this is the kind of thing i blog about...

... especially when i'm still moving and haven't read anything else.

got this from a friend today. and, oh fine. it's totally true.

:)

most of my quirks are getting the backseat this week, however, in the face of my MILLIONS OF BOXES OF STUFF. i've made this reference many times, but last year, the boxes of books made my brother ask if i've ever heard of the internet.

6-year-old on the phone: "grandma! you know how rich people have those signs that say no trespassing? i got one! and it says BEWARE OF DOG!"

i, too, went to the hardware store this week. i love the hardware store. everything there is so awesome.

thoughts on traveling to go to the wedding of two people i really love.

my hair, like everything else, is bigger in texas.

dallas love airport has three security lanes - casual traveler, with a silhouette of a cowboy riding a horse, but all slow-like; expert traveler, with a cowboy with a lasso; and families and passengers needing assistance, with a stagecoach. oh, texas. i tried really hard to look casual, like the casual traveler i am.

then, as you walk through security, there's a world map in the floor tile. JUST like in carmen sandiego. remember how hard that game was? i feel like that part was really difficult to win.

"mom! it said to put on my mask first!"

- 4-year-old kid on the plane, who is a good listener.

"how do you expect me to grow if you won't let me blow?"

- rachel, in "the one where eddie won't leave." i LOVE this episode, where the girls feel all empowered by the book about being your own windkeeper. then they fight.

h: What are you up to?

b: well, moving today!

h: OH my god. That sounds horrible. What are you doing online then?

b: um, well...

okay, fine. here are the articles that the guy ahead of me and across the aisle was reading. i didn't think it was okay to ask him for his magazine, so i'll be reading them when i have time and internet again.

the pursuit of teen girl purity, about those purity balls.

subsidized in the city, about people who still take money from their parents.

this almost makes me miss writing my thesis.

two reasons i love virginia woolf.

May I conclude, as I began, by thanking your reviewer for his very courteous and interesting review, but may I tell him that though he did not, for reasons best known to himself, call me a highbrow, there is no name in the world that I prefer? I ask nothing better than that all reviewers, for ever, and everywhere, should call me a highbrow. I will do my best to oblige them. If they like to add Bloomsbury, W.C.1, that is the correct postal address, and my telephone number is in the Directory. But if your reviewer, or any other reviewer, dares hint that I live in South Kensington, I will sue him for libel. If any human being, man, woman, dog, cat or half–crushed worm dares call me “middlebrow” I will take my pen and stab him, dead. Yours etc.,

Virginia Woolf.

from "middlebrow." man, i love that comma. "i will take my pen and stab him, dead." now THAT is scorn.

The writer seems constrained, not by his own free will but by some powerful and unscrupulous tyrant who has him in thrall, to provide a plot, to provide comedy, tragedy, love interest, and an air of probability embalming the whole so impeccable that if all his figures were to come to life they would find themselves dressed down to the last button of their coats in the fashion of the hour. The tyrant is obeyed; the novel is done to a turn. But sometimes, more and more often as time goes by, we suspect a momentary doubt, a spasm of rebellion, as the pages fill themselves in the customary way. Is life like this? Must novels be like this?

Look within and life, it seems, is very far from being “like this”. Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions—trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms; and as they fall, as they shape themselves into the life of Monday or Tuesday, the accent falls differently from of old; the moment of importance came not here but there; so that, if a writer were a free man and not a slave, if he could write what he chose, not what he must, if he could base his work upon his own feeling and not upon convention, there would be no plot, no comedy, no tragedy, no love interest or catastrophe in the accepted style, and perhaps not a single button sewn on as the Bond Street tailors would have it. Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.

from "modern fiction."

sorry, i don't know what is WITH my formatting, but i don't know how to change it. it's harder than you might think. and i don't write html, guys.

today's activities.

let's analyze everyone's facebook pictures. 

then let's drink some cheap wine.

sound good?

metaphors and non-metaphors.

"it just seems like people want big government when it benefits them and small government when it benefits them." - guy having an intense conversation with the used bookstore worker. [i mean, the worker in the used bookstore. just to clarify my modifiers.]

i mean, you think? i wanted to alert him to this piece of great satire -  "no values voters" looking to support most evil candidate.  the video's just okay, but YEAH for the idea. it's almost like we're all trying to do what's best. not that i'm a complete relativist, but i'm just saying - people have good intentions. a lot.

this week's episode of this american life made me cry. okay, this post has been sitting here unwritten for so long that now it's last week's episode - "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." i always really love dan savage [whose sex advice column, it turns out, is a little less feel-good than his usual TAL contributions], and this piece contains some of my favorite things - religion, love, gay marriage, little kids, and sappiness. starts about 18 minutes into the episode, and i'm warning you, it turned me into that crying girl on the CTA bus. in a good way, though.

from the movie definitely, maybe [which i recommend], on the question of what we want to do with our lives - "i don't know. i don't know HOW to know, you know?"

has everyone read this article, about oversharing online? i feel like i remember when it was new...

