Appliqués: Really?

First let me give a big ol’ shout out to my girl, Michelle Obama. As the first woman of height in the White House, she has truly broken through that glass ceiling that forces women to stay under 5’ 7” –wearing heels. With her in the White House, I can now dream a dream that one day, years from now, the daughters of Dutch fashion models and the sons of Japanese acrobats can sit down at the table of normal-looking couples together. I can dream that my daughters will one day live in a nation where their hotness is judged not by the degree to which they make men feel large, but by the content of their blogs, and certain craniofacial indicia of health. I can dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: that all models are created hot, and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable traits, like tallness; and that we hold this truth to be self-evident: tall chicks are hot.

But second, let me say: Appliques? Really?

Michelle’s gown tonight looked beautiful—it’s white shimmery fabric gleaming against her dark, toned arms. It’s long, flowing skirt elegantly cascading to the floor, obscuring, I suspect, her flats. And it’s fluffy, glue-gunned appliqués undulating in the–wait—appliqués?

Michelle, I know you came out of the 80’s, but your previous fashion behavior indicates that you understand that we are darn near the tens. Perhaps you were thrown off by the idea of a ball gown. As a little girl of the 80’s myself, I too am attracted to bedazzlers, glued-on mirrors, and puffy paint–especially when considering elegant gowns–but the appliqué is something that I will not–nay, must not–ever do. Like its fellow star of the 80’s, crack, it is attractive and seductive, but ultimately will diminish your credibility, and will lead you to a life of wearing hot pink lipstick and eating hotdogs at county fairs.

But despite that singular mistake, you are still me hero, Michelle. May your heels pass two inches and your daughters pass 5′10″.

Change…your sheets

So Doom was actually pretty okay. It was basically a cross between a poor-man’s Aliens and a zombie movie, which is all I could ask for. I did however, at 4:52am, all of a sudden loose my suspension of disbelief and turned off the TV. So I didn’t actually see the last 8 minutes of the movie. Anyway, to the post at hand: Change!

These cropped up about a week ago in one of DC’s most-used subway stations. Initially, I thought they were installations by good ol’ Adrian (Fenty–the mayor of DC and a total dude’s dude) to get everyone in the right mood for the inauguration a la “You better not fight, you better not cry, you better not pout–I’m telling you why. Barack Obama is coming to town…to initiate a more sustainable foreign policy.”

But no. They’re Ikea ads. Every one of them. One that I didn’t get a picture of (I was a little afraid that I was being eyed as a potential terrorist) read “The Time for Domestic Reform Is Now! Embrace Change!” I suspect this one actually did come from Obama. He would hate the thought of the American people sitting on four-year-old couches.

Don't Wait--For Change!

Doom

Okay so I suck. I got tired and a little cranky on Wednesday night so I busted out the binky that is my TV. I haven’t really accomplished anything since. Oh God! And I’ve seen such terrible things! Such terrible, horrible things! “Rock of love.” Do you know about this? It’s a reality show where a group of large-breasted, elastic lace-clad women compete for the affections of Bret Michaels via faux wedding vows and lap dances. What is so eerie—what makes me squirm like the thought of making out with my brother—is that I watched it. God help me I watched it. And this other reality show where has-been male teen idols sit in a circle and talk about their feelings and how they want to be back in the spotlight—God help me I watched that too. God help me. God grant me the serenity…

And so now I am in a long weekend and I have a massive project to do. It’s due the day after the inauguration. But earlier today I saw that Doom was going to be on at 2:45am and so I had to stay up to watch it. Doom. I had to stay up to watch Doom. And yes, it’s in one of my favorite genres, and yes it stars Academy Award-Winning WWE actor/wrestler Dwayne TheRock Johnson, best actor ever, but still—I want to go to sleep dammit. I have work to do. Sweet Lord. Why did you curse me with TV?

Can you imagine what it would be like if Obama got to the oval office, felt overwhelmed with work and so just flipped on the TV and watched reality TV for days, sending secret security agents out ever couple of hours for more ice cream? I’ll tell you what it would be like. It would be like I didn’t suck as much, relatively speaking.

Anyway, the point of this post was for me to post some pictures but I’m having technical problems and I am missing important Doom plot. I’ll retry later….

SFRRP Impeaches Lotabooks

Abuse of Power

WASHINGTON, DC – Students For A Responsible Reading Policy voted overwhelmingly Friday to impeach Professor Asino Lotabooks, setting up an unprecedented trial in their basement apartment on whether he should be thrown out for abuse of power, including allegations that he tried to sell a thrice-used, self-authored 1,455 page text book for $155.

The professor responded with what has become trademark defiance since he gained tenure 45 years ago. He accused the SFRRP of laziness and ungratefulness that they won’t have to read the considerably longer and much more difficult material he had to read at H-h-haaaarverd Law School when he was a student there in 1938. He said he feels confident he’ll be “properly exonerated” at grading time.

