your wednesday one-liner.

courtesy of Overheard in New York, some more inscrutably amusing dialogue:

Ghetto guy: Yo, I gotta be careful and hurry up and catch this midget before she leave me.

--59th & Lex

more sad news.

i am dismayed to read that molly ivins died today, at age 62, from an ongoing battle with breast cancer.

the country, and the world for that matter, has lost a great voice for liberalism, for democracy, and for all the people whose own voices weren't being heard (or, maybe more precisely, weren't being listened to). a truly admirable woman, and the realm of the written word is far worse without her around.

for more on molly and the incredible reach and influence of her writing, check out the texas observer's tribute to molly (the server is totally overloaded by traffic at the moment, but i imagine they'll have it up there for a good while).

tuesdays, man.

i am not going to win any erudition awards tonight. between work, and the treadmill, and some extra editing work tonight, my general cognitive abilities are dipping into dangerous levels of depletion.

for instance, i wish i could blog about the show that BoyCat and i just watched on the discovery channel called genius sperm bank. seriously, this dude back in the 80s built this sperm bank that he filled with smart dude sperm, and now there's all these kids out there, and they did a whole show about it. there were SO MANY messed up things packed into this sixty minutes of tv, i wouldn't even know where to begin. i'd probably start with the donor that they interviewed who said he considered himself in the 99th percentile of humanity and wished his life was like "one of those movies, you know...about the past...where the king has like, 70 or 80 kids. i'd like to have a palace, with all my kids around me."

this man has fathered nineteen children, and it makes me very, very concerned for the future. of people. everywhere.

ok, i'm going to go squirt some antibiotics in CatCat's mouth and then probably fall asleep. god i love tuesdays.

"then it would be time."

as you've probably heard by now, they put barbaro down today. regular readers will know that barbaro's fall during last year's preakness upset me very much, though i had a hard time articulating precisely why. and now that his fight to survive is over, i feel something strangely different. i am sad, but in another sense - in a more resigned, eroded kind of way. the raw hurt of the days following barbaro's injury - a collective pain that was so evidently a misdirection of sorts, an escape valve for all of us that had other, unsaid things for which to grieve - is long gone, and in its place is the dead weight of inevitability. the knowledge that it was a lost cause, anyway.

and that resignation, that hopelessness could very well be a projection as well; as i said to my mom earlier, after we had heard the news, "i feel like the whole ordeal is/was a metaphor for something in my head - i'm just not sure what." and i know, from the outpouring of care and concern that one horse generated over eight months, that i'm probably not alone in that.

so peace now to you, barbaro, wherever you may find it.

at present.

it is 10:37 on a sunday night, and i am sitting on the couch watching a movie called "in her mother's footsteps" on the liftetime movie network. not just lifetime, but the lifetime movie network.

i have also had two snacks since dinner. one was only 15 minutes ago, and may or may not have involved fake watermelon flavoring.

i feel like some kind of new year's resolution graveyard right now. good thing i didn't make any myself.

this makes up for the fact that the watermelon martini mix was ten bucks, which i just couldn't justify.

i have just had a moment of pure, unadulterated joy, and it happened in the grocery store.

food shopping, i must inform you, is not one of my favorite activities. the aimlessly wandering people, the freakishly cold frozen section, the inability to ever find minced garlic in a sensible location – the list of frustrations goes on and on. but i braved the saturday afternoon fray at my local Giant, and had found just about everything on my list as i angled my cart towards the frozen section. three Tombstone pizzas and some chopped spinach, and i was outta there.

then, in one of those end-of-the-aisle, two-door freezers, i saw it. (or, as BoyCat would mockingly impersonate my only boston-based linguistic tic, “i sawwwr it.”) i was literally stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of this beloved frozen confection.

my new england readers will immediately recognize this as the iconic Friendly’s dessert, the wattamelon roll. my non new england readers will say, “what the hell is Friendly’s? and why can’t you spell?”

to these inquiries i will firstly say that yes, i can in fact spell; however, some ridiculous marketing professional from the 80s apparently could not. that, or he/she just felt the need to abuse the english language every now and again. secondly, Friendly’s is a local chain of the basic, american food at a fairly low quality and fairly low price variety. not fast food, but not much above it either. however, their ice cream is great, and they package both their basic ice cream and special desserts to sell direct from the restaurants, or at local grocery stores. this is how we always had wattamelon roll at my grandmother’s house when i was a kid.

