After all the ballyhoo about “getting out of Boston to escape the DNC,” it turned out that escaping the DNC did not require any extra effort or prior thinking on my part whatsoever. I escaped the DNC very easily on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, in fact, through the very simple means of paying no attention to it whatsoever.*

Then I felt rather ashamed of myself — even though I am FATNETVITU (Foreign-And-Therefore-Not-Entitled-To-Vote-In-The-USA) and put on the news yesterday afternoon just in time to watch a rather embarrassed reporter describe how things got “crazy” for “a few minutes” in the caged up demonstration area near the Fleet Center where some anarchists were burning the flag and a two-faced effigy (Bush on one side, Kerry on the other). The video showed pushing, shoving, someone falling on the floor, several very pissed off policemen, and a protester (who sounded about 19) urgently repeating “Calm down. Calm down!” As I understand it, two people were arrested, one for carrying a (papier mache) Molotov cocktail, and one for assualt and battery of a police officer. Then a Bl(A)ack Tea member commented, rather wryly, that if the police were going to position themselves so that they were surrounded by protesters, and then start using their batons to shove protesters, this kind of thing was bound to happen. “I told them,” she said.

Anyway, it soon became apparent that nothing interesting was going to happen until later at night, so I took a break from my exhausting attempt to be politically informed and drove (yes!) to Davis Square where Ross and I staked out a spot at the Someday Cafe for a bit and where I also bought a really beautiful edition of The Wizard of Oz illustrated by Lisbeth Zwerger, in library binding, for 8 dollars.

On the way home we were able to listen to the radio, because Ross was driving (I am not yet a Nightrider). We had heard Max Cleland wax lyrical about Kerry being his brother and his friend, and the man himself had gotten about two seconds into his acceptance speech when Ross turned off the engine and we went upstairs to watch the rest of the speech on the television.

My verdict? It was a good, solid speech, surprisingly substantial, even a little inspiring, and only somewhat impaired by the fact that it was delivered by John Kerry. The poor man is terribly stiff; he doesn’t let himself smile nearly enough and he just isn’t exciting. But I thought he came across as intelligent and confident, and heck, I’d vote for him if I wasn’t FATNETVITU.

After the balloons fell (Salon reports that “the post-speech analysis got off to a comical start on CNN, when the news channel inadvertently broadcast frantic comments from a Democratic producer in a rage that more balloons were not dropping from the ceiling of the Fleet Center: “”More balloons! We need all of them coming down! All balloons! Balloons? What’s happening, balloons? There’s not enough coming down. All balloons! Where the hell — there’s nothing falling! What the fuck are you guys doing up there?”) I also spent some time watching videos of various speechifying events on the official DNC website. I can now join the throngs saying “Obama 2012? Hell yeah!” What a smart, charismatic, beautiful man.

I’m still holding out for a Black, female, Muslim presidential candidate who’s gay, though.

*The strict truth is I paid some attention. Just not very much.

A minor miracle occured this morning, and the magic ingredients were a couple of emails. What was the wonder of the day? Why, my summer just got longer — ten days longer, to be exact.

As several of you have already heard several times, I had no idea what time I was supposed to show up for my first day of work this Monday morning, and I was (as usual) debating over who to call, how to find out, and generally feeling like a dumbo because really. This is information I should have, and for some reason it made me feel foolish not to have it, even though it’s not my fault I didn’t. So, after the happy chance sighting of my new boss’s name engraved on a little bronze plaque at the Coolidge Corner Theater Tuesday evening, I leaped at the chance to email him about this funny coincidence and nonchalantly ask:

a) Has the school sneakily moved into a new home over the summer? (We are shifting sites this year, and I didn’t know when.)
b) Um, what time should I come on Monday?

In the fastest response I have ever gotten from this lovely man, he informed me in a surprised tone that

a) No, we’re still where you remember us being, and
b) New teachers don’t start till August 11th!

There you have it. Another week and a half of daytime television is in store for this lucky so-and-so. And in case you were wondering, it was just a coincidence — the headmaster of my new school just happens to share the name of the president of the board of directors of the Coolidge Corner Theater. Also in case you were wondering, I still do not know what time I am supposed to show up on August 11th.

