Sujatin’s Neighborhood

I've manage to catch some sort of plague-like infection and it's totally put a damper on my weekend. What I had intended to be a weekend filled with working on short story has turned into nothing but whining and coughing and sleeping and sobbing.

In general, I'm kind of a crybaby. Even on my very best days. When I get sick, I'm leveled. I sobbed through a "Roseanne" marathon this morning, and because that wasn't quite enough I decided to watch the original "V" I TIVO'd last weekend, and cried through a lot of that too. "The Amazing Race" too.

I didn't cry during "The Maltese Falcon" though, perhaps that's progress.

Read a fucking book, you're probably thinking. I thought that too, but the pressure and burning in my eyes made reading nearly impossible. In fact, I tried and gave up because it just wasn't working for me. Some people are really good at working through the sickness. I'm not one of those people. My brain doesn't function well when I have a cold. It just feels slower and filled with mud. I try to think, but fail miserable. I don't get jokes and barely understand what people are saying to me. It's not good. Really, all I'm capable of is laying around being generally unhappy and whining about how much being sick sucks.

It does suck. I'm going to bed.

Wow! It had been a while since I/d seen such a big audience(in truth you can't really see them with the lights down)
and we were only eight women; I had not tried to memorize anything seriously since the seventies in high school so my question was, "Would I freeze and not even recall which song I was supposed to be singing?" Or something like that.  But it was OK!
In the video my husband took, I looked  a little on the serious side while our conductor spoke briefly, but Sven assured me it's nice for me to be serious once in a while because usually I'm just so silly!

Our songs were:

1) "Prayer of the Children" about kids in the Bosnian War-- but shadowing ourselves to highlight a slide-show of
Haitian children served by Mustard Seed, a group of volunteer doctors who visit Haiti twice a year to treat people in remote villages, pro bono. 

Next was 2) "Stand By Me", a reference to the Playing For Change world-wide additive mix you can find on YouTube:

I have to leave soon to bring my ailing Ruby to Ben's to see if he can't figure out what is wrong with her. But before I go, I had to wish a heartfelt congratulations to Dabysan and CarrieNation, who are getting married today. 

I like the media

I know, I know, everyone loves to hate the press.  I feel like everywhere I go people are whining that things would be better ‘if only the media would cover things right.’  Well, boo-fucking-hoo.

When George Clooney gave a press conference to ask the media to quit following him around I thought it was a pretty douchebag move.  You call the press to come to an event where you tell the press not to cover you?  Are you fucking serious?  Oh, right, you are serious.  I would have been far more impressed had he said something like the following:

“I would like to thank all of you for coming today to my press conference.  I have a request to make, not of the media covering this event but of the fans who will read about it.  I owe, all of in Hollywood owe, everything to you.  You are the reason we have careers.  For that, I cannot thank you enough.  Having said that, I would like to make a deal with you.  If you stop buying People and the Inquirer, the paparazzi will stop stalking us.  The situation with the gossip press has gotten totally out of control and does more than take away our privacy.  It endangers us, our families and innocent bystanders.  I cannot stress enough how much it means to all of us that you enjoy our work.  We promise to share details about our lives with you if you will stop buying the magazines that send photographers after us all the time.  As the consumer, you have the power to stop this.  Please consider helping us with this problem.”

I have no illusion that this would end the paparazzi crap but it would have been more honest and to the point than what he did.  And that brings me to my real point, if you don’t like the press coverage of an issue or topic, do something about it.  You can boycott certain outlets, sure, but there is more you can do.  Support press you like by buying it.  Write the sponsors of the press you dislike and tell them.  The press produces a product to be sold.  That probably seems pretty basic but for a long time, the news divisions of certain companies were not required to make money like the other departments.  ABC News wasn’t expected to make the same money as the entertainment departments until Disney took over.  In local news, the adage is ‘if it bleeds, it leads.’    Bottom line:  if consumers stop buying the product they are selling they will change it. 

And if you want more immediate coverage of something, use Twitter.  Seriously.  CNN must spend eight hours a day reading Tweets.  Personally, I don’t need CNN to read Tweets, I can go to Twitter myself and would prefer they do some actual reporting but it is one way to get their attention.

I got my first Blackberry last week and I LOVE it. Wish I'd done it ages ago, and well worth the extra $30 a month I'll add to my phone bill. But there are some things I'm still trying to figure out.

My biggest issue is the appointment calendar. I loaded the backup software onto my computer so that when I synch my phone, everything's backed up...but it appears that there's no way to view my calendar on my computer using the backup software. I think I can only view my calendar on my phone, which of course is a problem if I lose the phone, ruin it or it gets stolen...meaning I have no way to retrieve appointments remotely.

