David & I bought a house! Hooray!
We're renovating right now, and will be moving in a few weeks...

If you want to see our progress with the renovations, check out our our blog:
[link]

Happy Spring, Chickadees!

Well, as the 16-year-old version of me would have said in high school, "I'm outtie five. Peace. In the middle east." For all you readers who are not up on your 1990's hip-hop speak, it means... we're leaving.

That's right, kids. In the middle of December, David & I are moving back up to NY. Mostly for the inspiration, and the opportunities. After living here for a year, I can honestly state that Florida is the land of little-to-no creativity, so to my Floridian buddies reading this: know how proud and impressed I am that you have broken through the barrier of your surroundings, and used your creative brains for something other than pastel palm trees. You are prolific and inspired, and I am forever impressed your rocking contributions to the artistic scene. But there just aren't enough of YOU here, and that means a lonely world when it comes to art, theatre, film, music, dance, and the demand for artistic training. Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful down here, but the dearth of culture just makes for a bored and unhappy me.

And plus, if Fall 2008 taught me anything, its this: For my own sanity and peace of mind, I need to live somewhere that is emphatically NOT a swing state. So Florida, I'll be back for more door-knocking in 4 years, just to remind you to get off your asses and paint the town at least 51% blue once again (oy, it was like pulling teeth this time!)... but it will just be a visit. Forgive me, but it calms me to know that within a month, I'll be waking up with the knowledge that on any given day 60-80% of my neighbors can tell the difference between ignorance and integrity. It just gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling. Sorry... it's cheesy, but it's true.

Goodbye, Florida.
Despite all, I will miss you greatly. Your beaches are stellar.
Peace, beaches!

And I'm out....

My new favorite website is Current.com
I LOVE IT!!!!! I'M ADDICTED!!!!!

It corresponds with the TV channel: CURRENT TV, which I am also addicted to.
channel 107 (comcast)
channel 366 (direct tv)
channel 196 (dish network)
channel 189 (at&t u-verse)

(or check your listings)

It's a phenomenal information and entertainment source, that is keeping me sane in this final month before E-Day. You get to post your own stories and videos, clip to other interesting things very easily, and vote on news stories. The ones that get voted up the most make it on the air at Current TV's hourly computerized newscast. Its so much fun! Check it out!

Its really a great web community and I'm on it way too much. If you join up, connect to me. My username is: Found_Avenue

Here's the thing...
Palin's ignorance is only the tip of the iceberg. And we can't take anything for granted in this election - too many people did so last time, and look what happened. Even if you are not as passionate about Barack Obama as I am (click this [link] to get a taste of a NEW GOVERNMENT THAT WORKS), please take the time to read Eve Ensler's words below. And then make sure that you, your friends, and your family (especially those in red or swing states) are all informed, and REGISTERED TO VOTE AT THEIR CURRENT ADDRESS. Do it today. We have very little time left.

Follow these links to check registration status, and to register:
[link]
[link]
------------

READ BELOW FOR PLAYWRIGHT EVE ENSLER'S THOUGHTS ON McCAIN-PALIN:

NOT JUST FOR WOMEN...
Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist, and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin:

> I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night
> that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles
> and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around
> their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears.
> Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the
> fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen
> one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that
> they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the
> polar bears.
>
>
> I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have
> spent my life trying to build community, help empower women
> and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about
> Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the
> more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice
> count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
>
>
> But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is
> antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story
> -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering
> women, giving young girls options, opening our minds,
> deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
>
>
> I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most
> dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country
> choose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the
> destruction so vast in so many areas, that America may never
> recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that
> duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately,
> this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the
> clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the
> presidency with regularity.
>
>
> Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as
> a metaphor. In her world, and the world of Fundamentalists,
> nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not
> believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the
> storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and
> rise of cancers, are all part of God's Plan. She is
> fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species
> list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken
> and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot
> and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered.
> Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself
> of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
>
>
> Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not
> believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open
> against their will should have a right to determine whether
> they have their rapist's baby or not.
>
>
> She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth
> control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence
> and we know how many babies that makes.
>
>
> Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I
> gather she has a tendency to dispense with people who think
> independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of
> ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and
> might very well be the next president of the United States.
> She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the
> earth.
>
>
> Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian
> hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a
> clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
>
>
> Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her
> private right. But when God and Guns come together in the
> public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when
> the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end
> of separation of church and state and the undoing of
> everything America has ever tried to be.
>
>
> I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold
> this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will
> determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the
> planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save
> the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It
> will determine whether we move towards dialogue and
> diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence
> through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine
> whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest
> our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency
> and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on
> education and healthcare or whether we build more and more
> methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a
> free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear,
> fundamentalism and aggression.
>
>
> If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do
> everything in your power to get Obama elected, then consider
> the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC:
> "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think
> of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think
> of domination. I think of military exercises that force
> mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt,
> ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
>
>
> Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone,
> in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the
> trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric
> of this precious thing we call life?
>
>
> Eve Ensler
> September 5, 2008

So, I used to teach high school. Lately, I've been having nightmares about it.

Last night I dreamt I was buried under a never-ending mountain of three-page, collated-and-stapled administrative forms that I had to get through before I could enter the classroom. I woke up crying the silent tears of a woman broken by the floridian public school system.

Two nights ago my boyfriend awoke at 4am to the sound of me screaming LOUDLY at unruly students who would not stay quiet long enough for me to teach. He swears he heard: "ROOM FIVE! GET IN HERE NOW!" while I totally thought I was screaming: "ALT SPRY! SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Well, that one was definitely a dream, because in real life, I NEVER had any students named Alt Spry. And also, I RARELY used the phrase "shut the fuck up" in the classroom. Rarely.

ANYwho! New musings in the web-design department:

Take a look at the website I built for my film production company: [link]

AND the one I built for my hot, patient boyfriend: [link]

Have an Obamalicious day, my fellow Americans. Yes, We Can!