So, this is...pre-Christmas.

So, here's the thing: I really love Christmas music. Look, I'd love Hanukkah music if there were a significant body of it out there, I'm sure I would, but as it stands, I really love Christmas tunes.

I get all excited when it's time to break out Snowed In. I tune into the All-Christmas-All-The-Time stations when December hits and I squeel with glee every time "All I Want For Christmas is You" comes on the radio anywhere. I really love that song.

But, here's the real thing: not one but two radio stations in Roanoke have already gone All-Christmas-All-The-Time. The first one changed over 2 weeks ago. There...there just aren't enough Christmas songs to sustain this pace for more than the post-Thanksgiving push. I'm not kidding folks, I really love Christmas music and there are really only so many times I can handle Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Furthermore, ABC Family Channel - telling me we haven't started the "25 Days of Chirstmas" but are merely in the "countdown to the 25 Days of Christmas" confuses me when I am watching Christmas movies. But...you know...if you want to play that one with Melissa Joan Hart and Mario Lopez more often, I'm cool with that. (Guys, you don't even know: IT'S MELISSA JOAN HART AND MARIO LOPEZ!)

Oooooh youtube.

Since I spend my days with high schoolers and am now spending at least one evening a week with a pair of seventh graders, I think it is important that I have an opinion about pop music. That's right, my "Fall Out Boy" Pandora radio station is totally legit. I'm just trying to understand these kids, alright? YOU COULD NEVER UNDERSTAND MY PAIN LIKE THEY DO. Etc.

Thus I present to you my discoveries about pop culture, complete with youtube videos.

1. Every time I hear Britney Spears' new song, "Womanizer" I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Seriously, I had no idea, but I am legitimately emotionally invested in how Britney is doing. I care. It makes me feel really good that she's got a New Hot Single out there, and that it's inhumanly catchy, and that I'm pretty sure from the first moment it hit the airwaves it was destined to be the anthem of really fabulous sorority girls and gay men everywhere.



2. HilDuff, on the other hand, does not please me quite so much. HilDuff, in fact, DISPLEASES me. Greatly. You may notice, if you choose to click this video that it is (1)really sadly trashy. In a sad way. A sad trashy way. (2) Basically a really weird cover of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus." Now, seriously, do you need to make almost anything by Depeche Mode wierder? Oh Hilary Duff - this is not edgy, it just makes me feel like one of those moms who needs to censor which teen queens her daughters want to emulate. Hilary Duff - I bought one of your songs off of iTunes, where's "Wake Up" Hilary?


3. I know you hate Beyonce, Cor, but I just don't. I like you, Beyonce, even though I suspect we would not be friends in real life. In fact, I suspect Beyonce of being TERRIFYING in real life, which makes me even happier that "If I Were A Boy" features, prominently, the subjunctive. The subjunctive may be in danger in the English language, but it's not dying on Beyonce's watch. Not today, evolution of the language towards a simplified vernacular, not today.
However, as much as I applaud Beyonce's semi-forward thinking, I also happened to stumble across the video for "Put A Ring On It" the other day. By "stumbled across" I mean "I watch a helluva lot of MTV, people, it's becoming an addiction." So anyway, first of all, the possible (anti?) feminist things going on here are interesting to me. Especially when taken along side "If I Were A Boy" and Beyonce's current proclivity for Black And White I kind of don't know how to make sense of either the sentiment or the aesthetic of "Single Ladies." Anyone feel like they're getting a little Josephine Baker/Exoticised other vibe?


...Maybe you can't tell, but I REALLY miss American Studies. Really, really.

I've run out of steam to write much more but I leave you with this, the video youtube just recommended for me. Youtube knows me well.

Cosmic Coincidence?

Twice in the last 12 hours, allusions to The Toxic Avenger have popped up in exceedingly unlikely places. Dear Universe - WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME ABOUT MY SORDID, HIGH SCHOOL PAST?!

I'm back in Roanoke. I'm working with the little siblings of the boys I grew up with. Their cult favorites are now haunting me. Alright already, I sent Brian a facebook message the other day - what more do you want from me?!

Holy hell - this is history

There are so many things I want to write about. I want to talk about being a picnic for Halloween and about my qualms with boys and digital diaries.

OH WAIT ALSO I WANT TO TALK ABOUT POLITICS OMFG. As I sat in my mother's den, obsessively refreshing CNN.com while watching CNN on her television I got to scream, "Virginia turned blue! THEY TURNED VIRGINIA BLUE!" Mere seconds before the announcer told us to hail our new President Elect, Barack Obama.

Maybe, one day, I will tell my kids I lived to see the first African American President of the United States like my parents tell me they lived through integration. I know, mentally, that there was a time before school integration, but I can't really fit that sort of belief system into my world view. Similarly, I hope that my children can know that, yes, as recently as in their mother's lifetime, we didn't have African American (or women?) Presidents - but that's a thing of the misguided past.

Yes we can. Yes we did. Yes we will.

Just for your viewing pleasure, these were some of my favorite ads during the campaign. Dear Celebrities: I don't care what Carrie Underwood says*, I'm all about your opinions. I'm all about their entertaining little ways.




(Watch all the way to the END of this one - THAT'S THE BEST PART!)


(I less-than-three you, Leo! I always have! ALWAYS.)


(I also less-than-three you, Snoop, but it's more in that, "I like to pretend you're actually sweet and cuddly in person and that'd be our little joke" way.)


