I Know of Some Farmers in a Certain Idyllic Town Who Aren't Going to Be Happy if This Happens

Obama administration is considering reducing the corn ethanol subsidies:

The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed renewable-fuel standards that could reduce the $3 billion a year in federal tax breaks given to producers of corn-based ethanol. The move sets the stage for a major battle between Midwest grain producers and environmentalists who say the gasoline additive actually worsens global warming.

Ah, It's Spring and the Curmudgeon's Back in the House

Upon arrival home, I found the following:

• signs from my weed-control people, advising all to stay off my lawn because of treatment
• small children, throwing dirt from under my shrubs onto my walkway
• small children, digging in the dirt where the tree stump used to be
• small children, running into my side yard.

I have on two separate occasions so far gone out and asked that they not do that, as, you know, not their yard, plus chemicals. Alas, they keep coming back, and adults on porch next door seem not to care. Sigh. Do I ask too much that folk keep offa my lawn, I ask?

As You Hunker in with Your Hand Sanitizer

Here's some good news about the swine flu:

As the World Health Organization raised its infectious disease alert level Wednesday and health officials confirmed the first death linked to swine flu inside U.S. borders, scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza -- at least in its current form -- isn't shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics.

In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks that occur each winter without much fanfare.

Wow, That Time Flew

After tonight, only two more classes to go. And the last one is basically us reading our final pieces to each other and patting ourselves on the backs for our inspired prose.

Sixty Democrats in the Senate!

Contingent on Al Franken getting through the morass of legal challenges on his race, of course. Go, Arlen Specter!

Something That Would Be Weird and Amusing

I've been researching all the aspects of this MFA program in anticipation of a meeting I've requested with the head of the department. Just for kicks and an arbitrary measure of comparison, I looked up the program I used to work for as an undergrad work-study kid back in the day. (Which offers full tuition and living stipends and is a 2-year program. By comparison, I would have to pay half of a 6-credit load per semester, a schedule that would take me 5 years to complete.)

Then I had a fun picture in my head of how entertaining it would be to go to the program director there and say, Yo, man! Remember me? I used to fetch your snack foods and tea? You had a punny cat's pajamas mug? Who's the poor sod washing that these days?

"Our Beale Street Is Somewhere Under I-75"

This was an interesting story on NPR this morning, about Detroit not being able to develop a tourist industry around its rich music history.

Apart from the economic implications of all this on the city, it's a real loss of recognition of an important aspect of American music.

I Blame It on the Culture, and Old Dudes

Have you been following this Supreme Court case on strip searches in schools?

Adam Wolf, the ACLU lawyer who represents Redding, explains that "the Fourth Amendment does not countenance the rummaging on or around a 13-year-old girl's naked body." Wolf explains that he is arguing for a "two-step framework," wherein schools can use a lower standard to search "backpacks, pencil cases, bookbags" but a higher standard when you "require a 13-year-old girl to take off her pants, her shirt, move around her bra so she reveals her breasts, and the same thing with her underpants to reveal her pelvic area." This leads Justice Stephen Breyer to query whether this is all that different from asking Redding to "change into a swimming suit or your gym clothes," because, "why is this a major thing to say strip down to your underclothes, which children do when they change for gym?"

This leads Ginsburg to sputter—in what I have come to think of as her Lilly Ledbetter voice—"what was done in the case … it wasn't just that they were stripped to their underwear! They were asked to shake their bra out, to stretch the top of their pants and shake that out!" Nobody but Ginsburg seems to comprehend that the only locker rooms in which teenage girls strut around, bored but fabulous in their underwear, are to be found in porno movies. For the rest of us, the middle-school locker room was a place for hastily removing our bras without taking off our T-shirts.

Ah, yes. That was my experience at 13 in the gym locker room. We lounged on benches, we giggled and tickled each other. We posed for the peep hole from the boys locker room.

Know What's More Fun Than Work?

Thinking about vintage-style swimwear for summer vacation.

This just calls for gigantic screen-siren sunglasses and red lipstick.

Happy Earth Day!

Here, at least, the weather is warming up enough that (1) I'm contemplating that I need to mow, (2) the weeds are starting to flourish, as they are wont, and (3) the bunnies are at the back door. On that last, seriously. They were there when I came home, just casually watching me walk in the back door. I told them, "have I got a fence for you!" (And I do--just got it the other weekend. Those buggers are not getting my spinach this year.)

And there's a new political culture in Washington. First, Michelle Obama created a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. And now, the Department of Agriculture is creating the People's Garden. Power to the people! I mean, Jesus, that's like socialism, like Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." I see now why sinister rumors of Obama's extremist tendencies held such sway.

Somewhat relatedly and more locally, I'm just finding out that this exists: a vegetable garden in Grant Park.

Wow, This Reminds Me That I Have Music I Haven't Even Put on the iPod Yet

A random sampling of the shuffle mix of a Friday.

1. deceptacon [bbc evening session], le tigre
2. sister midnight, iggy pop
3. more adventurous, rilo kiley
4. both have to pay, the mystery meat
5. falling through your clothes, new pornographers
6. woman's world, squeeze
7. dimmest star, pernice brothers
8. it wasn't me, jenny lewis with the watson twins
9. top of the pops, the rezillos
10. dub latina, calexico

Hope everybody has a good weekend in the mix. Mine will be about revising my monstrous final essay for class (which is coming along very well, I think), some yard work, and some house cleaning/fridge clearing. The scary leftovers and takeout containers are starting to take on a life of their own. And it occurs to me that I haven't been in my basement in a while to survey the bird situation, so I have that to look forward to as well. Yay.

This is why I live near a big city, you know. For the excitement.

Damn You, Seductive Dungarees

I believe that this constitutes codgery-ness:

Akst's summa contra denim is grand as far as it goes, but it only scratches the surface of this blight on Americans' surfaces. Denim is the infantile uniform of a nation in which entertainment frequently features childlike adults ("Seinfeld," "Two and a Half Men") and cartoons for adults ("King of the Hill"). Seventy-five percent of American "gamers" -- people who play video games -- are older than 18 and nevertheless are allowed to vote. In their undifferentiated dress, children and their childish parents become undifferentiated audiences for juvenilized movies (the six -- so far -- "Batman" adventures and "Indiana Jones and the Credit-Default Swaps," coming soon to a cineplex near you). Denim is the clerical vestment for the priesthood of all believers in democracy's catechism of leveling -- thou shalt not dress better than society's most slovenly.

And I think this says it all:

This is not complicated. For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don't wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly.

Yes, it's a great tragedy that it's no longer 1955. Every day, I wake up lamenting that gloves, heels, and girdles are no longer the thing. But I do love fashion musings from a man who wears a bow tie without irony.

The Friends with Quirks That Irritate You? Or Things That You Fear in Yourself?

