Shame on Seamus

José Saramago wrote a book about an epidemic of blindness sweeping a city and what happens as a result. [Spoiler Alert: DYSTOPIA] It’s a Serious Book that they’re making into a Serious Movie. Julianne Moore, a Serious Actress, is starring in it as a citizen who is quarantined but hasn’t gone blind. Newsweek had the opportunity to interview her about the film and this is what they asked:

NEWSWEEK: You have two kids. Do you think of yourself as a MILF?

MOORE: Oh my God. I hope so. Because if you’re not a MILF, that makes you –I don’t know, what does that make you? I don’t think anybody wants to be a MINLF.

The rest of the interview is even more retarded, if you can believe it. Four-time Academy Award nominee Moore has my admiration for pointing out that everyone likes for people to like to fuck them. I think I would have told the reporter to go fuck himself.

I recently signed up for an essay writing class and we had our first workshopping session this week. I love the class already, not only because I think it will improve my craft (and increase my pretentious writing vocabulary) immensely, but also because it is sometimes like being in a Christopher Guest movie. The other students are all lovely and wonderful, but things occasionally veer toward the unintentionally hilarious. I so badly want to write an essay about the writing class for the writing class, but I think that may be inappropriate.

Speaking of inappropriate, I’m the youngest person in the class by at least a decade and I fear that I may not have the life experience necessary to imbue my work with the gravitas the other writers have. One of the pieces that we workshopped this week was about death and another was about contemplating marital infidelity. I’m not sure how my treatises on things like burrito-stained shirts and penguin-humping seals will go over, but I guess we’ll see next week when it’s my turn to be critiqued.

Adding to my performance anxiety is the fact that the teacher is awesome and I want to be his best friend. I really have to try hard to keep myself from laughing too heartily at his jokes or talking too loudly in that way that fourth-graders and U of C students do when they want someone to like them. We kind of had a moment this week when I was giving someone feedback and made a humorous comment on the quotations she had used in the beginning of her essay. To describe the interaction would be nearly impossible, but suffice it to say that he followed up my funny comment with a funny comment that indicated that he understood exactly why my comment was funny. It made me want to shriek WE TOTALLY GET EACH OTHER AND YOU SHOULD INVITE ME OVER SO THAT WE CAN HANG OUT AND LAUGH ABOUT STUFF AND ALSO YOUR GLASSES ARE COOL but I thought that saying that out loud might make it never, ever come true. Though his glasses really are cool.

Feminism tells us that we can have it all. Well, ladies, I’m here to tell you that feminism is wrong. You can’t have giant burritos AND pristine white shirts. Something’s gotta give, and it’s probably going to be the tortilla supporting a small child’s weight in beans and rice.

So, I was out with this guy recently and he said something about Flannery O’Connor. I had no idea who that was so I replied with something flippant about how HE does this or that. I found out this morning that Flannery O’Connor is a WOMAN.

OMG, he must have thought I was so DUMB. I haven’t been this mortified since I was informed that Haruki Murakami and Takashi Murakami are DIFFERENT PEOPLE (”I didn’t know that painter guy, like, wrote books.”)

I could just DIE.

If pigs are wearing lipstick now, does that mean us real ladies are going to be out of jobs?

One of the things I’ve been doing besides not blogging is taking pictures of the strange things I see when I’m out and about. Like this:

I had to be really sneaky about taking pictures in the women’s underwear section of Sears (that’s generally frowned upon) so I hope you enjoy this image of the weirdest pair of panties I’ve ever seen.

Another thing I’ve been doing is reading and watching everything that I can about the Republican candidate for Vice-President. Now that I’ve pulled out all my hair in frustration, I’m going to have to get me one of those Sarah Palin wigs that are apparently all the rage. Rage is what the repeated use of the term “hockey mom” inspires in me, though I’m not entirely sure that’s not the intended effect (Do you know the difference between a pitbull and a zealot? LIPSTICK and an overwhelming sense of moral superiority!). I’ll leave you with this video, which provides a hilarious answer to the question, “Can she answer that 3 a.m. phone call?” “TELL ME NONE OF THIS IS HAPPENING” indeed!

The subject line of an e-mail that I just received from a friend.

“I don’t want to read about your death on CNN and feel like I have to buy the t-shirt with the headline.”

Another gem from my inbox! A response to my personal ad from a man whose answer to the question “What did you last read?” was:

An illustrated history of the Chicago Bears…its great bathroom reading!
Anything in the bathroom. I have read the back of my shampoo bottle 5 times.
Did you know my condoms have nonoxivile 9 on them. I’m not sure what that is
but I’m excited.

I was checking my e-mail on my lunch break today when I found this in my inbox:

Holy crap, that’s me! (Second photo from the left.) A couple of people have told me that they’ve seen pictures of me in various U of C promotional materials but this is the first time I’ve seen it for myself. Seen myself for myself? Wordplay: honed those skills at the University of Chicago CENTER IN PARIS.

Anyway, I imagine they chose this picture because they think we look studious. You’re supposed to gather that I’m repeating something intelligent that I heard a professor say once and that Jessica (the girl listening) is absorbing that regurgitated knowledge for later regurgitation. Maybe this is all taking place in French because we’re at the CENTER IN PARIS. Oh la la! Quelles intellectuelles!

But I think it looks like I’ve stopped abruptly in the middle of a sentence to stare off into the distance because the minor intellectual exertion has caused me to have a stroke. Jessica is looking at me, vaguely concerned, and trying to ascertain if she should call 911 and tell them to come to the CENTER IN PARIS.