National Novel Writing [To Raise Money For Charity] Month

In high school, we used to play this game called the Stick Game, which went like this: So, I'm holding this stick, see, and I'm thinking of a word. And you have to guess the word I'm thinking, and if you guess wrong, I get to hit you with the stick. Now, I know what you're thinking: that's just TOO easy, right? So to shake things up a bit, I can change the word at any time....

In retrospect, it's amazing that we played this game as much as we did.

I started thinking about this game again when I decided to do National Novel Writing Month this year. I've done it a few times before, once - and most notably - with a bunch of middle schoolers, and I know exactly how hard it is to write 50,000 words in a month.

But I decided to do it anyway. Why not, I thought. I need a break from my current work in progress, and I could use a few weeks of crazy intense marathon writing.

Now, I know what you're thinking: 50K in 30 days? That's just TOO easy, right?

So a week or so ago, a good friend of mine offered to pledge $2/thousand words to a charity of my choice.

Shoot, I thought. That means I actually have to take myself seriously.

About five minutes later, another friend jumped on the wagon. And then another. Suddenly I was up to $5/thousand words, and I hadn't even chosen a charity yet.

So, okay. I guess I was doing it. For real. I was going to write a NaNo novel for charity.

Even though it would probably be more thematically appropriate to use NaNoWriMo to raise money and awareness for a writing and/or literacy charity (for example, the excellent Open Books), I decided instead -- for this year at least -- to write for the greyhounds.

Greyhounds Only is the organization through which we adopted Zia. For each dog that goes through the Greyhounds Only adoption program, GO pays an average cost of $761. Every contribution helps a greyhound on his or her journey from the racetrack or farm to a forever home. Part of their mission is to deliver medical care to as many greyhounds as possible so that they will not be put to sleep and can be placed in permanent homes. GO pays for medical costs for all dogs that go to the kennel prior to their permanent placements. Most of the dogs only require routine care; however, they also receive dogs with racing injuries (like Zia), for which they absorb the cost.

$1,000 = repair of compound or multiple fracture
$200-$400 = repair of a simple fracture (Zia had a hairline fracture in her back leg)
$139 = spay/neuter/dental of one dog
$35 = shots and heartworm treatments

More information about greyhound racing & treatment (not for the faint of heart)

If you'd like to pledge me for the month, drop me an email & I'll add you to the list.

I'll be writing for the whole month of November, so you can pledge anytime!

Wish me luck... and if you see me between now and December, tell me to get back to writing!

Fame 2009 or Fame 1980? A Quiz

Last weekend we went to see Fame (the 2009 remake) in the theater. I was really excited about it, because the 1980 movie (and even moreso, the TV show) were so influential in the world of Young Molly Backes. A school where you get to be a total diva, wear legwarmers, and dance on top of taxis? Sign me up!

Woo, leg warmers!

So, first of all, I have no idea what I was thinking. Remakes are never as good as the original. You heard me, Lindsay Lohan Parent Trap. Never. Secondly, I somehow thought I wouldn’t really need a plot if there was enough singing and dancing. Right? Who needs a plot when you have jazz hands? The original movie didn’t really have a plot, and it was still awesome. Third, I apparently forgot to factor in the differences between teens in 1980 and teens today: the strange, dangerous, secretive, and usually about to knife you teens of yore vs. the sparkly, witty, talented, and injecting much needed cash into America’s limping economy teens of today.

Fame 2009: Cleaner. Brighter. Airbrushed.

It’s not that the remake of Fame was that terrible, really, if you consider “whitewashed, sterilized, and PG” to be “not terrible.” It’s just that the remake represents an entirely different America than the 1980 version did. There’s a place for each, I suppose. And to help you figure out which version of Fame is the place for you, I’ve created this handy quiz.


Do You Belong in Fame 1980 or Fame 2009? A Quiz

1. New York is:
a) exciting! Bright lights, big city, the Great White Way! I know I’m going to make it!
b) dirty. Full of junkies and prostitutes.

2. Your performing arts high school is:
a) a great opportunity to achieve my dreams!
b) kind of junky.

3. The weird kid likes you because:
a) he can see your true talent shining through.
b) you supply him with drugs.

4. When you get offered the gig your friend wanted, you:
a) refuse the gig. Friends come before career, guys.
b) shrug. Sucks to be her! You’re going to be a dancer!

5. When your friend gets offered the gig you wanted, you:
a) leave in a huff, trusting your friend to follow. Friends first, guys!
b) yell: “Well f*ck you, Leroy, this was my audition, remember? You’re not into high school, this was my audition. We were rehearsing to get me into this school, not you, you f*cker! It’s just not fair! I didn’t want to come here anyway. This school sucks! You done me a favor, shithead! You saving me four f*cking years from this ass licking school! You looking at one happy lady. Who wants to go to a f*cking school to learn how to dance anyway?”

6. At lunch, you:
a) perform a highly choreographed interdisciplinary routine, giving ample time for each student to shine.
b) jam. About the lunch ladies.

7. This teacher keeps hassling you because:
a) he just believes in you so much, and you’re not willing to let him in.
b) you can’t read. And you DON’T WANT TO LEARN.

8. When things get rough in class, you:
a) run away to the auditorium, where you discover that the cute shy girl has an amazing hidden talent.
b) go smash a bunch of shit.

9. The problem with your analyst is:
a) um, what’s an analyst?
b) you’re in love with him, thus exposing your latent homosexuality.

10. The problem with your mother is:
a) she told you you were talented! She believed in you!
b) you haven’t seen her in months and she neglected to furnish the apartment in which you live, alone, with your one mattress, Indian print blanket, and guitar.

11. But seriously, the real problem with your mother is:
a) she won’t stop taking pictures of you! She’s just so proud of you!
b) she refused to take your little sister to the doctor after she got raped. Church? She needs to go to a doctor, ma!

12. The problem with your father is:
a) he just wants you to be a classical cellist!
b) he attaches speakers to the roof of his cab and drives around the city blasting your music.

13. When you take to the streets:
a) um, we don’t do that. But we did have a very nicely choreographed and expensively decorated circus-themed Halloween dance!
b) it’s because YOU HAVE TO DANCE! There’s a dark, violent edge to your dancing, not to mention a general societal mistrust of teenagers leftover from when all the teens went wild in the sixties and seventies – only a few years ago! – not to mention the fact that half the kids are on drugs these days and who knows what else! Get the police in here to stop this riot!!

14. You decide you’re just too boring and vanilla to be a real actress, so you:
a) unbraid your hair and start curling it instead.
b) change your name to Monique, start sleeping with your boyfriend, smoke pot, go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, take off your shirt, and dance in front of an auditorium of strangers.

15. Potential failure and inability to achieve your dreams is symbolized by:
a) your super hot teacher, Megan Mullally, who’s still really pretty and has an amazing voice. But she’s old, so it’s not too upsetting. Plus, now she’s a teacher, and she gets to go to clubs and do karaoke with us!
b) the most promising young actor from PA who was a senior when you were a freshman. Now he’s a sad waiter. Look into your future, kid.

16. When an older dude tried to use your naiveté and desire for fame to seduce you, you:
a) pushed him off with chaste outrage and ran out of the trailer.
b) took your shirt off for the camera and cried.

