If it's the end of summer...

Starting the year in January has never made a lot of sense to me. Nothing changes from December to January in Northern California. It stays cold, and dark, and rains all the time. No, the year ends and begins at the end of August. September is new beginnings: school, football, prime time television schedules. By the end of August, the grass has faded from green to yellow to brown to bone. Everything is hot and dead. The year is over.

Perhaps not coincidentally, late August is also my birthday. And every August I mark myself getting a little older, completing another year, preparing to start another. I do this by getting sick, or going crazy, or both. So I'm sitting at home with a head ache, sore throat, sniffles. I'm also stressing about all the projects I have to complete in the next two weeks. I think the stress has made me sick. No, I know the stress has made me sick.

The weird world of child pageants

If Little Miss Sunshine has taught us anything, it's that little girl beauty pageants have an inherent ookiness. What amazes me is all the attendant weirdness that gets normalized for participants. For instance, this site offers retouching for pageant photos. And as creepy as I found the pictures (doll eyes in particular) I just had to keep clicking on the "view more samples" link until I'd seen every last, strange digital makeover.