“The cause of the impeachment is because I’ve written so much enlightened and crucially important material on the Third Amendment: the necessity of consent for quartering soldiers,” said Lotabooks, who was joined by some beneficiaries of his text book sales during a news conference in Washington.

Lotabooks dismissed the impeachment as inevitable from an association that has resisted his efforts to teach “real law” instead of “special interest law” like the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

All By Myself

When I turned it off the silence wrapped around me like a great foam tortilla.
A faint ringing in my left ear.
The toilet dripped.

My eco-friendly, 15 watt even though they look like 60 watt with their many lumens light bulbs buzzed—no hummed—no buzzed and hummed, louder and louder, pummeling into me the very absence of sound with their constant, distant, macabre, deafening tone.

A brief rush of water. An isolated jingle of a distant dog’s collar.

And then stillness.

Many have been here; I do not walk an unpaved road. And yet—it feels so alien, this silence, this emptiness in the air. It feels so cold. And I’ll miss him. House. And her, Mariska. And them, Carla, Fabio, Ariane and Hosea. Leah and Radhika; Jamie and Jeff. But not Stefan. Who could miss Stefan? What an asshole.

I haven’t figured out where I’ll put my tv during its six-week banishment. I saved the box from when I impulsively bought it the day of the opening ceremony of the Olympics, so I was thinking of creating a little Mantua under my bed and keeping it there. It’s a severe punishment, yes, but warranted. I don’t have my grades yet from this last semester, but I have a strong intuition that they may suck beyond all normal suckage seeing as the only memory I have of last semester was when it looked like the black team was totally screwed because there were only three—all of them women—left, but then they held out for another week and then Michelle totally busted ass and creamed them all, even that vexatious bitch Vicky. It is a good memory, but it’s missing…something.

So for six weeks my TV is off-limits. It will come up for probation on February 19. I’m pretty excited, actually. In six weeks, I figure I’ll have lost 25 pounds, be teaching a fitness class at my local Y, volunteering 20 hours a week at the animal shelter, delivering Meals on Wheels, and be reading ahead. I won’t even notice it’s gone, what with all the achieving and all.

“Scrubs”

Tonight I watched a television program that may have changed my life. It was a story about two young doctors, dubiously in love, deciding whether or not to abort the fetus gestating in the womb of the female. Immediately the show’s meaning became clear to me and I thought: Yes. Such is law school.

On the side of keeping the fetus, which would presumably become a child because really who wants to keep a fetus, were several plusses: kids are fun, tax credit, larger breasts. Yes, I thought. Such is law school.

On the side of aborting there was a list of equal length and these two young doctors strove with the full power of their combined 275 IQ points to arrive at a conclusion that would be the prudent choice. After the lists had failed them, they tried to leave it up to fate, conducting the rarely-inconclusive coin flip. Alas, it was inconclusive.

After the forth commercial break the question hung heavy in the air and the need for a decision rushed upon the two characters like a freighter. In their angst they asked all who might help them, anyone who would listen, and they were running out of time when… they happened upon a woman, wise in the ways of abortion. They asked her, “Ye of the abortion, how did you decide?”

She pulled her chair up next to theirs and replied, “I just knew it would not have worked out.”

“Yes,” they nodded their heads in frustration “but we have thought through all that and we still don’t know.”

And what the abortion-lady said next cut through the room like a thunderbolt. “Yes you have thought it through, but it is not a logical choice. You just feel what is right.”

A beat passed, and then another.

“But what if we don’t feel anything,” they asked.

She pondered for a moment and said, “well, maybe that says something too.”

So tonight as I lay in my bed, calculating how long it will take to pay off my loans, I will try to remember these wise words and feel. Feel whether I should abort my law degree.

Lunchtime Letter

Dear Man Who Sat Four Feet Away From Me Just Now In Front of the Department of Education,

This bench is roughly eighty feet long. Based on Copernicus’ second law of social bisection, you should be sitting very nearly that of ten times the distance from which you sit to me now. Copernicus (later modified, of course, by Newton) clearly articulated that with a coefficient of pride minus a fraction of self-doubt, the most natural space for which bisection must occur is roughly half– that is, one over two– see two over four–that is, bi, that distance measured by a rule of thumb squared. Since you are, in fact, a Department of Education employee, it is my suspicion that your science and math skills are, in all probability–that is, more than likely–weak. However you’ll notice that on the bench opposite, facing, and heretofore across from, there exists nearly four beings–each of which, multiplying by seven (and, of course, carrying the two) are, indeed in accordance with and, further, not in opposition to, said rule of science. I advise you to, in such manner as you deem appropriate, reevaluate your choice of seat.

Yours, Very Truly,
Amateur Content

Party

I just caught up on Butterflyfish’s blog, and discovered this post.

