November is Journaling Month. I shall attempt to blog daily this month. Considering I started this post yesterday AND it’s just a lame survey basically, my expectations are not high for a daily posting of quality

Current book:

What is the What by Dave Eggars

Copied & pasted synopsis:

What is the What is an astonishing, eye-opening, and heartbreaking book that defies classification. Once you’ve read it, the story of Valentino Achak Deng refuses to leave your mind. Even if you’re not familiar with the Lost Boys and their struggles to escape from war-torn Sudan, you’ll be drawn into this pseudo-autobiography. What is the What tells a devastating story but never plays for sympathy. Instead, the hope, complexity, and tragedy of the situation take center stage.

Stories of The Lost Boys & other victims of the atrocities through out Africa, not just Sudan, have always been ones that get me right in the heart. this one makes my heart hurt.

Also,fluffy sidenote: I have a helluva Brain Crush on Dave Eggars

Current video:

Current shame-inducing guilty pleasure:

Stealing the kids’ Halloween candy.
Current food:

Still in 1st Trimester of pregnancy (wait..did I even mention that here on the blog? Oh,yeah…I’m pregnant again) , there’s 2 categories of food in my life: Food I Can Eat Without Retching and Food I Can’t Even Look At Without Retching.  On the first list is baked potatoes w/ sour cream, tofu,sweet potatoes, avocados, quesadillas & cottage cheese. Those would be my current foods
Current drink:

Fucking Caffeine Lite coffee.

The first thing that happens when I’m pregnant is The Man revokes my caffeine privileges AND he forces horse-pill sized prenatal vitamins down my throat. I’ve  always cheated and had at least 1 cup anyway and never took the prenatals  but in the spirit of our open & honest  relationship, I confessed all. He struck a bargain – I willingly take the prenatals & he’ll  “allow” (oh, the patriarchal overtones are killing me!) me to have my morning coffee BUT it has to be Caffeine Lite.

Current link:

10 Reasons Abortion Should Be Covered By Healthcare

Current outfit:

A purple corduroy skirt (the top button won’t button but I’m wearing it anyway) , a purple & green layered tee with argyle cut-out & overlay design on the front (I can’t explain it any better than that. It’s a DIY T-shirt surgery thing)

Current fetish:

I think my current fetish is people who have the pregnant sex fetish. That’s all I need right now.
Current fragrance:

My kitchen smells like pumpkins
Current celebrity crush:

Alison Mosshart

Current film:

I had plans for some Halloween-inspired movie marathon but sleep won me over. Last movie I watched (without falling asleep) was Il Postino – absolutely beautiful movie.
Current mood:

snarky
Currently playing on my iPod:

oh,i don’t have one of those new fangled things. But playing at this very moment? “Magnet” by Bikini Kill is playing
Current colors:

Fall leaf colors

Current wish-list:

sun,temps in the 80’s,endless summer

Current needs:

health insurance would be nice
Current triumph:

I recently spent an entire morning & lunch with my mother and didn’t snap. HUGE triumph.

Current bane of my existence:

oh,the usual – laundry.

Current indulgence:

Creme filled mint chocolate Pirouettes, dipped in my coffee. I should add these to the list of foods I can eat.

Current #1 blessing:

My fambly,as crazy as they are.

This week’s Tuesday Tunes : What is the creepiest music video you’ve ever watched?

The very first video that popped into my head is probably not the typical definition of creepy but seriously, I’ve never been more skeeved out watching a music video. This one by Trace Adkins:

That man makes my tummy feel funny and not in a good way. I refuse to believe that those girls didn’t pick up on the creepy factor ,too. Damn good actresses, all of ‘em!

More traditionally “creepy”? Maybe I’m only thinking of it because I was reminded of it by this “How to Make A Meat Hand” tutorial but Queens of the Stone Age’s  “Sick Sick Sick”  is kind of delightfully creepy. Although it’s a little sad seeing your favorite band being eaten by some very hungry woman.

There are definitely some more disturbing & creepy videos out there. I just don’t feel like thinking about them right now.

[Win]

I don’t see how this could possibly be seen as a FAIL

[Also Not A Fail]

from here

Conversation my uber-geek hubby & I had over this photo:

Him: Why? Why would a storm trooper be singing in the rain?

