This is a $%*&ing Travesty.

My attempt to share with note the Google Reader blog post telling me that sharing/sharing with notes has been disabled... Kind of meta, but i know there are a select few who will understand this.

I.HATE.THIS.

TV: the new season!

What I've learned from watching the Emmys, the season finale of Louie, the roast of Charlie Sheen, Charlie Sheen on Leno, 2 Broke Girls, 2 and a Half Men, Dancing with the Stars, The Playboy Club, WWE Wrestling, the Republican National Debate:

You can't say midget or Down's Syndrome on TV.

You can say "I want to show you my pussy" on cable television. You can make fun of someone's friend for dying or make fun of a cherished American hero for having Parkinson's disease. You can receive a standing ovation for killing people (not just people, the most people). You can be a viable candidate to lead the free world and pull us out of an economic depression without believing in science. You can show people going totally wackadoo for months, then basically groveling to the American public for forgiveness with the most awkward television appearances in history. You can create a new genre based on nostalgia for a time when sexual harrassment was okay. You can keep Entourage going for eight seasons. You can show NANCY GRACE DANCING BALLROOM.

You can't say midget.

Oh, what a world we live in.

An earthquake, apparently.

From an e-mail I sent to my high school friends:

Apparently, my entire building shook (I was on the 33rd floor) but I was on a conference call and did not notice at all. When I got off (the call, not from earthquake-induced orgasm), I called Jake to see if he wanted to get lunch and he was like "Are you calling about the earthquake?" at which point I looked around and noticed that literally everyone from my floor was gone. I went downstairs and everyone on my floor had been evacauted and they were all like "Oh, I guess we should have told you that we were leaving."

The same thing happened to me when I was a freshman in college and there was a fire drill that I slept through. Why is everyone so okay leaving me to die? Is it because they know I'm a strong, independent woman who can fend for herself? I think so...

Thank God for these videos with messages!

Marlo Thomas is the original Gaga

According to Perez Hilton , the MTV VMAs will feature a new category: Best Video With A Message. Here are the nominees:

P!nk – F****** Perfect - P!nk lets out a rally cry of reassurance for anyone who’s ever felt less than perfect.

Lady Gaga – Born This Way - Mother Monster gives birth to a world free from prejudice, judgment and self-doubt.

Katy Perry – Firework - The California Gurl celebrates the spark and originality in all of us.

Eminem feat. Rihanna – Love The Way You Lie - Em and Rih Rih illuminate the pain and peril of domestic violence.

Rise Against – Make it Stop (September’s Children) - Rise Against reminds LGBT teens pushed to the edge that “It Gets Better.”

Taylor Swift – Mean - Taylor Swift cautions negative naysayers that being mean gets you nowhere.

Okay, is it just me or are they stretching here? Let's go back in time and look at some of the videos that could have made it into this category had they only introduced this category a little earlier:

1989: Madonna- Like a Prayer-- Promoting prayer in schools! Also interracial dating... It doesn't matter if she's white and he's a wooden black Jesus if they love each other!

1992: Nirvana- Smells Like Teen Spirit-- Encouraging effective deodorant use in teens

1995: TLC- Waterfalls-- AIDS, drug-dealing in front of your mom, believing in yourself, erm... This song was a little all-over-the-place, but the takeaway is something like don't go after your dreams?

1998: Madonna- Ray of Light: Encouraging the use of solar power

2001: Britney Spears-- I'm a Slave for You-- Abolishing slavery

2004: Outkast- Hey Ya!-- Racial equality between Beyonces and Lucy Lius (and baby dolls)

2005: Green Day- Boulevard of Broken Dreams-- Cleaning up our nation's highways

2007: Rihanna- Umbrella-- Sharing is caring. Also acid rain.

2008: Katy Perry- I Kissed a Girl- Encouraging sexual exploration and polyamory among young girls

Who says the era of the protest song is over?

Adventures in Sleeping and Not Sleeping

I came home to find Jake asleep. His laptop was still open on the dining room table. The TV was still on, tuned to Anderson Cooper, on mute. And every 10 minutes, his cell phone alarm would go off and he would roll over, murmur and then shut it off. At a certain point in one of those moments between alarm and snooze, he became aware I'd come home and assured me that he was only taking a nap. It was already 11pm. Perhaps we had a night of midnight frolicking ahead of us, but more likely, the nap would become the sleep. I convinced him that there was no point in getting up and back he went to sleep.

I have always had a hard time with sleep. I like to think of it as a state of inertia. When I am awake, I have a hard time shifting to sleep. And when I am asleep, I can sleep like the dead until far into the afternoon. I have lain awake, frantically trying to calm my body, until 5am, rising every so often for warm milk, peanut butter, yoga and Google searches of what cures insomnia. And I have slept through exams, appointments, work, rehearsals, my freshman-year Japanese midterm... slipping back into consciousness, rolling over and checking the clock and being shocked to find it is hours after I was supposed to wake up. How startling to hit snooze once... twice... and then find that it is suddenly and alarmingly (pun intended) three in the afternoon.

Besides these frantic moments, I have visceral memories of trying desperately to stay awake, of being mad at myself for falling asleep or staying asleep. Last nights of vacation, last nights before the end of college, last nights with best friends or boyfriends or family members where you knew you had to say goodbye in the morning... I would angrily try to convince my body that these moments of happiness were worth it but my body disagreed. My body let me sleep and in the morning, when the time I had thought we had was gone, I would feel betrayed by my own inner clock. What does it matter now, whether I slept at midnight or 2 or 4? In the long run, why do I still remember those moments as defeat at my own hand? Time would pass regardless. Staying awake wouldn't have stopped the morning from coming... although I guess I wouldn't know, since I always fell asleep before I could find out.

Celebrities who aren't in New Year's Eve

The new trailer for Garry Marshall's romantic comedy clusterfuck New Year's Eve boasts such a wide range of celebrities.

Let's take a look at who didn't make the cut:

-Joe the Plumber
-the kid who plays Minkus on Boy Meets World
-Gloria Steinem
-Abe Vigoda
-Seth MacFarlane
-Penny Marshall
-J.C. Penney
-Marshall Mathers
-Wilson the volleyball
-Patrick Duffy
-Charlie Sheen
-Angela Lansbury
-the dog from Marley & Me
-Sinbad
-Janet Reno
-the Swedish Chef
-Boutros Boutros-Ghali
-Baby Spice
-Kathy Ireland
-Kathy Najimy
-the NY State Lotto guy
-the Old Spice guy
-Tay Zonday
-the Real Housewives of New Jersey
-those gay puppets from Avenue Q
-a hand grenade (this one would have much improved the movie)

Also, it is just me or does Hector Elizondo just get cast when they can't get Stanley Tucci? Because Lovely Bones would have been a very different movie with Hector Elizondo.

dogs and cats and dogs and cats

this reminds me of college for 3 reasons:
a) you hear a capella beatboxing about 75 times more in college than in the real world
b) it was sent to me by the VAJMATAJ list. post-college, you get far fewer funny video chains. this, i think, is a travesty.
c) the word axolotl will always make me think of Children of Eden and specifically, Matt Stone in Children of Eden.