ah, the wattamelon roll – a “rind” of lemon sherbet, with “watermelon” made of watermelon sherbert and chocolate chip “seeds.” i loved this thing. ate it like it was my job. my grandmother probably kept her local Friendly’s afloat for a decade just keeping it in the house for me (oh sure, and for all those pesky other people who ate it too, leaving less for me. shameful.).

but all that faded away, as things do, and i can count on one hand the number of times i’ve had wattamelon roll since i was sixteen. so today, as i stood slack-jawed in front of the frosted double doors of the ice cream section, i could hardly believe my luck. a massachusetts desert, in a virginia grocery store! i hadn’t been able to find watermelon sherbert period in chicago, nevermind wattamelon roll. and there was just one carton, seemingly misplaced among rows of orange sherbert – it might as well have had my name written on it. it could’ve cost 400 dollars, and i would’ve bought it anyway.

the first thing that i did when i got home (well, the second – good to put the milk and cheese in the fridge, right?) was to cut myself a big slice and sit down at the table with it. it tasted just as good as i remembered.

never underestimate the power of ice cream to turn an entire day around.

does it bother anyone else...

...when people wear pendant necklaces under their turtlenecks, and pull out the pendant part so it hangs over the top of the turtleneck?

...when other people can fit into citizens jeans, and you can't, even though you'd pay the highway robbery pricetag if you could actually fit into them?

...when over half of your workday is spent watching powerpoint presentations?

...when your lips stay chapped, no matter how much chapstick or aquaphor or vaseline you put on them?

...when you're on the train, trying to mind your own business and listen to your iPod, but end up having to listen to the middle-aged businessman feebly trying to hit on the 20-something PR assistant sitting across from him?

...when you try incredibly hard to get up gracefully from the leg lift machine at the gym, and end up whaling your knee on a big metal joint anyway? and then when you hop around the circuit machine area in pain, looking like an idiot, silently mouthing "ow! owwww!" in a futile attempt to minimize your idiot-ness?

yeah, me too.

your wednesday one-liner.

this gem from Overheard in New York made me laugh out loud, as much because of the venue of the scene, nevermind the genderfuck hilarity of it.

Young boy pumping arms at sides and thrusting pelvis: Fertilize me!

--Starbucks

"Got a brother, Jeff?"

certain things make me worry. not just worry for myself (like when i worry about how i actually don't have a nice pair of black sandals, and gosh i'm really going to have to buy one sometime in the next three months), not just worry for my immediate family (like when i worry that SisterCat has become unhealthily attached to her TiVo box), and not just worry for the people i know (like when i worry about how student debt is the single biggest killjoy moneysuck of my generation, and we're never ever going to get out from under it til we die). oh no. some things go beyond all that, and truly make my worry for society.

marriage proposals are one of them.

ok, wait, really - just one marriage proposal has recently re-animated in me that slightly nauseous feeling caused by examples of social insanity. it is this marriage proposal, posted on the generally fantastic website stuffonmycat.com. the site, as you can probably deduce, consists of pictures sent by readers of their cats with - you guessed it - stuff on them. this particular submission (go ahead and look at it if you want, the pic itself is actually pretty cute) consists of a cat with a diamond ring in a box on its belly, and the caption says "heather, will you marry me? love, jeff."

ok, honestly, up to this point i have no essential problems with this proposal. it's thoughtful, inventive, irreverent - thumbs up, right? however, i stumbled upon the post days after the fact, and by the time i got there, there were 1,000 comments. one thousand. the post had been updated at some point to indicate that she had said yes, but for the first hundred comments or so, the outcome of this proposal was unknown. and people. went. crazy.

let me give you a tiny sampling of comments made before the update:

Say YES, say YES!!! This is so sweet!!

oh, i'm SO cryin' at my desk and it's not even 7am....i love this, LOVE THIS!

OMG.....I am in tears!!! If she dosen't marry him I will!! What a guy! Got a brother, Jeff? I can't wait for Heather to see this in the morning and get the shock of her life!!! Say YES!! :-)

I've been watching since 8:00 a.m. in Chicago & it's 12:45 here now...I don't want to go to lunch cuz I don't want to miss it!!

Man, this is killing me - I don't handle suspense very well! HEATHER, please answer us!

