This will probably sound odd, but sometimes what keeps me from blogging is having too much to say. Stuff will happen that I'll want to write about and I'm not at a point yet where I just come to this space and type. Now granted, I observe LOADS of interesting content at work (boy howdy) but literally trying to blog about it right then would be impossible.
So instead I wait until I'm "ready" to blog, and...hardly ever blog. Phooey.
And then I read about people who actually write for a living, getting sponsored by X or Y corporation, inking development deals with TV networks, etc. etc. and get very angry at myself for not writing.
So. Here are my ten New Year's resolutions in abbreviated form. I had this all written up as a handwritten entry but it didn't have an ending (I always have trouble with that). Also I don't know that it would have been legible. And Spouse would have probably fussed at me for privacy reasons. Anyway, here is my shortened list, with comments where appropriate.
Thing One: Read the Lord of the Rings, all 3 books. I've had a very nice hardcover edition since, um, 2003, that Spouse (then-LDPP, Long Distance Partner Person) gave me for Christmas. This Christmas we watched the movies again (all three in long-form director's cut editions, which makes for something like a week of viewing), and I think we might make that an annual holiday thing.
Thing Two: Read A History of God by Karen Armstrong. This will be worth it. I need to either underline or highlight as I read, or take notes, because I keep having to start all over again.
Thing Three: Read some Richard Dawkins. We went to see him speak at a nearby university a few months ago, and it was a Huge Deal, both going out and doing something with Spouse, and driving the hour-plus to get there. The very first cell phone picture I ever took is of Spouse getting his book signed, and it trips me out every time I see it.
Thing Four: Get back to doing yoga regularly. I have the options of reasonably priced classes that take place upstairs at my workplace, or of playing a DVD at home, and have taken advantage of neither.
Thing Five: Get involved in UU church. If I can't make the services (Sundays, 11 a.m., less than 2 miles away), join one of the umpty-million committees. They even have a Committee Committee, I shit you not (although they call it the "Committee Council," which I think is a Committee Cop-Out.)
Thing Six: Learn how to roast a chicken. (We get rotisserie chickens rather often, and I want to see if I can do it better, or as well.)
Thing Seven: Do some pro bono legal work. (Oh the drama! This will be like pulling teeth but it HAS to be done if I ever want to get a job as a lawyer. Which is not a question I can answer quickly or without crying.)
Thing Eight: Blog more regularly. Consider Tweeting, if only so I can respond to the people I read.
Thing Nine: Learn to deal with money anxiety. (Translation: learn to deal with, and not procrastinate on, student loan paperwork. See parethenses after Thing Seven.)
Thing Ten: Learn how to speak honestly and not freak out about whether people will like me afterwards. Unless I am talking to Spouse, a close family member, or a friend I feel truly safe with (this rarely happens, and is not so much a commentary on my friends as on my hangups), I repress. A LOT. (Spouse would pipe up here and say, "And then you come home and bitch at me about it!" Which is true.)
See, there have been a few occasions lately where I have spoken up, or been assertive, or at least not been a marshmallow, and it seems to inevitably Bite Me in the Ass, Hard. And I'm not sure what message I'm supposed to learn from that. One might think it would be about Thinking Before I Speak, or even Shhhhh, but I so rarely say what I'm really feeling, outside a therapeutic context (and even inside one sometimes, I'm ashamed to admit), and my self-worth is so desperately low, and has been for years and years, that I cannot believe that the takeaway is STFU. That would be nuts. I think maybe the takeaway is, "People are going to flip out no matter how carefully you phrase your truth, so you might as well JUST SAY IT and develop some self-protective behaviors so you don't flip out when they do." Or something like that.
I can't fret about this ending, because FUDGE, I have to leave for work in 20 minutes, and today's a shampoo day. Aieeee.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
And so I rise
*begin angry rant*
Hey world! Guess what I had for breakfast? Toast, with actual carbs! And butter! Gorsh, I must be deeply unhappy with the world and my place in it. And the fact that the toast came from a loaf I actually baked? Aieeee, no wonder I'm morbidly obese! I have Issues with Flour! Somebody call somebody!
Please, Internet, tell me all the reasons I should hate myself and my body! Because I don't know how awful I look in clothes! Or how many years I'm taking off my life! Or all the Big Scary diseases I'm sure to develop! This is exactly the information I need to get motivated about Lifestyle Changes! I'm gonna go get one of those "30 Day Shred" DVDs RIGHT NOW, because you cared enough to tell me you don't want to sit next to me on an airplane! Thanks for caring about my "health," as you so euphemistically put it!
