Lydabeth

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 19:40:10 GMT

Because I have 45 pages of academic writing due on Monday, I thought today seemed like a really great time to post to LJ for the first time in about a year.

Greg and I got into a heated discussion of the matter below over lunch -- so heated, in fact, that I decided to upgrade to LJ "Plus" just so I can get you all to comment on it and show him that I am, of course, right.

View Poll: This, next, and last

Meet Prickles!

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 23:37:31 GMT

Um, this is my new pet hedgehog, Prickles. I know Prickles is a completely dumb name for a hedgehog. But look, she's purple! And if you click on her for long enough, she ... well, I'll let you experience this for yourself.

Oh, the many ways I can waste time now that I have Internet access in my dorm room!

The bridal gown saga continues

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 02:50:15 GMT

Thanks, everybody, for your helpful comments on the dresses I posted about two weeks ago. As you unanimously suggested, I did not return to the Pittsburgh shop to buy the Mon Cheri dress (although I swear y'all would like it better if you'd seen it in person), and by the next day I realized I'd been taken in by the saleslady's hard-sell, paid-on-commission sweet-talking. I vowed not to fall for that trick again. In fact, I also thought I would wait a while before trying on more dresses, but that resolution did not last long.

The following week, I decided to go to (oh, I am embarrassed even to admit it) David's Bridal. Even though I was reasonably well convinced that David's Bridal is the Wal-Mart of bridal salons, I still harbored some suspicions that perhaps I could find a beautiful dress there for $400 and move on with my life. So I went, and I found nothing. A complete waste of time. The dressing room floor was covered with beads that fell off the dresses as I tried them on. Not impressed.

For my next act, I went with logie, dirtkid, and my FMIL (that's Future Mother In Law to those of you who haven't been reading bridal boards obsessively) to Bridal Mart, a slightly overwhelming superstore in Burlington, NC. My favorite dress there was Allure Bridals #8269, which does not seem to exist according to their Web site, though it's not too dissimilar to the #8210. The beads were tiny and the design fancy but not over-elaborate -- probably a step up in classiness from the Mon Cheri.

Still haunted by the Mikaella dress (#1062 here), I visited it again tonight. I still really liked it, although something about that seam at the waist started to bother me. Afterward, I visited a brand new bridal salon in Keene, the new home of the dressmaker who designed my mom's dress for the Oscars, Pamela Moore. I hadn't really even been planning to try anything on, but decided to take a couple gowns into the dressing room since she'd been so nice to my mom. Oops. One of them was this beauty by obscure British designer Augusta Jones (which means there's no way I'm going to find a used version of this dress floating around the Internet for sale). Ooh. It's soo pretty. It comes with a matching veil that has the same embroidery on it which cascades even beyond the train, and Pamela would do the bustle for free ... but still. It's $1500. That's about $700 more than I'd been hoping to spend on a dress, and $400 more than the Mikaella dress. I've spent this evening trying to think up ways to skimp on the rest of the wedding to generate $700 extra dollars. Hmmm.

The search will continue in Boston, home of several designer discounters. More updates to follow.

Emergency bridal attire question

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 20:21:21 GMT

What do you all think of this wedding dress, with silver and white beading rather than the red and gold shown?

If I can make up my mind by 8 p.m., I get $100 off the price, which would make it suit my budget. Adding to the delight, it's long enough that it wouldn't need special hemming, and it has a detachable train so I wouldn't have to pay for bustling, so that's $200 of alterations that I'd save, too.

Unfortunately, I am still haunted by the lovely, albeit overpriced, simplicity of the Mikaella #1062. Also, I completely suck at making such decisions in general. And I'm afraid that if I get a dress this early, I won't like it anymore by the end of next July.

On the other hand, the dress is completely gorgeous, and total strangers in the bridal salon told me I should get it. And if it doesn't turn out to be the one, I can always sell it on ebay or something. Hmm. Any opinions?

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 17:09:51 GMT

Conversation this morning in the bathroom, following me clumsily dropping my toothbrush into the toilet:

Greg: That's Moore's Law, that when you drop your toothbrush it falls in the toilet.

