I really appreciate my friend Jared because he listens to oldies and knows much more than I do, so I can get recommendations and things. It's great. Another thing about Jared is that he will watch anything. He watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers with me one evening, and that is a real friend. I emailed him today when I had thoughts on the 1950s. I love the 50s. I wrote:

Jared:
You may know that I created a Buddy Holly station on Pandora, and that's been pretty much all I've been listening to at work this week. So I'm hearing all kinds of great things, including the upright bass. And also actually hearing the lyrics for a lot of these songs for the first time. And I really am beginning to understand the hysteria of parents in the 50s when they discovered their kids listening to these songs. This may seem obvious, but these songs are about sex. Not like how Frank Sinatra, et. al., sang about love and kinda meant sex. Or how Pat Boone sang about sex and never meant sex. But like how I heard Elvis sing the original lyrics of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" (http://www.history-of-rock.com/shake_rattle_and_roll.htm), and I almost covered my own ears. And don't get me started on how dangerous Jerry Lee Lewis must have appeared. I mean, even before he started marrying underage cousins.

Just needed to share my epiphany.

Peace out,
Claudia

Jared might think it's weird if I pasted his whole response, so I'll just say that he is very scared that I am turning into the 1950s, and that he'll find me smashing rock-and-roll albums in street demonstrations. Don't worry, Jared. I'm just sayin', is all. Just sayin'.

Today hasn't blown chunks, which I am taking time to appreciate. I've done a reasonable amount of work -- that is, several hours' worth today, and that doesn't happen that often.

One factor contibuting to my joyfulness is the Buddy Holly station I created yesterday on Pandora. I enjoy old-school rock and roll of many types, but my "Roots of Rock & Roll" station has been unsatisfying listening -- because what I really wanted was Rockabilly. I found that out this weekend, when I met the trivia boys at the Quarry House in Silver Spring. It was a farewell gathering for Seth, who will be travelling about Europe until he starts law school in the fall (somewhere - we don't know where yet!). Entering the bar on Saturday evening, I followed a man carrying a guitar. "Great," I groaned, "Live music tonight." (I tend not to like live music at bars. It's complicated.) Eventually the guitar man comes onto the stage in a suit that must have been willed to him by Bill Haley, and proceeds to announce that it's "Rockabilly Saturday Night." Which is when I understand why every table in the bar save ours is made up of 50-year-olds. And the band starts playing Buddy Holly and the Crickets, and I realized what had been missing from my life -- or at least, from my Pandora life: two guitars, a drum kit, and -- most essentially -- a stand-up bass.

So I've been listening to not only Buddy Holly but also to his brothers in the country-Western/ rhythm-and-blues melting pot of hard-strumming greathenness: pre-jumpsuit Presley, Carl "Blue Suede Shoes" Perkins, Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, Ritchie Valens, and ol' cousin-marryin' Jerry Lee Lewis.

The drawback to Rockabilly at work is that it requires rocking out. I feel self-conscious when I'm hit by the need to rock out in my cube, because nobody else ever does. I mean, we all listen to music during the day, and I haven't seen as much as a head-nod on a co-worker since I started this job. But I've just had to get over it today -- I can no longer be concerned about the judgment of people who clearly don't appreciate the value of the connection between the drum beat and the heart beat. So up their noses with rubber hoses, because I'm waltzing to my own tune over here. Or head-bobbing to my own guitar licks -- whatev.

When I run my own office, we're gonna have dance breaks.

I might be three years late with this, but I submitted my thesis to the Mount Holyoke library tonight! Verily, in 2005, I did submit the paper copy to the library, but when I tried to submit the electronic version, I saw that they wanted me to compose an abstract as part of the submission form. Now, I had just written 100 pages; writing two more paragraphs was going to cause my mind to blow up. So I said I'd do it later. And as you see, I have.

The online submission system let me know that my .pdf is available to view at this site:
http://ada.mtholyoke.edu/setr/websrc/pdfs/www/2006/251.pdf
So just in case you've been trying to figure out why, exactly, Calamity Jane is a more dangerous film than Annie Get Your Gun -- don't worry, it's all in there. Make sure you give that sucker time to load -- again, 100 pages of musical Westerns within.

Last night, I went to see the Shakespeare Theatre's production of Major Barbara, which was not written by Shakespeare but by George Bernard Shaw. My previous experience with Shaw was limited to Pygmalion -- read play, saw film, own My Fair Lady. I tried to read Major Barbara a few years ago but couldn't get into it. Plays, you may already know, sometimes kind of need to be performed.