*shaking head* *end rant*
I should add that said toast was also garnished with honey, from a jar I received from my dearest friend, who was visiting from northern California and is a beekeeper in his spare time. The honey is incredibly complex in flavor; it's definitely sweet, but there are other notes in there as well. I'll have to work on describing it. It'd be great in savory applications, I bet.
This Christmas I actually got most of the baking done that I wanted to do, or at least all of the baking that was on deadline, for our families and a couple friends. Between last year (when I didn't do any baking, because I sliced a major finger open), and this year's Thanksgiving (when, at 2:00 in the morning, half of Dad's apple Bundt cake elected to stay in the pan), I guess some sort of vindication was in order.
*ahem* There were six kinds of cookies and two different breads. I made double batches of chewy chocolate chip, white chocolate-macadamia nut, and World Peace cookies. Most of the World Peace cookies (a.k.a. PMS Cookies, a.k.a. Chocolate Salty Balls) were eaten by me, since they came out looking like "cow pies," as one observer put it. Even if they were pretty I doubt many would have made it out of the house. (Issues!)
I made a pan of raspberry bars, mostly because with this recipe*, they are very satisfying to make: you take the shortbread dough and chill it in logs, and once they are good and cold, you shred the logs into the pan, using the big holes of a grater. So the dough ends up looking exactly like mozzarella cheese. Then you spoon out a jar of raspberry preserves, and then another layer of dough. Trying to even out brownie batter with a spatula makes me nuts, so I really love this approach. It's the kind of "Shred" I can actually accomplish. (Seriously, I'm done. Promise.)
I made a regular batch of oatmeal raisin with golden raisins, because my regular raisins were in brick form. And I finally busted out the pizzelle maker I got from Dad last year, which was actually kind of fun. Pizzelles are Italian cookies made on a device similar to a waffle iron. They actually taste a lot like waffle ice cream cones, and could conceiveably be rolled into cones themselves, but I haven't had the nerve to try that yet. My Italian grandmother was known for mailing out huge, insured packages of pizzelles and other goodies several times a year, and one summer when we were visiting I got to help her make them.
There were also 3 challah braids and two loaves of wheat bread. The wheat bread came out really well. I started it at 8 one evening so it didn't come out of the oven until (sensing a pattern here) 2:00 a.m., but the house smelled insanely good. ("Worth it!" she declared triumphantly, with BBC news on the radio and dough stuck in her hair.) I need to make bread more often, as Spouse loves the challah but all 3 were spoken for, and I really do like making it. My braids always look lumpy and frumpy at first but then they rise for another hour and even themselves out.
________________________________________
*Please note that mine do NOT come out perfectly distributed, like the ones pictured. Sheesh.
Hey world! Guess what I had for breakfast? Toast, with actual carbs! And butter! Gorsh, I must be deeply unhappy with the world and my place in it. And the fact that the toast came from a loaf I actually baked? Aieeee, no wonder I'm morbidly obese! I have Issues with Flour! Somebody call somebody!
Please, Internet, tell me all the reasons I should hate myself and my body! Because I don't know how awful I look in clothes! Or how many years I'm taking off my life! Or all the Big Scary diseases I'm sure to develop! This is exactly the information I need to get motivated about Lifestyle Changes! I'm gonna go get one of those "30 Day Shred" DVDs RIGHT NOW, because you cared enough to tell me you don't want to sit next to me on an airplane! Thanks for caring about my "health," as you so euphemistically put it!
*shaking head* *end rant*
I should add that said toast was also garnished with honey, from a jar I received from my dearest friend, who was visiting from northern California and is a beekeeper in his spare time. The honey is incredibly complex in flavor; it's definitely sweet, but there are other notes in there as well. I'll have to work on describing it. It'd be great in savory applications, I bet.
This Christmas I actually got most of the baking done that I wanted to do, or at least all of the baking that was on deadline, for our families and a couple friends. Between last year (when I didn't do any baking, because I sliced a major finger open), and this year's Thanksgiving (when, at 2:00 in the morning, half of Dad's apple Bundt cake elected to stay in the pan), I guess some sort of vindication was in order.
*ahem* There were six kinds of cookies and two different breads. I made double batches of chewy chocolate chip, white chocolate-macadamia nut, and World Peace cookies. Most of the World Peace cookies (a.k.a. PMS Cookies, a.k.a. Chocolate Salty Balls) were eaten by me, since they came out looking like "cow pies," as one observer put it. Even if they were pretty I doubt many would have made it out of the house. (Issues!)