17. After you got kicked out of PA because you’re not talented enough to make it, you:
a) stuck around and supported your friends anyway!
b) disappeared from the movie.

18. The only thing standing between you and your career as a professional dancer is:
a) your pesky boyfriend. God, did he SERIOUSLY think you would choose him over your career?
b) your pesky unborn baby.

19. When things get rough, you:
a) cut to a dance sequence!
b) drink too much, do too many drugs and try to sever all ties with the people who love you.

20. Your music teacher tells you:
a) that you’re so talented, he’d like to hire you.
b) to stop holding your violin like a dick.

21. By the end of high school, your chances at success are:
a) hello, awesome! You already HAVE a job as a professional actress/singer/dancer!
b) uncertain, but probably pretty slim.


ANSWER KEY:

If you answered mostly a):
Fame 2009! What up, Millennial? You’ve been told since before birth that you are more special than every special special special kid around you, and that has instilled a deep sense of entitlement in you! If you have a dream, you will probably achieve it! Like, in the next half hour! And if one person tells you that you’re not good enough, well, you can always go home to Iowa and take over your mother’s dance studio as the Number One Dancer in Cedar Falls!

We respect personal space in 2009!

If you answered mostly b):
Fame 1980! You will do anything to achieve your dreams, no matter how much coke you have to snort, how many producers you have to sleep with, or how many abortions you have to put on your Master Charge. You’re going to make it, dammit, and if anyone tells you otherwise, you will go crazy in a way that may involve dancing, but will more likely involve a bunch of shattered glass.

Baby, Remember MY Name!

She-Ra Defeats the Evil Whores

God bless Hulu.

So it's Saturday afternoon and I'm doing laundry while N's at the theater. In a former life, I used to wait until Kate & Alley was on so I could fold my laundry to the comfortingly mild hijinks of Jane Curtin and Susan Saint-James, but lacking a TV, I have more control over what crappy TV I get to watch while I'm folding towels.

Okay Hulu, I say, gimme your best shot.
Yeah? Asks Hulu.
Yeah, I say.
And Hulu says, How about SHE-RA, PRINCESS OF POWER?

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR, HULU. You have to understand, in a childhood of very little TV -- I remember a lot of getting lost in cornfields, building bridges across cowponds with sticks, lining rocks up in order of prettiest to ugliest -- we chose to spend our allotted TV hour on two shows: He-Man and She-Ra. My favorite episodes, of course, were when He-Man and She-Ra COMBINED FORCES to save the universe from evil, similar to when Jamie and Paul Buchman would suddenly show up in Central Perk and mistake Phoebe for her evil twin Ursula. Oh, the hilarity!

So yes. I sat down with my clean, warm laundry to watch the pilot episode of She-Ra, Princess of Power. And it was awesome.


And so, so, so much gayer than I remembered.


The credits are like Electric Company plus GLITTER plus power 80s music. Along the lines of Star Wars, they tell some story about something something universe, evil guy... whatever.

And then She-Ra and all her friends stand under the rainbow, because only THEY can save the universe from the HORDES of EVIL. (Which, mind you, I was about halfway into the episode before I realized they were saying "Hordes" and not "Whores.") She-Ra's Rainbow Coalition to Fight the Evil Whores.

So once upon a time, in a Castle Greyskull far away....

a bird-woman was having a very bad dream. She dreamed that a snorting skeleton-pig-fish man was stealing a baby. "You may have won this time, Bird Lady, but you'll never see this BABY again!"

She woke up from her terrible dream, only to see a sword appear in the air and blast open a door that she'd NEVER THOUGHT TO OPEN HERSELF, revealing a magical portal to... somewhere!

Meanwhile, in a Jetsons-type colony, Prince Adam is stirring up a batch of his super special spiced bread, while his giant kitty looks on, Scooby-Doo-like, whining about how hungry he is. Adam explains patiently (sounding suspiciously like Casey Kasem, but apparently he's voiced by John Erwin, who incidentally also voiced Babe the Gallant Pig) that a work of art like his secret spiced bread requires patience.

No, I'm serious.

Suddenly, Adam hears a voice in his head, and utters my favorite line of the entire episode: "Shhh! The sorceress is speaking to me by telepathy!"

BY TELEPATHY

BY TELEPATHY. That means she is IN MY HEAD.

The birdlady in Adam's head tells him to rush to Castle Greyskull RIGHT AWAY. So despite all the nonsense he's just given his cat about how much time and patience his special bread takes, he drops everything, and runs to the castle, where the Bird Woman shows Adam the portal, gives him a sword that looks just like his, except for the gem. ("Hey! Except for this jewel, this sword looks EXACTLY LIKE MINE!") Bird Woman, that saucy minx, then demands Adam go through the portal to look for the person to whom the sword belongs, but she won't tell him WHO. "ADAM, ADAM, PLEASE STOP ASKING QUESTIONS," she whispers girlishly. "JUST GO THROUGH THE DAMN PORTAL AND FIND A MYSTERIOUS PERSON NO I CAN'T TELL YOU ANYTHING ELSE! I HAVE A HEADACHE!"

And she pushes him and his kitty through the portal into a Seussian wonderland. Luckily, Adam fits right in with his violet tights and purple Uggs.

Adam and his kitty do what any characters in a children's show would do upon entering a strange land: they go to a bar.

Where, as it happens, Tom Selleck is sitting with his Rainbow Owl, drinking alone. As usual.

Moments after Adam and the kitty burst in, shocking the locals with his Lilac Uggs ("So 2003!" they whisper), three robots burst into the bar and demand that the harpist "Play something good!"

When the bard fails to play the appropriate music, the robots go crazy, forcing Tom Selleck to unveil himself.

Tom's name, as it turns out, is BEAU. As in "Adam's Handsome New" Beau? Adam hopes so.

The rainbow owl, as it turns out, is as much of a coward as the kitty, and they become besties under a bar table.

Adam and (his) Beau fight the robots together until the bitter end, where they slam them headfirst into matching pink planter pots.

Meanwhile, at the Spider Castle, The Snorty Skeleton speaks to his Evil Whores. You can tell they're evil because they're so sexy. Well, the ladies are. And the dudes are all sea monsters.

I recognize Cat-Ra because we still have her action figure at my mother's house. In fact, N pulled it out of a drawer under the TV last weekend when we were looking for the remote.

Her friend the dementor is the only legitimately scary bad guy. I remember being scared of her when I was little, too. What I didn't realize then is that part of her threat is in her starting-to-sag evil boobs. LOOK INTO YOUR FUTURE, LITTLE GIRLS.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Gayest Ride in Cartoon History is happening:

No comment.

So Adam and Beau and the kitty and the rainbow owl and the pink horse all go to the Whispering Woods, where they meet up with the "rebels" who are composed of like eight farmers with hoes and led by a pink-haired sweetie named Glimmer.

Glimmer.

Seriously.

Their meeting is interrupted by this Wacky Witch whose eyelids are part of her hat and Her Wacky Broomstick Sidekick who come to tell them that the Evil Whores are imprisoning all the townspeople and sending them off to the Slave Fields.

Glimmer takes a stand. "Golly gee, we can't let them get away with it!"