So Jeff doesn't know yet???????? *groans* We're dying here.

HEATTTTTHHHHHHEEEEERRR!!!! Say Yes!!!!!

and this is just a tiny slice of the hundreds and hundreds of comments that were posted before the update. as i scrolled through them, i thought, whoa. oh-kay. let's everybody take a deep breath, then reach out and grab hold of reality again. because guess what? you don't know these people. you have no idea what jeff is like, or what heather is like, or whether they make a good couple. who knows? maybe jeff is a raving narcissist. maybe heather is a passive-aggressive asshole. maybe he refuses to do any household chores. maybe she cheats on him. maybe he hits her.

seriously - we have no idea. none. all we see is a cat with a ring on its stomach. so what, you have to wonder, possesses all these people to get so invested in the outcome of a proposal that in a practical sense means nothing to them?

i think it has to do with social norms, social structures, and social control. marriage is - as the religious right just loves to point out - one of the cornerstones of society as we know it. the family unit makes our capitalist, democratic society run. (well, that and backbreaking, soulsucking labor.)* so society, in order to perpetuate itself, has a very vested interest in making sure that marriage (as we know it) continues to thrive. how does society do this? by getting its citizens to do the cajoling, moralizing, stereotyping, arm-twisting, tsk-tsking, begging, and pleading for it. this is why people are so interested in getting married, and so interested in making sure other people want to (and do) get married too - because society couldn't have it any other way.

it is this intense, ritualistic groupthink that creates a mob scene in which people shout "SAY YES!!!" to a woman they don't know, about a proposal from a man they don't know, who are involved in a relationship that they can't begin to understand.

people are often incredulous when they hear of my wariness about the institution of marriage. this is a prime example of why i'm so wary; the thread honestly started to make my skin crawl after awhile. and while i know that not all marriage proposals have to be like this, and marriage is what you make it**, and blah yada blah, the fact that you can scratch the mere surface of marriage - merely hint at its possibility among strangers - and find such an aggressive undercurrent of desiring conformity, well - that worries me.


*i'm currently reading against love by laura kipnis, who writes really insightfully about the connection between "work" and "relationships." i'll probably do a whole post about the book once i'm done, because there are a ton of interesting ideas in there that i want to think through.

**one of the maxims of many pro-marriage feminists, but actually, i don't really believe that it's true. that will be another post as well!

freudian slip, or just his par for the course bad public speaking? you decide.

did anyone else notice, toward the end of the president's state of the union address while he defended the troop escalation, this little moment:

"chaos is the gr...chaos is their greatest ally in this struggle."

hmmm. interesting. "chaos is the greatest ally in this struggle." for the bush administration's interest in consolidating power and keeping a cowed american populace afraid, uncertain, and compliant? sounds about right.

i'm just sayin'. hey, we all slip up sometimes.

more betty.

the new ms. magazine is out, and surprise, surprise, they've got an article on my girl ugly betty. the piece, by yeidy rivero, does a good job of not just lumping betty in with other "pioneering" (read: not supermodel) women characters on tv like murphy brown, roseanne, and ally mcbeal. to wit:

...a colleague recently asked me to compare Ugly Betty’s leading character, Betty Suárez, to Ally McBeal. “Well, they probably both have vaginas,” I replied. Gender is about the only identity that Betty shares with previous and contemporary
women television characters. How many working-class, Mexican American, clumsy, allegedly “ugly,” intelligent women with an illegal immigrant father have been portrayed on U.S. television? Until Betty’s arrival, none.

and that is what's great about betty. not that she's all these things that are considered "deviant" by tv character standards, but that she's (and therefore, the show is) nonchalant about that difference. the show encourages us to like betty because she's a well developed, interesting, likable character, not because she fills some political correctness network void!

and so my betty lovefest continues unabated. and likeohmygodseriously, did you hear that tim gunn is guest starring for two episodes in february? my girlish squealing is real here, people - if they finagle a "make it work" into the dialogue, i will be unable to refrain from doing a flailing dance of joy on the couch.

blog for choice day.

hopefully you all have read some of the great posts up around the blogosphere (yes, i just said "blogosphere" in seriousness - i should be fined by the hipster police, or something, because using that term without irony is like so five minutes ago, right? but anyway.) today, which is the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and - not coincidentally - blog for choice day. so i would like to take a moment to do just that.

