Around The Mighty Internets

Chuckling Smugly Over:

This article about bad memoir writing is harsh, but true.  Also, it's totally self-indulgenent snark on my part because there's been a huge push toward the genre at work recently, and I dislike memoirs.  Strike that.  If someone had an amazing experience that the rest of the world should know about, and she/he/it can write without sounding like the narrator of Dear God, Are You There? It's Me Margaret, memoirs can be awesome.  However, any memoir written by a beautiful,  upperclass white woman complaining about how much belly button lint she has makes me want slap someone across the face with a bottle of Lancome youth serum.  This sound bad, but it comes from a place of love...I could care less about your voyage of self discovery.  It's called life...suck it up...breath...move on.  There's a time and place for such whining...start a blog.

Fascinated By:

So I listened to this woman on NPR this afternoon.  She's a photographer who drives around neighborhoods at night, peeks through the windows of people's private homes, and takes pictures of the weird stuff she catches them doing.  It's art, man.  Or, is she simply a creep with a nice camera?  

It's not so much the art itself that had me squirming.  The photos are really grainy, and you can't see the people doing much of anything.  It was the way she so breathily described her experiences.  Among other things, she described catching a girlfriend popping the zits on her boyfriend's back and a woman licking her desert plate..."as if in slow motion."  She sounded strangely turned on by the whole thing, even though she said it makes her feel very uncomfortable.  Good thing she's a "real artist" and not just some dude from the neighborhood with a strange hobby because I'm pretty sure people have gone to jail for less.

Worried About:

THE PLAGUE! Anyone else been obsessivley washing their hands recently?  
I never got around to getting a flu shot this year.  Meanwhile, my students have been dropping like flies all week.  It's only a matter of time before it makes it way into my home.  I tried to go get a flu shot yesterday afternoon, (your nagging and fear mongering worked, mother) but everyone seems to be out.  I plan on searching again this afternoon, but in the meantime every slight ache, pain, or chill has me convinced I'm sick.  I have a bad case of parnoia.