Now this next part is the only one I find remotely scary, and that's when the Evil Whores are rounding up the townspeople to work in the slave mines. What's interesting is that this was 1985, so all the bad guys should be Cold War Era types -- you know, trying to convert Glimmer to Marxism or whatever -- but instead, they seem to be taking a page from the Nazis. Maybe there's just a finite number of ways for Evil Whores to be Truly Evil, and no one did it better than the Nazis. I have to wonder, though, if my very first understanding of the Holocaust wasn't directly in relation to THIS EPISODE: "Ooohhh, I get it! It's like when the Evil Whores rounded up all the townspeople and sent them off to work in the slave mines!"

And that's what truly scares me.

Anyway, so there's a battle, and the real shocker is that PRINCESS AURORA is EVIL. She is! They keep calling her "Force Captain Aurora" or something, and she is SHOOTING A GUN AT HE-MAN, who we know -- but he doesn't know, and she doesn't know -- oh, delicious dramatic irony -- IS HER BROTHER!!

Also, she isn't wearing pants.

Meanwhile, (her secret brother) Adam runs away, calls on the power vested in him by Castle Greyskull, and turns into He-Man.

And then he shoots his sword at his pet tiger, and it FINALLY turns from being a trembly, hungry, foolish figure (with a voice eerily reminiscent of Brian Close) into the supremely awesome BATTLE CAT I remember from the action figures of my childhood. And yes, we played with He-Man figures along with She-Ra.

And then a battle ensues, in which He-Man tells a very butch-sounding Scorpion Lady to be more ladylike. Seriously, He-Man? With your Violet Tights and your Beau who wears his heart on his chest, and your pet kitty, YOU feel the need to instruct other people on appropriate gender behavior? The nerve.

Then Glimmer gets her ears sucked by a sea monster.

And then He-Man is knocked over by this other sea monster's "Balance Distorter Ray." I'm not making this up. The sea monster can knock you off your balance! Oooooh, how EEE-VIL!

Of course, the battle must finally come down to He-Man and Force Captain Aurora, who are actually brother and sister -- not that you'd guess by their extreme matching Minnesota Blond thing -- and they have a showdown which involves He-Man pulling out the sword (the one that's "except for this jewel, exactly like MY sword") from Bird Lady, only to see....

Aurora's face IN THE GEM!

WHAAAAAAAA??

But she doesn't care! A robot appears and knocks He-Man over, leaving Aurora to pick up the sword WITH HER OWN FACE and stare at it...

TO BE CONTINUED!!

Except I'm not going to continue to recount the entire second half of the episode to you. Not that I won't watch it. On the contrary friends; I still have laundry to fold. It's just that it's so hard to write with the closing themesong ringing in my ears: "For the honor of love... we have the power, so can you!"

How very Colbertian of them.

My Beautiful Pomeranian

Excessively genial insurance salesman: Hey, that's a beautiful dog you have!

Me: Thank you!

EGIS: So, she's some kind of mix, huh? What kind of mix?

Me: No, she's actually a purebred.

EGIS: Oh yeah, a purebred! So she must be a... what, a pomeranian?

Pomeranian: Tiny. Fluffy.

Me:

EGIS: Pomeranian? Is that right?

Zia: Not tiny. Also not fluffy.

Me: Um, she's a greyhound.

EGIS: Oh yeah, of course! A greyhound!

Me: Yep.

EGIS: I've never seen a greyhound that looks like that before!

A bunch of brindle greyhounds: look exactly like Zia.

I wanted to say: Hmmm, well, that's what they look like.
or: So actually, you've never seen a greyhound before.
or: A pomeranian? A POMERANIAN?? HA HA HA HA HA!
or: Please stop talking.

I said: She doesn't like men very much.

Questions Zia Has Refused to Answer

Who's a dog?
Who's a good doggy?
Who's a good girl?
Who's a pretty girl?
Are you a dog?
Are you a doggy?
Are you a good dog?
Are you a good doggy?
Are you a nice dog?
Are you a nice girl?
Are you a good girl?
Are you a pretty girl?
Are you such a pretty girl?
Are you so pretty?
What's your name?
Why are you so pretty?
Why are you such a pretty girl?
Why are you such a good doggy?
How did you get to be such a good doggy?
Is that your friend?
Do you love your friend?
Is that your baby?
Do you love your baby?
Why don't I want to work on my novel?
What's your take on the Sotomayor thing?
Are you so excited about today's Friday Feature?
Can I come take a nap with you instead of working today?


Questions Zia Has Deigned to Answer:
Do you want to go outside?
Do you want to go for a walk?
Do you want some foodie?
Is it time for dinner?

Welcome Home, Zia!

Zia, Week One:

First of all, she is absolutely beautiful. She has gorgeous liquid brown eyes, deep amber in sunlight (just like Zeke's were, when I first met him), and lovely black lining around her eyes. Her fur is striped like a tiger, and she can camouflage into our living room rug pretty tidily. She folds her paws daintily when she rests, and has a very pretty prancing trot when she walks. At different times she looks like a fawn, a horse, a giraffe (it's the neck), a wolf, and some sort of swimming creature, possibly a mermaid. She has a sleek, waving way of moving through the air like it's made of sea. And of course, she always looks like a queen. Last night we had people over and Zia held court from our bed, letting people come in and admire her and pet her without deigning to join the sweaty masses.

She's not like any dog I've ever known. She prefers inside to outside, to the point that we sometimes have to fight her to get her in the backyard to go potty. Even stranger, she loves going for walks; she just hates going into the backyard without a leash on. She doesn't know how to play, doesn't have much of a prey drive, and spends most of her time snoozing. She sleeps a lot.

She's very shy but not really anxious; she won't approach you but she also won't pee in fear or bolt when approached by strangers. She's very patient when little kids hit her and when puppies jump on her. She stood absolutely still when I wanted to clean her ears with q-tips, but was not down with the tooth brushing. Her passive resistance rivals Gandhi's. She's very polite about it, but if she doesn't want to do something, she won't.

Her fur is soft like a bunny's. She likes to be scratched on the neck, right behind her ears. Sometimes when she's sleeping you can see her bottom teeth. She really likes hot dogs but in general is the least food-motivated dog I've ever met. I have a hunch that any time spent with Grandma will change this. She is careful to take every single step going down, but is very nervous to do stairs in the dark. She already feels completely at home at StoryStudio, where she has a big poufy bed to sleep on, right next to my desk.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, we'll wake up to find her lying on her back with all four legs in the air, completely dead to the world.

The end of her tail has a little tuft of black hair, like a lion's tail, or an elephant's. She has a matching pink collar and leash, but strangers still call her "he," probably because she weighs 65 pounds of pure muscle and her head comes nearly to my waist. She likes to look out the front window, especially when N leaves for work. We both go to the front window then, and watch until she's out of sight.

She's a tidy eater and a sloppy drinker. Her nose drips when she's nervous. She's not particularly interested in toys, but sometimes I come home from work to find her curled up with a stuffed bunny in her crate. She puts herself to bed between 8 and 9 pm, and if we're still up she'll come into the hallway every half hour or so as if to ask, "Um, are you guys coming to bed, or what? Because it's bedtime."

She's sleeping in my bed right now, stretched out with her head resting delicately on N's legs, waiting for me to stretch out alongside her and run my hand along her long, soft neck, until we both fall asleep.

