You are enterin'... North Country

This might be the cheesiest song I've ever heard... but it's about Minnesota, so I like it at least a little.



"Winter has a reason / otherwise there'd be no spring."

Yeah.  Thanks for that.

Otherwise, though, most of that video totally looks like the way I spent this past weekend.  Lots of trees, a lake, beer, and grilling.  No guys with goatees or cowboy hats, though, but that's okay.

Motherfucking tornadoes

Not to overwhelm the blog with weather stories, but fucking hell.

In my shock over the tornado that went through North Minneapolis and nearby suburbs Sunday afternoon, it took me a while to realize that, while the damage is extensive in the area, Joplin, Missouri got hit much, much worse than we did.

An apartment complex in Joplin, MO
before the F5 tornado

So far, there have been 122 deaths reported, with another 1500 people unaccounted for.

See this link for some science behind the recent influx of tornadoes; unsurprisingly, the increase in tornadoes this season is likely due to a warmer Gulf.

ABC News episode about Joplin.

Time's take on both the Minneapolis and the Joplin tornadoes.

The same apartment complex after the tornado.
Photos via Daily Mail

Oh, and in case you may have still thought that partisan politics are set aside during terrible disasters and tragedies, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says no to any aid for Joplin without cuts.  Fucking asshole.

To donate to help Minneapolis, you can go here.  For Joplin recovery help, you can go here. 

SO MANY THINGS

I've truthfully been almost deliberately avoiding forming an opinion about Libya simply because I feel like my attention to current events and national politics is completely maxed out, and I just don't feel like I have the mental capacity to analyze all of the information out there, given the energy I already spend paying attention to labor movements in the Midwest, local politics, and the general ideological struggle between big business and citizens, among other things.  Oh yeah, and food, and health. But I do feel a bit reassured by the information that Obama has given here:

Also, I've been keenly aware of how few substantive posts I've been writing here lately, and I attribute this to the same problem.  It's weird, really, how stressed out I feel lately, considering the fact that my only obligations at the moment are making sure I participate in a few online discussions for a whopping two unbelievably easy online classes, and the knowledge that I start a new (and completely different than I've ever done) extremely part-time job in a week.  But even the job thing only happened as of a couple weeks ago, so, yeah.  Since quitting my shitty bank job in November, I've managed to stress myself out to the extent of minor panic attacks by merely reading news on the internet and listening to the radio, to the extent that it feels like a full-time job to even keep up with reading my Google Reader.  It's... well, I don't know.  Silly?  Annoying?  A pointless waste of time and energy?  A white whine?  Or, perhaps more optimistically, a catalyst for becoming more involved in... anything?

Mostly, I am trying desperately to fight against the whole stuck-in-the-suburbs, cold-ass Minnesota lethargy that sets in every year, that I'd been able to at least partially able to avoid when I lived in the city.  It's a lot different here, and I didn't think it would make such a difference when I moved last summer... until winter happened.  It's really difficult to live like I'm most happy living in a place where public transportation is practically non-existent, grocery stores stock for a 97% white population and as a result don't even carry Tapatio or basmati rice (it is Michelle Bachmann's district, where most of the grocery stores are; perhaps Mexican hot sauce and Indian rice are considered unpatriotic?), and the only restaurants to choose from are Applebee's and TGI Friday's.  And I can't even express how desperately I miss gridded, numbered, alphabetized streets.

That's not to say that I've had a completely bad time living here so far.  There are countless benefits to living with my immediate family, including serious financial benefits.  Rent is extraordinarily cheap, and while my husband and I still have an annoying number of monthly static expenses, the break on rent (even factoring in the price of gas, now that we have to drive absolutely everywhere we want to go, even if it's only half  a mile away) is a huge bonus when it comes to pretty much everything else.  Being students, Jesse and I were able to afford to register for Netroots Nation, which is happening in Minneapolis this June.  I was also only able to comfortably make spontaneous plans to take a road trip to attend the rally in Madison a few weeks ago because of my current living situation.

