Quodlibets

We're assholes, man

I'm sorry, I'm confused.

You see, I had thought that Saddam Hussein posed a grave danger to the world--at least, that's what I was told--and now I'm sitting here thinking that there might be other people far more dangerous. 

North Korea doesn't seem to be the nicest country on the planet, and Iran's not so great either.  And of course, if you've read the Downing Street Memo, you know that I'm not quite alone in thinking this.

So now, I'm sitting here thinking that maybe Bush isn't such a great guy (oh, no, wait, I thought that before) and that maybe him and his little group of buddies in the WH had some ulterior motive for going into Iraq and kicking Saddam's ass.  I mean, yeah, it's not like Saddam's a nice guy, but there have been far worse men as leaders that we've done nothing about.  And if we're talking about a population living in terror, let's talk about Darfur.  But wait, according to Jill over at feministe, it's been 141 days since the word Darfur has crossed our dear leader's lips.  So I'm having a hard time buying that second rationale too.

In fact, I can't think of a good reason why Bush wanted us there, other than the fact that Saddam wasn't nice to his daddy, and his buddies in the corporate world needed billions of dollars more in revenue from corrupt contracts in Iraq.  Oh, and in America, oil is king. 

We're assholes, man.  And we're being led by the A-#1 alpha-asshole.  Shouldn't we be more worried?  Some people think so.  Check out After Downing Street, an organization hoping to at least get some sort of inquiry made into whether or not GWB made impeachable actions during the whole Iraq shebang.

I think that when all is said and done, history will look back on GW's presidency and call it the most corrupt (or one of the most corrupt) presidencies in history.  Whether or not he's investigated, whether or not it yields anything right now, I do believe that one day the truth about this guy (and his slick, icky friends) will come out.  I promise not to stick my tongue out and say "Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah."

I know, memes are boring. But so am I right now.

Via feministe (which is fast becoming one of my daily must-reads)

Three things you are wearing right now:
-a silver ring on the middle finger of my left hand, and one on the ring finger of my right
-blue terry cloth shorts
-a bra that doesn't fit

Three favorite bands/musical artists:
-Dave Matthews Band
-Ben Folds (Five)
-Ani DiFranco

Three favorite songs:
-Hour follows Hour by Ani D.
-Two Step by DMB
-Into the Mystic by Van Morrison

Three things you want in a relationship:
-that my partner have a passion (other than me)
-trust, trust, and more trust
-that I respect the other person, and that they respect me

Three physical things about the preferred sex that appeal to you:
-Warm eyes
-a good handshake/clasp (in the context of holding hands)
-an affinity for being touched, and touching (ironically, something I don't have)

Three of your favorite hobbies/interests:
-reading
-cross-stitching
-cooking (only very rarely, but when I do it, I love to do it)

Three things that scare you:
-Feet
-Spiders
-People who are certain that if you don't feel as they do, you're wrong

Three of your everyday essentials:
-Diet Coke
-my sunglasses
-earplugs

Three drugs of choice:
-Nicotine, if I was still smoking (oh, let's face it, once a smoker, always a smoker.  I miss it everyday.)
-The pill.  Can't live without.
-Diet Coke

Three favorite toys:
-computer
-computer
-Hello, Kitty vibrator

Three careers you have considered/are considering:
HA!

Three places you want to go on vacation:
-Italy, again and again and again
-Japan
-Greece

Three kids' names you like:
(for kids I will probably never have)
-Maggie.  But I can never name a child that simply because our dog was named Maggie.
-Kael.  Don't ask.  I don't know.
-Madison or Madeline.  Shortened to Maddy.  Frighteningly similar to Maggie, however.

Three things you want to do before you die:
-live in Italy
-become Dr. Romano (Ph.D., not M.D.)
-buy and decorate a house entirely to my taste (sorry S)

Three celeb crushes:
-Jason Lewis (is that his name?  Smith from Sex and the City.  Nummmy.)
-Nate Berkus (who cares if he's gay and not really a celeb?  He's too cute for words.)
and the lamest of all:
-Adam Brody (great taste in music)

Hey Koodge, now it's your turn.

Home home

I think this is possibly the first time I'm posting from somewhere other than the miniscule apartment that S and I call home.  Tonight, I'm at my mom's house for a girl's night sleepover, that was a gift to her from Kate and I for Mother's Day.  Obviously, as you can see from the time, the sleepover petered out pretty early (my sister, god love 'er, goes to bed really early) and now I'm left with an hour or so 'til sleep.  My mom stays awake until my brother's curfew (at midnight) to make sure he gets in on time, but she wants to read, and my old bedroom isn't equipped with a lamp.  Okay, we did move a lamp in from her bedroom, but still, it doesn't feel like my bed, and to be quite honest, (and sickeningly sappy, I'm sure) I'm not used to sleeping alone. 

