miscellany round-up

on health:

being sick sucks. being sick on one's birthday sucks harder. being sick on the heels of yet another awkward, intrusive doctor's appointment sucks harderer. may i - and all women - never have to be prodded or invaded or scanned by cold metal implements in unaccommodating quarters ever again. unrelatedly, i have spent the better part of the last 48 hours in a near-coma up in my glorious bed, but today have endeavoured to descend to street level and try and get some shit done.

bathe - check (thank GOD).
make strong coffee - check.
read global headlines - done.
scan to-do lists yet to be completed - done.
make the smallest of a baby step towards meeting a work deadline - done.
wash funky sickie bedding - done.
pop variety o' pills - done.
remain conscious long enough to enjoy the season premier of LOST - here's hoping! woot!

on politics:

i've been trying to pull together various strands of thought scattered about my desktop and mind regarding the democratic nomination race. audra beat me to it today to complain about the ongoing oddity that is the clinton offensive on obama. i'll admit to being put off by all sorts of related jackassry, including of course the uncomfortable discourse around identity, race, and gender. every feminist and her dog has weighed in on hillary versus barack, but i'm not sure my stuff is exactly about that. more later.

on art:

it has come to my very delayed attention that audio of me has made its way onto the internet: unplugged single-takes of a couple of my favourite tunes. if you be so inclined, here is me attempting to do justice to my fave aimee mann song, 'you know the rest' and here is me doing claude's breathtaking 'sailor song'. it ain't much, just me in the raw. cringe.

e-zine envy

its been something like two years since i let lapse my 'weight watchers online' membership, but they still send me stuff with alarming frequency. why i haven't unsubscribed is if ever there was a corporate e-team i'd like to write for, it's this one (though air canada's on air runs a close second). if only i had found WW's points 'plan' as compelling or effective as their e-communications. for chrissakes, if you know my writing style at all, TELL ME i'm not a pea for this pod:

brain purge

(inspired by audra)

thankful for:
my safe, comfy home.

proud of:
incremental successes in my Letting Go program.

missing:
those who’ve recently left a gaping hole in my heart.

looking forward to:
a Democratic white house.

preoccupied by:
finances, finances, finances.

thrilled by:
nothing.

disappointed by:
people.

thinking of:
making more changes.

wondering:
whether one ever really feels secure.

hoping:
for a dog by spring.

wanting:
a piano.

reading:
bird by bird by anne lamott
and
the audacity of hope by barack obama.

recommending:
dead-of-night walks.

making:
to-do lists, as ever.

listening to:
david bowie, the early years.

would kill for:
a long, deep, love-fueled, toe-curling kiss.

forgetting to:
submit receipts for reimbursement to santé québec.

most recently snuggled by:
not so much.

most recently slept on:
my glorious, glorious bed.

four things ...

... standing between me and team obama in massachusetts:

the obstacle: my “in” to the campaign (a friend of a friend) has been reassigned to obama’s north carolina operation.
what it means: she had been stoked about 'using' me. sure, she could put in a 'word', but its all up to her successors -- i could be relegated to the status of any other out-of-state volunteer without an insider advocate putting me on tasks or in rooms at the more strategic and organizational levels.
and so: if you are related to, friends with, or have ever shagged one of the 4.5 paid state level obama staffers in massachusetts, could you hook a grrl up?

the obstacle: since the governor’s endorsement of obama in october, the campaign has been privy to an elaborate state-wide field and voter contact network, thus reducing its need to build a machine such as seen in a Big Deal primary state like new hampshire.
what it means: they may not have as much need to take advantage of the senior campaigning chops i was hoping to offer.
and so: can i really justify spending two weeks in a phone bank?

the obstacle: the state operation is a modest one, and so does not have a billeting program for out-of-state volunteers.
what it means: i’m on my own for finding cheap accommodations.
and so: anyone with friends or relatives in the cambridge/somerville areas with a spare couch?

the obstacle: i remain persistently bothered and uncertain about paid employment in this, the new year.
what it means: do i DARE gallivant in new england for team obama – however edifying an experience it might be – instead of actively wage seeking? i mean, professional development for consultants never ledgers under accounts receivable, i know, but deciding its value is really hard.
and so: is anyone out there in the position to guarantee me superbly-waged contracts for the coming months, thus assuaging the guilt i may feel for fucking off for two weeks?

maybe i'll just go to NEW YORK instead.

bob the man on politics and misogyny

in his latest op-ed for the new york times, bob herbert - TO MY DELIGHT - poses enlightened and direct questions about the persistence of misogyny in american culture, and the absence of any meaningful discussion about it in american politics.

excerpts:

"With Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s win in New Hampshire, gender issues are suddenly in the news. Where has everybody been?

If there was ever a story that deserved more coverage by the news media, it’s the dark persistence of misogyny in America. Sexism in its myriad destructive forms permeates nearly every aspect of American life. For many men, it’s the true national pastime, much bigger than baseball or football.

