Watch the Colbert Report after the election. I realize that from now on, every single non-rerun episode of the Colbert Report is the Colbert Report after the election - and that is very lucky for you! Because it is very cheering! And not because Stephen Colbert is funny (although that helps) - he says that he could save the country billions of dollars in health care costs with his Walk It Off Program.
Anyway, that's not why. The reason is that Stephen Colbert is happy. His happiness is infectious! He perpetually looks like he's about to burst into joyous giggles. Know why? Because Obama got elected, that's why! And every time I watch the Colbert Report which is rarely because I am rarely up this late, but today I have just finished a draft of my story and I want to work on it more and more and more so that's why I watched the show today, and anyway every time I watch the Colbert Report, it makes me giggle too. Giggles are hovering so close to the surface every time Stephen Colbert speaks, and it makes me feel cheerful.
I mean, yes, okay, I wasn't depressed before. With the story-writing and Christmas approaching and the good election and everything. So the Colbert Report may not be a real cure for depression. I have no way of gauging right now. But if you're already feeling pretty cheerful, it can make you feel even cheerfuler!
Oh. You know what else can make you feel cheerfuler? This, which is possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen. When she says "hippopotamus" wrong - oh my God. Just watch it. So, so cute.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Why Thanksgiving is troublesome
In the first place, people are always saying you can't start singing Christmas carols until after Thanksgiving. Though this is obvious bullshit I have heard it many a time, even from people who like Christmas. See, but if Thanksgiving didn't exist, they would have to say can't sing Christmas carols until after Halloween, or at a stretch, until after Veterans' Day. That would be obviously better!
Thanksgiving is just a general placeholder for when Christmas things can't happen before. (A syntactically bewildering sentence there.) No Thanksgiving means no unpleasant deadline to which we would have to pay attention. Christmas festivities could begin whenever the hell we want, which they already do for me, but there are just so many people who feel bound by the not-before-Thanksgiving rule.
But I actually started writing this post for a reason that has nothing to do with Christmas, which is turkey commercials. When Thanksgiving gets close people start having these horrible turkey commercials with people doing lots of horrible things to raw turkeys. These commercials are uniformly so incredibly vile that they trigger my gag reflex, and I have to swallow frantically and turn the TV off. NO MORE RAW TURKEY COMMERCIALS. If I wanted to see that crap, I would watch the beginning of Pieces of April. UGH.
...I don't hate Thanksgiving really. It's always nice to get together with the family and eat lots of foods. Especially when there is dirty rice. I just wish people didn't get all hatey about Christmas until Thanksgiving is over. I get excited about Christmas way before Thanksgiving shows up.
Thanksgiving is just a general placeholder for when Christmas things can't happen before. (A syntactically bewildering sentence there.) No Thanksgiving means no unpleasant deadline to which we would have to pay attention. Christmas festivities could begin whenever the hell we want, which they already do for me, but there are just so many people who feel bound by the not-before-Thanksgiving rule.
But I actually started writing this post for a reason that has nothing to do with Christmas, which is turkey commercials. When Thanksgiving gets close people start having these horrible turkey commercials with people doing lots of horrible things to raw turkeys. These commercials are uniformly so incredibly vile that they trigger my gag reflex, and I have to swallow frantically and turn the TV off. NO MORE RAW TURKEY COMMERCIALS. If I wanted to see that crap, I would watch the beginning of Pieces of April. UGH.
...I don't hate Thanksgiving really. It's always nice to get together with the family and eat lots of foods. Especially when there is dirty rice. I just wish people didn't get all hatey about Christmas until Thanksgiving is over. I get excited about Christmas way before Thanksgiving shows up.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Emotional lability, for starters
I was driving today, as one does (unless one is tim and does not know how to drive because Jenny has not persistently enough pursued teaching one), and out of the corner of my eye I saw a bumper sticker in Democrat colors. Of course I automatically felt depressed, the way one does when one sees Kerry/Edwards 2004 or Gore/Lieberman 2000 (wow, that takes me back) stickers, which are just sad and awkward after the bumper sticker candidate has lost. But then I looked at it more closely, and it was Obama/Biden 2008, and it was like someone had injected me with liquid happiness. Imagine feeling happy about a political situation in the new millennium.