So, really, like anything, there are serious pros and cons to my current living situation.  But, man, I miss Minneapolis.  I miss being able to walk or bike anywhere I wanted to go.  I miss the walkable and bussable farmer's markets.  I miss having a wide variety of items in the local grocery store-- at the big regional chains, even.  I miss having a bar nearby that wasn't one of those sports bars where dozens of 20-something douchey turds with backwards baseball caps and large and unnecessary trucks feed bleached-blonde girls Jag shots all night to a soundtrack of Nickelback.  Not to mention that whole "social life" thing that the kids keep talking about, that ceases to exist when work schedules and a lack of desire for DWIs are factored into weekend plans. 

So, pardon my lack of posting.  I hope you watch all of the videos I manage to link to in lieu of real substance, though, because they're good.  I promise to get back to regular, substantive posting soon.  Here are some more videos:

Al Franken consistently makes up for Minnesota's 6th District's terrible choice of Bachmann.

Donald Trump (who plans to run for President in 2012, remember) is a completely ridiculous person, as expected:

About language-- specifically, how ensuring that English is the only language in which we will discuss important technological, educational, and other pressing issues, is potentially harmful in numerable ways.  I'm really bad at summarizing everything from videos to articles to anything else you can imagine.  Just watch it; you'll be happy you did.

One great thing about going to my first training at my new job (I'm a phone canvasser.  This means I call members of my organization and ask them to donate money for current legislative efforts we're focused on) is that when I went into the phone room, one of the first things I saw was a Wellstone yard sign.  These are still in people's yards around the more progressive neighborhoods of Minneapolis.  Minnesota will never forget Paul Wellstone.  His followers were, and are, some of the most dedicated and devoted progressives around.  The murder death of Paul Wellstone is still, to this day, felt and discussed all the time around progressive circles.

About Paul Wellstone, I can't claim a long support or anything toward him.  When he was killed, I was just 18, and only starting to get involved in local politics.  All I knew of Wellstone was what my mom had said of him, disparagingly: "he's such a 'bleeding-heart'!"  I didn't know what that meant at the time, but was alternatively beginning to embrace my seemingly intrinsic support for anyone willing to actually have a bleeding heart, especially out loud, like Wellstone did.  I worked in a photo lab with a very ardent Wellstone supporter at the time, and based on her frequent discussions about him and my own research, I had decided that I was going to vote for him, without question.  His death a few weeks later shocked me.

That was also the election year (the first one I was legally allowed to vote in!) that Pawlenty was running for governor, for the first time.  I remember thinking I might vote for him, and that I really liked his claim that he was from a working class St. Paul family.  I believed him.  I also based the majority of my political opinions on network television commercials.  That year, I ultimately ended up voting for Ken Pentel, the Green party candidate, rather than either of the two main party candidates, based on a lot of Dave Matthews Band listening and weed-infused Daily Show viewings that made me believe that voting for a third party was beneficial (I still do believe this; I just want us to be practical about it).  

Fuck Pawlenty, though, seriously:

If I could just be juvenile for a moment: BARF.

Minneapolis is better than [other cities] because [of everything]

Photo taken on a lunch break
by yours truly

Minneapolis was named America's Gayest City by The Advocate! That's pretty fun, and it's especially awesome because The Advocate, while they admit that the criteria on which the cities were judged were not particularly scientific, based the results on the ways in which cities are most gay-friendly. Minneapolis as a winner, though, was surprising to, well, everyone. As Mike Albo of The Advocate says,

Gay issues have never been more of a lightning rod. Pop culture has never been so gleefully gay. And politicians have never been more gay-accepting — or at least gay-aware. But no matter how visible LGBT people seem to be, there are some folks who still think we all live in Chelsea, West Hollywood, and the Castro. But, of course, that’s far from the case.

Those coastal city dwellers just can't let us Midwestern states have anything! They always have to argue, saying that they just don't get why Minneapolis is so freaking awesome all the time. Brian Moylan of Gawker (and, apparently, a resident of New York City) rages:

What are we New Yorkers going to do to redeem our image? Are we going to have to get Liza Minnelli to pave Broadway in glitter? Do we have to light up the Empire State Building in Manhunt's distinctive blue and orange? Does Michael Musto have to put on Lady Gaga's meat dress every day of the week? What does a city have to do to get on this list? We need to know!

