These images were created by me and my fella, A___ without use of anyone else's images. You are welcome and even encouraged to copy them, download them, post them on your blog or website, etc.
I would like a link back if you do though and please let me know if you use them.
XOXO - PFG
Yes, there is such a thing and you can access it in the comfort of your own home, office, lab, or other computer housing area. Can you friggin' believe it?
I am in awe. I am astounded. Mostly, I'm shocked that this "museum" was created by a man, Harry Finely. I'm really not sure what to make of that. Does that sound narrow minded? It's not prejudice which drives this, it's utter empiricism. In my personal and impersonal experience, many men tend to have an aversion to things menstrual. E.g., a boyfriend (ex) of mine once suggested that I talked about my period and reproductive organs far too much. What he said was something like "Holy shit is your ovary going to fall out and roll down the hill?" in response to a round of endometriosis induced health problems I was having (and my talking about them as we walked up the hill). He was being funny, but it was one of those funny to hide the freaking out moments.
So to find that a man who has collected relics and artifacts and paraphernalia as a "repository for information about, and "showcase" for, menstruation" takes me a bit off guard. He is hoping to open a real physical museum. For now, it's on a website. Not the easiest to navigate, btw, but well worth it.
Because, among other things, he has the booklets!
Ah, fond memories. The booklet my sister and I got weren't high class enough for actual photographs like these. They were illustrated with 1950s style drawings of various big fluffy hair headed black silhouetted bodied women - very similar in style to the old Parker Brother's Monopoly graphics. One picture from our "Period book" that I remember vividly was of blond woman powdering her nose with a compact. The caption said "Keep fine and dainty!" My siblings and I had been discussing what that meant when my sister informed us that it meant to wash yourself so you don't get stinky. "So why is there a picture of a girl powdering her face?" my brother asked. My sister replied with what has become one of her famous lines: "Because they can't show her powdering her twat!"
You just had to love those books. We had a movie as well. I don't remember many details, only that the illustrations (cartoons) were lacking many details and were colored as if by Hanna Barbera. Parents were invited but only Mrs. Michelakis attended. We all felt really bad for her daughter.
If you're a woman and you're still looking for that perfect mother's day gift and/or card, why not send her a link to MUM and tell her thank you for not raising me like this...
...Unless of course she did, in which case check back later for a new line of mother's day cards. (which I will be working on instead of - um, I mean in addition to - all that work I have to do for the post end of the semester end of the semester deadline)
I have a rule in movie watching. If there is consensus that it really sucks and isn't even fun to make fun of, it is turned off. Whether we are five minutes in or five minutes to the end.
I used to stick it out, watch the whole damned thing. After having been burned too many times (Happiness, for example. I'm not even going to link that one. You want to know? Go IMDB it yourself).
These days, if it sucks, it's likely to get "gonged". Anyone watching the movie is welcome to initiate gonging, although in general gonging can only happen if all parties watching the movie agree that it sucks and should be aborted. If two or three think it sucks and one thinks there's something worthwhile still coming, we usually hold out - e.g., this movie. My sister A___ deeply hoped that the distopian epic elements hinted at on the cover would at some point come about in the movie. She hoped this right up to the end, when the horrible voice over (which I think may have even been an innovation at that point...never a good sign) began, presumably to make all better this miscarriage of a movie. Because of my sister's hope, we didn't gong it. We even rewound the last few minutes so my sister could listen to the closing monologue without audience commentary and hoots of laughter.
In retrospect, I have to say at least that one was bad enough to be funny. Some movies are just unsalvagable. I watched something like this last night. Not only did I watch it, I watched all of it. I kept hoping it would improve. I don't know why I thought it might. So many just plain wrong (wrong for characters I could like or at least understand/not hate, wrong for the story I wanted told, wrong wrong wrong) things happened early on that I think I was wishing even right up to that last 30 seconds for something to happen which would make it all at least a little better. Nothing did. It only got worse. The mother dies, the guy gets engaged to the sister. The daughter hooks up with the fashion challenged EMT who she apparently disliked for no good reason or is now with for no reason other than that her mother is dead and she is now suddenly aware of the possibility of loneliness and separation - this is NOT part of the movie. The hooking up is seen as positive and good, a development for the daughter. Blllrrrach! And lastly, we are lead to believe the female lead ends up happily involved with the brother of the man who is now engaged to her sister, after having spent an intoxicated evening NOT having sex together (he slept on the floor...that's like real love (squeeeeealll!)). Oh my god what a piece of shit!
