Thanksgiving is upon us yet again, and I’m currently at work hoping that we will soon get an email saying “LEAVE. NOW. EVERYONE. GOBBLE GOBBLE.” So far, no luck.
I was taking a look at my Thanksgiving post from last year, and I must say: not a whole lot has changed. I’m still thankful for all of that good stuff (like goat cheese and Michael Franti and not being pregnant). Yesterday in my Pilates class, while we were doing a move called “the teaser,” the instructor asked us to think only of things we were thankful for. No bad thoughts like “hot DAMN this is hard!” I thought that was kind of sweet.
This year I’ll be spending Thanksgiving here in DC with Kelsey and a couple other lovely people, and we are forgoing the traditional feast-and-family route in favor of Korean spas and fancy dinners. I’ll let you know how that goes.
While we’re at it, I’ve gotta confess: World, I am thankful for Jason Segel. Even though I’m very NOT thankful that he pulled this stunt at the Swell Season concert in LA rather than the one in DC. Asshole.
Eat lots of delicious things tomorrow, and be happy about all you’ve got going for you. Gobble gobble!
Oh, hello. Me again. Since the real job is getting in the way of my bloggy job, I’ve condensed a week’s worth of what I liked into one fabulous Friday post. Does that work for you? I sure hope so!
You all know how much I love stories about sci-fi weirdos (apparently the cool way to spell it now is SyFy. Anybody else notice that the Sci-Fi Channel changed its spelling?). Well, here’s a good one! Computational linguistics expert d’Armond Speers spoke only Klingon to his son for the first three years of the boy’s life. Ummm, WHAT? He claims it was an experiment to see if his son would learn it like any normal human language in the early developmental stages.
He just confirmed what every child already knows– you are an experiment, and your parents are trying to corrupt you and make you as uncool as possible.
As for Speers, who still gets nostalgic when he recalls singing the Klingon lullaby “May the Empire Endure” with his son at bedtime, the experiment was a dud. His son is now in high school and doesn’t speak a word of Klingon.
Stay strong, young Speers!
Like any good yuppie bleeding-heart liberal, I have an iPhone. We all know that there is an app for everything, but this new one is so hilarious and wonderful that I have to share it with you. It’s totally politically nerdy, but it’s a bobble head guide to every single member of Congress. Here is my favorite member of Congress:
Best 99 cents I’ve ever spent. Download Bobble Rep.
Speaking of politics, lots of good stuff going on, eh? Lieberman sucks more than ever and the women’s movement took two steps back no thanks to Rep. Stupak.
I also remain perplexed as to how people can manipulate the messages of Christianity in light of healthcare reform. To me, it seems that giving a little extra so our brothers and sisters will be able to be healthy and able to succeed in life is following that message. Yet even the Christian right wing (like my girrrrrrl, Michele Bachman) has condemned it as communism, fascism, Marxism and any other ism you can imagine that probably doesn’t make sense. Grrr.
Hey, speaking of Christianity– I know people are complaining about how early it’s coming, but sweet Jesus I love Christmastime. And I love the new Gap ads! Add being a Gap backup dancer to my bucketlist, right after being a Fanta Girl and a dancing iPod shadow.
Sigh.
In other news, Oprah is ending her show in 2011. I’m not too upset about this. She’s going to have her own TV station in 2011, and she’ll have 25 years of her show in syndication so I really don’t see the big deal. They’ll still be enough of O’s wisdom to go around.
Oh, and just in time for a junky fastfood lunch:
But you know where you should really go? Chipotle.
Okay, I think that’s it for now. Miss me, because I miss you.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my best friend’s birthday! Her name is Kelsey, and sometimes she wears earmuffs with party dresses:
And that, among many, many other things, is why I love her.
Something I don’t love is oysters. I just discovered that today. I was convinced to try an oyster from the Sustainable Oyster Dude at Whole Foods (how do you like THEM samples), and even though I was skeptical, I was in a brave mood. I’m not a big shellfish person because, um, ew. We made lots of jokes about shooting it back — but not like vodka, haha! — and squeezing the lemon on the oyster — but not like you bite a lemon with tequila, haha! — and then I shot that oyster back and only the nasty juice came out, with some chunks of the shell. YUM. I was shell-shocked (pun originally not intended, but retrospectively fully intended) and feeling queasy, but I grabbed a plastic fork and ate that nasty little piece of oyster meat because I’M NOT A QUITTER. And now I want to throw up. The Sustainable Oyster Dude did not enjoy my jokes about needing a LOT of vodka or tequila before I do that again. He recommend a dry white wine. Some people are no fun.
