These are the things that I long for....

Yesterday, I stubled accross this Leda from Escama Studio in September's issue of InStyle. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.




'Leda" Pop Top Cut Out Clutch

 



Sia Wedge Bootie from Alloy





Military Sweater Coat from Alloy





Cozy Off-Shoulder Dolman Tunic





Luxe Drawstring Knit Pant





Marni Necklace from Alloy




Sandie Striped Skirt from Alloy




Megan Dolman Sweater Dress from Alloy



I Was There (Or, David Byrne, Smashing Pumpkins, and the Obama Rally)

I am a huge fan of the Talking Heads and basically anything that David Byrne has ever touched. The only other person who I have ever known personally that loves him more than I do is my handsome gentleman friend, Andy. When I discovered months ago that David Byrne was coming to Cleveland, I barely ate for a week in order to purchase the best seats that were available for Andy's birthday in October. Of course, since the show itself was about a week after Andy's birthday we celebrated with home made tacos and a viewing of "Dr. Strangleove" which was exactly how he wished to spend his special day. We counted down the days until we got to see Mr. Byrne and couldn't have been more enamored with him once we were actually there. He was incredible. You could feel his voice permeating your flesh and running through your veins. I assumed that this is what people who believe in god must feel like when they are in church. It was so warm, spiritual, and positive. We bought a copy of Byrne's most recent book of prose, The New Sins, which is further displaying the talent and incredible artistry that this man possesses. We managed to get so close to the stage that we could see how immaculately clean David Byrne's white sneakers were and that he more likely than not smelled the whiskey on our breath. I couldn't believe that I was there.

Fast forward a little more than a week to this past Saturday, November 1st. Andy had bought me tickets to see a band from my childhood that I had never seen. I still can't believe that I saw Smashing Pumpkins for the first time in 2008. Billy Corgan was as cocky and adorable as ever and ever so slightly weirder. I couldn't believe that I was there. If you'd have told me that this experience would fall far behind any other in the same weekend I'd have surely given you a wedgie. I would have said proudly that nothing could possibly top hearing "They Only Come Out at Night" on kazoos, especially in the same weekend.

The very next morning, we woke up after thinking we had slept in but actually woke up at a decent hour considering the time change. We suited up and went for brunch at the Happy Dog before we rode our bikes downtown to attend the Barack Obama rally a mere two days before the election. We waited in line for nearly four hours and then waited some more inside the rally's gates for Bruce Springsteen to perform a short acoustic set before introducing who I hope for the sake of the world is America's next first family.

I don't fancy myself a Springsteen fan but have always appreciated what he stands for and the fact that he has always done so consistently. I was impressed by his set musically and concerning the inspiring things he had to say. When Senator Obama took the stage the crowd let out a roar unlike one I have ever heard. In all directions, all you could see was people. The faces on these people were happy and hopeful. Obama was intelligent, articulate, hilarious, and warm. I wondered how anyone who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention to this election could possibly vote for anyone but him. I don't necessarily agree with everything he has to say about the state of this country and our place in the world, but anyone who does not realize the need for a drastic change in how this country that we live in has I have never felt anything like being at this rally, surrounded by these people. I saw the first black president speak two days before he was elected. I was there. We were there. Andy and I will tell our children and grandchildren the jokes that Barack Obama told on stage that night and of how important he has already at this point been to the world. I am so proud to be alive and able to experience this most important election in the history of the world. I was so elated to have been able to share this most amazing experience with the most important person in my world, Andy. I will be holding my breath until every last vote is counted. I can only hope that every person who was there will wait in line to vote for Obama and make history for as long as they did to hear him speak and witness history in the making.

Don't forget to vote! Don't think we have this one in the bag or that your voice isn't heard. Proud and driven people have died throughout history so that more than half of our population could have a choice. Let's make them proud. Vote not only in gratitude for our history, but for the hope of our future. Let's show the world how far we have come!

She Doesn't Believe in Science

Matt Damon on Sarah Palin:




Eve Ensler on Sarah Palin:

"I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of
a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved
polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are victims of rape and incest and who have been ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether or not they bear their rapist's child.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the
planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make
it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards
dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through
invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip
mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from
dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education
and health care or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will
determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of
fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea,
more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes
in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?"

When I read those words of Eve Ensler's, I couldn't have ever wished for anything more than that those words had originally come out of my brain and mouth exactly as they'd come out of hers. Everything she said was true to the sadness that I am consumed with when thinking that there is a single woman in this country that will be in support of her.

I can't even put into words how deeply it hurts my heart to have an anti-woman woman be the first female on a presidential ticket in this country and I've been on a crusade against her from the second she was announced as McCains running mate. I considered his assumption that we as females would vote for her based solely on the fact that she is a woman to be an insult to the intelligence of American women as a whole. Did you really think that I wouldn't find out about the fact that Sarah Palin beleif system sets us back centuries, even before the time of Women's Suffrage and the Women's Rights Movement? Did you think I wouldn't find out that she would proudly overturn the laws which give women the choices that they have?

Did you think I wasn't intelligent enough to discover that....

