Oh here I go

Things that get me in the mood to travel:
Time alone and Hounds of Love.

To celebrate, here's a sentence that I wrote on the back of one of the GCI posters that we used under the carbon copies at work. Yeah, I should have been working:

"Nevada was a crematorium that burned slow, waiting for her to rest, to die, to crumble back to dust and blow away with the sand, mixed into tumbleweeds and swallowed by vultures."

It's from Secret of the Clockwork Mouse (or the second name I think of).

So I was out the other night and went to my friend Tiger's house to talk and drink rum. She was doing homework for her poetry class, and for the first time this summer I got to really talk about literature and what I thought art was, and aestheticism. I mean, it's not like talking about the election all the time is bad, but it reminded me that my true love is literature, and that I totally belong in a place where I can talk about it. And that place will be where I am Monday, or tomorrow if I'm lucky.

I'm going back to Vancouver!! I hope that my housemates aren't bastards. I hope that my landlord isn't an asshole. I hope I can reserve the TV for the debates and the election and the occasional movie night, and that I can have people over, and that my friends from PDX come visit at least once per person, and that I don't run out of money two months in, because that will be a problem. I hope I get a job somewhere close enough that has decent hours, and I hope that I have enough free time to enjoy my last year there. And for fuck's sake, I hope I see Okkervil River. I'd better fucking go see them.

Anyway, I have to get to packing. It's taken me about three hours to pack one bag...oy. Vey.

Just a couple more points...

Number one:

Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land – enough! This moment – this election – is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight. On November 4th, we must stand up and say: “Eight is enough.”

His speech (which I did not get that chance to see live) gave me goosebumps, and had me in tears at a few moments. He got angry at the end, he got more impassioned than his speech four years ago (which is still one of the best that I have experienced) and, though of course he didn't close the book completely on any of the attacks–McCain will always use them, no matter how debunked or outdated they are–he certainly shot them down enough that it will make the GOP and FOX news look just a little dumber than usual when they bring it up.

And I know that it's part of his whole deal, but I'm actually pretty glad that he didn't spend too much time talking about his and Michelle's life stories. For me, it's gotten old to the point that it seems like more and more of a ploy when he uses it; though Bill Clinton made it look fresh last night, so it still works.

In conclusion: I wear my Obama sweater with pride and cashed my last DNC check today; I am proud and excited to be a part of this movement and will continue to do what I can (though my funds are low right now), even in Canada, up to November 4th.

Now here's point number two:

And all over the country was heard the rallying cry of "what the hell?"

Fine, John. Well played. Slick move. Because the best way to get Hillary supporters on board, close the age gap, and renew your whole "maverick" persona is to go with a 44-year old first-term female governor who is out of the beltway and does seem to have a record of fighting Republican corruption. Yeah, that sounds like someone sort of Hillary-ish. Of course, she has less experience than Obama, is a militant pro-lifer, a card-carrying moose-hunting member of the NRA who is outspoken against the LGBT community (though she does say that she has "gay friends"), a conservative Evangelical who has conservative Evangelical views, who supports drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife refuge, was supported by now-indicted senator Ted Stevens, has no experience with Foreign Policy and has very little with Economics, and is in a scandal of her own; not exactly Watergate, but she certainly ain't teflon.

And true, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee aren't the smartest cookies in the basket. Neither is Giuliani, though Lieberman would have been smart enough to hold his own–and would probably have done better to sway over independents and those who are still under the impression that he's remotely liberal. But at least they're experienced on working or debating at the national level. She'll be a mouthpiece for McCain in the VP debate, and Joe Biden will tear her apart.

What a stupid choice, if you really think about it. What she represents, yes, that is important. But what she's actually done, who she actually is, doesn't really impress me in any way.

And I will be damned if I see the first woman in a presidential position be someone who isn't Hillary Clinton, who isn't progressive, who isn't wise, and tried, and true, and hasn't really done anything to earn it. Hillary–though I wasn't as strong a supporter of her as I was Obama–fucking earned it. She fucking struggled and fought and in my opinion women all over the country are in her debt. But our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, our aunts and, yes, quite a few of our uncles have not fought and bled for decades just for this. She might be a woman, and I respect her for her career, but just because we are of the same gender doesn't mean that we automatically represent the same things, that I have to applaud this choice by default. Never will I do that; just as I have never respected Condoleeza Rice. Just because you have the face or the body of a minority does not mean that you support their interests.

I have not waited my whole life, our country has not waited so long just to see the first female vice-president be nothing more than a stooge for the historically sexist GOP. No, never. I would rather wait fifty years than see that happen. And I think that the real Hillary supporters, the ones who are feminists AND progressives, will agree.