Me: Huh. That must be a science joke. I don't get it.

Greg: You know, Moore's Law. Whatever can go wrong, will.

Me: That's Murphy's Law.

Greg: Oh, right. Moore's Law is the doubling of processor speeds. Completely different thing.

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 06:33:04 GMT

I feel a little lame about being wide awake at 2:30 a.m. and yet not yet possessing a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. J.K. Rowling, I promise that when book 7 comes out, I will do this right. Unless, of course, book 6 completely disenchants me with the whole thing.

Greg and I did, however, go to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tonight, which, combined with our viewing of March of the Penguins on Wednesday, means that we have seen more movies in the theater in the last two days than in the last 10 months combined.

Only four more weeks left of CPE!

Mon, 20 Jun 2005 00:13:10 GMT

Memo to self: never attempt to write your verbatim while drunk. Bad, bad idea.

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 21:10:14 GMT

Who's going to a free outdoor concert by the Shins tonight, within walking distance of our house??

Me and Greg!

Life is good.

Wed, 30 Mar 2005 19:09:53 GMT

Things that are entirely unexpected and really quite wonderful: receiving a bouquet of roses from future sisters-in-law. Hooray! Thanks, Logan, Lindsey, and Gwen!!

Things that are really, really weird to start saying: the phrase "future sisters-in-law."

Sat, 26 Mar 2005 04:39:14 GMT

Anybody left here who doesn't read my blog? Check it out for some extra-special, very-important, quite wonderful news!

Mon, 20 Dec 2004 14:16:43 GMT

Whoa, we got five inches of snow here overnight. This will show barlow what New England is all about. If he ever gets out from under the covers, that is.

We're having a fun time, although we didn't manage to make it to Granite Gorge (they were closed for tubing still, yesterday. I imagine that they'll be open today, given the snow). Mr. Tucker (of user icon fame) slept on Greg's head in an Evergreen Ave. initiation rite.

Today, onward to Mount Holyoke -- if we can manage to get there without sliding off the road, of course. We'll see.

Sun, 28 Nov 2004 04:31:20 GMT

Yes, it's been ages since I updated here (I've been busy treading water, but I read my friends list just about every day) but this seems like the most appropriate place to direct you all to that hip-hop classic, Gangsta Knitter. Go back to your patterns, boys. We're free-stylin' here.

Thu, 09 Sep 2004 00:08:27 GMT

"How come you haven't posted in such a long time?" missmary6 asked me on the phone about a week ago. "Oh, it's because I have a Real Blog!" I said, and pointed her toward my new baby, Treading Water. She approves, even if she says it's "super holy" (which is, after all, kind of the point). "Is that why Greg hasn't posted, either?" she continued. "Does he have a new blog too?" "No," I replied. "He's just lazy."

So, I'm putting most of my Internet-self-disclosure energy into that site right now. But never fear. First off, I'm going to continue reading my Friends list on a daily if not hourly basis. And second, you can keep up with all my musings by adding treadingwater1 to your friends list! No pressure, of course. I'm not one of those people who believes that the "friends" label on LJ actually translates into anything meaningful in the realm of human relations. But if you want to hear about my first year at seminary from a progressive Protestant perspective, add away.

I'm leaving for Andover Newton tomorrow. I would have said "tomorrow morning," but, as nothing's in the car and it's pouring right now, that's not going to happen. I spent today tracking down my new computer, which required driving to Greenfield, but proved to be worth it because it's cute and easy to use. Now for some more laundry and packing. The excitement never ceases.

Tue, 17 Aug 2004 19:52:36 GMT

It's downright scary, some of the information you can have in your head without even realizing it's there. I was just entering the Chicago publication "Neighbors" into MediaMap to see if it would be a good fit for our Chicago forum publicity, and found myself singing the Australian soap anthem (everybody, now!): "Neighbours ... everybody needs good neighbours! With a little understanding, we can find the perfect blend. That's when good neighbours become good friends."

