Moonwalking

The liberal arts curriculum at my undergrad University mandated at least one semester of Fine Arts study. After hearing abundant complaints about how much homework theater class gave and how much supplies for painting and photography costs, I entered a class that, on paper, came close to a basket-weaving level of difficulty: The History of Rock & Roll and Pop Music. And though it was not particularly academic, I learned more in that class about America, our history and our culture than I have in any previous or subsequent class (and my ridiculous student loans speak to the extreme amount of time I've spent in classrooms). Among our studies of transformative lyrics, rhythms and styles we discovered how traditionally 'American' songs have shaped public opinion, inspired fashion and united an otherwise disparate people. We also learned that every once in a while, a pioneer can change the way we interact with each other and communicate- simply through his music.

Michael Jackson was such a pioneer; his recent death is bringing me back to our in-class conversations regarding the hook in "Beat It" and his unprecedented ability to merge black and white tastes into simple, catchy beats. Through distilling him, his musical style and capacity to capture a musical message in the most memorable videos ever aired on MTV, I realized that my peers and I, unlike previous generations, think of music as both audial AND visual. We never questioned buying and dancing to an album of someone not of our race- it would have been criminal to not partake in the Thriller phenomenon. Much has been written, and there is undoubtedly more to come, but MJ really did change music and for that I give him a shout out.

Turmoil

There are not enough F-bombs in the world to encompass the awfulness in Iran right now. This is going to be huge now- and it's going to be even bigger later. Ugh...

"The elections are another potent reminder that there can be no illusions about Iran’s government and its malign intent. That is a hard political fact."

Stop, Drop and Roll

I'm terrified of fire. It's neurotic (completely neurotic), but about 4 out of 7 days a week I will lock my apartment door and immediately proceed to unlock it and shuffle to the kitchen to affirm that I, in fact, remembered to turn off the stove top and my cute home will not be burnt to a crisp in my absence. Sometimes I have to say, "the stove is off," to make an audible memory of the assertion in the event that my Lassie-esque fire-down-at-the-old-mill sense pops up in the middle of a meeting or while writing a memo.

Thus, it would make total sense if I completely freaked out when my fire alarm started to beep in the middle of last night. Except I didn't. Evidently my neurosis was asleep too. To address the beeping situation I took the following steps:

1. Gave said smoke detector a dirty look.

2. Stood up on bed and attempted to take smoke detector apart. Realized that the smoke detector above bed was, in fact, void of batteries and therefore NOT the source of beep.

3. With hands on hips in pajamas and what one can only infer to be amazing bed-hair, stared at empty smoke detector

4. Laid back down

5. Attempted to reason with beep

6. Created a pattern with the beep: it goes off every 2 hours and thus has something to do with TIME not FIRE.

7. Turned on my fan and my white noise machine

8. Faded in and out of sleep, did not burn to death.

Turns out, I have another smoke detector. In the kitchen. Duh.

Under My Umbrella (ella, ella)

I learned a lot from my study abroad experience in Madrid. For example, I learned that one will receive jamon in her meals even if she says she is a vegetarian and that hissing is an appropriate form of inter-gender communication. I discovered how to roll my r's and how to navigate one of the best metro systems in the world- which also appeared to be the top make-out location for all of the nation's young people. Most of all, though, I learned a critical element of essential Spanish womanhood. Allow me to elaborate...

A typical Spanish girl grows up to be a drop-dead gorgeous 20-something with a high pitched giggle and fabulous fashion sense. At some point between her 20th and 60th birthday, however, something crazy happens. Perhaps a result of excessive jamon intake, she shrinks about a foot and becomes attached at the hip to her friends. These tight huddles of older women stroll down the sidewalk at a very leisurely pace with a complete disregard to the pacing needs of impatient Americanas, such as myself.

Evading these amoeba-esque sidewalk clusters proves to be black-diamond-difficult when it is raining out. Each woman carries an umbrella, cleverly called a paragua (for water), creating a patchwork of nylon and metal that completely obstructs one's view and doubles the collective womanly girth of the group. The group of Jamon-I-Shrunk-the-Ladies not only irritated the more well-paced among us, but proved to be a head poking target for us 5'8"-ers whose amply sized dome never failed to be placed at the elder paragua height. Many times I clunked and bumped up against these parasols of death without so much of a 'permiso' or 'perdoname' from a cluster being. As an evolutionary reflex, I grew to avoid busy areas during rain and did not carry my own paragua, neededing full vision capacity to guard against the paragua gangs that roamed the calles freely (and slowly).

Boston has turned into Seattle this week and I have been struck by the number of paraguas out and about in my home Northeastern-turned-Pacific-Northwestern city. I have an umbrella. It's pink and is currently sitting on my desk at work. But I'm pretty sure that the paragua experience of abroad has turned me away from using umbrellas unless it is monsooning, and even then I'll rarely snap it up.

I often like to think of myself as low maintenance; one who can go with the flow and not worry about the frizzy hair and damp clothes that accompany rain exposure. Yet, I'm beginning to think that behavior could be considered unprofessional; at the very least it probably appears that I am just clueless (which is true for a number of things, but seasonal etiquette is not usually one of them). The truth of my umbrella strike, however, lies in the paraguas. Prado-ing visitors, consider yourself warned: You TOO could end up frizzy and damp.

Bring it.

While one may think that the idea of a Cheney/Gingrich ticket in 2012 would elicit instantaneous vomit in the mouth of this blogger, one would be wrong. I am DYING to see these two crazies reveal the beating xenophobic, economically erroneous heart of the conservative wing of the Republican party. I crave for the two drivers of all that is inane in politics over the past two decades to be exposed, like an open, hypocritical wound. I long for the nation to, yet again, reflect on its ability to become devout believers in irrational thought during time of fear and uncertainty- in the hopes that, like times past, we may learn a small bit from our mistakes and refuse to be duped again. I crave a dialogue regarding family values in America that isn't centered upon the facade of perfection as defined by ignorance and stagnancy but one that not only embraces values as rooted in education and growth.

So I urge all the Fox News types to cluster together in the far right, hail their concentrated 2012 ticket of 'no middle ground' right into the ground. And then maybe a party that Lincoln MAY recognize could emerge (although I'm dubious).

This political frothing at the mouth makes me feel...well, it makes me feel downright Republican.