from birth to twelve in 2:45

Watch this.

Don’t take your eyes off of it, you might miss a year.

It’s really stunning.

Reminds me of that line in the Safran Foer story: “He suddenly spoke, suddenly reasoned. One day I couldn’t help him with his math. He got married.”

And the thing is, it almost feels that fast while living it.

Sigh.

does it really matter?

I have 7,538 messages in my email inbox on my laptop. I spent 20 minutes today deleting 572 emails from my iPhone, only to have the phone helpfully download another 500 from the archive.

A couple of weeks ago I spent several hours unsubscribing from many many email lists.

Many remain. Many from various causes I have signed petitions for; many of them in the future will probably be regarding various causes I would sign petitions for.

But does it really make any difference at all?

I would like to just unsubscribe from them all so I could stop cluttering up my life and making my days busier than they already are, but I fear that’s just, well,

and exactly why we find ourselves in the situation in which we find ourselves.

No easy answer to that one, what?

Google+

Ha!

Google+.

reblogged from treacle talks: Yes, there is another way

Is this all true — I mean true, and true (if that makes sense)?

I was right!

He is an idiot.

You gotta love it when your political opponent does your campaigning for you.

on poetry

I find myself thinking still about Merwin’s “On the Subject of Poetry,” especially trying to figure out why Merwin called it that, and I think I owe oldblack an apology.

I think I got it all wrong.

Instead, the young man in the garden, with his hands in his pockets, listening to the wheel that is not there, is us, trying to discern what the poem means. And it is exactly that enigmatic nature that is poetry.

                               . . .He does not move
His feet nor so much as raise his head
For fear he should disturb the sound he hears
Like a pain without a cry, where he listens. . .

 

You can hear it, see it, just there. No, not there, there. And trying to explain it is the act which destroys it.

 

For some reason this reminds me of a beautiful, powerful moment in the haunting movie Tsotsi.  Tsotsi, (the name he has given himself means, literally, “thug,”) has invaded a young woman’s home and is forcing her to nurse the infant he has inadvertently stolen and then decided to keep. He notices some mobiles the woman has made. One is made of bits of scrap metal. When Tsotsi asks her why it’s all rusty she replies, simply, “I was sad.” Another is of broken, colored glass. He pokes his head into its dangling strands and asks, “This one, you were happy? How much?” She says “Fifty dollars.” “Fifty? For broken glass?” “No, silly, for light, and color, on you. Can’t you see?”

 

fed up?

I’m sick of politics and politicians, I’m sick of women being treated like chattel, I’m sick of feeling like no matter how I spend my time or my day or my life or my money I could have/should have spent it better.

I peruse headlines for something to write about and I just sigh in a combination of resignation and despair.

I’m going to take the dog for a walk, and then we’re going to have tuna steaks and salad for dinner, with an amusing white wine.  Then I’m going to write a list of things my son should do between now and when he graduates from college and moves to Madison, Wisconsin to start his FIRST REAL JOB (yarly! yeah! go First Son!) (get a credit card, buy clothes for work, figure out what furniture/dishes/potsandpans he needs and how many of those things he can get from our basement on his way from Cleveland to Madison, research cars and think about what kind of a car he wants/needs/can afford, etc. etc.) and then I’m going to read my book or knit.

I’m also going to ponder, as I have been for the past two weeks, two really important questions:

Should I quit at least one of my jobs?

Can I afford/justify these boots?

These two questions are, in case you didn’t notice, directly related.

And the boots are $515, ifthatmakesanydifference.

I’m thinking no, no matter what the answer to the first question is.

And I can’t wait for my glow-in-the-dark paint to come so I can make these jars:

That’s all.

 

Heard in the bathroom, yesterday

Only Daughter: Someday if I’m rich I’m going to give most of my money away because I would feel really badly about having so much when some people have so little.

Me: (thinking many things, including “does that mean you’ll pay me back for the thousands of dollars I’ll have spent on gymnastics classes and college?“) Wow. That’s really generous of you. Some people would say that that makes you a “Socialist,” and the Republicans won’t like you for it.

Only Daughter: What’s the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?

Me: (thinking that I should be really careful to give a balanced answer, and not only because this might be a conversation I want to blog about later, but because I want her to think for herself not just spout whatever dogma she hears from me) Well, Democrats think that the world is a better place if we all take care of each other, so we should all have as many of the same chances as we can, and even though we should all work hard and do our best, sometimes we need a little extra help; Republicans believe that we should all “pull ourselves up by our own boot straps,” and that even when things are tough things will work out better if we are each responsible for ourselves.

Only Daughter: So how many Republicans are there? Like 5?

(I wish.)

(Good girl.)

did I miss something?

Dear iTunes/iBooks customer support–

Thank you for your previous messages in your attempt to help me solve the “encoding error” problems I was experiencing after updating the software on my iPad, and which was causing most of my ebooks to appear to be empty of content. I’m sorry that you felt you were no longer able to help me. After much trial and error, I have found the solution, so I just wanted to update you, in case this situation presented itself again with another customer who was experiencing difficulties. It turns out that all I needed to do was run the iBooks app update. Everything is now fine. I’m actually surprised this wasn’t suggested in the first place.

