Charmed, I'm sure.

Are you charming?

Who is the most charming person you know.

What is "charming?"

How can one be MORE charming?

I H E A R T O H I O

Dance Party Friday!





I want to see Mark Nolan do this!!

This is a news channel in Cincinnati, Ohio

Corner of Route 14 and 44.

This is what it looks like at 5:52am in the Portage county seat.

The air felt like cold, dry, road-salt .

It smelled like coffee and gasoline.

I felt dizzy, tired, empty.

"You are so swell, just like DSL."

Last weekend when I was babysitting for my sister, her daughter (12) and her daughter's friend (13) wanted to go online. I called my sister to make sure they were allowed to do that.

She said yes, but only for an hour. She told me to "keep on eye on 'em" while they are online.

Do you know how hard that is?! I kept making excuses to walk through the dining room. I mostly saw them looking at some sort of animal game. No biggie.

Towards the end of their hour visit to internet land I noticed they were on MySpace.

I never had a problem with MySpace and always thought "What's the big deal?" But at that moment I wanted to find Tom and bitchslap him. All I could think of was that damn Dateline show with the parade of pervs.

I told the girls it was time to say goodbye to the interweb and get ready for dinner.

I heard the Hot Toddies sing HTML on WCSB the other morning. This song helps to explain why I don't ever want any of my nephews or nieces on the world wide web. Ever.

Great song tho!

Speaking of food...

The Grovewood Tavern is having a beer tasting dinner.

I would love to go to that.

I need to ask for a raise.

"Boss, can I have more money? I want to go taste beers."

I am listening to an interview with Michael Pollan on Science Friday on NPR. It's an archived show from January 4th.

Michael Pollan is an author. He just wrote In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.

His philosophy is "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Simple.

He says that in

1960, people spent 18% of their yearly income on food and 5% on Health Care.

Today people spend 9.5% of their yearly income on food and 18% on Health Care.

Hmmm. Ya think something is wrong?

A reason to send some cards and letters!

How cool are these stamps!?!? I really liked the Warhol stamps when they came out but I just love the new Eames ones more!

I am gonna run out and get some now!

I just can imagine how Eames is being pronounced at the post office.

Probably the same way I pronounced it before being corrected by my real artist friends.

Quiet on the set! People! We're making movies here!!

I hung out this weekend with a group of actors, directors, writers, cinematographers, choreographers and key grips.

Here is the result.

Unapologetic


From the January 8th, 2008
Op-Ed in the NYT by Gloria Steinem

I'm supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country's talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule. I'm not opposing Mr. Obama; if he's the nominee, I'll volunteer. Indeed, if you look at votes during their two-year overlap in the Senate, they were the same more than 90 percent of the time. Besides, to clean up the mess left by President Bush, we may need two terms of President Clinton and two of President Obama.


But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.


What worries me is that she is accused of "playing the gender card" when citing the old boys' club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.


What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn't.


What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama's dependence on the old - for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy - while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.


What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.


This country can no longer afford to choose our leaders from a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers and paper degrees. It's time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers. We have to be able to say: "I'm supporting her because she'll be a great president because she's a woman."

Did you know?

I didn't.

A Tip Top day.

On Sunday Mike and I had breakfast at the Tip Top diner in Stow.

We spent the morning visiting my father in the hospital. We also met with his doctor to find out what we need to do, what we need my father to do, to get out of the hospital, out of rehab facilities and back home.

He just has to work harder in getting mobile. He can't even stand up on his own. He also has some dementia. It's so scary to even type that.

Most people are ready to take on any phyical illness....but dementia. What the heck do ya do with that? I know all the textbook answers to that question.

But emotionally, and deep in my gut...it's frightening. I worry about my dad. I worry about my mom. And I feel selfish too. I don't want to have to deal with all of this. I feel guilty too. Like I am not doing enough. I guess the reason I "feel" guilty is because it's true. I am not doing enough.

But the guilt goes away and gets replaced by anger when I hear that my father got on the phone this past week and ordered over $150 worth of food from a local pizza place for all the nurses on his floor of the hospital. He told the pizza place he would pay for it when it arrived.

He then called my mom and asked her to drive over with the money or to "call a cab and have them bring the money to the hospital."

My brother had to call the pizza place and explain to the owner what was going on and that we don't have the $150 for the food. The pizza owner had just gone thru some stuff with his own father and was very kind and only charged us half of what it all cost. Still . . . that's $75 my mom and brother could not afford.

I don't know who to be more angry at.

• My dad for doing this stupid shit? It's not like the dementia brought this on. He has always done this kind of ridiculous grandstanding.

• The pizza shop for agreeing to deliver $150 worth of food to a patient calling from the hospital?

• Me because my mom was afraid to call and tell me about this on the day it happened?