it was fine at the time but the laws have changed

I am angry at everyone who is against gay marriage, and confounded by the subset of those people who are not religious. I've met some, so I know they exist. I'm pretty sure my mom is one. Is it because they think gay sex is gross? I think my mom having sex is also gross, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't be allowed to be married.

My short list of books to read is getting too long to be called a short list. It now includes Gravity's Rainbow, The Virgin Suicides, Written on the Body, Reading Lolita in Teheran, and The Paradox of Choice, plus several others that pop on and off the list depending on my mood. This has already happened to my previously-short list of new music to listen to. I think I've told myself to go out and get at least 10 or 15 new albums, none of which I've actually picked up, or even downloaded. I'm such a slacker.

fly in the works, wrench in the ointment

I am beginning to accept that my linear algebra textbook is irreversibly lost. Just when I started to do the homework again! I really don't want to buy a new one. I'm buying a laptop. Those are expensive. So are books, to a smaller degree. I can only buy so many expensive things.

In better news, Matt and I made a cheesecake yesterday. It's chocolate, with cruhed oreo bits in it. Delicious. Why make a plain cheesecake when you can make something amazing?

no talking, no driving too fast

This bothers me: there are people out there who drive too fast in the snow, crash their cars, and don't admit it was their fault. I met a guy today who spun into a ditch when he tried to pass a truck that was going 45 in bad weather - when the left lane hadn't been plowed! He tried to go 55 in an un-plowed lane! He's lucky he didn't hit the truck. Cause and effect, dude.

This weekend Matt and I went to see "The Triplettes of Belleville." I can't put my finger on what it reminded me of. I've been trying to think of it for days now. When I was a kid, did I watch a lot of cartoons with no talking? Did anyone else ever see one called "The Point," where there are a bunch of cartoons with round heads and one with a pointed head (or maybe the other way around), and the round-heads don't like the pointed-head, and then the conflict is resolved in some sort of heartwarming way? I am pretty sure that had no talking.

np: Things in Herds : "People Trap"

my new linear algebra technique is unstoppable

Today I realized that I can either do the crossword in my math class or skip the homework, but not both. It's a tough decision: I have to be in class every day anyway, bcause there are quizzes on Tuesdays that get handed back on Thursdays. Given just that information, one would think that skipping the homework and sitting through the class is the better option, but it's not. The professor has some of the worst speech mannerisms I've ever heard. He does that thing (common among Indian people) where he says "3 by 4" instead of "3 divided by 4." He lets questions sit in dead air for too long. He has a few favorite questions like, "Isn't it?" that he uses constantly and in totally inappropriate places: "Assume A is an n x n matrix, isn't it?" He opened the semester with a big talk about how "we're taking 300-level math courses now, so he's not going to bother us so much," and now he waves grades over everyone's heads. He laughs at people when they try to move the class along by answering his questions sooner, instead of waiting for him to do it himself. Long story short, I'm keeping the blessed distraction of the crosswords and doing the homework from now on.

announcements

1. The title is "Miss Teen Wordpower," but I am not a teen. Not that anyone thinks I am, but still. Just in case.

2. Matt thinks the previous post was embarrassing because it was about him. Too bad. I like him, so he's going to get talked about in my blog.

3. I got a bowl of lentil soup for $2 and it was my lunch.

There is no remembrance of former things

I have been repeatedly listening to a song by the Books called "Take Time." It makes me think about what it's like to be me and Matt.

That which is now, and that which is to be, has already been.
For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into a tree one day. She climbed down from the tree next day. God bless her.

Life repeats itself for everyone - everyone dies, everyone is happy sometimes and sad sometimes. Nothing ever happens for the first time in the world. But it could be the first time for the girl in the tree, and it could be the first time for us. We've been together for long enough that not many things are new, but it doesn't matter. Some things can be significant no matter how many times they happen.

Something is happening that is not happening.

When people realize they are in love, they have probably already been in love for some time. Important things often happen that way: when people get married, they're already privately united. When they split up, they've already separated before they say the words. For some things, it's impossible to point out when they happened, but you just have to acknowledge that they did. Other things happen without being acknowledged - when I get out of bed Matt turns around in his sleep to hug where I was.

There is no new thing under the sun.

Happy early Valentine's day, today and every day.

I'm keeping Matt's suit in my office today, because he has an interview at 4:30. He's going to stop by and change before that, because it's melty out, which is bad for looking nice in suits. The interview is for a full-time job in town doing embedded software stuff. I hope it goes well. I want him to be able to stay in town while I finish school without losing ground in his own career.

