Here's an idea

www.getsnuggie.com

I really really really want to orchestrate some thing and maybe call it performance art, I guess, but have like 3 or 4 dozen random, unrelated people all wearing those things (in blue or green probably) just as everyday wear. But thats all they ever wear. Ever. I want them to seem like some weird snuggly monk teletubby cult, but actually not be a cult. I pondered this when I saw the infomercial for these gems on a screen in the new terminal of the Raleigh(/Durham) airport today. RDU is always a (potentially) terrifying place, as I have never failed to spot someone I know from the past there, with an increased likelihood of such a sighting on holiday weekends. Yep, spotted someone from middle school from afar.

Today was a comedy of flight errors.

The next three weeks are gonna bloooooooooow.

Becoming a hermit in 3...2....1...

A Bachelor's Christmas

There is no season like Christmas—or, as I saw it printed in one blog entry—CHRISTmas. No, indeed. A season for whatever one makes of it, whether it is the traditional pastiche of commercialism and Christianity or a general time for being with others (or a combination of these two options).

For me, it's a time for holiday parties. It's one thing I have been anticipating since the end of college: holiday parties with workmates, holiday parties with friends, holiday parties with strangers—holiday parties in general. In actuality, I enjoy the festive cheer, too. With the music and the pageantry, and the awfully good story that comes with the package, this is the one time during the year that I wish I were a practicing Roman Catholic. I mean, honestly, what a beautiful season. Being a Catholic at this time of the liturgical year is like living in the 5th century A.D. Pretty sweet.

As a bachelor, I find holiday parties are always good to meet people, too. Although I do not particularly enjoy the D.C. political crowd, and still consider myself a "New Yorker-in-exile," (so much for moving places for love) the holiday party can be a universally redeeming event for any locale. Everyone is eager to mingle during the Christmas season, and that should afford some new faces in the process.

Culminating in what one hopes is an epic New Year's Eve in NYC (Cait, I swear, I'm mailing it tomorrow! Pleaaase forgive me!), the coming weeks will be fairly busy:

(1) Next weekend, my friend Kathleen Brasington is starring in a production of A Christmas Carol in Annapolis, and she and Julia Elkin are hosting me and several dear friends for the weekend. I am excited, to say the least.

(2) The following week is chockerblock full of holiday parties in the area. D.C. area Yule Log with fellow, awkward W&M kids, some D.C. holiday parties with good friends from W&M and then my workplace is hosting a party on Dec. 15 (All friends in the area are invited to any of these!)

(3) More D.C. area parties follow that week, along with what we hope is a great holiday party here at the house around Dec. 20. It should prove entertaining!

(4) PLEASE READ: All friends are entitled to at least one (1) Christmas Greeting Card. On it, it will feature me (sadly), Sarah McCann, Cassandra Powers and Ryan Powers. If you would like one, please give me your mailing address. It will be shipped posthaste (as soon as we make the card).

That's all for now. Oh—see Australia! Delightful film. Reminds me of what it must have been like for my dad to grow up in an inhospitable desert with no signs of civilization, and then to hear from Americans today, "Oh, I'd love to visit the Outback!" My dad cannot understand those people.

ciao!


Discussion Question: Mumbai: Should it still be called "Bombay"?
Discussion Question #2: Do you have an advent wreath? If not, why?

Thanksgiving Education

Well, I won. I won the successful cousin contest. This is awesome because it also means my mother loves me more as a point of comparison (though, I am in 2nd place in the sister category). There were many a feminism (my position) vs. birthing is life (theirs) discussions and I think they all must think I'm some kind of lipstick (PITBULLS!) lesbian.

But more importantly: I shot a pistol! A 40-caliber. We went to the outdoor range, I in my marc jacobs jeans and giant heels, my mother in her fur-trimmed coat. It snowed as I shot to my heart's content. Too much responsibility. But my mother seemed to enjoy it in a weird Annette Benning in American Beauty kind of way.

I also played my first game of Euchre - according to my father it's the national game of Upstate New York.