this is not going to be a long, in-depth, or necessarily well thought out post. i feel like jill's post over at feministe has got all three of those qualities covered. i really, really encourage you to click over and read it, because she somehow manages to cover almost every angle and every salient point about why being pro-choice is the only option for a rational, compassionate human being.

i also implore you to check out shakes's post, a more abbreviated offering, but one with a critically concise point: "I trust women, and the only question I have for someone who rejects choice is: Why don't you?"

this gets to the crux of the matter. society doesn't trust women. women are ignored, abused, infantilized, condescended to, shouted down, shamed, disavowed, discouraged and dismissed in so many ways, overt and insidious, every single day. women are not trusted with one of the most fundamental decisions of our lives, which is whether or not to bear children. why? because of fear. the fear of what we'll do with it. the fear of the power it gives us.

in all seriousness - i am for abortion on demand without apology. that sounds radical, but i don't believe it is, when you consider an ethos where women's full humanity is recognized and their capacity for making sound judgments is honored. if you believe a woman is a human being who has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then you should support her ability to make the singular decision to carry a pregnancy to term and bear a child. the decision does not belong to the man who impregnated her. not to her parents. not to her employers. not to the church. not to the courts. not to anyone - anyone - except her.

anything less than such a singularity implies that she is not a whole person in and of herself, that she can be compromised, parceled out, "exception"ed, constricted, controlled. anything less says, your bodily integrity is subordinate to society's interests and ambitions, to the state's whim and fancy. anything less says, your personhood is subject to review.

the decision to have an abortion or to have a baby is a woman's decision to make, and her decision alone. that's why i'm pro-choice.

a two minutes search.

please go and read this post by educand. anyone who is reading this, please go read that. it's important to me that you do.

educand is pondering the reasons for writing posts like this, when one knows not that many people will read them. i have to thank educand for doing it, for reminding me, and for keeping a light on this, however small. we should all do as much, every day, if not more, because nothing changes if we don't keep speaking up.

so thanks.

friday cat blogging, guest kitty edition.

ok, so this is a visual metaphor for my feelings about the day of do-or-die football coming up on sunday:



CatCat, on the other hand, has only reached semi-critical mass, which means she is merely sitting under the table and licking her stomach. frankly, i think this picture is much more interesting.

(blogging note: the brilliant, witty, and ever effervescent michael is in town this weekend, so between that and the games on sunday, i will be in absentia until monday. enjoy your weekend...)

in case you haven't read enough about people's problems on other blogs.

as i count down the minutes til the next ugly betty episode (41, in case you were wondering), i would like to share a problem that i'm having with you all. well, not a problem that i have with you all per se, but i want to share it. with you all. yes? ok.

i am beginning to have the sneaking suspicion that my career doesn't actually make me very happy. before the chorus of howling laughter begins, let me say that i know that puts me in line with easily three-quarters of the population, but still. i'm 26, i'm in a stable relationship, i have two degrees and what i would consider a decent capacity for, you know, functioning. i feel as though i should be able to find something to do for eight hours a day that i enjoy. and for which i will be paid a living wage. i guess it's in the combination of the last two sentences where the difficulty lies.

grantwriting. a perfectly serviceable profession. utilizes my strongest skill set, always in demand, and based in the non-profit world where there's the most chance for my toiling to do some basic good in the world. seems like a winner, right? right. except that for the last few weeks, i've been going to work feeling like i'm dragging a weight with me - i spend my days feeling like i'm slogging through knee-high water. in the parlance of our times: i'm just not feeling it.

i wondered, after the chaos and craziness fest that was my last place of employment, whether my nagging ambivalence was not just lethargy due to my surroundings - a kind of defense mechanism, if you will. why get invested in the well-being of a clearly sinking ship, right? so when i left there, when i got here to dc and got another grantwriting job i thought, "ok. now we'll see." and i fear i'm jumping the gun with these worries that what i'm seeing is that i'm not satisfied. i mean, is three months really enough time? logically it doesn't seem so. but internally, gutturally, the signals are pretty strong. this work is not engaging me, it's not motivating me, it's not bringing me any real sense of fulfillment or accomplishment.

so what to do? i have no plans just to run off and join cirque de soleil at the moment, but i'm trying not to hide from this uneasiness, either. because if i'm truly rethinking everything, then this issue needs to be wrestled with somehow. if i were to do something else, what would it be? what would that look like? is it even feasible? practical? desirable?

