Barack & Roll?

Now that our world has officially been (ba) rocked the echoes of last tuesdays cheers are slow to fade away. Christmas came early this year, and now it's called Obamaday. It seems that everyone wants to express their moment, have a warm fuzzy with a black person (Maureen Dowd), announce their joy & hope for the new year. Even Billy Bragg is ready to take down the union jack and hang an obama pepsi logo from Buckingham Palace.

Girls, girls, girls

Before we get into this I just want to say one thing - I cried watching "How to Make An American Quilt" and I love "Mean Girls". That said my general world view of girl on girl action is something more akin to "Heathers". Ms. Friedan and the prickly Gertrude Stein shaped my thoughts into a Georgia O'Keefe sculpture pretty early on. Still, it must be said. In fact I'm convinced it's true for most of us, I would prefer my memoir to be entitled "In the Company of Men". In the last few days women have been rearing their curled, shiny, well manicured heads in every landscape of my life.
1. My boss is like Poison Ivy.
I know I hate my boss. How painfully unoriginal. But seriously, your boss is like Shannon Doherty, my boss is like Poison Ivy. I'm allergic to her, she's an infectious oily scum, and she makes my eyes puffy. (This last part is mostly from the crying). This woman is on Anna Wintour proportions, not literally she actually has an awful habit of wearing socks with sandals. This sandals bit is one of my primary points of contention with her existence.

Single Town

Almost 30% of Americans live alone. I was happily one of those people until yesterday. Living with someone else seems brilliant. We are social creatures, they'll pay half the rent, they'll share cooking and cleaning, mostly they'll share. Living with someone else is about the desire to share your life, to be constantly social. I only have this desire while living alone. I've lived alone for almost 4 years, there was a brief nightmare in Park Slope where i lived in a railroad with a hoarder and a mute, socially awkward "screenwriter" aka delusional executive assistant. 4 years of bliss: dinner and a book, luxurious naps on the coach, stalking the staircase writing nasty little haikus - and my personal favorite - silence. Dear god, silence. It hasn't all been scenes with leatherbound book backdrops and classical music. These 4 years have been graced with dance parties, rioting songs, and an endless stream of mysterious guests - guests who always left. In fact, that may have been my favorite quality about them. Only when you live alone can you wake up in the morning on your wine stained porch wearing nothing but downy soft boy. Roommates have a tendency to ruin these moments just by existing.

One of my best friends has just moved out from the east coast to find whatever adventure the west coast has been promising for centuries and failing to deliver. At first I was excited, thrilled even. Within hours this excitement developed a sallow pallor and began to cough. I was tired. There was suddenly this girl standing between me and my dinner & a book routine. A girl standing between me and my date with 400 threadcount sheets and pillowtop mattress. It got worse from there. Glasses were rearranged, chotchkes appeared like chimeras. A charming chandelier was nicknamed 'the banana republic'.
banana republic?! the only oppressor in this apartment is you! was all I could think staring down the yellow barrel of a pointed petal (ok, maybe it kind of does kind of look like bananas). Two weeks dredged like two years. Talking. We were always talking. Television became the only passport to that lovely ocean of silence. Somewhere amidst all of this talking I said what mattered. I said those three important words. 'please get out' immediately followed by the three words i confuse with 'i'm sorry', 'i love you'. She did. Four days and three missed planes later.

She called yesterday. She'll be back on my coach by the end of the month. A surf princess who bubbles, froths and drifts in and out of lives like the ocean.