All posts by ester

twitter, vampires

Sex and Death

1 Comment

I spent $21 on a lunch today that was mostly guacamole. Suck it, recession!

I’m so tired of bad news all the time, of the Dow tanking and jobs disappearing and low-salt diets turning third-world people into zombies and Lori Drew and Harvard going broke and college girls selling themselves to keep up their inflated standard of living, a strategy that will only work as long as people can afford to go to college at all, i.e., not for much longer. Even Milk, which was the best movie I’ve seen lately, is not exactly an upper. It’s exhausting! I need to recuperate in a padded cell with an IV drip of good romantic comedies and Jane Austen adaptations.

At least it’s been a pretty fun day in the office, spent talking about movies and vampires. This is a Twitter back-and-forth with one of my coworkers:

NYPeoplewatcher: discussion question: why do americans think vampires are hot?
Shorterstory: not just americans! europeans have been writing steamy poetry about vampires for centuries.
NYPeoplewatcher: okay, BUT bludgeoning is not sexy. why?
Shorterstory: you don’t see the difference between someone sensually sucking at your throat vs. hitting you with a 2X4?
NYPeoplewatcher: point taken. but i’m upping the ante: strangling. sensual but no obsession there…
Shorterstory: Except for those people who like to get strangled while they have sex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_(novel)

When the next Fray comes out, I’ll have to give her a copy.

friends, horoscopes

it’s december. breathe.

4 Comments

The wretched month of November is, at last, behind us. I’m curious how it almost always turns into such a disaster. But at least I don’t have to worry about the future: it’s all spelled out for me! The always-detailed AstrologyZone monthly forecast tells me to beware:

Co-workers will probably be cranky and easily provoked near this full moon, so you may need to pitch in to help them as best you can. Everyone in the department will be feeling overwhelmed and overworked. … You will begin to see tension in the air as early as December 10 and it will linger as long as December 15.

Translation: Keep that Xanax handy. But! Once I make it through to December 21, I can look forward to really, really strong adjectives — rapturous, blissful, life-changing. I should sign with an agent, for one thing, but who cares about that? It’s the romance that’s important:

the decisions you make and the actions you take in the days that follow could change your life forever. … treat yourself to one glorious night to welcome in the New Year, dear Cancer. The fire that will burn in your heart that night will chase away any cold winds that might be blowing your way. We all need a night of pure bliss – this one has all the makings of being yours.

Sounds good! Does this mean Mr. Ben and I should go to New Orleans, which we’re sort of thinking about doing?

Of course we can’t fight the planets (or, as some people would have it, God’s will) but simply taking action sometimes can make shit better. In that vein, I’m going to host a Turn Your Luck Around Potluck. On the appointed night, everyone will show up with comfort food and some kind of good luck totem. A story will do: some recollection of when things were bad and then something turned them round. Then we’ll do a reconstituted rain dance, where “rain” = “better tidings for all.”

funny, psycho-drama

Giggle

Leave a comment

It’s been an anxiety-ridden month for me, full of worry and sleepless nights and pill-taking, to the extent that I have to wonder, Jeez, what would I be like if Barack Obama had *lost*? Anyway, thanks to all of that, I have a head-cold and a renewed appreciation for anything that makes me laugh.

Like Charrow, and how quickly Mr. Ben caught onto this Twitter thing (sample Tweet: “There was a little white chicken fetus in my breakfast egg yesterday. Today, I opted for plain bagel”) and a Jezebel editor’s hilariously candid record of her attempt to follow Cosmo’s sex advice. Featuring Spanx!

And, of course, Get Your War On, covering the most crucial issues of the day:

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

I went back to Dr. Feelgood today and in a first for psychiatry he sent me away with instructions to take up meditation and a promise that “you’ll be fine.” To be fair, he also suggested a certain brand-name drug. As this was the third time he’s brought it up and as I’m a smart-ass, I asked him, “What, are they paying you?” To which he promptly replied, “Yes.”

Points for honesty.

family, shoes, work

Who Do You Root For?

1 Comment

The radical Islamist Saudi state or the radical Islamist Somali pirates?

Karl Rove or Deborah Solomon?

Hillary Clinton?

