Things I Think Too Much About: Ads on the MBTA

As an individual without a driver's license, I spend a lot of time on the MBTA. As someone with a BA from a liberal arts college, I spend A LOT of time analyzing things that, ultimately, were never meant to be analyzed deeply. When these two qualities combine, the outcome is obvious: I spend a lot of time on the T over-analyzing really stupid ads. Sometimes, this habit of mine is relatively benign-- I'll joke with my roommate about how ill-suited the image of a girl staring dreamily out at a blue sky is with the ads copy, which is trying to track down hypochondriacs for a Harvard Med School study. "Worried you have brain cancer? Heart disease? A tumor?....well, it sure doesn't look like it, but hey: call us anyways." More often than not though, they make me really deeply annoyed.

A couple months back, Kaplan test prep bought, like, every third ad on the Red Line and Oh. God. Did I hate their ads. The tag line was "You'll be a different kind of _____. But first, you have to get into ____ School. " and it had the DOUCHIEST MODELS EVER. Like, apparently, being a "different kind of lawyer" meant you MEDITATED. In a BUSINESS SUIT. In THE MIDDLE OF A COURTYARD. "Different kind of doctor"? Daisy in your lab coat pocket. "Different kind of business man"? Look like a douchietty douche face and don't wear a tie. And call business school "B-school." HaaAAAaaaaaTE. The mere sight of these ads practically enraged me-- they were so SMUG about their pseudo-nonconformity. You could just imagine the douchy douche who they were obviously meant to target, the person who was like "Oh, I'm going to Law School, sure, but just to SUBVERT THE SYSTEM. But I won't consider anything that's not an Ivy." And they'd tell all their friends they were going to do Legal Aid or whatever, and get all self-righteous in people's faces about how they weren't just ANY Law School Clone they were there to DO SOMETHING MEANINGFUL. And then they'd end up working at, like, Goldman Sachs doing copywright law. But still be insufferably self-righteous. Those ads were directed act the kind of person who, while doing EXACTLY what all his peers are doing, still thinks gloatingly that he's some kind of daring individual. And good, dear lord, did I ever hate them. Even thinking back on the ads now, with them gone for MONTHS, they STILL annoy me.

Sometimes. however, there is a bright spot among all the rage. Something that consistently makes me laugh, even though it's not trying to. Like this ad:


Which never, ever fails to make me think "FART ATTACK!" and snicker to myself. Seriously. I defy you to see *anything* else when you look at that picture. It amuses me so much, so consistently, that it almost makes up for the Kaplan ads.

Almost.

I'm still doing BEDA, I promise...

So, here it is, seven days into blog "every" day April, and I have made just three posts. That's pathetic guys. Not necessarily surprising or anything, but still pathetic. I sit at my library desk, and I know there are plenty of things I could write about, but oh, look at how many articles there are in my google reader feed, and I mean, jeez, I shouldn't just write ANYTHING just to meet some kind of arbitrary deadline, unless I have Deeply Important Thoughts on a matter, what's the point. So on, so forth. But deep down I do know there's something worthwhile about just putting fingers to keyboard and banging something out-- maybe I don't have something to express at the beginning, but I can find things along the way.

SO. I am sticking with it. I will try to make up the missed posts throughout the month, but I'm not going to use them as an excuse to quit. That said, I am going to try to write a post for today.

Falling down on the job already...

I know, I know. I'm not even THREE DAYS IN before I miss a post. I am such a BEDA failure. But I am planning two posts today, to make up for my laxness. BUT WHAT AM I GOING TO POST ABOUT? I am feeling singularly uninspired. All I want to do is sit here at my library desk and online shop. I mean, just look at all the adorable things I'm finding:

I know, guys. It's hard to believe your eyes. But they're REAL SNEAKERS made to look like WATERMELON. And more importantly, they are sold in GROWN UP SIZES!!! I don't just have to sigh longingly over itsy-bitsy child footwear and long for the halcyon days of 1995 when my feet were small enough to fit them. I can buy my very own pair RIGHT NOW for just $43.00 and recapture the sartorial glee of a toddler who's just been given permission to dress herself!!! Maybe I'll even wear them with a tutu-- WHO KNOWS? With grown-up sized watermelon sneakers, the sky is the limit! And if anyone wrinkles their nose up at my taste and calls it immature, I can pretend to be grown up about it too, by describing them as "witty" shoes, or saying they are "inspired by the same Dadaist spirit that guided Elsa Schiaparelli." So, in summary:

Awesome Watermellon Shoes: $43.00

Employing you liberal arts education to justify your love for thoroughly ridiculous footwear: Priceless.

