ARDIRI

PSA

As we enter into the runup to the 2012 presidential election craziness, a public service announcement:

 

Slowly coming back to life (my life!).

Big, rather new, life-pattern observed (two years strong now): Whenever a new school year starts (a la teacher-mode), I sort of lose part of myself to teaching.  I pretty much stop doing any thing crafty (no knitting, no sewing, no weird bursts of creativity), and I disengage from the internet (reading, commenting, communicating).  Finally, when things slow down and settle in at school, I burst from my cocoon like a metaphorical moth starving for connection and creativity. And now, I sew (ha-ha!) want to make this and this!  Mellow yellow, sugar!  I am more likely to make the quilt as I am in a nesting mood as of late.

I am actually knitting the Felicity Hat right this moment in Cash Vero (Charcoal grey color 29, Lot 3887).  OK, so I am not exactly knitting  right this moment, but in little spurts between typing and drooling over the pretty things I see on the internet. 

Thinking ahead, I see myself knitting up at least one little cap for the Save the Children's "Knit One, Save One" campaign (postmark due date December 31, 2008).  Two years ago, I managed to crank out 7, but at that time I was commuting on the BART a lot.  I have decided to let go and to be content with just one.

And--OMG!--there are only 9 days left till THE   ELECTION! 

Going Back-Ass-Wards...

(Image credit Bary Blitt of The New York Times)

From Op-Ed Columninst Frank Rich of The New York Times:

"We still don’t know a lot about Palin except that she’s better at delivering a speech than McCain and that she defends her own pregnant daughter’s right to privacy even as she would have the government intrude to police the reproductive choices of all other women. Most of the rest of the biography supplied by her and the McCain camp is fiction.

She didn’t say “no thanks” to the “Bridge to Nowhere” until after Congress had already abandoned it but given Alaska a blank check for $223 million in taxpayers’ money anyway. Far from rejecting federal pork, she hired lobbyists to secure her town a disproportionate share of earmarks ($1,000 per resident in 2002, 20 times the per capita average in other states). Though McCain claimed “she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” she has never issued a single command as head of the Alaska National Guard. As for her “executive experience” as mayor, she told her hometown paper in Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996, the year of her election: “It’s not rocket science. It’s $6 million and 53 employees.” Her much-advertised crusade against officials abusing their office is now compromised by a bipartisan ethics investigation into charges that she did the same.

How long before we learn she never shot a moose?"

Folks, just a thought to consider: given McCain's age, she could end up being our 45th president!  Not a a good scenario at all, in my opinion.

RNC Confetti

(Image found via Digg)
See you soon!  Very busy with work--so much work goes into being a teacher!!!

More Randomnalia--All Over the Place!

• Despite being car-free for a little less than ten years now, my slight-obsession with tiny cars continues.  Submitted as Evidence: Another picture of vintage Mini; this one in the Haight with a parking meter for perspective on size.

  

• The upside of high gas prices?  Shopping locally and supporting small-business owners!

• **Uh, hello, anybody there Reverend Jesse Jackson???**  Could you possibly be more of an ignoramus?  Really?!  I think not! 

Where the hell was your brain when you said (supposedly off-Mic) that Obama should be castrated? 

Why in the world would a black man suggest that another black man be castrated in light of the fact that black men were often castrated before they were lynched?

Ugh, and so much more that I dare not say here...Let me just say, that the Rev. Jesse Jackson made a fool of himself.

• In a related vein, I am nearly finished reading Toni Morrison's Beloved and am thinking that perhaps the Rev. Jesse Jackson might do well to (re?)read this novel as it provides a graphic, haunting, and all-together disturbing refresher course on the horrors of slavery.

• I am tired, oh-so-tired, sleepy-sleepy.  Teaching  English Literature and Language Arts to 33--yes, 33!--6th-8th graders can sometimes feel like taming lions after being dipped in vat of gazelle blood.

  On the other hand, today's sleepiness is a "rewarding tiredness" earned from getting those same kids to be really excited and engaged with what we're learning.

• The 1975 edition of the Vogue Sewing Book rocks!  So much information!  So concise! Such clear directions!