Sea Turtles, An Ocean Full of Garbage, and Us

Ever since I saw an article about how one-third of sea turtles have plastic in their digestive systems, I've been eschewing plastic bags at stores. I've felt gross about plastic bags ever since I first learned about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch last summer, but for whatever reason, the article about sea turtles really pushed me over the edge. I guess the sea turtles put a face on the problem? Like before, it was "Oh my god, gross, there's a floating island of garbage the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific ocean, ugh, humans are awful." And now it's "SEA TURTLES! They just want to eat some jelly fish! STOP DUMPING PLASTIC IN THEIR OCEANS!"

When I think about sea turtles, I always think about my favorite Roald Dahl book, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, which has a story about a boy who befriends a sea turtle. Maybe I wish I were that boy, whispering to sea turtles, riding them out into the waves, disappearing into the blue horizon. Notice how this story doesn't include a part where the magical sea turtle eats a Walgreens bag and dies?

Also, sea turtles remind me of Zeke. They're just these peaceful monsters with crappy eyesight who live to eat yummy food. In his later years, Zeke would sometimes appear like Jaws and slowly shark down on your hand, hoping it was full of food (or maybe hoping you suddenly had steaks for hands). I imagine sea turtles the same way: coming across a floating plastic bag, thinking "ooh, jellyfish!" and chomping down. (Jellyfish, by the way, are bastards. I am strongly in favor of anyone who wants to eat them.)

Anyway, so I'm done with plastic bags. And I encourage you to be as well. This morning I stopped at Walgreens to pick some things up and because I couldn't fit it all in my purse, I bought a $0.99 cloth bag to carry everything. The lady at the counter asked me if I wanted to bag everything in plastic before putting it into the cloth bag, and I looked at her with horror. What? NO! Are you on crack, lady? Do you not understand the point of a cloth bag?

Last week I told someone at the grocery store that he could keep his plastic bag. "They kill sea turtles!" I said. He looked... politely interested, maybe? Bored? Worried I'd jump across the counter and strangle him? I'm not sure. "There's a floating island the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific ocean, and it's made almost entirely of plastic!" I said. "I did not know that," he said, channeling the guy from Wayne's World. I'm sure he didn't actually care. But I do.

The True Meaning of St. Patrick's Day, or: There's Nothing Irish About That Jagerbomb

In the years since I traded the safe and happy bubble known as My Wisconsin Childhood for the cold and cruel existence known as My Iowa New Mexico Illinois Stressful and Expensive Student-Debt-Ridden Tax-Paying Adulthood, I have learned a few lessons about the wide world. Never pass up an opportunity for free food. You don't really have to wait an hour after lunch before you go swimming. Showing your boobs can get you shiny beads and free beers, but not out of speeding tickets. And (shockingly) St. Patrick's Day is a much bigger deal to our family than it is to almost everyone else.

This last one I learned first when I lived in New Mexico, where the holiday registers just above Casimir Pulaski day on the radar. I remember about falling out of my chair when someone explained that she didn't like St. Patrick's Day because of the pinching. "Who ever thought of a holiday all about pinching?"

Pinching? PINCHING??

St. Patrick's Day is not about pinching, my friends. It is not about pretending you're Irish just to get kisses. Contrary to what this city will tell you, it is not even about being falling-down-drunk by noon while men dressed as giant leprechauns try to roll your drunk ass into the neon-green river. (And no, random drunk guy in cab, I will not make out with that pole. Get back in your cab and take that ridiculous hat off. You're not "Chirish," you're just an alcoholic.)

St. Patrick's Day is about food. Delicious, delicious food. St. Patrick's Day is the Thanksgiving of spring, and like Thanksgiving, it's a holiday about family and togetherness and abundance and gratitude for these modern days when our potatoes aren't rotting in the fields and we have career options beyond cop and barmaid. We gather our friends and family and feast on corned beef and cabbage, potatoes, carrots, turnips, parsnips, onions, and loaf after loaf of gorgeous secret family recipe Irish Soda Bread. We add love and tears and generations of irish-catholic guilt, and cover it all in butter. We listen to The Chieftans and we commune with our ancestors and if we happen to cut ourselves and bleed into the bread, all the better.

We do not butter our Irish Soda Bread.

We do not put caraway in our Irish Soda Bread.

If you refuse to try our Irish Soda Bread because you "don't like raisins," we will mock you. Preferably until you cry. Just try the damn bread! You'll love it. I swear. No, you don't need to butter it! Jesus! JUST EAT THE BREAD!

Last weekend, my mother overheard my end of a cell phone conversation with my sister in which we outlined many of these rules in increasingly agitated fashion. When I yelled, "BUTTER? What's wrong with you??" my mother snorted diet pepsi through her nose and said, "I'm so proud of my children!"

In my family, we do not paint our faces green and use our Holy Feast Day as an excuse to get piss drunk with a bunch of frat boys. (Because who needs an excuse? If you need an excuse to drink, you're probably not Irish.) [As I was writing this, my friend Jeremy was twittering an Irish snarkfest. "Yeah, I'm listening to the Pogues. Do you know who that is, Green Shirt?" and "No matter how drunk you get, there will never be ANYTHING Irish about that Jagerbomb." I love him.]

We do not pinch. We don't play tricks or dye our beer green. My dad usually does tell thematically appropriate stories (including, but not limited to: "How A Leprechaun Stole My Backpack In Ireland" and "The Old Irish Farmer Who Was Possibly A Leprechaun Who Messed With Tom Dunne's And My Head In Ireland," and of course, "I Kissed The Blarney Stone And That Means I Get To Lie All The Time"). We wear green, sometimes. If we feel like it. We listen to the Chieftains and the Waterboys and Van Morrison and the Cranberries and the Pogues and Sinead O'Connor and the Dubliners and Cousin Kathy.

We make corned beef so good our friends get hooked and start shooting it straight into their veins.

We make soda bread so good the entire county demands their own loaf, and we turn our kitchens into soda bread factories for one week out of the year.

We feast. With friends, with family, we gather and serve it all up with love and gratitude and this amazing horseradish sauce. We feast.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! (Except you, drunk guy. Get back in your cab and take off that hat.)

Prioritizing Writing, Or: At Least There's One Good Thing About This Crappy Economy

Every now and again I actually scrape together enough time to blog at work, and then post it here to create the illusion that I actually do sometimes update my own blog, aside from all the youtube videos of ladies singing about grammar and Jesus singing about gays. Of course, if I were really diligent about posting videos, I'd direct you to KITTENS! INSPIRED BY: KITTENS! which is both funny and terrifying.

Anyway:
Prioritizing Writing

Misheard Carmina Burana Lyrics

I haven't laughed this hard since Megan and I were little kids making fart noises when we were supposed to be asleep.



You're welcome.

One Billion Trillion Units(?) of Deliciousness

In other words, The Greatest Snack Food Stadium Ever Built:



One billion trillion, dude. One billion trillion.

On a similar note, and in case you've been living in a Bacon Cave (or would it be a vegan cave? A bacon-hatin' cave? Anyway, you know what I mean), the internet's crazy for the Bacon explosion!! Almost as popular as that goddamn Snuggie.

Happy Superbowl!

1000 Novels Challenge

My friend Jennie over at Biblio File is hosting her first blog challenge.

The Guardian's 1000 Novels Challenge:

So, the challenge is to read 10 and review books off the list between February 1st of 2009 and February 1st of 2010.

