so much to do!

My Busy and Important unemployed life demanded that I buy a planner for the first time. So far I have lots of exercise classes written in there, which is a great first step!

I also made an elaborate color-coded Excel spreadsheet to keep track of the 63 (and counting) agents to whom I have sent my proto-classic manuscript. I should make another to keep track of the jobs I have applied to, but that would cross the line into depressing. At least the agents have been encouraging, even the ones who pass. One fellow even asked me to keep in touch and let him know what eventually happened because it was such a close call.

I'll tell you what's eventually going to happen: I'm going to get to meet Barack Obama. Yeah, that's right. Somehow I will get from here -- in pajamas in an armchair with my laptop -- to a handshake with our heartthrob president and it will be because some agent takes a chance on my book. (Maybe if I write that in my planner for sometime in the future, it will happen. That's the Secret all over, right?)

Essentially I'm trying to stay active and focused. The big project at the moment is the mortgage, because if we can actually get the pre-approval and make a bid on the apartment we want, that will address one leg of 2009's Triathlon of Major Problems. These are, in case you're just joining us, that I

1) got laid off
2) am soon to be homeless
3) heard my Dad has cancer again

Is "problems" too strong a word? Should I say "challenges"? Someone who knows the Secret let me know, please.

1) is the hardest to fix, as I feel like I'm competing with every English/Film/Humanities major in New York City for every open position. But the unemployment checks help and I'm not in danger of insolvency soon.

2) could turn out to be a good example of falling up, if we do manage to get a loan and buy this one guy's amazing Cobble Hill apartment for appallingly little money (by New York standards). Regardless, though, I'm going to sow the fields with salt before we leave. I can't believe we planted a garden in our backyard and won't get to stay here to see it bear fruit come summer.

3) is not as dire as it seemed initially, thank god. I've now been to and from Washington twice to see him (well, and to see C.J. Roberts tussle with Obama, wish my grandma a happy 96th birthday, and meet my brother's new 24-year-old acupuncturist Californian girlfriend). Everyone's feeling more optimistic now that there is a treatment plan in place for him. This time last year, he was just getting over being chemo'd and radiated; now he gets to do it all over again, after which he gets to be skillfully disemboweled for the second time. Oh, the wonders -- and limitations -- of modern medicine.

My February horoscope looks good, though!:

The year 2008 seems to have been a little frustrating for you, but planets gathering in your eighth house will hasten your transition into your new life phase. ... On the agenda will be the basic questions: What will make me happy? How can I go about creating real, lasting changes - ones I will genuinely want - that will be in place for years to come? Certainly you want stability, so that's what will be on your list of questions to answer, too.

So true. I'm very open to suggestion, friends.

think different

I'm going to write a book about counter-intuitive things to do when you're unemployed. Like, join a gym! Mr. Ben and I took this opportunity to join the Brooklyn YMCA because of the pool and the classes and because he told me he'd withhold physical intimacy unless I do something to reduce my stress levels, which are registering at somewhere between Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island and the exposure to which are threatening to turn him into a three-headed dog.

Start an IRA! I did that the last time I was booted from a job. It has since lost more than half of its value, thanks to the current economy. Still, it makes you feel grown up and responsible to have an IRA, especially a droopy one, since you can join in the chorus of grumbling by real adults about the stock market. Camaraderie is important during these dark times, and to stave off a feeling of isolation while you're spending most of your days at home wrapped in a blanket talking to your dead orchid about the book deal you're totally going to get any day now.

Apply for a mortgage! Maintaining your equilibrium is key, as is a feeling of forward motion. (We are all sharks: we move or we die.) Talking to banks about rates and assets helps you feel more in control, as well as active and connected to the outside world. If you actually get pre-approved and can put in an offer on that fantastic Cobble Hill apartment across the street from your new gym, all the better.

Advertise your capabilities on Craigslist! Just because you've been laid off doesn't mean you don't have skills. You deserve to be paid to help other people do things you yourself have often failed to do, like find a great job and keep it.

Get a fancy haircut. Gotta keep up appearances! This works well when a guy you know offers a two-for-one deal at his hoity-toity studio and you and a friend can each get away with paying only $34 each to look so fabulous no one will notice you're still vaguely green and pulsing from the radioactive stress.

Post pictures of you and your friends looking happy. This will remind you that you have friends and also that you have, at moments, been happy:

Go Inaug Yourself

While I tried to jet down to DC, my queer Brooklyn posse, which was already in the city, scoured websites and schedules and even called the Secret Service in order to plot our strategy. Around 11:00 pm, they informed me of the plan and though I yelped in protest, I gave in. So it was that after three hours sleep, I got up and got ready to leave at the house at 4 AM and met them inside the appointed Metro station. Even at that hour, Tenleytown/AU was thronged by hopped-up youngsters, many of them looking like they hadn't bothered going to bed at all. The first train that came by was too crowded to board -- and that was the first warning signal of what this crazy, historic, overfull day would be like.

The second signal came at the final station, where enough people to fill a football stadium stood paralyzed by the Metro's insistence on swiping cards again to exit. The roar of the standstill grew until some frightened Metro employee finally made an executive decision and threw open the turnstiles so that the impassioned hordes could pour through. This was 5 AM.

We made it to the southern part of the mall where the ticketless were allowed to congregate, and after doing a lap to consider vantage points we committed to a location. Only then did we realize several key things:

1. It was fucking freezing.
2. We had almost a whole workday's length of time to kill
3. No one had thought to bring a blanket

We took turns sitting on the one stool we had with us and taking walks in vain attempts to keep our feet from petrifying. On one of my walks, I sought refuge in a port-a-potty, hoping it would be a little warmer. Finally, with the memory of the Time-Traveler's Wife vividly in mind, I decided drastic action must be taken, and I begged temporary shelter from a CNN man with his own trailer.

Kind, gentle man, he let Reb W. and me both into his lair which smelled like hot chocolate and which informed us, via several screens, that it was ten degrees outside. "Stay here," he said, leaving us alone to watch one TV count down the hours til the proceedings (4:40 to go ...) until he returning bearing hand and foot warmers. We blessed him and thanked him as we bowed our way out the door. For the first time in 2009, my boldness had won Reb W.'s respect.

Back with the posse, we danced to keep warm, played games for distraction, took pictures of the ever-expanding mass of people behind us, and watched the sun rise over the capitol. Never have I been so grateful to see that busy old fool, unruly sun, which almost immediately began to help us thaw. It wasn't doing the job fast enough so my friends ended up sacrificing belly warmth to tuck each other's bare feet under their shirts.

A few yards away from our camp I spotted John Oliver reporting live from the field for the Daily Show and snapped a few pictures. I have a huge TV crush on John Oliver but in person he looked depressingly normal, so I decided not to throw myself at him, even though I'll bet he too had a warm trailer that smelled like hot chocolate and could have given my feet a hot oil massage to bring them back to life.

After what felt like the entirety of Bush's presidency had flashed before our eyes again, the festivities began. The objectionable Rick Warren made a largely unobjectionable speech, forgoing any mention of hot topics like the gays. I had to laugh when he recited the "sh'ma" in English and said Jesus's name in Hebrew. I guess that's multiculturalism for you?

We cheered for everyone related to the Obamas and glared at folks who rudely booed Bush and his henchman Cheney, looking more diabolical than ever in a wheelchair. The lady behind me put it best as she chided the crowd: "People! What would Obama do?"

We shrieked when John Roberts fucked up the oath, laughed every time the booming announcer voice said "You may now be seated," and swayed in disbelief when the smart, calm, resolute, handsome, strong, thoughtful man I have every faith in came forward at last to assure us, over eighteen and a half minutes, that our years of wandering through the desert were over. The text was thrilling enough but the subtext was even better: It's all going to be okay. This is for real now. It's all going to be okay.

And then Bishop Lowry, possibly hopped up himself, had us all shouting Amen! to his fervent prayer for a time when "black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right." That's my kind of God talk.