Tue, 17 Aug 2004 02:07:48 GMT

Today I closed up our Crystal City apartment. It's been a lengthy process that's required lots of paper towels and Fantastik. And tears, of course,
because I'm incapable of leaving any place without feeling a hearty nostalgia.

I was washing the last few dishes and I thought of Ox Cart Man. You remember Ox Cart Man: the hero of Donald Hall's Caldecott-medal-winning picture book. Ox Cart Man and his family spent all year shearing and spinning and weaving, whittling and hammering, planting and harvesting, so that he could gather goods to sell at market. Finally he goes on a long journey to market, and he sells everything: the wool blankets, the pegs and boxes, the grain and seeds, and last he even sells his cart and his ox. Similarly, I washed out the saucepans, silverware, tupperware, and finally rinsed out the scrub brush itself. It is true, as Ecclesiastes writes and the Byrds sang, there is a time to build up and a time to break down. It is these in-between times, when you've sold your ox and cart, when you lock that apartment door and give away your key, these times before the building-up-again begins, that hurt so much.

I know I will be happy in Boston. But building up takes time, and it will be a while before that happiness can start.

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 00:47:25 GMT

Gregory and I have had an enormously busy weekend. Since 8:30 a.m. Saturday, we have ...

Had breakfast with my newlywed friends Kate and Steve (see wedding photos in my entry dated early July) and wished them happy travels as they begin their work in Greensboro.
gone back to sleep, because who wants to get up at 8:30 Saturday morning?
taken the Metro to Woodley Park and had lunch
visited the National Zoo, where we got to watch the pandas at quite close range (they're adorable) and also enjoyed the Small Mammals and orangutans and elephants and the cheetah
returned to Arlington and walked down to 23rd St. On the way there, we ran into not one but two delusional people at crosswalks who said unsettling things like, "If you want to know what all these red people are doing walking around, they're after me. My father took a hit out on me, his own daughter. It's because of the money he embezzled from Rockefeller."
looked for a Chinese restaurant that came highly recommended in the Ethnic Dining Guide, but discovered it's gone out of business.
decided instead to have noodle soup at a Vietnamese restaurant
fallen in love with Vietnamese noodle soup
driven to a large movie theater with inadequate parking in Alexandria, circled the parking lot for fifteen minutes, and left
hung out at Barnes & Noble waiting for the movie to start at the theater down the street from us
paid through the nose to see my ex-boyfriend's father's cousin in Spiderman 2, which I won't comment about here because I think we're the last people in the world who haven't seen it (to make matters worse, we also haven't seen Farenheit 911)
come home, gone to bed
woken up at 8:00 this morning
taken the Metro to Foggy Bottom and walked to The United Church
heard an interestingly pre-millennial sermon and experienced a passing-of-the-peace that lasted as long as an entire hymn
made grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch
mopped up the soup that I spelled all over the kitchen floor
gotten lost in Mount Vernon because the Pope-Leighey house is very poorly signposted
finally located the house (one of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian houses), which I liked far better than I'd imagined. The new plan: our main house will be octagonal, our lake house with be Wrightian
bought groceries
cooked a delicious dinner of pork chops in maple syrup glaze accompanied by sauteed mushrooms and spinach
written this list

Books galore

Thu, 05 Aug 2004 12:11:21 GMT

I couldn't fall back asleep this morning when Greg got up (it's darker than usual outside, so he had to turn on lights, and my back hurt for some reason), so I'm using this extra time productively to ... complete this enjoyable meme, which I found chez treasure_box.

The Top 40 Books by Women http://www.orangeprize.co.uk/news/fiftybest/winners.html
I've bolded the ones I've read.

Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen
Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte
Middlemarch- George Eliot -- I own this and intend to read it soon.
Rebecca- Daphne du Maurier
Persuasion- Jane Austen
Emma- Jane Austen
Frankenstein- Mary Shelley
Unless- Carol Shields -- I've never even heard of this.
To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee
The Handmaid's Tale- Margaret Atwood
White Teeth- Zadie Smith
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone- J K Rowling
Gone With the Wind- Margaret Mitchell
To The Lighthouse- Virginia Woolf
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire- J K Rowling
The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver
Silas Marner- George Eliot
Possession- A S Byatt -- I've been meaning to read this, too. I started it once and couldn't get into it, but will try again.
The Mill on the Floss- George Eliot
The God of Small Things- Arundhati Roy
Mrs Dalloway- Virginia Woolf -- also on my reading list.
Bridget Jones' Diary- Helen Fielding
Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austen
The Blind Assassin- Margaret Atwood
Chocolat- Joanne Harris
The Shipping News- E Annie Proulx -- this is one of my uncle's favorites. I think missmary6 has read it?
Little Women- Louisa M Alcott -- I'm bolding this even though I never could get farther than that chapter where Amy gets in trouble for stealing oranges or something like that. I gave it numerous valiant elementary school attempts, and that should count for something.
The Sea, The Sea- Iris Murdoch
Family Bites- Lisa Williams -- another one I haven't heard of.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets- J K Rowling
The Shell Seekers- Rosamund Pilcher
Orlando- Virginia Woolf
The Thorn Birds- Colleeen McCullough
I Capture the Castle- Dodie Smith -- I've been intending to read this, too.
Girl with Pearl Earring- Tracy Chevalier -- doesn't deserve to be on the list.
Wide Sargasso Sea- Jean Rhys
Oranges are not the Only Fruit- Jeanette Winterson
Fingersmith- Sarah Waters -- haven't heard of this one, either
Clan of the Cave Bear- Jean Auel
The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath
The Secret History- Donna Tartt
Five Quarters of the Orange- Joanne Harris
Beloved- Toni Morrison -- but I've read Tar Baby. I should read more Morrison.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban- J K Rowling
Bel Canto- Ann Patchett
The Bell- Iris Murdoch
Regeneration- Pat Barker
The Bone People- Kery Hulme
The Color Purple- Alice Walker

This is one of those reader-generated lists, a variety that's very popular in the UK. In the US, the population is so illiterate that we probably couldn't even think of 50 books written by women, without resorting to Danielle Steele or Barbara Taylor Bradford or something.

I'm currently reading The Grapes of Wrath, which, incredibly, I was never assigned to read during school. Although I'm only on page 83, I am coming to suspect that it may be the greatest novel ever written. That doesn't necessarily mean that I like it best out of all novels ever written, but that it's the greatest artistic achievement. Yesterday I read it on the train coming home from work, and then watched part of the Kenneth Branagh Hamlet with Greg, so it was a day full of great literature.

Andover Newton is giving me headaches. I can't figure out my course schedule. I thought I had it, but then the students on the message board informed me that the UCC History/Polity class usually comes much later in your studies -- I don't know how I was supposed to know that, considering that there's no syllabus on-line and no mention of such a fact in the course description. Sometimes I'm really excited to be starting school, but I also have a great deal of brand-new-situation anxiety.

Happy 'Versary, Gregory J!

Thu, 22 Jul 2004 02:21:14 GMT

Just about exactly a year ago, I pressed "send" on what may be the most valuable Friendster message anyone has ever sent. Then, before going to bed, I wrote in my journal: "Hey, excellent news on the Find-A-Man front: I found this guy Greg, who sounds like he could be my twin: drinks tea, is a smart-snob, listens to the NC folk show on NPR, lists Edna St. Vincent Millay as a Livejournal interest(1). He sounds like a big dork, in other words, but that probably suits me. So I messaged him, because what on earth do I have to lose?"

It's been a great year; thank goodness for the "power of the Internet" and the strange serendipity of this wonderful adventure. I know you're embarassed by public declarations, sweetie, but let it be said: I'm ever so happy and I love you so much. Yay, us!

--
(1) I didn't know the whole Edna St. Vincent Millay story then, of course. I keep meaning to lend Greg my volume of Collected Poems so he can actually read some of her work.

I was thinking of something a little less gangsta.