Super Quick Recipe Post

This is cheap, but I just had a 45 minute discussion with my mother about the vagaries of coming home from work at Midnight and what buses am I taking and do my coworkers walk me to the train and well if they drive couldn't they give you a ride and you know what? I am bone tired of it, and just want to READ and be anti-social.

But I am Blogging Every Day in Blog a Day April, so, blog I must. And I am going to do so by detailing my super uncomplicated recipe for my-- apparently-- legendary Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting. I used this to frost my Valentine's Day cupcakes and brought it into work and subsequently discovered from my now former coworkers that this frosting was a huuuge hit. So I promised to write it up and send it to them...and am doing it on my blog. Two birds! One stone!

disclaimer: I didn't take this picture, or cook this cupcake
I deleted all the pictures I took of mine, and just stole this from a blog
it sure is pretty though, isn't it?

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

1 (8 ounce) package of cream cheese
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Between 6-8 strawberries, I used frozen, but I imagine fresh would work just as well

1. Take the frozen strawberries, microwave them till they're defrosted, and mush them up with a fork (the poor girl's food processor). Refridgerate newly-made strawberry goo.

2. Soften cream cheese and butter so they're easy to mix. I usually do this by putting them in a plastic bag, and then submerging that bag in warm water in a metal bowl. This can leave the butter a bit melty, but it sure is easier on my mixing arm.

3. When cream cheese and butter are pliable, mix them together thoroughly in a big-ish mixing bowl.

4. Add the powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time until it's all encorporated.

5. Add the vanilla.

6. Retrieve refrigerated strawberry goo. One tablespoon at a time, add it to the frosting mix. Stir carefully after each one, and taste for strawberry intensity. If the flavor isn't strong enough, add another-- I don't know how many I used, because I wasn't this exact when tomfooling around in my kitchen. You have to keep an eye on it, though, because if you add too much goo, you compromise the structural integrity of the frosting and end up with a glaze. So, go a tablespoon at a time, mix, eyeball it, and taste, until you have the right balance. I bet 2 or 3 will do it.

7. Carefully lick clean all implements and bowls used to mix the frosting. If you just wash them, the frosting will turn out wrong, seriously guys. I promise.

And that's it folks. That's the strawberry frosting that brought you all joy. Use it well

Blog Every Day April?

Well, Maureen Johnson is doing it, and so... I might as well try, right? I have LOW EXPECTATIONS of success, much like Ernie and the Automatics and their debut album. But I dig Maureen, and I'm trying to blog more, and this seems like a harmless way to do so.

So, my subject for today: my profound gullibility, and the number of April Fool's Day pranks I've fallen for, and then been really disappointed were, you know, pranks. ThinkGeek has left me particularly bereft today-- their April Fool's day products are great. Many people were disappointed to discover that the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag was a fake,¹ I, however, think I might be one of few disappointed about the Buzzword wristband being fake. I mean, like, how neat an idea is that? I *know* I use like too much, and maybe some mild electro-shock therapy is exactly what I need to get better. Jeremiah Graves, on the other hand, would probably be crushed to know that the advertised Squeez Bacon is not, in fact, available for purchase. I think he would have had to buy a gross of it, had it been real.²

All in all, these pranks are more heartbreaking than funny. When will I get my Buzzword? What will Jeremiah do without his Squeez Bacon? And without a Tauntaun sleeping bag, what will warm my heart from the Hoth-like cold of these crushing disappointments?

Only time will tell, friends.



1 Actually, SO many people were disappointed, that ThinkGeek is going to try to make it for real. Which is kind of outrageously awesome.

2 Can we also agree, officially, that if Squeez Bacon ever becomes real, the collective noun for a large group of Squeez Bacons would be a gross? Example conversation:

Person 1: Oh, I was at the supermarket, and a gross of newly-sentient Squeez Bacons attacked a pregnant woman and devoured her whole.

Person 2: You mean ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR bottles of Squeez Bacon came TO LIFE??? And ATE A PREGNANT WOMAN????

Person 1: *eyeroll* Dude, they were eating a PREGNANT WOMAN. I couldn't get an exact count. With Squeez Bacon, a gross just means a whole bunch of them-- you know, like a flock of sheep, or a murder of crows, or a hush of librarians. Duh.

