I am a lyrical soul, bound to get carried away. I am officially in love with everything Roisin Murphy touches. Her new video is ridiculous. It's like she and Yves Tanguy went drinking one night, and this is the product of their hangover.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. What I want for Christmas (aside from Clone High on DVD):



If anyone can make it happen, Jesus can.

Fist, a brick in my hand. I'm not sure why, but my step-mother has started sending me what are supposed to be humorous fowards, but are actually thinly-veild portraits of misanthropy. Here's today's installment:

A study recently conducted by UCLA's Department of Psychiatry has revealed that the kind of face a woman finds attractive on a man can differ depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle.

For example, if she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged and masculine features. However, if she is menstruating or menopausal, she tends to be more attracted to a man with scissors lodged in his temple and tape over his mouth while he is on fire.

Basically, women are hormone-crazed, maniacal bitches who like to set men on fire? I don't know. I guess it's funny. Ha...ha... It kind of makes me want to hide all the scissors in the house and send my dad away for a week each month for his own safety.

My soul is climbing tree trunks. HOLY SHIT YES I GOT THE JOB!

*pumps fist in air*

*dances around like a crazy person*

Sweet in winter, sweet in rain. Once again, if you aren't reading The Stranger, you're missing out. This made me laugh so hard, especially this part, where the author discusses choosing a dating Web site handle:

I became "Nakedanddamned" because I have problems with intimacy and yet, ironically, look really good without my clothes on.

Can't you feel it burning. I may have my horror stories, but nothing compares to these babies. Oh ho ho thank the good Lord nothing this bad has ever transpired to, on, or near my naked flesh.

I can't get you out of my head. There is not a day that goes by when I don't miss my wombat:



Me: Is that you nibbling on my ear?
Raoul: Of course, and giving u a tender kiss
Me: Awww...am so loved
Raoul: Yes yes yes loooove loove looove

Nobody knows where they might end up. Sometimes a song comes up that encapsulates every little emotion that's working its way through my tired mind. Lately it's been Guster's "Come Downstairs and Say Hello," but as I was walking on the frigid island, Mike Doughty's "I Hear The Bells" got it right. I downloaded the song a few weeks ago in my quest for the Veronica Mars soundtrack and didn't think much of it on first listening, but it's a rather cheeky tune that sums up my current frame of mind surprisingly well. This part was especially trenchant:

You snooze, you lose
Well I have snost and lost
I'm pushing through
I'll disregard the cost
I hear the bells
So fascinating and
I'll slug it out
I'm sick of waiting

Bring it.

Stimulate my body. Hey everyone, check out my ass!

Woo! Bootylicious!

Combien de fois la fin du monde nous a frôlés. Damnit! My favorite French professor didn't get tenure! Fuck you, Swells! This is the second time in a week you've pissed me off, and I don't even attend you anymore. Nique ta mère, Swells. Nique. Ta. Mère.

There's always something to remind me. Loo has sent me the best holiday card ever. It outlines her holiday plans for us when she returns to the city from the frigid north. Basically she has descriped the anti-tourist New York holiday, and she made me laugh so hard:

I think we should be totally different...and do everything opposite of normal tourist stuff in NYC when we hang out. For instance, instead of going to the Met, we'll go to the Museum of Natural History. And instead of going skating at Roc Center, we'll go ice skating in Central Park (like in "Serendipity"). And instead of going to the tree at Roc, we'll just pick a random tree in the sidewalk and gaze at it in awe, take photos, etc. Yay!!

I can actually picture us choosing some ratty-ass NYC sidewalk tree and singing carols around it. Yay for the holidays.

To tell me what I want and what my life lacks. Every now and then, I go through my blog archives and delete my whinier posts from back in the day because, frankly, my inane brattiness does not need to be preserved for posterity. However, I have noticed a few interesting things after my most recent cleansing:

1. The amount of annoying posts (from my perspective, anyway) has dramatically decreased since my sophomore year of college. Hooray for progress!


2. The amount of people reading and responding to my blog has also dramatically increased. I owe you all a cookie.


And perhaps the most important thing I have noticed...


3. This is the first blog template I've created which does not prominently feature an artistic rendition of a nude woman. Either I have outgrown my latent bisexuality, or I'm simply suffering because the Yves Klein I had up earlier has disappeared and now I'm using artistic tarot cards to express myself. Either way, it is a credit to you male readers out there that you aren't frequenting this site just for the boobies...although I'm sure they helped.

Tell me a fable. Film critiques don't usually include critiques of other reviews, but that's just reason #576 why you should love The Stranger.

Damnit, I really want to see this movie!

Happiness and cheer. I guess Linus really is the only person who remembers the spirit of the season.

Can I get a "Hell yeah!" This guy pretty much sums up everything my father and I have been talking about ever since November 27 when the crazies started coming out of the wood work and, assuming we're all God-fearing Christians, have been coming up to us and ranting and raving about this so-called "war on Christmas." Dear Christians: You make up 80% of the population of this country. It is, by definition, impossible for us to discriminate against you! Chill the fuck out!

Best part:

Well we’ve fucking had it. You want to play bullshit games and scream about how God’s fucking judgment is gonna come raining down on us if we don't start watching our vocabulary? Go right the fuck ahead. But let me clue you in on something: fire and brimstone ain’t no deterrent for us. We’re not going to hell, assholes, we’re fucking in hell. We live with you.

I will wish you "Happy Holidays" if I damn well please. But frankly, at this point, you're lucky if I even brake for you while you're crossing the street.

Ticking clock; everyone stop. I got my alum magazine in the mail today, and it made me so mad. It was all about the new campus center, and this thing is ridiculous! It's gorgeous and modern and has tons of windows and it's not fair! Stupid Swells, opening your gorgeous new student center the second I graduate. Here's the letter I want to write them:

FUCK YOU SWELLS, I DIDN'T GET TO HANG OUT IN YOUR SUPER-AWESOME CAMPUS CENTER.

p.s. Your career services suck.

In other news, my dog is asleep on my legs and he's snoring. It's really funny.

Have you blood on your hands? Merriam-Webster OnLine's word of the day is "nepotism." Like I don't fucking know what that means! This is almost as bad as the time the word of the day was "challah." Way to help me out, M-W!

I'll be your chauffeur on a midnight drive. Hats off to TWoP for actually making me laugh out loud with this oldie but goldie:

George responds that he's an "old-fashioned kind of guy." In my experience, that only means they won't go down on you. Oh my God, did I really just type that?

Sounds like everyone I've ever dated. I MEAN, no, I have no idea what's going on. Where am I?

I'm just a notch in your bedpost.The business man who represents the GMAT on the Kaplan Scrolling Marquee is ridiculously good-looking. How am I supposed to care about memorizing new vocabulary words when Mr. Hotty McBusinessPants is taunting me with his dry erase marker? Also, if I get a high score on the GRE, do I get to date him? 'Cause then it'd be a very nice incentive...though I doubt he's Jewish.

Leave me to regard the world in better ways. My dad bought me a new computer for my birthday (so shiny!), and I've gone on a huge downloading binge. Months of pent-up music lust are coming out, and I'm completely in love with what I've found. It's quite distracting and is totally preventing me from going about my normal routine. Alas, I am an internet piracy junky.

Anyway, here's what iTunes and I are currently in love with:

• Stereophonics - "Dakota"


• The Velvet Teen - "Radiapathy" and "Naked Girl"


• Beck - "Missing" and "Earthquake Weather" (and all of Guero)


• Roisin Murphy - "If We're in Love"


• The Delays - "Long Time Coming"

There's more, but I haven't had time to cycle through it all yet. Check this stuff out. You won't regret it.

Know it's time to wake up. Go check out "Was it Really that Bad: Black Death" from the Colbert Report. Colbert delivers the best backpacking-through-Europe rant ever. Reminds me of something that happened to me in Florence with two Canadians.

I don't know where we are going now. Fuck it. I think this guy is fabulous. And he makes me feel optimistic. So mock all you want; I don't care:

In her profile on poet John Ashbery in The New Yorker, Larissa MacFarquhar reports that his Manhattan apartment is deeply chaotic. "Everything needs to be open and nothing is ever closed," she quotes Ashbery's partner as saying. "Drawers. Cabinets. Closet doors. Everything! All possibilities must be available at all times." This happens to be my exact prescription for you, Sagittarius. Make your heart as innocent as possible. Suspend your opinions. Judge nothing. Be hungry for the raw truth and beauty that can be captured with the aid of naked receptivity. Oh, and keep all your cabinets and drawers open.

In other news, people who quote Milan Kundera on their facebook profiles creep me out.

I'm not a player I just crush a lot. I have been reading a little bit of Jane Austen for its superior source of GRE words (Panegyric! Alacrity!), and I have stumbled upon what is, perhaps, the most fabulous pick up line ever. Well, maybe that's an exaggerated appraisal of the situation, but it still made me laugh out loud when I read it:

"I do not think we were speaking at all....We have tried two or three subjects already without success, and what we are to talk of next I cannot imagine."