Kelsey is not one of those people. She’s one of the fun ones, thank goodness. For that, among many, many other things, let’s wish Kelsey a happy birthday. Yay!
My biology lovin’ boyfriend had tried to get me to watch this video for about a month. Each time he asked me if I’d watched it yet, I’d give some legitimate excuse, like “I’m so sorry, I just don’t have 5 minutes to spare in my unemployed day.”
Well, when I had run out of excuses and finally watched it, I was amazed…just as he promised I would be. The part where the octopus literally transforms himself (I guess its a him? How sexist of me) into the coral is so cool. I know it starts off somewhat slow, but watch it through to the end – I swear.
The website is also an interesting concept. This is an excerpt from the “About TED” page, because they said it better than me.
“TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year’s TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.”
Another bonus, checking out this website makes me feel intellectual again.
On my walk to the metro this morning, I spotted a tall, slighty scruffy-faced boy wearing low-top Chucks with nice work pants and pulling it off. I decided right then and there that I wanted to marry him, so I gave him a good stare, just so he knew. Then — in my head, obviously — I had a conversation with him about what music we were both listening to. Do you ever do that? Imagine someone striking up a conversation about what you’re listening to? I do it a lot, and my hypothetical level of coolness fluctuates wildly from day to day. Some days I’m all “Ooh, I HOPE someone asks me today so I can tell them I’m listening to Cloud Cult, which means I’m alternative and cool.” Other days, I think I should probably be ready to scroll back a few songs in case someone pops the question. “Taylor Swift, haha, silly iTunes Shuffle. What was before that? Oh, Coldplay, um, and before that? ‘Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)’? Where did that come from??*” And then I’d awkwardly laugh and walk away.
Not that anyone’s ever actually stopped and asked me what I’m listening to. Sigh.
In other news, on Monday I went out to happy hour and realized that I left my ID at work. The waiter was being strict but luckily, I only lived two blocks away and was able to run home (bitterly, of course) to get my passport. This morning I found my ID buried in the pocket in my wallet where it’s supposed to be, juuust deep enough that it looked like the pocket was empty. Son of a bitch.
Also. You know how when you were little, you were told that if you put the plastic rings that hold pop cans (or “soda” cans, as the kids say) together directly into the trash/recycle bin, the dolphins would strangle themselves in the holes and die? Is that true? Because I totally still cut every individual hole and think about all the dolphins I’m saving.
*I’m kidding here, of course. If I ever found a man who loved “Aaron’s Party” as much as I do, I’d propose on the spot.
Because we watched this video in one of my classes and it was so happy/sad that I had to try really hard to not cry too noticeably:
One Christmas Eve, my mom was boarding an airplane, and the guy taking tickets hugged every single person as they got on the plane. Strangely, not a single person resisted or seemed to think it was weird, and everyone was a little happier after that. Sometimes, I just really love people, don’t you?
Don't bother sending compliments. I already know I'm a phenomenal artist.
Wanna hear some random thoughts I have? Great!
A good way to pace yourself when eating is to eat something that’s both absurdly spicy and absurdly (temperature) hot. It’s also a good way to make your mouth hurt like shit.
So remember the overpriced umbrella I bought from Anthropologie because I didn’t have a functioning one and I was having a bad day and dammit I needed a cute umbrella? Well, yeah, I lost that one in a bar the day after I bought it. I bought ANOTHER cute, overpriced umbrella from The Gap the other day and after three days of use, I left it in a cab. And today I discovered that I lost my water bottle somewhere between all of the millions of places I went on Tuesday. Now, these are all small things in the grand scheme of things, but REALLY? Is it REALLY necessary for me to lose 140 things in a row? No one likes to lose things, but when I lose something it stresses me out to the point that I can’t think about anything else until 1) I cain’t think about it no mo’ or 2) I replace the thing I bought. But see, I can’t buy another umbrella, because then I will just lose it. (And no, the DC Cab Commission has not found my umbrella, nor has anyone on Craigslist. What are these services FOR, if not helping me find my umbrella?!!)
