esprit de l'escalier

Let's pretend it's summer

This week has sort of slipped through my fingers and I suddenly find it's Friday. For some reason snow storms often make me forget the world. My parents are visiting my sister, so I've been in my head all week.

Today I am officially over the snow. While we did not get the dumping the eastern seaboard got (my apologies to my friends in DC), but we got a good amount. I've spent part of today trying to start one car and failing, getting another car started and dug out, only to get it repeatedly stuck. I'm over it. I have friends coming over for dinner and need to figure out how to get to the store and back so I have something to serve. So let's pretend it's summer again. I got some medium format photos back from this summer. They were taken with my plastic Holga camera in Wisconsin. It's nice to pretend sometimes.

Desperately needing to fall back

I have been having a hell of a time getting up in the mornings lately. I do not do well with the change from summer to fall, especially in October before the time changes. Usually as I hit the snooze button I am some what aware of the time and how much longer I can sleep. Today I didn't get up til 7, a half an hour before I should leave (if I expect to be at work on time). I was late. It was still dark at 7. I know that there was good reason to shift the time change last year, but it's going to be hard to wait until the beginning of November.

Mildly hysterical today

I'm not sure what got into me this afternoon, but I was talking with my friend at work about politics. Since I've been gone a week, we needed to catch up about McCain's VP choice, but for some reason my emotions were just raw. I got a little upset, more than I should have gotten while at work and more than I needed to with my friend. But it happened and suddenly I was tearing up and railing about my fears.  Luckily it was almost time to go home, and I got in touch with my friend Sharon, and she let me be incoherent to her.

All of this made me think about the emails I sent out the days after the last two presidential elections.  The second I reprinted here, about two years ago, and is about Federalist X and I feel more poignantly now what I wrote then, especially about the balances of power.

I'm not going to pour out my incoherent thoughts, because I don't think doing so would make me feel any better.  Instead I'm going to point you to some pieces friends have sent me.

If you read nothing else, read Frank Rich's piece from Sunday's NYT.  He's been on a roll lately.  He goes on to talk about how McCain's trademark haste would prove problematic in the White House, but this early paragraph hits as to what I'm truly angry about.

We still don’t know a lot about Palin except that she’s better at delivering a speech than McCain and that she defends her own pregnant daughter’s right to privacy even as she would have the government intrude to police the reproductive choices of all other women. Most of the rest of the biography supplied by her and the McCain camp is fiction.

My friend Sharon sent me a NYT blog post by Judith Warner that touches again on Palin, the GOP's disdain for the citizenry of this land and America's obsession with "connecting" with the candidate.  Below, another quote I liked.

Thanks to the level of general esteem that greeted her ascent to the podium, it seems we’ve all got to celebrate the fact that America’s Hottest Governor (Princess of the Fur Rendezvous 1983, Miss Wasilla 1984) could speak at all.

Could there be a more thoroughgoing humiliation for America’s women?

Finally, my ever politically astute friend Aimee, who wrote her thesis in college about women in politics, sent me Anna Quindlen's piece on the GOP' "finding" feminism, of course when it's convenient.  She starts off with a killer GB Shaw quote, "Hypocrisy is only bad when it is improperly used."
Again, a quote.

This would all have been entertaining if it were not such rank hypocrisy. These are people who have inveighed against affirmative action, a version of which undoubtedly played a part in this selection. These are people who inveighed against personal attacks on their new nominee when the wingnuts of their own party elevated such attacks to a fine art by accusing Hillary Rodham Clinton of fictitious misdeeds ranging from treason to murder. To try to suggest Sarah Palin might garner the Hillary Clinton vote, that one woman is just the same as another, that biology trumps ideology, is the ultimate evidence of true sexism, and I hope Senator Clinton will travel the country and say so.

I'm tired of the hypocrisy and the lies, and it has already been a long campaign season.  Tomorrow I promise some Montana stories.

Radio blues

My car cd player broke about two months ago, which sucks. I am currently driving more than I ever have in my life. (Which is depressing, especially since I'm in school to be an urban planner, but such is life for the moment.) The other depressing part of this is the radio in central Ohio. It's pretty dismal - lots of '70s, '80s, '90s hits or awful pop (at any given moment it seems that Fleetwood Mac is playing on one of four stations). The only "alternative" and "independent" radio station plays the same handful of new songs mixed with a larger handful of old songs, but it's not a very forward-looking station. This morning I was listening to its morning show, as NPR is in fund drive mode and one of its hosts was out sick, so it was low on stupid morning banter.