And lastly, my aunt joan wanted everyone to know that she was wasted for thanksgiving. She kept shouting "And you can tell everyone your aunt was sloshed at dinner". So I am.

Memories made.

And OMG-eezy how could I forget the traumatic recurring references to "30 days of love". My aunt and uncle are having sex every day from thanksgiving to christmas. It's the thirty days of obligation, ky jelly, mortification, lecherous uncles, and NIGHTMARES. It was brought up at least once each meal and then every 10 minutes at non-mealtime. Which might be why this was the least indulgent thanksgiving ever.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

Dear God,

The entire Bannana Republic store was 50% off yesterday. THE WHOLE THING.
Thank You for families in a hurry to get home. Thank you for saving my bank account.

Love, Josh

(Amen.)

Worker dies at Long Island Wal-Mart after being trampled in Black Friday stampede

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/28/2008-11-28_worker_dies_at_long_island_walmart_after.html


One of the more revolting headlines in recent memory.

Anxious Midnight Pre-Thanksgiving Post - Of Course!

Oy Vey. So, I have this vacation planned in February to go to Prague to visit a dude-friend. He may or may not have, over homecoming, very intoxicated, told me several things including "I want to fuck the shit out of you" and "if you're not planning on sleeping with me, then get a hotel room". Well fuck (the shit). I haven't entirely talked to him since then. And I certainly haven't thought about the vacation. Which is fine EXCEPT that I also mistakenly bought those super sweet John Legend tickets for the night I get back. Boo hiss. I suppose I'll be hawking those babies on craigslist or that other ticket scalping site.

ADDITIONALLY

I will not be taking a vacation so much as a weeklong unpaid leave as I am still freelance (though no longer lying to my parents - does anyone have cheap insurance btw?) and have no paid vacaton days. Hours still reduced. Economy still sucking

*competitive stressing? - dan*

I called customer-service guru Delta and they will issue me a credit for my flight minus a 200-dollar fee for cancellation.
At this point - that sounds ok.

But if the fucking shit comment was just drunken and if I can actually stay in his apartment without the prostitution element it could be a fun trip. And most likely a well needed vacaton. And what would I do with a delta credit anyway?

In other news:
The F&W job I applied to has been frozen until january. I applied to a few jobs but as they were listed on mediabistro, I'm sure the other 199 applicants are more qualified. I still have 2 jobs to apply to, 2 articles to write for my 2nd freelance outlet, hours upon hours of T+L work to do. And a family to fawn over.

But, then again, christmas party season is upon us and if I remember it correctly it means a lot of rich food, champagne, drunkeness, and then vomming the whole thing away that evening. Looks like my holiday weight goals are in sight.

~FIN~

Addendum:
still up worrying...
thank goodness for the quizzes on disneychannel.com in the hannah montana zone. You should all go though I cannot vouch for their accuracy. It said I was hannah/miley and that the music genre that represents my lifestyle is...COUNTRY

Sputter.

I've done something I really didn't think I'd ever do for this whole year. I've skipped class and work 2 days in a row. NBD, I'm not really that sick, I'm just kindof gross and probably shouldn't be around people in confined classroom- or office-sized spaces. I also think that after roughly 2-odd years of living together, Charlotte and I are completely immune to each other. In fact, I've secretly been coughing all over her belongings and food for the past three days. This is a lie, but we're in such close quarters I'm sure it wouldn't make a difference.

All my dear little friends from Raleigh are either already home or get home tonight and I am super excited to see them. I do, however, dread the trip home, because I have to fly home at the asscrack of dawn on Thanksgiving morning. This is just about the last thing I'd like to be doing in the recovering stages of a phlegmmy cough, as I'm a bit of a germophobe to begin with and really all an airplane is is a goddamn germ capsule in the sky with no escape.

