What are you listening to?

So. Apparently I’m the last person in the world to see this, judging by the ten million views in the last week. Better late than never, right? Right. I followed a link following a link, and the next thing I knew I was dropping big stupid happy-tears on my keyboard. There may have been a sob or two. Don’t judge.

I hit play, and Mark said, “What is that?” Then he looked at me and said, “Ooooh. You must be watching that wedding thing.” It was The Ugly Cry that gave me away. Something about choreographed dancing gets me EVERY TIME. Add in a side of wedding bliss, and I’m a goner. Happiness makes me happy, moves me to tears. And dancing is happy. Shut up.

I’d embed the video, but embedding is disabled on YouTube. So you have to go watch it there. Then come back and tell me you had The Ugly Cry too. Or at least a tear…

Thing that I’m inspired by this beautiful Thursday? Warm sunshine, a potential pedicure, and a working playdate with a lovely friend. Fresh flowers and a squealing baby and a weekend full of sunshine and love. Balanced productivity and relaxation. Operation Nice and new books waiting to be read.

Whoopee Thursday! There is a walk in my future, I can feel it!

I’ve reconnected with my college roommate. Old co-workers. Family that I haven’t seen or spoken to in years. Childhood friends. So many people from elementary school, middle school, and high school. So many people.

This week, I reconnected with Erica. We graduated from high school together and went our separate ways, and haven’t seen or spoken to one another in almost 12 years.

Also this week, I found out that Erica has breast cancer. She’s 29. And you need to know her story.

In September, Erica’s friend Heather was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. She thought the same thing I thought, that probably all of you are thinking: how could someone our age have breast cancer? Erica started doing self breast exams every day, and found what nobody wants to feel, a lump. She saw her doctor the very next day, and her doctor checked it out and reassured her that it was nothing. She was young and healthy, with no family history of cancer. Don’t worry, she said, it’s probably just a cyst or a clogged milk duct.

Erica didn’t feel good about the doctor’s prognosis, so she looked for a second opinion. She saw another OBGYN at another hospital who assessed the situation, and again she heard the words, “Don’t worry about it.” She worried about it. I’m so glad Erica didn’t give up. She was relentless, and the doctor said, “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll refer you to a breast surgeon at Northwestern.”

Four weeks later she saw the surgeon, and finally got a comprehensive mammogram and ultrasound. About damn time, right? Four weeks after that, a biopsy. The biopsy revealed stage one breast cancer.

What if she hadn’t given up? What if she listened to the first doctor she saw, or even the second doctor? What if she decided to wait 11 years until her 40th birthday, the age at which mammograms are actually recommended? She didn’t, she caught it early and she’s young and strong and is going to be just fine.

But what if?

Erica is getting ready to start 8 rounds of chemotherapy, every two weeks for 4 months. Two weeks later, she’ll start 7 weeks of radiation, 5 days a week. In her words, “I will be cured of this thing. I have total faith in myself and my husband and all of my friends and family. I have faith that God only gives us what we can handle, and he’s obviously letting me know that he thinks I’m a rock star.” Amen.

Meet Erica.

Subscribe to her feed. Read her blog and comment, link to her and share her story with everyone you know. Lift her up and pray for her and show her the love and support that this community is defined by.

And Check Yo’ Self. Every Day. Take control of your health and be responsible for yourself. Because breast cancer doesn’t discriminate.

Did you know they’re making a live action movie of Where the Wild Things Are, adapted by Dave Eggers and directed by Spike Jonze? Could there be a more perfect team for this project? No. I’m so excited, I have goosebumps.

The other day I stumbled across these still shots from the set. They’re beautiful, I couldn’t wait to share.

And then I saw this video, some test footage from the filming. I love everything about it; the light, the voices, the soft-fuzziness.

It’s due in theaters on October 16, 2009, starring two of my favorites, Catherine Keener and Mark Ruffalo, and Chris Cooper, James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara and Forest Whitaker provide the voices of some of The Wild Things.

Ooh! Official trailer!

So. Who’s coming with me?

(Because I’m gangsta’.)

(Which always surprises people. Ask Barbara.)

Sunday I was driving to my in-laws’ for dinner, and could not find anything worth listening to on the radio. I was a channel flipper, which is so NOT ME, because I can always find something worth listening to. (I was pissing myself off with the rapid-fire tuner-skipping,  I don’t know how Mark sat quietly through that.) I love music, all music. It’s not like there weren’t any good jams, there just wasn’t anything right for my mood just then. Does that happen to everyone? 18 pre-sets, and nothing worthy of my time. 

And then, like an answer from the heavens, there it was on 107.5. (WGCI CHICAGO HOLLA!)

Dr. Dre saved the day. Sigh.

Anyway! Choreographed dance scenes! Right.

This has been sitting in my inbox for a week. I’m not ashamed to say it made me so happy that I may have cried a little when I watched it just now.

It’s ok, I won’t tell anyone if you want to cry a little, too. Get it off your shoulders. You’ll feel better, I promise.

The goals of “understanding humanity” and “humanizing robots” are tightly related to each other. Infanoid Project is trying to relate robotics to human sciences in order to understand the underlying mechanism of social communication specific to humans and some species of primates.

Early communication between a child and caregiver is mainly embodied through touch and eye-contact. By investigating the developmental mechanism of the embodied interaction, we are trying to study the core human communication capabilities and design principles for future info-communication systems with which we can make symbiotic relationships.

Currently, we are implementing the social development on these robots; also we are observing and analyzing how human children interact with these robots. We believe these two complementary activities will help us to model social communication and its development during the first years of life. In addition, we are transferring the research outcomes to our society by utilizing the robots in the remedy for children with developmental disorders and by organizing a series of international academic workshops “Epigenetic Robotics”.

Cool, yeah. But also? IT DANCES.

*Also, to the person who ended up here by googling ‘negative test 3 days late clearblue’ I say: stay strong, sister. And, clearblue sucks.

Running the Numbers An American Self-Portrait

This series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs.

cj, January 2007