September

My entire life, the first day of school has made me nervous. I don’t know what it is, but I distinctly remember my mom trying to talk me out of my anxiety about starting the 3rd grade.

This will be my 20th first day of school – the 3rd and final year of my (/this) master’s – and I’ve been in bed for 2 hours without sleep.

Home.

I constantly save pictures of other people’s home interiors, for inspiration.  When I finally buy a place to live, this is how I want it to feel:

I’m about to be 27.

me: There’s a 2010 Warped Tour album

and it just made me realize that

I’m pretty sure that for my first Warped Tour, I still had tapes.

CHEW ON THAT, FELLOW SENIOR CITIZEN.

Craig: I STARTED LISTENING TO PUNK ROCK ON MIX TAPES

me: if you didn’t, then you never really listened to punk rock.  that’s just the way I feel about it.

Craig: AGREED

Ladieeees.

(Photo from http://hangout.altsounds.com/)

This is not my first admission of this fact, and it won’t be my last: I have what can only be described as a lady crush on Emily Haines.  I’ve seen Metric … 4 (?) times now and each time I’m a little more blown away by just how cool she is.  Most of the bands I listen to have male front-persons, unfortunately, but I can safely say I didn’t know of any female artist that was just so unabashedly comfortable on stage.

Until Thursday.

Thursday was when I saw James Taylor and Carole King, and let me tell you: Carole King could teach us all a lesson about being cool.  She just is.  That 68 year old woman was leg-kicking and song-belting like crazy.  She looked at ease the whole time, but also like she was having the time of her life.  I walked in a fan, but I walked out in love.  The thing these two women have in common, in my opinion, is how it’s so apparent that this is who they are – it’s not an act.

I commented to Kate how simply she was dressed, but how awesome she looked.

me: but I guess if you’re just cool in general, you can wear a garbage bag

Katie: pretty much. it’s why women like her wear jeans to perform and people like Britney Spears wear leotards and snakes and sequins

—

Now I’m really pumped to read Girls Like Us, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for at least six months.

P.S. – My apologies for how many times I used the word, “cool” in this post, but there’s really no appropriate alternative.

P.P.S. – Emily, if you’re reading this, don’t worry.  You’re still my lady crush.

Loved this.

New Rule: Al Gore Must Come Out With a Sequel to His Film and Call It An Inconvenient Truth 2: What the F*ck Is Wrong With You People?

“A bunch of depressing new surveys reveal that people in droves are starting to believe that global warming is a hoax — and this time, it’s not just us. People are always accusing me of hating America and calling it stupid, so tonight I’d like to take a few moments to hate England and call it stupid. Because now English people don’t believe in global warming either. I thought the English were smarter than that. The home of Newton and Darwin. I can’t believe we let these people build our exploding oil platforms.

Reason #42…

… why living with my boyfriend would be better than living alone:

I slept (if you can call it that) on the couch because I was convinced I heard some sort of woodland creature in my bedroom last night.

A Renter’s Miracle!

Today, I deposited the returned security deposit that my ex-landlord had sent me weeks ago.  It was just sitting in my wallet, waiting to join the rest (/few) of the dollars in my checking account.  And then poof! My security deposit check turned into…

a Trek 7.3 FX in White!!

I should be carrying it up my three flights of stairs by Wednesday.  Though it’s been fun riding around on the bike my dad bought me when I was 13, it’s time for a grown-up set of wheels.  The bike shop right next door was having a $50 off sale that ended 3 minutes after I ordered this puppy.  I’m PUMPED.

Self-Identification

I was just reading a  Time article  on the 2010 U.S. Census that got me hoping, once again, that sooner or later all this box-checking will go away.  As someone who is 50% Italian and 50% Puerto Rican, I find myself looking at the list of “Race/Ethnicity” options on applications with a bit of resentment.  A few years ago, there were changes to the verbiage around the choices, to say things like, “Caucasian/White (non-Hispanic),” “African American/Black (non-Hispanic,” and even, “Two or More (non-Hispanic).”  But… I AM two or more AND I’m Hispanic.  What to do?  The only box my sister and I can check, then, is the “Hispanic/Latino/Puerto Rican” one, thus making us completely lose the other half of my heritage on any public record.

The article says that the options listed on the 2010 Census comply with the race categories set some 13 years ago, and won’t be updated for another 10 years.  In fact, the article even mentions that the current form includes the word “Negro;” How was this term not removed in 1997?  It doesn’t exactly give me hope for the changes that will be made in 2020.  In a country with ever-changing demographics, how can we possibly look at the results of these polls with any confidence in their accuracy?  So, what’s the point? 

Many, if not most, Hispanics in the U.S. think of their ethnicity (also known as Latino) not just in cultural terms but in a racial context as well. It’s why more than 40% of Hispanics, when asked on the Census form in 2000 to register white or black as their race, wrote in “Other” — and they represented 95% of all the 15.3 million people in the U.S. who did so.

Well, that’s for sure.  If I pressed my Puerto Rican grandparents to decide whether they are black or white, I’d probably get beaten with a wooden spoon covered in rice.  You do not want to mess with a Latino when it comes to his/her background.  Everyone knows that, except the U.S. Census Bureau apparently.

 

For the Millennials/Generation Y (born between 1980-2000, depending on your source), this is really going to be tricky.  I mean, if Dave and I have a baby it’s going to be Puerto Rican, Italian, Greek, German and Russian.  I’m guessing they won’t have a box for that, even in the 2020 update.  The rate of inter-racial marriages and parenting is going up (I tried to find statistics on this, but the numbers seem very low to me – 2.4% interracial married couples, which could obviously be a product of the lack of identifiers on polls.) 

 

What I really hope is that we get to a place where there is no racial or ethnic differentiation, because there is no longer enough discrimination based on these factors to bother accounting for them.  Call me a hippy, but as much passion as I have around diversity issues, a girl can dream that my hypothetical children never even discuss such things. 

Oh yes.

Jónsi – “Time To Pretend” (MGMT Cover)

After I heard this, I felt like it was the way the song was supposed to be done.

Some of my friends love the Jersey Shore

“He’s [The Situation] got his own cologne coming out too.” - Petite

“stop it.” - me

“I wish I was lying.” - Petite

“you wish you were wearing it, is what you wish.

Is it going to smell like skunked beer and Axe?” - me

“Latex and chlorine” - Petite

“tanning lotion and cheap vodka” - me

“Second hand smoke and marinara sauce.

Ya know, work the ethnic angle.” - Petite

“you win.

you win with, ‘marinara sauce.’” - me