I was really going to SBD but th ewhole left side of my head is engulfed in a Headache Of Doom so I just can't do it, sorry. (Up side: right side of mouth no longer as puffy and numb and weird.) Anyay sorry, the comments to the previous post will tell you where to go read, I gotta I dunno maybe just lay in a hot hot hot bath for an hour or so, bye.

Hm. I woke up with a numbed lip. Just the right half of my top lip. It's not totally numb, but it's very noticeably numb. I ask myself: wtf? Maybe some deadly insect bit me in my sleep. If I die mysteriously in the next few days, remember this tell-tale detail and let the coroner know. Thanks.

SBD!

You thought I forgot, didn't you! I did! But I just remembered. So here ya go, blog away, y'all. I will probably bitch about something or other later on.

So Friday, I shopped for shoes and walked around the square and ate lunch in the park. Yesterday I was attacked by allergies and mostly just laid around the house feeling blergh, except for going to the fruit market. Somewhere in there, I scrubbed the bathroom clean, hauled up the little bookshelf and dusted the books and did the dishes. My plan is to tackle one major cleaning/organizing task per day, in the hopes of getting my apartment - and by extension, my life - back in some kind of order.

Today it's overcast and gray and I need to clean the oven (lord help me). I cooked some amazingly fresh and wonderful chard, and tonight I'll cook I dunno what - pasta? With asparagus and ricotta, maybe.

And every day, I take a wee nap.

So that's how it's going, this little semi-vacation. Life is pretty good. :-)

I decided to kick off my 11 straight days of glorious unemployment with an eat-n-drink-n-drink-n-drink fiesta (avec mon ami Heather), followed by a lot of sleeping in and watching of daytime TV and indiscriminate web-surfing. Huzzah!

In all honesty, I might've done more but it snowed all day. Yes, snowed. Not some annoying little flurries, okay, but like living inside a snowglobe with the big fat wet flakes swirling all around. Ahhh, spring.

What with all the indiscriminate surfing, I found this, which is not unlike me after a few too many drinks and a question about political history. Except I slur more and constantly forget to speak certain important story details out loud, leading to such gems as "George Washington gave this great retirement speech ... and then... I can understand why all his personal letters were destroyed. The end." This is far more coherent, but involves more vomit. It's a trade-off, I guess.




And now I must go watch this PBS documentary about Eleanor Roosevelt.

This right here is the awesomest woman in the whole fucking world. Can we, like, find her and ... give her stuff? Lots of stuff. A tiara, for instance. A gift basket involving a new pair of comfy shoes and a gift certificate for a pedicure and the Xl bottle of Dramamine. Dead serious, I'd totally chip in.

Celebrate Smart Bitches Day with...

Kate!
and
Chas!
and
Paul! (again! omg!)

And I swear I was gonna write this whole thing about descriptive language and characters in the romantic type novels, honest I was, but there's this Frontline two-parter that started tonight and I could not rip my eyes away from it. Sorry. (Actually I'm not sorry and I'll just take this chance to say that pretty much every single shit-hole this country is currently occupying originated in an unprecedented expansion of executive power and a staggering lack of oversight or even any kind of goddamn scrutiny, so if you think that anything is more important than overturning that legacy and re-establishing the principles on which this country was founded, you're a blind idiot who will get the shit-hole-loving government you deserve. And yes, I should really go back to avoiding the news, I know, because I'm likely to burst major blood vessels, but I mean GYAH.) So I should really go to bed now instead of SBDing, sorry.

However, I'll tell you I'm reading - nearly done, if Frontline wouldn't interrupt me - the first book in Kleypas' wallflower series, something about summer in the title. And I'm disappointed.
Everyone loves his book. Snookie really liked it. I am underwhelmed. It's not bad or anything. But it's also not good.

Did you read it? Did you like it? Why or why not? Discuss!

Hey since I'm totally quitting and out of here in a couple of days, I'm blogging from work! Because I forgot

SBD

Sorry. Comments open. Go for it!

As ever, when I catch the Ten Commandments on TV, I am helpless before the hilarious awesome awful fantastic sheer genius of Yul Brenner. Brilliant.

