Sunday, February 04, 2007

This Used To Be My Playground

Clement's taken the couch and left me, and now I'm starting the moving process myself. I'm not a fan of moving—who is, right? It feels like the world's slowest Seppuku: I have to keep working to make myself more miserable. I don't like being in empty rooms, and I don't like leaving places I have any real fondness for. I'm now looking at everything with nostalgia. When will I have an occasion to get off at the 49th St. N/R/W stop again? What will bring me to the Coffee Pot? Will I ever again feel so at the center of the world? I guess that's a good thing, though. If the terrorists come, they might come for Times Square. But picture: "Where should we attack? I know! The south-west corner of Manhattan Valley! You know, the area between the Upper West Side and Columbia? That'll really show 'em." No.

So even though I'm excited to go to the new place, I'm sad to leave. Even though I kind of can't stand my incompetent landlord and his screaming kids and my irregular hot water, I kind of don't want to go. It'll be fun living with Greg and Megan and Mike, though. They're cool folks. It feels like there might be a really fun dynamic in that apartment, so I'm psyched for that, too. But it's my first apartment. And it's pretty. And I'm leaving.

Anyway, how about I don't mope any longer? It's half PMS anyway. I seriously need to deal with that shit...get myself on the pill or something. It would be worth killing my sex drive if I can not have one weekend a month where I pout and cry half the time. Not cool.

Where were we? Ah yes, not moping. I had dinner with Natalia last night. That was very cool. It had been far too long since I'd seen her. Now we'll be living just 13 blocks away from each other, which will be excellent.

Oh, and this isn't moping so much as bitching: I was so pissed at that Joe Biden/Barack Obama story this week. No, I wasn't pissed at Biden. I was pissed at how the press and the blogs and everyone and their mother handled it. In case your memory's foggy, an article in the New York Observer quoted Biden as saying:
“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

And so of course everyone starts yelling at Biden for saying that Obama's the first, like, clean and smart and well-spoken and attractive and oh-did-I-mention-clean African-American. Or something. Now come on...did anyone actually believe this is what he meant? Really, now. Someone with a level head at TPM commented:
...what if the Observer punctuated casually? That is, what if there is supposed to be a comma before 'who,' making it a non-restrictive relative clause?

Genius! So he's the first mainstream African-American candidate. And by the way, ain't it cool that he's so studly and smooth and smart? Some people still took issue with this, saying he wasn't the first mainstream black candidate. Jesse Jackson apparently won a few primaries back in the day, and even if she wasn't a serious contender, Carol Moseley Braun was pretty mainstream. OK, so maybe it wasn't the single best way of describing Obama. But is he the first black person whom sane people think really, really could be president? I think so... And really, nobody would have cared about that statement anyway.

Oh, and in case you're still wondering about the comma, listen to the recording. It's up on Language Log. The comma should clearly, clearly be there. If it were a well formed sentence, it should have been its own sentence. Somehow it got cut out, and suddenly any chances Biden had are dashed. Because of mangled transcription or editing. And I don't even fault the Observer THAT much. Quote mangling can happen, sad as it is. I'm pissed at everyone who just couldn't wait to call Biden a racist...or even politically foolish. They're the same people who thought Kerry really was saying the soldiers were stupid. As for the Macaca thing, I don't know. I doubt he was really using the slur because he knew it was a slur. It always struck me as a substitute for "some guy with a funny name." Which is still not cool.

OK, that's all for now...later, dudes!