I know, I know. He's just trying to be funny, but it reminds me of my latest annoyance, which is how little attention Minneapolitans get for being awesome. The only Midwestern city that gets any attention is Chicago, and usually it has something to do with how corrupt the entire state of Illinois is! Minneapolis is so much more awesome than Chicago! And I admit it, I've never been to NYC or LA, and have only driven through Chicago and not really spent any quality time there, but MINNEAPOLIS IS BETTER, ANYWAY! I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I JUST DO! I'm sorry you're not gayer than us, New York, but you'll have to deal with it.

I had some serious competition.

And Oregonians? Minneapolis totally pwnd you on bike trails, even though it's fucking freezing and snowing here all the time. As one former disbeliever noted, after she had begun wrapping up her trip to Minneapolis where she had tried to figure out what was so great about Minneapolis and cycling says:

I have told some of my friends that I am considering moving to Minneapolis, and I actually do think of moving, brown sugar and boiler plate be damned. Without knowing why, I have fallen in love with the cycling culture in Minneapolis. I tell my friends how nice the cyclists there are, how even the badass Black Flag group sponsors a community shop that makes bikes for poor kids, how the most misanthropic frame builder in the world is a secretly sweet guy who is always losing money because he is forever giving away his homemade frames. (He recently donated one to the vigilantes.) I still receive responses to my Mplsbikelove.com posting, outpourings of information, ride invitations, passionate (and long) discourses on the fun of this uniquely local cycling experience.

And in comparing cyclists from Minneapolis with those from more widely-publicized cities:

That's when the Grand Unified Theory of Minneapolis Cycling reveals itself. Here is a woman who commutes 20 miles round-trip four days a week, at least five months a year, yet does not consider herself a "serious cyclist." Maybe that's the secret. Maybe—along with decades of legislative support and a responsive government and friendly landscape and a cheerful community of cyclists—the Grand Unified Theory hinges on something essentially and particularly indigenous to the Midwest. Other cities might get more publicity, might brag about their famous hill and their local legends. In Minneapolis, cyclists (Noren nothwithstanding) don't talk as much about cycling as they do it, through ice skids, along snowy bike superhighways, in the dead of winter and every other season. In Minneapolis, people ride and don't consider it that big a deal.

Fun concert in Minneapolis
(Seconds Before, taken by
me)

And while we're at it, more-popular-coastal-cities, Minneapolis is home to a great arts community, we make fantastic beer, we have a stellar Congressman and two great Senators, we've voted to implement Instant Runoff Voting (or Ranked Choice Voting) in our local elections (LIKE AGES AGO!), Sarah Palin got her accent from us, we have the best state fair around, and our hipsters are less stuck up than yours.

Me, in the snow, displaying its depth

Furthermore, we are far more badass than all of you when it comes to snow and the cold. Just last Monday I walked uphill in the snow (only one way, though) and blustery cold for almost a mile just to get to class! And I hardly even complained! More than a few times, anyway! And when it finally gets up to 40 degrees in 6 months, I won't wear a coat. But I bet you do, Californians. You probably whine about how coooooooooold it is, huh? Yeah. Well, I may not be as tan as you, but I sure am adept at shoveling snow and scraping ice off my windshield.

So THERE!

PS: No offense to all of you lovely readers, family members, or friends who may live in one of the cities I decided were not cooler than Minneapolis. I'm sure your cities are... fine...

*All pictures in this post were taken by me, except the one that is of me, in the snow.

Bloody Mary Sunday

I am on a quest to find the Twin Cities best Bloody Mary. For my own research purposes and for the benefit of other Bloody Mary lovers in Minneapolis, I'm going to start a weekly Bloody Mary blog, where I critique a new Bloody Mary somewhere in the cities.

Today's Bloody is being enjoyed at Two Stooges in Fridley, a northern suburb of Minneapolis.

Bloody mix: medium-to-thin consistency, rich and tangy flavor. Visible chunks of pepper floating in the drink (this is a plus).

Garnishments: Pickle spear, two stuffed pimento olives.

Beer back: None?!

The drink itself, while tasty and satisfying, could have been more... exciting. The pickle and olives were good, but in order to make up for the lack of the beer back, they could have made the mix a little thicker, possibly added some celery or spiced it up a bit.