it's hard, because even just typing those questions kinda scares me. it's a daunting idea, a career change, even at the relatively early career stage i'm in currently - i've seen how hard it is to do firsthand. it takes hard work, and a kind of determination and slight foolhardiness that i think i all but used up in orchestrating the move out here. honestly, it's tough to muster up the wherewithal just to lay out the problem on the table, much less figure out how to solve it.

but i'm trying.

this morning.

i came out of the bedroom, wrapped up in my bathrobe and trying to shake the excess water from my hair. BoyCat was in the kitchen, making coffee. when he saw me, he opened his arms outward, inviting a hug, and said "haaaaaaapy anniversary!" i gave him a squeeze around the waist, leaned on his shoulder and said, "awww, happy anniversary." he sighed deeply, and said:

"50 years together."

and i had to laugh, because while it's really only been four, it can often feel like 50 - in ways both good and, um, not as good. but even with the push and pull of 1,460 days together, i still love him desperately, and on every one of those days, i've thanked the stars (or the baby jesus, or allah, or the tooth fairy, or whomever wants to take credit really) that we found each other.

steady as she goes, and more good days to come, i'm certain. love you, BoyCat.

another thoroughly frivolous post.

but really, people, the golden globes are on tonight! i had no idea. i opened up yahoo! five minutes ago, and saw the headline saying "golden predictions: when the startdust settles tonight, blah blah something" and i was like, "tonight? really?"

and the internet was like, yeah, really.

it is slightly lame of me to be as excited as i am about this. the golden globes, however, are definitely the most entertaining awards show to watch. no boring "best technical lighting in a silent film" categories, no celebrities taking themselves (overly) seriously, and no lifetime achievement awards. i'm only fairly certain about that last one. but all in all, you're pretty much guaranteed lots of fashion at which to alternately gawk and pitilessly mock, lots of famous people saying slightly to moderately inappropriate and/or stupid things, and a bunch of award categories where you actually know the people/shows/movies nominated and maybe kinda care who wins! a fun way to spend three hours, if you ask me.

my only problem this year is that we have been woefully lax on our actual movie-going; i blame netflix, mostly. as such, we haven't really seen any of the nominated movies. (though i really do want to see the departed, the queen, and notes on a scandal.) also, we don't watch much tv - other than sporting events and HGTV, both of which i assume are sadly ineligible for nomination tonight - so not much investment there either. (of course, a notable exception to this is my newest television love ugly betty, which i will be rooting for in the Best Actress in a Comedy and Best Comedy Series categories. be ugly!)

ok, on that note, i'm going to get some comfy clothes on, so as to feel even more like a slovenly slackard while watching thin, pretty people in evening wear. i also have newly purchased snacks from trader joe's, half a bottle of pinot grigio in the fridge, and half a bottle of vodka in the pantry. i think i'm in it for the long haul.

UPDATE: be ugly!! wahoo!! two for two, best comedy series and best actress in a comedy. i was jumping up and down on the couch, screeching like a howler monkey. and america ferrera just gave the most touching acceptance speech - peeps were tearing up all over the place. a little glimmer of sanity and quality in the network tv world. who knew??

sunday, sweet sunday.

two football games + beer in the fridge + snacks in the cupboard + comfy cargo pants + a soft couch = my recipe for a perfectly lazy day.

go bears!
go pats!

one football related question before i get back to doing nothing: what is up with the nfl picking prince as the superbowl halftime show performer? BoyCat and i are fascinated by this. i mean, i love prince, but i don't quite see how the slightly androgynous, hyper-sexed* male diva is a strong match with the most hyperbolically masculine sporting event of the year. i mean, what audience are they going for with this? and what will he sing?? all his old stuff is a little, shall we say, risqué, and you know how much the nfl digs risqué these days. all around, a baffling and intriguing decision. for the first time in a long while, i'll actually be interested in watching the halftime show...


*at least, he was, before he back a misogynistic jehovah's witness or whatever the hell he is now. which is another reason i'm kinda shocked he'd even agree to do the show. i'd think the superbowl would represent some slovenly, heathen, capitalistic bacchanal to him. who knows, though, maybe his religious conversion was like the symbol-as-name period - he eventually got sick of it.

they're dropping like flies.

my friend dan has succumbed to the dark side and started a blog. however, unlike this pile of narcissistic navel-gazing, petulant whining, and occasional kitty pictures, dan's blog promises to have content that is actually...you know...interesting.

