this is amazing.

i have been staring at my computer all weekend. my eyes are bleary and exhausted, but yet i can't quite walk away. time for a little update.

i just did a revise on the novel i finished at the end of the summer. my agent is finally going to start submitting it properly (don't ask why he didn't until now, long story), so i told him to hold off for the weekend, and i'd work my way through it. five months since i'd last looked at it seemed like a good amount of time, and it was. i found a bunch of stuff i was glad to be the one to catch. i'm not sure that it's a significantly better book now, but at least it's a little better, and a little tighter in some places and a little more fleshed out in others.

but man, i'm tired.

as a "breather," i then wrote the paper i had to write for thursday's class, so now that's done, too.

and i feel a zillion times more relieved.

all i have to do now (and the "all" is a tad ironic) is prepare my thesis proposal for submission to my committee on wednesday. i've got monday and tuesday for that, so i should be ok. oh yeah, i've got to do reading for wednesday's class. sigh. school. it'll be fine. one thing at a time.

and now it's time for CSI and some mindless staring at the glass teat (thanks, Stephen King).

oh yeah, and i'm completely smitten with someone, but you better believe i'm not going into detail here, certainly not yet.

over & out.

Who Do We Vote For This Time Around? A Letter from Michael Moore

Friends,

A new year has begun. And before we've had a chance to break our New Year's resolutions, we find ourselves with a little more than 24 hours before the good people of Iowa tell us whom they would like to replace the man who now occupies three countries and a white house.

Twice before, we have begun the process to stop this man, and twice we have failed. Eight years of our lives as Americans will have been lost, the world left in upheaval against us... and yet now, today, we hope against hope that our moment has finally arrived, that the amazingly powerful force of the Republican Party will somehow be halted. But we know that the Democrats are experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and if there's a way to blow this election, they will find it and do it with gusto.

Do you feel the same as me? That the Democratic front-runners are a less-than-stellar group of candidates, and that none of them are the "slam dunk" we wish they were? Of course, there are wonderful things about each of them. Any one of them would be infinitely better than what we have now. Personally, Congressman Kucinich, more than any other candidate, shares the same positions that I have on the issues (although the UFO that picked ME up would only take me as far as Kalamazoo). But let's not waste time talking about Dennis. Even he is resigned to losing, with statements like the one he made yesterday to his supporters in Iowa to throw their support to Senator Obama as their "second choice."

So, it's Hillary, Obama, Edwards -- now what do we do?

Two months ago, Rolling Stone magazine asked me to do a cover story where I would ask the hard questions that no one was asking in one-on-one interviews with Senators Clinton, Obama and Edwards. "The Top Democrats Face Off with Michael Moore." The deal was that all three candidates had to agree to let me interview them or there was no story. Obama and Edwards agreed. Mrs. Clinton said no, and the cover story was thus killed.

Why would the love of my life, Hillary Clinton, not sit down to talk with me? What was she afraid of?

Those of you who are longtime readers of mine may remember that 11 years ago I wrote a chapter (in my first book) entitled, "My Forbidden Love for Hillary." I was fed up with the treatment she was getting, most of it boringly sexist, and I thought somebody should stand up for her. I later met her and she thanked me for referring to her as "one hot s***kicking feminist babe." I supported and contributed to her run for the U.S. Senate. I think she is a decent and smart person who loves this country, cares deeply about kids, and has put up with more crap than anyone I know of (other than me) from the Crazy Right. Her inauguration would be a thrilling sight, ending 218 years of white male rule in a country where 51% of its citizens are female and 64% are either female or people of color.

And yet, I am sad to say, nothing has disappointed me more than the disastrous, premeditated vote by Senator Hillary Clinton to send us to war in Iraq. I'm not only talking about her first vote that gave Mr. Bush his "authorization" to invade -- I'm talking about every single OTHER vote she then cast for the next four years, backing and funding Bush's illegal war, and doing so with verve. She never met a request from the White House for war authorization that she didn't like. Unlike the Kerrys and the Bidens who initially voted for authorization but later came to realize the folly of their decision, Mrs. Clinton continued to cast numerous votes for the war until last March -- four long years of pro-war votes, even after 70% of the American public had turned against the war. She has steadfastly refused to say that she was wrong about any of this, and she will not apologize for her culpability in America's worst-ever foreign policy disaster. All she can bring herself to say is that she was "misled" by "faulty intelligence."