In any case, to celebrate my extended vacation time, I decided to have a leisurely lunch at 1369, where I spent a cool nine dollars on a (very good) latte and a (cold, yummy, but probably not worth $5.25) chicken BLT sandwich. While I was consuming my delicious repast, I happened to be reading this fascinating tome.

Also as it happens, I was reading Chapter Three, delicately titled “Life After Death: On human decay and what can be done about it.” It was quite a surreal experience to be flipping through pages describing the processes of autolysis (”self-digestion”), bloat, and putrefaction while attempting to fill my stomach. Apparently, scientists at the University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility study the process of decay in the name of criminal forensics — so that investigators can figure out just how long a (not recently) dead body has been dead. Let me tell you, when you’re reading something like that, you start imagining all sorts of smells. Olfactory hallucination. Which makes finishing your chicken BLT a little difficult.

Still, Stiff is worth it. It’s the kind of nonfiction I love: witty, well-researched prose on an unusual subject, full of the writer’s own intelligent musings. It also has the distinction of being the first book jointly purchased by Ross and me on our snazzy new Amnesty International credit cards, acquired for shared purchases such as gas, groceries, and little luxuries.

(Don’t tell him I’m planning on putting my next pair of earrings on it.)

Well, it took a while, but I finally saw it.

It probably goes without saying that I came away with mixed feelings; I don’t know how you can be a thinking human being and not come away from this film with mixed feelings, whether you think Michael Moore is a prophet of Truth or rabidly anti-American. For about the first third of the production, I was mostly just annoyed by Moore’s fondness for juxtaposing random images with random songs and almost random phrases, as if that kind of thing is equal to making an argument:

A guitar strums. Here is George W. Bush getting his hair combed. Someone sponging makeup onto Dick Cheney. Paul Wolfowitz sucking on a comb and running it through his hair. John Ashcroft asking the camera to make him look young. Bush smirking. Suddenly, the guitar music dies and we cut to a black screen with audio of the September 11th plane crashes…..

You tell me what that is supposed to mean.

For sinister connections between the Bush family and the Saudis (or as he calls them, the “Saw-dees”), simply add shots of one of the Georges shaking hands with people in red checkered headdresses and white robes. Make sure everyone is smiling, because conspirators always smile with glee over their evil plans. Play the tinkly-music-of-oil-tycoons in the background.

And what on earth is with the implication that Bush became President just because the Fox network announced that he had won Florida?

Other dirty tricks: Shorthand, like showing three seconds of a jerky black and white video of a public beheading in Saudi Arabia to indicate that no connection with a country that would do something like that could ever possibly be legitimate. Making fun of, not the concept of the “Coalition of the Willing,” but the countries of the “Coalition of the Willing,” by showing video of people pounding rocks and monkeys sitting at a conference table.

Gah.

When the film starts to get into the war in Iraq, though, and lets real people talk about real experiences and real emotions, it gets a lot more powerful. Here’s some soldiers talking about how they can get their CD players to pipe into their helmets while they drive tanks through the streets of Baghdad bombing and shooting. The song they listen to the most is Fire Water Burn by the Bloodhound Gang. A soldier chants the lyrics with a weird smile on his face, and it is one of the creepiest things I have ever seen. I had never imagined that there would be a soundtrack to the war. Another soldier — blond, handsome, frowning — tells you that when you kill someone, you destroy some part of your own soul. A mother who has lost her son weeps in front of the White House. An Iraqi woman cries out to God after her house and the houses of her family have been razed and her relatives killed. We are all civilians, she wails. There is no militia here.

I don’t really know how to end this post. I guess I want to hear what other people think. Have you seen this movie? What do you think, especially now that the 9/11 Commission has released its report? Hit the comment button or send me an email.

When Jenn and I met in the fall of 1998, many things were different:

I still believed I was going to marry B. (Hee.)
Jenn owned a Tickle-Me-Elmo.
I had a pair of black knee-high lace up boots that I wore with almost everything.
People were interested in what Monica Lewinsky had to say.
You couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing the Dave Matthews Band.

Mostly though, things were different because I hadn’t yet realised what an incredible person Jenn was, and how much my thoughts about life and what was important in it would change because of her. Avi may remember that I made fun of her in an email for putting up a makeshift Christmas tree in our dormroom. (I thought it was hokey, because at 19 I was apparently too cool for warmth, celebration and goodwill.) I was determined to spend my life surrounded by what was beautiful and intellectual, I believed that my role in the universe was to be selfish and smart, and I thought Jenn (who wanted to spend her life using her gifts to make the world a better place) was wasting her time. The world was going to hell in a handbasket anyway; better to read a good book on the way down.

