My pitas page

one girl cookies
this girl has my dream job. maybe she needs some kitchen help...

military will use outer space
the headline on this story makes the concept sound more absurd than it probably is. but read it and laugh anyway, picturing our soldiers living in a jetson's world.

promising alzheimer's vaccine
my grandmother had this disease, so any news like this gives me hope, as fleeting as that hope may be. because mice aren't people, so what works for them might not work for us. and how many other "promising alzheimer's cure/vaccine/treatment" stories have i seen in the last few months? plenty.

gang land news
a website that's been around for a while, but that i've just finally taken a look at. it feeds my childhood daydreams of being a mafia princess, and i must say to this day i am a little disappointed that my father is not a godfather in the cosa nostra sense of the word. but this makes for great reading instead, and i can practice pronouncing italian surnames to boot.

there are worse addictions
these shoes are so lovely i want to write a poem about them. true, they're probably a teensy bit out of my price range, but just getting this glimpse is almost enough to satisfy me. (almost.)

whisked away
on saturday afternoon to the lovely hamlet of greenport, ny, way out on the north fork of long island. here's where we stayed. it is so, so hard to be back in the city and at work this morning...

then, bright and early saturday...
...alana and i ran this. we made good time, running the whole way. plus we raised money for a good cause and got a goodie bag at the end.

too much peanut butter?
we weren't sure there was such a thing, so after drinks, alana and i went here for dinner. we both give the "elvis" with bacon a thumb's up, but remove the bananas before eating--otherwise they are too overpowering. for dessert we had the "bananarama" sundae. it was good, though we think it's maybe a once-a-year type place, especially if one is running a 5K the next morning.

girl drink tipsy (not drunk)
this is where alana and i and two boys had drinks on friday night. i quite like it, and not just because my drink came in a pretty glass with a fancy name. it had a nice after-work drink vibe.

don't beat up other kids--unless they're queer
a proposed law in washington state would prevent kids from bullying other kids. but some christians don't want it passed becuase they think it takes away their right to dislike homosexuals. so it's ok to beat up other kids as long as they're (maybe, maybe not) gay? this is what they teach in CCD these days?

mrs. kennedy's cassinis
i'm really looking forward to checking out this exhibit. she's high on my list of the best-dressed women ever. maybe someday i'll be that graceful and elegant, too! (let me have my daydreams--it's something to strive for.)

i want my mummy
apparently, the mummification techniques of the ancient egyptians still work today. and if that format of preserving your body doesn't do it for ya, there's a whole other, modern method to try instead.

auction house scandal
one of the best kinds of scandal, really. wonder what jannelle thinks about this.

heh: the "anti-shoshanna"
i'd love to see what her designs look like. hopefully she'll win that award so the papers'll have pictures.

pam anderson is addicted to skeezy men
it's the only explanation i can come up with for her love life. why can't she just find some anonymous millionaire and settle down?

why we work
a truly "hard-hitting," "newsy" series from abc news. i think i could have told them it's either for the love or the benjamins.

be a slut!
this has the too-often-recited arguments of why it's unfair that women are looked down upon for taking as much sex as they like while men are appluaded for that same behavior. but i like the author's encouragement for all women to become sluts, fight the power, take control, and dance too close to a man you find attractive while not wearing any underpants. that i can get behind.

why are americans so fat?
a fair question, and one that comes to mind whenever i'm at a shopping mall.

my favorite grocery store in nyc

aaron sorkin had crack, too

presidential lunch
what if you gave a party for your first hundred days and nobody came?

mcsweeney's event
i think the time has come to permanently pack away my dave eggers fan club membership card. sure, it's a good book and the website's fun sometimes. but last night's show was just painful. true, we got there late, but i don't think that meant we missed anything. everyone in the audience was just so thrilled to be basking in the glow of dave that everything anyone of stage said drew a wave of laughter. i mean everything, especially the stuff that just wasn't funny, or was said by dave himself. and i've never seen so many pale boys in glasses in one place in my life. thank god for they might be giants. i'd never seen them live before, and i'm not even what you'd call a "fan," but they interest me, and they were amusing and fun and good when they finally got up to play. they had a glockenspiel for goodness's sake! so they alone were worth the $20 entry fee, the proceeds of which went to reading is fundamental, which i must admit i'm happy about as well.