Of these 10, you must read 1 from each category and, if possible, 1 should be a book you have never heard of until you saw it on this list.

That's right, folks, I'll take this challenge! I will read 1% of the Guardian's novels to read before I die, and I'll tell you about them! And at least one of them will be a book I've never heard of! And it will be awesome!

Because seriously, how could you resist a challenge you can do in the bathtub?

Baby Got Good Grammar... Back

Sit back and allow Sistersalad to tell you a little something about grammar, with a little help from Sir Mix-a-Lot.

Oh, Aunt Basil!

Cross your fingers and send good wishes to my mother's dog Basil, known for many years as "your little brother" and also answering to: Beez, Beezil, Weez, Weezil, Waz, Wazzil, Beezer-Weezer, Beezil-Weezil, Weenie Boy, Baz, Bazzy, Spazzil, Beefaroo, Pony Boy, Hobby Horse, Sits-Like-a-Person, Aunt Basil, Beeazulbub, Buddy, Bubba, Nancy Boy, Wild Nancy, Princess Basil, and "Shut up, you crabby old queen."

Basil has a mast cell tumor on his right shoulder that will be removed & biopsied next week to see if it has metastasized. Poor Bazzy. It's been a tough year for Backes Dogs, and it's definitely too soon to go through another cancer dog grieving process.

Basil

Plus, even though Aunt Basil is indeed a crabby old queen, though he's punched through two windows, left rabbit legs in Mom's purse, vomited a turtle in the back yard, and got cracked out on turkey and bit Natalie, mostly he's a nice freckle faced boy, and he's got a good number of years in him. We hope.

Biking, Blogging, and Barfing: A New Year's Round-Up

So apparently writing a blog is not much like riding a bike. Which is actually a good thing, because the last time I rode a bike I nearly got hit by a Netherlandian bus. I was in Amsterdam at the time, which explains the presence of the Netherlandian bus. I mean, it would probably be a better story if I were biking in Madison and got hit by a Netherlandian bus, because then you’d be like, Where did that Netherlandian bus come from? and I’d be like, I KNOW! What the hell! and you’d say, A Madison bus would never hit a biker! and I’d say, I KNOW! but a Chicago bus would, because one drove over this lady just last year, and that’s why I haven’t ridden a bike since –

Actually, you know what, I take that back. The last time I rode a bike was in Madison, when I lived on Rodney Court, and it IS a better story, but one my attorneys have advised me not to share publicly. Buy me a beer and I’ll tell you sometime.

Also I used to ride on Lisa Otte’s tandem bike in college, but that mostly involved me putting my feet up and letting her pedal us both.

The point is, you’re supposed to be able to ride a bike forever once you’ve learned, but clearly the same isn’t true for blogging, because for the last six weeks I’ve had no idea what to write about. None. Though obviously telling stories about biking is a rich vein to mine.

So, last six weeks, in brief: My sister came to visit for Thanksgiving! and introduced me to the delight that is Hacker-Pschorr. I had to work the whole weekend, but she played with Natalie and then helped me move a podium to StoryStudio, where it is already much beloved. I made the rounds of the usual 10,000 holiday parties, missing only Kate’s birthday because I was sick (happy birthday, Kate!) but making it to Jere & Erin’s tree trimming party, Chris’s Festivus party, our own Annual Cookie Exchange Party (now with more 100% more Circles of Celebration!), StoryStudio’s holiday party, StoryStudio’s Open House, Dan & Kelly’s Christmas Eve LOTR marathon (straight after working xmas eve at the dogstore; I ate some turkey and promptly collapsed into a snoring heap in the papysan chair), and finally Natalie and Molly’s Quiet Christmas Morning Tiny Party, Guest-Starring Mamabackes. And in the middle of all those parties, I also managed to buy a few xmas presents (including some awesome art & a lobster shirt from Threadless, who live in the same building as StoryStudio and are pretty cool), dyed my hair black just because I always had a hunch I could pull it off, worked a million retail hours at the dogstore, bought myself a new sweater (it's blue!), managed to land a position as a poet-in-residence with the wonderful Hands On Stanzas program (and no, regardless of what my father may have told you, I am not the Poet Laureate of Chicago), got a promotion at StoryStudio (Assistant Director, woo!), and even read a few books.

And then the New Year came, and with it came the ebola. I lost a week of my life – one fifty-secondth of the new year – to a hideous death flu contracted from my mother, the birthday girl. It was ugly. Let’s not speak of it ever again, except in reference to “the sickest I’ve ever been,” and hopefully told only as legendary war story, as in, “You think this is bad? This is nothing compared to the 2009 Death Flu,” and NOT “wow, I’m even sicker now than I was with the Death Flu of 2009!”

Anyway, so this is exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid these last few weeks: you’re so good to come back to my mostly defunct blog, checking in on me to see if I have anything interesting to say to distract you from whatever boring task you’re trying to avoid, and all I can give you is a long list of randomness and then a story about barfing.

But since you've been such a good, diligent reader, and because you've been so kind to overlook my sloppy and excessively parenthetical blogging ways, instead of the very predictable, pedestrian conclusion-with-a-half-assed-promise-to-do-better-in-the-new-year, I offer a picture of the present I bought myself today. Because I’ve coveted it for months, and because it’s adorable.

Happy new year!

Wordle my nerdle

Zeke Wordle

Given that my primary obsession from about 2000 to 2003 was the problem of making visual art out of words, how is it possible that I didn't know about Wordle? The site allows you to enter a web address, body of text, or del.icio.us user name, and from there generates a random word cloud based on the number of times certain words appear in the text. I used the text from Teacher's Pet to generate this one. (Click on the image to see a larger version.)

Shoplifting Dog

Apparently it's a slow news day in Utah.....

Santa Lost a Ho

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Cabinet of Nerds

December 17, 2008
Rock Bottom Brewery, Chicago

Nat: ...and that is why I love licorice the best.
Me: Can I interrupt you? What is this song?
Music: La la... female of the species is more deadly than the male....
Nat: Hmmm. I don't know.
Me: It's from high school. I haven't heard this song in like 10 years. Who sings this?
Nat: Let's see if we can guess. [listens intently] Yeah, I got nothing.
Me: 1996, I think.
Nat: I don't know. I'm going to guess it's 1998 trying to sound like 1996.
Me: Okay, fair enough........... what is this song?
Nat: It's definitely familiar.
Me: Maybe it's a one hit wonder.
Nat: Or the B-side of a one hit wonder.
Me: Yeah, maybe they had a more popular song, and this was their under-appreciated second single.
Nat: That sounds right.
Me: Or maybe this was the hit. This was the wonder.
Nat: Also possible.

Text Message
Dec 17, 9:56 pm
From: Molly
To: Rory, Doug, Leonard

Who sang that female of the species song ca 1996?

Dec 17, 9:58 pm
From: Doug
To: Molly

Space


Me: It was Space.
Nat: Oh. Guess we're both wrong.


Dec 17, 10:08 pm
From: Rory
To: Molly

Space is the name of the group. Man I LOVE that song!...is more deadly than the male... shock shock horror

Dec 17, 10:15 pm
From: Molly
To: Rory

What year?

Dec 17, 10:19
From: Rory
To: Molly

'96

Dec 17, 10:19
From: Molly
To: Rory

I am awesome.

