Ha, funny.

See, the funny thing about blogging is that when there’s a lot of stuff to blog about, there’s no time to blog it.  Like spending the night in the ER with my mom.

Insanely Brief Thoughts on the DNC, Night 4

I’m headed out of town today, so:

1.  I don’t think using a stadium, as opposed to the convention center, was such a good idea.  The audio was echo-y and dissipated, security had to be a MUCH bigger hassle,  and dude:  no balloon drop.

2.  Gore was lookin’ good, but rushed through much of his speech.  I am curious what role he might take, if any, under an Obama administration.  I’m counting on him to put the heat on (heh heh) both government and industry in the years ahead.

3.  Obama did well, and it was a well-crafted speech with a quite impressive array of emotional and tactical shifts.  There were a few glitches, and my inner speech teacher was taking notes (You’re avoiding looking directly into the camera, Barry; dont forget your biggest audience is watching you on TV, etc.), but still:  this is your president, folks. 

4.  Best line of the night:  “I want a president who puts Barney Smith ahead of Smith Barney.”  He didn’t write it, but still.  I’m a sucker for chiasmus.  (See also:  Bill’s “power of our example/example of our power” number on Wednesday.)

5.  Stevie Wonder:  Oh, dear.

Boom.

I just found out that a guy I knew from college died suddenly, at 35, of a heart attack.  His wife was out of town and his baby boy was staying overnight with his in-laws.

Although we weren’t close friends–I met him late in my college years–he was a stand-up guy, and his death is hitting me in a strangely deep way.

The fact that I’m leaving tomorrow for a week-long trip without my beloved probably has something to do with it.  So I’m not asking for whom the bell tolls.  I know.

Very Brief Thoughts on the DNC, Night 3

Very brief, because we went out with friends who will shortly be moving cross-country and I missed almost the entire circus last night.  This morning, however, I’ve watched the speeches by Clinton and Biden (Maude Bless YouTube!), and so:

1.  Bill was way on point last night.  Repeated full-throated endorsements of Obama, while tying him to Bill’s own successes (HOPE!), plenty of well-deserved kudos for Hillary, respect for McCain as a person while pointing out his screwed-up policies, explicit references to expanding rights to all citizens regardless of race, creed, gender, or sexuality (let’s ignore DADT, shall we?), and finally, mention of Katrina. 

2.  Biden’s “freudian slip,”  confusing “George…” for “John McCain”?  Clever.  I have mixed feelings about Biden as VP (his chickenhawkiness:  boo; his role in VAWA:  yay!), but he can be a bulldog, which is good in a veep, and his speech, though a bit mucked up by the crowds’ desire to chant along with some of his refrains, was solid.  It was a real mutual admiration society up in there.

3.  I want the dress Chelsea was rockin’ last night.   Yeah, she’s taller and slimmer than I, but I can dream.

Brief Thoughts on the DNC, Night 2

I missed quite a bit of it, due to a department event, and then a phone conversation with my dad, whose 67th birthday was yesterday.  But from what I did see/hear:

1.  Kathleen Sebelius is a seriously awesome dame.  I think RB has a little crush on her.

2. Mark Warner, while not the most skillful orator, did pretty well.  I liked what he had to say more than how he said it.  Although he kind of looks like a caricature of a handsome man; everything’s a little too exaggerated:  too many teeth, too-prominent bone structure, too-swoopy hair. 

3.  Patrick Deval did a better job all the way around (why was Warner the “featured speaker,” anyway?), but looked a little heavily made-up.  And “I grew up on the South Side of Chicago” has been said so many times that it’s starting to sound like “…uphill, both ways!” to me.

4.  PBS’s coverage is better than the other major networks (we don’t have cable), but it’s still a total sausage-fest.  Less Jim Lehrer, more Gwen Ifill, please!

5.  I can’t bear to read any MSM coverage today–there is going to be a whole lot of shite speculation about What Hillary Did Wrong, or What Hillary Could’ve Done Better, or Why Hillary Eats Babies.  I just can’t go there today.

6.  My heart was just pounding throughout her speech.  I’ve never understood the frothing Hillary- or Clinton-hate–simply don’t get what other people are seeing or projecting (and please don’t try to “explain” it in comments, I’ve heard it all before)–and I just cried and laughed and thought “What a woman.  What a fucking presidential woman.”  She was amazing.  The jokes, the digs at McCain and Bush, the invocation of the 19th Amendment, the tributes to Tubbs Jones and Gwaltney,  the New York references, the brilliant use of Harriet Tubman’s urging to ”keep going,” and the unmistakable message in her question: ”Were you in this for me?”  It was fantastic.  Obama better bring it on Thursday, ’cause that’s a hard act to follow.

Brief Thoughts on the DNC, Night 1

1.  They’re choosing good music (“Are You Gonna Go My Way?” is genius), but they’re using a schmaltzy house band that’s making everything sound alike.

2.  The media is making a MUCH bigger deal out of PUMAs and “Hillary Harridans” and other bullshit misogynist tropes than is warranted.  Are there a few wrong-headed people out there who are going to vote for McCain because their candidate didn’t get the nom?  Yes.  Are their numbers significant?  I seriously doubt it, as no one has been able to offer anything other than anecdotes.  Does relentlessly profiling them do ANYTHING to help the cause of party unity?  Hell no.  Shut up, punditry.

3.  The emotional tugs (Ted Kennedy, Mrs. Robinson, Malia and Sasha) are wildly unsubtle.  Although I guess if there’s a time to pull out all the stops, this is it.