Later, after the festivities finally ended around 12:30, we realized the city had left the millions of us on the mall no way to get home. The parade route had blocked off half of downtown, and the subway entrances were so swamped they looked like temples directly before stampedes. We holed up on the third floor of the Hirschorn, leaning on each other for strength, as we tried to wait out the masses. But, as it turned out, that was a bit like trying to wait for a bathtub full of molasses to drain through a narrow hole.

Despite the fact that we'd been up (and literally up on our feet) since the wee hours, battling soreness, sleepiness, and the beginnings of hypothermia, we decided our only option was to walk, and walk we did, around the police checkpoints and blocked off streets, through winter-savaged gardens and on curbs, over four miles, and some of it at the pace of molasses draining from the bathtub because we got caught up with the masses and could only walk as fast as the cops and traffic would let us. By the time I made it to Dupont Circle where my parents were, I decided I would never venture outside again.

But it was absolutely worth it.

The Wistful Whining

My life is beginning to feel like something out of the Series of Unfortunate Events. After a month and a half of paralyzing anxiety, I finally find the right chemical assistance only to have to face:

• the loss of my job;
• the paltry amount I will receive in Unemployment Compensation;
• the impending loss of my apartment (the new owners of the building want to live where we do, no doubt to feast on the tomatoes we so lovingly planted and cultivated in the backyard);
• a small tumor in my father's pancreas;
• and all in the most unforgiving winter weather in memory.

I've been reacting in the most logical possible way: either by steadfastly avoiding reality by rewatching action/adventure movies and musicals, or by throwing myself into the job and apartment hunt with the vigor of a young Sabra.

The upshot of these various, often contradictory efforts is that I have a few leads, one semi-solid freelance blogging gig, one future client for my new business as a paid know-it-all, a new membership to the Brooklyn YMCA, and a mortgage application in my future, because what should one do when laid off in a shitty economy except buy an apartment?

This week will be a break from everything. I head down to DC to see Hopey get inaugurated and to hold my father's hand, and I won't be back until Friday, at which point my oldfriend Rebecca is taking me out for an Evening of Fun. This is a tradition for us: when she last had a series of unfortunate events plaguing her, I planned a Day of Fun for the two of us that culminated at Build a Bear where I birthed a koala named Krackden. The best part came at the register where the chipper lady ringing me up had me say the name out loud. With the courage of my convictions and ignoring the resulting look of disgust, I said, "Krackden." He has been a comfort to me ever since.

And so on

"How are you?" asked Dr. Russian yesterday.

"Well, I was let go from work, I'm probably losing my apartment, and I have a cold. Other than that, I'm okay. How are you?"

The best thing about doctors is that you don't have to make small talk. The best thing about Dr. Russian specifically is that, as a recent immigrant, he has a limited amount of what you might call cultural capital. I have had to define the following for him:

- catholic (as in catholic taste)
- short bus
- NyQuil

He tried to bond with me with about movies, which was a lost cause. Finally I threw out a name he recognized: Ingmar Bergman. "Oh but he is depressing," said Dr. Russian. "I tried to watch -- what is that one? With the Death? The Seventh Seal. Afterward I was almost nauseous."

Oh! Well, what sort of movies does he like?

He considered for a moment and then said, "David Lynch."


Even apart from mandatory check ins with health professionals, I've been keeping myself busy. I attended a great, free introductory class at the Gotham Writers Workshop, followed by dinner with a friend; I went to the second meeting of my book group last night to discuss Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Short answer: Yes, with an if. Long answer: No, with a but.)

I have Man on Wire from Netflix, two action-adventure movies from the library and My Fair Lady. I'm rereading Prisoners of Azkaban. And I'm trying to limit the number of times I refresh the same job pages. Overall my strategy is to be less frenzied, less angry (if possible), and to treat this break as a sort of vacation. A working vacation, to be sure, but still. Thus my compromise is I get out of bed at 8:30, but I stay in pajamas as long as I like.

Day 1 of Unemployment: Part 2

12:30: Friend calls, asks if it'd be okay to drop by. Pause Harry Potter to put on a bra. Remain in pajamas.

1:30 - 3:00: General misery & ill fortune.

3:05: Decide to go to the Coop. Get dressed.

3:10: Doorbell rings! It's the landlord dropping by to tell us that the people who bought our building may indeed want to take our apartment when our lease runs out at the end of March. We could take the 3rd floor apartment, though! Luckily it's astronomically expensive, or I'd have to feel like maybe my luck is turning.

3:30: At the Coop playing bumper carts with the thousands of other shoppers. Who are all these people at liberty on a Monday afternoon?

3:35: Rebecca!

4:30: Rebecca and I walk back to my apartment with our groceries. I rant about my general misery and ill fortune and their potential alleviations, leading to the following exchange:

ME: Wouldn't it be great if I never had to go back to work because I had to go on book tour? Be on the "Today" show? Of course, I wouldn't actually want to go on the "Today" show. They'd probably make me lose weight.

REBECCA: No, I think everyone's more tolerant of writers being weird looking.

ME: Are you calling me WEIRD LOOKING?

REBECCA: What? No! No! You're beautiful! You're the one who said you'd need to lose weight!

ME: And you're the one who called me WEIRD LOOKING!


I can only hope that at some point this day will end.

Unemployment Log: Day 1, Morning

8:30: Wake up after a solid five hours sleep. No point lollygagging about -- must get going! If 2009 is to be a Year of Wow despite this recent setback, there's work to be done.

8:45: Breakfast. Read more condolence emails. Scoped out red carpet dresses from the Golden Globes, which I more or less forgot to watch last night. Kate Winslet looks fantastic double-fisting golden statues.

9:00: Job search begins.

9:10: God this is depressing.

9:15: Why am I even bothering? There's nothing here and anyway I have no idea what I want to do.

9:30: Try to apply for unemployment. Log in rejected because the site insists I don't know my mother's maiden name. This reminds when of when my father said "Bastard" once when I was a kid, and I asked him what it meant. An honest man, he replied, "Someone who doesn't know who their father is." For a while thereafter I assumed a bastard must be someone very, very dumb.

9:35: Craigslist should come with a warning that says "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Mediabistro, Bookjobs, Monster are no better. Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms.

10:00: Abandon pathetic efforts in favor of watching the first Harry Potter movie. Will try being responsible again after lunch.

Performance review

I've said it before and I'll say it again, especially when her brilliance is too pronounced to ignore:

Georgia: Dear Carolyn, I am 21 and in my first committed relationship. My girlfriend and I have been together for about eight months and have agreed to be exclusive and to do everything we can to keep this relationship healthy and working. However, I am finding that I don't really like her that much. I love her, but I don't really enjoy being around her. Because I've never been serious with anyone before, I'm confused about my responsibilities here. Can I break up with her just because I don't like her? And if I can just break it off on the basis of the fact that she annoys me a lot, then what does it mean to be "committed" to someone anyway?

Carolyn Hax: You can break up with her because you don't like the way she looks in purple. Any reason you don't like someone is a good enough reason to break up, because people don't want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with them.

It hurts to be dumped, people never forget when it happens, they feel unwanted and angry and misunderstood and a bunch of other things nobody wants to feel, but every single one of these nasty side effects is better than being with someone who doesn't even like you. The chance to be with someone who truly, deeply appreciates them is a chance none of us has any right to deny other people.

Every day you stay with your girlfriend is another day that you limit, if not outright deny, her chance at that kind of rewarding love.

As for what commitment means, at the dating stage, it means you're seeing her and no one else. It doesn't apply in perpetuity until you marry/declare yourselves life partners--and even then, it's generally understood that people do sometimes grow apart or become victims of unforeseeable circumstance.

Overall, 2008 was a mediocre year and I'm glad to be done with it. Here is its performance review, in my book.

