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Every year, I'm one of the many critics invited to select their top 10 albums and singles for the Village Voice's venerable (if interesting largely only to other music critics) Pazz & Jop poll. I stopped writing about music for a (fractional) living seven years ago, and most music criticism gives me hives now, but I still love music itself, and the nice thing about Pazz & Jop is that you don't actually have to wax adjectival about your picks, you're just like: White Stripes. I liked it. Boom.

In addition to writing for and editing the Love It/Shove It blog—formerly known to our five or six longtime online readers as the S/hitlist—I'll be maintaining this, a more personal blog. The title, Dogged Pessimism, refers to the fact that a.) I'm a wee bit pessimistic and b.) I like dogs.* But I'll be covering plenty of other ground in this here space, including: my Bitch-related and freelance projects and speaking engagements, embroidery and illustration, and reviews of TV, movies, books, music, and more. Emails, suggestions, gossip, and photos of your dogs are all welcome.

I've been telling people about my plans for the advice-column part of the blog, and I've been getting the same reaction over and over: "What does that have to do with feminist response to pop culture?"

Welcome to Delightfully Cranky, so named for my demeanor as described somewhere or other a long time ago. Though I guess y'all will have to judge the delightful quotient for yourselves.

I don't know if there's a clearer sign that the writer's strike is killing good television than the insanity broadcast last night on the CW.

Tonight, four of us contributors to Michelle Tea's latest anthology, It's So You: 35 Women Write about Personal Expression through Fashion & Style, read at Powell's.

Mary Christmas started the night off with the story of her illustrious career as a young New York fashion model ending with an ill-timed family move to Chicago, where modeling perms for hair salons was considered top of your game.