And performed: WHAT A GREAT PLAY. Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize (1925) for, quote, "his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty." Well, that explains why I was so moved.

The plot is such: A major in the Salvation Army, Barbara is reunited with her absentee father, an arms manufacturer. His work destroys bodies; her work saves souls. There's moral conflict there. How that conflict plays out is the brilliance of this play; when one can make a manufacturer of death the moral authority of a show that, at its core, argues for the sanctity and equality of every human soul -- well, once you can do that, people give you things like Nobel Prizes.

What was also great was one of the families in attendance. A father brought his three sons to the show, ranging from about 9 to 14. Good job, Dad, teaching culture to youth. The oldest, I would have adopted if possible. He was *totally* into the whole thing. A devotee of Shaw, at 14! I was in the row directly behind, so I saw all their interactions. As the kid discovered that they would be sitting in the front row, Fourteen exclaimed, "This is fantastic!" He laughed in all the right places, read the entire Playbill, and was chattering about the play to his dad through intermission and after the curtain fell. I could hear him say things like, "It's funny, because Shaw was..." and "You know, that line where he said..." And not in a pompous way, but clearly enjoying himself -- like, he was a teenager and he was thinking and synthesizing about art. Dad was only half-listening, in that way that parents do -- which makes me think that Fourteen does a lot of synthesizing -- and sharing. :)

My dreams for the future now involve me running the National Museum of American History and commissioning work from Fourteen, who will then be Twenty-Five and a playwright.

__________________

Another subject altogether:
Listening to my favorite podcast this week, NPR's "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me," I heard Peter Sagal be a little silly about Senator Obama's empassioned constituency:

"Critics say that his campaign is turning into a kind of cult, with his rallies seeming more like religious revival meetings. Supporters say that’s ridiculous because religious revival meetings don’t usually feature speeches by Jesus himself...

It is a little weird that if you dare to say to an Obama supporter that you don’t quite get it, or you haven’t made up your mind, they really do look at you as if there’s just something wrong with you, that you don’t grasp the enlightenment."

Okay, I am pretty sensitive to criticism of Senator Obama because he's the Hope of America, but I see the man's point. I think I've had that look on my face that he describes. Maybe three times in the last week, I'm not sure.

It is blowing my mind that I will actually be in graduate school in the fall. This is a long time coming, after considering it since undergrad, then the whole research/thinking process through last year, then actually applying, then the horrendous waiting -- I'm having to change my whole mode of thinking, because I'm not planning-hoping anymore but planning-doing!

Another good thing: I only have two days' evidence, but being able to relax about school seems to have made the days at work more pleasant. I won't need any references for a new job, so I feel no need whatever to be a go-getter. And I feel less guilt/frustration when I'm not doing working (on the work I don't have enough of to do), because I don't need to leave a legacy of super-fab work. And I don't feel compelled to take an interest in "professional development" opportunities because I don't need to develop as a development professional. Because in less than six months, I won't be one anymore. Fab.

What research discovered today: That Micky Dolenz (of the Monkees) lives just west of Burbank, CA.

About an hour ago, I got a phone call from a professor at Brown University. I have been admitted.

If I didn't have proof that the phone call happened (via the phone log on my cell), I wouldn't believe it. I feel like I'm in a waking dream.

My boss just passed by my cubicle to check in. Commenting on the fact that 2-3 people are out today, she said, "It's going to be quiet today!"

Lady, are you serious? Have I been, like, in the bathroom all those times when Axl Rose busted in here smashing guitars and peeing on the carpet? It's going to be quiet today? It's always quiet. In fact, it's silent, ninety-eight percent of the time. Exceptions: When someone boring passes by my cubicle to insult me with inane pleasantries. Or when my head is suddenly filled with soul-activated screams that tell me that it -- my soul, that is -- is whithering away, suffocated by the unfailing vacuousness that strangles even the possibilities of mirth in this space. But I guess other people don't hear that. So it's actually silent ninety-nine percent of the time.

My boss is very nice. But it appears that she and I have different concepts of what is quiet, and what is not.

What research discovered today: Where the Clintons' $5-million dollar house in DC is.

I have watched/listened to this video/song three times this morning. Cried twice.

18 days until March. 18 days until March. 18 days until March. 18 days until March. 18 days until March. 18 days until March. 18 days until March. 18 days until March. 18 days until March. 18 days until March. 18 days until March. 18 days until March.18 days until March. 18 days until March.

