Itinerantdaughter's Blog

My friend T lives in Lithuania (the reason for my visit there back in April) and he sent me this, to be disseminated amongst the more “aware” populations:

“OH! I was about to finish there, but realized I had an experience that I PROMISED to pass on to the civilized world. So I was talking to this Lithuanian woman, and she was criticizing the midwest – I was fine with it – she would fit right in over there. Anyway, she said something about how Americans are “racist” and I replied that it was certainly still a problem, but its easy for people like Lithuanians to make such accusations when their is absolutely no racial diversity in their country. I continued to point out that Lithuanian treatment of Jews and gays is pretty indicative of its overall low level of tolerance. She looked at me sternly and said – “well . . . I AGREE with that behavior.” I stood there dumbfounded momentarily, mostly just trying to understand how I ended up talking to someone so stupid. She continued on to tell me about how “the gays” have a secret manifesto and they plan on enslaving women and cloning only men (which means the female slaves would die off – seems like a waste – but i kept that to myself). Furthermore, according to my source, this plan was very realistic, because “everyone knows” how rich and influential “the gays” are . . . and how they have “infiltrated” the American government. I began laughing, because, well, how else do you react to something like that? But I have to say that part of me was petrified of the ignorance and self-assuredness in this woman’s speech. She clearly isn’t the only person with such views, and none of the Lithuanians standing around me shared my complete disgust (they didn’t defend her, but still seemed to be mulling over the discussion as if it were an interesting and complex debate – instead of one person spewing filth and the other trying desperately to digest what was being said without exploding). I eventually was able to control myself and told her that I can’t wait to tell my friends back home about her theory. Done and done. “

My father is a Libertarian, and he reads a lot of Reason magazine. When I told him I was blogging, and slightly ashamed of it, he sent me a link to an article about a new book called Say Everything by Scott Rosenberg, one of the founders of Salon. Link is below the excerpt.

Reason: Near the end of the book, you describe bloggers as the “curators of our collective history.”

Rosenberg: In the future, when people write the history of our time, they’re going to have this incredible trove of information. It’s not totally raw, but it is much broader than the material historians have had to work with in the past. It encompasses a much wider swath of humanity. I can’t help thinking of that as a monumental achievement.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/134784.html

There is a Kicking and Screaming other than the awful Will Ferrell one. It was directed by Noah Baumbach, who later directed The Squid and the Whale and Margot at the Wedding, and released in 1995, and is probably one of the most quotable post-collegiate malaise movies ever. (Surprisingly a large category!)

“How can you be nostalgic? We only graduated four months ago.”

“I’m nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I’ve begun reminiscing events before they even happen. I’m reminiscing this right now. I can’t go to the bar because I’ve already been there in my mind, and I didn’t have a good time.”

Question: is there a word that means, “To do something specifically for its value as a memory”? If not, there should be.

PS: also zoloft does wonders for tempering my sex drive, so that helps!
ID: hooray zoloft!
PS: sad egg no more
you remember that commercial right?
ID: tugged at my heart strings, fo shiz
PS: zoloft egg
me: but i was on zoloft once and i never got to be a happy egg!
and it’s the cutest thing EVER!
PS: its so cute!
ID: darling

Don't you just want to hug it?!