How controversial! My! How startling! An anti-abortion ad running during the Superbowl! Surely the celebrity standing behind it has strong and passionate views on the subject, non? Tim, what say you?

"Well, um, I think, you know, either, whatev--you know, what people think about it, I think, um, that I know a lot of people, I mean, some people won't agree with it, y'know, but, I think they can at least, um, y'know respect that, that I stand up for what I believe, and, um, and I'm never, y'know, shy about that, I don't feel like I'm very pr--preachy about it but I do stand up for what I believe, and at least you can respect that, because I do stand up, and um."

Hark! May I address you as "Tim," Professor Tebow?

Now, I don't know Tim at all but since he a. has won a Heisman Trophy and b. was never aborted, I definitely give weight to his opinion on whether or not women everywhere should get to choose when and with whom they start a family and give life to another, like, y'know...person. Especially since he probably deals with this question personally ALL THE TIME. As a virgin and all.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood released their response:

Deftly and kindly handled--not a surprise. It's good of them to remind us that being "pro-choice" means respecting every woman's right and ability to make her own decision.

"Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia."

--Kurt Vonnegut (via Eight Rules for Writing Fiction, pdf)

"And always choose love. Whatever the other choice is, it is utterly inferior when sized up next to love. If you are not sure which is love, here is a guide: love is the most selfless choice." --Me, in my book. Quoting myself, barf, I know. Just trying to make a point here, so stick around.

Let's do something good together, you guys.

Through the month of February, I will be doing weekly drawings for free signed copies of my book. Every $5 donated to A Child's Hope Foundation (currently planning care kits for orphans in Haiti) counts as an entry.

"They need medicines, baby formula, diapers. They don't have any money. We will get totes for these items, put them in a container and get the container shipped," Cook said. "They need help in the worst way."

OK I can't like, sit here and BLOG all night because I have homework to do and this is 100% procrastination, but I just made some delicious coffee in the ol' French press and a) I wanted an excuse to brag about that because it sounds fancy and requires a scrap of effort and b) I wanted to tell you the story of how I got this giant coffee mug shaped like a giraffe.

Well actually, I guess it isn't really shaped like a giraffe. It's shaped like a cup, but it's painted like a giraffe, and it has a giraffe neck protruding from the top with a giraffe head attached, appropriately enough, at the end of the neck. As a coffee cup, it is totally impractical. The head, as you can see, includes pointy little ceramic ears and horns, making the thing downright painful to hold by the handle, especially with hands as lily-white and delicate as mine. So you have to hold it by the mug part, which traditionally houses the boiling hot coffee part. Engineering department, please! Anyway, on to the story.

One day I got a smallish box in the mail. This package was left on our front porch, and it had a return address written on it--San Francisco, I think. Definitely California. There was no name with the return address. Inside the box were some packing peanuts and this mug with a giraffe neck and that is it. When I opened it, I stood in the kitchen staring at it for a long time. The whole thing seemed like a mistake, like a wrong number on the phone, except that the package had been very clearly addressed to me, Lindsey J. Markel, in black Sharpie. I tried to think of who I knew in San Francisco, but the only people I know who live there are the Tanner family, and they are not even real. I tried to remember if I had an inside joke with anyone involving a giraffe, or coffee, or cups, or mail. I tried to think of who knew my address, including apartment number. It occurred to me that I might have a stalker, and this freaked me out a little bit, until I figured it was probably okay to have a stalker that lives like seven states away whose preferred method of terrorism is sending hilarious giant coffee mugs through the mail.

I am telling you this because I still don't know where this coffee mug came from. It sat on the kitchen counter for a number of months, untouched, as a weird little decoration--also, it is too big to fit in the cup cabinet--and then one Saturday morning I picked it up and declared it my signature mug of choice. I mean, I don't even know if I want to know where it came from anymore. Mystery, like coffee, is one of the spices of life, non?

But seriously, if you sent me this thing, get in touch. I need to know I won't be waking up with a giraffe head in my bed anytime soon.

"The Yoga Experiment." My friend Gillian and I are working on the same mantra this year--persistence. She is taking up yoga, to the tune of five classes per week, and is chronicling her efforts in a new column.