At the end of the day, I will have taken off a half-day of work leave, even though I have been on campus since 8:30am. Because guess who was at the University of Maryland today? The man himself, BARACK OBAMA!

Maryland votes tomorrow, and three campaigns have represented in College Park over the last few days. On Saturday, Mike Huckabee met with students in the Stamp Student Union, and Chelsea Clinton represented her ma, also in the Union, also on Saturday. Today, Obama brought a full-scale rally to the COMCAST CENTER (where the basketball teams play).

In fact, the rally was going to happen in the old basketball stadium, Cole Field House, but organizers realized that more people were going to show than its 13,000 could take. So the administration moved the event to Comcast, which has 4,000 more seats, plus the room on the floor, where the podium was set up, and where the hardcore volunteers/supporters got to stand.

The rally was scheduled to start at 12:30pm. And the doors opened at 10:30am. But when I got to the Metro at 8:15am, the buses to take people to Comcast were already running, and people were on them. So as I sat at my desk an hour later, thinking about maybe doing some work, I started to get nervous. And I remembered the Joshua Jackson Rule.

The "Joshua Jackson Rule" arose from an experience at Trinity (College Dublin). In the spring of 2004, Joshua Jackson visited, a guest of the Historical Society. (Don't ask why; just accept.) As a rabid fan of Dawson's Creek's first few seasons (before Eve showed up and it got RIDICULOUS), I was super-excited. I was on campus in the computer lab, maybe having gone to class earlier that day, but probably not. The point is, I was on campus for like two hours before the event. I decided to show up at the venue a half-hour beforehand, and arrived to find that the place was packed to capacity -- there were probably 30 of us there, being turned away. It was devastating -- I had been across the courtyard, just waiting for time to run down, and I had missed my chance! How dumb can a person feel? I found out that night.

Now, this story ended well because I stuck into the post-chat reception and got a picture with himself and all that. But for about an hour and a half, I was PISSED at myself. So the Joshua Jackson Rule is: If you're already gonna BE there, don't play yourself. Get your book and go wait outside.

Back in 2008, it's 9:15, and I'm starting to worry that I'm about to pull a repeat of 2004 and be waiting at my desk while 17,000 people file into the basketball arena before I get there. So I tell my boss that I've got to spend some of my leave time with the junior Senator from Illinois, and I peace out at 9:30. I took my iPod, my Montgomery Clift biography, and my several layers because, oh, did I mention that it's in the 20s today, and there's a bastard of a wind blowing?

I don't know how many people were on line when I got there, but I know this: It's a 20-minute walk from my office, in the middle of campus, to the Comcast Center, which is at the edge of campus. The line, once I found it, wound away from the arena and back towards the center of campus. Standing at the end of the line, I realized that I was halfway back to where I started! Instead of focusing on how crazy that was, I began to focus, alternately, on listening to Amy Goodman's voice on Democracy Now!, trying to make sense of the inner life behind those piercing gray eyes of Monty Clift, wondering how long after I lose sensation in my fingers that frostbite begins to set in, and considering whether losing appendages this morning would dampen my enthusiasm for the Obama candidacy.

Around 11am, I made it into Comcast and my body temperature regulated itself. (All digits remained intact.) I was probably in the first third of attendees, and I was able to get a fairly good view of the podium. (I don't know what world I'm from, but I actually asked one of the College-Dem volunteers, "Do you know which way the Senator will be facing?" "The Senator?" Who uses that contruction in real life?)

After the preliminary speakers and a rousing National Anthem, Barack Obama took the stage to an ovation matched perhaps by Shea Stadium in '65, when the Beatles kicked off their US tour and realized that their amps weren't loud enough to hear each other over the screams of the audience, and so they just played their instruments and hoped that they were all playing the same song, but it didn't really matter, because if John couldn't hear Ringo, then Susie McBeatlemania in the upper decks sure as hell couldn't tell "A Hard Day's Night" from "The Merry Widow Waltz." I don't think anybody fainted this afternoon, but I did see an ambulance outside, so somebody was prepared for that eventuality.

The speech itself was not the main thing. I've read The Audacity of Hope, and I've been watching Barack Obama's recent speeches on his website, so the content wasn't new to me. The main thing was, as I typed to Liz-O a few minutes ago, that golly, it felt good to be a room with 17,000 people who clap when someone says that America is worth the struggle, and that we can be better than we are. Yes, we can.

