The end of my summer was just that: an end. Unspectacular. No fireworks. I played “Born to Run” and drove 70 on roads with 45 speed limits going home from work and felt at peace when I left Westmoreland County. I will be back.

School this year is perhaps the most intense it has ever been. 18 credits and working part-time for America Reads has made me have two crying spells already.

My subjects:

- Fiction Studio

- Literature of Pop Culture: Harry Potter

- Bookmaking

- Reading & Writing Brooklyn

- The Professional Workplace

- Writer’s Forum

- Independent Study (about the lexicon of feminist journalism)

Harry Potter is one of the best classes, but at the same time, also the hardest. I forgot that the books are, at their shortest, 350 pages. The next one is over 600, and I have a week to read it. Ouch.

I turned twenty a few weeks ago: it was unceremonious. I worked all day and went out for a lovely birthday dinner with my friends. The night before, however, my friends baked me a cake:

That is perhaps the most unflattering picture ever taken of me, but I look joyous. And that is what matters.

I am already surprised at my resilience. I have written several stories and have yet to hit a block. I even have more material started for the future. I know it is not perfect, but I am trying. A writer-in-polishing.

This is all what matters.

I drove out to Cleveland a few weeks ago. Amanda went to visit Adam, who lives in Cleveland like I live in Pittsburgh (close, but not downtown) so I got up much earlier than I normally do and drove. It was relaxing and made me realize that I am truly my mother’s child–I made it from east of Pittsburgh to west of Cleveland in two hours and some change. I drive fast, but cautiously. The best way to describe the place Adam lives in is by the fact that the closest grocery store to him is Trader Joe’s. We went to a Mexican fusion-esque restaurant in a cute little neighborhood and then went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the Bruce [!!!] exhibit.

It was wonderful. The only thing I’m not a fan of is that the building is a large glass pyramid, so all the escalators are sort of suspended in air as you go from one level to the next–and I am afraid of medium-distance heights. I kept my eyes closed a lot. But there were two levels of Bruce, which was amazing. Everything from the clothes he wore on album covers to the dining room table he wrote lyrics at. Amanda and Adam, not being Bruce fans, weren’t as interested, but I was enchanted. Ah! What a man. It inspired me to buy a print of this for my dorm room:

I am excited to recieve it. And hang it, of course.

We went to dinner afterwards, and I must say, Cleveland has amazing sushi. It was just wonderful, in the way that seeing your friends at “home” is.

Although “home” is something I’ve been struggling with for the past few months [years?]–I find myself annoyed, disenchanted with places after a while. Toledo never felt properly like home, Brooklyn is lovely but I get tired of the rat race, Pittsburgh is sometimes a bit too sleepy for my tastes. I feel like a nomad, but attempt to bring home with me everywhere–I carve a niche wherever I go and put my name on it, but it doesn’t mean I’m happy with it. I’ve always kept at least one box packed at every new place.

I haven’t done much back to school shopping–though it is something I love doing–because, for some reason, this year I’m a champion of simply revitalizing the old. Don’t throw it away, heck, don’t even give it away, keep it as long as you can. I bought two bags this summer, which is like some sort of record for me. And they were only 50 cents each at a rummage sale. They’re perfectly good bags.

My family is holding a little cookout before I go away, at my aunt and uncle’s house. They have a pool. I forgot how much I liked swimming until we stopped by one day and they invited me in. It’s awesome. Even if I tend to under-sunscreen and wind up with red skin for a few days.

I am excited for school to start. The classes I am taking this semester are absolutely wonderful. And I have an awesome roommate. In fact, I think I’ll end this entry with a picture of us that Amanda took in Cleveland.

I am excited for this year. Hopefully it will be the best yet.

I returned to my employment at the liquor stores. I’ve been to 17 of the 25 stores in my county. I play favorites. I memorize wine reccommendations. It’s boring sometimes, but it’s good money, and I genuinely enjoy working with some of the people I work with. Given, no one’s under the age of about 40, but it’s interesting to meet so many fully defined personalities. You learn a lot about a person by the way they approach their job.

I finally got my JesusPhone. Pre-ordered it, got into the AT&T store at roughly 7 am to pick it up. It’s stupid to say, but I don’t know how I lived without it. This is only the second time I’ve been on the computer for three days: it can just do everything. I have a new phone number, too: a new home location. Interesting.

I saw Bruce Springsteen. I don’t even think I got to that, it’s been so long. I went with my uncle Patrick, aunt Cheryl, and cousins. Patrick’s a Bruce Fan. Or, as I like to call them “Phish fans without all the drugs.” You know the type: every band has them, but Bruce has a lot of devotees. Look at me, calling him Bruce. Like I know the guy.