In fact, I woke up briefly too early this morning to my cat dragging his underside (shaved belly,smelly rear end, and all) over my forehead and thought "Why the fuck did I watch that whole piece of shit movie?" Then I went back to sleep for a short time because that is no way to wake up.
But I'm reconsidering the question now that I am fully awake and caffeinated and I think I have the answer to the movie issue, which is just a manifestation of my general reluctance to walk away from something that is so disapointingly bad that it should be obvious.
The solution? I believe I need an actual gong, not simply the concept of gongability or leavability. Sometimes in life you just need a prop, a reinforcement for the possibility of action.
Hence, I'm putting out an APB on a gong or gong like object (buzzer, gong, whatever). If you see something you think would be good, please post a link here. Portability would be nice, but I'll sacrifice that for form and other function (a nice object that would hang well on a wall or off a shelf in my apartment which sounds great, is fun and satisfying to use, and doesn't freak out the cat but isn't really carryaboutable would be fine).
Eeeeek! Poetry!
Well, what did you expect? You are in the tea room, after all. Here, I'll make it purple. That'll help.
Last Spring
She wants to buy me curtains.
Honey, for herself,
potpourri and something to put it in.
“What do you put this in?”
she asks.
“Bowls.”
She pokes around the strainers, considers a teacup.
“You have bowls mom, I know you do.”
She abandons the teacup
for a shelf of decorative plates.
“Not just any bowl,
I mean, you have
nice bowls
crystal and china.
You even have a potpourri bowl.
I’ve seen it,
I've held it,
I've dusted it.”
“What does a potpourri bowl look like?”
“It’s clear, globe-like
with a metal thing on top...
like this! This
is a potpourri bowl.”
She examines it.
“How much does it cost?”
I turn it over in her hands
to expose the price.
She puts it down
and wanders back to the teacups.
“I’ll be outside.”
I smoke and pat the black cat
who opens her mouth but cannot meow.
My mother comes out
holding a porcelain bowl she shows me
“I think this will do,
don’t you?”
Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay finished six days of testimony today.
"I loved Enron very much," Lay told jurors in his federal fraud trial. "I think we built a great company. I think the most painful thing in my life was watching Enron finally have to go into bankruptcy."
Awww. That's sweet. He loved Enron. See, he has a human side. He's not an evil robber baron.
The sick part about this is that this isn't even the trial for what his company did to the energy market and economy as part of it's dirty rotten tricks for profiteering. This was Lay's trial for playing funny games with money to make it look like Enron was making money while it was in fact a big sucking cash hole.
Here's an NPR story (with audio) on Enron's market manipulation tricks. Below is a transcription of an excerpt from audio of a conversation between "Bob" and "Kevin" that you can hear at the NPR link above:
Kevin: "So're the rumors' true that (bleep) taking all the money back from you guys? All that money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in california?"
Bob: "Yeah! Grandma Millie, man. She's the one who couldn't figure out how to f-(bleep)-g vote on the butterfly ballot..."
Kevin: "Yeah (laughing)"
Bob: "...Now she wants her f-(bleep) money back for all the power you charged right up... jammed right up her ass for f-(bleep) $250 a megawatt hour..."
Both: laughing and laughing and laughing
Keep in mind that these men KNEW they were being taped. And guess what? They just didn't care. This is the culture of Enron. This is what Mr. Lay is mourning the loss of.
To read more about the Enron induced energy market chaos, go here.
For more transcripts of excerpts of Enron tapes, go here.
For a movie that plays these tapes without deleted swears (in their fully potent form), rent "The Smartest Guys in the Room".
Then rent "Yes Men" (a documentary about anti-corporate prankster activists) and "Fun with Dick and Jane" (a surprisingly funny and anti-corporate mainstream cinema poke at Enron/Worldcom like corporate malfeasance and shenanigans) because you'll need the laugh.
Mother's day is coming.
I'm not a fan of mother's day. I think some people might see this as being directly because as an adult, I have chosen not to have a relationship with my own mother. However I would argue that this lack of relationship as well as my dislike of mother's day, although certainly correlated, are not causally associated with each other. They do share a common cause, which is that my mother was a difficult person to be close to. The closer you were, the more difficult it was. And on mother's day, it was just that much more difficult.
