badgerbag: messy, surly, full of books

Seekrit tip for 12 inch ibooks

Anonymous tip from dude at Apple Store: for my old 12 inch ibook that started having intermittent shutdown failure, tape a sharpie or a pen to the underneath in a specific spot at a specific angle (lower left corner, cutting across the corner in a triangle) and push down on the lower left and upper right corners. He says that after you spend a couple of years picking the thing up with one hand, a short develops on one of the boards a nd it is somewhat fixable. and that his has that problem and it works fine as long as it's on a desk with the sharpie taped under it.

I wonder if it's even more fixable than that...

They're giving me a new MacBook because the old one had the latch failure and failure to sleep and then also weird intermittent total mouse freezes and shutdowns, AND the airport card kept cutting out in front of them. And I was just over the 2 week mark but they have a holiday special deal where around the holidays they swap it out for a new computer or some kind of "extended return policy" is in place. So, I'm super crossing my fingers that this model is not a lemon in general. My iBook 12 inch was absolutely reliable for 3 years. (Except for the power supply cord and battery.) High hopes and crossed fingers for the same luck with this new laptop.

MacBook problems and the DMV

I accepted that my old iBook was dead, and bought a new MacBook a couple of weeks ago. In the last week it has begun shutting down, perhaps at random, or perhaps because it doesn't actually sleep when I close it. And it's now crashed completely with a mouse freeze, three times. This morning I went to the Apple Store hoping that I could just hang around for an hour or two until someone had a free minute to look at it. I've done that before. But no such luck.

Instead, at least 6 different people told me to sign in - to go ask someone to sign me in - to sign in for procare - to go ask the genius bar people to look up my procare number - then that they couldn't help me. Each time I ran into a problem, I had to try to catch a new guy's attention and wait for them to be ready to talk to me. Then I'd get wrong, unhelpful advice and, "I'm sorry, I can't leave my station." When I tried to sign in on the "guest" computers I could not find anywhere to do that on the Apple Store web page; it turned out not to be there, but instead on the desktop if you close the windows and quit everything and click "concierge". Hello... non-intuitive, and there should be multiple paths. Then I was told by guy #5 to go to the studio area and ask those guys - then that I don't even have procare, I have Applecare extended warranty, and if I did have procare it wouldn't help anyway. "You should have signed up for an appointment from your computer, at home." Hey, dude, I would have, if my computer had been working. Then I got boiling mad and acted pissy, which I'm embarrassed about because I'm usually the soul of resigned helpful patience in that kind of situation, because not only is it politer, it works better. But I got mad... it was something about getting the runaround so many times in a row. Would it have killed them to say "So, what is wrong with your computer?" Instead.... "It's not like you can just walk in and get your car fixed the same day, or go to the DMV and get seen in 10 minutes," the Apple dude told me. Then they told me to go home and make an appointment tomorrow. I re-expressed my frustration and so finally the Studio guy made an appointment for me for tomorrow at 10am.

So I drove off slightly mollified but still in a huff, and mad at myself on top of that for having been a big jerk.

Coincidentally I was on my way to the DMV to pick up my new special license plates -- without an appointment and without the piece of paper they mailed me. Usually the DMV is like hell. It's usually dirty, noisy, frustrating, boring, kafkaesque, and inefficient. "Runaround" is the name of the game. So I tried to steel myself to be calm and patient and to hear "No" a lot. Instead I got there, got a number within one minute, and was seen by a helpful person in under 5 minutes. It must have been blind dumb luck, or rain, to walk cold into the DMV and hit it on an uncrowded day. They couldn't find my name in the database, or the license plate itself, though the person helping me looked it up many different ways. Then she *got up from her chair* and simply went to look on the shelf where the license plates were, found it in about 30 seconds, pointed me to another window, where I borrowed a screwdriver by turning in my license. I took the old plates off, returned the screwdriver and got back my license, brought them back to the first woman's window, got some papers, brought them to the 2nd window, got stickers, put them on, re-borrowed the screwdriver, etc. I was out of that place in 20 minutes.

The women behind the counter were intrigued by my "FMINIST" plates. "Oh good. Fight the good fight for us. You know that one woman, what's her name, married to Clinton..." "Hillary Clinton?" "Yeah. She'll be president. I think she's going to run. She seems pretty smart." That was a funny conversation.

Anyway, I'm sad that the user-friendly Apple Store turned out to be an annoying Kafkaesque experience while the DMV was pleasant - helpful - commonsensical - and actually helpful.

CAT scan; jury duty

The CAT scan went extremely quickly. I didn't fidget. While I was in the waiting room several very confused people in hospital gowns wandered in and out, asking loud incoherent questions... you wondered why they had been turned loose. One woman was very suspicious of the bathroom and why there was a sign that said "women" that looked like a bathroom sign but then it leads only to a locker room. "What do they want us to do, use the lockers like toilets? Where do I sign up for the exam? When it says exam on this form here what does it mean?" I answered her questions as best I could. But she was insane-o!

I like our local hospital because there is a lot of common sense and a minimum of bullshit. For example, they didn't make me take off all my clothes to get a CAT scan of my head. You can bet your labia jewelry they'd strip you naked as the day you were born at Staffnord Hospital, no matter what you said they were going to xray or how damned freezing it was.

I was shoved into the ez-bake oven of the CAT scan machine and watched the whirling magnety camera things for as long as I could before closing my eyes. "Don't swallow!" chirped the radiology tech. Immediately the urge to swallow was overwhelming. As I lay there I recited poetry and tried not to think about the pain in my jaw. I'm saying "jaw" but it is really my upper cheekbone to the southwest of my eye, near my temple. It's like a sinus infection or a bad upper molar toothache, but much worse.

Seeing photos of my own skull always makes me think of the surrealist Meret Oppenheim and her skull xray art thing. Doesn't she look kind of like she's smoking a cigarette? I bet she is. I've read before that she did this piece as a commentary on gender and art and portraiture.

About pain: I can function normally on a huge amount of pain, like a junkie on their drug... It's a willpower thing, and I have a lot of that. First you learn how to just live and endure pain. Then you add in a layer of optimism, cheer, and patience.

What really tries my patience is when people then treat me as if I must not actually be in pain, because I behave rationally and am working and walking around. Other people in chronic pain will know exactly what I'm talking about! You're damned if you complain and damned if you don't!

It strikes me that this winter my basic pain level is much improved. Usually I dread the rainy season because I ache severely all over, or at least in many horribly well defined places, as if I were Dr. Watson peppered by those Jezail bullets, and I think with a shudder of my future and wonder if I'll be doomed to live in Arizona. Arizona's not so bad, but I like San Francisco awfully much. I think my feeling better this winter is because my baseline of health and "being in shape" is steadily improving due to my iron will and determination to be extremely active.

Now I'm reporting as required for jury duty, in the civic center courthouse building basement. The security checkpoint seems to require about 20 officers to stand around nodding grimly, harrumphing. I watched a man humbly take off his shoes as we have been doing in airports for the last few years. Thank god no blaring TV screen telling us nonsensical procedure (as in the last few airports I've been in).

The jury duty assembly room is packed full of people. There's wireless! So I have a pleasant feeling of doing my civic duty while actually fucking off on the internets. Huzzah!

From the jury duty video training:

stirring martial music Jury duty! Civic heroes!
"We live in a state of great natural beauty. And harmony. And justice. But not always. (ominous music)
Joe Blow juror guy: You don't have to be afraid of jury duty. You get interested. You learn about the criminal justice system. And you are participating.

Even handed! We don't trust experts or single individuals to decide a case. No one person should have so much power. Instead we trust in the community! To make the right decision. This is our democratic ideal. Justice. Of the people, by the people, for the people. Civil vs. criminal cases. Common sense. Fairness. Impartiality. No special training necessary (except for this video!) " I was scared. I didnt' know anything about the law. And i had to wait around a lot. But, I brought a book. And it was okay. " Physical evidence. What is a bailiff? Deputies. The court reporter. HOw jury selection works. Swearing in; you promise to be truthful. The judge explains the trial. Do you have bias or prior opinion in the case or to the people involved? Privacy, confidentiality. You can ask questions of the judge privately. Lawyers asking about personal experience and personal questions. What "bias" means. Rules set by law in excusing jurors. Testimony... witnesses... What is truth? Everyday common sense. Closing statements by attorneys are not evidence; they are points of view to persuade you. Jury instructions from the judge, and explanations of the law and degrees of proof. Coming to agreement with complete strangers in deliberating. There maybe be a guidebook to help the 12 people on the jury organize themselves. It is your duty to give your opinion and to listen to others. It's important to speak your mind in that phase of the trial. On a civil trial, 3/4 of the jurors must agree. In a criminal trial, the vote must be unanimous. Everyone must agree. The end. The judge dismisses you. It's a deep and moving experience to be on a jury. You even might make friends! Tra la! It's not like a movie. It's a real experience! You have helped your community! Justice has been served! *martial music and trumpets again* *happy photos of california, law books, flags, and the constitution*

I love D.E.B.S.

Yow! I love this movie! It's hilarious and great, punky and queer and did I mention funny... campy... and serious as well in the best way of comic books. supervillains! serious lesbians! tough soldier women! love! betrayal! drama! big ridiculous guns! silly spy things! forcefields! gay-ass music but thank god not lesbian folk (barf me)! punk rock dance clubs! I liked the actors - the movie passes Bechdel's Law - great soundtrack - and the writer & director, Angela Robinson, rules. Now I'm dying to see the original short version.

OMG the diamond handcuffs!

Really this was a great comedy. Go watch it immediately!

