To be a city councilperson...

You need to raise at least $80,000 in a campaign (n.b. - *raise*, people sometimes spend more), otherwise you're simply not viable.

I found this out through a meeting of the local community-organizing group, which is looking to host a debate. Members of the community were really appalled by that fact, esp. since so many of the people attending the meeting were poor or marginalized or living in subsidized housing.

Was on the phone the other day with my dad....

Mom (is watching tv, calls from background): "Sarah Palin's in Haiti!"

Dad: "I hope she's drinking water from the trenches."

(then - in a put-on voice)

"She's tough, she's from Alaska, she can handle it. Drink up, Sarah!"

recent NEWFLASH update.

I saw the new Harry Potter movie last night. I paid careful attention to the school scenes, to see if there are more black students at Hogwarts than at Oxford.

My Thanksgiving: Belated Review.

My Thanksgiving was pretty good. I had wrangled an invitation to this one couple's house who have a Thanksgiving for orphans from my one friend who used to deliver singing telegrams - she's known them forever, and I had met them at a cook-out of hers back in August - and so I went there and dragged a school friend along too who was also an orphan.

The meal was good, with turkey and ham, and two kinds of gravy. One was gluten-free and the other was mushroom, and the one guy's sister who was next to me kept (gently; she was kind of big and spoke with a soothing voice) yelling at her brother because he would tell everyone that the gravy was gluten-free.

"Call it turkey gravy," she was like, "When you say it's gluten-free, you make it sound like it's missing something essential and is a second-choice gravy!"

Later, when she found out that I was studying religion, she shared with me a book she was reading, which was written by a shaman and was talking about important parallels between native american thinking and early christianity.

Fortunately, that got someone on my side of the table talking about sweat lodge retreats, which was cool... This guy was talking about how they dug a hole in the ground and filled it with hot rocks, and then covered everything with pine boughs and you were in there in the middle of the night, etc.

The other highlight of dinner was when somehow everyone started talking about traffic laws. My one friend who used to deliver singing telegrams was talking about how her mother used to call out the window in an inimitable (sp.?) southern accent, "Darling, what are you waiting for, lights don't grow any greener!". This one MFA student who ended up at dinner also shared this neologism of stopsigns you can coast through - they're "stoptional".

Also, my one friend from school, who's always finding herself in weird, dramatic situations, was talking about how she's getting a new apartment with a guy from her co-op who was kicked out for bringing a golden retriever into the house.

"I wouldn't mind it," she was like, "But the dog was abused, and I guess that changes its fur chemistry, so it's really really oily and kind of smells and likes to rub up against everything."

At that, the gluten-free woman next to me recommended giving the dog some flower extract that you can get at any health-foods store.

Later, when everyone was talking politics, she was saying that it upsets her that Obama's health care plan makes you buy health insurance, but she can't choose alternative medicine.

Thanksgiving return journey of a friend.

My one lawyer friend from Missouri went home by bus for Thanksgiving, and the trip down on Wed. was good, but on Mon. she had some different sort of folks on the bus.

One was a woman who had this helmet on the entire time for no apparent reason (maybe recent brain surgery?).

Then there was a (black) guy who was calling his girlfriend, and he was like, "Yeah, I'm coming back, I dropped out of school just to come see you... No, that was a joke, though I did escape from prison... You have a good meal on Thursday, baby? You still nice and thick for me?"

Then then, there was this (white?) girl in the seat ahead of her who kept picking chunks of skin and dandruff out of her hair, and sometimes rubbing the chunks against the sleeve of her coat real hard to see if they smeared, but mostly just eating them...

My lawyer friend kept hitting the back of her seat to make her stop, but then the girl turned around and nicely was like, "Oh, I'm sorry, is my seat too far back, do you want me to scooch it up?", and my friend said she really wanted to tell her to stop picking and eating her dandruff, but she was like, "No, you're fine, I was just adjusting my legs", but a few minutes later she couldn't take the hair-picking anymore and so got up and found another seat.

Also, she said that when she ride to work from her house, she always passes that Pakistani cafe that the cabdrivers go to, and has always wanted to stop through and was thinking once of asking me to go, but it had slipped her mind... So, we might go sometime, and she'll bring a headscarf.

NEWS FLASH - One black student at Oxford.

Or so says a NYTimes article that I read after reading a Tweet off a blog.

My responses -

- They're actually a Rhodes scholar.
- She's female, gay, and disabled, and appears in all the brochures.
- The worst part is, the kid can't even study most of the time, because everyone's trying to always touch their hair!
- (to my one British friend) "Your mission over break is to hunt them down and take a picture with them, to prove that they exist."
- Comparatively, one isn't so bad, we only have one black head-of-state.
- The kid's not even black, they were just high when they filled out the questionnaire and checked the wrong box.

The jokes write themselves. Four more and I could write a top-ten list for Letterman!

My mother's (implicit) philosophy of parenting.

A few weeks ago I made up some tapioca pudding - like last year that grocery store that had been in my apartment building had had packets of tapioca pearls on sale for a dollar and I had got a pack, but never made any - and had even mentioned to my mom I was going to make some, and then when I had called my parents after I had made it my mom asked me how it turned out.

"Good," I was like, "But no matter how long I boiled it, some of the pearls weren't cooked all the way through, though otherwise the pudding was a good consistency."

"You know, honey," my mom was like, "I didn't want to tell you and discourage you, but I've never been able to make tapioca pudding for the life of me. My grandmother used to make this beautiful tapioca pudding and even gave me the recipe, but it's turned out like yours did every time I tried it. There must be some trick out there that we don't have!"

Tomorrow evening sucks!

I'm going to the mayoral debate and missing the John Waters show *AND* the sex documentary night where the film will be about the sex lives of women over 60 and the elderly male nurse who grew up as a thug in an Italian neighborhood and then became a sexologist will be a discussion facilitator! On the email lists he already said his experiences "are not standard", but said he's been on sex-and-aging panels before and would be happy to do it if no one else can be found (which is the case).

(He also said his wife couldn't come; she never does, and I'd love to meet her.)

Anyhow, I know that that movie night alone could be the highpoint of my year. The last time there was a film that he attended (and this was ages ago, I forgot to blog about it), he was talking again about the benefits of massage among people where they feel pleasure but don't know whose hands are touching them. He then started reminiscing about how back when he was in nursing school he and a friend had invited an instructor over and were all drinking pot and sitting around smoking pot, and somehow the topic turned to nude massage, and after a bit, they all went to take off their shirts, and the instructor, was doing that - but then put his back on and bolted out the door!

"It wasn't right for him then," the retired male nurse was like.

Thoughts on my 3rd cold in 7 weeks.

I think it all goes back to that Thursday night out at the bar where they had tables for drinking games and were selling $5 forties. That must have carried through Fri. and Sat. and weakened my immune system, so I woke up Sunday with a cold.

Friends tell me I should take care of myself more and stay in if I feel sick or not go so out so much at all, but really, what's the point of that? To be stuck inside my apartment all healthy? Fuck that.