S—-

 

Dear S—,

I just want to say that you are very welcome, and thanks for replying. I’m glad to hear that your issue has been resolved, and I was able to provide you with the support you deserve. I know it is always such a feeling of accomplishment, when things work out the way you want them to.

I am glad that I could assist you and best of all, put a smile on your face. Believe me, nothing makes Apple happier than knowing that we have pleased our wonderful customers. I truly hope that you continue to enjoy all that the iTunes Store has to offer.
 
Also, Apple (and myself) are currently striving for the best experience possible in making sure our customers have been taken care of to their satisfaction.
   
It was a pleasure to assist you, and I will now close this request. Remember support is just an email away if needed. You’ve truly been a remarkable asset to the iTunes Store Family and Thank you for choosing the iTunes Store.
 
Best wishes and continued happiness!

Sincerely,

Ashley
iTunes Store Customer Support
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww/

I work Thursday, Friday 7:00 AM – 3:30 PM and Monday Through Thursday 12:30 PM – 9:00 PM EST.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to assist you.

 

Let’s open this up for a vote, shall we?

How many people believe that Ashley has her replies to her customers reviewed by a superior, but not necessarily including the messages to which she is replying.

There is no possible way that she can suppose from the content of my message the she was of any use at all!!!

 

Just sayin’.

sex sells

Even Kias, the ultimate “family” car.

Am I the only one who’s tired of women’s bodies being used to sell EVERYTHING? I guess it’s supposed to be acceptable because he’s “only” dreaming, and he “rescues” his wife from the handsome interloper on the white horse at the end.

But still, what does this

or this

have to do with owning a midsize sedan?

I know, I know, it’s advertising, the whole point of which is to convince us that if we buy this thing or use this shampoo we will be sexy and desirable;

(just look at the adoration with which she is gazing at him as he drives away in his stodgy-white-middle-aged-man car)

but I’M SO TIRED of women’s bodies being the primary selling point.

Besides, the premise is ridiculous. You’re a pasty-faced, middle-aged, middle class worker bee. She’s just not that into you.

I guess I could be comforted by the fact that the rest of this man-fantasy involves a giant sub sandwich and Motley Crue signaling their approval as he drives through their performance arena (likethatwouldeverhappen); and then some cowboy riding a rhino. . .a little bizarre, but logical in some kind of a surreal way.

I know, I should stop being such a feminist fuddy-duddy. Or maybe I should just stop watching television.

supermodels and actresses, sometimes without makeup

I stumbled across this article recently because a friend had posted it on her facebook page.

(As an aside, I feel it necessary to point out that I, being of an older, more paranoid generation, went to the website myself, so that facebook wouldn’t feel compelled to tell the world that I had read the article. But that’s a topic for another day.)

“Jennifer Lawrence without makeup”

If you enter Jennifer Lawrence’s name into the Bing search engine,

(As an aside, I feel it necessary to point out that I, being of an older, more paranoid generation, no longer use Google, since Google seems to think it is perfectly acceptable not only to track my use of the internet, including the words I might write in an email message, but to use this use and these words to target advertising to me, AND remove my ability to stop it.)

you get page after page of beautiful images.

As you should; she’s a beautiful girl.

But if you enter “Jennifer Lawrence without makeup” you get page after page of snarky people, oh so happy to give her a hard time because she actually looks like a person.

Including this:

Now isn’t that charming.

(And clearly a man, although I didn’t dignify it by clicking on it, and I ask you not to either. Hence the lack of a link. If you can’t resist, well, you have your own conscience to face.)

Today someone had put this article, from “Yahoo! News” (now there’s an oxymoron if there ever was one): Supermodels without Photoshop.

(As an aside, I feel it necessary to point out that I, oh, never mind. . .)

This seemed related to the post that was percolating in my mind, so I went there to see more. Most of the pictures were of perfectly beautiful girls looking perfectly beautiful but without makeup. There was one picture of a trio of supermodels waiting for the Glamour photographer to snap his shot.

The one on the left is obviously anorexic, the one in the middle is a “plus-size” model, which probably just means that she can buy clothes off the rack, and her suit bottom seems to be a size too small, but she seems to have a perfectly beautiful, normal, womanly shape. The one on the right seems to have left her hips at home, but I’m sure once the photographer starts clicking she can jut one off to the side to make herself appear to have at least one.

Oh, look, she can. Good for her.

Aside: I’m always curious about this, as the majority of models have quite voluptuous breasts [without our knowing whether they are “real” or not] and no hips to speak of. Yet they always stand in hip-jutting poses, demonstrating clearly that having hips is desirable. Is the non-existent-yet-jutting hip somehow neater or sexier than the actual hip? Is there, for example, something wrong with her?

or do you remember when Kate Winslet was in Titanic, and people said she was “fat”?

Anyway, the “author” of the “article” poses this difficult and thought-provoking question:

Ya’ think?

Angioplasty for 4 please?

Husband’s birthday cake, once frosted, will contain 3 sticks of butter. I’m not exaggerating. I’m suggesting we just smoke a carton of cigarettes each and go remove asbestos from some falling down, lead-painted building and call it even.

David Javerbaum’s “A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney”

One of the best lines I’ve read re: the presumptive nominee:

“. . .any person who tells you he or she truly ‘understands’ Mitt Romney is either lying or a corporation.”

You can read the whole thing here.