til you drop

I just posted my second-to-last PaMaDoCoBloNaBloPoMo entry on the Paste site; tomorrow's entry is already scheduled, and once it goes live, I will have blogged or otherwise posted on the site at least once a day for thirty days straight. You can read them all here. It's kind of silly and geeky, but I'm proud. And glad it's over. And yes, I wrote three blog posts over my Thanksgiving break. If I ever do this again, it will for sure be during a month uninterrupted by a national holiday.

etsy shop update!

Etsy Buy Handmade madeyedesigns

New hats (and, if you haven't been in a bit, new armwarmers, too). I have a growing pile at home, so there are more on the way. If I do say so myself, they make pretty nice gifts.

Live at Paste: The Everybodyfields - "Worth Keeping"

This song cuts me in half and scoops out my insides like I'm a butternut squash. Also, my Oglethorpe mug was on that stage somewhere. Famous!

so good to be home

I'm up at my parents' house for the holiday weekend. I slept in this morning and woke up around 8:30 feeling stuffy under my blankets and smelling like hot ripe sweat. Only it wasn't sweat, it was my mom cooking turkey stuffing in the kitchen downstairs. Onions. Not armpits. Wonderful. Also, my mom was singing-- loudly, as she often does when she's the only one home or the only one awake-- my new favorite song. I thought she must be mocking me to get me out of bed. I wandered downstairs and stood in the doorway of the kitchen and she was still singing and kept singing and then noticed me and looked up kind of sheepishly, and I said, "Beyonce?" and she said, "Oh, is that who it is?" and I said, "I love that song," and she said, "Are you making fun of me?" and I said, "No, I thought you might be making fun of me." Then I did make fun of her because I realized she had the words completely wrong: If you liked it then you shoulda put a spin on it-- what? I had to explain it to her. I had to use the term "brotha." I showed her the hand dance. This week will probably be great.

Signs of Life 2008: Best Music

Paste's end-of-the-year lists are all online now, so the Internet has begun its once(ish)-annual hatefest. Nice. Our album of the year is also my own personal #1. Zooey handed me that Kool-Aid and I drank it right up!

Lipstick Jungle might not get cancelled and it's all my fault!

Yesterday, I pondered NBC's cancellation of Lipstick Jungle, a moderately okay show, in light of the network's extension of Kath & Kim, a ragingly horrific show. Today, we get word that Lipstick Jungle might not actually be cancelled after all, maybe possibly! Coinscidence? I think not so.

Joe was here two weekends in a row. Two Saturdays ago, on my birthday, we went on a walk downtown. I didn't have to wear socks, and there were crispy fall leaves all over the sidewalks, and Decatur was already putting up its Christmas wreaths on the lamp posts on Ponce. I don't like that. But I do like him.

bow down

Nimrod Workman: I Want To Go Where Things Are Beautiful

I reviewed this album of songs by an 87-year-old black-lunged former coal miner for the December/January issue of Paste. It's one of the most incredible collections of music I've heard in a while, and it was an honor to write about it. This man was an unequivocal badass. Also, very toothless.

last call

Since the time change last weekend, every day around 5:20 PM the sun, as it sets, has exploded through the window that's slightly to the left and across the office from my desk. It looks like this. For about five minutes the light is so blinding that I can hardly see my laptop screen, then the sun it moves behind the building or the treeline or something. From there on, it gets dark pretty fast, and I'm not to keen on walking home in the dark, so it's a nice reminder to hurry up and get things done so I can get home while it's still light outside. And, yep, that's pretty much my view all day.

Videogum | Barack Obama Is Our Nintendo 64

This is how I feel! And also, "Now we can order games from Blockbuster!" is essentially equivalent to my weirdly delayed realization that Obama being President means Sarah Palin won't be Vice President. Pooping is also equivalent to that reaction. Especially now that we know Santa might have stuck us with a three-legged, warty, ringworm-infested puppy who didn't know Africa was a continent.

sinking in

Althea, our Paste:Local Chicago editor, was at Grant Park last night. 

