam's politics that DO concern us to be able and willing to learn something from it. It is a place that has much to teach us.

In the event that "Kathleen" reads this

2005-09-16T15:23:00.000-04:00

Even though New Orleans has been fairly obliterated, I think it's safe to say that her climate lingers right here in River City. The air in New York has been reminiscent of a mid-July day in the low country the past few days and it is utterly disgusting. I had trouble getting to sleep last night after feeling run down all day long. I didn't have enough sleeping time ahead of me to be able to take a Tylenol PM so I had to wait it out. When my alarm went off around 7:00, it felt like I'd succeeded in my quest for a total of about 32 minutes all night. I emailed in a fog-induced headache, fed the cat, neglected to tell my 10:00 meeting I wouldn't be there and got back in bed to try to get some more sleep. Just as I (finally) drifted off, my cell phone rang. It was Sheila. For Kathleen.

This is the second or third time this week someone has called me looking for that person. And it's a bit confusing each time because my first name is Katherine. So I always figure initially that it's someone "official" looking for ME, but just getting things doubly wrong. Earlier this week, it was Ralph looking for Kathleen. I sounded woken-up and even Sheila acknowledged it, but instead of apologizing, just pointed out that I sound a lot like this Kathleen person. Great. Thanks an effing lot, Sheila, now are you going to keep jawing my ear off or can I get back to it? Sheila wanted to check the number just to see what she'd gotten wrong. Kathleen and I are off by one digit. The last one. Hers is a 4, mine's a 2.

Kathleen, if you happen to read this: change your fricking number, beyotch. Or get your friends to store it in their phones so they don't have to dial it as this will reduce operator errors. Also, get some friends who have names that aren't from 70s porn.

Shout out

2005-09-15T16:04:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday, Swami :)!!!!!!!!!
I love you!

Blame Game

2005-09-13T10:06:00.000-04:00

I was watching the Daily Show last night and they've got a new segment on since Hurricane Katrina called "Meet the F**kers" in which they disparage FEMA and Homeland Security. I'd say it's an apt title, yes? Because the last time I checked, emergency management had little in common with Arabian horses. First, they showed a clip of Michael Chertoff pushing the blame off onto the state government. Then they showed the LA senator Mary Landrieu getting all mad in Congress because the feds were trying to say it was the state's fault and that at a time like this it was dispicable to be playing the "blame game" so just shut up and help already. Next, they showed her getting questioned on a weekend news show about just why the state had neglected to enact any protocol and she starts right on in on that blame game she so despises by balking and then saying it was the feds...

The blame game ball is in myriad courts at this point and they even got things down to a local level courtesy of Tim Russert who showed a clip of several dozen school buses submerged in a parking lot to his guest New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and asked him why on EARTH had they left those buses there to rot when they could have been used to transport people safely out of the city??? Nagin balked as well, trying to gloss over the truth. Here is what he should have said (and for that matter, here is what everyone who's trying to make excuses SHOULD be saying regarding this disaster):

Well, Jesus H. Christ, Tim! What would YOU have done? There was a storm coming with 100+ mile an hour winds and over 1 million people to evacuate. I can't account for every last citizen and what they choose to do. No one can. And besides, you've seen how hard it is to get people out of the dead-body-infested sludge pool that the city is now, so do you REALLY think a little hard wind and rain would have readily convinced them?? And the real truth is that we were all just as scared as anyone else and who in a time like that really thinks all that straight. I mean, crap, I bet when your wife gave birth you forgot your own name you were so effing flustered, so how in the hell was I supposed to remember that there were 50 buses I could use to get people out? How in the hell was I supposed to even know that things would get so bad. Really. How? We've never done this before. I was scared shitless. That is the God's Honest Truth. We all scrambled. Shit, look at my police force. A third of my officers just turned in their badges on the spot. Men who get paid to be willing to take a bullet for law enforcement were quitting their jobs and walking away in a matter of seconds. That is how grave the situation was. So, does it suck that so many people got left behind? Well, that's an understatement. But the truth is that in a moment like that, government functionality breaks down because even though I am a mayor, I am really only a man. No different from you and no different from any child trapped in the Superdome. I am human. I fucked up. And I am willing to accept the responsibility, help other low-lying cities learn from this and hopefully be better prepared in the future, but I cannot abide the constant badgering. Just cut me some goddammed slack. That is my answer. That's why those buses sit empty and under water.

Seriously, watching all these politicos try to shirk the responsibility is like watching a drunk convince a police officer he's stone cold sober. Only this isn't funny. It's terrifying. If someone would have the balls to step up to the plate, tell their PR rep to fuck off and who gives a shit if I lose some votes for being brutally honest because these are my fellow Americans and they deserve the GD truth and just say "We screwed up already, now let's rebuild some homes" then this whole process would work a lot more smoothly because you wouldn't have people who are not only devastated at their losses but mad as hell for being taken for fools. I think everyone would be more willing to share the blame and work together to a) prevent this from happening again; b) work to save the environment a little bit this time because nature has proven she wins every time; and c) find new homes/jobs/schools/lives for all of these poor people. They're the ones who really matter, not some horse trader's fat ego.

Here is what's cool...nay, FUCKING AWESOME!!!:

2005-09-10T01:33:00.000-04:00

Seeing Bloc Party live in concert tonight.

Here is what is NOT cool (and definitely NOT fucking awesome): when 20-year-olds with dirty hair, bad tats, and stupid trucker hats take illegal drugs and then come to the show and try to push me and Roommate around like so many punching bags. I may be fairly small of stature, but I will so totally punch you in the fucking kidney you a-holes.

And, dear readers, don't you believe I didn't do it a time or eight. So did Roommate. Because that is how we roll. What'sup!!! What'sup!!!

bitches.