the wonder of wordspill one mouth to two ears and neurons firing mirrored across two brains or clashing, but explained make hours matter much but sharpen their shortness and then they end so ocean and time zones regain significance and my friend is gone again
posted by renee 1:00 PM
i don't even know where to start. if you are going to subject someone to the kind of complete social alienation and potential for harm that this bill would, you must not actually believe that they've completed their penance, in which case, please just keep them in jail.
it's like felon disenfranchisement in florida except in a state where there are lots of hicks with guns and a long winter to sit in their snow-encased cabins and brood through. vigilante justice, here we come.
posted by renee 3:43 PM
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
i pray vaguely in order to avoid specific disappointment when the answer is no
i should have more faith than that by now
posted by renee 9:06 AM
Friday, April 20, 2007
ON ETHNOCENTRISM: at the memorial service for the virginia tech shootings, one speaker said "this is a national tragedy. it's a GLOBAL tragedy."
but i think, at similar services after equal numbers of people die in baghdad while shopping for vegetables, no iraqi is so bold as to proclaim it a global tragedy. yes, as a nation, we mourn. but the global tragedy is that human beings care so little for anyone different than them.
ON SEX: sometimes it seems quite bizarre how important it is. think euphemism: companion, domestic partner. think title: spouse, common law marriage.
so we decide that two people of the same gender can share health insurance benefits if they call themselves domestic partners, which implies they are sleeping together... and two people are in a common law marriage if they live in the same house for long enough and are assumed to be sleeping together.
but i can't share health insurance with my roommate of 4 years unless we claimed to be domestic partners, which would imply that we were sleeping together, but which no one would explicitly ask and certainly no one would attempt to prove or disprove.
then there's the case of the 40 something year old woman who was "just friends" with a 60 something year old man and thought they should be able to get a 2-bedroom apartment through the section 8 program. so the question we really wanted to ask them when making that decision was "are you or have you ever had sex with each other." except that we couldn't ask that, exactly.
and then there are all those married couples who are share an address and health insurance, but not a bed.
so the moral of the story is: if you live in the same house and it is assumed that you have sex or used to have sex, you count as something. strange, eh?
ON THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, OR SOMEONE ELSE: still every time they say "gates," i think of "bill" first. i wonder how long that will last.
posted by renee 9:45 AM
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Quotes of the Day
"i don't know" - alberto gonzales "i don't recall" - alberto gonzales "i don't know" - alberto gonzales "i don't recall" - alberto gonzales "i don't know" - alberto gonzales "i don't recall" - alberto gonzales "i don't know" - alberto gonzales "i don't recall" - alberto gonzales "i don't know" - alberto gonzales "i don't recall" - alberto gonzales "i don't know" - alberto gonzales "i don't recall" - alberto gonzales "i don't know" - alberto gonzales "i don't recall" - alberto gonzales "i don't know" - alberto gonzales "i don't recall" - alberto gonzales "i don't know" - alberto gonzales "i don't recall" - alberto gonzales
posted by renee 3:36 PM
the main problem with being a people pleaser is that sometimes, people aren't pleased.
this is one of those times.
posted by renee 9:06 AM
Sunday, April 15, 2007
was awakened by cat-on-face at 6:30 am made coffee quietly, so as not to disturb guests on the futon read over old emails half intending to clean out my inbox before school starts again half intending to take some time to remember
and all these old conversations confessions questions for which the years have provided answers
they build me up for all the love i've given and all i've received
i am confident that my life has already counted for much and been blessed
perhaps now there is a stirring upstairs and i will make eggs
posted by renee 9:38 AM
if no one pointed it out, you might even miss that this is two songs at the same time.... i guess if you have a good thing going, why change it?
posted by renee 11:48 AM
all this talk of authors and authoring recently and then yesterday, kurt vonnegut died.
at least i've been offering some sort of appropriately timed tribute. i'm a good fan.
but honestly, i almost felt like crying when i read that, which was unexpected.
posted by renee 9:18 AM
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
OH! i almost forgot:
apparently they have been researching the potential of using stem cells to do tissue regeneration. this technology would be specifically applied to injured athletes.
so they are urging new parents who see exceptional athletic promise in their infant to save his umbilical cord. this could be used when the child tears his knee ligaments during a blossoming professional football career twenty five years later.............
ummmm..............
"no, junior, you can't quit football. i haven't had this umbilical cord in the freezer for the past 17 years for you to give up now! keep at it! you're expected to do great things and have terrible injuries! we won't settle for less!"
CONSPIRACY THEORY ONE: the republicans are making it snow on april 11 to try to disprove global warming.
CONSPIRACY THEORY TWO: they time the busses so that i will watch the one i want to ride pull away right as i'm running up to the stop every day. they do this on purpose to spite me.
PROPOSAL ONE: i would like to hear a man, once, convincingly offer the half-apology "i am sorry that you were hurt by what i did" even though he thinks he did nothing wrong. guilt is frequently irrelevant.
LIST: Mark Mallman - Between the Devil and Middle C Low - Drums and Guns Youth Group - Casino Twilight Dogs Now It's Overhead - Dark Light Daybreak Rosie Thomas - All These Friends of Mine The Decemberists - Castaways and Cutouts Kings of Leon - Because of the Times Bright Eyes - Cassadaga
PROPOSAL TWO: great novels are often unabashed alters to the human emotional experience. it feels nice to validate your audience's sense of depth and importance and simultaneously your own, but ultimately this process may be mostly indulgent and unhelpful. lots of words in that sentence started with vowels, and it bothers me to read it over again.
regardless, it's time to decide how much i really want to be a writer when(if) i grow up. who am i kidding? i have plenty of time to make more rash promises to my future self. the-eternal-moment-something-something.
CONFESSION ONE: i step back from my life and put periods of time in separate boxes so that i rarely have to make real change because there is always a significant shift in my daily experience on the horizon. i just put the inadequacy in the next box with hope that the upheaval in my schedule will make it easier to overcome. in general, this does not turn out to be the case.
CONFESSION TWO: i am assuredly as indulgent by nature as the authors i find myself drawn to most intensely. with enough time and encouragement, i could easily become as arrogant.
for the sake of my character, some career less like having oneself looked at and admired all day might be advisable.
NOTE ONE: vowels vowels vowels
posted by renee 10:33 AM
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
there is a distinct possibility that samuel l. jackson is losing his mind.
"barb erickson" - HA! say it out loud....
yesterday someone told me i was complicated. i wonder if that's good.
so, i'm going to the u of m, i guess. lots of white people go to school there. that's really my only complaint. plus, in case you didn't know, the roads are icy today, which is a day in the month of april, which seems unfair.
and i'm sorry if you've called me and left me a message recently. yesterday i returned 106 phone messages at work. a summer in the inspections department = indefinite distaste for simultaneous speaker in my ear and a microphone by my mouth. separately, however, is fine.
also about grad school: i somehow along the way learned to schmooze... this is called "networking."
if a boy could understand when i have my Bible and The Moor's Last Sigh and Jasmine Tea and a Chocolate Chip Cookie in front of me at a hippie coffee shop, i would marry him immediately.
posted by renee 8:39 AM
