Apt. 11D

Culture Vultures

Last Sunday, Steve and I got all dressed up for Fancy Date in New York City Night. We have these super special nights that involve lots of expensive babysitting time about as often as leap year, so we were very excited. We had tickets for a hot play and dinner reservations. Steve even took it upon himself to call the babysitter and line her up. Go Steve. Yes, the hours of complaining that it's always ME who calls the babysitter did work. Now we can move on to complaining that it's always ME who dusts the pictures. Not that I really do that, but whatever.

We saw August: Osage County. It's a lovely, heart-warming tale of a family that comes together after the father commits suicide. The mother is a chain-smoker, hooked on pills, and suffers from mouth cancer. She rips into her daughters and other family members until they leave the stage in tears. An soon-to-be uncle molests his 15 year old niece. The aunt confesses that she had an affair with the dead husband. Her son is having an affair with his cousin, but it really turns out that they are brother and sister. It was great.

During the intermissions, Steve and I scanned the actor bios in the Playbill, because we were too horror-struck to talk to each other. The first one was in some Steppenwolf production (didn't see it), the next one played Hamlet in some fancy theater (didn't see it), another was in some Tony award winning play (didn't see it). We got to the bio of the actress who played the 15 year old pothead/molestee (is that a word?). Turns out she was the voice of JoJo on JoJo's Circus. We were really impressed with her.

I Didn't Drive the Bus Into the Ditch

In the last debate, Obama responded to Hillary's claim that he has voted the same way she has on the Iraq war, since he entered the Senate. He said that he never supported the war, unlike Hillary, but that once the bus had been driven in the ditch, he had to vote to keep funding the troops. The exact line was,

Once we had driven the bus into the ditch, there were only so many ways we could get out. The question is, who's making the decision initially to drive the bus into the ditch?

That "I didn't drive the bus into a ditch" phrase is going to be one of the most memorable soundbites of this campaign. Steve said that someone at work used it yesterday, and everybody got it. It has endless applications -- global warming, the sub-prime interest rate fiasco, the bankrupcy of social security, the popularity of TMZ, the outing of Harry.

This is a good thing, because there are all sorts of other catchphrases that need to be retired, such as "talk to the hand" and all references to "f$cking Matt Damon".

The Good Stripper

OK. I'm back. The week before midterms is always crazy. I graded 31 short essays on Pericles and 30 assignments on state legislatures. I prepared two lectures on Machiavelli and one big one on state legislatures. I assembled two midterm review sheets. While keeping an eye on the kitchen contractors and helping Jonah with two school projects. So, I had three late nights in a row.

The neighborhood busy-body said that he's been watching me at my computer until all hours of the night. He's concerned about my health. I'm concerned that some old dude is spying on me.

On Wednesday, I came home from work and crashed on the sofa for an hour. Oprah was on. She brought out two Freegans, people who dumpster-dive to avoid ruining the environment with more stuff. Apparently, you can get a lot of good stuff from the dumpsters outside of supermarkets. Oprah with her big castle looked a little grossed out by the whole thing.

The next guest was a forty-something woman who worked as a stripper at nights, so that she could spend time with her kids in the afternoon. She said that other jobs only paid $30,000, not enough to support her three kids on her own, and that the hours interfered with the kids' after-school needs. Lisa Ling and Oprah patted the woman on the back for finding a way to earn money, while being a good parent.

So, Oprah may have convinced me to be a stripper. The money would be better, and the hours would be about the same.

Modern Love

Lisa Gottlieb answers the age-old question, Is it better to be alone, or to settle?

My advice is this: Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It’s hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who’s changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)

Who Made Huckabee?

Steven Colbert, Conan O'Brien, and Jon Stewart are having an on-going fight over who made Mike Huckabee.

I would like to offer the final answer to this fight. I, in fact, made Conan O'Brien who made all others. How did you, some lousy D-list blogger, make the supreme Conan, you ask. Well, let me tell you a story.

Many, many years ago. I was at a party in Park Slope getting sloppy on beer, when a friend introduced me to a cute guy who said he was at a writer for some new show, the Conan O'Brien show. This was in the Before Steve years and he was cute and interesting. So, what did I do to impress Mr. Cute and Interesting? I said, "boy, your show is really tanking, isn't it?" In that quick second, I accomplished two things. One, I instantly got Mr. C & I to make some flimsy excuse for more dip in the kitchen, and I retained my pariah status. Two, I gave the Conan show my double-backward hex. All other failing shows and political candidates should come to me for similar early death pronouncements. Sure winners all of them.

Freeze Tag

Live Blogging the Oscars!

Tonight, I'm grading a stack of political theory papers, watching the Oscars, and live blogging the event. Wahoo!

My boyfriend, Jon Stewart, did his thing. Not so much with the big ha-has yet, but he looked cute as always.

