France, faire attention - je viens!

I bought my plane ticket yesterday.

YAAAAAAAAA!!

OK, now that I got that out, let's be honest. I am excited. This teach-abroad-for-seven-months contract is incredible. It's going to be an eye-opening, life-changing experience. As Emily reminds me, I am fulfilling my civic duty by experiencing a new culture and sharing my culture and language with people who want to learn them.

Now is it OK for me to want to shit my pants?

Kudos to Curvature

I just read the entirety of The Curvature's Day of Blogging, and it was phenomenal. In the span of 39 blog entries (which were written to raise money for RAINN - the nation's largest anti-sexual assault organization) I gained a ton of knowledge, and a whole lot of respect for Cara as well. She is a fantastic blogger who sheds light on serious feminist issues that I have realized do need to be addressed a hell of a lot more often.

She led me to some Lines that Rock by Julie Buffaloe-Yoder.

My favorite post highlighted a new series of posters from the Date Safe Project that challenge "consent" as it is commonly understood. I am really loving them. Here's my favorite one:



I've kissed a lot of guys. Not horribly too many, but still a lot. And two kisses stand out in my mind. The hands-down best kiss ever happened after I asked him if I could touch his lips with mine. The runner up happened after he asked "May I kiss you?"

Though I've never asked (or been asked) consent for anything more major than that, I'm going to start.

These posters rock.

Emo-nely

Every year my Aunt Cathy rents a house on the boardwalk in Ocean City for a week. And my cousin always comes down for the week with a bunch of her friends and I visit them a couple times. And inevitably, once during this week they get an Old Time Photo. You know, those cheesy photos where you can dress in some period garb, sit on a piano or a bar while a sixteen-year-old fixes your hat and boa, and then have your photo developed in sepia and placed in a paper frame. All for just ten dollars a person. Each photo. So that means that for five people to be in a photo (and for each person to get a photo) it would cost about $110 dollars. And since I could never afford a beach house in Ocean City (nor could my 'rents), I always sit out and play the chaperone.

So there I was last night, holding my cousin's handbag as she, her boyfriend, and two of her bests posed for a few shots. I'm feeling lame and lonely, mostly because all the other years I came to visit them at the beach house I had someone with me. For a lot of years it was Edwin, and though I don't miss him, I do miss the satisfaction of having someone to walk with who is closer than a friend.

So I walked across the boardwalk to sit on a bench facing the ocean. Figured there's no use in watching their group and being envious. Because (hate me for it all you want) I do want to be in one of these photos. I want to come out of that shady back room in a bright pink dress and have a photographer arrange me and make a dumb expression for the camera. But I can't justify doing it because I am spiteful as shit. And it's a ripoff.

A moment after I sit down, a boy who is no taller than my knee sits on the opposite side of the bench. He is licking an ice cream cone that is as big as his face. Then (presumably) his parents roll up to the bench with their stroller, and out comes a toddler girl with a head of hair my neice would be totally jealous of. And they are a perfect, beautiful family and they should take an Old Time Photo together.

I smile politely and walk over to the next available bench After a couple minutes there, another family stops behind me to collect itself. They also have ice cream, but this boy has dripped it all over himself and must be wiped clean by napkin. I always had to order ice cream in a cup so I wouldn't stain my clothes.

They leave and I'm still waiting for my group to finish their photo. I don't have my book with me (damn). I'm thinking about France when a college girl comes up to me and asks if I'd like to participate in a survey. Sure. Usually, the religious survey-giving types get really mad at me when I admit that I don't subscribe to any religion and they try to convert me. But this girl was awesome. We had a really great conversation. She picked my brain a bit about the stuff she didn't agree with me on, but it seemed to be out of genuine curiosity instead of from a desire to challenge. And I really respect her for that.

By the time the group was done with the photo, I was feeling pretty good again. I'd verbalized some things I'd often thought but never said. Talking religion with people whom I don't know well usually scares the shit out of me, but this was a tolerable experience. And now I just want to audit a religion course.

One more night in the beach house. Whoo.

Thank You Chris Moore

for introducing Christian the Lion into my life.

i lost my camera cord

i have so much to blog about. france. nummy island. foot-eating sandals. hair. snuff. and they all require photos. so what i must do is find that usb cord. oh, ashley.

On Mondays

Sometimes your life feels like this:

I feel it all I feel it all

I watched Where the Heart Is last night. It's been a favorite of mine since the first time I saw it in 2000 and had to immediately buy the book because I loved it so much. And as I was rewatching it last night, I learned something about myself.