Speaking of flying, I went to Williamsburg a couple weekends ago for the 7g new kid show. It was delightful and quite funny. There also seems to be a lot of 7g incest and 7g fringe incest. Fun for the whole family, I guess. I had mama steve's twice, and I don't know how this happened, but I had Taco Bell and didn't even get the normal exorbitant amount of food I typically order, and couldn't finish it. It was really weird.

School is getting tougher. My classmates feel burned out and cranky and have lost the will to read. I still manage to soldier through the reading because if I didn't, that would sort of defeat the purpose of my being here. I seem to spend a lot more time at work, too. Like more than I'm technically supposed to, but whatever, there's a lot to do and someone has to do it. Except for yesterday and today, of course.

I'm really excited about next semester's classes. I'm taking Subcultures and something about cyberculture crit theory. Both very useful subjects. The third and final class is the ma projects course, which I really know nothing about. I am assured by many, however, that "don't worry about it, it'll work out." Oh, okay.

It now seems that the MA class has divided into three parts: 1-those of us who never had any intention to apply for the phd (this is where I fall), 2-those of us who were pumped for the phd from the get-go and are still gunning for it full steam ahead, and 3-those of us who were pumped for the phd from the get go and gave up because they are burned out or maybe think perf studies isn't exactly what they bargained for or have just run out of steam. You can tell who belongs to what category really easily by their attitude and form of caffeine glued to the hand that isn't clutching a macbook with a dog-eared Foucault volume stacked on top of it.

And now I return to the vicious cycle of reading, sleeping, and guzzling water until the Real Housewives of Atlanta reunion show. That shit is my guilty pleasure. It makes me oddly homesick.

This is what I meant...

http://jezebel.com/5097720/a-colbert-christmas-john-legend-wants-to-nut-your-egg


instant classic.

It's A Christmas Miracle

This made me nutmeg a little.

I'm seeing him in February at Radio City:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

A Colbert Christmas: Preview - John Legend

Ron Paul Interview
Bob Barr Interview

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Fuck these Bitches

Watching My Super Sweet Sixteen and it brought up this gem:

Alex: They should call this show "what recession?"

Me: Or, fuck these bitches.

They cut my hours down to 35 which is a delightful 1/8 paycut. 

I started applying for supplementary/new jobs today but who knows  how that will turn out, probably not well. 

In other news my bedroom is kept at a cozy 99 degrees and I have to go out and get insulation to wrap the heating polls. It's driven lee away and now I have to go to brooklyn where the heat can be regulated. 

So it's been rough. Warm, poor, and rough. 

NYE 2K8

this new years eve extravaganza that i am in the process of spearheading is shaping up to be incredibly sweet and if you don't come you're the worst. this is just a public service announcement. more info to come later.

my turn

I'm going to Williamsburg TOMORROW. Noms Mama Steve's potato & american cheese omelet, same Wawa sandwich I ordered for all four years, and ohhhhh sweet sweet Taco Bell. Bliss.

November 4, 2008

I'm not a sentimental man. It's a lie I tell myself time and again, but I confess my hypocrisy on November 4. Knowing full well Obama would be elected president by nine o'clock that evening, my initial emotional reactions were muted, mostly due to the inevitability I felt the moment carried. That moment, however, at eleven o'clock, when CNN deftly delivered in quick succession Virginia and then the presidency to Obama, was overpowering. What a beautiful moment, so charged with history and sentiment.

For me, and certainly my memory, the Bush administration did not begin in January 2001. I would venture to say none of us could pull a concrete Bush memory or recall a particularly memorable Bushism from those early days. I remember, however, talks about the “lame duck” presidency of George Bush, even in the first months of his presidency. As our nation, we were still saturated with the goodwill and wealth of the Clinton years; the economic decline and e-bubble burst were only beginning. There were those who predicted the impending messes, not me—I was naïve.

