Quodlibets

A Coupla Things (before the OC is on)

-You know how everyone professes to hate Daylight Savings?  I don't.  I actually love it when it gets dark earlier, because there is nothing that I like more than cuddling up on the couch with a book, cozy and warm against the cold, dark night.  This is why I think somewhere that is always warm is the wrong place for me.

-I'm cheesy, but I still love Christmas music.  And today, I acquired a fantastic (!!) new Xmas CD--Diana Krall's new one.  I'm very particular about my xmas music, to the point that the only two CDs I listen to a lot are the Charlie Brown Xmas CD and Winston's December.  But I think I could seriously consider adding the Krall CD to the monotony.  (Honestly, I like instrumental xmas music more than vocal.)  We'll see how it holds up, but I think I can say with assurance that if you like xmas music at all, this is a great addition to any collection.  It's perfect for background music at a party, too, I think.

-I hate nutmeg.  Hate, hate, hate.  Can't stand.  Every time I watch foodtv, someone is cooking something with nutmeg.  Today, Alton Brown put it in some rice dish.  The other day, Rachael Ray put it in a cheese sauce for some turkey meatballs.  Uck, people!  There is nothing right about a savory dish with nutmeg in it.  Nothing!

-My page for my sister's colorbook is going to be so kick-ass I can't even tell you how kick-ass it is going to be.  I'm so excited to start it.  I've missed sewing!  (I've been on a break since I finished S's page and the arrival of our new colorbook projects.)  I think I will probably sew tonight.  You know, while I watch the OC.

Relationships are about compromise, people

Which is why I went to see Jarhead tonight with S.  He kindly agreed to see "that fancy girlie movie" (Pride and Prejudice) with me, if I would condescend to see Jarhead.  It seemed like a good trade-off at the time.  Now, I'm not so sure.  I mean, my life is full of free time, and I'll happily go see movies by myself.  I should have just bit the bullet and gone during the day by myself.  Anyway, other people have already talked about how amazingly wonderful the Jarhead trailer; even I was taken in by the strains of "Jesus Walks" set to the pictures of the beautiful Jake Gyllenhaal.  (And can I just say, before I say anything else, that there is nothing wrong with the aforementioned man wearing nothing but two Santa hats; one in a very strategic position.)  Of course, I knew I wouldn't like the film.

And I was right.  I've seen some reviews of the film that describe it as "a war movie with no war" and that's accurate, and it's not accurate.  Certainly, it seems that the film is a true picture of Desert Storm, and I think that the movie definitely portrays the horror and pointlessness of war.  There's just no fighting, but as I said before, maybe that's the truest picture of Desert Storm, which seems to me a lot like a war fought by airplanes.  (And the protagonist of the film didn't shoot his rifle once in the course of the war.  Not once.  Interesting.)  All the same, I couldn't handle it.  All the yelling, the psychological bullshit that comes with the military, the shit and the vomit, the screaming at scenes from "Apocolypse Now" (which I didn't know was that movie until afterwards when S brought that scene up), the drinking and the humilation.  It's not for me. 

I've liked war movies before, but I couldn't wait for this one to be over.  That's not a particularly good sign.  And I was troubled by the fact that the music wasn't used more effectively.  Some movies benefit tremendously from a good soundtrack, and I think this one could have used it.  Only one scene really worked for me, musically, and it involved a Nirvana song ("Something in the Way").  And all I could think was "Is Nirvana current to this war?".  I did make it through the movie without peeing, which at least shows that it was better than Vanilla Sky or Solaris, both of which I wished I could have read through. 

And hey, like I said before, there ain't nothing wrong with a strategically placed Santa hat.

Tacos (this is not a benign post; politics contained herein)

S and I made tacos for dinner tonight.  This is remarkable a) because we haven't cooked in five million years and b) we had enough clean dishes to actually cook dinner.  Seriously, we haven't cooked anything that involves actual meat in ages.  So long that I can't remember the last time.  I think that part of the reason that my diet went so haywire is that we just stopped making the effort to eat real food.  (As opposed to fake, cooked in a restaurant food.) 

I also did many errands today, such as returning some hosiery to a department store, sending a colorbook out (which ended up being abso-freaking-lutely disastrous), and buying enough cross-stitch thread to stretch to, I don't know, Rome.  Mom, congratulations!  You now possess the most complete selection of blue floss this side of the Mississippi.  There is a bewildering variety of different blues.  It took me almost a half hour to figure out which ones weren't in our possession and which ones I should buy of the ones we didn't have.  Also, I'm chagrined by the fact that the craft store I went to only had ONE (ONE!!!) black aida.  I wanted 16-count black aida, that I could buy for cheap.  But no.  I had to buy more expensive, 14-count aida.

Small things, I know.  Because all day, while I was driving around, I was thinking about spousal notification and how STUPID it is.  I'm not sure I can make a better argument than Bitch PhD, so I really won't even try.  We're playing fast and loose with women's lives here.  Spousal notification accomplishes what?  Less women will have abortions because their husbands will beat the idea out of them?  Or wait, I know!  Since women are supposed to be submissive, this will prevent abortions, because the husband can just forbid (!) the woman to get an abortion and VOILA! no abortion.  Because everyone knows that any good woman promises to obey her husband, right in the wedding vows.