I'm anti-pretentious. I am un-elitist. I am completely fine with that.

I enjoy media that is designed for the masses. Indeed I prefer it over media that is produced for the elitist crowd. Sure, I can enjoy indie music when my roommates listen to it at home, but when I am alone in my car I would much rather spin a CD that will make me dance or sing. Though I love The Books and Broken Social Scene, I would rather rock out to Danity Kane or Maroon 5 anyday.

I've been thinking about how I felt while I was watching Where the Heart is last night. I cried with Novalee when Americus was stolen and with Lexi when her boyfriend abused her and her children. I clutched my pillow when the tornado swept away Americus' bear and Sister Husband (and almost took Americus and Novalee too). I actually laughed out loud when Novalee told the baseball team to untuck their shirts. And when Novalee and Forney embraced at the end of the movie, I felt the way I imagine it would feel to be swept off my feet. All of this emotion in a two-hour movie seems excessive, I know, but I thrive on these types of feelings.

It's the reason I like gimmicky movies so much. When I laugh at a punchline in a movie, I feel a connection to all the other people who laughed at the same line. When the prey overcomes the hunter in a horror movie I feel a wave of satisfaction that I assume (at least some) other people feel when they watch it. This connection, this sense of fulfillment that I get from movies, TV, music, is something that I hope I never lose the ability to feel.

If I closed myself off to media that wasn't entirely intellectual, if I only let myself watch things that appeal to the most elite of viewers, I would lose a hell of a lot. I like feeling as connected to as many people as possible. Though it's fulfilling to have similar moments when watching an indie movie or listening to an incredibly talented, lesser-known vocalist, the group of people who can share these feelings with me is far smaller.

For a while I was embarassed about my love for trashy reality TV and B horror movies and Janet Evanovich, but why should I be? I can get down with Regina and The Science of Sleep and Aimee Bender too. I'm more cultured than any hipster (and by that I mean conforming non-conformist) could ever be.

And besides, I don't have enough money to be a hipster.

Office Nonsense

Every first Monday of the month, the mailman delivers a Levenger catalog to my boss. Every month, I look at the high-priced leather office goods and muse about what type of people actually pay money for them. These are usually passing thoughts that don't even merit discussion.

But in this month's catalog, the featured item is the Sea Lion Pen Stand:



bronze mini sea lion statue: 128 dollars
sleek fountain pen: 138 dollars
corporate douchedom: priceless

What would possess anyone to buy this bronze atrocity is beyond me. The description beneath the picture says, "It's individually handcrafted in the time-honored lost wax method for optimal detail and can hold any of our True Writer pens..."

Next step, what is a "True Writer" pen? Ask and you shall find a page on the Levenger website with a thorough history of the pen complete with a timeline of the changes it's gone through since 1999. And these richly historic pens are only 50 bucks a pop!

Grimace. Office people are crazy.

Ashley's Best Week Ever Part Two

Last week was so good that I'm still catching up. You thought nothing could beat Rushdie, right? Well-played. I thought so too, and then I went to Roller Derby!

I managed to get out of work early and head over to the Bunting-Huneke household, where the lovely ladies had arranged a fun-filled evening. It began with them taking me to my favorite restaurant ever - that's right. Taco Bell. And after some gordita wonder and much-needed venting, they whisked me away to my first roller derby ever.



Don't ask me why I expected a dark venue with sticky beer floors and metal music. Must have been some residual images from a movie or something. This place was, to my surprise, very family-friendly. We sat on the floor and watched the Sadistic Sweethearts triumph over the She Devils in a game that had it all - hot chicks on skates, penalties, a wipeout so ridiculous it took out a speaker system, and a cherry-on-top brawl in the last seconds. Definitely an awesome time.

An added bonus: during intermissions, I got to watch some Hell's Hooligans eye candy skate around the rink (let's face it - Chuck Grenades is completely crush-worthy).

And another added bonus: self esteem! I've never felt better about my body. The women who played in the game were all beautiful, and a lot of them were stocky. None of them seemed severely overweight; they just looked healthy. Like they had enough meat and muscle to be able to skate around the rink and straight brutalize other chicks. Those ladies made me feel really comfortable about my size. And they made me want to join roller derby and show everyone how bad-ass I am (OK that part is definitely all talk).