Then I got back to my office, and something reminded me of my cat, and I burst into tears. Well, not burst into tears. I didn’t sob or anything. I just got very choked up and shed several tears and had to pretend that my contact lenses were giving me trouble. Note: If I start crying in public, I nearly always pretend that my contact lenses are giving me trouble. I am excellent at this and you probably cannot tell the difference between when I am faking it and when my contact lenses are actually giving me trouble.
Today, speaking of contact lenses, I stabbed myself in the eye with the receiver of my desk phone. This hurts more than you might think.
Then I got back to my office, and something reminded me of my cat, and I burst into tears. Well, not burst into tears. I didn’t sob or anything. I just got very choked up and shed several tears and had to pretend that my contact lenses were giving me trouble. Note: If I start crying in public, I nearly always pretend that my contact lenses are giving me trouble. I am excellent at this and you probably cannot tell the difference between when I am faking it and when my contact lenses are actually giving me trouble.
Today, speaking of contact lenses, I stabbed myself in the eye with the receiver of my desk phone. This hurts more than you might think.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Epiphany
I don't have long arms! I have broad shoulders! I AM NOT AN ORANGUTAN PERSON!
You just have no idea what a relief this is. I have spent a large part of my life being irritated by the way long-sleeve shirts are never long enough for my arms, and subsequently guilty that in spite of my apparently freakishly long arms I can still not touch my toes comfortably.
But that is all crap! I've been so terribly wrong! It isn't about my arms, it's about my shoulders. I have broad shoulders. I needn't have felt guilty at all in those terrible years of P.E. and particularly in yoga, because it's nothing to do with my arms. I just have broad shoulders!
I'm aware this isn't exactly an epiphany, because I have always known that I have broad shoulders. I've just never made the connection between them and the long-sleeve shirts issue, mainly because I try not to think about it. It's unfortunate, you know? I look adorable in long-sleeve shirts, when the sleeves are long enough. They're very slimming, and if the sleeves are long enough to go past my wrists, they make my fingers look long and elegant too. So I would like to be able to wear long-sleeve shirts, but they just end up being so trying, and the elbows stretch out and drive me crazy, and I have to shove them up when I get hot, which is often, and then the wrist part gets stretched out too.
Whatever. My arms aren't freaks. So there.
You just have no idea what a relief this is. I have spent a large part of my life being irritated by the way long-sleeve shirts are never long enough for my arms, and subsequently guilty that in spite of my apparently freakishly long arms I can still not touch my toes comfortably.
But that is all crap! I've been so terribly wrong! It isn't about my arms, it's about my shoulders. I have broad shoulders. I needn't have felt guilty at all in those terrible years of P.E. and particularly in yoga, because it's nothing to do with my arms. I just have broad shoulders!
I'm aware this isn't exactly an epiphany, because I have always known that I have broad shoulders. I've just never made the connection between them and the long-sleeve shirts issue, mainly because I try not to think about it. It's unfortunate, you know? I look adorable in long-sleeve shirts, when the sleeves are long enough. They're very slimming, and if the sleeves are long enough to go past my wrists, they make my fingers look long and elegant too. So I would like to be able to wear long-sleeve shirts, but they just end up being so trying, and the elbows stretch out and drive me crazy, and I have to shove them up when I get hot, which is often, and then the wrist part gets stretched out too.
Whatever. My arms aren't freaks. So there.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Fond Latin memories
I'm translating the Aeneid again, so I can get better at Latin once more. I need to find my old translation that I used to have - it wasn't a very good translation, and I spent a lot of time griping to myself about how much cooler a translation I could do if I felt like it, but it was handy to have around when I got stuck.
Latin is fun. It is lame that I have just spent three, almost four, years without translating any Latin whatsoever, considering how fun and relaxing it is to do Latin translations. When all along I could have been doing Latin translations to wind down after a stressful day, of which there have been many in the past three (almost four) years. When I have had my very nice purple Aeneid just waiting to be picked up and dusted off and re-translated.