After watching Moomin rate his recently watched movies on Netflix... Batman got 3 stars... Spiderman got 3 or maybe 4 on some episodes... and then he got to D.E.B.S. and gave it 5 stars, the highest rating. So after that I had to watch it myself and now I'm Angela Robinson's devoted fan!

Excuse me while I put a few more exclamation! points! in!

Technorati Tags: comics, movies, sciencefiction

Vote for BlogHer in the 2006 Weblog Awards!

As a contributing editor to BlogHer (World/Latin America and Caribbean) I'd like to ask that you vote (daily!) for BlogHer for best online community of 2006:

Vote daily for BlogHer as Best Online Community

If you like my coverage of Latin American women's blogs on BlogHer, or if you enjoy the many other amazing writers on that site, please click on over and vote for us!

I'm really happy and honored to be a small part of that fantastic community.

Technorati Tags: bridgeblogging, communities, blogher

Nice things that happened this week

I did a lot of complaining about the head injury and my jaw, so here are some of the nice things from this week:

- Moomin's whale dance and all the dances in that performance

- Moomin drawing a cool complicated picture and enjoying it, instead of staring at the page and complaining that he doesn't know how and that he wishes he could draw comic books

- Good long talk w/ Rook

- Hanging out with my sister

- Hanging with Jo while I wrote and she drew and the kids played nicely

- Went out to see The Fountain and liked it a lot despite cheesiness and some ugly racism and colonialism and general tormented-genius-white-guy-problems focus

- messing with my wiki install and structure, and discovering the wikichix

- Playing pinball with Shanana and singing punk rock songs at the top of our lungs in a bar - playing air hockey and galaga

- reading a book with the squirm-worthy title "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" and realizing it was fantastic

- Moomin's different hip-hop dances that he made up to "Spiderman", "Underdog", and "He's the Greatest Dancer"

- Getting Caraja's novel draft over email and printing it out and feeling all excited

- last but not least getting email from the author I'm translating!!! with friendly permission to publish!

Concussion aftereffects

I'm still feeling the effects of having a concussion. I'm basically functional, driving around and going places, but I need more rest than usual, and my head really hurts most of the time. "Something hurting" is not a reason for me to *stop doing stuff* - I am too used to that, I am easily bored, and for someone with tendencies to fibromyalgia and bad knees and various other joints-that-stiffen-up-painfully, it is a bad idea to lie in bed for days on end. So, I'm out and about.

But am feeling a little freaked about the continuing effects. My brain doesn't quite feel the same. When I start to try to talk it's a bit molasses-feeling, and I've been stammering a bit. Once I get going and warm up it's okay. But this is a weird and disturbing effect. I feel a little "underwater" in my head. It's really hard to explain, but...

Anyway I'm going to the dr. this afternoon. And I was going to read at the Shotwell gallery benefit tonight but might not make it, if they are x-raying my head and I don't have a long rest period before going out, then I probably shouldn't.

My jaw is also improved, but not quite normal fast enough for me not to worry. I can chew, but it hurts. And it is difficult/painful to open my mouth wide enough to take a reasonable bite even of something soft. On the pain scale I would say that my head is at 4-8 - never not aware of it, and at times nearly unbearable and i must lie down and can only think of it. The jaw is more like 2-5. I have difficulty with focusing my eyes, a bit. Again not major and not impossible, but it is a constant strain.

I think all those things are nothign to be freaked out about, they are expected in recovering from a concussion, but just so I won't go the weekend again wondering if blood is seeping into my brain or my jaw is fractured slightly, or something, I'm heading off to the doctor for a bit of reassurance.

Up early feeling tormented

Cold, snoring, cats leaping on me in a 4am frenzy, my knee hurting, weird dreams, and then I was tormented by various memories, letters written and unwritten and ones I was writing in my head, things unsaid, times I haven't listened, love unexpressed through action and caring, everything and everyone I have neglected, poems unfinished, translations in the middle of the 4th draft but not good enough, and thoughts of all, all, all the work undone that I want or need to do.

Aside from all my projects and things, I need to do the basic job of putting my papers and books in order. It's funny because it's a job I've done very competently for other people many times as temp work or just being helpful. But for myself it's a million times harder. Anyway, I need to get serious about it and go through everything. What if I died and left things in such horrible disorder?

After the 10th time of trying to compose my mind for sleep which I so desperately need in order to do any of the things that, undone, torment me, I gave up and now I'm at the table with computer, drinking some hot milk.

Technorati Tags: insomnia

My retirement account

My IRA just shot up massively this year so it went from piddly to just a little bit more of piddly. I think putting it all into one high risk fund that depends on cell phones in China was a good idea.

I feel weird & guilty about this - all that money just laying around??? But also guilty that it's too little for someone my age. It is now 8,000 bucks which for almost-40... I think that blows. And if I were suddenly disabled I think b/c of not working for so long I would not get much for benefits (where, before, when I was on disability, it was vaguely enough to live on in a squalid sort of way. LIke $1000/mo. even with my job having been not very well paid. (It is higher, the more money you made as your salary.) But without having worked it would be like 300 bucks a month. Enough to buy your tampax, toothpaste, and liquor as you live in the shelter or group home, maybe...)

And I wish I had not had to take out the retirement money I had built up from all my working through college. Blah!!!

But - My friend J. was just here visiting and he said that actually if you are married... the law right now is that surviving spouses get their partner's social security if it is higher. Even if you get divorced, if you were married at least 10 years you still get it. No one is divorcing anyone or dying, but it was kind of nice to know that I'm not completely screwing myself in my old age by this 5 years of little or no work and full time school-and-momming. As I contemplate it I think of class and heterosexual privilege and, as I said, feel weird and guilty. I hope I'll be working at least part time, soon, and will feel like I'm pulling in money on my own again.

Flushed with pride

The city installer dude just came out to give us our free low-flow toilet. It seems quite splendid - the old one was at least 30 years old and the handle was broken. So, a fabulous deal, free toilet, free install. Fast & a nice guy. He also offered and installed free low-flow massaging showerhead and a thing that replaces the tip of the kitchen faucet, which rotates and sprays and pretty much gives you a blow job while it's at it.

I commented to him that it's a nice job to have to give people free stuff and he said that's what he likes about it - people are so pleased - I am certainly ridiculously so. Plus you get to feel virtuous about the "low-flow" bit.

This morning my head feels way better! I'm alert and working and full of Ideas! What a relief! Also, I can chew almost normally. If I move my head too fast it's not pleasant - and I think I might need a nap in the afternoon. But I'm almost back to normal!

Jam just sent me a nice letter and a slab of chocolate with the seattle skyline. Sweet! Mysterious references to Naked Biking photos. How appalling! and, ouch! Still, it has a certain appeal to think of.

Convalescing with computers

I'm feeling a lot better. Tomorrow I am hoping to be totally back on my feet. I've slept a ton... and was walking around today, dazed, spacey, with a headache, able to eat a little bit... though I still really wish I had a lot of good soup.

- did laundry

- washed dishes (harder than it sounds, involves bending over)

- blogged a bit, read a bunch of blogs, messed with my wiki

- hung out with Pilot & Peanut (the hard part, paying attention socially, I am too spacey)

- read another Pamela Frankau book, The Foolish Apprentices, where everyone was hideous and I wanted to slap them all and it seemed again like *all the same people as in Dance to the Music of Time* but with different names. There really were only about 100 people in England at any one time. Can I just add how very strange it is that they should have people lay their clothes out for them and run their bathwater and bring them breakfast in bed, and that was just "normal"??? In Shaken in the Wind the British characters comment on how odd it will be to go to America where people make their own beds and have shiny refrigerators. I guess the people who made their beds for them and then went home and made their own beds were not "people". It is more and more clear to me that their sense of their own worth and entitlement and upper class status was (is?) based on their aesthetic sensibility. This should make us all very suspicious of aesthetics and our judgement of what is "good".

- read more Scrooge McDuck, which was fabulous. I didn't realize Scrooge had such depth of character! The obsessive world-building pleased me no end... all the tiny details! And then, Scrooge with Templars.

- shamefacedly wished i had the third "Sabriel" novel. Why?

- napped in between all of that for short intervals.

- need: cat litter (desperate!) - soup - bread - cheese - something nice like olives -

Invisible ninjas

Rook insists it was ninjas who bashed me in the head. "Did you *see* any ninjas?"

"No..."

"Well then! That proves it!"

I have been reading and writing a bit all day and then I fall asleep ... in 20 minute to hour long naps. I have tylenol now and I think could manage noodles.

For food I had some custard (4 eggs, 2 cups milk, 1/4 c honey, plenty nutritious) and some ritz crackers with cheese, which I could eat without chewing in tiny bites if I just sort of waited for the crackers to dissolve.

Oh, bored, bored, bored....

Trying to be: patient, good, cheerful, nice, brave
Feeling: hurty, scared, shaken, bored, whiny, lonely, irritable, hungry

Necromancer teenage angst books

I'm enjoying "Lirael" way more than Sabriel. Though I still want to make fun of it just as much, now I'm getting why it's fun. I can't ignore the stupid, but fun is in there anyway.

The book opens with a swirl of psychic priestess boarding school angst as the 14 year old orphan Lirael spirals into suicidal despair on her birthday because she doesn't yet have "the Sight". When she climbs up a thousand stairs to the top of the mountain glacier to throw herself off... instead she gets caught up there by the head priestesses, who assign her to be an apprentice Librarian because she doesn't have any talent and is shy. lo & behold she turns out to be a genius powerful magician and learns everything about the library and hacks her way into all the secret doors & etc.