The show was excellent. They play what they call “Stump the Band”: fans bring signs with songs written on them that they don’t think the E Street Band can play. Bruce picked “Like a Rolling Stone,” which was, as it sounds, absolutely fantastic. Bruce was the downhome working-class boy to Dylan’s rebellious artist: both were desperately needed in their musical climates and have had a glorious career. The entire show was amazing in general: Bruce doesn’t look a day over 40 [he's almost 60!] and I have no idea where he gets the energy to run around the stage like that. I have the on my iPod and I listen to it and smile.

Today’s bill of events: outlet shopping and a cookout at my brother’s house. My niece, who is about to be 5, just got her first cellphone and I want to see what she thinks of it. Oh, lazy days.

So, the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8 today. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Prop 8 bans gay marriage.

My friends, this is a slippery slope. Why?

Because we are now allowed to VOTE on whether or not people have RIGHTS.

People like to use the “but the majority! but the majority voted!” excuse, but let’s reflect.

Who started this country? A minority. They were being persecuted for who they were and left to start a new, better place.

I somehow doubt that minority would be pleased with the new majority.

I, for one, don’t want anyone to be able to vote on whether or not I have a basic right in this country. Tell you what, I won’t tell you you don’t have the right to do something, you don’t tell me.

… and isn’t that the Republican ideal to begin with? Lack of government interference in everyday life?

This is just all so twisted and so backwards. I can’t even think about it. But it’s scary. And you should be scared, if you are any type of minority: gender, race, religion. Because who knows what can happen now that a precedent is set.

This’ll be behind an HTML cut so nothing is spoiled for anyone!

So, come right this way for reviews of… CSI! CSI: NY! Grey’s Anatomy! Private Practice! Criminal Minds! NCIS! and… actually, I think that’s it.

CSI: Oh my God, was that anti-climactic! Okay, let’s rewind a little. This season, the following has happened: Warrick was killed, the undersherrif was prosecuted for his murder, Sara left, Grissom left, Ray (Laurence Fishburne) entered, and a new inter-office romance bloomed. Or started (Hodges and Mindy!) Okay. So, someone dying? Would be overplayed. Heck, even someone leaving or getting fired would be over the top. However: we couldn’t figure out *something* better? A cliffhanger, even! The season ended with Ray ~killing a suspect~. Oh Gawd. B-, but only because Laurence Fishburne looked genuinely distressed at the sight.

CSI: NY: Brokay. If we’re going to kill someone, let’s kill someone at least pretty well-known, not a sometimes-shows-up character. Oh, but then! The ending will be someone shooting up the bar where all the CSIs and cops are hanging out. It’s a cop-out [see what I did there?] C+, mostly because the acting on this show is really goddamn bad, especially Detective Flack’s reaction to his girlfriend getting killed.

Grey’s Anatomy: A+: “007? It’s George! George is John Doe!” I don’t give a fuck that Izzie has cancer, but that twist? I jumped up and yelped. And I am a Seasoned Television Addict who does not do such things pretty much ever. Well-played, Shonda Rhimes, well-played.

Private Practice: Ahhhhh! Violet! I was all “Oh, they’ll save her! People are calling, it’ll be okay!” Bzzzzzt! A cliffhanger for the ages, folks, and a damn good one at that. Pete walking away at the last second? Twists all up in my guts. A, very solid and very lovely.

Criminal Minds: La la laaaa, a serial killer who feeds his victims to the pigs, la la laaaa, they solved the case and saved the last girl, the brother of a victim killed the mastermind behind the killings, la dee daaa holy shit someone is going to shoot Hotch. Criminal Minds has never Not ended a season with a cliffhanger, so I could see this coming from a mile away. Well, maybe not the exact twist, but a twist nonetheless. Anyone else know what the maskedman was referring to? I have an idea, but I’m not sure. B-, for predictability.

NCIS: This show? The past five episodes could have been season finales. But then! Gasp! Tony, Ziva, Gibbs, and the new director guy who isn’t Jenny go to Tel Aviv! Anddddd… Ziva almost kills Tony, and leaves NCIS. Boo-hoo. But then! She’s being tortured! For NCIS secrets! And she’s not giving them up! Awww, she’s loyal to America afterall. I suspect Gibbs will save her in the end, because Gibbs does that kind of thing. B+, for a solid finale, but not an A because goddamn, this show is just overly climactic all the time!

Working long hours for America Reads: Tuesday was Tutor Awards, Thursday I went with my kindergarten class on a field trip to the dentist’s, and Friday was the Spelling Bee, all large events that had me on site at 9 am and working til at least 2.

Tuesday, after following Peggy (the organizer for America Reads) around and keeping her organized, as well as setting up and taking down the table in the lobby no less than four times, I was awarded “Tutor of the Year,” which surprised me since a) it’s my first year and b) I don’t think I’ve done anything above and beyond what my job entails. Apparently I was wrong.

