Blog

Modern power outage

December 10th, 2009

Power’s out, but look! I’m still blogging. Cooked breakfast on th’ woodstove, and have to flush the toilet with water fetched from the brook. But we still have internet access.

WAM! And McSweeney’s.

December 4th, 2009

Hey, do you know about Women, Action, and the Media? It’s an organization that puts on an annual conference about gender and media which is apparently pretty awesome. And right now they’re having an online fundraising auction. You can bid on some original DTWOF art (episode 242, “The Pill”) or all kinds of other stuff, like getting to hang backstage with the likes of Cyndi Lauper, Margaret Cho, and Lily Tomlin.

McSweeney’s, the groovy literary journal, is coming out this week with an issue called San Francisco Panorama, which is in newspaper format. Or something like that…I can’t really wrap my mind around it. It’s a very sprawling, ambitious project in celebration of the beauty of the broadsheet, with pull-out sections, and a magazine. But the best part of it, if you ask me, will be the 16 page full color comics section. I have a small piece in it. I guess it’ll be in bookstores, but you can also order it here.

my möbius shirt

November 17th, 2009

No matter what I do to it, this shirt is always right-side out. I find this infinitely compelling.

It comes in particularly handy when one is experiencing frequent hot flashes. Just whip it off. And when you cool down again, it’s all ready to go, no fussy inversion to perform. With the handy V-neck, you don’t even have to take off your glasses. (N.B., the most interesting symptom of perimenopause so far seems to be an uncontrollable urge to talk about one’s symptoms constantly, to everyone, whether or not they’re interested, which they’re pretty much not.)

Mo punkin

November 1st, 2009

Lookit this cool pumpkin carved by faithful readers Rebecca and Sarah of Charlottesville, VA! They based it on Mo’s face in the episode where Harriet brings home a VCR.

notebook

October 28th, 2009

Check out this wild Dutch animator’s video! As someone who spends half my life drawing and half my life on the computer, I found it oddly, deeply satisfying. Here’s her website.

down to th’ wire in Maine

October 28th, 2009

Marriage equality is up for grabs in Maine’s election on Tuesday. Anyone from anywhere can help make phone calls this weekend, if you have a couple free hours.

You can also donate here to No On 1: Protect Maine Equality, and see a short, sweet, moving tv ad of a Catholic mom talking about her gay son’s family.

big bang

October 26th, 2009

My friend Lucy Jane Bledsoe is coming out with a new book in the spring. I love Lucy’s work, and have been following it over the years from her short story collection Sweat to the novels Working Parts, This Wild Silence, and Biting the Apple, to her recent collection of true adventure stories, The Ice Cave. I think Big Bang Symphony: a novel of Antarctica is her best yet.

Antarctica is like a vortex that draws you back, season after season. The place is so raw and pure, all seal hide and crystalline iceberg. The fishbowl communities at McMurdo Station, South Pole Station, and in the cold and remote field camps intensify relationships, jack all emotion up to a 10. The trick is to get what you need and then get out fast.

“Pound for pound, Bledsoe’s books are hard to beat….Bledsoe, who seems incapable of a false or unwieldy sentence or motion…takes us there to the end of the journey one unflinching page at a time.” — Kevin Killian

If any of you are reviewers and want an advance copy, email her at her website.

Punctuation

October 26th, 2009

Thanks to the folks who pointed out that my last post made it sound like 47 million people had rushed to make donations to Maggie for her health care costs. I only wish that were the case. To donate, and to follow her progress, go to Maggie’s blog.

Maggie

October 23rd, 2009

Thanks to Liza for her comment on the last post about our blog pal Maggie, who’s in the hospital after emergency surgery. Go to her blog for updates or to make a donation–like 47 million other people in this country, she has no health insurance.

cleaning up

October 22nd, 2009

This t-shirt has been kicking around on my desk for months. I kept thinking I’d have a contest or something, and give it as a prize. But I can’t think of one. Except this: the first person who emails me with their (continental u.s.) address, gets it. It’s an XL Hanes Beefy T, that I drew for a soccer team that played in the ’94 Gay Games.