These are tough questions, but we are living in tough times. In trying to do my part for the economy, I spent $115 on clothes on Sunday! That may be a pittance to some of you but my money prefers to stay in the warm safety of my wallet, like a creature that hibernates year-round. Still, for the country’s sake, I’m making an effort, and if I win this contest at work I promised my brother I’d buy these. (They’re on sale!)

That led to a conversation about how I don’t understand the stock market and what’s going to happen now:

Adam: no one does!
kalloo kalay!
literally no one knows
it’s like if you were a caveman kindergartener and you said, “what time is it?” someone would hit you on the head with a wooden club and tell you not to ask stupid questions
because no one KNEW what time it was!

me: 🙂
i like how they wouldn’t have time yet but they would have kindergarten
cuz, of course

Adam: i think maybe kindergarten was all they had — i mean, fingerpainting was the most advanced art form

me: the rules must have been totally different though
they were pro playing with fire

Adam: you could run with scissors but you had to invent them first

our sarah, politix, quotent quotables, the gays

What Not To Say

Leave a comment

Did you hear about this hilarious Republican congressman who compared to Obama to Hitler? Yeah, he wishes he hadn’t done that:

Republican Paul Broun is sorry for calling President-elect Barack Obama a ‘Marxist’ and comparing him to Adolph Hitler, the Georgia Congressman said Tuesday.

“I regret putting it that way,” he told WGAC radio in Augusta, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “I apologize to anyone who has taken offense at that.”

He also called Obama “liberal.” Since Communists hated liberals, liberals hated Nazis, and Nazis hated Communists, in one breath, Broun has taken history and bent it into an infinity symbol. It would literally make more sense for me to compare Broun to Stalin because they are both from Georgia.

Sarah Palin has me shaking my head in mock-admiration, also:

“But not me personally were those cheers for,” she said to Ms. Van Susteren in an interview shown Monday night on Fox News. “But it was just for the representation of a woman on the ticket, a mom, somebody who loves this country so much, somebody very, very committed to policies that I believe will progress this country in the right direction.”

Dan Savage got a lesson in What Not To Say after he blamed blacks for the passing of Prop 8. Though they did come out en masse for Obama and, while there, pull the lever to ban gay marriage, King Nate Silver has absolved them of any kind of responsibility: there just aren’t enough African-Americans in CA for them to have made a decisive difference. Savage on Colbert last night acknowledged this, shifting his ire to “old people,” who, as he pointed out, “are dying, which is some comfort.” Okay, Dan! You’re getting there!

On the other side of this debate, there are the comments on this topic from The Root that draw from the word of God to give their opinions legitimacy:

just because we accept people for the color of their skin, which is actually something that the Bible teaches us to do, does not mean we should let two people of the same sex get married, which the Bible vividly prohibits. … this country was founded on the principals of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus and to confuse loving thy fellow man with telling him it’s o.k. for him to marry another man is not what this country is supposed to be about.

and

Interracial marriage should have never been an issue but was an issue with this country but because of prejudice it was. God never condemned interracial marriage but does condemn same sex marriage. I just hope and pray that this country stands for what is right in the site of God. God defines marriage is between a man and a woman, not between two women or two men. When it comes to immoral issues it is wrong. Again interracial marriage is not a moral issues but gay marriage is. Let us understand that there is a difference between the two. If anyone having problem with that person is having a problem with God.

Again with the wrongness. Opponents of intermarriage absolutely thought — and still think — they had Jesus on their side. I mean, Deuteronomy, dude: Deuteronomy 7:3-4: ‘You shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughter to his son, and you shall not take his daughter for your son, for he will cause your child to turn away from after Me and they will worship the gods of others then the L–rd’s wrath will burn against you, and He will destroy you quickly.’

Of course, that’s silly, cuz that Old Testament God is only talking to Jews there and the passage is specifically about religion, not race. He wanted a strictly limited gene pool for His chosen people, possibly because He wasn’t paying attention in high school genetics class, and also because He’s a jealous, overbearing God who likes to make rules. Whatevs.

The judge who ruled in the Loving case in 1958 also said, “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no case for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did intend for the races to mix.”

Sure! And the fact that He gave us Barack Obama shows us that He knows the fabulous results mixing can have.