Monday will be my last day with the kindergarteners. I am rather bummed about this. They can be tiring, obnoxious, and far too honest (no, those bumps on my face don’t hurt and no, I am not pregnant, damnit, just fat!) but they are awesome. It’s bizarre to get a feeling of accomplishment from a kid being able to spell “bike” on their own or knowing what a “bouquet” is, but it’s a great feeling.

I have a long to-do list for the summer. I am hoping to connect up with Open Thread, a sort-of writing community in Pittsburgh. I need to re-decorate my room. I need to go through my things and discard as needed. I need to get a new cellphone. Well, maybe not need. Want. Gotta feed the American economy, you know. Save businesses and all that.

Martha Stewart, “lifestyle designer,” came to speak at Pratt, giving a lecture called “Artistic Inspiration as a Basis for Business.” I managed to get a ticket in the standing-room-only Memorial Hall, just a few rows back from the woman herself. She was exceedingly lovely: all glowy and gracious like she appears to be everywhere. She essentially does what I would love to do: turning awesome things into products for people.

Her process is meticulous: when she was creating her paint line for Sherwin Williams, she explained, she and her assistants brushed her cats, pulled the perfect shades from the strands of fur, and then re-created the colors by mixing various tempra paints. They created over 200 colors for the line, and when they turned them over to the Sherwin Williams people, they said “they had a computer that would re-create the colors.” A few weeks later, and they came back. “The computer could only make 5 of the shades properly,” Martha said. “They had to hand-mix the rest.”

Martha has, frankly, taken over the world. I wasn’t even aware of how far her influence spreads: a paint line for Sherwin Williams (best-selling shade: Newman’s Blue, which was picked from a picture of Paul Newman’s eyes), a collection of bedding and bath products for K-Mart, a fine china collection for Wedgewood, a line of craft supplies for Wal-Mart, higher-end bed and bath products for Macy’s, a furniture line, several television shows, numerous books, and several blogs, one of which is “written” by her two dogs and averages 15,000 hits a day.

And perhaps it just makes sense, how she’s done this. She explained this, which, in today’s market, seems like it’s forgotten:

We just want to make the best stuff we can possibly make with the best designs… I tell my team, “we are all the customer…” I am the customer.

The best part, though, may have been the Q & A at the end. A girl got up and, after explaining how interesting she thought Martha’s business was and how much she appreciated hearing how Martha thinks, she asked:

“What’s the biggest distaster that’s happened so far?”

And Martha, in the moment that made me admire her more than anything else, chuckled and said, simply:

“I think we all know what that is.”

I miss playing dress-up and make believe; so I sat in the “house area” of the classroom and listened to the drama arising. Chris Brown kept calling the house to talk to both of them. At one point, he was arrested, then sent to jail, then got out. I told them Chris Brown wasn’t worth sticking around for if he couldn’t make up his mind: not what I wanted to say (“Chris Brown can be a very mean man and has hurt women before, be careful”) but still a tidbit of wisdom. They were wearing high heels too big for their feet and kept sliding across the floor instead of walking. Make-believe-world.

And today was just too, too beautiful. Friday Forum was a good one: Doug Anderson and Michael Kimball were both intensely interesting people and quite good writers with excellent answers. Then a picnic on the lawn with what Adrian and I decided was a band that had spontaneously formed just for the day: a glockenspiel, violin, tambourine, and two guitars. We ate hot dogs in a sunny patch of grass and afterward, Jenny and I got chocolate milkshakes. It was 70 out and I put on a pair of sunglasses.

It doesn’t feel like the end of the semester. I feel like I have another month left or something: something feels weird. Or maybe this is supposed to be the way it feels. Like there’s not an end: a short break, and back again. Not so segmented. Hmm. Perhaps.

Monday, I am going to see Martha Stewart give a lecture at Pratt about turning one’s artistic ideas into a business. She’s one of my idols in that way that she’s doing what she loves and yet is savvy enough to be immensely successful. I am excited.

This television show: you need to be watching it.

Seriously, a crime drama hasn’t been like this in a damn long time. Obviously, it’s not trying to be Law and Order; it’s certainly not a procedural. It’s not a CSI. Sure, the crimes themselves do that lovely thing where they wrap up by the end of the hour, but it’s not about the crimes; it’s about the characters. Little details like the squad moving the egomaniac cop’s desk into the holding cell: he returns, is flabbergasted as to why his desk is in the cell and a suspect is sitting in it and, as the camera re-focuses on another conversation in the room, the cop and the suspect play tug-of-war with the desk. Writers, fabulous.

