Purpose Driven Throw Up

Barack Obama made me so sad today by choosing Rick Warren to give his inauguration invocation. Who is Rick Warren? Does "The Purpose Driven Life" ring any bells?? For me, it rings bells of sugary packaged Christianity and sentimentality and ignorance! Ew, ew, ew. I'm trying to look at it from Obama's point of view, but it's hard to not be disappointed when Rick Warren is responsible for these gems of wisdom:

"There are about 2 percent of Americans who are homosexual, gay, lesbian people. We should not let 2 percent of the population...change teh definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years...God created marriage for the purpose of family, love and procreation."  AND: "If Darwin was right, which is survival of the fittest then homosexuality would be a recessive gene because it doesn't reproduce," and therefore the gay disease would have died off by now. Hard to say whether it's dissing Darwin or the gays, but I think both?

Obama winning gave me such a hopeful feeling, and I still have it, and I hope to be as proud of our president as I fantasized I would be the night he won. But this is not my favorite way he could have started things off. The news says he's doing it to befriend the raging lunatic right-wing Christians, but why befriend them now, now that the votes have been cast and you won? What did Bush ever do to befriend the other side? Ummm. Nothing. I'm all for bringing the country together, but by means of Rick Warren? 

Maybe he'll surprise me and give a really wonderful speech and I'll feel okay about it. I hope so. But I'm glad I was not one of the millions planning to attend the inauguration, because this news just made it significantly less appealing.

Related note: saw Milk last night. Inspiring story, not perfectly executed in movie form. Gus Van Sant, sometimes you try too hard. And also, why are they all straight actors playing gay guys? But it had some good moments, and I'm glad they made the movie. I like the story "A Letter to Harvey Milk" by Leslea Newman better. 

Second to last day of school before break - holla!

kids today.

Last night someone enjoyed a 6-pack of Otter Creek Raspberry Brown beer that I purchased, and I now have a 6-pack of IBC Root Beer that they purchased!

On a harmless Saturday night, after searching for 2 hours for Cranium Pop 5 and deciding (in a rush, and spending too much money) on The Big Taboo, I went to buy some delicious wintery Vermont beer. Someone else must have had the same idea, but they must have been under age, and they must be very crafty. They swapped 6 IBC bottles for the Otter Creek bottles in the pack, and I was oblivious until I cracked one open. "This is root beer!" I yelled. Then I complained for a few minutes before surrendering to the genius of the criminal, and giving them mad props, wherever they are. And now I have 5 cold bottles of root beer, which is not something I would ever buy, but which is kind of a nice thing to have.

Also, The Big Taboo is a weird game. Fun, but there's a lot going on. Shannon hypothesizes someone with Aspergers' invented it; I think because it's very rigid with a lot of rules and appears to have been created somewhat neurotically. It comes with a stuffed animal named Bendy Bob that you have to bend and twist into the position of the word on your card and try to get your team to guess it. He's, quite obviously, the best part of the game.

Board games and root beer! What a wholesome weekend.

me+technology = unfriendly.

I can't figure out how to post a link. Um, um, um. 

Damn it. I can't figure it out.

jon stewart and more!

Who do I love talking about more than Oprah? You got it; Jon himself. I love a lot of Jews. But Jon Stewart is my favorite Jew. And I have been really wrapped up in the gay marriage shit lately, and actually sort of lurving that it's resurging in the media because of Prop 8 (Thanks California!), and so what a treat! He talks it out with Mike Love-to-Hate-Me Huckabee. Check it, please.

There are few things I love more than watching someone totally school someone else on an issue I am passionate about. Mmmmm hmm. 

Kind of reminds me of talking about it with my dear, dear brother. Ha! Except I think David maybe made more sense than The Huck. "We would have to say to the guy in West Texas who has 27 wives, hey that's okay," says Huckabee. I mean, really?

Okay, I just answered a knock at the door and there was a pizza man, kind of a short black guy wearing glasses and a chummy grin.  I had hardly realized that S & J had ordered pizza, but, more hilariously, he said to my puzzled face: "Hey. How ah yay?" Amazing.

Newsworthy.

Two big headlines today: The Illinois governor who was going to sell Obama's senate seat to the highest bidder (too absurd for me to say anything about), AND Oprah is publicly crying about her weight. Just absurd enough! I've never been on the bandwagon of making fun of Oprah for crying about her weight, probably because I've never been above crying about my own weight, but this article really got me. Okay, she's back to 200 pounds, and she is frustrated and disappointed and embarrassed. Lady, you're like 55? 

"'I'm embarrassed,' she writes. 'After all these years, all these things I know how to do and I'm still talking about my weight.'" (Wait, wait - she writes? Yes, because she wrote a letter to the Associated Press to explain herself. An apology letter. Dear America, Sorry I got fat again, I'm really embarrassed. Love, Oprah.) She's apparently not embarrassed enough to not go on about it, though, because she then writes: "I look at my thinner self and think, 'how did I let this happen again?'" Oh, Oprah. Now I'm embarrassed. 

I guess I feel for Oprah. The poor lady has literally been trying her ENTIRE famous life to keep the god damned weight off, and she is seriously still talking about it. I think it just irks me because she is such a perfect symbol for the obsession we have in this country (maybe in this world? I don't really know) with not only losing weight, but doing it with a friend, and with a group, and with an audience, and talking, talking, talking about it. We not only want to lose weight, we want to talk about how we did it, what we ate today, what we cut out, how many calories we burned, how great our clothes feel, or how fat we feel in our clothes, blah blah blah, and, quite honestly, I want to blame Oprah for making it such a topic of conversation.

I think I'm mostly annoyed about this because when I hear Oprah talk about her gym-phobia and saying, "I was mad at myself. I was so frustrated I started eating whatever I wanted and that's never good," I hear myself and it sounds ugly. And fat. 

So I am taking a vow of silence. Whatever issues I do or do not have with my weight, food, gym use, laziness, body, I will keep it to myself. I don't want to hear about Oprah's struggles with weight loss. I don't even want to hear about yours. I don't want even want to hear myself talk about my own. Shhh.