I stayed home from work today because the thought of getting out of bed was more than I could bear. (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is what depression looks like. Apparently it also looks like this.) However, “Party in my Tummy” reinvigorated my thirst for life. Thank you, Butterflyfish.

Does this dress make me look negative?

For the last six hours I’ve been flipping between repeat-showings of Blade; National Lampoon’s Vacation; and Terminator Three, Rise of the Machines. I have seen almost all of the scenes from each movie now, but I have a deep and penetrating love for the final scene in T3 so it might be several hours before I see the final scenes in either Blade or Vacation.

It is a beautiful day here in Washington DC, or as beautiful as you can get in a town that lacks the infrastructure necessary to enjoy lead-free water. It is even the Gay Pride festival today, and as I generally enjoy gays, including the men who don’t what to sleep with me because I am not manly enough, as well as appreciate those who have pride (though I equally appreciate those who don’t, if only for entertainment purposes), I should be out and about, complaining to my weak acquaintances that I didn’t put on enough sunscreen so will therefore age at an even faster rate than is typical of my pasty-racey. But I’ll not be budging from my couch today because yours truly, Ms. Amateur Content, has Crohn’s disease. That’s right, a disease the main symptoms of which are pooping at inopportune times and occasionally vomiting fecal matter, has decided to settle in my terminal ileum. Krav Maga, have I got a new maneuver for you.

But no matter; I’ve been thinking I should get back to blogging lately anyway. It occurs to me that I am at a pivotal time and it ought to be written down. Why, just the other day, I remarked to a young man how it would be “great” if I could just “cash out” on a medical malpractice suit, so that then I could go back for my PhD without fear of financial ruin. Of course, a few days prior, I had remarked to that same man how I was disappointed that I had become a shadow of the woman I intended to be, and how I felt sad that I may never achieve, by my standards, anything at all. But nonetheless, I imagine the legal world to be curling around my mind like a python, and while I am in the twitching death-throes as I write, soon the struggle will be over.

Ah, law school, I hate you, and I hate the people who live in your bloated gaseous belly. Sure, I can show kindness to your dregs the way a psychologist can be kind to her 45-year old CEO client with intimacy problems as long as he pays her her $180 per 50 minute fee, but I will always be waiting to be paid.

A friend of mine came down the other day from my beloved New York and as we sat over Ethiopian food (which, not surprisingly, is all DC has to offer, and is itself nothing but squishy crap served on top of other squishy crap), I remembered what it was like to feel as though the thoughts I have are relevant. Take the graphic contrast Obama t-shirts kids are wearing around these parts. When I see these two-tone Biggie Tupac Che rip-offs, I have many thoughts. I have brought up these shirts to at least five people, and all but one, my beloved friend from my beloved New York, stared back at me vapidly, sometimes said, “yeah—it’s weird,” and more often said nothing at all.

But my friend’s eyes widened with as much enthusiasm as I had had for the topic and for life that I had before I found myself beached on the shores of law school. I didn’t even need to describe my thoughts because he had them too. I remembered what it felt like to connect with someone, and now in his absence this cold, granite depression that has intruded into my otherwise disgruntled-with-enthusiasm mind seems perfectly natural: in essence, I have not spoken to anyone this year.

I have thought of leaving. In fact, after finals, having had all the stagnation that I could bear, I decided not to come back to school. I would do anything, I thought, to regain entry into a world of interest, so I consulted the dean and began the paperwork. But then two things happened: (1) I liked my job for the summer (in which I sit in blissful isolation writing memos about people’s torn ACLs, extractions-gone-awry, and unfortunate birthings); and (2) I was diagnosed with a chronic, lifestyle-altering condition that will require medical supervision.

And so I now put to rest Peace Corps dreams and anthropological ambitions. In five years you’ll not find me in Kathmandu, blogging angrily about Monk Karkarju and his endless, under-his-breath, exhales of insults. You’ll not find me boarded away in some northern China wasteland practicing the proper pronunciation of ‘dirt dumpling,’ and you’ll not find me languidly weighing African HIV babies while convincing myself that I am living the apex of reality. No, in five years I’ll be sitting at a desk, reviewing 75 boxes of w-2 forms searching with alacrity for some feeble, arbitrary, statute of limitations defense, pursing my lips around the 1mm straw of a box of apple juice, dreaming of the only things that bring me joy anymore—reruns of Lost and the occasional funny pet video on youtube.

And so, because I am curious about how I will get from here to there and think that you should be too, I blog.

Democracy: It’s Mediocre

Congratulations, Senator Clinton, you have won the vote of my state’s old, uneducated racists. Your candidacy is now backed by the abhorrent but passionate, pitchfork-carrying un-elite that you would rather see dead than deciding the fate of the country. Twenty years ago they wouldn’t have voted for a dame like you either.

And you, Wolf: the sentence, “We predict that Senator Clinton is the winner of the PA primary,” is not acceptable. Shameless, Wolf, shameless.