Easter easter easter. When I was a kid, Easter was this complicated thing for me, religion-wise. It's when all the Catholic ritual came out of the woodwork - more masses to go to, more confession, more incense than ever, a big to-do over the altar decorations and the vestments and all. Not in that fun Christmas way, but in this whole dog-and-pony show way. Suddenly everything was so serious on the prayer side, and so anxious on the appearance side.

I always wanted the frilly pastel dress and patent leather shoes and tights (I'd have killed for tights) and until I was a teenager, I just longed for a little matching handbag. To go with the shoes. And I wanted white gloves, of course, but I knew that was just impossible. We always did manage to get something new (or at least new-to-me) for an Easter outfit. We were part of the show, and you had to look spiffy.

It's funny how I can remember all that and more, the details, the church, the chocolate in baskets, the fights over clothes. But when I think of Easter, that's not what I think of, much. I think of our back yard. We had our own Easter egg hunt. My dad hid the eggs all over - front yard, back yard, sides, porch, everywhere. Anything on our property but not indoors was fair game. My mother made me change out of the Easter finery before I could go hunt, and I was convinced this robbed me of my luck. Wasn't that the point of the clothes, after all? Wasn't this part of the show? A little girl in pink skirts with a basket over her arm - that's a girl who belongs in that scene. That's a girl who is led to the eggs as though by magic. Not the girl in muddy jeans and tennis shoes and a windbreaker.

I really hated the windbreaker.

Each egg was worth a certain coinage, depending on how well it was hidden. There were lots of penny and nickle eggs, and a good amount of dime eggs, but only a handful of quarter eggs. And only one dollar egg. My dad hid them everywhere and the adults watched from the porch as we hunted. I was always torn between this desperate need to beat my brothers (they always found the dollar egg, and nearly all the quarter eggs) and to help my little sister. She was terrible at finding eggs. And I'd run around, hunting hunting hunting, find an egg here and egg there, building momentum - until I heard my mother calling from the porch, encouraging my sister. And as much as I wanted the quarter eggs more than anything, I wanted my sister's basket to just not be empty.

I couldn't bear it, you see. I just couldn't. And the penny eggs were so easy to find - she nearly stepped on them, but still always missed them. And she'd wander around getting frustrated and starting to cry, with an empty basket on her arm as we all ran around filling up with ease.

God, you know what's dumb? I'm sitting here actually slightly weepy about it. She was so pathetically happy with every egg she "found". Even if I pointed straight at them, she still acted as though she'd found them. In her head, she did find them. But I hated that - it seemed like we should at least pretend it was a game. So I'd come up with these elaborate ways of making her "discover" the egg. Lead her to the area, make a big show of looking all over, knocking the concealing grass away but still wondering loudly where the egg could be until she saw it and shouted and put it in her basket, laughing at me for missing another one. And all the while, my brothers scoured the place, hollering whenever they found the most impossibly hidden eggs.

It's not like I was a saint. I was extremely resentful of this whole thing, as I was with so many things involving my sister. The moment I began to help her, I could no longer find eggs for myself, because she'd claim them as her own. I wanted to be competing with my brothers, not stuck in the land of good little girls who helped each other and tried not to make anyone feel bad. I wanted to look like the picture-perfect girl in patent leather shoes, but I wanted to kick the boys' asses.

By the time I got old enough to insist (mostly to myself) that my sister could manage an Easter egg hunt on her own, we were too old to have Easter egg hunts anymore. Or at least my brothers were. And it was just no competition without them.

Hi there, pointless reveries. How nice of you to pop up and make and an appearance. All I wanted to do was remember how the air smelled, and how chilly but sunny it was, how the buds were coming out on the forsythia and how I checked the lilacs every day, waiting for them to bloom. But I guess it's all the same anyway. That's how Easter was, how so much of the best parts of life always are: full of exasperation and anticipation and dashed hopes and waves of love that threaten to drown you and sullen resentment and perfect heartbreaking spring blooms and mud that would ruin your pretty little dress. And too few coins to show for all your troubles.