Obessisons, Part 1: Neko Case

I'm trying really hard to blog more frequently, even though only about two people ever read this. I figured a good way to motivate myself would be writing a series of posts about people or things I simply can't get enough of, hence the "Obsessions, Part 1" in this here post's title. Credit to Jeremiah for the general concept, clearly, as he's very fond of list making on his blog. My first subject in the series, Neko Case, is an obvious choice as I have listened to her new album, Middle Cyclone, about 85 times since it was released.¹On Tuesday. And I'm nowhere near tired of it yet. And that's just this album.

I have four others as well (Blacklisted, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, Furnace Room Lullaby, and The Tigers Have Spoken), and, according to my last.fm profile, I've listened to the 67 tracks contained on these albums 597 times, out 0f the 12,396 "plays" it has recorded, in total, since I joined. That means, according to last.fm, that about 5 out of every hundred times I'm listening to a song, it's by Neko Case.² Considering the fact that my last.fm library has 630 artists in total, that's a pretty solid testament to how much I like her.

Suffice to say, I love the crap out of her. And here's why:

1. Her voice. Her other-worldly, elemental, lure-your-boat-to-the-deathly-rocks incredible voice. It's not a simple voice, or a clean voice, it's pure, but not like an angel's. It's strong, even harsh at times, but you can feel its beauty right down in your bones. When, at the beginning of Middle Cyclone, she sings a song from the perspective of a tornado in love with a man, you just listen and think to yourself "Yup. That's what a tornado would sound like if it could sing." I can't think of anyone else with a voice so magnetic.³

2. Her songwriting is out of this world. As far as music goes, I'm usually a lyrics girl first and foremost. A song can be a really bare-bones, 3-chord progression number, but if it's got lyrics that are smart I could care less about the rest. But with Neko, it's not simply a case of lyrics, because if I write down the words alone they just don't have the same meaning. Like here are the lyrics from my favorite bit of the title track on Middle Cyclone, which is (basically) about being in love with someone but trying to fight it:

"It was so clear to me/That it was almost invisible./I lie across the path waiting/Just for a chance to be/a spiderweb trapped in your lashes/for that I would trade you my empire/for ashes--/But I choke it back/How much I need love."

The words alone are strange, and smart, and beautiful, no question. But it's the writing of the song itself, and how Neko delivers it, that really sells the meaning. The lines in the song are generally very short, and sung rythmically to a brisk, waltzing beat-- until it gets to the part about a spiderweb. Then the reigning waltz tempo gets abandoned, and things slow down-- like Neko is so absorbed in relishing the intimacy of that spiderweb, that she forgets herself. And then, just when that languid phrase reaches the peak of its longing, she cuts herself off abruptly, returns to the 3/4 structure, and "chokes back" how much she needs love. The very fabric of the song mimics the way the thoughts would happen in your head-- that dreamy interlude where you let yourself feel, really feel, how much you care about this other person, and then that quick interjection of sense that says-- no, don't do this to yourself. Choke it back. It's incredible, and you can find moments like that everywhere in her songs.

3. Her subject matter. I'm a pretty self-centered person, when it comes to art consumption, so it's hard for me to really be obsessed with something if I don't personally identify with it. So Neko could write the best songs with the most perfect lyrics in the world, but if I didn't hear them and think "Hey, that's exactly what I've thought and felt but never figured out how to say!" then she wouldn't be my second most-listened to artist. Neko writes about heartbreak, but roundaboutly and wryly, so I can listen to her when I'm heartbroken without feeling like I'm just moping. She's sings a lot about women who are tough and smart and don't apologize for who they are, and even though I'm not always like that, she makes me feel like I am. Like I won't take any shit. And that can be great to feel.

4. Do you know those songs that are so perfect, that you love so much, that before the song can even end, you've already whipped your iPod out and skipped back to the beginning? I think Neko has more songs like that than anyone else. There are at least three of them on each album. And that's pretty impressive.

5. And did I say that she's awesome, and her music sounds great? Because it does. And that's obviously the biggest reason why you guys should check her out. In fact, you can listen to the entirety of Middle Cyclone for free, including the title track discussed above, at NPR's First Listens series. So give yourself 40 minutes and check it out. I don't know if she's everyone's cup of tea, but she's sure as hell mine.⁴

1 This is probably a slight exageration, but since I haven't unplugged from my iPod long enough to sync it since uploading the music, I don't have up-to-date playcount information to give you.
2 And that's just her solo albums, by the way. If you add in the amount of time I spend listening to The New Pornographers, it jumps to 6 songs out of 100.
3 I'm not the only one who thinks of her as a siren, either. She was cast to do vocals as one in an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, too.
4 Yeah, that's right bitches! I figured out how to put footnotes in my blogs. SUCK ON THAT!

