Wow. I'm only 20 minutes or so into the Sex and the City movie, but damn, it is utterly repellent. Maybe it gets better?

Jesus, I hope so.

We've had a 65% turnout already just for early voting, and there was a line at the polling place this morning. Way to represent!

Vasily (pictured here in his prime) was euthanized today in my arms. He was a beautiful animal and more than any other I've ever known exuded a natural supreme confidence. I'll always remember the look of disbelief and then the admiring laughter from the owner of a pit bull who had had the temerity to walk his burly dog too close to Vasily's yard. Vasily stalked out into the middle of the street and boxed at the surprised beast, then followed dog and human halfway down the block, tail bottle-brushed and eyes blazing, until he was satisfied that they had learned their lesson. He mellowed in middle age, but still projected such a kingly air that anyone who saw him remarked upon it.

He should have lived twice as long, but cancer, that evil devourer, descended and consumed him. I will miss him very much.

Oh, yeah.

"Revolting."

Notice how no one expresses any audible disgust with this behavior. Notice instead how people actually laugh.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

is another subprime primer!

Now with dynamic stick figure action!

And by fantastic, I mean that Palin truly seems to be a creature of fantasy. She's just too dreadful to be true.





Gotcha journalism -- what you call anything you say that embarrasses your party.

"But that's okay too."

Wow.

Just wow.

There are writers hating themselves for not thinking this guy up.


There are parts of this that make me too uncomfortable to read, and that, my friends, is saying something.

I suppose it would be churlish and unfair of me at this dark time in our country's financial history to point at free-marketers who insist that FDR was evil incarnate, markets will self-regulate, and businesses respond to social concerns because such responses are in their best interests and say, "Ha ha ha, you assholes. Don't you dare ever bring those weak-ass arguments to the table again."

The Self of Steam Meme:
Take a picture of yourself right now.
don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
post that picture with NO editing.
post these instructions with your picture




Just got up, no makeup (or clothes, for that matter), checking email and correspondence before I get in the shower and go to work. Is my ambivalence showing?

So . . . what to say?

My folks got through Ike all right (better than most), but don't underestimate the damage done to Houston. There will be people without power for weeks and weeks -- maybe even months. It's going to be mighty hard living for a lot of people for a long time.

I'm still kind of sick about David Foster Wallace's suicide. Isn't it sad and funny that the New York Times headline labelled him "Postmodern Author"? He was actually rather ambivalent about postmodernism . . . whatever that is.

I did not sleep last night, no, not one wink. Partly it was regular old insomnia, and partly it was that a glorious cold front finally, finally arrived. I opened the windows and basked in the crisp, cool air. It is divine. It is invigorating. This has been one of the most miserably hot summers on record, and I have been longing, longing for this weather. I couldn't stand to waste any of it being asleep.

It makes me want to be in love with someone who loves me back.

I left for work this morning at 4:45. In about an hour, I'll head downtown to attend an all-day meeting. I look like holy hell, as you can imagine. I'm worried about this election. I'm worried about Rick's disappearance. I'm broke. I'm exhausted. I'm ridiculously happy to be alive and to know the people I know. I'm very, very fortunate.

Oh, and I forgot -- I hate the Chicago Cubs. That's important today.

My friend Michael just got back from a trip to Japan. She very kindly brought me a beautiful little Kokeshi doll -- look!




So I brought it home and showed it to Jeff.

Me: Look what someone gave me today!

Jeff: Aw, that's cool. And it looks like you!

Me: . . .

Jeff: It does!

Me: How so?

Jeff: . . .

Me: . . . ?

Jeff: You know, the hair and . . . trailing off

Me: You think it looks like me because it's frowning.

Jeff: Noooooo

Me: Mmmm.

Jeff: I never said that.

.

WorldCrashing is still down, so I'll have to use LJ to report to my Pancake sisters that my push-ups, I did them. Week 1 is in the books, bitches!

I had a terribly sad conversation with my mother today -- her favorite and most cherished cat ever, Minnie, died a few weeks ago. She hasn't been able to talk about it until now. She still cries when she says "Minnie" out loud, but I've been there. And I'm sure I'll be there again.

Lots else going on in my head (mostly just in my head), but I don't really feel like writing about it just yet. As the kids on Facebook say -- "it's complicated."

When isn't it?

If you've listened to Eklektikos on KUT the past couple of mornings, you've heard the following gems from John Aeilli:

Yesterday, talking about sunrise: "If you had seen the sun come up -- of course, it's getting easier and easier to do that now that it's coming up later and going down later. . . ."

No, John -- that's not how it works.

This morning, regarding the weather: "This summer hasn't been that bad. It's by no means the hottest we've ever had. There have been a few days in a row over 100. . . ."

Well, John, how do you define "that bad?" Because I'd say that the hottest summer in 83 years is pretty effing bad. As for those "few days" -- try 50. Fifty days so far in 2008 that the temperature has been over 100, and I am fairly certain that many of those days were consecutive.

Just . . . shut up and play the music, Aeilli.

Nowhere to put these fragments with WorldCrashing down, so here they will go.