The only thing missing really is some detail about how she is considered ugly because of her nose-freckles or her heavy red hair and unusual green eyes and being too skinny - but really I don't miss it and the book is just .001% better for not having it. The key thing is the detail of the angst and self-pity and envy as Lirael imagines the triumphant 11 year old classmate who just got the Sight today and wil be crowned with a moonstone tiara in the warm Great Hall right at the moment when she herself will be flinging herself off the top of the glacier to an icy despairing death. Oh yeah! And then - all the ways she decides to lie about nearly everything and invents elaborate cover stories.

I'm in the middle now after reading the bit about the Prince who is clearly her destined lover - battle with zombies, journey into death, a few moments of trench warfare, and some confused stuff about boarding school and cricket - Oh just one example of the badness. why is his sister described as his "fourteen-month-older sister"? WTF? do we care? just say she's a year older? is the 14 months important? And when the zombie grabs that other kid by the neck and "shook him like a milk shake"? I had to look twice - snake? shake? Does anyone shake a milk shake - no - they mix it in an electric mixer as far as I know - And who or what would describe shaking something by the neck to kill it as "like a milk shake" - so dumb. Details like this drive me insane.

Anyway now back to Lirael who suddenly is not only a happy though lonely librarian genius of magic but has a superpowered magic dog companion and also now she's 18 and can change into an otter, a bear, and a barking owl. you heard me. a barking owl.

Hahhahaaha!

***
Oh I spoke too soon about the lack of physical description and "un"beautifulness and not fitting in:

In just a few minutes she would be plain Lirael again, with her long, unruly black hair so unlike that of her blond- and brown-haired cousins; her pointy chin so much sharper than their round faces; her pale skin that would never tan, not even in the harsh sunlight reflecting off the glacial ice; and her brown eyes, when all the Clayr had blue or green...

oh horrors! a pointy chin! waaaaaah! how can she not die of shame! no wonder she hides behind her hair all the time in the depths of the library! Oh excuse me... the "Library", since everything in this book has Capital Letter Disease.

Hottie priests and funny comments

Calendario romano - a calendar of priest cheesecake. The best part of this: click on the comments button!!! OMG! 40 pages of gay dudes from Europe and Latin America, and women named things like "Mary Frances", saying "sexay!!!! bless me father!" and making jokes about going to confession right away.

Best comments:

As a strong Roman Catholic, and a family man, I'd like to say that
if I were the creator of this calendar, who I don't even know a thing
about (I'd like to learn about the history of this calendar), but if I
were him, I'd get down on my knees...and blow each and every one of these
men.

and (excerpt...)

....My Mom and I first climbed on our knees those 28 steps. On top of the stairs on the left sight we went to a small store where you can buy rosaries, crosses, e.t.c. Three old nuns were sitting there. My Mom bought sth and asked one of the nuns where she could find a priest, cause she wanted to have something blessed. While I was looking at a book I suddenly heard my Mom talking to a man, I turned and could hardly believe my eyes, cause I looked into the face of the most handsome young priest I have ever seen in my life! About half an hour later my Mom and I went to the evening mass in the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, during the mass my Mom suddenly pinched me and whispered in my ears: "Look!". I turned my head to the left and saw this Adonis of a priest again. I definitely go to Rome this September again!
The priest on the front cover of 2006 is definitely my favorite priest...

oh and,

Avec son air intellectuel, sa figure hyper sexy, son regard pénétrant et sa bouche !!!! oh là là, qu'il est beau !!!!

you don't really need to know French to read that, do you?

and then there's the comments requesting another calendar of Anglican bishops.

Let's just take a moment to celebrate the general weirdness of people everywhere. Wow.

Fireworks, twice

parade and fireworks
Originally uploaded by Liz.

The parade and fireworks were great. But on the way home I walked into a pole and I think have a slight concussion... fuzzy-headed, dizzy, and very bruised. My head was sideways - looking at Moomin - and my temple and jaw went smack into a signpost. Something is not quite right about my jaw... walking seems to jar my whole head very horribly and it just feels all 'wrong'... The other time I had a concussion for real, i blacked out and vomited, and I don't feel that bad - but also, worse than "bumped my head". i am not sure if I can chew. Rook and Moomin are going out to a party. so... i am a little unnerved at being alone.

***update ***
I feel a lot better, but still can't chew, not even noodles. Custard & soup for me...

Send a teenager on civil rights activist history trip

Donate a few bucks to my friend's class trip. It's for the Sojourn Project - which takes high school students on a 10-day trip across the South, retracing the U.S. civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s.

A. is a great kid, 16 years old, and works her butt off to help her family and earn money for college. She started helping her mom in babysitting jobs for me and so many other people I know, years ago... she must have been 11 when I first met her, and since she was 14 or so she has been working independently, able to charge what an experienced adult would charge. Really that shouldn't have anything to do with it, but it has always made me admire and respect her... Here's the link to paypal or credit-card whatever you can! Really a worthy thing to do!

I notice that the Sojourn Project itself takes donations which it uses to underwrite the costs of taking kids on these trips.

Sojourn to the Past offers students, educators and parents the chance to travel for ten days through the South visiting the most dramatic sites and hearing the speakers that first witnessed and created the civil rights movement. This journey is important not only for the historic value, but more importantly to teach the real lessons of the movement — tolerance, justice, compassion, hope, non-violence and to help students today put those lessons into practice back at home.

So cool.

Technorati Tags: activism, history

Who wants a music and poetry cd?

Email me now with your address if you want a fun cd for a winter solstice present! Poetry & music, a very random assortment...

(at this address)

I haven't made the mix yet, but I'm plotting what it will be!

International internet formality

It is embarrassing, a little, when I write a formal letter and get back the cyberspanglish equivalent of "yo, wassup dawg, good idea, c u l8r, xox". Then I feel like a huge fool!!! and like I got caught being super bogus!

But then it's a huge relief, no more "estimado..."

Really funny sometimes! I wonder if there is a generational cutoff for that - the informal replies are usually but not always from 20-somethings.

Looking for an arty person for a logo design

Anyone out there want to make me a cool logo for my wiki of women writers? I would like it to be sort of punk-ish and cut-up style with images and words... maybe a bit album-coverish in its aesthetic.

artists? collage artists maybe especially?

Companionship and geekitude

Today was bad-ass mamas coffee hour - I wrote for a while first, then went and talked books, held babies, heard a complicated story of property easements and meanie neighbors, everyone's thanksgivings including dinner analysis and family interrelationships. Then went off to lunch with Debbie and had to leave all too soon. We talked about wikis and ideas and feminism and grants...

Moomin dances with his class in a Whale Dance on Saturday in the town parade. I can't wait. What is the Whale Dance? We're burning with curiosity. Demonstrations are not forthcoming. The Whale Dance happens when it happens.

Now I"m going to spend a little while cruising the Mediawiki plugins. Oh, they're all so tempting! Which ones to use?

A really good day

I woke up feeling like myself again, regular and chirpy and centered. I listened to super great poetry all morning - Amiri Baraka, Anne Waldman mostly, & made a playlist of stuff that went together that was fierce & beautiful - especially riffing off Baraka "cowards" which I must find the text of. It kept making me laugh uproariously.

Some work, some writing, a bunch of applying for jobs. I am feeling very open either to teaching or tech work. Eating is still really tough but I'm going on Prilosec which should help.

Took Moomin to "Happy F33t" - a trip - walked there in the crisp sun with the Pilot and Peanut - She is 2.5 now and very prattly and wiggly in a charming way. It was her first movie theater experience ever! Moomin liked it but howled with huge sobs & sympathy when the penguin got thrown out by the penguin religious patriarchs and by his own dad. He couldn't bear it! Absolutely lost his cookies with sorrow. "Happy" my ass... that movie was intense. If it was not being outcast leper unclean it was all about the terror of falling or sliding down ice tubes with ice boulders or being underwater with red-eyed evil sea leopards chasing you or choking on accidental garbage.. and then the hallucinating in jail, I mean, the zoo, oh man. That was intense. You're in jail! Hallucinating! Watched by aliens! Dance, dance, motherfucker!

It was like that.

Lord knows what Peanut made of any of it. The penguins! They're singing, momma! What happened? The penguins is dancing onna ice, momma! (Dear Peanut, it is sort of about desperate tap-dancing in the face of globalization & imperialism, on top of that eco-message thing. Don't worry, you'll understand it later. It will still be perturbing and confusing though.)

But fortunately with a happy ending (!?) and another big dance number & we came out dazed and pleased into the evening.

Oh and good news- there are cream puffs now right next to the theater.

It's not plagiarism! It's research!

Ian McEwan and Lucilla Andrews - notice the headline? Andrews is "romance novelist"... or a mere memoirist... While what ripoff artist McEwan does is apparently prizewinning literature. I don't care if he gave an acknowledgement - he stole the words and the very life of a person - to fictionalize her autobiography without even telling her, or asking her, and to do it so very nearly in the same words.

What creative writing prof, what teacher of any sort would accept this as not plagiarism, even if the work included a thank-you?

Excerpt from Atonement, by Ian McEwan...

"In the way of medical treatments, she had already dabbed gentian violet on ringworm, aquaflavine emulsion on a cut, and painted lead lotion on a bruise. But mostly she was a maid."

Excerpt from No Time For Romance by Lucilla Andrews...

"Our 'nursing' seldom involved more than dabbing gentian violet on ringworm, aquaflavine emulsion on cuts and scratches, lead lotion on bruises and sprains."

and this priceless quote from McEwan:

It is not plausible to invent patient traumas, medical procedures, hospital routines, or details of training, especially when they are more than 60 years old.