This retraction of the flippy-floppy review may or may not have been influenced by the following: a mention of Myrtle Ave, the use of Cat Power’s “Metal Heart” in a scene, the idea of a “stakeout date” (where a cop meets their significant other at a restaurant near the site of a long stakeout), the handlebar moustache that Delahoy sports, Terry Kinney joining the ranks of bald supervisors of police squads, Amber Tamblyn’s awesome hair, and/or Harold Perrineau being my new television crush.

Watch The Unusuals on Wednesday nights at 10 PM, or you can catch up, as of this posting, with all four episodes at abc.com.

So, first up: The Unusuals.

ABC’s website has this to say about the show:

Like a modern-day M*A*S*H, The Unusuals explores both the grounded drama and comic insanity of the world of New York City police detectives, where every cop has a secret. It also helps to have a twisted sense of humor, since every day could be your last.

The first five minutes of the pilot introduce us to Detective Casey Shraeger (Amber Tamblyn), a tough-girl cop who’s secretly a trust fun baby, who is working undercover as a hooker. A car pulls over next to her and the driver informs her she is being reassigned, effective immediately, to the 2nd Precinct. This is Seargeant Harvey Brown (Terry Kinney), who shows up a disappointingly small amount in the series. Shraeger is being reassigned, she is told, so she can help investigate the murder of the previous partner of the vaguely-mysterious Detective Jason Walsh (Jeremy Renner), who owns a diner that he only opens for a few hours every night, with no actual staff.

The rest of the cast of characters include Detective Leo Banks (Harold Perrineau), a man who’s terrified of dying at 42 (his current age) like the rest of the men in his family, Detective Eric Delahoy (Adam Goldberg), who is unafraid of death since being diagnosed with a brain tumor, Detective Henry Cole (Joshua Close), a born-again Christian, Detective Eddie Alvarez (Kai Lennox), the obligatory egomaniac cop, and Detective Allison Beaumont (Monique Gabriela Curnen), who appears to be there solely as the other hot lady cop that’s essential in crime dramas.

So, an ensemble cast. Now, as many of you will recall, I have recently been obsessed with Oz, HBO’s first drama and a magnificent piece of television with a brilliant ensemble cast. It also does not help The Unusuals that two ex-Oz actors (Kinney, who was Tim McManus, Oz’s unit supervisor, and Perrineau, who was Augustus Hill, the brilliant narrator and and murderer in Emerald City) are in their ranks because, frankly, I’m rather disappointed.

Given, it’s only two episodes in. But these characters still seem like charicatures of themselves. The born-again Christian, the cop afraid of death, the guy with the well-kept secret, the rich girl trying to make it in a tough profession, the hot one, the egomaniac: I’ve seen these people before, perhaps never in one television show, but I’ve seen them done over and over again regardless. There are some incredible acting chops in this program, so it may help to overcome that, but I’m afraid that, by the time the actors are able to get into their roles, the audience will be bored and have moved on to a new program.

What kills me especially about The Unusuals is that it has such a brilliant set-up: a return to the comedy found in law enforcement. The guy in the hot dog costume that holds up a bank, the guy who serial kills cats: these people are Unusual. And, if a touch better-written, could be quite funny. (Writers, that means let go of the obligatory puns, please.)

The problem is that the Unusual detectives have to compete for screen time with the Unusual crimes, and due to all this Unusual all over the place, it falls flat as a whole with under-development.

However, I do see a bit of promise with this show, primarily from this exchange between Shraeger and Walsh in the most recent episode:

Shraeger: I think it’s time we have the conversation.

Walsh: Conversation?

Shraeger: The “porn stash” conversation.

Walsh: Big porn fan, are you?

Shraeger: No, like. Listen, the “what do we do if something happens” conversation. When Kowalski died, you went straight to his locker and you got rid of all his contraband.

Walsh: We’ve been partners a week, you thinkin’ about me dying?

Shraeger: What, is it too early?

Walsh: I suppose not. All right. So, what d’ya got, drugs, guns, Nazi plate under the bed?

Shraeger: No. I have a diary that I wouldn’t want anyone to read.

Walsh: A diary. “Davis was mean to me today,” that kind of thing?

Shraeger: No. Sexual. Stories… about me. Y’know.

Walsh: Fine, where is it?

Shraeger: It’s in a lock box in my closet. All right.

Walsh: (turns to leave)

Shraeger: No, what about you?

Walsh: What about me? What am I hiding? What do you think, Casey?

Shraeger: Look, I don’t figure you as the sexual deviant type or… (studies him for a moment) I know what it is. You write poetry.

Walsh: (smirks) You’re good.

So far, I’d have to say my rating of The Unsuals is 3 cupcakes out of a possible 5. I have my fingers crossed for this show, though, if they work out the kinks with the writing.

It’s just a good day for the Boss.

I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday girl, I don’t know when, we’re gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go and we’ll walk in the sun
But till then, tramps like us, baby, we were born to run