What research discovered today: Montgomery Clift's twin sister is alive and well and living in Austin, Texas!

Do you know what I love? Movies. And Jim Croce. Especially Jim Croce singing "A Long Time Ago" and "Next Time This Time." The second song is so mean, but he's so clearly singing it out of pain, that it's not mean. Because he's sensitive like that. I also love Pandora, for reintroducing me to the greathenness of the singer-songwriter from South Philly.

(I am sorry for feeling compelled to post a link to a video. That is uncharacteristic. I hate videos.)

The next several paragraphs will be about how the love of my life, the Maryland Food Co-op, helps me keep from trashing my world.

A few months ago, I got into the habit of purchasing coffee in the mornings. There is free coffee in the 3rd floor lounge-area, but they have us use those heinous K-cup individual-brew things that taste disgusting in addition to being a disgustingly huge waste of resources. Every day I wish for a regular coffee pot in the lounge, like at DC Prep.

So I started to purchase from the coffee joint in the Adele H. Stamp Student Union, which is one of those places that serves Starbucks coffee in Starbucks cups with Starbucks sugar and Starbucks napkins but which is NOT Starbucks, which you discover as soon as you try to use the Starbucks gift card you got for Christmas.

There's also a lot of consumption that comes with daily non-Starbucks Starbucks puchases, which is why I commissioned a reusable knitted sleeve from my talented and crafty (in a good way!) friend Elizabeth Oshel. (See picture here, under "November!") I carry it in a wee pocket in my purse and use it constantly, feeling a little bit like a hero every time I refuse a paper sleeve.

Now, I knew in theory that the Coop had coffee for $1 down in the basement of the Student Union, but the the Coop only takes cash and checks, and I only ever have a debit card. But last week I realized that I should take out $5 each week (there's an ATM in the Union that dispenses $5! Benefit of being on a college campus!) and get my cheap coffee in an Ecotainer, saving a little money and a little paper waste.

But wait -- there's more! ALSO last week, the man at the counter told me that I could save ten cents if I used my own reusable container. I don't care about the $.10, but I had thought that there was some health-code prohibition against using one's own mug. But now I could reduce and reuse at the same time, for cheaper! So exciting.

Which brings me to this morning, when I realized that I had left my travel mug in the kitchen. I almost bought a Maryland travel mug from the school store to have as a back-up, but I decided that (1) that was $10-$15 I didn't really need to spend, and (2) I don't think I want anything with Maryland's name all over it. I will feel *just fine* leaving everything Terp behind me when I go.

So I went to the Co-op and filled my Ecotainer paper cup with freshly brewed coffee. Being freshly brewed, it was also freshly f-ing hot, so I slipped on my handy-dandy sleeve. This inspired the student behind the register to ask, with surprise mixed with love, "Is that a hand-knitted coffee sleeve?"

I should mention that this guy also happens to be my #1 favorite co-op worker. I have three. The #2 is a big bear of a man who, upon ringing up my banana chips one afternoon last semester, felt inspired to exclaim, "Hell, yeah, banana chips!" #2 smokes a lot of weed. My #3 favorite co-op worker went looking for kettle chips for me when I couldn't find the salted variety out on the floor. There were none in the back, so he brought me vegetable chips instead and advised me that they were healthier for me, anyway. #3 often has headphones on, and I think he listens to Olivia Newton-John because the other day he was wearing Spandex.

#1 is my favorite because one day I went in there for stew, but they had run out of rice. And I told him, very sadly, that stew just didn't make sense to me without rice, and I turned around to get a burrito or some other second choice. But #1 attacked the rice pot with the serving spoon, scraping with single-mindedness, and offered me the the fruits (grains?) of his labor. He insisted that I didn't have to accept the rice he had worked for, but of course I did, and it was delicious with my stew. Further, he is my favorite because sometimes the co-op plays really ugly metal or techno, which makes my head hurt, but when #1 is there, I hear things like Simon and Garfunkel.

So this morning, #1 explains that people complain because the Coop doesn's have paper sleeves, but they don't want to put out another thing to be thrown away with every cup of coffee. So there I was feeling a little bad because I had to throw away a cup today, and there was my #1 Favorite Co-op Worker, reflecting on my little knitted doodad and saying: "I really admire you for doing that."

I get admired for carrying around a hand-knitted gift that I LOVE? What a life I lead!

Major props to Liz Oshel for contributing to a delightful morning exchange!