Right - it's not plausible at all to invent such things - unless you are a NOVELIST. Who writes FICTION.

What a fucking twit McEwan must be - not even to realize the enormity. Of course it is also fine to do this to "natives" as well as women... or the poor... get their stories, fancy them up according to elitist standards, and call it art. While the art of the original person is a mere animal howl, a pointless gibbering, a source material, a raw material to be mined without question.

I spent an hour or so this morning reading Occasional Superheroine, and I highly recommend it. Though that combined with Lucilla Andrews' story (dying before giving her pissed off debunking speech! depressing!) might make you come near to where my mood is. So I warn you where my mood is. Nothing we ever do will "count" - get it into your heads - and then rage against it all your life as you struggle against the damage in yourself and try to survive and create something. Not to mention the flashbacks to my own torn cervix and lying on my floor bleeding for days. Why can't you be more polite? Gee I dunno!

Back to "work" to do something minor and trivial... because of course typing this doesn't "count" either. And so I move from one un-counted uncounting thing to the next, busybusy. I am out of belief today. It might be a good day to translate some poems about the chilean dictatorship, with that anger; they will also never count. I feel so trapped.

Trivial annoyance

I hate when I order hot chocolate at a cafe and the counter guy asks if I want whipped cream and I say no thanks and he looks me up and down and nods a little and smiles as if confirming to himself that I am probably "on a diet" and he expected as much. And there is a superciliousness of the person thinking either I am that obsessed with my food intake or that i should or should not be dieting or denying myself the richness of whipped cream. I can't even tell if they are thinking I'm fat and therefore it's good that I'm denying the whipped cream or if they're thinking I'm skinny and it must be because i'm uptight or virtuous enough to deny myself the whipped cream. I can't tell which way they're going with it, but they obviously are going in one of those directions.

No, you dumbfucks. Check it. Sometimes I want whipped cream and sometimes I don't and that is fucking all.

What the fuck, Newt Gingrich?

Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.

"We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade," said Gingrich, a Republican who helped engineer the GOP's takeover of Congress in 1994.

Then he recommended expanding war in Iraq to "pull in" Syria and Iran. (What, what, what, world war?) Yeah that'll work! How about if we attack every country whose name starts with an "I" or an "S" just to top it off?

Then he bitched about how if Rumsfeld had got the boot earlier then Repubs would have won the elections. And we would all be safe. For war. Because ... i forget the because... and then Newt could run for president in 2008 with NO PROBLEM.

Yes you heard me! He thinks he's running for president! Yes that's right because everyone in this country would just *love* to have free speech eliminated (except for corporations and churches I guess) and to be in an even bigger war for years and years! That's what we want, really! Because otherwise we might "lose a city".

Hey wait, didn't we already lose a city? It was called New Orleans?

What the fuck!

"thanks" to bellatrys for the link.

Filling out job apps; grades

I am filling out job apps for part time teaching jobs and suddenly a yukky bitterness about those A minuses. 3.89, so close. I hate that! Goddamn it!

Still scarred like hell from being grounded 6 weeks every time I got a B in jr. high.

A minuses... as I contemplate my transcript I think I could justify one of them for sloppiness, but the others I think were based on the personally high expectations of the profs of me and not on how I did in any absolute scheme of things. If someone else had written my papers they would have given them a plain old A. But because they expected me to be some big ass genius because I can shoot my mouth off well in class, I got A minuses... that's how I feel about it. I worked so hard, had fucking original ideas and huge ambitions, why not give me the perfect grade, assholes? INstead of sticking me in underachiever hell for the rest of my life as I have to write down that number, 3.89, so close. If only... if only... too sloppy... better checking... more feedback loops... not good enough.

I know it's petty and maybe doesn't matter but it matters to me.

A few feminist seeds scattered to the wind and you

The documentary Paris Was a Woman, about just a few of the women in Paris in the early 1900s and especially the 20s; writers, painters, poets. I especially liked the interviews with photographer Gisele Freund. The tension between Stein and Beach as Beach suddenly turned to throw her weight of attention, of critical attention and great-man-making, behind Joyce and people like Hemingway who she decided was a big fat genius before he had written a single stitch. I ranted a long time last night about the poisonous sexism of Joyce and how the poison is worse when it is in an elaborate feast. That fuckhead. I want you to just think for a minute about how good Ulysses is, and it's damn fucking good, and then about how he produced it while knowing SO many genius interesting articulate politically and artistically aware women and what women characters does he write? Not any who have a thought in their head - a dumb teenager who confusedly tolerates a masturbating creep on the beach and an illiterate slut taking a shit. I could slap him. (And also could slap every person who's ever pointed out Molly Bloom to me as an example of a female character I could love in great literature. (and no I said no I won't No) I can love the book and admire the talent but hate the dreadful vindictive poison -- as well as the thing in Joyce and so many other writers of dicklit that makes them gather masses of mediocre sycophants to make themselves look better - unable to tolerate other actual geniuses especially women with strong personalities. It is just that sort of person who becomes a "great" writer, unfortunately - something to keep in mind as a sour-grapes comfort as the most of us head straight to being Minor Poets. Think how irritated I am as I continue to digest Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red and the magma builds up in my fevered thoughts. Oh! The more beautiful and excellent the art, the worse the poison is and the madder as hell I get.

It was funny to be watching it with my partner who didn't really know any of the writers or painters even the most famous ones. Joyce and Stein, their names, but not their work at all and he had never heard of Sylvia Beach. That puts it all in perspective, doesn't it? I plotzed when he said "H.D.??? Who?"

To get the taste of all that out of your brain try downloading some of this:

Free mp3s of Adrienne Rich reading from Diving into the Wreck and other works - from the Pennsound archives. On the very long file, the 38 minute one, it sounded a little like Di Prima introducing her but then I decided it wasn't and the accent was just a bit similar. It's nice to have the huge file of the entire reading in my iTunes. I love hearing her inter-poem comments, nerdy little snippets about greek drama and patriarchy.

Oh, and if anyone happens to have some recordings of Di Prima's early readings I'd love to have more of them. I have her doing a few of the Revolutionary Letters; they're so flamingly fiercely beautiful!

Elisa speaking up about biological determinism. Very lovely!

The uterine madness continues

Yesterday I was feeling very strange and kept sinking into a hideous edgy despair and wondering why. Like "wtf, why am i not happy at this very moment, when i should be? i suck! everything sucks! i especially suck! why do i feel like I want to sink into the ground?" and then while typing the words "I can't figure out why I feel so horrible" into ichat and wondering whether I blamed myself, the patriarchy, Darth Vader, or YOU... I realized I was pmsing yet again because it is the exact end of the month and then this morning I woke up bleeding and needing to levitate to the bathroom like that julie doucet cartoon. With this nasty crampy bitchy feeling I think I could kick the ass of the entire world. In fact possibly Godzilla was on the rag. If I weren't already convinced by the strangeness of nursing that hormones influence your mood -- because I'd get all antsy and anxious and weepy and hot-footed feeling if I didn't nurse regularly enough and then Moomin would nibble away and it was like a shot of smack right into the vein - Ahhhhhh - calm!!! --- then I'd be convinced now because regularly every month I start feeling like it's a giant battle to keep my usual cheerful optimism in place. Somoene twitches their finger and I want to cry because of the possible heat death of the universe or the pathos of kittens. It's that bad. Then I wondered whether I should be more physically active and had a little pointless fantasy that I should have kept my truck and set up a light hauling business. I pictured myself way in shape and with magically healthy back and knees, hauling bricks to the dump, wearing a battered jumpsuit as I cleaned out other people's garages again with magic non-allergies to dust, right down to the Amazon Light Hauling business cards. I may have shed a tear at this vision as well. I tell you, the day before my period I am insane.

Dude at least that fucking IUD is out and the bleeding part is completely reasonable now with only one "heavy" day. I look forward extremely to menopause.

I will drink a ton of coffee and take some tylenol and try to not sink into the semi-comatose "blah" state. I'm past "despair" and now into "oh, whatever, stare at ceiling" but would really, really, prefer to work today, to go through my notes form the trip and email people and work on some translations, and my new fabulous wiki. In fact I'd like to get the synchronized desktop mediawiki all working so i can work offline on it and do a push up to the server every so often! Think how nice that would be!

Paris Was a Woman

This movie is great - a documentary about women in early 1900s Paris - Stein, Beach, Monnier, Colette, Barney... omg I'm swooning. How they were all reading "Songs of Bilitis" - omg damn!

am remembering bitterly the prof, Virginia something orother, at U.Tx who gave me a shitty grade b/c i kept saying and writing that there were women poets and painters in paris at that time. and she there weren't or that if there were a few they were unimportant and freaks. in a class called painters and poets in 1920s paris. no women studied in that class. taught by a woman.

more later. must watch, i can't understand the french really without looking

***

Berenice Abbott, Gisele Freund, Djuna Barnes, Natalie Barney, Sylvia Beach, Adrienne Monnier, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Colette, Janet Flanner, painter Marie Laurencin

(and Matisse, Picasso, Hemingway, and James Joyce)
janet - "Genet" in the New Yorker for 40 years
eiline grey
Ada "Bricktop " Smith -
lee mayer
josephine baker
h.d. came every single day - to the bookshop
paul valery
Natalie barney "L'Amazone" fri. afternoon salon - american heiress
renee vivian - opera , louys!!! biliitis! yeah!!!!
Romaine Brooks

book of photos or an exhibition by gisele freund with photos of like, every dude in paris, plus: marie bonaparte, elizabeth bowen, victoria ocampo, vita sackville-west, virginia woolf, bryher

yeah Bryher!! yeah ocampo!

stein on living in france - "they are living their lives. so your life can belong to you." this made me think of what a friend of mine said about going to europe and realizing that this whole channel in his brain just stopped... the awareness of specific american racism against black men... that voice stopped talking and he was able to be, without it. (part of that cultural but part being about not knowing the language so well)

Fooling with the computer

I'm fooling around with my computer and marvelling at my good fortune and the magic of credit cards. My old hard drive stayed alive long enough to transfer all my files and settings.

