Indulge me.

I know I'm probably the last one on the Mika train, but I can't stop listening to this sucker.

MIKA - Lollipop
Uploaded by Mika-official

More media? Ok.
In one of those "I do this only because it keeps my mother happy" moments, I agreed to get a senior portrait done today. Dressing makes me anxious, but I figure I can retain my dignity if I go for Rachel Maddow chic. A little femmier even! Look at me go, ma!


One more, then I promise I'm done.
Schedule for next quarter = SO SWEET. Tues/Thurs only, 11-5, plus a weekly meeting with Ed at some point. So little getting out of bed in the snow. Great great great.




After this I'll be done with every single requirement... technically I guess I have to take one class next quarter. This leaves me room for awesome projects like:

• Learn photoshop!
  
• Retake Creative Nonfiction!
  
• Make slam poetry night of magic happen with Eric!
  
• Further ingratiate myself with the writing department!
  
• Find a job!!!!!!
  

New reports show a high correlation between people who read a lot and people who are happy. Eat that, television. Also, there is a world outside of Chicago and it treats me a lot better.

Friday Bric-a-Brac

I am so sending my kids to this school. Run by the Blue Man Group! Creative thinking! Saying good morning in foreign and fictitious languages! Hell yes.


I could spend a highly amused afternoon listing off all the reasons I would fail the Obama team's background check. I'm already toast by number 13, because I have sent various forms of electronic communication that might be a source of embarrassment for the president elect should they become public. 14, have kept scandal-filled diaries. It gets boring through the financial sections, but picks back up again in the 50's when you're asked to list any complaint ever voiced against you by anyone. Government jobs, clearly not for anyone born into the internet age.

New York New York, perhaps I will find my fortunes this weekend.

Well I'll be...

Look who's expecting another kid.

T-minus one class til the weekend. Which I will spend in NYC. It will be interesting if nothing else.

Labor of Love

I know it's trashy as all get out (he was on Oprah, after all...) but I want to read this memoir SO BAD.




Coming to the library is no longer any sort of guarantee for getting work done.

Bloggers in Pajamas

Gotta love it when Rachel stands up for our rights:


I've had a rocky relationship with my pajamas this week. Yesterday I could not escape them. This morning is likewise proving difficult in the separation department. I got all excited this summer when the mono passed and I obtained something approximating an adult sleep schedule, but alas, once the temperature drops it would appear that my body reverts to teenager, "give me sleep all the time or I will make you miserable" mode.

This is a self-parking car.
This is a really beautiful Katha Pollitt poem.
These are Dennis Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment, which may seem like sour grapes now, but wouldn't it be great if our congress actually insisted on accountability...

No more shots at love

Having already readied the world for its complete acceptance and celebration of gay marriage, as evidenced by last week's elections, Tila Tequila is on to greater things. The world needs her. What a fucking humanitarian.



Sex as advertising is pretty revolting, but at this point normalized... if one tried to take issue with its every instance, nothing else would get done. But this is above and beyond. If people aren't going to move themselves to do something about a Human Rights crisis in Burma, Tila doing a strip tease isn't going to help. But hey, at least she minimized the issue. Plus that scene is surely illegal -- pedophilia much? American youth are just so damn apathetic, it'll take a little asian sexpot to get them interested in anything.

To whom is this ad NOT insulting? Ugh and ugh.

Happy Days / Forget Your Troubles

I'm trying, Judy.

Last night in Grant Park was unreal. I don't have much to say except that I am thankful. And I'm glad to have been outside the fence -- the hundreds of thousands there without tickets had absolutely no reason to show up, they were not the elite or the chosen to attend an exclusive party, they were just folks who wanted to be together and not alone when the world changed. I've got a hell of a lot of respect for that instinct. I'm glad Obama's girls are getting a puppy, too.

It's hard to fully celebrate, given the news on Prop 8. Rationally I understand that it's good that Obama elevated this election above the culture war, that his mandate will be based on issues and not identity. But it would have been nice if the country could have accepted some identities too. I am certainly grateful that the regressive abortion measures were defeated, but have a hard time reconciling that with Prop 8 and the other defeated Equal Opportunity measures. Do you think people are people, or not? We've got a long way to go.

Keyser and I also hung out with Robyn Schiff and Eula Biss last night. Oh hey, great American literary figures, what's up. It is pleasant and strange to realize people are invested in you, in whatever capacity. The word for the day really is grateful, isn't it.

Civic duty, check.

Keyser and I woke up at the buttcrack of dawn and dragged ourselves down to the polling station. The whole thing didn't take more than 45 minutes start to finish, and the line got shorter as the opening backup dissipated. Not bad at all. All that remains is to gallivant around town collecting free goodies from corporations who are glad I voted. And, you know, to pray a lot.

I feel ok. Squarely ok. Hopefully tonight will be restful.

i'll sleep when the polls close.

At the risk of sounding a bit angsty, or of sounding like a voter who (gasp) wishes to cast a ballot in her own self-interest, I'd like to register my intense ambivalence about what the fuck I'm going to do tomorrow morning. I think I know. I mostly agree with myself. But there's a part of me that isn't quite ready to rally and party and celebrate the matter. Barack Obama is a black man. He should understand the meaning of separate but equal. I find my values reflected in 95% of his platforms and policies, and my identity rejected by that lingering sliver.

Chances are good that I'll end up pulling the lever for straight Dems tomorrow, but I fully intend both meanings of that statement. My mom taught me that sometimes you have to vote against your interests to do what is right, and I can live with that. I just wanted to say it somewhere, you know? I don't want to have to wait much longer. I'd really like to get married in the foreseeable future and I don't think that's unreasonable.

toss turn toss turn

I'm finding it hard to sleep for nervousness about the election. Which is ridiculous. It was apparent in July that Obama had a lead significant enough that early in the game to all but guarantee victory, and that was before all this economy nonsense. Despite what the talking heads on the tv tell us, there is no realistic scenario for a McCain win. But Americans love nothing better than our scare tactics, and the Democrats are using them well in the final days of the race... if they didn't make a strong case to the public that the race was still tight, it would be harder to convince constituents to come out to the polls. So on a tactical level I appreciate what Axelrod and co. are doing, and am equal parts glad and terrified that the media are playing along... although I guess it's in everyone's best interest to play up the drama of the race. Everyone except, you know, those of us who experience debilitating anxiety that defies the rational mind. It will be fine. I just hope the culture of fear stops at the election, even if that fear is a unifier right now. It's no way to live.

This weekend was full of intellectual treasures. Yesterday we saw Anne Carson give a reading (?) at the Harold Washington Library. It was, needless to say, incredible. Classy broad. And it was oddly nice to look around and see the vast majority of Northwestern's creative writing community had all showed up. I can't think of a theater event that's ever had that sort of turnout. Today we saw Mark Doty and Achy Obejas, also through the Humanities Festival. It was smaller and queer-er, but still poignant and full of charm. Feeding the brain, feeding the brain. Hopefully this will help me write poems soon. Yes.

I also saw W. finally, with Chris. It wasn't bad as far as movies go... well plotted, high stakes, complex family relationships. As a matter of history though, I refuse to believe that the fate of the world came down to a guy trying to prove himself to be better than his dad. It just has to be more complicated than that, and the movie didn't cop to it. Also, I did not know that Cats is the president's favorite play. I'd have thought a republican would like something with a little more plot, frankly.