Previously, on As The Pier Glass Turns....

Loyal reader(s) will remember that, in October of '07, I told you (based on extensive personal research conducted while cataloging the Stephen Feinberg Memorial Holocaust Library at BLS) that:

If your book about the Holocaust is worth the paper it's printed on, then Elie Wiesel's name is on it somewhere. Maybe he wrote the foreword, maybe he wrote the afterword, maybe he did a blurb for the back of the book, or maybe your agent paid someone else to mention his name in their blurb. Either way, if Elie isn't involved, it might as well not be about the Holocaust at all. - "Do YOU Know the Call Number of Evil?", by your own Cassandra.

Well, apparently that goes for Ponzi schemes as well.

In (Belated) Defense of Valentine's Day

I think I can safely say that I am not overly romantic, or at least not romantic in a profoundly cliche way. I mean sure, I like Jane Austen novels and When Harry Met Sally, and I have even been known to read the occasional romance novel-- mostly after being led into temptation by regular blog reader Anna. However, when it comes to love, in general I prefer the rough and wry to the saccharine, the clear-sighted and honest to comforting and vague, and a sharp tongued aphorism to a drippy platitude. I'm not a cynic, not by a long shot, but I can safely say that if someone gave me a dozen long-stemmed roses, I'd be more likely to roll my eyes at their lack of originality than fall into their arms in wondering gratitude. And yet, I am a staunch supporter of Valentine's Day, considered by most to be the pinnacle of syrupy sweet greeting-card romance. And not only do I support it, but I think you, dear readers, should as well.

Yes, I am aware that:

a) The way it's commonly marketed is hideous.
b) The way most people celebrate it is stupid, cliched, and gross-- more about showing off/demonstrating status than actually celebrating love.
c) If you're single and unhappy about it, the lead up to the holiday can feel like a month and a half of being punched in the stomach.
d) If you're in a relationship, happy or unhappy, it can feel like a month and a half of pop quizzes you haven't done the reading for.

BUT I don't think any of the above points are intrinsic parts of the holiday itself, and I don't think any of them are grounds for valid grounds for hating THE DAY.

I know, I know. This doesn't make sense. I can hear you asking: What do you mean, Margaret? How can the DAY be okay if the way it's celebrated is hideous and it makes everyone feel unhappy, regardless of their relationship status?

Well, readers, let me explain by way of a parallel or six. Let's start with Christmas. Is it marketed hideously? Yup. Do many people celebrate it in a shitty or cliched way? Totally. All the people who are out being dicks on Valentine's Day are probably out being dicks EVERY holiday, Christmas is no exception. Is it stressful for the people who celebrate it? Yes, often almost unbearably so. And is it lonelymaking for the people who don't celebrate it? Absolutely. But on December 24th, you don't have billions of people posting on their blogs about how much Christmas blows. Nope. They're decking the halls, being merry, and finding awesome ways to celebrate the day with out a second thought for all the dicks out there who may or may not be missing the point of it.

In Almost Famous, the fact that Frances McDormand's character forces her family to celebrate Christmas on a random day in September, when she can be sure it won't be commercialized, is a sure sign that she's batshit insane. When Ebenezer Scrooge says "Humbug" to his nephew Fred, he gets harassed by ghosts until he mends his ways. And yet, every year, when millions of cool, smart, decent people opt out of Valentine's Day, we think they're not only compltely sane, but morally righteous. People who do celebrate the day appear are thought to be, at best, unoriginal and, at worst, kind of shitty jerks. Both holidays are an equally complicated amalgam of old-school Paganism, Middle Ages Christian co-opting, and modern crass commercialism, so why are they perceived so differently by right-thinking people?

I imagine this rift started because Valentine's Day celebrates something more exclusive than other holidays. Halloween, Thankgiving, Christmas, New Year's, the 4th of July-- they all have their detractors, sure, but the majority of people are not barred from celebrating them. Valentine's Day, on the other hand, is marketed almost exclusively as a holiday for couples, automatically pissing all the non-couples or unhappy couples off, and leaving the nice couples feeling more guilt-ridden than celebratory. BUT, there's no reason Valentine's Day HAS to be celebrated this way-- in fact, by a significant portion of the population, it isn't. That's right folks: I'm talking about elementary school students. Remember, back in the day, when you brought in Valentine's Day cards for everyone, and February 14th was just another excuse for seasonal decorations, themed candies, and general, all-in good fun festivities? WHY shouldn't it be that way still? Why should we let it be the exclusive territory of smug couples whose real goal in celebrating their love is making us feel bad that we don't have any?