But maybe one less sad girl at the end of it all, with her little hoard of nickles and dimes. Once the show of competition was over, the glorious smell of the spring air was really reward enough for me. I can still smell it, any day of the year. Just close my eyes and it's there. I think I always felt that was all I ever had anyway, at the end of the day - just me and the sweet-smelling air and the hope of flowers blooming soon.

Oh great, now I get to have nightmares of rays randomly killing me as I lounge in the tropical sun. Just exactly what I needed, thanks.

Celebrate SBD with...

Kate!
and
Suisan!
and
jmc!

And even hough I remembered and I actually do have an SBD topic to address, I just need to sleep now, sorry. Next week, promise.

In the meantime, courtesy of Chas, I bid you a Happy Saint Paddy's:

Omigod, look! It's Monday and I REMEMBERED! Not only did I remember to eat breakfast, pack a lunch, and prep my gym bag, but that it's

SBD!

Yay hurray, go me. Or more precisly, go you! You go. Go! Go forth and blog things, alla youse. Alternatively, tell me if you think the blog is too pink. I kept looking for a paler color, but couldn't find anything I like.

Hallo!

I just gave my two week notice!

Why? Because I got a new job! With jaw-droppingly great benefits! Including many many many MANY more days off! And the same pay, located downtown, can take the train, at a non-profit, no managing others, and is more than slightly interesting to me.

OMG I know! How crazy is THAT shit, huh?! I - me - Beth - me! I actually have managed a not-miserable job move! Or, at least if it IS miserable, I actually get to take days off of it!

My current boss took it very well, though she's sad to lose me. She, like so many of my friends, is genuinely happy for me. She said she's always felt so lucky to have me, and that I'm so sharp and that basically, I deserve more out of life than where I've been. She knows I haven't been happy, so while she wasn't expecting it, she also wasn't shocked. So that was really not too bad. God knows how it'll go tomorrow when I tell my employees, but it shouldn't be worse than that.

When I left my last job, I felt elated, vindicated, excited. This time, I just feel incredibly relieved. Like I'm turning in a life that wasn't really mine, that never really was supposed to belong to me and has been weighing me down like some kind of heavy weight slung around my neck. the new job may turn out to be just meh, or even bleh, but it will definitely be taking away a lot of negatives, if not adding positives. (Um well except the 401k match - that's definitely a positive.)

So. That's the news. :-)

Argh. Frustrating work-week.

I remain totally scattered, forgetting about meals more than I remember them (until I'm crazy-starved and ready to eat writing utensils), writing notes to myself to "call so-and-so FOR REAL THIS TIME" - and then forgetting for the zillionth time to do so. I feel like I need a month of meditation. Or something.

Can I just say, as a woman who is quite proud of being a woman, that this week I am humiliated by my fellow (famous, esp. in a political way) women? Because I am. I find myself thinking how nice it will be in 20 years when most of the 60s-70s feminists finally die off. Not that I'm not grateful, because I really really really am, honest to god I am, but in this culture, in this day and age? You're (y)our own worst enemy. And don't, please please don't talk down to me and lecture me about how I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for your righteous fighting. That is not germane to anything except, well, history. I will not be held hostage to your accomplishments and your failures. You helped to create a world where I can make my own choices and let my own voice be heard and, in short, be my own woman. So let me. Please. Thank you.

And on an entirely different very female note, let me just make everyone aware that Target has the CUTEST summer bags for sale. I can't even stand it. I had to stop myself from buying at least 3 of them - not because they cost more than like $12 each, but I mean who needs that many bags? (Okay, I do. It's true. But but but... restraint!)

Tomorrow it's supposed to get up to like 50 whole degrees. I'm so excited I could poop.

Talked to Rita last night for the first time in forever - it turns out we've both had Quite A Year (which explains why we just really haven't managed to keep in touch). I was telling her about this one thing that's been happening in my head/heart/life lately, and she reminded me of how truly excellent a friend she is by saying in that fantastic broad accent of hers, "Okay, sweetie pie, you leesten to me - when it comes to brains, you know - and I mean it, okay - you know there eez no one in thees world who has more brains than you." And it's not just that she says it, it's how she says it and who she is. She's not only incapable of grand-scale insincerity toward anyone she cares about, but she is absolutely passionate about everything she says. She's pretty fucking amazing. So gladI finally remembered to pick up the damn phone.