I've done it, of course, the few times S or I have been away on vacations away from each other, and the few times S had to work overnights at the store, but it's not normal anymore.  And my old room is just not home anymore.  It's totally rearranged, and my stuff (besides a few hundred books) is all gone.  I hate the idea of going up there and laying down for an hour--even if I will be reading.  It just doesn't feel like a place I want to sleep anymore.  To think that I missed that room so much during the first couple of months at the apartment.

Sadly, I even had to bring earplugs, even though I know this house is as quiet as a tomb at night.  I just don't know if I can sleep without earplugs anymore.  I started using earplugs about a week after we moved in together, and now, even if S isn't in bed, snoring, the little noises in the apartment drive me crazy.  And sometimes, I feel that putting in earplugs helps drown out the sound of all my thoughts--there are nights when I just can't fall asleep but for the earplugs, no matter how quiet S is.  Also, I feel compelled to wear PJs, which sucks when you're not used to them.  But I frequently get up in the night due to how much liquid I consume during the day, and yes, I shocked the hell out of my brother once a long time ago and really can't stand the thought of doing that tonight.

So yes, I'm procrastinating sleep.  Once a procrastinator, always one, I guess.

*****Update:  Worst.  Sleep.  Ever.  Must take nap.

Quick tidbit

For all you romance novel readers, I found an engaging site.  Take a look.  Make sure to scroll down to see some of the more funny submissions.  Here's an example that I particularly liked:

  Via Zorn.

Book Meme! Book Meme!

1.  Total number of books owned?  Well.  I have no idea.  Probably well over 500.  Maybe over 700.  I can honestly say that I don't know.  What I do know is that most of the books in the apartment are unread, as I've recently been passing probably 75% of the books I've read to my sister, and a lot of my reading has been borrowed from the library or my kick-ass book pimp professor.  I think that if I'd kept every single book I'd ever bought (all the MM romance and stuff), the total would be over 1,000.  Isn't that slightly sickening? 

2. Last book bought?  Mmmmm, I bought four books on Tuesday night; two Lisa Kleypas romances, Rose Daughter, by Robin McKinley, and uh.....one other YA novel.  I can't remember which one, but I think the author's last name is Nicholson.

3. Last book I read?  I finished Rose Daughter yesterday and started Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris moments later.  I am also plodding through the non-fiction book I mentioned earlier this week, but slowly; you know,  How the Scots Invented the Modern World. 

4.Five books that mean a lot to me?  This is very likely the hardest question on this little meme. 

• The Thorn Birds.  I'm not sure if it's something about Meggie that I love, or it's simply the first and last bits of the book, but I have probably read this over 15 times.  I love it, and that's enough.
• Gone With the Wind.  Scarlett O'Hara is such a bitch, and she's unredeemable.  But still, you sympathize with her.  My only explanation is that Margaret Mitchell is such a good writer that she can somehow accomplish this.
• Anne Of Green Gables (the whole series, really).  I also adore the movies.  Anne's the greatest.  I love her.  Always have.
• The Joy Luck Club.  The delicate interplay between mother and daughter is the best part of this novel.  I've never had mom problems, really, but still, these are somewhat universal feelings, and I think that for every woman, the mother relationship and question never goes away.
• Ender's Game.  This isn't a war novel.  Don't let anyone fool you into thinking it is.  I read this for the first time as a junior in high school, and have read it many times since.  It has influenced my life in little ways that I can't even begin to name.

Via Sarah Dessen.

Five thousand and five and one-fourth

Five thousand visitors reached today!

Five and one-fourth pages written today!

I'm done, basically, with this pesky homework thing (though I expect there will be some for my internship/seminar class this summer) for a little while.  I still have to give two presentations, but I'm not sweating that.  I'm usually cool as a cucumber for these things, simply because they're so informal.

So yeah, things would be perfect if I didn't want to stuff every food item in the house in my mouth constantly.  For the last month and half or so, every time I'm, you know, off the pill for a week, that week becomes hell as I try to resist the urge to eat chocolate and cookies and cake, oh my.  And McDonalds and chips and you know, everything in the entire world that's bad for you.  I'm literally hungry every single waking moment of every day for the entire four days of my period.  And I definitely do not feel this way during the rest of the month, in case you're thinking that maybe I'm exaggerating.  Nope, nope I'm not.  I want to eat from the minute I wake up until after I lay down.  I'm hungry now and I ate dinner an hour ago.