Like most people, I tend to use the language of addiction casually, as in, “I can’t wait for the new season of ‘America’s Next Top Model’ to start — I’m totally going through withdrawal.” And when talking about how immersed I became in my online life, I’m tempted to use this language because it provides such handy metaphors. It’s easy to compare the initial thrill of evoking an immediate response to a blog post to the rush of getting high, and the diminishing thrills to the process of becoming inured to a drug’s effects. The metaphor is so exact, in fact, that maybe it isn’t a metaphor at all.

anyway, i really love that paragraph. save it in the "i'd like to write like this" file.

oh, and try to get your friends to click on www.thingsididlastnight.com. then giggle.

"you were ordering a sandwich..."

ELLEN IS TALKING ABOUT CRAIGSLIST MISSED CONNECTIONS!!

okay, i got really excited, but apparently she's not going to make fun of them so much as... oh, she's having a couple on the show who got together via missed connections. dang. but i was already all excited to blog about it.

seriously, though, i love reading missed connections. there's something about what people say anonymously, but also hoping to be discovered. sometimes they're cute, or creepy, or misspelled, or really weirdly desperate - but there's totally something about them.

christina aguilera and her husband had a party for their baby's bris and had penis balloons as decorations. these are the kind of things i learn from watching ellen.

wow, this IS evil.

from gawker, via jezebel - random house would like us to understand just how much skinnier the sweet valley high girls would be today. i was more of a babysitters' club [scholastic can't seem to decide about that apostrophe, so i'm making a statement] fan at the time, so i'm not getting why the twins have to be "a perfect size" anything. you'd think they'd just take that part out. and not, you know, PROMOTE it.

also, how to respond to the obama new yorker cartoon. in 5 easy steps. in case you were confused.

"glory, like a sunset..."

you know how sometimes you put your itunes 25 most played on shuffle and hear "glory" from rent and start rocking out? oh, just me? right.

i'm having trouble believing that maureen dowd posted whom not to marry without irony, but here it is. when i was in high school, they used to warn us against thinking we'd marry the guys we were dating by saying, "someday you'll have kids... and they'll end up JUST LIKE HIM." lots of shudders at that, i remember.

also, i'm going to have to agree with the aclu on this one - pants? really? especially when, as the article notes, there are so many "inappropriate" ways that women dress and somehow remain, you know, unpunished. could it be that many of the lawmakers and law enforcers are men? [please watch the youtube clip if you'd like to hear "apple bottom jeans" again. and i know you would.]

[knock, knock, knock] ... the door.

breeziness, ice cream.

so i was watching friends the other night, the episode ["the one where monica and richard are friends"] in which rachel reads the shining and joey reads little women. and i noticed that, throughout the episode, ross is reading race by studs terkel [which, google tells me, david schwimmer later made into a play].

monica: but it's okay. it's okay, it's okay, because, you know, it was like a casual, breezy message. it was breezy! oh God, what if it wasn't breezy?

phoebe: how could it not be breezy? no, because you're in such a breezy place.

...

[on message] "... so, let me know. or don't, whatever. i'm breezy!"

joey: hey, you can't say you're breezy! that totally negates the breezy!

those weren't actually from that episode. they're from the episode i'm watching now. anyway, in honor of david schwimmer, studs terkel, and coincidence, here are two things that just happened related to race.

1. these girls were looking at an ice cream truck, and they had these big character heads made out of ice cream - you all may remember snoopy, from when we were kids. anyway, now they have dora the explorer, and this girl goes, "oooh! those look so good - i bet dora's chocolate!" i was like, umm. i don't think you can say that...

2. this twentysomething black guy got on the bus. wearing a white t-shirt, white shoes, dark jeans, and a sideways sox hat. i don't know what kind of look the people in front of me gave him, but he walked onto the bus going, "it's just a hat, it's just a hat..." i liked it. it reminded me of this brent staples article i read in high school. for some reason, i always remembered the part where he whistles vivaldi when he knows people are nervous around him. [goodsearched "white priviledge whistling vivaldi" to find it.]

watched a few good men the other night. [i often have this conversation with a certain friend who owns this movie but doesn't appreciate good-looking men - "why do YOU like this movie?" "i like the lawyer stuff!"] for the first time in my life, i actually understood what's happening in that movie. i also realized that tom cruise, in the movie, is supposed to be just out of law school. not only was he not yet crazy, but he was also 24 years old when that movie was filmed. we're old, guys. and did everyone else know that tom cruise wanted to be a priest? like, was in the seminary? daaaang.