"What think you of books?" said he, smiling.

Darcy is the man!

At long last it's crashed. I'm not really into astrology, but sweet!

Wave farewell to your old self, Sagittarius. Maybe blow a few kisses as well. But don't linger too long. Refuse to get bogged down in ambiguous rituals filled with interminable goodbyes and meticulous inventories of the past. It's time to go! Off with you! You've got urgent appointments with the unsettling but fascinating future, and it's best to part ways with habits that have dulled your initiative and comforts that have numbed your courage. You're ready for more change than you think you're capable of.

Hehe. Happy birthday to me!

Soothing rhythms stoke the fire in my belly. I'm going to get on my daughter-of-an-antiquarian-art-book-dealer high-horse for a second and agree with this article. I love modern art and was so excited for my first trip to MoMA after my modern art history class last winter. But what I encountered was not the celebration of art that I'd anticipated but an elitist, overpriced, overcrowded mess. Yes, the new MoMA is a beautiful space with an astounding collection, and, yes, I spent most of my time there going "Wow!" But my main problems with MoMA resembled my complaints about the Centre Pompidou. MoMA failed to display most of its permanent collection. If you have Duchamp's "The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelor's Even," you display it, damnit!

Saltz mentions the MoMA's hegemonic treatment of Modern Art, and this stance's failure to challenge the viewer. He juxtaposes this banal approach with the more inventive Tate Modern, and considering that the Tate Modern is one of my favorite museums, he's absolutely right. The Tate chooses themes--e.g. love and death, the body, or advertising as art--and organizes its collection around them. Consequently, you find Rodin and Dali in the same gallery, something completely unheard of in the stale environment of MoMA.

So I have to say, Saltz makes some excellent observations. Plus, points for mentioning Foucault's Penopticon.

I pieced into the girl I long to be. I've never been one to look in fashion magazines and compare myself to all the airbrushed models. I've certainly had many an I-hate-my-body moment, but never because of a magazine spread.

And then I saw that new Victoria's Secret commercial for the push-up bra without padding or whatever newfangled contraption promises flat-chested women a generous C, and Oh. My. God. I am not a bad looking woman, if I do say so myself, but Gisele Bundchen? HOT. If I buy the matching bra and panty set and break into a mansion and strip off my black gown and start strutting around, can I look like her? Because if so, sign me the fuck up! I want Gisele Bundchen's body in an unlesbian, body dysmorphia sort of way. This may make me a bad feminist, but fuck all you haters ragging on me and my new supermodel body-hottness.

This is probably a good indication that I've been watching too much television. GRE words, anyone?

You make it so good I don't want to leave. Bad news, boys. Oral sex has been linked to mouth cancer. "You should avoid having oral sex," says the researcher. Looks like you're all going to have to find a new favorite sexual activity. Maybe fucking will finally come back into vogue.

Too late, you say. Profound thought of the day: It's amazing how much time you can waste if you really put your mind to it.

Second profound thought of the day: Men are really, really, ridiculously strange.

Esoteric complaint of the day: It annoys me that I cannot read minds. (I do not mean this in the BtVS "Earshot" way because I like my sanity, thank you very much).

Creepy link of the day: Scooter Libby is hard-core fucked up.

It may rain or it may shine. Art humor! courtesy of Computer Blue.



Glen Baxter is so funny.

I'm wishing on a star. My step-mother sent this to me, and it's a doozy:

THE SHORTEST FAIRY TALE


Once upon a time, a girl asked a guy "Will you marry me?" The guy said, "NO!"

And the girl lived happily ever after and went shopping, dancing, drank martinis, always had a clean house, never had to cook, had sex with whomever she pleased and farted whenever she wanted.

THE END

Evil! Although, I think it dulls the "empowerment" aspect of the story that she's rejected and thus dies a spinster, albeit a happy spinster. It would be better for the story's message if she'd rejected him.

Like a whole bucket of stars.



Perhaps, but not broken.

Art for art's sake. Tomorrow, I'm meeting up with the Blue Man at Storm King to see some ridiculously awesome art. It's like Nature + Metal + Big = Whoa. In case you were worried that I was actually cultured and had rejected my pedestrian antics, fret not. I am still quite juvenile:

Me: I keep pictuing Storm King as some sort of skeleton with a bunch of heads. Like a cross between an Orch, Skeletor, and the mouse king from the Nutcracker. Oh my god, how many points do I get for writing that sentence?!
Ike: Hmm, at least 8 points. Probably a few more, it's hard to calculate all the fractional points in there. I think they called the Storm King mountain nearby Storm King because of stormy weather around it, but I'm not sure exactly.
Me: I like mine better
Ike: Yeah, but it's kinda hard to have lovely abstract sculptures on a fall day on some kind of giant undead skeleton god-emperor
Me: Makes it more interesting
Ike: 'twould indeed

You other brothers can't deny. As much as women may be obsessed with why men love breasts, male sex columnists are obsessed with writing about why men love breasts. There is not a year that goes by without some "Cosmo" or "Marie Clare" rag getting some "Average Joe" to write about why men love boobs. The answer is always the same: "Uh, we don't have them. And they feel really cool. And they're purrrrrty."

Nevertheless, the Lippy Imp has decided to weigh in on the subject. He says pretty much the same thing as every other "Average Joe," except with a really funny analogy about a penis located in the center of a man's chest. Or something.

You know what? Who cares why men love breasts?! Breasts are cool. Most of the time, I don't even notice mine are there, but I'm used to them. Frankly, I don't really care if a guy is breast-obsessed as long as he treats mine with respect and not like they're some novelty toy.

If women weren't educated to be so shy and repressed when it comes to our sexuality, the first time we saw a real, live penis, we'd probably poke and prod it and do similar things that uncouth adolescent boys do to boobs. Breasts are also more open to public consumption than penises are. Go into any art museum, and I guarantee you that the ratio of bare breast to bare dick is like a bajillion to one.

So whatever. Straight men love breasts. Fine. Do we really need to talk about it all day?

I know what boys like. This is an oldie, but still a goldie. Can I get a coy teehee!

Shake up your bones. I had two really good dreams today in between alarm clock bleats. I'm sick, which always affects the vividness of my dreams. Both dreams revolved around weddings, which is weird because I've never been one of those girls who dreams about her wedding.

The first centered around my aunt and uncle's wedding (not their actual wedding, which was completely different from my dream). There were a ton of people in a synagogue, laughing and singing, and there were little kids running all over the place. And the rabbi walked around blessing people before he reached the beema to bless the bride and groom. He blessed me, and I felt safe. My family and I were very nonchalant about the whole spectacle, laughing and making jokes. I sat in between my aunt and uncle before they went to the beema, and then started crying because the whole scene was so touching and made me so happy.

The second dream was very "Fiddler on the Roof" (yes, I did just write that). It was the day before my wedding, and I snuck downstairs to see my husband-to-be, who was sleeping in a make-shift bed by the fireplace (where does my subconscious come up with this stuff?). We'd never been together before, so sneaking into bed with him was a big deal. And he wasn't wearing a shirt, which was even more scandalous. He asked to touch my hair, and I put my head on his bare chest. In a way, I think this is one of the sexiest dreams I've ever had. I've suppressed most of my sensuality in favor of sexuality because sexuality is unfeeling. So to dream about something as pure as beauty and intimacy is like an awakening.

Probably most of this post warrants a Saddam Hussein-style "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Turn to the left. Not surprisingly, I am bored at work. I read through all the blogs and TWoP recaps I can stomach, so I decided to hit the "Next Blog" arrow you see at the top right corner of this blog. This allows you to troll through complete stranger's blogs. Yay for voyeurism. I stumbled upon this, and I gotta say...ick. Sister needs to chill out. To me, dedicating a blog to your obsession with your fat ass is a bad sign.

It caught on in a flash. As many of you know, I LOVE Halloween. Historically, that is. This year, I did nothing to celebrate. Nothing! This is my first year without a pumpkin, no candy for the trick-or-treaters...I am the Scrooge of Halloween. Why? Because Halloween has lost all it's awesomeness. Case in point: I saw people driving their children trick-or-treating. That's right. People actually drove their children from house to house. Did these people miss the whole child obesity epidemic in this country? I mean, they're actually so fucking lazy that they're driving their children three feet at a time so that they can gorge themselves on concentrated doses of high-fructose corn syrup. This kind of behavior makes me insane.

So fuck you, lazy parents of my town with your fat, Type II Diabetes-children. Your children are doomed to have boring Halloween stories to go along with their boring, over-protected existences. Ha!

