Is this not the sweetest thing you've ever seen? Ever?

I guess all we can do is see through it, and there's no point in making ourselves sick, because it's the way it's going to be,and I can't change it. I can make the protest, but it's really just for history's sake, for saying that I said it and didn't watch it go by.

And yet, just like a little girl, I want to say very quietly, with my hands folded in my lap, that it's not right, and that I wish it was different.

I don't like to be overtly political in my blog (and I'm usually not), but I'm going to say this because it has to be said.

This war is wrong. It goes against common, decent values of humankind. The Pope himself has condemned the war as immoral. It will kill not only our troops, but innocent Iraqis. It will take billions of dollars away from education, health care, the arts, etc. If you visit this man, he will list all the other reasons why. He also has a list of things you can do to protest the war. (And although I don't live in a place where ah, anti-war protests are really feasible, there are still things to do, like Vote No War and a site that I've visited before, Poets Against the War.

At night, I look in the darkened windows and see myself spinning, reflection clouded against the night sky. So this is what it's like to feel as if you owe something to the world, I think. I owe this.

The proverbial things that make me happy list:

~Big, fat Vogues
~British issues of Victoria
~Perfume samples from Nordstroms
~Jane Austen novels
~Learning that A.S. Byatt adores Iris Murdoch (Don't ask. I have this weird groupie mentality toward writers)
~Snape/Sinistra (You knew it was coming)
~Dancing to the soundtrack to Chicago
~Reading poetry on a Sunday afternoon
~Violet Crumble and Toblerone
~Finding Cadbury's Mini Eggs in a shop (Only Storm and Andrea will understand why this is so brilliant)
~Egg salad sandwiches
~Seeing movies in the theatre
~Red, ruffled tango dresses
~Expensive lip gloss
~Peppermint-striped blouses
~Moulin Rouge
~Having a big discussion in Lit Analysis about why Harry Potter ought to be in the canon
~Getting A's.
~Hearing I'm a good writer. (I'm such a compliment whore)
~Feminist literary criticism
~The song "No Pressure Over Cappuccino"
~Lazy days
~Laundry dried on the line outside
~Seeing daffodils in the start of spring
~When my fingernails don't break
~Being able to chat with my girls
~Breadsticks and Italian cream sodas
~Speaking French
~L.M. Montgomery novels
~When the hero and heroine kiss in a romantic comedy
~Getting e-mail.
~Staying up late nights being inane.
~Shopping with my sister
~Broadway musicals
~When I design pretty layouts
~Writing inane lists instead of a paper.

So, dear readers. What brings delight to your day?

As Nita would say, I feel compelled to remind myself that Snape and Sinistra are not real people.

Because they're not.

But really, I can't help myself. I love the snarky romance. I love the fact that Sinistra's hair sticks out every way from Friday, and that her glasses fall down her nose, and that she blushes scarlet when Snape looks at her funny. I love the fact that he was a Death Eater, and that he's probably had women more beautiful and deadly than Narcissia Malfoy, and he's still dating the starry-eyed Astronomy professor. I love that Sinistra isn't beautiful, and can't handle mascara without gouging her eye out, and deals with layer upon layer of denial. I love it when Nita and I stay up nights, planning new ways to have Destiny torture Snape, and for Aurgia to deal with rivers in Egypt. I love the coffee mugs, and the Shakespeare, and the "kind of merry war."

Maybe I'm just living vicariously through romance where the un-pretty and utterly absentminded twit of a girl gets the guy-- but even if I am-- I like to think of a world where that happens.

Just for fun.

Run, don't walk to read my latest (and thoroughly inane) Snape/Sinistra vignette. Find it here.

I place all blame on Nita and Storm.

The streets are cold and the sky is clouded over, and everything feels white and grey and black, like we're living in some 50's movie. I want to nab a ciagarette (I don't smoke, but I would if Audrey Hepburn played me) and sit around in my shabby, half-broken flat in a men's striped shirt and a pair of slacks. There's a hole in my left sock, and my typewriter sits motionless, reminding me that I have stories to finish. Bills to pay, it seems to sing. I don't have any money, I want to say, except for a dollar and a quarter in a peppermint tin. Now all I need is for the solidly built hero to whisk me off in a bad car scene. I'll put on my rhinestone sunglasses and wrap a Grace Kelly scarf around my head. I'll flounce out of the shops with a stack of hatboxes, wearing a brand-new red dress. Smile at the camera. It's sunny now.

"Honey, you need to get out more."

"I know, but I get stuck in the dark."