Moomin is sick so I had to stay home instead of going out to the Double Dutch night at the Transfer as planned... I was going to drop him off at Rook's rpg game but then... well, he might just be having super bad allergies but I had the horrible mental image of dropping him off all sniffly and coughing and then breezing out in a slutty leather-pants outfit and could not quite bring myself to do that. So I stayed home with him, gave him cough syrup and extra decongestant/antihistamine, and played "Talisman" for many many hours.

I read about half of "Black Powder War" & slowed down on purpose. This series could be stretched out pretty much forever. I mean you could just go all over the world and history adding dragons in, and it would be fucking perfect. No, you know what would be fucking perfect... this series with a group of teenage mystery-solving boarding school girls with dragons.

part of why I slowed down was that I suddenly realized that it was setting up for Young Roland and perhaps the tibetan guy and his girlfriend to get the firebreathing dragons. yes i realized it in a blinding flash during the dinner scene at the girlfriend's house.

Meanwhile, Twitter is fucking fascinating, more than you'd think... chat room with built in stalking, straight to your cell phone... I can't wait till it senses where I am on GPS, sends me localized coupons, and fits into my underwear. No but seriously. I can see a lot of functions. One you just want to sort of feel popular in a shallow way, part of the fabulous gratifying thing about all the social software. (Or, twitter seems to provide for feeling unpopular and enjoying it as well... Like how I kind of enjoy seeing little messages pop up about what bar or cool restaurant Min Jung is going to every night even though I am totally way more enjoying being in my pajamas and don't even know her that well, I get to vicariously enjoy her life. Perhaps in the bar, she would like to know about how I'm reading in the bathtub... So, a pleasant social herd feeling of being aware of your neighbors; I enjoyed the mutual knowing of everyone's business we had in my old housing co-op. Not for the un-gregarious. What else? Groups of private friends... sure. General chat room... okay. Do I really want my cell buzzing 100 messages about what people are randomly thinking? Sometimes yes. What is it about, the impulse to announce what we're doing? A narcissist frenzy. Being stuck on broadcast. Generations above us accused us of having short attention spans ruined by television and other bits of pop culture and this is what happens. We produce a collective literature, a collective 5 seconds each memoir, and pay attention to it at other random moments in selective streams, in customized chopped up bricolage... So that 30 years from now someone could construct their slice of "what x group of people were doing"... We are making ourselves into data. I like "gabology" for a term. If you see this sort of mass conversation as a literary medium then what? I need to go read "The Masses are Asses" again... it fits right in.

There could be whole channels... the poet-line channel, the angst channel, the emotey flirty channel that treats it like "socials" in a mud. it looks so amorphous to me but i feel like i could shape it to be whatever... a conversation of ideas or a "my cool life" report...

Really I'll just fool with it for a bit and then flit off to be fascinated wiht something else. Perhaps if it were integrated with flickr. but people's information streams are so wide that it coudl be difficult. none of us can really pay enough attention in the moment. and yet afterwards it is often good to be able to look. you meet someone and talk and then go home and look up all their shit. and they're just fascinating. And I may never really get to know them in real life even though they also seem to find me super interesting. And for me the net result is this amazing feeling like I love people more or have a bit more trust that there are a lot of friends or simpatico people out there than I thought; it's a feeling of abundance... I felt that with usenet and bbses and muds, and way more with the web and blogging, and this social stuff and especially Flickr give me that feeling even more. It's actually not all about the "yay, pay attention to me!" though I make fun of myself for that as a motivating force. It's also about gratifying the part of myself that is like 11 years old and flipping off the school bus yelling "Fuuuuck yooou!" & was so alienated. Assuaging that alienation does seem valuable & has a point. & it's a push, a motivating force, that drives our culture forward in unpredictable directions. The privileged few people who are dabbling right now, well, you can make fun of us, but it's spreading & twitterish things will be in more use (as they already are) than computers or the web.. and I believe in it for direct use for activism as well as a connection machine that will bring social change. i see that social change most in places on LJ which is a giant fucking hotpot of consciousness-raising groups, where people are talking feminism and anti-racism and all sorts of stuff like mad, and I really feel it when I read the blogs of trans teenagers who are having their coming out moments so young, like me coming out as queer...but with SO much backup. It means something when you know people have got your back.

I'm off to the bathtub to finish reading Naomi Novik's Black Powder War and I seriously hope there are like 20 sequels to it. It is like "in bed" on fortune cookies. Take any period in history and add "with dragons" to it and it becomes way better.

A long day and a gratifying book

I had a long flight but Rook and Moomin had a longer one - they had to go through L.A. and had delays. So I got into SFO at 10 and home by 12 on the train. And then picked them up a bit after 3pm - very sucky for them. Rook v. heroic. Rather like Gilgamesh except instead of descending to the underworld he has to ascend into the air where he becomes nearly comatose with airsickness and swollen sinuses. I don't understand how he survived the South Pole with the sinus/altitude thing.

Moomin watched "Free Willy 3", which I avoided... even hearing the music of it was driving me nuts. But he likes it an awful lot. I think maybe some actual science videos... Cosmos? To go with his educational material from "D.A.R.Y.L." and "The Cat from Outer Space". I sang him some xmas songs as I realized he doesn't know any of them other than maybe jingle bells.

My computer is still dead. And Rook's old laptop which Moomin sometimes uses is also dying with the same sort of intermittent sudden black-screen failure.

It was hard carrying my computer around feeling like it was a ghost or a corpse or a brick. I can't even say how depressing.

I'm highly pleased at p. 182 of the paperback of the 2nd Temeraire book, Throne of Jade, where my blog-name makes a cameo. As "I" do everywhere during ceremonious line-crossing saturnalias that require judges, playacting, and poking other people with pointy sticks.

It struck me that the frequent dragon-swimming and washing scenes are about care and nurturing; you are powerful but must tend your beast, which is about domestic duty. It also gets across something of the joy of a suburban sunday afternoon car-washing with bucket and spraying a garden hose at the soapy-shiny car.

I'm still mulling over the Orhan Pamuk book & am very curious to read "Snow" next.

atari adventure madeleine flashback

This just made me have an intense flashback to my 6th or 7th grade self: video walkthrough of Atari Adventure 1st level. the wasted hours! the nerve damage! the surge of triumph when I'd get the goblet into the castle! it always felt like such a cheat of what could be good... knowing that most of what was good about it was in my imagination... and then zork just killed any desire i had to play this graphic version that was so frustrating.

Suddenly i want to play "Yars' Revenge" so bad it hurts. It had really good sound effects - that creepy droning noise, especially. For a weird happy feeling, i think Galaga and Gyruss were my favorite. How well I remember the exciting feeling when it would go, 3 warps to Neptune!!! Plus, the good music. Happy! And for exciting spazziness, maybe Tempest. For sheer fucking oh-holy-shit panic, Asteroids.

my first video game past when i played "pong" in uncle warren's basement rec room in like 1977... and the earlier boston children's museum tic tac toe vacuum tube encounter... was an enormous enormous submarine game in the detroit airport. it was the first big arcade game i'd ever seen and it was in a corner of a dingy white corridor. i freaked out with joy upon seeing it, (7, 8 years old) and was just drooling... and then around that same time i also played lunar lander also in the airport. omg. i would die almost immediately, but, what joy.

things getting better

I'm still overwhelmed but things have been better today. Kids being annoying but super cute. We walked to the beach... they did a talent show... we were forced to sing hymns... and we had Lilybug's 3rd birthday party. The other kids all got taken to the toy store one by one by my heroic mom in law and we spent long hours assembling bionicles and transformers and lego catapults.

I did more computer-fixing and a training session.

Rook is with his best friend, Rofl the writer & director, who's visiting his parents up north a bit.

Dad-in-law suddenly left this afternoon (as he has every day, mysteriously) thus further confirming my theory that he has a whole 2nd family squirrelled away. I like that theory better than the love affair or many-concubines one.

Aunt Ninja came over with her oldest kid who is super nice. She's always so cheery... I like her... Moomin has mixed up who everyone is and can't quite understand how he suddenly acquired an Auntie Ninja and I feel guilty for not being in better touch or at least sending holiday cards and thank you notes. I gave up on it all about 3-4 years ago.

Mom-in-law gave me a nice silk scarf and a mostly wool one from her trip to spain that I like but probably can't wear since wool makes me itch. But I like it anyway. Regifting? Anyone? stripey wool scarf from spain?

At some point I bonded with brother in law Grumpypants over ludicrous computer-ignorance things and with brother in law Meticulous over how we would run a new cable from the basement to the third floor in the best possible way. It was interesting, a relief, and a public service (to them) to have those moments of detached geekery.

We have prepared and eaten like 7 meals.

WHEW.

give me strength!

The upstairs computer is 5 years old and runs Win ME. It has all the aol dialup working, sort of, though it's wonky, and has the hangul software and special keyboard

The 2nd floor computer runs Win XP. but no hangul and no connectivity. It tries to run a wireless network setup wizard occasionally, making me scream. It thinks it has some kind of wireless???

The laptop is some other flavor of windows but i can't get into it. it's online.

