f*ck, i am excited! i really can't even remember the last time i saw live music (it may have been bright eyes and feist the winter i got pregnant with??) but a friend is taking me to see TV On the Radio in boston tonight....AND a couple months back i used a little of my tax return to get tickets to the jenny lewis show in boston next week; i'm taking a friend on wednesday! two shows in a week, WOO! is it bad to say that i'm going to party it up for once and get reeeeally drunk tonight?!

(great song, although i'm not crazy about the video)

i'm sure you ladies don't remember, but a few months back Chris Mason organized a counter protest in Boston to raise money for every minute that the Phelps clan protested the opening of the Laramie project. i was really looking forward to going but it ended up being during the weekend of that crazy ice storm that left most of new england a disaster zone...i was bummed to miss it, but chris and i have talked a couple times through email and i've been following his current cross-country trek while he films for his Driving Equality documentary. he just posted this clip of yesterday's interview with Shirley Phelps, and it's pretty unbelievable. plus he got a tour of the "factory" where they make their signs, and they actually gave him one as a memento. he says in his blog that they were actually very kind and welcoming to him, but i'm unclear on whether they knew he's gay. i love his comments in his blog about how freaky it felt to be filming her with the camera he had paid for with money raised by counter-protesting her family...it's kind of a mind-fuck, huh? and, by the way, i almost fell off my chair when she uses the expression "it's on like donkey kong" during the interview.

anyway, here's the link to the clip http://drivingequality.com/2009/06/02/god-hates-who/

I wept when I heard the news. There really aren't any words....this man has devoted his life to serving women and he was murdered because of it. My heart goes out to his family, friends, and co-workers.

I found this press release from NOW to be very powerful and pertinent: http://www.now.org/press/06-09/06-01.html

This was a horrible act of terrorism, and should be treated as such.

how the hell have i not heard of this crafting docu-feature til now?? it looks wonderful, and i'm all geeked out because nikki mcclure is in it and i luvluvluv her. i just wish there was going to be a boston screening...boo to that.

aaaanyway, check out the preview and get more info here: http://www.handmadenationmovie.com/

i'm so pissed right now. i'm not sure if you mamas are familiar with jezebel.com; i stop by there sometimes to check out the posts even though i'm frequently annoyed by some of the content, and by how dictatorial the editors there are about commenting. they play this assy little game where if they don't like your comment you get "disemvoweled", which means they take all the vowels out of what you wrote as a warning that you're pissing off the jezegods. oftentimes it's for a good reason-- trolls and rude assholes, etc-- but i was disemvoweled today and i am PISSED.

one of the main "rules" at jezebel is that there's no body snarking allowed. so if they post a picture of lindsay lohan people are welcome to comment on how wasted she looks and how she wears leggings as pants, but not on how skinny she is or whatnot. i think it's a good policy, although somewhat hypocritical considering some of the writers' own snarkiness that goes on.

so in this morning's gossip post there was a blurb of "news" that said "Rosario Dawson will star opposite — ugh — Kevin James in a romcom called The Zookeeper. What is up with the schlubby dudes getting hot ladies?" i couldnt help but wonder about the fairness of this statement, so i commented "okay, jezzies, i've gots to know: why is body snarking okay when it's about a man?? that rosario dawson/kevin james blurb reeks of snarkinss to me. imagine if the statement were something like 'kirstie alley is set to star opposite brad pitt in new movie...what's up with schlubby ladies getting hot dudes?' i'd get disemvoweled for saying something like that, no?"

and imagine my fucking surprise when i checked back to see what the other readers thought and my comment had been reduced to "ky, jzzs, 'v gts t knw: why s bdy snrkng ky whn t's bt mn?? tht rsr dwsn/kvn jms blrb rks f snrknss t m. mgn f th sttmnt wr smthng lk "krst lly s st t str ppst brd ptt n nw mv...wht's p wth schlbby lds gttng ht dds?" 'd gt dsmvwld fr syng smthng lk tht, n?"

WHAT THE FUCK?!? i meant to open up an honest dialogue about why we, as women, react so strongly to snarking about our bodies yet often allow and even encourage the same thing to happen to men. i didn't intend to come across as insulting or unnessecarily inflammatory, and i don't think i did come across that way, so what the fuck is their problem with me? I WAS CENSORED FOR CALLING THEM OUT ON THEIR HYPOCRISY!

ugh. you are dead to me now, jezebel.

here's monkeygirl and our friend nate spreading some joy on the side of the road yesterday. we got like a hundred honks and waves (we live on a busy road) and it was so much fun...it cracks me up that they look so serious in this picture because the rest of the time they were giggling and cheering "woooo!" when people would honk at us. when we woke up this morning noa said "i need my honking sign, mama!"

i know a superthick wool scarf is a bit out of season, but i don't give a shiz right now. i finished my first project tonight, and IT CAME OUT FANTASTIC!

she keeps scratching a scab off her face and seems absolutley fascinated and undisturbed by the blood. she did it again today in the car and even after i cleaned her up with some wipes she still had some caked blood all around her fingernails...we stopped by a local farm to feed the animals a few minutes later and she stuck her hand in a goat's face and said with a sinister little grin "you wanna eat my blood??" i don't know whether to laugh or worry.

the idea that women who receive child support for their children must be living in undeserved luxury is one that i've been hearing more and more lately, although i'll admit that i probably just notice it more since i'm an aforementioned "child support queen" myself. the latest incarnation of this ignorance that i've seen comes, unfortunately, from a good friend who is angry that his ex-wife got a tatto. i'm shocked and disgusted by his attitude and wish i hadn't seen such ugliness from him, and now i feel like i've seen his "true colors" and can't look at him the same way anymore.

I just recently learned that Mother's Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war by women who had lost their sons. Here is the original Mother's Day Proclamation from 1870, written by Julia Ward Howe (author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic"):