in other news.

to prepare for move to the south, i celebrated and bought some eudora welty. now some of you may say it's a sad excuse to procrastinate the packing, and to you i say - yup. but i do heart me some good southern literature.

*

one of the super cute boys buying the house called last night to gush about how lovely the house is. he told me he'd actually written a love letter for me about the house, but his partner convinced him it was way too gay to leave. it very well may have been. but i bet it was fun.

*

packing sucks.

*

stop the presses! amazing news has just broken. according to cnn, college students are narcissistic and think the world revolves around them!

gee. really? come on. when i was in college i was narcissistic. who wasn't? how is this breaking news? well, okay, according to the article, something like 2/3 of freshmen interviewed decided they were all that, compared to something like 60% in th eighties and 40% in the sixties, but how is this breaking news? and, even funnier, in a related video-article on cnn, there's a report that (gasp) fat & ugly girls are asked to leave a sorority! gasp...? really? people, por favor, as agatha's husband would say.

let's be serious. when have fat & ugly girls ever really been welcome in a sorority - at least a 'good' sorority? when have fat & ugly guys ever been welcome in a fraternity? well, okay, scratch that last part. it seems like every fraternity welcomes fat, ugly goofballs in with relatively welcome arms - you know, comic relief and all (sort of like a court jester back in the day, no?). life is not fair. life in sororities or fraternities are not fair. it's not fair that people really get caught up in this and worry about it, but i digress.

back to the amazing news that students think the world revolves around them. and it's really not so new, is it?
examples i can provide off the top of my head

a. student who was really, really, really irate because, when teaching a business writing class, i marked down on exams and homework for grammar errors. 'really,' she protested, 'what's the big deal? this is a business class, not an english class.' so if she's bad at grammar, who cares? why shouldn't she still get an A in a business writing class?

b. student who emailed me three weeks into the class to complain about the amount of work required, despite my having spent a large portion of the first class (which she was at) discussing the demands of the class and heavy work load. 'this is really unfair,' she wrote, 'i'm a busy person. if i had known how much work was required, i wouldn't have taken the class.' so what if she doesn't feel like doing the work in an upper-level work intensive class. shouldn't she still get an A for her busy life?

c. student plagiarized a draft. hard-core. we met. i explained why it was plagiarism and what she would have to do to correct the problem. 'that's a lot of work,' she grumbled. i explained the alternative was failing the class if her final draft was turned in as it. as it was, she'd failed the draft (this is a class where plagiarism and how to avoid it was discussed often and at lenght - it's a component of that particular class to learn how to properly document, cite, etc.). she fixed her errors. things were cited as they needed to be. the draft was not great. overall, she got a C in the class. 'well how unfair is this,' she said, 'i mean, i fixed some stuff. why didn't i get an A?'

d. the student who, even though it was discussed at length and demonstrated in class, was mad at the online component of a class. 'technology sucks,' he said after class one night. 'this is so stupid. i don't want to have to do the online stuff.' well, you kind of have to, i explained. you can go to _______ and ______ to get assistance. 'well, shit. on my time? this sucks.' you can drop the class, i said. 'why can't you just let me skip this part?' uhm, it's a component of the class...'you're so unfair,' he said.

granted, most of my interaction with students has been wonderful, full of shiny apples and kittens and gum drops. only a few, in my experience, have demanded the world revolve around them, that syllabi be thrown out to accomodate their (not so pressing) needs, that deadlines be extended because 'i missed the due date. i was at a review for my math/science/psyc class,' that life is totally unfair and it's my fault, not theirs, for not turning in work or missing class or not reading a prompt or seeking help when it's needed. but even the handfull that expects the world is too many. of course, looking at the state of our affairs, at our president and his advisors, at the party 'it' girls, at all the folks slamming into rehab to 'exucse' their bad behavior, is it really so surprising students are narcissist at a higher rate than ever before?
*
(sigh)
*

i suppose it's time to get back to packing.

oscar reflections the morning after.

also titled: hey, i've got loads of time! let's hurry up and post responses back to stella because why not? inga's not working!

so while i enjoyed the look of sheer surprise on j-hud's face when she won, i have to agree w/ stella that perhaps she was not the one who should have won (I also agree that little abigail shouldn't have won, either, as i cringe at how the acceptance speech might have gone...but then again, she and little jaden rocked when they pressented on the shorts films - and as a short person, i loved their glib response to short people presenting awards for short films. really. tall people? that's not funny. it's just sort of dumb).