Aspects of 2008 that did not meet expectations:

• the hormone-and-commerce driven Sex and the City movie
  
• the oppressively sub-par Burn After Reading
  
• the good-but-not-great Wordy Shipmates
  
• the overlong and a little bit obvious Dark Knight
  
• Doubt, which, though I loved it on Broadway, didn't make nearly as much of an impact on screen
  
• the reunion of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio
  
• the lifespan of my laptop
  
• the economy
  
• public behavior of the Jewish people, including Jack Abramoff, Bernie Madoff, and Ehud Olmert
  
• my ability to convince Brooklyn College's MFA program of my awesomeness
  
• my ability to convince a literary agent to take a chance on my awesomeness
  
• my ability to cope with stress (some might say "life")
  
• my awesome friend Tara Leigh staying in New York forever and ever

Aspects that met or exceeded expectations:

• "Wall-E!" "Eeeeeeva!"
  
• marriage
  
• Montauk
  
• Home and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
  
• new proto-friends
  
• voting behavior of American Jews (78% for Obama! not too shabby)
  
• voting behavior of the American people in general
  
• Nate Silver
  
• Twitter

That averages out to a B-, don't you think? But! 2009, I've decided, is going to be the Year of Wow. If nothing else, it's going to be a year in which I take chances because fuck it, right? Also, I'm medicated now, and those pills are going to be function an extra layer of blubber against the cold of this cold, cold world.

ETA: AND I'M GOING TO NEED IT SINCE MY ENTIRE OFFICE JUST GOT LAID OFF

And New Years wasn't bad either!

One of my ambitions is to become a highly paid Life Coach, in which capacity I will help people make career, relationship, and clothing decisions; learn to love their bodies; and develop a deeper appreciation of literature and film. My sub-speciality will be script-doctoring resumes, cover letters, admissions essays, theses, poetry, doctors' notes, permissions forms, legal opinions, whatever. As I did once for a good friend, I could even monitor the responses to an online dating ad, sorting potential candidates by desirability.

Chapter 43 in my sanctimonious book as a Life Coach, Living a Well-Lived Life, will be about choosing your friends wisely *and* how to recognize when you have done so. Featured in that chapter will be the following advice: reflect on your most recent New Year's Eve experience. Was it satisfactory, socially? Why or why not?

As an example, I could describe my own most recent NYE, which, as all such events should, consisted of several parts:

1) A cocktail party which included both familiar folks and new people to meet;
2) Intimate dinner at the home of close friends;
3) Meeting up with several other friends to attend a fucking wild burlesque and variety show at the Zipper Factory hosted by drag emperor Murray Hill that included full-frontal male nudity, several raunchy acrobatic routines involving a man dressed up as a horny monkey, a stripper singing cheerfully offensive ballads, including about aborting twins ("two for the price of one!"), and more. During intermission, everyone took to the stage for drunken revelry, an impromptu dance party -- with the cast members! -- that lasted almost an hour.

And bless their hearts, my friends stuck it out! Despite alcohol spillage, douchebag straight men in the audience, and the fact that one of them brought her sister who, in turn, brought her boyfriend, who turned out to be a Christian and a virgin; despite the fact that one had to work early the next morning and the increasingly drunken, sloppy performers showed no sign of slowing; even despite the cold, everyone had a great time and no one gave up before it was over. That is how I know just how lucky I am when it comes to friends.

NOTE: Five years in a row Mr. Ben and I crept away to Wanakena for New Year's. It felt strange not to be there, eating and lounging and reading and tramping through the snow and sitting by the fire, and we missed it. We did try to make up for the omission by spending the next two days playing board games with intellectual-types. That did sort of salve the wound.

Best Christmas Ever

It's a very simple recipe. Combine:

1 hotel room in a grand, atmospheric hotel,
1 TV with cable
1 jacuzzi
1 hot lava massage
3 fancy meals
1 accommodating shuttle driver
1 deserted, charming town at the end of the world
2 beaches
1 "Seal hike" through the woods for an hour to a clearing from which you could see actual seals lazing around like paunchy middle-aged men on the rocks, plus an hour trek back
2 fireplaces
1 chess game
1 sex partner
0 family members
and
1 bottle of Klonopin.

Let sit, and serve.

This was all as necessary and as it was restorative, since I hadn't been feeling like myself since that small but vital part of my brain broke on Election Night. The new apple of my eye, Dr. Russian, first prescribed me a medicine that, in the long run, will have me running marathons and presidential campaigns simultaneously, but in the short run left me under house arrest. Like Madoff! Perhaps the nausea and constant panic I was experiencing were actually *his* and he spent some of his $50 billion transferring them to me. Since he doesn't know me personally, I can only imagine he chose me because he figured the Jews hadn't yet suffered enough.

Regardless, after one really bad day where I made it into work only to collapse and have to be taken home in a cab by coworkers, Dr. Russian, with an acknowledgment that I "seem to be very sensitive to medication," cut my dosage and later prescribed an ameliorative second pill to be taken with the first. Glory of glories, hosannah, praise the flying spaghetti monster -- I felt new again. And by "new," I only mean "normal." Well enough to enjoy the misty, desolate splendors of off-season Long Island, well enough to go to bed later than 9:00, and well enough to be back at work today.

Yeehaw! Now onto New Years, and the new year, in which hopefully I will again and consistently be the master of my own brain.

The slow clap

Things aren't objectively better around here. My dad is in the hospital after turning a toxic shade of yellow -- they're looking at his liver, which was possibly affected by the Tylenol 3 he was taking for the ribs he broke when he fell over a step in South Africa. (Phew!) He likes to pretend he was chased by an elephant, so if you talk to him please claim to admire his bravery.

Meanwhile, the economy remains precarious, which means I am holding onto my job with both hands. That time that I got let go right before Christmas during the Transit Strike -- and while I was taking out the trash! -- is, as they say, burned in my brain. As I walked home to Brooklyn in the twenty-five-degree cold, I knew I would never take employment through December for granted again.

Despite all this, though, my anxiety levels have actually decreased. Instead of feeling like I'm wobbling on the edge of a black hole all the time, I feel like I'm a safe yard or so away from the black hole. It's right there, sure, but I'm not in immediate danger of falling in.

In honor of that improvement, here are two things that made me laugh so hard I made a spectacle of myself. First, Carolyn Hax's annual Holiday Hootenanny, where readers compete to submit their funniest true Christmas horror story. One contender for my favorite:

On Grandmother gifts...: Several years ago, my grandmother gave my husband a welcome statue with frogs on it. The word "welcome" is written on this very elongated mushroom held sideways by the two frogs. The elongated mushroom looks very much like you would think an elongated mushroom would look like, which is to say, like a certain part of the male anatomy. There are even two smaller mushrooms sprouting out of the base. We all laughed about it, and my husband decided we would keep it, since it was so amusing. So the next year he gets... two more of the exact same statue. And last year, another one of the same statue. We have them all sitting out on our patio. And a few years ago, she gave my 6'5 brother a floral muumuu we're desperately hoping was really intended for someone else. However, it has now become a family tradition to wrap the muumuu up and give it to another male member of the family on Christmas. Makes for some great Christmas pictures.

And, the runner up:

X-mas entertainment: We always saved my uncle's gifts for last. Over the years they have included:

1) a duck decoy missing its head 2) an ink drawing of a head of lettuce and some celery, with "salad" written in large font underneath 3) a Christmas ornament made out of a lightbulb painted lavender and with sparkles glued on 4) a stuffed plant -- as in, made of fabric, stuffed with whatever goes in stuffed animals.

For a while we assumed these gifts were expressions of hostility (in particular, the headless duck) but in fact, I think his taste just runs to the extremely odd. Turns out bathroom is tiled with the image of the Statue of Liberty, and the walkway to his house is lined with bowling pins.

I never had a holiday (or relatives) that crazy. Perhaps Hannukah doesn't inspire people to go to reach such dizzying heights? Regardless, if that's not enough giggling, check out this montage of 40 Inspirational Movie Speeches. Witness every heavy-handed cinema cliche knit together into a master quilt!:



Amazingly, it even gets better as it goes along, hitting a peak at "They'll take our lives but they'll never take our Independence Day!" It's also amusing to think of how most of these moments can be traced back to / blamed on Shakespeare, who popularized, if not created, the St. Crispin's Day speech intended to get soliders' adrenaline pumping so hard they can't hear themselves think rational things like "But we don't *want* to die."