Will someone make Jack Nicholson go away? Those stupid sunglasses and dumb jokes. Come on. How corny. We now have George Clooney to provide the dumb jokes and buffoonery and the bimbo on the arm. Nicholson is redundant.

Jennifer Garner just handed out the best costume award in a fab, black dress. Drezner is right that Garner was the best thing about Juno. She made me cry twice. There should be a "Making the Blogger Cry" award.

OK, let's pile some hate on Katherine Heigl. Little Miss Perfect is really getting on my nerves. Can you say over exposure. Of the other over exposed stars of 2007 that I would swerve to hit on a highway, let's add the entire cast of High School Musical and all of Brangelina's children. Roadkill. Oddly enough, I don't yet hate Miley Cyrus. Even after the Oprah special. And officially changing her name.... I might have to rethink things.

Jennifer Hudson walked out in a gravity defying dress, and millions of people thought one thing. BOOBS!

Go, Coen brothers!

Tilda Swinton wins for Supporting Actress. We here at 11D support all pasty skinned redheads, so two thumbs up from us.

I'm glad that they had Owen Wilson and Jessica Alba present. It reminded us of the big themes of 2007 -- drug overdoses and birth control failures.

Coen brothers win for Best Adapted Script. Today I visited my new nephew, Thomas, in the hospital. He is a darn near perfect baby, by the way. The first thing that Steve and I said after sanitizing our hands was, "he's an angel. An angel straight from heaven." Then my brother declared that Thomas was a little outlaw. Shows you how the Coen brothers have invaded our lives.

More On the Tax Debate

Megan wants to clarify the tax debate. "What most of us are really in favor of is higher taxes on other people. If we wanted higher taxes on ourselves, we'd give the money to charity."

In some sort of a crazy-assed world, I guess it would be nice if I got to live in a great house and got great schools, but got other people to pay for it for me. If being a libertarian means getting stuff for nothing, then sign me up, baby!

I want to live in a town with good schools, so I'm willing to pay more taxes for it. I care more about education than cars or shoes, so I like to give my money to the town to purchase books for my kids and pay qualified teachers. I care so much about schools, that I'm willing to pay more money in taxes to improve the quality of schools even more. Even if my taxes were to double, it would still be cheaper than private schools for two kids. Since I don't have time to home school and don't want to organize a school myself, I'm very pleased that the town government has arranged a system where I simply write them a check and then they pick up my kid with the school bus ever morning at 8:30.

Of course, this all sounds terribly spoiled. I recognize that we're lucky to pay our town's taxes without stress and could even envision moving to a different town with even better schools with even higher taxes.

UPDATE: Biting comments from Henry Farrell.

Pity Party?

Yeah, I've been feeling sorry for Hillary, too.

Will Suburbs Be the Next Slums?

To celebrate the fact that the Atlantic is now letting non-subscribers read their articles, let's talk about "The Next Slum"?

The author, Christopher Leinberger, argues that homebuyers' tastes have changed. They no longer desire huge lawns on deserted cul-de-sacs. Everybody is sick of the Gap in the mall. People want the urban lifestyle. So, all the McMansions that multiplied in the 1980s are turning into slums. Those grand atriums are empty or filled with dodgy renters. Urban areas are improving their schools and offering safer streets. People are moving back to the cities.

I'm one of those who prefers an urban lifestyle. We've got a foot of snow out here right now, but we're going into the city tonight for date-night even if we have to attach a snow plow to the front of the Toyota. When the lack of affordable housing and the quality of schools forced us out to the suburbs, we chose to live in the center of an older suburban neighborhood. It has an urban flavor.

Our house has the high ceilings and fat moldings of a city apartment. Our lawn is very small. We can walk to a Starbucks and a bagel store. We immediately started yuppifying our old house.

This kind of living is also very green. My husband walks to the bus, which takes him to work. We only need one car. Our patch of grass doesn't need much water. Instead of building a new home, we're fixing up a 100 year old home. The old home was built so well that we don't need central air-conditioning.

If you look around the other homes in our downtown area and you'll see a few families like ours -- educated, professionals. But you'll also see many driveways with piles of contracting refuse. Several of the homes have been carved up into illegal sublets. One house is full of illegal Mexicans farming pepper plants on their front lawn. The roof on the porch has collapsed and the town refuses to condemn it.

Our walkable downtown is one of the real perks of living in the town, along with the easy commute into Manhattan. But our town is filled with struggling contractors and seniors who can't afford the high taxes, so they want to increase the ratables in town. They want to kick out Starbucks and put in a drive in Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I thought that we would be pioneers out here. I thought our downtown area would attract all sorts of people like us who were interested in urban-esque living.

I'm not seeing it. The bigger homes are holding their value. There aren't any big changes in our neighborhood. Instead of new urbanism, I'm seeing the same old preference patterns for driving culture and large lawns.