and, yeah, i agree that if peter o had won, i'd have likely been super sad about his acceptance, mostly because his eyes scare me. i think he'd rocked the botox as much as nicole has.

i didn't actually love naomi's dress, but rather the idea that she and liev have a little bump on the way, mostly because, well, i love liev. would it be weird to adopt a new kittie and name it my love liev schrieber?

forest whitaker is so awesome. and he sings opera! maybe i didn't enjoy him that much on SNL a few weeks back, but i so love him in interviews. given how horrific idi amin is, ouch, the idea of sitting through the last king of scotland makes me shudder.

reese's bangs still suck. but her dress rocked.

but i have to say, maybe it's just me, but i just don't get the whole leo is so fabulous -looking thing. i thought he looked kind of bloated last night.

and, oh, stella, stella, stella. who do you think jessica biel is sleeping with?

notes from (another) winter wonderland.

well, technically, it's the same winter wonderland it's been all winter long, but perhaps the final weekend wonderland i'll spend in the frozen tundra?

after all, it's on, y'all. the amazingly good-looking and fun gay couple who put a bid on the house mere hours after looking at it the first time (they were actually the fourth group to tour the house, a mere four days after it was listed!) are going to buy the house! happy happy joy. i'd totally resigned myself to the fact that some crappy landlord would buy the house, cut it up into a zillion little crappy apartments, and all the things i love about this house (the original woodwork, the leaded glass window in the dining room, the screened-in front porch - picture here, looking eastward) would be lost. but x is a college town. my house is on the edge of campus. as you all know, my neighbors are mostly college students (shocked to learn this? have you not read all the entries about hot tubs-in-driveways and awesomely bad band practices?). a landlord buying it would not be surprising.

but.

super cuties came in, fell in love with the house, will buy it. it's actually quite lovely to realize that the people buying your house, esp. your very first house, will love it as much as you do. sniffle. is inga getting all soft and sentimental? sadly, yes.

but i digress.

so the house is selling. over the weekend we had a crap load of nastiness ~ snow, then some rain (and even thunder...weird, weird, weird), then lots of slush, then more snow, then ice. now? it's snowing again. but it's 8:30 in the morning, i'm having a cup of coffee, sitting on my couch in my jams, watching the snow. why? because inga's done with work! friday was my last day at the university. i thought i'd have much more angst about leaving this place i've been for six and a half years. i thought i'd feel sniffly about working with my last students. i thought the idea of leaving academia would be heart-wrenching. and you know what? not so much.

now comes the big fun: packing. my new job is paying for movers, but i've decided to do the packing myself, along with ena's help. she's a master packer. we moved a lot when holden and i were growing up, so ena packs like a rock star. but, yeah, vivian and i can take long dog walks in the snow and slush. i can pack at my (somewhat) leisure. i can meet friends for cocktails and wine. i can totally bribe people to help pack boxes - after all, i'm still in a college town for the present, a place where free booze goes a long way in enticing people to lend a girl a hand.

so what will i miss about x?

believe it or not, a few things. but i'll get back to y'all on that. must pour more coffee, stretch a bit, watch the post-oscar fashion reports.

more oscar thoughts

i have to admit that i don't share a bunch of those lowlights, inga! this was the first oscars in a long, long time that wasn't painful to watch.

cintra wilson didn't like ellen's hosting, but she's a fucking idiot, and it was great to see the stars having a good time rather than sitting in petrified terror whenever the host came near. i've never understood the tabloid-esque roasting that most oscars hosts employ, and i'm glad ellen made it a happy night for all. but gwyneth paltrow needs to catch a damned sense of humor.

this was dandy:



i'm also not disappointed not to have seen katie holmes. i wonder if she was even there -- they didn't do the red carpet, and they never showed them in the audience. she was backstage, if at all. and on the brad and angelina front, i think i'm glad they weren't there too. didn't her mom just die? who else wasn't there? it's sort of like prom or graduation, no? or better, the student awards ceremony. if you're not up for anything, you seem like a loon being there, on some level. maybe. i liked reese witherspoon's hair, and that purple dress was rockin', and cameron diaz looked great with the darker hair.

i did wish that peter o'toole had won, but if he had, i would have wished he wouldn't have been at the ceremony. he's old and not as lucent as would make me happy, so it's sort of a mixed blessing that he didn't have to get onstage.

the one thing i am sort of snarky about is this whole jennifer-hudson-palooza. i just don't get it. she can sing, of course, and the fact is that singing often evokes serious emotion in audiences. i think she got the award for singing strongly and acting well enough, and i'm disappointed for the other actresses who may have deserved a nod. rinko kikuchi didn't speak a line and got the same emotional response; adriana barraza was heartbreaking; cate blanchett is always unbelievably good -- should having already won keep a superior performance from being recognized again? of course little abigail breslin shouldn't have won, but i can't get behind what i think was a vote for a personal story.

oh, and jessica biel. what is she doing there? how does she win "sexiest woman" awards? has anybody ever looked at her? or watched one of her "films?"

wake me when they're over.

my oscar highlights?

