Dear Big M States,

Here is a picture of my bare feet, next to some flowers:



You might be wondering when this picture was taken. For example, you might think it was taken last spring, in like April or May or something like that. But you would be WRONG, because in fact I took that picture about 20 minutes ago. Because over here in Constitution Land, it is 86 DEGREES outside.

That's right. In MARCH. Too bad for you, all you dwellers of the frozen north.

Your friend,
Cecily

vacation

I'm on spring break. And, as it turns out, the Constitution Gods are on spring break too- yesterday and today it is 70 degrees around here. I accidentally thought it was still March when I went outside so I wore my jacket, and boy was I ever sorry. Sorry and hot.

So I took my jacket off and carried it. Because I am a very resourceful girl.

Now that it is Spring Break, I have all kinds of business to attend to. Today, for example, I need to buy coffee and a drill. The coffee is because we are out of coffee, because I drank it all. The drill is because we still have thousands of boxes of art that we can't put on our walls without a drill. All the walls are very fragile and unpredictable plaster from 1920, so we have to buy those little anchors and whatnot, and then drill holes to put nails in.

I am not very excited about this, because I prefer the method of hanging things on the wall that involves me balancing precariously with one foot on the windowsill and the other foot on the bookshelf, and some nails in my mouth, trying to nail and align the art and not crash to the floor, all at the same time. This drill-and-plastic-anchor thing seems like it requires way too much forethought and planning: not my strong points.

Otherwise I will be doing a lot of homework.

Theoretically.

Plus also I am going to New York.

the Linguistics Department is dangerous

I fell down the stairs (ahem. ONE stupid stair) and broke myself.

Well, it's not really broken, it is just a stupid sprain. But it hurts! And I can't walk! And I am very bored!

Boo, hoo.

Valentine's Day

One of my mom's art students (a seven-year-old) made this Valentine's Day card for his little second-grade art student sweetheart last year. It's a pretty good valentine, although maybe not one I myself would really care to receive:

"Dear Marina,
If you have another Valentine's then that's O.K. I just want to be your Love, don't worry about that. Yeah so me and Julie are leaving to Hawaii so by[e] now I miss you."

Then, you will notice, there is a drawing of Cupid flying around, saying "be patient and think"

which is good advice for all of us, but again, not what I would prefer to hear from my Valentine and/or Love while he is on his way to Hawaii with some other girl.

"accessibility"

d

A Biography of Gerald Ford, in Portuguese

My newest favorite way to waste time is to read all the archives of Overheard in New York. Seriously I think I have spent about 10 hours over the last week reading that website. It's addictive and I'm obsessive so we're like a match made in heaven.

My other old standby favorite way to waste time was watching Law & Order on television, but as of this morning, we no longer have a television at my house. There was a breakup and a custody battle and the loser (in an extremely superficial sense, unrelated to actual human feelings, since I wasn't one of the breaking up parties) was me. Me and my evenings of watching Law & Order. Adieu, Detective Vincent D'Onofrio! I'll miss you!

Since I couldn't watch any crappy dramedies this evening, instead I started watching Issue # 1 of Wholphin, which is some kind of highbrow arty DVD publication from those guys at McSweeney's. It came free when I bought a copy of the Believer, which is their literary review magazine publication that I LOVE.

Anyway I am sad and disappointed by the DVD, because although it is full of what look like fine performances by people I admire (Miranda July! Spike Jonze! David Byrne!), none of it is captioned. I still watched part of it and I'll probably watch the rest at some point, because the visual element is not to be sneezed at. But there's a bunch of stories and people talking and I'm sure it would all be much more enthralling if I knew what they were saying.

I wasn't really expecting captions, because McSweeney's included a DVD with issue 11 of their quarterly. And on that DVD, there are captions, but mostly they are not in English. And none of them are captions of what is happening on the DVD. The notes in the back of the book say this:

*Subtitles available; drawn from The History of the Goths and Visigoths in German and Portuguese.
**Subtitles available; drawn from A Biography of Gerald Ford, in Portuguese.
U.S.S. Indicates that the author is in the Navy, and thus the reading is audio-only.
***Subtitles available; drawn from Spenser's The Faerie Queene; in Spanish.
+Subtitles available; drawn from the Book of Genesis.

I do see the humor in this, and I am a great appreciator of absurdity and nonsense and hilarious jokes. However, if you are deaf, watching this DVD (which is a "documentary" of the making of the issue of the quarterly literary journal) is tedious and annoying with no subtitles, and it doesn't become any less so if you turn the Portuguese Gerald Ford Biography subtitles on.