After the game we went to this local bar where the team would be meeting afterward, and had some beers and bar bites. True, I always have a great time with my lady friends, but I think that next time one of us should grow a pair and talk to the players. I came close to telling Sloppy Jo that she was awesome but she was stepping away from the bar and I missed my chance.

Once we left the bar (after a very awkward encounter with some stooge who made me feel bad about my breast size) we headed home and youtubed until we fell asleep. My new favorite video:



Best moment of the night, hands down: When Rachel introduced me to someone as her girlfriend's hetero life partner.

How to remove a tick safely

when i was young (7-9ish), my mother made fun of me a lot for being overweight. and though we didn't live in the woods, and i didn't do much outdoors, there were many instances that i found ticks on my body. ma doesn't know this (and she's computer illiterate so will probably never find out), but whenever i found a tick on my stomach, thigh or any other body part that wasn't typically visible, i would be much too ashamed of my fat to show her and ask for help removing the parasite. i would sit in the bathroom and try to remember how she removed ticks back when i would let her see my skin. i knew she used tweezers, but i couldn't just go get the tweezers and return to the bathroom - she would know something was up. so i would pull the tick as slowly as possible away from my flesh. and every single time, the body would detach from the head, and i would be left with a tick head embedded inside. and then i would remember. vaseline! she always used vaseline to smother the tick out. so i would open the medicine cabinet and slather vaseline all over whatever area was puffing up and reddening. of course it was too late - with no body, the head could never escape the petroleum jelly.

and this happened more than once. i'd say i've probably had 8-10 tick heads float around my body in the course of my life. and i'm sure (i truly hope) that my body has killed them all.

but today i found this tidbit of information and thought i would share it, in case there's any 6-9 year old reading this who is wondering how to go about removing a tick properly without ever having to show flesh to parent:

"To remove a tick, apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball. Cover the tick with the soap-soaked cotton ball for a few seconds (15-20), after which the tick will come out on its own and be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away."

Or better yet, just get over your ridiclous fears of your mother's judgement. She's going to badger you about weight whether you show her your bare stomach or not, so grow a pair. Or get lyme disease.

smash's best week ever part one

Because Rachel is awesome and inspiring, i myself am starting a best week ever thread.

so last week was probably the most wonderful one i've had in quite a while. though it started out a little slow, by the end of the week i was happily surprised with the turnout.

so monday, tuesday and wednesday were average in terms of fun. monday i watched the most horrifying movie ever and it made me never want to have sex. ever.

tuesday and wednesday i got to hang out with my favorites, sharon and chris.

but the week really picked up on thursday, when i got to see Salman Rushdie deliver a powerful, inspiring reading at the philly free library.


there was a decent turonout for the man, but not as many fans as i would have expected were there. usually when the reader is popular, they sell tickets for the auditorium and they simulcast in the lobby, but he didn't sell enough tickets for all that, only enough for the auditorium. this is not to say that he wasn't hugely appreciated. he came out to a round of applause that was genuine, and long enough that he had to tell us to stop.

he began with a reading from his new book, The Enchantress of Florence, and i simply loved the section he chose. the title character was witty and endearing, and i was in love with her almost immediately. the excerpt had many of my favorite things: love, tattoos, toilet humor, a garden, and Dracula.

that's right. i did say Dracula. i knew from some of the elements in the reading (Wallachia, Janissaries) that his story probably took place during the time that Vlad Tepes III was in power, and i wondered if Rushdie would tie him into the novel somehow. and he did. in fact, one of my favorite parts of the night was during question and answer section, when someone asked what it was like to research history for this book. Rushdie responded that he knew a lot about the time, but that he still had to research the characters, who actually lived. he then quite excitedly added that when he realized that he was writing in the same period that Dracula lived, he was ecstatic that he could include him in his book. and that, my friends, is one of the many reasons that i love rushdie.

during question and answer segement, i was quite pleased with his responses. they were all humorous, especially his tale about writing a song for U2.

humor aside, i think my favorite part of the night was when Rushdie warned us to not forget that stories are fictitious. he reminded us that there are no such things as flying carpets and genies that grant wishes, and that we too often as readers forget this. he told us something that i never knew, and that i will try to remind myself as often as possible - that the introduction we use to fairy tales, "Once upon a time, in a land far far away," is a rough translation of the sanscrit, "It was so, it was not so, in a time long forgotten." much more fitting, if you ask me.