Twofer Monday

With special guest star Neil Patrick Harris! Also, Jesus.

Prop 8 The Musical


I Love the Gays

Dear Zachary: a letter to a son about his father

Dear friends: you should probably go see this movie. Chicago, it's now playing at the Gene Siskel Film center downtown, scheduled for this week only. Courtney, Sara, Megan, and everyone in Portland, it's at the Hollywood Theatre next week. Albuquerque folks, it's playing in Santa Fe on the 28th. Everyone else, you're on your own. But really, if you have the chance, see this film. It's good, and so, so sad.

Dogs, 2; Chickens, 1. Oh, and Gays? ZERO

So, Tuesday was amazing. Being in Chicago was absolutely incredible. It was like everyone was having their birthday on the same day. But not just any birthday: the BEST birthday. That one birthday you looked forward to your whole LIFE, the one where you finally got a PONY.

Happy Birthday, America!

And not only was Obama totally eloquent and poetic as always, but then he went and promised his daughters a PUPPY? In his acceptance speech?!? Best president ever! The only thing better would be if he promised EVERYONE a puppy! Hey Obama, we ALL worked hard to get you elected! We stood in lines for hours! We TOTALLY deserve a puppy!! That would be great, too, because then we wouldn't have to move. We'd be like, Sorry Landlady! I know our lease says No Dogs, but this is from the PRESIDENT. President Obama! It's our fundamental right to have a puppy!

Ahhh.... a girl can dream, right?

Speaking of fundamental rights, though, I have to say that the happiness of the election has been tempered by the total shittiness of Prop 8. The title of this blog is Bittersweet, but it's rarely so apropos. For the last two days, I've have this tight feeling in my throat like in middle school when your friends all suddenly decided they didn't like you anymore and wouldn't let you sit with them, but wouldn't tell you why. Years ago, when I used to teach "bully proofing" in middle and high schools, my students nearly always agreed that the kind of psychological exclusion bullying was the worst by far. Today I'm reminded of it, and though I'm so, so pleased by the presidential election, and so happy about President Obama, my happiness is being choked out by this feeling of sitting by myself at lunch, wondering what I did wrong.

It's hard to join the overwhelming national celebration of falling racial barriers when, at the very same time, laws are being passed to discriminate against a large group of Americans. I mean, how could the people of California seriously stand in the voting booth and think, "I am totally voting for Barack Obama! It's about time we had a minority in the White House! Hell yes! This generation is so much more enlightened and tolerant and awesome than any other generation in American history! Oh, and while I'm here... I think 18,000 marriages between loving, consenting adults should totally be annulled! What, they want equal rights? Who do they think they are? This is America!"

Ugh.

Meanwhile, those very same voters overwhelmingly passed Prop 2, granting rights to chickens to stand up and stretch their wings while waiting to be fricasseed.

And then, in a kick-me type comedy of bad timing, the Chicago suburb Oak Park is hosting a Mass Wedding Ceremony this weekend, just to rub it in. Great, Oak Park, thanks for reminding thousands of Chicagoans that they can no longer head out to sunny CA to get married.

Oh, and did I mention that this Mass Wedding is for DOGS?

It's a Mass Dog Wedding. Because they can get married. Just not gay people.

So here's the thing. Personally, I have no problem with the event -- it's a fundraiser for a local shelter, and you know, whatever it takes to raise money for pooches. But. I'm thinking that the Mass Dog Wedding in Oak Park will certainly be mobbed by protesters, right? Because the reason states keep passing straight marriage only laws is to "protect the sanctity of marriage." Because the sanctity of Brit's various marriages, and Madonna's inevitable third marriage, and the sacred unions of the hundreds of people who get married at Graceland Wedding Chapel each year is so sanct that it needs constant protection from evil gays who also want to have three different hubands and get married by Elvis!

But seriously, California and everyone who voted for Prop 8: surely, the mass dog wedding makes FAR more of a mockery of your sacred institution than the weddings of committed, consensual, adult human beings who actually love each other?? Right? I mean, you have to protect marriage from all threats, not just the threat of a wedding with two brides and no grooms. So get your asses out here and protest this shit, because otherwise I'm going to start suspecting that you don't care that much about marriage after all, and you ACTUALLY JUST HATE GAY PEOPLE.

Boo to California, Florida, and Arizona for ruining what should have been an amazing, perfect week for me. And props to the Obamas for thinking about getting your puppy from a rescue organization instead of a breeder or puppy mill. I'll take a rescued puppy too, please. If you're in town, we could even get them dog-married.

November 4, 2008

We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. And they will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come.

We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.

It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.

Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.

And so, tomorrow, as we take the campaign south and west, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas, that the hopes of the little girl who goes to the crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A., we will remember that there is something happening in America, that we are not as divided as our politics suggest, that we are one people, we are one nation.

And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea:

Yes we can.

One Day More

Les Misbarack

I VOTED!

...and it only took me two and a half hours!

The Line to Vote at Welles Park

I went over to Welles Park on Thursday, knowing I'd have to wait in line for a while -- I figured a half hour, maybe an hour. When I got in line, a man said it was about two hours from the tree. The tree? I wasn't even AT the tree yet! I thought about cashing it in then and waiting until Tuesday, but it was such a beautiful day, and I didn't actually have anything better to do, so I decided to stay and wait. And wait. And wait.

Two Hours From the Tree

It could have been fun, if the people around me had been fun. I tried to make friends, thinking about how fun it would be to say we'd become friends waiting in line to vote in the 2008 election. But the woman behind me did NOT want to be friends with me. We stood next to each other for two hours and fifteen minutes, without break -- one hundred and thirty five minutes, each one slower than the one before -- and she REFUSED to befriend me. The man behind her seemed like he would have been friends, but by the time I was desperate enough with boredom to try to befriend him, he'd been beaten into submission by Silent Lady's aggressive silence.

Inside, the Line Snaked Up and Down the Hallway

I wrote in my journal for over an hour, standing awkwardly, cradling it against my left arm, but after ten or so pages I was sick of myself. No wonder Silent Lady didn't want to befriend me. I was BORING. Eventually, I decided to bag writing, and started texting my friends for moral support. I'M WAITING TO VOTE. IT'S HOT AND SMELLY IN HERE. I'VE BEEN HERE OVER AN HOUR ALREADY AND I'M HUNGRY AND TIRED. They wrote back, "IS IT SMELLY BECAUSE YOU'RE THERE?" and "SUCKS TO BE YOU!!" My sister wrote, "IN OREGON WE GET TO MAIL OUR BALLOTS. HA." Not exactly the kind of moral support I was looking for, a-holes. But thanks.

When I finally got to the part where I got to hand my voter information to a sleepy volunteer, I was very nervous that they'd make some sort of fuss about it, but it all went through just fine. Not so for the woman in front of me (not Silent Lady - this woman was more like Justifiably Angry Lady). The poll worker who took Justifiably Angry Lady's info said that according to the system, she'd already voted "like NINE times!" JAL said, "I haven't voted yet, but I've been waiting in line for over two hours, and I would really like to vote now." The volunteer called the head of the polling place over, and she fired off a bunch of questions at JAL: "Did you apply for an absentee ballot? No? Well, you must have been living abroad in the last few years. Did you move recently? Well, you must have applied for an absentee ballot. That's the only explanation. Or you were living in another country." JAL planted her fists against her hips. "I haven't lived in another country, ever, I've been living in the same place for five years, and I did NOT apply for an absentee ballot. AND I've been waiting in line to vote for the last two hours!"