I have this friend who I adore but who sometimes exasperates me. For the years that I've known her, she has been a planner of things, a meaning-to-do kind of person. She's got various creative projects she can't manage to muster up steam to finish--or in some cases, even start. She has trips she's been just about to plan, she's got vague plans of getting married someday and definitely having kids. Usually, though, she's caught up in the details of day-to-day life, there's always a crisis to endure, a problem to be sorted out, better weather in the future.

As someone who has been yammering about writing for over ten years, I really empathize. I've lingered in miserable jobs longer than I should, and, as most of you know, I've always been that person to duck the whole concept of dating in favor of tucking in at home with a good book. I'm not one to cast stones.

And this is perhaps why lately I want to weep with frustration at her vague plans. Does she know how sad it is to live your life waiting for a better time to do something, at some unspecified time in the future? Does she know that if her past is the pattern, she will never do any of these things? In yet another decade, she'll be in the exact same place, only now options will be closed off to her. We none of us are getting younger, and age 38 is not exactly a point where you can wave off the whole kid concept to some theoretical future.

I believe that things happen in your life when they're supposed to and that maturity and wisdom make you a different person. Could I have written what I'm writing now ten years ago? Maybe not, but maybe. Perhaps if I'd actually started the hard work of writing instead of talking about it, I'd be closer to where my friend, the published novelist, is. She, with whom I used to talk, over lunchtime taco salads, about shared dreams of writing. But, of course, she actually did it, and as a result, she's spent years I haven't spent doing what she loves.

Maybe this inaction just all feels contagious to me. I spend so much of my day-too-day life surrounded by people who mean to do all sorts of lovely things--who talk about it and pursue earnest research--but who never do.

Personally, I don't feel like I've got the time to waste anymore.

It's So Precious You Could Die, Isn't It?

Imagine this, blue, with a bear in a sailor suit instead of little miss up there with ribbons. And you have my solution to hauling home fifty environmentally unfriendly and undrunk water bottles from my various classes, lunches, and road trips.

Yes, it's for kids. But I'm a petite person.

Easter, and Everybody's Happy with Their Treats

Easter egg hunt!

Ah, I Love the Hideout. And Neko Case. Plus More Fridge Drama to Make a Person Weep Gently in Despair

Chicago's music scene: impacting national policy.

Spotted: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan introducing flame-haired indie goddess Neko Case at the 9:30 Club last night. But ... why? Is the Cabinet member a devoted Neko fan, or is she a big supporter of education reform? (A friend who was at the concert said she put in a good word for Obama's education plans.)

As it turns out, the backstory proves, yet again, just how tied the administration is to the Chicago scene. Last week, the Department of Education hired Tim Tuten, co-owner of The Hideout, a hip Chicago club, as assistant secretary for communications and outreach. (He's also been a schoolteacher in the Windy City.) Tuten is friends with Neko, a fixture in recent years at The Hideout, and he set up Duncan's introduction. "That's all Tim making something like that happen, connecting those two things [education and music]," Duncan told The Chicago Tribune through a spokesman on April 1. "No one thinks like him. We need more of that here." And Tuten's not the only music promoter on board at the DOE: He was brought on by Peter Cunningham, "a Chicago musician and media specialist," according to the Tribune.

Completely unrelatedly, I watch with amusement the never-ending drama of the Office Fridge Police. Does every office have their own? I don't doubt it. Ours are people compelled, driven to ensure that the fridge capacity, content freshness, and temperature are monitored at all times. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that if these people performed mail merges with the same amount of diligence, we could quadruple the amount of mail processed onsite.

Anyway, periodically, one of these vigilant souls wanders around, interrogating people, trying to figure out whose spoiled Chinese that is or whose carrots are sprouting. For some reason, it's important to know the identity of the culprit and to burn a lot of time figuring this out before tossing the offending item. Or possibly the goal is to summon the owner of said spoiled food to personally pitch it into the trash--a sort of disciplinary gesture. Or, more likely, it's fear of germ-i-ness. Which, frankly, really makes me conjure up the various ripple effects of OCD on a system.

Long have I argued in favor of the more efficient "Fridge is cleaned on X day. Take or mark what you want to keep, the rest goes into the trash" approach. But, alas, I just went into the kitchen to see someone had posted our new policy, in which, due to lots of food in the fridge, we are all requested to each please go in and toss our stuff every Friday.

Yeah, that'll work.

Ever on the Look Out for Happy Chickens and Cows

You realize that all of those marketing claims--"free range," "no growth hormones," etc. etc.--are pretty meaningless, right? And factory farms are trying to muddy the waters even further by coopting and inventing friendly sounding phrases that make you think you're buying cruelty free products.

Check out this website on a nonprofit program certifying humane animal treatment.

AMIRIGHT, Gals?

PMS plus oversized bags of processed salty snacks plus Easter candy equals . . . nothing pretty. This is why they invented islands and isolation tanks and furniture to crawl under.

I would wail against a woman's fate, but I saw this just yesterday:

Lay this latest I.Q. news atop the pile, and you find yourself reaching the same conclusion as Dr. Dolores Malaspina, a professor of psychiatry at New York University Medical Center, who has done some of the schizophrenia research: “It turns out the optimal age for being a mother is the same as the optimal age for being a father.”

Women aren't the only ones with biological clocks!

In a just society, of course, this would mean that we'd all get pelted with lectures ("What do you mean, 'maybe'? Don't you know you're not getting any younger?") and warnings against impending doom: spongy eggs, geriatric sperm, and the like.

Yayy!!!

I just had my mid-semester meeting with my writing teacher. She told me that my stuff was "kicking serious ass." She also asked if I had thought about an MFA program or had talked to the department head about a course of study.

I'm way way excited.

Laura's Basement Aviary Continues to Be the Hot Spot for Starlings in the Know

I believe that I once promised to faithfully update on any bird-related drama chez Laura. New to the ongoing tale of Laura and the birds? Merely gone numbly blank after my latest retelling? Let me start at the beginning.

One morning about a year ago, I was going about my business, puttering, tidying up, making coffee, when I heard a skritching and scratching coming from my bathroom plumbing access panel. Naturally, I thought: cat! Until I discovered that the cat was likewise trying to find the source of the noise. So I decided to go Nancy Drew and suss out the source, in the floor/basement ceiling. Tromping down into the basement, flashlight in hand, I looked at the appropriate spot in the ceiling. I could still hear the skritching and while I craned around to get a better look, a beak, then a head popped out of a small hole in the ceiling plaster near some pipes. I screamed, ran, dug out my phone, and proceeded to call every. single. person. programmed in it. What do you do??! Call animal control? Get a sledge hammer and start cracking through plaster? Finally, my local friends K and M both agreed to come over and help me figure it out.

K arrived first, power tools in hand. She drilled a hole to make a bird-sized exit space near the pipe. Then, we took brooms, swatted the ceiling, flushed the bird out of the ceiling, then out of the basement and through the back door. M arrived in time to do a judicious search into the source of bird entry. He proclaimed himself mystified.

