Dear Snow,

Enough already!

Best,
J

Yesssss

The small private conference room in our office that is generally reserved for telephone interviews with prospective employers (if you’re any number of my former co-workers) or paying off your traffic tickets, so the county will remove the two bench warrants filed against you (if you’re me). Today, I was walking by when I noticed that the lights were off – always a good sign of a juicy happening – and there was someone talking inside. The only words I could catch (before I was caught lingering outside) were “dirty-ass ho.” Beautiful.

In other good news, Kyle just called me and told me that one of his employers has agreed to finish my root canal for free, basically. He’s going to take what the insurance company is offering for both steps of the process (fitting me for a cap, giving me a temporary cap and then a permenant one) and nothing more, which is, like, totally rad, considering I am, as always, Brokey McBrokerson.

Next up: wisdom tooth removal! Woo hoo!

This makes me so happy

This is one of the three freakin' adorable mascots for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Is it wrong to want to go to the Olympics just so I can see them in person? Love. There are some cute games on the event Web site, too. I think, at the very least, I'm gonna have to get a comemorative pin or somethin'.

And last night, I bought a new print. How lovely is this? And I get buttons with it, too.

More good news: I have had issues with my car for months now, and last night I brought it in for the dealer repair guy to have another look. Every other time I've done this, he's basically told me that I'm crazy, that everything's been fixed. This time, the voice mail he left on my phone was something like this: "Hey, just looked at your car, and, well, we're replacing the transmission ... [me, inwardly: SHIT!!] ... and it's covered by your warranty [sigh of relief]. I'll call you when it's done." Then, a few hours later, another message: "Hey, the car's all fixed, and as we were fixing it, the check engine light went on. It was your thermostat ... [ARGH!!] ... but it's covered under warranty, so we've replaced that, too."

Aaaah. I feel better now.

Things I don't want to hear at 7:30 a.m.

"Uh, I think the cat peed on your clothes."

Sigh.

And then there's this

Which both of my (semi-bitterly divorced, but politically aligned) parents have sent me in the last few days: We bruise our daughters when we bash Hillary Clinton.

Recently, I learned that some airport shops are selling a "Hillary nutcracker." She has a smile on her face and metal spikes between her thighs. I don't worry about the candidate, who has learned how to handle such misogyny, but I do dwell on the young girls who might catch a horrifying glimpse of those steel jaws and decide that no woman should invite such vitriol.

Dreading March 4

For the first time I can remember, I don't know which Presidential candidate I will be voting for in the primary. And man, it is making me crazy. I just took one of those online quizzes where you can answer questions to see which candidate best suits you, and Hillary and Barack frickin' came in tied! Ack!

Annnnd ... I just took another poll, and it looks like my winning candidate is ... Mike Gravel, probably only because Kucinich is no longer a choice. Yeah, that's how I roll.

OK, another site has Obama matching me at 85 percent, tied (natch) with Kucinich, and followed by Hillary at 83 percent. In other words, too close to count.

[Edited to add: And the fucking USA Today poll has me with Kucinich first, Gravel second and McCain third. Perfect.]

Ugh. Rebecca Traister had an essay in Salon a couple of days before Super Tuesday that, well, it's like she has tapped into every single feeling I have had about this race. I had a hard time picking out the parts that most spoke to me, because, well, it all does, but here are some excerpts:

I think, every day, of what it would feel like to vote for Barack Obama. I can feel the pull of Obama-mania, how thrilling it would be to see the country come alive with excitement for a young person, someone with fresh ideas, a man beholden to few in Washington, a candidate who has lived around the world, who does not seem to take a cowboy approach to foreign policy, who has forsaken big business opportunities in order to address the problems of the working class. I think also that, in the United States, race (especially when combined with class) remains a more formidable barrier to professional, political and economic success than gender. Hillary Clinton may have a harder time getting elected than Obama because, frankly, Obama can be comfortably looked at as an exceptional black man, not as a harbinger of what's to come, whereas Hillary will stand in for all those pushy broads coming to take your jobs, college admissions letters and seats in Congress. If Hillary's success is less exceptional, does she deserve my vote as much as Barack?

. . .

And then I think of how, when I was 9, my dad took me into the voting booth so that I could pull the lever for the first female vice president, and how he told me that he hoped that in my lifetime I would have the opportunity to vote for a woman at the top of the ticket. And I think about the fact that this is it -- my chance to pull that lever for her, so that I can do it again come November.

. . .

There is shame in voting for Hillary Clinton, make no mistake -- pulling a lever for someone who voted for Iraq and proposed anti-flag-burning legislation provokes its own brand of self-loathing. When I think about doing the deed, I consider the fact that she's brilliant, that she's competent, that she knows her shit inside and out, that she's battle-tested, tough as nails, and that she wipes the floor with Obama in the debates. She provides a steel-solid track record, he a nimbus of vague hope.

. . .

But here is the honest part: Hillary Clinton is a woman. And so am I. And my president doesn't have to look like me, any more than she has to be a person I want to have a beer with, but I can't pretend that it doesn't mean something, something really important, that we've never had one who looked like me before.