Little attention is being paid to the toll that misogyny takes on society in general, and women and girls in particular.

Its forms are limitless. Hard-core pornography is a multibillion-dollar business, having spread far beyond the stereotyped raincoat crowd to anyone with a laptop and a password. Crowds of crazed photographers risk life and limb to get shots of Paris Hilton or Britney Spears without their underwear. At New York Jets home games, men regularly gather at Gate D to urge female fans to expose themselves.

In its grimmest aspects, misogyny manifests itself in hideous violence — from brutal beatings and rape to outright torture and murder. Fifteen months ago, a gunman invaded an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania, separated the girls from the boys, and then shot 10 of the girls, killing five.

The cable news channels revel in stories about women (almost always young and attractive) who come to a gruesome end at the hands of violent men. The stories seldom, if ever, raise the issue of misogyny, which permeates not just the crimes themselves, but the coverage as well.

We’ve become so used to the disrespectful, degrading, contemptuous and even violent treatment of women that we hardly notice it. Staggering amounts of violence are unleashed against women and girls every day. Fashionable ads in mainstream publications play off of that violence, exploiting themes of death and dismemberment, female submissiveness and child pornography.

If we’ve opened the door to the issue of sexism in the presidential campaign, then let’s have at it. It’s a big and important issue that deserves much more than lip service."

knowing purple

i feel so validated. even the incomparable chaka khan knows where purple is at:

"I’ve done some reading, in anthropology and other places, on what the color can mean. It’s a color of royalty, and of mourning. The Aztecs considered it a mixture of blood and the sky. I’ve just always been attracted to it. Like everyone has a note on the piano that their body resonates to. It’s also the freak color, it’s associated with hippiedom, the free-spirited kind of thing."

from a new york times interview.

new year's druthers

new year's resolutions have always struck me as yet another sure-fire path to disappointment. and i've always harboured a bit of hatred for people who make and actually keep resolutions, if only because they mock my belief in the dubiousness of willpower. but january has a tendency to get people thinking about all sorts of shit pertaining to then and now, yesterday and tomorrow. and i'm not immune to that sort of thing.

so i've been contemplating druthers, wishes, and wants (the difference between which has always eluded me). thankfully, i possess a fairly decent grasp of the difference between fantasy and reality. but some days i'm a woman of action and others, a woman of apathy, so it's really too early to tell what of these might end up in The Plan. here we go.

i wish that in wintertime, the main mode of urban transportation was mildly motorized toboggans, that ice was sparkly but not deadly, and that municipal trucks didn't leave that annoying, tantrum-invoking band of piled snow across the bottom of our driveways when they clear roads at night.

if i had my druthers, when required to, i would make the transition seamlessly between MY preferred schedule and society’s standard hours without flinching or pharmaceutical intervention.

i wish my computer automatically increased speed and power at regular intervals and mutated to new versions of software bling all on its own.

if i had my druthers, my body would never hurt, true mind/body/work/life balance would be an attainable concept, and every food would be zero points.

i wish utterly unjustifiable expenditures like tattoos and plasma tvs and lattés were barterable.

i wish i could afford to divide my time evenly between this house, a funky loft in the heart of manhattan, and the tuscan villa in that diane lane movie.

i want my creative side to get taken out on a lot more dates instead of being kept on the DL like some sort of neglected booty call.

i wish i was higher paid, steadily contracted, and more valued, professionally.

if i had my druthers, people i might ever crave spending time with would live within a 30 mile radius but still be kinda distant and cute puppies or kittens (even the occasional baby) would hang out with me whenever i damn well feel like it but not on a permanent basis that would require me to be responsible for anything major like hygiene or a college fund.

i wish people would say what they mean and mean what they say, not make commitments they can’t keep, and have the balls in relationships to name it when they err, waver or desire to change the terms.

then, a parting gift

after years of nagging me about it and my consistently responding that it's an absurd expense i couldn't possibly justify what with my lack of reliable income and an attitude towards my time on this planet that's blassé at best, the parents also bought me for xmas ... wait for it ... life insurance. UPLIFTING!

behold, the bestest gift. EVER.

for this most wonderful of xmas presents, i'd like to thank first and foremost my parents for deciphering the complex code of my suggestion that hell no, they really shouldn't buy me anything cuz i sure have enough but oh how i'd cherish a special edition box set of the west wing. i'd also like to thank canada post for assigning such a personable package deliverer to my route and for transporting/delivering this bounty promptly and safely into my hot hands.

from a spiritual, emotional, and evidently irrational place: a deep and heartfelt thanks to aaron sorkin, his mind, his dealer, and the crackerjack team of tv-land people for so successfully sprinkling pixie dust on his vision. y'all obviously understand what the hell Good Television is and i, for one, am eternally grateful.