Is it the weekend yet? Why isn't it the weekend yet? Why am I incapable of just reading a book? Or even an article longer than a single page? I have the attention span of a gnat these days. I find it incredibly frustrating. Of course.

I dunno that I have anything else to say. Except I will not wear a huge heavy sweater tomorrow for the first time in months and months and months, I hope to remember to both eat breakfast and bring my lunch to work, and it will be the weekend soon. Things just may be looking up.

Oh, and I'll try to remember to redecorate the blog this weekend. The snow must go.

Oh my living christ, I NEED A VACATION. Seriously. Because I completely forgot about SBD, even though I had reminders multiple times throughout the day. And throughout the afternoon and evening, too. Jaysus.

So okay, if you haven't already done so, celebrate Smart Bitches Day with...

Kate!
and
jmc!
and
Lyvvie!

And NEW SPECIAL EDITION DUMB BASTARDS DAY!
with
Paul! (who came up with that all by hisself, ain't he clever? It's the least he can do with like 18 months between postings, sheesh.)

I was going to write about female antagonists in Romance, but now it's Tuesday morning and I have to blowdry my hair. Sorry.

Holy crap I'm running late because Daylight Saving Time this weekend and then I sit here reading everything I can click on about a totally exciting local election (filling Hastert's seat) (down with Oberweis!) (though I love his ice cream) (yes, I know this is thrilling for no one but me) and I gotta grab my stuff and get out the door but I'm all scattered for various reasons which I will get into later this week, but for right now let's just say that springing ahead an hour really isn't helping me be less scattered and flakey. But hey, at least I remembered it's

SBD

So comments are open and see you later tonight, assuming that I continue to remember it's SBD. now go! Blog! Everybody!

I spent the day with the beloved slice of fam - my niece, the eye-talian, Bro4, the neffs. We talked politics, my niece and I. "I love you, Aunt Beth," she said. "You always make sense." I then (naturally) jumped on her for believing me just because I made sense. "You decide to believe only when you look around and read and learn and educate yourself to the truth, NOT when one person seems to make sense to you," I told her. Then she asked me to explain the difference between Democrats and Republicans, which is an entirely fair question and quite a statement on the state of both parties. I could only answer it by giving a mini history lesson that explained how the two have become virtually indistinguishable. I basically wound up saying "if it needs to grow a pair, it's Democrat; if it's clinically insane, it's Republican." End of civics lesson.

Then we colored her hair and it looks awesome. The eye-talian was exhausted, I was (am) exhausted, but we rubbed the sand out of our eyes and oohed over the lovely results. Then off to pick up the neffs and the Bro and go eat. We talked about No Child Left Behind, passionate diatribes, all of us vociferously... agreeing. It says a lot about the world when my brother and I agree on anything even remotely political. But I think something in him was knocked loose by Abu Ghraib. His mind's not so made up about everything any more; he's open to questioning and changing the things and people he's always believed. And suddenly we find ourselves agreeing on a lot of things. Suddenly at dinner, we sounded like every teacher I've ever known, railing against the base stupidity of standardized testing.

Also with all that exhaustion around the table, we got a fit of the giggles. Not the kids, the adults. Over something that wasn't even funny. Some silly twist of words that made no sense at all and was mildly and passingly humorous, but we got laughing til the tears were rolling. I couldn't stop laughing. Thought I might pass out, because I could barely breathe. Other tables were staring. The kids squirmed. We laughed and laughed and laughed like loons. It feels like a million years since I laughed like that. It was wonderful.

My favorite part: walking into the house with my shining new hair, the niece ahead of me, and the neffs greeting me. The niece is a favorite with the neffs - she's got a knack with kids not unlike my own, and the little ones treat her the way they often treat me, always wanting to sit next to her, talk her ear off, etc. So I was fully prepared to play the role of chopped liver for this visit, until the neff (now 13) saw the niece and gave a noncomittal grunt of welcome - and I remembered that nearly everyone is chopped liver to a 13-year-old boy. "Wow," I said, "you sure are a teenager."

