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 they adorn 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 seems like a good idea at the time, but it’s best to hold off.

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 (AP) – 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 being ungrateful 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 this impeachment is my copious and subversive scholarship 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.