Sat, 17 Jul 2004 15:09:20 GMT

Once upon a time, I had goals and dreams for today. I was going to be the most goshdarned accomplished young lady you've ever met. I was going to rock the correspondence world, I was finally going to get that TFA contact info mailing out, I was going to clean this messy room. Then, Greg turned me on to Gold Miner. Now I'm afraid my days of productivity are over.

Speaking of the boy who got up at 7 a.m. this morning to watch the British Open, last night he and I and a few MHC chums went to see Saved. We'd been intending to see it for well over a month, and were quite surprised to find it's still playing. The theater, Foxchase in Alexandria, is on-beyond-sketchy, with a lobby full of loitering, smoking men and theaters that haven't been renovated since 1973. This meant, though, that Greg, Leslie, Gillian, and I were the only people there, so we got to hoot loudly and put our feet on the seats without worrying about annoying others.

I liked the movie. I'd been a little afraid that it would unfairly skewer sincere belief systems, but I found that, instead, it was disdainful of evangelical culture more than any system of doctrine. The characters spouted theological lingo ("he died for your sins!") and tossed Bibles around, but never actually cited the Good Book, never backed up their wackiness with anything real. I enjoyed the scenes of honest prayer (best prayer ever in a movie: Mary standing in front of a cross, saying "Shit!") and thought Macauley Culkin was oddly convincing. Apparently, I dig boys in wheelchairs, because I felt the same way about Jude Law in Gattaca in this post here. In the realm of the unconvincing, though, was the poorly-written role of Patrick ... no matter how hard Patrick Fugit tried, you just can't make a high-school boy say, "I really like you" and have it sound like something that any high-school boy in the universe would actually say. Or maybe I didn't know the right boys in high school.

Speaking of high school, I will share one more paragraph and then I'll quit and be productive (or play more Gold Miner). This is from The Jane Austin Book Club, which is worth reading especially if you've read more Jane than I have. The following is one of the truest paragraphs I've read in a long, long time:

(whoa. just have to note that I went to open my inbox to copy-paste the Austin paragraph and almost had a heart attack when it came up saying "Inbox opened with 0 messages." Then I realized I'd opened Greg's inbox by mistake. Mine has 1,227 messages, and having them all disappear would not make for a good day.)

Back to our regularly scheduled paragraph: "She had grown early and by sixth grade was far too tall. 'They'll catch up,' her mother had told her. And she was perfectly right. When Prudie graduated, most of the boys topped her by a couple of inches at least. What her mother didn't know, or didn't say, was how little this would matter by the time it happened. In the feudal fiefdom of school, rank was determined early. You could change your hair and clothes. You could, having learned your lesson, not write a paper on Julius Caesar entirely in iambic pentameter, or you could not tell anyone if you did. You could switch to contact lenses, compensate for your braininess by not doing your homework. Every boy in the school could grow twelve inches. The sun could go fucking nova. And you'd still be the same grotesque you'd always been.

It's so true. We spend the rest of our lives trying to recover from the way we perceived ourselves in middle school.

Wed, 07 Jul 2004 01:53:39 GMT

Quote of my entire life, delivered in Gregory's whitest-white-man-ever tone:

"They're not members of the former Wu-Tang Clan, are they?"

Wed, 07 Jul 2004 01:23:10 GMT

I have little of general interest to say, but plenty of neat places to link to, so I shall get on with that.

First off, Gregory and I went to a wedding this weekend in Connecticut; you can access the photos here. Some of them are rather blurry; I recommend the group shot in the top row, third from left and the photo of the bride and groom at far right in the second row. Kate and Steve are both Catholic Workers, and will be working for Word and World beginning next week. Kate, in addition to being the most beautiful bride I have ever seen, is an absolute gem and a person I am privileged to know. (In other news, Greg also met my entire family this weekend, including missmary6 of course, and managed to return home unscathed!)