That's when he realized I was there, and he whipped around and there he was, all 5 years old again and shining-smiling-loving-thrilled that I was there. Ran down the stairs immediately (pound pound pound) to hug me tight and kiss my cheek. The little one came soon after, and when I left for the night he hugged so tight and didn't want to let go. I observed his extreme huggingness, and he said "I just love you and I miss you. When are you going to come again and spend the night?"

It's just remarkably gratifying, how they grow up and grow tall and work on their cool, and they still have that instinctive reaction when I show up. I remember myself at about age 14, deciding to be cool and no-big-deal about my favorite aunt coming to visit - but the second her car pulled in the driveway I was shouting her name and running to be the first to hug her. I really have no clue what I did to deserve being loved so thoroughly and enthusiastically by these lovely lovely boys, but it's extremely humbling. And a pretty great thing to be on the receiving end of. Periodic outpourings of unconditional love are always welcome in my life.

So that was my pretty darn close to perfect day: loving niece, adoring neffs, political talk, hair, dinner, crippling laughter. An enviable haul, I think you'll agree.

Hello I am drinking too much wine. It's a good thing, though! Honest! The last coupla weeks have been nutso oh shit I just spilled wine. Out of my mouth. And down my cleavage. It was a swallow interrupted by a yawn that would not be denied. And now it is in in my bra. Fuck.

Why do Ineed to drink so much wine when I should really just give in to the yawning? Because of. A thing. This thing, see. A snippet from an conversation with Snookie earlier tonight:

Me: I guess the thing is that I've really embraced my unhappiness as an unavoidable fact and I'm all resigned to it. I'm okay with it. It was hard, but it's okay.
Snook: Right. Dead dreams, done with mourning, etc. I know.
Me: So I just figure that if I'm going to be unhappy anyway, then why take a chance on a new form of unhappiness? Might as well stick with the misery I know.
Snook: Yeah, of course. But! That's really really stupid.
Pause.
Snook: You, um, know how stupid that is, right? Right?
Pause.
Me: Remind me again why that's stupid?

And then I bought a bottle of cheap wine. The end.

Oh, and PS to Tom: a bit o good journalism, from me to you.

Hmm... well, I guess you're all lucky because I was all fired up to post a long political rant, but somewhere along the line I just got over it. Well, not over it but over the urge to express it. As I was saying to Tom yesterday - or as he was saying to me, whichever - about 90% of all political campaigns are comprised of evil bits of flotsam that float to the surface, and that candidates and "journalists" then decide to showcase. And so everyone - EVERYONE - gets caught up in the evil flotsam, and becomes convinced that said flotsam is really really significant. Six to twelve months later, that "issue" that really swayed you? You forget it entirely. And when you're reminded, you're all like "Oh, no I totally don't believe that. How stupid."

So my mantra to myself has been a pretty basic repetition of the things I want and don't want. Like:

• I don't want anyone who froths at the mouth or pounds the podium or shouts or shakes an angry fist. (How weird that I miss Senior Bush and his calming ways.)
• I want my evening news NOT to be filled with stories about how the White House is hiding these important documents, refusing to answer those critical questions, and generally saying "fuck you, I tell you what I want to tell you and not more."
  
• If another 9/11 happens, I want to be told something a little more motivating than "Everybody go shopping!"
• I'm sick of looking back, even when it's with affection. I'm turning into a pillar of salt. Please just let me look to the future and not the past.
  
• When the time for Supreme Court nominations comes around again, I want a President who really, truly, demonstrably cares about the Constitution to be in charge of choosing nominees.
• I am an American and it's my sacred duty to abhor political dynasties. Nothing anyone can say will get me past that. Nothing.
• While I'm at it, if you voted for Iraq? I'm not getting past that either. Any of you. Ever.
  