1. naomi watts is totally pregnant - the empire cut always gives it away.
2. penelope cruz's dress.
3. the look on jennifer hudson's face when she won.
4. the look on forest whitaker's wife's face when he won.
5. beyonce doin' her best to steal the show during the Dreamgirls song montage - and failing.
6. the fact that i mistook gwenyth paltrow for claire danes. hee.
7. little miss sunshine winning one of the writing awards.
8. daniel craig's fine, fine, fine form in a tux.
9. witty banter between leo and al.
10. ol' clint eastwood and ellen bantering back and forth; sure, totally expected to have spielberg take the photo and ellen wanting a reshoot, but cute nonetheless.

my oscar lowlights?
10. way. too. long.
9. reese witherspoon's bangs.
8. no katie holmes shot! i so totally wanted to see what she was wearing.
7. the creepy scary lady sitting next to peter o'toole.
6. anne hathaway's dress. ick.
5. jessica biel's dress. wait, no, her hair. wait, no, the fact she was there. jessica biel? oscar presenter?
4. annoying ABC employee guy who kept saying things like "the oscars are ready!" before commercial breaks.
3. the dancers/tumblers. rather than artsy, i just found them creepy. what exactly shot out of the 'gun' human pyramid anyway?
2. no brad and angelina.
1. martin scorsese's eyebrows.

oh wait, more important

i picked a new cocktail to sip during the show, the white lady, maybe, they say, after marilyn monroe:


2 parts gin
1 part Cointreau
1 part lemon juice

tangy. and full of alcohol. especially when you double the parts to fit into the giant glasses sold by crate and barrel.





oscars tacky moment number one: starting the music on the set director. on the other hand, set director dude, don't you know the music's coming?? don't "find" the director in the audience when you're wife's waiting to be thanked, man!

and how cute are abigail breslin and jaden smith?

almost-real-time oscars thoughts

so what if i'm watching the oscars an hour and a half late...why mess with commercials and boring speeches by art directors when you've got tivo?

my first note: good call on the ellen-as-host! she's a fucking rockstar. i like the fact that, with that introductory film of the nominees, the oscars aren't taking themselves too seriously while still acknowledging that it's a momentous occasion for these people.

seriously, ellen's shout-out to leonardo dicaprio was classic. "i don't have a joke. i just thought the ladies might like a few seconds to look at him." i appreciated it, for sure.

and the shot of portia de rossi when ellen first came onstage -- all grins, leaning forward a bit in that "that's my sugar!" anticipation -- made my heart pitter-patter a bit. that feeling is one to be nostalgic for.

and now there's jack black and will ferrell's skit? let me correct that, john c. reilly's skit? sweet.

oh, there'll be video. c'mon, youtube posters! get on it!!

i think i've heard everything. now.

okay, so you know how lately when someone famous does something wrong or stupid or dumb he/she uddenly checks into rehab? i mean first we had tom foley going into rehab to atone for his playfulness with congressional pages. mel, of course, hit rehab because he doesn't like jewish people. then the mayor of san fran noted he, too, had to hit rehab - because of an affair with a staffer's wife. dr. burke hit rehab because he doesn't like gay men. lindsay, of course, hit rehab because she doesn't like not drinking til she's 21. and brit brit may or may not have hit rehab for a third time because, of course, she needs some sort of excuse for marrying k-fed, not wearing panties, and hanging out with paris hilton.

it's like rehab has become the fall guy for stupidity and/or making excuses. but back in the day, when i was, you know, a student and all, it wasn't an addition to drugs or alcohol or sex and the ensuing rehab stint that was the fall guy. it was the learning disability or ADHD.

so after months and months of celebrities and politicians stealing the rehab-fall-guy thunder, it looks like we're back to the learning disability as fall guy. apparently, the learning disability is taking a lot of flack, too, as it's blamed for this poor boy's tumble out a window.

one-liners from heaven

from defamer via videodog comes this compilation of csi: miami's david caruso using his most famous prop: the shades.

or better: using.

his favorite ... prop.

the shaaadz.

words to live by, apparently

Last week, after returning the first sets of "big" papers to my students, I commented that they all seemed to be comma-phobic. Very few used too many commas; in fact, some papers didn't contain a single one. It was weird. I asked why.