By the time I left, after doggedly working my way through the 15 page ballot, and double checking my answers like it was a school test, and printing out a paper trail of evidence that I voted, and getting my receipt of voting to put in my scrapbook, JAL was still standing there, waiting to vote. Yikes.

These are strange, hopeful times. If you haven't voted yet... have fun standing in line on Tuesday! Bring a book, catch up on old Newsweeks you've been meaning to get through. Hand out snacks to your fellow voters. Make friends with the people around you (unless they're Aggressively Silent).

Vote. Vote. Vote.

An Evening with Jonathan Kozol

That's right, JONATHAN KOZOL!! I MET him!

Here's how you know whether or not you're an education nerd:
If you're currently squealing with excitement and jealousy, you ARE.
If you're scratching your head and going, Jonathan Who? then you are NOT an education nerd, not even if you're an educator yourself. In fact, if you're an educator or an educational administrator, and you haven't heard of Kozol, then you have some major catching up to do. Also, for the record, if you're an administrator and you've never heard of Kozol, then you must stop rolling your eyes at how lame and uneducated your staff is, because please. You need to read Kozol. And then stop being such an asshole.

Anyway... KOZOL!!

Jonathan Kozol

Several weeks ago, I told my awesome (and certified Major Education Nerd) friend Evone that Kozol was coming to Chicago. Her immediate response was to start looking for plane tickets. Then she turned to her school and talked them into letting her take professional development days to fly to Chicago and see Kozol speak. That's right, Evone is such an education nerd that she flew all the way from New Mexico just to listen to little 72-year-old Jonathan Kozol wave his arms and talk about poor kids for an hour and a half. And it was WORTH IT.

He had to roll up his sleeves and show us his little old man arms

For forty years, Jonathan Kozol has been the voice for poor children in this country. He has taken an unrelenting look at the economic disparities built into the public education system, and with books like Savage Inequalities and The Shame of the Nation, he's exposed the underlying racism and classism in our schools. In fact, Kozol argues that our schools today are more racially segregated than they've been in any year since 1968, the year Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Truly, it is shameful.

As teachers who have worked with children in rural poverty, particularly in this climate of ruthless and constant high-stakes testing, Evone and I were both thrilled to hear Kozol discuss the ways in which NCLB and high-stakes testing hurt children of poverty. I mean, it's awful, and it's absolutely heartbreaking, but at the same time there's always something so thrilling about hearing someone else put words to your experiences, reassuring you that you're not alone. The woman next to us was literally responding to him as if he was a preacher in the House of Education. "Yes sir," she kept saying. "Amen. Uh-huh! Uh-huh! Amen!"

A part of me wanted to Amen and Uh-huh right along with her, but I was too busy nodding and taking notes.

Mostly, Kozol talked about his latest book, Letters to a Young Teacher, in which he exchanges letters with an optimistic young teacher in an inner-city Boston school. The teacher, Francesca, is an example of what a difference a wonderful teacher can make in the life of a child. Unfortunately, as Evone and I both know firsthand, many such teachers across the country are being hamstrung by administrations and legislation pushing for less love and more "rigor" in the classroom. Many wealthy suburban schools can afford to ignore the mandates of NCLB, because they can afford to lose federal funding. Poor urban (and rural!) schools, on the other hand, absolutely cannot. Therefore, says Kozol, teachers in wealthy, suburban schools can afford the time to allow students to ask the big questions, to jump on teachable moments, to diverge from the lesson plan and wonder and wander and discover and explore. Teachers in poor schools, however, can't afford to do anything but drill, drill, drill. Not when a drop in test scores means the loss of your job. Not when people from the district office and the state department are sitting in the back of your classroom, giving you the evil eye if you deign to allow one off-topic question.

It's hard.

Anyway, Kozol was just lovely. He was incandescent. He was a beautiful spirit, and his was a call to action beyond a mere year in TFA. ("God did not put poor little black and hispanic children on this earth to provide fodder for brief moral interludes in the lives of white college students.") Change in this country must be real and lasting, and it must come from all of us, especially those of us who can speak for the millions of children without voices, who are being trained to fill in bubbles and comply without questions.

Evone asks a question

Afterward, we went down to meet him, to shake his hand and thank him. Organizers of the event stood around him, fussing for him to stop spending so much time with each teacher and student who had a question. They needed to move him into the event next door, they explained, where wealthy stakeholders had paid extra to drink champagne and make liberal small talk with him. The irony of it was rather painful, but Kozol ignored his handlers and happily chatted with us, congratulating the woman in front of us for dropping out of grad school and giving out suggestions of ways to advocate for children.

Finally, they pulled him away and we rode the elevator down to the street and stepped out into the chilly autumn night with his final words ringing in our ears: "Old trees, and the joyfulness of children, will outlive us all."

Hatred & Racism at a Palin Rally in Johnstown, PA

If you're feeling remotely good about this country and its people today, you might not want to watch this video.




I always thought that "Of the people, by the people, for the people," was an incredibly inspiring, hopeful phrase. It's been my touchstone for understanding this country and its government for years and years. We're not supposed to question our president? Sorry bud, of the people by the people for the people says differently! The little guy can't make a difference? Community organizers are stupid? Not according to a little phrase I like to call Ofthepeoplebythepeopleforthepeople!

This year, it occurred to me -- for the first time -- that maybe "The People" are not MY people, and maybe the gaps between us are more like canyons. If The [racist, hateful, vitriolic] People are going to run this country, then maybe my touchstone phrase no longer works.

Some days it's awfully hard to keep the faith, isn't it? But I return to another touchstone, this one a quotation from Anne Frank:

"In spite of everything [and I do mean everything, you ignorant racist bastards], I still believe that people are really good at heart."





Sigh... let's hope she's right.

Permission

Grammar Therapy

I am such a nerd.

I know this about myself, and I'm totally fine with it. I've made my peace, as Leslie would say. I've made my peace.

One of the many manifestations of my utter nerdiness is my interest in grammar. I wouldn't say I'm a grammar nazi, or even a grammar queen. More like a connoisseur. I'm interested in language, in general, and in finding ever more perfect ways to express myself, in specific. In person -- in speech -- I don't care too much about grammar, because we have so many ways of conveying meaning: through body language, through facial expression, through tone of voice and gesture and pitch. Grammar's job is to help language be as meaningful as possible. In speech, it's not as needed. On paper, it's far more important.

Still, it makes me sad to think about the people in this world who feel crippled by their lack of knowledge and skills when it comes to grammar and punctuation. I've never been in this particular group myself, but I HAVE been a member of the crippled-by-lack-of-knowledge-and-skills-in-MATH group, and I'm sure that they're equally unfun. Somewhere along the line, someone made you feel stupid about your inability to correctly capitalize a letter or factor a polynomial, and there's been a part of you that's just a little broken, ever since. I get that. I know.