A dead bird or two in my basement later, and my father did some expert sealing up of my soffits. Nests? From which a bird might find himself dropping, Alice-in-Wonderland-like, into some strange realm? Seemed logical, and we figured problem solved.

However, after we did all of this, I scampered to do laundry and found yet another dead bird on the floor. Then, yesterday, I woke up to some wall noises. Again. Figuring sooner or later said bird would drop into the basement, I was unsurprised to find one flying around as I went down to find a piece of furniture. Calmly fetching a broom, I shooed it outside. Problem solved!

Except I went down later and was completely unnerved to find another goddamned bird in there. Same one back for another joyride? A different one who heard the vacation rumors? Shuddering and cursing (it's the element of surprise I can't stand), I set after him with my broom.

It's starting to feel like a Hitchcock movie in here, so if you have any theories, I'm all ears. On the other hand, if I fail to answer phones or show up for work, look for my pecked body in the basement.

Wow, This Makes Me Feel So Old. But It Explains So Much

Did you know that some people hate voicemail and subsequently never even check messages? Huh. Not that I adore wading into the phone tree myself, but I come from the old "hey, how rude not to respond to someone who's tried to contact you" school. I can't imagine just blithely ignoring people.

I am so old. And I don't even have caller ID at home. I have an answering machine.

You Wanted to Know about My Diabetes Risks, Right?

If you're curious (and why wouldn't you be!), I got to the bottom of my mysteriously high diabetes risk assessments: It originated from my employer's workplace screening company, which is, I'm told, not allowed to share this information with my health-insurance company. So they're just "trying to be helpful."

I'm thinking through all the implications of this health screening as a business model. Do they get paid for enrollment in preventative programs? If my blood pressure is consistently higher as monitored by them as opposed to my doctor, does that mean anything apart from normal variations? Is it all just what happens when you measure people by numbers on a page, without a doctor assessing individual circumstances?

Is all this benign and helpful or sinister?

Let Us Celebrate My Long Weekend!

Jealous, aren't you?

1. la ferassie, tokyo police club
2. bookshop casanova, the clientele
3. boogie chillen, dale hawkins
4. guero canelo, calexico
5. wear you out, tv on the radio
6. novelty, joy division
7. more adventurous, rilo kiley
8. what do you think, the sundays
9. this is pop, xtc
10. michael, franz ferdinand

Quite Apart from Everything Else in This Economic Meltdown

This guy, AIG Financial Products President, gives me nightmares. I imagine him lurking around corners, sidling up, scaring the shit out of me.

Free South By Southwest Music Sampler

Here. Includes ten songs by bands at the festival.

Amazon has one too, with artists that don't include the Decemberists.

I Want Whatever He's On

The guy at the Panera just told me to have an "absolutely fabulously awesome day," and to "be sure to tell your grandkids about this place." And a whole bunch of other stuff I didn't understand.

I'm hoping it leeched into the tomato soup.

Rejection Number 2

Poor poor story. I had hopes for this place, but c'est la vie.

Weather: Still Springlike. Thoughts Turning Toward Busting out the Organic Gardening Book Acquired for Christmas

I'm not exactly motivated at the prospect of yard work. Which is pretty ominous, because I can usually count on a winter-incurred rush of optimism and ambitious planning by about this time every year. Sure, it all falls apart by June, but while the rush lasts, it usually allows me to get some good things going for a bit.

But it occurs to me that I got this book as a gift. (Side note to reviewer geniuses at Publisher's Weekly: "groundbreaking" equals pun; it's a gardening guide? Get it?) So while I'm not psyched to put together a rustic woven twig fence, I might be able to contemplate some soil amendment and some kitchy garden accessories. Anyway, subsistence farming is making a recession-fueled come back, so I might as well try to get with the program.

My god, last year I actually had little sketches. Can you believe it?

Today, I Enjoy a Well-Earned Comp Day

I completely blew my (twenty-four-year-old) classmate's mind yesterday by recognizing the intro music at our obligatory writers event yesterday, by these guys.



Ah, well do I remember being at the 9:30 club being pelted with chicken. Good times.

Via the Laura Yard: Spring Officially Documented

Well, hello there, Mr. Daffodil!

It's almost, almost enough to make me want to yank out all the weeds I didn't get to last fall.

I'm Thinking About Printing This Out and Shoving It Under a Door

Non-hierarchical management principles!

Point 8: Fire ineffective people.

Firing people is hard. It’s probably the hardest thing you’ll ever do. People go to absurd lengths to try and make it easier (“we’ll just try him out for a month and see how it goes” is a common one) but they never really help. You just have to bite the bullet and let people go. It’s your job. If you can’t do it, find someone else.

Firing people isn’t just about saving money, or petty things like that. It’s the difference between a great organization and a failure. Inefective people drag everyone else down to their level. They make it so that you can’t take pride in what you’re doing, so that you dread going into work in the morning, so that you can’t rely on the other pieces of the project getting done. And assholes, no matter how talented they may be, are even worse. Conversely, there are few things more fun than working hard with a really nice, talented group of people.

Big Brother Is Watching You

Did you know that I'm at a risk for diabetes? Yeah, me neither. But my insurance company seems to think so ("A review of your claims history indicates that you're either being treated for or have risk factors for diabetes"). As such, they just sent me a helpful mailer for New Services I Can Take Advantage Of!

I think they meant to send me the one for asthma. But here's the thing: I don't want them to think I have health issues I don't have, because what happens if I have to get insurance on the individual market, and they think I'm pre-diabetic, and they'll gouge me with sky-high rates, and I'll go bankrupt, or they won't cover me at all, and I'll die of an asthma attack even though my asthma is mild and allergy-related only . . .!

Am I being paranoid? Should I call and ask for expunging of any pre-diabetic implication in my records? Should I report my weight, blood pressure, and family history? Should I indicate my vegetarianism?

Speaking of Snuggies

Yes, I know we weren't. But check this out: Logan's Run in Legos.

Yes, Yes. Perhaps I Should Have Cable

Have you all seen the Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer smackdown?

Let Me Say Again That You Guys Are Awesome

Because of your thoughts and comments, I have had the serendipitous brainwave for how to focus my vast and currently unfocused glut of material for this final essay. It's a direction I hadn't even thought about, frankly, because I viewed the PK material as pretty tangential to my mission here--at best, a standalone piece.

I'm really psyched about this, thanks so much! That's the good news. The bad news is that I may ask follow-up questions to get angles and details I hadn't considered. I hope that's okay.

Demons

I'm sure I mentioned that in this writing class, we're digging for autobiographical material. And as a result of the broad-based topic I stumbled into based on some strong earlier in-class pieces, I'm in depressing-land here for all of my writing material. (I will certainly make a note of this for future in the next creative nonfiction class I take.)