The holiday itself is pretty neat and well-intentioned. It either marks the seasonal pairing up of birds for the spring (Paganism) or the good works of the (likely fictional) Saint Valentine, who was exectued for marrying Christian couples in violation of Roman law. Either way, it's just a day to take time and celebrate romantic love so, unless you're anti-love, you really can't complain about the holiday's stated purpose. As for how you choose to celebrate it, well, that's up to you.

If you have someone, then great, take the opportunity to celebrate them in whatever manner works best for your relationship. If that means roses and diamond rings to you, fine, but if it means staying in and watching TV together there's no harm in that either. If you don't have a significant other, there's no need to let the relentless advertisements make you think you can't celebrate, any more than you'd let them think your Christmas will only be successful if you buy their product. You can bake cupcakes for your coworkers, write notes to people who are important to you, send flowers to your mother, enjoy one of the many billions of great works of art dedicated to the subject, or simply scope out the candy aisle of your local CVS for soon-to-be-discounted seasonal candies. A holiday is whatever its participants bring to it. If Valentine's Day sucks, it's at least in part because clever, creative smarties who could celebrate the holiday with verve have instead thrown up their hands in disgust and boycotted.

And that's why I'm pro-Valentine's Day, and think you all should be too. Because it's never going to get any better if all the good people won't celebrate it. So next year, stay home in your sweats or go out in fancy togs, but whatever you do: don't dismiss the day out of hand. The only thing intrinsic to the holiday is the idea that love is important, and that taking a pause to think about it is well worth doing. So take the time and, in the gloom of a deep New England February, do something that makes you, and maybe someone else, feel a little happier and a little more special. It doesn't have to cost you a thing.

25 Things About Me, Finally

This is basically just for Jeremiah, because I promised to blog more, and I promised to do this meme for him. So, Jeremiah, I hope you enjoy it. And if you're not Jeremiah, be prepared to be not so surprised by some of these revelations.

1. I have many deeply ingrained food phobias. American cheese makes me nervous (it feels like it's suffocating my tongue), I don't trust cold cuts (they glisten strange colors), Mayonnaise terrifies me (no explanation needed here).

2. I am secretly a very competitive person. While I can playfully resign myself to losing in situations where winning is completely beyond my grasp, I generally avoid doing anything I'm not good at. I don't have to be the best (although I prefer it), but I really need to feel like I'm better than most to feel content.

3. This shortcoming makes it very hard for me to get better at things I'm not immediately good at. This is what happened to sports (not that I had much inclination in that direction), acting, and I'm worried it's what's happening to writing too. Which is why I'm trying to blog and journal more. Although with quite mixed results.

4. I have one tradition I've pretty well adapted: I write down when and where I start my books, and when and where I finish them. I stole this trick from my brother, he started doing it while he was traveling around Scotland, and then never stopped. I love doing it. I love doing it so much that sometimes I make a point of starting and finishing books in interesting places, so that when I look back at them I'll have something more compelling to read.

5. I am trying to make traditions for myself. There are small ones, like writing in my journal every day and writing down all the books I read in a month. But then there are more ornate ones, such as: I want to be able to read "The Dead" by James Joyce to celebrate the first snow of every year.

6. Even though "The Dead" by James Joyce is one of my favorite pieces of writing ever, I've never finished reading the other short stories in Dubliners, nor have I ever read anything else by Joyce. But damned if "The Dead" doesn't just break my heart every time.

7. I have an odd fascination with names. I think it comes from being the fourth living Margaret on my mom's side of the family-- Nana, mother, cousin then me. All the good nicknames had been claimed, and so I've always been a fiendish nicknamer, and now as a grown-up a frequent baby-naming sites collecting delicious options. Eleanor, Beatrice. Jasper, Owen. They just call to me.

8. Even so though, I really like family names if they're done right. I really love my name, and I love that I'm Margaret the Second because my mom, the feminist, didn't want me to think girls weren't important enough to get a family name. I love the family names on my dad's side, that alternate between Robert Bayard Willison and Frank Armstrong Willison all the way back to before the Civil War. But I don't think my kids will have family names.

