Did you read about the best book of the year this weekend? Perhaps you would like to familiarize yourself with its style sheet, which includes the proper punctuation for “pre-boner.”

“A candlelight vigil is planned to remember the life of a bull elk that was shot and killed by an on-duty Boulder police officer who has since been placed on administrative leave.”
 — Apparently it’s no longer okay for cops to murder an elk that was peacefully hanging around.

Politics apparently continued over the winter holidays. What did that crafty Barack Obama do while the rest of us were worshiping the Baby Jesus or whatever? He is suggesting that America allow Chuck Hagel to be the Secretary of Defense, that’s what! Who would let Chuck Hagel do something as important as overseeing the continued American defeat in Afghanistan, when he has controversial opinions about The Gays and Israel?

But, like all cabinet battles, the controversy around Chuck Hagel is both a) limited to Politico reporters/editors and the people who actually read the Politico, and b) not really about the Defense Department but actually about right-wing Christians who hate gays and love when Israel bombs those Muslim babies, because the Bible says (?) that’s okay.

In the case of both the Israelis and the Gays, it seems Hagel is actually just showing a polite man’s distaste for aggression. He just has old-fashioned manners!

In 1998, Hagel opposed President Bill Clinton’s nomination of openly gay James Hormel as U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg. The Nebraska senator said an “openly, aggressively gay” man should not represent the U.S.

As for Israel, it’s not that the Republican politician dislikes the Jewish race. Since the 1980s, Republicans have loved the Jews. (Prior to that, Republicans simply didn’t care for Jews living in Republican American neighborhoods, that’s all!) Hagel’s beef with Israel is all about manners.

“The political reality is … that the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here,” Hagel told former Mideast peace negotiator Aaron David Miller in a 2006 interview. “I have always argued against some of the dumb things they do because I don’t think it’s in the interest of Israel. I just don’t think it’s smart for Israel.”

Love the sinner, hate the sin! That’s all this is about, totally normal American Republican assholery.

Hagel also hates senators of either party, so he’s pretty much square with majority American opinion on that. Good luck leading our nation to failure in whatever 12-year-long wars you happen to inherit, Chuck!

Photo via the Secretary of Defense.

“City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said she won’t be at a rally on the City Hall steps this afternoon to criticize Mayor Bloomberg for comparing the United Federation of Teachers to the National Rifle Association, because she’ll be inside with the mayor.”

While getting ready to write this month’s Classic Trash column on Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, Nicole tripped on a tree root and was unconscious in a bed of leaves for several hours. This, as best as she can remember it, was the ensuing dream.

Forks, Washington. The Year 3013.

As the dawn broke, I continued doing my new jigsaw puzzle, a beautiful interlocking mosaic released to commemorate the 500th anniversary of a successful Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution based largely but not exclusively on the 1967 borders. It wasn’t a physical puzzle, of course, since we now had those retina field computers you accessed with brain waves.

I had never quite gotten used to not sleeping. Sometimes I tossed back a handful of Ambien just to see if I could zone out for a bit, but consciousness never really left me. It gave you a lot of time to think, though. Sometimes I just stood in the middle of the room, not needing to lean on things or adjust my body in any way, thinking about how many people there were in the world, and how some of them probably shared my insatiable need to be constantly provided with positive reinforcement and emotional reassurance.

After moving the last piece into place, I crossed the room to where Edward was seated at the piano, tapping out his arrangement of the Kindertotenlieder absentmindedly with his toes.

“Hey, Edward,” I said. “Do you want to go hunt a mountain lion and then stare into each other’s eyes in a field of flowers?” I managed to place a positive inflection on the words, but, in truth, the idea barely held my interest.

Edward closed the lid of the piano.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you something, Bella,” he said, somberly. I stared into his eyes, which I suddenly noticed were golden, not black, as they had been the night before when we came back from not-eating dinner with Rosalie and Emmett. It had been the usual Tuesday date night; Emmett broke a bunch of rocks, and Rosalie was a total bitch for no reason.

“Wait, did you go hunting without me?”

“Yeah, it was just an impulsive, last-minute thing.”

“You should have said something,” I said lightly. At least, I tried to say it lightly, but my stomach had begun to churn. Or it would have churned, if I still had stomach acid. I also would have begun to hunch over and pick at my cuticles, if I didn’t have perfect vampire posture and really strong cuticles.

“I’ve met someone.”

“Is this a joke? Are you trying to protect me from something again? Because I don’t need that any more, see?” I took a knife out of the butcher block and dropped it point-down on my foot, then shrugged to demonstrate how neutral my reaction was.

Edward smiled sadly. “That does take me back. I remember when that guy broke your arm and threw you into a glass wall. You were terrified.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s just… after a thousand years, I miss how cool you used to think it was that I was a vampire. You really looked up to me. I would pick you up and carry you places really quickly, and get mad when you had outside interests or friends in case they might hurt you, and you were really into that.”

