Topics I want to write about soon include, but are not limited to:

Famine
...as in, New York Times and pretty much everyone else who is writing about Somalia, famine does not "sweep across" any country. It's not like five minutes ago I was fine and now I'm starving to death. Famine creeps. It is slow. If we are surprised, it's because we chose not to pay attention.

The Stock Market
...as in, The is up hundreds of points today! We'll be fine! Oh! That was yesterday; today the market is down a few hundred points! We're screwed! Wait! Woohoo! The market is back up a few hundred points! We're fine! aka WHY THE HELL DO WE BASE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF OUR ECONOMIC HEALTH ON THE STOCK MARKET?!? If I said I was putting all my money and staking my economic future on horse races, you'd say I was crazy. I can't see how staking our economic future on another kind of betting is a better idea. In fact, it's probably a worse idea, because compared to humans, horses are both more consistent and probably smarter

Larry Summers
...former President of Harvard, big economic adviser to Obama as well as President Clinton, gigantic jackass.

Consumerism
...as in, our thirst for stuff is killing people and the planet. This should bother us more.

Football
...as in, football preseason starts this week??? It CANNOT be time for that yet.

Actually, that's all I have to say about football.

Oddly Enough

I'm thinking of re-starting this whole endeavor, this blogging thing. It keeps coming up in conversation, which is odd for something that's been asleep over two years (though I suppose if I'd been asleep for over two years, people would be talking about me too) (ba-dum-CHING). People who are more or less strangers have been stumbling on it and encouraging me to write again.

And I miss it; I miss how this space helps me process the ever-growing variety of crazy things that I see and learn and do and think about in my daily life, and I miss the process of crafting a post (yes, I would call it "crafting"... believe it or not, actual thought goes into these things).

I also have no time; far less time to process and craft than had when I used to post regularly. Life has changed tremendously in the interim, and then changed again. I am a graduate student in Boston now, in a dual-degree program that keeps me quite busy, not to mention the many grad school- and friends- and Boston-related opportunities that are usually a bit more interesting and education than schoolwork, if we're being honest. And I'm traveling a lot these days. And I just agreed to write now and then for a friend's Latin America-focused blog. And my brother is getting married this autumn, which is relevant partly because it means that all of my creative writing energy should currently be devoted to the toast I will be tearfully delivering at the wedding (that's the only thing I can confidently predict about that toast: it will be delivered tearfully). And I'm supposedly running a half-marathon in October. And I'm dating a nice guy who has already nearly given up on ever seeing me.

So, I'm not saying I'm going to restart. Just that I'm thinking about it. I'll let you know.

stranger things

Cousin: "I dreamt about marriage the last two nights. Last night it was unknown royalty -- even in the dream I'd only met him once, wedding was to be Christian and I had to wear something vaguely nun-like. Now that I think about it, there was even more Christian imagery too. Very, very strange."

Monkeyhippy: "Want to marry Jesus, do you? That would be an interesting turn of events."

Cousin: "If I wanted to marry Jesus, mostly it would be an interesting turn of events for Jesus."

next time you have an hour free...

...please watch this.

unintended consequences

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Sometimes I'm so incredibly grateful to have been born into the family and country I was.