Anyway, as part of this process, I wrote about PK (for those who knew him). I thought it would be pretty easy, given the distance and the subsequent expunging of the guilt, but it was harder than I thought. The piece that come out of it was relatively strong and cohesive, though. Naturally, this meant that my teacher picked it for me to read out loud tonight.

I'm kind of mortified that I choked a bit, and I also had some funny-to-me-only guffawing instances on the weirdness that he was. Jesus. It's like goddamned therapy in there, I swear.

One of Those Irritating Days

Does this happen to you: You are some unspecified, incoherent species of annoyed with the world? Where service workers are likely fortunate not to have to deal with you? Where, if your mood were to physically manifest around you, you'd look something like Pig Pen from Peanuts, lost in a cloud of grunge and blackness? And the incoherence of the source of the irritation (and thus your inability to address same and get rid of it) increases your baseline level of irritation?

It could be the sudden cold snap or the time change. Or it could be the fact that it takes me eons to fall asleep these days (random coworker greeting from this morning: "Jeez, did you have your late class last night? Your eyes are all red"). Bah.

So That We May Better Serve You, Please Identify Your Nerd Type

Okay, There Are Approximately Three of Us Left Watching Heroes

Do we want to talk about it? Personally, I thought it was kind of dull. Yet, aspects of it were somewhat amusing.

Rain. Day 2.

It being March in Chicago environs, this counts as a Good Thing, and those lazy days where you are obligated, obligated to sit inside and sip hot beverages are sadly few and far between. I can't think of a better day to get some grade-A musings in on the new crop of incidents that I'm trying to write. I'm going to try for some lighter, funnier stuff because I'm starting to get drained from the relentlessly dark.

Work went, so that's also a good thing. There was a paucity of cinnamon rolls, because we were all on our own recognizance, and I had a wrong perception on where the place was. Bummer for me. There was also minimum of chaos because there weren't that many people at our event. I mainly spent the day sitting in back of a desk and smiling at people cheerily. Overheard chatter in the lobby was that the event itself was first rate. And reports back from the performance portion that I missed were that it too went well, and that our conductor ruled the place and was a "sex god" (that last observation coming from my friend M after an unspecified amount of wine; no one told me there would be an open bar).

I get a comp day out of it, so that's good. I also got vaguely insulted by a prominent music and cultural critic.

It May Be Friday, But Alas, I Must Work This Weekend

You may remember my last conference hell experience round about this time last year. (Hmmm, it seems like I bitched about it more at the time, but I guess I was too tired to.)

Anyway, we have a mini-deal going on this weekend, for which I have to work but one day. And there will be cinnamon rolls, which always offset a lot of grief in my book.

Random ten, since it's Friday.

1. bricks & mortar, the jam
2. dimmest star, pernice brothers
3. heart shaped bruise, elvis costello and the imposters
4. take your carriage clock and shove it, belle & sebastian
5. beetlebum, blur
6. dirt, the stooges
7. i don't want to hear it anymore, dusty springfield
8. take me with u, prince
9. always for you, the album leaf
10. 19-2000 (soulchild remix), gorillaz

bonus number 11: big night, megachoir.

I don't need to point you to the link in the sidebar there, do I people?

Where Bjork is Bjork, and the Elves Are Under the Mountain

Want to read about Iceland's fascinating economic meltdown?

Just after October 6, 2008, when Iceland effectively went bust, I spoke to a man at the International Monetary Fund who had been flown in to Reykjavík to determine if money might responsibly be lent to such a spectacularly bankrupt nation. He’d never been to Iceland, knew nothing about the place, and said he needed a map to find it. He has spent his life dealing with famously distressed countries, usually in Africa, perpetually in one kind of financial trouble or another. Iceland was entirely new to his experience: a nation of extremely well-to-do (No. 1 in the United Nations’ 2008 Human Development Index), well-educated, historically rational human beings who had organized themselves to commit one of the single greatest acts of madness in financial history. “You have to understand,” he told me, “Iceland is no longer a country. It is a hedge fund.”

Speaking of Bjork:

Because Iceland is really just one big family, it’s simply annoying to go around asking Icelanders if they’ve met Björk. Of course they’ve met Björk; who hasn’t met Björk? Who, for that matter, didn’t know Björk when she was two? “Yes, I know Björk,” a professor of finance at the University of Iceland says in reply to my question, in a weary tone. “She can’t sing, and I know her mother from childhood, and they were both crazy. That she is so well known outside of Iceland tells me more about the world than it does about Björk.”

And this is all kinds of awesome:

Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant. The first was the so-called “hidden people”—or, to put it more plainly, elves—in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe. Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it. It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, “we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people.”

Sign 'o the Times

Your quarterly 403(b) statement arrives. The envelope says: "Take a Deep Breath. It's Still a Great Time to Contribute to Your Retirement."

Do you: (a) laugh, (b) weep gently, (c) hibernate until 2020 when this thing should start turning around.

Another Question for the Ages: Why? Why Do They Do This?

Call me practical, but if I were going to launch my career in politics, I would have a few guiding principles in mind that I've acquired from years of observation.

1. Don't embezzle, do favors, engage in quid pro quo, even if it seems insane to "fucking give it away." In the latter case, I would most definitely not comment on the injustice of the arrangement while I'm being wire-tapped.

2. No sex scandals. Assume that even if that hooker seems trustworthy or that club where fellow rubber-hose fetishers congregate seems discreet, you will be found out.

3. No embellishment of really good stories. I know it's tempting to think this stuff will fly under the radar in normal conversational matters, but truly, they've got really awesome technology these days that let you record. It's a bitch to be famous.

So with principle 3 in mind, I'm left to wonder just what Bobby Jindal could possibly have been thinking, because he seems like a smart guy, Rhodes Scholar and all.

The Postal Service, Indeed

Today's music list wants to rub salt in my wounds. First, it's a music list and thus reminding me that the excellent mix (labeled thusly) that I painstakingly made and sent to someone got stolen from the envelope. Stolen, people. As in arrival of an empty envelope, said envelope naturally getting delivered, as the post office knows from delivering envelopes, empty or otherwise. Then, of course, the ipod imps have to mock with putting the Postal Service in there. Sigh.

1. down in the tube station at midnight, the jam (live version)
2. cadillac on 22's, david banner
3. if you find yourself caught in love, belle and sebastian
4. theme for a very delicious grand piano, olivia tremor control
5. identity, x-ray spex
6. white boy, bikini kill
7. too tough to die, the ramones
8. love you more, the buzzcocks
9. come see about me, the supremes
10. recycled air, the postal service

But my pretty crummy and stressed-out week is over! And tonight will feature a well-earned happy hour saturated with Spanish wine. Yum.

Oh, curious at all about the state of housing prices? They're down ten percent in one month.