peruvian food in the east village
went here for dinner last night. recommended if you're in that neck of the woods and are in the mood for something not two-boots-ish. (i had the skirt steak--it was indeed good.)

famous people saying dumb things
there are a lot of examples of the above in this column today, but i think my fave is the first, from good ol' buck-naked matthew m. my question: how long will he be dating "tv star" salli richardson now that he's said he's actually really and truly in love with another woman?

"the mummy" murder attempt
man attempts to kill wife by mummifying her. and they say kids get kooky ideas from the media?

washington monthly founder stepping down
charlie peters has been the fearless and feared leader of the washington monthly for decades, and is finally stepping aside to let younger blood take over his baby. i interned there for a semester, and it was truly an eye-opening experience. imagine a magazine where the editors are paid $14,000 a year, have a two-year-then-you're-out contract, and basically operate out of three rooms in a fourth-floor walk-up in dupont circle. it was the quintessential ideology-driven magazine, and it was a lot of fun, even if i didn't get to write while i was there.

nyc rents
i don't live in a rent-stabilized apartment, but i think guiliani is doing the right thing by trying to keep those folks from getting hit with another rent increase. sure, they pay close to nothing compared to the rest of us, but rents in this city are just too darn high. i don't believe the owners' arguments about rising fuel costs fueling the rates for one minute. they know that if the people living there now can't pay the greater rent, they'll leave and then mr. owner can knock up the rent even more for the next tenant. very, very unfair. go rudy!

french polynesia
maybe this is the next vacation spot, and not italy, after all.

sunday night supper
dine out for a good cause on sunday may 6.

new tax forms, bush-style
this is too great. i want to work with whoever it is that comes up with this stuff.

i need your opinions!
well, only those of you whose opinion i trust. is this dress september-wedding appropriate? (i'm a guest at the wedding, not, like, the bride or anything.) UPDATE: the dress has been purchased. thanks to you guys who gave your insight freely.

pedicure ickiness
this is so gross: women who went to a particular salon for pedicures ended up with boils and other really unattractive skin problems due to a microbe in the nail salon's footbath. makes me want to steer clear of such places for a while. (meaning, until i forget about this story. then i'll happily, stupidly go back.)

new creperie to try!
hey amy, lemme know when you're game...

great writers' first jobs
nice to know we all have to start somewhere.

old 97s at irving plaza
the show is 6/15. tickets go on sale 4/27. thanks to mr. publicity for giving the head's up on this one. really MUST buy their new cd (or any cd) this weekend.

moomba is closing
now what am i going to say when, in a vain attempt to be funny, i suggest to my friends that we hang out at moomba?

what mom's getting on mom's day

writer's market
i just bought this. it's time to get my poop together and write stuff that is more than a pita entry or a press release. wish me luck!

grove
went here for dinner last night. a little chilly in the garden, but the steak was good and the creme brulee was huge.

sacre bleu!
the french are losing their taste for wine? how can this be?

betsey johnson
the first item of betsey johnson clothing i ever bought was from the little boutique commander salamander's in washington, d.c. it was a black velvet jumpsuit with an empire waist and flowing legs, and it looked a lot cooler than that description sounds. i wore it to a world aids day dance party sponsored by the aids awareness club (of which i was the secretary, i think). i could not have felt cooler when, more than a bit tipsy, i danced on a narrow stage in the middle of the room, my friends looking on in a mix of fascination and horror and joy. amazingly, i did not fall off. i never wore that outfit again, but it was a hundred-and-something bucks well spent for that fleeting moment in time.

sadly, sunday had to come
and we ran around to make the noon train back to nyc. had some cinnamon breakfast products from this little place in union station. spent four hours on a warm train. (mini-vacation lessons learned: in the future, we fly. in the future, we also leave late on sunday.) and now we are both back at work on monday. have i mentioned the weather is absolutely gorgeous? sigh...

