Get-my-life-together day

Best President's Day EVER.
After sleeping in until 10 a.m., which as everyone knows is the perfect hour of sleeping in, I read online news sources, listened to "You Were Right" by Badly Drawn Boy radio station on Pandora (which I totally forgot about for months but is such an ingenious invention), played facebook Scrabulous (Josh, I think I'm much better now...or the people I've played against are just worse than you. Rematch?) and looked at the facebook profiles of all the new friends I suddenly have because apparently it's acceptable for urban baby boomers to be on facebook now. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I have been plugging facebook since 2004, and my new fbook contacts are work people and not my parents friends or my friends parents or anything, buuut I have to say, I'm a little protective of facebook. It's the one contribution my generation has contributed to society (unless you count the Mary Kate & Ashley branding or Obama-mania) and it feels weird that it's being appropriated by the grown-ups. But I'm technically a grown-up now, I realize.

Speaking of which, one of my big accomplishments today was I bought AND installed curtains for my room. Maybe you don't realize how huge this is. I'm not sure why this task was procrastinated beyond the point where my father was still regularly offering to buy me apartment things because he was "so proud of me" but it was and the sheets that were taped to my windows fell down yesterday so that was the last straw since it's something that's been bothering me for a while and I always feel the need to justify to visitors why I have makeshift curtains, even though they probably don't care, except my aunt, who seemed to care and judge when she visited. But I was judging myself too. Anyway, last night I took the appropriate first step and I googled "installing shades" and realized I can just buy an adjustable rod, and found this handy quote from my now soulmate HomeEnvy.com ToolGirl Mag Ruffman: "There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind who use towels and old blankets for curtains, and the kind who go to the trouble of installing proper drapes." Well, while I've made clear here that like Tina Fey, I'm in the first camp, I am an aspiring second camper so a quick jaunt to Bed, Bath and Beyond and $80 later, my windows are the proud displayers of the cheapest curtains BBB had that are in every post-college apartment (mine are green). On a productivity kick, I then installed the curtains in my roommate's room that been lying around for months (she's also in the first camp...hence our sparsely decorated apartment).
THEN, after setting up my retirement account (I told you, this day was wicked productive), I went to a yoga class that is half a block from my apartment. While I don't presently love yoga, I don't hate it which is the highest praise I can give exercise and while I don't like working out in a group settings since I feel judged, I know I won't do anything on my own. So until I can afford a personal yoga guru, this is a good alternative. And when I'm good enough, my goal is to take a 7am "express class" before work, since it's so close I could go and still be at work by 9:30 and I could be one of those people I've always admired who works out before work. We'll see. I'll try. But I want to do yoga a lot and be disciplined about it and make it my thing and in 10 years be incredible and go on yoga retreats in Nepal and when people admire my skill level I'll be like, "You'll never believe this, but 10 years ago, I totally sucked at yoga." Except, in my yoga-inspired state, I won't say "totally sucked at yoga" but rather "hadn't found my inner chi" or some shit like that.

The week where everything was super

South williamsburg seems to have a 3 H demographic: Hispanics, Hipsters and Hispanics, with the first group supposedly swawing towards Hillary However, when I entered the Williamsburg Middle School (a mere block from my apartment, who knew?) polling place at 9:45 a.m. the Hasids were MIA and Hispanics were dominent. According to conventional wisdom, which is usually wrong, that means Hillary probably has the advantage. Although , it was may have been too early for many of the "creative types", meaning Obama still has a chance (see http://votingisthenewapathy.com/)

I spent a good portion of yesterday trying to decide who to vote for. This is the first election where my vote has the chance of mattering since I vote for Evanston's alderman sophomore year. And I care, deeply and am also I think unusually well-informed on the policy details. But more in a political wonky way then in a supporting candidate way, since besides for their health care (where I agree w/Hillary) they are the same-enough in policy.