The songs were good, and I was dying to hear some of the She & Him album, so I called in a request. The host answered and said while she loved that album, the station didn't carry it. So I asked for her to play me a female vocalist. I still had about thirty minutes left on my commute (I know - it's long but I called at the beginning of it), and no female vocalists came on. Which is fine, I'm not really upset my unspecific request wasn't fulfilled. What I realized is that the station RARELY plays female singers. I have two questions. Why is the station limited in its new music? And why don't they play more female singers?

I think I'm just frustrated with my lack of choice. And I wish I could get Morning Becomes Eclectic on my radio station. Or WXRT. Or my favorite Pandora station. In the end this has lead me to wish I had my own radio show.

Sick

I've been laid up for the weekend and today, as a cold wends its way through my body. If I were a game of Risk, my throat and sinuses would have already been captured, with the enemy making a steady march on to my lungs. I've been cranky and achy and full of mucus. It's fun. I'm not at class today, hoping that another day in bed will directly transfer into a day closer to health. I'm going to San Francisco this weekend to see a favorite cousin and a favorite friend and I'd rather not have a sinus-related cold for the trip. Bah!

My eyelid is twitching

I messed up on the self-portrait above the other night. I was supposed to be in it. My life is a bit hectic right now. I'm trying to finish about eight things for school, go to work, go to sleep, etc. I'll have one big project done tomorrow. Another Monday, tests Tuesday and Wednesday. Wish me luck. Then I'll be able to return emails and phone calls.

Tomorrow, Jennifer is the cruise director for our Project Runway blogging. Join us! I'll most likely be light-headed and a little late...

Update: Natasha sent me a link to the video below. Spoon + dancing Japanese robots = excellence.

Losing track of time

I'm sitting in the basement - my lovely lair - next to the fireplace, tap-tap-tapping away, listening to the wind howl down the chute. Today was a howling wind sort of day. I was wiped from yesterday's hustle and bustle of non-stop academic activity from very early in the morning til very late at night. (Well, late at night I was watching Project Runway with my dear friend Jennifer.) This morning I needed to sleep in, so I was a little late to work. It snowed on my drive to work, once I got going. The snow was still by some farms near my town this evening.

Tonight's evening sky was a perfect, turbulent autumn sky - dark and quickly moving clouds with occasional partings of silver. The last week or so people have kept asking what I'm doing for the holidays, or various group project members have been anxious about assignments, and I kept wondering what the hell they were all so concerned for. Then I realized that next week is Thanksgiving. I'm not sure how this happened. But here it is, two weeks left in the quarter and I have no idea how I got here. Or exactly what is left that I have to do. Which is probably why my head has yet to explode.

Today I spent most of my time logging in some things at work, which meant I spent a lot of time up front on the electric typewriter. It makes me miss the little blue one I bought in middle school at a garage sale and treasured, though didn't do much with. I'm sure it didn't make the move from Ohio six years ago when my parents moved states. I still don't know what I'd do with it. I like the idea of hand typed Christmas letters, but doesn't seem like there is the time for that any more.

Since I will be insane the next two weeks with school projects and stats (the current bane of my existence), my posting in this place will most likely be light.

Here are a couple of polaroids of more of the stone surrounding the house. A friend once told my mother the house was "defensible." Should there be a revolution, you are all welcome here. (Oh god was this a rambling post.)

Grr... argh...

Just in case you’re wondering, the pola above does not accurately reflect my current state. I’m currently very annoyed with myself (and this damn computer which keeps freezing and erasing this stupid post). I was supposed to get up today and head to campus to work in the digital media lab on this project that I’m really behind on. I got off late and realized when the L pulled into Addison that a) the Cubs game was just getting out and b) I forgot my ID at home and wouldn’t be able to swipe into the lab. It was too late to go home (and too late to NOT deal with tons of suburbanite fans) so I thought I’d go to see if anyone was there and would let me in. No such luck.

Now I’m in this crappy public lab in the library, where the stupid IE keeps crashing on me. I should be working on an essay, but instead have been looking through the files on my jump drive, finding gems like this one. It’s from my trip to Washington State last summer. My friend, and sometime traveling companion, Stacey took it of Mariah, Matt, the Chicken and me while we were visiting Bainbridge Island. It makes me smile and wish I could go camping right now. (It also makes me wish I didn’t have to do this project I’m not currently doing but should be. But really, almost anything is giving me that feeling.)