*That's a total lie. I do care about what Carrie Underwood says. I don't know why I care, but I know that I most certainly do.

Okay, I'm sorry, I don't even watch these things to fuel my stupid brain,

So, I am mad at my brain right now. I'm not mad because I'm awake at 6:30 on a Saturday, that's my own fault, I'm mad because it keeps having nightmares with horror movie plots.

Last night is a great example, I woke up at 3:30 with a very full bladder and was unable to DO anything about it because, you know, if you leave the safety of the covers then you're vulnerable to the baddies. In this case "the baddies" were, in fact, a dude stalking my friend Veronika who then tried to kidnap/kill/something her such that they found themselves in the woods with him perusing her. He, in desperation, grabbed an axe. She, being a bad-ass, grabs an axe-intended-for-fires (just go with it) and summarily kicks his ass then runs away. So really, my damn brain has the nerve to dream up a horror movie (bad) but the sense to make Veronkia the unequivocal heroine/winner (good). There was even some part where I (the Meg character in my stupid horror movie dream) said something like, "that guy sure picked the wrong girl to mess with" and acknowledged that If I, real-world-or-dream-Meg, were placed in the same situation, I would definitely loose an axe fight.

Also, you know how your friends aren't usually very realistic in your dreams? How they have the names but not really the attributes you associate with your friends? Well, axe-killer-ass-kicker Veronika (and her spunky dream-roommate, Lauren T.) were exactly like they are in real life. Except, you know, persued by a deranged dude with an axe.

WHY ARE THESE THINGS IN MY BRAIN!? UNACCEPTABLE!

Well, I'll have the whole early morning drive to c'ville to ponder it, I suppose. Whee for rainy pledge-project weekends!

What can I say, I'm a hussy.

A day in my life:

"Well, hello Ten P.M.! What's that? You'd like to take me to bed now? Oh well I...I...I mean...a nice girl...oh Ten P.M. I cannot resist your wiles! I'm yours!"

Why yes, yes, there are little old ladies who routinely stay up later than I want to. Thank you for asking.

They didn't even play any 90s throwbacks

There are some things in life which appear to be way, way better the second time around. The second time you listen to a fantastic piece of music you are better able to appreciate its subtle complexity as well as the overall musical arc. The second bite of delicious, delicious cake is sometimes even better than the first because you know what to expect - also, it's delicious, delicious cake. There are probably other examples, since the rule of threes is a good writing technique.

So far, I think high school might be another of these phenomena. I like high schoolers now waaayyyy more than I think I did as a high schooler myself. They're just so darn cute. Sure, they do all sorts of mean things to each other - but they're 16, can we really expect much better behavior from them, really? Methinks not. Methinks they're adorable, just as they are.

In other, related news, we chaperoned Patrick Henry High School's homecoming dance this weekend. Hilarity. Ensued. My feministy free-expression-of-sexuality-esque sensibilities make me a particularly poor choice of dance chaperon, it seems, since grindydancing doesn't really seem that unnecessarily scandalous to me. I mean, sure, I'll do a lot of head-wagging at what seems unclassy behavior but...neither Mary nor I could muster quite the unrepentant disgust and ire that many of our colleagues carried through the dance floor like a shield. The thing that bothered us both most, really, was that we could only come down on girls for dance-scandal, since the boys job in The Grindydance was usually just to stand there and get ground allupons. Also, boys were rarely flashing their panties while grinding in microminis.

Since "dance rules" were up to the discretion of the chaperon, ours developed as such:

1. Her hands can't touch the floor
2. Both her feet can't leave the floor
3. No crotch shots
4. No crowd surfing
5. No touching, with your hands, the bikini regions of your dance partner

We did NOT make "no makeyouty" a rule. I don't know what Mary's rationale was, but mine was definitely that hilarity factor coupled with shame will probably squelch the problem before it gets out of hand. And really, if you've never seen a 16-17 year old boy pull his ladylove in for an "I'm grabbing the back of your head like I'm trying to suck your brains out, fo' real I'm a zombie I forgot to tell you" kiss - you haven't known how hard you could laugh.

I know, in a few years, these feelings of "hey, children, you should know about BEDROOM STYLE DANCING" that are sort of bubbling around in my brain will probably take over and I'll be all horrified and scandalized by The GrindyDance as well (and really - it isn't particularly classy... but neither are frat parties or dance clubs, the two types of dance floor these children appear desperately to want to approximate). Some day, these kids will look a lot younger than they do now. But I don't really want to expend a grand amount of my energy being scandalized at awkward, adolescent expressions of exploratory sexuality, really. It seems like kind of a waste of time, as well as a puritan sex ethic I'm fairly positive I don't want to buy into, implications about the death of childhood be damned. Childhood as we now know it is a Victorian ideal anyway - perhaps it's time we let it exist in a more complex realm.

Ms. R - the Principal of our high school, perhaps shares my opinion. She, too, shook her head at a lot of the dance, but it was a head-shake-accompanied-by-chuckle. She's a Running-A-Tight-Ship esque woman to begin with. Maybe Grindydancing doesn't bother her that much because she, too, is a sexually liberated feministy woman. Maybe it's because she's the one the seriously bad behavior goes to, so the grindydance isn't that big of a deal. Who knows?

It just seems like a lot of energy to expend over a little good, clean dirty dancing.