My friend Karen has not updated her blog recently, more's the pity, but last month she posted a brilliant commencement address by Barbara Ehrenreich, which offers a thoughtful analysis of why those Abu Ghraib photos, in addition to offending every human sensibility, bother feminists so much. After reading that, and a guest column by Ehrenreich in the New York Times, I'm eager to read Nickel and Dimed. Skipping about the Internet while on vaguely work-related business lately, I've seen several great responses to the prison abuse scandal that I like a lot. One of them is from Faithful America, a National Council of Churches initiative, which is sponsoring a TV ad in Arab countries. You can go to the site and endorse the ad's message, which is a nice way for wimps like me to make a low-cost, low-risk statement. I also found an organization that's encouraging people to make giant signs saying "We are sorry and ask your forgiveness" (or similar messages), take photos of themsleves standing next to the signs, and post these photos on the Internet ... I can't seem to find the site at present, but it was a neat idea too.

I've mentioned Real Live Preacher before (and if you're vaguely interested in matters of faith you're probably already reading him), but I must say that his current Bible re-telling, "Even the Rich Woman" is spectacular. I've also been enjoying Correction, and have dabbled in the other GodBlogs on Karen's and RLP's lists. My favorite religious site find, though, is The Revealer which is smart, thought-provoking, and updated daily! Not surprisingly, it's funded by the Lilly Endowment, just like the Fund for Theological Education. It's too bad that we have to fund so many great religious initiatives with somewhat dirty pharmaceutical money, but ... wait, I think this might be the moral of "Even the Rich Woman." Hmm.

Finally, who could resist the weapons of mass seduction available at Axis of Eve? My friend Hannah and I are planning a PantyWare party for later this month. Let me know if you're in the area and would like an invitation.

The first was Cain: he wasn't Abel.

Thu, 01 Jul 2004 00:34:26 GMT

My project for tonight: listen to all of barlow's CDs, so that the next time he tells me to choose something to hear in the car, I can make an intelligent selection. He gets home tomorrow, and then we're off to Connecticut for three days: a good friend of mine is going to get married, and I get to see my family for the first time in over six months. I'm rawther excited about all these developments.

My project for the future: host a PantyWare party for Axis of Eve. Just click the link (or maybe not, if you're using a computer at work). You won't be disappointed.

Update on the license plate project: I'm only missing fourteen states now: Maine, Rhode Island, Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and New Mexico. I'm quite proud of bagging both Alaska and Hawaii (and Puerto Rico!), and I'm pretty sure I've seen some of those others, just not certain enough to color in the states on the map I printed out for this purpose. Yes, I'm a dork.

I never did update you all on the Fund for Theological Education conference. Hold on, let me shut up these Flying Tigers so I can concentrate and I'll remedy that now. Phew, that's better.

So I spent five amazing days in Pasadena two weeks ago with over a hundred other people my age who want to be pastors. That fact alone is enough to make it amazing: I've been so isolated from young people of faith, or at least from young people who share an easy-going, fun-loving, progressive faith, that to be in a group of people who could make fluent, sensible, and sensitive small talk about ordination of gays and lesbians was refreshing beyond belief. Just being part of a group of interesting, intelligent people gave my seminary-plans a booster shot. Given my abhorrent financial aid situation, I'd been having escapist dreams of doing something else entirely, but being in Pasadena affirmed that I am indeed in just the right place, planning to do just the right thing. By the second night, I was declaring myself "blessed" to be there -- not language usually employed by this representative of the "Frozen Chosen" who used to call her denomination (granted, this was middle school) "the United Church of Thingy," but absolutely suited to the Spirit at hand.

Favorite quotations from the conference:
"I don't have all the answers, Lord, but I'm willing to stand up for those whom you came to serve" -- Dr. Robert Franklin
"If God is calling you, God provides the genius" -- Rev. Carol Lytch
"Sometimes you are called to a church to grow the church; sometimes you are called to a church so it can grow you" -- Rev. Bill Lamar
"Jesus was just an awesome revolutionary" -- Rev. Georgia Thompson

On Friday night, we gathered for a Taize service. We sang -- "Confitemini Domino," "Nothing Can Trouble" -- and prayed around the cross, and anointed one another with oil, and, with few exceptions, cried buckets. I lit a candle for my beloved Lida Rose, may she rest in peace, and saw her bounding into my mother's arms, shedding all over heaven. I could have stayed in that circle, praying and singing until prayer and song melded into one, for hours.