One student chimed in that he'd been taught the adage "When in doubt, leave it out" to help him avoid the liberal sprinkling of commas that's wrought havoc in the blue states. Others agreed. I was dismayed.

Yesterday, our class had a conversation about current events after something I pompously called an "awareness quiz." One question asked how many people worldwide are infected with HIV/AIDS and how many people in the U.S. become infected each year. No one was close to the right answers, but we had a good discussion about safer sex and abstinence afterwards, the highlight of which came from the smarty-pants in the back of the room:

"When in doubt, leave it out."

Word.

mad skills

stella has discovered a new talent! she is good at dates!

first, to explain the surprise. when dev and i first got together, i was relatively young, and our first "date" consisted of too many drinks after a poetry reading and way-drunk making out in the car. when we got together again after a year apart, we tried to date like normal people, but that lasted about two weeks before we fell back into old, comfortable bullshit. my first boyfriend lasted for 3 years in high school, and the time in between those two was college. there, i didn't date. (though some of the boys who entertained me thought i did. with them.) no, in college, i played strip poker with the infield of the university baseball team, turned my bathroom into a co-ed locker room, and played with boys for the fun of it. "dates" of the two-people-at-a-table-after-which-one-person-pays type i've not had much experience with.

last night was stella's fourth date since the beginning of february, granted, not with one person, but still, allowing myself to be set up by the old folks at the college isn't turning out all bad. so what if i'm making up for a lifetime's worth of first dates in two and a half weeks? and now past the third first date, i'm granting myself permission to think i'm good at it rather than just lucky.

now i just need to make sure not to have third dates with anybody; i don't want to mess up this first-date streak.

plus, with first-through-third dates, i don't have to mention that i'm just passing time with them until i can blow this popsicle stand in a year and a half.

the lil' morton salt girl.

my new favorite word, thanks to oonagh's wee babe, is salty, as in "yo, what's up with you today? are you all salty and stuff?" or "salty much?" or "hey, salt much?" it appears that salty can be substituted for snarky - though the salty girls versus the snarky girls? ah, i don't think so. salt seems to conjure up lies and needing to cover up up a bad taste. snark? all good, all the time ~ and generally the first hit.

Levi's (or is it Levis?) by Gondry

Finally, tonight, an ad for Levi(')s jeans, directed by Michel Gondry.



one note: thank jeezus for the genius who came up with "individually wrapped." no pun intended.

dove's evolution ad

arguments about parent company unilever's motivations for the campaign -- real concern for standards of beauty or smart ad sense -- aside, anything that reveals what goes into selling us on our shortcomings is a good thing in my book.

even from the corporation that brings us axe and its disturbing ad campaigns and skin lightening creams? look at me, arguing with myself again. stella, let's just agree to disagree, alright?

sure thing, stella.

incongruous

this came from a curmudgeonly old prof in my former grad department:



i'm shocked that he knows about youtube, though the content is SO him.

dope.

a few nights ago, i had my first new-house get-together. port was the unequivocal hit of the party.

after too many treats and too much booze, the guy started doing impressions (elvis, much?):


made out with everybody around:


passed out like a rockstar:


and seems to have had a little hangover the next morning:



the rest of us had a pretty good time too.

"pick your poison"

a common conversation in my mother's household is where to buy gasoline. i know, captivating dinner-table fun, right?

our family is pretty conscious of our environmental impact, and we try to support social systems that help more people than they harm, so choosing a gas station chain is one of those "lesser of many evils" decisions that we have to make. if, for example, i ever stopped at an exxon, my environmental-studies-major sister might disown me.

imagine my joy at finding the sierra club's article ranking the major oil companies for environmental impact: "pick your poison."

turns out, the least worst (best?) of the options in terms of environmental impact is sunoco, followed closely by bp. the worst worst are exxon and conoco-phillips, while shell, chevron, and citgo are all middle-of-the-road badish. of course, decisions about the source of the oil -- middle east vs. venezuela, for example -- are another thing altogether.

give a guy a break!

sheesh! did y'all hear about this? elie weisel attacked at a hotel where he was giving a lecture?

for fuck's sake! he's old! he's paid his human-tragedy-dues ten-fold!

let an old surviver live and teach and lecture and advocate in peace, assholes.

so sorry

inga ~ i don't mean to rub in your last weeks in the tundra, but the high here on thursday is projected at 68°.

i think i'll put my tomatoes in now.

