Home; gainful employment; the very nice electric kettle that goes off with a ding when the water is done so that it doesn’t all boil away; baba ganoush; that the refreshingly non-dysfunctional part of my family is in fact my entire family and my boyfriend’s family too; the president-elect; that I have resisted reading the terrible Twilight books this whole time and can now just see the terrible Twilight movie to get caught up culturally; Maker’s Mark; hilarious and kind boyfriend who charms everyone and supports me unconditionally; I-Pass; Cesar Millan the Dog Whisperer; that I have friends who give me encouragement and inspiration and funny-as-hell emails and free oatmeal; Google Docs; the sense of relative wholeness that I have enjoyed for at least three years now and never want to take for granted; peanut butter; zoos; heated car seats; art; you. HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE.
Books, beans & barrels of FUN
You guys, please buy books for Christmas. I know times are tough and the economy is horrible and soon we’re all going to be going around wearing barrels with suspenders, but that’s all the more reason to buy books, so you should buy books.
(Though, just to digress for a moment, how did wearing a BARREL come to be the classic visual shorthand for being destitute anyway? What is the origin of that exactly? Chris and I keep discussing it, and really I would’ve looked it up on the internet by now if I didn’t also suspect that the actual history of barrel-wearin’ involves some icky tar-and-featherish kind of tradition that’s just unpleasant enough to ruin the cartoon fun. Chris did submit the question to “Ask Dr. Maddow,” though, and I’m sure Rachel could relate the gruesome truth quite adorably, because that’s her job.)
(Edited to add: while I was working on this entry, I went over to read Comics Curmudgeon, and Josh is wondering the same thing! Ha.)
But anyway, about the books: buy them. You need to buy them. Even if there’s only one book on your holiday shopping list, buy it new, and even better, buy it from a brick-and-mortar bookseller that you’d miss if it weren’t around, because it’s been coming to that lately for a lot of places. Booksellers might have to wear barrels, people! You don’t want to see that, not even on Barnes & Noble, who would need a very big barrel indeed and massive suspenders to hold it up. So buy books. If you can’t think of any books to buy, I’ve got some that I contributed to recently, and for each one of those books you’ll notice there are links to a whole slew of places where you can buy them, or buy other people’s books; really, I don’t care whose books you buy as long as they’re books and as long as they’re new (as in “not used”). Maybe the book thing is on my mind more these days because my job involves books, but really, people need to buy more books, okay? Thank you.
Like everyone else, I am pretty underwhelmed at how this America’s Next Top Model cycle turned out, even though McKey seems perfectly nice and frankly more modelesque than most of the contestants on that show. The best thing about her is her boxing skills and the fact that she likes to grab people and pick them up like the Hulk, so Chris and I are very much hoping that all her My Life as A Cover Girl commercials next cycle will involve punching and feats of strength, i.e., lifting entire pallets of lip gloss product; holding up runways; etc. We’re going to need something to look forward to in Cycle 12.
In other news, it was cool to get mentioned (on page 3)Â in this Onion A/V Club article on blog books. (Buy those books, too! Well, maybe you don’t need to buy Tucker Max’s, not now at least, because if the publishing and book retail industry falls the hell apart and becomes one creepy company, you can definitely count on being able to buy a Tucker Max book with extra big Helvetica print at the Tucker & Max Bookstore in every airport terminal in America WOO HOO AWESOME and then you can prop up your copy on the edge of your barrel and read to your heart’s content. I’m just saying! Buy BOOKS.)
Finally, I’m hosting Thanksgiving this year. Does anybody have a good green bean recipe? The fried onions are standing by…
About last Tuesday
The night before Election Day, both Chris and I slept fitfully and then got up early to vote. A little before 6 am we walked around the corner to the place where we vote—a Mexican restaurant with amazing chicken burritos and a kind of janky sign—and there was a line already, almost to the end of the block, waiting for the doors to open.
We went back there for dinner later that night, after the polls had closed and it was a mostly empty restaurant again. We had the chicken burritos and every now and then checked the TV in the corner to see how the electoral votes were doing. It was a Spanish-language station but of course all you needed to see were the numbers, and Obama’s were already in the hundreds.
We were short on sleep and nursing cruddy colds and worn out from the constant effort of trying to live an ordinary day on Election Day. We didn’t go to Grant Park. We wanted to be home when it happened, and as we sat on the couch switching the channels from one big garish map to another, it happened sooner than we thought, sooner and even more perfectly than I’d ever thought in my most audaciously jinxy thoughts.
After a few minutes I got up and stepped out on the back porch to see if I could hear horns honking or people cheering or any sign that this thing had really happened, but the neighborhood was quiet. I went back to the couch and our laptops and sat there while Obama’s win became more and more real on every screen I looked at. And then we finally sat still and watched the speech. And that was it! It feels so strange to feel proud and thrilled of a president, and also to think of him as a president and not the just the guy who won for the blue team.
All the same, I was exhausted this whole week and somehow Barack Obama did not cure my stupid cold. And while I know I got a little teary Tuesday night, it wasn’t until Friday when I was home sick that I really felt what happened—and I was happy he’d won, yes, but I also couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the thought of how much was at stake (is still at stake) and how we wouldn’t be feeling joy and relief of this magnitude if we didn’t also sense, on some level, how unprecedentedly screwed-up this country as become. I thought I knew how awful it all was (how awful it still is) but I didn’t understand it emotionally until this week, when I have been just wrung out by gladness. And so for a little while I cried and coughed, and then I went back to sleep. But it feels like things are getting better, my cold and everything else.