In short, this is all bullshit. Can’t we just admit that the idea of Group X getting it on with Group Y squicks out Group Z, where Group Z is those who aren’t in on the fun? Let’s leave religion out of it.

books, our sarah, politix

Aftermath

3 Comments

Post-election, life feels strange. It lacks urgency, lacks tension. Part of me feels compelled to stake out bars near off-off-Broadway theaters to try to find some High Drama friends to help make up the difference.

Instead, I’m joining a Swarthmore alumni book group whose curriculum is set by a current prof. You know who could have been an alum but isn’t? Barack Obama. True story! This both adds value to my degree and subtracts value from it, since I *was* accepted, but who could care about having been chosen by a place with such poor taste?

It does allow me to picture an alternate universe in which Obama is a Swattie, though. He graduates, as my friend Rebecca E. put it, full of “relentless criticism and liberal despair.” He spends a summer working at an alternative camp for disadvantaged city children; this inspires him to join Teach for America, where he meets a cute fellow teacher, a Peruvian-American anarchist. They get married in West Philly, where they set up house and grow food in an urban garden. Every once in a while Barack feels a disembodied itch to be doing something more significant with his life, for which his wife chides him and then asks him to remember to stir the compost.

Of course, he still has holes in the bottoms of his shoes.

Speaking of High Drama types, poor Sarah Palin. Yeah, that’s right. I have now argued with one brother and two parents about this, and I’ll argue with you too if necessary. (At least Flea agrees with me.) Flinging anonymous shit at a person is WRONG, no matter how stupid and possibly evil that person is. Maybe it’s true that Our Sarah didn’t know what countries were in NAFTA or that Africa was a continent. Our President has a pretty iffy track record himself.

As I see it, McCain’s people paired an ambitious, attractive, charismatic woman with an old man to draw audiences, using her the same way Winona Ryder, ScarJo, and Catherine Zeta-Jones have been used (mostly with the same meager results). They spruced her up to get her camera-ready and fed her already healthy ego by putting her in front of adoring crowds while keeping bad news — and the press — far from her.

When their plan backfired, thanks in no small part to Katie Couric and Tina Fey, the gentlemanly thing to do would have been to return her to Alaska and thank her for her service, not leak blind, spiteful quotes to a Fox news reporter. “Jerks” is a kind word for what these staffers are; they should dream of being hanged by their tongues and wake up screaming. Not that I wish them any harm.

politix, the best night of 2008

The Liveblog That Wasn’t

2 Comments

I was supposed to liveblog Election Night, the best night of my or anyone’s life, and unfortunately I couldn’t. Here, as a substitute, is a reconstruction — a retroactive liveblog! — of the events that prevented me from liveblogging. (I know. The internets are too amazing.)

6:45 AM: Mr. Ben and I wake up simultaneously, look at each other, and agree to run to the polls.

7:15 AM: We arrive at P.S. 282, check out all the people in front of us, and hope that waiting in line to vote is as patriotic as paying taxes.

8:00 AM: I pull the lever for Mr. Barack Obama.

8:01 AM: I realize I forgot to say a little prayer while inside the voting booth. Silently, I recite the sh’ma.

9:00 AM: Go to work.

9:30 AM – 5:00 PM: Read lots and lots of coverage. Begin feeling ill. Take a break from the computer; walk around the block. Return.

5:10 PM: Yup, definitely ill. Hide in the conference room where it’s dark and cool.

5:30 PM: Still hiding. Chipper McCheerful keeps me company, saying reassuring things.

5:35 PM: Mr. Ben and Rebecca appear to say more reassuring things. We watch an episode of How I Met Your Mother — I am gambling on the curative powers of Neil Patrick Harris.

6:00 PM: NPH has failed me. We decide to take a cab home.

6:05 PM: Hail a cab.

6:06 PM: Throw up in the cab.

6:07 PM: Sit on the Union Square curb next to a pile of my vomit looking at my stained suede boots. Mr. Ben runs to get cleaning supplies. People pass by and laugh, “Hey, look! That girl just threw up in the cab!” The driver shakes his head at me and mutters about drunks. Mentally I browse through low moments in my life to see where this one ranks.

6:30 PM – 11:00 PM: Shivering on the bathroom floor in green-tinted misery.

11:05 PM: Mr. Ben checks my phone, which has been receiving text after text. “We won,” he tells me gently.