Stumbling

Governor Blaggo, you are as transparently, hilariously, on-the-record corrupt as a James Bond villain. Thank God Obama's staff heard his offer -- cash in exchange for appointing their preferred person, apparently Valerie Jarret, to Obama's senate seat -- and told Blaggo where he could stuff the seat, if it would fit. This led, by the way, to a tirade in which Blaggo called the president-elect a "motherfucker." AND rumor has it that Obama's dreamy, morally-upright people were the ones who tipped off studly prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Yes! See, these are the kind of glad tidings that joyous-up an otherwise dreary holiday season.

Of course, it's easy for Obama to turn his nose up at a briefcase full of cash. He's like the only person in America with a positive balance in his checking account. (And yet somehow I still get emails begging me to help defray Hillary's expenses.)

The other north star in these dark skies is, of course, top ten lists and Culture Awards. I haven't seen much that's knocked me over this year besides Milk and Wall-E, though I'm excited about Rachel Getting Married, the Reader (because I am gay for Kate Winslet), and Doubt (because I am also gay for Kate Winslet-in-training Amy Adams).

Luckily I've had great TV to fill the void, in the form of 30 Rock, the Wire (which I watched in its entirety this year), and especially Mad Men. How I Met Your Mother, which has taken over lunchtimes at my office, has helped my brain take a much-needed break every workday for a while now. Thanks, Barney!

Mr. Ben and I also decided to try to shift the holidays from Bearable to Awesome by leaving civilization over the long Christmas weekend. New Orleans, we decided, was a little far and a little pricey -- but you know what's neither of those things? MONTAUK. An off-season, deserted winter paradise where they basically throw classy hotel rooms at you and stand in line to rub your feet when you're done wandering around empty, windy beaches. Plus we've never gone anywhere together just the two of us, except for that time we tried to have a honeymoon in the least romantic country on earth during typhoon season.

Sex and Death

I spent $21 on a lunch today that was mostly guacamole. Suck it, recession!

I'm so tired of bad news all the time, of the Dow tanking and jobs disappearing and low-salt diets turning third-world people into zombies and Lori Drew and Harvard going broke and college girls selling themselves to keep up their inflated standard of living, a strategy that will only work as long as people can afford to go to college at all, i.e., not for much longer. Even Milk, which was the best movie I've seen lately, is not exactly an upper. It's exhausting! I need to recuperate in a padded cell with an IV drip of good romantic comedies and Jane Austen adaptations.

At least it's been a pretty fun day in the office, spent talking about movies and vampires. This is a Twitter back-and-forth with one of my coworkers:

NYPeoplewatcher: discussion question: why do americans think vampires are hot?
Shorterstory: not just americans! europeans have been writing steamy poetry about vampires for centuries.
NYPeoplewatcher: okay, BUT bludgeoning is not sexy. why?
Shorterstory: you don't see the difference between someone sensually sucking at your throat vs. hitting you with a 2X4?
NYPeoplewatcher: point taken. but i'm upping the ante: strangling. sensual but no obsession there...
Shorterstory: Except for those people who like to get strangled while they have sex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_(novel)

When the next Fray comes out, I'll have to give her a copy.

it's december. breathe.

The wretched month of November is, at last, behind us. I'm curious how it almost always turns into such a disaster. But at least I don't have to worry about the future: it's all spelled out for me! The always-detailed AstrologyZone monthly forecast tells me to beware:

Co-workers will probably be cranky and easily provoked near this full moon, so you may need to pitch in to help them as best you can. Everyone in the department will be feeling overwhelmed and overworked. ... You will begin to see tension in the air as early as December 10 and it will linger as long as December 15.

Translation: Keep that Xanax handy. But! Once I make it through to December 21, I can look forward to really, really strong adjectives -- rapturous, blissful, life-changing. I should sign with an agent, for one thing, but who cares about that? It's the romance that's important:

the decisions you make and the actions you take in the days that follow could change your life forever. ... treat yourself to one glorious night to welcome in the New Year, dear Cancer. The fire that will burn in your heart that night will chase away any cold winds that might be blowing your way. We all need a night of pure bliss - this one has all the makings of being yours.

Sounds good! Does this mean Mr. Ben and I should go to New Orleans, which we're sort of thinking about doing?

Of course we can't fight the planets (or, as some people would have it, God's will) but simply taking action sometimes can make shit better. In that vein, I'm going to host a Turn Your Luck Around Potluck. On the appointed night, everyone will show up with comfort food and some kind of good luck totem. A story will do: some recollection of when things were bad and then something turned them round. Then we'll do a reconstituted rain dance, where "rain" = "better tidings for all."

Giggle

It's been an anxiety-ridden month for me, full of worry and sleepless nights and pill-taking, to the extent that I have to wonder, Jeez, what would I be like if Barack Obama had *lost*? Anyway, thanks to all of that, I have a head-cold and a renewed appreciation for anything that makes me laugh.

Like Charrow, and how quickly Mr. Ben caught onto this Twitter thing (sample Tweet: "There was a little white chicken fetus in my breakfast egg yesterday. Today, I opted for plain bagel") and a Jezebel editor's hilariously candid record of her attempt to follow Cosmo's sex advice. Featuring Spanx!

And, of course, Get Your War On, covering the most crucial issues of the day:

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

I went back to Dr. Feelgood today and in a first for psychiatry he sent me away with instructions to take up meditation and a promise that "you'll be fine." To be fair, he also suggested a certain brand-name drug. As this was the third time he's brought it up and as I'm a smart-ass, I asked him, "What, are they paying you?" To which he promptly replied, "Yes."

Points for honesty.

Who Do You Root For?

The radical Islamist Saudi state or the radical Islamist Somali pirates?

Karl Rove or Deborah Solomon?

Hillary Clinton?

These are tough questions, but we are living in tough times. In trying to do my part for the economy, I spent $115 on clothes on Sunday! That may be a pittance to some of you but my money prefers to stay in the warm safety of my wallet, like a creature that hibernates year-round. Still, for the country's sake, I'm making an effort, and if I win this contest at work I promised my brother I'd buy these. (They're on sale!)

That led to a conversation about how I don't understand the stock market and what's going to happen now:

Adam: no one does!
kalloo kalay!
literally no one knows
it's like if you were a caveman kindergartener and you said, "what time is it?" someone would hit you on the head with a wooden club and tell you not to ask stupid questions
because no one KNEW what time it was!

me: :-)
i like how they wouldn't have time yet but they would have kindergarten
cuz, of course

Adam: i think maybe kindergarten was all they had -- i mean, fingerpainting was the most advanced art form

me: the rules must have been totally different though
they were pro playing with fire

Adam: you could run with scissors but you had to invent them first

What Not To Say

Did you hear about this hilarious Republican congressman who compared to Obama to Hitler? Yeah, he wishes he hadn't done that:

Republican Paul Broun is sorry for calling President-elect Barack Obama a 'Marxist' and comparing him to Adolph Hitler, the Georgia Congressman said Tuesday.

“I regret putting it that way,” he told WGAC radio in Augusta, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “I apologize to anyone who has taken offense at that.”

He also called Obama "liberal." Since Communists hated liberals, liberals hated Nazis, and Nazis hated Communists, in one breath, Broun has taken history and bent it into an infinity symbol. It would literally make more sense for me to compare Broun to Stalin because they are both from Georgia.

Sarah Palin has me shaking my head in mock-admiration, also:

"But not me personally were those cheers for," she said to Ms. Van Susteren in an interview shown Monday night on Fox News. "But it was just for the representation of a woman on the ticket, a mom, somebody who loves this country so much, somebody very, very committed to policies that I believe will progress this country in the right direction."

Dan Savage got a lesson in What Not To Say after he blamed blacks for the passing of Prop 8. Though they did come out en masse for Obama and, while there, pull the lever to ban gay marriage, King Nate Silver has absolved them of any kind of responsibility: there just aren't enough African-Americans in CA for them to have made a decisive difference. Savage on Colbert last night acknowledged this, shifting his ire to "old people," who, as he pointed out, "are dying, which is some comfort." Okay, Dan! You're getting there!

