Grocery shopping in Malad

(featuring my driver's ed teacher.)

Quickly...

Why is my blog blue?

Mom was always trying to get grandma to move in with her girlfriends

I love this piece in Slate today...

It aired at 9 p.m., between 227 and The Facts of Life, two other gynocentric comedies, the one celebrating the role of women in holding communities together, the other inculcating a fetish for prep-school girls. But The Golden Girls—about a group of older women sharing a Miami house designed like a multichamber sunroom—trafficked in something like pop feminism, and it's terrifically apt that Arthur played the Carrie Bradshaw figure in a sketch deftly spoofing on Sex and the City.

...Golden Girls boasted characters who were sharp in their humor and secure in their freedoms, which included the freedom to be mean. The show's most biting laugh lines—which are shaped so well that these scripts would work for radio—achieve that ideal bitchiness animating The Women.

I hated this show when it was actually on, but, in syndication, when I had mysterious free cable and could watch four episodes a day, I fell into a weird sort of post-cancellation fan trance--it's one of the things that got me through grad school. That explains why there were so many kitchen table scenes in my plays (except that I would replace the cheesecake with bourbon; now I'm back to cheesecake again). It was my first GG. You all know (I think) what #2 and #3 are.

"I had a baby."

From Sara Levine's awesome new story. Yep. This is pretty much what it's like:

I had a baby.

“Why’d you have to have a baby?” Denny wanted to know. “There are so many babies on this block already. You know this neighborhood’s really changing. First the Starbucks and then we got a Gap.”

Good Jim

McManus in Paper Cuts. He's working on a new poker book:

I’m in the copy-editing/fact-checking/caption-writing stage of “Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker,” a longish account of America’s, and lately the world’s, favorite card game. It will be published by FSG in October.

Gloria Steinem won't be going hunting any time soon

“The idea of retiring is as foreign to me,” she says, “as the idea of going hunting.”

That's Gloria Steinem, sunglass-sporting cover girl of 70s feminism. She's 75, and for her birthday, the NY Daily News gave her a point-by-point status report on the movement she led (equal pay? still not there yet. sex education? abstinence ed still on the rise). Can I have a report card for my next birthday?

I was just saying to Paul today that I'm noticing more stories about feminism lately. Maybe it's just that I spend too much time reading Brainstorm and Jezebel. Here's a forward step for women. And another ("It's gonna take a lot more than a can of salsa to break me down!")

Publicola

I've always been the book nerd, but now I'm actually the Booknerd.

Dedication

I'm on a weird kick this morning of rummaging through dedications.

from The 13 Clocks:
To Jap and Helen Gude
who have broken more than one spell
cast upon the author by a witch or wizard,
this book is warmly dedicated.

from City of Ashes (book 2 in The Mortal Instruments, a YA vampire series):
For my father, who is not evil. Well, maybe a little bit.

from Rise Up
Mine.

from Franny and Zooey:
As nearly as possible in the spirit of Matthew Salinger, age one, urging a luncheon companion to accept a cool lima bean, I urge my editor, mentor and (heaven help him) closest friend, William Shawn, genius domus of The New Yorker, lover of the long shot, protector of the unprolific, defender of the hopelessly flamboyant, most unreasonably modest of born great artist-editors, to accept this pretty skimpy-looking book.

How are you, Monsieur Lévy?

This morning Silas and I were out at Magic Mouse and as we were walking home on 1st I saw a guy who I was convinced was Bernard-Henri Lévy. When I saw his face, I gasped. (This is why I try to avoid meeting my favorite writers whenever possible, good lord!) He looked uncomfortable (I mean, a bespectacled woman holding a toddler was staring at him), then he shook it off and walked south on 1st.

His internal monologue in my head:
Oh no, another fan. Oh wait, I am in Seattle. No one recognizes me here, heh heh (in French, of course... in his head, that is, not mine).