Overall grade: B+. It would have been higher with a beer back. It's possible that the server forgot, but it's also possible that they just don't include one here. Red Lobster doesn't. I don't usually want beer for breakfast, but a small glass of beer, aka the beer back, is an expected and necessary part of any good Bloody Mary and complements the overall flavor and experience of the Bloody.

Breakfast, on the other hand, was delicious and inexpensive. I ordered a three-cheese omelet, which was enormous, and came with hashed browns, for only $4.99. I will likely be coming here again!

Any suggestions on where I should go next week?

Random thoughts about where I live

I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota.   It's taken me awhile, but I love it here. Everything that I need or want in my daily life can be found in Minneapolis, and best of all, I don't need to drive to get to any of it.

Driving, and the ability to choose not to do it, is a big deal to me. Like most people of my generation, I have been a licensed driver since I was 16. I easily accepted that in order to get to work and go out and visit friends and family, I needed to drive everywhere. I needed to pay a car payment, I needed to get insurance, and I needed to make sure I had gas money. I was used to the idea that my car could break down at any time and I'd need to come up with yet more money to fix it.

Jesse, my boyfriend (whom I live with), has a car, but I never replaced my 5th car when the transmission finally died. I didn't feel the need to: my job provides a deeply discounted MetroPass, which allows unlimited use of all public transportation, and deducts the $20 automatically from each paycheck. I don't even notice the deduction. Since I live in Minneapolis, work in Minneapolis, and my social life is in Minneapolis, I rarely drive anywhere. I use my MetroPass to get nearly everywhere and save driving for going to my mom's house, which is about 20 miles away in a northern suburb.

Just this summer, Jesse and I decided to get bikes. It only made sense, as everyone we knew commuted by bicycle regularly, and according to Wikipedia, Minneapolis has the 2nd largest population of bicycle commuters. Bike trails are all over and the city is, for the most part, impressively bike-friendly.

The other day, Jesse and I needed to go to St. Louis Park, a nearby suburb of Minneapolis. He asked me to drive because he was having knee problems. I drove approximately 3 blocks, and Jesse asked me to pull over and switch places with him. I guess driving is not like riding a bike; I do not know how to do it well at all anymore. I'm also paranoid behind the wheel, especially on freeways. It's gotten so bad that when we go to my mom's, Jesse drives (the majority of the commute is via freeway) and I cover my eyes with my hands.

Becoming a cyclist (or, trying to) has been a fun adventure. It's getting a bit too cold for my comfort now, so I'm back to the bus, but hopefully I'll get braver as I get more used to it. I still go out of my way to find a bike lane and freak out about traffic, but I'm slowly growing more comfortable with being on the road.

...Which brings me to my larger point. Since buying a bike, I have begun to absolutely loathe my neighborhood. There is an odd lack of awareness of bicycle laws and rights on this side of the river, and I don't know what to do about it. I am supposed to ride in the street, but no one in their cars believe this to be true, and as a result, they taunt me and swerve too close to me and honk. In addition to this, I cannot ride the 5 blocks to the grocery store by myself without being harassed and threatened. It's incredibly frustrating, and it makes me ride my bike less often than I would otherwise. Even leaving the neighborhood to get into more bike-friendly areas is panic-inducing. I realize that I am often more paranoid than most people, but the fear is there when it shouldn't be.

The neighborhood I live in now is fairly new to me. Jesse and I moved there in August with his younger brother, into the upper unit of a large duplex owned by a married couple that Jesse knows fairly well. Downstairs is a good friend of Jesse and his brother's. It's a great setup; basically we live in a miniature dorm, only it's actually giant and newly remodeled and spacious. We can hang out with our neighbor, everyone has privacy if they want it. The only problem is the neighborhood.

It's not a safe area for anyone. No one in the house is willing to walk around alone at night, and the only place that delivers to us is Pizza Hut, which is conveniently located two blocks away, but it's no one's favorite. Before we moved, our downstairs neighbor warned us to be careful when pulling into the driveway through the alley, because sometimes people would be loitering in the alley and they would mug you.