You're No Jack Kennedy will be "keeping an eye on the rhetorical flourishes, the baits-and-switches and the bald-faced lies of politicians and the nation's ever-expanding chattering class." dan, being a political reporter and world-class wiseass himself, is perfectly positioned to make you actually want to read about semantics, logical fallacies, and general bullshit. so, if you're ever in need of a rhetoric fix, now you know where to go.

and even though he lives in brooklyn now, don't worry - he's a born and bred red sox fan. maybe every now and then he'll treat us to a deconstruction of the New York Post sports section - that back page can be political spin at its finest, right?

who says romance is dead?

this exchange just happened.

prologue: BoyCat says something. probably something like, "i like cats," or, "i love you."

kate: i'm going to shoot you.

BoyCat: you wouldn't shoot me. you don't have the balls.

kate: or the gun.

a few seconds pass.

BoyCat: is that what you want for our anniversary?

kate: a gun?

BoyCat: yes, a gun.

kate: a gun for our anniversary.

BoyCat: yes.

pause.

kate: yes, i would.

your wednesday one-liner.

courtesy of Overheard In New York, a beautiful public school moment:

Third grader: Miss Hannah, let's make a deal -- if you give me an ax, I'll give you 10 corpses.

--PS 41

an illuminating anecdote.

so, we just got home from the wizards/bulls game, for which BoyCat got some free tickets last week. a free NBA game? sure! we ate some nachos, yelled at some bad basketball/bad coaching/bad officiating, and laughed in horror at the "burrito break" right before halftime. the "burrito break" consisted of people situated throughout the arena throwing chipotle burritos into the crowd. now, you all know i love me some chipotle, but those things were not meant to be projectiles. i was actually, literally cringing.

oh, and really, what's with the complete and utter lack of offensive rebounding in the NBA? i know the NBA is not known for its sense of urgency, but even with that knowledge, i was still really taken aback by how lackadaisical the players were in going after offensive rebounds. actually, they didn't even "go after" offensive rebounds per se; it was like their teammate was either going to make the shot, or he wasn't. if it came off the rim and fell right into their hands, great, otherwise, they were off in the other direction. it was pretty sad.

anyway, burritos and rebounding are not even really what i want to tell you about. that is reserved for this shining example of BoyCat's extreme laziness.

those of you who know BoyCat in person are aware that he is not the most, um, energetic person. he has many dazzling and wonderful qualities, but a vast reserve of endorphins is not one of them. he tires easily. he sleeps like a champion. overall, he is the living embodiment of the "an object at rest..." newtonian law.

so yesterday, i am in the kitchen and BoyCat is lying on the couch in the living room. the couch is positioned against one of the kitchen walls, so i cannot see him. i have just vacated the other couch in front of the tv, in front of which is a coffee table, on top of which is the tv remote. you follow? good.

so, i put something in the microwave, i don't remember what. the microwave starts to run, and i remember thinking, "he's probably going to want to turn up the volume" (the kitchen is open to the living room, and the microwave's kinda loud). not ten seconds after i think this, i hear the remote clatter off of the coffee table, along with a big dull thud against the carpet.

i'm like, "oh my god, he just fell off the couch."

yes, folks, BoyCat is so lazy that he attempted to stretch the upper half of his body halfway across the living room in order to snatch the remote from the table without actually leaving the couch. in attempting this noble and dangerous feat, he managed not only to miss the remote, but to fall off the couch as well.

as i came around the corner, i saw him sprawled out on the floor, laughing. i said, "you know i'm blogging about this." he just laughed some more, and reached across the floor for the remote.

the next day.

i got out of bed.

step one accomplished.

a day.

do you ever have one of those days?

those days where you leave work at four o'clock because, you know, you just can't.

those days where, when you get home, you just crawl under the covers for a while even though the sun hasn't even gone down yet.

those days where you'll be damned if it seems like anything you do will ever amount to anything of worth.

those days where you'll be damned if you can figure out what something of worth is, or what it means.

those days where you can see how your unhappiness is so self-involved and self-indulgent, and you kinda hate yourself for it.

those days where you can't stop being unhappy, in spite of that understanding.

those days where you're so embarrassed by your own paralysis, your own ineffectiveness, your own inability to to pull yourself up out of this deplorable little funk, that you feel like you don't know how you're going to get up and do it all over again tomorrow.

for me, today is one of those days.

friday cat blogging, the joy of christmas edition.