(okay, so maybe not right now, but you get the picture.)

my vote (the only one that matters)

hey stella. so this is my vote for the next american idol. cutie-pie for sure! he's got what we here in the frozen tundra call a smile-to-warm-the-frozenest of hearts!

if it weren't for the tivo

i've officially decided that i hate american idol.

what, praytell, may have been the rationale for the top-24 selection?

personally, i'm thinking they want a male winner this year and stacked the deck either for one of the guys or for that girl who can SAING and who has the almost-4-year-old daughter.

working through things

alright, y'all, i'm about to make a confession.

i don't know how i feel about the potential of troop withdrawals from iraq. that's not a coy way of saying that i don't support troop withdrawal; it's an honest statement -- i have no fucking sense of where i stand on the issue.

on the one hand, you have to be willing to say at some point that what you're trying just ain't working. no matter how much counseling we and iraq go to, we'll never be a good couple. why keep spending exorbinant dollars and lives on a war that was likely illegal, patently immoral, and potentially unwinnable? for fuck's sake, smoke 'em if you got 'em; we're toast over there, right?

on the other hand, human beings aren't a deck of cards; you can't just fold when the pot's not full of money but full of human suffering on the grandest scale. it seems that withdrawing wouldn't be quite fair to the everyday folks living in a country we've torn to pieces, i think. this whole, "iraqis have to stand on their own two feet" business is sort of like the cops in the incident at ucla this fall telling the guy they'd just tazered to hell to "stand up." here's that video, just to remind you, but be warned -- it's long, it's loud, and it's brutal:



is it a reasonable expectation by us to demand that iraq solve its own problems, now that we've so furthered them? should we pull out all troops, even as peacekeepers, because we've fucked everyone, ourselves included, over so thoroughly? i know that the iraqui leadership wants the u.s. troop presence out, but what about the "normal" citizens? i think that if i were on the brink or in civil war, with no guarantee of electricity or infrastructure or protection, i might be reticent for the one potential source of protection to go away.

that's the rub, though, isn't it -- our troops, as they exist today, aren't a source of protection. i keep thinking about germany and japan after wwii. broken countries, decades behind in terms of technology and our notions of social progress, surely unhappy about what was then an occupying army. today, they're the second and third largest economies, after the united states; they're political and social leaders on their respective continents; they, for the most part, like the u.s. what gives? is it that the united states invested not only troops to keep the peace -- for i'm sure there were what we'd now call "insurgents" left to oppose the occupation back then and there must have been disparate factions vying for power -- but also resources to rebuilding the nations. germany didn't get custodial rights over its government back for a decade, if i remember correctly, and the government was shaped -- or dictated -- by the u.s., the u.k., and france. plus, it's not as if all the soldiers who won the war came home happy campers and never thought of deutschland again; they stayed behind, or new troops were posted, to build roads and open schools and keep the nazis from regaining power.

and this attitude that "we've got to WIN, or else," that's the terrifying thing. maybe the difference was that after wwii, there was a clear victor and a clear loser. maybe it's the mindset we've got to change primarily, to give up this notion that changing or abandoning a shitty and disingenuous plan is letting the other guys win. the administration, on both sides of the aisle, seems to have lost sight of the fact that we ruined lives. that we have a human responsibilty to try to alleviate the suffering we've added to the planet, and that it's not about winning or losing. it's not about "get them before they get us" or about the u.s. being the "policeman of the world."

but, yeah, it IS about the u.s. being the policeman of the world, but not in the distorted sense that we've started to use it. the police are there to serve and protect, but too often we experience police with inflated egos overstepping the bounds. we've become the latter: we've become the LAPD of the world. i'd be happy if the u.s. were the mayberry police of the world. (would i? i haven't seen a full episode of the andy griffith show in probably 20 years. still...we've already got a perfect match for barney.)

fuck it. i just want this to stop making everybody's lives miserable. i want us to just be nice.

a new kind of weirdness.

so you know i have a house. it's a nice house, big and old. it's in a student neighborhood (which explains greatly the stories of awful bands, hot tubs in driveways, general stupidness in the 'hood thurs.-sat. nights), where many of the houses are big and old and occupied by students as opposed to families.