On the other side of this debate, there are the comments on this topic from The Root that draw from the word of God to give their opinions legitimacy:

just because we accept people for the color of their skin, which is actually something that the Bible teaches us to do, does not mean we should let two people of the same sex get married, which the Bible vividly prohibits. ... this country was founded on the principals of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus and to confuse loving thy fellow man with telling him it's o.k. for him to marry another man is not what this country is supposed to be about.

and

Interracial marriage should have never been an issue but was an issue with this country but because of prejudice it was. God never condemned interracial marriage but does condemn same sex marriage. I just hope and pray that this country stands for what is right in the site of God. God defines marriage is between a man and a woman, not between two women or two men. When it comes to immoral issues it is wrong. Again interracial marriage is not a moral issues but gay marriage is. Let us understand that there is a difference between the two. If anyone having problem with that person is having a problem with God.

Again with the wrongness. Opponents of intermarriage absolutely thought -- and still think -- they had Jesus on their side. I mean, Deuteronomy, dude: Deuteronomy 7:3-4: 'You shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughter to his son, and you shall not take his daughter for your son, for he will cause your child to turn away from after Me and they will worship the gods of others then the L–rd’s wrath will burn against you, and He will destroy you quickly.'

Of course, that's silly, cuz that Old Testament God is only talking to Jews there and the passage is specifically about religion, not race. He wanted a strictly limited gene pool for His chosen people, possibly because He wasn't paying attention in high school genetics class, and also because He's a jealous, overbearing God who likes to make rules. Whatevs.

The judge who ruled in the Loving case in 1958 also said, "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no case for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did intend for the races to mix."

Sure! And the fact that He gave us Barack Obama shows us that He knows the fabulous results mixing can have.

In short, this is all bullshit. Can't we just admit that the idea of Group X getting it on with Group Y squicks out Group Z, where Group Z is those who aren't in on the fun? Let's leave religion out of it.

Aftermath

Post-election, life feels strange. It lacks urgency, lacks tension. Part of me feels compelled to stake out bars near off-off-Broadway theaters to try to find some High Drama friends to help make up the difference.

Instead, I'm joining a Swarthmore alumni book group whose curriculum is set by a current prof. You know who could have been an alum but isn't? Barack Obama. True story! This both adds value to my degree and subtracts value from it, since I *was* accepted, but who could care about having been chosen by a place with such poor taste?

It does allow me to picture an alternate universe in which Obama is a Swattie, though. He graduates, as my friend Rebecca E. put it, full of "relentless criticism and liberal despair." He spends a summer working at an alternative camp for disadvantaged city children; this inspires him to join Teach for America, where he meets a cute fellow teacher, a Peruvian-American anarchist. They get married in West Philly, where they set up house and grow food in an urban garden. Every once in a while Barack feels a disembodied itch to be doing something more significant with his life, for which his wife chides him and then asks him to remember to stir the compost.

Of course, he still has holes in the bottoms of his shoes.

Speaking of High Drama types, poor Sarah Palin. Yeah, that's right. I have now argued with one brother and two parents about this, and I'll argue with you too if necessary. (At least Flea agrees with me.) Flinging anonymous shit at a person is WRONG, no matter how stupid and possibly evil that person is. Maybe it's true that Our Sarah didn't know what countries were in NAFTA or that Africa was a continent. Our President has a pretty iffy track record himself.

As I see it, McCain's people paired an ambitious, attractive, charismatic woman with an old man to draw audiences, using her the same way Winona Ryder, ScarJo, and Catherine Zeta-Jones have been used (mostly with the same meager results). They spruced her up to get her camera-ready and fed her already healthy ego by putting her in front of adoring crowds while keeping bad news -- and the press -- far from her.

When their plan backfired, thanks in no small part to Katie Couric and Tina Fey, the gentlemanly thing to do would have been to return her to Alaska and thank her for her service, not leak blind, spiteful quotes to a Fox news reporter. "Jerks" is a kind word for what these staffers are; they should dream of being hanged by their tongues and wake up screaming. Not that I wish them any harm.

The Liveblog That Wasn't

I was supposed to liveblog Election Night, the best night of my or anyone's life, and unfortunately I couldn't. Here, as a substitute, is a reconstruction -- a retroactive liveblog! -- of the events that prevented me from liveblogging. (I know. The internets are too amazing.)

6:45 AM: Mr. Ben and I wake up simultaneously, look at each other, and agree to run to the polls.

7:15 AM: We arrive at P.S. 282, check out all the people in front of us, and hope that waiting in line to vote is as patriotic as paying taxes.

8:00 AM: I pull the lever for Mr. Barack Obama.

8:01 AM: I realize I forgot to say a little prayer while inside the voting booth. Silently, I recite the sh'ma.

9:00 AM: Go to work.

9:30 AM - 5:00 PM: Read lots and lots of coverage. Begin feeling ill. Take a break from the computer; walk around the block. Return.

5:10 PM: Yup, definitely ill. Hide in the conference room where it's dark and cool.

5:30 PM: Still hiding. Chipper McCheerful keeps me company, saying reassuring things.

5:35 PM: Mr. Ben and Rebecca appear to say more reassuring things. We watch an episode of How I Met Your Mother -- I am gambling on the curative powers of Neil Patrick Harris.

6:00 PM: NPH has failed me. We decide to take a cab home.

6:05 PM: Hail a cab.

6:06 PM: Throw up in the cab.

6:07 PM: Sit on the Union Square curb next to a pile of my vomit looking at my stained suede boots. Mr. Ben runs to get cleaning supplies. People pass by and laugh, "Hey, look! That girl just threw up in the cab!" The driver shakes his head at me and mutters about drunks. Mentally I browse through low moments in my life to see where this one ranks.

6:30 PM - 11:00 PM: Shivering on the bathroom floor in green-tinted misery.

11:05 PM: Mr. Ben checks my phone, which has been receiving text after text. "We won," he tells me gently.

11:15 PM: I throw up one last time in celebration and finally go to sleep. All night, I dream of my stomach and Pennsylvania, which have somehow fused to become one anxiety-causing entity. I blame John McCain.

why my office is amazing

NEW CTO: What is this bullshit? This is bullshit!
ME: I'm so glad we have a straight talker in our office now.
NEW CTO: I'm sorry. I apologize. I know, the language, I know. Anyone offended, send me an anonymous email ... and I'll write back to say, "Go fuck yourself."
CHIPPER McCHEERFUL: All this swearing makes me antsy, but only because I'm such a square.

Man, this is so much better than [the Very Important Talent Agency I worked at for a year]. People there were cursing all the time but it was more along the lines of, "You know that girl? Yeah, I'd fuck that girl. You think she's pretty, or hot, or just attractive? Yeah, me too. Fuck. Yeah."

Or, my favorite, overheard through a closed door: "No, Mom, fuck YOU."

Also, two of the projects that I spearheaded for my current, less emotionally-abusive office are now online. Check out the .pdf that will entrance guidance counselors throughout this great land, whispering to them seductively about the glories of the site, and the Guide to Sinners and Saints 2008 which groups 42 colleges according to which deadly sins or heavenly virtues they represent. Also, it has llamas!

PS: This post was not about the election. Aren't you impressed?

PPS: The election is less than 24 hours away and it actually looks like the good guys might prevail for once. WHAT WILL THAT BE LIKE? Will sunshine grow on trees and water gurgle with diamonds? Will I be able to eat chocolate again? Will my older brother, who was born on Tuesday, November 4th, 1980, finally be revenged for having had to share his birthday with the election of Ronald Reagan?

Choose your own adventure!

There are precious few days left until the election, as you might know if, like me, you were in Prospect Park on Sunday afternoon, basking in sunlight and in *not* thinking about the election for a moment, and you got a call on your cell phone from an Obama volunteer. The media is crazier than Ashley Todd these days -- screaming, running in circles, and flapping its hands. This is only right. I have, however, listened carefully to the mad ramblings and separated them out into three discernible narratives for the endgame. Take your pick.