I love that Obama could be superduper-awesome and that he has inspired so many people and even people who would normally vote Republican love him. But part of me just doesn't believe he'll be able to hack it. Where as Hill prob can, but the chances of her being superduper awesome and inspiring are slim. Also, I hate the whole "ready on day one." Umm, I'm sorry Obama never got to live in the White House. Is that a requirement nowadays? I don't fault someone for never being married to a former president, and in fact it's kind of a negative in my book. Plus, it sucks that so many people hate her no matter what and she would always go in with that. Why start off with a president half the country hates, even if they are totally dumb for hating her?

But I truly like her as a person, which I was reminded of when she was interviewed by Tyra (who I was reminded that I don't like).

Way off topic paragraph: I wrote Hillary a letter in second grade telling her I wanted to be president. I still have the form letter she wrote back in my scrapbook from that year. (I also have the picture that Mary-Kate and Ashley sent me after I wrote them asking me to join their fan club. I remember being so offended by this shameless commercialism even at age seven.) But anyway, while I have long since given up aspirations of the presidency, when I told my teacher, who was old and had been teaching for many years, this ambition in second grade, she said I was the first girl student who ever told her she wanted to be president. I imagine that if she was still teaching this wouldn't be the case, and I think Hillary has played a huge part in that. So I applaud her.

So yesterday morning I told myself I was voting for Clinton. Except I realized I'd rather Obama be president. I kind of wanted to vote for her so if I ever met her I could be like, "I voted for you" since of the two she is the one I'd rather sit down and have a beer with (though we'd both probably prefer wine).

But when I think of Obama being president it feels just way more exciting. Something new and different. Like, I don't want a Clinton redux since being president should mean you make longlasting changes, not make things ok for 8 years. And part of it's peer pressure, which feels wrong to say, but I'm sure I'm not the only one. I want to be a part of what all the cool kids in my generation are doing (And Obama is totally a cool kid and always has been), and while I'd rather tell Hillary I'm voting for her, I'd rather tell my peers I'm voting for Obama.

So I decided to vote for Obama.

On Sunday I watched the Super Bowl at a bar full of Giants fans. While I had not stake in the game, by the end I was SO EXCITED that the Giants won, that I couldn't imagine ever feeling ambivilent.

And that's sort of how I feel now. As I was walking back from the poll, I swear to G-D, I found myself, without even thinking, singing on the way back from the poll "The times they are a changing..." And then as I was leaving the poll, I saw a man with an Obama sign, and I smiled at him. And he smiled back.GO OBAMA! (unless Hillary wins the nominiation, then I've totally got her back).

it's 5:04 p.m., do you know where your day went?

Today I woke up and looked at my clock. It said 5:04. Crazy, I thought, it can't be 5 a.m. because I feel like I've slept a lot longer than that. No it was 5:04 P.M (i wish making P.M capital letters had the effect capitalization usually has). I'm not sick. I don't have my period. I went to bed at 2:30a.m. I turned my phone off because I was planning on sleeping in. But sleeping in like noon. But I slept almost 15 HOURS FOR NO REASON AT ALL! And I'm not that sleep deprived either. My roommate is gone so I didn't hear the t.v. on or whatever, but still. I thought I was growing out of my adolescence sleeping patterns but I guess not.

The one good thing about totally sleeping through life is that I don't have to make any choices. On days when I've woken up at 2 without a scheduled plan I have to spend time thinking, 'Should I be productive today?Do laundry? Clean? Go be cultured and go to a museum? Go shopping?'. Today there was none of that. And none of those things are so incredible or necessary that I really missed out, especially since this weekend is the first in forever I've had both a Saturday and a Sunday free. I have evening plans in a couple hours so all I had to do was shower and dress and now I'm blogging. I literally had no day.

But I think I am making more efficient use of my waking hours, and doing both fun New York City things and neighborhoody things. Last week I went to Sushi Samba (which used to be cool when Sex and the City was on) for restaurant week and also saw this benefit show that included rap and burlesque. Plus I'm figuring out fun bars and restaurants in Williamsburg. Ok, this paragraph was totally just to justify that I am not a waste of life.
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