Friday, October 17, 2008

Gross, kickass, or offensive?

I shudder to think what a fifteen pound burger would do to my insides, and for what period of time it would continue. Gross. That medium sized dude, who looks like he spends ample time in the sun and is maybe attractive and normal enough to get laid and possibly even have a wife and family, ate a fifteen pound burger in less than five hours. Kickass. That fifteen pound burger would feed a family in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, or the streets of many American cities for months, maybe even a year. Offensive.

And the guy is from Pennsylvania, home to my alma mater. What does it all mean? I don't know, but I feel unsettled.

The scoop here.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Recent Internal Discoveries... not in a gross way

--I shouldn't ever write about people that I know or people that might read my blog. But I do anyway. And I will continue to do so. Because what is freedom of speech if I can't say what I want about my friends or my friends' friends or my friends' husbands or anyone else? In the last writing workshop I attended, there was an entire class period spent discussing if it's OK or not OK to write about your family, your lovers, your friends, or your colleagues. This sort of blew my mind. I don't see why I should have to hesitate to creatively, or not so creatively put something out there. If I think my father used to be a jerk, then I can say it. If I believe that the United States of America is in the shitter and doing nothing whatsoever to drag itself back to the top of the hill, then I can tell everyone. The truth is what people want to hear anyway, even if they don't know you, or your father, or that guy in your life that destroyed you for a while. And as a writer of what is true and apparent and ample and raw, I will tell everything and spare no detail.

--Sarah Palin represents everything that I hate about the American people. The feigned interest. The shallow belief system. The following of everyone who is bold enough, but not necessarily intelligent enough, to lead. Bouffants. Fashion trends. Against contraception. I could go on...

--This just in...work culture continues to be a complete and total joke, companies reap benefits and screw staff members, we go on feeling we are throwing our life away doing something for someone else 5 days out of every week, maybe more. And it's because we are.

--I love eggs benedict. A good one can be the most balanced dish in all of culinary arts. I remember being afraid of it when I was younger. I think I associated it with that Francis Bacon painting, which is both beautiful and horrifying. I can't poach an egg to save my life. Someone told me that the key is to put it in a coffee cup first. I still don't know exactly what this means, but hope to find out someday.

--All of life should be lived in Cape Cod, lying on a beach with the breeze. And then you get up for a while to nail some sweet waves, dude. You get back to your beach blanket and stretch out under the sun with a book that you never had time to read before, or a dirty magazine, or the local newspaper that has "news" about sandcastle contests and oyster-shucking champions. Cracking a cold beer open, you hold the can up to your face and wish for... well, nothing else really. Except for maybe a basket of fried clams and a chocolate milkshake.

--Postseason baseball is awesome (not a recent discovery, but something that needs to be said). Although I do sort of miss my local commentators.

--People who don't like animals should kill themselves.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Palin-attack 2008 continues

You know, I used to think Matt Damon was kind of a Streisand but, I think he's rockin' the shit in this one.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Photo of the month, maybe of the year


Notes: On Hugging

Practiced publicly and privately without stigma in many nations across the planet, hugging is something I have ingrained in my interpersonal behavior. I hug everyone, and I mean everyone. I hugged my bosses at the Christmas party last year after four glasses of Malbec and a rum and Coke. I regularly hug my friend's husband, who voted for Bush once... maybe twice, and still, I hug him every time I see him. I've hugged my UPS man, a great waiter that I had once in the North End, and friends of friends of friends. I've hugged countless numbers of random people in bars, of strangers' dogs, of trees. I hugged someone that I saw crying on the subway (unsafe? eh, maybe).
I tend to hug a few seconds too long. I'm not the let-go party, I'm the oh-are-we-done-now-question party. Hugging is something people do all the time and I wonder what they think about it. I wonder how it makes them feel. The reason I am initiating it makes it pretty clear that I enjoy it. It's a good way to reconcile with a person. It's an even better way to show your affection or attraction for someone without taking things too far. Hugging is used as a key component in anger workshops across the world.

Hug someone today. Hug three people today. Don't be afraid of germs, or judgement, or getting a boner.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Peace out, ice shelf

This is so not news, but it is, however, in the news. Canada's ice shelf is performing a mass exodus. BBC article here. It is just so frustrating to hear morons like Sarah Palin go out there and say things like "Polar bears? Fuck them. They're bears. We don't want them here anyway." And "Abortions? Ah, ah, ah, we refer to those as schmaschmortions."

Seriously, visit the World Wildlife Federation website today and take the six bucks you were about to spend on Wendy's new and improved Baconator, and donate it.

Thursday, August 28, 2008