Yes, Well. You've Got to Die Sometime

A drink a day raises a woman's risk for cancer:

For years, many women have been buoyed by the news about one of life's guilty pleasures: That nightly glass of wine may not only take the edge off a day but also improve their health. Now it turns out that sipping pinot noir might not be such a good idea after all.

A new study involving nearly 1.3 million middle-aged British women -- the largest ever to examine alcohol and cancer in women -- found that just one glass of chardonnay, a single beer or any other type of alcoholic drink per day increases the risk of a variety of cancers.

I Should Have Known, When I Watched His Baffling Amble into the Camera Frame

I should have turned up the sound and watched while I was on the phone. The snap analysis of Bobby Jindal's speech seems to be coalescing:

But context notwithstanding, Jindal was something of a disaster. The delivery was awkward and sing-song (comparisons to Kenneth from "30 Rock" are ubiquitous). The arguments were tone-deaf and tiresome. The anecdotes were long and pointless. Jindal hadn't quite practiced enough with a teleprompter. He not only seemed like a guy selling a bad product in an infomercial, Jindal seemed like he was new at it.

It was painful to watch, both because the speech was bad and because it was hard not to feel bad for the guy embarrassing himself on national television.

On one of the cable networks, viewers were told that Jindal was "almost childish," and this "was not Bobby Jindal's greatest oratorical moment." The network? Fox News.

Kenneth from 30 Rock? For real? And I missed that? Damn.

And I missed a lot of broad strokes on Obama's speech, as well because I was transfixed with Nancy Pelosi's jacket? Sweater? Sweatsuit? Was that a zipper? Did it have a tassle? You can see how one might get lost there.

Oh Dear God

I'm in such a place where we have a suite-only restroom, accessible only to staff. I'm also unfortunately in a place where I have had to fish unflushed paper towels out of the toilet, put there by an unspecified person who is apparently accustomed to flushing all manner of materials down their home toilets.

I was happy to take the bullet (or the coathanger, as it were) the first time this happened. But since then, staff meetings have been held and e-mails were sent updating the gathered on the inadvisability of such things. Everybody onboard, it would seem, and in agreement.

So when it happens again, I think you have to say we're no longer operating under the rules of a civilized society.

I Do Love Me a Little Bit of This

Soul.

So, How About Those Oscars?

Did you laugh? Did you cry? Was it better than Cats?

My observations:

Panning to Angelina Jolie while Jennifer Aniston was presenting--oh, so National Enquirier-covered cat fight!

Kevin Kline--morphing into Vincent Price? Discuss.

Resolved: No one, but no one, looks good in a strapless dress. Either gravity is working against you, you're mushing up weird bits of loose skin, or you have weird bones jutting out in strange places.

Mickey Rourke--are those his real teeth?

Sophia Loren--doesn't she look a bit like the statuette herself?

Was it a plus that it didn't feel interminable this year and that there weren't any serious diva moments?

Hugh Jackman--charmingly entertaining, or irritatingly cloying? Is he, as Barbara Walters would have it, the last of the true song-and-dance men?

It's That Time of Year Again

The time when I stock up on Hello Kitty writing implements to flourish in meetings and generally make people uncomfortable and/or confused by my whimsical and childish tastes.

Behold: my new Badtz Maru pen.
I also got a really nifty three-way one featuring Kuromi, who likes the color black and skulls, writing in her diary, reading short stories, and playing a mean guitar. Perfecto.

Aaaannnnnd, We're Back

Reentry into the real world is never a good thing, is it? No matter how sunny and cheery you feel, getting smacked with "Oh, god, my deadlines, I'm never going to get this done in time as long as people keep thinking, 'eh, no rush on my part, it's Laura, and she can crank it out likethat'" just brings you right back.

But, eh, whaddya gonna do? We've reset the postal meter by a good couple of weeks, easy.

I Need a Bit of Music Infusion

It's not Friday, but as I'm outta here after today, I declare it officially so. So random music queuing.

1. all the old showstoppers, new pornographers
2. sweet soul music, the jam
3. high on a mountain top, loretta lynn
4. catching the butterfly, the verve
5. no growing (exegesis), olivia tremor control
6. wishful thinking, the album leaf
7. beechwood park, the zombies
8. room 13, black flag
9. lust for life, iggy pop
10. nothin', townes van zandt

And it's nice and schizophrenic, which is always a good thing. Class was eh, since we had a substitute whose style could best be described as haranguing and who decided for some reason that I would serve as a nice example for proper in-class participation (following the haranguing, of course). Did she pick on the scowly girl who left halfway through class? Nooooooooo.

I'm also gearing up today for some teeth-gritting office dysfunction and staff togetherness. Inmates ==> asylum.

Beyond that, senioritis, baby. Checked out. Weekend on the horizon.

It Is a Truth Universal

That the day you're getting a haircut--after reaching a state of fed up with your hair's ugliness--is the day that everyone tells you how awesome your hair looks.

Surreal Conversation of the Day

On Friday, I had one of periodic outbursts of righteous explanation on the way things should be in my sphere of apparently little influence. It's goofy, it's frustrating, I get on my high horse to try to right it all on occasion, but such is the way of a power vacuum and no one wanting to make decisions.

Anyway, as a predictable result of a situation that I've been trying to point out for the past 8 months or so, we are preparing to arrange an emergency meeting to address editorial follow through on conference papers and our publisher interest in same (i.e., the person who should be following up to publish things is not, ergo presenters are baffled and offended). I was talking with a quasi-muckety muck about topics for our next upcoming venture, and he was expressing concern on whether these things would be high-quality enough to publish. To which I had to point out that it's really beside the point if your whole system breaks down on the follow-through, isn't it? I don't think he quite got it.

You laugh or you cry, no?

It's Like Therapy for Creative Types

I just ran into my writing-class bud, C, on the street, on her way back from a meeting with our teacher. Apparently, the meeting went really well. C very excitedly reports that she may be a little in love with our teacher, who totally gets it. She thinks this teacher may be for her what our last one was for me. Yay!!! And thus underscoring again that a really good teacher can be the difference between success and giving up before you even try.

C also mentioned something kind of cool our teacher mentioned about how our last class shook out. As you can imagine, we're all flailing about for nonfiction material. And sometimes the more difficult times in your life proves the more rich subject matter to explore. But you're juggling that emotional distance and trying to figure out what will work for a broader audience, so it's tricky. Anyway, C said that one of our classmates--who wrote in class about an assault she experienced as a teenager--told our teacher that she felt like C and I gave her "permission" to write about it. (C had written about things tied to her youth and family, and I had written about death.)

Eyebrow Threading: Painful, Yet Intriguing

For reasons that are unclear, my local mall is riddled with booths offering eyebrow threading. My friend Melanie and I noted this and went back today to try it out (the Punjabi woman in our office talks about it nonstop). It's quite amazing how efficient these practitioners are, working with rolls of ordinary sewing thread, thwacking the errant hairs on your brows. Two minutes and two watery eyes later, voila, you're featuring something like definition.