#1) It's Obama in a Blowout. State polls throughout October have shown Obama with a clear lead. Right now, CNN gives him 291 electoral votes, E-V.com gives him 364 (down from 375 yesterday), and everyone's best friend Nate gives him precisely 364.5. Even right-leaning RCP and nonpartisan Pollster acknowledge that in this case reality has a strong liberal bias. How strong? 311.

This storyline is supported by well-respected, neutral pundits like Charlie Cook as well as the most recent Gallup tracking poll, which decided, for Halloween, to get dressed up as Obama's best numbers ever:

Thursday night's interviews are the first conducted entirely after Obama's widely viewed 30-minute prime-time campaign ad, which ran on several television networks Wednesday evening. ... Obama's favorable position among traditional likely voters in the latest polling is partially reflective of his strong position among all registered voters. However, at other times when Obama has led McCain by 11-points among registered voters, his likely voter advantage has been lower than it is now, in the five- to seven-point range. Thus, Obama's improved likely voter standing also reflects a higher turnout propensity for his supporters than what Gallup has seen at earlier times this month.

Also Obama won some crucial cookie-poll in Ohio.

But if you're wrinkling your nose at that storyline, don't despair. Santa has a storyline in his bag of gifts for you:

#2: McCain is Making a Comeback! True, this tonic is primarily being peddled by the McCain campaign itself and has been gently debunked by experts. Still, anything is possible, as the media in general and John Dickerson specifically reminds us.

Could it be true? Of course! Secret racists, undecideds, complacent Barry-lovers, blacks and young people who don't actually turn up, Jews in Florida getting spooked by Obama's latest suspect affiliation (that man will hang out with anyone!), or some other October surprise could tilt the race back to the GOP. Never count your chickens, chickens.

#3: Death! That's right, somebody DIES. I don't have any fancy links for you on this one, since it's mostly the narrative constantly running through my own head. These effigies don't help, either.



But tonight is halloween and I'm dressed as a mini Joan Holloway -- in an orange retro wig, an animal print scarf, a dress, a pen necklace, a purse, and a cigarette case -- and, in keeping with the character, I'm going to try to focus on the important things at a party tonight: power, sex, and sarcasm. Let's see how I do!

"Real" America?

(Via Gawker)

"Hit a Jew Day" Goes Terribly Awry

Middle-school students in Missouri have taken it upon themselves to create "Hit a Jew Day" to brighten the landscape between July 4th and Halloween. Fewer than 10 children were affected, though one was slapped in the face, and another had a cross carved into his cheek. (Just kidding!)

In a first, the ADL declined to overreact, saying only that this was "more than bullying." Hmm. I think we all need an Outrage-O-Meter. I'll try to mock one up, but for now I would say that this registers about a 2.5 out of 10. 5 would be "Shooting an Innocent Bear Cub and Dropping Him on a College Campus, Covered in Obama Signs" and 10 would be "Joe Lieberman."

No doubt this was in response to the news that adorable Israel, sister state of Florida and NY, with all its potential converts to Palin-approved religious cults, is 150% in the tank for Obama. To be fair, though, according to that map, nations everywhere are in the tank -- Change We Can Believe In is the one thing India and Pakistan can agree on! War-torn Sudan is a toss-up. Iraq is bright red, presumably with the spilled blood of innocents. Only little Namibia is as excited about John McCain. Even Georgia is only PINK, like the real Georgia!


!!BREAKING!! Ashley Todd, aka the Barack-O-Lantern, didn't just make up her story of being attacked for being a McCain supporter, she also has self-described "prior mental problems." When she had to pull a description of her assailant out of thin air, here's what she said:

Richard said the woman had described her alleged attacker as an African-American, 6 feet 4 inches tall with a medium build and short dark hair, wearing dark clothing and shiny shoes.

Doesn't that sort of sound like this man?



Perhaps Ms. Todd was subconsciously picturing Obama jumping her since he has been leaving his mark all over Pennsylvania, where she's been living, volunteering for John McCain. Or maybe she's just Ashley the Lying Racist Drama Queen.

"everyone dabbled!"

It's been an overcast day in my heart—my hilarious, creative, totally stressball friends, who have been staying with me all week, are winging their way back to pinko Georgia. Farewell! Thanks for leaving me alone with my poll-tracking obsession and DVD 3 of "John Adams" from Netflix, which should come with tissues. Every episode somehow turns me into emotional applesauce. Stick a flag in me: I'm done.

A professional disappointment and rejection or two haven't helped, either. But the Ellen clip above made me smile, and so did this poignant photo collection of Obama in the early days of his campaign.



The subtitle reads: "... he asked me if I was photographing his shoes. When I said yes, he told me that he had already had them resoled once since he entered the race a year earlier." That's especially worth thinking about on a day where the RNC is all over the news for spending $150,000 on wardrobe and makeover for Sarah Palin. Also it reminded me of something Mr. Ben would do and it made me love Barry all the more.

A National Conversation About Race

Tell me again why anyone thinks it would be a good idea to embark on a national conversation about race. The NYT turned over that stone last week and I yelped as though I'd seen a cockamouse. NYMag has done it; Time has done it. And, of course, there's that widely circulating story: a volunteer approaches a house in a swing state and asks the woman at the door for whom she's voting. Her husband answers from within the house, "We're voting for the nigger!" "We're voting for the nigger," she repeats politely.

Today this "conversation," or "horror show," continues. On Sunday, Colin Powell gave a stirring, pointed denouncement of John McCain's campaign and endorsed Barack Obama as a "transformational figure." Democrats high-fived and Republicans signaled the bartender for another round. And then it turned ugly.


The charming cartoonist who depicted our former Secretary of State as a black Benedict Arnold also said the following:

"The only reasonable explanation for such a public political "about-face" in the midst of this important election is that Colin Powell, perhaps understandably, wishes to see someone who looks like himself in the White House.

"It's my opinion that General Powell has based his endorsement of Barack Obama on the color of his skin, not his qualifications, his experience or the content of his character."

Neither is he the only one to jump to that particular conclusion. Rush Limbaugh expressed his disappointment in similar terms:

"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race. OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with.

"I was also unaware of his dislike for John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia. I guess he also regrets Reagan and Bush making him a four-star and secretary of state and appointing his son to head the FCC. Yes, let's hear it for transformational figures."

Wonkette also published highlights from the wingnut response, including the following:

-- I’m not surprised that Powell has endorsed a Chicago street thug over a real American hero either. “How ‘bout some ‘blow’ General? Then we’ll go help ACORN register some more ‘voters’.”
-- This is why you don’t let traitors in your midst. They are capable of doing far more harm than good.
-- Clown Powell showed us his true colors with his endorsement of this communist weasel. He just spit in the face of the military he supposedly cares about.
-- Oh please….he’s black and he is endorsing one of his brothers…just too obvious. It’s not hard for the everyday American to understand.
-- Planet of the APes mentality..”Monkey supports monkey”..

All this despite the fact that Powell contributed the maximum allowable, $2,300, to McCain's campaign last year and only recently came around to Obama.

Colin Powell worked so hard for so long to transcend his skin color and be seen as a person. By and large, he succeeded: if he wanted, he could probably have been our first black president. At the end of an illustrious career, he's been reduced to just another brother. And you know how brothers get treated, especially when they try to vote.

To Distract Us All from the Debate & the Market

What Hipsters Name Their Precious Things

In Prospect Park on Sunday, an adorable little terrier puppy named Zoe kept running over to where my friends and I were sitting and rolling around in our laps and play-biting us and generally giving us acute cases of Cute Overload. Its hipster parents lounged uphill, smoking.

Further away, another pair of hipster parents released their unsteady daughter onto the grass, blowing bubbles at her to encourage her to chase them. In doing so, she toddled over towards us. "Zoe!" I called, just to see what would happen. Surprised, she looked straight at me.


What One Beauty-School Student Said to the Other in the Elevator

"Is our education in waxing going to be theoretical or practical?"


What One Blond Said to the Other in the Deli

"No, lettuce doesn't have carbs. No, I swear."


