Shampoo Solo

How awesome would it be if this turned out to actually be some kind of viral marketing campaign? For Hellboy 2, maybe?

YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY: George Clooney Reportedly Splits With Girlfriend

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go buy a plane ticket to Italy. Those are pretty cheap, right?

WHORDIE*
PUZL LVR**
ORC FOE***

*At first I thought this said WHORIDE, which is entirely different, and acceptable.
**Really? You love them so much you put them on your license plate? At the time, I thought this person had to be the biggest nerd ever.
***Biggest nerd ever.****
****In an awesome way, of course.

You know what, Internet?

Enough.

All this time, I should have been picking up the pieces, putting them back together, but this morning, I realized that I haven’t been doing that at all — I’ve just been breaking the pieces into smaller pieces, mixing them together, blurring them, jacking them up on caffeine, and then chewing on them.

Enough. I am fixing this now.

That is all.

Oh, and: Five songs for a long weekend:

1. Black Dirt - Sea Wolf
2. C’mon Sea Legs - Immaculate Machine
3. Traffic Light - The Ting Tings
4. Bleeding Love - Leona Lewis
5. Tape Song - The Kills

That is all.

Me on IM [11:53 A.M.]: I just had the following thought: “Wow. I hope I have a few spare minutes this afternoon to organize my Firefox bookmarks.” Followed by this thought: “HOLY SHIT, I AM BORING.”
Her on IM [11:54 A.M.]: That’s OK. On my mental to-do list is to buy leather protector and buff my leather shoes.
Me on IM [11:55 A.M.]: I might go back to Target this afternoon because when I was there yesterday, I forgot to buy a little blind spot mirror and a rag to wipe off the MINI’s back window when it rains.
Me on IM [12:13 P.M.]: FASTLANE.

Also, unrelated, I am now on Twitter. My username is my real-life name; I’m finding it hard to find people I know, both real and Internet, so look me up if you’d like.

The New York Times actually published (a condensed, impotent version) of my letter.

This won’t change anything, except for the feeling of powerlessness I have being the slightest, tiniest bit less.

We are questioning everything. Why we love the things we love. If this was a mistake; if that was a mistake; if the whole thing was wrong from the start. We bargain, we argue, we cry; we try and fail to make the whole thing add up. We grieve; we eat sandwiches of guilt, shame and tomatoes. We made a mountain of of this molehill, and then made the mountain into a state and the state into a country. Eventually, we stopped asking questions and started pointing fingers at each other. And, more carefully, at the people around us.

These are the best of times; they are the worst of times.

We are trying to remember to be gentle. And kind. And trying to remember that often nothing is gentle or kind.

I don’t know what to say, so I am saying nothing at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is no way The New York Times will publish this letter, because it’s crazy talk, but it’s where we ended. It is our solution. We are not the only ones; we wish we could say we were done, that we are walking away, that we are turning our backs, but we cannot. We cannot put an end to pain by ignoring it.

To the Editor:

Re ‘So Young, So Strong, So Fast and Oh So Very Sad’ (essay, May 4)

My husband and I, lifetime racing fans, watched the 134th Kentucky Derby from the Churchill Downs grandstand; afterward, we watched brokenhearted fans sobbing in their seats. We’ve been soul-searching since.

We agree with Jane Smiley; having watched Barbaro, Pine Island, George Washington and now Eight Belles crumple, horse racing must change. It is a matter, now, of convincing breeders and buyers. Our proposal is this: Create a race that is more important than the Triple Crown.

Stop rewarding speed and start rewarding longevity with new race open only to six-year-olds with at least 20 starts, held at Keeneland – or another track that has switched to synthetics – with a purse of $8 million, run over a mile and an eighth, in honor of Eight Belles.

Perhaps by creating a loftier goal, breeders and buyers will stop creating brittle, precocious speedsters – and curate stronger, sturdier horses built to last. It’s a longshot, but this sport loves a longshot – and only when this shift in thinking begins can horse racing truly begin to change, and heal.

I haven’t quite figured out how to describe, understand or feel about our Derby trip, but there is this: The first thing we noticed when arriving at Churchill Downs was that all the flags were at half mast, and we had no idea why. Eventually we learned that a soldier from Kentucky had been killed in Iraq earlier in the week and the governor had ordered them lowered; we had no way of knowing then that the day would be bookended by sadness. It doesn’t seem fair to focus on the end of the day; it also doesn’t seem fair not to. For starters, here are some photos.

The Twin Spires of Churchill Downs.

Newlyweds at the track.

At our seats. We were just below the fourth turn, meaning the Derby post parade trotted right by us, and the horses broke from the gate almost directly in front of us.

If you paid really, really close attention, we were actually on the TeeVee for more than a minute.

The mad dash out of the starting gate. Big Brown, the 20 in pink, is closest to us.

The top of the stretch, with Big Brown in the lead. You can also see Eight Belles making her move on Recapturetheglory.

A panoramic view from our seats.

So obviously we have been thinking about Eight Belles endlessly, talking about it and just … trying to figure it out. We can’t; I can’t. Sally Jenkins for The Washington Post has the best op-ed that I’ve seen:

There is no turning away from this fact: Eight Belles killed herself finishing second.

Thoroughbred racing is in a moral crisis, and everyone now knows it … Horses are being over-bred and over-raced, until their bodies cannot support their own ambitions, or those of the humans who race them.

According to several estimates, there are 1.5 career-ending breakdowns for every 1,000 racing starts in the United States. That’s an average of two per day.

Part of the trouble is the makeup of thoroughbreds themselves: They are creatures physically at war with their own nature. … Anyone who has spent time around a barn understands that horses love to run. They do it for fun.

I don’t have a fancy bow to put on this post; I wish I did. Clearly, this isn’t what we were expecting from our trip; we didn’t want to witness what’s being called the most tragic Kentucky Derby in history (nor did anyone else, I’m sure), but we did … and the thing is, that’s racing. And that’s also life — tragic, heartbreaking, ugly and unfair at times.

That doesn’t make it any easier.