Can’t it ever lede without bleeding? Ever? Ever ever?

AngryJournalist.com is my new favorite thing on the internet.

A sampling:

Angry Journalist #185:
I’m pissed that community journalism is dying and being bought out by bullshit companies who don’t care about grass roots reporting and the important position it holds in small town America.

Angry Journalist #245:
I just want to punch someone

Angry Journalist #276:
Editors who tell you to “dumb down” the writing, not trusting the reader’s intelligence. The public who doesn’t give a shit about what’s going on around them. AP style, nut grafs, and ledes. The lack of balls in writing style. The large MSM outlets who skew the news and make community journalists look like assholes. The lack of truth in journalism. The fact that politicians try to make themselves look good in the press, rather than give the truth, and we have to take it as is. The fact that the state I live in has one reporter opening a month, we have a popular journalism major at a state university, and dozens apply to each job that comes up. What are the rest of the kids doing? The fact that I can’t pay off my debts as a community journalist, and in fact only create more. The fact that if I ever want to move up in this field I have to give out blow jobs. The fact that writing shitty stories over irregular hours makes me so numb I can’t bear to sit and write fiction during my time off. The fact that I am considering a trade job to get out of this field I worked so hard to get into. The fact that I love the concept of the news, but hate the way it is done, and am disillusioned by how I am told to do it. The fact that papers look to hire journalists with online and multimedia skills, but only take paper packet applications. The fact we have to write the same amount of stories we always have AND do more multimedia on top of it. The fact that there is never enough time to really spend out in the public chatting with the people who matter most — the readers. Shall I continue?

Angry Journalist #293:
I should have gone to refrigeration school.

(Via Gawker)

Meredith, for the win

It's snowing fairly heavily right now, and has been since I got here at 8:20 a.m. It was 60 degrees yesterday; today the high is expected to be about 20 or so degrees.

And it just thundered.

Meredith: "Why are we living The Day After Tomorrow?"

Now with 10 percent fewer brain cells!!

This weekend has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. The highs: the continuation of Kyle and my Valenversery, good food, getting in some exercise, spending time with my mom and friends. The lows: bickering with Kyle over stuff so pointless that I can no longer recall anything we fought about, eating *way* too much rich food and misplacing -- I hope! -- my iPod.

But perhaps the most exciting moment happened Saturday afternoon shortly after our workout. My muscles were starting to tighten up, and I decided that the best thing would be a long, hot bath. So, with Kyle out shoe-shopping, I got the bath started and shortly thereafter noticed that the water was much, much too hot. I needed to add cold water, and impatient being that I am, I hopped in and used my feet to swish it all around.

That might have been a mistake.

I was facing the wall on the long side of the tub when ... it started to move. Or rather, I started to move, as my feet sled forward and my body catapulted backwards. It all happened quickly, but as I fell straight back, I had enough time to think "Huh--I'm finally going to know what it's like to be knocked unconscious." With my knees hanging over the edge of the tub, my elbow hit the floor and my head slammed into the wall. FUUUUUCK! For a second, I wondered if Kyle would find me there on the floor, naked and bleeding. I wondered if I had a concussion. Genius that I am, I held two fingers in front of me to see if I had double-vision. My already-poor eyesight seemed no worse for wear. And so I gingerly climbed back into the tub, bathed and then tended to the scabs forming on my elbow and leg. Apart from those cuts, I haven't seen any lasting effects, except, uh, tonight at tennis, I didn't have my own racquet, so I borrowed the club's. Aaaand when tennis was over, I walked out with it. Whoops. I think my memory might have taken a hit.

There will be blood

After years (eep!) of procrastination, I finally went to the dentist yesterday. It was a trip I dreaded not so much because of the dentist himself (he's a pretty genial guy) or the inevitably painful tooth-scraping, but because of the visit's impact on my wallet. The verdict, after a protracted scaling that left my gums bleeding and raw? One cavity, which will be filled next week. Oh, and I still have to get my root canal finished and my wisdom teeth removed. Man, my wallet's already hurting in anticipation.

Anyway, the dentist. I have this ongoing joke about how nothing in his office has changed since 1972. Several of the walls are wood-paneled, and one exam room has a sepia-toned photographic mural of a nature scene. And then yesterday, I saw what's pictured above: Tons of back issues of Soap Opera Digest.

Oh, and a children's book on West Germany. Wow. I always thought I was a bit of an exaggerator about the place, but, yeah. There it is.

Anyhoo, my gums were tender last night and this morning, and when I woke up at 7 a.m., I decided to take a Tylenol PM and go back to sleep. That may have been a mistake. When I woke up four hours later, I decided I should probably go to work. Only I couldn't find my glasses. So, I watched some Martha Stewart, caught up on my e-mail and then started what would be a two-hour search. Dammit. Do you know how hard it is to find glasses when you need them to find anything? It is quite difficult.