I have a personal history of mother's days and mother's days' presents that were never enough to make up for all the mutual disappointment and animosity that colored my childhood relationship with my mother. My siblings and I were raised in an iconoclastic intellectualist household where an attitude of derision of gender stereotypes was a natural outcome, and yet at some point in my later childhood, our mother told us (sobbing and probably drunk) that it was clear we didn't love her enough. One of her examples was that none of us ever got her mother's day presents like one of those crappy gold toned "#1 Mom" key chains. We bought and made her numerous presents each year. The problem wasn't a lack of presents. The problem was that no one bought her the #1 Mom presents. We thought she'd want the ones that were from us as individuals, the hand made cards, the candy that we know she likes, shit like that. Who knew she wanted a #1 Mom mug to drink her bourbon out of?
All this adds up to a perspective on mother's day that is a bit cynnical.
I know I am not alone in disliking mother's day. My sister and I have both noticed that during the run up to mother's day, the card section of stores is a rather emotionally charged place to be. Hence, I write posts about ruined mother's days and mom's beef log basket. I also write posts about movies I watch around mother's day as my tribute to the social construct of "Mom".
I know there are more movies than those that immediately come to mind. Some I can't recall right now (but will add when I do) and some are obvious ones I didn't include (Mommy Dearest) because I didn't find them all that entertaining. My life and work are challenging enough. I like my entertainment to be entertaining. So for your mother's day entertainment, I present a list of movies featuring mothers, motherly gender role bullshit, or mother/child relationships. Enjoy!
Serial Mom (1994) Comedy. It stars Kathleen Turner as a Stepford Wife soccer mom type gone very very bad. Over the top satire of "perfect" suburban lifestyle and lives is director/writer John Waters' favorite subject. If you aren't familiar with John Waters, be warned. He's a peculiar one. It's kind of gross in parts and has some violence, but really it's worth it to see Kathleen Turner made up à la June Cleaver snarling "Pussy!" into the phone.
Throw Momma From the Train (1987) Comedy. Directed by Danny DeVito. It stars Billy Crystal (it's ok, his character is supposed to be annoying) as Larry, a frustrated writer teaching at a local college while trying to write his second great novel. He swears his first great novel was stolen by his now extremely successful ex-wife. Danny DeVito is Owen, one of Larry's students. Owen is a strange literal man who lives at home with his nearly demonically cruel elderly mother. Larry suggests Owen go see a Hitchcock movie to improve Owen's horrible mystery writing skills. Owen sees Strangers on a Train, gets the wrong idea, and believes Larry would like to switch murders - Larry's ex for Owen's mother. Criss-cross!
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) Drama/Thriller. It's not really a mother movie, but Angela Lansbury plays a just plain wicked mother that is too awesome to pass up.
The Stepford Wives (1975) Mystery/Drama. Oh this is just such a classic. I know they remade it but they took the camp angle. The campy of this original is so much more pure, and it is a little creepy. I included it because the hallmark perfect mother's day is so Stepford.
I Heart Huckabees (2004) Existental comedy. Lilly Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman play detectives who assist people in solving their existential mysteries. While not presented in a smack you over the head mainstream hollywood way, family relationships are the key to the main character's plight.
MirrorMask (2005) Fantasy. Writer Neil Gaiman (one of my favorites - thanks JT for the reference) who is always strange in a pretty good way, brings us a children's tale. Awwww. It's sort of like if you took Siouxsie (with or without Banshees), Jim Henson, and a CGI Edward Gorey and hit "blend" for 1 minute. Dark, deep, sarcastic, and a little freaky. The story begins with 15 year old artistic Helena having a typically ugly and quickly out of hand 15 year old clash of wills with her mother. Soon after, her mother falls acutely ill. While waiting to hear her mother's fate, Helena is drawn into (no pun intended) a world which resembles her own odd sketches. Mother themes abound, and it's a very stylish movie.
My father's father was from Italy. Well, his parents and siblings were. I've never been sure if he was born in Italy or in the North End of Boston. My grandfather's siblings used to speak Italian. Of course, they rarely addressed me and didn't repeat themselves when they did, so they kept their strange northern Italian hybrid dialect mainly to themselves.
My father's mother's parents were Irish immigrants. Her father was a fireman who died three days before Christmas when my grandmother was young. She was raised in a convent after the authorities removed her and her siblings from her mother because her (then single) mother had been accused of making a living in a non-wholesome manner. And the kids lied to the cops about it. This is how the story goes at least.
