i put down Huckleberry Finn long enough to type this blog

i've had a hell of a time writing lately, by which i mean to say i haven't been writing. what's frustrating is that this isnt a bout of my typical "meh, i'll type something up later" syndrome. it's the "i have shit ton of things to say, but everytime i open up my word processer i blink at the screen three times before trawling through twitter again."

which is to say, i have been reading. a lot. and not just my daily diet of Washington Post articles, Slate features, and various assortments of Twitter and Tumblr feeds. real reading, like i used to do back when i was 8 years old and books were my closest friends and primary source of entertainment. i've gobbled down Lewis Carrol, Joan Didion, Edwidge Danticat, Azar Nafisi, Truman Capote, and now Mark Twain with a vigor unseen in any other aspect of my life right now.

in some ways, it's been my way of escaping what has already been a difficult year. that caveat aside, i must admit that it's been good to be that girl again. i've been underlining passages in books and writing them down again in one of my myriad unused notebooks. though i've never forgotten what enamors me to literature, i haven't committed myself to so much reading time in a while, and i regret that i've waited for so long. topical articles may inform you of the happenings of the day -- from the beautifully mundane to the large and incomprehensible. literature, however, enhances your ability to imagine that world more fully, to draw those myriad experiences near to you. it's not information you seek in art, but understanding.

hopefully my words will come back to me soon. until then, i'm quite happy to lean on the voices of giants.

Your Momma Wears Ojamas.

Here in the D.C. Area, we're doing our best to exploi-- err, welcome the incoming Obama administration. Yet, even in an unrelenting tidal wave of Obama paraphernelia (buttons, t-shirts, socks, coffee cups, hats, bumper stickers, tote bags, calendars and oil paintings), Ojamas stand out.

Perhaps they speak most directly to American tackiness, our patriotic inclination towards kitsch.

Or, is this (and by this, we could speak of the tidal wave as a whole) an inspired way of reviving a lethargic economy, appealing to our optimism while gently tugging at our wallets?

Is this merely capitalism at its most aggressive and absurd? Tempering it's own cynical motivation with charity contributions?

Or is it something more manipulative than that?

Is this consumerism that directly leeches off our collective voyeurism? Our desire to say that we were there, that we took part, that we were one of the throbbing multitude. And here (in this tote bag, these pajamas, these commemorative kicks with red, white, and blue laces) is proof of that moment and of my presence in it; history muttering of it's grandeur in painted ceramic and faded cotton and suede.

Are Ojamas meant to enhance those stories that, we are told, we shall relay to the next generation -- of a moment when we first felt truly powerful?

Or, could they just be a pair of comfortable, 100% cotton pajamas?

Bob Woodward Offers Advice to President Obama

1. Presidents set the tone. Don't be passive or tolerate virulent divisions.

In the fall of 2002, Bush personally witnessed a startling face-off between National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in the Situation Room after Rumsfeld had briefed the White HouseNational Security Council on the Iraq war plan. Rice wanted to hold onto a copy of the Pentagon briefing slides, code-named Polo Step. "You won't be needing that," Rumsfeld said, reaching across the table and snatching the Top Secret packet away from Rice -- in front of the president. "I'll let you two work it out," Bush said, then turned and walked out. Rice had to send an aide to the Pentagon to get a bootlegged copy from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Bush should never have put up with Rumsfeld's power play. Instead of a team of rivals, Bush wound up with a team of back-stabbers with long-running, poisonous disagreements about foreign policy fundamentals.

(read 9 more "take-aways" from the Bush years here)

Abundance: the Suburban Edition

To sift through my mother's fridge is to confront, in a very small, very mundane way, the opulence of the suburbs. It also requires a meticulous eye for reading labels. (I call it my mother's fridge because, while my father consumes most of its contents, it's my mother who is almost solely responsible for the acquisition, placement, and preparation of all that lies therein.)

My brother left home for college a few months ago, while I haven't lived at home since the beginning of 2004. Nevertheless, my mom still shops according to the old suburban, Sam's Club mantra of buying everything in bulk. The result is a sort of GE manifestation of the Holy Roman Empire at the start of it's decline: overly decadent, promiscuous and well past ripe.

Jar after jar of anonymous grey, brown, and green sludge vie for space on the doors. Two bulging containers of lowfat, probiotic vanilla yogurt -- one still unopened -- faithfully girding their contents way past the sell-by date. Packets of instant soba-noodles obstruct one's view of a hamlet of leftovers, each patiently awaiting a single, desperate moment of hunger. Even the cheese & deli meat drawer, my favorite part of the kitchen, contains it's share of hazards: moldy blocks of yellow cheese in the same plastic bag as an immaculate block of mozarella.

Abundance

There are a few things I find remarkable about Sena Jeter Naslund's novel of Marie Antoinette, not the least of which is her ability to highlight her protagonist's frivolity and self-centeredness, yet still make her genuinely intriguing and likeable.



Told in the first person, Naslund channels the voice of Marie Antoinette convincingly. The notoriety of Marie Antoinette -- and the fact that those reading about her come into the novel with preconcieved notions of who she was -- no doubt makes this an even more difficult and impressive feat. One leaves the novel with a deeper awareness (and surely, appreciation) to this French Queen and her relevance to today's socio-political issues.

And oh my, the language. I love the baroque feel of it all. It captures the opulence and luxury of the Sofia Coppola film, without the irony and strangely discomforting presence of Jason Schwartzman:

"Perhaps my life is but a series of disrobing and robing again for the task at hand. Perhaps all lives could be measured in such terms....I could not emerge from this brocade chysalis by myself."

a brief history of christmas (2008)

Christmas Eve: A skinny Vietnamese Santa positioned strategically in front of a giant Heineken "snowglobe" in the city center informs me that, in order to take a picture with him, I must give him 10,000 VND. I offer a polite shake of the head and a hell no.

Thirty minutes later, the Vietnam soccer team beats Thailand, their archrival, in a South East Asian championship tournament. The game was held in Thailand, and was the first time in years that the Vietnamese bested Thailand in sports. Everyone in Ho Chi Minh City proceeded to honk their horns, wave their Vietnamese flags, and generally wild the fuck out for the next 4 hours.

Including this man in a Santa hat.

All of this merriment brough traffic to a standstill for two hours. Not even ambulances could plow their way though.

After two hours of furiously snapping photos of every drunk and merry fool on a motorbike, my friend Jeff and I parted ways and I trudged a mile back to my apartment in the neighboring district. The next morning...

...was met with an absurdly abundant Christmas buffet, chock full of cheese, proscuitto, and lots and lots of alcohol. Four hours of gastronomic perserverance were followed by the kind of comatose state only pure, unrepentant gluttony can induce.

It was magical.

full Christmas photo set available here

making good on my $37

Things I Ate at the Christmas Buffet Today:

• 3 lbs of prosciutto
• brie
• breadsticks
• salmon
• 3-4 glasses of sparkling white wine
• green beans and tomatoes
• a hearty cup of mulled wine
• 4 lbs of mashed potatoes
• a river of gravy
• turkey
• walnuts
• a single chicken skewer
• blueberry tart
• 5 scoops of ice cream (2 chocolate, one mint, one rum raisin, one unknown)
• one christmas cookie
• one sip of coffee
• no water