Me: If you had a storm trooper costume, you’d do all sorts of goofy things with it,too

Him: Would not.

Me: Would so.

Him: Well…. not THAT I wouldn’t.

(I think he would)

[Library Loot]

This was my Book Club Book for next months meeting, chosen for it’s macabre & creepy storyline to accompany the month of October.

Set in Medieval times,  the story features a female doctor who “the dead speak to”. Meaning, she’s a sort of a Temperance Brennan or Sara Sidle during a time when women were most definitely not supposed to be doctors,let alone speak to dead bodies. .Educated & raised in Salerno, Adelia is ordered by the King to travel to England  to investigate the gruesome & brutal  murders of 4 children in Cambridge that the Jews are being blamed & persecuted  for. Under the guise of  acting as assistant to her manservant, she avoids the inevitable questioning and accusal of witchcraft.

The mystery of the novel is a gripping plot on it’s own but it’s the character of Adelia ,with her early “feminist” views  and examination of anti-semitism,anti-woman, superstition and plain churchy stuff in Medieval England that give the story depth & interest.

[blog title: "Singing in the Rain", of course]

More than frost on the pumpkin

somebody enjoyed his walk to preschool this a.m. (note to self: leave 10 minutes early on snowy days to allow for dawdling)

Snow covered playground at school.Of course,I didn't think to send him to school w/ snowpants

one of my fave local churches (architecturally & spiritually).It always seems prettier surrounded by snow

Just a little shout out to our local punk band The Berettas.

[blog title from "First Snowfall" by The Carpenters ]

I’m really just echoing Thank You Thursday here today:

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” Check out his speech from the Senate floor yesterday:

The good news is that the amendment passed ,68-30.

The 30 is baffling. Do Republican women feel ok being represented by this? I don’t see how.

I love Jon Stewart for representing a voice of compassion & common sense during the times that puzzle me. He’s on the Top 10 of my list of Brain Crushes,for sure.

more about “Daily Show: Rape Nuts “, posted with vodpod

I would like to add a huge “Fuck you” to the idiots who are blaming the victim here,with their reasoning that she shouldn’t have signed the contract in the first place if she didn’t want to be raped.  The idea of making a woman consent to rape…and that this is ok? What are you people thinking?

[blog title quote from Jamie Leigh Jones, in response to the amendment passing]

[Twitter Digest,Aug 28-29]

Actual tweets bolded.Expanded commentary not bolded

Part of me wants to say “kudos” but mostly I just want to get the baby out of that plastic bucket ( http://bit.ly/Q0VTk )

Huge Pet Peeve: Babies stuck in plastic buckets with a handle on them. Get a sling,people! #babywearing

Ok,so it’s awesome that someone was clever enough to write a code to babysit for them.Yes,kudos.  Personally,though? No real kudos. Babies don’t belong in plastic  buckets,unless they’re in the car.

Laughing at: “The Snuggie Sutra” ( http://bit.ly/upEwT )

You have a Snuggie.You have sex.This was inevitable. Actually I don’t have a Snuggie, but I guess if I did, I would put it to some good use besides the obvious.

If considering Gardasil vax,please read,including comments RT: @thecatenelson: Research speaks out against Gardasil. http://bit.ly/14PL5x

Seriously, if you’re a young woman within the vax range for Gardasil or are the parent of young girls, read this article and every other one you can get your hands on about the product. I have 3 daughters. Not a single one of them will be getting this vaccine.

Listening to: “When Children Are Wanted « This I Believe” ( http://bit.ly/OA4pZ )

This was a nice edition of “This I Believe‘, featuring Margaret Sanger’s words on not just working for herself, but for a greater good in the world.

I believe that Margaret Sanger is one of the the  most influential people on our society as we know it today. Without her dedication & commitment to ensuring women the right to take their reproduction into their own hands, women might still be slaves to their own biology.

“Trouble the Water” – 1st person account/amateur footage documentary about Katrina.It was good… ( http://bit.ly/CGpHk )

Anniversary of Katrina needed to be marked somehow. This was a different kind of docu, in that a lot of the footage was firsthand citizen documentation from someone who  stayed in NO thru the hurricane and then chronicles the weeks after

” When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” is still (IMO) the best film about Katrina I’ve seen ( http://bit.ly/USGsf )

It’s a beautiful film,truly.

