I suck at the blogging. Here are some links I saved.

+ If only I had this lady’s problems.

+ I saw Twilight last weekend. I had read the book (I read it last year, mostly that time I was in the hospital to get my foot X-rayed, and it kept me entertained, but I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not, because the other things I had to look at were, like, Maury Povich on the TV in the waiting room and the sad, sick people without insurance waiting to get into the clinic) and a bunch of my friends wanted to see it, so I had a few margaritas and braved the movies. It’s not a good movie. It mostly involves the two leads staring at each other plaintively.

Here’s some articles: Jezebel on the book/movie and sexuality. Some are arguing that the series is a little judgy about teen sexuality. I kind of suspected when I read the book that Edward’s reluctance to, uh, vampirize (?) Bella was kind of a metaphor for virginity-taking, plus I find it odd that perpetually-17 Edward has never had sex or wanted to before Bella. Sadie says, “Restraints make for good stories (see: the popularity of Jane Austen adaptations) but as society loses them, usually the fictional substitutes we come up with are too lcking in urgency to really command much interest. We’ve lost a lot of the tricks of good storytelling, and if vampire love is the only way to make people realize that, bring it.” Point taken, but… Twilight is not good storytelling.

Maybe I’m old and crotchety, though. I’m about ten years older than the series’ target demographic.

+ Tuesday was Evacuation Day in New York. How did you celebrate? Apparently the old tradition involved a contest to climb a greased flagpole in Battery Park. This tradition has, sadly, been discontinued.

+ Some weird tombstones.

Wrote this one last week, but it mysteriously didn’t post. Sorry about that.

I’ve got a backlog of things to write about. So, in brief:

+ Interview with Tony Morrison in which she talks about her new novel and also President Obama.

+ Cats who Twitter.

+ I thought it was a truth universally acknowledged that baseball was not actually invented by Abner Doubleday and that it was based on a British game, but some dude is using a mention of “base-ball” in Northanger Abbey to prove that the Brits invented America’s pastime. Well, whatever, the first organized baseball game happened at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken. We can argue about the relative American-ness of New Jersey at a later time.

+ Fun fact: the Department of Homeland Security thinks that a 100-mile-think border around the US shall be a zone in which you can be searched. The ACLU is calling this the Constitution-Free Zone. This is, sadly, not as surprising as it should be. What is amazing? Two-thirds of the American population lives in this zone. Think about that for a moment.

I waited in line for an hour and half to vote this morning. You can see photos of The Line on my Flickr.

I’m now at my brother’s place in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. We’re watching the returns. I’ll update this post as funny and/or surprising things happen. Stay tuned!

7:50: Some reporter on MSNBC is demonstrating the confounding ballots in Florida. My brother says, “Why the fuck do they do this to the old people?” It’s true, it’s like the people in Florida deliberately tried to find the most confusing ballots ever. You’d think they’d learn. In New York, we still have the really old voting machines that were built ca. the Stone Age. They work reliably!

All these swing states leaning McCain (Virginia, etc.) are making me nervous. I guess we’ll know more in a few minutes.

8:05: Pennsylvania Victory Dance!!

9:08: No real surprises on the map at this point. Chuck Todd on MSNBC is saying it’s a lot closer than everyone was expecting. I start chewing on my nails.

9:22: Obama wins Ohio!! Terrorist fist bumps all around!

9:31: New Mexico! Dancy Dance!

9:42: Chuck Todd rescinds what he said about this looking a lot like the 2000 and 2004 race. Ohio and New Mexico seemed to have turned the tides.

10:00: Iowa! And we switch from MSNBC to Stewart/Colbert.

10:20: Elizabeth Dole loses. Steve Forbes is on the Daily Show.

10:54: You know, if Obama wins California, Washington, and Oregon, this show is done. We’re getting the champagne ready. My brother says, “You know what’s refreshing? We might find out who wins before midnight.”

11:00: We switch back to MSNBC, where they’re getting all wistful about the Obama presidency. Done deal? Here comes the polls closing at 11: OBAMA WINS IT!!!!

11:02: Speech! Speech! Speech! My brother is apparently incapable of opening a bottle of champagne. Oh, wait… we seem to have broken a glass in the process, but we have champagne now. People are cheering out in the streets. Cell phone reception isn’t working because everyone in the country is calling each other.

I gotta say, it’s pretty exciting!

11:16: There’s an incredible amount of noise coming from the streets. There’s a lady down there banging two pots together. People are shouting out their windows. MSNBC calls Florida for Obama!! There’s even a collective cheer of O-Ba-Ma from the streets!! Jesse Jackson is crying on the TV!

11:18: McCain concedes!

11:30: There is literal dancing in the streets.

11:45: There are firecrackers outside!

12:00: Obama acceptance speech. Yeah, bitches. It’s a good speech.