Editing that story, I think, was officially the most surreal part of my day.

ohmybama

I'm excited, relieved and proud but generally beyond the realm of all known human emotion. I woke up this morning feeling like I must have dreamed it. I haven't cried yet but I think it's coming. My nervous stomach finally loosened up a few hours ago and since then all I've wanted to eat was the curry chicken salad I ordered at Twain's last night that I only ate half of and proceeded to just stab and poke and pick and rearrange on its bed of lettuce while watching the rest of the returns. It all happened so fast. I still can't believe it happened so fast.

Michelle Obama-- our new First Lady elect, can you believe it-- drew a lot of heat for saying something like this a few months ago, but today I echo her statement with absolute certainty and absolute absence of fear: For the first time in my adult life, I am proud to be an American.

I've decided that my goal in life is to one day successfully make some musician totally uncomfortable by casually quoting their lyrics to them in passing conversation. Once we get that African American president thing sorted away, I mean.

Pretenders in Chief: Paste casts the Presidents

I had more fun working on this than almost any other project in my time at the magazine. (Kathy Bates as Nixon is my favorite one.) The meeting when we brainstormed the list was an absolute giggle fest and I felt, and feel, so lucky to be able to work with these people on a daily basis. God, I just feel so warm and fuzzy about every thing today! Vote Denzel!

VOTE HOPE, VOTE OBAMA

At 6:30 AM, I woke up to these kids campaigning for Tom Stubbs (but really, Obama) across the street from my apartment. My building is next to a church that serves as a polling place-- where I would have voted if I didn't go early last week-- and by then there was already a line down the block. At first I thought there were three kids accompanied by one of their mothers, but then realized that there was actually just one of them that was a good bit taller than the others-- they were all eleven or twelve, maybe thirteen. They were basically doing softball cheers for Stubbs and Obama, shaking signs and waving t-shirts and squealing whenever cars driving by honked at them.

"Obama's for you AND yo mama," the tall girl kept saying. "Obama's for you AND yo mama! You AND you mama!"

When I woke up I was wide awake, fully and completely alert. I didn't even get out from under the covers at first, I just lay there and listen to them, and found myself fighting back tears. I got up and made coffee and ate a muffin, standing at my kitchen window, looking out over the line at the church next door. Last night, I cut up a shoe box and exhausted my black Sharpie supply on a sign that says Vote Hope that I taped up in my window, facing the church. I didn't end up volunteering last night, and it's a pathetic contribution when so many people I know have done so much, even these kids that probably won't even be old enough to vote for the next-next president.

An hour after they woke me up, when I was leaving my apartment to go to work, nearly two hours early, they were still going strong.

Today is such an amazing day.

If you haven't already, please vote hope.

yes we can have pumpkin muffins

I made these tonight instead of following up on the impulse I had this afternoon to go get out the vote for Obama in Decatur. Probably not the best choice in the grand scheme of things, I know-- but damn, they are tasty. Smitten Kitchen has not failed me yet. And I still might go volunteer tomorrow night. I'm not sure. I'm just really afraid of knocking on strangers' doors, even for such a good (understatement) cause. But perhaps there's a need for a Campaign For Change Director Of Baked Goods Services, in which case I will be all over it. 

candy vote!

I saw this little guy and his amazing costume on the 11 o'clock news last night-- because yes, I am a 65 year old woman, and I was watching the 11 o'clock news on not just any night but on Halloween. Also I was crocheting. Then when the sports segment came on I went to bed. But anyway, first of all, adorable. Second of all, ADORABLE. Third of all, he must have incredibly awesome parents because there is no way he could have done all the web design (not to mention costume design) by himself, and also because how do you get to be that kind of ADORABLE by nature alone?

He trick-or-treated in Decatur and asked people to "vote with their candy," putting it either in the McCain slot or the Obama slot. Kind of unsurprisingly, Obama brought in the biggest haul-- I love my little crunchy granola Decatur, but if he'd been out in Gwinnet, the results definitely would have been flipped-- but here's hoping this holds the same weight as the Scholastic "Kids Pick the President" Election, which has accurately predicted the results of the national election every single year (except 1948 and 1960) since 1940.

Three days. Three days three days three days.

Incidentally, I only ate one piece of candy yesterday.

Three days three days three days!