Find Out Your Personality Style! As Seen on 20/20

This is an entertaining quiz, based on science-y science or hormones or something. There's even little shape-maneuvering games and photos from which to analyze facial expressions. Fun.

Bill Clinton and I feel your pain!

First Rejection

Got my first self-addressed stamped envelope back on the story in record time. Battle Scars R Us. This makes me official. Now I drown my sorrows over their failure to recognize my genius, right?

Class, The Next Round

So, week 2 of the next 12-week writing class has just wrapped up, mercifully feeling shorter than the full 4.5 hours that it lasts. I think I like my teacher a lot, although she scares me. I feel like she's going to know if I'm phoning it in, then she will give me a laser stare that permeates my soul and darker intents. I'm actually piping up in class, even, because I want her to perceive me as fully engaged.

But I noticed last week that she does this nice thing where she takes students aside after class to give them comments, praise, support, or helpful suggestions. I know I mentioned that we're supposed to be using our lives to mine for nonfiction material, around which we develop scenes for the semester. This week, I flew by the seat of my pants with some in-class writing. After tossing a few things around in my head that felt kind of static, I started in a scene that actually happened and from there ended up conflating some things that have happened to me and integrating from others. When I read it aloud in class, I was surprised that it came out much better and more cohesively than I thought (we were doing some scene jumping and choosing different aspects to tell, so it really is a split-second thing that can turn out badly). There was a long pause after I finished reading, and when we got to the recall session, my teacher leaped in at the beginning to describe some of the scenes I set up. After class, she came up and told me that it was fabulous, that obviously she wasn't familiar with any of my other writing, but if I were considering this for my semester-long material, I had her with what I wrote. Which, you know, is quite awesome.

And even my friend who had the less-positive experience last time around seems to be getting into the feel of the class and is pretty un-self-consciously doing some nice stuff. I think she's as afraid of our teacher as I am. Possibly we've graduated from our indulgent older brother to our stern mommy teacher models.

Anyway, all and all, it's very cool. I just hope I don't lose the good mojo by tossing off something dorky, thus making my teacher need to kick my ass.

Keep an Eye Out for the Eensy Stonehenge, Next to the Puppet-Show Marquee

Spinal Tap returns:

The legendary fake band will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the This Is Spinal Tap mockumentary by releasing a new album, their first since 1992's Break Like The Wind. "It'll be for download as well as on conventional media later this year," Harry Shearer (aka bassist Derek Smalls) confirmed to BBC 5 Live.

The fictional English heavy metal group is the work of Shearer and two more American actors, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest. They last reunited in 2007, playing the Live Earth concert at London's Wembley Stadium.

"We've never recorded the song we did at Live Earth, Warmer Than Hell, and I think [Spinal Tap] are trying to revisit their old success," Shearer said. Rob Reiner caught up with the band at the time of that gig, shooting a short film showing what Spinal Tap's members had done with their lives. Guest's Nigel Tufnel was raising miniature racing horses, Shearer's Smalls was recovering from an internet addiction, and McKean's David St Hubbins had become a hip-hop producer.

Your Joe the Plumber Career Update

Is this a face that would lead you down an economic dead end? I think not.

Following a thwarted plumbing business (goddamned taxes!), a fruitless search for a book deal, an embryonic album, and the harrowing specter of journalism in a war zone, Joe the Plumber has branched out again. In his next incarnation, a last and fierce attempt to squeeze the dregs and drops of opportunity from his fifteen minutes of fame, he's set to become an advisor to congressional Republicans.

It's probably unnecessary for me to point out that he will be speaking on the economic stimulus legislation, as I think we're all clear on where his real expertise lies.

Hope Your Weekend Was Similarly Relaxing

Some of us are overtaxed by vet visits and the rude, sniffing dogs encountered there at.

I needed the sleep and felt excellent yesterday, but alas, I woke up all draggy this morning. One day of rejuvenation seems kind of paltry. More! More!

Anyway, I'm working on homework for the new writing class, and I'm feeling a bit hemmed in and uninspired. This mining of your own life for "themes" to explore sends me to dull and conventional territory so far. I obviously need to start thinking out of the box.

I'm Somewhat Immortalized

I miss my old writing teacher, although my new one appears to be a very good one, and I'm excited to start the next round. Imagine what a genius I'll be at the end of it!

But since I had offered to proofread some job-application materials for my old teacher, yesterday I got an e-mail from him with the promised stuff to be dissected by my red pen. It's been intriguing to look at it all; he's led an interesting life and loves a lot of the same stuff I do. I somewhat wish I had met him in college (he graduated a year after I did), because I think we would have bonded. It's not terribly surprising, I guess, since a love of the same material and a similar sensibility is probably a large part of the reason why he liked my writing so much. It's weird to think it's that subjective, this assessment of talent and worth. But I guess it's like love and anything else: aren't we all just looking for that reflection of ourselves?

Among the things that compose an application for a writing professor, I find there's something called a "portfolio," which, in his rendering, consists of a narrative of his teaching methodology, as illustrated by a fictionalized class made up of various students he has taught, along with examples of their writing in an appendix. I am one of these students!

It's weird to see fictional me in class setting; I seem to be quite the thoughtful, engaged participant. I somewhat take issue with his suggestion of me as a shy, librarian type who doesn't like to meet people's eyes, although I totally dig having my Corningware dish immortalized. And I won't burst his bubble by telling him that the class methodology had very little to do with that particular story, and that all the word-game words I incorporated were my own, thrown out in class not because I reached that mondo-creative state, but because I had already decided to use them.

We're Less Corrupt! We're Less Corrupt!

No more Gov. Rod Blagojevich:

The verdict brought to an end what one lawmaker branded "the freak show" in Illinois. Over the past few weeks, Blagojevich found himself isolated, with almost the entire political establishment lined up against him. The furor paralyzed state government and made Blagojevich and his helmet of lush, dark hair a punchline from coast to coast.

Have I Mentioned I've Been Powering Through Mad Men?

I love love love these. They're awesome. Apart from the fact that I love the show, they fit perfectly into my current aesthetic, which is featuring my rediscovered 60s vintage dresses and blouses and killer black liquid eyeliner. I may have to go all crazy with the hair, with big rollers and shit.

Laying into the Tums

Serenity Now!

You know it's time to find yourself a relaxing Zen center when you're stopping yourself from replying to a discussion about costs over budget with: "Here, let me write you a check for $500. It's worth my peace of mind."

This Is Pretty Fascinating

(clicking will make it larger and easier to read)

Map tracking political party affiliation by state.

Class Starts Tomorrow

It goes from 6:00 until 10:20, thirty minutes longer than the last one. Given that I leave my house at 7:30 and won't get home until 11, that's a long day. I'm not sure if I have it in me.