I made a pan of raspberry bars, mostly because with this recipe*, they are very satisfying to make: you take the shortbread dough and chill it in logs, and once they are good and cold, you shred the logs into the pan, using the big holes of a grater. So the dough ends up looking exactly like mozzarella cheese. Then you spoon out a jar of raspberry preserves, and then another layer of dough. Trying to even out brownie batter with a spatula makes me nuts, so I really love this approach. It's the kind of "Shred" I can actually accomplish. (Seriously, I'm done. Promise.)
I made a regular batch of oatmeal raisin with golden raisins, because my regular raisins were in brick form. And I finally busted out the pizzelle maker I got from Dad last year, which was actually kind of fun. Pizzelles are Italian cookies made on a device similar to a waffle iron. They actually taste a lot like waffle ice cream cones, and could conceiveably be rolled into cones themselves, but I haven't had the nerve to try that yet. My Italian grandmother was known for mailing out huge, insured packages of pizzelles and other goodies several times a year, and one summer when we were visiting I got to help her make them.
There were also 3 challah braids and two loaves of wheat bread. The wheat bread came out really well. I started it at 8 one evening so it didn't come out of the oven until (sensing a pattern here) 2:00 a.m., but the house smelled insanely good. ("Worth it!" she declared triumphantly, with BBC news on the radio and dough stuck in her hair.) I need to make bread more often, as Spouse loves the challah but all 3 were spoken for, and I really do like making it. My braids always look lumpy and frumpy at first but then they rise for another hour and even themselves out.
________________________________________
*Please note that mine do NOT come out perfectly distributed, like the ones pictured. Sheesh.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Why am I surprised that I already have a category for that?
Wheeeee! What else can I do to procrastinate on Christmas Cheer? I know, I'll blog something!
I have printed out one million recipes and have to go through and make lists of what absolutely has to get made, what will have to wait for later, and what will be tossed altogether on account of being too fussy.
And blah blah blah, I know I will feel so much better if I Just Get Started. I hate this aspect of myself. This is what I always do when I feel overwhelmed by too many things on my list: wait until the last minute. Then it doesn't matter if the cookies (or the take-home exam, in a past life, or the student loan paperwork, or the house chores) aren't done absolutely perfectly--it simply matters that they get done.
Work continues to be dysfunctional, full of petty hurts and whispered conversations and other paper cuts, and yet: me working, just part-time, not for any major bucks, has rather transformed our marriage. It's kind of freaky, and it makes me cling to the job that much harder despite the psychodrama. But nowadays, when we both come home more nights than not exhausted and brain-dead, for some reason, we get along so much better--so much so that if it comes down to it and I find myself having to find some other not-law job, I will do it, in a heartbeat.
Or maybe I will start doing the schmoozing, volunteering, mass resume mailing, and other things one has to do to get networked in the legal community here. That's the real answer. I keep waiting for my dream job to land in my lap and that's not going to happen without legwork on my part. Well, it's more head-work than anything else: getting over the last several years, or if not getting over 'em, getting to a point where I can discuss my "career," such as it is, without needing to cry afterward (or during).
Arrgh. But! I can procrastinate on Career Crap by NOT procrastinating on Christmas Cra--er, y'know, Cheer, Christmas Cheer. Well then! Off to deal with my kitchen!
I have printed out one million recipes and have to go through and make lists of what absolutely has to get made, what will have to wait for later, and what will be tossed altogether on account of being too fussy.
And blah blah blah, I know I will feel so much better if I Just Get Started. I hate this aspect of myself. This is what I always do when I feel overwhelmed by too many things on my list: wait until the last minute. Then it doesn't matter if the cookies (or the take-home exam, in a past life, or the student loan paperwork, or the house chores) aren't done absolutely perfectly--it simply matters that they get done.
Work continues to be dysfunctional, full of petty hurts and whispered conversations and other paper cuts, and yet: me working, just part-time, not for any major bucks, has rather transformed our marriage. It's kind of freaky, and it makes me cling to the job that much harder despite the psychodrama. But nowadays, when we both come home more nights than not exhausted and brain-dead, for some reason, we get along so much better--so much so that if it comes down to it and I find myself having to find some other not-law job, I will do it, in a heartbeat.
Or maybe I will start doing the schmoozing, volunteering, mass resume mailing, and other things one has to do to get networked in the legal community here. That's the real answer. I keep waiting for my dream job to land in my lap and that's not going to happen without legwork on my part. Well, it's more head-work than anything else: getting over the last several years, or if not getting over 'em, getting to a point where I can discuss my "career," such as it is, without needing to cry afterward (or during).
Arrgh. But! I can procrastinate on Career Crap by NOT procrastinating on Christmas Cra--er, y'know, Cheer, Christmas Cheer. Well then! Off to deal with my kitchen!
Monday, November 23, 2009
Stuff it
[Ed. note: Thanks to Swistle for the encouragement that got me back here.]
I am in a bit of a tailspin about several things, some more serious than others.
-A friend got me a part-time temporary gig doing reception. It has done me a world of good to spend more time out of the house and to earn a bit of pocket money. However, the adjustment was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and it remains surprisingly stressful. Spouse was overjoyed when I began coming home in a zombie-like state, frequently holding out a bag of fast food ("Chicken fingerrrrrrs!"), because it drives him nuts when he comes home exhausted and I'm all boingy and hyper and eager to talk to a person instead of the radio.
-A few months ago I joined the local Unitarian Universalist church, which has been really great. Through there I got to be friends with a bunch of people who are into paganism, a religion I was sort of interested in. I have since figured out that paganism, at least in the community I fell into, involves a shit-ton of attendant drama, not to mention stigma in the wider world, and for me it's just not worth it. I am trying to figure out how to continue to spend time with the folks I really like, without roping myself into a potluck dinner every other week, without endangering my employability, and without feeling bad for lacking props and costumes.
-I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with my law degree. I came across a ten-question quiz in a book I was reading about alternative careers for lawyers. Those answering even one question in the affirmative are advised to "seriously reconsider using your degree to actually practice law." I answered EVERY SINGLE QUESTION in the affirmative. Ordinarily I'd go off on this at length but I spent most of the weekend crying about it. Besides:
-It's freaking Thanksgiving! Tomorrow after work I will do a major shopping run and buy baking potatoes, trimmings for said potatoes, "stuff for salad," and whatever I need for whatever Bundt cake I decide to make for Dad's birthday. My brother will be doing steaks. That will be Wednesday night.
In preparation for Thursday, I will also get stuffing stuff, and if I get really crazy, cornbread stuff, since I actually have the requisite skillet now.
We still have to decide whether to go to my mom's house or to his sister's house. Both families know that I agonize about this every year, and have told us not to worry if we can't make it to both.
Hearing that, Spouse suggested we get takeout Peking duck and eat at our house, by ourselves, with neither family being the wiser. I'm seriously considering it.
I am in a bit of a tailspin about several things, some more serious than others.
-A friend got me a part-time temporary gig doing reception. It has done me a world of good to spend more time out of the house and to earn a bit of pocket money. However, the adjustment was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and it remains surprisingly stressful. Spouse was overjoyed when I began coming home in a zombie-like state, frequently holding out a bag of fast food ("Chicken fingerrrrrrs!"), because it drives him nuts when he comes home exhausted and I'm all boingy and hyper and eager to talk to a person instead of the radio.
-A few months ago I joined the local Unitarian Universalist church, which has been really great. Through there I got to be friends with a bunch of people who are into paganism, a religion I was sort of interested in. I have since figured out that paganism, at least in the community I fell into, involves a shit-ton of attendant drama, not to mention stigma in the wider world, and for me it's just not worth it. I am trying to figure out how to continue to spend time with the folks I really like, without roping myself into a potluck dinner every other week, without endangering my employability, and without feeling bad for lacking props and costumes.
-I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with my law degree. I came across a ten-question quiz in a book I was reading about alternative careers for lawyers. Those answering even one question in the affirmative are advised to "seriously reconsider using your degree to actually practice law." I answered EVERY SINGLE QUESTION in the affirmative. Ordinarily I'd go off on this at length but I spent most of the weekend crying about it. Besides:
-It's freaking Thanksgiving! Tomorrow after work I will do a major shopping run and buy baking potatoes, trimmings for said potatoes, "stuff for salad," and whatever I need for whatever Bundt cake I decide to make for Dad's birthday. My brother will be doing steaks. That will be Wednesday night.
In preparation for Thursday, I will also get stuffing stuff, and if I get really crazy, cornbread stuff, since I actually have the requisite skillet now.
We still have to decide whether to go to my mom's house or to his sister's house. Both families know that I agonize about this every year, and have told us not to worry if we can't make it to both.