Why am I telling you all this? Because the discussion about this country's more modern immigrants is disturbing to me. It has stirred up thoughts about my own family's rather recent immigrant roots and reminded me of the fact that all of us are "immigrants" here. Even the first immigrants - who have, I believe, the distinction of having been of extremely wide scale annoyance to their original countrymen. The pilgrims were what could be described nowadays as militant religious extremists who felt that living and worshipping with non-exteremists would contaminate their salvation. The legacy of the character of that first wave of immigration? A belief that relation to this particular set of immigrants granted exclusive god given rights for dominion above everything around them. That philosophy can easily be seen as a core element in a culture and belief system which eventually allowed (and promoted) the organized practice of land grabbing and genocide "real americans" euphemistically refer to as our nation's expansion and reform period.
I would not condone someone living a life of true luxury on the hard work or suffering of other people, a charge that is often brought against immigrants. But in my experience, via my family's heritage and what I see of modern immigrants to this country, these people are hardly living in luxury when they come to the US. Moreover, they KNOW that they will not live a life of luxury here. And yet they come anyhow. Despite the hardship that you can be assured of here in the US if you are not a member of the small luxury class, apparently the opportunities here are still better than those available in modern immigrants' countries of origin. That is hardly surprising. Many of them come from countries where corporate interests have used up or enslaved local resources to maintain the privileges of the luxury class here in the US (and other "first world" countries) .
From this perspective, the ire that immigrants to the US are here only to take advantage of our resources, to take jobs away from Americans (ahahahahaha!), and to increase the tax burden on the middle class would be much better (and more legitimately) directed at people who live in these zip codes or who benefited from the 2004 corporate tax break bill.
So what drives the ignorant "This is america. Speak american!" and "America. Love it or leave it!" people's immigrant-phobia? I'm not sure really. Their rhetoric has always annoyed the shit out of me. It just annoys me more so during times when the issue comes into the national debate arena.
And this is one of those times. Is it just me, or does anyone else have the strong feelingthat this issue is one of those "Look a pterodactyl!!!" kind of things? NOT that the lot of non-citizen/non-registered residents in this country is a trivial issue, not that the myriad of labor issues woven throughout the whole of the immigration one are minor. But I question the timing of this recent incarnation of the ageless Immigrant Problem, and I question the motivation for it's being thrust into the national spotlight so close to legislative elections. Oh there are so many other things we could be considering when we go to the polls.
What got me on this kick? The last straw was a news item about reaction to a spanish language version of the star spangled banner. This bothers me for two reasons:
1) Spanish speaking does not equal immigrant, immigrant does not equal hispanic. That these equivalencies are held is proof of a set of annoying stereotypes that I'd like to see dispelled.
2) According to the news story, people aren't happy about the song being sung in anything but English. Yeah. Bush was quoted as saying: "I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English. And they ought to learn to sing the anthem in English." Does "learning English" mean using grammatical sentences and real words? If so, then Bush just questioned the validity of his own claim to US citizenship.
In response to all this, I've decided to translate the US national anthem into Italian, the language of one of my family's countries of origin. The Irish, well, that's gonna be a bit harder but I do have a friend who speaks it so I'll ask her.
I'll be working on "Eh, Puoi vedere?" (a casual voice seems to have the correct tone for my intentions). I'll provide a full translation if and when I can. My reason for wanting to do it is entirely to antagonize anyone who really is already bothered by the spanish language version of the star spangled banner. It's gonna take a little thinking because I haven't used Italian in years and the song's lyrics are a bit archaic. Meanwhile, I encourage others to do their own translations.
So it is that time again. When I consider which is worse in terms of housing - the devil I know or the devil I don't know. The place I live in now has some serious pros and some serious cons. Hence, I've been ambivalently browsing the classified sections every so often the last few months, wondering what to do, when to do it, and whether or not to do it with someone or on my own. That is a whole other post. For now, I wanted to share some of the absurdities I have seen in my searches. This is a composite, taken from real housing ads in my area:
Unexpected summer vacancy in much sought after campus area! 1 and 1/2 bedroom historic cottage (i.e. some slanting floors, low doorframes in places, etc.) on owner occupied property available in May at earliest. Possible extension for year. Walking distance to woods and cows. Newer carpeting. Paritally furnished. Kitchen opens into eating/living area. Full bathroom w/antique fixtures. $950 a month. Security deposit $2000 and $75 non-refundable application fee required in advance. No smoking. No pets. No subleasing.