Today as I was leaving swim practice and feeling all tired and parched because I didn’t have any water to drink because I lost my water bottle, I was talking on the phone with ex-roomie Miss Potter. Then a gust of wind blew by and flipped my umbrella (the cheap plain-colored one that I have to use in emergencies) inside out. I was carrying a large bag and attempting to hold my cell phone to my ear and the wind was still blowing, so flipping the umbrella back to its natural state was proving, er, difficult. And then — AND THEN — a kind stranger (probably a drunk college boy) flipped it back for me! How nice was that? I mean, okay, maybe he’s not Mother Teresa, but that made me rull happy. There are good people in the world. I just wish one of those good people would find my umbrella. And my water bottle. Sigh.
Officemate E.Lee’s boyfriend is officiating his best friend’s wedding this weekend, and he is going to read his favorite poem at the wedding. This is the poem, and I lurve it:
Poem to Old Friends Who Have Never Met
When I’m not wishing I could find a unicorn
I wish all our old friends knew each other
The very least they deserve
is the pleasure of each other’s company
We’d go down by the river
and the rocks would hum
with this rich collection of men & women
They would look around and see themselves
no longer isolated
no longer points in the darkness pointing nowhere
but as links in a magnificent chain of
impossible flowers
girdling the world and their talk
(they are all talkers)
would burst like spray in the sunlight
and I would smile
saying nothing
with a bottle of beer in my hand
and a small white bird banging in my heart
By Peter Meinke
From The Contracted World (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006)
That’s enough random thoughts for now. I know I missed the Veterans Day Google Holiday yesterday (and all of the Sesame Street ones after the Big Bird one), but yay for all of those!
This video is just plain terrifying. The completely plastered woman in the video stumbles off a Boston train platform and falls onto the tracks. Being too drunk to process that she is in extreme danger, she just lies there. Passerbys on the platform wave frantically to the incoming train, because the conductor can’t see that the woman has fallen. The conductor can tell something is seriously wrong and puts the brakes on early. The train stops literally on top of the woman, but miraculously doesn’t hit her.
When interviewed, the train conductor said she didn’t do anything heroic – just that she followed emergency procedure. While she couldn’t tell exactly what was wrong, she sensed it was something serious by the way the people on the platform were attempting to signal her and how they were standing so far beyond the yellow line. I wonder if this brush with death will inspire drunk lady to lay off the sauce.
I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to watch a movie more than once (in my lifetime), unless Ireally like it. Movies that I’ve actually watched and enjoyed multiple times include Good Will Hunting, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Lizzie McGuire Movie…you know, the classics. Then this one time, back over a winter break in college when all I had to do was lie on my couch at home and get yelled at for eating too many pretzels (as opposed to now, when I go home for winter break and get yelled at for eating too many pretzels AND using too much profanity on my blog), I rented a movie called Once. I probably intended to watch it with my mom, and she probably fell asleep reading a magazine four minutes into the credits. The next day, when everyone was “at work,” and I was, you know, “figuring out what I wanted to do with my life,” I watched Once. And then I watched it again. And then I watched it a third time, this time with actor commentary.
As someone who doesn’t like to watch movies more than once, this was HUGE. I mean I watched the thing three times in a row! And it’s sort of kind of a musical, which is even huger because I almost always hate musicals! I promptly emailed all of my friends and insisted that they see this movie immediately.
Long story short, I really love Once, and the movie made me love Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. Tonight, I finally got to see them in concert, and they were spectacular, which is to say that both the performance and Glen’s beard were top notch. I mean, who doesn’t love a great ginger beard?
Exactly.
Anyway, tonight was lovely and I got to dress like a faux hipster (though SOME of my friends claim that maybe I looked like a full hipster, if one were to assume that my flowery J.Crew headband was ironic) and you guys should listen to this, because they played it well tonight:
To quote the Clancy Brothers, goodnight and joy be with you all.
six words to change the world. 