I now know a lot of my dad in law's log in names and passwords, but not the one for his AOL dialup, which he doesnt understand and thinks is free. Is his aol dialup info the same as his screen name login and password to get his email and chat? We can't tell and it doesn't seem to work. Meanwhile his laptop is online and he thinks it is either due to "his aol" or to Verizon which he used to pay for dsl but then stopped; but really it's online because it's poaching wireless from next door. But then once I said, "when aol sends you a billing statement..." he remembered there was some kind of yearly aol charge that he gets and pays. Also, there is apparently a verizon replacement modem in the mail right now as of last week but no one can figure out if that means he turned on the dsl again, or not? Or why or wtf?

Ill-tempered badger

I'm losing it a little bit. There is never a moment when people aren't yelling or fussing. The slightest thing that happens creates an unbelievable hullabaloo. I feel like one of those animals in the zoo that huddles in a ball in a corner of the cage while screaming crowds poke it and point.

For example last night I got up and went into the kitchen... and said to one person quietly, "Hey, do you know where the pumpkin pie..." because it wasn't on a countertop or in the fridge. The question was not even out of my mouth before four people sprang up and began offering advice and asking questions and generally getting in my face. "It's up there! in the cupboard! you'll need a stepladder! I'll have to move my chair! No you won't, I can reach it! Do you want whipped cream, ice cream, plates, the plates are over here, it's a good pie, are you sure you don't want apple, the pumpkin pie was popular today! Let D. do it, he can reach, no, she will need the chair, the stepladder... make room... let me get out of the way..." I sort of lost it and sputtered, "Aaaagh, get away, can everyone just go away, i don't want any fuss, I'll get it myself."

Smoooooooth, Badger.

But, that is happening every single minute here - nothing can happen without endless fuss and loud commentary.

I tried to fix Rook's dad's oldest computer, which is from 2001 and runs Windows ME. It was having an "out of memory" error when trying to load shell32.dll, which apparently it needs at every juncture. The shell32.dll file was ginormous and finally I deleted it figuring I could replace it off the system CD. So now it does that "non-32" startup and many things work; different things than before work and don't work. No one can find the system CD and I can't figure out if there is a place on the windows site to download just that one bit. I then thought I could get his files off the computer (he backed some of them up onto floppies; there is a cd drive on the computer and easycdcreator, but i don't think he has ever used it and he was not sure about cds at all.) But getting my little usb stick thingie into the back of the computer would mean massive dusty excavation. I think that he wants that computer resurrected b/c it is set up properly to do hangul. The newer ones don't so he has 3 computers none of which do what he needs and none of which he knows how to use. all with printers and peripherals and software like crazy that he also doesn't know how to use. There is an enormous bookbag full of disks and cds back to 1995. There are also floppies and cds kind of all over the house. I don't get it!

The children fight and compete and some of them are stunningly rude. N. and Z. order their mom and dad around like nasty tyrants. "Hellooooo, I WANTED the OTHER CHEERIOS. Get me the cheerios!" Hello kid get your own f*cking cheerios or ask politely. I have heard Moomin do this but he gets called on it. N and Z do it and someone drips with sympathy for them and hops up to get whatever it is. Then they have a perpetual jealousy and competition thing going which it seems to me like, if someone pointed out "You are feeling jealous" it might help. Rather than placating and bargaining. The worse they act the more special attention they get. They use the threat of losing their temper or going berserk constantly and they are only encouraged in it. Why would they do it if it didn't *work for them*. My attitude would be more like, "you can pitch a fit but that will just annoy me and make me not want to play with you; also it won't be any fun for you. So, your choice." This morning at breakfast I finally burst out laughing as one of them and then the other barked rude orders at their parents. I know everyone just kind of sucks up the bad behavior and placates on a trip, because we're all tired... but it was like they didn't even notice how awful it was.

Moomin got into it today when Z. said ostentatiously to his dad that he wanted to play a card game with him one on one, NOT with N. He said it with sad pathos... part sincere and understandable but at the same time he darted a sly smile at his brother. Who promptly went berserk and furious. Their dad was distracted and there was a bad moment of gorilla-like posturing and some name-calling. Finaly N. ran after him out of control ready to beat him up. (Keeping in mind this is in a tiny space full of horrid sharp corners, rocking chairs, chrome and glass bookcases with delicate chinese vases... ) Z. dove under the table and began laughing... clearly happy to have made his brother lose his temper. I and his dad caught and restrained him. Moomin flipped out and got up N.'s grill right up in his face and declared he was being mean to brothers and cousins and it was not right and Moomin wasn't going to be his friend. Oh hell. Keep in mind this was before I had had coffee and I was staring slack-jawed. I had to intervene at that point.

The response of other adults was to "roughhouse" on the theory that the kids needed to "blow off some energy" while my response would be the complete opposite... rather than riling them up more I would model some peaceful play or behavior. In fact I think this is part of what happens to boys. Their every impulse towards bad feeling or violence or being out of control is met with affection that is like constant veiled hostility, in tickle wars and poking and teasing and mock wrestling. It's not that those things are bad but can't there ever be simple affection or acknowledgment of feelings ... something... Plus I get really perturbed sometimes with the dominance behavior of adults who can't relate to small children without that kind of dynamic. Part of it is the discomfort of the adults (often male) with expressing affection towards other males. This drives me crazy to see when it is just constant. I also really really really especially hate when adults do this to children and the children are struggling to get away (while laughing and apparently having fun...) and saying "stop! stop!" and I'm just like... what are you teaching the kid? How do you expect them to learn to respect other people's boundaries or to expect their own to be respected? It's not like kids know how to yell "safeword!"

This morning I woke up to a nightmare that I was walking around with 3 pairs of socks and small plastic bags over my feet and then another layer of socks over the plastic bags, and my feet were still cold, and Rook's family was all sitting around the dinner table discussing this blog.

I thought of my uncle R. and how he was when we were growing up together. When he was 8 and I was 5, he was a person who thought of fabulous ideas. He organized spying, and demolition derbies for model cars, and lego construction projects we could work on together, and strange-ruled chess with stuffed animals on the checkered rug on the floor of the porch. He never made me cry, or grabbed things jealously or whined or threatened to hit me or otherwise use physical force. He certainly never said a thing about my being younger or being a girl. Anyway I was just thinking of this basic fair-minded getting-along quality, and thinking how it is part of why I think R. is rad even if he accidentally got drunk and fell asleep on his ex-girlfriend's couch and got arrested and convicted of felony breaking and entering.

Today I will pack and try to be polite as possible to all the extended family who are coming over. Will not lose temper.

On the bright side, yesterday was mostly warm in the house.

Today it's sunny which seems to make everyone think heat is not necessary so i'm damned freezing again. 3pr socks, 4 shirts.

I'm so homesick.

Succinct and poetic

Possibly the best blog post ever. Sparing of words, nearly universal in application.

Runaways #6 and Autobiography of Yukichi F.

I realized I was too brain-dead to do any real work or read anything as complicated as the 2nd half of My Name Is Red. It's too intense here and one either is id-and-superego-deep in intensity, or one is desperately muffling the brain and emotions in "safe mode" to minimize damage. So I went looking for something else to read (having already shipped the books I bought.) Mi suegra is on a perpetual rampage of getting rid of things and most of them are a) poetry which I'm not in the mood for b) self help, religious, or pop-medical c) bestseller 'literature' of the kind i just don't like d) books I gave her that I've already read. Plus, Gorillas in the Mist which I read and which I have to say, blew chunks. Fine... the beginning was somewhat intriguingly fucked up, but then it just turned into a random bunch of observations of gorillas fucking, staring soulfully into her eyes, and killing each other, but with totally unfair and contradictory moral narratives imposed. a) the section in which she (or her ghost writer) analyzes the politics of conservation in a reasonably intelligent way feels like a total afterthought and does not jibe with her actual actions and don't have much obvious self awareness of her own effect on the land or people or politics and one wants to rewrite various incidents of her war against poachers and farmers from the point of view of some starving kid in one of the poacher's families who might also have been dying of pneumonia... as the gorillas were... you know? b) how she glosses over when "Uncle Bertie" kills a whole bunch of infant gorillas but then is all pissy when Beetsme does the same thing later. c) the insane racism on so many counts. but let's just point out one which is that she will take any white 20 year old asshole off the street to be her student and observe the gorillas or whatever, but not a black person (and she means a black african? or what if some 20 year old african american from harvard had applied to be her student? ) She assumes the gorilllas see skin color rather than recognizing individual people d) the gender politics she reads into every interaction and how she talks about "harem" and dominance as if patriarchy is automatic... so stupid! so blind! e) too many fuckedupednesses to count. f) did I mention how it just gets really boring and random?

Rook's dad has lovely scholarly books all on things pan-asian, really good books, most of them. But too actually scholarly for me to deal with. I am ready to read the 2nd "Point of Honor" book again.

So I read my present to Rook which was Runaways #6 and it was totally fabulous! Though, GAH! I was screaming NOOOOOOOOOO! several times and especially at the end. It can't be! Noooooo!

I refuse to believe it!

I really, really, really, refuse to believe it!

It's a good thing that in the great law of comic books, no one is ever really dead.

But that high lasted all of 20 minutes tops. So now I'm deep into The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa, which is fluffy but serious, and completely intriguing. I wondered why autobiography feels "fluffy" to me or at least absorbable by my hurting brain?

More about Yukichi later.