CatCat drowsily ponders what christmas is really all about.



she decides that it's vengeance. and presents.

your love gives me such a thrill. but it won't pay my bills. i want money.

BoyCat and i are doing this thing where we see how much money we spend. which will be fun, if your understanding of fun is anything that's massively anxiety-inducing and fraught with relationship peril.

you know most married couples get divorced over money. money! you'd think it was the lying, the infidelity, the abuse, the poopy diapers, or just the love-suffocating, soul-destroying monotony of it all - but no, it's the money.

not that we're getting a divorce. don't worry.

but we thought, what with being in a new city and having to work up a new budget based on new salaries and everything being NEW, that this would be a good time to try out the little exercise. you know, the one where you keep track of every penny you spend in a month by dropping all your receipts, payments, etc into a little jar on the kitchen counter. instead of a jar we have a margarita pitcher, but i think it will do the job just fine.

and when it's over, i can fill it with that sweet, frozen anxiety-killer while i try to figure out what the hell we're doing wrong!

the procession.

there are many reasons why i’m glad to be living in DC. for one, when my co-worker said to me this morning, “we’re heading down to watch president ford’s funeral procession in a few minutes. do you want to come?”, my first thought was not, are you completely insane? why would ford’s funeral procession ever be anywhere around here?, it was of course i would. yes, of course.

five of us left the building and walked a block over to 20th street. it was 9:30 – the official start time of the procession from the capitol to the national cathedral – and there were already people gathered along the curbs and in the doorways along the street. we crossed in the last seconds of a crosswalk signal (there is still traffic, somewhat unbelievably) and join some other co-workers in the middle of a shaded city block.

what surprised me the most about the whole thing was that it was actually three separate motorcades. the first came through within five minutes or so of our arrival, appearing at the far end of 20th, seven or eight blocks away, as a tiny-sized string of rhythmic light. this motorcade carried betty ford, her silhouette unmistakable through the back window of the black limousine at the center of it. then, only a few minutes after that, a longer motorcade, fronted by motorcycles and a fleet of monstrous black SUVs. the SUVs had every red and blue light on them flashing – roof, hood, mirrors, grill, wheelwells. without sound, the effect was almost cheerful, if you forgot for a moment the context of their display. the rest of the line carried dignitary after dignitary, gliding past in their sleek, shining clones of the same exact black car.

after that, nothing. No one moved – we knew it was not finished – but nothing came for a while. i realized that after fifteen minutes of clutching my half-empty au bon pain coffee cup in my bare hands, my fingers were starting to ache from the chill in the air. i grasped around in my coat pockets for my gloves and put them on. i craned my neck past the crowd along the curb, trying to see.

eventually, the final motorcade appeared down the hill, in the distance. the bevy of motorcycles rose slowly up the slope of 20th street and rumbled through, one by one, giving everything a thick feeling of vibration. then, suddenly, the hearse. as it approached the intersection, i saw at an angle the bright red and while stripes of the flag that covered the president’s coffin.

(in the moment, i have to say that the sight of this brought a hardness to the back of my throat, a pricking feeling at the top of my spine. Why, i thought later on, was this? And i remembered another image – so many other long, low boxes covered in American flags – these ones packed tightly together in a cargo plane. this image, however, is censored and suppressed. the same commitment, honor, loyalty to country, but instead of a mile-long tribute, they get hidden from view – willfully and maliciously disregarded. that, however, is a different story, and another man’s disgrace.)

the hearse slid towards us. i saw the uniformed policemen and women standing in intervals along the city block raise their hands, fingers flat and tight, to their foreheads in salute. to my right, katherine put her hand to her heart. and i bowed my head, for a moment, while he passed me by.

moments later, it was finished. the last two police cars rolled through side by side, their lazy lights swirling, and the three lanes of pavement were still. in the thin, bare branches of a tree behind me, a single bird sang out once, twice into the silence. then we all headed back to where we came from.

i can't even sufficiently title this.

i just watched eight straight hours of ugly betty on soapnet.

my life, i believe, is completely changed.