Grabapple.net

Three interviews, people. THREE. Make up your minds, potential employers!! Sheezus. It’s like the Miss America pageant; I’ve had the Talent, Evening Gown, and Personal Interview segments. I’ll be damned if I’m going to put up with a swimsuit competition, though. I haven’t had the right plastic surgery for that.

I am trying very hard not to Care Too Much, and mostly doing ok at it. But as they’ve pretty much said that if they DO take me, they will need me to start within a week, I can’t help but feel like a big ol’ lying hypocrite at work, where my boss depends on me quite a bit. I’m not at all irreplaceable, it’s just that it’s going to be a pain in her ass to replace me so quickly. And of course next month is super busy, and so a bad time for her to be short handed. And I like her, so I feel guilty. Bluh.

I know, they could fire me tomorrow, blah de blah. I don’t care about the company. But the people I work with are decent sorts, and I was, frankly, kind of a mess coming back into the workforce. It’s taken me this long to hit my stride in any meaningful way. And this job was very forgiving of my vagueness and inability to focus, because it wasn’t ever really that hard.

Which is also why I want to leave..and there you go. Conundrum.

On the good side, we’re starting Nathan at daycare Monday. Matt is feeling a bit conflicted about it, while I’m pumped for the kid. New toys! Stomping on the smaller babies (that is, all of them)! Songs and stories and playgrounds and snacks and naptime! I hope he’ll love it. I think it will give him a break from Mom and Dad..and vice versa…and that we’ll all come out the better for it.

Meanwhile I spend the weekend doing the Dance of Tentative Hopefulness. It’s a very low key dance, you hunch up your shoulders and squeeze up your face while you clench your fists and whisper “Hope hope hope”. Here’s hopin’.

or your kid might steal your car. Still, I can’t but help salute a 12 yr old who can drive in NYC traffic and then successfully parallel park. But he would still be in SO much trouble, mister!

First this:

Then this:

And then THIS!:

Images courtesy John Daniel via BoingBoing.net

Really, do I need to say more? 11/7/06: The day America said, “Suck it, Republicans.” We oughta have a parade. Nah. Let’s wait for 2008.

And speaking of crossed fingers; I had my interview. Not saying anything about it so as to avoid jinxing. lalalalalala….

1. Voting: don’t know if my vote counted. First, they couldn’t find me on the list, though I was registered and had confirmed my polling place the day before; and my husband, who lives at the same address, was on there. So I cast a provisional ballot on an eVote machine. I kept my receipt, which I don’t think I was supposed to, not that it will matter. And yes, I did complain to one of the many voter-irregularity organizations out there. Oh but I almost forgot; there was only one provisional ballot machine at my polling place…and when I was first there it wasn’t working. No one had been called to work on it. I had the feeling I was just supposed to shrug and leave. I didn’t, flustering the poll worker, who got on her cellphone and finally figured out how to fix it, so I could vote. Gotta work hard to vote, these days. Texas didn’t have many close races, so I’m not sure it mattered at all, but registering my displeasure with the Repubs is worth it. Um, if it got registered. Time to think about Voting By Mail, methinks.

2. Me: tired. Baby: strange mixture of happy/cranky, like a tiny manic depressive. Sometimes he cries and laughs in the same breath. But he did go down to sleep with less bottle-dependency, so that gives me hope. We’re not buying any more formula; it’s organic milk all the way from now on.

3. Got another interview tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes. I ain’t holdin’ my breath.

And this is how I surf the Interwebs, and find…stuff. Over at Metafilter, I saw a post about M3cents.com, a site where you can complain about the horrible treatment you received from retailers, restaurants, what have you. I looked for a complaint about my old employer, but found nothing but somebody bitching that Borders carried pornography, which, whatever.

So then I got bored and decided to see if there was anything to be found by Googling “Borders books” + complaints. And stumbled across these guys, who are frankly, scary, with their Border Guard link and cappyness. Anyway, they were mad because Borders employees on an online forum (sadly now defunct) were suggesting ways to hide a John Kerry smearfest that they found hateful but had to stock in the stores.

