Fight! Fight! Fight!

Watching Hairspray (the movie) with Sushi this weekend. And while I enjoyed it over all I left feeling kind of disturbed.
Well yes John Travolta in a fat suit can do that to you.
But aside from that I actually think Hairspray is kind of dangerous.
It’s a movie about the civil rights movement in which the blacks are passive. They spend the movie dancing and saying “oh that’s just the way life is.” Then this white girl comes along and gives them integration.
Yes that’s simplifying but, its also the gist of what happens.
Which is why I think Hairspray is dangerous.
Women had to take the vote. Integration had to be forced. Apartheid only fell once the country was on the brink of civil war. The powers that be are rarely, if ever, benevolent.
And I think this trust that “everything will work out” is what has gotten our country stuck where it is right now: a FEMA that doesn’t work, that war we’re in, our right to safe abortions nearly gone.
Hairspray is a movie about revolution with out revolutionaries. What we need are some revolutionaries in this country. Some people who are willing to fight.
Am I willing to fight?
Well that is the question.
Are you?

A charity mugger convinced me to become a member of greenpeace today.
And Rachel watched it happen.
Some how this doesnt make me feel any less guilty about how little I do for the enviroment.

SPOILERS!!! SPOILERS!!! FOR GODS SAKE DON'T READ!!!

Personality Tests Via Harry Potter Mourning:
What type of Person are YOU? Depending on which HP death made you saddest:

Fred: You love a good time. Really all you want out of life is someone to make you laugh.
MadEye: You believe that there are tough people in life who should be able to defend the world from harm. You do not want to believe that these people die. Also, he had a cool eye.
Tonks: You love hair dye. Also she just had a baby.
Lupin: You have a werewolf thing. Also, he just had a baby.
Hedwig: You like animals more than people. You just might be autistic.
Peter Petigew: um. Something is wrong with you.
Dobby: you are a class activist.
Colin Creevy: the little boy who plays him in the movies is just too cute for death.
Snape: you have an Alan Rickman thing. Also, you just might be really lonely, if Snape could have found love (WHICH HE DIDN’T) you just might too.
Voldemort: you have issues, young one.
Bellatrix Lestrange: uh…. I’m just going to go over near the exit if that’s okay.
WHICH ONE ARE YOU!!!

3 Word Review of SUNSHINE:

What. The. Fuck?
Four Word Review of SUNSHINE:
Nice effects, bad story.
Seven Word Review of SUNSHINE:
What a waste of a cool concept.
What was the best part of the movie?
Cillian Murphys blue blue eyes.

I am in mourning.

I’m not in mourning for a person, fictional or otherwise. Don’t worry, there are no spoilers. I am mourning for a book. For a group of people I love almost as much as if they were real. I feel like I have just gone through a break up, or as if I lost a friend.
As I was coming home from work today I wept on the subway. I have gone to four midnight releases. These books have been a part of my life for 8 years. You kind of grow attached after that much time.
And what those people who make fun of Harry Potter don’t understand is that our love for these books comes from a love of story. Of make believe. Of the freedom to imagine. For some reason it is easier to read Harry Potter than other Young Adult or children’s book. Less of a stigma or whatever. But it is the same thing. I have read so many books in the last 8 years that I only read because they were good for me. Or, more recently, because it was “this springs hip new book.” And sometimes they were good. Some times not. But Harry Potter allowed me to be caught up in story in the same way I did when I was a lonely 5th grader with no friends. When books were my friends.
And in case any one hasn’t noticed: I love story. Or narrative. Or whatever I have decided to call it. I tell myself stories as I am falling asleep, as I am walking down the street, as I am waiting for people. And because of that when I was in Berlin, trapped and alone, I was never bored. Because story was my friend. I got into this profession because I love story. But a lot of this profession is not about story at all.
And part of me just wants to move back to Montana when I graduate, have a couple of kids and devote my life to telling them stories.
NO WORRIES! I’m not actually going to do that. (Though I do look forward to the day when I can read my kids the sorcerers stone, the golden compass, so you want to be a wizard, redwood and the hobbit.)
But I feel like that love is what is missing from my training. And while I start to freak out about what I am going to do post graduation I think refinding that love might need to be priority number one.
Maybe that means I should go back to Berlin.
P.S. Because we wouldn’t want this blog to get too serious:
Watched “Bring it on” tonight. Three, count em three of the actresses are in Buffy: Faith, Glory, and Cordette.