“But I’m a vampire too, now. I haven’t faced anything resembling danger since that whole Volturi mess.”

“Exactly. Thank God, I thought this was going to be hard.” Edward smiled, and took my ice-cold hand in his.

“What?”

“I was a vampire, and you weren’t, and now you can do all the same things I can, and I don’t have this amazing new world to show you anymore. But I can show it to Montana.”

“Edward,” I said, gritting my extremely sharp teeth, “who the actual fuck is Montana?”

“Just a girl. She accidentally saw me sparkling. I told her everything. Then she watched me hunt. Then we made out. Then we had sex, but I was way, way more careful about pulling out than I was that last time.”

“Oh my God. Did you even think about Reneesme? How is she going to feel about this?”

“She’ll be fine. Children want their parents to be happy. Also, she’s literally a thousand years old, and married to a pedophile wolf who engaged in classic grooming behavior with her for a couple of decades, so I think she knows that life gets weird sometimes.”

“Edward… Edward,” I said, waiting for the tears to come. But they didn’t. I felt okay. Light. Fresh. Like a field of purple-y flowers.

“I can’t tell if it’s your general flat affect, or if you’re not that mad, Bella,” Edward said, in a questioning tone.

“I… I’m not that mad, honestly. But I do have somewhere to be.”

I kissed him gently on top of his head, opened the door, and began running with my super-speed to our Thomas Kinkade sex cottage, while a When Harry Met Sally-esque montage played in my head.

As I got to the door, it opened. Before me stood Alice, wearing nothing but a knowing smile and short, smooth fingernails. Her hair was backlit by the fire she had made in the hearth.

“Alice, were you… were you waiting for me? Did you see this coming?” I stammered helplessly.

“For a thousand years, Bella. For a thousand years.”

And that night we were not divided. Also, I learned where my clitoris actually was and that we had basically identical Netflix queues.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What is the first line of your imaginary Twilight fanfic?

2. You’ve read “Our Bella, Ourselves,” yes? I think it is basically correct. What do you think?

3. Movie time! Who is the hottest? I would have said Jasper, but his hair was dumb in the last movie. Emmett is kind of a meathead, but he also seems like he would have that Ryan Lochte Sex Idiot appeal.

4. Why do they all have dumb hair?

5. I genuinely enjoyed all of these horrible books and movies, but they are terribly written and gross. Do you think these horrible books would still be horrible if they were well-written, or would the subject matter and grossness of Jacob-and-Reneesme still doom them?

6. Do you want to be a Twilight vampire? I want to be a Twilight vampire so badly, apart from not-sleeping.

7. Even more than being a Twilight vampire, I want to be the person who wrote the Twilight books, but really well and not-gross.

8. Will each generation read these books, or will they eventually fall into the dark maw of history?

9. Do you ever wonder what the next thing will be? I mean, there are going to be more Big Things that we obsess about like we did with Harry Potter and Twilight. I can’t wait for it.

10. Kristen Stewart is extremely hot. Agree or disagree?

11. Taylor Lautner is eventually going to have the best People Magazine coming-out cover ever. Calling it now and for all time.

Previously in Classic Trash: ‘Papillon’: Thug Life In French Guiana

Nicole Cliffe is the books editor of The Hairpin and the proprietress of Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviews.

“I’m Alright.” “Danger Zone.” “Footloose.” Which one of these songs are you now irrationally angry with me for putting into your head? Well, your problem is actually with Mr. Kenneth Clark Loggins, who you could perhaps be a bit more charitable toward seeing as he turns 65 today. Although, frankly, a few more internal choruses of “Danger Zone” and I will be right there with you, pitchfork-wise.

by Awl Sponsors

By Dr. Jeff Godin Ph.D., CSCS, CISSN and Tammy Godin, B.A.B.

Seventy-eight percent of people fail at achieving their New Year’s resolution. Why? Is it because their goals are too lofty and will-power is crushed? Maybe they are in the contemplation stage of making a habit change and don’t know how to prepare and take action. Or is it because they are focused on the negative and not the positive aspects of their goal? Is it because they are extrinsically motivated, not intrinsically motivated, and when results don’t happen overnight they get frustrated?.

Some common New Year’s resolutions are, “I am going to lose weight,” “I am going to exercise more,” “I am going to learn a new language.” Regardless of the resolution, the key is to develop a SOLID PLAN.

Start by asking yourself the following questions:
1. What is my resolution?
2. What is holding me back now?
3. How will I accomplish my resolution?
4. How will I know when I get there, what are the acceptance criteria?

Here is a hypothetical example that utilizes an approach that you can follow to join the 22% that are successful.
1. What: I am going get fit in 2013!
2. What is holding me back?

Here are some lame excuses that keep most people from achieving their fitness goals:
• I don’t have enough time
§ Solution: Wake up 15 minutes earlier during the week and incorporate the Spartan warm up and cool down as a daily habit.