To prove my point, here are my two favorite Halloween memories from my childhood, a time when my mother made me costumes and I walked from house to house (Excerpted from T.W.N. Oct. 30, 2002):

My grandmother was born on Halloween, so, to celebrate her birthday, she used to accompany my mother and me when we went trick-or-treating. One year, when I was dressed as a princess in my grandmother's wedding dress and my own rubber galoshes (glass slippers were out of style that year), a woman approached us. She alerted my mother and grandmother that Jesus had instructed her to give me $20. She then handed my mother the bill and departed, leaving my mother and grandmother stunned and me confused (I didn't know who Jesus was at that time).

Flash forward to eigth grade, when I was past the acceptable age for trick-or-treating but still found it fun. My friend and I wandered the neighborhood, stopping at houses to pick up chocolate goodies along the way. We made a special detour to the house of my friend's crush, only to walk in on him and his friends watching porn.

Yes, that all actually happened. Beats your shiny, happy minivan, doesn't it, losers?

They did the mash. I find it very strange when churches host haunted houses on Halloween. Did they miss the whole paganism-is-the-antithesis-of-monotheism memo, or were they too busy hating gays?

Until they realize. I had training this morning for my super-cool volunteer position with Planned Parenthood (yay), and it just so happens that today was abortion day at the center. That's right, they actually have Abortion Day. Sadly, there were no balloons.

Before I go even farther into the Land of Extremely Poor Taste, I'll explain. There is one day a week dedicated to surgical abortions at the Centers which offer the service. At the Center where I was trained, this day is usually Saturday, but the doctor couldn't make it, so they switched it to Friday.

If you ever want to see intense, go to P.P. on abortion day. Holy shit! You have to wait at least three hours because there's so much paper work and sonograms and, well, stuff, that they have to do before you can undergo a procedure which takes--I am not kidding--three minutes. Seriously! A surgical abortion takes three minutes! There were tons of women, and some supportive boyfriends, sitting there, some trying hard not to cry, all looking uncomfortable and upset. There was this 14 year-old sobbing because she wasn't sure what to do, and it wasn't clear whether or not she'd been raped, and she was afraid she'd never be able to have children if she had an abortion, and HORRIBLE!

I think that the best form of Sex. Ed. you could have would be to make everyone sit around and watch people waiting to get an abortion. It'll make you the most vigilant condom user/pill taker/celibate ever.

Also, public health...wow.

You know you're gonna lie to you in your own way. Quick observation:

Did anyone else notice that, when asked about Harriet Meir's qualifications, Trent Lott said that there were several other more qualified "men, women, and minorities" that should have been picked? How did nobody else pick up on that?! Did he just say that minorities (*cough* black people *cough*) are not the same as men and women? I realize that some of you might call me out for nit-picking, but I'm sorry. The language people use says a ton about their thought process, and from my perspective, Trent Lott's got a huge neon sign blinking "racist" over his head.

It plays tricks with the eye. The painters are starting on my room soon, so I had to take everything off my walls. That's right, boys and girls. My walls full of post cards and door full of magazine cutouts has finally come down. I'm sure that, to most of you, this doesn't mean anything, but to those of you who've seen the damn thing, you know what I'm talking about. As I was ripping tape off my walls, I started to reflect (Of course I started to reflect. When has there ever been a time in my life when I don't reflect?!). So here are my musings as the almost-22 year-old me takes down what the 12-14 year-old me created:

• I used many advertisements from teen magazines and Entertainment Weekly to create my collage. These slogans which I plastered up--"Design Your Dream," "Guts, Nerves of Steel: That's What Little Girls Are Made Of," "Man-eater"--came from lipstick and shampoo ads. I tried to define myself through visual culture. I can't say that I actually believed I had nerves of steel or that my 14 year-old self could ever have been considered a man-eater, but I was trying to define who I wanted to be. I wanted to be someone strong and impenetrable, someone who hurt others before they could hurt her. I don't think my adolescent self was atypical, but it's certainly not a happy thing to think about.



• I love post cards! Love love LOVE post cards! I have strict rules for post cards, though, so don't go buying me any. You'll probably get in wrong. That said, my favorite place to purchase post cards, along with other paper goods, is the Centre Pompidou. Ironically, I can't stand the Centre Pompidou as a museum, but their gift shop is fab-u-lous.



• I have an inordinate amount of post cards from the Musée Rodin. I have a rule that, every time I visit the museum, I have to buy a post card of Eternal Idol. Consequently, I now have four Eternal Idols, two La Danaïde, five Le Baiser in various sizes and formats, two Iris, and more views of Le Penseur than is healthy. But give me credit; I do not have any Balzac. Bleh.



• Yves Klein is really interesting. Why haven't I been able to make it back to the Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain in Nice?

Watch him as he goes. I'd never really thought much of Startship Troopers, that stupid movie about humans vs. space bugs starring Casper Van Dien (who's married to a Scandanavian princess. Not too shabby) and Denise Richards (sister had a nose job, what), until I read this in the Onion AV Club's "A Decade of Underrated Movies":

Among the most subversive and widely misunderstood studio films ever produced, Paul Verhoeven's anti-fascist satire was falsely interpreted as an endorsement of a fascist utopia that sends pea-brained young recruits on a dire, meaningless offensive against giant space bugs. Working again with Robocop screenwriter Ed Neumeier, Verhoeven casts utterly blank pretty boys and girls (including Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards) as brainwashed heroes rushing merrily to their doom. The state-of-the-art special effects make for some rousing action sequences, but Verhoeven is more interested in how propaganda works to convince citizens of the rightness of an insane cause. Witness this twisted piece of logic from teacher/recruiter Michael Ironside: "Violence has resolved more conflicts that anything else. The contrary opinion that violence doesn't solve anything is merely wishful thinking at its worst."

Coincidently, Starship Troopers was on UPN Sunday night, and I was inspired to watch it. Holy crap is that movie creepy! If you look at the film as an exploration of a fascist society which brainwashes its citizens and not some bs movie about pretty people blowing things up, it's the scariest thing. Case in point, the scene where school children are "doing their part" in the war effort by stomping on bugs is particularly creepy. The ending where Doogie Houser (haha) captures the "Brain Bug" and proceeds to experiment on it with a wide variety of power tools reminds me of Mengele's experiements. Thank you so much, AV Club, for making my skin crawl. Ew.

Mmmm skyscraper, I love you. Ike thinks he's sexist, but I think he's hilarious:

"Women would have a much easier time of things if they didn't destroy men's capacity to reason with their feminine lures and wiles." Or, in other words, women hate that they make men stupid.

Points for paraphrasing my poster, for calling me sexy, and for calling men idiots. You get a gold star, blue buddy. Well done.

A little more obvious. Snap! That's some tight-ass shit.

Interesting that I take such pleasure in ye olde fuck-and-dump considering I don't have the cajones for it. I really shouldn't revel in bitchiness as much as I do. Hmmm...

How much is that doggie in the window. A request was made about a month ago by an old friend of mine to dedicate a post to my dog, Chauncey. We made a deal: I'd post dog-alicious photos, and he'd post comments on my blog (I am an attention whore, and I'm proud). So, I am finally on my old, broke-ass computer with enough time to upload these darn things. And, assuming the process doesn't cause my computer to burst into a ball of flame, we should be good to go.

The question here is, can you guess which one is my dog? If you're thinking to yourself, "Well, T.L. is a pretty friendly, gregarious person. I could totally see her with a big, cuddly pooch like that black lab," you'd be...WRONG. Chauncey is an SBD--a small, black dog. He's about the size of a bread box, but his personality is larger than the Sears Tower. He's a chihuahua mix, but my dad and I are convinced he's a rat.

There are, obviously, other pictures, but they require docturing in the form of decapitating family members. I have, however, upheld my end of the bargain. Donc, voilà le chien. Tu en as besoin plus, mon petit morceau de sel, ou est-ce que ça suffit? Et j'ai toujours une jolie queue.

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me. On December 31, I will be without health insurance. As I am no longer a full-time student, I am no longer elligable for coverage. Consequently, I have to find a COBRA program, which I doubt I can afford.

America sucks.

Doncha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me. Someone posted this on my friend's facebook wall, and I thought it was pretty funny. And naughty. And all those good things:

Stilettos $80
Nails done $30
Cute Dress $90

Finding out he eats PUSSY…………………………Priceless

Shit it Pays to DISCOVER!!!!!!!!

A time to laugh and shiver and cry. I have all this stuff floating around in my wee little mind I've wanted to write about all weekend, so I'm getting it out now. Lucky you, cyberspace. You get to listen to me ramble. Woot (I refuse to w00t properly. I'm all non-conformist like that).

Two observations:

First, if you missed it, and I'm sure you did because I'm the only person aside from my dad who watches PBS on Friday nights (Whatever, Gwen Ifill is the shit), you missed Kurt Vonnegut on NOW with Dave "Fake-Tan" Brancaccio. If you were too busy drinking/fucking/having-a-life-in-general to see Vonnegut rip the U.S.A. a new one, boy did you miss out. In one half-hour interview, Vonnegut calls for impeaching Bush and talks about checking out "hot babes." I am not kidding; he actually said "hot babes." It was awesome.