Fire it up, I'm ready to go

I think that I speak for a helluva lot of people when I say this: HRC owns my shit. Woman is a powerhouse, a tough cookie made of gold and punctuality and smarts that very few women, let alone people, can come close to being; and I am lucky to be among the generation that grew up under her husband's administration and watched her make history. I can say with complete confidence that, sooner than we would have ever hoped, a woman will take the oval office as more than just a first lady, but as a leader of the country and of the free world.

So I've been watching the convention for the past two days, and again, for the most part I find a lot of the speeches underwhelming; seldom do we stray from "Barack Obama is the change we need, John McCain is more of the same". And though that's surely the truest thing we could say right now, there's more urgency than that, and it's too bad that Clinton was one of the few to really thoroughly address that.

The best part of the night, and probably my favorite part of the convention so far, has been when the announcer asked everyone to stand up and face the back of the hall for the panoramic photo. They all stood up and turned around, and the camera started panning, and a few people cheered and waved, then one person yelled "fire it up!" and some people responded "I'm ready to go!" this got bigger and bigger, until the whole hall was shouting "Fire it up! I'm ready to go!" Without the aid of anyone at the podium telling them what to say or what to chant, the delegates on their own showed the true colors of the Democratic Party in the best and simplest way: that they were fired up, and they were ready to go. This is the party of change, of progress, of hope, of the American dream. Suck on that, RNC.




All out of thoughts, have songs from Across The Universe stuck in my head, I might want to watch it. Bad, Meg, BAD.

Go sing songs, go rock on

Check it out:
This makes Minneapolis/St Paul the place to be next week:
It's right outside of the airport! I know that I haven't watched The Daily Show in forever, so this reminds me of how nice it is to see Jon Stewart and his pack of well-dressed satirists tearing the GOP a new one. God bless America.

So yes, I did see day one of the Democratic National Convention; or at least most of it. I made the stupid mistake of thinking that CNN would do more than "Dear god, what will we dooooooo about CLIIIIIIINTOOOOOOOOOOON?!" for hours on end. Give it up, you guys. So I switched over in time to C-SPAN to see Nancy Pelosi speak, and though I enjoyed all of the speeches, for the most part I was underwhelmed by the overall feel of things. Yes, we have Hope, and we want Change, and we'll fight for Obama. Pelosi did the attacks (which I've been waiting for the most) the best, getting the crowd to chant over and over, "John McCain is wrong", and what she said about his record was a great attack: "The Republicans say that John McCain has 26 years of experience. We say that John McCain has 26 years of being wrong."

And of course, I got a little misty when Ted Kennedy came out to speak and said that nothing would keep him from being there. The fact that the entire remainder of the Kennedy family supports Obama is a huge deal, and it seems pretty obvious that the camp is glad to have it, what with all the Kennedy signs flying through the audience...with "barackobama.com" printed right below them. I enjoyed hearing Jesse Jackson, Jr. speak, as well as Michelle Obama, and I was glad to hear her acknowledge–however briefly–the 18 million votes that Hillary Clinton won in the primary elections. I think that, overall, they did a good enough job as showing Obama as the family-loving everyman instead of just the high-minded intellectual celebrity that the Republicans like to peg him as.

Of course, the big question on everyone's mind, as CNN showed before, is what will happen with the Clinton camp: the inclusion of her name in the vote as well as giving voice to Michigan and Florida, two states that she would have won, as well as the selection of Joe Biden for VP instead of Clinton has re-opened the can of worms that is the so-called rivalry between the two senators. And though I know that Clinton and Obama aren't the best of friends right now, I doubt that Hillary is so immature that she would continue to bear a grudge up to this point, or to allow her supporters to. Tomorrow night, and Bill's speech on Wednesday, will hopefully clear the air on that subject and put it to rest, and hopefully shut down the two recent attack ads that McCain aired that urged Hillary supporters to vote McCain.

By the way: if you support Hillary Clinton, then do what she would do and vote Democrat. Voting on a grudge because your candidate didn't make it is the wrong way to vote, period.

So tonight I think that I'm going to write as much as I can, since I've become so bad about it in the past while. Tea and writing! socks and hummus!

My life is getting sad. My job is over, and it's making me feel a weird unfulfilled sensation, which only happens when you leave school after a good semester, or say goodbye for what you know will be years. The irony is, on my first day not working with the DNC, my Obama sweater came in the mail and I watched the convention. Talk about not letting go easy. But this time next week I'll be settled into my new home, going out to dinner with Amanda and Aletheia and hopefully Peter and Esther, enjoying my return to BC and to University, and entering into my last year.