I just got one of those annoying e-mail ads. This was from a department store where I think I once ordered christmas presents for my ex's family. The line was "Find the perfect gift for mother's day!"
Out of curiosity, I clicked to see what this store thinks people who care deeply about their mothers would be interested in giving mom for mother's day. It seems mothers would like to be
treated as if they were Hello Kitty characters or oversized Barbie dolls.
Nothing says "I love you mom"One of my brother's frequent quotes is Mommy's gonna give you a mint and make it all better. This is said as a sarcastic commentary on a token usually trivial action proposed in response to a massive, complex and quite serious problem.
The phrase sprung instantly to mind when I read this little bit of a news item on Bush's solution to the latest round of speculation induced oil and gas price hikes.
From the story:
"President Bush on Tuesday ordered a temporary suspension of environmental rules for gasoline, making it easier for refiners to meet demand and possibly dampen prices at the pump.
...
Easing the environment rules will allow refiners greater flexibility in providing oil supplies since they will not have to use certain additives such as ethanol to meet clean air standards."
And in other news, President's rating drops to 24 percent:
"A Hartford Courant/Connecticut poll shows that President Bush's job approval rating has dropped to 24 percent among Connecticut residents."
"Number 20!"
The numbers are not in any particular order, just given so that when the party’s table is open, the restaurant manager can yell the number out and not have to try to pronounce a possibly difficult last name.
I had too much wine last night at the wedding and too little sleep. My hair is held back by a handful of multicolored butterflies, flowers, and a leopard print clip barrette. I will not take off my sunglasses in the super bright Sunday morning Bickford’s. Not only is it Mother’s Day, it is also (the newly wed couple just informed me) First Communion Day. But so far I have not seen any cherubic children with pious parents. Just lots of women with flowers.
Bob is doing better than I am. He wasn’t as bored as I was at the wedding so he didn’t drink as much as I did. Also, he didn’t have nightmares about tornadoes and other natural disasters. After we’ve been seated and ordered our coffee, he asks me what kind of jelly I want then he diligently searches through the stacks for the strawberry. The table is a little sticky we notice as we choose our breakfasts. I watch the families around me. I build a fortress with menus to sheild myself from the glare of the sun reflecting off the shiney SUVs and minivans in the parking lot while I wait uncomfortably for my omelet.
No one has flowers at that table. The mother has dark brown hair and a thin mouth that looks accustomed to scowling. The father has a striped shirt, big oversized stripes, and short sandy hair. He likes to point and gesture. Right now, he is pointing and gesturing at his daughter. The mother accompanies his motions with deeper degrees of frowns, and the occasional quiet word of parental support. “If you don’t want them, then why did you order that?!” the father is practically shouting. Or maybe it’s not the volume so much as it is the manner, his face looming too close to the girl’s as he barks his rhetorical question. She is flanked by her brothers, a little one on her right and a slightly older one on her left. All of the kids’ backs are to me, but I can see the slightly older brother’s face from the side as he is at the end of the booth. He is drawing on the placemat with crayons. The mother smiles warmly at this boy for a moment then resumes frowning when she returns her attention to her daughter. The waitress finishes taking their order and the table is relatively quiet for a while.
The girl and the older boy are playing some game, heads leaned close together over the placemat and crayons in hand. “You’d better think of something, or he’s gonna hang you!” the mother says smugly to the daughter, beaming a smile at her son, who I am thinking is
probably cheating or misspelled the word. More silence. The newly weds are seated far away from us , me, Bob, and the unhappy family. They are poorly matched and I wonder how long it will take for this to dawn on them. Bob and I chat about various forgettable topics while my attention wanders over to the claw machine, trying to imagine what it would take to actually snag one of the tempting beanie baby prizes.
What am I thinking? I hate beanie babies.
The waitress has staggered up to the table bearing a tray full of fresh and fruity breakfasts. A moment later, the father addresses his daughter in an exasperated tone, “You’d better just eat them. You can scrape it off, but it’s too late now to change it. Why didn’t you ask before you ordered them?!"
I inspect a menu but my attention is drawn back when I hear the father’s disgusted voice, “Are you crying?! Are you crying? Great, now she’s crying,”
I can’t hear the daughter’s voice at all although I know she is speaking. Her head is down and her posture is more defeated than defiant. I wonder if her disappointment at the mile high pile of whipped cream on top of her waffles might have gone unnoticed if it weren’t for her parents’ scrutiny. "You’ve ruined mother’s day. You’ve ruined everything!” I hear her father say.