Let's assume that's true. Do you want a President who is so easily misled? I wasn't "misled," and millions of others who took to the streets in February of 2003 weren't "misled" either. It was simply amazing that we knew the war was wrong when none of us had been briefed by the CIA, none of us were national security experts, and none of us had gone on a weapons inspection tour of Iraq. And yet... we knew we were being lied to! Let me ask those of you reading this letter: Were YOU "misled" -- or did you figure it out sometime between October of 2002 and March of 2007 that George W. Bush was up to something rotten? Twenty-three other senators were smart enough to figure it out and vote against the war from the get-go. Why wasn't Senator Clinton?

I have a theory: Hillary knows the sexist country we still live in and that one of the reasons the public, in the past, would never consider a woman as president is because she would also be commander in chief. The majority of Americans were concerned that a woman would not be as likely to go to war as a man (horror of horrors!). So, in order to placate that mindset, perhaps she believed she had to be as "tough" as a man, she had to be willing to push The Button if necessary, and give the generals whatever they wanted. If this is, in fact, what has motivated her pro-war votes, then this would truly make her a scary first-term president. If the U.S. is faced with some unforeseen threat in her first years, she knows that in order to get re-elected she'd better be ready to go all Maggie Thatcher on whoever sneezes in our direction. Do we want to risk this, hoping the world makes it in one piece to her second term?

I have not even touched on her other numerous -- and horrendous -- votes in the Senate, especially those that have made the middle class suffer even more (she voted for Bush's first bankruptcy bill, and she is now the leading recipient of payoff money -- I mean campaign contributions -- from the health care industry). I know a lot of you want to see her elected, and there is a very good chance that will happen. There will be plenty of time to vote for her in the general election if all the pollsters are correct. But in the primaries and caucuses, isn't this the time to vote for the person who most reflects the values and politics you hold dear? Can you, in good conscience, vote for someone who so energetically voted over and over and over again for the war in Iraq? Please give this serious consideration.

Now, on to the two candidates who did agree to do the interview with me...

Barack Obama is a good and inspiring man. What a breath of fresh air! There's no doubting his sincerity or his commitment to trying to straighten things out in this country. But who is he? I mean, other than a guy who gives a great speech? How much do any of us really know about him? I know he was against the war. How do I know that? He gave a speech before the war started. But since he joined the senate, he has voted for the funds for the war, while at the same time saying we should get out. He says he's for the little guy, but then he votes for a corporate-backed bill to make it harder for the little guy to file a class action suit when his kid swallows lead paint from a Chinese-made toy. In fact, Obama doesn't think Wall Street is a bad place. He wants the insurance companies to help us develop a new health care plan -- the same companies who have created the mess in the first place. He's such a feel-good kinda guy, I get the sense that, if elected, the Republicans will eat him for breakfast. He won't even have time to make a good speech about it.

But this may be a bit harsh. Senator Obama has a big heart, and that heart is in the right place. Is he electable? Will more than 50% of America vote for him? We'd like to believe they would. We'd like to believe America has changed, wouldn't we? Obama lets us feel better about ourselves -- and as we look out the window at the guy snowplowing his driveway across the street, we want to believe he's changed, too. But are we dreaming?

And then there's John Edwards.