• I want fucking habeus corpus, you motherfucker.
• I want my military hunting down bin Laden and all in collusion with him, not pissing our money and time and effort and will away in Iraq. (You know what? I'm an Indiana shitkicker and the shitkicker within still wants to see that very specific head on a platter.)
• I want to see more GOVERNMENT from my government, and and less politics.
• I want my country back, because what we've become is not who we are. I know it's not. I KNOW IT'S NOT AND LOOK NOW I'M SHOUTING because I'm MAD all OVER again, but please LISTEN: WHAT WE HAVE BEEN IS NOT WHO WE REALLY ARE AND I WANT SOMEONE WHO WILL SAY THAT OUT LOUD. And we can be who we really are again. We don't torture. Jesus, how hard is that? We are America. We do not condone torture. No, we don't. Stop with your wimpy fucking hedging, your conditional if-but-thens, grow a spine, and just say it and stand by it: we definitively, as a country and a culture, do not abide by torture. We also don't let one of our own cities drown before our eyes and do NOTHING because we CARE about those people, we really DO and this is not who we are, to bumble and stumble and make excuses and point fingers while people die. And you know what else, we have laws. We have a Constitution and it's what binds us, it's the one thing we undeniably have in common and it's more important than all the rest of our petty bullshit positioning, and I WANT IT BACK FRONT AND CENTER IN MY GOVERNMENT. Shove the details of your (proposed! not actually real!) health policy and the rest of your pandering right the hell up your ass, and let's talk about remembering who we are and about giving us our country back. Because we are on this really really insanely WRONG side-track and someone has GOT to put us back on our proper path, goddammit.
  
• I said I wouldn't rant, sorry.
• Um.
• Look!
• Flowers!
• As bullet points!
• Yay!

Deep breath.

See the thing is, I have spent a lot - A LOT of my life not ever talking politics with anyone ever. As a general life policy. But the last few years, everything has gotten so progressively INFUCKINGSANE that it's gotta come out. and there are several years of buildup. Sorry. but anyway, all of the above reasons are why I support who I support, and why I can't support the ones I just can't.

And I think I didn't realize how very - what's the word? It's more than disenfranchised. Betrayed. Robbed. Exiled. That's it, really, I've felt like an American without an America. And not because I want some crazed agenda, I mean all I'm asking for here are the basic principles this country was founded on, for fucksakes. (You know, without that only-white-men-with-property-really-matter business mucking up the good ju-ju.) Monarchy bad, democracy good, no taxation without that representation jazz, liberty or death, justice, decency, apple pie, etc. It's just so very absent, and I can't handle that absence any more. If it's not there, I'm not there. And I've been realizing just how very not-there I've been, and what the loss of it is doing to a big part of me.

Yeah, okay. So. Moral: campaigns are The Krazy, don't get all caught up and lose perspective. Hey, speaking of which, you want a taste of Illinois politics? Because MAN could I give you an earful (BEST gossip EVER of any state/city governments of all TIME) especially about our governor - though I guess you'll hear plenty about him in the Rezko trial. It just wouldn't be a high-level Illinois politician without corruption charges of awe-inspiring depth and breadth (except it really looks like Obama is one of the few exceptions to the Rule of Illinois Political Corruption). But because you deserve some amusing fun stuff, let me share this with you: the county board shouting at each other until they almost break the microphones. Okay, maybe you don't find it amusing and fun unless you live here. Wish I could find full audio of the fight, though - it's so classic.

Okay okay, shutting up now.

Hey! GO SPONSOR LYVVIE NOW. Hurry, before I terrorize you with pictures of my new bra.

For Kate, my 6-word bio: It's all about the hair, man.

Except my hair looks craptastic lately and I need to make an appointment for a trim and maybe remember to adequately moisturize so I'm not left with flyaway twig-like tangles on my head, but quite frankly? I lack motivation anymore. I've decided to stop caring. Oh well.

PS: I saw Juno and it was great. Really, really great.

Good morning. (Or not good - it's rainy sleeting out there, and I didn't get enough sleep, and I have to go to work and waah waah waah.) Today is Monday which means it's

Smart Bitches Day!

I don't think I'll be participating, but I offer this up for your consideration, because it veers into this relentless discussion (see comments) about Romance novels and their place in the world and the outright wrongness of holding them in contempt. Also, the original WaPo article discussed is some piece of work and everyone needs to know that Charlotte Allen is both a twat and a twit.

But aside from that, whatcha been reading? Talk to me of books, please.