After moving the bed, stripping it, wrestling with dust bunnies and finding our lost DVD remote, I finally found my specs, which were on the floor on Kyle's side of the bed, caught in a tangle of wires. Argh. I put them on, and headed to the office. Everything was pretty uneventful there, except I finally gave in and started playing this, which is both terribly addictive and allows me to think my laziness is doing some good in the world. So, yeah, that's pretty rad, although I have a feeling my productivity is going to plummet. But hey, starving people will get rice!

Wiener Poopie

I have no words for how amazing this is. (Via Dooce)

Can we talk about my shoes?

Let's.

OK, so I have been coming apart at the seams since my beloved Pro-Keds came apart at the seams (quite literally, sadly). After two-plus years of solid use, they just started disintegrating, and no amount of Shoe Goo could keep them together. I loved these shoes. They were like Chuck Taylors, but with actual arch support and a more substantial sole. They were a staple of my wardrobe, and with their loss, my ability to dress myself for work declined significantly. To make matters worse, when I attempted to find a proper replacement, I learned that the line had been purchased by Rocawear. And y'know, as much as I used to love to don hip-hop clothes as a kid, the thought of wearing logo-emblazoned shoes like this makes me cry. So I've been looking for something to take their place. I wanted comfy black shoes that I could wear to work (I interpret our office dress code very loosely), wear out and not hear my footsies cry in pain afterward.

My plan for the weekend was to find brown pants. My favorite pair, as I said a few days ago, were destroyed by an uncapped permanent marker left in my pocket and I needed a new pair for my work uniform. I headed to Old Navy to try and find the dream pants. No dice. As much as I love Old Navy, it all went down in a manner that I am accustomed to at this store. One pair of pants was so tight that no waist extender in the world would would help. When I went up a size, however, the pants were so big and baggy that I could pull them down even when properly zipped and buttoned. So, no dice.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah, shoes.

Anyway, Kyle had asked me to grab some Method all-purpose pink grapefruit-scented household cleaner at Target (seriously, he wants to make babies with that shit) while I was out pants-shopping. Um, you want me to go to Target? Hells yeah! Guilt-free consumerism, here I come.

And it was there that I found them. Target now carries fabric Converse One-Stars. Do you know how difficult it is to find cute, non-leather shoes? Very. The adult shoes were $29.99, but nearby, and looking remarkably similar (and by "similar," I mean, "the same") was a kiddie version for $19.99.

Check it out: Adults. Kids.

OK, are you back? Good. So, I decided to try an experiment. Would my size 6.5-7 tootsies fit in kiddie shoes? Oh, yes. Yes they would.

I'm wearing my new kicks now. I don't love them as much as those Pro-Keds (now collecting dust bunnies under the bed, as I can't yet bear to throw them out), but hell, they were cheap and reasonably stylish and not made of dead cows. And now I'm eyeing a pair in bubblegum pink.

Crybaby

Those who have known me for any length of time might have already heard this story, but forgive me for repeating myself for a moment. When I was in the third grade, I had a teacher, Mrs. B, who I, for some period, thought was the bee's knees. The reason was simple: she had traveled the world with her husband, and would tell us great stories about schools in other countries, about the proper way to wrap a sari and about her true hair color: her hair was naturally near-black like mine, but she had long kept it a yellowy bottle blond. I was enchanted with her stories and her frank talk. Up to a point.



That point came midway through the year when Mrs. B, as brittle as her suicide-blonde hair, mocked me in front of the class for my poor penmanship. Embarrassed, I stopped emulating my dad's scrawl and mimicked my mother's girlish hand instead. But Mrs. B wasn't done. Later in the year, I broke my arm and midway through the healing process, I was due for a doctor's appointment to check my progress. Instead of riding the bus that day, my dad was due to pick me up at school. But there was a problem: under our school policy, the only way to not be put on the bus was to have a parental note or phone call alerting our teacher to the change. My dad had been too rushed to give me the note, and promised to call the school secretary. Later, he would tell me the message must not have been passed on, but in retrospect, I tend to think he just forgot. But I am meandering off-topic here. Anyway.



So, near the end of the day, I told Mrs. B that my dad was supposed to pick me up. She told me she hadn't heard anything of the like, and that I would have to ride the bus home, per usual. Now that freaked me the fuck out. You see, my dad has a notoriously bad temper (one of my early childhood memories is of him making Trish, a family friend, cry) and I was worried about what would happen when he arrived at my school and I wasn't there. I (barely) held back my tears as my brain worried over what I should do. And then it happened. A kindly student teacher looked over, saw that I was upset, and asked me what was wrong. And then the floodgates unleashed. She clucked sympathetically as I explained, through tears, the situation.



And then Mrs. B noticed me. From across the room, she shouted, "Why are you crying, crybaby?" Which is sort of an answer and a question all wrapped up in one, y'know? And just plain mean, to boot. So, yeah, imagine my surprise -- and delight -- this morning when I heard the local news broadcast about a woman who'd been attacked by bed bugs while on vacation in Cincy. It was her. And then I set to googling her. And that's when I found this, which included comments such as [Mrs. B] was the worst professor I have had at OSU. She was unprofessional as she just complained to us and never actually taught ...



And let me tell you, the 9-year-old in me couldn't be more pleased with this development.