Listen, I think there are plenty of reasons a woman might not want to tell her husband she's getting an abortion.  And I don't think it's any of our business to get up in her marriage and force confessions.  What is the government now, marriage counselors?  We just can't start down this path; what makes it so troubling is that we're turning the woman in the marriage into a child, with no right to make her own decisions.  It's hard to express this nicely, so fuck it.  Men who care so intensely about abortion care about it because the idea of a woman being able to be an autonomous human being and make such a life-altering decision scares the bejesus out of them.  You can say it's about life, but it's not, and I'm banging the drum again, because it's not about life when you let people starve and you let people die for lack of health care.  It's not about life when you're cutting early education programs, and sex education programs and any program that works for the good of people the right doesn't consider their equals.  Why the hell do these people concentrate on piddly little issues that do so fucking little to improve the lives of their constituents?  Outlawing abortion won't make any one person's quality of life better--point blank.  Lives will get harder, and the government still won't help single mothers (all mothers?) by creating a mother-friendly workplace, and a health care system that works.  And, it's been said five million times before, but I'll say it again.  Women will die.  It's as simple as that, really, to me.  Overturning Rove v. Wade has the potential to harm hundreds and hundreds of women.  Thousands, all.  Keeping abortion legal just makes sense to me.

So yeah, we ate tacos.  Yum.

(Update:  Frontline is running a riveting abortion program tonight, about Mississippi, and the last abortion clinic in that state.  The audacity of these white people (and make no bones about it, most of the anti-choice [not pro-life] people are white) to think that they know what's best for every friggin' woman in America is horrifying.  The more I read about this, the more I watch, the more afraid I am.  Women have ended pregnancies from the moment they could recognize which plants were abortifacents; making abortion illegal won't stop it.  And the people who think it will are ignorant.  There's no two ways about it.  You can reduce the number of abortions in this country, but making abortions hard to get isn't the right way to go about it.  Fuck, I hate this shit.)

Back back back

I've been home for about 24 hours now, and I'm already dealing with my first headache.  Stress, maybe.  Caffeine withdrawal, possibly.  Hunger and lack of food, likely.  I can't say enough that the vacation was nice, but I'm home now, and I feel so damn oppressed by all of it I can't think straight.  I'm being a drama queen, of course, because it's not as bad as that, it really isn't.  I just like having fun a lot more than cleaning and grocery shopping and changing the sheets on the bed.  And reading westerns.  I hate reading westerns. 

I think I'm also a bit disgruntled because things keep not going right for me.  I don't get jobs, or jobs that I apply for are already filled, or are not what is advertised (a reference job advertised as adult but actually half kids and half adult).  And my sister got into grad school, which is good.  I'm really happy for her.  But I'm jealous as hell, and feel stupid to boot.  S keeps pointing out that getting into a computer program vs. getting into a library program as women are two totally different things, and he's completely right.  Still, it smarts.  I can't help it.  I love school, and I still want that damn Masters.  But right now, I can't afford it; I have to get at least a part-time job to cover expenses, and do school part-time as well. 

There's also the issue of why I didn't get into grad school the first time I applied; I was told by the Dean of the Library School (at U of I) that I didn't get in because I didn't have enough library work experience.  I find that preposterous, but whatever.  I'm anxious to rectify that before I try to apply anywhere else.  Anyway, I feel in-between things.  I would rather be in school, but I know I can't.  So, yeah.  I applied at a bookstore today in desperation.  If I can't get hired there, I'm fucked.  I'm coming off of three years of bookstore experience and a year of specialized library training.  And I have a BA.  I think I'm qualified. 

I'm just so exasperated.  And my headache is making me nauseous.

We are all made of stars

I am home.  I had five bajillion interesting things to say about Disney, but right now, there are only two things in my head.  One:  I absolutely have to go back on the diet tomorrow, for my own sanity.  Two:  Rock 'n' Roller Coaster was the most horrific experience I've had in a long time.  I thought I was going to spew all over within the first two seconds of the ride.

The end.

(More tomorrow, when I am not so terribly sad to be back in the real world.  Not that I would want to stay at Disney forever, you understand.  Just, you know, grrrrrrrrrr to the real world.)

Intermittent Posting Ahead

Tomorrow, S and I are leaving for Disney, for the second time this year.  This time, though, we're going with my fam.  No offense to S, but I think this time will be far more fun.  First of all, my sister and mom like Disney (and actually, probably my brother too) more than S ever will.  And three years...four years? ago my sister and I took a solo trip to Disney, and had a lot of fun.  I think it'll be good to go with Kate again. 

Frankly, the other thing that will make this trip better is the time of year.  We went during spring break, because I am dumb.  I am dumb and I insisted on it.  Bad move.  Terrible move.  If there is even a tiny reduction in crowd, S and my experience this time will be positively brilliant.  We had to fight our way through stroller jams, skipped rides because of the lack of FastPasses and the line, and in general, dealt with some icky crowd situations.  Very unpleasant.  I cannot imagine it will be as bad as that, this time.  We're not going over a major holiday period.  We're just going. 

I can't wait.  Cannot wait.  I'm not even nervous about the trip like I normally am before trips.  (I think it's partly because the number of people going is greater, so if something bad happens--like a missed plane or a luggage problem--I'm not alone with it.)  I'm just excited for the difference of going on a vacation with other people.  I love traveling with S, don't get me wrong.  But I like the idea of being with other people too.  Part of what makes traveling so fun is getting everyone's differing opinions of a place. 

Anyway, if there is wi-fi at our hotel, I might post a couple of times.  There's a rumor that our hotel does in fact have wi-fi (it being the convention hotel at Disney), but I'm not getting my hopes up.  They're always dashed, when it comes to the internet.  We'll see.  (One thing you can expect: if there is free wi-fi [or not free, for that matter], S will post a picture every day.  He'll have plenty of material.)