4.  RB and I agreed that if this election is to be won on charisma, Michelle Obama hit it out of the park last night.

5.  God, I wish I was still teaching public speaking.  These conventions are chock-a-block with golden examples.

6.  Memo to the world:  “Barack Obama” is no longer “a funny name.”

Avoiding the Issue

I have a friend who just had her first child.  I sent her a brief note of congratulations and good wishes, and I’ve checked the blog they’ve set up to share stories and pictures with far-flung family and friends.

I am honestly happy for them and glad that they are doing well, but I’m also glad that I’m not expected to drop by and coo over the new arrival, because the baby?  Is ugly.  I mean, really homely.  Not jolie-laide, not funny-lookin’, just shockingly un-cute.

It took me a while to figure it out, but it looks like a Podling, from The Dark Crystal.  Kinda like this:

I showed RB the little one’s pictures, and he said:  “Wow, it’s a potato with hair.”  We are hopeful that this is just a phase.

Sold Out.

Yesterday was a long one.  We were up before 8 (ON A SATURDAY.) to make sure we were ready to lauch the Stoop Sale at 10.  Our original plan was to have 4 different households from the building selling, but as I mentioned last time, one person flaked out a couple days ago.  Saturday morning found just two households on the sidewalk, hawking our tawdry wares.  After the sale, I found an email from the other flake (“Oops, sorry!  Giggle!”), who apparently couldn’t even be arsed to come downstairs on Saturday and apologize like an adult.  Color me unsurprised that the people who did what they said they would were couples in their 30s, and the flakes were just out of college.  Giggle!

The other sellers were very cool, and we had a nice day out on the street.  The weather was ideal, we had some good tunes, and we both made a little money.  They did better than we, since they were selling in anticipation of an international move and had a number of big ticket items, like bikes and furniture, but we ended up making $100, which is more than I thought we’d get.

But there’s plenty of detritus to deal with.  Mostly books.  I thought those would move, but I think we only sold one.  No CDs sold, either (the digital domain is firmly in place).  But boy howdy, did the mismatched flatware fly! (Which: WTF?)

My Spanish skills, clumsy though they are, came in very handy, and probably brought a little business that we might otherwise have missed.  Adding out loud en Espanol is hard; I’m math-deficient enough in my native tongue.  But we did unload some things, we did make a little cash, and perhaps best of all, RB is more on-board with clearing out the clutter than I’ve ever seen him.  Which is to say he’s on-board at all; usually he’s more likely to wail “You can’t get rid of that yellow polyester cowl-neck caftan you never wear!  I love that thing!” than volunteer to go through the closet or bureau.  Now he’s all psyched to list things on Amazon and reap the (sometimes meager) profits.  We’ll call it a success, I guess.  We haven’t decided what do to with the cash.

After the sale, we dragged stuff upstairs, ate a junk-sale of a lunch (cold leftover felafel, pickled beets and chevre, olives, red pepper strips and carrots, sesame crackers) collapsed into a profound late-afternoon nap, did some sorting and cleaning, then went over to extreme western Williamsburg for a late-night roofdeck party.

We did a little chatting with the few people we knew, but basically just sat, enjoying the 350-degree view (a new building blocked a bit of lower Manhattan), making Statler-and-Waldorffian comments to each other, and getting slowly but seriously hammered on Stoli & 7s.

Today is hurty.

Feeling like my stuff: cheap and used.

I was just reading this NYT article, and while I don’t own anything half so interesting as Napoleon’s penis, I do have a lot of crap, and this weekend, we’re going to try to sell it, on the cheap.

I’ve organized a sidewalk sale with a few other people in our building for this weekend, and I’m afraid that it’s going to be a huge wash:  someone else is in charge of printing and distributing poster/flyers (my job is macro-organization and on-line marketing), and I have no evidence that anything has happened on that front.  Another of the sellers just flaked out (“it’s not worth my time,” says she), and I’m just kinda waiting for the whole thing to collapse like cardboard box left out in the rain, because the others are going to leave it all up to me.

So, do I attempt to go on a last-minute poster-spree?  Throttle the Flake, or just say “fine, if you’re just going to throw your stuff out, give it to me, now, and I’ll sell it for profit.”?  Or screw that, and just keep going through all this junk, cleaning it, organizing it, pricing it, and babysitting it, only to make maaaaybe $20, and then still have to haul to Goodwill or post it on Craigslist? 

I’m sure that’s what the Flake was thinking.  Fuck that.  I want the stuff out of my house, this will help get it out.  Making a little extra cash is gravy.

Fingers crossed.  Come out and buy my stuff?  Saturday, rain or shine!

Handy Tip!

I feel like posting about my new shampoo (yes, really),  but I need to see if it’s just a one-off.  So, for now, I will share a tip I had to employ today, and it worked, as it always does, like a charm.

Tip:  Your own saliva will remove your own blood from fabrics.

Really.  Let’s not go into why I had to employ this today, but I learned it from a friend in junior high, who learned it from her mom, who learned it from her mom.

Anyway, it only works on fresh stains, but it’s amazing.  So, the next time you cut yourself, or forget your period is due, or your kid skins her knee, have the bleeder spit, copiously, on the bloodstain, (you will start to see the blood dissolve/fade immediately), rub it around, spit some more, etc.,  then rinse in warm water.  Repeat as necessary.  Easy, cheap, immediate results.