• As mayor of Wasilla, Palin forced victims of rape to pay for their own forensic evidence kits


• Palin is opposed to abortion in cases of rape and incest (even if victims are children)


• Palin believes creationism should be taught in public schools


• While mayor of Wasilla, Palin tried to fire the librarian because she refused to censor books


• Palin has no international experience and only obtained her first passport just last year.
  


• Palin supports the Alaskan Independence Party which seeks independence from the USA


• Alaskan bipartisan legislative investigation ruled Sarah Palin abused her power and violated the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act


• Palin offered a bounty of $150 for each left front leg of freshly killed wolves



• Palin promotes aerial hunting of wolves even though Alaskans voted twice to ban it


• Palin used $400,000 of state money to fund a propaganda campaign in support of aerial hunting


• Palin believes man-made global warming is a farce


• Palin strongly supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge


• Palin is a champion for big oil and her campaign slogan has become "Drill, baby, drill!"


• Palin is suing the federal government to prevent listing the polar bear as an endangered species


• Palin is opposed to listing the unique Cook Inlet beluga whale as an endangered species


• Palin supports a constitutional ban on gay marriage

The despair that I am overwhelmed with when I think that this woman could have anything to do with running this country absolutely terrifies me. If she could have her way, we would be back to the ways of the Victorian ages. It terrifies me that people are OK with her views as far as animal as well as human rights are concerned. The aeriel shooting of wolves and bears? Are you kidding me? This is one of the most barbaric acts of senseless violence I have ever seen. I cry tears when I think about the way these animals die. Sarah Palin is not only terrible for Alaska and The United States, but she is exponentially worse for the environment as well as the world.

• Sarah Palin spent $400,000 of state money to "educate" Alaskans about aerial hunting of wolves and bears. State tax money was used to directly influence the outcome of proposition 2 which would have limited aerial shooting of predators. Since Alaskans had previously voted twice to ban aerial shooting of predators, Palin used state tax money to buy support for aerial shooting. Buying votes with tax money worked - proposition two was voted down on 8/26/08.
  


• This year the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game will exterminate 1,400 bears out of a population of 2,000 in an area west of Anchorage. The Alaskan Board of Game even approved the hunting of black bear mothers and cubs with the goal of killing 60 percent of the black bear population. Although biologists have known since the 60's that predators actually keep prey populations healthy, Alaskan wolves and bears are being exterminated (using cruel practices such as baiting, trapping, and aerial shooting) to boost dwindling moose populations. Do we really want a vice president who doesn't believe in science?


• Sarah Palin sues the federal government over listing polar bears as a threatened species. Why? Because it could restrict the oil industry that fills her pockets. This is the same reason she wants to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. Palin believes that global warming is a myth.


• Sarah Palin's voting record supports development of the Pebble Mine - the largest open pit mine in North America. Pebble mine jeopardizes the entire Bristol bay ecosystem which contains the largest sockeye salmon run in the world. The mine could pollute an unprecedented number or rivers, lakes, and bays. Although Palin claims that the mine would create jobs for Alaskans, it may effectively destroy the commercial and sport fishing industry in Bristol Bay - the main source of income for Alaskans in Bristol bay. Pebble Mine's potential for pollution makes the Exxon Valdez oil spill look like a tiny grease stain.


• The Alaska Board of Game makes most wildlife decisions in Alaska. The board is comprised entirely of trophy hunters, and not a single wildlife biologist or scientist is a member. Also lacking is any representation from Alaska's wildlife viewing and tourism industry. The most important decisions about wildlife in Alaska are decided by ignorant sport hunters with a total disregard for science. Palin even appointed her former middle school basketball coach to the board.


• In an interview with Katie Couric, Sarah Palin could not name one supreme court decision she disagrees with, even though this June the supreme court ruled in Baker v. Exxon - a case concerning Exxon's settlement with the state of Alaska over the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill. The case resulted in a drastic reduction in the settlement - it was reduced from $5 billion to $507.5 million. Despite protests all across Alaska over the ruling, Sarah Palin supports the destruction of the Alaskan ecosystem and the commercial fishing industry in the name of big oil. Sarah Palin refuses to stand up to big oil - not exactly "maverick" leadership.

I would like to state that though I choose a mainly plant based diet, I take have no issue with subsistence hunting (eating what you kill and killing only what you need and plan to eat). My issue is with trophy hunting, sport hunting, and senseless murder.

I do not admire McCain for fighting for this country. I do not admire anyone for fighting or killing of any kind. Most of my ancestors are German. Many of whom were killed as civilians as well as military. The ones who did "survive" were damaged beyond repair both physically and psychologically. I do not admire war. I do not admire genocide.

I voted today. I voted to keep my rights. I voted for a person who wants to not only save this country, but who want to save to world. I voted early to make 100% sure that there would be NOTHING from keeping me out of the poles. I brought my virtually silent and solitary crusade against Sarah Palin to an end today doing everything that I could do to keep her out of office. I voted for science. I voted for evolution.

I voted for not Sarah Palin.

I hope no one views this post as trying to sway opinions. We all have rights to them and to vote for who we individually believe has our best interest in mind and is most capable of making steps forward in improving the state of this country and nurturing the well being of the world.

On a lighter note... It snowed in Cleveland today which can only mean one thing. The unfortunate and filthy state that my car is in is as clean as it will be until spring.