This is awesome:Atheists who will take care of Christian pets after The Rapture comes ( http://bit.ly/17OGt2 )

I guess this is assuming that not all dogs & kitties go on to wherever it is,too.

Oh,my. I lack words,too. RT: @geekgirls: I….I dont even know what to say http://peopleofwalmart.com/ (via @pcweenies)

Since I don’t shop at Wal-Marx, it’s nice to see what I’m (not) missing. I have mixed feelings about blogs like this,though. I don’t judge a book by it’s cover. I mean, these people..sure they shop at the most evil store on earth but they might be awesome people. They might look like outcasts, fashion violators or just clinically insane but  hey…who the fuck cares?  Of course I’m laughing my ass off over some of the examples but I do it with some ounces of shame, knowing that I’m laughing at superficial quirks. As someone with plenty of superficial (and internal) quirks , I’m typically against judgment of external features that don’t conform to some odd standard society has made up.

One site like this that particularly pisses me off: Why the fuck do you have kids? Most people get their panties in a twist about the bad parenting shown but if I wore panties,they’d be more in a wad over the stereotyping of teenage and young parents.

Honestly, if I were to post any picture from my first child’s baby & toddlerhood with myself in it, I’m sure the people at Why the fuck do you have kids? would use it for fodder.  They’re no different from any fucktard I encountered in the dawn of my Mommyhood.  See, you can’t tell from a picture based on the age of the parent how inept or capable they are at parenting. Have you seen pics of Joan Crawford?  Sparkly,pretty,over 25 doesn’t always equal balanced , Mother of the Year.

[blog title: quote from Mommie Dearest....but it works in reference to Margaret Sanger's work,too. ]

The Conversation

Friend: You don’t blog anymore. I miss reading your posts.You should blog more

Me: Well…I do ….Tweet.Or Twitter. Or whatever you call it.

*pause*

Me: I microblog.That’s something ,right?

Friend:  No.Not the same. I don’t Twitter.Or Tweet. I don’t get Twitter AT ALL. Maybe you could just take everything you Tweet or Twitter & put it on your blog.

Me: Oh…like a digest.

Friend: Yes.

Okie dokie,then.

Twitter Digest – 8-25-09

→ Adding to Bucket List: Hike the entire Appalachian Trail ( http://bit.ly/3Mo3RL )

→ It’s ridiculous that we actually need an activist movement like this one: Drying For Freedom ( http://bit.ly/2mNtnh )

Ooohh…on my blog, I don’t have just 140 characters! I can elaborate. Drying for Freedom is an entire  film about clotheslines. The premiseBy 2010 more than 50 million homeowners will be banned from line drying clothes outdoors for the sake of preserving property value and prudishness, the ban which infringes on a homeowners civil rights is contributing to the environmental and energy crisis, considering the dryer is responsible for 6% of the average households energy bill, as well as costing the U.S. an estimated $5 billion annually. For the record,I like my clothes line dried,even when i do have a working dryer,which hasn’t been for a very long time.

→ Another Bucket List addition RT: @TheBellWitch: @JupiterSinclair and then there’s the Pacific Coast trail too http://www.pcta.org/

→RT: @geekgirldiva: RT @geekgirls Top 10 Women Comic Book Characters | http://bit.ly/R9HRA (written by @MariBiscuits)

→ Watching: Mastodon – Cut You Up With a Linoleum Knife. (lolz) ( http://bit.ly/3AnQ98 )

→Well,hell..might as well add “Hike Continental Divide Trail” to Bucket List & go for the Triple Crown ( http://bit.ly/jLg7S )

→ Simply awesome RT: @crookedvultures: Gunman x Lowlands http://vultur.es/19

For Under-Rock_Dwellers (or people who just don’t care about music all that much), Them Crooked Vultures are John Paul Jones ,Josh Homme & Dave Grohl. I’m reluctant to use the term “supergroup”.it sounds so cheesy & undermines the epicness of this.