One last thing before I disappear for another week:
Listen to it (when it comes out legally, yuk yuk yuk). I'm actually liking it more than The Stage Names. Less of that meta-fiction self-awareness shtick that made The Stage Names a bit tiresome after a while, though when it needs to be, The Stand Ins has plenty or well-matured cynicism. Also, it sounds like it would be good live, and I'm going to see them on the 18th. YAY.

Really, I mean, now, come on.

From CNN's Political Ticker today:

...curiosity over the vice presidential search is as high here as in the media. At a town hall Wednesday, one of the very first questioners asked McCain, " I heard a rumor that you're going to pick a pro-life VP, is that true?"

The presumptive GOP nominee gave his usual answer about the campaign still going through the process of picking the vice presidential nominee while emphasizing his prolife credentials.

"I respect the views of others but I also happen to believe that the noblest words ever written, in history, were those that said, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all of us are created equal, and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," he said. Then he added to applause from the audience," I think that life applies to those that are not born as well as those that are born."

How dare you, John McCain. How dare you. Thomas Jefferson should rise from the grave and slap you with his sexy hand. You want to talk abortion rights, Mr. McCain? Have you ever had that choice or faced that dilemma yourself? You shouldn't fucking talk. And I will always say that...men don't really have the right to rule on the issue of a woman's choice. Per-fucking-iod.

And all this crap that Rush Limbaugh is pushing (and the Coulter woman too) about "killing babies after they survive an abortion" is (1)unfounded and (2)irrelevant. I can't find the links right now 'cause I'm lazy, but boy howdy it's making me mad inside.

Well that and there was a pro-life rally outside the new Planned Parenthood that I walked by on the way to turf, and women getting 12-year-old girls out there holding signs that say "After their Birth Control Fails, Will You Let Planned Parenthood Kill Your Baby?" with a picture of an aborted fetus on it gives me shivers on the inside.

Anyway, this is my last week of work, so probably the last time that I'll get a lot of this out. But Edward Scissorhands is on, so I'm gonna go with that.

Bela Karole should be at my family reunion making hot dogs

Which would be awesomer than awesome.

Though I gotta say: hey y'all judges, stop screwing over us American girls. I mean, we already have a pretty well-founded idea that maybe, just maybe those Chinese girls who look like they're 12 (and there are records of competitions which show that yeah, they're younger) shouldn't have been competing. Let them come back for the gold in London, when they're as old as all the other girls that they're competing against.

I just have such a thing for Nastia Liukin, not just like a thing-thing but because her uneven bars routine is the closest thing to ballet that you can get on the event (as is her balance beam and her floor exercise). And it's good--it was 16.9 good in the team, which is the closest to perfect in the whole competition. In my opinion, that's enough to merit the individual medal, and when you tie with the Chinese gymnast, Kexin He, and the tie-breaker works against you even when your average score was the higher of the two. Fuck the computer tie-breaker. She got robbed.

I wish I was a dude so I could hit on Yelena Isabayeva (pole vaulter, Russia). "Honey, you can vault my pole aaanytime". God I love her uniform. It shows her abs and I like those abs. She vaulted 5.5 meters. I'm only 5'6".

I done that math. Werd.

It means nothing, if you say so

This cookie that I'm eating tastes like fish? I think that it does.

I was looking over my poetry just now; the few poems that I can still find from my miserably bad submission to the Creative Writing BFA program. It's been only a little over a year since I made the submission, and already they (as well as the fiction piece that I wrote for it) seem to be dried out and uninteresting, like a boat built for water that wasn't really there, sitting above a year-old tide line, dried and cracking, looking to all the world like a waste of wood.

There are only two out of the bunch that I put up on DeviantArt that I still think hold some sort of resonance. I will say this, though, before getting into them: I had depression back then. Like, I know that I have ups and downs, but holy shit, if my mood had been a physical place, that place would have been the bottom of an oil rig in the North Sea.

So without further ado, Meg's Angst:

I am made in my own image,
And I killed my better half out of pride.
I have cursed myself to the wilderness.

I have felt the flood inside me.
I have taken two of every thought
To save in hope.
Suspended on a ship in the waters,
Daring to scrape the sky of my skull
To wait out the rains.
I have let out the dove
And waited for its return.

I have felt the fire inside me.
Brimstone eyelids,
Hair falling down like stone
Razing my shoulders.
I cannot run, but stay,
Cannot look back, but all around.
It is all me.
I am salt.

And I cast boils
And plagues
Poverty, disgrace,
Forsaken my own skin,
Mind, soul.

I wager my salvation.
I walk on coals
In the black belly
Of my own whale.

I liked that one because of the pace, and the sharpness of the verses...and also, I love making biblical references. For me more than anyone else, really.

