It’s clear I got the family tact.

My grandma was in fine form this Thanksgiving.

My dad has a new mustache, and as soon as she saw him, she said, “Now, X*, do you want to look older or younger?”

My dad, who is 62, considered all the various sarcastic responses he might make, but eventually settled on the straightforward answer that he’d like to look younger. To which she immediately responded, “Well, I think your mustache makes you look ten years older!”

Oh, Grandma.

(She didn’t drop it all weekend, either.)

I shouldn’t laugh too hard — although, let me tell you, I did — because I am so unbelievably tactless myself. Like, when I met my boyfriend — who needs a Blog Name, by the way — he hated most vegetables, including delicious ones like spinach, because he grew up eating them boiled to shit. And so what do I do when we’re eating spinach one time with his lovely mother? I very innocently explain how I had to convince him to eat spinach, since he grew up eating it prepared in the most terrible ways!

Seriously, folks. It never crossed my mind that the person I was speaking to was the one who did that terrible preparing.

His mother was really amazingly nice about the whole thing.

* I’m leaving my dad’s name out of it because his first name is extremely unusual and should someone ever google him just with that — which would definitely work for finding him — I don’t think he’d want them turning up this story!

“Why are there so many Elizabeths?”

One of the high points of this Thanksgiving has been getting to see my oldest cousin’s children more. Nico, 6, and Luke, 3, are super cute. And Nico loves me. Luke? Well… he wasn’t so sure.

On Wednesday night he waddled up to me and said, “There’s a mean Elizabeth in my class.” Then he stared at me accusingly for a moment before picking up his dump truck and pushing it around, muttering, “Mean Elizabeth.”

Thanksgiving Day when I passed him in the hallway he said plaintively, “Why are there so many Elizabeths?”

I think I was eventually able to win him over with my willingness to pretend we were in a space boat, but man. What could this Elizabeth actually have done to him???

Growing up under occupation….

Excerpts from IraqiGirl: Diary of a Teenage Girl in Iraq. That’s the book I edited, y’all.

For that special someone…

A special valentine.

I am a terrible, terrible blogger.

But while I’m castigating myself, here’s one thing I did write recently: a letter (stemming from a loooong debate about animal rights) about the disability rights movement in the U.S. This history is awesome, yo.

Why yes, I am just posting thirty amazing animal photographs. Why do you ask?

I’d love to credit the photographers, but I only got these in an email forward from Michael Schwartz, abusing his own excellent Iraq analysis listserv.

Click for full sizes.

My radio interview about IraqiGirl

Of course, I won’t be able to bear to listen to it (aaahhhhh my voice aaaahhhhhh), but maybe you will…

Interview for WORT’s A Public Affair

Alexander Hamilton, spoken word style

I went to high school with this guy!

…and he was always a theater star even then. Awesome.

h/t what is the what

UPDATED: Okay, I had to add his Tony acceptance speech:

The Dr. Herbert he thanks for telling him he was a writer? Did me some good turns in 8th grade English, too. So awesome.

Wednesday Words: The kind of education that’s been getting in the way of my… education

Keep your rigid opinions about when Wednesday is to yourself, y’all.

I am self-educated from genre books.

– Charlaine Harris, CLUB DEAD

I blew through all nine Sookie Stackhouse books in two and a half weeks, y’all. Master’s thesis? What Master’s thesis?

Actually, it turns out that there’s a reason for my inability to do much more than lie on the couch reading trashy novels and rubbing Cooper’s belly for several weeks — besides my incorrigible laziness, I mean — and that is Vitamin D deficiency. It turns out Vit-D isn’t something you want to mess around with. So now I am recovering with my prescription-strength vitamins (seriously?) and newfound will to accomplishing things. And mourning the loss of my muscles, my beautiful muscles, but my gym classes are just waiting for my return, my enthusiastic return, and so it goes.

Anyway, the Stackhouse books are hella predictable (like, when I can call all the plot twists, and I mean all, I have to consider the possibility that it’s not because I am a genius but rather that these books were designed that way), and when you read them right next to one another you see how completely full of continuity errors they are. Continuity errors, and also the kinds of repeated passages you get when you’re churning out a series, because there’s only so many ways to say

When Elizabeth looked at Jessica it was like gazing in a mirror. The same shoulder-length blond hair and aquamarine eyes, the same color as the Pacific Ocean. The twins shared perfect size-six figures. They were identical right down to the dimple in their left cheeks… until you got to their personalities, that is.

and if I hadn’t referenced the size-6 figures I would have referenced the birthmark on Elizabeth’s shoulder that was the only way to tell them apart because that’s how you knew if you were reading Sweet Valley High or Twins, is what I’m saying. Sometimes I felt like twenty percent of the Stackhouse books was this kind of repeated scene-setting, like how many times is Charlaine Harris going to have Sookie narrate that vampire-human marriages haven’t been legalized yet… not that any vampires have asked her? Seriously, how many times?

Nevertheless, these were intensely addictive, and I felt such profound relief when I had finished the last one (published so far) and could move on with my life. It reminds me of the extreme addiction I had for a while to Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, and then suddenly I just… didn’t. I still own two more of the books, but I’ve never felt compelled to read them. I got over it.

Pumpkin Cooper