My high school Latin teacher was one of the best teachers I ever had, ever. She knew everything about Latin and also about Greek and Greece and Rome. She had so much knowledge. She should get a shiny prize for being the best Latin teacher of all time. I would have stuck with Latin anyway because I really like it, but my Latin teacher made it way much more fun. Plus in junior year, there were only five of us in the AP Latin IV class, and James would sometimes make these amazing white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, and we would talk about strategies for escaping from marauding alligators, and we played Strike-a-Match like fiends. So that was fun.
That said, it is kind of liberating to be translating the Aeneid without my teacher. Because I can just depart from the literal translation if I like my way better. When I was doing the Aeneid on Sunday while driving with my family, I got to the bit where it talks about the saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram, the unforgetting wrath of savage Juno, and I remember doing this bit in Latin class, and I wanted to translate it as the savage unrelenting wrath of Juno, because that sounded cool to me, and my teacher said no. And even when I explained that it would be transferred epithet, a perfectly legitimate literary device used by Virgil on a number of occasions, she continued to not accept this as a translation. But you know what, you know what? I can translate it that way now! That's right! Nobody can stop me! I WILL TRANSFER WHATEVER EPITHETS THE HELL I WANT.
Latin is fun. It is lame that I have just spent three, almost four, years without translating any Latin whatsoever, considering how fun and relaxing it is to do Latin translations. When all along I could have been doing Latin translations to wind down after a stressful day, of which there have been many in the past three (almost four) years. When I have had my very nice purple Aeneid just waiting to be picked up and dusted off and re-translated.
My high school Latin teacher was one of the best teachers I ever had, ever. She knew everything about Latin and also about Greek and Greece and Rome. She had so much knowledge. She should get a shiny prize for being the best Latin teacher of all time. I would have stuck with Latin anyway because I really like it, but my Latin teacher made it way much more fun. Plus in junior year, there were only five of us in the AP Latin IV class, and James would sometimes make these amazing white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, and we would talk about strategies for escaping from marauding alligators, and we played Strike-a-Match like fiends. So that was fun.
That said, it is kind of liberating to be translating the Aeneid without my teacher. Because I can just depart from the literal translation if I like my way better. When I was doing the Aeneid on Sunday while driving with my family, I got to the bit where it talks about the saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram, the unforgetting wrath of savage Juno, and I remember doing this bit in Latin class, and I wanted to translate it as the savage unrelenting wrath of Juno, because that sounded cool to me, and my teacher said no. And even when I explained that it would be transferred epithet, a perfectly legitimate literary device used by Virgil on a number of occasions, she continued to not accept this as a translation. But you know what, you know what? I can translate it that way now! That's right! Nobody can stop me! I WILL TRANSFER WHATEVER EPITHETS THE HELL I WANT.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Oh my God this has been the best week ever
Seriously, this has been the best week ever. I will enumerate the ways in which this week has been amazing.
1. I got a new guitar book and some really nice pens. I know pens don’t sound that exciting, but these are very good pens. One is purple!
2. I got a bunch of new books out of the library. Wonderful wonderful books!
3. I remembered “You Can’t Hurry Love”. I have always liked that song but I have forgotten about it for several years. Now I can play (part of) it on my guitar. "You Can't Hurry Love!" How have I forgotten this song? Hooray!
4. I am getting better and better at reading Tarot cards. Pretty soon people will hire me for birthday parties. I read Tarot cards for half the wait staff at IHOP, and that was great, great, great fun.
5. I wrote a crap-ton of my story, which is getting very very close to being finished. (I mean, a draft. Since I have changed my mind about fifty million things during the time I was writing it, I have to go back and edit out some things and put in some clues and make changes, but having the draft this close to done is wonderful.)