It's hard to get past the hair, isn't it? But once you do -- and recently I have chosen to try -- you find a man who is out to take on the wealthy and powerful who have made life so miserable for so many. A candidate who says things like this: "I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy." Whoa. We haven't heard anyone talk like that in a while, at least not anyone who is near the top of the polls. I suspect this is why Edwards is doing so well in Iowa, even though he has nowhere near the stash of cash the other two have. He won't take the big checks from the corporate PACs, and he is alone among the top three candidates in agreeing to limit his spending and be publicly funded. He has said, point-blank, that he's going after the drug companies and the oil companies and anyone else who is messing with the American worker. The media clearly find him to be a threat, probably because he will go after their monopolistic power, too. This is Roosevelt/Truman kind of talk. That's why it's resonating with people in Iowa, even though he doesn't get the attention Obama and Hillary get -- and that lack of coverage may cost him the first place spot tomorrow night. After all, he is one of those white guys who's been running things for far too long.

And he voted for the war. But unlike Senator Clinton, he has stated quite forcefully that he was wrong. And he has remorse. Should he be forgiven? Did he learn his lesson? Like Hillary and Obama, he refused to promise in a September debate that there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of his first term in 2013. But this week in Iowa, he changed his mind. He went further than Clinton and Obama and said he'd have all the troops home in less than a year.

Edwards is the only one of the three front-runners who has a universal health care plan that will lead to the single-payer kind all other civilized countries have. His plan doesn't go as fast as I would like, but he is the only one who has correctly pointed out that the health insurance companies are the enemy and should not have a seat at the table.

I am not endorsing anyone at this point. This is simply how I feel in the first week of the process to replace George W. Bush. For months I've been wanting to ask the question, "Where are you, Al Gore?" You can only polish that Oscar for so long. And the Nobel was decided by Scandinavians! I don't blame you for not wanting to enter the viper pit again after you already won. But getting us to change out our incandescent light bulbs for some irritating fluorescent ones isn't going to save the world. All it's going to do is make us more agitated and jumpy and feeling like once we get home we haven't really left the office.

On second thought, would you even be willing to utter the words, "I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy?" 'Cause the candidate who understands that, and who sees it as the root of all evil -- including the root of global warming -- is the President who may lead us to a place of sanity, justice and peace.

Yours,

Michael Moore

this is awful:

Benazir Bhutto assassinated

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday after addressing a large gathering of her supporters.

Bhutto died of a gunshot wound to the neck, the Pakistani Interior Ministry said. The attacker then blew himself up. The bomb attack killed at least 22 others, doctors said.

Video of the scene just moments before the explosion showed Bhutto stepping into a heavily guarded vehicle to leave the rally.

John Moore, a photographer for Getty Images, said Bhutto was standing through the sunroof of her vehicle, waving to supporters, when two shots rang out.

Bhutto fell back into the vehicle, and almost immediately a bomb blast rocked the scene, sending twisting metal and shrapnel into the crowd, he added.

Police sources told CNN the bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, blew himself up near Bhutto's vehicle. Watch aftermath of the attack. »

Bhutto was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital -- less than two miles from the bombing scene -- where doctors pronounced her dead.

Her body was removed from the hospital -- carried above a crowd of supporters -- late Thursday night, about six hours after the assassination.

Chaos erupted at the hospital when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived to pay his respects to Bhutto less than three hours after her death.

Hundreds of Bhutto supporters crammed into the entrance shouted and cried, some clutching their heads in pain and shock. Sharif called it "the saddest day" in Pakistan's history. "Something unthinkable has happened," he said.Watch Benazir Bhutto obituary »

Sharif said his party will boycott Pakistan's January 8 parliamentary elections in the wake of the assassination.

President Pervez Musharraf said the killers were the same extremists that Pakistan is fighting a war against, and announced three days of national mourning.

Police warned citizens to stay home as they expected rioting to break out in city streets in reaction to the death.

Rioters burned tires and blocked roads in Karachi and other cities, police sources said. Police fired on an angry mob, killing two people, in the city of Khairpur in the Sindh province, Geo TV reported.

Bhutto's husband issued a statement from his home in Dubai saying, "All I can say is we're devastated, it's a total shock." He arrived in Pakistan late Thursday.

President Bush said those responsible "must be brought to justice" and praised Bhutto as a woman who had "fought the forces of terror." He said: "She refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country."

