The Great American Tradition

Stuff yourself and smile.

Just kidding.

I am going to follow Jill’s example and list, in no particular order, some things that I am grateful for. You can add your own, in the comments section.

  • A boyfriend that doesn’t dump me even after I lose my temper at him in the lunchline at Twinnie’s.

    Parents whose genes and rearing skills have resulted in the general fabulousness that is moi.

    An embarrassingly cute little brother.

    A fluffy puppy.

    Good bosses.

    Good office comrades.

    Friends who know how to cook a duck, among other things.

    Duck, in general. Roasted duck, in particular.

    Alcohol.

    Books.

    Central heating.

    AllofMP3.com, where I can download Eastern European music on the cheap.

    The Hairy-Legged Strawfeminist & Co.

    My small, yet still-satisfying paycheck.

    Harry Potter Harry Potter Harry Potter.

    Borat Borat Borat.

    Body cream that smells like sugary food.

    The fact that I was given American citizenship this year.

    The fact that the rain has now stopped,

    But winter is just beginning.

    • Another One Bites the Dust

    Dieting to death is fashionable, of course. It almost makes sense, in a world where poor people are now the fat ones, having virtually no access to healthy food and being at the mercy of McDonald’s & Co.

    Perhaps the fashion industry could canonize Ana Carolina Reston – make her a martyr for the “cause.” Tom Ford could style her dead, emaciated body with white geisha-like body make-up (something like his tasteless… er, I mean, ultra-stylish photo spread in “Vanity Fair,” for example). Karl Lagerfeld could stop fanning himself long enough to make a diamond-encrusted coffin lid for the occasion, and Calvin Klein could parade pubescent girls with white lilies and see-through veils at the wake.

    There are many super-talented individuals (I count the Lagerfelds and the Kleins among them, obviously) who work in the fashion industry. There are people who are capable of elevating a basic handbag to the status of an art-form. But this glorious expanse of the imagination is tempered by economic barbarism and a baffling, visceral hatred for the human body. It’s a pity.

    Monday Night Poetry Club

    This one is an old favourite from my high school days. Some people would automaticall discredit this poem, because (gasp!) it appears in the Norton Anthology. Actually, I understand people’s frustrations with Norton, but I don’t think that everything they include is crap. Especially not this:

    Song

    My heart, my dove, my snail, my sail, my
    milktooth, shadow, sparrow, fingernail,
    flower-cat and blossom-hedge, mandrake

    root now put to bed, moonshell, sea-swell,
    manatee, emerald shining back at me,
    nutmeg, quince, tea leaf and bone, zither,

    cymbal, xylophone: paper, scissors, then
    there’s stone—Who doesn’t come through the door
    to get home?

    – Cynthia Zarin

    Ms. Zarin also has a wonderful nonfiction essay, called “An Enlarged Heart,” that everyone reading this blog ought to dig up. It’s heartbreaking, tense, warm, loving, urgent, and very, very Zarin.