Wedding update!

Thanks to the peanut gallery for all the kind words and encouragement. I did decide to splurge and buy my ridiculous dress, and I love it! It makes me very happy. Also, it turns out that in a remarkable moment of insight and consideration for his guests, my brother decided to go with a different DC hotel, one on the metro line, instead of the Four Seasons. Awesome. Things are looking up.

Books!

Finished: I wrapped up Shut Up, I'm Talking, and it's awesome. It's also frustrating and a bit disheartening, but mostly just amusing. My plan is to loan it out to all my Jewish friends, in particular my new friend who works at the Israeli consulate here to find out if this Gregory Levey is full of shit or not.

Purchased: A dear friend gave me a bookstore gift certificate, so I picked up A Wrinkle in Time and Without You (and indulged in the latest Jason Mraz, because I'm a sucker for that new single). So over the long weekend I apparently turned into an 11 year old child who stayed up too late reading (not quite under my covers with a flashlight, but close).

Started: The Watchmen. Too early to tell, but it's so highly recommended by people I trust, I can't imagine I won't love it.

So back to A Wrinkle in Time. It's kind of like Neal Stephenson or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - A Wrinkle in Time has nerd cred. But I can remember picking it up as a child and really not liking it at all. Which sort of breaks my heart now that I've read it, because although I thoroughly enjoyed it this time around, it's just the sort of book I needed in my adolescence. And the fact that I didn't like it sort of makes me wonder if current me would even like teenage me very much. And then I started thinking about books that I do have an emotional attachment to from my youth, and most of those are from before adolescence (the Anne and Emily books, No Flying In the House). My teenage years were a literary wasteland, until I started fixating on end of the world books sometime in high school (Alas, Babylon, The White Plague, Malevil, Lucifer's Hammer) all of which I enjoyed, but none of which strummed anything important or meaningful inside me. I didn't even read Lord of the Rings until college. I feel like I missed out on that heady adolescent time when you're all emotional and latch on to stories and make them a part of you. Who was I from around 12 to 16 or so?

Lots of people are calling out the McCain campaign on their use of choice language regarding Palin's grandkid. Frankly, what offends me more is the language of privacy:

"We ask the media, respect our daughter and Levi's privacy..." (from the NYTimes)

"The final decision would be made by Meghan with our advice and counsel," McCain said, referring to himself and his wife, Cindy. When reporters suggested that this view made him, in fact, pro-choice, McCain became irritated. "I don't think it is the pro-choice position to say that my daughter and my wife and I will discuss something that is a family matter that we have to decide." (a quote from the 2000 primary, via feministing)

So, wait, for you and people related to you it's a private, family decision but the rest of those stupid women throughout the country need your legislative help because they can't possibly decide what's best for them and their family? And forget privacy, we need to crack open those medical records to make sure they aren't making the wrong decision?!

I seriously wish some journalist would do his/her job and ask about this. Here, I'll even help you out:

Senator McCain - Why do you believe that your vice presidential candidate and, hypothetically, your own daughter, are entitled to privacy and personal decision making when it comes to bringing people into this world, yet you seek to deny this same right to millions of Americans?

It's Tuesday morning and I'm cranky.