The number of wounded was not immediately known. However, video of the scene showed ambulances lined up to take many to hospitals.

The assassination happened in Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh Park, named for Pakistan's first prime minister -- Liaquat Ali Khan -- who was assassinated in the same location in 1951.

The attack came just hours after four supporters of former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif died when members of another political party opened fire on them at a rally near the Islamabad airport Thursday, Pakistan police said.

Several other members of Sharif's party were wounded, police said.

Bhutto, who led Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and was the first female prime minister of any Islamic nation, was participating in the parliamentary election set for January 8, hoping for a third term.

A terror attack targeting her motorcade in Karachi killed 136 people on the day she returned to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile.View timeline. »

CNN's Mohsin Naqvi, who was at the scene of both bombings, said Thursday's blast was not as powerful as that October attack.

Thursday's attacks come less than two weeks after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf lifted an emergency declaration he said was necessary to secure his country from terrorists.

Bhutto had been critical of what she believed was a lack of effort by Musharraf's government to protect her.

Two weeks after the October assassination attempt, she wrote a commentary for CNN.com in which she questioned why Pakistan investigators refused international offers of help in finding the attackers.

"The sham investigation of the October 19 massacre and the attempt by the ruling party to politically capitalize on this catastrophe are discomforting, but do not suggest any direct involvement by General Pervez Musharraf," Bhutto wrote.

this is the view from my front door. there is something amazing about it, isn't there? i was talking to my mother on the phone today, and she got that tone in her voice that she gets when we are talking about LA, and she obviously doesn't understand why anyone would choose to live here, and she is regularly amazed that i don't miss new york. which i don't.

of course, if i had millions of dollars and could have an amazing apartment near central park west, i might think about it, but even then, i don't think so. i don't miss the energy of the people that live there. that energy is too naturally engrained in my blood, i need the counter-balance of LA's healthy ease and warmth.

which is not to say that LA is perfect, it's definitely a tricky beast, but it's been interesting now that i feel i have been here a year (the first couple months were just a blur) to take pause and reflect, to compare this winter break with last year's winter break. last year's break was brutal, i won't sugarcoat it. the boy i'd been seeing broke up with me out of the blue, with no explanation, i barely knew anyone, and the ones i did know were with families and significant others and there was a very conspicuous feeling of drifty-ness.

the hard part about LA is that things are so remote and spread out, you can easily feel like you could drown in your apartment and no one would notice for days. it's easy to forget about other people here because they aren't within viewing distance.

i'm still single and family-less during this particular holiday season, but i'm much more comfortable in my own skin's solitude, and there is also a definite sense that more people are aware that i'm around, that i have slowly forged a niche for myself.

i'm also really really enjoying the time i have to myself. the last several months gave me quite the beating, and i haven't fully scabbed over. for the time being, i'm doing very little and still nowhere near bored. next week, i've got to get back to thinking of school, but for now, still functioning on zombie auto-pilot.

happy holidays.

so it's almost december. which means a couple different things.

1) my fourth term at art center is drawing to a close. this also means a couple different things.
a) my classes are almost over, meaning that i feel vaguely vacant and disoriented while, at the same time, am anxious about the unpleasant task of finishing final papers and projects.
b) i am that much closer to graduating, which is just generally disconcerting. people are already starting to ask me what my post-graduation plans are. don't people know those are terrible questions to ask? that i'm obviously asking them myself and that i don't have any answers? see, it's early enough to ask questions but way too early to have answers. therein lies the rub.
c) i am about to have my thesis proposal reviewed, and then either rejected or accepted. i have been nervous about this since, approximately, oh, since i started at art center. this means that if my critique tomorrow goes well, i will be another person, and then if my review december 4th goes well, i may sleep soundly for the first time since june.
d) i am procrastinating writing final papers because i'm burnt out. i taught an ESL student the meaning of the word "procrastinate" today. i told him this word would become very important during his academic pursuits.