The "English Subtitles" option on DVDs is not because the people who make DVDs are stupid, it's because some people can't hear the spoken English.

The McSweeney's DVD may be tedious and annoying even when you can understand it. I'm sure some people, at least, think so. Sadly, I have no way to judge either the documentary or the newer Wholphin issue on its own merits. Which is too bad for the McSweeney's guys, because I really like almost everything those McSweeney's guys come up with. I buy their books and their magazines and their t-shirts and their bookplates. And I would probably like and buy and say nice things to my friends about their DVDs, too, if they hadn't decided that accessibility was too banal to be included.

story about pirates

by Jamie, age 5





When the land was dark and violent, there was a lad. He dreamed of becoming a sailor across the sea. But he lived with pirates.





But once he was hiding in the bushes and pirates were fighting on the grass.





Then a ship was known to go into the ocean. Then the lad was excited. The captain said he could go.





Chapter 1: The Lad Goes to Sea





He was pulling on the rope






When the lad was out after doing his work, he wanted to go down below. But just as he was going down the ladder, a pirate stepped into his way.






And then the pirate tied him up and [put him] in his cabin. And then he was going to stab the lad. He was just drawing his sword...






Chapter 2: The Lad Escapes





Somebody yelled "STOP!" and in a moment the lad had escaped and the pirate was overboard.





Chapter 3: The Ship Sinks





One day when the wind was blowing so hard, the ship sunk. And they jumped onto the island, and the lad died.




The end.

politics, wasting time

I'm in the midst of some personal, social, and locational upheaval (death, drama, moving house). So I'm not going to write anything interesting right now. Instead I'm going to go to the coffee store and read me some morphological theory.

If you need to look at something on the internet, I recommend this. It's about spying and wiretapping. "This isn’t a slippery slope, it’s a greased cliff with a vicious downdraft and parachute made out of fucking elephants." Ha ha! Elephants! That's funny!

P. L. Travers

I already hated Walt Disney, but I was recently reminded of my hatred by a New Yorker article about Mary Poppins. I hadn't really thought about the movie for a while, other than to hate it in a vague sort of way and be generally indignant about little children who watch too many videos.

But then I read this article and started thinking about how sexist and anti-feminist and crazy that movie is, and how annoying the animated penguins are, and then I got the "spoon full of sugar" song stuck in my head, and my hatred expanded. Kind of like when the Grinch felt his heart grow three or however many sizes, except with hatred of Walt Disney growing instead. Less pleasant, but totally deserved.

Why is the title of this post "P. L. Travers," you ask, when I am complaining about Walt Disney and Mary Poppins?

Because P. L. Travers is who wrote Mary Poppins. The books. All eight of them. The ones that Walt Disney and Julie Andrews turned into weird, sappy, chauvenist tripe about working parents and penguins. And P. L. Travers thought Disney did a stupid, sucky job of the movie, too, although she probably would not have chosen to use the word "sucky."

I don't really care if Disney wants to make crappy movies about things. Animated penguins don't really bother me all that much on their own. Disney can invent as many lame-ass, pointless, sappy little animated features as it (he? they?) wants to. Just make up the stupid story yourself, and don't blame it on real actual books! Because I do care when he (it? they?) takes books that are good and turns them into crappy movies that aren't. Not just Mary Poppins; this has happened to a lot of things. And then no one even KNOWS that there were books, and they think the crappy Disney movie IS the story, and they raise their eyebrows and roll their eyes at me when I start screaming about how much I hate Walt Disney.

So next time you see me, refer to the following as titles of books and not movies, and you can both avoid listening to me go on and on about the Evil Disney Empire and also make me your new best friend.

Mary Poppins: There are 8 books. Mary Poppins is mean, and vain, and cranky. There are 5 children (Jane and Michael, and also John and Barbara the twins, and Annabelle the baby). Mary Poppins is sarcastic and volatile and rude and very, very funny. The parents are kind and loving and unable to control anyone. Mary Poppins shows up and leaves and shows up and leaves again, 8 times. There is no moral, which is just as it should be: morals only belong in Aesop.

One Hundred and One Dalmations: This one is by Dodie Smith, who also wrote another of my favorite books called "I Capture the Castle" which now someone is also making into a crappy movie. People usually make fun of me when I talk about the 101 Dalmations thing, because they don't believe me about it being a good book. Which makes me even angrier, because Dodie Smith does not deserve that. There are only 97 puppies, because there are FOUR main adult character dogs, and no one is as annoying as the dumb dogs in the dumb movie.