cashion's eat place
on saturday night, lovely weather still holding, we ventured to adams morgan for dinner, at a place i'd never been to but always wanted to try when i was a d.c. resident. cannot say too much about how good it was, even though our waitress was a little quirky. less stuffed than friday night, but still ate so very, very well. romantique to boot, what with sitting out on the sidewalk patio, and who can argue with that?

it was such a nice day
we took the metro to the mall, and watched weird all-american families by the capitol reflecting pool for a while. ("the rymers" have seven children. seven!) then we went to the air and space museum, which is undergoing some renovations. the imax movie about the sun rocked. the planetarium show, not so much. then we walked home (well, to the hotel) through the quiet city streets.

saturday morning
after snoozing and partaking of starbucks, we went to this, the best bookstore in d.c. (sorry, politics & prose). i got the most recent sherman alexie book in paperback, boy got the new nick hornby, if i remember rightly, as well as one other, the name of which is escaping me right now. it's still the best bookstore in d.c.--nice to know some things don't change.

after the show at the kennedy center
(which we got to after a really weird train ride) we and parents went here for dinner. mussels are good. crab cakes are also good. and so is turtle cheesecake. but if you eat them all, with two gin and tonics, you end up too too too stuffed. this lesson i have yet to get through my head.

and then
after spending the morning learning about science stuff, i had a yummy fields and feta wrap for lunch. after spending a quality 20 minutes at my apartment to rejuvenate myself for the afternoon of "work" ahead.

microbicides
i spent all morning at workshops learning about microbicides and what's in the development pipeline, as well as what sort of advocacy efforts are underway to fund this research. they're really important, and if you're a girl or a gay guy, you should learn more about them.

books, shmooks
the boston globe's book review may get moved from its own section to a place within the "focus" section of the paper. thumbs up to them for not canning it completely, but one has to wonder by how much they'll be reducing coverage of this oft-neglected topic.

they might be giants and mcsweeney's magazine
at the bowery ballroom. i've got my tickets--what about you?

peter kump's cooking school
they've posted their summer class schedule. do i take a class now or wait til fall when there's no chance i'll want to skip class to hit the beach? feel free to suggest which course you'd like me to take...since y'all will be eating the results.

place your bets
sarah michelle gellar and freddie prinze jr. are engaged to be married. i give it less than three years, if it happens at all. she's only 24 for goodness's sake! and they're both just too good-looking. i worry for them.

i want to be the next martha
and i think this inside q&a shows why. not only does she have great, creative ideas, she's a heck of a smart businesswoman. she started out on wall street, you know.

st. john's wort won't fight depression
but maybe now that you won't be spending all that money to buy it, you'll be a happier person.

the lower east side
has officially been declared a historic district.

marion barry gets community service
for shoving a janitor at BWI airport. wonder if this bitch set him up, too.

pulitzers announced
did you get one? me neither. sigh.

dave matthews and planned parenthood
i guess if there were ever an appropriate audience for a new condom, it would have to be the frat boys at a dmb show...

frances
one of my favorite childhood books.

shrooms?
west wing creator aaron sorkin was arrested for having hallucinogenic mushrooms in his carry-on luggage. he was, of course, bound for vegas at the time. poor guy--hope this is just a fluke. he's a darn good writer.

the only problem with fishnets
is that you get a waffle pattern on your legs. i guess nothing can be 100 perfect, though, right? so we should just be happy they look so damn cool. (and i know i'm a bitch for asking this, but why oh why do they make queen size fishnets? some things just shouldn't be allowed.)

graduate school possibility?
maybe i'll go get my master's in a foreign language. sounds like there's plenty of job security in the state dept. if one knows the right stuff....

noho
northampton, mass., my hands-down favorite town in the state, has been named one of the top ten small towns in the country to visit. it's fun and cute--you should go.

white house dress code
deconstructed.

where i'll be this weekend
hanging with the parents, being forced into church, and eating lots of candy. happy easter, all.

a poor vocabulary will hurt your kid
so get one of those word-a-day calendars, fast.

