I Beg You --

Please. Watch this. And think of how "kind" means both "benevolent," and "like," and "relation."

And also, as you watch it, think of these words:

but how live, how touching in detail
-the little that we get for free,
the little of our earthly trust. Not much.
About the size of our abidance
along with theirs: the munching cows,
the iris, crisp and shivering, the water
still standing from spring freshets,
the yet-to-be-dismantled elms, the geese.

Not Your Fucking Monkey!

Word has gotten around the office that I am in a band.

A bunch of people have asked me to get "my band" to play a show on our balcony at some "mixer" party between our floor and a sister company upstairs. I said no, and feel very good about this decision. Although the president of the upstairs company seemed completely befuddled and a bit cross at my refusal.

And it was all I could do NOT to say:

Hey! HERE'S a GREAT idea! My friends and I are having a loft party in Bushwick, and we totally though you could come and do some work! No, dude! Dude! DUDE! Dude, it will be so cool, we can get a desk, and you can use my friends phone, and you can like, make some deals happen at the party! No, dude, it is going to be awesome! Seriously! What do you mean? Yeah, but my friend Emily used to temp, she could be like your assistant! Come ON, what is your problem? WHATEVER.

And by the way, NO monkey should be anyone's "monkey."

America Hates Me, More than "Us"

So, there's been a lot on my mind, with, you know, being declared a useless clump of cells with a sordid yet fuckable cunt by the patriarchy (TM) etc.

If anyone had any doubts about the thanatological core of the abrahamic so-called "faiths" -- Umm, check this out. It's kind of damning:

"God hates the world -- and all HER people?"

I'm so happy I hung out with Zeebah and Lauren tonight.

Embarrassing

To admit how much better I look when I take the time to WASH MY FACE in the morning.

I know, I am a fucking slob. This morning I actually took a shower before work and I washed my face. I look like Helen of Fucking Troy. Yesterday I looked like Jack Lemmon.

Lesson learned!

Thought For Today

Isn't man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife by the millions in order to protect domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. This in turn kills man by the millions, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative -- and fatal -- health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year sends out cards praying for "Peace on Earth."

-- Preface from Old MacDonald's Factory Farm, by C. David Coates

Kucinich 2008

Watch this interview with Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich right now!

I haven't had a little wonk crush like this since I saw Patrick Fitzgerald. There is a little hopeful spring in my step today, having bounced back from my week of anomie and panic attacks.

It is breathtaking, really, to watch someone NOT EQUIVOCATE on television, someone who simply speaks the plain truth instead of Orwellian koan-like talking points.

For anyone who wishes to remain living in this country, or wants to expatriate but may not be able to, I think it is imperative to support this candidate. I love Obama's yearbook picture and all, and would be thrilled to have an African-American president -- but I am sick of equivocators, and Obama's website doesn't really say anything. Don't get me started on Hillary.

We also owe it to the people of Iraq to end this bullshit occupation. It is our responsibility to do what we can, to do more. It is over and the troops need to come home yesterday -- no more buying into disingenuous framing strategies infantilizing a nation that didn't want us there in the first place. Read Khalid Jarrar's post on the 4th anniversary of the occupation. Then read Riverbend's. Then ask yourself how you can possibly justify supporting anyone who does not demand to end the funding for this yesterday. Because you cannot. It's not complicated, there's no abstruse secret policy we laypeople can't understand. It's simple. It's wrong.

I was home Saturday embroidering a gift for a friend of mine, atop our new mattress, sipping wine, watching V for Vendetta. The movie made me sick -- the scenes of martial law made me ill in that I knew how easy it would be for that to happen here -- I am sure that if the Nimitz barrelling toward Iran actually attacks, martial law will happen. It also made me sick in that so many reviewers described the film as daring, daring in that it was a parallel to our own government's deceitfulness and abuse of detainees -- when really, Natalie Portman's character isn't REALLY being detained by the government, but by V himself, to like, rid her of fear and shit -- a kind of disingenuous exceptionalism that recalled the shower scene in Schindler's List -- you know, where the viewer gets to see the one time a shower was really just a shower. And there I was, in the comfort of my home, afforded the luxury of watching meta-Gitmo on cable, fretting over the impending martial law that will come soon because everyone is, well, watching cable.

We owe it to everyone to do more than worry. We owe it to people to start having sincere and embarrassing conversations about what is right and what is wrong. I don't want to have to explain to my children that Mommy just couldn't do enough, the way when we learn about the Holocaust as children everyone wonders why everyone didn't just SAY SOMETHING about what was happening. So when you see a brunette handing out campaign literature wearing a wedding ring, maybe it's me.