But that was not to be: soon afterward, the space was transformed from site of deeply-serious worship to scene of a hilarious and irreverent talent show. In an impressive moment, one woman recited the full names of every president of the U.S. in fifteen seconds. Just as impressively, another woman demonstrated that she can put her tongue up her nose. We had a singalong version of "I Touch Myself," with elaborate prayer gestures at the chorus, and we learned an infuriatingly catchy song called "Constipated Men of the Bible."

I love people. And I have hope for the future of this crazy place called church. Amen!

The difference between The Washington Post and The New York Times

Sat, 26 Jun 2004 14:39:16 GMT

In today's New York Times:
Then Mr. Cheney stalked off, Mr. Leahy's aides said, using an obscene phrase to describe what he thought Mr. Leahy should do.

In Friday's Washington Post:
The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice. "Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.

The Post has published a lengthy justification for publishing "that word," which seems to rely at least in part on the response they've received from readers so far (damn the readers! full speed ahead!) and on an archives search for its past appearances. I'm having fun picturing these two newsrooms: some lucky intern at the Post using Lexis-Nexis to look up "fuck," and a group of supposedly-mature journalists in hysterics at the Times as they try to come up with a euphemism that leaves little to the imagination.

I have only ever told someone to fuck herself once, when the Public Safety dispatcher thought I was making a prank call when I asked her if I could borrow a college car to get to the hospital to see my dying mother. Still, the phrase has little shock value, and I imagine no one is surprised to find out that (gasp!) even the Vice President uses it on occasion. As people smarter than me have noted, most of the words and phrases that schoolchildren are told are the worst have diminished in weight, and it's racist language that is now unutterable. It's kind of a shame: general-purpose "cuss words" (as my students would call them) do come in handy.

In other news, today I slept until ten o'clock, which was quite delicious. I did manage to get my car back, $125 later (and that's with Jon paying half!), and this weekend some teaching friends are coming up to hang out, so that'll be good. I have also seen 26 different state license plates in the last two weeks, which is a perk of DC living. I'm pretty sure there's a Kansas parked downstairs, too, so I'm going to go check that out today.

Wed, 23 Jun 2004 00:46:14 GMT

Having not posted since moving to Washington, I do indeed have plenty to say. For right now, though, I'm just going to say: ARRRRGH.

I've been parking my car near Greg's cousin's apartment, because we only have one space here. Jon just called me and said, "Uh, do you have your car?"

"No," I said. "You have my car."

It turns out, of course, that the brilliant residents of Alexandria have realized that the car that's been parked on their street for over two weeks isn't going anywhere. Having been towed, it now resides in some unknown lot for orphaned cars. We're not sure where, and Jon's in charge of calling to find that out, but 40 minutes later he hasn't called me back. Are these places only open 9-5? And if so, how the heck am I supposed to get my car back? Where am I supposed to park it when I do get it back? And, horror of horrors, how much is this all going to cost me?

There is lots of other news: my dog died. My dad has (not serious, thankfully) heart disease. And there's good news too: the conference I just attended completely rocked, and living in DC is fun. More on those later. For now, I'm just going to fret some more about the poor Previa and my poor bank account.

Sat, 05 Jun 2004 16:43:46 GMT

Quickaly fast update, as I'm supposed to be packing and will probably catch some flack from barlow when he sees that I have not been diligently putting my entire life in boxes as promised (Greg caring much about my productivity may sound silly, but it's important because he's going to help me actually move out next month, so if we get back here and everything's still unpacked, that sucks for him too):

New Harry Potter movie = best one yet. I loved it. As doubtfulguest mentioned, the Scottish scenery was gorgeous, especially in the Buckbeak sequences. (Buckbeak! How adorable! I want one!) Contrary to the rumors Jess mentioned, Lupin and Sirius were both excellent. Far more than the previous Potter films, this one felt like a movie for grownups. I'm hoping to see it again.

This is my last day in Rocky Mount. In a couple hours, it's off to Washingtonia for me!