Toms shoes. My Barletta Cordones have held up so well through daily stomping since the end of summer last year, even though I have abused them by trouncing through snow and ice and salt, over brick streets and cobblestone sidewalks. Love you, little greys.

Drawn diaries. Gemma Correll writes, alongside the first entry of her "daily diaries" set on Flickr, "Sure no-one is really interested in my boring life, but never mind." AU CONTRAIRE, MY FRIEND. I have read Nicole Georges' Invincible Summer anthologies a million times, and I could click through Gemma's Flickr set all day. I love the way these kinds of diary drawings bring out the excitement and fun of the average day-to-day "boring life."

Brunch. I haven't had brunch since Sunday, so this isn't particularly relevant; I just really love brunch because it's the best meal, the end.

My ukulele! I love this thing! I am not going to say much more about it right now because one of the aspects of learning persistence, for me, is learning to just learn more and talk about learning less. But I just love it and I play it all the time, a very simple pleasure.

Trying to be more grateful. It is a choice, one I am very happy to be revisiting.

I'm just so sick of pedants and conceited little tearer-downers I could scream.

--Franny Glass, born of J.D. Salinger.

And this:

For all that has been, thanks;
to all that will be, yes.

--Dag Hammarskjöld

So, Angelina and I formed a cabaret duo...

We pretty much stick to the classics.

In the spirit of my post about Conan the other day, I wanted to make a little video that pays tribute to all the people who support You Are Among Friends. After the book started selling in December, this adorable trend started to emerge of people posting photos of themselves holding their books, and obviously I can't get enough of it.

I hope that when a person reads the book, he or she feels like an important part of a community, one that's smart and positive, because that community exists, and I've seen it through all of you over the past couple years. All the people who bought books for sisters and cousins and daughters last Christmas, and all the people who say hi or thank you, everyone who bought the zine or downloaded the podcast or put up a link or e-mailed your friends: thank you. I do not say that enough. But it's unbelievable to me every single day how positive and kind the response to the project has been.

Like it sez in the book's afterword: "This is for you. You made it happen. It would not exist without you, because it is you."

I love y'all.

ETA: OH YEAH, AND! I have a code for 10% off the book, in case you've been waiting for the perfect time to strike (when you could get, uh, 10% off of $9.99...you deal hound, you) -- through January 31st, enter READMORE2010 at checkout. Unless you have not yet donated at least $9.99 to relief efforts in Haiti, in which case I would merely like to suggest that you use your cash that way first: hopeforhaitinow.org.

To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality, and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.

--Conan O'Brien's last words as host of The Tonight Show.

Conan himself made sure to mention multiple times in his last week hosting The Tonight Show that nobody should waste too much energy worrying about the late-night drama of the past few weeks, since there are much more deserving and tragic events happening as we speak (donate money to relief efforts in Haiti here), and I agree with him, so I won't spent a long time on this. But I have to say that his farewell speech--and the above part especially--really tore me up.

I can think of very few celebrities who would choose the high road when put in the position Conan was in last night--scrappy David versus the evil lumbering giant of NBC. He knew that he had the majority of an entire generation rooting for him, and he knew how many eyes would be on him. He could have gone out in a blaze of self-serving piss and vinegar, and millions of fans would have cheered along. But he didn't.

Not only did he publicly defend NBC, but he humbly and genuinely thanked them for the opportunities they gave him. He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to clarify to his millions of viewers that the "revenge" sketches of the past week--sports cars paired with Rolling Stones songs, purportedly costing NBC millions of dollars in royalties--weren't real. And when he had a chance to speak to us directly, he cried a little, and then he told us (and "particularly the young people") to work hard, to be kind, and to fight against becoming cynical.

I agree with Conan that too much attention has been paid to this whole debacle in the media, in a time when there are actually devastating events happening simultaneously, but I have the utmost respect for him for taking the influence he had last night and using it so honorably. I'd been prepared to cry at his last show because I'm a sap who has watched him since '93, but I hadn't expected to cry at how humble, dignified and positive he was in his last moments as the host of The Tonight Show. Pretty incredible.