I decided to follow him. He looked a bit French. His hair was a little grayer than this photo. His clothes were casual but elegant and he had a stylish but understated book bag (very writerly). I thought, if he walks into Elliot Bay, that must be him. So we nonchalantly followed him, which became difficult when he stopped at the J&M to read the bankruptcy notice posted on the window. I pretended to be interested in the bankruptcy notice, leaning around him to read. At this point, Silas was yawning and nearly asleep on my shoulder. And Mr. Lévy/doppelganger kept reading the notice. As any good mother would, I decided to move on toward home. Once we passed E.B., I looked back and he was *still* reading the notice. So I decided we could "wait for the bus" for a few minutes. My arms were getting pretty tired, and Silas was actually nodding off on my shoulder. Finally, he walked over toward us but he did not go into Elliot Bay. (Aha, not BHL!) He did stop to look at the windows (BHL!) BUT not the window that's displaying his book, Left in Dark Times. (I think he was looking at the how-to-write book display. Suspiciously un-BHL!) He crossed Jackson and we followed him again. Then he scratched his ear with his little finger, which seemed a very French gesture to me but how would I know. Then he walked toward the water. I apologized to Silas and walked home.

And (what a day!!) I posted my first Slog comment. Someone already called me a moron! Okay, that's not exactly right. They said the thing I was talking about in the show was "moronic." (Actually, we have an interesting exchange after that, and my faith in humanity and the existence of thoughtful theatergoers in Seattle is restored.)

The hungry moose.

Idaho's latest tourism campaign? Actual wildlife, and you barely have to leave the resort! Poor moose. And elk and deer.

Poems for the first 100 days

A daily poetry blog, curated by awesome, of-our-generation poets Arielle Greenberg and Rachel Zucker. Every day is a new poem by a different poet, with something about the new world order, administration-wise.

This is an excerpt from a favorite of mine so far, by Matt Rohrer, day #2:

...
the president said we could
write poems again saying "president"
that people would have to
think about not just understand
like he said "science is
coming, people" to which my
son said "did he say
science?" I said "I know
it's hard to believe but
the new president said science"

"Nothing to fear but fear itself..."

Hulu has a small collection of inaugural speeches up, including the first filmed inauguration (of William McKinley in 1901) and FDR's famous first mid-Depression speech.



I love the people milling around, and the socialite scanning the crowd to see who's there. Ah... pre-television. It's a bit like watching Duck Soup. Hail Freedonia. (FDR...sponsored by BlackBerry)

Kids e-cycling PSAs! Bloopers! Back-up dancers!

Sixth-graders from the Swan School in Port Townsend... Lessons in video production: #1 holding the map of Washington is the ideal part (see: upstaging).



This time Adam has the mic...



Lopate on Sontag via her son

I love this Phillip Lopate essay in the current Threepenny Review (yes, I'm reading it this morning when I should be working) about Susan Sontag's Under the Sign of Saturn and melancholia, including this anecdote from her son's memoir:

"...she was almost always dueling with depression. This was clearest immediately after she woke up, when, in an effort to shake off her despondency, she would talk, about anything and at breakneck speed, as if to overwhelm her mood with meteor showers of verbiage."

Take that, Brigham and your 55 wives!

I'm still a little stunned that Prop 8 passed. My parents and I were walking in Pioneer Square last Friday and someone with a clipboard said, "Do you want to help me get back the right to marry that I lost on Tuesday." It took me about three blocks to figure out what the heck she was talking about... California.

I know the Mormons campaigned pretty heavily for it, but do they have to take all the blame? I mean, what about all the members who protested the church's support of Prop 8 and risked being excommunicated? And it's pretty convenient for evangelicals and other general bigots to let the "saints" take the heat. Oh well, it's easy to beat up on the Mormons.


of course, anyone who will read this also reads the Slog, but I couldn't resist these photos of the New York protests.

More on Mr. Pro-Life

Ah, some clarification from the Spokesman-Review (thanks, Tom!):

"With a candidate for the U.S. Senate who’s legally changed his name to just “Pro-Life,” Idaho’s top election official is worried that voters might be confused – and vote for both “Pro-Life” and the candidate of their choice in the crowded race for retiring Sen. Larry Craig’s seat."

And then there's Pro-Life's renegade cousin, Less Taxes.

Did this happen in other states?

I'm not sure Pro-Life is qualified to be a U.S. Senator (i.e., why I can't live in my home state).