R.I.P. Blanche

Sigh. Another childhood friend bites the dust.

Thanks, Rue, for teaching a generation of girls you that you could sleep around and still be a classy southern belle.

My favorite song by The National is "Racing Like A Pro." Unfortunately, whenever he sings the chorus "You're dumbstruck baby" I hear "Ya dumpster baby," thus reducing a beautiful song to a Family Guy joke. Fuck you Seth MacFarlane.



I chose this anime video because the song was clear, but it's pretty cool, too...

The Land of Cockaigne

I want to go to there...

Just kidding. In my "word a day" email last week there was a place that sounded magical and wonderful (if you're a female or gay cokehead, that is):

COCKAIGNE: noun: An imaginary land of luxury and idleness.

This was the image that accompanied it. Hmmm, looks any apartment in Williamsburg on a Saturday morning.

Less than 50 years ago...

Damn.

The picture speaks for itself, but here is the info from one of the participants:

Our Woolworth Sit-In, Jackson Mississippi, 5/28/63 was the most violently attacked sit-in of the '60s and the most publicized.   Involving a White mob of several hundred, it went on for several hours while hostile police from Jackson's huge all-White police department stood by approvingly outside and while hostile FBI agents inside (in sun-glasses) "observed."   Seated, left to right are Hunter Gray (John R. Salter, Jr.) -- Native American; Joan Trumpauer (now Mulholland), a White Southern student at our private Black college, Tougaloo College [one of two White students at Tougaloo]; Anne Moody, Black, from Wilkinson County, Mississippi.  I, Gray [Salter] was a very young Tougaloo professor; and Joan and Anne were my students.  All of us are covered with sugar, salt, mustard, and other slop.  I was beaten many times -- fists, brass knuckles, and a broken glass sugar container -- and am covered with blood.

What a way to start an autobiography

"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour)."

Nabakov, from Speak, Memory.

Gotta love Nabokov, man. This line really moved me (i.e., gave me that special tingly feeling) when I read it yesterday. As did this one (proving that being Facebook friends with weird people whose only link to you is that they share your last name can sometimes be valuable):

"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."

So good! Augusten Burroughs, apparently. I guess I'll have to pick up some books from him, too.


Note: These two lines alone made up for the entire shitty romance novel I read before bed last night. Although it was the most meta romance novel I've ever read, so I guess that counts for something.

I need to invest in ninja throwing stars

I need to invest in throwing stars so when jerks on the street yell out "Excuse me miss, you dropped something," because they think they're funny I can bend over, pull a throwing star out of my ankle holster, and then chuck it at them.

Yes, these are the kinds of plans I come up with to combat catcallers.

UPDATE: It happened again today (day after initial post was written)! "I think you dropped something, miss. You dropped your halo!" What in the flying fuck is up with this? A viral marketing campaign by Beyonce? I need to get to www.ninjathrowingstar.com, STAT!

It's a hard time to be a romantic

It's a hard time to be a romantic. I've been feeling this way for a while, like at every turn there is something to remind me that it's naive to really believe in love. I'm not the only one; even my hairdresser brought it up! Why is the consensus "shit happens" when people hurt each other? Or that you should expect people you love to fuck you over?

I know I'm taking events that have nothing to do with me a bit too personally, but it feels personal. Like the little girl who used to sit and write stories about people who fell in love and lived normally ever after, no expectations of perfections even, and who actually believed in those stories, is getting beat down more and more with reality.

I'm sticking to my guns, though."I want to believe," X-Files style. I just wish more people felt the same way!