How can people be so heartless?
How can people be so cruel?
Easy to be hard --
Easy to be cold.

Y'all who are also doing the 100 Push-Ups thing: I did mine today; day 2 of week 1. I was sitting here trying not to fall asleep** and I needed to move around, so I found an empty conference room, shut the door, and went to it. Feeling better now.

I really miss yoga. I think my hip flexor may have healed enough to start it again. Hey, you know when your orthopedist tells you it can take 6 months to a year for a torn muscle to heal? It's no exaggeration. And if you blow it by jumping the gun because you're too impatient to wait and you reinjure the muscle, you're screwed for another 6 months. I injured myself last October, and it's only since early August that I have been pain-free. Needless to say, I will be proceeding at a glacial pace and with agonizing caution when I start yoga again (even though it wasn't yoga that tore the muscle -- it was SEX).

There are a number of things I need to do to get myself right with the world. Some obligations I need to fulfill, too, even though I'm dreading them. More on all this later -- I think I've lingered on the subject of "me me me" long enough.

**I'm not tired -- it's a stress reaction. Big-time stress can make me uncontrollably sleepy. I've been known to fall asleep at the most unusual times. . . .

Here's something succinct and irrefutable to have on hand when talk around the water cooler turns to politics:

"We all know that modern political campaigns choose their issues from the cafeteria line after market-testing them and then having them professionally framed. Rarely, though, are we offered such a clear and unarguable example. How could anyone truly believe that Barack Obama's background and job history are inadequate experience for a president and simultaneously believe that Sarah Palin's background and job history are perfectly adequate? It's possible to believe one or the other. But both? Simply not possible. John McCain has been — what's the word? — lying. And so have all the pundits who rushed to defend McCain's choice.

This is especially damning to McCain because his case for himself (besides not being Barack Obama, a standard under which many of us might qualify) has rested on his honor and integrity. The North Vietnamese couldn't break him, and neither could the Brahmins of his own party in the Senate. He was a maverick who always told it straight. So much for that."

Michael Kinsley in Slate

I know, I know, this just in, fashion magazines are dumb, ZOMG, but . . .

The receipt of an email from Saks Fifth Avenue exhorting me to "shop fall trends!" reminded me of something I've been meaning to rant about for a while. I know that occasionally there really are apparel fads that become apparent to anyone who tends to notice such things: low-riders, ponchos, trucker caps, belt chains -- hell, for that matter, poodle skirts and penny loafers. But in order to drum up business, the apparel industry has to at least try to convince consumers that there are seasonal trends (mini-fads, as it were) that require you to purchase new clothes or languish in the shadows cast by those more fashion-forward. Just what are these "fall trends" and "new looks for summer" and "fresh spring fashion must-haves!"? I contend that they are anything the hell you want them to be, because everyone is just making this shit up. They often happen to be the clothes you buy in a fit of retail insanity. You wear them once to work, catch sight of a co-worker staring (and not in a good way), double-take when you catch sight of yourself in a window reflection, spend the entire day hiding in your office praying you can get home before the damage to your image becomes permanent, and then you never ever wear them again. Years later, your children may use them for Hallowe'en costumes -- "My mom said this is how people used to dress back then! No, really!" Let's proceed to the evidence, shall we?

According to Saks Fifth Avenue, "people are talking about" long sweaters, leggings (apparently made of vinyl, jesus), and booties.

According to Vogue, you lose at life without a fur vest ("the must-have topper of the season!") and "classics make a comeback" [Because after all, classics have made a comeback every year since the Dior look was created. It's not lazy, it's just true!], so get out there and, um, buy another trenchcoat because the one you have just isn't classic enough? The official fall trend report on style.com lists the following "top" trends for fall: peplum waists, "country life" plaids and tweeds [Holy fuck, people, McCain is not going to win this election, all right?], long skirts and coats, minimalism ["Stark, architectural tailoring" . . . the better to make those peplum-wearing dumbasses look like fashion clowns!], superhero-inspired clothing [No. I think not.], and "the winter garden," which consists of prints and . . . feathers.

Harper's Bazaar confirms the forecast for plaids [Crap!], but throws into the mix "sleek, jet-black" cocktail dresses, lace, "form-fitting garments," and velvet.

Are we beginning to get the picture here? Everything is a fall trend. Every fucking thing. If you wanted to announce that chinchilla underwear worn on the outside of your mother-of-pearl catsuit is the ONLY way to spend the fall of 2008 unless of course you LIKE being ugly, you could, and your peers in the fashion industry wouldn't laugh you out of the business -- assuming there was a manufacturer of chinchilla underwear desperate to underwrite your claims.

Also good for a laugh: the competing "faces of Fall" forecasts. It's the smoky eye (again)! No, it's the nude lip! No, no, it's green mascara! It's the natural look! It's the saturated-with-color look! Meanwhile, take a look at some of the more high-profile fashion mavens out there -- Anna Wintour, Suzy Menkes, the late Diana Vreeland. Has any one of these women changed their signature look in decades? No, they have not, because they aren't stupid people -- they just assume their readers are stupid people.