And so another perfectly good mother’s day is ruined.
I am happy for my sunglasses, happy that they are hiding the direction and nature of my gaze. If the mother and father saw it, it would only 
serve as further evidence for how much their daughter ruined the day by drawing unwanted negative attention to their otherwise perfect family. I fight the nearly overwhelming temptation to ruin it more by flinging an open grape jelly at the man. I want to see jelly oozing down the father’s face. I want to pour my pulpy orange juice over the mother’s head for crippling her daughter. I want to make the daughter laugh, send back the waffles she felt pressured into ordering, and tell her to order whatever the fuck she wants. I want to dance on the table and kick fruit and whipped cream onto the father’s LL Bean jersey. I settle for stabbing jellies with my fork.
I noticed this headline in Yahoo - Cardinal: Condoms 'Lesser Evil' Than AIDS - and I just had to read it. This part jumped out at me. "While there is no specific, authoritative Vatican policy on using condoms to protect against AIDS, the Vatican opposes condoms because they are a form of artificial contraception."
I didn't realize it was artificial contraception the church has a problem with. What might artificial mean if it is meant to put condoms in a class which includes the forms of birth control that are not condoned by the church (surgical abortion, hormone birth control, and IUDs)? In this use, stuff like the rhythm method, prayer, and the old standard "pulling out" would be not artificial methods presumably because they are condoned and advanced by the church. It's a strange delineation though - and it does leave open the question of whether or not hurting yourself or having others hurt you during an unwanted pregnancy in hopes that you will miscarry* is considered "artificial" by the church.
When did artificial become the key component in any sin or vice? If artificial is that bad, is the pope going to ban Easy Cheese and Poptarts? I think he ought to start with twinkies if he's going to begin an evil artificial snack food campaign. A friend and I once super glued a twinkie to her dorm room ceiling in the Fall. In May it was stil there looking as fresh as the day it came out of the wrapper. Now that is definitely eeeevillll.
There are some outspoken members of the high up clergy who apparently do think that sometimes it would be ok for condoms to be used, artificial or not. Later in this same news story, we are told that at least one other cardinal has said that "condoms could sometimes be condoned, such as when a woman cannot refuse the sexual advances of her HIV-positive husband." Let me break that down. When someone's HIV positive husband exercises his church condoned right to make his wife have sex when she doesn't want to, it would be ok for him to use a condom.
* = This is, where I grew up, termed an "irish abortion". A nasty term for a nasty practice. The reasoning behind it is that it is seen as an alternative to ending a pregnancy without committing the "sin" of having an abortion (or the sin of using birth control to prevent the pregnancy in the first place).
Lie across my big brass bed.
This is how the song SHOULD go if it were grammatically correct. Alternatively, it could be "Lay yourself lady lay yourself, lay yourself across my big brass bed", although that certainly ruins the meter, doesn't it?
This topic arose out of a conversation I had today with my fella, A___. I wanted to pick a music bed for a public service announcement that I'm planning on doing for the radio station. The music needs to be something suggestive and somewhat schmaltzy. After a moment of thinking, I said "Hey how about that 'lay across my big brass bed' song?"
A___ said "What?"
I sang him a few lines. And sang the bendy guitar part too. While this was very amusing, it did not provoke recall. So then it was on to itunes, where we discovered that many many people have covered this song. Among the artists covering the Dylan ditty were Ministry, Duran Duran, and Isaac Hayes. We were in the middle of playing samples of various versions when my good friend R___ (cjblue) called me to say hi and to wish me better moods. I answered laughing and explained what was going on (then I played the clip from Duran Duran's version which just made me laugh harder).
R___ reminded me that in fact this song is grammatically incorrect. "It should be 'Lie lady lie' because 'lay' is the wrong verb," she explained, adding "You're the one who told me that!"
I was a bit horrified to think that I might have been seen as that annoying person who goes around pretentiously lecturing friends on verb usage, but I know myself well enough to realize I probably I wasn't a total tit about it. I'm not a language nazi. And I guess it has served her well because she said she has always remembered since which word to use when.
In case you're interested in correct English usage (as trivia or self edification), you can use the Dylan song to remember when to use lay and when to use lie.
If you're speaking in the present tense, lay is a transitive verb - it takes an object. You lay something (like a book) on a table, on a shelf, or on a bed (big and brass or not). You can lay yourself someplace, as in "now I lay me down to sleep". There's the slang version of lay which is transitive as well, but which isn't so casually confusable with the use of lie since you can lay someone standing, sitting, or reclining.