6. I got to go to the Bama game. That is right. I went. To the Bama game. In the student section. We lost but it was a pretty fucking awesome experience. We played damn well (except for Jarrett Lee - not one of his better nights), and there was this one particularly superb play where Trindon Holliday (I love Trindon Holliday more than any other player because he is little and plucky) was running the ball, and he dodged two guys, and then two more of the Bama people ran at him from opposite sides, closing in tighter and tighter, and he flung himself up in the air and through the ever-closing gap between the two Bama guys and he hit the ground and kept on running and it was magnificent.
7. You saw number seven coming. Lucky number seven: Barack Obama got elected! He got elected, he got elected, I have lost track of how many times I have burst into tears watching the TV or listening to the radio, and I have definitely lost track of how often I have heard and said the words historic and inspirational. I have been scouting the stores for a frame that is good enough to frame my now even-more-amazing-than-it-was-before picture of Barack Obama (so far no luck). I feel actually hopeful about the country when I wake up in the morning. I have a great big girl-crush on the fabulous Michelle Obama, coolest First Lady of all time. America is not terrible after all! We are not a nasty biting puppy! We are better than we thought we were! And you know how much he won? He won so much that he could have lost New York and California and still won. If he had lost New York and California, those bastions of liberality, he would still have won! YAY FOR BARACK OBAMA.
1. I got a new guitar book and some really nice pens. I know pens don’t sound that exciting, but these are very good pens. One is purple!
2. I got a bunch of new books out of the library. Wonderful wonderful books!
3. I remembered “You Can’t Hurry Love”. I have always liked that song but I have forgotten about it for several years. Now I can play (part of) it on my guitar. "You Can't Hurry Love!" How have I forgotten this song? Hooray!
4. I am getting better and better at reading Tarot cards. Pretty soon people will hire me for birthday parties. I read Tarot cards for half the wait staff at IHOP, and that was great, great, great fun.
5. I wrote a crap-ton of my story, which is getting very very close to being finished. (I mean, a draft. Since I have changed my mind about fifty million things during the time I was writing it, I have to go back and edit out some things and put in some clues and make changes, but having the draft this close to done is wonderful.)
6. I got to go to the Bama game. That is right. I went. To the Bama game. In the student section. We lost but it was a pretty fucking awesome experience. We played damn well (except for Jarrett Lee - not one of his better nights), and there was this one particularly superb play where Trindon Holliday (I love Trindon Holliday more than any other player because he is little and plucky) was running the ball, and he dodged two guys, and then two more of the Bama people ran at him from opposite sides, closing in tighter and tighter, and he flung himself up in the air and through the ever-closing gap between the two Bama guys and he hit the ground and kept on running and it was magnificent.
7. You saw number seven coming. Lucky number seven: Barack Obama got elected! He got elected, he got elected, I have lost track of how many times I have burst into tears watching the TV or listening to the radio, and I have definitely lost track of how often I have heard and said the words historic and inspirational. I have been scouting the stores for a frame that is good enough to frame my now even-more-amazing-than-it-was-before picture of Barack Obama (so far no luck). I feel actually hopeful about the country when I wake up in the morning. I have a great big girl-crush on the fabulous Michelle Obama, coolest First Lady of all time. America is not terrible after all! We are not a nasty biting puppy! We are better than we thought we were! And you know how much he won? He won so much that he could have lost New York and California and still won. If he had lost New York and California, those bastions of liberality, he would still have won! YAY FOR BARACK OBAMA.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Jenny wearily begins making a "Save Dollhouse" T-shirt
Damn network execs put Dollhouse on Friday nights from 9-10 PM.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Lots of sniffles in my future
Every time someone mentions Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement in conjunction with Barack Obama's election, I tear up. Also when they mention Abraham Lincoln and slavery in conjunction with Barack Obama's election.
But hooray, hooray, hooray, hooray! I am so happy! Yay for America! Wonderful America! (Damn, don't know when the last time I said that was.) I themily wore purple today to celebrate.
Edit to add: I'm looking forward to watching the news today! I haven't looked forward to watching the news since, you know, ever. Hurrah!
Edit again to add: Well, except that time Cheney shot that guy in the face. But that wasn't the same as this.