but now this house i love is up for sale in preparation for the move from the frozen tundra to ____________. today something weird went on in relation to the house being up for sale - 'caravan.' this is where various and sundry realtors from the area drive around looking at newly listed houses. i happen to be home this morning, which is good because the dogs don't generally take too kindly to strangers bursting into their home and hearth. so i've been present for the caravan, which has been mostly comprised of normal looking people who happen to sell houses; they've taken off boots or put on footies. they've padded around the house, smiling polietly at the me and the dogs; they've thanked me for my time, told me the house was charming or cute. fine, no problem.

and then, as the end of caravan approached, they walked in, two women likely in their late 40s, clothed in fur (fur!) coats and high-heeled boots (high heels! it's like 0! we've got snow on the ground - and not just a sprinkling! inches upon inches of snow!).

oh, they said, clomping up into the kitchen. can we leave our boots on?

and before i could say, uh, no, they clomped into the kitchen through to the dining room, with all its beautiful hardwood glory. they clomped through the house. they clomped upstairs. one got a call on her cell. she talked while she clomped. upstairs they spoke loudly to one another (well, one was on her phone, so i could understand how the other one had to yell at her to make sure she was heard).

oh, they said, surprised, it's so nice. i mean, look at these big rooms. the natural woodwork.
oh, they continued to one another. in this neighborhood, so nice. what a surprise.

i can hear you! i wanted to shout upstairs.

charming, huh? one asked the other.
yeah, the other replied. it is charming. the shock and awe was apparent.

they clomped back downstairs.

charming, they said in unison, in voices that said, quite clearly, what a surprise, voices that quite literally dripped with sincerity.
oh, hone, said the one on the phone, turning and clomping away, yeah, yeah, sushi is fine. what? oh, no, i'm not doing anything. just on caravan, you know. just looking at one or two little listings.

little. nice. she didn't mean the size of the house. oh, no. she certainly meant the asking price.

i'm sad already

alright, so i'm again ashamed to admit it, but i'm watching american idol. and they've just cut one of my favorite boys!

castro's gone!

what are we going to do????!!!!!

the bad. the good. the ugly.

the good news? stella and i finally switched over to the google/blogger thing. the bad news? we were forced to. the other bad news? inga screwed up and managed to get all of her 'inga' posts suddenly posted under her (gasp!) real name! alack!

in other good news, the mayor of nashville decided this. this was after some smart folks in his city thought english only was the best. idea. ever.

in ugly news, however, the weather on the tundra is so miserable that poor inga's skin peeled off.

new blogger sucks/so does the weather.

so blogger has finally forced the card. we have to now sign in through google. ah, the horror!

in other news, the frozen tundra is experiencing yet more snow and more frozeness. as of like 6 am, ___________ is still open, despite, you know, the blizzard we're beginning to experience. if this was where stella or liv d.h. live, we'd be jumping for joy to celebrate a snow day. alas, it's the frozen tundra.

but inga is jumping for joy. the frozen tundra? inga's about to ditch it and head for warmer climes!

hot in h're

this is, without a doubt, my favorite ad to come out of the superbowl crapfest.



part of its appeal for me will be lost on everyone other than dev, who is the only to remember the famous january line, "it's getting cold out here," the response to which came from merf: "so put on all your clothes...." complete with booty-shaking.

oops

so much for the french-women-don't-get-fat hypothesis. according to morning edition a week ago,

"the rate of obesity in France has doubled in recent years, to 12 percent — a figure approaching U.S. fat stats."

an ugly american is easy to avoid. an ugly american with a french fry and big mac is harder to pass up, apparently.

it's not just TN

actually, a whole load of states, including some heretofore smart-seeming states like IL, CA, and MA, are all english-as-official-language. sad, but true. here, from a smart boy who posted at wikipedia, is a map of states. blue ones have english as their official language. striped ones have both english and at least one other as official languages.

oh jeez. does this ever deserve the frowny face.

so listen, TN was beginning to grow on me! first we had the loretta lynn buffet. then we saw goats (pooping goats, to boot! when we drove back to make sure we actually saw goats, one of them was pooping!). then we saw the weird crosseyed greek kid. but now this? please, please, please ~ TN isn't all like this, is it?

to my friends who have recently had snow days.

these are not my cars. this is not my house nor my driveway nor my bushes nor my fence. the scene, however, is simliar enough that it's a fair representation of what's happening outside my house today. since about 8:30 am it's been snowing steadily. and heavily. the temperature is hovering at maybe 0. the wind is around, too.

but do we have a snow day? no, stella, no we don't. no, liv de haviland, no we don't. so while y'all may have had luxurious fridays with your less-than-an-inch-of-snow, here in the frozen tundra we are at work. and pretty damn snarky about it. already i fear the bug getting up the driveway after work. we keep checking to see if we're closed. we're not.