• I am exhausted at the end of the day
§ Solution: If you are exhausted at the end of the day execute the “10 minute rule”. Start walking or doing some calisthenics for 10 minutes; 99% of the time it will result in an entire work out. One of my personal favorite sayings, “It takes energy to make energy”

• I don’t feel comfortable in the gym
§ Solution: Pushups, sit ups, body weight squats, and lunges do not require a gym.

o I don’t like to exercise
§ Solution: Find an activity you like. Go for a walk in the woods and smell the pine trees. Join a dance class. Join a basketball league. Sign up for a Spartan Group X exercise class. Embrace the power of many. Enjoy the social interaction with others that have similar goals and interests. It has been shown that adherence to a program increases as the social cohesion of the group increases.

Your barrier may be completely different from those above, but you get the point. Identify your barriers, figure out what has prevented you from being successful in the past, and then find a solution to overcome that barrier. Predict, forecast, take a wild guess, but figure out what might hold you back.

3. What is my plan? How am I going to exercise more?
Start with small yet incremental goals and experience the feeling of success NOT failure. This approach will create the intrinsic motivation that you need to continue the journey towards your goal! For example:

— “I will start by getting up 15 minutes earlier, 3 days per week, for the next 2 weeks and walk/run or do body weight exercises. Every 2 weeks, I will get up another 5 minutes earlier until I have enough time to complete the Spartan WOD.” This may seem like slow progress to some, but slow steady progress is more likely to cause long term success than rapid short-term progress.

— Do what you know is accomplishable. Challenge yourself, but don’t set the bar too high. “I will take breaks throughout the day and do Burpees every 2 hours throughout my work day”. Establish the habit of being physically active, you are developing a lifestyle, the intensity doesn’t matter at this point.

— Slowly expand your comfort zone. Do slightly more than you did in the previous week. Large leaps in expectations or challenges will certainly lead to failure. Take one small step at a time.

— Put your plan in writing. Today I will do X. Each week I will add Y to X. Ultimately leading to accomplishment of Z. Whatever X, Y, and Z are, is up to you, the point is to have the plan and have it in writing.

4. Final Step: What are my acceptance criteria?
“I will accept that my New Year’s resolution is completed when I have been exercising 4 hours per week for a minimum of 3 months.” That does not mean that you have to start with that amount of exercise, it is realization of your goal. It may take 6 months to get there. Accomplishments, no matter how small, will keep you motivated. Reward yourself for accomplishing goals. If you go a full week getting up 15 minutes early and incorporate Burpees every 2 hours in your work day, reward yourself with a fitness magazine and stay motivated!

The above processes, without even realizing it, will increase your self-efficacy, which is a measure of one’s own ability to complete tasks and reach lofty goals. It affects every area of human behavior. Believing in one’s self, setting realistic goals and creating a plan to reach those goals results in self-empowerment, confidence, and success!

Don’t be just another statistic of an unsuccessful attempt at a New Year’s resolution. In advance think seriously about your resolution, identify potential barriers, and develop a written plan. Don’t leave it to chance, your success is in your hands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoPUR0OeUiE

“A bizarre calendar of men posing in their underpants with classic 1970s cars is proving an unlikely success in Germany.”

As cities get cleaner and greener — some of them, anyway — wildlife is pouring into urban areas. There are bald eagles nesting over Washington D.C., red-tail hawks swooping over Central Park, coyotes in Chicago (and everywhere else), and now a wild river otter living in San Francisco, where such creatures haven’t been seen in half a century. The mysterious otter took up residence in one of the freshwater spring-fed pools in the ruins of San Francisco’s Sutro Baths, now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It munches on the carp-sized former-pet goldfish that have themselves grown huge in the freshwater pools, and everyone loves the otter because otters are remarkably adorable animals, even when they kill just like the Gollum.

But are these coyotes and bears and otters, are they also going to kill every last human?

Experts say “probably not.” What predators such as coyotes and raptors do eat are stray cats and other such unpoliced critters, and that means a lot more songbirds along with much healthier parks and gardens. Just as the otter is chomping on goldfish that dumb people dumped when their dumb kids tired of “caring for a living creature from the pet shop,” coyotes and owls and hawks clear out the excess feral cats. It is a beautiful circle of life/bloody death.

But where did this otter, now called “Sutro Sam” by the local media, actually come from? Probably the Marin Headlands, just across the Golden Gate. River otters have been coming back within the protected National Park Service lands of the Point Reyes and Golden Gate National Seashores. Even though the Golden Gate is a wild saltwater channel, the river otters apparently can swim across it without trouble.

Will San Francisco eventually be full of river otters, the way it used to be full of crusty punks and hippies but is now full of outrageously rich people? And when will some Silicon Valley biotech startup reintroduce saber-toothed tigers, to eat all the Silicon Valley millionaires in the Mission?

After 8 years of a Democratic president will the American people have forgotten enough to once again elect a Republican named Bush? I guess, based on historical precedent, the odds aren’t bad.