oh, and another highlight of the night? when i found out that Rushdie was a mud angel after the 1966 flood of the River Arno in Florence. since one of my favorite books ever is The Sixteen Pleasures, this tidbit made me a little melty inside.

for more of the best moments of the night , hop over to lines that rock.

rachel may be regretting the post she made for me

i just got a new pet!

his name is foofer.

you think i photoshopped this, don't you?

bwahaha photoshop is for the affluent.

i use paint.

smASHosophy

tell me why some people pronounce a male gender pronoun so strangely.

as in "let go of eem."

or "i gave eem a laxative."

i'm all for dialects and pronunciations different from my own, but this one really irks me.

end scene.

let's has a moments

if my life were a comic

there would be a joke about my addiction to least i could do.


i think the author loves joss whedon almost as much as i do.

happy weekend everyone

thanks, andy, for bringing this wonderful little chauvanist strip into my life. i'm definitely gonna grind it.

connectedness

June 17th, 2007 was my first day at sea. i was getting to know my roommate and about 200 other people rapid-fire. i was unpacking my clothes and preparing for my first day of classes. i was nervous and excited about our first day in the port of Acapulco. i knew that i could live at sea forever.

June 17th, 2008 i got a new bike. a candy apple red one with room on the back for a basket. i took a bike ride with chris moore, and then later he and andy and i took a walk down to the beach to check out the bright full moon. we were only slightly intoxicated from free red wine (which always tastes sweeter to me).

as we were walking home from the beach, someone passing yelled out to me, "What's SAS?" he had seen the letters embroidered on my blue sweatshirt. assuming he was some drunk, obnoxious tourist, i ignored him. he persisted, "no, seriously, what's SAS stand for?"

"Semester at Sea," i told him as politely as i could, expecting him to keep walking past with the rest of his stumbling friends.

but he stopped and talked to me. he had done Semester at Sea in 2006. and there we were: two people who didn't have much in common except for that we were on the Ocean City Boardwalk, slightly buzzed, with ripe memories of an experience we were lucky to have had.

i've been missing sea a lot. and of course i sometimes fear that i'll never see the friends i made there again. in fact, just the other day i saw through facebook that a bunch of my "friends" had a reunion in Atlantic City. sigh. i guess no one in that particular group remembered me.

but i am glad that i ran into that guy on the boardwalk. he helped me channel my bitterness about the reunion into gratitude. he reminded me that i will always be a part of a community that has contacts all over the states and abroad.

i think that's pretty damn awesome.

why i love my roommates

i
rachel, donna, andy and i had a board walk a couple weeks ago and i had the urge to ask andy a question. and this question was so important that it could not wait until i finished chewing the giant piece of funnel cake that was chilling in my mouth. so, through a mass of powdered sugar and deep-fried batter, i managed to produce a sound that i could not recreate if i wanted to. and maybe the reason i can't remember the question now is that in my memory of this i can only hear that noise - and it was far from English. but the point is that andy answered without needing a translation.

ii
me: my favorite bug was always the roley-poley-olie.
mike: ah, Armadillidium.

iii
at sushi, after popping the biggest roll i've ever attempted into my mouth, a bit of soy sauce dribbled down my chin, and i was sans napkin. so, in an attempt to not embarass myself again by speaking with a mouth full, i tapped my hand on the table. and lisa longo and mike looked at me like i was a gecko (i was going to say a chimp but then i thought they may have understood a chimp) and they had no idea what i wanted. but luckily, before the sauce found its way to my white shirt, chris moore handed me a napkin and all was right with the world. or at least in Ginza II.

so what's the point of this long-ish entry? i'm just celebrating the idea that i live with three guys who can understand me in ways that not many other people can.

♥

all i gotta say is

mmmm.

Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right - right?

you vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.




i was behind a car this morning that had this bumper sticker right next to the one that, not surprisingly, exclaimed the driver's love for his or her church.

and since i don't really know much about any religions, though i would like to, i was very very confused.

conversation with myself:

-is that some sort of jurassic park reference where raptor is misspelled?
-no, that doesn't make any sense.

-well, what does rapture actually mean?
-this is so embarassing. i am a litt nerd. i should know this.

-i think i've only heard it used to describe pure bliss and ecstasy.
-so in case of really amazing sex, this car will be unmanned?
-that makes sense.
-coming from someone who loves church?
-no i guess that's not right.

so as soon as i got to work i googled. and i found.

wow.