9. Unless I become a single mother, and give birth to a son, in which case I'm naming him Obadiah, after my very first documented American relative: Obadiah Willison, who fought in the Cumberland, Virginia militia in the Revolutionary War. In this version of my life, I'm moving to some small town in New England, turning my entire house into a used bookstore called Bleak House Books, and becoming the domineering and dynamic maternal figure in a yet-to-be-written John Irving novel. Because Obadiah Willison is clearly the protagonist of a John Irving novel.

10. One last point about names (I wasn't kidding about being obsessed with them): I'm only a
Margaret by chance. If things had worked out a little differently, my parents would have named me Grace.

11. Although my dad liked to kid that I would have been named Purity Supreme, after the supermarkets, if he'd had his way.

12. I'm oddly superstitious. I don't know where it comes from, but you can see it above in my asterixed ifs (don't jinx it, don't jinx it). I think I go through life knowing that I've been given an undue amount of luck. I worry if I don't take care, and tiptoe around a bit, someone in the world will figure it out, and make things even again. Like I've been given the wrong change, and want to leave the store unobtrusively so no one thinks too carefully about things.

13. I like it when hotels don't have 13th floors. It seems quaint, and old fashioned.

14. It breaks my heart to know that, except for Marie Harb, none of the people I'm good friends with now ever really knew my father. It's just so strange and disorienting. Some of them might not even know his name, because it's so hard for me to talk about him. This strange anomynity he's acquired is one of the most tangible, and therefore painful, ways his death has manifested itself. He's known more by his absence from my life than his actions in it.

15. This list has turned out a lot more maudlin than I would have anticipated. Maybe it's because I'm writing it while watching Oliver Twist on PBS?

16. Despite being a complete vocabulary snob, I am a rotten speller and know little beyond intuitive grammar-- much to Kerry Mullin's eternal chagrin.

17. I will, however, always know the difference between "it's" (contraction for it is) and "its" (possessive pronoun), because getting them confused was my father's pet peeve, and what little grammar I know I learned from him. I would write out all my papers long-hand, and he would type them, and then together we would sit and edit them. And so I can tell it's from its.

18. Even though he beats me by like a million points every time, I still play at least one game of Scrabble with Jeremiah Graves every Saturday. Because that's how addicted I am to Scrabble.

19. I have a poisonous relationship with my snooze button. I tend to set my cell phone alarm to start going off about two hours before I want to get up, and then reset it thus: first, I give myself an extra hour. Then when that hour is up, I give myself another 1/2 hour. And then, when that alarm goes off, I switch over to the plain old snooze feature, and hit it three times, with 10 minutes between each alarm. And then, sometimes, I finally get up.

20. Sometimes, when I think about it, I worry habits like this will make me absolutely impossible to live with if I ever acquire a live-in boyfriend or spouse.

21. That is, when I'm not worrying if I'll ever have a live-in boyfriend or spouse or whether marriage is really a viable institution in the first place. Which are all things I spend a stupid amount of time worrying about.

22. I would be extremely easy to disable in a fight to the death. Not only do I have weak ankles, but I only have one mostly good eye (my left one) and its easy to pick out, because it correalates with the scar I have above my left eye brow, from when I knocked my desk over in seventh grade Pre-Algebra class and had to get stitches.

23. Which is the only time I've ever had to get stitches and the only time I can remember going to the emergency room. I went once before, when I was too small to remember, because I fell out of my stroller trying to reach for a container of yogurt. Other than that though, I am accident free and broken boneless.

24. I do, however, have a predeliction for getting terrible, terrible cough that last forever. In a Victorian novel, this would mean I have consumption, and probably result in a tragic early termination to whatever passionate and ellicit love affair I was obviously conducting at the time. In real life, it just means that for weeks on end, I'll cough so hard I get dizzy, and go to bed with aching stomach muscles.

25. It took me over 3 weeks to write this list, and that's if you don't count the length of time between when I was tagged, and when I finally started. And even so, I think it's probably pretty trite.

Charlie Taft, Kindred Spirit

I found this tiny gem of a factoid in a story about the craze surrounding the (admittedly adorable) Sasha and Malia Obama. It starts with the girls, then goes on to discuss first children generally, and it ended (brilliantly) here, with Charlie Taft:

And on a much lighter note, Anthony recalls that Charlie Taft, also 11, “was not at all impressed” as his father, William Howard Taft, took the oath of office in 1909: “He was entirely engrossed in reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, ’Treasure Island.”’ - First Sisters Likely to Enthrall US Public, AP

Awesome, Charlie. Awesome. I wish I had a way back machine so I could go back in time and marry you.