Twenty days means a huge dump

Since I last blogg'd. Dear lord. Too much has been happening: school, not having money, owing money, maybe getting a job, friend issues, family issues, and good lord in he'un, the ELECTION.

Like, I'm about to lose sleep over it. How will I focus for school next Tuesday? Five days. FIVE days and it'll all be over, over two years of campaigns that rounded out eight years of pain and misery and GOP cronyism. And Obama is ahead. Knock on wood, but he is ahead by 7% in the poll of polls, and right now, as they all stand, even if McCain gets all the states that are "swing" states, he would still lose to Obama by nearly 30 electors. Or points. Whatever they're called.

I mailed in my ballot last week. It was then that I really started to understand what Obama meant when he said that the election wasn't about him. In the same sense, it wasn't about John McCain either. It's about voters–it's about people–making up for the mistakes that they (or those who were able to vote in 2000 and 2004) had made. Obama might be the face of the change that I believe in (as McCain and the other candidates are for what they believe), but he isn't the heart and soul, he isn't the blood and brains that have kept the ticket running, that have made us all start running towards this final end. Barack Obama isn't the one who's lining up in the rain at early polling stations, nor is he volunteering and getting people registered. That's us, that's We The People, right there. An election is really only won if everyone who can contribute does. And I've done my part, and I'm proud, and when Barack Obama stands in front of the Capitol building in January, the chief justice won't be swearing in just one man, but millions of men and women who stood up and did their part and wanted change.

E Pluribus Unim, motherfucker. Also, no matter what happens, it's gonna beat the everloving crap out of the Canadian election, which you probably don't know happened.

Speaking of Canada, $1 USD=$1.30 CAD. Har har.

I'm sure that no matter what happens next Tuesday (dear god, Tuesday) there will be plenty of beer, and I'm thinking of splurging on at least a few Sam Adams or Rogue Ales, to get me in that American spirit. And I am thinking.....KFC? Something trashy. An early Thanksgiving. Or the worst day of my life. It's like the anticipation of Christmas, except that you have to wait all day to get your presents, but you don't know if they'll be presents or, like, shrapnel bombs? Or waiting to get married when she hasn't actually said "yes" yet, even though you're still having the ceremony and everything.

So the potential job? Transcribing and editing texts for an online archive that is accessible for the visually impaired. The potential pay? $16.16/hour, 10 hours per week. That's about $600 per month, which will help out not only rent, but livelihood as well. I'm 90% sure that it's mine.

What are we reading?
Chaucer: The Legend of Good Women
Children's: Coraline/Neil Gaiman
Poetry: Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction/Wallace Stevens
Ovid: Venus and Adonis/Shakespeare
Film: Treasure of the Sierra Madre

All pretty good, and I'm even starting to tolerate Poetry, thanks to Wallace Stevens being so damn good. Check it:

You must become an ignorant man again
And see the sun again with an ignorant eye
And see it clearly in the idea of it.

Never suppose an inventing mind as source
Of this idea nor for that mind compose
A voluminous master folded in his fire.

What else? My birthday is in a month. 32 days, to be exact. Numerology tells me that this year, or at least this birthday, will bring me love. I hope that will come true. And, because I love talking about these things, here's what I want for my birthday:

• This watch
• A pocket-sized Moleskine notebook, ruled
• Some Faber Castell black fineliners
• A sketchbook, 9x11, preferably heavy paper
• A soft, warm scarf
• A set of charcoal pencils

The socks are just a tag-on, since I have, like, no socks. I would also adore a bottle of wine or beer, but that's not the long-lasting love that one wants on one's birthday. Also, I feel as though I deserve a particularly good one, since the last two birthdays that I spent with friends were in Versailles and Avignon. So. Life owes me one.

And I really want that watch. I'm bored to death with the one that I have, and it looks so classy and it's a Fossil, and I adore Fossil more than anything, unless someone out there wants to get me something from the Balon Bleu de Cartier collection, which I would not sniff at in the least.