Why is there no whiskey in the house? only gin and wine. Ew.

nice things today

- nephew listening in unexpectedly on me and mi suegra's conversation as we drove down flatbush ave. and saying "So, you're talking about the olden days?" we agreed. And he pointed out the mall parking garage there and said, "So, that building looks new and it probably wasn't there, then. So, what was there, do you remember?" He described a bunch of stuff about space and how the museum's space exhibits were "so awesome!" and I teared up a bit as I thought of how people were so afraid of him having developmental delays and all the family fights about what to do about his education and medical problems and how his parents were going to be hurting his chances in life by not having him learn to communicate with a special signboard communicaty thing because of how hard it was for him to talk with poor hearing and a tr4ch tube. and whether there was too much protectiveness or special-ed-ness or not enough; etc. etc. The so-many past holidays when he was so silent or just so wheezy no one could understand him and certainly no one listened, much, in the chaos of 8 adults and 5 kids and a lively dog and him having to be suctioned by his heroic bulldog dad like every 20 minutes anyway, with many of the humans being unusually loud self-propelled people who all talk at once. Ugh, as I think of all the medical horrendousness he has endured and his sweet temper throughout. He's a cool kid. I felt a huge surge of gratitude that he has had good medical care and also that he was telling us his ideas so fluently and not having to point on a signboard letter by letter.

- nice conv. with the family from venezuela on the subway. how did i know... accent? i just suspected it and it was true. the book they showed me about a kids' guide to ny was really neat and i have to remember to look for it! they were going to "fao" (pronounce in spanish as one word)

- huge touchy-feely iron meteorite. mars rover. chameleon eyeballs. moomin liking things. giant dino skeletons with good explanation signs. ginormous charles r. knight paintings that i love. (if you don't know... you would recognize his dino paintings/landscapes if you saw them.)

- the way moomin likes to read the signs in a museum

- rook being all steadfast and patient, carrying backpacks and herding children

- my own patience did not snap

- the cool invigoratingness of mi suegra and her random mind and unfiltered mouth never shutting up, and endless exhausting energy and how she exasperates everyone and is kind of a control freak with no off button and "strong personality" and absent-mindedness and her offbeat sense of humor; i often understand her all too well

- the hot bath i had just now with lemon verbena smelly stuff

- remembering that alcohol was invented for a reason; i remembered this just now. am going downstairs to investigate its properties

long trip, freezing cold

We had a good trip to the Nat. H. museum today, all gazillion of us. I don't have good net access right now and have SO much work to do and no way to do it... v. crappy... Am reading "Gorillas in the Mist" instead of even trying to work or think. 5 kids, someone is always crying, needing to eat, or whatever... Picture us all on the crowded subway and laugh. Back here in the house it's 60 degrees or "boiling hot" as they say in this family... I'm in 4 layers of clothes. maybe a hot bath...

pissed off as all hell

omfg god i'm so pissed off. fuck the pseudonymous for right now for this, i need to say it in my name, you know?

Eponymous fun

A funny line from my journey through installing MediaWiki.

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So very true!

On the go in NYC

My actual day (as opposed to the plan of the day) was: hang out doing laundry and organizing my notes, walk to St. Marks with Quilty, lunch at Veselka, went shopping for presents for nephews & niece "on the way to the library" but ended up buying like 3 millionn pairs of arm warmers and a skinny tie and then being sucked into a really good comic book store (Where I got an action figure of Tomar-Re for Moomin!) for over an hour and also browsing every single used book stand on the sidewalk tables on 8th or was it 9th street? Sooooo, never got to Columbia. Hung out at Quilty's some more and then went to Peep (fancy thai food! yum! also, fancy decor and great atmosphere) with Quilty and qp. qp and I went to bowery poetry club where we slid into the end of a musical performance but then slid out again to pay for the Urban Erotik show. Well, a slightly heinous thing to be at somehow with one's newly-real-life-met blog-friend, but we had fun! More details later.

I did not take my clothes off in front of CBGBs because I could not find it but also because I was only joking. Would not do that - it is too skeevy of a street, and I'm now too scared of NY cops. I might do it if I were with an enormous group of people - that would be different.

Coffee angel 2525

Quilty just brought me a double latte and a bagel, and after I coffeed up she made me watch two episodes of Cleopatra 2525. Hahaha, wow!

My plan for today is:

- St. Marks Bookshop
- Columbia for more research
- come back and chill? dinner out? call people?
- later at night go to Bowery Poetry Club.
- Cry a tear outside CBGBs. Do nakedjen-style photoshoot outside CBGBs.

You're doing your piecework too fast

I gotta slow down! Tomorrow, a leisurely morning. I have to write up all my notes, I'm hoping in pajamas... but first coffee must be poured down my gullet. Can i teleport a double latte here from think cafe? Or just go in my flannel plaid pjs & boots and pretend its "the return of grunge"?

writeup of yesterday and today, should be fun to do, and exhilarating, and a relief b/c i like to consolidate my thoughts before i forget them all, as happens if I don't write things down immediately.

poety translatory talk thing was good. v. stimulating. much better than last night's . last night good writing but bad reading of the writing and sort of an unfriendly scene, i felt.

the botero paintings were intense - i've said that before -

I feel all churned up and perturbed and unsettled. i think really what i need is to chase the shadow of an enormous poem. a small group fitting togehtter. i can see its shape or the shape of its shadow. city things but also i have the urge to write a poem to herculon. think over my lifetime how many tears i have wept into herculon. it is very comforting aganst the cheek. at this particular homesick moment in the big city with construction and honking and yelling 13 stories below I would like to cozy into this 70s-colored herculon couch and have a good cry for no reason, and tomorrow, pancakes.

Strange lack of science fiction

New York bookstores seem not to have science fiction. It's like it doesn't exist in this town! What gives?

Actual day, as opposed to plan

Hung around in Think Cafe feeling strangely at home. Walked up Broadway & took the train uptown to see the Botero exhibit. I was frequently lost. Changed trains at 32nd.... The 57th st. station smells horrible and is not pretty like all the stations on the #1 line. & then back to 14th st. station where I got extremely lost, found the lectorum spanish bookstore but it was CLOSED for computer upgrade so I went to Macondo, which sucked but did have a few interesting small books of poetry. Got lost again. Got even more lost. Gave wrong directions to 2 people. Why do people always ask me for directions? Do I look like I know? Usually I do, but today I sure didn't! Several people gave me wrong directions in return. Ended up on the wrong 4th. Went to a random small bookstore which had a lot of awfully tempting but too expensive modern first editions of poetry. My feet hurt and my knees hurt and my legs are shaking! Why didn't I take a cab back! DOH. Had the worst pho ga ever in the universe at Saigon Grill on 5th and 12th. do not eat there! ew! then to the strand but i think i was too exhausted and overwhelmed to deal with it... could not find anything good there. the childrens section was especially sucky.

On the other hand it was a beautiful sunny fall day and i looked at a lot of interesting architectural details of buildings. I'm in bed with some Hit biscuits and orange juice hoping to get 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th wind for the poetry thing tonight. i need a nap!

Plan for day 4, nyc

Coffee - Think Cafe again. write a bunch.
The Strand bookstore
Lectorum - spanish lang. bookstore
(home to drop off books??)
to subway (which?)
Botero exhibit at Marlborough on 57th st.
qp? at 23rd. or...?
7pm - poetry/translation thing at Poets House

Somewhere in there should be "rest" and "lie down"....

Day 3 in New York City

It was a mostly good day. I hung out working with Quilty, and then we went to Think Cafe and hung out working and writing some more, on the good side. On the bad side, my computer is dying and I have had to use one of her extra, old-ish laptops. And then the ceiling began to leak in the cafe almost right over us and other people kept taking our bagels and coffee before we would realize they were on the counter and the counter-people were kind of pissed off and they ran out of bagels. But we got some just in time...

Then I went to the apple store in soho and my computer refused to misbehave. They zapped the PMU. And it seemed just fine. So I walked to the Cuban restaurant my airplane-buddy recommended on Prince and Elizabeth, met a cool woman who crochets hats, had awesome cuban food, and walked through the Bowery to Bluestockings while happily composing blog entries in my head. And then realized my computer didn't work again. Walked back to apple store. It still didn't work. DAMMIT. New logic board $280 bucks plus I need to back up the computer.

Then to WWB reading whicih was interesting - I bought the book. But I was caught in the rain. And then had my 3rd and hugest asthma attack of the day. Was rescued in the bathroom of Labyrinth books by Sue, an angel with an inhaler, who brought me tea and unusual kindness. People do not like to see illness or disability, including asthma attacks. It bothers them. Dinner with karen and her friend, who was super nice... Then back, hurting, knee blowing out, limping by now, super sucky, will I last out the trip with the ability to walk? I hope so. I am in love with the subway, as an able person. As a not so able one I will not have fun in New York.

Now v. upset about mailng list being jerks about transwomen, it is unbelievably disappointing and someone on there wrote me privately in a way that was just painful. there are many things disappointing about 70s feminism such as white feminst being racist and the whole lavender menace thing and then the sex wars, and so it is just nasty and upsetting to see this kind of thing rear its head in my home turf where i did not expect anyone would be like that at least not quite so meanly and thoughtlessly and in public. you come to expect people to be sane and to acknowledge their own shit, if they have it and can't help it, like being brought up with prejudices they can't get over. Unfortunately the dont' see it that way. I don't understand this at all.

Liveblogging labor and delivery

A question: has anyone liveblogged their experience of labor and delivery? Obviously at some point you'd have to stop. But surely someone's given it a good shot? We have such a hunger for the gory birth-story, you'd think that it would have happened.

If not, someone totally should.

An upsetting "police" incident on the street

Well, I had a good day of breakfast with my friend and then research at Columbia, and then this happened. I'm very rattled, actually, an hour later, still shaking. But ate something to calm down and now am off to a poetry reading.