Then there's this lovely little piece:

In proposals you sounded confident to take my challenge and
I was sure to make improvements: in five weeks, I'll return.
I will be able to reach back and undo the mask so that
My eyes will learn to focus and my brain will learn to breathe.
And I will see all my mistakes and know that they were mistakes.
I will know all of my exes for what they really were and are still,
And then divorce myself completely from what I thought it was.
And you will learn to listen to me and trust me with the car.
And you will realize that I was in a phase, like the moon,
And I was waning once and dark and new but now I'm full
And oh so light and oh so ready to come back with a smile.
I will return, with some nails and some wood to rebuild
What I'd burned when I thought I should get away
And you will wait with arms outstretched on the other side
Ready with comfort and a joking tone of voice
Laughing when you say "why did you think you could go
Because it really was a phase and you were just in shadow."

Mother, it means nothing if you say so.
If this silence will keep our family together
Then when I come across my new bridge,
Meet my lips with a needle and thread and love.

Again, good, and I like my word choice in it a lot, and the extended sentences, but god freaking damn, did I not like my mother. And it's weird. I love my mother. I mean, I still understand the feelings that led me to think this way, but really now I'm more ready to just let it go. I think. Also, it sounds too much like those whiny "I'm in the minority!" pieces, which are good, but, well, whiny.

Going to Vancouver again this Saturday to find me a place to live; because something being easy is boring and I want to put money down two weeks before moving in, that's just how I roll. With danger.

I want so much to possess the motivation to just write the fucking novel and get fucking published, so that I can quit school and find somewhere to live on my own for a year or more. I never get to be in a place alone anymore (though my bedroom door here finally closes all the way). I just want to be a hermit. Not that I hate my friends, or my family, but I just want to think about my life, and not so much about how other people's lives influence me.

Or at least, I could graduate and then go on an unexplained hiatus for a year or so. I've been dreaming of that for a long time, actually: one day to just leave and not come back for a year; no arguing or leaving contact info, just disappearing and leaving a note: went out to find myself. Back in a year. No need to call. Then I would be free to find out who the person inside my skin is, outside of what I am now, which is a bunch of labels: Democrat, Canvasser, Student, Lit Major, Floridian, Canadian. It's all where I've been and what I do, and I'm still having trouble finding the I Am in there. Of course that's always a transitional thing, shut up, I know, but I still think that I (and anyone else who wants it) should get some personal time off from life's obligations.

That being said, what's probably going to happen is that I'm going to graduate, take a year off, earn enough money to pay for grad school, and depending on who is President, get my teacher certification and work. If (when) Obama wins, I will come back, apply for his teaching program as soon as it's up and running (hopefully soon), go to school for free, then teach for four years at a high needs school, which I think will be a strengthening experience to say the least. Then there's whatever comes after that, and if I like teaching, I'll stick with it.

If Obama loses, then I'll stay in Vancouver (provided that I get a job), and then either get my certification for teaching K-12 or find a TAship and hopefully get through grad school to a masters in English or, hey, go for that Creative Writing deal again and even work up to an MFA instead of just the BA. End result: I want to get some form of Grad School, unless I find something super-successful in the meantime that I can stick with.

My stomach hurts, I'm tired, and I have a physical tomorrow. A girl physical. Pray for me and my uterus.

you know it

William Faulkner is owning my shit. Check it:

"Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him".

There you go, guys, I'll use that for inspiration when I'm low; or when I think that figuring out a strategy is gonna save me. It ain't.

Also, as a tangential thing, I kind of want to buy this:
My reasons:
A) I need a new hoodie/sweater for day-to-day stuff and whatnot;
B) Barack Obama?

It's $35, which isn't that bad when you think about it, and the proceeds go to the campaign (yay!) and it's all made in America (double yay!). Am I getting a bit too into this? Did you know that Obama is left-handed? I'm left-handed! Match made in heaven?

Seriously, the outcome of this election is going to determine whether I want to live in America or Canada. And if I buy something and he loses? I'll still wear it with pride. There's this whole movement of change going on that's beyond just the one guy and the one election. For serious.

The Dark Knight is still the superior film to Iron Man, though to be fair, we should be comparing origin movies, not an origin vs. a sequel. And you know what? Batman Begins was better than Iron Man. In fact, I'm starting to think that Iron Man is kind of a bad movie, despite the Downey, Jr. and, um, the suit. Of iron. Worn by....a man. Give me complexity over a shitty soundtrack any day.

God I need to sleep. I'm craving...a reuben. A veggie reuben, which is with tomatoes instead of meat.

Also, I need to stop eating chicken every now and then.