The Most Amazing Coming-Out Scene on Television Ever

Mad Men, Season 2, episode 11. Also, I will continue to love Don Draper no matter how loose his morals, as long as he keeps slapping around Pete Campbell. (Apparently, I am not alone in this.)


What My Co-Worker Made

It only gets funnier as it goes on.

A Guide to Bellwethers

You can't swing a baseball bat in an election year without hitting a bellwether, or so it's beginning to seem. Here is a collection of the bellwethers that people SWEAR will determine the election this November:

1. The state of Missouri. ACCURACY: "Missouri is a traditional bellwether that has picked every presidential contest since 1960" and "all but one election since 1904." ADVANTAGE: Currently: Obama. But everyone knows Missouri is full of white people who are totally unreliable!

[Obama] he will have to overcome latent racism among rural whites, an element more than one expert described as an "unknown quantity" in Missouri particularly because residents have seen so few black candidates run for state or national office.

2. Chillicothe, Ohio. ACCURACY: "No Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio ... Inside the bellwether state is the bellwether town of Chillicothe, a town that often mirrors the state's election results." Often? How scientific. ADVANTAGE: Split. Ohio in general is pretty blue these days, though.

3. Hillsborough County, Florida. ACCURACY: Doesn't say. Its claim to be a bellwether may be bullshit. Still, it's Florida, which we know is an important state. Let it stand. ADVANTAGE: Currently Obama.

Obama not only won 49 percent of women voters, to McCain's 43 percent, but he captured a plurality of male voters, beating McCain 45 percent to 39 percent.

Florida's looking pretty good too -- the conservatives are freaking out! and even Gov. Charlie Crist, still pouting about not being tapped for Veep, went to Disney World instead of helping McCain! -- but I don't trust it. FL's biggest import is old white people, and they are even more racist than regular white people.

4. The size of the candidates. Apparently the bigger candidate almost always wins, except when the smaller/lighter candidate is George W. Bush, who is a magical elf. ADVANTAGE: Obama has several inches and about 15 lbs on McCain. But Teddy Roosevelt was shorter than the other guy in 1904 and won, and was heavier than the other guy in 1912 but lost. What a maverick. (BTW: Who knew Roosevelt ran again in '12? I didn't and I majored in American History!)

5. The Scholastic kids election. ACCURACY: "Since 1940, the results of the student vote in the Scholastic Election Poll (online voting was added in 2000) have mirrored the outcome of the general election, except twice: in 1948 when students chose Thomas E. Dewey over Harry S. Truman and in 1960 when more students voted for Richard M. Nixon than John F. Kennedy." E for Effort, kidlets. ADVANTAGE: Colbert.

Boys favored Obama 49% to 46% for McCain, while girls chose Obama more definitively, 57% to 39%. Rounding out this year's vote, 4% of students voted for other candidates, the highest percentage of write-in votes in the history of the poll. Student write-ins included Senator Hillary Clinton, Congressman Ron Paul, Independent candidate Ralph Nader, and a handful of votes for television personality Stephen Colbert.

ALSO: Obama, who is like Colbert in that he is young and looks good on the teevee.

BONUS FUN: I say the real bellwether is just what folks expect to happen. So what do Republicans think will happen this year?

"A poll of 100 leading Republican political consultants by the conservative National Journal found that 80 believe Mr McCain will lose the election, while the remaining 20 think it could go either way."

Margin of error: +/- 20%.

Three nerve racking weeks to go! Bellwethers are known to be all mavericky so there will be no counting of chickens. Also, did I miss any, also? Feel free to point out your favorite other ways we can tell what's going to happen and so don't need to bother to vote.

Hate Hater Hatererers

Speaking of hate, here are some videos to illustrate what an inept and amateurish hater I am compared to the professionals out there.

I call this one "Palin Supporters Heckle 'Commie Faggots.'" Its proper title is "Sidewalk to Nowhere" and its filmed on-site in godly Bethlehem, PA.



Then there's this one from Blogger Interrupted, filmed in a Strongville, OH parking lot outside a Palin rally. The word "terrorist" is thrown around an awful lot. Also the word "bloodlines." These must be the small-town values of which I have heard tell.

ANGRY, the word journalists are using, feels like a euphemism when used to describe this. (And this shit does not help!) Hopefully the Secret Service is paying attention to the threat posed by some of the disgruntled, possibly unhinged people who consider Obama a terrorist socialist who actually has a chance to win.

ETA: Oh! Apparently McCain has heard my knees knocking with fear and has moved to calm the crowds. That's something, anyway.

Day in the Office

Our managing editor heads out the door for a weekend in Boston.

Coworker #1: [sings softly] Don't go to Boston ...

The rest of us: [stare at him]

Coworker #1: Joni Mitchell, bitch!

The rest of us: [keep staring, start laughing]

Coworker #1: Oh. Heh. It's "Please come to Boston."

Me: Um, the internets are saying it's Dave Loggins: "ARTIST: Dave Loggins; TITLE: Please Come to Boston. Please come to Boston for the springtime ..."

Coworker #1: Right! And then she goes, "I'm stayin' here with some friends ..."

Me: If by "she" you mean Dave Loggins.

Asked & Answered

Q1: Say the Joker abducted Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, and suspended one above a shark tank using dental floss while, in a different warehouse, a slow-motion laser seemed poise to cut the other in half. Which of his professed heroes would John McCain save?

A1: "I think he would save Ronald Regan because Teddy can take care of himself and Regan would spend the entire time trying to remember the name of that diner where he had the really good chocolate chip banana pancakes" -- my brother


Q2: If John McCain and Barack Obama shared a passionate, intimate moment, what would it look like?

A2: Dear lord help us:




Q3: If one candidate leaves a town hall stage after a somnolent debate, is the debate over? What if the other candidate hangs around for the encore? What if every participant suddenly wakes up, smiles, snaps pictures, gets a handshake, chats with the fellow who's still hanging around?

A3: That's a terrific question, my friend. Check this shit out:




Q4: What if Nora Ephron were married to either candidate?

A4: This!

McCain repeats himself way worse than Obama -- "my friends," "earmarks," etc. -- but both of them are guys we've been married to for a long time, and we know their stories. It's true I had no idea that McCain learned everything he knew from a chief petty officer, but that was about the extent of the surprises he had in store for me after all these years together, and in any case, it was clearly bullshit. ... If I were married to him, an unlikely scenario, we would probably have fought in the car on the way home tonight, because I told him a million times not to try to be funny, but he never listens to me.

And if I were married to Obama, another unlikely scenario but a far more attractive one, I would be driving home having a hard time not thinking about the curtains.

Q5: How would we know if ester were getting too emotionally involved in this election? If she teared up on the subway reading New Yorker endorsements and in the park seeing homeless men which brought to mind the Bradley effect? If she were about to head off to Yom Kippur services and all she could think to pray for is a satisfactory resolution on November 4?

A5: Yes, yes, and yes. G'mar hatimah tovah, everyone. Non-Hebrew speakers: that means, GObama!

True Calling: Not a Hater, a Judge

For the second time since I've been in New York, I attended the Moth, a live storytelling competition that travels from venue to venue (as well as to iTunes!). Last night it took place in the fabulous Union Hall in Park Slope. My friends and I got there early enough to snag seats, and our proximity to the stage and our Liberal Arts College vibes caught the host's attention: she tapped us to serve as one of the three teams of judges who get to rate each story.

When asked to come up with a team name related to the evening's topic of Blood, we were determined to justify her faith in us. So while the other two judging teams offered somewhat predictable ideas, "A Negative" and "True Blood," we went with "First Blush." Applause from the crowd! To which we replied, Enjoy your approval of us now because you will be booing us soon.

Yes, that's right: we, the judging team of First Blush, were booed. Why? Because we have STANDARDS, dammit! We like (a) coherence; (b) things that are funny; (c) surprises. More importantly maybe we weren't drinking, whereas by the end the hipsters packing the house were pretty tilty with wine.