Edit yet again to add: Farewell, Decider. We have not had a good eight years, and I disliked you before it was cool. I have journal entries from very early on in this millennium, to prove it.
But hooray, hooray, hooray, hooray! I am so happy! Yay for America! Wonderful America! (Damn, don't know when the last time I said that was.) I themily wore purple today to celebrate.
Edit to add: I'm looking forward to watching the news today! I haven't looked forward to watching the news since, you know, ever. Hurrah!
Edit again to add: Well, except that time Cheney shot that guy in the face. But that wasn't the same as this.
Edit yet again to add: Farewell, Decider. We have not had a good eight years, and I disliked you before it was cool. I have journal entries from very early on in this millennium, to prove it.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
I voted!
...Yes, I still love to vote.
Plus, for once, my voting precinct had plenty of signs. For once they are not hiding from the voters. It made a nice change, not to have to fuss at them for failing in their civic duty.
Now with the suspense. I cannot take this suspense. I wish I could look up what's going to happen on Wikipedia like I do with everything else in the world.
Plus, for once, my voting precinct had plenty of signs. For once they are not hiding from the voters. It made a nice change, not to have to fuss at them for failing in their civic duty.
Now with the suspense. I cannot take this suspense. I wish I could look up what's going to happen on Wikipedia like I do with everything else in the world.
I'm sad.
I'm sad because Barack Obama's grandmother died. Poor Barack Obama. He makes me sad about his grandmother because whenever I see pictures of him with her he looks so happy, and when he talks about her being sick he always sounds so so sad.
I read that Catullus poem I love and once memorized for Latin, where he missed his brother's funeral and has to go far, far, far to see the grave place. I like it a lot, and I remember a surprising lot of the Latin. I really, seriously have to get back into reading Latin. It's just that I already have so many activities to do in the evenings - cross-stitching, watching Gilmore Girls, doing Tarot card readings for my stories (this is great, great fun), reading my Tarot book, reading Harry Potter, reading all of Shakespeare's plays, practicing playing guitar, watching Gossip Girl which has taken One Tree Hill's place in my heart, covering books in contact paper - and it makes it hard to find the time to do still more things. But darling Catullus! And darling Virgil! And darling, darling Ovid! And, oh my God, Cicero! Dear, darling, wonderful Cicero, with his beautiful elegant sentence structure!
Okay, that's it. I'm buying some Latin books. I miss me some Cicero and Ovid and Catullus and Virgil. What's good about this is, I'm not taking Latin classes anymore, so I don't have to read any shit I don't want to read. There will be NO MORE Pliny for me, ever. NO CAESAR. And praise our God of Heaven and Earth, NO MORE LIVY EVER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. Vile, vile Livy. When I meet Livy in heaven I will give him the cut direct, and go straight over to hang out with complex-sentences Cicero and exciting-stories Ovid.
I read that Catullus poem I love and once memorized for Latin, where he missed his brother's funeral and has to go far, far, far to see the grave place. I like it a lot, and I remember a surprising lot of the Latin. I really, seriously have to get back into reading Latin. It's just that I already have so many activities to do in the evenings - cross-stitching, watching Gilmore Girls, doing Tarot card readings for my stories (this is great, great fun), reading my Tarot book, reading Harry Potter, reading all of Shakespeare's plays, practicing playing guitar, watching Gossip Girl which has taken One Tree Hill's place in my heart, covering books in contact paper - and it makes it hard to find the time to do still more things. But darling Catullus! And darling Virgil! And darling, darling Ovid! And, oh my God, Cicero! Dear, darling, wonderful Cicero, with his beautiful elegant sentence structure!
Okay, that's it. I'm buying some Latin books. I miss me some Cicero and Ovid and Catullus and Virgil. What's good about this is, I'm not taking Latin classes anymore, so I don't have to read any shit I don't want to read. There will be NO MORE Pliny for me, ever. NO CAESAR. And praise our God of Heaven and Earth, NO MORE LIVY EVER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. Vile, vile Livy. When I meet Livy in heaven I will give him the cut direct, and go straight over to hang out with complex-sentences Cicero and exciting-stories Ovid.
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