Today's Happy: Steppin' in it, live at Bell's Biergarten on a perfect, starlit warm spring night, with good food and abundant beer and close friends.
If you don't know this really, truly American band yet, check out some of these videos. They're just about my favorite thing to listen to, of late. And once, many many years ago, I played tunes with the Brothers Wilson at a Park Lake Pickin' Party out at Mike and Tamineh's house. Good, good times, and I really can't say enough positive things about this band.
My Job.
You know those dot com jobs you hear about, with the impossibly cool bosses, and the unrestrictive dress codes, and the nerfgun fights, and the foozball tables? I work at that job, and I love it. I've never worked in a place where I felt so welcomed and where I fit so well.
So today, we had our annual departmental meeting. At the bowling alley/go-kart/laser tag/mini-golf emporium. With an open bar. And a taco buffet. Sipping draft beer, my boss and I decided on what new skills I was going to learn this year, and the possibility of my taking classes or a seminar or something to get me started on that path.
I love my job.
Some people think AmazonFail was just a glitch, and that everyone overreacted. Some people don't.
Woodrow "Asim" Hill wrote a very thoughtful entry on the torture memos, which sums up how I feel. In the comments, someone linked to this blog, written by a former military interrogator. I thought this post was especially worth reading, but most of his recent entries are very educational.
This post touches on why most of my post-RaceFail blogging has been linking to other articles. I am reading a lot of books and articles lately, but I don't feel like my analysis would add anything -- would most likely detract from it, in fact -- so better the authors' words on the subject than mine.
The Radical and the Republican, by James Oakes, is a really great book. Highly recommended.
Easter in Orange County is a long essay about suburban culture and Jewish identity, but it's definitely worth your time to read. Alas, a Blog is turning out to be one of my favorite reads, lately. Hereville Barry Deutsch's graphic novel (aka Ampersand, the primary blogger at Alas) and it's also quite a good read.
Thing that makes me happy today? Paul.
I had kind of a crummy day today. Certainly nothing major or drastic, but one thing happened that hit me in the gut, emotionally speaking. I went out for lunch with coworkers, and came back to find that Paul had left me something at the front desk. It was an "Incredible bar" from the local coffee house, a confection of dark chocolate and peanut butter so dense that it's almost impossible to eat one by yourself (note that I said almost... *cough*). On the bag was a little note telling me not to let jerks get me down, and that he thought I was incredible.
He's all mine, folks. You can't have him.
From N.K. Jemisin (aka nojojo) over at Alas, a Blog.
Hey, nobody said they had to be consecutive days.
Today's happy: This past weekend. Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous day, so I spent about eight hours getting the yard and garden whipped into shape. I painted the front steps, cleaned out the fishpond and added a dozen tiny feeder goldfish, raked, bagged leaves, propped up sagging hyacinths, weeded, and scrubbed off the outdoor furniture.
Sunday was a nice, quiet laid back day by comparison; the weather was twenty degrees colder and it drizzled rain all day (Say Yes! to M!ch!gan!) so I spent the morning reading books and drinking coffee. Mid-afternoon, Paul and I drove to Chicago to see the dry run of the This American Life show that will be beamed to movie theatres nationwide next Saturday. I'd never been to the Chicago Theatre before, and was blown away by how beautiful it was. They really don't make 'em like they used to.
Anyway, the show was really fun, and if you have tickets for the upcoming movie theatre version, you're in for a treat. Dan Savage (though he's been a bit disappointing lately) gives an incredibly funny, heart-tugging monologue, and Starlee Kine and Mike Birbiglia also deliver solid performances. There's a new Chris Ware Quimby Mouse cartoon, which is so definitively Chris Ware that I'm not going to say anything else lest I spoil it.
So yeah, great weekend.
And here's some bonus happy: I was still feeling really sad that I didn't get to go to Stumptown this weekend (Curse you, airlines!!) but an ex-coworker of mine who moved to Eugene with his wife last year went and had a great time. They knew I was all bummed out, and so what did they do? They got me a special, limited-edition commemorative Bite Me! wooden spoon from Dylan Meconis! Seriously? I have the best friends ever. Theriouthly.