• I had lunch last weekend with a friend and her husband at Zazil Coastal Mexican Cuisine in the Nordstrom's shopping center and was pretty disappointed.  The food is so-so, but not worth the price, and the ambiance of the restaurant is more suited to a fast-food environment.  The three of us spent $158 dollars on lunch and dessert (luckily, we had $100 in gift certificates to spend there!).  I'm of the opinion that one should never feel as if they are eating in an upscale-cafeteria-like-environment when you're paying $50+ to eat lunch.  Give me a break!  Puh-lease!

• My Princeton Review Career Quiz results are:

My INTEREST color is BLUE:  People with blue Interests like job responsibilities and occupations that involve creative, humanistic, thoughtful, and quiet types of activities. Blue Interests include abstracting, theorizing, designing, writing, reflecting, and originating, which often lead to work in editing, teaching, composing, inventing, mediating, clergy, and writing.

My USUAL STYLE is YELLOW:  People with yellow styles perform their job responsibilities in a manner that is orderly and planned to meet a known schedule. They prefer to work where things get done with a minimum of interpretation and unexpected change. People with a yellow style tend to be orderly, cautious, structured, loyal, systematic, solitary, methodical, and organized, and usually thrive in a research-oriented, predictable, established, controlled, measurable, orderly environment.

So shocking!  Not! 

Some of the suggested careers are: philosopher (got that covered with my Bachelors degree) and teacher (been there, doing that), professor (perhaps someday?).  The quiz also suggested I look into working as a Media Planner, Web Editor, Book Publishing Professional--all of which I would find interesting.  I am definietely intrigued by the Media Planner career as I L-O-V-E to critically tear apart advertisements and their often inappropriate placement.  However, I do not see myself becoming an optometrist, a Rabbi or Imam, or an antiques dealer. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Cold Play's "Violet Hill"--Dancing Politicians Version

Bonnes Vacances!

Ah, tres bien!  This bonnes vacances (good holidays) deal working at a French school is a good thing, indeed.  Five days off in May, although it was supposed to be 4, luck and coincidence of fieldtrips made it five off for me!!  Yippee!

• Today/Monday--Bezerkely!  I mean, Berkeley to meet with my friend Amber for beer and lunch at Jupiter's and a stroll up to Cal to lay on the grass in the sun and talk.

Amber-Lambs:

Me:

UC Berkeley's Campanile and Library:

• Sunday--Oysters and wine at Eos, again!  Followed by one of the BEST MOVIES EVER Donnie Darko (the Director's Cut).

• Saturday--working out, cleaning house, applying for jobs, a million other little things, ending with The Simpsons Movie  (which was actually was funny and well-done).
• Friday--Slept in like there was no tomorrow!  And then off to the dermatologist to get a small bump by my ear checked out. Non-malignant--Yay!  Surgery quite likely--Definitely Not a yay! Here's the lovely view from my dermatologist's exam room (which looks exquisite on a sunny day):

And then a trip to Union Square area to make some exchanges on an article of clothing and a book.  Got to see the Anonymous folks:

hand out fliers in protest of these folks (whom I dare not name since they're very litigious!):

• Thursday--I played faux Project Runway and worked on turning a pair of ill-fitting Lucky Brand Jeans (Low Rider style) into a jean skirt (Season 4, Episode 9 is based on refashioning Levis jeans into other clothing).  Still working on it.  Definitely need a fit model (human) shaped just like me or a fit mannequin (a dressform) to shape the backside.  The frontside is looking awesome, IMO, while the backside is having some issues.   Before and after pictures will come when product is finished.

Worth Perusing...

Here are few websites that are worth your perusal:

• Tink (aka Lacey Jane Roberts) (non-traditional craft with yarn)

• Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Blog, Etc.; not specifically Walter Benjamin)

• Fecal Face (Blogzine serving the Bay Area Art Community since 2000)

• And, as always, good ol' Banksy

In regards to the current administration, future administrations, and the comic by Tom Tomorrow of yesterday's post:

"[...] the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless."

James Baldwin (emphasis added, p. 55, The Fire Down Below, 1962)

The Truth is Painful...

(Can also be viewed at Salon.com)