so as the snow continues to fall down upon us, as the temperatures continue to hover in pretty respectable lows things , we're here working away. and when i leave, you know, after students who've made appointments fail to (a) show up or (b) call to say they won't show up, i'll think of y'all as i pile on the three or so layers of warmth; as i put socks on over my socks over my tights before i put my boots on; as i brush off, start up, and brush off the car again; as i inch home through likely unplowed roads (or roads that were plowed at one point and then left to pile up with snow again); as i break open a bottle of wine and, you know, wash my cares away, i'll think of y'all. and your measley one-inch of snow = a snow day.

sigh.

lovely liv d.h., by the by, is the proud owner of my handsome new boyfriend, pictured in one of stella's posts below.

errr...what?

so, why haven't i heard about this? have you? i mean, i watch the news. a lot. i read the news. a lot. but still. it's news for me. and not the good kind of news, either. i mean, good news is something like this (from salon's broadsheet), from the late great Molly Ivins at her memorial service (uh, she didn't speak from beyond; she was quoted): "The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please, pay attention."

aw shucks.

so the super bowl was a little sad last night, wasn't it? the bears losing and all. and the rain throughout the game. and it being the most boring super bowl ever. oh, and the lame ass commercials. but it was also a little sad because for inga, the bears are - and always will be - the sentimental favorites. why? well, because a bear slept in my house, of course. sure, it was a good twenty-seven years ago, but still. inga and a bear. together. forever.

back in the late 70s, early 80s, ena and my pop were friends with a family whose sons were football gods. we were wee ones, the former brother, me, and holden - holden such a wee one that the football gods, who on occasion baby sat us while our parents whooped it up 70s style, that the football gods actually carried baby holden around in the palm of their hands. no kidding. these boys were Golden with a capital G. they were football stars in high school and college. and, a couple of years later, one of the football gods was drafted by the chicago bears and became a rookie bear. so, naturally, because at the time we lived on the north shore, rookie god came to live with us.

he and holden shared a room. holden was four or five. he once took rookie god to school for show and tell. the poor kindergarten teacher, ena likes to say, nearly fainted on the spot when the strapping rookie god, in his bears uniform, walked into her classroom. rookie god was great - handsome, a winning smile, kind. he drove a yellow mg convertible, which, to this day, i'm still puzzled he actually fit in. he taught the former brother how to drive stick shift behind the driving range. he once had his football friends serenede me on my birthday; of course i was like eleven and shy, shy, shy, so i burst into tears and ran out of the room, but still!

anyway. finally, after months of training with the team, rookie god got his chance: starting. his pro game! the house was electric with excitment. and, then, lo and behold, the inevitable happened. first pro game. rookie god gets the ball! rookie god gets tackled! rookie god goes one way. his knee goes the other. and just like that, it's over. no more pro games. no more bears. he ultimately married a woman whose name is a spice - honey? ginger? marjoram? - and settled down to a non-football life.

holden grew up to be a strapping young boy. the former brother grew up to not drive stick shift. football players these days don't make me cry as much as they make me cringe. so, yes, sentimental favorites always.

best lines from the super bowl soiree i attended last night:

"hurry! get in here! you just missed a bear steamroll a bear!"

"oh, a colt's down!"
"think someone will shoot him?"

worst commercial: a tie between sheryl crowe's god awful is it ever going to end hair product commercial & the weird one with a guy dressed up as a heart being harrassed by thugs nicknamed diabetes and heart disease. weird, weird, weird.

best sentimental commercial: poor dejected white dog getting splashed by a mud puddle and becoming a budweiser dalmation!

best overall super bowl related play: the puppy bowl, complete with kitty half time show, thanks to animal planet. seriously, the water-bowl cam? priceless.

because being a cartoon never gets old.

look! it's south park stella, attitude and all!
seriously, it's ridiculous, i know, but i love being south park inga!

and, look, you can be a south park character, too!

forgive inga her silliness. it's something like -25 with the windchill here. i can't feel my toes. but did i get a freaking snow day the other day? no. i, of course, had to schlepp myself across the frozen tundra that is X, my face numb, my toes useless.

the south. please.

note to self

avoid kansas city while pregnant (if i've done anything worth getting arrested for).

this story out of the kansas city star, as reported at broadsheet, is heinous in every sense of the word. a woman was pulled over for driving with faked temporary plates, and after running her name, officers found outstanding warrants with fines totalling nearly $5000. great. just cause for arrest.