Winnie the Pooh. I think some people realize that these were books first. But not so much how good the books are. How lacking in sappiness. Again, they are funny, even if you are a grown-up. The Disney versions are not funny. They are sucky. And dumb. And I only ever even SAW those cartoons once when I was 10, but I can still remember what a stupid, sucky, whiny, annoying voice they made Winnie-the-Pooh have.

The Once and Future King (Sword in the Stone to Disney) you should re-read this one right now because everything old T. H. White had to say in 1939 about war and politics and governments and human fallibility, is all still exactly and frighteningly true now. I read it right before the Iraq war started and I had goosebumps and felt sort of sick because really history just keeps repeating itself. But you would never know this by watching the stupid, crappy, Disney version, which makes you think it is all just a happy story about a dumb little blond kid.

Stupid Disney. I hate them. (It? Him?)

2006

For New Year's Eve, I practiced making mean faces at the camera with Maryrose.



We are pretty good at this skill, but we plan to keep practicing so we don't lose our touch.

mice are nice

The rodent drama around here never ends. I think my mom catches about 4 mice per day, in those little live-trap box things. Then she puts them in a holding cell for a few hours ("about six or eight hours" according to my brother) before releasing them back into the wild.

She doesn't actually do the releasing, she makes one of my brothers do it. And by "the wild" what I really mean is "the back yard" and by "holding cell" I actually mean "empty decorated Christmas Popcorn tin, covered by an old canvas on stretchers."

My stepfather is convinced that the same mice are coming back into the house every day, being punished in the popcorn tin, and being put outside. He is trying to convince my mom to paint the mice different colors ("just spray paint them! Or use one of those tiny-ass paint brushes you have all over the damn place. You have enough paint, if that's what you're worried about. You're not gonna run out any time soon.") so that we can see whether or not it is in fact the same mice or if
there really are that many.

I said a more fun idea would be to capture them, dress them in little outfits, and then give them to people as pets for Christmas presents.

My mom is ignoring both of us, so far.

Mighty Morpheme Power Rangers

Remember a long time ago when I said I was constantly thinking of fun but useless projects? Well I really made the one that was the cartoon of Power Rangers. And here it is! You have to click on the strips to make them big enough to read, unless you have super crazy vision powers.

Also, some of the jokes are not very funny unless you are in grad school for linguistics, like I am. But since I only really care about entertaining myself, it won't bother me too much if you don't laugh uproariously. Because I certainly am. Laughing uproariously.

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East vs Midwest vs Wild West

Now I'm in Montana. It's cold here, but before I complain I would like to first of all take back everything I ever said about Washington having "fake" weather. The Gods of the Constitution (some would say Founding Fathers, but really let's call a spade a spade, here, folks) were not pleased. And last Thursday, it rained, and rained, and rained, and froze, and rained, and froze some more. I ruined my gloves. Or at least, they got very wet, and so did I, and it was far more unpleasant than any other weather I've experienced so far this year.

Minnesota and Montana included.

So last weekend I was in Minneapolis, where it was cold and snowy but delightfully free of humidity. And now I am in Montana where, surprisingly, it is just as cold as it was in Minnesota. But with worse roads, better traffic, and more drive-through liquor stores. Again, though, no freezing rain.

I'm in the living room with a fire in the fireplace and several piles of books and magazines to read. And none of the books or magazines have anything to do with linguistics, at all. (except for one, but I'm not reading that one because I am on vacation)

In general, everything is as you might expect it to be. My brothers are tall. The Christmas tree is fragrant. My mom's dog is endearingly neurotic. Constitution Gods, bless us every one.

Hooray!

Well, I'm all done with my schooling.

I just posted my last final end remaining essay on the fancy school bulletin board. No, you can't read it. It's private.

I'm a little punchy. And excited! Here's what I'm doing today, now that I have ZERO homework:
1. meeting my sister at a bookstore
2. meeting friends for a drink of delicious beer
3. reading a murder mystery
4. going to bed

Tomorrow I have all kinds of other exciting jobs to do. Like clean my room. And pack. And do my laundry.

Probably not in that order...

I have better things to do

It's my last week of classes so I don't have time for all this "internet" malarky.

Until I come back, here is a fun place to waste your valuable time: Ring Tone Dancer. It's a kid I went to college with. He's dancing to the tune of a ringing cell phone- "in the hall of the mountain king" according to my sister.

talk to you next week

CORRECTION: Sorry, Jocelyn, the Mountain King is wrong. It's from Swan Lake.