2) the weather is colder (i don't mind that) and the days are shorter (this kills me). it's so hard for me to be productive when it feels like 8pm at 5pm and like 11pm at 8pm.

3) it's three months since i finished my novel, and still not much of a response via my agent. which is disheartening to say the least. the tricky part is that i don't know if it's because my agent is busy with other matters or if it's because the publishing industry is busy with other matters (aka now interested in my matters). either way, i'm frustrated and dejected and wondering if i will ever get another book deal again or if my writing career has already "peaked."

4) my birthday is coming up. i still have no idea what to do for it. this is also causing slight anxiety. if i want to combine a birthday party with a hanukah party, i'm running out of precious planning time.

5) it's the holiday season which means i am once again feeling somehow like i missed the boat on which everyone else is sailing. i do fine during most of the rest of the year, but then between the end of november and the beginning of january, i become uncomfortably aware of my somehow out of place single status. this year, in particular, it does seem as though everyone is having/had babies, is of course married, or at the very least, happily and contentedly settled with a significant other. thanks to the magic of the internet, i found out that an old friend from new york had recently had a second baby (not to be confused with the other old friend from new york who also just had a baby) and so now i'm fairly certain it will take a miracle to save me from (myself?) a lifetime of spinsterhood.

ugh.

to top it all off, i have to write a miserable paper about 2001, a sort of miserable film.

i don't know how much of it is my "true" personality coming to light, or how much of it is just a response to becoming more focused on my writing (and, in turn, reading) but i feel like the introverted aspects of my personality are REALLY coming to the fore.

i was reading a bit online about introverts (specifically what it's like to date one) and much of this could have been written specifically about me:

If I were to give advice to a man who wanted to date me, I'd tell him to not put a lot of pressure on me to make decisions about where we'll go and what we'll do. Also, he should understand that I'm not going to call him (unless I'm returning his call) just for the heck of it until after we know each other well enough that I can say we're friends. See, introverts don't like the telephone; we avoid it unless absolutely necessary. Recently, a man who wanted to date me kept telling me to call him and got angry with me when I didn't. We had not even been out on one date! I was terribly put off by his attitude.

Introverts do have close friendships. Our friendships may be even closer than those of extroverts. That's because we don't share our inner selves with everyone we meet. We choose our friends carefully, therefore they mean a great deal to us. I have a dear friend who is an extrovert — she collects "friends" likes charms on a bracelet. But she is close to none of them. Unlike her, I have a few very close friends. She and I are close because she accepts me as I am and appreciates the fact that I really listen to her (introverts are excellent listeners).

One last thing, when you ask an introvert out for a first date, suggest something simple like meeting for coffee or lunch. (Recently, a man asked me out for dinner, the theater and dancing — all in the same evening. I was exhausted just hearing about it. I appreciated the invitation, but it was just too much.) After you ask her out for lunch, suggest a place and time. Don't say you'd like to take her out, then expect her to tell you what she wants to do. It's too much pressure.

and then this:

It is all about energy. Extraverts get their energy from talking, relating, activity, socializing, and exchanging information, ideas, and creativity from each other. So extraverts are constantly pulling information from others.

Introverts have a rich inner life that feeds, energizes, and recharges their energy from within. Introverts start their day with a certain amount of energy, and at the end of the day, they have to recharge with quiet, rest, and peaceful activities that feed their inner life. Some are not dependent on others for their self image. Others are since we are taught the extravert perspective in school. We may appear shy, standoffish, or even solitary. The truth is that we trust ourselves to an appointed few and select more intimate and personal activities rather than big events with a lot of people.

these are the things i don't want to talk about:

1. icky ex-boyfriends who tell you that everything that went wrong is your fault and you are destined to be forever unhappy because you won't let anyone love you.

2. a boy i met recently. too soon to tell anything. please send positive vibes.

3. the stagnant state of my thesis proposal, which isn't even close to "proposing status."

4. the aforementioned state of #3 being aggravated by #1.

5. general flakiness of LA residents.

on other fronts, i have a gig coming up.