Also, and this is sort of a little thing and sort of not: while I’ve never been one to romanticize the First Family, I am extremely heartened to think that in a few months’ time the “American Princesses” will be these two beautiful little girls who are not white or blond or licensed Disney characters. I can’t help but think that will good for six-year-old daughters everywhere.
Anyway, hello, and how are you?
Two tiny things for your Friday
1. The dark chocolate Bounty Bars that disappeared last December are back in stores around here (or at least one store) and we are pleased. A lot of you wrote in to tell me where we could order cases of the bars online and some of you even offered to send them from across the pond, and thank you, but we just held out and hoped the universe would return them to the place where we found them in the first place. Sometimes you want that little gesture even more than you want chocolately coconut goodness. As for those of you in Chicago, DON’T EAT THEM ALL PLEASE.
2. Sometime between 9 and 10 am CST today you can hear me reading my most recent Field-Tested Books piece on Chicago Public Radio WBEZ. If you miss it this morning (and you probably will, because I am posting this at the last minute), the segment will be archived here on the Eight Forty-Eight page.
Have a great weekend, chickens!
Extremities
I was in awe of all the lady-funniness going on around me at the Hideout last week, so thanks to everyone who came to see us! In addition to girl comedy, the night’s fun included being held hostage by the Ting-Tings, who apparently decided to shoot five seconds of their music video right outside the Hideout, which meant that for nearly an hour or so nobody could really leave or even go sit out on the breezy little brokedown patio and instead we were all forced to stay inside and sweat and drink our compensatory drinks, and oh, it was a nightmare. Well, except not really.
One of the things I read was based on my Bad Times entry a few years ago, but of course I had to revise and update it in order to cite new developments in the world of chain-store shopping discomfort, such as the Extreme Value Item Transaction at Jewel supermarkets. The Extreme Value Item Transaction doesn’t quite count as Bad Times, but it always confounds me just the same, because I inevitably fail to come up with a satisfactory response to the Extreme Value Item. The Extreme Value Item, for those of you who do not shop at Jewel, is a daily designated grocery item that has been deployed to a special location right there at the cash register, where the cashier can point out the fabulous savings opportunity it presents.
Is the value of the Extreme Value Item truly extreme? I have no idea because it’s never an item I’d buy. It’s always a can of nuts, or fruit roll-ups, or one of the more dubious flavors of Doritos. And the cashier has to point to it and say something like, “Have you seen our Extreme Value of the day?” Even when there isn’t a distinct subtext of I’d rather I didn’t have to ask you this the whole thing is extremely awkward. One time I tried just going, hmm! while pretending to deliberate about buying the Extreme Value, but that felt really pathetic and on some level unfair to the cashier. I’ve tried to say just, “no thanks,” but even that seems too much somehow, because when it comes down to it, I suppose I deeply resent having to take a position regarding the Extreme Value appeal of Blue Gatorade. Unsubscribe please! Now I find that most of the time I just avert my eyes and mumble uhnuhnuhnuhthanks, which is also my standard response for panhandlers and people handing out flyers and Hair Question Men. It’s still not the best response to the Extreme Value Item Transaction, but it’s all I’ve got, other than using the self-checkout or shopping somewhere where the bargains do not actually accost me.
I meant to tell you about the 5K but there isn’t much to say, other than: I ran it! Very slowly! I did the Couch to 5K program, in which you drive yourself apeshit for 7 weeks trying to measure and keep track of the myriad running/walking intervals until suddenly you really do find yourself sprinting along gazelle-like for miles, plural miles! Of course then at the 5K you see that you are are not at all a gazelle and that other slow runners are faster than you, as are some powerwalkers, people on crutches, and glaciers. But never mind! I’m probably going to do at least one more later this summer or in the fall.
There’s more to catch up on, but I really want to just be in bed now, continuing my Little House series reading kick. I’m on These Happy Golden Years now and can’t get enough of all the euphemistic horse-lust, cute little schoolhouses, and endless confounding descriptions of dress-sewing. Oh, behold the cambric basque with the darted polonaise and the lace jabot! Whatever the hell that is! Good night!
Lamest girl in blogland breaks unexplained hiatus just to plug some stuff & then leaves on vacation
It is what it is, people.
First there is this, and you should come:
If you show up at the Hideout on Wednesday night at 7pm you’ll see me and the other funny ladies read wacky stories about female stuff like housework and ovaries and how chocolate is better than husbands. Or… something. Just be there!
Also the new BUST is out, where you can read my PopTart column on Miley Cyrus, poor little flutterbudget that she is. I just turned in the next issue’s column on Monday, which is one of the 1,472 reasons why I haven’t been able to update.
(I am rereading all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books right now, which is why I am saying a word like “flutterbudget.” I will tell you more about it when I get back.)
Oh, and I ran a 5K somehow. I have to tell you about that when I get back, too. NEXT WEEK I PROMISE, and look, here’s some ice cream and a five dollar bill, go buy yourself anything you want in the Walgreen’s toy aisle and DON’T GIVE ME THAT SAD FACE OKAY? Okay.