And then I realized I had no link for the word “cappy”–not even one in Wikipedia! So ok, here goes: a cappy is a guy, usually a frat guy, who wears his cap backwards. Usually to be found stumbling down 6th Street in Austin, yelling “whoo!” and asserting that all women who don’t want to do him are lesbians. Not a proud breed, in other words.

Culture Pop is where I put anything that is about culture, in the broad sense, without being nailed down to one aspect of it particularly. Let’s take a tour.

Andrew Rilstone is a thoughtful, funny English (British? I don’t know which he prefers) blogger who I first found when looking for good, thoughtful criticisms of C.S. Lewis. What I didn’t know was that I’d also find somebody who had many intelligent things to say about Star Wars, Dr. Who, and opera, among other topics. I like to hear about things on the other side of the pond; I’ve been to England three times, and while I don’t know that I really want to live there, I do have a touch of Anglophilia.

Especially if it involves chocolate Hobnobs.

Blog of a Bookslut is an offshoot of Bookslut.com, a monthly book review newsletter which covers everything from a book’s…covers to high-end literature, young adult books, romance, and scifi, among other genres. I don’t read book reviews all that much anymore, because I seem to have moved past the aspiring author/editor phase of my career, at least in terms of fiction. And I just don’t have much time to read, and am still steamed about how much I hated The Corrections. Anyway, the blog lets me keep an eye on things I do still care about, like graphic novels and really stupid author bitchslap fights. So basically, I go for less substance, more gossip.

BoingBoing hardly needs a pimp from me; it’s one of the biggest sites out there in Webland (which doesn’t necessarily mean all my readers have heard of it though). It’s just a blog about amazing things–cute things, outrageous things, funny things–and also a lot of activism against corporations who overcopyright everything and sue grandmothers for thousands of dollars when their grandsons download a Ludacris track illegally.

Damn Hell Ass Kings, which takes its name from a Simpsons episode, is mostly a collection of websites run by various cool people who are friends of the even cooler Tara and Glark, who used to run Hissyfit.com (sadly defunct now). I don’t read all the sites on there, but still love me some Tomatonation and Fametracker. They also host Go Fug Yourself, which I visit often enough I gave it its own link. If you like mocking celebrity attire (and who doesn’t?) then GFY is a hoot n’ a half.

My last Culture Pop link is one I don’t visit very often, Flak Magazine, but which does have a lot of really interesting articles, comics and movie reviews. I need to start hanging out there again.

Um, I didn’t post yesterday! So this will be one of two today.

I didn’t post because my computer was down…because I was REARRANGING EVERY PIECE OF FURNITURE IN THE APARTMENT. Even more amazing I did it with Nathan in the house, without Matt around. Because I am Rokken like Dokken.

Really, I was just sick of the clutter, inconvenience, and prying Nathan’s fingers out of the VCR slot. (the VCR no longer works; wonder why? Probably full of crumbs). We had already planned to move Matt’s studio out of the living room and into our bedroom. He’s doing so many Second Life gigs now, during the evening–when Nathan is being fed and put to bed and just in general can’t be counted on to be quiet. And it’s a lot fairer to lock Matt away in the bedroom than to lock Nathan and me away while he performs.

So now our TV and DVD player are up on our huge dresser, which is doing double duty as an entertainment center. It keeps them out of Nathan’s reach, and blocks a few power outlets he kept wanting to play with too. Martha Stewart wouldn’t use her clothes dresser as an entertainment center…she’d build a new one from pieces she found in a salvage yard, and then paint it a tasteful light green. But for us, this works. Someday maybe I’ll get a new dresser and rip the drawers out of this one, turn the slots into shelves, and refinish it as a bookcase. But not today.

Even better, Matt’s useful but butt-ugly studio stuff, with its 8 million cables and connectors and heavy boxes full of blinking lights and buttons that do something or other, is now tucked away in our bedroom, where I can close the door on it.