Okay.  Grrr.  Done now.

Is Chicklit Feminist Lit?

Well.  I made the rather bold assertion in Reader's Advisory tonight that perhaps ChickLit is the quintessential feminist literature, in that it endorses choice.  Not all novels end with a marriage, or a baby.  Mine (for class) ended with the main character leaving her life behind to pursue herself on some islands in Greece.  And for a genre that supposedly was born out of romance, that's certainly not a romance-novel ending.  Certainly, I've read chicklit where the main aim of the heroine was to find love.  But I've also read some great chicklit that doesn't end conventionally like that, novels that endorse the idea that maybe we can forge our own paths however we want to. 

I have a hard time buying the idea that Chicklit is post-feminist, and that it all boils down to the fact that regardless of feminism, girls just want a good man (and some good sweaty sex, apparently).  Chicklit proves itself better than that all the time--my assignment was proof, and I can think of at least a few other books that don't end with the boy and the girl riding off into the sunset together.  Yes, some women will find their satisfaction with the man.  Some need to move to Greek islands to find themselves.  Some find themselves through their children.  Some women learn to love themselves through a career.  And I do think that you will find all of these scenarios in Chicklit.  It runs the gamut of womens' experiences, and in this way, it is that much more broad of a genre than romance, where point blank the story is:  girl meets boy, girl and boy fight, girl and boy fuck, girl and boy fall in love and stay together forever; the end.

If anything (and oh it pains me to say this, being an avid romance reader myself), romance is the original anti-feminist lit, because it doesn't allow us for any choice at all.  I know many, many people who have disdain for romance as a genre; whatever their reasoning, it is a fairly limited genre.  The boy and the girl must end up together forever at the end.  If that isn't present, the book is simply not a romance.  So if you want to object to a genre as a backlash to feminism, romance has always been there quietly counteracting the feminist movement, by quietly insisting that the only true way for women to be fulfilled is through men.  At least chicklit, by and far, has removed itself from that rubric.

I don't have a shred of embarrassment though, admitting that I love romance.  I can't tell you why I love it, but I do.  Chicklit, however, I am far more selective about.  I like some, hate others.  But I can tell you that part of the reason that I love chicklit is because it allows for nuanced female leads, in a way that romance, in its anti-feminist way, never can.  In romance novels, no one ever thinks they are ugly and actually IS ugly.  They're all gorgeous, skinny girls with image problems.  In chicklit, the world is far different.  Chubby girls exist in chicklit.  Girls with crooked noses.  Real girls with real image issues.  Girls with flaws.  Girls like me.

I can't quote my professor directly, because I just can't remember how she phrased it, but the idea is this:  When she first discovered chicklit, she was so excited, because there was a whole table of books ABOUT HER.  No one ever really identifies with romance novel heroines, do they?  All I know is that chicklit allows for a range of female emotions and behaviors and is universally accepting of all of them.  If that's not feminist, what is?

Some nagging questions

Sometimes, something stupidly forgettable will etch itself into your brain and you'll find yourself thinking about it while driving in a car, or sitting in a class.  Right now, the one question that I cannot avoid is this:  How in god's name can you get a good bra fit if they measure you for a bra over your damn clothes?

I recently went to get fitted at a department store of the mid-ritzy range, because now that I've lost weight, not only do my pants not fit, but my bras are just unbearably uncomfortable.  So I've never been formally measured and think it seems like it might be time; maybe my bra size has gone down, and I can finally have a comfortable bra.  But no. 

The saleslady pulled me into a fitting room, whipped out her little tape, and measured my chest through my shirt, and current ill-fitting bra.  Um.  Am I missing something?  If I'm wearing the wrong-sized bra, and my shirt adds some sort of layer to my skin, doesn't it seem that of course you're getting the wrong measurement?  Because I measure as the same size I'm currently wearing, and I'm telling you, these are not comfortable bras.  I mean, what a depressing incidence.  I should have, of course, just let it go and vowed to get comfortable bras when I drop another ten pounds.   But no.