What am I wearing today? A little black dress (bought it last year at . . . um . . . can't remember), black Mary Jane shoes with a kitten heel (they're at least a year old, and they were cheap -- I think they're from DSW), and my grandmother's bright-red Chinese cinnabar beads around my neck. Everyone keeps saying I look good today. I think I've found a fall trend -- you're welcome to borrow it if you like.

This is one of my favorite parts of the Olympic Games, every time: when all the athletes swarm onto the field during the closing ceremonies, waving and grinning and mixing and mingling and dancing and generally acting like goofy kids (which they generally are).

I find myself grinning and waving right back at them, looking no doubt like an idiot who thinks the people on the tv can see the people watching them. And I cry a little, partly because I'm always moved by the spectacle anyway and partly because it tugs so hard on that cord threaded through the seminal experiences of my childhood. My thoughts always search out my mother and my siblings, particularly my sister B.B., and I still have a hard time grappling with the concept that I will never see her again at times like these.

Ah, very cute -- two Aussies posing in front of the Olympic torch with their hands up and clasped, using forced perspective to make it look as though they are holding the flame aloft!

Congratulations, you crazy athletic kids. And thanks. You were, as always, truly awesome.

So the big hairy deal I made about the color of my . . . damn, I already said hairy, and now I want to say hair, but I don't want to delete hairy because it's so integral to "big hairy deal," which means something much more specific than "big deal," but then again, I don't want people to think I meant it as a pun, god forbid, but at the same time I'll be boiled in oil before I start referring to my hair as "tresses" or "locks" so . . . hair? Allllll in my head. What a shocker, right? I know!

No, really, every single person who has commented at all has said, "Looks like you got some sun." To which I reply, "Wha?" To which they clarify, "Nice tan." To which I say, "Erm . . . I didn't get any sun. I'm not tan." And then it's their turn to say, "Wha?" To which I clarify, "No, my hair is lighter. My skin is not darker." And honestly, most of them at that point actually try to argue with me! I swear to them, hand to God, that I have not been in the sun and that my hair is considerably lighter than it has ever been. And then their little minds are blown, as mine is. Perception, she is a funny thing.

. . . according to Andre Gide, is gray.

I started to go prematurely gray in my early 20s. I've been covering that gray, first with store-bought semi-permanent hair dye and later with visits to the salon every 6 to 8 weeks, ever since -- for 20 years or so. I've been tempted to find out just what my real hair color is for some time now. A picture taken of me a few weeks ago only gave me more motivation -- a fat stripe of gray roots down the part in my dark brown hair is not, as the kids say, a good look.

So yesterday I went to Sharon at Dragonfly and said I was ready to take the plunge. I've been reading about growing out gray hair (it's pretty depressing how many people say flat out "don't do it!"), and after asking Sharon for her advice, we decided to lighten my hair somewhat with highlights so that the gray blends in a bit more.

Sharon wanted to be sure I knew what I was in for. "It's going to be ugly for a while," she said. "No matter what we do, at some point it's going to be obvious that you're growing out gray hair." (This is just one reason that I like Sharon.) I assured her that I was ready for it, and we got started.

Oh my God, it takes a long time to lighten and highlight hair! I'm used to my regular old single-process color every six or eight weeks -- you arrive, get your roots "painted" (I love the feeling of the cold paste on my scalp), you let it sit for roughly half an hour, you get it washed out. Voila! But with highlights you get the million little pieces of foil put in your hair with the bleach, then you let that sit, then a rinse, then toner, then you let that sit, then a wash . . .

The sight of my hair lighter than it's been in my entire life is disorienting, to say the least. But you know . . . I don't think it looks horrible. It might even look kind of . . . good. You can decide for yourself ( behind the cut. )

Now I'm just supposed to let it grow for as long as I can stand it, according to Sharon, and then go back in for more highlighting, blending, and so on (probably in about 2 months). And I'll probably get a couple of inches cut off as well. Somehow, me and my gray hair will meet in the middle.

I've had to cancel my trip to Colorado. I couldn't go to camp closing this week, either.

I miss my family. I want to tease my dad about politics (because he will tease me right back) and hang out with my sisters and my stepmother and play with my nieces and nephews (who are pretty darn nice to their strange aunt Lauri). I want to browbeat everyone into going whitewater rafting and fill the hummingbird feeders and go to the bird-banding demonstration again and meet Troi and make everyone look at my pictures from Australia.

The challenge now is to stay busy and productive instead of feeling sorry for myself and languishing in the status quo.

This Joyce Carol Oates poem about William Carlos Williams has sent me orbiting deep into thought, swinging between a celebratory love of life and a despair that bites into the bone. It's the best thing about my day so far.

(Oh, but the day is young!)

God I hope I would have the guts to do what Wm. C. Wm. did after his strokes. I hope I would flail bravely, angrily, tearfully away at my typewriter regardless of what got scrambled between my brain and my fingertips, and then just send the letter anyway, relying on the people I loved to understand what I meant. Especially if I were a writer.

And thinking of WCW reminds me of Dr. Stitt. Peter Stitt. Ah, me, back in that strange time of limbo at the University of Houston. I wonder if it was some form of purgatory for him, as it was for me?