Our table and chairs are now where his studio table was, giving us the ability to watch TV while we eat, without crouching over plates balanced on our laps while Nathan tries to grab our food and throw it on the floor.

My office desk and computer are now across from the kitchen, where I can get to them without crawling over Nathan’s toys, and now I feel like I finally have a real space of my own, without the TV blaring behind me and the draft coming in the front door whistling down my neck.

I don’t believe in feng shui, but I do know how a better layout can improve your mood. We magically have a lot more open space now, and that means more room to roll around with Nathan, to put things away even though we don’t have enough bookshelves, to vacuum up dirt without it being a huge production. It feels good, it feels comfortable, it feels homey. Ahh.

Have you seen those Red Cross ads, where a family stands outside in their pajamas, watching their house burn down, while a Red Cross lady gives them blankets? Sometimes I think I should be doing the same for Christians who believed they should vote Republican and are now watching the party collapse inward like the house at the end of Poltergeist, crushed by its own evil, greed, and hypocrisy.

Now I’m a Democrat, but I’m not going to say those forces don’t tear at my party too. They do. But the Democrat platform*, when they remember it, does support civil rights, equality of opportunity, and preserving what’s left of our environment if we can. Which goals seem to me to be very consistent with a Christian worldview. Jesus was very big on caring for the least powerful members of society–prostitutes, tax collectors, the handicapped. The kind of people the Romans, like the Republicans, despised and discounted.

And while Jesus didn’t say much about the environment, it does seem that if God did give you the earth to take care of, then killing off its creatures and turning the whole place into a strip mine does seem a bit irresponsible. Presumably, God took a lot of thought coming up with, say, elephants, and it seems we could show our appreciation in some other way than shooting them all to make pretty things out of their tusks.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re worried about the bedroom stuff. Gay people and single people and non-Christian (and some Christians) doing things you don’t think are right. And you know, no one is going to take away your right to disapprove of those things, or of anything else you please. The Republicans like to tell you that Hillary Clinton secretly wants us all to be gay prostitutes, but honestly, she doesn’t. Nor does she want your daughters to become Wiccan lesbian man-haters. Like all politicians, she wants to get elected to as high an office as she can…and that’s pretty much it. Whichever Democrat next becomes President won’t be promoting some sort of Secret Gay Agenda–they’ll be worrying about the mess in Iraq, healthcare, taxes, and all the boring government stuff we’ve hired them to do. If Democrats were half as diabolical as the Republicans made out, they would not be so good at fumbling their PR. Al Gore and Kerry basically threw away their presidential chances by being stiff, pedantic, and vague on the stump, despite their much higher qualifications. Those are not the actions of a slick demonic political machine.

So disapprove away. Oddly enough, unlike Bush and his Constitution-shredding ways, your right to disapprove of everything will be better protected by Democrats, who do not want to get into your bedroom, your church, or your home to tell you what to do, what to think, what to read, or what to publish on the internet. That “political correctness” Limbaugh makes fun of? That protects you too.

It’s true, you don’t get the option of legislating against personal behavior between consenting adults that you disapprove of. But neither can other people come into your home and tell you what you should do in your bedroom, if they happen to disapprove of it. But then, maybe, you should consider that Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time hauling sinners in front of judges, either. He seemed to think most sins something that was between the sinner and God. Maybe that’s a better approach. Maybe you should consider just being content with your right to preach, pray, and protest against what you dislike, and stop seeking to use government in areas where only God has power–inside people’s hearts.

When you think about Democrats being in power, and what values they stand for, and what values progressives in general stand for, maybe you should remember this verse:

Matthew 25:34-46 (New International Version)

34″Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37″Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40″The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

41″Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44″They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45″He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Not one mention of gay marriage there, or divorce, or feminism, or contraception. At the final judgement, according to these verses, what will matter is your compassion. What did you do for the least of these?