Second, there's this new, overly-hyped show on ABC called "Hot Properties" which stars a bunch of overly plastic-surgeried unpretty women, "Sex and the City" vet Evan Handler (awesome), and my gal Nicole Sullivan. The show itself is mediocre, but I love Nicole Sullivan, so I'm probably gonna watch it. I do, however, have a complaint. Why does Nicole Sullivan always have to play the ugly, neurotic, ignored girl? She's not ugly, or overweight, or plastic surgerified. She's hella funny (you might remember her as one of the original MAD TV cast members...on second thought, you probably don't). I mean, she's Joan of Arc! How much cooler can you be?! I don't understand why Joan of Arc has to spend her life pining away for that loser Abe Lincoln when she's totally smart, funny, interesting and sexy. Just because she's not generically sexy/slutty like Cleopatra, she gets the shaft. It's not fair! And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to get your hands on "Clone High" rightthehellnow.

The girl with khaleidescope eyes. I admit, one of the only reasons I read amNewYork is for the celebrity gossip. It's way better than the New York Metro (Incidently, I met the one and only staff reporter for the Metro at one of Chuck Schumer's infamous Sunday press conferences last summer. He's a nice guy; I think he hit on me. Whatever). Case in point, this is a frigging hysterical piece of trivial news that kept me laughing for a good long while:

Wintour Gets Pied, Again, By Activists

Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour was hit with a pie this weekend by anti-fur demonstrators as she attended Paris fashion week. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' vice president Dan Mathews said the pie--a vegetarian tofu tart--was retaliation for the magazine's decision to run fur ads while refusing to use PETA's anti-fur messages, though the animal rights group offered to pay the same fee. Wintour was hit with the tart while she waited to see the Chloe fashion show Saturday in Paris. It was the second time in a year that PETA has hit her with a pie.

I understand why Vogue would refuse the PETA ads; a political stance such as this would alienate their advertisers and the subjects of their articles. You can't militantly hate fur and interview Dior about his rabbit fur-trimmed sweaters or whatever. It doesn't work. Second, what the fuck is PETA's problem? Throwing vegetarian tofu pies at people? Twice? What in the hell? I mean, I'm something of an idealist and can be passionate about my causes, but even I think throwing a fucking pie at someone is ridiculous! This sort of behavior doesn't help their cause; it only makes them look like a bunch of crazy nutjobs. PETA's reputation was pretty tarnished after that "no one likes fur trim" anti-pubic hair ad campaign a while back; I don't see how throwing pies at media giants is going to make them look any better or attract people to their cause. If anything, it kind of makes me want to wear fur just to piss them off.

I've got my freaks to the West. I've said it before, I'll say it again. I have the best fucking friends in the entire fucking universe. Check out what Veggie made me and actually sent to me, like with a stamp and everything.



Yes, love is post-mail. Definitely.

In other news, I have this free download at iTunes that's going to expire October 15, and I can't use it because my step-mom is territorial and uninstalled all my iPod software from her computer. So, if anyone out there would like it, let me know. I'm sure we can work out some sort of exchange.

No sleep tonight. I overhear or am told the most ridiculous shit at this job. I know that one of my co-workers swings both ways, that another's ex-boyfriend was electrocuted, and that another has severe gas resulting from her pregnancy. Currently, several of my co-workers are discussing whether a certain actress appeared in Playboy or Maxxim, which has lead to a discussion of painted-on clothing and some other things I will not transcribe here because this is a family blog, damnit.

This shit is bananas. I just completed a 15-page copy editing and proofreading test for Simon & Schuster. I spent a good part of my evening in the public library with a copy of the 15th edition of the Chicago Style Manual. I did all this because, even though other candidates had a week to do their test, I had less than 24 hours because she wants to make a decision quickly.

Why do I do this? The odds are firmly against them hiring me.

Here's the truth. I am not special. There are a million, flabby girls wearing trendy shoes who've just graduated from college and who want to go into publishing. They can either copy edit well or their parents help them with the test. Donning pearls and enthusiasm does not make me special. I am not a rare, skilled worker. I am not a sought-after commodity. I am not even an easily-replaceable cog in a wheel because the motherfucking wheel doesn't want me.

I am so tired of interviewing. I am tired of getting revved up and walking around in these attractive yet painful shoes to impress a bunch of people who really couldn't care less. I am tired of jumping when they say jump, of worrying and waiting and wanting only to hit another dead end. I am tired of sending out resumes which get lost in e-mail overflow. I am so fucking tired.

I am not saying all this because I legitimately think that I'm shit. I'm just tired of feeling so pointless and unimportant. Why am I fighting so fucking hard to break into a world which clearly doesn't want me?

I will not be afraid of women. I'm not usually one to criticize PBS, but two things happened last night that really startled me. First, "Nova" chronicled the discovery of a sunken Japanese battleship from World War II. Every time a Japanese historian or eye witness spoke, they dubbed the translation using the most horrendously stereotypical Japanese-speaking-English voice possible. At one point, my dad started quoting Godzilla it was so bad. I don't understand why it was necessary to have stereotypically ethnic voices represent that ethnic background. I certainly wouldn't have been offended if someone with a British accent dubbed a Japanese translation. In the wake of Katrina, I find myself saying "That's so racist!" much more than I used to. I'll leave it to you to decide if that's a good thing.

After "Nova," "Frontline" explored the 10 year anniversary of the O.J. Simpson verdict and its affects on the judicial system. The documentary itself was fascinating, but at a few points during it, the director showed a discussion at Georgetown Law School, where the case is still debated. Every person who spoke was a white man. This could mean one of two things: 1) The director only used what the men said or 2) Women don't participate at Georgetown Law School. Think about the gender bias implicit in either of those options. All I have to say is up with women's education, down with patriarchy, and fuck you for silencing my sex.

I want somebody who sees me. I think today was the first time in years I actually got anything out of synagogue.

The Rosh Hashanah Haftarah portion discusses Hannah's silent yet fervent prayer for children. She is constantly taunted by her rival, her husband's other wife Peninnah, because Peninnah has two sons while Hannah has none. In the machsor's commentary, the rabbis and scholars focus on Hannah's prayer and the interpretation of her actions. But what no one seems to notice is that Hannah needs to bear a son to obtain socio-political standing within the community. She is part of a polygamous society where the birth of a male son equals security. Why don't any scholars talk about that?

What I do like, however, is that there is the possibility for discussion. All of our texts are allegories, and we are supposed to interpret and contemplate them. The rabbi talked about Adam's reaction after Cain's trial for killing his brother. Because Cain owned up to his sin by repenting, he was awarded clemency. Adam didn't do this. Adam could not say "Hineni"--Here I am. This is what Abraham says when he is called upon to sacrifice Isaac, and it is what Cain does when he repents. It is our obligation to follow Teshuvah, to say Hineni. And what does Hineni mean? What does it mean to say, "Here I am?"

I don't want to spend too much more time philosophizing on this. I don't want to take myself so seriously as to actually think I have an answer for any of these questions. But these thoughts make me go to a quiet place where it's just me, and I am humbled by the universe.

Joy to the fishies in the deep blue sea. In my office, there's an area known as The Fishbowl. It's a large, square area surrounded by cubicle walls with windows in the walls, so that, when walking to the coffee machine, you can stare at the six people who work in it. Hence the name The Fishbowl. Well, there is not a day that goes by when The Fishbowl does not have some sort of food for everyone. At least once a week, there are bagels, and more often than not, there are munchkins, cookies, fruit, and various grease-stained pastry boxes bearing who knows what. I wonder if you did a health survey of the office, would The Fishbowl occupants have a high rate of diabetes or obesity than other sections of the office? And would there be a radius of diabetes and obesity incidents radiating out from The Fishbowl?

These are the things I think about when I'm at work. Hence the reason I desperately need to find a different job.

You're gonna make it after all. Alright, this rant is going to make me sound whiny and bitter, but I don't care. Has anyone else noticed that damned annoying Chase commercial with the "cute" (i.e. dirty blonde, flat-chested and fugly) girl who gets her first pay check and runs around like Mary Tyler Moore with a worse wardrobe? She sticks it to her friends by buying them all lunch, she has a fabulous apartment, and she makes out with her generically good-looking boyfriend outside the movies.

I fucking hate her.

And, no, I didn't get the job, which is not as big a deal as it might seem because I have another interview Wednesday. I am just grumpy because work is boring and my brain falls asleep sitting in this damn office five hours a day. So, fine, I am a grump. But I am a hot grump.

Like whores, us all. It's not often that I disagree with Dan Savage...or ever, actually...but this time I gotta contradict his reasoning. He quotes E.J. Graff, currently the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center resident scholar.

"Once upon a time, the West had a 'traditional' marriage philosophy." The husband owned his wife, whatever children she bore him—you know the drill. But capitalism eventually came along—thank God!—and freed us from those confining sex roles.

