three four two one.

Had a wonderful weekend in Napa with Alex and his sister and their friends.

In other news, in France, a politician from the president's party is gunning for a warning label placed on all retouched photographs in the media. It would read: "Retouched photograph aimed at changing a person's physical appearance." Interesting. I know that reading that in magazines as a pre-teen would have had a dramatic effect on me, and I am hoping something like this catches on in America in the future. Certainly would save a lot of people from misinterpreting their own imperfections.

marcella

Marcella was born at 4:49am on September 24. Out of the many babies I've seen born (just kidding), she's definitely the cutest.

and then and then and then.

I keep disappearing lately. It's mostly because I do not allow myself to write in my blog at work and then I refuse to use the computer after a long day of screen-staring at the office.

Some sort of news:

• My best friend went into labor yesterday at 11:30AM. She's still in the early stages and it's been more than 26 hours. I can't even imagine what that must feel like-- an unstoppable approaching hurricane and a mixture of elation and exhaustion and pain and bliss. I haven't been able to sleep well for worrying, and I feel like I can't call her because this is such a sacred time in her life. I'm not sure if I've ever felt so helpless.
  
• I'm going to be in the city all weekend. Wine tasting on Saturday in Napa and the rest will just be chilling out and eating a lot of good food.
• New Zealand wtf
  

bad television and being a woman.

I absolutely love feminism and the non-radical notion that we should secure equality for all genders at all times in all situations. I love what it has done for generations of women before me, my own generation, and what it will most certainly do for the generation to follow.

But I'm also pissed at you, feminism, because you've ruined Glee for me. I can't watch it without thinking of how simple and one-dimensional the female characters are. I can't enjoy MTV even a little bit. I can't listen to rap music without making snide comments. I hate the portrayal of the timid, disempowered female character in Eastbound and Down.

I'm not sure what the solution is here. I have been using irony for a long while. But maybe I just genuinely like the song "Best I Ever Had." What am I supposed to do about that?

I think third-wave feminists are facing a particularly complicated struggle, and they don't get nearly enough credit for all of the intellectual work involved in being a feminist today. While first- and second-wave feminists had clear goals, ours are opaque. Sure, there is the obvious abortion rights debate and the issue of equal pay, but we've realized that all of this is born out of how we are portrayed in the media, so our goals are now more like "change the way women are represented in television, movies, music, in casual conversation, in drunken conversation, over the phone, on blogs, in advertisements, on youtube videos..." Then comes the question of who is doing the looking at these women? If it's one person, it could be empowering. If it's another, it could be objectification. Take the porn debate, for instance. Porn stars and other sex-positive feminists argue that the women are the "queens" of this domain. They make the most money, achieve the most fame, and are overall more successful than men. At the same time, though, they are profiting off of selling their bodies to the male gaze. They're not enjoying that sex-- it isn't even realistic and they all effing know it.

My own awakening is only just beginning. Maybe I'm late, but I don't really think I'm too far behind. These complexities have become so much more real to me outside of the idyllic university setting. Now I am awakening to my own role as a woman in this society. It's messy and stressful and, gosh darnit, I just want to sit down, relax, and watch Glee.


*That picture is just funny.

volunteer me.

Community service is clearly selfish because I had the most amazing night sitting next to two chatty 87-year-old women and the sweetest woman and joking around with people who were three times my age.

Barack Obama promotes volunteer work, and I'm all about it. Everyone should take a look at their own community and see all the ways they can give back. Or I also suggest www.idealist.org. Find a way to help in your area.

stay with me.

I forgot I had a blog. I apologize.

After writing an album review, 4 news pieces, biking 9 miles, running 3, and biking another 3, I feel like I'm done for the day. Instead, I have to go to a 3-hour training for this volunteer thing I'm doing. There's something wrong with me.

Also, I'm very frightened what will become of me after I get back from New Zealand, but how the hell am I going to worry about this now?

Vapid, shallow, boring. I apologize again.

at least there is this.

The day is filling up with music writing, faking it (and succeeding) through my freelance career, accompanying my boys to fast food, finding a job in new zealand (no success here yet), putting together pictures for sammy, and trying in vain to find my passport.

Things are picking up and keeping a steady pace, which I appreciate. I wake up every morning in a panic as to how I will ever pay my credit card bill if I never actually work.

I think I could probably write haikus about the steady passing of nothing through the impenetrable wall of time.

the movement of the moon.

When fog envelopes the City and the stench of the cows settles into all of the corners of Central California, my city remains warm and sunny. A few clouds pass overhead. I crane my neck upwards and count: 1, 2, 3... 4. Sometimes I strain to see shapes in the sparse summer clouds, but right now, they are just there to be there.

Those four clouds, their simple presence, swallows up the postcard you sent, the 160-character text messages that pass through the air inexplicably, the phone conversations that last anywhere from one minute to four short hours. The clouds are here. They are now.

There is poetry in the presence of things.

This is an antiquated notion.

Because more than my own propensity toward romantic idealizations, I know there is also poetry in the present absences that technology creates. Your words float on waves from behind your chocolate eyes, down to your thumbs, and to me so far away. When I think of your words this way, I can also imagine how fitting they are. Like the way you looked when you caught that wave in Malibu, the way your body shined with the sun and the water, the way the word "amazing" surged through my body just as you let your body drop. My stomach turned upside down with the distillation of you. And then you floated on waves as you paddled toward me through the water, me counting down the seconds, you reaching for my hand as we sat in the middle of the ocean. As we held hands, the words we spoke felt endless.

In the ocean, we were insignificant. Your 160 characters are insignificant too, even when I try to find beauty in their presence. They're always smashed up against each other, always aching from abbreviation. I read them in one second and they disappear, swallowed whole. Compared with our long talks, they seem to enter an abyss that I can never fill with anything worthwhile. I erase them. But I find that you always replenish them with new words. So, no matter what I do, our words keep floating back and forth, across phone lines, across mailboxes, in letters left on your pillow, in all the short text messages.

Yes, I still have five weeks to pretend that all the words are greater than the ever-presence of the present. You cannot live your life in between ephemeral words. You can only live your life for that antiquated beauty of what is here for you now. This is the painful blessing of realization you have brought me.

in the subway.

I hate that I have nothing important to say, no important developments. I am tired of being tired.

storks and shit.

When planning for my best friend's baby shower makes me want to have a kid just so I can buy him or her a onesie and decorate it, I know I have a problem on my hands. Sam says my biological clock just started working. I say I like the idea of being endlessly occupied. There are definitely better outlets for that than warping a child's life (which I would undeniably do at the stage of life I am in right now).

Other than that, the shower has made me realize I am an obsessive planner, but also that I thrive in fast-paced, stressful situations. What this means for my future, I have yet to learn.

All of this makes me realize I need to get my butt over to New Zealand and start living the life I had meant to be living. October 19th can't come soon enough.