that's a good one

This article about Tiger Woods cracked my shit up:

A Simple Plan for Tiger Woods: Play Some Golf

disclaimer: I have never in my life thought about Tiger Woods until now, but still found this extraordinarily funny. It's very anti-golf.

addiction

My Craig Ferguson addiction has gotten to the point that I'm regularly late to work, which is due to oversleeping, which is due to watching his show every night until 12:30. And also, I feel a touch depressed when his show ends on Friday night, because I have a whole weekend to wait for my next fix. And also, I shush my husband if he ever talks while Craig Ferguson is talking. So...it's affecting my work performance, my moods, and my relationships. Intervention time?

Nope-rah

I sent in the following tip to Jezebel.com today:

Not sure how timely this is, but I caught part of the Oprah Winfrey Show yesterday, with many of the actors from NINE, and although it features multiple Academy Award winning and nominated women, a lot of the initial banter was about what a genius Daniel Day Lewis is. The similarly talented actresses on the stage did not seem to be getting much respect, much respect at all. The questions to the women were along the lines of, "So...Nicole Kidman, what's it like to be married to Keith Urban? Did you bring your baby to the set?" "So, Kate Hudson, you're dating A-Rod. What's that like?" "So, women, what's it like to work with the great Daniel Day Lewis?"

It was interesting, I thought. Also interesting is how all of these super-talented actresses are starring in this movie together, but the entire plot revolves around the male character.

today

I have a soft spot for songs that talk about the kind of day that the singer had (or will have). They always seem like a good omen to me.

In college, I would have a great day whenever I would start it with a song by Beck featuring the lyrics, "Today has been a fucked up day, today has been a fucked up day, today has been a fucked up day" with different intonations, repeated again and again. That song brought me such illogically good luck.

My current favorite is that Black Eyed Peas song where they say "I gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night, that tonight’s gonna be a good night, that tonight’s gonna be a good good night." Love it! How could I not get behind that sentiment? And it hasn't failed me yet...every time I hear that song, it's a good night.

The one that started it all, though, was "Today," by the Smashing Pumpkins. "Today is the greatest, day I've ever known, can't wait for tomorrow, I might not have that long..." So Buddhist, isn't it? The Smashing Pumpkins were my number one favorites when I was sixteen and miserable and not fitting in with the kids in the small town where I grew up. I would listen to this song before and after school and feel better. It also has the line "I'll tear my heart out, before I get out." Boy, did I love that. Boy, did that speak to my depressed, teenaged, stuck-in-a-small-town self. I read somewhere that Billy Corgan wrote that song when he was suicidal, which makes a lot of sense. You're in a dark place, and you write a song about deciding to keep living, and it helps other people through the same kind of shit. Not that I was suicidal, but the song helped pull me through bad feelings, day after fucked up day. And now, fifteen years later, I find myself in the city, with some fun friends, and lots of good omens about tonight being a good good night.

baseball!

Miracle of all miracles: on a whim, I checked the Twins website on Monday night to see if any tickets had become available to last night's playoff game. It was a few minutes to midnight when I checked, and I was told that they were sold out and sent to an online "waiting room." Then, at midnight, the screen changed, and I was whisked away to a page that produced two $27 tickets in the first row of the upper deck, on the third base line. We frantically typed in credit card information, and were even able to use the remaining $18 of a gift card toward the price. We got the tickets! and were at last night's game...scoring a spot in our usual parking lot, despite the absolute parking-related mayhem downtown, getting to the Dome with a few minutes to spare and not missing a thing.

The game was *magic* - that two-run Cabrera homerun? What the hell, man? Who is this guy? Every time he's come up to bat for the past month, I've looked over at my husband and said, Will Ferrell-style, "He's electric right now." He really is! I just read that he's taken whatever team he's on to the play-offs in four of the past six years. At one point, the ball boy was running over to get a stray ball, and Cabrera held him off and got it himself...he helped the ball boy out! Who does that?

And that twelfth inning...goosebumps galore. I love that Casilla and Gomez got to be the heroes, after such a rough year for both of them.

When it ended, after about ten minutes of applause and screaming, Cuddyer stood facing the crowd, and pointed out at us and clapped. Cabrera did a very theatrical double-bow. Punto was running around slapping the hands of every fan he could touch...it was just absolute magic. So many great photos of the night, too:

Carlos Gomez: airborne.


Joe Mauer: adorable.


Orlando Cabrera: airborne.



I love baseball. I love the Twins. That is all.

white men

I'm taking a writing class at the college where I work and had my mind blown this week by an insight of the teacher's. We read two pieces: one from the beginning of "Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise" by Michelle Cliff, a Jamaican-American writer who was educated in New York City and London. The other an introduction to the book "Jesus' Son" by Denis Johnson, an American writer.

Cliff's piece starts as a series of fragments about camouflage: how a ground lizard blends into its background and how they would startle her when they made their presence known. She says "...this camouflage exists for its protection. I am not what I seem to be."