cheryl richardson leaves broadway for s&s
i can imagine some folks at 1540 broadway are pretty unhappy about losing one of their oprah-induced cash cows.

irs: too busy to care
good news for me and everyone i helped do their taxes this year. kidding, guys, really!

bridget jones's diary
cannot wait to see this. sounds promising, especially the "rakish" hugh grant character (sigh).

i have a chocolate problem:
i can't stop eating it. here are some fun facts about my fave genre of junk food.

kozmo's a no-go
they're shutting down for good. and i had just gotten hip to how they could change/improve my life! guess i should have started throwing money their way a little sooner.

best political weblogs
according to slate.com. i'm so insulted i was not included...

now i can sleep at nights

why "ed" rocks
i still can't decide, though, whether i should marry ed or josh from "the west wing." sigh--why does life have to be so darn hard?

beastie boys book
say THAT five times fast!

woman becomes first female governor of massachusetts
and she's pregnant to boot! perhaps there's hope for the home state after all.

aids drug cost debate
a nice bitchy exchange on slate between new republic senior editor andrew sullivan and economist merrill goozner. i'm more or less on sullivan's side, believe it or not.

ancient lost city of alexandria found and mapped
this is so cool. did i ever tell you there was a period in my life when i wanted to be indiana jones? but a girl, of course.

out of time
a look at the r.e.m. album of the same name. this was the first r.e.m. disc i ever owned (well, i had the tape, not the cd) and i still remember listening to it for the first time. it came out in the summer and it was a warm night and i was in my room wearing shorts and a t-shirt and lolling around and then krs-1's voice kicks the whole thing off with "radio song". totally different from any r.e.m. i'd ever heard and it was like the clouds parted or something equally grandiose. hey, i was 15 years old--cut me some slack. i doubt i'll ever recapture that sense of discovery with any musical group or any album, but it was nice to feel it that once and it's even nicer to remember it.

worm removed from woman's brain
i'll not be eating pork tacos anytime soon, and you should probably steer clear of them as well.

tennessee biscuits
my mouth is watering.

nbci's getting closed down
does that mean we'll never, ever have to see another one of their horrible tv ads? please?

u2's elevation tour 2001
a little preview of what we (meaning "the gang") have to look forward to this summer.

wow
a gay republican will run the bush white house's aids office.

more peeps!
click on 1999 to see peeps on vacation in philly...

the best thing about easter:
peeps!

inside the head of a stockbroker
i guess since this piece came out, this guy's been fired from his firm. which i guess is good because while it's completely fascinating to read about him and know that guys like him actually exist, it leaves a rather ick taste in one's mouth.

high heels are bad for you
but, i care not. bring 'em on!

good news? bad news?
the average penis size has been revised downward. and the new size? it's equivalent to a medium starbuck's coffee cup, including lid.

mad cow hoo-ha
see? you can eat steak while on vacation in europe after all. i knew i had nothing to fear!

faith in the baby
the other day i mentioned to someone that i thought the pieces on salon lately hadn't been so good. well, this one almost made me cry. it's the sort of "mothers who think" piece that was written expressly for suckers like me, and one of those longer, nicely brutal stories that salon does so well.

oh, rhett....part 2
i went to the old 97s show a few weeks back and enjoyed it immensely. but now that i have seen a rhett miller solo show at fez, i completely understand why all the girls are crrrrazy about him, even though he's too skinny. such stage presence! such passion! such clever lyrics! and he's funny between songs to boot. does it get any better than that, i ask you? he played a brand-spanking new song called "whose kiss" that i really liked, as well as another one ("helicopter lady"--thanks, hol) he finished writing at 8:30 last night. oh, and ken from the old 97s made a special guest appearance, singing a song about bugs, among other things. and rhett lost a contact lens. two encores. charming. looking forward to the full-on old 97s tour dates this summer.

clinton in india
dude, aren't you NOT our president anymore?

mmmmm...manolo
i'm more of a silver girl than a gold or bronze girl, but these shoes are so damn sexy i'd make an exception.

tv lineup
from the modern humorist. my favorite: food2.

AU political scientist arrested
as a spy!