For me, the Bush administration, with its machinations, hubris and eminence, began on September 11, 2001. Whatever the reasoning behind the Islamist assault on the United States—I would hazard a guess that many of us share a similar opinion—the Bush administration became a focal point for our fears. When, not if, will be attacked next? What is Cheney planning? Where is Cheney? How intelligent is Bush? Why is his invading Iraq? What did Iraq do to us? How many will die, how many will suffer, how many will let this happen? Fears became resignation, and in very short time, I became a cynic. 9-11 was everything wrong with this nation, with our outlook and our government's behavior. The Bush regime, however, became more popular; they were reelected in 2004. Politically, I felt alone. Fear was the prevalent political attitude: fear of foreign powers, fear of taxes and social policy, fear of homosexuals. It was the apex of twentieth century conservatism, a convergence of Christian and anti-government conservatism.

But the anti-government became the Government; the Christians, who rallied against “legislated” morality, legislated morality—in many states, amended their civil constitutions to reflect their sentiments rather than their liberties. (We will find ourselves battling these hypocrisies, and our own, for a while.) I was resigned to the concept of perpetual war and cynicism, doubting the ability of the electorate to right this tidal wave of fear. 2008 proved me wrong.

In many ways, it wasn't the power of the conservatives that tore them from the rostrum; it was their impotence. Their impotence to prevent their inadequacies from loosing the terrors of greed and selfish autonomy. While they defended “life” as a sacred right, lives were ruined—in Iraq, in New Orleans, on Wall Street, in U.S. cities, towns and neighborhoods. Fear turned to disgust, and disgust is by no means a projection of compassion and goodwill. The electorate began to shift.

Again, I am not overly sentimental—perhaps that's a better way to phrase my viewpoint—yet Obama has effectively focused our attention. (Well, the fifty-two percent majority that elected him; the other fifty-seven million voters will have wait and see his message.) Our attention is turning toward true compassion. I remember scoffing at the notion Bush put forward that his conservatism was “compassionate,” as if he had differentiated himself from any other form of political conservatism. There is compassionate conservatism or liberalism, tyranny or socialism: nevertheless, we can charge our policies with compassion. Compassion for the poor and sick, the lonely and the deprived, the war-ravaged and those who have lived long lives, beyond war and peace, yet are destitute.

Obama might not accomplish his agenda in four or eight years, but if we can sustain the sentiment of this movement, then another chapter is, in fact, being written in our relatively short history as a nation.

That is what November 4, 2008 meant for me. Bush has another seventy or so days in office, and he retains the capacity to enact harmful executive measures to ensure his political legacy will not end on January 20, 2009. The Iraq War guarantees that fate. Regardless, Bush is historically impotent now.

For me, Bush's chapter in history will be from September 11, 2001 to November 4, 2008. He will have not advocated compassion in politics any more than he will have proved himself a compassionate man. A man who advocated the removal of rights and livelihood for hundreds of unnamed, unseen political targets, their torture and death, under the aegis of a war on “terror,” when the true terror is the ignobility of a government whose responsibility was to its Constitution and its constituency.

It is inconsequential to me that Bush might be a kind man, loved by his family and friends, honored by social conservatives for his dedication to his god and his beliefs. He has wrought a silent death to hundreds of thousands—a violent death for the victims, muffled by the silence of their distance from our everyday lives. For anyone who finds in Bush any semblance of moral fiber, I ask this of you: Imagine the screams, the cries, the death. Imagine the blood and rubble of families buried together, the old aged as lifeless as those who were robbed of aging old. And ask yourself: what for? Were they, in actuality, a threat to the lives of three hundred million Americans?

I am losing my focus for this post. Let me recap: I am proud of our sixty-five million strong majority. We might not all agree on policies, outlooks or politics. Even so, we have made an initial repudiation not only of an eight-year chapter in our history, but of a thirty-year experiment with Reagan style conservatism. I hope, with the greatest sincerity, that our next four—and, if we're strong enough, eight—years will build a progressive coalition of conservatives and liberals, the religious and the rationalists, the majority of middle-class, white Americans and our ever-growing, ever more vocal social, economic and sexual minorities.

That's the hope for the twenty-first century. We face plenty of challenges.

