ssfhhrsshhhttooooo . . . .

My cute green coat is out so I guess Fall is coming though we here in DC barely had any "I can't do anything but sit on my stoop, drink very cold sangria, and holla at the hotties because its so fucking hot" days, so it doesn't really seem like summer ever showed. Maybe next year.

But I did get through one more quarterly staff meeting, where we all are forced to sit in a room and pretend to like each other long enough to get the other people at the table to listen to you talk about why your campaign is so awesome they should work harder to help you win. Yup, we needed booze to get through that part too. At least no one got clotheslined . . . physically anyway.

So I'm searching for what's going on in Wired Magazine this week and found a how to guide on faking a roller derby fight. Love it!

My favorite part: "Clotheslining is illegal, so stunt or not, you'll likely be ejected from the game. Do it with flair: "Flash your fishnets, flip people off, and go have a beer." I'm there!

Roller derby sounds pretty amazing. If I ever run an organization, I might have to institute some derby rules or force people that can't get along to go for a round. Better than the softball bullshit people do here in DC. EPA v Sierra Club? la.m.e. EPA v impacted communities living near coal fired power plants in Ohio in a roller derby match? Oh yeah!

Drew Barrymore is releasing Whip It soonish, or has already, not sure. I love her. Of course, I also love inspiring football speeches in movies. And those moments when someone's not so much enemy but not really their friend either puts out their hand to shake.

Hey look - Kurt Anderson (from NPR) discusses how our little recession might be able to get our country back on track, you know where we re-evaluate our values and think maybe Florida shouldn't be trying to build 60,000 new homes when 30,000 are currently vacant.

Here is one good snipet of his internview with the AV Club:

AVC: White House Chief Of Staff Rahm Emanuel received a lot of criticism early on in this administration when he said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” But in your book, you side with him, arguing that a crisis can “allow some of the rot and dysfunction to be cleared away,” especially in regard to health-care reform.

KA: [Political journalist] Michael Kinsley once defined a gaffe as someone in Washington telling the truth. I think Emmanuel’s comment was absolutely true. In our society, maybe all societies, and even in our lives, when crises happen, we fix the things that may have caused them. A fire starts, so you get a smoke alarm. Your kid doesn’t have health insurance, and she falls down and breaks her chin; she’s convinced then she should buy herself health insurance. So I just think it’s undeniably true, and what I like about it is not so much that this or that health-reform bill will pass, but that it means that lots more stuff politically is on the table that wasn’t on the table before, because “Holy Christ, this system doesn’t work, this thing’s fucked up, that doesn’t work…” So, you know, more things are open for discussion than usual. If things are going okay, we tend to sit back on the couch and pop a brew and not think about it.

and this:

AVC: Because we were in the midst of this crisis, you mention that we still don’t have the proper perspective to realize what a monumental thing it was to elect the first African-American as president. Now, with things like the “birther” movement, charges of Marxism and socialism, and the people who showed up to town hall meetings with Obama-as-Hitler signs, even guns in some cases, this not-so-subtle racism seems to be bubbling up as the immediacy of the economic meltdown fades. It’s as if some people are just now scratching their heads and thinking, “Wait, how did we let this happen?”

KA: You’re absolutely right. I wonder to what degree the “birthers,” for instance, are consciously racist. And some of them presumably are, but I think some of them aren’t. As you were saying, it’s like, “Holy cow! We’ve got a black president. That can’t be in my America! Therefore, he is not the president, because he was born in Kenya!” It is a funny sort of delayed reaction. It’s interesting and funny if it weren’t so sad, but I think it’s a fringe thing. But you’re right, after the worst of the economic emergency has passed, there is a bit of, “Hey, wait a minute, look! He’s black!”

Read the whole interview here.

My friend Kate, just recommended a book to me called Three Cups of Tea. I've only read three chapters on the train today (yup that's how long my commute is), but it's pretty amazing right when I need an amazing story of adventure to read. I'm heading out for a pretty big one myself in a couple weeks and the thoughts of whether I'm doing the right thing are waking me up at night, driving me to chain smoke menthols and might have been responsible for this past weekend's day/night of whiskey drinking. But regardless of how people react badly (I now just pretend that every reaction is Yeaaaa Renee) and my wondering mind, I know that I'm just not the kind of person to commute in the morning to an office where nobody speaks to each other and I can't explore some weird foreign culture everyday.

Anyways, Three Cups of Tea is pretty great. Wait. . . didn't I use to write about chemicals and politics and shit. . . . hmm . . anyways, I just wanted to share this quote I read this afternoon.

"And with the sort of serendipity that so often rewards impetuousness . . " I just think that is really beautiful. When you make big decisions the universe throws you something you never expected to help you along.

I promise to talk about chemicals and politics and shit next time.

Renee

p.s. Jim Carroll totally died!