Does anyone know if I can somehow view my calendar on my computer using the software? Help!

P.S. I know I can call Verizon for help with this but I'm lazy.

Paranoia

My first real job was for Senator Feinstein (D-CA).  Like many recent college grads and recent arrivals in Washington, DC, I got an internship on Capitol Hill that led to a full time job.  I lived in a group house on Capitol Hill with five other people.  It was fantastic.

One thing I learned pretty early on was how much more in common I had with staffers across the aisle than I expected.  Sure, we disagreed on just about every public policy issue in the world but our lives were pretty similar otherwise.  We worked in the same building and went out to the same restaurants and bars.  Being a Hill staffer is a lot like going back to college.  Especially at that point in a career.  Moreover, although we had our differences I always felt that we were united by a central theme:  the desire to make the world a better place.  We just disagreed on the best way to reach that goal.

I cling to that world view – that Democrats & Republicans, liberals & conservatives are all working in politics because we want to make a difference.  That’s the whole basis behind the saying, “Politics is the art of the possible.”  Yes, it is.  My problem is that it seems the people across the aisle from me don’t necessarily feel the same way about me.  That saddens me.

When George W. Bush got into the White House I had every reason to be upset.  I had spent almost two years on the road doing advance for President Clinton and Vice President Gore.  I exiled myself for almost six months because I was just too bitter to be around people.  No, I did not believe (at least not then) that the 2000 election had been stolen.  I actually found it more comforting to think we just lost because when you work on campaigns that is always a possibility.  I was just tired, sad and depressed.   The combination made me awful to be around. 

Never did I think that George W. Bush was like Hitler.  Nor did I come up with elaborate theories to discredit him and his election.  Even when, about a year and a half into his presidency, I started to think the 2000 election had been stolen, I didn’t think his presidency was illegitimate.   Moreover, it seemed pointless to argue the point because it was a fait accompli.  As opposed to some of his policies as I was, I even gave him credit when he stuck by his campaign promises such as drilling in ANWR.  I don’t support that policy and am glad Congress said no but during his campaign he said he would support it so when he did, well, that’s the point of campaigns.  As Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) put it so eloquently, “Elections have consequences.”

In poll after poll and from anecdotal Facebook and Twitter evidence, I see that many on the right aren’t just upset that we have President Obama they are rabidly upset.  It’s no longer enough to say you oppose someone’s positions, their entire character needs to be destroyed as well.  It’s not enough to say “liberal policies are bad for America” you have to say “Liberals hate America and the Constitution.  They have ended America as we know and we now live in a tri-state nation called the ’North American Union.”  And/or “Obama cannot be president because he a, was born in Kenya b, lied about being a Muslim c, his health care plan will force you to kill or be killed and d, he eats puppies for breakfast.”  The scariest part of that last sentence?  Only choice d has not been uttered by at least five conservatives I know.  Polls show that conservatives hate Obama more than liberals hated Bush II and that only 22 percent of Republicans think he was born in the US.

Oh, well.  We Democrats will go back to making the world better.  The right wing can go back to watching Glenn Beck.

I think I only read three books in all of October. That's damn near shameful. I will, however, blame my writing class on this. Where usually we read a majority of 12-18ish page short stories, this time around we're being bombarded by 6,000 word 28-page novel beginnings. It's been hell. Not just the sheer amount of words to read, but only a few of the novel chapters have been worth my time. In fact, one novel start was so offensive that the class was actually angry. Of course the complete lack of punctuation didn't help matters. It just goes to show you, domestic violence is not an issue you can make funny, right up there with rape, child molestation, and genocide. None of these things are funny. Let it be known.

On with the show.

BOOK ACQUIRED
Swimming Inside the Sun by David Zweig
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
Totally Killer by Greg Olear
Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving

BOOKS READ
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon: This novel about identity, identity theft, the Internet, brotherhood, and more is probably going to make my top 10 best books of 2009 -- will blow your mind.

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang: Even with an ending that comes off as a little convenient and coincidental, this graphic novel about growing up Chinese in America weaves together three different stories in a way that is sweet and funny.

Andromeda Klein by Frank Portman: A slightly disappointing novel by the author of the the fan-fucking-tastic King Dork is about a skinny weird girl obsessed with the occult and has a tendency to be a bit boring under the weight of all the magic research.

CURRENTLY READING
Every Boat Turns South by J.P. White
The Complete Essex County by Jeff Lemiere (which I actually finished today, but now it's November)
Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving