Healthcare passed the House. WOOT! It's not perfect and it passed by a narrow margin of 220-215, but it PASSED. While the speachifying beforehand was going on, the Republicans constantly interrupted, by saying "I object" over and over while a women's group was speaking. It was so despicable. Seriously, you don't get away with this behavior in Kindergarten.


I'm rather hoping Stewart goes after them tomorrow. Anyway, its now on to the Senate...

ETA: fuckity fuckfuck. Found a list of the 39 Dems who voted against it. Kucinich of all people was on the list. Was surprised. Went to his website and found out why he was on the list. The bill actually helps insurance companies. Why can't anything be a clean win anymore? It really cannot be this complicated. If Canada, Britain, Germany, France etcetera etcetera etcetera can institute national healthcare that does not bankrupt people and refuse them on the grounds of being "too sick" why can't we? What the hell is wrong with us? I'm still glad the bill passed (and Kucinich waited until it had majority before voting against it, so it was more of a personal statement than political) because it does regulate the insurance companies, but still. Here's what Kucinish had to say: kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx

in other news (I love Digg) a mare, Zenyatta, won the Breeder's Cup Classic. Mares don't often run the Classic and they NEVER win. They run the distaff, which is specifically for females. But she won that last year. Not only did she win this year, she came up from DEAD LAST after stumbling out of the gate. And she did it in the last 15 seconds of the race. And she didn't even look as if she was trying hard. She's undefeated. You go girl. 


She's the one in the yellow blanket with turquoise jockey's silks. Awesome.

It has been sunny for three days in a row and tomorrow is also supposed to be sunny. And the high is 62. What has happened? Is Connecticut trying to charm me into staying? Or just laughing at the fact that now I have a snow jacket? Seriously - it was in the low forties the last two weeks.

Watched the pilot of V. Hello Alan Tudyk! Two Firefly people. I have to wait until december for more Dollhouse and the teaser trailer looked so good...but I have Dexter and if I ever find the netflix that came while I was gone, I'l have Studio 60, which I'm loving. Also, going to az and watching TV on a TV (gasp) got me readdicted to West Wing. (Its really not hard to do this.) Watched a ton of clips from youtube, found a lovely collection for Will and Kate and also found the Ellen special where the entire cast came on and were wonderfully themselves. Especially Allison Janney, who admitted that she called Martin Sheen pumpkin head, and he called her "the big one" because he never remembered anyone's names. And when trying to explain what she wanted to take from the set, said "the president's balls" by which she meant paperweights, but the look she got from Martin Sheen was priceless. and Will was held down by everyone so Kate could throw a cake in his face. I love these guys.


Tina was talking about how she rarely went on LJ anymore. I both forget and realize this often, since I'm on LJ constantly it seems. I've noticed that without have the particular audience of Tina and Julie, I post more random things for me to discover later on. LJ is like a time capsule. You post things when they seem important and its amazing how going back you see how much everything has changed and what stays the same and discover that you still like that song you haven't listened to in forever. And for that LJ is pretty damn awesome. 

  

 Watched too much TV today. Such is a friday. The boys relax after the week, I have no worksheets due until Monday, and it's COLD outside. So I snuggled under my fuzzy blanket and indulged myself. Jon Stewart's Glen Beck impersonation is awesome, btw. Also, while watching Angel (brought season three with me) is realized that 1)Gavin Park is Korean and 2)He's Jin from Lost. Not sure if I would have put this together except for the random thought that I know two Koreans named Park and continued the train of thought from there. And the fact that I just finished the first season of Lost. Still - really should have recognized him sooner. Continuing to catch up on Dexter - holy shit a lot has been happening. And finally watched Boondock Saints while sober and not half asleep. It makes much more sense now. I was completely surprised that they didn't die at the end. Revenge dramas require the revenger to be expunged from society and while these are vigilantes, the same standard usually applies. I suppose the one out of control - Rocco - was expunged. I fully expect Dexter to one day get caught, as well. I think they needed more explanation on why these two boys decided to up and kill people - even with their dad being their dad. Willem Dafoe also awesome, though he went a bit overboard on the crazy.

Tomorrow, I should go shoe shopping. oh joy. My lovely skechers are calling it a day, I believe. Or at least they are going on hold till I can figure out a way to get them to stay closed. The velcro no longer works and I've replaced one side, but the other side promises to be much harder. Plus I need to find something more waterproof. TJ Maxx, here I come.

Books to read for work this week:
1984 (never actually read it before, believe it or not)
Hatchet (Read this one many times, but should again)
A Raisin in the Sun
Baseball Fever (blah)

James made some of the worksheets for 1984, but for some reason only put the definitions on the vocab sheet, not the actual words. Wha?


  

 I'll say no more:


The metaphor is a bit worrying...the pinatas are quite awesome though!


I've also become obsessed with Gary Jules' Mad World and Manchester Orchestra's cover of Brother. Actually became obsessed with the second a while back, but for some reason only had half the song. Found the second half! (now if only my netflix would turn up...)

 

Happy Birthday Tina!! 

 I'm back to the land of four seasons. Every day in Az was progressively hotter, which I swear was to taunt me, though I'm not sure what the message was meant to be. "You're here for a few days? Let me try for record breaking temps!" or "Look how nice and warm it is here! Why would you want to go back to the clouds and rain?" Ah, Az...

Plane was boring. Apparently, you actually have to pay for movies. (Screw that.) But normal channels were free and they had West Wing on Bravo!! And then Bravo stopped working, just as Bartlett was whupping the asses of the religious right. It got all tiled and the skippy. And only improved after WW ended and one of those stupid reality shows began. So I read the journal for basically the whole flight. Guys, you are awesome. (Someone tell Cassandra, since she doesn't read this) That was so much fun to read and i loved getting a look into your thoughts and worries and celebrations. (I also loved how much you missed me!) I can't wait to see what you do with the moleskins and I'll try to find something fitting to write on my very own last page. 

I intended to make a big long post last night about everything that happened this weekend, but Jan had to go to bed and for some reason he's sleeping in my room right now, still haven't found out why. So I shall continue said post now.

Tina's party was wonderful and I loved how everyone would randomly look at me during the night suddenly remembering that I was there. I felt like looking at me and suddenly remembering I was there too. All my presents were wonderful, and I'm glad Julie was thrilled about the Lock and Key - I was worried she would have already gotten it.

Yesterday was family day, though Mom's whole plan of games, etc never seemed to happen. Lena came over and we hung out and I made a pumpkin pie. Yum. Got lots of awesome pressies from the parents also: Jacket and gloves for snow, PJs, book on digital photography, THE ENTIRE ANGEL DVD SET, itunes gift card, and pinking shears. Apparently Amazon has deals of the day, where they mark one item off hugely and sell their excess stock. so five seasons cost about $50 rather than $150. Mom saw it and asked Jan if I'd want it. That would be a yes. Hello, lovely people.

Oh yes, speaking of certain lovely people and halloween:


More pics here. With tails!

Jan and I went to see wild things last night. Gorgeous movie. I wish there wasn't so much handheld camera, though artistically it worked. Stupid stomach. It was not a movie for kids. It's about childhood, and feeling alone and small and scared and angry, but kids wouldn't recognize themselves in Max, and certainly not Max in the monsters. Jan's favorite was the big black monster who didn't talk until the end. I liked the little goat guy. Jan understood the movie, which makes my brother even more awesome. How many teenage boys would go to see a movie like this and then have a deep discussion about it while waiting for our ride?

So today I need to go to Boston Prep (oh goodie) and meet with Julie. (Goodie!!)

I've been back two days and have two days left. After losing time by missing my flight, I feel as if I'm catching up and still incredibly behind in all i've missed for the past few months. How can everything be this split? i realize after coming back how beautiful Connecticut is. And how beautiful Arizona always has been. How much I love my students, and how I love my friends even more. How different blue skies can be. Everything is torn and stitched back together - only its by me, so the stitches are mostly careful ones with obvious mistakes here and there and its clearly not perfect, but not shoddy either, and this possibly only makes sense to me.

We had Tina's party last night and I discovered that pumpkins, wheelchairs, and acceleration do not mix; that friends, facepaints, knives, pumpkins do; and that its really neat when all your friends love the presents they gave you so much they are happy to get them back. I shall reclaim my German Harry Potter, my baby book, my Amanda Palmer book, and any others when I return. Until then, enjoy. I never really got to explain fully the awesomeness that is The Superhero Supply store, so go there, and for the program it supports go here: 826NYC. No really, go because there's a wonderful interview with Joss after hosting a Dr Horrible sing-along fundraiser for the program. Also, the entire program was started, I believe, by Dave Eggers, who I love even more now that I saw Wild Things with Jan tonight.

TBC...

Its raining. I'm stuck inside, and I have quite a lot of work to do. So I made myself oatmeal and watched Castle. Procrastinating was rewarded:


And this is before we get into references to Buffy, Underworld, Frank Miller, and just about every other geeky halloween thing imaginable.

Today was a boring, rainy day. Actually, it was gorgeous, not cold, all clean feeling and wetly beautiful. Unfortunately, you need quite a bit of rain to make it like that, so i only got to be outside for 20 minutes in between showers. The weather report promises sun tomorrow, so hopefully I can enjoy the aftereffects of it raining all day long, with a side of huge thunderstorm this evening.

However, this did give me a chance to watch Dollhouse, finish one excellent book and start another, read more fanfiction, watch White Collar, chat with Tina, and sqee about various things over text with Lena. Who actually is good at showing ridiculous enthusiasm about odd topics. David Carradine's brother. the guy from White Collar, Lion in Winter dialogue*.

Dollhouse was lovely in its morally greyness. I'd heard the fourth ep was supposed to be amazing and thus expected there to be Amy Acker, which sadly, there wasn't, but it was fantastic, and I love Harry Lennix. Have for a while, partially cause I got to sit in class and listen to him read Aaron five feet away. There was a good bit of Aaron in Boyd tonight.

The excellent book was Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse. It won the Newberry and with good reason. Its written in freestyle verse about a girl growing up in the dust bowl. I was trying to figure out where i'd heard of the author before, and then realized that she wrote another book I loved when i was a kid, called Letters from Rifka. I started The Master Puppeteer by Katherine Paterson (both of these are for work...really good books this month) which takes place in Japan in a puppet theater. I fully expect to be in tears by the end of the book, since i don't think I've read a book by her that hasn't made me cry: Great Gilly Hopkins, Jacob Have I Loved, Bridge to Terabithia...

Found yet another show to keep track of. White Collar is my stand-in until Leverage comes back. It even had Mark Sheppard in the first ep, just to make it feel homey. He was even the baddy (is he ever not? well...except as Badger, and thats an iffy one) Plus, the main character has the added benefit of being ridiculously hot. No. really. Not really a byronic hero yet but he's got quite a bit of points going for him. Morally gray, unreachable love interest, not really brooding though. (Realized Wes is byronic. So is the Doctor for that matter. explains a lot.)  Oh yes, and Lundy from Dexter is David Carradine's brother. Didn't realize til he was on Dollhouse today, even though I watched Dexter last night. Guys? Dexter watching? Catching up? Brand New SEASON!!!!

*I love this movie too much for words. Its one of those ones everyone else would find boring because its old, and historical, and...dammit Katherine Hepburn won an Oscar for it! And it has Peter O'toole, Anthony Hopkins, and Timothy Dalton. oh well. Lena and dad understand.

quoties:

Henry II: We're off to Rome to see the Pope.
Princess Alais: He's excommunicated you again.


Eleanor: What would you have me do? Give out? Give up? Give in?
Henry II: Give me a little peace.
Eleanor: A little? Why so modest? How about eternal peace? Now there's a thought.

Eleanor: Henry's bed is Henry's province. He can people it with sheep for all I care, which on occasion he has done.
Henry II: Rosamund's been dead for seven years...
Eleanor: ...two months and eighteen days. I never liked her much.
Henry II: You counted the days.
Eleanor: I made the numbers up.


Henry II: The day those stout hearts band together is the day that pigs get wings.
Eleanor: There'll be pork in the treetops come morning.


Prince John: A knife! He's got a knife!
Eleanor: Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians! How clear we make it. Oh, my piglets, we are the origins of war: not history's forces, nor the times, nor justice, nor the lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas, nor kinds of government, nor any other thing. We are the killers. We breed wars. We carry it like syphilis inside. Dead bodies rot in field and stream because the living ones are rotten. For the love of God, can't we love one another just a little - that's how peace begins. We have so much to love each other for. We have such possibilities, my children. We could change the world.

Prince Geoffrey: I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it.
[smiles]
Prince Geoffrey: We're a knowledgeable family.

[Upon seeing his wife after she arrives for Christmas Court]
Henry II: HA! What shall we hang... the holly, or each other?

Eleanor: Henry?
Henry II: Hmmm?
Eleanor: I have a confession.
Henry II: Yes?
Eleanor: I don't much like our children!

I've just spent a ridiculously long time reading old journal entries to see if i'd ever left a ton of Lion in Winter quotes here before. I didn't find any, but I did realize that I really like being me. I may hate my life at times, but I like me, and I like the choices I make, and I like enjoying the sometimes odd things I do, and I like loving the sometimes odd people I love. So as far as deep realizations are concerned...that's a pretty good one, I'd say.  Hopefully I'll come back to this post in a few years when I'm feeling down, and get to rediscover it all over again.