Man that was scary. And I'm so ashamed of myself. I don't say that lightly. But I was completely terrified and I backed down.
Not something I think of myself as doing.

Alabama language lesson

Quilty just had an argument with me over which is worse, Mississippi or Alabama. We're both totally irrational and working ourselves really hard on our little computers here on the couch... But in between, in a sort of delirium, I argue that Alabama has more hate crime murders of gay people. (Also, it was in that Tom Lehrer song - it's not that Mississippi gets the bomb!) She counters with Mississippi having more murders of civil rights activists and also a higher teen pregnancy rate. (No. Wait. I said that about the teens.) Then she says she can't believe she's defending Alabama at all.

This in the context of the Missouri legislature having put out an official document signed by all the republicans but not the democrats.. that there is a conspiracy or something to abort babies in the U.s. and then replace those future workers with immigrants. WTF!? Hahaha. I did not realize.. now maybe Missouri

Then we give a language lesson to her roommate about the word "geek" - it is not just for computers. It's anything you're really into. You can use it as a verb. "I'm geeking out over my iPod." etc. He goes to bed, fleeing our overly geeky midnight lesson...

We're happy as clams... typing clams... M. in Boston is watching "Alias" and geeking out on it...

A note that the bed here is SO comfortable. It's perfectly soft and squashy. I don't thrash around feeling like I'm being bruised and beaten all night... instead I just sort of SLEPT. Maybe I need a softer mattress. I always wake up in the night a million times going ow ow ow and having to turn over.

I should also note that my bronchitis is definitely not better. My sinuses are bleeding, and my chest hurt a lot all day. I'm still pretty sick and I pushed myself to walk around and also to work really hard. Tomorrow I'll go to breakfast and then go right to the library and work some more but will stop at a reasonable hour. Oh. But then will go to a poetry reading at Poet House... women poets from japan.. translators... too good to miss. Is it possible? I have to go back to the library for sure to fill out forms for offsite books...?

Blogging & Feminism

I'm on my way to the Blogging Feminism panel tonight - I'll liveblog it a little bit over on Composite. Jessica Valenti (feministing), Liza Sabater, (Culture Kitchen), Alice Marwick (Tiara), Lauren Spees, and Michelle Riblett (Hollaback) will be on the panel.

Happiness in the library

First of all, thank you to anthology editor Naín Nómez for being conspicuously amazing and non-sexist. Wow - just wow.

SECOND I am about to fall over in a dead faint. Seriously I'm going to explode with freaked-out happiness at a 3-volume anthology that basically DID my project and then some. Though I have a few they don't have... but, imagine you have been working passionately on a giant feminist research project for 3 years and then found a huge huge project that was very similar but went way far beyond it. (Though, not in translation). THANK YOU to the editors of Trilogia poética de las mujeres en hispanoamérica: Pícaras, mística y rebeldes and... even more amazing so that I'm full of gratitude... an email address for one of the editors is included in the book. I'm jealous a little of course but so happy. I'm absolutely stunned.

Morning in NY

I got up and walked all over Washington Square, immediately getting lost on my way to look for the Think Cafe. Somehow, I ended up exactly where I started from as I circled around the east side of the park. It was a nice getting lost. Passed & looked at an art exhibit at NYU of Katrina/New Orleans paintings & photos. Ended up at the Bruno Cafe where I had a good cappucino and prune hamentaschen... The croissants were not as good as Quilty SAID they were. (I'm spoiled from that one place on Cole in SF with the best chocolate croissants.) I felt pleasantly anonymous; no one spoke to me or even really looked at me. Off to the subway - I found Christopher St. with no problem and went into the tiny triangular park and nearly fell over to see the same exact white statues as I see all the time at Stanford. I've seen those things at Stanford and never gone right up to them so I had no idea they were all about Gay Liberation. Cool. I like them better now that I know that.

Into the subway - admiring the tile mosaics - Quilty gave me her Metrocard - Took photo of the plaque for "the bohemians", another mosaic I didnt' have time to snapshot before the train came. On the subway car, some dudes got on and sang us "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" in classic barbershop quartet style. I gave them a dollar, but everyone else ignored them. Their singing was beautiful... Next to me, people were holding or reading:

- The Lunatic by Winkler
- The Optimist's Daughter - Eudora Welty
- a Chinese newspaper
- a New York Times
- Notes from the Underground
- a complicated looking musical score
- a box of stuff from a bakery
- a clear plastic envelope with some stuff in it, marked "Biohazard"
- a notebook filled with tiny handwriting repeating "Om Sri Sa Ram" or something like that

Butler library rocks. I like the mural by Eugene Savage at the entrance, and the explanation next to it. They have a cafe and a Lounge, and free wireless. I'm putting together my plan of attack on the 1900-ish spanish language anthologies, armed with copy card. See you on the 5th floor of the stacks in the PQs, and the 10th in the 800s. As usual in the library, I'm flying colors (today, rainbow flag in back left pocket) hoping for that perfect porn story moment to occur, well, not really, but it makes me feel cheerful and giggly anyway so I always do it.

Technorati Tags: books, libraries, literature, travel, puppy, research, translation

In NYC; a bit on Orhan Pamuk and Point of Honour's sequel

line for taxis
Originally uploaded by Liz.

Finally made it to NYC. I shared a taxi with the super nice guy who was sitting next to me on the plane. Wondered why gay men have their own accent, but lesbians don't. How come? It seems unfair. He's a very sweet interior decorator from TX & Chicago and now New York. There's something about people from Texas that I really love... Anyway, Oilrig, my taxi friend, told me the fascinating story of how his best friends in high school in Abeleine eventually got married and had a kid but now 14 years later the guy just confessed he's been in love with Oilrig ever since they first met and it's destroying his life and he has to leave his marriage. But he and his wife (Oilrig is best friends with both of them) are already separated... High drama... Aaaaaa! I told him some good juicy drama in return.

I freaked out about being on Bleeker Street and now have that sappy song stuck in my head.

Quilty made me squash with butter and cinnamon and gave me a subway map, apartment key, drew me a map of cafes and subway stops within 4 block area, and had scrubbed the bathtub for me. I feel so loved, and she was so very hostly... here in her bachelor pad.

I'm on Sivacracy's wireless - he lives across the hall and I'm poaching. Tomorrow, a little walking around and then subway to Columbia where I'll hit the library...

I'm definitely feeling a happy excited spazziness at being in the middle of such density of STUFF and restaurants and ... just everything.

On the plane I finally started reading My Name is Red, and am extra spazzy because it was SO GREAT. I will be raving about this book for months. It makes Borges look like a drooling idiot doodling in the margins of a piece of construction paper. Okay, maybe not quite... I just wanted to say that because it popped into my head and made me laugh - and because I get annoyed at everyting being compared to Borges - when you see on a book jacket that something is "like Borges", even if it is or maybe especially if it is, then you know the book will be first-class annoying wankery. But this fantastic. The only reason you would compare it to Borges is to say that it's more intricate... and better, and beyond. (As it should be - that's my stance on time and miniatures...) By page 10 I was freaking out and re-reading and taking notes and by page 20 or 30 I could see the structure and what was happening. It's so tight, so interlocked, so beautiful in many directions at once. The tensions and interrelationships between the characters, the mystery-ness of the plot, the love stories, and then on top of that the nested stories and fables about art, signature, style. Oh man, as soon as I started hitting the parts where people talk about style and identity, I was in love. I should have listened to Gohar years ago when she told me very fiercely that I needed to read this book & how fucking awesome Pamuk is.

I also finished the 2nd Sarah Tolerance novel by Madeleine Robins, on the plane... It was just as good as the first one, candy-like, satisfying, good and twisty. She writes excellent fight scenes and I like the heroine, the whores, the grittiness, the cop procedure/legal details, and the alternate history aspects, especially the way that fallen women change their names. When it came down to the crucial moral decision of the book, I could see it coming, but I really didn't know what would happen and which way the protagonist would go and how she'd think about it. So I was riveted all the way up to the end.

Delayed in Chicago

Hell. I'm delayed in Chicago for a while. No one seems to know how long - at least till 6:30. Apparently there's 30 mph winds in New York and the airports are all completely hosed. It's a zoo here.

Also, the connectivity sucks.... slow... spotty... incredibly bad... and some whole different crappity system than usual airports.

Cash prize for not being a scary dictator

It's scary cynical but also... a good idea.

Mo Ibrahim Prize gives tons of cash to African governments for turning over power peacefully.

To qualify for the Mo Ibrahim Prize, you have be a democratically elected African ruler who handed over power peacefully to a similarly elected successor, and did good things for the country while you had power. The prize is worth five million dollars in the first ten years, and more if the ex-leader enjoys a very long retirement.

We could offer this to Bush too... but don't need to... he's got oil companies to do that for him doesn't he?

Enraged beyond belief

Suggestion to ban disabled people from express buses.

Read the comments thread if you can stand it. jesus fucking christ. I thought I was angry after reading the post - well, the discussion in comments was like 20 million times worse. how people can be so fucking ignorant!???

myspace consultants for teenagers

No WAY....

...a New York city-based advertising consultant has found new market in helping young girls make their online pages worth the hype. She specializes in coodinating the best material for her clients pages.

“I'll help a girl choose the best party photos, the best friend shots, and edit their blog to really make an impression,” says Gaub, “when an online page is shared with so many new friends and potential relationships, it has to be the best.

The part about tracking "what's in" made me think of Esme Squalor...

Can this possibly be true?

*runs and vomits*