I came home one day earlier than planned from Cambridge, changed my ticket at the last minute in order to surprise Larry at the Highdive. Every year, in downtown Champaign, local bands prepare cover sets to perform at The Great Cover-Up, a three-night event. Their cover choices are ideally kept secret until the performance, so anticipation is thick by the time the bands finally climb onstage (in costume and in character) and let their first notes ring.

And man, last night was Larry's 10th time performing at The Great Cover-Up.

And man, he performed as The Beastie Boys with his three best friends.

I can't talk about last night without a serious sentimentality. In person, I practically clutch at my chest when I say the "Beastie Boys" part of that sentence, because my boyfriend grew up on a horse farm in rural Indiana, and when he began to realize the world of hip-hop, it meant that he began to realize the world outside of a horse farm in rural Indiana. And to perform with his best friends meant that they got to devote time to each other over the past couple months, time to rehearse and scheme and banter together, which is rare these days as they all slowly get older, find partners, raise their own families. And for Larry to perform  at the Cover-Up for the tenth time only hints at what I would call a legacy.

So I tried to cover my tracks as best I could, sending misleading emails and spouting alibis over the phone (I was hanging out with Eva at this strip mall, see, and we were about to see a movie, so I wouldn't be able to call for the next couple hours, I said from the airport). I plugged my ears on the loud prop plane until I lost feeling in my fingers. I sat cross-legged on the floor of Terminal C11 with my hard-won veggie sandwich wrap, only to realize I'd set up camp directly beneath the television during a heated NFL game, strangers wandering oddly close to me, shouting during the play action as I ate. My parents were at the bottom of the escalator at the airport in Champaign, and after a hot bath and a glass of red wine at their house, I  changed into a dress and drove through the fog to the Great Cover-Up with my stomach full of nervous happy buzzing flying things.

At the Highdive, my mom bought each of us a drink and then we slunk around the club like anxious teenagers, hoping not to be seen first. Then we caught sight of Larry, and I practically tip-toed behind him as he walked to a different room, and I put my hands over his eyes, and when he turned around all the anxiousness dropped out of my body.

The boys were rowdy and loud and fantastic, the bar lit up with noise, and I started to cry just the littlest bit when Larry introduced the crowd to his best friends, who have known and loved him for so long. I suspect that they had barely cooled down from all the sweating and swaggering when our friend Mike got onstage with his band to perform the next set. I also suspect that the exhaustion didn't matter to Larry by the time he realized that the song playing in the next room was one that he had written, and that the band onstage was Mike Ingram Band as Lorenzo Goetz.

Mike Ingram Band as Lorenzo Goetz; Mike as Larry.

It was fitting that a Lorenzo Goetz tribute would be in effect last night, after Larry's tenth performance, with a room full of friends, representing people and music that they respect, that opened their worlds up wider.  By the encore, more people climbed onstage, snatched instruments and microphones, harmonized and freestyled and shook. It was the same way Lorenzo Goetz shows used to end, with everyone happy at once, moving and singing along.

 (More photos at my Flickr set, and completely splashed all over Facebook.)

Last fall, I spent three of the most fun days of my life shooting this lovely, surreal, funny video for "Chemicals," the title track from Elsinore's upcoming EP, also from their upcoming full-length Yes Yes Yes. Big ups to everyone who made it look this old-timey and strange and beautiful (especially Brittany Pyle, who initially suggested the Guy-Maddin-esque "modern silent film" format). I can't watch it without squealing.

Go see Elsinore on their upcoming tour. They're incredible live.

Also, you can't really imagine how much makeup it takes to make a girl look like an authentic 1920s silent film star. At the time this video was shot, My Name is Rachel Corrie was about two weeks from opening, and after we shot the opening scene (snubbing the villainesse in the park), I had to bat-out-of-hell it to the theater for a newspaper interview--and photo, as it turned out! Many paper towels sacrificed their lives that night in my panicked attempt to un-20s my face. Glassy raccoon eyes and frizzy ringlets all up in that piece.

Another fun fact: I forgot my demure black kitten heels on the evening we shot the snub scene, so what you can't see beneath that fur coat and vintage gown are my purple sequined high-tops.

Some behind-the-scenes photos after the jump.