Fun Office Forwards

Satellite view of the inauguration.

An Indication That You're Perhaps a Little Tense

When you're worried because you know there's something you're supposed to be worried about, but you can't remember what it is.

I won't pretend that this is a universal experience.

What Do We Think?

My new, less pink bedroom color.

Impending End of the Longest Shortest Week Ever

I find I'm listening eagerly to NPR for the sole purpose of hearing someone intone the words "President Obama." And in his first few hours in office, he's hitting the ground running. It's enough to make a person tear up with the awesomeness of it all. I expect it's what it's like for desert-island castaways when they finally return to civilization and are presented with a really good buffet.

It's Friday, so random music to ease me into my day.

1. she is beyond good and evil, the pop group
2. quicksand, david bowie
3. freedom hangs like heaven, iron & wine
4. we can talk, the band
5. deirdre, the beach boys
6. before i'm over you, loretta lynn
7. cast off crown, deerhoof
8. straight to you, nick cave & the bad seeds
9. walken, wilco
10. heaven, squeeze

And do you suppose it can be blamed on my cable-less existence that I know all about things like the Heat Surge and the Chia cat grass planter but had never until yesterday heard of this film?

Random Observation

I love, love that Jill Biden is "Dr. Jill Biden" on the White House website.

It's Official!

Check out the White House website and new blog!

And one of Obama's first actions is going to be lifting the global gag rule--i.e., the rule prohibiting federal funding to international family planning groups that mention abortion--which is most excellent news.

The Inauguration: In Human Form

Seems like it took forever to get here, right? I hope everybody's somewhere television or internet adjacent in order to watch this. We've fired up the tv in the library and are projecting the arrival of bagels to cater the occasion.

I was getting misty just seeing the crowds (if I still lived there, damn, I'd have some fairly primo location, at least for the folks pouring across Memorial Bridge from Virginia), so I just know I'm going to be bawling. Luckily, in anticipation of this, I brought out the waterproof mascara this morning.

The Inauguration: In Lego Form

How cool is this?

A 4-inch-tall Barack Obama rendered in Lego bricks will be sworn in as plastic president before more than 1,000 miniature-molded dignitaries at Legoland California’s inaugural pre-enactment.

Moratorium

I think until I can write about something besides the goddamned weather and the seasonal affective disorder I seem to have developed in response to same, I will refrain from navel-gazing blogging. I'm starting to get on my own nerves.

This Looks To Be Intriguing Reading As We Bid Good Riddance to the Bush II Years

A ginormous article in Vanity Fair on the Bush White House consisting of selections from interviews of players in and observers of the clusterfuck.

So This Is What It's Like to Live in Fargo

My car did start this morning, I was amazed to discover, despite the -17 temperature and -30/-40 wind chills and the fact that I had to park on the street due to my frozen garage door. And it only took 30 minutes for the car to warm up enough to allow me to move the gearshift into neutral, which is not so much time to sit there with your foot on the clutch.

Post-move insanity continues apace, including bathroom drama ("the door's shut! the door's locked! how will we know if someone's in there? maybe we need a sign.") and building safety and security orientation, which, sadly--and despite the content and delivery ("What do we do in this situation? Can anyone tell me? We give them the Broadway smile!")--did not actually feature hand puppets.

Random music because I was an idiot and left my ipod here last night, hence I'm in tune withdrawal.

1. farther on up the road, lonnie mack
2. what's mine is yours, sleater-kinney
3. 8 days on the road, howard tate
4. brownsville blues, furry lewis
5. wildwood flower, loretta lynn
6. i'm going to hell, the long blondes
7. 1000 umbrellas, xtc
8. in the aeroplane over the sea, neutral milk hotel
9. interzone, joy division
10. turnstyles, stanley ross

And thank god the week is over and I have Monday off for MLK day. Oh, and I registered for my next writing class. So yay for me on that.

Crab Shellacking and Other Career Opportunities

A friend of mine once pointed out how, for every bizarre, mundane, or dorky thing you can think about encountering, there's a person performing a job--hell, possibly even pursuing a career--to bring it to you, the clueless consumer/observer. For instance, ponder those display crustaceans at seafood restaurants. Someone's spending time polishing them to a sheen to make them attractive to you the ravenous seafood-eater, so that you may order said crustacean of a meal, enjoy it fully, and never think of it again.

Similarly, I find out while listening to NPR on the way home that there is a person--more than one!--who spends time tossing frozen turkeys into airplane engines to test against bird strikes. Sure, we're happy these brave souls tirelessly perform their jobs (as I'm sure are the people on that U.S. Airways flight). But can you imagine a kid in this world pining, pining to grow up to be a turkey tosser?

You See Tough Economic Times and Home Loss, I See Opportunity

This is depressing, but you know, the American way:

As home values across the country continue to plummet, the authorities say a new breed of swindler is preying on the tens of thousands of homeowners desperate to avoid foreclosure.

Until recently, defrauders tried to bilk homeowners out of the equity in their homes. Now, with that equity often dried up, they are presenting themselves as “foreclosure rescue companies” that charge upfront fees to modify loans but often do nothing to stave off foreclosure.

Dear Lord

I could barely make it the block from the parking garage to my office without feeling like I needed to be hauling oxygen canisters and scanning the horizon for next base camp on Everest. Question: How much time did I spend trying to get my garage door to close this morning? Answer: Significant amounts. And tomorrow morning is supposed to be worse. Jesus.

On the bright side, literally, the sun is out. Also, while I may look like an arctic refugee, I am toasty here in my windowless office.

What Is This "Work" You Speak Of?

I must say, returning to the office after an extended period of relaxation and snacking is very distressing. Worse still is coming back and having to unpack and deal with dreary things like finding your stapler.

But, we are finally moved to the new office space! And I am in posh accommodations, indeed, compared with the other people who are not muckety-mucks. I have the solo office, with two spaces from which to choose my favorite work nook. I have a bright green wall and cheery overhead lights. (How they make fluorescent lights cheery and warm, as opposed to soul-scorching, I don't know. Maybe they popped for the special "warm light" versions.) I have less shelf space than before, but I have the luxury of floor and desk space in which to temporarily park all the stuff I no longer have shelf space for.

In contrast, those in Cubesville are seething and resentful, bunched together and fighting over common areas. I'm sympathetic, to be sure. It's a raw deal, and there's no privacy (well, there will be a lot of the time, because two of the three people only work part time).

And okay, a part of me feels guilty. I didn't ask for anything (okay, the oversized monitor, I did ask for, but I can't help it if they give it to me, right?). But another part of me thinks: eh, I'm here more than you, I'm not a clock watcher, and I step up to do much, much more. So I don't feel too bad about it.

Blizzard Warnings. Jesus.

I'm officially depressed. I'm over this, times about a thousand. And, yes, tomorrow I go back to work, which means I get to stand at the bus stop for an unspecified period of time in sub-zero temps with raging winds.