Because something is nagging at me.  When we walked out onto the floor to look at bras--and I want a Wacoal, because I've heard they're great--I just couldn't bear the thought of trying on more bras in the same damn sizes.  I did that whole thing when my stupid favorite bra went out of production.  I tried on any single bra that seemed like it might possibly work, and it didn't.  So I just couldn't bear the thought of doing that again.  The saleslady obviously wanted to sell me a bra, so she said maybe I should try a range of sizes, because bra fitting is an inexact science.  Ok.  So why get measured at all?  Shouldn't I just go to the department and try on tons and tons of bras?  Doesn't that seem like the way to go?  Fuck measuring over the clothes if it doesn't tell you anything worth knowing!

And everyone always says, "Go get measured for a bra.  You're probably wearing the wrong size."  Well, I feel as if the bra I'm wearing is the wrong size.  But apparently not.  You see the problem?  And I keep thinking about this, every time my bra strap slips down, or my boobs feel uncomfortable, or the bra pulls up in the back because I've tightened the strap.  Grrrr.  I just want some new comfortable bras, dammit.

I know I had one coherent thought

I made a decision last night to set aside my normally fluffy and fun reading and read some non-fiction.  I felt like I needed a come-down from Planet Happy All the Time.  So I picked one of the many unread books upon my bookshelf, and began it last night.  It's called How the Scots Invented the Modern World, and as you can probably guess, it's not the fastest reading in the world.  But so far, it's interesting enough, and I have to admit that I don't have very much prior knowledge about the intellectual history of Scotland.  I still can't see how the stuff I'm reading equates to the Scots inventing the modern world, but it's compelling for other reasons.

For instance, in the Seventeenth Century, the Scots passed something called the School Act, which made it law that evey parish should have a school, with a teacher.  By and far, this law was followed, the result of which was a literate society at a time when most European societies were literate only at the top levels of the society.  According to the author, England didn't catch up to Scotland in terms of the male literacy rate until the 1880's.  That's fairly compelling, if it's true, and it's something I never would have known if I hadn't picked this book up. 

It's astonishing to think that literacy rates in the 90th percentile, across both genders, are relatively new developments.  We're just so used to the idea that everyone can read, and that everyone does, in some measure, read.  When I try to imagine being illiterate, I can't.  I can't figure out how confusing the world would be if I couldn't read my own name, or the name of the street that I live on.  If I couldn't follow a recipe, or read the instruction manual for any one of the myriad appliances and electronic devices that I own.  How do you vote if you can't read?  How do you hold a job if you can't read?  How do you drive if you can't read?

I suspect that there are a lot of persons who are functionally illiterate.  They can read their own name, and some of the most basic words, but ask them to read anything in depth, and with new words, and they cannot.  I think it would be terrifying.  I think it must be the most marginalizing feeling--the whole world is moving on a different level from the one you're moving on.  I've also often thought that if I were any kind of a good person, I'd get literacy teacher training and start teaching people to read, simply because of how passionate about reading that I am.  But I haven't sought that training, so I'm not sure what that says about me.  Perhaps I will, at some point.  (I do know that I make a horrible instructor for anything.  I'm not patient in the least, and I recognize that as a limitation.  It's not an excuse, however.)  I like to think that by working in libraries, I'll at least be helping people become more information literate, which is another sort of literacy that comes after basic literacy.

All this from a book on Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Scotland.

The Hunger that cannot be satisfied

I am feeling that insatiable hunger again.  Yes, I'm feeling hungry for Italy.  I'm an idiot, and I decided to get Il Postino from Netflix, and even though the film doesn't take place in Rome at all, it still makes me long for the city.  Just hearing the Italian language makes me want Italy more than eating a good Italian meal does.  And I've explained it before, the need to be in Italy, so I won't again, I guess.  But I'm just feeling really scared that I won't have a chance to go to Italy for a long time.  And the dollar is so weak!  That makes it that much harder for budget travelers like S and I.  (Especially budget travelers who cannot abide a hostel.  Well, I'm that high maintenance.)

And I don't want to compromise, and make the trip less than it should be.  Not dear Italy, no.  I could compromise on every other vacation we'll ever take, but never Italy.  I won't budget less than three good, solid, meals a day.  And I won't limit myself to the outlying areas of the city, simply to save money.  There is no public transportation in Rome like there is in Paris or London, Barcelona or Munich.  So no, I can't make this vacation a super-budget affair like other vacations can be.  I think the only places S and I will be going in the near future is Oregon (for a family gathering), CA (where his parents are moving) and Minneapolis, because we have a friend there.

But if I could, I'd be in Italy right now.  Right at this instant.  Damn me and my need to watch movies set in Italy.

I wonder if you can get Gidget Goes to Rome from Netflix???