Champagne In A Paper Cup

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

Marie Stopes International is a prominent London charity that robustly promotes a woman’s right to choose abortion, but a whimsical public service campaign in January has created unusually savage criticism. The organization partnered with the British comedy music band The Midnight Beast to produce a video suggesting anal sex as a contraceptive of choice. Among the lyrics of one song, “One up the bum, and it’s no harm done/One up the bum, and you won’t be a mum.”

Via www.metro.co.uk, 7 Feb 2011

Life on Food Stamps

I: Considering the Apartment

The idea of it is silly at best. Awkward, clumsy, but proud, the apartment is a knobby-kneed adolescent in heels and pearls. Stacks of textbooks and matchless shoes sit in clumps on the original hardwood floors; unopened bills cover the kitchen countertops and spill onto checkerboard tile; rancid piles of dishes reflect light from stained glass windows; the antique refrigerator is empty like my bank account overdrawn for the eleventh time. Like the adolescent, the apartment dawdles between college dormitory and historic landmark, committing to neither role.It is an altered state of consciousness, a knock-off Rolex up for auction, a song and dance with two left feet.

But still, we find evidence of home in this old building.

I once tried to paint the bathroom pink without taping the sideboards, leaning tipsy from the ladder and spilling paint on the tiles. “It adds character,” I explained. “It’s another mess,” said my sister. The apartment didn’t seem to mind.

Once on a cold January night, my sister made an arduous declaration: “We have thirty-three dollars left on the EBT and then it’s Raman for the next six months. Oh, and rent is due tomorrow.” I swear I felt the floor boards shake. But even then I knew the apartment would find a way to stay with us—and it did. Through all hardships, we always manage to pay the rent.

There may be more money in the couch cushions than our wallets. We may consider the convenience store “take a penny, leave a penny” dish a viable source of income. But in the moment of rent paid, all else is forgotten. We turn up the thermostat, turn the lights back on, and toast to our good fortune. Everything is pure and eternal. For the next thirty days, we have roof, walls, bed, and floor.