Tweets for Today

• 11:12 Thursdays are the longest days. Even though today kind of feels like a Monday (tx, snow day!) there is so much still to do... #

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Tweets for Today

• 08:55 @racris Mwah hah hah... Yet another way to internet stalk you! Thanks! #

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Tweets for Today

• 17:47 I'm having some post Butch Project Bowling let-down. Where can the day possibly go now? #

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Tweets for Today

• 20:22 I'm trying to decide whether to be pleased about Daughter's interest in the show Teen Titans. Comix, action heroes=good. Corporate tv=bad. #
• 08:43 Dear Mercury Retrograde: Why do you hate me? I've never done anything to you. Let's be friends. Love, Jen. #

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Tweets for Today

• 20:48 @claymonkey because the work is for you... the documentation is for the bosses. #

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Tweets for Today

• 07:44 :It's going to be a long, long day. #

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I'll be streaming it from work

(photo from The Big Picture)

My co-workers and I totally have a plan to stream the entire inauguration ceremony while we're working. Ahem.

I'm so excited, and oddly nervous. I think there is a part of me that worries that it's not actually going to happen.

Happy Snow Day

I woke up this morning to the particular grey light of a snow day, and I knew my company wouldn't be coming from Central Maine for brunch. No matter, I cooked the cinnamon rolls anyway, and the baked beans will hold until lunch. (Although I fear that now I won't see these friends until spring, and I have some urgent chicken matters to discuss with them. I mean, and they're wicked fun to talk to, also. Clearly.)

But all the urgency is removed from the day, and there is suddenly a blank swath of time that stretches until bedtime tomorrow. That's my favorite thing about snow days: the unexpected gift of nothingness.

I might watch a movie or three. I might not. I might do some yoga or take a walk. I might just lay on the couch in front of the TV. At any rate, the day is completely up to mine and Daughter's whims and wants--a rarity in our overscheduled lives.

Here are a few things I've enjoyed recently, in case you're lazing around the internet as well:

Letters to Barack Obama from the kids at 826 Valencia

Paul Constant on Smobriety

The intro from 3-2-1 Contact on youtube

What sustainability can mean on feministe

Stunning pictures of the Earth from The Big Picture

There's a word for it

For some time I have been perplexed at my tendency to cry at parades. I could understand the need to well up at demonstrations, in the visual representation of solidarity that I believed in, but I also cry (or rather, well up and get choked up--very rarely do the tears roll down these cheeks) at demonstrations that I don't believe in (although the parade at Disney World that I was unfortunate enough to view seems excluded). I choke up at military parades, when I am disturbed by the military. I weep over marching Lions Club members.

Today in Roger Ebert's blog, he perfectly describes that feeling. It happens to him in movies where someone does something right (as in Clint Eastwood's character's actions at the end of Million Dollar Baby.) These kinds of movies also make me cry, more consistently than "sad" movies do.


This feeling is called Elevation:

Elevation has always existed but has just moved out of the realm of philosophy and religion and been recognized as a distinct emotional state and a subject for psychological study. Psychology has long focused on what goes wrong, but in the past decade there has been an explosion of interest in "positive psychology"--what makes us feel good and why. University of Virginia moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who coined the term elevation, writes, "Powerful moments of elevation sometimes seem to push a mental 'reset button,' wiping out feelings of cynicism and replacing them with feelings of hope, love, and optimism, and a sense of moral inspiration."

Studies have indicated that Elevation is triggered by the stimulus of our vagus nerve, described by Wikipedia as the only nerve that starts in the brainstem and extends down below the head, to the neck, chest and abdomen, where it contributes to the innervation of the viscera. It must be involved in what we call "visceral feelings," defined as "relating to deep inward feelings rather than to the intellect."

Now, I am not necessarily morally inspired by marching veterans, but I am inspired by the fact that they show up and let their physical bodies publicly stand for something they believe in. To me, that is a right thing.

I recommend reading the whole Ebert post, btw. He is my new favorite internet philosopher.

Citizen's Briefing Book

In case you haven't seen it yet... the Obama administration (I do love to see those words together) is soliciting public comment on national priorities through a Citizen's Briefing Book. It uses a Digg-style voting system for ideas, and anyone can submit one.

The words and ideas submitted therein will be delivered to President Obama after he takes office.

I don't know how well I think this will work (look at what bubbles to the top on Digg) but I think it's worth a shot.

For Anna

And everyone else, too, on second thought:



Happy not snow day. Safe travels.

For a slow news day...

The top 10 evil clown stories of 2008.


Clowns don't scare me, but I know lots of people feel otherwise. I'm also not scared of dolls, aliens, snakes, needles, or knives.

I am, however, all-out-of-proportion scared of ugly bugs (spiders, house centipedes, hornworms), the dark, dogs, handguns, and germs.

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