What’s amazing about Jenn is that she played such a big part in changing that attitude without ever criticizing it. She let me tease her about volunteering all her time for good causes (Hey, Brandeis! Before Jenn there were no blue recycling bins!), and she never told me how ridiculous I sounded when I said things like “Be a Big Sister? Eh. Other people can do that stuff. My job is to read, write, and say smart things about literature.”

Okay, I may not actually have said those words — but seven years ago, I lived by them.

Jenn, there is no way I would be starting a job as a middle school teacher in six days if it wasn’t for you. There is no way I would be this thrilled about working with kids if it wasn’t for you. Thank you for being in my life. Enjoy South Africa, but come home soon. I miss you.

Over the past couple of days my driving has reached a new level of expertise. On Saturday I drove to Blockbuster from Ross’s grandma’s house to return a movie. Today, I drove to the Watertown Mall so we could get a softball glove and a chess set, then to the Starbucks** down the road to get coffee, and then I drove home. After a pee break, I drove us to the Trader Joe’s in Coolidge Corner where we picked up some groceries for the week. There was some tension when I couldn’t decide which lane I wanted to be in, but otherwise, all these eminently productive trips went just fine.

In other words, I have now reached the stage of driving with a purpose, useful driving if you will, as opposed to “Let’s see how many times we can make this loop around Western Ave before dinner” driving. If someone is beside me telling me where to turn and reassuring me that no one is going to do anything crazy like drive across my path — or at least that if anyone does anything crazy like drive across my path, they will be breaking the law — I can run errands in my car. I am officially useful.

Next weekend, rotaries.

AAM*** update: the little bug has driven the five people taking care of him to exhaustion already, and he’s barely three days old! What a prodigy. Apparently he has a very distinctive cry — I was not able to ascertain if it is distinctively cute, or distinctively annoying. Also, he currently sleeps for no more than two hours at a time, so chances are, he’s awake right now. Hi, Asher!

*(For a real driver.)

**No, I do not think Starbucks is evil, and I drink their coffee often even though I am also fond of independent coffee shops. Perhaps one day I will write a post explaining why.

**Asher Avinash Moey, for those of you not paying attention. My family loves acronyms. Perhaps one day I will write a post explaining “G.R.,” “C&G,” and “ECA.” In the meantime, just believe me when I say it’s the government’s fault.

Before I went to college, I watched a lot of TV. A lot. (This is one of the reasons I know more about American pop culture than Ross does. The other reason is that his parents did things like keep the existence of cartoons a secret from him until he was about six. Which, by the way, I think is a masterful accomplishment that I recommend to my sister.) During these dark days, Party of Five used to be one of my favourite shows. I thought Griffin was smokin’ (how did he turn into that fat priest on Seventh Heaven?), and I kind of wanted to be Julia, until I noticed the annoying way she half laughed whenever she wanted to express disgusted disbelief, which on this show was often.

When I saw Wild Things for the first time in freshman year, I realised that the toothy Ms. Campbell can actually sort of act, when she refrains from feigning righteous amusement. By the way, if you’ve seen the movie poster or the trailer for Wild Things, but not yet seen the film, you may be labouring under the impression that it is a dumb, trashy, plotless production with lots of gratuitous scenes of girls who are soaking wet. In fact, it is a clever, trashy production with lots of gratuitous scenes of girls who are soaking wet, but also a good number of intruiging plot twists. It’s fun. Come see it at my house.

Anyway. My point, finally, is that I saw Robert Altman’s film The Company this evening, and fell in love with Neve Campbell all over again. The movie is quite beautiful; nothing really happens and you don’t really understand the people in it, but it feels strangely real and intimate, like listening to a stranger’s conversation on the phone — you have only a few pieces of the story, but what you have is true. And the dance scenes are quite mesmerising. At first I wasn’t sure that Neve was actually doing them herself, but what do you know?

She is.

Guess my old Julia grew up good.

Ugh.

Not even fresh raspberries, from the Harvard Square Farmer’s Market, purchased today with the lovely JLiz and the incredibly cute Nora by my side, are taking away the bad taste that that puts in my mouth. Just — ugh.