Whoa,baby -  Turtle Porn ahead

When I’m reincarnated, please oh please Dear Universal Person in Charge of Reincarnation Assignment – can you not make me a female turtle? Please?  Maybe I’m wrong to judge the quality of all female turtle’s sex life by this one video but from this, it looks like she has about as much fun as one of those poor women married to religious zealots who believe a woman should just lay there and be a vessel to receive thy bountiful gift of man-gravy with which to beget offspring.

It could be just that this particular turtle is just one big heap of Porn Star FAIL. I would think that if you’re being taken from behind ,bumping shells with a VERY enthusiastic member  of the opposite sex and there’s a camera in your face, you’d at least attempt to look a tiny bit impressed because sweetheart, if you’re making THAT kind of movie, you know damn well that thing is going to end up on the Internet.

Maybe she’s just trying to not laugh at his O Face.

Still…please…no turtle reincarnation for me,please.

[vid found via Jezebel ]

[blog title from "Turtle Blues" by Janis Joplin]

[Matriotism]

I found this in an old issue of Crone Magazine from the early 90s (rescued from the free box @ the library, snatched for it’s collage potential).  It’s a piece that was part of an  exhibit in 1993, A Matriot’s Dream :An artistic response to the current health care crisis, consisting of 17 of photographs, poems, narratives, statistics by Kira Carrillo Corser and Frances Payne Adler.

I’m struck by how relevant this (and all the pieces in the exhibit ) are  still, 16 years later. Let’s hope we are finally ready in this country to progress past this dialogue that has gone on far too long.

Matriot (ma´ – tri – at) noun 1: One who
loves his or her country. 2: One who loves
and protects the people of his or her country.
3: One who perceives national defense as
health, education, and shelter of all people
in his or her country.

Matriot

There’s not much that’s important at my age
except making the world a better place.
What would I do?

I say we damn well better
get out on the streets again.
Everyone has to put their hand to the wheel
and get out and get off their butt
like in the sixties. We had compassion then,
and we’ve lost it. It breaks my heart.

I’ve lived through two depressions,
two of them. Everyone at that time
was just sick about the way things were,
just like now, only it’s worse now.
I see everything falling apart –
People, starving on the streets.
Children, beaten in their homes.
Sick people without health care.
Imagine this, in a country
that spends so much on the war machine.

I’d spend the money on health instead.
I’d see that children are born healthy
and make sure they stayed that way.
All children no matter what age.
I’d clean the air, the water. I’d take away
all that polluting shit they put on vegetables.
I’d promote the use of sun, sea, and wind
for natural energy. I’d save the forests,
especially the redwoods. I’d ban firearms.
I’d take away every nuclear device man to man.
No more wars, ever. Now we’re talking health.

How are we going to pay for all this?
No one ever says we don’t have enough
money to go to war. No one ever says
we don’t have money for national defense.

This is national defense.

[John Taylor Gatto speaks about schools and brainwashing]

Reflects a good deal of my issues w/ public school, particularly elementary level….children processed like raw materials, schools expecting parents to surrender their own parenting style to allow others to uniformly indoctrinate children, blanket education regardless of learning styles & individual personality needs….

[Link Love]

Rough Sex with Vampires what True Blood tells us about women & sexuality

A few facts about the Honduran military coup

100 Best Blogs for School Librarians Well, and for teachers,homeschoolers,parents and book sluts

Cinemash:Sid & Nancy/(500) Days of Summer Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt cinemashing

A New Control of Destiny wonderful edition of “This I Believe” ,focusing on words of Margaret Mead. Margaret Mead says she can’t separate what she believes as a person from what she believes as an anthropologist. And she believes humans beings, as part of a greater biological whole, have a responsibility to everyone else on the planet. True dat.

DIY Deoderant recipe to help you not smell

Nouvelle Vague The two sexiest voices in English-speaking Frenchpop, covering Sex Pistols, Violent Femmes, Depeche Mode, and Talking Heads. Personally, i love them but their cover of Modern English’s “Melt with You” was met with severe criticism by my dear psuedo-hubby, who said,”What they just did to that song was criminal”. Can’t please everyone, I s’pose.

[Library Loot]

current goodies out from the library

Best show on TV,ever.

[blog title from The Wire,Season 2. Which episode? I can't remember. Towards the beginning of the season.]