My computer is also acting nuts. It froze while downloading a security upgrade and ever since, whenever I turn it on, the finder and top bar flash repeatedly and nothing on the desktop shows up. I can use the internet for some reason, sort of. I find this all worrisome. I made an appointment to take it to the Apple store and I hope it can get fixed.

My horoscope is also giving me mixed messages. Friday told me that I am charming and today’s tells me not to get ahead of myself and to keep grounded in reality.

Below is another pola that does not accurately represent the day.

Full of rage in the morning

I have made a fairly conscience decision not to write about politics here. It's not that I don't care; I do, very much so. I just think that there are a lot of people who cover politics and do such a good job of it that I don't think it's necessary for me to join the fray. This morning found me particularly full of pique and I thought I'd copy down my angry journal entry that I scrawled on the train today. Sorry for the extra dose of spleen.

Many mornings find me muttering or yelling things at NPR. It's not Morning Edition that makes me mad, but rather what Steve Inskeep and the lot are reporting. This morning's news has me bristling with anger in a way that hasn't happened in a while. (Since the 2000 election, there are stretches of time where I'm too numb to the goings-on in Washington for much reaction.) This Foley scandal had me shouting in the apartment, in the stairwell and on the steret on the way to the L. Some of Hastert's constituents in Batavia were interviewed saying that they don't think he should be held responsible for not acting on his knowledge of Foley's inappropriate behaviour with minors. I learned it's possible that Hastert has known for at least 2 years about this behaviour. TWO YEARS or MORE?? Hastert says he won't step down from his leadership position because it's "what the opposition wants." NO, you fool. We want someone to actually ACT LIKE A LEADER. We want an example of leadership, which means TAKING RESPONSIBILITY. Why does no one in Washington seem to remember what being a true leader means? It's doesn't mean hiding behind lies or ignoring the press's questions. Cowards. Do we not, as a country, know how leaders are supposed to act anymore? My roommate says that she thinks people are so enured to scandal that we expect cover-ups and don't seem to blame people for covering their asses. I am INFURIATED with the arrogance of politicians who haven't learned that cover-ups never work and the complete apathy of the populace.

To counteract my ire, I listened to some Whiskeytown on my iPod on the way to work. I normally don't listen to music on my commute but read, but I really needed some distraction. I thought Ryan Adams' sorrow tinged alt-country songs would act as a palliative. Plus my friend Jayb had sent me a link to a blog post about Whiskeytown and I knew I had to listen to it this morning. Listen to some clips here.

Mouth full of marbles

I have been feeling incredibly inarticulate lately, and today I am blaming it on the class I am taking. Well, I'm going to blame it explicitly on the reading for today's class. You see, this week I was a seminar leader, which meant I needed to have a close reading of the text and write a three page paper comparing and contrasting the text to other things we've read and to the greater themes of the class. Whatever, not too hard, right? Well, I despised this text. Truly, truly despised it. It was on multimodal discourse, which in itself isn't too bad. But it was a *very* academic theoretical 80 pages that I had to read. Lots of jargon that only obfuscated the point. It's like I saw the point, understood where and why it existed, and then I started reading and it totally confused me. It's like the reading took all my words of explanation away and I was left with a handful of jargon that I didn't know what to do with. And I didn't appreciate this. I'm used to being in a class and to be constantly talking about salient issues and making connections. I am making connections, but my words are gone. I open my mouth and marbles fall out. I think I'd make more sense if I resorted to grunts only. It's very frustrating and makes me angry. I thought reading was supposed to help you understand, not the other way round.

But I know I'm not a lost cause. Why? Well, I got out of class and all I wanted to do was talk. In it, I was pretty tongue-tied, which was awkward since I was supposed to be leading discussion. Out of it, I was abuzz with opinion and explanation of what we were talking about. Also, today we had a guest speaker, another professor in the program who teaches a course in the winter about old and new media. I was all over discussion. But then again, he was directly relating things to life, using some jargon, but not the ridiculous theoretical stuff. Maybe it's just the way the normal professor is leading discussion? Maybe I really should start taking ginko for my memory. Or have a cup of coffee right before class. Though as it is, I have a hard time getting to sleep after class. This much mental stimulation so close to bedtime makes it hard to get to sleep.