Actually, I believe Elizabeth Cady Stanton had a lot to do with this. But, you know, whatever.

"Each of us now has to make a living independently, based on individual talents and efforts rather than traditional roles. Over time, this led to gender equality in both the job market and the marriage market. Between 1850 and 1970, every developed country struck down its sex-based rules, both in labor (i.e., women can be plumbers and legislators) and in marriage (i.e., married women can own property, hold jobs without hubby's permission, have custody of children, and even—gasp!—say no in bed). The result: Gender equality is today's governing public philosophy, in marriage and in much else. For 150 years, courts and legislatures have changed marriage law to fit this philosophy, under which same-sex couples fit just fine."

For one thing, I don't know where this person got the whole "gender equality is today's governing public philosophy" line, because I must have missed that memo. In most states, and correct me if I'm wrong (and I mean correct me with legitimate statistics, not your opinion or something you read in Newsweek), it is not considered possible for a husband to rape his wife--or at least it's next to impossible to convict a husband for raping his wife. Women are still underrepresented in top jobs and payed less for the same work performed by their male coworkers. Women are often excluded from professions deemed masculine; it's still rare for a woman to be able to fight in the army in direct combat situations.

Furthermore, where did this notion of capitalism created equity between the sexes come from? Is this person completely rejecting years of Marxist Feminist philosophy--which I don't completely agree with, but it still makes some valid points? Did Graff completely miss the entire set of theory which discusses how the rise of capitalism and the subsequent separate spheres of influence completely voided the worth of what women contributed to family? Capitalism undervalues traditional women's work (e.g. child care and housework) because such work does not have a precise monetary value. So, I have to say, where in the heck did Graff come up with this? I could dig out my Women and Gender in America notes and continue, but I think I've made my point.

I should note that I was told by my WOST advisor that Brandeis has a suck Women's Studies department. Maybe that explains it.

Don't wake me, I plan on sleeping in. I couldn't fall asleep last night, and I overslept today. Hovering somewhere between sleep and awake after hitting the snooze button for the sixth time, I had a sort of half dream. In the dream, a voice said something to the effect of, "I have have made bad choices and good choices, but it doesn't matter because I am making good choices now. I regret nothing."

What's going on in my subconscious?

I'm heaven sent.

From "Ten Years On" in The Alchemist, which never fails to make me cry:

We who fight for our dream, suffer far more when it doesn't work out, because we cannot fall back on the old excuse: "Oh, well, I didn't really want it anyway." We do want it and know that we have staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is no easier than any other path, except that our whole heart is in this journey. Then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.

I ask myself: are defeats necessary?

Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for our dream, we have no experience and make many mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.

So, why is it so important to live our personal calling if we are only going to suffer more than other people?

Because, once we have overcome the defeats--and we always do--we are filled by a greater sense of euphoria and confidence....

If you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here.

From The Alchemist, which defines it all:

There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth....And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

So says I. There's a J-date billboard in Times Square. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw it. After I explained what the match-making site was to my dad, he said, "Oh, I was wondering why everyone had a big nose and was vaguely Semitic-looking."

We were ment to be as one. Because of the events of the day, it is now time to pay tribute to my very own Wombat from Luxembourg.

He is a man who can cheer me up when I'm down:

Go for it girl u can get a wonderful job, since u are b-r-i-l-l-i-a-n-t!

A man who quotes Shakespeare to me on the value of our friendship:

Shakespeare Sonnet 116.
'Let me not the marriage of true minds admit impediments,
Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,
Nor bends with the remover to remove...'

And, most importantly, a man who sends me pictures of his underwear so that I can help him impress the ladies.



For these reasons, and so many others, I salute my Raoul. Cheers!

Une fleur m'inspire. I just got my photos from my family trip to France developed. Yes, this was a trip I took in June, and yes I am lazy and didn't get my photos developed until last week. Anyway, a few of them were really cool, and thanks to blogger's new feature where I can upload pictures to my blog from my computer without having to pay for the privilege, I can share them with you. You won't see any pictures of me (I learned my lesson about identifying information, thank you), but try to enjoy them anyway.



Here is some fabulous graffiti art I found in the Marais district in Paris.



This is the view out of my kitchen window in Paris. My dad rented us a penthouse on Avenue Emile Zola. That's right, I got to stare at the Tour Eiffel all day and all night. I even kept the curtains open while I showered so I could watch the light show (thank goodness for high windows).

That's not petty. Can you say fundraising genius? Let's raise money off the crazy mofos!

Here's how it works: You decide on the amount you would like to pledge for each protester (minimum 10 cents). When protesters show up on our sidewalks, Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania will count and record their number each day from October 1 through November 30, 2005. We will place a signoutside the health center that tracks pledges and makes protesters fully aware that their actions are benefiting PPSP. At the end of the two-month campaign, we will send you an update on protest activities and a pledge reminder.

It's all in me. I have rethought my comments on this article and have come to a different conclusion.

This story is a classic example of non-news.

How can a sophomore in college speculate on what she will do in 15 years time? How many of these girls will actually get into law schoo? or get married? or have kids? This article is crap.

Granted, it's interesting that these chicks are so up with quitting the work force. That's definitely a head scratcher, and I think that the specialists they chatted with did a good job of explaining where that comes from (ahem, how do you spell gender bias?) But otherwise, I'm putting this article firmly in the "This is crap" section of journalism.

Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood By LOUISE STORY (NY Times, Sept. 20, 2005)

Cynthia Liu is precisely the kind of high achiever Yale wants: smart (1510 SAT), disciplined (4.0 grade point average), competitive (finalist in Texas oratory competition), musical (pianist), athletic (runner) and altruistic (hospital volunteer). And at the start of her sophomore year at Yale, Ms. Liu is full of ambition, planning to go to law school.

So will she join the long tradition of famous Ivy League graduates? Not likely. By the time she is 30, this accomplished 19-year-old expects to be a stay-at-home mom.

"My mother's always told me you can't be the best career woman and the best mother at the same time," Ms. Liu said matter-of-factly. "You always have to choose one over the other."

At Yale and other top colleges, women are being groomed to take their place in an ever more diverse professional elite. It is almost taken for granted that, just as they make up half the students at these institutions, they will move into leadership roles on an equal basis with their male classmates.

There is just one problem with this scenario: many of these women say that is not what they want.

Many women at the nation's most elite colleges say they have already decided that they will put aside their careers in favor of raising children. Though some of these students are not planning to have children and some hope to have a family and work full time, many others, like Ms. Liu, say they will happily play a traditional female role, with motherhood their main commitment.

Much attention has been focused on career women who leave the work force to rear children. What seems to be changing is that while many women in college two or three decades ago expected to have full-time careers, their daughters, while still in college, say they have already decided to suspend or end their careers when they have children.

"At the height of the women's movement and shortly thereafter, women were much more firm in their expectation that they could somehow combine full-time work with child rearing," said Cynthia E. Russett, a professor of American history who has taught at Yale since 1967. "The women today are, in effect, turning realistic."

Dr. Russett is among more than a dozen faculty members and administrators at the most exclusive institutions who have been on campus for decades and who said in interviews that they had noticed the changing attitude.

Many students say staying home is not a shocking idea among their friends. Shannon Flynn, an 18-year-old from Guilford, Conn., who is a freshman at Harvard, says many of her girlfriends do not want to work full time.

"Most probably do feel like me, maybe even tending toward wanting to not work at all," said Ms. Flynn, who plans to work part time after having children, though she is torn because she has worked so hard in school.

"Men really aren't put in that position," she said.

Uzezi Abugo, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania who hopes to become a lawyer, says she, too, wants to be home with her children at least until they are in school.

"I've seen the difference between kids who did have their mother stay at home and kids who didn't, and it's kind of like an obvious difference when you look at it," said Ms. Abugo, whose mother, a nurse, stayed home until Ms. Abugo was in first grade.

While the changing attitudes are difficult to quantify, the shift emerges repeatedly in interviews with Ivy League students, including 138 freshman and senior females at Yale who replied to e-mail questions sent to members of two residential colleges over the last school year.

The interviews found that 85 of the students, or roughly 60 percent, said that when they had children, they planned to cut back on work or stop working entirely. About half of those women said they planned to work part time, and about half wanted to stop work for at least a few years.

Two of the women interviewed said they expected their husbands to stay home with the children while they pursued their careers. Two others said either they or their husbands would stay home, depending on whose career was furthest along.

The women said that pursuing a rigorous college education was worth the time and money because it would help position them to work in meaningful part-time jobs when their children are young or to attain good jobs when their children leave home.

In recent years, elite colleges have emphasized the important roles they expect their alumni - both men and women - to play in society.