We haven't run into any problems parking in out own driveway, but the warning was surprising.

As a result of buying a bicycle and hating my neighborhood, I have found myself wanting to move to Uptown. This is a rather embarrassing thing to admit, though, as I always used to make fun of Uptown residents and the people who hang out there. I mean, it's always so fun and easy to make fun of self-righteous hipsters and self-described punks.

Prior to recent developments, Uptown was a place for young artists, musicians, and the like. It was defined as a trendy place to live for young hipsters and artists and had a slew of independent restaurants, coffee shops, and other businesses. In the past few years, though, Uptown has changed dramatically. If you read the Wikipedia link provided, scroll down and read what they have to say about recent gentrification and the Uptown artists relocating to Northeast Minneapolis. Uptown is now where young, wealthy professions live. In other words, yuppies in condos.

Now, I am not necessarily complaining about the "yuppiness" (although I'm not going to try and tackle gentrification in this post). I am not really old enough (or cool enough, some might say) to truly remember Uptown fondly for what it used to be. I hung out in Uptown occasionally, to go to various bars or restaurants or live shows, but I was not immersed in the culture. Most of my going-out activities were located in Downtown Minneapolis. I spend more time in Uptown now than I did in years past because more of my friends and acquaintances live here these days. This means that the majority of the time, I am actually hanging out at people's houses or apartments, during the day, and not just bar-hopping. I have also made the journey into Uptown on my bike. Uptown is much, much more bike-friendly than my current neighborhood. In fact, it's preferred, as driving and parking in Uptown is unbelievably frustrating for a person like me, if not nearly impossible.

I also feel a bit of apprehension at admitting that the reason I want to move to Uptown is because of how much I dislike my current neighborhood. Where I live is a predominantly black neighborhood, and it's very easy to cross the line between wanting to feel safer in one's neighborhood to disliking the fact that people of color outnumber you, whether you mean to or not.

I asked Jesse the other day how he perceived what I was saying, and my intent, when I expressed my dislike for our current neighborhood. He understood that I did not want to leave because I don't like that the neighborhood is predominantly black, but because I'd rather be in an area that better accommodates my own lifestyle. That is, bike-friendly areas, locally-owned independent coffee shops and restaurants, local food co-ops and art fairs. I'd rather be in an area where I can ride my bike to the local grocery store and not get verbally harassed and threatened in the 5 blocks it takes to get there. Whether it was because I'm white, a woman, or just the next person to ride a bike down the middle of the street, I'm not sure, but no one should have to feel threatened simply running an errand in their neighborhood. It's frustrating, and it makes me feel resentful and afraid. I'm not used to not being able to walk around as I see fit, when I want. What's more frustrating is that I knew this before moving. I knew that I'd be sacrificing personal freedoms in order to live in a huge, remodeled house with awesome landlords and a familiar neighbor. And I thought I'd be fine with it.

I'm so afraid that I'll be judged as a racist for wanting to move from my predominantly black neighborhood into a predominantly white neighborhood that it took me a long time to even mention it to Jesse. I don't know why; I am clearly not moving because of the color of my neighbors' skin, but because of my distaste for not feeling like I can have as much freedom as I would like. But it's hard to discuss things like this with anyone when I read blogs like Feministe and Womanist Musings, where criticizing anything that can be associated with any oppressed group of people is almost always interpreted as an "-ist" action. I know my reasons for wanting to move aren't racist, and I shouldn't need validation, but I did, and I do. It's why I asked Jesse immediately if he thought I was racist. Now, Jesse's white and while he is a rational, reasonable and progressively-minded person, a person of color would obviously be a better judge of what is and is not racist against them, but it's not like I can just go up to the next person of color that I see and ask them if they think that my desire to move to Uptown is a racist one.

Well, I guess that ultimately, I know my own intentions better than anyone else. And it's certainly not like my moving would hurt anyone's feelings. And anyway, I'm here until August, at the very least, so... yeah. I'd better get used to it, I suppose.

In the meantime, biking, bussing, or even -- heaven forbid -- driving to Uptown and sitting at a coffee shop while I type at the internet isn't so bad. Incidentally, I think I've found a new favorite place to hang out.