Remember how I mentioned that I made my first stuffed animal ever and that it was a present, so I couldn't post a picture yet? Well, now I can:



It's a love moogle. This is a pretty dorky present, but they liked it. You can't see the writing on his belly, but it says "Chris + Melanie" (they got married).

I am slowly figuring out which titles and subtitles on this page correspond to h1, h2, etc. in the template. Matt could do this ten times faster and better than me, because he's a computer guy. But really, I care less about what my blog looks like than I do about my ability to change what my blog looks like.

behind the shield of war and terrorism, there are many other little wars going on

Today Salon has a couple of articles about a new movie by Bertolucci and the artistic problems caused by bending over backward for the MPAA. The review of the film and the interview that accompanies it really make me want to see this movie, but they also hit on something that all the movie-rating boards in the history of the US have never understood: that being totally naked is less obscene than hiding behind the corner of a bedsheet. That strategic scrap of cloth constitutes an admission of guilt. It shouts, "What you would see here, if this movie hadn't been required to snag an R rating, is bad!" But just standing, unclothed, can be an expression of just how unashamed and normal that action is.

don't worry I do not seriously want to get married, girls just think about these things

Several people I know are planning weddings (one is this weekend), and it's got me thinking about that whole thing. Back when it was a new thing for everyone to be planning a wedding, I thought that if I had one I'd want to have some large ceremony with the dress and everything, and find some way to make it huge and significant even though I don't have any built-in meaning to the ceremony like religious types do. But now I keep hearing about the stress of planning weddings, and my (unspoken) response is increasingly, "Why not just hold hands in front of a justice of the peace and have done with it?" This is not a new question to ask by any means, but it's the first time I've asked it and not had my inner little girl go, "Aww, but I wanted to dress up in something white and sparkly!" To ask "Why not?" and have this absence of response: that's new. I'd still throw a party afterward, and people could dress up and make toasts and everything, but I'd probably wear red or something.

I learned about push-hands today at taiji, which was fun and interesting. Different people have very different ways of practicing it, especially when they're new at it: men push hard, stiffly, and fast, and some women hardly push at all.

p.s: Casey was wrong in that one comment he posted to Lisa's blog and probably forgot by now: Up with skirts!

confidential to lisa

I know Chinese doctors say it's bad to drink or eat cold things when you're on the rag. Do they also say you shouldn't breathe cold air? I think I chilled my uterus today - I went outside and it took hours to warm up.

I have been to all these states

(maybe also Louisiana)



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

really super, supergirl

I couldn't be accomplishing any more this week if I was on speed. Last night I sewed my very first stuffed animal ever (after a couple of false starts), and it is cute enough to make a nice present. I'll post a picture after it's been presented. (I wanted to buy a mog plushie, but I couldn't find one, so I sewed one instead. It's very cute.) That whole thing probably took me about 8 hours.

We went and looked at that place that was in my dream - it wasn't at all the same as the dream, but I liked it in a different way. Matt liked it too, but Pinky wasn't as enthusiastic - I think he may have been talked into it yesterday, though. I think he underestimates the amount of space he needs, and I don't think he noticed that all the blinds were closed, so of course it was dark. He's right that the kitchen is a weird shape, but I don't think that will really bother us too much, especially if eating mostly gets done at that little breakfast table, which I think it will. There's still a lot of counter space, which I'm way into. Matt's comment on the place was, "It's got character, and I didn't think landlords like that guy existed." I basically agree with him. I mean, he told us that he could put a floor in the attic for us if we liked. I wonder if he'll let us paint. Or if we could alleviate Pinky's light issues by getting him to put in another window.

Today I came up with a simple way to represent the weird array I've been thinking about, too. And I found out that there's an all you can eat Indian food lunch I can go to. Lots of nan for me today!

How come I keep dreaming about Matt

Boy, am I a power dreamer lately. Last night:

The house that we are going to go look at and maybe rent today turns out to be excellent. It has a huge basement and tons of space, and it's very pretty.

Then I fly my airplane (bear with me here) to go see Spalding Grey (who has recently returned from his disappearance). On the way back a girl wants to ride with me, so I let her. But we start off going the wrong way, so we land, figure out which way is west, and are about to take off again when the girl turns into Matt and takes off without me. He flies the plane around for a while, and the lights on it start to resemble the Space Invader shapes, because he doesn't know how to fly or land a plane and it's getting all busted up. I watch, terrified, as he breaks and crashes my airplane. (I don't know how you can break an airplane while you're in the air still and you haven't run into anything, but this is just a dream.) Then I'm stranded, because I flew my airplane instead of driving, and Matt crashed it. Matt comes out without a scratch, though, and he doesn't get that I'm angry with him.