For example, earlier this month, Shirley M. Tilghman, the president of Princeton University, welcomed new freshmen, saying: "The goal of a Princeton education is to prepare young men and women to take up positions of leadership in the 21st century. Of course, the word 'leadership' conjures up images of presidents and C.E.O.'s, but I want to stress that my idea of a leader is much broader than that."

She listed education, medicine and engineering as other areas where students could become leaders.

In an e-mail response to a question, Dr. Tilghman added: "There is nothing inconsistent with being a leader and a stay-at-home parent. Some women (and a handful of men) whom I have known who have done this have had a powerful impact on their communities."

Yet the likelihood that so many young women plan to opt out of high-powered careers presents a conundrum.

"It really does raise this question for all of us and for the country: when we work so hard to open academics and other opportunities for women, what kind of return do we expect to get for that?" said Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of undergraduate admissions at Harvard, who served as dean for coeducation in the late 1970's and early 1980's.

It is a complicated issue and one that most schools have not addressed. The women they are counting on to lead society are likely to marry men who will make enough money to give them a real choice about whether to be full-time mothers, unlike those women who must work out of economic necessity.

It is less than clear what universities should, or could, do about it. For one, a person's expectations at age 18 are less than perfect predictors of their life choices 10 years later. And in any case, admissions officers are not likely to ask applicants whether they plan to become stay-at-home moms.

University officials said that success meant different things to different people and that universities were trying to broaden students' minds, not simply prepare them for jobs.

"What does concern me," said Peter Salovey, the dean of Yale College, "is that so few students seem to be able to think outside the box; so few students seem to be able to imagine a life for themselves that isn't constructed along traditional gender roles."

There is, of course, nothing new about women being more likely than men to stay home to rear children.

According to a 2000 survey of Yale alumni from the classes of 1979, 1984, 1989 and 1994, conducted by the Yale Office of Institutional Research, more men from each of those classes than women said that work was their primary activity - a gap that was small among alumni in their 20's but widened as women moved into their prime child-rearing years. Among the alumni surveyed who had reached their 40's, only 56 percent of the women still worked, compared with 90 percent of the men.

A 2005 study of comparable Yale alumni classes found that the pattern had not changed. Among the alumni who had reached their early 40's, just over half said work was their primary activity, compared with 90 percent of the men. Among the women who had reached their late 40's, some said they had returned to work, but the percentage of women working was still far behind the percentage of men.

A 2001 survey of Harvard Business School graduates found that 31 percent of the women from the classes of 1981, 1985 and 1991 who answered the survey worked only part time or on contract, and another 31 percent did not work at all, levels strikingly similar to the percentages of the Yale students interviewed who predicted they would stay at home or work part time in their 30's and 40's.

What seems new is that while many of their mothers expected to have hard-charging careers, then scaled back their professional plans only after having children, the women of this generation expect their careers to take second place to child rearing.

"It never occurred to me," Rebecca W. Bushnell, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, said about working versus raising children. "Thirty years ago when I was heading out, I guess I was just taking it one step at a time."

Dr. Bushnell said young women today, in contrast, are thinking and talking about part-time or flexible work options for when they have children. "People have a heightened awareness of trying to get the right balance between work and family."

Sarah Currie, a senior at Harvard, said many of the men in her American Family class last fall approved of women's plans to stay home with their children.

"A lot of the guys were like, 'I think that's really great,' " Ms. Currie said. "One of the guys was like, 'I think that's sexy.' Staying at home with your children isn't as polarizing of an issue as I envision it is for women who are in their 30's now."

For most of the young women who responded to e-mail questions, a major factor shaping their attitudes seemed to be their experience with their own mothers, about three out of five of whom did not work at all, took several years off or worked only part time.

"My stepmom's very proud of my choice because it makes her feel more valuable," said Kellie Zesch, a Texan who graduated from the University of North Carolina two years ago and who said that once she had children, she intended to stay home for at least five years and then consider working part time. "It justified it to her, that I don't look down on her for not having a career."

Similarly, students who are committed to full-time careers, without breaks, also cited their mothers as influences. Laura Sullivan, a sophomore at Yale who wants to be a lawyer, called her mother's choice to work full time the "greatest gift."

"She showed me what it meant to be an amazing mother and maintain a career," Ms. Sullivan said.

Some of these women's mothers, who said they did not think about these issues so early in their lives, said they were surprised to hear that their college-age daughters had already formed their plans.

Emily Lechner, one of Ms. Liu's roommates, hopes to stay home a few years, then work part time as a lawyer once her children are in school.

Her mother, Carol, who once thought she would have a full-time career but gave it up when her children were born, was pleasantly surprised to hear that. "I do have this bias that the parents can do it best," she said. "I see a lot of women in their 30's who have full-time nannies, and I just question if their kids are getting the best."

For many feminists, it may come as a shock to hear how unbothered many young women at the nation's top schools are by the strictures of traditional roles.

"They are still thinking of this as a private issue; they're accepting it," said Laura Wexler, a professor of American studies and women's and gender studies at Yale. "Women have been given full-time working career opportunities and encouragement with no social changes to support it.

"I really believed 25 years ago," Dr. Wexler added, "that this would be solved by now."

Angie Ku, another of Ms. Liu's roommates who had a stay-at-home mom, talks nonchalantly about attending law or business school, having perhaps a 10-year career and then staying home with her children.

"Parents have such an influence on their children," Ms. Ku said. "I want to have that influence. Me!"

She said she did not mind if that limited her career potential.

"I'll have a career until I have two kids," she said. "It doesn't necessarily matter how far you get. It's kind of like the experience: I have tried what I wanted to do."

Ms. Ku added that she did not think it was a problem that women usually do most of the work raising kids.

"I accept things how they are," she said. "I don't mind the status quo. I don't see why I have to go against it."

After all, she added, those roles got her where she is.

"It worked so well for me," she said, "and I don't see in my life why it wouldn't work."

I Would die 4 U. Equal parts silly, funny, and in poor taste, this little gem reeks of MAD Magazine. Therefore, it is awesome.

I'm your zero. I don't know how long this will last, so quick. Google the word "failure" and see what comes up first on the list. It's a hoot!

Glory, glory, hallelujah Holy crap! What has happened to the media? It's like every major news organization suddenly woke up from their coma and realized they were journalists. Can you believe CNN, my former arch-nemesis for craptacular reporting (*cough* war mongers *cough*) actually threatened to sue the federal government because the feds didn't want them to broadcast pictures of the Katrina dead? Where the heck where you guys in Iraq when the government wouldn't let you broadcast photos of caskets upon caskets of dead soldiers? Did you suddenly grow a pair?

I don't know whether to respect the news media now for fighting back or hate them even more for not exercising the power they had all along.

Let's call the whole thing off. In all the post-Katrina "excitment," few have broached the question of whether New Orleans should be rebuilt. While I don't agree with thisSlate article entirely (the percentage of the population who are black or poor should not be a factor in deciding to rebuild, hotshot), the author makes a compelling argument. Those of you who saw the "Now with Dave Brancaccio" piece on PBS know that New Orleans is another example of American manifest destiny and the belief that we can control nature through technology. The fact is that, through levees, pumps and dams, we have ruined the ecology of the Gulf Coast, perhaps even paving the way for Katrina's destruction. Perhaps it would be best to keep the French Quarter and other tourist favorites as tribute to one of America's most vibrant cities and let nature reclaim what we tried to steal.

Words won't do it. Like many of you I'm sure, I've been watching the news all week in complete shock. I really have nothing to contribute to the discussion because, FOR ONCE, people in places of much higher power are saying exactly what I'm thinking. So I will sum up what I've been feeling while watching David Brooks on Jim Lehrer wag his impotent Republican finger at the lack of post-9/11-style leadership( don't make me point out the myriad reasons why his argumant is flawed); Bush mourn the loss of Trent Lott's house; and countless starving babies, rape victims, dead bodies, and justifiably furious survivors scream at TV cameras for help and restitution. In the words of Kanye West,

George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

As President, Bush is emblematic of a National Policy so inherently racist that thousands of people will die simply because they could not afford to evacuate with their wealthier, predominantly white neighbors. I hope that Senator Mary Landrieu does punch him. I hope that he personally has to dig a grave for every dead body resulting from his administration's ineptitude. I hope he and his cohorts suffer eternally (to use their own fascist Christian vocabulary against them) for slashing the levee maintenace budget, for hiring a political hack to run FEMA, for articulating a terrorism-centric national defense plan, for ignoring sound social policy in favor of personal gain...for every ounce of anger and pain I and every person who turned on their television or opened their newspaper felt when they had to confront an America void of humanity, order, compassion, and decency. To paraphrase Jesse Jackson, Bush turned New Orleans into "the hull of a slave ship."

His truth is marching on. I realize that I am stealing a lot of stuff from the slog, but it is mandatory reading.

I think it is important to "support our troops" and to recognize that they are not unfeeling, unopinionated automatons who blindly follow the will of the Commander-in-Chief. Case in point, here's a blog entry from a soldier shortly after his return to Iraq from leave:

What the fuck has my chain of command been doing? We were winning somewhat when I left. And now we're being pinned down in our own fucking homes? Insurgents are pushing locals out of their homes and taking over my area at will? What kind of fucktarded plan have we been half-assedly executing? Obviously the kind that neglects sound contact with locals. Obviously the kind that gives further distance to unbridged gaps between soldiers and locals. Obviously the kind that has shown enough weakness when confronted by the insugency that it has been encouraged to grow.

Back home (the USA kind) I have no home, no job, and my commander in chief is on vacation (he's about 20 days behind Ronald Reagan right now in the race to become the most vacationing president ever. Hey W! we all got our fingers crossed! Here's to you and two more years of presidency...er vacationing!). Luckily pretty much everything that is important to me can fit into the back of a truck. Luckily I just paid off one of those.

His blog, One Foot in the Grave, no longer seems to be accessible. But the worst part about this is that he died two days after writing that August 13 entry. I'm sure that some Pat Robertson extremist cleric-type would claim this death as divine retribution for daring to contradict the will of the President, but, frankly, it's just sad.

It's the only way to live, in cars. Let me be succinct: Stop driving your gas-guzzling SUVs so that it doesn't cost me friggin' $35 for half a tank of gas! I'm going broke because Americans are selfish assholes who are obsessed with size and style over function and practicality.

And it's only going to get worse.

Boogie-woogie bugle boy of Company B. At first glance, it does look like the Blue is sucking it up, but I'm not sure my knee-jerk reaction stands up on closer inspection. Either way, it's an interesting comparison.

It's the end of the world as we know it. I realize that everyone is already aflutter over Pat Robertson's zeal for assasination, but I'm gonna jump on the band wagon just the same. Atrios and The Slog have some good discussions going about it. The award for Best Post-Robertson Embarassement Comment Made By Republican Congressmen goes to U.S. Senators Norm Coleman, Republican of Minnesota, and Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, for calling Robertson's comments "incredibly stupid."

But back to Robertson himself, this guy is more fucked up than I thought. He not only blames gays and feminists for 9/11, blames gays for no-fault divorce laws, believes feminism is witchcraft, and recently said that liberal judges are a bigger threat to the United States than Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. BUT, and this is my favorite, HE BELIEVES THAT GAY PRIDE PARADES WILL CAUSE EARTHQUAKES, TORNADOS AND POSSIBLY A METEOR!!!! I'm not kidding.

When the moon is in the seventh house. Here is my inane observation o' the day. I like that onanism is a classy word for masterbation. Language is awesome!

Also, go see "The 40 Year-Old Virgin." Best movie ending Ev.Er.

Shake it all up. To add to the list of ridiculous things I see while walking around Manhattan, on one of the lower tracks at Grand Central there are two posters right next to each other. One is for "Revelations," that creepy NBC apocalpyse show about a nun and Bill Pullman (Oh NBC, why do you have to abandon yourself to the Religious Right's siren call?) The other was for Harvey Fierstein starring in "Fiddler on the Roof."

If you don't see why I think that's funny, you officially don't have a sense of humor.

Hush. Shamelessly stolen from the slog:

Tired of the same old shoot-'em-up, mow-'em-down, rape-'em-to-death video games?

ABC News reports on the forthcoming wave of Jesus-friendly games, brainstormed during a recent conference of the Christian Game Developers Foundation.

"I think the majority of gamers out there just want to play a great game," said the group's leader Ralph Bagley. "They don't really necessarily need intestines hanging on a doorknob."

Among the non-intestinal offerings cited by ABC: The Bible Game, in which players race across the Red Sea to fight Goliath with a slingshot, and Catechumen, in which players use swords to convert Roman soldiers to Christianity to cries of "Hallelujah!"

Relatively harmless stuff, but if Christian game makers really want to compete in the marketplace, they're gonna have to amp the action quick. How about "Clinic Kaboom," where gamers blow up as many Planned Parenthoods as they can?

Full story here.

God bless the child that's got his own. Okay, I know I'm this big feminist and I majored in WOST, equal rights, etc. but I gotta say, being pretty is awesome! Today's example: I went to a gourmet deli to get a sandwich and the owner gave me a free iced coffee. I have no idea why. I told him I didn't want an iced coffee because I was trying to cut down on my caffeine, but he gave me one anyway. This isn't the first time this has happened. I've had people give me extra cookies or undercharge me for things just for being good looking. In these instances, my sense of moral outrage is diluted by my intense frugality. I'm telling you, you can go anywhere in this world by being attractive and personable. Up with inequality! It saves me money!

Everything in its right place. Is it existential drama? Is it inane rubbish? Make of it what you will.

Grunge: Somewhere out there are people with beer, chips, and pickles, and here I am at a rest stop alone with my doom.

I twitch and I salivate. So here is something I legitimately want feedback on, especially from all you Y-chromers out there. I'm thinking that TV and movies have lied to us. The days of simply meeting people in person are over. No one goes up to a random, attractive stranger and starts up a conversation. I'm starting to think that, aside from blind dates, online dating is the only way to meet someone. Of course, the drawbacks are that you walk into said relationship with the expectation that, at some point in the very near future, the two of you will be naked together. The other problem is you look at the person's profile and you start dreaming up what they might be like. But actually the person you're dreaming about is your fantasy mate, and you're just hoping said internet person matches your fantasy. You end up entering the whole thing with a set of expectations that you might not normally have if you met said cyber partner in person first.

So what do you think, cyber space? Has dating gone technological, or should I keep my faith in reality? Post thy thoughts below...

It feels like some sort of inspiration. Random things I saw yesterday while on my way here and there:

On my way to the bank, I was driving behind this old Camry whose back bumper was covered in stickers from these crazy death metal bands like Cannibal Corpse and Exhumed. All the band names had blood dripping off them. The best was Goat Whore, which actually depicted a woman entangled with a goat. I was quite amused.

At the Wachovia ATM stand in the Times Square Subway station, someone had removed the "via" part of the sign. I never wanted a camera phone so bad in my whole life.

I've been looking at rooms and such to sublet on Craig's List, and I found a post where this guy who wasn't in town much wanted three "young female roommates" to live in his apartment (he would sleep on the couch for the few days each month when he was in town), "escort" him to functions when he was in town, and... I can't paraphrase it. It's too funny:

In addition, also looking to have the little time in New York as fun as possible as I have no time for social life at all. Hopefully, roommates would be open to possible additional fun things while I'm around, such as occassional massage, walking around in lingerie, and just some minor enticements. I am not looking for sexual favors, just enticements that would make living in my apt. fun for that one week a month. Be as creative as possible as I will simply listen to offers.

For $200/month, it's not such a bad deal. Heh.

It's no good waiting for the sun. "There's nothing terribly wrong with feeling lost, so long as that feeling precedes some plan on your part to actually do something about it. Too often a person grows complacent with their disillusionment, perpetually wearing their discomfort like a favorite shirt."

Am I complacent?

Gonna burn this goddamn house right down. Okay, okay, okay, wait a minute. I was looking for jobs at Bust (for those of you who don't know, Bust is an indie feminist magazine that should create a position just so I can work for them...but I digress), and I noticed that they have personals. I'm thinking, "Why in the crap does Bust have personals? Do men actually put themselves on Bust personals?" And shock of shocks, they do. How about that. So I start looking around for my feminist life partner when I notice that I AM TOO FAT FOR ALL OF THE MEN ON THIS DAMN SITE. Yes, these men want women 5'6"-5'11" weighing not more than 130 lbs. I haven't weighed 130 lbs. since middle school. I AM TOO FAT TO DATE MEN WHO PUT THEMSELVES ON A FEMINIST WEB SITE! What. In. The. Fuck.

When the band played Hail to the Chief. I am underutilized here at work, but I thankfully have Craig's List to keep me company.

Dear Red States...

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon,Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.

Yeah, Spitzer! Pataki isn't running for a fourth term. His reign or retardation is over! I believe this calls for a fist pump. *Pumps fist in air*

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.
We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.
We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

I'd just like to interject that Harvard and Yale are Ivy League schools. Us Blue Staters are cocky but not necessarily bright. But hey, Women's Colleges aren't usually considered a boon. Seven Sister Pride!

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Yeah, but they get Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Bastards.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy b*****ds believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Peace out,
Blue States

I watch the pole dance of the stars. I wonder if prehistoric man had more "liberal" notions about human sexuality than we do. I mean, if your main worries in life are fending off starvation, hiding from predators, and trying not to freeze to death, sexual morality is probably not a big concern. I also wonder if these scientists are on to something or if they just have a dirty mind.

Also, a 30,000 year-old bird carved out of mammoth ivory? Holy shit!

Try to set the night on fire. An Algerian man, Ressam, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport during the 2000 millennium celebration. Seattle Federal District Court Judge John C. Coughenour gave Bush and the entire Conservative/Republican/Nazi party platform the finger here, don't you think?

I would like to convey the message that our system works. We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, or detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant, or deny him the right to counsel, or invoke any proceedings beyond those guaranteed by or contrary to the United States Constitution. I would suggest that the message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart. We can deal with the threats to our national security without denying the accused fundamental constitutional protections. Despite the fact that Mr. Ressam is not an American citizen and despite the fact that he entered this country intent upon killing American citizens, he received an effective, vigorous defense, and the opportunity to have his guilt or innocence determined by a jury of 12 ordinary citizens. Most importantly, all of this occurred in the sunlight of a public trial. There were no secret proceedings, no indefinite detention, no denial of counsel. The tragedy of September 11th shook our sense of security and made us realize that we, too, are vulnerable to acts of terrorism. Unfortunately, some believe that this threat renders our Constitution obsolete. This is a Constitution for which men and women have died and continue to die and which has made us a model among nations. If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won. It is my sworn duty, and as long as there is breath in my body I'll perform it, to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. We will be in recess.

Victims of the same disease. Switch the sexes on this baby, and it could describe my luck with the mens. What did Figgie say? I attract losers like moths to the flame?

I have the most supportive friends.

Nothing but blue skies do I see. The Smurfs are Belgian. How about that.

Everyone's favorite little blue cartoon characters, the Smurfs, are coming to the big-screen. Variety reports that Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Pictures will produce a 3-D CGI feature based on the classic Belgian comic-strip that spawned a popular NBC animated TV series in 1981. Producers hope to bring back Papa Smurf, Smurfette, Brainy, Jokey and Grouchy in time for the characters' 50th Anniversary in 2008. The film is also being conceived as the first in a trilogy of "Smurf" movies. Let's hope there isn't some "Dark Smurf" storyline worked in there.

I don't know about you, but the idea 3D CGI Smurfs give me the willies.

It varies from season to season. I'm at work, and I'm bored. I saw this on Gabbro's LJ and I thought it was funny, so I decided to do one myself. The idea is that you type the answer to the question into a Google image search and post the first photo that comes up. Enjoy!

Where were you born?

This is a picture of the South Bronx. According to Google, I was born in the projects. That should up my street cred, huh?

Where did you grow up?

The answer was "With my mother." HAHAHAHA!

Where do you live now?

Why did this come up for "with my father?"

What is your name?

What?!

What is your favorite food?


What is your favorite drink?


What is your favorite band?

or

or


What is your favorite scent?


What are your favorite shoes?
Seasonally...
v.

Where did you go to high school?


Where do you go to school now?


What is the prettiest place you've ever seen?

I'm praying for rain; I'm praying for tidal waves. Tricunda has the strangest writing style ever, but once you can decipher what she's saying, she doles out some pretty good food for thought.

Remember that no matter how good we are, nobody owes us solid-gold relationships or even a decent person to throw a hump at. There are zero guarantees or promises. Whether that's nature making us feel dumb, karma for taking a nice person for granted, whatever, the only fuck-over faith we can hold onto is that it ultimately will build us into the positive people we hope to attract through learning what bitch feels like.

With relation to Matty G.'s harsh tokery and getting his heart smoked by some broad over e-mail, his hell-feelers were heightened. As always when this happens, life lets out an aftershock ha-ha and calls the pit crew of stupid/annoying as shit people to whatever hole you’re trying to recover in. Like Mickey Mouse's sorcerer's apprentice brooms set to quimby* your fuckin soul.

I think it's totally admirable, Admiral, that you steered the Farter Charter to Pattern Island and took a telescope to who you’ve been doing the last nine years. Before you cut your ear off, paint this down on a canvas, hand it to the loudest person you know, and aim his or her mouth to the side of your head: THIS HAPPENS TO ALL OF US.

(*As a footnote, I was just told that someone who cups and smells his own farts is called a "quimby." Discuss.)

Also, I commend L(Y) for her supreme snazzieness:

Me: Love is never conventient
Her: ...yet

Crown thy good with Sisterhood. For all these reasons, I can be proud to be an American, courtesy of Humpy:

Blessing #1: We're not French!
Blessing #2: American girls dig hot tubs!
Blessing #3: Beer is cheap and plentiful!
Blessing #4: We have a "free press" that mercilessly harasses celebrities like Tom Cruise and Britney Spears on a daily basis!
Blessing #5: Porn is cheap and plentiful!
Blessing #6: Jessica Alba!
Blessing #7: Though the justice system doesn't really work, it does work if you're Michael Jackson!
Blessing #8: Very dangerous fireworks!
Blessing #9: Freedom of religion and the freedom to laugh at other stupid religions, like Scientology!

Time why you punish me. In addition to being kicked out of the Swells nest, I will soon be losing my FirstClass access. Fours years of emails will be poof in a matter of days. Alas. During the last meal I had with L(V) she mentioned a slew of long emails we sent back and forth while I was studying abroad last year. And, as she said, they are ridiculous. Here is a little blast from the dating past. Please laugh at it; we were full of crap:

L(V): About the guy thing, sometimes I really do think that lots of sex, eye candy, and the occasional snuggle is about all guys are good for, but I also recognize that I am very very disgruntled/apathetic/too interested in other things to be very hooked on the romance, so I totally take my own views with a grain of salt.

Me: In response to this, I have a new insight on our brethren, the American man. They. Are. Retarded. After spending a few months in France and now dating a...guy from Luxembourg, yeah American men totally suck. They are painfully insecure and fragile, prone to running at the slightest hint of intimacy or, heaven forbid, commitment (the dreaded word! I need garlic! holy water! where's Buffy? Protect me PLLLEAAASSSEEE!!!) yet they insist that we only have eyes for them and when we don't want anything serious, just want to chill out and enjoy their company and not have it be a big deal, they get all offended and can't cope even though it's EXACTLY WHAT THEY'VE BEEN BITCHING ABOUT WANTING!!!!! AAAAHHHHHHHH I HATE IT!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! Seriously dude, it's such total bullshit. And I have grown a serious allergic reaction to bullshit. So yeah, um, [I] will pass on the American man complex thanks.

Oh. My. God. We are so...Orchid first years who think we know everything about men! Gah run away! I don't know about you, but I certainly had a good chuckle at my own expense.

Thro' all her wealth of wood and waters, let your happy voices ring. I know what love is, and I can't stop feeling it.

"Go forth and live happily and well, as might true ladies, or real women, of the eternally full plate." -Patricia Williams

And, much less classy, from SaTC: "I'm not transitioning, I am happening."

To you, my dear Lazy Bums et. al. my life would not be worth living without you in it. Thank you.



WC '05!

I'm just a little girl-boy trying to make my way in a man's world. I realize that I tend to quote Dan Savage a lot in my posts, but I find that he always has something useful or important to say. So, here's another pearl of wisdom for all of you on how to get politically active and protect your reproductive and sexual rights:

To protect straight rights, NCAH, the first thing you need to do is vote—and make sure your friends and family vote too (unless they vote Republican, in which case you need to tear up their voter registration cards). But voting isn't enough.

"We live in a time when privacy is under attack, and sexual privacy is a prime target," Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, told me to tell you. "The list of offenses is long and growing: Politicians use billions of taxpayer dollars to withhold vital sexual-health information from teens, the FDA keeps emergency contraception under lock and key, and lawmakers sanction pharmacies' refusal to fill birth-control prescriptions. It is time to pull out all the stops and push back."

So how do you push back? Well, you could become a card-carrying member of the Americans Civil Liberties Union (aclu.org), along with People For The American Way (pfaw.org) and Americans United For Separation Of Church And State (au.org). To specifically protect your reproductive freedoms, you could join Planned Parenthood (plannedparenthood.org) and NARAL Pro-Choice America (naral.org).

But it's not enough to be a card-carrying member of these organizations, NCAH; you need to be an active member. When I called NARAL to ask 'em what you could do, Nancy Keenan, NARAL's president, suggested you get on the phone. "All Americans who value the constitutionally protected zone of privacy should call their senators and ask them to oppose Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor—judicial nominees under consideration in the Senate who illustrate the threat to individual freedom and personal privacy," said Keenan. "Federal judges are on the bench for life, and President Bush is determined to flood the courts with far-right judicial activists who are hostile to privacy."

Making phone calls and writing letters? Dull stuff, yes, but infinitely more effective than marching in circles around Washington, D.C.

If you sincerely want to get involved in the fight for gay rights, Jennifer Gerarda Brown, co-author of Straightforward: How To Mobilize Heterosexual Support For Gay Rights, had a few suggestions: "There are dozens of specific things that straight allies can do to promote gay rights," said Brown. "You can tell your kids that it's fine for women to love women and for men to love men. You can ask your employer to promise not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. You can work with your child's school to make sure that classes and course materials validate LGBT people. Engage people in your local churches, office, and government in this dialogue."

Now get busy.