I couldn't get to sleep last night; I haven't had a restful Sunday night in a very long time. I wonder if that's a sign of something? The good news of the day is that the boss'll be back tomorrow, so I may get some actual work to do! Anissa was out all last week, and I approached tears of boredom more than once.

What research discovered today: location and estimated value of Josh Duhamel's California home.

I had a very fine weekend, thank you. I just returned from a Super Bowl party at the home of Chip Patterson and his girlfriend Katie Gillespie (also her birthday today!), who have been attached at the hip since last spring. They are not cloying, thank God, but they are inseparable, which can be cloying.

The social interaction, not the game, was the draw for me. I have learned the rules of football many, many times, but they just do not stick in my head. I had no team this year -- I didn't even know for sure who was playing until earlier this week. So I decided to be a positive person and root for the success of both teams. Go Pats! Go Giants! I am sorry that Tom Brady and the Patriots did not get their perfect season; it must be terribly disappointing for them. But on can't be too sorry for Tom Brady, who takes his perfectly chiseled face and football-MVP body home to his supermodel girlfriend and his millions and millions of dollars. And I like families, so I am particularly happy that both of the Manning brothers get to be Super Bowl champs. I'm sure it makes Thanksgivings at the old homestead a little bit easier.

Most happily: This weekend, I finished a book! I had borrowed Joan Fontaine's autobiography Bed of Roses on Monday, and I finished it Friday night. Fontaine starred in Hitchock's Rebecca and Suspicion, and some also know her for a well-regarded film called Letter from an Unknown Woman. She specialized in a kind of delicate insecurity onscreen. She is also the sister of a stronger actress, Olivia De Havilland, who played Melanie in Gone with the Wind. The two did not get along very well -- and they are both still alive, in their 80s, and they still don't get along. Sisters are weird. I know.

The first 100 pages were engrossing -- the sisters are part of an aristocratic British family -- De Havilland is their real name, can you believe it? They were born in Japan, but their parents split up, so they were raised in Northern California with their mother, who married this oppressively stern stepfather. Olivia eventually ran away and joined an acting troupe, which led her to a long-term contract with Warner Brothers. Joan moved in with her sister, and she was eventually picked up by RKO Studios. She took her stepfather's name as her stage name, got the part in Rebeccca, and won an Oscar for Suspicion the next year, which really pissed off her as-yet-Oscarless sister. Whoops.

That was the first 100 pages. Then Fontaine got all famous and the rest was mostly about parties she went to, and about her marriages and divorces, which were a result, I think, of women being raised to think that they need a man around the house. Any one that's nearby. But it was a good read -- Fontaine's a smart lady, a good writer, and little bit of a bitch -- in a good way -- which I can appreciate. It's a quality I try to encourage in myself.

Now I am working on The Genius of the System, about the Hollywood studio system from its inception to the 1960s. I've been working on it for months. Here's to finishing it this week!

I had a couple of people over for dinner yesterday (ended up cooking for 6), which I volunteered to do for reasons I couldn't enumerate even under threat of bodily harm. My cooking skills are in development, to be kind about it, and I get very nervous about other people's judgements. But I did, so I did -- and nobody vomited or anything!

I made baked spaghetti, garlic bread, green beans, and brownie cupcakes for dessert. I was raised by a woman who makes her own spaghetti sauce, so I felt really terrible pouring from the Newman's Own jar into the baking pan. But most of the rest was fresh or from scratch! No boxes! No cans!

It occurs to me that "from scratch" is an indefinite concept. I didn't mix eggs and flour and what-not to make the spaghetti. I didn't churn my own butter to put on the garlic bread. I didn't create my own chocolate, whatever it takes to do that. (Didn't I make my own chocolate as part of a museum field trip one time? No, I think we just melted chocolate. But at some point a mortar and pestle was involved, and I love a mortar and pestle. Not kidding. Love.)

I'm trying to imagine doing this crap every day, like so many women have to do -- cooking 3 meals a day for many people. At least, in this most of this country, we have have appliances and conveniences that cut down the amount of necessary labor. But some people still have to gather wood to make fire, and everybody had to do that at one point. But I guess there's some kind of dialectical (?) relationship here. Like, if I had to do all that work to make a varied dinner, then my family would be eating boiled potatoes every night. But once you can turn on your gas stove instead of firewood-gathering, the world opens up to you. You've got more time to think about getting some vegetables or something and boiling them, too. Or frying them. Or sauteeing them. Or baking them. The world opens up, I say.