11:15 PM: I throw up one last time in celebration and finally go to sleep. All night, I dream of my stomach and Pennsylvania, which have somehow fused to become one anxiety-causing entity. I blame John McCain.

office, politix

why my office is amazing

2 Comments

NEW CTO: What is this bullshit? This is bullshit!
ME: I’m so glad we have a straight talker in our office now.
NEW CTO: I’m sorry. I apologize. I know, the language, I know. Anyone offended, send me an anonymous email … and I’ll write back to say, “Go fuck yourself.”
CHIPPER McCHEERFUL: All this swearing makes me antsy, but only because I’m such a square.

Man, this is so much better than [the Very Important Talent Agency I worked at for a year]. People there were cursing all the time but it was more along the lines of, “You know that girl? Yeah, I’d fuck that girl. You think she’s pretty, or hot, or just attractive? Yeah, me too. Fuck. Yeah.”

Or, my favorite, overheard through a closed door: “No, Mom, fuck YOU.”

Also, two of the projects that I spearheaded for my current, less emotionally-abusive office are now online. Check out the .pdf that will entrance guidance counselors throughout this great land, whispering to them seductively about the glories of the site, and the Guide to Sinners and Saints 2008 which groups 42 colleges according to which deadly sins or heavenly virtues they represent. Also, it has llamas!

PS: This post was not about the election. Aren’t you impressed?

PPS: The election is less than 24 hours away and it actually looks like the good guys might prevail for once. WHAT WILL THAT BE LIKE? Will sunshine grow on trees and water gurgle with diamonds? Will I be able to eat chocolate again? Will my older brother, who was born on Tuesday, November 4th, 1980, finally be revenged for having had to share his birthday with the election of Ronald Reagan?

politix

Choose your own adventure!

Leave a comment

There are precious few days left until the election, as you might know if, like me, you were in Prospect Park on Sunday afternoon, basking in sunlight and in *not* thinking about the election for a moment, and you got a call on your cell phone from an Obama volunteer. The media is crazier than Ashley Todd these days — screaming, running in circles, and flapping its hands. This is only right. I have, however, listened carefully to the mad ramblings and separated them out into three discernible narratives for the endgame. Take your pick.

#1) It’s Obama in a Blowout. State polls throughout October have shown Obama with a clear lead. Right now, CNN gives him 291 electoral votes, E-V.com gives him 364 (down from 375 yesterday), and everyone’s best friend Nate gives him precisely 364.5. Even right-leaning RCP and nonpartisan Pollster acknowledge that in this case reality has a strong liberal bias. How strong? 311.

This storyline is supported by well-respected, neutral pundits like Charlie Cook as well as the most recent Gallup tracking poll, which decided, for Halloween, to get dressed up as Obama’s best numbers ever:

Thursday night’s interviews are the first conducted entirely after Obama’s widely viewed 30-minute prime-time campaign ad, which ran on several television networks Wednesday evening. … Obama’s favorable position among traditional likely voters in the latest polling is partially reflective of his strong position among all registered voters. However, at other times when Obama has led McCain by 11-points among registered voters, his likely voter advantage has been lower than it is now, in the five- to seven-point range. Thus, Obama’s improved likely voter standing also reflects a higher turnout propensity for his supporters than what Gallup has seen at earlier times this month.

Also Obama won some crucial cookie-poll in Ohio.

But if you’re wrinkling your nose at that storyline, don’t despair. Santa has a storyline in his bag of gifts for you:

#2: McCain is Making a Comeback! True, this tonic is primarily being peddled by the McCain campaign itself and has been gently debunked by experts. Still, anything is possible, as the media in general and John Dickerson specifically reminds us.

Could it be true? Of course! Secret racists, undecideds, complacent Barry-lovers, blacks and young people who don’t actually turn up, Jews in Florida getting spooked by Obama’s latest suspect affiliation (that man will hang out with anyone!), or some other October surprise could tilt the race back to the GOP. Never count your chickens, chickens.

#3: Death! That’s right, somebody DIES. I don’t have any fancy links for you on this one, since it’s mostly the narrative constantly running through my own head. These effigies don’t help, either.

But tonight is halloween and I’m dressed as a mini Joan Holloway — in an orange retro wig, an animal print scarf, a dress, a pen necklace, a purse, and a cigarette case — and, in keeping with the character, I’m going to try to focus on the important things at a party tonight: power, sex, and sarcasm. Let’s see how I do!