Fucking Brittish and their fucking time zones which mean they get harry potter before me. Such bullshit.

Why has everyone gotten an advanced copy of Harry Potter but me?

And by everyone I mean Gawker and Michiko Kakutani. Seriously. Not fair.
But the Brittish version of the cover is seriously hilarious.

Slaney told me today that she made a Ginny Weasly mix. Because "I mean, at the end of the last book Harry's just dumped her but she can't really say anything to that even though its bullshit and hes gone off with ron and hermione leaving her all alone to deal with dumbledores death and really the girl is just going through a lot right now. And so I was like, well, I should make her a mix."

Sad news

So I just found out that Solveig Dommartin, who was Clare in "Until the End of the World" and also Marion in "Wings of Desire" (and was in pretty much nothing else) died in January. I now feel bad for making fun of her last month, even though it was loving loving fun.
Here she is with Wim Wenders, who directed both films. Now she has gone to work with the big director in the sky. And no more Angels will come down from heaven for her.

I'd come down from heaven for her. Wouldnt you?

When (if) I get married...

This will be my wedding invitation.

Fifty fifty

Sushi: We should start dating out side of our friendship circle.
Me: Agreed.
Sushi: we should start dating (mumbles)
Me: what?
Sushi: We should start dating stock brokers.
Me: Oh. I thought you said we should start dating construction workers.
Sushi: No. Definitly not. Construction workers are shlubby.
Me: well stock brokers murder you with chainsaws in your sleep. I prefer shlubby.
Sushi: They’re about fifty fifty for me.

Right on!

This is my onion horiscope for last week:

Gemini: Your long uphill battle for self-improvement will founder once again when you find yourself thinking that some reality television shows are actually pretty good.

Ive been working at Saks two months now and it continues to amuse. I walked past a coffee table book that cost $4000 today. Also they sell a design label called "young, fabulous and broke." I think the humor of that statement escapes everyone except me. The self seriousness of saks is really what gets me.
ANYWHOO, people take pictures of our shop all the time. I understand this. Our shop is sort of like Willy Wonkas Chocolate Factory if it got attacked by a bedazzler. And while technically taking pictures in saks is not allowed for "security reasons" (again with the self seriousness) I dont ever tell people to stop, I just move out of the way.
Well, today, I was moving out of someones picture when the lady said "Ohhhhhhh, but I wanted you in the picture."
Um... please agree with me that is weird?
Now I like my job, I like the people I work with, I like giving people chocolates but I am not, repeat not, okay with being in some strangers picture.
I do not work at tgi fridays.

CiaB

In case you didnt belive that there were, in fact, chickens in a box.

I want to see more theatre

So I haven't seen that much theatre this past year. Part of that has to do with being the most broke I have ever been in my life, another part has to do with seeing some real shit and just being disgusted. But now it has been far too long and I am ashamed. (hangs head in shame)
So who wants to see some things with me?

SoaP

Me: (holding box of baby chickens) Chickens in a box! Chickens in a box!
Dad: It's like snakes on a plane!
Me: Only better!

This is not a poem

Missoula in the summer is dirt under your feet
And between your toes
It is cold nights
And hot days
It is learning to walk slow
Learning to talk slow
Again
It is remembering how to be still
It is cheap drinks and expensive gas
It is night air
That smells like water, and earth and trees and stars and decay
And day air that smells like dust and berrys and a little bit of death
It is pine needles
And the sound of wind
(you never hear the wind in new york)
It is dawn breaking and birds talking so loudly you actally think they are human voices
It is the sound of water
That sounds like wind
It is seeing all the stars in the sky
It is people who know everything about me
Without knowing me
(Where in New York people know me
Without knowing a thing about me)
It is buying fresh produce on Saturday mornings, where I know the garden it came from
It is buying meat where I know what pasture it grazed in
It is meth addicts and drifters sleeping by the river
It is explosions of fireworks lighting hills on fire
It is bad songs on the radio
It is driving home as the sun rises with the windows rolled down
And even though I try to make it so
It is never profound

This morning at 2 am I looked up from my computer to see a tiny little ground squirrel staring back at me.
Lord only knows how the damn thing got into the house. Let alone into my basement.

This morning at 4:30 am I climbed a mountain in my white dress and platform wedges.