Hearing that, Spouse suggested we get takeout Peking duck and eat at our house, by ourselves, with neither family being the wiser. I'm seriously considering it.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
technical difficulties, some with sub-parts
Various problemos of the last little while:
1. Sunday afternoon, Monday evening, and this morning have all featured a special guest appearance by...a roach. (Not the same one, mind you, unless reincarnation works incredibly quickly. Yeeesh.) This wouldn't be that big a deal except a) it freaks Spouse the heck out, b) the bug guy just came for his quarterly visit three weeks ago, and c) it necessitates major housecleaning.
2. In dermatological news, Spouse had an actual scary infection on his chest, where he'd had a mole removed. He seems to be on the mend and has a follow-up Wednesday. I went in yesterday and had two thingies removed, one big bumpy mole I've had my whole life, and a weird bump on the top of my left foot. I was very careful not to watch, and couldn't feel anything because I was nicely numbed, but the foot thing seemed to require some serious, uh, yanking. Both thingies are on their way to a lab to be tested; I'm actually not worried about it, but who knows.
3. Our money situation suddenly became Not a Crisis, But Not Good Either. I never heard anything from the Other Public Defender Office, and it especially sucks for that reason. I seriously have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing, career-wise, but we're at the point where I need to expand my search beyond lawyer jobs. Not to fast food necessarily, but to something.
4. Under the heading of getting involved in social stuff, I ramped up my involvement in a couple of things and have said yes to too much. I've gone from having a really open schedule and very few responsibilities to what feels like Way Too Much, and it's freaking me out. One of the responsibilities involves actual legal research and I can't get into the program my state bar membership is supposed to buy me (and that's freaking me out). All this will ease up in a huge way after Saturday, though.
But there are happy things, too: I've lost 20 pounds over the last 6 months; Father's Day was really good; Saturday I had a very nice dinner out with Mom and my grandmother (during which I got slightly buzzed, remarking "Man, I need to drink wine more often, because I feel a heck of a lot better than I did this afternoon!"); and Spouse and I are getting along pretty darned well considering all of the above. As always I have tons to be grateful for. I am working hard at focusing on positive stuff, and on looking ahead as opposed to looking back. And when I remember to do it, it really helps a lot.
1. Sunday afternoon, Monday evening, and this morning have all featured a special guest appearance by...a roach. (Not the same one, mind you, unless reincarnation works incredibly quickly. Yeeesh.) This wouldn't be that big a deal except a) it freaks Spouse the heck out, b) the bug guy just came for his quarterly visit three weeks ago, and c) it necessitates major housecleaning.
2. In dermatological news, Spouse had an actual scary infection on his chest, where he'd had a mole removed. He seems to be on the mend and has a follow-up Wednesday. I went in yesterday and had two thingies removed, one big bumpy mole I've had my whole life, and a weird bump on the top of my left foot. I was very careful not to watch, and couldn't feel anything because I was nicely numbed, but the foot thing seemed to require some serious, uh, yanking. Both thingies are on their way to a lab to be tested; I'm actually not worried about it, but who knows.
3. Our money situation suddenly became Not a Crisis, But Not Good Either. I never heard anything from the Other Public Defender Office, and it especially sucks for that reason. I seriously have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing, career-wise, but we're at the point where I need to expand my search beyond lawyer jobs. Not to fast food necessarily, but to something.
4. Under the heading of getting involved in social stuff, I ramped up my involvement in a couple of things and have said yes to too much. I've gone from having a really open schedule and very few responsibilities to what feels like Way Too Much, and it's freaking me out. One of the responsibilities involves actual legal research and I can't get into the program my state bar membership is supposed to buy me (and that's freaking me out). All this will ease up in a huge way after Saturday, though.
But there are happy things, too: I've lost 20 pounds over the last 6 months; Father's Day was really good; Saturday I had a very nice dinner out with Mom and my grandmother (during which I got slightly buzzed, remarking "Man, I need to drink wine more often, because I feel a heck of a lot better than I did this afternoon!"); and Spouse and I are getting along pretty darned well considering all of the above. As always I have tons to be grateful for. I am working hard at focusing on positive stuff, and on looking ahead as opposed to looking back. And when I remember to do it, it really helps a lot.
Monday, June 15, 2009
The Holy Grail of Pink and Cute
Okay, this entry is all happy stuff! No sad trombones or horrible shootings here! [Ed. note: Bring A. Torch had another job interview, at another public defender office, a couple weeks ago. She hasn't heard anything yet and is about to jump out of her skin. Please bear with her as she tries valiantly to cheer herself up.]
Spouse has been admirably sweet, and has given me three celebrity-related compliments lately. Let's review!