So when Jill asked me to teach a grammar class at StoryStudio Chicago, I told her I didn't want to teach anything traditional. I didn't want to add to the grammar stress people are already carrying around in their hearts. Instead, I decided to create a class I'm calling Grammar Therapy. I'm thinking of it as one part grammar and punctuation instruction to three parts giving yourself permission to make mistakes sometimes and regaining the confidence you need to write without worrying as much about grammar and punctuation.

Also, we'll probably make some fun of the French.

Anyway, it's going to be fantastic, and if you or anyone you know needs a brush up on grammar & punctuation or permission to split the occasional infinitive, come on down.

Name That Name!

Because everyone from college is now having babies or thinking about having babies or thinking about NOT having babies -- in other words, going through their late 20s and early 30s -- the Grinnellians started talking about baby names the other day. Specifically, Secret Future Baby Names, those names you hold close to your heart for future children, names that are so beautiful and perfect that merely uttering them aloud would certainly spark a tsunami of babies with the same name. Secret Future Baby Names must be kept secret, or they run the risk or becoming the next Hannah, Madison, Emma, or Nevaeh:

Popularity of the name Nevaeh, 1880-2007

So then we were talking about our favorite secret baby names that have been RUINED by popularity or pop culture or whatever, and the lovely Sarah Aswell posted a link to this site, which generates bar graphs showing name popularity.

God, I love bar graphs.

So obviously, the first thing you do is search for your own name:

Molly

Mmm-hmm. Interesting. Looks like there were only about 2,000 Mollys the year I was born. Then there's some sort of weird spike around 1991, which I'll attribute to all the women who loved John Hughes movies as teenagers hitting their twenties and having babies. Still, the Molly trend isn't nearly as big as I'd feared, which is fantastic. I like being the only Molly people know. I was always the only Molly in school until my junior year of high school, when suddenly there were THREE Mollys in the freshman class. I numbered them and announced to each of them that they would be known as Molly #2, #3, and #4 henceforth. I, of course, was Molly #1.

Except... I'm not actually a Molly on the Census, I'm a Mary.

Mary

It looks like a boa who swallowed an elephant. Anyway, whew! Glad I wasn't born between 1920 and 1960! How embarrassing to be one of 70,000+ other Marys! No, I was born in the Carter administration, and there were only like 10,000 of us that year! That's practically zero!

Comparing the two, it's clear that no matter how much I worried about the growing popularity of Molly in the 90s, I'm still more unusual as a Molly than as a Mary. Especially considering how much time I spend hanging out in nursing homes.

Popularity of Mary (in green) Versus Popularity of Molly (in orange)

The next one is for those of you who grew up in the 70s and 80s:


Jennifer

Yep. That about sums up third grade, Jenny L, Jenny B, Jenny S, Jennie W, Jennifer L, and Jennifer B.

Finally, my niece's name, Elodie:

Elodie

Twenty-two? Twenty-two Elodies, total, between 1880 and 2006?

So I guess there's good reason I had never heard this name until the day after she was born, when I got an email from my step-mother announcing Elodie's birth. "Elodie Esmee Cummins born October 21, 7 pounds 5 ounces!" My first thought was: "So... I can tell people I'm related to ee cummins?" It wasn't until I talked to Sally that I even knew how to pronounce it. Ay-lo-dee? Ell-uh-dee? (Most people use the second pronunciation, but her father uses the first. Elodie herself says "Ell-dee-dee.") (Have I mentioned that she's COMPLETELY ADORABLE? Not that I'm biased, of course.)

Anyhow, the name quickly grew on me, and now I think it's kind of perfect: absolutely unique, but not too weird or hard to say. It's just like Melody, without the M. Easy.

And yes, I looked up my Secret Future Baby Name. The bar graph would blow your mind. You can search for it yourself, as soon as I print up the birth announcements for Future Baby Backes....





...in about ten years.

Busy Like Kim Kelly

Okay, okay. I know you've all been terribly neglected and you don't even know what to do with yourselves. I know you've been obsessively checking this site every day, hoping... wishing... that maybe.... It's not that I've forgotten you, I swear. It's just that I'm so goddamn busy, all the time.

Even now.

Because I don't have time to write some thoughtfully scathing-yet-fond review of some aspect of life in Chicago, or even point out that I realized last night just how well you can see into my apartment from across the street, and started wondering just why it is, exactly, that those homeless guys always sit precisely across from my apartment in lawn chairs... and oh my god how many times have they seen me naked??

What was I saying? Oh right: I actually have to run in a few minutes -- I know, lame -- but in the meantime I'll answer some of your most frequently asked questions:

Q: Are you dead?

A: No.

Q: Are you sure? Because in your case, no news is NOT good news.

A: I swear! I'm just really effing busy these days.

Q: Yeah? So... what's so important that you can't take a few minutes and update your damn blog?

A: Well. First of all, I got a second job, because one job is not nearly hardcore enough for someone as hardcore as I. Also, because I'm poor. So in the last month or so I jumped from working about 25 hours a week to working about 50. Pretty awesome.

Q: Are you writing? Aren't you supposed to be writing? That is why you quit teaching and gave up your job security and health insurance and my ulcer is so much bigger whenever I think about you, isn't it? ISN'T IT? YOU'D BETTER BE WRITING!!

A: I am. I am! I keep learning this pesky little lesson about how much happier I am when I'm writing. It's a pain in the ass lesson to learn, certainly, but it's good to know. I'm currently working on my second novel, which is in the early stages of being a complete and utter mess. But I'd like to think that in the end, it will be kind of neat.

Q: What about the other novel? The one that you're supposed to publish so you can send me to Cabo and get me out of this godforsaken grey winter hell?

A: First of all, it's actually only October. No need to panic just yet, even though yesterday the sky was awfully gray. Incidentally, did you know that they spell "grey" with an E in the Queen's English and an A in American English?

Q: Really? That's pretty interesting.

A: I know. I kind of like the E. It seems softer. Like a bunny.

Q: I love bunnies! Wait... are you avoiding the question?

A: No.

Q: Well? The novel?

A: Right. It's in my agent's hands. She and I had coffee a few weeks ago and it was quite lovely. She is a very charming person. Except when she goes through my manuscript with a red pen.

Q: Uh... isn't that the point?

A: Probably. I'm actually very grateful for all her hard work. Thanks, Becca!

Q: Did they fix your roof yet?

A: We think so. It looks fixed... sort of. At least there's not a hole in the ceiling anymore.

Q: So, are you moving?

A: Hope so. Sometime in the near future?

Q: Are you asking me?

A: No, just expressing uncertainty. Why, do you have an awesome apartment for us?

Q: Sorry.

A: That's cool.

Q: So, if you HAD been blogging in the last few weeks, what would you have written about?

A: Lots of wonderful things. We saw Judy Blume & Lois Lowry & the guys who wrote the book about the gay penguin read at a Banned Books Read Out downtown a few weeks ago, and it was fantastic. I've managed to catch all the debates so far, though I'll have to miss tomorrow's because I have a class. I got an Obama shirt in the mail the other day, but I think I'll have to give it to my dad because it's weirdly giant, and invites many awkward jokes about Obama's face and my boobs.

Q: Creepy.

A: I know.

Q: Anything else?

A: That about sums it up, I think.

Q: Wanna play Wildlife Prairie Park?

A: Shoot, I'd love to, but I have to run. Oh, there is one more thing:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JACKSON GALE!!

Q: The end?

A: The end. For now.