This was a spur of the moment post for me. I apologize for any errors or exaggerations, but I wanted some venue to vent my thoughts. I thought I would share them with you. We have a long battle ahead of us, to ensure liberty and equality for all in our civil society. Despite our fears of societal collapse, economic disaster and war, the attitude in moving forward is recalling our nation's unique ability to adapt through history. Yes, we can! And yes, we will.

Goin' to Williamsburg...

tonight.

YAY! At this point

But seriously, CNN

WILL.I.AM VIA HOLOGRAM.

and NC is killing me right now.

President-elect Obama

Friends,

We have won. It is only a matter of time now till President-elect Obama officially takes the majority of Electoral College votes.

GRAPHIC-OFF 2008

Some talking head (body?) just joined the CNN newsroom live via hologram.

How am I supposed to choose a channel on which to follow the returns? Their graphics, camera angles, and live feeds of various media make it so hard to decide!

I am left to judge based on their respective makeup jobs.


Complexion change we can believe in.

Almost the case

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/voting_machines_elect_one_of

Dan, this is in line with what we said about robots.

Come one, come all...

umm...to our place tomorrow night to watch returns? When the happy news is made official (and knock on wood, like knuckle-busting hard, that it will be) we will parade to Dan, Lee, and Alex's place, bottles of liquor ready for liberal dispensation to any interested Fellow Pedestrians and Assorted Revelers to party in the neighborhood through the night. 515 5th St., buzzer 7. Call me or Cait.

Life in an Air Shaft

Hi All,
So, I am sick yet again and blogging from crown heights, bklyn, where I've just slept for 10 hours in a bed that isn't entirely mine.

Over the past few weeks a lot of hilarious things have happened but in my mucus-soaked state I can only remember a few.

1) A conversation with my air-shaft neighbor:
The windows of my room face out onto a narrow airshaft and look directly onto another apartment no more than 5 feet away (this is part of a tenement law that stipulates all rooms must have windows) . On more than one occasion I have heard/seen my neighbor having sex. NBD, it happens. BUT on tuesday evening while she and her friend were watching biggest loser (I can hear absolutely everything that goes one in there) the inebriated pair lean toward the window (after we've accidentally made awkward eyecontact across the shaft) and my neighbor shouts "I hear you guys having sex ALL the TIME." Awesome. I have to move now.

2) Jo-Bros and Hannah take to the Streets
Halloween: The Jonas Brothers - Abby, Alex, Charlotte
Hannah Montana - Josh (from work)
Results: Polaroid Perfection.

Let's see, what else?
Oh yeah! Layoffs! FUCKING HILARIOUS My job is fine but 22 people from my AmEx pub group were laid off on tuesday followed by Thursday's announcement of a 10% company layoff of 7,000 employees. Oh Amex, you delight me. In other news:Goodbye Radar, CosmoGirl, and RealSimpe and regrets to the 600 Time Inc. employees laid off as well. I'm oh so glad that I am simultaneously in publishing AND finance since my group is owned by a credit giant.

Then there was homecoming, no death threat from Ashley this year, so that's an improvement but there was a lot of drunk awkward. I saw Champe - it went surprisingly well considering I was almost comatose, definitely hungover from the day's drinking, and certainly not prepared to see him. I spent most of my time with Lizzie - the exact reason for my sojourn to the south. So I guess it was a pretty ideal weekend save for the rain on saturday and the ambush saturday night.

Yesterday Alex and I went to see the Chanel Mobile Art Exhibit in Central Park. Everyone should go. It was the best 0 bucks I've spent in years. Zaha Hadid is Brilliant, as is Kaiser Karl and his arty minions. Leventhal was a little creepy which is to be expected. Go. Seriously. Go.

That's all. Happy extra hour. I'm off to prepare my SAT lessons for NYCares. I love the two kids I'm tutoring and am in the process of figuring out a good way to get them to fall in love. I assigned 10 things I hate about you to the chick because she's apathetic about visiting sarah lawrence (which with my help she may actually be able to get in to).