Lie is intransitive - it doesn't take an object. It is what you do when you recline, as in when you lie on the beach, on a big brass bed, or perhaps in a nest of pillows on the shag floor in the back of a van. Here's where the confusion comes in - lay is also (unfortuately) the past tense form of the intransitive verb lie, as in "Last night, as I lay in his big brass bed, I had strange dreams about the members of Duran Duran dressed as hippies trying to coax me into a van with a shag interior." I'm sure there is a good etymological reason for lay serving double duty as a verb in its own right and as the bastard past tense form of lie, but it's best to just think of the unfortunate past tense of lie as an accident, like George Bush being president of the US or the sound similarity between the words "sum" and "some".
So when you hear "lay across my big brass bed" remember that someone is, grammatically speaking, asking that woman to do more than simply recline.
I have had a busy phon-a-licious morning! Today I have talked to my school's Financial aid department, 
Graduate school, Registrar's office, and the education loan company (Sallie Mae) for a sum total of about 2 hours. And I managed to only kind of sort be testy with one person. She said "Oh you're from (town name). I'm from there too" when I gave her my phone number to have someone call me back.
I said "Actually, I'm not from here. I live here now, but I'm from Boston. Hence the attitude about my having to deal with Financial Aid's mistakes." It's not that people in CT don't get annoyed, or that they don't get irritated easily. It's that they tend to hold it in, all clenched up and whatnot. Not so with someone where I'm from. Nope. And I've become not only aware of this cultural difference but aware that others are aware of it as well. I figured maybe she should know I'm not from Tightasswaspville CT so she could place my apparent level of irritation in the proper social context.
I consider this relatively mild, given my impatient mood and the numerous phone trees, hold music sessions, and gate keepers I had to talk to in order to fix a computer based error in my record. I think I am actually getting better about not blowing up on people who happen to stray into my warpath. Whoopie! If I keep this up, it could mean I won't be reincarnated as a dung beetle.
Well it's too early for PMS, but good lord do I feel like I have it. I was going to say I'm not sure why, but I guess all I'd have to do is go back and read my blog to see that life hasn't been super lately. Funny how good we sometimes can be at forgetting the causes even while we experience the effects.
I try to remind myself that it could be worse. This worked well for me in the Fall when I'd have an attack of people hating moodiness. I'd think about the massive regional devastation and the staggering personal loss people suffered from the hurricanes in the Gulf Coast and all of my shit seemed pretty damned small. Unfortunately, right now thinking about anything like this makes me more bummed out and cranky though. My reaction starts and ends with something like "...What the fuck is wrong with people?"
I think I need to take some time to sit down and seriously count my blessings. I'm not one of those "focus on the positive" types of people. I just can't be. It is completely against my nature. I don't always see only the negative - I'm not a pessimist. I was judged too cheerful for my goth friends when I was younger. However, I've come to learn that I am the kind of person who, if life gives me lemons, turns them into projectiles to hurl back at life.
Spring is in the air here in New England. Of course, thanks to our changing climates, spring has been in the air for periods in October, December, and a brief burst in January as well. But Spring is officially in the air now, so says the calendar, the big digital thermometers outside banks, and the mushy ground beneath my feet.
This means one very significant thing to me - It's time to start checking for ticks.
This map (from the CDC website) shows US occurences of the tick that carries Lyme disease - anywhere there are mice, squirrels, birds, or deer is a place where you can encounter ticks carrying the bacteria that causes Lyme (yeah, they're called "deer ticks" but they aren't that fussy about their hosts). If you want to see the CDC's stats on Lyme by state, you can go here. Or you can take my word for it that if you live in the Northeastern part of the US, you should assume you live in a Lyme heavy area and that even sitting in a landscaped suburban park might expose you to Lyme carrying ticks and hence Lyme disease.
Here are some examples of Lyme rashes from Dermatlas.
I am hoping the not totally insane citizens of America are paying attention to Moussaoui's testimony in his own defense (as to why he does not deserve the death penalty for his conviction of involvement in the September 11th attacks). If you've been following this story at all, you have to pretty much assume Moussaoui wants to die.
"Moussaoui said he didn't think his previous testimony on March 27, in which he said publicly for the first time that he was to have piloted a fifth plane on 9/11, would hurt him with the jury....Moussaoui said Allah will protect him as long as he tells the truth, no matter what the jury thinks of him."