"a little meat with my gravy"
(3rd item down) oh, hugh...just shut up and let me maintain my fantasy of you as your character in notting hill, ok?

jake tapper
amy heard a rumor that he's gonna be at a barnes & noble taping an interview for "new york & co." does anyone out there have any more info on this? if so, please send to nerdgirl@angelfire.com--i'll be your best friend.

rapper dentist
you can't make this stuff up, folks. thanks to our own gangsta boy in the hood, cdh, for this one.

fun headline
hate linking to nytimes.com twice in one day, but this headline made me chuckle. so here it is for your enjoyment.

oh, barbra...

inside content
i guess that's as good a name as any for the soon-to-be-merged product of these two media-scrutinizers.

stuckeybowl, anyone?
thanks to betsy for this link. how i too dream of bowling with ed...

everyone's a critic
my favorite line: "Rusticity is admirable in Calabrian cuisine, Mr. Leitch, but not in print journalism."

jazz at the kennedy center
my brother has been chosen as a participant in this. we may not always see eye to eye, but i am quite proud of him. don't tell...

my next vacation
one can never start planning too early, can one?

oh, rhett, i do declare...
the intrepid (by which i mean good-lookin' and ever-so-talented) leader of the old 97s has a solo show this wednesday night at fez. we'll be there with bells on. and the whole band will be on conan o'brien tuesday night for those of you who can actually stay up that late.

in the city
we're back on nyc soil, and got togethah with "the gang" on sunday morning for brunch at this lovely little cheapo establishment. gifts were given, stories told, and photos viewed. and today, being monday and my first day back at work, i am trying not to get depressed as it yet again looks like rain and i know it's not that nice soft paris rain.

lingerie bonanza
if amy and i go here again, they're going to have to rename this store mcnulty & baggetta. we spent the day shopping, and this, being one of our fave stores, was high on the list. much credit card damage was done.

its heineken time
and to finish the day off right, we had a draft heineken in a bar at the train station (it was actually a pretty nice bar, not a skeevy one, i swear). best heineken ive ever had. and then amy saved the day by having the common sense to know which track our train would depart from--if it had been left up to me wed probably be in rotterdam right now. yay amy :)

van go-go
i wish i could find some sort of tulip link, but i cant. amy and i went to the main flower market in the city, and then had a falafel sandwich for lunch (we could not find any frites stands, which seems wrong). then we went to the van gogh museum, which was great. all of his greatest hits and more. and then it was time to head back to the train station to catch the last train back to paris.

it was kind of chilly in amsterdam
but we walked all around the city, which is a little more challenging than paris because street names change each block. but the canals were lovely. theres a lot of construction going on--they seem to be re-cobblestoneing every sidewalk in preparation for the height of the tourist season next month i guess. amy and i hit two great vintage clothing shops: lady day and laura dols. at the former, i got a cool-as-all-get-out black leather miniskirt, and at the latter amy picked up the loveliest handbag weve seen in some time.

anne frank house
the line outside was intimidating, but im glad we waited to get inside this little museum. housed inside the building where annes father had his gelatin business, the rooms are bare except for quotes from the book, selected artifacts, and some very good audio and video clips from newsreels. the building next door was recently turned into part two of the tour, i guess you could say, and its industrial design--steel, white walls, lots of glass, is perfect for the subject matter. it houses more audio and video clips of interviezs with otto frank and one of the women who helped hide the family, as well as personal letters, copies of the book from around the world, and more.

a four hour train ride
gets you from paris to amsterdam, so amy and i hopped one on monday morning, bright and early. the walk in the dark from the hostel to the metro at 530 am was nice: silence, no cars, and a few ambitious birds chirping away.

land of many stairs
after brunch we went to gare du nord to check out the amsterdam train schedules, and then continued on to the bascilica of the saced heart. it sits atop one of two major hills in paris, and getting there, as they say, is half the fun. many, many stairs to get to the bascilica, and then if you want to climb to the dome, which of couse we did because one has to burn off those eggs benedict somehow, it's a LOT of stairs! but we did it, and yáll will se the esulting photogaphs. even on a rainy day like today, one still can see the bulk of the city.