Spouse has been admirably sweet, and has given me three celebrity-related compliments lately. Let's review!
- The first: After I got my hair done, in a bob that is pretty close to how I've always wanted it, he said approvingly, "You remind me of Charlize Theron in...something, I can't remember what," which turned out to be Aeon Flux.
- The second: He and I were in our computer cave, him WOW-ing and me
playing cheesy Flash gamescatching up on The Economist. I was streaming audio from an awesome alternative station and "Stupid Girl" by Garbage came on. I said, "Hey, I bet you'd like this band. They're kinda techno." That got no response, but this did: "They're fronted by this really hot redhead." Spouse requested evidence. After viewing the image search results: "You're way cuter." - The third was when I was
comparing myself to mega-mommybloggers, when I am not a mommy and barely even a bloggermaking droll observations about current events: He called me "Dave Barry in a skirt." I was floored. I still can't believe he said that.
Last weekend I had me a project: putting together a care package, with the theme of PINK! and CUTE! This included a trip to Tuesday Morning, which is like Ross or T.J. Maxx, but primarily housewares as opposed to clothes. The pickings there can be excellent, rotten, or just plain bizarre. (I actually almost bought that thing for a mom friend, but something told me to test it, and Grover popped out looking mournful and like he might be about to hurl some Super chunks.) Frequently you find something that would be ideal for So-and-So, except there's a button missing, or a suspicious-looking stain, or the box looks like it's been run over by a truck. So it was completely amazing that right when my legs reminded me I'd been standing for too long, when I was desperately pawing through the stuffed animals, I found the Holy Grail of Pink and Cute: a Hello Kitty! I was bouncing off the walls when I got home. (Spouse: "Okay, you're DONE shopping now, right?")
I got so into it, I even did up the box--I cut out a star, a heart, and a kitty face out of shiny pink paper (75 cents, people!), and just covered the edges of everything with clear packing tape. (Kitty face = 2 up-pointing triangles for ears, 3 down-pointing ones for eyes and a nose, and then 6 long pointy whiskers. Spouse assured me that it was recognizably feline. I'm kicking myself for not having taken a picture, as it really turned out cool. (Too frequently my attempts at anything resembling home repair or craftiness involve frustrating results for whatever the project is, and first aid for me.) Even better, I checked today and saw the package made it there in 4 days, when the postal worker warned me it'd take 2 weeks. That made me happy.
This weekend's project was painting two coffee cans, so I can plant stuff in 'em. It has been really hard to spread the acrylic out evenly while still providing good coverage, but that may have something to do with the cheapass foam brushes I bought. I hope I have enough paint to finish up, as the expenditures are rapidly approaching what I would've spent just buying two flippin' more little pots. But they're bright blue and cheery and look surprisingly okay so far. HANDY SAFETY TIP: Carefully inspect the lip of each can for pointy spots before poking around inside; one of mine bit me when I was washing it out! Spouse did something with pliers to make it safe, and was also responsible for poking drainage holes, as I am not allowed to play with sharp objects while he's around.
Friday, May 22, 2009
And it was still hot
This is a blog made by the people responsible for the film of Where the Wild Things Are, that I found when Juniper and Gram's dad linked to it. And here is an absolute gem of a video of President Obama reading the book to a crowd, with his family looking on.
Let me repeat that: The President of the United States, a black man, is shown reading from a beloved, subversive children's book, written and illustrated by a gay man, on what I assume is the White House lawn. This is amazing to me.
Sometime during the 1992 campaign, there was a poll asking who folks would rather have watch their kids, George H. W. Bush or Bill Clinton. Then-Governor Clinton won by a healthy margin, if I recall correctly. I was reminded of that poll watching the President read with obvious facility, peering at the upside-down words from above, making faces and growls where called for with no hesitation at all. In other words: he has read this book to the girls, a LOT.
This to me is more comforting than a pot of tea and a plate of gingersnaps.
Let me repeat that: The President of the United States, a black man, is shown reading from a beloved, subversive children's book, written and illustrated by a gay man, on what I assume is the White House lawn. This is amazing to me.
Sometime during the 1992 campaign, there was a poll asking who folks would rather have watch their kids, George H. W. Bush or Bill Clinton. Then-Governor Clinton won by a healthy margin, if I recall correctly. I was reminded of that poll watching the President read with obvious facility, peering at the upside-down words from above, making faces and growls where called for with no hesitation at all. In other words: he has read this book to the girls, a LOT.
This to me is more comforting than a pot of tea and a plate of gingersnaps.
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