I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that's why they roared at cheap shots at fat and/or androgynous people. First Blush does not stand for that shit, no sir. We will bravely hold up a 7.9 for an utterly conventional, mundane story about you getting your period while wearing borrowed shorts if you, in the telling, direct unreasonable wrath at the massive "he/she" blocking your way to the bathroom. Or your self-hating story about being a chubby kid who eats your brother's birthday cake during the night, including the line "I was fat but crafty," which involves no blood being spilt at all.

We did unite with the crowd most of the time. We gave a great score to the eventual winner, a guy whose tale about getting cheap, painful, and inept plastic surgery in college made everyone wail and cringe in sympathy. The runner up, who talked about the time he almost died after being stabbed by the Latin Kings and then, when he went home to recuperate, was thrown through the windshield of his brother's car, also had us screaming. It's a good scene, overall -- if you're in NY or LA, I definitely recommend going. And be a judge if you can! The power feels awesome and terrible in an Old Testament kind of way.

MOST AWESOME

While reading this Rachel Sklar liveblog of the Colbert New Yorker festival event, I followed her instructions and decided to see if, since Colbert and Stewart just decided to expand their shows through the election, there were any tickets. And this is what happened!

We have reserved 1 tickets for you to attend a live taping of The Colbert Report on 10/14/2008. In a short time you will receive an E-Mail at [redacted] containing information on the next steps required to confirm your attendance. YOU HAVE 48 HOURS TO CLICK ON THE LINK THAT WAS SENT TO YOU IN THE E-MAIL TO CONFIRM YOUR RESERVATION. If you do not confirm your reservation within 48 hours your tickets will be released.

I tried to get tickets for all of you too I swear but there was only one (1) left. Yes, I am one very lucky Rainbow Brite.

Mr. Ben and I hit up two New Yorker festival events this weekend too and they were awesome. And then, cuz we were all dressed up, we dropped in on Equus on Broadway, starring Captain Janeway, Uncle Vernon, and a naked Harry Potter. What a weekend.

because i never blog about fashion

These days, Emma Watson looks much less like a kid and much more like the Dutch au pairs who lived with us when I was little.

(via Go Fug Yourself)

Look, I did it! I made it through an entire blog post without mentioning Our Sarah! ... Oh. Shit.

Speaking of Our Sarah, one of my coworkers approached me this afternoon and said, "You're going to hate me but I actually watched the debates and I liked her! She seemed really great!" In an UNRELATED INCIDENT, another coworker approached me ten minutes later and, when I asked what his girlfriend did, said, "You're going to hate me: She's a model."

"I can't believe everyone thinks I'm a hater!" I said to a third coworker shortly thereafter.

"You do hate a lot," she answered kindly.

Yikes! When did I get this alarming reputation? Let's clear this up. Here is a FULL LIST of the things I hate:

• One-word footwear (Uggs, Crocs)
  
• Dippy, sentimental movies that are a waste of talent and often have offensive subtexts (Love, Actually, Serendipity, 200 Cigarettes)
  
• Dictators, except wacky ones straight out of Douglas Adams who force all citizens to read their poetry
  
• Mmm injustice? Unfairness? Stuff like that.

And that's it! Seriously! Now am I a My Little Pony or am I not?

"What's six times seven?" "No, stuff she knows!"

For posterity, I wanted to capture this, from FiveThirtyEight, whose name reflects how many times I click over there every day:



Right now, on Oct 2, 2008, it's predicting an Obama victory with 336 electoral votes. This is pre-debate, mind you.

ETA: Post-debate! Palin needs to stop winking at me. It's disturbing. Either she wants to fuck me or she wants to fuck with me -- either way, I don't like it.

Where I grew up, and that's Washington, D.C., and I know that's not Scranton or Wasilla or one of them Real Places with Main Streets, so I figure that means we kill every fourth born child and roast its flesh on the National Mall as we dance around naked, flinging out feces in the direction of the Reflecting Pool and singing about how much we love corruption and hate mavericks, but where I grew up in Washington D.C. ... I forget where I was going with this. Let me start again.

God bless Joe Biden. If Sarah Palin wasn't about to fall down literally foaming at the mouth, and I knew she wasn't, they would never let her go out there unprepared, then he had to really bring it. He had to be knowledgeable but not abstract, intelligent but not arrogant, forceful but not condescending, and he did it, he really did. Honestly, I think he did it by not watching any of those Katie Couric interviews or the fabulous Tina Fey parodies, which enabled him to go into the debate with real respect for Our Sarah.

People are going to be buzzing for a while about how she didn't knock her own eye out or start speaking in tongues or striptease into a Betty Boop outfit. And that's true! She didn't! That's why I wanted to capture this image of the map showing America swooning for Obama, because Palin is going to, I think, deliver a bounce to McCain -- hopefully not the entirety of what he lost over the past couple weeks, but I think she'll help him make back some of that ground.

When that clapping dies down, I hope everyone remembers to say, But Biden did better. and That is the man who is seasoned and capable enough to be Vice President of the United States.

ludicrously

I do not understand our current financial crisis. I do, however, understand adverbs, and Dana Milbank apparently likes them a lot, especially ones that begin with C:

Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House banking committee, made his way into the House media gallery to face 75 reporters yesterday afternoon. ... "The Endangered Species Act apparently does not apply to financial institutions," he joked, cruelly.

He vowed, callously, that there will be "no golden parachutes while we are the owners" of Wall Street firms' bad debts. ...

He then cynically turned Paulson's defense of the Wall Street executives upside down. "Let me defend CEOs against Hank Paulson's attack on them," Frank said with feigned sincerity. ...

Lest adjectives feel left out, Milbank also goes hog wild with them too, describing Frank as hard-hearted, merciless, and brazen.

What is he going for here? Sarcasm? Hyperbole? Sloppy writing? I am not clear. But one thing is: Raymond Carver would not approve.

In other, more straightforward news, the Republican ticket had a big day today. Sarah Palin met with world leaders and war criminals and John McCain held his first news conference since fish flopped on land and decided to grow legs. And I am cranky because I am watching the very last, rather grim episodes of the Wire and they are giving me nightmares.

My irritation is probably nothing compared to George Will's, though. He is one serious Grumpy Gus today: he mutters that Obama isn't experienced but McCain is insane and only one of those problems has a possible fix. He'll be lucky if the GOP doesn't disappear him like they disappeared Carly Fiorina (and her golden parachute).

Postcards from the Verge

Jonathan Dee's NYT Magazine's article "The Tell-All College Tour" came out this weekend, making half of my face famous, offering new evidence on the Who's Bigger, Me or Katie Price question (don't I look TINY in that picture down there in the corner?), and catapulting my fledgling company into the spotlight. Our internet traffic spiked on Friday as soon as the link appeared on the NYT website, and there was much whooping and sending it back and forth in the office.

The media attention guarantees nothing, of course, except that we now have a chance. And although we at one point hit #1 on the Most Emailed list, the Sunday loudmouths have crowded the top and bumped us down to #6. Just what you'd expect of the media elites.

Though I'm glad Jonathan Dee had a positive take on us, I have to say that I'm astonished by the utter lack of fact-checking that occurs over at Gray Lady HQ. You'd think the Paper of Record would take note of the following, wouldn't you?:

• there were initially 15 editors, not 20; now there are 13
  
• we each were assigned 14 schools to cover, not 10
  
• our office is on Park Avenue South, not Park Avenue, though I agree that the latter fits better into Dee's narrative
  
• there are only 20 of us in the entire office, not 26
  
• my brother, the quoted "current Cornell student," is, as he should be at 27, an alum

and so on. Also, I maintain that "the New Face of College Admissions" would have been a better title. But it's churlish to complain. The buzz is beginning! Perhaps we are well on our way to becoming the next medium-sized thing.

My coworkers and I hooted over Dee's dour-sounding note at the end of the piece:

It all might seem less suggestive if it weren’t for the fact that this whole “grass-roots movement” seems poised to make a lot of money — most of which seems destined to find its way to the usual suspects, none of whom are part of a grass-roots anything.

As someone who is yet to have made over $30K a year in New York City, I can only say, Amen, brother JDee. Amen.