Your Midwestern Winter Wonderland. Or Something.

Here's the view Chez Laura, before the next round of snow, i.e., the two to four inches coming our way tonight.

So Many Questions. It's Just Picking the Right One

I think we can all be properly chastened at our skepticism over Joe the Plumber's journalistic bona fides. I think the "Israel people" are going to be warming up to him, a la Barbara Walters, and telling him their true feelings. Mark my words, he'll be giving us a side to this conflict, a human side.

Yes! Yes!

This is so very exciting: I'm printing wirelessly. Wirelessly, people! I set up, I configured, I disabled my firewall, I did it all by my very self without crashing anything. I feel so tech savvy. And now I am printing letters.

Now if I could only get my camera connection and music in a network-accessible location so that I may avoid the twelve-step process of carrying files back and forth, I would be golden for all occasions.

Best Thank-You Card Ever

A 64-count marker box is a pretty sweet score at the holidays for a certain crafty sort of munchkin. And I was just saying to myself how I need more fridge art.

It's Snowing, So It Must Be Friday

I think we have confirmed that Midwesterners can talk at length of few things like they can the weather. We're like the Eskimos with 300 words for snow, only for us, it's 300 curse words and variations on complaints.

I'm on my last free weekday day before our regularly scheduled work days resume on Monday. I will be very very sad to resume real-world functioning and to have to return to new windowless quarters at our new office space. However, I will say that there may be benefit to me seeing actual human beings in the wild, as I'm starting to resemble a bag lady, shlumping around in the same sweater for days in a row, no makeup, crazy hair, ripped coat, hat with strings hanging off everywhere. And just yesterday, while ducking through a mall, I was waylaid by a friendly European woman selling hair straightening irons. I could barely understand her, and she could barely understand me, but as she beckoned me over to ply her wares, I found myself telling her, at length, about how one cannot contemplate achieving anything good with one's hair while the weather is so bad and we're all skulking around with ugly knit caps and consequent hat hair and static. At first, she tried to keep up with me on my diatribe, asking for clarification. Finally, she just fell silent and looked at me like I was a lunatic.

But I console myself on the inevitable slide into old-age eccentricity with some new music. My pre-shoveling random shuffle doesn't seem keen to feature any of it, but still, I know it's there.

1. water ban, pernice brothers
2. iron woman, devin davis
3. nature of the experiment, tokyo police club
4. friday night, lily allen
5. things that scare me, neko case
6. ancient curse, peter, bjorn & john
7. five years, david bowie
8. all we have is now, flaming lips
9. sunny afternoon, the kinks
10. mannequin, wire

Oh, Jesus.

Joe the Plumber, intrepid reporter, heading for the Middle East:

Joe The Plumber is putting down his wrenches and picking up a reporter's notebook.

The Ohio man who became a household name during the presidential campaign says he is heading to Israel as a war correspondent for the conservative Web site pjtv.com.

Samuel J. Wurzelbacher (WUR'-zuhl-bah-kur) says he'll spend 10 days covering the fighting.

He tells WNWO-TV in Toledo that he wants to let Israel's '''Average Joes' share their story.''

Let the Rejection Begin

I've officially submitted my first story! It feels like I should bust out the champagne, or maybe shop for a dartboard to affix the inevitable rejections that will start pouring in as a feature of this process.

Once my new laser printer gets here (today, if the UPS gods are smiling on me), I'll be able to send off to the old-school journals who are still insisted on receiving paper manuscripts with self-addressed stamped envelopes.

Also, Have I Mentioned I'm Off Work for the Rest of the Week?

Poor me, right? My personal crazy-immersion quotient is a little high right now, I get to share an office with a phantom, but on the bright side, I'm done for the week while my pretty yellow crates are hauled away, slowly, to the new location.

Chicago Geekery

On the local public television station, there's this television show that each week collects three average Joes who gather together around a faux dining table, pretend to drink wine, and recommend their favorite local restaurants. It's rather entertaining, and friends of friends have been guests on the show.

Apparently, a certain president elect was on an episode during the first season that never aired. But they're going to show the episode on January 16. I am going to have to watch this, because I'm dying to know what restaurant he picked.

LATER: Or, I could just watch the video snippet. Jesus.

Reading Comprehension for Office Minions

Some cause and effect: if you habitually in past have been known to casually read directives or not at all and subsequently misinterpret them, other folk may then be inclined to question what you say when you assert facts. The confidence with which you assert your casually gleaned facts does not actually make them any more true.

On the other hand, moving logistics take on a surreal and nonsensical lemming-like aspect when they are directed by the above sort of people and carried out by folks who tend to want to outsource tedious decision-making and thinking about any details. For example:

Head-scratching office denizen: "You're saying we should take the toner cartridges out of all of our printers before the movers get here? Um, okay. I guess. If everybody else is doing it."

ALSO: It goes without saying that refrigerators, having sat open post-defrosting for two weeks, must be doused in bleach before they may safely be moved to a new location. This gives the added benefit of clearing the sinuses of everyone, providing headaches for some, and intensifying migraines of others. Plus, I can confirm, having toured the new space with office furniture in place, that each minion of the appropriate pay grade gets exactly as much as the next guy.

God, Winter Sucks

Here's a tidbit of advice: If you get up late and are lazy and decide to drive in to work, and you check the weather and determine that there is merely a 10 percent chance of flurries later tonight, to follow on the heels of a pleasant 35-degree day, please presume that this actually means that it will promptly begin snowing and accumulating the second you get into work.

Oddities Witnessed While Out and About

First, I will say that Milk is a pretty good movie, and Sean Penn is just a chameleon. Josh Brolin no longer remotely resembles that baby-faced eighties movie kid, and for some reason, I find this disturbing.

Seen on the streets while I was walking around today:

1. A man, skipping with two small children down the main drag in town and singing, at the top of his lungs, "We're Off to See the Wizard." You really have to admire that abandonment of propriety and embrace of the ridiculous in full, crowded public.

2. A guy on a motorcycle somehow playing a bagpipe version of "Amazing Grace." I'm not saying he was actually playing the bagpipes, I'm saying that the music was somehow coming from his little setup, piped in or out, as it were.

Because There's Always an Apple v. PC Thing to Tweak People With

Ah, remember stocking up and preparing for the uncertainty of computer mayhem when the year 2000 turned? Microsoft does.

For an estimated 1 million owners of the Zune media player, New Year's Eve was the day their music died. A technical glitch related to the 2008 leap year caused some versions of Microsoft Corp.'s devices across the globe to seize Wednesday. The devices should come back to life today. But not before making many of the Zune faithful wonder why they hadn't bought an iPod instead.

Hey, Guess What? It's Friday!

Your moment of Zen: The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain playing the Theme from Shaft. Yes, there's singing.