best bunch ever
whoever reviewed this place for zagat's has not been for brunch. le fumoir is located kitty-corner from the louvre. for about $20 US, amy and i were greeted with warm hand towels, and proceeded to polish off just-baked bread, freshly-squeezed orange juice, hot coffee, the most beautifully-plated eggs benedict i've ever seen, and a fluffy pancake soaked in syrup and topped with strawberries. i don't know if i'll ever eat again, but it was worth every bite.

au bon marche
walked here in the driving rain and went to the huge food hall of this department store. bought much chocolate.

croques monsieur
had my first one of these in a little cafe overlooking the luxembourg gadens, watching passersby scurry through the rain.

brief time in the sun
after the picasso museum, we made our way in the rain to the luxembourg gardens, which arre just lovely, no matter the weather. well-manicued, bubbling fountain, and the senate building where french governing takes place. it is, of course, housed in a glittering old palace. while we were wandering the grounds, the sun came out for about 20-30 minutes, just for us and our photographic pleasure.

national museum workers are on strike
which means that the louvre, the musee dórsay, and versailles, among others, are closed. so amy and i spent friday morning at the picasso museum, which is privately operated. it was very good, and located in a gorgeous building to boot. not quite the mona lisa, his work, but i like it better than some of the orsay's impressionist stuff anyway.

and here i am now
at easy everything, whiwh has large orange signs and a fab deal on internet access. its in the les halles area, which is so touristy i feel ill: kfc, pizza hut, and so many people so poorly dressed. it really gives off a sketchy feel, too, and its the middle of the afternoon! at any rate, my 40 minutes for 10 FF are almost up, but i feel much better having had the chance to update the pita. mom and dad, were safe! more adventures as they occur and i have time to visit the digital world to post them...

nothing is ever easy
today, the louvre is ferme, closed. were not sure why, though we heard some talk of a museum officials meeting taking place, so all the national museums are closed today. but since they say they may also be closed tomorrow, im thinking something nefarious is afoot. of course chere amy and i did not know this til we got to the louvre. so we did what any self-respecting american would: rang up our credit card bills. we went to the ultra-huge department store samaritain (be on the lookout for my colorful fishnet stockings), h&m--justified becqause we are in europe and its a european store (two cutesy spring shirts), and marks & spencer (procuring garments that only some of you will ever see).

paris jazz
went here at night, drank wine, and listened to a french jazz group cover nat king cole tunes. the best: the singer belting out with all his heart "is you is or is you is my baby." then walked home, got heart-breakingly disconnected during a transatlantic phone call, and journal-ed til sleep hit, about 1.

healthy dinner
after shopping and walking and wandering in the bastille district and the marais, we crashed for a while at the hostel and then got dinner: nutella crepes. id never had nutella before, and now i just dont know how i survived such a deprived life. big fan of the nutella, as well as the whole concept of the crepe.

largest cosmetics store on earth
well, maybe not, but the sephora store on the champs elysees must be up there. we felt it was ok to go in because, after all, sephora was in paris long before it came to nyc.

arc de triomphe
then it was but a short metro ride away to the arc de triomphe. again, an elevator ride, more panoramas of gay paree, and more glorious sunshine.

the eiffel tower
predictable, but a good place to start ones time in paris (if there are more typos than usual on this pita, forgive me--this euro keyboard is messing with me). amy and i took about three rolls of photos between us up there, and even looked competent enough to have folks ask us to prendre their photos. the sun even cqme out. lovely view and really became real that yes, were in paris.

thumbs up to american airlines
for getting my little red suitcase to me at 8 pm the same day it went missing.