except for the fact that the woman was bleeding and told the officers she feared she was having a miscarriage. they ignored her pleas, took her into custody for 12 hours, and took her to the hospital only after she started passing enormous clots of blood. they were nice enough to give her several changes of pants, since she was consistently bleeding through the ones she came with.

long story short, she lost the four-month-old fetus, which doctors say could have been saved by “prompt attention [that] would have prevented the premature labor.” she's filing a wrongful death suit.

sidenote: i never know how i feel about granting "wrongful death" to fetuses, which helps to blur that line between personhood and viability, which i think helps to blur the lines in the abortion debate, but that's another story.

the worst part, i think, is that the culpable parties aren't just those two arresting officers who ignored the needs of a woman in distress. they took her to a police station where dozens of public servants put the fact that a woman had rapsheet ahead of her need for medical attention. talk about not inspiring confidence in the men and women who serve and protect in kansas city.

more on the trip

i've been editing that "the visit" post and have realized that i just ought to add my extra thoughts in a new one. more remembrances:

• jackson has a yearly hobo festival. i was reminded by the editing of the "security-free lounge" from the earlier post.
• carl perkins is from jackson.
• the worst series of cocktails ever happened in jackson. wait, no . . . last time i was back in XXXX, o'paddy's made a pretty bad run of drinks. poor bartender. four drinks not paid for can't be good for the self-esteem. or the register.
• chien's little house is adorable. =)
• there's a state park in tennessee along i-40 called nathan bedford forrest state park. in case you're wondering why that's significant, here's the problem.
• inga has a new memphisean boyfriend. here he is:

• the girl who cut our hair on a walk-in whim is officially the best stylist in tennessee. maybe in the south. maybe in the country. when inga lamented that her hair wouldn't be so nice when she did it herself in memphis the next day, best stylist inquired, "well, what time're y'all leavin' t'morrah?" offering to restyle it if inga felt like stoppin' in. and since stella had just had a haircut and didn't really need one, b.s. charged only half her normal fee, since she didn't do all that much. really, i think i'll focus on that girl rather than on the nathan bedford forrest crew when remembering jackson, tn.
  

s*shi

from dev:

the visit!

inga and i have a friend, chien, in jackson, tennessee, and last weekend, we met there for a visit. it's a special place, that jackson. it's always good to see chien, and we did have the chance to spend a night in memphis, but here are the highlights the trip.

a typical healthy meal. this one's from loretta lynn's country kitchen on i-40 towards the nashville airport. by the way, inga and i discovered that the one thing the tennesseans have going for them is the airport lounge. it's got a bar/restaurant before security! this means that if you're stuck waiting for your friend's flight to come in after you've already left the secure area to claim your baggage, you have a place to wait in comfort, not sit around like a maniac hobo scouring the unsecure areas for even a starbuck's kiosk.


cuties, no? that's a giant fiberglass bison behind those girls, by the way. he's got orange reflector eyes.


this about sums it up. goats in a cage on the back of a pickup truck in the parking lot of a chain buffet-style restaurant. inga and i had to go back around the block into the lot to snap this proof. we couldn't drive for a minute or so for the hysterical laughter we couldn't control. goats. . . . and i'm not even going to mention the kid in the mercedes.


i have a feeling that chien won't last much longer in this metropolis.

lazy, lazy snow day

yesterday was a snow day. here's what it takes in XXXX to have a snow day:






i might add that this was the first snow day i've had in, what, eight years? i left the icy tundra where snowfall under 3 inches is a flurry and people don't get really worried until the "seconds until exposed skin freezes" count is down to around 17, but here? give 'em an inch and a half, most of which melts before 10 a.m., and you've got yourself a free day off school.

i think i love it here.

panic! at the college

overnight, we got maybe 1/16 inch of snow. a dusting, really. i can still see the dirt/grass peeking through the lovely, lovely snow. back home, it's what you wake up with daily. it doesn't even warrant getting up early enough to clean your windshields, as the wipers themselves are enough to dispel any annoying bits. hell, it's the sort of thing i usually wouldn't even bother with wipers for -- isn't that what the wind of motion is for?

here, it's a different story. the grocery store was ridiculous last night. i needed some guinness for a stew and port needed some kibble; apparently, the rest of town needed to prepare for a blizzard. the milk and baby formula aisles were stuffed to the hilt. the checkout lanes were reminiscent of traffic on times square.

and the college is open on a delayed schedule, which means that classes all start late.

what the fuck?