speaking of which [??], i forgot to post this last week, but was reminded by the homily this weekend - three years ago last sunday [the fourteenth sunday in ordinary time, year a] i was reading at the basilica and had, well, an awkward reading. maybe you remember hearing it a week ago. "see, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass." i remember spending all day freaking out that i had to say "ass" in the basilica. i mean, i had to say "ass" TWICE in the basilica. then, as i was reading, i had one of my first experiences of the downside of being as high-drama as i usually am. maybe if i hadn't freaked out all day, i wouldn't be freaking out now, and i'd be able to ignore the group of my friends smirking at me from a pew directly in front of me...

anyway, thanks, three year cycle of readings, for that little memory.

and lastly, the economics of love. it's a good one. oooh, and before i post, this interesting article on forming habits and advertising.

"that's a PHONE FAKEOUT."

Today Now!: How To Pretend You Give A Shit About The Election

is it just me, or has the onion really upped the technological ante since i felt like a badass reading it in high school?

whenever i read the onion, i think about the this american life story about how they choose their headlines. it's actually a great all-around episode. go ahead and listen to it, why don't you?

also, regarding this onion video, i haven't heard anyone use the term "cray-pa" since 1992. are those still around? and can we get a pack of them that haven't been all smudged until they all kind of look like the same color?

can you feel the love tonight?

g: if you don't think sam adams is great, you're an idiot.

m: okay, jafar...

best comeback ever? yes. and of course it led straight to a discussion of which disney princess is the hottest, with lots of competition between belle [good news for me, i think] and nala, when she rolls over and has those "come-hither" eyes... i mean, not the first time i've heard nala described as hot by guys who are usually normal.

read on a stranger's whiteboard - "dogs are the opposite of starfish." i've been thinking about this a lot. anyone want to tell me what this means? dogs' limbs don't regenerate? starfish can't catch a stick? but they can both SWIM...

some articles i've liked in the past few days:

little omaba on how her dad can be embarrassing, with some obama parenting techniques thrown in.

this piece on young men who discern the priesthood, which is funny if it sounds familiar at all to you. not sure if i'm a fan of this blog, but this particular piece is too on-the-mark not to post.

on the disadvantages of an elite education, oh shit - although, i do think that if you want to learn to talk to people who aren't like you, you should just ride the CTA. the most interesting part for me was the part about fake deadlines and second chances and grade inflation. i really had too few professors who could tell me that the work i'd turned in wasn't my best. think it's true?

in the neighborhood.

"try not to get drunk!" - 15-year-old checkout kid, when i bought beer for beer club.

also, the people in front of me in line turned out to live in my building. hmm. it really is a city of neighborhoods? [i almost complimented the homeless guy by the train on his new outfit, but decided against it.]

this makes me happy.

okay, let's all watch this and then dance around.

this is one of those things i read about in a nytimes article. the article's like, "this video has gone viral!" and i'm like, oh, has it? what? i've never heard of such a video. and then i join all the middle-aged nytimes readers in looking it up on youtube. 

you know what, let's ignore the fact that i'm coming a little late to the party and embrace the fact that i found the video at all.

:)

also in the nytimes today - in medvedev, bush sees "a smart guy." dear my president, will you please SAY WORDS that SOUND LIKE SOMETHING. although, again, i guess his folksy charm has worked for him in the past.

"to run, and not grow weary..."

i love these boys who love the subway. i think we'd really get along. my favorite memory of riding the T when i was a kid was my dad telling us that you could ride it all day for one token, as long as you didn't go upstairs. all day, eh? 

we watched trains a lot as kids. some of you know that i still have trouble remembering that usually people don't like it when they're stopped by a train, driving - we used to try really hard to be the FIRST car behind the gate.

speaking of which, i spent a lot of time with my extended family this week, which means:

1. i drank lots of pinot grigio with ice.

2. i went shopping at discount stores, twice.

3. i talked at length about the weather.

4. i ate lobster four times.

i'm doing this couch to 5k thing, which is lovely so far. [it's like, "do you hate running, even though everyone always says it's so awesome?" and i'm like, "YES! sign me up!"] but anyway, there are these podcasts of each running program that tell you when to run and when to walk, and one of them is a christian music podcast. the guy says, "well, i downloaded [a podcast] and ran to it, but being a christian, i wanted to jam to some good christian tunes while running." i don't think i'm comfortable with that. it's also weird being part of a religion that comes with so much stuff.

you know what else i'm uncomfortable with? a girl in a triangle bikini running. not, like, incidentally running on the beach. like, i'm going to go running and put on a string bikini top instead of a sports bra. that cannot be comfortable at ALL.