our hostel
and you wouldnt believe what has transpired to get amy and i here. although her plane made it in on time, in one piece, and containing all of her luggage. as some of you know, i was not so lucky. suffice to say i ended up getting to paris from a different airport, on a different carrier, at a different time than originally planned. and they lost my suitcase, so i am in paris with the clothes on my back and the backpack, uh, also on my back. i am not pleased. but today, once amy and i finally met up, we walked by notre dame, the hotel de ville, the centre pompidou, and around and about the latin quarter. it is true that the light here is different. eveything is softer. and the weather today is lovely. a little cloudy, but mostly blue skies and white puffy clouds. now, amy rests while i update this pita and then head out to find socks and perhaps other essential garments, and it remains to see if we will be at all active tonight. tomorrow i think will hold more promise in terms of stuff we've done, or at least, in terms of shopping we have attempted. i'm thinking leather miniskirt, since that's the wave of fashion this spring. and i don't know how often said pita will be getting this updating love--access is expensive in the so-called young & happy hostel :) enjoy while you can!

madeleine l'engle
i love a "wrinkle in time." when i first read it in project s.e.e. (they say i'm gifted) in fifth grade i didn't get the religious stuff, i didn't get the science stuff. but, by gosh, what a fantastic story.

il fait beau
tomorrow is the day i take a few planes to get to france (say: frahnce). it looks like the weather will be nice-ish, or, at least, warmer than it is here. which is all i ask for, really.

tucker carlson's new column
i hate the fact that i have a teensy crush on a conservative. but he does look good in those bow ties...

cherry blossom watch 2001
here's all the news you could ever want regarding peak viewing dates in d.c.

freelancers vs. The Man
the case over rights wends its way to the u.s. supreme court.

britney spears, novelist

bush will defend gay servicepeople
heck, that's something. now if only he would leave my uterus alone...

"bomb-ass pussy"
i have no idea what that means, but i guess that's what snoop's after in his latest venture: teaming up with hustler to produce some porn.

strom thurmond: cheating death
while this strikes me as tacky, this whole let's talk about when someone might die thing, it is also pretty interesting. i can't believe strom's 98 and still coherent enough to serve in the senate (insert politician joke here). that's pretty impressive, no matter what one may think of him personally.

mir goes down
on the same day amy and i head for paris. coincidence?

birth control options
the good cardinal does not want the state to require religious institutions to give their employees the option of birth control coverage under their health insurance. i ask of you: what is wrong with making it an OPTION? no one is going to force women to go on the pill if they don't want to or have religious objections to using it.

la lanterna
everything they say is true. my sweet tooth was so very satisfied.

egypt
i really, really want to go there someday. badly. but i fear that being american and being a girl something like this--random act though it is--will happen to me. why can't we all just get along?

young fresh fellows and the minus 5
saw these kids last night at mercury lounge. well, i guess "kids" isn't really the right word. basically it's some good musicians, including r.e.m.'s peter buck, who have decided a vanity project is just about right for them these days. it was a fun show with cute boppy tunes and kinda random covers, not to mention such a nice bunch of guys up on stage who actually seemed to be enjoying themselves. that's kind of unusual among the "rock n roll" elite, and did not go unnoticed by the general public in the audience. we tip our hats to them.

those pms medication ads
you girls know which ones i mean--the ones where the women play out all the stereotypes of the crazy bitch with wacky hormones. they make me cringe, and i'm so glad some doctors agree.

blacklisted
an interesting story about the hollywood blacklist of the 1950s and how the oscars prompted the beginning of its end.

foot and mouth in france
it's 7 days til paris. what on earth are we going to be able to eat there?

literary cred
neal pollock gets a mostly great review from the new york times. but can this band of literary outsiders--the men of mcsweeney's--remain true to their art once the mainstream embraces them?

circumcision suit
from the "you've GOT to be kidding me" department: this young man is suing the hospital where he was circumcised, claiming that if he hadn't undergone the procedure, he and his partners would be having better sex. but here's the thing: maybe he's just not good in bed, which takes a little more than a foreskin to fix...

the phantom tollbooth
this is one of my fave kid's books. and if you haven't read it (ahem, alana), you really should, even if you are all grown up now. a little whimsy never hurt anyone.

doris kearns goodwin
amy, this link's for you! also: y'all can see i have FINALLY done something with this page and started an archive of past entries. i am going to try to archive each week, but we'll see how that goes. to access old entries--cause i know you read this pita lovingly and frequently in your spare time--click on the "angieb's archives" link on the left. perhaps someday i'll even get rid of this template, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.