Then she goes into fragmented memories from Jamaica: her childhood - poor, being told by her mom that she was lucky to be light-skinned, that she didn't need to be telling anyone otherwise. That "passing" was the ideal. That no one needed to know about her dark-skinned great grandfather.

This is the start of her story: background information. Pages of it.

The beginning of Johnson's story jumps right into it: he and his two friends had completed a robbery. One friend got hurt, and the other two dropped him off at the hospital anonymously. Because of this, the friend was busted while the other two got away.

Both very compelling introductions. The teacher asked us what was different about them, and we came up with things like...one was fragmented, one was narrative. One was background, one was a story.

"Who is the narrator of Jesus' Son?" he asked.

Long pause...was it a trick question?

Finally, I said, a bit hesitantly, "Denis Cooper, right?"

"Right," he said. "And who is Denis Cooper?"

No one said anything.

"He's a white man." He looked out at us. "And you all assumed he was a white man, right?"

My jaw dropped, and I nodded...and the rest of the class, a fairly diverse group, nodded too.

Point being, Michelle Cliff didn't have the luxury of jumping straight into the narrative. She had to explain herself, everything about herself, because her story is not the one we hear over and over again to the point that it becomes engrained.

My lifetime of training was exposed...and I think it is going to really change the way I read and write. I suppose if there were a hierarchy, straight white men are at the top, followed by straight white women, followed by the rest of the world. In what order, I don't know, but at least I'll be paying attention now. Hurray for education!

fallon update

Attention! I may like Jimmy Fallon again! Please see the following:

flirt alert: tim gunn and jimmy fallon have chemistry

text messages sent to my husband this morning

Message sent

Sent: Aug 14 07:21AM CDT

Message:

i see that you took the last raspberry luna bar...for SHAME! don't you know that they're FOR GIRLS??!!

Message sent

Sent: Aug 14 07:25AM CDT

Message:

oh, and happy anniversary.

facebook comments received from my family today

My mom posted the following on my Facebook Wall:

"Happy Anniversary!!!!! Many great memories of that day....may your marriage always have magical moments!"


My brother responded to her post with this:

"You and Frank are still married?!!"

totally effing inspiring...

“Elizabeth Gilbert on Genius”

“Ira Glass on the long process of creative work”

late night updates

1 - I have a new late night boyfriend and his name is Craig Ferguson.
2 - I miss having cable, but I would never have discovered Ferguson if we still had cable, because I'd be watching Comedy Central every night.
3 - He made a joke the other night about how you couldn't be worried about the swine flu AND the economy, because they cancel each other out. "It doesn't make sense!" he said - and the audience did not laugh, probably because they did not want to think about being dead of swine flu...but it was really quite an optimistic joke, since if you die of swine flu...no more money troubles.
4 - Also, I've never liked Jay Leno, and now I know why - I read that his career was practically dead, and David Letterman helped him out by having him as a frequent guest on his NBC late night show. And...we all know how THAT ended. Apparently Leno sent Letterman a note after Letterman's heart surgery...which was GREETED with SILENCE! Take that, you backstabbing bitch!
5 - Um...any non TV related updates? Any insight as to why I am obsessed with late-night television? Guess not!

fallon retraction

I apologize for my previous entry about Jimmy Fallon. He's an idiot.

Fallon

Ok, I have not been getting enough sleep during the week, because I LOVE JIMMY FALLON'S SHOW! It was so much easier when I was bored by all the other 11:30 (CST) late night hosts - I just went to bed after Letterman's monologue, see...unless Amy Sedaris was his guest. But that Fallon - he's so charming! Every word out of his mouth is good-natured! He's awkward as hell some of the time, but I think that's a symptom of his good-naturedness. Mike Myers was his guest last night, and Fallon must have said ten times that Myers was his comedy hero, which seemed to make Myers very uncomfortable. And whenever Myers told a story, Fallon would be like, "Oh my God, that's awesome. That's so funny!"

Like I said, awkward...but so freaking sweet. I might just turn this blog into a recap of the delightful things that Jimmy Fallon did and said the night before.

omg, the world as it should be

Just got teary-eyed reading a good New York Times review of the Britney Spears comeback concert.

“The Circus Starring Britney Spears” Review

It's Britney, bitch. The whole world seemed out of sorts when she was having her meltdown. I think that Britney needs to succeed for the rest of us to succeed.

wherever you go...

I am working today on being happy with what I've got. I've spent ten years bitching about living in Minnesota, and here I am. The bitching doesn't appear to be helping. I'm trying to put it in context, the whole question of hating the climate and wanting to move. I think I'm whiny about the weather because I've been lucky enough to travel and experience other climates. But I'm still from Minnesota, do I move to another place just because the sun shines more and it snows less and my face never freezes off and the salt on the roads doesn't rot my car and the salt on the sidewalks doesn't rot my shoes? (Veering into complaining again...)
Also, a lot of the people I respect most in the world are Midwesterners who stayed. Hard-working, good-hearted, down-to-earth, practical, funny people. No one makes me laugh like a fellow Midwesterner. I could move but does that mean I should? To a place where I have no roots? But can I bloom where I'm planted when the ground is frozen and the sun rarely shines for half the year?