Paul and I had an outstanding dinner with three other couples this evening at a fabulous local restaurant, Martini's. Much of the interior was salvaged from an old church that was torn down a few years ago, and designed by a friend of ours. He created the corner booth we shared tonight, a hexagonal seat made from fitting sliced-up oak church pews together, and shielded from the rest of the room by dyed silk hung over the old, ornately carved organ baffles. If a church has to come down, and its decorations sold off, far better that its non-religious parts be put to beautiful use in a place like this. The dinner was delicious, the company was excellent, and we drank waaaaay too much wine.
Also, there's a brand-new Thai restaurant in town. I can't speak for the food's authenticity, but everything we sampled was delicious and the vegetables were amazingly fresh, especially considering this is April in Michigan. I had a green curry with shrimp, and the shrimp were enormous (put your thumb and forefinger together; they wouldn't pass through the hole), flavorful and plentiful. They also had my favorite kind of appetizer: summer rolls with a perfectly balanced, house-made peanut-chili-vinegar sauce. I miss Dalat in Ypsi so much; I lived around the corner from them for about four years. In hot weather I used to eat a big stack of those summer rolls for dinner, and I'm looking forward to doing the same this summer.
Yay food.
Lea Hernandez is rebooting Rumble Girls -- and she needs your help to do it. She's testing the "Long Tail"/1000 True Fans theory -- wherein you get together enough True Fans who each pledge a few bucks, thereby enabling you to work as an artist without having a dayjob. If you've got it to spare, go throw some cash her way. You won't be sorry.
If you don't know why this makes me happy, then you should go check out her online portfolio. Rock on, Lea!
Now here's a meme I can get behind. For eight days, post something that makes you happy.
Day one: I would have died if we'd ever done anything this awesome in high school. I love nerds so much, and the only thing I love more than nerds are nerd-enabling teachers. Mister Orchestra teacher? You rock so hard.
Hat tip to Mark B. and Layla for the meme.
Dang it, Amazon! I tried (and failed) to cancel the order I placed through them on Saturday, but I did also sign this petition. I'd already started to move over to Powell's for the majority of my online ordering, and until this gets favorably resolved, that's where the rest of my money's going.
ETA: Update here.
I did some ego-surfing the other day, and in the process, saw some critique of my use of the terms "Persons of Color" and "Readers of Color" -- someone even said they found the terms "despicable".
So I thought I should probably post about why I started using these terms; they were new to me as well, as of a couple of months ago, but they were the accepted terminology used by the majority of writers during the Cultural Appropriation Debate that then spiraled into RaceFail 09, so I used the terms I was presented with.
Here's a good explanation, from the The American Heritage® Book of English Usage:
Dissatisfaction with the implications of nonwhite as a racial label has contributed to the revival of the phrase person of color or similar terms, such as woman of color, based on the same construction. In effect, person of color stands nonwhite on its head, substituting a positive for a negative. Furthermore, the almost exclusive association in American English of colored with black—that is, with Americans of African descent—does not carry over to terms formed with “of color.” Indeed, the somewhat artificial sound of person of color serves to emphasize that something other than colored person is probably intended, so that when Jesse Jackson proclaims that “These are profound tendencies which strike at the middle class as well as the poor, at whites as well as people of color,” he is encouraging his audience to think more inclusively than if he had juxtaposed white with black. In this light, the term person of color and its related forms are welcome additions to the vocabulary of race and ethnicity.
There's plenty of discussion in regards to this, so I'm keeping my ears open, and trying to be more aware of preferred terminology going forward, as well.
Is online now. Go check it out.
The first crocuses and baby daffs have finally bloomed, letting me know that spring is a reality and not just some huge tease. I mean, it snowed a solid inch last Sunday; Michigan is cruel in springtime, and for the last month or so it's felt like we were living on the set of The Road. I planted another three dozen tulip and daff bulbs last fall, and I'm desperate to see some more evidence of life.