Halloween, in Canada, apparently means fireworks. The plan so far is for me to go as Huck Finn.

PoliBLARGH

Two new idiomatic expressions, one which is highbrow.....and one which is not.

The Highbrow

You're talking to your friend, and they describe doing something. Let's say, "I'm gonna meet Mona and then we're riding to school."

You answer: "Do you mean that in the regular sense or in the John Donne sense?"


*the joke: John Donne, a contemporary of Shakespeare, was famous for his ridiculous double entendres (in fact he most likely invented the double entendre in it's modern form) in his poetry. Most famous is his use of "little death" as an orgasm (true, that's what it means in French, but whatever, it's dirty). One can always imagine John Donne standing around a group or courtiers and nudging the guy next to him whenever the ladies walked by, jabbing his elbow into the man's sides and going "eh? EHH?" In short, saying something in "The John Donne" sense means that you are taking the active verb out of the phrase and replacing it with a form of "fuck"*

Regular sense: Yesterday I stayed at home and studied for my chem final.
John Donne sense: Yesterday I stayed at home and fucked for my chem final.



The Lowbrow

You are discussing one of any various topics with a friend, and they bring up a specific item that annoys you. Let's say:

"Hey, have you seen Seven Years in Tibet?"

And you reply: "Seven years in Tibet? More like Seven Years in BLAAAARGH."

*the joke: people often use this form of sentence with the last word replaced by some sort of pun or jab. This time, we replace it with a barfing noise.*

Variations: If you think that it sounds better, or if the word has a "Mc" or "Mac" in it, go ahead and just put the barfing in the last syllable.
Example:

"Hey, I don't pay attention to the actual world, so I think I'll vote for John McCain."
"John McCain? More like John McBLAAAAARGH."


And while we're on the subject of John McCain: Boy oh boy am I sick of the whole "Liberal Media Gotcha Journalism" tripe that they're trying to sell.

First of all: they're slamming McCain/Palin for, like, lying. Repeatedly. About things that they should not lie about.

Second of all: they get on Obama's ass about it, too, and Biden's. But hey, you know why they don't do that so often? Because they check their facts instead of pulling them out of their asses.

Third of all: Come on, guys. If Obama ever pulled out a stunt like lying, or being immersed in Lobbyists, or picked a completely inexperienced runningmate, had a wife who had been addicted to Vicodin, a daughter who was pregnant at 17, or was endorsed by a preacher who claimed that the Holocaust was God's work, he would be out of the race. Hell, he would have to leave the country or be dragged out on a rail. But John McCain and Sarah Palin have been pulling out these exact things, and yet they remain, hell, they are the head of one of the largest political parties in, like, the WORLD. If the media had really maintained the so-called "liberal bias", then there would be no McCain/Palin. Look at what happened to John Kerry, and then tell me that the media is liberal. Knock it off, Republican Strategists.

Do you ever think that, between elections, the Republican Strategists and the Democratic Strategists get together and play risk, not to have fun, but to sniff out each other's weaknesses and poison their brandy? I do.

They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm

I have never desired to keep it secret that I adore Dorothy Parker. As sad as her life was, as atypical and un-tortured as her writing could be, she was the wittiest wit of her time, and I am in love with it. I'm heading to Portland this weekend, and if there's anything that I'm going to buy at all, it will be a new copy of the Portable Dorothy Parker, since mine was lost to stupidity long ago. To tide me over, here are a few Parkerian zingers:

"A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika."

"I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true."

"I've never been a millionaire but I just know I'd be darling at it."

"If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised."

"Well look at you–a rhinestone in the rough!"

"She speaks seven languages and she can't say 'no' in any of them."

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."

"Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves."

"I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more."

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."

"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

"She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B." (speaking of Katherine Hepburn on Broadway)

"That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment."

from a dream:

"...And only then will the world be ruled by men of no god's choosing"