"Pressed by defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin if he thought he was helping his case, Moussaoui responded: "I was putting my trust in God, so from an Islamic point of view, yes," acknowledging that non-Muslims might view his testimony as harmful...During his 2 1/2 hours on the stand, Moussaoui offered a lengthy explanation of why he hates Americans. Islam requires Muslims to be the world's superpower, he said as he paged through the Quran."
In a 1988 interview (long before he was running for public office), Randall Terry described how he justified breaking the law in his actions as founder and member of Operation Rescue: "When God's law and man's law conflict, Scripture clearly teaches that man is not to obey that law. Some examples are when the three Hebrew children were thrown into the fire, when the apostles were jailed for preaching the Gospel, and when the stone was rolled away from the Lord's tomb. That was in defiance of a man-made law. God never gave the government a blank check to do what it wants to do. It is a heresy to teach Christians to obey a law which runs counter to His law."
I am sincerely hoping the parallels are not completely lost on the general public. I don't have high expectations. I don't believe Moussaoui's Quran thumping coutroom proselytizing will result in explicit and wide spread recognition of the similarities it bears to US homegrown christian fundamentalist rhetoric. But I am hoping, at least, that it will make an impression in a more subtle way such that people will feel less comfortable with the spooky christian fundy zealotry that has made its way into the mainstream at every level of government and administration in the US over the last decade.
My cat does not want to take his pill. I tried a device my advisor suggested, a pill dispenser that is sort of like a syringe that you put the pill in and then pop it way far back into the cat's throat. My hope was that it would spare my fingers from Max's sharp pointy teeth. We don't both need to be on antibiotics.
This is a deceptive picture from the back of the package the device came in:
If only it had been so easy. Tonight's earlier attempt ended with Max fleeing the room in great springy leaps, saliva foaming in streams from his mouth. I tried to explain to him that the placid cartoon cat had no such problems, but Max wasn't having any of it. He stayed in the little cat cave* for at least an hour.
He has come out and finally allowed me to pat him again. Little does he know the pill is still on the on table waiting for him. And there's a bottle of amoxicilin chilling in the fridge for our midnight rendezvous.
* Something useful I've learned: As most of us cat lovers know, when Kitty is sick, he will hide. I have found it is best to make the cat a hiding place. Somewhere with easily (re)movable "walls" on all but one side and a cloth draped over the front as a curtain works extremly well as it will give you access if you need it (better than lying half under the bed trying to coax Kitty out). Max's current spot is an area of about 1.5' x 2' of bare floor against a wall between my filing cabinet and a large cardboard box. I put down a towel and I hung his favorite blankie over the top to make the ceiling and front curtain. He digs it. It's crucial that when Kitty is resting/hiding in his spot, you respect his privacy unless there is an extremely compelling reason to intrude. Occasional quiet peeking is usually ok.
Am I on crazy pills? My country is very very creepy, spooky, and ugly lately. If these headlines don't make you want to throw open the window and yell "SOMETHING IS VERY VERY WRONG HERE!", then get a load of this. A bunch of rich assholes have gotten together to make GW Bush's childhood home a historic site. According to the AP story I just read, the Bush's humble home has been renovated to its 1950s' glory. "First lady Laura Bush's mother, Jenna Welch... donated a greenish-blue 1955 refrigerator from her home for the renovation."
Well that makes it really entirely authentically fucked up then, doesn't it?
I grew up outside Boston. We had museum sites made of the homes of people like John Hancock, the Adamses, and Paul Revere (I passed out in what is called Paul Revere's house during a field trip in 6th grade). We had the Bunker Hill monument, we had Walden Pond. Where I live now, I am quite close to the Nathan Hale Homestead.
Now, with that type of precedent for historic homes and sites, I have a hard time understanding exactly why anyone should go or would want to go to the Bush house, what with his approval rating at a whopping 35%. Oh wait, unless it's like why and how I went to graceland - because tacky shit that transcends all definitions of taste is damned funny when you're having that late 20s existential crisis (Warning: I do not recommend doing something like this without the proper medication, as Hunter S. Thompson might have said).
From In the Colosseum by Tom Waits:
No justice here, no liberty
No reason, no blame
There's no cause to taint the sweetest taste of blood
And greetings from the nation
As we shake the hands of time
They're taking their ovations
The vultures stay behind
In the colosseum, in the colosseum
In the colosseum tonight