And if you’re looking for a new compass after the fall of the Republicans, you don’t have to become a Democrat, or anything else. But maybe you should take this opportunity to figure out what really is important to the founder of your faith, where your dollars and your energies should be going. Maybe the next time some TV preacher tells you to send them money to go after gay people, you should think about all that good that money could be doing in this battered, suffering world. Maybe you don’t need the GOP to tell you what God wants you to do. And if that’s the case, maybe their downfall can be a blessing for you, if you want to hold on to your faith.

You might find that no matter what the Republicans say, compassion spreads God’s word even better than fear. And then who knows? Amazing things can happen. Here’s hoping they do, because Lord knows, we need them.

*Hey Democrats? You haven’t updated this since the Kerry campaign. It’s not 2004 anymore, fellas…think you could get an intern working on this? Sheesh.

No more ocean fish. Basically the ocean will be nothing but jellyfish and plankton in the next 50 years unless some dramatic improvement takes place, which doesn’t seem likely. Oh and farm fishing? Requires ocean fish. That’s what they feed the farm fish…ocean fish. So yeah. Bad all around. Plus, I really hate jellyfish.

U.S. soldier kills herself after being unable to cope with our torturing of prisoners in Iraq. And oddly enough, hey, all the documentation of her specific complaints about what she witnessed has…disappeared! I’m sure it’s not a coverup, though. Just a clerical error.

Dear America: This is what we’ve become. Torturers. And Bush and Cheney make jokes and shrug..whaddya gonna do? And the rest of us wonder if we’ll ever get the blood off our hands.

It’s a sad day when the good news is that a hate-filled homophobe got his comeuppance in the most embarrassing possible way; by being outed by a male prostitute he slept with.

I guess the only thing to do is spend some time at Cute Overload to take your mind off of things.

Gonna take a swing at this NaBloPoMo thing, I suppose. Not that I need much incentive to post random snippets without any real connection. That’s what happens when you write every day–I can really only manage coherence a few times a month.

Item One: My mother likes to watch TV with Nathan, particularly The Backyardigans,
which she calls “The Yard Animals.” She also says “kitty cornered” instead of catty-cornered, and “gotch-eyed” for someone with a lazy eye. She does however, used “peaked” in the correct Southern sense, as in pale. “You look a little peaked after giving a pint of blood.” Pronounced “pee-kid” it is actually an old English expression that has hung on in the South. Not to be confused with “piqued” as in “my interest was piqued.” Glad I could clear that up for ya’ll.

Item Two: I noticed that the gods of Halloween struck again this year, teasing the
little monsters with warm comfy evenings all October long, then bringing in a Norther and freezing their tchotchkes off when they actually went out to trick or treat in their flimsy costumes. Happened to me every year too, kids. And nothing spoils a costume like a big ugly coat on top of it.

We didn’t take Nathan out this year, not because of the cold, but because we
were too cheap to spring for a costume, and because 11 month olds don’t need candy. Neither do the parents of 11 month olds. He’ll get to experience the joys of sugar at his birthday, probably at Christmas too. Oh I can hardly wait to put him to bed on those nights.

Item Three: I spent all day playing with software downloads and tutorials because my boss is wonderfully casual about ordering anything I ask for for our department. New Apple G5? OK! Fancy new desk lamp? Get it! She’s very trusting, or just likes spending company cash. Anyway, I keep being tempted to order The Sims on the principle that it, you know, teaches us all interpersonal skills. Makes as much sense as the weekly Deep Thoughts emails we get from HR about “communication” and “empowerment.” Every Friday, a big steaming treacley email appears in the inboxes of everyone at work, reminding them how important it is to smell roses, pat puppies, get the most out of life, and be good little worker bees. All anyone cares about on Friday is their paycheck and their weekend and how to get through the last eight hours of their week. I keep wanting to email HR back and tell them to fire whoever writes this dreck and divide the savings up among people who are actually working.

Or uh, composing blog posts.